#I know the play stats exacerbated some issues

[sapphic-asymmetries]

Can every BG3 player being rude about other people's favorite / romanced companions please grow up? We are playing

✨️Barbie✨️ 👖Dress-Up🥾 💘Dating-Sim💔 (🗡Murder Edition🏹)

and trying to have fun, not have strangers be shitty to us or our friends because we like different people.

[xf-cases-solved]

S2E3: Blood

Case: In, ah—one sec... Franklin, Pennsylvania! It's in Pennsylvania, definitely remembered that on my own accord. Anyway, in Franklin, Pennsylvania, a bunch of people are losing their marbles and murdering people in seemingly random attacks. What ties these crimes together is that right before they went murder hobo, they were in a situation that exacerbated their biggest fears, and also they hallucinated technology telling them to kill, which is very entertaining bc it's the fucking 90s, so the technology is very silly on its own, but is even sillier when it says "KILL 'EM ALL" in big red letters, but I digress. Mulder—with continued secret help from Scully on the side, as well as the Lone Gunmen (!!)—begins to suspect that these killings might actually be related to a pesticide the government is testing on people, but you know how the government gets when you try to claim they're involved in some big conspiracy, la dee da, so it goes.

A man gets laid off work, but that's the least of his problems as technology keeps telling him to kill people; a microwave tells a lady to stab Mulder to death; Mulder gives Frohike Scully's phone number; my notes say there is a handsome cop with nice hair, but I don't know who I was referring to or why I wrote that down; and Mulder's work on the case is ALL DONE. BYE-BYE!

Does someone die in the cold open: He got laid off so he's probably dead inside, but physically everyone is alive. (This does not last long.)

Does Mulder present a slideshow: Still no one to watch. Maybe he makes them for himself and plays them alone in his office and cries.

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Mmmmmmm, not sure. My guess is that the government is planning to get rid of any evidence that they were allowing chemicals to be tested on its citizens, but I'm not sure if Mulder held onto anything or not. I mean, he usually doesn't, so probably not, but -shrug emoji-.

Whodunit: Subliminal messaging caused by a pesticide that the Pennsylvanian government okayed to be tested on the town's residents. I think.

Convictions: None, but the government has to stop spraying people with LSD.

Did they solve it: I'll give it to 'em, why not? Mulder knows what caused it; more or less got a confession, or at least got them to stop doing the thing; and I feel like his report would be one of the less annoying ones he's submitted in his time in the FBI. Good job, Mulder! (And Scully, but unofficially.)

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Not being a test subject for government issued pesticides. I mean, like... you can try, but in the end, is it really up to you? What is the government testing on you right now? What have you been exposed to against your will? Is it LSD? It might be LSD, but who's to say for certain?  Not being a test subject for government issued pesticides — honestly, you're fucked, so maybe you should just... kill 'em all*... *This company does not endorse homicide, even if those homicidal impulses are the government's fault. Please don't sue us.

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 14 (two in a row!)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me": 6 

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 6

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 8 ½ (i mean, technically that lady came at him with that knife so i'll give him a half point, but i doubt she would have ever been able to actually mortally wound him) 

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 8

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 13

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 5 (and there were no worms in the body!)

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 16 (x come back, bb, i miss u)

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Times Someone Correctly Guesses a Password: 3 

Total Number of (Plot Relevant) Nosebleeds: 5 (changed stat to specify plot relevancy, so i can get away with not counting it if someone gets beat up and their nose happens to bleed or something. the nosebleed in this one did make that man homicidal, tho, so i will up the stat lol)

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 3

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 3 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 3

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 2

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 8

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 2!

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 0 (BUT GUESS WHAT NEXT EPISODE IS???!!! 😀😀😀)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 10½ (shut up) 

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 5

[gemsofthegalaxy]

watched a video on nofap tiktok. read some comments. one of them was like "porn is increasingly violent, causes violence, and is categorically bad" and when asked for a source cited a book from the 80s by self-declared radical anti-porn feminists...... not biased at all

which isnt to say that the perceived proliferation of violent porn doesn't cause me 0 worries at all- in my anecdotal experience i have noticed when im on porn sites "rough" porn is often very easy to stumble into and i have felt that violent porn seems more popular (i dont know if this is true because i havent looked at the stats and tbh there probably are objective numbers floating around so. yknow) and while i know damn well media/fiction is not a 1:1 with reality, ex., playing violent video games does not make you a violent person nor more likely to be violent, we also do have stats on that,

last i checked, violent porn was not well researched, and the reason being was there were ethical concerns about exposing randomly selected people to violent imagery. and, it's not 100% analogous to violent video games, because sexual arousal is a different state than the type of excitable high one gets from playing video games. i don't know if consuming a lot of violent porn would make one more violent in or out of bed, although associating something with arousal will likely make you more "into it" over time, it's not guaranteed. and also in my experience, i personally like more things in porn than i would be willing to do in real life, so, surely there might be other people out there who are like that.

even if watching violent porn leads to wanting to try, or actually trying violent sex, this would be fine, in theory, so long as the sex partner also likes violent sex and you know how to do the violence safely, and know how to stop a scene and care for your partner physically and emotionally after a scene (both in the case it went well, or in the case something negative cropped up and there's heightened distress), and, well, see your partner as a human being with needs and emotions.

there is already a lot of sexualization and objectification in mainstream media and women, in particular, being treated as sexual objects long predates video porn. so i can't think that violent porn caused this issue, and removing it wouldn't solve it. i do suspect in some cases where people already objectify those they sexually desire, it may exacerbate the issue, especially when women are the ones being desired but solely for their sexual function and nothing else.

[oh-boy-me]

Obey Me! Card Planning Tips

Hello!  This game causes us all a lot of pain and suffering, but I’m MANAGING (?), so I thought I’d give what I’d consider some tips to maybe make things feel slightly more possible for you :)

I’ll split it into three parts and put it all under a read more.

Team Strength Calculation

Team Preparation

General Tips for Resources and Daily DP

Part 1: Team Strength Calculation

Each stage has 2 sins tied to it, as you’ve probably noticed.  In chapters 1-20, the stats of these two sins are boosted for ALL cards (character and support) by 15%.*

In chapters 1-20, your team’s strength is calculated with the following formula:

Strength = 1.15(AttributeSin1Total) + 1.15(AS2Total) + Other5SinsTotal

For example, let’s look at Lesson 10-20, which is a Gluttony/Lust battle.  My team is composed of Pandas Mean Profit (Greed), A Special Ceremony (Lust), and Colorful Panic (Pride).  And I’m using zero support cards just so I only have to add up 3 numbers.

Strength = 1.15(24338) + 1.15(34921) + 122736 = 190884**

Keep in mind that the buffs only apply to the attribute sin scores.  If the battle is Gluttony/Lust, the Pride scores will stay at their base values.  This is the case for all lessons up through chapter 20, both normal and hard mode.

However, from Lesson 21 onwards, there are two changes.  One, there is a primary sin and a secondary sin for each battle, marked by which icon is bigger in the preparation screen.  (There always has been, but now it matters which is which.)  In boss battles, both are primary.  Second, the buffs have changed drastically.

Every card has its main sin, obviously, and its strength in that sin is the strongest.  However, they still have strength in the other 6 sins as well.  There are two non-main sins that a card is very strong in, two that it is average in, and two that it is terrible in.

The percent increase is now dependent on how good a card is in the battle's two attribute sins.  (Remember that these buffs still only affect that sin, not the card’s total strength.)

If a card is the same sin as the battle’s primary sin, that sin gets a 160% buff

If a card is the same sin as the battle’s secondary sin, that sin gets a 90% buff

If a card’s second or third best sin is the battle’s primary sin, that sin gets a 30% buff

If a card’s second or third best sin is the battle’s secondary sin, that sin gets a 10% buff

Any sins lower than third best no longer get a buff

I’m not going to make a formula this time because it’s too long and situational.  But let’s look at that same 3-card team again, this time with Lesson 21-5, a Lust/Gluttony stage in that order.

Pandas Mean Profit has an average Lust score, so it gets no bonus.  Its Gluttony is its 3rd best sin, so that gets a 10% buff (10752 > 11827)

A Special Ceremony is a Lust card, so its Lust gets a 160% buff (17308 > 45000).  Its Gluttony sucks, though, so that doesn’t get a bonus.

Colorful Panic has Lust as its second best sin, so it gets a 30% buff (10423 > 13549).  Gluttony is its third best, so that gets a 10% buff too (9866 > 10852).

With the new system, the team’s Lust score has skyrocketed from 40158 to 65739.  However, its Gluttony score dropped from 27987 to 26399.

This means that the sins of your cards suddenly matter more in battle.  (And honestly I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  I know people complain that it makes it harder, but.  If my Comedy team in A3! is made entirely of Action/Drama cards with poor Comedy, I shouldn’t expect that team to do well.  Idk why people think that shouldn’t apply to Obey Me.)  Which brings us to part 2.

By the way, colored glow sticks raise the card’s total strength by 10%, and rainbow glow sticks raise it by 30%.

* It’s actually like 14.99% but it’s effectively the same.  The “slightly under but so close that I’m just rounding for significant figures” thing will be consistent for all of these buffs.

** The actual in-game strength is 190881, 3 points off due to the .99% thing.

Part 2: Team Preparation

I’m so sorry.  But someone has to say it.  Are you listening?  Great.

URs aren’t automatically better than SSRs.  Honestly, they never were.  They ESPECIALLY aren’t now.  You’re not losing the battle because you’re using SSRs.  You’re losing the battle because you’re throwing Wrath cards at a Sloth opponent.

Morning Voice is an Envy SSR card.  My copy of the card is only level 10, and in a Lesson 21+ Envy battle, its Envy score is 6866.

What is my Level 90 UR Colorful Panic’s Envy score in the same battle?

3489.

Colorful Panic is a higher rarity and 80 levels higher.  It has worse Envy.  Why?  Because Envy is its worst sin.

Obviously you aren’t going to be using a level 10 card in a battle, so for a more realistic standpoint, my copy of Resentment Runs Deep (SSR Envy) has 46108 Envy in the same battle.  That’s 13x better than the UR.

I’ll repeat it one more time before I move on.  The sin scores of a card are far more important than the rarity of the card.  A random SR card of the right sin is better than a UR with no sin bonus.  The most impressive thing about a UR is how hard it is to get one.

Anyway, what does this mean?  Is it hopeless?

Well, if you wanted to binge all three seasons within the first month of playing, yes.  But let’s assume that’s not the case.  (Side note, but the feeling that our cards are never good enough is definitely exacerbated by the aggressive speed at which they release new lessons combined with the fandom’s apparent allergy to spoiler warnings, but that’s a point for another post maybe.)

Remember that having URs isn’t actually all that important.  Now remember the sheer amount of SSRs they release since they also aggressively release events.  Also remember that with every 10-pull, you’ll get at least one SSR+.  (Also remember to never do single pulls; they're not worth it at all.)  If you’re really struggling with a lot of battles, here’s how you can improve your scores while focusing on as few cards as possible.

Open an Excel document or Google Sheets page and make a chart that looks something like this:

[Image Description: An 8x8 Excel sheet.  The columns are labelled with each of the seven deadly sins, and the rows are labelled Cards 1 through 3 and Support 1 through 3, with a blank row in between.  The rest of the sheet is blank.]

Now choose a card you want to use.  Doesn’t matter why you want to use it, maybe you like how it looks, maybe you worked really hard to get it, maybe you like its ability, maybe it’s just your current strongest card.  I don’t care.  For my chart I’m gonna use Pandas Mean Profit because it’s really pretty and I got it from the 100-pull pity reward.

Look at your card’s top 3 sins and put them into the chart.  For the character cards, note who the card is, because you can’t double up.  For reference later, also note whether it’s 1st, 2nd or 3rd best.  (Be sure to do this through Contacts and not a battle so there are no buffs skewing the scores.)

Once that’s in, choose another card you like for a different sin and input that card’s top 3 sins.  Envy is still completely empty, so I’ll put Resentment Runs Deep in next.  It’s an SSR, but I really love the Refresh Team ability.  Do this for one character card and one support card of each sin at first, if you can.  It doesn’t matter what level they are right now.  Then fill in whatever blanks you have with cards that specialize in that sin.

If a sin comes up more than 3 times, keep whichever ones are strongest in that sin without overlapping characters.  Play around with it until you get something that works for you.  Keep note of the sins you’re lacking cards for.

[Image Description: The same Excel Sheet as before, except filled in with various Obey Me card names.  The cells in rows 2 through 4 are color coded to match the character of the card.  Each cell marks in parentheses how strong the card is in the sin of the column it’s in from 1 to 3.]

Mine looks like this.  This chart isn’t perfect (if you look, none of my cards had Envy as a good non-main sin, and Pandas and Bunny have too much overlap for the same character), but it works as a rushed example.  I used the cell colors to mark the characters.

Are these the teams you should be using for each battle?  No, obviously not.  First off there’s no single-sin battle, and second off the game will still build the teams for you.

BUT, this greatly lowers the amount of cards you need to pour resources into.  Instead of 42 cards, with this chart I only have to focus on 18 cards in order to be guaranteed that all my cards get at least a SLIGHT boost in each battle.  The best-case scenario would drop it down to 14 cards.

Later on, once you’ve managed the cards on your chart, the next thing to do would be to find main sin cards to replace those that are only third best in their sin.  On mine I’d definitely focus on a Gluttony character card next, but in general Sloth is the one you want to be the most proactive about.

That should help you get through at least Season 2.  Season 3 is admittedly where the difficulty actually IS ridiculous, but Season 2 really isn’t as hard as we’ve been saying.  It just requires more planning than “the first three URs I ever got.”

I do still apologize for the resources and Grimm it’ll take, though :’)

Part 3: General Tips for Resources and Daily DP

This section is just some extra tidbits to help you have the resources to get cards and upgrade them.

[Image Description: The “hard to swallow pills” meme.  The pills read “You don’t need every single card and unless you’re a whale eventually you’re going to have to prioritize some events and ignore others or you’ll never have the resources to improve the cards you already have.”]

However, events ARE good for farming Grimm, so it’s not the end of the world if you want every SSR.  The only issue will come up when you need hard mode items and never have any AP, but it’s manageable.

If you’re going to log in more than once throughout the day, you can do the 2-1 job distribution.  If not, do three jobs with one character each so you get the daily task done

To save money for leveling up your good cards, complete the devil tree daily mission with N-rank cards.

Use vouchers over DP whenever you can (and use Raven to get vouchers).  The 99 DP level-up sale IS worth it if you can afford it, because that’s like 50% off a 10-pull once you do two.

I’m not certain, but I THINK skill level also influences how often an ability activates?  I feel like my Lv 10 SSR cards activate often but my Lv 1 URs never do.  So if you’re relying on an ability, the permanent SSRs might be worth looking at over limited time cards.

Anyway, I hope this helps at all in our mutual suffering.

[the-necessary-unnecessary]

HiI 🙋i saw you talking about City and Chelsea as Favorite english teams to go to a forward stages on CL and I say don't be blind to Arsenal too and i explain: 1. we also made signs that will take us farther like Maritz and Catley, they may be not names that the media hyping but they are what we needed to bring into the squad cuz your back line was our weak link. 2. Chelsea didn't bring in players that better then their first XI and after watching every game last season 3 times i don't (1/_)

okay I’m going to put this under a cut because it’s very interesting but also very long so I don’t want it filling up people’s dash too much!!

think they have better squad then us. yes they beat us but if you look closely in our last league game against them it's not a secret that Joe chose the wrong tactic so in the second half when we do changed it we mostly controlled the game. In the CC final we were the better team so i don't think Chelsea squad is better but i think we had two problem in those games that also showing in our stats: 

1. we have mentality issue when we play against Chelsea that we most work on it and the other problem that we have also with City and show in our stats is that we not taking your chances in front of the goal while Chelsea and City does. I think it's the decisions in the last pass, Impatience of players that trying to shoot except of finding the hole in defense and our sharpness. we have the right players but we also need to improve in those areas. Also don't forget that in the final we played with players from the bench cuz we lack of key players like Kim, Beattie and and Lia but still manage to control the game (and with a masterclass from Chelsea keeper).

3. City did bring in world class players but those are players that needed in the first XI like Bronze, Mewis/Lavelle and Kelley so yes they may improve in some areas but also we will in the back line and don't forget we played them without Beattie and Little (key players missing like Lyon) and still control those games also with bench players (even in the game we lost) I'm sure City and Chelsea will improve next season but don't forget that also we will now that we take care if our back line, the bench quality and our key players that back. So if we look at all of this i do think that Arsenal in the same level that those teams are in CL of course we will that care of the mental problem (it's the biggest on imp) and will improve on attack area. i will not look too much on the game against PSG cuz i think all the circumstances need to take into account (5/_)

I watched PSG semi final game and final game against Lyon and also all Lyon preseason and let me tell you they didn't do better than us in their first game after 5 months without playing, so top team like them been our first competitive game after so long of not playing (the semis and final against Lyon gave them big advantage imo) the lack of game fitness, the shite ref and Joe late subs they all need to take on account here. yes, they played better but it also the circumstances that hurt us and i don't think City or Chelsea could do better in there. 

in conclusion all i'm saying is that we didn't fall from those team quality last year even when we lost key players and like i said i think it's mostly a mental problem and attack problem that we need to solve. go look on Chelsea and City bench and look at our bench next year and you will see difference in numbers but not so much in quality (and don't forget we have world class versatile players that can play in serval positions). 

and the last thing is that don't forget we also signs players that would also improve us next year like City and Chelsea so in the end i don't think those teams is a level up of Arsenal in CL but in the same. I know it easy to forget this when you remember only results but if you look closely at every game the all 90 min in the end they are not better and yes like every team we have to work on our problems and build but i do think we have the right players also for the CL (8/8

just a reminder that English is not my native language so if it sound a little bit harsh i didn't mean it. also sorry for the very very long ask 🙈🙈🙈 i hope i explained my point and you understand what i meant

No problem for the long ask, it’s a good discussion to have and yeah I do think I understand your point. As we’ve said before, chelsea and city might have brought more and bigger names to their squads this season but that does not take away from the fact that we have a world class squad ourselves which has practically unmatched versatility. Also in terms of play last year then it is good that you’ve noted how what lets us down are the fine details like not taking our chances, there being issues with the last pass etc. 

This was very much shown against PSG too, albeit due to a great performance from their defense but still something that if we’d truly been superior we could have overcome the solid defense at least once or twice (because let’s face it, with decent refereeing/var the goal that we did get would have been annulled).

Also, a lot of players don’t have much champions league experience in these last few years. Maritz shone on Saturday and although a lot of this was up to the fact that she had played with wolfsburg until up to a month and a half ago, I also think it’s because she’s more used to playing against the biggest teams in Europe and used to performing on big, international, club stages. It wasn’t just totally a rustiness from the players, it was also nervousness. They took their time to find their positioning, Katie couldn’t adapt to having to mark a player like Diacre (although I do get that this is also Joe’s tactical fault), Lisa took her time to actually play her role and Leah was hit and miss all game long making errors that even not having played any official games can hardly excuse. Basics like clearances and ball side goal side marking. So yes, I completely agree that their situation was really exacerbated by both the ref and the fact that they were really out of practise, but their inability to keep control in big occasions is also linked to that big game mentality thing which definitely is a great problem here.

But anyways, even with all of this in mind, I think why we were mostly talking about chelsea and man city is because they’re the ones that have qualified for the cl next year and ultimately are the only wsl teams with a chance to dethrone this year’s champion of europe. In a longer term scenario arsenal may well get another chance especially if the squad keeps adding a few very quality players per year and have high levels of retention over the players that we already have. But right now it’s undeniable that chelsea and city have made their own reinforcements to their squads and have been given more money to invest and so, although i’m still a bit cynical over this ngl, they may have a larger chance at this dethronement. What will happen in the domestic league is yet to be decided.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E49 (Jan. 29, 2019)

Hey hey hey, we’re on the internet! Filling in for @eponymous-rose​, it’s time to fake my way through a Talks without having quite caught up yet. What could possibly go wrong?

Tonight’s guests: Sam Riegel & Liam O’Brien!

Announcements: The second season of Between the Sheets debuted last night, ft. everyone’s friend Bobby. It’ll be on Youtube tomorrow morning & is already on the CR Twitch. Next week will feature cinematographer Quyen Tran (aka Sam’s wife!)! Everyone agrees Sam married up. It’ll air Monday night on the CR Twitch.

And now, episode 49: A Game of Names

Brian comes back prefacing some comment with a mention that Matt names the episodes, which Sam immediately derails because he thought Taliesin named them. Poor Matt.

CR Stats: The M9 have cast Disguise Self 97 times. Liam: “What a bunch of lying motherfuckers!” 20 were by Nott; 17 were by Caleb.

Sam’s found it interesting that his in-game persona has been a bit of a facade, but Nott as a character is in an in-between place between who she was and who Nott purports to be. “It might be weird to be called Veth, actually, because it’s just not in the course of her experience in the last couple years. She’s gotten used to the name if not the body.”

Caleb doesn’t like to think about Bren or the old self that came with it; he winged the name “Caleb” the moment he met Nott, but now he has a lot of good memories associated with that name. Brian asks if it was a name of someone from his past; Liam points out you can always retcon anything. Sam’s surprised it was the day he met Nott; Liam says he’d actually been using different names everywhere he went, and Caleb happened to be the one that happened to keep being used by people he never left.

Sam and Liam goggle that they both picked characters with false (very similar) names, that their questlines are so accidentally intertwined, and that they’re so linked despite the fact that they’d decided they’d traveled together right before the first show. Sam wonders who else has fake names.

“Nott the Brave” and “Veth Brenatto” being anagrammed was a purposeful decision out of an accident. He was originally going to be Vix off a gag he made in Campaign 1 re: Vex & Vax, but decided he’d better scrap it & just go with a V name instead as homage. He created the anagrammed names together (without the help of a fantasy name generator, he points out).

Everyone thinks Fjord still has secrets to reveal. “What if it’s Ferrrd?” “What if it’s Fred?”

The water issue for Nott grew out organically in the game. He knew she’d been turned into a goblin (and assumed she’d been killed in the process), but wasn’t sure exactly how she’d died until a few months into the campaign. Then he emailed Matt and asked if it was okay if the way Nott had died had been by drowning, and Matt said, “Yep!”

Liam agonizes over the fact that they all can email Matt, asking if something can be added to character history based on how plots are going in-game, only for him to say “Yes!” and then be silent for six months before walloping someone over the head with a barbed-wire bat. Ha!

Liam reminds everyone that Caleb canonically does not know Beau’s last name. Liam knew it and was talking in third person (even though it was in an accent). It was not meant to be metagamed knowledge.

Liam was surprised by the “Fuck him!” comment but was not surprised Nott had had something chambered, so out of game he recognized this was the beginning of Nott’s story & was ready for it. Caleb still feels like he’s walking a tightrope and juggling plates, but Liam points out it’s his own fault if anything drops.

Everyone marvels at Nott’s use of “Bren” as a false name in episode 2. Sam remembers looking over at Liam as Liam gave him “the weirdest look! Liam looked at me like I had just said the c-word.” Liam: “I was staring holes into your skull.” Sam thought Caleb was judging Nott for being deceptive. Liam sat there for a hot minute wondering if Matt had let something slip, if Caleb was talking in his sleep, if Sam had seen a sheet from Liam’s binder... “Anything but this impossible fucking coincidence.”

GIF of the Week: @winteristboi with an incredibly topical GIF of Liam revealing his name, Sam commenting “That’s why you looked at me,” and including a flashback of the just-mentioned episode 21 moment.

The intertwining of Nott’s & Caleb’s backstories has been fun for both of them. Sam finds Liam an excellent actor and likes doing scenes with him. Liam and Sam both talk about how they actually prefer bumps in the road and complicated relationships instead of everyone being friends & peaceful. They had a conversation months ago about how they’re looking forward to things falling apart within the group. Liam reminisces about how much he loved the bowl argument with Beau. “That’s the best part of the show.”

Nott is very excited that part of Caleb’s backstory is out so that he can get some healing, maybe.

Caleb is closer to Beau than the rest of the M9 at this point. In the moment of his backstory, “he was wanting to borrow her spine. And Beau had rested her hand on his shoulder just moments before, and that was reassuring to him because he knew things could get ugly, so he was looking for that again.”

Very quickly, Nott saw something in Caleb that reminded her of her son. “A boy who was scared and alone in the world and needing someone to take care of him.” Even in game zero, Caleb was knocked out and Nott had to save them, kill the gnolls, and get them out of there singlehandedly.

Sam finds out onscreen that halflings live much longer than humans. It’s hilarious. “I thought they lived the same as humans!” He’s worked it out with Matt that Veth is not older than Caleb, who is 32. Veth got married at 20ish (childbearing age), spent a couple years happily married, goblins intervened, escaped, and is now about 25 years old (a young mom). “Similarly, as I understand it, when you are reincarnated, you are given an adult body, so goblin Nott is 7-8 years old.” Liam gasps that if she doesn’t get changed back, she’s taken a 200 year lifespan and violently compressed it to only a fraction.

Many of Veth’s quirks (collecting things, general nervousness, and enjoyment of wine) were badly exacerbated and heightened in goblin form. Where she enjoyed a nip of sherry wine before, she’s now a raging alcoholic. Where she enjoyed collecting baubles before; now she’s compulsively stealing. She was a nervous Nellie before; now she’s ratcheted anxiety. Sam discussed this with Matt. Liam again: “Her lifespan was condensed down into this dense little ball; her habits were condensed into a dense little ball too!” Sam, brightly, dancing: “It’s a saaad episode!”

Liam’s asked about his arm-scratching as Caleb. (Sam’s stunned; he never realized!) In Liam’s mind, the scars are extremely faint and old, and it’s cold in Wildemount. He doesn’t imagine them as large or even visible gashes unless you knew where to look.

Sam envisions his goblins as just generally amped up. Not angry, but murderous. Sam also has been playing it that Veth has been becoming a bit more goblin & less halfling over time just because she’s being overwhelmed by the physiology. It would have been different if she’d been in a different body. She’s very eager to get back, but she is also aware that her “perceived vehicle” who might be able to get her back to her original form is not quite ready yet. She’s anxious for that to get cooking.

Early in the campaign, when Caleb wakes up from a fight and screams, “Take them out!” he was talking about the crystals Trent put in his arms.

Fanart of the Week: @queddajaw​ with a gorgeous Nott drowning portrait.

Nott has a general tendency to want to see people connect (Astrid’s letter, Jester & Caleb). She knows time with a loved one is not eternal. It’s not really a projection of her own relationship. Augh.

Caleb didn’t give the whole truth because a) it’s too humiliating & heartbreaking to talk about and b) the first confession to Beau/Nott was only out of need, and he was just excruciatingly lonely. He’s gotten it out once and knows that it’s completely awful, and he doesn’t want to dump it on the rest of the group unnecessarily, such as “sunflower” Jester. Liam also didn’t feel it was all pertinent information in the moment since he didn’t want to trample on Nott after she’d just bared her soul to the group. Liam mimes opening a door over Sam’s face: “But alsooo myyy story is super tragic!”

Sam thinks VM was more familiar with each other at this point in their campaign, but not as vulnerable/connected. It’s a very different story.

What makes Sam keep picking goblins as backstory villains? “They’re gross.” Actually, it’s more coincidental this time as Liam was the one who picked his goblin race. Sam talks about how he’s gotten tweets wanting to know why goblins can’t be nice, is he racist against goblins? Sam: “Yes. In your campaign, you can do what you want. Veth might be horribly misguided!” but in his/Veth’s mind at the moment, there’s nothing redeemable about them. She is curious about the butler goblin, but didn’t really get a chance to talk to him.

Caleb is very relieved they’re not going to Rexxentrum.

Sam thinks it was a good time for Nott’s reveal. Caleb had thought it would take longer for him. Matt had asked Sam how long he wanted to play it out, if he wanted the reveal to be early or late game, and Sam told him it would be fine for him even if it never came out in the whole campaign. He’s excited to see how this will change the group dynamic for everyone. 

Liam comments that he always tries to make character decisions that feel true, even if it leads to things that are sad.

Sam did tell his kids how Nott became a goblin. As soon as he was done, his daughter asked him to tell them the story one more time. I have flashbacks to Travis saying “Let’s do it again” at the end of C1.

Sam hasn’t given up on the shirt gag, but he gave away 20 shirts for a donation prize. When he has the shirt, he will wear it. Sam also points out that he’s also tracking the facial hair from C1 too.

After Dark: Secret Secret Names Edition:

Everyone marvels again at how cool Quyen is. Sam tangents full circle into a discussion of Mr. Yuck. Brian tries to get us back on track talking about drinks, and I don’t even know what’s happening right now. Sam drinks a (I think!) Miller Lite on screen and almost throws it back up. You dramatic fool.

Quyen is a big wine nerd, just like Sam. “Now, we enjoy a burger and a beer once in a while, we’re not awful people.” Then he tells a story about how when people bring them wine bottles at their homes as gifts his wife has a terrible poker face if she doesn’t approve of the wine. Don’t buy her wine, is what I’m getting from this.

They discuss Mame Drop from today, which featured some laser discs and old games.

Nott’s favorite reality show would be whatever is the opposite of Hoarders, like maybe Storage Wars. Dani suggests Caleb might be into dating shows. Brian takes great offense at the word “smut” as a descriptor and talks about his 30-person Bachelor watching parties. Dani suggests he [Caleb] might be into the sordid melodrama of that and Real Housewives. Liam: “Tell me more about my character. You too, internet.”

This entire segment has devolved into an almost rabid discussion of reality shows and I legitimately cannot keep up with it. GBBO has come up, cat judging shows, documentaries about Scientology...

Liam & Sam try to have a man date once a year where they have a good dinner and glass of wine together and catch up on their years.

Travis apparently really got into David Blaine like eight years after he was relevant. Brian puts out a call to send him David Blaine gifs. “He’ll know exactly why.”

We end with an incredible moment of tiny Sam’s head being shopped live onto the cutout of his Emmy acceptance. “We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard, hard, hard.”

And we’re out! Have a lovely evening, everyone, and is it Thursday yet?

[briangroth27]

You’re a Wonder, Wonder Woman!

I was skeptical. I've never been a huge Wonder Woman fan; I didn't dislike the character, but she never really clicked with me. The recent DC films haven’t thrilled me either: I left Man of Steel without feeling hopeful or inspired; prerequisites for Superman stories. I didn't like Batman V Superman. Suicide Squad was fun, but a mess. Then the Wonder Woman trailers appeared and my interest was piqued. I wanted it to be good, but that was cautious optimism. Then reviews came out, the great word of mouth swept me up in the hype, and I couldn't wait to see it! Still, I’m sure my excitement didn’t compare to that of someone who'd grown up loving Wonder Woman and knew all about her; who’s inspired and empowered by her existence. Outside Lynda Carter's show, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, and some animated movies, Wonder Woman’s had considerably fewer appearances than heroes like Batman and Spider-man, so I’d imagine this is a massive deal for her fans. With the unreasonable pressure of being the bar by which Hollywood will measure the bankability of not only female-led action and superhero films, but female stars and directors, this movie not only had to please the fans who’d waited so long, but it had to be a critically loved financial hit. Fortunately it’s all those things and more: Wonder Woman is outstanding! Go see this now!

Gal Gadot is fantastic, taking Diana (the best part of BvS) back to the past to show us who she is and how she came to be. Her Diana is charming, hopeful, new to Man's World but wise, empathetic but fully willing to silence those who'd hurt others, and aware of the great responsibility the Amazons have to the world, but still able to revel in her power. That last point is something we absolutely need to see more of in female superheroes: too often, the only women having fun with their abilities are the villains and "bad girls." It's great to see Diana grinning at her ability to do things like scale a wall with her bare hands; who wouldn't be overjoyed to accomplish these feats? We see a lot of sides to Diana as she goes from eager Wonder Tot (Lilly Aspell) to headstrong Wonder Girl (Emily Carey) to facing the horrors of Man's World during the First World War, and Gadot does it perfectly (the younger two actresses are great as well). Diana’s transition from thinking it’s cool to fight to witnessing the reality of war in trenches and gassed towns is extremely well-conveyed. Even so, Diana’s the inspirational, hopeful hero I’ve been wanting from the DCEU. Gadot also brings a wonderful sense of exuberant fascination with the perks of Man’s World, like the first baby she’s ever seen and her very first ice cream cone. Gadot, Chris Pine (Steve Trevor), and Lucy Davis (Etta Candy) have a great sense for screwball comedy as they play male and female social mores of the period for laughs, giving the characters a classic feel. Others have compared Gadot’s Diana to Christopher Reeve’s Superman and I’d say that’s dead-on: in much the same way Reeve brought Clark Kent and Superman to life, Gadot is Wonder Woman.

Gadot is backed up behind the camera by Patty Jenkins, who directs this beautifully. The action is clean and crisp; even periodic slow-motion fight highlights, which I'm generally not a fan of, are woven in nicely. Her pacing is great, taking time to breathe in each environment and to touch on each character without sacrificing the story’s momentum. Most importantly, Gadot is never exploited by the camera; if you want to see what a movie shot without the male gaze looks like, see this. Jenkins gets a great balance of humor and stakes from all of her actors and instills a Richard Donner Superman quality in Diana and Steve's relationship that feels timeless. I would've thought this and the period setting would feel at odds with the bombastic Zack Snyder-styled fights in the climax, but Jenkins blended the styles really well. The climax does look a little too CGI—it was noticeable but not enough to take me out of the movie—but it was still fantastic. There were two minor moments where the editing confused me for a second; not enough to create a plot hole, but more like the scene had been trimmed and I had to connect the dots about a minor sequence of events. Again, nothing egregious. There’s no reason Jenkins shouldn’t be getting offers to direct all the action movies now! I’d love to see her take on Man of Steel 2 (along with many more Wonder Woman sequels, of course!).

Chris Pine was charming and funny as secret agent Steve Trevor. I loved how constantly thrown by Diana he was and I'm glad he wasn't played or written as a cliché suave "ladies man" spy. He wasn’t made a fool by Diana either; the film knows how to make her great without making him incompetent. In fact, Pine and Gadot built one of the best-developed romances in comic book films with their fantastic chemistry. When they disagreed, it felt natural and relevant to the movie’s themes. Etta Candy was pure, undiluted fun and I'd love to see further adventures between her and Diana. Steve's mercenary friends brought some good texture and diversity to the film as well. My favorite was Sameer (Said Taghmaoui), who provided some great comic relief and truths about life plans. I also liked the Chief (Eugene Brave Rock), a Native American, especially when he drew a connection between the Germans and Americans for Diana, showing her all sides have evil in their past. Ewen Bremner’s Charlie, a sniper who can’t shoot, was interesting as a guy who wanted to be a hero but simply couldn’t. As author Zack Stenz pointed out on Twitter, all of these men (and Steve) kept fighting the good fight in the face of a world that had damaged them. I like that message a lot.

Connie Neilson's Hippolyta was a smart, idealistic queen of the Amazons and her idealism coming partially out of fear for her daughter's safety was an interesting, understandable twist. That's a cool facet to her role as wise ruler, and a testament to Neilson’s ability that she never came off as selfish for prizing Diana above everyone else. Robin Wright's Antiope was a pragmatic counterpoint to her queen: live in peace, but train (and train Diana) for war in case it happens. I enjoyed her training sessions with Diana and wish we’d seen more of how she and Hippolyta interacted outside of this issue. Ann Wolfe’s Artemis fell between Hippolyta and Antiope’s outlooks, backing up Diana’s assertion that they should hear Steve out, and I hope we see more of her in the sequel (in the comics, she too ventured to Man’s World and even took over as Wonder Woman; I wonder if she will at least visit her sister on screen). When war came to Themyscira's shores, the Amazons were awesome, effortlessly badass fighters! I’m sure their natural athleticism comes from the cool idea of using actual female athletes from all over the world to play the Amazons. I hope we get to see more of them in future installments!

Dr. Maru/Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya) was a great, creepy villain; another character I wish we'd seen more of. I didn't need to know why she was obsessed with poison or anything, but I wanted to know what other mayhem she could cause with her variety of chemicals. She felt like she was ripped directly from the early pulp comics and that was awesome! Danny Houston's villainous German General Ludendorf was as imposing as he needed to be to drive the film’s villainy. He and Maru get an incredible, unexpected moment of mustache-twirling glee involving an ineffective gas mask that I wish we'd see more of from onscreen villains.

World War 1 proved to be a great setting. It was refreshing to visit a time often overlooked in movies and superhero stories, usually in favor of World War II. That the war was compounded and exacerbated over previous treaties between nations isn't pointed out in the film, but I think that's an interesting indication of just how inhumane man can become over something as innocuous as an alliance. In hindsight, it also strengthens Ares’ theory. WW1's trench warfare also plays an important role, displayed in the instantly iconic "No Man's Land" sequence (which was insanely almost cut!). Someone online said it looked like she was fighting war itself, and that’s the most perfect expression of that sequence I can imagine. Diana rising out of the trenches and walking into battle to make her debut as Wonder Woman was astounding!

I loved the use of color in the movie, something I've not been a fan of in the washed-out Man of Steel and Batman V Superman. Themyscira was bright and vibrant, and those colors carry over to the dreary, smog-choked London and the haze-filled trenches via Diana's Wonder Woman armor. While her suit isn’t as bright as Lynda Carter’s was, it's as though she literally brings color and life into Man's World. The score was good and felt period-appropriate. I had a giant smile on my face whenever Diana's awesome theme from BvS came on; if that doesn't make you pump your fist and cheer for Diana, I don't know what music would. Well, maybe the Lynda Carter one; it's a shame they didn't at least reference that here. I wish they’d found a way for someone to say something like "all the world is waiting for you."

I hope Wonder Woman opens real-life doors for more female directors and convinces studios that women can headline action films. A $100+ million opening weekend and one of the smallest second-week drops in superhero movie history should shatter the lame excuse that female superheroes make bad leads, and the 52% female audiences should prove that superheroes aren’t just a guys’ hobby: they’re for everyone. Since the population of the country is roughly 51% female and 49% male, that audience stat would seem to indicate the film is resonating evenly across the board. I hope Captain Marvel (along with Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens, and Sony’s Silver Sable and Black Cat film) continue this trend, but just four DC/Marvel female-led movies in the next several years isn’t enough. Marvel Studios has no excuse not to finally give the already Box Office-proven Scarlett Johanssen a Black Widow movie. They should cast Gina Torres as She-Hulk and make the solo movies they apparently can’t with Hulk. Fox should capitalize on their female X-men. Can Sony still get Emma Stone to do an alternate universe Spider-Gwen?? It’s fitting Wonder Woman proved there’s an audience for female superheroes, given she was the first, but she shouldn’t be the last and it should’ve happened much sooner.

I’m not a skeptic anymore and this movie’s had me hunting down Wonder Woman comics for the past two weeks. For me, Wonder Woman is the best DC movie since Batman. That, Richard Donner’s Superman, and this are their best live-action films and WW is certainly one of the finest superhero films ever! I hope it meant as much to Diana’s fans and those she inspires. It’s absolutely worth seeing in theaters!

  Full Spoilers...

I was worried with the way the creators had described Diana as a "retired hero" preceding BvS that she'd end this movie victorious but hopeless. I was very happy that didn't happen and instead, she ended the flashbacks knowing that love is the way to save the world. This was the hope Man of Steel left me wanting and I'm glad Diana finally brought it to the DC films. I can't believe a Diana who's realized this was simply inactive for all those decades (there's no way she sat out World War II), so I have to assume she (with Etta as her handler?) has been a secret hero ever since. I'd love to see those stories!

Like Lois Lane for Superman, I liked that Steve showed Diana humanity's potential, even though he was also connected to our worst impulses via the American treatment of Native Americans. I wish we could get another period film to see more of Gadot and Pine together; his death was sad and I'm sorry he won't be in future sequels.

The movie isn’t explicit about it, but I read Steve’s arrival through the barrier to Themyscira as a direct result of Diana’s first experience with her godkiller potential. I think that energy blast weakened the barrier; otherwise, how could Steve be the first person to ever stumble onto the island? I like that Diana’s first taste of her true power literally opens a larger world for her, bringing her into contact with all the good and evil of Man’s World.

Though Antiope’s death is somewhat cliche in the “dead mentor” sense, I liked that Diana wasn’t driven to action simply because she’d lost someone. She always wanted to go help and Antiope’s death didn’t change or inspire that part of her. If anything, it was the first wake-up call to how serious battle actually was.

I thought it was a little random that Diana was unable to return to Paradise Island, though maybe Hippolyta's "If you go, you may never return" was supposed to mean "you might die." If that wasn't my misunderstanding, then Diana trying to reconnect with her people and possibly lead them into the world could be a cool premise for a sequel.

I really liked that Ares wasn't who he seemed to be, or even the second-most obvious option (I thought he was Dr. Poison for most of the movie). Making him an unassuming good guy (David Thewlis) was a great twist, foreshadowed in hindsight by Diana's admonishment of the generals who'd hide in their offices. Plus, as I saw pointed out elsewhere, he's totally right about the armistice leading to worse horrors in World War II. I think that's a neat corruption of the idea of peace, which is a nice counterpoint to the seeming contradiction of waging war to establish peace. I enjoyed Ares' belief that war brings out the "best" in man; that it's the truest expression of our nature. What a great counterpoint to Diana's belief in our inner goodness, and a perfect way to stage their final battle as an argument! I do wish he hadn’t worn his comic book armor; that’s what made the climax look a little too CGI.

I thought it was interesting that the movie essentially boiled the Greek pantheon down to analogues for the Christian God (Zeus) and Devil (Ares), right down to Ares giving humanity knowledge of evil rather than making them do anything. Diana's fatherless birth also makes her a Greek spin on Jesus (kudos for keeping the classic claymation origin!). I think it would've been better if Aphrodite had granted Diana life instead of Zeus to increase the girl power and to go along with the “love is the way to save the world” idea (Aphrodite also brought Diana to life in the original version of the story). Ultimately, however, this revision didn't bother me as anything more than a missed opportunity. As much texture from the pantheon was lost to backstory (unnecessarily; there's no reason they couldn't have just been locked out from this realm), it's a cool way to twist the afterlife of the DCEU. Will they follow the New 52 comics to introduce Darkseid and Co. as rising "New Gods" in Justice League?

I hope they continue to unpack Diana's mythological heritage in the sequel. The gods are unfortunately gone, but there are a ton of other beings out there. Let's see classic Wonder Woman villains like Circe, Cheetah, and even Giganta! Doctor Poison would be fun to bring back too. And of course, Diana’s got to get her invisible plane!

Whatever the sequel brings, I can’t wait to see it!

[bonerhitler]

Kingdom Hearts does not live up to my nostalgia.

So last week I tried to write a fun article about Kingdom Hearts' crazy story -and it is absolutely nuts- but I just couldn't. I couldn't just ignore the big overhanging issues I had with the series and ultimately scrapped it at the last minute and now I'm writing this here because replaying Kingdom Hearts through the 1.5+2.5 pack on the PS4, hoo boy this series just doesn't hold up. I don't know how, or why, I ever liked it as a kid either since the issues I take with the series now have nothing to do changes made to the games in the Final Mix editions, or changing tastes as I've aged. As such if I do compare them to other games, I will strictly do so to other PS2 games released around the same time frame.

So lets start at the core issue that has continually frustrated me the most since undertaking this task of replaying a once beloved series; the gameplay. It hasn't just aged poorly, but it's extremely clunky and so much of it just feels like an afterthought. The first Kingdom Hearts came out in 2002 and it's a chunky, awkward game with extremely floaty and imprecise platforming. Jak and Daxter, Soul Reaver 2 and Devil May Cry each came out in 2001 and out perform Kingdom Hearts in terms of platforming and combat.

So what's so bad about it? Well for a start you have surprisingly little control over your own character. Once you decide to attack, guard or jump you're just kind of stuck in a slow animation. Enemies, meanwhile, are fast and often have skills that let them just become briefly invincible. Meanwhile basic skills like blocking and dodging have to be unlocked through levelling up. And based on choices in the beginning (you pick if you want to focus on magic, attack or defense and sacrifice one of the remaining two) you might not get those for an exceedingly long time. In fact that whole system is incredibly bizarre since one specific choice gives two additional MP, in a game where maximum MP is not only hard to come by, but determines how strong your magic is and is exceedingly limited otherwise. You can't get those two points any other way than with that specific choice at the start of the game.

Range is also a surprisingly strange issue in Kingdom Hearts and it's not too often to swing your keyblade -a blunt weapon shaped like a key- and miss unless your character's body is nearly touching the opponent as your forward momentum and motion just stops dead. Enemies often freely can attack from range as well, whether it's a charge attack from across the map, teleporting right to you and attacking you, or just throwing fireballs non-stop. Your only ranged offense is magic. Magic is not only severely limited, with it's offensive power dictated by your maximum MP which caps at 19 compared to the 100 cap of every other stat in the game, but it's fairly intuitive to use as well, requiring an entire secondary menu to manage outside of three quick-use slots that will almost inevitably go to your utility spells.

So in the end you've got poor mobility, very little in the way of defensive measures and the game saddles you with AI partners that die almost instantly in every fight. Unless you min/max your stat build most fights in the game just become a matter of  mashing the attack button and tanking hits while spamming the cure spell because there's just genuinely nothing else to the combat system. There's no reward for doing better. No gameplay function that lets you do better. In theory you can guard and counter attacks, but when you have a swarm of enemies that turn into flat textures on the floor, and another swarm of dudes flying through the sky by their nose it's incredibly hard to get the guard timing down because almost none of the enemies have attack tells that are recognizable from the spastic flailing they do when they're just standing around idle -but more on this in a second-. Inversely, however, combat is obscenely easy when it's one on one and no single enemy or boss really poses a threat unless they've got a crazy gimmick where they instantly kill you or something. In short, there's no actual challenge to the gameplay. There's nothing to overcome and learn. When you die it's not “When he does that he's doing a powerful attack, dodge it next time” or “I can't figure out this boss' pattern!” It's simply “Dang, I forgot to heal after he hit me.” It's mindless and uninteresting. You can power through everything.

Enemy design as well is lackluster at best. Visually I like the series, and I'll praise that later on. But fighting non-boss enemies is just tedious. Most enemies have some form of invulnerability. Whether it's the ability to just, literally, become invincible for a bit, invulnerability if attacked from a specific direction, or an annoying ability to just fly/teleport out of possible range -some times even the map- forcing you to sit there and wait for them to come back. This results in a lot of large fights where you kill off half the enemies then have to wait for the other half of the enemies to just let you hit them. Waiting around for enemies in a game to let you fight them is never fun, especially in a game where you don't have any kind of guard break. As I alluded to above animations are a mess as well. Enemies tend to just kind of twitch, wobble and flail around freely and a lot of their attacking animations start almost identical to their idle animations so it can be extremely difficult to tell if the guy you're going to attack is about to punch you, spit a fireball, turn into an icy tornado or just do nothing for another thirty seconds.

Even map design in Kingdom Hearts is unexpectedly strange. I remember loving the worlds when I played the game as a kid, but playing it now, well. Half the worlds are ridiculously short, lasting maybe three or four screens total with very little to do beyond listening to iconic characters talk for ten minutes or so. You could clear half the game in an evening. However some of the stages, the worlds based on Tarzan and Little Mermaid in particular, tend to be almost too expansive in comparison with very little content spread out over far more screens. I don't mean to say the game's story is bad, and that's still something I think would deserve its own write-up, but the way the game presents it is just incredibly awkward and stilted. You play through a few minutes of a disney-inspired zone then a Kingdom Hearts original character pops up, rants about friendship, hearts and/or darkness and goes away.

In the end of it all, I came away hating Kingdom Hearts, honestly. I loved it when I was younger. I completed it 100% somehow. But now, well it all just seems like overly pointless busywork. The combat isn't fun to me now and I really don't want to subject myself to a few hours of grinding so I can make the gear that makes me earn more EXP so I can grind for more hours to hit the high levels and unlock the skills needed to grind for the items to create the best weapons in the game so I can fight the optional bosses. Adding time sinks like that just aren't engaging.

Kingdom Hearts 2 does very little to fix these issues. In some cases it even exacerbates them. It came out in 2005, and while it's an incredibly unfair comparison; Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier that same year. Devil May Cry this series still is not. Combat generally -feels- less clunky than in the first game, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Rather than having stiff and slow attack animations Kingdom Hearts 2 favors long and elaborate ones. It's not uncommon for your characters to launch into massive spinning attacks at one or two presses of a button, it feels like you have almost no control over them at all in this game. Guard makes a return, but the animation is an awkward side-spin that makes timing it more difficult than anything else and dodge roll is gone now as are counter attacks. Instead you have action commands! A cool idea marred by lack of forethought. You see, when enemies do certain attacks or are stunned you can do a special highly damaging skill! Or sometimes they have to be in a specific mid-attack animation. Or sometimes they have to successfully attack you so you can do the counter-command. It's kind of random and not every enemy has action commands and generally speaking they're less useful and in terms of sheer gameplay less engaging than an actual counter system because it just boils fights town to mashing attack and waiting for the triangle button to light up.

Enemy design has actually gotten worse in my opinion. Enemies still love their invincibility, but there's a new fun trick to the overall design of bosses and enemies in Kindom Hearts 2! Stunlock. Nearly every enemy in the game has a whirlwind-style attack they'll just spam to happily stun you for several seconds and do a lot of damage. A lot of them directly home in on you, and follow you around. Without any kind of dodge roll and a flimsy hard to use block, these attacks are incredibly frustrating to fight against because they all take a very long time to play out and do a ton of damage compared to you tiny health pool. Animations are better in this game at least, and you can usually tell what enemies are going to do right away, it just doesn't help too much when almost every attack in the game is either “turn invincible and charge at you” or “turn into an invincible whirlwind and follow you around the room”. It makes every enemy other enemy feel the same. Unfortunately, the more unique enemies that don't do this stuff are the ones you almost only ever see in one world and never anywhere else.

Speaking of the worlds; level design is better. Most worlds will have their own gimmick now rather than just being a series of three to six rooms. The gimmicks tend to range from things like simply having to keep a gauge full for a while, to every area being a rhythm mini-game but it adds some interest to the over all flavor of the game-world. The plot also is much better integrated with the game play and level design, it's not uncommon to run into the primary antagonists and have fights with them throughout the game and see what their plans actually are as you progress through the story. A far better cry than just having your BFF turn evil, then have the antagonist show up out of nowhere because the game needs a conclusion.

The grinding is less bad in the second game as well. Though levels tend to be less rewarding -by level 20 I still only had 40 HP and even basic enemies were taking off half of it with a single hit- you're given a large number of ways to circumvent situations where you might be under levelled such as drive forms and magic. Speaking of which; magic kind of blows in KH2 because someone decided to make most of them melee-ranged for some reason. Your MP, however, is technically infinite since it regenerates slowly when emptied now. Cure uses all of your MP though which is unfortunate.

Finally, and on a positive note, the game's general visual design still holds up. It uses a lot of flat, smooth colors and round shapes which is distinct in a world of jagged edges and gritty shades. Some of the designs in the game, and series as a whole, even get  incredibly and uniquely abstract which is amazing to see and I love it when the game actually extends its art design as far as it can. The final areas of the first game are still, personally, the highlight of the series on a visual level. While I was playing I had a friend come by and before I paused the game they saw the screen and instantly said “Oh, hey! Is that Kingdom Hearts? I thought that was a PS2 game?” The whole area of Hollow Bastion just has such a distinct look and feel to it, the enemies are so memorable on a visual level and the music in particular is excellent. It's the perfect encapsulation of what Kingdom Hearts can be -surprisingly dark and bleak but still bright and smooth-.  and I just wish the gameplay lived up to the nostalgia of my memories. I'll always still like this series somewhere inside, and I'm still going to inevitably play the third one whenever it comes out. But revisiting this series has been a real eye-opener for me.

[robertshugartca]

Smartly crafted formulas that are clinically backed, non-toxic...

Smartly crafted formulas that are clinically backed, non-toxic ingredients, beautiful graphic packaging, and clever brand names are just a few of the qualities that have earned skincare brand Sunday Riley  its cult status. Consistently a Sephora best seller , the results-driven luxury line is always generating hype and flying off shelves. But are Sunday Riley’s buzzy moisturizers, serums, and oils (which aren’t exactly cheap, mind you) worth all the attention and dough?

My fellow Who What Wear Beauty editor Erin Jahns and I were skeptical (as we always are of skincare brands whose products have unabashed cult followings and high price tags). So we put 10 of its best sellers to the test. For context, Erin has sensitive acneic skin, and I’m a true combo skin type (I’ve got both congested pores and dryness to navigate). Keep scrolling for our in-depth beauty editor reviews of Sunday Riley’s Good Genes serum, C.E.O serum, Saturn mask, Luna oil, and more.

“Straight up, the only reason I’m not giving this cleanser a full five-star rating is the price. Since cleansers are the most fleeting part of our skincare routines, I just can’t warrant spending more than $20 tops on something I’m washing off after 10 seconds. That said, I’ve been impressed with this gentle but effective cleanser ever since it released last year. It never irritates my sensitive skin or exacerbates any breakouts I have. It has great ingredients that play well with all skin types, and the soothing gel to foam formula really delivers on that super-satisfying clean feeling you want from a face wash but without stripping your skin of necessary hydration.” — Erin. Overall score: / “A delicious, fast-absorbing oil that smells like a Jolly Rancher and also helps clear breakouts and clogged pores? Seems impossible. I was so skeptical of this exotic green elixir—the slippery texture and sweet scent seem like something that would break you out rather than clear you up. To my delight, the product sinks in quickly, and its gentle 1.5% salicylic acid visibly works to decongest the little clogged pores I get around my nose and chin. It’s not the strongest dose of BHA in the world, so it takes a couple nights to really produce results, but damn, when it does, my skin comes out so beautifully clear and glowy.” — Amanda. Overall score: / “I don’t know about you, but I have a separate stash of products for whenever my skin decides to be on especially bad behavior. And whenever I’m dealing with a frustrating deluge of zits, this mask is one of my favorite antidotes in said stash. I definitely notice that it helps dry out and banish my existing blemishes faster than when I forget to use it, and I’m convinced it slows the formation of new ones. (Breakouts are such a vicious cycle, ugh.) My one issue with this mask, however, is the smell. Since the star, and most strategic, ingredient is sulfur, I realize this is just par for the course and part of the formula’s efficacy, but even after I wash it off, the smell of sulfur lingers on my face, and it’s just not the most pleasant olfactory experience to go to sleep with at night.” — Erin. Overall score: / “Okay, this is so hard for me. Because if it was up to this product’s brightening and radiance-boosting power alone, I would literally give it 10 stars. But, for some reason, I have issues with it clogging my pores, and I have to be honest about that. I plan on asking my go-to esthetician what she thinks is the exact culprit in the ingredient list (my skin is insanely, insanely finicky and prone to congestions), but for most other people, I honestly think this is one of the best vitamin C and brightening serums on the market. It’s Dermstore’s top-selling brightening serum under $100, and I think that stat is well-warranted. I’m bummed I can’t use this serum anymore, because whenever I would, I’d always receive compliments on how glowy and healthy my skin looked.” — Erin. Overall score: / “I’m a fiend when it comes to eye cream. And since I have breakout-prone, easily irritated skin, it’s one of the only types of skincare products I feel like I can try with zero abandon or worry regarding how it will affect my skin. I’ve tried (and regularly use) so many eye creams, but I always find myself coming back to this one. It’s a cheaper dupe for this amazing, but very, very spendy one from Revive, and it’s the first one I recommend to friends and family if they’re complaining about puff, circles, or fine lines. It has a bit of a pearlescent tint to it, which helps instantly tighten and diffuse the look of darkness, and pretty much acts like IRL Facetune.” — Erin. Overall score: / “Retinol is one of the most powerful breakout- and wrinkle-fighting ingredients, which almost all skin health experts recommend, but certain forms of it can make your face peel. This luxurious oil provides all the same benefits without the risk of irritation using an ingredient called Trans-Retinol Ester (plus blue tansy, which is really soothing and feels amazing on the skin). This product would be really well suited to sensitive skin types prone to acne and redness looking to treat their skin for signs of aging without making it angry. After a few nights of use, I did notice more radiant, youthful-looking skin. I wouldn’t call the product a holy grail for my particular combo skin type, and it’s definitely a little pricier than I’d like, but it certainly produces results with consistent use.” — Amanda. Overall score: / “So here’s a fun fact: This is actually the first-ever retinol I’ve used regularly. (I know, bad beauty editor.) In all honesty, I thought I would hate it but disgruntledly agreed to test it since Amanda asked me to review all the Sunday Riley products I have in my possession, and I still hadn’t tried this relatively new launch. In hindsight, I’m SO sad I didn’t start using it sooner. I’ve been applying it a couple of nights a week after I cleanse and without layering anything underneath or on top. (As is the standard protocol for retinol.)  Every morning I wake up with what seems like a brighter, smoother, and far more even complexion. I’ve been struggling with some stubborn acne scarring around my mouth, and I’m completely dumbstruck by its efficacy in helping to li4ghten my areas of pigmentation. This serum hasn’t irritated my skin at all which has always been one of my main fears surrounding retinol, and the consistency is so soft and dreamy. It’s not sticky, and my skin feels really happy and comfortable post-application.” — Erin. Overall score: / “As Sunday Riley’s priciest formula, and perhaps the buzziest, I had high expectations for this all-in-one AHA serum. According to the fine print, it’s specifically targeted to deal with dark spots, pores, and wrinkles by utilizing a high-potency form of lactic acid to exfoliate way the dead skin cells that make our complexion look dull or congested. As the brand recommends, I’ve been alternating this with the A+ Retinol every other night so that I’m lifting away the debris the night after the retinol has worked its turnover magic. This product is great on its own, but combined with the retinol, it’s the ultimate power couple. I’ve gotten a few facials recently, which could be a contributing factor, but my skin hasn’t felt so soft, smooth, clear, and naturally luminous since I started using this serum regularly at night. My only qualm is that I’m not used to using an exfoliating agent like this as a last step before bed, and it can feel a bit prickly and stingy. I know that’s part of the deal and the formula, but if you’re not a fan of feeling your products working, tread carefully. (Though I promise, the end result is worth it!)” — Erin. Overall score: / “There’s a lot to like about this brightening moisturizer: the rich (but not greasy) formula, which is super hydrating and great for dry or winter weather; the 5% dose of vitamin C; the energizing citrus scent; the gently exfoliating and calming plant extracts, which help the actives absorb while keeping the skin protected and non-irritated. My three-star rating is simply because I personally prefer to get higher doses of my active ingredients in serum form, rather than cream form, and then use a more affordable moisturizer on top. And I also have a preference for moisturizers that come in a tube, rather than a jar. But I can’t knock the formula, which I would especially recommend to dry skin types dealing with dark spots or dullness.” — Amanda. Overall score: / “I’ll start by saying there isn’t anything wrong with this cream, and I do actually think it’s really nice and has a great formula. BUT, only if you have super hydration-starved skin. Technically, it’s supposed to be agreeable for all skin types, but my combination skin found it entirely too heavy on the moisture quotient. (Although for what it’s worth, the luxe, whipped like texture is surprisingly lightweight.) It boasts two different kinds of hyaluronic acid alongside tamarind extract, which is the hard-hitting coupling behind the water-surge of hydration. So, again, if you have super dry skin or will be traveling to the desert anytime soon, I think this is a great option. But it just left my complexion feeling slick, greasy, and over-watered.” — Erin. Overall score: /. Opening Image: Sunday Riley

source https://gothify1.tumblr.com/post/184051794625

[gothify1]

Smartly crafted formulas that are clinically backed, non-toxic ingredients, beautiful graphic packaging, and clever brand names are just a few of the qualities that have earned skincare brand Sunday Riley  its cult status. Consistently a Sephora best seller , the results-driven luxury line is always generating hype and flying off shelves. But are Sunday Riley's buzzy moisturizers, serums, and oils (which aren't exactly cheap, mind you) worth all the attention and dough? My fellow Who What Wear Beauty editor Erin Jahns and I were skeptical (as we always are of skincare brands whose products have unabashed cult followings and high price tags). So we put 10 of its best sellers to the test. For context, Erin has sensitive acneic skin, and I'm a true combo skin type (I've got both congested pores and dryness to navigate). Keep scrolling for our in-depth beauty editor reviews of Sunday Riley's Good Genes serum, C.E.O serum, Saturn mask, Luna oil, and more. "Straight up, the only reason I'm not giving this cleanser a full five-star rating is the price. Since cleansers are the most fleeting part of our skincare routines, I just can't warrant spending more than $20 tops on something I'm washing off after 10 seconds. That said, I've been impressed with this gentle but effective cleanser ever since it released last year. It never irritates my sensitive skin or exacerbates any breakouts I have. It has great ingredients that play well with all skin types, and the soothing gel to foam formula really delivers on that super-satisfying clean feeling you want from a face wash but without stripping your skin of necessary hydration." — Erin. Overall score: / "A delicious, fast-absorbing oil that smells like a Jolly Rancher and also helps clear breakouts and clogged pores? Seems impossible. I was so skeptical of this exotic green elixir—the slippery texture and sweet scent seem like something that would break you out rather than clear you up. To my delight, the product sinks in quickly, and its gentle 1.5% salicylic acid visibly works to decongest the little clogged pores I get around my nose and chin. It's not the strongest dose of BHA in the world, so it takes a couple nights to really produce results, but damn, when it does, my skin comes out so beautifully clear and glowy." — Amanda. Overall score: / "I don't know about you, but I have a separate stash of products for whenever my skin decides to be on especially bad behavior. And whenever I'm dealing with a frustrating deluge of zits, this mask is one of my favorite antidotes in said stash. I definitely notice that it helps dry out and banish my existing blemishes faster than when I forget to use it, and I'm convinced it slows the formation of new ones. (Breakouts are such a vicious cycle, ugh.) My one issue with this mask, however, is the smell. Since the star, and most strategic, ingredient is sulfur, I realize this is just par for the course and part of the formula's efficacy, but even after I wash it off, the smell of sulfur lingers on my face, and it's just not the most pleasant olfactory experience to go to sleep with at night." — Erin. Overall score: / "Okay, this is so hard for me. Because if it was up to this product's brightening and radiance-boosting power alone, I would literally give it 10 stars. But, for some reason, I have issues with it clogging my pores, and I have to be honest about that. I plan on asking my go-to esthetician what she thinks is the exact culprit in the ingredient list (my skin is insanely, insanely finicky and prone to congestions), but for most other people, I honestly think this is one of the best vitamin C and brightening serums on the market. It's Dermstore's top-selling brightening serum under $100, and I think that stat is well-warranted. I'm bummed I can't use this serum anymore, because whenever I would, I'd always receive compliments on how glowy and healthy my skin looked." — Erin. Overall score: / "I'm a fiend when it comes to eye cream. And since I have breakout-prone, easily irritated skin, it's one of the only types of skincare products I feel like I can try with zero abandon or worry regarding how it will affect my skin. I've tried (and regularly use) so many eye creams, but I always find myself coming back to this one. It's a cheaper dupe for this amazing, but very, very spendy one from Revive, and it's the first one I recommend to friends and family if they're complaining about puff, circles, or fine lines. It has a bit of a pearlescent tint to it, which helps instantly tighten and diffuse the look of darkness, and pretty much acts like IRL Facetune." — Erin. Overall score: / "Retinol is one of the most powerful breakout- and wrinkle-fighting ingredients, which almost all skin health experts recommend, but certain forms of it can make your face peel. This luxurious oil provides all the same benefits without the risk of irritation using an ingredient called Trans-Retinol Ester (plus blue tansy, which is really soothing and feels amazing on the skin). This product would be really well suited to sensitive skin types prone to acne and redness looking to treat their skin for signs of aging without making it angry. After a few nights of use, I did notice more radiant, youthful-looking skin. I wouldn't call the product a holy grail for my particular combo skin type, and it's definitely a little pricier than I'd like, but it certainly produces results with consistent use." — Amanda. Overall score: / "So here's a fun fact: This is actually the first-ever retinol I've used regularly. (I know, bad beauty editor.) In all honesty, I thought I would hate it but disgruntledly agreed to test it since Amanda asked me to review all the Sunday Riley products I have in my possession, and I still hadn't tried this relatively new launch. In hindsight, I'm SO sad I didn't start using it sooner. I've been applying it a couple of nights a week after I cleanse and without layering anything underneath or on top. (As is the standard protocol for retinol.)  Every morning I wake up with what seems like a brighter, smoother, and far more even complexion. I've been struggling with some stubborn acne scarring around my mouth, and I'm completely dumbstruck by its efficacy in helping to li4ghten my areas of pigmentation. This serum hasn't irritated my skin at all which has always been one of my main fears surrounding retinol, and the consistency is so soft and dreamy. It's not sticky, and my skin feels really happy and comfortable post-application." — Erin. Overall score: / "As Sunday Riley's priciest formula, and perhaps the buzziest, I had high expectations for this all-in-one AHA serum. According to the fine print, it's specifically targeted to deal with dark spots, pores, and wrinkles by utilizing a high-potency form of lactic acid to exfoliate way the dead skin cells that make our complexion look dull or congested. As the brand recommends, I've been alternating this with the A+ Retinol every other night so that I'm lifting away the debris the night after the retinol has worked its turnover magic. This product is great on its own, but combined with the retinol, it's the ultimate power couple. I've gotten a few facials recently, which could be a contributing factor, but my skin hasn't felt so soft, smooth, clear, and naturally luminous since I started using this serum regularly at night. My only qualm is that I'm not used to using an exfoliating agent like this as a last step before bed, and it can feel a bit prickly and stingy. I know that's part of the deal and the formula, but if you're not a fan of feeling your products working, tread carefully. (Though I promise, the end result is worth it!)" — Erin. Overall score: / "There's a lot to like about this brightening moisturizer: the rich (but not greasy) formula, which is super hydrating and great for dry or winter weather; the 5% dose of vitamin C; the energizing citrus scent; the gently exfoliating and calming plant extracts, which help the actives absorb while keeping the skin protected and non-irritated. My three-star rating is simply because I personally prefer to get higher doses of my active ingredients in serum form, rather than cream form, and then use a more affordable moisturizer on top. And I also have a preference for moisturizers that come in a tube, rather than a jar. But I can't knock the formula, which I would especially recommend to dry skin types dealing with dark spots or dullness." — Amanda. Overall score: / "I'll start by saying there isn't anything wrong with this cream, and I do actually think it's really nice and has a great formula. BUT, only if you have super hydration-starved skin. Technically, it's supposed to be agreeable for all skin types, but my combination skin found it entirely too heavy on the moisture quotient. (Although for what it's worth, the luxe, whipped like texture is surprisingly lightweight.) It boasts two different kinds of hyaluronic acid alongside tamarind extract, which is the hard-hitting coupling behind the water-surge of hydration. So, again, if you have super dry skin or will be traveling to the desert anytime soon, I think this is a great option. But it just left my complexion feeling slick, greasy, and over-watered." — Erin. Overall score: /. Opening Image: Sunday Riley

[kingdoms-of-fate]

Mordak

Setting:

Mordeadus - this is one of several campaign settings I run

Country:

Mordak

Population:

Human

Terrain:

The region is mostly dark pine forest.

The area is often dense with fog, that can rise from nowhere and often stays for days.

Within the woods, howls and groans can often be heard but rarely a source can be found. Note: The sounds are usually magical in nature, deriving from old curses and often emanate from nothing.

The sky is stuck in perpetual twilight and night, and the sun has not risen in known memory. Note: Again, this is magical in nature, and outside the borders of the nation the sun will still rise. Most likely a curse from a God or ancient demon.

Settlements:

Few cities exist as the region is mostly small towns and villages.

The roads within the settlements are lined with jack-o-lanterns as well as the outskirts of the towns and villages.

The faces on the jack-o-lanterns are believed to ward off spirits, the twisted faces of flames bringing fear to the supernatural. Because of this, jack-o-lanterns are carved daily and replaced as needed, each family unit responsible for the area around where they live. It is also not uncommon for homes built within he woods to line their property with  jack-o-lanterns.

Architecture Style:

Homes are built with black stone.

Buildings are never built with windows as the people of Mordak believe leaving holes in a building will invite evil spirits and the fact that there is no sunlight leaves little point.

Shelves are cut into the outside walls and lined with candles. Due to the constant dark, the light is meant to scare away the dark. The people of Mordak believe once true darkness descends on them, it will never leave.

The walls on the outside of the houses will often be thick with old wax left on as the people Mordak believe it is good luck since the wax has been blessed with light.

Iinside, the homes are covered in candles, dozens filling every room, and fires roaring at all times in the hearth. The people of Mordak never for a moment let the dark overtake them. Note 1: Consider most inhabitants having a phobia of the dark. Note 2: If at anytime a player is caught in true darkness, consider having ghosts or undead start manifesting.

Clothing Style:

The people wear mostly black wolf or rabbit furs gathered from the woods.

Because of the dangers of the dark, every citizen of Mordak travels with a bandolier of candles across their chest and many more in pockets, belts or sacks throughout their body

Religion:

There is no central religion as the people are more into superstition than Gods.

Black cats are bad luck. Mirrors can trap and release souls and most keep trinkets of cold iron in their pockets or as necklaces.

Government:

Lead by a monarchy that has little control outside their city, each town or village is instead controlled by an elder or a powerful baron.

The leadership is indifferent and usually bands together for survival than for anything benevolent.

Economy:

The region is mostly poor and struggling with little in the way of nobles and powerful merchants.

They use standard coin as their currency.

Their main import is animal fat to make candle wax; being such a necessity it is not uncommon for towns to sell off loved ones or even give up their remaining food for wax, preferring to starve than face the dark. Because of this, merchants across the borders will often overcharge for animal fat with Mordak having little option other than to pay.

Issues:

The hags

They are more spirit than physical, capable of flying, passing through solid surfaces and materializing at will. Wearing tattered flowing rags, they are gangly female forms with long black hair, white faces and large black eyes. Standing 8 feet tall, they have oversized fingers and toes. They feast on the souls of the living, flying through the pine forests far from the light of candles and jack-o-lanterns. They will often wait underground and drag their victims into the dirt, suffocating them before absorbing their essence, leaving only a dry withered corpse. Note: When figuring out the hags' stats, they are considered ghosts or wraiths.

The witch covens

Deep in the pine woods, living within overgrown cottages are covens of witches from 1 or 2 to dozens. They are female, their bodies aged and twisted, their faces wrinkled with crooked noses and skin patches with hairy moles. Being spellcasters, they mostly use illusion and charm spells to lure victims to their layer with a disguise of a good looking man or women in distress, then using their charm to seduce the victim. Once brought to their lair, the witches descend upon the victims like wilds dogs, eating their flesh while the person is still alive, then boil down their fats and organs into spells or wine. Their cottages are often decorated with bones, their walls layered with dried skins and stinks of rot. In the center of every cottage is the iron cauldron where the witches cook, create potions and wine. Some using their disguise will wander into towns and sell their potions or wine – healing, flight, etc, - in exchange for things they may need or to eye new victims. Unfortunately for the buyer, it isn't till too late do they realize what they have been drinking. Note 1: The drinks or potion will work as described -healing, flight, etc, despite its disgusting and macabre ingredients. Note 2: When figuring out the witches' stats, they are considered undead human spellcasters.

Pumpkin heads

Roaming the pine woods are packs of leathery humanoid creature with jack-o-lanterns heads. They can run on all fours and will often do so howling and growling form their pumpkin heads. They are always hostile, almost mindless,  attacking with sharp claws, breathing fire from their pumpkin head or biting with bone like teeth growing within its pumpkin head mouth. Considered demons, their numbers are small, from only a couple to now more than a dozen, but increase as it gets closer to a full moon till the countryside can be filled with 1000s. During the full moon, most people in settlements hide barricaded within their homes and all life stops while the moon begins to wane. No one knows where they come from or why the moon plays an effect, they just know the saying, “When the sky is bright, get out of sight, when the woods groan, hide in your home.” Note 1: The pumpkin heads are demons and come from deep in the earth, drawn to the magical nature of the moon only to return back to the earth to slumber during the darker nights. Note 2: When figuring out stats for a pumpkin head, they are considered demons. With the more powerful ones being larger and older than the ones with lesser stats.

The dark farmsteads

A large region Mordak's is covered by an area known as the dark farmstead. This was a region of rich farmland long ago before an unknown ancient blight cursed the grounds. Now the farms long since abandoned are in a state of perpetual decay. Old corn is always withered and dry, never growing, never dying. Undead pigs, cows, horses still graze the fields and live within dilapidated stables. Homes and windmills have fallen into disrepair but never collapsing. The wood has turned black and rotting, doors are rusted closed and vines and moss often net entire buildings. Animated scarecrows wonder the fields, killing anyone who enters, then uses the dead as feed for the undead livestock. Note 1: When figuring out stats for an animated scarecrow, they are considered golems with only two orders: kill all who enter, feed the remains to the animals. Note2: When figuring out stats for the undead animals, they are considered zombies. No one is sure why the area is in a state of decay or when it happened, but some believe it is an undead God slumbering beneath the once fertile fields or that the Gods have forsaken the place all together with the very lands itself being cursed to be undead.

The grave fields

Near the northern borders of the country exist long stretches of graveyards some centuries old. 10s to 100s or 1000s of graves dot the area and are rumored to be from a massive war once fought on the continent, although little record can be found in history. Note: The graves are from a massive war with most records being destroyed long ago. Many graves are worn and long since pillaged of their valuables with others still unopened, holding enormous tombs consisting of entire dungeons going deep into the earth. The area is extremely magical, flowing with natural necromatic energies and anything that dies in the region, soon comes back as undead. Because of the energies, massive amounts zombies are always rising from the graves, from a few dozens to hordes in the upper 1000s. Usually the zombie mingle mindless in the northern border, seldom leaving their gravesite, but when a horde forms, they begin to wander. Some make their way across the border, becoming someone else's problem, while others go south, wiping out entire settlements of Mordak with every thrust. Although effort has been put in place to dug up the graves and burn the dead, little has changed and every few months to years hordes continue to rise. Every horde has been dealt with so far, but at a cost and every generation of Mordak is smaller than the one before it with some believing there is only a generation or 2 left before they can no longer stem the tide. In addition to the zombie swarms, necromancy cults have come to the area, taking advantage of the natural necromantic energies that linger within the graves. Hoping to gain favor with their particular Gods, some come for power, some to cause chaos, but all have exacerbated the problem by enriching and strengthening the necromantic energies in the area, causing the undead to rise in accelerated numbers. Now what was once a rare occurrence has become common with some necromancers reporting that certain cemeteries have an almost unstoppable flow of undead rising from graves. Note: While the hordes will not be the only problem a character may face while in Mordak, the zombie swarms should always be at the forefront of their survival, a dark cloud always looming.

[thrashermaxey]

Roos Lets Loose: Who is the Fantasy MVP?

  Welcome to the second edition of “Forum Buzz,” a column where I dissect popular recent posts from the DobberHockey Forums. Pretty much anything within the forums might be covered, other than trades (those usually will get their own separate write-ups on the site and are also covered in the next day’s Ramblings) and signings (those tend to be dissected in Alex McClean’s weekly Capped column). With that out of the way, let’s dive right in!

  Topic #1 – Is it time to give up on Jesse Puljujarvi?

This reminds me of the question about Pavel Zacha from my recent mailbag column, in that it’s asking about a player oozing with upside but who’s struggling more with each passing season. Accordingly, to provide insight about Puljujavi (JP) I’ll need to assess many of the same data points as I did with Zacha.

Let’s start with IPP, or the percentage of points JP received on goals scored while on the ice. The key with IPP is if a player has a nose for scoring and is mainly saddled with poor linemates, his IPP should be high, in turn boding well for him to succeed if he’s put into the right circumstances and/or with the right linemates. In JP’s case, we know he has a mere 38 points in 139 NHL games; but is he doing the best he can under his given circumstances when gauged by IPP? The answer seems to be no, as for 2017-18 and 2018-19 (when he combined to play 111 of his 139 career games thus far) his IPPs were, respectively, 54.1% and 56.3%. Couple that with 5×5 team shooting percentages of 6.64% and 5.83% in those same seasons, and a picture is painted of a player who not only doesn’t help generate offense (hence the low team shooting percentages) but also doesn’t find a way to grab points on the few goals actually scored while he’s on the ice (hence the low IPP).

In cases like these I also like to examine a player’s performance on the PP versus the man advantage minutes he’s received. That’s a bit difficult when it comes to JP, who’s PP Time per game has shrunk from 49 seconds to 45 to 27 in his three seasons. Still, we get some visibility from 2017-18, as that season he played in 68 games while averaging those 45 seconds with the man advantage. Looking at the data though, he didn’t do much with that PP time, seeing the 263rd most PP minutes among forwards yet tying for the 267th most PPPts. Although no one could rightfully expect him to put up boatloads of PPPts given this deployment, he didn’t shine enough to demonstrate he deserved additional PP Time or was capable of doing more with less. In other words, another non-positive sign.

Lastly, we need to examine the extent to which he’s played with talented players, and how he fared. This season he played about 10% of his shifts with Connor McDavid, but in doing so tallied 22% of his points. Last season he played just under 35% of his shifts with McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, but in doing so generated 55% of his points. There are two ways to look at this – (1) he’s only good if propped up by better players, or (2) he could play better if given a fair chance to skate more often with true talent.

Were it not for JP producing well when skating with the best Edmonton forwards, I’d be prepared to write him off completely, especially with him needing to recover from double hip surgery which might lead to him having a slow start and finding his way further into the doghouse. Of course, all of this might be moot inasmuch as he’s a restricted free agent this summer and a viable candidate to be traded given his lack of success and Edmonton’s new GM likely wanting to put his own stamp on the team. Long story short, I wouldn’t give up on JP in a full dynasty league; but in keepers where 200+ forwards are owned, I think you can safely toss him back into the draft pool either to select him again or to let him give one of your other GM’s gray hair.

  *

If you have any questions that you’d like Rick to answer in his next mailbag, please send them to admin@dobbersports.com or you can find him in the Dobber Forums under the name ‘rizzeedizzee’. Thanks!

*

  Topic #2 – Is Evander Kane this season’s fantasy hockey MVP in roto leagues?

Even when he was producing at a lower scoring rate and missing games due to frequent injuries, Kane was fantasy gold with his stat stuffing in the areas of SOG, PIM, and Hits. This season, Kane is poised to produce his highest ever scoring rate and, if he returns soon from injury, play his second most games in any regular season; so does that make him the fantasy hockey MVP of 2018-19? It’s close, but I say no.

No question Kane’s numbers are the stuff roto dreams are made of, as he’s on pace for over two Hits and two PIM per game, more than 3.5 SOG per contest, plus a full season scoring pace of 65 points and a goals per game rate above 0.4. Without considering PIMs, since 1997-98 (when the NHL started tracking Hits) just two other players have met the other criteria in a season while playing 60+ games– Alexander Ovechkin (12 times!) and Jeff O’Neill (back in 2001-02). When factoring in PIM, however, while Ovi also has averaged at least one PIM per game he never averaged 1.5 per game in any of these 12 seasons.

Of course, kitchen sink leagues also tend to count +/- and PPPts, two areas where Kane is far from elite; and some count either Hits or PIM but not both. Are Kane’s deficiencies enough to lose him the 2018-19 fantasy crown? Who else would it go to? Brent Burns is just okay in Hits, decent in Blocks and PIM, but superb in SOG, PPPts, and scoring, to go along with a +16 rating. Or there’s Nikita Kucherov, who’s just okay in PIM and Hits, yet superb in pretty much every other area.

But here’s the key beyond Kane’s stats – Burns and Kucherov would’ve cost a poolie far more to acquire (in terms of a draft pick or trade) as compared to Kane. In fact, in Yahoo leagues Kucherov was drafted third overall on average and Burns 18th, versus Kane at 56th overall, making Kane a far better return on investment (ROI) than Burns or Kucherov. But I think Kane isn’t even the 2018-19 ROI MVP – that would go to Morgan Rielly, Jake Guentzel, Mark Giordano, or Elias Lindholm or who were drafted, on average, 106th, 109th, 110th and 145th respectively in Yahoo leagues, with Lindholm being the choice in my opinion due to his draft position and all-around contributions.

Aside from MVP arguments, the question is what to do with Kane in keepers. It boils down to whether you think he’s finally got his head screwed on straight in San Jose and can keep doing what he’s doing for years to come, or instead is on an extended honeymoon not unlike when first with Atlanta/Winnipeg before his injuries plus off-ice and effort issues crept in. My take is, it’s called sell high for a reason. Most likely there’s a GM in your league who’s prepared to pay – probably even overpay – to get Kane on his or her fantasy team in hopes of the same multi-cat contributions but perhaps with even more points. If so, I think you should be able to fashion a trade where you emerge ahead, plus, in doing so, rid yourself of the risks of owning Kane.

  Topic #3 – What should poolies do about John Gibson for the rest of the season?

Since his return, Gibson has played quite well, having given up two or fewer goals in four of his previous five games through the weekend; yet as we saw before he went on IR, he was regularly getting shelled and, in doing so, hurting fantasy owners. Given this, is it worth holding onto him, or rolling with another goalie during either the home stretch of your roto league or your H2H playoffs?

One key is the news that emerged about Gibson’s injury. It turns out what apparently kept him out of the lineup was an issue with his teeth that was exacerbated when he collided with a teammate. With his teeth now removed, he should be back to his old self, as opposed to a situation where either he could be prone to reinjury or might still have lingering effects of the injury.

That doesn’t address the issue of the team in front of him – the one which is, among other negatives, the fifth worst at giving up shots per game and seventh worst at PP conversion percentage. The detrimental effect of playing for the 2018-19 Ducks is evident in Gibson’s even strength and PP save percentages being the lowest since he took over as the full time Anaheim goalie in 2016-17.

This having been said, teams like the Ducks often finish strong because of pride but also players realizing there might be serious housecleaning in the offseason, prompting them to step up their game. Even still, it could be an slightly uphill climb in that the Ducks play five of their remaining 11 contests on home ice and have fewer games against the NHL’s worst teams (one versus LA, one against Edmonton, and one against Vancouver) as they do against very good to great squads (two versus Calgary, one against Winnipeg, one versus San Jose), with the rest being against teams that are either borderline playoff teams or slightly worse.

Considering all the data, I’ll say in Gibson I trust. When on top of his game he’s arguably a top five NHL netminder in terms of pure talent. And now apparently 100% healthy and on a Ducks team likely looking to end a disappointing season on a positive note, I believe he should be a top 10 netminder over the remainder of the 2018-19 regular season, which is more than good enough to merit a spot in your roto league’s home stretch or H2H playoffs.

  Topic #4 – Is it worth running with Shayne Gostisbehere or Dougie Hamilton over the remainder of the season instead of Seth Jones?

What this question really was asking is whether Hamilton will finally start to produce his usual gaudy second half numbers and if Ghost will recapture his past magic enough to make either one better to own than Jones over the rest of the 2018-19 campaign. While I usually like to look most at data and comparables in framing my answer, I think this is a great opportunity to illustrate how poolies often fall into the trap of overlooking the bird in the hand in favor of what I’ll refer to as “Fantasy FOMO.”

Jones is quietly elite, having produced not just the 14th most points among all blueliners since the start of the 2017-18 campaign, but also being a great end of season performer in his own right, posting 20 points in his final 16 games to end 2017-18. His problem is he’s caught in that area between being a superstar and merely great – a Steady Eddie, so to speak. In contrast, Hamilton and Ghost are currently underperforming for the season but have both been great at times in the past. Poolies often fall into the trap of being tantalized by these types of players, since there’s a chance to get them for a reduced price and because they don’t want to miss out if they do turn things around – hence Fantasy FOMO.

I’m here to tell you that fantasy FOMO, despite its powerful lure, is not something which should be driving your decision making. It preys on fear and emotion, rather than sound judgment. Fantasy FOMO can rear its ugly heading not just in situation like this, but also cause you to exercise bad judgment in taking unproven talents with supposedly high upside over reliable players all but assured to outperform the potential breakout youngsters. It’s up to you to resist Fantasy FOMO, or at least dig deep enough to see if it equates to rational decision making. In this instance, resisting Fantasy FOMO means going with Jones and his solid track record – including during the late portion of a season – over Ghost/Hamilton, both of whom did indeed play great at times in the past but who look to be in bad situations that make it unlikely – on paper – they’ll revert to their former greatness by the end of 2018-19.

  ********

Questions needed for Mailbag column

As a reminder, I’m always seeking questions for my monthly mailbag column, where I answer your fantasy hockey questions. Please continue to send me your questions either by private messaging them to me (rizzeedizzee) via the DobberHockey Forums or by sending an email to admin@dobbersports.com with “Roos Mailbag” as the subject line.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/fantasy-hockey-rick-roos/roos-lets-loose-who-is-the-fantasy-mvp/

[operationrainfall]

Title EARTHLOCK Developer Snowcastle Games Publisher Snowcastle Games Release Date March 8th, 2018 Genre RPG Platform PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, XBox One Age Rating E for Everyone – Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood Official Website

EARTHLOCK might seem like a strange choice after my last RPG review. After all, it was also crowdfunded and developed by a small indie group, so it might seem as though I was stepping into a trap once more. But I’m nothing if not an optimist, so I decided to give EARTHLOCK a shot. It’s actually been on my radar for a while, ever since I saw it listed on Steam and Wii U as Earthlock: Festival of Magic. Turns out it’s a good thing I waited, since this is the most complete version of the game. The question is, was this indie RPG worth the wait? Or should I have left it on my wishlist?

It’s quite evident early on that EARTHLOCK was inspired by RPGs of yore. Several of the typical tropes can quickly be checked off. Mysterious energy source providing magical creatures? Check. Sinister forces at play trying to take over or destroy the world? Check. Band of merry miscreants brought together in common cause? Double check. Honestly the plot is the least interesting thing about the game, despite dropping you into a compelling and rich world. But that’s not to say it’s necessarily a bad thing. Much like Legrand Legacy, EARTHLOCK is more of a loving tribute to the games of our past than just trying to cash in on our nostalgia.

If only you were playable, sweet Frogboy…

One of the things I like most about the game is how well streamlined many aspects of it are. Ranging from the combat, the exploration, the side quests and the crafting, every major part of the game is easy to implement and typically easy to understand. Take crafting, for example. So long as you have a recipe and the right ingredients, you can turn them into new weapons, items and other goodies. Most important are Harvesting seeds, which your lovable bookish Hogbunny Gnart specializes in. By watering plants grown on Plumpet Island or in pots found in cities, you will have more than enough raw ingredients to craft the majority of your healing items, which has the upside of you rarely needing to spend money in stores.

Side quests are as simple as talking to someone to generate them, satisfying their request and then reporting back. While many of them are simple fetch quests and hunting trips, they still provide good experience and other rewards. Best of all, the game makes use of mysterious froggy Onurasi statues to offer a way to warp back to the HUB area of Plumpet Island. It flows like delicately interconnected clockwork, and the upside is that you’ll always know what you’re supposed to be doing, though you are given leeway to wander about.

You can grow nearly all the ingredients you need from your beautiful garden.

Like many classic RPGs, there is a varied cast of characters, and for the most part the tone of the game is whimsical and somewhat laid back. You’ll eventually recruit a group of six very different characters, all with their own personality quirks and distinct combat utility. While part of me does feel there was a missed opportunity not allowing characters to change into different classes and thus offer more replay value, the variety here is still appreciated. That is especially true because each character has two different stances they can alternate between in battle, which provide very dynamic combat options. For example, your thief Amon can steal and poison or switch to a gun-toting stance, which allows him to hit high-flying foes. Another example is Taika, your loyal stormdog who can use elemental breath attacks in one stance and protect the entire team from the elements in another. You can probably tell there’s a lot of nuance in combat, and that’s one of the things I most enjoyed about the game.

Much as I liked the combat, this boss was a giant pain in the ass until I found the Cloak Talents.

One thing the game does differently is the use of Bonds between characters. You can go into battle with two pairs of characters. As they fight together, their Bond will increase, unlocking passive perks (such as immunity from poison or increased critical attack chances) as well as additional Talent Points (more on that later). Each pairing provides different benefits, so it’s in your best interest to constantly change up your teams, since you’ll never know what the next battle may require, especially the boss battles. That Bond is also used for your Super moves, which are essentially powered up versions of their regular attacks that hit multiple targets. While I may have been a bit underwhelmed by the Supers lack of visual and audio flair, they were nevertheless vital in battle.

Additionally, the higher your Bond, the more times you can use the Supers, which is why you never want to go into battle with a pair of units at anything other than max Bond. The only thing that detracted from my desire to max out the Bonds with every character was when I discovered the max level cap for all characters is level 20. While not every game needs to max out at 99, the moment I reached that precipice I lost a lot of interest in casual combat, since doing so only provided a minor amount of Daler (currency in the game) and occasional items for crafting. It didn’t ruin the game for me, but I do hope that Snowcastle Games has designs to implement DLC for EARTHLOCK later on that increases the level cap and gives more areas to explore.

Though I enjoy the battles in the game, I do have to admit they lost their luster in the latter part of the adventure. This is because I had maxed out my levels about 20 hours before I beat the game, which turned the last third of the game into a grindfest. Not for levels, but to get items for crafting and especially for Talents. By using the Talent Board, you can equip your character with Stats, Abilities and Perks. Stat Talents are pretty basic increases to things like Armor (boosting your DEF and Magical DEF) and a variety of others. Ability Talents open up new attacks, but are pretty much character specific, so don’t get too excited about crazy combinations. Perk Talents meanwhile are passive bonuses that help you in combat, such as allowing you to auto revive or providing an extra turn when you dodge an attack. The only catch is having Talents to equip on the Board and having enough TP to equip them, since each placement requires one TP. Luckily, each time you level up or increase your Bond to a certain point, you’ll get more TP. The only thing I didn’t much like about the Talent Board was that you couldn’t remove Talents, only swap them with different ones in your inventory. I would have loved an option to clear my Boards and reapply Talents, but that’s sadly not possible. Overall though, I felt the Talent Board opened up your options in a positive way.

The Talent Board was reminiscent of similar systems in some Final Fantasy games, and opened up some nice options.

Visually, EARTHLOCK is a delight. There’s a certain handcrafted charm to the design, as is evident in the well drawn portraits that show up when the game loads or in the distinct feeling of each area of the game’s world. While the character models are a little more primitive, I still thought they did a good job of exhibiting distinct personality just in their visual style. Though the music in the game is fine, I found it to be really quiet when playing the Switch portably. Anything less than turning it up all the way left the game sounding muted. Even when dialed all the way up, the sound effects lacked the distinct punch or memorable tunes I associate with many classic RPGs. Still, what’s here is obviously lovingly made, so I am not saying this to be cruel, but just to offer my honest appraisal of the art. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but there’s a lot more good than bad.

This handsome gentleman will assist you with all your warping needs.

While I enjoyed my 70 something hours playing EARTHLOCK, I do feel the need to summarize some of my irritations with the game that kept it from a perfect score. Even though overall the game runs fine, I’ve encountered some odd quirks. Perhaps the most perplexing is how one tutorial says to use the X button to activate abilities on the world map, when Y is what actually activates them. This was a bit problematic early on, since you need some of those abilities, such as Gnart eating berries or Amon excavating scrap, to satisfy side quests. More serious was in a couple of dungeons I was exploring and managed to loop to the beginning of one area from its own exit. Visually, the game has a few oddities as well. The Mirror enemies would knock themselves backward with their own attacks, often pushing them off the screen, meaning I couldn’t see their health meter or tell when I was targeting them. Also, the way icons are stacked over character’s heads during battle to indicate buffs or debuffs is very hard to translate in a coherent way, especially when there a bunch of them.

It’s a pretty wide world to discover.

While I do like the crafting aspects of the game, it’s sometimes hard to know where to go to get the right items for recipes. Many are only found in quests or by hunting monsters, which was exacerbated since the bestiary doesn’t show you what their drops are. Also, since you mostly craft all your items, I wish there was an option to split a crafted item into its component parts to use to them in crafting higher tier items (Spud Blast and Spud Blast+, for example). Lastly, I wish you didn’t have to return to the HUB area of Plumpet Island to warp to other Onurasi statues. In a game so well streamlined, it would have made more sense if you could jump from any statue to another one.

The camera mostly behaved on the world map, though occasionally I encountered issues like this.

All in all, I’m glad I finally got the opportunity to take this game off my wishlist. I did enjoy my time with EARTHLOCK, and felt I got a really solid little RPG for $29.90. Though there are some quirks that prevented this from a perfect score, there’s a lot more to enjoy, from the crafting to the combat to the characters. While I do wish the plot was a bit more elegantly crafted, since it mostly felt like a haphazard rollercoaster ride, what’s here is a worthy effort. If you are nostalgic for the RPGs of yore and want to play one on the go, you need to pick up EARTHLOCK on your Switch.

Never forget, Gnart is the very best Hogbunny!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″]

Review Copy Provided By Publisher

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REVIEW: EARTHLOCK Title EARTHLOCK

[kimbachronicles]

But now we have each other

“Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.” 

Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

2.19.18

It’s 7:30pm, a Resident Advisor (we’ll call her Lindsay) at the University of Michigan addresses the staff of RAs to discuss an area of improvement. Without wanting to trigger fellow staff, she mentions the need to address current events during staff meetings. Everyone solemnly looks at her. The issue that is at the forefront of Lindsay’s mind? The recent killings of innocent students at a high school in Florida. And the fear the students and staff may be impacted or know someone who is. How can we support them? She asks. How can we be more aware in addressing these kinds of things? Everyone remains quiet.

It's 11:15pm and I’m thinking back to the earlier conversation. Seventeen. That is the number etched in my mind. It’s the number of people that were killed as a result of the gun massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It happened 5 days ago on Valentine’s Day - Wednesday, February 14, 2018. That this day of love, so characterized by hearts and feelings of connection, could be so marred with hate and death is disheartening. Heartbreaking. 

From the start, the news media are all on it. Questions abounding, they want to know exactly why would someone do something like this? What is the motive? In the days afterwards, it becomes apparent that the killer, a 19 year old who was recently expelled from the school, has returned to wreak havoc on the lives of hundreds of people. But why? So far, a fascination with death and killing. Maybe he has a mental illness, people ask. Maybe he’s crazy. I mean, he has to be mentally unstable. Only someone with a history of mental illness would resort to such ghastly violence. 

The usual media suspects on the prowl include CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Social media has their share as well, with Facebook, twitter and many other sites pouring in with articles and thought pieces, blogs and other social posts debating about the role of government, law and oh...whether or not gun control is the most appropriate response. Some, particularly on the political right, question whether or not gun control should ever be a response to gun violence. Out comes the trite adage: “guns don’t kill people, people kill people!” 

Worse, politicians engage vigorously, taking opportunities to relish in or repel against calls to make drastic changes. Many come out the woodwork with lengthy or savvy, curt, posts and tweets about the horrible state of our society. And then of course, thoughts and prayers are given with very little actual effort made to do anything about the impending doom that comes at the cost of guns. Held dearly are the freedoms of gun toting zealots. Babbling and pandering. Nothing new. 

In comes the memes. You know the ones I'm talking about. Like this one: 

step 1: a mass shooting occurs 

step 2: Congress sends thoughts and prayers

step 3: someone suggests gun control 

step 4: lobbyist contact congressman 

step 5: Congress says it's too early 

step 6: no one does anything 

step 7: go to 1

I have to admit I love memes, I am even tempted to post, like, and share them. I know I've shared or liked this one in the past, so I know it to be true for me. But as the day nears night, and time passes, I’m less convinced this is enough. Furthermore, while such memes help capture a reality that feels surreal, it provides an eerie entrypoint into sustaining the very normalization that it seeks to expose. Lastly, after so many likes and shares, it sorta sits on me.... “so that's it...we just shout and scream, like and repost, while nothing gets done?” And of course, no one, as in no politician, does anything so we just wait around for another mass shooting.

Then I chuckle a little. No one? Surely there are politicians that are invested in gun reform. And there are hundreds and thousands of people every day fighting for changes in gun violence. But we never hear about it. Some include Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, The Brady Campaign, Americans for Responsible Solutions, and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. But you’d think there was no hope or that there isn’t anyone who seems to be doing anything about it. That’s what meme culture and social media can do for you. Encourage you to be lazy, take everthing as the gospel truth, generate victim-mentality and foster hopelessness. But there is a lot of reasons to be worried. 

The stats are harrowing. Guns represent 96 deaths a day, 13,000 gun homicides a year, suicides account for 62% of deaths, 7 children and teens are killed every day, while black men are 13 times more likely than white men to be killed. Sadly, the National Rifle Association has made it their priority to fund politicians who will do next to nothing to change these statistics. For example, Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida and vocal opponent of gun reform, has been the beneficiary of $3,303,355 over his political career. In the 2016 presidential race alone, they paid $30 million into opposing Hillary and supporting then- candidate Donald Trump.

Now as president, and in the wake of the attack he’s declared support of arming teachers to deter violence. Sadly, our government leaders have gone from wanting to do next to nothing to prevent this from happening to possibly exacerbating the situation and giving one more training/expectation for teachers to worry about in addition to the myriad of problems facing them. 

The reality is that none of this seems right. Not on any planet, let alone planet Earth - where humans are threatened by any idea that challenges their nativist values, while being hellbent on destroying any form of life, especially their own. As I listen to story after story, post after post online, I can’t help but wonder when are we going to collectively agree that guns by their very design are destructive, dangerous tools. While anti-gun policies are well meaning they don’t address concerns about who is best to arm themselves? Is the answer police? 

If that is the case, clearly that hasn’t historically been the best for citizenry -especially minorities and the disempowered; even when they are unarmed. On the flip side, wholesale distribution with limited restrictions, constant flooding of guns into society and now the possibility of teachers carrying guns in their classroom is disastrous. We avert one set of problems (the police being in total control/killers having little to no detterent to cary out their heinous desires) only to take on another set (police/society fearing for their safety/over-burdening teachers). 

Yes we need more background check policies. Yes mental health may be a factor. Though apparently not by more than about 4% of cases, (thereby making this out to be a major player is simply wrong and unfounded.) Yes guns are bad AND there are people who have bad intentions. But none of this has to be an either-or kind of scenario. It’s possible to severely restrict guns in this country to certain types and times to use them. It’s also possible to find security measures that can be put into place to protect and support students in crisis. And yes, it’s possible to have more training for teachers to address situations like this without giving them a gun and asking them to play warrior police officer.  The stakes are high, probably higher than ever before. And there are ways that we can address gun control as a public health concern and not simply a political hot potato. It’s irresponsible, reckless, hurtful and insensitive to go on this way, pretending that if all we could do is get more guns into the hands of good guys, all will be well. This is a lie and a fantasy. Furthermore, we lose sight of why guns are dangerous and instead promote additional time/energy anxiety and fears. 

We have to end the cycle of violence, starting with the way we talk about guns, how we perpetuate and normalize gun violence and how we heal from pain. If we can be honest and authentic about the revolutionary thought processes behind reinventing the way guns are seen and used, we can peak into the window of possibility that comes with daring to be, by promoting life-saving and affirming practices rather than self-destructive ones. 

It starts with choosing life over death, love over hate, gun restrictions over gun proliferation. It also requires us to listen generous to the testimonials of survivors, along with the pain and the sadness that comes with it. Finally, we must have and show empathy and compassion - even to those we dislike or with whom we disagree passionately. My prescription: we must embrace a culture of love, so that we never need to rely on a culture of fear. And one day, we might be able to say, “way back when, we used to have guns. But now we have each other.”