#NOT EVEN THE FAULT OF THE GAME ITSELF its just the people i played with 😭 why was i doing that to myself.

[hyperthinks]

every time i remember my overwatch era (essentially my entire life age 15-17) i break out in hives. help

[prokopetz]

I think a lot of folks in indie RPG spaces misunderstand what's going on when people who've only ever played Dungeons & Dragons claim that indie RPGs are categorically "too complicated". Yes, it's sometimes the case that they're making the unjustified assumption that all games are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons and shying away from the possibility of having to brave a steep learning cure a second time, but that's not the whole picture.

A big part of it is that there's a substantial chunk of the D&D fandom – not a majority by any means, but certainly a very significant minority – who are into D&D because they like its vibes or they enjoy its default setting or whatever, but they have no interest in actually playing the kind of game that D&D is... so they don't.

Oh, they'll show up at your table, and if you're very lucky they might even provide their own character sheet (though whether it adheres to the character creation guidelines is anyone's guess!), but their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice, then reporting what number they rolled and letting the GM figure out what that means.

Basically, they're putting the GM in the position of acting as their personal assistant, onto whom they can offload any parts of the process of play that they're not interested in – and for some players, that's essentially everything except the physical act of rolling the dice, made possible by the fact most of D&D's mechanics are either GM-facing or amenable to being treated as such.*

Now, let's take this player and present them with a game whose design is informed by a culture of play where mechanics are strongly player facing, often to the extent that the GM doesn't need to familiarise themselves with the players' character sheets and never rolls any dice, and... well, you can see where the wires get crossed, right?

And the worst part is that it's not these players' fault – not really. Heck, it's not even a problem with D&D as a system. The problem is D&D's marketing-decreed position as a universal entry-level game means that neither the text nor the culture of play are ever allowed to admit that it might be a bad fit for any player, so total disengagement from the processes of play has to be framed as a personal preference and not a sign of basic incompatibility between the kind of game a player wants to be playing and the kind of game they're actually playing.

(Of course, from the GM's perspective, having even one player who expects you to do all the work represents a huge increase to the GM's workload, let alone a whole group full of them – but we can't admit that, either, so we're left with a culture of play whose received wisdom holds that it's just normal for GMs to be constantly riding the ragged edge of creative burnout. Fun!)

* Which, to be clear, is not a flaw in itself; a rules-heavy game ideally needs a mechanism for introducing its processes of play gradually.

[p0orbaby]

Too Hot To Handle

summary: Alexia doesn’t want the past to repeat itself

warnings: a smidge of heatstroke, and a collapse, how fun

a/n: thanks for the request !

word count: 828

-

Record temperatures they said.

You can believe it.

The aircon was dearly missed as soon as you stepped off the bus.

“Aquí”. You turn to find a bottle of water being eagerly pushed into your empty hands. “Necesitas mantenerte hidratado”

“I’ve just finished one” you tell her, ready to put the bottle in your backpack for safe keeping. But the look she gives you tells you there’s no room for arguments. You roll your eyes at her stubbornness, “thanks, Ale”

“De nada”

Girlfriend, captain, synonyms of each other, really. Her protectiveness spans over both mantles. That’s Alexia for you, in control of every situation, regardless of whether football is involved or not.

You take the bottle from her with the intention of sipping on it as you get changed for warm-ups, but she grabs your wrist and stops you from following your teammates into the stadium.

“Ahora, cariño”

“Alexia,” you start, very aware of the horde of fans calling for the two of you. “I’ll be pissing like a horse if I have any more right now”

She looks at you with a furrowed brow and a tilt of her head. Her English has improved immensely since you’ve been together, but even now some phrases catch her out.

“Necesito el baño” you clarify.

She relents, partly because the sun is beating down on her, partly because she doesn’t want to make a scene in front of the sea of traveling blaugrana.

Their dedication is rewarded with a wave and a smile from her, and a shrug of the shoulders from you as you're whisked away towards the changing rooms.

-

The game started as usual, but the scorching sun quickly turned every movement into a struggle. The hydration breaks were a welcome respite, yet even those seemed insufficient as the match wore on. You pushed yourself, focusing on the ball, the strategies, and your teammates, but the heat was unrelenting.

With every sprint, your legs grew heavier, and your head pounded in rhythm with your racing heart. You caught glimpses of Alexia, her worry evident despite her composed exterior. She was always perceptive, always attuned to you, and now was no different.

You ignored the warning signs, convincing yourself you could handle it, that you had to push through for the team. But as the game entered its final stretch, your vision began to tunnel, and a wave of dizziness washed over you.

Just a few more minutes, you thought, trying to steady yourself. But your body had other plans.

The ground felt like it was moving beneath you, your legs buckling under the strain. You stumbled, hearing a distant shout, but before you could process what was happening, everything went dark.

-

She still blames herself, even after all this time.

You weren’t together then, not quite. The lines between teammates and more were starting to blur as your relationship blossomed in the shadows.

You know she feels guilty for not keeping a closer eye on you during that match, afraid that her concern would draw too much attention to the two of you. She didn’t want people to find out about your relationship before you were ready to go public. The secrecy made her hesitant, and she worries that her hesitation contributed to your collapse.

You’ve told her countless times that it wasn’t her fault, that she couldn’t have known. But Alexia, ever the leader and protector, took it to heart. Since then, she’s been extra vigilant, constantly checking in, making sure you’re taking care of yourself.

Today’s heat brings those memories back, and you can see the worry etched on her face despite her attempts to stay focused on the game.

You push yourself to play smart, to stay aware of your limits, knowing that’s the best way to ease her mind. As the match progresses, you find yourself glancing at her frequently, sharing small smiles and nods of reassurance. Each time your eyes meet, there’s a silent understanding between you, a promise that you’ll both be careful.

When the final whistle blows, signaling a hard-fought victory, you make your way over to Alexia. She’s already looking your way, concern and relief in her eyes. But before you can even say a word, she’s ushering you towards the shade near the bench, her hand firm on your back.

“Drink,” she says, shoving another bottle of water into your hand.

She must mean business if she's dusting off language number three.

“Ale, I’m fine,” you start, but she cuts you off with a determined look cutting through her sweaty features.

“Drink,” she repeats. Deadly serious.

You sigh but comply, taking a few sips to placate her. “¿Lo veis? I’m drinking”

She nods, but her eyes scan you from head to toe, making sure you’re really okay. “Bien. Continúa”

You know there’s no point in arguing, so you take another sip. “Happy?”

“Por ahora,” she mutters, still watching you closely. She doesn’t relax until you’ve downed half the bottle.

[dystopianam]

Tips on how to avoid and reduce the Pink Flashing - "Masterpost"

Look here for other masterposts!

⚠️ THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE ""GUIDE"". I won't be updating this post and I've explained why here. In this post I only wrote some advice, so you won't find an entire research on Pink Flashing. Please read other REAL guides if you are interested in that. Unfortunately, deleting the post wouldn't make sense since the reblogs would remain.

What is the Pink Flashing?

The Pink flashing, also called Pink Soup, is a graphical error that occurs when the game thinks it has reached the limit of its memory capacity to read the game's textures even if your PC is much more powerful and the configurations made to the game itself are very high and can hold much much more.

When this arrives, gradually an object or sim will start flashing pink and purple or even EVERYTHING will start flashing pink.

This type of error can occur both in game and on Bodyshop, and as many people mistakenly think, it is NOT a symptom of corruption. And it's not even a hardware problem of your PC. It's not your PC's fault, it's not dying, it's simply the game that's unstable.

What should I do when this occurs?

First of all, DON'T PANIC, it's nothing serious. The only thing you need to do is save the game before it crashes (because yes, it usually crashes after the pink flashing occurs), close the game and reopen it. When you reboot it, the pink flashing will be gone.

AND don't worry if some previews of your sims remain pink. They will update as you play (the fastest way to update them is to have your sim change clothes or change their appearance in the mirror)

@2fingerswhiskeysims added that another method is to minimize the game, leave the PC to rest for a few hours and then reopen the game. The pink flashing should then go away on its own (I would just recommend saving before doing so, because it's not a method that works for everyone. For example it often crashes immediately after the pink flashing appears or even just minimizing it makes it crash if it's like my game that even if you look to it by mistake it crashes)

Is there a way to increase the graphics capabilities of my game?

Yes, there is, and you should do it regardless of the pink flashing, to make your game more stable. This will NOT eliminate the risk of pink flashing, but will reduce it and make the game crash after hours and hours of play rather than after a few minutes or half an hour as happens to some.

What you need to do is make your own graphic rules that adapt the game to your video card and install the 4GB patch. This guide from Pleasantsim explains how to install both (as well as providing other tips for stability and improving graphics)

Another tip that many give is to use the Sims2RPC Launcher by LazyDuchess, as many say it has made their game more stable, while others say it has increased their Pink Flashing, so I think it's very subjective whether using this launcher is better or worse.

Is there a way to eliminate it or avoid it?

There is no fix for this problem and there is no way to eliminate it, although LazyDuchess is doing some research to see if it can be done. BUT I can give you some advice on how to avoid it for as long as possible (it will still appear after a few hours, but I can tell you what to do to be able to play safely for as long as possible)

From my personal experience, I understand that pink flashing occurs when the game needs to read a lot of thumbnails (of hairs and clothes expecially) and when you visit too many lots in the same game session or you visit a single huge lot full of objects. So, what you need to do is:

Save before changing your sims appearance (whether it's a change of hair or clothes) because the game almost always tends to crash after a long or sometimes even short makeover session. (It depens on how many ccs you have)

Avoid changing your sims hair if you don't have to. One of the causes of pink flashing is reading all the thumbnails of the hair in the game, especially if you have a lot of cc hair and getting to the last page or halfway through is very tiring for you and for your game that have to read all the thumbnails. It doesn't matter if the game already has them cached, pink flashing doesn't care.

Avoid changing your sims clothes if you don't have to change them (so avoid needlessly looking at all the clothes you have, in your wardrobe or in shop mode as if it were your closet at home). Just like with hair, pink flashing is triggered by reading too many thumbnails, especially if you have a lot of cc clothes. As with hair, it doesn't matter if the game has already cached thumbnails of all the clothes you have. Pink Flashing doesn't care. BUT unlike hair, for clothes I found a solution (which I hope is not a coincidence that only works for me). Unfortunately this took away the pleasure of going to the shops to buy clothes, but it avoided crashes and Pink Flashing. Basically, I discovered (and I don't know why) that if I use Pescado Clothing Tool, for some mystical reason the game doesn't crash and doesn't trigger pink flashing (I can even spend hours scrolling through all my many ccs and it doesn't annoys my game at all)

Last but not least, pink flashing can also be caused by reading too many thumbnails in buy mode or visiting too many lots during the same gaming session. Unfortunately there isn't much to do here, my only advice is to save very often when you edit lots, and to avoid visiting different lots too much if you don't need to (don't worry, your sims don't suffer from claustrophobia and can stay in their homes very well). If you have to edit a lot of lots, use a game session ONLY for that, because changing lots and scrolling through the buy mode there will be a lot of pink flashing very soon, at some point. At least you will have the knowledge that it will arrive any moment and you won't have to stress while you are in live mode.

To summarize, pink flashing is triggered by:

Scroll too much hair pages in "edit appearance" mode.

Scroll too much clothes pages in "change clothing" mode.

Scroll too much furnitures in "buy/build mode"

Open/go in many different lots in the same game session.

Use very big lots with a lots of objects.

Apartment lots (these ones are a hell for PF)

AND the snow. Yes, when the terrain change in "snowy" mode, this trigger the PF a lot. You can disable the snow with mods if you want or simply save the game before the terrain changes and hope that it will not happen.

@brandinotbroke added that the shaders trigger Pink Soup. But when it comes to shaders this time it also depends a lot on the hardware capacity of your PC, and it's not just a game problem. Both the game's shaders themselves, additional shaders and default replacement shaders downloaded from the internet could cause problems. If you think this is the problem, the solution is to use the "userShader off" cheat. BUT this doesn't always mean that your computer can't handle that particular shader. Often some shaders need to be downloaded in their version to be compatible with other shaders. So try to differentiate the difference between an unsupported shader and a shader that is not compatible with another, always read the description of the creator's post carefully. (For example: the "Better Night Life" shader conflicts with Voielle's water shaders and for this reason there is a BNL shader compatible with Voielle's water. IF you used the normal shader instead of the compatible one, any object that works with BNL shaders will be affected by Pink Soup.)

@goingsimcrazy added that many hood deco, high quality setting, high DOF and lot impostors can trigger pink flashing. However, this is a mix between "your PC's hardware capabilities" and basically...player luck. Sometimes players with latest generation gaming PCs cannot handle the hood decos and players who play with toasters play surrounded by hood decos, so here isn't very clear how The Sims 2... decides its capacity and compatibility criteria. But anyway, if you think that your hood deco, lot impostors, high graphics qualities and DOF (distance of field) are TOO MUCH and that your PC cannot support them, simply deactivate and lower the graphics settings from the settings!

BUT @goingsimcrazy also pointed out a detail that I wanted to add too but forgot. Basically, deleting the thumbnails cache is of no use, it doesn't solve the pink flashing problem, in fact it makes it worse. I won't give you a computer lesson but in simple terms I'll explain it to you like this: caches are used to store information so that when you open a software, the software takes information from the cache file and speeds up its reading capacity. If you delete the thumbnails cache every two days what you are doing is practically punching yourself, because not only are you slowing down the game, but by doing so you force it to regenerate the thumbnails every single time, thus causing crashes and pink flashing. Delete the thumbnails ONLY if you have changed a huge number of default replacements and need to update the previews OR press CTRL + right click of the mouse on the individual preview you want to refresh.

@fireflowersims also added this, that it's very important, please read!

Small clarification to finish:

Sometimes pink flashing is also caused by very long gaming sessions (so even if you don't do any of the things listed, at some point it will still happen, but I'm talking about more than 4/5 hours of gaming).

Many of the things listed may be stupid and already known, many of you will be reading and thinking "the genius has arrived", but I have seen many people suffer from pink flashing, not understanding what trigghed it and doing A LOT of the things that trigghed it the most. (I watched a lot of gameplay on YouTube where this happened).

So...I hope I helped someone and if someone know other things that trigger PF let me know, I'll add it to this post!

[mt-oe]

I’ve just been highly obsessed over modern Mizu. So I’m just asking for that, modern Mizu meets reader at uni or something like that! I love LOVE your writing!! 💖💖

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Hey dear!

Thank you so much for the request! I hope you don't mind if I add a bit more to this <3 I've been wanting to write modern au Mizu hcs and your request really granted me the opportunity to do so.

Also, I'm so sorry for being so slow on the requests. I've been so eepy lately for some reason and I can't fight against it, like I tried but failed so many times ;; I am a slave to my own body

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Mwa mwa :*

warning/s: not proofread, she/her for mizu, implied afab reader, game reference (league of legends)

general headcanons

✦ This woman would either overload or underload her units like crazy. She'd either be busy with her academics and work 6 days a week, even sending a letter to the admin so she can go past the mandated maximum amount of units in one semester or doing absolutely nothing while the rest of her friends are going apeshit on their finals. There's no in between.

She would plan it like an absolute psychopath too. Nothing special foreseeably happening in the next semester? She's going above and beyond. A convention she wants to go to on September? Signing up for the bare minimum amount of allowed units just for one event.

Her friends are either concerned for her and losing contact for a whole semester, or are pissed off that she's playing some kind of gacha game on her phone while they're losing their minds on their finals.

✦ Would be the type to be so pissed off by slow walkers in the hallway. The hatred she has for people who walk so fucking slow in the hallway is unbridled. Though she's not the type to pick fights, she'd be the type to sigh loudly, making you feel her anger, before overtaking and wouldn't be afraid to bump against the person if needed. Her hatred goes deep enough to the point where she even remembers people JUST because they walk slow.

✦ The type of friend who would walk to everything. Sure she has her motorbike, but if she can walk to it, you bet she's going to walk. She even knows different shortcuts to different buildings on campus.

"This looks like a good place," Akemi tells them, showing her phone. For once, their vacant hours finally aligned and they've been trying to find a good place to eat since the lunch hall food was getting repetitive and they could feel their taste buds dulling over time. Akemi, being the 'what do you guys want to eat?' friend, and the other three, being the 'I don't know' or the 'I'm fine with whatever' friends, is left to search for a new place.

They took a look at the place and shrugged in agreement, making her roll her eyes at their lack of opinion. "Okay but how are we going to go there?" Taigen asks. Mizu takes Akemi's phone and looks up the map to the place. The distance itself was enough to tell a person that they should take the bus. Hell, it was on the other side of town almost.

"We can walk. It's not that far," she says, closing the map and handing Akemi her phone back. They trusted Mizu. It couldn't be that bad.

Right?

By the time they arrived at the restaurant, they were already sweating, ready to give up, tired out of their wits. The food wasn't even worth it anymore.

"It's not that far" my ass.

Even Taigen, her fellow gym rat and workout buddy, was fucking exhausted. And this bitch (affectionately), has the audacity to stand there, crossing her arms with the most unamused expression on her face as if it was their fault for being so exhausted. If she tells you its walking distance, it is NOT within walking distance.

✦ She's a jack-of-all trades type of person, but she'd have the fattest fucking talent crush on anyone who can express themselves through art. The talents and skills she gathered were purely out of necessity. Fixing and modifying bikes was the only thing she was truly passionate about but it's hard to be expressive through repairing motorbikes, right?

She has always been so amazed by stories of painters, sculptors, singers, and writers who have deep backstories and can reflect it through their art. She would be the type to read the whole description in art museums just because she's so amazed by them.

Deep inside her, she wished she could do that too. To express herself through a medium. Like what do you mean you wrote this poem because you're sad your cat died? Or what do you mean you took this professional-looking picture just because you had the best picnic date with your friends? How can someone write a song about casual sapphic sex? She can't even vocalize her feelings, how much more in art? Whenever she sees someone writing their English essay so well or drawing randomly, she'd secretly be so interested.

✦ Mizu would have social media accounts but would use it bare minimum. She'd be that type of classmate that you're not sure if it's really her because she doesn't have a profile picture you can check or if she does, it's like a picture of an item instead of her face.

Her friends would be so happy whenever Mizu posts an IG story even if it's just a picture of where they were eating or even if their face is barely in the picture.

"Aww you posted us!" and they're like little ants with how small they were in the picture.

Or

"Do you want to eat at that place again?" and she'd be like 'what? why?' but they'd know she actually enjoyed the food because she bothered posting a picture of the place.

Deep inside her, Mizu wants to keep up with whatever trends her friends are into but she's very lowkey about it. The tough love friend who secretly really enjoys being friends, y'know? She'd search about it and try to figure it out. Everyone's surprised by her internet knowledge since she always acts like she wouldn't give a shit whatever new trend is on.

✦ This sounds so corny and stereotypical, but Taigen and her would be those gym rats who solve everything by working out. It didn't matter if it was a weekday, a weekend, a holiday, or whatever weather condition was going on outside, they are going.

They failed a test? Gym. Hungover? Gym. Too much homework? Gym.

When Megan Thee Stallion said she'll go to the gym two times a day, they go three. When she said the results are resulting? The body is bodying? These two are taking it seriously.

Taigen would focus on biceps, chest, and lats, cutting down on fat so his body would look more lean. He'd hate leg day but would do it anyway just to balance out his physique.

Meanwhile, Mizu would have a 'sleeper-type' build and her routine would be more well-rounded and would even include calisthenics on her free time. They'd try to beat each other's PR but it really ain't a competition when Mizu is always winning.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

how did you two meet?

Stupid shitty project.

Stupid fucking publisher gatekeeping the fucking article.

Stupid bitch ass school wifi keeps disconnecting.

Mizu resisted the urge to slam her laptop shut as her device disconnected from the wifi for the nth time. She was stuck in the library trying to finish her midterm project for building design system and holy shit was she frustrated.

She needed to create a specific building design that was supposed to be environmentally friendly, using what was considered as 'green materials' and had minimally destructive designs. It wouldn't be so bad if this fucking publisher just had to put a price on the article she needed. Wasn't education supposed to be free or whatever?

Her friends tried to help her, telling her to use the library computers, but none of them were working or free at the moment. That leaves her to use her laptop in the library. Usually, that wouldn't be a problem but due to the recent rains, the school wifi has been pretty shitty.

After a few more tries, she decided that this wasn't worth the frustration and trouble, and decided to collect her things to get ready to leave. Just as she was about to zip up her bag, a tap on the shoulder stopped her. She turned around to look at who was trying to get her attention, ready to tell them off. But upon turning around, her heart skipped a beat.

There you stood.

In your oh-so fancy sweatpants and college logo hoodie (whose logo wasn't even the university's). Your hair was ruffled and messy, eyes tired and more exhausted than her's. Understandably so though. It was hell week and everyone was tired, but somehow, your tired looked so pretty.

Her eyes continued to stare at you. Like the world stopped moving and it was just you and her in the room.

"Umm...there's a free computer over there if you still need it," you said shyly but in a straightforward manner. A small tired smile on your lips, trying to appear as friendly as possible. Mizu snapped out of her trance and nodded, slinging her bag over her shoulder to move to the said computer.

Maybe she'll stay for a bit. To finish her midterm project.

Definitely not for the pretty lady.

No, of course not.

Upon sitting down, she couldn't help but sneak glances at you, looking back down at the screen when you looked in her direction. She felt stupid, like a lovestruck fool. Borderline, like a child getting their first actual crush.

In her mind, she was already planning how to approach you without making it awkward. Maybe she'll try to strike up a conversation? But how? Hmmm..

It definitely took a while, being distracted and all, but she was finally able to finish her report. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself mentally to talk to you. She stood up and stretched after logging herself out, pretending to look around the room but in reality she was looking for you.

Much to her dismay, you were no where to be found. A small "fuck" left her lips as she sighed, picking her bag up. The universe must hate her. Giving her an opportunity to see the most beautiful person she's ever seen only for them to leave early? Fuck.

Her thoughts continued to plague her for the rest of the day, even until the next morning. It sounded so silly and so stupid for her to be this bothered, but she really just couldn't forget you. She sighed once again as she stared at the lecture hall walls, face hidden against her palms.

"Excuse me. Do you have an extra pencil?" a voice asked as she felt a tap on her shoulder. Looking up grouchily, her eyes widened immediately.

It was you.

And this time, she wasn't going to let this opportunity pass.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

but what now? (girlfriend headcanons)

✦ Mizu would absolutely remember EVERYTHING about you. Your birthday, MBTI score, favorites, dislikes, and even the silliest things such as what makes you sneeze.

She has a second brain for these, an internal SSD in her brain just for you. You won't even have to remind her about anything, because she already planned it out before you remember.

It's especially great for errands since you don't have to give her a list, she already has a list in her brain. Sometimes, you'd think she forgot because she's so quiet about it but she always finds a way to prove you wrong. If she says she forgot something about you, it's a lie. She never forgets, especially when it comes to her girlfriend.

✦ Would pretend to not understand or know how to do something just so you could teach or show her. Mizu definitely has a lot of skill up her sleeves, but whenever you asked if she knew something that she knew you were good at, she'd pretend not to.

"So I just click like this?" she asked you through the call, clicking on a minion. You had enthusiastically called her, asking if she wanted to learn how to play League of Legends. Unknown to you, your girlfriend already knew how to play and was quite good at it (that's a lie, she's beyond good).

She couldn't help but smile slightly as she watched you nod enthusiastically. The thought of you being so eager to spend time with her was heart-warming. She even made a dummy account just to make her beginner act look believable. "Yeah, you just need to keep this up. So should we queue together?" you asked, sounding really excited.

Mizu chuckled and nodded. "Don't get mad at me, okay?" she joked lightly, accepting your invite. "I won't. I'll be the ADC so you can play support until you get the hang of it, okay?" you said, checking which ADR champions you had cool skins of. Your girlfriend let out a small laugh at your enthusiasm, signaling you to start the queue.

The game went really well. Extremely well.

To your surprise, Mizu was quite a good support. Never accidentally stealing your CS, always being there during a clash, skill shots always hitting, knowing who to focus on. "It's because you're good at teaching people," she said.

But really, you wonder how she knew which items to build when you never even taught her.

✦ Would do the most random or the smallest things for you. She's not good at expressing her feelings so she makes up for it through acts of service and gift giving. Mizu tries her best to be as loving as she can without overwhelming you.

Can you even remember the last time you tied your own shoelaces? You can't. Can you?

Sometimes, you'll be surprised to arrive home with the fridge already stocked even though you had told her that you'll do the groceries on your next day off. The only response you'll get is a shake of her head and a random thing you mentioned you wanted to buy.

Sometimes, she's a bit silly though. Putting in the effort to remove her jacket to shield you from the rain even though you had an umbrella, removing the buckle of your helmet so she'd be the one to put it on you, gifting you random goofy greeting cards.

It's both endearing and a bit funny.

✦ Secretly loves it when you put makeup on her or if you let her do your makeup. Her amazement and fascination skyrockets whenever she watched you put make up on. It was a line of femininity that she was never taught to cross. She'd watch you with deep interest, observing how carefully you did it, how purposeful each step you did was.

"So why do you put it on?" she asks. You hum in thought before shrugging. "It just...makes me feel pretty."

What do you mean it makes you feel pretty?

You were already pretty.

You can't help but laugh at her and her curiosity. "It just does. It feels therapeutic to put on and I like how I look after, it's like expressing myself or something. Like painting but on your face," you explained to her, making her raise an eyebrow.

"But what if you don't like the way it looks?" she asked, picking up your eyeshadow palette and swatching a color on her hand curiously. "I can always take it off," you answered, blending the blush on your cheeks.

She stayed silent for a moment, continuing to swatch the colors on her hand. Her mind still couldn't wrap around the fact that this could make you feel better. Its just color and chemicals, and it washes off too.

Your eyes scanned her face before a soft laugh left your lips. "Here. Want to try?" you offered. Your girlfriend looked a bit hesitant but she wanted to understand.

Was this really fun?

After a few minutes, some struggles and squirming, you finally finished putting some make up on her. You tried your best to make it look as natural and as light as possible, knowing that she wouldn't appreciate the texture of heavy makeup immediately.

Blue eyes scanned over her own face on the mirror. She didn't say anything, but the slight twitch of her lips and the shine in her eyes spoke thousands.

"I want to do it on you too," she said quietly. "At least one thing. Let me try to do it for you."

You heart melted at her excitement. How could you refuse her when she finally finds something she likes? You handed her your eyeliner and sat down. "Here, follow my instructions.."

Mizu actually ended up liking it. Although she enjoyed putting it on you more, she still enjoyed it nonetheless. The amount of practice she put in made you wonder if she was actually better than you now. Somehow, she felt a bit of relief and a bit happy that she finally found something she could do that was considered as 'artistic'.

What started off as a simple "let me try" ended up being part of your routine. This woman never stopped practicing different eyeliner looks and now she just sits on your bed, waiting for you to finish your routine so she can put it on you. Sometimes she'd do a more creative graphic liner look, but on days you had to go to uni or work, she'd do the usual. She could probably do it with her eyes closed.

And the results?

SHARP.

Capital S H A R P.

[spitblaze]

Mouthwashing spoilers below cut, played through it again today bc i accidentally nullified all of my achievements through the dev console. oops

Okay so the first time I played through it I was high and it was very late at night. Already a great start but it means I missed some shit my first time through and I'm already not exactly stellar at more abstract literary analysis. LUCKILY this site is full of people who are way better at that than I am (and im convincing my partners who are also way better at it than I am to play it soon too).

Luckily I'm better at lit analysis than whoever the weirdo on the Steam forum saying this game is bad because it 'doesn't punish Jimmy for his actions enough' as if this isnt a horror game primarily about his guilt-induced mental breakdown and if i have to see anyone else say that anya is a poorly written character im going to poorly write them out of existence because I'm inclined to believe that if you think that you either weren't fucking paying attention or have subscribed to the Joss Whedon school of feminist writing which is 'good writing of women is when they are girlboss'. like sorry shes too much of a depressed traumatized Fawn Response rape victim for your liking. jesus christ

Anyway the game being short DOES lend itself well to multiple playthroughs, which honestly is for the best because its really one of those stories that reveals a lot more on a second viewing. There's a Lot going on here but as far as I can tell, the biggest themes here are what it means to 'take responsibility' as well as autonomy and the loss thereof. The responsibility one is for sure the most obvious one, how many times in the game does it directly say 'take responsibility'? How many times does Curly say 'I'll fix this', how many times does Jimmy say he'll 'fix this'? And ultimately, how successful are either of them?

Curly's a good leader, sure, but how much does he just let slide for the sake of 'the big picture'? Daiske was a last minute addition. He's a good kid, but he didn't make a stink about it. Gotta think about the big picture. Anya has told him about what Jimmy did to her. Nothing. 'What would you do?' 'Anything.' But nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm not gonna sit here and say that Curly is 100% every bit as evil as Jimmy, if someone is raped the blame falls squarely on the rapist- but it's completely on Curly for not taking action against Jimmy for the sake of the big picture. He really could've done anything. Fucking anything. It's not necessarily on Curly to foresee that Jimmy's stress response would be to end it and take everyone else with him. But it was on him to do something about a known violent assault and its perpetrator before anyone else got hurt. He's not a perpetrator, but he's an accessory. He may not have deserved the punishment he got. But he's nothing if not agonizingly aware of the consequences for not taking responsibility for the actions of his crew.

Jimmy, meanwhile, is obsessed with responsibility despite the fact that he's incapable of actually handling it, from the very start. It's not clear when exactly he assaulted Anya, but I assume it was after Curly broke the news to the crew. The moment even a shred of consequences emerge, the minute Anya tells him that she's pregnant, his first course of action is to deliberately sabotage the ship. Murder-suicide. He says he's sorry. That he made a mistake. As if there were not multiple, deliberate steps at which he could've stopped and realized what he was doing. After everything, he tells the crew it was Curly's fault so he could have more of that responsibility he desired so much. Not that anyone respects it except maybe Daisuke.

But he can't handle even the most basic of responsibilities there, either. A handful of menial tasks and he fucking snaps at the woman he hurt to begin with, even when she only ever acts the way she does around him to avoid further hurt. 'Take responsibility'. But he can't. Over and over he'll tell the vision of Curly he's made in his heads that he's sorry, that he'll fix things, that they'll all make it. And then he just keeps making things worse. And worse. And worse. Anya's going to hurt Curly, she's suspect and violent. Swanson won't let them into Utility. That's suspect, he's going to get out of here and leave everyone else behind. They both have to be stopped. Don't you trust me, Daisuke? Don't you trust your captain? That's why YOU have to go through the vent. He cannot fucking take responsibility, only goad others into doing things and handling things as underhandedly as possible. No wonder Curly laughs when he takes the gun. Anya spent all this time trying to keep it from him. And he got it anyway, because that'll all Jimmy knows how to do. Take and resent and hurt. His own twisted version of 'responsibility'.

It genuinely pisses me off how many people write off Anya as being 'badly written' or write her off altogether, especially considering the VERY OBVIOUS character she's based off of, being Wendy Torrance in The Shining (Yes I'm aware there's baggage around that particular character's strength of writing too, but I'm not about to go off on a rant about a movie ive only absorbed through cultural osmosis). Like...she's not a perfectly written character, no- her arc is less about her as a character and more about the things that have been done to her. Sexual assault used as a narrative device, nothing new there- it's at least less egregious in a horror story, where fear and trauma and terrible things happening to good people is kinda the whole thing. My big issue with Anya's writing is that we didn't get more of her- more exploration of how Jimmy's actions affected her, more exploration of how her and Curly are that much more alike after the crash- it's not a very long game to start, and given her character and the situation I don't necessarily disagree with her going out the way she did at the time she did. It just would've been nice if they'd utilized the nonlinear structure of the whole thing to explore her more, y'know?

Given Jimmy's PoV it makes sense that he's more fixated on the consequences of raping her than on the woman herself, but from the Doylist perspective, like...c'mon, give us SOMETHING more to work with. And like I said before, it pisses me off that people see a woman who doesn't immediately fall into the 'girlboss' role when shit hits the fan and then write it off, as if the premise of the story isn't about everyone's reaction to a hopeless situation spearheaded by a violent, manipulative, self-centered shithead. Swansea's the most capable person here outside of Jimmy and Anya, and I've yet to see anyone saying his character was weak because he spends most of his time drinking and raging instead of taking action. I'm mostly just upset that I don't have much more to say about her outside of her relationship to the rest of the crew. One could argue that most of what we are is defined by our relationships to others, and the nature of the game means that we don't really get a deep peek into anyone's psyche besides Curly and Jimmy.

I like how she invokes the metaphor of that dead pixel, the detail that sticks out like a sore thumb to her, always in the back of her mind, ever-present, that Curly can't see and never will because he's too busy looking at the big picture. I like how they establish the nature of Jimmy and Anya's relationship without being too direct, putting up that brave fawn act while he's there- she has to, the ship is only so big and they're so off course that rescue seems impossible- but she doesn't sleep in the same room as everyone else, she won't confide in Jimmy, and his mistreatment of her was what finally drove her over the edge. Jimmy's more concerned about what she might do to Curly that what she might do to herself, and he KNOWS that she's prone to mental breakdowns- often caused by himself, if not by Curly's state. The whole thing is tragic, but Anya's case is particularly saddening. Even after her death, she's paraded around like a puppet so that Jimmy can have his macabre little party. He doesn't care about her. He never did. And yet he's haunted by her, the 'sexual thoughts of cartoon horses' intermingling with his strange psychosexual hatred of the nurse just trying to do her job, haunted by the consequences of his actions because he's too much of a fucking coward to really, honestly and truly, take responsibility.

Swansea and Daisuke I have less to say about, ultimately. They feel a lot more straightforward in their narratives, at least from my perspective. Daisuke's a dumb kid with a shitty internship and he's so upbeat and positive that it genuinely pisses Swanson off, which means that he does ultimately care about the kid. A+ dynamic. Seems like a prick on an initial playthrough, but on the second run through I get it. He's old enough, he's seen enough, he knows exactly what Jimmy is and doesn't buy his responsible act for a second. He's not a captain. He's just some shithead who acts like he can handle it but flees in the most destructive way possible the second the consequences rear their head. He's a man that, even in the throes of substance abuse, does a better job of taking responsibility than Jimmy ever could, and arguably better than Curly ever did. Instead of just shrugging his shoulders at a last minute intern, he took him under his wing and started training him. When shit hits the fan, his instinct is to protect Daisuke- the one person who IS his responsibility. When he really, truly does not believe there is anything else that can be done, he puts him out of his misery. Maybe he was saving that cryo pod for him, too. It's hard to say, but the fact that he's the only one who stood up to Jimmy and saw him for what he was makes him that much more likable.

Daisuke...oh, Daisuke. He couldn't have known this was coming. He was doing his best, he just did what he could, he tried to be helpful and kind and be a good person. And for that, Jimmy used him and got him killed because he was too much of a goddamn coward to apologize to Anya, to see her as anything besides a nuisance at best. I get why Jimmy is so fixated on his death- as far as he's concerned, his first real failure, since Anya was such a non-issue that he didn't even have anything to say about her lifeless body. It wasn't just his inaction that got this kid killed, it was his actions. He had every opportunity to use even a single ounce of his brain and recognize that there are other people on the ship besides him and Anya, to recognize that these psych evals aren't just for the sake of the individual. And for that, Daisuke died. Way to go, hero.

The autonomy shit...god. Psychological trauma can be just as incapacitating as physical harm, can't it? Anya completely changing her demeanor after being assaulted, her body no longer just her own. I want to see the horror of that from her perspective, the invasion and the terror and revulsion of having something like that growing inside you. How sickening it must feel, how just the knowledge of its existence makes living that much worse. How the man who did it is still nothing but despotic. Curly, finally seeing Jimmy for who he truly is firsthand. It's all well and good to believe in someone, to trust them and want to help them overcome their struggles. But being choked and beaten and abused by them, day after day after day, because you had the audacity to sit a little higher on the totem pole than they did, because you had what they wanted, because they couldn't stand seeing someone better off then they were.

It's kind of mind-boggling, honestly. I've...kinda been there, with people who I know are still there, they're fully in there and aware and the same person they've always been, but their means to communicate with the outside world is cut off. I was fortunate enough to have been listening to a lot of disability activists around the time my aunt started losing her speech. It seemed a lot of times that the only people who really recognized that she was still there were me and my uncle. Even my mom, her older sister, inseparable for life, started treating her like she was suddenly a different person, not capable of really understanding her or wanting or doing things for herself.

So, like- not trying to be selfish or anything, just doing the autistic 'oh i can relate to this' bit, particularly about Jimmy projecting all of this shit onto the captain when he barely has the capacity to laugh or cry, let alone speak. His savior. His best friend. His bitter enemy. Beating him relentlessly while giving him his medicine for having the audacity to be an inconvenience. Let's eat some cake. I want to go home. Curly is just a man, and Jimmy regards him as helpless, antagonistic, and a god all at once. He'll thank me for this one day.

So uh. Many thoughts, head full. After the end of the bizarro sequence with Curly heading to the cockpit, the door is very small. A black pixel, the one stuck in the back of Anya's mind. A graveyard full of mausoleums, every one of them with the same epitaph as the bizarro one for Daigo in ch 14, and the one you can enter with his face on it. Not a single one for Anya. The Polle at the end having the same blue text as Anya, haunting the narrative just as much as Curly, just less overt. I'll fix this. I'll take responsibility. God. God jesus fuck damn hell christ son of a bitch. Fuck capitalism for putting their employees on such tight strings and skeleton crews that a collective pink slip can send people into this kind of spiral (or rather can give Jimmy a good reason to convince everyone else that all of them are completely fucked except for the captain and Daisukle) and fuck Jimmy. Fuck him. My one other complaint besides the feminist critique above is that theres some sequences that go on a bit longer than they really should (ch. 14 getting the mouthwash, most of the vent segments).

Fuck you, Jimmy.

I hope that gunshot hurt.

[pyromainiacc]

In Defense of Magnificus

A very very long rant by me. Originally from a rant I posted in a discord server in 2022, modified to be a little more concise. I have to apologize if some of this stuff is incredibly outdated, I haven't really bothered to catch up with newer stuff about the game outside of the game itself yknow... Like twitch streams from the dev and such.

I saw a theory that Magnificus was originally intended to be the villain of the original, in lore Inscryption, but through the rush of making the game as a coverup and developers like Kaycee not making much progress on the development because of said rush, he didn't get finished. And I think if you really analyze his character, everything about him FEELS unfinished.

His character design is super simple compared to the other scrybes. His deck is weak; there are not a lot of hard hitting cards aside from the Stim Mage, and the Magiks system itself feels wonky, as if they didn't have enough time to balance it out. His tower feels empty (Specially that damned bathroom. It haunts me.) His letter stops before its completed, he suddenly disappears mid-sentence... He's the only scrybe to not get a proper 3D version, as the game was mostly deleted by the time we got to him in Act 4, and he might've been the only scrybe that never became hegemon. We don't get to finish his battle, and he doesn't even get a handshake.

And going back to originally being a villain? Maybe that's why he was made to be so cruel to his pupils. P03 is also mean to his subordinates, but they're robots, they're not mean to gain as much sympathy from the player. Meanwhile, Magnificus is established to be mean and perhaps downright evil by the dialogue we get through Act 2. Rebecha speaks about him by saying he's mysterious, stating "Some say he wants... No, it's too terrible to say." But we never know what that refers to, and if it's coded dialogue or her own speech.

Outside of the CODED IN lore behind his pupils suffering, we don't see him being evil AT ALL. In Act 1 he is practically our savior; his throughout preparing was able to get us the film roll, and if we take too long he sends the player VISIONS to guide us in the right way. In Act 2 he attempts to warn the player about P03, his paint leads around to secrets to clue in about the OLD_DATA as well as perhaps serving as warnings for it. At the end of the game he is the only one who is distraught about everything being deleted; Grimora and Leshy accept their deaths, but Magnificus REFUSES to.

But wouldn't a villain rejoice about people dying? About, in his own words, an entire world being destroyed? It's like the original plan for his villainy was there, but he doesn't WANT to be one.

Now as to why he seems to continue to treat his pupils badly. I think it's just.. guilt. I believe he didn't have a choice in making them suffer, they were all just coded into what we know of Act 2. They were all created with the pupils being in torturous states and the game code telling them "It's Magnificus' fault". I think he himself believes this. I believe he could have tried to fix it before. But the thing is that, even if he ever did fix it, if he stopped their pain, it would all be for nothing... because the game resets. The only times it doesn't do this is when a scrybe takes over, which is something he has supposedly never been able to do. And if he were to help them outside of being hegemon they'd just go back to their original state once the new game card was used. I think he simply gave up upon realizing this and instead chose to bury his own grief that comes from it by playing into the character he was originally meant to be; the villain. That, and I think he just doesn't want to look at them... It hurts him to. I believe this is why he painted bleach over Goobert's painting.

I think him being originally an unfinished villain plays into him always being prepared. As I stated before, people often forget how helpful he is- it's due to his preparations that we are able to leave Act 1, he warns about The Great Transcendence in Act 2, warns Luke about the OLD_DATA, and warns him about the fate he'd encounter if he looked upon it. I think Magnificus wants to make up for his "villainy" by being the one the other scrybes and npcs can rely on in a time of need, so he spends every hour of everyday getting ready for the worst, and foreseeing what is gonna happen next.

Thing is that, he never stops anything from happening. He prepares a way out of Leshy's hegemony, but he can't stop it from happening in the first place. It's very probable that he was the one that planned how to stop P03 in Act 3, as we see he has been preparing since at least Act 2. But not only does the P03 hegemony happen, but he is ultimately unable to stop the Great Transcendence once it is in progress. Same thing for the game's deletion, which I believe it is at that point he truly panicked, because he couldn't foresee it or plan for it beforehand. It all feels like... An unfinished character arc. He never got to do anything he wanted.

I think he feels powerless.

Magnificus is often regarded as the worst scrybe. But in a sense, there's no real reason why that should be the case, at least not compared to the others. Like... Leshy took over the game and put the other scrybes into cards. He had good intentions, sure, but that doesn't mean his actions were good. Magnificus lost his eye, Grimora lost her memory, P03.... Was having a bad time...

Hell, the reason people hate Magnificus so much so often is because of the treatment of his pupils... But Leshy isn't all innocent there either. He puts Goobert in a bottle (At least, maybe he does. It's not clear whether it was him or Mags), which we know Goobert REALLY doesn't like, and he also put Goobert's description in the rulebook as "Failure". He also threw the bottle into the river as stated by himself in Kaycee's Mod.

P03... I don't gotta explain this one we know it is an asshole.

...And Grimora deleted the game, which basically killed everyone in it. While she had good intentions, it really only led to the discovery of the OLD_DATA and the subsequent assassination of Luke.

Now, what did Magnificus do? Nothing. Like... Really. He didn't GET to do anything. People dislike him because of his treatment of his pupils, but as I talked about before, I really don't think he can do anything about that, even if he wanted to.

So why do people so easily hate him? Circles back to the theory: Because he's unfinished. Everything about him is unfinished. The other scrybes are loved because we got to finish their arcs... We get to know why they each do what they did.

P03 not so much, but... P03 is a villain of sorts, people like villains and don't need them to be "good" to like them, which I agree with cuz villains are fun! P03 does have some sympathy points somewhere, though, which I'm not gonna go into here.

I'm gonna focus on Grimora and Leshy instead. Their farewells were perfect closure:

Grimora spoke about why she chose to delete the game, and we as the player come to understand her. It was right after her doing it in the first place, so we didn't even get to really build anger towards her. She talks about it being a necessary action- perhaps something we can agree with after knowing everything about the OLD_DATA. She laments not being able to play more with us, but she accepts her death and says goodbye.

Leshy talks about just.. wanting to play. That's all he wants, he just wanted to give us a good story. The original Inscryption is rushed and weird- Act 1, his hegemony, was his attempt to make it better and enjoyable (Which, considering it is the Act people love most, he succeeded.)

The player probably misses him by this point- playing cards with him feels somber, sad, and nostalgic. At this point we consider him a friend. And then he gets deleted after complementing our past deck, speaking about how much he enjoyed his time with us, and saying farewell. It's not something that leaves us with any possible anger towards him.

Magnificus though... He doesn't get that. We never get to talk to him properly, he never speaks about how he feels or why he does things. In Act 1 he spends most of the time in the clock, in Act 2 he gets cut off when trying to speak to us, Act 3 he only speaks a few sentences, and in Act 4..

His farewell is different than the other two. Leshy and Grimora accept their deaths... Magnificus doesn't. He doesn't talk about his feelings or justify his actions, because if you have been holding in your feelings, that is something you do when you can no longer do so. You let them go when you know you're going to die soon.

But he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to die, he can't accept it.

The game he played with us wasn't complete- the scales were gone, so we weren't even supposed to play against him. It was his opportunity to just say what he needed to say before he was gone, but he refused to accept his upcoming death. So instead he tried prolonging the process by using unrealistically high numbers instead of scales (The bigger the number, the longer the game will take, right..?). Even as he felt himself getting deleted he refused to end the game, or even talk to the player properly. For once, he couldn't prepare for the worst, and he was in denial- he was completely powerless and he didn't want to accept it. Instead, he speaks to us about the game deleting. He blames the player for it. He tries to guilt us; "You even allowed my goo mage to get deleted... I thought you two were becoming friends!"

And he doesn't get a handshake. He tried to push his deletion away for so long that he ended up not even being able to finish the match or get the same, proper farewell that Grimora and Leshy got.

I think by now I've said what I needed to say, but I wanna add that... Yeah, I think he's one of the most tragic characters in the game. I think he spends a lot of time being anxious- we don't get a clear answer on if he can see the future or if he is just able to predict it, but either way he lives with a lot of anxiety because of it.

I think the worst part is the deletion of the game and his farewell. He isn't able to let go because he's scared to, and because he has spent his whole life trying to prevent bad things from happening; trying to help his friends to get out of bad situations they caused themselves. But this time he's not able to, he can't do ANYTHING about it, and he's terrified because that means his whole existence and work is just... Gone. He spent all his days preparing for the worst scenarios, only for it all to be thrown away. He WASTED his life for nothing. And it hurts me that the fandom never saw that.

Or maybe I'm overthinking all of it. Maybe this has all already been directly disproven. But I still wanted to share this.

[lyx-lii]

ANOTHER ZZZ RANT

I can’t take it anymore dawgs, like why are ppl acting like zzz trailers are affecting gameplay ☹️

Literally everyone quit idc, I’m having fun we don’t want you here anyway.

“Gooner game!”, “most fanserviced game” Oh my god shut up??? You clearly haven’t seen a lot of games in your life have you???

Caesar’s trailer made me lose it omfg. They got so pressed with Jane’s trailer when it wasn’t even that bad because its a fucking INTERROGATION.

Bur Caesar is out here stripping and taking a shower and the voices sound like kids 😭

Like Jane is actually good, blame Hoyo if anything.

“Played for like 30 minutes and dipped” okay 😐😐😐

TBF A LOT OF UNNECESSARY THINGS WERE ADDED TO THEIR TRAILERS.

But you can blame allat on Hoyoverse devs guys 🙏

I’m going to fucking die.

I did not wait just 2, maybe even more, years for ZZZ to release just for it to get so hated because of poor trailer and marketing choices.

The trailers don’t affect the game…. Just don’t watch it 😕

The game itself doesn’t even have fanservice like that, like what…

But I can’t really blame the fans for not liking the trailers because of how uncomfortable they are to watch.

Hoyo please do better and fucking learn 🙏

I just don’t get the people who say they’ll uninstall just because of THE TRAILERS.

They don’t affect the gameplay + if you play long enough there is truly fanservice in the game 😕

And to be fair I also think its those creepy fans’ fault as well, considering how they sexualized Ellen and Zhu Yuan when they first came out.

Which btw Ellen is still in school guys 😁 her age isn’t confirmed but I swear she looks like a highschooler who’s just working a job.

The amount of gooner fanart I’ve seen of those two is unreal which probably gave trailer makers what to market for Jane and Caesar.

But anyway, this was just another rant, I won’t stop playing zzz because I enjoy it a lot, I just avoid trailers and play for fun it’s not that serious

[fruttymoment]

About your last post, when you make posts about other games, could you please just warn if your post will have a spoiler of something, if possible? (Same thing on bluesky, since I follow you there).

Ik it's probably common sense, but I just wanted to ask you that, since there are games like Rain World, that I want to play but I still didn't buy and still didn't get in the mood to play.

I was gonna ask in the comments of that post but I got a little shy .,.

HELO

Of course!!! I mostly avoid drawing spoiler-ishy stuff in the first place :3 but when i do, I do my best to tag them a spoilers! (RARELY at times I can forget but most of the times its fine!)

AND FROR RAIN WORLD. COUGHS. LOOKS AROUND.

I strongly recommend it a lot !!!! I VIOLENTLY RECOMMEND IT !!! However, before you DO buy the game and replace your mind with Slugcat, lemme give you a quick run without trying to spoil the game. I do need to say these because sometimes, people get the wrong idea about Rain World. And it's not their fault! The GAME is just,,, hehehe.

So!

• Rain World is NOT an adventure game. It's an ecosystem simulator, with platforming. You'll understand what I mean when I say it's not an adventure game. :3

• Rain World is a DIFFICULT game. The game barely holds your hand, barely tells you what to do and there isn't a single reward in the game that halps you. Nearly nothing is directly said besides basic stuff. Not to menton there is only few entities that has dialogue. You are just an wild animal in the woods. No one is here to help and it's all up to you to figure out things and adapt to survive. Because it's an ecosystem simulator, there will be times where some situations will be legit unfair for you. This is intended. Rain World is an unfair game because your enemies / predators are just like you and have no respects. They will always try their best to kill you, unfair or not. They dont care! And this is where your adaptation and outsmarting skills will improve. Rain World has no reward. It only rewards you by making you smarter, as you die and die.

• So! Game tells you nothing. Everything kills you. You have no idea what to do. The game and its ecosystem does not care about you.

These lack of player focus and unfair situations can become very unpleasant to new players. Because Rain World really is not like other games! It's an harsh ecosystem simulator. When you play Rain World blindly for a while; you may get demotivated to continue because of having no idea where to go and what to do while being killed over and over again. Don't worry! This is LITERALLY the game itself. You are MEANT to be confused and lost. However, as you play, you will start to understand things slowly :)

And once you figure out stuff, I can not tell you how amazing it feels LMAO. YOU HAVE TO TRY IT YOURSELF.

Rain World is an UNFORFIVING game. It's hard. It's complex. But my god, IT IS THE MOIST FUN AND AWESOME AND INSANE GAME I HAVE EEVVEERR FUCKING PLAYED IN MY LIFE. I HAE 100+ HOURS AND I KEEP GOING. I WILL NEVER BE TIRED FROM THIS GAME. THERE IS ALWAYS MORE STUFF TO FIGURE OUT. ALWAYS TO MAKE FUN SPEEDRUNS.

Ohh also!!!

• By it's nature, Rain World is randomised! Every entity in the game has their own AI and behaviour. This makes the game so fucking amazing ant it makes the ecosystem VERY alive. Everything you see in the game, besides obvious scenes, is NOT scripted! You will see some creatures fall to their death, fail to fly, bonk their heads, kill each other and stuff! NOTHING is scripted! All creatures act as a real entity by their AI! This makes some unpredictable events that becomes frustrating but also so so SO fun hehe :)

Honestly I could write a book about Rain World. But that's all I can say now :) hope this motivates ya! The game is also on sale rn I think. Perfect time hehehe.

Even if it becomes too hard for you, don't worry! The experience is so worth it. Also I promise, you WILL understand everything by yourself,,, and be BETTER. I also shall mention that it's a LOONGGG game! Even LONGER when you get the Downporur DLC ! (INSANELY RECIMMENDED.)

HOPE THIS HELPPPSSS

ALSO AFSGKGQLHSHOA ITS OKAY <3 WE ALL SHY OUT AT TIMEESS

[odysseys-blood]

theres a lot of back and forth about paimon especially so i just wanna put in my two cents about it bc speculation on paimon and gender can be tricky and theres a lot to take into consideration. this isnt an end all be all post and not the best written but im just speaking from my place as someone who is trans (though i myself am tme) and works with gender themes in my own characters so this is gonna be kinda long

So! Paimon

a lot of the issue from the back and forth stems from how paimon is written by default. When you meet paimon, he's designated as just a pretty boy that likes to crossdress and they emphasize heavily that paimon is a man every time they talk about his femininity and how he presents himself.

Now crossdressing itself is not at all transphobic, hell drag is a big thing and its not uncommon for queens do figure out that they're transfem when they get into it. In fact a lot of queer people do push to erase gender boundaries within clothes because in the end....clothing is just cloth wear what you want be who you want to be, whether it be a woman wearing masc clothing, a man wearing femme clothes, or anyone just wearing something neutral feeling.

Where it becomes a problem is the push to enforce paimon's masculinity at every turn. While its good that paimon isn't a character that's put in to be played for laughs (as feminine men and trans women often are in media), it comes off odd in a way for paimon to have a feminine voice, dress femininely, love feminine things...and then at every point have it enforced heavily that paimon is a man. THAT is where a lot of the issue stems from at when you see it happening as someone who has seen transmisogyny (if this is your first time seeing the word, its transphobia that arises specifically for a trans woman being a woman. ergo the word being a mix of transphobia and misogyny) in practice it looks worrying. When you're someone who knows how to spot this kind of thing it can feel like paimon's gender nonconformity is being demonized (while they also highlight it. its an odd mix).

This isn't to say that it is a concious thing that's being pushed either i'm not saying the writers are personally transmisogynists at all, HOWEVER since transphobia and transmisogyny is rampant in society to the point where it subconsciously controls biases, thats how it can come off transmisogynistic. Think of it as similar to racism: even if you think you yourself are not racist theres still likely biases you have picked up or have been taught just because theyre so pervasive in society. This doesnt mean its your fault it just means its something that you have to unlearn conciously and put in the work to do so.

This is also not just a problem with whb because again like i said, its systemic. Think about other characters in media who are written this way, such as Bridget from Guilty Gear, or Vivian from Paper Mario. While these two are different in that their status as trans women have been solidified, the treatment they've gotten is largely the same. Especially bridget considering how she for the longest was the poster child for the "femboy" archetype and how femininity is enforced yet also discouraged in these characters until she was finally labeled transgender in gg strive.

All this to say...its messy and theres a lot of points to consider so there really isnt a reason to go at each others throats. Using paimon's canon pronouns and gender isn't exactly a problem and neither is choosing to instead see paimon as a transgender woman and using she/her pronouns. But at the very least it doesn't hurt to educate yourself also and understand why paimon's writing can come off transmisogynistic and transphobic. WHB is not a game thats heralding itself on being progressive (even if there are aspects to it that might seem so) so there's not much to expect from it in that regard but still we can be mindful and discussion isnt bad.

(also a footnote i dont think ive seen any transfem or tma players of whb in the tag....ever but if anyone is and wants to add on or thinks ive overstepped let me know)

[changeling-droneco]

God every time I see a take that's like "why did undertale give you fight mechanics if it doesnt want you to use it" i get so annoyed, because like, you can totally just do a neutral run, you can do that, go do a neutral run, the dialogue is really funny actually sans just like "bro what the hell"

"oh but the characters criticize you" yeah, because you did a murder, did you expect them to be happy you did a murder? Like congrats you killed snowdrake, now his father has lost both his son and his wife, of course the game isn't going to throw you a party about it. The whole theme of the game is your actions have consequences.

"oh but it's not the true end" do you know how many video game there exists where there's non canon ends and one true end, this is not a new thing, besides, its your game, you can make the true end the one where you killed everyone but jerry for your save file, you're allowed to do that.

"the game paints itself as an incorrect way vs a correct way to play" WRONG the fandom did that, that's not on the game, the game world just responds to your actions, of course people are going to be nicer in the "dont kill everyone" route then the "oh my god you killed hundreds of people" route, that doesn't mean the pacifist ending is "correct" while genocide is "incorrect" it just means that your actions are seen and understood by the people around you.

Plus, if anything the game rewards the player for doing different kinds of runs with different kill vs spare ratios because you get new dialogue and new scenes and thus can learn more about the world. There's over 15 different potential neutral run phone calls depending on what you did on that run! That's not discouraging the player! That's actively giving the player more content! That's a reward! That's an incentive!

Like....the whole point of the game is that your choices matter, and they have consequences, there's even a whole prophecy about it, the angel of mercy and the angel of death and how the savior could be either. The fandom favors pacifist greatly because they love these characters sure, but again, that's not the fault of the game.

In a game where your choices matter, where each character has a strong personality and connections and social circles, of course killing a character will have ripple effects. The game would make no sense if undyne doesn't care if you killed papyrus or all of snowdin. Of course she cares? She's the leader of the guard, papyrus is one of her closest friends, of course she gets mad?

If you do bad things, people will call you bad is like... rule number one of a game where your choices decide how it plays out. Fallout has been doing that since it came out in 1997!

The game about war and conflict and sacrifice and how it intersects with the lives of innocent people and how it changes people for good or bad is going to show how murder intersects with the lives of innocent people and how it changes people for good to bad.

Like I don't know how to not be rude about this, but just, sorry that the characters hated that you killed one of them? sorry that the characters in this world dont think murder is cool? sorry that undyne says you're a bad person and wants to kill you for killing all her friends? Of course characters like you less and are meaner if you kill someone, YOU KILLED SOMEONE!

[extra-vertebrae]

Picked up Tears of the Kingdom for my birthday this year and played it over an art sabbatical. After beating it, I have some thoughts about a pair of critters.

Consider this a "spoiler" line for those who haven't beaten the game.

I've been pondering over the Light Dragon and the Tears associated with her transformation. When you take everything given about the transformation at face value, this dragon bursts into being with no sense of self, but presumably still carrying intact though likely scattered memories of when she was still Zelda. Her first act is to shed tears, presumably created through an intense sorrow borne out of thoughts, concerns, and memories that she no longer understands. Her "new" mind is struck with immense emotional pain that now probably just repeats itself over and over as she aimlessly patrols the skies of Hyrule for thousands of years until a man pulls a toothpick out of her forehead. Alternatively, the shedding of tears is symbolic of the final vestiges of Zelda's self as it ebbs away in her new existence, leaving her mind a blank slate unable to recall, process, or attribute anything to anything.

Of course, the game pulls a cop-out and goes "oh, she was just sleeping this whole time!" at the end, which I think is bullshit, but fine, we can't have Zelda scarred for the remainder of her life. We'll just say her memories of flying aimlessly for however long were just yeeted by the mercy of Sophia and Rauru and leave it at that. The implication is probably a reversal via some super powered Recall, but still.

Then comes Ganon, who takes the same road in an effort to cling to power. A new dragon that, just like Zelda, has no self - just a ream of memories and what is probably a deep, directionless, unfathomable anger towards an insignificant entity. How awful must these paired existences be? How aware are they, truly?

A repeated note in the compendium entries for all of the dragons is: "it causes [x deadly phenomena when people are in close range], but it means no harm." I thought about this later and played with the idea that, what if, even taking story circumstances in hand, Ganon's dragon was the same as the rest in this specific regard - creating phenomena out of no actual intent to harm so much as an instinctual self defence mechanism against an unknown "thing" approaching him. Does Ganon still actually recognise Link from all of 30 seconds ago? Or is he just an animal with the same blank slate as Zelda? Whichever the case, despite all the damage he's done, this feels like an especially tragic end for Ganondorf in the sense that, he technically becomes an entirely new entity that has done absolutely nothing except be confronted by a pair of unfamiliar creatures, and is smote in barely a few minutes. Minutes of existence either fraught with confusing memories of anger and violence, or a blank mind with no comprehensive ability, snuffed out due to an inherent danger he poses through, in a way, no "fault" of his own in this new body and mind.

Just a fun thought I had. I've been wondering since I started playing and seeing all of the Memories, if at any point Ganondorf (or Link and Zelda for that matter) has ever actually possessed free will in being the manifestation (?) of the Triforce of Power (or its spirit? My Zelda lore is rusty as hell and super limited).

ETA: also, I really appreciate the addition of a pig's nose on Ganon's dragon form. A+, I love it.

[kozykricket]

oops long post about minecraft

i hope that within the next 5 years i can see minecraft move on from the stage of Adding Content, and start making more changes... but at the same time, they've always mentioned how they want people to be able to always come back to the game and ... have it feel familiar. mojang wants people to be able to come back from a loooong break, and still ultimately play the game the same, even if it looks or sounds different. even if theres more options. i think logically thats why they never replace or reshuffle content. because... well, they'd rather add something to the side of the core game than change something thats part of the core... because they dont want to disrupt peoples traditional way of playing but like, with how much minecraft has evolved every aspect of itself EXCEPT the main, core gameplay? it feels like... at this point, i think they SHOULD change the core gameplay, even if its in ways that i dont even like. just, to fit in more with the rest... but do i fault them? no. they play it safe yet they also try daring new things, at the same time. its impressive the amount of effort they put into carefully thinking about new content... and i understand so many people would be up in arms, or would be saddened, if the way they played the game drastically changed. and thats why theyre just , giving us the ability to modify the game more easily than ever

i just kinda felt like i needed to get this out here, because. yknow, whenever people mention minecraft having Tons of Content I Can't Keep Track Of What When Did They Add That What Is That it slike yeah you're not really ... supposed to notice it? but you are supposed to?

you're not supposed to feel the need to engage with anything they add, but also Marketing(TM) denotes that they have to advertise the new stuff as something for you to engage with, and really, really encourage you to engage with it via stuff like advancements or the title screen even so i guess the game is at odds with itself in that way, because as said, things are designed to ... well, not BE noticed when they're added, at least not in a disruptive yet, yet they also try to make things noticable enough that you know they exist... and . well, its a careful balance... i dont think its entirely futile, but i think the fact that they kinda have to market content to Everyone even when they know they designed that content as Not Something For Everyone, is fairly ... awkward. cus then... yknow, they end up leading people towards stuff that they otherwise would've had not much of an opinion on, but now that they're being "forcibly shown" the content that they don't personally care about, they may see it as an attack towards their playstyle, in the way that changing the core gameplay loop would be. does this make sense? okay uhh example mojang adds... deep dark biomes, but theyre definitely optional to engage with, and you might not even know they were added, because of their optional-ness and arguably low relevance. its just a fun little sidequest in a way, a self contained Thing because they don't want to scare people away. but yet at the same time, the marketing goes all "HEY WE GOT A COOL NEW SPOOKY BIOME" and then even if you're disinterested in it, you now know its in the game, and you are led to believe that mojang WANTS every player to be using the deep dark, which... makes it seem poorly designed. simply because it WASNT designed for every player to want to engage with. it wasnt designed to be an integral part of the core experience. it was designed to be optional and is being marketed as a big part of the experience.

cus the thing is they DONT always design things for every type of player to want to use. you get me? they design the... allay, to be nice for certain types of players. but then the marketing gives off the idea that they think every type of player ought to enjoy it, even though it wasn't designed to be enjoyed by everyone and... yeah i guess thats also why i appreciate loosely themed updates like 1.8 or 1.20, because they have less of a deliberate focus on the One Big Thing and so people are less likely to end up noticing something that wasnt really meant to be noticed unless they liked it. people who dont like trial chambers will be noticing them since theyre on the title screen in 1.21... even though, if they are someone who doesnt like them, then they were meant to be sorta, yknow, optional for those people? though perhaps a structure that spawns anywhere in the overworld is a poor example. maybe stuff like the sniffer being shown so much is Worse in that sense this really became a bigger post than i imagined. i just kinda intended to make a post that was like "its kind of a bummer that mojang is basically restricted away from changing the core of minecraft despite the fact that theyve changed everything else so much that by proxy they've changed the core in every way that isnt straight up full on touching the core gameplay"

[organ-market]

What Makes Monster Prom Special? | Love Letter and Review

By Ghost Emoji 👻

Monster Prom, 2018

In 2018, the first installment in the Monster Prom series exploded onto the internet and made some major waves in its wake. Monster Prom, developed by Barcelona-based studio Beautiful Glitch, is a multiplayer visual novel where you (and up to three other friends) run around school, courting different monster characters in hopes of asking your crush out to the big prom. Since its release, the game has spawned two sequels, with the third one coming soon. Its sequels take various different spins on this core structure, but it always remains a humorous, multiplayer romp that friends gather on a couch, or a Discord call, to laugh and have a good time. 

Monster Prom’s creator, Julián Quijano, was inspired by a different game with a very similar gameplay structure called The Yawhg, where rather than kiss hot monsters with your friends, you try to save a town from an impending evil. Monster Prom takes the multiplayer narrative adventure of The Yawhg and runs with it to blend internet humor and pop culture references with the hilarity of a multiplayer dating sim, all the while backed by the beautiful art of Arthur Tien.

To me, the game itself feels less like an actual game I want to play and more like a fun activity or experience to share amongst a group of friends. The game’s stated objective is to successfully ask out one of the game’s several romanceable monsters to the prom, but in truth I’ve never felt too bad about being rejected in the game. Winning doesn’t really matter as much as having fun with some close friends, and honestly, I don’t find myself playing the game alone anyway. For my group, it’s practically mandatory that we voice each of the in game characters. Getting into the characters, the weird scenarios, and making funny voices are what make playing Monster Prom so special to me.

Beyond the excellent writing, characters, and art, I think that is what makes Monster Prom resonate with so many people. It is beloved because it can be shared and experienced communally, which is what differentiates it from other visual novels that usually are much more solitary undertakings. The multiplayer aspect to Monster Prom is essential to its success. So even if your fictional monster crush tossed you into the gutter, you and your friends are still laughing along and are ready to play another round.

Spooky Academy, the setting of Monster Prom

That being said, the game is not without its faults. I really do wish the game had a save feature, at least as a contingency. It’s a real shame when the power cuts out, your computer crashes, or somebody has to leave early and you aren’t able to just pick up where you left off, especially if you’re already halfway through the game. This issue is exacerbated by the length of the games, which in of itself isn’t a real flaw. The games always offer a short and long mode, but even so, the game can easily take up 40-50 minutes even on the short mode, especially if you and your friends want to voice the characters (which I really recommend). The Monster Prom franchise as a whole isn’t really for everyone either. Humor is inherently subjective, so if you aren’t laughing at the jokes, you won’t be having a good time since comedy takes the front and center of this game.

Those general flaws are prominent throughout each of the games, so if you like one, you’re sure to like the other ones. The third game in the franchise, Monster Road Trip, is the only one that strays from the dating format. While romance takes a back seat, you instead try to balance your different stats, ensuring none of them reach 0. It’s also the only game where you can lose before its conclusion, and the only one where you lose collectively as a team. I’ve played about two or three rounds of Road Trip and that’s not enough for me to make a solid opinion on it, so for now I really recommend the first two games, Monster Prom and Monster Camp. There’s a tremendous amount of content throughout all the games and enough scenarios to ensure you won’t get bored anytime soon.

My advice for those interested in the game is to just grab the game with the cast you prefer, or even try out the free demos available on Steam. The games themselves are relatively cheap, all priced around $12 USD, but the first game goes on sale frequently for dirt cheap. It’s an interesting and exciting game, and I really hope more games like it follow. Multiplayer narrative video games feel like an untapped gold mine of possibility. You frequently see the genre explored naturally in the world of tabletop gaming, so I’m eager to see what the virtual world has in store for bold new storytelling.

-Ghost Emoji 👻

[goldentigerfestival]

seeing some of y'all talking about/have talked to some of y'all who have said to me how y'all feel like the dub forced (western especially) masculinity into Yuri, and

yeah.

I left that out of the actual posts themselves because it felt too opinionated for the actual posts (even though you know it's my blog I can do what I want, but I don't want people discrediting me over shit like that), but yeah.

it feels a lot to me like they wanted Yuri to be some cool masculine edgy dude instead of a silly, playful, dorky, emotional, caring man. as if his silliness and emotional side is something to shy away from and isn't "cool enough" for a main character.

it's sad to me because he's such a different person between versions - enough that if I'm interacting with someone who only knows dub Yuri, it genuinely just doesn't feel like we're even talking about the same character sometimes. I want to be talking about the same character, but since some people only know the dub, they only know what the dub made him out to be.

I've seen a variety of things - art, writing, memes, whatever - where there are times I'm genuinely able to be like... that's such a dub Yuri specific thing. like, the way he gets portrayed is something I'm able to look at and be like "that's literally something only dub Yuri would say/do". it's not the fault of people who don't know the original context, but that's why it frustrates me so much - because that's all some people can know contextually (listening to the audio alone gives you a pretty clear indication of how much tone isn't the same between versions, but obviously some people will still be missing context), and the dub changed the experience (and went out of its way to do so) completely for those people. again - not the fault of the people who played the game. it's the fault of the people who were in charge of context/tone and took advantage of that and changed things and made him literally behave differently (because there's... take what's in front of you and translate that, and then there's going out of your way to change what's right there so the context/behavior is no longer the same).

it especially shows to me in interactions with Flynn between the western and JP fandom. the way Yuri behaves interacting with him in fan created media is sometimes vastly different from my experience between both fandoms. again, it's not people's faults who don't know Yuri's original personality, but it is the dub's fault for portraying him that way.

for me it's heartbreaking to see how dub Yuri treats Flynn and how the dub itself narratively treats Flynn. I love the relationship they have in JP and I love them both as characters in JP. like I've said, sometimes I want to punch dub Yuri for the shit he says and the way he behaves. I've never felt that way about Yuri in his original context. I've felt worse for dub Flynn than JP Flynn because I feel like JP Flynn is better cared for by the narrative/characters, but god, poor dub Flynn??? jesus.

the thing is, this comes from a place of strong love for Yuri (and Flynn!) so I hate that they changed things. I always stand by media in its original, purest form, no matter where in the world that media came from. localization absolutely should fix things caused by language barriers and tweak oddly sounding things - sometimes there's no choice! but it's not there to create a newly existing piece of media. it's not there to create a new character plastered on the face of an existing character or to fulfill the loc team's opinion of what that character should be.

it can be difficult - usually impossible - for me to be experiencing JP exclusive content and trying to imagine dub Yuri in those situations (think like, the drama CDs or Rays' content). I know I'm not the only person who feels this way and is extremely bothered by it.

obviously I'm not the be all end all - I'm one person with feelings and opinions, but I just feel very strongly about this kind of thing and I want to share how wonderful of a character Yuri is in his original form. a lot of the clips I posted I posted because I love his silly or caring attitude. I could blab to you about him forever. so, I hope more people will give this man a chance and experience him the way I know him.

[nyaawn]

Adding to my previous 'Graphical Update and Derplander's face' post now that the benchmark has been updated, and overall it's an improvement. Rejoice user of hyur face#5, your WoL won't suddenly turn into old man anymore!

It's rather hard to take pic with similar light for ver1.1 because they had revamped their lighting placement big time, especially the indoor one. But hoo-boy ain't it look good. It register multiple light sources now? Making things like his collar and ears cast subtler shadows from different angle. They fix the fading facial hair and eyebrow too. Nice.

While face#5 regain its youthful visage, players who DO want their WoL to age can look to face#7, which retain its middle-aged-man look from previous benchmark, that stubble come complete with nasolabial folds, wrinkles, lines and all intact. Heck, you can argue that it look even more rugged now.

(note: When the first DT benchmark released I was on break from playing XIV and didn't have access to in-game Character Creator, so I used EW benchmark for comparison pics on my previous post and the updated ones above. They were captured on PC and labeled from patch 6.0. Since then I had subbed again, so part of pics below was taken from current-build CC, captured on PS5 and labeled from patch 6.5. I thought it wouldn't differ much, but 6.0's shadow is much darker compared to current (6.5) build. Huh. Is it because of different hardware? Different setting? Benchmark fault? Idk)

Yep. Same face structure, different direction. One brings youth, one brings the age. Two-toned echoes tumbling through update.... Well, anyway, they did a good job distinguishing face#7 from #5 with this graphic update. And it's nice to have more options. People who like this face type (and it feels almost every male hyur player use this one) but want 20s or youthful 30-something WoL can go with face#5. Those who don't mind 40s or 30-something-who-spend-too-much-of-his-life-standing-one-millimeter-from-blazing-inferno-or-toxic-fumes-AoE-too-keep-his-uptime-resulting-in-rough-skin WoL can go with face#7. That's me and I'm happy with this update. I just wish we can turn that stubble on and off without need of fanta($$), like every other facial hair options... But I guess that ship has sailed.

Looking at updated benchmark cutscene itself, there's improved lighting but all in all the change is minimal imo. And I'm sad to say that villain-esque eyeliner I mentioned in previous post is still there. Not as thick as previous, but still appear anytime I use hairstyle with bangs that drop shade on his eyes. Sigh maybe I should use that new DT hair afterall...? But ngl I don't really like it...

Don't get me wrong, it's great! ....It just doesn't compliment this face type.. On my previous post I wrote about how they add highlight to this face#7's forehead, and in theory I understand why they did it. But in practice and with this hair, I found it make his forehead distractingly bright and plastic-like and flat compared to the rest of his face that's carefully detailed and contoured. It looks odd, is what it is. That bright forehead also highlight (hurhur) how the front hair and roots don't have shadow at all, and my brain can't help thinking how wrong it look like every time I put this hair on him. Also I deliberately capture the above pic with indoor lighting, because in outdoor that forehead shine like lighthouse, good lord @_@. Being a Warrior of Light doesn't mean you have to become literal sun, dude.

So yeah that's my main wrinkle with this expansion, his hair and forehead. (first world problem) (while a throng of BLM and AST have a meltdown out there (*´・ｖ・). Tho I do feel pretty miffed right now regarding how they replace many gap closer with no-damage skill. Like, I can't surprise enemy by poking their head from above while laughing maniacally anymore?? HOW DARE YOU--- but this aimless rambling post already hella long without those rants. I'll keep it for another time..)