#at least i get to play elden ring tonight

[kriskross]

Can't tell if it's just my ankle bothering me or if it's the plates and bolts... Either way with this weather and this irritation I'm gonna have to reschedule physio =_=

[phagodyke]

yayy new undertale newsletter :-)

[foxingpeculiar]

Shadow of the Ertdtree:

Okay, so I'm starting Elden Ring from scratch for this. This is my third time through. First time was a kind of ill-defined strength build, second time was a dex ninja. This time, I'm playing a sorcery build. (She's a sorceress assassin, so pushing dex as well, and keeping equipment load very light.)

I've never done a magic build in a Souls game before, but damn, this shit is great. I still only have Glintstone Arc and Glintstone Pebble, but I did get the Demi-Human Queen's Staff. Other than that, I'm still basically in my astrologer scrub gear.

But, despite that, I'm truckin' through. Have done a lot of stuff in Western Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula. Started Boc, Irinia, and Sellen's quests (and went through the Costal Cave as part of Boc's quest to get to the dragon cult church thing on the island).

I haven't beaten Agheel or either of the Evergaols, nor have I gone to Castle Morne, but I've cleared a few of the smaller bosses around the area. It's going pretty smoothly, actually. Sort of feels like coming home. Later tonight, I'll probably do Castle Morne at least, and then maybe the northern part of Limgrave with Alexander and stuff. Then we'll deal with the East, and then make our way to Godrick.

[dumbfinntales]

It’s new years eve and I still haven’t talked about my personal GOTY? To be honest this year there wasn’t any stand out game that just hit it out of the park. I loved Ultrakill in January, but it’s still unfinished. Elden Ring and GOW Ragnarök were obviously stellar, but lacking that special sauce.

There were quite a few new games I played this year. One that stuck with me from the start of the year was Expeditions Rome. A turn based RPG set in the Roman republic, a really unique experience. I occasionally find turn based RPG’s that I enjoy so that’s nice to see, I kinda wanna replay Expeditions Rome one day.

Kirby and the forgotten land was also a pleasant surprise. It was a lot more in depth than I was expecting and the combat was quite fun for a supposed “baby game”, but it was rad.

In the indie scene Cult of the Lamb was fun and adorable, but pretty shallow. The presentation and art style really carried that one. I hope the upcoming major content updates beef up the rogue-like mechanic, making runs more worth it. And more fun.

But picking my GOTY? I have to go with Elden Ring. Yeah, big surprise. I got many critiques for that game and I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite Fromsoft game, but out of all games that came out this year it offered the most fun and solid experience. My first playthrough of that game was magical. At least up to the Fire Giant boss fight it was. Not a very brave choice, but my opinion is always my opinion and is not influenced by the majority. Sometimes by opinion happens to align with them.

So yeah, with that I want to wish you all a happy new year! I’ll be blowing up some fireworks later tonight and getting properly tipsy. Bene valete!

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary161

2/22-23/2024

thursday - friday

day after tomorrow , i workkkkkkkk.

and omg, next week i'm working 3 days, that, like, blows kinda. whatever, not long shifts especially. tomorrow i'm gonna get bank stuff set up i think, too, so i'll finally be able to order my dumb clothes and whatever else i think i need and stuff.

anyway, today, today was busy and weird. i recorded vocals for 2 songs, i haven't listened back i think maybe i should wait a bit. i have to listen to the song i was having an issue w/ last night just to see what i might wanna do about it tomorrow, and if maybe i want to record vocals tomorrow for another song.

the problem song rn just has a weird guitar tone but i like it, maybe i keep the narrow frequencies i'm liking in it, as a bandpass, and have another tone as a layer w/ that? have that one i like that's got this kind of idk, squelchy organic-ish sound to it, as organic as it is synthetic, it's very like, it's got a lot in common with a guitar's strings and that brightness /shimmer on the attacks of notes but it also sounds very uhh, resonant and weird, it's good. i just keep that maybe and have that panned wide and then another thing that's more normal maybe in the middle-ish. that'd mean 2 guitar layers for much of the song and 3 at certain points, which could get to be too much, so i might have to fool around w/ that, but hopefully the bandpass idea would remove a lot of the volume / give more headroom so the other tone could have more presence, and then maybe i have that other tone lacking whatever the freqs i like in this one i have are. the new tone should be something a bit, idk, like this:

ideally there'd be enough weird no-wavey character coming from the other tone, so it might add a nice squeal beside this more regular sound, but idk, this kinda sound also happens w/ power chords and this song has weird chords making up the main riff, it does have power chord bits though.

i'll just have to figure that out when it comes to doing it i suppose.

seeing my friend was really good, we kind of talked a while, as i played elden ring for him, i beat a boss he was stuck on and went and found stuff for him around places he missed. we showed eachother music, he wanted to show me what's going on w/ his album but we didn't get to. my gf and his gf went out to dinner together and hung out in town square, which is like, a goofy shopping zone in vegas. it's very okay but apparently the ramen place they went to was rlly good, i'd like to try it one day.

when they came back, we went to this rave that was going on, my friend wanted to go and could cuz band practice was cancelled for him, because the other 2 members of his band wanted to go, we got to see another friend and while everyone (but me) got drunk in the parking lot, off mixing soju w/ like, sprite, perrier, and coconut pedialyte (that's at least what my gf did (it smelled like cum (specifically the cum of guys who say they just eat pineapple and drink pineapple juice all the time to 'improve the flavor' and probably tasted like that)). my friend's gf got sugar free soju, and apparently it was awful, i said to her that if you want 'diet alcohol' you're just better off not drinking cuz it seems like all alcohol is just going to blast you w/ unwanted and pointless calories (i'm not above pointless calories (i drank some soda tonight...feels sort of awful tbh i hate soda mostly but it tastes good sometimes and i guess tonight was an indulgence or whatever. i like candy too but little handfuls feel more manageable to me than like soda idk). she was like, yeah, but, you know, basically, and like, obviously yeah. if you wanna get drunk you wanna get drunk. so my advice = worthless, but it was just me being 'catty' for fun, as a bit, i guess. idk why i'm going so into this, it wasn't a bad interaction for either of us, i guess it's just funny to look at it this closely. anyway, they all got drunk and my other friend and i wandered into a smith's grocery store, right before closing, in the middle of construction, very strange. and when we got to the doors of the venue, my gf and the other 2 had already been let in and we weren't gonna be able to get in for free so easily, we walked into a nearby casino, which we'd been kicked out of in the past but nobody cared while we were there this time and we were just kicked out because another rave in another nearby venue was using that place to piss. anyway, we sat in there a bit, my friend gambled 2 dollars away because we knew if we looked like we were doing something we'd not get kicked out, i'd just like, look like some girl(thing(ish(whatever))) with some kind of gambler, like i was a good luck charm.

obv, he won nothing, he was reduced to 12 cents, from 2 dollars. so we just were out of the cold for a bit until my gf got us onto the list, and we waited in the karaoke place/venue (lol), eventually being let in by our friend who was putting on the show, and when we got into the venue the first thing i noticed was how bad the sound was, it was like, blown out, and quiet, too bassy, and too much high end, basically cuz of this really violent limiting on all the speakers which cuts off at the exact same point across all frequency bands, it was an awful sound, you couldn't really make anything out, the kicks were so puffy and weak sounding and the high hats really didn't have the high end to connect but were obviously shrill and peaking around like, 3k, i'd guess. it was insane.

anyways, the party clearly sucked, and there were almost no people even there, it was low turnout, the crowd had no energy, which makes sense when the music 1) sounds the same as always and 2) has the novelty of now sounding horrifically bad. people were kind of dancing and acting like it was awesome, but it was not.

basically we just kind of hung around, kind of just absorbing this awful thing, and then left, but as we were being driven home, my friend realized she left her phone at the place, so we had to go back, she drove a little crazy, but we had people there still who went and got it for us as we returned, when we got back her bf went in to get it for her, and as we waited in the parking lot, this guy who irritated me earlier in the night (by calling me a nickname which i hate/always hated, some people don't offend me when they do it, but i never like it, anyways when he did i just kind of said 'don't call me that' and withdrew my hand from a handshake we were abt to commence, when he asked why i just said i don't like it, and then shook his hand (maybe it was too much but he just irritates me so much honestly)) and he bothered my friend by just like, when my friend ran out to return the phone and then ran back inside, he took the phone and asked my other friend to play rock paper scissors for it back. he is a drunken child.

when my other friend came back from inside/saying all the long goodbyes he was trying to avoid, he was like, mad, because the guy who ran the thing was like 'oh we were gonna ask you to play, and like, you have a right to do it but like, you need to play different stuff, you know, you can't play the same stuff every time,' which came as a shock to my friend who has never heard this before and all these people play music that sounds identical to itself and the sets sound no different from any other, he's the only one who you can really tell has any personality when he performs stuff, and it's because largely he spins his original music, which he keeps in rotation yeah but it's all stuff that works, and he brings new tracks and tests them on crowds to see how they take it/like it, they usually always like them, he has grown fans from just doing things how he does. but idk, this really pissed him off, obviously, it bothers me even, idk why these rave people take this shit seriously to the point of mostly playing the most monotone and boring shit ever, they've really just kind of made all the kind of hardcore dance music less fun, even in home listening, it just reminds me, when it's good, of what i could hear on the dancefloors, but i never do, it's just the same sounds all the time. breaks feel so fucked to me, they just put up some kind of guard in me now whenever i hear them. it's sad but idk, it at least means there's something i can imagine in myself about another way out/around what these people are spinning.

ultimately they just dig thru soundcloud, find identical sounding songs, and play them to keep a vibe up, it's irritating, none of the interest in the dancefloor as transformative, instead it's about making the space something solid, reifying/writing what it is w/ signifiers like 'cold techno' and 'clattering hihats' or even '10 seconds of acid before the song becomes nothing again'. very boring stuff at the end of the day.

anyway, i am tired, i need to sleep now, tomorrow is errands day but since we don't have to do laundry anymore, it won't be bad, it'll be nice even.

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[self-loving-vampire]

Resumed playing Archolos tonight after being busy with Elden Ring and FFXIV for a while. I’m still a little bit lost on what I was doing and what parts of the map I had or had not explored previously but at least my past self was wise enough to take a good amount of notes that elucidates some of those questions.

I am already getting comfortable with it again, which is a huge relief because when I resume playing a game of this scope after not touching it for a long time I end up in a state of confusion about what I was doing and end up feeling like I should start over.

[phagodyke]

dunno if this is just placebo effect but I do feel like it's already helping a bit. usually at work I'm fighting for my life trying to write emails or ask ppl for things bc I find it so hard to put my words in order in a way that makes sense to other people but it's been 100% fine.. and I've managed to just Do every task I need so far without rly needing to think..... I feel so calm wtf

[phagodyke]

yeurgh

[foxingpeculiar]

Elden Ring Diary (maybe minor spoilers, but nothing much):

I did it for all the others, might as well do it for this one too.

Have logged about 7 hours at this point, and pretty much all of that has been fucking around in Limgrave, trying to get strong enough to survive/press forward. But I'm feeling like I'm in a pretty good place with that.

I chose a Bandit class to start, but have been going for a quality build so far, kind of spreading some stat points around until I get everything up to a decent level--then I'll see what I have and what I can work with. As far as weapons, I have a few, but the warpick has been serving me well so far so that's my go-to. I also finally found some magic by tracking down the stone-mask lady, but I don't have a staff/catalyst yet, so I'm just keeping it in my back pocket for now.

I've gotten past a number of the minibosses--five or six at least, at this point. The ones I haven't beat yet are the Tree Sentinel and the fellow in the wolf evergaol, the former just because I haven't gone back to him, and the latter because he's a bit too much for me yet. I also haven't triggered the lake dragon (and won't until I get some spellcasting on deck).

Have found some neat stuff, including a certain familiar face in a cave off a river. You know who I mean. Of the new folks I've come across, I'm most interested by this guy D. Like... he hunts undead. Are there vampires in this game? Cos like... Vampire Hunter D. Right?

So far, I'm having a great time. Still getting used to some of the new controls (the two-button combination for two-handing hasn't ingrained itself yet, and I keep hitting square [playing on PS5] to pick up items, cos that's how Sekiro worked), but I'm getting there. The new guard counter thing is a nice little touch, definitely been doing that. And I'm liking the summons--the wandering nobles and the jellyfish have both come in handy in a couple of boss fights. I only have one Ash of War so far, though, so I feel like I'm not getting the best of that system just yet.

The last thing that happened tonight was getting an invitation to the hub area--I'm not sure what triggered that, it seems like it just kinda happened randomly, but maybe it's after you beat so many bosses or something? In any case, there're a fair number of people in there already, which is kinda fun. Feels sorta like the Nexus, only a bit more cozy. So after I wandered around in there for a bit, that seemed like a good place to cut it off for the evening.

There's some places I haven't figured out how to get to, like the beach and that southern island. And I haven't gotten the northern part of Limgrave fully sussed yet--the bit over by that red area on the map. So tomorrow, I'll go wander around over there a bit, and then see about storming this here castle.