#but it certainly presents a ton of interesting stuff

[infizero]

OKAYYYY final episode guys. smile. lets wrap this up and kill this guy so i can get on with pretending like ep 25 was the last episode

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[bonus-links]

DIRECTORS COMMENTARY PLEASE I LOVE HEARING YOUR THOUGHTS AND PROCESS <3!!!!!!!!

YEAHHH lots to say for this update

there's a scene I didn't so much as cut from the beginning of this update as significantly shorten: Wolf, Loft, Wake, and Slate are changing into their lighter outfits. Loft says the same line as having the party, Wake begs them for this one day with his Gran Gran, and they all agree they can wait. I've been trying to get better about like, not putting a ton of work into unnecessary connecting scenes, which is why I cut it down. Wake sounding more cavalier also works better for the overall chapter. But i was sad to leave this joke out lol:

may I present to you, Slate's picture gallery! he was mostly on task documenting flora and fauna but he gets a little sidetracked sometimes

I love the idea that he's just, like, kind of terrible at photography. he documents stuff for Zelda and it's always weirdly cropped and kind of out of focus, but she appreciates it anyway.

Slate is also picking flowers for the party! so he is still helping out on that front lol

idk if i've mentioned this before, but beetle does still have pincers! they're just. idk what the right word is. retractable maybe? yeah. like the ancient weapon blades

the filling of the half moon pies is pineapple :-) i was. so worried about it looking like an egg HAHA.

I thought way too hard about how they were going to cook these pies. I was originally going to draw a clay oven or some other setup, but ultimately I thought the Zelda tradition of only having pots over fires to cook was a funnier nod lol. So, they're frying the pies

believe it or not, I wrote this scene before reading dungeon meshi HAHA but it certainly served as good reference for how to set up shots for it

Aryll did in fact eavesdrop on Wake telling Tetra The Situation

That's Champion's little sister in the memory! I like the headcanon that her name was also Aryll.

Champion and his sister are making meat pies instead of pineapple ones.

One again, made a bunch of layout mistakes I ended up having to fix, except this time I didn't catch them until I had already gotten to rendering :-( if you're a patron, you probably saw these versions in the WIP:

problems here: Wolf is walking the wrong away. I was sad we'd be losing his expression but alas. And for the panels with Champion's sister, the angle is too low to be an actual POV shot. I could've left it and said he's just sitting or something probably but it was really bothering me lol so I redrew everything. and then recolored all of it. woof.

as a general rule, if he has scars, that's Slate. No scars is The Other Guy

I understand the complaint about this in BOTW, but I actually kind of like that weird moment that occurs after you finish a memory cutscene, and it just abruptly goes back to Link looking blank-faced like nothing happened. It implies this kind of....distance from the memories that I find interesting. Slate has complicated feelings abt the memories of Champion's life he gets, but like. there's pies to make

shout out to peony she's a real one

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

twst 2023 valentine gift COMPLETE message compilation!!

Information about 2021 and 2022 TWST Valentine Gifts here! 2023's Valentine Gift is a macaron-like compact mirror. Character signatures here! 2021 Letters (text only) here! 2022 Letters (text only) here! 2023 Letters (text only) below the cut!! ***SPOILERS AHEAD!!***

Something interesting to note! The 2023 letters all seem to indicate that the sender's gift was something sweet and edible in nature. Previous years thanked the sender for their "gift", but did not typically indicate what the gift was.

Here is a brief example of what the letters look like this year before we get to the actual new contents of each (which are exact English transcriptions):

Heartslabyul

🌹 Riddle Thank you for the lovely sweets. I'll have them on my study breaks. If they're good, perhaps I'll set them out at a tea party. You'll certainly be invited if I do. After all, there's no rule that states you can't join in.

♣️ Trey Hello friend-- Thanks so much for the gift. It was exactly my taste, with just the right amount of sweetness. I can tell you thought a lot about what to get. I'll come up with a recipe based on these sweets sometime. I hope you'll get to taste test it for me.

♦️ Cater Eyyy, friendo! Sweets aren't normally my jam, but the ones you picked out were PERF--and they looked great too! You must've put in some WORK picking them out. So, thanks! I'll make sure to do the same for you!

❤️ Ace Heya, pal-- I kinda freaked when I saw you left a present at my door--in a good way! You actually sent me sweets! You could've just given them to me in person, you know. I haven't had any yet, but I'm sure they'll be great! We should share them at lunch tomorrow.

♠️ Deuce My good friend-- Thanks for the amazing gift! You got me those mega-popular sweets we just talked about, right? They were so good! It's kind of a shame I ate them all. Have you had any? I guess it'd be weird if I gifted you the same thing, but come shopping with me sometime and we can pick out some sweets for you.

Savanaclaw

🦁 Leona Hey-- You gave me SWEETS? I swear, sometimes I don't know what goes through that noggin of yours. I'll be nice and say I appreciate the sentiment... this time. But don't expect any glowing food reviews.

🐆 Ruggie Hey, 'sup. I got the sweets you sent! It's always a good day when someone gifts me food. These are supposed to be real popular right now, yeah? They must've been hard to snag. Shyeheehee, that makes them double good! Thanks a ton!

🐺 Jack Hi-- I was surprised when I smelled something sweet at my door. Consider your present received. I still can't believe you gave me such cutesy looking sweets. Not that I'm unhappy about it, of course. I actually like candy and stuff. Thanks.

Octavinelle

🐙 Azul My boon companion-- Thank you for the heartfelt gift. I suppose I owe it to you to partake of these sweets. Don't worry. Once I've analyzed the flavor, I'll gift you something equally delicious. After all, fair's fair.

🐬 Jade My good friend-- You've outdone yourself. Sweets that pair well with black tea? My deepest thanks. I'm flattered that you thought of me so when selecting them. You've inspired me. I'm going to spend my mountain hikes pondering just the right tea blend to suit your palate. I do hope you'll enjoy it.

🦈 Floyd Dear little shrimpy-- I saw your present. You got me candy? That rules! I was JUST in the mood for something sweet. I might not be tomorrow though, so I think I'll polish them off today. Thanks.

Scarabia

☀️ Kalim To my dear friend-- Thanks for the present! What colorful and sparkly sweets. They look delicious! I just had an idea! How about we eat them together after school? Gifts like this taste better when shared, after all. I'll pick out a good tea to go with them. Can't wait to see you later!

🐍 Jamil Hello-- I was surprised to see you gifted me sweets. At first I wondered if you were hinting for me to make you something similar... But when I pulled the gift out of the bag, I saw all the details you put into it, right down to the ribbon. It's clear this was a heartfelt gesture. I'll treasure these treats as I eat them. Thank you.

Pomefiore

👑 Vil Dearest friend-- Thank you for the gift. The sweets were dazzling and most attractive. Did you try to imagine what I'd like when picking them out? If you, you made an apt choice. I'll have something for you later in return.

🏹 Rook Bonjour, and merci beaucoup! What a lovely batch of confections! They're so darling that I'm tempted to stow them away in a brilliant bejeweled box. Ah, but I jest. I'll enjoy every morsel of this gift you've so thoughtfully bestowed upon me.

🍎 Epel Dear friend-- Thanks for the gift! Sweets from the city have a real fancy vibe, don't they? I'll savor every bite. I know this isn't exactly a gift, but I just scored some coupons for the cafeteria. Wanna join me for lunch tomorrow? Just wait for me, and I'll find you!

💀 Ignihyde

Idia Shroud @YOU huh? What the wha? im low-key scared here why would u give me sweets??? ig that sometimes i run low on sugar when ive been gaming too long and my aim becomes trash... ok sure, if this is ur way of looking out for me, ill take it

🤖 Ortho Shroud Hello, Prefect-- Thanks for the present! The sweets were very charming and cute, not to mention colorful. What neat designs! I'll make sure to save this as a special memory. I've run the data on their base ingredients, and hope to gift you some fitting sweets in return soon.

Diasomnia

🐉 Malleus Draconia To my dear friend-- Thank you. Never did I envision someone presenting me with the gift of sweet treats. It would be a shame for me to eat them all by myself. I think I'll share them with you. Would you be willing to provide the tea to go with them?

🦇 Lilia Vanrouge Greetings! Your present was delightful. The treats had a subtle sweetness that was perfect for a slightly mature fae like myself. I'll be making you a lovely treat in return, using a very special recipe of mine. I hope you'll enjoy it.

💤 Silver Salutations-- Thanks for the gift. I read once that sugar can boost your concentration. Did you give me these to snack on when I'm about to nod off during my studies? That was very considerate of you. I think I'll try them out today.

⚡️ Sebek Zigvolt Human-- I've received your gift. It was agreeably sweet. In fact, it might've been sweet enough to make black coffee bearable... But I digress. Regardless, I was somewhat impressed with your choice. You have my thanks.

NRC Staff + Grim

🎭 Dire Crowley Dear esteemed student-- Thank you for the delicious gift. And don't bother telling me I was supposed to share it--I've already finished the whole package! If you wish for the staff to also partake, I suggest you acquire more treats. But don't worry, I won't say a word if you give the same gift twice. I'm kindhearted like that!

🐶 Divus Crewel Dear pup-- Is this a gift for the staff? Excellent. Now that I have some treats to sweeten my breaks, I'll be able to grade your exams with a much more critical eye. I can see the grimace on your face now. Relax, it was a joke. It's usually frowned upon for dogs to be the ones buying fits, but since you're such a loyal pup, I'll let you off. I'm a generous trainer, after all.

📚 Mozus Trein Dear juvenile-- I must wonder why you decided to get me a present. Is this your way of thanking me for my lecture the other day? If so, gifts are hardly necessary. It's a teacher's job to educate students with a thirst for knowledge. I can't accept any offerings from students, but the sentiment is much appreciated. I expect nothing but excellence from you moving forward.

💪 Ashton Vargas Dear student-- Thanks for the present! Excessive sugar is a no-go when building a beautiful bod, but it'd be bad form for let your thoughtful gesture go to waste. Such is the price of popularity. I'll just have to accept that and work off everything I eat. Keep up those reps!

🎩 Sam Yo, little imp! What is UP? Thanks so much for the gift! You've got a real eye for quality. I'll make sure to stock up on goods that'll pique your interest, so swing by the shop soon!

🐱 Grim Dear hench-human-- Mraaah! Is this ALL for me?! I've never seen such sparkly, yummy-lookin' candy before! I feel like a king! But I'd feel bad leavin' you out of this sugar extravaganza, so I GUESS you can have a small piece. I'm lookin' forward to more gifts, partner!

[olderthannetfic]

Is there a label for people who don't feel sexual or romantic attraction and have no desire to get into a relationship or have sex? I used to use aroace, but people on my campus, in my fanfic notes and in my dorm building keep telling me aces have sex and aces have romance, and when I try to say I'm aroace, they just repeat, "Ace people date." "Ace people get laid." "Ace people are normal." And... well, I'm not normal. I don't want to date and bang and all of that and forcing myself to do so always made me miserable. Back when I found the term ace, I was happy, because I thought it applied to me. But after every. single. person. I mention I'm ace to informing me ace = dates, has sex I'm realizing I don't have a label that actually describes someone like me who isn't normal. (One guy at a dorm floor activity asked if I had a mental illness, since he figured that would be the only thing that made someone not want to have relationships or sex. None of the other queer people present said anything. Two nodded.)

I tried Googling to figure something out, but it just kept giving me the wrong answer (aroace). Then I figured hey, OTNF knows a shit ton about queerness. If anyone can tell me what label actually applies to people like me, it's you.

--

Hah. I'm no expert on this stuff. Nobody was talking about it in my youth. (Yes, I know we have documentation of college queer groups including the word 'asexual' on their signs from long before my time, but it just wasn't a thing in any of the queer books and magazines I read in the 90s or circles I ran in until the last five to ten years.)

The issue you're running into is simply that the term is too broad, covering people who are definitely not experiencing attraction to others but still enjoy sex to people who... well... it's uncharitable, but there are some people where I wonder if the main reason they identify that way is that they have a very faulty understanding of what attraction looks like for others.

But it certainly does include people with no interest in sex or dating.

[only-by-the-stars]

Fic Promo: Song of a Champion

Now that @spacelemon has put up that amazing promo vid of the Mipha's Grace mod, it feels like a good time to do a little self-promo of my own, for something that I promise is related (otherwise I wouldn't be mentioning the vid; I am doing so in hopes of helping to get more eyeballs on it): a fic I've been writing since 2022, that is both inspired by and based on the mod. I've been lucky enough to have been allowed to play early versions of it, and was inspired to write a fic that retells BOTW with Mipha as the lead, taking cues from many plot points and armor redesigns present in the mod. If that's not enough to entice you, then please read on for my list of things that you might enjoy about this fic!

It's about Mipha Judging by the results of my poll, a lot of you like reading about Mipha! I've written a LOT about her over the past few years, but this is my most in-depth exploration of her yet. It's entirely centered on her, delving deep into her thoughts and feelings and exploring the myriad aspects of her personality as we follow her journey. Instead of Link waking up on the Great Plateau without his memories and being handed the responsibility of saving Hyrule, it's Mipha who must walk this path; unlike in the base game, she's not a fridged love interest for Link to be sad about, she's an active heroine in her own right with a monumental task ahead of her from the moment she wakes up, not to mention a lot of questions. How did she get there? Can she do this? What--and who--has she forgotten in her century-long slumber? How will she find her way in this strange new world she awakens to? What kind of bonds will she forge with the people she meets along her way? All these and more are tackled in great depth as she goes on her adventure, setting out with, initially, little more than her own courage, determination, and compassion. I've been told by many people that I write their favorite Mipha, and though this isn't my first time giving her a starring role, I fully believe this is my best character work for her so far. I've given her so much to do and act on and react to, exploring her rich inner life and personality and character FAR beyond just shipping stuff, and developed a lot of really fun friendships for her and gone heavy on her familial relationships as well. There is miphlink, but it's only one aspect, and Mipha herself is the shining star at the heart of everything.

2. It takes inspiration from Wind Waker Mainly, the concept of a character who is not the chosen one stepping up and proving themselves worthy and going on to save Hyrule. If you, like me, enjoyed that aspect of Wind Waker, then you'll like this story!

3. It plays with the lore in fun ways Do you like the older bits of lore from pre-Skyward Sword games? Like the Golden Goddesses and other deities? Then you'll like the bits of it I've weaved in!

4. It treats the NPCs with care, love, and nuance One of the things I'm proudest of about this story, that I've gotten praise from others for, is how the various NPCs are written. I've treated them all like people in their own right, who all have their own rich inner lives, schedules, interests, priorities, and feelings that don't revolve around the protagonist. Mipha befriends most of them, yes, but that's because she treats them with compassion and kindness too. Nobody is shallow here, I've gone to great pains to illustrate a world filled with people all living their own lives that intersect with Mipha's journey in various ways, and allowed people to just be human and make mistakes and have doubts but ultimately just be people. There's a lot of emphasis on Mipha's relationships with her family, and I've certainly won praise for my depiction of these dynamics, but also a ton of friendships being formed and explored, and people have told me that I made certain characters interesting and likable to them where the game failed to do so.

5. It has awesome fight scenes BOTW is a game with a lot of combat, so anyone novelizing it better be good at writing that kind of scene. Fortunately, I am! This is an action-packed story, not just for its own sake, but to show the dangerous world Mipha is traveling through and the challenges she has to face as she ventures into each Divine Beast and cleanses them of their respective Blights. I write really fast-paced action that also shows the characters' mindsets while fighting, and strikes a balance between showing off their strengths and that they're up to the challenge, while also respecting their opponents and demonstrating why the Champions of a hundred years ago fell to these things, why NPCs fear certain monsters. And speaking of respecting opponents, I've taken stuff from Age of Calamity as well as some of my own inventions, to beef up the boss fights, a certain area, and make every Divine Beast threatening (we all know how scary Medoh wasn't in-game).

6. It has beautiful prose/descriptions But you don't have to just take my word for it! Here's a sample from the rough draft of chapter 42!

Shards of light drifted across her floor, leaves caught in the current of clouds flowing over the moon. Mipha took a moment to watch them before closing the door behind herself. The water in her sleeping pool murmured a melody of rest and relaxation after a long day, calling her to it, but she ignored it for now. She’d done all her preparations for tomorrow, downed a warm elixir crafted from a few hearty lizards, and now only one thing remained to do before going to bed. It wasn’t a need, as the other tasks had been, but a want. Nothing wrong with that. She crossed the room to the old chest that lay tucked beneath her window, opening the lid with a whining creak from the aged hinges. A folded length of fabric the color of spilt starlight lay atop the item she sought; Mipha moved it aside. Her breath catching, she withdrew the armor beneath and held it up to the softly swaying illumination of the moon outside and the luminous stone lamps within.

All in all, I think this fic is some of my best work, and shouldn't be missed if you're a Mipha fan like I am (she is my favorite Zora, so if it's okay I'd like to use this as a belated submission for that Zora May prompt). She truly is the star of the show, with so much to offer as a lead character, moving through a world treated with depth and care. If you're in the market for a BOTW retelling that does something different, something no other retelling has done, and does it really well, then give it a chance! You can read it here on AO3. :3

[felassan]

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -

"I imagine that the only way that broodmothers would remain in the game [DA:O] would be in a remaster. In a remake I'm sure they would make changes, I would be very surprised if they didn't. But in a remaster you can get away with a lot more. I think they would change their appearance. Also, there's been an effort to unify the look of the darkspawn a lot more, so." "You're never gonna see broodmothers, probably in any form, in the mainline games, definitely not in the form that they're in in DA:O. I don't think you'll ever see a broodmother again. I guarantee that you're not seeing broodmothers in any future Dragon Age thing. I would be very confident in that statement."

Chat commented "Male Desire demons on the other hand" and Mark replied that there is a concept art out there for male Desire demons.

Chat asked "If we won't get Broodmothers, do you think we'll get the original Archdemon design? The Tentacle Monster one?". Mark replied "Probably not the tentacle version for an Archdemon. I could see that being created as another monster or high level boss, but probably not as Archdemon because the, sort've, dragon as being part of an Archdemon is too intertwined in the lore at this point."

Chat commented "I just hope the Mythal death in DA:I was a fakeout". Mark said, "One thing with Mythal is that, Kate Mulgrew, as her stock has risen and fallen, her price has gone all over the place, so 'is Mythal gonna show up?' decisions will be partially based upon if she's priced herself out of the market or not. Though I think she actually was sad, based on the DA:I stuff, so maybe she'd be willing to do it on a little bit of a lower price. But I actually don't know, because is Orange Is the New Black still on the air? Her price may have come down again." "I mean definitely you can see, sometimes characters disappearing is because the voice actor became a pain to work with, or became expensive, those are definitely factors, no question."

Later on this topic chat asked "Would you say Laura Bailey is still in the affordable VA space? I know she's become a mega popular/busy thanks to CR, but she's always been VA first afaik." Mark replied "Depends, you can always sort've write less for them, if you can do it in one session you can kind've afford anybody, it's a question of how much they're gonna show up."

Chat asked "Do you agree with the criticism some people have that DA lore focuses too much on elves?" Mark said "Yeah, kind've, I think it sort've, it's not on purposes, the elves, they just kind've end up sneaking into everything it seems like. I think there's a recognition of the elves kind've being too present." "I don't think elves are going to disappear, I just think that they don't necessarily need to, one of the things that sort've constantly happened is that the stories ended up presenting the elves as, they keep sort've having them make just the worst decisions. So I suspect there's a goal to maybe make them not do that and then that would allow them to sort've rebalance with everyone else. It's also harder to get, dwarves kind've require a, they're either harder to integrate in, because they're off [over there], they're not just in a forest, you gotta go into a hole to talk to them, so they kind've always are gonna be less present unless you're doing something in the Deep Roads or Orzammar."

"It's always hard to kill off the protagonist. Always gonna get people who are against that but y'know [shrug]. I can certainly see the argument for killing off the Inquisitor in Trespasser".

Chat asked "Would it be more likely that we would be able to get answers to the more deep-fan stuff like The Calling etc by assuming those would be in DLC and not the main game of DA:D?" Mark replied "I don't imagine that there's gonna be a ton of, it's possible that you're gonna see that sort've stuff in DLC but I don't know what the live service plan is gonna be for DA:D to be honest because that was definitely, has been in flux over the course of DA:D, that's for sure."

[source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

[when party camp is ambushed by darkspawn] "That's one of the few times that we actually pay that off"

[during Leliana's party camp song] "Very impressive cinematic design. It shows off the age of the models in the close ups, but the long shots are really great." "They're desperately trying to get the lipsyncing to match and failing"

Chat asked "Any insight as to why class design was made so much stricter in DAII and DA:I? DA:O had dual wield warriors, rogues with swords, etc." Mark replied "In DAII and DA:I I think we were trying to make the roles more clear. DA:O is basically DnD with no clerics and the serial numbers filed off"

In later DA games they suppressed visual effects (like glowing auras from active skills) during conversations. "Probably for the best because I'm also having... weird glowing stuff coming off of me"

[when Dagna in Orzammar talks about a bunch of nerdy magic lore] Chat asked "When you made this part about dwarfs and lyrium, had you then made enough lore to know how it all worked? aka how the Descent in DA:I would play out? Not story, but lorewise." Mark replied "The lore, like the magic sources in DA:O are kind've a mess so there is, there's been an effort since DA:O to kind've draw them back together. There was an understanding of why dwarves didn't have magic in DA:O, so kind've." Chat followed up "'​Like theres four sources [of magic]: Fade, Blood, Lyrium, Blight?" and Mark said "Yeah, that's sort've the problem. You've got lyrium, you've got the Fade, you've got the Blight, you've got blood magic, you've also got some other, sort've genericized stuff where it's not explained. So from my perspective you kind've wanna collapse that down. You either want magic to just generally be from everything, which a lot of settings do, or you want it to have a somewhat unified source or sources, so you can see that there's like, things have been slowly drawn into a more common metaphysical explanation over the last two games."

Chat asked "​I'm not sure when you came on to the DA:O project, but do you know which of the origins was the last to be added? Were any kind of 'last minute afterthoughts'?" Mark said "The actual truth is we cut an origin. There was an origin for the Avvar as well that got cut, so there was supposed to be two elves, two dwarves, two humans and then mage, but we cut the Avvar for time." "I actually really like the idea of us having implemented at least one faction where you come up with the Treaties and they're like 'good to go, just let us get our stuff'. That could've been the Avvar, as well"

"I think that lyrium will eventually drive a dwarf mad. I think that's established canon." "I would say that just because lyrium drives you mad doesn't mean that dwarves would stop using it. It only slightly drives you mad. Certainly there are lots of examples in [irl] history of people continuing to use things that are very bad for them because they're convenient or cheap."

"I've always wondered about dwarves, I mean you're burning big fires in the middle of a cave, and everyone's living together, it does seem like you're gonna run out of breathable air pretty quickly"

Chat asked "Were you involved much in the class design aspect of the game?" and Mark said "With DA:O? Not too much. When I took over, the game was largely design-locked. There was content still being created but most of the game design was done well before I took over"

Mass Effect 1's combat was aspiring to be something it was failing to reach

Chat mentioned that Citadel was a fan service/love letter DLC. Mark said "Citadel in ME is definitely, you're absolutely right, it's definitely a 'please stop being mad at us' piece of DLC." "I don't even know if it hit its profitability goals"

"The asari in ME didn't succeed at being a parody of the 'green space babes' trope. ME races are like Star Trek races, they're all defined by a relatively small number of characteristics. If they're attempting to be parodies of those kinds of races in something like Star Trek they are not succeeding at doing that. It's hard to imagine that you're succeeding at making a commentary about it when you're basically just doing the same thing. If you're using the codexes to talk about how well executed they are then it's not coming through in the main game, if that's what's required."

[source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[twopoppies]

regarding what you mentioned earlier about there being no announcement for harry resigning with sony

how do we know his contract ended?

and

if he did resign would the announcement come around the end of financial year (end of June)? idk how music contracts work but in my mind they’d work off financial years?

definitely interesting if he doesn’t/hasn’t resigned with sony!

I’m not the best person to talk to about business stuff because I don’t know a ton about how it works, either. But I’ll try to answer.

It was reported that Harry signed a three-album deal with Sony. He’s delivered on that. I’d assume that Sony would have insisted on a first right of refusal clause (meaning, when it comes time to re-sign, Harry would have to give them the opportunity to turn him down before signing elsewhere). It’s a really standard clause, so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t there. I believe the only way for him to sign somewhere else is if the other label were to offer Harry something that Sony couldn’t match (usually money, but it could be anything: rights to his masters, more money for press albums, more creative control, etc).

Sony would want to announce that their cash cow has re-signed in order to make their shareholders feel confident in Sony’s potential earnings. I’m not sure when announcements are made, but i remember seeing video of presentations being made where Sony was showing off their roster and Harry was on that list. So it seems like it would be a collective announcement at a particular time. I haven’t seen anything like that since, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a regular thing.

Harry going to a football match with Rob Stringer looked to me like a show of good faith, and certainly was intended to put people’s minds to rest about where his loyalty is. I don’t expect him to sign with anyone but Sony, but I’m just aware of the long time that’s passed since Harry gave them that third album.

If anyone else knows more about this stuff, please feel free to tack on. As I said, I’m no expert.

[loopingpyre]

Shadow knife dies so hard in the original they forgot to put him in the final dungeon. This might be a bit all over the place. There was a lot. Most of the final two eps are the characters accepting their decision to be better when they get back. Izuru being on the spectrum makes a ton of sense. Not the direction one expects from the cool loner type. Unlike Mifue and Suzuna, Kotono is too straight for the female MC. Tragic. Kinda messed up you can give Suzuna codependency issues though. Shogo's was great. 13 years...and then he gets a chance to do things right the second time. And all of a sudden Thorn with the steel chair making him go through that again in the ending. My man cannot catch a break! Still, points for being the most forthcoming about how it's gonna suck for everyone when they get back. Even at the end before the Mu fight he calls reality hell. Nice reminder that their real struggles are after they get back. I can't imagine the game expected the Marie bit to be an actual twist. I wasn't ready for her transformation though. Where is she keeping all of those bombs... Super cool tie! Shadow knife's eps. If the Eiji death messed him up this bad I can't imagine how miserable Kotaro's would've been. Pretty much was a longer version of his stuff from the tower which I didn't mind. Mu kinda breaks in the second half of his and Wicked's story. Sad. Wicked though. Wtf! I was so unsure what the point of her story was at first. She doesn't really learn much of anything nor does she care to and you barely get more insight into her over the course of it. Reading that she was comatose and then seeing the hospital scene though. It stirred something within me for sure but I don't know if I can word it. Maybe it's that some people in Mobius just can't be helped? Her scars run so deep and she's also not even capable of living and trying like the rest of them when they go back. Then again her grandfather doesn't take the mask off so she's still got a chance if she wakes up? There's hope there but she's so far gone I'm not sure if you're supposed to believe in that. I will say Ike-P's comments when you are in the aquarium with Shadow Knife and Wicked and depressed Mu were hilarious. I felt so bad for him. He's too normal for all that. Thorn was certainly an antagonist. Part of me was expecting a much deeper reason with Ichika but nope just a lost love/friend. Like if they weren't whispering in Mu's ear then they could've been an earlier musician and Wicked could've been the one who wanted to destroy the world. Grand Guignol sucked. Looks awesome but man those hallways were long. Interesting that Mirei didn't need to be brainwashed of all people. Kuchinashi and Wicked being done with reality made sense but I guess there's not much left for Mirei either (in her eyes). Stay in Mobius ending was insanely miserable. As for the actual end. Happy that Mu and Aria can be together again. I will say Aria did grow on me over the course of the game and only a small percent of that was seeing the yuri vision between her and Mu. Trying to guess who everyone was in the credits was a fun little game. I really liked how even the characters who didn't have much of an image problem still presented differently in Mobius. Also liked how they didn't really show anyone's face. Makes them regular people who are back to a regular world. Seeing the musicians interacting with the club members was super sweet too. I wonder if Mirei knew that was Kotono and her kid. While there's a lot of hope, the Kuchinashi one was quite the downer. Feels like the game wants you to play out how their lives will play out including however you defined the mc. A little meta that you don't really see the MC? The person in Mobius is your avatar and when you finish the game you're back to living in reality. Might be reading too much into that though. Quick note on the last few songs. Were there like effects or something? How was she doing that with her voice?? Might have some final things to add once I sleep on it. Thank you for reading my rambling this whole time! 4096 limit.

So the fun part about the Wicked thing is that her character episodes are a bit limited. This is because there's a natural stopper in the form of an official light novel sequel to the game, that's all about her.

You can find a translation here if you're interested. I adore this thing so much, this was written before Overdose was released, so future content couldn't really contradict it. The 12 episode anime adaptation actually gives her more screentime outside of Naruko so it's less of a twist, but that anime is already more of a fun fan thing because it's not a straight adaptation of the game to begin with. The whole thing about reality and hell is that it's trying to play on the game's fancy tagline that uses a special kanji that refers to both of those words at the same time, reality is hell. Thorn is very interesting also because like, their backstory is packed with Stuff that they keep hidden from you and there's so many wild implications in the idea of assuming someone else's guise so they 'aren't dead'. Like, holy shit. I like how the ending is stylised like that. It's rather interesting in that it's an overdose exclusive addition, and Takuya Yamanaka, the game's director isn't actually sold on if it was the best thing to even add because he wanted it to be interpret-able and not just give them happiness, but he also wanted players to get a little bit more out of the characters if they'd already played the vita game. It's one of those things where I think they managed to run a smidge better in the anime due to being able to just do whatever. I like Kuchinashi and Shogo just so happening to cross paths though, that's cute. The last few songs are especially insane, the boss rush in the grand guinol is all new overdose remixes, arrangements by Cosmo@P, who also composed Thorn's theme, Distorted Happiness. They go incredibly hard and I think it has to be a combination of skills to make Ueda's voice go wild. I'm really glad you enjoyed the game! If you ever come up with any other notes about it let me know, it's been a ton of fun reading your stuff!

[foster-the-world]

Onward and Upward

Last day of school. Onward to 3rd grade, 2nd grade and 4K. Can't believe she's going to be a "big kid" in the 3rd grade. They grow up so fast, its goes too fast, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.

They were happy this morning. Certainly no learning will take place today. Bee's teachers is bringing her 9 and 13yo. Bee loves, loves, loves the 13yo. Our flight to my parents house is 8pm tonight. Got an email that we could change for free due to bad weather. It looks like maybe the storm is coming in later. Fingers crossed.

The girls had their awards ceremony last week. Disappointingly 2nd grade only did "you completed 2nd grade" awards for everyone. Lame. 1st grade had individual awards but they were generic - leadership, academic excellence. Rebel won both big awards because she's a teachers pet type. I had to miss because I don't have vacation hours at work. My husband said all of the kids were really excited for each other. I loved, loved Bee's teachers awards last year. Every kid got two very specific awards. They were very, very sweet and captured each kid beautifully. The kids tried to guess who she was talking about and they were 100% correct because the teacher really understood each kid so well. I had tears in my eyes. One of my favorite things is to see my kids being known and loved by other people. I wondered if it would be less so with a kid who has much more challenging behaviors. But nope. Baby boy was very well loved and known this year also. His teacher sent me a long text message about how much she is going to "miss her boy." She also sent a ton of pictures that capture him really well. Bee wrote "You are a great teacher. You treated me like family" in her teacher's card. So sweet. Teachers gifts sent off (flowers + gift cards). Feeling relieved to have all of the end of school year stuff over with.

I'm enjoying Clair Lombardo's books. I got a bunch of new books for baby boy on hold at the library. Found some about personal space. He's more of a crasher into other people so I'm not sure it will translate but let's see. His social skills class finished yesterday. If insurance paid we would keep sending him but I don't think its worth the steep price for what he got out of it. He understands social rules he just doesn't always follow them. They have a summer camp - nice to know for future reference.

The ADHD parent coach has given us some good suggestions we are trying out. We mentioned taking him to stores is difficult. He wants to run around and touch everything. I think it would work better in the suburbs where they have carts. In NYC we try to hold his hand while holding all of our purchases. Stores are smaller so less space for him. Anyway, he suggested we try it when we don't actually need to buy anything. That way we have time to set rules for him (stay near us, don't touch everything) and can leave if he's not following through. We are also going to put him in charge of finding one item. He can then buy/keep the item if he follows all of the rules. He gets three warnings. Normally we only take him when we have to buy something so we can't follow through with the threat of leaving if he doesn't listen. Not sure why we didn't think of this before. Fingers crossed some practice will help him/us out.

His sitter said he is interested in reading the pamphlets/how to's from the ADHD parent coach. Which is appreciated. Once again thankful to have so many people who want my kid to succeed.

His sitter owns a backpack company. Such a cool idea. They are really high quality: https://shiftbackpacks.com/ I'm really hoping they go viral at some point. I suggested he try to get in the NYC private school circuit. Those rich people have money and are all about letting their kids express their emotions.

Bought my husband (and I) tickets to Sturgill Simpson in October for his Birthday. Birthday present done and I get to see a concert = yes, please.

[delcat177]

Hiding behind the facade of a man will not make you any less a woman. It won’t heal you of your pain.

There’s nothing wrong with your body. Please stop hating yourself.

Oh boy, there's TONS of stuff wrong with my body. I've got asthma, allergies, the one bad eye, acid reflux like nobody's business (famotidine is good for it, I gotta say), intermittent costochondritis, hypothyroid, at least two enzymatic conditions, and I haven't been to a podiatrist in years so my Achilles' tendonitis is kinda out of control, my left leg is getting to the point where it's weaker than the right, I need a doc on that. Oh, and the BPPV, but that's a nuisance more than anything.

I assume you don't know any of this, because I assume you don't know me, or you would know that I don't have any interest in going out of my way to present masculine, so I can't "hurt my body" with it. I did have a full hysterectomy about a decade back, because from puberty my periods were very heavy, very long, very painful, and pulled the rug out on my OCD/anxiety/depression meds, leaving me incapacitated and weak. After a diagnosis of PMDD with probable endometriosis, long before I identified as trans, I lobbied to have the operation done for quality of life, and when I finally did--I can't begin to describe how much better I am now. I really, honestly can't, you would have to see me in my old bleeding-out days. I'm on estrogen to avoid early menopause, calcium for my bonebs. Following in my cis aunt's footsteps, actually, my maternal line has a lot of jank uterine DNA, and Mom used to talk about how Aunt M was lying in bed after *her* hysterectomy and going "I feel so much better, I feel so much better", and the ensuing health uptick after that. So, like, not gender related, people do get confused about that. No interest in surgeries w/r/t presentation.

That covers the physical section pretty well...uh, like I said, have the anxiety triad, but it's been covered for years as long as I get my meds on time, and I'm strong enough now to make the phone calls to make that happen. That's big for me, I really did have a lot of pain after my mom died, but in the years since, I feel like I've worked through what can be worked through in grief. It still crops up, but it's not paralytic. Same with the agoraphobia, I keep working on it and it keeps getting better. I'm volunteering once a week now, and I know that's small potatoes for most people, but with my energy issues, I'm proud of myself. I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect of having a job again in this market, just because I've been off the horse so long, but I'm certainly putting feelers out there, could use extra funds for when I go see my fiance.

So, I dunno, Doc...what was your name again? You are a doctor, right? Like, my doctor? Because I'm confused why anyone else would need to know this, and, now that I think about it, I'm a little confused because I don't recall hiring anyone for a check-up, but I'm doing okay. You do read the status forms I give you at med checks, right? I know there was an anxiety bump when I started volunteering, and not gonna lie, it's stressful, but I feel a lot more alive for it. More work, more walk, less weed, like we talked about.

Gosh, it really feels nice to talk things out with you. So, schedule out for three months, see what's happening then? I'm inevitably gonna postpone once because I forgot it was due and then potentially come in five minutes late because of that *ungodly* bus stop, but the important thing is we both know that. See you then, thanks so much!

[trobador-adjacent]

Remembered a thing from my childhood today, so I'm ramble posting about it just so someone hears about it.

It's known that France is a literal country of weebs. The French are the largest consumers of manga outside of Japan, which is at least partly due to the prominence of comics in the French-speaking world (bande dessinée), and the quantity of anime that was on TV in the 80s and 90s (through the show Club Dorothée notably) has led to a few generations of enthusiasts of Japanese pop culture.

One result of that was Nolife. It was a TV channel that ran from 2007 to 2018, focused on 'nolife' culture, meaning games, otaku culture, technology, etc. While it was a pay channel, we just happened to have access to it at my home because it was included in our phone/internet plan, and I watched it a lot alongside the one other channel that catered to my interests, Game One.

The thing about Nolife was that they absolutely did not care to look for marketability, though. Game One, the bigger name channel that's still around, mainly covered things like current gaming news, the latest AAA games, sometimes showing big name shonen anime and mainstream pop culture stuff. Meanwhile, Nolife covered every single aspect of its subject.

They covered gaming news and reviewed games in their weekly show, but they gave the same screen time to AAA games as they did to obscure Xbox Live Arcade releases or Japanese games not certain to have American releases, let alone European ones. They gave a ton of attention to retro games, even series with no present relevance; there was even one show focused on superplays, aka score or challenge playthroughs, of mostly arcade games which is the only reason I even know the term. And it was all done with great care, too, always treating the subject and the viewer with respect.

They occasionally had manga and anime reviews and I remember sometimes seeing very niche anime series, but that was actually rare; a lot of their otaku culture coverage was about much deeper aspects like music, from rock (I heard supercell for the first time on there) to freaking idol groups (there was a popular idol who made regular appearances and hosted a small segment for years), and parts of actual Japanese culture, somewhat. You know those shows on Japanese TV where they have a celebrity visit a prefecture and go 'wowee!' at whatever tourist attraction or food specialty they have? They had something that was either an in-house translation of such a show or that they actually produced. It wasn't exactly great considering what these shows are, but it was certainly authentic!

And then, since they were more or less indies themselves, they gave a LOT of attention to indie works of various kinds as well. They were, as far as I know, the first channel in the country to air web live-action series. It gave a lot of attention and budget to works that couldn't really be financially sound if published on YouTube or elsewhere on the 2010s Internet ; notable names include Noob and Le Visiteur which have become franchises today.

I didn't always get the chance to watch Nolife, nor did I always understand or appreciate everything they showed when I was too little. But damn, do I cherish that time. Reflecting on it now, I think Nolife deeply affected the way I engaged with my interests later in life because it wasn't afraid to be niche and specific and treat niche and specific things with respect and attention. It didn't care to aim for the lowest common denominator and didn't assume its viewers ignorant, it just gave everything the coverage it needed.

Sadly, it didn't work out commercially in the end, as Nolife went bankrupt in 2018 after struggling financially for years; but its impact remained and there are still fans singing bardic tales. One person has been uploading segments from the channel to Youtube daily; they're up to over 1600 videos now. While it's not yet close to how much quality content was shown on Nolife in its lifetime, it's a great repository.

That's all. There's no big moral to this post or anything, I really just wanted to talk about this one French TV channel. No one outside of France would hear about it otherwise; I think it deserves to be known about. Thank you for reading.

[somethingvinyl]

I don’t have this on vinyl, but it’s also my only Zappa cassette, so I’ll include it! In 1988, FZ embarked on his final rock tour. I don’t recall if it was supposed to be the last one at the beginning, but he certainly knew it would be by the end. For it he pulled out all the stops: full horn section, first time taking the Synclavier on the road, return of Ike Willis. (He was briefly in talks to bring back Flo & Eddie, which would have been VERY interesting, but it fell through.) The huge band was difficult to move from place to place, and tensions developed early. The bassist, Scott Thunes (who had been in and out of Zappa’s band throughout the ‘80s), became something of a mini-Frank, acting as his assistant bandleader and enforcer. So when the tour grew stressful, the rest of the band turned on Scott. They toured uneasily through the US and started their itinerary through Europe, but the band eventually revolted and presented Frank with an ultimatum: fire Scott or they all walk. Frank saw there was no way out of it and simply canceled the rest of the tour.

In the immediate aftermath of the tour, FZ released Broadway the Hard Way, which documents a lot of the new material plus the stuff with a political focus. And I do mean political—so many people mean “social commentary” when they say political, but in this era Zappa is an early CNN addict, mired in the 24-hour news cycle, horse race politics, and short-term scandals. Much of the content doesn’t age well just because no one remembers the context. But musically, this is absolutely one of the best bands Zappa ever put together. They’re tight and bombastic with an absolutely MASSIVE repertoire and such quick improvisation.

The CD version of this is highly expanded, and is definitely the recommended form, though the LP/cassette is tighter and has a monologue the CD doesn’t. Jesus Thinks You’re a Jerk is essential. Much of the rest is excellent as well, if occasionally questionable as usual—Rhymin’ Man flirts with racism, and Planet of the Baritone women seems intended to be offensive even if I have trouble parsing out to whom. Promiscuous is brilliant and a rare bit of rap in Zappa. Shockingly this is the debut of Dickie’s Such an Asshole on an official release, which is kinda silly because it’s about Nixon—about 15 years late. And on the CD, their rendition of Murder by Numbers with guest star “Mr. Sting” made me start taking Sting and the Police seriously!

A couple years later, FZ released two more CD-only collections of recordings from this tour: Make a Jazz Noise Here, focused on instrumental compositions, and The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (a joke about the tour getting canceled), focused on rock. The latter includes his legendary reggae cover of Stairway to Heaven, in which the entire horn section plays Jimmy Page’s guitar solo note-for-note. All three albums are good if overlong, and the volume of music just shows how impressive this band was—every show had a TON of completely unique music. And just recently we added a full show, Zappa ‘88, as a posthumous release, and it had even MORE new stuff we’d never heard.

This tour was truly the end of an era. He got his cancer diagnosis not long after, and spent the rest of his life preparing old tour recordings for CD releases and composing his serious music. He almost never played guitar again, and never played with others. We’re coming to the end of the albums released in his lifetime.

[ryttu3k]

Some speculation on plot elements. Spoilers for the game introduction, the points of interest around Kakariko, the stuff you learn at New Serenne Stables, and the beginning of the first mission (as far as I'm up to), as well as the third trailer.

Edit: Now includes spoilers up to the fourth [redacted] from the quests tarted at New Serenne, and the full Rito quest.

So it looks like the Sages are going to be a big element? I've now explored the four Ring Ruins around Kakariko that are actually accessible, and we know a bit about them now. The special stones, for instance, are likely going to be the titular Tears (the magatama things). The next question is, who will the Sages be?

One of the tablets mentions a few elements: "Wind, flame, water, lightning… and time… Light…" Since there's bits of grammar missing, we can't actually state definitively whether Time and Light are grouped with them, or, more interestingly, if there's a missing seventh element (based on the fact that Zelda lore basically always uses seven, and the fact that the mural in the introduction did show seven Tears!) The first few sages, too, easy enough to work out - the trailer and the four locations mentioned on the map all but confirm that the new sages of Wind, Flame, Water, and Lightning will be Tulin, Yunobo, Sidon, and Riju.

So, who represents Light and who represents Time? And what's the last one? Others used in the series include Forest, Spirit, and Shadow (Ocarina), and Earth (Wind Waker).

Rauru was almost certainly a Sage - it was his arm holding Ganondorf down, and his Tear that Zelda picked up. He could have been Light, like his namesake (…or vice versa), or he could have been Time, or alternatively he was Light and the Tear was non-specific and became affiliated with Time when Zelda picked it up. It's heavily inspired that Zelda in Ocarina is the Sage of Time (she's never given a title, but all her artefacts and powers are largely Time-based), so BotW/TotK!Zelda might have inherited that - and either way, she is the one to teach Link the time-based power of Recall. Either way, the Tear pulled Zelda back into the past, so it was either the Tear itself being Time-affiliated (meaning Rauru was the former Sage of Time), or Zelda herself being Time-affiliated and the Tears being neutral until picked up by a Sage.

Also relating to Zelda, Rauru, and Time - she's been yeeted back to the past. She might help establish the Sages? Man I need to find more geoglyphs. So I guess the question is more, was Rauru Time or Light? If Light, would he need a new successor? (Could that actually be Link? He does have 'the sword that seals the darkness', after all even if the Blade of Evil's Bane is an objectively cooler name.) If Time, then Zelda would be his successor.

For other candidates, working out what the last element is would help. Spirit probably wouldn't be present, since the Gerudo are now represented by Lightning. Forest… might be Hestu, haha. I don't actually think that's likely, given that story-wise, I would have included A Phenomenon around the forest too, to indicate that, so the last one would probably be a bigger deal plot-wise. Earth is unlikely as the two known Sages of Earth were Laruto and Medli, and Zora and Rito are already represented. Shadow, I would think, is my best bet, and a nice opposite to Light; in that case, it'd likely be a Sheikah. There's a ton of options here, although I'd say one of the more interesting options would be Josha, the young genius in charge of the Depths, which would draw the Depths into more plot significance other than 'there's lots of Gloom here'.

As for Ganondorf's involvement, the murals show him stealing a Tear, and he has it embedded in his headpiece. I have a feeling that after the first four, the second half of the game will involve the more mysterious three Sages, or at least two mysterious Sages, with the last one (Zelda, perhaps) needing to get her own Tear (instead of Rauru's old one) back from Ganondorf in able to unlock her true Sage abilities.

An interesting possible angle: Ganondorf was meant to be a Sage. The Tear was his all along. The other Sages disagreed (his connection with Rauru seems to be personal), that's what has caused all these issues. On the other hand, any possible connection between Rauru and Ganondorf is, um, problematic timeline-wise, given that Rauru is meant to be the first king of Hyrule and the Ganondorf from the continuity we know comes from well and truly after… unless this is the very earliest incarnation of Ganondorf and the others just come later? Like he's reborn as the one in OoT, timeline splits and goes on from there… honestly, where the hell does BotW/TotK come in the timeline, anyway? XD;;

And to conclude, MusicBee just started playing OoT's Chamber of Sages. Good timing.

(Needless to say, I'm just speculating here. Please don't spoil me for anything, I'm not very far into the game!)

Edit: Have now done the Wind Temple and found the next three geoglyphs, and we have some more answers!

Zelda in the past was explicitly the Sage of Time. May carry that through. Sonia and Mineru both confirm that Zelda carries both Sonia's Time power and Rauru's Light power; in the flashback the former Sage of Wind shows, we see seven figures that don't include Sonia. It's Rauru in front, Mineru and Zelda a bit behind, and then a Goron, the Rito, a Zora, and a woman who… may be Sonia but may not be, her skin is quite dark and I suspect she's the Gerudo.

So, if Sonia was the original Sage of Time, she may have passed the title on to Zelda for… reasons. Either something happens to her, or she passes it on for other reasons. Maybe pregnancy? We know she and Rauru have to have at least one child for, well, Zelda to exist, and if they don't have any kids already, she would need to at least be pregnant before Rauru dies. (Which, honestly, is just sad. He never gets to meet his own child!)

Mineru's title hasn't been revealed yet, but given that she described herself as being able to separate her spirit from her body, I'm guessing Sage of Spirit? I wonder who her successor will be? A Sheikah would be good representation. The four at the back we know. Zelda will likely carry on being the Sage of Time. Rauru now needs a successor, too. Maybe Link could carry Light as well as Rauru's arm?

An interesting note - Zelda and Rauru's stones are a paradox. Rauru's stone is in his hand. His arm binds Ganondorf in place. The stone comes off and releases Ganondorf. Zelda picks up the stone and winds up in the past, meeting Rauru - who still has his stone. But it's the same stone. It's technically not a closed paradox, since Rauru already has it, but it does mean he absolutely has to sacrifice himself / lose his arm in order for Zelda to eventually get it.

[crystalelemental]

At long last, I have finished Digimon Cyber Sleuth. That took...a while. So many extra quests in that last little bit of the story, holy shit. They even threw in another extra one after the credits! But it's done now, so...thoughts for my first Digimon experience below, I suppose.

I'm gonna start off making my wife mad by kinda glossing over story and character. They exist. There is a story, with serious events, and in a dramatic sense, I did generally like what was going on. I think they spend too much time rambling about nonsense and trying to pull metaphysics stuff that doesn't feel particularly interesting at all. Yes yes, infinite branching paths and multiverse theory and I too once took an intro to philosophy course in college and was not a fan so can we please move on to things that are understandable and relevant?

That's really my big issue. I did like the characters well enough individually, but they don't really have a group dynamic. The story has interesting events on a point by point basis, but I have a difficult time really piecing together what the game is actually about because of all the chatter. Digimon certainly has a story in place, but it falls in a similar yet almost inverse category to Cassette Beasts. While Cassette Beasts was clear what its overall point was, but struggled with moment to moment drama, Digimon gets some good moment to moment drama but doesn't have a whole lot it was doing with it. What I felt left with was an ending that both didn't feel like a complete resolution, and also just personally irritates me for how it just kinda fixes everything like nothing ever happened. I'm unimpressed.

But this is a monster catching game, and short of the surprise that was Nexomon, we're not here for story. We're here for gameplay, and that is regrettably what the next ten paragraphs are going to be.

Digimon's gameplay is interesting, but I am slightly conflicted due to my own experience with the game. See, my response to Monster Catching games tends to be "I want to stall," but Digimon has no such tactic present. So I defaulted to hyper-offense approaches, and wanted coverage of elements. So when I prepared my team, I wound up cycling through a metric ton of Digimon in search of offensive coverage specifically. Coverage which did absolutely fuck-all.

Yeah, turns out that this game operates more like an RPG than previously suspected, and your teambuilding is meant to be a bit more main offense/main support/balance setup. This also requires some back and forth, but having examined other chains, this actually tends to be much easier to accomplish, but I'll give some examples, starting with the general case.

In general, most movesets that wound up being successful followed the same general pattern:

Signature Move

Secondary move. If Signature is AoE, pick the single-target of your type. If Signature is single-target, pick the AoE on type.

Move that is the same as Signature (single-target or AoE) but costs way less SP. If more supportive, Refresh is probably better here.

Attack/Guard/Mental Charge Field

Acceleration Boost/X-Aura/Final Aura

Support End/any Break Field/Perfect Revival

For offense, my big gun was Lilithmon. Her signature move has piercing damage, which ignores the target's Int for damage calculation. Acceleration Boost will double the damage you deal, while Mental Charge Field boosts the Int of your whole party, maximizing her damage. Mental Charge Field is easily obtained from Rosemon, who shares a common pre-evo with Lillymon, and Acceleration Boost required a chain I don't want to talk about. The goal is really just to one-shot things into powder.

For support, I think Sakuyamon is a good example. Signature move removes enemy buffs to core stats, and otherwise it's not that great for offensive pressure. So you load it up with other boosting moves for allies, your heals and revives, and just kinda go to town.

For balance, Rosemon is fantastic. Learns some great supportive skills in Mental Charge and Mental Break Fields, an Aura skill, and her signature attack has a comparable piercing effect to Lilithmon, meaning she has astonishingly good damage output as well.

You may be wondering, "Is any of this realistically achievable?" No. Without looking up a ton of information, there is no way in hell you just stumble into this. Very few options acquire a spread of skills like this naturally, though some (mostly Royal Knights) will pick up pretty much everything they need along the way. My wife plays normally and beat the game just fine. Stats will cover what you need just fine, I am just Like This. Also I don't know what Support End does anymore. I thought it shut down all support like healing and buffing, but I used it in one fight and they just buffed anyway. I looked it up and apparently the answer is "It disables their passive." Which...sucks, actually. I don't feel like that's worth anything.

In the broad perspective, combat in Digimon is fun, because it feels like a proper exchange of blows. One of my issues with Pokemon is that fights are really fast, but in a way where everything is kinda just setup and sweep, or try to stall and hope they don't crit where it counts (they do, every time). It never feels like a proper exchange. Cassette Beasts has the archangels, and Nexomon has certain major boss fights with huge HP values, but the former comes with archangels being extremely annoying, while the latter comes with damage numbers are still high they're just only high against you now. Digimon, barring a few exceptions, is a series of fights where you can take a ton of hits, and need to dish out a ton of hits. Fights take a while, and involve management of your stats and health to pull through. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the boss rush, even if it did kinda go on for too long. However, it does have some eccentricities that bug me.

Critical among them being, this game is an RPG, and thus boss fights carry the usual problem of "functionally immune to everything you do." Basically everything past the halfway point is immune to all status. I even started seeing things be immune to stat debuffs before I stopped bothering and just used pierce effects. Honestly, anything that wasn't piercing felt supremely underwhelming, and needed a 3x multiplier in addition to the enemy not being buffed to compare. It was not a good look. But also, enemies can and will use status on you, and it is devastating. You'll run into every Eater fight and get hit with AoE Dot effect, and only one (1) person can be immune, because to my knowledge you basically only get one immunity attachment for your entire party. Your equipment isn't up to the task of counterpicking bosses, so you often just have to deal with the status or have someone on hand to remove it, which isn't always a viable option depending on team needs.

I also don't really understand speed. No matter how high I raised speed, it never felt like it accomplished anything, I always had one action in a rotation at best. Meanwhile, bosses would take like five actions. This isn't too bad so long as you have a team of full resists (and you want to always have a team of full resists), but it is annoying to just watch the opponent fire off like seven attacks in a row. This is most of a post-game bonus content thing though. Main bosses didn't get that bad, but it does mean speed feels useless to focus on.

As mentioned, you want to always resist whatever the opponent is doing. At the very least you do not want to be weak to them. This requires three teams that have at least some cohesion, even if it's not perfect. But! Memory. I don't like Memory as a concept. I understand it, but I don't agree with it. The intent is to cap your team's overall strength by not permitting you to stack a ton of heavily evolved options in at once. Totally get it. You need three good fighters, and want to have a rotation of nine. But memory starts really low, and it climbs slowly, and having nine Digimon at once basically doesn't happen until the end of the game, but difficulty spikes happen way earlier than that. I remember one fight involved three Digimon that were really strong for that point, and one of them threw around an Aura that basically healed the entire enemy party back to full. Because enemies have no SP considerations to speak of, this just continues infinitely, with no real way to stop it because it turns out Support End doesn't work. Unless you have the raw DPS to handle the opponent, they just sustain forever. It's not a fun check.

For fights like that, you want strong evolutions, but memory will restrict how many allies you can bring if you pack higher evolutions. You see the issue? You bring a select few strong options that can get counterpicked to hell, or you bring a bunch of weaker options that can't meet the DPS demands. In the smaller scale, it also just prevents effective level grinding (Something you will do often) because it limits how many allies you can bring in the back alongside capable fighters. And by the end of the game memory is so high that you can just run anything with no real restriction, but it only reaches that point at the literal end of the game. I feel like the memory curve is just kind of frustrating. It reminds me of an old Yugioh game that used to assign point values to individual cards, and all the good ones were basically impossible to slot in without completely ruining the rest of the deck's structure. It's not quite that severe, but it is annoying.

As noted, level grinding is very much a thing. Every evolution and de-evolution resets you level, and nothing is able to really fight at level 1. So you need to catch them up, which takes time to level, and then there are ABI considerations where you have to cycle repeatedly between forms just to get the needed points for a late evolution stage, or the CAM requirements that mean you have to take place in a ton of fights directly, and it gets irritating very fast. Evolution conditions are annoying as hell half the time, and I haven't even talked about the worst one yet.

Stats are sometimes out of reach. Lilithmon? Impossible to obtain without training your stats. Training is also highly specific. You train by putting them in the farm, and then setting a Train command. You get bad yields for two hours at the cost of no CAM, or decent yields in half an hour at the cost of like 20 CAM. Neither is great. You also only level stats associated with your central stat nature (ie: Brainy will get you Int), or the stat of your leader. Equipment can provide boosts to your yields, but ONLY if you meet one of the other two conditions. Adding, say, SP boosting equipment without having someone with Lively leading the pack will not get any SP generation at all. The exact numbers given for stats are also incomprehensible to me, making it very hard to fine-tune. In addition, bonus points cap out based on your ABI, with the max ABI of 200 giving 150 points. This is especially frustrating when working toward something like Lucemon's evolutions, which need a fuckjillion Atk points added in, but you wouldn't know that from the entry condition of 80 ABI, which is not enough to make up all the missing stats you need.

I will admit, some of my perception is a bit clouded by the fact that I did do the grinding rather than play through normally. So my perception is skewed rather severely. Maybe the systems are less problematic than I suspect. I intend to play Hacker's Memory a bit more cleanly, but please understand: I do this with every monster catching game. I can't not go out of my way to get every creature. I just think that gave me a skewed sense of how severe things like ABI and chain evolution are. So who knows, maybe I'll be less pissy about it after the second half of the game.

I will say I came away from this at least liking it well enough. I won't say it's a favorite, and it hasn't gripped me in the same way Nexomon did. But I got invested enough to clear everything, and I do kinda like the systems now that I understand them. Hacker's Memory is next, I'll report back once that's finished.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary108

12/30/2023

saturday

today has been pretty good.

i decided to procure . some new plugins , today . one of the does this crazy thing w/ eqing, where you can eq the transients separately, it feels like kind of insane and a little bit like cheating but in a good way. w/ these plugins came a really good distortion too, which is exciting, and it has a function that reminds me of super gated velcro fuzz, so i'm interested in seeing what i can do w/ that. or i kind of have figured out one thing w/ it but it feels like it's going to help me do a ton, when i need that kind of fried sputtering thing. i got 2 songs out, the one that was / is still maybe a maybe, and then one i did yesterday but still felt like needed work, i think i basically got the guitar / fake guitar sound to be way better in one part. listening again, it's good, but the back half has another guitar that needs some brightening, and the snare too, i feel like split-eq will be perfect for those kinds of tiny touch ups, and there's some weird shit i think i can get it to do w/ distorting and stuff. that idea is really exciting, i wonder when i'll get to figure it out.

anyway now i am reading and thinking about other stuff. mostly what i wrote here last night, about people's weird and intellectualized transphobia, i don't think theory of a young girl contains that, at least it's not pointing there because that wasn't on the mind of whoever was writing at the time most likely, maybe i will eat my words but basically it seems disinterested in queerness, it mostly (and accurately for the most part) levels the field, not focusing on heterosexuality but instead focusing on things like the basic happenings re: sexuality currently, and so on. e.g. below:

the sexual revolution only opened a market where one could leverage something against another, in order to have access to something they wanted. thinking about courtship rules and methods, how to make someone want you, seduction, and how to make someone accept you as a lay. trading favors, is part of it. this is not all of sex now i think but it does capture the reality of casual sex, broadly.

but this doesn't have to do w/ last night. while i don't think the book is queerphobic i do know that people can read it and take it that way, its critical eye turned at gender how people embody gender/identity and the ways that is socially enforced can basically be read in negative ways.

the first quote here is the most interesting regarding what i am thinking on. all the others are interesting and good, but maybe they also exhibit something that is easy to notice in this kind of work, which is a blurriness / nearness to other kinds of things i've read, for instance, the part about alienated socialization reminds me of ted kaczinsky's manifesto, where he talks about oversocialization, which is an essentially reactionary idea of socialization in urban environments. i don't think tiqqun were meaning to recall that, or point in that direction, but i know, certainly, people will take it that way, because that conforms to an easy thing to believe, that there was a point in the past where all maladies we experience now were not present, and technology prevents us from going back. but i think tiqqun are good at not giving into luddite tendencies, which you can find in this kind of french stuff at times as well. it's an irritating strain in radicalism. the right now will not go away, and the past gave us right now, this isn't a teleological vision, but it is one where there is an ongoing communication with the past and we feel it constantly erupting in new forms, explaining what we have, while things shift away, there is a sense of being out of time always. this makes some people very upset and worried, so they dress like roman soldiers or get naked in forests and do rituals, hoping their simplified fantasies will be revealed as true in history. there is no point in history that is not complicated and miserable, is what it seems like.

still though, the first quote is very reminiscent of a lot of things i see terfs repeat, especially the ideas re: fetishes. obviously what the book means is this applies to every human, and gender abolition is an escape from that, but in the eyes of terfs gender abolition would simply let everyone be "normal" again, when in truth it would obliterate cis-ness especially, and hopefully disentangle people from the pain of having to pass (which cis people experience as well basically).

i dunno though. it's such a bizarre and stupid thing to have to contend with.

it at least made me write something. a good idea i think.

the one above is quite excellent i think, it recalls how i think of porn, to me, as an essentially sanitary service/process which strips sexuality of libidinal force by making it about watching, and constant and easy access, and to allow one to empty themselves of pulsion/fantasy. maybe my disagreements with this people come down to the feeling i have that fantasy is 1) not evil and 2) productive in many ways, at getting one to examine and dismantle what might have produced those wishes. but the wishes cannot ever dissipate entirely. this i guess is tethered to my feeling that many people who are queerphobic are essentially/intellectually repressive. not of themselves truly being queer or whatever but of their abilities to express desire. they can only understand things as received/taught socially, which they are on some level, but that's all that can make it okay. it's a strange issue of scrupulosity a lot of the time it feels like i guess. i hate that i am there having to navigate it as an object of that, basically.

anyway, today was productive basically, and stuff. and nice and stuff too. i am just tired now. i am tired of a lot of things, people are slowly making me sick kind of. right now i've got a friend who is getting really obsessed with r. kelly's music, and another friend/the guy who said the thing that pissed me off so much is another r. kelly head. it's very tiring and bizarre to have things like that, it's such a bother to have people tell you that r kelly is one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time. i don't want to hear that.

anyway, i am tired, so

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