#good map but it required a skill level i did not have

[cats-thoughts]

Valkyrie (feat. Laura Brehm) ~ Varien

(note: this song is part of a trilogy! I highly recommend listening to Valkyrie II: Lacuna and Valkyrie III: Atonement to get the full experience!)

YIPPEE 14 MINUTES OF SONG :D /gen

okay definitely not the most creative answer, but this song is very Ender Knight.

WAIT NO. NOW THAT I'VE HEARD THE OTHER 2 SONGS THIS IS 100% THE GOD OF THE INFINITE

basically, it's a mc oc of mine, an explanation for why so many roleplay worlds have limited lives now.

In the past- very past, I'm talking Indev Minecraft- there were many gods, and one of them was the god of the infinite. Alongside it was its sister, minor god of the Farlands.

The god of the infinite brought respawn throughout every world it went to. Alongside this, it always respawned itself (whether it wanted to or not) and could theoretically take respawn away from anything.

The other gods were afraid of that power and in an attempt to kill the god of the infinite, accidentally killed its sister, farlands, as well. The weapon was an overwrite of respawn, a permadeath blade, but when they tried to use one on the infinite- well, it didn't work. Unfortunately being basically the god of respawn, it literally cannot NOT respawn. Farlands wasn't so lucky, though.

Infinite, Blinded by rage, set about the goal of killing literally everything. Forever. And obviously, the other gods tried to stop it. It was a very, very long fight, between the Infinite and all of the other gods. It wasn't the best fighter amongst them, or even the best magic user. It just kept coming back. Every time the Infinite respawned, it got all of its energy back and was fully healed. A Million Papercuts, and whatnot.

The gods would kill it, and it would be back within seconds, back to flinging itself at them over and over again until one died, and then another, and so on. So eventually they started sending new gods after it, weak but in great supply as the world churned them out to replace dead gods, one after the other, to hold their own for as long as possible before dying. 300 years of fighting, never letting the Infinite rest or respawn, and it finally tired out.

It fell into a deep sleep, (sometime during beta, near 1.9) and the other gods locked it in the void for what they hoped would be eternity.

Unfortunately without its magic, respawn became strained, more and more worlds turning Hardcore (words deleted upon player death, leaving nowhere for the player to respawn, and therefore they simply never do) and infinite respawn worlds becoming rarer and rarer- now there were worlds where you only had 3, or 10, or 100. Or ones where you had to kill other players to steal their respawns.

So they brought it back, locked in a mortal form, without any memories or powers. Now it wanders worlds, exploring, utilizing the fact that it never seems to stay dead to defeat monsters and bosses and escape even the most dangerous of situations unharmed. And everywhere it goes, infinite respawn follows.

It's so traumatized <3

This was literally inspired by the fact that I played a Minecraft map and then, instead of being good at the game and defeating the bosses like I was supposed to, like for example dodging the attacks, I just. Stood still and rapid fired my weapons at them until I died, and then did the same thing again after I respawned. I got over 1000 deaths. I did TRY to play the game as intended but despite having played this game for like. 8 years. I'm SO bad at it you have No idea I am just Awful at it-

[fanworldbuildingfun]

Recently I have landed on a lovely Auspex series by Lithuva on A03 and now, rent free, in my head a Desmond who runs an Assassin Bureau lives. Except he did not set out to create one. Or realizes he is running one

To spice things a bit, I’m sending Desmond to AC1 era

Let’s assume Desmond shall not, immediately, realize where he is, nor shall he go to search for any big city. And when he does, he is just… Too tired after everything that went on in the last few months to even actively want to. Instead, he just wanders. Tries to get a lay of the land. Indulges the desire to get up as high as he can to learn the map of the location

And then, when he is more or less satisfied that he knows the immediate area he is in (because I’m going to just go and assume that the “Syncronization makes you avare of points of interest” is a valid, Isu-derived offshoot of Isu Knowledge), Desmond heads for the nearest settlement where he sees flecks of gold

Now, apparently 1100s have been a bad time for the region when it came to earthquakes. As in, they were so bad there have been entire cities destroyed in landslides, and entire fortresses collapsed. We are talking 7+ on Magnitude scale ~ every decade from 1138 to 1170. How is it relevant? Rebuilding takes time, and bigger cities would obviously get more attention first

So when Desmond reaches that golden speck? It’s a small settlement that is partially abandoned, and the only remaining people are those who could not afford to move away. So… Desmond sticks around. Hunts for his food. Helps to clear everything up, relying on whatever memories he has from his ancestors that dealt with architecture. There isn’t much, and most of it is surface-level (none of them got involved in more than approval / supply review / labor review/ costs), but even that helps. He can eyball the damages and estimate how much it may cost to repair, and that alone is a good starting point of for the settlement

But till someone can be called in, he helps

Helps moving rubble. Helps taking apart the houses that look beyond saving. Helps do what fixes can be done without outside help. Desmond’s climbing skills and Eagle vision help here. Slowly, he becomes just one of the people of the settlement. When he’s not helping on fixes, he somehow ends up entertaining kids with stories. Then it shifts to teaching, because some stories require further explanations of concepts Desmond did not realize were common in 21st century, but not in 12th.

It’s not conventional by any means, but for this time? It works just fine. He pulls on Altaїr’s memories of lessons at Masyaf. He pulls on Ezio’s memories of being tutored as a child. And it’s all applicable so even if some of the adults grumbled at the start, they eventually stopped. Some even joined in on the lessons

At some point, Desmond gets a house of his own. It wasn’t really meant to be his. It was an old inn building that was one of the more damaged ones, and the owner left it almost a generation ago, now. So Desmond slowly worked on it till everyone just… Accepted it as his and there was that. They all are a tight knit bunch at this point

But then, the Crusades reignite. And suddenly the out-of-the way settlement is no longer out-of-the-way, because trading routes shift to avoid the fighting

The settlement becomes busy. Desmond’s barely finished inn becomes busy. And security becomes an issue

…It wasn’t an unknown that Desmond has been trained. But it has been a backburner knowledge that the settlement now had to face because suddenly, they had to pick up more self-defense skills - after the overall higher level of literacy came to bite them in the butt. When the traders discovered most of the settlers could read/write (and in several languages at that!), the settlement became a hub from which messages would be sent. And then some of the younger people that weren’t interested in tending to their parents’ land (and anyway, they had siblings to do that) became couriers or scribes

Somehow, that became Desmond’s problem

He had all of a year, less even, to enjoy being an inn owner before he had to delegate that – because he got dragged into coordinating the mail, arranging protection for the settlement, dealing with obstinate merchants… There was no time to actually, you know, run the inn

It all came to a peak when a harried young man arrived to the settlement, and Desmond pegged on him as one of the Brotherhood novices. One that had clearly run into some amount of trouble – the kind that was likely to follow him. So he just… Shoos him in with his messengers and makes sure that, when the trouble comes, finding the novice among them is night impossible. He does not acknowledge it. He does not present himself as an Assassin

That doesn’t mean his action aren’t noted. By the novice or the settlement.

[dlartistanon]

do you have any tips for enjoying integrated strategies? coming from someone who loves roguelite games, i just cant seem to actually enjoy playing IS. it feels way harder to recover from bad rng in IS than it does in other roguelite games.

Believe me, I wasn’t a fan of IS when it first came out either. In fact, I missed out on most of IS1.

For me personally, I think the main thing that drove me to try and enjoy IS is the fact that I like playing AK. So a separate game mode that doesn’t require sanity but still offers useful rewards and even teaches you how to be a better strategist sounded cool. It took me a while to reach that point, though.

Borrowing operators I don’t have to play test them is fun. Getting specific relics and then building your squad around them is fun. Learning how to use your operators in ways you haven’t before is fun and enlightening. Learning how to turn bad RNG into something you can work with is fun.

The RNG in IS3 feels worse than IS2 because of the added Random Afflictions, Light mechanic, and dice rolls. Because of that, I don’t intend on going any higher than Surging Waves 7. I’m not a particularly skillful player, but I’ve gotten to a level where IS doesn’t bother me as much as it did before.

I also think, with enough patience and tries, even bad RNG stops being “bad”. Playing IS also has to do with memory, and if you tackle a map enough times, you’ll figure out how to clear it even with a suboptimal setup. That’s part of the fun. Failing is never just failing, but a learning experience. You know what to do next time.

Integrated Strategies is literally Make Do With The Cards You’re Dealt. Open your mind to playing the game differently than what you’re used to. Use RNG as a way to adapt and adjust.

Of course, this may not apply to you, and that’s ok. Don’t try to force yourself to enjoy it if you can’t. There’s nothing wrong with doing IS just to get the rewards and then stopping.

Good luck!

[queer-irritator]

Padawan! Obi-wan Kenobi x Padawan! Reader Part 2

A/n: This is FINALLY part 2 to this ask from the lovely @projectdreamwalker! Thank you all for being so patient, life has really been wild! This has got a little bit of everything, it kinda goes off on a tangent but... that's how my brain works 🥴 So sorry if some parts are like "wtf is this doing in here??" We got some Anakin, Padme, Ahsoka, Rex and Maul screen time in this one, folks.

CW: So much, everything in ROTS, fluff, sadness, death

Never proofread as always 👍

Word Count: 4,287

The next 10 years were incredibly busy. Anakin was proving to be quite the handful and you had become a Master Jedi Investigator. You spent most of your time undercover in the lower levels of Coruscant keeping an eye on crime and ensuring the temple was free from threats. Unfortunately, being undercover meant having extremely limited contact with other Jedi. You mostly communicated via encrypted voice messages, but you did have the pleasure of going off-world once in a while and were able to see some old friends, including Obi-wan Kenobi. You even had a handful of missions with him over the years. He would never admit it, but he looked forward to working with you the most, despite the antics you and Anakin would get up to. The two of you were quite the pair at getting under Obi-wan’s skin and testing his patience. When the Clone Wars began, you were stationed back at the Jedi temple on Coruscant. 

You received a message informing you of the Battle of Geonosis and the clone trooper army appearing seemingly out of thin air, and orders to return to aid in the ongoing war against the Separatists. That had been about a week ago, you had been traveling across the galaxy in the meantime. It was mid-day when you landed on Coruscant. You stepped off your ship, squinting from the sun with your R4 droid trailing behind you. It had been quite a while since you were last on the upper levels, probably about 6 rotations; but things didn’t seem to have changed much. 

“Welcome, Master (y/n). I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. The Jedi have been incredibly busy, so I will be escorting you to your quarters.” A gold droid, C-3PO, introduced himself and began to lead you inside.

“Thank you. I guess you already know me, this is R4.” You gestured to your droid, following close behind him. “Is Obi-wan here..?” 

“Oh! You know Master Kenobi? He has been in meetings all morning with his clone army commander. He has taken on the position of General in these trying times.” He explained.

“Wow, he always was a high achiever.” You thought aloud. 

C-3PO stopped in front of a door, “Here you are. Master Kenobi has a room down the hall from here as well. Please do let me know if you require anything.”

“I will, thank you.” You said as you entered your room. 

You looked around as you heard the remanence of the droid’s conversation. 

“Come now, R4. I will get you cleaned up.”

You set a small bag you had brought with your down on the bed. You had been sitting all day, really all week, so you weren’t too keen on settling in quite yet. Besides, you couldn’t sit still knowing Obi-wan was so close to you again. After giving yourself a quick look-over in the mirror, you exited your room and headed towards the center of the Jedi temple. 

You stopped multiple times to catch up with old friends and mentors you hadn’t seen since you went undercover. Just as you had said good-bye to someone else, you turned to see Obi-wan standing with his hand resting on his beard and his eyebrows drawn together as he was deep in thought, looking down at a holo-map. You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face as you took him in. Still as handsome as ever, but he seemed wiser now, more focused. That seemed to happen each time you saw him, he was always sharpening his skills. 

Obi wan’s gaze broke from the map and shifted to you. There’s no doubt he could feel someone’s eyes staring him down. When he made eye contact with you his stoic demeanor dropped. His eyebrows raised and his mouth parted slightly in surprise. Then he once again furrowed his eyebrows, as to ensure he wasn’t imagining things. He called your name as he started to walk toward you. 

“Is that really you?” A smile was spreading across his cheeks as he got closer.

“It’s me.” You confirmed, closing the gap between the both of you and enveloping him in the tightest squeeze you could, “I missed you so much.”

He returned your enthusiasm with an equally tight hug. 

“I missed you too, darling.” he whispered in your ear. 

You breathed in his scent as you lingered in his arms, if only you two were alone. It was almost insufferable how badly you wanted to kiss him and just stare at him for hours. 

Obi-wan let out a chuckle, his breath tickling your ear, “Mind your thoughts. We are in a building full of Jedi.”

You blushed and playfully pushed him away, breaking your hug, “Oh, shut up.” 

But you knew he was right. You hadn’t been around other Jedi in a decade so you weren’t used to controlling your thoughts or feelings as much as you should. You looked him over and gently placed your hand on his cheek.

“You look good, Obi.” You smiled and dropped your hand back to your side.

“So do you.” He said as his eyes flicked between your eyes and your mouth. 

“There you are, Master. You’re late for our meeting.” A familiar voice burst the bubble the two of you had been enveloped in.

“I was on my way.” Obi-wan began to defend himself as he spun around. 

“Anakin?” You questioned, seeing the man before you. He certainly wasn’t a padawan any longer. 

Anakin looked past Obi-wan to see you and a smirk crept onto his face, “Oh I see. I’m sorry if I was interrupting anything.” 

“Come here.” You rolled your eyes and gave him a hug, “You been keeping Obi-wan in line?”

He chuckled and hugged you back, “Always.” 

You let go of him, “Good, good.” 

Before you could begin scheming with Anakin about ways to annoy Obi-wan, he placed his hand in the middle of your back, beginning to lead you as he walked, “Why don’t you join us in the meeting? We can catch you up on what you’ve missed.”

You nodded and followed his lead. And there was definitely a lot to catch up on.

Your role in the clone wars was to assist any teams that needed an extra hand, mostly on stealth missions as it was your specialty. After sitting through meeting, after meeting, you finally had some time to be alone with Obi-wan later that night. The moment he had shut the door to his room behind him, you were on his lips. The two of you muttered endless ‘I missed you’s and compliments to each other. You particularly let him know how hot he was with a full beard. That night was passionate, needy, and sloppy. Everything the two of you needed it to be after not seeing each other for so long. 

However, the next day you were diving head first into the chaos of war. There was almost no time to breathe with all the moves the Separatists were making. There were moments to catch up with Obi-wan between battles and meetings, but one of you were always on the move to your next objective. The next time you had any substantial quality time with him was after Satine died. Obi-wan needed your support. He needed a sound voice in his head to keep him sane. Something to quiet all the hatred, anger, and guilt he felt. 

You were sitting on the edge of Obi-wan’s bed with your hand gently rubbing circles on his back, doing whatever you could to soothe him.

“He’s taken everything from me.” Obi-wan had his elbows resting on his knees, his back hunched and his head hanging low. 

“I’m so sorry.” You spoke in a hushed, gentle tone. “He’s not worth taking up space in your mind. The balance of the force will come back around, he will pay for what he’s done.”

“I know it’s wrong… But I want to make him pay myself.” Obi-wan’s hands tightened into a fist against his pants. “I want to kill him.”

You could feel your heart cracking and aching for the man besides you. You’ve always known him to detest violence, only resorting to it when there was absolutely no other choice. 

“These feelings and your anger are natural, Obi. We will get through this, together.” You assured him. 

“I just can’t believe she is truly gone…” His voice trailed off, he was silent for a few moments before you felt his body begin to shake and the sounds of his sobs were filling the room. 

You pulled his body closer to you and gently laid down on the bed with him. You were laying so you were facing each other and you had an arm wrapped around Obi-wan. He had curled up his body to a fetal position and held your hand that wasn’t rubbing his back. The two of you stayed like that all night. Eventually Obi-wan’s breaths had evened out and he had fallen asleep. But you stayed up almost the whole night, watching over him. Thinking of anything you could do to lessen how bad he was hurting. 

You two had also spent the next day together. Taking things easy, watching cheesy movies like when you were padawans, and trying to convince Obi-wan to eat. Despite his tragic loss, in a few days he was getting back to his normal self. 

“You can stop worrying about me, you know.” Obi-wan spoke, his back turned to you while he poured a cup of caf in a small cafe area just outside the main mess hall.

You had been watching him like a hawk from the table you sat at, worried that any reminded or mention of Satine will have him crumble to the floor. But you also knew how strong he was, arguably the wisest Jedi Master and one of the top Generals in the war. 

You sighed, “I can’t help it. You know you’d be doing the same thing if you were in my shoes.” 

Obi-wan walked over to you and placed a mug down in front of you as he sipped his own, “I can’t argue with that.” 

You smiled up at him, though your sadness for him was transparent. You thanked him for the beverage and took a sip. 

There had been a thought stewing in your mind, festering and bringing on so much guilt. As hard as you tried to hide it, Obi-wan knew something was going on. 

“What’s on your mind, darling?” Obi-wan asked as he sat down across from you. 

You looked into his eyes, “I just… I know how much you loved her.” You winced as the words tumbled out of your mouth. This was not the right time to talk about the love triangle that was between you, Obi-wan, and Satine. 

Obi-wan reached out and took your hands in his and gave you a soft smile, “I did love her. But… it wouldn’t have worked for us. Even if she were still here, we led two very different lives and had pledged our lives to different causes.”

You nodded slightly, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be bringing this up right now.” 

“Don’t be. Loss brings up many emotions.” He brought your hand up to his lips and gave it a soft kiss before letting go. 

Just then, Anakin walked into the room. Luckily it was just after Obi-wan had let your hands go. 

“Alright, we gotta get a move on. I so graciously got us all on a mission together.” Anakin announced, hands on his hips and feeling obviously proud of himself. 

You exchanged a glance with Obi-wan before getting up and embarking on your next adventure. 

The war trudged on for about half a rotation longer, then something in the tides seemed to change. Anakin was growing alarmingly closer with the Chancellor each day and the Jedi council was not happy about it. Obi-wan was just assigned to defeat Grievous on Utapatu while you had just received a message from Ahsoka requesting back-up on Mandalore.

Obi-wan and you had gotten into a habit of taking turns sleeping in each other's rooms whenever you had downtime at the Jedi Temple. When you two would be on missions together you would share a room for “safety”. There had been a few times when you two had been sharing Obi-wan’s bed that Anakin would barge in and you would throw the excuse of falling asleep while discussing work in his face. Anakain would usually roll his eyes and mumble a ‘sure’ or ‘yeah, right’ before impatiently waiting outside the room for Obi-wan to collect himself. 

That’s where you were at the moment, stuffing a few items into a bag before rushing off, and Obi-wan was doing the same but not as hastily as you. This was the most anxious you felt for a mission in a long time. You were going to have the chance to help capture Maul. 

You closed your bag and triple-checked off your mental list. You were only torn from your thoughts and anxiety when you felt Obi-wan’s hand on your shoulder. 

“You’re shaking, darling.” he squeezed your joint lightly.

You shifted your attention fully towards him, “This is a big fucking deal… I’m scared.” 

Obi-wan gave you a sympathetic smile, “You and Ahsoka will do what is needed. I have complete faith in you both. There’s no one I would trust more to this task.” 

You reciprocated his smile and leaned your cheek against his hand, “Thank you.” 

You took a few deep breaths to calm your mind and body, letting the words sink in. Having regained some confidence, you moved to stand in front of Obi-wan and placed a kiss on his lips. He happily returned the gesture and moved his hands to your waist. 

You reluctantly pulled away from him after a few moments and rested your palm against his cheek, “Stay safe, Obi-wan. I’ll see you when we get back.” 

“You too. May the force be with you.” He placed a final kiss to your forehead. 

“And with you.” You bowed slightly to him before walking out of the room to hurry onto the last ship of reinforcements that was leaving for Mandalore.

-

You couldn’t believe your eyes as you were dangling from a steel beam. Maul had finally been captured, Ahsoka had got him. You used the last bit of strength to pull yourself up as there was a stun blast sent directly to Maul and he fell unconscious, wrapped in cords by the clone troopers. 

In between pants to catch your breath, you looked to Ahsoka who was standing on the steel beam across from you, “You did it.” 

She turned her head to you, “No. We did.” 

She graciously hopped over to you and helped you into one of the ships that had just flown up. The battle had taken all day and night, you just needed to oversee the transfer of Maul and make contact with the Jedi council. 

While Ahsoka spoke with Master Windu and Master Yoda, you mostly stayed quiet, as it was her mission that led to the successful capture. You had a glimmer of hope that perhaps Ahsoka would come back to the Order after the mission, but that hope was dashed when she referred to herself as a citizen. 

It was midday when you said your goodbyes to the Mandalorians and headed back to the command ship.

It was midday when everything went horribly wrong. 

It hadn’t been long since you jumped into hyperspace when the clone troopers turned on you and Ahsoka. The two of you got separated almost right away and it wasn’t until you nearly took her head off in the medical bay that you got reunited. Ahoska quickly got you up to speed on the theory of the clones’ inhibitor chip and that she had let Maul go to create a distraction. 

“You let him go?? Willingly?” You could see her way of thinking, but it was devastating to hear. 

“I know, I know. But it was the only thing I could do to give us a fighting chance.” She explained as numerous droids began to run tests on the unconscious Rex laying before you. 

When you took a moment to think about the last few minutes, it wasn’t until you heard loads of gunfire and clone troopers yelling commands in the distance for you to be able to kill the clones that had cornered you and then managed to escape to the med bay. You had a close call, a blaster shot grazed your side and you had been tending to your wound when you heard someone approaching the door. 

“Thank you.” You spoke softly, looking to Ahsoka once again, “You did what needed to be done.” 

“Don’t thank me until we get off this ship alive…” She muttered and took over locating the inhibitor chip in Rex. 

Once the chip was successfully taken out of Rex, the three of you devised a quick game plan on how to survive at least one more day. 

It took a lot of close calls, some skill, and a little luck, but you, Rex and Ahsoka were able to make it off the ship and away from the clone troopers. 

The three of you had only caught your breath for about 10 minutes before you piped up, “I need to go back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.” 

“What? Are you crazy? We just escaped one war zone and you wanna go to another?” Rex turned to look at you in bewilderment. 

“I agree with Rex. It’s too dangerous, we need to find somewhere to lay low.” Ahsoka supported the clone’s notion. 

“You two can. I can’t… I have to find Obi-wan.” You explained, a bit in your stomach began to grow as you realized there was a good chance he didn’t make it. You and Ahsoka both felt the massive amount of loss and darkness when the clones turned. 

Ahsoka called your name, bringing you out of the dark thoughts, “I want to find him too, but…” She stopped herself, seeing the hurt on your face. She didn’t have to finish her sentence, you both knew the grim reality of the situation. 

You took in a breath and forced the next words out of your mouth as sternly as you could manage, “I have to find him, Ahsoka. I love him.” 

Ahsoka could only look at you with pity and hurt, knowing there was nothing she could say to stop you. 

Rex glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. He may have been bred and programmed for war, but even he knew the kind of love you meant was more than a friend. 

“Please.” Your voice broke, strength and stoicism failing you. You didn’t have the energy to hide your feelings anymore. Ahsoka sighed in defeat, “Okay. We’ll find a system nearby safe enough to stop at. Then you can take the ship. Rex and I will make our own way from there.” 

You nodded and tried to relax in your seat for the rest of the ride. 

-

You were on your way to Coruscant, in hyper-space when an encrypted message came on your comlink. It was a warning for any remaining Jedi to stay clear of the Temple. You knew it had to be Obi-wan’s doing. He’s the only fool brave enough to walk into a trap just to warn others. You hadn’t been able to contact anyone when you were aboard the ship, fighting for your life. You decided to try one more time. 

You put out your encrypted distress call to all Jedi frequencies, and a separate one to Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme’s personal comlinks. Sitting with the dead silence of space was becoming more unsettling with each passing moment. Just when you had lifted your finger to shut off your distress signal, a distorted crackling came over the radio from Padme’s comlink.

“Hello? Padme? Can you hear me? Are you and Anakin okay? Have you seen Obi-wan??” You hurled rapid fire questions at the static filling your cockpit. You held your breath waiting to hear a reply. 

“Darling? Darling, it’s me.” Obi-wan’s voice came over the static.

You let out a cry of relief and disbelief, “Obi-wan?? Is that really you? You survived?” 

“Yes… I have a lot to explain, but I’m sending you coordinates. Get here as soon as you can, it’s not safe to talk on here for too long. But, I’m glad you’re safe.” He audibly sighed in relief

The coordinates popped up on your computer screen, “I got them. Ahsoka is safe too, we managed to help Rex as well. I… I love you, Obi. See you soon.”

“That’s good to hear… I love you too.” he replied before the connection was severed. 

-

You arrived on Polis Massa just as the twins were born. You ran inside to the medical center, escorted by a droid where you saw Padme’s lifeless body on an operating table and Obi-wan holding a newborn baby boy. Master Yoda began to bring you up to speed on what became of Anakin Skywalker, and the duel on Mustafar. 

As you sat in a sterile white command room on a new ship, listening to Master Yoda, Bail Organa, and Obi-wan discuss the next steps you should take, the world seemed surreal. “Listening” is actually a strong word, it was more like you could hear the hum of talking but you weren’t taking any words in. Everything you had ever known had fallen apart. It wasn’t until a gentle hand placed on your cheek drew you back into reality. 

The room was empty now, with just you and Obi-wan left to yourselves. You turned your head to the man next to you. 

“Anakin…” You mumbled, still in disbelief. 

“I know.” Obi-wan answered you without you needing to say another word. He dropped his hand from your face and stared at the table in front of him. 

“It was all for nothing.” He stated

“What was?” You questioned, brows furrowing in confusion. 

“Everything.” He lifted his head to look into your eyes, his own filled with tears. “Qui-gon and Satine died for nothing. Dedicating my entire life to a code that now ceases to exist. And depriving myself of you.” 

You were speechless, not even a thought could form in your mind. 

“Come with me.” He continued, “To Tatooine, we can be together and watch over Luke.” He took your hands in his, giving them a slight squeeze. 

You nodded, “Of course, all I’ve ever needed was you, Obi. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

A small smile formed on your lips, and Obi-wan matched it. He gently pressed his forehead against yours.

“I’m sorry it took so long, that it took all of this for me to realize what I truly wanted.” He began to apologize, but you started to shake your head slightly.

“It wasn’t just you. And we made it. We’re here now.” You reassured him, and sealed it with a deep kiss you poured all your love into. 

He returned your enthusiasm and pulled you onto his lap to bring your bodies closer together. The two of you stayed in that room, sharing sloppy love filled kisses for what felt like hours. You had to make up for lost time somehow. You made mental notes of how his lips felt against yours, how he tasted, the way his beard and mustache tickled your face. You never wanted to forget this moment. 

You swore you could have stayed on top of him for eternity, but the jolt of the ship switching into its landing sequence interrupted you. Reluctantly climbing out of Obi-wan’s lap, you took a moment to take in his messy hair and swollen lips.

“Only you could make me horny on the worst day of my life, Kenobi.” You chuckled slightly and brushed your fingers through your hair. 

“Well, I could say the same thing about you.” He bantered, following your motions and fixing his own hair. 

The two of you quickly boarded a different ship once the current one had landed on Naboo. The three of you were now in hiding. Everything you grew up with, your morals, values, your way of life now had to be kept secret to ensure your survival. Obi-wan had barely set down the baby, Luke. You could sense how much the child meant to him, he and his sister are all that remains of Anakin and Padme. You sat in the cockpit and took off, setting the course for Tatooine, where Anakin had some family that would take in Luke while you and Obi-wan silently watched over him. 

After arriving on the desert planet and an uncomfortably long ride on an eopie, you could see the lights of moisture vaporators come into view. You unraveled your arms from around Obi-wan’s waist as the creature laid down for him to dismount. He carefully swung his leg over to the side and stepped onto the dusty earth. 

You reached out your hand to gently take the baby’s smaller one, “Goodbye, Luke. Stay out of trouble.” 

You let go of the child and Obi-wan walked over to Owen and Beru who had just emerged from their home. He carefully handled Luke, swaddled in a soft white blanket to Beru. She smiled at him before walking over to her husband, who was watching the suns set. 

When Obi-wan had made his way back to you and the eopie, he silently got on the animal and started to head toward the Jundland Wastes. It would become your new home while you quietly watched over Luke from a distance. 

~Fin~

[allycat75]

Since you agreed to this, Boston Dumb Fuck, and feel the need to bring down your entire family (I don't want to hear "they made me do it" horseshit), all the while we are forced to watch...

I figured until that little black hearted Succubus is out of our lives for good, I will remind you (or your handlers, or your handlers' interns, or Lisa, or Elijah Eros, or whomever is lurking on your behalf) what an obtuse clown you have become.

All I wanted to do yesterday was watch some of the Oscar coverage and behind the scenes stories, but what did I see when I settled in after a hard days work (see, BDF, in the real world, people actual earn money by doing things that are productive and contribute to society and don't require you and your family to sign over your likeness rights, integrity and deep seated generational values, but I know you can't relate, you soulless sack of programmable plasma)? What I saw was obsequious coverage of you and your half Teutonic twit making your loving red carpet debut, showing off your chivalry by offering her a solo moment and her not wanting to leave your side. 🤢🤮!!!! It couldn't have anything to do with the fact no one would know who she was if not at your side (hell, even at your side, some of the general public just thought you were a little too comfortable with your niece). No one asked why you were there with nothing to promote except a skin-of-your-teeth loss at the Razzies the night before. You are like a Make-a-Wish charity case, but unfortunately there is no cure for your form of obliviousness and lack of coping skills.

It did make me think, once inside, how did that little prize schmooze with the Hollywood gentry? What could such a shy princess discuss to get the next big role and put her on the map? Afterall, isn't that what this obligation was meant to accomplish? So this talentless, entitled tantrum-waiting-to-happen can skip the line ahead of more deserving actresses?

I have some thoughts of how that may have gone:

Showed off her encyclopedic knowledge of Liberia

Discussed how to get the perfect eyebrow shape, from tip, peak, arch and tail

After asking about her hubby's bold fashion choice for the night she responded, "Oh, it was tribute to my mother and her homeland. The real homeland. Since his mother adores me, and always has, he wanted to do something that showed his loyalty and allegiance to my bloodline"

During lulls in the conversation, stood with her mouth half open as she discovered others found it intriguing

Talked about her humanitarian work in 2019, spending a week in Cambodia

Kept telling particularly powerful party goers, "You know, you are one of the good ones. So clean and well kempt. You can hardly tell".

Touched upon the levels demon possession and how it is more nuanced than you think

Is that about how it went? Or were you so high and entrenched in your cyclical sadness to even notice?

[sakarrie-creates]

It’s that time of year! Here’s my 2023 art summary! After two years of having to include non-colored pieces, I finally did enough ‘full’ pieces to fill my art summary template! I did have to get a bit creative with the months since I was able to draw a LOT more during the summer, but I’ll take it! Sorry it's a bit blurry. I'm not sure if that's just for the preview or not, but it was a smaller file than normal and since these reflections are 99% for my own interest, I decided it wasn't worth trying to change.

As usual, I got rambly so reflection questions are answered under the cut. The template I used is available here in case anyone else wants to make their own! My fic summary will be coming in a week or so, so stay tuned for the stats and round-up there. :)

What events did you participate in (with art)? Player Appreciation Week, Fandom Trumps Hate, Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), Weird People (Editing), SPN Comfortably Queer Zine (dropped), and lots of zine applications for page artist, merch artist, comic artist, and spot artist roles!

What was your biggest challenge this year? While time, like last year, was still a challenge, I think my biggest challenge was a mix of low motivation and an intense perfectionistic mindset. At the start of the year, I got super into TOH and was super hyped about all the zines with apps opening. I really REALLY wanted to get into them and figured I should apply for art too just cause it would increase my overall chances of getting in. After the finale, I did a screenshot redraw that ended up being absolutely fantastic for where my skill level is. I went deeper into rendering than ever before, and somehow it worked for me. 

That probably was the start of my unreasonably high expectations, and I got it into my head that maybe if I could make a whole portfolio of artwork at that quality level, I actually stood a chance at getting into a zine as an artist. From then on, I was hardcore crash-coursing perspective, rendering techniques, and generally trying to improve without allowing room for mistakes. While I do think it helped me grow a lot, it burnt me out so I struggled to work on stuff past summary (when all the zine apps were) and even dropped from the SPN Comfortably Queer Zine cause my imposter syndrome was so strong. (Though that was also partially because it was a ‘sign-up and you’re in’ zine, so they never saw my art during the application process and had no way of knowing if I was good enough.

What was something you were surprised by? I’m pretty sure I discovered the perspective tool is CSP this year! CSP has so many tools I’m not aware of (despite watching tons of tutorials and guides), so it wasn’t super surprising but it was nice. I have to say, they’re a serious hassle to work with and require a higher understanding of vanishing points and such than I currently have, but I could see it being very useful for future scene art pieces.

Did you try anything new this year?

Yes! This year I kicked down the door to the merch world and have been collecting and designing throughout the year. Though the designs have mostly just been for zine app portfolio’s, everything has worked out really well for me and I hope to produce charms for my collection as I improve my skills. Where do you think you most improved? Definitely my confidence in rendering! And probably my rendering itself too. I did a ton more pieces with it this year and it’s definitely a favorite part of the art process for me. I think I’ll have a lot more fun with it this year too, since I’m trying to keep it lower pressure, so I can experiment more to find out what brushes and styles I like most. What are you most proud of? I think I’m most proud of how ambitious I was with my zine apps. Though I didn’t get into any for art and it burned me out a fair bit, I did a lot of hard work and made pieces I can be mostly happy with. As for specific pieces, I’m very proud of my animatic clip for the Dear Fellow Traveler MAP (which is what the Belos art from the summary is from). My portion was about 5 seconds with 24 fully colored and shaded frames. A few of those were moving frames too, so the end result is the closest thing to actual animation I’ve done. I also really like the rendering on the Huntlow Epilogue art and generally how the Steve&Matt hug turned out.

How’d this year compare to your 2023 goals? I honestly couldn’t remember what my goals were, but all things considered, I didn’t do too bad! Thankfully past-Sakarrie was wise and made it a bullet list so I can just check things off. Met: -Player Appreciation Week -Add to zine portfolio -Apply to at least one zine as an artist (fine if don’t get accepted) -Keep experimenting with backgrounds and shading -Pull out some old WIPs -Build more consistency of style

The checked off ones I definitely met, so good for me! This was a very zine-focused year, so I way exceeded those goals. The last two I did do, but they’re a bit subjective. Specifically, I think the ‘WIPs’ I was referring to were old sketches, but most of the old WIPs I revisited were already colored and I was either adding rendered or cleaning them up for zine usage. As for style, I’m REALLY bad at telling haha. That said, my characters seem reasonably similar when I draw them, so I’m going to tentatively count it. Kinda: -One fully colored piece per month

I’m gonna give myself a half check on this one. I didn’t have a fully colored piece every month, but I did have over 12 fully rendered pieces in the end, several of which had backgrounds. So while I didn’t meet the letter of the goal, I feel like I met the spirit of it.

Did Not Meet: -Finish Huntlow comic -30 minutes animatic digitalize rough draft -Maybe make some fanart of my favorite fics

These don’t shock me. They’re all personal projects and this was a very external-goal-driven year for me. The Huntlow comic is a big love of mine but it’s definitely ambitious for where my skill is. I’ve got the whole thing messy-sketched and most of it has been clean sketched, but the jump from that to lineart is gonna be hard, and I have no idea what I’d be doing with color since the panels don’t have a background. That said, I do feel like it’s some solid work and I adore the angst vibe of it, so maybe I’ll get it done one day. I could also see myself posting it as a messy lineart comic so that others could enjoy the concept being executed in case it never gets finished.

As for the 30 Minutes animatic, I still 100% intend to complete it eventually. I love the way it fits to the music and I’m so proud of the thumbnails. Even if it never becomes a full animatic, I want to digitize the frames and line it up with music so I can share the concept I see in my mind with others. My brain was somewhat overtaken suddenly by TOH this year, so now that that’s settled and I’m hoping to follow my muse more this year, maybe this will be something I can get excited about again.

The fanart for favorite fics is no surprise since it’s kinda the tack on. With low motivation and projects with deadlines that needed my focus, personal art like this was buried way below other priorities. It’s a nice though for sure though.

Alrighty then, now it’s time for 2024 goals!! Oh goodness, I really don’t know what to expect of myself. I definitely am going to try to allow for more personal projects with lower pressure, but I do still have some goals. Hopefully most can be accomplished without applying big pressure though.

2024 Goals:

-Number One Priority: Create for my and don’t put myself in a place to get crazy burnt out and still have requirements. If I meet this goal, then it’s okay if I don’t meet any of the others. (It would be sad.... But I would still count it as meeting overall goals.) -Participate in Summergen and PAW Week (Art or Fic) -Design Handplates charm as anniversary gift (November) -Design CS Charm -Have a fully usable Zine Portfolio (Currently need more merch samples and rendered pieces with backgrounds) -Apply to new TOH Zines or other loved fandom zines. If I end up getting into any, I can pull back, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I want to get into the habit of always being ready to apply with what I have. -Make an ongoing project list to pin to my tumblr. This applies mostly for fics, but that way people coming to my page can see what fandoms I’m actively creating for and what they can look forward to (as well as have an opening to ask questions if they’re interested). -Post more (at least 10 times throughout the year) and add my best pieces to instagram (8+ pieces by end of year). -Do ONE of the following:     1. 30 minutes digitized so it can be shared with music      2. Open Up Your Eyes fully thumbnail      3. Fanworks for other people’s fics      4. Participate in an extra bang or exchange with art      5. Design and manufacture a pin -Play with different brushes and rendering styles -Draw something from scratch every month, no matter how small -Not exactly art, but I want to have a finalized long-term merch display plan for all my items Overall, how’d the year go? I think I did well! I didn’t meet all my goals and I pushed myself too far, but I learned and improved a LOT this year. All things considered, I made pieces that last year me would be blown away by, so I think that’s an automatic win. I’m pretty uncertain on how this next year will go (even more so than last year, which is surprising since I was changing schools last year), but I’m hoping to enjoy what I do and create art semi-regularly. Here’s to 2024!

[lisa-and-shadow]

My thoughts on Starfield:

First of all, I do really enjoy the game for all of its flaws. Just want to get that out of the way first.

It is, from toe to tip, a Bethesda game. For better or worse. It definitely has a very Fallout-esque flavor. As a big fan of Obsidian's The Outer Worlds, I can't help but compare the two and they are similar in a lot of ways. We are definitely having cowboy times in space doodoo do doo. That's not a bad thing though. I think it's easy to see influences from all sorts of sci-fi sources throughout the game. We've got space miners on asteroids, rag-tag space pirates, slick corpos, uptight military leaders, and the aforementioned independent minded space cowboys. Pick a trope from a popular title and it's in there. We've even got space drugs made from fish!

Technical downsides? Menu upon menus within loadscreens within menus. It's fairly quick, but it just takes you out of the action. So you wanna fly to another planet? Sit in the pilot's seat. Tiny unskippable scene of you sitting down. Menu to take off pops up. Cinematic cut scene of you taking off plays. Now you're in orbit. You might have a random encounter in orbit, peaceful or hostile. (Some really fun ones.) Open your main menu. Go to the star map. Find the star system you want to travel to and select it. Click Jump. Cutscene of your ship doing a FTL jump to that system. Load screen. Now you're in orbit in the new system. Open that menu back up to scan the planet and find a landing site. Etc etc.

ORRRRR you can pick a planet you've already been to, or from your quest log, and just fast travel there from the main menu and never fly in space at all. ??? Aside from kinda defeating the point, you have skill points to level up how much cargo your ship can carry that requires you to make FTL jumps. And BY GOD will you need cargo space.

The game does not explain things well. I guess Todd was tired of hearing about how Skyrim was too "hand holdy" because this game doesn't tell you shit. Once I played for a while I figured things out or I just looked them up online. I also watched a couple of Gameranx videos before I started playing. (I 💜Jake Baldino and Falcon.) That helped tremendously.

Speaking of not telling you things... there are NO city maps. The cities are huge with lots of buildings and shops you can explore and people you can interact with. Good luck memorizing them, bitch. (You'll get used to them eventually, honestly. But I'd kill for a map.) Planets have a surface map but it will only show you a very condensed local area with specific landmarks highlighted on a blank blue background.

There's a lot of really funny stuff in the game that has made me LOL and I want to shout out the writers. Just kooky jokes and silly encounters. Had a pilot hail me to make a Uranus joke. Dead. Had another ship invite on board to party. Very fun.

I personally have not encountered any major bugs to speak of. I thought I did on my first mission but I was in the wrong place bc the game didn't tell me where to go bc fuck maps. I did lose some weapons bc of bugged weapon racks on a ship I got but they weren't anything special. I haven't seen any floating mammoths or anything.

The leveling system is not my favorite. There are a ton of things to potentially put points into from pistol damage to carry weight to how well your ship steers. When you put a point into a trait it unlocks a "challenge". For example, I put a point in security, so until I unlock 5 locks I don't get the bonus from that point. Then once you complete the challenge, the bonus is activated and the next level of that perk is available to unlock. The problem is for some of the combat perks, you're going to be making pistol kills (or whatever) that aren't counting towards your perk bc you don't have a point to unlock the next level. Or maybe you forgot to go into that menu 30 minutes ago, or didn't realize that perk was done. Bethesda said they were trying to keep players from getting too OP and having too many perk points but damn. It sucks bc base building is also limited by perks.

Base building! Ok so this is a mash-up of Fallout 4 and No Man's Sky sort of... kind of. Apparently your main objective is to place bases on planets to harvest valuable resources like Helium-3. Considering that I already have more companions than I do places to put them, I was looking for a place to assign these folks so they'd stop pestering me on my dang ship. You can build bases right from the get go, but certain things are blocked off until you have a couple of perks unlocked. I always need more perk points. Ugh.

There are 4 companions you can romance. I immediately started flirting with the cowboy single dad. He looked boring before the game came out, but I'm 100% a sucker. He has a southern accent and a raspy voice and calls his daughter "gumdrop". He's like a 15% himbo. One of his voice lines after I looted a corpse was, "To the victor go the spoils... Did I say that right?" Shut your mouth and kiss me. AND! His baby mama is NOT dead. I won't spoil it, but it is refreshing as fuck!!

Yes, I did unlock the Adoring Fan from Oblivion and add him to my crew. How could I not?? He's everything you could possibly imagine and more. 11/10

Heller 💜

I'm a ways into the main story but these are my take aways without any real spoilers. It's fun. It really is. I'm a loot gremlin and Beth outdid themselves with the lootables on this one. So yeah. I like it. It's pretty much what I expected.

[derekscorner]

Fated Rantings: Remnants Rambling

A Game Better Than It Has Right To Be

I recently finished what is my fourth romp through the Fate Series. It has been slow going due to life but truth be told I didn't want to rush either.

My go of Fate Grand Order is still ongoing, my first anime was Apocrypha, then I watched the 2006 Fate Stay Night, and now I've finished Samurai Remnant after 70+ hours.

Each of these has been good so far. I may hate gacha games but FGO has a solid initial story arc and it's Lost Belt 6 story is also great apparently. I'm not sure I'll get that far but I am determined to finish Solomon's villain arc.

While I'd rate Apocrypha a better anime than it's often given. I am still in shock from the sheer contrast of Astolfo in-story vs the internet osmosis he's become. While the 06 anime was decent for me I do admit I had already seen plenty of lore videos prior so I knew what was going on.

Then there's Samurai Remnant that is better than I expected. I tried it because I am a new Fate fan and Type-Moon doesn't localize things often. I'd argue it is my second favorite story so far falling just behind Apocrypha.

Imagine a Fate Stay Night remade in this style!

Game mechanics weren't perfect or without annoyance for me, I will admit. I feel like Iori gets knocked around far to easy and can be stun locked.

The barrier gauge among most enemies and bosses is honestly a pain and feels like it's padding a bit (until you hit max level anyway) and it is easy to get lost in the towns at first.

Yes you have a map but I did get annoyed more than once be slow traversal hazards or dead ends. Granted, this is an aggravation for extras.

When in-story it is all fine. There's story reasons or game mechanic reasons for why you will have to crawl around, sneak, and so on. It was very much an issue I gave myself for wanting to do every thing and search every corner.

Many other things that annoyed me at first quickly vanished later as I leveled up or filled out skill boards so I will not list them. It was a somewhat basic but unique (in ways) game play set up for what is essentially a visual novel.

I only mention it all because I think this game would be an amazing blueprint for other Fate games. I've already seen people hope for a Fate Stay Night remade in this game's image.

Whether it's a new route or just the old novel redone the hope is now there and I find myself agreeing with them. Samura/Remnant is a great prototype for taking visual novels that began Fate and turning them into a video game that can reach more people.

Story is where it Shines

I won't lie, I expected something 'okay' or "mid" as kids call it, but no. This story actually is rather good. Several characters have more going on than it initially appears and multiple runs are required.

You'll play this game 3 to 4 times if you want every ending or to finish ever digression mission. Something I highly recommend you do because you'll miss out on explanations for several plot points or character motivations.

Admittedly, there are several things that I didn't get answered despite my thorough go of the game. I completely missed the fact that Tsuchimikado's family can use divination for future sight. It was this very skill that allowed him to create the Waxing Moon Ritual.

The whole reason the ritual is flawed is due to him using imperfect foresight to orchestrate the event. The story tells you several times that the ritual is a sham compared to the Fuyuki Grail War but I don't remember it ever actually stating why.

The wish of Rogue Berserker was also something I missed in-game. I won't spoil who he is (or was?) but knowing his wish now makes his finale and leyline placement much more sensible.

Leyline you ask?

Ah yes, it's explained in-game but I'll spoil it here since it's not that much of one. Due to the rituals imperfection a number of extra servants are summoned to Edo.

They're "rogue" or stray servants who are bound to a leyline in the land. (A spot of particularly high mana essentially.) On top of the rogue servants a pseudo servant and ruler class servant are also summoned.

Of course, none of these extra heroes have much interest in the ritual. You can befriend them in the story but the actual war itself is carried out by the 7 actual servants and their masters.

As for the ruler, well, Gilgamesh really just proves why he never gets the role in the funniest way. He doesn't care about the false grail, he doesn't care about the half-assed ritual, and he doesn't care for his job as a ruler.

He literally fucks off, weebs out, and opens a store five houses down from yours early into the game. It is one of the funniest fucking things.

It's small things like this or Gilgamesh's antics that give the story life. I don't want my section above to paint the image of it being bad for some things going unexplained. It's entirely possible I missed the in-game explanation.

But do know that characters will sell this story too you more than the plot beats will.

The story itself, in terms of progression, is simple. Iori gets drug into the ritual like most Fate protagonists do. Many of the events triggered are usually by way of the other masters having an actual battle.

Iori is there, he's an active participant, but he mostly runs around seeking information or making allies while major events are kicked off by the magi or servants triggering them. The digressions show you a lot of these perspectives.

Iori isn't a fool or ignorant of magic, he's just not a man of status or means to pull the stunts many others cause. I would argue he "has no desire too" but that in of itself is a murky topic.

Overall, I do consider it a good thing because the story is character driven instead. So much so that I won't even dare to try and fit it all in a post. I'll let you discover that for yourself...except for Assassin.

Not a bad character by any means but he has a moment in the game mid way and to this very day I do not get why he does what he does. It's like they just did whatever they had to for that boss fight to happen...

I just find it a shame because his digressions are actually humorous. Many character interactions are funny at times. It's always the small things too, little scenes that you could miss if you rush.

Other Questions & Conclusions

To be honest there's more I could ramble on but it won't fit into one post and I do not feel like I can make more than two or three. One reason is due to me obviously missing details that I only learned later due to a video by Otakudaikun.

Another reason is due to the sheer number of characters. There's several I've only seen for the first time outside of FGO and do not feel like I can do them justice due to my lack of familiarity.

Others are so simple that I do not think they have much to be said. They're not bad for it they're just simple and true to their nature.

Such as Jeanne. I didn't even get into how disappointing it is for her personality to be muted. And make no mistake, this is Jeanne corrupted not FGO Jalter.

I didn't cover just how much Rogue Berserker hit me personally since I liked his legend as a child.

I'd need a whole post of it's own to talk about Rogue Rider and her antics. Sure you see a loli but by hell I know Amaterasu's lore in Fate, her nature, so I only get nervous seeing her grin. (though I do love her dynamic with Kaya)

Nor did I elaborate on how cool it is for the main servants (the ones paired with masters) to be legends from Japan or China. I actually learned a few interesting ones due to this writing decision.

There's the other endings as well but nothing is as deep as the 'Entreat the Darkness' ending imo. They're all decent though.

I even have this theory that Iori is the reason Musashi was summoned to t his timeline with no proof other than he wants to best his master and she wants a decent opponent.

What I will reiterate is that you should try this. It's a great place to start Fate and it's a good one to try if you already follow Fate.

Go give it a try, bye now~

================================================

Other Fate related ramblings here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/fated-rantings

[calamitaswrath]

Cal Lucia plays Fire Emblem Path of Radiance: Chapter 16

Oh damn, I know that track from Smash! Quite the deep cut though to have a random character theme in there, hah.

Pretty rich of Ike to call out Tormod for speaking out of line in front of Sanaki. But, I suppose it also shows a bit of growth, in that he is now more familiar with this world, so I suppose we can let this one slide.

Ahh, so Ike did put two and two together! That's good. He really would have been a bit dense if after all this, he couldn't figure out what those "merchants" were all about. But considering that he's not taking the credit for working this out, the jury on him personally is still out.

Well then, let's look at the base conversations. Only two this time around, hm.

The conversation with Muasir and Tormod. . . well, now there's some heavy stuff. Pretty interesting to read, even if there is not much for me to actually comment on with it.

Stefan's - pfft, what a way to start it. Even Ike's confused where this guy came from. But he offers to teach Ike, and I get a skill out of it, so that's neat. I gotta admit that I haven't really used many of these skills yet, because I'm just not sure which skill to best put on which character, hah.

Got some more support conversations that I wanted to look at! Jill and Mist's is once again short, but it is rather sweet. Ike and Soren's on the other hand. . . well, that's not what I would have expected from a glance into his backstory.

Dumped a whole bunch of bexp into Mist, got her to level 17, and then promoted her, just so that she can do something.

. . .What do you mean, she uses swords now and not magic

Well, off to the actual map. And I really do like the setup for this one! Sneaking into a nobleman's manor for a search is definitely a unique setup for a Fire Emblem map.

Though in terms of gameplay, I have to say that this linear type of map really doesn't play well with anybody but mounted units. I still brought a bunch of unmounted ones, but they are not having a good time.

Huh, I guess all my resetting for good level-ups with Mist did actually pay off. She does have a respectable enough attack stat now, allowing her to do actual damage with a sword to enemies. That's neat.

New character with Devdan! With him. . . well, I think I've seen his design before at least, but not much beyond that. It is a good design though, and he seems like a fun enough guy.

The requirement for maximum bonus experience on this map was eight turns, which. . . yeah, no. I beat the map in 15. I wanted that treasure, and played things a bit carefully, so I guess that was to be expected.

And Reyson is goneson. That whole scene was a bit weirdly resolved, though - neither Oliver nor Reyson leaving was really shown, but I suppose that wasn't really necessary in the end.

And here we go, getting filled in on the massacre of Serene's Forest. And, uh. . . kinda eyebrow-raising that this website is named after that place? But I suppose I can somewhat see it.

Also oof @ Nasir throwing that subtle shade at Sanaki by saying that the empress from 20 years ago was greater than any before or since

I do have to wonder a bit about Sanaki, though. Is she the granddaughter of that empress? Because unless we have a "looks like a child but is actually far older" deal going on, she can't be the daughter of that empress.

Urgh, tough spot to have to stop, though. I do already know that the next two chapters will need to be beaten back-to-back, and the story is going interesting places right now. . . but, I won't actually be able to play for two weeks, since I'll be gone til the 21st from this Wednesday, and I won't really have the time to continue playing before that. But I guess that gives me time to let the story thus far sink in.

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 3 replay, Grissom Academy:

-On the squad select screen, everyone holds a gun except Liara. She’s holding her biotics at the ready.

Nice touch.

-ME3 introduced the glass breaking mechanic.

At the start of Grissom Academy, you see a kid dragged off behind a pane of glass.

Can you break the glass to save the kid?

No, of course not. What kind of game do you this is? That would be script breaking!

-Did Cerberus really waste their time hacking into the systems to broadcast their symbol everywhere?

How over dramatic. I’m sure TIM personally gave the order to do so.

-And today I learned Seanne can die if you don’t get to her fast enough. Did not realize that and had to reload.

But how does Shepard save her? All you do is say a few words. It’s not like you give her medi-gel.

-Jack says she barely remembers Liara. Reasonable. Liara’s barely in base ME2.

-Aaand Liara goes for the throat, telling Jack her real name is Jennifer and she may be able to find her real last name if Jack asks nicely. Where the hell did that come from?

Even odder that Jack doesn’t really react to that. I would not fault her for attacking Liara. Inappropriate given the situation, but the exchange should get more heated.

And Jack never follows up on it later…?

-As many others have said, the “students” do not look remotely like teenagers.

-Jack tells Shepard she tells the kids stories about the Collector Base, but the students say they did not realize Jack had ever worked with Shepard.

So what exactly were these stories Jack told? How do you talk about going to the Collector Base without mentioning Shepard?

Everyone knows Shepard destroyed a system. Do they not know Shepard destroyed (or saved, depending on your choices) the Collector Base?

-Just saying, the ambient dialogue here does not require me to reload. There’s no excuse for the Citadel’s behavior.

-Kahlee says she’ll go ahead of the others to get to the Cerberus shuttles.

Just how the hell does she do that? Sure, we don’t have a map of the academy but it feels like we should be closer than her. And how does she dodge Cerberus the whole way?

-After Cerberus attempts to psyche the students out, they’re told to switch their omni-tools to privacy mode so Cerberus can’t track them.

They didn’t do that when Cerberus invaded the base and started grabbing students???

-The data pads referencing Cerberus’ various programs are good foreshadowing for Horizon.

Normandy

-Joker’s view point on biotic discrimination is interesting.

Basically it steals attention from “real” disabilities like his, so he wishes biotics luck on improving their image so more attention can be devoted to people who are doing without rather than folks with extra abilities.

There’s probably an essay to be written there about how many disabilities are dependent on society – like how glasses are technically a disability but are rarely treated like one – but that is beyond my skill level to write.

-As Engineer Adams and Donnelly debate: Is Edi the ship or not?

I’m inclined towards not. Edi existed prior to the ship and could theoretically exist after it. The ship is the body she is currently inhabiting.

That said, I do consider the ship “hers” the same way I consider a human’s body “theirs”. You could theoretically upload a human’s mind to a cyborg, but that doesn’t mean their current flesh and blood body isn’t theirs today.

-Diana sounds extremely uninterested in the news reports she gives. Was she not given proper instruction?

[hisuian-history-makers]

Team Meanies—The “Rival” Team we only fight once.

There are nice rivals who act as endless wells of support. Annoying ones that goad us at every corner making us want to beat them. Mean ones we feel the need to prove wrong and that the world is a nicer place than they thought... The common thread between the different types is they motivate us to do better. Team Meanies were pretty upfront about the whole ruling the world thing. Don’t know how exactly they would rule a world with living gods? Though the human hero probably from the trainer-verse knows how far motivation can go.

Despite being a leader, Gengar is known to be a coward when his plans fall through. I argue he has only gotten more fearful since psychics can do serious damage to him. He could have spent the thousand years since the myth or only a few years being reborn as a ghost. We have no idea whether he can use his current species’ full abilities. Can he even float like Ash’s Gengar does so freely? His sprite in-game never does. How old was he when he got cursed anyway? The name “Meanies” could just be him being immature by nature. Which was a missed opportunity to call themselves Team Toxic. (All three can learn the move and it fits them well.)

I don’t get how Medicham is supposed to be at level fifteen strength when she evolves at level thirty. Guess she let her skills decay doing things the easy way for so long. She got much stronger once she joined Team Charm. Ekans seems to just be along for the ride while on their team, he stuck with Medicham when Gengar started contemplating himself. Most of us assumed before Super that he became the Arbok in Team AWD from Explorers. What are the requirements to form rescue teams anyway.

The first game has our partner send in a notice to I assume the headquarters that makes the teleporting badges. We join an official guild in Explorers and Wigglytuff certified us explorers to gain experience under apprenticeships. Gates has us simply assign a team name, I bet knowing Quagsire helps speed up the process. We did need four teams members at minimum to become official so there is that… Ampharos gives us Expedition badges from the get-go as well access to the Pokémon Nexus’ map in limited function devices. We need permission seems to be the connecting thread of all four.

I would imagine to apply you need an address they can regularly contact you at, what your personal name (non-species name) is, and not have a known criminal history. Happen to like the headcanon most Pokémon have personal names which they tell only those close to them. Next comes a trial week where you start on the Normal/Rookie provisional rank. You have to physically escort Pokemon outside mystery dungeons, no teleports at the start. Complete enough jobs the old-fashioned to get the official rank then you get teleporting badges. It discourages those who won’t be serious from joining the ranks is my thought process here.

Not without its exploitable kinks… Patient criminals to be can simply wait through the week. Ones like Gengar’s Team probably do enough good their actions are overlooked. They still rescue lost Pokémon which the officials will want them focused on doing. It keeps ne'er-do-wells from slacking off too much when anyone actually needs a rescue team to help.

(I’m surprised my first PMD post got so many likes. Glad people were interested in my ideas.)

[gascon-en-exil]

@deathbirby said

I'm trying to 100% Hopes and trust me it is a living hell. Good on you for saying no to that!

Oh, I did finish Hopes 100% about a year ago, at least by filling out the support log and event gallery and doing all the achievements. I was thinking about doing what I'd done with Houses and mastering all classes with all characters (all skills too, but those are auto-leveled in Hopes so they're not really relevant), but I eventually lost interest.

Unnecessarily analytical breakdown of gameplay in a way that only I would ever possibly care about below.

Hopes being less restrictive makes it less feasible to pursue 100% completion. This isn't that weird when talking about games as a whole - even within FE, Engage is more open-ended still while offering basically zero incentive to completionists - but it's the specific ways in which Hopes is less restrictive that let it down.

Houses limiting you to one dancer per playthrough forces a hard minimum of 29 runs to master all classes with all characters. That restriction doesn't exist in Hopes, leaving the only realistic one to be the number of runs needed to fill the event gallery. That's just six: two of each route, one where you recruit Byleth and one where you don't. Skill ranks may not be an issue and there are slightly fewer classes overall than in Houses, but there's still no way that you can have everyone master everything in just six runs. Byleth on their own is a nightmare since they have some of the worst availability, they can't be recruited in half of the mandatory runs, and like Shez their gender variability gives them more class options than other characters. There's also the Renown characters if you want to include them, where Sothis and Rhea can literally never be used outside the Record Keeper (which I'd consider grinding and therefore off-limits if you want to be efficient) and Arval is only available in a single paralogue that you won't want to access more than once since it's mutually incompatible with Byleth's recruitment. You could try building those characters up in base training alone...but I have no idea how many runs that would take.

Oh, and then there are combat arts and spells! Those aren't relevant to Houses 100%, but in Hopes they can be trained and maxed out...and there's a ton of them. Characters learn something like 50-60 arts/spells, there's around a dozen more from relics, and the incredibly obscure peer training mechanic technically allows units to learn almost all of 100 or so regularly-available arts/spells. Some of the white magic spells will also require you to do some obnoxious grindy stuff on maps to max them out, especially Restore. There is no way any of that is happening in a timely fashion, and it won't be remotely enjoyable even for someone like me.

Hopes being more clever about availability than Houses and suggesting an overall less daunting number of runs for class mastery - the 10-12 I'd estimate is still less than half that of Houses's 29 - is appealing, but I don't think that'd ever be enough for me to consider seriously giving it a go.

[rigelmejo]

3/7/2023 progress update

because I haven’t done one in a while, and because I like to compare with older progress logs ToT. Also because I’ve been doing a mix of random things lol.

Japanese:

Not much to say. I would still desperately like it to improve more, but I’m not putting in enough study time and i know that lol. I got through about 40+ Glossika Japanese audios, but there’s like 300 so why am I going so slow ;-; rip. I did pick up a second hand novel about a cat this past weekend in japanese (it seemed written for middle school to high schoolers in terms of text difficulty) and i could read some pieces of it! which i know is not a big accomplishment, but to read ANYTHING in japanese from a novel brand new that I have no prior context for is a pretty large achievement for me. I can read a bit of japanese Guardian translation, but I know the Guardian novel so well I can rely a lot on prior context to ‘guess’ my way though wtf is going on. 

Japanese video games - I took a break. In the long run though my break reminds me why I love these games though, so it’ll surely get me to study more down the road. I’m playing Kingdom Hearts in english again, and Like a Dragon Ishin with eng subs (and Soseki IS A CAMEO SIDE STORY IN THE GAME which absolutely thrills me because his novels and murakami’s are pretty much the Only Japanese novels I’ve read much of, i studied from Soseki’s stories a few months ago! ToT so to play around and get to ‘help him name the stories’ is just so fun and cute). I’m not picking up much japanese, obviously, from playing with english subs. But I imagine as in the past, it’s helping prevent loss of what I’ve learned. Before the break, I played about 30 hours of Final Fantasy X in japanese and 6 hours of Persona 3. Both experiences went quite well, next time I get back into playing games in japanese I think I’m going to replay Nier Automata. 

(If you are also a learner: I think personally Nier Automata is going to be easier to play than Nier Replicant in japanese. I considered both but Nier Replicant requires all weapons acquired which requires a Specific level of japanese skill to understand enough of the quest dialogues to get all weapons. Whereas Nier Automata you can fuck around and as long as you beat each ending you can continue through the game to the end - so I can read the side quest dialogues if I want and do them, but I won’t have to stop the game or look up a FAQ if I don’t understand something. Instead I can just skip it. And Nier Automata’s main story is fairly easy to follow, from memory and with the map markers, its fairly easy to move forward in the plot without getting lost. Also I have some of the Nier Automata novellas in japanese on kindle, so playing them in japanese will probably help make those reading materials easier). 

I think I should at some point be pushing myself harder with japanese - like jdramas with only japanese subs, or anime with japanese audio and no subs, or reading manga/novels more. Video Games are officially my comfort zone. Both because they’ve been a long term goal (so I’m satisfied to not improve past what they require of me), but also because comprehension of them is now good enough I can just play them and relax and not put in the effort to look stuff up or fry my brain if i don’t want to. (Reflecting on that: maybe I should watch more japanese lets plays, that’d be a good transition toward jdrama with subs in terms of difficulty). But on the other hand? I AM at a goal I wanted to be at for years. So I’m content to not improve much for a while/improve only as much as gaming naturally forces me to as I run into new words.

Study plan continues to be: get through glossika japanese (whenever the fuck i can MAKE myself continue), and play japanese video games <3

Chinese:

this is the meaty stuff lol. I was totally neglecting chinese the past few months (so what maybe winter?). Justice in the Dark came out. I am now in the ABYSS guys. I am on weibo so much just searching for updates of when the show will resume airing I have gotten a lot more comfortable on there in terms of reading posts/scanning for what I want versus want to ignore. And I am one of the LAZIEST people in some regards, in the sense I’d prefer to muddle through and puzzle out what something means then put in the effort to click a post, copy the text, open google translate, paste the text, and read through the translation. So for the most part I’ve just been zooming through weibo reading stuff since I am too bothered to use google translate unless i see something with specific dates mentioned and i wanna be Sure I grasped what they meant right. It’s probably fucking 2+ hours a day on weibo (i’d be horrified to admit possibly 4 hours god please don’t shame me ;-; I know I should use social media less okayyyyy). It’s like 1-2 hours on bilibil (being honest probably also fucking... 4 hours or horrifically more... don’t just don’t ask). I also made a fucking condensed audio version of Justice in the Dark, so I’m relistening (along with seeing the text subtitles in reaction vids/edits so much i’m getting so much RE-exposure i’m picking up any misunderstandings and fixing em). I am also listening to the audiobook and the audio drama of Silent Reading. I listened to like 3 hours of chinese audio-only stuff yesterday (5 chapters of the audiobook, half of audio drama 1, 1 condensed audio ep which is a heaping 35 minutes, and that’s not counting anything i listened to that was a video lmao). I also, because i’ve been missing it, listened to like 6 Ice Fantasy condensed audio files lately (which is idk also another 3 hours lets say). I’ve also been reading a bit, novels wise, but it’s really miniscule like maybe 20 minutes every few days compared to the sheer volume of time i’m on a social media or listening to chinese audio. 

So basically. If a day is 24 hours and i’m asleep 7 and working 8 and at a doctor 2, nearly all the other time is chinese stuff right now. So like... 7 hours? Maybe 4 minimum if we don’t count the time I’m reading stuff in english lately. I’m getting in way more chinese content then I have in a WHILE.

I knew this would happen when a drama i was interested in dropped. In fact for me personally, its worse than if Immortality dropped. Because Silent Reading is my fave priest novel I’ve read. So I absolutely am in DEEP right now. If it was any other drama, I might at least be taking some breaks lol. But Silent Reading/Justice in the Dark is like 80% of my brain space rn. Back when Word of Honor aired, my chinese comprehension took a leap for similar reasons. I was watching episodes before eng subs came out, rewatching eps over and over in reaction vids and video edits which let me pick up any words i didn’t understand the first time around (and made me practice listening to the audio since not every fan-made vid or reaction includes show subs). I went from ‘struggling to watch shows in chinese with no english subs or word lookups’ to ‘i can turn a show on and watch like it’s an english show for the most part - maybe some initial confusion if its a brand new genre until i learn the genre words by watching’ that i was left AFTER Word of Honor aired. After which point I watched Killer and Healer, and some Ma Tianyu shows that had no english subs all summer. After the Ma Tianyu shows pretty much any show not wildly outside my normal genres watched got about as easy to watch as english, in the sense i could start watching when tired or without looking at the screen as a ‘background show’ when i wanted. Word of Honor improved my language skills a LOT just cause I got so into it. It also got me better with novels, indirectly, because afterward I was able to move into extensive reading with no word lookups more often (difficult but it became at least doable sometimes).

I am way more into Justice in the Dark then I am Word of Honor (and i loved woh). But jitd is like GUARDIAN to me. I watched guardian like 5 times in the first months i found it and still rewatch and probably have the lines memorized. I pick up new details every time i watch guardian - same with jitd, i am BLOWN AWAY by how much information density is in each episode and how much i missed that i catch the next time around. I mean... dialogue alone in ep 1 is 35 minutes, in guardian it’s usually 20 minutes max time spent on dialogue. And the visuals clearly also put in their effort in jitd because i keep finding more i appreciate There too. So yeah. This particular circumstance of the show existing means i am in a pit and i’m going to be propelled on for a good while. 

I’m in this weird space, which generally means I’m making ‘progress’, where my chinese comprehension feels irritatingly ‘worse/not good enough’ again. Usually the pattern is: I feel like I barely understand, then I learn some stuff and feel AMAZED I understand so well, then I understand so much I start noticing what weak spots I still don’t grasp and the pattern repeats. I’m in that 3rd part where I just moved past feeling like ‘wow I understand this so well!’ to ‘fuck i am SO frustrated that a specific line was unclear to me, and I WISH i didn’t fail to grasp the paragraph i just heard, i’m so annoyed i NEEDED the reactor’s chinese subs to tell what word she said’ etc. 

But it’s like? Those are awesome things to notice i’m ‘bad’ at. Because I wasn’t even at a level of comprehension where I could understand enough to be bothered by these things, before. Like... I was listening to MoDu’s audio drama driving home yesterday, and I knew every scene, and I realized when it was the scene of the fuckers taking a picture of He Zhongyi’s dead body (that I listened to about 2 months ago and couldn’t figure out before)... and you know what I got frustrated with? That when Luo Wenzhou and the police were talking about the clues I had to guess ‘qianzi’ meant label on He Zhongyi’s forehead, because I couldn’t place the word in my memory. I was frustrated I didn’t follow every single clue... even though in the past I’d have been just SO beyond grateful to even realize I was listening to a specific scene where I could identify they’re talking about the dead body and evidence at the crime scene generally. Now I find myself getting annoyed I didn’t catch EXACTLY all the details. I’m catching the main ones easily, which now means I can afford to notice and be frustrated with individual sentences/sentence parts with details I don’t know some of the words in. 

Same with the audiobook. I’ve been listening this past week, and I knew what scene I was listening to as it went. Which I’d not been able to do before, when listening to modu’s audiobook maybe 4 months ago. Now I don’t struggle to place the scene. Instead I do struggle with a paragraph to 3-5 here and there, or a chunk of a sentence I hear. And it frustrates me a LOT. But damn if it’s not eons better than I was even just 4 months ago. Guardian audiobook is usually the only one I CAN listen to without reading the chinese text beforehand, just because I know Guardian’s story so well. I want to eventually be able to move into listening to new audiobooks and audio dramas I’ve never heard before so progress here is critically exciting to me. Don’t get me wrong though - i still think a BRAND NEW novel audiobook or audio drama with no prior context would be too hard. The Modu audio drama i can ONLY follow because i know the names already, and general settings. Otherwise I think the lack of those introductions and setting explanations would make it impossible for me to follow. A new audiobook.... might eventually be doable for me though. Since audiobooks DO introduce the characters and settings with description. But I think audio-word recognition is still my weaker area compared to reading. 

Anyway. In summary: justice in the dark drama came out and now i predict within 3-4 months my chinese comprehension will be improved at least a significant level because i’m just doing SO much. ;-;

[tco-old]

Sparks of Hope Thoughts - Beacon Beach

My progress in Sparks of Hope has brought me to the point that there's nothing left to do in Beacon Beach that doesn't require going to the next area and coming back. So I figure now's a good point for my initial thoughts on the game! ☆

I'll probably be doing one of these as I complete each area in full, though this one will likely be the longest (except whenever the final one happens) since it's covering my thoughts on the gameplay itself and such.

This will be very in-depth, and therefore will have very clear spoilers for everything you can do up to leaving Beacon Beach.

So, the best place to start would be...

Gameplay

One of the things I was not expecting was the feel of the game in terms of familiarity to other games.

Obviously, it's still mostly Kingdom Battle, but what else is there to expect from a sequel game? A lot of the core mechanics are still there.

But, while I obviously knew there would be Galaxy influences going into it, I didn't expect space-travel to be involved so heavily. I assumed space was coming to them more than the other way around, y'know? (More talk of the Galaxy influences will be down in the Story and Lore section below.)

But what I really didn't expect... was that this has Odyssey in it. Very clearly. The world is more open, you can do pretty much everything—except the main story—in whatever order you please, there's decent helping of lore if you stop to look for it, checkpoints, and level maps! It's all there, and it honestly floored me a bit.

Combat

The combat is very streamlined, which I'm a big fan of.

I audibly reacted when I was dropped into combat for the first time and discovered I was able to move freely. The grid system is gone—more or less. It's really awesome, it's definitely helped me out when it comes to planning my course of action.

I don't remember elemental attacks and strengths/weakness from the original game, so I think that's new as well? I do remember fire from the Kingdom Battle, but I think that was it.

The combat is largely the same in a broader sense though, with the skill trees and unique character abilities and whatnot. Having the different weapons swapped out for being able to give everyone different Sparks is a pretty good substitute, in my opinion.

Story and Lore

I don't remember there being much concrete lore in Kingdom Battle past 'Real-World Mario Fan made a fusion machine' or something? It was never too set in stone, so this game's story being much more concrete did catch me off-guard (in a good way)!

"Sparks" being the name of the Luma-Rabbid hybrids was a very fun reveal for where the name came from. At the current point I'm at story-wise, there are a lot of questions currently left open about them, though;

The fusion of Rabbids and Lumas is making me wonder what's gone on with Spawny since the last game. I think he's gotten one mention—in a Jeanie memory—but that makes Spawny out to be a strictly ally character now.

In another one of Jeanie's memories, she mentions that the Sparks have retained two instincts from their original parts; Calling Rosalina "Mama" and fearing Cursa. It's not clear whether this is part of the Rabbid side or the Luma side, though I'm figuring the latter. Either way, I'm curious to find out why the Sparks are apparently familiar with Cursa.

Where's Rosalina??? She's been mentioned a couple times now and she's very blatantly implied to be in danger. I do know that Rabbid Rosalina is one of the characters from the original teaser(?), and she's yet to appear either.

I also wonder if all the lore given on Augie and Perfectus is gonna become relevant later. It did turn out to be related to a puzzle in the temple, sure, but I feel like they gave far more lore than they would've needed for how simple the riddle was.

After finishing the available 96% of Beacon Beach, I am a little surprised to see that this area alone is 18% of the story's entire progression. Though, to be fair, that math does come out to 5 areas + a bit more, which would mirror the original game.

Theories

Currently, my theories are few and far between, just by nature of the point I'm at, though there are a couple I'm going to present now.

When it comes to what might be up with Rosalina, I see two possible options; Either she's Cursa or she's Rabbid Rosalina.

With Cursa, her eye looks quite similar, though red, and her general silhouette is quite similar as well. It would also explain why the Sparks already seem to fear Cursa—if it's Rosalina in some way, the and Lumas might have experienced something like this before.

With Rabbid Rosalina, this is pretty much just assuming that whatever caused the fusion to create the Sparks also got ahold of Rosalina in the same way.

I also have a small theory that Twinkle, the Spark that lights up the lighthouse, is created from Baby Luma, just based on them both being the only two apricot-colored Lumas known to exist.

Characters

I will say, when the voice acting started at the beginning, it honestly spooked me a bit. I wasn't too sure if I even liked it, but it's grown on me quite quickly.

First we'll speed through the main cast, since they're all recurring characters from the last game;

Mario is Mario. I love that he's the only one who has no dialogue. Nintendo deciding Mario is mute is always fun (that's not meant to be a drag at the mario movie, but it kind of is.)

Luigi's always great—all the little hums and noises he makes are great. I think I have several of them recorded on my Switch already.

Peach is kind of terrifying. The way she just goes "Ha ha!" when firing at someone is haunting in the best way. Polite Badass Peach will always be one of my favorite characterizations of her.

The three main Rabbids; Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, and Rabbid Peach. I'm grouping them because I mostly have the same major comment; I love the way they're all different ways of knocking-off their source characters. Rabbid Mario is reminiscent of when Mario is over-characterized—the strong accent and arrogant confidence especially. Rabbid Luigi honestly kind of reminds me of Luigi from the 1993 Mario Movie, even the voice feels similar. And Rabbid Peach just straight up isn't Peach, she's closer to being Peach's foil.

Beep-0 is still pretty much the same as he was before. His voice is very good.

With them out of the way, the new (to this specific series) characters!

I can't tell which exact story trope Edge is playing here. They're either meant to very obviously be an antagonist for dramatic irony, or you're just meant to assume they are so the reveal that they aren't throws you off later. I can't determine which.

Jeanie is a very fun character, though there's a deep sadness in her memories—she wants to know her place in the galaxy, she feels a bit unregarded, she sees the WM ARC as her home, etc. I feel like she's gonna have a character arc. (Also, the lore of 'Beep-0 created an AI that's smarter than himself' is wild if you really think about it.)

Cursa remains as mostly an enigma at this point, though that—and the purple-blue color theme—are very typical for story-heavy Mario games.

Again, Rosalina is mostly absent so far, though the fact that she's been mentioned (plus the Galaxy themes in general) make me certain she'll show up at some point.

Augie is a mood and a half. That's all I have to say about him.

Conclusion

All-in-all, I'm very happy with how things are going so far! I hope the game can keep itself up. Very excited to move onto the next location—Pristine Peaks, I believe was the name?

[jcmarchi]

Tales of Kenzera: Zau Review - Spirit Over Substance - Game Informer

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Tales of Kenzera: Zau Review - Spirit Over Substance - Game Informer

In Tales of Kenzera: Zau, the debut game from Surgent Studios, the use of the word “Tales” is more literal than it initially seems. To kick off the events of the game, protagonist Zuberi reads a book written by his late father about a place called Kenzera. He uses fiction to cope with his grief, just as the player might do with the plot of the game, and as the studio founder, who lost his father as well, did when creating the story to begin with. While combat and map design in Tales of Kenzera falters at times, this strong, emotional core was what pulled me through to the credits.

Zau is the protagonist of Zuberi’s book, and he’s who the player controls for the vast majority of the roughly eight-hour game. After his father’s passing, he goes to Kalunga, the god of death, to perform a risky exchange: defeating three great spirits to bring his father back to life. Kalunga, who simply appears as an older human man, accompanies Zau throughout his journey, providing wisdom and guidance to level Zau’s often reckless behavior. It is a stellar dynamic, and I enjoyed watching them butt heads as they struggled to deal with the other grieving characters of the game.

Zau battles his way through the world of Kenzera using the Masks of the Sun and Moon, relics gifted to him when his father passed. The Mask of the Moon has more ranged options with ice abilities, while the Mask of the Sun is melee-focused with fire abilities, and both are fun to use. Because you can flip between them at the drop of a hat, combat feels creative, giving the player the opportunity to flip to whichever stance fits them best at that moment. That said, later encounters with large crowds of enemies with regenerating health bars sometimes tested my love of the combat, with late-game combat encounters feeling like a chore purely based on how long they took.  

The game is also rife with platforming challenges that make use of all your abilities gained up until that point in the story, but since you start with a double jump and a mid-air dash, movement is a blast from the start. Many challenges involve instant-kill spikes, which can be irritating, but quick respawn times generally keep me from pulling my hair out. This is not the case in certain challenge sections and some chase sequences in story missions, which require you to make it all the way through with only a handful of checkpoints. They’re not insurmountable, though, and allow the game to test player platforming skills as well as combat skills during boss sequences.

Tales of Kenzera’s main flaw is its map and world designs, which turn a pretty good game into one that’s uninteresting and unintuitive to explore. While most games obscure sections of the map until players explore them, Tales of Kenzera opens up an entire zone as soon as you enter a biome. It’s a minor convenience for navigating through the main plot but a nightmare for figuring out where you have and haven’t been. There’s no way to mark the map or see where you’ve previously visited, save for icons that mark collected items, so in some cases, it’s actually more difficult to backtrack to find secrets.

Even then, areas are pretty linear, thanks to objective markers making sure the player always knows where to go, so most secrets are just a quick little branch into a room to the left or an alternate path to the right. On top of that, most secrets only reward a small chunk of experience points, which is useful but not particularly exciting to discover and doesn’t do much to incentivize further exploration. However, there are also meditation trees that increase your maximum health and platforming challenges to unlock stat-boosting trinkets, so it’s still worth heading down the occasional side path.

However, the most frustrating element here is a specific set of secrets: Spirit Trials. Unlike most hidden elements, these combat challenges require the player to backtrack significantly and open an ability-gated area to proceed. I enjoy secrets, but there are only three Spirit Trials in the whole game, and they are the only way to upgrade your spirit bar and trinket slots, which are vital to Zau’s abilities. It’s a baffling choice to funnel both upgrades into one area and even more puzzling to hide them away like this, especially when their existence is not mentioned until you find one. If the map allowed you to mark certain areas to revisit or had a traditional un-fogging system to see where you haven’t explored, it would be one thing, and if it were the norm for other secrets to require a little more work to find, it would be another. But when the player is neither implicitly nor explicitly incentivized to search for major upgrades, it creates a balance issue.

Despite my gripes with Spirit Trials and the map, I have a lot of respect for Tales of Kenzera: Zau, particularly in how it handles grief and self-reflection – it is one of the most thematically cohesive games I’ve ever played. Every element of gameplay and story is tied back into the dual struggle Zau and Zuberi face in coping with the loss of their respective fathers. Health upgrades come from points of meditation and the processing of emotion. Each character you encounter deals with loss in their own way, which grants perspective to Zau’s situation. Even combat upgrades represent Zau’s path to get closer to his father – if he can’t spend time with the man himself, he’ll spend time with the legacy his father left behind.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau conveys its somber themes with nuance and passion. It’s just a shame the gameplay doesn’t always match those highs, especially in a genre flooded with quality indies, because Zau’s journey – and Zuberi’s parallel journey – are stories I’ll be thinking about for quite some time

[gothwizardchick]

A Long-Expected Journey

In shortly over a month from now, I will be departing on a pilgrimage. I will be walking from Mineral Wells, Texas USA to Anchorage, Alaska USA, and perhaps as far North as the Arctic Circle. A distance Well in Excess of Four-Thousand Miles.

This Journey will be done entirely on foot. I will be doing this for multiple reasons.

-Firstly, this is a journey I have wanted to make since I was a small child.

There were several times I tried to run away from home when I was young, perhaps because of what is considered by some to be abuse. Regardless, I have wanted to walk from Texas to Alaska since I was around eight years old. I began studying survival around that time, I suppose because I knew I liked walking. I was enamoured by the Natural world and the techniques we used to navigate it. My grandmother would often take me on long road trips, during which I acted as Navigator, reading the maps and watching for signs and such (I got way better at this once I received my first pair of glasses).

If this were the only Reason, then I would say I was probably running.

-Second is that I feel this is necessary as part of my Apprenticeship.

I said before that I was an Apprentice Universalist Wizard. What I did not say, is that I am studying under no specific master. I am, by virtue of the fact that I created it, "The Head" of my order. There is only one other wizard in the order. He liked my vision and felt that it was appropriate to stay in touch.

The Order of Modern Arcana's ranks are thus,

Apprentice - An initiated Wizard, Someone who has signed the Order's Ledger.

Journeyman - a Master of a Field, Someone who can take on an apprentice related to their Field of Study.

Expert - a Doctor of a Field, Someone who has shown great work and dedication to their craft.

Master - a Doctor of Multiple Fields of Study, Someone who can Truly call themselves a Master Wizard.

My Field of Study is Universalism. I study The Universe as a Whole. As a result, the Journeyman requirement for my Specialisation is quite rigorous.

To qualify as a Journeyman Universalist, I need 1,000 hours of different trade schools combined. I currently have about 450 hours split between metal, wood, leather, cloth, electronics, construction, Aerospace Manufacture, and composite bonding. I have experience working in Factories, Workshops, Warehouses, Cleanrooms, retail storefronts, as well as as a stage performer. I sing, act, and dance and can play quite a few musical instruments, in addition to learning Calligraphy and Oil Painting.

I will also need three Master's Degrees. I currently have One (1) Semester of proper college. I forget how many credit hours it was, probably eight? either way, Someday I may start My own University, or other such learning institute, and that means I will need to be competent enough to teach at a Master Level.

Additionally, I will need to wander and ply my trade to those who need it. What good is Wisdom and Skill kept only for the Self?

-Which brings me to my third reason.

I am a member of a Faith occupied by Myself and Only Myself that I call The Order of Death's Embrace. This is not an Official Religion. This is just how I feel personally, and The Name felt appropriate. I do not feel like Death is a punishment. It is part of being Alive. You cannot Live without Death. In order to Live, you must consume many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Lives. No matter Your philosophy about whether it is right to eat Animals, You must still eat plants. You still need beneficial bacteria that die in service to Your existence.

While on this Pilgrimage I will be hunting and fishing for survival and buying bread and water when I have a spare dollar. I will have to Personally take those Lives, and the Responsibilities of Ending them.

To know what it means to be alive.

Choosing to value my own existence over the lives of those around me. Because I can't Help Anyone if I'm Dead.

Usually, When I tell people that my Principle Deity is Death, they make strange faces and act as though I murder people (which, for the record, I have not). To them Death is something scary.

In Truth, what it means is that to qualify as Clergy of my Faith, I am going to visit Old Graveyards in old towns and tend to the graves of those who no longer have anyone to remember them. Afterall, isn't that what we all want? To be remembered when we Die? For someone to acknowledge that we were Here?

To begin with, I will be wearing Grey Robes. Once I cross the Desert on foot, during the Summer, I will have passed my trial to don my Black Robes.

-The Fourth Reason is something of a Complaint. Everyone, seriously, If I was playing Chess with someone, and they kept inventing new rules, making me stick to the rules, and then cheating even more, I would quit playing that game. I don't know that I can continue playing the game that everyone refers to as Society. I hate it, it Fucking sucks.

Likewise, Everyone is so caught up Blaming each other and fighting over things that don't matter that they never solve the problems they are complaining about. We know there's a problem, let's work on a solution. Doesn't matter who caused the problem. No reason to even bring it up unless you mean to find out more about how to solve the problem by asking the one responsible for its creation.

-But finally, and I suppose most Importantly,

I'm doing this because I want to. All trappings and excuses aside, I want to do this. That's why I'm doing it.