#i can visualize a map for it pretty clearly

[jjackdawed]

the slow decline into fear and paranoia that engulfed bluestar at the end of arc 1 that lead her to completely losing trust even of her closest allies and religion all because of tigerclaw’s betrayal is so interesting to me and i think about it sometimes

non filtered version vvv

[vintagerpg]

Back in the ’90s, a big part of the local punk scene in North Jersey that I bounced around in was centered around street punk and oi bands like Headwound, Niblick Henbane and The Wretched Ones. Their music was stripped down, catchy and their lyrics reflected a mix of working-class life, light hooliganism and, in the case of Those Unknown, grassroots leftist politics. One thing that none of them struck me as? Nerdy.

Fast-forward to 2023 when I stumbled across Harvest, by Philly’s Poison Ruin. Self-described peace punks, the album is a leftist working-class manifesto filtered through the aesthetics of medieval peasantry. It gets weirder! The tunes are gruff head-kickers with a strong sense of ’90s-era production, but there are all these clearly dungeonsynth-influenced interludes and, well, come on, look at that cover. Spooky chainmail guy with a sickle, black on yellow — it’s basically a MÖRK BORG zine. Can’t help but notice that flail is real similar to the one in the Gnoll logo, too…

Poison Ruin reminded me how much I liked aggro-infused music, so I went hunting for more. Most of the stuff I dug up hewed to the ’90s standard of slice-of-life working class lyrics and aesthetics, though many have a strong mix of post-punk and new wave influences, a la later-era Blitz, which is also surprising and intriguing. But some bands have decided to explore even stranger trails.

Enemic Interior, out of Barcelona, mixes oi and post-punk, and their album art, by David Soto, clearly evokes the look of old school RPGs — that ghost on II (2022) is very reminiscent of the ghost from the original Monster Manual — and could easily front dungeonsynth albums. Same for Castillo but more so — the sleeve of their self-titled EP (2020) boasts Sutherland’s green dragon and frost giant from the MM, and the Paladin in Hell from the Players Handbook (I can’t place the wizard). And for Pete’s sake, just look at that cover for Lost Legion’s Beyond the Concrete Veil (2024). It’s not explicitly tied to RPGs, but it could totally be an illustration in Realm of Chaos. And in a million years, I’d never have expected to hear oi this catchy and stompy to also be so entangled with science fiction, psychedelia and Aleister Crowley, but here we are. And, mind-blowingly, when I ordered the Mutant Genes 7-inch, Derek Atkinson at the label was already following my Instagram and popped the vinyl in a custom hand-stenciled sleeve featuring the text of the gelatinous cube entry from the Monster Manual. Fuckin’ wild.

Does this mean anything? I dunno! Medieval fantasy, and the notion of the fantasy dungeon in particular, can be a pretty handy visual shorthand for brutality, whether physical or metaphorical. Just look at all those poor adventurers getting eaten by monsters in the original Monster Manual! Does the frost giant and his huge ax on the Castillo sleeve represent the oppressive, exploitative forces of capitalism? Are frost giants with huge axes just cool now? Two things can be true simultaneously. And, regardless of intent, it’s interesting how the aesthetics have shifted in 30 years. Maybe fantasy is having a moment of broad appeal reminiscent of the last golden era in the ’70s.

P.S.: And, yes, true, the Misfits were into nerd shit way before any of this stuff, but I think horror nerd shit has always had more cachet than fantasy nerd shit? Perhaps because it maps more readily to established masculine norms; there was a big gulf in 198X between Danzig watching Plan 9 from Outer Space and Danzig copping to running a weekly D&D game).

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 5/27/2025

no lesbian novel this week! didn’t get to read much at work bc i had to do my actual job :( did manage to do some sewing

listening

ive been bumping this since the end of the season tbqh. the way in-universe this has been a chart-topping party song for over a year??? with its own little dance??? how Niamos is the name of a beach planet so this is functionally a Pitbull song where he yells MIAMI!!!! which is all of them???? show of all time. show of all fucking time.

it’s not on streaming platforms but THE IN UNIVERSE ELEVATOR REMIX!!!! FUCK!!! WHAT IF STAR WARS WAS GOOD!!!

-

reading

did not manage to read a lesbian novel. did manage to read half a book ive had in hold since january 2 of this year and i did not like it :(

this is playing in the same space as Canticle for Leibowitz and anything else that treats software programming as a magical mystical art with priests and such. love this space! you can probably name three more off the top of your head!

while it does have a fascinating 1920s level of technology world (aside from the big magical barrier), it really flounders about in the middle. the twist was pretty clearly telegraphed (fine) but after the twist i had zero desire to continue onward. i had no real interest in how or why this huge overarching societal problem could be solved, and think i could have liked it more if it were either novella or short story length. would be perfect as a classic episode of the twilight zone.

it also strikes a little too close to home for me with its depiction of a far-right religious cult running everything and a depressingly accurate depiction of what it’s like to be a woman in hard stem, down to the sexual assault from a person in the same research group. the two-thirds of the book i read was really just real life as a woman postgrad without many scifi elements. the promise of scifi elements were why i picked up the book, bc i was interested in a hard sci take on dark academia. further annoyances: i also did not love the “they’re trying to keep you PLACID and QUIET and WOMANLY!!!” scene with a doctor. there is an additional second-wave feminist stink around the “original” flavor of magic, stolen from the original women of the land. i hesitate to call it terfy. if i met someone with these views in the real world I would certainly ask more questions before scheduling a second hang. yanno?

-

watching

john wick the fourth bc i unexpectedly have peacock access. video game cutscene lookin ass movie (lovingly). the visual style, lighting, and nods to other movies (genuinely gasped out loud at a specific match cut bc the reference made sense within the plot and wasn’t just a fun visual) are all off the chain. slightly longer than i wanted it to be— the last chase/gun battle through paris dragged a bit despite having some of the coolest set pieces.

-

playing

nothing fun to report in genshin this week. still don’t have enough to guarantee the pink fox lady so i think i will bide my time and wait for skirk to drop at some point the next patch (yet another patch with no map update :( curious)

-

making

trying to clean my house or finish some projects whenever i want to leave my house or spend money. has led to a much cleaner house but a much more housebound me. anyway here’s a scrub cap with fabric a friend bought and asked “hey can you make me a scrub cap” When I Moved To Houston Nearly Two Years Ago. plus the lining galaxy fabric, bought at the joanns closest to umass in mmm 2017?

came home from work friday morning to discover catnip strewn about the living room bc da gorls managed to rip holes in BOTH mr cactus kickers. a somewhat slapdash mend but reinforced with fraychek so the next time they bite and tear the fabric Next to the patch will tear

[kradogsrats]

Okay, so new day; new insane lore history theory.

Looking at the tapestry from ToX again more closely, after my very quick scan this morning, there are actually five distinct types of soldiers shown:

Based on careful examination of the contemporary armor/uniforms used by the Pentarchy armies, I landed on this breakdown:

I could explain in great detail how I made those distinctions, but honestly it doesn't matter and people don't care. Just trust me, I thought hard about it.

Originally I misidentified there as only being three types of soldiers, because the Katolis/Evenere and Neolandia/Del Bar designs are very similar. Also because the tapestry shows three cities:

Katolis is obvious, and I still think the other two are Berylgarten and Neolandia. The map helpfully tells us there are five known cities in the human kingdoms, complete with little pictures:

I've left out Hinterpeak because it's very obvious none of the tapestry cities is Hinterpeak, Hinterpeak is literally inside a mountain. Del Bar's secondary city, Serpentongue, looks like a candidate based on its map drawing, but ToX tells us that Serpentongue actually looks like this, which is... less representative of what the tapestry shows:

We see Berylgarten briefly in s2 during Viren's flashback sections, where it's a sort of tiered city with towers around a central dome:

I think that's closer to the top tapestry city than Serpentongue is, though it's still fairly abstracted. It also makes more sense for the "capital" city of a kingdom to be represented.

Finally, we have Eboreus, which is a bit of a problem child because we have no long-distance views of Eboreus that I can recall... there are depictions of the inside of the city, but nothing that would characterize its silhouette for us. However, ToX does have another piece of "old" artwork, meant to be probably some kind of fresco, depicting the founding of Neolandia and Eboreus:

(This is the latter, Eboreus half, the right half just shows the people migrating from the east and going through a nomadic tent-based civilization period.)

It doesn't help a ton, except that construction of the city wall is given a pretty dramatic place in the visual narrative. I would definitely assume, from this, that Eboreus is a walled city similar to the bottom tapestry city. Combined with the many-spired depiction on the map, I feel okay about that identification.

It's interesting that they geographically represent only three of the five kingdoms, but if the tapestry pre-dates parts of the kingdoms' formations... well, the kingdom that's a swamp infested with magical megagators and the kingdom where they still choose the next monarch by having a literal melee free-for-all are honestly the ones I'd say probably took the longest to establish like... actual government.

However, something to keep in mind is that while I've been talking about this tapestry like it's a super-old historical document within the setting, it may actually not be from all that far in the past. All we really know is that it shows a conflict between humans and elves, divided by the Border, and that's not exactly a historically unique scenario. The main things that suggest it's showing an earlier time than "now" are that it includes only three cities, and that it clearly depicts mages being heavily involved in warfare. If that was something that was expected at series time, a lot of things would be very different. I could, however, see it being a thing as late as, say, the time of the Orphan Queen. I mention all of this because the tapestry is one of several "old"-looking art pieces in Tales of Xadia, but we have to keep in mind that one of those literally depicts Harrow killing Avizandum, so. It could be very old, it could be not-very old. (I mean, 300 years is still pretty old, in the scope of known human history.)

Really, though, what I wanted to talk about is this:

We have our "Katolian" soldier, but the heraldry on their shield is not the Katolis uneven towers, even though that's already a distinguishing feature of the kingdom (as seen in the city depictions). Instead, it's a layered uh... thing. But it's a thing we've seen before:

The guards at Allhaven Hill have their own heraldry, presumably because they're supposed to be neutral regardless of their kingdom of origin... but it's almost exactly the same overlapping geometric design as we see in the tapestry.

We also have Blondie McKatolis, in the flashback scenes during Zubeia's account of Aaravos's imprisonment, strongly implying that we are seeing representatives of the human kingdoms at the time of the Orphan Queen:

We pretty clearly also have Neolandia, Del Bar, and Evenere at this table. Also Duren, I just always get confused by her since they gave her those purple-y pink accents instead of blue. Why? No idea. What is this, Sleeping Beauty?

Anyway, Blondie up there also does not use the modern Katolian uneven-towers heraldry, nor the crown that matches it. Depending on how long the Aaravos bullshit had been going on, it's not surprising that the Orphan Queen would try for a clean slate when taking the throne. Having just averted devastation on both sides of the Border by working together with Xadia, "finding strength in our differences" is a pretty good choice for new logo inspiration. (I don't actually know how you adopt/change heraldry. But I do know logo design and branding strategy!)

Given that all five kingdoms technically appear in the tapestry, the "Pentarchy" heraldry could already be a united human kingdoms symbol... except then why isn't it on any of the other soldiers? Some of them have shields almost exactly the same as the Katolian soldiers, but no heraldry.

So here's a thought: what if it actually is the Katolian heraldry of the time, or a symbol of the kingdoms united under Katolis?

Katolis is one of the older and larger kingdoms, it's implied to have had a larger and more organized military for a long time (holding most of the Border), and Blondie is the one with Aaravos whispering in his ear. It wouldn't be super weird if Katolis at one point held a higher position than the other kingdoms, whether as "first among equals" or an actual system of vassals with a "high king" or whatever. The center, frontmost piece of the overlapping geometry, so to speak.

We have occasionally gotten weird little hints/implications that the current era of peace between the human kingdoms, even the entire concept of the Pentarchy, is fairly recent. What if that's not because they were all squabbling amongst themselves even after the mage wars wound down, but that prior to the Orphan Queen, they were all varying degrees of vassal states to Katolis? If part of what the Orphan Queen did was reset the human kingdoms as equals, doing a "this symbol now belongs to all of us, not just Katolis, and Katolis will adopt new heraldry" could be a nice gesture.

But yeah, that's how my brain has been spinning today.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Ok. It's pretty clear you are more welcoming of AI, and it does have enough merits to not be given a knee jerk reaction outright.

And how the current anti-ai stealing programs could be misused.

But isn't so much of the models built on stolen art? That is one of the big thing keeping me from freely enjoying it.

The stolen art is a thing that needs to be addressed.

Though i agree that the ways that such addressing are being done in are not ideal. Counterproductive even.

I could make a quip here and be like "stolen art??? But the art is all still there, and it looks fine to me!" And that would be a salient point about the silliness of digital theft as a concept, but I know that wouldn't actually address your point because what you're actually talking about is art appropriation by generative AI models.

But the thing is that generative AI models don't really do that, either. They train on publicly posted images and derive a sort of metadata - more specifically, they build a feature space mapping out different visual concepts together with text that refers to them. This is then used at the generative stage in order to produce new images based on the denoising predictions of that abstract feature model. No output is created that hasn't gone through that multi-stage level of abstraction from the training data, and none of the original training images are directly used at all.

Due to various flaws in the process, you can sometimes get a model to output images extremely similar to particular training images, and it is also possible to get a model to pastiche a particular artist's work or style, but this is something that humans can also do and is a problem with the individual image that has been created, rather than the process in general.

Training an AI model is pretty clearly fair use, because you're not even really re-using the training images - you're deriving metadata that describes them, and using them to build new images. This is far more comparable to the process by which human artists learn concepts than the weird sort of "theft collage" that people seem to be convinced is going on. In many cases, the much larger training corpus of generative AI models means that an output will be far more abstracted from any identifiable source data (source data in fact is usually not identifiable) than a human being drawing from a reference, something we all agree is perfectly fine!

The only difference is that the AI process is happening in a computer with tangible data, and is therefore quantifiable. This seems to convince people that it is in some way more ontologically derivative than any other artistic process, because computers are assumed to be copying whereas the human brain can impart its own mystical juju of originality.

I'm a materialist and think this is very silly. The valid concerns around AI are to do with how society is unprepared for increased automation, but that's an entirely different conversation from the art theft one, and the latter actively distracts from the former. The complete refusal from some people to even engage with AI's existence out of disgust also makes it harder to solve the real problem around its implementation.

This sucks, because for a lot of people it's not really about copyright or intellectual property anyway. It's about that automation threat, and a sort of human condition anxiety about being supplanted and replaced by automation. That's a whole mess of emotions and genuine labour concerns that we need to work through and break down and resolve, but reactionary egg-throwing at all things related to machine learning is counterproductive to that, as is reading out legal mantras paraphrasing megacorps looking to expand copyright law to over shit like "art style".

I've spoken about this more elsewhere if you look at my blog's AI tag.

[career-mahoushojo]

my magia exedra thoughts so far!

stuff I liked:

- original artwork and animations are really nice! always fun to see some new original stuff.

- the girls are 3D! love love love the models, I feel like they did a good job translating all the characters' visual styles.

- combat is really fun. feels smooth and enjoyable, I've been enjoying it a lot. I have it on reasonable authority however that it's kind of pulling pages out of honkai star rails' book- which is fine, I have no interest in hsr, but I'm curious what hsr players think of magia exedra, if you've played both please share!!!

- Namae-chan and AQ are really fun!!! I can feel the roots of a very interesting story, but I fear that her unknown origins will drag on.... More on that in the next section. The idea that AQ is something "special" and "non-kyubey" is really compelling.

- the setting is lovely- I really like the lighthouse and its layout.

- I actually really like the little scenes where Namae-chan walks through the memories and the silhouettes of the involved girls appear and vanish around her. it's a nice compromise to get the points of the memories across while keeping the rehashed story as optional.

okay. now my gripes, below the cut.

stuff I didn't like (note: a lot of this will probably change! hopefully!!! I hope that as I progress through things and they take time to update the game these points will become moot!!!! In a beautiful, perfect world I will look back on this post and laugh at my own naivete):

- this game seems to be struggling with whether it's for established fans of the series or trying to pull in new people, which is... A hell of a piece of indecision for a game relying so heavily on its legacy characters. it acts as though it's trying to appeal to newer fans in rehashing the story of madoka and others as its main quest, but the character stories and vignettes that are supposed to give us more character insight are a confusing mix of backstory rehashing and kind of unsatisfying little side stories so far. I've been enjoying some of them, but everything feels more disconnected than it did in magireco, where many of these characters were introduced (therefore kind of allowing the writers to build their stories from scratch).

- speaking of, the UI is such a downgrade! (I guess technically Ui was pretty central to the magireco plot....... lol) I miss the opulent buttons and skeuomorphic, gemstone-y designs of the buttons and menus in magireco. everything in magiex is so flat and generic :(

- the... main gameplay. I hesitate to even call it that. How sad that a concept like labyrinths, which seems absolutely tailormade for a more persona-esque dungeon exploration mechanic, are reduced to a mechanic so linear you can literally automate it. I don't even dislike the atmosphere of the labyrinths! the fixed camera angle is interesting as an artistic choice! but WOW it is not used that way. really genuinely such a bummer, kind of my biggest beef with the game so far to be honest. there are definitely some elements that I like though- the liminality of some of the levels, the map overlays are fun, and even the ambient familiars are nice (the distant line of Anthonys dancing on top of the buildings :3 )

- I miss doppels and connects :(

-i am both excited for and nervous about Namae-chan's story... On the one hand it could turn out to be really interesting! It could be a deeply compelling story! On the other, more-likely-due-to-the-nature-of-mobile-games hand, it could drag on forever, with Namae-chan basically just eternally going "wow. emotions are crazy huh." I am hoping and praying we get the compelling plot we deserve and it doesn't just string along with the same, status-quo ass premise ad nauseum. I choose to believe in Namae-chan 👍

- a surprising amount of asset reuse. holy shit the anime screenshots being used for the main story is so egregious. tons of stuff that clearly just copy pasted from magireco. and not even the good stuff!!!! please for the love of God give Yuma better art at this point!!!!

- honestly it just needs a lot of optimization. drains my phone battery like crazy. menus and cutscenes get laggy and I know I'm not alone in thinking that.

I'm sure I'll think of more things that I both like and dislike- I'll probably make more posts as I see things but these are the big immediate standouts. would love to hear others' opinions, tell me what you liked, what you disliked, if you agree or disagree with my opinions! I'm definitely going to be playing regularly, so I'm excited to see this game change and evolve over time. :)

[downtroddendeity]

@turnkeyassurance saw your tags and figured I'd take the opportunity to pause my descent into madness to give my more sober opinions on the Ni no Kuni franchise, lol. (Warning: I am a humongous JRPG nerd)

The NNK games are really odd ducks, quality-wise. You can call either one a good game or a bad game and call either one better than the other, and any combination of those opinions can be something I think is entirely justified. Both of them have things they do remarkably well and also serious, profound, deal-breaking flaws, and the really weird thing is that there's almost no overlap between those two lists for the two games. What clicks and doesn't about both of them is going to be deeply individual.

What Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch does, with resounding success, is Vibes. It sets out at every single step with the goal of being a playable Ghibli movie, and it sticks to that principle. It's all about beautiful, cel-shaded whimsy. It's a game for people who want to feel like they're wandering through the meadows in the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle. There are lots of puns, and you can befriend all the random encounter monsters and feed them ice cream.

But that's also its Achilles' heel: because it's dedicated entirely to imitation, it has trouble bringing things to the table that are really its own. It has the visual and narrative aesthetics of Hayao Miyazaki's films, but it doesn't have the raw emotion at the heart of them. And as a game, its mechanics combine the clunkiest features of menu-based combat and action RPGs, and while everything about the Pokemon-esque mechanics seems designed to encourage players to collect and experiment with them, the balancing turns attempting to do that into a miserable grindy nightmare.

The other problem is that it... isn't actually the first Ni no Kuni game. Wrath of the White Witch is, in fact, a remake of the Nintendo DS game Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn, which was never released outside Japan. The reason for this is pretty easy to explain, because DDD had another gimmick besides its aesthetics: it came with a real-life physical copy of the wizard spellbook, and the player had to look things up in it and draw sigils on the DS touchscreen to cast spells. So, we've got a high-effort remake that had to completely cut the central mechanic... and which also expanded the plot so that the original main villain was no longer the primary antagonist. This results in a game with what is very clearly a final dungeon and very clearly a final boss and very clearly a resolution to the story, which suddenly has a completely different plot dropped on it like a fucking anvil that it expects you to be just as invested in even though it hasn't had anything like the same level of buildup.

And ironically, this is almost the exact opposite of the biggest problem with Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, a.k.a. the one with my new blorbo, the President of the United Union of Eagleland. 2 is an effort to try to cement an identity for the series that can be its own, rather than requiring them to depend indefinitely on borrowed Miyazaki nostalgia. It just has the teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy problem that at some point in development it had a budget shortfall so bad that you can finish the game without ever realizing that there is a continent-sized crashed interdimensional spaceship on the world map.

This game has had a machete taken to it. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely respect the work they did to make what they could with what they had, but you can see the signs of massive scope cuts to literally every aspect of the game. The back half of the game has almost exclusively recycled enemy and environment assets; voice acting has been trimmed down to canned voice clips; the catboy protagonist's ears and tail are barely animated; one minigame was so inadequately playtested that a level 16 mission is massively harder than level 50 ones; and while whatever restructuring they had to do to the main plot still left the final version with a more solid and coherent central arc than WWW in my opinion, it also left a lot of truly gaping plot holes, like oh, I don't know, why the President of the United States got turned into a 19-year-old.

Literally, they just. Entirely forgot to explain that. Half the DLC is just the writers scrambling to fix stuff like that and add a bunch of character development that should have been in the base game.

However, despite all this, I personally enjoyed NNK2 more than NNK1 unironically, not just for Rolandposting reasons. Compared to the first one, it plays much more smoothly as a straight action RPG, and while it can't provide the same knock-your-socks-off aesthetic cohesion, to me it seemed a lot more heartfelt- that is, like a game that was made because people had a story they wanted to tell.

But, well, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the non-unironic reasons, because the story they really, genuinely wanted to tell was about a magical catboy growing up and learning to become a leader, and somehow, miraculously, they really thought that was the story I was here for too when they opened the game with the President of the United States being isekaied by Nuke-kun.

Sorry, guys, I have a crippling addiction to dramatic irony and my day job is tech work in local politics, you could not have more laser-targeted this at making me specifically laugh my ass off if you tried.

[magicluckystars]

William, Liam, Harrison, Alfons, Elbert, Roger and Jude playing among us

did I know that among us is dead? yes. did I decide to do this anyway? also yes. this is my contribution to the Ikemen community for today. I hope you all like it!

I would love to see your ikevil ocs playing among us with crown, what do you think it would be like?

Was originally planning to do everyone, but this has been sitting in my drafts for forever so decided to post it

I am still a beginner writer so my work may not be the best and characters may be ooc! constructive criticism and reblogs help <3

genre: crack. pure crack. but you can clearly see my favourite

TW: mentions of death in game

***

generally I think they’d all be pretty good considering they kill ppl irl too, but here are specific headcanons!

William:

you can NEVER tell when this man is imp or not. when he’s accused/voted out he just laughs.

Always watches people do visual tasks

when he is imposter, he would probably use sabotage relentlessly to get everyone distracted and then kill someone. Would probably kill in comms because almost nobody goes there

Uses vents when necessary, but prefers to walk to his locations to avoid suspicion

probably likes to see everyone scrambling to fix his sabotages.

when he’s crewmate, it’s somewhat hard to sneak up on him but he can be killed. Likes to fool around in the ghost chat

pairs with victor (unsurprisingly) all the time, but works well with everyone else too

Liam

Makes a decent effort not to reveal himself as imposter but admits it when he’s backed into a corner

when he gets imposter, he kills people so damn fast- uses sabotages as he needs it, but probably uses o2 sabotage or comms sabotage the most

mainly uses vents to get around

As a crewmate, ALWAYS knows when someone is sneaking up on him.

forgets about his tasks sometimes but does them when he remembers

probably does his elec tasks last

pairs with Harry (unsurprisingly) but also likes to pair with William and Alfons.

Harrison

AMAZING at imposter. Lies so fluently sometimes even Alfons and will can’t tell when he’s lying.

mainly uses emergency meetings and dead body reports to kick people off the ship but kills people too

again, uses sabotage when necessary. Uses comms sabotage and reactor sabotage the most

uses vents to get around, not as good as liam when it comes to sensing someone behind you but still pretty good. Knows when someone’s in the room, or in a neighbouring room

As crewmate, he does his tasks as quick as he can and can make accurate guesses as to who is the imposter.

Likes to pair with Liam, Ellis and Will but doesn’t like to pair with Victor.

Elbert

Probably took him a while to get the controls

doesn’t talk much as crewmate or imposter, only when he’s questioned directly

As imposter, he uses kills and o2 sabotage to win. he uses sabotage a lot to again, distract everyone while he’s plotting something

directs the blame onto someone else usually

as crewmate, does his elec tasks second or third, doesn’t really get why elec is such a hotspot for imposters but uses it anyway when he is

forgets about some of his tasks but when he’s done he just kinda. stands in one place unless there’s a sabotage

Usually pairs with Alfons or alone, but sometimes he likes to pair with William as well

Alfons I had no idea for him I’m sorry

Decently good at both imposter and crewmate. Although better at imposter

probably places bets on the outcome of the game

as imposter, he sabotages a lot and uses the admin map to win(like if everyone’s on one side of the map, he’ll sabotage something on the other side of the map)

if he wants to finish the game quickly though, he’ll kill people more. probably self reports but kills someone, runs away from the body, then runs back and reports it

one of those annoying types that doesn’t do their tasks unless told to

definitely uses vents primarily to get around

usually kills when people are doing the upload and download task

watches people do visual tasks if he’s in the mood

Usually pairs with Elbert or alone, but likes to pair with Liam sometimes. Doesn’t like to pair with roger.

Roger

Equally good at both, but better at crewmate

as an imposter, he mainly kills people and uses sabotages. he mainly uses o2 sabotage.

like will, prefers to walk to his locations but uses vents when he wants to.

probably likes to see people squirming when they’re wrongfully accused

does his electrical tasks first to avoid getting killed

does his tasks quickly and reminds everyone to do theirs

Usually goes alone, but likes to pair with Ellis if he agrees. Wants to pair with Alfons but he never agrees

Jude

Doesn’t like crewmate, but does it when he gets it. Alright at imposter

denies being imposter to the end

usually intimidates someone into a corner, either to wrongfully accuse them (when he’s the imposter) or to get them to admit their guilt. Jude believes in guilty until proven innocent and does not trust anyone.

does his tasks sometimes, but focused mainly on outing the imposter

when he’s imposter, he uses a combination of venting and walking.

likes the lights sabotage and the reactor sabotage the best.

Doesn't usually pair with anybody and mostly works alone, but sometimes pairs with Ellis

[emlan]

Finished DLC!

Here's some Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree ramblings, spoilers under cut.

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.

. DLC catered to me a lot since I'm a Zanzibart cutscene enjoyer who loves map exploration and Vista money shots but I'm kinda HUH-cat.clip when it comes to some new lore bits and in general the world feels divorced from main game even though main game characters and topics are around?

I don't remember how much souls DLC tied into the other story, but I'm using The Old Hunters from BB as base and it really added extra value to its world and characters and there's just nothing new of real interest in SotE from what I can see…

In a vacuum I can only appreciate even more (literal) brother on brother action but Miquella seemingly being deeply obsessed with Radahan is so out of left field??? Granted I'm not an lorester but what I remember as Miq's key things from flavor text when it comes to ties to other people is him being sad about being unable to cure Malenia of her rot and also sad about not being able to grant Godwyn his true death. The only ties to Radahan is by proxy of his sister fighting him? (Was she even fighting him just to bring bro his crush to him? This makes Caelid getting nuked by her even more of a waste.)

It's so out of nowhere that the Epic Prime Version of him comes off as a cheap soyjak pointing bit pandering to Radahan fanboys (pretty sure he's like no1 fav guy for players right), but fanboys will obviously not be happy about him just being a hollow shell again (?) that might not have wanted anything to do with Miquella (?) so I just can't see this as satisfying for ANY kind of player even on a full Gamer Dude to Deranged Fujoshi spectrum? I imagine deep lore enthusiasts also feels a bit… Ambushed.

I'm not against Miquella doing dark unpleasant or just stupid desperate acts since it was already a popular theory that he was a brainwasher type, but the issue for me is that I'm not sure if this Miq/Rad union is "intended" to be read in such a twisted way even when it's the only way I can read it.

Though I guess the fact general consensus going from "wow Mohg is so messed up claiming Miq no matter Miq's consent" to "wow Miq is so messed up claiming Radahan no matter Radahan's* consent" is poetic….?

*I'm writing Radahan here but really it's also a synonym for 'Mohg' considering he's the one getting desecrated the most.

I'm sure I'll end up watching some vid or writeup making pieces fall into place later but I can't believe Miyazaki is handing me visual age gap brother incest and all I can do is force a strained smile in response!!!

Anyway general whining time:

As much as I love filling out up the map I feel there was too much big "empty" areas. Climbing the dragon mountain was the worst presentation of anything I've seen in a FS title, extremely cheap unfinished filler feeling with the spirit jumps instead of at least adding some kinda atmosphere like the open flower/gravestone fields. The Abyss gimmick overstayed it's welcome since it's too miserable checking if you missed a shiny somewhere without your horse, but at least the stealth parts was such a non-issue it might as well not be there.

While I like that you can see several inaccessible areas from where you stand, and I do think it leads to some fun moments when you're taking a random path halfway across the map and ends up on the other side as an a-ha moment, it was a bit frustrating not being able to tell more clearly how to reach sections. Plus I would've died 10000 times from drops if it wasn't the fact Rainbow Stones protected me from making bad choices.

What mindbroke me most was trying to get into the flower field area north east, having an "oh boy, beating this guy will let me reach it for sure!" moment for both Gaius and Sunflower was such [record scratch SFX]. I did figure posing in front of the statue was most likely the entry afterwards but somehow I had missed the gesture needed (most embarrassing DLC moment considering I tend to fine comb pretty well and the gesture pickup is just sitting there out in the open………. why am I even admitting this shameful thing). Watching trees get knocked over from something moving under the water in the church district was really cool and unnerving and then you realize it's just branch dragon number 800……………..

The wicker men has a great design but fighting them was either a boring slog or a frustrating jankfest trying to toss the bombs right. Peeved that you HAVE to use a furnace pot for the sleeping one blocking the ruin puzzle, hefty should've been fine too.

Bosses are too hectic/aggressive for my taste but that's just business as usual for ER so whatever, last boss really is way too punishing compared to other Hard bosses tho, in fact I just watched ending on YT since I'm stuck still on them :V Camera also makes a glorious return as the toughest challenge of them all.

Think my biggest highlights was seeing the bizarre finger/tongue path under the church and the finger mom boss visual itself and the black humor of the miserable living jars stumbling around with the pot on their head. Ansbach is a hot new waifu and it's very precious how such an upstanding man stays all-in loyal to a Deranged Satan (said lovingly) soooo cute you actually get a "Um, so about how Mohg died…👉👈" prompt with him. There was more NPC voice lines than I expected which was fun. St Trina's design was very neat and shoujo manga. Having to sip syrup 4-5 times instead of the classic Third Time's The Charm is a crime however and I missed making the Trina fanboy jealous until it was too late :/

The open world for all of Elden Ring is such an incredible experience that I'm happy I got to play and I had such a good time and I can't imagine any other studios will be able to reach these map heights but I also hope they never make an OW game again because it's too much when you "need" to replay it.

[majorproblems77]

Sacred realm update! so I'm back!

Hi all!

Hope your doing well! :D

Only a few days late, Exam season man, what can you do?

This update shows link and Time Escaping. And time having... a Time....

Alright, now for the important stuff! Sacred realm belongs to @zelda-the-sacred-realm, and all art from the comics belongs to the comic artist. I've got their permission to do these! I love the comic so much its so good and so well done!

The link to the update can be found here! You should go reblog it, it's great, give it some love, please? :D

Let's do this, grab your popcorn and your water. Let's go! :D

Cinnamon roll Link strikes again, Clearly, the big purple guy just wants a hug!

oh no...

Panic!

Time's little superhero slide here.

Also, it must be said he's doing all this while carrying an adult. (Or close enough.) I know he's a spirit and all but that's VERY impressive!

You know when you're reading and you can hear the atmosphere, you can hear the moment that a breath is held. And time stands still.

This. The moment in a movie when everything stops before the action picks up in another way.

The talent it takes to get it from still images. I just am in awe.

Pure fear from Link.

Props to Time here for remaining calm while he's got the cinnamon roll here just scared out of his mind.

Time... Being reassuring?

Wow.

This is important I think for these two's relationship. The need to protect someone only comes to people who dont really hate someone. Before this, I'm pretty sure Link doesn't think Time cares too much about him.

Why would he right? Time's been nothing but cold to him.

(More on this later)

Link getting cocooned in Time's cloak is just, everything to me. It's such a caring more from him. (Even if it is a you can't die thing)

Ouch, that's gotta hurt

Oh man, this man is like... low-key gripping onto him.

Excuse me while I cry a little?

Twilightttttt ;-;

DIRECT FAMILY CONNECTION

EXCUSE ME WHILE I CRY MORE? ;-;-;-;

TIME? OH YOU POOR MAN

This reaction gives me father-son vibes but with time and Link, it's giving me life because oh my god these two.

Link is a cinnamon roll and must be protected.

PFFFFFFTTTT

Rip

This made me laugh I won't lie. Damit Time I was rooting for some Dad Time in this world.

Says the 'Small cinnamon roll with scared of everything issues.'

I love him but ohhhh man Time is gonna kill you

SEE

RUN LINK

RUN

Link, poor guy. Man needs help okay.

This map is interesting, I reckon is a list of the first three heroes we meet.

That top one is Skyloft. With Hylia and the floating island. - For Sky. who we met first.

The middle one has someone holding The double helix sword... That's the fierce deity on the middle level. We know Time has a connection to the Fierce deity mask. And in turn the deity himself. So this middle level is Time.

And that lower one.

If im right, This is the Twilight realm, and we will find ourselves there soon. The people look similar to the 'Link' we see on the land level to an extent while still holding a semblance of individuality.

Its almost, inverted? Like the twilight people were. Rather than looking different different.

I'm excited to see where this goes.

Also

Hi it's later

So I'm a sucker for visual storytelling in backgrounds and I think this might be more than an exploration into the depths beneath the ice.

Starting with this.

I think this, is Time being vulnerable.

The break from a cold icy exterior to something a little more personal.

Funny how when Time begins to see more personal stuff, he has more visions of the past.

The trigger has him almost scared, just look at him.

Why would Time be scared, if he didn't care?

Time appears to carry a lot of guilt around Twilight.

And when Link calls him out on it, he returns to that icy exterior, not allowing himself the opportunity to be vulnerable again.

And I wonder if that has to be explored before he can take his place within the medallion. Trials by fire, as they are so suitably called, can be for the spirits as much as Link.

Just a thought tho.

That's all from me! Hope you have a great day! :D

[burningtrashwizard]

Belurat. Holy hell, what a place.

Just gorgeous.

So... Outside on the plain, that's a lot of graves. And in here, there are also so many graves.

This particular little graveyard, which is overflowing, had me particularly reflective. And these fellows, who were catatonically stacking stones. It hurts my heart.

I was attacked by some invader here yelling about Messmer's fire and all that, and I was like "You're doing this HERE?" and I tore him a new asshole because that is fucked. Get out.

This is also the area where you find the Ash of War Scream of Sorrow.

There are also a lot of these man-flies around in the city. I am not sure on their story yet. When I was wandering about on the Plain just exploring before I tried to take on this area's boss, I ran into the village that was swarming with them, but I have not yet uncovered the details. They are creepy but also sad.

And these molted husks omg ick.

Because it is a From Software game, duh.

This jerk pulled me down through the bottom of the map and then dumped me back in the swamp and took a whole other second to spawn back in after me. It was a weird glitch and it made me laugh. I never thought I'd be happy to see an ulcerated tree spirit (particularly a poison one) but after the difficulty spike in the first part of the DLC it was like meeting an old friend.

I have to say, wandering through Belurat is haunting. It is clearly a beautiful old city, but it's been pounded into rubble in several spots. The graves are endless. Shadows of people mourn in the streets - sobbing, praying, desperately and badly trying to attack outsiders. There is that one little grave with the dried flowers bouquet on it, a talisman that gives you a boost when a summon dies because the grief of losing a loved one is felt in all cultures. It's really, really heavy, and I think the game does a wonderful job of visual storytelling in terms of evoking what Messmer's crusade has done to the Hornsent. Belurat is heartbreaking.

And then we get to this guy, who I honestly think is one of the coolest concepts in design and execution that I have seen in a boss fight.

The last in the cutscene calling down this divine beast, begging it to slaughter the enemies of her people, the fact that there are guys in there! And that it's a big puppet! And that it's a dance! The music is incredible, not just because it's festive and dance-lik but because it's so triumphant, like the Hornsent are saying "we're not dead yet!" And the children's choir in the song, like there is hope for the future... Ah. It's a masterpiece.

(Also, angry lady, I get why y'all hate all Marika's children. You're right. Fuck us.)

I got his hat.

And I beat him! Ha! I have decided to keep track of my deaths this time too, to aid people in playing this wonderful game (because I suck! And you can do Elden Ring because if I can do it anyone can!).

So: Diving Beast Dancing Lion: 29 deaths

***

And seriously. Fuck Messmer. I don't care how pretty he is. This shit is inexcusable.

[falmerbrook]

Regarding ayleid specifically, their skin is darker than that of altmers and their eyes are more consistently lighter, almost always with blue tint. Yeah, they still look like a generic elf, but their appearance is clearly separated from that of altmers

(slapping the other ask on this one since they're related)

Yeah I like that there's something visually different about the Ayleid's from the Altmer/Aldmer (and by eso design standards, skin tone is about as far as they can significantly go). It's mostly based on how Dynar looks, but I also like to imagine they are more square and boxy-er looking than the Aldmer/Altmer (less like your stereotypically tall and graceful fantasy elves) to set them apart.

And I agree I like the yellow Dunmer lol. I mentioned it briefly when I did the ear headcanon thing, but I pretty much picture Chimer as a mix of Dunmer and Altmer characteristics, so it works for me!

Speaking of, when I did the ear headcanon thing I also did this skin tone thing for my own reference as a sort of mapping of general trends. Might as well post them while we're here

[just-prime]

Take 6 I guess...

Wow. Just everything about that is wrong.

A cool visual here or there for sure. Whale falls in space? Fucking impeccable. The Chimaera fixed up with the gold plating? Very pretty. The weird Dark Crystal horse thing? Strangely cute.

Getting some Baylan backstory was nice, and he continues to the MVP both acting and writing-wise.

Have I run out of nice things to say? Yes

First off, fuck the 'a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away' shit. This show has not earned that! Not in the slightest!!!

Also I know it's supposed to be super mega turbo hyperspace…but still, it looked like utter shit. I can't understand how a show with this level of budget keeps shitting out crappy visuals...Oh wait it's Disney! Nevermind, makes total sense.

All the stuff with the nightsisters? FUCKING DUMB. Nowadays, no one cares about the nightsisters anymore unless it's Merrin or Ventriss, and Elsbeth is a far cry from either of them. I was worried from the start when the map temple was clearly nightsister in origin, and Elsbeth being revealed as one in hiding made absolutely no sense. It's weird and very much Filoni throwing darts at Clone Wars arcs he wants to rehash and recon. Also, the live action Mothers are lacking the grandiose nature that made Talzin have such compelling character design.

The fact that Sabine never slipped the cuffs seemed deeply weird. As did Thrawn somehow having an entire battalions-worth of Stormtroopers who survived the ship crash. There was also a throwaway line about some of the rando bandits on the world being Jedi trained, which REALLY came out of nowhere, but is clearly setting up Ezra having learned new skills.

Oh and Ezra shows up, is ALSO wearing noticeable contacts (blue). He looks way too old, and I felt absolutely nothing when he and Sabine hugged.

Okay, on to why we are all here...Thrawn

Let's start of with the mandatory FUCK YOU FILONI.

There was weirdly bad music through this entire sequence too, which was glaringly noticeable. Just to you know...set the mood for the butchering going on.

HE'S TOO PALE!!! They colored him like everything else in this show, copied whatever colors Rebels used, and then mutes the hell out of it. So everything looks washed out and sad. Also I don't know what it is about the eyes that feels off but there's something there that hits uncanny valley in a way that I feel could have been easily avoidable...

Yeah, and all the 'Army of the Dead' rumors that have been going around are all confirmed. They are literally emptying the catacombs of this ancient nightsister city directly into the cargo hold of the Chimera. It's so dumb. I hate this.

Two more episodes left, and given the rate of the leaks being true, it's probably gonna end on a cliffhanger, which is gonna be fucking stupid. So yeah. I'm gonna go scroll @ascyndic's blog so my eyes can rest and look at some incredible art of how Chiss should look...And potentially reread @furiosophie's fucking incredible post·mor·tem series to get a hit of realistic Thrawn characterization...as opposed to whatever this gross HttE ripoff swill we got.s

[da2supremacy]

Comprehensive Veilguard Thoughts Part 1

SO first we're going to start with the positives while I consider how to phrase my misgivings.

Taking Veilguard as a game by itself it is fantastic. It's fun to play, the puzzles are difficult but not too difficult and while I'm not personally a huge fan of action combat the lower difficulty levels were actually almost too easy for my habitually playing on casual ass.

As someone with repetitive hand injuries and early onset arthritis the custom difficulty mode is great bc I can make all the shit I just can't do because of my shitty old grandma hands more forgiving while giving the enemies more aggression and longevity than they would otherwise have on lower difficulty modes. I actually have a chance to learn and execute the mechanics of the combat. It's probably one of the only action RPGs I can say I really, genuinely enjoy right now AND I can play for several hours without my hands locking up or needing to take a break. That alone is a really exciting feature.

It would have been hella if I could just turn off death and run everything on the most nightmarish difficulty possible but we as a society aren't ready for that yet.

It's amazing because the "game" aspects of the DA games have honestly always been kind of shit. DA games almost always come out with technology that's janky or actual decades behind their contemporaries. Narratives and characters have carried every Dragon Age game because it certainly hasn't been the combat mechanics or the visual direction. We went from that stupid fucking high ponytail with the curly cue at the end that was in every previous Dragon Age game to the beautiful one with HAIR PHYSICS that we have in Veilguard. Which brings me to the next point.

This game is beautiful. One of the early complaints I saw tossed around a lot is that Veilguard reused assets and they didn't put work into the environments and that's such bullshit. We have six visually distinct environments to travel through which is more than can be said for Inquisition where most of the maps in the same "biome" area looked so visually similar that sometimes I wondered why they even bothered to have different maps for them at all.

Dragon Age has always had such beautiful and visually distinct concept art that just never made it into the game for reasons I will never understand given how visual a medium videogames are. Veilguard is even devoid of the awkward janky bioware animations which is something not even Andromeda could claim.

The Veilguard concept art is, amazingly, what the game actually looks like! And because it's been Matt Rhodes pretty much the whole time there are indeed reused assets that make the environment actually LOOK like a piece of Thedas.

It is mechanically in every way superior to the previous games by a landslide in ways that go way beyond just the capabilities of the technology. The way upgrading works is better than every previous iteration's crafting mechanics. The levels are clearly built with an obvious progression in mind. The way exploration is rewarded encourages me to do it without feeling like a waste of time keeping me from another plotpoint. There's only a handful of encounters I went through that felt artificially harder than the obstacles around it for no real reason. One of them was really that there were so many cracks in the floor I couldn't dodge effectively and that was the only real frustrating part about the fight that couldn't be blamed on bringing the wrong elemental rock paper scissors into the ring.

The game has a clear ethos that it sticks to and expands with every new thing added. Every companion's story is relevant to that thesis statement the story is making and expands on relevant pieces of the game's plot. For the most part the faction storylines seem relevant and deliberate. You're never just running errands to gain faction points. The things they're asking you to do for them are also relevant to your interests. The Grey Wardens plotline is an especially strong one for not just this installment's ethos but as a call back to the way the story started. For the open threads of the series that did get conclusions in the game they felt satisfying.

It is an objectively good game.

[eccentric-nucleus]

so i've been doing a bunch of referencing for landscape, climate, agriculture etc for the setting of the game-thing i'm working on. this has mostly been some reading of acoup but also for visual references i've been checking google maps in various places in the sahara. i have read up so much on the tanezrouft let me tell you

anyway i've been trying to figure out the overall landscape of the town in the game (oasis town in the desert, probably in a canyon with (seasonal?) springs in the side and some level of permanent water, maybe with arroyos upstream & some kinda endorheic delta fan into a salty steppe/marsh downstream?) and so that lead me to look up some historical oasis towns & that lead me to a page about the kawar oasis towns in niger, a series of now-destroyed villages along the eastern edge of the ténéré desert.

(you might know the ténéré desert as the place where there was once 'the most isolated tree in the world', a single living tree in the middle of a featureless desert that had survived since the desertification of the region. it was used as a navigational aid for caravans traveling through the region and in 1973 a drunk driver hit and killed it. rip.)

i tried to locate that on google maps and ended up on the western edge of the ténéré desert, where there's still some current farming & cultivation happening. this is the region of tchirozerine. specifically i ended up looking over here, because the cultivation shows up pretty clearly in the satellite photos, although the town itself does not. it's pretty fucking barren on the ground and i'm gonna use some of the photos from the region as rock references

anyway while i was doing all of that, one of the photo spheres on google maps was this one, and i was like... hey wait a minute. those are demi-lunes! those are actually a whole lot of demi-lunes! you can actually see them really clearly on the satellite view if you zoom in

hard to say how well they're working since i'm not an agriculturalist and i don't have, you know, any kind of progress photos, but it's wild to see the extent of them. you can click and drag around the map and they just keep going. this is like nearly a square mile of these demi-lunes

anyway that's been my morning. time to draw a bunch of rocks now i guess

[scatterpatter]

🪴 - did you have to build your headspace over time, or was it just there?

🌳 - do alters have their own rooms/areas in your headspace?

We definitely had to build one. When we first realized each other (YEARS before we even realized we were a system), it was moreso just like- a void. We could visualize each other, but not much else.

Ironically, despite how visual our brain is, our headspace isnt very clearly defined! We couldnt really map it out if asked to. Theres a few rooms, we exist in some kind of building of sorts, maybe a house? But the details are so vague, we dont really know much else. Ive heard that a lot of systems have to actively work to build out their headspace? Maybe thats something we'd need to do to get more details 🤔

We also have a few "safe zones", like mental spaces to retreat to in times of distress, one of them we can visualize pretty vividly! Its an outdoor space, a nice willow tree on top of a hill in an open field with tall grass and a warm breeze... Yeah I like spending time there

... Wait I want my own room now :0 We mostly vibe together either near the front or farther from the front in these large sort of "lounge" like rooms, but omg if I had my own room I could decorate,,, I WANNA DECORATE MY OWN ROOM