#i don't even think it functions as a real name at all? which SUCKS.

[hallufabrication]

Monk is a really cool character and i like him but sadly they gave him a name which makes me mentally groan every time i'm reminded of it

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

stans are actually very funny bc they often time talk themselves into the weirdest corners.

the whole point of criticizing acosf and its handling of nesta's character is to prove the point that sjm...doesn't like nesta as a character. that's is literally THE point - that sjm often abandons her moral themes (abuse, trauma, assault, etc.,) for character's deemed as undesirable or villainous to a capacity - and its through the handling of those 'vilified' (i.e. main character opposed - not even villianous) that we can gauge the extent to which sjm actually believes the ideals of her story. like - it is alarming that the only tolerable, empathetic parts of the a court of silver flames were the moments you could tell where ripped straight from sjm's own life (the hiking, training, mind-stilling etc.,). any actual characteristics about nesta weren't explored...like at all. her relationship with feyre and elain, with her mother, her trauma from her sexual assault, her conflicted relationship with her grandmother, her life before the cabin, her life during the cabin. in 800 pages - i still don't know mama archeron's name. what was life like in the cabin? what did nesta do all day? what was the dynamic? what was going on between elain and nesta?i don't know anything about her and nesta, we don't know anything about nesta's human life, her conversation with clare bedor, her relationship with clare beddor, moments with her dad - not even touching moments with him (and part of this story is her finding love for her dad). mind you we read 800+ pages and we learned absolutely nothing about her.

we essentially read sjm's emotional journey in one part, and a taming of the shrew narrative in another. i think the only way sjm had genuine interest in exploring nesta's story is through essentially self-inserting herself and avoiding the actual plot-points she set up in the first three books. like did nesta have childhood friends? if losing the wealth so drastically affected her life wouldn't she reminisce about it a lot? would she yearn for her mother? who were her childhood friends, how did she function at court?

and the whole point of saying alll of that is to argue the misuse of these topics - serious discussions abuse are only reserved for certain situation, and others its completely undermined in a way that only reinforces the negative ideals to begin with. (i.e. nesta needs to abused bc..." "the intervention was harsh but" - pair that with discussion around what feyre needed in acomaf - and it makes much more sense).

nesta antis often jump between the fact that nesta is so favored that sjm nerfed feysand to 'redeem her' and arguing that sjm secretly does everything in her power to embarrass and secretly laugh at people who like nesta's character. (1) we've gotta pick one or the other (2) in my humble opinion - sjm would have always given feyre a pregnancy plot like this regardless of whether this was nesta's book or elain. its literally so sjm. im shocked people are surprised she pulled the pregnancy as she did.

as with the tamlin discussion we had under this post - i think the story undermines its discussion of abuse with feyre/tam by essentially insinuating that tamlin (when placed in the same victimized position as feyre) should have sucked it up and braved out his abuse with amarantha (and the same with rhysand as well - esp with the deliberate foil of rhysand's 'willingness' v. tamlin's unwillingness). and when we start to have a real conversation ultilizing our own irl analysis and standards we really see how harmful and rather sisyphean the conversation becomes. instead of engaging with these topics earnestly, they only engage in them to prove a point - which is how the issue began in the first place. the whole issue with rhysand isn't the fact that he engages with harmful, potentially villainous positions. no - its that the book wants to prove that tamlin is wrong by justifying rhysand's actions. so even though rhysand and tamlin almost always have the same written and expressed intentions in their abuse of feyre, the book flocks to justify one, and eschews the other. and thats why we get so much reactionary critcism of rhys that is surface: people only admit the problems because they know antis will, not because they actually believe their are issues in the story.

and perhaps im still speaking into a void here but i can tell there's tension between pro stans wanting to have these serious conversations but understanding they can only really introspect so far until the conversation begin to prod at the validity of the topics being brought forth. so stans have to jump between invalidating the romantasy genre ("its just faeries") and treating this book as a serious topic (cue: "sjm put a hotline in the back of the book"). this is also the exact reason why the racism conversations stall (i.e. why inherent superiority is always passively emphasized - despite cc1 + 2 centering human oppresion there is no human in the ensemble cast. despite the fact that illyrian women are the most oppressed - rhys has no illyrian women - or reg illyrians (not his brothers) in his inner circle. aelin 'sacrificing' her human body).

[adrian-sheppy]

ur timeline post is insane and fantastic do the others have a grasp on or figure out, or even believe, that the prime timeline is just that—the original? or is that just the naming system? how would they react to that sort of explanation? who wants to return to their timeline first/is that the goal overall for any of them? :’0

to preface, i tend to use timeline/universe interchangeably.. ok . long post time. be warned.

1. do the others understand they're in the prime timeline?

as of right now, this system uses "interuniversal" passports planted on everybody by gee-man as they enter the prime timeline. this was to get around the problem of people having the same name. I love freemanverse but i could not understand how they came to the conclusions of accepting our third-party naming conventions. why would freemind call himself freemind when his name is gordon freeman? martini (who can go by his middle name) doesn't get the "feetman" name joke until way later, so calling him that off the bat would be weird (his passport changes  from gordon "martini" freeman to gordon "martini" feetman when the feet pic bit occurs). No one's name is ACTUALLY barmey, mindrian, freerun, freemercy, etc... but it is on the passport! and they use these names when referring to each other.

okay, so. the naming thing was the main function of the passport, but it has other standard information on it

Dates of birth - explanatory

date issued - release date of their IN REAL LIFE series (I.e Gordon is Nov 19 1998)

date expired - res cas day according to the prime timeline

(These three dates are often conflicting and confusing, which is as intended. They all exist in different years BUT the events of their universes are taking place at the same time. Timelines are synced up.)

AND THEN! place of origin. Every timeline gets assigned a number based on when they were chronologically conceived (for the most part. it's not a strict rule. it can be bent for convenience or funny/cool purposes).

ips: 000

og gordon: 001

freemind: 002

gorgeous: 003

so on and so forth. i like to pair these letters with numbers (HL-001, M-002 (M, not FM, because it's "Mindverse."*) G-003, etc)  seeing as HL-001 is One, they can come to the conclusion themselves that it's the "prime" timeline. whether they ACTUALLY call it that is debatable. i just do it because star trek does, but this requires a more "robust" naming system since it's more than just "prime," "alternative," and "mirror."

*Mindverse technically has alternative timelines too, but we're going with the one where gordon enters the test chamber (not stark) and gordon would've been taken by g-man (not felix)

2. How would they react to that sort of explanation?

Everything is very overwhelming and nonsensical. Since the collisions take place (for the most part) over the course of the rescas, most of them are too stressed to try to fully grasp the situation. They have their interuniversal passports, which just materialized on their person/with their belongings when they get sucked into the prime timeline, so they know SOMETHING IS UP. Some care more than others, like Freemind and Martini (not a game au) both freak out. Freemind probably thinks he's high for a bit even though he doesn't FEEL high. Martini thinks he's going crazy or hit his head, which doesn't help when the science team acts like this is a perfectly normal thing (while it's not a game, they all have their "npc" quirks). The science team is also the narrative vessel which can help explain the phenomenon. emphasis on can. Coomer understands the framework, while Tommy has a more intimate knowledge. But neither explain anything too quickly. Coomer wants playcoins and Tommy would acknowledge the "glitching" and correctly identify it as dangerous and warn the others about it.

The timeline information is accepted. There's not much they can do. They're in an alternate universe? Ok. Well, first things first, don't die from rescas. It's not until later that the information is DIGESTED. This would be during any downtime they have while going through Black Mesa (think how the HLVRAI crew took the occasional nap) and then when they enter the domestic arc. For the most part, everyone thinks that they've somehow JUMPED universes, not that their universe and another have collided together. I guess this could be considered a "plot twist" and if I was writing a comic (comic ver 2.5!) there would be a somber moment where everyone who cares realizes that THIS is there home now. it's familiar and unfamiliar. they know it but they don't. No one is devastated, but it's a very aimless feeling. Characters like Freerun, Gorgeous, Freecat, and Freemercy are "emotionally detached"   from their timelines, so their reactions range from not caring to easily adjusting.

3. who wants to go home and is that an overall goal?

I think Martini, Freemind, and Cicero would all want to go home, Martini more urgently since he has Joshie. No one really understands the depth that Cicero wants to go home due to language barrier, but it is assumed. Freemind wants to go home moreso out of paranoia that being in a different universe was harmful to him on a molecular/quantum level (it's not) and that having multiple of him around is WEIRD and he wanted to go back to being the one-and-only while reveling in the fact he was cosmically significant enough to have parallel universes based on him.

Everyone makes the assumption that there is a home to return to. Their first goal is to survive the rescas. Once they get through that, they awkwardly all move in together (where else are they supposed to go?). This living situation is considered temporary... but.. it's not.

(malmo by mook is one of THE freemanverse songs no i do not take criticism)

Their expectations are curbed quickly. At this point one of the gmen (likely mr.coolatta or gee-man) or tommy would just come out and say yeah there is no other (relevant) universe. it's just this one now. (the merging process is... difficult to explain so I'm not going  to try right now. maybe later..). Cicero wanted to go home because people understood them there and thats where all his friends were. but Molly and others (sugar man , corp) are here now, and his new friends are making the effort to break the language gap. Martini wanted his son and he got his son. Freemind has an actual group of people who care about and support him, something he's not used to having (and barmey is there too. giggles. grins.). No one is particularly upset at learning the prime timeline was now also THEIR timeline since their . liek. hierarchy of needs gets filled. it's like if your house burned down but it didnt ACTUALLY burn down, it just FEELS like it did, and then there was an exact copy in its place with miniscule (but noticeable) differences. like something changed and there's a feeling of loss but you actually haven't lost anything. it's sobering and might be upsetting for a little bit, but it's also familiar and comforting. its ok. they all have gained something now. f... family. found family . grins. smiles even.

[greyplainsttrpg]

5e Villain Arc 2

Last time we discussed 5e's stupid non-name. This time we're going to talk about chapter order.

I saw a post earlier about giving suggestions to 5e Players to "read the rules." While it is always a good time to poke at the children, I don't think that it is actually their fault (entirely) that nobody playing the game knows the rules. The Chapter order of 5e (and most TTRPG books, for that matter) is not conductive to actually knowing how the game works. This is compounded in 5e in particular because the game design is such that you never really have to learn anything outside what your character can do.

It is okay to divide chapters into parts. That's fine. What upsets me is that the Chapters have titles, but the Parts do not have titles. What is weird is that the game's introduction actually provides pretty good names for the three parts, albeit in inconsistent formatting: Adventurers, The Three Pillars of Adventure, and The Wonders of Magic.

Those align pretty much exactly with the three Parts of the book. Why is that not their names? Why must I divine what the parts are by intuition. This is not an abstract art piece--this is a textbook.

More importantly, the order of information is entirely wrong.

The reason why Players do not know how to play that game is because the rules for the game show up in between things that they actually care about. The game is so hyper-focused on a player making a character that it abdicates the responsibility of knowing how to play the game exclusively to freaks who actually want to read the rules in depth. You know: min-maxers and rules lawyers. The average player's interaction with the book is thus:

Read the introduction and get the gist of the game.

Make a Character through part one.

Oh wait, now I need to flip to the end of the book for spells (since more than 3/4 of all characters will have spellcasting)?

The Player FEELS like they have read more of the book than they actually have because they went through the process of flipping through it from beginning to end. However, at no point did they ever get a real understanding of how the game actually functions. They grasp that they have a thing called an action, a thing called a bonus action, and they have some amount of movement, but what these do does not mean much to them outside the confines of what their Character can do with those elements. They never learned what those terms actually mean, because the action economy of the game is not explained until WAY later (page 189). Even if you bother to read this section, it is entirely divorced from other important, very relevant sections. In particular, the exclusion of Saving Throws and Conditions from the Combat Chapter means that it will be even harder to guarantee a player will have read them.

Why are conditions in the appendix? They should not be in the appendix. They are standard things that players will encounter during regular gameplay.

Why are backgrounds AFTER class? Would it not make much more sense to put the background BEFORE the class? It is, after all, your background, the thing you did before gaining a class level. If you pick a background that compliments your Class by giving you similar skills, then you just get to pick random skills instead? This would not be a problem if you picked a background first (which gives you a set of skills without choice) and then you picked the skills from our class. I suppose the problem might still arise from tool proficiencies, but tool proficiencies suck, and they should be done away with, anyway.

Now that I'm looking at it, another case of "why are these in two different chapters lmao."

The reason they designed the book this way is because of the tradition of D&D being laid out in the dumbest way possible. Do not trust Gary Gygax's ability to convey information through text. He was not good at it. AD&D is a disaster of explaining its mechanics to the player, and 2nd edition is not much better.

The formatting of the book also sets a really bizarre trend throughout modern gaming that making a Character is the first thing every new player should do in a system when, like, no? Making a Character is a complicated process in most, if not all, games. At least in the sense that you have to make a lot of decisions upfront. The best way to introduce a player to a system is to have them play a pre-made and put a book in front of them whenever they want to review whatever is listed on their sheet. Once they've played the game, then they can evaluate how to make a Character because they will actually know what they are building towards. The formatting D&D has maintained funnels GMs and game designers everywhere to force new Players into a awkward, decision heavy first couple of hours instead of playing the game.

I'm not saying players can't make a character before ever having played the game. People want to do that sometime for my system; however it is a lot of work and time on my part to babysit you reading the most complex part of the book and answer your questions when MOST of what you are about to ask would be covered during typical gameplay.

Okay, that's pretty much all I have to say about this, I think.

Next Villain Arc Post:

Previous Villain Arc Post:

[captawesomesauce]

It's hard to be my (girl)friend... (GIS Day edition)

Yesterday was GIS day and W went representing her organization which meant she was expected to tell her group what she saw/what she learned, stuff like that. Real show-and-tell stuff.

She has 2 co-workers who recently went to different things, and one basically just said "It was fine," while the other gave a detailed long interactive multi-media presentation.

Here were my helpful tips on what W should talk about when she asked me late last night:

How loud it was.

How badly spaced it was.

Lack of ADA

Traffic sucks

Parking sucks

Out of order machines suck

Most maps people make are ugly maps and they should feel sad

That was the first batch. It was insanely loud in the booth area so no one could actually talk or hear or function. It was insane. There was no way anyone in a wheelchair could participate, the ramps were actually blocked to the stage/seating area!!! Traffic was... a bitch, parking was insane and pricey, and the pay machines didn't even work! The last point... well they had a map gallery and honestly, most of them were awful. Just straight up ugly as fuck and lacking basic information.

W's was nice though.

Everyone loved my mappy dress

Look at my pretty certificate

JPL mentioned Goddard

Did I mention how cute I looked????

W wore her mappy dress and EVERYONE loved it!!! She was the Belle of the Ball for sure. People kept coming up and commenting on how cute it was and how pretty she looked. She also got a certificate for presenting her map which was cool. But mostly her cuteness stole the show lol

Everyone thinks it's cool I work for NASA.

everyone loves my maps

MEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

This basically sums up the whole day lol.

What did I learn? Parking is expensive

What else did I learn? Some people know me by sight, some people know me by name … But bitch I'm famous and everyone knows me!!!!

Parking was $20... that's a lot. But it was funny how many people knew her from her linkedin posts, and many recognized her face, even with a mask on, others saw her name tag and knew who she was. She's an influencer you know :)

What did I learn? Some people are really fucking short and they probably make tiny maps

People don't look the same irl compared to online! Some people we met today were seriously hurting for height lol. They probably make tiny maps.

What did I learn? PCI scores are bullshit

What did I learn? It's cold in the morning hot in the afternoon and I get sleepy ... sleepy and hungry

PCI scores are road quality and they're straight up lies. Absolute lies. They only do one lane in each direction and it's all just a straight up lie. You could have 100s of potholes but if none are in the one lane, it's good to go! LIES!!!

The 2nd point is just straight up TRUTH.

Things to talk about: Crazy ladies and their scarfs

This was an OOF! My crazy magnet went off hardcore with this one lol. W commented on the ladies pretty map scarf, and it got us sucked into the weirdest 5 minutes of the day. She was rambling about this and that and all sorts of strange shit, but the kicker was that she "HAS A PERFECT MEMORY!!!" and never forgets a face or voice and she remembers mine from last year and what we talked about and this and that, and especially how perfect her memory is that it's also a curse because she can never forget any of the bad stuff too and on and on and on.... thing is... we didn't go last year. I've never gone before at all. We just politely nodded and tried to get the fuck away lol... oof.

Things I learned: my dress is longer than I thought it was!!!! And it's ok to wear leggings under it

It was super cold in the morning, and I had no idea if it'd get warmer so I suggested she wear leggings under her dress and she fought me a bit on it because it wouldn't look cute... until she tried it out and realized OH... it is warm and still cute! She even said that she could have sworn the dress only went to her thighs, but no, this thing is almost ankle length lol.

For work:

People like our iotd but like my linked in posts more

Coworker #1 says it was nice

Coworker #2 will present a 6 part docudrama on Hulu with both narration and animation in 3D

I'm still laughing about this but the the first thing is true lol, and I explained the next two points above... W came in somewhere in the middle with her pretty collage she made lol

Things I learned: not enough swag 0/10

Things I learned I spent 20 bucks and didn't get enough swag but I did get a pretty certificate and everyone loves me

Things I learned: red lights are suggestions

The whole point of going to these things is the free stuff you get... there wasn't much... but the certificate and fan's were great. 20 bucks was still a fucking lot.

Oh and red lights... just suggestions! Seriously, it didn't matter if you were walking or driving, you had to be SUPER fucking careful because people kept running the fucking red lights. Not even slowing down, just zoom zoom motherfucker. Sheesh.

well that's it for the recap and fun ones, this one is not as fun:

What did I learn? I have to write "I will not wander off" 300 times in the blackboard

This was a not so good moment yesterday. When W talked to people, and she talked to a lot of them, I stood near her, always in sight and within reach. The moment I stopped to talk to someone, she waited until I was fully involved and then toddled off FAR and out of sight and had her phone on silent as well. That was NOT cool, and NOT acceptable. This was at a public park with a large amount of unhoused people who would wander in and out of the event, so when I realized she was gone, and I couldn't find her anywhere I looked, and she didn't answer her phone... I got worried. It was quite a bit before she decided to walk back from where she was. She didn't say anything, didn't let me know... she was just GONE. That was NOT ok. She's not a child, and I don't treat her as one, which is why I expect better... I don't need to hold her hand 24/7 or know where she is at all times, but a quick hey, I'll be over there, or a knock on my arm and a head tilt to let me know she's going to go exploring...all fine... but to just disappear... not ok.

And that folks, were all of my helpful answers to W's question of what should I tell my coworkers and boss about the event yesterday????

I kinda don't think she used any of them... *shrug*

[fioras-resolve]

What Is Fire Emblem About: an explainer for the uninitiated

this is gonna be a bit of a weird one. i feel like fire emblem fans are gonna get angry at me for mostly sidelining the story, so i'm just gonna say: i'm a game designer, and a very ludocentric person. this is just how i'm going to talk about things. but also, you can't talk about FE story without the contexts of what the games Are mechanically. with that out of the way...

Fire Emblem started as one of the earliest examples of a Simulation RPG (or Strategy RPG in the west, but, you know). it was trying to take a wargame framework and apply that to a fantasy rpg. so unlike most wargames, every unit has a name, personality, and unique attributes. but unlike most rpg's, you're moving across a battlefield. units are defined by wargame functions, like "ranged," "high movement," "flying," etc. and if one of your allies dies, they're gone for good. it creates an emotional heft, one found in most games with permadeath. to quote jon bois, talking about xcom,

in a way, fire emblem simulates war in a way that a lot of wargames don't. it makes you care about each of your units, not just because they're unique characters with lives, but because losing them means losing what they did for the army. you only get so many healers in fire emblem, so many thieves who can open a chest, and if you trained someone up for ages just to see them die to a random critical hit, it hurts.

"it immerses you via accountability. if your ranger dies, you are left with a feeling that ultimately, they counted on you to lead them, and that even in a game that is often decided by chance, it was all your fault"

or at least, that's how it works in theory. in reality, most players will just restart the chapter if they lose someone important. strict "ironman" rules have never been implemented in fire emblem, so while theoretically this is a game about living with your mistakes, in practice it's about constantly redoing a fight until you get the right results. modern fire emblem has even made rewinding to specific moments an actual game mechanic, a design choice i call "embracing the bastards." (i say this with affection, i am one of those bastards)

to make up for the fact that you can lose characters, you get a lot of them over the course of the game. a lot of these characters, especially in early FE, are just kind of there. like, you get so many characters of the same class who are clearly just backup if the other ones die. some of these units are great, with amazing stats or the ability to use some cool weapon, and others suck. if you talk to fans of "classic" FE, you'll find that a lot of people's favorite characters are decided by gameplay. as the series progressed, characters grew to be more fleshed out narratively and more balanced mechanically depending on who you ask, so a lot of modern fans are more into a character because of their personality or character arc.

which does lead us into talking about how the series has shifted over time. because when people think of "fire emblem" now, they're not thinking about the games from the 90s. they're probably not even thinking about the games from the 2000s. so let's talk about the changing identity of fire emblem. i like to split this into four "eras," broken up by major mechanical changes and shifts in who's leading the charge. i'm sure some fe fans will disagree on on this, but this is the framing the works the best for me. so!

The Kaga Era: This was an era of fire emblem led by a single guy, Shouzou Kaga. this is, i feel, where the essence of Simulation RPG is felt the most strongly. the games are hard to get into these days if you don't already play fire emblem, but there's a real artistic commitment here to trying to capture ideas through mechanics. aside from FE1, we also got Gaiden, which leaned way harder into the RPG angle with grinding, magic, and dragon-questy towns. we got Mystery of the Emblem, a direct sequel to the first game that put familiar characters in new contexts. we got Genealogy of the Holy War, an incredibly ambitious game that plays out a story of war on a massive scale. we got Archanea Saga, a very short game consisting of four incredibly potent one-shot chapters. And we got Thracia 776, an intensely challenging game left so up to randomness that even healing can miss. some oldheads view Thracia as the height of the series.

The Renaissance: After Kaga left due to a squabble with Nintendo (which is its own story), the dev team had to pick up the pieces without its auteur director. This period is arguably when Fire Emblem was most "itself." The Kaga era was foundational, but too experimental to have a consistent identity. The Renaissance was when the idea of what A Fire Emblem Game was solidified, to the point where if you ask most older fans what they think of when they imagine Fire Emblem, you'll probably get something from the Renaissance. Probably the biggest innovation from this era was the Support Conversation. Basically, if you put two characters next to each other for long enough, they might strike up a conversation with each other. You can usually do this two more times. This fleshed out the characters beyond their first impression, and made personality more of a sticking point. Later games would expand on this further.

You could maybe argue that this period was intensely safe, but I'd say after Kaga's departure, safe was probably necessary. Binding Blade was essentially a rehash of FE1, for better and worse. Blazing Blade, a prequel to Binding, was the first FE game to be released outside of Japan, so it has an extensive tutorial, and is generally a lot easier to accommodate. But also, it features some really solid and creative level design which makes it worth playing to this day. Sacred Stones did similar to Gaiden with its skill system, world map, and grinding. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn... I actually haven't really played those or heard much about them but a lot of people view them as the height of the series. And Shadow Dragon was a remake of FE1, that actually tried very hard to encourage you to ironman it. Like, you can reclass freely, you get replacement units if you're running low, and the prologue ends by forcing you to pick a sacrifice. Unfortunately, people didn't really get the message. It was my first FE game, and I still reset whenever someone died. Caeda, my beloved.

The Maeda Era: This starts, oddly enough, with a remake of the third game, called New Mystery of the Emblem. It adds a player avatar that you can customize, support conversations, a new plotline about assassins, and crucially, a Casual Mode. Yes, you can now start the game choosing either Classic Mode, which has permadeath, and Casual Mode, which doesn't. This fundamentally changes the experience, as you can imagine, and it's still a pretty contentious topic within the FE community. A lot of new players struggle to get into classic Fire Emblem because the forced permadeath is just too punishing for them. But it's also core to the identity of the series. It was contentious within the dev team, too, with people fighting over whether or not to include it. Ultimately, it was decided that if the FE series was going to survive, it would need to be more playable to a casual audience.

This leads us into Fire Emblem: Awakening, which was a massive success compared to anything else before then. It featured the player avatar and casual mode, it featured a world map and grinding, and it also really leaned into the support system. It even combined this with the marriage and children system of Genealogy, adding a fourth support level which got characters to marry and have a child, who would then join your party by time traveling from the future. You could even marry someone with your player avatar. This did make Awakening more dating sim than tactics game in some people's eyes, but it really helped give the game a fandom that exceeded the existing FE fandom by a longshot. This kind of design was continued with Fire Emblem Fates, a game that was actually three different games you could choose between. Birthright was basically more Awakening, but Conquest took that paradigm and made it into a focused, polished, and tightly designed tactical experience. (Arguably too tight, I don't like it that much but I get why people do.) And the Maeda era ends with FE Heroes, a mobile gacha game with as much creativity as power creep. And honestly, how else could this end?

The Modern Era: Since Maeda is mostly working on Heroes now, we're in a similar situation to the Renaissance, where the series has to pick up where its leader left off. But instead of playing it safe, the new directors have experimented with it in a way we haven't seen since Kaga. It started, of course, with a remake of Gaiden, called Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. I have a soft spot for this game, but what's important for you to know is that it introduced 1) full voice acting, 2) special moves, and 3) turn rewinds, which finally just makes resetting a deliberate game design tool.

From this point on we have Three Houses, which did a similar split-path thing to Fates, but letting you choose based on preference for characters rather than gameplay. I think its mechanics are a really nice synthesis of a lot of different games, but that's not really why people care about Three Houses. People care about Three Houses because it features a hot girlboss voiced by Tara Platt, a school setting that's easy to project onto, multiple queer characters with subtext for each other, and a morally grey set of factions that people can argue passionately about for years. It is THE fandom-ready Fire Emblem game. After that is our most recent game, Engage. Now, this is structured like a traditional Fire Emblem, but it plays pretty substantially different. Now your units can summon past FE protagonists to give massive buffs and execute super moves. My favorite is the one that lets you rush through enemies in a straight line. It's also incredibly anime, like bright colors, power of friendship, character designs a bit too outlandish. It's great if that's your shit.

so, I've been talking a lot about how these games play. and if you're a big fan of these games, especially of the modern ones, that might frustrate you. you don't play rpg's for the combat, you play them for the story, which i have avoided talking about for the most part. and first of all, that's a very reductive way of looking at rpg's, and games generally. second, these things are intertwined, you cannot disconnect story from play. but third, i'm of the mind that what a game is About is decided by what happens when you interact with it. talking solely about what happens in cutscenes and dialogue is treating a game as something to watch or read, not as something to play. and i think we owe it to ourselves, and the medium, to do better than that.

but, last few notes before i finish the post. first off, there are a few games i missed, particularly spinoffs, like the Warriors spinoffs or that weird MegaTen crossover that isn't much FE or MegaTen at all. second, the setting, characters, and lore shifts with each entry. sometimes you get games in the same universe, like Awakening's continent is just the FE1 continent but a thousand years in the future. but you don't particularly need to worry about playing the other ones if you want to get into a specific game. third, there's a fair bit of Weird Anime Shit. particularly the consistent use of the thousand-year-old loli trope which has been around since the first game. Fates lets you marry and have children with your siblings, and it's really funny how each of their S-Supports have the other character pull up a letter from their mom saying you're not actually related. Break Glass In Case Of Incest. the games are almost always about royalty finding sacred weapons to kill a problems dragon, and i'm honestly not big on stories that valorize nobility, but it's a fairy tale, so whatever. i have in the backburner a game i've been working on that does this kind of story from the perspective of civilians, so keep an eye out for that in the next few years. also for the love of fuck, if you're a fire emblem fan please play other tactics games. the fe series is good, but there's a whole slue of games out there if you want to expand your horizons. i recommend triangle strategy, xcom 2, into the breach, my own catalogue, and walk with the living.

-Angie Nyx

[its-getting-bad-again04]

im smoking less, eating right, exercising, my room is neat & clean, I've started producing a project that has REAL potential, I get 5-7 hrs of sleep each night (which is great for college), my grades are great, I see my friends every day, I call my girlfriend most nights, I call my parents every Saturday. I have plans, I am thinking about my future.

And yet,

I haven't felt any identifiable emotions in WEEKS. If I were to rate how I was feeling on a scale from one to ten, I would say it feels like I am just flesh being piloted by a swarm of angry and confused hornets.. I have to give myself things to worry about because all I have is the body feeling and none of the brain shit. Every day, I wake up at 3 am, and I fight to sleep, but I have this painful, stabbing, debilitating feeling swirling in my gut.

The hallucinations have gotten better and worse somehow. They are happening less frequently, and I am able to identify when it's happening pretty quickly some of the time. However, they are louder and clearer, and smoking triggers the sound I call the whispers.

The whispers suck because it is the most threatening and consistent ones. It's also the hardest to decipher as "not real." As I sit here writing this, I don't fully believe they aren't real. since i can't get myself to ignore it, I freak out and get really paranoid. I can't elaborate further.

So, I should stop smoking. However, I can't because I feel the most myself after smoking. The pain of anxiety is lessoned and I just feel so much more present and aware.

BUT I FEEL GREAT! Genuinely I feel awesome. Everything is finally okay, and I feel great and anxious -but great. The project I'm working on might just like be the best thing ever (i know its not realistic) bc I can do it. I am not letting the project dissolve. Everyone thinks I am an idiot, like they don't mean it in a bad way; they just think I am not that smart. HOWEVER, when I show anyone this, it just elevates me. proves I can do it. that I AM GOOD AT THIS. thats all I want.

And yet-

my girlfriend is worried, Im saying the most bullshit things for no reason, I feel overly-confident in my abilities and then overly anxious and unable to move then next. I feel like my emotions arent like happy, sad, anxious, mad, i think my emotions are just degrees of heat.

I tried telling my girlfriend this yesterday, and she looked at me weirdly. I probably didn't say it right. I said I had "inverse feelings" and that if feelings were a number scale from 0 to 100, I would be at a -100. But I think I just sounded stupid, sociopathic, and "edgy." If you haven't figured it out yet, Im only writing this right now because I want to KILL myself out of embarrassment.

I haven't even touched on having a new imaginary friend I call Coach because some of my intrusive thoughts sound like Omniman became a high school football coach. Usually, I imagine my intrusive thoughts as a little demon named Tic, but my head has been just SO WEIRD. My mind is totally scrambled, and all my thoughts sound intrusive, so the "helpful" one has formed into the coach. So I now have two imaginary "friends" representing my intrusive thoughts, yelling shit at me all day. However, after taking the coach's advice, I am such a functioning member of society. lolz

[aquilamage]

still in fuck around and find out exploring mode in Spearmaster. new long thoughts thread:

I'm starting to wonder how I'm gonna react to going back to a more normal eating system after this. Also that I've gotten very used to solving my problems with stabbing. Which I suppose I could still do but then spears will be an actual resource

route has been industrial - garbage - drainage - gutter - drainage

found the second broadcast in Industrial which HOO. Two new iterator names gossiping about unparalleled innocence's bullying of five pebbles in the groupchat! First of all, something I just noticed looking at the wording again: I think UI is they/themmed which hell yeah

and then. saying that everyone is trying to contact Five Pebbles about it like yeah buddy he is ignoring EVERYBODY. the fact that there's also a mention of EP thrown in just for funsies. But the most important bits for me are 1) the fact that the one iterator refers to him as "the one near Looks to the Moon." Hell yeah, finally phrasing geography in reference to her. Also kinda funny.

and TWO) "Isn't she his senior, enough to the point where she calls herself Big Sister Moon?"!!!!!! I did NOT expect it to be that the title came from her, that is a fascinating piece of characterization. The way this is phrased makes me think this kind of occurrence is at least common, if not expected, but still!

damn they changed Garbage Wastes up a ton. there's acid pools in there now! the geography is wacky. also I found a room in there with a bunch of tendril beasts and their stuff on the floors. that room sucks. Very upset that I can't get past it at the moment because there's gotta be something good over there. I did at least learn that while the tendril beasts don't die even if you stick a billion spears in them, they do die to explosives. Which will be good news once I get around to Artificer probably but isn't helpful at the moment

Drainage now having a lot of rooms on a raise-lower water level timer definitely makes the area easier for me, so that's nice

I saved and quit shortly after arriving in the Gutter so for a bit I thought it was a glitch that the game was telling me I was in Chimney. Nope! subarea. It's really weird though because I scoured the map in that area and I didn't see a single fucking thing that seemed of note.

At one point in drainage I saved and when I woke up my den was already open and flooded? And when I went out everything was kinda dark and shaking and some of the rooms were raining in them?!? And it looked like the timer wasn't progressing. It stopped after a bit but I was real scared and disoriented about that.

I'm guessing it has to do with another of the seemingly automated 'shits fucked' broadcast message things that's like yeah the whole installation is gonna fail if not fixed in time. And drainage isn't always functioning because things are starting to fail. I do wonder if this is because things are going bad with Looks to the Moon, or Five Pebbles? or both?

And then the second Drainage broadcast is also a doozy!

7RS going "I feel like I've doomed not one, but two iterators" asfdhjsdhf hello?? I'm currently taking that as confirmation that whatever info they sent Five Pebbles the first time enabled him to do whatever it was that fucked with his and Moon's water supply, but also: how does that doom Five Pebbles?

Which, combined with the later bit from NSH about Five Pebbles probably feeling scared about the rot stuff makes me think. I feel like I've brought this one up before (probably related to that one Hunter line) but is Five Pebbles dying? from the rot stuff? Because my best guess previously had been the thing about 7RS giving him the instructions on circumventing the self-destruction taboo, but now I am also considering if he might have actually gotten something to try and help get rid of the rot.

I don't think it is, and I'm especially hoping it isn't, though.

If I'm interpreting the dates on the lore pearls right, the water incident happens a while before the discussion of the pictures of Five Pebbles having the rot that Chasing Wind and 7RS have, so that seems to support that the rot might have been a result of what Five Pebbles did rather than the reason for it. Also just the wording on some of the things, like the bit about Five Pebbles not being in a good mindset to use the information, make me think it's meant to be more along the lines of my earlier thoughts.

Also it would be a way more interesting narrative and character arc if Five Pebbles didn't do it to actively try and save his life. It's still tragic both ways, but I would be much more compelled if he made a choice to do something that would likely kill Looks to the Moon because of all his frustrations with existence and the Big Task etc boiling over.

(also in that broadcast the reiteration that 7RS and five pebbles were friends and that he looked up to them... ;v;)

[megaman-r]

Hello! Welcome to my rather extended effort to make a classic-style-ish Mega Man game. My name's Nevi, my main is @afniel, and I'm here to be everyone's problem. I used to be tracking progress for this on Twitter, but we all know how that went, so now I'm here instead.

First, the top 3 questions I tend to get:

What is this?

A fan game, created in the NES style. Well. Eventually it will be. Making a game is not a quick or easy task.

What's it about?

When I was young, I always thought it was boring of Capcom to not give Roll her own game. I got older and I still think that, but I've also thought other things along the way, like, why do these games always raise such alarming existential questions and then completely forget they happened? How long would it take to learn a functional amount of music theory? Is it Metool, Mettaur, or Metall? Whatever they're called, why aren't there a lot more of these little guys in the games?

Basically, I'm giving Roll the game I always thought she deserved.

Can I play it?

Currently, there's really nothing to play. I've got the basic engine functioning quite well and a good chunk of the visual assets finished to a working degree, but refining everything, getting the gameplay as tight as it needs to be, and making sure nobody's AI breaks or sucks is a pretty big job.

That all said, my first real roadmap goal is to have a single-stage playable demo. While I don't have any notion of a release date for that, I am working steadily towards it, so please stay tuned!

The rest of the FAQ is long and maybe less interesting, so I'll stash it under a cut to save you a little scrolling.

The Game Itself

Is it going to be girly?

Probably not as girly as you're imagining, if you're asking that. After all, there's still explosions, boss fights, insta-death spikes, a ton of weapons to choose from, and quite a lot of shooting. Just because the main character is in a dress won't change the core feel of the game, nor will it be easier than other MM games.

Also, a thing being girly isn't bad anyway. It's just a style.

What makes this different from any other MM game/fangame?

Fair question! I'm going to be a little secretive about it though and just say 'choice.' It's a thing that the MM series isn't known for giving players, outside of what order you want to explode the robot masters. I think it could be more interesting than that.

That said, the mainline classic MM games don't have a whole lot to distinguish them from each other, and they're still fun and each one of them is someone's all-time fav game, so even if it just ends up being Another MM Game, that's still not a bad crowd to be in.

Are we fighting Dr. Wily? What's the plot?

:)

Some of that will come with the eventual demo release. The rest will be on full release. I don't want to spoil it up front, you know?

You will get to see some familiar faces for sure, I'll say that much.

Will this game be accessible?

I want it to be! I think games in general have a lot of work to do to become more accessible to disabled gamers, and as a disabled gamer, I want to try and do my due diligence in that.

It is playable on both keyboard (not comfortable) and controller (a lot more comfortable), and while the controls are fairly simple, there is already a fully-functional option to switch between classic MM style down+jump to slide, and MMX style dedicated single button slide.

Remapping buttons is somewhat beyond the scope of the engine I'm using, which is unfortunate, and all the more reason for me to learn something more flexible like Godot.

I'm trying to choose palettes for things that should be eyestrain-friendly. Flashing will be kept to a minimum in the default game mode, and I plan on having a sensory-friendly mode with no flashing whatsoever and certain other effects lessened/changed/removed. Of course, I can't guarantee that certain patterns won't affect sensitive people regardless, but I'm going to give it a good try.

Depending on how easy the game engine makes sensory-friendly mode, it may end up being a separate download version, but I hope not, that's just not as good.

Alternate difficulty modes are also something I want to do! I just haven't looked at implementation yet, but it should be pretty easy.

Game Development Stuff

What are you using to make MMR?

The engine itself is in Pixel Game Maker, which is kind of an underdog DIY game engine and if I'd really been thinking I'd probably have started it in Godot or something, but I'm already here and honestly, I like how it works, so I'm keeping it. The assets are entirely made in Aseprite, and the music is entirely Famitracker, with a little use of Audacity to make sure tracks loop properly and to get things into the right format.

Very few visual assets are taken from the games directly, mostly some enemies and most of the sound effects (because those are not something I want to try to recreate using only Famitracker—I only have so many hours in a day).

How NES-like are we talking, here?

I'm aiming for NES-like in the way that Sonic Mania aimed for Genesis/Master System-like: the style matches, the limitations are mostly observed, but certain limitations are disregarded when it would be extremely awesome to do so.

Some examples: I'm very fastidious about color palettes per tile and per minor enemy sprite; I'm less fastidious about color palettes onscreen at a time and color palettes per boss sprite. I'm not trying to replicate the sprites-per-scanline flicker. Number of frames per animation isn't something I'm really considering as long as it looks visually appropriate. I'm sticking with 2A03 music, except for where I mean business, and then I may whip out the VRC6 channels instead.

So no, this wouldn't run verbatim on an actual NES, even if you recoded it in 6503 Assembly, but you would be able to get quite close.

How did you learn to make pixel art?

Well, when I was a wee little neurodivergent child, one of my favorite hobbies was making tiles and characters in MS Paint and building big collages out of them. I made a lot of beehives, for some reason...

Then I became a medium-sized neurodivergent teenager, got really into RPG Maker 2000, and the sprites and tiles were not to my liking, so I started editing them and eventually making my own from scratch.

I'm now a fairly normal-sized neurodivergent adult, and making pictures out of little dots is still a lot of fun, especially with a harshly constrained palette. Doing NES-like graphics just kind of comes naturally after all that.

How did you learn to make music?

Honestly? I just began throwing myself at it. My first attempts were unabashedly bad. When things didn't make sense and I couldn't get them to sound right, which was all the time, I looked them up. Starting with general chord theory was what really made it begin to click. The first thing I composed and kept was the Lagoon Stage music, and not coincidentally it's been through the most refactors as well. Coming from an art background where I'm very used to the Ugly Painting Stage of any given piece has definitely helped with patience, too. The important thing is to just keep beating your head against it. It's frustrating, but you only learn to make music by making music.

Every track on the OST represents about two days of feverishly slamming notes together for four-six hours a day, preceded by one-four whole months of tapping and humming random things until one of them ignites something in my brain that goes, "Oh, I know how the rest of this should go!"

How did you learn to code?

Well, honestly, I didn't; PGM is a visual scripting engine, so everything pretty much looks like flowcharts, and the number of functions is kind of constrained. Every object in the game is a state machine, so that's pretty much the paradigm I understand. I could not code my way out of a paper sack in any actual language.

That being said, I do understand the core concepts of what programming is, and most of that I learned by watching Retro Game Mechanics Explained on YouTube until I suddenly understood what 6502 Assembly was all about and everything else just kind of made sense. I don't know either! It's a little weird. But it did work, so I can't complain.

Is this related to [Other Fan Project]?

Nope, it's not part of or related to any other fanworks. I'm a solo dev working on just this one project right now. (However, if you're making a classic or MMX-style game and need pixel art assets, I'm open to talk about that! Please note though that I do not work for free.)

Your robot master has the same name/concept as [Other Fan Character].

Sorry if that's the case! There are so many really stellar MM fan characters out there that a little name/concept-sharing is basically unavoidable. No infringement is intended, no profit will be made from this game, and I'm uninvolved enough with the general fandom at large that I can pretty confidently say I didn't even know about your character. Take it as a case of Great Minds Think Alike, if it happens.

Do you have anywhere else I can keep up with this?

I sure do! I've got a Discord specifically for it where I toss a lot of WIP sprites and such, and that's where eventual playtesting will happen too if you're into that sort of thing, and a Trello that I don't always remember to update, but it exists at least!

Mega Man R Secret Gamedev Clubhouse Discord

Trello Roadmap (when I remember to update it...)

What's the pixel art in your banner?

That was just me greebling at random for practice and funsies. The full image isn't used anywhere as-is, but I did end up using some parts of it in the tiles.

[muchymozzarella]

I feel like I gotta mention I was a big fan of Mr Beast before and not so much now, but also like. I cannot pretend he doesn't help ppl because he absolutely does. Especially early on when he was simply spending money as fast as he could earn it by straight up giving it away. I found that charming if uninformed bc none of it was sustainable and yet it was genuine and did help ppl in the moment. He also allowed them to choose what they needed. Even now he often asks ppl what they need and provides it, which I think is good. The problem we run into is when his newer vids have such an obvious advertising angle for big companies. Oh you gave thousands of Brand Name Shoes away when many places have dumpsites full of shoes bc they don't actually need those shoes and a lot of them are bad quality, cool ok that sounds great (it does not) 👍🏾

Oh you're shilling for Tesla again sure ok whatever

I want to make it clear that I still appreciate he wants to help. Half the time he does very much help. He also informed ppl of the behind the scenes of stuff like what taxes and insurance goes into getting stuff like a new house and car and whatnot.

But philanthropy as a whole is kind of structurally harmful when it's done by rich ppl and companies that lobby against the social safety nets and structures that allow ppl to even afford to own a house. I don't know if MrBeast owns one of those companies, but he certainly collaborates with those types of companies and gives them good press to hide all the anti poor lobbying and other ethical issues

I must also say that according to him in his own interviews, his goal is just growth, which is probably Prime Capitalism and fills me with dread, just trying to one up himself over and over, when actual social welfare is not interested in infinite growth, but in sustainability. I don't know how these two goals will align if he purports to be philanthropic.

I can list down all the reasons MrBeast is Problematic but it will not change the people he helped, who I truly believe benefited from his help. But it will also not change the fact that he's become too big to be a good guy without the many, many caveats of "if you don't count his chocolate partner having a child labour lawsuit" or "if you don't count the many issues with the ghost kitchens his Beast Burgers operate out of" or "if you don't count that the Real Life Squid Game was just a clownishly bad idea that missed the point of the show entirely"

I also want to add that there's something I appreciate about him that I cannot fully agree with, but I can't say is wrong.

When he says he's "apolitical" outside of being LGBTQ+ positive, my first reaction is the usual cringe of people claiming to be apolitical, but then he follows it up with the fact that he believes there's no political boundary to charity and being poor, and quite frankly he's correct. In the USA both Democrat politicians and Republican politicians protect corporate interests, and there's functionally no political divide when it comes to class struggle.

He's directly worked with people who know the needs of those who are struggling. He works directly with people who actively volunteer or work for nonprofits that help poor people.

He may be a bit too centrist for some of y'all but I think he means well and is much more left than right.

I worry that he seems to aim to be a billionaire. I worry that he's further entrenching himself in that sort of crowd.

I liked the guy I used to see in his videos and the more he rubs elbows with crypto shills and billionaires and corporations the less I see of that guy.

I guess this is my long-winded way of saying I don't think Jimmy Donaldson is a bad guy. I just worry that, outside of his recent stand against transphobia, it doesn't seem like he's becoming a better guy than he was years ago. I could be wrong, but idk.

I also think his products mostly suck but that's not a personal failing lol that's just average YouTube product releases

[i-already-know-im-going-2-hell]

Tag Game Response!

thank you for the tag Ciel (@incesthemes)!

Do you make your bed? I actually sleep on a couch (by choice) and so the only extent of making my bed is like, maybe folding the blanket sometimes so nope

What's your favorite number? Don't have one! I do find that I have a tendency to knock on things twice though that's more a compulsion than anything

What is your job? I work in a microbiology lab in a hospital. I promise you it's not as interesting as those words sound

If you could go back to school, would you? Yeah actually. I'm considering going back for a psychology degree for being a therapist, but I haven't been in a place to do so yet

Can you parallel park? Theoretically

A job you had that would surprise people? Uhhhh, I think my current job is the most surprising one I've ever had, and that's mainly cause most people don't know it exists

Do you think aliens are real? I'm the equivalent of agnostic towards the concept of aliens, the spiritual, all that stuff. I don't have a strong enough opinion to dismiss or agree with either direction, and since aliens or the concept thereof affect my life currently, I've never bothered to form a strong enough opinion to dismiss or agree with the concept

Can you drive a manual car? I can actually! My first car I owned was a manual and I haven't gone back since. They're fun and I like the expression on men's faces when they find out I can drive them

What's your guilty pleasure? Watching the incest show

Tattoos? I have a couple. I've got two quotes on my right arm and I just finger poked a white ivy vine on my left hand middle finger the other day. I will continue to get more, especially because I have access to a stick and poke kit now

Favorite Color? Teal! Specifically a teal that edges more towards green than blue (Fun fact, I've painted every room I lived in some form of teal up to when I was 22)

Favorite type of music? I could not tell you. I genuinely don't understand genres very well and I listen to music on a song by song basis and don't actually even know a lot of artists. I can tell you I prefer faster beats usually over slow and melodic, but don't have much of an answer beyond that

Do you like puzzles? Not in the way people normally think of them, but I like sorting information and figuring out solutions to things. Think like, math I guess. I like puzzles if they function like math

Any phobias? I wouldn't say I'm never afraid, but I don't think I genuinely am afraid of anything in the manner that would be able to be called a phobia

Favorite childhood sport? Swimming, in the form of getting in the water and it not being a contest. I don't really honestly enjoy sports much. Every once in a while I will get hit with the sudden compulsion to run and I'll get up in the middle of the night and just go running for 20-30 minutes until it goes away or I collapse in the grass, but I don't think that counts as a sport either

Do you talk to yourself? Yeah. I work in a lab alone multiple days a week, I sometimes forget I'm talking out loud actually

What movies do you adore? So I don't actually process visual media well honestly, it takes a lot of energy for me to focus in and put something on, so I don't actually watch movies much. Currently the only one coming to mind that I have actually rewatched several times is Pride and Prejudice the version with Kiera Knightley. But in general I just don't watch things unless somebody else puts it on

Coffee or tea? I do not understand why I would have to choose. I don't really consume much liquid in general and I don't require caffeine in my day to day life, so I really only drink coffee or tea if I feel like the taste, which is every once in a while for both.

First thing you wanted to be when you grew up? So apparently, according to a time capsule I opened in middle school, I wanted to be a "farmer living in poverty" growing up. Yes, the poverty was specified. Yeah, your guess is as good as mine

Urls are like names and I suck at those, so I'm honestly just gonna tag Nep and Hydra because I know you two's off the top of my head: @holyfreaks @overrated-sheep

[strawberista]

knowing your partner well can potentially make writing a lot easier, repost, do not reblog. meet the mun.

— basics

name: Kohi pronouns: She/her reference of communication: Discord or tumblr ims single/taken: Single

— three facts

I have never been diagnosed with anything in my life, but at this point it's getting hard to deny there's something going on with me. Most definitely some form of social anxiety, I'm terrified of all of you, but I don't know what else.

I really like nursery kitsch and I dress my room up in little antiques I collect.

I forget things super easy. I can't remember my childhood anymore, nor anyone I went to school with. Sometimes I struggle even to remember what I did the day before. But I remember the weirdest details all the time, like the colors of the toys in my childhood bedroom or a very specific poster on the wall.

— experience

I have been roleplaying for years (since I was in high school), but I usually don't count that experience too much because I don't feel like I started learning anything until much much later. Maybe my experience should really start when I joined this site? Have I improved any? That'd be about a year and a half now, right?

— sub-genres

I don't really have any favorites, but I'm not super great with writing action/combat so genres that include a lot of those are usually less likely to happen from me. I do really like to write angst and fluff in equal measure, but my angst tends to really upset people so I try not to do that too much these days. I don't want to hurt anyone.

— plots vs memes

I tend to work better with memes just because I'm really terrible at plotting. If I'm forced to sit there for a while and think of a bullet point list of things my characters can do to start interaction or scenarios they might find themselves in with others, I can, but it takes a really long time. I really suck at it. Getting memes in forces me to come up with something on the spot and I feel the pressure and it makes real work come out of me.

— long or short replies

I don't really have a preference as long as I have something I can reply, too. However, I do start to sort of lose energy for a thread if I'm consistently getting just one or two sentences per response. Like, that happening once or twice doesn't bother me, but if our thread has lasted 20+ notes and every single one I've replied to has been only one sentence or so I get stunted and can't think of ideas. I have no idea why my brain works that way, either, literally it's not a you problem that's just how I function. The sole exception to this is rapid-fire dash comm, and even then, if it last more than a few notes I start lengthening it and turning it into a real thread. Otherwise, I generally just try to match the length of my partner.

— best time to write

I usually get the most time to write between 7 AM - 4 PM CST on Mondays - Fridays because those are the days and times in which everyone in my house is gone and I'm free to do whatever I want. However on the weekends and any time past or before those I'm usually doing something with my family and don't have as much time. If we're just watching tv or something I can be on as late as 9 PM, but I can't promise that kind of schedule consistently. Aaaand since it's now summer and Sibling is off work (kind of), I may lose even that much of my schedule. Right now it really just depends on the day.

[hidefdoritos]

Logging back on just to dump out thoughts about a bunch more work and life stuff.

Again, at work, there are 6 managers on my shift. Varying degrees of competence and likability, but I'm for sure on good terms with each of them. We also just recently lost their boss, "Tyler," a man who couldn't find his own nose in the dark. He quit and joined a pyramid scheme. Literally nobody is mad about it.

I have one manager, who I'll call Jeff, who is my biggest cheerleader for sure. He's been trying to get me on seasonal full-time. According to him last night, the admins (a group of people who collectively have their heads so far up their own behinds that they've never seen the light of day) have decided not to offer seasonal full time after all. None of the other managers had heard it yet, though.

I don't know if that means Jeff has a better line in, or if they're giving him the run-around. He's sick of the run-around too. He said, verbatim, "If I had my way, you'd already be full time, you could set your own schedule, and you could show up and do whatever the f--- you want." High praise indeed.

I have a mentor manager, who I'll call Kristy. Her daughter is my age, so she's always had a soft spot for me. Not like she has many rough spots anyway. Kristy elected to not try to win Tyler's position. "I don't want that level of responsibility," she said. I like that she's in a place where she's happy. She lost a parent earlier this year and sometimes I can still see a weight on her shoulders.

I have a frenemy manager, who I'll call Sara. Sara is "just hanging around until she runs this place." She knows how to suck up to the admits. She runs a mean newbie orientation class. I've also watched her be functionally useless in emergency situations and she truly doesn't care if people outside her department live or die. The sad part is I think she's a fine person outside of work, probably. We can talk and joke around. I like her fine when she's not my boss. I don't trust her. I know she went for Tyler's position. She wasn't there last night to confirm. I hope she didn't get it. Then again, I also don't want her directly managing real human beings, so she might be good over the managers.

I have a bestie manager, who I'll call Landon, because that's now becoming my code name for everyone in my life with one particular real name. (Same one who watched me pick up a hundred-pound box and said, in reverence, "You just scared me, CJ" which made me glow for like a week.) (Once, also, I was missing a choir rehearsal for work, and said that my director probably wanted to kill me a little bit. Landon observed, "At least he only wants to kill you a little bit," and I said, "Yeah, well, I only want to die a little bit!" Landon lost it. Jeff (mid-40s?) looked very concerned, which made both of us laugh harder.)

Landon tried for Tyler's position. I was really truly rooting for him to get it. Landon can run the place blindfolded and is genuinely nice to everyone. He compliments everyone's work and shows a belief in our abilities that does us credit. But, after work, he saw that Tyler's position was reposted to the company site. That could mean that none of the managers got promoted and they're looking for an external hire now. Or it could mean that an admin screwed up. Praying so hard for the latter. If it's the former, the admins didn't even have the courtesy to send a rejection email.

[Past child abuse tw for this section. Skip to the three big stars.] I did something so brave last night, something that past me would never have done. Landon has been doing one particular thing that makes my life way harder. Every time I report an equipment defect or something that isn't working well, he says, "Stop breaking s--t!" This is his pat response to everyone, for everything broken, because he can commit to a bit. However, I...well, I have history. Breaking things and being blamed for things are both pretty big triggers. Which I am working on. But it's happened quite a few times now, last night included.

I looped back around to him later when manager Tony (an IRL NPC) wasn't around. I asked a question about reporting broken equipment, and then said, "Hey, can I have a moment?" As best as I can recall, verbatim, I said, "This is not your fault; I'm not mad at you; just one thing. Please quit blaming me for breaking stuff."

His head dropped down but I could see him smiling, that sort of you-know-I-don't-mean-it look. But I continued. "I...grew up getting beat for breaking stuff. So I don't exactly..."

His expression went from come on to oh s--t pretty quickly. "Oh. I'm really sorry about that."

"It's okay. I don't exactly lead with that fun fact when I introduce myself."

"Yeah, but still, I'm sorry. I--"

"--It's okay--"

"I will stop."

"Yeah. Thanks!"

"I'm so sorry you've had to deal with that," he was saying, but I was already turned to walk away because that was overwhelming as heck. I sorta waved it off in the it doesn't matter way that you do when you just talked about trauma out of nowhere.

"I need to be more mindful," I heard him add before I was out of earshot.

Not my clearest communication, not my bravest standing my ground, but I think it was just fine for the situation. If it was almost anyone else, I would've kept sucking it up. But it hurts. And he's also my friend. And I trust him with that information. And it's not like he knew, so I didn't want to bite his head off about it. It didn't need to be a big deal. It took less than a minute to deal with. And it took ALL of my bravery. But I did it. And I didn't die. And now I have this as an anchor point for the next time that I need to tell a person to not do a thing.

Also, even for the rest of the night, he didn't look at me or talk to me one bit different. I'm almost crying just thinking about it. The love shown when people know I'm damaged but don't treat me any differently--I need to lie down.

***

I ended up stuck for quite a while with some paperwork snags about adjusting my schedule for holiday season/semester break. But the managers let me hang out in their office. I filled out the paperwork, hung around for a bit, asked about another thing, waited as Jeff checked some things for me, ate a muffin, and then just hung around on the clock. They all but directly invited me to do so. They value me enough to let me get an extra hour for almost nothing.

During the hour, Landon talked to me about Tyler. Apparently last week, Tyler called him up and tried to recruit him to his pyramid scheme. Could barely articulate what the company is selling, but was talking a lot about how you earn points and they're a big reward to you. Landon told him directly that it's a pyramid scheme and Tyler just doesn't see it, I guess.

I explained my favorite concept (modified from some tumblr post somewhere) to Landon. "See, the problem I find with pyramid schemes is that they concentrate all the money in the top percentage of users. That means most people are losing money. What I think is that if you bring everyone in on the top tier of profits, they all make money. Which is why I'm starting a pyramid scheme that sells pyramid scheme starter kits. That way we bring everyone in at the highest level and ensure their ROI--"

Landon cut me off devastatingly: "Ok Tyler."

I don't know exactly what my face did, but I have NEVER seen fear enter somebody's eyes that fast. His face puckered. Which made me laugh it off, which made him laugh. Of course he knows I'm not going to harm him, but still. The power is going to my head.

Landon also gave me some bonus employee rewards points. And asked me if I'd talked to Tyler after he screwed me over (no; I spent those last two weeks rehearsing "I hope your new position suits you well" as the one polite sentence just in case) and if he'd talked to me (no; the one time we walked toward each other, he crossed the aisle to avoid me). Also, this past week, Landon got a wrong number text for a "Samantha," and so Logan replied, "Oh, Sam changed her number" and gave the person Tyler's number. I laughed and laughed. Then was like, "Oh, you're just going to be giving it out to random telemarketers and signing him up for stuff." Landon's eyes lit up and he pulled out his phone and dictated a note: "Sign--Tyler--up--for--random--and--inappropriate--stuff." I'm glad that I don't have Tyler's number, email, or anything. I would've subscribed him to everything under the sun.

We all together talked about our pets. Landon has a cat. I wonder if it's fluffy. I'm thinking about Landon kind of a lot for someone who doesn't date coworkers.

I let everyone know that I want to get on track for tuition reimbursement as SOON as the paperwork gets sorted out. And that if my $5k doesn't come through, I'm quitting. Period.

I hope so hard that I don't have to follow through on that threat. I really like this job. It would suck massively to leave a job that's so satisfying with people who I care about so much. And honestly I probably wouldn't fully leave. But I'd be getting a second job at another warehouse place in town with tuition benefits, because I can't do this. The Purple Arrow Freight Company admins have already screwed me out of a trainer position and maybe out of a seasonal full-time position. If they screw me out of $5k I'm not dealing with this anymore.

All my managers are on my side. Hopefully they're able to pull some strings with the admins (without rendering themselves obnoxious, because the admins can also fire them). They know I'm an awesome worker, and additionally, they love me. They don't want to lose me because the admins are dumb.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

omg i just found your podcast and it’s incredibly cathartic to listen to as i have felt the loss of fandom spaces over the past few years (tumblr dying and twitter being hard to use for that). livejournal sounds so nice. I wish there was another social media site that would allow that sort of community again for art and fandom and connection.

Thank you so much for listening and writing in! The loss of fandom spaces is always so hard and sad -- I (V) still mourn the landscape of individually run HTML fansites that ran all the way to the horizon back in Web 1.0. I miss fun layouts! I miss image galleries! I miss fandom mailing lists! (And I highly recommend The Rec Center if you don't already subscribe to them).

I actually think that Tumblr isn't dying so much as accepting its size and scope -- it ISN'T a social media site, and it's never been something that was going to be able to compete with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for mainstream, everyday-Joe users. People who don't have a hyperfixation or a fandom want to see a variety of content and are easy for The Algorithm to feed. Tumblr users... are not.

Tumblr may have started out with the goal of being a hub for Srs Bsns Photographers & Poets/Writers, but everything about its format makes it the perfect site for fandom to flourish.

I'm really happy that Tumblr itself is embracing that now! AFAIK their actual slogan on the Apple App Store is "Tumblr: The Home of Fandom." Fandom is a niche subculture. We're just not gonna have the numbers of a Twitter or a TikTok. (And honestly, thank fucking god. Can you even imagine the chaos. I shudder to think.)

Tumblr is a microblogging site. It's for people who write too much for Twitter and whose images aren't the vibe of Instagram. It's for gifsets, which are an art medium unto themselves that social media sites wouldn't have any use for, really. And it's definitely not for Norbert in Accounting to connect with his grandma on like Facebook.

The anonymity of Tumblr is antithetical to modern social media sites -- even though IT IS INSANE TO ME THAT PEOPLE PUT THEIR REAL NAMES AND PHOTOS ONLINE, DID WE NOT LEARN ABOUT STRANGER DANGER??? -- and the fact that Tumblr is inherently ABOUT transformational, shared, "yes and" content, rather than mostly original pithy content like Twitter and IG and TikTok, makes it attractive to people with the hyperfocus of fans more than people who want to scroll and scroll and just see Stuff. I mean, obviously on Tumblr we're all looking at Stuff, but you can CURATE your feed on Tumblr in a way that you can't on social media. Curation is the enemy of The Algorithm. And Tumblr users fucking hate The Algorithm.

And honestly? The Algorithm hates fandom, because it's really hard to market things to someone with a hyperfixation. I don't CARE about your product, and seeing it instead of the thing I want to be looking at makes me HATE your product. The Algorithm really needs to be able to feed you a lot of different types of content to see what you're interested in. If you go into a site already knowing what you're interested in, then... ::shruggie:: Sucks to suck, Algorithm.

All of that said, yes -- community is definitely an aspect of Web 1.0 that feels like it's missing, or very hard to find, on Tumblr. I know a lot of people are finding great fannish communities on Discord these days, but I am elderly and don't know how to find Discord communities in the first place and also I'm painfully shy, so. I just Tumbl.

But I think that the loss of a sense of community is also part and parcel of Web 2.0, from the formats of websites to their function. It was easier, in Ye Olde Days, to feel connected to other people who found your fandom online because... not everyone WAS online. There was a sense that if you loved a thing enough to find your way to a fansite, or to LJ, or whatever, that was already taking the first step towards opening yourself up to friendship. Now, with social media and with smartphones and whatever else, literally everyone is online all day long. It isn't already a little club of nerds, yk?

I don't know. The internet as a whole has changed its shape and scope so much in the last ten years, let alone the last 20, that it's a whole different arena than it used to be. I don't really have any solutions or suggestions. Maybe once we get our Patreon up and running or something we'll start a TWIFH discord that people can join and make friends on.

But all of that is to say --

tl;dr, Fandom itself is antithetical to "social media" sites, and it needs blogging sites like Tumblr or LiveJournal or hand-coded HTML fansites to BE ABLE to exist. /opinion

[izzysarchivedblogs]

Memes & Ask Box Prompts -> Accepting // do you really think that inviting the Hawkguy to space is a good idea, @danversiism you've basically brought along a personal complaint machine -> " join the fun ! " ( clint ! )

GO TO SPACE THEY SAY.

Star Trek says it's the final frontier. These are the voyage of the starship BLAH BLAH, it's five year mission (dear fuck almighty please don't be a five year mission ⸺ let's change that to mission of indeterminate time), to explore new worlds (scratch that not applicable), to seek out new life and new civilizations (pretty sure they had already fought very old and familiar problem and kicked their ass), to boldly go where no man has gone before (he could name several people off the top of his head that has probably been here before)

Tony Stark, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Bucky Barnes, Thor, Vision, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner, Spiderman, the list goes on, do you get the point?

THE CAPTAIN MARVEL HERSELF.

He could name even more NERDS AND GEEKS who would be thrilled to be hijacked for adventures in space. What were none of them available, granted this had started out as a dimension hopping, fall into a portal kind of thing that only went one way.

Clint had a whole speech thought up just special for Carol Danvers on why him being out here was a terrible idea. HE DIDN'T REALLY HAVE A CHOICE ANYMORE. It had started like this with complaining about the last time that he had gotten hijacked and ended up in space. HE HAD BEEN NAKED, and than he had to rescue Agent Coulson and Agent Fury from a space and terrifying cybiote called The Fury.

NOT A FUN TIME.

Than said speech, which he thought was a real winner except it had done the opposite of what he had wanted and had in fact proven his competence as one of the older aveners, when the OGs retired beside CAP? Who was on the new team, the first next set? HIM. Clint went on to explain how archery worked, with the idea that his counter point was that he would be in useless in space.

A BOW IS BASICALLY A LONG ROD WITH TWO ENDS CONNECTED BY A STRING. The bow bends when the archer (him, the master marksmen) pulls back on the string. The bow can bend because it made of an elastic material. Bending the bow gives it elastic potential energy. DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN ARROWS TO YOU, CAROL? The arrow is a long, straight shaft. It has a pointed object on one end (the arrowhead but I have more cooler trick heads) and a balancing device, such a feather (that's the fletching; the hen, and cock or index, plus the nock) on the other end. WHAT DIDN'T EXPLAIN OLD HAWKEYE TO UNDERSTAND PHYSICS? The archer (again him, greatest archer alive) hold the feather end of the arrow against the string while pulling it back. Releasing the string thrusts the arrow forward with the elastic force of the bow. The elastic potential energy of the bow is converted to the kinetic energy of the arrow. GRAVITY IS INVOLVED. SPACE DOESN'T HAVE THAT EARTH RULES OF PHYSIC DO NOT APPLY. SPACE SUCKS SEND HIM HOME, DANVERS.

Beside that, he had taken some tech and spent an eternality figuring out how to rig his arrows to function more like mini rockets which he has had rocket arrows before so this wasn't that much a stretch. DON'T LET ANYONE KNOW HE'S SMART. This is the only thing he was good with to be far, ask him for no help with anything else; all his ideas come stolen from others or breaking down tech from all his smart friends (tony stark is his biggest victim) and macguyvering some bullshit.

❝ Join the fun ! ❞

And here he goes being dragged down the hallway and presented with a table of cards. GO TO SPACE THEY SAY. IT'LL BE FUN. Now the old carny, the thief and the conman in him knows what a card game was. He knows how to rig them, win them, and lose them. Knows a card trick or two, nothing like Gambit but he's cheating (he's got powers and all Clint has is childhood raised by criminals).

He's particularly good at strip poker. ❝ Please tell me this is strip poker. ❞ Not that he thinks there is chance he's getting lucky with anyone here, either indisposed like the particular captain was for a particular Peter (probably one of the better peters even if he knows for a fact he did not own hawkeye merch because he's clint barton's biggest fan but he would agree on being a kate bishop fan himself so he gets the pass) or they scared him.

He's just a mortal human man who liked keeping his heels dug firmly in Earth dirt. HE SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT UP THE COWBOY ARGUMENT. He's a cowboy, a fan of the old Wild West, not an astronaut.

❝ I am very good at strip poker. ❞ He loses on purpose, because it than mean he gets to strip and the ladies he typically played with would oogle him and perhaps make a bad decision with him for one night only (unless Natasha or Bobbi was there but not the other than that could turn into three night mistake for his heart). NO ONE IS NAKED YET, so he has to rule out strip poker which is a pity; as Clint determines this since he had been brooding in his cot (dealing with cravings and yearning for home) while it sounded like games had started. No one is nude which rules out stripe poker. DARN.

❝ Alright, so what's this game and how do I win all the loose change in in your pocket, Cap? ❞

[hesitationss]

fb+/meta or whatever is one severely unfunny joke. i know i am mostly a hater of social media, but i don't see how threads is going to be better for usability and reach. especially given how shit numbers are on IG (i get more noted "per capita" of followers on tumblr and twitter for untagged posts). i already made a small thread of zucc apps being shit which I'll copy paste here. i don't know how people are thinking threads is going to be better than any of the twitter alternatives when it's most likely the WORST option out there. anyway-

the reason why the other twit replacement apps aren't as insidious as threads (zucc/fb owned) should be obvious, but i'll list some things:

• infamously on zucc platforms you can get reported for saying "white people" which is why so many of us say yt now (a bit of poc social media history for u from the 2010s)

• private messages are sold/given to police no warrant: this could be anything used against you, could be protest info, where you've been, etc.

• right wing propaganda/misinfo is lucrative for facebook. this is something that heavily affects the global south btw.

• they lie about views and growth for business accounts to keep you on their platform. the case i know best is that they inflated college humor's analytics to compete w youtube. this resulted in so many businesses throwing money and labour at facebook w out much return.

also zucc sucks, he's pure evil... like u don't need me to get into *that* hopefully

addition:

omg 🙄 so shocked 🙄 that zucc is further propelling nazism on his latest app that has the exact same content moderation as all his other fucking apps lol 🙄 who would have guessed ?

Far-right figures, including Nazi supporters, anti-gay extremists, and white supremacists, are flocking to Threads (Media Matters)

Adding sources:

Point 1 - i can't find any formal articles that document the particular insidiousness of this, but I and many others who were in BIPOC only "leftbook" groups had either our accounts or groups we joined completely nerfed for using language against white people. hubs that had been for info dissemination, discussing theory, and organizing were marked as hate speech or reported by white reactionaries (even "leftist" ones)

Point 2 - Has been apparent since Michael Brown's murder by police in 2014 and the protests following, but was esp apparent in protest following George Floyd's murder and subsequent protests.

FBI trawled Facebook to arrest protesters for inciting riots, court records show (NBC News)

Point 3 Links - Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (NY Times) | Whistleblower: Facebook is misleading the public on progress against hate speech, violence, misinformation (CBS) | How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation (MIT Tech Review)

Link for point 4 - Adam Conover talking about College Humor's inflated FB numbers (plus many other articles have been written about this)

more on the privacy shit - sex workers who have used fb AND ig on burner emails with fake names, had their emails and real names auto linked bcuz of how much a little bit of information goes. how fucked up is that.

How Facebook Outs Sex Workers

BTW i have been preaching this for years but if you want to learn why our internet is fucked up, learn about what happened with net neutrality cases in the US, and then later, SESTA FOSTA (primarily targetting sex workers but is the reason why everything is censored now). ppl online have been warning everyone about this for years, but you are just now experiencing the consequences. but again, nobody listens to things that target primarily sex workers.

plus from a functional standpoint, if you want to delete your threads account, your instagram is deleted as well. like it really doesn't seem worth it for people who are desperate to find the social media that will stick. i don't have anything nice to say about any of the other social medias except that some Mastodon instances do a great job at keeping nazi's out and using alt text, but the bar is extremely low and everybody else is even lower ^_^