#ive just been having to work on stuff in increments

[unhingcd]

🔪 just doing a lil lurking for rn but i've got replies to finish up tonight that'll def be posted to the dash along with the couple other things i owe !! i appreciate anyone who's been patient with me bc summertime has been a lot more hectic than i planned 😭

[kafus]

hi guys meet scramble. the salamence i have been preparing for NEARLY AN ENTIRE FUCKING MONTH!!!! AAAAA

so okay. i am trying to build a 6 pokemon team to take on orre colosseum in pokemon xd gale of darkness. for the uninitiated, it's basically like gen 3 VGC, but against NPCs with predetermined and handcrafted teams made by the developers. you can honestly kind of think of it like the trainer battles in the indigo disk DLC, but if pretty much all the fights had a full team and some competitive merit. and of course gen 3 doubles mechanics (which have some WILD fundamental differences from modern VGC, but i digress as that's not really the point of this post)

despite getting perfect stat pokemon being extremely difficult and time consuming in gen 3, and basically impossible outside of emerald if you want the right natures on your pokemon, the NPC opponents in orre colosseum have pokemon with perfect IVs and such, so to not suffer you really have to have some Good Pokemon. now usually this wouldn't be a problem for me because i know how to RNG manipulate wild encounters and eggs in gen 3... but there's a catch.

see i've been trying to play this copy of emerald, my new main file as of last year, MOSTLY fully legitimately and as intended by the developers, AKA no RNG manipulation and very little use of glitches. don't get me wrong, there are exceptions to this, i make my own rules and i'm just here to have fun, not to prove myself like it's some sort of challenge run for the internet to judge me on. but as for battle tower pokemon and whatnot, i haven't used RNG manipulation at all, and i intend to keep it that way. i've used RNG manipulation for that stuff in the past and frankly i'm just bored of it.

this is the team i built for orre colosseum. it's first time ever building my own team for gen 3 doubles, so i suppose we'll see how it goes, but yeah. a writeup on it after i beat orre colosseum in the future perhaps. for the sake of this post, the important pokemon is that salamence.

this thing was a fucking NIGHTMARE to get without RNG manipulation. as you may or may not know, hidden power is a move that can be any type and of any base power between 30 and 70, depending on the IVs of the pokemon that knows the move. this is an extremely unforgiving calculation and it's also pretty complex so i'm not going to get into the exact math here. but what you need to know about breeding this salamence is:

bagon is 40 egg cycles. most standard pokemon are 20. they take double the time to hatch compared to other pokemon. collecting and hatching these eggs was excessively slow, even with flame body

dragon dance is an egg move and egg moves can only be passed down by male parents in gen 3, so that is something i have to juggle

the adamant nature has only a 50/50 chance of passing with the everstone hold item as opposed to the 100% chance in modern gens. additionally, it only works when the female parent is holding it (or a ditto, but that's irrelevant here)

there is no way to guarantee the passing down of specific IVs, and there also is no destiny knot to guarantee that 5 total IVs are passed down from the parents. you're stuck with getting a random 2-3 IVs from the parents in completely random fashion

this means that i have to hatch dozens of eggs to even get a pokemon with 3 perfect IVs, even off of two parents that have the 3 perfect IVs, and the process of getting those parents in the first place is a very slow and incremental and random process... WHILE juggling nature and egg moves

the cherry on top is that to realistically have the chance to get hidden power flying, i have to have two parents with a 30 IV in special attack/special defense and a 30 or a 31 in speed. so i can't just get a perfect bagon and call it a day, i have to cross two perfect bagons with all of the above parameters to roll for those parameters to pass down again, and also roll HP flying.

NOW. i made this WAY more torturous on myself. because the easiest way to get HP flying is by pairing two x/x/x/30/30/30 parents together. but knowing that orre colosseum pokemon can have perfect stats, and because of the relative lack of speed control options in gen 3 doubles (no tailwind, no trick room, etc), every point of speed matters. i wanted that perfect speed of 31. the issue? when rolling for x/x/x/30/30/31 pokemon instead, the only way that the type of the hidden power is flying is if all the three other IVs are even numbers. so alltogether, i need the following to happen on any bagon egg, assuming that i've already put together the two x/x/x/30/30/31 parents with a male dragon dance bagon and an adamant female bagon holding an everstone:

all three IVs to pass down from the parents (the way emerald determines which IVs pass down is weird but it's roughly a 1/16 chance for the offspring to be 30/30/31)

the nature to pass down with the everstone (1/2)

all three other IVs to randomly roll even (1/8)

so the odds? 1/256. and that's not even a guarantee that the final resulting bagon has GOOD IVs in its other stats, just EVEN numbers. or 0. they could all be 0!!!!

and the first bagon i got after probably around 200 eggs (i wasn't counting at that point)? a middling 16 in attack, and a fucking ZERO in HP. zero!!!! i was so sick of bagons at this point that i considered keeping it and stopping there on that fateful day of september 1st. BUT I WAS NOT SMART. AND I DIDN'T. i decided i would keep hatching bagon until i got one more HP flying one with the IVs and nature passed down, and THEN i would stop no matter what, just keeping whichever bagon of the two was better.

i actually started fucking losing it. i had to recount the amount of bagon i ended up hatching. i was doing it full boxes at a time, and later on i even added a second save file/GBA SP just to make it go faster. you know how many bagon i hatched?? 840!! for a 1/256 chance!!! dealing with the 40 egg cycles and everything!!!

my friends watched me slowly devolve into insanity as i routinely announced in our game liveposting channel that i was HATCHING MORE BAGON. and FINALLY after nearly a full month of on and off bagon hatching. I GOT ONE TODAY. AND GUESS WHAT ITS ATTACK IV WAS.

IT.

WAS.

2!!!

anyway i'm not even actually mad because i'm just so happy this is over. i was getting so fucking sick of it. i love long pokemon grinds but this was a lot even for me. it doesn't feel even remotely good like full odds hunting and this is the longest and most miserable egg grind i've ever done in these games and will hopefully ever have to do. and yet despite knowing that i couldn't stop myself because of sunken cost fallacy. and being stubborn. so i am glad to be RELEASED from BAGON PURGATORY

i am settling for the 0 HP IV 16 attack iv bagon and i will love her. she is named scramble as a reference to the sheer amount of eggs i hatched on this journey and also the scrambled RNG. and despite it all i am very proud of myself and excited to use her in orre colosseum regardless of everything. but i can't for a while because i have three more pokemon to breed... none of which should even be NEARLY this painful. hopefully. FINGERS FUCKING CROSSED!!

[rileys-battlecats]

omg?? i adore everything ab all of ur work, but especially ur warriors oc stuff. all the characters are so well-characterized and designed. and also the names?? did i mention designs?? honestly mudpaw is one of the most relatable characters ive ever seen. also i love that the other apprentices are actually understanding and more like actual children cats instead of existing to be mean. (ok that sounds like im saying children aren’t mean i promise some of them are)

but like, to the actual question/s. how did you come up with the concept and get it to this point? in that one commentary video you made, i remember you mentioning that he used to be mudstripe, and he was a serial killer (sidenote that’s actually so baddie) although you decided that you wanted to tell the story of a victim rather than a villian. but did it take a lot of thinking to get micaclan as a whole to this point, or did it just kinda come naturally? also im so sorry i typed an entire essay

WAAAAHHSVDJHSDJAB THANK YOU :') also you don't ever have to apologize for sending me essays in my inbox I love asks like this <3 <3

The story and world as they are now have developed incrementally over time. In the beginning, I never really intended to make anything more for this story beyond "Johnny". I had a very specific animatic visualized for that song (because I'd been listening to it on loop for days lol), and I made characters and a story that fit with the idea.

After making and uploading it, though, the characters and their story kept knocking around in my brain!! I wanted to expand on them, and to develop them more. If my memory is right, "Johnny" was the first time I'd ever made a video telling a story of my own making (previous projects had all been stuff from existing media), and I was excited by the idea of making more :) the storytelling aspect was really interesting to me!

I started coming up with more details in my head, things like character traits and names and the next story beats I wanted to portray. By the time I made "The Garden", I'd worked up at least a loose idea of the story in my head (though I wasn't sure where exactly I was going to take it in the end at that point), and I had designed most of the clan members (mostly to fill backgrounds tbh).

Then, some folks in the youtube comments started asking about references for the different characters, and I started this blog to share them! This is definitely the point where I got REALLY into worldbuilding and fleshing out characters haha. Each reference I posted included a little bit of text about the character, and I got to put to words some of the ideas I'd had previously. Or, it gave me the opportunity to come up with some character traits for background characters I hadn't given much thought to previously! Then people started engaging with the blog more, and having people ask questions gave me the opportunity to think about lots of different aspects of the story, characters, and world. From there, it feels like the entire story expanded, bit by bit, detail by detail. So it definitely took a lot of thinking, but that thinking happened pretty naturally over time, if that makes sense!

[khive-cauchy]

Hi, can you tell me about btrfs? It was a default choice for the filesystem when I installed fedora on my laptop and I read little bit about how it is different from like ext4 and what cool stuff it supports etc. But I newer, like, utilised all that stuff in it. So, if you don't mind, can you tell me what am I missing and how do I utilise it potential?

btrfs! what is btrfs? btrfs is a copy-on-write journaling filesystem with various other goodies. my experience is mostly using it on one disk on my personal machine, which seems to be what you're doing with it also. you may have heard some bad things about btrfs eating your data silently and then the mailing list being really mean about it, and all that is true but it's only true if you're using btrfs raid4 or raid5, which you aren't. for our use case there's absolutely nothing to fear- btrfs is an absolutely rock solid filesystem and i wouldn't accept any other for my daily driver

i was planning on writing this whole long thing summarizing my notes because when i was learning all this stuff i couldn't find any source that had everything i needed in one place. but that was 4 years ago, and since then fedora switched to using it by default. nowadays there are a bunch of articles explaining all the fundamental concepts and commands and such. the two linked at the bottom ive read and can vouch for, and they cover basically all the intuition for the concepts and commands and such. so im going to focus on cool things you can do with a COW filesystem

basically all the cool things you can do are snapshots. snapshots, better explained in the links, are lightweight copies of entire file trees. you can, for instance, take a snapshot of your home directory and then be able to access all your files at the time of the snapshot whenever you want, even if you change them in the "real" version. but you can do better than this. if your subvolume layout is correct (and don't worry, fedora's is), you can rollback to a previous snapshot whenever you want. with a little configuration you can make all your root snapshots bootable, so you can select in grub or whatever which version of your filesystem you want to boot into. with a little bit of doing, which im not sure is easy on fedora but certainly might be, i got my computer set up so that my boot directory is just a btrfs subvolume on my regular filesystem. if an update breaks my setup, which does happen from time to time, i can go back to exactly the state i was in, files packages kernel and all

you can and should use btrfs for your backups also. not local snapshots, those aren't very good backups, but incremental backups to an external drive or over ssh to another machine. for this i use btrbk, which is a pretty simple script that just makes use of btrfs features to make safe, fast, and reliable backups to wherever you might want them. then, because it's using native features of the filesystem, recovering from just about anything is dead simple. you can send over the subvolumes and mount them wherever. the one thing is that for most of these you need a bootable drive with btrfs and enough drivers to work on your system. whatever you used to install fedora should work fine

and with that you basically need fear no file loss event, big or small. i mean i wouldn't give up git or anything, but now you can retrieve your desktop layout, your browser settings, your /etc, whatever you want. its absolutely magic. since doing an install with this btrfs setup 4 years ago i have had absolutely nothing break in a way i couldn't fix in under 15 minutes, even running arch objectively badly. imagining life without snapshots feels barbaric now. its one of a handful of things which are just objectively better on linux for any user at any skill level. data loss is a choice, and it has been for almost a decade. take my hand

additional notes:

APFS: yeah apple has this too. time machine is a brilliant piece of software and the apple ppl are lucky to have it. however! i have needed to actually go back and use my backup like 2 times ever. most of the time i just use the snapshots locally. plus afaik you don't have the same range of options to deal with snapshot size- i dont hang onto my steam directory for very long

ZFS: if you need raid id say zfs is definitely better (zpool is awesome). but a lot of the things you can do with snapshots and subvolumes on btrfs aren't actually possible on zfs. a rollback on zfs is a very specific action which invalidates everything that came after- it's not to be done lightly. with btrfs you just move subvolumes around and they're available whenever you need them

encryption: its annoying but you should put your filesystem inside of lvm inside of LUKS and it'll work fine. its the same as using LUKS normally, and once it's open it's the same as using btrfs normally. this would probably suck for multiple disks, in which case you should use zfs

hibernation: use LVM to have a swap partition and call it a day, storage is cheap these days. ive heard swap files are improved somehow (?) but i dont use one and there really isn't any reason to

compression: imo not a showstopper or anything but it comes in handy. i wouldn't expect huge gains in space usage (storage is cheap anyway) but a lot of modern cpus are good enough at compression that it's actually faster to store everything compressed bc the bottleneck is disk IO. you can test what algorithm and level works best for you, and tune it by subvolume. on my nvme i dont notice a difference, but my server has some hard drives and compression speeds things up

[raisinushigher]

ok SO i finally manned up and watched the leaked reboot episode (not all of it, the source im watching it from is uploading it in increments and they aren’t all out yet) and im not even gonna lie to you. i fucking love it im SO excited to see more of the new clones, i think frita is a fun character and i feel like she’s gonna give cleo some character development finally, jfk is still good, im happy with joan too and abe is just. i gotta have a whole seperate section for him. im REALLY excited. him almost saying ableist slurs was kinda far like hed never do that regularly, in season 1 he never talked like that, but i do really like where this is taking his character - like it’s really re-establishing how he really means well and just wants to help but manages to mess everything up due to how oblivious he is. and i think my favourite thing out of it so far is the switched perspective. in season 1 it was joan trying to catch abes attention while he was dating cleo, and now in the reboot it’s abe trying to catch joans attention while she’s dating(?) jfk. it’s a very interesting and exciting thing, the reason abe is so hated is because his role combined with how dumb he is made him insufferable to most people, and now that’s just completely switched up without ruining his personality in any way. did i mention i love this. one last thing about abe and then to the extra little stuff i wanted to talk about :o)

um this. Yeah. i. this made me so sad 💀 this and the part on the dock where he mentions feeling lost without gandhi and how he’s upset because he thinks he’s avoiding him is just so,,, he misses him so bad,,,,,;, and he doesn’t know he’s stuck in the locker still,,,,, and he needs him so badD. RAHHHHH. AND LIKE. GANDHI WOULDVE BEEN THERE FOR HIM DURING THIS EPISODE 1000% IT AOULDVE BEEN SO MUCH EASIER ON HIM,,, ok now im done

really not much to say here. i wanted scudlertron and i got it ive been FED. also i absolutely love scuds grey streaks and how his voice sounds different and older but not in a jarring way but instead a way that actually sounds natural. butlertrons voice is amazing also. jfk’s needs a little work but like. again it’s unreleased. who cares. he’s wonderful as always regardless. the little b plot mr b and scud have going on in the episode was continuously a breath of fresh air while watching it, it’s so goddamn nice seeing them just talking again, feels like a warm hug from an old friend idk :o)))

these two walking together,,,,, just seeing van gogh again is also so so good even though i don’t talk nor think about him that much at all i love him very much

and one last thing. im so goddamn excited for this trio

tldr: ilove it so much im so excited

[wishful-seeker]

Guuuys i finally see a CRPS doctor this week!

Tw: brief mention of wishing self harm, and mention of medical abuse.

So for 4 years ive had undiagnosed chronic pain, its severe, ive been bed/house bound for 2 years and need a wheelchair when i leave the house.

I talk alot about my experience with being disabled, but i usually don't talk about my actual symptoms often.

I can't use a computer 90% of the time, on good days, which is now twice a week, but used to be never, i can play pc games in 20 minute increments, twice a day. I can't wash dishes, i cant walk without pain, i can't sit in chairs without pain. Im stuck laying in bed, all day, everyday. I usually can't make art, sometimes i can. Im just in bed, on my phone, in constant pain. Its a VERY difficult existence and i have often wished i didn't have limbs because the pain can be so intense.

So ive gone to countless doctors, rheumatologists, a pain specialist, an orthopedic, a neurologist. The reason im always saying stuff like "doctors are scum" is because every single doctor ive ever met has minimized this pain, lied to me and told me they'd do everything they can and didn't, and purposefully wasted my time. I even traveled to a different state to see rheumatologists, they saw me twice, i literally cried and begged these people to give me medicine for the pain, they gave me a shot that they said would help for 2 weeks, it helped for 30 minutes, when i asked them what to do they ignored me. They diagnosed me with fibro specifically so they could get me to leave them alone. I knew that diagnosis was incorrect. Last doctor i saw was a neurologist, i told her i needed to be tested for CRPS, because that was the only lead we had left. She scheduled a brain mri and nerve damage test, they came back normal. I brought up that there is no test for CRPS, she said i was right, and i could definitely have it, but she said she can't diagnose it and i need to see a pain doctor. I told her first time i saw her what i was looking for, and she mislead me into thinking she had experience with crps, and wasted my valuable time and money with tests that were irrelevant. My pain doctor wasn't an option because he doesn't treat crps because he doesn't believe it exists.

So i was lost

Every doctor i knew actively worked against me and none of them could refer me to a CRPS specialist.

But last week i simply googled "crps doctor near me", i found one close by, called them, they didn't require a referral, and the appointment was scheduled a week later. No 2 months wait time, no bullshit doctors approval. Just a phone call away. Im seeing them in 3 days. Wish me luck!

To others out there struggling to get diagnosed, im rooting for you.

[amnyatas]

this is the second time ive been utterly confused about whether a color is green or not. the last time it might have been yellow tho. and every time i have a completely different opinion on what a color is its always the thoughts of 'am i some weird sort of colorblind or is this a 'grey can look like red under the right circumstancrs' thing or maybe i just don't know my colors very well or maybe all color is relative and nothing is real.' which. that last one isn't true we have scientific wavelengths of light and w/e?

.....anyways the break bar somehow doesn't even look /teal/ to me, all i can see is bright blue...

...maybe its screen settings actually. like the yellow/green thing from like years and years ago def wasn't bc i was arguing w/ someone looking at the same screen but. maybe this is??? mysteries upon mysteries

color is perspective, right? like it's your brain interpreting light waves. not everyone is going to see the same. even culturally, i know there's a few cultures that don't really differentiate between green and blue, or at least have only begun to in modern times.

there's also the fact some people have better color vision than others, some folks are well trained to see subtleties in colors, some people just are innately better. you see folks like baumgartner restorations on youtube who have to color match by eyesight perfectly to conceal damaged paintings, and even he'll only do it during certain ranges of daylight and with special lamps to ensure the color is actually correct. and yet other people can't tell indigo from purple, its not anything wrong, some people just see more accurately than others.

however yeah, like you said, there's proof to how it all works, to identifying specific colors and hues. people have studied this! we know those who are colorblind because we have the datapoints of understanding light and color!

that said, with different screens being different colors--my laptop and my phone are drastically different, my phone is far more vibrant and saturated compared to my laptop, to the point i'll post screenshots of stuff i'm working on (art, edits, etc) to see how they look on my phone. there's ways to fix it but my laptop just doesn't seem to have the basic stuff in the regular interface, so i make do. but that's definitely a thing that affects people's perception of color, as does any blue-light combatting programs and tinted glasses!

anyway, to the matter of this specific shade of teal. so like, several people colordropped the breakbar and confirmed its on the green side of cyan/teal. i happen to have pretty damn good color sight, not a brag it just is a skill i possess, maybe from years of art? i only eyedropped this NOW for the ask.

the dead center of the Cyan wavelength is slightly to the right of the circle indicating the specific color on the spectrum. the numbers for the RGB code indicate hue intensity of three listed, from 0 to 255--green is 170, blue is 166, meaning it is four increments more green than blue. the red is there to desaturate the color, bc complimentary colors cancel each other out and red-green are complimentary(like the gray appearing red you mentioned--color theory is a TON of fun!). this also probably provides a not insignificant illusion to the blue being stronger than it is, on account of the prominent green being slightly grayed by its complimentary color of red.

which, if your color sight and screen aren't at their best...makes it really, really easy to percieve the color as on the bluer side of teal!

ofc, i might be wrong about 30% of this. my only qualifications are as a self taught artist who paid attention in this part of science class, not a scientist. but color theory and light physics overlap quite a bit.

[legalize-necromancy]

ive heard almost nothing positive about seroquel and its stressing me out because im starting it today

edit: (aug ‘22) its been 4 months and went from 50mg and went up in increments to 400. it is working fine. waking up isnt too rough after i figured out when i should take it the night before. example, i take it between 7 and 8 and can wake up at 6 alright. ive been on 400 for over 2 weeks and will stay here for a little to see if its enough to also manage the seasonal stuff.

i just wanna add this for people who may find this later. also thank you to everyone who replied!!

edit 2: (jan ‘23) been on 400 since august and i dont like it. i feel very numb through most of the day, waking up has gotten more difficult (but tbf thats mostly due to winter), i feel i have no personality anymore and im just not happy on it. i will be trying to switch to a diff med soon. (also i really miss having normal dreams, i havent had a non nightmare dream in years and that sucks. not specific to seroquel, just complaining about antipsychotics)

if anyone has questions or anything about it hmu. but within the next month ill hopefully be off of seroquel.

[foulserpent]

do you have any useful sources for working out and diets and stuff? im looking to build muscle but i dont really know where to start or even what to do. ive been doing some pushups and other body weight workouts but i want to start going to the gym too. a reliable website that would help me build a workout regimen is ideal if you know of one

i dont have any specific good resources bc its kind of a minefield. the main advice i can give is just to not fuck around with diets of anything (just ideally eat healthy within your ability, add protein and fat while working out). and in terms of actually building muscle you want to be doing strength training with weights, which the least intimidating way is via machines that exercise specific muscle groups rather than like, bench presses.

start at the highest weight you can safely do a rep with a full range of motion (as in be able to complete the full motion of the exercise rather than just half of it). do your reps slowly, being faster doesnt help and can injure you. keep track of the weight youre lifting per each machine. the goal is to gradually add weight at small increments (like last week i had the calf extension machine at 245, this week i can do 250). dont Force yourself to add weight, but do Push yourself. you wont build muscle if you keep at the same level of resistance (you can Maintain muscle by doing this tho). try to choose equipment that covers each major muscle group and set a routine. do this ideally ~3x a week but its okay if its less. i try to do strength training every other day (lift one day, do aerobic stuff the next day). but it varies depending on just how im feeling.

sorry if my explanation of ‘machines’ is a bit vague, this all will probably make a little more sense once you get into a gym and see the kinda stuff im referring to

also if youre in the US, planet fitness offers 10$/month memberships and thats basically as cheap as you get, and theyre actually a pretty good chain and their whole thing is trying to maintain an unintimidating atmosphere and being accessible. you can ask ppl working there for advice too and theyll probably be able to give you more concise info

[poptod]

hello! i'd like to make an ahkmenrah x reader request! maybe present-day reader gets teleported back in time to when ahkmenrah was alive and they eventually get to the palace and stuff happens? maybe they tell him about modern life? and maybe reader is unnaturally beautiful to the ancient egyptians because humans evolve to be more attractive as time goes on so a person from our time would be hot shit 4,000 years ago? this is long lmao. thanks!

Notes: god ive always wanted to do this kind of storyline but i was worried about like,, logic and stuff getting in the way of the storyline. anyway! i was so fucking elated to receive this request. i got a bit carried away so apologies! WC: 3.2k

+

Okay. It isn't that bad.

Would you ever see your family again? Probably not, but you weren't ruling the possibility out.

Would you ever get to have sour patch kids again? Probably not. But even during the time you lived in 2020, you had eaten more concentrated sour patch kids flavor than all of the people around you combined.

This little village on the outskirts of ancient Thebes is hardly L.A.––though that's probably a good thing––and is small enough for you to know every inhabitant. Your shop there is small to suit the town, and well known ever since your arrival in this time.

They found you beside the river, thought you to be a gift from the Gods. You were hazy, though––whatever had so forcefully pushed you back in time had made your head spin, making you sick and unbalanced. So, when they asked if you did in fact come from the Gods, you had no way of defending yourself either way. Generally you've been denying it––they think you are a god, and the only way you've convinced them you're not a god is by saying you're a gift from them. It explains the way you look, unnaturally beautiful and alien amongst the more pure genetics of earlier humans.

Your shop is pretty simple. You make portraits from paint, more realistic than anything else that exists, and it only affirms their belief in your god-like status. Fortunately word seems to not have gotten out––the village has remained small, and no one from Thebes has run into you. Every now and then you get unreasonably anxious that a noble will find you and turn you into a slave. It's a worry most people around you have, so you find comfort in the fact that you're not the only one. Still, you're not quite accustomed to such an atmosphere––the thought of nobles and Kings noticing you still sends terrified aches into your stomach.

It's about two weeks in that it gets bad. People start to pass by the village, more than you would've thought, and they're all looking to trade goods, food, and information. The people of the village talk about you––you're something interesting, you can't deny that, but they don't know just how worried you are. Whenever you see someone you don't recognize outside your home, you refuse to come out.

Five days later and there's soldiers in your home, looking over your paintings on their way back to Memphis from conquering the realm of Kush. You hold a deep contempt for them––you don't know all that much about history, but you know how Egyptian soldiers and Pharaohs reigned power over the people of Kush.

The soldiers aren't all that worrying. What really gets your heart pounding is the final man to enter your hut; a man bearing a crown and a long sword, with golden braces around his wrists and a chest plated in green scales. Your fingers dig into the wood of your counter when he notices you. The crown on his head––it's the crown of both upper and lower Egypt.

This is a Royal.

"Where did you learn this skill?" He asks you, eyes trained on one of your bigger drawings. It's just on papyrus––not for sale––and hung on the wall as a display of your talent.

"I spent a little while travelling the world," you answer. Technically, growing up in the modern world was a bit like travelling the world; you got to see the cultures and practices of many, many people. "The rest of it's practice."

"The peasants here, they... they claim you came from the Nile. Is that true?"

"Well... that is where I was found," you say carefully, but you can already tell you've fucked up. The look on his face is indescribable beyond the fact that he's pleased.

"How would you feel coming back to the capital with me?" He offers to you, setting his hands on the counter and leaning forward. "I think my father would much like to meet you."

"I – I don't think I'm really cut out for -"

"Nonsense," he dismisses with a smile, taking your hand from its' spot on the wood. "We shall teach you proper writing skills, give you a beautiful home, and the salary isn't horrid either."

You can't just say no. If you do, he's going to ask questions––he's going to get confused, and he's going to get suspicious. No one would turn down an opportunity like this; free schooling, free housing, and much more money for something you already do.

"Well... alright," you say quietly, looking to the home around you that you built with the help of the other villagers.

"Wonderful. My name is Kamun."

He's not a very nice person, you come to find. Or perhaps he's just not your tastes––the soldiers seem to like him well enough, at least the ones who aren't completely subordinate to him, but his attitude towards women and poor people is scathing to say the least. Otherwise he's very amusing, with a good sense of humor and quite generous with his food and wine as long as he gets his fill of it first.

The boat back to Memphis, where the royal family currently stays, is a long ride filled with various entertainments. It's clear these are not soldiers accustomed to rough conditions––the dancing women and flowing beer is enough to tell you that. Instead, you surmise these are faux war-heroes; people adored in their hometown for doing nothing but intimidating others in a foreign country. They try to get cushy with you, soften you up to their words and touches. It doesn't work.

He keeps you close to him. You let him do it, sort of––it's better than telling him no. Better than starting a ruckus. Then again, avoiding a ruckus is what got you here in the first place, standing before the doors of the courtroom where a false God on earth rules the Nile.

"Father, I bring you a gift from Thebes," says Kamun, pushing you forward by the small of your back. You can't bring yourself to meet the Pharoah's eye, so you fall to your knees and bow.

Everyone is staring at you. You don't look normal, and they all know it, and you know it. You could cry from the heat of their eyes on your back.

One of Kamun's soldiers steps forwards, handing the Pharaoh and his wife several of the drawings they'd taken from you. Silence passes as the two scan your work.

"How did you achieve such a mirror of the human face?" The Pharaoh asks in a slow, deep voice that sounds as he looks––old, weathered, wise.

"They came from the Nile," Kamun answers for you, and murmurs take the crowd by storm. You, on the other hand, feel your heartbeat increase in massive increments, speeding your already uneven breath. "A gift from the Gods, the locals said."

"I can't – I am not magic," you rush out, hoping your clarification clears you of any responsibility to the Pharaoh. You know he rules everything––if he says you are to stay here, you have no choice, and you don't like it here. Too many people. "I cannot give you anything, my King."

"I think you're lying," says a voice, its' tone soft and a velvet low. It catches you off guard, brings you to raise your head and meet the eyes of someone you don't know; a young man dressed in gold beside the Pharaoh's throne.

You almost lose your breakfast as your eyes bulge, your mind instantly recognizing him and connecting the dots. You were, by far, not a historian, but you knew a fair amount of Egyptian history––namely a family in the Old Kingdom who was headed by the Pharaoh Merenkahre. The remaining statues and busts of the King and his son are astonishingly accurate, and there can be no doubt in your head.

That being said, there also can't be any reaction on your face. You try your best to reign your expression in.

"I..."

Actually, you do have something to offer now. You know the names––memorized the history, committed each event to memory, and now you can pull their lifestory off from the top of your head. Wouldn't that be valuable to a King; a seer of the future, to predict the rise and fall of the economy and the coming armies. Besides, you can't just say he's wrong. That'd be treasonous to them. So you have to agree you're hiding something, come up with an excuse as to why you hid it, and it proves harder than you thought. You're quickwitted, though––it got you away from the villager's wrath, and it will promote you to noble living now.

You hide a smirk beneath a calm expression as you address the younger prince.

"They gifted me foresight," you say quietly, pretending as though it hurts you to tell the truth, "but told me to never inform others."

"You are in the presence of Ra once more," the Pharaoh reminds you.

"And others," you point out. "I would... it would be better to discuss such matters.. in private."

Detailed information about already-past events is enough to sway him to believe you. The Pharaoh is surprisingly easy to convince, and with a few, meaningless predictions of the future, he gives you housing in his own palace. Kamun looks proud of himself––puffs his chest out in front of his father and earns no compliment. Ire laces his glare as it falls upon his brother, Ahkmen, praised for his ability to see through your obvious lie.

The Pharaoh asks his younger son to guide you to your room. Apparently it's closer to his room than it is to Kamun's, and evening is approaching fast. The walk there, while short, is marked by a conversation composed mainly of Ahkmen's questions and your answers. When the two of you reach your room, he doesn't leave––actually, he follows you in and locks the door.

There's nothing more terrifying than a man with unchecked power, and there is no one watching you.

No fail safe.

You gulp.

"I know you're still not telling the truth," he says, and though it dismisses several of your worries it still begs the question; how did he notice? "Just thought I'd spare you the embarrassment in front of my father, but my generosity ends there. Now I won't hurt you, and I won't tell anyone––I'm just curious."

Oh thank fuck. He's not going to rape you.

"I'm not Egyptian," you blurt out.

"Obviously," he interrupts, but you glare him into raising his hands defensively.

"I'm from the future."

He stares at you. For a minute. You know this because you count it––he just pauses right in his stance, doesn't move, and stares at you for a whole minute like you just told him you're made of gold.

"I'm sorry, what?" He says, laughter suddenly wracking his body.

"It's how I know what's going to happen to your family," you say, hoping he'll believe you. Otherwise this handsome, seemingly-nice man is going to think you're insane for the rest of time. "I studied your family for years as a side-hobby, I don't know how to predict the future for anything but you and your father."

His laughing pauses, or lightens at least; enough for him to say, "actually?"

"Yes," you say, completely serious. This seems to gain his interest once more. "You have to help me. I know at some point people are going to ask me questions about other things and I'm not going to have an answer."

"Just do what all our priests do," he says with a chuckle.

"What do they do?"

"Lie," he says. You can't stop the grin that spreads across your face from the stupid joke, and when he sees that a shit-eating grin spreads across his own face, delighted he could make you laugh.

"Yes, well... I guess I could do that," you mumble in a laugh.

"There's no need for you to worry. Now that I know the truth, I can help you," he says, offering you something that takes nearly all the anxiety out of your brain. After two days travel with a prince, it feels like it took 50 pounds off your shoulders.

"Thank you, so much," you chuckle in relief.

"Of course. I do have questions though, and I want you to answer them."

"Anything."

These questions of his, they come at all times––almost at a constant rate when he takes you on long walks, which he does often. He passes it off to his father as an interest in your beauty, and it apparently works. This little lie also helps you enormously in avoiding the romantic advances of many of the people you come into contact with. You're still not quite sure how it works, since Egyptians supposedly had a strong sense of patriotism, but you look rare and they idolize it. Every eye that falls upon you sees something beautiful, and you can't understand it.

At least Ahkmen is normal. He doesn't talk about you being beautiful. Ever.

And it kind of makes you sad.

"Would you say people on the whole are happier in the future or in the past?" He asks you, his words surrounded by the warmth of a summer day in Egypt.

Birds chatter loudly in the trees around you, singing in the humid air that marks the mating season for many of them. The flowers that surround you are already familiar––you thought it would take longer for you to commit the shapes and colors to memory, but here you are. Dressed in gold-laced silk and turquoise necklaces.

"I think the happiness of a population is dependent entirely on the circumstances surrounding it," you say. Sometimes your answers relate more to the human condition than the progress of time on the human race; he likes these answers, too, so you tell him exactly what you think. "Six thousand years from now, there are times of great misery. One is even called the Great Depression, but five years before that were some of the most prosperous times my country had ever seen. The same cycle is evident here."

"So.. great misery and great happiness come in waves?" He asks, pace slowing as he tries to understand what you're saying. You pause along the pathway, allowing him space to think.

"It's a pattern, actually. When the economy goes up, it will always come down. Recessions happen right after economical booms. And yes," you say before he can ask, "a time of unease will follow the prosperity of the current years. But it won't be for a time yet."

"Will it happen in my lifetime?"

He's murdered about three years from now. You think you might be able to stop it, but if you do, it'll alter history quite a lot. Either way, he wouldn't live long enough to see the recession the building of the great pyramids caused.

"No," you say. "But I'd prepare for it anyway, if only to keep your citizens safe."

"Of course. You... you are a great scholar," he tells you, resuming the slow walk down the shore of the Nile.

"Oh. Uh, thank you," you mumble as a blush fills your cheeks.

"What did you do in your time?"

"I was an artist, but I spent a lot of time giving lectures on the role of autistic people in ancient Egypt. Autistic people are often timekeepers," you say, and you know he'll figure out what you mean. Autistic isn't a term here, but many timekeepers of these ancient times were autistic, and considered highly by their societies.

"You might be able to give lectures again, if you'd like," he suggests. "People would come from far and wide to hear you speak. And you've got things to say that I know many scholars will find interesting."

"Mmm," you wince, "I kind of want to stay away from altering history too much."

"Oh, yes. My apologies," he says in a softer voice.

"It's alright," you say. "I'm glad you think I would be a good choice for that kind of thing, though."

He chuckles bashfully as he turns to the ground, scuffing his sandals as he walks.

Ahkmen is sweet––much sweeter than any of his family members, and you find yourself appreciating that every time you pass by his room. You pass his door often, always stopping a second to contemplate the tall, wooden doors. He's on the pathway between your room and the library.

Most of the time he's not in his room. Actually, you can usually find him in the library––there or outside in the markets or near the stalls. Today is different; he's been missing all day, and only when you walk the path back to your room do you hear his voice, talking to himself in his bedroom.

"They're bombarded with just such compliments, though. I can't – I can't stand out!"

"Or maybe you should, because you still haven't said a single thing yet and they probably think you're completely uninterested and that's why they aren't noticing you?"

"You and your... logic," Ahkmen spits.

"Come complaining when you kiss them under my advice."

As you attempt to peek through the crack in the door you stumble, knocking your hand against the wood. You barely hesitate before knocking again––cool and collected, smooth to slip into another lie.

"Oh! Hello, um – hi," he says awkwardly, slipping out of the room when he sees you. He quickly closes the door behind him, careful to keep you from seeing the other person in his room, but you can't bring yourself to care about the stranger.

Think of an excuse, why am I here?

"Oh, that's... I like your flower," he comments softly, eyes flickering between your eyes and the flower tucked into your hair. You'd forgotten about it, but raised your hand to touch the petals as you smiled. The perfect excuse

"Thank you. I thought you might like it, so I," you take it out of your hair and grab his hand, holding his palm upwards, "wanted to show you.. um, here."

Setting the flower in his hand, you curl his fingers around its' stem and push his hands back into his chest. He stares at you for a moment, confused by your strange behavior, but accepting of your gift anyway. You know him well enough now––he'd never decline a gift from you.

"A white iris," he tells you in a lofty tone. "A symbol of the dead. Funny it looks so lively on you."

You need to get out of here before your chest combusts.

"I need to go now, but I'll see you this evening, yes?" You ask, stepping instinctively closer. He doesn't back away.

"Of course. And, um," he takes your hands, keeps you where you stand as he slips the flower back behind your ear, "keep it. I want to see it on you at dinner."

He's close to you––close enough that it gets hard to distinguish his breath from your own, when you started holding his hand. When his other came up to your face. When he leans in and kisses your forehead. It's barely there, just barely, but there's no mistaking the soft plush, the affection clear behind gentle, precise movements.

You rush away the second he lets your hands go.

[taketheringtolohac]

i’ve been working on the most self indulgent au for about a week now and I thought i’d share my thoughts. now presenting... my ace attorney blaseball au! including teams, positions, modifications and more about all the ace attorney characters i could think of and how they would play blaseball. you can also find it on ao3 here, but ive included all the information i have below the cut!

Blase Attorney (Blaseball Ace Attorney AU)

Phoenix- 

Team: Yellowstone Magic

Position: Batter

Modifications: Seeker

Details: one of the first replacements in the game, he was originally just a blaseball fan who was following around miles edgeworth his childhood friend to his games (disguised as him going to see Larry play) and sort of wished that he could play so he could get closer to miles and is at a magic/steaks game that miles is pitching when someone gets incinerated and suddenly he’s on the field in a jersey with a glove and that really messes him up, he's a pretty good player not a star player but definitely a solid one, gets the seeker mod in the season 19 tarot reading

Notable Forbidden Knowledge:  REALLY high martyrdom

Maya

Team: Yellowstone Magic

Position: Batter

Modifications: Haunted

Details: she replaced Mia when she was incinerated and isn’t a season 1 player but has been here so long that it FEELS like she is, isn’t great at the game and has like really bad forbidden knowledge stats but she occasionally hits a surprise dinger and the fans love her so they infuse her and she becomes a serviceable batter, is constantly filled with guilt and emotions about being the person who replaced her sister she gets the haunted mod in an election

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high base thirst, really good divinity that only gets better after her infuse

Edgeworth- 

Team: Dallas Steaks

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: season one player who didn’t really want to join blaseball but he took it in stride and he wasn’t very good at first but he got a blessing that MADE him good and he’s miraculously been on the team the whole time, originally placed in good league because Fran was in Evil and von Karma wanted them to dominate the game and become the best in their respective leagues, still one of the best players in the game, his dad still dies somehow, refuses to “buy into” the dad bit from the steaks and insists that he was just placed here

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: EXCEPTIONAL ruthlessness (one of the highest in the game), good other stats as well, just a really solid PITCHING statline, his other stuff isn’t good

Franziska- 

Team: Hades Tigers

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Friend of Crows

Details: season one player who fans LOVE even though she hates everything about the game and the circumstances in which she’s here, she’s a naturally good player but she lets up a lot of home runs, she receives the friend of crows modifier in season 10 much to her dismay, ALMOST pitched a perfect season and then absolutely RUINED it in the last game and it crushed her

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: higher highs than miles but also lower lows, in particular her overpowerment isn’t very good, she is also a more well rounded player and would also be a fine batter (solid thwack)

Gumshoe-

Team: Originally on the LA Unlimited Tacos, then feedbacked to the San Fransisco Lovers

Position: Batter

Modifications: Siphon, Attractor

Details: season one player that is beloved by the fans and he’s decent at the game but he always tries to steal bases but he is so bad at it, he’s the teams siphon but he NEVER drinks blood except to draw a walk, he ends up getting redacted because of consumer attacks and is probably one of the first to do so despite him having QUITE a bit of soul, he becomes Wyatt Gumshoe in the Wyatt Masoning

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: GREAT thwackability, bad everything else which makes for a really interesting player to say the least

Athena- 

Team: Miami Dale

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: POWERFUL ARMS also she is a replacement player she probably becomes a replacement after Simon does and she got into blaseball because of that cute flowers pitcher and now she’s here but she LOVES Miami and she LOVES being bad at the game, she leans really hard into the neon aesthetic

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: good unthwackability and ok ruthlessness, shakespeareanism is her highest stat, would also be a great batter and has really good thwackability and divinity, GREAT vibes

Apollo- 

Team: Mexico City Wild Wings

Position: Batter

Modifications: None

Details: founding member of the wings legal team who’s another replacement player that FEELS like he’s a season 1 player, he isn’t very good in general but REALLY good for the wings and is probably the mvp at some point but like he’s a really inconsistent hitter but when he DOES hit its POWERFUL and he gets a lot of RBI’s 

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: SHOCKINGLY good musclitude and ground friction, GOD awful moxie

Larry- 

Team: Dallas Steaks

Position: Batter

Modifications: None

Details: season one player who is like the teams designated player we beat up on because they’re awful but we love them, gets shadowed in the expansion era because he just wasn’t good anymore and he REFUSED to leave, he is the definition of “YOU CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS,” would always party but his forbidden knowledge is TRASH so it was never worth anything because he’s top ten in the league for career strikeouts

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: REALLY HIGH PATHETICISM HOLY SHIT but good ground friction and like, ok musclitude

Ema- 

Team: Kansas City Breath Mints

Position: Batter

Modifications: Fire Eater

Details: replaced the first player incinerated on the team so she has a lot of fans because she’s been here a while but like also her career is forever impacted by the fact that people mourned so deeply before really appreciating her and a lot of fans can never really love her in the same way, but she has fire eater now and WILL cut a bitch down to size, she’s also definitely been attacked by consumers though, she also parties a LOT

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: good defender, high omniscience and tenaciousness

Lang- 

Team: Houston Spies

Position: Batter

Modifications: Maximalist, Siphon

Details: replaced a SUPER popular player who was REALLY good at the game and struggled with a lot of the implications of their legacy but he ALSO became really good and a really iconic player to the team and eventually became a fan favorite, LITERALLY cannot stop freaking drinking blood hes so fucking massive now holy shit but like only his baserunning

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: PHENOMENAL baserunning just in general but his base thirst is low so he doesn’t actually steal that much, SUPER high moxie and musclitude

Kristoph-

Team: Baltimore Crabs

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Returned, Debt

Details: season 1 player who was a really aggressively middling player who had deceptively high stars and they could never get rid of him until he finally got incinerated in late season 6/early season 7 but he gets necromancy-d on accident and no one wanted this now he just haunts the league, he joined blaseball to get notoriety and some level of fame and convinced Klavier to join him

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high coldness and ok ruthlessness, unthwackability is fine, shakespeareanism is also good

Klavier- 

Team: Originally on the Crabs, but feedbacked to the Seattle Garages

Position: Batter

Modifications: Spicy

Details: he signed up when Kristoph did. because he said that this would be something good to do as brothers and they even signed to the same team, carcinization really freaked him out but he was a season 1 crab and no one knew what would happen, he Feedbacked in like season 6 and kris got incinerated really shortly after he feedbacked which messed him up, he loves the garages vibes WAY more than he liked the crabs

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high moxie and indulgence

Kay- 

Team: Charleston Shoe Thieves

Position: Batter

Modifications: Flippers

Details: shoe thieves, batter, she was originally a shadows player and just sat there doing great thief things until she got called up for having very sneaky good stats (rod.net style) where she singles a lot and then just steals her way to third/home, voted to trust her in season 11 and now she has cool flippers

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: really high basethirst and laserlikeness, also very high anticapitalism, good thwack subpar musclitude

Sebastian- 

Team: New York Millennials, possible feedback to the Thieves?

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: his dad was a famous blaseball player before the ILB so he signed him up to play and didn’t get on the roster until maybe like season 9, really dramatic arc where he starts out really bad but slowly through incremental stat increases becomes pretty ok but then has a devastating allergic reaction and ends up having to be shadowed because he’s just unsaveable at this point, but still a big fan fave and people still talk about them, he would’ve been a pretty ok batter with really high defense but peanut destroyed that too

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high highs and low lows and vibes are just… there

Juniper-

Team: Boston Flowers

Position: Originally a batter, but reverbs into Pitching

Modifications: None

Details: season 1 player who is really popular amongst the fans but isn’t well known outside of the fanbase she joined blaseball because she didn’t really have a choice and she was just working at the garden, she wasn’t a great batter but she’s a shockingly good pitcher, she had partied so much that she is now just undeniably good solely because she has partied THAT much

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: SHOCKINGLY good ruthlessness, its her only good stat though until parties make her good

Simon- 

Team: Chicago Firefighters

Position: Batter

Modifications: Ego+

Details: another late season replacement that was made to be a edgelord with really good stat set up and he’s a super consistent batter who just also gets walked a lot and has a LOT of thirsty fans, REALLY good at dunking, one of the best idols for solo seeds but ONLY for a SINGLE season because he just underperforms his stars for NO reason and its infuriating, joined because he didn’t want athena to get recruited but she followed him anyways to find out what the hell happened to him and why he just vanished

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: HIGH musc/thwack/martyr with really low patheticism, absolutely ATROCIOUS vibes

Godot- 

Team: Hellmouth Sunbeams, roams to the Tokyo Lift and then to the Canada Moist Talkers

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Roamin’

Details: a season 1 player who would be a MUCH better batter but REFUSES to leave the rotation with deceptively high stars and one of the first players to get roamin’ and actually becomes good because of it infuriating LITERALLY everyone

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: have you seen bright zim? Yeah its just that. He has sixteen fingers for no reason

Trucy- 

Team: Originally a Philadelphia Pies player, but feedbacks to the Yellowstone Magic

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: Phoenix becomes her dad after she feedbacks, later season replacement probably surrounding the s7 instabilities and beanings and she got REALLY popular REALLY fast with the pies fans and over siesta but then she gets traded like the Monday after and it breaks the fans hearts, she’s not very good but she gets alternated into BEING good

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: moxie queen! Also chasiness and continuation, as well as good musclitude and vibes

Nahyuta-

Team: Originally on the Beams, but feedbacks to the Hawai’i Fridays

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Attractor

Details: expansion era player who replaced an absolutely GARBAGE player so the fans are DELIGHTED by him, lets up a lot of walks but has shockingly pitched a no hitter despite only being here since season 13, was infused because of his good forbidden knowledge stats, still gets faxed out of the game because he has games where he just lets up a RIDICULOUS amount of runs, actually fit in really well with the Fridays, was observed (by Kristoph?) and then got redacted 

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: uncle plasma… 2! Also REALLY big vibes range

Justine Courtney-

Team: New York Millennials, traded to the Breckenridge Jazz Hands

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: joined the team before Sebastian probably around season 5, was pretty average at pitching but ate a peanut and had a yummy reaction which made her slightly above average but subpar ruthlessness made her still not great, traded away to the Jazz Hands after Sebastian was shadowed, really polarizing for fans there was a lot of fighting about whether or not to trade her from fans

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: ok ruthlessness

Mia-

Team: Yellowstone Magic

Position: Batter

Modifications: None

Details: was the season 1 stand out batter for the magic, she was a REALLY good season 1 player that fans STILL talk about even though she’s been dead since season 3, she was the person who was standing next to Phoenix when he appeared on the field and caught the ball that was flying towards him before it hit him in the face and she took it upon himself to get him acclimated to the game, she thought of him as a kid brother, she tried to keep Maya away from blaseball but couldn’t stop her from watching on TV, she originally joined to get away from the Fey clan and to try and do something with her life and also possibly find out what happened to her mother and she was promised social power and unlimited access to information

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: really solid statline for someone who never saw any improvements

Phoenix and Miles get together around season 6, right before the Jaylen stuff, then break up because they were both having a lot of emotions about the whole necromancy business and Miles was always on the idol board and there was a lot of uncertainty in their lives. I think a necromancy of Kristoph probably happens in the Expansion Era and he tries to get revenge on Phoenix for god knows what, and Miles ends up getting close with him again after a whole Grand Siesta of just being really emotionally charged friends and finally get together AGAIN in season 13 after a consumer attacks Phoenix, but this time they STAY together and probably get married because they're just so scared of losing each other.

 Kay gets to fight god in season 9, no this probably wouldn't have been possible if she was a shadows player originally but uwu <3

Kay and Miles get to know each other because she tried to steal Miles shoes, but he caught her. He offered to make her dinner and they just had a good time, Kay hadn’t really been shown that kind of kindness in a WHILE and she... missed that sort of father figure in her life... so she just keeps trying to steal things from Miles and getting caught until he finally tells her that she can just... come over through the front door. He will never say that she is his daughter out loud, but the collective dadconcious Knows, and tells him that they are proud of him.

 Maya and Franziska are rivals. They hate each other. When Maya gets 0 no it only makes it worse because it "ruins" Franziska's perfection as a pitcher and forces her to throw balls. They get to know each other over these pitch offs and start to realize that they actually aren't that different. Gay rights. They kiss. They have a great time over the Grand Siesta and make fun of their brothers, but they both have emergency bags in case the other one dies.

 Dahlia Hawthrone would never get involved in Blaseball and everything she does is outside of the game but if she was she'd be on the Boston Flowers and she would be her team's Pudge. A god awful player who on occasion actually does something good and half the fans love her because of her character and half the fans hate her for the same reason and also she sucks at the game.

 Most of them also still have their law degrees and also keep some semblance of what they do in the actual ace attorney games, except Ema who has of course factually failed the bar exam by nature of being on The Breath Mints.

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Hanspur, the Water Rat (and Ashkaelae)

Chaotic Neutral God of Rivers, River Travel, and Smugglers

Domains: Chaos, Death, Travel, Water Subdomains: Exploration, Murder, Rivers, Trade

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 58~63

Obedience: With the assistance of another priest of Hanspur or by yourself, simulate the act of drowning. You can do this by fully submerging yourself in a body of water, exhaling all of your breath, and painfully inhaling water instead of air. Alternatively, you can lie on your back with your head at a lower elevation than your legs while water is slowly poured on your face and up your nose. If you choose the latter method, you must cover your face with a cloth while the water is poured. When you conclude this simulated drowning, contemplate your life and how your goals coincide with the teachings of Hanspur and the Six River Freedoms. Benefit: You gain a +4 sacred or profane bonus on Survival checks attempted while on or near rivers.

Just reading this makes my sinuses burn and my lungs itch, and not just because it’s springtime and I have allergies! As anyone who’s ever been in a body of water large enough to slap their face with a wave can attest to, inhaling large amounts of water sucks. While this Obedience requires only one wet breath, some... well, some pretty severe complications can arise from it, if your DM ponders even slightly what doing this to yourself every day would do. Dry drowning and secondary drowning are both real dangers from brief immersion, let alone concentrated efforts at simulating one of the worst fates someone can experience (I say this a lot but basically anything that deprives you of air is pretty terrible). The ‘simulation’ will likely only last a few seconds while the rest of the hour is spent recovering from your experience and meditating, but even that may not be enough to offset the fluid likely building up in your lungs. Priests of Hanspur must sound atrocious, coughing themselves ragged every day! No wonder it’s recommended your ritual is overseen by another priest, either, because they’d likely be skilled in helping you manage your symptoms.

Dangers of daily drownings aside, keeping up with the demands of this ritual is pretty easy so long as you’re somewhere with easy access to water. In Hanspur’s homelands, the River Kingdoms, this is pathetically simple! Everywhere else? It’s a lot harder! While I do appreciate that there’s a secondary ritual you can do if total immersion is impossible, but what happens if you’re stuck somewhere with no easy water access? Your waterskins won’t carry you for very long, even if you pilfer them from your party as well. Better invest in a Decanter of Endless Water! Or do something ridiculous like fill the party’s Bag of Holding up so you can just hop in and out whenever you need to.

That benefit is also the weakest I’ve seen in a long time, granting a bonus to only a single skill type and only while near rivers. Survival checks aren’t even all that commonly made, unless your DM is kind enough to let you use Survival to navigate with river rafts rather than Profession or Ride checks. Hanspur really doesn’t want his faithful straying too far from the River Kingdoms, which is only further exacerbated by how his Boons work, so if you’re not the type to linger near rivers you may just want to skip him entirely.

Boons are gathered slowly, typically obtained when a given character has 12, 16, and 20 hit dice. Unlike fiend-worshipers, servants of the Eldest, and devoted of the Empyreal Lords, characters worshiping Neutral gods do not have catch-all classes… but Neutral-aligned characters can enter the Evangelist, Sentinel, and Exalted Prestige Classes earlier than Evil characters, classing in as early as level 6 (they need +5 BAB, 5 ranks in a single skill, or the ability to cast lvl 3 spells); entered ASAP, one can gain the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14. 

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: River Sage. Gain Hydraulic Push 3/day, River Whip 2/day, or Hydraulic Torrent 1/day.

Hydraulic Push and Hydraulic Torrent live in the same niche of “giant water spouts what push stuff around,” with Torrent being obviously an order of magnitude more powerful than Push. While Push has a range of Close and can target only a single creature or square, Torrent is a 60ft line that Bull Rushes or attempts to destroy everything it encounters, so it really depends on if you’re thinking you’ll need three small streams or one really, really big one. Notably, Torrent can Bull Rush targets of any size, unrestricted by the limits of your pathetic frame, while Push contains no such limiter removal and thus likely means you can only blast creatures up to a size larger than you.

Also of note, Torrent attempts to shatter everything it comes into contact with until it runs into something or someone it cannot destroy or push past. The Strength score the Torrent uses is equal to your caster level plus your casting ability modifier, meaning it will start out barely stronger than you are but will eventually be able to punch holes in iron and shatter stone. Hell, with a lucky roll, it may be able to do that anyway. Your choice on which two to take wholly depends on if you want to push three Medium critters around or launch one Colossal one.

What? River Whip? I don’t see any spell like that here! Lets move on! (alright alright; i just don’t like it. it’s good as an emergency weapon but more or less anything else is better in any scenario)

Boon 2: River Scion. As a free action you can breathe underwater, as if affected by Water Breathing, for a number of hours per day equal to the number of Hit Dice you possess. These hours need not be used consecutively, but must be used in 1-hour increments.

A disappointingly weak Boon. Really, what else is there to see or say? If you need to go underwater, this ability is great and has zero downsides. If you don’t, this Boon doesn’t exist. It’s a very binary Boon that relies on your environment, which means that if you’re overjoyed if you’ve remained in the River Kingdoms, but in a desert or jungle or mountain peak, you’re going to be extremely disappointed upon hitting level 11.

Boon 3: River’s Embodiment. 1/day as a standard action, you can transform yourself into a Huge water elemental, as per Elemental Body IV. You can stay in this form for 1 minute per Hit Die you possess, and can dismiss this effect as a free action.

Finally, a transformation ability that doesn’t suck! What does suck is that this is a level 7 spell being granted to you 1/day, when other Boons are equivalent to level 9 spells in power. Hanspur could have at least given you a little bonus on top of it, or made it 2/day, but it’s hard to complain about the force you become under Elemental Body IV. You become immune to bleed, critical hits, Sneak Attacks, and on top of it all get insurmountable DR 5, and the stack of stats you get? Mmmm-mm! Chef’s kiss!

+6 AC, +8 Con, +4 Str, all for the price of -2 Dex (more than made up for with the +AC). And, of course, a swim speed and the power to collapse yourself into a destructive Vortex, but those are only useful if you’re in water, while the rest of the stat buffs are far more universally useful. You’re not exactly the destructive and terrifying Fire Elemental or the deceptively sneaky Earth Elemental, but a wall of surging water can still wreak all manner of havoc on your enemies, your new dual slams able to smash ships (and bones) to pieces, and since Water Elementals are capable of speech and gesture, you can merely bask in your new tank stats while still casting spells.

There’s also the much more amusing but niche use of transforming while already polymorphed by a hostile effect, as having a new polymorph effect used on you while you’re already changed can end the first automatically.

While I wish the effect was usable more often, or at least broken into 1-minute increments, I can’t call it a bad Boon by any means.

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: River Guide. Gain Obscuring Mist 3/day, Haunting Mists2/day, or Aqueous Orb 1/day.

I love the name of this ability because two of the three spells do the opposite of guiding people. Now I’m a big fan of Obscuring Mist; it’s a simple staple in my list for almost every caster I make just because of how versatile it is! But now that I know there’s an alternative, it may have competition. Both Obscuring Mist and Haunting Mists do roughly the same thing, but one could argue that Haunting Mists does it better; in addition to granting concealment and shutting off an enemy’s eyes, it deals 1d2 Wisdom damage and shakes up anyone starting their turn inside the mist... But as a Figment spell with the Fear descriptor, there are a great many creatures immune to its unique power, and True Seeing allows one to see through it perfectly, whereas Obscuring Mist remains impenetrable to the apex predator of the Illusion school.

While it cannot be dispelled by wind or motion like a tangible fog, it’s important to note that there’s no way to protect specific creatures from the sanity-damaging effects of Haunting Mists, and its casting distance of 20ft and 20ft spread means that you will likely always be caught in its radius. The range means using it offensively is painfully limited, unless you want to cast it from invisibility after sneaking into the middle of an enemy formation, which... you probably, definitely don’t want to make a habit of.

It’s great for covering your retreat, but not your advance or setup like the normal Mist is.

Aqueous Orb is a good choice if your party is getting screwed over by the mist more than the enemy, creating a big ol’ 10ft ball of water that intercepts and engulfs anything that moves into it, or which it moves into. It deals 2d6 nonlethal damage whenever it rams into a creature and a further 2d6 to everything it has engulfed each round, but the damage isn’t so much the main draw as the fact it’s a massive, roving Sphere of Grappling, snaring and drowning any creature it manages to get ahold of if they fail the Reflex save. It’s a fun little spell that’s great for mopping up and controlling minions, especially ones you don’t actually want to kill, and even at its worst it can become a makeshift barrier in a narrow hallway since there’s no written way to actually move through it beyond wasting 2, 3, or more rounds by slamming into it and swimming through to the other side while your party books it in the other direction.

Boon 2: River Traveler. As a free action, you can grant yourself and any allies within 30 feet of you a swim speed of 60 feet. This effect lasts for 1 round per Hit Die you possess or until you dismiss it as a free action, whichever comes first. Your allies must remain within 30 feet of you or lose this benefit. In addition, you gain a +2 profane or sacred bonus on saves against spells with the Water descriptor.

See, this should have been added to River Scion as a bonus. River Scion and River Traveler feel like they could have combined into a single Boon to make something decent, but as it is they both fall into the same niche: Solves the encounter they’re meant to solve, useless otherwise. This ability is noteworthy for having no restrictions about how many times it can be used, essentially letting you switch swimming off and on at will. The fact it doesn’t take an action is incredibly important, because using the massive 60ft swim speed the ability grants actually removes the bonus, as getting further than 30ft from you makes it fizzle.

I don’t really understand why it would grant 60ft of movespeed if they’re restricted to a 30ft bubble, nor do I understand the purpose of the bubble in the first place. It makes exploration a slog, and escape scenarios more finicky than they should be. Since it can be activated whenever you need to as a free action, the duration feels unneeded. There’s so much about this ability that conflicts with itself that it bugs me too much to say much in the way of positives. The +2 to saves vs Water spells is a fun little ribbon, though most Water spells tend to be harmless utility spells rather than ones you’d need to make a save against.

Boon 3: River’s Depths. 1/day as a standard action, you can cause one creature within 30 feet to begin drowning, filling its lungs with water. The target of this ability can attempt a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Wis mod) to negate the effect. If the target succeeds, it is staggered for 1 round. If it fails, the target immediately begins to suffocate. On the target’s next turn, it falls unconscious and is reduced to 0 hit points. One round later, the target drops to –1 hit points and is dying. One round after that, the target dies. Each round, the target can attempt a Fortitude save to end the effect. This ability affects only living creatures that must breathe and cannot breathe underwater. This is a curse effect.

Now this one’s just insulting, being a technically weaker version of a level 5 spell, Suffocation. It’s weaker in four ways: 1) It fails against creatures which are amphibious which, if you’re in the River Kingdoms, is many. 2) It’s curse effect, which can mean some creatures are resistant or immune to it. 3) It has a 30ft range, unlike Suffocation’s range of Close (25ft + 5ft/level). And, finally, 4) Just ONE successful save ends the effect entirely, while Suffocation continues to torment and stagger the victim for 3 rounds until its effects finally expire.

It’s hard to ignore fact that it’s a basically a Save-Or-Die with excellent DC scaling, but I can’t get over it being weaker than an existing level 5 spell! ... Granted, Suffocation could probably get away with being bumped an extra level or two higher given how frighteningly effective it is at shutting down any creature who needs to breathe even if they succeed their save. I’m probably slamming down too hard on an ability that, again, is a Save-Or-Die at best and an unavoidable stagger at worst (good for making some emergency repairs against a powerful full-attacker), and for extra fun can be used without any components involved, so you can just drop it on someone out of the blue and they’ll have no idea who just tried to kill them. While I am disappointed it doesn’t meet the power of other Boons, it’s undeniably effective against a large portion of the creatures you’ll be fighting, even at 1/day.

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: River Warden. Gain Wave Shield 3/day, Masterwork Transformation 2/day, or Quench 1/day.

Wave Shield is one of those rare spells that are amazing to have, but not especially good to prepare or to waste a precious Spells Known slot on. It’s an immediate action spell that grants insurmountable DR and Fire Resistance equal to half your caster level in response to a single incoming attack, which isn’t stupendous at low levels but is a generous equivalent to immediate, on-demand temporary HP as you get higher and higher level. If a creature relies on a lot of little hits rather than a few big ones, blocking even one of them can save you in the long run, and if your DR cancels out the damage from a poisoned or diseased attack, all the better!

It’s not an especially strong spell given how it only works once before fading away, but it’s better than the other two options by a country mile. Masterwork Transformation is something you’ll rarely need more than a few times in a campaign before masterwork items fall into your laps (or you can simply buy them), and by the time you gain this ability it will likely no longer matter. That being said, if you’re in a low-wealth campaign or have been forced to scavenge for your gear, Masterwork Transformation will save you THOUSANDS of gp over the course of your life, because as a spell-like, the material components are ignored and thus you can slowly upgrade your entire party’s armaments for free. Given its ability to affect a generous 50 pieces of ammunition per casting as well means the Ranger and Gunslinger will adore you, and you can work in tandem with a mystic craftsman (PC or otherwise) to get all of your favorite gear enchanted without discarding your precious family heirloom sword for that masterwork one you looted.

Not to mention the simple joy in taking all the gear off a bandit clan, Masterworking all of it, and selling it for a tidy profit.

Compared to the combat utility of Wave Shield and noncombat utility of Masterwork Transformation, it’s hard to make a case for Quench, which falls into the category of ‘niche spell’ like Water Breathing and Water Walking in that it will instantly solve a handful of scenarios and be utterly useless in the rest. Yes, you may need to put out a forest fire or stop a building you’re in from burning to a crisp, but you’ll have to decide if it’s worth giving up three emergency DR 4/-- and Fire Resistance 4 bandages... as the martial-focused Sentinel. If you plan on fighting a fire that day or encountering a magic item that can generate fires (which Quench shuts off for 1d4 hours) and no one else in your party bothered learning Quench, by all means, but as the Sentinel having the DR is probably better in most cases.

Boon 2: River Champion. 3/day as a standard action, you can sculpt water into the form of a melee weapon that you are proficient with. You must have enough water to form the weapon, an amount equal to the weapon’s normal weight. Once formed, the weapon behaves as a weapon of its type with an enhancement bonus of +1, which increases by 1 for every 5 additional HD you have beyond 5 (max +4). This weapon deals double damage to creatures with the Fire subtype. The weapon dissolves into ordinary water after a number of rounds equal to your HD or as soon as it leaves your hand, whichever happens first.

Boons which call weapons to your hand are alright in cases where your signature weapon has been taken from you, and by the time you receive this ability you will have a signature weapon, but such times tend to come few and far between. This one also has the additional caveat that you don’t actually create the weapon from nowhere, there must already be water around to make it, at least enough water to match the weapon’s typical weight. The good news is that a gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds, and a trident--Hanspur’s holy weapon--weighs only 4, with most other weapons barely ever approaching 10, so you can reasonably carry around an emergency weapon in a waterskin or in your backpack... And you know, now that I think about it, it’s kind of cool to be able to turn a glass of water into a dagger.

But when will you need to? How often do you find yourself bereft of a usable weapon often enough to need an emergency armament like this? I can see the niche in front of me, making a new weapon as-needed against creatures whose DR makes them difficult to damage with your normal gear or taking advantage of that delicious little tidbit about doing double-damage to fire-based creatures, but they take your whole standard action to make and last for only a single combat (if that), and you can’t even shuffle around the +1 bonuses for additional effects!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s by no means bad (unless you’re both in a waterless area and haven’t filled your waterskin), especially at 3/day, but I can’t help but wonder when you’d actually need it at level 11+ when you likely already have a primary weapon and several backups. 

Boon 3: River’s Renewal. When completely submerged in water, you gain Fast Healing 2. You can recover a total number of hit points equal to twice your HD in this manner each day. At 20 HD, if you fall below 0 hit points and your body is fully submerged in a river, you automatically stabilize.

As a final Boon, I wish the Fast Healing had a higher threshold than just 28 points a day (+2 per level). In combat it likely won’t matter, and while out of combat it’s a decent amount of healing, usually enough to spare a couple spell slots from your healers or some potions, it’s just not all that impressive for a third and final Boon. Sentinels are the only followers of Hanspur who don’t get some method to easily navigate the seas, so taking advantage of this Boon to its fullest extent relies on an outside method of gaining water breathing or a swim speed.

Funnily enough, you can carry around a Bag of Holding filled with water and use it as a recuperative pod in case you don’t have access to a deep puddle, which is dubiously useful but not entirely terrible. HOWEVER, the little addition at the end is also a kick in the teeth; why does that only happen at level 20? Why can’t that be a base part of the Boon? It’s just insul--Wait, it only works if you’re submerged in a river, too? You can’t stabilize with some good old pond water? The mighty ocean? Can’t take a dip in a bathtub to stop bleeding out? Come on, Hanspur!!! Be a little more generous to your worshipers!

I dunno, maybe I’m underselling the out-of-combat healing this Boon offers, but it just doesn’t feel worth it to put up with the Water Rat for your entire adventuring career just for an extra 1/8th of an HP bar.

You can read more about him here.

[mollydollyjournals]

It's March 2nd and I'm 157lbs. I'm on my period so that's partly to blame, but then there's also the fact that I drank quite a bit on Feb 28th, and binged. A lot.

I decided I'm going to try to do 30 days of no alcohol. Or maybe all of March, idk. Given that the last day I drank was the day before march 1st it's kind of nicely rounded off so I'll see. But realistically, it's a really long time for me. I might only make it a week. Who knows. I want to say something to my friends and properly document if and stuff, but I'm afraid of failing. I'm already known for being flaky and not following through. I don't want people to just never take me seriously. I even feel nervous about that here, but I should remember this is literally supposed to be an anonymous blog where I can talk about the stuff that troubles me that I can't talk about elsewhere. Alcohol will also tie into food and weight stuff anyway.

I can't remember what I last said here...I know I said about doing loads of cleaning as a workout, and that I wasn't sure if I should try a higher intake with more exercise seeing as I never actually lose anything. Anyway, that. And also that Im basically permanently on a higher antidepressant dose now, which helps me with my energy levels. I hope it doesn't fuck with my metabolism too much more.

So I bought an A5 ring binder planner thing and I decided to use it as a proper weight loss and food diary. They're so damn expensive - I normally get scrapbooks or sketchbooks and use them as kind of joint planner/journal/sketchbook/whatever, but I wanted something where I could easily rearrange the pages. I love cute stationery so whenever I need to motivate myself to do something it's always good for me to do something decorative.

I think I'm going to base the contents kind of on something like this but I want a different look to it and also some different actual contents. I also won't commit to 90 days because I know I do better with smaller increments, and 30 days is already a lot. Or 31 or whatever. I really love the look of Milkjoy planners but they only make them in A6, and sometimes they have sweets as decorative stuff, which I love but I don't want anything that might make me crave junk food. So I'm staying away from food motifs unless it's lemons or carrots or something.

I'm going to have an initial section with info and stuff to reference, so I'll have a list of meal ideas and their nutritional info, a collection of recipes, a place to write out a weekly meal plan (and maybe make a grocery list? But I tend to use my phone for that irl so maybe I won't bother), and a list of various workouts that I could do. Then something relevant to me like nutritional goals (eg calorie limits, protein etc) and places to record my weight, measurements, body fat, overview stuff like that. Then the daily pages with all the stuff I want to do each day and whether I actually do them, weight, food intake etc. Maybe a recap page at the end of each week.

I'm also tempted to put a thinspo section in my info bit at the front, but to do that I'd have to arrange a load of photos to be printed and actually go print them out. My laptop is kind of dead so it'd have to be from my phone which I don't like doing. But then also if I'm gonna keep doing this sort of planner I'd like to draw myself up some proper graphics to print out so I'd have to print stuff anyway eventually. But then to do that I need my laptop working. Idk.

So. It's really my last chance to make any kind of change before my birthday. I feel like I should just push harder at restriction and stuff, but recent experience tells me that's not working. I kind of have nothing to lose (except 52lbs) by trying something else. The idea is I go for a standard "diet" amount of food, so like in the 1000-1500 range, but I do a lot more exercise. This is kind of what I meant to do when I first started this account, but I'll have more exercise this time. When I started this page all I could do was light cardio (see Reps to the Rhythm on YouTube, he's great for when you can't do intense workouts but want to do something) and light stretches and just all light stuff - now with less alcohol and more Prozac I'm able to do a lot more. At least I hope I still am. Going by the cleaning and stuff I did recently, I think I can start doing more in terms of workouts. Idk. I'll have a base amount of food to eat and only eat more if I start getting too weak or tired to do my workouts - essentially, the priority will be having the energy to exercise, rather than restricting my intake.

This is why staying away from alcohol will tie into it a lot. I'm past bad withdrawals so at this point not drinking will help my energy levels and metabolism etc. Today is the 2nd day since I drank, and I don't feel terrible, which means I haven't made myself really sick again. Thank fuck. I drank too much and I started feeling not great and I was scared I'd fucked up again. Last time it took 2 days for me to get really ill so I've been nervous. But I think I'm past the risk zone now.

I do still feel sick and a bit tired. But I think that's also due to my period. I always feel terrible on my period. I'm going to do what I can but I need to know not to push myself too much. If I do that I get exhausted and have to rest and recover and it ends up worse than if I just stayed gentle with myself. Today Ive put my laundry up to dry and I'll try to do something else again later, idk what. But I'll also keep building my planner. All these bits of advice to myself will go into it. I'll write out all the stuff I've been thinking so that it's all in one place and I don't have to remember it all or go between different sites and pages looking for it. I'll move some things around in my studio and make space for my exercise bike because I think I can start on that again soon, and space for proper upper body workouts. I might even set up a PS2 in the lounge so I can play DDR again. Idc what year it is, that is the best HIIT I've ever done and I miss it and I lost so much weight when I used to play it. So I should build myself up to be able to do loads of exercise and see how my body changes - I know that even if I don't lose weight, I'll look better and less flabby and gross. But we'll see how that all goes.

[morshtalon]

Shin Megami Tensei

(Definitely part 3 of a series of posts on the entire franchise)

For the end of MegaTen II, Atlus pulled out all the stops in terms of who you'd meet and what their importance to the lore was. While the ending arguably did leave some room for further escalation, by choosing to continue the story as it was, they'd be agreeing to keep being derivative works in relation to the books that originated their backstory. Sure, it was hardly the case anymore, what with the extreme departures MegaTen II took from the novels, but still. I guess the relative corner the writers got themselves backed into, combined with the clamor to have a more independent franchise on their hands, prompted them to scrap their established continuity and kick off a new one of their own. Whatever the real case was, it was definitely a smart choice, and thus was born Shin Megami Tensei, a way for them to keep their profitable series going. Also probably a much better game than a MegaTen III would have been.

Anyway, with a new continuity, possibilities were endless. They could better retread grounds they had already covered in the previous two games (well, really just MTII, since the first one barely even had anything going on), and expand upon ongoing themes while not having to worry about the usual expectation for a sequel in terms of magnitude and impact. Given that, it's unsurprising that, in comparison to MTII, this game dials things down a notch, relegating most of the more classical power fantasy stuff to the third act and preferring to engage in more character-driven events while leading up to it. None of the final enemies in SMT are as powerful as the ones in MTI and II (in story terms, actual battle stats notwithstanding) and the influence of cosmic forces that would have been enemies fought directly in the titles so far takes on a distant, more psychological approach (for the most part), unable to be challenged by the player. This helps build them as respectable overarching threats, and keeps the setting more subdued and the stakes higher, since it feels like characters are acting under the banner of things so powerful the player shouldn't even think themselves able to scratch them. It's good not to stat things sometimes, and it's quite impressive that they exercised this restraint way back in 1992.

For the demons that ARE fought, though, the artists really put their all into it this time. Even compared to games in the series's near future, I think this is the best looking they would be for a while. I mean, sure, Majin Tensei later on would have more detailed graphics, but I feel the art itself was worse there, with some weird proportions and a lot of palette swaps, while this game keeps things more consistently good overall.

Naturally, one longstanding tradition of the franchise introduced in SMT was the philosophical axis of Law vs. Chaos and the branching story that allowed the player to sit in any one point of the spectrum, with a modified final act depending on your decisions up to a certain point and where in the axis they would leave you once this point is reached. This system was partly a logical progression of the two endings from MTII and partly a way to integrate gameplay significance into what was already the grand point of SMT's storyline. While a good idea on paper and certainly innovative for its time and context, the warring faction-based story meant that as far as the plot is concerned, Law vs. Chaos pertains more to which of the factions you're appeasing with your decisions rather than any particularly lawful or chaotic behavior. There are some things that shift your alignment that have to do with being lawful or chaotic, but those lie mostly outside of the plot, in small actions that only serve to bring things one way or the other on infinitesimal increments and are meant more as an extra level of thought put into the system to label certain actions that were always there. The parallelisms between one faction and the other (i.e. temples that are identical in functionality; quests that consist of killing the other faction's quest-giver or vice-versa), together with certain easily exploitable ways to shift the alignment variable any way you want (so that you can play the game being entirely chaotic up to the crucial point where your alignment is locked, then right before that, exploit the mechanics to bring yourself to Law without having done anything lawful throughout the rest of the game), make the whole alignment system feel arbitrary, or at least the actual coded-in gameplay layer of it. I feel like maybe having only the unrepeatable story decisions actually affect alignment could help mitigate this somewhat. Then again, as I said, the story stuff doesn't feel much like the player being lawful or chaotic, so... I don't know.

Regardless of which path you take, you are going to get into a lot of fights. The game plays basically exactly like MTII, with an overhead top-down overworld and first-person dungeon crawling once you enter an area. This time around, very few areas are safe from enemy encounters, which makes sense since you're mostly just walking around Tokyo and a lot of first-person areas are just sections of the city that are populated (and besides, all of Tokyo is under threat from the demons). It made me realize that it's actually the typical RPG that opts to be nonsensical about the no-monsters-in-towns rule, but I'd be damned if that's not a smart choice on the part of the typical RPG. There are so many random encounters in this game, it's a common occurence for you to get several 1-step fights in a row. When I play an RPG, there's usually a point where I get really bored of always fighting enemies, then I finally escape the dungeon I'm in or go into a town and it's a big relief, like I can finally walk around and talk to people without having to stop dead in my tracks to fight the same enemy I already proved I can beat five hundred times before. Not so much in this game, and you'll definitely be crying out for an Estoma or a Fuma Bell most of the time. If you even know these two things act like repels in Pokémon and realize how useful they are.

If you don't know, however, you're going to need a lot of patience, because once again the game is very easy. Aside from, once again, a difficult earlygame, especially if you didn't put the right stat points into your protagonist (read: vitality and speed), the same basic problems from the previous two games' core concept of walking around and fighting dudes can be found here, but this time guns have ammo. Ammo doesn't actually count how many bullets you have left, it's just an extra thing you can equip that gives your gun attack an extra property such as more damage or a status effect. Thing is, status effects have an absurdly high hit rate in this game, work on most bosses, and there's a type of ammo that causes the "enthralled" status effect, which makes the target attack their own allies. Once you've got your hands on it, the game has been effectively turned into an interactive movie, even easier than the NES ones. Even without it, magic always seems to go before physical attacks, and both lightning and ice spells can stop an enemy for the current turn, so you'll likely always find a way to trivialize encounters within your disposal if you're just playing the game normally, even if you didn't realize it. With good speed, lightning or ice spells at your disposal and some status effect ammo, nothing will ever be able to stop you, no matter how hard they try. Once again, it's a preparations game, and that auto-battle button will get an intense workout this time around. I actually cleared the entire final dungeon under the effect of consecutive Fuma Bells, because of the combined effect a high encounter rate and the knowledge that the bosses could not stop me had on my brain. It's all about knowing which things are actually useful and which aren't, so it's actually just about struggling until the point you figure it out, then blazing through the game's fights half-asleep.

Still, battles notwithstanding, I think the exploration is more masterful than ever this time around. There isn't any significant portion of the game where you're clearly going after McGuffins, the whole story is pretty tightly paced and the balance between open-endedness and plot progression is well kept. There is a clearly evolving status quo for the entire setting of the game, and each time a major change happens new areas are made available while others are locked away. You can feel the effect the events of the narrative are having on the whole scenario, and the progression creates a bit of a disorienting effect as you attempt to find your way to the next significant location (which can and very well may cause you to get hopelessly lost on occasion, but that's part of the experience, I think). It's a pretty admirable blend of elements working together to create a continuous experience. This bleeds over into the characters themselves, who have evolving arcs and, for the most part, continue to be relevant and to have all sorts of crazy things happen to them through the course of the game. Consider it a much more mature attempt to do the sort of character-based revolving scheme that Final Fantasy IV also tried to do.

Overall, this is a game that further plays around with story concept brought over from MTII, experiments somewhat with new ways to go through some of its story beats, and creates a character-based narrative that goes through admirable amounts of change, to the point you can feel the whole cast working through their arcs as things escalate and reach a fever pitch. The gameplay is significantly less refined, though, and, admittedly, even the respectable things in SMT have struggled to stand the test of time, especially when you consider what later SMTs and SMT spinoffs would go on to do. I think this earns the original a 6.5 out of 10, my first non-integer score. It's damn respectable and admirable for 1992, but it has so many outdated things in it that it's hard to actually get oneself into the proper mentality to admire it unless you actually make the conscious decision to play the series in chronological release order. But who would be masochistic enough to do that, right?

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

Alternate scene

This is the scene I originally wrote for Chapter 1 of Continue Travels of Cophine, Part 3, where Cosima cures Avigail in Tel Aviv. I didn’t include it in the posted version because I wasn’t (and I’m still not) sure of the medical accuracy, but rereading it, I kind of like it. 

“Uh, hey, Avigail? How much do you know about this treatment?”

Avigail laughed a little. “Dr. Bronstein, she says that it will, em, help me. Is it true?”

“Yeah. It's true.” Cosima unzipped her medical bag and removed the case of medication, directing everything to Avigail's line of sight despite her functional blindness. “So, here's the deal. Since you've already developed symptoms, the actual administration of the treatment kind of sucks. It's not a lot of fun.”

Avigail nodded. “I know. My, em...” She gestured towards her hand, which bore a large compression bandage. “For the blood. Not very good.”

“Her veins are collapsing,” Dr. Bronstein provided, “from so many IVs.”

“Oh. Well, that's not actually going to be an issue at all.” Cosima took two blue gloves from the box Dr. Bronstein offered her and put them on. Then she opened the hard plastic case and prepared Avigail's first treatment. While she worked, she explained what she was doing, and Avigail's eyes stayed vaguely directed at Cosima's hairline. There were sores all around Avigail's mouth, which she licked often. Those should clear up soon, too. 

“The treatment will actually go into your uterus,” Cosima said. “Which sounds super unpleasant, I know, but actually is not the worst place to get a shot.”

Dr. Bronstein cut in again, speaking in Hebrew with Cosima's name mixed in.

“You?” Avigail pointed to Cosima. “You are also sick? Like me?”

“I was sick, yeah. Not as bad as you, but the same disease.” The syringe was ready, but Cosima sat and looked at Avigail's face before moving forward. “I had seizures, too, and coughed up blood, and all that stuff. I know what it's like. I know how scary it is.”

Avigail might have spoken then, but a cough shook her torso, and she spat up a bloody blob of mucus into Cosima’s proffered cup. “Not much more of that, thankfully,” Cosima told her, and patted her back. “Are you ready?”

Avigail nodded. Dr. Bronstein directed her to lay back, and Cosima took her position at the foot of Avigail's bed.

“We used to do this through the abdomen,” Cosima told them both, “and we didn't always have an ultrasound machine handy.” Seeing Dr. Bronstein's eye brows shoot up, Cosima nodded. “Yeah, luckily we have pretty good aim. This way's a lot more accurate, though.”

“Out of curiosity,” Dr. Bronstein asked, “what do you do if the woman has no uterus?”

Cosima paused and decided not to mention Tony or his particular situation. It his case it hadn’t even mattered since he was asymptomatic. “We haven't encountered that yet, actually, but that's a really good question.”

“Hmm.” Dr. Bronstein instructed Avigail to raise her knees and spread her feet. As she pulled up Avigail's gown, she remarked, “a hysterectomy was considered for Avigail, some time ago, after the uterine masses were discovered. That was before I took over her care.”

“Well, by the time serious symptoms have manifested, the disease has usually progressed far enough that I'm not sure a hysterectomy would have been beneficial.”

“I understand, and I agree, but at the time her situation was not so clear cut.”

Now Dr. Bronstein stood beside Avigail's bed and rested a hand on Avigail's thin shoulder, leaving Cosima suddenly anxious. Avigail's legs were skeletal and dotted with worrisome scabs and scars, but that was not cause of the anxiety.

Cosima had seen a fair number of vaginas in her life, and had inserted a few things into them, but never a needle. And never had vagina been identical to her own.

Not identical, she told herself. Identical at birth, but we've developed differently. Our bodies have born different stressors, consumed different diets...

Delphine has seen them.

She shook her head. Those were thoughts for an entirely different time.

Once she located Avigail’s uterus, the treatment was done in two minutes. Cosima discarded the syringe in the sharps container on the wall and her gloves in the biohazard bin. Avigail gripped Dr. Bronstein's sweater and spoke to her in Hebrew while Cosima closed up her bag.

“How long should we expect to wait before seeing results?” Dr. Bronstein asked.

Cosima directed her answer to Avigail. “A couple of days, tops, before you start feeling better, but it won't be all at once. You'll need to have more doses, spaced out at increasing time increments, before you're totally in the clear. Those doses, though, thankfully, can be administered in the upper arm, right here.” She touched the spot on Avigail's arm where they would go. “Today was just to get your body started.”

[lacquerware]

Mega Man should stop presenting its flaws as indispensable features

When I was fifteen, I learned to play the song Malagueña on the piano. It was a laborious project; the culmination of nine years of piano lessons under the tutelage of Mrs. Diane Miller, and the main event for her upcoming student showcase.

This arrangement of the piece was a seven-pager, and somewhere around page four was a problem phrase I kept playing wrong, a rapid two-handed run up the keyboard with tricky fingering. I got to a point where I could play flawlessly up to that phrase, only to flub the phrase every time. Each time I flubbed it, my teacher would stop me and send me back to page 2. “You have to perfect that phrase,” she would say, “so try it again, but first play the preceding two pages, so it’s no longer fresh in your mind by the time you get to it again.” Alas, this would result in more flubs, and after three flubs in a row she would send me back to the beginning of the entire piece. “You’re still not getting it,” she’d say. “So I think we should run through the stuff you’ve already mastered one more time.” I would glance at her, trying to read her intent, and she would stare back at me, bug-eyed and malevolent.

The above story is false,because Mrs. Miller was a kind, intelligent, and non-insane person. Like all people of that description, she understood that you don’t work out a problem area by indiscriminately repeating ALL PRACTICE. When you get one problem wrong on a math quiz, you don’t review the entire textbook. You don’t work on your free throws by drilling layups and then also free throws. You can’t learn to poach an egg by toasting English fucking muffins all day. To suggest otherwise is an act of hostility.

Mega Manhas always carried this hostility. The game dishes out its challenges in neat little screen-sized units, but penalizes your failures with gratuitous setbacks, often requiring you to replay entire stages from the beginning. This makes learning inordinately tedious. You have to retread every yard for every yard gained.

I guess this is a relic of the arcade age, when games were designed with the express intent of punishing players—unless they paid up. Indeed, most of Mega Man’s NES contemporaries inherited this same feature in the form of finite lives and scarce checkpoints, but it never made much sense on home consoles. You could argue that it prolonged the lifespan of each game, but that only held true for the masochists who continued to tolerate this torturous system rather than reallocate all that wasted time to more fruitful pursuits like, I dunno, learning to play piano or poach an egg.

I’ve always liked Mega Man, but it was already starting to feel like a tired concept as early as Mega Man IV. I was about eight years old by then, and starting to catch on that they were running out of boss motifs. Pharaoh Man felt like a red flag.

Mega Man has since proliferated into a multi-faceted franchise spanning more than 120 titles and three decades (and for the record, I’ve played through almost all of them), but it’s never really dispensed with its ancient baggage. Mega Man X brought new visual flare while diversifying the core action; Mega Man Zero imbued the series canon with new consequence and cool factor; Mega Man ZX fused the classic gameplay with the Metroidvania template; but all of these spin-offs continued to punish, punish, punish, to gatekeep their content from the series’ own consumers to no certain end.

When Capcom revealed Mega Man 9, I was momentarily taken with the nostalgia of it, but quickly lost interest when I realized that Capcom had no intent of evolving the series’ concepts, even in basic quality-of-life ways. Lives and weapon energy were still pointlessly commodified, checkpoints sadistically scarce. They’d even removed what few innovations the series had seen to date, such as the slide and the charge shot. Nor did the roster of Robot Masters appear any more inspired than the cast of rejects that had turned me off five installments prior. Capcom had had seventeen years to think about it and all they’d come up with were lame analogs of pastbosses, like Tornado Man and Magma Man. It’s like they thought they hadto retread the same shit beat for beat or people would get confused. Even their ace, Splash Woman, was just another in a long line of water-themed bosses.

Mega Man 10 as a follow-up was downright depressing. Strike Man, Pump Man, and Chill Man are what you get when you realize yesterday was the deadline and all you’ve got is a pen and a cocktail napkin. I can’t fathom that a bunch of game designers sat around brainstorming ideas for Mega Man fucking 10 and someone was like, “Hmm, what about an ice-themed boss.”

Now we have Mega Man 11, the long-awaited, belligerently-demanded revival of the MM franchise after some eight years of dormancy. After playing the demo, I find myself wondering why. Why are we here? Why is Mega Man 11 Capcom’s answer after saying no to Mega Man for eight years? It’s the SAME.

Yes, it looks and sounds nicer and there’re a couple new mechanics—which are themselves comically uninspired takes on the ancient tropes of bullet time* and Devil Trigger—but I’m mystified at how unchanged the formula still is after eight years of seemingly adamant dismissal of the entire franchise, let alone the thirty-one years they could’ve been critically examining it. Do they realize that other developers have been building on this genre since the eighties?

*Weird side note: The tutorial for Mega Man’s new “Speed Gear” ability explains that the gear makes you “move so fast that everything else seems slow,” but in practice Mega Man moves just as slowly as everything else. So it’s not Mega Man who’s moving fast, it’s. . . the player?  

Punishment as “Difficulty”

In the Block Man (lol) stage of the demo, there’s a section where you have to jump and slide through elaborate platforms as they scroll toward you, an insta-kill grinding device nipping at your heels all the while. The third platform has very peculiar collision detection, such that your head bonks against the empty space you’re supposed to jump through, seemingly rendering the challenge impossible. This is several screens into the stage but still prior to the first checkpoint (on Normal mode), so every time this platform killed me, I had to start the entire stage over. After about fifteen tries, I discovered that the collision doesn’t trigger if you’re holding left as you make the jump—an illogical thing to do unless you’ve died so many times you’ve run out of other ideas. By the time I cracked this idiosyncrasy, I’d already spent close to an hour replaying the preceding screens over and over for no reason. Why is this still a thing? This is punishment, not difficulty. It contributes to the challenge only in that it makes the experience less fun, “challenging” your resolve to continue playing. Think of all the origami you could be learning. All the old ladies you could be helping cross streets.

The Mega Man games are quite clever in the way they parse out the platforming and shooting in little bite-sized units. Each screen is essentially an action puzzle for you to solve. It would be so logical for each screen break to be a checkpoint, because each screen break isa checkpoint—the start of the next challenge. Games like Super Meat Boy do this, meting (meating?) out their challenges in bite-sized, infinitely repeatable increments. Nobody accuses Super Meat Boy of being too easy because it doesn’t make you repeat the shit you’ve already completed when you fail at the current task. If you wantthat kind of punishment, no one’s stopping you from resetting the game.

Mega Man 11 adds a “Casual” mode which increases the number of checkpoints, but it’s still annoying to me that the more punishing model is treated as the norm while the more logical distribution of checkpoints is treated as a concession. Soulsplayers will tell me to “git gud,” but that’s why I led with the piano analogy. I got damn good at Malagueña, and I still had time left over to do my homework and play video games.

Special Weapons

Using your Special Weapons in Mega Man games is like spending the money you might need to pay rent on stuff you could be getting for free through your well-connected friend Dave. The trial-and-error pairing of the right weapon and the right boss is such an integral part of Mega Man’s progression that any other use of anyspecial weapon becomes a high-risk gamble—unless, of course, you just Google the answers.

I understand the need to impose limits on the more powerful weapons, but games have figured out countless better ways to do this in the thirty-one years since Mega Man 1. Cool-down times. Cool-down meters. Recovery proportional to damage inflicted. Recovery proportional to damage received. Recovery by way of skillful attack, à laMetal Gear Rising. Enemy fire absorption à la Alien Soldier and Radiant Silvergun. Ranger X on the Sega Genesis had solar-powered special weapons; why not steal that idea for this game’s allegedly solar-powered protagonist?

Instead, even in its eleventh installment in two-thousand-goddamn-eighteen, Mega Man still employs an RNG-based item drop system. Replenishing your meter is as simple and menial as finding an enemy spawn point and brainlessly standing and shooting until an enemy happens to drop the energy you need. Don’t forget to cycle over to the gun you want to replenish, or else the battery is wasted, as if Mega Man just eats it by mistake.*

*Later games in the series introduced the Energy Balancer, a purchasable item which automatically refills the weapon that needs refilling even if you don’t have it selected. Why is that a thing you have to buy? Why put a fundamental improvement to the game behind a paywall, virtual or otherwise?

Meanwhile, MM11still employs the same bizarre meter continuity between deaths as past installments. Each death means repeating sections of the stage without reacquiring any previously spent meter, effectively creating a difficulty vortex—the harder this game is, the harder it gets. There was a ruthlessly capitalistic logic to this in the arcade days,but the Mega Man series has never been coin-operated (with a few obscure exceptions). It hasnevermade sense that, often, the best strategy is to voluntarily leap to your death over and over to force a Game Over, just to restart with a full weapon meter as an alternative to the tedium of refilling it manually or facing the boss without it. What is the explanation for this meter continuity in the first place? Are we supposed to think Mega Man is repeatedly exploding and materializing but he can’t materialize a few extra shots from his bubble gun while he’s at it? There’s a multi-faceted idiocy to this whole system.

Rush

Capcom ought to take a long, hard look at Rush, Mega Man’s transforming robot dog companion. It’s hard to believe the same guy who invented a fully autonomous solar-powered robot boy couldn’t design a dog-shaped spring that runs on renewable energy. Special weapons are one thing, but why does Rush have an exhaustible meter? He’s a fucking spring. It makes no sense as a narrative detail nor as an element of game design. What exactly are the designers trying to limit? Your ability to spam high jumps? The logistics of the Rush Coil already do that; you have to set him up like a lawn ornament and he peaces out after a single bound. He’s unspammable, even with a full bar. To begin with, there are rarely that many useful opportunities to use the Rush Coil within a single stage, and energy power-ups are infinite as long as you’re willing to endure the chore of finding them, so it’s not as though the game is challenging you to budget your resources—it’s just discouraging you from searching for those meaningful jump opportunities in the first place. It’s driving you to Google.

Bosses

The Robot Masters have always received special star treatment in the Mega Man games but rarely been very interesting as boss fights. You know the deal: dodge the dizzying hail of projectiles in an empty square room while desperately scrambling to land enough hits with the weakness weapon before you die. Considering all the fanfare these bosses get (mug shot, intro screen, and now reveal trailers), most of them feel kind of interchangeable. Most of them have nearly identical silhouettes and shoot functionally redundant projectiles in superficially different shapes. Every gun is a Lucky Charms marshmallow.

The boss fights actually do seem a little more interesting in Mega Man 11—Block Man in particular stands out with his mid-fight transformation into a hulking colossus. I’d hoped to see more of this in future Mega Mans—fights that evolve and really set each Robot Master apart as a distinct embodiment of its corresponding motif—so maybe they’re onto something this time. Still, it’s a little ridiculous that this game has yet another fire boss, electricity boss, cold boss, and bomb boss. Why are we still here?

Before the mob comes for me, I want to stress that there’s always been lots to love about Mega Man, and I’m glad Capcom is investing in the IP again. I just hope this is the start of a long-term effort to reevaluate and improve the series, not another short-sighted extension of a tired status quo.