#out of all the video games i would be playing in that timeframe (and making him try out hehe) that is the one that he would get ADDICTED to

[cherry-bomb-ships]

One thing I've rly liked abt self inserting in PPG is that the time frame in my mind is 1999-2002 so when it comes to media my s/i engages with, I'm trying to keep that in mind and think about all the stuff that came out around that time that I love irl, so of course I'd be a fan of it back then too uwu

Look this is just my long winded prelude to saying that when the first Pikmin game drops in 2001, I would totally make Mojo a fan of it ehehehe 💖💖💖💖💖

[nabi-unveiled]

Catching Up: Love for Love's Sake (Ep 1)

During the tag game a little while ago, it seemed like there was a character from this show on almost everyone's list. Anytime a character or show becomes that ubiquitous, I become curious. Especially since the show's over a year old by now. Recency bias couldn't be the main factor.

I had to reload iQIYI several times before subtitles began working, but the opening shot already had me intrigued.

It made my brain automatically race with questions.

Because apparently someone is looking for this person...

Even if the bell reminds me of my incredibly annoying alarm clock from high school.

All of this running is reminding me of a post I have in my draft graveyard about the importance of movement in emotional sequences. Not relevant right now.

Ooooo. So the box is going to be a thing is it? Unlike the first one, this one has bells on it so it appears to be a notification of some sort. It looks like a video game in some ways. "Love Supremacy Zone" could be taken multiple ways. I don't have enough evidence to make a call yet.

I do know that it's making me very nervous to have whoever this is on the roof and standing like that. I'm hoping this just means it's a show with rooftop scenes rather than this being a jumper type scene. In my former job, I had to cope with several teenage suicides, and my grandfather ended his life about a year ago. It's not a hard limit or major trigger for me, but it will make me emotional if we're going there.

Apparently the person on the roof is our missing person. So it'll be okay. The runner will intervene if this is a jump scene.

Ok, I don't know who this person is...

But I already love them from the intro. Watching them struggle to get over the wall with their adorkable styling was an instant delight. However, we know I make snap judgments and often regret them later. Only time will tell.

The fact that the episode is named after an emotion makes me leery. Does this mean other episodes are also assigned emotions? Cue up the angst I guess. (Actually, please do. I love angst.)

There's a cornflower. That's interesting. Blue cornflowers are highly symbolic. They carry meaning in several different cultures and religions.

There's folklore related to men wearing them as a sign of love. If the color faded, the love wasn't returned. Girls wore them as a sign they were eligible to marry in some cultures. They also have connections to Christian symbolism, Greek mythology and several historical references if I remember correctly 🤔. None of this is probably important. We don't know if they'll be used symbolically yet. For now, they're just a flower.

I'm trying to figure out if we're jumping forward in the timeline, because my boy here is drowning himself in drinks. And while this other dude basically said "slow down", he didn't say "stop" so we must be out of high school. I'm going with this is a different timeframe. It's definitely a different vibe from the beginning.

And there are too many references to death and happy endings in a short time frame. My spidey senses do not like these types of phrases. They mention the book being turned into a video game which makes me think my earlier thought about the box on screen looking like a game was correct. The question "Would anyone want to play it?" makes me wonder where they're going with that thread.

Yeah, me too. I know it's terrible, but I often get bored with super-sweet shows. It's why I often fast forward through date sequences. Don't get me wrong - I watch the sweet shows. But I'd rather that sweetness be tempered with some actual emotional turmoil and tension.

Our drinker says it bothers him that our missing person is the only only one who's miserable.

I take it this dude is meant to represent all of typical society. Just bury my head in the sand and ignore other people's problems as long as I'm living a good life. I have a bitter taste in my mouth about it so I'm glad our drinker calls him on it and says that it's "vile" that some people are destined to that kind of life.

I did not expect this conversation to go here. That's a loaded question. There is obviously a lot of subtext, because this guy knows things that I'm not privy to at the moment. But it's a great question. You can complain. But does it matter if you're not going to do something about it?

We're definitely jumping timeframes. We're now back in high school. The sound is very distorted like in a dream world. It sounds like running water to me. I definitely stopped and restarted thinking the sound had gotten messed up in my app again. It happens a lot.

Actually, have we time jumped?

Uh oh. I didn't realize this show involved time jumps. That's such a tricky, tricky mechanism to use well. Most of the time it falls flat or leads to massive narrative holes. I'm going to trust that most of you wouldn't be recommending this show if that was the case though.

And the video game box is back. That means our earlier scene involved the time jumper. The Love Supremacy Zone has been activated after all.

Ok. I'm still not sure how I feel about the time jumping, but I'm loving the gaming aspect. Everyone in my house games (including me). If time is limited, I'll choose shows over games. But I love shows that execute gaming tropes and references. A lot of these are anime like Solo Leveling or Delicious in Dungeon, but there are a few live action ones (Love 020 or Falling Into Your Smile). Actually, I even enjoy the shows like Missions of Love that are objectively pretty bad. It's not a common framing device in a BL so I'm really curious how it'll be used.

The addition of the gaming aspect makes me wonder if this is a blackout dream. Like he'll figure out what "could" have been and then use that knowledge when he goes back to his current time.

And now I'm confused. That's ok. Myung-ha is too. Blackout dream seems like the most likely option unless we're bringing in some kind of fantasy/magic aspect.

I've missed what Shinyeop is, but apparently it's connected to the senior writing a book and adapting it into a game.

No thanks. I'll pass. Life is INFINITELY better as an adult. Even with all of the adult responsibilities, I never go "man, I wish I could go back to high school".

I'm glad your memory has been restored and that the game aspect is going smoothly, but I need to know more about this cutie. Like...now.

I have so many theories and thoughts running through my head. So the missing man has similarities to Myung-ha? Did his senior base him off of Myung-ha? This question feels very different now than it did earlier, and we definitely have some fantasy music vibes now. Did I just miss the vibe earlier or is this purposeful reframing? Could go either way.

I don't trust "senior" though. He seems like a man with his own agenda rather than seriously looking out for Myung-ha's well-being.

I'm also realizing that I shouldn't call this a "time jump". It's really an alternate reality scenario. The distinction is important, because the two setups have different potential narrative problems.

Ahhh! I cannot express how much I am loving the gaming aspect. We're now on a timed mission to prevent our missing man from hurting his leg. I guess he WAS going to jump?

I do wonder why Myung-ha isn't questioning the fact that his senior managed to trap him in a game.

There isn't any way I would've made it in time. I might could've made it as a teenager. I could run a 7.5 minute mile on average back then, but I didn't ever do more than 2 miles at a time. But now? No way.

I felt this line in my soul. I doubt it will be mine, but I feel like this would be a lovely epitaph. Whether it's positive or negative would be up to interpretation of whoever viewed the stone decades later. Lol.

Affection level is at -20. LMAO. Time to start building up some hearts. Do some quests. Give some liked or loved gifts. Find the NPC that gives you all of the important clues and needed information. Please let that be our cutie in glasses.

Myung-ha says he was sent by Yeowoon's grandmother. I can't decide if this is genius or a low move. Using his halmeoni to manipulate him? I guess if it stops him from doing stupid stuff that destroys his life, then I'll support it.

😂😂😂 Apparently, "offers ice cream to comfort people" needs to be a list. Since Let Free the Curse, I'm now noticing ice cream in a lot of places. Apparently Yeowoon's flavor choice is unexpected. Lol. Myung-ha didn't have enough money. Ah, red bean. Yeah, I've tried it. Not my favorite ice cream flavor. This reminds me that I still need to make garlic ice cream to try. It's warming up so I'll break out the ice cream maker soon.

I love the debuff effect. Myung-ha seems intelligent which I appreciate. But he keeps talking about going home, and I'm really wondering where his home is in this world.

Obviously our virtual world pre-loaded that information. I doubt that's what we'd find if we googled it. I'm betting we'd find this show actually. Could also be a song or book title. I might test it after my watch. Regardless, I'm glad Myung-ha knows his main objective now.

OMG. Did Yeowoon try it because that's what Myung-ha had picked out? Plus, this is a delightful way to get the information. It's like a quest log being updated. I have not tried chestnut-flavored ice cream.

Yeowoon needs someone for sure. It sucks. Especially if his grandmother was his main person in life. My grandfather wasn't my main person, but he was an important person to me. I still get emotional when things remind me of him.

😢 Is this HIS grandmother? He just said "it hadn't changed". Has his past merged into this virtual world? That's going to be hard for Myung-ha as it seemed like he had lost his grandmother in the bar scene. But this is also going to be hard for Yeowoon who just lost his.

Grandma has eyes. She immediately clocks the funeral clothes and that our boy Yeowoon is a handsome one.

Yeowoon is wondering if this is about pity. It's a fair question. Apparently Myung-ha fought a lot as a teen.

Aww, Myung-ha's leveling up. His affection level is now at -10.

I got distracted by the mural. I love public art.

But I'm going to assume my translation app is wrong. It translated the quote as "I think of the holy and beautiful thoughts in the fact that I am guarding that gun."

Myung-ha chooses to sit closer to Yeowoon on the bus.

Uh oh. Debuff is active. The purple aura surrounding our person getting on the bus is sending me. It's so video game coded. Myung-ha better get ready to defend.

Myung-ha speaks and the potential bullies notice his nametag. The fights his grandma mentioned must be well known. They back down.

Myung-ha is learning the rules:

The love supremacy zone is a 5m region surrounding Cha Yeowoon.

Negative affection levels leads to debuffs and consequences.

This is important in every game. Myung-ha reasons that this means he needs to stay outside of the zone. But I'm not sure that Myung-ha's logic is sound here. Staying outside of the zone will make it harder to level up affection. Especially if he can counter the debuffs as easily as he has so far.

Yes. I know this is really talking about the game rules, and on that score - maybe. But on the relationship side, something good would happen for both of you. Because Myung-ha is obviously lonely too. You can tell from our bar scene that his life wasn't a picnic. He needs a reset too.

Oh. Poor baby Yeowoon is distracted and running slow. He doesn't understand why Myung-ha is avoiding him.

And our bullies are threatening to "teach him a lesson". I can't get a read yet on if this is going to be one of those bullies that mellows, and we're expected to understand eventually.

Or is this one just an actual bully that I can hate on? It does look like Myung-ha is a problem for him. And this makes me wonder if averting the jump only delayed the potential for getting hurt.

Who's Sangwon? Apparently our bully isn't the top dog of his pack.

Yay! My cutie is back and we now have a name for him - Kyunghoon.

He IS our NPC with the information! Love it! Myung-ha says he doesn't hit kids, but...we'll see.

I love that Yeowoon ran after Myung-ha down the hall, and that the music has a video game quality to it.

Myung-ha informs Yeowoon that he needs to like him more for them to be close together. That will definitely be misunderstood.

The fact that he's not questioning this "trapped in a game" situation is still throwing me for a loop. Just what does he know about his senior? Or is he the type that just accepts things and goes with the flow? I still feel like that would be a big ask in this scenario.

Yeowoon calls Myung-ha to ask if he likes him. He also says that yes, Myung-ha does look like he would beat someone up. I'm enjoying how direct both of these characters are with each other.

The affection level has went up to -7. And we've now been given a time limit on our mission to make Yeowoon happy - 300 days. But there's a penalty if you fail.

Is this Yeowoon's death? Myung-ha's death? Would it translate to death in his real world? Would it mean that he died in the virtual world and got taken back to real life? He did say he wanted to stay here.

Actually.....does that mean that IF he succeeds, this world becomes his new, permanent world? I'm not 100% sure how I feel about that, but it does seem like an avenue to a happy ending. Hmm. That's going to be something I have to ponder on. It's a conundrum in any show that plays with alternate realities (comic, game, etc.). It's one of the trickiest aspects of this type of premise.

I had seen some GIFs of this show, but I hadn't expected or anticipated this framework AT ALL. It looks like Myung-ha's going to have to quickly adjust to this new reality too. We're counting down 300 days.

[americankimchi]

the way im sitting here thinking about how i wouldve rewritten veilguard in a way that's feasible wrt worldstates + actually shipping the game out in a realistic timeframe.... i'm fully sympathetic to the game devs because the thought of having to integrate three entire games of branching choices is a daunting prospect even from a narrative standpoint, nevermind figuring out how to express it in a game. there's no way i can think of where the end result would've been satisfactory to everyone, so i can understand from a purely practical standpoint why they did what they did for veilguard.

that being said:

i seriously disapprove of the way that everything done pre-veilguard was wiped off the face of thedas. like, sure, keeping track of minutia that has no bearing on the story beyond the moment itself is kind of stupid. like why would my rook care if the HoF reclaimed king cailan's armor. that makes no sense. but including the extremely pertinent world history defining events wouldn't have been too big a stretch, and honestly should have stayed in the game. it gives the world depth. it gives the world life. for example establishing whether the HoF survived via dark ritual vs. went down in a blaze of glory during the 5th blight, ritual be damned, seems kind of pertinent, especially in a game dealing with the consequences of the blight. i didn't expect or even want a cameo of the HoF, but perhaps a single nod via codex entry (or throwaway voice line from morrigan) to the game that kickstarted the ENTIRE franchise isn't outside the scope of expectations when crafting a sequel to it.

honestly i think the way they handled the hawke vs. corypheus situation in inquisition was the perfect solution to it. there was a significant portion of those who played da2 that didn't bother with the dlc prior to playing inquisition and were baffled when that connection was established in game. the 'default' state of inquisition was that hawke fought corypheus. why didn't they just do that for veilguard?

like yes, having a 'default' worldstate would've rankled feathers, but it's a significant improvement over not having one at ALL.

"but cindy," you might say, "we did have worldstates. we got to pick the inquisitor's appearance, what they did with the inquisition, who they romanced, and their intentions wrt resolving the solas situation!"

yes, that's true. and the only impact those choices had was a few lines of dialogue here and there. flavor text. pretty pathetic to reduce a 70+ hour game to just a few lines, but at least it was something. which is why i don't understand why they didn't do the same for dao and da2. it's stupid to expect a cameo from both the HoF or hawke and honestly if that happened i'd be pissed because it would be stealing the spotlight from rook in favor of shoehorning in nostalgia bait, but letters? codex entries? lines of dialogue? all fully doable. if they wanted to take down the keep, at least reinstate the 'default' worldstate where the dalish warden died in dao. we KNOW it exists. why not just reuse it?

ESPECIALLY since the main antagonist in veilguard is solas. he has so much guilt tied to the blight, the elves, and the veil. there's such a rich opportunity for story telling there and i genuinely cannot believe they didn't attempt to bring it up even once.

OR the conflict between the mages and the templars, a massive mainstay from all three previous games... just done away with? not even a footnote? there are some people who don't even know what a circle is, through no fault of their own! the game doesn't take the time to establish crucial pieces of world lore! and for what? do first-time players even know what a divine is? andraste? arlathan and tevinter and the bloody history therein?

they don't need to rehash EVERYTHING, but why on earth does the fourth entry in a video game series feel so disconnected from the previous three? if that was going to be the case, why not just set it even further in the future, after solas has already won and the veil is torn down and history matters only in that nobody remembers it anymore?

a post-apocalyptic version of thedas where the worldstates prior to solas tearing down the veil doesn't matter because that thedas doesn't exist anymore. that would've satisfied me. it would've been a bitter satisfaction, but i would've understood it. who cares who rules orlais if orlais no longer exists?

genuinely i don't understand why they made dragon age veilguard the way they did. it's like they tried to do a remake before the original version was even out. who was this game even made for? first-timers, obviously, as the game itself is enjoyable from a purely fantasy game perspective, but as the latest installment in a series that started in 2009? really? where did all that history go?

it's funny, because at the end of veilguard the only choice that really has any staying power is the one about solas. i can't think about any other decision made that would have any tangible effect on any sequels. on the world, i mean. characters are another story.

anyways, long story short: i hope they're a little more respectful to long-time fans in the next one. if there is a next one. i hope there is, but i won't hold my breath.

[kremlin]

could you explain for the "it makes the game go faster" idiots like myself what a GPU actually is? what's up with those multi thousand dollar "workstation" ones?

ya, ya. i will try and keep this one as approachable as possible

starting from raw reality. so, you have probably dealt with a graphics card before, right, stick in it, connects to motherboard, ass end sticks out of case & has display connectors, your vga/hdmi/displayport/whatever. clearly, it is providing pixel information to your monitor. before trying to figure out what's going on there, let's see what that entails. these are not really simple devices, the best way i can think to explain them would start with "why can't this be handled by a normal cpu"

a bog standard 1080p monitor has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, each comprised of 3 bytes (for red, blue, & green), which are updated 60 times a second:

~3 gigs a second is sort of a lot. on the higher end, with a 4k monitor updating 144 times a second:

17 gigs a second is definitely a lot. so this would be a good "first clue" there is some specialized hardware handling that throughput unrelated the cpu. the gpu. this would make sense, since your cpu is wholly unfit for dealing with this. if you've ever tried to play some computer game, with fancy 3D graphics, without any kind of video acceleration (e.g. without any kind of gpu [1]) you'd quickly see this, it'd run pretty slowly and bog down the rest of your system, the same way having a constantly-running program that is copying around 3-17GB/s in ram

it's worth remembering that displays operate isochronously -- they need to be fed pixel data at specific, very tight time timings. your monitor does not buffer pixel information, whatever goes down the wire is displayed immediately. not only do you have to transmit pixel data in realtime, you have to also send accompanying control data (e.g. data that bookends the pixel data, that says "oh this is the end of the frame", "this is the begining of the frame, etc", "i'm changing resolutions", etc) within very narrow timing tolerances otherwise the display won't work at all

3-17GB/s may not be a lot in the context of something like a bulk transfer, but it is a lot in an isochronous context, from the perspective of the cpu -- these transfers can't occur opportunistically when a core is idle, they have to occur now, and any core that is assigned to transmit pixel data has stop and drop whatever its doing immediately, switch contexts, and do the transfer. this sort of constant pre-empting would really hamstring the performance of everything else running, like your userspace programs, the kernel, etc.

so for a long list of reasons, there has to be some kind of special hardware doing this job. gpu.

instead of calculating every pixel value manually, the cpu just needs to give a high-level geometric overview of what it wants rendered, and does this with vertices. a vertex is very simple, it's just a point in 3D space, for example (5,2,3). just like a coordinate grid on paper with an extra dimension. with just a few vertices, you can have models like this:

where each dot at the intersection of lines in the above image, would be a vertex. gpus essentially handle huge number of vertices.

in the context of, like, a 3D video game, you have to render these vertex-based models conditionally. you're viewing it at some distance, at some angle, and the model is lit from some light source, and has perhaps some shadows cast across it, etc -- all of this requires a huge amount of vertex math that has to be calculated within the same timeframes as i described before -- and that is what a gpu is doing, taking a vertex-defined 3D environment, and running this large amount of computation in parallel. unlike your cpu which may only have, idk, 4-32 execution cores, your gpu has thousands -- they're nowhere near as featureful as your cpu cores, they can only do very specific simple math with vertices, but there's a ton of them, and they run alongside each other.

so that is what a gpu "does", in as few words as i can write

the things in the post you're referring to (V100/A100/H100 tensor "gpus") are called gpus because they are also periperal hardware that does a specific kind of math, massively, in parallel, they are just designed and fabricated by the same companies that make gpus so they're called gpus (annoyingly). they don't have any video output, and would probably be pretty bad at doing that kind of work. regular gpus excel at calculating vertices, tensor gpus operate on tensors, which are like matrixes, but with arbitrary numbers of dimensions. try not to think about it visually. they also use a weirder float. they're used for things like "artificial intelligence", training LLMs and whatever, but also for real things, like scientific weather/economy/particle models or simulations

they're very expensive because they cost the same, if not more, than what it cost to design & fabricate regular video gpus, but with a trillionth of the customer base. for every ten million rat gamers that will buy a gpu there is going to be one business buying one A100 or whatever.

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[pseudophan]

what do u think of the silent hill remake so far personally i'm really loving it

(minor silent hill 2 remake spoilers in this reply, no story spoilers though)

IT'S SO GOOD. i'm SHOCKED. like i always thought it would be a decent game i never bought into the negativity really but i didn't think it would be like... great? i assumed it would be fine but objectively maybe a 6.5 or 7/10 but i'd love it just because it's silent hill and i can always just replay the original when i want the full experience but GODDAMN.... i'm only like halfway through the woodside apartments cause i can only play when it's dark out and my mum's awake so it's a very limited timeframe lol but so far i'm having an incredible time. i've never been more tense in my life. i'm also one hit away from death at all times because i'm bad at video games and the way james is moaning in pain and barely able to walk is stressing me out even more sbdhfjsd i'm so sorry dude i will get better at combat i promise.

idk my main thing i keep thinking about is how clear it is that the devs really really love the og game. my biggest worry was that they wouldn't be able to capture the atmosphere and feeling of the original in a modern game but fucking hell they really did. it's of course not the exact same, the fixed camera angles being traded in for an over the shoulder view and the better graphics and relatively normal voice acting all make it so you can't fully recreate the way the original felt, but none of it has made the game worse at all, the differences aren't a big deal. i've seen people say the original felt more dreamlike and the remake feels more oppressive and i think that perfectly sums it up. running through the streets of silent hill in the og feels like you're trapped in a nightmare you can't wake up from, the remake feels more like you're trapped in a very real scenario you just can't escape

also!!! obsessed with how they handled the corpses strewn about. they clearly realised that if they did what the original did and used james' character model for all of them it would be a little too obvious because of the better textures and graphics, and if it's obvious then james would have to comment on it and that makes it a direct part of the story rather than a subtle eerie thing. the one with the key just being a pile of clothes is a decent solution but i looove one by the tv being covered by a sheet and how if you interact with it james reaches out to remove it but changes his mind and leaves it. i thought that was clever

i could go on forever but my mum's calling me to come stack firewood my life is so hard

[patchwork-crow-writes]

I've had an interesting thought about Ralsei's manual.

At some point in development, we were supposed to be able to actually read it in-game, but this idea was scrapped. Instead, when we try to read the Manual, the narration says it makes your head spin and nothing happens. And I'll be honest, I thought that was a little odd. After all, though the manual we can read reflects a potential older build of Chapter 1, much of its contents are fairly accurate and could have been corrected within a short timeframe - on top of which, it is clear that some parts are meant to be gags (i.e. the whole Dog status condition that removes all your controls). But there isn't anything contained within its pages that proves particularly challenging or confusing...

...not for US, anyway.

Think for a moment about what the Manual is supposed to represent - it is essentially a spoof of an old video game instruction booklet, complete with an overview of the story, a basic rundown of the controls and the various functions that a player can perform with those controls. For younger folks who might not appreciate the significance, these things were ubiquitous back in the 90s and the 00s, and were often ignored by kids who just wanted to get into the game - that's the main aspect of the joke behind the Manual, that it's seen as entirely superfluous since Ralsei already goes over the main mechanics of battle in his own tutorial.

But imagine for a moment, if one day you were going about your life and you met someone who said a whole lot of stuff about destiny and prophecies and heroes, and then handed you what looked like a video game instruction booklet. Reading through it, you see that it breaks down your every action into button prompts for an interface you have never once seen in your entire life, suggesting that some force entirely beyond your comprehension is manipulating you through this said interface, and that you are not only have zero actual control over the actions you think you're performing autonomously, but also that the apparent goal of said actions runs entirely at odds with what you even thought your life was leading up to.

Makes your head spin thinking about it, right?

And I think that it's telling that when controlling Kris, we are not permitted to read the manual, but the data for the manual itself still exists in the game's code, and can be viewed by us through directly accessing it. I think this is significant, as it suggests that there are certain objects or concepts that exist in Deltarune that Kris is either unable or unwilling to properly comprehend, which in turn forbids us from comprehending those same things when attempting to interact with them through Kris. But poring through the game's code directly allows us to bypass that limitation, giving us crucial information and insight which would otherwise be denied to us.

In case it needs to be spelled out - the fact that the manual cannot be read by Kris, but CAN be read perfectly fine by us, might have in fact been a deliberate choice designed to reinforce the notion that Kris is a separate entity from us, and additionally to remind us that our goals (to play the game and see the story through to its conclusion) are not exactly aligned with Kris's goals, whatever they might be.

Thank you for attending my TED talk about an optional series of images hidden in the code of a hit indie game.

[jiraisupportgroup]

Hey there, thank for the userbox you made for jirai who are also hikikomori, it helped make me feel less alone! I also like the post you made about tips for getting out of bed. As someone with very low motivation, it helps to hear from someone who understands!

Do you have advice for developing a schedule for someone who is currently a hikikomori? I like how your posts focus on harm reduction instead of trying to force someone to completely change dramatically overnight, and a lot of friends don't really get where I'm coming from and think it's easy for me to just leave the house.

Basically I think it would help if you gave some tips for sticking to a schedule where you make sure you're prioritizing basic self-care necessities and maybe suggestions for healthy distractions you can do inside the house, and how to balance them out in a scheduled way so you don't waste all your time and energy on just one single activity, like structure your day to make sure you're not playing video games or doomscrolling all day long.

I'm so sorry I'm replying to this so late T-T

This post has a few tips, but I am now realizing that I didn't put any suggestions for healthy distractions in there ;-;. It is a bit of a tough one because there is no one-size-fits-all and everyone is at different points, but I really hope that it's still useful or helpful T-T

As far as healthy distractions go it really depends on the person! Like for me since I spend so much time on social media and it is very detrimental to my mental health, I personally consider video games a much healthier distraction for me, but I also work a very active job so I don't feel much of a need to be active in my off time (I'm also way too tired to do that T-T). I can totally see that video games aren't a healthy distraction for a lot of people (and probably not even for myself I might just be lying to myself here lol), so it really depends on what you want to get out of your day of what would be a healthy distraction.

For instance, if you want to be a little more active, you can try setting 30-minute timers. You can keep playing video games, but when the 30-minute timer goes off just stand up and stretch a little bit, take a small walk around your room or house, just to keep your joints from locking up and get moving a little bit. Afterwards, you can go back to playing video games.

If you like to create things, try to find time to engage in a hobby that allows you to do that like knitting, painting, drawing, writing, or playing an instrument. Sometimes those things are harder to make yourself do for longer periods so trying to set a certain timeframe to do them can help. Try 20 or 30 minutes, and then once that time is up, if you're into what you're doing keep going, or if you're not really feeling it, you can do something else. Sometimes having certain times of day can help too, even if it's vague. For instance, if you set a goal like "right after I eat breakfast I'm going to draw for 20 minutes" and that way even if you wake up at different times each day, you have a set routine for these activities.

Another thing that can help a lot is journaling, but sometimes journaling can be hard to stick to. I usually have a goal to fill out one page per day, whether that be physical or just one page on a Word document. If I have a lot to say I'll go longer, but even if I don't have anything to say I'll just write things like "today wasn't eventful, not much to say" and then just start talking about whatever comes to mind like dreams, video games I want to play, fanfiction, whatever comes to mind. It's good to just dump whatever you have out onto a page, it can clear up brain space ^-^

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Again I'm so sorry it took me so long to get to this T-T but I hope it's at least a little helpful and I am sending you as many good vibes as I can muster! I hope you have a magical week!!

[7grandmel]

Rip of the week: 28/10/2024

Lagplane

Season 7 Featured on: The Year of Grand Dad Sound Selection [Side A]

Ripped by Blookerstein Visuals by Whatvzz

Requested by Mobbsz! (@mobbsz02)

There's a phenomenon I've observed in recent times online, where internet memes appear to coming in and out of fashion at a far higher speed than they used to. With the relatively small internet populous of the late 2000s and the near complete lack of cynicism, everything from Doge to Trollface were downright undying in popularity; today, a new meme can be outright skip the stage of popularity and become revered ironically before it was ever even liked sincerely. I think you can pinpoint 2015-2016 as the main point when the tides began to shift; the period when internet cynicism was at an all-time high just so coincidentally happening at the same time as complete jibberish nonsense memes like Dat Boi and MLG parodies. I've covered both of those examples back on Koopa Street and we are number one but with outdated memes over it, and this post isn't necessarily about nostalgic reminiscence of memes long gone; but rather, that the intensely rapid circulation of today's meme economy have many jokes, like the one featured today on Lagplane, as feeling forgotten about mere months after their prominence.

It should require no disclaimer to clarify that I do not endorse, support or approve of anything that Andrew Tate — the online world's number one loser — says or does. Unfortunately, for as forgotten as today's meme associated with him has become, the man himself still persists in online spaces like a cockroach. Yet there was a very small timeframe back in late 2022, during the highpoint of his obnoxious presence on platforms like TikTok, where knowing about him would inadvertently also make you aware of one of the funniest bits played in recent memory; The legendary "Bottom G".

It began with various users on the app simply taking notice of people on the street with a striking resemblance to Tate's (rather generic) appearance, whilst coincidentally partaking in less-than-hypermasculine behavior. As Mr. Tate is one to desperately obsess over the state of his own — and others' — sense of masculinity, the inherent comedy in seeing a man look exactly like him yet exude openly queer energy became immediately apparent. Soon, these random sightings would escalate into one downright uncanny look-a-like by the name of Brian Michael Hinds taking it upon himself to don the meme's persona single-handedly. Mere days after the joyous news of Tate's online suspension broke in August 2022, Hinds celebrated by busting it down to the sped-up tune of Bambee's Bumble Bee; and thus, Bottom G was officially cast into stardom.

There was something about it all — the outright mocking of an obnoxious internet personality, the use of nightcore'd up music, the outright rejection of hypermasculine societal norms — that has always made me associate Bottom G with a certain flavor of memes from the early 2010s. The easiest comparison to draw, of course, is to the ever-present hatred of Justin Bieber as covered back on Babydansen... only now, that vitriol was not only directed toward someone far more deserving of ridicule, but was also distilled into an anthem, into a whole series of short videos that were and are genuinely entertaining to watch. There's no other way to put it; Brian Michael Hinds absolutely SLAYED in the role of Bottom G across all his various shortform content he'd make to continue mocking the disheveled influencer. All of this, in turn, me oh-so-happy to see that SiIvaGunner team was quick on the straw to start capitalizing on the joke themselves.

I'm aware that a lot of people are a bit mixed on the Tate's Journey rip purely due to just how tied they are to a currently-prominent controversial figure, and it's a viewpoint I can completely understand. Yet almost every rip of the fake game that we received throughout Season 6 and 7 shows just why its such a fun bit to riff on - and rips such as Top G Alert! showed just how fun the actual audio source of Bumble Bee is to boot! It's a high tier SiIvaGunner meme in my eyes for just how varied it ends up being as a result of all that the meme entails, and Lagplane stands as one of the meme's best showings; At once showing the genuine talent to produce great sounding work from its rippers, a great sense of humor in the material used, and a really fun way to spin the "game"'s ongoing presence on the channel. It may well be the last rip the game will ever receive, releasing over 10 months ago as even the SiIvaGunner team themselves have seemingly moved on from the meme, but it's a true highpoint for the meme to go out on.

Lagtrain is a track that's been made explosively iconic in the vocaloid community and one that I feel is just on the precipice to becoming known even far outside of it the same way Bad Apple!! of Through the Bad Apples!! fame is today. It shouldn't be very hard to understand from just the first listen; the lead instrumentation, for one, is incredibly disstinct, almost reminiscent of pan flutes, the employment of which I'm all too sold on as explained back on Wake Up! It's Friday!, all only helped by the fantastic sound of the synthesized vocals and strikingly intense percussion. These qualities alone make the track prime material for use in high quality ripping; yet above all else, what's kept the track etched into the minds of nerds all over is undoubtedly its music video. The scratchy monochrome visuals of a girl in unamused thought upon a train, soon devolving into jittery motions in time to the music's beat; it's a hypnotic watch and immediately identifiable, and we've already had plenty of rips on SiIvaGunner paying genuine tribute to it. Be it Eva "hawk tuah" Twin's fantastic Coconut Mall (JP Version), its repeated appearance on Season 8's agonizing April Fools day event such as through PsychLantern's lagtrain but i made it funnier, or plenty other fantastic riffs played on it: Lagtrain, four years past its initial release, is here to stay on SiIva.

It's befitting, in a sense, that the grand sendoff to Tate's Journey rips would play off of their one common denominator past the Bottom G jokes: the thumbnail, a shitty stock image of Tate aboard a private plane. Replace Lagtrain's train with the plane, and its girl with Mr. Tate, and the joke speaks for itself: Lagplane's visuals, done by contributor Whatvzz, are simple but incredibly effective at selling the joke before the audio even kicks in, their scratchiness capturing Lagtrain's charm perfectly. From there, the joke speaks quite well for itself! It's the distinct sound of Lagtrain used to arrange the Bottom G anthem of Bumble Bee, a joyous, whimsical pop song not too unlike Caramelldansen of Caramariodansen fame. Much like that rip, though, the choice in track to mix Bumble Bee with ends up creating a pretty notably different mood: the heavy percussion, monotone synthesized vocals and pan flute melody give Lagplane a somewhat melancholic vibe despite the pep-and-step carried over from Bumble Bee's melody. It's a pretty funny contrast to the rest of the Tate's Journey rips which almost all feel gleefully maximalist, rainbows-and-sparkles-and-everything-else in vibe, and yet it shows just how fun a song Bumble Bee is to where it's still this catchy even placed in a completely different environment such as this.

Of course, as is always the case in rearrangement rips, and as I always try to highlight with everything from Super Wonderful World to Plasmaseeker: the listening experience highly relies on the ripper's expertise and ear for rearranging. Ever since I first heard the rips he worked on starting at around Season 5 with The expanse of meme in past was split, A fiendish trap has now been set; Behind a tree the villains sit, Terror of sport, the Robbie's Net., I've known that Blookerstein's talent was the real deal, a track record of pretty much nothing but bangers and a genuinely impeccable attention to detail throughout all his work. Even though his contributions tend to stay on the sincere side with works like Outertale, Lagplane goes to show that he still operates at full capacity in a sillier setting. It's a fantastic arrangement of Bumble Bee, of course — I particularly love that even Bumble Bee's vocals are redone through using the exact same vocaloid as Lagtrain — but extends itself to being a tribute to the Bottom G meme in general; a segment midway through the rip uses Brian Michaal Hinds' own "Bottom G cover" of Tourner dans le vide, while a section quickly therafter sees both the audio and visuals reference a particularly iconic image of Tate shared in the fallout of his internet suspensions in late 2022.

It's this level of both quality and detail that, paired with the rip's status as perhaps the last-ever Tate's Journey rip, make Lagplane feel like such a befitting swansong to the Bottom G meme as a whole. SiIvaGunner itself is a channel that loves to keep jokes in endless circulation, but its undeniable that memes on the internet come and go at ever-increasing speeds; leave the internet for a month, and you'll have missed a half dozen jokes each rise in popularity, become utilized by shitposters of all kinds, spread to a degree that becomes obnoxious, and then fall completely out of favor. It's very easy to see why overexposure would make people sick of memes online; yet SiIvaGunner has always felt like a place where these memes are allowed to flourish, maintained and explored only by the hands of extremely talented rippers who know not to circulate them with low-quality slop (unless, of course, if being low quality slop is part of the joke; I would never imply that Snowball Park - Super Mario 3D World is anything less than pure cinema).

Be it careful rearrangements of historically beloved video game music, or the ever-lasting perpetuation of memes from 2016, or a 6-month fad that even the team themselves eventually grow bored of, SiIvaGunner gives just about every meme you could think of in the online world a space to flourish. Tate's Journey may be gone, but Lagplane stands as one of the shining examples of just why it was such a fun ride to begin with, an absurd blend of crossed-over memes paired with an infectiously catchy anthem, and an asshole on a plane.

[repurposedmeatlocker]

I've recently gotten really into this genre of ARG that is based around classic nostalgic late 2000 and early 2010 video games. These don't seem to get half as much attention outside of their dedicated communities and I find it a real shame, because if anything I connect more to the timeframe these supposedly take place in comparison to other nostalgic types of video game horror ARGs based on early 2000 and 90s platform video games.

Thought I would list a few of these out. Most of them seem to be incomplete/abandoned unfortunately, but who knows. I really like the stuff that is built up here and hopefully more people start to consider exploring it in a more fleshed-out manner!

Old Minecraft Reuploads - This series hasn't been updated in 2 years, which is super unfortunate because it probably has to be my favorite of the approaches to this format! It is so effectively frightening without depending on any obtuse jumpscares. A majority of its eeriness comes from the ambiance already displayed in early Minecraft games. If you are familiar enough with playing them, you can kind of get the gist that something isn't right here. The immersion is super effective too. I'm not a fan of ARG's that hammer in their fictional and "otherworldly" elements too heavily. It takes me out a bit. All the glitches and discrepancies here feel like things that could actually happen, which makes it more scary! The last episode is especially frightening from the acting of the player alone. I never thought I could actually read fear in a faceless and voiceless screen recording, but it is SO impressive what evoked here. It is sad to me that I haven't heard much about this until now, and that it appears to be inactive. For what it's worth I would love for it to get more attention, even if just to see what is already there!

Gunslingerpro2009 and BadwaterVideos2009 - These two are not connected in any way, but they explore similar subject matter, so I feel it is appropriate to put them together. The format these base themselves on are classic TF2 gmod videos/animations. With the twist though that the ragdolls used in the game are sentient and being tortured/mistreated by the player/uploader. It is a cool concept I am surprised hasn't been played around with more with this genre. Absolutely recommended if you are a fan of that era of gmod content and psychological horror.

gmod9fan reuploads - This one kind of ends in a whimper and I don't think it is being continued (last update was 4 years ago), but the ideas being explored here are interesting. I think of the gmod ARGs it is the one that felt the most "scary" to me. Mostly just creepy stuff happening on someone's old gmod videos.

Classic GM Videos - I'm not the most invested in this one, but it feels worth mentioning nonetheless, and actually appears to be actively continuing compared to a majority of these. I would say my biggest complaint is the narrative that appear to be built here kind of fluctuates and doesn't have a strong amount of focus between the uploads. There is a sense that the creator is still figuring out what they want to say, but the Bob and Bill stuff is really captivating to me enough to keep an eye on it.

Minecraft Alpha 1.0.16 Versions - Still watching this, but it kind of appears to be an account under the pretense of uploading videos of a non-existent variant of Alpha 1.0.16. It feels a bit like a Herobrine-centered ARG, so if you are into that subject it could be fun.

Anyway, just thought I would find a way to bring some of these more into the spotlight since I find the approach really unique and fun. Not that I have a huge audience or anything, but anything to get the word out. I think the effort put into them deserve way more attention. Also, if you know of any other ARG's that fit this bill PLEASE feel free to let me know. I love this stuff.

[doublefreegames]

Travel Devil - better the devil you know!

There's less than a week left of judging for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and it's been a fantastic experience for us so far! Travel Devil has received such wonderful feedback and critiques. We take on board everything that is written to us so we can make better games every time!

So today I'm going to give a little insight into how and why Travel Devil came to be.

Do you wanna know how Travel Devil came to exist?

Originally we put together a game idea for a spooky pet adoptions agency. The game would take place on Halloween and have six pets (3 unlocked and 3 locked) to play with. Each pet was going to have a unique story and minigame associated with it. It was codenamed "Spoopy Pets" and it was far too much for the me and Robert to take on and complete in the Spooktober VN Jam timeframe. We worked on it for the first two days of the jam before we were flagging problems up, so we changed trajectory. It's not a dead idea though, it's in the list of rainy day ideas.

Speaking of the rainy day ideas list, that's where Travel Devil comes in. We thought this up a while ago but just put it on the back burner as there was no time to work on it. The concept was simple - a demon escapes hell and starts a travel log. Then the servants of hell follow in its wake starting the apocalypse march on humanity. When Spoopy Pets became too big we had a look at what we had to play with and Travel Devil just sort of fell into place. Robert started writing and I started drawing.

Character design went pretty smoothly. I went for a mix of cartoon styles, drawing inspiration from things like Dead End, Gravity Falls, The Simpsons and Garfield.

Traditionally, visual novels use anime and manga style design but truth be told, I'm not very good at that style. It takes me ages to make characters look good when I try to draw like that. Hats off to all the wonderful artists in this jam who made beautiful, scintillating characters. I'm so impressed by their dedication to fantastic character art.

One of the first pitfalls I encountered was background art. I like to use sites like Pixabay to get backgrounds but recently it's been flooded with AI artworks. The game jam expressly forbids AI use in your game so we had to get creative.

Fortunately this game revolves around travel vlog creation in Paris and we found loads of creative commons photos of the famous tourist destination. Seriously there are so many fantastic photographers out there and it was a complete life and time saver for the jam. All I had to do was add a translucent white filter to the top of the photos to make the characters pop out and we had our backgrounds!

Development went well once we got on the right track. Travel Devil was made using Ren'py which is a joy to develop with. We did have to wind back our ideas at one point as both Robert and I got sick with a nasty bug but we made it. We stripped back some choices and streamlined the game to make sure we could get finished. Originally, we wanted the player to be able to unlock multiple hidden scenes in one playthrough. As the deadline loomed we simplified it so that the player would only see one of three potential side stories that were growing due to the activities of our main character Tornacense per playthrough. We included 7 unlockable scenes and also 6 unlockable images in our gallery.

There's also a nifty guide to finding all the unlockables right here if you want a more relaxing time while playing.

If you've had a chance to play Travel Devil you may have noticed that we planted some seeds in our side stories that will be big plot points as we go forward. Travel Devil is going to be a series of five games travelling around Europe making video journals and outrunning the underworld.

Tornacense and Kirby will grow, we'll meet lots of new strange and devastating people and love could be just around the corner! Who knows? That choice will be yours.

If you want to check out the first installment of Travel Devil you can nab a pentagram portal and find it right here.

Travel Devil was made for the 5th Annual Spooktober Visual Novel Jam in under 30 days. The next one will be made with a lot more time dedicated to it!

Thanks for stopping by!

DoubleFree - Artist and coder for Travel Devil

[shoechoe]

Hello. I was thinking of writing a video essay on cookie clicker, and the things we as humans find important. I was wondering; what does cookie clicker mean to you? And could I include your response in said video? Thanks.

Yeah, sure thing.

To me, Cookie Clicker is about a sense of completion. There are 622 regular achievements to unlock (of which I have 568 of so far), 17 shadow achievements (I have 13), and 716 upgrades to unlock at this time of writing. I am a big completionist when it comes to games, and I think it's such a strong urge because it's satisfying to fully "finish" something as well as progress and feel yourself improve. I'd compare it to the urge to collect things or complete a catalogue.

Personally, I appreciate gameplay depth, but I also dislike games that induce too much stress (like combat-heavy and full-on horror games). Cookie Clicker appeals to me because it strikes a balance of being low-stress while also being somewhat challenging, interesting to progress through and having a lot to complete. Most of my favorite things to play share this quality (like my favorite Minecraft modpacks and Realm Grinder, one of my other most played idle games).

Cookie Clicker is very good at keeping the main goal simple while branching off into a lot of varied things to do and features to unlock- like its four minigames, holiday special events, sugar lumps, dragon auras, the Grandmapocalypse event, and ascension system (which is not unique to Cookie Clicker, but has a very fun upgrade tree where you can toggle even more things and switch up your playstyle). There's an achievement for just about every facet in the game, too, which encourages you to explore all of it (even the stock market).

The achievements in Cookie Clicker range from simple (like shrinking the actual window itself so the big cookie "dunks" into the milk) to challenging (like Eldeer- clicking a Christmas reindeer within the 6-second timeframe of Elder Frenzy, a rare buff) to very challenging (like a lot of the shadow achievements, if they aren't just based on luck) to something that just takes a lot of time to get (like upgrading every building to level 10). It's a nice variety, and as much as the difficult/time-consuming achievements make me complain sometimes, it just motivates me to play more to get it.

It also has a very comedic style and a sort of quasi-narrative as you progress through, which makes it fun to talk about. The absurd satire of the idea of "infinite growth" and corporate monopolies is pretty apparent. Though, I would say my motive for finishing it doesn't really have much to do with the actual "gaining more cookies" part, because if there were no achievements or other things to do like minigames and such, I would get bored and stop playing. You could still say that the game asks just what you/your character would do to complete "everything", even if it means wrecking the world to do so (biggest example being the infamous Grandmapocalypse).

Overall, I like Cookie Clicker's sense of progression and many achievements to acquire with lots of different facets of gameplay. Though the early-game is slow (one of my major criticisms of it), if you stick through, there's a lot to do and you get a lot of fun out of it.

[gyokujyn]

Get To Know Me Tag Game

Tagged by @blackwood4stucky - Aspen, thank you for the tag, but I am breaking all the rules and changing most of the some questions to really get to know me (and hopefully you)! Pretend I tagged you at the bottom, too, cause it won't let me tag you twice!

1. How did you get your nickname (or url)?

I don't really have a nickname, but my url is the first long term OC I used to RP back in the day. I see a lot of hate for RPing OCs these days, but when the internet still screamed at you before you could logon, almost everyone RPed OCs--in fact it was looked down on to RP an existing character or an OC that was related to an existing character. Gyoku Jynnae was a Star Trek OC, but I also RPed Star Wars, D&D, and a few others in AOL chat rooms, forums/message boards, and email. I keep the name in case I ever run into anyone from that time in my life because some of those people helped keep me alive and I'll never forget it.

2. What's the last thing that made you cry?

Therapy yesterday. I'm trying to be less allergic to feelings. Go me.

3. What's your latest guilty pleasure?

I generally don't feel guilty about the things that bring me pleasure, lol, but I'm a little embarrassed that I realized my Stucky playlist on Spotify has long since exceeded 200 songs (sitting pretty close to 230 rn) so I created, I shit you not, a spreadsheet to help me most effectively split it into more specific lists for various timeframes or feelings and I am really enjoying listening to all the songs and organizing it.

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

I never did organized sports, but I did regularly get dropped in the wilderness with a map and a compass for "fun" when I was in high school--does that count?

5. What are your pet peeves?

I hate the sound of chewing/lip smacking/swallowing. I probably have misophonia because it makes me want to vault the table and punch someone.

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Hair and hands, usually. Eye contact is not my forte, so I am way more likely to remember someone by their shoes or something than by their face.

7. What is your eye color?

Hazel. I have a ring of brown around my pupil, then a ring of green outside of that like some kind of ridiculous YA novel.

8. What super specific trope or genre is your kryptonite?

Not sure how super specific this is, but I love psychological horror and body horror. I love the kinds of stories and movies where I walk away thinking I'm moving on with my life and then days later, something happens and my heart is pounding and I'm thinking about it again. I love horror that lives under your skin and in the back of your mind until it grips you out of nowhere.

9. What is your superpower?

I am very observant of details, which might be a superpower, but it usually feels like my villain origin story. It makes me good at reading people, but terrible at finishing projects because all I see are the faults and I get overwhelmed and it never gets finished.

10. Which fictional world would you be happy to call home?

You remember that late-aughts Bruce Willis movie where everyone plugs into an interface that lets them leave their bodies at home and navigate the world in an idealized, customizable body with no pain? Yeah, me, neither. I don't think about being able to have a pain-free body that reflects my personal image of myself everyday. Not at all.

11. What are your hobbies?

Reading, creating art, and video games. Between kids and COVID, my other hobby, tabletop RPG, is on a long term hiatus.

12. Do you have any pets?

We've recently lost a dog and a cat, so we're down to 1 cat and about 27,000 fish (not really, but we do have 8 running fish tanks, 3 of which are each over 50 gallons, so, like, there's a lot of fish).

13. What is your biggest toxic trait?

Oh, man, when I am in a relationship with someone, I want to be the center of their fucking universe. Which is weird because I am not monogamous and I am my wife's number one wing man, but it's not about jealousy. I want to know that I can trust my partner to have my back. That they're thinking about me. That they want me. I want to be wanted desperately. I will and have broken up with partners who weren't bad people or a bad match for me, they just weren't as mad about me as I wanted them to be. I feel like a narcissist typing this out, but it's the truth.

14. Is there anything you're afraid you won't accomplish?

I don't know that this is really an accomplishment, but I always wanted to have lots of kids and I always wanted to foster and adopt some of my kids. I knew kids growing up that needed safe homes and never got them (I probably was one, but I was afraid to get into the system, so I just kept my head down and dealt with it) and I always wanted to be the safe place I never had. But, it's expensive. Not the kids--I know kids are expensive (I already have 2). I don't understand why fostering and adopting is so expensive.

15. What's number one on your bucket list?

I want to go back to school to become a teacher, but I'm really finding it daunting right now.

Tags: I'm just tagging a dozen recentish mutuals that I don't know so well, yet... no pressure, but I'd love to get to know you better! @winterscrump @basnatural @eloquentreverie @vellicore @milarca @the-kestrels-feather @iceandironbars @sarahowritesostucky @natashadied4oursins @thepiper0fhameln @hypnxrchy @shurisbedroom If I didn't tag you, but you want to play, please feel free to jump in and tag me anyway!

[cinnamonghost]

4 years with my kamioshi 🧡

This phoenix means the entire world to me, literally. vtubers helped me be happier in life.

I don't remember how or why, but HAACHAMA was the very first vtuber I've ever subscribed to. I honestly always though it was Suisei because of that famous Tetris video, since that was the earliest I remember getting into vtubers. But apperently I'm wrong! Sadly I don't think I will ever know since I (regrettably) deleted my youtube history in 2021.

If I remember correctly, I remember watching Ina's debut stream live? But I honestly can't remember. And I didn't subscribe to her or any of holomyth when they debuted so I don't know!

Anyway. I remember not watching Kiara at first because I thought her voice was grating? I think? I can't remember BUT I remember getting really into Calli's music

Maybe behind that small timeframe I was like "oh actually she's really awesome" And so I started watching her. And then. I would start to watch every single streams she's done. And then. Set alarms at 2 in the morning ON A SCHOOL DAY so then I can watch her live, then fall asleep while listen to her talk. I was kind of obsessed. ( and I still do that when she streams really early for me! /these stream times where when was in Japan/ I never changed lol even when it's in like . 8 in the morning streams)

Oh god and then I remember when things like "bottom left" where still so prominent and I remember her crying and feeling frustrated in one stream how she hated that it was kind of what everyone associated her with, her being a big pervert and YABAI. I remember feeling so frustrated thinking "these guys are a bunch of freaks and losers! Maybe they should watch her to realize they misunderstood her all wrong!" Thankfully I never verbalized how defensive I was online LOL I would have gotten in sooooo many arguments online . Me a 14 year old talking to like . 25 year olds. Yeesh!

Anyway I remember there was a time when her 3rd outfit came out when I kind of stopped watching her. When she was playing games like Tunic were where I didn't watch her at all. I didn't even watched her 3rd outfit! I think it was because I was busy with school so I couldn't watch her which would lead to me never watching her. Instead I was watching vtubers like Pomu and Rosemi since they were more of a"my time" friendly. Even so, I'm so happy I've gotten over that rutt! I was literally watching Tenchou today in the morning! Even if I can't make it to the entire stream I try to see what's going on and lurk for a bit.

Oh god, and going to the first hololive EN 3D concert. I was crying sooooo much when I was her. There was so much energy in the room. There was so many people happy to see their oshis! I was too! When she was singing SPARKS I was balling my eyes out, thinking "this is the happiest moment of my life" and everyone cheering for her. all of KFP cheering. Me pouring my heart out cheering for her. It got me really emotion 😭

I hope that I'll be able to talk to her in person one day! I think I would start crying LOL

This phoenix made such a big impact on me, I love Kiara!!!!!!!! She my Kami-oshi!!!!!!!!!!!! I know one day she will graduate.... but even when that happens... I'll be so greatful for all the memories she gave me. I'll be so happy that she lead to loving vtubers. I love you Kiara forever 🧡

[mica-dmss]

Blog Post - 03

The Impact of Narrative on Game

Narrative has proven to successfully integrate within text, and it has continued to adapt to modern products of this century, such as novels, films, animations and games. It still cultivates the way we digest information in our lives and provides a slate for how we should interact with the world. Theorists have attempted to explain the phenomenon of narratives, though does it work with interactive products, such as gaming? That is what I would like the delve into. I will be exploring the history of games, video games and how the evolution of narrative has extended into this medium.

Before analysing the connection between games and narrative, I researched the origins of games. Games had been around before the A.D. period (Figure 1). The Royal Game of Ur is regarded as the "oldest playable board game in the world", originating back 4,600 years ago during the Mesopotamia period (British museum, 2021). Board games are still a popular form of entertainment and are the epitome of interactivity, requiring engagement with other players; the idea of competing against something in order to win has been the main objective of gaming. Notable examples of this are Monopoly and Chess.

Figure 1

Regarding 'video games', Bertie the Brain (1950) is the first of its kind to exist. Initially, the audience was not so inclined to compete with an artificial intelligence in a game of Tic, Tac, Toe. However, the stance of playing video games shifted after the successful launch of Atari's Pong (1972), which allowed the interactivity of two human players using a digital format (Figure 2). The game received mass revenue and can be argued to have "started the video games industry" as a whole, setting out to become "the first commercially successful game" by selling 150,000 units of its home edition (Pong Game, n.d.).

Figure 2

Many well-renowned titles were born from the development of video games; Pacman (1980), Donkey Kong (1981), Street Fighter (1987) and so on. Companies like Nintendo and Capcom grew to fame from the success of the steadily growing video game market. However, when did a shift occur where video games decided to adopt narrative into their interactive experience?

To understand the eventual trend of narrative games, I will once again explain the term narrative and the significance it holds within media and our language. Film theorists Bordwell and Thompson (2016) describe narrative as "a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world" (Bordwell and Thompson, 2016, p. 72). It offers experience of situations and reason as for why events unfold the way they do. Most narratives contain a dynamic proposition through their plot that lures spectators in to investigate and interpret for their own, which both Bordwell and Thompson describe as our curiosity (Ibid. p. 55) Games must also evoke a level of curiosity in motivating the audience to play them, which then implies that some form of dynamic activity must be at play - something that narrative forms are popular for (Ibid. p. 73)

As narrative further evolves in our timeframe, so does media and technology around us. With new prospects of narrative conventions, comes with new forms of execution. The potential of video games have never been bigger, as we now have easy access to online platforms, multiplayer servers, freeform simulations and multi-choice experience. A particular type of game that has come from narrative conventions is interactive games involving different outcomes of stories. One example is Until Dawn (2015), an interactive horror video game where players can control the survival outcomes for 8 characters. Until Dawn provides countless choices for each individual, as well as countless endings of them living and dying; the key scene within the game is the last, where depending on the players' choice for their characters, the endings can range from all characters surviving to all but one of them dying. (Figure 3 and 4)

Figure 3

Figure 4

This presentation of narrative within a game like Until Dawn displays the use of parallelism structure, which is known for diverging a main plot into sub-branches to present different characters rather than only focusing on one. Bordwell and Thompson states that within film, this allows a story to become more 'complex' than the traditional presentation of a plot (Ibid. p. 74). In the case of Until Dawn, this can also describe the structure of interactive games. Moreover, each sub-branch of focusing on different characters within this game also implies secondary plots that all coincide with the primary plot. These 'subplots' revolve around each of the characters' interactions and relationships with one another, followed by how each of them react in situations unfolding in the main plot. With this, players can acknowledge and grow an affinity with certain characters that they like in the story, thus each variant in choice or ending will likely have a different effect on players, compared to if the game only featured a main plot (Ibid. p. 75).

Despite the successful execution of interacting game using narrative, one can argue that narratives providing multiple outcomes do not necessarily make them 'interactive'; Neal Roger Tringham (2014) argues that narrative is fixed, thus the possibility to pick a choice and receive an ending is still relatively set in place by the game and its developers, not the players themselves. Therefore, the idea of players obtaining a new ending of a story is not possible. Tringham explains that stories should have "a beginning, a middle, and an end, and only one of each" (Tringham, 2014, p. 19). Since all relevant stories been established within each choice and ending of games like Until Dawn, they all correspond to the main plot which is presented from the beginning to the end of gameplay.

Aside from interactive video games, Tringham also delves into debate revolving around the compatibility between games and narrative, as well is if it is even beneficial for games to adopt narrative into its media form. Disputes among gamers back in the 1970s concerned the idea of "simulational accuracy" against narrative conventions in game, which now translates to the discussion of ludology versus narratology (Ibid. p. 19). In addition, Tringham acknowledges that some view games as "essentially narrative in nature, since the act of playing any game creates a story that the player can retell", although due to the nature of gaming being more practical than planned, this argument could be easily refuted, as gaming experiences are not fixed like narrative forms (Ibid. p. 19-20).

Despite this, while the interchangeability of gaming may not completely align with a stability of narratives, combining both forms together is not totally impossible, either. In his papers, Alan Dundes (2007) examined the correlation between formulas of gaming and narrative through Vladimir Propp's (1928) narrative functions theory. Dundes states that with a narrative's 'dimensionality', it concerns the conflict between the hero and the villain while still having a plot that is "unidimensional" (Dundes, 2007, p. 156). With this, Dundes argues that gaming also revolves around a 'unidimensional' relationship, with the only difference being that two sequences of actions are happening simultaneously; "this is theoretically true in folktales, but only one side's activities, usually the hero's, are described at a given point in tale" (Ibid. p. 156) Furthermore, Dundes found that folk tales consist of two-dimensional series of actions through a one-dimensional track, while the structure of a typical competitive game is like "a two-dimensional folktale" (Ibid. p. 156)

In conclusion, there is more to the idea of narrative in games as we initially thought. We are at a stage where narrative forms have the flexibility to adapt to different media products; we have begun to prioritise sophistication of fictional works and vocalise more artistic expression in our craft. The contagious aspects of narrative has allowed the succession of many new concepts and execution of games to be made for its growing audience to enjoy. Despite the criticisms, Tringham does points out how early in development the new compatibility between gaming and narrative is; "the increasing importance of story in the highly lucrative videogame market suggests that considerable effort will be expanded on both the form and content of such narratives" (Tringham, 2014, p. 29).

Sources:

Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. and Smith, J. (2016) Film art: an introduction. Eleventh; McGraw-Hill international; Place of publication not identified: McGraw-Hill Education.

Bronner, S.J. (ed.) (2007) ‘On Game Morphology: A Study of the Structure of Non-Verbal Folklore’. Utah State University Press (Meaning of Folklore), p. 154.

Pong Game (no date) Available at: https://www.ponggame.org/ (Accessed: 8 January 2024).

Supermassive Games (2015) Until Dawn [Video game]. Available at: https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/until-dawn/ (Accessed: 8 January 2024).

The British Museum (2021) Available at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/top-10-historical-board-games (Accessed: 8 January 2024).

Tringham, N.R. (2014) Science Fiction Video Games. 1;1st; edn. Oakville: CRC Press LLC.

[ladala99]

Some rambling below: about the stuff going on Reddit, my current video game habits (including some things about Pokemon), The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion (including major spoilers so watch out), and Trails fandom opinion the Gagharv trilogy. All over the place!

Whelp. None of you probably know this but Reddit was my main fandom space for Pokemon/Spyro/other video games that aren't petsites, and well, there's this thing going on over there.

I've been trying to get off of it for a while anyway. Too easy to waste a ton of otherwise-productive time, I keep running into spoilers for games I'm still playing, and also I tend to doomscroll the political subs.

So maybe this will finally get me off of it. Certainly the fact that the admins are giving an ultimatum to the mods of various subs (including r/pokemon, my most frequented one) leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and makes me not want to engage with the site. The whole attitude the site owner(?) has about it is just disgusting, and if it's true he idolizes Musk, that's all the more reason to have nothing to do with it further.

So what to do with this extra time that I don't want to be productive and just want to type essays at strangers about my interests? I guess here's as good a place as any! It's my blog and I can put whatever I feel like on it. Some of you are probably following for that type of content anyway.

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So, to start, I guess I'll explain my current video gaming schedule. Starting the month before Pokemon Scarlet and Violet released, I decided to change up my video gaming habits. I had previously had a schedule where I played different games according to the day of the week. This resulted in me not making a ton of progress on some games and kinda feeling discouraged with how long it was taking.

The month before Scarlet/Violet came out, I went into my customary no-main-series-Pokemon-for-a-month period, and decided that I would instead play Animal Crossing: Wild World and only Animal Crossing: Wild World during that time-frame. And you know what? It was great! It was both relaxing and fairly motivating since I knew I had only a certain amount of time with it before I put it away again.

Scarlet/Violet released, and I extended that idea. I even wrote some blog posts here while I was... avoiding spoilers on Reddit... I had a schedule to get through the game (Gyms only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, one plot event max per day) and once I hit the postgame, I had one month to do whatever I wanted before putting the game down for the moment. That postgame month, again, was amazing. Just some guilt-free gameplay of doing whatever I felt like at the moment. Motivation to get the Pokedex done (I did so) and then try some other things. I didn't get everything I tried to do done, but I did a good variety of things and had a good time.

After that, I went on an alternating two-week, one-month schedule for different games. Two weeks on something chill, like Animal Crossing, followed by one month of an actual game, like Breath of the Wild. Alternating between a set of Pokemon games and non-Pokemon games.

And that's a great schedule for games I'm good with playing a bit, taking a break from, and getting back to. But what about heavily story-based games or ones I haven't beaten before? I'm not playing multiple hours a day, so even a month isn't always enough to finish!

Well, enter my new schedule: play for two weeks, check to see if I'm still having fun or if I accomplished what I intended to accomplish, if I'm not done and I'm still having fun continue, otherwise move on.

When Pokemon HOME became compatible with Scarlet/Violet, I felt strongly about transferring everything I could in, so I took a two-week timeframe to do so. My initial goal was to get everything breedable into Scarlet, I accomplished that, and then I moved on to trying to get extra Legendaries. I speedran Shield to get what I could out of a new playthrough and then ran out of time. That's okay - I'll finish later. Because I accomplished my initial mission and I have other games to play. This excursion was interrupting a different game I was (and am) trying to get through. One that I'll start a new section for below.

Also just to put it somewhere: I'm tracking my games on HowLongToBeat now. Here's my profile. (I don't have the time on Zelda because I'm going to use the Switch menu's time at the end)

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My current game is The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion. Yes, you read that right. I'm not being silly with the name of the Zelda game (I already posted about that earlier anyway). I'm playing Tears of the Kingdom as well, but it's not my main game at the moment.

And I just have so many feelings about TLOH: AToV. (If you don't want spoilers for it, stop now because I am not holding back.)

I first played it as a young teen. I got to the end but never actually beat the final boss. But it stuck with me. I don't remember much of the plot other than two very powerful, very spoilery scenes.

It's so weird going through it how much and how little I remember. Like the entire plot is about not-Catholics vs. not-Satanists (and the not-Catholics aren't always good) and I didn't remember that at all. But I did remember bits and pieces, particularly out-of-context bits about certain characters. (spoilers start now) Like there's this black-haired girl I saw and immediately went "missing sister! :O" But she's not actually Avin's missing sister, but another character's. A character I hadn't met at that moment. There's another guy I just met and immediately went "oh, I like him! :)" and I still don't remember why he sticks out so much since he doesn't seem that much more important than other characters I forgot about completely.

And the two things I did come in remembering (really, really spoilers now) involve Mile dying halfway through and turning up again at the end of the game as a dark mage, so everything he does is just. . . I'm paying so much more attention to him and he's like, the perfect healer. He's functionally the healer in that he's the party member who's always with you that has healing spells, but he's also such a healer in the story, too. He cheers up Avin when they were kids, being a friend to a traumatized boy who just got separated from his beloved sister. He gives up his wish to help Avin out. He goes with Avin on the dangerous journey when he has no personal stake other than to see his friend succeed. He acts as a foil for Avin, who has a quick temper, calming down every tense situation, and even lying when it helps diffuse a situation. And then he dies.

I'm not there yet. I just remember the pool of blood and the shock I felt. I think I'm getting there soon, though. Because Avin just reunited with his sister and I don't remember that lasting long. (I didn't even recognize her portrait, unlike the Baron that I feel positively about for unknown reasons.)

It's just so good! And yet...

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Before I started the game back up, I was looking at the modern The Legend of Heroes games for Switch. I wondered if it was worth getting one of the more recent games. So I decided to check out the fandom and see if there were any tips for fans of the Gagharv Trilogy (which A Tear of Vermilion is in) getting into the newer games.

Uh. . . no. There aren't. Fans of the current series mostly have not played the Gagharv Trilogy and actually think they're kinda bad. Particularly the PSP versions (which is the only version that got translated to English and the version I have).

And it's funny, since when I see people say why you should play the Trails series (what the new games are considered), they say a lot of the same things that are accurate to the Gagharv games. One of the main gushes I've seen about the series is that random NPCs have lives that develop as the story develops - you'll meet the same characters again and again as you happen to travel the same places they do. And that happens in A Tear of Vermilion. There's this writer guy that you meet and tell your adventures to, and his agent will keep giving you books. There's a greedy merchant you keep running into and Avin keeps getting mad at him. And there's so much variety in character conversation - gain a new party member and talk to everyone in the village and they'll talk to/comment on the new party member. Every time a major event happens, you can go back around town to hear everyone's opinion on it. There's some secret books that characters will give you if you talk to them after certain plot events.

I'm guessing this is a Pokemon Sword/Shield situation where while the Gagharv Trilogy is good, the Trails series is so much better that the Gagharv Trilogy is bad in comparison. That's the only way I can make sense of it.

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Anyway, that was a lot and did not stick to one topic. But I just have a lot of thoughts right now. Here's Mile's official character portrait for making it through the whole thing:

[artbyblastweave]

The parahumans power creation system is a good fit for TTRPGs and a horrid fit for video games. It’s dependent on human pattern-matching and metaphor literacy to carry every character concept over the finish line; it would be difficult bordering on impossible, I think, to try and implement a mix-and-match version of the system where you create your parahumans PC from pre-selected trigger components and then play in a sandbox, which is what I’ve seen advanced as a proposal for how a parahumans RPG would handle character creation.

No, parahumans screams out for a roster-based RPG system; some combination of Disco Elysium, This is the Police, Sunless Sea and X-Com, in which you play as a PRT director (or aspirant crime boss, or corporate cape team manager, or terrorist, probably you’d pull from the disposition doc here) who pulls together and manages a small squad of parahumans that you can pull from a potential pool of, probably, 30-40 free-floating, fleshed out pre-written capes who exist throughout the game world, each with their own trigger event, unique moveset, personal foibles, pre-existing relationship to the city, and subplots that you can pursue via some expenditure of resources.  You can only plausibly get 10+ at a time, and most capes have an alternate faction they’ll fall in with if you don’t recruit them; to accommodate this, you might take the DE route of having the game take place over a short timeframe in a crisis situation in order to maximize your ability to replay it with different rosters, or you might just make the player suck it up and commit to a long session with their chosen team, but either way I’m picturing all players starting from the same Day-zero world conditions, dominoes falling differently based on their actions. I’m picturing semi-turn-based combat but in a fairly-well-realized physics-based/voxel-based world (in no small part due to the number of powers that have interactions with specific materials). I’m also picturing a sunless-sea/skies-style “designate your own personal win condition” mechanic, where the “main quest” is just one more plot thread bouncing off whatever major turning point acts as the game’s inciting incident. Would this require an idiot amount of pre-writing, game triggers, worldbuilding, and pre-determined character relationships to function correctly? Yes. There’s a reason I cited Disco Elysium in the “some combination” section. But I genuinely think that a Worm game would need basically the same decade of pre-writing that Worm received, in order to get anywhere close to capturing why Worm was good.