#probably more than 1 writeup actually

[hustlerose]

oops, all rpgs! hades has been eliminated because i already did that one

[star-anise]

Disclaimer: I like Anita Sarkeesian.

But also, I just saw a writeup of a Youtuber whose content has come a long way from his Gamergate days, and to explain that, the wiki says, "Anita Sarkeesian is a radical feminist who created a webseries about sexist tropes in video games"

AHAHAHAHAHA ANITA SARKEESIAN, RADICAL FEMINIST

HOO HEE EXCUSE ME THAT'S A GOOD ONE

Radical feminist. Feminist extremist. Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita Sarkeesian did her Master's Thesis in Social and Political Thought in 2010 on the trope of the "Strong Woman" in fantasy and science fiction TV shows, and produced Tropes vs Women, a series of online videos breaking down her work in a way that was accessible to a lay audience. She found a ready audience in geek feminist circles, since this was exactly the kind of thing we wanted and needed right then.

Tropes vs Women was extremely bog-standard cultural critique, what you'd find expressed in discussion between scholars of literary theory or media analysis anywhere, and exactly what 99% of feminists were saying at the time. It certainly talked about patriarchy as the complex system of sexism fused into our cultural matrix, so it's not like it wasn't radical feminism from that viewpoint, but it wasn't "radical" by way of being especially militant. Sarkeesian frequently pointed out how individual occurrences of a trope weren't harmful in themselves, but that a media landscape completely saturated with only that trope and nothing but that trope is, in the aggregate, a big feminist issue.

And the internet

HAAAAAAAATED

her for it.

Like, geek feminists got flak a lot anyway, especially when we wanted things like properly enforced policies against sexual harassment at science fiction conventions. And yeah, there totally were toxic keyboard warriors who said stuff about all men being scum - but Sarkeesian wasn't one of them.

It's probably because of her succinct, matter-of-fact, "this is not a debated issue, feminists have decades of theory and research to back this point up, sources abound if you google for thirty seconds so I won't stop to baby you through all the fundamental concepts" approach that she got such a big reach. She was calm, concise, coherent, and rational, everything feminists are told we need to be.

Unfortunately that just made her seem... attackable, I think. A good target, not actually scary or impassioned, unlikely to respond to violence with violence. The perfect kind of person to play five seconds of, and then spend the next five minutes yelling into your mic because IF ANITA IS RIGHT ABOUT VIDEO GAME SEXIST YOU MIGHT AS WELL SAY THAT EVERYTHING IS SEXIST AND SEXISM IS SYSTEMIC AND ENDEMIC TO ALL OF WESTERN CULTURE AND OTHER CULTURES TOO, WHICH IS CLEARLY RIDICULOUS, ANITA LADY BAD.

She literally spent five solid years as Enemy #1 in online geek spaces. It was completely insane. I am so sorry she had to take the brunt of it, and yet grateful that she did. She held the line and took the shit and kept doing good decent feminist work for years after, though she did admit to burnout and closed up shop on her nonprofit org Feminist Frequency in 2023. I hope to hell she's having a good day.

But even now, more than a decade later, dudes talk about her as though she were Geek Feminist Godzilla, the biggest baddest woman in the universe, off to lay waste to downtown Video Games and cut everybody's balls off.

When people (mostly dudes, but not all) talk like this, it's just very funny and unintentionally revealing because of the absolute averageness of her third-wave, trans-inclusive, western-centric, intersectional feminism. It makes them look absolutely pathetic.

Because it just makes it clear that she is probably the first and last self-described feminist the speaker has ever paid attention to.

[tallykale]

episode 19

as you can probably tell, i've thought a lot about what post-canon one would look like in my vision... i've said before that i have issues with straightforward fix-its, and i do genuinely love the tragic open-ended conclusion that the series has, but i... am not immune to playing with characters like dolls LOL

here's some writeups about where everyone is at mentally in these pictures. please please please PLEEEASE feel free to ask me more about this cuz i love talking about my beautiful mind palace

charlotte: somehow the most optimistic person in here, mostly out of necessity. when she died, she saw parker leading her out of a cave as her waiting room and was about to take his hand when airy respawned her, so she has a brief moment of bonding with bryce when he talks about the waiting room and seeing stella. with the knowledge that there is potentially a way to get out (bryce and liam being the proof) and the fear of rotting away again she is by far the most actively motivated to help liam figure out the computer. a lot of her days are spent talking to liam over the mic and writing out the code in the dirt so she can try to understand it. she still has to push against her natural misanthropy (and often shouts at liam or bryce for being fucking stupid and useless) but both working on the code and helping amelia give her something concrete to focus on outside herself. she wants to get home so she can make amends with her friends. charlotte is scared of dying! she's really genuinely horribly scared of dying and has awful vivid nightmares about rotting away. she often pushes amelia into talking about her life which causes some tension, but it's because she really hates seeing amelia lose herself like that - a metaphorical rotting away of the self.

subway seat & atom: not on the same level of pure existential depression as the batch 1 contestants, but they both feel the hopeless mood pretty harshly regardless. subway feels very lonely as the only hidden object still 'awake', and likes to carry whippy creamy around rather than just leave him sitting on the ground constantly. tray is too big and unwieldy for him to do that with, but he 'hangs out' with her anyway, talking to her and whippy creamy in the hopes that it'll get them to want to wake up again. atom doesn't talk much, but he still carries his piece of grass. he's definitely the person who's the least affected by the prospect of being stuck on the plane forever, since he… doesn't really perceive existence in the same way as everyone else? he's an atom. but his time in the competition definitely made him view everyone else as friends, and he feels even more powerless than usual in the face of this incomprehensibly difficult problem.

amelia: falls into total hopelessness when bryce rejoins, basically seeing it as the final sign that they're never going home. still calls everyone their competition names (she actually gets into a big fight with bryce about it lol). she gets really clingy and dependent on bryce when he first comes back but it crashes and burns pretty quickly when, during an argument, bryce tells her how much he wishes he could just go back and never have let liam in and forgot about everything… which really sucks for amelia to hear, given that she's part of that everything. after that, with bryce isolating himself, she's kind of reliant on charlotte to keep her going. she blames liam for airy dying and secretly kind of thinks he killed him but just isn't telling them… she also doesn't really believe there's any way of getting out and is just kind of waiting around to die of, like, old age i guess. after how long she's been here, amelia is convinced that she has nothing to even go back to and frequently forgets details about her life. regularly cries and hates being alone. the shift markings on the side of the water tub have changed from being a way to keep track of time and stay sane to a horrible reminder of how long they've been here and how much longer of an eternity they have before them.

bryce: hates himself and liam and airy and the plane and his entire stupid fucking life. bryce is really, really fucking pissed off at liam for losing the notes and letting texty die and every other mistake he's made, and isn't shy about telling him that. as well as being angry, he's also incredibly miserable, because he was finally starting to turn his life around (he quit drinking after the plane) and now it's all for nothing - and even worse, those 7 months he spent getting better were 7 months he did nothing to help the rest of them, especially amelia. he's horribly guilty about that, and that he didn't tell amelia about the fake votes before he was eliminated… but finds it easier to just let liam take the heat for that one at first. after he fights with amelia about it he becomes a bit of a hermit, hanging out by himself next to the plug, and never responds when liam tries to talk. contemplates suicide regularly but pretty much the only option is drowning himself, and the idea of that still scares him more than staying like this forever. would kill for a beer.

liam: tortured by horrible guilt every day over a million different things. these include getting bryce pulled back into this (plus delayed guilt over getting him for real killed), letting texty die and not saying anything about the charger, not telling amelia that everything was fake, knowing that charlotte is going to die if he doesn't get really smart really fast… he's frequently gripped by fits of rage where he almost smashes the computer and has to hobble around outside with the axe for a while to blow off steam. he has really bad nightmares and dissociative episodes, made worse by the isolation and spending hours in a dark cave. liam really wants to fix things with everyone but genuinely has no idea how to start that conversation. he assumes airy killed himself (and views it as an unforgiveably cowardly move) and directs a lot of resentment towards him. he has a lot of things he wants to say, especially to bryce, but the fact that he cant talk to anybody one on one makes things difficult. spends a lot of time just reading through the code, too afraid to actually make any changes in case everyone explodes, but talking it through with charlotte at least makes him feel like he's doing something. more than he would like to admit, liam catches himself staring at the plane as if it's a simulation or a livestream.

[remxedmoon]

“an innocent kid. its bleeding can fill the belly of even the strongest warrior, but do you have the heart to do it?”

hooved

0 power - 1 health - 1 blood

worthy sacrifice - cards bearing this sigil count as 3 blood rather than 1 blood when sacrificed.

morsel - when a card bearing this sigil is sacrificed, ⁣it adds its stat values to the card it was sacrificed for.

hidden trait - hearty meal

when this card is sacrificed, add an additional +3 power, +2 health to the card it was sacrificed to summon. this trait stacks with the morsel sigil and stat increases from the campfire event.

teehee. people are going to yell at me for this one i think. ANYWAYS!! BONIBAHS!! THE KID!!! my poor little blorbothing. they get extra card art because they’re my favorite (joking). writeup below!!!

sowwyyy this one’s evil. i think the sigils are pretty self explanatory this time? worthy sacrifice lets you play super powerful cards, and morsel lets you buff em even more. plus!! with the hearty meal trait they get at least +3 in both stats! the ethics are questionable though.

this was like. the second card i designed out of all of them. my original concept (when it was like 1 am and i was half asleep) was uh… morsel, trinket bearer, and waterborne? trinket bearer because they carry the items, and waterborne to keep them out of danger. but that’s a really weird card. plus…

baby goats are called kids!! the name is wordplay!! i decided to make them a variant on the black goat purely for that reason. and just like the black goat, the symbol on their head is the symbol for sacrifices!

ok i should probably acknowledge the sog in the room. in the base game, you’re able to replace your eye with a goat’s eye. this decision does literally nothing except make the black goat cuter. and bonnie’s a goat!! so they also get silly art. they turn into a sopping wet pathetic cat. i don’t have an inhabited version of this sprite because i couldn’t. find footage of it being inhabited. which is probably because you can’t get the goat’s eye in kaycee’s mod but. eh… i don’t want to deal with the sigil patch nonsense again.

my initial sketch of this card had them as a 2 blood but… it kinda made them worse than the regular black goat thanks to the fair hand mechanic. so they’re the only 1 blood here. they’re my blorbo they can be overpowered. as a treat.

the sigil patch is many lives! which allows a card to be sacrificed without actually killing it. both for synergy with worthy sacrifice and also because i’m Evil

also additional fun fact: the black goat is actually my favorite card in vanilla inscryption!! i basically cheesed the entirety of kaycee’s mod with it. i like it a lot :). i didn’t intend to fuse my favorite character and my favorite card together but it’s a happy lil coincidence.

huh. weird. that’s the entire party right? it feels like we’re missing one though… whatever. patchless alt below!

[aeolianblues]

Difference between the US and international releases of Is This It by The Strokes. The international cover was the original artwork for the album, but RCA deemed it too offensive for US audiences, and fearing backlash, particularly from American conservatives (a band on their first album! Come on), it was changed to a photograph of subatomic particle tracks in a bubble chamber. Julian found the US cover 'cooler than the ass pic', but the international versions were already out, since the album released in Australia in July, and in Japan and the UK in August.

That wasn't the only change on the album though, the following month, as 9/11 happened, New York City Cops was dropped from the US CD version of the album. For obvious United States reactionary reasons (though they're hardly the only ones to get sniffles from references. The BBC in the UK was known for banning songs with references to unfortunate events relevant to the British public since forever, never quite forgetting its Reithian roots).

But it was too late to recall or change the vinyl versions, which were released with New York City Cops on it, because the vinyl came out on—I shit you not—11 September. They replaced it on the CDs with When It Started.

Can you listen to New York City Cops on American versions of music platforms? Not on the album, not yet in fact! You can find it on the Hard To Explain single that came out before the album.

Can you listen to When It Started outside the US? Yeah, but weirdly not even as a Strokes single, on Apple Music it's only on the 2002 Spider-Man film soundtrack. I imagine they'll probably consolidate both songs if they ever reissue/remaster the album, but if there was ever a time to do that it was in 2001, which was 1. 20 years since the album came out 2. when the band were literally together, having put out The New Abnormal in 2020 and literally even appearing together from a warehouse (???) to accept their Grammy for that album (though I will maintain till my dying day that TNA is not a better album than Fontaines D.C.'s A Hero's Death. Come on.)

Anyway, my little presentation on a couple of differences between different versions of Is This It, while I'm procrastinating on some work I should've completed an hour ago. Though I have noticed, any new vinyl I've seen of the album these days has the subatomic particle artwork. Maybe the band requested it, having actually liked it more. Maybe it's a marketability thing. Or a reflection of a hell world that's becoming more conservative.

Apple Music's writeup about the album below the cut, for anyone interested.

[suckishima]

haikyuu rewatch s01e01

i've been itching to rewatch the series lately and a few years ago i did something similar for miraculous ladybug where i wrote up like a stream of consciousness/commentary post and made a gifset for each episode and i wanna try to do it again for haikyuu?? we'll see if i stay committed or not lol—gifsets per ep probably a lot more likely to continue than commentaries tbh, these things are long and not thought out so,

anyway let's start with episode 1, who wants to take bets on how many times i get teary-eyed?

ughhhhh how did i not know IMMEDIATELY my first time watching what a fucking banger of a show this would be. this opening scene is sooo aah. the voice over with the sounds of the balls and shoes, the actual content of the 'a tall tall wall' monologue, and then the visuals of just hinatas shoes stepping up to the line and then 'it was a view i could never see on my own' and the rest of the teams shoes step in??? FUCK

holyyyyy and bc im obsessed i know who is who based on their shoes in that lineup and after thir 'onigaishimasu' and they run onto the court they all run in at different speeds?? and like tanaka goes quick and kageyama bounces on his toes and tsukki is all like unenthusiastic?? what the fuCK bro

its been literally 40 seconds and im in awe aaah

oh.. oh no it's the intro. i was joking before about getting teary-eyed but uhhh

how long has it been since i watched season 1 omgg 😭😭😭

gOD the opening is so good, not just imagination but the visuals rrr the practicing shots and the animation on all the volleyball looks so great wowow

one of the less talked about of the many crimes of getting movies instead of a 5th season is definitely the loss of another amazing opening and ending

damn did i really never realize that karasuno of the little giant's time didnt JUST go to nationals but theyre playing on center court when hinata catches them on tv? meaning its either the semi finals or finals, damn lol

hmmmm i am already conflicted about whether or not i wanna talk about manga spoilers in these writeups lmao. tumblr blockout spoiler text WHEN

anywayyyy manga readers hinata on his bike watching little giant on tv iykyk (and if you know me lol) right

rrrr the imagery of the crow flying into hinata from the screen with still the sounds of the balls and whistles aaah what a cool way to show inspiriation

huh, the libero is no.2 not no.4 is that manga accurate from just before furudate decided that it was a Thing for karasuno or did the animation not check?

okay i checked and you literally can only see the little giant in the manga and none of the rest of the team so im calling it an oversight on the animation side lol (understandable, tbh when youre just making people up to fill in the shot, you arent thinking about jersey lore)

no one cares but my japanese is surprisingly better than when i first watched (at which time i knew nothing) and i can actually understand a few bits here and there without the subs

reading the occasional katakana in the background is fun too. mmmm i should try looking at og scans of the manga to see how the sound effects are intended to be read, ive heard the way furudate incorporates the characters into the action as the sound itself is really well done

air salonpas!

oooo one of the teams practicing spikes had one guy hit left handed, thats a fun detail!

dude hinatas friends are such homies i swearrrr

'whats our opponent kitagawa daiichi even like' 'idk! but we're gonna win!' lmaooo hinata you coulda done SOME research

ooo the shot of kitagawa walking in and looming above hinata is so well done, they look huuuge. i know factually that kindaichi and kunimi are tall but i tend to forget, kunimi especially, hes got short energy to me 😅

yessss and the shot of kagyama walking by and just like his Aura is enough for hinata to pick up on the king vibes yooo its so goood

kitagawa daiichi banner is just 'victory' lol okay

i could use some of hinatas blind confidence in my life lmao

oh jk its bathroom tummy ache time

man the set up for kageyama as like powerful early on is SO good, weve only seen him twice so far and both times it all above the king cape, which im pretty sure is also supposed to represent how hinata sees him which rrrr what a great way to set up their dynamic knowing everything that's to come. greatest opponent to greatest ally etc etc

also thinking about how this IS basically all hinatas POV (including the quote i just referenced) and what kageyamas POV of hinata is when he looks back on it all 👀

kageyama telling hinata he shouldnt talk big bc he isnt even physically ready (referencing tummy ache), and hinata right off the bat telling kageyama 'the six of us go all the way' and kageyama responds 'i will win every game' oooo yep they both got some things to learn from each otherr

seriously how is hinata like the friendliest person on the planet. his team is SO bad and all he cares about is that he's finally on the court, he's so positive and determined even when they're doing terribly and his friends dont know wtf is going on

🥺🥺🥺 he's so happy seeing his palm all red after spiking the ball successfully the first time waaah

sjkhdk i always laugh at 'well there IS a foxy senpai on the girls team' lmaoo like he could have just ignored that part of the question, and who translated it to 'foxy' anyway lmaoo

koji, soccer friend, coming in for a foot receive! he missed lol but for real hinatas friends are so cool showing up for him like this

i mean, they are also avoiding him when he tries to practice throughout middle school, but they showed up here when it counts

love that you can see the 'mild internal bleeding,' as kuroo would call it, on izumi's arms when he tells hinata that his arms hurt lol

akjhsakjsasj they hype hinatas jumping skills, the music swells, you think hes got it, aaaand then immediately triple blocked and the music cuts back out lmaoo. honestly, love how haikyu always plays with expectations like that

half time serve routines my beloved.... i miss you..

'we keep trying.. because we havent lost yet' <333

but also kunimi, what a mood lmao

the animation on hinatas slide hit after the toss missss aaaah, and kageyamas bangs like whipping in the wind before he reaches as far as he can aah god this whole sequence is so beautiful

kageyama after knowing hinata for roughly 30 minutes: "this guy overwhelms me" skagsajsa

he has every quality to be someone even better but—WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THESE PAST 3 YEARS?? 😭😭😭😭

karasuno senpai in the crowd!! related dumb question time, why isnt tanakas hair blond here? he should be a first year atm, and the beginning of the ep said this match is about 3 years and 3 months after little giants nationals (which is in january, although iirc the month changed sometime around those years so possibly it was in march during his time—hence why call 'spring tournament') but either way if hinata and kageyama are still middle school third years then tanaka should be a first year and thats when his hair was blonde. likely in universe answer i guess is just that this tournament is after the practice match where karasuno loses badly and gets made fun of which makes tanaka respect his senpai more and shave his head lol. which also, if hes here with them at this middle school tournament also makes sense with that so. question answered i guess

'if you want to be the last one standing then become strong' waaah

awwww the first years that he recruited to fill out his team stayed with him to practice with the middle school girls team!! they caught the volleyball bug <3

not me pausing to try and see which one of them is the foxy senpai..

lmaoooo the "old ladies team" that hinata practices with are called the yukigoaka beauties lol nice

yoooo hinatas running toward the gym for the first time and a crow flys away and a feather crossed in front of hinata niiiiice

let me tell you i had relatively low expectations for haikyu my very first time. i just wanted something easy to watch while i ate my lunch during the day, and i thought it would just be a predictable underdog story where hinata gets revenge for middle school. and i wasnt against that, i was relatively entertained this whole episode, then it gets to the end and reveals that kageyama has to be his teammate and i was like OH this is gonna be GOOD good. immediately have me hope and reassurance that the show knew what it was doing and wasnt gonna just be typical cliches etc

fuck i wish i could watch again for the first time

i warned you this would be long lol, honestly these writeups are more for me in the future to like remember my thoughts etc and like i said we'll see if i keep it up lol

[axolator]

Script-A-Day #11: Bait and Switch by Jeremy

Shenanigans beget shenanigans beget shenanigans

Featured characters: Lycanthrope, Magician, Goon

Jinxes:

Lunatic/Mathematician: The Mathematician learns if the Lunatic attacks a different player(s) than the real Demon attacked.

NOTE: It’s a little unclear how to run Mathematician when the Lunatic didn’t wake up on a night the Demon did, and vice versa. Some STs (like myself) will ping the Mathematician only if the Lunatic actually attacked someone (since that’s the malfunctioning ability in question), while others will ping the Mathematician on any discrepancy in the kill selections. Make a decision, and tell your players how you’ll run this jinx before playing.

Fang Gu/Scarlet Woman: If the Fang Gu chooses an Outsider and dies, the Scarlet Woman does not become the Fang Gu.

Complexity: Intermediate-Advanced. Recommended for players who are here for a good time, not a long time, and those who enjoy lying for fun and for glory.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!) - Note that the most recent version (v6.0.0) is one that I don't think holds up as well. v5.0.0 is my preferred version of this script to play and run.

Writeup below the cut!

Bait and Switch is a silly, goofy time centering around the Lycanthrope and Evil’s various methods of defusing it. Good has some very strong info and potential to control the night deaths in Lycanthrope, but if evil can take advantage of the misinfo they have access to & can outfox the Lycanthrope through clever Innkeeper, Goon, or Recluse bluffs, it can lead the good team down some very, very wrong tunnels.

A lot of the good team is highly synergistic with each other. Lycan/Ravenkeeper in the same bag can let good proc the latter at the perfect time, and the Mathematician picks up on a surprising amount here, often being the key to solving the game. In exchange, the Witch and Cerenovus can kill and silence the info-gatherers the good team needs, the SW can give the Demon an out, and the Poisoner can make a right mess of everything.

There is no Spirit of Ivory on the script, so be careful when putting Fang Gu and Goon in the same bag. I’d avoid it entirely in smaller games, and would advise you to be very mindful in larger games. With the Goon in general - make sure both Good and Evil can turn them. 3/4 Minions choose a player each night, and there are only so many Fortune Tellers, Innkeepers, Lunatics, and Lycanthropes to go around.

Some notes:

Consider running the General on a 5-star scale (introducing thumb slightly up/down ratings for good/evil slightly winning) to more comprehensively capture the state of the game. There's a lot to pick up on, both socially and mechanically - your General will appreciate the clarity!

Make sure you know how to run the Lycanthrope + Pukka interaction! If the Lycanthrope kills a player, then the Pukka poisons the Lycanthrope, the previously poisoned player will die, resulting in a doublekill that night. This is very powerful for the good team, since it confirms the Demon is a Pukka and hard confirms the Lycanthrope. This will probably happen if you put the two in the bag at the same time, so be prepared for that and build the bag accordingly.

How do we feel mid-way through Mathematician week? A math "ping" is +1 to their number:

If a player gets false information due to Recluse misregistration or external drunkenness or poisoning, it pings the Math.

If a mechanical ability (e.g. Innkeeper, Lycanthrope) fails to function due to misregistration or external drunkenness or poisoning, it pings the Math.

If a killing ability fails to kill someone due to them being unable to die that night (via Innkeeper, Lycanthrope, or Goon), their ability pings the Math.

If the Fang Gu can't jump to an Outsider due to being Innkeeper-protected, the Fang Gu pings the Math.

Oh, yeah, and the Fang Gu / Scarlet Woman jinx does not ping the Math. There's an argument to be made that jinxes count as an abnormality, but it's kind of silly in this case - I wouldn't.

That's kinda it, actually? The Mathematician isn't particularly hard to run here. :P

This writeup was written before the Lycanthrope ability got updated. If you’re using that version of the ability (not pictured but mentioned in the Lunar Eclipse post), here are some quick interaction notes with the Faux Paw (the one good player that globally misregisters as evil):

They cannot misregister meaningfully to the Clockmaker

The Empath sees them as evil

The FT’s red herring cannot be on them

They must misregister to the Savant (so be careful with how you craft your info!)

The Seamstress sees them as evil

If they choose the Goon and become drunk, the Goon turns evil

Important: as written, the Faux Paw must misregister to the Mathematician, meaning that none of these interactions ping them. Strongly consider houseruling this so that the Mathematician can track it.

That's it from me! This script is super fun and very silly - take it for a spin! See you tomorrow!

[switch]

hiii switch! I'm the same new Moriarty fan who sent you an ask before, I just got my NP3 Mori after speedrunning up to Traum! very happy about it. what I'm not happy about is... Ruleriarty. absolutely baffled to know that this is supposed to be the same old Moriarty from Shinjuku? I feel like I'm being gaslit because when I look at him, he looks like a knock-off Joker. also absolutely a clown and replaceable as a villain in Traum too btw. I didn't like him before and I don't now. you're the no. 1 Moriarty understander so I'd like to hear you thoughts about him

congrats on np3 moriarty! he really does need it with that unbuffed mod

well that’s the neat part. they’re not the same person. they’re from different timelines, except when the writers decide they are the same person anyway, except when the writers decide they aren’t the same person— don’t even fucking worry about it. it’s all net negative information.......

my thoughts are difficult to put succinctly because there's a lot of context required to explain my intense levels of frustration... i’m frankly really not actually keen to talk about ruler in general.. it's kind of a raw spot... those are all certainly reasons for disliking him, but it’s kind of just scratching the surface of a pile of proverbial straw that broke my proverbial back... you nailed the "replaceable" part, given he and other elements were written in during a later revision and implemented so poorly that people could tell even without external confirmation...

but i do still want people to understand why the bigger picture situation surrounding this character was and is such absolute shit (and how it's just one of many microcosms of fgo's egregious patterns of bold-faced shithead decision making the past 5 years), and that it was never just "lol angry that he's not an old man" or "lol can't handle another interpretation of a character you like", so i'm always open to answering that kind of stuff.

this post i made answering another anon is probably the briefest possible writeup of my thoughts i'll ever be capable of making, so i'll leave you with this.

TL;DR if you made the mistake of Actually Reading the text contents of The Video Game Fate Grand Order and you are capable of remembering or caring about said text contents for more than 2 years you can just go straight to hell because this game is ruled by the whims of one parts marketing department and one parts cowboy-committee. this incident is far from the only case of that, mind you. it's just the one that was Literally 9/11 to me specifically.

[motionpicturedemise]

myth's game writeup of 2023

i waited until the new year to finish this in case i managed to beat a game during december. i did not. ANYWAY.

this will contain new games as well as games i only got around to in 2023. light on spoilers but be warned

Octopath Traveler II (2023)

as far as i remember, this was the first new game I played this year, and god did it deliver. I've been a fan of octopath since the first one came out on switch in 2018, counting it as my favorite game of all time, so to have a sequel after all this time was thrilling. it did almost everything octopath 1 did and better. new path actions, day/night system, branching stories, fucking boats?? incredible.

my biggest gripe has to be the new hidden classes. I started with throne so getting inventor 10 minutes after my chapter one did definitely fuck up the progression a little bit. I think I preferred ot1 hidden classes. while the dungeons were underwhelming, the boss battles really make you fight for these secret techniques, something absent in 3 out of the 4 hidden classes of octopath 2.

overall: 4/5 BP.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (2023)

xenoblade 3 as the end of the klaus trilogy really didn't sit well with me, for reasons that don't belong on my review of its dlc, but future redeemed fixed nearly every problem i had with base xc3 — both story and gameplay wise. it ties every xenoblade game and even some of gears and saga into a neat little 40 hour bow, and is truly a love letter to the entire series. I can only think of one problem I still have with it. the fucking menu music.

where do i even fucking start with this one really. relatively speaking, I'm a new xenoblade fan, having started xc1 in march 2022 during a harrowing experience with adhd meds, and since then it had kinda consumed me. I finished it in about a week, went on to watch xenoblade 2 because I had heard the gameplay wasn't great, and got my hands on xenoblade 3 day of release.

overall: 5 dance apples.

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

as someone who was not immune to the hype surrounding botw, I had high hopes for the sequel. hopes that were painfully, slowly, fed into a trash compactor over my playthrough. this is another game I got on release day, lining up outside gamestop in the heat, and lets not forget that it's the only first-party switch game with a price tag of seventy bucks.

the game plays like a tech demo. I have a lot of love in my heart for it. the story was better that botw, the world was more expansive than botw, but the problem here is that everything it does is directly compared to breath of the wild. it doesn't get enough time to shine, because we're in the exact same world as 6 years ago, but instead of pinkish black malice we have blackish pink gloom. i much prefer the runes to the zonai abilities, and the sense of wonder that permeated breath of the wild is replaced by a sense of nostalgia that just doesn't appeal to me much.

all of this isn't to say it's a bad game. I think it's a great game, honestly, but a great game that wasn't meant for me. I've seen the insane shit people do with ultrahand, but it just... isn't my style.

overall: 441/1000 korok seeds

Pikmin 4 (2023)

it's pikmin. i dont have much to say about it. it was a lot of fun, loved that part where i bulborbed all over those guys. im not a gameplay reviewer, at heart i mostly talk about story, and a game like pikmin doesn't have much for me to comment on. good fun. lived up to expectations. probably wouldn't replay.

overall: 7500 sparklium

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood (2017)

oh, stormblood... the rage you still fill my veins with. I'm not going to spend too long on this one because I have better things to do with my life than shit on an expansion everyone already hates, but let me make it clear I actually do have reasons for disliking it.

having ala mhigo built up since the very start of a realm reborn, only to have half of the ala mhigo expansion take place halfway across the star, was very disappointing. the monotony of the three areas in gyr abania compared to the three far east areas was very disappointing. the treatment of the people of the steppe and honestly that entire segment in the main story quest was very disappointing. hien, as a character, in his entirety, was very disappointing.

I will say it had strong parts. the 61-70 quests for several jobs were the strongest in their entire story (see: dark knight). the dungeons started to get more interesting. it gave us the quest Child Labor, which is hilarious and I'll never be finishing it because I want it there forever.

overall: 1/3 WHM Lillies.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (2019)

ffxiv immediately got better the second 4.0 was over. even the patch quests instantly shot up in quality. it's not even funny. the lead up to shadowbringers was the most fun I had had with the game since a realm reborn, and all of the first was heartbreaking to go through even though I was spoiled on That Character's Identity.

the duty trust system (is that what it was called?) made dungeons much more fun. getting to go through hell with alphinaud alisaie and thancred made everything 10x better, even if it was a lot slower. the story, again, heartbreaking — ryne's arc in particular felt like being stabbed by thousands of little needles while trying to play. in the best way, of course. and amaurot... amaurot. getting to quote our favorite knight in there was my 8th umbral calamity.

shadowbringers also marks when a lot of your job's functionality is really unlocked, so doing the level 80 raid series was genuinely a ton of fun. and again the thousands of little needles. i cried at least 7 times during the main story.

overall: 85/100 kenki gauge.

Katana Zero (2019)

possibly my favorite game this year. the protagonist, zero (or as i like to call him, katana from zero,) ticked all the boxes for a character I'd be absolutely obsessed with. true enough, i fell in love. the fast-paced gameplay, the diegesis of gameplay elements which would typically go unquestioned, and the care that seeps through every dialogue choice all solidify katana zero as one of my favorite game experiences ever. I'll leave it at this, because I encourage everyone to at least give it a try.

overall: Yes, that should work.

Fire Emblem Engage (2023)

this is one of the few 2023 releases on this list that I didn't get on launch, because at the time I had relatively little interest in fire emblem as a series. then I made a lot of friends who enjoy it, and in october, bestie sen decided to buy it for me as an early birthday present. everyone say thank you sen.

considering this is my first fire emblem game, i have absolutely no deeper insight into how it matches up compared to the others, and plenty of people more eloquent than me have already talked about that. what I do know is that the gameplay was surprisingly fun as my first tactical rpg, and the story was passable. all the characters were appealing in one way or another, and I'm still mad I had to choose between marrying kagetsu or fogado. they're both my husbands at heart.

overall: I didn't internalize enough of this game to come up with a clever rating.

Fire Emblem Engage: Fell Xenologue (2023)

I was expecting the dlc to continue the main story, so I put it off until I had finished the base game. in hindsight, I regret it, because I'd love to have brought the winds and twins with me to fight their evil versions and alternate universe dad. the story was... alright. I really liked all the small battle interactions between fell characters and our party members which they would've known. I instantly recognized fogado in chapter 1 because I am in love with him by the way.

overall: i dont know. 1¾ dragonstones

with 2024 upon us, I'll probably be writing reviews for games as I play them. I'm trying to use tumblr more as a social platform instead of just reblogging. we'll see how that plays out. if you like any of these games (yes, even tears of the kingdom) please talk to me about them! that's all for now. look out for my mangled thoughts on SANABI and Nier: Automata next :)

[oddygaul]

Quick Hits #1 - The Land Before Time, I Used to be Funny, Godzilla vs. Biollante

Okay, if I’m going to keep doing this with regularity, and use it as the journal it was intended to be and not a half-assed review blog, I really have to let myself do incredibly short writeups now and then, and not get hung up on trying to have Real Takes on everything. Quick hits! Here we go!

The Land Before Time

This was like, weaponized nostalgia for me. There’s the parts I expected to hit me like a truck, like Littlefoot’s mom dying and the scene where the T-Rex is battering down the walls of the big spiky tree. But then there were bits that fully activated every neuron in my brain that I didn’t even remember beforehand, like the way the sand is animated as Ducky’s egg rolls down the hill, Spike eating grass, or the iconic sequence of Littlefoot’s egg rolling away.

As is common with older children’s entertainment, I was pretty shocked how dark The Land Before Time was willing to get. It’s a weirdly common staple of kid’s movies to feature the death of a parent, but the sheer length of time Littlefoot is given to wallow in depression afterwards was pretty striking - this cute little dude is ready to give up and die for damn near half the movie’s runtime.

Also, the backgrounds are fucking lit - it looks like the Phyrexians brought the glistening oil through this place, god damn. I love it, though - it makes the environment really feel like a place out of time.

Now, I do love the approach contemporary dinosaur media takes to provide a more realistic view of the world dinosaurs would have inhabited. Seeing the creatures of Prehistoric Planet roam through an Earth not so different from our own puts things into perspective, and helps us understand how dinosaurs actually lived. But there’s a certain charm to the old-school approach of Land Before Time or Fantasia, with their blasted rockscapes and murky horizons. It makes the setting feel otherworldly, like the dinosaurs exist in a totally different, impenetrable reality, which is pretty intoxicating for the imagination of a child.

Stand By Me is an entire movie based around how seeing a corpse changed a group of kids. Meanwhile these mfs walk by corpses ten times a day and don’t give a fuck

I Used to be Funny

Loved all the acting and all the writing.

10/10 no notes

Godzilla vs. Biollante

This is probably my favorite of the old-school Zillas I’ve watched so far - a pretty perfect blend of camp and dope shit.

The human story is a bit of a mess - they touch on a lot of interesting themes, but never quite succeed in making them matter. It is also, however, absolutely chock-full of wild, memorable moments. The Saradian assassin dramatically showing up from off-screen nearly half a dozen times, the weirdly gormless, shades-wearing Colonel Gondo and his Big Damn Hero Moment with the bazooka, Demon Kogure’s baffling cameo, the kids in the Seasoning City Awakening Lab drawing their visions of Godzilla, hell, the totally unexplained psychic girl herself - a lot of weird shit happens in this movie.

Then the monster side is choice, too. I haven’t seen a better-looking suited Godzilla than this one - the movement is spot-on, and the catlike, double-fanged Godzilla manages to be menacing even in close-ups. Biollante is really great, too. I was sold already when she was just an imposing, eldritch rosebush, and then we get a whole crocodilian puppet, replete with dozens of swaying vines? Very cool.

Also, the soundtrack slaps.

[firstginger]

hey there, i don't knoe if you're the best person to ask but you seem pretty knowlegable. Do you know of any good resources for Pullman forms? I know the Daemon forum has a good index, but they all seem to be analytical forms. Thanks!

oh TDF actually has a separate section on pullman forms now! it doesn't have as many entries as the analytical section, but it's actually pretty extensive and will probably be a good starting place to even get a feel for what type of animal embodies you. they're also just so fun to read through, as i'm pretty unfamiliar with animal symbolism/associations outside of my own culture.

here's the link to the portrait/sketch museum! they also take form-finding requests on the forum and i know they have a discord too that i'm sure would be happy to chat about it.

TDF aside, i did an overview on jungian character archetypes and pullman forms that i think people found helpful -- here's the link to that! i recommended this quiz for identifying your top 2-3 archetypes which might help you to start identifying animals that are associated with that character archetype.

and then personal research is also fun! when examining pullman forms, i tend to zoom in on three categories:

1. The class/order of the animal. In the original series, specific patterns were developed such as scholars and academics having bird daemons and civil servants and care providers having domestic canine daemons. For this i'm going to lean into the Jungian archetypes: we can attribute certain species to fitting archetypes of the creator, the lover, the explorer, the outlaw, etc, which is a good starting place for understanding what animal class/order/genus form might fit you best before you funnel into a specific species.

2. The geographical location of the animal. People have animal daemons from the region they feel is most like home. For some this might be where you grew up, for others it might be a place you're drawn to or realized you were home when you arrived. This includes continent or country but also biome.

3. And of course, the symbolic associations of the animal. In these shorter roundups, I'm going to try and put forth three essential associations for each form to be explored as to not make each analysis too lengthy. These will be under the umbrella of what's associated with the animal form in general (so like how you'd first have to fit an owl form -> and here are the specific associations of a burrowing owl).

so for example, here's a pullman writeup for a douglas squirrel i have rotting away in my drafts:

DOUGLAS SQUIRREL, Tamiasciurus douglasii Class: The Douglas squirrel can first be broadly interpreted as a rodent form, and then specifically a type of squirrel. The squirrel can often be considered an artist: they are self-motivated, imaginative, and hyperactive, people who enjoy both working hard and playing hard. As opposed to other species who rely a lot on creation or tool use, squirrels' specialty is in knowledge-gathering and preparation. This sets them apart in this category as they may also assume some of the explorer archetype: open-minded and restless, with difficulty committing to one thing or feeling satisfied with their outcomes. Finally, squirrels are often seen as the jester. They are noisy and playful, but it is important to note that it's not at the expense of their resources and drive. They are most motivated by discovery and a good standing in life, with just a pinch of anxiety. Region: The Douglas squirrel is a Pacific Northwest animal, found in northern California through southwestern Canada. They live in old-growth coniferous forests or other forests with conifers. Most of their regional associations revolve around evergreens, forests, and the Pacific Northwest; they're not as urban as the gray squirrel, and are much more connected to rural and wilderness environments rather than urban and city ones. Associations: Three essential associations for the Douglas squirrel are curiosity, gathering, and self-expression. These people are going to be ruled by imagination and collection, gatherers of physical items or of knowledge and defending it. They are shaped by their sense of preparation and yet their energy is often scattered. It is almost impossible for them to not be true to themselves; they are bringers of self-expression with noise and mischief. This person is therefore one that is drawn to explore the world around them, naturally gathers and surrounds themselves with comfort, and has a boisterous but genuine nature.

hope this helps! :)

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 2,343

Kanaya: Answer CA.

Author commentary:

Get ready for this awful child. The obnoxious, romantically tragic, genocidal fuckboy of the group. It should be a familiar online archetype to most by now. Earlier I referred to Nepeta as being somewhat a writeup of the enthusiastic fandom type, which could be summarily branded as the "Tumblr fangirl." And in that sense, she reads as a less focused rough draft of Calliope, who brought more clarity to that role later. So thinking in those terms, you could also view Eridan as a writeup of the "4chan nastyboy," and therefore an unfocused draft of Caliborn, who similarly distilled that role. I think there's a lot to say about Eridan, particularly as a raw precursor to that villainous presence in the story later. I'll wait until he's on-screen before diving into that, though. Just setting up here! You've been warned.

The fact that Eridan's being so loose with strange romantic terms is how you know we're getting awfully close to the troll romance info dump. It's like a Geiger counter that's starting to beep like crazy. Eridan has something in common with Karkat in that he appears well versed in the subject of romance. Later we see that, even though they don't like each other much, they sort of act like "bros" when it comes to this subject. However, Karkat treats the subject more academically, with a sort of hobbyist's enthusiasm, and seems to carry a certain respect for the knowledge. Whereas Eridan clearly tries to exploit his knowledge of romance to his advantage, behaves manipulatively, sort of in the vein of a pickup artist (and a very unsuccessful one at that). We detect signs of this here. His entire scheme with the doomsday device appears to have more to do with roping Vriska into a blackrom relationship than it does with his interest in wiping out land dwellers (still a valid motivation, but secondary to his sad romantic pursuits). He also uses his romantic insights to manipulate people in other ways, even if he's not trying to court them. Like pinning Kanaya down as a natural auspistice and using it to get her to set him up with Vriska. Maybe even "mediate" between them, since that's what she apparently likes to do with Vriska anyway. In fact, the more you unpack what he's doing here, if you understand the ashen quadrant, the more it actually seems like he is hitting on Kanaya, with kind of a backdoor approach. He's proposing a menage-a-clubs, with him and Vriska. He literally never stops working all possible angles to fill his quadrants.

The only reason I made him say "powwwwoww" is because I wanted to type four w's in a row. This should be obvious to everyone. It's worth pausing here to behold how completely ridiculous Eridan's entire verbal existence is, when you take into account his silly double w/v quirk, which conveys an absurd "accent" of some sort, his run-on cadence, unyieldingly indignant tone, and colorful vocabulary that feels like a baffling mashup of pirate speak, soccer hooliganism, and the fuckboy joker always sliding into your DMs. His eclectic vocabulary and obsession with romance means that we suddenly get this whole rush of quadrant vernacular we hadn't heard before. Which is pretty intriguing on a worldbuilding basis, to start picking up how many average trolls probably allude to each other's romantic habits in casual conversation. Things like being "ruddy" for someone, or waxing this way or that. There's a whole manner of speaking about this stuff that can only be picked up through enough exposure to contextual banter.

Okay, "savvvvy" was just another excuse to type four v's in a row. Calling myself out here at every turn. "Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands" is another Homestuck tagline. I'm just going to keep making note of these when I see them. They will always do one of the following: 1) reference dying too much 2) address the difficulties of growing up 3) involve the fact that nobody ever really knows what the hell is going on 4) insinuate in some way that I am a buffoon, a liar, a sadist, or a megalomaniacal genius, or 5) all of the above. In fact, this entire note can be a tagline too.

[thorn-amidst-roses]

Had an idea for a writeup last night, and once I start I can’t stop so guess who was up until 1:30am on a worknight writing blorbo shit.

Then I went immediately to bed and dreamed blorbo shit.

In the dream, we’d realized that we had too many major NPCs in the game (who were, in this dream, somehow actual semi-people semi-existing vaguely around us, but they still weren’t any more ‘real’ than they actually are, despite having a physical form) and that we would have to cull one.

So we held a contest, and I was like, big deal, it’ll probably end up being the guy we’ve literally never even used once.

But somehow, Tenya’s fucking husband lost the contest, and I had to basically just deal with sitting with him while he was “dying”.

NOT A COOL TIME.

[clockworksteel]

Well, I guess my usual end of year thing is to look back at goals and say how they went. Honestly, the year was kinda rough, and I think I spent most of the second half of the year in some stage of burnout, so I'm not gonna worry too much about things that didn't get finished.

Serious Goals

Exercise: Some token efforts were made, but no true habit formed. Maybe next year.

Take care of something around the house: I did put a new auto-closer on the back door, as was one of the tasks I listed as something I might do, so technically accomplished already in January. I also arranged to have the water heater replaced, so a bit of a bonus. There were a couple things I was honestly hoping I'd get around to that I didn't, but honestly, it's fine. Plus even though it wasn't an emergency replacement or anything, getting a new water heater was probably better than getting the outside of the house painted.

Clearing the stacks of paper from my desk: Well… I think the stacks of paper might be shorter? Also, vaguely related, I did at least take care of a lot of the plastic bottles and snack containers that had built up nearby, so that's something.

Gender progress: I feel like I didn't gather any new evidence this year. I'm currently kinda going with the idea that I'm almost agender, but, like there's 3% of a gender just kinda wobbling around, which I guess technically could be called something like demi-genderfluid but I feel like that label implies way more gender non-conforming than I've been doing. I've compared my current gender to a TV remote that's basically out of batteries but can still produce a little signal if you're lucky. Two years ago I definitely had 3 months of feeling transfem, but, I mean, if you bottle up 1-3% of a gender for 3 decades maybe that does come out to 3 months. I haven't done the math. Of course, anytime I make an avatar of some sort of a video game lately I'm like, "Well, time to make a girl and see if there's trans flag clothing" so there's really no way of knowing whether there's more going on. I mean, I'm about to go to my parents' house, so maybe it's better not to dwell too hard on that anyway.

Fun Goals

Earn at least 100 Challenge Enthusiasts Points: Doubled the goal. Site updates adjusted some point values and added some objectives I'd already done, but my best attempt at adding up everything I actually did this year comes out to 200 points, anyway. Turns out the fun ones are kinda easier to stick with, although honestly, the points were mostly frontloaded in the year. Burnout even affected my gaming.

Finish Factorio and at least one other game I stopped playing for at least 4 months: Yep, did this too. Factorio, Hue, and Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe.

I'm not gonna try to get too into next year's goals yet. That's kinda an activity for me in the car closer to New Year's. I just thought I'd get the wrap-up done now since it's not like I'm gonna do anything more while I'm gone.

I do want to actually finish those monster-type writeups for The Void Rains Upon Her Heart though. I've written most of a post on Glyph Monsters and already have the screenshots I want from story events.

[momotech764]

okay, after a couple iterations, i've settled on this:

it's a little bit all over the place, but that's because it's designed to basically cancel out as many resource-related issues from living at 80% habitability as possible (writeup below):

Fanatic Materialist gives +10% research speed, which i think due to research stations is actually a net positive with the -10% production malus. -20% robot upkeep is a nice bonus for later, too, if you decide to use them.

Conservationist only covers pop consumer goods upkeep- and thus doesn't account for job upkeep, thus still being net negative with the production malus, but it certainly helps.

Traditional directly counteracts the malus for Unity, increasing unity production from jobs by 10%. Mutagenic Spas just offsets the Cave Dweller/habitability-based reductions to pop growth speed a bit. it's mainly just there to make use of the minimum habitability, and make Industrial Districts a little more useful in comparison to mining districts. Authoritarian & Strong gives +7.5% worker resource production (i think? i'm assuming the bonuses are additive), which is a little less than you need to cancel the -10% reduction from habitability. luckily, Food is relatively easy to come by, and you can always sell some surplus Minerals if you're short on Energy. Speaking of which...

Subterranean's 15% miner production bonus + Mining Guilds' +1 mineral from miners = LOTS of minerals, even before factoring in Strong, which is really good early-game. (plus, the Mining Guild council seat gives .05 stability per miner per skill level, which is a pretty huge boost with uncapped mining districts)

also, Imperial authority gives a big fat +10% resource bonus from jobs in your capital system, which is pretty decent early on and has the potential to become a massive bonus if you move your capital to a nice system (tri-colony systems, anyone?) or when you unlock habitats later on

as for the long-term game plan... it's pretty easy to do just about anything. it's a pretty versatile build, so you can pretty much do any ascension path, though it's... probably not *ideal* to go for Psionic without some tweaking.

you could swap out Fanatic Materialist for Fanatic Spiritualist or spiritualist/xenophobe, maybe, and take Intelligent instead of Traditional... but i digress.

all the other ascension paths work pretty well as it is. as for your third civic... mostly up to you, but for me, it depends on my chosen ascension path

if i was using bio ascension, i would use Relentless Industrialists (80% minimum habitability, baby!) and give all my pops Radiotrophic once I unlocked the transgenesis techs.

if i was using synth ascension, i would instead get Masterful Crafters, since that way i not only get trade value out of my industrial districts, but i can also switch to a militarized economy without hurting consumer goods production too much (ALSO, the trade value can feed into even more consumer goods using the trade policy for that if i decide to take Mercantile traditions at some point... also it basically means i don't even need city districts anymore except for amenity production, since it removes food upkeep and i now get both trade value and building slots from my Industrial districts)

that's about it. thanks for reading!

REBLOGGED TO THE WRONG FUCKING BLOG AGAIN

i'm sure i'll get better at this eventually.

in other news, i don't have access to my PC at the moment but i'm theorycrafting a Subterranean build that uses Noxious to have a big fat 80 habitability on Every Planet. there are a lot of directions i could take it but I'm currently working with Nonadaptive.

it's basically a free trait point, seeing as with Sub/Nox you have a guaranteed 80% on all planets (except for 'ideal' worlds- gaia, ring, homeworld etc) and probably Very Strong to counter the -10% resource loss from habitability.

fuck. i was cooking this post up for so long that i'm actually at my PC now so. will post what i come up with

[axolator]

Script-A-Day #12: Star Pass All Stars by Ekin

Damn it, where's the Demon now?!

Featured characters: Gossip, Nightwatchman, Pit-Hag

Complexity: Intermediate. Recommended for players who liked S&V but wished things were a little more deadly and didn't really like the madness.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!) - Note that the most recent version (v2.2) is also pretty great, featuring the Hatter over the Barber. I personally prefer running v2.1, but both will result in good games. Run whichever one you prefer!

Writeup under the cut!

Star Pass All Stars is a wild goose chase where both good and evil will be constantly adapting to an ever-changing situation. The evil team has some strong misinformation in Poisoner and Widow, along with mobility in Imp, Fang Gu, and Pit-Hag. The latter of those along with Godfather create a menacing extra death package, too, and the Gossip, Grandmother, and Tinker can contribute to an early end for an unprepared good team. However, Good has some powerful info in Fortune Teller, Oracle, and especially Mathematician, along with confirmatory power and a couple bait roles: in the hands of a competent ST, Star Pass All Stars can really shine.

Be careful when you bag-build: this script can tend to be evil-sided if you throw tokens in randomly. The Poisoner should be used sparingly, since there aren’t a ton of ways to detect it (especially with a Fang Gu adding an extra evil!), and Fang Gu and Godfather together can make shooting into FG jump candidates very punishing. On the other side of the coin, the Gossip can confirm itself somewhat easily on this script, since evil’s only way to generate multiple deaths per night without making an evil Gossip is with the Godfather (when all Outsiders are face up), by Tinker death, or by Pit-Hag change — consider killing the Gossip with their own ability sooner than you usually would (maybe on the second kill).

Some notes:

Mathematician week is still a go! Here a "ping" is +1 to their number:

If the Monk protects the Fang Gu and prevents them from jumping to a chosen Outsider, the FG pings the math.

If the Monk protects a Vigor-poisoned player, removing the poisoning for that night, the Vigor pings the math.

Base script interaction but still relevant: If the Pit-Hag causes arbitrary deaths, and that causes a Demon's kill to not go through, that Demon pings the Math.

Okay, outside of that, this script is actually really easy to run Mathematician on. We don't need a bulleted list.

Be dilligent with how you track Gossips! If a player makes a Gossip that's true in the moment, then gets turned into the Gossip (via Barber or Pit-Hag), their gossip will kill tonight, despite them not being the Gossip when the statement was said. Don't be afraid to ask your players for help tracking their Gossips, in case it becomes relevant later.

(This might be relevant, if, completely hypothetically, the evil team decides to swap the puzzledrunk Gossip with the Widow, creating an evil Gossip that kills the PM and a puzzledrunk good Widow.)

Make sure you know how the Cannibal interacts with character-changing. The Cannibal's ability constantly checks what the most recently-executed player's ability is — if they change characters, the Cannibal's ability changes to match.

This probably doesn't warrant its own note, but you can do a really funny thing and simulate a Witch-kill on the Tinker. Bonus points if it procs the Godfather!

Ensure you know how the Widow ping works: if the Widow is alive (and sober/healthy) and the person with the ping gets turned evil (via FG jump), a new good player gets the ping, since it's a constant check.

That's about it from me today. This script is tricky to run right, but doesn't require too much overhead from your players, and can result in some very fun games. See you tomorrow!

(Okay, so what if I lied about that puzzledrunk good widow being completely hypothetical? I'm a Clocktower player; lying's in my blood.)