#rant for an hour game

[imsfire2]

List 5 topics you can talk on for an hour without preparing any material.

I've been tagged by @sleeplessant so here we go, in no particular order:

Ceramics. My current creative passion, and one of the happiest discoveries of my adult life. Believe me, clay is very exciting! There's so much to learn and so much room to experiment, and every time you fire a piece, there's a wonderful additional benefit in having to let go of the need for control, because you can literally never be 100% sure of what state your work will be in when it comes out of the kiln. As well as that, the intense focus of concentrating on making something by hand is intensely relaxing and very good for the mental health. And you get a plate you can eat off at the end (or a bowl, or mug, or a vase, or a sculpture...).

Greece. The beautiful land of Hellas, and the Hellene people with their wonderful culture, history, language and cuisine. I could probably talk for way more than an hour on each of those topics, not to mention the legends and mythology, the landscapes and seascapes, and the joys of travelling in Greece.

Working as an artists' model, with all its delights and tribulations. I love my work and find it fascinating, but I have so many horror stories about the life room, and indeed the art world in general. Many are hilarious; some are appalling. It's an entire subculture, utterly batty at times, and full of extraordinary people, both heroes and arseholes.

Making new clothes out of recycled old clothes. Combine the fun of fashion with the satisfaction of recycling and repurposing things that would otherwise end up in landfill - and get a new pair of shorts out of it!

Proofreading, spelling, and general literacy, and why these are so important. In current education and everyday communications, especially on social media, there's a casual disregard for correct spelling and grammar; and so long as everyone is cool with that, and you're all speaking the same codes, that will work ok. But at some point or other in life we can all find ourselves in a situation where being unable to spell correctly, or unaware of how to construct a grammatical sentence, can be disastrous. You don't get a job interview despite being highly experienced in the field; your manuscipt is rejected out of hand; your dissertation is marked down so hard you fail your degree course. All because you can't spell and don't know the rules of writing in your own language, and irresponsible teachers have been letting you coast for years without learning them. Spellcheckers (and their nightmare cousins, grammar checkers) are by no means the answer - they cannot, for example, tell the difference between "now" and "not", and exchanging one of these for the other will hugely alter the meaning of your sentence. Yes, languages evolve constantly, and this is great; but it's simple pragmatism to be able to write your native language "correctly" in the present time. And if you can't, then own up to it and get a proofreader!

OK, ahem, rant over.

I'm going to nominate @thefulcrumcaptain, @ladyk23, @snooziep, @jynappreciationsquad and @dasakuryo - but only if you have the time and the spoons!

[bixels]

Splatoon 3: Side Order is good, but not great. I still highly recommend it, but if you care about the story, you're going to be disappointed. Quick review: spoilers ahead.

Side Order was the devs experimenting with Splatoon's gameplay loop. The campaign is a rogue-like, and it works amazingly well. Super fun, super challenging, building my deck and fighting through challenges with the stakes of resetting really scratched an itch in my brain. They did a great job with it.

Unfortunately, I feel like priority went to game design rather than story. Much of the mysterious artwork we saw in the first teaser trailer was completely unused; turns out, all of that was just concept art that never made it into the final product. Side Order failed to make me care about what was happening. I don't know why the protagonist had to be Agent 8; it could've been anyone else and the story would've worked the same.

Octo Expansion was the absolute peak of meshing story and gameplay. The campaign's hook is insanely strong; we immediately empathize with Agent 8 because we know from previous lore that octolings like her have been trapped underground for all their lives. We care about her fight to the surface because it's a fundamentally ideological fight for freedom. The plot stuff about Tartar and the Thangs is just nice set dressing; 8's fight for freedom is the real story.

There's none of that in Side Order. I don't particularly care about Marina's metaverse, even if it's tied to Octo Expansion's story. I don't know why Acht is there other than backstory stuff. It really feels like 8 is just told to do something and she does it because she's the protagonist; she has zero personal stakes or motivations in the conflict. This is a story blunder the devs did in Splatoon 3's default campaign––forgetting to give the protagonist a personal reason to fight––that I hoped would be fixed here, but alas.

What makes it worse is that the gameplay and story progression are completely out of sync. I beat the entire game on my third run in 4 hours. With each run, you get up to two keys to potentially unlock bits of story. That means you'll get about one piece of the story every two runs. There are twelve pieces of the story; I got the first and then beat the whole damn game. Now I have to go back and grind to see the remaining story when I've already beaten the final boss and resolved the conflict. I missed the entire story because I never had to reset because I blazed through the gameplay! It's just a real shame that I experienced everything without knowing... why it's happening. The final boss had me asking myself what the hell is going on because I don't know the backstory at all.

Again, I still really recommend. The devs did a great job, but Side Order remains in the shadow of Octo Expansion's incredible success. Like the default singleplayer campaign, there's just a lot of lost story potential here that, while not necessary, would have really elevated this DLC into something amazing.

[chaoticas-hell]

Wymack: since I can no longer bribe Andrew with sobriety and booze I've decided to bribe him with the next best thing

Wymack: Neil.

[soren-apologist]

time for more soren character analysis:

petrine’s battle conversation with soren in chapter 23 has always been a favorite of mine, and now that i’m looking at it again i noticed a few extra details:

it’s important to mention that this battle takes place directly after ike and soren’s a-support, in which soren confesses he’s a branded and expects to be shunned, only for ike to tell him that it doesn’t matter and he wants soren to stay by his side regardless.

anyway, besides “Now let me show you true fear!” being a really hard line, it’s really cool to see how soren’s reaction to his branded status being pointed out changes so sharply over the course of a handful of chapters. i already analyzed his reaction to nasir’s betrayal where he’s agitated over the fact that he could have prevented it if nasir hadn’t threatened to reveal him being branded to the army, so seeing him being so confident in himself is great, and i’ll touch on why here.

one of the reasons i like to say the game treats ike and soren’s a-support as canon is actually this particular conversation. soren, having just been reassured that ike will always want him at his side regardless of who or what he is, now suddenly has had his biggest fear and insecurity taken off his back. he doesn’t need to hate himself for being branded because ike, the only person who’s ever truly mattered to soren, doesn’t care at all.

back to the conversation, soren’s judgment over the situation at hand is no longer clouded by his own self-loathing. instead of comparing them as branded and seeing himself as just as horrid and disgusting as petrine (tiger branded, fun fact), he’s able to instead compare them as individuals and realize that what he’s done up to that point will never measure up to the atrocities she’s committed. i think the best part personally is just how disgusted soren looks by the notion he and petrine are the same, because he’s right— him being cutthroat and pragmatic is nothing compared to everything petrine has done in daein’s name— and the fact he can clearly see this means that, for the very first time, he’s finally starting to heal from the mental wounds inflicted upon him by his childhood.

overall, i like this little nod to soren starting to learn to grow and change from who he was at the beginning of fe9. it’s more clearly seen in radiant dawn, where he’s calmer to the point ranulf even comments on it, but these little inklings implying the start of soren’s healing are really cool to see.

[takesfew]

My current hyperfixation

These idiots 🐍❤️🐙

[eeriethacus]

Combining my current obssession with my past obsession? That's a half-lie, never got over Hadestown.

A lil old wip for now because I've been busy and will be busy for the next couple of weeks... but hopefully I'll be back with an aftg piece that's in the works<33

[3416]

also kyper going so hardcore about 1634 today saved me..... "34 wants 16. he doesnt want 88, he doesn't want anybody else. he wants him." he said it with SO much conviction, it's killing me. like that's how me and the oomfs speak bro, welcome to the club. also the use of their numbers to make it less personal like these guys dont wear their numbers like a LIFELINEEEE......

[starryinkart]

Hey so a bit of a possible crack theory:

So in the show, we’ve gotten three solver colors already, Red, which stands for Doll, Purple which stands for Uzi/Nori, Yellow which stands for the solver/CYN. But here’s something ALOT of people seemed to miss. After you rewatch the Season 1 trailer, you realize:

There’s a blue solver, most likely a blue solver holder. Hidden right before the infamous yellow of the solver we’ve come to know in the show.

If you watch the trailer, you also notice something else. Right before this symbol quickly shows up, we have a dialogue from N, running away from Uzi from the scene at the end of episode 2 and then him sitting in front of V being sad. But if you listen to that dialogue:

He says “We can’t be around the workers anymore V, we’re too dangerous…”

He eventually begins to hang around them again, but to me this line with the imagery is super important. We know from the most recent episode 7/8 teaser that N is the actual leader of the squad, most likely the strongest and most likely protected by CYN with her admin right before she was completely lost by the solver.

Through out the show, we see him confused at his own power at points, like in episode 4 when he shoots the arrow through another and catches them on fire, cracking the arrow board, proceeding to say:

“Did I do that?” All confused.

N obviously doesn’t know how powerful he is at all, but what if and hear me out, it’s not ONLY because he’s a Disassembly Drone?

We know that CYN blocked the solver from having access to him, V and J to most likely protect them from the fate the solver has for drones who are infected. She didn’t want the same thing happening to N, her brother, who she loved and his friends which he cared about and most likely she cared about before she was taken over completely.

But now, Uzi has unblocked them from being protected from the CYNs admin, which was presumably protecting the squad from the affects of possibly getting the solver, (under the assumption CYN was bad in general) by becoming their administrator. If Uzi is their admin, and she gets taken over by the solver in general, that means that her admin code basically becomes useless to protecting N and the others from being infected too. And remember Tessa found them in the dump and repaired them as well, like CYN so they have a high chance of contracting the solver since they were also disposed of incorrectly.

So here comes the point of this picture that was released as a teaser yesterday:

It’s N, looking down, whether at something or just on the verge of having a breakdown and losing it we are uncertain, but from the posture, the balled fists, he does NOT look okay at all.

The first thing yours eyes are drawn to are the building split in half in front of him, the exoplanets in the sky and N. But, on a more closer look, you see two things:

1. The snow flakes on the bottom left have a ominous blue tint to them, which should only happen if blue light is reflecting off of them…

2. If you didn’t notice on the first look, N has the same blue light, coming from right in front of him. Perhaps maybe the same color as this blue solver symbol we have yet to see with some weird lines and curves jutting out from the sides…

At first, I thought Khan would be the blue solver holder at the beginning of the series, being a surprise twist for him to have activated in him he was so afraid of due to him possibly seeing it with his wife Nori. Honestly while that would’ve been cool, episode 5 debunked this possibility, since Khan was flung out of the room by Doll when she was attempting to get the cyber bug from Uzi. Solver owners can’t effect other solver holders as proven from the series, it can only use items around them to throw or hurt them.

We haven’t seen N be affect by the solver once in the present time or in the flashback of episode 5.

Now I do know the merch video came out today, but it was stated in the video that

1. “It was totally not canonical to the series what so ever” which I HIGHLY doubt. Most of the merch and videos we have seen have been canon and it seems as though the characters have been pulled aside between episodes to “film” these fourth wall breaks.

2. The fact that the title of the video “N’s Final Form” and the thumbnail are most likely not just a joke. Notice his acrylic stand teaser from V’s acrylic stand released recently:

When I first saw this, it looked SUPER weird. Me and my significant other said it looked like N and we thought the two things in the foreground of his body were his wings, meaning he was looking away from the viewer of the stand.

But then we looked closer and I started looking at my King Solver N design you can find in the murder drones link in my FAQ and we drew a more accurate picture of what we were seeing. N was not looking away from the viewer, all the characters are looking at us, and it would be weird to have N be different. So this is what we came up with:

W stands for his wings, T stands for where his tail is, L stands for his legs, F stands for his face and H stands for his hands.

His hands look a-little weird don’t they?

Remember this:

It was mentioned some where on Tumblr that this looks similar to the cocoon that Uzi broke out of in Episode 4 when she transformed into her solver form only N is being dragged in. This is obviously a biomechanical phenomenon of the solver. But why is he being dragged in?

To have his “final transformation” , a “final form” you may say?

The only thing is, after Uzis transformation, is when the solver really started to gain power over her, taking control of her as seen in Episode 4 and recently in Episode 6. As soon as she became biomechanical, the solver gained more control over her.

(Edit: sO this cocoon theory was wrong, but his emotions can still spill over and cause this!!! So its not fully wrong yet!)

Now think of the scene above and what happened to Uzi in Episode 4, but with N. N gets dragged into this cocoon, fighting but not able to escape, while Uzi is fighting inside her mind with the real solver, posing as CYN in the mansion as Uzi is trying not to lose her mind. While she’s stuck, N has his transformation, now not able to be protected by CYNs administration since Uzi is now the administrator of him and V, so he undergoes the transition, the solver not having much to fight against converting him to a biomechanical creature like Uzi. This gives it more power over N, and gives it a chance to take advantage of the situation to bury itself into N’s code, making his solver string: true. Now N has the same thing inside him that has possibly taken everything from him.

After this, he either gets possessed fully and goes on a rampage or the possession is slow, painful after he manages to escape the cocoon and get to the surface. Either by this point Uzi is still fighting in her head and N thinks she’s fully gone or dead OR she has successfully fought the solver and is looking for N. All his repressed emotions, everything that has happened, everything he’s lost…it’s all become too much. He snaps, lashing out on whatever is in front of him, this being the building we see in half in the teaser from yesterday. Before he can stop himself, he angrily swings toward the building, but instead of a sword, his gun or his claws coming out, there is this fleshy, gross growth that emerges, a blue solver symbol appearing in front of him and shooting towards the building, snapping it in half like a toothpick.

There is a moment of either him stopping in pure panic due to this OR his panic, sadness and fear turns into full on anger, him not able to repress anything anymore, taking a turn into a full on uncontrollable breakdown. The reason he had to repress his emotions for all this time, for fear of lashing out and hurting the ones he cares for. But now, as far as he knows, no one is left to care for. After all in the merch teaser today Uzi said really sarcastically:

“You’re meant to be better than us! Don’t become swallowed by the darkness/animal based merchandise (murders) like I have!”

And

“HIS EMOTIONS… CAN NOT BE CONTAINED!”

(which can be very much true)

This could end in either him being used by the solver as a host or Uzi coming back to help him and in turn as he said in the teaser:

“Okay I’m back! I’m better and it’s even deeper down now….haha! “ (basically his repressed emotions being repressed further for an even worst breakdown in a season 2)

That’s one turn it could take, but another could he that when he stops from pure panic due to what he’s become, similar to Uzi, and in the merch trailer today, and realizes he can use his newfound powers to save the ones he loves that are either left alive or find another way to fix what has happened.

(Someone mentioned on here that N’s solver powers could be similar to Time-travel to places he’s been to in the past, (like Dolls in teleportation to only places she has seen and Uzi doesn’t really have one yet, she’s not that far along in development of her solver) to go back and correct what mistakes he has made, fixing the timeline and THAT would be super cool if he does think he has lost everything or really has. If it ever find it on here again, I will tag it.)

Sorry this was SO LONG, but basically, N will have the blue solver due to the final two episodes and he will get a transformation like Uzis, having him grasp the thing that has basically ruined his life several times over being apart of him now, having to use it to save his loved ones. All the while not having a mental breakdown or angry blowup and losing control of his powers. So basically affecting the story and his choices greatly.

[rubber-rats]

wake up babe new hyperfixation just dropped

[lunarlillieuwu]

Ok, it's rant time:

The Limian Burzghash is the Author of the 'Road to Janus' in which he makes a series of prophecies regarding the Librarians of Hush House. He accurately predicts Willem Harries will be the Sixth Librarian and will bring a Key with him to the house. At the end, while describing the Twelfth Librarian (us) he states they come 'After the Flame and before the Snow.' This is an amazing way to set up a sequel, but I recently recalled this line while I was looking through the Librarian Origins:

The Magnate is searching for peace, specifically 'the peace of snow.' I would normally just consider this a coincidence or something like that but I noticed that The Magnate is the origin connected to the Hushery branch of the Watchman's Tree, which is the branch that holds Hush House. This could imply that The Magnate is the 'true origin' of the Twelfth Librarian, which might be confirmed if the third game by Weather Factory (yes they are making a third) is a sequel, and it refers to the Twelfth Librarian as the Magnate regardless of which Librarian you played as, similar to how Julian Coseley has been defeated by an Ascendent Long regardless of whether you did so in Cultist Simulator.

Now, I don't know the possible endings for the Magnate, but I do know that in one of Burzghash's other books, he calls the Twelfth Librarian the Herald of the City Unbuilt, which could mean that the 'True Librarian' creates a history where Cear Ys is successfully built (Which could be the premise of the next game, a city builder where the player character tries to create Cear Ys.) So, I'm going to do a playthrough as the Magnate and see what the possible endings are, and if one of them involves the creation of Cear Ys, that could lend credibility to the Magnate being the Librarian that canonically arrives at Hush House, especially so if the aftermath involves the beginning of 'The Snow'

Let me know your thoughts on this, I wanna see what other people think of this, and I wanna hear other theories about it :3

[stupidrant]

im seeing the pattern of being an atreus/angrboda fan (or u just like them) and having to go through this weird initiation process of: liking them in the game (wether its themselves, their relationship or both), then trying to find content of them only to be shocked to see a bunch of haters (on both sides but angrboda gets it the worst and thrud is often times oddly used against her), only to then get severely disappointed and realize u probably have to do a bit of contribution yourself which isnt bad but it sucks when its characters that are ridiculously hated 😭😭😭

[juthemagicalclown]

One thing I like about Reverse 1999 is how the game tells different perspectives about potentially controversial topics that are commonly portrayed as negative in mainstream narrations not because inherently bad but rather because any depth is quickly dismissed. I am thinking about 1.6 event in regards to alcohol drinking (and prohibitionism), 1.8 event concerning communism (its true ideals and utopia), 1.9 story and nihilism (in its often overlooked positive connotation)

[tenshindon]

Sparking zero gets a 0/10 based on the fact theyre bringing up the Yamcha Cheated bullshit again

[hearts4pearlescentmoon]

Bro is trying so hard to be Stanford Pines

[heyybeach]

Every time I watch post-coming out content from Dan and Phil I just feel like something is healing inside of me

It's hard to describe really, but they're clearly so much more comfortable and unrestrained. The gay jokes are flying out of them, and as someone who is out in some parts of my life and not out in others, I can relate to having all those jokes on the tip of your tongue but not always being able to say them

Here's where I get soppy. They make me feel warm and fuzzy and safe okay. They are my comfort millennials

[dragoonwish]

Scientists