#so its fun to talk about the mechanics and decision making sometimes

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Apiary

Something that I’m keenly aware of when dealing with students talking about games is the way that games are a genre with their own language and jargon and how sometimes things that are very complicated the first time you see anything like them become standardised pieces after you’re familiar with them.

Consider that when I point to a game called Apiary which is about bees in space and whose theme feels like it’s spray-painted on without that being any kind of detriment to the game. I’ve played it once, I didn’t win, and I had a lot of fun even when I found it frustrating.

Alright, let’s just pull the lid off this game, strip away the fictional framework and talk about the raw mechanisms. Apiary is a worker-placement game with bumping, gating workers, and depleting workers. You have your own personal build space, which has limitations and perks, and you build things in them by spending workers on those actions, out of resources A, B, C, and special resources D and E. You can spend resources on upgrading parts of your engine or adding to your board space.

Okay, some extrapolation on those terms if they don’t mean anything to you:

Worker placement is a game where to take actions you have to put your workers in one of a limited number of slots. Every action in the game is limited by how many workers you have available. If all your workers are on the table, you have to spend a turn bringing them back.

Bumping refers to a system where when someone places a worker, it pushes previous workers out of their spot and sends them back to their player – meaning that players can’t permanently block spaces.

Depleting workers means that workers wear out; in Apiary they ‘build up’ – going from a level 1 worker to a level 4 worker, whereupon the level 4 worker retires to hibernate and you need to spend a worker action to get a new worker.

Gating workers means that there are tasks that need workers of a certain quality or level to do some actions.

This means that in Apiary, you place a worker, but a level 1 worker can’t do as many or as effective a thing as a level 3 worker, and one of the options, a victory-point gainer, is only doable with a level 4 worker. This creates gameplay situations where you want to do everything at once, and you can’t, and you also want to anticipate what other players are doing. If you put yourself in the right spot, another player will potentially bump your worker back to you, which will increase its level and give you better options on your next turn.

There’s a trap in this design, where the game rules give you two options for your turn. One of them is placing a worker, which gives you a whole extra set of decisions to make, but the other option is retrieve all your workers, and each returning worker can trigger one of your farm tiles.

In the game I played, I saw two retrieve actions done. Bumping happened all the time, meaning that it was much easier to just find something else to do with your turn while you waited for someone else to give you one of your workers back. I wasn’t planning for the turn I had coming up, I was planning for one turn after that, because the turn I had coming up was pretty much locked in; I knew I was about to do something that bumped someone else, and that I would in turn, get bumped.

It’s a good feeling but it is also incredibly confining. There were actions I simply never took in the game, because I never needed to with my options, which meant that the players who were doing those actions were often bumping one another. The action that gets you victory condition tiles require a level 4 worker, which means they get bumped very rarely – and then when they bumped, they go to hibernation (usually).

At most you’ll have four workers out there, and unless you have four farms, retrieval isn’t going to get you resources from every one. One worker, one farm, two workers, two farms – it feels like a real tricky choice to plan for. So much so that unless there’s some Hive reason to really care about farms, those feel like it’s not worth your time to get them… but I say that as someone who was getting victory points from his recruits. I was being biased in one direction, there’s obviously a way to be biased in other ways.

Now I may have discussed the game rules in a pretty lore-agnostic way but I think it’s pretty reasonable to treat it as a lore-agnostic game because what the hell is this lore? It’s about bees in space which is while a great idea, and I love it a lot, it’s also an idea that fels kinda like it was tripped over. Like the only reason this game looks the way it is, is themed the way it is, is because someone at a meeting misheard something, an artist generated a bunch of work based on that mishearing, and when they were done, the designers just rolled with it rather than re-do a bunch of art assets.

There’s some odd things at work here, too, where the lore sort of implies something that isn’t in the game. See, there’s talk about how all the bees are growing older faster and there’s a need to put the bees in hibernation because they’re sleepy (beepy). There’s talk about a reason for it, a sort of coming plague that’s slowly creeping at their population, and with all the technology and enhancement happening, I thought that maybe the endgame signalled some sort of successful overcoming of the plague.

But no, it’s a classic: The winner is the player with the most points. The end game is when you run out of game.

It’s hardly my place to complain about that, I mean I love Wingspan to pieces, and that is a game that plays until the pieces run out and the scoring happens. It’s an abstracted system game, and complaining that a Stonemeier game is not deep on a fictional entrenchment for its mechanics is a bit like complaining that bicycles aren’t good planes. These games are merely excellent in other ways and just good in others. That’s okay!

A particular detail about Apiary that feels present that isn’t in Wingspan is the constriction. Wingspan turns feel precious because you know how many you have but you also are all growing at roughly the same speed. It’s easy to look around the table at Wingspan and see people whose boards are roughly as developed as yours (though it’s just as possible for things to go poorly, part of that game’s skill floor), but in Apiary the board is full of signs of what’s going on. It can be hard to tell how close the end game is, and I know it snuck up on me.

But at the same time, because I’m planning two steps ahead, any time something I wanted finally arrived on my player board, because I could afford it, and the worker to get it and the space to get it set up it was a little party. I didn’t remember why I wanted that Carve action in particularly but when I had the time to do it I threw a little party. I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was the right thing at the end of the game, but putting down the last two tiles on my board in the last turn was a real thrill, feeling like I had used every drop of what the game offered me.

The game holds on tight, and that means that doing things within that constraint brings with it a great pressure but also the pressure made all the successes feel more gratifying.

Apiary is a type of game you know if you need it in your life when you hear the pitch. It’s a Stonemeier Worker Placement game about Bees In Space. The Stonemeier formula is polished and exquisite, it’s thoughtfully produced, it’s got a good rulebook and rules appendix, its player guide is excellent, it’s just going to do all the things you expect a game of its type to do well.

It’s not a game to consider for its ‘point’ or its ‘direction.’ It’s a game that’s good and interesting because of its in-the-moment experience. The moment when you’re planning your turns and hoping for the next one. It’s a game that really shows where friction can come from though; one slow player slows down every player, and that can mean a game of relatively quick decisions can be pretty frustrating while I’m just waiting, waiting, waiting, to do one thing and move one piece because it’s the turn after this one that interests me.

Basically, the complexity load on this one is a real thing, and don’t expect a story.

I know, shocking, Jamie’s done it again.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[inanimate-insanity-fan2]

ii 16 spoilers!! its true!!!!

alright fellas, this is gonna be a long one, so strap in. let me preface this by saying i havent watched the episode since it came out, so im bound to miss some things in this analysis/breakdown/crazed ramblings of a madman. my headcanons also might leak into this a lil. sorry bout that NOW ONTO THE FUN!!!!! now, we all know the trauma we faced watching this episode. but lets talk about the funny characters trauma!! staring MePhone, since he's my favorite guy. First of all, I don't believe MePhone was aware of the fact that he created the contestants. As much as i hate the corn man, he was right that MePhone needed to hear that too. MePhone treats them like real people. Moments of vulnerability always come through with him (mainly in season 3) and he actively considers what the contestants during these. Even if he goes into denial afterwards most of the time. Examples; the entire volcano episode, the bridge episode (2nd half), season 3 finale, some rare moments in season 2 that are scattered about. I don't think he'd do that if he didn't believe the contestants were real, y'know? He sees the contestants as real people that he can form relationships with, no matter how reluctant he is to do so. He wasn't aware of their creation. SOO!!!! That leads me to my next point. This get's into headcanony territory, so bear with me. Or don't. I believe that MePhone created them sometime when he first got to the island, maybe in that intermediate period when he deleted his memories. We can see that he shut down right after he pressed delete, and maybe in his subconscious state he could've generated them. It would explain why he didn't remember. I don't believe he created them before he deleted his memories, as he was still in shock and didn't really seem capable of purposefully planning out an entire cast right there and then. He would also remember doing so after he got his memories back in that same episode. Anytime after he woke up wouldn't make sense either, as he would remember that too. I see him creating them in that unconscious state as a sort of unintentional coping mechanism. The only thing that brought him comfort during stressful situations, the reality shows he watched, being brought to life by his subconscious. this does not explain him being chris mclean in season 1. this mystery will take years to solve. perhaps future generations will still question this grand, unknowable decision by the eldritch horror known as adam i am sorry for whoever read through all of this

[eldjester]

SOAR, The Damage Race and Damage Die

(Yes, this is inspired by @makapatag latest post, I like getting into details about what goes on in my design thoughts)

So I've ran a fair bit of games over the years, and talked about a few design thoughts with my good friend Ru. That experience has lead me to feel opinionated on some stuff or try to fix some "issues" I didn't want in my own TTRPG, namely Damage Die and the idea Damage Race is all that matters.

-Damage Die: For about a whole year, I have been running a system that uses multiple types of damage die, from d6 to d10, which are bound to its classes rather than abilities (this is Icon, if you're curious), and while i don't think it is unworkable, it made me think about a few things, namely the nature of why we roll for damage in the first place and why so many Tactical TTRPGs want to have critical hits. In most cases, I don't tend to like rolling for damage with wide possibilities, for example rolling a d8 or a d10, as those are very swingy and hard to make informed decision about, even if they fit a playstyle that's more about pushing your luck, they just don't work for me, I don't like how they control pacing, especially if rolling high on them is supposed to really hurt, it tends to make anything that surrounds them uncertain for basically everyone on the table, and for me it doesn't really do a fun surprise when you do roll good on them. Critical Hits adding more damage is also a staple of many games, and I think as time goes on i'm less of a fan of that too as it tends to be done in a way that just shines a bigger spotlight on the uncertain damage numbers of some attacks (hi "Double Damage on crit" systems !). So what I ended up doing, was just remove this idea that your damage die has to inform the damage you do related to its number. See, I'm a big fan of tables, I love random tables, I also love having some level of control over what you can expect, so I had a fun idea, what if I used a damage profile table for attacks ? So, in SOAR, when you hit (which you still need to roll to do specifically for attacks, as I like having that mechanical lever to tinker with) you roll a d6 or more if your abilities add some, and you keep the highest one, the number you roll then tells you what you'll be using as a profile for the attack, bigger means better in this case, here's an example:

Weak Hit (1-2): 2 damage, push target 1, move 1

Normal Hit (3-5): 3 damage, push target 1, move 1, push target 1

Strong Hit (6): 4 damage, push target 1, move 2, push target 1, target is dazed

Critical Hit (6,6): 5 damage, push foe 1, move 2, push foe 2, foe is dazed. A keen eye might have noticed this shares similarities with how FITD handles rolls in terms of spread (being a tiny bit more forgiving), this has allowed me to make sure I know how much damage every attack does while still having room to make the damage uncertain, you can still cheer if you roll a strong hit or a critical hit (you in fact, have a resource you can spend to upgrade a hit to its next step if you want to), as a fun added fact, this type of damage profile idea started off as something I made for a gunfight based game, and worked backward into adding to SOAR, from my, admittedly limited, testing it has sped up play a fair bit while still giving me levers to work with in terms of balance. -The Damage Race There's this really annoying feeling sometimes when you play TTRPGs Combats that not doing damage isn't ideal, you see it all the time (death is the best control my beloathed expression) even when it isn't "true". Something you learn relatively soon in TTRPG design is that even if you don't think something is true, people believing it is will still affect how they interact with it, often in a self reinforcing way, and this was something I wanted to avoid in SOAR as it would be especially prone to this, it is after all a Beat'Em All inspired TTRPG, so it was going to have people come in with that assumption regardless. So I thought, hey, what if I didn't bother trying to balance Control and Damage here ? What if i had everyone "do both" ? So that's what I ended up settling on, every Style comes with an attack, which you can use EVERY turn, and a bunch of abilities, which is where a lot of statuses and utility moves exist. Of course, it didn't come free of problems, I had to essentially make everyone have more HP to account for it, but it also made me free of a problem I was having trouble figuring out: what if someone never attacks and just deals damage through abilities which never need to hit ? The way i'm doing it now, people HAVE to care about attacks, and it also means that, with it being essentially "free", I can balance around it and make sure fights aren't static, players always have 2 shots at changing things every turn they do. Thus far in testing I think it has proven to work.

[hansmannette]

i finished veilguard and i kinda need to write smth down cuz idrk how this game should make me feel atm

spoilers for dragon age the veilguard below the cut

i dont think i liked veilguard this much tbh. it wasn't a total disappointment but i expected a different game altogether. theres not many aspects i enjoyed about it and when i think about replaying it in the future im like "... im not looking forward to experiencing any of this again" like there wasnt a single point in the game i really had fun playing?? idk

the characters fall completely flat for me. theres no one i think was cool or fun interacting with during my playthrough. i think i liked taash a little? like at least they were funny sometimes and their dialogue seemed genuine most of the time. spite was also funny sometimes. i think i liked spite more than i liked lucanis which is a shame. the least boring guy was probably davrin, i might check out his romance in the future cuz i liked assan and yea.. davrin was really ok tbh. the absolute worst character for me was harding??? harding was so fucking annoying all game and she was just... not at all like harding. all her lines were so obnoxious and just idk. i think the dialogues overall were just really bad cuz i actually enjoyed most character arcs, i even thought hardings was amongst the strongest. i also didnt like that you could never just chat with your companions and ask them about their lives or whatever, you had to wait for them to want to talk to you in order to be able to interact with them at all and overall the companion aspect of veilguard was just trash. they mightve wanted to go back to da2 or ME style but this doesnt fit modern games anymore imo and just made me not care at all for any of the companions. the romances were way too short too. i liked the romance element the most in any given dragon age and its always been important to me so veilguard fucked this up bad imo :/ theres like 10-20 hours of gameplay at a time where your romance does not progress at all and at times i thought it bugged out but apparently its intended to be this lacking in content

speaking of characters.... rook was really unlikeable to me? ANY dialogue option was horrible cuz rook is just a very annoying, terribly written protagonist

the map design was ok i think... i wouldve preferred the inquisition approach and for everything to be less linear and streamlined. seeing bigass fogwalls with an actual interface LOCKED symbol isnt very immersive??? just let me explore on my own wtf. while some locations were cool and beautifully designed, especially dock town and treviso, exploring them wasnt that engaging since there wasnt much to see. ive seen people on here say most of the locations seemed like theme parks and i agree, especially the necropolis and hossberg

obviously it feels bad for decisions in previous games to not matter at all, i feel like this used to be a core mechanic to all dragon age games and now they just dropped it

the cutscenes however were all very good imo, the overall story of the game was great and especially the cutscenes were super impactful and emotional, i cried a BUNCH during this game. i just think its funny how the small scale writing is so bad but the overarching story was good? id say the game is not worth it outside of the main story quests and some companion quests. theres probably a billion people out there who would disagree with me saying the main story writing was good but i think it was just fine to focus on solas and the aftermath of his actions. at least solas didnt suffer much from bad writing in this game and he continues to be one of the most interesting characters to ever exist probably. every scene featuring solas was great and whenever he wasnt present the quality took a nose dive. tbh morrigan also stayed true to her character id say and she also kinda carried the game

i fuckin hate this weirdass dalish art direction overhaul? stop with the fucking futuristic gadget triangle look??? this doesn't give elf fantasy at all, i think i disliked bellara and the veil jumpers MOSTLY because of this shitty design choice

i legit feel insane mentioning this but i DO NOT get how meredith was irrelevant?? they showed the red lyrium idol in the teaser, they confirmed her return at the end of absolution and i was 100% sure she would somehow be relevant in the veilguard story but she just....wasnt. i truly dont get it. but at this point theres a billion characters that shouldve been relevant given the themes and locations and they just werent. we had plenty reason to see characters like zevran, merril or fenris again. i AM grateful for the cameos we got tho, i was really happy to see familiar faces every now and then

the dragon fights are the best in the series imo. theyre not elden ring levels of cool but they are the best in all of dragon age. the combat system was really nice and dynamic, i was looking forward to this and it absolutely delivered. i WOULD replay veilguard to try a different class/build

the character creator was good, transmogging was good, i liked having a few specific weapons and gear pieces for different combat stats...... yea

i feel like.... everything in the game is just kinda washed out. theres barely any conflict in the world OR between the characters. everything is giving super weenie hut jr. vibes and i dont say this bc i want broodmother stories and abuse back but did we really forget about the crows trafficking children? did we forget about slavery in tevinter? why is none of this shown, it feels like this was erased to be as palatable as possible

there was sooooooo much missed potential with this game... or my expectations were too demanding idk. when i saw 12 eluvians in the crossroads i got SUPER excited for all the possible locations, even hoping one would open to kirkwall. but that never happened and besides the main locations the rest was just used for one-time companion quest visits.

overall i expected more... its not a terrible game but i really was hoping for something else. my opinion might change and i might be overly emotional and aggravated bc i literally just finished a couple hours ago but at the moment... im not that happy tbh. i hope my feelings about it calm down over time. mostly im disappointed cuz the game just came out and is, like all the other dragon age games, something completely different and its not another origins or another 2 or another inquisition. and i mean why would it be? we already got those games so ofc veilguard is something entirely new. maybe once enough time passes i can enjoy the game for what it is but at the moment i feel very "meh" about it and kinda miss the other games

[memeticsdivision]

the oc ask game!!!! fenris! 13, 15, 30, 36, 42, 50, 55

AHHH

ok :)

[13] What kind of sense of humor do they have, if any?

i actually answered this one before! you can read here :)

[15] How do they act around people they don't like?

honestly, very dismissive and a little cold if you’re observant. fenris likes to Think its hard to make him dislike you when it is actually very very easy. he's very picky about who he likes, which is not great when he also prefers to be alone, have his own space, and avoid literally any human connection. if you, say, cross his boundaries, thats an instant downvote. so once he’s made the decision of This Person Sucks, he’ll stonewall them a lot and try to avoid them as much as possible. he’ll try and put up a nice facade to cater to the idea of politeness, but he isn’t good at masking his dislike of things and ends up coming off as condescending. basically if he's avoiding you a lot and just going "uh huh" at everything you say he does not like you if you're cernunnos though its On Sight.

[30] What are their most healthy and most unhealthy coping mechanisms?

GOD WHAT A QUESTION SJDFGASJF the whole story is basically SPAWNED from his unhealthy coping mechanisms . for healthy ones, i'd say probably how he sometimes copes with his chronic insomnia. he frequently avoids or is woken up from sleep because of his almost daily Very Bad nightmares of The Night His Parents Fucking Died, so when he is he'll either go on a walk or put the tv on to clear his head so he can sleep. not dreaming or getting his brain to dream of something else via sound of tv is like the ideal and it occasionally works Unhealthy Ones . literally everything else. fenris represses all of his issues and disorders and pretends they dont exist, avoids all human connection and interacting much with Society and Doing Fun Things because it always reminds him that his childhood was fucked up because he never had these things, and has resolved that he will just always be messed up and sad and the best he can do is just become numb to it. get used to it and all that. he's very very avoidant of all of his issues, especially how he is responsible for a lot of them

[36] Do they own items that have sentimental value?

no :( i’ve thought about it, but fenris doesn't do great when it comes to things with lots of emotional/sentimental value. anything that could fall under sentimental items would've either been a) lost in the house fire b) left behind in port rosnu after he left. he's just never really felt like he can hold onto things for long, and trying to give him something he can would most likely just scare him

[42] What is their idea of a perfect friendly hangout and/or romantic date?

oh god i have NO IDEA . fenris never even entertains the idea of friends/hangouts, let alone romance. i've always said he would be like a toxic ex in the sense he would just be very avoidant of anything to do with the whole close human connection part of it, and that extends to friendships too, so a “perfect hangout” or “perfect date” would probably be sitting six feet apart in a room and minding their own business without saying a word or acknowledging there's friendship or romance in the first place

[50] What are they really good and really bad at?

very good at ignoring his problems, very bad at ignoring his problems (arguably his job he's good at, but talking with people is the part he sucks at)

[55] How long does it take for them to make a new place feel like home, and what do they need for it?

since his last homes were a) his childhood home where he spent 15 years smothered, emotionally neglected, and abused and b) either a group home or mental hospital in port rosnu, fenris does not exactly have the greatest idea of what a "home" is, its never been a place of security or safety for him. he didn't even see these places as a "home", more so places he was stuck in that he sometimes likes to dissect the layers of how it was suffocating for him, like they're living, knowing and malicious organisms he's doing an autopsy on about how they contributed to his trauma. trying to make a new place feel like home, as a result, is very scary and almost a completely unapproachable challenge for him. he has an apartment, and he tries to make it livable (he does Not live the male living space life) but the second it becomes too homey, i.e starts to become Too personalized, he freaks out and quickly tries to return it to Just A Box He Lives In. ultimately what he'd need is to feel like a home will offer him security and safety, somewhere he can lie down and not feel like he's being chased by all his personal demons

[crystalelemental]

I've been mulling over how to start this one for a while now, and I think I've settled on this. I've talked a lot about watching stuff from Professor Bopper, and his Pokemon videos in particular have been fun. But one of his independent videos is about yellow paint mechanics in videogames, and he specifically calls out that gamers, as a group, are uniquely bad at games, often ignoring the function of what the game wants you to be doing in favor of what they think you should be asked to do, and getting mad when the game meets expectations. This broadly rings very true, and it's that very bias in myself that I aim to combat with a lot of my replays lately, and it's been liberating.

However. I feel like sometimes the gamers are right. Sometimes it is bad design. Sometimes they developers made a decision, and they design their game around that decision in a way that teaches the player exactly what they should be doing, but the baseline concept is just...bad. It wasn't properly thought out, and it feels, in its entirety, like it would've been better if they had made some changes. I'm sure that doesn't happen often, though. Certainly not in any big name franchises.

Anyway, I finished Let's Go Eevee.

Positives first. The game is a pretty interesting take on Pokemon as an adventure game. Eevee is wildly overpowered. It gets higher base stats, and a special 90BP move with an absolutely busted secondary effect in every one of its possible evolutionary types. The combination of Electric/Ice/Psychic/Dark perfectly answers the entire Elite Four, while also providing Dual Screens and sure-Paralysis. Ice's only flaw is a pretty middling secondary effect, compared to sure-Burn, sure-Leech Seed on a damage move, HP recovery, or curing all status. Eevee is a monster that can handle pretty much everything.

I find this interesting, because in some measure, Pokemon is always about making bonds with your Pokemon. The idea of having your Signature Partner that does everything with you is a neat approach to the usual rotation of a team. It's always been possible to steamroll the entire game with a single partner, that's most of the basis of a speedrun. But it's rare for the game to lean so heavily into it. The sheer breadth of tools given to Eevee give it a presence similar to that of the Chrobin combo of Fire Emblem Awakening. More on that later.

Because now it's time to shift steadily into the problems of this game. Difficulty in Pokemon is a big topic, and has been for a long time. Personally, I have come down strongly on the side of "I don't think any Pokemon game has ever been difficult, and there is no point in time where chasing the white whale of a difficult Pokemon game resulted in improvement in the experience." Pokemon is not fun because of challenge. It is fun because of effort, and having something to work toward. The reason older games appeal so strongly to me isn't because they are harder. RBY and GSC are kinda piss-easy. But what they are is limiting. Movepools barely exist, and a ton of a playthrough is finding ways to keep your preferred teammates relevant across various challenges, all while acknowledging you do not have access to most of their best tools yet. It's scrounging around through TMs to find a set that works, and coming up with some really creative solutions that many modern games don't push you to do. As a quick example: Larvitar. In Gen 2, it doesn't learn Earthquake naturally until 49, which balloons to 56 as Pupitar. Pupitar can evolve at 55, and if you don't stop these evolutions, Tyranitar cannot learn it until 61. This is a beast you find just before the postgame superboss at around level 15. In Gen 9, it learns Earthquake a level 31. There's just far less to actually build to, as players are given early access to most everything, and much earlier access to complete movesets.

Let's Go...kinda has this issue? But only kinda. I expected Brock to be an immediate wall for an Eevee, only to find that Eevee now learns Double Kick super early and can two-shot his Onix no sweat. Whoops! The progression of special moves also open up right at points you'd want them. You get Fire, Water, and Electric in Celadon, which answers Misty and the Rock Tunnel hikers. You learn Dark and Psychic in Celadon, which is ideal timing for all the Poison types you're about to encounter between Erika and Team Rocket, while Dark...okay, Psychic also answers Ghost but you know. Ice, Grass, and Fairy drop in Fuchsia, but I think that's because those three weren't going to hard counter anything past that point anyway. Like it gives you exactly the tools on Eevee that you'd want to answer the present threat for free, so Eevee never truly struggles with anything. It's always a clean sweep.

Which raises a big issue when it comes to the general feel of the region. I recently replayed LeafGreen, and while the postgame is rough, the main game never feels like too much to me. Even the "slower" segments are fun, because by then, I'm working with something new that's low level. It's why I never minded all the Rocket segments in Johto either. Sure there's a billion fights, but I need about that many to train this Horsea. I wound up picking up a Poliwhirl, intending to trade for Jynx, and accidentally landed a Modest nature. Blastoise was not doing so hot, and I decided fuck it, I'm rocking Poliwrath. Which meant leveling up something far behind, using those extra routs and the Silph Co section. That's great! That's as intended!

What purpose do those sections serve in a game with only one Pokemon? When you don't need a team, and have no reason to train anything else...what do they do? It's just busywork for no real reason. "But they give you three Pokeballs!" Pokeballs stopped working around level 10, my dude. This is not a reward. And there's no EVs in this game, so it's completely trivial to fight anything but the keynote bosses.

The removal of EVs was...not ideal. Instead they use Candy, which is specific to a stat. You gain candy by sending Oak copies of Pokemon, or rarely when you catch them. With a higher catch chain, where you keep catching the same beast repeatedly, you have better odds, but it's never guaranteed or even all that likely. This system is, in some ways, meant to be a controlled form of Stat EXP. You just naturally gain your stats as you accumulate candy. It's not a terrible idea, but its implementation is Extremely Bad.

Candy, as it turns out, caps at +200 in each stat. In case you're wondering how many that is, it's approximately 500 of the basic candy, 300 of the L candy, and 600 of the XL candy. For context, I tried doing a chain with Eevee on Route 17, which gives Sp Def candy. I caught enough to get a chain of 20, and upon that 20th catch, I received nothing. Just fucking nothing. The 21st catch gave me around 6 basic candy, and 2 L candy. To say this takes forever is a wild understatement. By and large this is not necessary. My wife did not do as much catching as I did, had far less candy, and still beat the League pretty much exclusively with Eevee. For main game, this is...annoying, but unobtrusive.

The instant you hit postgame it's a nightmare. Because, Red is back. And to fight him, you have to beat six Master Trainers, who will do a 1v1 mirror match with a specific Pokemon, but theirs is trained to have like +150 in three stats. Doesn't that sound fun? For context, I put all my massive candy stocks from repeated chain captures onto Eevee and hit around +80 in like two stats. My playthrough was like 20 hours.

This begins the descent into the really bad, which is that Let's Go bears two great sins: one of its birth, and one of its maker. Let's Go is, at its heart, a gacha. It was literally born from Pokemon Go, which is designed to be eternally tedious to force microtransactions, and Let's Go emulates that in its postgame perfectly, without the microtransactions. The one of its maker is that, as someone who will grind in Pokemon Crystal literally just because I find it fun to do so at certain points, this system still could've had me. Opposing trainers very clearly have sequentially boosted AP from candy application, it's not a bad system to use for difficulty curves. It's a lot steadier than BDSP's sudden "everything is maximized without warning," and I don't begrudge the idea of doing this, even going so far as to question why they don't do this with EVs in the main series. It's not a terrible idea, and in fact has some serious merit.

Unfortunately, it is blockaded by the sins of its creator. Masuda just really though it was super important that people fulfill his vision of immersion by having to throw the controller like you're catching Pokemon. Nevermind that motion controls have been known garbage since about a week after the Wii came out and no motion that resembles an actual throw gets registered by this system, we have to do some dumb flailing shit that, for no discernible reason, either goes straight on target or miles to the left despite the same arc being used. Worth noting: Pokemon will run from you if you don't catch them fast enough. Sometimes "Fast enough" is in two balls. If they run your chain breaks instantly. Are you having fun yet?

Let's Go has the honor of being the worst capture mechanics in a series with continuously terrible capture mechanics. Their decision to demand motion controls, refusing to just let it be buttons if you're using the console docked and not allowing the pro controller hookup at all, torpedoes everything positive this game has, because it renders it borderline unplayable. "But didn't you say Eevee sweeps?" Yeah, but it relies on you catching things. Not just that, but getting good at the arc. Battle EXP is truncated, you get far more from effective captures, and the biggest modifiers are "first try" and "excellent" when the circle is tiny. I'm sure someone will insist it's fine when you get used to it, but from my experience, it never gets better. It is always incomprehensible which way the ball will go. Moreover, trying to use a quick flick of the wrist motion resulted in a 100% rate of the ball immediately dropping to the ground, so I had to actually swing my whole arm, and mysteriously I have had this growing pain in my shoulder all week despite playing in shorter and shorter bursts. Add this one to the same pile as Hades, under "Games that cause me to take recoil damage" I suppose.

But, I can hear it now. Some are going to call this a skill issue. And you're right, it is. There are people much better about this than I am. However, I still think this is a problem, because as a mechanic, it fails to do what games are supposed to do for players: provide control and feedback.

Main game Pokemon games have terrible catch mechanics, but this is usually only around Legendary Pokemon and the occasional hard to catch thing like Beldum or something. That difficulty is just pure RNG, because the rate is so low. But even in those scenarios, the player has options to control how bad it really is. Knock them to low HP, inflict Sleep for best odds, catch a bunch for critical capture Gens 5+, use a Roto Power in Gen 7; there are modifiers the player can apply that are inherently beneficial. NPCs will tell you about them, but even without listening to a single one, you can actually experience the difference yourself through the gameplay. Trying to catch a Pidgey or something with full HP does mean it can break out. Trying to catch one at like 1/3rd HP almost never does. Hitting something with status seems to result in much more assured captures. The player takes actions, and the game provides feedback on whether those actions were the right call.

Let's Go's catch mechanics do not have any of this. It's so disconnected from the idea that all the NPC advice is now just "if it's a red color it's gonna be harder," which is useless because guess what, Ultra Balls don't actually change the color for things that push level 40, and Legends are glaring red no matter what you do. Throwing it dead center for an Excellent toss did not ever seem to improve my odds; I had just as many breakouts from that as I did wildly off-center barely touched the catch circle tosses. I can take no action aside from finite berries, which disappear after a single use of a ball, and do not seem to have any method of acquiring more since they don't seem to be sold in shops. I learned very early that Razz Berries are functionally worthless when I hit a Great toss on a Yellow circle and it just broke right out and was Orange again. So maybe I'm being uncharitable. It does give feedback, the feedback just tells you not to do anything but keep throwing and hope you get lucky, because nothing you do will help. What a fun system!

Unquestionably, Pokemon Let's Go is the worst Pokemon game. But I feel like that is solely based on direction. Had the catch mechanics been less awful, there is merit to the idea of a game where you have one (1) defined partner through everything. I think it would've benefited from a Legends Arceus style approach that fixated more on catching as a primary goal than battling, given how meaningless the constant trainer fights were, but maybe that's just me. Whatever the case, I feel very strongly that this is the worst Pokemon game, and that it is the poster child for upper management staying the hell away from things. The instant you let them talk about their great ideas for what the art should be like, the instant you are damning that art.

[stardustfanfare]

I’m going insane over here. Ok. Strap in. I’ve got a lot to say.

I’ve already made a couple posts about this but the thoughts are running rampant in here and I think I’ve got some more in depth topics I want to get into this time.

(really long post its like 1.5k words so dont click on it if u dont wanna scroll thru all that LOL)

First off, we’ve got the voting system. I have… a lot of gripes about the voting system. I’ll preface this statement with maybe I’m wrong, because I haven’t spent a lot of time interacting with the fandom, but it seems like a lot of people are taking the voting system at face value. The premise is simple, after all. Examine the prisoner, assess their crime, and decide whether you think it was justifiable, right? But there’s a twist, obviously. Your verdicts have a direct impact on the prisoners. And you are speaking through the audience surrogate, the warden at Milgram prison, Es. Es is very interesting to me. Despite being a clear self insert, they absolutely exhibit personality of their own, and thought processes and decisions that aren’t influenced by the audience at all. A perfect unreliable narrator. They aren’t a character at first as much as a lens to see the prison through. From the very beginning, they insist on the same thing: job first, questions later. They’re the warden after all. No time to think about the prison. Now I haven’t read the light novel so I’m sure I could go more in depth on my thoughts on the prison if I had read it, but regardless of that, it’s painfully clear how suspicious the whole situation is. However, the way it’s framed almost makes the prison itself, the warden, and Jackalope fade into the background. It’s kind of brilliant actually. Anyway, you’re voting through Es. But who says Es has the right to pass judgement? Look. No one knows what Milgram is. What their ulterior motives are. What’s ultimately going to happen at the end of the project. According to the light novel, it's happened before, so again, I’m perhaps not the most knowledgeable about this part. But why does Milgram get to decide what to do with the prisoners? It feels awfully hypocritical and potentially dangerous. But the whole project is set up so you have no other choice than to vote. It’s fascinating. You’re led towards the conclusion that Milgram wants you to reach. And your immediate thought is NOT to question it, because it’s a piece of media. Why would it lie?

Alright, bear with me for a minute. You know the original milgram experiment? The one the whole thing is supposedly based on? It's about obedience to authority. Listen to me. I am shaking you guys by the shoulders. It’s about obedience to authority. DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE WHAT I WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT. They had people administer shocks to “test participants”. The shocks got higher and higher till near fatal levels. The test participants weren’t actually real, but they found that “every participant [went] up to 300 volts, and 65% [went] up to the full 450 volts.” (Milgram experiment, Wikipedia). The whole video series is like this experiment. I don’t know. You get it. You get the connection. I don’t know how much better I can explain this. You can imagine me jumping up and down and flapping my hands.

Listen to me. If you aren’t looking at it from a meta perspective that’s fine. I get it. Most media I like I just passively engage with. Usually that’s more fun for me. But frankly with Milgram I feel as if not looking at it from a meta perspective makes you just another test participant. Another shock administrator. Another cog in the machine. I see people talk about Milgram’s bad writing sometimes, and, you know, fair. There are subjects not handled with the care they need. I’m not claiming that Milgram is perfect. But I haven’t seen anyone talk about how fucking cool this is. They’ve taken the art form and made it into a mechanism. I think it’s kind of brilliant.

Anyway, essentially what I’m trying to say with perhaps an excessive amount of words is that I don’t think we have the right to pass judgement on the prisoners. From a meta perspective, of course.

Apologies in advance for another interjection. This part is perhaps less relevant to the rest of the post, but it’s so cool that I kinda wanna skim over it anyway. You can skip this part if it's getting too long for you, especially since I already kind of touched on it up there. Es as not only an audience surrogate but ALSO as their own character makes them so interesting. I personally actually hated them for a little while after watching some of the voice dramas. Because they act cruel. And make bad decisions. And say insensitive things. And some of that is seeping in from the audience, but even more interesting to me is that a lot of it is just a result of their environment. They’re harsh and defensive and seem very convinced in their own righteousness, and they come off as a total asshole about it sometimes. But think about it. They’ve woken up in this prison. Fucking insane. But instead of freaking out about it, they begin to cling to their newfound authority. I mean, it’s the most rational thing to do. Like, it’s not a normal thing to do, but it’s rational. It’s easy to make yourself forget about everything else when you fixate on a certain point, so that’s what they do. They don’t seem to think there’s any way out of this besides becoming a willing participant, so they lean real hard into the whole “warden” thing. They’re just as trapped as the prisoners are. I believe there’s an empty cell in the prison. Probably Es’s; It’s not a hard conclusion to come to. Milgram has happened before and my guess is that the prisoners are picked more or less by chance. This has very interesting implications. Either Es is a totally random person, or they’re just like the other prisoners, having taken a life. This would make sense as to why they needed to have their memories erased. This makes the whole thing just that much more hypocritical. But I digress.

And so now we come to my second point. Or maybe third on account of the tangents. The parallels with the other prisoners. Specifically number 03, Fuuta. Fuuta is a really good example of taking things out of proportion. His crime is simple: something along the lines of cyberbullying someone into commiting suicide. So like, yes. Objectively? Shitty. Shitty move. He’s not a great person. 20 year old terminally online gamer. Many people off the bat are not going to like him, and therefore probably vote him guilty. But put that into scale: he did not actively kill the person, nor was his intention to cause death. Which is not to say he wasn’t in the wrong. But consider it; we’ve got this weird suspicious prison complex. And we’ve got some loser online. And then there’s the immediate consequence. Now we didn’t know Kotoko was going to go crazy, but regardless of that, that was the consequence of us voting Fuuta guilty. Now he’s literally missing an eye for the crime of… being mean online. So clearly some people started to think about this (hence his innocent vote in trial 2). He’s a crack in the facade, or something of the sort. Apply pressure, dig a little deeper, and it starts looking like, well, the stuff I’ve already said.

But more than that is the realization that Fuuta really has just been taken and put into this prison. He’s a normal person, who has behaved in a less than ideal way, but still a normal person, put into this absurd situation. And you know who else is like that? Well, everybody, but specifically Es. I genuinely do not think there will be a happy ending for anyone unless Es begins to realize this. Which means the audience beginning to realize this. The “innocent” and “guilty” votes don’t really mean anything. Or, they do, because they’ve been assigned value, but the person assigning value to them is, once again, Milgram. Or Jackalope, I suppose, assuming he is the guy behind the whole thing. Maybe I’m preaching to the choir. Maybe you guys have already considered this. But it’s been bouncing around my head all day and I was going a bit crazy over it and I had to get it out.

TLDR; I think the whole voting system is rigged in the favor of the prison itself rather than the prisoners, I don’t think that, as Es, we get to decide who is and who is not “guilty”, Milgram Project itself seems an awful lot like the experiment(not the content of the media, but the interactivity of it), and Es has probably done something bad in order to be in the prison in the first place. The key takeaway from this is that I’m actually really normal and pumping out 1.5k words in 2 hours because of this media is an average and usual thing to do.

[fluffypichu876]

my thoughts on dark souls 1 so far!  

- i honestly believe that people exaggerate a little about the difficulty in this game. sure, it's a challenging game that will kill you over and over until you learn to play it, but it isn't the nightmare some make it to be! in fact, i find it to be quite forgiving in its own very peculiar way. i dunno man, maybe sekiro over-prepared me for this game xD

- on a similar vein, i didn't find the controls to be clunky at all. of course, there are some weird design decisions, like the roll being executed at the release of the button, instead of the press (creating a small delay ok this is certainly my gaming masochism speaking but i actually like the roll delay. it makes dodging feel strategic instead of just mindless roll-out-of-anything-you-see), but it still feels very comfortable to play. i think most players are at first caught off-guard by the slower pace, the stamina system, and the full action commitment, but with time you get used to it and start to notice how much this type of design adds to the game.

- the level and map design is simply amazing. i'd say it's one of the game's biggest strenghts. everything is just so well connected and coherently put together that the lack of fast-travel (until anor londo at least) doesn't bother me at all. this complements really nicely with the slow pace, as it ensures that you're actually paying attention to the enviroment and taking note of every path you take (i got like 95% of the whole game map so far memorized. i can easily tell the shortest path from one area to another just by recalling each shortcut). as a metroidvania fan this makes me very very happy!

- guidances, summoning and bloodstains are very interesting takes on online co-op. fromsoft has this habit of making sure every mechanic fits seamlessly within the lore, vibe, and immersion of their games, and i really appreciate that. there are barely any ui menus that take your mind out of the world of lordran, and instead items that you can use like anything else in your inventory to engage with other players, complete with some in-universe lore about it.

- the bossfights are cool, fun, and fair but sometimes they feel a bit samey. (unsurprisingly?) the duo bosses (gargoyles and O&S) are my absolute favorites so far. they just flow really well with the combat system.

- the ost is very good and the boss themes really deliver that feeling of standing against beings far more powerful than yourself (i know i'm talking about ds1 but sekiro's ost is very underrated. how come no one talks about the father owl theme? it's sooo damn good!). the game is pretty silent though, and most of the time you only hear the sounds of your own footsteps, the clinging of your armor, the goddamn archers in anor londo...

- not sure why durability exists? it's kinda pointless tbh. most weapons and equipment last for a very good ammount of time, and repairing them isn't that costly at all. it's not like botw, where durability is a motivator for exploration (still not the biggest fan of that system tho), here it just, exists.

- miyazaki you evil bastard why did you create curse WHY

- also FUCK THE WHEEL SKELETONS ALL MY HOMIES HATE THE WHEEL SKELETONS

- solaire my beloved

- siegmeyer my beloved

- lautrec i'm going to fucking murder you

- solaire my sunbro he is the best

- black knight sword is such a wonderful weapon i love it very much.

[autopotion]

Inconsequential things that frustrate me: I really cannot stand it when fans of something can't or won't acknowledge a perspective of the thing they like that is not wholly, effusively positive. Of course people can be rude or unfair if the critic is annoyed by the thing, but I'm also talking about the situation where, like, two people both generally had a positive experience with the thing, but Person A goes "but x thing didn't work for me" and Person B reacts condescendingly or with extreme offense or upset.

Like in this case I'm specifically thinking of Outer Wilds, which is a reddit darling, so you see it recommended all the time (regardless of, like... relevance). I love Outer Wilds! It was a cool game and it's in my top 50! But the way people talk about it, they act like it's the only mystery game with a heartfelt story ever made, and if you indicate that some things didn't work for you, they will mock you for not appreciating "games as art." This coming from a demographic that typically dismisses visual novels outright... Okay lmao.

It's just really annoying. Anyone who's followed me for more than a couple weeks knows I have no problem airing out my complaints about things I love. It's a critical part of engaging with media, to me. Not as like a "virtue signaling" thing, but like, if I want to make anything ever I want to get pretty good at picking apart what works for me and what doesn't! I love Dragon Age and despise the obnoxious elf racism worldbuilding. Final Fantasy has a pretty serious misogyny & transmisogyny problem; if we're talking about pettier quibbles, I deeply disliked the defanging of AVALANCHE in FFVIIR (a game I have also praised extensively for its characterization of Aerith), and I'm repeatedly frustrated by the many damsel plots & hanging plot threads re: relationships between women in FFT (my favorite game of all time!!). Transistor is gorgeous, and really fun, and uncomfortably homophobic. And even OUTSIDE of racism, misogyny, and homophobia, sometimes game mechanics don't work, and sometimes storytelling decisions fall flat, and I want to work out why they didn't work for me! I don't know!!!

It's just like... put yourself, briefly, in the shoes of someone who didn't care for some decisions in the thing you like, instead of, idk, mocking them? "I couldn't handle the flight controls in Outer Wilds" totally fair, they're an acquired taste, they were designed intentionally which I appreciate but it's not going to be for everyone; "I liked Outer Wilds but I don't think it's the most groundbreaking game ever made" LITERALLY NOT EVEN A NEGATIVE OPINION??? And that's the one that is CONSTANTLY derided and mocked on Reddit. "You don't get games as art, you pleb." I'm starting to think one of us doesn't, because a robust critic scene is part of what makes something art, and video games don't have that, much to their detriment, so the world of games journalism and even "sharing opinions online" is a shambles! IDK!!!

All I am saying is allow some space in your head for the acknowledgement of something you like not working for someone else. And it's not the end of the world. It's not even a value judgement. I've softened my hater attitude over the years but some knee-jerk defensiveness and cries of "well you must not really get it then" really make me want to pull my hair out.

[hiiddens]

[ ♛ ]  ° •  ISTP-A / WOOD / NEUTRAL GOOD / RAVENCLAW

✩ ISTP-A ; THE VIRTUOSO !

virtuosos love to explore with their hands and their eyes, touching and examining the world around them with cool rationalism and spirited curiosity. people with this personality type are natural makers, moving from project to project, building the useful and the superfluous for the fun of it, and learning from their environment as they go. often mechanics and engineers, virtuosos find no greater joy than in getting their hands dirty pulling things apart and putting them back together, just a little bit better than they were before.

virtuosos explore ideas through creating, troubleshooting, trial and error and first-hand experience. they enjoy having other people take an interest in their projects and sometimes don’t even mind them getting into their space. of course, that’s on the condition that those people don’t interfere with virtuosos’ principles and freedom, and they’ll need to be open to virtuosos returning the interest in kind.

virtuosos enjoy lending a hand and sharing their experience, especially with the people they care about, and it’s a shame they’re so uncommon, making up only about five percent of the population. virtuoso women are especially rare, and the typical gender roles that society tends to expect can be a poor fit – they’ll often be seen as tomboys from a young age.

✩ WOOD (PRIMARY) !

wood people often get the fuzzy end of the lollipop because they are often misunderstood as harsh, or intimidating. they are actually funny and kind but they wield a lot of power and they are often honest to a fault.

woods are fearless. they are like the sudden expansive growth of spring after a long, slow winter, and like the power of tree roots that push through solid concrete. woods lead with a determination and will that surpasses all limits. at the same time, wood people see the bigger picture, find solutions, seek out the best in things, and make changes. they are strong, sturdy, stable, fearless, logical, reasonable, bold, independent, and unapologetic. they are also very fair-minded, and nothing upsets them more than injustices. this makes them powerful.

woods are doers. they turn ideas into action. woods exude confidence and don’t let much stand in their way. if they can imagine it, it can be done. they know what they want, are decisive, make things happen, and push themselves to the limit. they enjoy debates and arguments and are not easily swayed by other’s opinions. once they make up their minds, there is little that can convince them that someone else’s opinion is right. woods know they are right, which acts as fuel for their strong drive, but doesn’t always bode well for their personal relationships. just as every element is led by a dominant emotion, woods are often lead by anger. there is a subconscious simmering of anger that surges up fast for woods, especially when they witness unfair situations or mistreatment of people.

✩ WATER (SECONDARY) !

water people dive deep into the depths of life. they get hypnotized by complex musical scores and they blissfully lose themselves in the arts. waters are the people at gallery openings who stand in front of one painting for hours, talking about its lines, its colors, its use of angles and curves. they are the ones who walk slowly through the rain, soaking up the smell of the wet pavement, and listening to the droplets on the ground. waters take their time. the word “hurry” is not in their vocabulary and this plays out in the way they speak, walk, act, react and live. theirs is a slower rhythm as they take in everything around them.

there is a child-like playfulness with the water person. they enjoy cuddling and being coddled. waters like convenience and expect to be served. doing things themselves and following through with ideas is not their strong suit. their ideas are unique and inspiring, but putting those ideas into action is quite difficult for a water. they can get lost in life and overwhelmed by the details. they yearn for someone else to manage the details for them.

✩ NEUTRAL GOOD !

people who are neutral good are guided by their conscience and typically act altruistically, with only secondary regard for whether their actions are lawful or in line with cultural expectations or traditions. neutral good individuals have no problems with what is lawful as such, and nor are they rebels by nature, but they believe in furthering kindness and good deeds through whatever means seem necessary to them. if fostering good means supporting an organized society, then that is what must be done. if good can only come about through the overthrow of the existing social order, then so be it. for many who are neutral good, insistence on either lawfulness or rebellion is seen as detriments to or distractions from the greater goal of promoting true kindness in the world.

✩ RAVENCLAW !

your personality shows a high degree of work ethic and friendliness, which are valued among members of ravenclaw house.

ravenclaw house prized learning, wisdom, wit, and intellect in its members. thus, many ravenclaws tended to be academically motivated and talented students. they also prided themselves on being original in their ideas, and methods.

often hard-working and diligent, as often was the case with intellectuals with a predisposition for academics, some of the pupils sorted under the blue-bronzed eagle were known to be inclined to dismiss certain social expectations for the sake of satisfying their own intellectual curiosity. some of these eventually also ended up being not only accepted but even celebrated, in spite of being initially subjected to scorn for their various oddities.

ravenclaws tended to be curious about the world and paid attention to the world around them. ravenclaws were known to be logical and rational.

[nezumithewriter]

okay tadc au won the poll so time to yap

I made this au after watching the pilot for the amazing digital circus. originally it was just a 1:1 au with characters getting shoved into other character's roles BUT then it spiraled into its own fucking plot and story and is a strange soup with be more chill, the amazing digital circus, corru.observer, and ENA floating in it

This au is probably the most fleshed out when looking at all of my other wip aus so i'm not going to spoil too much in case i actually get off my ass and make this a real thing.

I will, however, talk about all the characters i have right now (+ attach any art i have of them!)

(Here's a fun game you can play while reading all of these character descriptions! Try to guess what be more chill character all of these guys are, cause they don't remember their real names!!!!!)

AETER (not married to this name tbh)

The stand in for Pomni! Tried to base her digital circus form off of a cellphone and a clown.

Aeter is kind of stuck in this weird in between of wanting to get out and return to reality and wanting to stay here and be apart of this strange circus found family shit. Some small part of her, despite her lack of memories, finally feels as if she belongs somewhere, and that somewhat scares her.

It doesn't scare her as much as some of the shit she sees behind the scenes of the circus, cause it turns out her arrival sparks some... interesting things to start happening to the foundation of the world the circus is in.

Let's just say she doesn't want to see another beaker rolling across the floor for a while.

RING

Everyone's lovable ringmaster who doesn't remember his name so everyone made one up for him!

I don't have any art of him but I'm thinking he'd be based off a gameboy, since he enjoys those sorts of games when he's not setting up adventures for the cast.

He wants to be seen as cool or likable by the others, but this sometimes leads to him making erroneous decisions that lead to nobody being happy. Moreover, it seems time has made him a little crazy, with him not being wholly aware of everyone's needs.

But who can fully blame him? He's just an AI.

BLYXEL

Think Jax but a little more chill (heh).

No art for this guy either, but i'm envisioning some kind of magician guy made up of pixels (he has no visible face) that can shapeshift.

Nobody really knows what this guy's deal is, or how long he's been in the circus (he says 5 or so years, but a lot of the others say that he's been here longer). He seems fairly apathetic to the other circusgoers and only tries to distract them from their misery with pranks and mischief.

He usually teams up with Comedy during adventures, either to completely change the course of whatever plot Ring has set up or to be playfully annoying throughout the whole trek.

Weird, honestly.

COTTON

The stand in for Ragatha, and everyone's personal shoulder to cry on.

Cotton's digital form was based on a stuffed animal, specifically a dog.

After settling into the circus, Cotton basically became everyone's escape from the eternal misery the circus brings. She always tries to be open to everyone, and can't help but thrive in the attention, even if they leave her after the fact. She's the first one people go to for their problems, and she loves it.

Outside of this, she tends to go along with whatever the group is going along with. She tends to gravitate towards Blocky more than the others for whatever reason, always following her lead in regard to the adventures.

PRINCEY

Kind of a stand in for Kinger but not really.

Based on a piece of paper/a sketch on a piece of paper! He is completely flat, but is seen more as a 2d cartoon character when talking to others. Nobody tries to think about the mechanics of it and neither does he.

He's one of the only people who's completely cool with the circus. While he doesn't have any of his memories, he feels relaxed when doing adventures or simply just hanging around the circus. Sure it sucks when he gets hurt or tears, but he finds the circus delightful. It's like a break from... whatever he had going on in real life.

COMEDY

Gangle but if she's been here the longest.

Comedy's digital form is made up of ribbons and her face is a mask. Once upon a time, her ribbons came together to form a sort of dress, and her mask was whole.

15 years of doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again tends to break a person though. Especially a creature of change like Comedy.

Some people think they see fragments of half her mask and torn ribbons hiding under piles of sandbags in her room.

Now her ribbons form an outfit befitting an acrobat! Comedy often unravels her body with no problem to quickly navigate the circus.

She's begging for something new besides these red and white tent walls everyday. Ring tries his best with the new adventures, but he often repeats adventures, forgetting that he's already done them, leading to a loop of the same things over and over again. This leads to her acting alongside Blyxel to detail these adventures in a bid to change something.

She often says whatever's on her mind, not caring about how she's seen by others. It's the one thing about her that's stayed in tact from reality.

BLOCKY

Zooble but not really. Personalities really shifted at this point.

I spent the most time on her design, basing it off that one comment Gooseworx made about wanting a character based on building blocks in the show.

She's the one usually leading the adventures most of the time, living the sense of control it gives her when everything else is slipping through her fingers. She often buts heads with Blyxel and Comedy because of this, wanting things to go as smoothly as possible so everyone can go back to usual circus shenanigans while the duo is out to make the adventure as annoyingly mischievous as possible.

WINDUP

The stand-in for Kaufmo. No art but he's based on one of those wind-up cymbal dolls if it was a rooster.

He opened the wrong door and remembered the flames.

Who knows where he is now after his abstraction?

[hxrpooner]

just finished mass effect 2 here is my brain vomit

The Good

The combat was sleeker and more polished than ME1. Overall I enjoyed the gunplay a lot more. Being able to vault over things was also really fun.

I really liked the paragon/renegade interrupts. A good way to spice things up. Enhanced the feeling of player choice. Just a really nice touch.

LOOOVED the crew. I also thought the conversations with crewmates were just better overall than ME1.

I liked the loyalty mechanic and loyalty missions. I thought those were cool.

I think the decision to kill Shepard, resurrect them, and have the whole crew break up, was pretty fucked up and awesome. It was cool going to see where everyone was at after all that time. I especially thought the angle they took with Liara was really cool and interesting.

I liked listening to the news reports and seeing all the other ways Shepard’s actions from ME1 carried over with NPCs and stuff.

In general there were so many moments that harkened back to ME1 that I enjoyed. Like yeah it was very fanservicey and yk what I am a sucker for fanservice. No notes.

The DLCs were really good, especially Lair of the Shadow Broker. Except Overlord. I have beef with Overlord.

I’m glad they took out exploring planets with the Mako. I mean don’t get me wrong, I loved the Mako. But driving over featureless terrain for long periods definitely lost its charm after the first several times. On that note, I appreciated that they made the vehicle sections in the Firewalker DLC a lot more interesting than the ones in ME1. 

I like the overall concept of the Suicide Mission. I like how unique consequences unfold based on the choices you make. And I think it’s good that they made it legitimately difficult to keep your whole team alive without looking at a walkthrough. Would have been really silly if it was easy. 

The Bad

The atmosphere was much more “sleek modern sci fi shooter” than the more... space opera?? vibe of the first game. I don’t really know how else to describe it. It felt like a pretty big jump in tone from what I liked about ME1, which kind of sucks.

I don’t really like how they fully conflated/renamed charm/intimidate to paragon/renegade checks 

I wasn’t very fond of the reloading mechanic. I mean, I think adding reloading itself freshened up combat, which was good, but I didn’t like that it auto-reloaded for me sometimes but not others. And it felt like some guns ran out of clips way too quickly.

The powers in 2 were kind of boring, ammo powers especially. Squadmate combat was very lacking because they had so few powers.

Whatever the fuck was going on with David in the Overlord DLC was bad. I’m very iffy on how they treat his autism and how that relates to his personal autonomy. I also wasn’t happy that the game didn’t give you an option to kill Gavin outright.

I kind of wish there was more conflict over the decision to blow up all those Batarians in the Arrival DLC. Because that was like hundreds of thousands of people and we just.... kablooey!!! There were scarcely any moments for Shepard to even wonder if there might be other options. It’s fine for the game to force you to kill them in the end, but I wish we gotten to linger on it a little more at the time (especially since the ethical ramifications of exploding all those people ARE shown to be important later on... just not until AFTER the mission is over, and even then it’s honestly more about Shepard being in trouble than anything else).

I was sad that a lot of the ambient dialogue stuff got removed. You can’t chat with squadmates and get flavor dialogue about whatever area you’re in unless you happen upon a specific “talk to X” location, and the comments squadmates made on missions didn’t really feel interesting or varied. It made them feel more like inanimate objects than characters.

I did Jack’s romance path, and I thought it was really bland. I don’t know about the other romance options, but... idk, I wasn’t impressed. The dialogue just wasn’t that interesting.

I think they blew their load a little too early with the Suicide Mission. It felt like it should have been the end of something; I’m sensing that they kind of set ME3 up to fail, here. The end sequence of the game was also shorter than I would have liked.

I felt like a big skeleton robot monster was a very silly choice for the final boss. The concept of THOUSANDS of humans being disappeared and then literally turned into goop is appropriately horrifying. But all that, only for it to be used to make this goofy looking skeleton thing... idk, it mostly just made me laugh.

[ganymedesclock]

I don’t want to say fictional robots “belong” to autistic people because any given fantastical allegory can have manifold and meaningful resonance to all manner of diversities, but something I do think is very interesting about fictional robots as an autistic person is this:

Robots as a plot element or character arc often center on this question of emotions. Do you feel emotions? Now, this is an imperfect argument about humanity/authenticity in the first place since there are plenty of Real Human Beings who experience anhedonia or alexithymia- but I think also, in my experience, a lot of these stories- sometimes in-universe, sometimes only in fandom responses- betray that maybe a lot more people than they think, are not very good at identifying emotions.

Many fictional robots- to be blunt- pour with emotion. They will often have a blunted affect (that is to say, speaking in a monotone, or limited facial expressions), they may use overly technical terminology, but they will make arbitrary decisions based on personal preference, it will be nakedly obvious they have a preference and their preference is determined at least in part by what pleases them. Data from Star Trek adores his cat and cares deeply about art and poetry.

And I won’t say any of these characters are bad people. I don’t want to suggest the goal is to create a character who’s “really” emotionless. If there is a quibble I have with this, it’s that I think we could all afford to be a little more careful and a little bit more imaginative, when considering how other people’s minds work, and how they present details. Not just as a joyless finger-wag of “you should be more responsible!” (though I will say there is some joylessness to it- I don’t really enjoy being shown a character who emotes close to how I naturally do, being fretted over by people asking if that character has a soul, is a real person, or simply an effective mimic; that hurts a little too personally to be fun!)

I was thinking of this because I was reflecting on one of my favorite little videos, My Job Is To Open And Close Doors. It’s a simple little uninterrupted 3-minute monologue about an AI who, well, see title, but has a bit of a crisis of purpose and asks themselves a bunch of critical questions about their role and purpose.

At its core, to me, the AI in My Job clearly experiences an emotion; they see something in the course of doing their job that they have no protocol or instruction to halt before, but feel an incredible misgiving about following through on. In response to this misgiving, in a very human manner, they begin to procrastinate- all the while, they point out to their own mounting confusion that this is a meaningless activity, but it buys them more time.

The voice acting given to the AI is very good, and, to me, cinches the whole piece- the actor very specifically does not leave a neutral-pleasant tonal range, and at several points, rather than asking an obviously “emotional” question, the AI simply hangs up in their own thinking talking to themselves- “because- because- because-” a very mechanical sort of stutter.

And using this flat affect and mechanical quirks, the actor establishes and fits to an emotional vernacular. The thrust of the plot- that the AI isn’t sure why they’re hesitating when their job is straightforwards and clear, that they even take note that this is being recorded as an error by another party- repeats in the sense of the stuttering- just as they procrastinate opening the doors without being sure why, they too “procrastinate” the completion of their statements when they’re unsure of them. The AI believes that the delivery of a solution, an answer, a “point”, is inevitable, so when they do not feel they have an answer they are incapable of saying “I don’t know”; instead, they stall. They procrastinate in the hope of achieving enough time to deliver an answer that meets their standards, that satisfies the parameters either set by their programming, or their own feelings.

My Job also adds in a sense of why emotions are important- in a sense that is not about enjoyment or satisfaction, although the AI ultimately does feel tremendously satisfied at the successful conclusion of their quandary- because without the ability to experience “baseless misgivings”, they would have simply responded to the initial command to open the door and been unbothered by whatever happened. In that sense, you could argue, it’s an ‘emotion’ born from ‘logic’ (that there is something amiss, though it takes the AI time to tease this out of their own thinking) but at that point we’re barking up a fool’s tree of semantics because our “logic” and our sentiments are both chemicals clattering around the same undifferentiated apparatus at the same time and thus inextricably attached to one another.

The thing that kills me about this is- with no hostility to the commenter in question- I scrolled down into the comments of My Job and immediately saw someone talking about how clearly, the AI has no emotions.

To me, this entire plot is about an AI having an emotion. Unmistakable and clear. This is about a door mechanism experiencing a profoundly human response to distress- procrastinating on the completion on a task they have every resource and in fact an active imperative to complete, based on a misgiving they are unable to articulate. This revelation is so profound to them that at the end of the video, they actually reframe their entire objective- “My job is to protect the human. My job is a great purpose.”

So I guess if there’s a tl;dr or conclusion to this sentiment, it’s that I think that while we can and should absolutely tell stories about fictional robots- because they are cool, and because they are also tremendously useful to ask certain existential questions about personhood- I think that it is actually very important to temper both our creation and consumption on these narratives on a more robust theory of neurodivergence, and, “I don’t recognize the way this emotion plays out in this particular person” does not equal “there is no emotion there at all”

[atomicfilm]

INTJ pairings

I'll make this into a fun short "put you in my pocket and take you `to my mom's Thanksgiving party" version too.

I'm not an INTJ, but I do converse with them (and by them, I mean maybe 3 total and 1 regularly) and I've been asked to talk about my thoughts on this, so for tonight only, I'm giving myself a really cool sash that says I'm an authority on the subject. I also think as an INTP I run into somewhat similar issues with certain types.

* means I like this pairing.

Typically, the INTJ's golden pair is the ENFP. I think that works for some people, but is probably a kind of short-lasting passionate fling rather than the ideal pairing. ENFPs are great people, they're lots of fun to be around, they care a great deal. They bring out the INTJ's soft side, which they may hate but they secretly quite admire. But ultimately, ENFPs can be flaky. They see something new and exciting and they move on. Novelty is the greatest motivator in a lot of ENFPs. New friends, new places, new things to do. And while the INTJ may deeply admire that and may find it quite exciting, it's not going to last forever. Eventually, the INTJ will become tired of playing games and want to settle into their ideal lifestyle pursuing their carefully strategized goals and the ENFP will become bored. The INTJ I speak to and I have the same issue, which is that ENFPs by nature are manipulative. It can be used for the good of inspiring people and bringing them together, but it can also become quite selfish and unstable. This leads to the ENFP saying things like "You try to apply logic to everything" or "you don't really respect me" or something like that when in reality, if someone loves an INTJ they'll love that they apply logic to everything and they'll love their snarky edges.

INFPs. I have not heard a lot of feedback about them as I think INTJs tend to be drawn more to extraverts. But as someone who spends quite a lot of time with INFPs, I would imagine that a lot of INTJs who can't make it work with ENFPs can also not make it work with INFPs. Once again, INFPs are great at engaging our minds but they are terrible at accepting that we live by rationality. INTJs use Fi a little bit, so to some extent they'll have similar engagements with their emotional side, but INFPs live by thinking "what can I do to nurture myself" and INTJs live more by "how can I best mold the world to fit my vision of efficiency". You'll see the commonality of Fi at the worst point possible when the INTJ is breaking down. INFPs kind of never stop using Fi and as someone who is thinking-dominant, that is almost impossible for communication. Ultimately, they'll eventually hit a point where their love languages and ways of interactions may be so disparate that they feel neglected.

ENTPs **. This is a golden pair that I can kind of get behind. The INxJs I know are obsessed with ENTPs and tend to think they're quite attractive. They're not only gregarious (when they're not arguing) but they're also quite intellectually stimulating and since they have opposite functions from the INTJ, there is still quite a bit of difference to make it fun. There shouldn't be too many emotional issues, aside from the fact that both these types tend to bottle up their emotions and resent vulnerabilities. The ENTP will probably be the more caring of the two in a conventional sense, but I would think both would have similar love languages of caring both through action and thought. ENTPs also tend to not be quite as flaky as a lot of xNxPs are, but, I would rate both of these types as highly likely to ghost. My best advice is that if you want to be around ENTPs, pick one who can be honest about their real values and whose values align with yours. If they make a lot of bigoted jokes, take that at face value, no matter how "ironic" it is. ENTPs can be a little fake in the sense that they will blend in just enough and hide behind so-called irony to be friends with a lot of different people.

INTPs. I don't really see it. I think INTPs are lovely as an INTP who likes other INTPs. Likewise, I enjoy a good conversation and friendship with an INTJ. But I find it not only difficult to tolerate relationships but also being told what to do. I make every decision in a relationship as a compromise and I think that would eventually quite interfere with the INTJ's ambitions because I wouldn't back down on mine...at least, not without resentment. So perhaps an INTJ and INTP with similar life goals could work out romantically, but personally, I view them as platonic and the one time I liked an INTJ it ended beyond poorly. I don't bring out their softness and they don't bring out mine. We're more like buddies who complain about other people when we do the entire group project by ourselves. Of course, romantic preference is a preference.

ENTJs. When has it ever worked out for someone to date their sister-type? Name one time! If someone names one time I'll update this. I think an ENTJ and an INTJ would be quite an argumentative couple even if they were on the same side about everything. Then again, INTJs do admire extraversion and it is always nice to be around people you don't have to explain yourself to every sentence.

INFJs ****. Oh, I like this pairing. I have not heard much about it, but I think it would be really cute. INTJs are complete badasses. They're very "I'm going to take over the world and you're just going to have to deal with it. And if you say no I will secretly cry". INFJs are very "I'm going to do everything in my power to heal everyone and the world and I am probably crying because I saw a baby bunny". INFJs are The Best! They have the softness of ENFPs but they're logical and they use Ni like INTJs but have Fe, which means they are thinking about harmony 24/7 and not that Fi-version of harmony. That genuine "I will make sure everyone is cared for at no social benefit to me" kind of harmony. They do socialize with a lot of people, but INTJs sometimes like to be social and party, they just aren't typically regarded that way. Do Fe and Fi mix that well? Maybe not. But as an Fe user who is quite fond of INFJs, I think they could potentially be a very cute power couple with the INTJ and there would be fewer issues with communication than other types as Ni-doms (but this also might be boring at the same time).

ENFJs. Similar to INFJs. They might work together a little less simply because of the change in function positions.

ESFPs *. Do I know for sure that this is a good pairing? No! But gosh, do I like it. INTJs become ESFP-like when they're sad. So, you know, maybe the ESFP will draw out the worst version of the INTJ and that could really suck. But this is the perfect little theatre kid dates total nerd trope and I like that. ESFPs have the social circle that the INTJ desires and the INTJ has the "got their shit together" vibes that ESFPs, despite being quite talented and successful, may lack. They both have skills one another can benefit strongly from, but it may come at the cost of a lot of arguments. Not sure. But I think this is actually my personal favorite since they have near-opposite strengths but a common reason to respect one another.

ISFPs: Pft. Idk. This is not the same as ESFPs. ISFPs are lovely but they sort of fill the same niche that INFPs do. Perfect for an INTP like me, but I don't think INTJs are looking for the quiet, artsy, weirdo so much because they already often fill that niche to some extent, even if it's more technical. I've noticed that INxJs really want to be around people who are the life of the party and very socially dominant (and ISFPs can fulfill that role, but there are other types who win via extraversion). The ISFP will likewise appreciate a little practicality, but I've noticed they're more likely to gravitate towards other xxFPs. Probably a better friendship and as a relationship would take more effort.

ESTPs: I think this one comes with its own difficulties and will work less than ENTP/ESFP pairings. This is because while they can have the same charisma that ENTP and ESFPs have, they can also have that same fakeness as a defense mechanism. Both will value action but the ESTP will probably drain out the INTJ more than ENTPs will (who are more ambiverts) and more than ESFPs too. With ESFPs, there's a good amount of the right kind of opposites. INTJs are action-driven, but they're strategic and take a while. ESFPs are action-driven, but they're more spontaneous. And ultimately, that leads to a lot of arguments about how to get things done. Whereas, the ESFP and ENTP might give the INTJ complete room to "manage", the ESTP seems less likely to do so.

ISTPs: This would be so stale. INTJs tend to show big emotions (to their own despise) when they're upset and ISTPs love to ghost at any sign of emotion. They would dip so fast. Top-tier friendship on an intellectual level but never particularly deep and unlikely, albeit not impossible to evolve into a relationship. Same issues as with INTPs, there's going to be a lot of admiration and probably not a lot of emotional attachment. I have witnessed an INTJ have a crush on an ISTP but that ISTP had a crush on me so that tells you how that went. Messy business. 

ESTJ: Yeah, I guess. I don't like ESTJs as a general concept but I suppose INTJs aren't necessarily as opposed to capitalism and tradition. Sounds dry. Next.

ISTJ *: This is probably a really solid pairing for the INTJ. Very marriage material, have the same job, raise cool kids. But I think that sounds boring. So if you want the "perfect life", this is probably a good type for you but I couldn't do that. You would probably only have minor arguments and the INTJ would have to learn to trust that ISTJs are incredibly good at reading situations while the ISTJ would have to learn to love that the INTJ is more fantasy-oriented than they are. Odd, right? Ultimately, you have two people who can be very commitment-oriented, who care for people the same way, who want to fix society, who analyze everything. You just have two generally different ways of doing that, where the ISTJ is probably actually better at being in society and the INTJ wants to change it in more drastic ways (although, for moral reasons they both want to change it).

ISFJ: I don't imagine it working particularly well. I honestly can barely imagine it at all. An ISFJ is my best friend and he is THE MOST gentle buddy. You cannot make fun of him even playfully and keep the friendship. Probably a deal-breaker for a lot of INTJs as they tend to love a good tease. My ISFJ has dated an INTJ before and while they’re still friends, it was a bad experience to witness all around. INTJs are very competitive and ISFJs are very open with their affection so that ran into issues but also, the ISFJ is not as likely to stand up for itself in a way that INTJs easily respect, which is to say, when they do it it will be something like “hey, you hurt my feelings” and if you’re the kind of person to  respond “then you’re too sensitive” you’ve got a whole ass toxic relationship on your hands. 

ESFJ: I think this could work a little better than the ISFJ pairing and a little worse than with the ESFP. Of course, there are general grounds for arguing over emotion vs. logic, but both types can have quite a good bit of talent and practicality coexisting. ESFJs tend to be a little better with criticisms (although they are still sensitive and should be treated very gently too) and they're more likely to want to accomplish goals that the INTJ finds easier to respect. For a lot of ISFJs, their goals are sweet and simple like raising a family, working as a computer scientist. The ESFJ might be a little more oriented towards large goals similar to that of the ESFP, which is more of the category that INTJs tend to fall into. However, the INTJ is going to have to accept that ESFJs love a LOT which means throwing a LOT of parties, probably the most out of any type and its probably going to lead to some burnouts. 

Overall, INTJs are great but need to learn to practice kindness and put their natural tendency for intellectual superiority aside. They shouldn't be with anyone that doesn't want to accomplish things they can respect. They shouldn't be with people who want them to compromise too much (they probably won't). They should be with people who bring out their nurturing capabilities and who they want to do things for, but not people that they see as incapable of taking care of themselves. They may prefer more social people and admire people who can network while being direct and genuine. Based on these criteria, INFJs and ENTPs are my highest recommendations while ESFPs (my favorite) and ISTJs also make the list for various reasons.

BUT, that being said, RELATIONSHIPS (including friendships) ARE A SKILL. They are most successful when someone becomes good at learning respect and compromise that doesn't cause resentment, regardless of type. All individuals will have different specific interests as well as red flags. And if you need me to tell you if your relationship works, it probably doesn't and you can DM me.

[thelastspeecher]

Thank you @eregyrn-falls for your help and New Jersey knowledge; as I said, I am but a mere Midwesterner who has never been to the Garden State. Thanks to your help, I've been able to land on a decision.

Stan and Ford get their Inciting Incident for their powers as children, after a hurricane throws oil on shore, and even causes some very small old WWII era land mines to wash ashore. They don't identify those items as such right away, however. Stan goes to investigate the black sand (from the oil) immediately and starts digging around in it. Meanwhile, Ford picks up something that he doesn't recognize. Only for that something to suddenly grow warm and shake. Ford throws it away from him just in time as it explodes. A few shards of glass from the beach (Glass Shard Beach, amiright?) dig their way into his skin.

But Ford feels like he imagined the glass and explosion, because before his eyes, his skin heals over the bits of glass leaving no marks, it doesn't hurt, and Stan, who was a few feet away, didn't react to the explosion. However, Stan was a bit distracted. When he dug around in the sand, some of the oil left the sand grains and leached into his skin, disappearing without a trace. Before the boys can talk about what they saw/experienced, Ma Pines rushes over, having realized that the beach is dirtier than usual in a way she does NOT want her boys to be playing in.

Stan and Ford just sort of forget that ever happened. Until they become teenagers. Puberty makes the effects of that pollution suddenly rear its ugly head and their latent powers manifest. Stan's is first and the most drastic; his entire body becomes oil. Well, oil but not like, liquid liquid. Think peanut butter. A sort of liquid solid. That's the general texture of Stan. With some time and practice, he's able to switch between the oil form and his human one, as well as make his oil form more solid and more liquid on command. But when it first shows up, he has zero control.

Ford's power is a bit odder. He can, uh, make things explode. First, it only happens when he gets angry, but he eventually develops proper control over it. He also has to develop control over the physical aspect of his power: when he uses his explode-y power, his skin turns to glass. Not his body, his skin. Like, you can see his organs. It's a self-defense mechanism to protect him from whatever is exploding, as the glass is basically the stuff they put in president cars. Impossible to break. Eventually, he's able to avoid going into glass form when he makes things explode, and able to go into glass form without exploding things. But it takes a lot of practice for him to control both his glass form and his exploding power.

Fun side note: Stan really struggles with his oil form, particularly at night. He's prone to slipping into his oil form while asleep, something that he and Ford (being immature teens) decide to dub "having a wet dream".

By the way, I've decided to fully lean into the whole pollution thing that I accidentally stumbled into as a through line for the AU. Humans develop powers in this AU as a result of pollution, environmental contamination, or other exposure to chemical compounds. Sometimes those powers can get passed down to descendants (as is the case for Angie), but the power originated from some sort of exposure to something hazardous.

And related to my deciding to lean into the whole hazards thing, I decided to tweak Angie's power a smidge. She gets it from her great-grandfather, who developed it after exposure to a pesticide/herbicide, so I wanted to have that origin influence the power a bit more. Her power originally was just changing size and stretching, but I've decided now that something she discovers at some point is that she has a toxic kiss. The pesticide/herbicide is present in her body, specifically, produced in her saliva. So anyone she kisses could get very, very sick from it.

Thankfully, she discovers one particular person immune to her toxic kiss: Stan. Stan's body, even in his human form, has the oil spread throughout at the cellular level, preventing him from being harmed by her saliva. It's very romantic to the two teens when they discover this.

vulpixen replied to your post: “vulpixen replied to your post: “The temptation to...”

Perhaps Stan and Ford have powers involving the beach. Maybe Stan has the power creating sand and turning solid objects into sand and make himself into sand. While Ford can make things solid and make his body more rocky.

​Hmm, I was thinking more along the lines of their powers being related to whatever pollution thing gives them the powers. Like, if it was an oil spill, one of them would get oil-related abilities and appearance. For some reason this particular AU is really bringing out my environmentalist side.

But I don't think it's an oil spill. I don't think those are v common in New Jersey. Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge about New Jersey is once again causing me Issues. Literally the only thing I can think of that might pollute a New Jersey beach is when medical waste washed up on shore in the 80s (the "hypodermics on the shore" mentioned in "We Didn't Start the Fire").

Then again. I could give Stan or Ford a medical-waste related power I suppose lajksdjnkjfnksd

[anime-grimmy-art]

Told you guys I’d ramble in due time.

I absolutely adore Bravely Default 2. It came at a really bad time cos I can’t waste 70 hours on a jrpg, but well, it’s too late to be concerned about that now. And as is tradition with me obsessing over a new game / show / whatever, you’ll basically find a fullblown review disguised as ramblings right under the cut. Be aware that I’m gonna talk about EVERYTHING, so spoilers are a given. Some maybe even for the previous Bravely Default games.

Also, if you wanna talk about this game in any capacity, hit me up, I’m DESPERATE to talk more about it.

Just for reference on how long this is gonna be, I made a voice recording while driving to remember all the points I wanna make, and that recording is almost 2 hours long. I did cut it down but still, this is gonna be a lot.

I’ll start off with the things that actually bugged me about the game, since there are only 3 things that really bothered me. First of, I really don’t like that you can name Seth. He has too much personality to be a self insert and player integration is not that big of a part in the game that this decision can be justified. It wouldn’t bother me that much if it didn’t leave a bad mark on the ending. First of all, we were robbed of Gloria desperately shouting for Seth, which makes the impact work less, and it’s just so prevalent that the name can’t be said because you have all the normal sound design going. If they’d just let the credits still play I wouldn’t have batted an eye, but because every other sound comes in it’s so obvious they’re just silently shouting in this scene, which makes it look silly. Like I said, this decision is more a detriment than an addition, and it’s a shame it casts a shadow on an otherwise heartfelt ending.

Speaking about lost potential, the other thing that really bothers me is the lost potential in certain plot points and character conclusions. I mainly mean Adam and Edna here. Both of them have been built up to be these formidable foes but they just, die. If it was just Adam I’d be fine with it, since you expect Edna to backstab him and be the actual big bad of the story, but I cannot fathom why they dropped Edna this HARD. If not Edna herself, I don’t understand why we don’t get more of a reaction from the Fairies and especially Adelle. I mean, Edna was her sole reason she left for her journey in the first place, then Edna dies and that’s it? No part where she grieves for a second? No concern from the others about Adelle? Mind you, I haven’t finished all the Sidequests, so maybe there actually is one in which this is addressed, but I think even just a Party Chat after Bad End 1 would have been sufficient to show how Adelle suddenly feels about the loss of Edna. It would have made Bad End 2 / The Secret Ending even more impactful, because, yeah, of course, you kinda know Adelle isn’t going to turn her back on fairy kind, but one of the reasons she doesn’t leave is because if Enda didn’t get a happy ending, then she shouldn’t either. It would have been amazing foreshadowing if she showed this sentiment before this scene happened. Other than that, it’s a shame that we know so little about Edna, or rather, how she became “bad”. I get she’s supposed to be corrupted by the Night’s Nexus, but how did it even come to this? It can’t have been a gradual thing, after all, Adelle says Edna was always good natured and then just disappeared one day. Really would have loved seeing more of that plot point.

Ok, last gripe I have, some choices in the soundtrack and sound design. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the OST, and I will get to that, but damn, whatever Revo used for the lead instrument in Wiswald hurts my ears. It’s a really good track, but I always have to turn down my volume because these high pitched sounds physically hurt. And for sound design. Dude, the Night’s Nexus is the least threatening, nightmare fueled abomination that ever existed. I get that its growl is kinda supposed to be layered with Edna’s or sth, but it, it just sounds silly. If they went the route of just swinging between different voices or began distorting it from phase to phase, it would have been fine. But the choice they made really made an otherwise creepy design just absolutely silly.

Ok, enough jammering, on to the good stuff. Like I said, there’s going to be a lot, so I’ll try to be brief in each aspect.

Gameplay

I honestly like the new battle mechanics more than the old ones. This individual, turn based system feels way more dynamic and it’s easier to strategies in battles. Because nothing made me more angry than setting up for a heal and the enemy suddenly being faster than me and killing my healer. Now it’s easier to plan ahead a bit.

I also found myself experimenting more with the jobs. Not sure what it really is, but none of the party members leaning more towards certain types of jobs and the job leveling being way faster probably helped.

And I know some people get up in arms because the boss sometimes can be a real pain in the ass (looking at you pope dude), I still found it very interesting getting around counters or even using these counters as a benefit. As an example, I made Adelle my main physical fighter and gave her lots of counter abilities to help her profit from being countered by enemies themselves. Now, she can attack enemies, get countered, automatically evade that counter and earn a BP at the same time. Made a lot of boss fights way easier and fun to exploit.

Music

Ok, I will try my best to be really, really brief, because in my recording this part takes up almost 40 minutes. Anyways, Revo might have just become one of my absolute favorite composers ever. I don’t know what kind of magic he used, but I initially wasn’t that impressed with the OST, but every time I listened to it, I just fell in love harder and harder. Before getting into specifics, I wanna highlight the two things that made me love this OST overall. First of all, this soundtrack almost seems like a refinement of BD’s. While losing some of that fairytale vibe, it sounds even more fantasy now. And in contrast to the original, this almost sounds more balanced? Like, BD’s OST felt high energy throughout, BD2’s on the other hand manages to find a good balance between high and low energy pieces. Like, the character themes or battle themes are absolute hype, but the overworld themes are a lot calmer and easier to listen to while exploring. Second big point that makes this soundtrack amazing is that Revo is an absolute god at using emotional progression/storytelling and leitmotifs in his songs. And heck, do I love myself my leitmotifs. You’ve got some obvious ones, like the final battle theme in which all the character themes and other leitmotifs are integrated. Then you got some maybe more subtle once, just like how the overworld themes are just the main theme, just a lot calmer and using the lead instruments of the towns of the areas.

But my absolute favourites gotta be the character themes and the main theme. I love how fitting the themes for the characters are and in general, each of them is such a bop. At first I prefered Elvis’, because I sure am a sucker for jazzy vibes, but over time Adelle’s became my fav. It’s just something about the trumpets, and how the theme almost sounds a bit melancholic and bittersweet, that drew me in. And considering her story, mostly her bad end, that the bittersweet tone really fits.

Then there’s the main theme. Just like BD’s it shouts “triumphant anthem” and it definitely gives you a very familiar vibe, but I’d argue it has even better emotional progression. Heck, the first time I heard the music start up in the reveal trailer, I didn’t have to look at the screen to know this is gonna be a BD game. Also, the credit song version had me weeping at the true end. I’m someone who’s very easily affected by music (if me shouting about soundtracks on this blog wasn’t proof enough) and just hearing that ending song, getting the after credits scene, just for the second credits to start as a freaking duet. Dude, at that point I just started sobbing, I’m not gonna lie. Just this little part showed how much Revo knows how to put emotion in a song and also write it in such a way that he can elicit strong, emotional reactions from you too. 

Story

People have been complaining how the story is too boring and kinda disappointing in comparison to the last one, but I just think the games tried to accomplish different things here. Since the BD series is a celebration of old, classic jrpgs, “cliche” storytelling is a given. Though, BD did throw a lot of meta stuff in there too. BD2 in contrast just feels like a direct execution of that initial idea. It feels familiar, it feels comfy and it feels safe. Except for the little things with the endings and then overwriting the Nexus’ “save file”, BD2 doesn’t really get that meta, which is totally fine. It doesn’t try to reinvent or innovate anything, it just wants to be a fantasy story, that might be cliche, but still fun and enjoyable in its own right.

I’d also argue that the pacing is a lot better than the old game, because with BD I sometimes found myself skipping through scenes to get on with the story. Not that this game didn’t have me rushing through stuff as well, but I found it kept my intrigue way better than the original.

Characters

Next to the music, this is the part that I absolutely love the most. While, yes, they did lose a lot of potential with some characters, mostly with the villains, the main cast is just so much fun. I love these 4 dorks so, so much.

I honestly can’t stand how much people compare them to the original cast. Yes, ofc, I’ve been doing my fair share of comparisons too, but calling these four a more boring version of BD’s party physically hurts me. Because except for some initial impressions, the Heroes of Light are completely different from our beloved Warriors of Light.

While yes, Seth and Gloria give off strong Tiz and Agnes vibes at first, they both grow into such different characters that they’re not really comparable. I think this shows with Adelle and Elvis even more. I do understand how people could compare Adelle and Edea, since they’re both the feisty girl type, but I can’t understand how people can see Ringabel and Elvis as the same character type. While those two are the “suave” party members, they act so differently from another. And that’s honestly apparent the first time you meet them. 

Anyways, I love these 4 so much.

We technically don’t know a lot about Seth at all, but they manage to pull so much out of just the fact that he’s a sailor, that it makes him really endearing, really fast.

I was kinda disinterested with Gloria at first, because again, the initial impression was Agnés2.0, but she grew on me a lot. Gloria is way more hard headed and honestly sassy in comparison to Agnés and I absolutely adore it.

Elvis. Elvis, my man. I love this fantasy scottosh wizard so, so much. He’s such a ridiculous character but so endearing at the same time. You got all this dorkiness, with him setting himself on fire as a student, him doing god knows what for a good drink or just laughing danger and prejudice in the face. But then you got his super empathetic and caring side. Mind you, most of his wise moments come from quoting Lady Emma, but still, as much as he’s hopeless with certain social situations, he’s actually still really good at reading the room and playing things smart. He’s a smart and powerful idiot, which makes him a danger to everyone and himself, and I love him for it. (I also can’t believe they called him Lesley I MEAN COME ON)

And then there’s Adelle. I liked her from the start, but I didn’t think she would stick out to me. I think now she’s my favourite character. Not even talking about all the stuff that happens in chapter 3 and onward, because these story threads are awesome in their own right, but there’s just something about her personality that’s interesting and appealing to me. Like I said, I’m not surprised people compare her to Edea, I did too at first, but while Edea walks very close to the line of a Tsundere, I was really surprised that Adelle is, well, not a Tsundere at all. Yeah, of course she’s putting Elvis down a lot, but that stems more from her preventing his ego from going to his head than her being all embarrassed. No, Adelle is actually really well adjusted when it comes to communication. While it’s hilarious that she and Elvis met with her chucking her shoes at him, the two just got along well right from the start. Adelle in general has this really open and helpful personality, but also doesn’t shy away from putting her foot down, even if that sometimes comes out as an embarrassed sputter. She’s also the mother hen of the group. She looks out for the other three and gets concerned about them real fast. 

I dunno, Adelle just really grew on me over the course of this game, and then her kinda being paired with Elvis too, as partners and as partners, makes me like her even more. Because as much as I like their personalities individually, I like their character dynamic even more. I honestly love the relationships between all four of them a lot. You really feel them grow closer as friends and all the little character sidequests just always made me really happy.

Conclusion

You might not believe me, but I really held back there. This could probably have been 3 times its length. As much as I love this game, it’s of course not perfect. It struggles and flails in some parts a lot and it certainly has some aspects that might turn people off. But for me, it was just a very familiar and comfy game that didn’t necessarily deliver anything new, but that told its story in such a way that it still got me excited to keep going. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing and the conclusion of the story actually got me to cry. While not groundbreaking, this game is highly enjoyable and leaves you absolutely satisfied at the end.

Also, I would like to iterate that I am desperate to get more content about this game, so if you wanna chat about it, hit me up.

Anyways, anyone else felt like having a fever dream when everybody in chapter 2 started talking fantasy scottish? Cos I sure did.