#vs the real life players in this story

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Irrespective of the current real life circumstances of it all, "peace" is really one of the most incredibly romantic songs in recent memory, and certainly of Taylor's discography.

Not only is the combo of the simple guitar and pulse and the airiness of Taylor's voice simply stunning and set the, well, peaceful tone of the song, but the whole theme of it really captures an all-encompassing love full of nuance, understanding and perspective.

I LOVE the second line of, "suddenly this summer it's clear." It's so simple, but I just feels like it sets such a powerful, yet simple scene: the sultry bass line definitely gives me hot-day-with-the-faint-breeze-blowing-through-the-curtains-condensation-dripping-down-the-beer-bottle vibes. There's a sense of clarity (as she says), like sitting there and realizing all your life has led you to this moment, this realization that you're exactly where you need to be and who you need to be with. You're an imperfect person who makes mistakes, but you try and you love hard, so in the end, maybe that's enough. (The devil's in the details, but you've got a friend in me.)

It sounds like such a simple song, but it's really the culmination of a lifetime of choices one after the other that don't end. And you know that I'd swing with you for the fences, sit with you in the trenches. That's such a lyrical way of saying, "I take you for better or for worse." (Much like "from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes" is just a fancy way of saying, "from summer to winter." Or more gracefully, "I'll be there if you're the toast of the town or you're striking out and crawling home.") And as it continues, it paints more of a picture of a lifetime together: give you my wild, give you a child, give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other now that I see your brother as my brother. When so much is focused on the grand gestures, burning passion, highest highs and lowest lows, this song is saying, I just want us. It's building a family in the most insular sense.

And one of the lines I love the most is, "I'm a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm if your cascade ocean blue waves come," especially when it comes after the line about how the rain always follows her. Because like she says in LPSS, there are things outside of her control anyone around her will never avoid -- her fame, her scrutiny, her own personal struggles that make life difficult for herself and those who love her -- but, for those who stick around, she envelops them in her love and defends against the elements. It's gorgeous. She goes from being critical of herself earlier on in the song with an underpinning of doubt ("never had the courage of my convictions," "I talk shit with my friends," etc.) but by the end she realizes, I may not be perfect, and I know this life isn't easy, but my love is endless, so if you stick by me, I'll wrap you in it and won't let go.

It's absolutely gorgeous and reads like such an introspective conversation with herself. Like putting into words that, this is really it, the sum of our choices that have built this life.

[queenerdloser]

so i bought a record player and not to suddenly turn into this huge music snob or w/e the fuck but like. as much as i will die defending streaming music (bc there IS something to be said for having literally any music at your fingertips! digital downloads are valid! really fucking hate the way older millenials+ will complain about streaming like it destroyed music) like no one is wrong to say that there really is something different about physical music. like. turning records is different than streaming. putting a little cd in a cd player is different than streaming. something something the connection of physicality really does make the practice of interacting with art different. not better necessarily but different in a visceral way.

[vivalasthedas]

oh no a new sims expansion comes out the same day as veilguard uhoh how will i decide what to spend money on

something that will break the game its for and - purely based on the title - sounds kinda fucking stupid or the next installment of a game that changed my brain chemistry

[vaguely-concerned]

To the ‘themes I am picking up on in Veilguard’ list, let's go ahead and add what I have a sneaking suspicion will actually turn out to be The theme:

— the world has changed and can never be as it was again.

— I have been changed and can never be who I was again.

— in this simple unavoidable truth there is endless grief and endless hope.

And I… may be getting a bit emotional about it haha. Let me show my work a bit: 

if da:o is a game about people who are already dead or half ghosts in some form (through societal forces, psychologically, functionally, literally, in body, through the joining etc.) coming together anyway to save the world from being swallowed by total nihilism and despair (symbolized by the blight) through the power of love and friendship and also this sword/potential heroic sacrifice that I found, da2 is a game about people who have lost their homes and been set adrift finding and building new homes in each other (while completely failing to save the world. also through the power of love and friendship. as well as years of petty bickering <3 we must imagine kirkwall if not happy then worth having been because the love was there the love was there and that's the only sanctifying force we can ever have in this doomed world and city of ours), and da:i is a game about old stabilizing-but-unjust comfortable lies vs. disruptive but potentially liberating uncomfortable truths, and the power of friendship to help us distinguish the one from the other and navigate through them...

folks… I'm starting to think that veilguard might be a game specifically about moving towards recovery and acceptance after trauma — about how even in this flawed, severed, scarred state, what is here right now is worth loving and worth caring for. even in an imperfect and impermanent world and self, there is worth and joy. and of course the first real tragedy — and threat — of Solas is that he just cannot find it in himself to accept this and move on, to let go of what was, the regret won’t let him go or he won’t let go of it. which means that even though on the surface it’s Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain (and the will to subjugate and violate they represent) who are the main villains, the real antagonistic force in this story beneath that is the Dread Wolf’s despair. A despair Rook must make an answer to by the end of the game, one way or another, compassionately or with righteous fury, triumphant or pyrrhic.

The world will change again and again and so will you — BUT the crucial element is that so will everyone else who exists along with you, you are fundamentally not alone in this existential truth. all we’ll ever have is each other and my god that is plenty, my god that is enough!!! Which is the second thing Solas just can’t accept, he keeps himself separate and completely alone out of an awful mix of fear and pride and feeling himself unworthy of anything else. Rook and the player want to save the world of Thedas because it’s where everyone we love lives, Solas wants to go back to the past because that’s the only neighbourhood where he can still visit those he loved — and the person he himself was, before. A very sympathetic and human instinct/trap to fall into when touched by trauma, I think, if only it wasn’t backed by godlike power, a fundamentally oppositional personality, and a catastrophic lack of therapy to make it literally everyone else’s problem too lol. It’s varric and solas’ banter about the man on the island and where meaning in a life comes from all over again, writ large and with detail work — and the added idea of ‘what if there are also other islands out there, though. With other people on them that you could find if you reach for each other’. Rook with the best of intentions has to make choices to which there are no perfect outcomes and live with what happens — and not cut themselves off from everyone else around them even when there is regret or shame. You get back up every day and you make a life with other people doing the same and you do your best, and that’s the only victory this world will give you. In the end, that is more than enough, that is essential. And I um. I love that. So much. It’s why some of the writing clumsiness on top can’t hurt me because this thematic spine is so solid and so beautiful to me. It’s DA2 all over again that way for me personally — I forgive this story for what it isn’t and couldn’t be, and I love it with my whole stupid open heart for what it actually is. Thank you for coming to my TED-talk and goodbye etc.      

(For my fellow TLT heads out there — you know what this story is reminding me of most of all, actually? It has some big Nona the Ninth vibes down there in the deep. It’s about… the horror and unspeakable beauty that can only be found in liminality, and the role of love in making that basic fact of existence bearable. And also even more unbearable at the same time. I'm so sorry.)

[dailyadventureprompts]

See You Back at the Bonfire: Checkpoint Based Resurrection in D&D

Artsource

Between doing a writeup on soulsborne inspired campaign settings and another on the oldschool/newschool disparity between challenge and story, I got to thinking about death and its place in gamified narratives. Darksouls was the obvious influence, but I couldn't help but think of Dungeon Meshi, World of Warcraft, and supergiant's Hades.

Back in the day death was common in d&d, the challenges were unforgiving and the characters were expendable as they were simple. High level might as well have meant "high scoring", as the rewards for overcoming deathtraps and monsters with save-or-die abilities were directly translated into character progression. Death in this instance amounted to a combo breaker, being sent back to square 1 in a roguelike to do it all again. Over time though we started getting attached to our avatars, especially those of us who played primarily for story, leading characters to become too emotionally or mechanically complicated to feed into the blender.

This leaves the modern DM in a bit of a lurch: death by mooks or misadventure denies a satisfying (or heartwrenching) endpoint to the story you're collectively telling with your players. Look no further than Critical Role, where there are a small number of plot-meaningful deaths ( Vexhalia in the Tomb, Mollymauk to the Iron Shepards) and then a much larger tally of obligatory moments where someone fails one too many death saves and requires the use of a spell slot. The DM is forced to play with gloves on much of the time, holding back from creating real challenges because they don't want to kill any of their characters at the wrong time.

What I’d like to propose is that when it comes to challenge vs story we can have the best of both worlds if we’re a little more freehanded when it comes to resurrection. It'll take some tinkering and it won't fit for every story, but as a baseline assumption to the d&d formula, I think it could be quite useful.

How It'd Work: If someone dies before their appointed time , their body can be brought to a local temple to have the gift of life restored to them. Temples of their own deity are thought to work best, but lifegiving deities like Pelor or Illmater are known to be quite freehanded when it comes to raising the dead, and even small countryside shrines are known to work in a pinch. The resurrection may not work if the body is damaged, desecrated, or incomplete, though sometimes the spirit is simply incapable or unwilling to return.

For adventuresome types, this means that if you bite it while exploring the wilderness or some dank ruin you best hope your companions like you enough to drag your corpse back to the nearest altar. Likewise hope that you've kept on good terms with that god. If your entire party wipes, there's a chance for a good samaritan (or enterprising corpse picker) to help you out, though they'll usually help themselves to what's in your pockets in the meantime.

Some temples also sell rare tokens or burnable offerings that can transform any mundane campfire into a one-use resurrection altar, though the expendable nature of these charms mean they are in high demand.

Behind the scenes: what we've done here is turn character death from a plot derailer into a plot generator. Whenever someone in your party dies, it's your excuse to introduce new npcs, questhooks, and worldbuilding. Hades uses this trick to soften the blow of defeat with story progression, and DunMeshi uses it to build out the setting.

We can likewise take a point of inspiration from soulsborne games which use the player's desire to find a safety granting bonfire to spur exploration; What's the first thing the party are going to when hitting a new settlement after renting a room at the inn? Check out the neighbourhood temples to see which of the local gods is sympathetic to them. Same thing with seeking out the shrine nearest to the dungeon entrance before descending lower to face greater threats, which has them engaging with the location's story while discovering a minor questhook to endear themselves to the shrine god.

This is also to say nothing of all the fun adventure-fodder surrounding the mechanics including all the delightful "came back wrong" possibilities.

Finally let's talk about some gameplay assumptions: It's a tricky art building d&d encounters, especially since 5e play tends to default towards having fewer encounters per day, meaning a greater importance on these encounters being more challenging. This is a problem that I and many other DMs have wrestled with; finding the right degree of challenge for the encounter to be meanacing and meaningful, but without going so far as to risk an unexpected character death derailing my game. There's only so many permadeaths a player (and a story) can endure, to say nothing of the narrative killing tpk, which can scrap months of investment and storytelling potential.

Videogame designers figured out this balancing act of narrative and risk a long time ago, bumping characters back to a checkpoint when the player is overwhelmed by a challenge. The Soulsborne franchise built it's reputation on this "If at first you don't succeed, die, die again" mentality, which let them build the challenging ( read: engaging) gameplay the series is known for. Games like Hades go so far as to make this reset a centeral point of furthering the plot, allowing the narrative to expand with each stumble along the player's insurmountable climb.

By allowing characters to be easily revived, we end up with the best of both worlds when it comes to narrative vs. difficulty. The encounters we build can be more challenging in the moment if we know we won't accidently end a campaign if the dice get mean. This also makes players more likely to make big swings and try for optional content knowing the campaign less likely to end if they fuck up.

While some people might take umbrage with the idea of making resurrection commonplace, D&D already allows for characters to be revived though in-game mechanics at the cost of cleric spells and diamond dust. The devs figured out pretty early that even in a game centred around frequent violent clashes, it sucks to have a character you're invested in die unexpectedly, and it's better for the health of the game/narrative to be able to get those characters back at a cost. The problem is that these resurrection mechanics are siloed off to mid/high level characters, when it's the low level adventurers who are most fragile and thus most in need of an in-game safety net.

Secondly, look at the Soulsborne series as the inspiration for this post: part of the reason players are able to "Git Gud" is because the fast respawns allow for players to get right back into the action after making a fatal error, allowing for a "die, die again" playstyle focused on persistence and adaptation. This likewise allows developers to develop gameplay scenarios that are properly intimidating:

[gayelderstourney]

OLD MAN YAOI BRACKET ROUND 1

Propaganda:

Gerald Robotnik/Black Doom:

Scientist who wants to blow up the world and his evil alien boyfriend

Dude they had a son together and his name is shadow the hedgehog

They created Shadow the hedgehog together. Yes Shadow the hedgehog. This is canon. Theyre also super divorced just trust me on this.their old man yaoi is real

we as a society would not have shadow the hedgehog without their old man yaoi

old man fucks alien so he can bring his daughter back from space safely, gives birth to sad gay hedgehog

you KNOW they fucked

they’re shadow the hedgehogs dads. Like canonically. black doom is an alien god guy and gerald is eggmans grandpa who didn’t love him enough and gave him daddy issues. he also went insane after the government killed his granddaughter (who he loved instead of eggman) and tried to kill humanity :3 these two are like bitter exes to me. they’re both dead. the devil from the bible fucked that old man

Black Doom and Gerald Robotnik are Shadow the Hedgehogs dads. Gerald is a (silly, slightly insane) old scientist and Black Doom is a two thousand year old alien who wants to destroy the Earth. Its not canon but Shadow's gay dads mean everything to me. They kiss and hold hands on the space colony.

IM DOING MY PART!!! GERALDOOM SWEEP BAYBEEEEEEE!!! GO SHADOW’S GAY DADS!

Sheo/The Nailsmith:

It's really nice because you unlock it after the nailsmith asks you to kill him with the pure nail and you refuse and walk away. He then says he was wandering hallownest without purpose until he found sheo who helped him discover that there was more to life than just one calling. These two are probably the only characters in the game to have a genuinely happy ending

The nailsmith loses his purpose in life after finishing his ultimate masterpiece, his lifelong goal, the pure nail. He requests the protagonist to try the nail on him, but If you refuse, he will find sheo who helps him to find new meaning in life and realise that there is more to life by teaching him different crafts. They can then be seen sculping figurines together, and sheo is also painting the nailsmith.They share a common love for art and crafts and inspire each other. Sheo's story is that he was a nailmaster, but got tired of it, and put down his nail to pick up a paintbrush. I think it's beautiful that he could help the nailsmith realise what he himself did. They both also used to live in solitude without even realising how lonely they were, and I think it's cute tuhat they can do art together now :]

They are two bugs retired from their career and making better lives for themselves and they’re gay about it. Nailsmith believes at first that he has nothing left after creating the perfect nail and asks the knight to strike him down, and if you don’t, he meets Sheo, a retired nailmaster finding a new calling in painting and sculpting. They find a shared love in creating things and Nailsmith finds a new calling in art as well. The achievement you get for uniting them is called “Happy Couple”

Gay bugs gay bugs gay bugs (Cw mention of suicide) They both used to pursue their one passion in life: forging the perfect nail (sword) for the Nailsmith and the art of combat for Sheo. Sheo realized he could just leave that life when he lost his passion for fighting, and he found himself a new purpose in life: art. However, he always seemed very lonely, completely isolated by all other bugs in his hidden house in the middle of a thorn jungle. When The Nailsmith achieved his goal and forged the perfect nail, he lost his purpose in life and his will to live. He asks the player to kill him. However, if the player refuses, he can later be found in Sheo's house, modelling for Sheo or sculpting figurines with him. He thanks the player for not fulfilling his request, because he has found a new calling in life here, making art together with Sheo. They both express how happy they are to no longer be alone. This also gives you the "Happy Couple" achievement, confirming that they are a couple.

THEY'RE CANON!!! They're fucking canon!!! You can talk to them at one point after doing a Bunch of Stuff to get them to meet each other and you get an achievement called "Happy Couple"!!! Gotta love old man yuri

[putellasawfc]

figured out ! (social media au)

sam kerr x spanish!reader

summary: after a phenomenal performance in the 2023 world cup, reader moves to chelsea where she quickly strikes up a connection with a certain australian striker.

faceclaim : alexia putellas (2 posts) & nathalie björn (rest of the au).

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youruser still can’t believe this is real life. no words right now. MUNDO CAMPEONAS !!!! 🥇🇪🇸🇪🇸

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ynfan1 SO DESERVED !!!

ynfan2 BEST PLAYER AT THE WORLD CUP OMGGG

spainfan1 MUNDO CAMPEONASSSSSS 😭😭

jennihermoso 🧱🧱🧱

ynfan3 you were amazing the whole tournament! so proud of you 🤍

aitanabonmati noia estrella ⭐️

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liked by youruser, ynfan1 and 28,776 others

barclayswsl after her phenomenal performance at this years women’s world cup, it has been reported that multiple clubs have shown interest in spanish defender yn yln, including: arsenal, vfl wolfsburg, atlético madrid and chelsea. where do you think she’ll end up?

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ynfan1 any club would be so lucky to have her! so glad she’s finally being spoken about.

arsenalfan1 PLS PLS PLS ARSENAL

chelseafan1 yn and millie on the same team would be a dream 😭

ynfan2 but i wanted her to stay at levante :(

ynfan3 she’s wasting her potential there. definitely needs to go to a bigger club.

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youruser added to their instagram story

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chelseafcw offically a blue! welcome to the club @/youruser. the colour suits you. 😉.

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ynfan1 WE WONN !!

ynfan2 arsenal were right there .....

chelseafan1 dream come true!

chelseafan2 never seen her play before, is she good?

ynfan2 AMAZING!

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youruser first training session with the blues completed ✅

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zeciramusovic first of many!

ynfan1 the chelsea badge looks so good on you !!!

ynfan2 imagine playing at spain for three years and then having to get used to english weather 😭

ynfan3 the neck warmer and gloves oh she’s struggling 😭😭

silvialloriss :(

ashley_lawrence10 💙💙💙

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chelseafcw first start for our newcomer. rate her performance out of 10!

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ynfan1 129394/10

chelseafan1 what a signing!

chelseafan2 the reason we kept a clean sheet today 1000%

johannakaneryd 10! ☺️

ynfan2 more starts PLEASE

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youruser settling in well!

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mbrighty04 sisterrr 🫂

ynfan1 you look so good in blue !!!!

ynfan2 aww i love howv quickly she's fit in

ynfan3 need a goal and a badge tap next game to keep me sane

chelseafan1 transfer season done right.

_jesslcarter 💙💙💙

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kerrupdates sam today during the chelsea vs everton match. her two goals made it 4-0 for chelsea!

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kerrfan1 absolute baller

matildasfan1 imagine having sam kerr play for your club and country ... i am so lucky.

kerrfan2 did anyone see sam and yn after the match???

kerrfan3 what happened?

kerrfan2 they were hanging onto eachother and whispering to themselves, giggling together they looked really cozy.

chelseafan1 so? that's what friends do .

kerrfan2 i'm just saying.....

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samanthakerr20 just added to their instagram story

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ynupdates yn spotted with chelsea teammate sam kerr out and about today!

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ynfan1 ONG ????!

ynfan2 wait …. what ????

kerrfan1 omg i love them already.

kerrfan2 i don’t know, i think people are reading into this too much.

ynfan3 swear they’re literally holding hands in the first pic ?? how could we be reading into this?

chelseafan1 i ship it !!!

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samanthakerr20 just added to their instagram story

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kerrupdates 'just friends' right sam?

comments on this post have been limited.

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was meant to be longer but of course tumblr has a silly 30 image per post limit. would be open to a part 2 if any of you would like it?

[lizzybeeee]

The Lucanis vs Illario story would have had greater emotional depth/intrigue if the writers didn't water down how fucked up the Crows are as an organization.

Just some thoughts about how, out of all the side villains, Illario had some great potential to be a really interesting/tragic character in my opinion.

TL;DR: Zevran Aranai has a knife with Caterina's name on it for good reason and Lucanis/Illario need therapy...or whatever the Thedas equivalent is called...talking to Rook, I dunno

Going into DATV as a new player, or even as a returning one, the whitewashing of the Crows has a lot of the potential complexities of that life simply ignored or barely touched upon. The entire 'Illario vs Lucanis' boils down to: Illario seething in the shadows about Lucanis being the 'best boy'™ of the family while Illario is an after thought - which he is.

Let's be real, Illario is not subtle and immediately comes across as the Scar to Lucanis' 'Mufasa'. It's a questline with a very straightforward villain who has pretty lackluster motivations from what info we're provided - being 'I want power and to be the First Talon'. The game does very little explore what motivations he may have beyond being jealous of Lucanis/wanting more power.

However, if you play the quest line knowing what previous games have set up about the Crows - about how cutthroat and brutal the life is behind the glamour - then you can see that the entire Lucanis vs Illario conflict has amazing potential to be a dramatic tragedy.

We've seen how the life of Crow can affect Zevran - someone who was sold into the life through child-slavery. How interesting would it be to see how the life of a Crow can affect someone who was born into it? It's pretty clear in-game that Caterina intends for her grandchildren to carry on the family tradition - despite the fact that this 'family tradition' has likely led to the deaths of most of her grandchildren and however many children she had.

If there's banter about how Illario's/Lucanis' parents/cousins died specifically I haven't heard it, but the impression I got in-game was that it was likely linked to the Crows/politics in some way? Feel free to correct me! Still majorly fucked up that she pushes her grandsons into this life regardless!

Lucanis/Illario's situation was not like Zevran's - who was sold into the Crow's through slavery, with no one to speak up for him. Caterina was a woman who had power, who knew what the life of a Crow meant, and who still pushed those she 'loved' into it because is consolidated her place in the system. For all the Crows talk of 'family' Caterina doesn't seem to give a shit about them unless if they're contributing to the family business in some way - not to mention the whole 'you fail and we kill you' clause of being a Crow in the first place.

In the 'Wigmaker Job' from Tevinter Nights Lucanis talks about how Caterina hit him [also Illario] with her cane for mistakes and had him spend days without food/water. How he used to hate her but now 'realizes' that it was her way of ensuring he survived the life of being an Antivan Crow. Did it end up protecting them? It likely pushed them both to refine their skills out of fear. It's likely that simply by association with her they would be targets and thus needed to know how to take care of themselves and fight.

But why have him as a Crow in the first place? Why not simply train them well to defend themselves? You can't deny that she doesn't benefit from having her grandchildren in the family business - intentionally wanting Lucanis to take over her position as First Talon. The Antivan Crows are a force to be reckoned with and being one brings a whole lot of power in Antiva - being part of the elite of that group even more so.

If the game showed us the ugly reality of the Crows - the brutality of the lifestyle and how cutthroat the organization is, it could have really added some depth to Illario's betrayal - having it be more than "I want more power/respect" to "this is the result of what you taught me was valuable in life."

Warden: "Do you actually enjoy being an assassin?" Zevran: "And why not? There are many things to enjoy about being a Crow in Antiva. You are respected. You are feared. The authorities go out of their way to overlook your trespasses. Even the rewards are nothing to turn your nose up at."

Illario, bitter about Caterina favoring Lucanis - resentful of the fact that she has already decided that Lucanis will be her successor, being offered power by the Venatori (at the expense of the Crows) and accepting because why not? How different is it from what the Crows do? Isn't power and status the whole point of working yourself up in the Crows? Getting into a relationship with Zara because why not? Isn't sex part of the allure of being a Crow? Why can't he have this? Why shouldn't he have this?

Rook: "When we met, it didn't seem like Illario and Caterina were close." Lucanis: "It was hard to be close to her. Even for me. And...I was her favorite."

Why would he have connections to his family? Why should he? Caterina certainly never seemed to value 'family' beyond what they could do for her and their family legacy. Most of his family is already dead, and of those that remain the only parental figure he has obviously favors Lucanis. We don't have a lot of evidence in-game to show that Illario ever really cared for Lucanis, but the prequel story 'The Wake' and Lucanis' own banter imply that they were practically brothers, best friends. Perhaps he did care and then ceased to at some point, perhaps he didn't at all, or perhaps he accepted that an early death for them both was inevitable like everyone else in their family. Dead now or later - what was the difference? At least if Illario sells him out now to the Venatori then he'll get something from it instead of another dead family member to bury.

It's the tragic result of raising a child in an environment where he was taught and experienced the need for self-preservation at all costs. Constantly threatened, punished, and made well aware of that fact that his life was an expendable commodity. Then, when things in the world went to shit he picked the only option that made sense to him. To save himself.

The irony of the potential fall of the Crows, the fall of House Dellamorte, coming at the hands of one of their own - not because he had a change of heart but because he was taught too well by them. The Crows view those that fail them as disposable, someone to be discarded - if the Crows fail Illario, what is to stop him from applying that mindset to them?

But this would require the writers to acknowledge how messed up the Crows are and we can't do that to our 'Noble Freedom Fighters'™. They'll also need to address Zevran's existence and what lore was established in past games...and we can't have that either lmao.

[orange-coloredsky-archive]

The two most popular reads of the synth plight in Fallout 4 are that of the race allegory and the Red Scare/McCarthyist allegory. In the former example, synths get racialized in a similar way to Black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century, but just barely. The Underground Railroad is quite literally remade, synths are subjected to slavery at the hands of their human creators and punished harshly for escape attempts. Others have likened synths to fears of immigrants or asylum-seekers from nonwhite majority populations. Synths in these imaginings of Fallout 4 are painted as needing to be saved at the same time as they are vilified and dehumanized – sometimes by the same character over the course of the story. This duality could be a great opportunity for a dive into how white saviorism tends to play out, but in reality it ends up being a messy, deeply uncritical exploration of the impact of race and racism in society. The factions doing the racialization and/or saviorism’s motives are never questioned, and there is a very clear depiction of “good vs. evil” being the end-all-be-all of anti-racism work (again, with no critical thought as to how the “good” side is made almost completely of non-racialized people making decisions on behalf of a marginalized group). Worse yet, it’s contrived. The android-racism analogy has been a thorn in the side of the science fiction genre ever since Isaac Asimov wrote the 3 Laws of Robotics. There’s very few iterations on the idea that have come from popular (white, Eurocentric) media that aren’t riddled with the same aftertaste of white guilt and fundamental misunderstandings of how racism plays out in day-to-day life.

The less common, slightly more agreeable interpretation is that of the Red Scare – which, given Fallout’s inspirations and the setting’s original critique of reliving America’s “good old days”, makes perfect sense. In this example, synths take the role of the Soviet spy: watching over everything Americans are doing and reporting back to a secret base that is plotting to overthrow the world as we know it. Psychological screenings as well as inhumane tortures are utilized to pick synth “spies” out from the good, red-blooded residents of the Commonwealth. A neighborhood is founded entirely around the protection of the “old ways of life”, complete with a white picket fence comically decorated with automatic machine gun turrets. While this is a more charitable analogy that’s grounded in a slightly-deeper-than-surface-level exploration of American history, the Red Scare interpretation is victim to the same pitfalls that plague the racism interpretation. Midway through the game, the player discovers that there actually is a secret base of evil villains hiding underneath our feet, plotting to annihilate our beautiful Commonwealth lives. People do get taken and replaced by synths, they are in our governments, there is an actual reason for synths to be feared. Sure, some synths are perfectly fine people with no wish to be made tools of the Institute’s tyranny, but that is greatly overshadowed by the fact that the Institute’s stated goal is to use synths to gain control over the Commonwealth. There is no real critique of McCarthyism, there is no ideology to be challenged, because the Communists are here and killing your loved ones in their sleep.

[angelliicc]

signal

“i send you a sign, send you a signal

but it doesn't work at all”

a/n: hey guys im back again. enjoy because this is based off of a real life story to me :)

warnings: none

masterlist

| your team jumped for joy, forming a circle. “WE’RE GOING TO CHAMPIONSHIPS!!” you all exclaimed. the playoffs were a very close game, your team winning by a point yesterday. tears of joy filled the gym when you all realized you were going to the finals game.

“wanna watch the next game to see who we’re playing tomorrow?” coach asked.

“sure.” your team replied. you climbed up the bleachers sitting in the middle. you sat next to your friend, just as about it was tip off. you had no idea which schools they were. they were just yellow vs. black to you. the first half was quite boring, so you scrolled on your phone. halftime ended and it was the start of the 3rd quarter.

black was in possession of the ball until a girl from the yellow team stole it and made a wide open layup. woah. you thought to yourself. shes good. really good.

you couldnt take her eyes off of her. the way she played, her defense, her handles, her height, everything. you were admiring her from afar. you can finally see the back of her jersey. 14, williams.

you received a pamphlet of all the schools and players who were eligible to playoffs. you grabbed yours and flipped the pages quickly, looking for a williams.

“#14, ellie williams, point guard.” ellie huh? you thought to yourself.

the game eventually ended, with ellie and her school winning. meaning you were playing her tomorrow evening.

“im so scared, nervous, and excited.” you tell dina at school.

“im sure you guys will be fine! you have an undefeated season!” dina replied.

“i have a feeling we might lose. they’re really good and tall.” you said

“im sure everything will be fine, good luck tonight tho!” dina spoke

“thanks, i need it.” you joked back.

school ended at 3, the game was at 7. you had to get ready quickly since the play you were playing at wasn’t close. you brought your gym bag and water bottle and jumped into the car.

you were the first one there, with tons of emotions flowing through your body. you had a mental breakdown yesterday since you didn’t play to your expectations, which resulted into your mom scolding you. you wanted to make sure you played your best today.

more and more people arrived, parents, athletes, coaches, anyone. the gym was divided, half being in pink to support you and the others being in yellow to support your opponents.

tip off was in 5 minutes, you weren’t a starter, but you understood. your emotions were trying to get the best of you, but you tried to stop it. your coach gave you and your teammates some advice and where everyone should go, then the buzzer rang.

“on the court lets go!” the ref shouted. you sat down on the bench, watch the ball fly up in the air, then one of your teammates swinging it to your team.

“is ellie starting?” you thought to yourself. you didn’t see her on the court, but found her on the bench, watching eagerly just like you were.

2nd quarter had arrived, 15-24. you were losing. “you, go.” the co-coach told you. you got up, making sure your shoes had grip and ran on the court. you saw ellie was also playing. a foul got called against your team, so an opponent got 2 free throws. you were waiting on the 1st one.

“what are you doing? get ready!” coach scolded. when the opposing team got the rebound, coach called a timeout.

“you, take a charge on #14 if you can. shes too tall and drives fast.” coach ordered

“but who will the foul get called against?” you questioned.

“she will, shes in foul trouble.”

but before he can even explain more, reg blew the whistle, ordering everyone to get on the court. her team now had the ball. you tried your best to take a charge, but chickened out. coach subed you out. that was the only time you played.

it was a close game, but the other team started to give out towards the 4th quarter. your team took advantage of that. less than a minute left. shot clock. 52-48. your team had possession of the ball. there was 6 seconds left. ball up in the air, and it was a good. a 3 pointer made with 6 seconds left.

your team were champions. an undefeated record, the first in your schools history. you and your team gather outside to do an “undefeated” chant. all of a sudden, you see ellie in tears. you walk up to her, trying your best to comfort her. “hey, good game out there. you played good.” you said, attempting to cheer her up. all she could do was nod.

a few days later, you couldn’t stop thinking about ellie. “why can’t i get her out of my head?” you asked yourself. its like she owned your mind, and she was the only thing in it. you had no choice but to find her online, somehow.

you figured out the schools name, and decided to check the following list on it on instagram, when you see her username with a profile picture that looks exactly like her. “oh shit, its ellie. should i follow?” you ask yourself “you know what. fuck it.”

you pressed that blue follow button. next moment, your phone buzzed. she followed you back. it was like you were on cloud 9.

you went through her stories, seeing that she plays volleyball. you decided to dm her saying who you were, and that you played against her.

r: “hey, are you one of the players from the championship game?”

e: “yes, are you one of our opponents?”

r: “yup, i just wanted to say like your really fucking good i saw your semi-final game on sunday you killed it.”

e: “thank you so much omg you are rlly good too. i saw you guys play at the finals game. you are rlly good.”

r: “thank you, how long have you been playing?”

e: “7 years, wbu?”

r: “technically 2, i player when i was younger and i play now. i played volleyball for the first time this year, it was interesting.”

e: “vb is amazing. why, what happened?”

you then told her the unnecessary drama that happened at that time. it was definitely an experience.

r: “i wanna join club vb but its so expensive”

e: “fr like thousands of dollars to hit a ball over a net?”

r: “there’s a club near my city, but they want $6k”

e: “jesus, for hitting balls?”

r: “exactly! i can do it for free at my house”

you both then continued to talk about club volleyball, until you mentioned her volleyball videos. god she was amazing, you can see her going pro one day. she complimented you for your kind gesture. you both talked about how you can go against each other in the future again.

the next couple of days, you were contemplating weather or not to try out for club vb, so you texted ellie about it.

r: “hey ellie, i kinda wanna try out for volleyball. do you have any tips or what to expect?”

e: “theres gonna be passing, hitting, and serving. just keep practicing those.”

the conversation continued until it was getting late, and you both stopped responding to each other.

over the summer, you kept throwing hints to her how you liked her. you were head over heels for her, but you didn’t know if she liked you. you went complete stalker mode, looking at her reposts. you put songs on your story that reminded you of her. you replied to her stories and her notes, but she just didn’t get it.

over time, you made it to her close friends list. you felt like you won the lottery. you told dina and jesse about this crush, but they weren’t supportive.

“you can do better.” jesse commented

“first of all, what the fuck? and second, shes cute and a good baller.” you replied.

“i don’t think she likes you, sorry.” dina said. “shes friendzoning you. you’re the one always texting her first, replying to her, etc. i think you need to stop.”

“and what if i don’t?” you questioned.

“you’re gonna get your hopes up, all for nothing. don’t let her break your heart.” jesse added.

from then on, the signals you sent her died down. you didn’t text her as often as you did. you replied to her stories only rarely. you were forced to fall out of love.

i give you a glance and keep throwing hints

but you don’t understand

[yamisnuffles]

DATV Spoiler Free Review

I beat Veilguard a couple days ago and have had some time to let it settle in my brain. So, without getting into the nitty gritty and more spoilery things, here are my overall feelings on the game.

The Great:

The world itself. The scenery. It was really gorgeous and felt fully alive in a way that none of the previous games have quite managed. Since it wasn't as open world as DAI nor as narrow in scope as DA2 (nor as old as DAO lol), it felt more vital. Definitely a place where the advances in graphics helped, I'm sure.

The Good:

The companions. I wouldn't say any of them blew me away but they all at least ranged from enjoyable to very good. I definitely had my quibbles here and there but I think they were all pretty solid. As such, though I've only done one romance, I'll suppose they're all good. A bit... sparse in my experience and from what I've been hearing, but nice enough.

Overall, I also think the story was pretty good. Like much in this game, nothing that blew me away, but solidly compelling.

Also, mechanically, the gameplay and the glamour system. It still doesn't feel like DA to me but it was enjoyable once I got used to it. It works well with how I play games. And it was nice to just set looks for myself and my companions and not worry about stats vs appearance.

Rook. I have some definite Complaints, and so this point is probably closer to the good to mid range, but they did a pretty good job with letting you pull in your faction stuff. I'm prevented from saying great because it feels like, even with what are supposed to be rougher dialogue choices, you're limited to being mildly pleasant.

The Mid:

The music. This is tragic to me because every previous game had some really standout songs and DAI especially was such a solid soundtrack. I love soundtrack music. Also because Hans Zimmer! I love Hans Zimmer. But the entire thing felt very generic epic fantasy to me. It wasn't bad but it didn't feel good. The only times I ended up moved by the music was when they lifted DAI songs.

The lack of imports. It wasn't the end of the world but did make some cameos feel really off. And for all the talk of making what few things were imported matter, that really didn't feel like the case at all (unless you were in a specific subset of players). I didn't care too much, but it was just enough to make things feel weird, especially with characters like Harding who are so attached to previous stuff.

The Bad:

The world felt so sanitized. I have no issue getting rid of real life bigotry that makes so sense in the context of the world. For example, the sexism in DAO especially made no sense. That said, there was a lot of in world nastiness that is just... gone. The game does a lot of telling us the elves have it bad but doesn't show it. No one bats an eye at a Tevinter mage running about outside of Tevinter. No one cares about a Qunari in occupied Treviso. I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world but it feels weird, especially when it's so central to Solas' motivations.

This sanitization carried on through pretty much everything. All of the factions are presented as good and heroic, even the ones that are historically pretty shady. Your companions are all pleasant and palatable. They have the occasional minor squabble but even when they almost have actual beef, it's solved super easily. You might get some disapproval for decisions but companions never seem to much care or hold it against you, even on really big things. I don't need DA2 levels of interparty drama but, boy did I want a bit more tooth sometimes.

The Awful:

I can't get into it without spoilers but it did a Thing that Bioware sometimes likes to do that I absolutely loathe. This is definitely personal but it ruined some of my desire to replay.

Overall:

I'd give the game a 7/10 or maybe 6/10, depending on how I'm feeling. It was enjoyable for the most part but it had so many things that felt like splinters. Lots of little things that stuck under my skin and bothered me. Would I recommend it? Genuinely depends on the person.

[burr-ell]

Conflict, Communication, and Chemistry: A Laura and Marisha PC Appraisal

A couple of people have observed across all three main campaigns that Laura and Marisha consistently make characters that ultimately don't seem to fully understand each other for various reasons, and their characters' chemistry (or lack thereof) is an outgrowth of that. And until recently, I thought that was one of those things that I personally saw but not everyone else was obligated to view the same way—chemistry is often subjective, and it’s for that reason that I tend not to take seriously a lot of the common shipping-based arguments about chemistry.

But in the most recent 4-Sided Dive, Marisha, Laura, and Sam said this:

MARISHA: I have enjoyed…of course, like, delving into the relationship is always fun, but then relationship tension is also fun. LAURA: Yeah, I feel like you guys [points between Marisha and Sam] are really big on—you really like relationship conflict too. You guys talk about that a lot. SAM: Of course. Because I don’t have any in my real life. LAURA: I’m terrified of conflict. That translates to the game as well, I don’t like conflict. SAM: You don’t like conflict? Even in the game, in this dramatic storytelling game that we’ve made together? LAURA: No! I don’t like fighting! SAM: You just want everything to go fine? LAURA: Yes!

And I think that made things click into place for me. This is the reason why their characters have this through-line, because their approaches to conflict bleed through to their character choices. Laura's characters’ issues tend to be internal; they tend not to have prolonged fights with other characters, and their arcs are often person-vs-self stories about emotional walls and struggling with self-centeredness in some capacity. Marisha's characters, on the other hand, are upfront about their problems and are completely unafraid to go toe-to-toe with other party members, and their character development is often a product of a straightforward person-vs-person or person-vs-society story about overcoming their physical obstacles. And it’s part of why their current characters’ relationship has played out in a way that’s strange and off-kilter, because their interactions do not read to me like the players really understood this about each other before the public talk show discussion quoted above.

In Campaign 1, Vex and Keyleth’s relationship is conspicuous by its absence; even within their superficial commonalities, they are not particularly drawn to each other beyond circumstance. Vex is unquestionably the leader of Vox Machina insofar as they have one, and she does this by consistently finding a compromise—when the group is arguing about their best course of action in Whitestone or Westruun or Draconia or the Nine Hells, Vex is the one who mediates and strategizes their way out. She's very good at seeing all sides of an issue, threading the needle, and coming to a decision that keeps the group happy and together. The problem is that she tends to do this at the expense of her personal needs being met; she bottles up a lot of her emotions and issues and she struggles with letting people in, and has to work on not internalizing and holding grudges.

Keyleth, on the other hand, consistently takes stances and isn't afraid to be the moral compass of the party, like when she notices how dark everyone is becoming during the Briarwood arc and fights to correct it. She lets herself feel what she feels rather than pushing it away, which allows her to overcome the physical and mental challenges of her Aramente and affords her more emotional freedom and honesty. Sometimes, though, these traits work against her—she will argue a point and continue to belabor it until someone else steps in; she can be self-righteous due to her own naïveté; and her emotional openness can be poorly-timed and lead her into indecision and dithering. One of the few one-on-one conversations Keyleth and Vex have is after Vex dies and is brought back in the Sunken Tomb, and Vex is quickly exasperated at having to deal with Keyleth’s feelings when she’s the one who died and she’s just trying to piece together what happened.

Vex is often frustrated by Keyleth's hardline beliefs and feelings and has to compromise around them; Keyleth sees conflict in a much more literal way than the internalization and masking that Vex does, and as a result never really digs deeper into who Vex is as a person. By the end of the campaign, they call each other sisters, which I think is appropriate—they're two people who care about each other but have little in common, tied together by the single factor of Vax. Outside of that commonality, there's little reason for them to be especially close the way they are with other members of the party; if there was, they’d have been close at any point throughout the previous 114 episodes.

Beau and Jester form a stronger friendship in Campaign 2, but they seem to understand just enough about each other to get along well while not being able to truly see each other. Jester is cheerful and goofy by nature, but she also projects that particular image in order to make the people around her happy and keep them together. While she will speak her mind, she doesn’t tend to stand at one end or the other of the ideological and political spectrum of issues faced by the Nein and is simply happy to have an adventure and sow some chaos. Even when having difficulties with the Traveler, Jester is willing to work through it and find a solution that works for both of them in order to preserve the relationship.

Beau, meanwhile, approaches the world abrasively and aggressively and is a bit too prepared to burn bridges with people if she thinks they aren’t worth it. While she recognizes the nuances of the conflict between the Empire and the Dynasty, she’s ultimately loyal to the Cobalt Soul’s mission of using knowledge to fight corruption. She’s perfectly happy to butt heads with Caleb or Fjord or Molly if she thinks they’re in the wrong, and her cut-your-losses mentality puts her in conflict with how important the Traveler is to Jester.

This difference is thrown into especially sharp relief not only by how they deal with their respective fathers, but also the response they think the other should have. Jester wants to reconnect with the Gentleman and for him to repair his and Marion’s relationship, while Beau has fully written off Thoreau and has no interest in reconciling. Jester is upset at Beau’s suggestion that she just forget her dad and not put effort into someone who won’t do the same for her, while Beau is less than impressed with Jester’s suggestion that Thoreau really does care about her and it might be worth it to patch things up, and the upshot of it all is that the way everything plays out makes it clear that both of them have badly misread the other’s situation.

Beau, like Keyleth before her, doesn’t seem to understand that Jester is masking a lot of insecurities and wants someone to see her for who she is and not an idealized version of her; Jester actually stops confiding in Beau after Beau tells her she doesn’t need Artagan and that she’s the actual god. Jester, meanwhile, is unwilling to set aside her dreams and fantasies and is at her happiest when she can roam and adventure freely, something for which Beau would not set aside her responsibilities and beliefs in the mission of the Cobalt Soul. They’re still good friends, but going their separate ways is a benefit to both of them.

And now we have Imogen and Laudna, whose relationship felt lacking well before it became romantic. A lot of time and energy has been spent by multiple people trying to articulate exactly why that is, and there are many reasons—Laudna’s concept seems better-suited to a short form narrative and it took about 60 episodes for her character to stop feeling entirely superfluous; the relationship lacks any substantive conflict or disagreement and the supportiveness feels more like a mutual security blanket; they seem to have little in the way of an actual dynamic outside of melodramatic plot moments. But the relevant issue here is that Laudna is, for all intents and purposes, a yes-woman who supports whatever Imogen wants to do simply because Imogen wants it (a trait that notably does not carry over to anyone else in the party—she is completely unafraid to delve into negative emotions and traits with Ashton and Orym, both of whom are played by people Marisha has historically worked with to produce some of the best relationship dynamics on the show). If Imogen wants to run off and live in a cottage or join the Vanguard or commune with Predathos or not commune with Predathos, Laudna will uncritically encourage her no matter what, because per Marisha’s words on the Laudna playlist, “Laudna will protect and attack anyone who tries to fuck with her girl”. Part of Laudna’s core concept, baked in from the beginning, is the belief that Imogen “deserves the world”. Between these two players, the one who enjoys conflict is playing a character who will do everything in her power to shield and soothe the character being played by the one who hates conflict. The result feels less like a healthy supportive relationship and more like a recipe for enablement.

When episode 77 came out, I commented that for the first time I actually started to feel something—anything at all—about Imogen and Laudna, and it’s because I started to get a sense that there might be some real potential for tension and tragedy. And now—between Laudna imploring Imogen to move on from her if she dies, Marisha seeming to suggest at one point that Laudna may not have a future at all, Imogen admitting that she’s outright disgusted by Delilah, the disconnect between the players’ approaches to conflict, Imogen (and Laura, out of character) being shocked and horrified by Laudna absorbing the soul of the Willmaster, and Laudna now intentionally working with Delilah in order to protect Imogen—I’m starting to wonder if their relationship may indeed be on a collision course.

Now this could end in multiple interesting ways: Imogen could be driven away from Laudna, who is slowly consumed by Delilah; Laudna could choose to sacrifice herself to end Delilah for good and Imogen is forced to move on; Imogen and Laudna could Thelma and Louise their way off a cliff; or maybe someone just points out how unhealthy this all is and they start to be more honest and less codependent and their relationship improves after a lot of hard work. But something has to happen. 

Laura and Marisha have, multiple times now, been asked questions about Imogen and Laudna’s relationship that they have answered with varying degrees of “we never really talked about it”, sometimes referring to in-game conversations and sometimes not, and that is both unsurprising and a bad sign of things to come. I don’t know exactly how much out-of-game conversation happened between previous canon relationships that Laura and Marisha have played, but this one desperately needs it—because for three straight campaigns, all we’ve seen is every indication that these are two players who are uniquely ill-suited to play a romance the way either of them would want to.

[utilitycaster]

sort of an offshoot of that post about video game characters but I think I've mentioned before the third person v. first person split in D&D, namely, do you say "I attack it with my scimitar" or "Drizzt attacks with his scimitar". This is a well-known thing in TTRPGs, I'm sure you can find more intelligent discussion about it, but it's come up for me specifically in that a lot of old-school D&D players skew hard towards third person and often they are less interested in actual play, because they see D&D as a narrative tool. There's no self-inserts; they are narrating the exploits of a guy they made. And so the parasocial elements (which are not necessarily bad, it just depends, and that's another post) have no appeal, and even things like accents don't really.

I don't think third person vs. first person necessarily means "not a self insert vs. self insert." I switch between the two and often use first person. But I don't feel like any D&D character I've played is a self-insert. They have aspects of me, sure, because of course they do, I need to be able to play them and try to think like them, but I think in a game where death and failure are really possible and where you must collaborate and where your options are rather limited - because even in D&D, they are limited by the type of game it is - it's actually vital to separate yourself out from your character.

It comes down to something I've said a lot about so many things in fiction (but yeah, this does bleed into real life): are you able to accept a character who is not like you? Are you able to accept a character who might make wildly different choices than you would? Is your capacity to empathize or see a character as a person limited by them specifically hitting some demographic or philosophical targets you have constructed? Can you, even in a low risk, fictional environment, let yourself be different from how you are.

this seems very silly but I think I may have alluded to Justin McElroy talking about not being able to play fat characters in most games, and so he often just plays characters who do not look a thing like him. He often plays as a woman of color. (I don't recall where this came up? I think it might have been on an ancient polygon video or maybe commentary on one of the TAZ seasons? I'd love to find it again). And I think that's actually really great that this was his instinct. I don't want to diminish the importance of RPGs and TTRPGs for self-discovery; obviously it's been a place for many people to explore gender and sexuality, especially, and I do not want to take away the ability for someone to play as a woman in a game before you feel like you can live as a woman publicly in real life (and notably my issues with the BG3 and Inquisition player characters are not ones of gender/sex/race, ie, I think it is personality and background that might need to be more pre-determined). But yeah, if you cannot connect with characters who aren't like you that's a problem, and it does feel a little frustrating that we know that centering a self-insert OC type makes for a worse story and people still want that.

I've always been intrigued by pre-made sheets in TTRPGs where you are limited in some way, not in a dumb "oh my god you can't play a druid bc I'm a weird vindictive dude mad that your nature magic beats my weaponry" way but just as an exploration of having to walk a mile in other people's shoes and to be a person other than one that you created to exist within your comfort zone. Because a lot of people aren't Justin, and do play themselves or as close to it as they can, regardless of what is happening around them, and I think that is a mistake.

[robotrules]

Thoughts on Fallout: New Vegas from a First Time Player

A (very) long stream of consciousness about how much I like this game:

So I put off playing any Fallout game for the longest time. Had Fallout 3 and Fallout: NV just rotting in my Steam library for literally 15 years, mainly because when I tried playing F:NV when it first came out, it kept crashing and I just gave up. Fast forward to December 2024 and my Youtube algorithm kept on showing me all the stupid shit people did in the games and I was thoroughly amused by all of that, because I too enjoy playing a chaos creature whenever games allow me to. Read that F:NV was the most beloved in the franchise and had a lot of freedom when it came to game choices. Great! Had a western sci-fi theme, a concept I really liked. I love retrofuturism and Westerns and the great expanse of the American Southwest, all wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic setting. But then I stumbled on a video of this guy and I was immediately sold:

I was smitten by Yes Man's voice and sense of humor and goofy face (Dave Foley's vocal performance can't be overstated. He made Yes Man very charming!).

And then I learned that you could actually work with this goofy robot as an actual partner* to take over New Vegas and let me tell you, I COULDN'T CLICK THE INSTALL BUTTON ANY FASTER (pretty sure you could hear a sonic boom coming from my house). AND THE GAME RAN THIS TIME! And thus, I began my odyssey into the Mojave Wasteland.

* Most media robots tend to be cute little sidekicks or antagonistic villains or just dumb enemies, so it was pretty refreshing to actually be able to work alongside a robot/AI as an equal of sorts. My courier is pretty respectful of Yes Man, so I like to think they become friends and co-rulers of the strip. :) (Although I did kinda kill him a few times out of curiosity. He said he'd make it up to me after I killed him and it made me feel bad. ;_; Sorry bb. )

And my first impression of the game? I love it! I was kind of bracing myself for some edgy humor (Like Borderlands) and I was pleasantly surprised that it had a a right balance of silly, serious, and dark when it needed to be. The roleplaying aspect is fun and I like how you can basically be whoever you want to be (with some great comebacks from the courier. When killing Mr. House, you can say "Yes Man needs you out of the way" and I was like "Yup, this game knows exactly what my motivations are" >:) ). The quests never seem to be a slog to me since they're tied to characters and their stories, so the motivation to help (or sow discord) is the main thing that drives me to want to explore and do everything in the game.

Also, non-feral ghouls are so fucking cute. I love their raspy voices and they seem to be (for the most part) nice. I always had a soft spot for creatures that are "othered" like monsters and aliens, and I view ghouls as stand-ins for communities that were medically ostracized (like leprosy and the Hibakusha), so yeah, very easy for me to like them. Also Raul is my absolute favorite, so there's that too. :) I like all the companions tbh. As fantastic as a world as the Fallout universe is, I like how grounded everyone is, just as real as anybody you'd meet out on the streets. And that they all have their own hopes and dreams that aren't centered around the player character. Raul is my favorite just because I love how he tells his story and Danny Trejo's voice is like a glass of warm milk to me (very soothing).

Oh! And obviously I love the robots too. I appreciate that robots seem to vary on their level of sentience (Protectrons vs. Mr. House's personal Securitrons) and the writers treated Victor and Yes Man with just as much care as they did their human characters (I wish Victor had a bigger role though! What a cutie-pie). I find it kind of poetic that it's a robot that saves your life and it's a robot that helps you make major decisions in-game (if you decide to go the Yes Man route). The Courier owes their life to Victor and Yes Man and has their life changed completely because of those two.

And of course I had to make Primm Slim sheriff (that cowboy getup and his little Yee-haw is too precious :') ). Basically, if I don't have to kill them, I am doing my run as a pro-robot and pro-mutant run. I love them too much.

Anyways, there ends my thoughts. I'm not finished yet (currently eliminating the side fractions for Yes Man. Bye-bye Brotherhood. :) ), but I'm looking forward to getting back in the game once I have more time. I think it might be my favorite game!

[coffeegnomee]

i'd love to hear your thoughts on zam's new dilemma about wanting to use the rollback exploit to revive/help people if you have the time ^_^

Buckle up it's time to talk morality on lifesteal.

ZAM: “But like. If there was a way to theoretically use this for the good of the server, for, you know, something that is upholdedly, no matter what, undeniably, objectively just, right, something objectively righteous, then, i would have no problems with this i feel like.”

This debate over using an exploit to revive players is so interesting to me because, of course, zam takes it as being so tied up with morality. 

We as humans are intrinsically obsessed with morality. Every story revolves around it: heroes vs villains, or anti-heroes and morally grey characters. Everything returns to morality. 

Because in the real world, morality is of vital importance. It is literally life and death. What is good uplifts and allows us to live freely and love deeply. What is evil tears us apart. It ends in death. 

If you look at laws, everything revolves around morality. This is illegal bc it hurts this person, that is illegal bc it hurts that, etc etc. 

So of course in stories everything goes back to morality. It is the way we try out and learn and think about what is good and what is evil. The characters do good and do evil, they have to work through the consequences and learn from them, allowing us a free insight into what we might do ourselves in such a situation, or what we learn we must never do. 

So lifesteal is a story. A story that is populated by real world people, so everything ends up going back to real world morality. 

But it’s not the real world. It is minecraft. And that makes ALL the difference. 

Take murder for example. Murder is an objective evil. Why? In the real world it is the removal of another from this world, irrevocably. They are gone, no do overs, no second chances, gone. Gone because someone else took them away. And that’s evil because you matter. Every person. Nobody should decide if you die before your time.

That’s not what murder is on lifesteal. You JUST steal one permanent heart. The person can still come back, they can still exist in the realm. They can even get the heart back.

So what is analogous to murder? A death ban? 

It’s getting closer. But the revive beacon is an in-server tool to remove even the effects of a death ban. You can get a do over, a second chance. Even death is not permanent.

So murder isn’t the same, which is why we can love how much murder happens on the server, it’s not real, it’s all a game.

So from one perspective, murder on lifesteal is impossible to be an intrinsic evil. 

AND YET, it IS death and killing and in the real world that has weight and so the actions of the characters can be debated on moral lines both within themselves and between each other.  

What this gets to is the exploit. Finally. 

Because we have gotten to a point on lifesteal where some players don’t care about death bans. They don't want to play so instead of quitting silently they go out in a blaze of glory or whimsy. 

The analogous thing here, perhaps, could be like leaving your friend group when you go to college. 

Now, would it be an evil if you dragged your friend back from college and forced them to be around you and would not let them live their life? Yes. Because love is about free will. The freedom to choose to be with a person or not. You cannot love if you don’t have freedom. And love is an objective good. 

Reviving someone on lifesteal is not perfectly analogous to that because they aren’t dragging someone back on with the revive beacon. 

But the extent that we try and force others to play would be getting closer to being evil. You have to allow them to simply not play. Convincing isn’t an evil, it’s a suggestion, a request, letting the other know you want to be around them and enjoy their company. But force would be bad. 

So on one hand you have the potential “analogous to the real world” evil of preventing someone from playing with a death ban. That evil can be objected by the members of the server: in this case it would be a moral good to revive players. 

And on the other you have the moral good of free choice to play or not, and if someone decides to ban themselves that is not objectively evil. Bc they chose it. It would be morally neutral to revive them, and evil to force them back on or smth. 

And then you have this exploit. 

An exploit would be analogous to the real world as breaking a law. And if law breaking is a moral evil bc the laws are set for the moral good of the people (given that the law IS actually for the good of the people. Like, i’m not debating real life laws rn just giving the concept of above that it is logical for society to create laws for our good), then exploits are a moral evil. 

BUT this is lifesteal. As a content creator platform, any action taken for the good of content and for the good of the server wide story is ALWAYS a moral good. You are always morally good if you seek to keep the sever going through conflict and content bc it is for the benefit and uplifting of the other members. So an exploit for content is a moral good. 

Another set of two hands. 

Smash it together and you have Zam using an exploit to bring back members who wanted to be banned. 

This is suddenly analogous to like, breaking into prison to free a friend. By their own actions they landed there and they will get out given enough time served. Give them time and they will return. 

But breaking them out is to go around the perfectly legal system that is in place and will get them back eventually.

Bc using a legit revive beacon is perfectly legal, perfectly morally good. 

But using an illegal revive beacon IS breaking a law. And that is morally evil. Or is it good? Is it for the good of the server? Or is it breaking a morally just law?

Can that ever be justified? 

Can you be morally good when you break a law even when you know the affect you want won't even bring back the people you're trying to rescue? Can you involve yourself with someone who doesn't care about real world morality, only content creator morality and still come out morally good? Can you live with yourself knowing Spoke will mess up the server with this and your own justifications for your involvement might not matter at all bc the members you revive will never log back on?

Who the hell knows!

And THAT is why this arc is so fascinating. Because That is the POINT of the debate of morality. That is the POINT of story. That is the POINT of watching PrinceZam.

He brings the real world morality in AND the content creator morality into every one of his arcs.

And he will have internal struggles at every step of the way, particularly with this arc BECAUSE it folds up both sides of the debate.

His characters always are concerned with the real world morality and either align good, evil, or grey. But he himself will always have a separate debate about the content creator morality and wonder if this is this "good for the server" content or is this "bad for the server" content. And then the answer gets folded back up within his character.

While Mapicc, who I want to talk about after reading this back, Mapicc gets away with murder because for him real world morality doesn't matter at all; this is minecraft, no real world morals can affect me. Admin commands, exploits, murder. all are perfectly fair game.

What does matter to Mapicc is content creator morality. You are morally good or evil in his eyes to the extent that you are doing things that lead to interesting, fun, challenging, or otherwise good, content. You are evil to the extent that you are boring, use overwhelming power, or just don't have respect for the other people on the server.

And that just barely scratches the nuance of morality and decision making on lifesteal and how each member looks at it differently.

[isthepame]

Blue Lock VS. U-20 JAPAN Serialised Interview, Part 2

Makoto Furukawa as Tabito Karasu – Exploring Karasu’s ‘Calculating Nature’ and ‘Aura of Dominance’

Interviewer: Could you share your thoughts on the story’s focus in Season 2, particularly the "U-20 Japan National Team Match"? What aspects of it do you find most striking or appealing?

Makoto Furukawa (voice of Tabito Karasu): Seeing the individuals who have previously clashed so fiercely now come together as teammates to face the U-20 players has a certain emotional depth to it.

When you think of the U-20 Japan National Team in real life, it’s often seen as a dream team, made up of players selected from across various regions. But in a way, the Blue Lock players are no less of a dream team themselves. This makes for an incredibly thrilling and dynamic development in the story.

Interviewer: What was your first impression of Tabito Karasu as a character, and what do you focus on when portraying him?

M. Furukawa: One of the key directions I received was to emphasise his "calculating nature." I try to incorporate that subtly throughout my performance. While his surname, "Karasu," means "crow," his personality and troublesome nature remind me more of a "snake" a comparison that was also highlighted in the direction I received.

Another important aspect is his Kansai dialect. I was provided with guide audio beforehand, and adapting its nuances to match the character's pace and the visuals was quite challenging. I’ve also had the opportunity to learn from people on set who are from the Kansai region, which has been incredibly helpful and much appreciated.

Interviewer: In Episode 2, we saw Team A face off against Team B in a match to decide the regular players for the "U-20 Japan National Team Match." There was also a scene where Karasu and Kageya Otoya stood together as the team's two forwards. Could you share your impressions of Episode 2 and any scenes that stood out to you?

M. Furukawa: Looking back after recording, I feel that this episode served as an introduction for characters who hadn’t yet had much opportunity to shine in the story. I hoped to convey the "aura of strength" that comes with surviving Blue Lock. In a sense, this episode felt like a self-introduction for many characters, so I hope viewers will continue to support them moving forward.

Interviewer: In this episode, Karasu’s sharp analytical skills and his knack for being a disruptor were on full display, such as when he referred to Isagi as "ordinary." How did you approach these aspects in your performance?

M. Furukawa: I focused on creating the sense that Karasu could "disable" his target player (functionally speaking). By subtly hinting at malice and applying pressure bit by bit, I aimed to build that tension in the performance.

Since I also considered the physical aspects of his character, it’s possible that the sense of pressure came across even stronger than intended.

Interviewer: Lastly, could you share what viewers should look forward to in the coming episodes?

M. Furukawa: As many already know, the match against the U-20 players is a major highlight. However, what excites me most is the personal growth and human drama that unfolds throughout the series it’s truly inspiring.

Personally, I was particularly struck by Ego’s long monologue.

Of course, the individual moments of brilliance from each character are also something to look forward to. Please enjoy the broadcast!

Interview by Chihiro Sasamoto.

Edited by Inari Ogawa.

Translated by isthepame (X)

Source: animateTimes