#which is fine! But it's not RPGS so why are they labeled as such???

[obessivedork]

sick sick SICK to DEATH of open world games! I don't WANT endless exploration feedback loops and fetch quests I want STORIES and CHOICES

[prokopetz]

Code Green

A game for 3–7 players, about being where you're not supposed to be.

Last night, you were suspended in a tube of brightly coloured goo in an underground research facility, operated by an organisation whose three-letter initialism's meaning is strictly need-to-know. This morning, someone noticed your tube was empty. Nobody has determined how that happened yet, and you're not inclined to stick around until they figure it out!

Or, in other words, it's been nearly a whole week since I got that massive revision to Space Gerbils out the door, and apparently my brain has decided that's enough of a break. This thing was written start to finish in under 12 hours, so let the circumstances of its authorship guide your expectations. Special thanks go once again to Caro Asercion, whose micro-RPG Dwindle introduced me to the design space I'm fucking around with here. Go buy their stuff.

Anyway:

What You'll Need

Code Green is a tabletop RPG for one game moderator (GM) and up to six players. Each player will need a copy of the Profile Grid, below, as well as three tokens of some sort: dice, coins, beads, etc. You'll also need at least five six-sided dice (for the whole group, not per player, though it's fine if each player has their own set). If you're using dice for tokens, it's recommended that the dice you plan to roll be visually distinguishable in case they land on someone's Profile Grid.

Rolling Dice

There are two ways you'll be asked to roll dice in this game: rolling d66, and rolling a dice pool.

To roll d66, roll a six-side die twice, reading the first roll as the "tens" place and the second roll as the "ones" place, yielding a number in the range from 11 to 66. For example, if you rolled a 3 and then a 5, your result is 35. You may also be asked to flip a d66 roll; to do this, take your result and swap the digits without re-rolling. In the preceding example, if you flipped your roll of 35, your new result would be 53.

To roll a dice pool, pick up the indicated number of six-side dice, roll them, and take the highest individual result. Duplicates have no special significance. For example, if you rolled a pool of three dice and got a 2, a 4, and a 4, your result would be 4. If you would ever roll a pool of zero or fewer dice, roll two dice and take the lowest instead.

Character Creation

Each player should create their own character. There are three things about your character which are always true:

You are newly born into the world. You may know things about the world (e.g., from your programming, having read them on a computer terminal, etc.), but you haven't experienced them.

You are implausibly good at remaining inconspicuous; unless you're deliberately drawing attention or doing something which requires a dice roll, humans will almost always fail to spot you.

You are not human. You can decide what that means.

To find out what else is true about your character, roll or choose three times from the Form table, and three times from the Function table, placing your results into the correspondingly labelled slots on the Profile Grid, below, in any order you please. Your three results from each table should be different; if you elected to roll and get the same entry multiple times, flip your result, and re-roll if it's still a duplicate.

Think about what your three Form traits and three Function traits imply about your character's physical makeup, but don't set anything in stone just yet – you'll see why not in a moment.

Finally, roll a six-sided die five times, and record the results in the order in which they're received. The resulting five-digit number is the only name your character has when play begins.

Table 1: Form (d66)

11–12. Blood 13–14. Bones 15–16. Brain 21–22. Claws 23–24. Ears 25–26. Eyes 31–32. Guts 33–34. Hands 35–36. Heart 41–42. Hair 43–44. Legs 45–46. Lungs 51–52. Nose 53–54. Skin 55–56. Tail 61–62. Teeth 63–64. Tongue 65–66. Wings

Table 2: Function (d66)

11–12. Accelerated 13–14. Autonomous 15–16. Auxiliary 21–22. Cryogenic 23–24. Cryptic 25–26. Elastic 31–32. Electric 33–34. Entropic 35–36. Invasive 41–42. Invulnerable 43–44. Kinetic 45–46. Magnetic 51–52. Phasing 53–54. Polymorphic 55–56. Projectile 61–62. Pyrogenic 63–64. Telescopic 65–66. Toxic

Playing the Game

Play proceeds in a series of scenes. In each scene, the GM will set the stage: a challenge to overcome, a peril to escape, a mystery to investigate, etc. Given the nature of your characters, most things will be mysteries to you!

Initial Token Placement

Once the stage has been set, place each of your three tokens on a different square on your Profile Grid. If you have no preference, you can roll d66 for each token and place it in the square whose marked numeric range contains the number you rolled, flipping or re-rolling your result if you get a square which already contains a token. The placement of these tokens represents your initial state when the scene opens. Depending on the nature of your character, this may be reflected by a shifting of internal focus, or by a physical transformation.

Participation

To participate in the scene, simply tell the GM what your character does; the GM will describe how the world responds, and ask what you do next. Whenever you wish – or are forced – to do something more than lurk and observe, you are obliged to make a test.

Making Tests

To make a test, first choose a pair of traits – one Form trait, and one Function trait – with which to face the challenge. For example, if your Form traits are Legs, Tail and Teeth, and your Function traits are Cryptic, Invulnerable and Phasing, you might test your Invulnerable Legs against the trouble at hand.

Next, count the number of tokens present in the rows extending from each of the chosen traits. The illustration below shows which squares would be consulted in the preceding example:

Next, roll a dice pool containing a number of dice equal to the number of tokens present on squares extending from the chosen traits. Do not count a token twice if it's on the square where the two traits intersect (e.g., the green square in the illustration above). In the event that no tokens fall on squares extending from appropriate traits, remember that you are allowed to roll a pool of zero dice by rolling two dice and taking the lowest rather than the highest.

Finally, compare your result to the following table:

1–3. Less than human. Whatever you'd intended to try still happens, but it cannot overcome human opposition (or adversity which would challenge a typical human), and any lasting effects are transitory and easily explained away. 4–5. Mostly human. Your effort can contend with human opposition (or circumstances which would challenge a competent human), and its lasting effects make it obvious that someone (or something) has been interfering with matters. 6. More than human. Your effort easily brushes aside any human opposition, and its lasting effects are impossible to rationalise as anything other than the intervention of inhuman forces.

Without Applicable Traits

In the event that you're forced to make a test and no possible pairing of your traits is applicable, you don't get to roll anything, not even with a pool of zero dice; simply resolve the outcome as though you'd rolled a result of 1–3. Other characters may attempt to preserve you from this fate by assisting you, in which case you roll one die per assisting friend; see below for more details.

Assistance

If you wish to assist another character in making a test, consult your own Profile Grid, considering only those squares which contain tokens. Only the specific pairs of traits represented by the squares on which your tokens fall are eligible for assistance; for example, if one of your tokens falls on the intersection of Cryptic and Teeth, you may assist with Cryptic Teeth, but not any other pair of traits involving Cryptic or Teeth unless those squares also have tokens on them.

If you're able to identify an eligible pair of traits that seems applicable to the test at hand, explain how you're using it to help, and hand the player making the test one extra die. Any number of characters may assist on a given test.

Providing assistance neither requires nor permits your character to adapt (see below) – it needs to be your own test for that!

Adapting

After resolving a test, your character adapts, shifting focus or form to reflect what they've learned. Take one token of your choice from your character sheet, and move it to a different square which doesn't already contain one. You can move any token you wish, but it must end up on a different square than the one it started on unless no valid destinations are available. Adapting is not optional, and must be carried out after every test.

Suffering Strain

If whatever you're making a test against is particularly strenuous or dangerous, you might suffer strain as a consequence. Strain will often be incurred on a result of 1–3, and rarely on a result of 4–5; only the most foolhardy efforts will incur strain even on a result of 6!

To incur strain, roll d66, and place a small X on the square on your Profile Grid whose indicated numeric range contains the number you rolled. If there's a token on that square, immediately move it to an empty square of your choice, unless fewer than three unmarked squares now remain; in that case, simply remove the token entirely.

For the remainder of the scene, tokens may not be moved to any marked square. In addition, if you suffer further strain, and the square indicated by your d66 roll is already marked, your character is incapacitated, and may not participate in tests at all until they recover.

All strain is cleared – and any discarded tokens restored – at the end of each scene. Incapacitated characters also recover at this time.

[crazyforclones]

I am so ill over Mario and Peach

Continue reading to listen to me absolutely lose my mind over these goobers

Establishing character:

I just adore Mario and Peach so much. And before I get those funny people always like “oh Mario hates peach,” or “peach never “gives” Mario anything for saving her! He probably only does it to get something from her-“ Ima need yall to shut your trap ok 👹

First of all, Nintendo, especially with Mario characters, had no idea how to characterize their characters in the beginning. Peach changes in almost every single different medium. Take the old Nintendo power (I think) comic called the “super Mario adventures.” in which Peach is a lot more outgoing, strong, sassy, and a literal general.

Not saying this is a bad rendition of peach I actually like it! But I use it as an example of how these characters have changed over the years. And also, often times in games or stories like these where they focus more on the characters than gameplay, we see a more accurate and fleshed out character. Which is why in some other Mario games, characters often say things that might seem rude or out of character but is put there for comedy. (Nintendo obsession with making fun of Luigi in every rpg game is an example 💀). And the same goes for Mario, he’s changed a lot. But I feel in the current renditions of the characters, they have a much more stable idea of their character.

Also another cute picture from the comic-(sorry quality poopy I took it from mine)

This is peach dreaming about marrying Mario btw.

Mario’s character:

From what we see now, Mario is just an average blue collar man in his late twenty’s who is quite short and also plump. Despite this he is still THE most brave, athletic, talented, determined, occasionally hot headed, and an overall idol to the entire mushroom kingdom. He is often labeled as THE Mario. And people also express their surprised when they actually see what he looks like 💀. But the reason I bring this up is Mario is quite literally just some guy. He’s some guy who entered this foreign kingdom, heard there was a Princess in trouble, and as a New York Italien blue collar worker he could’ve easily just went on with his day or ignored these random peoples pleas, but instead, he immediately decides he will travel multiple worlds so he can save this princess and help the kingdom (also cause the game needed a incentive but still-). From the get go mario was ready to help people. He helps them not expecting anything in return, but because he has a good sense of Justice. There’s hundreds of side quests you can do with Mario, sometimes they’re ridiculous. But you know what? Mario will do it. Because he likes helping people. Because he’s a role model. And because he’s just a good guy.

Mario and Peach as a couple:

Most of the time, people who criticize or make fun of their relationship are often doing it as a joke which is fine, but this is for the people who genuinely think Peach is a jerk for not giving Mario “more” for what he does.

People often say “Mario has saved her so many times and all he gets is a kiss on the cheek!”

Now despite the fact Peach doesn’t owe Mario anything just because he saved her, I can see why people might be upset over this. However, like I said before, Mario does things not expecting rewards, but just because it’s the right thing to do and he has a duty.

People forget one dire things when it comes to love like this:

Love can be shown in many different ways

Peach kissing Mario in the cheek wasn’t proof that they were in love or together. I’d argue they weren’t really at all in the beginning. Except maybe a slight crush. A kiss on the cheek is often just a gesture of gratitude. Peach usually kissed anyone who saved her. It’s just her way of saying thank you.

What really shows that Mario and peach love one another is how they interact. The things they say and do. They don’t need to kiss to prove they’re in love, it’s simply implied with how they interact with one another. Whether it’s small gestures like holding one’s hand before a big game, or something such as trusting the other person to give you a boost so you can save your partners rabbid version of themselves from an evil space fish.

Or! It can be something more direct, like peach literally looking Mario in the eyes and saying this:

Or when she is scared but assured herself she will be ok as long as she has Mario!

It’s these little things that speak larger than words. Mario and peach simply have a relationship that is there but doesn’t need to be forced down your throats to convince you that they’re in love. They simply are. And their love is shown in many ways. Love comes in all shapes and sizes, and so does Mario and Peach!

Now have Mario dancing like a middle aged dad snapping his little fingers to make Peach laugh :)

[quidcumque]

GRAVEYARD KEEPER: FIRST THOUGHTS

I heard it compared to Stardew Valley and aside from the silly title screen, it's definitely visually there. Play through? There are a hell of a lot of cons, but they won't keep me from playing it

Con: no character customization, no choices at all. You ARE a heterosexual white male-presenting protagonist with a female-presenting white sweetheart. Any headcannon re either of you being 🏳️‍⚧️ remains headcannon

Hilarious: you are reading a text from your sweetheart when crossing a road and you get hit by a car. Keep track of your surroundings, kids

Con: the dialog writing starts out real clumsy. You do eventually get choices, but I prefer how SV makes you the strong silent type when you're not actively involved

WHICH REMINDS ME, CON: don't let the dialog bubbles cycle on their own without me clicking??? I missed so much unretrievable info because I was mulling over the first half smh

Plot: she swallowed the dog to catch the cat, she swallowed the cat to catch the bird, she swallowed the bird to catch the spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly, maybe she died crossing the street and woke up in a shitty little medieval FLAT EARTHER village and she has to rube goldburg her way to and through a magic portal to get back to her sweetheart. Or something.

Pro: I don't play rpgs much so while I don't prefer this style over sv's do-whatever-and-you'll-suck-less-as-you-go gameplay, it's pretty awesome in and off itself BECAUSE it's so different. It also contributes heavily to the swallowed-the-spider-to-catch-the-fly effect because it's got EIGHT TABS OF TECH TREES and I started drawing graphs

Pro: you're on a derelict homestead/graveyard with a familiar need to clear rocks/trees/stuff and bring the area back to life. BUT doing things gives you different xp/knowledge points which is how you advance on the tech trees, so it's different from just a carbon copy SV feel

Con: Jesús Christ you can tell this was made by a dude. So was SV, but where it had nearly equal gender ratios (plus the aforementioned character choices), I've seen... not very many women thus far, and what we get is not exactly impressive. I have no problems with "ms charm" telling me to fuck off until I deserved to talk to her, as half the men I met said the same. But I've met two wives thus far, and uhhhhhhhhhhh one is straight up called sweet but stupid in her bio and the other opens EVERY SINGLE DIALOG with "you should talk to my husband, he's in charge" like jfc lady you're the one I need for recipes, calm down? Does he beat you? What the hell?

Con: let's set aside that I'm pretty sure the "medieval idiots thought world flat" thing has been debunked, because I found info but it didn't have good citations. Also maybe we're going for parody over historically accurate, fine whatever. But whyyyyyyyyyy do you have a guy named "G*psy Traveler" like I know I have an inflated sense of how widely it's known that that's a slur, but it on top of the flat earth thing and the WOW that's bad female-or-anything representation, it builds an image of the creator/creators as the really stereotypical basement dwelling head-up-ass dudes who have never ever looked outside their zone and never ever want to

Pro: like two steps into the tutorial you're slapped in the face with Soilent Green is People and you just live with that

Hilarious: I can tell when I have a first conversation with somebody I was supposed to have met already, because my pre-scripted side of the conversation suddenly backslides in terms of my acceptance of the situation

Pro: time is an illusion and represented only by the cycle of emoji-labeled days. Weeks are not counted, so I legitimately have no clue how many "weeks" I went through last night

Unsure??? I don't know how much I'm going to have to drink the church koolaid to progress? I saw an indication up the tech tree that suggested my good/evil choices MIGHT matter, but I've got no idea how. I told the inquisitor who'd just BURNED A PEOPLE ALIVE IN FRONT OF ME that sure I'd be his friend, and I don't know if the game allows for that to have been a choice made out of the fear that I'd be burned next if I said no

Pro: I still want to play it. The myriad cons will influence how I talk about it to my friends, but it's still giving me dopamine, and that's good enough

[blackjackkent]

Continuing to explore the east side of Rivington. Park-ish sort of area which looks like it was probably once nice but is now full of dead chickens.

Promising.

There's a cute-looking couple having a picnic up here though:

"Ummm, can I help you? This is a *private* picnic."

You know what, valid - privacy kind of seems like it's hard to come by around here.

Surprisingly enough for an RPG, no one around here really seems to want to tell me about their problems and have me solve them; all the refugees just want to complain, which is understandable but does not make for compelling liveblogging.

However, further up from them is an area labeled "Gur Camp." So now we're definitely going to get some plot development.8

We've encountered a Gur once before - the monster hunter that Cazador sent after Astarion, who is actually here now (the guy in the center facing the fire). It's probably a good thing Astarion isn't here, because he definitely mentioned having a grudge against Gur in general, since a group of them were the folks that beat him within an inch of his life and caused him to be vampirized originally.

However, these Gur, it seems, are NOT currently hired by Cazador, since one of them says this:

!!! Interesting.

Their other ambient dialogue talks about how a) they want to kill the vampires and b) their numbers as a people have diminished considerably.

Hector is pretty cautious going into this because he doesn't want to do anything that's going to make trouble for Astarion, but he wanders on in to say hello and see if he can pick up some information.

One of the Gur is reciting some sort of spell over their fire pit. "Rech te i hathran roost."

Gandrel, the Gur we met before, recognizes us! "My friend from the hag swamp? You are a bright light on a dark day."

It's a more friendly greeting than Hector was necessarily expecting. "Why, what happened?"

"We underestimated an enemy. Much like I underestimated you and your vampiric companion."

Hector stiffens, immediately ready to move in any direction, to attack or defend, but the monster hunter just smiles. "Oh, yes. I know you hid him from me. But this is not the moment to discuss it. This is about the dead, not the undead."

(This is making me feel bad about the other two active playthroughs I have where this guy is super dead back in the hag swamp. D: )

"Frey vald isk durovna," the woman by the fire intones. "Frey vald isk ablast."

Hector listens intently, but it's no language he recognizes.

"Our tribe left camp on a rescue mission," Gandrel says, the smile fading from his face. "Only Ulma and those you see here returned."

Hector's eyes narrow in sympathy. "Did they save whoever they set out to rescue?"

Gandrel frowns, his gaze falling. "They could not." He hesitates. "I will say no more. It is not my tale to tell."

The woman at the fire stirs, her eyes opening, and Hector is struck by the sharp grief in her gaze as she turns towards them.

"No," she says. "That shame is mine alone."

"I thought I knew the faces of all your friends, Gandrel. But this one is new to me."

Hector straightens respectfully, as he can tell this woman is some sort of authority figure here, and inclines his head in a polite half-bow. "I'm Hector Carlisle," he says.

"A friend met on the road, my lady," Gandrel explains. "I told you of the stranger in the swamp? They killed not only that fen's hag, but also the undying General Thorm, if the rumors are true."

The Gur leader looks at him with interest.

"Two fine trophies," she says thoughtfully. "Perhaps I can interest you in a third."

Hector frowns slightly. [MONK] "I take no pride in killing, nor trophies from it," he says gravely. "Sometimes it simply must be done." He has already said on more than one occasion that he isn't interested in being memorialized as a hero; even being introduced reverentially for those he has killed makes him feel a little uncomfortable.

The woman smiles slightly, seeming to approve of this attitude. "It is a solemn task," she agrees. "One this city forces us to undertake time and again." The smile fades again, the grief taking control almost at once. "Baldur's Gate is haunted by many things, but one of its most insidious is the vampire Cazador. For years, his foul spawn have stolen away innocents at night, whisking them back to his palace. Recently, they struck our camp."

Rage mingles with the grief, both helpless. "They took our children," she says hoarsely. "Every last one - our whole future."

Hector draws a sudden sharp breath in. His eyes flick to his companions; he sees his dismay reflected in their expressions. They already hated Cazador for what has been done to Astarion; they were already ready to hunt him down so that their friend could be fully free. But this goes even further beyond that. Children taken into that monster's grasp?

"We are monster hunters all," Gandrel says with an air of deep shame. "Our purpose is to kill beasts like these. But in our haste to save our little ones, we were rash. We charged straight into an ambush."

"They tore us to pieces," the leader says softly. "Vampire spawn and werewolves. I have never seen a vampire's lair so heavily guarded. What's left of my tribe is wounded and broken. We cannot stand against him to save our children." She stares at him, pleading, desperate. "But perhaps the slayer of Ketheric could?"

"I'll do whatever I can," Hector says immediately, with no hesitation.

She nods and he can see some hope come back into her expression, warming it considerably. "If you do this, our entire tribe will be in your debt. On our honor, it will be repaid. May the gods keep you and damn your enemies."

Hector needs no reward, to be honest. This is horrible to hear about and he is more than ready to make Cazador answer for all the people he's hurt.

[bearpillowmonster]

Trailers now and days spoil a lot when it comes to the finished product, something you wait years to release and even if the trailer doesn't spoil it, then the online community will. I seemed to have missed that childlike whimsy of picking up a game and know close to nothing about it. So, I tried to replicate that experience and it worked. But this one I played a little differently because I came up with the bright idea to deprive myself of a whole genre. I say "genre" but really it's a franchise and clones like it, that franchise ended up being Zelda.

I chose Zelda because I had already unintentionally spent a good amount of time without it, so no new or old games in that time period. I purposely avoided anything that was labelled to be like Zelda (such as Genshin, Sonic Frontiers, etc). I was already a fan of Zelda so a new game was a sure win but I never played Breath of the Wild because by the time I got a Switch, Tears of the Kingdom (unnamed at the time) was already announced. So, this won't just be my experience with the game, it'll be my experience with Breath of the Wild and not just that but where the franchise has gone for over five years and boy has it changed.

Now I can climb (pretty much everything) and cook and run and jump! I have to pay attention to what I'm wearing because the environment might be too cold or hot. A time cycle. The storyline starts like a Ghibli movie, Zelda's voice is like a deadpan Lara Croft and on the first day of playing it, I realized that there's a lot more adventure than I thought. I barely played that first day because it was all so much to take in. So, I won't be describing the game, I'll be describing my experience.

In a world like this, why complain? Well...The frame-rate drops in trees but does pretty good elsewhere. There's no way to deselect while in the hand mode, you have to jump out then back in. You can't roll. The adventure is more about exploring and the puzzles are more about tinkering. It's a complete overhaul of what came before it.

The horse can be annoying because you have to train its bond and get it a stable and get it to stay with you and they can be hard to control because "sometimes they don't want to go that way" or it's too precise with invisible barricades that it decides it can't jump over (i.e. a stone block in a ruin of stone blocks). And in a game ridden with mountains, you find yourself abandoning it half the time. If only it was a ghost like the companions...There was a bike in BOTW (hard not to know) but it's not in this one. Which all that would be fine if you could handle it in a timely manner but there were a lot of points where I regretted going in blind because while I was playing it, I felt like I was playing it wrong, it seemed like forever before I actually started getting anywhere once I touched down from the sky islands. I was so relieved the first time I found a stable because I didn't have to worry about losing it or anything, I could finally register him. Then I started the Rito Village quest and fell back into enjoying it but then the Eldin stuff drug me back down. It was a toss up.

All in all, it's a lot more RPG but in a world of prexisting RPGs, it almost doesn't feel like I was waiting for anything new, it has all these features that I've already seen before just not in Zelda and I'm not sure whether I prefer it that way either.

Open World specifically is the one I'm a little half and half on because it felt like I could spend days doing nothing, trying to find a way into somewhere to make some progress which in some cases just goes to show how good the game is, if you're willing to spend time doing side stuff and explore not only its environment but its gameplay but I don't know, this one felt a little too empty to me, like there were long stretches where I was just climbing or trying to go places. There are indeed wheels and different contraptions like I've pointed out to get moving but the threshold to get them is a decent length, especially if you don't know where you're looking for this stuff. You can't just pick them up and put them in your inventory either, you either have to find them out and about or already have them in your inventory from a rare drop or a capsule machine. Which wouldn't be so bad but those inventions you spend all that time building despawn (which makes sense for the hardware this is running on). But at the same time, there's a function that keeps a recipe in stock, you just need to have built it and...ok, it doesn't make sense, whatever. But even once you pass the threshold of finding a bounty of these "zonite" powered objects, you need that "zonite" to power them. Can be easy to fix but it would be just so much simpler without needing a battery change every five seconds and the more devices you run in tandem, the faster it depletes.

When I saw all these mechanics that people were pulling off with BOTW, I was thinking that the system was just that ingenious, that it just threw you into a playground and to some extent it does but I think it would've been better suited some other way. The surface is wet? Makes sense that you'd slip but sure as heck annoying. It chose accuracy over fun. If you're one of those people that hordes potions and items (like me) then this probably isn't the game for you. Especially since it takes forever to find what you're looking for, like when you're scrolling to attach something to an arrow. It doesn't tell you what stuff does in that menu (Flashback to FF6), an easy fix would be a favorites list, Nintendo. Your weapons break very easily, I could be fighting an enemy and use my whole inventory. At least with Animal Crossing, it still lasted a while, I didn't have to worry about my axe breaking after my first tree.

And that blind feeling wasn't helpful because there were things that were really truly great and helpful like being able to use waypoints and having a tracker that you can use on pretty much anything that you've come into contact with already so long as you logged it in your 'compendium'. But you wouldn't know that stuff if you didn't do the side-quests or rather the progression of them, because they started as something entirely different to get to that point. I was already past half way before I got all this helpful material that I could've used when I started and I didn't even see in any beginners guides when I checked. You can upgrade armor?? So I think that "not enough" of the game is set up on the main path, completely messing up the theory on how to make a good burger. It throws everything in your face at once and expects you to do it all.

Why I think I liked Rito so much and not Eldin is because Rito (almost) resembled a dungeon of sorts and it was the first one I did but Eldin had a lot of empty space yet its scope seemed massive. I think open world is great if only taken in bites, not all at once. The Goron in Eldin (which he pronounces gore-own? But everyone else says gore-on?) is just uninteresting and so is his story then the cutscenes come into play where I started wishing we were without them again because I would move a little bit only to initiate another cutscene of him spouting obvious mousedung like "I think it's this way, oh I wonder where Zelda is, what do you think Link?" and it's the same silent answer every time, it's just stupid. There's no room for subtlety or guessing if he just tells you everything. (unlocks a door with five locks, sees one of the locks drop, Goron: "Just four more locks left!") Math!

His AI is pretty dumb too, his hitbox was inconsistent, not being able to be used as a shield but would get in my way whenever I needed to hit something. He wouldn't always be there when I did need him though, he'd kind of just stick around another platform (I assume since he can't fly and he's so big that he needs room?). Then this was just downright lazy, with the Wind Temple, you needed to find a way to undo four locks. Okay, worked well enough but then the Fire Temple has you do the EXACT same thing. It's bad from a story and a gameplay pov, it's just copy and paste in a different environment, different place, but same context. And GUESS WHAT? They're ALL like that.

Let me show you this part that I was having a hard time with.

You can shoot arrows and or the Goron using various methods to try and activate switches but this one was blocked. I tried making a ramp but the rocks had to be level with the ground in order for it to work with the Goron. It ended up not even mattering though because it's blocking a way that I need to go, forcing me to find the correct way, it knew that I'd try that. Ok, so I try climbing-

And if a lip is too protruding, you can't go around it, so that's exactly what they did, they knew you'd try these methods but barred you from doing so. So what was the right way? Well, I skipped it, went to a different one then climbed and glided my way around until I could tip toe in a different way. It worked but it was largely unconventional and was definitely not the right way of doing it. So how did others do it? Well, they made a bridge using the rocks around them...except, I did that. FOUR TIMES. The space is cramped to where you have a hard time fitting all of them in a row but I did manage to just barely make them long enough and each time, it'd flip and fall because there's nothing to attach it to and the higher ground is so uneven that it'd lose balance. This is an example of the preciseness of its system. (Flashback: Accuracy over fun.) While I'd like to believe there were more refined solutions, I have yet to see any, in fact, to further my point, I went back after completing it to try it again and lo and behold it finally worked, I had the idea but couldn't execute it because of the too true mechanics. There's another great example of this if you look up the Rabella Wetlands "Remove Spike" puzzle.

Now let me talk about the underground. The overworld has these shrines that serve as little mechanic introducers and teleporting waypoints, you also get these lights from them that can net you a heart or addition to stam. The underworld has similar shrines too (which I'll call 'beacons') but it's horrible getting there, you spend it with the screen looking like this 90% of the time.

It's dark and these shrines light the place up except the underworld is every bit as big as the overworld. Even looking up beacon locations gives you coordinates but for one, there's no way to look at specific coordinates on the map, just your own and two, just because you have coordinates, doesn't mean you can take that path. Just like the overworld, there are mountains in your way, mountains that you can't see! Enemies riddle the area and blah blah, it seemed optional at the time so I noped out of there and stayed with overworld stuff but then I found out that a lot of what actually unlocks the stuff that I want is underground so it's best to get a good chunk of that out early. (such as those waypoints and compendium and power to recreate stuff you've built) No reward for lighting the beacons either so getting them all seems more like a hindering job so you can see the game than actual fun.

Now cosmetics are actually quite exemplary, there are a ton of costumes you can mix and match and collect, both new and old. With most games, this stuff can be picked up as drops, treated as achievements or set up in a shop for moolah. This is a mixture because some are indeed like that but the ones that you want, you're going to have to work for. By work, I don't mean difficulty though, I mean time. That underground holds a lot of these costumes, a lot of ones that you'll want and they're contained in chests, these chests will either be in the form of a coliseum where you fight an onslaught of enemies, including bosses...that you've already fought...I'll explain my problem with that in a minute but the other ones, those are scattered in chests and like I said, easy to find coordinates, tough as nails to actually trek to. I could spend an hour just cycling this environment, trying to get to where I need to be because there isn't a waypoint near it then after I get it, guess what, there's two more to the set. That's right, you've collected one third of the costume, now you need to get the other two pieces somewhere. I could spend 3 hours on just one costume. And you can upgrade these costumes to give you better stats but you need certain materials to do so.

Now the problem I have with the coliseums is that they're challenging but those types of things should be challenging, it's when it makes everything a chore that I begin to feel useless. I played for over 50 hours and only had 1/2 of the possible heart containers (which is still a good amount) but I never felt ready for any of the boss level enemies (Gleeok, Lynel, etc) because they'd always one-shot me and I'd do chip damage which I'd understand if I was way ahead of where I was supposed to be, but I unlocked all but one section of the map at thas point and with it being an open world game, these types of bosses are everywhere. There are foods and elixirs you can use to higher defense and attack but those only go so far and should only be additives, not mandatory, it nerfs your base health. If I can play 50 hours in a game and still feel weak then that's a problem with padding because I wasn't progressing fast enough or with the right stuff, I never really felt stronger. With Metroid, I always feel like I'm doing something, every single ability I unlock, every weapon, every door but this game makes it all feel null. Fuse as much as possible. Use as much as possible. Sleep as much as possible. Get as much as possible. Cook as much as possible. It's all very demanding of your time to actually try and have the time that you wish to have with this game, it sucks when you make time for it but it sucks it right back like it was nothing.

As far as story, there's a very weird origin and lore of the series that I'm still up in the air about. With franchises like this, I've started wondering whether they "should" cover the origin of everything this far in, that's what has me worried for Star Wars. But other lore is good because we have little things like Gerudos trying to run out of the rain because they don't like it and just that there are Gerudos running around in the first place is a step up because I always thought it weird that each kingdom had its own race but you only saw them there, nowhere else. You could argue that it makes the level design that much more unique but with an open world game like this, I kind of like seeing a mixed world with Avians, Gerudos, and Elves alike everywhere.

I guess the domains all act the same is because you "can" do them in any order but in doing that, even the cutscenes are reiterative, explaining the same event over and over after you defeat their boss. This nulls and dulls most of the story when it very easily could've been fixed with replacement scenes for whichever region you're in, it actually had potential when it started.

But let me let you in on a tidbit, not too much of a spoiler, just something so you know not to get your hopes up. When it was first revealed, they showed Zelda and Link together and the fans started thinking "What if you could play as Zelda?" this would've been an instant selling point but admittedly a better one to keep secret, well the sad news is that it didn't follow along with the fans. Normally I wouldn't dock it because of this because the only games that have done this were done so on a technicality but with this one in particular, they set up Zelda as "a mystery" and you're given pieces of what's happened to her throughout but I think it would've served everything better had they made these cutscenes, playable sections.

All in all, high highs but really low lows. The wait wasn't worth it. The hype wasn't worth it. Being blind was a mistake. The expectations were indeed impossible but I still think I grounded myself pretty well compared to many other titles I've waited just as long for. Now was the 70$ price tag worth it? I can already tell you that it was a meaty game but that doesn't mean fulfilling. It really depends what you "want" out of a higher price game. I wouldn't charge that again for anything but I do understand that it must've taken some programming genius to get it to run on Switch (though Nier and Dark Souls are on there and Genshin runs on a phone!)

But I feel really bad and sad to say that every game that I played around this...I liked more. Now everything labelled as a "Of the Wild" style, I'm not going to be as interested in. I actually think I disliked it at times and it's been a while since I've truly disliked a game. In fact, Zelda is such a successful series that I've liked every game I've played ...except this one, making it by default, the worst.

[anghraine]

That weapons aren’t tied to jobs or skills threw me for a loop until I remembered vaguely how GW2 works - I remembered the lack of trinity job play but because my brain is FF, that series strongly ties RPG party members to a weapon-job type. (Many games, many job and magic systems, of course. But especially in XIV professions are tied to tool- which is why the 3 of 7 crafting jobs use hammers have to label if it’s a hammer for blacksmith versus armor or versus fine metalwork.) A lot of animation sharing for skills I guess?

GW2 weapons actually are tied to skills, contingent on profession (as in class, not crafting profession, which is completely separate). The weapon-locked skills of GW2 are a major point of difference from GW1 that my dad some people are still mad about, lol.

You have some "free" skills separate from your weapon, but half your skills are based entirely on your equipped weapon or weapons. However, weapons bestow different skills to different classes—so, say, any Guardian (paladin type) who wields a torch in their off-hand gets a skill that lets them immolate themself without damage (to themself) and another skill that lets them breathe fire. But a Mesmer (illusionist mage type) who wields a torch in their off-hand gets a smoke-themed invisibility skill, and a fire-themed phantasm, and the animations are completely different.

It looks like land spears will work similarly, except that every profession gets access to them (while something like torch is limited to specific professions). But the skills and animations will be based on the profession, I think, like any other weapon.

The official announcement says:

Some professions will employ the spear as a ranged projectile weapon, some will wield it as a melee weapon, and others will utilize it as a magical focus to cast powerful spells.

Seems like a lot of work for them, honestly—I'm surprised. I really hope it works out (and didn't take too much attention from housing, lol—I'm hoping for something roughly like your game's!).

City of Heroes, neat! Saw that was coming back.

It's been back on various pirate servers for years (I know because I used two of them, haha), but my preferred server finally, over years, negotiated an official license from the IP owner to run it legally. Getting the license was a big relief, honestly, and we were even able to resuscitate our characters from when the original game was live and import them into the server. Wild.

COH has always been an odd one for me because I have such a strong preference for classic SF/F settings in games and am not at all interested in superheroes (unless She-Ra counts), but there are so many options for flavor and costuming, and I like the interplay of mechanics so much that my family has been really fond of it regardless.

[total rambling tangent]

There's one very underpopulated region from the final live expansion that I specifically love and am sometimes the only person in, and a bunch of my characters basically live there because it's the most remote from superhero stuff. It's an alternate universe of the main superhero land where the AU versions of the heroes are now villains running a shiny dystopia that gets dirtier and more industrial the further you get from the glorious city center. Among many, many other problems, people who in the main dimension would have been superheroes but who are native to the Shiny Dystopia dimension (aka players who chose the dystopia origin) are forcibly enlisted into "Powers Division," an agency of superhumanly gifted people doing various tasks for the state.

At creation, you choose whether your true loyalties are with the state or with the underground revolution against them, which is already more interesting to me than just being a random superhero. And then you have chances throughout the story for you to switch allegiances. But also, there are internal factions within both the Loyalists and Resistance: as a Loyalist to the state, you can side with an obliviously well-intentioned faction trying to protect the citizenry without oppressing them, or with a ruthless and power-hungry faction. If you're a rebel, you can side with a faction that's trying to limit unnecessary casualties while still achieving revolution, or with terrorists bombing hospitals and such.

BUT ALSO you don't actually have to play the storyline for your preferred faction and some other factions' missions are also available for you to play (depending on how extreme you are, basically) as an undercover agent for your original faction. In that case, your changes in alignment can become cover stories as you work towards your true faction's goals and you'll periodically get the chance to report to your true boss and get orders from him.

The writing is sometimes shaky on multiple levels, but I love the sheer amount of character choices even though they don't ultimately change that much (I personally find "well-intentioned and oblivious Loyalist who genuinely switches sides to the Resistance in the end" the most rewarding storyline). But regardless, all storylines converge at level 20 with the dystopia's plan to invade the standard dimension of the original game and you have to travel to one of the main settings where you're naturally perceived as either a superhero or supervillain. Your different origins sometimes come up in dialogue referencing your choices, badges you can win, and stuff involving the war with the dystopia dimension, but by and large you're funnelled into the generic superhero narrative, so I often just stay in the dystopia and do low-stakes spying missions, lol.

In any case, a lot of the playerbase really didn't care for the more complicated and sometimes finicky mechanics or dystopic setting of that expansion and the setting essentially expiring at level 20 out of 80. So the dystopia zones are often largely neglected except me, specifically, running around shooting water blasts at the dystopia!Mafia as a principled Loyalist with an increasingly troubled conscience :D

[end ramble]

Anyway, thanks again on both gaming fronts <3

@anghraine saw the trailer for the new GW2 trailer, thought of you so congrats on your upcoming Pacific Northwest adventure

[repentantsky]

The difference Between JRPG’s and WRPG’s, and why we should stop comparing them

If you’re like me, you love RPG’s of many different genre’s. Whether they cover fantastical realms like Skyrim and Final Fantasy, or more technologically advanced ones like Borderlands or Star Ocean. 

Like all genre’s most RPG’s of different genre’s also suffer from different problems because of tropes and reused settings that people can grow tired of, but talking about RPG’s from two different parts of the world, is a whole other problem. Japan for example, is mostly marketing itself to Western players, while Western RPG’s, are mostly marketing themselves to Western players...uh wait, why does that make them different? 

It’s all because of style choices. See, Japan like most countries, has a lot of traditions that make a lot of it’s products fairly same-y. As I said that happens with everyone, but Japan has to try harder with smaller series to get western appeal, which is required to have a successful selling game, unless it’s a mobile title, since those all do really well in Japan, because people can just game on their way to and from work. I digress, but Japan is so rooted in tradition, that you can watch an episode of Gigantor, the anime that is considered by many to be the first anime ever created, and Demon Slayer, and notice a lot of similarities in the way the characters are speaking, because Japan has always made their shows where actors talk like they would in real life, which isn’t always true in other acting platforms around the world, which of course means, this translates to video games. 

Specifically what it means, is that Japan has to hop a cultural barrier that Western games don’t, and they have to rely on a lot more tropes, because there are only so many ways to translate the same basic plot of a JRPG, for Western audiences, before things become too cliché. A lot of RPG’s are successful in doing this, like the aforementioned Final Fantasy, and other JRPG’s are coming through with successful games to, like Fire Emblem. Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, Atelier, and several others. All of the games coming through lately, lead people to believe that JRPG’s are a thriving genre in the west, but that’s not really true. 

If you were to ask any random person what the most successful JRPG of all time was, a lot of people would probably think of a Final Fantasy game, but not even Final Fantasy 7, has come close. In fact the only JRPG that even made it to the top 10 best selling games ever, is Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow as a collective, with four different versions. The next best selling one is Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, and in fact, only 11 of the top 49 best selling games of all time, are RPG’s, and all of the JRPG’s are Pokemon titles. Final Fantasy 7 has still been wildly successful, as the original has sold over 11.8 million units, and the remake over 5 million, but the fact of the matter is, that even though RPG’s as a whole are the biggest genre of the top 49, the few that made it are exceptions to the rules. In fact, of the top 10 best selling games of all time, 6 of them are by Nintendo. The other 5 excluding Pokemon, are Wii Sports, Super Mario Bros. Mario Kart 8/Deluxe, Wii Fit/Plus and the original Gameboy version of Tetris, which itself is on there twice because EA’s version is number 3. so you’re actually better off in Japan, not making a JRPG. 

There’s a lot more that can be gleamed from looking at the list, so you can check it out here if you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games 

The point is that JRPG’s, aren’t always as successful as people think they are. I mean sure, you don’t have to be on the top best selling games list to be successful, but Persona 4 Golden on PC is considered a massive success for selling only just over a million units since it’s release, and the Tales of Series, which is one of the longest running in gaming, as recently as April of this year, had it’s sales numbers made public, and Tales of Symphonia, the undeniable Final Fantasy 7 of the series, sold a total of 940,000 units in the United States, and the game, easily the most successful title from Tales of, only managed 2.4 million in total. None of this is to say, that JRPG’s are struggling, because most of the ones I brought up are shining examples that they aren’t, but going back to that top 10 list, Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto V,  just the top two of that list, have sold 345,000,000 total units. That not only beats the entire mainline series of Pokemon, it’s only about 2.5 million short extra, of beating the original 151′s total sales, with how many spare units the two games over Pokemon’s  300,000,000 million total sales mainline games, which means likely, the two of them will beat the series out at some point in the future. 

Western RPG’s, don’t often suffer from as many problems, because they don’t have a border to hop, and it shows with Elder Scrolls, which has sold 58 million total copies with only five mainline games, and 30 million of those came from Skyrim alone. It took Pokemon, the undisputed champion of JRPG sales, 20 mainline games to reach 300 million, which means arguably, by the time Elder Scrolls reaches it’s 10th installment, it will have caught up to Pokemon’s first 20 games total sales. Borderlands, which is arguably the Tales of to Western RPG’s in most people’s eyes, has actually outsold Elder Scrolls with only 4 mainline entries, one of which is considered bad by many, with a total of 60 million total units sold. The better comparison, surprising for many I’m sure, for a Tales of comparison, is actually Fallout, which has sold 13.51 million units, to Tales of 23.5 million units. 

Enough about numbers for a few minutes, 3 paragraphs about it is a bit much, but the fact of the matter is, Japan struggles more overall to make successful RPG’s in the West, than the West does in the West, and it’s all due to how much of a challenge it is to hop that border. 

Outside of sales numbers, the other major difference between JRPG’s vs Western RPG’s is how they are classified. Generally, when someone thinks of a JRPG, they think of a fantasy world, with leveling, where rare items can be won off bosses, but your main way of improving stats is to level up, and have enough money to buy the best equipment at each new town you enter with a shop. However, a lot of games have been getting that label slapped on them by their marketing teams or fans, and some of it is just wrong. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one such game, despite the drops from enemies being the only correlation between BoTW and JRPG’s. The correlation was made by fans, which might seem like an innocent mistakes, and in fact could be nothing but that, but then there’s Monster Hunter, which actually does have two JRPG’s attached to it, in the Stories 1 and 2 games, but who took the reigns of JRPG to market, calling Monster Hunter World, a JRPG. despite it having few differences from other Monster Hunter action games, outside of having a story, and having nothing more to do with JRPG’s than Zelda. A lot of fans of Japanese games will classify simply playing as a fake character an RPG, which normally would be fine, but in games, that’s not how genres are defined. If that were the case, all of Yakuza’s games would be JRPG’s, instead of just Like a Dragon, and in fact most games would be RPG’s, and they obviously aren’t. Bubsy 3D RPG anyone? No? Ya sure? Yeah I didn’t think so.   

The west has the exact opposite problem of under classifying it’s games as RPGs. While sure, you wouldn’t call Halo an RPG, unless you know, Master Chief was shooting an RPG, you absolutely should call Ratchet and Clank one. Think about it, your main playable characters all have HP, most of them have weapons that can level up, and the action setting of these games, basically should make Ratchet, a response to Level 5′s Dark Cloud series, which did all the same things for combat. However, it’s just seen as series of action games, despite it also being a lot like Borderlands. 

The point is, there are a lot of things that differ JRPG’s and WRPG’s from sales, to marketing, to style and so many other factors, I would run out of characters available to me, before I get through them all. There’s nothing wrong with these genre’s being different, but people classifying them as similar, could harm either since they don’t often jell that well together. So please, think before you compare, and for those rare RPG’s, where you can’t tell the difference, makes sure you find out where they were developed, because a lot of games you might think are JRPG’s, could in fact be Korean or Chinese. 

[nonnui]

Title: Myth Puzzles RPG | Empires and Puzzles (they're almost identical, even more than most games of the class, despite being made by different companies, and I will review them jointly)

Genre: Match 3 but make it combat

Intrusiveness: 1/5.  This is the garbage tier.  It wants your money real real bad.  Even though I was playing it in order to be paid in imaginary money in a different game, some of the goals it sets for sub-rewards are themselves purchases (though you can skip those).  When I start it it asks me for money three times before letting me take actions.

Generosity: 2/5.  You have to really bootstrap your way up to have enough production to upgrade your storage to hold your production to get anywhere.

Aesthetic: 3/5.  Some of the character and monster designs are kind of neat and the whole thing isn't terrible to look upon.

Writing: 1/5.  You just don't get the better quality of hack in this genre.  Fortunately, none of the writing is necessary and you can just poke past it.

Interface: 2/5.  Things on top of other things, have to individually collect all your resources, tutorial is unskippable and insists on holding your hand even though it's basically just like all others in its class.

Coherence: 3/5.  Most features of the game at least kind of feed into each other, but this whole genre just doesn't make a lot of sense.  You kill the monsters to get the loot to upgrade your stuff to improve your characters to kill the monsters, sure, but what does it all mean, man?

Gestalt Experience: 2/5.  It's ennui neatly collated and organized into colorful folders.  I could get sort of caught up in the treadmill of character improvement but there's not really any there, there.

This identical twin set of games bill themselves as RPGs but neither your role as the "lord" nor any of the heroes you send into battle have any character traits besides that directly implied by their design.  You make no meaningful choices, the story insofar as it can be dignified with that names is entirely pregenerated crap, there is less decisionmaking than Pokémon.  The word "Puzzles" appears in the title but it's kind of a stretch to call a five-color match three randomly generated minigame a "puzzle".  It does have the mildly amusing gameplay element that when you match tiles they zoom upward to attack your enemies, so it matters where on the board you make your matches.  Since tiles that miss increase your heroes' magic points this is engaging without being rage-inducingly frustrated on a series of bad draws, and the "campaign" game element revolving around sending these tiles to harm evil unicorns and shit is fine on a moment to moment level.

This game - and also their cousin, which is distinct enough that I will review it separately - use identical rock-paper-scissors categories (with different labels, but the same colors) to dictate the effectiveness of various elemental types.  There's green, blue, and red, each good against the following and weak against the preceding, and there's purple and yellow, good against each other and bad against themselves.  I don't know why they all do it this way.  Maybe all the different companies are actually the same company in disguise.  Or maybe there is a red company and a blue company and a green one and a purple one and a yellow one, locked in eternal battle, trying to accumulate enough hams to fling the disembodied heads of spare employees at their product manager until they have leveled up enough to ship a good game.

[stabletwooriginals]

CHAPTER THREE: Guidance

LittlePip wakes up to a brand new day. Which she never experienced before and we get some fun observations from her about.

I knew this was coming but I’m so relieved LittlePip finds one of Rarities dresses in perfect condition inside a locked chest.

The comment, that the dress is the prettiest and most cheerful thing she has seen since leaving is striking to me. She has had one terrible string of bad luck so far, but there are amazing things still waiting to be found.

Which is undercut somewhat by her discovery of the dead cats hung over where she slept. Absolutely terrifying. That doesn’t seem just for shock value, as it preoccupies our (and LittlePips) mind as she accidentally activates a land mine. Oops.

Watcher making his first appearing here, giving LittlePip life saving advice.

Raiders attack again. And we get LittlePips naive interpretation of grenades through a childhood memory of someone bullying her. This explains to us why she focuses on throwing the granade back next… killing her first pony.

We don’t get a lot of rumination on that yet though, as we get a scene break and LittlePip has managed to sneak out of Ponyville. What are these segmenting parts called, actually? Is it “Dinkus”? That’s a fantastic name.

The retelling of escaping Ponyville sounds like a stealth sequence in any video game, which I find amusing.

After a brief first encounter with a Bloatsprite - the mutated version of the Parasprites from the show - we reunite with Watcher and LittlePip get’s to have her first friendly conversation so far. (You might wanna count Velvet at the very beginning, but that’s up to you.)

“A friend.” I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, a passing acquaintance. But one that doesn’t mean any harm.”

This back-paddling is interesting. Why isn’t the “Friend or Foe” distinction enough here? My interpretation is that FoE takes friendship quite seriously. Since it is adopting “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, in which friendship is the key to change the course of history, just the word “friend” has a lot of worth and meaning that can’t just be thrown around lightly. We don’t know it yet but the core mechanics of MLP, namely friendship and the Elements of Harmony, are still intact in this story.

Finding my apple, I levitated it up. “Thank you. And thank you for the warning about that… thing in the ground.” “Mine.” I blinked. “Y-you want my apple?”

I just want this on here.

We get some info on the Bloatsprite - mainly it’s name and that it is the result of something called Taint. Which, uh– and Watcher’s name. He is not a Spritebot himself, but located somewhere else and just hacks into them to interact with remote places of the world.

Finally he gives vital advice any newbie RPG player can use: Find better gear, learn about the world and make some friends! What? Yes, there it is again. Friendship.

For guidance LittlePip returns to Ponyville. Watcher told her a copy of the Wasteland Survival Guide should still be at the Ponyville Library. Twilight’s home! (Remember, we’re sticking strictly to the first season.)

I was convinced The Wasteland Survival Guide was a reference to an older piece of post-apocalyptic fiction, but nope, it seems to come from the famous quest line in Fallout 3. At least, that is what dominates the search results when I try to google it.

Quite some time is also spend on the horrific decoration, namely desecrated ponies. Mutilated and in pieces, stuck to the walls and hung from the ceiling. These displays of gore are reminiscent of how Super Mutants tend to gather in places with such bloody decorations in Fallout 3. That game reduced the Mutants personality from a faction, as they were in the previous titles, to little more than orcs. Which is a shame, as they mostly exist as canon fodder now. And help us get over killing them, it shows us with lootable sacks of gore that they deserve it.

The raiders here get painted in the same light and fulfill a similar role. As clear bad guys and somewhat as cannon fodder. Their psychology never gets explored much beyond “the Wasteland drove them mad”. They often even have ridiculous cutie marks, implying they have been born into being raiders and that being cruel is their special talent. Which, besides painting the saddest existence, is a shame, since they clearly form groups among themselves, can talk just fine and are/were, by all accounts, just ponies like anyone else. Except, they’re not. They have gone insane, mind you. They live in their own shit and sleep under fresh, dripping intestines. Because they’ve gone mad, you see!

My point with all that is, that the excessive gore in this scene takes away from my immersion, as it raises questions with no answers, and raiders holding slaves and killing ponies (without putting their corpses on display), again, would be fine enough to convince me of their evilness.

Watcher was playing LittlePip a little, as he knew it was also where a couple slaves are kept in cages. One of them is implied to have been sexually assaulted, which - while still despicable - at least makes more sense for raiders to do than the gore fest described earlier.

LittlePip glancing over the bottle caps the first freed slave offers her without a second thought is a fun touch.

Then a fight breaks loose!

I hadn’t just killed a pony–these raiders had given up any right to the title! These were not ponies, they were sick monsters that needed to be put down!

Which implies choice. Something I can’t imagine, choosing to be a raider like this, but fine. I’m sure plenty of FoE side stories go more into detail with raiders, FoE itself seems mostly comfortable portraying them as orcs most of the time. Until it doesn’t. But we will cross that bridge when we get there.

I didn’t realize until that moment, but I was mad! The pure evil of this place had shaken me to the core… and my core was furious!

Regardless of my feelings towards the raiders, Littlepip’s reaction to them has always been inspirational to me. I know, it leads to… problems later on. But joining in with unbridled rage of LittlePip is cathartic in ways I haven’t yet seen replicated somewhere else.

(what do you know, they do shoot with their tongues!)

Figuring out how horses shoot firearms is… it’s own entire discourse I am not very interested in. But it’s fun to see what ideas FoE brought to the table. And it’s even more fun to see high quality concept art of tongue-triggered pistols for the Fallout: Equestria fan game Ashes of Equestria.

The fight is fun, with brisk and clear descriptions and punctuation of humor (“Shouldn't you ponies be smarter than this? You live in a library!”).

LittlePip gets shot but finds the Fluttershy branded medical box. Love that decision. Also our introduction to healing potions – they work like Stimpaks from Fallout, but are actually more believable because magic actually exists!

I was even more pathetic with melee weapons than I was with guns.

Love that RPG progression being set up here.

It was a zombiepony!

Don’t be mean to ghoul Ditzy Doo. Don’t ever be mean to ghoul Ditzy Doo.

I can’t really place the note about why someone might need binoculars in a library. I assume it’s a MLP reference but I’m lost on that one.

After another short lived meeting with mines the fight is over and LittlePip decides to loot the bodies for armor. The bloody, tattered armor. To be fair, it is the best armor she has come across so far and we do stuff like this in RPGs all the time.

She finds bottle caps again and chooses to ignore them this time. Great tease. Love it.

She finds and identifies radigator meat. I’m not sure she should know their name at this point, but whatever. The narrative framing allows it.

Lastly, she confronts the sniper that has been on the balcony of the library the entire time. Here we get a better glimpse at AngeryPip, surprising herself with her audible confidence and malice. It feels like a different character, but since this is portrayed as a extreme situation this seems more adrenaline fueled to me, rather than pathological.

Leaving the library, LittlePip has a combat shotgun, an assault rifle, a revolver (which gets lost in the next scene), a knife and now a sniper rifle. Impressive for this early in the story.

An alert flashed on my PipBuck. Checking it, I discovered that it had labeled the gazebo in front of me: The Macintosh War Memorial.

First, harrowing. Love it. Secondly, I love the inclusion of the gazebo, which has to be the one we can see in the show. It’s cool to see how many elements of the show actually made it in here. Pretty unobtrusively too.

The Memorial specifically names Big Macintosh and his sacrifice. It’s obviously unclear how much of the story was prepared in advance, but the way the war started 200 years ago must have been among that. We get to learn later what Big Mac’s role in the war was.

And we end with LittlePip picking up “The Wasteland Survival Guide. By Ditzy Doo…”

Level Up! New Perk: Bookworm. Kinda nice how we went to the library this time, got a book out of it, the quote at the beginning was “Books! I’ve read several on the subject.”… So, this one feels more than earned.

[script-a-world]

Got a question about building maps. There are always roads and streets that change, as well as buildings. How do I easily create maps of different times but easily seen on top of each other without it being confusing or all clogged up. The only way I think even,possible is handdrawing on trace paper so we can see underneath but it's still messy. How about when it's also important where sewer, telephone, electrical lines etc are located on a map? My maps are all muddled up.

Feral: So, for real, as I was reading your ask, I was like “oh, that’s easy: trace!” And then I got to the part where you said you tried trace, but it’s all muddled. And honestly? I’m still like “trace!” I work in the interior design industry, and I go for hand drafting and rendering as much as I possibly can.

I know some of my colleagues are going to have digital resources for you to try out (it’s all about layers!), but I’m going to walk you through how I would do this on trace (within the limits of what I would expect someone who doesn’t do this sort of thing professionally would have) in case that ends up being the best option for you.

Create a legend. Color coordination, thick lines, thin lines, dashed lines, dotted lines, squares, circles, triangles etc, etc. Have a sheet of paper to the side at all times while you’re working on your map to reference and add to as new symbols become needed. Think of the symbols you would normally see on a map - a train track is visually distinct from a street. Which exact symbols you’ll need to use will depend on where your map falls in the realistic to iconic representation spectrum.

Use graph paper for your base layer. Personally, I would use the base layer as the most modern version of the city you want to create, as this will probably be the largest map, and then the maps on trace will work backwards to the oldest version of the city, but do what makes sense in your mind. Orient your graph along the axes that make the most sense to you - most likely this will be cardinal directions with x as North-South and y as East-West. You will tape this down, and then tape the trace down over as needed. Once the graph paper is taped down, do not move it until you’ve finished all the maps! Unless you have a drafting table with a parallel bar or t-square (in which case you probably don’t need this lesson from me), moving the base layer could create differences in orientation of your lines on your tracing paper maps. If you don’t have drafting dots/strips/rolls available, masking tape will do; just give yourself a little more paper than you’ll need to fit the map on, so you can tear the tape off if necessary.

A bold border will be your friend. Outline a border on your graph paper, and every time you lay down a new sheet of trace, trace that border. This will ensure that you are lining up your maps every time. 

Use the right drawing implements. If you want to use pencil so that you can erase, (first of all, erasing on trace paper is not a fun time, but second of all) you have to find a pencil that is hard enough to not easily smear (H at the softest) but is soft enough to not tear through the trace and to create a line dark enough to read. 2H is my standard, but most “regular” pencils are HB (“B” means soft and “H” means hard, so an HB is the middle between a hard and a soft), so the yellow pencil or .07 mechanical pencil that you have is 2 steps softer than that and will not be a great option. Colored pencils, which usually require more than an accidental brush of the hand to smudge, also work great if you want to color-code. If you want to use pen, don’t use a gel, which stays wet too long, or anything that feathers and/or bleeds - a technical pen will be best; lower cost Staedler or Sakura Micron work fine. You also must, must, must have a straight edge! Even though you’ll be drawing over a grid, if you want neat lines, you gotta have at least one straight edge. Personally, if I could only have one, I would use my 30/60 triangle, but that might be an unnecessary expense for you, so… pretty much anything that is flat, hard, and straight can be used as a straight edge. A ruler without notch marks right on the edge will work, but personally, if I’m making light enough lines over graph paper, I’m usually fine using a plain piece of paper. I’ve been told even a credit card can be an option, but I would actually stay away from that because of the rounded corners - a sharp right corner will work better for you. 

Layers! So, clearly, each era would have it’s own map on trace, but I would also do things like the sewers, electrical lines, etc each on their own separate pieces of trace, possibly as overlays for each era depending on your needs. 

Labels! Label your layers! It’s that simple. What the time period is and whether it’s depicting the streets or the sewers or what have you. Use the same format every time (e.g. “1950s - Sewers” or “1560s - Streets”). Put your label outside the bold border you’re drawing on each sheet, and put it in the same place on each sheet - I would do it in the lower right-hand corner; to me, it’s the most obvious place to look while thumbing through pages for a native English speaker/reader.

Scale vs. Proportion. Most maps that you’ll get at AAA or wherever, will be “to scale.” If you want your maps to be to scale, that means you have to measure as you draw, and you have to know exactly the size of each street, building, etc that you will be including on your map. This will take a lot of research and a lot of time being very deliberate. Your other option is to focus on approximate proportion. The largest buildings are the largest on the map, and the narrowest streets are the thinnest on the map, without having to worry about exact size. Which you choose to do will be dependent on how realistic (scale) vs. iconic (proportion) the representation on your map will be.

Remember not to create more work for yourself than you need. Always keep in mind why you are creating these maps. What purpose will they serve? This is going to be directly reflected in how detailed you need to make your maps. Most worldbuilding applications I can think of do not need every street of a city for its entire existence mapped out in as realistic a representation as possible, and whenever we get asks that are about this level of detail on this large a scale, I get concerned that the worldbuilder is never going to be satisfied enough with their world-building to write their story or run their tabletop RPG or whatever it is you’re worldbuilding for - unless of course, this is worldbuilding for the sake of worldbuilding, which… go for it!

Wootzel: Feral has a fantastic breakdown on hand-drafting, but I would like to suggest some digital alternatives in case that ends up being more the route you’d like to go. If you haven’t used a digital art or design program before, they can feel overwhelming or impossible, and some of them have very high price tags. Never fear! There are options that are free and pretty simple, and it’s just a matter of finding one that works for you. 

If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend trying a program called Firealpaca. It’s free, has a nice set of tools but is still simple enough to pick up mostly by playing with it, and it has enough of a userbase for there to be easy-to-find tutorials around the internet. I actually don’t use it often as my favorite art program is a paid program, but I have had a lot of fun with it when I messed with it in the past. 

So, why is digital a good option for your project? The simple answer: Layers. Just like Feral’s breakdown on making different layers using tracing paper, digital layers will allow you to separate the different elements of your map and easily show/hide them as needed, edit one aspect at a time, and generally move/remove/manipulate them in relation to each other. You can put your electrical lines on a different layer from the sewer lines and turn them on and off at will, color them differently, and generally differentiate them from each other. You can use layer groups/folders to make your maps of different times stay separate from each other. And you can use little visual tricks to make them stand out--for example, using crisp lines on a modern map and using a brush with some jitter on your older map. 

Firealpaca also has some nice snap modes built in--basically like having a straightedge on the computer. Want to only draw on a grid for a while? Turn on the grid snapping, and suddenly the only directions you can draw are horizontal or vertical. There are similar, easily accessible modes for parallel lines, vanishing point, radial, etc. Almost all the digital art programs I have used also have a built in function to quickly make a straight line--hold shift while using a standard brush tool and click where you want the line to start and end. 

One final note--if you end up putting in a lot of time and effort into digital drawing programs, even if you aren’t freehanding much, having a basic tablet can make things so much easier and quicker. Drawing tablets have gotten very cheap in recent years, and for a purpose like this, you would do just fine with one of the tiny, basic ones.

[itsamemesamario]

The only program I’ve ever used that really felt like it was built by the users was Marvelous Designer. All the terms and parameters are labeled as if we are discussing real life fabric, real life sewing, real life pattern making - no physics terms to be seen. It was so easy for me to pick up as someone who knew how to sew already, as opposed to all the folks in my year who were fine doing pyro FX in Houdini, but couldn’t process the fact that the icon of a sewing machine meant “stitch”

Back on the topic of game design though, as an undiagnosed ADHD non programmer freshman, of the choices available to me, GameMaker was pretty accessible and the community was insanely helpful.

But later when I was teaching 10-15 yr old girls how to make a game, that was where Stencyl really shined. Now, is Stencyl programming? Yes, absolutely. But it was designed to teach 5 year olds how to program, and I gotta say it works pretty damn well. Every student in each of my 5 day classes had a working iOS and Android game by the end to show off on family day. So of the game design programs I’ve used - GameMaker, RPG Maker, Stencyl - I’d absolutely recommend Stencyl. It was built with five year olds in mind, which is why it’s easy to use. It’s literally if “explain it to me like I’m 5” was a program

"RPG Maker lets you create games without knowing how to program!" is both technically a true statement and a trap.

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good. 

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds  WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

[caubool]

hey there! would you mind doing an analysis of muse of heart? thanks :>

Yeah sure!

Although, aren’t muses and lords exclusively either time or space?

???

Who cares! I wanna talk about my own aspect already.

Okay so, we only have one Muse to go off of in canon and that’s Calliope. The issue here is while she’s a Muse she’s also a Cherub and is Morally Good, so it’s hard to tell which aspects of Space she’s applying as a Muse and which she’s applying as a Good character. What we do know as a fact is that the Muse is THE most passive class in the game, so much so that even if they were to DIE and be excluded ENTIRELY from the game as long as an alt self existed in some form nothing would change. Muses Do Not Act, they just don’t. They’re akin to most tutorial characters in RPGs, they’ll show you the way with their Aspect but otherwise don’t actually do anything afterwards. Even if they show up at the end of a game again-they still don’t do anything. What they DO do is set the stage for other characters, similar to a conductor. All the musicians could play the song together just fine and don’t really NEED a conductor, but having one is still expected and gives the audience a clue as to what’s going on. Thus why the Muse gets a baton, though again that could just be Callie, but I like the imagery.

The Heart aspect is all about identity, emotions, and personas. It is represented with romance (both platonic and not), mirrors, and souls. Calliope is also a helpful tip off for this Aspect as it’s one she explained in detail to Dirk when he asked. Heart is what makes up a Person. Not what they’re thinking, but how they feel and react. What parts of them build into their personality. Usually Heart players take their natural desire to comprehend the Person and turn it inward, fretting over themselves and how they can be perceived. They’re concerned with their own soul, often ascribing different names and labels to different parts of their personality. They tend to be storytellers, for example Nepeta’s roleplay and Dirk’s comics and books (parodies? edits? whatever the fuck that horse book was). To be a Heart player is to understand what makes up You. To find comfort in finally confronting the sides of yourself no one else seems to see and to take that awareness and apply it to others.

So a Muse of Heart would be the opposite to a Lord of Mind. They would be literally setting the stage for other characters. Once they’ve ascended and learned Themselves all the other characters in the narrative will be so clear it’s like they have the script to the universe in their hands. They can’t influence someone’s thoughts or opinions but they can push even a Page to taking up a call to arms with a very carefully orchestrated event, full of emotional weight and personalized incentive. The Muse would have total guidance over souls and could even serve as a Grimm Reaper type, finding those that have died and bringing them to safety. Forming an audience out of the dead that, under their careful direction, could be driven to fight once more despite being dead as the actions on stage rouse them to the call!

The Muse of Heart is a very difficult person to find a personality for, it might seem as if they don’t even have one. Since they can guide and direct the Persona of a person that could extend to themselves. Once they’ve found all the pieces of Them they can be a true neutral. Not mean, not kind. Not simple, not complex. Not for, not against. Just a Director pushing the actors on stage towards a satisfying ending.

[coldgaybitch]

Diagnosis

Chapter 1: A new label

Its been less then 24hrs since I received a phone call which kind of confirmed my thoughts that I might have BPD but hearing a medical professional saying it just kind of solidified it. 

At first I was beyond happy to receive a diagnosis, finally I had something that helped me explain to people why I sometimes acted the way I did. I never really found something that described my personality so accurately and put my thoughts into words. 

I had a lot of trouble with sleeping recently and quickly kinda fell asleep and when I woke, nerves and concern over what this now meant for me crept it. I wanted to have someone near me tell me what to do, give me some sort of instruction but many things stopped me. 

The person who would understand this the most (a fellow psychology student) was celebrating one of our mutual friends birthday in lockdown and I did not want to be selfish and interrupt with my messed up feelings and conflict on my friends birthday. 

Later I had a DND (dungeons and dragons) session with them and some others over discord due to social distancing many of them were in homes or with each other while I was kinda stuck alone in student accomadation. Just before the session was meant to start I started crying and wailing, I felt weak or overcome with emotion that I just did not know how to handle. It was like a volcano erupting. I kinda slapped myself together and joined the session and explained to the person running it (the DM) what had gone down and not to say anything. They were kind and understanding and said if I need a moment I could step away. Me being stubborn said I would be fine and carried on through the game. 

Once the session finished, I kinda pounced on my psychology friend and asked if I could talk to them. I needed their kinda motherly and psychology understanding brain to help me work through things. However, they were housing another friend through lockdown and they were on the couch with them when I asked and I could see them wondering if they should go or stay. I made the decision to let them stay, even though I did not know them that well, they kinda got my head. Understood things that others did not.

Anyway I describe that I got my diagnosis and that it was EUPD (emotional unstable personality disorder otherwise known as BPD). They both sat with me as I kinda hid behind jokes and sarcastic comments as I tried to hide how nervous and scared I was. 

Anyway they stay as long as possible but they had to go talk to an old friend that they had scheduled too talk to and I felt kinda calm enough to kinda not break down. The keyword being “kinda”.

SO they both send separate messages of support saying they don't view me and differently which kinda makes me feel weird. Like I’m glad because I have not changed, I just got a kinda got a new label added to me:

                                   Rhi - Nerd - Goth - Gay and now with BPD!

Though at the same time I was like but now you kinda are looking at me a new way or is that just my anxiety talking. enkvbdfvknvods (begin the war with my head over what others are actually thinking of me).

So now how to rip of the mental band aid and tell my other friends that I have a personality disorder. It was kinda like coming out all over again but this time for a mental thing (I hate the word disorder or illness that is used to classify BPD with other stuff - but that's a different kinda emotional rant...thing). 

Anyway I put it as bluntly as possible and my friends are all supportive, bloody soft bastards (okay so maybe I care for them but this is me and admitting emotions and feelings which make me feel weak and exposed to people so not going to tell them that). 

Next Chapter: Telling my father - Fun times ahead. 

So telling my dad went just how I thought it would go, he asked if I was joking and having a laugh and that its impossible for me to have it for how could I possible have BPD. I’m very much a textbook case. You know the examples you have beneath a word in the dictionary, I feel like my name and life was written under the description for BPD. 

Anyway he kinda says he wants to talk about it more face to face when we have the chance, but quickly changes the subject to when I will be coming home from Uni. 

So I have no idea, thinking the coming out to my dad went okay...maybe..kinda..urghh

Chapter 3: Random other events of the day

Anyway after all this I kinda go through a rollercoaster of emotions. I update my uni counsellor service with my diagnosis. I go to the giant Tesco right beneath my accomadation to grab snacks and food to stuff down on. I get my period (great just the thing I needed - thanks mother nature, always looking out for me  :l )

I join a friends new rpg server, which I nothing about and I go for a walk late a night and become a three year old child excited about a bat flying around this small wooded pathway which is not hidden away but always feels safe and private from everyone else to me. 

Chapter 4: Right now I am feeling and doing this..

Anyway now I’m sitting on my laptop blasting Spotify, reading gay korrasami fanfiction and hoping someone else reads this and kinda tell me I’m not to crazy for feeling all this. 

Very much also in need of a hug but will have to have to settle for virtual ones. 

Also the mother psychology friend one told me jump on tumblr because it would help...not sure how this will all go.

Anyway that's it for now. I have BPD

FUCK MY LIFE

[woo-san-shine]

Our Way

ateez college au 

Premise: You and your best friend from high school move away to a university 3 hours away from your small hometown. You find yourself meeting a strange cast of characters along the way that will help you find your way throughout your freshman year.    

Word Count: 2k (sorry) 

Warnings: slight language, but this is pretty tame 

Author’s Note: A work in progress!!! Mostly just for fun   

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Chapter 1

You thought this day was never going to come. You had been anxiously waiting for this day for the past four years. You could hardly believe that you had made it this far. Moving away to college is a big step in any young adult's life, and you were more than ready to take this next step with a running start.

It's not like you had a horrible high school experience or anything. I mean, yeah, there were times here and there that you'd rather not think about. But as you watched the bright August sunlight beam down over surrounding trees that lined the highway, you couldn't help but feel a slight thrill begin to rise in your chest.

"How much longer until we're there, Dad?"

"About 15 more minutes, Jae. Give or take the amount of traffic there is going to be once we actually get near the university. I'm sure it's going to be packed with everyone moving in today."

"It's all apart of the experience!" Mom chimed in. "Here, let's take another picture"

"Mom, really?" I say reluctantly as I lean my head forward amidst the many boxes that filled the entirety of the backseat of the car except for where I was sitting.

"I'm your mother, and you'll do this for me," she says between clenched teeth already formed into a wide smile. She holds up her arm high in front of her so she can get both me in the backseat and my dad in the driver's seat in the frame of her phone and snaps a picture.

"Did it take?"

"Yeah Mom," I say rolling my eyes. She was still adjusting to her new smartphone that Dad had upgraded her to for the sole purpose of being able to facetime me while I was at school. Dad and I exchange a quick glance in the rearview mirror and both suppress a laugh.

"Have you heard from Sooyoung?" Dad asks looking back at me in the rearview mirror again. "Are they going to get there around the same time we will?"

"I'll text her, hang on," I say pulling my phone from the waistband of my shorts.

Choi Sooyoung had been my best friend for almost eight years. We met when I transferred schools in the 4th grade. She came up to me when I was sitting alone at a lunch table on my first day and said "Hey, you're the new girl, do you want to hear about this new game I've been playing online?" She immediately sat down and told me every detail of this new RPG she had been playing nonstop for the remainder of the lunch period and hasn't stopped talking my ear off since. We found out we liked a lot of the same books, listened to the same emo pop-punk music that was honestly way too mature for our 4th-grade selves to be listening to, and vowed from that day onward to stay best friends. We joined the school band together, were on the same school sports teams, and spent almost every historic high school coming-of-age moment together. Throughout the years we did at times drift apart due to various reasons. Whether it be boyfriends, extracurriculars, or summer jobs. Eventually, we'd always find our way back to each other whenever we needed the other most.

So when senior year finally rolled around, we decided not to tell each other where we had applied to college in order to not influence the other's decision. As fate may have it, we ended up both applying to and getting into our top choice school, a school three hours away from our small hometown that was well-known for each of the programs we were interested in. Sooyoung had gotten a rather large scholarship through the school's Engineering program, and I had been admitted into the school's Arts programs with an intended degree in Graphic Design.  

"Are you sure you and Sooyoung are going to be okay this year?" Mom says swiveling around in her seat to look at me in the back. "High school is one thing, but living together is completely different. Are you sure you won't regret not branching out and rooming with someone else? Might have been a great opportunity to meet new people."

"Oh, I think they'll be fine, sweetpea," Dad says placing a comforting had on my mother's knee.

"Yeah," I say looking up from my phone. "I mean, we're going to have completely different class schedules so we'll rarely see each other unless we both happen to be in the dorm."

"I just hope you both do well this first year," she sighs.

"There will be other opportunities to meet new people and do well in school, mom," I say as I type out my message to Sooyoung.

An almost immediate response.

I relay this information to my parents, but before I can finish my mom squeals, "Look! There's the university sign, right there!"

I press my face against the car window and see the large, ornate gateway adorned with the university crest in the middle that welcomed you onto the school's main road. Various ‘Welcome Freshman!’ and ‘Check-In This Way!’ signs were guiding the line of cars that were beginning to pile up.

"Dunby Hall, right Jae?" Dad says scanning the signs for the correct residence hall while slowly inching the car forward as the line moves.

"Yeah, that's it," I say distractedly as I take in my new home. Being one of the largest universities in our country, I can barely take in the vastness of this new place through just the car window. Each building was unique, with both old and modern architecture seamlessly incorporated in-between tall trees and brick roads. We passed a large, almost pool-sized fountain in what I assumed to be the middle of the university. There were people everywhere. Students, parents, and people in bright red t-shirts with "move-in staff" written on the back.

"Well, it looks like this is it!" Dad says excitedly as he pulls the car up to a rather tall brick building with large windows on all sides.

"Wow, Jae!" Mom says looking back at me with a huge smile. "Why don't you hop out here while we find a place to park and get yourself registered."

I eagerly tumble out of the car, making sure no boxes come out with me, and make my way over to the check-in line. As I wait my turn, I can hear the excited chatting of students and parents waiting ahead of me and the squeaking wheels of the carts being used to carry new student's belongings up to their rooms.

"Hello first-year student!!!" an overly excited girl wearing one of those red shirts practically shouts at me as I approach the check-in table labeled with the letters ‘K - L’. "Welcome to Dunby Hall! Can I get your name please?"

"Kim Jaemin."

"Ahhh another Kim, what a surprise," she says, with a slight grimace as she begins to rifle through some foulders.

"Well, I mean you are at the 'K' table, can't be too much of a shock," I say before I can stop myself.

The girl stops her search and looks up at me. "Wow we got a funny one here today folks," she says. One of her eyes gives a slight twitch.

I give her a slightly apologetic smile. It must be tiring dealing with all these new students all day, and me being a smart-ass probably didn't help. Dad says I get my sense of humor from my Mom, which is probably why he has a full head of grey hair dealing with the both of us for all these years.

"Alrightly Jaemin," the girl says after a few more seconds of rifling. "Here is your room key, and a folder of all the information you need to know about living in Dunby Hall. You are on the 7th floor, room 71024. You can now start bringing all your belongings from your car and begin setting up your dorm. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask." She says all this very fast, hands me my things, and begins to usher me aside to help the next person in line.

I hurriedly make my way over to my parents who were both standing next to the opened trunk of our car. "7th floor!!! Let's get moving!" I say excitedly waving my new room key in the air.

"YAY JAE!" Mom exclaims bringing me in for a tight hug.

"Before we start celebrating we should find one of those carts. There's no way we can carry all these boxes ourselves," Dad says and he begins to scan the area for a cart.

After a few minutes of searching, we can't find a cart anywhere.

"They must all be in use, I guess," Mom says as we head back to the parked car.

"I mean, we could start making some trips with whatever we can carry," I say.

"It might take a while, but I guess that's all we can do," Dad says wiping the sweat off his brow. "Plus we need someone to stay here with the car until all your stuff is all out."

It was rather hot outside even though it was still early in the morning. I could probably lift at least one box at a time, maybe two. But with how much stuff I had managed to fit in this car it probably would take all day.

"Excuse me, but do you all need any help?" a voice asks from behind me.

I turn around, expecting to see another red-shirt-clad student worker eager to help, but instead, I am met by a boy with thick brown hair with big brown eyes looking at me.

I stare back at him, slightly dumbfounded.  He wasn't super tall, but he was built like a wrestler.  You could see the outlines of his arm and shoulder muscles through his black t-shirt.

"Oh my, would do that for us, honey?" my Mom cooed from over by the trunk of the car.  Ever so trusting was my mother as she stepped forward to get a better look at the stranger.

"And who might you be?" my Dad sternly asked, also stepping forward to stand intimidatingly next to me.

"I'm Jongho, sir," the boy said as he bowed to my Father.  "Choi Jongho, miss," he said again bowing to my Mother.  "I live in this dorm too, 7th floor.  I'm actually all moved in and was walking back down here to return my cart when I saw you all looking for one, so I figured I could give you this one," he said gesturing to the cart that I hadn't even noticed was next to him because I was too busy staring at his muscles.

"Awww he called me miss," my Mother whispered in my ear with before moving forward past me to address him.  "Well would you look at that, our Jae is on the 7th floor as well!  You'd be doing us a big favor, Jongho."

"I suppose if it's not too much trouble" my dad added, still giving Jungho the once over.

"Of course not, sir," Jongho replied.

"Well let's start loading the cart and go from there," Dad says, in full business mode.  Both Dad and Jongho start loading various boxes and bins from the trunk onto the cart while Mom and I grab items from the backseat we can carry ourselves.

"Seems like such a nice boy," Mom says just out of earshot of my Dad and Jongho.  "Not all boys would offer to help."

"Uh, yeah Mom I guess," I say grabbing the last item, my guitar case, from the car and slinging it over my shoulder.  I hadn't had many male friends back in high school.  That was more of Sooyoung's thing.  She usually got along better with guys, except for you of course.

"Well, that's all we can fit in the cart," Dad says crossing his arms.  There are still three boxes left in the trunk.  "I guess we'll have to make a second trip after all."

"Oh don't worry, I can carry those," Jongho says, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.  He quickly piles the three boxes onto the ground one on top of the other, squats down, and lifts them effortlessly.

"Wow," Dad says with a raise of an eyebrow.  "I guess, we're all set."  He closes the trunk and starts pushing the cart forward.

"Lead the way, you two!" Mom exclaims, pointing towards the dorm building with her free hand while giving Jongho and I a big smile.

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