#you're gonna learn today

[maximumeffort]

cheers to all who celebrate

[boxkeith]

Video Games I Played in September 2024

I had been doing these monthly writeups on Cohost but that website is dying at the end of the month and so despite being someone who never used tumblr ardently I stumble back here blind and bedraggled. Mostly these are a way for me to tell all my discord friends what games I've been playing so for that reason I'll likely keep doing them, but who knows.

Dungeons of Sundaria – For years I said that all I wanted out of a video game was Oblivion dungeons with a loot system and enough shit to do that I could play it for 100 hours. The finger on the monkey’s paw curled and spat this game out, which is “functional” but constantly trying to shit itself. Whether it’s the wonky collision, the incredibly low difficulty punctuated by severe difficulty spikes when bosses suddenly are able to one-shot you, the poor differentiation between abilities when all of them do damage, or the fact my lizardman takes up a solid third of my screen when all my attacks require accurately tracking my reticule on an enemy; the fun never stops.

Astro Bot – The PS5 finally has one game, and it’s the $60 sequel to a free tech demo that at best is a pretty okay version of Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It lacks the serendipity of the first game and is instead satisfied with merely being incredibly polished, but the endless references to the endless teams and series killed by Sony’s greed gives it the bittersweet tenor of a high school reunion held in a graveyard. There’s a real love for Sony’s past here, but nostalgia isn’t a future.

Megaloot – What a weird little dungeon crawler. I was sad when Backpack Hero failed to congeal after early access so I’ve been jonesing since then for an inventory management game that had enough mechanics to reward actual builds but enough flexibility to not just make raw burst damage the only strategy that matters. This very much isn’t that game, as raw burst damage is very much all that matters until floor 60 where after 700+ battles there’s an enemy immune for the first three turns who does a truckload of damage. It’s a pretty transparent sledgehammer to prevent endgame viability of a strategy that works 99% of the time on every other enemy, and while roguelikes are always filled with knowledge traps that constrain builds it’s always shitty when the early game doesn’t matter and the late game only allows for certain builds.

Akimbot – Ratchet and Jank is “from the Creator of Pumpkin Jack”, which was one of the video games of all time and which I mostly played because of a friend of a friend seemed to have fun with the speedrun, and I trust his word as gospel because he and I are two of the last supplicants in the church of Vexx. Akimbot is mostly noteworthy for having four unique, powerful, and interesting guns and then only letting you carry one at a time on top of locking it behind an energy bar that slowly fills from killing enemies, forcing you to do 90% of the combat with the shitty basic weapons. It’s a baffling decision but this game is almost on the level of amateur art given how most of those involved are new to making games and there are certainly rookie errors on display.

The Plucky Squire – I really thought Gestalt: Steam and Cinder was going to take the cake this year in terms of video games that had a full suite of functional components but were strikingly less than the sum of their parts, but The Plucky Squire absolutely blew it out of the water. The aesthetic is superb, with bright 2D art and incredibly realistic 3D sections. The conceit of a storybook character hopping between environs and genres is a slam dunk for trying out different artstyles, gameplay genres, and minigames. Being able to use the very words of the storybook as objects you can manipulate is a powerful and endlessly interesting conceit. It should be as simple as just doing the things competently and the game would be solid. And yet. AND YET. You’re unable to go a single screen without an overwrought cutscene that tutorializes the next section. Mechanics come and go at random, making the game feel disconnected and shallow rather than intricate or expansive. All money is good for is combat upgrades, but combat is brainless even by 2D Zelda standards and basic enemies died just as quickly with no upgrades as with all of them (and every boss is a puzzle boss where your damage doesn’t matter). I’ve played some absolute garbage to completion but I dropped this 2/3rds of the way through after seeing the game run out of steam almost immediately.

Crypt Custodian – Speaking of taking some cliché parts but executing well, Crypt Custodian is a perfectly reasonable game that I enjoyed a reasonable amount. As far as isometric metroidvanias go it’s worse than Death’s Door and as far as its artstyle it’s not as charming as Islets or 8Doors, but the game’s fine. If you’re the sort of person who spends $20 and 10 hours to pass the time in a pleasant fashion you could do far worse.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom – What an absolute breath of fresh air. After the Link’s Awakening remake was fairly rote (and reinforced why I never liked the game much as it’s overall a regression from A Link to the Past), I was worried all they’d do with the engine was remake the Oracle games and move on. I still abhor the tilt shifting with its blurry edges and poor visual clarity, but the amount of chicanery this game lets you get up to makes me forgive it. Stack a bunch of trampolines on each other and bounce around. Throw a spider at a wall then attach to it to be lifted up like a conveyor belt as it climbs. Summon a darknut then possess an enemy so they stand gormlessly still while being hacked to death. One of the best parts of Spirit Tracks was Zelda being a spunky troublemaker who was down to cause problems, and if that’s a personality trait that she continues to retain when she’s allowed to have one then I’m wholly on board. Bring back Midna.

[zanzanryu]

Shorts - Stanky Leg (Zan Evolution Butouden)

[tleeaves]

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to embrace a new hobby in dance so I can be active and feel elegant and graceful and strong. This wolf wants to try something new and exciting, finally indulging in something I've always had an interest in.

The other experiences such frustrating emotions on a near daily basis that I want to go back to boxing, which is arguably easier to break into since I've already done it before. This wolf doesn't think of elegance, she just wants to fuck shit up until her body's so overworked and warm it fogs up car windows without having to do anything but sit inside.

Which one do I fucking feed??

[direwombat]

listen. i'm always happy whenever someone leaves a comment because they enjoy my writing. whether it's a quick "love it!" or a longer dissection of whatever they've read, it warms my heart that they took the time out of their day, however brief, to let me know that they liked my work. i don't consider myself entitled to receive comments for posting my work, which makes every single one i get a gift!

but comments like these (particularly ones that come from profiles that haven't posted fic and are aggregates of bookmarks*) really do leave a bad taste in my mouth:

so, let me spell some things out for anyone who may be unaware:

I don't write for you.

I write for myself.

I am writing fic for free in the little spare time i have.

You are not entitled to my (or anyone else's) work

i haven't posted fic to ao3 since literally january of this year. i also wish i were posting fic more frequently, trust me. the only thing worse than writing is not writing. but asking "where's the rest????" and "part 2????" only activates my spite response to not post. you'll get updates to fics when you get updates. writing fanfiction is a hobby for me. i do it for fun. but i also take my craft (writing) very seriously. i want to write a good, compelling story and i take great care in the writing process. it's laborious to begin with, and on top of that, i am a meticulous planner. it takes me much longer to write a fic than it does for you to read it -- yes, even for the short ones and smutfics!

it's the famous "pick two: high quality, cheap, and fast", and unfortunately for all of us, if you want my "not bad"-writing and have it also remain free, then you're gonna have to be patient.

*i'm not saying that this is an incorrect way to use ao3. if you're using ao3 as a place to keep track of the fics you like, that's a valid way to use the site, and not what i'm mad about. it's the entitlement.

[thelovers-thedreamers-and-me]

the downside to being a sitcom neighbour sort of person is that when rough things happen and emotionally fuck u up a lil bit, it also sounds completely made up

[coriander-candlesticks]

I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate religious practice into my life & trying to get over the fear of being...annoying? If that's the right word? It feels a little like tugging on the gods' sleeves when I make more than one offering a day to them even though I know I'm not, like, being rude by *checks notes* giving them things or dedicating time/activities to them. Today I made a dessert in preparation for tomorrow's Pathfinder game and dedicated that time spent baking to Hestia and Aphrodite, and it was really nice! I feel like I'm starting to find my footing despite my worries. I'm also trying to make sure I take time where I'm not thinking about religion at all so that I don't start to ruminate/spiral. It's happened a few times already to varying degrees and it's! Not fun!

It's possible it's hindsight/confirmation bias, but I do think the vibes of my tarot deck changed when I started reaching out to the Greek deities. It makes sense: I was using my deck to reach out to a completely different deity/deities before I started exploring Hellenic polytheism. And it's definitely not in a bad way, just more energetic and...light? When before it was heavier (in a comforting way). I've gotten consistently coherent pulls, too, which is nice.

I've been trying to remember to pour a libation to Hermes at certain street corners when I'm out & about, but I have to make a game plan for when other people are also in the area, even if it's just psyching myself up so I don't look awkward while I do it. I have a pendant that I keep in front of his altar/shrine jar that I try to remember to take with me when I travel, and it's been cool having something in my pocket that's consistently reminding me of him because I check so often to make sure it's still there. There were some...issues with my commute on Monday (a true comedy of errors on the city's part) but the change in routine was a *lot* easier to handle in the morning. Of course, the unusually cool temperature helped, but I do accredit the smooth transition to Hermes because I wasn't stressed at *all* for the vast majority of my commute when I usually would have been wiped from the mental/sensory strain of having to pivot & kinda just hope I guessed right on what to do next. The commute home was a nightmare but I didn't have a whole-ass work day ahead of me after that so the stress didn't matter as much (and I was able to get through the last bus ride & walk from the stop which I wasn't sure I'd have the mental fortitude for).

I'm almost done with the statue of Hermes I've been working on, and I finished a set of alphabet oracle "stones" (squares made from air dry clay...would that technically be closer to potsherds?) tonight. I'll share a picture of them once I finish their bag- I have some leftover green cotton yarn from a recent project that I think will go well with them. We'll see how well they hold up, though I'm not planning on doing the "shake them until one falls out" method so hopefully they'll last a while. I worked on them in the living room this evening, instead of in my room. I'm getting more comfortable showing little elements of what I've been exploring to my housemates; it was nice to be able to sit & paint & listen to the iliad while my friend did his own thing next to me on the couch.

I'm still trying to figure out how to gauge each housemates' potential reactions. It'll probably be fine: friend 1 actively has an altar-esque space and uses tarot cards and a pendulum and friend 2 is friend 1's wife. I'm a bit worried about friend 3 being weird about it, at least at first, but considering he was experimenting with witchcraft-esque things a few years ago (I distinctly remember charms & him discussing which of the wheel of the year days he wanted to observe) I think I'm overthinking things. He's an atheist & his view of witchcraft was, at the very least, *similar* to the psych model, which I think is where the hesitation has been coming from on my end. I have therapy this weekend so I think I'll start bringing things up then. The office my therapist is in openly advertises all sorts of alt/witchcraft things so I think I'll be safe there lol

[teenagefeeling]

"social skills are something you can work on learning and it will help with social anxiety!" this is true, but are you saying it because you want to help or are you saying it to shame people? because not everyone is gonna always have amazing social skills, even people who don't normally struggle have bad days. holding people to such a high standard and expecting everyone to be able to be at 100% all the time not only isn't fair, but imo isn't a healthy mindset because you're also putting that pressure on yourself.

yes, social skills can be learned. but for a lot of us, they're really hard to learn and even harder to put into practice. sometimes when someone has poor social skills it's not just because they don't know any better, there are other factors at play making things more difficult. i think we should all learn to be a little more patient with each other and get comfortable with the idea that different people might have different methods of communication, and sometimes you're gonna have to be the one who adjusts for someone else (whether that involves learning stronger social skills or being patient with someone who isn't there yet)

communication is hard to get right, and it's impossible for anyone to get it right all the time. it's okay if you stutter while speaking or can't ask for ketchup at a restaurant or whatever. it's okay. you will get there with practice. not being able to do it overnight is okay. it's a long process to get comfortable with these things. not everyone is always going to be patient with you, but that's their problem, not yours. be proud of yourself for the small victories and don't let demanding assholes online convince you that you aren't good enough as you are.

[widevibratobitch]

nothing sad but i need to bitch and im tired and need to frow up

[iceeericeee]

I wonder how many tags i can add on to this

[chipped-chimera]

The feminine urge to commit carnage.

[radioactive-earthshine]

I swear I am not a Jason blog I just had a moment of weakness for Jayeddie. 😭

[circular-bircular]

pls stop doing syscourse i promise if you don't have that much screentime it isn't something you care about anymore

Sure thing, I'll listen to an anon rather than the advice of my therapist ("this sounds like a healthy way to get out some of your passions"), my fiance ("yeah, i would never suggest you go cold turkey, you love this"), and my friends (all of whom have remarked how they enjoy our discussions).

stop letting the actions of people on the internet worry you so much. you are not my caretaker.

[ame-to-ame]

i can't sing a love song really makes me. ugh. i really like Kita!!! I'm just like her fr 😭😭😭

[the-acid-pear]

One of the most beautiful things Deltarune story has is the fact that you cannot remove its tragedy, because it's thru that very same that hope and love is born. You cannot change the past but you can take what you learnt and thru it build a brighter future.

[sherlock-is-ace]

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