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girlsbtrs · 3 years

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How Being a Woman in Hardcore Helped Me Learn to Love Myself

Written by Jen Moglia. Graphic by Laura Cross.

Since this is my first piece written for Girls Behind the Rock Show, I figured that I should introduce myself; hi, my name is Jennifer, but most people call me Jen. I live on Long Island in New York, and my favorite things include my cats, the color pink, giving gifts to my Animal Crossing villagers, and watching sports. Above all else, however, I love music.

I frequently refer to music as the love of my life. It somehow plays a role in everything that I do. I got my first iPod when I was five years old, stacked with everything from Miranda Cosgrove and Avril Lavigne to Tool and Deftones. Some of my favorite memories growing up are sitting in my pink and purple bedroom singing and dancing along to Paramore’s crushcrushcrush and Fall Out Boy’s Thnks Fr Th Mmrs on the local alternative radio station. I danced for 12 years, played cello for seven, and am currently a wannabe ukulele rockstar after buying one on impulse and starting to teach myself how to play four years ago. Even on the simplest, barely noticeable levels, music has been everywhere in my life for as long as I can remember; even now, I can’t complete a basic task without a song playing in my headphones.

Music became an even bigger part of my life when I started attending live shows. I went to my first concerts at age 10, seeing my two favorite artists - Nickelodeon boy band Big Time Rush and classic progressive rock band Rush - within one month of each other. By the time I was 15, I had been to my fair share of arena/seated shows with one or both of my parents, from Fifth Harmony to Fitz and the Tantrums to Alice in Chains. My first general admission show was seeing the Foo Fighters at Citi Field with both my mom and dad when I was 12, but my first pop-punk general admission show (yes, they’re different) came a few years later. I had the typical list of favorite bands that you would expect from a young teenager getting into alternative music: Neck Deep, Knuckle Puck, Real Friends, and State Champs.

In late 2018, I was able to see all four of these bands for the first time, and I am a firm believer that it changed the course of my life. I met, cried-during, and eventually got the setlist for Neck Deep at Stereo Garden on Long Island in September. I sang all of “Untitled” at the barricade for Knuckle Puck at SI Hall at the Fairgrounds in Syracuse in October. I had my first minor concussion scare (yay!) before Real Friends’ set at Irving Plaza in New York City in November. Finally, I crowd surfed for the first time during State Champs’ anniversary show for The Finer Things at House of Independents in Asbury Park in December. After just a few shows, I had fallen in love with this new brand of live music that I had just been introduced too. There was something so magical to me about skin covered in sweat and Sharpie marks, feet hurting from dancing in the pit all night, and meeting strangers on line outside the venue who would become your best friends and know your deepest secrets by the end of the night.

After making some friends at all of the pop-punk shows I was going to, they started to tell me that I should get into hardcore music. I was hesitant at first - the heaviest thing I had listened to at that point was nowhere near the snippets of hardcore that my friends had played for me - but, eventually, I decided to give it a chance. I was bored and home alone with nothing to do one night over the summer of 2019 when I listened to my first hardcore album, Laugh Tracks by Knocked Loose. Immediately, I got that gut feeling that you have when you know you’ve heard one of your favorite bands for the first time. I knew that this was something special that I was meant to find at this point in my life. For the rest of the summer, I worked my way through the rest of my friends’ hardcore and hardcore-adjacent recommendations, with Cost of Living by Incendiary, Stage Four by Touche Amore, You’re Not You Anymore by Counterparts, Time & Space by Turnstile, Springtime and Blind by Fiddlehead, Smile! Aren’t You Happy by Absence of Mine, Bad to my World by Backtrack, and Reality Approaches by Harms Way being some of my favorites. By the time the next school year started, I was hooked, and I already had tickets to my first few hardcore shows in the fall.

My first hardcore show was in November 2019, seeing Knocked Loose at Webster Hall in New York City - fitting, right? They were on tour supporting their new record A Different Shade of Blue, which I had become obsessed with the minute I heard it for the first time. Although I was ridiculously scared of getting stepped on and breaking all my bones (yes, that was an actual fear of mine), I had the time of my life at that show. There was something about this newer kind of live music that prompted a cathartic release, one that I hadn’t found anywhere else before. As soon as the show was over, I was counting the days until my next one.

My love for live hardcore music (and live music and hardcore music in general) has only grown since then, and that story sort of ends there. However, I want to go back to that first hardcore band that I listened to, Knocked Loose, and the album they put out that first summer that stole my heart. I was taken by storm as soon as the first notes of A Different Shade of Blue rang through my headphones, but something was different about the third track, A Serpent’s Touch, particularly the ending; I heard a voice that sounded a little bit more like my own.

This song features Emma Boster, who does vocals for one of my favorite hardcore bands right now, Dying Wish. When I heard A Serpent’s Touch for the first time, though, I had no idea who she was. I was used to the aggressive vocal delivery of frontmen in hardcore, particularly that of Knocked Loose’s Bryan Garris, but hearing it come from her changed my perspective on a lot of things. It’s not like the song was super angry and changed its tune to be lighter once the token girl came along; in her verse, Boster sings, “I watched the venom / Overcome your spirit / Jealousy holds you now / Distorting your appearance / Bleed out.” These were lyrics that held the same intensity that the lines screamed by the men held, and they sounded just as cool coming out of her mouth. As cheesy as it sounds, it had never even occurred to me that women had a place in this new world that I had discovered. The audiences in the live videos I watched (and eventually at the shows I attended) were made up of mostly men who looked bigger and older than me. When I did start going to shows, most of the non-man population consisted of my friends and I. Emma Boster, along with so many others, began to open my eyes to the fact that a place for people like me existed in this community. It didn’t matter that I had bright red hair or liked butterflies or wore pink - I was just as much a part of this magic as the men multiple feet taller than me with tattoo-covered arms, and I belonged there just as much as they did.

As time went on and I got more involved in the genre’s music and community, I discovered more bands with women in them, and it only fueled this fire of empowerment inside of me. When I felt insecure, I’d watch live sets from Krimewatch, a hardcore band from New York City, just half an hour away from my hometown. They have multiple women as members, including their energetic badass of a vocalist, Rhylli Ogiura. Year of the Knife became one of my all-time favorites, and their bassist Madison Watkins became a serious inspiration to me; the way that she can balance killing it on stage and running the cutest, most pink apparel brand I’ve ever seen (aptly titled Candy Corpse) amazes me. Even some of the bands I’ve found more recently have had an impact on me. I started listening to Initiate last year when their EP Lavender came out, and their beautifully colorful cover art caught my eye before I had heard any of their songs. Their vocalist, Crystal Pak, is also a woman, and she’s insanely talented. Discovering this kind of representation in this new universe that I had come to feel so at home in introduced me to a world of confidence and determination that I had never known before.

When people ask me why I love hardcore so much, I often give the easy answer; “the music sounds good.” If the person allows me to ramble on for a little longer, the answer becomes much more emotional and cheesy. Hardcore taught me that speaking up for what I believe in is important, and if there’s something I’m passionate about, it’s worth shouting about. I became familiar with this when listening to one of my favorite bands ever, Incendiary (the second hardcore band I ever checked out), before quickly realizing that politics are a pretty common topic within the genre - it’s what this music was practically built on. The first time I heard their vocalist Brendan Garrone singing about police brutality and injustice on songs like Force of Neglect and Sell Your Cause, I realized that there is so much more to music than just sounding good.

However, at its core, the thing I love so much about hardcore is what it taught me about being a woman. Growing up, I was the loud girl with the personality bigger than the room who always had something to say and had a never ending supply of excitement about just about everything. As I got older, I was taught that this was not okay. People didn’t like how enthusiastic I was about everything, or that I constantly had new ideas and new discoveries I wanted to talk about. As cliche as it sounds, I felt like everyone around me was trying to dull my sparkle, especially some of the men that I was encountering on a day-to-day basis. Even when I started to come to terms with my big and bright personality, in turn also coming to terms with my own femininity, I was told that this wasn’t how girls acted. I had to pick one - I could watch Disney princess movies and wear Hello Kitty hair clips, or I could be outspoken about my beliefs; but never both. The women that I mentioned earlier, along with so, so many more, helped me unlearn these toxic mindsets. Seeing someone like Emma Boster take the stage and scream ferociously for a full set helped me see that I could be a girl and still be a powerhouse. Following Madi Watkins around on social media showed me that I could love bands like Year of the Knife and also love heart-shaped purses and wear pink from head to toe. My aggression and passion didn’t make me any less of a woman, and my femininity didn’t make me any less of a force to be reckoned with.

So, at the end of this love letter to hardcore and the women who run it, I say this; thank you for teaching me that I don’t have to shrink myself anymore. It has made a world of a difference.

#jennifer moglia

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intothewickedwood · 3 years

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Once Upon A Time Rewatch: 5x22 Only You

Does that mean Storybrooke’s magic is gone now that Rumple has tethered it to the crystal?

Well, I guess he can’t have taken all of it or Regina wouldn’t have been able to teleport etc.

Henry’s relationship with magic is like a freaking rollercoaster. At first, he thinks it’s the best thing in the world, then he hates it so much he wants to destroy it, then it’s the best thing in the world, then he tries to destroy it, then it’s the best thing in the world! But that’s kids for you, I guess! I’m sure I was like that and still can be. Come to think of it, would putting dynamite in the well in season 2 have destroyed magic?

Is that needle that’s put dozens of people under a sleeping curse the same one Maleficent used on Aurora?

Henry’s literally so powerful. I wish he could use his author powers more.

How is taking the crystal out of SB gonna destroy magic in SB?

Oh, so Rumple tethered the magic but didn’t technically absorb it from the town, so they can still use it.

Why can’t Regina text Henry to say that destroying magic would destroy SB? 

Guess they can go over the town line now, for the first time in like forever. But I guess Emma & Regina & Henry could already cross the threshold, possibly Violet too as she didn’t come over with the first curse. And then the others are brought to New York by a portal. 

Oh! So that’s why they can use magic in the lwom? Because Henry brought the crystal aka all the magic of Storybrooke there.

Aww. Henry and Violet are cute. I just wouldn’t recommend reading the Henry and Violet book if you appreciate their relationship in the show.

Oh, thank God. Zelena does promise to bring baby Robin to visit her brother Roland! I need them to have known each other growing up! I bet they’re really close. And Roland is just as sweet as ever and has to stop his sister being reckless. The Hufflepuff to her Slytherin (+ Gryffindor tendencies), if you will. And I need fics where Roland doesn’t grow up to be vengeful and angry. Once a Hufflepuff cupcake, always a Hufflepuff cupcake.

Did Regina agree to Roland going back to Sherwood Forest? I’m surprised she didn’t adopt him. It must have been the Merry Men’s decision because no way would they take orders from Zelena. 

Aww! Roly kissing his baby sis!! I’m gonna miss you Roly!! Literally the most adorable kid! Aww and Granny kisses him on the head too! I die!!

Look at his little mittens!!

I’m guessing he doesn’t know she killed his mama but maybe he knows that she posed as her and in a strange way enjoyed his time with her? I mean, I guess you can say that as Marian Zelena did, at least, take care of Roland and bond with him. Maybe she always wanted to be a mother? Still doesn’t excuse her killing Marian and posing as her. Just trying to make sense of this hug. Maybe Roland is just super forgiving! And you can say it’s cause he’s a child but let me tell you, I was so much less willing to forgive really terrible things as a child than I am now. 

Omg. They all fell so hard through that portal! Ow!

Emma’s genuinely worried Regina’s gonna put a sleeping curse on her.

Baelfire was trying to destroy magic in New York?

Ron used sellotape to try to fix his wand, so why not?

Omg Davis Bloom, love of my life! Well, it’s Hyde but this guy loves to play literal monsters! Listen, before Once Upon a Time, Smallville was my hardcore special interest show. I rewatched it so many times since I was 9! Anyway, Chloe was my favourite character and I’d always been a Chloe x Clark shipper and then Davis came along and Chlavis became my otp. He loved her so much! He gave her the love and attention she deserved! Yes it was messed up but that’s what 12-year-old me was and is here for! My mum and I were so excited when we found out the actor was gonna be in Ouat! I loved Davis to bits and ngl, was highly attracted to him (as was my mama), so excuse me as I continue to be thirsty over Hyde.

Back to the rewatch!

Hyde strangling people is my jam lol.

Snow, my girl, you really can’t keep a secret. She darn told Hyde about the Dark One’s love being pregnant! Oh well, love her anyway. And also, she was 10.

I’ll never forget, I once cut my eye and it legit looked like one of Hyde’s but scarier. It was so frightening to look at and really uncomfortable, but it healed eventually. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. But it looks cool and sexy on Hyde xD. 

Is that the same book Tilly finds at Henry’s place in 7x14?

Regina: “like with Hook, my first impulse was to rip his throat out.” Jesus Regina! You’re saying that to the woman who just went to the Underworld for Hook and thought she’d lost him forever. He’s someone she loves. That’s intense! As someone who’s been told by a loved one, threateningly, that they are (completely seriously) going to violently kill another loved one, several times, that is so not cool. Luckily no one was killed though, it’s okay. 

I recently read a really interesting meta about Regina’s motivation for redemption being intellectual. Like she says here, she doesn’t want to do good. She hates doing good but she knows that villainous acts won’t get her her happy ending and so she reasons that in order for things to go less awful for her, she must to good. She doesn’t do it because of empathy, guilt or regret, she does it because she figures it’s what the heroes are doing and things are going right for them and because if she goes back to her evil ways she knows she’ll lose Henry and her new and only support network. I think the same can be said for Zelena’s motivations to do good. No shade, just an analysis.

Well at least she’s using the word “I” to express that she did those things. But, she seems more concerned about those things hanging over her than for what she did to her victims and how they felt and suffered.  She even seems more upset at the fact that she has lost a love again than the fact that Robin lost his life and his kids have lost their father.

Hmm. Interesting. She seems to suggest here that before she didn’t know the difference between good and evil. You know what, that could be true because she didn’t really get why people called her the ‘Evil Queen’ and then there’s the fact she was raised by Cora and Henry Sr. Cora probably warped her perception of good and evil and her father positively reinforced a lot of the evil Regina did and didn’t explain to her why the things Cora did and the lessons she taught were wrong.

Why are all those stories in the library? That makes no sense. 

There’s a problem. If the grail is the origin of all magic and Merlin found it around 1500 years before the present (apparently Merlin was a runaway slave too. Of course he flipping was!), how comes Gothel and Seraphina had magic thousands of years ago? I mean, I suppose they were from another land (that Gothel killed almost all the inhabitants of), so I guess people just don’t know magic didn’t originate from the grail. I mean, since the God’s had magic before the grail, and nymphs possibly have relations to gods, I suppose it makes sense that Gothel had magic but then, what about Seraphina? How does she have magic and how did she live so long? Did Gothel cast a spell on her that made her practically immortal or was she already immortal?

Well, that was easy for Rumple lol.

Transforming looks really painful.

The thing is. They shouldn’t have separated Jekyll from Hyde. I think it would have been cooler if they hadn’t. Sure, they can make Jekyll the true villain but why not have the heroes try to save Jekyll as Hyde thwarts their plans at every turn to the point where they have to agonize over hurting Jekyll to defeat Hyde. The same can be said for Regina. Don’t split them up! Just have Regina transform into the Evil Queen so you can’t tell when she’s Regina and when she’s the EQ working on her evil plan. That would’ve been really fun to watch and to try to figure out which persona she was and when! Also, they should have just made Jekyll transform when emotionally compromised rather than when taking the potion because without an assistant Jekyll could have easily lived without Hyde ever returning. 

I hate the look of that wand.

Hydes theme sounds so awesome!

Also, it would have been really cool to explore the Land of Untold Stories. It looks so rad!

How can Hyde summon the portal? Don’t you have to have enough dark magic?! I guess maybe his strength and durability are enhanced by dark magic?

Rumple, I don’t think Belle can here you in that box.

Can I marry Hyde now? I want to marry Hyde. 

#ouat #once upon a time #henry mills #ouat hyde #ouat rewatch #ouat rewatch 2019

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 4 years

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How To Get Into DnD in 10-ish Easy-ish Steps

Cates here. I just wanted to add my thoughts about joining or starting a DnD game for the first time, as someone who’s been there, done that, and still can’t calculate Rogue Sneak Attack damage to save her life. It can definitely be intimidating entering the world of DnD, but for me the best thing about DnD is running around with a group of people who would literally take a sword in the gut for you. Find a supportive and welcoming group (or start one!) and you’ll be fine.

(Note the “easy-ish” modifier in the title. If you’re a hardcore DnDer who thinks that 5e is a travesty and we all should have stuck to 3.5e, or if you’re the kind of person who gets annoyed about DnD suddenly being “mainstream” and “popular”…chances are some of what I’m about to say will make your eyeballs twitch.)

1. Use other media as a way into understanding DnD. My absolute number one recommendation would be to see or read the play She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen. Not only is it a beautiful send-up to nerd culture in general and DnD in particular but because the main character is playing DnD for the first time, it actually provides a decent overview of the mechanics of the game. Another entry point is, of course, Stranger Things—the first season in particular establishes a pretty solid picture of what playing DnD is like.

2. From there, find a podcast, YouTube channel, or similar where a group plays DnD, and watch to get a sense of how things work. Film Reroll is fun but that’s GURPS, a different system than DnD. The Adventure Zone is another good one. By far the most popular is Critical Role. I personally don’t care for Critical Role (put away your torches and stink bombs, please,) but it seems to work for other people.

3. Purchase (or check out from your local library,) the DnD Player’s Guide, 5th Edition. (The most current edition.)

4. Now that you have a sense of how DnD works, find a game. Bug mentioned some good avenues, like comments sections on Podcasts. To that I’d add check out Reddit subs, Facebook groups, and your local game store if you’re lucky enough to have one. Most game stores have resources for finding parties or even host games at the stores themselves.

5. Another option: get together a group of friends, form a party, and stumble your way through one of the early level adventures. If no one wants to DM, do what my second party* does and rotate DMs. We each take turns running an adventure, and while each of us does so our character is off on another quest/on vacation/bringing goblin corpses back to life/etc. Ideally, you’ll have at least one person in the group who has some experience with DnD, but if you don’t…so what? The internet is an endless bounty of information. Some of it is even accurate!

*As opposed to the one I’m in with Bug where I’m the permanent DM.

6. Figure out what you want from a game of DnD. Are you there for the complicated character backstories? Does the complex system(s) of magic fascinate you? Do you want to be like Legolas from LotR, or like River from Firefly, or like the Incredible Hulk? This will help you get a sense of the kind of character you’d like to play. Some people will wildly disagree with me, but here’s my rough-and-tumble ten second mini guide to figuring out your class as a first time player.

Want to be the smooth talker, the one who gets info from the local bartender? Be a bard, or a rogue who leans into Charisma instead of Dexterity.

Want to be really useful/involved in combat situations? Be a barbarian.

Want to use magic? Be a cleric. Your team will thank you. If you want a more “hardcore” magic class, go with sorcerer over warlock or wizard.

Want to come up with unusual solutions to specific problems? Be a druid.

Want to be sneaky? Be a rogue or a ranger.

Want to be some combination of the above/figure it out as you go? Be a fighter. Fighters get overlooked as a class because they seem so generic, but that’s actually the advantage of playing one. It’s so broad you can pretty much do whatever you want with it, taking on just about any of the roles I listed above.

7. Keep in mind that to set your party up for success you’re going to want at least one of each of the following: a healer, a magic user, a ranged (long-distance) fighter, a tank, and a talker. Now, this doesn’t mean you need a party of five, because one character can take on multiple roles. For instance, in the game where I DM, mine and Bug’s brother plays a character who is the party’s main talker and their main magic user. We also have a healer who can be a tank when needed. Basically I just wouldn’t recommend that you have a party consisting of a wizard, a sorcerer, and a warlock, or a fighter, a barbarian, and a monk. Cover different areas of expertise and you’ll have a happy and harmonious party that actually stands a chance of surviving their first combat.

8. Resist the urge to use unusual races or classes for your first game. Trust me when I say that you’ll have so many other things you need to work out, sorting through a class or race that isn’t clearly outlined in 5e is a headache you don’t need. More to the point, it’s a headache that your DM doesn’t need. The amount of work that goes into figuring out how to give an unusual class or race a good combat experience (ie, one that doesn’t kill them and one where they don’t kill all the enemies with a snap of their fingers) is a ton of work…and that’s only one aspect. If you really want to be unique, look at the subclasses and subraces. There are some delightfully strange varieties in there.

9. Similarly, for the love of the Ellimist make sure everyone is clear on the goal of your standard game of DnD: you are a party of adventurers. For the game to work, you need to, for whatever reason, work together. Keeping a whole bunch of secrets from your party, excessively lying to your party, and going against the party’s goals are all ways to make the game waaaaaaayyyyyy less fun for everyone involved. This doesn’t mean that you have to be an open book, but keep in mind that is a COLLABORATIVE, not COMPETITIVE, game. Save the trickery and theft and all for the monsters your party will fight. For instance, in my first game I played a gnome who was disguising himself as a woman because he was on the run from a sorcerer who’d kept him enslaved. He lied about his gender and his name and was vague about his backstory, but he didn’t tell any lies that were aimed at getting a leg up on his party members. Eventually as they bonded he came to trust them and revealed his past, and the party helped him disguise himself as an elderly dwarf so they could take down the sorcerer (it made sense in context : ). Tl;dr: work with your party, not against them.

a. For all my “well, but in my party…” friends, if your game features a bunch of cutthroats all trying to assassinate each other, or if your character was secretly planning on murdering another player’s character for Reasons, that’s fine. All I’m saying is don’t do it in your first game, or you’ll never get off the ground.

10. Within reason, ignore the minutiae. Don’t worry too much about money, food, or how much weight you’re carrying. (At this point I’m assuming some of my hardcore DnDers’ eyes are popping out of their heads.) Again, note that I said within reason: this doesn’t mean that you can take whatever kind of weapon or armor that you want, and you shouldn’t have a never-ending supply of arrows, nor should you be able to purchase that super rare artifact. But if you focus too much on this stuff, you’ll have a hard time getting anyone (yourself included) invested in the game. If this sort of hyper realism appeals to you, add it in after a few sessions. But give yourself a break at the start and don’t roleplay every afternoon tea.

Remember, a good DnD game is a game that you enjoy playing. A good DnD party is one in which the characters AND the players respect each other. Don’t metaphorically or literally split the party, and you’ll be fine.

#dnd #asks #answers #there ain't no party like a dnd party #dungeons and dragons #d&d #rpg #tabletop games #dnd 5e #nothing to do with animorphs #text post #beta takes the box

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dndaddyissues · 5 years

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im new to DMing, and while i seem to have gotten the hang of most things well, im super confused when it comes to running battles (especially when theyre my own monsters) how do i balance a battle? how do i tell how many enemies/how much health per enemy = fair for certain amounts of players? is there a chart or resource somewhere you know of, or is it all intuition? (bonus question: how long should normal and boss encounters last irl time wise?) thanks so much!

thanks for sending me this question! this answer is particularly huge… you have been warned.

as usual, here’s the tl;dr:

- for an easy to moderate challenge, have the same (or fewer) number of enemies as there are players;

- for an advanced challenge, outnumber the players;

- lower your enemies’ AC to something that your players can hit 60-70% of the time;

- in exchange, buff your enemies’ HP;

- feel free to fudge hit points whenever you want;

- utilize the “minions” mechanic from 4th edition;

- for boss battles, introduce special bonus actions, reactions, and villain actions;

- combat usually lasts 3-4 rounds: plan accordingly;

- ask yourself: why is this combat happening? what narrative/dramatic and character stakes can i introduce?;

- and have fun!

i want to preface my answer by saying that i don’t enjoy easy combat – unless played for laughs/comedy, or used to foreshadow something plotwise (like a goblin scout’s death alerting the goblin horde at large), i hardly ever throw an easy combat encounter at my party.

so, the following advice is given with challenging the players in mind – either moderately, immensely, or impossibly. i guess i’m just a big sucker for jim murphy/matt colville-style DO OR DIE challenges. otherwise, what’s the point?

another preface: this answer is given in the spirit of avoiding the “slog” – the combat encounter where it feels like baddies and PCs are just stepping up to the plate, whacking at each other, and stepping back down. that’s boring. and boring combat is the worst. sometimes it’s unavoidable – we all have our off days, nothing wrong about that – but the less that it happens, the more fun that everyone has! right?

now, on to the answer itself!

first of all, i’ve already written an answer to an ask a little while back about combat that might be useful to you. click here to read about how to make more action-oriented monsters, especially for boss battles and random encounters that you want to feel significant and deadly.

second of all, here’s the 5e CR encounter calculator i used to use all the time. it’s extremely intuitive and has toggles for number of players, level of players, monster CR/EXP, and how difficult encounters would be rated (easy, medium, hard, deadly).

third of all, i never use that calculator anymore.

over the course of the 2.5 years i’ve spent DMing 5th edition, there are three main things i’ve learned that can drastically increase, or decrease, the difficulty of a combat encounter. they are: # of baddies, armor class, and # of hit points.

regarding # of baddies. due to how the action economy in 5e plays out, the more creatures there are on either side of a combat, the bigger the advantage that side has. it’s just kind of how it works. so, an easy way to bump up the difficulty: throw more monsters at the players than there are players.

the one soft exception is boss battles. personally, i fucking LOVE having just ONE, super badass, super hard to kill, hardcore boss that the party gets to face down during crucial turning points in the campaign. it makes me feel like i’m running fucking Dracula in Netflix’s Castlevania against some lovable and deadly dumbasses. it’s great. it’s fun. it’s thrilling. to make bosses as challenging (and therefore rewarding) as possible, i highly recommend reading the ask i linked earlier in this reply. (click here for the link again.)

now, i say it’s a soft exception because i like giving my bosses minions. i basically utilize the 4th edition (i think?) “minion” mechanic where the AC, bonus to hit, and damage of all minion creatures are the same as regular versions of the creature. the only difference is, they have 1 HP.

this can give the PCs the awesome feeling of wading through waves and waves of minions – say, dozens of zombies, as an evil lich cackles upon their raised stone dais 80 feet away. i don’t utilize this too often because then it can feel tiring to the party. but done sparingly, and with narrative stakes, it can be quite thrilling! (that maxim is also true for basically any kind of combat encounter in D&D.)

regarding armor class. obviously, the higher the armor class, the harder the challenge. if you can’t hit the damn thing obviously you can’t kill it. i personally like to pitch the AC of my enemies a liiittle bit lower, to increase my PCs’ probability of hitting. the exact number of the armor class will depend on your players’ level.

as a super general guide for players at level 3, 10-13 is easy, 14-15 is moderate, 16-17 is challenging (heavily favoring 17), and 18+ is very challenging/almost impossible.

just so you know, i generally set my enemies’ ACs for a level 3 party to be 13 for less important creatures, and 14 for more important creatures. i’d probably set the AC to be 15 or 16 for a mini-boss, and 16 or 17 (if i’m feeling cruel lol) for a boss.

obviously, this scales as your party levels up, finds magical items, and gains special features and boons. i would scale the difficulty by 1 when they hit level 4 and get an ability score improvement, and then by 1 every 2 levels or so.

in other words, at level 4, i’d consider an AC of 11-14 to be easy, 15-16 as moderate, 17-18 as challenging (heavily favoring 18), and 19+ as very challenging/almost impossible. and by the time your party is levels 12-16, AC can often feel like it doesn’t freaking matter anymore because they’ll be able to hit, like, fucking everything. anyway.

there’s some nitty gritty mathematics about this if you like to get granular. this is a good video about dice math, armor class, and calculating advantage mathematically if that sort of thing interests you.

regarding # of hit points. honestly, i fudge this most times. because i like to scale my AC on the lower end, in exchange, i make my creatures fucking FAT. like, i’ll look at their stat block in the monster manual, and add 30-50% to what they already have. sometimes i’ll straight up double or even triple it.

for example, the spectator normally has 39 hit points, but i gave my spectator ~100, because it was a miniboss. i did, however, keep its armor class at 14 because that meant my players, at 3rd level, would be able to hit it 60-70% of the time. this strategy of mine tends to work out, because my players are usually able to dish out a LOT of damage per round. (we have a barb, a fighter, and a warlock in the party lol.)

something i did in the spectator fight, that i wish i didn’t do, was stay faithful to the number of hit points it had. the barbarian ended up killing it with a rather anticlimactic attack. i know for certain that my warlock, which was next in the initiative order, had this SUPER cool and character-relevant attack planned. what i would do differently, is keep the spectator alive just long enough for my warlock to do their cool fucking move, and have that move kill the monster.

and now for the big takeaway. combat, for me, is all about giving my players a chance to shine, be badass, utilize their class abilities, and be creative. just like any other aspect of d&d, such as roleplaying and exploration, combat is an exercise in collaborative storytelling (for me, at least).

i rarely introduce combat that doesn’t tie into an A plot, a B plot, or a side quest that the PCs are chasing. i don’t have anything against random encounters – in fact, i ran some RE’s in the second-most recent session – but what makes combat fun for me as a DM is the fact that it advances story, and potentially deepens the players’ understanding of their character.

so, before you throw your players into a combat situation, ask yourself: why? how can i make this narratively dramatic – and not just a slogfest?

bonus answer: most combat encounters will struggle to last beyond three, maybe four, rounds. especially if there are an equal or fewer baddies to the player characters. however, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. in fact, if combat went on for five, six, seven rounds, it can begin to feel like… well.. a slog.

so make the most out of your three, four rounds, and make each combat encounter unique! how about an environmental challenge? slippery ground, swinging axes, pools of lava, a sudden earthquake, a portcullis dividing the party, water filling the room.

or roleplay/plot-related challenges? maybe there’s a circle of mages attempting to summon a demon that are protected by enchanted suits of armor that the PCs need to hack through. maybe there are hostages. maybe there’s a powerful magical artifact that the baddies and PCs both want, and the challenge in the combat lies in who can most deftly and efficiently maneuver through the clockwork maze protecting the raised dais the item resides upon.

#ask #reply #dnd ideas #dm tips #combat ideas

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hyrule-in-a-pokeball · 5 years

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After having played the game, here are my thoughts on Sword and Shield. (SPOILERS)

RIVALS You’re stuck with yet another annoyingly happy friendly rival, though he does experience some character growth and becomes the most challenging of your three rivals. Bede and Marnie, while both better rivals characteristically, one a jerk who pulls a Vegeta and literally refers to himself as a “Super Elite” at one point, and the other how a friendly rival should be done, “I don’t hate you, but we’re rivals, not friends, and I’m gonna keep coming at you till I win” kind of deal, are sadly both are made easy by the fact that they’re mono-type users. Bede Psychic and Marnie Dark. VILLAIN TEAM Team Yell amounts to nothing. They are exactly as advertised. A bunch of hardcore Marnie fans from Marnie’s home town. Its Team Skull without the conspiracy. Chairman Rose’s, (The actual villain) plan makes no sense. He wants to awaken Eternatus, which causes Pokemon across the region to spontaneously dynamax, causing untold damage to the region and its people. He wants to do this because it will somehow solve an energy crisis Galar is not currently facing and won’t face for another 1000 years. How this works is never explained. His battle theme was awesome tho, it straight up sounded like something out of Final Fantasy. At times it felt like they were trying to comment on global warming. “Taking action today to solve a problem tomorrow”, but it framed it as a bad thing.

DIFFICULTY These games are more difficult than X/Y, but slightly less difficult than US/UM The gym leaders are finally free of their “3 Pokemon with only 3 moves” thing that plagued Kalos, but they’re not exactly “wall” difficult. There is no Whitney. They’re not rocking type-coverage moves or anything.

Hop is the only trainer to present you with any real challenge throughout the game, mainly because he changes his team up every now n then, even adding a surprise Snorlax out of nowhere.

I personally didn’t have any trouble taking down Leon, but I’ve seen him nearly wipe some people so idk. Regardless, his battle was really hype because he’s built up throughout the game as being unbeatable. He’s not a total pushover, but he’s probably the weakest champion to date.

MISSING MOVES You’re not going to miss any of the removed moves and not as many have been removed as that list that was floating around was claiming. GameFreak trimmed the fat.

QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE META GAME As far as breeding, raising Pokemon, etc for competitive goes? this is hands down the best Pokemon game to date. If you’re playing Pokemon solely for the meta game and you’re not hung up on some Pokemon being gone, then this is going to be the best Pokemon game in your eyes.

Mints let you change a Pokemon’s nature.

Ability capsule is only 50 BP now.

Egg moves don’t require breeding to be learned

Dittos with good IVs can be easily obtained in a specific raid den (I have two 4 IV dittos just chilling)

Move reminder/deleter is one NPC located in every Pokemon center and his services are free. (He’s also the name rater)

IV checker is a feature of the PC after you complete 6 battles in the battle tower in post game. thanks to the remote PC item thing, the PC is accessible from anywhere so you can check IVs where ever and when ever you want

Eggs seem to take less time to hatch now. That, or the wild area is just weird, because thats where I do all my egg hatching.

Hyper training is still a thing, with bottle caps you can boost a level 100 Pokemon’s IVs Getting your Pokemon to level 100 is easy because the game throws rare candies and EXP candies at you. Very easy to amass a bunch. You can also choose to feed as many as possible to the Pokemon at once, so no more one at a time crap.

Speaking of “No more one at a time crap”, you can now max out a Pokemon’s EVs with vitamins, where as in the past you could only use 10 of a vitamin max. It takes 26 to max out an EV. Expensive, but fast. Vitamins can be purchased for their usual price, or bought at battle tower for 2 BP each

PRESENTATION While the story wasn’t great, the presentation was. When they did a cutscene, they DID a cutscene. However this made the fact that there’s no voice acting very jarring. There are points in this game that legitimately feel like they were supposed to have voice acting. Maybe in the next one.

THE MISSING POKEMON I’ll be 100% real here. I didn’t miss them (and some of the Pokemon I use frequently didn’t make it in) And honestly, it shakes up the meta game. Meta game was getting stale for a while now. I just used different Pokemon and honestly found some new favorites because of it.

MUSIC The music in this game is great. Not every song is a banger, but a lot of them are. All the major battle themes are absolutely fantastic. Sadly you’ll have to wait until post-game to hear the battle theme Toby Fox contributed. Or you can just go to youtube.

THE WILD AREA The wild area is a pretty good chunk of land, but at the same time I hoped it would be bigger. After you beat the Pokemon league, the Pokemon in the wild area all scale up to a minimum level of 60, with some of the raid dens having level 70 Pokemon

MAX RAID BATTLES Surprisingly fun, though the game will give you the absolute most brain dead NPC teammates if you play offline. You have 10 turns to take down the kaiju mon, BUT if it KO’s pokemon on your team 4 times, the raid ends. The “Playing raid battles with NPCs” experience can be summed up like this. “Oh the Pokemon’s barrier only needs 1 more hit to break and that hit will also result in us winning? And the Pokemon only needs to get one more KO to make us fail the raid? And everyone is on low HP and will surely get KO’d in the next attack? Lemme just... Rock polish real quick...” The game doesn’t take type advantage into account when setting you up with NPCs for raids so sometimes you’ll go into a raid against a fire type and the NPCs will all have things that are weak to fire, or just not good against fire. So for the love of god, play raids online with real people if its a high level raid

The game is a solid 7/10 9/10 if you’re in it just for the meta game

#Pokemon #Pokemon sword #Pokemon shield #Pokemon sword and shield

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hermitologist · 4 years

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My 20 Favorite Records of 2019

Lists! Everyone loves them. Here’s another one.

These are the records I liked the most this year. That doesn’t mean they’re the *best*, that means I liked them. You might not. That’s fine! You might be livid that Porpoise Corpse’s neo-classical folk prog double LP isn’t on my list because it’s an easy top 5 record for you, but maybe electric mandolin solos, blast beats, and harpsichord runs aren’t my thing. That’s fine too! It’s infinitely cooler and far more productive to let people enjoy the art they enjoy rather than wasting precious minutes of your life trying to convince the entire internet to have the exact same taste in music.

That said ...

This years list is chock full of the usual, if you’re familiar with my taste at all -- tons of super heavy bummer jams, a handful of Radiohead-adjacent mid-tempo rock of the indie or emo variety, some hearty post-rock, some tried-and-true vets doing the thing they do very well ... again, and a few outliers. The honorable mentions list gets considerably more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds less like a soundtrack to various stages of the apocalypse.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so PLEASE help me out.

Also: When I am not being a lazy pile of crap, I try to haul my dadbod around town for a run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record in the process. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram.

BONUS: I put together a playlist on Spotify of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, and a separate one for the 51 other records I liked this year, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just needle drop a little and see if anything grabs you. And if anyone’s feeling productive and has time to do an Apple Music playlist, I’ll link and credit you.

Top 20 Spotify Playlist

Top 20 Apple Music Playlist -- Thanks, Austin!

Other Faves Spotify Playlist

But before we get to the Top 20, a couple of records that deserve a nod ...

Record I Listened To The Most In 2019 Whether I Wanted To Or Not

Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff

This is my four-year-old son’s favorite record, and while I’m trying to round out his musical palate by throwing on all sorts of different bands while we’re hanging out, he insists on either “no music” or “The Basketball Song” (which is “Big Ass Love”). I have no idea how or why his little amazingly weird brain equates the song with basketball (a sport he doesn’t really play or watch or think about ever, to my knowledge), but it does. He LOVES IT. I’ve got to admit, I didn't care for the song all that much when I first heard it, but it’s an earworm, and some 3000 plays later, I love it, and I love the record. Funny how that works out.

Record That Came out in 2009, But I Didn’t Discover Until 2019

Self-Evident - Endings

Endings was neck-and-neck with my favorite record of 2019 for spins this year. Coincidentally, the it was recommended by someone from the band who made my #1 record, and it has moments where it sounds a whole hell of a lot like my #1 record. Blows my mind that a band that was/is so incredibly in my wheelhouse sonically, that has released nine LPs over an 18 year career, and operates in circles incredibly close to a ton of bands I love and respect and nerd out about music with somehow managed to elude me for the better part of two decades. At any rate I’m incredibly stoked to have finally found them, absolutely love them, and honestly might’ve listened to this LP 20 times in a matter of a few days when I got my first taste. It’s that good.

And now for the list ...

20) Remote Viewing - It’s Better This Way

Super nasty, dark, sludgy, well-crafted noise rock out of London that fits somewhere in between KEN Mode and early-Kowloon Walled City sonically. You’d think it was pretty crazy to have a band be so locked in and fully formed as early as LP2, but then you find out they’re ex-members of Palehorse, Million Dead, and I Want You Dead and it all kinda makes sense. Unfortunately, the song on the playlist is from a previous LP (because the new one is inexplicably not on Spotify), but you can and should get the new record on Bandcamp.

19) From Indian Lakes - Dimly Lit

I’ve been a big fan of FIL for years, but have always been at a bit of a loss when it comes time to describe them. It’s hazy and dreamy, but not quite shoegazey ... it’s insanely infectious and pleasing to the ear, but not really poppy ... it’s forward-thinking and experimental, but not quite art-rock or groggy at all. It’s just excellent. Full stop. If you dig anything from Tycho, to Radiohead, to The Cure, to Slowdive you’ll enjoy this.

18) Stray From The Path - Internal Atomics

Furious, mathy, riff-heavy hardcore from Long Island that sounds like a reformed Rage Against The Machine had spent the past two decades doing steroids, mainlining Red Bull, and studying the finer points of Moshology. The breakdowns are massive, the drumming absolutely mental, and the vocals pissed as hell. At my advanced age, it’s rare that a record makes me want to pit and/or try to deadlift cars, but this one’s got that magic.

17) Glassing - Spotted Horse

Mostly spazzy, occasionally dreamy, black-metal sprinkled post-hardcore that fits in very well with bands like Portrayal Of Guilt and Respire in the rebirth of traditional screamo. It’s fits and starts of chaos and beauty, and it all sounds and feels like it could completely go off the rails at any time which is what made bands like Orchid and Majority Rule and Saetia so great back in the day.

16) La Dispute - Panorama

It’s no secret that I’m a big La Dispute fan (Thrice has toured the US with them twice in the past decade), and I love all of their records, but I’m pretty sure I can say with full confidence that this is the best record they’ve ever made. Everything is firing at peak performance, and the way the record is arranged and sequenced makes it feel more like a film score than a collection of songs. It’s a complete work -- meant to be listened to as such, which is a daunting artistic task, but they pulled it off in grand fashion.

15) Russian Circles - Blood Year

This band has been in the upper echelon of post-rock bands for as long as I can remember, and Blood Year is another incredible addition to their already stellar discography. These guys are all absolute monsters at their given instruments, and one of the best live rock bands on the planet, so getting to hear them do their thing on a record that manages to actually capture that live energy and ambience really does the trick for me.

14) Greet Death - New Hell

This one kinda came outta nowhere for me, as I (ashamedly) was not familiar with them prior to giving New Hell a spin. It blew me away. I’m a total sucker for bummer jams, and this record is full of top-quality sludgy, sad, shoegazey goodness. If you dig Cloakroom, O’ Brother, or Pianos Become The Teeth this is gonna be right up your alley.

13) Sleep Token - Sundowning

Another record that came out of nowhere to knock me on my ass. I downloaded it before a transatlantic flight on a whim (after hearing about 30 seconds of the opening track), hoping that it would be a nice, mellow companion to ease my in-flight anxiety. And it was, but whoa was it so much more than that. It kinda sounds like a collab between Active Child and Deftones -- poppy, melancholic piano ballads, brought to crushing crescendos via super heavy drop-tuned sludge -- which sounds like a mess, but it works so well. It’s a killer record and probably would’ve landed higher on this year’s list if it hadn’t come out so late in the year.

12) Big Thief - UFOF

This one’s a bit of an outlier, and a damn good one at that. I came across UFOF via a friend’s recommendation before the hype train had left the station, and honestly didn’t know what to expect. Said recommendation simply said that it was good and infectious and probably a few other things that I can’t recall, but didn’t mention the folk thing (which is great because I probably would have passed). The friend was right. It’s good (maybe even great), incredibly infectious, and gave me a nice reprieve from the heavy stuff I tend to listen to on the regular.

11) Cave In - Final Transmission

I’m beyond thankful we got any new music from Cave In after Caleb passed. They owed us nothing, and had every right to walk away, but managed to rally to release a killer record that is heavy both sonically and conceptually, and still manages to give me chills despite being live demos recorded in a rehearsal room. There are few bands on the planet who’ve inspired me like Cave In have, and seeing them pull together to grieve and forge ahead to continue to build their legacy is even more inspiring. What a band.

10) Pedro The Lion - Phoenix

My favorite singer/songwriter of my generation decided to revive the project that made me a fan of his in the first place. That project put out a record for the first time in 15 years, and I had unreasonably high expectations for it. Phoenix delivered and then some. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, weeping into my cup of coffee the first time I heard Phoenix, the same way Control used to make it seem like the inside of the Thrice van was getting a little dusty during cross-country drives back in the early 00s. It blows my mind that David Bazan can be such a prolific artist, write such insanely powerful music, and seem incapable of writing a dud song.

9) Coilguns - Watchwinders

This Swiss noise-rock band kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. Their Millenials LP made my favorites list last year, and when I heard they had a follow up coming out a little over a year later, my gut reaction was to worry they’d blow it with a new record that was either rushed and/or half-assed, or lose the plot and take a hard left turn and make something markedly un-Coilguns. They did neither. The made an absolute monster of an album, that was apparently written in the studio, and is full of live energy in rawness that is pretty tough to capture in a sterile atmosphere like a studio. Watchwinders dropped in late October, and if I’d had a bit more time with it, I could see it moving up to my Top 5. It’s that good. I find myself going back to it constantly.

8) Blessed - Salt

This record kinda defies description, but it reminds me of everything from Pile to Menomena to Interpol to La Dispute to Devo at times. As scatterbrained and incongruent as that might sound, I assure you it rules. It was in verrrry heavy rotation this year -- mostly for the utterly filthy drum groove on the final track. If you like your music catchy, but slathered in weird, this is definitely gonna do the thing for you. It’s an incredible record.

7) Herod - Sombre Dessein

I hadn’t heard of this band before they popped up on a Spotify playlist early this year, and when “Reckoning” hit, it absolutely flattened me. You know that nuclear apocalypse scene from Terminator 2? That’s what “Reckoning” did to me. It was undoubtedly my favorite ultra-heavy track of the year, and while it’s my favorite song on the record by a pretty large margin, the rest of Sombre Dessein kicks ass too. It’s 42 minutes of crushing heaviness that kinda sounds like a blend of Cult Of Luna, Meshuggah, and Gojira. Heavy. Pissed. Unrelenting. And Outstanding.

6) Pile - Green & Grey

Every time I try to describe Pile to someone I fail. On Wikipedia they’re described as “indie rock”, which ... sure, I suppose? There’s a little post-punk in there, a little post-rock, a little noise-rock, nods to classic rock (maybe?), a little of that southern magic that made Colour Revolt so great (but Pile’s from Boston so hmm ... ), some country even? Do you like weird guitars? Freakish musicians? Melancholic crooning? I dunno. It’s all over the place, but in the best ways possible. They’re a singular band, and so damn good. Green & Grey is stellar addition to a discography that is already full of incredible music ... even if the album cover gives makes me want to fold those blankets and put them away.

5) PUP - Morbid Stuff

Was this the year that PUP broke? Definitely seems like it, and rightfully so. Morbid Stuff is my favorite thing they’ve ever done, but I’ve absolutely loved everything they’ve ever put out, so that’s saying a lot. Per usual, it’s insanely infectious and anthemic without being traditionally poppy or relying on tropes to burrow into your skull and take up residence there. It’s uplifting musically, but kinda depressing lyrically, which does this weird push/pull thing in my brain that makes it impossible to stop listening to. The musicianship is fantastic, the guitar parts especially -- like the guitar line in “Scorpion Hill” wow. I really needed a record to fill the gaping void between the metal/sludge/noise and the ambient/downtempo electronica I listened to this year, and Morbid Stuff fit the bill perfectly.

4) Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

These guys belong on the Mount Rushmore of Post-Rock/Metal with Neurosis and Isis. Nobody has done it better than them over the past two decades, and A Dawn To Fear is arguably their best work to date. It, like any Cult Of Luna requires a great deal of patience, but man if they don’t make the wait worth it. They’re the masters of the slow build to an absolutely crushing climax, the dynamic shifts that leave you feeling like you got hit by a freight train, the nuanced instrumentation that tells a different story each time you listen to a certain section of a song. They’re absolute masters at their craft, and this record is them at their peak.

3) Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them

Another record that came out of nowhere to completely floor me. I hadn’t heard a single note from this band until a friend recommended I check out the opening track, “Muted Shifting Of Space”. I did ... and that plodding drum and bass pulse with dark, swirling, ethereal guitar swells/feedback and soaring vocals building into a huge release of sludgy, drop-tuned goodness checked off all the boxes for me. I was hooked. The atmosphere and dynamics Big|Brave have built their sound around give every song a cinematic feel -- if you close your eyes, can you see drone footage of landscapes too? . If you dig post-rock/metal that is experimental around the edges, moody, absurdly heavy, and has both feet firmly planted in sludge, this is a must-have record.

2) Cloudkicker - Unending

If you’ve been following me on social media or reading these year-end lists for a while you’re probably pretty familiar with Cloudkicker by now because any time we get new music I can’t shut up about it and the record invariably ends up on this list. This instance is no different. Unending is the first LP we’ve gotten from Ben Sharp in four years, and it’s worth the wait and then some. He’s managed to pull from every era of CK and turn it into a masterpiece mash-up of styles without it ever feeling rehashed or uninspired. I’d go far as to say this tops Beacons and Fade for me, and comes awfully close to challenging Subsume for my favorite Cloudkicker record of all time and space. There’s soooo much progressive and djenty masturbatory metal garbage floating in the ether right now. Hearing the one of the kings do the damn thing properly is incredibly refreshing.

1) Town Portal - Of Violence

No surprise here. I’ve been crapping my pants about this band ever since my good friend Scott Evans shared their music with me a couple years ago. I’ve been unhealthily obsessed ever since. The magical progressive rock/metal these three guys are capable melts and massages my brain in a way few bands ever have. Of Violence is incredibly mathy without ever feeling awkward, it’s melodic without being conventional, it’s discordant without being abrasive, it’s heavy as shit without being overloaded with distortion, it’s progressive as hell without ever coming remotely close to devolving into a wankfest, and it’s damn near perfect in every way. Songwriting? Great. Tones? Phenomenal. Musicianship? Otherworldly. Execution? Flawless. Mix? Perfect. Replayability? (Not a word, but ... ) PUT THIS RECORD ON A GODDAMN LOOP AND NEVER TURN IT OFF. Can you tell I like it? You might too, so give it a listen. And if by chance you do not like it, please see a doctor. You’re broken.

OTHER STUFF I REALLY ENJOYED THIS YEAR

HEAVY JAMS

METZ - Automat

Buildings - Negative Sound

Helms Alee - Noctiluca

Minors - Abject Bodies

Periphery - Periphery 4: HAIL STAN

Employed To Serve - Eternal Forward Motion

Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocero

Defeater - S/T

Pelican - Nighttime Stories

Spotlights - Love And Decay

Great Falls - A Sense of Rest

Baroness - Gold & Grey

The End of the Ocean - -aire

Vous Autres - Champ du Sang

Brutus - Nest

Torche - Admission

Glose - The Second Best of Glose

Throes - In The Hands of an Angry God

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

meth. - Mother of Red Light

SECT - Blood of the Beasts

Kublai Khan TX - Absolute

Seizures - Reverie of the Revolving Diamond

Dead Kiwis - Systematic Home Run

Norma Jean - All Hail

Refused - War Music

Chamber - Ripping / Pulling / Tearing

MIDRANGE JAMS

Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

Elbow - Giants of All Sizes

Raketkanon - RKTKN #3

Bad Religion - Age of Unreason

The Appleseed Cast - The Fleeting Light of Impermanence

DIIV - Deceiver

Idiot Pilot - Blue Blood

Microwave - Death Is A Warm Blanket

Low Dose - S/T

SWMRS - Berkeley’s On Fire

Self-Evident - Lost Inside The Machinery

B. Hamilton - Nothing and Nowhere

MELLOW JAMS

Trade Wind - Certain Freedoms

Square Peg Round Hole - Branches

Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

Local Natives - Violet Street

Rhone - Leaving State

Shlohmo - The End

Tycho - Weather

Bon Iver - i,i

Drowse - Light Mirror

Bonniesongs - Energetic Mind

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough

GoGo Penguin - Ocean In A Drop

Bent Knee - You Know What They Mean

THE PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (RIP) - sports, culture

Chapo Trap House - politics

The Rich Roll Podcast - health, wellness, endurance sports

Hang Up & Listen - sports

Effectively Wild - baseball

The Gist - current events

The Downbeat - drums, humor

To Live & Die In LA - true crime

FilmDrunk Frotcast - movies, culture, humor

The Modern Drummer Podcast with Mike & Mike - drums (duh)

The Trap Set - also drums

Song Exploder - songwriting

#music #AOTY #endoftheyearlist #topalbums

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fromtheringapron · 5 years

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WCW Bash at the Beach 2000

Date: July 9, 2000.

Location: Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Attendance: 6,572

Commentary: Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden, and Scott Hudson.

Results:

1. WCW Cruiserweight Championship Match: Lieutenant Loco (champion) defeated Juventud Guerrera.

2. WCW Hardcore Championship Match: Big Vito (champion) defeated Norman Smiley and Ralphus.

3. Wedding Gown Match: Daffney (with Crowbar) defeated Miss Hancock (with David Flair).

4. WCW Tag Team Championship Match: KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark) defeated The Perfect Event (Seas Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) (champions) to win the titles.

5. Chris Kanyon defeated Booker T.

6. WCW United States Championship Match: Mike Awesome defeated Scott Steiner (champion) (with Midajah) via disqualification.

7. Shane Douglas defeated Buff Bagwell.

8. WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match: Hollywood Hogan defeated Jeff Jarrett (champion) to “win” the title.

9. Goldberg defeated Kevin Nash.

10. WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match: Booker T defeated Jeff Jarrett (champion) to win the title.

My Review

Oh, man, where to begin with Bash at the Beach 2000? Certainly one of the more noteworthy shows of the Russo-penned, dying days of WCW, although obviously not for the right reasons. The company is just a complete mess at this point. They’re losing millions of dollars, title changes and storylines are impossible to keep up with, and worst of all, they’re trying way too hard to be edgy like the much more successful WWF. This is the same pay-per-view event where, a mere four years previous, WCW made the ultimate power move by turning Hulk Hogan heel and cemented themselves as the number-one promotion in America. Now they’re circling the drain and trying everything to paddle themselves upstream. A prime example how things can unravel in such a relatively short period of time.

The show is infamous for its worked shoot involving Vince Russo and Hulk Hogan, which becomes a legit shoot and drove the latter out of the company for good. It’s something I wouldn’t even bother explaining to a person who doesn’t watch wrestling and, to be honest, it’s a bit difficult for me to wrap my head around it too. In the shortest way I can sum it up, Russo cuts a worked promo on Hogan. It crosses the line when Russo goes off the script and personally insults Hogan, whose ego is famously more fragile than freshly laid eggs. Hogan gets pissed, leaves WCW, and files a lawsuit. Oh, yeah, and it’s all fucking embarrassing to watch. For all of Russo’s bonkers and distasteful storylines, his worked shoot stuff is by far his worst. Such a blatant, transparent attempt at generating Montreal-like controversy and it’s fooling absolutely no one. Just watching everyone else, from the wrestlers to the commentary team, play along with the bullshit is a huge amount of cringe.

When this show isn’t going completely off the rails, it’s dreadfully boring, which is kinda weird to say. It’s not like there isn’t a lot going on. In fact, there’s a ton going on here. Unfortunately, the majority of the storylines are twisted into oblivion to the point where it’s hard to care about any of them. I’m already struggling to remember a Scott Steiner heel turn on this show that happens for, um, reasons?!? WWF storylines could get hella twisty around this time, but they didn’t lose sight of developing characters you could invest yourself in. WCW has all the twists, but they forget the characters. They’re also ensconced in the New Blood vs. Millionaires Club storyline, which is booked ass backwards. Pitting rookies against veterans isn’t a bad idea at all, but we’re really supposed to buy the Nash’s and Hogan’s of the world as the babyfaces despite their egos and ridiculous amount of creative control being what drove the company’s decline in the first place.

Tragically lost amidst all of this stuff is the rise of Booker T, one of the bright spots of late WCW. It’s great watching him over the course of his WCW run, transforming from an anonymous half of a tag team to the super charismatic dude we know him as today. I guess that’s what makes it so unsavory that all of the embarrassing Hogan nonsense really puts a damper on his coronation here. Everyone involved tries hard to make it a special moment, and his match with Jarrett is quite good, but it all feels a little off. Thanks to the booking, the match is announced out of nowhere, right after the audience is essentially screwed out of the main event title match they paid to see in Hogan vs. Jarrett. They could’ve had something a lot more special on their hands if they invested more time Booker’s chase of the title, but then such a thing would be asking a lot from WCW at this stage.

Nonetheless, Booker’s victory is touted by the commentary team as the culmination of hard work and perseverance. That’s the truth, but it’s also a sad truth: there were a ton of hard-working people in WCW until the bitter end. For all the corporate hands involved in the company who largely didn’t care for wrestling, there were a bunch of people from the roster to the backstage employees who gave a damn and tried to put on the best show they could. When the company finally went belly up, most of these hard-working folks had little to show for it. Due to all of Russo’s machinations, it’s easy to paint late WCW as a soulless, barren wasteland of ineptitude and low morale, but there was a heart beating somewhere in there that was determined to keep the ship afloat.

My Random Notes

Adding onto the depression, the buyrate for Bash at the Beach 1998 just two years earlier was a 1.5, the second highest in WCW history, and the buyrate for this show was a paltry 0.22, which still somehow makes it one of the most bought WCW pay-per-views of the year 2000.

Misfits in Action and The Filthy Animals have been feuding for months, apparently over which stable is more embarrassing. I’m gonna go with MIA. They’re so representative of Russo’s sense of humor. HAHA THERE’S A GUY NAMED PRIVATE STASH. YOU KNOW LIKE THE WEED HAHAHA *stabs self in the eye with a screwdriver*

This show reminds me of Mark Madden’s existence and now I’m depressed. It’s already one thing to borrow Jerry Lawler’s whole obnoxious perv schtick, but a whole other fucking thing to somehow be even less likable than Lawler in that role.

My favorite part of the show is definitely the Graveyard Match, which is the sort of late WCW content I can appreciate. Vampiro jumping off a tree! Fights in a pond! This is my kind of shit. How far was that graveyard from the arena, by the way? And how are we supposed to believe Vampiro found his way back? This is pre-Uber times and I’m curious.

God, the poster for this show is frickin’ ugly. Why is there an action figure of Randy Anderson just hanging out there?

I could say many things about the Wedding Gown match, but I’ll leave it at feeling bad for the people who put all the effort into that wedding cake just to have it destroyed. No justice for the people who bake goods for wrestling segments.

One of this show’s most unforgivable qualities is the lack of the amazing Bash at the Beach entrance set, sandbox and all. I’m not sure what lead to the finer things in WCW’s presentation disappearing but at this point you could watch Bash at the Beach and Halloween Havoc and aesthetically feel like you’re watching the same show.

I did a half-assed attempt at researching the current whereabouts of Ralphus. Still haven’t got a clear answer yet. My search led me to r/squaredscircle and I read a range of answers from people saying he died to some random person saying “He lives in Orlando with a heart condition and diabetes. He’s my uncle.” Take that info for what it’s worth.

#wwe network #wcw #goldberg #booker t

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laraecooch3407-blog · 5 years

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angrypedestrian · 6 years

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THE TIME IDIOTS EPISODE 403 TITLED “A Very Specific Confluence of My Interests, Thanks Phil” MY THOUGHTS:

First off-I have given so much, and finally, I get to receive

this pinged several of my very specific interests

THEREFORE: the Neal McDonough Memorial Can Get It Award™️ goes to everyone in a punk get up this week. Thank you for your service

i would also like to thank @starcitysirens for willing this episode into existence. You’re the real mvp here

Catching the last three minutes arrow and i don’t care at all, but like good on emily bett rickards for maybe probably dating aisha tyler? Get it girl.

the queen is already putting a hit out on phil as we speak

although lets be real it’s really a miracle its taken this long

nate/sara sir mix-a-lot joke? Well done kids

SARA, NATE USED TO BE A PROFESSOR ALL HE DID WAS SIT AT A DESK plus he had hemophilia do you think this boy ever went outside before?

HINT: he did not

Ray misses his husband and that makes me sad

MICK AND JOHN FUCK 2K18

GOD which one of us is brave enough to write this fic

MUCOUS MEMBRANE FINALLY

but also what were you playing 77 revival shit in like 2001 john?

sneering at the strokes like you weren’t also an absolutely insufferable asshole john?

uh Zari, you listen to fucking speed metal you can’t judge anything

BUT for those of you unfamiliar, my most precious headcanon is that Zari got into heavy music via Behrad. Behrad was a little shit (in like an endearing punk youth way) who was super into very hardscrabble political punk and hardcore. Even when things were really shitty he always found a way to get his music past ARGUS filters and censors. Zari ended up leaning more towards metal, cause it was easier to code to, but punk always makes her think of her brother, even if it is garbage noise

and guess what phil?? you can pull that from my cold dead hands!!

OKAY WAIT ONE OF MY RAY HEADCANONS IS THAT HE LOVES 70S AND 80S SYNTH POP

VALIDATION

HIS FAVORITE SONG IS SPACE AGE LOVE SONG BY FLOCK OF SEAGULLS YOU CAN’T PROVE ME WRONG

Less than 10 minutes in and this is already top 5 legends episodes wow

So did someone find the old black canary wig stuffed underneath a trailer and then just said “yeah that’ll work” and plopped that right on caity’s head?

Sara: you just don’t like guys wearing things you can choke them with

mick: makes it too easy

Nate your dad was in the military then was civilian DoD WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T EXPECT THIS MANY PROTOCOLS.

...how much extra money did the CW give them for their budget to say dare to defy. WHICH ALSO i fucking hate this show

enough for their ABSURD music rights costs

ARE THESE TACOS A DIRECT REFERENCE TO THE TACO BELL AT THE PENTAGON I THINK SO

also gary and mona better be best fucking friends or i’m going to fucking LOSE IT

I would die for mona, that is all

Ray you just gotta channel your inner Clash at Demonhead bass player energy!

also sometimes i watch that music video from scott pilgrim and homeboy is trying so hard to pretend to play bass it is ADORABLE

ray loves disco just at much as i do and that is how i know deep down inside i am probably a good person

these accents are...very not good

okay nate don’t knock taco monday, you’re not better than taco monday

“i’m sorta down to my last nipple” oh my fucking god

NATE MISSES HIS TIME BRO AND IS TRYING TO FILL THE VOID WITH GARY

i love his little gay heart so much

Sara and Mick’s friendship is so much fun, i wish we got more of it

comparing past jobs! drinking contests! watching wrestling together! (you know they both fucking love it)

oh raymond, you sweet summer child, i love that the team is so invested in keeping him as pure as possible

sara: he can never know what we did, it will break him. Plus then he might stop doing my laundry

SPARKY

I LOVE SPARKY

i can’t believe the love of norah turned ray into a badass

gideon is going to erase that tattoo instantaneously

also i love it and would tattoo that corgi on my body

I USED TO JUST THINK OF YOU AS AMAYA’S ARM CANDY

gary you sneaky shady bitch

but also nate is fucking proud to be amaya’s arm candy and we all know it

ray is the softest, gayest man alive

mick: i can’t believe the pure skin of my husband has been MARRED

BALL KICK PARADOX

zari: that’s science bitch

GOD zari’s outfit is so GOOD

constantine: can i just smoke ONE goddamn CIGARETTE

PLEASE

EUROVISION

IT WAS EUROVISION

NO ONE CAN TELL ME OTHERWISE

PUT IT ON MY TOMBSTONE

ray: actually, isn’t it more punk to not know any punk songs?

i can’t believe brandon routh has made legends just an avenue for bulletproof coffee product placement

charlie’s button that just says riot riot jesus christ

zari being so completely unimpressed by john is my favorite thing in the world

mick: haircut this is...the hottest you have ever been

sara knocked out on the floor: you know, i get it now

MONA AND GARY ARE GONNA BE BEST FRIENDS 4EVER

gary has already made 10 friendship bracelets

AVA GIVE GARY A RAISE

(this is also literal give Adam a raise he’s a regular at this point he deserves the higher rate!)

Aw man just when i thought ray got cool

mick: i am angry that i got all aroused for NOTHING

zari: not all of us can send the loves of our lives to hell JOHN

but also holy shit was zari in love with amaya goddamn fucking rip my heart out why don’ you

GAR GAR

nate gave him a little nickname

ray is going to be very jealous

ANYWAYS MAISIE BACK YAY!!!!!

Sara you big fucking dummy how did you think this was going to go

Zari: i’m fucking COOL not a lame-o like these dweebs

anyways here a picture of you and your mom together

but i didn’t even frame it so yeah fuck you

mick, creating sexy situations for himself despite his many many protests

methinks maybe mick likes the attention??

#legends of tomorrow spoilers #legends of tomorrow #i am going to rewatch this episode ten million times i can already tell #I LOVED IT #MAISIE IS BACK #ZARI IS IN LOVE WITH AMAYA #the ANGST of it all #the time idiots #my thoughts as i have them

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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15 Hardest Dark Souls Bosses

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It’s easy to call Dark Souls the most influential game of the 2010s. Whether it was the deep combat, obtuse storytelling, or the unforgiving difficulty, dozens of other games have taken inspiration from Dark Souls in one way or another over the last 10 years. It’s even spawned an entire sub-genre of similar “Soulsborne” games.

There’s a lot to love about Dark Souls, but for most fans, the most memorable parts will always be the boss battles. We’ve spent hours trying to topple these bosses in the never-ending quest to “git gud.” There’s really no such thing as an “easy” Dark Souls boss. Their difficulty starts at “hard” and then increases to “borderline impossible.”

As we celebrate the series’ 10th anniversary, these are the 15 hardest bosses you will face in the Dark Souls trilogy:

15. Ancient Dragon – Dark Souls II

The second Dark Souls game gets some flak from fans since it didn’t involve Hidetaka Miyazaki in the director’s chair. Many gamers will tell you it’s the easiest game in the trilogy because of changes made to the gameplay without his guidance, but it’s still pretty damn difficult. For example, the Ancient Dragon hits very hard. A single stomp from his massive legs, or a blast of fire from his mouth will likely kill your character. At best, you’ll have just a sliver of health left.

But as with any Dark Souls boss, the Ancient Dragon can eventually be conquered with patience and practice. Just be prepared to die a lot before then. But at least he’s an optional boss if you’d rather avoid him altogether.

Things only get more difficult from here, and most of these fights aren’t as easily avoided…

14. Bed of Chaos – Dark Souls

Dark Souls is generally considered “tough but fair.” With enough practice, a dedicated gamer should be able to recognize enemy patterns and eventually beat almost anything the games throw their way. But Bed of Chaos comes pretty close to breaking that rule. Many would say this boss does.

This demon resides in a giant tree, and will wantonly swing massive branches at you as you desperately try to hit the two orbs on either side of the room to whittle away its life bar. Take out one orb, and a big chunk of the floor collapses. Manage to take out that orb, and now there’s even less floor to walk on as you have to make a blind jump into the tree’s branches to take out the heart of chaos. Even then, a big swing from the branches is likely to kill you if you’re not quick enough. Vanquishing the Bed of Chaos often depends more on luck than skill.

13. Pontiff Sulyvahn – Dark Souls III

Pontiff Sulyvahn is really fast, which means you’re bound to struggle with this Dark Souls boss. He also attacks with two swords — one hits with fire damage and the other with magic damage. That’s tough, but something Dark Souls veterans can handle. The real issue is midway through the fight when he starts spawning a phantom that’s just as dangerous as he is.

Dark Souls fans thought they could handle almost anything the series could throw at them, but for many, Pontiff Sulyvahn was the first real challenge they faced in Dark Souls III. But the final game in the trilogy managed to get even more difficult from there.

12. Capra Demon – Dark Souls

The Capra Demon has become one of the more iconic bosses in Dark Souls, a towering minotaur-like beast with two giant swords. Those who have bested him remember the first encounter well. Part of the difficulty with this demon is the two dogs at his side. Walk through the fog gate unprepared and they’ll make quick work of you before you can even get one hit on the demon.

The other issue is that the arena in which you face the Capra Demon is extremely cramped. The wall is as much your enemy as he is. Luckily, several different strategies have been discovered over the years to make short work of this fight. There’s even a way to take him out with firebombs without even entering the fog gate.

11. Centipede Demon – Dark Souls

The first challenge when it comes to the Centipede Demon boss fight is dodging its heavy hitting attacks while avoiding lava damage. The second part is taming the camera, which can regularly ruin a great run. Seriously, this might be the most glitchy boss fight in the game, although sometimes that can work to your advantage if the demon gets stuck in the scenery.

The Centipede Demon is also a good example of how sometimes you just need the right strategy to beat Dark Souls’ bosses, and how failure ultimately leads to success. Getting the Orange Charred Ring when you cut off its tail is a huge help here, and you don’t even have to beat the demon to get it. It’s worth sacrificing some souls on one run for the ring so that you can come back stronger the next time around.

10. Sanctuary Guardian – Dark Souls

After Dark Souls became something of a surprise hit, fans who conquered the first game were hungry for more. FromSoftware happily obliged the following year with the Artorias of the Abyss expansion. The first boss of the DLC quickly tested any gamer cocky enough to think they could breeze through the expansion.

The Sanctuary Guardian is a massive, white winged lion who moves fast and attacks with lightning, poison, and physical damage. Not only do you have to be a high level player and have the right equipment to defeat this beast, but you also need to have nearly flawless dodging skills. And as tough as the Sanctuary Guardian is, it was actually just a prelude to the overpowered DLC bosses to come.

9. Slave Knight Gael – Dark Souls III

Slave Knight Gael is a case of slowly escalating difficulty. His first phase is a tough, but fairly standard melee battle. But then comes the second phase when he adds more attacks, and gains the ability to turn invisible and teleport. That’s bad enough, but then comes phase three where he adds in even more attacks, and now lightning randomly strikes the ground.

What really doesn’t help matters is that Gael has more health than almost any other enemy in the game. Defeating him is a battle of attrition.

8. Knight Artorias – Dark Souls

If you thought the Sanctuary Guardian was difficult, then good news! The next boss in Dark Souls’ DLC is even harder. At least Knight Artorias isn’t as annoyingly fast, but he makes up for that with a series of relentless sword attacks. And if he does try to get away, it’s only to use buffs that make him even more of a pain to deal with. The best strategy is to beat him as quickly as possible.

If you look closely, Artorias is actually fighting with a broken left arm, so he’s not even at full power for the battle. I’d hate to see what that’s like.

7. Black Dragon Kalameet – Dark Souls

You’ll first encounter Kalameet soaring in the background as you explore the Artorias of the Abyss DLC. That’s intimidating, but it’s really just a prelude of what’s to come. After facing other dragons, you might think that you can take him out by just attacking him from underneath. Nope. Kalameet will either stomp you to death or just fly away if you try that.

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Attempt to attack him from afar, and his fire breath causes physical and magical damage, so it can’t be fully blocked. You’ve got a very short window to actually damage the black dragon during its assault, making for an extremely frustrating boss fight.

6. Four Kings – Dark Souls

Your view of the Four Kings is going to depend a lot on how hardcore of a Dark Souls fan you are. If you’ve just played through the game once, they’re actually not so difficult or memorable. The real challenge comes on New Game+ when their stats are increased.

Whereas before, you could brute force through one king pretty quickly, that’s almost impossible on a second playthrough (or later). You’ve only got about 40 seconds until the next king spawns, and it’s easy to get caught in a situation where you’re now cornered by all four of them simultaneously. Only the most skilled Dark Souls players are going to get out of that unscathed.

5. Throne Watcher and Throne Defender – Dark Souls II

The penultimate bosses of Dark Souls II are actually way more difficult than the final boss battle. By themselves, the Throne Watcher and Defender wouldn’t be too difficult. They’re fairly typical melee knight enemies. Just having the right build can get you close to taking out this duo — except for one little wrinkle.

As soon as you defeat either the Watcher or the Defender, the one left alive will rush to the side of his fallen brother to heal him. You have to carefully split your attacks between them because you have a very short window of time to take out the pair before they come back at you in full force.

4. Darkeater Midir – Dark Souls III

Continuing the series’ tradition of ridiculously difficult DLC boss fights, Darkeater Midir is a massive dragon with high health and heavy physical, magic, and fire attacks. He’s challenging on your first run, but can one hit kill even the most seasoned warriors on New Game+.

Unlike a lot of other bosses, there aren’t many tricks you can pull off in order to cheese a win against Midir. Your best bet is to face him head-on with a melee build. If that’s too much for you, at least he can be skipped.

3. Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough – Dark Souls

Ornstein and Smough effectively act as the gatekeepers in the first Dark Souls — and really for the entire series. If you did in fact “git gud” enough to beat them, you should be able to beat the rest of the game without too much trouble.

The challenge here is two-fold. They’re both very quick, and can synchronize their attacks. It’s very easy to end up cornered and taking massive damage. And unlike the Throne Watcher and Throne Defender, you can’t defeat them simultaneously. When one goes down, it just spawns a super powered version of the other. This fight requires quick reflexes, a strong build, and a solid understanding of the game’s mechanics.

In short, this boss fight is the perfect microcosm of the Dark Souls experience.

2. Manus, Father of the Abyss – Dark Souls

Massive, quick, and capable of dealing heavy damage in an instant, Manus is the final foe you face in Artorias of the Abyss, making him the “true” final boss of the first Dark Souls. Even though you can summon assistance in this fight, and a few items will help negate his attacks, Manus’ speed and varied attacks make him difficult to predict.

Then there’s his health bar. It’s tricky to come up with the just the right build to damage him consistently, and even when you do have a strong character, this fight is largely a matter of endurance.

1. The Nameless King – Dark Souls III

First, give the Nameless King props for showmanship. This guy knows how to make an entrance, swooping into a fog-filled arena atop a very cool looking wyvern. It’s like something straight out of a heavy metal album cover. The first phase of the battle involves taking out the wyvern, and it’s actually not too bad for Dark Souls veterans (which you should be if you’ve made it far enough to face the Nameless King). A few different strategies work here.

But when the Nameless King dismounts, the real fight begins. It’s difficult to time when he’ll strike with his sword. His attacks do a lot of damage, and the only way to avoid his lunge is to roll through it. One small mistake can quickly turn into game over, but if you do manage to defeat him, you’ve truly mastered the Dark Souls trilogy.

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Who do you think is the hardest boss in the Dark Souls series? Tell us in the comments!

The post 15 Hardest Dark Souls Bosses appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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dunkmasterkyouko · 3 years

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Why would I ask you about commissioning artwork of Emi. Also, for the video game ask, composite numbers :)

you're lucky i bothered to look that up

4: Worst game you’ve ever played?

Uhhh I'm not actually sure. I've played a lot of stuff that made me angry a lot of stuff that just didn't work. I guess my knee jerk reaction is Squishy the Suicidal Pig, a moderately fun premise (you're trying to get killed on spikes in a platformer instead of avoiding that) that ended up being bugged to shit and pretty annoying by the end, as well as violating the premise a bunch of times with levels where you can't die until a certain point.

6: A game that’s changed you the most?

Easy answer boiz, it's Katawa Shoujo, which helped me to reevaluate my relationship with my own disability and with accepting help from other people.

8: Best soundtrack?

Okay that one's a lot harder, there's a lot of games with really good soundtracks out there. I'm going to say Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines because it's the one where I most often listen to the entire OST rather than just particular songs.

9: A game you turn your volume off every time you play it?

Uh is this a thing? I guess the closest would be like, Fate/Grand Order or Arknights when I'm listening to a podcast while grinding. Otherwise I don't really mute games much.

10: A game you’ve completely given up on?

I'm not entirely sure what context this means. There's plenty of games I don't ever intend to finish, and there's games I've "given up on" in that I don't think I'm ever going to get them to run properly (Deadly Premonition) or that I think they're just dead at this point (Team Fortress 2) but I don't know what definition of "given up on" we're going with here. Let's just say Ozmafia, cause I'm definitely not going back to that one.

12: Shortest time you’ve beaten a game in?

My best time for Grief Syndrome is 24:03.15, that's probably the fastest completion of something I've done that isn't a joke like my Katawa Shoujo act 1 speedrun or like, just something that barely takes any time anyway.

14: A game you think would be cool if it had voice acting?

I actually don't really miss VA when it's not there most of the time. Like there are plenty of games that have good VA that adds to the game but it's not something that I really consider a flat positive.

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover?

Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle and Grief Syndrome so that I can play a Yang/Kyouko team.

16: Character you’ve hated most? From what game?

Uhhh I don't have a particularly interesting answer so I'll probably just go with Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3 because of the staggering gulf in quality and how much his existance drags parts of the game down. There are characters I dislike more but they're often not as much of a detriment to the game as Kai Leng is.

18: A game you wish your friends knew about?

Despite how often I gush about it I feel like not that many of my friends have actually played Hate Plus.

20: What was the first video game you ever played?

I'm not really sure, I have a collection of hazy memories from when I was very young. It was probably either some kind of browser game, Super Mario Brothers on someone else's console, or Age of Empires 2.

21: How old were you when you first played a video game?

As before, memories are too hazy, I just really don't know. I would have been quite young.

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do?

Katawa Shoujo, kiss Emi, next question. 😘 Emi's 33 now, I'd love to see the milf version.

24: Casual, Hardcore, or in the middle?

Very subjective terms. If you go by like, game categorization, I'm easily hardcore, because casual games are usually considered stuff like Peggle or whatever, and I play some high difficulty RPGs and action games. But I'm not a speedrunner or highly ranked in any online multiplayer games, and I rarely 100% hard games so I'm in the middle by some definitions.

25: Be honest; have you ever used cheats (like ActionReplay or Gameshark)?

Yes? Like of course I have. I don't think I've ever only beaten something because of cheats and then claimed that I beat it, but I've definitely used cheats for screwing around.

26: Handheld or console?

Neither is the honest answer, I mostly just play on PC these days. Before I went to mostly PC though I proabably would have come down on the side of console for multiplayer but possibly handheld for single player.

27: Has there ever been a moment that has made you cry?

Not that I can recall, but I've only cried once in the last fifteen years because ~male socialization about crying~ so that doesn't really mean much.

28: Which character’s clothes do you wish you owned the most?

Uhhh probably like one of the Fallout series outfits or a League of Legends skin. I've cosplayed both in the past.

30: A game that hasn’t been localized in your country that you think should be localized?

*bangs on table* Fate! Extra! CCC! Fate! Extra! CCC! Give me my Tamamos! WHERE IS MY BB ORIGIN STORY! TYPE MOON YOU'D BETTER REMAKE CCC AFTER THE EXTRA REMAKE AND IT BETTER COME TO THE WEST.

#long post

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silenttowergames · 6 years

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Super Platformer RPG Postmortem (LD41)

Play Now | Ludum Dare page | Website | Source Code

Ludum Dare 41: Combine Two Incompatible Genres

On the night of April 20th, 2018, I did some work on my current game Retro Slasher for a few hours, and then went to bed. I was scrolling through Twitter on my phone before I went to sleep, when I saw a tweet about Ludum Dare. It had started about two hours before.

I had heard of Ludum Dare, but never participated. I was interested.

The theme also caught my eye: “combine two incompatible genres”. I had an idea! A platformer / turn-based RPG game had been rolling around in my head for a while, and I thought it fit pretty well. It could combine the best of both worlds, while also having a quirky oil-and-water separation between the two.

So I jumped out of bed and immediately got to work.

I decided to enter the competition rather than the jam. Its requirements are more strict: You get 48 hours rather than 72, you must be a solo dev, you must create all of the content new for the event, and you must release all your source code. I’m a solo developer, and since I’m trying to make it in indie games, I wanted to put myself to this test.

HTML5 + vanilla JavaScript

I decided to program the game in pure HTML5. I usually work with C# + MonoGame, but I don’t have a rapid-development engine available yet. I have experience with pure HTML5, however, and knew it would be much faster to get things going. Also, having your game playable in-browser makes it much more accessible.

For the record, I used howler.js for audio, since it makes everything much simpler. Outside of that, there were no libraries used.

Assets

I probably made the art in about 10 minutes. I am not a pixel artist, so I couldn’t have made anything much more complicated. I recently played the beautifully-simple Downwell, so I was feeling inspired by its 1-bit art style. (Despite the similarities between this game’s page and Downwell’s, I’ve never seen their site until this moment haha).

My game ended up being the 11th most-rated (note: most, not highest) compo entry this time around (peaking at 4th!). I think the pixel art was probably the reason why so many people played it. I got several compliments for it, and it was my second highest-rated category (next to humor).

In the audio department, there was no music. The sound effects all came from the incredibly helpful sfxr program.

Coverage

I watched a few streamers play my game in the days following the compo. There was even a Twitch meme made out of it! Possibly my proudest moment yet as a developer.

My game was also included in videos by Jupiter_Hadley and Ian Hinck of Easy Allies.

Major Criticisms

Between watching the streams and videos, and reading the comments, I discovered that there were a few major issues with the game:

The platforming is too difficult

The RPG elements aren’t very clear

The game is made up of two distinct genre sections, and both of them have glaring flaws!

The platforming not only requires lots of precision in your jumps, but the jump goes too fast to feel comfortable. I tried to prevent it from feeling spacey, but I went too far in the other direction. Then, there are the sections where the player goes off the top of the screen when you make certain jumps, so you can’t tell where you’re going to land sometimes.

To quote user Deprecat’s comment:

Players that enjoy hardcore platforming tend to prefer forgiving controls but brutal level designs.

I had it backwards. The level design was kind of hard, but it was really the harsh game physics that got you killed most of the time.

I experienced a wake-up call while watching streamers play:

What I found was that they didn’t finish the game. It’s a 5-minute game at most, but people kept dying at the same spots over and over because my jumps were just too harsh, so they quit. This is a fatal flaw.

As for the RPG elements, there was no in-game explanation for how things worked. Different options told you how much AP they had, and whether or not they had a cooldown, and that’s it. Most people thought the Psychic move would be some sort of magic attack, or after using it didn’t think it did anything at all. It actually reveals the enemy’s health bar at the cost of a turn, but clearly that wasn’t obvious beforehand, nor was it apparent to some players that the enemy health bar even showed up.

I put these things on the game page’s description, and Psychic showed that it had 0 AP, but this was not enough. If I could do things over, I would probably include a description box that tells you what each move does, and some sort of animation that shows the enemy’s health bar appearing.

Lesser Criticisms

Considering that I made the game in less than 48 hours, I’m proud of it. It’s a short proof-of-concept, so the following issues don’t ruin your 5-minute flash-in-the-pan experience as much as they would an hours-long investment. But if I move on with the project, these issues must be ironed out:

The game doesn’t advertise its controls to you. Heck, the description doesn’t either. I should’ve added some indication of the controls in the GUI. For the record, it’s arrow keys to move/jump and space bar to select attacks. Most people figured this out, so it’s alright, but that was a huge oversight on my part.

The RPG battle system has almost no balance. There were attempts: you level up, enemies get stronger, they roll a die to determine attack strength, your stronger attack has a cooldown, etc. But there’s no real strategy in selecting Jump until next turn when Hit is available. There’s no way to protect yourself from attacks, there’s no telling how powerful your enemy’s next attack is going to be -- it could be anywhere from 1 to 5 AP (or in some cases, even negative, thus giving you HP). And Psychic ended up being basically worthless, since missing even a single turn might cost you the battle.

Scores

After all this, how did I score? Well, I did... okay.

I did the math: my overall score is in about the top 40% (precisely, the top 39.379243453%). It isn’t a glamorous position, but it is better than most people in the compo did. 3.299 is above average, so I count myself lucky.

Surprisingly, Humor is my highest-rated category. There were a couple jokes in the dialogue, but I didn’t expect them to land very well. I guess it went over better than the gameplay did though, haha. (Also, nobody has yet pointed out a Star Fox reference in the dialogue, which makes me kind of disappointed).

I was really expecting the graphics to be my highest-rated category, considering that I got several compliments on that but not one on the humor, outside of one or two streamers mentioning it. No complaints here, though.

Conclusion

I put myself to the test, and I wouldn’t say I failed. I created a game in under 48 hours; a game which got me compliments in a few different areas. Realistically, it’s deeply flawed, but I’m aware and I’ll know not to make the same mistakes next time.

I’m looking forward to the next game jam! I think I’ll be able to make something even better.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Tumblr for more dev blogs, visit the website, or on Twitter for regular updates on what I’m developing. Right now I’m working on Retro Slasher, an 8-bit rogue-lite survival horror. It also has its own Tumblr page and website.

#gamedev #game jam #8bit #ludum dare #ldjam41 #postmortem

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licheninsect · 3 years

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The political amplifier

If you really believe in democracy, you can’t hack democracy. But if you don’t believe in democracy—how can you hack democracy? Easily—and legally.

You just have to build a political amplifier. An electrical amplifier adds gain to an input signal, emitting the same output signal with a higher energy. For a political amplifier, the input signal is collective will and the output signal is collective impact. It’s very cool and very legal.

In English: a political amplifier just means making your voters as powerful as possible. There are plenty of perfectly legal, but weird and counterintuitive, ways to do this. We are hacking the rules—not hacking the voting machines. Are you up for it? Of course, we would never even dream of doing anything illegal.

Of course, the whole spiritual principle of democracy is that everyone deserves power. Moreover, everyone deserves the same amount of power. While no one actually believes this fake idea, your enemies always want you to believe it as much as possible. They, of course, believe they deserve all the power. And they like, kind of seem to—have it. Legally, of course.

You don’t know enough French to express what you think of these people. Perhaps, as Xenophon said of the Helots’ attitude toward their Spartan lords, you’d eat them raw. At this point? You’d eat them rotten. Culturally, at least, I am one of them—so I don’t find this a super pleasant situation myself. (I am just doing, like, the Coriolanus thing.)

But whenever you start thinking about how to make this happen, preferably without any cannibalism at all, you fall down a bullshit mine from which you never emerge—because you believe in democracy. In fact, as hardcore a MAGA man as you may be, your dream is to restore democracy. It would be easier to restore the Stuarts—literally. Not that that would be easy (or ideal)—but it wouldn’t be fundamentally impossible.

Because you take democracy seriously, you think about it in ineffective ways. You generally think only about principles (more highbrow) or personalities (more lowbrow). If you are really a total bowtie sperg, you might even think about policies. Your enemies pretend to be thinking the same way—but in fact are only thinking about power.

Which is easily seen by how fast they turn on a dime—hardcore anarchists on Friday, by Tuesday they can be two-thirds of the way to full Pinochet—a sort of ethical Tesla, in “ludicrous mode.” It’s almost too impressive.

There’s a new thing where they pretend to be Christians, which is just embarrassing. And if they believed in anything at all, which they obviously don’t, the last thing they would believe in would be actual democracy—which they call “politics.”

Their view—which they barely bother to hide—is that politicians should have no real power at all, like the Queen of England. Hearing them screech the sanctity of sacred democracy is like listening to a crocodile lecture interminably on the virtues of salad. Everything is special pleading. You don’t know why he wants you to go into the garden—but you can guess.

But you are not pretending—which is why you always lose. You thought you were going to get tired of winning. Might you by any chance be starting to get tired of losing?

In that case, maybe you should consider hacking democracy, instead of believing in it. That seems to work pretty well for them. Come with me if you want to live.

Principles of political amplification

To embark upon the path of the political amplifier, you need to not only want as much power as possible—you must believe it is your duty to capture and hold all the power. That seems to work pretty well for them. Why would you try to throttle the gain on your own amplifier? What do you think politics is? What?

Of course, a political amplifier is completely legal under the Geneva conventions. It’s just a social network—just an app, really. You could certainly use it to help break the law. The same is true of a telephone. (Not breaking election laws, in specific, will take the assistance of lawyers who bill at four figures an hour. Suck it up and pay them.)

Your input signal is the collective will of some set of people. Without an amplifier, this signal will be too weak to have any impact at all—like connecting your VCR directly to the speakers.

If you connect 75 million VCRs (hello, fellow boomers!) to one speaker, you probably will hear something. Is it loud enough? Was it loud enough? Did it even sound good? If the answers to all these questions are no—you might want to try using an amplifier.

A supple example

For example, a “lobby” in our present system of government is a kind of amplifier. Without a ferret lobby, the collective will of ferret owners has no meaning. No one cares about you, ferret owners! Your little smelly weasel things are just gross: half rat, half snake, and all vermin... should any speak this way, the National Ferret Council will not rest until it has shut their lying mouths. I mean—corrected them in a press release.

Your output signal is the collective impact of a group of people. What can they make happen, by working together to make it happen?

For example, many states remain wildly prejudiced against ferrets. Their anti-ferret laws seem to have been written by legislators who were at best pardonably ignorant— or in the outright pay of the corrupt anti-ferret lobby. Politics is a dog-eat-dog world, kid—and that goes for ferrets too. You got to pay to play the game, capische?

So by exercising the collective will to perform the coordinated individual action of sending a check to the National Ferret Council, the set of ferret owners buys fair, or fairer, legislation for the friends of ferrets and the ferrets they love. The system works! No individual ferret owner could take any useful action at all; nor could the collective of all ferret owners take any useful action, without the amplifier.

Measuring political input

The universal formula for collective energy is one you might have seen before:

E=mc^2

Political energy is mass (quantity of human capacity) times commitment (what these humans are willing to do) times cohesion (how well-organized they are).

Mass is simple: headcount scaled by ability. Obviously, no two human beings are equal. And some humans are much more useful for certain tasks than others. (I’m very sorry if this comes as a surprise to you.) However, for the purpose of generating power—more is better, of course.

Commitment is how much your humans are willing to put into the cause. 0 is nothing. 1 is voting, once every few years. 2 is a write-in vote or a campaign contribution. 10 is a suicide bomber.

Cohesion is the capacity of a group of humans for intelligent coordinated action. 0 is every man for himself. 1 is a slogan or a party label. 2 is a party line or publication. 10 is a fanatical robotic cult.

Your democratic bias always makes you want to think that E=m—and an m not scaled to ability. This isn’t necessarily wrong, or right. For example, ISIS showed significant success with very low mass, but very high cohesion and commitment.

In general, any modern population has extremely low ratings on both commitment and cohesion, especially commitment. We live in an age of low-engagement casual politics. Many political approaches that fail regularly, but are regularly tried since they worked in the past, assume levels of commitment and cohesion that existed only in the past.

By the standards of his great-grandparents, the modern American citizen is utterly disconnected from politics and would never consider following any kind of real leader. Small wonder his real political power—as measured by the real personal power of the politicians he elects—was also euchred out of his hip-pocket as he dozed like a hippo.

On the other hand: there are, like, 75 million of him. The problem can’t be unsolvable. We just have to think it through clearly from first principles.

Measuring political output

We see four targets of collective political action: in order of effectiveness, personality, principle, policy, and position.

The target of personality is for the most part the level of politics today. The personality voter picks a politician with whom he feels a parasocial bond. Through the imaginary telepathy of this bond, a victory that makes the politician important—or purportedly important—makes the voter feel important.

The stake of most personality elections is this claim on meaning. The political formula of the personality election is that the state will take on the personality of the politician—the “Trump administration”—which means that the voter, through the parasocial bond, has become in a weird “Being John Malkovich” sense the President himself. This kind of politics is only slightly more real than “supporting” a football team.

The next target up is the goal of principle—or, pejoratively, ideology. The formula of the principle election is that the politician represents an ideology. Every politician being a philosopher, or at least having a deeply felt philosophy, he parades this principle before the voters. If they share the same conviction, they can rule by electing him. In office, he will make the shared principle the ideology of the state.

As with the personality election, it would be going too far to say that a principle election never works. But it is no longer the 18th century; John Adams is no longer in the building; and few of our politicians believe or even think anything. Where they do, “the best lack all conviction / while the worst are full of passionate energy.”

With the target of policy—stuff the government actually does—we enter the level of effective political action. Trump is a personality; nationalism is a principle; building the wall is a policy. Getting the policy you want is a success by definition.

But how much of a success is it? Power has given you a fish. You have not taken any power to fish. Anything that is given can be taken away. In a financial sense, policy wins are the dividend of power; but any serious player has to be after the capital.

The premier target of collective action is position (as in field position). A victory in position is any victory that makes further victories easier. Position is the true capital of power. The highest form of position, stem position, wins further victories in position itself. Below it is leaf position, which generates only policy victories.

There are two kinds of victories in position: zero-sum and positive-sum. In a positive-sum victory, you build power, but no one directly loses power. In a zero-sum victory, you take power away from the enemy. Obviously, a zero-sum victory is better.

Zero-sum victories are particularly desirable because they are measurable. A simple body count measures the number of enemy jobs eliminated. It is not a win to fire an enemy if he will just be replaced with another—politics is anything but mere cruelty.

(And in the end, anyone who loses their job not through their own fault, but through what is essentially an act of war if not an act of God, has to be especially well taken care of. Both in politics and war, your true enemies are structures, not people.)

We often see a mighty mass movement, with a genuinely enormous support base, that not only has never gotten anyone fired, but has no idea how to get anyone fired. Of course, positive-sum victories in position can also create jobs for friends; but unless these jobs were taken from enemies, the power to protect them is not demonstrated.

Reviewing this scale of political action, we see immediately that we cannot expect the contemporary American right to accomplish anything, because at maximum power it barely gets into the policy space.

In position, it is totally powerless. It does not have its own official and/or quasi-official institutions, cannot create any, and cannot even touch the institutions of its enemy. When I was in elementary school, the “Reagan Revolution” produced some headcount reductions in USG. It is not clear that this had any particular impact on history—and it is the last time anything like that happened.

As someone once said: you’re going to need a bigger boat. That can be done. But it will require leaving some of your old illusions ashore.

Designing the amplifier

While everyone wants more mass, the engineering variables we can actually control are commitment and cohesion. Engineering commitment is very hard—it is hard to imagine an Amerikaner ISIS, suicide bombers and all. Can we just—not go there?

Engineering cohesion, however, is an interesting problem that seems worth a look. We are pretty good at cohesion these days—since we have apps. The traditional approach to the problem of producing cohesion in an electoral democracy is the political party. Therefore the intersection which defines our design space is both a party and an app.

The problem with the concept of a political party is that this concept is ritualized into our political system. When we imagine creating a party, we think of the Constitution Party, or the Green Party—but it makes no sense to be a Party in this formal sense.

Here are three historical analogies for the kind of “party” that is a true amplifier. One: the Communist Party USA, in the 1930s. Two: the Muslim Brotherhood, today. Three: the Iron Guard, in Romania, in the 1930s.

The last two are—to be frank—pretty weird and scary, so let’s focus on the first. Of course, everyone cool was a Commie in the “Red Decade,” or at least a fellow traveler. Who was cooler than Dorothy Parker? I’ll wait while you think about it.

Engineering principles of a real party

A so-called “party” in the “Green Party” sense is an evolutionarily castrated version of the real thing—almost a kind of vaccine. Let’s talk about a proper virus.

First: a real political party is exclusive. You cannot just decide that you are a member, any more than you can just decide that you’re a Hell’s Angel. You have to apply. And once you’re in, you have to keep paying your dues—in money, in kind, or both.

Second: a real political party is disciplined. As a member of the party, all your political actions are through the party and for the party. You do not make your own independent political choices; you delegate your political autonomy to the party. Of course, you may contribute to decision-making within the party.

Third: a real political party is anonymous. While the party, if out of power, should not intentionally come into conflict with power, sometimes such conflict is unavoidable. Members should be as safe as possible from daytime consequences of their party life.

Elections and party discipline

As a party member, you vote the straight party line in every election. Period. Why else would you join the party? What else is a party? What? We’re not the Republicans here.

Political participation is fun and meaningful—but only within the party. Internally, there may be an uninhibited discussion—even an internal election, essentially a private primary—over what candidate the party should vote for. But the party has one vote. (Of course, “fellow travelers” are free to follow this vote, without being party members.)

This cohesive unanimity makes the party into a bloc vote—which is the main source of its political gain. A cohesive voting bloc is much more powerful than its individuals.

Consider the position of a bloc with 10% of the vote, in a binary election. Perhaps the bloc cannot pick one of the two candidates. 10% can swing any close election, though—so both candidates are likely to bid strongly for the support of the bloc.

Furthermore, because of its loss of cohesion and commitment over time, our electoral system is full of low-turnout elections. Often, a small but highly disciplined bloc can overwhelm the last civic diehards of the old system in some primary or minor election. (Of course, the bloc registers its voters in whatever official “party” is most useful—it is never its own “third party.”)

If all else fails, the party can least make a little splash with a bloc write-in vote, usually for comedic or other media-stunt purposes. What if “Bronze Age Pervert” racked up even—2% of some election? Would that not be a show of defiance and strength, in the face of the bluehaired longhouse state? Politics is always and everywhere a work of art.

Elected officials and party discipline

Eventually, the party will start winning elections. Party discipline does not end with the election—all actions of the elected official are under party control (assuming the official wants to be reelected on the party slate).

For example, if the party controls seats in a legislature, these seats will vote in a bloc. Anyone who deviates from the bloc even once will be off the ticket at the next election.

Of course, this means that party officials are interchangeable—the individual barely matters, though ideally they are charismatic and competent. The task of vetting these individuals, which formerly rested on the shoulders of the voters, now belongs to the party—which can actually be equipped to do it. When elected officials can hire a staff, the staffers are actually party staffers. There is no independent authority anywhere.

Party direction and governance

The purpose of every action the party takes is to improve the position of the party. Any question of personality, principle or even policy is generally irrelevant.

A real political party is a political amplifier. The purpose of a political amplifier is to gain power. How much power? As much as it can gain. Any party operating on any other principle is defective—its real function is to neutralize its own supporters.

Obviously, the maximum possible objective of a party is unconditional sovereignty. The party, capturing the state, becomes the state. Even if this goal is unrealistic, any party that at least knows what it would do if it beat this final boss has an advantage: since it has no cap on its potential power, its expected outcome is higher. (Also: do you think we don’t have a one-party state now?)

It does not matter how the party governs itself. That said, the principles presented here are essentially Lenin’s idea of democratic centralism. The ideal party governance mechanism is Lenin, but less angry, plus some kind of accountability mechanism—a hard problem we won’t get into today.

Remember, Dorothy Parker was a Leninist—so you can be too.

The 21st-century version

Everything above could be implemented without any IT—aside from a hand-cranked printing press in an attic full of empty wine bottles, cats, drugs, revolutionary posters, and casually discarded lingerie.

But today, of course, a party is literally a social network—which makes it an app. The revolutionary attic has become a gleaming server room—with a little bell that rings every time someone gets their party card. Or rather, their party account—or even their party token.

In the democracy of the future, you have only one decision to make: which party app to install on your phone. Sometimes the app will tell you to go to a polling place and vote. It will show you a sample ballot, which you manually enter into the voting machine. Other than this tedious but necessary process, you don’t have to think about politics.

But the app is not just a voting app. It is a social network. Specifically, it is a powerful form of social network: a high-trust social network.

A dinner party is a group of people you trust enough to let into your house, and even drink there. A political party is not really different from a dinner party. Fundamentally, you trust these people more because you know they agree with you. There are all kinds of productive ways to use this trust.

Today’s political social networks, like Parler and Gab, are crude horseless-carriage versions of this digital party. They are built as mere Twitter clones, which makes no sense at all—while these are networks for outcast shitposters who want to own the libs, you simply can’t own the libs where there are no libs. If you want to shitpost, underwater frogman guerrilla warfare is your only respectable option. In the end, it still may be the shitposters who save the world—but only the respectable ones.

A social network of trusted people who agree with you is much more powerful and valuable than an information superhighway devoted to sharing witty little remarks. What can a real digital party do?

What a real digital party can do

First, the party is your primary information conduit. It furnishes you with a complete narrative of historical present reality.

This is not just a matter of a feed full of shitposts and unverified rumors. Nor is it a feed full of wire reports. Your party dues go to pay journalists—or people who do that same job, anyway. These journalists are the party’s eyes and ears; they see the world through the party’s perspective; they, not you, decide what is true and false.

This journalism apparatus is the party’s brain. Since the party’s journalists are always right, you as a party member are always right. Party journalism has a pleasant tone because it is not meant to attack the normie world—it is only for party members, and only so they can observe and understand that world. There is no harm if it leaks out, since it will only impress normies and make them wonder about joining the party.

The party is its own end-to-end media company. When you watch news from normie world, you can only roll your eyes and laugh. Still, it is important to understand what the normies are thinking and why, so the party has a whole division of normie studies—in case you see some CNN in an airport, or something, and want to know what they’re even talking about.

Second, the party is your primary social conduit. It knows where you live and who lives near you. It will organize you into informal local friend groups. It also gives you local as well as central news—it becomes the equivalent of Nextdoor or Citizen. But without people who don’t agree with you telling you what you can’t say. Single and looking for love? Or even just fun? Neighbor, you don’t want to date a normie. That’s just trouble.

The party provides social structure for your whole life. You’ll work out at a party gym; you’ll go on group tours with a party guide; if you get sad, you’ll call a party helpline; if you lose your job and you’re broke, you can talk to someone in the party. Everything you get for being a Mormon, you should get from the party—even if it costs as much.

Third, the party is an important professional asset. If you need a job or an employee, it is always best to talk to your friends in the party. Why would you want to work with a normie? For 40 hours a week? What? I mean, unless there’s absolutely no choice… In Hollywood in the ‘30s, the CPUSA was almost a screenwriter’s guild—to work, you had to be in the party. Nobody sees anything wrong with that now, so it must be cool.

Fourth, besides voting, a digital party can coordinate all kinds of demonstrations and other peaceful, friendly and beautiful democratic action.

A conventional demonstration takes a lot of organizing, but an app can notify you on the dot where to be, when to be there, what to wear and what to bring. It can even extend the concept of a “demonstration” as we know it—currently just a loosely clumped rabble of badly-dressed people, carrying ugly, unpleasant handmade signs.

In fact a true demonstration is always and everywhere an artistic performance. The etymology of the word reveals the nature of the exercise: the purpose is to demonstrate, meaning show, the power of the party. The purpose of every performance is to impress.

While a demonstration of mass is impressive, a demonstration of cohesion is also quite impressive—especially if it is colorful and fun. For example, uniforms are good—not ugly, frightening camo, but what about a Union Army Zouave uniform from 1861? China can make a copy of anything. No one would be scared by a perfect platoon of Zouaves, Napoleonic Hussars, etc, performing classical drill maneuvers impromptu in Golden Gate Park. It would certainly be both colorful and fun.

An app is pretty good for crowd cohesion. It can tell everyone exactly where to be at any time, and track where they actually are. It can have a control panel for a party leader that lets the leader call up a well-trained crowd of any size, then drag them around on the map like a game of “Snake.” A controlled crowd is much more useful. For instance, if Trump had had such a crowd-control app, he could have easily directed his supporters away from swarming the Capitol—and he wouldn’t have the troubles he has now, as my Jewish grandpa used to say.

But is this realistic?

Hell, I don’t know. All I know is: it’s not impossible. It also won’t implement itself. Also, everything that is obviously possible is subtly impossible, making it a trap.

I’m not even a prole myself. I’m doing perfectly fine in perhaps the most evil economy in human history, perhaps excepting late Rome. No one has even persecuted me, very much, yet. All I know is: the proles are not doing fine. They are getting stomped. And their only way to stop getting stomped is to get as much power as they can. Which means designing, constructing and inhabiting the most powerful political amplifier.

When we internalize this model and look back at lower-class politics as it is today—culminating in the disastrous, yet hilarious, dead-end of MAGA sacking the Capitol— we can say that, where the political amplifier is a system of collective action, the old way of politics—taking democracy seriously—is more a system of collective acting out.

The fundamental purpose of acting out is internal, not external. The performance is not optimized to change the outer world, but to satisfy the inner world. In particular, effective external action involves a lot of following, whereas satisfying internal action involves only leading. So everyone becomes their own leader, and is largely useless.

Can proles be taught to change these habits? I don’t know. It certainly won’t be easy. I don’t see anything else they can do, tough.

#mencius moldbug #curtis yarvin #gray mirror

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rinnnyxr · 4 years

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Worn a brightly colored accessory with a neutral outfit Stared out the car window while listening to sad music as if you were in a music video Danced around your room with the curtains open Driven through a neighborhood you don't live in blaring indie music from your car Cut your own bangs with kitchen scissors Tried on a bunch of wacky outfits in a thrift shop with no real intention of purchasing anything Gotten a septum piercing Transferred schools in the middle of the term Played the ukulele Thrown a themed costume party Worn Heelies unironically DIYed home decor Filmed one second of your life every day for a year Sat on a playground swing as an adult Learned to juggle Sat in the front row, whether it was class or a concert Used your Polaroid camera to chronicle a road trip Been told you're "Heather" Studied the arts or humanities Related to at least one Taylor Swift song hardcore Had the same best friend for several years Been part of a love triangle Had a niche hobby or interest not many people have heard of Watched the sunrise or sunset from an airplane window Been way too overdressed for the grocery store Dyed your hair a bright color Recorded yourself singing to see if you sounded as good as you thought you did Made a video in the rain Gone night swimming Curated a very specific playlist for a very mundane task Referred to going somewhere super normal (like the gas station) as "an adventure" Had a "life-changing experience" at summer camp Performed in a talent show Considered your pet your best friend

Sagittarius - Fire never saving phone numbers loopholes strong unfounded opinions buying a round of shots going viral on tiktok snapchat stories calling everyone ‘bro’ lapsing into a character health fads loving tacky aesthetics self-organization will watch any show that has hot people surfing airbnb for fun mangonadas have made someone cry romance languages tone-deaf but love karaoke fun facts making a day out of one errand tattoos silver lining losing internet once someone shows interest never paying people back calling in sick 9/24

Capricorn - Earth trusting two people *cracks knuckles* self-deprecating jokes owning multiple colors of the same pants love having an excuse to say no clothing with pockets sitting together in silence sore loser needing alone time to decompress no interest in petty drama compartmentalizing emotions unsure what to do while someone cries noticing everything solution-oriented called ‘precocious’ as a child favorite sound is the crossword jingle rising to meet high expectations speaking to pet and babies in an adult voice large iced coffee, black ‘sent from my iPhone’ long-form articles no sympathy for stupidity sophisticated neutrals remember your sat score 8/24

Aquarius - Air avoiding contact during earnest conversations history of bad bleach jobs people watching from afar have considered a burner phone only listening to b-sides have gone by five different nicknames hating on astrology tirades keeping your birthday a secret reusable water bottle hating hugs using shock humor to alienate people know exactly where you’d run away to if you decided to start a new life self-described “bad influence” jstor subscription encyclopedic knowledge of niche pop culture deliberately esoteric “what’s the science?” 71 unread messages over-ear headphones a piercing you did yourself most active between 3 and 6 am favorite celeb is David Byrne or David Lynch hiding inside a hoodie 2/24

Pisces - Water chipped nail polish believing your own lies not wanting to upset someone by telling them they’ve upset you crying when someone else cries swaddling yourself in a cardigan donating to wikipedia our of guilt batting eyelashes thinking everything is a sign mystery novels have plans to ‘find yourself’ battery always under 20% working on asserting yourself “I’m fine, but how are you?” rich inner world ethical veganism house slippers sitting on the floor of the shower talented artist small handwriting picking ‘truth’ in truth or dare reacting to messages with a heart emoji starting sentences with ‘sorry’ planning birthday presents months in advance happy crying 3/24

Leo - Fire reposting birthday wishes on Instagram stories lip gloss “I thought you’d be a bitch before I met you” crying on command showering strangers with compliments loud laugh giving up if not instantly good at something new outfit for every occasion waiting exactly as long as the other person to text back awful at apologies movies with makeover montages craving validation thinking everyone should have an ego other people’s parents love you sleeping with six pillows dumping people before they can dump you love being the therapist friend president of a club in high school the protagonist of reality planning a memoir arriving late with beverage in hand pipe dreams good at icebreaker games tipping 30% 4/24

Virgo - Earth saunas needing 2+ hours to fall asleep having the last word standards so high even you can’t reach stress-induced IBS modifying your restaurant order vices turned off by rudeness matching pajama sets knowing which fork is which self-doubt currently worried someone is mad at you observational humor complex self-soothing rituals Youtube tutorials subtly sensual creating problems to fuss over editing articles as you read them talking points checking weather before getting dressed chamomile tea making sure your friends know their worth “I’ll pencil you in” realizing your jam has been clenched 10/24

Libra - Air you’re ‘not on social media’ ...but you meticulously curate your finsta jack off all trades belonging to 15 distinct friend groups only ‘reading’ audio-books fantasy movies situationships returning favors natural deodorant cooking elaborate meals for one mediating friend drama can’t take a compliment “I could make that myself” passive aggression power couple aspirations fusion foods fear of being forgotten meet-cutes inspirational quotes watching music videos instead of just playing the songs overly familiar pet names underestimating the effects of your actions “no makeup” makeup look taking it easy 5/24

Scorpio collecting screenshots just in case hyperbolic speaker slouching alibis keeping everyone’s secret loving your hometown mirror above the bed hate when people waste your tame evasive responses to innocuous questions performative sigh human lie detector penetrating eye contact secretly wish someone would scale your emotional walls “what’s the catch?” decoding algorithms remembering every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done testing people’s allegiance a natural at networking refusing to acknowledge dropped hints falling in love quickly and intensely “fool me once” mentality weighing your options fiercely loyal friend 10/24

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