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ideas-on-paper · 1 month

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Monster Hunter Tri Diary, Part 3: Cave exploration & Swimming lessons

For previous entries, search for #monster hunter tri diary

Disclaimer: Text is paraphrased from my localization and might slightly deviate from the English version.

Moga Woods (day)

Village Chief: "Looking for Iron Ore, aren't you? Good thing I don’t have to bother with that task anymore. It's nice to be the Chief..." Look, I know I'm the one who's doing the dirty work here, but you don't have to make it that obvious, okay?

"You're not going to see much inside the cave unless you have the eyes of a Felyne." So, Felynes have night vision - logical enough, since they're basically bipedal cats. (With a trait like this, I’m willing to bet there are Felyne mineworkers in the MH universe. Not that job prospects for Felynes are already bad enough…)

"You can't bring torches into the city. Fire regulations." Well, I guess that's understandable considering the village consists pretty much entirely of wooden huts. (But then again, there literally are large torches in the village, so…)

"Infusions of powdered Kelbi Horn work wonders on tummy-aches. It's a local secret!" A miracle cure for stomach aches? Why can't this exist in real life... (Still, if they can administer infusions, that must mean medicine is quite advanced in the MH universe...)

Village Chief when entering the cave: "What did I tell you? Pitch-dark." No kidding. I was kind of forewarned about this, but the caves in MH Tri are very dark. (I imagine fighting Gigginox is going to be really fun in this game...)

You know what’s an absolute bane? If you’re in a dark cave, it's a very bright day, and your completely blinded by the light coming through the window. Even with almost completely closed blinds, I can see absolutely nothing, despite using a torch.

Well, at least I managed to find the Felyne encampment in the cave (or rather, I accidentally stumbled upon it xD).

Yaaay, Giggis... I'm so NOT happy to see you... (Well, at least it's a good opportunity to get some Giggi materials.)

Fighting and carrying a torch at the same time is kinda tricky. You can draw your weapon while carrying a torch, but when you press the button for putting it away, you extinguish the torch first, and then sheath your weapon after pressing again. Might be easier to handle if it was the other way around (sheath weapon -> extinguish torch).

I guess this is why they adjusted the brightness of the caves in 3U so you can see without torches. (Although this makes the torches kinda pointless.) The atmosphere is nice, but fighting while carrying torches is a bit troublesome.

After blindly running in circles for five minutes, I finally found a single ore deposit to mine. (Man, exploring caves in Tri is hardcore...)

Following the relief of finally seeing daylight again, I took a short detour to the base camp. I was interested to see if things looked better by now, but nope - the camp is still in the same-run down state as before. Well, I guess the villagers are just people too - you can't expect everything to repair itself as soon as you hand over the materials (like, you know, in a video game).

Also, another REALLY handy feature I just discovered is that you can display additional information on the status screens. If you press B on the Wiimote while opening the status menu, little question marks pop up in front of every skill, and you can hover over them to get a more detailed description of what that skill does and how many points you need to unlock the different tiers. (I don't think Freedom Unite had this; I always wished you could somehow display that info.)

Chief: "My wise ancestors said: The life of the village is tied to the land around it. They were right." Well, I have to agree on that - it’s easy to forget in our modern world, but ultimately, our survival is dependent on the environment.

Moga Village (day)

Chief's Son: "I used to break all my bones to get ore for the smith!" I suppose I should count myself lucky that I'm still in one piece, then... ^^' (But given how dark these caves are, I can imagine there's a lot of potential to fall flat on your face.)

Blacksmith: "Now, look at this Iron Ore. That's quality! Maybe not the best quality, but no rookie dug this up." Well, they did say he was hard to please. xD I reckon this is probably the closest thing to a compliment we're gonna get from him.

Chief's Son: "The smith liked you? Well, that’s surprising! Normally, the old geezer has trouble getting used to new faces." That's one more reason to feel honored, I guess...

Village Chief: "Well, if this isn’t a story to tell your grandkids! Of all ores in the region... you were able to find the exact kind that the smith LIKES?!" Man, you're almost making it sound like I'm the chosen one or something. ^^'

"We're making good progress rebuilding the base camp." Really? Last time I checked, it didn't really look like that to me.

"You're more stubborn than a Kelbi in heat!" Not sure if that says more about me or the Kelbi's mating behavior... ^^'

And now he just tells me to go take swimming lessons and thrusts a few harpoons into my hands. Well, I guess that's what we're doing, then.

Guild Sweetheart: "You're already back with the ore? You machine! What are they feeding you with?" Well, I told I'd be right back, didn't I? ^^

"Speaking of which, the Guild machine has a few loose screws. You'll never guess what they sent me this time. Absolutely NOTHING! Who would've thought?" Truly, wonders of bureaucracy...

"I'm burning for the hunt. Not that I can hunt. Not even beans. But I'm good at cheering!" Well, you have the spot as my No. 1 emotional supporter, I can tell you that much. ^^

The shy kid just gave me a free bug net he made himself, saying "I think I did a pretty good job with the net". And then he just hands me a Mega Bugnet. Kid, that's more than just a pretty good job - that's literally the best bug net in the game.

And the first of the Felynes is back on the farm! Nice - now we can finally cultivate stuff. (You have no idea how much I appreciate that feature after playing MH1.)

Felyne: "Veggies! Veggies! VEGGIES!! Food is more than just meat!" Well, you're not wrong about that. (The contrast is kinda funny, though - on one hand, we have the Chief’s Son and the Holy Grail of the barbecue, and then there’s this kitty who literally says “meat isn’t everything”. xD)

Still, I'm a bit surprised that Felynes are even able to eat vegetables (since they're basically cats, which are pure carnivores). And they apparently even need it to stay healthy, given that the Felyne says a lot of them switched to organic during the "health surge" a while back. Makes me wonder if they evolved differently...

"We're not using any chemicals or additives on the Moga Village farm! We would NEVER use pesticides made from Giggi extract!" Interesting fact that Giggi extract is used to make pesticides. (Also, sounds like the food industry in MH has much of the same issues as ours.)

Also, it's super cute that the Felyne calls the Chief's Son his "cub". xD

And then the Felyne just asks me "Would you like to give me a new name?" Like... Don't you have a name? Why do you want me to give you a new one? Are Felynes just fine with their employer changing their name to whatever they wish? Is it normal for them to be treated like pets? (Man, the implications are starting to get REALLY unpleasant...)

Btw, one of the names you can choose for the Felyne is Uber. Like, the company? I mean, Uber was founded in 2009, which is the same year MH Tri was released, so... ^^'

Also, the Felyne names are all male, as opposed to the Poogie where you could choose between male and female names. I take it the Felyne is canonically male, then.

"Felynes like to be clean, but I feel young digging in the dirt." Well, at least he seems to like his job...

Head Farmer: "The farm belongs to the village, but I can leave some land to you since you're protecting us and all that." I guess that means the farm is a bit bigger than what you see of it in the game (after all, the rice fields have to be somewhere).

"It's nice on the farm if you don't have to work." Yeah, I thought you’re not gonna do much of the heavy lifting, old man. You better don't exploit your farm hands, though - if you do, you bet I’m gonna call the Felyne Workers Rights Agency.

Moga Woods (night)

Anyway, returning to the Moga Woods, we're in for a nighttime swimming lesson with Juni-- I mean, the Chief's Son. As practice for underwater hunting, he wants us to catch a Molid. (Fun fact, btw: The common mola is literally called moonfish in most European languages. Get it? Catching a moonfish in the moonlight?)

Also, he is of the opinion that it would make "a great gift for the quest gal". I... believe there was something about the sea people bringing their lovers shells and other sea items as gifts, but I'm not exactly sure how he got the idea that the two of us are dating. xD (Also, since I'm playing a female hunter, does that mean the Moga Sweetheart likes women, too?)

At night, there are Melynx in Area 3. That reminds me of an interesting theory I once read about these kleptomaniac kitties - or rather, supposedly kleptomaniac. Kleptomania is a compulsive disorder to steal things, but in the Felyne camps, the Melynx are just as peaceful as the normal Felynes. Therefore, the author of the old MH Lore blog assumed that the Melynx were essentially organized raiding parties of the Felynes living in the wild. Considering that the stolen goods are brought to the Felyne camps where you can pick them up again, I think that's quite plausible.

On my way, I took a quick detour to the cave of everlasting darkness to collect some more ore. I'm not sure why, but I seem to have a bit of trouble with mining while carrying a torch. I know I pulled it off before, but for some reason, I'm just putting the torch out first despite holding R. Eh...

Also, I found out what happens if you hit monsters with a torch. If you hit the Giggis a few times, they'll bury themselves into the floor and disappear. If you give the Jaggis a bonk on the head, they'll leave the area. Of course, that means you'll be missing out on any potential carves, but at least you can keep the small monsters at bay if you just want to gather stuff. (Now, if I could actually use my pickaxe while carrying a torch...)

One thing that's kind of hilarious in Monster Hunter is that no matter how far you fall down, you never take a single point of fall damage. It’s part of the “normal craziness” you just get used to over time, but thinking about it, I wonder if there's any kind of in-lore explanation for it. Do the hunters wear inlays made from some kind of special material that softens the fall or something?

You know what's funny? That the underwater areas are actually brighter at night than anything above the surface. (I guess that's because they only made one 3D model for the underwater areas, including lighting and everything.)

The Molids actually look a bit different from our real-world common mola (the main difference being the longer fins). Makes me wonder if this is the general rule in the MH universe - all of our real world animals also exist there, but they look a bit different from what we’re used to.

Chief's Son: "If you keep going like this, you may have the honor of calling me Junior one day." Ahhh... So Junior is his nickname among friends and family... I see, I see.

There's this cave in area 12 that you can only access from underwater, where Bnahabras are swarming around a carcass. Their monster list entry says that they lay their eggs in carrion. So, given their lore, that’s actually quite a neat detail.

Also, you can gather bones from the carcass - although there's still rotten skin and flesh on it. Gross! You might wanna wash that stuff...

I've been using Iron Pickaxes so far because I didn't want to waste the Mega Pickaxe the smith gave me, but turns out that all I got to mine with the Mega Pickaxe were two ore deposits (not even that, since it broke before I could gather everything from the second). A bit disappointing, but the smith did say this was his old pickaxe - no wonder it gave out so soon.

Luckily, I remembered that you can make an Iron Pickaxe out of iron ore and a bone, which I happened to have on me.

I like how much effort they put into the physics of underwater combat. The blood effects appear blurred underwater, and if you kill a monster close to the surface, the body will actually float around. Really nice details!

Alright, let's get back to the village and see what the Guild Sweetheart thinks about our little "gift". (Not sure what's so attractive about Big Fins, but I guess we'll soon find out...)

To be continued

#monster hunter #monster hunter tri #monster hunter tri diary #gaming diary

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jarredlharris · 7 months

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Thoughts while listening to a podcast episode critiquing the spiritual warfare movement.

I did a live thread capturing my thoughts as I listened to an episode of the Go Home Bible (You're Drunk) podcast. The following is an aggregated copy of that thread.

I don't listen regularly to @gohomebible (please don't hate me @JustinDGentry), but I occasionally listen to one of their podcasts. The title of their most recent one caught my eye.

Anything about "spiritual warfare" always piques my interest. For a few reasons:

While In college, I got into the spiritual warfare movement. So I have a history.

As a Pagan witch, I'm often a regular villain in the minds of those who practice spiritual warfare.

As a witch, I'm fascinated and amused by how much of the spiritual warfare practices seem to mimic witchcraft and other forms of magic. This is especially amusing in light of #2 in this list. So, this is a livetweet thread of the latest @gohomebible episode.

(Wow, a podcast listen-and-tweet session by me that's not focused on @ThereafterPod? Can everyone handle it.) Anyway, pressing the play button on the episode now.

.@JustinDGentry: "Current debtholder." Seen, Justin. Seen. @gohomebible

.@JustinDGentry and @ToriGlass are talking about how "putting women on a pedestal" is still objectifying them. @gohomebible

Quick! Someone should start a pool taking bets on how many times I tag the wrong podcast in this thread. @gohomebible

I love how all of these podcasts promote each other. Beautiful stuff. @gohomebible

They're talking about "Sound of Freedom" right now. An important conversation. @gohomebible

Discussing (evangelical) men's need to rescuing "things" (particularly women just puts me in mind of the "Damsel in Distress" trope in video games that Anita Sarkeesian covered years ago. Apparently, saving Princess Peach isn't enough for some guys. @gohomebible

.@ToriGlass is talking about how evangelicals seem to implicitly trust other (evangelical) Christians without fact-checking or critical thinking. Excellent point. @gohomebible

About to get to the spiritual warfare discussion. Can't wait! @gohomebible

So apparently the Patreon levels for the podcast are named after church leadership positions? That's kinda funny. @gohomebible

.@JustinDGentry: If you ever had to cast out a demon or learn to do so, you have permission to drink throughout the episode." Guess I should've bought a ton of booze. @gohomebible

They're talking about how much paranoia there is in the spiritual warfare movement. So true. @gohomebible

As an aside, the number is still "zero," but there have been quite a few close calls. @gohomebible

@JarredH: Quick! Someone should start a pool taking bets on how many times I tag the wrong podcast in this thread. @gohomebible

@JustinDGentry is talking about how people in his life attributed sleep paralysis to demons. I'd imagine that'd be pretty unhelpful and harmful. @gohomebible

In my experience, those in the spiritual warfare are extremely skeptical of and hostile to therapy. Probably a huge reason for that. @gohomebible

.@ToriGlass is giving a high level (and probably simplified) explanation of the neurological causes behind sleep paralysis and it's pretty interesting. Would love to learn more. @gohomebible

.@ToriGlass: "We're weirdos." Reminds me of the line from "The Craft." It was a much better line in that movie, though. @gohomebible

.@JustinDGentry is suggesting that ND people might want to take more nuance when talking about how their upbringing impacted them. Probably, but I'd say that's good advice for NT people at way. @gohomebible

Yay! @JustinDGentry mentioned prayer walks! I forget how many of those I and my friends did while in college. @gohomebible

.@ToriGlass mentioned that there are pastors who teach that autism is caused by demons. I realize he's not the only one, but I gotta ask: Are we avoiding mentioning Greg Locke by name? @gohomebible

Kinda waiting for @ToriGlass and @JustinDGentry to say "victim blaming." @gohomebible

Those poor pigs! (You'll have to listen to understand the context.) @gohomebible

.@JustinDGentry: "If I jerk off too much, can I be possessed?" Sadly, I get how someone embedded in the spiritual warfare movement would worry about that. It's so tragic, though. @gohomebible

I'm amused that @JustinDGentry mentioned he "got rid of the devil rather quickly." It's funny to me that leaving the spiritual warfare movement accomplished the goal of the movement far better than the movement itself ever did. @gohomebible

.@ToriGlass calls spiritual warfare a "get out of the work free card" and I think that's a perfect analysis. @gohomebible

Cleaning up the mentions in this thread so that I don't blow up people's personal accounts with even more notifications. @gohomebible

This was an excellent episode that focused on the psychological harms of the spiritual warfare movement. @gohomebible

Now if I can conclude this thread with a little shameless self-promotion. I've covered the spiritual warfare in various threads in the past from a different angle. I often analyze and criticize the movement from a theological and/or magical perspective.

If that's something that would interest you, I'd encourage you to search through my past tweets.

For example, you might be interested in this thread from January where I watched an analyzed a YouTube video by Julia Dee Motycka called "Power, Prayer, and Spiritual Warfare."

#spiritual warfare movement #podcasts #evangelical harm #Spotify

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a-master-procrastinator · 3 years

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Long ass post about the Eternal family not being a copy-paste from ATLA (aka I like the memes but my god can you please stop)

Because some people truly think that Vaylin is off-brand Azula, Arcann is Zuko and so on.

It's. Called. A. Trope. (I mean how often do we come across abusive manipulative fathers in media? Mothers who couldn't much to change anything? Children, desperately looking for their parent's approval no matter what?)

Of course, you have to consider the fact that the writing of ATLA is simply better than of KotFE/ET, so this might have been one of the reasons why people say that.

Spoilers for Avatar: The Last Airbender, Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne expansions!

Okay, so here's my unprofessional, maybe biased, not super deep take.

(not going to mention that all of them are members of royal, ruling family, kinda obvious)

What roles do they play in their stories? Well, both Valkorion and Ozai are main antagonists, but their presence throughout the story is very different. Ozai is rarely shown in first two seasons, we don't even see his face until season 3. He doesn't have a direct connection to the protagonist, they only meet at the very end of the show, and Ozai's role is to pose a threat to the world, while Aang's is to save it. Valkorion, on the other hand, is constantly on the screen, interacting with the main character, challenging their viewpoint and influencing them directly. His end goal is similar to Ozai's (destroy everything and be the only ruler of the his nation), but with one major difference - he's trapped in Outlander's mind, so to achieve his goal Valkorion attempts to take control of the main character. Their interactions play important role in the story, and we spend a lot of time with Valkorion.

In addition to that, their relationship with children are also not exactly the same. It seems like Azula is Ozai's favorite and Zuko is a failure in his eyes until he meets his expectations, and the same goes with Vaylin, Arcann and Valkorion, right? Well, partially. Indeed, Valkorion and Ozai's treat their sons in similar ways (are disappointed in them until they meet their expectation by doing something that goes against their morals), but when it comes to Vaylin and Azula, it's not that easy. See, Valkorion claims that Vaylin was always his favorite creation (even though we know it's actually his empire), and he certainly seems to take pride in her potential in the Force. But her power is the very reason he's afraid of his own daughter, and in this fear Valkorion literally locks Vaylin away and allows to put her through physical and mental torture just to make sure she won't become a threat, won't overpower him. Maybe he thought of her better than of Arcann, but she wasn't his favored child for sure. I don't want to say that Azula hasn't experienced abuse from Ozai, but for the most part he clearly favored her over Zuko. He has never shown fear of Azula's power and abilities (or at least I haven't noticed), quite the opposite - allowed her to do a lot, as long as she brings results.

I could also mention their slightly different characterization (mostly that we get more characterization of Valkorion, get to learn his motivations, views, philosophy and all that, also he's portrayed as more nuanced, even if he not really is) and role in their respective governments (ozai is one of many Fire Lords and arguably not the greatest, while Valkorion is a god to citizens of Zakuul, their only Immortal Emperor), but those are details, and I think you get the point.

What's similar: role of the main antagonist, manipulative and abusive father, goal of destruction of everything that isn't their nation/empire, relationship with disgraced son.

What's different: presence in the overall narrative, relationship with the main character, relationship with daughter, role in their societies.

Senya and Ursa are even less similar. Yes, they both are mothers who love their children, but have to leave them, but these are probably the only things they have in common. Just as with Ozai and Valkorion's presence throughout the story, Ursa is only shown in flashbacks (for obvious reasons), and Senya is one of major characters in KotFE and (a bit less major) in KotET. Ursa leaves because she has to kill Azulon in order to save Zuko, and later isn't present in the story (I'm aware that her fate is told in comics, but we aren't talking about it). Senya leaves because when she tries to take children with her, they refuse, and she understands that she can't force them to, nor she can help them to break free from Valkorion's manipulations. For a long time she's absent from Arcann ad Vaylin's lives, but at the time of game events she attempts to save her children and stop the madness and destruction they've caused, and it isn't a small part of the story.

I also want to add that their relationship with Ozai and Valkorion are also different, but can't say much about Ursa. I heard that she didn't choose this marriage and suffered emotional (and maybe physical???) abuse from Ozai. I can say with confidence, though, that Senya genuinely loved Valkorion, and strangely enough, he seems to at very least respect her. But, of course, this wasn't the best marriage either.

Plus, we see more of Senya's relationship with Vaylin than Arcann or Thexan, but with Ursa we see her more with Zuko than Azula. Just a detail to remember.

(also Senya is simply a better character but that besides the point, moving on. in this house we stand Senya)

What's similar: role of loving and caring mother, abandoning their family at some point.

What's different: presence in the overall narrative, relationship with husband, characterization in general.

Boy, where do I even begin. Vaylin and Azula are similar in that they are both extremely powerful (one is firebending prodigy, the other is potentially stronger than Valkorion), both are cruel "craaaaazy" (i hate that cliché), both are younger sisters, have serious mother issues (seemingly more so than father issues), both go through betrayal of people they could always rely on, which eventually leads to their downfall. But when I took a look at their personal arcs, it became clear that they aren't the same (unfortunately, Vaylin's arc is very rushed and underdeveloped, but we'll have to go with what we have and my personal view, sorry).

There's a really good video about writing corruption and madness, and I'm going to base my thoughts on it. To summarise it: a good corruption arc should have 4 components:

- the character has a specific goal (or a goal and subgoals);

- in pursuit of said goal they become the cause of a significant event that brings serious consequences;

- as the result of these consequences, character abandons their morals, ideals or a code in pursuit of goal;

- character either will not achieve their goal or will succeed, but it won't be enough to satisfy them.

And then the author brings Azula's arc as one of the best examples of compelling story of corruption (so basically, she represents it perfectly). In short, Azula's main goals are perfection and control, and subgoals help achieve the main ones. In pursuit of these goals, Azula causes Mai and Ty Lee to betray her (by pushing them too far to do something they wouldn't do), which then causes her to become paranoid, which makes her to attempt controlling everything and everyone around her, *breathes* which makes her lose control over herself and ....

Now, I thought if Vaylin's arc could fit into a corruption one, and next part will be based a lot on my assumptions and personal view of her character (plus rushed writing doesn't help), but I think yes (or at least mostly). The difference is in goals, ideals and details.

While the story strongly makes us think that Vaylin's goal is freedom (or control over her life and everything around her) or power and destruction, I think it's actually self-determination (which was said by Tenebrae in 6.2) and feeling safe. Let me explain (and here I thought this would be a short comparison). Sure, when Valkorion caged Vaylin on Nathema, he took choices and control over her life from his daughter. But let's not forget whom Vaylin blames for this (even more than Valkorion): her own mother, and I think this details tell us that the most important thing that Vaylin lost on Nathema is feeling safe. Then, after Arcann brought her home, I assume Vaylin still didn't feel safe enough under Valkorion's rule, still too afraid that he'd simply send her back to that hellish place.

It's when Valkorion is struck down Vaylin finally has a feeling of personal safety, even if she isn't the one on the throne. Why? Because back on Nathema there were two people who haven't turned on her - Arcann and Thexan (yes, this is also a huge assumption, bc the game states that only Thexan visited her, but it doesn't make much sense).

I've always noticed (and I'm not alone in this) that her behavior in Fallen Empire is different from the way she acted in Eternal Throne. Most likely bc of rushed writing, but I see a character driven reason here. In first of these expansions, Vaylin is the second person in power on Zakuul, and with Arcann being in charge, person she can trust more than any other living being, she feels safe - she can test her power, and now Valkorion won't prevent it, she can do pretty much everything she wishes, and the most Arcann will do about this is mildly complain (without blaming her). Really would be nice if we got to see any normal hobbies of Vaylin (like wasn't there something about books or art?), but I digress. She might have some questions about Arcann's tactics, but they get along just fine. The important thing to note is Vaylin not seeking to hunt the Outlander personally, to rule or conquer the rest of the galaxy, or trying to achieve absolute freedom or power. She's kinda there.

This, however, changes when Arcann doesn't allow Vaylin to kill Senya. Their relationship was getting somewhat worse towards the end of KotFE, but this is a turning event Vaylin caused by attempting to strike her mother. By saving the person Vaylin blames for all the trauma from sending her to Nathema, Arcann threatened her feeling of safety. And now Vaylin starts to believing that to achieve safety she now needs to kill people who hurt her (that's why she's so determined to find Senya and Arcann), take the throne and hunt down Outlander (she was manipulated by SCORPIO to these subgoals).

(The following is the weakest, I'll admit, but I hope I can at least express what I see). So, in trying to achieve goals she didn't want before Vaylin loses in self-determination, being either driven by overwhelming anger or manipulated by others (SCORPIO or Commander on Odessen), desperately trying to accomplish anything, or even goes against her morals (like by erasing GEMINI's free will protocols, when earlier she agreed that freedom to choose is important; or breaking the deal on Odessen). All of these result in her downfall.

But even this isn't the end. The key difference between arcs of Azula Vaylin lies in it's resolution, or that Vaylin have a chance to overcome corruption in the main narrative (and Azula doesn't. again, not including comics here, sorry). After death, Vaylin is again controlled by Valkorion in Outlander's mind. First time physically (she can't resist it), second time mentally. This is where Vaylin has to choose - kill brother who betrayed her and Commander who killed her, or go against Valkorion, person responsible for almost all of her pain and trauma. She has t choose by herself, and I think it's a good start.

Now, before 6.2 we all thought Vaylin was dead for good, but that story update hinted at possibility of her coming back to life. What I like to think is that now that she dealt with people responsible for her trauma (helped defeat Valkorion and actually for once listened to Senya), Vaylin can now have a different life, finding herself with support of someone she doesn't hold a grudge against and who treats her well (Satele, I mean).

I'm so sorry for going into details, but I needed this long explanation to present the point (and I suck at explanations). As said before, this is my version of her arc, and most likely wrong interpretation, but even with personal freedom of choice, Vaylin character differs from Azula a lot.

Need I mention that Vaylin relationship with Arcann and Valkorion are drastically different from those between Azula, Zuko and Ozai?

(Also a little detail - with royal family of Fire Nation, Azula is the golden child, while with Tiralls it's actually Thexan, not Vaylin).

What's similar: role of extremely powerful, emotionally damaged daughter with little to no regard towards others, close people betraying them, resulting in their downfall.

What's different: characterization, role in the narrative, relationship with father and brother.

Arcann and Zuko is the most difficult part, but I still believe that calling Arcann just a cheap copy of Zuko is incorrect.

So, they fall into role of less successful son, always getting disapproval from father, being in shadow of more talented sibling, both obsessed with capturing the main character but ending up helping them end the war after going through a redemption arc with help of caring family member. Even both have scars on left side of face. Yeah, seems similar. I still think they are different characters.

Let's start with their relationships with family. In Valkorion section I said that his attitude towards Arcann is similar to that of Ozai towards Zuko, so not going to spend too much time here. However, there's slight difference - Zuko didn't kill his father even he had a perfect opportunity (bc it wasn't his goal), Arcann did (bc it was one of his goals), which says something about their characterizations.

Zuko and Ursa were shown to have a good mother-son relationship, and it played a role in Zuko's character. With Arcann and Senya, we don't really know (not much was shown in expansions). We know Arcann didn't hate his mother, but possibly didn't have warm memories of her either. The reason is most likely, like Senya said, her children wanted nothing to do with her (which is a bit untrue about Vaylin, but okay) and leaned more towards Valkorion. We need to remember that on Zakuul Valkorion isn't just one of many great leaders, he's the greatest, and seen as a god by most citizens, so safe to assume the same would apply to his children as well.

Zuko and Azula's siblingship (i'm out of words) is a bit similar to Arcann and Vaylin's in way of brother knowing that his sister isn't good, but still caring about them (even if not showing). At least it's what I saw. What's different is how Azula treats Zuko, compared to how Vaylin treats Arcann. I think Azula showed compassion or concern for Zuko maybe twice, but I'm not entirely convinced that it was 100% sincere. Vaylin, on the other hand, seems to trust and care about Arcann (with bits of sass and questioning his life choices), and switching to complete opposite after him saving Senya. Also, I don't she ever called Arcann a failure in their father's eyes.

Now I want to say that their roles in stories aren't the same either. Sure, both are introduced to us as antagonists, but in reality, Zuko was never a true antagonist (we get to learn this somewhere mid-season 1), when Arcann remains the main antagonist for whole of KotFE. Zuko didn't start a war and didn't participate in conquest of other nations too much, his main goal was to capture the Avatar so to restore his honor (and deserve his father's forgiveness). Honestly, I think it's safe to say the Zuko is one of two main protagonists of ATLA. Why does Arcann want to capture the Outlander? Solely because his father's spirit still lives inside this person's mind, and the best solution to keep Valkorion away from the galaxy is not letting the Outlander free (hence the carbonite freezing). And Arcann doesn't want or need Valkorion's forgiveness when he attempts to kill him (or kills him, depending on your choice. anyway, his action directly leads to Valkorion's "death"). And right after that he becomes a ruler of Zakuul and begins the conquest of Republic, Sith Empire and everything he can reach (the reasoning behind this is still unclear to me though; maybe because he was raised with ruling Zakuul in mind and he didn't anything else, idk). Point is, he's responsible for war and main's character imprisonment, which makes him the main antagonist of KotFE. They have it the opposite ways - Zuko starts as disgraced prince, supported by a little group of people, and in the end he's recognized and appreciated by his nation, and Arcann starts as respected by his empire, later becoming less and less loved, until some groups start rebelling his rule, and in the end he doesn't get to rule Zakuul again.

This leads me to their morals. See, Zuko didn't have the worst morals in Fire Nation, even more, he expressed care for loyals soldiers of his nation before getting punished by Ozai. During first season (and about a half of second one) his views on other nations are what he was taught before. However, these views are challenged by travelling in Earth Kingdom, witnessing people suffering from war Fire Nation started and hating its people (you already know all of this), and with this he comes through final stage of redemption when he's back home. Unfortunately, Arcann doesn't go through this, and he's shown to be more ruthless.

Alright, when it comes to their redemption arcs, well let's say they are different (both in quality and the way they go through it), I'm just a bit tired of long explanations at this point. Zuko's arc is one of the best ever put on television, and Arcann's... well, it definitely has potential, but is criminally underdeveloped (there are other people who will explain it better than I ever could).

What's similar: role of disgraced son, living in shadow of their sibling, serious injuries on the left side of face (though with different meanings), obsession with capturing the main character, having a redemption arc.

What's different: role in the narrative, role in their society, characterization, relationship with sister and mother, different end goals (before redemption), paths to redemption.

#ah. ofc it didn't show in the tag bc of the youtube link. ofc. gonna be down bc of this)#hey look at me rambling about something only maybe 2 people take seriously #also i noticed that parental characters are better in swtor and children characters are better in atla. do what you want with this #it's 3:30 am i should be sleeping but here instead writing this #(forgive if i have some spelling mistakes. brain shutting down but i won't be at peace if i don't post it right now)#okay so if you have thoughts on this... you really don't have to waste time on this #i really only wrote this because i was annoyed by some peeps on reddit claiming vaylin is off-brand with a straight face #(and then posted this on tumblr bc i don't want to suffer those people on reddit)#what am i doing with my time #(not gonna tag atla bc it's not really about it)#swtor #arcann #vaylin #valkorion #senya tirall #kotfe #kotet #pauletta's babbling #pls send help #(or oc aks to give me some free serotonin but no obligations ofc)

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aetherarf · 2 years

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I need to write this down before I forget… so what was your opinion on the Raiden Shogun’s story arc? Tbh I felt hyped about it when it first came out but now that I am calm, I realize there are some glaring issues in the plot when it comes to tying loose ends…

For example, the fact that people died during the vision hunt decree and that there wasn’t any sort of political pushback on Raiden Shogun’s rule… or questioning the commissions? Or even the unsolved tension between Sangonomiya and Narukami inhabitants. Overall the story was rushed but had so much potential…

There’s too much to cover on how we COULD speculate how it could have ended, so I’m just gonna discuss Raiden Shogun. Personally, I felt that Raiden Shogun should have been demoted(?) from her role as ruler of Inazuma… too many mistakes and the fact that she stayed inside her head for so long does not sound like a capable leader to the inazumans… not to mention that she kinda ignored them too for so long…

I could imagine that if we were to go down this demoted route, Raiden Shogun would just.. be a literal figurehead, maybe realizing that she’s unfit to rule and that her vision of eternity won’t benefit her people so she in stead resorts to just being a symbol of eternity… their eternal god that watches and records their history… idk I’m just spitballing here and kinda drawing from my pedestrian knowledge… so what do you think?

Also note: not hating on Raiden, I love her design just story wise there’s some inconsistencies haha. Sorry for the text being so long 💦💦💦

OH MY GOD YOURE ENABLING ME TO TALK ABOUT THIS

I'm going to compare her a lot to Venti and Zhongli, because it's the only reference we have.

Salt under cut.

As a consumer of a video game, it was... well. Wasn't enjoyable but whatever, they were rushing the product.

As a writer, I fucking hate it. I hate it so much. I fucking hate it and honestly I can't even like Raiden for it. [I dislike Kokomi, not because of Kokomi herself, but she was written like a fucking idiot in the archon quest... Why did she pop up twice and the second time was her NOT NOTICING HER SOLDIERS COULD USE ELEMENTS???]

First off, Raiden's position of power. I still don't understand a lot about her in ways we do understand Venti and Zhongli. We know what they were before becoming Archons. Venti was a little wind sprite that wanted to bring hope to the people of Mondstadt, and to bring freedom in the way he couldn't bring to his friend. Zhongli was already a powerful dragon, and the first adeptus, and was more forced into the position, because they needed a surviving god to lead them. Zhongli was the strongest.

But... Raiden- we don't know anything. I haven't done intensive research, but that's the thing: I shouldn't need to do intensive research to understand a character. I don't know what she was before. Was she just a powerful human? How could a human compare to beings literally made of, and for, their element? [Again, Zhongli being an Earth Dragon, Venti being a Wind Sprite]. And, this does include her sister, but I won't focus on her because... well. She's dead. She's not who we're talking about.

I don't know what Raiden is, and why she is an Archon. It wasn't touched upon, which really made it not feel... real. The argument CAN be made that we learned about Venti later [Zhongli we learned, quite quickly, that he was a dragon- See: Exodia.] But we learned about Venti's past during his Personal quest. We didn't learn about Ei in her personal quest.

So we're off to a bad start- We don't know how she became an Archon. We do know she's more of an upfront leader, as most Archons are, but the first we've seen due to... Well. Zhongli and Venti. I could've forgiven this if it was touched upon in her personal quest- But it wasn't. Honestly, I don't know WHO Ei is. She seeks eternity. She's suffered from trauma, losing her sister, and her three best friends. But there's more to life than just a base trauma, and what her goal is. Zhongli is an ancient dragon, and god, who has always wanted to find peace between two parties, and has always fulfilled his duties of protecting the people that worshipped him. He's resigned from what he's suffered from, but he's not in the midst of his pain, and has grown past it. He's smart but violent when necessary- Someone who didn't want what he was given, but was forced into it. Venti is a soul that truly is as free as the wind, mostly just wanting to have fun, he cares a lot, but he also understands that all of life is a joke. He wants to enjoy it, and he trusts his people- He's there for them, watching over them with love, but he doesn't trust himself to rule... and he knows that, being a god of freedom, he cannot rule, or he will destroy the freedom he offered. But Ei? She wants eternity because she lost people, and if there's eternity, they will stay forever, and she will not suffer from loss ever again. Noble, but that's it. That's a very two-dimensional character, compared to Venti and Zhongli.

As for the political pushback- I can forgive that more, at least, for Raiden directly. She's an ARCHON. A GOD. People don't have a choice to fight her. Sure, they can try, but we already had the rebellion... So writing-wise, it wouldn't make sense to rebel, and then to rebel for more, when originally they wanted to keep Ei around, but just repeal the vision hunt. Still, it's... quite odd. It doesn't feel right, but I won't fight on it too hard. Besides, they wanted to introduce the audience to an Archon who rules directly- It's a tricky thing! Mondstadt is the most relatable as far as the god is concerned, because it only features a God we cannot see, and we just believe in. Not everyone is Christian, but we don't have gods in real life ordering us around. Then, Zhongli is only somewhat present, so it helps ease us into gods being more present and distancing Teyvat from our world. Raiden is just the next step forward- She's there, but sort of distant, and her 'Shogun' itself can be likened to a prophet- Still, not too shocking. We can be eased into seeing gods as leaders being normal in teyvat. So, fine, I can forgive that in the grand scheme of things.

I do think she, in a way, let herself become a figurehead. Not entirely, but I can see her acting more reserved- Granted in her personal quest, she was in seclusion, the Shogun pacing endlessly, but I can see her stepping back a little- She's there, and she will still seek eternity, but she loosens her grip on Inazuma, if only a little bit. But as far as anyone trying to 'demote' her... that wouldn't... work. Just- You wouldn't go to a literal god and demote them. If this was a setting closer to real life, of course, like if the President of the USA did something terrible, we could get them impeached. But it's just... Humans can't fight the gods directly head-on without facing death. That's what we need to learn in the context of Genshin Impact- It's not our world, and we cannot apply it to our world's standards at some places. You can't demote a god in the same way you'd demote a national leader.

I personally detest how she was done, however, and I feel that the entire thing was rushed and we were deprived of a lot of information that could've at least helped us UNDERSTAND Raiden- She didn't even fucking get redeemed, she's still the same person. She just realized that she can't push her people around, but theres no character development. She still clearly doesn't understand that she can't treat people like less than people.

TL;DR: This is a setting that's trying to get us accustomed to a world that is not our own, and goes by its own 'Rules', so it's important to remember that demoting a god isnt as easy as demoting a national leader... But as a whole, Raiden is infuriatingly poorly written, and I can't find a reason to care about her. Her trauma doesn't justify her actions, and she never developed as a character, making her boring and a poor set-up to the future Archons of Teyvat.

#bark rambles #salty bark #???#anonymous #anon talk

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dollarpuppet · 3 years

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Moving part #5: API

I'm building an online video game, and I already made a few technical decisions. I know what frameworks I will use for the front-end (React/Bootstrap), where the assets will be hosted (S3/CloudFront), and how authentication and authorization will work (Cognito). Now I have to figure out how the back-end will work.

In the context of a video game like this one, the back-end will most likely be a bunch of web services that the front-end will interact with to get or send data. Even though my ideas for the game are still quite vague, it seems likely that the bulk of the exchanges will be centered around obtaining or updating the state of specific game elements (player, scene, objects, etc.) which means that a typical REST API should work fine.

While the front-end is expected to drive the exchanges, it's also possible that the back-end will need to send notifications to the front-end on occasion. For that kind of stuff, I don't think I would use browser notifications, but rather something like WebSocket.

REST API and microservices

Fundamentally, a microservice-inspired approach means that rather than have one big web application with many endpoints, the API is a collection of small independent applications, each with one or two endpoints. It also means that rather than have a big database in the back that all the endpoints tap into, persistence is self-contained in each service; if a service needs something from another service, it uses the REST endpoint like everyone else rather than grab stuff directly from the database and/or use shared components.

What I like about this design is that it allows me to focus on one small part of the system at a time, without having to re-test everything when I make a breaking change in a database table or in a library. It limits the blast radius, so to speak, which is hugely convenient especially for a small team (just me!) working part-time on a project, which can lead to losing focus or forgetting about a specific dependency. With microservices, I can also use different technologies - even different programming languages - across different services.

The pros and cons of microservices can be discussed ad nauseam, as, like most things, they do not constitute a silver bullet. But microservices are easier to scale and maintain, and that alone is good enough for my use case.

I've been in this business a long time, and I noticed that some developers, even seasoned ones, don't "get" microservices; they just can't move past cross-cutting concerns (ex: loggers) or can't wrap their mind around using API endpoints rather than access a shared database directly. They'll typically quote the DRY principle and constantly try to work around the architecture because they assume it's "not done right".

I realized over the years that when dealing with stubborn developers who can't let go of old ways to do things, the only solution is to level down and build monolithic applications, otherwise the end result is a Rube Goldberg machine with horrifying stuff like some services acting as massive controllers or using stateful caching to work around the lack of a shared database. Microservices are amazing, as long as every contributor to the project understands how they work; otherwise it's a one-way ticket to hell.

Thankfully I'm working alone on this project so I don't have to deal with this kind of problem.

This concludes my rant about microservices!

Hosting the API

I already know that the static assets will be hosted in S3/CloudFront and that authentication will be done with Cognito. This means that the solution relies heavily on AWS already, but technically there's nothing forcing me to use AWS for the API. The exchange of data between the browser and the API is not tied to the source of the static assets, and the JWT that are passed around include all the information the API provider needs to verify credentials.

This gives me with the freedom to choose between the two ways that work well for building a microservice architecture: containers or serverless (although technically serverless runs on containers, we just don't see them).

Containers

A container is not like a small virtual machine; it's more like a way to package a script using an archive format that abstracts everything that is not relevant for the script itself. For instance, a container could be a Python script that comes with the Python interpreter and all the relevant libraries, but not much else. When a container is running, the process it launches (like that Python interpreter) is visible on the host system; that's different from VMs. Containers are based on images, which are like templates; a running container may or may not change the files included in its template (which has performance implications).

Containers are great because they allow you to decompose a service in smaller components that you can scale differently. For instance, you can a container that runs your Python code and another one that hosts the database; at any time you can scale up the overall service by adding more instances of the Python container while keeping just one instance of the database container.

The main problem with containers is that they are fundamentally not distributed - they are meant to run on a same host. This design allows for a highly simplified way to have interactions between containers and remove the need for endless configuration files, but it doesn't horizontally scale and it doesn't allow for high-availability.

Sophisticated solutions like Kubernetes, Rancher or Nomad can address these limitations, but they are not trivial to implement and typically require additional operational elements (monitoring, etc).

Service mesh

When containers are used to implement a microservice architecture, a common approach is to attach a reverse proxy to each instance of a service; that reverse proxy abstracts the communication with other services in some way (for instance by obtaining routing information from a central inventory), allowing each service to behave as if the other services were running on the same host. This removes the need to handle stuff like SSL or connection strings inside each service.

One of the cool things about a service mesh is that rather than drive the deployment of components in a top-down manner, the services register themselves in the mesh when they become operational (similar to how DHCP operates). This allows for really sophisticated deployment and scaling scenarios that are not strangled by a central bottleneck.

Serverless

Serverless takes things a step further by removing the notion of container entirely. With the Serverless approach, a microservice is composed of one of more functions that are deployed individually. Under the hood, each "function" is a container but all the plumbing is handled by the Serverless platform.

Typically, a microservice has one or more dedicated data persistence mechanisms (like a database) and is made available to other parts of the system via an API gateway where stuff like authorization or throttling is handled.

For instance, on AWS, a microservice will typically correspond to a Lambda application composed of one or more functions, one or more DynamoDB tables, and one or more integrations in an API gateway.

Serverless is great but there is one downside that is, in essence, an amplification of the downside of cloud computing: when things run on-demand, there's a start-up delay, and if you can't live with the start-up delay, you have to provision capacity ahead of time (which means it's no longer on-demand). Cloud vendors are working hard to solve this problem, and no doubt that some fancy machine learning magic is being implemented to minimize this downside, but as of 2021 it still exists.

Which is best?

As of 2021:

nothing scales better than a service mesh

nothing is easier to maintain than Serverless

and:

nothing is easier to create from scratch than a monolithic application

nothing is easier to maintain in the long term than a microservice application

and:

as the solution grows it becomes increasingly more difficult to switch between those architectures

At this point in time, anyone who comes up with the "best" architecture that applies to everything is either a liar or an incompetent (usually both).

The architecture must take into account all kinds of factors, including short-term capabilities and long-term opportunities. For instance, since I'm working on this game on my own, any time spent working on deployment or maintenance takes away from adding cool stuff in the game itself, but if the game suddenly takes off and becomes a big hit, offering a smooth experience to users may become a very expensive problem to solve if the initial design is not scalable.

I have some more thinking to do.

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