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rallamajoop · 8 months

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An absurdly detailed analysis of That One Soldat Photo

Hang around wintersberg fandom long enough, and you'll likely run into a popular crack-theory that, since Heisenberg obviously thinks that building a set of huge, yellow-painted signposts is a good way to point Ethan to the Stronghold, maybe it's Heisenberg who's been leaving all those handy, yellow-painted supply crates all over the place for Ethan to find! It's exactly the kind of fun nonsense I'd enjoy if it didn't feel folks are starting to take it a little too literally (by which I mean I have now read multiple fics in which it's played completely straight ‒ and, like, people do get that it's just a crack theory, right? Like, why would Heisenberg have left so many yellow crates around his own damn factory? Look, you don't have to explain every last game mechanic, not everything is lore!)

But as anyone reading my own fic would know, I'm guilty of echoing the idea that Heisenberg-was-leaving-stuff-for-Ethan myself ‒ just not because of any yellow-striped crates. No, I'm way more interested in this one weird soldat-photo you can find in the village ‒ long hours before you'll ever see your first Soldat in the flesh...

Very creepy. And if you turn it over, you'll find a clue to a puzzle you'll have to solve in order to progress.

(And of course, when you do look out the window, odds are you'll get jump-scared by a lycan just when you're focused on the numbers, because RE8 loves that sort of misdirection ‒ but I digress.)

Anyway, the code you can see out the window will open a safe containing a jack handle you'll need to move a vehicle in the village, as well as the M1911 pistol (which will very likely be your go-to handgun for the rest of the game). The game is full of conveniently-helpful clues like that (heck, most games are), often with no obvious Watsonian justification. And there are other photos around the village ‒ Luiza has a whole photo album ‒ but photos of experiments created by Miranda and her lords don't generally turn up outside their own territory.

For a player exploring the village for the first time, that photo is a lovely little bit of foreshadowing, hinting at monsters and factory stages to come. But on replaying with full knowledge of Heisenberg's later attempts to get Ethan on his side, that Soldat photo is just enough to make you go, huh... did Heisenberg leave that for Ethan? Like, on purpose?

You can find another copy of that photo later, in Heisenberg's factory, along with his notes on his early series Soldat experiments. Which doesn't really prove anything beyond the fact that assets exist to be reused... but it does at least make it pretty canon that Heisenberg has photos of his Soldats sitting around.

Possibly also significant: both the clue photo and the factory documents are tagged 'geekmemo' in the game files. Most everything related to Heisenberg in the files is labeled 'geek'-something ‒ it seems to be an early nickname for his character that lasted well into production. Everything in the factory is geek-something, even the model for the passageway from the altar to the bridge is labeled 'pathtogeek'. Considering that so many soldat-related assets are already labeled 'geek', maybe that 'geekmemo' tag doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know ‒ but it certainly doesn't work against the idea that Heisenberg wrote that 'memo' himself.

Besides, it's not like there isn't precedent for this kind of thing. RE7 had a whole mechanic where you'd have to find 'treasure photos' pointing out the location of a few rare and useful items, all with "I hid something here" written on the back. We're never explicitly told who left those photos lying around, but it's obviously Lucas: he loves playing games, he loves taunting prisoners with the possibility of escape, and who else would it be? The complete population of the Baker mansion is like 6 people and a bunch of semi-sentient mould.

Over in RE8, there are a lot more village resident who might have left that clue lying around. Like it or not though, Heisenberg is very much RE8's equivalent of Lucas: the family's wildcard show-boater who loves making Ethan jump through hoops for his amusement. So how does the game let us know it was Heisenberg who left this particular clue? Well, who else would leave a message on the back of a Soldat photo?

There's may be additional supporting evidence Heisenberg could be involved ‒ most notably the location, being a locked-off cul-de-sac labeled 'Workshop' on signs and maps. The area is full of metal junk very much like you'll later see lying around the factory.

The workshop location does have other relevance ‒ it makes sense that you'd find the jack handle in the village workshop, whether Heisenberg was involved or not. But it also stands to reason that if there's anywhere in the village proper where Heisenberg might hang around and leave clues for Ethan, the workshop is it. And you have to admit that leaving Ethan useful stuff in a safe along with an easy clue that will likely get him jumped by a lycan is 100% more in-character for the guy than just leaving useful stuff out in the open, even if it doesn't really prove anything either.

There's one more weird-little does-this-mean-anything detail: there are three dead crows near the safe too.

It's not the first time in the game you've seen dead crows (there were a bunch outside the village, and I've talked about what that might mean in the context of Miranda's cult before). But I don't remember finding any others around the village itself, other than in this one spot. And instead of being hung from trees like a ritual sacrifice, these ones are just dead ‒ messily, and with blood everywhere.

Now, maybe it doesn't mean anything, but is there anyone in the village more likely to vent his frustrations by violently killing a few of Mother Miranda's avian avatars than Heisenberg? I'd think not.

In conclusion: I still don't think all those yellow crates have anything to do with Heisenberg. And I still don't know for sure whether the RE8 development team wanted me to assume that Heisenberg left Ethan that photo, jack handle and gun. I don't know if we're supposed to read that Heisenberg keeps a workshop in the village and sometimes kills crows out of spite. But the evidence sure does point that way ‒ and it's as valid an interpretation as anything else you might take from this game.

#wintersberg #Karl Heisenberg #Ethan Winters #Resident Evil Village #Resident Evil #meta

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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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DM Tip: Better Loot

Treasure is ubiquitous in D&D, it’s presumed to be one of the default motivations, if not the only motivation behind many adventures, despite the fact that very little thought has been put into the systems by which the DM generates the treasure and the party plays around with it. After nearly two decades of being a DM I can’t count the number of times I’ve made a treasure horde and handed it out to the players while feeling as if the fun game we had been playing had suddenly been put on pause.

It took me a while to realize that this was because unlike combat ( the favourite child among d&d’s many subsystems) very little attention had been made to making loot feel good at any stage of the process whether it was down to the mechanics or even the presentation.

While below the cut I’m going to get into systems about easier ways to generate treasure, rebalanced magic item prices, and how to get your players in on the fun, for now I want to focus on this element of presentation when it comes to handing out loot.

Here’s some of my findings, in no particular order:

Just like combat has “ Roll initiative” and “how do you want to do this?”, handing out loot should have codified phrases to indicate that the party is entering into a specific period of game time. It’s a ritual that will not only get them excited but have them in the right kind of headspace required for absorbing new information. The phrases I’ve been using are “ You spill out your plunder across the table/dungeon floor and there you find_____” and “With that sorted, you pack away your spoils, and return to the adventure at hand”

I completely ignore art items/gems, they’re a neat idea for flavor but they slow things down at every turn ( coming up with them during loot generations, players recording them) and are almost always junked for gp at the first possible opportunity. The exception to this is valuable trade goods/collectors items, which I mention being worth X gp in value but worth MORE if the party can find an associated merchant ( as a questhook)

GP comes first, followed by the names of the items and a brief as possible physical description. Players can ask questions generally on what items do but either have to call dibs then or divy them up on their own time. Listening to the dm dispassionately read out the stats of an item is boring as hell, only eclipsed by the dm describing the indepth LOOK of various items and then asking the party to roll checks to identify/figure out of the items work. Speed in divvying loot keeps the momentum of the game going and you want to tap into the “OOOH, SHINY” impulse of your players before their eyes glaze over.

I HIGHLY suggest keeping a party doc with the stats of all your items copy/pasted into it. Divide the doc up by characters/in the cart, so your party can always remember where shit was. Ask one organized player to be the one to keep track of the party doc and share it with the others. Call them “quartermaster” they’ll love that shit.

Unless the item in question needs to be used immediately “ It’ll be in the party doc” is your answer when they ask for stats. Update the partydoc after session so your group can have the whole week to look at it and get used to things between sessions. Gearing up with new loot is just as much homework as leveling up a character, and is best done away from the table.

After you’re done checking out the treasure generation rules below, also be sure to check out my systems on handling shopping trips, making identifying items more interesting, and managing party wealth. I’m sure you’ll find something there that can help improve your game.

The magic item chart to rule them all

Figuring out a better way to generate magic items was actually pretty simple once I had all the pieces in place, though it took me a many attempts to realize what I actually wanted in such a system:

It had to be simple and time saving, requiring the least amount of math/chart references as possible

it had to be relevant at every level accommodating to 3rd party material

d&d already divides items and adventuring parties into tiers, and the game already allows lower level parties the chance at finding items that outstrip their tier.

Absolutely no effort should be spent generating items wroth random amounts of gp when players are going to instantly sell them.

Which led me to this thing of elegance:

To generate a hoard of items, roll a single set of dice (1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d10, 1d12, 1d20) and compare the numbers rolled against the chart above. Every 0 represents an item relevant to the party’s adventuring tier ( so a lvl 1-5 group would get common, lvl 6-10 group would get uncommon and so on). +1s represent an item of a grade above, -1s represent an item of a grade below. I had to invent a tier below common, but d&d already has rules for “trinkets” as fun but mechanically useless items that were easy to adapt.

After I’ve got a string of -1s, 0s, and +1s, it’s only a matter of comparing them against whatever list/books I’m using to supply items. For sake of ease, I’ve got multiple google docs where I’ve sorted my collection of 3rd party and homebrew items by rarity and theme, but if you don’t hoard material like I do you don’t have to worry about that.

New Magic Item Prices

having several thousand GP worth of wiggleroom for high level items helps no one, so instead we’re going with a base 5 system that’ll guide us through the rest of this doc. These prices are meant as an absolute baseline for things like crafting and haggling down to, as well as determining the value of non-magical rewards later on.

Trinket: 10 , Common: 50 , Uncommon: 250 Rare: 725 , Very Rare: 3625 , Legendary: 18,125

Having a concrete price also lets you use my chart to generate raw GP in coinage: too many items cluttering up your list? run out of ideas? convert the leftover item slots into thier price in GP and worry no more.

Other Uses for the Chart:

If you’re the type to run magic item shops ( and you should), using a set of dice to generate treasure is a great way to pick out the inventory. Most shops are going to be at common rarity, but for major shops the party is going to return to over several levels, I do a new inventory drop every 5 levels.

Since Overthinking d&d is my passion, I was caught up in weighing the value of treasure that was scattered throughout the dungeon vs treasure that was all in one place. The former encouraged the party to explore (which is the entire reason for going into a dungeon) but risked the party missing out on important rewards if they didn’t figure out a clue or feel like fighting a particular beast. The latter felt like a proper reward for overcoming a gauntlet of challenges, but encouraged players to race to the end. The answer was to do both, One hoard at the end of the dungeon, one scattered around in nooks and crannies for the party to discover on their own. That meant that a party could count on almost doubling their plunder if they explored the content I’d made for them... which is exactly where I want them to be.

Frequently my parties will do a bit of unexpected looting I haven’t planned for: They’ll pick through the ruins of a destroyed town looking for salvage, harvest alchemical components from a garden of feywild flora I’ve only intended as set decoration, or load up a cart with the contents of a bandit armoury and hit the market with it. I want to reward players for taking the initiative, but I always feel like raw gold is too flat a prize and I don’t like making up stuff on the spot. My system offers a solution: every time they do that they get a stack of loot ( graded common to very rare, based on who or what it is they’re looting). When they hit the market, they can cash in any number of loot stacks for the roll of 1 dice, scaling up. If they hit 7, they get to roll the full array and get themselves a loot drop. This is always done in the aftermath of a session, so that I have time to tell them what they’ve won. ( 5 stacks of loot is worth 1 of the next grade up and visa versa). I similarly let my players attach a wishlist to this loot drop ( vague things like “ healing potions” or “ I’d like a new spell focus” to guide my search through my item lists.

#the loot overhaul #dm tips #dnd #treasure #tableskills #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #dm advice #dm tip #dm tools #writing advice #homebrew #homebrew mechanic #shopping #loot #magic item

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minuteminx · 1 year

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My biggest frustration as a Preston fan in the Fallout 4 fandom is not actually the people who make hate content (that’s annoying and awful but my block button is a pretty great balm for that); no, it’s actually the multitude of people who “would like him if…” “would have been more willing to spend time with him if…”

Call me crazy, but aside from the annoying radiant quest mechanic (which can be circumvented if you 1. Listen to Radio Freedom everyone once and a while, 2. Don’t do the quests you’re assigned bc you’ll only get a couple at a time before it stops, and 3. Make sure your settlements are in good shape. You have so much less to do if you settlements are taken care of on the front end. If they have a high enough defense and they’re under attack? THEY DEFEND THEMSELVES. Imagine that. Anyway) I actually LIKE how the game handles Preston and the MM.

Maybe it’s just me coming from Dragon Age fandom, where in the very first game, my fresh out-out-of-orientation Grey Warden is asked to take the lead by someone with more seniority because the more senior person is riddled with grief, survivor’s guilt, and insecurity that they’d be able to do a good job… sound familiar? Preston asks you to be the General because after everything he has been through, he’s not ready to fill that role. He can’t stomach the responsibility because he is afraid he’ll mess it up, that he’ll let people down.

But the thing is, he still does the General Stuff. He is the one organizing, communicating with settlements, strategizing, expanding, recruiting, giving orders, etcetera, etcetera. The sole who agrees to be the General is honestly just a figurehead for the settlers and a sounding board for Preston’s ideas. At the end of the day it is not the Sole Survivor who settlers run to, excited to thank them for all their help and make donations. It’s not the Sole Survivor who is viewed as the face of the MM. It’s Preston.

Do I wish the game came full circle and acknowledged that? Oh yeah I do, which is why I’m writing fanfic. I think that Preston deserved a personal quest where you retake Quincy from the Gunners and get revenge on Clint. I think the end of his story should be the Sole Survivor acknowledging that he’s been the General the entire time and bequeathing that title back to him now that he is recovering and ready for it. That’s really all I would have needed to feel like his story was complete.

As is, I enjoy traveling with Preston in game. He is refreshing. He has a lot of hopeful commentary about the Commonwealth, a lot of sarcasm and dry humor, and it’s great. He actually gives you less quests when he’s traveling with you as a companion, too.

His romance is lovely. It is the only one with some additional dialogue if you do the flirts, successfully initiate, then back out when he asks if you’re sure. He will come back later and say “listen, I know last time we talked, you said you weren’t ready to move on, but it’s been a while now and I still feel the same about you. I was wondering if you thought you might feel the same about me.” He also is genuinely so happy and excited to be with you. He gets a little more flirtatious. talking about MM regulations not covering your little situation (little eyebrow wiggle included). He calls you babe and tells you to be careful. It’s just as rich of a romance as literally any of the others.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I’ve been seeing a number of new posts in this vein lately and I guess I wanted to add my thoughts. 😌

#preston garvey #fallout 4

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level2janitor · 2 months

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Diceless skills

the more i run and play RPGs, the more i start to be skeptical of dice. i like dice - i like rolling them, i think there's a whole lot of areas where they make a game better. but i'm skeptical about how they're the assumed default for how you resolve stuff.

ramble about ttrpg design under the cut

the way D&D handles skills is simple: you roll a die. if it's a big enough number (modified by the difficulty of the task & how good you are at it) you succeed. if not, you fail (usually meaning nothing happens). what this amounts to is a random chance to fail.

there's storygames that use more nuanced mechanics - no null result! rolling low is less 'total failure' and more that some twist happens. that can be more interesting. (i'm not familiar with a whole lot of storygames, so this is an oversimplification based on my limited knowledge, correct me if i'm wrong)

now these generally work fine for what those games are trying to do. they use uncertainty to generate drama: oh, shit, i failed the super-important deception check to convince the guards i'm a harmless merchant, now the situation escalates. perfectly good mechanic for your standard 5e campaign.

but that kind of stopped working as soon as i branched out into OSR games.

see, dice fill a very different role in an OSR game. these systems are designed with high lethality in mind - your fighter has 1d8 hit points, a sword deals 1d8 damage, you just die at 0HP. if you run them like 5e, you start killing PCs left at right and it can be very demoralizing.

the intended playstyle is, instead, that the players circumvent die rolls through cleverness - once combat starts, your fate is in the hands of the dice, so you make plans that avoid combat or swing the odds so far in your favor that the risk is worth it. so the dice still feel like they fill a good role, making combat deadly and unpredictable on purpose to set that dynamic.

this breaks down when you use the same logic for basic task resolution. most OSR games don't have skills, but i often see the misconception that you're supposed to use raw ability checks instead or the GM makes up a success chance on a d6. these fundamentally do the same thing as a traditional roll-to-win skill system: make luck a factor in basic task resolution.

the problem is OSR games have such high stakes in the form of very possible character death that involving luck in basic task resolution can be disproportionately punishing. "you failed the stealth check, roll initiative!" works alright in 4e or 5e where combat is the game, but in the OSR that's a line you very rarely want to cross.

(this is also why old-school D&D isn't my OSR of choice, since the thief just makes a bunch of tasks into die rolls with abysmally low success chances you'd never want to rely on)

instead the expectation is the GM is both generous and transparent with task resolution. most things should be a success or not doable; if something has notable consequences or is iffy enough to require a die roll, the GM should tell the player what is at stake before they commit to taking the action. (die rolls still have a place in terms of risk management but i feel they should be opt-in.)

this has worked pretty well in my games, but i missed skills as ways to differentiate PCs and allow specialization into different areas. it's a lever for customizing your character that i really like about D&D, helping two members of the same class feel distinct. so the best skill system i've found that still works well in this environment is this one borrowed from Joseph Manola:

Spending a skill slot on something means you are really good at that skill, and will always succeed at attempts to use it (emphasis mine) except under severely adverse conditions. If you have the Climbing skill, for example, you can automatically climb any normal surface you encounter, although doing so quickly or quietly might still require a Dexterity check.

it's a houserule i put into my Grave campaign for my home group and a core mechanic for iron halberd, and everywhere i've put it, it's run smooth as butter.

it feels like it slots into the OSR playstyle so, so much better than the old-D&D thief skills. die rolls are almost a punishment, so why bake them into the task resolution players use when playing as intended? the diceless skills are instead a reliable tool in your toolbox, and problem-solving with them should be rewarded.

i've also worked out what i think is the ideal number of skills for an average PC - two. less than that feels highly restrictive, while more than that feels like you have everything you really want for most PCs (thus devaluing PCs that spec into having more than two). i let players drop an attribute by 1 for an extra skill or vice versa, to allow for some PCs to be more skill-focused than others.

other variations on this idea include Dice Goblin's time, gear, skill system. i like this one because it's easy to houserule in a way for a player to double down on a skill - spending 2 skills on the same skill just lets that skill count for 2 requirements instead of 1.

overall they've been fun to use and players feel good using them. they do lose that drama aspect, but i find it easy enough to create tension in other ways in an OSR game. i might even try putting them in a non-OSR game because they've just worked really well.

#iron halberd #osr #ttrpg #game design #nsr

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mitigatedchaos · 4 months

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[ tumblr user ]

It's also a funny criticism. Like yeah, marxism has actual substance and can't be boiled down to a quick soundbyte or a handful of phrases. I'm sorry that y'all can't fucking read.

Leftist wall-of-text meme discourse is circulating.

We could talk about substantive problems with Communism. The labor theory of value and the economic calculation problem would be two key subjects. Either could be handled at great length, or boiled down into a pithy right-wing meme.

But I think it'd be more novel to discuss the mechanics at play for art and the meme game.

I'll discuss several of my own images below, and considerations, including this Tumblr favorite below. I'll also take a longer lefty meme and fix it up. The post is a bit rambly, but not too bad (~2,300 words).

My art hasn't traveled that far, but I do post images that have a lot of text in the images sometimes, and I've never caught flak for it. In fact, I accidentally did "left-wing memes vs. right-wing memes" as a comic back in 2017, and it got reblogged by Argumate, who is not known for making long posts. It wasn't super popular, but the third panel is a personal favorite of mine.

The benign violation theory of humor seems to have pretty good explanatory power. The first panel does contain a wall of text. That it's a wall of text is part of the joke, but you can't have the joke always be that it's a wall of text - it then stops being a violation, because it's expected. The more important part is that if you read it carefully, it's clearly describing a market-based system, which Comrade A here catches on to after a moment.

If we wanted to boil down the long text here, it could be summarized with something more like, "Money can be exchanged for goods and services."

The second panel is the unmasking. If we had the right character, we could end it here. A highly-recognizable, prominent economist or capitalist-aligned politician would be appropriate, but we could also replace the head with a book such as The Wealth of Nations, which would certainly be unexpected, but consistent with market-based position advocated in the first panel.

However, the character used is actually the avatar of the blog Mitigated Chaos, which most outside readers would not be familiar with, so we need a third panel to explain.

In retrospect, only showing half the head here is unfortunate; comics are a visual medium, and if it were done again, there might be another way to arrange it.

While left-wing memes are often described as too long, right-wing memes are often described as quite a bit shorter. The irony is that fully explaining this panel would take quite a bit longer than the first one!

This panel is a reference to the immense productive capacity, largely through technology, that humanity has gained under capitalism, which simulates evolution-like dynamics at the firm level.

Rather than Adam Smith's more benign "invisible hand," this panel treats the competition under capitalism as fierce, not market aid, but market discipline - an invisible fist. At the same, "The Way of the Invisible Fist" suggests that it's like a martial art, and can be taught and learned. This is not an attack, but an invitation ("Can you feel it, brother?") to learn.

"I can feel all the old limitations starting to fall away, now," refers partly to the immense rise in production capacity changing the nature of humanity's environment, such as reducing the burden of infectious disease and famine, which had been with humanity essentially for as long as we've been humanity (more so under early agriculturalism).

...but, along with the computer chip integrated into the forehead, it also refers to the likely condition of capital being directly integrated into or influencing the human body sometime later this century.

However, it also refers to the way that humanity have now tightly integrated capital into our lives, living in such a way that our very survival depends on the capital system within which we live, and which surrounds us at all times. It is very far away from the jungles or even the low-energy farming of the medieval era.

If you learn economics and make projections of the future, you can see "forever," which is clearly exaggerated both to accentuate the frightening nature of this apparently Nick-Land-like view, but also describes the elements of current society that might not be visible to Comrade A due to their lack of knowledge of this system.

However, ending it on the third panel would have looked a little too, "I'm cool; you're not," so on the fourth panel we zoom out, which reduces the resolution of the more "serious" style from panel three, and provides some contrast with Comrade A.

Here, Comrade A is presented as lacking the advanced techniques our Invisible Fist practitioner has, but as overall more reasonable than we might expect.

There's a sort of natural tension between the economic optimization in third panel, and the needs of humanity more broadly. Comrade A's plan is less efficient, but lacks that terrifying edge.

His last statement is his personal opinion, but it's left to the reader whether they agree with it - though it is clearly communist.

Tumblr user oligo* once reblogged a fantastic meme regarding Landian Acceleration. I went looking for it, and as it happens, I found it.

Is this a leftist meme? I think it is! It also appears to be a reference to this much more common meme image, but much less annoying.

Let's talk about it for a little bit!

There are two key things to understand about this, mechanically. First, the thing about internet memes in this sense is that they're significantly a visual art form. Second, they're not supposed to appear to be high-effort.

This meme uses screenshots from the very popular and well-known 1999 movie The Matrix, which provides it appropriate visuals while, because it's so well-known, establishing that the author didn't put in the effort to draw this all themself.

You could draw something like this scene, but then you would need to aim for a different format.

In the second frame, we then get the "crudely"-photoshopped Nick Land head as a visual part of the punchline. (In fact, the author has been careful in trimming it, but simply hasn't integrated the head back into the scene at all.)

Spider-robot-Land doesn't even say the criticism is bad, per se, he just says it's "ironic" - which it is. Nature is brutal, and yet humanity evolved from within nature until we were able to establish civilization.

Also note that you're unlikely to see a lot of criticism for the amount of text here. It's more than a typical image macro, but it's appropriate, so it gets a pass.

Let's try something of mine that's a little more popular.

The Rock Island Willerbean post has 5,600 notes. As some of you are probably guessing, yes, it's about the illegal trafficking of slow lorises, which apparently have venom glands in their armpits removed by smugglers. (Supposedly, when they raise their arms, it means they're terrified.)

As you can see, almost half the image is a textbox!

The use of text in internet memes or images generally very much depends on the context. Here, the image presents itself as a picture from a book. The text works due to presenting itself as a something like a wildlife narrator, but is clearly absurd by referring to a non-existent animal.

The content is both political and ideological - it's in favor, although it doesn't state this directly, of animal conservation.

But this particular approach isn't something you can do very often. You might be able to frame, e.g., a particular variety of car as a wild animal in order to express car opinions about it. But this would fall flat for most political attacks.

Let's talk about a leftist wall-of-text meme flop. Bing has helpfully provided me with an example, which I assume is real because it hits just the right range.

This is less text than is used in the Rock Island Willerbean example above.

The problem is not the number of words, but the combination of this number of words with this particular template. When Rick is showing us the torn hole in the wall, the contents should be direct and immediate, as this is what the visual language of the template is about.

Obviously, a lot of political conflict involves shaping the social terrain in order to determine what counts as "obvious" and what needs 500 words of explanation, giving relative advantage to different factions in on-the-ground social encounters. We aren't going to cover all that here.

This appears to be an argument about the Chromanticore vending machine and advertisements from Cyberpunk 2077. If you've played Cyberpunk 2077, you know the one I'm talking about. (It's a bit lewd.)

Cyberpunk 2077 is about a high-energy society with a breakdown of societal norms. As such, hyperstimulus that previously would not have been possible is made possible by technology, and active state intervention to regulate it does not occur. It's filled with lurid advertisements that are basically soft core, substituting the simulation of what people crave for the substance, a splitting of human desires from an evolutionarily more cohesive whole.

A lot of it's also about somatic capital technology and the increasing changeability of the body under transhumanism. I could really go on all day about this.

But basically, the chromanticore ad is shocking to contemporary viewers, but in Cyberpunk 2077's society, it's just mildly unusual - that particular body configuration would be uncommon, but Night City's residents wouldn't see it as unheard-of, and would instead have rather different gender war opinions about it than we would. Presumably you can just buy a ---- from a megacorp if you want one. (It seems the player can.)

The game's developers arbitrage this to create an environment that has a high hit or impact and feels very different or alien, providing the player with a unique experience.

Let's redo Raider's meme above to fit the template better.

It's tempting to jam preloaded counter-arguments into the image macro, but that isn't really the right place for them. The Internet is loaded with text, and most of it isn't of much interest to most people. The image macro is the hook. You want to get your central idea across, while convincing potential readers that it's worth listening to the rest of your ideas.

Thus in the updated version, we move text out of the image, and into the surrounding posts.

I get the motivation - the image is seen as a complete unit, so therefore, if the reader has seen the image, they've read the argument. And well, if they've read the argument, then they don't have the excuse of not having read the argument, so they know they're wrong, and should just shut up and do what they're told.

Problem is, you can't jam enough text into an image macro to cover all the counter-arguments. The position of the people who don't think the Chromanticore ad is a big deal is generally that they don't think it has all that much of an effect. The initial image macro does nothing to address this.

They might be persuaded if Cyberpunk 2077 depicted transgender people as uniquely evil, or if it presented someone who is transgender because they are evil, but instead the two most prominent transgender characters in the game are one character that briefly whines about the effort put in to pass, and a bartender... who joins the main character in an illegal underground street race, which is roughly the normal level of criminal activity for Cyberpunk 2077.

We could also talk about coalition membership where the goal of Raider's original post is to communicate to swarm CDPR by signalling to like-minded members of their coalition about what they're 'supposed' to do, using that kind of language to establish group membership. But that's a bit beyond the scope of this post.

Anyhow.

Another use for image macros is in an attempt to pithily shut down arguments. These tend to get pretty annoying, and a lot of times it means that the poster is trying to pretend that the debate is over and lay still and be slippery like a dead fish, to deny leverage and show coalitional loyalty. (They'd rather be thought an idiot than be thought disloyal.) I'll discuss the dead fish tactic some other time, probably. (Already wrote a big draft on it.)

The following is not exactly that kind of image macro.

A communist tumblr user misremembered a stat about container shipping, and made this post:

If you extoll the virtues of modern shipping logistics and think the only problem with it is that it isn’t used to distribute things fairly, you’re an idiot. This isn’t even an anti-civ or pro-civ primmie discourse thing. Just 15 freight ships produce more CO2 than the entirety of the world’s automobiles, and there are thousands of them in service. The efficiency you fetishize has a horrible environmental cost, and the best thing I can assume about you when you act like everything will be solved once it’s The People’s Railway is that you just don’t know what you’re talking about.

Usually this kind of person doesn't have good math and production sense. To grab the first link off the shelf,

Maritime shipping causes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions – even more than airplanes.

Ocean-bound freight is extremely cheap on an energy per unit weight basis, even cheaper than rail freight. So it was more fun to respond with a little art as bait, even though of course we know that tumblr user isn't going to take it.

This is not a conventional finisher-dunk.

However, for reasons I'm not going to go into, finisher dunks should not be much longer than this.

#the way of the discourse fist #longpost #politics #rambling

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aita-blorbos · 10 months

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AITA for disapearing and not talking to my crush after hosting a (seemingly) dangerous game, to ensure I didn't die in the past?

So, last year, I (then 21F) and my brother (24M) recently hosted a seemingly deadly game. This all started because this other guy, we'll call him A (50M) threw me in an incinerator 9 years ago as a child. A decided to experiment on pairs of psychic children in a genuinely deadly game, where he made us go through puzzles and interact with mechanics, that if handled wrong would have ended up with the children blow up, not to mention he also hosted this game on a sinking ship to put our lives in even more danger. Anyways, he was also apparently pretty unorganized and managed to bungle it so me and my older brother were in the same group, even though we were meant to be in separate groups so we could psychically communicate puzzle answers to each other. This ultimately resulted in A throwing me in an incinerator (as a child!!) and in some timelines burning me to death, because my brother couldn't help me.

My brother and I decided to set up a new version of the game, 9 years later, so that my crush (then 21M) could psychically communicate the answers back in time to me, and ultimately save me from burning to death (he's so sweet like that!) In our version of the game, we made sure that only people who were directly involved in hosting the original traumatic child experimentation would blow up or die, and didn't put any of the innocents in danger of dying (though they were lead to believe they were, otherwise the method of psychic communication literally wouldn't work.) In some timelines, I know A killed innocent people of his own volition (he is just like that!), but in our timeline, everything worked out okay, we're all alive and our plan ensured that A would end up in prison.

It's just, after all this happened, me and my brother had to disappear. We had some important, literally humanity-threatening things to deal with and we were also functionally criminals. I know this upset my crush, as I can tell he was hoping to reconnect after all those years, especially since he'd just saved me from burning to death in the past by communicating psychically with my younger self which is a pretty big milestone for most couples.

The thing is, I've met up with my crush now a year later (long story, but we're in another deadly game hosted by someone else now!) and my crush is mad at me for disappearing. To complicate things, I think he's brought an engagement ring (I keep seeing him get it out and look at it) but all the while, he's making these honestly very mean backhanded comments about me. He even made a joke about me eating too much because I couldn't fit into a tiny tube which seemed completely unlike him... :/

I didn't want to disappear and leave him in the first place, but I feel for things to go to plan for the greater good, the timeline kind of necessitates me being TA. So, AITA for this entire thing? I accept the deadly game thing was an asshole move, but everything else?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality #child endangerment

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twig-tea · 7 months

Text

Current Tag Game

Tagged by @waitmyturtles @lurkingshan and @wen-kexing-apologist!

Current Time: 12:27 PM

Current activity: Taking a lunch break from work between back-to-back meetings (during which I sometimes post to tumblr when they are not useful meetings lol).

Currently thinking about: Balancing work stuff with Palestine stuff with Shadow theories! Also trying not to think about medical news I am waiting for....my brain is a stressful place rn.

Current favourite song: So I fell down a TXT FreeFall rabbit hole; fell in love with Skipping Stones, which then led me to the artist who created that song, Hanroro, and am now obsessed with one of her other songs, "Even if you leave,". Her tone, mood, just everything. Obsessed.

youtube

Currently reading: These days I only read fanfic and nonfic. Oh and the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures webtoon lolol Shoutout to Yeaka on A03 who (among other things) writes pitch-perfect Ustukushii Kare ficlets that get me through the day; here's the one I read most recently.

Currently watching: lol here we go (in no particular order but semi-ranked in terms of how much space they are taking up in my brain?):

Shadow the Series: binged all 7 eps yesterday, eagerly awaiting the back half!

I Feel You Linger in the Air: finale this week; this one was really hard for me to watch at first due to the the sexual assaults in the first four episodes, but it's a really gorgeous piece of work and I'm glad I stuck with it (I did have a real moment to myself where I thought if this pattern was going to continue I would have to drop it, but luckily it did not keep going). There are a few powerful scenes that I've written about separately that will live rent-free in my head.

Kimi ni wa todokanai / I cannot reach you / won't get through to you: I'm watching this one grey thanks to the incredible sub work by @lurkingteapot (follow @kiminaisubs!) and am absolutely loving it. These are such wonderful characters. It's so interesting to be watching this at the same time as the next one, because the similarities and differences make comparing the two a richer experience watching both!

Kimi to nara koi wo shite mite mo / If it's with you: Amane has rocketed up to one of my favourite characters of all time. Love how the family stuff is integrated into this show. I think I actually like this show more than I cannot reach you, but I've been providing the minimal insight I can into drafts of the subs for the other show so have been thinking about it more.

One Room Angel: very excited for this one, the humour is pitch-perfect and the themes are my cup of tea. I love supernatural stuff, and mysteries especially around supernatural mechanics, and psychology, and self esteem issues. and all that good stuff.

Kinou nani tabeta / What Did You Eat Yesterday?: Love that this show has retained the heart and quality of the previous work. Loving this a lot. It's not higher on the list only because I don't need to think about it a lot, it's SO legible, and so well done.

Mr Cinderella 2: I am having a FANTASTIC time with this show lol it is such a pulp; there is high drama, paranormal elements (rituals and potions), insidious psychological tricks, and really solid relationship writing. This show starts with the main couple together, and shows how they deal with all of these external forces--which works for me in a way it doesn't with Kiseki below because their response as a couple at first is to unite and shore up; they support one another through it. It's when they start trying to handle things on their own (and this is justified by the narrative) that things fall apart.

Kiseki: Dear to Me: Like everyone else, I have fallen in love with Ai Di the murder kitten. I think the mains aren't resonating with me as much because their problems are all external rather than internal, and they keep trying to handle them individually (i.e. without ever working as a couple to face these issues), but they are also very pretty and I appreciate all the lap-sitting.

Absolute Zero: Honestly I now watch this show with annoyance like "What are you doing with this scene, New Siwaj? Why?". The mechanics of the show are still interesting but I am mad at it so I now approach those questions with annoyance rather than interest lol

Venus in the Sky: I liked this one way more than I thought I would; it's miles better than Check Out and far more coherent. It's a decent pulp!

My Universe: I'm a bit behind on this one but mostly caught up now (one story behind); the quality of these stories varies wildly but it's an interesting short story format! I'm keeping track of thoughts for all of the stories and will do a post when I'm done if anyone wants to know which are worth watching (since they all stand alone)

My Dear Gangster Oppa: This just got started; the first episode was pretty! I think it's going to be a solid and enjoyable pulp lol

You Are Mine: This one I am not enjoying. Too much boss-using-his-powers-over-his-subordinate-to-force-proximity-and-not-actually-communicating, and the women pushing this male secretary at his boss as fodder really sits wrong with me.

Dangerous Romance: I have very little sympathy for the rich boy who doesn't think through the consequences of his actions or the people who enable him, and I'm annoyed that the Sailom character we got at the beginning of the series who was self-aware, confident, clever, and had his priorities straight seems to have disappeared. There is no internal consistency in this show.

Taskmaster series 16: I love this dorky show from England lol comedians are given absurd tasks and then are judged; it's got a very strong undertone-turned-overtone of kink, and yet is family-friendly, and I find that fascinating. What a good show lol

Current favourite character: HMMMM. Amane from If It's With You comes first to mind, to be honest. He's gay, he fucks, he has self esteem issues but he's working on them, he's brave enough to be honest to his crush even though he's been burned before, and he asks for what he really wants, and then hold hope that he might actually get it. And his behaviour around his crush is relatably cringe. I LOVE HIM. [@wen-kexing-apologist wrote this before I saw yours but YES, sad boy hiding behind happiness is THE BEST]

Current WIP: I have 4 asks that I have in my drafts that I owe @wen-kexing-apologist, @mynameisnotthepoint (this wasn't really an ask per se but it was an excuse to gush so I'm taking it), @wanderlust-in-my-soul, and @waitmyturtles. I have been working on all of them and do still plan on answering them! I also have a draft re: Hidden Agenda the novel vs the show that I realllllly need to just stop fussing with and post.

Tags: Tagging folks I've chatted with recently! @dribs-and-drabbles @my-rose-tinted-glasses @slayerkitty @neuroticbookworm @lurkingteapot @crowie @visualtaehyun @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas @sorry-bonebag @thewayurant

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shuttershocky · 5 months

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More complex enemy AI feels like the best way to handle it. Simple stat inflation is awful and gating mechanics behind difficulty seems... bad design, frankly.

Like I said in the post, most games use a combination of different factors rather than just one.

I made the post specifically because i was just thinking about how Devil May Cry's Dante Must Die mode + Turbo mode which manages to use everything listed all at once.

For example, in DMC5's DMD, enemies have increased stats. But they also have their aggressiveness toned up the higher the difficulty gets, and will even change up what moves they use most (or get new ones). DMD also introduces a new mechanic in enemy Devil Triggers which you now have to play around (enemies will DT to power up when too injured or when too much time passes or sometimes just DT at the start, needing you to both fight fast and try to spread damage around). DMD also has stricter rankings, a style score that would get you an S rank in Devil Hunter would need an extra 1000 points for S rank in DMD. And finally, Special Edition brings Turbo mode, which makes the whole game run at 1.2x speed, which makes execution a whole lot harder, but also makes the game even flashier and cool from how fast you can move.

And despite using every single thing I listed all at once, 5's Turbo DMD ends up pretty good! Mind you it's really hard (maybe not DMC3 crazy but still), but because 5's enemies are balanced well and the combat system is refined so precisely, the challenge feels like it was designed to push you to the limit, without requiring conservative, overly efficient, or incredibly limited playstyles that defeats the point of playing a DMC game.

And on the other hand of notable examples, there's the System Shock remake (and older System Shocks too but i'm mentioning the recent title) allowing you to customize your own difficulty setting. You could change multiple settings from combat to puzzle complexity yourself, so if you don't like fighting but do like sweating on puzzles, you could set enemies to be unable to even see you but put puzzles to maximum challenge. I wish more games would give that a try!

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walpu · 2 months

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Aventuriene is one of my favorite character and a favorite make character. Honestly, I'm not a fan of male HSR characters. I love Luka, but now Aventuriene scored him higher. Blade and Dan Heng are interesting but I don't super love them, I do like em though. At first I dislike Dr. Ratio becouse he seemed to me judgemental, but then I realise I misunderstood him and Penecony even made me love his character. I know that's lots of fans Sino for Jung Yuan and Sunday, but in my opinion they are to overted and I think their design is boring.

Now here is what I love about Aventuriene. At first, I liked his design but I was also neutral to him. I wasn't fan of his personality but after watching the play troughs (since I'm taking a break from playing the game) I changed my mind. I like how realistically Aventuriene is written. I realize that there still others HSR characters written realistically, but honestly Aventuriene is the male character that is written like a real person, and not just as fan service. Of course that's is my personal opinion and I understand if you have the different one.

I genuinely think that Aventurine is probably the best written character in hsr. Since 2.0 it was pretty obvious hoyo handles his character well, the leaks only confirmed it, but holy shit, they did so good in 2.1. They managed to deliver his story and make him sympathetic but without overdoing it to the point when it feels like a tearjerker. Like, you look at him and think "yes, it's a very realistic trauma response. yes, he has a lot of conflicted feelings about pretty much everything, from his religion to his own life and I would probably feel like that too". Honestly I'm so happy Shaoji was the main writer for Penacony arc even if he caused me a lot of stress lmao

I remember the first time I saw Aventurine's design I thought he looks cool. I also remember me and my friend joking that he looks like he's Reigen Arataka coded. I named him mr scammer and all that 💀 People make mistakes okay. Then I learned he's from the IPC and said yeah you lost me here I don't fuck with capitalists. Then the whole "slave" tattoo discussion started and he caught my attention again, then the 2.0 happened and well.

I like the rest of the male cast too tho and for a very long time Gepard was my favorite, so I didn't plan on pulling for Aven since I already have a blonde preservation bbg. Well, things change 💀 I get yiu about Ratio, I wanted to punch him the first time I saw him but like. Affectionately. He was funny af to me. I like the way they handle his character so far tho and I honestly have a lot of thoughts about his arc.

I think the thing with a lot of hsr characters, both male and female, is that we didn't have enough time with them yet. Which is not a bad thing since the story has basically just begun. It may be more noticeable for the male characters since its fewer of them tho. Plus the Lofu storyline was a bit messy in general tbh, I hope they'll handle it better in the future. Since we now have the POV switch mechanic, there are a lot of great opportunities to let us understand the characters better.

#ask #i have a tendency to nickname characters before they get released so aven was mr scammer and sunday was mr kaworu nagisa looking ass

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darkfictionjude · 17 days

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"some of you would like the chance to make the mc worse"

AMEN TO THAT

im giggling over the fact the mc could go on a killing spree on the people who wronged her (like those 'bullies' at school)

and shes kind of apathetic to the whole ordeal, atleast my mc how i made her and the choices around death or whatever so she should be pretty smart at covering it and getting away with it

also since she is how she is shouldn't it be easy for her to lie or be charming to people since she doesn't feel guilty? in alot of serial killer cases (like ted bundy, YUCK) many people described him to be charming and stuff but it would be hard for the mc hence the past and how people view her

i also love the fact none of the mains are good people (aside from sally hes a sweatheart), that they all have problems of their own makes it more real

i love me sum mc whos cruel, hates everyone, but that one or three people

in all my IF's my mc is cold, detached, a bit sociopathic and scary (ps: scarily attractive too) also a sweet tooth for being a menace

irl murder is illegal so im just gonna do it online, whats the point of playing a game and making ur mc mundane or boring (nothing against people who make their mc weet, shy or whatever but its like idk?? isnt it the point of playing a fantasy game to escape from reality)

also do we get more choices in the future for unhealthy coping mechanisms?

itd also be cool if the mc found a feral animal in the forest and it intrigued them and theyd be like oh ur cool im gonna keep you as a pet 😂

i js realized ive been calling the mc her a lot of times instead of saying like them, my mc is a girl thats why 😭

soz for the kong rant

Hahaha I do laugh evilly every time I make mc have a choice that is kind of psychopathic. Maybe one day they’ll caress their lover with blood on their hands? Who knows what dark places my brain will go to

And thank you for liking my fucked up Scooby gang I felt it’s only fair that if mc is unbalanced then the ROs should be too they just manifest it differently.

As for unhealthy coping mechanisms, they can become worse. Like mc can become a chain smoker etc., as in for different worse coping mechanisms? That will be a thing in season 2, like it can get really bad.

About the pets I’ve said before mc would let that pet die!!! They are only now just learning to take care of themself they can’t handle a pet!! Also there are no feral pets in the town they all got eaten :)

And that’s fine. Many nonnies refer to mc by the pronouns they use in game and I know it’s because they’re talking about their own mc so I don’t mind it 😙 by the way I do like reader rants so feel free

#the nonnies #rants #MC:sanity #MC:morality #we wretched creatures

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skeleton-mischief · 2 months

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Coffee Serrif

Does it really matter? No, but that doesn't mean that you're safe from his ever watching eyes

*FS!Gold Papyrus has said enough

- Official height is 6'4

- He/They

- Selectively mute

- Would play the Drums

- An artist, he has a box filled with old sketchbooks and still gets more even now. His favorite is using charcoal

- Consumes Whipped Cream

- Feels insecure in his friendships, since he doesn't only struggle socializing, but he isn't sure when someone actually is sincere with their interest

- Good friends with Rus, Stretch, and Cash

- Grows bashful from praise, he can't handle it

- Empathetic, kind, open minded, creative, timid, passive, intuitive, will avoid fights, pessimistic, impatient, reserved, and sensitive

- A cat person, he's a hub for them

- Video game expert genius. Would be excellent if you handed him a new game and controller

- Uses notes to communicate, if he talks he stutters and messes up frequently

- Curses rarely, only a handful of times

- A master sharpshooter who was taught by Wine

- Loves coffee drowned with whipped cream and caramel

- Likes chocolate, loves dark chocolate the most though or caramel chocolate

- Loves eating rye bread

- Once close with someone, he adores physical affection and is clingy

- Doesn't admit his frustration when Wine constantly tries to do everything for him, since he likes to do things on his own sometimes

- Grew to see Razz, Carmine, and Powder as role models overtime

- Knows sign language

- Wears gloves due to his sensitivity

- Stims with his hands

- Doesn't smoke often, but he uses matches when he does

- magic smells like hazelnut, magic tastes like toffee

- A soft romantic

- Prefers handshakes

- likes Hello Kitty, his favorite character is Choco

- Calls Chara "Kitty" because they're small and remind him of a cat (it's fucking cute bro)

- Cries vary in quality often, he cries a lot

- Would call his lover peaches

- He doesn't seem like it, but he's physically pretty agile and strong. He gets irritated when he's belittled

- Sometimes, when frustrated, he'll actively ignore someone or throw something to get them to shut up

- He can't be bothered with doing a lot of things, such as drinking or partying

- He loves any sort of video games and is an excellent gamer. The moment someone shows interest, he'd have to be reassured that he's not talking too much

- He's curious of humans, but he doesn't blindly trust them

- He doesn't judge others and often is a silent observer to figure out his opinion of them

- He has very acute senses, and he'll dodge drama as soon as it's present. He slips away with whoever he's spending time with easily

- When meeting Chara, he had a piece of paper with a smiling face as he was overly friendly as he joked how to greet another human despite his terrifying aura

- Very internet savvy, he's dangerous since he can hack into anything for information

- Like every swapfell variant of Papyri, he loves fast food

- He can be very mischievous, him and Rus are very slick with their pranks

- his hoodie changes what it says based off what he's feeling

- He has a black list which is to identify who is considered an enemy and who he watches. You do not want to be on that

- He visits multiple locations, but when he's in public he usually stalks around the corners without feeling the need to say something

- He's very well educated and can be seen reading up on mechanical engineering, he gave up working on the machine however

- He doesn't remember Gaster, except for faint sensations and memories in his dreams. They're never pleasant

- He doesn't actually like the Queen, but he works for her and knows how to behave in her presence

- He always has a hood or something on his head, he doesn't like it being bare

- His eyelights don't frequently light up unless he is surprised or feeling an intense emotion, such as crying or getting flustered. His magic is much smoother(?) in appearance and yet can feel more intense

Closing Notes: i honestly want to flesh him out more than what I have for him. He's fun and I love his character, this might be updated or something since he's just sooooooo- OURGH

#headcanon #undertale au #alternate universe #fellswap gold #fellswap gold papyrus #papyrus au #hes so silly #i wish a proshipper didn't make him #i wish him the best #hes so babygirl

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a-s-levynn · 8 months

Note

JOOO you used to sell swords?? That's so cool!!! If you feel like reminiscing and using this as an opportunity to tell everyone about that very awsome sounding job, I would love to hear about it :D if not just take this as me being a tumblr mutual who wants to be your friend now even more 😂 swords are so cooool

I sure did! Oooh my god. You have no ide what sort of pandora's box you've opened. I love talking weaponry. I also spent an unreasonably long time trying to dig up old pics.

So i snatched this unreal job by a total accident. During uni, a friend of a friend of mine were preparing to go to study abroad for a few months and needed a temporary replacement. And when we met for the first time, half jokingly asked if i liked swords. Yes, yes i do find all kinds of blades incredibly sexy thank you very much. And not a lot of time later i was sitting behind the counter. And stayed there for roughly three years.

It was a sword and decorational weaponry shop. I mean it still is. But i may talk about it past tense because i'm not there anymore. 😭 We had like functional swords and daggers for HEMA and other traditional stuff. Lots and lots of katanas and a few wakizashis and tantos for martial arts or just for decour. We even had like the long ones.. what are they called.. odachi and nodachi! And that sort of spear like a guandao, naginata. There were khukri knives as well. Modern knives.. A lot of stuff. And then decorational stuff from movies, anime or video games for just to put on a wall or elevate a cosplay.

Even decorational fire arms up until modern stuff. Altho fire arms where strictly decorational items, manufactures in ways that they were safe and unchangable into usable stuff. And a fewfigures, jewellery and some tarot cards and some other nick-nacks that fit the theme.

I don't have access to my drives at the moment but i found some old pictures.

Okay so this was the second showroom, i can't find picture of the old one, i liked that one better but there was a location change and this one is smaller, less packed. But still the important parts are there. These pictures are about 3 years old as well at this point.

Please note the little knight with the megaphone in the corner on the monitor. I designed that one. Precious friend shaped little dude.

This picture is Ezio's dagger from Assassin's Creed. It's not dirty just freshly out of the shipping box, swimming in grease to protect it from rusting. This one was a functional piece. The handle seems wide but it's not disproportionate, only my hands are small.

But we had like.. i dunno sabers of many kinds..and chinese swords with rigid blades to those weird but really fun floppy ones as well.

That green wall belonged to the old showroom my beloved 😭

Also there were pieces of armour and all. Not just full but chainmails and roman style, shields. Bows and Crossbows. Basically everything.

And like besides the selling and online customer service stuff, i did a lot of polishing, i probably enjoyed that the most. Of course the heavier damage or problems were handled by proper craftsmen but a simple polishing job? Gimme! -insert grubby hands- I'm gonna spend half a day on it but you gonna see yourself in it. Like this below. The left side is still unpolished, all foggy, but see the right? You can see the red shirt guy pretty good already. This helmet was so pretty after i was finished with it. I was so proud. 😭

And then there were some modern stuff. With these i also did the smaller mechanical epairs like a jammed spring or a loose trigger and the like.

This beretta was the first i took apart but i conquered it like a champ 😂 I was asking my boss if i could give it a try and he said as long as i don't break any additional parts go a head. Needless to say the second little guy landed in my lap without any question.

And there were so many other little highlights. I loved so many of the customers. I loved talking about their stuff or just listening to their stories. Uhh i miss it so much i can't even begin.

#sorry but this is like ST i can't shut up about it #levynn answers #thejawsoffate #long post #longpost

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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I agree with you wholly about Orym, but I still feel new-ish to D&D so I have a question. If the followers still have their god given abilities after their actions, then aren't the gods implicitly giving their ok on it? Wouldn't it also be a god problem? The people in that town being allowed to do things in Pelor's name and keep their powers should reflect also on him, no?

Hey! This is a really good question, and the answer is that in D&D 5e at least, it's sort of at the discretion of the DM, but the way a lot of people handle it is that the gods kind of...check in on patterns every so often, but aren't micromanaging every single follower and so you might catch someone prior to their divine performance review. It's how you reconcile the idea of free will in a world with real gods, so it gets very, admittedly, fuzzy and whatever supports the narrative.

We've seen a little bit of this play out for lesser idols with Fjord and Uk'otoa in C2 for a warlock relationship, in which Uk'otoa took away the powers temporarily as a warning, and then withdrew them permanently after Fjord explicitly broke the pact, but clerics and paladins are different and usually have more leeway. We saw a little bit of that very early in C1 with Pike, and it was discussed but didn't ultimately end up happening with Vax. Clerics and paladins often don't have a clear directive and have a lot of free will, but a pattern of behavior or a really egregious violation might lead to a warning (as Pike received - in game, she still had her powers after being warned). Retracting the powers will likely only occur after continued violations. Essentially, one only is a cleric after having a pretty good buildup of good will with a god, and they will usually give multiple chances and might be very forgiving with their clerics, perhaps to a fault.

I also want to throw in that technically, you can be a cleric (or paladin) of a concept or principle. This isn't typically the case in Exandria from what we've seen, but it is true in D&D 5e in general (this is how Eberron and Ravnica's settings work) and power comes more from one's own faith and conviction.

Now, as for whether it should reflect on the gods for other people: absolutely. Like, to be clear, I think in-game the villagers hating at the Dawnfather as well as the people perpetuating harm is valid. I think going straight to "this random complete stranger speaking to us magically telling us to kill all the gods, including those who hate the Dawnfather, is someone we should listen to" is less valid.

Finally: we don't know what Kiro's situation was - she may have been warned in the past and ignored it, or she may have been acting in accordance with broad tenets and Pelor hadn't looked on the specifics. I also want to note that we don't know the exact mechanics of the angel that appeared. My personal thought is that it was a spell (or because she's an NPC, a very specific ability) similar to Planar Ally, rather than the Dawnfather suddenly directing his attention to this singular conflict.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role spoilers

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risette-blast · 10 months

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PERSONA 2 INNOCENT SIN SPOILERS AHEAD! DON'T READ THIS IF YOU'RE REMOTELY INTERESTED IN PLAYING THE GAME AND HAVEN'T BEEN SPOILED ON IT!!

(oh there are also traitor spoilers for P5 in here, but I feel like anyone who has played P2 has also played P5 already lol)

so last night, I finished P2IS. the ending still hurts by the way lol. but i've had a bit of time since then to think about the game in retrospect. so i wrote up a thought dump with sort of my "initial" thoughts on the game on twitter. afterwards, i decided to repost it here but with more detail since i'm not constrained with a character limit the same way I am with twitter (it's still gonna be in bullet points bc I don't really want to structure this like an essay haha)

this game's ending really was brutal. this is the main thing I've commented on ever since finishing the game, but it truly is awful. Maya is stabbed and killed, Lisa can't even heal her with Dia no matter how much she tries. the Earth is destroyed by suddenly stopping its rotation, causing the resultant inertia to instantly kill everything. in the end, it just turns out to be a rigged game between Philemon and Nyarlathotep (god that name is hard to spell lol). and then the entire cast is forced to go back in time and forget their memories with each other and everything to prevent the world from ending again. it's truly a cruel fate for them, I really did want them to have a happy ending so it just really hurts. 😭

a lot of this game's moments hit hard due to how good the OST is. this has honestly gone up to being one of my favorite Persona OSTs, and given how strong its competition has been, that's a noteworthy feat.

the gameplay was ass lol. I can't pretend it was good, it's worse than P1 in some areas which is wild (still liked IS more overall though, 1 has some very questionable mechanics)

now apparently this is specific to the PSP version, but man the menus were so slow. thankfully I was playing on an emulator so I even had this option but I genuinely just sped up the game somewhat frequently just to get through the menus more quickly

it was also probably the easiest Persona game I've ever played. P5R is genuinely harder. i'm not even kidding. I've gone on and on about how easy P5R is (on twitter), but P2IS makes P5R look challenging in comparison.

the characters were great. i didn't think I'd care about them as much as I did. they all had wonderful bonds with each other. personally I felt like yukino was the "weak" link, and like she doesn't have the bonds the other do so it only makes sense. and even then? she has some great moments and is genuinely well written too. I had played P1 before this but yukino wasn't in my party so she essentially disappeared; it's nice to actually get to know her.

that said, I don't rly like how P1 and P2 both kinda hide extra character details behind very optional dialogue that's easy to miss. it's not nearly as bad in IS though bc they get more characterization in the main story, so a lot of the characters in IS resonated with me more on a first playthrough than 1's characters did.

I've heard some people say P2's shadow encounters are better than P4's. I'm not sure I agree with that at least just from IS, but I thought they were pretty competent. I did like that they built up to the shadow encounters throughout the game, it's an interesting approach.

...personally I still like the P4 shadow encounters more overall. I just also really like the way the IS shadow encounters were handled too especially in the context of the story.

the dialogue about personas and masks was really cool. I wish the new Persona games did acknowledge that everyone has multiple masks they put on. the only characters from P3-P5 who really explore this imo (as far as I can remember) are Rise and Akechi, and even then, it's not nearly as substantial as 1/2. Rise's arc is more about her accepting that she can have multiple selves that are all her, and with Akechi, while he has two different masks that represent both the facade he presents to society vs his true nature, it's just a case of facade vs true nature, whereas IS acknowledges that everyone has multiple masks they present to society that form a full self.

I personally wasn't too invested in the romance options, and the game clearly didn't consider them super important either seeing as they barely affect the story or interactions, but I really did like that Jun was presented as a genuine, serious option. also it's not like P3-5 where it's kinda subjective, I feel like Jun just fits the best especially in retrospect.

I now truly understand why newsona's mechanics (calendar, s.links, etc) wouldn't work at all. there's no room in the story for that.

I didn't think the pacing was the best tbh. it feels like not a lot happens at first, then they throw a ton of story at you halfway through the game, then a lot more near the end. it could've been distributed a little better. I hear EP is better with this though.

I do have a few issues with the way the plot was presented. tbh it was just a little absurd lol, and also revealing that the whole story was Philemon vs Nyarlathotep (again, tough name to spell lol) at the very end was kinda mid. maybe I'll like it more with the context of EP. but what really made the story for me was ultimately the characters and their development, not so much the actual events in the plot itself, if that makes sense.

I love the ending theme, kimi no tonari. when you realize that the sumaru city (and a lot of songs in the game) share the same general leitmotif it just makes you sad to hear them in retrospect 😔

#persona #atlus #persona 2 innocent sin #persona 2 #p2 #p2is #thoughts #tatsuya suou #maya amano #lisa silverman #eikichi mishina #jun kurosu

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