the gorgug-porter conversation is interesting to me because like. yea for the overwhelming majority of the conversation porter’s being shitty & trying to fit gorgug into a box that gorgug just does not fit into by trying to make gorgug’s relationship with his rage more focused on the aggression aspect of it. but then there’s also this specific thing that brennan brought up again in the ap, which is that gorgug’s relationship with his rage is wholly “this is a tool i use to protect my friends.” which isn’t a bad thing! but that’s his Whole relationship with it, & gorgug seems to place next to no value on his rage in relationship to himself. which is problematic, because it’s first & foremost his rage.
being raised in a household with a sort of toxic positivity largely meant that, whether or not it was his parents’ intention, gorgug internalized the message that more traditionally “negative” emotions such as anger are the wrong response to something. part of the reason he prioritizes his artificing is probably because it’s “fixing” things. in comparison to being a barbarian, which gorgug associates with “breaking” things. good vs. bad behavior, in his eyes.
it’s a totally unacceptable bar to measure a 16 y/o by, but i do think part of porter’s reasoning for not letting gorgug multiclass is him recognizing that gorgug generally does not value anger as a valid emotional response to something, at the very least for himself. & that directly conflicts with what being a barbarian is, because whether you like it or not, that rage is what fuels you. but again, barring a kid from pursuing something they deeply care about in part (not entirely, porter has a lot of more bullshit reasons) because of their fundamental values & world outlook is crazy.
so yes, 98% of porter’s reasoning is pretty shitty, immature, rife with a toxic view that there’s only one proper way to access rage, & generally not a good thing to do as a teacher, but also within that reasoning is the 2% of ‘there is a fundamental part of yourself that you only value if you can use it to take care of other people & you need to accept that as something that can take care of you, too.’ but that’s something to discuss with a therapist or a guidance counselor, not something that should hugely impact gorgug’s academic future.
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[writing found in a floating temple belonging to an unknown player on a distant server. while there were no signs of life in the temple, there were signs of life in the caves below it, including some rusted armor sets, complicated machinery overgrown by birch saplings, and a small robot with a tag on it that read “lil buddy” and a battery clutched in one of its claws. despite all attempts, researchers could not find the portal that is normally found by those players taken in by the vault gods, though given the presence of an altar, it is certainly nearby, and the area has been quarantined until that portal’s location can be ascertained.]
I asked Idona to save me the other day.
It feels fickle; it feels like the sort of thing I only said because that’s what one ought to say to gods, when they want something from them. “Save me, Idona.”
They did no such thing, but I didn’t expect them to. I knew them when they still demanded blood sacrifice; now that they merely demand challengers at their altar instead of anything so obvious as the blood of their enemies, it can be easy to forget how malicious they had once seemed. It’s easy to forget that asking things of them had once ended poorly.
Perhaps that’s the Paradox that they are showing me; I had asked Idona to save me because within that Paradox, they would build a mine. That a blood god now offers mines and blacksmiths to me instead, in a place I can design to access myself—well, it’s easy to forget how I once knew them.
It’s easy to forget how often their challenges killed me once, too, back before I knew the trick to finish them quickly. The Gods had seemed just as cruel and capricious as always when I’d simply failed to find enough of the chests they’d laid out and they punished me by causing my health to steadily fade away.
That rarely happens anymore.
You see, yesterday, I killed a wither with a single hit from my javelin and a single hit from my sword. As I flew home, a nether star clutched in my feelers, I felt very little. It was hardly a challenge compared to the vaults; I don’t know why I’d expected more.
The gods have challenged me; I have risen to that challenge. I sweep through vaults, their minders at the side of my head, until I find their altar to bow at, find their altar to make promises of being the challenger they’re looking for at. I know the tricks to find my way around a vault, after all. I spend more time there than the overworld.
I wonder if I’m becoming arrogant, actually.
Even without my armor or sword, I’m too strong for the endermen I used to accidentally release from my farms. I hit them once and they die; if the punch doesn’t work, a javelin or a cast spell will. With the endermen, it’s fine.
With my parrots or dogs—
I have Lil Buddy now. He can’t die because I’m not meant for the overworld anymore, I don’t think.
I wonder if that, too, is the Paradox. The gods are gifting me unlimited power. I step into a vault I have designed myself, under their guidance, and I pull untold riches from it every time. The gods are gifting me strength, which I can call from an altar at any time. No threat can step near me without either being poisoned or scratched by the strength of my blade.
But I have not had a pet that is not made of metal in—I don’t know how to count days any longer. Time passes strangely inside of vaults. It is Wendarr’s trickery. I simply know I haven’t since I was level 70, and that feels like ages ago.
That’s about when I realized perhaps I am untouchable to that which I want, too.
Maybe I should ask Idona to save me for a reason that was not me, desperately trying to seek out their altar for jewels I hardly need these days; maybe I should ask Idona to save me from sacrificing more than I can give.
I know them, though. I’ve known them since they’ve demanded blood.
They won’t.
And one day, I will give them everything, and I will thank them for it. The one god that even they worship above all others, after all, is greed, and that is an altar I cannot simply stop going to.
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rotating csm 150 in my brain but some initial thoughts:
i've mentioned before how asa and denji play off of each other in how they each view having desire and being realised. and how fundamentally gendered this experience is for both of them. societal ideas of the masculine and the feminine: how denji is a passive character forever forcing himself into Active wants and goals. how asa robs herself of her activity and creates for herself a passivity despite being a character who very much enacts Change in the plot. this is especially interesting when you think of her relationship with yoru.
her discomfort with enacting this change as taken shape in her self sabotaging tripping. that clumsiness stopping herself from acting at key moments (but even this is an active exercise. asa is an active character).
and as denji becomes further shafted and asa occupies her role with more volition, fjmt chooses to hammer this home with barem tripping denji. the tripping this time is externally imposed and so is the inactivity,
punctuating the broader dispossession of the CSM that denji goes through.
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god I really want to like Relink more, but CyGames has no fucking clue how to make an action game. This shit is awful, they want everything to be a fucking ten thousand hour MMO grind, I hate it so much.
Enemies that aren't fun to fight, bosses that have like 15 to 45 second stretches where you just can't play the game, rankings that care more about stats than your ability to actually play the game, a fucking randomized quick play option that crunches your stats to the "appropriate level" like a fucking MMO duty finder and punishes you for not playing online, universal defensive tools that are bad to use and have to be unlocked per character, who the fuck decided to put all this IN AN ACTION GAME
My opinion of this game actively gets worse the more I play it, like I was gonna be generous and give it like an 7 out of 10 when I first finished the main story it but I'm moving toward like a 5 in the post game.
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