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dduane · 10 months

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Hi! I don’t know if you’ve seen but someone on Tor wrote a lovely post about Deep Wizardry and how great it was, and it made me remember reading it for the first time when I was an adolescent. I’ve since read it a number of times, but I won’t ever forget how I felt reading it for the first time. I was (and still am!) a voracious reader of sci-fi and fantasy, but I had never read anything like it. I felt…honored reading and experiencing it along with Nita. She said yes to something without reading the fine print as so many of us do, and where other books would have had her back out or made the stakes not quite so high you trusted us (just like the fellow wizards trusted Nita) to do the right thing even though it was an impossibly huge thing. And at the end wasn’t some horrible deus ex machina but something that fit both the character and the story. By trusting Nita with these hard choices you in turn told me as the reader that I was old enough to handle the truth of the world. Or at least some of it. And as a child who was not trusted I felt the solemnity of that. The preciousness of that. I was slightly more of an adult after reading that book than I was before it. In any case, sorry for the long ramble I just wanted to thank you for writing Deep Wizardry and all of the Young Wizard books. I’m in my 30s now but they’re still as impactful to my psyche now as it was back then. And I still feel honored to know your work.

You're really, really welcome: thanks for letting me know.

That particular set of plot issues caused a little friction between me and my editor (gods rest her), as she was concerned about the general message the plot was sending. So was I... and in almost exactly the opposite direction.

The disagreement was low-key, handled quietly over the course of a number of editor-to-writer, writer-to-editor letters; as (then as now) I dislike getting overly confrontative when there are other ways to produce the result. And DW being one of my first books, and I still then being pretty new at the publishing game, I was nervous about rocking the boat too much.

But there are some things you have to dig in your heels about. And in this case, the issue of agency was key. Because what kind of heroism is it when you're only as much a hero as other people let you be? (And my previous experience with younger medical/surgical patients in crisis situations had taught me that a whole lot of children are way more heroic than the adults around them.)

At the end of the day, you find out whether you can trust somebody by, well, trusting them. Relationships are, inherently, a proving ground (for one of the older definitions of "proof:" shoot a gun at something and see if the protection the something offers holds up under fire...or buckles). Without daring that test, the relationship in question is at a stalemate. I walked Nita into it, and sure enough, she didn't disappoint.

Anyway: I'm glad to have been of service. Thanks for the kind words about the books. :)

#Deep Wizardry #Young Wizards meta

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blueskittlesart · 1 year

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i would love to hear how youd want to do a botw manga

YEAAAAAAHHHHH ok ok ok so. i would have the manga follow largely the same structure as the game, beginning with link waking up on the great plateau. he would go through the opening segment almost the same as the game, but with a little more emphasis on the physical toll that the shrine has taken on him (notably i'd frame the old man's baked apple as his realization that he's HUNGRY, that his body feels physically weak and untrained after 100 years of sleep.) i would also place a lot of emphasis on the eeriness of the plateau and the fact that link feels he SHOULD remember these locations but doesn't. the plateau segment would otherwise be very game-compliant, including the shrines, tower, temple of time, and the old man's cabin as spotlighted locations. the key difference here would be that instead of the gameplay mechanic where shrines give link something physical that makes the game easier for the player, they would instead be framed as training exercises which, while lacking material reward, would help him retrain his body and regain the strength he lost in the 100 years he was asleep.

after leaving the plateau the general structure of the game would be loosely followed, (impa > purah > divine beasts & memories > ganon) with a few key pieces of worldbuilding/side quests spotlighted along the way. the first major event after leaving the plateau for link would be his discovery of the dueling peaks stable, the first real indication of human society he's seen since waking up. this would be an important introduction to the society of hyrule post-calamity, and link would also get his first horse here, finding that he's strangely good with horses and perhaps getting a quick flash of a warm feeling, almost like an old friend :)

The memories would still be initially revealed to link via images within the sheikah slate, but unlike gameplay i wouldn't have link specifically seek out memories, instead i would have him stumble upon familiar locations while exploring, which i think is closer to the original intent of that feature. he would find each memory in order and they would play out very similarly if not exactly as they do in canon. the divine beasts and their quests would also play out largely like canon, with the exception of me retconning the transphobia out of the gerudo quest line. I also might like to spend a little more time on the legacies of each champion and how their losses are felt in their respective communities. they all have very strong characterization already and i would love to take the time to expand upon it a bit more!! the same goes for the NEW champions (sidon, teba, yunobo, and riju) i'd like to take some more time to expand upon their characters as well!

the sword-claim is the one thing that i don't fully know how to deal with. i think logically, it either has to come before all of the divine beasts, or after all of them. if i put it in before all of the beasts, it would require some gratuitous shrine training montages to convey how much work it takes link to get to the point where he's able to handle the master sword, which would break up the flow of the story and imo isn't very true to the gameplay which usually just has you explore shrines as you find them during your journey. the only other option, though, is to put it in AFTER the divine beasts, which may lessen the impact it has on the story if the only time he ever ends up using it is to defeat ganon. it sort of makes it into a deus ex machina instead of a pervasive element of the story in the way it is in the game. the way that i think i would deal with this is to have link hear about the master sword's legend from npcs as early as that first stable, and have him stumble into the lost woods BEFORE he has trained enough to be able to handle the sword. he finds it, learns what it is and that it's waiting for him, but he isn't able to claim it in his current state. this gives him a tangible goal to work towards for the rest of the story--a reason to continue entering shrines and growing stronger while he's doing divine beast quests. it also allows the master sword to remain present and active in the narrative without forcing link to get too strong too fast. THEN, when he's finished all the divine beasts, he can have a moment like, "i think i'm strong enough now. i'm prepared" and he can go BACK to the lost woods and successfully pull the sword and then go straight to ganon.

aside from the main quest line there are a few really good side quests i want to include as well, notably the kakariko yiga shrine quest and the hylian homeowner/tarrey town side quests. the former i just think is a very impactful storyline and nicely sets up the yiga as villains later on in the gerudo quest, and the latter is imo thematically important as a physical example of link rebuilding his life and watching hyrule continue to grow and heal despite the wreckage of the calamity. ideally this would be the last thing link does before facing the calamity; the wedding scene would end with link deciding the time has finally come for him to face ganon again, having found hope and community, knowing that no matter what happens hyrule will never be broken beyond repair.

the final battle would go similarly to canon, with callbacks to pieces of training link would have received earlier in the story--perfect parries, aerial archery, shield surfing, and all of the champion abilities would be highlighted during the battle, which would come to a triumphant end with ganon finally defeated and link and zelda reunited.

sooo yeah! largely canon-compliant but with certain aspects adjusted for readability. botw has such a strong narrative that it would actually be super easy to adapt imo but that might just be my opinion because i never think about anything else lol

#the same themes that we see in the game would be really prominent throughout this hypothetical manga obv #but in general i would just choose what to adapt and what to cut without changing too much actual story LOL #asks #OH I FORGOT TO PUT THIS IN THE POST BUT!!! link would be completely nonverbal for the plateau segment and would slowly regain speech #as the journey goes on. initiall he would assume this to be a side effect of the shrine of ressurrection but. well.#he'd learn the truth eventually

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pendulum-sonata · 4 months

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1 and 21.

1. Character that everyone gets wrong.

Lol, we're starting with the heavy weaponry aren't we? You know? To spice things a little bit, I'm gonna choose an Arc V character and a Kubera character, even though only one of my mutuals reads the last one >.>

Arc V

Well... as much as I would like to say Reiji again, I think I've established enough times how misinterpreted his character is, so this time I'll choose...

Ray Akaba, I wasn't even aware that there were still people around who apparently hate her so much, that they would call for the "Ray hater nation" or whatever, I'm not gonna mention who it was but it was very recent, which honestly makes me remember that one tweet pointing out how silly people sound when they justify not liking badly written female character, how they'd supposedly love them if they were better written, when they couldn't handle any of them having one bad feeling for they boyfavs.

And that's really all there sees to be behind A LOT of the Ray hate going around: They hate her because canonically she defeated Zarc and she split him and then split herself to chase him across dimensions, and hate that she was the one who had to give the coup of grace in the duel against him.

They hate that canonically, Ray is one of the best duelist in the yugiohverse, and they will pull the weirdest excuses out of their backside to justify why she's the worst, how she was "too conceited" to believe she could take Zarc on her on, like excuse me, she absolutely took him down, TWICE, not sure what series you were watching, how she supposedly pulled a deus ex machina with the En Cards, as if the requirements to use them weren't ridiculously difficult to meet and wouldn't require a very skilled duelist, how she was dumb for sparing Leo because he caused an wat to bring her back, like, sweetie, the world would have ended anyway because with or without Leo, Zarc would have awakened eventually, that's why Ray set herself to always chase him down and defeat him over and over, like honestly i could dedicate a whole rant essay to the ridiculous claims I've seen made about her.

But the one thing everyone ALWAYS gets wrong is this, and I'm gonna put it in all caps and bold text because it needs to be said:

RAY ALONG WITH ZARC CREATED THE PENDULUM SUMMON AND THE PENDULUM CARDS!!

(AND VERY LIKELY ALSO YUYA'S PENDULUM NECKLACE)

Seriously people, this isn't rocket science, the entirety of the 6th opening and ending is FULL of visual cues about how the both of them did it, we have visuals of Yuya and Yuzu forming the energy for the Pendulum, we know Ray was able to create and give cards to Reira in her spirit-like form, heck, lately the card game has released a bunch of cards that attach the word pendulum to Ray as well, come on.

And that's just something that a large portion of the fandom always gets wrong about her.

Kubera

For this webtoon there is way too many people with the worst takes on many characters, befitting as the characterization of the story is very complex and well-made, and many of them are girls, and the girls can just as flawed and commit terrible actions as the dude characters.

But one character that seems to exceed the number of bad takes rather than the good ones is Menaka.

Menaka is a nastika, a race who in this story are sort of like opposing force to the gods, the author has even mentioned that humans sort of see them like "evil gods", some fit the label more than others, and others like Menaka are the exact opposite of evil, she was actually hailed as the one nastika who was qualified enough to eventually become the wisest king of the clans, and would be the first one to reach enlightenment and defeat one of the main villains. Unfortunately this one villain would have none of that and screwed her over on a cosmological level to the point it costed her everything, her power, her life, her clan, her future, and she ended up being screwed over after her death and then some more.

Without saying too many things confusing to non-readers that's the gist, as as the type of character who was tricked into abandoning everything for the greater good, and lived and died to regret it because she ended up doing a lot of damages for her decisions as well, and then sacrifice herself once more she's the perfect candidate to be hated, mischaracterized, mocked, straight up make things up about her character that you'd thing they're talking about someone else.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that people called her a groomer and the true villain of the story, not like a joke or hyperbole, but as like what they actually think of her -_-'

Uff, that was hard to write without possibly spoiling anyone lol (don't judge me, Kubera in ongoing, Arc V is over :P)

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

Arc V

The Xyz arc, that all I have to say, I mean, you guys know me, for those who follow me when it was airing, you know my feelings about it and you know the absolute boredom that brings me every single time any of the xyz dimension characters were the focus (unless Yuzu, Dennis, Sora or Yuya were in them lol)

People love to say that the series did them dirty because they deserved a full arc, but honestly, we deserved a full arc dedicated to the fusion dimension, and I will die in that hill.

Kubera.

You know? Kubera doesn't have overhyped parts, because the series as a whole is just so underrated and obscure, and everything is so interwoven together, that it's impossible to remove any parts without affecting the overarching plot so... *shrugs*

#rose talks #my askbox #choose violence #arc v #ray akaba #one last god kubera #Menaka (Kubera)#I wanted to write more #but this would turn into an essay sorry #sorry to my arc v followers #but Kubera has me in a vicelike grip

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bryce-bucher · 1 year

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J(a)SON Post #1

Introduction:

So I'm working on 3 projects right now, and I'm on a rotating schedule where every two weeks I switch to a different one. I figured that at the end of each week I'd make a post (if I remember) going over some of the work I've done over that week. Since this is the first post for my immersive sim "J(a)SON: The Dog Living Inside a Mistake", it will be a bit different. Instead of showing off the work I've done this week, I'll just be going over the project in general.

The Dog Living Inside a Mistake:

J(a)SON: The Dog Living Inside a Mistake is an immersive sim that I decided to work on for the 2021 HPS1 Madvent calendar. I wasn't able to complete the tiny scope I had planned for its initial release, so I decided to turn it into a full experience. It's set to be structured similarly to something like Bowser's Fury in that its one large map with several segmented areas. Inspired by a dream I had, the game stars a goth, enby hacker who has gotten word that their dog (J(a)SON) was kidnapped by a shady corporation operating inside of a fake exclusion zone. They aren't sure if J(a)SON is savable, but they do know that he is suffering inside of a giant parasite.

Mechanics & Gameplay:

Being an immersive sim, the game focuses on a plethora of interwoven mechanics, emergent gameplay, and detailed interaction with the world. The player starts with only their cellphone which is equipped to download the output data of virtually any device they may come across. They can then upload this output data to any other device in order to connect the two devices. In practice, this allows the player to do things like rewire an alarm to route to a bomb so that anyone who dares try to sound the alarm gets exploded. J(a)SON forgoes any kind of rpg mechanics that you might find in something like Deus Ex in favor of focusing on basic horizontal progression. This means that the player is going to expand their options through finding various weapons, gadgets, and bits of information rather than through skill points. I aim to make interactions with devices as detailed as possible, so most interactable have a pre-rendered interface that lets you set the specific time on a microwave and things like that. The game also has a sort of "chemistry system" similar to breath of the wild where objects can have properties such as "flammable" or "conductive" that allow them to be electricuted, set on fire, put out with water, yada yada. This leads to fun situations like putting metal in the microwave leading it to explode as a makeshift bomb and things like that.

Conclusion:

Well that's all 4 now. I hope to go into more detail about a buncha stuff like rat breeding and terminal hacking and all that when I get around to it. See ya next week when I'm working on Winds of Basidia.

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1-up-chump · 1 year

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The day mk abandoned the kung fu death tournament high eastern fantsy aesthetic and then copied the Dcu/mcu aesthetic

Is the day mk fuckin died. It started with the cash grab crossover, then the dlc guest characters, and now this convoluted inconsistent assassination of characters.

Examples:

sin\del (was supposed to be manipulated by dark magiks from q=uan chi. Was never fuckin evil and never killed jerrod bc SH/AO KAH/N DID AND THATS SCREWING HIS CHARACTER OVER TOO all for some mommy dommy milf fantasy which is absolutely from a "hetcis man's" gaze dont fool yourself)

ku\ng la\o (turned him into a second banana cocky type and just keep killing him for shock value when before he kinda never got this treatment. He was is and always WILL be li/u kan/g's equal in skill and warriors heart)

ra\iden (a LITERAL GOD who was so strong he was only bound by the rules of mortal kombat and the elder gods and his soft spot for mortals and loyalty to protecting earthrealm, kind and wise. Turned into a supposed dEmi-GOd who was willing to use the realm that was his charge as a fucking bargaining chip to a man who's more untrustworthy than shan/g ts/ung, he's hardly around OR he's suddenly not as powerful until he remembers he can obliterate ppl with lightning, he's a cold hardass who's so alien to mortals emotions despite being around them longer and basically raising one like his own son)

li\u k\ang (turned into basically every shonen protagonist ever type levels of character development, gets fucked over in the romance department Although kit/ana has her fair share of problems with writing too, becomes a god in the most deus ex machina way possible and is so intrusive to kun/g la/o and his legacy to meddle with the great kung lao like some sort of savior bs)

sha\ng tsun\g before aftermath (having his whole ass character trashed to the side for some milf dominatrix fantasy in 9 is the only reason i fucking need here lbh)

son\ya (her whole character is stale and practically revolved around the fact she fucks and marries a dude she's so incompatible with just bc of "we need the original characters to make next gen characters we dont care if they're compatible lol" literally has an accidental pregnancy literally divorced jo/hny and then fucking dies, and then comes back anyways "but its the version fans like right oh btw shove in the fact that Son/ya's purpose is to malke cas/sie and thats it shes just mom character now but #gurlboss am i right plz buy game")

ja/x (gets traumatized to hell and back for very little payoff used as depression fetish exploitation, at least his tower ending is great despite the "#woke" bs, his daughter however has the most fucked ending to basically erase herself to make j/ax happy like???? Sonya literally has an avengers/justice league ass tower ending all peachy keen but the black woman cant have any happiness huh mmm sure ok yeah.)

Jacq/ui (honestly im not too into her character but when i heard about her tower ending it pissed me off so much and made me hate the writing even more like oh some characters get basically whatever they wanted no consequence but some characters are doomed to be fucked??? Like hello favoritism MUCH?!? -coughhanzosgodofwarripofftowerendingcough-)

with new characters added that have so much potential but poor execution (i mean seriously you wanna tell me ce/trion and kroni/ka actually killed the elder gods THE ELDER GODS AKA THE BIG POWERFUL DIVINE COUNSEL but have trouble with making rai/d/en and li/u fi/ght and kill each other??? Let alone try to kill one at a time??)

I do like some things like kolle/ctor and ge/rus and cet/rion like i like those characters but by god cetr/ion was wasted potential you cant drop her brother was fucking shinn/ok and then proceed to basically make her some weak errand girl who i feel in the end is making fun of the "divine feminine gaia" aesthetic like the writing wants her to be the bad guy but also sympathetic in the dumbest way possible and she sounds like someone on Twitter who just learned about the concept of "balance" and slaps buddha quotes incorrectly

Also i never cared for shin/nok until recently when i was like "hey wait no his concept kinda slaps actually"

At the end of the day we all have our opinions i guess. And mine is: mk new timeline is written by people who like superheroes movies when mk should be written by people who like kung fu movies

#vent #rant

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tatjana-fantasy · 1 year

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Chapter 7 of Repeat Day is up!

It's the last chapter and the final time loop. I hope you'll enjoy it :D And if you're interested in everything that didn't make it into the fic, you can read it under the cut - please only after finishing the last chapter ;)

PLEASE ONLY READ THIS IF YOU FINISHED THE FANFIC.

When I first started “Repeat Day”, I thought I could include much more outcomes, so the first half of the fic in particular has many choices and consequences that never appear again. Mostly because they would've made the fic way too complicated without actually providing anything of substance.

The very first scene of the fic originally ended with Jason telling Rachel how to avoid the explosives he set up with Nick earlier. I planned for one timeline where Jason accidentally blows up Eric, Rachel and Clarice by forgetting where the explosives are, because that is what happened during my first playthrough XD It was kinda useless in the grand scheme of things though, so I cut it altogether.

Similarly, Jason was supposed to find out about Clarice's danger status via the Eric death connected to it, but due to my personal rules of choices and consequences, it simply couldn't happen. And by the time I thought I might as well change the rules, he was already too genre-savvy to let her live long enough D:

I was also thinking of making Clarice savable, but decided against it because of the multitude of changes it would have required. The same thing happened to Vampire Rachel – just thinking about all the possibilities made my head hurt, so with a heavy heart, I decided not to include her.

There are a few smaller consequences that got cut (like the various ways Jason and Salim can meet in Enemy of my Enemy, several other conversations with other characters, Jason being alive and infected, or his entire accent lol), but there are three bigger changes that weren't part of the game and ultimately not part of the fanfic.

Firstly, Jason's backstory. It was VASTLY different in my first draft, making his involvement in Jeff's death so indirect that it was honestly boring. I eventually decided that it was much more interesting to give him a more active role, so him blaming himself for Jeff's death actually made sense. This is a change I'm very happy with because his backstory now is a hundred times better than the one he had before. (Before, it was Jeff's turn to visit him, Jason told him to take the earlier train home, and that train got into a fatal accident. Yup, I'm glad I changed that.)

Secondly, an entire time loop ended up being cut. Here, Jason let slip a little too many things he couldn't possibly know about without the time loops (like Nick dating Rachel or mentioning Zain early), so the others became weary of him and he eventually confessed the whole time loop thing. Once again, it made the whole story too complicated, so I focused on the normal time loops instead.

However – thirdly – I always knew that the story would end with the others finding out about the time loops, because I always thought it was unfair that only the main character ever remembered them. But I wasn't sure how I wanted the others to find out. Would Jason simply tell them? Sounded boring. Or maybe they secretly were in their own, personal time loops? Sounded interesting, but also a little cliché. So finally, I opted for the simple solution of the others remembering all time loops the moment Jason ends them. A little too deus ex machina? Yeah, probably. But what do they say? Everything's fair in love and war, and this was definitely both ;D (Plus, I always imagined that at least a part of their experiences transitioned over with each passing day.)

Either way – I hope you enjoyed this fic, since it meant quite a lot to me :)

#supermassive games #the dark pictures anthology #house of ashes #jalim #royalkay #fanfic #jason kolchek #salim othman #nick kay #eric king #rachel king #time loop

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yanderefairyangel · 6 months

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Gotta love how according to detractors Engage is simultaneously an insignificant game no one cares about anymore but also holds an iron fist over the fandom to the point where they are supposedly oppressed for not liking it. Which is it? Does no one care about Engage anymore or do people care about Engage so much the fandom oppresses those who dislike it?

Oh really, it's neither.

We keep talking about it. I remember in one of his most recent videos Ghast said "discussion about Engage are at it's lowest" which got a chukkle out of me. Cause like, discussion about Engage are still super active. Like, I recently started on TwittX and today I woke up to 139 followers ! My Engage content got me a lot of new followers and the video I posted about it reached 232 view in less then 2 weeks. The original soundtrack just released and all day it was just Engage fan gushing about it ! We got a lot of Engage unit in Heroes and the manga is soon releasing. Discussion about the game are super active !

But also, the whole oppress makes me laugh cause if anything I saw people getting oppressed for liking it ! Say you like Engage on reddit, you'll get mass downvoted. Don't get me started on ytb. People will try to tell you you have as much IQ as a 3 year old for liking this game because "cringe, bad, chessey" or whatever lol. We are just tired of people who will say "game bad" and then proceeds to admit they skipped the cutscene. I mean...

I swear to God, that's going from "haha ha, ridiculous " to "ok now y'all are just pathetic". Like someone even tried to tell me that the game was trying to take responsability off Zephia because "it established that Sombron raised Zephia and taugh her many wrong things" (yes, really)

I am getting tired to see people who genuinely believe that Zephia is Veyle's mother, and don't get me started on that one person who managed to believe she was both Veyle AND Alear's mother. And there was that one person who called it a deus ex machina that the Emblem used the miracle to revive Alear because they though it was the same power as the one they bestowed every 1 000 year, never mind that Sigurd literaly explain in chapter 18 that this is a different power. People for some reason keep asking how Alear managed to summon the Emblem back when Sombron "closed the portal" even though both Sombron and Alear says at least 3 times in less the 3 second that Sombron didn't closed it completely !!

Heck, one of those "genius" tried to debunk the response I made to the 2hour long video art becomes obligation and he straight up said that "the story never established Sombron as arrogant"... I kid you not

Because he completely forgot that Sombron murdered the only person who can summon them and absorbed all their power... even though in chapter 25 Alfred explained that the Emblem lost their millenial power because of Sombron and can't perform the miracle any longer, so no one need them anymore.

They really believe we can take them seriously when they do that ? Of course not, they are just making a mockery of themselves. Nothing more, nothing less. We can accept not liking the game and discussing it, but do they really wanna act like the victim when we are telling them "if you skipped the story, you have no right to criticize the story" ?? Like, imagine if someone took one of Shakespeare book, quickly skirmed through the pages and then said "it's bad"... isn't that ridiculous ?

Their argument was already self contradictory enough, but when you KNOW that there is pretty much everything I said behind said argument and that they still lack the self awarness then you know you are dealing with a bunch of walls. Little sheeps that follow their Shepherds of FEtubers opinion. So now, they want us to believe they are "oppressed by the fandom in liking a game that the fandom decided to hate and that should you like it, you will end up burn at the stake ?" Yeah, sure. Makes total sense.

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #fe engage #i am not over clowing them #they keep feeding the material I swear I don't even need to move a finger

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skyloftsword · 8 months

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In Defense of Tears of the Kingdom's Story

Hi, I just wanted to put this out because while there is a lot of valid criticisms about the story (even if I disagree with most of them personally), I've seen a bunch of people act like it isn't a sequel to BotW at all or barely feels connected. There are also other aspects that I want to talk about in here as well, but that's the big one I want to address because too many people seem to have missed the plethora of BotW references. If you still dislike the story after this though, that's totally fine, opinions are opinions. Anyways, spoilers of course.

Ok here's the elephant in the room, yes, Tears of the Kingdom is DEFINITELY a sequel to Breath of the Wild. The intro segment makes this very clear that Breath of the Wild had to have happened in order for this game to happen. Zelda talks about how after the Calamity, the castle went into neglect, which over time caused gloom to appear all over Hyrule. The Calamity caused Rauru's seal on Ganondorf to become extremely weakened only to finally fail when Link and Zelda see Rauru's hand and Ganondorf.

Not to mention the people remembering Link, yeah a lot of people forgot who Link was, but like do you think those people have any braincells? Bolson is tricky but to be fair, to him Link is just a customer. As for Link not being recognized by those that Zelda met in person, I don't think they'd care about a knight of the princess more than the princess who suffered for 100 years especially since he's always behind her. This even works for those who had side quests considering that most of the ones in BotW were really just small things. But the people who SHOULD remember Link DO remember him and even more remember him as well.

Also the Divine Beasts are mentioned several times, we just don't know where they went... However we can infer that the Sheikah have the ability to snap them in and out of existence thanks to Maz Koshia's arena in BotW's DLC. I highly doubt they'd want those things around anymore especially since they started breaking down in the True Ending of BotW. As for Guardians, they've been scrapped and used for stuff like Towers. The Shrines and Towers destroyed by Hudson's company. There are also things like Mipha Court, Kohga and the Character Profiles that prove BotW happened.

Now onto the timeline placement. At the end of one of the three timelines post-dragonbreak, all of the events from BotW and TotK, INCLUDING the Zonai coming down and the Imprisoning War, take place after the original Hyrule fell or got destroyed by the dragonbreak. Society starts to reform with all the races that are in BotW/TotK, eventually the Zonai come down and live peacefully with everyone, something happens to most of the Zonai, possibly warring with Ganondorf already, Rauru and Sonia then come together and form the new Hyrule Kingdom. They call it Hyrule and not New Hyrule because that sounds dumb probably. Then the events of the Dragon Tears happen, then like 100k years pass where the intro of Tears of the Kingdom happens, which is around 4-6 years after the end of Breath of the Wild. The events of Tears of the Kingdom happen and then the ending, which I will explain next.

The ending of Tears of the Kingdom is NOT a Deus Ex Machina, it is explained entirely in game. I highly doubt the Zonai ever tried to do an amplified Recall on a draconified person. So basically, according to the 6th memory/4th Dragon Tear, other stone users/Sages can amplify a stone's power even more by lending their power. Sonia and Rauru lent Link their power to boost his Recall to bring Zelda back, restore Link's body back to normal and to return Rauru's arm to him.

Update 1: Okay so people are saying this is an alternate timeline created by Zelda going back in time. This literally would contradict so much its insane how anyone could think of this incompetent idea. Zelda going back in time was FATE. She was always destined to go back in time in an endless cycle. There is no start, Zelda being the Sage of Time means she is out of time's restrictions. The murals that were blocked off at the beginning of the game prove this by showing Zelda becoming a dragon. The Light Dragon was always there in BotW above the sky barrier, which we've seen the dragons go through in that game.

Anyways I'll add more to this post later if I can think of anything else I want to address.

#totk #tears of the kingdom #totk spoilers

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aeoki · 11 months

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Machina - Deus ex...: Chapter 5

Location: “Test World” Plaza Characters: Mika, Shuu, Sora & Makoto

TL Note:

This is a reference to a quote from Japanese sculptor and artist Tarou Okamoto which he yelled in a 1981 commercial.

Shuu: Alright, let’s begin the march of the Deus Ex Machina – Our epilogue.

Mika: Ahahahaha! Art is an explosion[*]~☆

*The ground shakes and rumbles*

Makoto & Sora: ……♪

Makoto: Ahaha. They sure went on a full-on rampage that’s enough to blow all of their worries away. What’s gonna happen to the value of the “VL$” now?

Sora: Only God will know~♪

It was already stated in the contract for the “Test World” that there’s a possibility of loss when it came to the value of the “VL$”.

The test players were aware of that when they joined.

It’ll be fine as long as the game company person takes responsibility for it all~♪

Makoto: Wow, that’s pretty irresponsible ♪

Well, everything’s been a “test” from the very beginning, so I don’t think anyone’s converted all of their savings into “VL$”.

On the other hand, it’ll be tough to accept the fact that the assets they gained in-game would lose their value~

All the test players started to gather in the plaza ever since the Deus Ex Machina appeared in the “Test World”.

Uuu~ I can feel my gamer blood boiling!

Harukawa-kun, how about we join in on the raid battle too?

Sora: Okay! Sora was also thinking of that ♪

A thrilling heated battle! This is why Sora can’t stop playing video games~♪

Mika: Hey, Oshi-san, take a look at that. There are heaps of players below us…♪

Shuu: They’re like ants. It looks like this “Test World” is rather active.

Mika: Yeah. I think it’s amazing how every one of these players here have their own unique lives.

It sure would be nice if all these people were my fans. When the “VL$” comes crashing down, I wonder what they’ll think of us?

I won’t be able to say a word ‘bout when you engage in flame wars online anymore in the future, Oshi-san…♪

Shuu: Hmph, you worry too much.

You care too much about what the public thinks and says – your self-expression is gradually withering away.

All humans are different and there will be more people who disagree with you. Even people aspiring for the same art have differing opinions.

And that’s exactly why the moment of mutual understanding brings forth the best kind of joy.

Many of the people here are indifferent to your work. In fact, some of them may even bear animosity towards you in this situation.

But it’s also true that you have fans amongst them.

Rather than just seeing how much your art will be worth on the market, there are people who have discovered how much your art truly means to them. For an artist, that fact alone is what’s truly important.

Don’t make that mistake. Who are you creating your art for?

Mika: …Yeah. I’ll be sure to remember this day.

Ahaha, as I thought, the things you say are full of meanin’. I think the reason for my slump was ‘cause I kept tryin’ to gauge yer facial expressions.

I’ll carve it deeply into my heart and pursue my own art!

Oh, right! There’s apparently a feature in this game that lets you throw money.

If all this money is gonna turn to zero, then let’s scatter it all into the sky ♪

Shuu: Kakakaka! An interesting idea, Kagehira!

A farewell with the virtual currency – Gazing at the philistines crowding down below doesn’t sound half bad ♪

Throw them as hard as you can! Have a taste of the joy you can only gain from virtual currency…♪

Mika: I’ll scatter ‘em all~! We “Valkyrie” are a unit that pursues true art!

Take it if you want! All this money is way too much for me right now!

I can just make money by sellin’ art again, so you guys can use this ♪

Thanks “Test World”! And farewell!

I had a lot of fun! I’ll be headin’ back to reality for the time bein’…☆

← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂ Next Chapter →

#machina

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darkacey · 1 year

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From that ask game u reblogged, what Is one thing in canon you would change or changed (if anything) for ur rf5 fic?

Thank you anon for the ask! I’ve actually changed a lot of things (most of them being minor tweaks) for Who Remembers a God. I could probably go on for ages about all of them, but I’ll focus on the most obvious (besides the fact that I made Alice/Ares into a nonbinary person named Ari) — I gave Lucas more agency in the plot.

Given that in RF5 Lucas takes the initiative to guide Alice/Ares through the Meline Crystal Caverns without prompting (a unique fact considering Scarlett is the only other marriage candidate who follows Alice/Ares into the field during the main story (well, Ryker sort of helps at one point, but it’s entirely accidental and he goes home instead of staying)), it bothered me a lot how distanced himself from the rest of the plot. It hurt even more when Alice/Ares had to twist his arm through his arbitrary taboos to make him help at more crucial moments.

I can see why the writers made those decisions (increased drama, put more power in the player’s hands, there’s some logic in an immortal not wanting to get attached to mortals), but since players weren’t privy to whatever went on in Lucas’ head after he remembered his godhood, it felt like a 180 turn from his original characterization. He starts as a gentleman who’s willing to put himself in harm’s way just to help the player navigate a labyrinthine ice cave, and switches to an aloof deus ex machina. I still want to explore that inner conflict between being a gentleman and a god, and the comfort he finds in assigning rules for himself, but it’s going to be a lot more complex this time around.

I should also mention, Lucas isn’t the only one who gets special treatment (though he definitely gets the lion’s share). I’ve given Scarlett a lot more power in the narrative too, and I’ve developed Heinz into a more well-rounded mentor figure instead of just a joke character. I haven’t had space to explore the rest of the villagers’ lives as much as I would have liked, but in general, I’m trying to make them all interact with each other more and enact change on their own behind the scenes. (I have a lot of background ships between the spares rest of the marriage candidates, but I have no clue yet which ones will actually get mentioned beyond a cameo). It’s something RF5 needed in general, the cast having more complex lives outside of the player’s influence.

For those curious about the rest of the questions from this ask game, you can find them here!

#rune factory 5 #rf5 #rf5 lucas #rune factory 5 spoilers #darkacey writes #fanfic #who remembers a god #writblr #ask response #ask game

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inkwellencrier · 2 years

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I'm sorry anyone who I know that doesn't know anything about Bionicle but I NEED to ramble about the matoran in 01-03 because I love them

I read Bionicle in a weird order. Bionicle itself started when I was like. 3? My earliest memory of Bionicle is staring for like. Hours at the Rahkshi advertisement in a Lego magazine. My earliest memory of the story is the Toa Metru fighting the Morbuzakh and I didn't really get a solid grasp of the plot until 05. Some time during the ignition trilogy I started going back and reading things like the novels and watching the movies and such. But everything I read was really Toa-centric because well, that's how Bionicle goes.

Then there was MNOG. I don't remember exactly when I played it but I was CAUGHT UP in my mind at that point. I thought I knew EVERYTHING about the story.

At first, it was just neat to travel around as a matoran and help solve little problems. But slowly it started turning everything on its head. Suddenly I'm seeing that while all the Toa went around saving the day and finding their masks... The villages they were defending were ALIVE. They weren't just set dressing, all these matoran had LIVES and AMBITION and they weren't going to just sit around cowering in fear... They were going to defend their home.

When I started the part where you gather the chronicler's company, I was CERTAIN I was going to be gathering at least SOME of the Toa Inika/Mahri, only to discover that NOT ONE OF THOSE MATORAN CAME WITH ME, but that instead my company was mostly friends I had made along the way. Then the game immediately had me put their unique talents to use and then had me defend the Toa from the Rahi in an epic battle with their help.

It was incredible experience where almost nothing about the main story changed but I just... Got to see it from the perspective of not the heroes, but the people the heroes were defending.

A lot of events happened both in MNOG and the Bohrok animations that as standalone stories would probably be considered Deus ex machina, where the Toa just show up and conveniently fix the problem just in time. But like. That's realistic for what was taking place at the time. These heroes, realistically, were the only ones actually equipped to deal with these threats. But the fact that the matoran still TRIED. Their sheer determination and will in the face of actually impossible odds. And the fact they even won some battles themselves! It just won me over. The 01-03 matoran storylines will always be my favorite.

#bionicle #matoran #dont kill me i love the other storylines too i just wish they kept writing matoran like that #i vaguely remember other matoran having brief perspectives but rarely long enough to feel like they were being focused on

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aureliuzrex · 1 year

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Persona 5 Royal Review

This review has light game system spoilers and some story spoilers.

Persona 5 Royal is a special game to me not because it’s a Persona game, that’s a given, but because it looks and feels like a game designed from the ground up for me and me alone. I still remember the day the trailer for the original Persona 5 came out and I sent it to a friend of mine in excitement and he asked “wtf did they make this for you?”

The black and red colour scheme, the character designs, the focus on rebelling thieves who steal hearts, and the conversation of cognition affecting the perception of things around us. This was made for me. Yet, it is not a 10/10 or even my favourite Persona game. It might not even be my second favourite Persona game. So what happened? Where did this seemingly personally designed game fall short?

One of the biggest complaints people have about Persona 5 Royal is that it’s far too long. I agree, it simply is. If it were up to me it could be shortened by a large amount without affecting the story. In a lot of ways enhancing it by pacing it up. Personally speaking, I would have shortened the time in the palaces following the first one up to the last one (Base Game not 3rd semester). Cutting each palace to the length of a will seed and a half give or take and cutting the time between calling card deadlines to as short as a week or two.

The other big criticism Persona 5 Royal gets is that it’s too easy. The merciless difficulty is more of a fun crazy mix-up style mode with the “Hard” difficulty being the actual hardest difficulty in the game. A large reason people feel this way is because some of the Confidant abilities are ridiculously powerful. Chariot Rank 7 and Strength Rank 5 for example. These are ranks you can reach fairly early in the game too. I feel this issue could be fixed by implementing the fix to the game time issue.

Shortening the time in palaces and between them will force players to be pickier with who they spend time with. Making powerful Confidant unlocks come in slower and spread throughout the game. Thus making the difficulty curve not suddenly dip so early in the game. The more powerful confidant abilities aren’t too powerful on their own. It’s when they get stacked onto each other too early on in the game that they have escalating results. Chariot Rank 7 is borderline mandatory for a game as long as Persona 5 Royal. Without it, you can add another 40 hours or so onto an already 100+ hour game. That’s just unreasonable to anyone who isn’t chronically online.

Those are the 2 big issues I see brought up the most consistently when it comes to Persona 5 Royal. That being said there is a more interesting issue that is brought up with the game which I also find I agree with. That is that Persona 5 Royal is style over substance. We have to rebel against society and the system only to then live and rely on that very same society and system which sits fundamentally unchanged by the end of the game. Ignoring the fact that things only changed because you rebelled at all to then do a 180 and lean into the idea that change can be made through societal means. The whole game was spent showing us that doesn’t work in a corrupt system. A corrupt system we actively need to rebel against to see actual change. Aside from the main point of The Phantom Thieves, even the big meaningful questions and angles in the story kind of get brushed over a little too often.

Let’s explore if a certain final boss is actually correct or not. Let’s have The Phantom Thieves disagree and take differing stances. Have Joker persuade the group over a longer period of time and maybe confront members in different ways. Instead, the game handles all this in about 3 days and in a bit of a deus ex machina moment where The Phantom Thieves suddenly remember everything, and all of them side with Joker unanimously. I would have loved to explore this further. I would have also loved to have more time with the final boss of the game who might be one of the best villain characters in gaming. It’s debatable to even call him a villain but that’s a whole other conversation.

My last issue with the game is that there is far too much to do. Between all the confidants, reading books, doing laundry, dating your teacher, going to school. There’s just too much going on at any given time. In Persona 3 and 4 you still had a lot of player choice and freedom at any given time but it didn’t feel overbearing and oppressive. Persona 5 Royal does have a case of content creep where they kept adding things on and on to the point it feels a little bloated in more ways than the length of the game itself. Even as a Persona vet, I feel a lot of pressure trying to juggle everything that’s going on when I play Persona 5 Royal. Personally speaking, I think Persona 4 Golden nailed the balance of day-to-day gameplay. Where there was always something to do but I didn’t feel the need to write down everything to make sense of it.

All while not giving off that horrible feeling of not being optimal. Like I might have made the wrong choice or I am missing out on something. There is a cool feature in the game that shows you what other players decided to do on that day. I think it’s a great addition to help with the bloat of the game. That being said, Persona 4 Golden made me feel like I was making a choice because I wanted to make it. Persona 5 Royal on the other hand makes me feel like if I’m not optimal then I am messing up. I do understand a good portion of this could be a “me problem” but at the same time, this is the biggest complaint I’m seeing from my friends jumping into the series for the first time with Persona 5 Royal.

As a Persona vet, I can look past a lot of the issues I brought up here and still very much enjoy the game. But it ends up being a game I can’t recommend to friends or even non-Persona fans because I feel it is far too much of an ask of them. Anyone of the issues I stated can be looked past individually but together it ends up being overwhelming to anyone who’s not chronically online or a Persona vet. This is why I usually recommend earlier Persona titles over Persona 5 Royal. Persona 3, 4, and even the 2 duology end up being much better starting points. They are shorter games that ask far less of the player. Persona 1 I don’t recommend because I feel it has not aged well to anyone who isn’t a Persona or JRPG fan. It is the game most in need of some kind of modern revamp.

Now let’s talk about the good. I think Persona 5 Royal has the best all-around cast in a Persona game. To me, they feel the most dynamic and all-around interconnected. With maybe Haru being the only exception. She seems to not have much of a place in the group outside of when she was introduced. Following that palace, she could have even left the party entirely and I wouldn’t have noticed. I think this again could be fixed by pacing the game up. She just comes in far too late to the party with far too little interaction prior. You have characters who enter the party after Haru but since we were already interacting with them prior it feels very natural to have them join and they also feel much more like part of the team. Other than Haru I really like this particular party. I mean no disrespect to Haru either. It’s just for a 100+ hour game they couldn’t find the time to let me get to know her.

Persona 5 Royal has the best style and looks out of all the Persona games. Red and Black is my thing from a colour scheme standpoint so I’m going to be biased there. Even aside from that this game just looks amazing. The character models, Persona designs, transitions, and movement-to-moment gameplay. Rating this on its own would be a 10/10 from me. Persona 5 Royal will age amazingly too. This game will continue to look great in 10+ years.

The overall story and concepts are excellent. Being quite a juxtaposition to Persona 4 Golden where you were basically magical high school investigators. In Persona 5 Royal you are magical high school thieves. Between the two I would say Persona 4 Golden was all around tighter and delivered better, with a better understanding and representation of its own concepts. Actually, this is how I feel about Persona 4 Golden vs Persona 5 Royal when it comes to the games themselves let alone the story and concepts but I digress. Persona 5 Royal still pulls its weight. People like to say it’s style over substance and they aren’t wrong. They barely scratch the surface of the concepts they bring up in an over 100-hour game. You would think they would dive a little deeper into things with a run time like that but I can’t say it doesn’t leave you satisfied. Also, I mean there’s nothing wrong with style. If you can’t have substance you might as well have style and Persona 5 Royal has style to spare. I should also add I am a Joker fanboy. I love his design and character. I simply think he’s really cool. I mean the guy got into Smash Bros so there’s got to be people who agree with me. I know there is a lot of Persona hipster who hate Joker but cry about it on the forums. I think he’s awesome.

The confidant system in this game formally known as “Social Links” is the new standard for the Persona games. I can’t see them going back to the more basic social links = Persona level's way of doing things from the earlier games. The bonuses we get in Royal are powerful, fun, and interesting. Even if a little overpowered. That being said this is mostly from Persona vets and people who have replayed the game multiple times. I have a few friends of mine who started playing Persona 5 Royal as their first Persona game. Not knowing what the most powerful confidant ranks are made for a more balanced gameplay experience.

Overall I really enjoy Persona 5 Royal. It’s far from perfect but it’s still one of the best JRPG games I ever played. There’s so much to do and experience. It’s not a masterpiece but it should be.

9.1/10

P.S. Akechi is cool.

Also sorry about complaining about the length of the game so much.

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badwasabi · 7 months

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So I'm reading a Worm/God Of War 2018 fusion fanfiction.

Taylor's father is secretly Kratos. She starts to manifest her godly powers for no reason.

Mostly, this makes her sick. She can also heal people. Which makes her sicker.

"Danny" reads her into the whole god thing, and drags her across the continent, then across the Atlantic, to find the mcguffin needed to save her life and make her power her power. Unfortunately mommy's magic that cloaked them stops working.

And in case you're wondering, yes, her mother is Freya. She's also dead. Something about the process to give birth to Taylor made her mortal. And no, we don't know what happened to Atreus yet.

Or if he even exists in this universe.

Also, the Endbringers are tracking them. They don't like interlopers on their turf.

Kratos and Taylor get to Africa. They get the McGuffin, which happens to be in Ash Beast's route. They try to flee, but end up caught in a bunch of refugees heading for the ocean.

Leviathan shows up, to kill Kratos and Taylor.

Kratos apparently sacrifices himself to protect Taylor from Leviathan. On autopilot, she joins the refugees, ends up in a refugee camp, and starts healing people. When Miss Militia finds Taylor, she takes her to a hospital (in Canada?). Taylor's godmother (previously introduced) and Narwhal take Taylor to Newfoundland (which is underwater).

Taylor uses the McGuffin to go underwater and retrieve the McGuffin her mother left.

This concludes the first act. When Taylor finally comes into her power.

You might have noticed something missing.

A serious lack of actual choices by Taylor.

I can understand what the writer was going for. Kratos is the main protagonist of the 2018 game, so he's the main protagonist of the story. But the writer was so focused on being godly and epic that they forgot to make Taylor an actual character. With, like, initiative and stuff.

Taylor goes farther from home than she's ever been before. But she doesn't really think about Brockton Bay, for contrast, and mostly just follows her dad. Doesn't think about what she wants to do with her powers, or wonder much about what they are.

When Kratos fends off some pirates, and brutalizes one before killing him, this worries Taylor for about five seconds and then never comes up again.

Kratos just randomly decides to sacrifice himself, even though there's no evidence that Levithan is an especially greater threat, just a closer one, or that fighting him should be lethal to Kratos.

There's no moment where he looks at the situation, and visibly makes a decision, or hints at it beforehand. No sense of buildup.

He gives a speech about how much he loves Taylor as he runs toward the fight, which seems a tad out of character for such a laconic man.

It's like the writer went, "Well, she has all she needs, time to kill Obi-Wan!"

Also, the story is chock-a-block with flashbacks and stories and tales and visions and loads of things that aren't happening now.

Remember, God of War 2018 had a sort of framing device; it was all one continuous camera shot.

God of War Ragnarok did the same thing; even when characters were teleporting or dreaming or seeing visions, it was always one shot. And there were a lot of things to ground us, like the puzzles.

This story isn't nearly so graceful.

It's very hard to care very much about a story when you're telling us we need to care about all this other stuff too.

In fact, remember the point I said we got to? When Taylor finally gets the second mcguffin from her mum that will let her control her power?

The next chapter is an interlude, with Ms Militia as the POV character. And a lot of that chapter is just telling us stuff we could have figured out and don't even need to be told. It jumps back in time so it can tell us this stuff.

The only new info is that the god with Narwhal is her (and Taylor's) godmother. It's a very literal Deus Ex Machina to get her to another very literal Deus Ex Machina.

It took 11 chapters just for the "first act" to end. And then another chapter that was mostly redundant. And you know what happens when we cut back to Taylor?

That's right. Another vision/flashback of the origin of another God we have never met, but we're supposed to care about, because she had a dramatic backstory and she saves Taylor.

Taylor wakes up floating in the ocean, off Canada, fully manfested. Due to a bunch of contrivances, Taylot accidentally injures and then heals a member of the RCMP who thought it was a good idea to mess with the McGuffin trunk protected by Kratos' and Freya's magic.

Owned by a girl who looks and acts strange and is apparently a parahuman.

Without actually asking permission.

Even though Taylor can tell the cop is very afraid.

When the other Canuck Cops show up and power manacle Taylor with her consent, she gets agitated, effortlessly snaps the manacles, realizes the parahuman po-po are about to spray her down with containment foam, and finds it "shockingly easy" to bullet-time away from them, and even make one spray the others.

Then Narwhal shows up.

Um, yeah, minor issue; why would Taylor do that?

I can understand why Taylor's god powers might have issues with manacles. It already prefers her barefoot. But why would she actively attack the cops, especially since she was just worried about accidentally seriously injuring one?

The story doesn't even pretend to give her a reason. She just does it. Even as the ostensible protagonist, her powers are dragging her along.

You know what might work better? Taylor bullet-times out of the cops trying to foam her. She tries to get away, but runs out of speed. Turns back, realizes cops are about to go lethal, and is about to actively defend herself when Narwhal drops in between both groups and defuses the situation.

Also, Narwhal doesn't seem to match her canon personality (as the Wiki describes her) at all. She's basically the Cool Quirky Big Sis archetype, not serious, hard-nosed, and formal.

She's apparently a demigod, but somehow ended up with the same powers, appearance, and job as canon; head of the Toronto protectorate.

Also, why did the bullet-time only kick in when Taylor needed to beat the cops, and not when she needed to stop the first cop? Who was explicitly right next to Taylor? Plot contrivance, of course!

The first cop could've accidentally brushed against the chest. Maybe she trips over something Taylor left on the floor, reaches out to steady herself, touches the latch before Taylor can reach out, and then the chest automatically blasts the cop.

Or she could just go "what's in the box?" and tap the chest with the side of her foot, which the protections misinterpret as an attack.

You could even use both scenarios to hint at Taylor's bullet time. Everything slows down, but she's not quite fast enough to stop the cop

This story is very popular. I can understand why a lot of people like it. But for me, I've already hit the eight deadly words.

#god of war #worm #writing advice #bad writing #nanowrimo #long #fanfiction #writing

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iloveabunchofgames · 1 year

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Week In Review - 3/12/23

#JakeReviewsItch Week In Review Archives

This week's reviews:

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Alien Life Lab 🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 All Haze Eve 🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 All You Can Eat 🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Alone With You 🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Alt-Frequencies 🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Ambidangerous 🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍 Amelie

It's a week of messes! Steam is a mess! I am a mess! Even the Game of the Week is a mess!

Game of the Week

All You Can Eat is easily the best game I reviewed this week. Alt-Frequencies is the clear runner-up. Game of the Week, however, is a title that goes to the game that's still occupying my brain after the fact...

At the end of my Alien Life Lab review, I said it had a New Game+/Second Quest thing. I think I was wrong. I thought the game was telling me to play again, but this time there would be three aliens who would need to be rescued along the way. In reality, I think this secondary objective had been there from the start, and I just didn't notice. So I played it a second time. I talked to every space person I saw, some of whom followed me. I finished, and found that I'd only rescued 1/3. Rats. I'll probably never see the good ending, and that's okay. Each time I loaded the game, I thought, "I overrated this, right? It's sort of trash, isn't it? Do I like it ironically? And every time, I got sucked right back in to it. I like it more now than when I reviewed it. I like it as much or more than I like the turn-of-the-millennium shooters and immersive sims that it recalls—System Shock 2, Half-Life, Deus Ex...

It is a mess. It's easy to articulate its faults. There's just something about how thoroughly weird and unpretentious it is, though, and even after beating it twice in a week, it still rattles me. It pulls off jump scares just as well in open, brightly lit arenas as it does in darkened, twisting paths lined with squishy, organic matter. Oh, yes, the audio design. That's the real source of dread. Again, All You Can Eat is the game to play this week. It's currently the third-best reviewed game on this site. It pushes the adventure game genre in such an exciting direction that half of my review was just the repeated word, "Genius!" Alt-Frequencies is the most mainstream pick of the bunch, and not because it lacks fresh ideas and idiosyncrasies. It's currently the fourth-best reviewed game on this site. I have another game from Accidental Queens on the review docket for the week after next, and I am jazzed. That studio hasn't missed yet.

Alien Life Lab is stupid and weird. I can't stop thinking about it.

Steam Is Hot Air

Do you remember 2003? Do you remember Valve requiring some big, annoying launcher service for anyone who wanted to play Half-Life 2? If you don't, let me tell you: A lot of people wanted to play Half-Life 2, and a lot of them were not happy about downloading this "Steam" thing. They wanted you to check in online every time you launched a game???

I'd hoped to illustrate the vitriol with contemporary examples. Forum posts, IGN editorials; that kind of thing. Unfortunately, the best archival records I could find come from the creeps at Penny-Arcade. These guys are awful, and I'd rather not link to their site, but they had their finger on the pulse when it came to petty grievances. They were influencers. When Jerry "Tycho" Holkins wrote about being scared of a computer asking for credit card information or about local-multiplayer enthusiasts feeling infuriated because they couldn't connect to Steam from their local LAN café, he was capturing the whiny, online zeitgeist. I didn't have high-speed Internet or a computer capable of running Half-Life 2 in 2003, so that particular controversy didn't occupy much space on my radar. I do remember the first time I played Half-Life 2 at a friend's house. Launching the game seemed like a process, accompanied by a halfhearted rant from my friend that was aimed equally at Steam and the idiots who acted like this mildly obtrusive application was tantamount to a war crime. Let me jump forward and ask: What exactly was the Epic Games Store hullabaloo? Or maybe that should be is; not was. I still see people taking up arms over...something. There are a million valid reason to dislike and distrust Epic as a company, but as far as I can gather, the crusaders are angry that a big corporation threw around a lot of money to complete with another big corporation? I'm generally against impossibly wealthy corporations reshaping the world to their liking, but look consider how pathetic and unnecessary Ubisoft's and Electronic Arts' launchers are. Even with Epic snagging a exclusives and timed exclusives, have they made any kind of dent in Steam's monopoly? Let's talk about the danger of consolidated power.

I've mentioned before that when I play PC games, I use my third-party Switch Pro Controller whenever possible. It feels good. It was dirt cheap. It works for me. Or it did work for me, until a few months ago. Most modern games are prepared to encounter an Xbox controller. PlayStation controller support is not uncommon. Native Switch controller support, though? Forget it. In a recent update, Steam added full, official support for Steam controllers of all kinds...but not my controller. What had happily been accepted as a Switch Pro Controller one day was read as an Xbox controller the next. The Screen Capture Button that had never had any issues no longer does anything, because an Xbox 360 controller doesn't have that button, and apparently that's what I'm using. I lost rumble support on some games. The little surprises never end. And because Steam has historically been the PC's best bet for controller support, other launchers don't offer any competitive options. Go to any Reddit thread where people want to know how to make their controller work, and 9/10 replies are the same thing: Steam Big Picture Mode.

This is the most dramatic update in 20 years of Steam, and Valve just seems to be sinking deeper into the muck each day. If you haven't personally noticed any issues, look no further than the patch notes for proof that everything's in shambles, all the time. I encountered a bug where Big Picture Mode would make a sound like it was launching, and then it would just show my desktop. I found some suggestions online and got things working. Then, in the next update, they broke it all over again.

When it works, I don't have much beef with Steam. I prefer it to the old days of games installing wherever they pleased. I like that having an account that allows me to maintain my game library indefinitely, no matter how many times I replace my computer. Steam has been good to me.

But the naysayers were onto something. Digital Rights Management is only as good or as bad as the rights-holder chooses to be, and we all know how trustworthy and stable corporations are.

My Itch library may consist of "DRM-free" applications, but I'm depending on Itch to keep up its end. If the company folded tomorrow, there's no way I could download and back-up all my games.

I own games through GOG, Ubisoft, and Rockstar. Their launchers are fine, but I'm not comfortable making additional purchases on any service run by companies that (aLlEgEdLy) cover up systemic harassment and abuse. I have handfuls of games tied to this account or that. I'd obviously prefer to have them all in one place, but who can you trust? Can you ever really trust anyone?

Steam is still the best option. It's only real option, which is to say, we don't have options. It's working so far. Except when it's not. Can't wait to see what they break with the next patch.

Jake Reviews #JakeReviewsTwitch

Take a look at the tiny blue text at the bottom of this post. It appears on almost everything I post. But today, it's different. Today, it says, "#JakeReviewsItch" for the first time. I'm in my third month of posting at least once a day, and this is the first time I've noticed that my template has had a ridiculous typo all along. I remember writing "Twitch" when I meant "Itch" on the first day. I corrected it. It's something I've written and corrected many more times since then. I probably should have known to double check for it in my template as soon as I started using a template. I probably did. I probably deleted "Twitch" and wrote "Twitch" in its place. I've made changes to my format little by little since I started. Every day, I think, "I should shake it up. Question everything I'm doing. Tear it down and build something new. I should give scores out of 10, rather than five. Some of these 4/5s should be 3/5s, and some of these 3/5s should be 1/5; better adjust the whole scale. Tumblr isn't the right place for these reviews, anyway. How hard would it be to transfer to another site? And when am I going to write a post about everything wrong with my page?" Maybe it would be easier if I just committed to reviewing every single stream on Twitch

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews…

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my-words-are-light · 2 years

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'Deus Ex': How To Write Villains With Humanity

I really like this scene from Deus Ex. A lot of writers think giving a villain humanity means giving Bloodsaw Ignites-Kittens a jarring moment in which she reminisces on her mother's cooking or says "Good morning" to her receptionist or, Mary Shelley forbid, has a flashback about their abusive childhood because of a horrible parent to whom "giving them humanity" seems to not make sense to the author for some reason when they do the same for Bloodsaw Ignites-Kittens.

What Deus Ex does here is take a villain with absolutely no redeeming qualities but give us a moment to remind us that, for all of Walton Simons' nanotechnology, he is still a human being interacting with human systems.

Context and transcript will follow below the video:

The stoic Walton Simons is the right hand man of the megalomaniac Bob Page, who orchestrates the evils you face throughout the game. He also effectively controls the organisation you're in, which in turn makes Walton a superior officer to you. Indeed, he's been appointed as the director of FEMA after Bob effectively bribed a senator with the cure he's monopolising for the plague he's manufactured.

You first meet Walton after you finish the first mission. Assuming you didn't kill the "terrorists" and captured them like you were ordered to, Walton will personally interrogate them and ask that he not be disturbed. Should you listen in, you will find that he is more than willing to abuse his power in threatening the families of the captives. From the intro cutscene to this point, you know that Walton Simons and Bob Page are monsters who will do anything and everything to get what they want and nothing is beneath them.

Later on, you return to HQ again and hear that Walton is paying a visit to Dr Jaime Reyes. Oh no! Is he going to threaten Jaime with EVIL SCIENCE? Is he going to abduct the good doctor and experiment on him? What could be possibly be planning with the game's most sympathetic character according to what I remember of a game that came out twenty-two years ago?!

So you go down to the doctor's office and overhear the following conversation, which plays in the above video clip:

Dr Jaime Reyes: "What kind of pain?" Walton Simons: "Behind the eyes. A sharp burning. Almost electrical." Dr Jaime Reyes: "How's your bioelectric level?" Walton Simons: "It's always at a hundred percent. I like to stay prepared." Dr Jaime Reyes: "That's probably it right there. Free radicals. You should charge your systems only when they've been significantly drained." Walton Simons: <slowly, as if surprised> "I wasn't informed of that." Dr Jaime Reyes: "It's a lot like an electric razor. If you leave it plugged in all the time, the battery loses its zero point. Just watch your levels." Walton Simons: "Interesting. Thanks, Doctor." Dr Jaime Reyes: "Let me know how it goes."

And that's it. It's just a regular medical checkup. Even the man who works for the man who wishes to control everything and become effectively a God, he still needs to go to a doctor for an eye checkup because he couldn't tell what the problem was himself. What's more, he's cooperative and doesn't hide anything (owing probably to his stoic nature), his tone of voice indicates he wasn't expecting the diagnosis to be what it was, and he's genuinely thankful for the help.

This is what makes a villain human, which isn't the same as what makes a villain sympathetic. Bloodsaw Ignites-Kittens is an attempt to invoke sympathy that often falls that because it doesn't align with what we know of her villainous actions, or the Freudian backstory behind her actions is so weak that it feels like it was thrown in there for the sake of avoiding criticism of a "flat" villain.

Walton Simons is not sympathetic in the slightest; he's just as power hungry and monstrous as his boss. However, Walton is human. That's the thing about humans; they're complex but that doesn't mean they're sympathetic, because plenty of humans act with complete disregard for everyone around them and solely for the sake of their own profit, power, and survival. However however, that's the thing about humans; they may be seeking to build a new Enephtee-mining factory off the coast of Peru but that doesn't mean they don't need to try and find a time in their busy schedule to get a check-up now and again.

Also, I'd just like to say that this diagnosis is brilliant in terms of the themes of the story of Deus Ex. Walton Simons is injured because he keeps himself at 100% bioelectric charge at all times, basically being at the peak of his power to address any problems that come his way. The doctor telling him that this is a bad thing for his health shakes him; for the sake of his health, he has to not be powerful all the time. Considering the goals of Bob Page, it's a neat way of the story telling us that the pursuit of absolute power won't go well for you.

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