#who they want to be although i guess you could apply that to any rpg with a gender selection screen

[pinkeoni]

And now, for no reason in particular, in no way related to anything on my blog at all, here is a long ramble about sexuality in Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout: 4

So in Fallout: New Vegas there is the option to control your characters sexuality, something that was fairly revolutionary at the time the game came out in 2011. The perks Black Widow and Lady Killer allow +10% damage along with unique dialogue options for the opposite sex, and Cherchez la Femme and Confirmed Bachelor offer the same bonus but for the same sex. The player has to option to chose one or both of these perks, and they both become available fairly early in gameplay. I usually pick both perks for the added damage bonus, although since Fallout is for an intents and purposes a roleplaying game, I like to imagine that my player character is a lesbian and is only flirting with men in order to get ahead.

Along with the fact that you can make your character gay, bisexual, or what have you, there are also a few gay characters within the game. The companions Arcade Ganon and Veronica are a gay man and lesbian respectively. There are a few other NPCs that have dialogue acknowledging their queerness.

The one thing that I wish that NV did have was the ability to romance companions. Imagine me, with my ancient HP laptop burning my lap, exhausting every one of Veronica's dialogue options trying to see if I can date her but to no avail. You can actually flirt with Ganon if you are a male character with the Confirmed Bachelor perk, although the interaction does not go farther than that. You can have sex with same sex prostitutes, but there's no cutscene. If I pay 300 caps for some hanky panky, then I wanna see it!

So when I found out that you could romance companions in Fallout: 4, I was beyond excited.

In F:4 you can romance most companions regardless of gender, effectively making any of the romancable companion bisexual by default. You can also romance any number of companions at the same time, meaning you could have one big bisexual polyamorous relationship if you wanted to (the companions cannot date each other and are all connected to you, but the choice to have multiple partners is still there.

Bisexual polyamory sounds very progressive, and I don't think that that shouldn't be acknowledged, but even without the romance options, NV feels like the gayer game.

The thing about the romance options in 4 is that it doesn't seem to address identity. All of these characters are bisexual by default, but (as far I have seen from reviews and from my own experience playing) the characters don't ever acknowledge queerness as an identity. If I'm a female player character romancing a female companion, there isn't any dialogue acknowledging the fact that we are both women (in fact from what I've read, the dialogue is the same regardless if you are a man or woman, with only the pronouns being changed). Furthermore, the perks that you can choose that controls the characters sexuality are not there. Black Widow and Lady Killer are still there, although their same-sex counterpart perks are not available.

What I like about the perks in NV is the fact that player identity is not only something that has to be imagined behind the screen, but it becomes a facet within the game that influences the game and is acknowledged. Not only with sexuality, but gender is a factor in the role play as well. There are a few characters who acknowledge through dialogue that my character is a woman.

In 4 you are given a backstory as a spouse in an opposite-sex marriage with a new baby, superimposed into a heterosexual relationship right off the bat. This is opposed to NV where you play as a glorified mail carrier with amnesia that you can project a backstory onto. In 4 the game starts off with your spouse essentially being literally "fridged" (no literally, they die inside of a cryochamber) and your baby is kidnapped which triggers the main plot of the game. I guess this could be subversive if the player character is a woman, but that's only the player chooses to be a woman. Context clues points to the game assuming that the player is a man, what with the male player character voicing the opening narration of the game, along with being the defaulted gender option in the character creation screen. I think that choosing to play as a woman creates a much more compelling narrative, although the game never acknowledges this so it's mostly up to the player to infer this narrative themselves. (Again, gender is only brought up through pronouns) I would say that maybe the game is trying to offer commentary on the nuclear family household, although the problem doesn't rely on the family itself but the war and outsiders are the ones who destroyed it while the family itself was perfectly healthy.

You would think that being a newly widowed spouse would have some impact on the romance aspect of the game, especially if you are engaging with a same sex partner after previously being with a partner of the opposite-sex. Which isn’t to say that people in heterosexual relationships can’t also be interested in the same-sex or that people in marriages can’t be engaged in a healthy open relationship, and I do like that the game includes this option at all, although (and again, this is to my knowledge) this doesn't seem to get a mention when dealing with the romance. The dead spouse only really makes an impact on the main storyline of the game, and similarly, the romance aspect doesn't seem to effect this aspect at all.

F:4 tries to have an established backstory while also trying to give the player the same freedom of role play that its had in previous games, but these two player identities just end up running parallel to each other rather than working together. You can make choices in the game that seems to contradict your backstory without it ever being addressed. This could maybe make for an interesting story, but (and once again, as much as I have played and seen) there doesn't seem to be any internal conflict between the player character's past and what they decide to do for the run of the game.

While all of the romancable companions are effectively bisexual by the nature of the gameplay, bisexuality or queerness in any capacity isn't recognized as an identity and operates more on just a cosmetic level. Not that a character would have to explicitly state that their label in order for it to be valid, but it doesn't add anything to their character in the same way that it does for Ganon and Veronica from NV. These two never say "I am a gay man" or "I am a lesbian" in that exact way but their identities have an impact on their character and how they interact with the player. Veronica in particular had a girlfriend in her past that wasn't approved of by the strictly conservative Brotherhood of Steel that she belongs to.

"So you want homophobia in your video games? This is a post-apocalyptic society, who cares about who dates who!" and to be fair sexuality in Fallout society does seem to be far more lenient in both NV and 4, which makes sense considering the context. There aren't any marriage laws, and there's even a line suggesting that the male soldiers from the fascist Caesar regime are regularly mounting each other.

But still, Veronica experiencing that bit of homophobia from her past helps queer identity feel more realized rather than just an empty gesture from game devs for a few political correctness points, and can even be found as relatable to some of it's queer players. Veronica's story is about her desperately trying to save her conservative community, but comes to realize that the only way for her to live is to leave them behind. She's heartbroken to leave her family, but recognizes that she has to prioritize herself even if they aren't going to. The Brotherhood of Steel isn't a real organization, but that's definitely a real experience. If the Fallout games aim to offer commentary on real-world politics (which it definitely aims to do) then it isn't going to succeed if it's characters don't reflect real-world experiences.

Sorry if this comes off as me railing on F:4, I actually greatly enjoy the game and have probably sunk more hours into it than NV (which is partially due to my PS4 actually being functional and the laptop I have that plays NV has been on its last legs for years now) and I do greatly enjoy the characterization of the companions, even if I wish that their queer identities made more of an impact. NV, on the other hand, is one of my favorite games of all time.

So that's my whole spiel. Doesn't have anything at all to do with anything else on my blog whatsoever. Completely unrelated.

#im totally being sarcastic in that last chunk btw #what this has to do with anything else i talk about you have to decipher for yourself #if you bothered to read any of that i thank you but also pls do not feel obligated too #also gay person loves new vegas SHOCKER!! #not mentioned in post is how i also read the couriers story in nv as trans although this is def unintended by the devs #<- its hinted in lonesome road that the courier pre-amnesia is different than who they are post amnesia and their story is about choosing #who they want to be although i guess you could apply that to any rpg with a gender selection screen #robin rambles

[damnation-if]

I have no strong opinions about measurements & I’ll keep my freedom temperature opinions to myself (0 is Dying Cold 100 is Dying Hot it’s intuitive!) but your tags about D&D are so true 5 ft is so specific & in a lot of situations it makes no sense (Especially when you consider it started out as wargame with role playing added in). RPG designers just use [Number] Square(s)/Hex(es), I beg of you!

one of my Biggest gripes with d&d measurements comes down to. Size. as in the Size category of creatures and objects. like the Medium size (which refers to the vast majority of humanoids and a whole bunch of regular-sized enemies like wolves and stuff) is said to occupy. essentially a square of space with a 5ft-long side. for the sake of being put on a battle map or whatever. and that... makes sense in a way even though you can obviously. fit more than one person in a square that size or like. a person and a cat or whatever but it's fine it's trying to apply a mathematical rule to a chaotic irl process that doesn't necessarily have much 2d mathematical sense worked into it.

anyway. then you get to the Large size.

any creature of Large size occupies Four Entire 5foot Squares, sides 10 feet long in either direction overall. you can. in a way. justify this for stuff like say. Horses. maybe nobody wants to stand too close to the horse thinking they'll get kicked or whatever. but then we have to consider my Eternal bugbear, Graz'zt.

Graz'zt is a demon lord (the Best one, imo, certainly the best of the big three fitey bois fiteing for the #1 spot) and so his Size category is Large. but his entire schtick is that he's a sexboi and he's basically just a humanoid guy who's pretty tall (9 feet, or a little bit less than 3m). because you know. you need to be able get it in you, if you know what i'm saying, so he can't be so big as to make that a pain for himself. he can Certainly fit within a square where one of the sides is 5 feet long. and yet to slap him on a battle map (as we had to playing fucking Out of the Abyss, god damn that module) he has a Large token and is supposed to take up a square with 10 feet sides.

he could lie down on the ground and not reach all the way along One of those sides, which a lot of human people cannot do in their Medium 5 foot square. so like. he's just standing in the middle of a vast empty 10 foot square cos no one can approach beyond a certain distance because of his Musk or something i guess. the Large token size is excessive even for a horse but it's Ridiculous for a Slightly Tall Man.

although my DM actually brought him down to Medium after we all ranted about this a bit lmfao

#what does the chaos mirror see #anon #anyway this concludes today's showing of No I'm Still Not Over Out Of The Abyss's Mistakes theatre lmfao #it's extremely funny also considering that every other demon lord's size is like. Huge at least #so the big fight at the end is just like. colossal titanic monsters versus Regular Man #and in our game Regular Man won! #although that's probably because we were focus DPsing the others and leaving him alone lmfao #my druid personally sent both orcus the loser and graz'zt himself back to the abyss which i was very pleased about... i took you down orcus #sunbeam my beloved #anyway yeah. graz'zt... Large size token. Silly #i think it's way more interesting that he has nine fingers on each hand than that he's slightly tall lmfao #they also just Waste him as a character he could do so much and be so interesting but. then again it's wizards of the coast so #why would they do a good or interesting thing when they could just. Not instead

[hopeymchope]

If you like Danganronpa, you might like...

I’ve discovered quite a few games/animes I’ve loved and even new fandoms by using recommendation engines/following online message board recommendations for people who already like the Danganronopa games or anime or manga, and I thought I’d give a quick rundown of how these things have worked out for me.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, honestly... it’s just time-consuming to write it all up, y’know?

Today, I’ll focus primarily on the video game side. If I put “Danganronpa” (any entry) into a recommendation engine, these are the results that I see spit back at me the most... and now that I’ve tried all the most common results, here are my findings.

Persona

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: The storylines have teenagers in Japan having to investigate dark goings-on while counterbalancing that with scenes of daily life that are lighter and more humorous. There are also “social link” scenes with the other characters that could easily be compared to the “Free Time Events” in DR, wherein you learn more about the lives of your compatriots via some one-on-one time.

What I Played: Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden on my Vita, then Persona Q on my 3DS. And I watched the main anime adaptions for 3 and 4...

Did It Work for Me? Will it Work for Others? Persona 3 and 4 absolutely worked for me. Q didn’t so much; the Etrian Odyssey-style map-your-own-first-person-dungeon gameplay was a turnoff. Regardless, it’s hard to pin down exactly why there is SO DAMN MUCH crossover between Persona and Danganronpa fans - probably more than anything else I’ve got listed here - because they’re actually very different. These are RPGs with turn-based combat and fantastical story elements involving magic and mystical beings and other worlds. And yet... I do feel the tonal similarity, and the characters feel like they could be at home in a DR game or vice-versa. And I deeply loved 3 and 4. (The stories are individualized to each numbered entry with the exception of the two “Persona 2″ games, so you can jump in on any numbered entry without any problem). I am excited to one day play 5 (although it is so much easier for me to play portables so I really, really, really wish there was some portable version of 5 in existence). Also note that the “social links” didn’t exist UNTIL Persona 3, so you can’t really go back and find that aspect in the first few titles. I can’t say these will work for everyone, but the massive amount of fan overlap says something, so if you’re game for a turn-based RPG AND you like Danganronpa... have I got a soup here for you.

Zero Escape Series (”9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors” + “Virtue’s Last Reward” + “Zero Time Dilemma”)

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: Dark, complex storyline filled with twists, memorable characters trapped in killing game, a mysterious mastermind, visual novel-style presentation, off-kilter humor interjected at surprising times.

What I Played: All three games on the Vita (the first two are collected as “The Nonary Games”).

Did It Work for Me? Will it Work for Others? Yes and yes. Aside from maybe Zanki Zero (see below), this is probably the most obvious thing to recommend to Danganronpa fans, and I’m kind of surprised there isn’t even more of a fandom to it. I can see why it doesn’t have as big of a following as DR - I mean, the humor isn’t quite as widespread and the characters are a bit less quirkily odd - but it’s hard not to get sucked in and fall in love with these stories. The big point of separation for DR fans is that instead of “Trials” where you use logic to solve puzzles, you have to constantly do “escape rooms” and use logic to find your way out of those rooms by doing point-and-click style hunting for items and solving puzzles in those rooms. Just like in DR, however, you’ll find that the more you fail, the more the game gives you increasingly blatant hints as to what you’re supposed to be doing, so it’s not like anything should get you stuck for too long. There’s also the somewhat obtuse nature of how to progress at times, but if you use the branching storyline map whenever you get stuck to look for updated items, you’ll probably be just fine (I hear the DS version of the first game doesn’t have such a map - or even voice acting - so you may need to beware of that being the most obtuse version out there). I loved these games, even if my rankings for them are probably out of sync with how most of the fandom seems to feel.

Phoenix Wright

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: Visual novel-style plot and investigation scenes, murder trials with logic puzzles where you need to point out flaws in testimony/falsehoods using evidence, plenty of humor.

What I Played: All of the first game (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) on the DS

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? Well... this is a little unfair, because I played the first one of these before I ever played Danganronpa, but... I didn’t like it. The humor was... lame for me? and I found the trials excruciatingly difficult because MY version of how the logic was flawed was never exactly how they wanted me to approach it. It was a matter of me attacking the wrong parts of sentences over the same general facts but... yeah... I didn’t get into this. Maybe I’m dumb, or was dumb, but it didn’t click for me and I only got through the first game using a guide and expending a lot of patience. I later tried out the anime because I heard it had a good rep (and this was after getting into DR and anime in general), and I didn’t care for that either. So I don’t know about this one.. it wasn’t up my alley. Will it work for other people? Well, clearly it DOES work for other people or this wouldn’t be considered a similar recommendation that comes up so often, typically in the top three of “if you like DR games” results! I do think the humor is FAR different than that of Danganronpa’s, and the characters lack the same kind of nuanced depth you see in DR (but again, that’s just from me playing the first game). But it’s easy to see from the “Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d” that there are elements that would definitely appeal to DR players. Give it a try for yourself if you aren’t already a fan, I’d say. My experience feels... esoteric to what most people think. I may need to try one again. These are on tons of platforms nowadays, many with demos, and often at discounted prices.

Zanki Zero: Last Beginning

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: It’s made by largely the same team using the same art style and presentation stlye and is an extremely dark story full of unique personalities and LOADS of weird off-kilter humor with zany mascots somehow overseeing apocalyptic circumstances and the characters look and act like they could easily be in DR and...

What I Played: The whole lone game from start to finish on my PS4.

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? HELL YES. Everyone who likes DR should really give this a chance. It gives off so much of a similar vibe despite being a “survival”-style game with navigation puzzles rather than logic puzzles, and you can turn off the survival/combat aspects entirely if that’s not your thing! And the story is excellent and the characters are excellent and really just please play this. Underrated game of 2019, and most underrated game that needs a fandom that I’ve ever played.

Fire Emblem

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: The bonding sequences you get when your units stand next to each other could be compared to FTEs. It’s got an anime design aesthetic, and the story can go pretty dark. Characters may suffer permadeath (even if other characters won’t react to this fact), so I guess there’s that...

What I Played: Awakening and Fates on the 3DS in their entirety (Yes, I did all three routes on Fates).

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? I can’t say I fully “get” this one. Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy game that takes place in a medieval setting, so why is it always turning up in recommendations for people who play Danganronpa? Yes, I did enjoy it quite a bit. I became a newly minted fan of Fire Emblem. Success! And yet... I don’t know that the crossover is obvious to me, nor do I expect it would be a clear-cut case for most DR fans. I don’t even know that all of the traits Iisted under “Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d” actually apply to the whole series. I suppose that any game series that has a balance of darkness and humor plus a “character bonding” scene mechanic might just fall into the “if you like Danganronpa... “ pit, regardless of how incredibly different EVERYTHING ELSE is. But perhaps there’s a deeper connection here than I realize. Care to theorize?

#fire emblem #phoenix wright #danganronpa #danganronpa fandom #zero escape #zero escape series #persona #zanki zero #zanki zero: last beginning #video games

[elegiacmarquise]

More love for the pink damsel

This is a rant, the first and the only, that I wrote a while ago and which I posted previously on DeviantArt and reposted on the Mario Amino, few days after the release of Super Mario Odyssey, after a new wave of hatred towards Princess Peach...

Considering that, nevertheless, the princess' relationship with most fans has always been ambiguous, what may have seemed to be tolerable, now is no longer acceptable speaking from the prospective of Peach's admirer, and hoping to be a spokesman for who, like me, genuinely appreciates her.

--------------------------------------------------

But before starting with the proper rant, why do I post this writing, even if they passed almost two years when I did write it? A YouTube video made by the quite famous personality of RelaxAlax which I Iink below.

Quite shallow, huh?

But this will NOT be an hate speech towards Alax, the rest of his videos are actually enjoyable and sometimes funny, but despite what he says in the video is nothing more and nothing less than what most Peach's haters actually say, I'm fearing that even due to this video, people are convinced to hate the pink princess without even knowing the truth behind her character.

But I must've taken you a lot of time, let's begin this speech, which was inspired by an older one (now deleted) posted by a friend of mine on Deviantart.

Let’s get started from the most recurring insults about the personality

"Peach is weak!!!"

While it’s true that for most of the games the Princess is kidnapped by Bowser or any enemy, it’s also the case that several times she has proved to be not so helpless, and even trying to escape to her kidnapper more than once indicates that Peach is not just staying there to patiently wait her hero; indeed, she was the only one along with Rosalina and Toadette who was been able to defend herself.

Some proofs? Super Princess Peach, Super Paper Mario, Super Mario 3D Land/ World, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Super Smash Bros series...

"So why is she always kidnapped?!"

Nintendo logic. Just joking, I think that the reason is due to the fact that Peach, like anyone else, is an human being, with her fears and anxieties, and so what can she do if suddenly there is a monster bigger at least the triple of her accompanied by an huge army? Not everyone is badass, and she obviously is not always, but is it a good reason to hate her? I don’t think so.

Also remember that even two stronger characters like Mario and Luigi often struggle during the battles with Bowser, how could a delicate princess?

So, in a more general view, how much it’s wrong to blame the victims and not the kidnappers? Why does everyone hate Peach for this and not BOWSER?

And there are Daisy, Pauline and Zelda, who were kidnapped as well, but still worshipped as goddesses...

"Peach is stupid!!1!"

If the Princess was actually that stupid,she wouldn't be on a throne ruling a whole kingdom peacefully nor even to try a time machine or even called to try to find a cure to a plague that affected the Mushroom Kingdom. She may not have an IQ of 300 like Dr Eggman,but that doesn't mean she's stupid.

Characters who are REALLY "stupid" on purpose, like Wario and Waluigi, loved because they are. Now, people, don't tell me you aren't uncoherent.

"Peach has no personality!1!"

So, a sweet and kind personality shouldn’t be a good character trait? Great, so we wasted years and years of characterization in a video game character.

Even a little development is always putted in while creating a characte and, as we are seeing, Miyamoto and Nintendo are generally developing the character of the princess, in the best, demonstrating that even the princess is not a fossilized archetype in Mario's existence for thirty years. She’s so sweet and kind, but also has values, friends and a dignity that defends strenuously.

Guys, Peach is human, so she has flaws, and that's right, but saying that she doesn’t have personality is an insult to both her and Nintendo in general.

Let's compare for a moment Peach and Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, and see who is not supposed to have personality. (although Rei also has a very strong, still not obvious, characterization that develops in the course of the series)

"Peach is a Mary Sue!!!1!"

A Mary Sue would theoretically is a character with too unnatural characteristics for their universe or species, overly powerful and often accompanied by a tragic backstory; in short, it's misleading in their context. By applying this description to Peach, how should she be a Mary Sue?

As explained in the previous paragraphs, the Princess, still mostly human, has a magical power that is always inferior to those of other characters, such as Rosalina; and comparing it with the Star Guardian, shouldn’t be her chararcter be more similar in the description of a Sue? Consistency, this unknown concept...

I see you already with the forks in your hands, but let me clarify one thing, even a character like Rosalina is not a Mary Sue, she still has her flaws, and we love her as she is, but if Peach is one, Rosalina fits the definition WAY more.

Let’s talk about the character design

"Peach always wears pink!!1!"

Come on, guys, hating a character for a color is a such superficial thing that, would do kindergarten children the most.

Pink is a color like all the others, in the spectrum of colors, so anyone can wear it, even males.

(Trivia: up to a few decades ago, pink was more of a masculine color, given to boys since it’s a lighter version of red, a color considered manly)

Peach is looking good with pink and no one in Mario games seems to complain too much about that, and so, so why do we fans do?

"Peach is girly!!!!1!”

And so? A female character to be worthy of this name must be a tomboy or a badass with a gun on her hands? You have great prospects in mind, my dear ones, just like that.

Seriously, why does a character who likes to cure herself, should be banned from today's media?

However, almost all the girls in the Mario games are femminine, even Daisy, despite being described as a tomboy, so it doesn’t seem a good excuse for hating a character.

"Peach is blonde!!!1!"

Guys that stereotype that everyone who is blonde must be stupid it's not only extremely outdated, but there are a lot of people who consider it quite offensive. Open your minds! Go, go! The isn't any relations about the quantity of melaninine on the hair and the actual intelligence.

Even Rosalina and most of the Zeldas encountered in the games are blondes, but nobody seems to care.

"Peach has an annoying voice!!1!"

All the characters in the Mario games have their voices emphasized, guys, and Peach isn’t an exception.

There are characters with even more exaggerated voices, trust me, like Daisy, Toad or Rosalina's new dubbing, but for certain reasons, only Peach should be demonized for that by fans.

"Peach is a prostitute!!1!"

This is one of the most recurring insults that are ever placed against our hated Princess, and that's what I'm wondering where most haters have been losing their credibility.

Did Peach ever wear provocative clothes? NO. (unless you have a fetishism towards biker suits and similar outfits)

Has she ever tried to seduce anyone she saw? NEVER (what you see on Rule34 and other lewd sites is not canon, I'm sorry)

Let's be clear: Peach is just the opposite of the stereotype of the prostitute, as being a sweet, gentle, and that kind of girl who rarely makes sloppy thoughts; And yet Mario is not the kind of game that is suitable to show sensual girls often.

Another point: how do people define as that Peach and not Pauline or Valentina from Super Mario RPG, who are wearing much revealing clothes (and not even worthy to be called with those sick names)? Mystery of the Faith.

PS. Giving a prostitute to someone is not fashionable anymore :3

Now, let’s analyse that kind of insults that relate with Peach’s relationships with other characters

"Peach isn’t grateful to Mario!!!!1!"

Ever since Peach has never been grateful to Mario? WHEN? She kisses him, and fills him with cakes. What should the Princess do more with him? having sex is not a good answer, and it doesn't even marrying him.

Mario is still a sweet and family friendly series, if you want NSFW art, go to rule34 or look good at deviantart, but don’t expect explicit scenes in similar games.

"Peach is a tyrant who abuses Toads!!!1!"

But since that is so, seriously, did I miss some details? And no, The Game Theorists, aren’t worth as a source of inspiration since theirs is only a mere SPECULATION (also badly made imho).

To me Peach has always seemed like the OPPOSITE of a tyrant! She’s a good sovereign who’s caring for her subjects, and most of the Toads are happy with her guide and willing whenever she needs help.

I guess you are thinking of the Toad used from the princess during Super Smash Bros: If we analyse well what our beloved mushroom does during the frames in which we can see him, we can notice that doesn’t acts as a shield for the princess, but is determined more than ever to attack with his spores, so for me this isn’t a point to demonise Peach at all.

Then do you think that in Smash bros Rosalina does something way more serious?! She fights with a Luma, one of her CHILDREN all the time. But since she is our beloved star waifu, Peach is not worth to be compared lmao.

Again this time implore the sacred goddess of the consistency for forgiving their vain words...

"Peach betrays Daisy!!!1!"

Peach and Daisy have proven themselves to be best friends since the first time they appeared together, and even now their idyllic relationship hasn’t stopped being shown in the games and even in that LINE stickers that came out a while ago!

How Peach Should betray Daisy? For Rosalina, for Pauline? I think all the girls in the world of Mario are friendly to each other, so I don’t see any reasons in a betray, since at worst they are in a friendly rivalry.

"Peach is much less sexy than Rosalina / Pauline!!!1!"

If I can understand why Pauline can be considered sensual, how should Rosalina be? She’s wearing just a turquoise dress, which does not reveals much, and which can only be sexualized in the most indecent fanarts drawn by FANS indeed, but we all know the new religion that places the guardian of the Lumas to a brand new god.

However, all of Mario girls have been designed to be beautiful, not sex objects, not even Pauline, and none of them will agree to be your beautiful waifus condescending to all your fantasies, deal with it!

"Peach is not tomboy like Daisy is!!!1!"

And this is what connects to the previous point where the Princess was insulted to be girly. Assuming that even Daisy, in her own way, is girly (if she was totally a tomboy, she wouldn’t certainly wear those long dresses with ease, nor she would have her notorious passion for flowers), it’s not nice to have a bit of variety in the characters personalities? Go on, Peach is a gentle and sweet girl, Daisy is exuberant and sporty, Rosalina, calm and majestic, Wendy spoiled yet powerful, Toadette cheerful and curious, and finally Pauline concrete and passionate. Everyone compensates their gaps with the others, and this balance between the girls is fine, so please do not compare all the girls, Peach first, to Daisy.

"Peach appears too much in the games, so she's overrated!!!1!"

Guys, our princess is one of the protagonists of Mario's videogames, along with the plumber, his brother, Bowser and Toad, so it's natural that she often appears in the games. After all, Peach (after Pauline, who belonged for long time to another series) is the first of the princesses to appear, so it's logical that Nintendo would value that in this way.

And another little thing: the word overrated does NOT mean popular in its own universe, it means overly popular among its FANS.

And Peach has relatively few fans compared to the other main characters.

And, as the final cherry on the cake, let’s talk about Odyssey, who can have reassume prevous points, but what is equally needed, because of the following reasons

"PEACH IS A BITCH WHO HASN’T ACCEPTED MARIO'S PROPOSAL, STUPID AND UNGRATEFUL!!!1! THAT’S OBVIOUS THAT MARIO CHOOSES PAULINE!!!1!"

And here we come to the juice of the speech, and at this point I would like to ask: but have you seen the final cutscene of the game, or are you just knocking on your keyboards to don’t make feel the keys alone and misunderstood?

Let’s assume that after a long, tiring journey along the WHOLE world, with a monster bigger at least the triple of you who is doing everything to organize a NOT-wanted marriage with you; and  immediately soon after being rescued, at the end of an extravagant battle, you have not one, but TWO contenders for your hand, what are you doing? The doll who gives all of herself to her hero just because she saved you? But in which period are we, in the nineteenth century?

Guys, let's talk seriously, would you immediately answer to a such serious question, which can change the rest of your life, on the moon under such conditions? I really don’t think so.

So Peach did, showing her intelligence, and why not, joking over it. It wasn’t the place nor the time for Mario and Bowser to move such proposals, and I honestly think that Peach done right to refuse both of them, I believe, momentarily.

And so centuries of feminist struggles went cancelled because of a video game character...

"PEACH HAS LEFT MARIO AND BOWSER ON THE MOON!!1!"

Yeah, okay, Odyssey's final was what it was, but you can’t hate a character because she's not a puppet in Mario or Bowser's hand. Tell me, you first complained that Peach had no character and now that she has explicated it, in good, you hate her the same? Consistency, this unknown concept...

However, for this detail, have you noticed that Peach eventually called Mario on the Odyssey, even though it had already started to fly? Mario had all the time he needed to get on board with the Princess and her friends. Even if Mario couldn't make it to the Odyssey (which is also unlikely under a cautious analysis of the cutscene), I even highly doubt that not only Bowser but all the other wedding's guests (including PAULINE) were diying there, surely there was at least ONE other vehicle which could bring back them home.

Also think about Peach's dialogues in the post-game: she completely forgave Mario's misbehaving and she's still happy to see him to the point to give him all the moons she gets! So she’s not that ungrateful...

And that's what I needed to say. Guys, please stop hating Peach, she didn’t do anything, and certainly she doesn’t deserve your insults.

In these times, the princess is among the main characters the most hated, even much more than Daisy or Zelda, who have their great slice of fans, who would do anything for them and even considering them "better" in Smash Bros.

I'm sorry to have written this rant but I'm sure this time is really needed...

Fandoms, Mario included, can be beautiful places where you can meet fantastic people but at the same time you can witness this free hate episodes even from famous personalities...

Thank you for reading, and see you soon.

---------------------------------------------------

P.S. Below I show you the main places where the princess is hated for the above reasons.

Gamefaqs, TheTopTens.com, Marioboards, DeviantArt and Youtube

P.P.S. Please, do not go to the video I've mentioned only to insult the youtuber: despite that entry is far from being well-crafted, he made enjoyable content as well. He deserves respect as well and if you really want to discuss in the comment section about the subject, please be polite

P.P.P.S. If you hate Peach and you feel to comment here, please write maturely, well-structured comments. If we can have a mature dialogue, it's best for both of us.

#princesspeach #princess peach #rant #stop hate #mario princess #nintendo #stop peach hate #give her a chance #super mario odyssey #princess daisy #rosalina #underrated characters #stop character bashing #super smash bros #cute princess #peach #give her love

[dungeonecologist]

WILD ARMS 2 - Raline Observatory

The Raline Observatory is a neat set piece, albeit one riddled with issues in English.  It distracts us with side characters, but actually sets up a pretty core feature of the world that will come back much later in conjunction with the Live Reflectors (which are about to become defunct once we finish this quest and unlock our flying ship) The name however is yet another mistransliteration from the Japanese for “Ley Line.”

Ley Lines came from the observations of one Alfred Watkins, an amateur archaeologist/explorer of the 1920s (as was not terribly uncommon at the time) who made note of the arrangement of major historical landmarks in straight lines across the British country side, from which he questioned the meaning, cause, or function.  In the 1960s this work was incorporated along side Chinese fengshui to theorize that a kind of natural flow of energies across the Earth existed, and that spiritually attuned cultures all across history had been drawn to places where such streams of energy intersected, either by divination or by the consequence of ideal circumstances for settlement or ritual structures stemming from said concentrated energies.

Here, it those theories are applied rather literally, and will be revisited more explicitly at a later point in the story.  Not coincidentally, this dungeon is located on a string of volcanic not-quite-islands, volcanoes being a rather on the nose example of a point at which energy has built up and been released from the Earth, literal energy obviously but in many belief systems spiritual energy as well.  Oddly there aren’t actually any apparent Ley Lines on the Filgaia map; the dungeons are all pretty evenly distributed.  The only semblance of patterns* are that various locations that come in 4s are deliberately scattered across 4 quadrants, but that’s less meaningful and more just practical when you don’t want your game’s marathon of dungeons to take place right next to each other.

*(The ones I’ve marked here are the 4 Live Reactors: red, the 4 Diablo Pillars: Blue, and the 4 Ray Points: Green.  Perhaps the only real deliberate design here is that the finale dungeon which is tied by lore to the Raypoints, is located right in between the 4 of them; the intersection if you draw lines between opposite points.  On this note: the Raypoint dungeons may also be a mistransliteration, meant to be “Ley Points.”)

Anyway we get into this neat abandoned lab setting and immediately have a boss thrown at us.

I think I’ve mentioned both the Kobold, and accidentally the Salamandra, now but among those iconic elemental monsters is also the Undine; Generally portrayed as a beautiful humanoid water nymph.  The boss monster, Undines (I don’t know why there’s an “s”, the Japanese even reads ウンディーネ:u-n’-di-ne) is very much not.  Actually, given the circumstances I’d almost assume this was some kind of mistransliteration, but the boss card even says “Elemental Spirit,” so what else could it be other than a water spirit? (although when I looked over the epithet in Japanese the phrase is 素体 精霊獣, so what they translated as “Elemental” actually means something more in line with “base form” as in a chemical element, not an alchemical one.)  Also of note are its moves: Hookey Bust, Intafada, Reject all Fools, and Shocking Guinea.

We’ll start with Shocking Guinea, as it might be the most straight forward; it alludes to Undines being a manufactured monster, and presumably kind of a lab experiment.  It has turned on its creators so perhaps it was inhumanely experimented on until it lashed out?  This move is also perhaps the outlier in the set.  Intafada I can only assume refers here to the literal meaning of “shaking” or a small tremor and not the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza in the early 90s...  Ignoring the bizarre language choice for that, the move Hookey Bust is a little confusing but suggests one of two things to me; either being caught playing hooky, or rolling a losing number in a game of dice.  The former fits with the idea of an escaped experiment, but the latter along with Intafada and the general jester look of Undines seems to suggest shaking and rolling dice?  That in some vague sense seems to match with the Reject all Fools, if it means Fool like a court jester.

Okay you know what, I gave the translators too much credit.  The moment I started digging things got all kinds of muddled.  The move Reject All Fools in Japanese is 理解できないモノは拒絶: “[I] reject things [I] don’t understand.”  I take it the translators interpreted 理解できない モノ as “things/people that can not understand” i.e. “Fools,” but it might also be, “things/people that cannot be understood.”  I make the distinction because I think it has to do with ghost stories and belief in the supernatural, although what “supernatural” would really mean in a fantasy setting isn’t super clear...

The move Hookey Bust is 学校の怖い胸像: “Scary Bust of School” as in a scary sculpture found in a school, which I’m pretty certain is a reference to the trope of Japanese middle or high schools having a kind of local hauntings where some kind of ghost turns out to be the anatomical model in the science lab or the nurse’s office.  It ties into the science lab/experiment theme going on all throughout here.  Spooky science lab also explains the “shiver”/”shake”/”tremor” we get from Intafada.

Speaking of terrible translations, the baffling Lilly Pad monster appears here, a bizarre imp with a little sword and cape, and boobs on its head???  The katakana here is I believe meant to be a transliteration of Lilliput, as in Lilliputians from Jonathan Swift’s novel, Gulliver’s Travels.  The actual design doesn’t make much more sense in light of that, as they aren’t especially tiny, but at least the basic idea gets across, as opposed to the entirely nonsensical Lilly Pad.  I’m not sure they add to the theme going on exactly, but the visual aesthetic of a tiny or shrunken person does resonate with some classic mad science lab cliches.  

And we also have the Jelly Blob, which is just a staple of RPGs by this point.  Technically speaking I think the origin is, again, Dungeons and Dragons, with he Gelatinous Cube and Ooze monsters, and in turn any number of variants on the both as well as the off shoot Slime family of monsters.  Again, very in line with the science experiment vibes.

The one thing that presents a tiny hiccup in this is the Pas de Chat; in Japanese simply named Laughing Haunt.  It might be a stretch, but I think it’s just another reference to school hauntings, like the Hookey Bust reference.  It’s the only way I can think to fit this into the overarching themes of the dungeon.  The “English” name, Pas de Chat, is a ballet term referring to a jump in which the legs are brought up toward the opposite knee in quick sequence before landing.  It is French for “Step of the Cat.”

I have no idea why it looks the way it does, but it does display some interesting animations with leaps and twirls that is understandably evocative of dancers.  It also fights with a pair of stiletto daggers.

I kind of neglected to mention, but throughout this whole dungeon we’ve been followed by the wacky comedy relief duo, Liz and Ard. (Toka and Ge in Japanese: You get one guess as to what the word “Tokage” translates to.)  As we reach the end of the dungeon they of course spring on us that they too are after the rare Germatron mineral, and that they are apparently Odessa’s free lance monster engineers.  The two jump us with a second boss fight where the two showcase a host of battle tactics about as wacky as everything else we’ve put up with from them thus far:

Liz, the self-styled lead researcher of the duo can throw concoctions to ail the team, but that also hit himself and his assistant, Ard.  Meanwhile Ard is a tank and a powerhouse, even as the inevitable Poison ailment from Liz’s attacks chips away at his HP.  But to add to it, his strongest attack deals huge recoil damage to himself trading off for yet more offensive power.  If you focus your attacks on Liz and heal as needed, Ard will likely kill himself even before Liz falls.  An appropriate end to the mad science theme of the dungeon all around.  And naturally, we’ll be seeing more of the lizard duo as the game goes on.

#wild arms 2 #jrpg #psx

[theonyxpath]

Aye, right now we’re becalmed on the Acid Sea! But we know that if we can get closer to Waterdog Port, we can catch the great winds that blow and sail right in! We just need yer help to get there!

In other words: our Pirates of Pugmire has a little more than a week to go and we are 81% funded. So anything you can do to spread the word about this excellent supplement to both Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau would be just the push we need to set us sailing to “funded” and beyond! Just click here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/pirates-of-pugmire-a-realms-of-pugmire-tabletop-rpg

While we were at UK Games Expo, we must have handed out hundreds of cards with the Pirates of Pugmire Kickstarter info and url, and we had the great pleasure of talking to folks about it, and Pugmire and Mau, too! And then we directed them to our sales allies at Leisure Games on the other side of the hall. They actually brought more Mau up from London on Saturday because interest was so high.

Which is always great to hear!

There was also a lot of interest in Scion 2e, with a nice number of satisfied KS backers letting us know they loved their books – including one backer who came over pretty much to give us hugs just because she didn’t want us thinking all the backers were as mean as the ones posting in the Kickstarter comments. Most appreciated!

But I think there were more folks there interested in getting the two Scion books than there were backers, which at the time wasn’t possible although we directed them to all the places they could order them. (We later found out that one of our Retailer backers from the kickstarter did have the books there, but I think they were gone almost immediately). So that was fantastic in that it bodes well for the in-store sales for the books that started last Wednesday.

We just never know if a successful Kickstarter has hit most of the potential audience for a project, or if there are enough folks wanting to buy out there to justify the extra print run. It’s certainly looking good for both Scion books so far, both in stores and on DTRPG where the books are #1 and #2 sellers as I write this!

When we weren’t talking to attendees, the booth was a hub for meetings, both planned and unexpected (Hi, DaveB!), and where Eddy and Matthew were recording the Onyx Pathcast UKGE Edition. If you listen to last Friday’s edition, you can hear our latest incredible idea for an RPG: Thomas the Tank Engine and the Trainsformers.

Although completely impossible due to licenses and the basically goofy idea that it is, we left it in because despite the premise, the whole conversation demonstrates the sort of free-form brainstorming we do when examining new ideas for projects. I won’t say it is well-worth the listen, but its good to have that process recorded somewhere!

When not at the booth, most of our crew were GMing/SGing various games, and in particular the debut of our first Onyx Path convention tournament set of games. Throughout Saturday our gang ran Chronicles of Darkness sessions for a handful of the game lines under that umbrella brand, and the players of all of those sessions voted for which player in their game they thought should advance to the final.

You probably read about that last week, but what was particularly gratifying to me was how the players leaving the rooms were excited talking about their games afterwards, which is great, and then when we sat down together to compare notes how the Storytellers were raving about the players and how excellent the sessions were, which is fantastic!

All-in-all, a superlative trip. Hip hip, and all that.

While we were exploring Merrie Olde Englande, it seems that a few projects were teased here as well. For example, I noted that Dixie posted this on the blog when she filled in so very well for me last week (Thanks, Dixie!):

Time to reveal just what this is, and I’m gonna do it! It is the logo for the community content brand for all of our game lines that use the Storypath System. We’ll be releasing the formats, templates, and rules, for each line as it get released, so naturally we’re starting with Scion 2e. Then, as the Trinity Continuum, Dytopia Rising: Evolution, and They Came From Beneath the Sea!, etc, are released we’ll open up that line in the Storypath Nexus.

Expect the Scion Storypath Nexus to be opened once we are done with this month and into July. You’ll be able to post your Scion ideas on DTRPG: characters, adventures, sourcebooks, tips, etc, and set a price and get paid for it by adoring Scion fans everywhere!

Also in July, and at a different Community Content site – this one being the Slarecian Vault for Scarred Lands – is the dramatic start of a mega-adventure series!

Vengeance of the Shunned is a collaboration between nearly two dozen creators which includes:

A 10-part adventure path that takes the characters from levels 1-15

8 side quests to allow additional advancement, flesh out the campaign, and show the impact of these terrible events on the Scarred Lands

A collection of creatures, new and old, optimized for 5e

A gazetteer detailing important locations featured in the campaign

An overview of the Scarred Planes with guidelines for how they function in the 5e rules

We’ll be passing on more news about this project from the creators in the weeks to come!

Finally, I teased something something about keeping your eyes open on June 13th, and I just want to underline that once again. Not going to tell you where to look, but keep an eye on our social media. We’re trying something very different for us as a way to lead into something in July that a lot of you have been asking about, so we hope you get a kick out of it.

The kick part was not a clue, really, just a figure of speech. Although, I guess you could apply it to…

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Our Pirates of Pugmire Kickstarter is nearly 81% funded, and we’re going for the last week Big Push!, so swing over to our ship and check it out!

Pirates of Pugmire is a chronicle sourcebook for both Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau. It’s usable in either game, or as part of a joint experience. Some highlights include: * Two new species for players to enjoy: lizards and birds * Six new callings, including two for dogs and two for cats * Rules for building, sailing, and sinking ships * A trove of new allies, enemies, and treasures * Information on Waterdog Port and Port Matthew * “Going on the Account,” a chronicle of three new adventures, taking characters from 1st through 6th level

You can also hear Eddy discuss the writing and design of Pirates of Pugmire on the Onyx Pathcast on your favorite podcatcher, or here on : https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/)

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Onyx Pathcast art by Michael Gaydos

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast is the second Scion 2e Actual Play with Matthew, Eddy, and Dixie!: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

This week’s Onyx Path News was a bumper live edition, as Matthew talked about new releases, Kickstarter, and the UK Games Expo in some depth: https://youtu.be/9te69TM7pP0

For all your Satyros Phil Brucato and Mage: The Ascension needs, our roving Mage developer has been interviewed by both the Symposium Podcast and Mage: The Podcast crews in recent months. Check his content out at the following links: https://symposium.podbean.com/e/the-symposium-podcast-episode-4-the-evolution-of-ascension/ https://symposium.podbean.com/e/the-symposium-podcast-episode-5-how-to-become-a-writer/ https://magethepodcast.com/index.php/2019/04/13/gods-and-monsters-with-satyros-phil-brucato-hiromi-cota-james-sambrano-and-isabella-price/

Gods and Monsters with Satyros Phil Brucato, Hiromi Cota, James Sambrano and Isabella Price

Red Moon Roleplaying recently concluded their Scarred Lands actual play but have recently started up a new V5 one here: https://www.redmoonroleplaying.com

The Story Told Podcast published a superb overview of Changeling: The Lost, as well as an interview with Meghan Fitzgerald, AND the next part of their Dragon-Blooded actual play for Exalted: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/

Occultists Anonymous haven’t stopped with their Mage: The Awakening actual play, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list… but if you’re just after the latest episodes, these links will also work: Episode 19: Blood on the Windhttps://youtu.be/4R33Ar-Abe4 The cabal takes on the werewolf pack leader! Episode 20: Take a Breathhttps://youtu.be/kNJ-Efu3FIc The cabal deals with the fallout of their fight

Fandible‘s excellent They Came from Beneath the Sea! actual play concluded after two stunning parts we really recommend you check out: http://www.fandible.com/they-came-fro…

Caffeinated Conquests are still going with their amazingly fun Gauntlet of Spiragos campaign for Scarred Lands: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

And of course, the ever-fantastic Devil’s Luck Gaming continue to run one of the best Scarred Lands actual plays around today on their Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’re releasing PDF and PoD versions of both the Tales of Excellent Cats fiction anthology and Adventures For Curious Cats for Monarchies of Mau on DriveThruRPG, and Tales will be available on the Amazon and Nook epub stores!

CONVENTIONS!

Gen Con: August 1st – 4th Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year!

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon) Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Redlines

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Development

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Manuscript Approval

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

DR:E Threat Guide (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Editing

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Scion Ready-Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

Dark Eras 2

M20 Book of the Fallen

VtR Spilled Blood – in the worx.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – AD’d.

Trinity Continuum Aberrant – Sketches coming in.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars

They Came From Beneath the Sea – final art notes in.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

In Layout

V5: Chicago

Trinity Core

Trinity Aeon

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel 

Proofing

WtF Shunned by the Moon

Signs of Sorcery – At WW for approval

DR: E

Scion Jumpstart

Aeon Aexpansion

C20 Cup of Dreams – This week.

Ex 3 Monthlies – At WW for approval

Scion Ready-Made Characters – 2nd proof.

At Press

Dragon Blooded – Deluxe Printing

Dragon-Blooded Cloth Map – printed and being shipped to Studio2

Dragon-Blooded Wallpapers – Going out to backers

Dragon-Blooded Screen – Printing

The Realm – Reviewing errata

Trinity Core Screen – Printing

TC Aeon Screen – Printing

Trinity Core Digital Screen and Reference – Going out to backers

Trinity Core Wallpapers – Going out to backers

TC Aeon Digital Screen and Reference – Going out to backers

TC Aeon Wallpapers – Going out to backers

Tales of Excellent Cats – PDF and PoD versions available Wednesday on DTRPG!

C20 Player’s Guide – PoD files uploaded

Adventures for Curious Cats – PDF and PoD versions available Wednesday on DTRPG!

Geist 2e – Gathering Errata

Book of Oblivion – Putting in errata

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD files uploaded

Blood Sea: The Crimson Abyss (Scarred Lands) – Advance PDF files getting uploaded

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

It’s still Pride Month so this gets a double week listing! This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, so let’s remember Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Brenda Howard, and all the other activists throughout the years who made Pride possible. Happy Pride to all our LGBTQIA+ fans and freelancers, and I hope any celebrations you attend are amazing!

#Onyx Path Publishing

[ulkusitre1972-blog]

She told me my boyfriend had been texting her and they had plans to meet up that afternoon to have sex but she couldn't and had to tell me. We went over to his place, she went in first, and I told her to text me when he started making moves. I get the text, knock on his door. I see the confusion. One reason to not sit lateral (but rather 45 degrees back) on the open side, is that your defender can poach the cutting lane. If the same scenario happened here on the break side, depending on defender position, I should easily have a step for the slash to the open side (I guess I envisioning a saggy poach here as you describe). Cross the barriers by talking about growing and preserving your own food, tips for fishing using eco friendly equipment, hunting and butchering for meat, keeping chickens for eggs, downsizing your home to reduce consumerism and costs and improve lifestyle, etc etc. I think there a huge potential for a good resource like this, and frankly im getting excited thinking about it. If you need any help or want to discuss it further, shoot me a PM!. Lancome L Lacquer in 500 Gold For It I really like the formula of these in general, but Gold For It has been my absolute favorite mixing color. It just makes every lip color a little more flattering and special b/c of the shimmer. It been especially great since I haven been feeling like a matte lip recently.. But really, I grew up in a small town with not much to do. There was a developed behind my friends house with a beautiful view of the surrounding towns. We would walk down there every night during the summer. Unt. I still undecided. I only tried a shimmer shade and haven used the cremes yet but the gliterry one I used sucked. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he 해남출장마사지 entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The creation of these DLCs and expansions are not cheap; people need salaries 해남출장마사지 and lights need to be kept on. If you want a FPSRPG or shooter RPG or whatever you call Destiny: Stop your self entitlement, and either A) realize this game will never have free/discounted DLC or expansions and act like an adult and decide if you satisfied with the future changes and want to continue OR B) stop playing because there are tons of other games you can enjoy. Fallout 4 and the Mass Effect games all are Shootery RPG looters, Boarderlands people cant stop sucking that games dick apparently. I have a weird thing about being able to feel lipstick sitting on my lips, so I don like 99% of them, but Colourpop ultra blotted is just perfect. It gives a beautiful sheer color to the lips, it easy to apply because it sheer and not some intense ultra matte lipstick formula, you can feel it, it stays put all day, it not drying. It literally perfect.. They were organized and worked together like a hive mind. Next they took out the generators and everything was plunged into darkness. We could hear everyone panicking and running everywhere shots were being fired and there were so many screams. I love USPS for how affordable and precise they are. But man, the people who work at my local post office are without a doubt some of the most miserable people I have ever met in my life. They are constantly nasty to people, even yelling at them at times, and are clearly miserable in their jobs.

[sylphwriter]

11 Q Meme.                        

Tagged by @manabingu

Honestly it’s probably about time I trot out some ask memes and try to start talking again.

(Answer 11 questions, tag 11 people)

1. What is the best music related thing you bought in 2017 or 2018?

Oooh, well, I had to replace both my iPod and my speaker. A new iPod is nice and all (if you repress the memory of the price tag) but the speaker is AMAZING. It looks unappealing, this big square gray slab of a thing that could be the murder weapon in a mystery by bludgeoning. But it’s wireless, it’s battery life lasts me an entire week at work, it’s water resistant so I can set it up right next to the bath or shower without worry, and it has the full range of play, skip, volume buttons so in a hurry I don’t have to wake up my iPod to stop whatever’s playing. It also fits in my bathrobe pocket, and it causes my father no end of confusion and disorientation if I walk around with people’s voices coming out of the seeming air around me as I listen to podcasts.

2. Cats or Rabbits?

Cats for me. Rabbits are cute to look at in videos and pictures and all, but I’ve never kept one as a pet and would not have the confidence to properly care for ones needs. I’ve had cats all my life, I love my babies and generally I understand their needs and moods pretty well, and just in a general sense I find all sorts of cats fascinating.

3. What Disney character do you think is underrated?

Anyone remember Rescuers Down Under? Okay, ALL OF THAT. It’s been a long time since I watched that movie but it’s one of those things that didn’t get the widespread appreciation a lot of the other classics got, but what I remember was stunning and enjoyable. Specific characters, well I can’t remember the movie clear enough to really point any out, they could be more archetype or role fillers than I recall. But the antagonist and his pet lizard Joanna were definitely very well suited to their role, with a very memorable line. “My mental facilities are twice the size of yours, you peabrain!” It took a few years before baby me got the joke.

4. Name 3 films you liked this year!

Black Panther, for sure. Infinity War was alright, it didn’t hit me the way it seems to have gotten everyone else, but I enjoyed the interchanges between all these characters meeting for the first time, and the humor was well done. If we’re going by the last year, as in a year ago in 2017, then I can put the live action Rurouni Kenshin movies in as well. I don’t remember if I watched those before or after the new year, I found the trilogy on blu-ray during my Christmas shopping. The first one especially was an enjoyable adaptation and I found the way they tried to convey the anime touches in a realistic medium interesting.

5. What is one of the best memories you’ve made in the past 5 yrs?

This is now this.

Bought these, have them ready for when the actual kitchen is finished.

Which is in an early state of progress over here.

In short, there has been a WHOLE lot of home improvement and remodeling going on (not pictured, the lone toilet sitting untouched in the corner of a huge open space of room) and every time we hit a milestone and something becomes functional as a near finished form of what it will be...

Comes with a whole lot of emotions. When we were focusing on my bedroom and private living room area, I kept getting squashed down by all the stuff pushed into one room while work was done on the other, and I’d have only my bed and three feet of space to move in. Wanted to cry when we finished those and I could spread out and relax for the first time in forever.

6. If you could ask aliens 1 question, what would you ask?

“Have you seen my force lance?”

If anyone gets that reference, please tell me.

In seriousness, I can’t think of anything I’d specifically want to ask aliens. If it’s only one question, it feels like there’s no singular perfect question that would matter to me. They’d be the answer to “is there life on other planets” already. And anything else about space travel or what’s beyond this galaxy or that, or anything of cultural significance, well, that seems like grounds for a much more in depth conversation with more questions.

And asking something like “Did you really help build the pyramids” or some other alien conspiracy proof/debunking question is not within my interests at all.

I guess “Have you visited before?” without bothering with the theories would be potentially interesting to ask. Although the answer to that might raise concerns if they have but no further context is given… That or it’s just a straight, “no.”

7. What types games do you like to play?

Rpgs, almost exclusively. Other than casual stuff like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros, I’m not very comfortable in multiplayer games or online gaming in general. I dislike feeling like I’m in a position where others are relying on me to hold up my end, or like I have an obligation to fulfill to be there at certain times, or that I may fail others. I don’t want gaming to feel like another job.

The biggest themes in my game library are Zelda, Final Fantasy, Tales of, and Pokemon.

8. Favorite magical girl?

Sakura. Cardcaptors is a very fond memory from the bygone days of Saturday morning cartoons.

9. Strawberries or Raspberries?

Not particularly a fan of either, in honesty. I’d probably say I prefer the taste of strawberries, but the overabundance of little seeds is a no sell for me.

10. If you could have 2 superpowers what would you have?

Ah ha ha. Perhaps no surprise for anyone who knows me through FTaBV, but I would totally love an ability to phase through physical matter. I’ve put a lot of thought into different ways to apply that by now so it’s pretty cool to me. Other than that…invisibility would be nice, though possibly unnecessary if paired with the first, and a longtime favorite would be animal shape shifting, so one or the other.

11. Would you rather be a Fairy, Mermaid, Alicorn or Dragon?

(Looks up Alicorn.) Oooh, there’s a specific name for that? Well, a very tiny Sylph would’ve loved being an Alicorn. Grown up Sylph is torn between Fairy or Dragon, leaning very heavily towards Fairy. The causes all the mischief and plays riddle games to abuse loop holes just to mess with people type of fairy. Who demands tribute.

I’d be a fairy like my character Alastor and the group he’s from. Full confession.

…I’m my sylph avatar.

Anyone who feels like answering the same questions may do so, I’d feel like I was imposing if I tagged anyone when I’ve been so quiet on my end.

#sylph rambles #ask meme #I am also just getting overheated over here and can't think of eleven new questions

[prahlrus]

dnd feelings

i’m going to talk about my dnd feelings at some length until perhaps it will become clear why i’m working on the dnd homebrew project that i am.

this post has become extremely long, so i’m hiding most of it below.

on 4/20 (no relation) of 2016, i tweeted, apropo of encountering The Fantasy Trip for the first time: 

i think The Fantasy Trip is more or less the game i imagined DnD was before i ever actually encountered its rules

before i explain that, let me give a little bit of context.

context: TFT was the ultimate precursor to GURPS, the tabletop rpg that loomed large over my high school years and still occupies a place in my heart. if you want to read more about it, here’s a dedicated fansite and here’s a review by a longtime player.

personal context: my first edition of dnd was 3E, and when i opened the book i remember seeing that first chapter on abilities and thinking to myself “oh, that makes sense, the game probably has some set of mechanical abilities that represent the different things different characters can do and the game is about combining those in different ways to make the character you want.” then i read about how, in dnd, ‘ability’ meant ‘ability scores,’ of which there were only six and everyone had them.

in contrast, when i, fifteen years later, opened TFT, i was confronted by exactly that: a set of completely modular mechanics that characters can have, and a very minimal set of rules for combining them. it was a moment of great healing.

dnd 3E did actually what i expected it to have, in the end, but the modular mechanical abilities were spread throughout different parts of the system, their largest concentration as feats and spells, but also attached to different races and classes. however, the non-modular class-level-based mechanics were the beating heart of most dnd characters (on a continuum, of course, from the least module-friendly barbarian up through the specialist classes into the terrifying bonus feat engine that was the 3E fighter and summiting in the endlessly variable wizard) and i felt, although i don’t think i was able to put words to this feeling until i got into GURPS years later, that dnd was too rigid and inflexible in the kinds of characters it allows you to make.

now, there are a couple of good reasons why a game would be very rigid about how it allows you to combine its mechanics:

some of those mechanics might combine in balance-upsetting ways. in particular, dnd (and its imitators) are cautious to keep the best combat defenses and durability separate from the best offensive abilities. see, for example: restricting spellcasters from wearing armor and penalizing barbarians and monks who do so.

allowing players to choose any arbitrary collection of abilities leads to a kind of combinatorial explosion in character builds and can be paralyzing to non-obsessive players. this creates a huge burden of knowledge, which only grows as more content is added to the game.

the second of these seems like it became a failure point for 3.5E after a while. even though the design of the game was supposed to front-load the largest choices about your character, the gradual multiplication of race, class, prestige class, feat and spell options (to say nothing of magic items!) increased the burden of knowledge to an unmanageable level. 

of course, it was still a playable game and people were welcome to filter out the parts they didn’t like or the books they didn’t know that well, but what become core pieces of the game wound up spread over altogether too many books (for example, the tiefling race in Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the warlock in Complete Arcane). in 4E, i think the intention was to limit this by basically making all character builds basically palette swaps of the fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric quartet. as far as i’m concerned, that fell flat because the preposterous, somewhat broken variety of 3.5E was actually core to the appeal.

now, a person might read the above and think that i would hate 5E because it does exactly the things that i was upset at 3E for doing: 5E takes its pool of modular mechanics and packages them up in classes and subclasses. sure, there are character backgrounds (honestly, an extremely good addition, although i don’t think i’m thrilled with the execution) and a small pool of feats, but the mechanical bulk of character creation is bundled up in your choice of race, class and subclass. certain classes (especially dedicating spellcasters) and subclasses (battle master, the elemental monk tradition) let you dial up the complexity ceiling, but the floor remains low.

it might be that i’ve mellowed in my old age or that i’ve seen how some of my non-dnd-playing friends were able to easily get into 5E, but i really sympathize with the design decisions. the designers have two objectives in a character creation system: giving characters cool powers and not overwhelming players with options. the class/subclass structure is a good way to limit the explosion of choices and make a more accessible game.

it also makes a game that’s strictly linear in its expansion. 

ever new subclass added to the game adds exactly that: one subclass. a new spell might add a little more complexity, if it’s available to multiple caster classes, but in general each new thing adds only itself to the game, not itself plus a thousand possibilities of combination.

aside: i definitely don’t love the kitchen sink of 3.5E with all its expansions. not enough designers set about to design replacements for core material, and too many design supplements to it. although i never owned it, i really like the “variant players’ handbook” idea of Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. imo, every book that introduced new races or core classes should have offered the suggestion of what races or classes to remove from the game if you were including the new ones.

anyway, here’s the line of design thinking it led me down:

what if the subclasses were another layer, like backgrounds are, that gets chosen independently of class?

there’d need to be some way to make sure that classes with different core mechanics (like fighters and wizards) get different mechanics from the “same” subclass.

each mechanic should still be as modular as possible. The restrictions on who can have it should be at the level of the module, not the level of the ‘subclass.’

the ‘subclasses’ will be themed lists of features (which can have prerequisites) and spells, that characters can choose from as they gain levels.

in my original sketch, the related ‘wild’ classes (barbarian, druid, ranger) could be created by applying a ‘wild’ theme to the prototypical classes of fighter, magic-user and specialist, respectively. for this not to feel as flat as dnd 4e, the themes would need to have significant differences in the kinds of mechanics they offered. for this not to feel as overwhelming as 3E, each theme would have to be well-focused.

the state of the project now is that i’m replacing both alignment (because i never liked the dnd alignments too much in the first place) and subclasses as these ‘themes,’ which i’m calling ‘alignments.’ one alignment, for example, is based on order and protection. its spell list  largely overlaps with the cleric spell list, and its features are mostly defensive and healing mechanics. a magic-user in this theme might be able to become fairly tank-y, but they wouldn’t have the damage output of magic-users in the other themes, that don’t have the same sorts of straight survivability features.

anyway that’s the extremely involved homebrew dnd project i’m working on right now:

design the three template classes that will be themed by choosing an alignment.

draw up a list of mechanics i want to be modular

assign them and the list of spells to my custom set of alignments

i have designed the template classes and listed 220 different features (feats). there are five different alignments, each of which has access to 58 feats. 20 are more generic and open to characters of any alignment.

i still have to write full rules text for the feats and probably design 10-20 new spells to fill out a couple of the lists. but i’d say that i am actually very close to having a playable total rebuild of dnd 5e?

go me, i guess.

#dnd #dnd 3e #dnd 5e #the fantasy trip #game design

[grandnincompoop]

Fire Emblem, Design Philosophy, and My Quarrels

Let's harken back to 2001 and the release of Super Smash Brothers Melee. I had an N64 and a Gameboy, so I was familiar with most of the characters. You had Mario and Fox and Samus- I had either played their game or learned about them from the original Super Smash Brothers. I didn't really know you could just go on the internet and look up how to unlock all of the characters when the game came out, and even when I did, we would just look up how to get Mew in the original Pokemon. Nor did I have a Nintendo Power subscription. I had one issue- 2003's Issue 173, probably because it had Star Wars on the cover. So in the daunting quest of trying to discover how to unlock every character, you meet Marth and Roy. As with most of the non-Japanese world, I was left wondering who these two sword guys were. I was 9, so obviously I wasn't in the market for importing untranslated Famicon games. My curiosity wasn't satiated until 2003 with the release of Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advanced, but I was immediately infatuated.

The Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is a highly linear game. This was an age long before sprawling open worlds were commonplace in every RPG or shooter. You merely progressed from quest to quest, accumulating an ever growing roaster with each mission. Except for the three missions that include Arenas, there's no way to deviate from the progression of game's 37 chapters. The experience points you can gain are limited, and honestly the game is stronger for that. As much fun as I had grinding Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, such as the time I trapped a high level Malboro with a cycle of sleep/attack/heal, it diminished from the thrill I experienced with Fire Emblem with its terrifying combat where every critical hit mattered. Simplicity and transparency are core to the experience. Almost like a board game, the game takes a narrow concept- in this case rock-paper-scissors, the adds some elaboration to it to make it flow into a fantasy world of mages and magical creatures. There are stats like strength and defense, and you have health and there's a grid you move on and there's a percentile to hit, all of which are visible to the player. That's about it and the game was better for it.

 The core elements could easily be fitted to a pen and paper experience which is what brought me to believe that the game had a Bottom Up development. I was introduced to this term by Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic: the Gathering, who describes it, along with its developmental opposite (Top Down), as "Top Down is subject matter based. I want to capture the subject matter. Bottom Up is mechanical based. There's a tool I want to make use of. How can I best make use of that tool." Not to insult the subject matter of Fire Emblem, but it, like its combat system, isn't complicated. They're collections of sometimes loosely related stories of a prince having to fight some evil in a world with dragons, drakes, wizards, EVIL wizards, undead/possessed/ etc etc. You could play them for their narrative, but most people I know and have read play it for the combat and support system (hold on, I'll get back to that in a moment). Looking at interviews with  Shouzou Kaga, the original creator of the series, his initial intent was to create a "roleplaying simulation", which he describes as

 "A strategy game. But strategy games typically are kind of “hardcore” and dry. (laughs) You only care about winning or losing the battle, and there’s no space for the player to empathize with the characters or story.

I love strategy games like that too, but I also love RPGs. By adding RPG elements, I wanted to create a game where the player could get more emotionally invested in what’s happening. Conversely, one of the drawbacks of RPGs is that there’s always just a single protagonist. Thus, to a certain extent, you can only experience the linear story that the game creator has prepared for you.

I wanted to create a game where the story and game will develop differently for each player depending on the units they use. Thus I added the strategy elements and arrived at this hybrid system."

 This idea doesn't seem to fit exactly into either of MaRo's definitions. Concept isn't exactly subject matter, usually a story or pre-established setting, nor is it strictly mechanical based, although it's definitely closer to that. If we looked at a chart from a 2007 article on Gamasutra titled "Game Design Cognition: The Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches:

 We see that beginning at a concept is part of the Top-Down process. So I guess my research proved I was wrong with my assertion when taking a developmental process from a relatively simple process, making a card with rules, and applying it to a highly complicated one, creating a video game.

 The concept is a fascinating one, however, playing with ideas that a modern genre, the grand strategy game, has to tackle with mindboggling amount of complexity. Since the plot is designed to introduce you to the menagerie of personalities they've designed, the writings is. . . charming, but not patricianly nuanced. By no means is the game the pinnacle of writing in interactive narratives. The characters personalities attached to a colorful aesthetic, almost comparable to what Blizzard's Overwatch did in making such a wide spectrum of characters that at least one should be appealing to even the most surly of fans. You'll have a female caviler who is a tom boy or a timed knight who, despite his bulking armor, commonly goes unnoticed. They're archetypes, not fully realized characters like you'll find in more traditionally RPGs with tomes of backstory and goals.  Overwatch and Fire Emblem develop their characters in the same manner- mid-combat dialog. Fire Emblem's greatest development (and what makes it stand out among the other strategy role playing games) is the Support System. Sure, it's fluff, but it evokes the feeling that there was a world before you arrived. Fire Emblems Awakenings main character, Chrom, will reminisce the past with his sister, another solider in your army. Except she can permanently die, unlike the Valhalla fantasy that is Overwatch where they we return to their friends to the next bout. Kaga always intended for your unit's looming mortality to cause shifts in how you view the narrative. "I wanted to make a strategy game that was more dramatic, something where you would really be able to feel the pain and struggle of the characters. That’s why characters can’t be revived once they’re killed, to impart a sense of gravity and seriousness. In turn, I think the result is that the more love you have for your characters, the more rewarding the game is." X-Com, a highly popular western SRPG for MS-DOS that came out four years later, attempted this with randomly generated names, nationalities, and looks for its characters. But unless you're willing to really lose yourself in the game and make your own narrative for the characters, their deaths will only have an impact in the loss of your highest level sniper, not the archer who was currently flirting with your barbarian. The game could create emersion through its characters and their deaths, but instead it becomes what I believe is the bane of  the series. There's a universe where each battle is like a chess match, where you must maliciously strategize your moves so take the least amount of causalities and each critical hit will either make or ruin your day. But we don’t live in that universe. Instead we're plagued with problems twofold: the prevalence of a dominate strategy and the existence of the reset button.  

 "A dominant strategy, in the context of game design, is something that emerges due to game imbalance. A clear example of dominant strategy would be "blocking the opponent from getting three in a row", in Tic-Tac-Toe."

 Fire Emblem is amazingly easy to get into and play, although maybe not to master. Unless you count the tactic I commonly refer to as the "death blob". It's like creating a delicious candy with a hard exterior and gooey center. Looking at another game for a second, Final Fantasy Tactics, you'll send your warriors and knights forward to pick off the prime targets while your mages and archers mop up. (Of course, there's another strategy where you carefully positioning yourself defensively into one corner, but they have means of combating this by starting you on the low ground to make you fight your way to high ground.) You can afford to have one or two units fall in combat because it'll only be moments before the healer arrives to mend any major injuries. It allows for the type of aggressive playstyle the computer utilizes against you, creating "drama". Fire Emblem is the antithesis. Dave Riley of the Fast Karate for the Gentlemen podcast and occasional game reviewer for Anime News Network says about action, "Most of the game is a creeping, careful crawl that moves the entire army in an ironclad block three spaces at a time. Movements are so fraught, and battles so carefully measured, that when the tide turns in your favor it's hard know what to do with the power." Usually your objective is to rid the map of foes that don't tend to move until you've moved past a certain threshold within their vacinity. As such, you'll surround your weaker characters, the mages, archers, the ones you're just now getting to leveling up, with those that have heavier armor or are higher in level. Then you move slowly across the map. And I mean agonizingly slow. Unless there is some sort of pressure on you, like a timed mission or some character you can interact with before the enemy overtakes them, it's three squares at the time for you. They've tried to counter this in some ways by having enemy units spawn behind you if you're taking too long, but that just leads to the second problem. Allowing the units to pair up to increase stats in Awakening was a good solution, but it showed to be highly overpowered when combined with the stats gained from the support system.

The second problem has coexisted with the game since inception. Instead of having gameplay be a carefully planned chess match (similar to the newly released Into the Breach which rewards sticking with failed "timelines" and even has a continent function to undo one turn per mission), we play the game like a speedrunner, resetting innumerous times in leu of missed attacks and unfortunate critical hits until we have such an intense knowledge of the map that we could perform it to lull us to bed. By adding Casual Mode in later games they've done some work to rectify this, and while the game might be more fun to play without having to turn off the console for the nth time, we loses Kaga's initial intent. In a joint interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, he admits to Kaga that "when I die, I always reset". Even the creator of Final Fantasy has become victim to this pitfall! Kaga notes that "it’s not a big problem if some of your characters die in Fire Emblem; I want each player to create their own unique story. Don’t get caught up trying to get a “perfect ending.” Have fun!" But we just can’t because we have to see how the almost insignificant side dialog between the dark mage and pegasus knight will turn out. Will they become friends? We'll never know if we don't reset because an unexpected arrow saw an end to the purpled haired rider.

 The problem has exasperated even further with adding generations to the games. Awakening saw those cute support conversations to their apex by having them result in children, but not just any children- super soldiers of your own siring. Instead of being something cute you do on the side, a treat if you will, they added mechanics to the system. Depending on the abilities known by the parents and the hidden stat progressions (a thorn in the side of the wonderful transparency of the game), the child might be an unkillable machine of death that gets to move twice after reaping another soul all while regaining any  lost health. Fire Emblem has always had Uber characters. There's always the gallant knight, advisor to the lordling at the beginning of your adventure! (who is there solely to suck all the experience that should be going to anyone else) Then there's the  sweet young lad who starts as the weakest possible unit, needing to be babied for dozens of hours until they've shown their true colors as the harbinger of all lives, capable of taking down armies alone. But the child rearing aspect of the later games really irks me. It makes the game feel like it's become an anime character breeding simulator, where instead of letting love naturally develop on the battlefield as it has, you have to comb through wikias to see what the best combination for a certain child is. For a game that has forgone the grinding experience, it surely got lost in not remembering what made it so great to begin with in its transparency.

 There are aspects of Fire Emblem that reflect actual war. Every character is such: an individual with hopes, dreams, and interests. Taking a little time to get to know them leaves you with a sense of loss when they're lost in a pillar of flame from some nameless enemy mage. These games could be so much more with a little more finesse. The series has gone on for decades now, and this has caused the games to roll up increasing more systems until it has reached the point now that it is hard to see the game for what it once was. The concessions you have to make are never "there's no way I can do this without sacrificing someone for the noble cause" like the newly released Battletech RPG throws at you; the concessions are "time to waste a little more time and reset the game again." I believe the game I want to make can come- they just have to do a little more resetting.

#short essay #fire emblem #writing practice

[defdaily]

[TRANSLATION] haru ✿ hana vol.30 May 2015 issue x GOT7

Translated BY: @fuckboytuan

Q: GOT7’s second single that has been receiving a lot of attention; “Love Train” has a strong summer concept!

JS: It’s a really charming summer song!

JB: The rhythm of the song is good and the dance is intense~ also please remember to keep a look out for our facial expressions at the end (laughs)

Junior: Some parts of the choreography were suggested by Yugyeom. One example would be the chorus

YG: Even though I came out with a lot of suggestions, not everything is done by me~ (shy). I did it with the other members and our dancer teacher who came together to discuss it together before incorporating them.

BB:  Without Yugyeom we would not have this choreography! ~

YG: Thank you. There’s a part in the choreography in which we are running; portraying a moving train and us showing our love to Igot7. The choreography also includes a lot of jumping and moving.

YJ: There’s a key point in the dance. Forming an L shape with your hands while dancing which is very simple to learn. We hope everyone would do it together with us

Mark: There’s a scene in the MV that I really like –the one where we form a train. All I need to do is to stand at the back, it’s very relaxing (laughs)

BB: Everyone who watched the MV said that part left the biggest impression. It’s very cute

Junior: The beginning of song is like a movie as it starts off with the “Bang Bang” sound. Some people might pass it off as nothing but after watching the MV they would realise it’s not merely a song if you take all the aspects of the MV like the dance and the clothes – if you could look at it as a work like that, I would be very happy

Q: Has the performance reached the stage of perfection?

Mark: Of course

JB: We would be with the fans when we are performing on stage so I would work ever harder to make sure I don’t make any mistakes (laugh)

Q: On the topic “Love Train”, please talk about some of your experience.

BB: I only took the train twice so I don’t have much experience to share.

JS: I do! I took the train to school a lot back in Hong Kong. I was able to recognise everyone who took the train after a year because it was always the same few people. I wanted to ask about their day so I sat beside them and asked “Hi, How have you been?” but got ignored instead (laugh)

All: LOL

JS: I had a very formal hairstyle during that time. Thinking about it today, I want to know the reaction of the old uncle and this student who looked like the same age as me who I always met on the train. I encourage everyone to take the initiative to say hi even if we get ignored, it would still be a good memory. After that incident, I never took the train at that timing again (laugh)

Q: That’s really sad… Moving on, the next question is lyrics related. The lyrics is very direct in showing interest in the girl that you like. Are any of you the same as the guy in the lyrics?

YG: I would be very direct and tell the girl “I like you” if I like her

YJ: Woah Woah~ Yugyeom is very amazing~ I would not confess my feelings to her unless she does it first

Junior: I won’t confess to her first because I want to treasure the “heart-pounding” moments

Q: Talking about the lyrics “like an electric current bzz bzz*”, have you had any “love at first sight” or related experience recently?

Mark: Er, I can’t think of any…

BB: Recently at the filming set I placed my cup noodles on the table. At the exact moment when I was going to eat the noodles someone said to me “Ok, let’s continue~”. I felt a current flow through me. I didn’t get to eat the noodles in the end (laugh) < (wtf bam?)

JB: For me it’s water. Although it’s not love at first sight, I have been drinking water a lot due to my throat condition

JS: Lying on bed after a fresh warm shower “Ah~”, that feeling.

Junior: Japan’s milk coffee

YJ: Same for me! The mix of the two has an exquisite taste.

YG: For me it’s Japans Lemon Tea. The packaging for it is something that can’t be found in Korea. After coming to Japan, lemon tea has replaced water for me

Q: what about things that you can’t stop doing once you start?

YJ: Game! (Laugh)  I like RPG games! I would only play after I’m done with the schedule for the day.

Mark: For me it’s also game. But I don’t play it anymore because we have to sleep at night

JS: Eating! Especially when I’m on diet, I can’t stop eating once I start

BB: For me it’s Coke. I would drink a cup when I wake up even though I know I should stop. There were days where all I drank was coke.

YG: For me, once I rest, I wouldn’t want to work again. Sleeping, watching TV and snacking at the dorm, I like to be idle (laughs)

Junior: I like to be by myself. Although it can be lonely to be the only one at the dorm, I like it. I like to read and watch movies and think about everything

JB: for me I like to “think about things”. I like to think about the future before I sleep and once I start, it’s hard for me to stop myself.

Q: Has there been any “Heartbeat can’t stop racing” moments?

YG: There’s a song that I listened to a lot during my middle school days - Busker Busker’s Cherry Blossom Ending. Recently I’ve started listening to it again. It reminds me of my middle school days, the image of the flowers blooming and the wind blowing against the petals that make it look like they’re dancing.

YJ: When I defeat the boss in game (laughs)

Mark: when I manage to upgrade my items in game (laughs)

JB: For me it’s when I’m studying.

Junior: When I’m filming for my drama, my heart beats very fast because I’m nervous

Jackson: When we’re standing on stage and listening to the cheers from the fans. Recently the impact is stronger

BB: During the Thai Fan meeting when we revealed our bodies, the reaction from the fans was very intense (laughs)

JB: it wasn't trained it was performed using special skill (laughs)

BB: he used the easy sly way, he applied oil (laughs)

Q: Got7 will hold a fan meeting during June.

YG: The last time we met the fans was during Christmas~ I’m very excited to see them again!

Junior: Communicating with fans is very important as it is going to be a fan meeting. Hence we are working very hard to learn Japanese to communicate with our fans

JB: I’m more curious about how everyone would react to “Love Train”. Besides that, I’m also looking forward to how the fans will think about the special performance we have prepared for them.

BB: I’m very excited thinking about spending time with the fans as we have not seen them in a long time! The special performance is still a secret

GOT7 Psychology Test Check!

Q: You and a certain member are sitting on a train. Assuming the train is empty, what’s the sitting arrangement? Please fill in the answers for 1~4 with a member’s name.

1.    The one sitting on your left

2.    The one sitting on your right

3.    The one standing in front of you when you’re sitting alone

4.    The one you would stand together with

Answers:

1.    You are leading this person

2.    This person is more dominant. This person’s leadership is very strong and you like this person a lot and will do everything you can to help this person.

3.    There’s a very strong between the both of you two. Can be said that you two rely on each other a lot

4.    There’s a mutual understanding and respect between each other. The both of you will continue to support each other in the future

JB: The 7 of us has mutual understanding and respect for each other

1/2/3: No one

4: BB, Jackson, Mark, Junior, Youngjae, Yugyeom

His answer was for all member to stand together. “Everyone has a different view but we would still respect each other’s views”, as expected of the leader!

Mark: I will not be guided by Jackson

1: Yugyeom

2: Jackson

3: Junior, JB

4: Bambam, Youngjae

Bambam described Mark as the one that “leads the other members because he is the oldest”. It does not seem like it from the test results!?

Jackson: I didn’t forget to answer~ they are my original answers

1: JB

2: Bambam

3: Yugyeom

4: Junior, Mark

5: Youngjae

JS: “must we write down the names of all members…?” Jackson wrote down all the names in a rush and forgot to include Youngjae. According to him, number 5 is someone you have a special connection with!

Junior: Woah~ the results for this aren’t that bad! Is this accurate?

1: Jackson

2: JB, Yugyeom

3: Mark, Bambam

4: Youngjae

Junior answered this using a drawing. “There is no such relationship (being leaded/ being the leader) like this among us”

Youngjae: Jackson hyung, you’re really mean~

1: JB, Mark

2: Yugyeom

3: Jackson, Bambam

4: Junior

When writing down the answers for the people you trust, Jackson hyung didn’t even write my name! – Angry Youngjae

Bambam: It seems like I’m leading Yugyeom (laughs)

1: Yugyeom, Mark

2: Jackson, Youngjae

3: Myself

4: JB, Junior

JB hyung and Junior hyung will stand together on the train is the answer given by Bambam “Because the both of them know each other the longest, they will continue to support each other in the future”

Yugyeom: I decide where I sit

1: No one

2: Mark, Bambam, Junior, Youngjae, JB, Jackson

3: No one

4: No one

Although this is a psychology test, Yugyeom wrote all the members as sitting at the right side because he likes to sit at the left side. However he is the maknae, so this result is considered accurate?

Q: Someone who doesn’t take the train at all!? Jackson’s answer made everyone laughed

JB: Let’s reveal our answers, starting with Bambam

BB: Sitting on my left is Yugyeom and Mark. Does this mean I’m leading Yugyeom? (laughs) Sitting on my right is Jackson and Youngjae

YJ: Oh Oh!

BB: I guess they’re leading me since they are hyungs. 3rd question… Since the answer is myself, I guess that means I have trust issues (laughs). 4th question is JB hyung and Junior hyung. The both of them have already been together when I arrived in Korea. Because they know each other for the longest time, it’s confirmed that they will continue to support each other in the future

JS: Sitting on my left is JB hyung

JB: I’m being leaded by Jackson!?

JS: In my opinion, this has no scientific basis at all. I feel like it isn’t accurate

JB: I also feel the same way (laughs)

YJ: Ah! Why isn’t my name there!

JS: Ah…! ////writes down a name in a rush/// Number 5 is my creation. It means my most treasured brother

All: //laughs

YJ: you’re lying~!! (laughs)

Q: The real leader of the group is…?

Mark: I also feel that this test isn’t accurate…

JS: I’m not the one leading Mark hyung. Mark hyung is the one leading me. I’ve always been listening to him (laughs)

YG: Mark hyung is the one leading me, this one is accurate right?

Mark: Is it true?

BB: Mat hyung Mark hyung is the one that leads us

All: //laughs//

Junior: I’m more of a “my pace”, I won’t lead anyone and they won’t lead me. We all have mutual trust and understanding among all of us. It seems like this test isn’t accurate

JB: I chose everyone to be at number 4. Although all members have different opinions, we try our best to compromise for each other. I guess the part where they said we have mutual respect for each other is accurate

YJ: I wrote JB hyung and Mark hyung for 1st question. Am I leading the both of them? And I’m also being led by Yugyeom? (Laughs)

YG: HAHAHAHAHAHHA

YJ: I wrote Junior hyung for the 4th question. The both of us wrote the same answer for this question! For the person that I rely on – question 3- I wrote Jackson hyung but he didn’t even write my name down. How lonely… (Laughs)

JS: Number 5 is special!

YG: I wrote everyone’s name down for question 2. Everyone is leading me~

JB: this is accurate. Everyone is leading Yugyeom (Laughs)

YG: It’s only because I want to sit on the left side that’s why I wrote my answers like that!

Got7 Twitter Q&A

Haru Hana collected questions from twitter for the members to answer!

Q: having debut at such a young age, there are bound so be some difficulties. How does got7 overcome them?

JS: I will talk to others about my problem

JB: I'll settle my problems by myself

Mark: I'm the same as JB, I'll settle my problems by myself

JB: when the members face similar difficulties, we will come together to solve it. However if it's a personal problem, I'll solve it by myself

JS: even if it's a personal problem, I'll discuss it with the other members. I'll tell the members about my personal questions and everyone will share.

JB:  even though I will find the others to discuss about problems, I am the leader after all. Hence I would not tell others about my problems easily

Q: What did you guys do on breaks during tour?

YJ: Firstly, It's eating. I ate too much by accident because the food in Japan is really delicious. I'll chat with the members when we are eating. An hour before the performance, we will do throat exercises

Junior: I'll do throat exercise and practice our songs

Mark: if you watched GOT7 ATW DVD you would know (laughs)

JB: if you say it like this then I have nothing to say~

Mark: everyone please check from the DVD~

Q: Favorite song by got7?

YJ: I like GGG. I like hip hop songs and I like the rhythm of it too

Junior: for me it's SSI. Out of all the songs by JYPE this is my favorite. The instruments used to produce the "Hajima~" part is very addictive; it keeps ringing in my ear

JS: For me it's "Love Train" La la la la love train ~

JB: I like "Forever Young"

YG: I like SSI as well but choosing from all our songs, I'll choose Stay

Q: what's the funniest thing that happened among the 7 of you?

YJ: Recently, Jackson hyung jokingly said he's Michael Jordan

YG: There was once where Jackson hyung, Bambam and I were having fun playing at my house with all the lights off with the music playing from the TV. Jackson hyung was singing while making scary faces his face was really funny! After that, Youngjae hyung joined in as well! 😂

Q: Where would you choose to go on a vacation with the members?

BB: Maldives!

Junior: I want to go to Bambam's house in Thailand!

YJ & YG: Me too!!!

YG: I want to go to Jackson hyung and Mark hyung's house!

BB: I want to go on a vacation in Japan with the members

Junior: I don't want to go on a vacation with the others! I want to travel alone!

YG: How mean~!!

JB: I want to go and have fun at an island!

JS: I want everyone to rest at the dorm then meet iGot7

Mark: I want to go home! America!

Q: please talk about the habits of other members

BB: when Yugyeom brushes his teeth he will strongly shake his head

YG: Bam likes to wrap his face

BB: //while demonstrating// Jackson hyung has his own special way of wearing his cap

YG: Jackson hyung eyes will become very small when he is looking at something. JB Hyung has a pet-phrase! He always says "Kuregajigon". Mark hyung likes to pout a lot. Junior hyung eyes will become very large when he touches some stuff

Q: which member is best at cooking?

YG: I think Bambam. None of us are good at cooking but I think the best among us is Bambam  

BB: I know how to make omelette, tuna wrap and Thai stir fried noodles. My mum will send the ingredients from Thai. I also know how to make samgyeopsal

YG: I don't think that's counted as cooking 😂😂

FAN RELATED QUESTIONS:

Q: Where would you choose to go on a vacation with your fans? Why?

YG: If it’s within Japan I would choose Universal Studios because I have not been there before

YJ: I would like to bring our fans to my home town, Mokpo to see the sea

Junior:  An island. I want to go to a remote island that’s difficult to be found because I don’t want to let our fans go (Laughs)

Jackson: The Great Wall of China. I want to spend time walking together with all fans and walk to the peak of the Great Wall

Mark: I want to go around the world. Every single place on the globe. Around The World!

Q: When do you think iGot7 are the cutest?

YG: I think they are very cute when they get shy even before we have eye contact. At that moment, I will tell them “Its ok~, don’t be nervous, just say what you want to say”

Junior: When our fans get excited just because our hands touched during Hi-5 //Does the action of two hands lightly touching//

JS: They always are! But if I had to choose, it would be during performances~ they are very cute when they are cheering for us

JB: When we stand on stage and look at how our fans are very engrossed in watching our performance, I find their enthusiasm very cute

YJ: When fans say we are cute. It’s obviously our fans who are cuter than us yet they always insist we are cuter. I find that very cute

Q: What Korean phrase do you want your Japanese fans to learn? It could also be in English, Chinese or Thai ^0^

YJ: Saranghae~ it’s a phrase that makes a person heart race

Junior: It doesn’t really mean anything but everyone can use Oppa~ even if our fans are older than us, its ok for them to use it!

Jackson: For my hands, I hope they call me baby or honey or any related words. I hope they can add the word “baby” behind my name

Japan Related Questions

Q: One thing that scared you in Japan?

YG: The night shops in Japan close earlier than Korea

BB: Automated toilets. The toilet lid would close by itself! I got a shock

Q: Favorite Japanese snack?

BB: Japanese pudding is very delicious!

YG: I don’t really eat snacks but I do like chocolate ice cream! I love ice cream the most, I eat it everyday

JS: I like everything~ Japanese soft candies are very delicious especially the grape flavoured ones!

Mark: Sour flavoured soft candies

JB: Tokyo Banana! Isn’t that everyone’s favourite?

Junior: Dried sweet potato~ they even sell it in convenience stores

YG: I like everything chocolate related

Q: GOT7 will hold a fan meeting in Maihama. When you think of Maihama, it’s definitely Disneyland!! (Laughs) What do you want to do if you managed to go? Mention your favorite Disney characters

YG: I want to see the fireworks at night! I like bears

BB: I want to go there as I’ve never been there before. My favorite Disney character is Mickey and Minnie Mouse. They’re very cute

Q: If you had a day off in Japan, where would you go?

Mark: Shopping

JS: I want to go shopping but I want to see iGot7s as well

JB: For me it’s also shopping but meeting with the fans isn’t bad too. I want to buy shoes and clothes

BB: I want to go Shibuya if we have time

YG: Hot Spring! I want to go to the one with monkeys

YJ: I want visit the villas beside Fuji-Q Highland. I mentioned it before in our DVD, it’s great

BB: I want to eat and shop at the same time

Junior: Shopping for me as well! When we came to Japan in January, I brought a lot of things. I want to visit the places that I didn’t get to the last time

BB: Bring me along with you to shop~ we have similar taste

Junior: Because you’re copying me

YJ: Exactly!

BB: I didn’t~!

Junior: You already copied everything about me until there’s nothing left to copy isn’t it?

Questions Related to Living

Q: GOT7 doesn’t have much chance to eat home cooked food right… What’s your favorite dish cooked by your mother? You can mention any~ for me its tofu beef stew

YJ: Beef stew!!! My mom’s beef stew is No.1 in the world

YG: Omurice!

Junior: I like the side dishes made by my mother. Anything that is handmade is my favorite

Mark: It’s the same for me! I especially like the chicken soup made by my mum

JB: Anything cooked by my mum is delicious~ my dad is good at cooking too~ Sometimes he would cook braised beef. It’s very yummy

【Let me tell you my favorites!!! MY TYPE SELECTION】

Getting to know the members favorite by choosing between two options!

JB: I want to go for a walk with my date. I will not hide my feelings and express them openly

Mark: If a girl cries, I will quietly comfort her. I hope she make sandwiches for me

JS: I want to make a lunchbox for my date. I like surprises the most!

Junior: If it’s with a member, a ring isn’t bad. I will settle my troubles by myself

YJ: I may not be able to openly confess my feelings because I’m not very brave. I would go shopping with my date

BB: We will discuss our problems together because we are a team. There’s always someone in our group that’s borrowing my clothes

YG: I want to prepare a surprise even for hyungs. I’m not scared of haunted houses

【Choose between the two】

Q: Accessory or Phone Case?

JB: Phone case! I will choose accessories based on my mood on that day so things that I can carry around with me easily is better!

Mark: Accessory. I like accessories.

JS: Phone case because I carry my phone with me everywhere!

Junior: Accessory. A ring probably because it could represent friendship

YJ: Accessory. I think rings aren’t bad. I feel like I can connect with everyone whenever I wear it

BB: Accessory because others will notice it

YG: Accessory because it has more meaning

【If a member is late】

Q: Punish him by making him do aegyeo or get him to buy food?

JB: Get him to buy good. He’s not going to get away just by doing aegyeo so getting him to buy food is better

Mark: Get him to buy food. I see the others do aegyeo often enough already

JS: Get him to buy good. I see the members do aegyeo every day so I don’t really want to see it anymore

Junior: Punish him by making him do aegyeo. I don’t want to use my own money to buy snacks

YJ: Neither. Punish by hitting their butt. That’s how we do it normally (Laughs)

BB: Get him to buy good. I don’t want to see the other members do aegyeo. Plus all of us like to eat

YG: Punish him by making him do aegyeo because I don’t really eat snacks

【Travelling with the members】

Q: exercise or games?

JB: Exercise. Its good bonding for our group and it’s also good for the body

Mark: Games. I have been addicted to games recently!

JS: Exercise. I love exercising the most

Junior: Exercise. GOT7 is a group filled with energy (Laughs)

YJ: Games. Almost all of us like to play games

BB: Games. I always play games with Jackson hyung (Laughs)

YG: Exercise. I don’t really play games

【Surprise event for the members】

Q: Prepare event of Receive event?

JB: Preparing event. I’ve never been surprised before so I think preparing an event would be more enjoyable

Mark: Prepare event. I don’t like surprises

JS: Prepare event. I like surprises the most!

Junior: Prepare event. I like the thought of keeping a secret from a member

YJ: Receive event. I think the one receiving the surprise is happier

BB: Receive event. I’m always preparing events so I want to be the one receiving the surprise once in a while

YG: Prepare event. I think it’s more interesting

【Borrowing/Exchanging clothes with members】

Q: Yes or No?

JB: No. There’s not much chance for me to lend my clothes to others

Mark: Yes. I always lend Bambam my clothes

JS: Yes. I always borrow clothes from Mark and Junior

Junior: Yes because we are a team!

YJ: Yes. I don’t mind lending clothes to others

BB: Yes. I’m always borrowing clothes from the others

YG: Yes. I usually borrow clothes from Bambam

【Theme park or Shopping】

Q: Theme park or Shopping?

JB: Theme park. I want to have fun with the members

Mark: Theme park. I feel like we will all have fun

JS: Theme park and Shopping. I like both!

Junior: Shopping. I like clothes

YJ: Shopping. I think I’ll have more fun shopping

BB: Theme park. I prefer to shop alone

YG: Theme park. It’s more interesting than going to the movie

【What do you want your date to do for you】

Q: Seaweed Roll or Sandwich?

JB: Sandwich. It’s very troublesome to make seaweed roll I don’t want to trouble my date too much

Mark: Sandwich. I like to each sandwiches

JS: Sandwich. But rather than my date making it for me, I want to make it for her

Junior: Seaweed roll. Humans need rice to live! (Jokingly)

YJ: Seaweed roll because I like it

BB: Seaweed roll because it’s more convenient to eat

YG: Seaweed roll. I don’t really eat sandwich

【Towards the person you like】

Q: Confessor or be confessed to?

JB: Confessor. I want to express my feelings openly there is nothing to hide

Mark: Confessor. Man should always be the one who confess first

JS: Confessor. I want to be the one who confess

Junior: Confessor. Because I’m a guy?

YJ: Be confessed to. I’m a bit of a coward regarding things like this… (Laughs)

BB: Confessor. I must be the one who confess first! Because I’m the guy!

YG: Confessor. I’m the type who dares to do anything so I think I’ll be the one who confess

【I’ll talk to the members when I have troubles】

Q: Yes or No?

JB: No. I’m the type to solve problems by myself. I don’t want to burden others with my problems.

Mark: Yes. Recently, I’m starting to talk to the other members about my problems

JS: Yes. GOT7 will always come together to solve my problems

Junior: No. I’ll try my best to solve my problems by myself

YJ: No. I don’t to affect everyone’s mood because of my problems

BB: Yes. Because we are a team, I will find a member to discuss my problem with

YG: Yes. The others might have a better solution than me.

【Going to Haunted House with your date】

Q: Get scared together or Pretend not to be scared?

JB: Get scared together. Even if I’m not scared I would pretend to be scared to scare her

Mark: Get scared together because I will get scared too (Laughs)

JS: Get scared together. I will get scared too

Junior: Get scared together. I want to create happy memories together

YJ: Get scared together. Honestly, I will be scared too

BB: Pretend not to be scared. Even if I’m scared I have to pretend that I’m not

YG: Pretend not to be scared. I’m not scared of haunted house

【When a girl cries】

Q: Make her smile or Comfort her quietly?

JB: Comfort her quietly. Trying to make her smile might have a reverse effect sometimes.

Mark: Comfort her quietly as it’s more like me to do this

JS: Make her smile. I’ll comfort her and make her smile at the same time

Junior: Make her smile. I want to encourage her by telling her not to fret over small stuff

YJ: Both. Assuming she cries, I would wipe her tears first

BB: Comfort her quietly. Trying to make her smile might make her angry instead

YG: Both. If you can succeed doing both it would be very cool!

【Differences in preference for food】

Q: Eat what you want or Suit others?

JB: Eat what I want. When we can’t decide what to eat we would just eat what we want.

Mark: Eat what I want. I’ll buy what I want to eat by myself.

JS: Suit others. I’ve always been very accommodating to others (Laugh)

Junior: Suit others because we are a team!

YJ: Eat what I want. I think it’s good to have a variety of items to choose from (he means for the members to share food)

BB: Eat what I want. I think it’s better for us to eat what we want.

YG: Eat what I want. It’s best for us to eat what we want (Laughs)

【Sport event】

Q: Soccer or Baseball?

JB: Baseball. I know soccer is very interesting but I would like to know more about baseball

Mark: Soccer. I prefer soccer compared to baseball as there’s more action

JS: Soccer. I like it even though I’m not very good at it!

Junior: Soccer. I really like soccer

BB: Soccer because I don’t know how baseball works

YG: Soccer because it’s more interesting

【What do you wish for your date to wear】

Q: Dress or Skinny Jeans?

JB: Dress. Because it looks cute and lovely during spring

Mark: Skinny Jeans. As compared to dress, I think skinny jeans is better

JS: Skinny Jeans. I like my date to wear something more vibrant/energetic

Junior: Dress. It looks very pure

YJ: Dress. I think a girl looks prettier in a dress

BB: Skinny Jeans. Wearing skinny jeans looks healthier I like it

YG: Both. It doesn’t matter what she wears as long as I like her

HIGHLIGHT:

When answering about the member’s habits, Bambam and Yugyeom begin to imitate the member’s actions. The both of them were very focused on doing it and the hyungs said “We can see what you’re doing~!” when they appeared. The Maknaes immediately stopped and said “Oh nothing~!” (Laughs)

V: 百度林在范吧

Translated by: @fuckboytuan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JJuBiMsDurcOBDzgGlDidwsTWOM7zreW4lARZynysLA/mobilebasic

#got7 #GOT7 JB #GOT7 JAEBEOM #GOT7 INTERVIEW #GOT7 TRANS #JB INTERVIEW #JB TRANS #JAEBEOM INTERVIEW TRANS #DEFDAILYinterview

[goldenworldsabound]

RPG Fantasy AU with Shizuo?

“Geez, Shizuo…you’re always getting hurt…” The girl who was clearly dressed like a mage sighed heavily as she wrapped a bandage around his arm, having just finished applying a healing salve to the cut on it. Her large hat slid down her face for a moment as she leaned over to tie off the bandage, and she pushed it back up in an exasperated manner. She rummaged in her bag for more bandages. She was running too low on magic power to just heal him that way. In fact with him around, she was always too low, because she was always healing him.

He rubbed his head sheepishly. “Well…that time you would have gotten hurt if I hadn’t done anything, Wendy…” He mumbled back, watching her dig around in her bag. He was sitting shirtless by the fire, partially covered in bandages, and clearly covered in cuts and bruises. He was muscled and strong, clearly a fighter just from looking at him, although you’d never guess from the outfits he tended to wear. Discarded off to the side was a formal looking vest and shirt, although they were now torn and ripped.

As she continued to bandage him up, focusing on a large cut across one of his hips, she momentarily got distracted by the way his hip bones poked prominently out of his pants, and the way his abs looked in the firelight…she blushed a bit.

“I suppose that’s fair…” She acknowledged, biting her lip as she forced herself to focus.

———————-

20 minutes ago

“Barrier!” Wendy yelled out, pushing her hand forward towards Shizuo. A rounded, thin blue shield appeared in front of him, blocking the approaching spiked vine from hitting him. The shield disappeared after the hit.

Shizuo roared, running towards the tree, first pulled back.

“Attack up!” Wendy called out, and a glowing aura of red surrounded Shizuo. He slammed his fist into the monstrous plant, allowing the spikes on the stalk to cut through his skin. He jumped back as the plant seemed to reel.

Wendy calculated the next best course of action. That had done a lot of damage. It’s health was decidedly dented. But Shizuo had taken a fair amount of hits too. She didn’t have a lot of magic power left. She could probably either heal him up, or boost his strength, but not both.

As she pondered this, she failed to notice the vine coming at her from the side.

Shizuo noticed, and eyes widening, he cried out to her. “Wendy! Move!”

“Huh?”

He pushed her aside roughly, taking the slashing hit from the vine, the spikes tearing up his clothes and his skin. She rolled and bounced on the ground, landing finally on her stomach. Gritting her teeth she got to her feet, untangling her robes.

“Shizuo!” She called out, noticing the blood oozing out of his cuts. She watched as a new aura flared up around him. It was golden.

It was his special ability Protect Others At Any Cost. She hadn’t seen it happen much - usually between the two of them they took down enemies with ease. But this monstrous plant had proved impervious to many of Wendy’s magical spells. Protect Others At Any Cost made it so Shizuo no longer felt pain, and his strength was increased to an absurd level. It was substantially better than his Berserk ability, which tended to manifest more often…it had the same basic features, but…well, he went berserk.

Glowing as he was now, Shizuo decisively grabbed the spiky vine, ignoring or perhaps unaware of the spikes jabbing into his hand. Another vine lunged at him and he grabbed that one too. Grinning like a mad man, he pulled the ends of the vines up and then brought them down quickly. The wave of his motion rippled all the way back to the core of monstrous plant, and it was pulled partially out of the ground. Shizuo ran up to it, yelling as he got beneath it and lifted it the rest of the way out of the ground. The weak roots were exposed, and he tore them apart.

As the monster’s health hit zero, it exploded into experience, coins, and a few items.

Recovered from her fall, Wendy ran up to Shizuo as his aura evaporated, and he stood there panting.

“Are you okay?!” She asked.

“Yeah, should I not be?”

“Well…” He followed her gaze to his bloodied hands, and as realization dawned he looked over the rest of himself as well. With the realization came the pain, a low stinging feeling.

“Ah, yeah, this looks pretty bad doesn’t it?”

———————————-

Present

And so they were here now. She’d used her remaining magic points to heal up his hands, but she had to rely on the slower actives salves and potions for the rest.

She’d finally finished bandaging him up, and it was dark now, only the light of the fire.

“You know, I’d be alright taking a hit every once in a while…” She said, sighing as she watched him put on his torn up shirt.

“You don’t need to worry about me so much.” Shizuo replied, laughing a bit. “I’m the tank and the fighter, after all! It’s my job to take hits for you!” He winked and grinned in an over the top manner.

She blushed. While she was sometimes exasperated with the way he always put himself in harm’s way, it was certainly very charming to know he was doing it to protect her. And he was always so gently with her. Although today…she winced a bit as she pushed her glasses up, feeling the bruise on her ribs from where he’d shoved her, and became aware of the way her body ached from her fall to the ground.

Shizuo noticed the change in expression. “Are you okay, Wendy?” He looked concerned.

“It’s fine, really, I mean…” She trailed off, not wanting him to feel badly.

“It’s from when I shoved you, isn’t it? Sorry about that…I don’t know how to hold back…” He stared down at the ground, looking a bit sad.

“Please, don’t feel bad! I know I’m acting like I don’t, but I appreciate what you did…” She bit her lip again. “In my previous parties no one ever…cared about me, the way you do…” She felt her heart beating in her chest and her face flushing. She’d had a crush on him since they’d formed their little two person party.

She was surprised that when she met his gaze he was blushing too.

“Well, I…I really like you…” He mumbled. He averted his gaze to the fire. “Really, really like you. I don’t want anything to hurt you. Ever.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as her heart pounded in her ears. “I like you too…that’s why it bothers me when you get so hurt…” She opened her eyes, and gasped.

Shizuo was kneeling in front of her, leaning close to her, his eyes peeking out at her from behind his messy blonde bangs.

“Do you mean it?” He asked softly. No one would even stay in a party with him for a long time, because of his Berserk ability often leading to people getting hurt, let alone feel this way about him. He almost couldn’t believe it.

“Of course I do!” She look at him defiantly through her blush, pouting a bit. “It, it took a lot to say that, you know!”

“Ah, sorry, sorry!” He grinned. “I just…I never thought…I could be so lucky.” He smiled softly, sitting back on his legs, looking so gentle and happy she felt her heart was fit to burst.

Before she had time to think about it, she learned forward, putting her hand on his shoulder and her lips onto his. He was surprised, but wasn’t long before he was returning the kiss, putting a hand on her face gently, tentatively.

They pulled apart, smiling wide and laughing.

#wenduo #fic #SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I JUST??? #couldn't think of anything and then suddenly it hit me like WHAM TIME FOR FIC #Street Signs And Snuggles

[fishdavidson]

(SEMI-BELATED) Dream Journal 2017-09-03: Another Round Of Adventures In Bulleted List Form, This Time Featuring A Kick-Ass Talent Show

My apologies, dear internet friends! I have been absent from tumblr for the past few days, but not from the dream world. I’ve been going to bed at weird hours and having events take place in the evenings, which has impacted the posting for the last few days. But I have still been keeping track of my dreams, and here’s what’s happened in dreamland over the past however many days:

A group of placeholder friends came over to my parents house to make what was called “friendship wine.” It appeared to be some sort of mulled wine, and although it was delicious, I was preoccupied by one of the placeholder people. This dude was using a metal utensil to stir stuff in my nonstick metal pot. HAVE YOU NO DECENCY, FRIEND? NEVER USE METAL UTENSILS IN THE NONSTICK COOKWARE BECAUSE IT DESTROYS THE COATING.

Flip-flops started appearing on the rooftops of buildings that were in the middle of a flooded city. If a matching set flip-flops found their way onto the same roof, the roof would implode. An enterprising burglar exploited this behavior by chartering a helicopter to fly over the flooded area. He had a cannon that would shoot flip-flops at buildings, and he targeted small banks in the hopes that an imploded roof would give him access to the vault. Spoiler alert: it did.

While at an art museum, I felt my arms suddenly get stronger and more muscular. I am not strong in real life, so this sudden influx of strength caught me off-guard. Someone must bear witness to this event! So I yelled at the random people milling about the museum (and this is an honest-to-God direct quote from the dream): “OBSERVE MY SIGNIFICANT UPPER BODY STRENGTH!” And then I grappled a low hanging ledge and did a a few dozen chin-ups. The crowd was unimpressed, but I had some pretty righteous biceps and didn’t give a damn what the crowd thought.

Do you remember that GPS commercial where TomTom was trying to get Darth Vader to record lines for the voice navigation feature, but he kept messing up and saying “roundabound” instead of “roundabout?” Well, I was driving and came upon a roundabout. I thought I’d be funny and say “roundabound” in reference to that commercial. My wife was not impressed.

One of my favorite games, Rez, just got a whole lot more awesome in this dream. I lived in an apartment above an art gallery (which I owned), and there was a trapdoor in the floor of the gallery that most people thought led to a cellar. But it really let into a space outside of reality where the world of Rez was real and I could shoot missiles out of my fist. Since the game takes place in the void of cyberspace, though, there’s no floor. If you wanna play the game, you have to hang from the ceiling somehow. Otherwise you’ll fall into the void forever. I hope my insurance company doesn’t find out about this potential safety hazard.

I was notified that I was soon to receive a sizable inheritance. But in order to claim it, I had to travel to the nearest Inheritance Processing Facility and fill out some paperwork at their corporate headquarters. It was a giant cubicle farm where everything was gray and white, and very corporate-looking. I signed my paperwork and gave it to my cousin, who happened to be working there. Then I realized that each person in the cubicle farm was someone I knew who had died. I had a brief internal freak-out where I was worried that I was now dead and this was some bizarre representation of the afterlife. Thankfully that was not the case, but I was unable to remain asleep for the 7-10 business days required to receive my inheritance by mail.

In another driving dream, I was traveling down a dirt and gravel road in the middle of nowhere. Tree roots stuck up from the ground like towers that stretched well overhead. You had to drive slowly because occasionally the roots would pop up unexpectedly and had a tendency to show up right in the middle of the damn lane. Once again, my insurance better not go up because of this.

At work, I had a third monitor on my desk that was used exclusively for playing 3rd person open-world RPGs. Nobody seemed to notice that I was playing games at work, which is pretty cool, I guess? The downside was that I couldn’t play any other genre of game, but most games of this type tend to be pretty long so it’s probably a decent trade-off.

Speaking of games, I played a game where I competed against three other people to locate a miniature satellite and launch it into space. The satellites were about the size of a baseball, and I think we were supposed to throw them into the sky as hard as we could in order to launch them. This was not a very good idea, and my subconscious did a terrible job of planning out the game’s resolution. The beginning parts of the scavenger hunt were really fun, though.

And lastly:

Occasionally my subconscious comes up with really cool ideas for TV shows. This time around, the show was called Your Name In Lights. It was like a cross between public access programming and a talent show. But unlike most televised talent shows, each episode only focused on one person. The showrunners would find random people who wanted to participate and basically gave each contestant a small amount of money (I think it was around $5,000) to make an episode about whatever they wanted (provided the content was appropriate for network television). After the entire season was over, one winner would be selected out of all the episodes that aired that season. The winner would get slightly more money to make a mini-series about whatever their episode was about.

The contestant featured in this episode was a music mashup artist. He spent most of his episode talking about his creative process. He had a good stage presence, though I’m sure a lot of people probably felt the topic didn’t feature enough explosions for American TV audiences. But the finale of his episode was a music video mashup of ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” and MC Hammer’s hit song “U Can’t Touch This.” Not gonna lie, folks: this was worth the price of admission. The new song was called “Can’t Touch This Sharp Dressed Man” and I am legitimately sad that it doesn’t exist in the real world at the time of this writing, because it was really freaking good. I sure hope that guy won the grand prize at the end of the season.

If you or anyone you know wants to try to try their hand at making their own version of “Can’t Touch This Sharp Dressed Man,” please let me know. I would love to hear it!

-------------

Header image taken from a dance studio called Marquee Your Name In Lights. I am somewhat disappointed that there is already a business with this name, because it will make applying for a trademark for my new TV show more challenging.

#your name in lights #tomtom #darth vader #rez #dream journal #dreams #fishdavidson #wine #inheritance #upper body strength #flip flops #flipflops #mashup #zz top #sharp dressed man #u can't touch this #mc hammer #bulleted list

[mayaminamoto]

Ok, but before I get lost for another 2 hours in Andromeda’s character creator, here are my thoughts about Torment: Tides of Numenera. Mostly spoiler-free version, adding a cut for those who don’t want even vague mentions of stuff.

It’s good. Not without flaws, but solid work, I feel like inXile delivered on most of the promises and with recent patch some of the flaws might get less annoying.

Let’s start with the good stuff.

The side quests are fantastic. They’re well written, sure, but one of the coolest thing is how many possible outcomes they have. For example - very early in the game there’s a confrontation in which you can 1. convince the guy to fuck off 2. kill the guy 3. surrender/lose the fight. Each of these choices influences the rest of the whole questline. The consequences may not be huge, but they’re there and the choices are written in a way that puts “roleplay” back into RPG.

This applies to the main story too, btw.

It took me some time, but I think the Last Castoff is pretty ok too. They’re a clean slate kind of a character, but the devs gave them wide enough range of reactions, that it’s 100% possible to “write” them as consistent, believable person. There was no point in the game where I felt pressured into any kind of reaction, like the game clearly states one option as “better”. In this sense it did feel a bit like the good old Nameless One. Just a bit though.

Companions - also pretty decent. Fairly unique, diverse and overall interesting bunch of misfits. There wasn’t enough banter, but apparently they patched it recently, should be better now.

Buuuuuuut companions get us straight to the flaws.

Party management is a pain. There are only three slots for companions and six companions to choose from. Although it’s possible to switch them out, if you want to do it past initial location you have to find an artifact + if you try to switch one specific companion out, they leave you forever (because you broke their heart, don’t do that you monster). So that leaves two slots to work with. Plus two characters HATE each other and won’t be in the same party, so you have to account for that too. It gets HARD, especially since there’s no hints “take X and Y here, ‘cause they will have a quest there”. Not all companions have typical “personal quests”, which makes it even more annoying. I feel like one or even two more slots wouldn’t hurt the game that much. Could even add to the replayability, if you made the choice between those characters who hate each other fixed - you chose one, you can’t get the other anymore. As it is, all the character juggling mostly annoyed the shit out of me. ESPECIALLY since some of character endings depend on whether you take them with you on the final mission. Which, you know, kinda sucks.

While the story is interesting it can feel overly convoluted at some points. There’s a lot of telling with not enough showing. Lots of long-ass descriptions of stuff. I feel like the creators were like, “old Torment had so much text, we have to get EVEN MORE TEXT LET’S FLOOD THEM WITH TEXT”. I guess it is some way to go, but I wouldn’t mind a cutscene here and there or something. I mean, there’s this statue added to the collector’s edition and I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be. Video games have a visual aspects as well, use it for something more than maps maybe?

Not that maps aren’t cool, I love all locations. Should have added it in the good stuff, seriously, world building 10/10, cool, unique and colourful. I mean, the Bloom ok? Just... the Bloom.

Also, visually Sorrow was fucking awesome. But was a fucking pain to fight. Some of the crisis sequences were way too long with way too many enemies and incredibly stupid allies AI. There was a patch, can’t say if and how much it fixed though.

The ending was... ok. A bit Reaper-y, if you catch my drift. Not as satisfying as old Torment. The final choices, while pretty well established beforehand, could do with better explanation of the consequences - specifically, I don’t feel convinced about what effect the Tides have on the world. The explanation given at the finale felt a bit too close to “oh, and by the way, the mass relays will all get destroyed”. Still, I left the game feeling fairly satisfied.

Overall: good stuff, go and play it.

#Mai has a life #Mai plays video games #Torment: Tides of Numenera

[bibliophileiz]

Charmed Labor Day marathon 2k18: Season 1 Episode 1

Episode 1: "Something Wicca This Way Comes"

We open in a fancy apartment in San Francisco where a lady with 90s hair is feeding her cat and chanting at an altar. 

Outside in the rain, a figure dressed in dark clothes climbs the fire escape, presumably for nefarious purposes. The figure somehow gets into the apartment and creeps up behind the witch. She turns around and seems to recognize him, asking him what he's doing there. He immediately pulls out a knife and stabs her.

Note from crime reporter: Generally people don't commit crimes outside their own homes when it's raining (because who wants to go commit burglary in the rain?), but I guess that rule doesn't apply to warlocks.

The scene then switches to the Halliwell sisters. The first scene with Prue and Piper passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. The conversation -- which also serves as a pseudo-introduction to Phoebe in dialogue -- veers from conversations about scheduling and maintenance issues, which include a mention of Prue's busy job at a museum, to Piper's burgeoning chef career. There is a mention of Piper's boyfriend, but I think we should let it slide because the sister's agree he's a "nice boyfriend" for demonstrating support for Piper's career by picking up something she needed for a job interview and also because (spoilers!) he's the baddie of the episode and needs an early introduction.

"(Phoebe) has no vision, no sense of the future." A little on the nose, show.

Lame Netflix theme song is lame.

We switch back to the murder victim from the first scene's apartment where we meet our intrepid detectives. Inspector Andy Trudeau, wearing a tan trenchcoat I love, believes the serial killer who killed the woman is targeting witches. He's been at occult shops chasing his theory. His partner, Inspector Daryl Morris, is skeptical. He doesn't believe in witches and wants Andy to stop talking about them.

Outside the apartment building, reporters have gathered, including Piper's boyfriend, Jeremy. He asks Andy to comment. "A woman was stabbed, plain and simple," Andy says, quoting Morris.

Then we get a real introduction to Phoebe. She's come back from New York to move back in with her sisters -- she told Piper, but not Prue. Turns out, she and Prue are estranged. Prue tells Phoebe they're not selling Grams' house. It's been in their family for generations. Phoebe doesn't need a history lesson -- she grew up here too. But it appears Prue's also mad because she suspects Phoebe of hitting on "Roger." Phoebe says she never did that and calls Roger an "Armani-wearing, Chardonnay-slugging trust funder." I really love Phoebe.

Anyway, Piper can't get them to speak civilly to each other, and they each depart to their rooms. Later Piper brings up some food for Phoebe and tells her to go easy on Prue -- after all, Prue practically gave up her own childhood to help Grams raise the them after their mother died. But Phoebe says she doesn't need a mom anymore -- she needs a sister.

Once tempers have calmed down, they all dress in pajamas and go downstairs to play with their old spirit board. Random fun fact about 11-year-old Iz: Piper's line "I asked it if Prue would have sex with someone other than herself this year," was the first time I ever heard masturbation referenced in a TV show.

Suddenly, the spirit board starts working on its own! Prue and Piper accuse Phoebe of pushing the pointer. "You always used to push the pointer," they say. Phoebe insists it wasn't her. Piper sees it move too. It spells out 'attic.' Piper is spooked enough to go to Jeremy's house -- they've never been able to get the attic door open. Prue is hyper-rational. The pointer didn't move by itself, Jeremy's not home, it will not be cheap for Piper to sit in a cab waiting on him to get home, and they'll hire a handyman tomorrow morning to get the attic door open. But Phoebe doesn't want to wait. She's going to the attic.

When she gets there, the door opens at her touch. She finds a book of witchcraft on an altar and reads a spell out of it. According to the book, if she reads the incantation, she and her sisters will receive magical powers that have been passed down from their maternal ancestor, a witch named Melinda Warren. Prue and Piper walk in as she's reading. Prue is furious and Piper is panicked. Luckily nothing has happened, they all agree, not noticing a picture of the three of them on the mantle has changed so that they're all standing closer together in the frame.

Also, Phoebe is wearing socks with sandals. In her house. Oh, the 90s.

Side note: Prue is so fucking gorgeous I can't even handle it. (She's really sexy in the pajamas.)

The next day, Phoebe tells Piper she stayed up all night reading a prophesy about three sisters destined to become the most powerful witches of all time. They protect the innocent by battling evil witches called warlocks. They're known as the Charmed Ones. But Piper tells Phoebe they don't have magical powers and heads off to her job interview.

Meanwhile Prue is already at work at the museum job.

I HATE ROGER!!

Roger is Prue's boss and former fiance. He tells her that the board of directors has decided to go ahead with a museum exhibition she implemented. But, they wanted someone with more experience to take it over. Prue is furious -- even more so when she correctly guesses that Roger is the one who gets the project. He tells her he couldn't say no to the entire board of directors and after all what's good for him is good for her. Prue disagrees and as she stalks off, the pen in Roger's pocket mysteriously starts squirting ink everywhere.

Anyone who says this show isn't feminist should watch this episode. Roger is every Lawful Evil villain in the RPG called Life As a Woman in a Patriarchal Society. Then you have the explicit sexism with Chef Moore in the very next scene, when he scoffs at Piper's audition recipe because it came from a women's magazine.

Speaking of that scene, when Chef Moore starts to try some of Piper's dish without her having added the very last ingredient -- port -- she throws up her hands in protest and he freezes. She calls his name, waves her hand under his face, and he doesn't move. Deciding to take advantage of her newfound power to freeze time, she quickly adds a drop of port to the bite Chef Moore has on his spoon. Then the power wears off and Chef Moore, having not noticed anything, takes a bite and declares it "Magnifique!" 

Piper has the job! She runs outside to call Phoebe from a payphone. Phoebe doesn't answer. As Piper hangs up and leaves the phone booth, she runs into Jeremy. 

Back at the museum, Prue walks into Roger's office and announces she quits. Roger tells her if she leaves with no notice, she won't get references. She's not worried. She's sure Roger's intellect will make quick work of the mountains of files she left behind. She thought breaking up with him was the best thing she'd ever done, but this tops that. As she leaves, he yells after her that he hopes she doesn't have any office supplies in her purse. Scowling, she mimes choking him and suddenly his tie tightens around his throat. Prue doesn't notice though, because she's already out the door.

Meanwhile, Phoebe is having a good day, riding her bike around the neighborhood. All of the sudden, she has a black-and-white vision of a car hitting a man on roller skates. As soon as the vision's gone, she sees the roller skating man -- just as a car rounds the corner. Yelling a warning, she darts into the street on her bike and is hit by the car herself. 

Prue goes to the hospital to pick up Phoebe where she runs into Andy. Turns out, they are old high school sweethearts and he is recently back in San Francisco. He asks her if she's still seeing Roger -- turns out he's been checking up on her. He is boyishly bashful, although his checking up on her is slightly creepier in the era before Facebook, when that sort of thing takes more effort. Anyway, they go their separate ways and Phoebe, who is ok after her run-in with the car, goes with Prue to Quake. Phoebe excitedly tells Prue about her vision and her theory that they, along with Piper, are the Charmed Ones. Prue tells Phoebe they do not have magical powers. Now where is the cream? At that moment, it magically appears in her coffee.

They go to the pharmacy to pick up the medication the doctors prescribed Phoebe after the accident. By this time Prue is stressed and pissed off. She asks where the Asprin is while Phoebe tries to get her to open up to the idea of powers. After all, everyone inherits something from their family. Phoebe mentions Roger and several boxes of Advil fall off the shelf. Phoebe realizes Prue moves things with her mind when she's upset and begins pressing her buttons. She brings up Dad, and now the real issues between the two sisters come to light. According to Phoebe, Prue is mad that Dad left, mad that he's alive, mad that Phoebe went to New York to find him and mad that she came back. Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad. The entire aisle's worth of medicine shoots off the shelves and clatters to the floor. Prue feels better.

Meanwhile, Piper's still hanging out with Jeremy. They've had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and are now in a cab heading back to Jeremy's place. Piper asks him if anything unexplainable has ever happened to him. He says sure -- it's luck or fate or destiny. Why does she ask? She tells him to forget it -- even if she could explain it, he'd swear she was crazy. They flirt some and then he asks the cab driver to take a detour. He wants to show Piper something.

He takes her to a creepy abandoned building. They get on the elevator, even though Piper is reluctant. He promises her the view is amazing. He bets she tells Prue and Phoebe the moment she sees them. Piper is surprised -- she hadn't told Jeremy Phoebe was back in San Francisco. "Oops," he says and whirls on her, holding a knife. He's known they would receive their powers ever since Grams died. He's been waiting for Phoebe to come home so he could steal all their powers. In the meantime, he's been killing other witches for their powers.

Panicked, Piper throws up her hands and Jeremy freezes. She manages to escape the elevator and goes home where she tells Prue and Phoebe what happened. They run upstairs, find a spell in the Book of Shadows to make a former lover go away (useful spell, amirite?). They cast it and thorns burst out of Jeremy's flesh as he approaches the house. It hurts, but it doesn't stop him. Phoebe has a vision that he will be there and tells her sisters.

At that moment, Jeremy breaks into the house. Prue tells her sisters to go to the attic and stands in the stairway, blocking Jeremy from following them. "You were always the tough one, weren't you Prue?" he says mockingly. Prue turns and runs into the attic after her sisters. The barricade the door and grab hands. They begin chanting the spell out of the book. "The power of three will set us free." Jeremy ... explodes.

(image from imdb.com)

The next day, Andy shows up at the house while Prue is checking the mail. He asks her out, but she is hesitant. She tells him her life has gotten complicated. He promises to see her around. As he's leaving, Piper and Phoebe come outside. They discuss whether Prue can date -- Piper and Phoebe assure her she can because witches usually get the best guys -- and they all realize their lives are about to change. Prue says they are going to be careful, they're going to be wise and they're going to stick together. As they all get into the house, she turns around, smiles and closes the door with her mind.

If you do a meta reading of this episode, it's all about the power of women standing up against men trying to steal their power -- from Roger taking Prue's exhibit at the museum to Jeremy literally murdering women to steal their magical powers. The women prevail by embracing their strengths and abilities. Prue one-ups Roger by quitting, leaving him to do the labor she would have done had she been in charge of the exhibit and which he's not capable of doing. The Halliwells defeat Jeremy by combining their magical powers, strengthened by the bond as sisters, and killing Jeremy. Good, strong, feminist episode and a good start to the series. If I have a problem with this episode, it's that the sisters don't really do any mystery-solving -- Jeremy reveals himself to them, without them doing anything to seek him out. But since they're only just discovering their own powers, I think it's fine in this case.

This episode was the most important one to recap because it sets up the whole show. My other posts will have more episodes and shorter watch notes -- promise.

#charmed labor day marathon 2k18 #charmed #iz does meta feminist readings of things sometimes #i didn't intend for this to turn into an episode recap but here we are