#enzel.txt

[pyjamaenzel]

ok i have to say it. Fictional Guy who likes to wear nicely tailored slightly fancy (masculine) clothing and style his (traditionally masc haircut) hair is not femme. This is not to say you can't draw him femme or wearing a dress, that is your right to make transformative works and do whatever the hell you want, but he is not "femme" as presented. "Femme" does not mean "would get called metro in 2005".

[enzelffxiv]

something that's been bumping around in my head since DT is how in the Eng version, unless people are specifically addressing one of them, the Blessed Siblings are referred to with a singular pronoun as if they're one person. I kept wondering if they were going to address it in the text as a cultural thing but they never did. (unless I missed it in side content I've never done yet.)

But the implications are just an extra layer of fucked up on top of their origins, you know? They don't get their own names, they have the same name with different epithets.

[pyjamaenzel]

you know, I put my rambling in the tags bc I thought it wasn't entirely relevant, but your reply made me actually sit down and think about a few things.

I ramble a lot so putting a cut here.

this is just my personal experience, so I don't know how similar other people are, but I learn very slowly. The only way for me to do things that don't come easily right away is a lot of repetition until it's muscle memory. Unfortunately I am also bored easily by grinding the same thing over and over, so the reason i have 400+ hrs in Elden Ring is because every time i got stuck on a boss I went and did something else (usually exploring every inch of the map). I'm sure I was bad for a pretty long time, but there was no one there but me to criticize, you know? I'll be honest and say that i don't even have an idea of what my skill level with the game *is* compared to the majority of other players, but i don't actually think it's that high, I'm simply very persistent. It took me at least 15-20 tries to beat the final boss at level 175? ish.

I did not grow up with video games in the house, so until i was old enough to buy my own, my only exposure was going to friends' places, which meant everyone I played was better than me simply by virtue of owning the game and having more hours with it. OFC as a kid i didn't understand that. I just thought that I sucked and everyone else was naturally better at games than me. It didn't help that most kids are more interested in winning than teaching, so they're happy to curbstomp someone who is less skilled because it's fun to win. I remember the first time I actually had fun playing Smash Bros was with a friend who actually took the time to sit down and explain the controls and different techniques to me and how and why to counter things, etc. I instantly felt less bad about screwing up because instead of gloating when I lost he'd comment on some things I could try differently for the next round.

I think that's sort of the core of it: winning is fun and losing is not, and if all you do is lose then it's not going to be fun. You can say "get better at it" but if the game structure or your fellow players don't encourage that somehow, it just isn't going to happen for a lot of people.

There is a certain amount of like...scrutiny that comes with PVP where even if you can't speak to the other players you know there's another person watching you, which is a different feeling than screwing up when you're playing by yourself.

Everyone has a threshold where a certain amount of failure makes them give up, and for some people it's smaller because they've been lead to expect failure by the way systems are set up or the other people around them being unwilling to accommodate or teach. video games especially have a long history of people getting verbally abusive at each other in multiplayer chat. Obvs ER doesn't have a chat function, but i think people carry that baggage of "It's multiplayer, people are going to get on my case if i'm bad" over to it. It's embarrassing to do your fumbling and learning in front of other people, and PVP always requires a different skillset than PVE because real people are more unpredictable. At least with pre programmed enemies, they have patterns you can learn.

I do think it's fun to watch other people who are in their element in PVP, and I think if more people had your attitude of "this is fun and I want other people to have fun with me" then it would encourage others to try things out of their comfort zone a bit.

There is also the element of unpredictability...while you can turn off getting invaded while solo, people who are summoning other players for help usually do so for a couple reasons. Either they *like* co-op because they want to play with a friend, or they need help with something, or both. Having this punishing element of "some random guy might come and try to beat the shit out of you because you dared want help" is definitely like. alienating. especially to people unfamiliar with the other Souls games. Like I said, I've personally made my peace w/ it, but I can see where it's actively putting other off.

(also personally...i *hate* getting interrupted when I'm in the middle of something. :p)

I was looking through the other replies and saw some people saying it takes the fun out of invading when people just run away...tbh making the entire mechanic partially unwilling definitely contributes to that, I think? When someone is first playing the game, maybe they ask a friend for help and then they basically get punished for it...they're not really going to have a positive view of invading unless they are a certain type of player to begin with.

I don't know what the solution would be...imho ideally it would be to make it entirely opt-in and structure it in a way that encourages people to participate to make up for the people you would lose. unfortunately i don't really know what would accomplish that. It really is a balance between getting enough engagement and making people not resent the whole thing.

What would you like to change in the game to make invading more fun for you? (in the tags)

[pyjamaenzel]

I'm absolutely guilty about making snap judgments about characters, but man. Is there anything more frustrating than seeing someone complain about a character they don't like and their criticisms make it very clear they've never engaged with or thought about the character on a more than superficial level?

You get this in basically every fandom but I feel like BG3 can be somehow worse in this regard because if people don't like a character they won't put them in their party or will kill them off, therefore solidifying their one dimensional view of the character because they never get to see them open up or grow...

[pyjamaenzel]

ever since my geology kick i keep trying to analyze rock formations in video games like they are real. This is of course an exercise in futility because I doubt environment designers think about the implications of the rock formations on the local geography & past and present volcanic activity...erosion...etc. Now I want to see a real geologist analyze video game rocks for accuracy.

[pyjamaenzel]

i want to draw so bad but i managed to trip and fall flat on my face today and i scraped up my hands pretty badly....hurgh

[pyjamaenzel]

take this with an arospec grain of salt, but.

15 year relationship here, and people often act surprised when I tell them that. I usually say the secret is communication and that sounds cliche but that's true. I think it's less about how hard the work is and more how willing both people are to do the work, if that makes sense.

When we were friends and when we first started dating we were on so much the same wavelength that we never argued. I thought that was great, it was a sign of the relationship working. When we did start arguing I thought it was the end of the world (my own baggage) and every time it happened i was worried we would break up. I had to learn that a bit of arguing was fine if we were both willing to try to figure out what the actual problem was and try to resolve it. 95% percent of the time there was a miscommunication somewhere that we could debug if we calmed down. The rest of the time it was usually something one of us could change, or could change with support. The things we didn't or haven't resolved are more or less environmental/circumstantial problems that we decided to weather because the relationship meant enough to us.

I think there are plenty of people in sunk cost relationships out there and a lot of it is either one or both of them is unwilling to meet the other halfway, or they think they are meeting halfway by their own standards but the other person feels neglected. If you can't have frank conversations like that with a partner you're going to keep invalidating the other person's feelings. Some people can get by like that, I guess, but I would never be able to trust someone that repeatedly refused to listen to and respect my feelings.

I generally stop feeling angry at someone once I know they have understood why I'm upset. I think some people genuinely just like the rush anger gives them and will not cede any ground.

ex: watching my parents as I get older and realizing how deeply dysfunctional they are because the minute there is a small, stupid misunderstanding one of them gets aggro about it bc she loves feeling righteously persecuted and the other just shuts down and deflects and doesn't even try to explain.

I think the fact that my partner and I are both asexual also removes a complicating factor. lol.

elaborate for me — the loveless smuckler

[pyjamaenzel]

my two common character types that i enjoy writing or roleplaying are "earnest naive idiot" (Imry) and "angry hot mess" (Keten) and sometimes the unholy union of the two (Tekla) but every now and then i get hit with the "shitty obnoxious asshole" beam and god,

it's so fun to write this piece of shit antagonizing people

[pyjamaenzel]

i still have no idea by which logic tumblr operates in terms of having me accidentally follow/unfollow people

[enzelffxiv]

big lady

Hey, quick WoL related question! Why did you choose the race they are, what was the thing that pulled you to your WoL/oc's race?

[pyjamaenzel]

that very specific writer problem where you're trying to wrangle two characters towards a sex scene but they won't stop talking about science to each other long enough to get to it.

[pyjamaenzel]

its been 2 months unmedicated...looking forward to feeling like a human being again

[pyjamaenzel]

its very funny to finally experience a piece of media you've been seeing peripheral fandom discussions about for ages and realize just how wrong everyone is about it

[pyjamaenzel]

god, some doctors are just so fucking bad at *explaining* anything on top of the fatphobia.

my understanding of warding off heart disease is: it's a cumulative thing (the accumulation of plaque in your arteries) so you do wanna start earlier if possible, but that definitely doesn't mean "major life changes this instant"...

also from experience (accompanying my partner to appointments) a lot of docs do *not* like being told "your recommended treatment isn't possible because of my disability, can you recommend something else?" 🙃 it's like all or nothing "if you can't do this you deserve to be sick" and it sucks.

actually actionable advice: (under cut so you can choose to read if you want)

aerobic exercise specifically can help, and it isn't because of "losing weight", it's about lipids in your blood. You want to be getting your heart rate up somehow. There are probably things you can do that aren't walking/running, to get excercises that are easier on mobility try searching things for seniors/elderly. Things like swimming or a stationary bike, etc. And just do what you *can* because trying to meet an arbitrary standard is self defeating. (googling it told me ~3hrs a week is a decent goal, and you're already doing that)

Food wise the advice seems to be to eat a *variety* of things and add stuff like whole grains, oatmeal, fruit and veg, fish if you can. But trying to eliminate every trace of cholesterol from your diet is a losing game and doesn't even help as much as the exercise afaik. it's more productive to look for heart-friendly foods that you actually like and try to eat them more.

ultimately it does come down to genetics. My mom (who i get it from) is an exercise fiend with what is definitely orthorexia and she's in her 60s and is having to go on cholesterol-lowering meds. My doc told me if i managed a 0 cholesterol diet I'd probably still be having trouble. (i def got lucky with him.)

It's a hell of a thing to be told I have dangerously high cholesterol and that I have to change my diet, and the advice for that is "stop eating peanut butter, and switch from light milk to skim milk." ¬_¬

[pyjamaenzel]

"ain't no rest for the wicked" "no rest for the righteous" damn no wonder everyone's so sleepy

[pyjamaenzel]

slightly embarrassing confession: when i was younger I was disappointed to be born in a Snake year because I didn't get something cool (like a DRAGON) and I wish I could say I came around on it because I learned to appreciate snakes as cool animals in their own right.

but no. the turning point was actually watching Fruits Basket because of Ayame's gender swag.