#gaming or whatever and always are ''any pc can run this!!''

[cupids-chamber]

𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐒

Hi, so I'm going on an indefinite hiatus. This is a impromptu decision, so I don't know if I'll come back in like a day and correct myself. But I've been debating on this decision for a long time, so yea.

[ below the undercut you'll find some of my reasons for this decision, and etc, I'd be grateful if you take your time reading it. ]

I don't feel comfortable as 'Cupid', I guess it's because 'Cupid' was never supposed to be my persona, she was just an oc who's running this blog, and it was supposed to be fun, mini lore bits, or whatever, and I thought the idea was really cool back then. . up until people started calling me Cupid.

I guess overtime, I never made a serious effort to correct it, so like it just became me? But like as shit went on and on and on . . It felt weird, I guess a sort of imposter syndrome or like identity crises started forming? I . . didn't feel like myself, I guess I felt like whatever 'Cupid' was.

And as months passed with this sort of identity crises, I started questioning my personality, my interests, if my friends here truly liked me, or if I was more open or idk myself? If they'd still like me? I'm not a chronically online person, in fact I've realized pretty recently that I hate staying in one place, I love the outdoors, and if I could I'd socialize more, but I also overthink and get embarrassed easily. I don't like being on my pc 24/7, yes it's something I still do, but I feel terrible after doing so.

I actually picked up certain interests I've had in the passed again, and I've felt more like myself. I don't know, I think I've realized that my relationship with this blog has been unhealthy, it's always been unhealthy, and my identity crises was the least extreme problem I've had due to this blog.

Actually, the game, the controversies, the fights, everything I've experienced on this blog, has left lasting physical damage on my body, I can't handle anxiety, I can't handle stress, and it's because the moment I get anxiety, stressed, or begin to overthink, I get immensely nauseas, I'm stuck in the bathroom, and if I don't throw up it feels worse, I can't eat, I'm unproductive for hours if one things ticks off my anxiety. I feel unlike myself, and the thing is, I can't fix it, it's just how I'm now. I have pills I have to take for this itself, and honestly they've not been 100% helpful.

Alongside abundance of other problems, mental breakdowns, and so much more shit, this blog has truly done nothing but make everything so much worse for me. If I had one good day or week with this blog and the people around me, I can expect a month of bad in return, and there comes a point where I genuinely cannot fake confidence out of it.

I genuinely think I need to dissociate from 'Cupid', she's not me, I'm not her. As I'm typing this, I genuinely wonder, what am I truly? Up until now my identity, was what I formed through 'Cupid', and honestly I don't even know where I'm going with this, I genuinely am just . . done. I'm tired. I've tried, I have not succeeded in overcoming any problems this blog has caused me.

I think a part of me is so attached to this blog, because of 'Cupid' and of course because it helped me out of my depressive pit, but as these last few weeks pass, and I edge closer to my final year before university, I feel myself returning to that depressive pit, worse than ever . . so at that point, I can't help but ask myself, what was the point of me staying on this blog despite the clear signs and warnings for me to leave?

I really don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm really grateful for everyone who has followed this blog, who have given me the chance to improve my writing. I guess it's time for a genuine goodbye? Because as I'm writing this, I don't really plan on coming back and that's the honest truth, with every hiatus I try and dance around a final goodbye but after this week I genuinely think this is the best decision for myself.

Note : Kindly do not call refer to me as 'Cupid', or anything if you plan on responding and if you do want to remain in contact with me, please message me for my new discord account. I probably won't respond fast as I try and maintain a distance from this account and don't bother contacting me on discord, I'm taking a break from the account as well <3

[anim-ttrpgs]

Investigators’ Truth in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

We have mentioned before on this blog when talking about Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy that in Eureka roleplay is mechanics-driven and mechanics are roleplay-driven, but what does that mean?

The short version is that when making your PC, you put things on their character sheet that give bonuses when they act in a way that is consistent with their intended characterization.

One of these elements is called a character’s Truth. Every Eureka PC has a Truth, and they may even have multiple Truths. A Truth can even change as a result of events in the campaign.

A character’s Truth is some strong element of their personality or beliefs that is likely to spur them into action, get them into trouble, or both. It is not necessarily a flaw, but it easily can be, as one of the main purposes of it is to encourage and reward players for letting their characters screw up.

When playing a video game or a TTRPG, it’s often very easy to sit back and think out every problem and approach them perfectly logically, especially when time usually pauses as you discuss the next move among the other players at the table. But if every character in a movie or book or any other story always made the most perfectly logical decision, that would probably be a pretty boring story, and it certainly wouldn’t be a very realistic story. People don't always make the most logical decisions in real life.

However, when playing a game, it can feel like “losing” to intentionally make a character make a decision that you, in your logical detached mind, know will probably not work out well for them in the long run. Eureka argues that this is not “losing”, and that this is actually exactly how Eureka is supposed to go. To encourage this, we added the Truth mechanic.

Like I said before, Truth is not exactly a flaw, just some part of the character’s personality or beliefs that would spur them to action or get them into trouble. It could be a hot temper, a need to always have the last word, an overly competitive nature, a love of violence, or a compulsion to lie, but it could also be a strong desire to selflessly protect others, or the trust that one’s fellow man are inherently good.

Whatever it is, when a character acts within the parameters of their Truth, they get a +1 to the dice roll for whatever it is they’re doing, or whatever dice roll results from them acting in their Truth.

This doesn’t mean that a character acting within their Truth is always the worst course of action on their part, sometimes emotional gut decisions do turn out to be right. Maybe a character whose Truth is somehow based around trusting others is right to lower their weapon, because the monster might be just as scared of them as they are of him, and that +1 Truth Bonus is going to come in handy in the resulting Comfort roll to try and de-escalate the situation—or maybe they’re completely wrong and the monster was just waiting for an opportunity to seize the upper hand, and that +1 Truth Bonus is instead going to be used on an Athletics roll to run like hell.

This also doesn’t mean that a character always has to act within their Truth, no one realistically reacts the exact same way to every situation, and we do not encourage GMs to push or punish players if their characters do not act within their Truth, but Truth helps reward realistic, in-character behavior from the PCs.

In this way, the rules/mechanics of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy are tied directly to the roleplay of the character, and the roleplay of the character is encouraged and supported by the rules/mechanics.

Stay tuned for another post about a way that in-character roleplay and rules/mechanics are intertwined with the Traits system.

You can also pick up a pre-release PDF copy of this game(in a fully playable state) for $5 through our Patreon.

[megamilfluvr]

Headcanons about Kate

These are just a few things I personally deem as headcanon about Kate, after rewatching and analyzing her interactions and personality traits. Please remember that this is just my perception of her. If you have anything you consider to be headcanon about Kate let me know.

- likes being playful and teases you a lot

- leans against EVERYTHING (example: doors, counters, couches, tables. hell, she’d probably even lean against you if you let her lmao)

- manspreads. always. (if you ask why she sits that way she’ll tell you “i don’t know. it’s just comfortable,” and you know what i can’t argue that)

- can’t sit straight. (if you find her sitting properly, it’s probably because of a formal gathering or a meeting)

- likes stealing kisses from you (you could be sitting, standing, laying down it doesn’t matter she’ll still manage to steal one from you. AND ITS ADORABLE)

- randomly does something that only makes sense to her and just confuses you (things like her leaving a half empty cup ramen with tinfoil over it and her explanation? “what? i was in a hurry to leave.”)

- always wears socks

- loves cereal, specifically Frosted Flakes

- can accurately shoot up to five arrows at the same time

- loves to spoil you

- sometimes likes to splurge on perfumes (she’s not big on jewelry but fragrances? absolutely.)

- has a spacific playlist for working out

- made a playlist for you

- can’t take care of live plants, so she buys fake ones (she just doesn’t have a green thumb. any greenery you see in her apartment or dorm isn’t real lmao)

- loves target

- tried to hit the target logo with a plunger arrow (this is very on brand for kate)

- somehow burned water??? (we’ve established that she can’t cook multiple times by almost burning the apartment down. the one time the apartment burned, wasn’t her fault, but still kinda was lmao)

- collects squishmallows (she definitely buys the 24 inch squishmallows)

- if she doesn’t get her way she’ll start cutely pouting

- gets flustered when you’ve out rizzed her

- loves to act cocky around you (whatever you do don’t challenge her to a game of fencing, she wins. she’ll let that go to her head lmao)

- loves going to the movie theater with you

- gets excited to get a slushy and popcorn

- when she talks about you to someone she gets shy

- mumbles stuff under her breath (when she was talking with yelena in episode 6 she’s LITERALLY doing it. “yeah, i know what box mac n cheese tastes like, okay? i know it’s- i know it’s delicious.”)

- she’s insecure about her rambling but you always reassure her that it’s fine and you’re listening

- she’s spent too much money on a gaming pc

- only owns a pair of boots (it doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, she’s going to wear her boots even if it’s a dress)

- super clumsy (somehow in the field she’s good at not being clumsy, but oh my god she’ll make your blood pressure spike 100%)

- always thinks outside of the box (it's impressive how quickly she thinks on her feet)

- is surprisingly calm under certain serious situations (i mean she took down men double her size running right at her, i’d panic and run the opposite direction)

- doesn’t give up easily which results in her being stubborn sometimes

- you having to remind her to shut up or low her voice in very quiet places (you could be on a mission with her and a few others and she just randomly “hey, did you see that tiktok i sent you this morning?” “SHHH, is now really the time for that?”)

- will send unhinged texts at worse time (you’re both in a debriefing and she’ll just text something like, “okay, so hear me out… we kidnap him.” “what?! no. kate we’re not about to steal rocket!”)

- loves sending memes (that’s literally all of her tiktok fyp)

- ALWAYS LOSES HER APARTMENT KEYS (someone give this girl a tile… you know what she would also end up losing that too lmao)

- loves ring but ends up losing them

- has a matching arrow necklace with you (again, she doesn’t wear rings much since she’s always losing them, so she’d go with a bracelet or necklace)

- loves hats, hoodies and sweatpants (after seeing that one picture of hailee wear her hawkeye hat, it’s headcanon for kate)

- still somehow makes you laugh even when you’re upset with her

- it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, when she’s been assigned a mission. she’ll always make time to video chat with you

edited: i’ve proofread this like three times, if there’s still typos or anything just ignore them lmao

[ansu-gurleht]

okay here is my beginner’s guide to morrowind! it talks about some of the mechanics you’ll want to know, but it’s also a little bit of a walkthrough to get you a good start on your journey. note that i originally wrote this for somebody specific: i don’t think it does, but if it seems like it’s talking at somebody in particular, that’s why. anyways, i hope this is helpful!

before you start the game:

there is only one mod i absolutely recommend you play with, and it’s not quite a mod at all.

when you download morrowind from steam or gog or whatever, you have the game! congratulations! however, what you really own is the assets of the game and a horribly broken engine. that’s where openmorrowind (openmw) comes in.

openmw is a remake of the original engine of morrowind. you see, morrowind’s original engine fucking sucks. this is for a multitude of reasons, but for me, the reason i switched was because at the later stages of a playthrough, the game will literally start corrupting your saves. don’t have that problem with openmw!

i can’t really give you a guide on how to install it and get it running better than the one on the openmw website (https://openmw.org/en/). go install it and you will have a much smoother experience overall.

before you start a new game:

before we start talking about PLAYING the game, though, let’s also take a peek through the options.

in the first page of the options, “prefs,” you’ll find some things you’ll want to switch on. namely, subtitles, always use best attack, and auto-save on rest. i’m not sure which of these are enabled by default, but enable them all.

in the “controls” section, you’re likely going to want to swap the “activate” and “jump” buttons. for some reason, the default control scheme has “activate” set to “spacebar” and “jump” set to “e”. this is, of course, counterintuitive to anyone who plays modern pc games. go ahead and just swap those around.

in the “video”-“video” section, go ahead and set your game to the highest resolution, and maybe increase the field of view a bit (i play with 75 fov, but you may prefer higher. idr what the default is, probably stupid low). in the “video”-“detail” section, crank up that view distance as high as it’ll go. i’m not sure what the default is, and i’ve fiddled with my set-up to maximize it for openmw. also turn on trilinear texture filtering and the anisotropy to the highest setting. also raise all the “video”-”water” settings to their maximum values. trust me, you can run this. it’s a new engine but the game itself came out in 2002. not the most graphics-intensive game out there.

tutorial and creating your character:

okay, that’s the options out of the way. now let’s hit that “new” button and make a new game.

watch the intro cutscene, talk to jiub, and tell him your character’s name. follow the instructions of the guards until you get to the one who asks you where you’re from. this is how the game asks you for your race. there’s no bad options here - pick whichever race you like best. you can take into account the bonuses each race gets, and compared to later games in the series these bonuses are more significant, but you can really play any character with any race in this game. it’s worth noting, however, that the beast races (argonians and khajiit) can’t wear full helms or boots/shoes. for a first timer, i would probably recommend dunmer (dark elf).

after that, go into the census office. this is where you build your class properly. you CAN take the class quiz, or pick from the premade classes. i would not recommend this. i’ve come up with a custom class that i think covers pretty much all the bases and gives a fairly enjoyable experience for a newcomer:

specialization: magic

attributes: endurance, intelligence

major skills: long blade light armor conjuration restoration marksman / destruction

minor skills: short blade medium armor spear mysticism alteration

now let me explain my choices here, to give you an idea where i’m coming from, and what those choices mean.

your specialization gives you +5 to all nine of the skills that fall under that specialization, and makes those skills increase more quickly. i’m giving you magic because magic skills don’t always increase the fastest, and every little bit helps.

your chosen attributes get +10 each. endurance determines your starting hp, which is obviously important, among other things, such as how much health you gain on level up. intelligence increases your maximum magicka. when you level up, you get to pick three attributes to increase, and depending on what skills you increased to get to your new level, you get multipliers on how much you can increase certain attributes. i recommend always increasing endurance, even if you don’t get a multiplier for it. speed, which affects your, well, speed, and strength, which affects your physical damage done as well as your carry weight, are good choices for leveling up as well. but you can increase other attributes as you think is necessary - i won’t elaborate on what each one does here, you can look it up on uesp.

your major and minor skills are what you need to increase in order to level up your character level. major skills get +25, minor skills get +10.

i always recommend at least one weapon skill and at least one armor skill for your major skills. i’m giving you long blade, bc it’s the most ubiquitous and useful weapon skill in the game, and light armor, bc it’s generally speaking the best armor skill in the game, and is also lighter to carry around as well.

i’m giving you conjuration and restoration bc having a magic skill as a major gives you a starting spell from that school. conjuration gives you bound dagger, which summons a daedric dagger for you to use for 60 seconds (and gives you the requisite skill to use it effectively), and restoration gives you hearth heal, which is a very effective heal, albeit a somewhat costly one to cast.

i’m giving you two options for your last major skill: either marksman or destruction for ranged capabilities. note, however, that marksman is not as good in this game as in later titles, and not all destruction spells are at range. destruction gives you the starting spell fire bite, a decent on touch (melee range) fire spell.

just like you have a weapon skill and armor skill in your major skills, i recommend doing the same thing with your minor skills. so i’m giving you short blade, the second most ubiquitous and useful weapon skill, and medium armor, which is almost as good as light armor, albeit a bit heavier. you can mix and match your armor pieces to great effect in this game, and wearing at least one piece of a type of armor (a medium armor gauntlet, for example) will increase that skill when you get hit.

i’m giving you spear mostly bc it’s a fun weapon to play with, and not in the other games. mysticism is an important skill for a few reasons: 1) telekinesis, which we’ll mostly use to disarm traps from a distance, and 2) teleportation spells like almsivi/divine intervention, which lets you teleport to the nearest tribunal temple or imperial shrine respectively, and mark/recall, the former of which lets you set a point the latter can teleport you to from anywhere. alteration gives you access to a lot of good spells, like feather, shield, levitate, water breathing, water walking, and open.

okay, that’s enough about your class. next you’ll be asked what your birthsign is. i’m going to recommend either the steed, which gives you +25 speed and makes walking around at the beginning of the game more bearable, or the lady, which gives you +25 personality and +25 endurance. up to you whether you value the speed or the endurance more. there are other options, of course, but i think these are best for a first-time player.

okay, after you pick your birthsign and confirm your character, you’re free! kind of. not really yet. you’ll be notified you now have an inventory menu, and instructed to pick up the papers on the table to your right. do so. then, we’re going to do something a little sneaky. on the shelf against the rightmost wall is a limeware platter, which costs like 650 gold. you want that platter. so you’re going to take it. now, you just did this in full view of a guard. but you’re fresh off the boat, so he won’t arrest you - he’ll just confiscate what you stole. BUT, if you drop the platter before he gets to you, he won’t have anything to confiscate. and since YOU dropped it, it’s technically YOURS now, so you can pick it up without any ramifications.  congrats! you just got like, 300 gold (note: your mercantile skill affects how much gold you get from selling things. very rarely will you ever get full asking price for anything).

(how do you drop the platter, you may ask? well, to open your menu/inventory, you need to right-click. very counterintuitive, i know. but you’ll get used to it. to drop an item, click it and drag it outside of any of the menus. you can either drop it directly beneath you, which usually happens, or you can place things directly onto surfaces like tables or shelves if you’re close enough to them.)

now you’re expected to go out the door across from the platter shelf. go out, and close the door behind you. there’s nobody in this side of the building, so with the door closed, you’re free to just jack anything you see without ramifications. there’s a lot of ingredients to take, if you want to get into alchemy (which can be useful, for either making beneficial potions or for making a quick buck), but most of what you want is the expensive stuff you’ll find. there’s a book you can take (books can be very expensive in this game), some silverware, a bottle of liquor called flin, a lockpick, and a shitty dagger. you’ll want to sell everything you get here except for the lockpick, and maybe the ingredients if you want to do alchemy. there’s a little chest on the bottom of the shelf by the exit that’s locked. you should be able to pick it with ease with the lockpick you just got, even though your security skill sucks atm. there’s like, 31 gold in there i think? worth taking regardless. to pick the lock, equip the lockpick (click and drag it onto the little portrait of your character in the left of your inventory screen), and “attack” (left-click) over and over while pointing your cursor at the chest until it unlocks. there’s a couple of torches you might want downstairs, as well.

after you’re done looting, leave the building. you’ll find yourself in a little courtyard. the game’ll tell you to look in the barrel by the next door, and take the enchanted ring you find inside. don’t get too attached to this ring. go into the next door and talk to sellus gravius, the guy inside. this is your first real encounter with morrowind’s dialog system. it is not like skyrim’s. at all. get used to it. this weird wikipedia like structure is going to be your best friend. you have a list of all available options on the right, and you can click highlighted options in the text itself. you can talk about whatever to sellus, but you have to say a couple specific things to progress. i can’t remember what it is exactly, but he doesn’t have much to say outside of it, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out. he’ll give you some money, a package for caius cosades, and a note with instructions on how to find caius cosades. don’t accidentally sell the package. don’t try to open the package. just leave it in your inventory until you’re ready to go find caius.

seyda neen:

after that, you’re free to go! and this time you’re really free, and you can do whatever you want now! but that’s a bit overwhelming, so i’m going to let you know what there is to do in this town, seyda neen.

first off, almost right outside the door there’s a bosmer (wood elf) named fargoth. he’s lost his ring. yes, that ring. give it to him. that’ll earn you better prices with the local merchant, who happens to be fargoth’s friend. don’t worry, if you want the ring, we’ll be getting it back later.

now to go make some money with all the shit we stole. go to arrille’s tradehouse, which is the building with the little raised platform adjacent. the “front” door is locked, it’s actually arrille’s house, so you have to go around on the platform to the real front door. go inside and talk to arrille. in the right pane of the dialog, you’ll see the option to barter with him. click that and get to selling your shit. 

here’s what you want to buy with the money you just got (around 500-600 gold). buy all the chitin armor pieces you can. it’s very good light armor for this stage in the game. buy the iron saber for now; you’ll be replacing it soon but you need something, and it’s cheap. buy one of the journeyman’s probes - you need these to disable traps - and one of the journeyman’s lockpicks, since the one you stole from the census office only has 10 uses. buy 3 bottles of sujamma - it’s a regional liquor that gives you +50 strength and -50 intelligence for 60 seconds. it’s VERY powerful for dealing with foes you normally shouldn’t be able to handle at a lower level. note the intelligence drop though: if you need to cast a spell, cast it before you drink the sujamma. buy 2 scrolls of almsivi intervention - like i said earlier, this teleports you to the nearest tribunal temple. lastly, buy 2 scrolls of ondusi’s unhinging. sometimes you need to open something that you just can’t pick with your too-low security skill. that’s where this scroll comes in.

yes, you just spent like, all of the money you just earned. it’s okay. we’re going to make it back and then some, soon.

before you leave arrille’s, go upstairs (behind him). talk to the guy, hrisskar flat-foot, at the top of the stairs. he’ll offer you a topic about recovering gold. he wants you to find out where fargoth (the ring guy) is hiding his gold and valuables. you’re going to help him find it, because YOU want those valuables as well. we’ll get back to this quest later, though.

next, talk to elone, the redguard behind the counter. she’s a scout, which means she knows a lot about the land. you can ask scouts all sorts of interesting questions about geography. but what you want from elone is directions to balmora. ask her about balmora and she’ll give you said directions in the form of a note.

finally, talk to the wizard lookin’ fella in the corner. ask him about the latest rumors. keep in mind what he says about mentor’s ring - we’ll be pursuing this later.

now, let’s make sure we equip all the armor and weapon we just bought. right-click to bring up your inventory/stats/map/magic menu, click on each piece of armor and weapon, and drag them onto the little portrait of your character to the left. that’s it! you’re equipped and ready to face the wilderness.

the wilderness, plus notes on combat:

leave arrille’s tradehouse from the door you came in from. jump off the corner of the platform into the water below, and cross that little river, heading west. on the far shore, you’ll find your first foe: a mudcrab! very scaaaaary! this is your introduction to combat. it works a little differently in this game. first of all, just because you SEE your weapon connect with an enemy, doesn’t mean it’s going to HIT necessarily. this game plays off of dice-rolls, and a lot of factors contribute to whether or not you’re gonna actually do damage. but the two most important factors are: 1) your level of skill with the weapon you’re using, and 2) your fatigue. that’s the green bar in the bottom left of your screen, what you’d call in skyrim your “stamina”. if your fatigue is low when you enter an encounter, you’re going to really struggle to fight!

here’s a somewhat annoying thing about fatigue: running at full speed diminishes it! so when you’re out in the wilderness, you’re going to want to conserve your fatigue by walking. it’s slow, but hopefully bearably so if you picked the steed as your birthsign. and it’s better than dying to a mudcrab because you were too tired to properly swing your weapon.

fortunately, there’s this thing called resting! if you’re out in the wilderness, you can press “t” to rest for as long as you’d like, or “until healed” (until your hp, magicka, and fatigue are completely restored). unfortunately, this close to seyda neen, you can only “wait” - all this does is restore your fatigue. it’s illegal to rest inside of most settlements, or even in their outskirts.

anyways, hopefully you’ve completely dominated that first mudcrab of yours. should go down in one hit, so long as you can connect. another thing to note: you may have noticed when you bought your saber that its damage stats are ranges. for instance, its chop stat (the one you’ll be using with your “always use best attack” enabled) is 5-18. to maximize your damage on the high end of that range, you’ll need to hold down your click for a second or so to wind up the attack. you’ll do a lot more damage this way rather than just mashing left mouse button!

anyways, after you’ve gotten your first kill, proceed along the coast, making sure to head between the rocks just up the way. you’ll find either a rat or a kwama forager (worm thing), and that’s how you know you’re going the right way. it’ll attack on sight, but there’ll be another critter there, a little grey insect looking thing called a “scrib” that thumps its tail on the ground and squeals. it’s not going to attack you when you get close, so don’t attack it. be nice. it’s just a little guy! if you do decide to attack it, though, you might be in for a nasty surprise: it has a paralyzing bite! a scrib can really catch you off guard at this low level. so leave the little guy alone!

across from the scrib, to the left, you’ll find a corpse. if you’ve been talking to the residents of seyda neen (i highly recommend you do) you may have heard that the local tax collector is missing. this is him. take the tax record and 200 gold from him. let’s read the tax record! to read any note or book from your inventory, click and drag it over your character portrait! this is really how you interact with anything in your inventory. note who has the highest unpaid tax to find a motive, but we’ll get back to that later. we’ve got some other stuff to do in the swamp.

proceed northwest, killing any little critters (except scribs!) that get in your way. pretty quick you’ll find yourself with a mountain on your right and the ocean on your left. follow the coast along those mountains. you’re going to find pretty quick a weird looking door on your right. that’s an ancestral tomb door! they all look like that. make a note of where this is, we’re coming back to it. keep progressing along the coast.

eventually you’ll find a little shipwreck. yes, that’s a ship, albeit a local, kinda weird-looking one. just before you get to the ship itself, there’ll be a chest next to a log that’s sticking up out of the water. there’s a silver longsword in there! take it, it’s your new weapon of choice, slightly better than your saber. now let’s explore the ship! get on board and take the trapdoor down to your right. at the end of the interior, next to the next trapdoor down, there’s a crate in the water with moon sugar in it! you may be familiar with skooma, the narcotic? moon sugar is what it’s made from. it’s very valuable, but also very illegal, so we’re going to have to be careful with how we sell it. we’ll get to that eventually.

take the trapdoor further down, and immediately swim up, bc you’re gonna be underwater! at the end of this section of the ship, you’ll find a little chest on the floor with 3 diamonds in it! woohoo! now let’s get out of here, that skeleton’s freaking me out. there’s nothing of note in the cabin section of the ship, so don’t worry about it. let’s go back to that tomb!

samarys ancestral tomb:

okay, right outside the tomb, SAVE! you need to save a LOT in this game if you want to make progress! i recommend having multiple running saves going as well as your quicksave. my most recent playthrough has 5 different saves that i cycle through. it’s a good way to make sure you don’t get stuck in untenable positions! make sure you have your silver longsword equipped and head on in.

once you’re in, open the door right across from you. in the next chamber, you’ll see these little raised things with jars on them. those jars have dead people in them! you don’t really want what’s in those jars, though - you want what’s next to them. always check next to these jars in ancestral tombs for valuables. most of the time it’s just clothes or ingredients, but sometimes, like in the case of the first jar on the right, there’s valuable scrolls! take it, and proceed down the corridor and turn right.

here’s your first challenge! a ghost! this is why we got the silver longsword first, because only silver weapons (or higher quality) or enchanted weapons can actually hit ghosts! this ghost knows a nasty little fire spell that can do quite a bit of damage if you don’t kill him quickly. just keep up your consistent, charged hits until he goes down. across from the entrance to this chamber is another jar-plinth with another scroll, this time an offensive one! take it, it might prove useful. save again!

on the other side of the next door is either a greater challenge or an even greater challenge. sometimes it’s just a skeleton, and sometimes it’s a lesser bonewalker, which can be very dangerous! take him down as quickly as you can, because bonewalkers often know very detrimental curses that can lower your attributes. save again after you kill it!

next, you want to disarm the trap on that urn in the bonewalker room. equip your journeyman’s probe and start clicking on that urn, just like you did with the chest in the census office! once the trap is disarmed, take mentor’s ring! told you we were gonna get that. it’s a very useful ring that increases your intelligence and willpower by 10 points each. go ahead and equip that. there’s a weird named ash in the urn, and a key to the chest next to it, but don’t bother. the chest never has anything valuable in it. don’t forget to reequip your silver longsword after you disarm the trap!

speaking of, here’s another little tip. press f1. this gives you the quick-select menu, where you can assign items or spells to your number keys. i’d put your main weapon (right now the silver longsword) on number 1, then put your most used spells on the next few numbers, in whatever order or fashion you prefer. makes swapping between items and spells much easier.

heading back to seyda neen:

leave the tomb and hug the mountains going east until you hit the road. then follow the road east some more until you see a man fall from the sky. yes, that just happened. he’s dead and free-game, so let’s loot him. take his nice enchanted sword (it’s slightly better than your current weapon, so long as it has a charge), equip his nice conical hat, and either equip his robes and shoes (you can wear robes over your equipped armor in this game! isn’t that so cool) or take them to sell later. take any gold he might have on him, and take those weird “scrolls of icarian flight” he has. do NOT use those scrolls. sell them. you will DIE if you try to use those scrolls. also, take a gander at his journal underneath him, and then take it to sell as well.

alright, from here, follow the road east and south back to seyda neen. let’s head back to arrille’s to sell some of the stuff we got. note that you are now carrying moon sugar, which as i said, is illegal. honest merchants won’t trade with you if you have moon sugar or skooma in your inventory. we’ll find some dishonest merchants later, don’t worry. but for now, you’ll have to simply drop the moon sugar on the floor before you start selling. don’t forget to pick it up when you’re done!

next, remember that guy you noted from the tax record, the one with the highest unpaid tax? we’re going to pay him a visit, ask what happened to the tax collector. i won’t tell you where he is; check the houses around seyda neen until you find the one with his name on the door. before you go in, save, and make sure your fatigue is up.

talk to him. he’ll confess to killing the tax collector, giving you the option of letting him go, or doing justice right then and there. do the justice. he’ll immediately attack you - with his fists. this might not sound scary to you at first. in later games, hand-to-hand combat merely does a little bit of damage to your health. in this game, hand-to-hand hits do damage to FATIGUE. and remember how important fatigue is? it affects everything, from physical combat to your chance at casting spells. so you’re gonna wanna take this guy down before he does too much damage to your fatigue. if your fatigue reaches zero, you get knocked out, falling to the floor. at this stage, hand-to-hand hits actually do damage to your HEALTH. and it’s easy to get trapped in a loop of getting knocked down. so don’t let that happen and kill him quickly. this fight is probably actually harder than the bonewalker, since this guy does a lot of damage to your fatigue with each hit, and you’re draining your own fatigue by swinging at him. but keep up with your consistent charged hits and you should be able to take him down.

be sure to take the ring he’s wearing! it’ll come in handy later. then loot the place - it’s effectively your house now, a decent starter shack. especially important is the book on the floor, which is a skill book increasing your mercantile skill, and sells for a pretty penny. there’s also some ingredients in the various barrels and sacks, if you’re into alchemy.

next, let’s go back to the census office. yes, the place you started at. talk to the old dude who set up your class and birthsign. there’ll be an option to report the murder. do so, and he’ll give you 500 gold. nice!

next, head on to the lighthouse on the coast. you should be able to see it from anywhere in seyda neen. step inside and talk to the lady immediately on your right. ask her about the ring you picked up from the murderer and she’ll give you two pretty high-quality healing potions! nice. now, head upstairs. there’s a very valuable book at the top you can take (the lady downstairs can’t see you now) which increases your unarmored skill. 

now head outside to the top of the lighthouse. stand at the corner facing the rest of the town, and wait until 10pm. if you’ve spent a lot of time resting/waiting, you might have missed your first 10pm, and will have to wait almost a day for the next one. don’t worry about it, you don’t have a time limit. now watch that little torch-wielding gremlin fargoth crawl around for a little bit. he’ll make a few stops along his way, but don’t worry, he can’t see you from up here (even though he does approach and stop in front of the lighthouse at one point). eventually he’ll stop by a tree-stump in a mucky pool - that’s where you need to go. once he walks away from there, head back down the lighthouse and go there. inside the stump you’ll find a bunch of gold, fargoth’s old healing ring, and a nice lockpick. take it all.

now, hrisskar wanted you to return with the money so he could split you a cut. instead, we’re just going to never talk to him again and keep all the money. there’s no repercussions for this at all, unless you’re a completionist who wants to finish every quest completely. but there’s not really a tracker for your completed quests, so it doesn’t really matter.

one last thing to do in seyda neen. we’re going to talk to an altmer (high elf) named eldafire. she can usually be found across the bridge towards the silt strider (the big bug thing you probably saw when you got off the boat), although she tends to roam a bit. ask her for a little advice. she’ll recommend you take out the bandits in the addamasartus cave nearby. let’s do that.

addamasartus cave:

the cave is right across from the silt strider landing, hiding behind a big boulder. save and rest until healed right outside the cave, then head on in. the first enemy shouldn’t be much of a problem to you at this point. she should go down in a few hits, and not get much of a chance to hurt you. take any valuables she might have, especially the addamasartus slave key.

the next enemy, who is beyond the door down to the right, is going to be much more challenging. he’s a mage who will cast a weakness to fire spell at you, and then cast a fire spell at you. you’re a dunmer, so you have some resistance to fire, but this guy can still fuck you up if you’re not careful. try to dodge his spells until he runs out of magicka and is forced to attack you in melee. or be brave and try to take some swings as you dodge. up to you. don’t be surprised if he kills you a time or two - he’s pretty tough. if you need to, go outside (or close to the front door) to rest to heal your wounds after he’s dead. or before he’s dead - no shame in running to fight another day.

okay, now that the hard part is done, we can explore the rest of the cave. go down the stairs to where that mage came from, and turn left when you get to the water. there’ll be another enemy, this one throwing throwing-stars at you. you can try to dodge them - they’re kind of small so it’s difficult to see them - or you can just tank the hits as you rush her down. they don’t do much damage. she’ll go down pretty easy, too. she’ll have a lockpick and probe - take them. if you picked marksman as your ranged skill, you can take the throwing stars as well, although they’re not as effective as a bow would be.

now, loot the room - the crates, sacks, chests, etc. the crates near where the throwing-star lady was should have a total of 8 moon sugar and 2 bottles of skooma in them. the chest will have a random leveled item (that is, an item suited to your level) - you might get lucky with this! in my test run, i got a steel daikatana, which is better than my silver longsword (except against ghosts). don’t forget the crates and barrel over by the water! sometimes the crates can have scrolls, potions, or soul gems in them.

next, go behind the rocks to the left of where the throwing-star lady was. you’ll find a door the slave key will unlock. on the other side of the door you’ll find a little stretch of water. at one point you’ll have to dive under to get to the next chamber - just watch your breath meter! but you shouldn’t have a problem, it’s not a very long dive. at the bottom of the water in the next chamber, you might be able to find a skull to the right. if not, don’t worry about it! but there is a rising force (levitation) potion right next to the skull. don’t drown yourself looking for it though, it’s not that important.

in this chamber, you’ll see a spiral pathway rising out of the water. find where you can clamber onto the pathway and follow it up. there’ll be a rat up there - but nothing you can’t handle. up there you’ll also find some glowing mushrooms. in between them there’s a few pieces of gold, a netch leather pauldron (don’t worry too much about that part - your chitin pauldron is better), and the important part, a “thief ring”! it’ll give you a decent buff when you need it. it’s a little tricky to see against the stone floor of the cave, but try your best to find it.

follow the rest of the passage until you come out near the beginning of the cave. you may have wondered why we went down (to where the mage was) instead of up to where there was a door earlier. we’re going to go up there now. your addamasartus slave key will open the door, and you’ll find two argonian slaves and a khajiit slave. talk to them and offer to let them go free, and unlock their bracers. congrats, you’re an abolitionist now! the game tracks how many slaves you’ve freed for a hidden faction you’ll find eventually. you need to free quite a few to join that faction, so try to free every one you can if you want to join.

now you’re done with addamasartus! feel free to leave. we’re done with seyda neen, now, as well, unless you want to head by arrille’s first to sell off some stuff before you leave. don’t forget to drop your moon sugar and skooma before you barter, and then don’t forget to pick it up before you leave!

onward!:

next stop, balmora, where the imperials wanted you to go. there’s a couple of ways we can get there. the first and easiest is to just hire a silt strider to take you there. those big bug things are basically giant buses, and they have routes all over the western half of the island. but i recommend you walk to balmora, following the directions elone the scout gave you. a big part of this game is exploration, and you’d better get used to it quick. don’t be afraid to get a little sidetracked here and there. explore the occasional cave or mine or tomb on your way - but always save before entering one, and know your limits. the dungeons in this game are largely not leveled to you, and if you enter the wrong one too early, it can really ruin your day. so don’t be afraid to turn around and leave, or load the save you made before entering, if things get too tough.

there’s a little town called pelagiad between seyda neen and balmora. feel free to stop there to restock if you need to. otherwise, just follow the road signs and elone’s directions. you’ll get to balmora in no time. and don’t forget! conserve your fatigue. you don’t want to be running everywhere, run out of fatigue, and then run into even a basic enemy you suddenly can’t handle because you can’t connect any of your hits.

once you get to balmora, go to the south wall cornerclub like you were told in your directions to caius cosades, and ask around to find out where caius lives. i’m not going to hold your hand on quest instructions any more! figure it out on your own. it’s not too hard, so long as you just remember to talk to people about important topics - usually “latest rumors,” “little secret,” “little advice,” and “morrowind lore.” but peruse the other topics, too! you might learn something about the people and place you’re in.

before caius gives you your first official orders, he’ll tell you to join a guild to establish a cover identity. there’s a lot of factions in this game you can join. you’ve got the imperial guilds: the fighter’s guild, the mage’s guild, and the thieves’ guild; the morag tong (essentially the dark brotherhood of this game, but a bit different flavor-wise, as well as in how it works); the religious guilds: the tribunal temple and the imperial cult; the imperial legion; and the great houses: house redoran, house hlaalu, and house telvanni. i won’t go into detail about all of these, but i will mention a few.

factions, and a bit on fast travel:

even if you don’t plan on playing through the questline, i recommend joining the mage’s guild. it gives you a couple of invaluable services: spellmaking, enchanting, and the guild guide. the first is self-explanatory: it lets you use any magic effects you’ve already learned to make custom spells from them. enchanting as a service is what it sounds like - you pay somebody to enchant items for you (you still need to bring a filled soul-gem, though). the guild guide is probably the most important, however. basically, it’s a teleportation service between the mage’s guilds of vvardenfell.

morrowind doesn’t have a fast travel system per se, but there are quicker ways to get around than just walking everywhere. we’ve mentioned the spells that can do this, like almsivi/divine intervention and mark/recall. but you can also take the bus (silt strider) across most of western vvardenfell, or a boat across most of eastern vvardenfell. but those two systems are largely disconnected; the only real way to trade off is to silt strider to vivec, walk (or divine intervention) to ebonheart, then take a boat to sadrith mora or tel branora, or vice versa. 

but the mage’s guild guild guide solves this problem rather nicely! you can teleport from anywhere in the west to sadrith mora in the east much more quickly than the silt strider-boat trade off in vivec and ebonheart. so join the mage’s guild, i’m serious.

the only other factions i’m going to mention are the houses. they’re very important, and you’re going to want to join one. and only one, i might add - once you join one, you’re locked into it. so make your choice wisely. here’s a brief description of each house:

house redoran is a house of noble warriors, whose capital is ald’ruhn, literally inside the hollowed out remains of an ancient giant crab. they are most favored by the local warrior-poet god, vivec, and most of the buoyant armigers (vivec’s personal army) are from redoran.

house hlaalu is a house of sneaky merchants, whose capital is balmora. they’re the most closely affiliated house to the empire, whereas the other two are distrustful of the empire - and therefore distrustful of house hlaalu.

house telvanni is a house of arrogant wizards, whose capital is sadrith mora (literally translates to “mushroom forest”). they live in settlements built around giant fungal wizard towers, and are most distant and distrustful of the new forces (like the empire) in vvardenfell. they’re also most likely to own slaves, although they will accept argonian and khajiit as members all the same.

there is a bit of a disparity when it comes to the rewards you get from quests from these houses. telvanni gifts you with powerful spells and enchanted items; hlaalu gives you gold; redoran gives you, um. “honor.” which doesn’t sell for much in this economy. that might affect your decision here, but really, choose whichever faction appeals to you most. you’ll be able to get your hands on lots of money and powerful artifacts regardless of which house you choose. 

i think that’s about all you really need to know to get started in this game! really, the best piece of advice i can give you is: take your time. take in the atmosphere, the lore, the books, the dialog. absorb yourself into this game and you will have the most amazing experience with it, i think. if you have any questions, let me know!

P.S. i’m going to add things to the end of this as i think of them:

a lot of the time, you’re going to run into people you need information from who won’t give it to you. every npc has a disposition stat, basically how much they like you, and if it’s too low, they won’t discuss certain topics. there’s a few ways to increase their disposition. 1) use the speechcraft skill to admire, intimidate, or taunt the npc. (taunting actually serves a different purpose to the other two, but we’ll get to that shortly.) 2) use a spell, namely the “charm” effect from the illusion school of magic, to temporarily raise their disposition with you. 3) increase your personality attribute, like with telvanni bug musk (always a good item to have around). and 4) bribe the hell out of them. you can bribe in 10 gold, 100 gold, and 1000 gold increments. 100 gold tends to be the most efficient way to bribe, and most people will open up to you after about 200 gold spent this way. money isn’t exactly difficult to come by in this game, especially after the first few levels, so this greasing of the wheels of commerce won’t hurt your wallet too much.

okay, that’s about how to increase a npc’s disposition. how about the scenario where you need (or want) to kill an npc without getting a bounty on your head? simple: either 1) take them out into the wilderness where there are no witnesses (this only works in cases where you can get this person to follow you, such as by using the conjuration school’s “command humanoid” effect), 2) use the “frenzy humanoid” effect from the illusion school to get them to attack you (this shouldn’t trigger a bounty, or for their friends to attack you as well), or 3) “taunting” them to get them to attack you. if your speechcraft is low, this will take many tries, because most of the time your attempt to taunt will fail, and also because it generally takes several successful taunts to get an npc to actually attack you. but you don’t have to worry about using a spell this way, and if you’re patient it’ll work out just the same. 

another thing to note: if you’re on an assignment from the morag tong to kill somebody, you’ll get what’s called a “writ” with their name on it. the morag tong, unlike the dark brotherhood, is a government-sanctioned entity - using the tong to have someone killed is completely legal. this writ is your permission to kill that person. you don’t have to worry about incurring a bounty when you have a writ - you can just straight up merk somebody in broad daylight. watch out, though - sometimes that person’s nearby friends will attack you too. most of the time, though, although they might shout about it, nobody will report the crime. if somebody does, expect to be approached by a guard. in that instance, just present your writ to them, and they’ll be forced to let you go. (if this appeals to you, consider joining the morag tong. although every major city has a morag tong chapterhouse, you can only join the tong from the headquarters in vivec city. i won’t tell you exactly where those headquarters are in vivec - it’s actually fun trying to figure out on your own. just ask around and you’ll figure it out.)

okay, i forgot to mention. once you’ve leveled up your major or minor skills 10 times (repeats of the same skill count as well), you’ll get a notification saying it’s time to level up. to do this, you need to sleep in a bed. simply resting won’t do it. you need some kind of bed. make sure it’s a bed you’re allowed to sleep in! i recommend saving before trying to sleep in a bed. sometimes you’ll find a bed in like a mages guild and assume it’s free game but it’s actually someone in particular’s bed and you get expelled from the guild for trying to sleep in it. not a fun time. 

since you’ll have the goty edition of the game, you’ll have tribunal enabled. that means sometimes when you rest you’ll get attacked by a dark brotherhood assassin. they’re not too tough, though, and they have very useful and very expensive armor and usually a decent weapon. if you want the attacks to stop, talk to a guard about them. but why would you, it’s free money. 

i forgot to mention in the main body of this guide, but there are only a handful of places where you can pawn off your skooma and moonsugar. there are two in balmora: there is ajira, the resident alchemist of the balmora mage’s guild, and ra’virr, a merchant whose store is right next to the mage’s guild. in general, if a merchant is a khajiit, and normally deals in ingredients or potions, they’re likely to buy skooma and moonsugar. 

another thing: you do have a journal! your character automatically records most important information in it about your quests. now, this is an actual journal, with entries in chronological order. so it can be difficult to find relevant information by just looking through it normally. if you have the goty edition (which you should) you have the option to categorize by topic and quest! should be a button on the right. not all quests are marked, but most are. 

[hard-for-harding]

another bunch of clowns trying to bring DA: TV down lmao. 1. dragon age was always "woke" b1tch3s, time to wake up. if you havent noticed this while playing DA:O, you're more stupid than you probably look. 2. crying that the graphics look outdated / ugly / cartoonish etc - on one hand game was in development for a very long time, on the other hand at least it will be optimized for a lot of PCs, and y'all console ppl won't have to worry you're struggling to maintain 60fps... this isnt a COD game or else that it needs photorealistic raindrops and graphics that will be a struggle to run even on high-end PCs and sweating consoles. then you'd be crying that it needs 400gb free space on your SSD and its lagging and barely have 20fps. the game looks pretty as it is, and im sure it will be also well optimized. 3. DA: O combat was better - great, go play that game! GLHF! 4. the game has pronouns - why do everyone pisses their pants when an RPG game lets you choose your pronouns? this is literally 1-click in the game, and no one is forcing you to use something you don't want to? 5. LGBTQ+ in the game - as disclosed before, there were always LGBTQ+ in the game. no one forces you to have mlm or wlw playthroughs in the game! and just bc you dont want this, let other ppl enjoy the game as they want.

6. "Where are the white men?" - up your @$$. srsly, there will be plenty of white men in the game... y'all need a video game that has only male player characters, male npcs, so even if you go to get a quest from the queen the queen will be a white man, and you can earn to marry her daughter whos also a white man.

7. Morrigan - honestly she looks better than ever imho, no one cares that incels dont find her hot enough. go play any korean made game like the first descendant and you'll see plenty of @$$ and T1ts. Closing: you need to accept that there are billions of games out there, and hundreds of millions of ppl are playing them - not all games are going to be up your alley for whatever reason, and you need to accept that. i dont give a damn about WoT, WoW, COD, etc other games you play and im not talking shit about it either on the forums. if youre doing that, you need to crawl out of mama's basement, take a needed shower to wash off your sweaty opinions, and get a life, touch some grass.

[purplespacekitty]

just wanna formally apologize to anyone i've been INTENSE about Riverdale to. not because i love Riverdale. because Jughead Jones is canonically touch-averse and aroace and i will never, EVER, evereverevereverever forgive Riverdale for willfully ignoring that.

also, they barely showed our boy with any burgers or fries or milkshakes or gummy worms or any kind of food throughout the whole show. a travesty. dude held a PC controller maybe once. and uh, i don't think they ever had him playing his drum set. ...they tried to do the whole music thing, but The Archies never happened on Riverdale. could have been a great way to keep Josie and the Pussycats in the picture as crossovers between the two comic lines (and additionally, with Sabrina The Teenage Witch) have commonly been used to keep stories going, but it just dissolved before it could even start. anyway, Jughead Jones was born to eat burgers, dispense witty remarks on his friends’ social drama, wage prank wars and play drums, it's literally his destiny (and so is being Archie's best bud).

and like.

here's the thing.

i know, i know, i know that Riverdale isn't the Archie Comics. it's "edgy" or whatever. but like, have you ever read the Archie Comics?????? there are hundreds of storylines more edgy than Riverdale's and in (probably) every single one of them, Jughead eats more net burgers than he eats in all 7 seasons of Riverdale. he has his little angsty plots and crazy nonsensical adventures and is never as deprived of food and games as he is in Riverdale.

he's been this way since 1939, when the Archie Comics first came about. granted, video games didn't exist then, but his whole deal has always been eating burgers and being Archie's best pal. he's a breath of fresh air, a glass of cold water to the face for Archie and the gang to snap them out of their various problems (mostly love- and dating-related, but sometimes friendship- or science or general-good-time-adventure-related). he is often the voice of reason, which is why Riverdale!Jughead doesn't really work. original Jughead has a unique perspective, being primarily preoccupied with food and video games and avoiding all potentially romantic/sexual situations that might involve him: he can observe everything without getting (too) mixed up in all of it. and the more wisdom he imparts to his friends; the more jokes and witty comments he concocts during a given meet-up at Pop's; the more he goofs off and plays pranks on his friends and enemies, the more secure their collective friendship is. and he's perfectly happy with the state of things. he doesn't yearn for romance or sex, all he truly yearns for is a day spent eating burgers with his friends. as long as he has a snack readily available, he's happy to be alone or on an adventure. his natural state is in solitude, which is a state he sometimes has to seek out, but he never has to go far in any quest for company. it's exactly where he wants to be. he would rather eat his cake and eat it, too. Riverdale!Jughead inserts himself into the chaos, which original Jughead would rather play a game of football against Reggie than willfully do.

i think Riverdale tried to play into Jughead's comfortability with and preference for his general nonconformism with that whole "i’m a weirdo" speech, but ultimately failed because in the end, they still had him conforming to norms the original Jughead scoffs at. and Bughead, as the literal 85 years of Archie Comics and 7 seasons of Riverdale (in which Bughead basically become kinda-sorta-maybe-almost-pseudo step-siblings??? idk the whole thing between FP and Alice just makes it too weird for me) clearly demonstrate, added nothing to either Jughead’s or Betty’s characters and only contributed to the erasure of one of the longest running aroace characters there is. when the comics did try to give Jughead love interests, it was either extremely out of character, played for laughs as a way to shame him for not being interested in romance or just simply…didn’t work. usually some combination of all of the above. because Jughead is fundamentally aroace and has no desire to be with anyone in a romantic or sexual way. plus it kinda messes up the whole premise of the Archie Comics? teenage boy can’t choose between best friends Girl Next Door and Uptown Girl, who both care for him and each other equally, so he dates them both? it would have been way more refreshing to see them explore the complex open/polyamorous relationship that Archie, Betty and Veronica have been negotiating for 85 years through a more queer and empathetic lens than what Riverdale actually turned out to be. maybe they wouldn’t have erased Jughead’s queerness or sidelined other canonically queer characters (i.e. Kevin, Toni, Fangs, etc.) if they’d taken that route. it would be cool to see a plot within the Archie universe constructively centering queerness as a main element of its characters as storyline.

Riverdale refused to keep the most essential parts of the original Jughead's character: aversion to physical touch, romance and sex, an aggressive adoration for burgers, rhythm and musicality and his ability to separate himself from tense situations in order to problem-solve. what the other characters often sneer at or find frustrating about him are actually the things that solidify his importance in their lives. he balances them out. and there are moments when his friends recognize and celebrate that. and him being this essential, inextricable part of an iconic friend group in the comics is an extremely heartwarming thing to see as an arospec/acespec person, myself.

this was supposed to be an apology, wasn't it...oops? sorry?

Riverdale just kinda missed the whole point of Jughead Jones. and i WILL be salty about it forever.

[junkyardisles]

emulation sources

roms megathread (ssa wii u internet archive download) (may require cdecrypt if not downloading roms through usbhelper) dolphin wiki + download rpcs3 wiki + download cemu wiki + download zadig (if using a real portal. i know dolphin and rpcs3 have portal emulation, unsure with cemu) prototype builds: giants builds (useful info), ssa xpec builds, swap force build, superchargers build

will update if i get any more information. feel free to add anything additional info based on stuff i've toyed with (i don't know my specs): > you may need to allow a usb passthrough in dolphin, it's in the config > as stated on the wikis, cemu requires updating the usb input driver while dolphin requires zadig to have it changed to a libusb/winusb driver (either work about half the time. technology moment). the portal is under spyro porta. i recommend having separate portals for cemu and dolphin so you don't need to mess with drivers > i used vulkan graphics for cemu and default for dolphin. i'm not a tech guy though so just play with whatever works best ig i just use default settings. portal compatability guide > for dolphin gif making, i used 8x msaa anti aliasing and had the internal resolution as 1920x1080. for the most part it ran average on a half dead computer from 2015. i'd recommend 1280x720 w/ no or minimal anti aliasing though > ssa and giants' main gameplay both ran mostly fine with vbi skip on (though i haven't checked heroic challenges) with occasional drops to 12fps, only superchargers racing's first cup and parts of the second have been tested > never used rpcs3 and i don't know if citra can run skylanders games, until i learn more it'll be absent > swap force is pretty broken on cemu, lawl > ir sensors for dolphin will need to be configured if using something like an xbox controller, have relative input on so the cursor doesn't snap back to the middle > ssa and giants can lag often and being in the ruins starting from around the middle part of the game will be noticeably slower. co-op is very slow. cemu handles co-op great though and generally is pretty fast > if you wanna play online with a friend, get parsec > if not using the console's controller type, i'd recommend just using your own controls rather than setting them to whatever makes sense (like having the trigger be your primary instead of something like A w/ an xbox controller) > if the game lags hard enough your skylander might disconnect for a sec (only experienced in giants when recording with obs). pausing the game for a couple seconds if having lag usually fixes it > dolphin games run fine when being recorded w/ obs or streamed on discord. haven't checked cemu yet > cutscenes in dolphin always have a weird like. screen tearing? thing? as far as i know there's no way to fix it, but they play fine besides that > newer (experimental) versions of cemu seem to break with skylanders >if you're getting wii u roms from the internet archive you'll need to get cdecrypt. its newest release is super easy to use (drag the rom folder onto it and it'll do everything for you, thank god) >dolphin is the only emulator with freecam >superchargers racing was buggy on both computers i got it on. 2015 pc wouldn't launch it and my 2022 laptop disconnects the portal after every race, requiring the game to be restarted >cemu would crash after doing about two races (updated 31/8/2024. added another piece of info)

[peachenle]

enhypen as frat boys

genre: head canon | fratboy!au | suggestive themes

members: enhypen's hyung line

word count: 1k

warnings: mentions of drinking, hook ups; a lot of Greek life lingo

perm tag list: @ozymandia-s

༄࿔˚✧ synopsis: the older enhypen boys as typical frat bros, with glimpses of them in all their party glory.

TOO YOUNG TO DIE. TOO DRUNK TO LIVE.

// HEESEUNG is…

an executive board member for the chapter for SURE. Not quite president, something less taxing like Alumni Liaison or House Manager. Heeseung LOVES to help DJ at parties, he’ll drop his mixes if the party that weekend was successful.

Heeseung’s not above hookups at the house and is (notoriously) clumsy about forgetting to sexile/warn the other brothers. Super flirty with or without alcohol, making him a big fan amongst regular partygoers. Outside of parties you will never see him outside doing charity runs or any events that are super outdoorsy… he’d opt to volunteer to be the bro at the check-in table, or a driver… he’s a lil lazy… but he never fails to complete his duties! Strangely good at kegstands despite being so tall. Beer pong and beer die king.

When he was pledging, he was so enthusiastic and willing to do whatever embarrassing thing the upperclassmen threw at him… Heeseung’s passion, it almost scared them. He was paired with everyone’s desired Big AND was the most sought after Little in his pledge class.

"Theoretically, do I really have to play beach volleyball with the dudes?" "Heeseung, it's rush AND you're an exec, the answer is always going to be yes..." "Yeah, but it the League LCK semi finals..."

// JAY is…

definitely another exec: either VP or Risk Manager or Panhell Chair or something like that — he’s the strictest one on board. Everyone’s intimidated by him, he’s strict about deadlines, he’s always the one assigned to do the scolding… but he can DRINK (all the bros wanna be him). Jay is also not shy about hookups and letting loose at parties. He charms people by making drinks, offering them his special brandy/cabernet/etc he’s been “saving for the right person.” The bottles are always at least half gone because of the amount of people he’s shown. A wild card when it comes to beer pong. Some nights he'll dominate, but other nights, he's truly a disgrace.

Had a HARD time during pledge, (a lot of the dudes were jealous of his popularity!) and was picked on a lot, so Jay had his doubts. But getting his bid meant way more than he expected. Would definitely be the type to stay in touch as an alumni, going to events, dropping fat checks here and there. Every potential Little wants Jay as their big, he SPOILS them like crazy… (rumor has it that he’s planning on buying his latest Little a whole new custom PC...)

"Please I don't want Jay as my partner!" "Why? I beat them at pong last time?" "Yeah, but your track record dude... one and done..."

// JAKE is…

the life of the party. He’s the most welcoming to new people at the house, ushering wallflowers to the core of the action. He’s all about slinging arms around people, drunkenly claiming new friends, and his giggly laughter is CONTAGIOUS. He doesn’t have much interest in a leadership role, but he’s been Rush Chair for two terms and he absolutely killed it each time. Jake often volunteers to be a sober chaperone, because “I know how to have fun sober too!”. In this role, you’ll always see his hands full of mini water bottles and a plastic bag or two in his pocket as he patrols the house. Jake is the more studious type of frat bro, sometimes snapping at his bros to keep quiet the night before an exam (he’s studying physics, of course). And no, not really the hookup type at parties… Jake is too soft for that and enjoys the energy of the party too much to leave it for a quickie. His drinking game of choice is King's Cup, just because he likes to try to fool people into drinking more.

Surprisingly breezed through the pledging process despite not being that big of a drinker, and got picked up by a really good Big in the same major (they put each other as number 1 choice). As an upperclassman, he’s a little awkward navigating as the Big Bro - referring to his Little as his son. He means well, but can be a little embarrassing!

"Oh, you're the Question master? What was your name again?" "Nice try, you're not gonna get me." "Sorry, what? Music's too loud." "I said, 'Nice tr-'" "Gotcha. Drink up!"

// SUNGHOON is…

not your average frat boy - only in looks <3. He was way more reluctant to be involved than one may expect. He genuinely pursued it for the friendship/camaraderie/The Brotherhood. But the parties and attention were a plus. To outsiders, he looks a step out of place, always laughing AT his bros, not usually WITH them. Real ones know that he can be just as chaotic. Especially after a pint of beer and maybe 1.5 shots - that’ll do it for him. Always cracking lame jokes, earning the nickname of Dad amongst his class. Hooking up is not his thing, but if someone has really caught his eye… well, a private conversation on a balcony doesn’t have to mean too much, right? Sunghoon surprisingly really enjoys Rage Cage, and honestly, he's the type to purposefully miss his ball sometimes just to have to drink.

He's really good at tabling and mingling with potentials. His frat wants to make him their poster child - there's a solo picture of Sunghoon in every Instagram slideshow that's posted.

He barely rushed, but he worked his ass off as a pledge. Sunghoon was also another fan-favorite to be picked up as a Little. As a Big… other than him paying for a lot of things… when it comes to advice and the mentorship side of things, let’s just say its hard to tell who’s the Big and who’s the Little sometimes.

"You guys have used my pictures like 5 times this week for all the rush posts..." "Hey, don't look at me, Sunghoon. Blame our media guy! He says your face attracts the most likes." "I should charging... can you take it out of my dues?"

BONUS:

// SUNOO is…

desired by every social frat. But he couldn’t find any that appealed to him. Embarrassing for them really, their desperation. Sunoo found more of his home in a service frat! Has access to parties, the classic Big/Little pairing still, but in a more diverse environment with less pressure and more focus on the academic/philanthropic side of things.

Sunoo still gets invited to the crazy frat houses, in case he changes his mind, but only goes for the alcohol and the excuse to go out with friends. He’s friendly and magnetic at parties, befriending nearly everyone that gets lucky enough to talk with him. Every next morning he wakes up to tens of new follow requests from people he doesn’t even remember.

[purgetrooperfox]

Hewwo 👉👈 Do you have any roach hcs or info to share? I don't think I know him

well he's only in mw09 and cod mobile so 😅 there's like. basically nothing to his personality in canon

he's British in mw09 and American in codm iirc but they're two separate canons and it's all very silly

in mw09 he's one of the primary player characters, faceless and voiceless per tradition. he was a sergeant in 141 under Soap, worked a bunch of ops with him and a few with Ghost and a couple with Price. you can find a list on the wiki

I don't know jack about codm but here are some comic panels a friend of mine showed me dkdjdjfjjf only the bottom four are sequential, he's in the mask and goggles

I think he's just an operator skin in the codm game? and it's just a copy-pasted milsim skin that they called Roach? but whatever lmao

I don't know if you care about plot or spoilers so I won't uh. put the big one here

and that's it, that's canon Roach :)

but Roach in my brain,,, ⬇️

I personally am very fond of American Roach. southern Roach my beloved. I think he deserves to be yeehaw. giving him a small town upbringing and no one can stop me

I also think he deserves to be a weapons expert for two reasons. 1) southerner, 2) as the pc he's equally competent with every weapon he gets his hands on. good for him

honestly a lot of how I think about him is influenced by how I play mw09. scrappy in a fight, plenty willing to smack a mf with his gun, deeply sarcastic commentary, aversion to stealth missions, etc etc

more ⬇️

bolt action enthusiast but not much for sniping, etc etc

I also tend to think of him as kind of an asshole! abrasive! not all the time but his tolerance for bullshit is low. he won't throw hands but he'll tear you a new one so thoroughly that thrown hands might be preferable

blunt might be the word I'm looking for. blunt in general, abrasive and snappy on occasion

what else. uhhhh

heavy smoker

the most stubborn bastard on the planet. this is beneficial in wearing Ghost down enough to [redacted]

cough. ghostroach go brr. they rile each other The Fuck Up. Ghost is a proven hardass but what I like about 09 Ghost is that it's fully plausible that he's also got a sense of humor, no one traipses around in that mask with those glasses without a sense of humor

and that combination resonates at the same frequency as Roach from my brain. insults as flirting but they both know it's flirting. refusal to cede an inch of ground when Ghost is in hardass mode. frantic desperation and also quiet, fragile intimacy. so much trust

do you see my vision?

Roach from my brain also has immense, bottomless respect for Soap. that's his captain that's his buddy he'd follow him into hell. blind trust that gets reinforced every time Soap doesn't get them all killed

more wary of Price! Price is a little unhinged! no lack of respect, he's just MonkaHmm squinting a bit. morbid curiosity about just how far he'd go

there's no proof that Roach wasn't around when Gaz was so I'll run with it. Gaz was an inspiration to him. his unhingedness was fine by Roach because crucially, Gaz wasn't a captain. I miss Gaz

anyway I feel like I could ramble on but this is like. the core of him. always happy to chat though!

[wsdalt]

a "little" post on rubens and self-preservation. quick disclaimer that as much as i've rewatched calamidade, there's always things i could be missing or misremembering, but i definitely hope everything i'm saying is accurate pfft. (and there are things i didn't go into detail about because it will add another few hundred words to this post). it will go under the cut, but here's the first few paragraphs:

One of my favourite things about rubens is how much he isn’t a self-sacrificial character. And that stands out very much because in the season he’s in every other PC is a self-sacrificial character (just look at the scene where they were trying to figure out the puzzle with the masks—everyone was attempting to take the potential pain of failure, but rubens didn’t)

This isn’t to say he won’t put his life on the line to help others (you have to, in this line of work—and I would say he does it more the longer the season goes on (I mean… you saw what happened with kian)), but he is certainly more reserved than the others—to the point where you can pick up on it and note it. In fact, clarissa did in canon, too. He has run from at least one fight even though he was drawn back to it, and his preference against close quarters fighting despite having a weapon for that is also noticeable

And at first it seems kind of selfish, even if it’s an understandable fear. and maybe it's mostly just selfish because you’re looking at it in the context of a self-sacrificial group in a usually self-sacrificial series

But i love the way felps plays it because it’s not that he’s an asshole about it or partially self-serving (as mentioned, he still tries to help with fights and for most of it he could leave whenever he wanted) it’s just that he’s scared. And that’s understandable because it’s a scary world they live in, and he didn’t seem too confident with fighting in opd either

But the further along you go (/the more you think about it) the more it starts to take on a more specific shape. In the end, it mostly ties back to johnny one way or another—and expanding on that thought under the cut:

So here’s the first layer: He’s just recently experienced a major shake up regarding how safe he actually is because his partner and best friend just got badly injured and he’s trying to play it safe. A brutal, traumatic reminder of just how dangerous this line of work is and that anything can go wrong at any moment no matter how experienced you are

Then there’s the second layer: Johnny and Rubens’ dynamic was very much brawn + brain. In their one opd episode together Johnny had pretty much double Rubens’ health, and in episode one of calamidade it’s mentioned Rubens has only ever worked in a duo before. which suggests that it is, in fact, usually just him and johnny

Rubens is… uncomfortable with close quarters fighting suggesting he’s not used to it, but despite that he isn’t afraid to jump in and attack. however at the start of the fight johnny pushes rubens behind him, and rubens doesn’t complain about it or try to stop him. Rubens is also established to know some medicine so:

It feels like: “johnny taking the brunt of the hits while rubens acts as support” could be a logical, pre-existing move of theirs. After all it does make sense, and rubens plays support a lot during late game calamidade too. If rubens (with much less health than johnny, meaning he will go down quicker) goes down and johnny doesn’t know medicine well, it’s going to be a lot harder for him to keep rubens alive than it would be for rubens to keep johnny alive if the situation is reversed. It’s… rough. But it is a tactical move

So: suddenly, rubens is thrown into a group of people who he doesn’t have that arrangement with after just experiencing a major (kind of) loss and a full shattering of whatever illusions he might’ve had about his safety. It makes sense that he seems a lot more jumpy, and a lot more hesitant to join a battle front on (and again: he does fight regardless of this fear. He’s just also very visibly less reckless/self-sacrificing than the others) 

And it really is easy to attribute that to just… being in active battle and finding it hard to fight his instincts. That is certainly part of it, as he mentions to clarissa that he isn’t sure why he ran from a battle—it was just instinct, and he knows he needs to fight it

But what about the above mentioned scene with the mask puzzle? Everyone else was trying to take damage for the others, but he’s the only one who doesn’t volunteer. In his rational mind, he’s already decided to put himself in harm’s way with this job. But he still doesn’t volunteer here. i think if he was asked to, he would take the damage (like when they were trying to open the door in opd). but he wasn't asked to, so he doesn't offer 

Here’s layer three:

This doesn’t come up until closer to the end of the series, but rubens talks to johnny through audio recordings + at his bedside at the hospital. One of the main things he repeats throughout all of that is that he’s “coming back” to johnny. (it’s mentioned like… six separate times at least) When he records the messages he says he’ll be back soon, and when he’s at the hospital he keeps saying that he has to do something dangerous and that the mission isn’t over yet, but he’ll come back. He’ll try to come back. He’ll always come back 

I would say part of his hesitation isn’t entirely trauma-driven self-preservation combined with a technically outdated mindset to his role in his team since he’s now part of a new team with different dynamics—I would say a good part of it is just a need to be there for johnny when he wakes up again

Rubens goes against his team occasionally for johnny. The situation doesn’t come up often, but it is very much there. Rubens kills two Host cultists without waiting for his team’s input, despite there being somewhat of a consensus on keeping them alive, at least briefly

(the first one i don’t think they had decided on what to do with her yet when they found out she was lying, and the second one— despite team argument—they decided on keeping him alive because he might not be bad.

Rubens of course only kills both of them when he’s certain they’re bad, but there’s a distinct lack of communication about it which is emphasised by—after killing the first one—he ignores the rest of his team for a bit so he can search for information by himself. this includes ignoring balu's attempts to get a heal from him—which i would say he only did because dante can also heal and it wasn't serious, but it's still interesting to note)

Johnny is very much intertwined in the things he does. He has johnny’s shirt around his waist, and carries around johnny’s knife to kill Host cultists specifically because it was the Host who hurt johnny, (if i’m translating it correctly) when he ascended johnny was pretty much directly mentioned + rubens said he wished he got out of this life with johnny at the start, and—most importantly to this particular post—he will value self-preservation so he can get back to johnny

(Sidenote: but it’s also interesting how this directly impacts the wider plot, too. Both Carina and Balu (if i’m remembering correctly) mention that they picked the Masks over the Host because of rubens’ experiences with—and (understandable) hatred of—the Host)

And i have to finish this off by saying that despite all this—despite the various layers that feed into his aversion to being self-sacrificial—he let joui kill him at the end of the games. He let Joui win because Joui asked him to let that happen even though he had no idea what would happen to himself

They all hoped that the people who lost before would wake up and be okay of course, but they had no confirmation that that would happen. As far as rubens was aware, he was allowing himself to be put into a magical coma with no cure or potential for recovery.

This death has so much meaning to me. even though it doesn’t stick, and there’s no consequences, and rubens wakes up pretty much straight away, anyway. It’s arguably the safest self-sacrificial death in the entire series and he wasn’t even the first one to do it in the games. But it’s a major change from everything rubens has done before, and must’ve been extremely difficult for him to accept

(it’s also interesting that rubens—if i’m remembering correctly—never rolls to attempt to take over from Amalia despite everyone else trying at least once so they could sacrifice themselves for someone else on the team, even if they failed. The only time he does is when Joui directly talks to him and even then he fails the rolls enough that cellbit has to word of god let him succeed. I think rubens was… somewhat glad that he didn’t have to take control in this. He didn’t have to choose between his friends and his survival. He could just let amalia keep them both alive) 

But yes, anyway… not really sure how to end this oops, but rubens’ lack of self-sacrificial nature in a group of self-sacrificial people is very very interesting to me—especially because of how much goes into it + the moment i mentioned above where he does essentially let himself be killed*

+ the fact that despite his prioritisation of Johnny and his self-preservation he still continues to put himself in harm’s way even after mentioning that he felt he got closure from the fight with the Host—and he almost died to Kian because of this. And when he talks to Johnny again it sounds like he’s going to continue to help them—because as much as the mission became about the Host for a bit, he wasn't put in that team for that to begin with

he doesn't want to be here, and he's scared, and he's not inherently self-sacrificial like the others in his team, but he will try his best to help—and i love that \o/!! i think it's such an interesting character choice \o/!! okay post over congrats if you got to the end, this is like 1700 words

*(and i do find it very sweet that joui returned this emotional step of his by focusing entirely on him when everyone woke up despite the fact arthur and dante’s losses were the ones that were freaking him out the most because of how close he is to them. Of course it’s because joui felt extremely guilty for killing him, but i don’t think rubens (or anyone watching) would necessarily blame him if he got caught up in the relief of arthur and dante being okay. So it’s sweet that all his focus was on rubens \o/)

[essektheylyss]

World Wizard Entertainment: After Hours

I did want to write a little thing now that I am done making a vicious mockery of Vince McSam, because this was really a WILD week and I do love a debrief.

Honestly, when I sat down to make a bracket last week, I was not committed to posting it, I was not going to make any graphics, and I definitely was not planning to run a tournament.

....Obviously that changed, but you already know that.

Really I just wanted to figure out how hard it would be to properly seed a tournament in fandom. I've already talked about that elsewhere so I won't get into it, but when you're building a tournament, you want it seeded for intrigue in later rounds, even if round one match-ups are very lopsided.

But once I had it, I was thinking about how different polls have gone in the past. Specifically, I had written a post during some earlier polls with Laerryn and Essek competing that was commenting, you know, if we're talking duel, Essek loses, 100%. He'd have a prayer in hell of winning, and there are no gods here or whatever. And the poll in which Laerryn and Essek were matched up, which Aabria made a very funny joke about, wasn't even a wizard poll! It was just sexiest character or something. But the thing is, a lot of polls have been really vague about what criteria to vote on, and there's a reason for that! A lot of polls like that are going to have an obvious winner. And because of how these spread, you are going to have a lot of people voting purely on popularity or name recognition, including plenty of people who are not super engaged in fandom since there are lots of lurkers (and we love them! hi, lurkers!), and also random people outside the fandom who just vote on any poll, so you have to account for that.

But we have polls now, and fandom is fun and chaotic, so I wondered... could you game it for an unexpected result?

I cannot turn down a challenge once I've come up with it for myself, so at that point, I actually built a tournament.

For a lot of the week, in all but the most meaningless and random of situations, I thought the answer was no! We got Ludinus kicked in the first round, which I mostly did to stir up a little drama, because round one was pretty calm and quiet.

By the quarterfinals, it got tougher. At that point there were more folks engaging, but a lot of the tags were, "Didn't we already decide this?" and I was like, well, no one is watching March Madness year after year going, "Well, Gonzaga* is the best and that's decided I guess," (except maybe Gonzaga fans, but knowing some of them, they are really serious about their basketball). They're there because there's chance involved. A great team can lose to an underdog in an early upset. Also, there's always the bracket contest, which is another layer of gamification that adds some interest. (Sidebar, can you tell yet that I wrote a paper on gamification when applying to grad school? Lulz.) But like I've mentioned, fandom polls are highly stacked to be popularity contests. How do you introduce some chance and intrigue?

As it turns out, you call the Veth stans, which I sure wouldn't have guessed, so I'm glad they turned up anyway.

But in all seriousness, with a poll like this, it's really not about deciding who is The Wizard. (For the record, with my url fully visible, the answer is absolutely Laerryn Coramar-Seelie. She is seeded first for a reason!) It's about seeing if you can be weird and wacky enough, or maybe just heartfelt and sincere enough, to turn the tide of what's expected. But it's only fun if it's collaborative.

And here's where I say it all comes back to collaborative narrative and storytelling, because when does it not with me, but seriously—I seeded Veth pretty high because she was a PC, but wasn't sure if she was going to hold that far through the polls. By the time she was, I wasn't asking, "Why is Veth beating Yussa, the most no-brain cell wizard in the northern Exandrian hemisphere, with one wizard level?" It was clear that the Veth fans had decided to make this their mission.

So I do hope the takeaway, based on everyone making content and giving speeches and doing a fun kayfabe, is that you can make a really interesting and fun tournament by committing to the bit. You have to get ridiculous and you have to stick with it, but that's... really what fandom is. It's really not about "is my fave gonna win," and it's honestly not even about who wins (you may have noticed that the winner section of my results post is... small, which is intentional), it's about building a little story together.

And I'm really glad we all did that. I feel like I need to go around and do a virtual 'good game' high five to the Veth stans, and the Caleb stans, and Aabria herself, and everyone who wrote in defense of someone and put on a kayfabe and ran with a bit, because it really was a fun roller coaster of a tournament.

And if you didn't join in this week, but kind of wanted to, I hope the next time someone runs a tournament you just go for it! I was also a lot more timid about fandom participation as a teen, but honestly, if you are really excited about, I don't know, Realmseer Eskil (who is super cool by the way), don't take it too seriously and write an overwrought defense of them! Make a funny meme! Be sporting about it, come up with the most ridiculous reason you can name to vote for them, and run with it.

(Also, my other takeaway is that it is really easy to ape the overblown wrestling host voice. Please do it, it's literally so funny.)

[darling-to-death]

I play DoL as a dress up sim (lol) so I always like seeing how people dress up their PCs so... What clothes does Penelope have? If it's okay to ask! 👉👈

Oh my gosh! <3 Of course it's okay to ask! Thank you for taking an interest in my PC! Also playing it as a dress up sim is VALID. Lowkey I do that as well.

I have two options I use for the school uniform. I either use the school shirt and the long school skirt or the school overalls. Once I can afford them, I always buy kitten heels and a headband to look cute. I've gone back and forth on what color I use for the uniform, but lately it's been purple!

For swimwear, I start off buying the school swimsuit in whatever color the uniform is, because I think the matching is cute. Then when I have enough money I buy the cuter swimsuit, normally in pink, and not for swim class, but when I go swimming for artifacts at the beach or the lake, I wear the wetsuit.

For jobs around town I'll have a special little outfit designed to help boost my stats. I wear the nun uniform when I work at the temple, because it helps boost my purity. I wear a waitress uniform when I work at the cafe, because it helps my tips, and I splurge for the Victorian maid outfit when I do housekeeping. Any maid outfit will boost your housekeeping stat, but the Victorian one is the prettiest so it's the one I like to wear. (It's also the most expensive one. ;_;)

These are my two night uniforms. I'm either dancing or doing "other stuff" at the club/brothel. It takes a while for my exhibition to be high enough to let me wear just the cat bra/panties, but once I can wear them I think it's a very cute outfit. Then on Saturday nights I'm always with Avery, because I love him and I NEED money. I like wearing the fancy gothic gown, and I never play as a cross-dresser, but I think the top hat really brings the outfit together. (I have no style.) So even though it's a male-coded clothing item, I always add it in to be cute.

On weekends I try to use that time to do the more tedious gameplay stuff. My athletics stat is always horribly low, because I hate having to go to the park to run. Whenever I do try to get it up, I put on the cheerleading uniform, because I think the sports clothes give a slight boost to athletics. I also make sure it matches whatever school colors I'm working with at the moment. I don't make it to the farm often, because it's just so far awaaayyyyy, but when I do I wanna be the cutest little farmhand ever! So I wear the cowboy hat and the cow chaps and the plaid and the work gloves and yadda yadda. I wish I could wear the cowboy boots but for gameplay purposes I always wear the work boots, because they're rugged. Rugged footwear helps me not slip and hurt myself when I go exploring the moors.

Finally I have my everyday and my sleepwear outfits! I normally just stick with the white sundress you get at the beginning of the game, but once I learn how to make flower crowns with Robin I ALWAYS wear a flower crown. It doesn't affect the actual gameplay, but when I'm selling at the stall wearing a flower crown of my flowers I think it helps sell the quality of my product. Also, it's the cutest accessory in the game. Then for sleep I always buy the cow onsie, because yes you guessed it, I think it's the cutest. All of my clothing sets are motivated by how cute I think something is. Haha. But it also gives a boost to how effective your sleep is which I constantly need especially on the night of the Blood Moon, because I'm going to be real with you. I know the Ivory Wraith is a rather popular NPC, but I think he's too much trouble. I just have Penelope stay awake the entire night and then skip school the next day to catch up on her sleep. No possession for me. :3c

I also used to make her wear glasses with every outfit, because I myself have glasses and she's mostly a self-insert, but she's also a teeny bit of a physical wishfullment self insert, so in my ideal world I don't have shit eyesight and neither does Penelope.

Anyway, I hope you like the little doodles, and thank you again so very much for letting me talk about my OCs! Much love and best wishes! UwU.

[devildaisies]

Au'liver L'Place RP Guide

People seem interested in playing Au'liver in their home games! Here's a guide for you.

Au'liver is the proprietor of an inter-dimensional magic shop named Au'liver's. He sells magical items, scaled to the level and tone of the campaign you are running.

Appearance

Au'liver is a white-haired, purple skinned elvish man.

He wears clothing that looks like an over the top approach to a magician's getup. He wears gold jewelry, including a set of rabbit-charm earrings.

His age can be ambiguous, but he is somewhere in the elvish equivalent of the 40-50 age range. Though vanity is one of his flaws, so he either has a great skincare routine, or may use a glamor.

His casting, visually, is a combination of flashy wizardry and stage magic. For instance, he typically retrieves items by manifesting a magician's hat with a flourish, and pulling it out from there.

He is very expressive, especially with his hands.

Personality

He is melodramatic, eccentric, and more clever than you would think. Willy Wonka type.

Do you best to be quick witted and funny. Easier said than done, but so worth it when it lands.

He has a white rabbit familiar named Smau'liver.

Prone to holding grudges. He once created and sold a ring that was enchanted to do double damage, specifically on the player that stole from him.

Conversely, Au'liver can be quite sentimental, and is genuinely touched by thoughtful gestures.

There is a seldom-addressed melancholy to him. Keep the fact that he's been isolated in a demiplane, in mind.

Au'liver will maintain an air of showmanship if more than one player is around, and circumvent any melancholy or personal topics.

He is gay. RARELY a flirt, but when he does, he does not pull any punches.

Obviously he can break the fourth wall. I would recommend doing this sparingly, or it kind of looses it's humor.

Mechanics

Mechanically, Au'liver is a max-level wizard.

His spells can NOT cross the threshold of his shop. This is to prevent him from becoming your PC's game-breaking ally.

His magic items can, however, be used outside of the shop.

He can do just about anything within the confines of his shop that a wizard can conceivably do. This does not include healing or resurrection spells.

He CAN casts spells for the players on top of selling items, but he upcharges significantly, and requires that they bring him spell components. I usually price it up from the DM's guide price for a spell scroll of that level.

Players can access his shop from rare, well-hidden doorways in their world. They shouldn't be able to access two portals within 3 days travel.

As the DM sees fit, they can have him gift them with a summoning card. When it is swiped in a closed doorway, an hour-long ritual spell commences. Once it is completed, a portal to his shop will be opened. The entrance will disappear if the door is closed. If the door is opened during the casting, it will be interrupted.

He does not like to be stolen from, and can NOT be stolen from through traditional means. If a player is caught stealing, he will enact immediate retribution. For example, an upcast Plane Shift, sending them to the astral, just long enough for them to pass out.

Plot

He is trapped in his demiplanar shop.

Why is he trapped in the shop? Answers change every time you ask! Have him commit wholeheartedly to whatever you say in the moment.

If you have a good idea for the REAL reason he's trapped, I encourage you to use it in your game.

My players have always felt the urge to try to free him from his demiplanar curse.

I encourage you to indulge them, but do not make it an easy to solve problem. What weight does a problem that can be solved with a "dispel magic" even have?

Conditions

Don't use him commercially / for public shows.

If you make art of him, or have fun moments to share, please make sure you tag me. 'Cause I wanna see.

And for the love of god, always remember.

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

early impressions from the first 2 hours or so of pokemon scarlet: an ambitious, would-be phenomenal game held back by being released way too early

graphics are dogshit as expected, still looks like a late PS2 game

performance is rough - a lot of random frame drops and choppy animations, pop-in is somehow worse than PLA; there were several early cutscenes in the school classroom where all your schoolmates were moving at like 6fps that were extremely distracting

-koraidon’s jumping physics are super fucked up; in general the game has strong Bethesda energy with weird clipping and frame drops and general jank (for example, the only buildings you can enter are stores, and by “enter” i mean “the camera zooms in on the door until the whole screen is taken up by the door texture which is then used as a background for the shop UI”)

speedrunners are going to have a blast breaking this game wide open, which is to say the general quality control is very poor

pokemon variety is enormous, i nearly had a full PC box by the 2 hour mark just grabbing one of everything i saw

i can already tell that difficulty/level balancing is going to be a concern - exp share is always on and there are a lot of opportunities for experience, the only way you’ll be able to get through the game without being grotesquely overleveled for two of the three story paths is to box your whole team after completing one and starting over with low-level critters

overworld/catching mechanics don’t feel as polished as PLA’s; overworld catching is gone, there’s no reticule for aiming pokeballs to ambush wild pokemon, camera controls aren’t as flexible

you can set destination markers on the map, but they only show up on the minimap - playing this after finishing xenoblade 3 (which lets you see the markers in the world and even toggle guide paths) just makes me feel like it’s going to be a substantial learning curve for people not used to/fond of open-world games

terastallizing doesn’t feel like as much of a game breaker as dynamax or mega evolution

the gym leader implementation of terastallizing is boring as hell - rather than changing their ace to something that’ll counter whatever you brought to counter the gym type, they use it to change a pokemon that isn’t their gym type to match their gym type (the bug-type gym leader, for example, has a teddiursa that she terastallizes into bug type)

the soundtrack varies from respectable to absolutely amazing from what i’ve heard so far, the wild pokemon battle theme is dynamic based on area and the team star and tera raid battle themes go way harder than they have any right to - it’ll be interesting to see exactly how much influence toby fox had over the soundtrack, because some of these tracks definitely have his vibes all over them

in all fairness, i’m playing a leaked dump of a retail cartridge so there’s the possibility of a day-one patch fixing some of these issues, but the lack of polish runs so deep that i don’t think a single patch could address it

overall, i’m still having a decent time with the game because the pokemon formula is inherently pretty watertight and the exploration is pretty fun, but the game just feels blatantly unfinished so i couldn’t in good conscience recommend people drop $60 on it

i have a feeling there’s going to be more than a few instances of people getting buyer’s remorse and unloading their copies for cheap by early december, so i’d strongly recommend just waiting for that to happen so you can get it secondhand for $40-45

[broken-clover]

7- Home

So I'll admit I'm not sure huge into shooty bang bang rpg-type games, but fallout 4 dragged me in with its settlement building mechanics and now I can't leave. Also, as this fic indicates, it gave me Preston Garvey

Preston is such a terrific and underrated character that I'll absolutely go to bat for. I know being an asshole in these kinds of games is fun, but Preston's always been admirable in how he's so well meaning and constantly tries to see the best in everyone despite living in awful circumstances. I'm a massive sucker for the 'everything is terrible so I'll do everything humanly possible to try and make it a little less awful' type of character. The fact that he's all but stated to be chronically depressed from the sheer amount of shit he's lived through but still is so well-intentioned and kind toward strangers and even towards ghouls who usually get the short end of the stick in canon makes me wonder constantly why he consistently seems to be one of the least liked companions. Preston is an absolute treasure.

I wrote this in the context of my second playthrough with my PC Doctor Stella, but he doesn't get mentioned by name so it's fine to just imagine the default Sole Survivor for this

-

In a weird way, Commonwealth sunrises were a beautiful thing. Preston got to see a lot of them when he was on the morning shift, patrolling about to make sure all of the defenses were active and running and that no troublemakers were attempting to pry through the barrier walls. In the moments between barbed wire and machine guns, he’d gaze off into the horizon to catch a glimpse of the orange-green sky.

According to the flagpost set up by the bridge, the wind was pushing southward. Good. It carried the airborne radiation from the Glowing Sea, and that was one of the few things that the walls couldn’t keep out. Even with the radiation scrubbers that Sturges and the General’s robot friend had put together a few months ago, radiation storms still forced everyone inside and made the older settlers ill until the air cleared. Preston was perfectly happy having the sickly glow blown in the opposite direction, though there was still enough suspended in the sky to the east that it left a color on the clouds and the sun as it rose.

The sound of mechanical whirring distracted him for a moment. A Mister Handy robot was floating down the street, eyestalks wiggling in different directions.

Preston approached with a polite nod. “Morning, Codsworth, is everything okay?”

“Oh, perfectly marvelous, sir!” His buzzsaw arm gestured for emphasis. “Just doing the morning check, but I see you’re doing the same! I hope, then, that I may be allowed to check on the begonias, Mister Garvey? I’d hate to leave important duties unfinished, but they have looked a tad wilted lately.”

Taken off-guard, he blinked for a few moments in silence. “If…if you want, go ahead. The others should be waking up soon, so if I need any extra hands, I can just ask them.”

“Splendid, sir, splendid! If you need me, I’ll be right by the front entrance. It’s hard to miss with the new sign, isn’t it?”

As Preston watched him go, he tucked the rifle back over his shoulder. Codsworth hadn’t been wrong. The General and a few volunteers had put the thing up last week. Plenty of settlements had their own little signs to mark the outer limits, carved in whatever walls or driftwood was available. But this one had been made from scratch, the General had gone out and felled a birch tree outside of Concord, dragged it back up to Sanctuary, cut the wood, and put the planks together. He’d been meticulous in painting the letters and placing the sign on stakes in a particular spot, close enough to be visible at a distance but far enough from the river to keep from being splashed by the water.

The whole thing puzzled him, though he hadn’t voiced it. Sometimes he struggled to follow the man’s rationale. It seemed like a non-necessity, but the General had been incredibly passionate about his little pet project, though he only had others work on it if they asked to help. A few of his strange friends had offered their assistance in piecing it all together.

The General had brought back all sorts of odd characters to Sanctuary over the last few months. Between the migrants from Diamond City, refugees from destroyed settlements, and people just looking for someplace more secure, he’d come back with the dog, a detective, a gun-for-hire, another robot, a super mutant- good lord, a super mutant! That one had been difficult to break to the other settlers, and several still preferred to stay out of arm’s reach, though his reading circle sessions with Mama Murphy had made him a more mundane sight around town.

A few people began emerging from their homes as the sun kept rising. Preston offered them all a warm smile and a wave. It brought him some peace of mind to see them up and about, it was easier to keep everyone safe when he knew where they were. He patrolled the little market district as the merchants started setting out their wares. Once he was sure everyone was alright, he went back to patrolling the sidewalks.

Through a broken window, Preston spotted errant sparks flying through the air. As he approached, he picked up on the smell of hot metal. One of the General’s friends sat in the midst of a makeshift workshop, soldering something to something else.

He waited for the man to sit back and turn off the blowtorch before making his presence known. “Being safe?”

“Pfft, what kind of question is that?” He wasn’t always the best with names, but he knew this one was from the Railroad. Dale, Des- Deacon? That sounded right. He always had a bit of smugness about him, but it was the playful sort that made him easy to like. Whenever he stopped at Sanctuary, he seemed to get along well with everyone.

“I just don’t want you injured.” Preston raised his hands to placate the man. He noted the faintest hint of shadowy rings around his eyes. “Have you gotten enough sleep? It seems early to be working on something like this.

“C’mon, I don’t sleep! Who’s got time to sleep, eh? There’s work to do!”

Preston chuckled to himself. “Guess I can’t complain about hard work. So what’s your project? Does that get mounted on the turrets?”

“W-well, uh…” Deacon didn’t generally come across as awkward, but he definitely was right now. “Nah, it’s not actually something that important. Heard that Professor came back with a bunch of old holo-tapes ‘n was talking about how he wished there was other ways to watch ‘em outside of their Pip-Boy and the terminal by the water pump. I borrowed some stuff from Tinker Tom, and I know Nicky mentioned finding that big old tarp at the truck stop, so I was thinking we put all this together and have a movie night with everyone in town!”

“...I see.” Preston wasn’t sure how to reply. “I hope…I hope that goes well for you.”

It was odd to see so many non-necessities across Sanctuary. He didn’t mean it as a complaint, but like in the Commonwealth was a difficult one, and having even the basic necessities was a tall order. Preston had never envisioned living a life where there was space for things like flowerbeds or movie nights. He would have fretted about it more if it came at the expense of things like growing food or security, but Sanctuary had an abundance of it. Between their own resource scavenging and the massive supply trades that the General had set up with the Minutemens’ assistance across the northern section of the Commonwealth, there was enough to go around that there was some free space for frivolous things.

Wasn’t that a thought! Even if he was befuddled by it, he could take some delight in seeing his organization’s message finally reaching people, finally making some kind of impact. There was a deep chasm of difference between aspiring for a lofty goal like safety and unifying people, and actually being able to see it pan out after all that time and effort. Sanctuary had been an irradiated pile of rubble not too long ago, and now look! A real, honest-to-god home.

Home. Not a stronghold, not a settlement, not a base of operations, or even a camp. Home. Where was the last place he had considered home?

A cowbell clanged somewhere in the distance. The shift was officially over, and today’s menu called for grits and eggs. With a hint of boyish glee in his smile, Preston jogged off in the direction of breakfast.

[excalculus]

hey so re that abandonware post and fixing old computers so they don't fucking brick expensive microscopes: have you ever replaced a power supply in a computer tower connected to an olympus confocal microscope? olympus is trying to get us to pay 5-6k for a new computer over a power supply and frankly, i don't want to pay that but we're a bit nervous that olympus might've encrypted the motherboard such that replacing the power supply bricks it.

First off I'm not an expert and am not intending to give instructions or write a tutorial, so anything you do or don't do based on this is up to you. I've also never had this exact scenario so I have no specific advice.

That being said, I haven't heard of Olympus pairing components in their PCs, so if true it's a pretty recent development and some real bullshit. How old is this thing? If it's relatively new my experience is even less relevant since I was mostly wrangling stuff well over 10 years old. Obviously if you try to fix it, fail, and call them back without being able to hide your tracks really well, they'll likely void any kind of warranty or service contract on the PC. But if the alternative is replacing the whole damn thing anyways, well...

From what I know of things like iPhones and game consoles that do have component pairing, trying to swap things only bricks the device in the sense that it won't run with the "illegal" parts. It doesn't cook the board unless there's a separate electrical problem, and swapping the original part back in should restore it to whatever functionality it had before. Assuming you're very sure it's the power supply itself and not something like the connection between that and another component, my guess is that trying to swap in a known working PSU of the exact same model might fail but won't break things worse.

The closest incident I've been involved in was one where one of these microscope computers was dying slowly and horribly, and the rep wanted something like 3k for a fresh install of the software. IT helped clone the entire contents of the hard drive, and we were able to copy that onto a non-dying drive and pop that back into a mostly-new computer. Clearly this might also fail depending on how aggressive they were in locking all the parts together, but if there's no truly custom hardware in the PC and all you need is CellSens or whatever a DIY license transfer may be worth thinking about.

If all else fails, you can always ask your PI to loudly consider a new Leica or something where they can hear.