#i blame skyrim's effect on me

[unseelie-grimalkin]

Updating the Record

Another "Episode" of Triona in Skyrim

So last time Saarthal happened and uh, it KEPT happening to our short Breton-

Book research about Saarthal is something Triona's very comfy with, and she starts to make some leads, going to confer with Tolfdir. He notes his observations to her, and she pens them down alongside her own notes when Ancano bursts through the door to the Hall of Elements

He's pissed beyond belief that someone from the Psijic Order wants to talk to Triona, specifically! How dare! Tiny mage, are you PLOTTING

no sir, no plotting not a plotting bone here-

come with ME, and we shall make this monk ACCOUNT FOR HIMSELF THEN

quick scrambling to follow this angry pointy elf and not trip on his long cloak up the stairs, past the Arcaenum, up to the Arch Mage

Now, last time, I didn't really...decompress or explain many of Triona's feelings about the Psijic vision in Saarthal. That was on purpose because they hit you like a drive-by hit, just out of nowhere, and tell you you're the only one who can save the world because of circumstances outside your control.

And remember, that like. Triona ran away from Whiterun the minute a guard called her Dragonborn, a prophesized hero?

But the difference between now and then is that, like...she's overcome many unique challenges since then, even outside of this. I haven't recorded every brawl and fight, but Skyrim is toughening Triona up, making her find a backbone that is kind of really fascinating to me wrt Triona's characterization: in a lot of timelines, unless she's fussing over someone else or encouraged otherwise, Triona's usually very...meek. But there's something about an environment constantly out to get you. Still, you have people to get home to, people that do care about you in some capacity (the College members do care, in their own ways, about Triona: she let another apprentice experiment on her to help them with their independent study, she retrieved a family heirloom for another, she brews tea and sits with you and lets you talk about everything and anything. They care about that warmth returning, and they've made it known, in their own ways) that just...tempers you, takes you from raw vulnerability to something same-but-different, not quite stronger. But. Something has seeped in the cracks of your wounds, and that bond and healing is stronger than who you were specifically because you've healed. And that's done something interesting to someone whose personality is usually passive and submissive and a wallflower and turned her into someone with teeth, entirely just by the idea alone of "The world is full of dragons and undead and gods know what else that would all take a swing at me, and the only two ways I'm going to live are swinging back or running away. And...running away doesn't solve the problem in the long run."

So when the Psijic Order rep gives Triona a very grounded set of very vague instructions in another time distortion...she's ready not to run this time.

She finds the Augur and stands before it, playing into its knowledge and its speech and finding out two things:

(1) they need the Staff of Magnus

(2) Ancano came to the Augur about the Eye himself

From there, a lot of it is a blur: the investigation, Mirabelle giving Triona the lead for where the Sinod were looking for the Staff of Magnus, Triona getting to these Dwemer ruins and experiencing the sheer horror of running/skulking through the dark, knowing you are on a timer, facing horrors of not one but two different, extremely distinct varieties (dwemer constructs, powered by soul crystals older than most histories you've studied. falmer, fallen and outcast and hateful in their evolution from their fall. both are damn near inexplicable to you, but you have to fell them the same way you did your first draugr, the same way you did your first dragon: flames first, questions later).

And you finally, after finding bodies strewn about, bitten into, you find another living being who is guarded towards you but at least won't try to kill you on sight: the sole Sinod mage who locked himself away in the orrery of the ruin, slaving away over it, preparing it for a focusing crystal he didn't know his contemporaries would be able to bring back. But you just...stumbled on it. Showing it to him makes him lower his spell-ready hands and lead you inside.

He gloats and glowers at you as you do all the work to finish his damn project: getting the starlight to show you where powerful magical artifacts are. And...unfortunately, the very thing you're terrified of (the Eye) is what's pissing in the results, making it hard for the Sinod to see where the Staff is. And what makes him...aggressive towards you, an apprentice of the College who he views snubbed him and his (honestly, rightfully so, if Mirabelle spoke true: if the Sinods were more interested in politicking than magic, Triona has little sympathies for them. Politics don't exactly save you when you're stuck in the cold dark with things skittering about, after all). And, well...all that time in the dark, he outright attacks, just to try to keep the information you helped him unearth all to himself.

He wasn't Triona's first sapient life taken: there were Stormcloaks who would not be reasoned with in the middle of a supernatural disaster (Alduin attacking Helgen), and there were bandits who would've killed her first, but...he's the first one that feels like it matters? No, not matters (all of them mattered, in some shape or another), but the first to give her a haunted train of thought, as she exited and headed back with information in tow. Had he not attacked, she would've left him alone and maybe he'd healed from his experience, but he was greedy for reputation and glory, and that always makes for a bad mindset.

She comes back to Winterhold and it's all gone to shit: Ancano's messing with the Eye, the Arch Mage quickly dies in a magical explosion, Mirabelle is injured to the point she cannot walk, arcane wisps are attacking civilians in Winterhold below, and to top it all off: another dragon attack.

After everything was settled, the college just got accessorized with not only the first dragon skeleton (from last time):

But also now the second dragon skeleton from now:

Fuck's sake.

[wellthebardsdead]

Clockwork heart pt23

Part 22 here

———

???: Wyrm? Wake up Wyrm, open your eyes, you’re safe.

Wyrm: *blinks his eye open and shivers as the immense heat surrounding his body suddenly fades and is replaced by a pleasant warmth* wh-where- *looks up to see a dark void surrounding himself* wh-what?

???: shhh. I’m here.

Wyrm: *jumps and spins around, eyes wide to see Voryn standing behind him* wh-where? Where a-are we?

Voryn: *steps forward holding open his arms, offering but not forcing a hug to comfort him* Somewhere safe from whatever’s causing you this pain.

Wyrm: *sniffles and hugs onto him* it was hot, I was in the mountain again, I was holding nehts face, I- *shuts his eye tight as he remembers clawed grey hands grasping at his ankles*

Voryn: *grasps his head in his hands blocking it out again* shhh, come back to me little Pearl…

Wyrm: *shakes his head and chokes out a sob* no I don’t want to! I won’t! If I do I’ll be back in the mountain! The heart will take me! It’s screaming! They’re all screaming!

Voryn: *blinks in confusion, knowing the heart has means of controlling a person but never hearing screaming, only the constant thrumming of its pulsating beat* Screaming?

Wyrm: They’re all bound to it! They’re all so loud! They’re all-… *goes quiet as a spectral, mechanical hand appears, touching his head and brushing against voryns hand before disappearing* I?… *blinks and looks up at voryn confused* v-voryn? Where are we?… it’s so dark I… I was hot, and it was loud but…

Voryn: *realising seht has been blotting out whatever Wyrm is hearing from the heart of lorkhan* shhh, it’s okay now. Just rest here with me… *holds him tighter* We can rest, safely here…

*that afternoon*

Wyrm: *laying bed bound with Voryn, body finally feeling the effects of what happened in the village and quietly sulking as he’s forced to take medicine* …

Enthir: *sitting by the bed* I’m not leaving until you have it, Pearl.

Wyrm: *lays back down and covers his face with a pillow*

Voryn: is it a taste issue? I can maybe come up with another healing potion-

Enthir: no, no it’s a texture issue. He hates the film it leaves on his teeth and he says it feels slimy.

Voryn: oh. Maybe if you heat it up first?

Enthir: will? That work?

Voryn: oh yes. I trick neht into taking his tonic by mixing it into his tea.

Nerevar: You do what?!

Voryn: You have migraines almost weekly and refuse to take medicine for it!

Nerevar: it takes you 3 hours to make it I hate bothering you with them!

Voryn: then take your medicine when you start getting symptoms or I wouldn’t have to make such a big batch each week!!!

Wyrm: *whimpers a little, from both a mix of pain but mistaking their bickering for fighting*

Enthir: *gently places his hand on Wyrms in a moment of panic only for both voryn & neht to do it too at the same time* …You two really do care about him. *smiles standing up* I’m sorry Urag can’t see that. Given everything that’s happened, and sotha sils connection to Wyrm and well, who you two are… you can’t really blame him but, I can see neither of you mean him harm.

Voryn: *smiles* neht was ready to adopt him without consulting me first. As sad as I am that Wyrm got frightened away from us, I’m glad he found love and sanctuary here in skyrim.

Nerevar: Me too, loved but… *lets go of Wyrms hand and folds his arms* not-

Taliesin: *staring daggers at him from by the door* …

Nerevar: … *nods* Enthir may we speak outside? I think we’re causing our little Wyvern some discomfort.

Voryn: *sensing a pressing topic at hand that Wyrm isn’t in the position to hear* yes off with you, stop crowding the poor dear.

Enthir: *gathering somethings up pretty easily, nods and fixes the blanket a little more over wyrm* I’ll go heat up his medicine… *walks from the room and glances back at Nerevar & Taliesin as they follow* what’s going on?…

Nerevar: Its Ancano. He’s sent one of his subordinates off to a location called ‘the Labyrinthian’ in search of an artefact to…

Taliesin: control Wyrm. As he put it…

Enthir: *ears pinning back as he leans against urags desk* how did you find out about this?…

Nerevar: we witnessed it last night.

Taliesin: after the incident, we followed him and spied on him and estormo having a little rendezvous in the courtyard.

Enthir: *pushes off the desk grabbing his coat* the arch mage needs to be made aware of this then. Hurry.

*meanwhile*

Wyrm: *now resting against Voryn again, still sore and pouty* is something wrong again?…

Voryn: *running his fingers through his hair, his third eye opening and staring down at him as he realises wyrm picked up on Neht and Taliesins tone shift* not that I’m aware of, but even still, it’d be best not to dwell on it. I’m sure everything’s fine… *opens his other eyes and looks at Wyrms sad tired face* do you want to try and rest again?

Wyrm: *shakes his head* no, I don’t… I don’t know what I want anymore… but… I know I’m tired of everyone keeping secrets from me. *rubs his face in irritation from both his headache, lack of sleep and general annoyance at his situation* I’m not dumb… somethings wrong and they won’t tell me. A-and if they’re not telling me it means I’m involved somehow… i-is it because of what happened in the village? Am I in trouble?

Voryn: *immediately pulls him into a comforting hug as he feels the dread gripping Wyrms mind deep within his heart* No no, Shh you’re not in trouble for that, I told you the arch mage is sorting that out.

Wyrm: *nuzzles into his arms and grumbles in annoyance* savos couldn’t sort a flea out of a dogs asshole…

Voryn: *grins a little and tries to hold in his laughter* that’s one way of putting it. *clears his throat before gently cupping Wyrms chin and lifting his face to look at him* But I swear it, you’re not in trouble Wyrm. *slides his hand onto his cheek beneath his missing eye, stroking it with his thumb*

Wyrm: *leans into his touch* you promise?..

Voryn: *smiles feeling peace wash over the younger dunmer again at his words* I promise.

Wyrm: *smiles and closes his eye as he snuggles back against him*

Voryn: …You still have to take your medicine though.

Wyrm: *whines and kicks his legs*

*meanwhile*

Savos: The Labyrinthian?! Why in oblivion would you be asking about that?

Nerevar: Because ancano and his minions are after something within the ruin. Something to control Wyrm or the soul of lorkhan.

Savos: *visibly paling by the second* Th-there’s nothing of interest in there, just a maze filled with the undead. They can’t get in without the key anyway now if you’ll excuse m-

Taliesin: *picks him up by his robes and pins him to the wall* Then hand it over. Or I will take it. By. Force.

Savos: *eyes wide staring into the high elves piercing gaze* i-I’ll get it for you.

*meanwhile*

Kaidan: *down in the tavern having a drink and watching the cleanup effort following yesterdays events* ehh, I’m not too sure what happened myself. Just know those weird monks turned up and did something to my friend.

Haran: *looks up from pouring his drink* Wait- you’re our pearls friend? Is he okay?

Kaidan: aye, he’s a little sore and poorly but he’s holding up. I take it he’s one of the few involved with the collage the townspeople like?

Haran: oh yes, it’s hard not to like Wyrm. He’s a beam of light in this frozen town. Dagur and I always make sure to have sweetrolls ready in case he pops in. He’d been teaching our daughter to read before he left for his trip. Promised he’d be back in less than two weeks… and then the month came and went and. We knew something was wrong, then Urag went out looking and got brought back on a stretcher. I’m glad he’s home safe where he belongs again. I suppose we have you and your friends to thank for that.

Dagur: *walks by patting kaidan on the back* speaking of which your food and drink are on the house for looking after our Wyrm.

Kaidan: I? Thank you I appreciate it but Taliesins the one who looks after him the-

Taliesin: *pushes open the door holding a heavy iron key* Kaidan. Get your stuff and find inigo, we’re leaving.

Kaidan: … *stands slowly* What’s happened?…

Taliesin: I’ll explain as we tack up the horses. *walks out, not noticing the hooded stranger in the corner, eyeing him up as they wrap their very odd looking spear*

[fabeong]

I crashed headfirst into the official Skyrim Prima Guide...

Good morning everyone I ended up on the Official Skyrim Guide and i’m now crying over Florentius Baenius again. 

(read more under the cut, I go on a RAMBLE)

“Florentius used to be a priest of Arkay, the god of life and death, and seeing the repeated effects of vampire attacks (and fending off those he thought were dead friends) has driven him a little bit mad. He claims to speak directly to Arkay and says Arkay speaks back. He’s made it a goal to destroy the vampire menace in Tamriel and believes that, with Arkay helping him, he’s destined to succeed. Some think he’s just playing at being mad so he can keep others at a distance, but if so, he’s very good at maintaining the illusion.“ (Skyrim Legendary Edition Prima Official Game Guide)

Where to even begin? This poor man has had to fight the undead bodies of friends and likely plays up an apparent “madness” to keep others at a distance, no doubt because he’s scared of losing people again in such a horrible way. Even if he has gone a little mad over the years between trauma like that and an aedra in his head I hardly blame him. 

I do like the uncertainty of this “madness” though, and I think it makes a more compelling character of him. I’m sure like me, a lot of us met Florentius and took him at face value, trusting Sorine’s hesitancy or Isran’s outright hostility and believing him to be more than a little unstable. But I found the more I spoke to him, the more I did his rescue or retrieval missions, the more I ended up trusting him! Not least because everything he says he hears from Arkay always turns out to be true. There’s even a great conversation you can overhear between Sorine & Gunmar where the latter admits he didn’t always believe Florentius but that he’s right far too often to ignore. 

I will admit I’m not a fan of the ambiguity this perpetuates over Florentius’ state as a priest - this seems to imply he left/was removed, and Sorine’s first description of him goes something like “He’s a priest of Arkay, well, sort of.”  And neither of these are elaborated on or explained. My personal resolution is that whilst he is a fully trained (ordained?) priest of Arkay, his nature of work being a traveller rather than serving a fixed shrine/hall of the dead/graveyard means that he is regarded as an outlier even within the priesthood. But who knows? Certainly not Bethesda lmao anyway brb writing several fics where my Dragonborns give him a hug and Isran apologises. 

[thebossestunicycle]

Final Flash Update: an actual review

The DCEU has always been very hit or miss for me, but it has a special place in my heart. When Man of Steel came out, my dad was OBSESSED with it (still is), and it became the first superhero movie I ever watched. Despite the mediocre scores internet-wide (and how the terraforming scared the shit out of me as a kid), I cannot help but love that film to death. It really sparked my interest with superheroes and just ‘nerdier’ stuff in general.

While the DCEU opened me up to the whole world of superheroes, it also became part of what made me so weary of comic book movies. While there were good movies like Wonder Woman (2017) and (hot take) Black Adam, and great ones like the Snydercut, there were also huge disappointments that left me feeling pissed off when the theater lights turned back on. It’s not like all of these movies are downright horrible in every way (exception being 2016’s Suicide Squad), but each seemed to have its own form of kryptonite. The Justice League (2017)’s being its lack of character development; Wonder Woman 1984’s forgettable plot; and of course, Batman v. Superman’s Martha scene.

With the DCEU’s track record, the over saturation of superhero media, and with Ezra Miller being… Ezra Miller, my hopes for this movie were extremely low. But I actually left the theater feeling pretty.. decent?

Here are my main takeaways. Spoilers ahead:

Plot + Characters

As of now, I haven’t noticed any critical plot holes, which is pretty great, especially considering it’s a multiverse movie and all. Everything that blew up in Barry’s face was tied up nicely. But I am sorta curious to see how moving the tomato can caused Ben Affleck to become George Clooney.

The time mechanics were also pretty neat, like how a new future creates a new past.

I kinda like Barry a lot. He’s wicked awkward but it’s funny to watch.

Younger Barry too! He was such an airhead in the beginning that I was shocked to find out he was the guy that our Barry kept seeing when he time travelled.

I found Keaton’s Batman entertaining too. But the whole time Keaton didn’t really seem like he was trying to act. He just looked happy to be Batman again, which I can’t blame him for. On that note, I wish Bale’s Batman made a cameo somehow.

I was underwhelmed with the Zod plot. I was ready to watch him totally kick Flash’s ass. I didn’t mind Kara, but again she was a bit underwhelming too.

I got excited when Zod mentioned discovering Clark in his pod somewhere in space. I was like “Oh shit, did they take him in and train him to fight for them?” Seeing an evil Superman would’ve been crazy, but nah, they just killed him instead. Lame-os.

Effects / CGI

Oh man, I did not enjoy some of the choices made here.

First of all, the deep fake cameos. And also, deepfaking people like Adam West and all, who are dead, is a little odd. However Nicholas Cage showing up was very funny.

Then there was the CGI in the Speedverse (?? correct me if that’s the wrong name). It was video-game level. I felt like I was watching a skyrim-inspired acid trip.

Even outside of speedverse, the quality was really spotty.

Action

Oh my god, it’s so refreshing when there’s even the tiniest ounce of creativity in fight scenes (Looking at you, MCU).

Diving deeper into Barry’s powers was cool and seeing him fight with (and then against) himself was neat!

Then there was also pretty standard Batman stuff that I’m a sucker for

NEEDED a better Kara v. Zod fight. I wanted lasers. I wanted them to go to space. ANYTHING

Overall Emotional Reaction

Both Barrys hit hard a few times. The desperation to fix everything. Having to let go of their mom and accept their fate(s?). The scene when he said goodbye to her for the last time was pretty sad.

The themes were simple: accept your past; pain makes us who we are; etc etc. But there’s nothing really wrong with that.

The jokes landed! I laughed with, not at, most things

…Okay, I did laugh out loud at some things, like the deepfakes and when the Barrys phased for the first time.

But yeah, it was really enjoyable to watch. The runtime wasn’t an issue at all. Dull moments were rare (though I didn’t give a single shit about Barry’s dating life at all)

Final Score:

Characters: 7/10

Plot: 7/10

CGI: 4/10

Action: 7/10

6.3 / 10

If I had to rank: above Black Adam, below Wonder Woman

but seriously can they just recast flash already. I wish ezra miller all the best on rehabbing themselves, and they really do a great job with the character, but it’s like they’re trying to get a jail sentence with everything they’ve done

[alolanroy]

2023 Media Thread Pt4

Lethal Company: There's not a lot of criticism I can throw at this game that doesn't bounce off as part of the intended experience. I do think that while the quick and cheap deaths make for good comedic value, I think it downplays the terror if you just die without having any clue what happened in the early game. But other than that, it nails the vision even if it isn't for me. Mad respect 7/10

Gundam Evolution Last Shooting: I already missed this game a few weeks after it shuttered. By the final season, the balance was just right and in the final days the group I was playing with started to 'click' with some of the units. I for one, was a monster at the Kampher, racking up insane kill streaks. It's a shame it couldn't have been in this state at launch. Another game killed by its live service model. The final hurrah of lost potential. 7/10

Lego Fortnite: Have you played and early-access survival crafting game before? Good, you can skip this. It sure is one of these. It has a lot of rough edges since it's running inside the framework of another game that doesn't mesh particularly well with it. Plus, fiddling with graphics settings requires relaunch so I couldn't tweak it to look good either. I think what kind of ruins the experience was the rigidity of the progression, which while heavily gated behind too many menus, isn't signposted well. 4/10

Half-Life Deathmatch (25th-anniversary update): What an event! I wouldn't necessarily say I had 'fun', perhaps because the social element has been atrophied by decades of modern multiplayer practices, but I had a blast. We found a server filled with quake weapons with no time limit so it was a high-killstreak, low TTK chaotic mess for like 20 minutes one round. 6/10

Plagiarism and You(Tube): Hbomb's career-ending adventures continue. 7/10

Half-Life Uplink: A neat little bite of HL2. Not a lot of meat on these bones, but it really is impressive how hard they pushed 'realism' in the environmental interaction withing the confines of the engine. 7/10

Into the Radius: Interesting worldbuilding and an ace solitary vibe. It took a bit for the cumbersome resource management to 'click' but the vibes are there. However, I do feel like quicker access to more diverse weapons might have helped hook me more. My strongest experience was doing one of the first missions at night and it went full horror in a way I hadn't experienced yet.

Lego Masters S4: On the positive side, the hosts are finally coming into their own and the challenges felt much more fresh in a way that actually engaged with their medium. However both me and my partner felt the hand of the producers in ways that made us actually angry. Certain teams were straight-up bad. Duckbricks deserved it 100 tho. 7/10

Skyrim - Clockwork: An interesting framing device for an interesting player home. I think it repeated the pitfall of making the open areas too big to be fun to comb over, but the story beats were effective. 6.5/10

Tintin: This is about as good an 3dcg animated Tintin could be. it didn't tickle my fancy but it was gorgeous and had some real inventive sequences. Since they don't really make adventure movies like this anymore, I think it called to mind the treasure-hunting antics of a Lupin movie. objective 8/10 but for me a 7/10

The Boy and the Heron: I don't blame anyone for having trouble following the narrative, since this type of semi-linear magical realism nonsense is a genre I have familiarity with. I remind them that these things work on an emotional axis that Marvel has taught people to ignore. Shoutout to all the Ghibli fans shocked to see their Ghibli movie isn't like those interpolated cooking compilations and cozy Totoro slippers. 9/10

Dragnet (1987): This sure is a late 80's buddy cop action comedy. I wonder if these fellas end up having a future in show buisness or high-quality vodka beverages? It got one good laugh out of me. 5/10

Babylon 5: The Road Home: Honestly, props to MJS and all the returning actors because for a decades-removed continuation, this feels like it didn't miss a beat. I imagine the casting director was sweating bullets trying to recast G'kar though. How can you? 8/10

Pokemon Concierge: Short, sweet, and to the point. I was agape at the technical proficiency of the stop motion, enough that I didn't notice the plot at all. 6/10

Ronin Mecha 2: Defenders of Space: This was made by the 3rd die-hard Autobot Inferno fan for the other two. It lacks that gonzo factor of the rest of the series so far and was pretty skippable. We did pop off when 'Pheonix King' actually turned into a fire truck though. -3/10

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2: At times like these, I regret watching bad movies selected by a spinning wheel. How did this get made? This feels like a tv pilot that got a theatrical release. Theres a Nazi getting beat up by babies???? -5/10

Revenge of the Ninja: Solid ninja movie. A bit meandering but it had the right amount of gadgetry and stunts to keep the crowd's energy up. Shoutout ninja grandma. 6/10

Votoms: the Pailsen Files: At its best, it is alright. At its worst, it is kind of embarrassing. The initial foray into poorly integrated cg mechs is badly integrated that it makes the digital animation look right out of the early digipaint era at times. The OP and ED are sauceless. 5/10

[obiternihili]

2, 9, 11, 38

Cool! So tumblr didn't give me a notification that I got this ask!

context is this post:

2. Top 5 games of all time?

A few of the Zelda series could probably make the cut. I go back and forth on Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask for my favorite from that series.

Skyrim modding has eaten months of my life.

Undertale's probably up there

Fuga: Melodies of Steel (and its sequel; they're more like episodes of one game than two standalone games) might take a spot, but it might be a honeymoon effect.

There's a few runners up out there like Night in the Woods, Yoshi's Island, La Mulana, Pokémon: Emerald etc. And a few series I really like but can't in good conscience say are my favorite (Sony's Horizon comes to mind).

But I think of games that I associate with myself maybe the number 5 spot should go to Yu-Gi-Oh: The Sacred Cards. More as a representative of the Yu-Gi-Oh series as a whole and that unspeakable time I tried to become a let's player. Plus it's just a weird unbalanced game.

9. Most hours you've put into a single game?

Easily skyrim, caveat: much of that time is just turning on the game, cocing (using the console to warp without loading a save game) into riverwood, and sprinting to whiterun checking for CTDs, or in other words, testing mods to make sure I didn't make the game explode.

If you don't count mod testing, probably OoT 3D rando, usually still bug testing, but actually playing at the same time.

11. Favorite game genre?

Probably action-adventure.

Like I like puzzles and I like pretty/cute worlds to explore. And I like RPG story crafting.

If I'm honest I tend to prefer games that are easy to moderately difficult over hard. I like power fantasies a bit, I guess, and that's best achieved by earning it.

So zelda-likes, open world games, and certain metroidvanias are pretty much my ideal games. Which isn't to say something like really good writing or music can't propel things like Undertale or Fuga into my top games.

38. An unpopular gaming opinion you have.

I've got a few of those, I think.

Paper Mario's decline began with Super Paper Mario, Sticker Star unfairly gets the blame for it. And the mechanics weren't that bad, people just absolutely refused to learn them because they were too upset at it doing SPM things instead of TTYD things. SS is still deeply flawed, I mean, but it's not like "bad sonic game" bad.

Many gamers want to roleplay when playing or just unwind with a comfort game and not everyone games for the feeling of overcoming shit. And that's entirely valid. But they can be a kind of competing access need: there are kids who need absolute silence to focus on a test, and there are kids who need noise to drown out distractions; both kids are valid, but their needs are antagonistic. If you take the games of gamers who want accomplishment and put easy modes in, often you make more work for devs who have to rebalance the game around both modes. Or, like the more action adventure open world gameplay you inject in the Elder Scrolls, the less of a difficult Table Top traditional/chance and skill check kind of RPG there is for the Morrowind and earlier fans who loved the series for those elements. Likewise, taking someone's animal crossing and adding soulsbourne mechanics to it would change that kind of game entirely. I'm not sure that the answer is "put an easy mode in dark souls" or "don't put an easy mode in dark souls". I don't know what the answer really is but I'm not cleanly on either side of that argument.

I'm starting to be one of those "actually graphics matters" guys. I can't really easily play switch games anymore, it's insane. Aliasing and blur feels like visual noise (unlike texture) and makes me feel tired/annoyed. Plus, like, too much pop in or flickering gives me headaches; I had to drop Legends: Arceus because it made my head hurt. And I notice low framerates now, and it hurts similarly to pop in. Fwiw I think a lot of it's also COVID related; my family used to travel a ton, but now the easiest ways for me to get my "green fix" is a game like Skyrim, BotW, or Horizon: Forbidden West. And I guess playing higher framerate games has just trained my brain to vibe that fast.

Trainers, mods, cheat codes are, so long as it's only used in single player content, cool and great. They do not change level design. If it's hard to set up, then it's a reward for being smart enough to set up, no different than writing down information on a piece of paper to solve a game's puzzle. They're good things.

---

Thanks for the asks! Sorry I didn't get the notification.

[nientedenada]

The Thalmor Crackdown on Talos Worship (After the Markarth Incident)

Originally posted on r/teslore. Previous posts in this series were : "Madmen of the Reach" and "The Bear of Markarth": A Close Reading of Arriannus Arius' Works and The Crimes of Ulfric Stormcloak?

Last time around, I judged Ulfric guilty of a lot of things, but there’s one thing he’s often blamed for that isn’t really fair. Players often remember Alvor’s early-game comments about Ulfric and the Talos ban. If you ask Alvor,

Why are the Thalmor allowed to arrest people for worshipping Talos?

He’ll answer

It's from that treaty that ended the Great War, remember, when the Emperor was forced by the Thalmor to outlaw Talos worship. We didn't pay much attention to it when I was a boy - everyone still had their little shrine to Talos. But then Ulfric and his "Sons of Skyrim" started agitating about it, and sure enough the Emperor had to crack down. Dragging people off in the middle of the night... one of the main causes of this war, if you ask me.

Alvor’s complaints are used to support the claim that the Talos ban had no teeth until Ulfric was stupid enough to ruin everything. And if only the Nords would wise up and shut up, the Empire could weather this storm together, and everyone could quietly worship Talos while waiting for Great War #2 to get going.

Alvor is wrong.

Or rather, he’s conflating his experience with the broader picture, which is understandable. But we shouldn’t be taking him at his word. It took the Thalmor about a year to get their boots on the ground in the Skyrim. A year to push Ulfric and Hrolfdir into violating the White-Gold Concordat, and then forcing the Empire to let them enforce the Talos ban in Skyrim. There objectively weren't years in which no one cared if Nords quietly worshiped Talos. It’s been twenty-five years of the Thalmor caring very, very deeply.

Now Alvor likely experienced it that way because Thalmor enforcement on the ground was spread out and varied by region and how cooperative the Jarl was. But the Thalmor were always planning to keep working away against Talos worshipers. If they left off persecuting anyone, the way Alvor seems to think, how could they have continued fanning the flames of the coming war? There wasn’t ever a way to appease them. If they went after the public worshipers first, they’d go after the quiet ones later. And in fact, that’s exactly what we see in-game, with Ondolemar directing the PC to break into Ogmund’s house and search it for an amulet of Talos.

There is literally no way to win this game against the Thalmor. They’re not trying to stomp out public Talos worship, and then they’ll go home. They are provoking a Civil War, and trying to get people outraged and rebellious. Yes, Ulfric was their dupe in the Markarth Incident, but it’s wrong to characterize that as Ulfric’s rabble-rousing causing this persecution. Because one way or another, they were going to use the Concordat as a weapon. Ulfric was the excuse they used.

Waiting out the Thalmor may work for the Empire in the end, but it’s a strategy that costs some of its subjects their lives, even if they take the path of least resistance that Imperial apologists advocate for.

Note: I think that one bug that lets Heimskr keep preaching even after the Legion moves into Whiterun, when he’s supposed to be in prison afterwards, has had a huge effect on people’s views of this issue btw. If Heismkr can be praising Talos out in public, it really can’t be that bad under the Empire. Similarly, the game doesn’t have any conclusion with the Talos priest and priestess in Windhelm, though they have dialogue about being worried they’ll soon be arrested, and Niranye can be heard offering to arrange them safe passage out of Skyrim. These in-game issues do downplay the severity of the White-Gold Concordat.

Further comments from r/teslore discussion

This is the pattern of Thalmor action in Skyrim for the next twenty-five years. They aren't responding to what happens. They're driving what happens.

The Thalmor aren't appeased by the Empire's arrest of Ulfric in the Markarth Incident. They might say they are, but they're busy pushing for the next crisis. I don't doubt Alvor's personal life experience, but he's got cause and effect backwards. It isn't that the more Ulfric agitates, the more the Thalmor crack down. It's that the Thalmor are doing whatever it takes to push Ulfric and his fellows to the point of rebellion. It's like they're turning the temperature dial on a stove. If the population isn't boiling over, turn it up again. There doesn't exist any possible road of appeasement that can be taken. That's an illusion.

The problem here is the terms of the White Gold Concordat itself. The Empire can try to be as lenient as possible, but although we don't have the text, we know that the strict letter of the law allows Thalmor officials to take into custody citizens of the Empire who are heretics. There's no real defence the Empire can ultimately take other than obfuscation, for example, imprisoning Heimskr in Whiterun for his own good, or for Tullius, executing Ulfric before Elenwen can take charge of him.

[rose-like-the-phoenix]

Work in progress Wednesday

Now, I've never done this before (nor do I know if I will do continue to do this but thought I'd at least do it once) this WIP doesn't need much more work, other then a read through and maybe a few word changes here and there but enough of that, enjoy this draft from my skyrim thieves guild fanfiction "The one who lived". Inspiration for this post: @thequeenofthewinter

(Brynjolf's pov)

"Did you get what I told you?" Raven questioned, as I walked in. "Yep" I smiled, tossing her a coin purse "just hope they don't mind a couple missing gems" I grinned, folding my arms. "Brynjolf" Raven exclaimed, as I pulled a couple flawless emeralds from my pocket. "You know I can't help myself lass" I chuckled, earning a deserved look of disapproval from the guildmaster. "Fuck off" she retorted, walking away. I shook my head with a smirk and repocketed the two green gemstones, taking a seat between Delvin and Vex "you sure are good at getting yourself in trouble" Vex snickered, shoving some drink down her gullet. "Like everyone else in this gods forsaken cistern, the trick is to get yourself out of it" I replied. "Whatever" she said, leaning back in her chair. Heh, good ol' Vex. Suddenly, the tavern went still and silent. I looked around trying to figure out why, as I did, I noticed a blue spectral mist hovering over me. "For once. Someone tell me they can see what I'm seeing" I exclaimed, I'd bet money this is Mercer. Delvin and Vex nodded, one right after the other. I sighed, this is going to sound crazy "Mercer?" I asked staring at the anomaly. The mist moved to the side, "the one and only" he smirked, his transparent from taking shape. I rolled my eyes and turned back to the table, hoping ignoring the situation would have some sort of desirable effect

"Am I drunk or are you weirdly calm about this Brynjolf?" Delvin spoke up, doing what the others seem to be too afraid of, breaking the silence. "Maybe it's because he's been pestering me for weeks at this point" I explained annoyedly. "You can blame Nocturnal for that" Mercer laughed. "I don't blame Nocturn for anything asshole" I grumbled. "You could've told us about this" Vex snapped. "Are you daft?" I shot the Imperial a frustrated look, "you really think I would just tell you I had Mercer Frey's fucking ghost following me around and make myself out to be a madman?" I added. "I thought you already were a madman" Mercer said, a smile plastered to his deathly face. "You shut the fuck up" I exclaimed, the chair falling to the floor as I stood up. "You killed Gallus and tried to kill Raven and you expect me to not be piss'd off" I exclaimed, "first bandits ruin the only home I ever knew and then you try to fuck up everything else, hell, if it weren't for Aisha, Raven and Sofie I'd be convinced the soul reason I existed was to be miserable. Now leave me the fuck alone" I yelled, anger engulfing me. With heavy breaths, I made my way out of the tavern, slamming the door behind me.

(Vex's pov)

Wow, not sure I've ever seen Brynjolf this mad. Mercer's ghost stood silently in the middle of the room "just let it be known, you deserved every bit of that and then some" Sapphire barked, knowing more of the story behind Bryn's outlash then anyone else in the room. The ghost of our former colleague evaporated as Raven, Aisha and Annabelle walked in. "What was all the yelling about?" Raven exclaimed. "I'm not sure what else to say, except you need to go find you're husband" I explained, gesturing towards the door. Raven stared at the door for a moment "Vex keep things in order, Aisha you're coming with me" the dunmer exclaimed, she and Aisha walked out in search of their firey redhead. I wonder where he took off to?

[imjustmeat]

The thing about Hades that I love is that - I'm not good at video games. I'm awful. I like to blame the slower reaction time and bad hand-eye coordination that are side effects of having SPD, but really I'm just bad. I have no strategy, and I can't ever remember to use special attacks when I have them.

And that's fine! It means that maybe games like Hollow Knight or Skyrim aren't for me. I usually stick to games like Fran Bow, where you don't need to be very fast, you just need to gather items and solve puzzles.

But it also means that I miss out on a lot of games that I think I would really love. And even when I play those types of games, they can be difficult enough for me that it's actually really de-motivating to play them. Sometimes I get other people to fight the bosses for me. More often, I just give up.

Hades is a hard game. It's not easy by any stretch. And it's hard in all the ways that are difficult for me. But despite that, I'm having the most fun playing Hades that I've had playing games lately. Something about the way the game is set up, with the continuos progress even if you die, motivates me to keep playing.

I love the plot. I love the characters. And I really, really love how they set it up in a way that makes it fun for everyone - even if you're not that great at it.

[monster--mama]

In Riften

Effectively a group of drabbles before the next plot point takes place.      Kaidan didn’t really know what to expect with Ravenna, but seeing her get all huffy with some scumbag Riften guard right at the gate is like watching an angry kitten trying to be scary. Ravenna stands at a whopping height of around 4′ 10″, maybe 4′ 11″, and probably isn’t 100lbs soaking wet, so he can’t exactly blame the guard for struggling to take her seriously right now. Poor Ravenna; so much for being a terrifying, vampiric creature of the night. Behind him, Lucien seems to be having an especially grand time watching this, seeing as he has yet to stop sniggering about it.      "Still playing this little game, are ya lass?" Brynjolf says to her as he sits down next to her on the bench. "There is no game, Brynjolf. Leave me be," she replies, not looking at him as she sips her drink. "Isn't there?" he asks, "What do you call that, then," he gestures to her two allies. Lucien is currently sipping hot cider with his nose in a book in a distant corner of the room, while Kaidan hangs out at the bar counter, focusing on his dinner and his mead. Ravenna herself has only just resurfaced from the backroom, having just taken a bath. "Unexpected happenstances," she replies with finality. "Mhm," he hums, not the slightest bit convinced, "Do you plan to tell them what you are this time, Lass?" "No. They already know." Brynjolf almost startles at that, his eyebrows raised at her. "Now that's a first," he says, stunned. "Just remember, we'll always have room for you with us. They will only last you so long, but the guild is forever." "So you've said. The answer is still no," she says. Brynjolf nods slowly. "Figured you'd say that. Just thought I'd remind you the offer's still open." Ravenna makes no reply.      Lucien looks a bit confused as Ravenna occupies the seat in front of his, leaning her forearms on the table and settling in. “What are you reading?” She asks casually. Lucien looks from the book to her. “It’s a book of Nordic Legends. Right now I’m on the story of Ysgramor and the 500 companions,” he answers. “Ah, trying to better familiarize yourself with Skyrim’s history,” she observes, “should we get the opportunity, perhaps we’ll be able to check out some historical sites. We could always visit Jorvaskr in Whiterun, later.” Lucien perks up. “Could we, actually? I’d love to see that place.” Ravenna nods. “Sure, once things settle down a bit.” They continue chatting with one another.      When Lucien heads to bed, Ravenna moves over to the bar to pester Kaidan for a bit. “Mind if I pick you brain for bit?” She asks. “I suppose not,” Kaidan replies, however reluctantly. “What happened with you and the Thalmor?” She queries. [For a bit, the dialogue sequence continues in line with Kaidan’s canon dialogue] “What about you? You’re -“ he pauses, “Well, you know what you are. How is it different for you, to be facing down mortality like this?” Ravenna smiles. “It feels like an adventure. A very familiar adventure. I’ve experienced this sort of problem many different times, in many different ways. At least this is exciting, despite the obvious danger.” “Hmm,” Kaidan hums thoughtfully, “that’s not the sort of answer I’d have expected from someone like yourself.” “Heh. Surprising to learn that something like me is so acquainted with it’s own mortality?” “A bit, actually,” he says, “it’s interesting though.” Ravenna doesn’t really reply to that, instead pointing out that the Thalmor will be after him again too.

[queenaeducan-writes]

Healing Hands

Fandom: Elder Scrolls, Skyrim, 3DNPCs/Interesting NPCs Pairing: Rumarin x Eilonwy Rating: General Audiences Words: 2k

Repost of a work that’s since been deleted on Tumblr. Rumarin is a character from 3DNPCs and not in any way my OC!

Read it here on AO3.

For weeks they’d been travelling together, now. Sharing food and shelter, stories and songs. It had been an experience, to put it delicately. She’d come to Skyrim seeking knowledge, but had found a friend instead. Eilonwy watched him sit by the newly lit fire, trying his new ward out. As his hand unflexed a frail shield manifested, causing his arm to tremble until the ward broke. “You are improving,” Eilonwy said gently.

The other high elf scoffed. “At least it’s big enough to shield my head, now. I suppose my innards will simply have to fend for themselves.” He was smiling as he nodded his head toward her, looking at her hands. “In the meantime I can cower behind yours. They’re big enough for the two of us.”

She laughed, stifling it with her hand. Whenever he made her laugh she’d always snort something terrible. It was not the sort of noise a woman of her age ought to be making, especially not on account of a man. “You assume I will remember to cast them.”

“That is true. Though I like the strategy we’ve worked out. You go in, hands blazing, towering over your foes, and I swoop in and finish them off!” Rumarin swept his hand over the fire, slashing the air with an imaginary conjured blade. “It works surprisingly well.”

All over Skyrim they had walked, all in the hopes of teaching him a new spell. They’d visited healers, eccentrics, and even the undead. Each time they failed, it had always been her who seemed more upset about it. Rumarin laughed it off with a joke, while she stewed about it for hours. A good teacher did not dismiss a student because they required a different style of teaching. It was difficult to tell how serious Rumarin was about learning new spells, but he had travelled across Skyrim and back to learn one. That required dedication.

Eilonwy traced her fingers over the fabric of her robes, pulling at the frayed ends. “May I ask you a question?” she said, moving around the campfire until she caught his gaze. “We went from border to border trying to find a mage that could teach you, yet in all that time you never thought to ask me. Why?” She’d asked herself that question for a while now, ever since they’d met Valgus at the sign of the Steed. It didn’t make sense to her, but then again many things about Rumarin didn’t make sense to her.

“I did ask for your help, remember? You blasted me with lightning. I still don’t have any feeling in my left foot,” he replied evasively. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Before that, though,” she pressed him.

“When we met you wouldn’t shut up about the College, I didn’t think you would be able to offer me anything.” Eilonwy knew she ought not to be hurt by that, that by now she ought to have thicker skin. Still, it stung a little.

“I came to the College to seek a safe haven, for research. There are a few hundred years of magic-using before them. My first spells I didn’t learn from tomes, I repeated their names and effects. I told myself again and again that I could walk on water, until the spell was the only thing in my mind, and my words became true.” She still remembered what it felt like, to feel her foot touch the water, but not sink. Two steps later and she sank faster than a rock, but for that one moment she thought herself the most powerful mage in the world. “The spell you learned today will save your life one day, especially if you keep following me. If you’re willing, I can help you learn more.”

Rumarin’s attention had returned to his hand, contemplating it with an expression rarely seen on the blade binder’s face. “No tomes?”

“None.”

“Fine, but if it doesn’t work then you pay me 100 septims. No, you treat me to a meal. And the next time you drag my up High Hrothgar you’ll have to give me a piggyback ride.”

“It’s a deal,” she said. “We shall start tomorrow.”

* * *

When Eilonwy had told him they were starting tomorrow, he had imagined that meant they’d be starting bright and early. He was surprised to find that by the time he stirred, she’d packed half the camp away. It wasn’t like her to back out of a promise, which was lucky because half of her life seemed to be made of them. It was always ‘I’ll find your lost amulet’ or 'I’ll kill the bandits’ with her. She’d kept every one so far, as far as he could tell the only two promises left unfulfilled were saving Nirn and, well, teaching him a spell.

“Are we leaving?” he asked. “I always find it easier to learn when there’s a beer at hand, don’t you think-”

“When we stop for the night, then we can begin. In the meantime, it gives you time to practise your ward spell. Master that, and I’ll determine where we can go from there,” she explained, slipping her blue robes on over her clothes. She was always so matter-of-fact with him, as if she were compensating for his… his everything. There were days when Rumarin wanted to get her drunk, just to see what embarrassing thoughts she kept hidden under lock and key.

“Yes, Ms. Eilonwy,” he said with a smirk, shrugging on his knock-off college robes.

They were on the road within the hour, their camp strapped to the back of the sturdy palamino that Eilonwy had steadfastly refused to name. He’d taken to calling it Apple, anyway. When they were walking it was mostly him who did the talking, he liked to think his jokes brought life to the frosty tundras of Skyrim. Of course, here in the Rift there was already plenty of life to be had, but Rumarin didn’t see much harm in adding to it.

Eilonwy had taken a liking to his jokes right away, even the bad ones. It had been ages since someone had laughed at the punchline to 'Have you seen a healer?’. He had been in the midst of forming a comment about the forest when the first arrow whizzed by them. “Would it be too much to ask for one leisurely stroll through the forest that doesn’t end with a bloodbath?” he moaned.

His companion already had a fireball at the ready, throwing it into the face of the first bandit who stepped into her line of sight. “It seems like the perfect time for you to try out that ward spell of yours,” she said, before charging off. He lost sight of her fast. The bandits came out of the trees from both sides, they were on him in seconds. Apple turned tail and fled, the horse had even less appetite for battle than he. A bandit swung at him from his left, and he’d barely enough time to cast a ward spell as the mace connected with his shield. It shattered in an instant, and he remembered what that Tolfdir had told the apprentice mages. Cast the spell before you need it. Right.

He stepped out of the way of the bandit’s next strike. Conjuring a blade, Rumarin couldn’t help but smile as he swung at his foe’s chest. The bandits had probably been expecting another spell weaver, not another sword to cross blades with. He was ready for the next strike, his ward up well before the mace clashed against it. It was nerve-wracking to see a spiked ball of death mere inches from his arm. As he took the opportunity to stab, he found himself wondering if there was a way to make wards more solid looking.

His blade found the weak point in the bandit’s armor. He didn’t have to guess if that was it for the bandit or not, the look in his eyes said it all. Rumarin pulled out his sword, and slashed it across the bandit’s throat. He never knew if he did it out of pity, or habit. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, as there were others that had to be dealt with. Some fled, he liked to think it was he that frightened them, and not the fireballs that exploded in their faces. The ones that remained soon met the end of his sword.

As the bandits dispersed, he began to think about finding their horse. Hopefully it hadn’t stampeded into a den of frostbite spiders in its haste. Or worse, a dragon. It had happened before, it was a miracle poor Apple still lived to tell the tale.

A cry grabbed his attention, however, and in seconds he forgot about the horse. “Eilonwy?” he called, seeing nothing but trees on either side. A bolt of lightning caught his eye, and he ran towards it. Another bandit lay against the ground, the smell of burnt hair overpowered the smell of blood. Not a few yards away Eilonwy lay, propped up by a tree. She clutched her side, blood seeping between golden fingers. “What happened?”

“She snuck up on me,” Eilonwy muttered, avoiding his gaze.

Rumarin managed a smile, though it felt more forced than his usual grin. “Well, not everyone can be as skilled with wards as I am. Luckily, you’re better at about everything else. Heal up, I think Apple’s half-way to Whiterun by now.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t?”

“Ran out of magicka.”

“Er, here, maybe we have a potion.”

Eilonwy attempted what he thought was supposed to be a smile. It looked more like a grimace. She looked at him, eyes squinting from the midday sun. “When I told you I felt like we’d forgotten to pick something up in Riften…”

Rumarin felt the blood drain from his face. He’d had the rug pulled out from under him before, but never like this. “Shor’s Stone isn’t too far down the road. I could-”

“You need to do it.”

“The horse could probably heal you better than I can.” The joke fell a little flat, but it was hard to think of anything when all he could see was blood on her robes.

“Rumarin.”

“I’ll try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll give you a week to recover before I expect that piggyback ride.” He saw the crows feet in the corner of her eyes crease, and he knew she was smiling.

It had been so much easier when she was the one using a spell on him. There wasn’t any time to tell her jokes about the long-term effects of this one paltry restoration spell. No time to tease her and tell her that she’d probably fall in love with him after this, and if she did he wouldn’t blame her. Women liked the sensitive types, and healers went hand-in-hand with sensitivity.

He held his hand over the wound, trying to remember what it felt like when she felt him. It always felt… warm. It felt stupid to compare it to a hug when their bodies never met, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Rumarin traced his teeth with his tongue, concentrating on that feeling, no matter how stupid it was. After a moment he felt a tingling in his fingers. He heard a tiny jingling sound, like there were small bells ringing in the palms of his hands. The wound on Eilonwy’s side began to close, growing together like it had never been split in the first place. Surprise lit up the bladebinder’s face, and before he could even finish he looked at her, beaming. “You should get injured like this more often! That way I’ll have it mastered in no–” As quickly as the magic had come, it was gone. No sooner than that, he saw her her skin start to bruise a brownish-pink, like the wound had opened up again inside.

Eilonwy didn’t seem put off, however. From her pack she pulled out a tiny blue bottle, and chugged it down. In a flash the bruise was gone, leaving nothing but smooth golden skin behind. “But you- I, did you do this on purpose?”

“No,” she replied, sitting up a little straighter. “Er, yes and no. The bandit did get me, but before I lost my strength I managed to find this on her person.” Eilonwy waved the empty bottle in her hand. “I thought I’d use it as a learning opportunity. It saved me the trouble of staging something else later." Rumarin let out something that was somewhere between a scoff and a sigh, sinking onto his knees. "I was afraid you would catch on. After observing how quickly you learned to use a ward in a controlled, but dangerous environment, I thought it only natural to apply the same to healing spells.”

“You’re…” Words failed him. He had known the mage had a reckless side, every adventure did, but this?

“You’re a healer,” she said. Eilonwy stood carefully, using the tree to balance. A second later her hand reached out to him, waiting for him to take it.

“I am, aren’t I?” he said. Grasping her hand, she pulled him up. Rumarin barely had a moment to steady himself when she pulled again, this time into a hug. After the nonstop action of the past five minutes or so, it was a refreshing change of pace.

“I’m proud of you. Sorry if I, er, if I scared you.”

The nice thing about Eilonwy was that he knew she was being genuine, whether he deserved the comments or not. “I wasn’t scared,” he said, already feeling his predisposition for jokes returning. “Maybe I was a bit… concerned.” She giggled, pulling back to smile at him.

“Does this mean that you’ll buy me dinner at the next town we pass?” she asked, her hands slowly letting go of him.

“I think that part of the deal only extended to me.”

“In that case maybe I’ll have to teach you another spell. While I was lying there I thought about riding through the entrance to the Greybeard’s temple on your shoulders.”

His ears had to be deceiving him, was that a joke? “I’ll consider it.”

Eilonwy laughed again, beginning to walk back towards the path. “I can even incorporate it into your training. I happen to know a few feather spells…”

“Ask me again later,” Rumarin said as he placed a hand on her shoulder, guiding her towards where Apple had run. “I need to recover from the trauma of this last lesson first.”

[supreme-burrito]

I guess this is an update on my life?

It’s 9:31 am on a Saturday

I ate two boxes of sushi and drank an entire bottle of strawberry moscato while watching someone read fanfiction of themself last night. I got drunk to the point of thinking that using my soft-bristled hair brush to clean out the calcium buildup from my humidifier vapors off my oscillating fan was a good idea (it was fucking stupid, but effective and I now can’t find that hair brush so I can clean it).

All because one coworker makes my blood boil because it takes him the entire day to do one single task, I found bliss in doing that on a Friday night.

Not the same coworker who drove me to depression and suicide during the pandemic but a coworker who makes me depressed and question my own abilities all the same. The other coworker is now involved in other projects but she is actively working with a healthy chonky baby (the baby is chonky it was born at 9lbs or 4kg).

In other shitty news another coworker who was my friend and mentor passed away due to COVID.

Pretty sure I got the coronavirus a couple of weeks back right as my boss got back from vacation and this is probably the second time I’ve had it (even though I got tested this time when I was showing initial symptoms literally the next day I started showing worse symptoms and stopped eating while mostly drinking fluids to survive). Needless to say I did and did not quarantine but probably because I was hardly around anyone at work for a long period of time, I followed proper cleaning and sanitizing procedures, and kept my mask on when I was around any I didn’t get anyone sick (I did not do any of these things last January and got at least two people sick).

Then both my parents got COVID. Don’t worry they’re fine but it did scare me half to death from hearing the news on the day of my friend’s funeral.

In conclusion January 2021 was been a shit show. But at least we got this cool Bernie meme out of it.

So yeah that’s why once again nothing in my life has been super exciting because I’m drowning in work and trying to recollect any sanity I have because of work. I managed to write one movie review on Bumblebee and I have been slowly getting back to video games. Made a crawl of progress in Yakuza Kiwami 2 and got the Scott Pilgrim beat ‘em up.

Oh yeah and I played Skyrim and watched some Cops on YouTube.

Writing that feels like a lot but in the giant span of things it’s not much.

And an update on the blog I am reblogging this post to: my muse for Stephen is pretty much dead, blame my state of life right now and forever more, I do have some drafts saved because I want to reply to them, I just don’t have the drive to write them.

[howtofightwrite]

Q&A: Low DPS

I have a fanfic where a character has a whip as a weapon for Evil Overlord Aesthetics. She thinks she’s in a video game, and when she realizes she’s actually in a dangerous situation she ditches the whip for an improvised weapon (sharpened rebar) that’s easier to kill with. Is this a plausible change, or is it easier to kill with a whip than I assume? While fear is affecting her judgment, if you can kill with a whip and she knows how at least in principle, maybe this isn’t a leap she’d make.

ree-fireparrot

You don’t need to justify a character taking a poor weapon choice into an encounter in a video game. There’s plenty of reasons you might take garbage gear into an encounter. Achievements, grinding unlocks, because individual weapons and attacks level up from use. This is before we get into novelty, thematic, and RP builds, which is what you’re talking about.

There’s a legitimate point in games, where you can start screwing around with non-optimal setups. You’ve gotten comfortable enough with the mechanics and the game cannot punish you for abusing it. Usually, this is due to system knowledge, it’s not just, “my reflexes are so good.” When you know how a game will behave, you gain a lot of freedom.

This should be obvious, but, the rules of a game do not have to mimic reality. In many cases, they won’t. What did you find was the most realistic element of Skyrim? The ability to yell at people so hard they’d vaporize? Being immune to hypothermia? Becoming a vampire? The ability to recover from near fatal wounds by freezing time and instantaneously consuming one-hundred-and-forty-five carrots. Owning your own house? Games operate under their own rules; rules which can get away with barely paying lip service to the real world. When you’re writing in a game world it is very important to create (or understand) how those rules work, and the effects they’ll have on player behavior. After that, the real world doesn’t matter.

This is part of why the, “she’s in the real world but doesn’t realize it,” doesn’t play for me. Something like Star Trek‘s holodecks not withstanding, video games are nothing like the real world. Even hardcore simulation games tend to have weird idiosyncrasies. Before we talk about graphics or the interface.

Because the rules are artificial, new players will try things that don’t work, but look viable. The technical term for this is a, “noob trap.” Generally speaking, these are regarded as poor design, but they still happen, and experienced players learn to navigate around them.

Some games will actively encourage you to swap out your gear, sometime for less optimal choices. The logic is fairly straightforward: If you let a player simply run the same loadout for 20-60 hours, they’ll get bored. To quote Soren Johnson, lead designer on Civilization 4 and Offworld Trading Company, “Given the opportunity, Players will optimize the fun out of a game.” Players will take the most risk averse, tedious, approach to a game, and then blame the game for their choice to play it that way.

There’s a number of ways you can counter this: Including gradually aging out existing items (either by providing a drip feed of better gear or by causing existing gear to decay), a focus on situational weapons. This can result in situations where you’re best option is use something that would normally be sub-optimal, because it’s the best option in the moment. In the right circumstances, that could include your character’s whip.

Developers will also implement mechanics designed specifically to counter this kind of play. An example close to Johnson would be the Firaxis reboot of XCOM, and it’s eventual sequel. Players used overwatch, inching forward with soldiers covering one another as they moved up. This somewhat mimics a real military tactic called a staggered advance, where soldiers will cover each other as they move forward. However, it also slows the game down and trivializes a major risk; charging into a pack of aliens you didn’t see. XCOM2 addressed this by using mission timers aggressively. You couldn’t advance slowly and methodically, because you only had X turns before very bad things happened. Similarly, the spiritual successor, Phoenix Point, tied its overwatch mechanic to a depleting resource. Again, invalidating the optimized strategy.

Here’s the problem: Low damage isn’t fun. As a concrete example: This is the problem with high level combat in Fallout 4. Enemies continue to level with you. Your level is uncapped. But your maximum damage output caps off at level 49. You, and the enemies, continue to get tankier, as your health pools grow, but you will never hit harder than you could have at 49.

Why do I bring this up? Few things in video games kill the fun like low outgoing damage.

Few players would choose to take a very low damage weapon simply for the aesthetic. (Note: “Very” is the operational word here. Everyone has slightly different tolerances for what they’ll accept. However, if the character is considering using an improvised weapon, clearly the whip is well below what they’re happy with.)

Either their whip is a valid weapon choice, or your character’s decisions leading up to this moment don’t make a lot of sense (even from the perspective of being in a video game.) There are whips in games that are legitimate options. For example: Bloodborne’s Threaded Cane, or the Vampire Killer from Castlevania. If it’s something like that, then the whip will still do its job. (Unless, the real version is nothing like the game counterpart.) However, if that’s not the case, your character is taking fetish gear into a fight. That’s going to be messy and unpleasant for her.

If you have the room to use it, the whip is a good defensive tool when dealing with unarmored opponents. So long as your character doesn’t need to kill their foe in this scene, the whip gives them a lot of options to create an opening so they can break and run, or buy time for reinforcements to arrive.

If she wanted to kill people, she would have brought a weapon to achieve that. If she’s using a whip is for fun, bringing it to a fight won’t be. I would think she’d have learned this before now.

-Starke

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Q&A: Low DPS was originally published on How to Fight Write.

[lehdenlaulu]

I like AC Valhalla,  but the more I play it the clearer it becomes that it too was rushed so a lot of things in it feel kinda like a result of cut content, tight deadlines and half-baked ideas.

The most noticeable thing is how the option to have a female Eivor feels entirely cosmetic. Which in a way is cool and refreshing, don’t get me wrong, but the fact that the narrative and characters (and sometimes even the dialogue, there are a couple of slips that refer to her as Sigurd’s brother instead of sister) treat her 100% as if she were a dude is just... odd and definitely makes it less immersive. The romance options, too, feel as if they’re designed with straight male protagonist in mind and while that is sadly still unsurprising in video games it feels like a step back from the freedom of Odyssey (even though Odyssey’s romances were more, shall we say, “light”).

Plus the graphics. I just got back to the game after a couple of weeks and it’s almost hilarious how much better the Yule Festival mini DLC looks compared to the rest of the game, even with some of the graphical improvements via patches. The character animations and textures absolutely look worse than in Odyssey (honestly, some hair textures for example wouldn’t feel out of place in a 15 year old game) and I really doubt it’s just my hardware that is to blame considering I updated almost all of it after the first try.

This is not me complaining, to make it clear. I know to expect stuff like this from newly released games these days. Approximately 96% of the time games are not actually ready by release date, even if they’re delayed from the original release date. Not to even mention content and features that get cut as ‘natural’ part of the process. The scale especially with AAA games is immense these days and so is the pressure, for indie studios and ones under big publishing companies both.

That is why I’m actually cool with the recent trend of Early Access because it’s honest. You will knowingly get an unfinished product for (usually) full price while helping make the eventual finished product better. Is it frustrating to not get it all at once? Sure. But that’s how it all seems to work, anyway: either you get a buggy, unpolished product or you wait 6-12 months (or more) extra to get a more polished and stable one maybe with some extra DLCs to boot.

Is it a result of deep flaws in the system? Absolutely. Does it need fixing? Hell yes. Will it be easy and quick? Unfortunately, no.

ETA:

I say “these days” and “recently” but this has been more or less of an issue for the last 10 years or so, and with pretty much every game studio you can think of. Graphics issues and buggy quests especially are more the rule than an exception in new releases. Mass Effect: Andromeda and Dragon Age: Inquisition had some pretty notorious ones. And while we’re speaking of BioWare, Dragon Age 2 was released by EA in freaking alpha stage and never got fully fixed. LucasArts did pretty much the same with Obsidian’s Knights of the Old Republic 2. Bethesda took so much time fixing Skyrim’s numerous bugs most of the players just shrugged and downloaded the unofficial patch mod.

So especially put in context, Cyberpunk 2077 being a bit of a mess at launch is absolutely nothing new under the sun. I get that people had high expectations, but... Yeah. It’s just how it is.

[gamesception]

So the Outer Worlds port finally came out on the switch a couple weeks ago, which is what I had been waiting for to give it a try.  Beat my first play through yesterday.  And... honestly?  I kind of expected better.  Like, a lot better.

Not getting into the technical side, since I’d have no idea how to separate the stuff that was Obsidian’s fault from stuff that was Virtuous’s fault from stuff that just comes down to the Switch itself.  Also because technical stuff doesn’t affect my own experience overmuch - I can’t easily spot the difference between 30fps and 60fps unless someone points it out to me, and as long as a game is at least on par with, like, the ps2 era graphically then it looks good to me - though I will say the game crashed twice while I was playing it AND I had a random quest breaking companion death bug that by the time I noticed it I only barely had a save far enough back that I was able to fix it, and the game performed badly enough docked that even I gave up on playing it on the tv and just went with handheld....

But again, I’m not overly concerned with the technical end and wouldn’t necessarily blame obsidian for the shortcomings of the switch port anyway.  But where the game was disappointing was in areas that I was sure Obsidian would deliver in - an immersive world with believable and engaging factions and societies, interesting and well written quest lines and npcs, a main story with something compelling to say and a lot of opportunities for subtle role playing.  The stuff that New Vegas did so much better than Fallout 3, or that KotOR 2 did so much better than KotOR 1.  Stuff that the reviews around the time of the game’s release on other platforms all praised the Outer Worlds for.

And that’s.... like...  I mean, Outer Worlds isn’t terrible, I enjoyed my time with it more than I didn’t, but wow I expected more.  The game is short, the explore-able areas are relatively small, and, like, it’s really really dumb in a lot of exactly the same ways that people complain about Bethesda Fallout games - token quests that just have you following a quest marker around mindlessly, never getting to work anything out for yourself.  Settlements that don’t make sense, npcs and villains that feel like goofy dumb jokes rather than communities of people, random respawning groups of the same handful of enemy types with no integration into the world - the game’s raiders have no motivations, outposts, or place in the world like those of New Vegas, they’re just enemy spawns to give you something to shoot.

The world just doesn’t work.  Like, I get it, corporations bad, I even agree in principle, but there’s no depth to it, just a surface level, cartoonish reiteration of the idea.  It doesn’t get at WHY corporations are bad.  In Outer Worlds they’re just bad because they’re dumb and incompetent and pointlessly cruel.  Nothing about systemic lack of accountability or profit motive.  The game even just shoves a couple arbitrary human villains in at the end so that you have a generic bad guy that you can kill to magically fix everything.

And the segregated design of the world - instead of one big wasteland like fallout games there’s a bunch of smaller regions you space ship between like a KotOR or Mass Effect game - means nothing you do in one area or quest line seems to meaningfully impact or even just tie into anything going on anywhere else.  There’s a faction system like New Vegas, but the factions feel pointless and paper thin.

The only ethical/story choices in the game are between factions, and there’s always a pretty obvious “right” answer.  Do you side with the company town full of innocent people, or do you side with the outsiders who just want to be free even if that freedom comes at the cost of an entire town of innocent people?  Or do you want take the obviously best option milquetoast moderate liberal “both sides” option where you easily resolve the differences between the two sides by getting rid of the one individual bad man who is actually to blame for whatever’s going wrong?  That exact situation is repeated twice.  Then do you want to side with the board who are literally killing everyone through wilful incompetence or do you want to side with everyone else because literally nobody actually likes or depends on the corporate board?  The choices presented to you are as cartoonish and reductive as anything you could point to in any of the Bethesda games that Obsidian fans like to complain about.

Some of the companions are ok, Parvati is endearing enough, and there’s a bit of biowaresque banter between them while walking about which I like, but their quest lines, like pretty much all quest lines in the game, are pretty short and largely perfunctory fetch quests, and once they’re done the companions have literally nothing left to say to you.  Just as you get close to them they stop being characters altogether, and are reduced down to ‘attack that enemy’ buttons.

The game play was... like bare minimum passable, and way way too easy.  As with the quest lines, the game play seems to be idiot-proofed at the expense of all challenge.  There’s a neat infiltration mechanic idea, but those segments are all but impossible to fail if you aren’t trying to do so.  Combat likewise was way too easy, at least for the default stealthy long gun character I typically make in these sorts of games.  Enemy AI is pretty bad and rubber banding is super noticeable.  There’s multiple difficulty levels, but hard mode didn’t fix the problem and ‘supernova’ mode comes with a bunch of obnoxious survival busywork, plus the companions can be perma-killed, and since their AI is as bad as the enemies that would lead to me never taking them out of the ship, which would mean missing out on the party banter which is one of the few bits I was enjoying in the game, so I didn’t even bother trying it.

Skill checks are present but almost always too easy to distinguish character build decisions, and even when they are, bypassing checks by other means is always so trivial that it’s not even worth the quick travel jump back to your ship to respec - which you can do at any time.  If there’s a hard lock pick blocking anything important then there’s always an alternative computer hack, or a nearby pass key, or a room with a couple enemies that can be easily stealthed past, or even more easily killed, or some other alternative path never more than a room away.  The only thing that seems to be blocked by actually hard checks are more loot, and this game throws so much loot and ammo and medpacks at you that missing out on some never matters.

None of that would be a huge problem if the game’s story and world had more depth.  The game play coasts by on the bare minimum, but for an rpg of this type that would be absolutely fine, if the story and quests and setting weren’t *also* coasting by on the bare minimum.  That ‘bare minimum’ bit is highlighted by the game’s overall length, which is really pretty short.  I did every side quest I came across naturally, collected all the companions and did their quests, and capped my character level before going to the final mission, but that still capped out at well under 20 hours of play time, and a lot of that was spent backtracking back and forth over the same few areas with the same copy and re-pasted respawning enemy groups.

The whole thing isn’t, like, actively bad, I’m coming across as too negative here.  Again, I mostly enjoyed my time while I was playing it, and the relative lack of these sorts of games on the Switch means I don’t feel like I wasted my money on this one.  I *did* play it all the way through instead of just losing interest a few hours in.  I’ll probably play it through once more at some point in the future, a no companions, supernova difficulty run maybe, and I’ll probably enjoy that well enough.  And I guess maybe that makes Outer Worlds look good compared to recent Bethesda efforts, which I’ve either avoided entirely (76, mobile garbage), or lost interest in and stopped playing a few hours in (4).  Maybe that explains some of the overwhelming praise of the game I remember from when it first came out.  But I wouldn’t say it’s even on par with slightly older Bethesda fare like Fallout 3 or Skyrim.  And to the extent that the game’s world structure and focus on companions calls to mind Bioware games like the original Dragon Age or Mass Effect, Outer Worlds falls notably short there as well.  Most painfully, when it comes to the core elements that made previous Obsidian games like New Vegas or KotOR2 great, Outer Worlds doesn’t even come close.  Hardly even seems to try.  And if you’re comparing Outer Worlds to those games instead of to Fallout 76, I don’t really see how you could see it as anything other than a disappointment.

[dgcatanisiri]

I’ve been reluctant to start any new game the last few months, since the ones I have, I’ve trailed off and gone back to just faffing around in Skyrim when I’m not trying to actually make my way through my backlog of DVDs - even my Mass Effect run trailed off, though that’s probably because I have Thessia to look forward to there, and... Well, we’ve been over that. But I’m gonna go ahead and start Avengers, see if I can get through that. 

Also trying to decide if how to juggle the upcoming games on my list - I really really really REALLY don’t want to support Ubisoft’s business practices, and I’m still burnt from the Odyssey DLC, but at the same time... Eivor can be a gay man! That’s important! And the bullshit of things is that when games with gay content don’t sell well enough, the gay gets blamed, rather than anything else, so... If I want to support gay things, I need to buy it! And then there’s the pre-release handling of things for Cyberpunk as well, which have always made me a little uncomfortable, but... Also gay content!

Also trying to finagle things to pick up another game or two - Star Wars Squadrons (it’s got a singleplayer story, and I did enjoy the starfighter segments of Battlefront, which this seems to be an outgrowth of), and Immortals Fenyx Rising (seems interesting, anyway). 

*sigh* I know I say this a lot, but it’s a constant mood: I just want to be paid to play video games and complain about them on the internet. Is that really so wrong?