#i finally ended up with a sort of 3 stage mechanism that consisted of a cable tunnel made of plastic straws (to remain in the hole)

[smute]

my parence got a new fiber internet connection "for free" and although they're quite tech savvy they're also at an age now where people think they can take advantage of them 😤 so after the phone company installed the access point in the basement "for free", they then wanted to charge them 200€ for the in-house hookup (i.e. to run a cable from the basement to the terminal upstairs 👹)

so in my youthful hubris i instead decided to buy a 20m cable and do it myself, and it only took me *checks time* six hours and an insane amount of macgyvering to feed that delicate little thang through the old phone line hole in the ceiling

tbh there was a point in the afternoon when i was ripping apart my mom's floorboards where i would have been more than happy to give someone 200€ just to put me out of my misery... but in the end it all worked out. sometimes even simple tasks take time

[voltimer]

'The Magic of Johto's Level Curve'

(or, 'a leisurely analysis of the singleplayer balance of Pokemon GSC and HGSS')

The Johto games - especially HeartGold and SoulSilver - seem to have a very good reputation. Some often put the aforementioned HGSS into their top 3 or describe it as the core Pokemon experience. I personally agree with this sentiment and HGSS is either #2 or #1 depending on my mood (it usually competes with Black 2 and White 2).

Despite all its praise though, there seems to be an incredibly consistent point raised against it: the level curve. I see it described as unbalanced, janky, and generally bad.

There are two main problems people tend to cite. First is the level progression in Johto itself, with Gyms 5, 6, and 7 not exactly being a smooth progression upwards and then Team Rocket's Archer and the 8th Gym having a notable level spike compared to those last three. Wild Pokemon levels are also usually a lot lower than the major boss fights they are ahead of, making raising new 'mons harder and grinding for boss fights longer. The other problem is Kanto, whose problems can essentially be said to take Johto's levelling issues and ramp them up. The jump from fighting Blue to the Elite Four rematches and Red is also very significant.

What I'm not going to do here is refute that the above isn't true - these level scaling inconsistencies are certainly present. It's also very different to the vast majority of main series entries, whose level curves are more linear and gradual. Gens 5 and 7 even have a feature which multiplies exp gain based on how much lower or higher you are than the Pokemon you defeat which in a way acts like a rubber band around each game's level curve, ensuring you can catch up easily but not go too overlevelled either. Playing GSC and HGSS when the rest of those entries are like that is a bit jarring. Pokemon is so well-known for having quite a formulaic design across its main series and when compared to that formula with regards to level progression and the like, the Johto games do seem a bit off-colour.

What I am going to do though is try to explain why this so-called bad level curve is at the very least not actually that bad, or, if I can convince you well enough, that the Johto games actually have a unique and (what I call) magical singleplayer game design not properly replicated in any other entry. It goes to the core essence of Pokemon's theming, and it fits with the fact that Johto's narrative also happens to put the most focus on those themes than the rest of the series.

When I say the core essence of theming, I mean the very basics of every Pokemon adventure: you, the player, leave home to go on a journey around your region, meeting various people and overcoming various challenges along the way together with your partner Pokemon. Challenges you overcome are all thanks to the bonds you share with your partners and how you raise them with love and care. As you get older, this is the sort of thing in Pokemon that you probably end up taking for granted. It's typical "power of friendship" stuff, and most people will tend to come to conclude through learning about the game mechanics that this sort of thing is superficial and that stats are all that matter in the end. The more modern Pokemon games also have such a big focus on larger-than-life stories with big climaxes featuring the box Legendaries that it's easy to lose this basic level, down-to-earth narrative theming.

Johto is significant for not having any larger-than-life aspects overshadowing its core. Instead, the core takes centre stage. There is no real overarching story besides your adventure. Team Rocket's antics take a sub-plot role but in the end act as a foil to your story, being one of the more major obstacles you overcome. Catching Ho-oh or Lugia is no cataclysm either, but rather a reward for your achievements throughout the game and thanks to your good and pure heart - recognised by the Legendary in question. Moments throughout the game like how you deal with the situation at the Lake of Rage, or the Dragon's Den trial where you're asked questions to test your ideals as a trainer (which, of course, you pass with flying colours) all contribute to this core as well.

The way Professor Oak congratulates you after defeating Lance ties the knot perfectly on the main campaign:

"Ah, <player>! It's been a long while. You certainly look more impressive. Your conquest of the League is just fantastic! Your dedication, love, and trust for your Pokémon made this happen. Your Pokémon were outstanding, too. Because they believed in you as a Trainer, they persevered. Congratulations, <player>!"

These are just examples of the main story events, though,and Johto has a lot more than that. The region is filled with things to do beside the main campaign - Berries/Apricorns, Pokegear calls, the Ruins of Alph and other optional caves, the Bug Catching Contest, and (in HGSS) the Pokeathlon and Safari Zone, just to name a few of the more notable ones. Tama Hero's review of Pokemon GSC talks a lot about this and it's well-worth a watch even beyond the section describing the games' breadth of side content.

Tama Hero also touches upon the supposed level scaling issue, and her response to the complaints is that there is a "sprinkling" of opportunities for small bits of exp gain throughout the game which should help you stay on track in most cases, and where you can't match levels, you can outplay your opponent.

I certainly agree with the latter. It always feels entirely possible to beat bosses at a level deficit throughout Johto. The Johto League is one of the key cases where you'll probably end up at level disadvantage, but I've consistently been able to defeat it with a team of lv 40s on average (so nearly 10 levels behind Lance's peak), and I'm pretty certain that my not-even-10-year-old self did so as well, even though it took me many, many attempts. From various people I've talked to and bits of let's plays I've seen over the years, this seems to be the common experience too. I think only a minority of people have had to grind to match Lance's levels in order to beat him at all. Granted, it might take you a couple of tries at that level disadvantage (or a great couple of tries more, like little ol' me), but that's surely not an unreasonable expectation. The concept of getting stuck at a difficult stage in a game could be called a universal one, and I think most people agree that it's always pretty satisfying to finally surmount a challenge like that. This can even be said about other Pokemon games - Kanto, Hoenn and Sinnoh also all have large level spikes at the end. In fact, at least when it comes to the end of the maingame, I'd argue Hoenn and Sinnoh have a larger level spike than Johto, but they're not considered impossible or anything

Regardless, though: it's certainly possible to win difficult battles in Pokemon at a level disadvantage. Tama Hero argues that the strategy required to do so isn't something the game teaches you very well, but I think this is a tad pessimistic. In the end I think that most wins will just come down to understanding of more fundamental skills that you've probably learned through the course of the game naturally - using type matchups (gyms are all type themed), using moves with stat changes (the earlygame is full of moves like Growl and Tail Whip), using status moves (no doubt you're going to see the effects of Paralysis and Burns throughout the game at least), and apt use of items (bosses always use potions and often use held items). Players also have more control over the battle than the enemy, with the default Switch mode and a huge amount more items available. It's true that the games don't teach you the deeper, untold mechanics very well, but learning about those only unlock even more ways to succeed for the numbers-minded veterans.

On the topic of those deeper, untold mechanics I also want to talk about something which Tama Hero doesn't mention at all - Effort Values, or EVs. Most of you reading will probably know about these by now, but for those who don't, EVs are hidden values which can increase a Pokemon's raw stats by a certain amount based on the other Pokemon they defeat. They were present in a slightly different form in Gens 1 and 2 in the form of "stat exp" but the premise was the same: your Pokemon grow twofold when you defeat Pokemon, by gaining visible exp for levelling up and visibly gaining stats every time that exp bar fills, but also by gaining stats little by little every time they defeat any Pokemon. Your Pokemon's EVs weren't visible to you in-game until Gen 6 with the Super Training graphic, and numerically weren't until Gen 7 where you can press X on the Pokemon's stat screen to show what are called "base stats".

EV optimisation is crucial to competitive play because the stat boosts they give are quite significant. Competitive players will "min-max" spreads, putting as much as possible into 2 stats to maximise strengths and not wasting any on stats they aren't making use of. In maingame playthroughs, though, EVs will usually end up being a balanced spread because you'll invetivably be facing a variety of Pokemon with different EV yields throughout the game. EVs can also be increased with the Vitamin items (Protein, Calcium, etc.) which you find a handful of throughout the game (and can buy at a premium) and can be used to manually raise EVs, though only to a certain point.

In Gens 3 and onward, a Pokemon can have up to 252 EVs in 1 stat, and 510 in total. At Lv 100, 4 EVs in a stat grant 1 point extra to it. For the singleplayer campaign the conditions are a bit different, but if we assume as a standard that by the Elite Four your EV total is maxed out and you have an even spread, your stats will all be up to 10 points higher than they would be without EVs. In Gens 1 and 2, you can actually max out all of a Pokemon's stat exp values but you're unlikely to cap them all for a good while beyond the maingame so we can consider them about the same as in the later gens for this.

But why is this important?

Firstly, the difference EVs make in the above scenario account for what is usually about 5 levels' worth of stats. Depending on your exact distribution, it could be a couple more or less levels' worth in each stat but the bottom line is that they make your Pokemon's strength higher than it may seem based on level alone.

This means that the wild Pokemon grinding that is criticised for being too tedious in Johto as a result of low levels is also better than it seems because even when you don't level up, you're gaining EVs for every one of those you defeat. The stagnant levels in the midgame of Johto also contribute more to your Pokemon's growth than it may seem from the slow level gain. The Pokegear rematches which you gain access to after defeating Team Rocket before Gym 8 may also be a little infrequent, but they also very often give you Vitamins afterwards to add to all of this.

Secondly is what seems to be a fairly unknown fact: in-game trainers do not have any EV spreads. Thanks to the work of speedrunners, we have exact data of enemy trainers' Pokemon to show this. Trainers do have IV spreads based on their "AI level" (more 'advanced' AI levels will have up to 30 IVs across the board) but the difference near-perfect IVs will have on their Pokemon is not as great as the combination of random IV spreads and relatively balanced EV spreads yours.

That 10 level deficit vs Lance is suddenly more like 5 in practice. Some of his Pokemon also happen to have pretty high stats naturally in Gyarados and the Dragonites, and the level deficit will still be slightly present, but once we factor in strategy again, you can abuse their type weaknesses and make good use of items, status and whatever else have you to swing the odds in your favour.

The only way you can find out anything about EVs in Johto is from a NPC in Blackthorn City who gives your Pokemon the Effort Ribbon if they have reached their total of 510, and the only practical way for a player without the technical knowledge to have achieved this is to have spent time throughout the game doing lots of little bits of training - in other words, putting in the effort - to have incidentally capped their Pokemon's EV total. It's only fitting that you find this NPC towards the end of the Johto campaign because it's likely that by this point a couple of your team members will be eligible for the ribbon.

This finally ties back to the point of core theming. EVs are an invisible stat giving your Pokemon an extra edge over their in-game opponents, or, at worst, one closing a gap in strength between them, as a result of all of the time you've spent raising those Pokemon throughout the game. In other words, EVs are essentially the statistical representation of the "dedication, love, and trust" you have for your Pokemon which gets you through seemingly difficult challenges. Levels, then, are only a surface representation of your Pokemon's strength: they create the feeling of an uphill battle, but you can win against the odds by believing in yourself and your partners. It's probably exactly what you thought as the naive and uncynical child playing through a Pokemon game for the first time, and probably one of the ways you made such fond memories of it. In hindsight, this is definitely how it was for me. It is a sort of magic, really.

There is still a big Red elephant in the room, and I do think that the level gap between the end of the Kanto Gyms and Red is maybe too hard to go and beat immediately after even with the power of EVs and such, but Red is by all means a superboss and final challenge of the Johto games, and I don't think it's unreasonable to have to grind for a while to build up for and to finally be able to take his team of Lv 80s on. The same can be said about the Elite Four Rematches in this game and others, Steven in Emerald, or that one Barry fight in Platinum if you do decide to beat the E4 rematches 20 times to make his levels nearly match Red's. If you're setting out to fight a superboss like this, the grind is part of the prerequesites. It's definitely still possible to beat someone like Red with a 10 or even 20 level deficit if you play well, though. I admit, I haven't beaten Red in a long time, but I have beaten Emerald Steven with a ~15 level gap before. Tama Hero also said she has beaten Red with a team of level 50s in Crystal in the review.

I said before that the other games in the series haven't replicated this sort of thing as well. Gen 5 was the beginning of a marked shift away from this design, with its overarching story-driven style and a change to exp gain which would honestly be incompatible with the level curve in Johto. Gen 6, whilst returning to the exp system without level deficit multipliers, saw different means of statistical representations of the 'dedication, love and trust' trio in Pokemon Amie, which can break the game almost as much as the Exp Share when enough Affection is built up. Gen 7 brings back Gen 5's exp system whilst retaining the Exp Share and Affection systems, and actually ends up even diverging from the EV design which went before by having in-game trainers and Totem Pokemon with competitive, min-maxed EV spreads from as early as the Trainer's School. Whilst I am yet to play Let's Go and Sword and Shield, their Exp system with a 'permanent Exp Share' of sorts makes it a huge amount different and from what I've seen and heard, overlevelling is quite easy despite the game being designed around the feature. I really hope that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl at least return to Gen 6's exp mechanics, or better, reunite us with the held-item version of the Exp Share which doesn't make me feel like I'm cheating whenever I use it.

Before I go too off-topic, though, I should probably return to the original thread of this post to make some concluding remarks. What can't be denied that the way GSC and HGSS are designed may not be for everyone. I know for sure that a lot of people prefer to be able to breeze through a Pokemon game at a brisk pace without many roadblocks, but as someone who in recent years has come to appreciate much slower-paced and immersive singleplayer Pokemon playthroughs, I can't help but love the way GSC and HGSS are designed in the way I've explained, or appreciate their unique identity amongst the rest of the series. Coming to think about this has also shed light on why I adored HeartGold as much as I did when I first played it way back 11 years ago. I poured hours and hours into the game, and as a result, its magical design put me under its spell.

_____________________________________________________________

Though I linked to the references I did use when they appeared, here they are again. Do check them out if they're of interest to you!

Tama Hero's GSC review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgtMVKP2T6Y

speedrun.com trainer data for HGSS: https://www.speedrun.com/pkmnhgss/guide/k2zij

speedrun.com trainer data for SuMo: https://www.speedrun.com/pkmnsunmoon/guide/d2683

Tama Hero (YT) is one of the few people I know who actually makes longer-form Pokemon analysis content besides Aleczandxr (also YT), who whilst not being a 'PokeTuber' has made some brilliant analyses of storytelling through setting in Sinnoh, Hoenn, Johto, and just recently, Unova. I did not refer to them here but I can highly recommend their content, at least.

Thank you very much for reading to the very bottom here. This is my first time writing something like this and I appreciate it.

[firewoodfigs]

a smorgasbord of unbidden thoughts / highlights (long post ahead!): 

we’re slowly creeping out of the lockdown, and we’re allowed to go out for meals now! I got to meet a friend for dinner on Monday and he treated me to some amazing Italian fare as a belated birthday gift :’) I was really craving Italian after watching Luca and I haven’t had good pasta in a long while, so that was really nice. I also met a friend for dinner today after work, and we’re just glad to have made it to Friday tbh lmao. it was nice catching up again after so long and talking about everything under the sun (in this case, under the moon). I love spending time alone and having time myself, but I can’t deny that I’ve also missed interacting with other sentient life forms lmao. 

I managed to re-schedule my vaccine slots, and I'm getting my first shot tomorrow! fingers crossed it won’t be too bad (I still wanna be able to type through the soreness 😩). I'm a little nervous tbh because I absolutely detest needles, but I feel like at this point I just don’t care anymore LMAO. it also helps that my bf and I got the same vaccination slot, so I guess I'll just make a ruckus and be a nuisance if things go south. jk 

next week’s my last full week of work before my two-month break begins! I'm really excited to finally get a breather from work (although to be fair I've only been working for like... 6 months lmao rip) before things get real hectic in September haha. I'm definitely not looking forward to the added responsibilities, and i’m honestly not sure how to feel about getting called to the bar because everyday is just a flurry of shit, am I really cut out for this and help, work is dulling my * sparkle * and yo, you think I can just move somewhere west and be a country singer? but oh well. too late I guess. I'm too deep in debt to get out now LMAO. jk 

on the bright side, though, I received news today that I’ve been designated to my preferred area of practice for my next seat :) and i'm pretty excited about that! I've honestly been feeling pretty desiccated about the law ever since starting practice because it’s so different from whatever I've studied and something that college couldn’t have possibly prepared me for lmao (many thoughts but I don’t want to turn this into an essay so I will simply project my feelings onto my favourite war criminals)

it’s been a struggle to create lately, for various reasons. these days it feels like anything I make is woefully inadequate and subpar and mediocre, and i’m just. constantly torn between striking everything out altogether and desperately wanting to be better, to feel better. I felt a little burnt out after royai week because  I was rushing to complete so many projects and ideas on time (I do tend to get a little overambitious and overzealous that way, haha), and so I tried to take a break, but I couldn’t properly rest, either, because these days I only feel alive when I'm... creating. LOL. it's like an unresolvable paradox where I slog to feel alive and then feel like death, and then feel like I'm wasting away and wasting time when I'm being unproductive and fruitless. idk, man. it’s probably the productivity guilt acting up or something. it doesn’t help that my mind is an unholy mix of anxiety and imposter syndrome and perfectionism, either, or that inspiration only strikes me at the ungodliest of hours. I find that it’s easier to write when I've cleared everything else on my plate, but sometimes it’ll be midnight by the time I've done that because there’s just so much to do. I end up writing at two in the morning and/or recording snippets of a putative song while half-asleep (the result is usually pretty dang awful, because I have no idea what I was saying when I listen to it the next day lmao).

I also find it to difficult to alternate between so many forms of writing. my job mostly consists of reading and writing (mostly boring and terribly dreary stuff, because lawyers have apparently never heard of punctuation or one-liners, and I am 100% proving this right now with my streams of consciousness), and my hobbies primarily include that, too. I've also been struggling to switch between writing prose/fic and poems and songs because i tend to focus on different things. (I also have the attention span of a goldfish. or a confused rat.) like, I focus a lot more on how things flow for the first, how things look for the second, and how things sound for the third, if that makes sense? but I also literally cannot focus on one thing at a time so everything is just a half-written mess and a smattering of my illegible scrawls tbh 😞 I'm hoping that I'll have more time to sit down and properly sort these out one at a time during my break hahaha. 

that being said, I read something this week about the four stages of learning a new skill LOL iirc it goes (1) unconscious incompetence (2) conscious incompetence (3) conscious competence (4) unconscious incompetence? I find that I'm stuck at (2) atm for a lot of things, which is probably why it’s so hard to go forth and do the damn thing without descending into a spiral of self-doubt haha. the truth is I rely on external reassurances and validation a great deal to tide me through, because my mind is just so used to criticising myself for everything and being my own harshest critic that it’s become a challenge to objectively assess my own work. it’s probably a defence mechanism to feeling like failure is not an option and/or my upbringing or something, and it’s how I’ve coped with a lot of things, but I'm also coming to realise that it’s not always the healthiest way to live haha. 

BUT, you know. at the end of the day it’s a hobby and it’s supposed to be fun and joy-inducing and. it’s so easy to ruin all of that in the process of pursuing perfection so. I think i’ll just work on attempting the damn thing and worrying about it afterwards 🤠 (and also being less exacting on myself haha) 

ending things on a lighter and brighter note - I received a lovely surprise from a friend this week!! I ordered some earrings from her (the stuff she makes is the stuff of DREAMS) and she tossed in a necklace for me and it’s just. it’s beautiful. it’s handmade. it’s astounding. I'm weeping. 

[cateringisalie]

Village: Resident Evil ramblings

(Some spoilers)

Ethan Winters is a goddamn idiot.

I say this without a shred of nostalgia; I first encountered him in RE7 and feel less than nostalgic towards the guy. RE7 without the benefit of the former entrants was a FPS horror and pretty good. Though you couldn’t escape that the characters you remembered were the Baker family and Mia; Ethan was a walking camera with a gun and some very simplistic emotional responses (fear, rescue wife, escape, swear occasionally). Having now run through the whole sequence of games, Ethan stands out starkly as the blandest and least interesting protagonist the series ever produced. He is possibly worse than Piers. Village updates Ethan’s personality. A bit. Well. Not really. Still got that fear, still got the swearing. Still got a mind to escape. But rather than rescue his wife, it’s about rescuing his daughter. I mean; Mia was gunned down and shot a further 9000 times by infuriating series stalwart Chris Redfield a little under ten minutes into the game proper. Not that Ethan really comes to terms with the trauma. By minute fifteen of the game the van you’ve been shoved in by Chris (who doesn’t shoot you for no reason he feels like explaining) has crashed and Ethan’s daughter is missing. Mourning Mia doesn’t actually enter into Ethan’s thought process. Goddamn idiot. Not to say that life with Mia was exactly picturesque; a few years after RE7 the couple are now somewhere nebulous in Eastern Europe in a very lovely house with a distressing number of empty wine bottles in the kitchen. A happy marriage this does not seem to be given Mia doesn’t want to get into the events of RE7 anymore, but Ethan does – but also failing to understand that the cover-up of the incident might be why no one is talking much about the whole mess in Louisiana and that bringing it up both distresses and angers Mia. But; the inciting incident has occurred and we’re propelled into our new scenario. Ethan; once again fish out of water, and its not like we have a choice. This is not to say Village does not repeat the same narrative trick of changing POV character, but there is both less of that, and the Half-Life-style regimented first person view jarringly completely goes out the window in the last quarter. It was less than consistent at points, but sparingly when occasionally and jarringly camera angles shifted to depict an introduction. But the game is also perfectly happy to render whole FPS sequences with gun visible and everything as it plays out a story beat, so... I don’t know? Fortunately Ethan’s environment and the setting are much more interesting. The unnamed Village is a satisfying knot of tangled streets, locked doors and environmental obstacles. Enemies don’t respawn per se, but additional enemies are added on subsequent visits to the effective hub of the game. There’s livestock to kill and give the Duke – the merchant playing a similar role to the pirate-like guy from RE4. Duke’s an entertaining character (some have objected to his physical and hugely overweight depiction); chatty and far more knowing than he will let on. He has a dangling thread come the end so perhaps will reappear elsewhere. He’ll sort the gun upgrades, supplies, let you sell treasure and point you towards your next destinations. Which is just as well as the human population of the village dies out somewhere between the first and second hour. No one left and any futile attempts to save people end in almost hilariously disastrous tragedies (no Ethan, don’t go higher in a building that is on fire). Leaving you with Lycans, zombies and gargoyles to fend off. Occasionally there’s some bigger foes on the level of the Executioner from RE5 but nothing on the level of the Tyrants. That kind of thing is left to the Village Lords. The villagers – before they all die – have a curiously unfamiliar religion and praise a figure known as Mother Miranda. She reportedly kept the village safe, but something has changed and now the Lycans run amok and without restraint. Not hard to pin that the reason for the change is Rose’s arrival (or could it be Ethan? COULD IT? No. Man is a goddamn idiot). The only door out of the village you can open is to Castle Dimitrescu and... It feels unnecessary to even get into what awaits. Given fandom have been so noisy about the tall lady and her vampiric daughters since the first trailer. She is so very, very tall. The castle is the first mode of Village. Possibly closest to RE7; Dimitrescu’s daughters are vulnerable based on certain environmental details (read the notes!) but otherwise should be fled from. Dimitrescu herself is invulnerable to everything bar one weapon and you need to work at getting that, so she needs to be fled from. Otherwise, explore the castle, find treasure. Sneak. Solve puzzles. It all looks suitably gorgeous and you get multiple chances to see if as you loop through the rooms and unlock more doors. The Village macro mechanics wrought as micro here. There’s a canny hint at a late reveal in the blunt utility of in-game mechanics to be had too. But – really should have been obvious given their prominence in the trailer – given Castle Dimitrescu is the first level, it means we must say goodbye to the very Tall Lady with knife hands and move onto someone else. In between levels, we get the first reinforcement of a tease from the trailer; the symbol of the Umbrella corporation. Its engraved into a location called the Ceremony Site. Its daubed on a cave wall as high as the Tall Lady. Its on the strange structure you insert the yellow flasks each Village Lord guards. And it means... almost nothing. RE's meta-plot has always been a mess and everyone’s favorite pharmaceutical company hasn’t been so active for a while, so the idea that we might be getting into some interesting weirdness with them again is oh so appealing. And yet – I was disappointed. Despite the repeated glimpses of the familiar white and red logo, the connection ultimately comes down to one letter I found at about 7/8s of the way through. Oswell Spencer – founder of the company – visited the Village years ago and saw the cave painting and adopted it as his logo. Oh. That’s... underwhelming. The same letter does at least prod at wiring Village’s latter reveals into the formation of the company along with tying in some parts of RE5 but if you thought this would be the company or the family dynasty origins or anything like that, you are in for a disappointment. It’s a tease and one that goes nowhere and does little. Oh we might now see how Spencer got into the whole inadvertent zombie making mess but its not a factor in the plot of this game nor does it really change the stakes of the previous. Perhaps I should be glad it’s so frivolous given other retcons in certain other franchises, but it feels so suspect to have drawn the attention and then shuffle the implications out the side-door. At least the other village lords have their own appeals. The second level is RE once again stealing PT (the PS4 demo to announce Silent Hills) given Konami outright don’t care about it anymore. Stripped of your guns and inventory, it’s a claustrophobic puzzle level requiring you to hide with mechanics familiar to both Evil Within and Alien Isolation. That same loop of rooms as you seek out puzzle solutions and hide from a staggeringly distressing malevolent entity. The third is combat light until the final confrontation; the fight staged in a flooded village – oh and Chris who still doesn’t shoot you but refuses to explain anything. And the fourth cheats. Heisenberg is thoroughly entertaining and grabs two levels for his own; an assault on a stronghold and his horrible cyborg factory outside of town. He has Magneto metal powers. Heisenberg is the camp villain to outdo the other camp villains. He’s having fun, he kinda likes Ethan and is oddly on his side. He found time to put together massive signposts to direct Ethan onto the last two levels (a good thing too given his lack of sense). But both levels are lacking. The Stronghold is a relentless firefight against hoards of mook enemies; the factory is overly long and maze-like. I am as tired as Ethan when he exclaims “What more?” And after Heisenberg is dealt with; the long, convoluted lurches to the ending. First person goes out the window. The game dabbles in characters toying with your understanding of what was going on but in a strangely limited way and completely ignoring the other implications of the reveal. Suddenly you mow down more and more enemies than ever before, bullets scarcely a concern. The final reveals of who/what/where/how come through. Not exactly explicable for what’s on-screen, but the effort’s been made to tie Village’s overt supernatural tendencies back into a world setup in RE. Its not magic and those are not truly werewolves. And the villain’s motivation is! Hugely disappointing. Connected as it is to the Umbrella letter, you might hope for something completely out there, but its unsatisfying and feels pretty sexist too. Or at least lacking in imagination to an astonishing degree and yet here we are. The game feels sloppiest as the final boss fight arrives flitting between characters without the shaky but workable character hand-offs RE7 deployed. Back in first person mode to talk to Duke one last time before engaging in.... a relatively simple boss fight. All the boss fights have been pretty easy – there’s nothing on the level of RE6’s sometimes horrendous contextual fights, or the annoying two-player RE5, nor the demanded accuracy of hitting specific weak-points as in RE7. And I don’t mind that. Unload all your weapons and keep your health up. And victory. There are fix-it fics already, but really, I don’t see the point in trying to fix the issue these people have. There’s an obvious setup for a game past this one with a strange throw-away reveal in the end-sequence (whither RE9, Revelations 3 or something else there are no clues as yet). There’s a spoiler for the sting given the end-credits lists a character who didn’t appear in the main game. The sting itself might wind up drawing on the sting from Revelations 2. Village is not RE at its best, but is at least more in the spirit of goofy, campy nonsense than 7. It at least is more at home with playing with the trappings of horror while not actually trying to be outright scary. As with 7, the villains are more interesting and more memorable than the good guys. And – as I found out after completing the game – we were robbed of Ada Wong dressed up like a Bloodborne character somewhere in the game. And that I think is the biggest shame of all this.

[jackdawyt]

One of the most alarming statements made by anonymous BioWare employees currently working on the next Dragon Age has been the remark that the next game is “planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue.”

Like me, I suspect you have questions regarding what exactly a live-service Dragon Age 4 may entail. While we don’t have all the answers currently, thanks to Jason Schreier’s article on “The Past and Present of Dragon Age”, we certainly have an idea on what the next Dragon Age may look like.  

Regardless, I feel like it’s even more necessary to have this conversation on BioWare’s live service future having watched the debacle of Anthem’s post-launch content, and what BioWare hopefully learned from Anthem’s experience going forward with Dragon Age 4.  

You see, Anthem’s live service model was originally going to follow story-based content after the base game launched. The content would forward the main narrative in many different directions with new areas, bosses, dungeons, characters, stories, and of course, cosmetics.  

In pre-production, Anthem's story had been produced with live service in mind, so the developers could easily write, change and create many different plot points and narratives in future content to come.  

“They had a really strong belief in the live service,” said one developer. “Issues that were coming up, they’d say, ‘We’re a live service. We’ll be supporting this for years to come. We’ll fix that later on.’” (How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong, Kotaku).

The game was originally planned to follow a deep content road map, that would have players still engaged with Anthem ten years after launch.  

"Anthem is a social game where you and your friends go on quests and journeys. It’s a game that we’ve been working on for almost four years now, and once we launch it next year I think it’ll be the start of a ten-year journey for us." (Patrick Soderlund)

However, Anthem’s original ‘idealistic’ live-service model didn’t come to fruition due to only 18 months of development time. The content road map we did eventually get for Anthem, didn’t prove to be successful.  

[Anthem] was in development for nearly seven years but didn’t enter production until the final 18 months, thanks to big narrative reboots, major design overhauls, and a leadership team said to be unable to provide a consistent vision and unwilling to listen to feedback. (How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong, Kotaku).

The post-launch content was staged in acts. The first act was called “Echoes of Reality” and would last around three months, providing constant new missions, strongholds and world dynamics. The act would end on a huge update called “The Cataclysm”.  

Unfortunately, this road map was too idealistic, and was cancelled after heavy delays of “The Cataclysm” event.  

With BioWare’s first live service model not going according to plan, hopefully, the unsuccessful launch of Anthem’s live service-model speaks volume for future BioWare’s titles, and the developers have learned from that experience.

It's worth stating that Anthem isn’t dead and BioWare haven’t abandoned ship. They’ve remained adamant on working out how the game can stay afloat, as a small production team at BioWare Austin work on the preliminary design of Anthem 2.0.  

BioWare and parent company EA have been planning an overhaul of the online shooter, according to three people familiar with those plans. Some call it “Anthem 2.0” or “Anthem Next.” (Sources: BioWare Plans A Complete Overhaul For Anthem, Kotaku).

In spite of that, I know for a fact, every Dragon Age fan can look at Anthem’s style of a live-service model and say that this model wouldn't cross-over into a Dragon Age game.  

Anthem is a multiplayer game with a heavy emphasis on gameplay as opposed to story. While the game does have a main narrative with all the BioWare trimmings of lore and a codex, the general reason you play Anthem is to kill, loot and customise your javelin suit.  

This gameplay loop can be easily continued with a live service model adding new content like levels, enemies, worlds, cosmetics, etc.  

Whereas for Dragon Age, the player’s experience is deeper than the gameplay - there are many reasons we play Dragon Age - for instance my experiences have been driven by the story as I, solely, make impacting choices and consequences throughout the world.  

Anthem’s live service model reflects a very different perspective, so, what could a Dragon Age live service-model entail?  

Well, according to Jason Schreier: “we not sure about the details, and in fact they’re likely still being decided, as the game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. If it does turn out to be an online game, which seems likely, it would be shocking if you couldn’t play the bulk of it by yourself."

"One person close to the game told [Jason] that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content."

"Some ideas [Jason] heard floated for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe."

“They have a lot of unanswered questions. Plus, I know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”

The trouble with Dragon Age 4 being live service is that the game is predominantly single-player, and while there is a multiplayer mode in Inquisition, no one plays Dragon Age for multiplayer. As I said before, there are many personal reasons each of us play the series from escapism to fantasy fulfilment and everything in-between.  

Diversification of a live service model or multiplayer in the fourth entry of a single-player RPG just sounds like a recipe for disaster in my opinion.  

While in theory, the idea of a drop-in/drop-out coop system in Dragon Age 4 sounds somewhat okay, everything else that multiplayer implicates is not okay.  

If this sort of coop system is embedded into the game, then Dragon Age 4 could be an always online game running on servers. If Anthem serves as an example, that means no offline play, long loading screens, and an almost unplayable launch day.

How can Dragon Age 4 follow a live service model, and at the same time appeal to the majority of the single-player fans? That’s not a rhetorical question because I have three approach's BioWare could likely follow:  

The Andromeda Approach

In Mass Effect: Andromeda, Ryder has a small unit called Strike Teams, they act like Inquisition’s war table mechanic where you can send out groups into the world for rewards. However, in Andromeda as a secondary option, the player can actually take over these missions themselves in the multiplayer mode to assume full security over the mission’s succession.  

Dragon Age 4 could have a new war table that enacts live service content. Perhaps you’re given an incentivise to take on side-missions in multiplayer with other people, however, like Andromeda’s method, if you’d rather not, you can just send NPC’s to do the task with a longer time limit.  

The multiplayer mode while connected to the single-player would be a dispatched component. This sounds like the most okay approach for the majority of fans.  

The Anthem Approach

Anthem’s approach follows a single-player hub-based world where many key choices and story scenes can play out. Then once you enter the world, or choose a quest, the player is automatically put into a lobby. While you can play the missions and explore the world solo, you can’t play offline, it’s always online play on servers.  

Hypothetically, if Dragon Age 4 followed this exact approach, the player would have a single-player based hub, like a castle, fort or camp where we could engage with our allies and further the plot. However, when continuing the main missions, or exploring the world, we’d then have to go through a lobby to continue the adventure solo or with friends on always online servers, with no offline play.  

This wouldn’t be a good experience in my opinion.  

The “Ideal” Approach  

My ideal approach to live service is, of course, way too optimistic, but I’m throwing it out there anyways because Ubisoft did it, so that means anyone can do it. I’d love Dragon Age 4’s live service model to follow many post-launch story-based DLC’s adding to the narrative post-launch.  

Perhaps smaller content added monthly like new enemies, quests, areas, etc.  

And larger, story-based content perhaps 3-4 months after launch, and onwards.  

This is exactly what live service should be, the game is kept alive with more quests and story DLC’s giving the game breathe. If done successfully, this could be a live service RPG done right, with more content coming for months.  

Final Thoughts  

I may sound cavalier about the whole live service Dragon Age 4 ordeal, but I trust in the developers and their knowledge of their games and more importantly, their fans.  

This is something I haven’t stopped talking about, but it’s worth reiterating that the BioWare developers are looking with an eye to what the fans love about Dragon Age. The main team working on Dragon Age 4 created the Trespasser DLC, that’s John Epler’s narrative direction, with Patrick Weekes as the Lead Writer.  

Yes, I do get worried when I hear the terms “live service Dragon Age 4”, and “Anthem with Dragons”, but ultimately that’s just unplaced fear. In reality, the BioWare developers know their fanbase more than anyone, and will most certainly cater to our needs for the next Dragon Age game.  

I know this topic is rather baren at the moment, we don’t have a clearer picture of what Dragon Age 4 will look like. We’ve just got to trust the epic developers who’ve been at the studio since Dragon Age: Origins and are working on the next instalment to the best of their ability.

I’m sure we’ll touch on this topic in the future, but for now, let’s just focus on supporting the people creating the next Dragon Age, rather than fear what may or may not transpire in the next game. When we know more about live service, I’ll be sure to have another chat about it with you all then.  

Let me know your thoughts on how BioWare can handle Dragon Age 4’s live service model.  

[dogcopter]

Rose is Lion Theory

Before Steven Universe Future ends, a consolidation of sprawling Rose Quartz endgame speculation into one post. Structured for story sense, but pulling from all points of canon throughout for context:

Mechanics/powers

Lion: secrets and behaviors

Suspicious characters, dreams and stuff

Future/speculation and arc implications

TL;DR: Maybe if she has the same abilities Steven does, Rose Quartz gave up her physical form to Steven, but did not die in the sense that her personality still exists somehow. Using the same sort of astral projection powers Steven has demonstrated, Rose has continued to watch over her son in secret after changing her identity, like she did when staging Pink Diamond’s shattering. 

Image and text heavy. Potential spoilers for Steven Universe Future up to Bismuth Casual - This is long and I may add a few things to it.

Lion’s introduction in Steven’s Lion.

After they meet in the desert, Lion follows Steven home.

Lion approaches Steven after he lifted up his shirt, exposing his gem, so it’s possible he recognized Rose Quartz’s son. However, the Gems had never met Lion, and didn’t know he was connected to Rose.

From Steven’s Lion:

Steven: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are coming. Quick, put my head in your mouth! Pearl: Steven! What is that? What are you doing?

From Rose’s Scabbard:

Pearl: Does Lion have something to do with Rose? Amethyst: Ohh, of course! That’s why he’s pink!

...

Pearl: No, Rose didn’t have a lion, because if Rose had a lion I would have known about it!

How does Lion know where the Crystal Gems live? Where they’d take a corrupted Gem after destroying its physical form?

Lion doesn’t know where to find Steven/the Pink Diamond gem innately. In Jungle Moon, Stevonnie has to call Lars in order for him to find them, and Lars and Lion have identical powers from their pink revival.

Lars: Keep searching! We're not giving up on them, no matter what! Stevonnie: Lars! Hey Lars! Hey! Lars: There you are! We've been looking all over for you!

And Lars and Lion have the same magic abilities. Per SU podcast “The Fantasy of Steven Universe”

Anything Lion can do, Lars can do.

It’s possible Rose told Lion about the Gems and how to get to Beach City and where they live, but it’s likely he has never been there if they had no clue about him. He warps straight to the Temple.

The generally accepted explanation for Lion’s behavior is that Rose masterminded Lion’s knowledge and prepared for him to tell Steven everything, or at least told him her life story in enough detail, perhaps confiding in him, that his level of knowledge would make sense. 

Almost anything Lion does can be explained that way, but Lion being Rose makes more sense as an explanation. After all, she was known for being secretive.

From A Single Pale Rose:

Rose: No one can ever find out we did this. I never want to look back.

From Now We’re Only Falling Apart:

Sapphire: She lied to us! She lied about everything!

From Rose’s Scabbard:

Garnet: Rose kept many things secret, even from us.

From Steven’s Dream:

Greg: There were some things your mom didn't like to talk about. I never pressed her for details.

Mechanics

How is it possible for Rose to be Lion? Steven’s mysterious extra OP astral projection/dream/possession spirit powers that came up again in In Dreams.

Rose’s absence is consistently described as “giving up her physical form”.

Body swap: Steven controls other organic beings in Super Watermelon Island, The New Lars, and Escapism.

Dream travel, lucid dreaming, and dream TV: Steven is able to travel in his dreams and talk to others in Chille Tid (Lapis while fused in Malachite), affect the content of other people’s dreams Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service (Kiki’s recurring nightmare), change his own dreams and broadcast and record them in In Dreams (Camp Pining Hearts fanfiction)

Astral projection/”psychic ghost thing”: In addition to astral projecting in the above forms, Steven travels from Homeworld to Earth via astral projection in Escapism, and confronts the Diamonds via astral projection in Reunited. They can’t see him, but can perceive an “aura”.

If Steven can do this, and this ability was familiar to the Diamonds, Rose may be able to do these things as well. Steven’s ability to take over organic bodies explains Rose using Lion’s body because they’re related powers, which is made clear in Escapism when Steven astral projects to find Earth and ends up in a Watermelon Steven body far from home.

When does Lion act like Rose?

Secrets

The following section are things Lion knows that only Rose, or only Rose and Pearl know, including locations related to Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond. 

Secret: Lion

Went over this above. Gems didn’t know about Lion himself.

Secret: Armory

Pearl: You must be thinking of someplace else. I’m the only other Crystal Gem that’s witnessed the Armory’s magnificence before now. Steven: Nuh-uh, Lion showed me.

On one of their first adventures together, Lion brings Connie and Steven to a place only Pearl and Rose knew about. 

He also seems to know how the Armory works; he encourages Steven to activate the controls and doesn’t let the kids bail on training. Pearl had to climb a cliff to bring Steven there.

Secret: Mane

Lion’s mane contained Bismuth, Rose’s Crystal Gem keepsakes, including the sword that Pearl hadn’t seen. and keepsakes from Greg. 

When Steven finally unbubbles Bismuth in Bismuth and frees her from the mane, Lion immediately looks at the Crystal Gems’ reaction.

The mane also held the tape “For Steven”; “For Nora” was abandoned in the desert. Rose gave up her physical form before she could have known the baby’s sex, as Greg explains in Lion 4: Alternate Ending.

Greg: When you have a kid, you have no idea who they’re gonna be. Even Garnet couldn’t predict it. That’s what was so exciting to your mom, that life is full of so many possibilities, and you would get to explore them for yourself. I mean, you could be Steven or Nora or anyone else. And you can always change your name; hey, I did.

Lion is able to remove the sword from his mane in Lion 2: The Movie, meaning he may have had both tapes in the mane at one point, ejecting the Nora tape after meeting Steven. Not necessarily something he’d have to be Rose to do.

Secret: Scabbard & Battlefield

Lion finds Rose’s scabbard immediately at the battlefield. From Rose’s Scabbard:

Pearl: That’s the scabbard for Rose’s sword!

Lion also knows where to find Pearl when she gets upset; the battlefield where the scabbard was abandoned. Even though Pearl introduces the location like this:

Pearl: This was the site of a historic battle. Every weapon here was left by a Gem over 5,000 years ago. I don’t like to disturb it, but Garnet said we can’t just leave these lying around.

Later, when Pearl is upset, Steven asks Lion:

Steven: Do you know where she went? Lion: growl Steven: I’m going to assume that means you do.

...then he warps Steven to the battlefield. After Steven chases her to a floating island, Pearl then says:

Pearl: Do you remember this place? Do you have any of her memories? We were right here, over 5,000 years ago.

Pearl recreates the moment she and Rose chose to stay on Earth forever. Another location specific to Rose and Pearl.

Secret: Moon Base

Lion warps Steven to the Moon Base in both It Could’ve Been Great and in Can’t Go Back. The Galaxy Warp was destroyed pre-corruption, so unless Rose wanted to visit and gave excellent warp directions, Lion could not have visited it before. But Rose spent some time there as Pink Diamond!

Secret: Landfill/Pink Diamond

Lion brings Steven to the landfill in Lion 4: Alternate Ending, when Steven is paranoid about his magical destiny.

He was excited to get Steven into the mane in Lion 3, but in Lion 4 he’s reluctant to answer Steven’s questions, and acts much more subdued and serious than usual when they get there. 

He brings Steven to Greg to have his questions about “For Nora” answered, but leaves before Greg sees him. 

One other thing that’s slightly different between “For Steven” and “For Nora” is Rose’s monologue in the tape. Two sections are slightly different. One of them is this:

“For Steven”:

Steven, we can’t both exist.

“For Nora”: 

Nora, we can’t both exist, but I won’t be gone.

The other revelation in the landfill is Pink Diamond’s ship. Its location was known only to Rose, Pearl didn’t know there was still a working ship on the planet. From Space Race:

Pearl: It’s fine. I’ll always have my memories of other worlds. But now I’m here. On Earth. Forever.

Rose’s identity as Pink Diamond was a secret. In Legs From Here to Homeworld all it takes to activate the ship is an incidental touch from Steven:

Lion must have known bringing Steven to look for answers here would risk Steven discovering Rose’s secret identity?

Behaviors

Rose is not necessarily Lion full-time; Lion is a revived lion with the same powers as Lars. 

Lion’s relationship to Connie or Steven isn’t in this post, although it’s significant to both of them; Connie, Steven, and Lion have closely related character arcs, but in terms of the theory I’m sticking to characters Lion would have known as Rose or as Pink. I do have this brief post about Connie knowing Lion and Steven well enough to figure out Rose is Lion.

Garnet is also missing from this post because Lion has spent suspiciously little time around Garnet, presumably because Rose knows how her future vision works.

Lion’s interactions with other characters:

Behavior: Amethyst

Lion seems to like Amethyst! He’s particularly affectionate with her, and she’s affectionate with him. They’re shown in the background being cuddly a few times. Amethyst feels an instant connection.

(Is this a family photo?)

Lion also keeps an eye on Amethyst's reaction during Cry For Help, while Steven is distracted by Sardonyx’s whimsy;

Behavior: Pearl

Notable Pearl and Lion scenes. In Lion 3 they watch Steven sleep together.

In Scabbard they interact a lot and it’s interesting. He’s amused by Pearl taking the scabbard from him and annoyed at being shooed away.

Then he’s mad at her for trying to get into his mane.

We don’t get to see his face once when Pearl gets upset in the living room, but when Steven asks where Pearl went...

Lion knows exactly where to take him, and feels strongly about it.

He lets Pearl put the sword in his mane and ride on his back at the end of the episode.

He has some reactions in the movie, like after Pearl sings her incredible verse about moving on from Rose, Lion wakes up with this look on his face

He also hangs around Greg and rejuvenated Pearl, although his face isn’t shown much.

Behavior: Greg

Lion loves hanging out with Greg! 

Lion’s notable scenes with Greg include: that time he took Steven back to fight with the Crystal Gems in The Return, and then hid before Greg could see him in Full Disclosure. 

Is this a family photo?

And at the very end of the series, the time he shows up to face Greg with a badly injured Watermelon Steven.

Greg greets him with a smile before he sees Steven - maybe Lion’s shown up to spend time with him before?

Character development. And of course in the movie, Lion gives Greg a little kiss in a Crystal Gem groupshot. Very cute!

Behavior: Diamonds

Lion has a visible reaction to the Diamonds and seems to understand their power, even though he would never have encountered them before.

In Reunited, Lion tries his hardest and he’s the first to charge Blue Diamond after a teamwork. 

Makes sense for Rose to be angry with Blue

Also in Reunited, Lion is the only character who keeps an eye out for Yellow Diamond after the Cluster knocks down her ship.

In Legs From Here to Homeworld, Lion is making a face for most of the episode. He is not happy about this new development (asking White Diamond to help with corruption)

In Escapism, when Steven asks for help against White Diamond, Lion looks unusually worried.

He looks a little judgy when the Diamonds and Spinel sing in the movie.

Behavior: Spinel

Lion allows Spinel to ride around on his back, but he also shoots her dirty looks, 

and leaves her behind at the Sadie Killer concert.

If Rose is Lion, oof. But hey, still in character based on past behavior!

Behavior: Jasper

We don’t know the nature of Rose and Jasper’s relationship, and Lion doesn’t interact with her much, but Lion is there to witness Malachite’s fusion.

In Crack the Whip we get a few Jasper clues. He reacts to mention of Jasper’s name at the beginning.

He also seems big mad at Jasper, who spends the whole time aggressing at Steven under the impression he’s Rose.

Curious to see if this comes back when we get to hear Jasper’s story in Future.

Unresolved Mysteries

Some things about Lion and about Rose that still lack answers and could affect this:

What Lion and Rose’s relationship looked like

how he died and was revived by Rose’s abilities.

Desert Glass gem. 

The lizards he eats

Whether or how it’s even possible Rose gave up her gem to Steven while continuing to exist as a separate entity on the astral plane like this.

Suspicious Characters, Dreams & Stuff

Galaxy brain: if Rose is Lion, what’s to say she doesn’t have the other abilities Steven has? 

Steven has Pink Diamond dreams when he needs the information in the dream. When animal sidekicks appear they lead him to his goals. If Lion is a mysterious animal sidekick who appeared just to be Steven’s friend, and he’s secretly Rose, what other convenient animal sidekicks are suspect?

If he doesn’t have a magical destiny, but does have a magical, secretive mom who can astral project and hijack organic bodies, maybe she’s been lending him a hand here and there.

The only time the mask slips is in Storm in the Room.

Steven: And that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Did you just make me so you wouldn’t have to deal with your mistakes? Is that all I’m here for?

Rose: Steven, you know that isn’t true. In the tape I left you, I told you how much I wanted to have you and let you exist.

Ghosts

There are a few characters I call “suspicious ghosts” who aid Steven along his journey. They only exist to be convenient to Steven, even though Steven doesn’t have a magical destiny, and might be Rose:

Tiny Floating Whale: Has Susan Egan’s voice and appears before Steven hears her voice in Lion 3

Baby Melon: Is friends with Steven, punches Steven to draw the ire of the other melons and sacrifice himself.

Dream Dogcopter: Leads Steven to Lapis when he’s looking for Malachite. Tells Steven to “take a deep breath” when Lion is trying to get him in his mane.

Melon Dogs: Shows Steven Malachite is near Mask Island. Tries to distract and entertain Steven when he’s trapped in Pink Diamond’s tower.

Maybe Pink Steven? Maybe Cactus Steven? (They could be more Rose ghosts, given the way they behave, but could also be exactly what they appear to be)

Dreams & Memories

Like Lion, Steven’s dreams also seem to help him out with information his mom would have.

Steven’s Dream: Steven asks Greg if his mom ever talked about Pink Diamond, Greg tells Steven that Rose didn’t tell him about her past. Steven has a dream of crying in front of the palanquin, prompting him to search for answers there.

Jungle Moon: Stevonnie is stranded on one of Yellow Diamond’s Moon Bases and has a dream that is partially a memory of Pink Diamond’s. Using the code they see in the dream, they are able to unlock YD’s console and call for help.

Can’t Go Back: Steven dreams of Pink Diamond trying to save Earth and Pearl with Rose’s sword, prompting him to speak to Pearl and uncover her secret.

Masterpost of suspicious ghosts that goes into slightly more detail.

Rose’s Characterization

From Storm in the Room:

Steven: I finally know the truth. I know what you are! You’re a liar! I thought you’d never want to hurt anyone, but you hurt everyone! How could you just leave Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl and Dad? They don’t know what to do without you! Maybe they didn’t matter to you as much as hiding the mess you made!

My read of Rose choosing to be Lion but not tell the others is because she cared about them, but like other things she’s done, that doesn’t change the fallout.

The good news: If Rose is Lion, and she is still around in some fashion, if she can only overcome this pattern of behavior and face the truth... then, like everyone else in Steven Universe, she has a chance to change!

But... 

Lion is pink because he’s like Lars: Yes. See above. I’m not claiming there’s an alternate explanation for Lion’s appearance or abilities, or contradicting his behaviors. It’s just that Rose is using his body.

Lion knows everything because Rose told him: I don’t think this makes sense given what we know of Rose. I don’t mind being wrong if there’s a better explanation.

Rose is dead My only response to this objection is yea, as far as we know, but there’s enough supporting detail not explained in other ways that I believe the theory has merit. It’s not like SU hasn’t misdirected us before.

Future Speculation

In the Steven Universe Future premiere, although Steven really doesn’t want to think about what she did anymore (and who could blame him?) we get a little bit of new Rose lore. Shy Rose Quartz.

I think this is Rose. I don’t know how she managed it, but I think we’ll learn soon. With the possibility Rose is Lion, and can inhabit other bodies, the whole vibe of Rose Buds changes. Here is a post dedicated to that: Shy Rose is Steven’s Mom. That’s all. From A Single Pale Rose:

Rose: Convincing? Pearl: Very much so, my DIamond. Rose: Soon it will be just Rose.

In Volleyball it’s also explained that she traumatized her former Pearl, and that Rose changed her behavior so much that it’s like Pearl and Volleyball knew two different people.

One last thing: Steven’s arc.

From I Am My Mom:

I get it now. I’m the only one who can stop what she started. I can stop all of it!

From Reunited:

Now all that’s left of her exists in me, and I think that we can all agree: that is a little bit upsetting. I’d rather think about a wedding!

From Storm in the Room:

No, I’m sure you meant it. I get it. I know you didn’t want me to deal with your problems. You’re a part of me now. I have to deal with what you left behind.

From “Happily Ever After”:

Once upon a time, I thought I’d always be in my mother’s shadow Answering for her crimes, I thought I’d always be in an endless battle

From the end of the movie:

There’s no such thing as happily ever after. I’ll always have more work to do.

Steven has a tough relationship with his mom by now. 

Like when she said “We can’t both exist,” recently called back in Rose Buds. 

From Storm in the Room:

In the tape I left you, I told you how much I wanted to have you and let you exist. Do you think what I said to you in the tape was a lie?

If you entertain this theory as plausible given the lore, the implications change; what if Rose isn’t gone? What if she’s not half of him? What if at least part of that tape was just another lie?

And I need you to know that every moment you love being yourself, that’s me, loving you and loving being you. Because you’re going to be something extraordinary; you’re going to be a human being.

Steven has internalized a lot from when he was young. His best friend Lion has been there for him. We’re also seeing the ways his childhood trauma has manifested in coping behaviors and automatic reactions from his gem, not unlike his mom before him. 

Right now, in Future, mid-breakdown - how would Steven react to such a paradigm shift?

Thank you for reading! I know this is a lot. 

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Frozen the musical tour thoughts -- my usual brain dump below (lots of details with some Frozen 2 spoilers):

List of musical numbers from the playbill (which incidentally is now branding the show as “The Hit Broadway Musical” rather than just “The Broadway Musical”):

The pre-show projection is a view of Arendelle with the mountains towering above it, the northern lights, and the show title.

“Vuelie”: It sounded like a slightly different arrangement than I remember, or at least different than the one on the cast recording.  At first I thought it was because the sound at the Pantages is not great (it wasn’t from where I was sitting, all of the group numbers sounded mushy) but it did seem like there were changes.

“Let the Sun Shine On”: Can’t remember if there was anything new/different here.  The little kids behind me giggled every time butts were mentioned, starting here and throughout the rest of the show.

“A Little Bit of You”: As I recall Young Anna had a doll that looked like Elsa. The contrast between Anna’s and Elsa’s personalities here was pronounced; it was as if Young Anna was dialed up just a bit.  When she hugged their toy Olaf it was just a little too enthusiastic and Olaf’s head fell into Young Elsa’s lap. (Wasn’t an issue, just funny.)

“Hidden Folk” : Can’t spell “Pabbie” without “ab” -- he had plenty to spare.

“Do you Want to Build a Snowman”: Here come potential Frozen 2 spoilers: 1) I believe before going on their trip, Agnarr says something to the effect of they’re going to find help or answers for Elsa and for their people (was that in there before? can’t recall), and 2) the choreography in the shipwreck scene has changed.  Last time I clearly remember them solemnly standing facing the audience next to each other, then the ensemble lifts them straight up and backwards from the standing position as they look toward and reach for each other looking sorrowful & stricken.  This time they are surrounded by the ensemble, who act as the water moving them around and trying to pull them apart as they actively reach for each other and try to embrace. 

Both adult Anna and Elsa received entrance applause.  At the end when Elsa sings her line, snow falls.  

“For the First Time in Forever”: Nothing particularly different that I remember.  I listened to the movie version for maybe the first time in two years not long ago, and frankly I like the stage version a lot better.  It has the feeling of “okay intro’s over, now our story really gets going” (similar to “At The End of The Day” in Les Misérables). This was the first opportunity the crowd had to applaud properly, and they really went for it.  There were two big waves of applause and cheers before the show went on, which probably would have kept going had they not started up the music.

Back to Anna seeming a little dialed-up: Caroline Innerbichler’s Anna was just a little weirder and more awkward than I expected (e.g. not modulating her voice in certain ways) particularly in the scene where she meets Hans. It was interesting to me because it both seemed consistent with Young Anna and also consistent with someone not being around enough people to learn social skills. In previous viewings (and the movie) it seemed like Anna was awkward in a way that was more funny and winsome rather than potentially off-putting.

“Hans of the Southern Isles”:  In the character’s intro section I’d say Austin Colby as Hans is not as dorky as John Riddle’s version, but also not as smooth.

“Queen Anointed”: Slight staging change.  This part all happens front and center instead of in an apse toward the back of the stage (too bad, because that was one of my favorite visuals).  I suspect it would have been hard to see from the far sides if staged as it was on Broadway, but I have no idea if that was the reason for it.

“Dangerous to Dream” and “Love is an Open Door”: Pretty similar to Broadway.

Elsa freezing everything: the freezing effect only covered the show proscenium and stage, didn’t go outside of it.  The frozen bridge used for “What Do You Know About Love” comes onstage from the wings as part of Elsa’s running away moment.  

“Reindeer(s) are Better Than People”: Kristoff enters for this just as Elsa runs off, so that bridge is there through the entire scene where Anna and Kristoff meet.

“What Do You Know About Love”: I thought the bridge setup was cleverly updated.  On Broadway the dangerous part was meant to be falling through the slats of this rickety bridge, where in the tour version the danger was because the bridge was steeply inclined and meant to be covered with ice, and it looked like there were some mechanisms in place so that the actors could simulate a semi-controlled slide.  (As someone who has slid down an icy hill out of control but has never fallen through unstable flooring, it seemed pretty relatable.)

“In Summer”: Very similar to Broadway. Olaf always gets a good response.

"Hans of the Southern Isles (Reprise)”: Nothing new that I remember.

"Let It Go”: There’s a four-step platform that slides onstage so that Elsa can stand on it for the dress reveal, and it looks pretty good.  Not sure the timing was exactly right yet. Caroline Bowman sounded great. However, two people behind me, not even in the same group, started singing along; one was a little kid (who actually had decent pitch) and one was a person who really should have been old enough to know better.  It was very distracting; please don’t do this.

Intermission projection: Same view of Arendelle as before (no title), but now covered with snow with more coming down, though no consistent accumulation.  Particularly liked the image of the mountain since that’s the sort of landscape scenery that appeals to me.

“Hygge”: No significant audience interaction for Oaken, he just peeks out from behind his shop on stage to start the scene.  Kristoff is still a good killjoy, which I like.

“I Can’t Lose You”: Much as described in the LA Times article.  Cannot remember the melody at all, but maybe if I hear it again it’ll start to stick.  It did not seem as vocally/musically indicative of Elsa’s emotional state as the “First Time In Forever” reprise, but in the background there is clearly more (projected) snow flying around, plus there are lighting changes and clouds of dry ice rolling onto the stage until the two are pretty well surrounded. At the end Anna abruptly goes to hug Elsa, but Elsa can’t bring herself to touch Anna and keeps her arms out and away.  I’m not sure if I liked it better than the original scene, but they sounded great together and I am glad these two characters got a proper duet, which clearly emphasized that they are the center of the story.  

“Fixer Upper”: No wedding pronouncement at the end, it just plays that familiar bit from the wedding march and the two look at each other.  

“Kristoff Lullaby”: Similar to before.

“Monster”: The ice spikes looked kind of silly sliding on from the wings, but once they were in place it looked fine and they were more abstractly threatening than the moving conical ones on Broadway.  If anything it seemed to put the emphasis far more on Elsa for this song, which is fine.

The whole part with Hans’s duplicity went by rather quickly. I’m disappointed that they cut “True Love,” which was one of my favorites of the new songs.  Basically Anna briefly sees Young Anna and Young Elsa run in, around her, and then out, and then Olaf pops in. There is still some instrumental music with the “True Love” theme as it transitions into the “Colder by the Minute” scene. (ETA 12/14: when Young Anna and Young Elsa run in, an instrumental version of the “I Can’t Lose You” theme plays.)

"Colder by the Minute”: Seems pretty similar.  

"Finale”: Elsa seemed quite shocked at Anna socking Hans; was even funnier when I remembered the actors playing Elsa and Hans are married.  At one point the whole cast gathers into a wedge and walk forward singing; while they do this, Elsa conjures some snow over puppet Olaf’s head.  Nice little detail.

Audience observations: Opening night, but I rarely recognize famous people and had a cheaper seat so I have no idea who was there. Saw several small children dressed as characters; guessing the Elsa to Anna ratio was about 3 to 1. Also saw two adult men looking pretty sharp in dark blue winter-themed dress suits (one covered in Christmas trees, one I think might have been snowflakes?).

General thoughts: Was worried that I might be too accustomed to the voices of Caissie Levy and Patti Murin as the characters, but that was not an issue.  Caroline Bowman and Caroline Innerbichler sounded really good, and I liked Caroline Innerbichler’s portrayal of Anna in particular.

[gaad]

“The State as apparatus of capture has a power of appropriation; but this power does not consist solely in capturing all that it can, all that is possible, of a matter defined as phylum. The apparatus of capture also appropriates the war machine, the instruments of polarization, and the anticipation prevention mechanisms. This is to say, conversely, that anticipation prevention mechanisms have a high power of transference (...)”. “(...) (W)ar machines have a power of metamorphosis, which of course allows them to be captured by States, but also to resist that capture and rise up again in other forms, with other “objects” besides war (revolution?). Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can go along with the others or go against them (...). Each process can switch over to other powers, but also subordinate other processes to its own power.” (1) “The idea of a constitution (...) involves not only the idea of hierarchy of authority or power but also that of a hierarchy of rules or laws, where those possessing a higher degree of generality and proceeding from a superior authority control the contents of the more specific laws that are passed by a delegated authority.” (2) It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess todays world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities.  As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive, mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now her interest does not lie in presenting her various personal relations with them but to stage them. “(...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature.” This is Elisabeth's inherited background. “(...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis.They establish the national brand: they attempt to control the national market: they create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population that bears, in fact, no relation to the actual regional sub stratum—although in the course of time it partly succeeds in producing the thing it has imagined.” Take Paris for example: “(...) the Champs Elysées, become the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement becomes the “spiritual power” of this new regime.” (3)

“This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...)  (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts.” (4)

The time of revolution is now back but as Foucault said : “il faut avoir une méfiance absolue et totale à l'égard de tout ce qui se présente comme un retour. L'une des raisons de cette méfiance est logique : il n'y a jamais, en fait, de retour.”(5) Therefore the story of Elisabeth's friends will intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. In Momus from Alberti “the extended climax (of the seventh book) occurs in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, Alberti) repeatedly uses the word persona (and so will we) (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters.” (6) “Or, as is the case now, the mask assures the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask is now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face.” (1) So be it. Let them be the masked actors of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies, systems, embedded in concepts and rituals. “They (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities.” (7)

Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up, do not apologize. This is Elisabeth's Friends. Pandora has inherited a box, a jarre which contains unspeakable truth. She knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others. Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions. She learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters and Metis is renowned for his wiseness and cunning, making problems no longer valid. As a constellation, they are powerful. As a unity, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithful story, it accesses the realm of discussion. As statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where “(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible, and in what cases it makes it possible.(...) The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map.” (1 ) “How disappointing this answer seems to be! We asked what was the origin of Ideas and where problems come from: in reply we invoke throws of the dice, imperatives and questions of chance instead of an apodictic principle; an aleatory point at which everything becomes ungrounded instead of a solid ground.” (8)

“For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it.” (9) To anchor ourselves we will now deepen our reflexion in space with Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : “The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand.” (10)  Their concept and ideas of proportions being a fertile ground from which we should elevate. This palace will be a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, simultaneously, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown. If we follow Alberti and Vitruve who compare the three typologies as such: “(...) (W)e will describe both manners of spectacles. In the first, which is for the delight of peaceful times, are introduced the poets, musicians, and actors. In the second, which regard the studies of war, are performed different kinds of duels and contests having to do with bodily strength and dexterity.To the former is dedicated the theatre, a name which means both ‘spectacle’ and ‘a place to watch’.To the latter, which are spectacles of agility and dexterity such as running or jumping, is dedicated the circus. To events such as assaults and fights against animals or men is dedicated the amphitheatre. There are some things that are proper to all of these spectacles: first, that they are horn shaped and curved; next, that they have an open space in the middle; and finally, that they have steps all around and raised places where people can sit and watch.” (11) “But then they differ as to the Form of the aforesaid Area; for those which have this Area in the Shape of a Moon in its Decrease are called Theatres, but when the Horns are protracted a great Way forwards, they are called Circusses, because in them the Chariots make a Circle about the Goal.” (12) So if we follow them and we free this typologies from their form, we can imagine a place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. This Palace will be entered through a garden where a fountain lies at its very center. Heron's Fountain one could claim. Another form of spectacle.

1) Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 2) Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty 3) Mumford, The Culture of Cities 4) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 5) Foucault, Le savoir, le pouvoir et l'espace 6) Alberti, Momus (Preface) 7) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 8) Deleuze, Difference and Repetition 9) Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 10) Ayache, The Blank Swan 11) Williams, Daniele Barbaros Vitruvius of 1567 12) Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755

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Further quotes: 

Vitruve

these vessels - ( poor vessels) large jars made of clay, but similarly resonant

THE plan of the theatre itself is to be constructed as follows. Having fixed upon the principal centre, draw a line of circumference equivalent to what is to be the perimeter at the bottom, and in it inscribe four equilateral triangles, at equal distances apart and touching the boundary line of the circle, as the astrologers do in a figure of the twelve signs of the zodiac, when they are making computations from the musical harmony of the stars. Taking that one of these triangles whose side is nearest to the scaena, let the front of the scaena be determined by the line where that side cuts off a segment of the circle (A B), and draw, through the centre, a parallel line (C D) set off from that position, to separate the platform of the stage from the space of the orchestra.

The circus was based, so it is said, on the heavens

Unlike that of the amphitheater, the central area of a circus was not empty, nor was it filled with a stage, like that of a theater --------------------------------------------------------------- Alberti

We have dealt with the theater; next we shall discuss the circus and amphitheater.All buildings of this type are derived from the theater: a circus is nothing but a theater with its wings extended along parallel lines, although its nature does not require the addition of a portico; an amphitheater, meanwhile, consists of two theaters, their tiers linked into a continuous circle.They differ in that the theater is a form of semiamphitheater; another difference is that the central area of the amphitheater is quite empty and free of any stage. In every other respect they are similar, especially in their tiers, porticoes, passages, and so on. The amphitheater, we think, was built originally for the hunt; this was why they decided to make it round, so that the wild beast, trapped there and baited, with no corner into which to retreat, would be easier for the hunters to provoke.

The rest of the ornament is taken from the temple

The theater takes the lineament of its area from the hoofprint of a horse.Once this is done, the uppermost portico is built on top. The facade and colonnade of this portico do not receive light from outside, as those we have described below it do, but face instead toward the central area of the theater, as we have mentioned already. This work prevents sound from escaping, and compresses and fortifies it; we shall therefore call the work the circumvallation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Perrault (on Vitruvius)

And the Paintings represented three sorts of Buildings, which made three sorts of Scenes, viz. The Tragick by Magnificent Pallaces, the Comick by Private Houses, the Satyrical (i. e. the Pastoral) by Fields and Groves.The Parascenium or Postscenium was the hinder part of the Theater, and the place whither the Actors retired and dressed themselves, and had their Rehearsals, and where the Machines were kept.Near the Theaters, were Publick Walks, in length a Stadium, which is about 90 Perches. There were Trees planted

[baixueagain]

ok venty reflective blog entry time bc I find it helps me get shit off my chest & calm my anxiety. 

tl;dr I had a shitty teen friendship that to this day has left me with enduring trauma symptoms lol

at least once a year I find myself reflecting back on one of my closest teenage friendships. towards the beginning it was (at the time) probably the deepest platonic bond I had ever shared with anyone, but over the years things soured until finally it became well and truly toxic and finally ended disastrously. we tried on two occasions to make amends as adults, only for it to crash and burn again because of the baggage.

now toxicity in this case went both ways and I know that I had ownership in what happened. my RSD ass for one was clingy and needy, which was only exacerbated by a very long episode of major clinical depression that started when I was around 16. I could also, like many teen girls, be a real catty little shit at times. I had a hard time with social cues because of my neurodivergence, but I will note that I have always tried extremely hard to listen and respect others when they tell me that I’m doing/saying something which annoys them, hurts them, or otherwise bothers them. thing is, though, you kind of have to tell me if something bothers you, or else I might completely miss out on or misinterpret your reactions. it’s not so much a lack of empathy as just the signals get completely crossed. people send off so many signals that I sometimes can’t sort them out.

as a result I have made a lifelong habit of conscientiously trying to communicate that I am open to hearing feedback and trying to resolve interpersonal problems. I did it back then, too, because this was far from the first time I’d had trouble reading social and emotional signals, or getting them confused.

anyway, that said, what sticks with me about this particular friendship is that as things progressed this friend, let’s call her A, began to treat me not only like a burden, but like a monster, sometimes reacting to me with both fear and hatred. that was the confusing part. she did it in front of others, making it clear how she saw me, and that was the humiliating part. she also had long talks about her problems with me with other people (who were already openly mistreating me due to my neurodivergence), but she rarely ever told me that she had problems with me, even though I pretty much begged her on multiple occasions to tell me what I was doing wrong. that was the painful part.

ever since then I have had the occasional bout of extreme guilt, shame, self-hatred, and anxiety as I wonder if maybe she was right to treat me like that. maybe I was a monster. maybe I had been horribly abusing her and never realised it. maybe my attempts to reason with myself about all this are just the typical excuses abusers make for their behaviour. maybe i’m a monster, or else why would A have treated me like a monster? why else would so many of the other people in our mutual social circle have treated me like a monster? fuck, am I the baddie? 

hell, throughout those years, when my other friends and family tried to convince me that A was treating me unfairly, I consistently defended her to them. I told them that they didn’t know A like I did. I told them that I must be doing something wrong. I must deserve the way she was treating me. sometimes, like today, I still find myself in that spiral of anxiety and self-blame.

on days like today, I have to consistently remind myself of the things A did do, making a goddamn list in order to silence the screaming in my brain telling me that I am the sole fuckup:

she downplayed things, dismissed them, and even shamed me when I told her on multiple occasions that some powerful people in our social circle were openly mistreating me and a few other (obviously ND) kids

she confided in these same people about our friendship and took their advice on how to treat me

she basically used me as her free therapist for years, and because I didn’t know better I let her. she meanwhile refused to see a real therapist for some of the very real issues that she had, even though I literally begged her (in tears) to please go to a professional about these things because I couldn’t handle them on my own.

she lied to me. a lot.

she used me to lie for her to others, including to her own parents. I let her, because I thought that’s what loyal friends do.

she frequently treated me like an annoying child in public because of my hyperfixations and other coping mechanisms

she frequently treated me as if symptoms of my illnesses - including literal internal bleeding - were just me trying to manipulate her for attention

years later, A basically admitted to seeing me as a freak who is unable to socialise with “normal” people. she acted as if I were being unreasonable and overreacting when this made me angry.

as I would learn even more years later, she would frequently assign malicious intent to my awkward or unusual (but otherwise innocent) social behaviours. this, it turns out, is why she’d sometimes randomly start treating me with fear, revulsion, or anger, with me being completely clueless as to why. (note: I have other close friendships that started around the same time as my friendship with A and which have endured to this day, and none of those people have ever had very much trouble with talking to me about behaviours that inadvertently upset or bother them)

she continued to do this during both our attempts to make amends. when I finally realised what had been happening and told her how it made me feel during the second attempt, she cut off all communication completely. by this point it had been nearly a full decade of this behaviour from her.

but of course, even when I sit down and write all these things out, the little whisper in my brain still tries to convince me that she could probably make an even longer list for me so I must be the monster she thought I was, right?

then again, while writing, I’ve come to something of a realisation: if a friendship from my teen years has left me with symptoms of emotional trauma that have lasted into my fucking thirties, then maybe I’m not the asshole in all this. maybe my crippled-ass brain is telling me I’m a monster because, during a very important developmental stage of its maturity, someone I loved and trusted repeatedly treated me like I was a monster.

I mean, only like 2-3 years ago, I suddenly had a memory surface of A’s dad yelling at me in public, in front of dozens of people, and then leaving me to have a meltdown/panic attack in front of those same people - all because I tried to ask her why she was (yet again) treating me strangely. I don’t remember what he was yelling about, or why. I can only suppose that she had told him that I’d done something heinous. that, or he just saw that his precious little girl was treating the local freak like a scary monster and decided that it must be for a good reason, because that freak’s a freak. 

this occurred a full decade before I actually remembered it for the first time. I even called up my parents to confirm whether it actually happened, or if I was imagining things. it had. 

so yeah. I’ve always known that all that business fucked me up. I guess it just fucked me up even more seriously than I’d ever expected.

[eggoreviews]

12 ‘Unpopular’ Viddy Game Opinions

I’ve seen this topic floating around a lot, but didn’t think I had enough ‘unpopular but maybe not’ opinions about games to make a post. Turns out I do! So if you see this and I say something blasphemous, remember it’s just my opinion and my personal experiences with the games I list. Hope you enjoy or hey, maybe even agree with some of this!

Note: Can’t stress enough. This is just me. Also, spoilers under the cut!

12. The opening of Kingdom Hearts II isn’t as terrible as everyone says

Okay, so it’s not brilliant, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s the worst. For those not in the know, KH2′s opening is a basically a massive slog where you play as a character you don’t know or care about with seemingly no real link to the events of the previous game. The general consensus is that there’s some interesting stuff in here, but it’s buried among endless dialogue that really doesn’t mean much. And they’re right, but I really think there’s some great stuff here that people tend to gloss over. The music and the motif of Twilight Town is atmospheric, there’s some genuinely intriguing plot elements that are woven into Roxas’ story and believe it or not, the stuff that happens here is intrinsic to the rest of the game. So yeah, it drags on a little, but I don’t think KH2 would be miles better without this opening.

11. I loved Breath of the Wild’s final boss

One of the problems I see talked about with Breath of the Wild is that the boss fights are fairly mediocre, especially the very last one, Dark Beast Ganon. And I couldn’t disagree more. I think every boss in the game is wonderfully crafted, intense, challenging and great for testing you on what you’ve learned throughout the game by encouraging you to make creative use of your slate powers and the flurry rush technique. And while Mr. Pig Man at the end here is sort of easy and short, it serves as a brilliantly epic finale to damn near perfect game. While the difficulty is mostly gone after the mammoth fight with Calamity Ganon, it’s still just as intense as you frantically fire off arrows into the massive beast in front of you. Plus, the design of this thing is one of the best looking monsters in the game, so I really don’t understand the dislike for this ending.

10. I really like Crash of the Titans

Okay, so maybe childhood nostalgia has something to do with this pick, but every Crash fan I’m aware of seems to hate this game. But I don’t really know where the hate comes from! I played the PS2 version of this and I thought it was a genuinely fun 3D platformer with a variety of locations, good visuals, well-designed boss battles and even a vague story you can sort of follow! The game’s main gameplay feature is also brilliantly integrated, as using Aku Aku to possess various monsters throughout the game keeps everything interesting. One thing I will say though, that tiger dude you have to fight about halfway through is the most annoying thing I’ve ever had to endure in a game.

9. Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is BAD

I loved Life Is Strange when it first dropped, so I was beyond excited when they announced a prequel from Chloe’s perspective. But I really think they dropped the ball and they dropped it hard. But everyone else seems to adore this game! For me, this wasn’t a touch on the original. For a start, they dropped out one of the main mechanics of the first game, the time travel, which they then replaced with a much less interesting ‘Backtalk’ feature, which was then only used about twice throughout the game. Instead of interesting, developed characters reacting to genuinely dangerous or heartfelt situations, it felt to me like a bunch of one-dimensional teenagers who are edgy for the sake of being edgy. Chloe spends the majority of the game being a dick to her mother and bunking off class to spend time with Rachel, who she has literally known for like a day and their sudden relationship drops out of nowhere. Not that I didn’t enjoy the emotional moments of their relationship, it just didn’t feel like it stemmed from anywhere, unlike Max and Chloe from the first game. And the game’s attempts at villains were also rubbish compared to the first, with Damien (random scary knife guy who doesn’t really tie into the plot that much) and Eliot (who doesn’t appear for the whole game and suddenly goes full incel on Chloe when she breaks into Rachel’s house). Yeah I think you can tell I had some problems with this one.

8. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider was also a hot mess

I LOVE the Dishonored series. The first game and its DLCs are amazing, the second game was arguably even better. And then this happened. In this one, you play as Billie Lurk, a character I love, and Daud comes back, a character I also love. But both of them are incredibly badly written and it doesn’t feel like there’s any development to them or even much reason for them to do what they’re doing. This entry took the mystery surrounding the Outsider and basically did a big poo on it, giving us the revelation that he was apparently HUMAN this whole time. I think that was the nail in the coffin that made me sort of think this was a bit rubbish. While the combat and side missions were as brilliant as ever, the level designs felt less creative than other entries in the series and lacked variety or colour, all the side characters were entirely forgettable and to wrap it all up, they killed Daud offscreen. Out of nowhere, they just killed him, mentioned it offhand in a cutscene and that was that. If you like this game, fair enough, but it kind of baffles me that more people don’t see this in the game.

7. Mario Galaxy 2 is good. It’s just sort of good

Some people cite this as being one of the best 3D platformers of all time, and that’s fair enough, but I just kind of see this one as ‘good’. Sure, it has a good, satisfying control scheme for the most part, the level design is creative and the bosses and puzzles are pretty standard for a Mario title, but still enjoyable. However, sometimes, the floaty physics and weird knockback effect from jumping into walls led to quite a lot of unfair deaths, especially if I’d been punished for messing up already by losing a life, only to then immediately be punished again by falling into the void. Plus, I found Yoshi near impossible to control at some points with the motion controls. So yeah, this one is genuinely enjoyable, but I don’t think I’d personally put it with the best of all time.

6. I LOVE Dragon Quest IX TO DEATH

This is a game in a legendary franchise that consistently almost always see ranked at the very bottom of the pile in the series. But I really don’t understand how or why. Okay so your protagonist and party are basically silent and don’t have a lot of character, but I don’t see this as a reason to totally write off the game! The side characters, villains and story are all amazing and well-developed, the world is huge, colourful and interesting, the monsters are brilliantly creative and Dragon Quest’s signature lame sense of humour is gratefully carried through the whole game. The music is always brilliant and atmospheric and the bosses are just as memorable as each character you meet. What was everyone’s problem?? This is genuinely one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played and if you haven’t had a chance to pick it up, it is so, so worth it.

5. Sonic Adventure is a broken mess

So before I kick this one off, I’m not someone who hates Sonic and I’m not here to slate the whole franchise, but considering this game is often considered to be one of the best in the series, I thought it was definitely worth addressing. When I first played this, I literally couldn’t believe this was made in 1998, AFTER Mario 64 and yet it’s so broken! The physics and control scheme are totally wonky and hard to control, the unending amount of glitches make a fair amount of the stages almost unplayable, the voice acting and facial animation is cringey and oddly broken and yet, this was all on the Dreamcast. The most powerful console of the time. And I don’t think I even need to mention how boring some of the later stages get, with Big the Cat’s fishing section being the main offender. I can’t vouch for Adventure 2 as I haven’t had a chance to play yet, but I really hope it isn’t like this.

4. Dragon Age Origins is the best Dragon Age

Dragon Age has always been a popular RPG series, but I think it properly shot to fame once Inquisition dropped in 2014. And don’t get me wrong, I liked Inquisition! The world was colourful and expansive and the characters were fairly memorable, but I still think the best experience you can get is in the series’ first entry, Origins. While it’s pretty easy to see that it’s slightly dated considering it’s ten years old now, the best characters and story in the series I think is here. Each companion you recruit is varied and developed and the story wraps up brilliantly in the end with each companion and army you meet playing a different role in the final battle. Plus, I kind of can’t forgive Inquisition for making Leliana lose her sense of humour and making her kinda boring.

3. Oblivion is better than Skyrim

Okay so I’m not sure exactly how unpopular this is, but I just thought Oblivion was miles better than Skyrim ended up being. Just to clear it up, I still love Skyrim and I thought it built on the series’ combat system and variety of enemies really well and still provided an enjoyable experience. But Oblivion feels like more of an adventure you feel at home in. The story is dense and full of twists and turns. The soundtrack has some of the most atmospheric music I’ve ever heard, the world is full of bright colours, each city is vastly different and has its own lore and I found some of this to be absent from Skyrim. I’d go into more detail, but I think the simple fact is that Oblivion had so much more I liked than Skyrim.

2. I don’t think The Witcher III is all that amazing (in some regards)

This by no means says that I don’t like the game, because I do, but I think it has more flaws than people let on. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of the stuff people praise about this game is true, the quests are in-depth and masterfully crafted, the characters, especially Geralt, are extremely memorable. In fact, Geralt is one of my favourite game protagonists. But most of the problems I had were in terms of the gameplay. The combat, while fast-paced and satisfying, can sometimes feel a little finicky, so a lot of precision is needed. However, I felt that the world itself didn’t particularly interest me and the music is often ambient but outside of combat, isn’t anything special. Mostly though, the leveling system I found to be a bit wonky. I did absolutely everything I could in the first area of the game; all the side quests, treasure hunts, killed a whole bunch of monsters etc. And then I arrive in the second area and find I’m too underleveled to do literally anything. The majority of the quests have too high a level cap, a lot of the monsters kill me very quickly. And because the bulk of EXP farming is in the quests, I’m sort of stuck in an endless loop of constantly not being strong enough to do anything. On top of that, all my equipment keeps breaking and I’m finding that repair kits are extremely few and far between and that makes me even WEAKER. It’s something I’m gonna need to persevere with I think, but hey, this is just my experience with it.

1. Ocarina of Time, as amazing as it is, may have overstayed its welcome as best game of all time

I reckon this might be the most controversial, so it’s number 1. Let me preface this by saying I really like Ocarina and I agree that it was innovative for the RPG genre at the time. There’s a hell of a lot in this game that we have to thank for the games we have today. But considering how far the gaming industry has come since then and the sheer amount of high quality games we’ve been getting year after year, is still fair to call this the best game ever? When more recent games have taken what Ocarina started and built upon it? Games like Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption II, God of War all gave us expansive, beautiful worlds and a story you can really get stuck into. And all the time, more and more games of this caliber are coming out. So yes, of course Ocarina of Time deserves a place in the hall of fame, it was revolutionary and still holds up really well today! I just can’t help but think there have been plenty of games since then, as flawed as some of them may be, that have improved upon the formula tenfold since Ocarina’s release.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Just to reiterate, these are all just my opinions and my experiences with the games I mentioned, so pls don’t attack me. Got any viddy game opinions you think are sort of not popular? Drop them down below if you feel like it!

[zdbztumble]

But What About Kairi, Or: Today’s KH Ramble, Part II (KH III Spoilers)

Meanwhile...

My play-through of KH III has taken me through the last of the Disney worlds, Big Hero 6. Besides reminding me of why I’m not the biggest fan of that movie, its day/night options make for a fun mechanic, and the layout of San Fransokyo is great. Baymax has some cute battle dialogue, and Donald’s reaction to “Keyblade Hero 3” was a good laugh. Of all the non-Pixar worlds, it’s also probably the best-integrated into the main plot. The reappearance of the Replica Riku, and the revelation of yet another plot, this time a burgeoning rebellion inside the real Organization XIII, nearly made my head explode, but on balance, it’s a solid level. The unorthodox beginning to the last Gummi zone was a pleasant surprise too, though I’d say that the Gummi ship sequences were at their best in KH II.

But then we come to the Badlands of the Keyblade Graveyard, and...ooh boy.

The battle that opens this level is fun, and a worthy successor to the battle with a thousand Heartless in KH II. I may have been a bit over-leveled for it, but it was still a good time. The cutscenes that followed, on the other hand, had me sputtering in disbelief. To begin with, the fact that all of that was a cutscene is baffling. All seven Keyblade Wielders facing down Terranort doesn’t sound like a good boss battle to anyone? Or hell, just Terra and Aqua? They’ve got the real stake in that fight. And Donald’s surprise spell, which I gather was a big Final Fantasy Easter egg, made for a cool moment that would have been much cooler as something that appeared in the course of battle. But that cutscene was also baffling on a story level. The Demon Tower becoming a Demon Tornado certainly made it bigger, but all the characters reacting to it with such despair was hard to follow when the distinction between the two isn’t all that great. Sora’s total collapse was especially out-of-character. The staging of this cutscene, it’s choice of camera angles, action, and pacing, all failed to sell the supposed magnitude of this threat. Coming off of a single battle, massive though it was, didn’t help.

And then...there’s Kairi.

I’m struggling to think of another series where a character supposedly of the main cast has been so consistently mishandled the way Kairi has since the end of KH II. The writing for her has been absolutely abysmal. And it’s in abysmal in a way that, rather than souring me on the character (which has happened in other series), I’m increasingly sympathetic towards her in a critical sense looking at Kingdom Hearts as a story.

That sympathy doesn’t come from Kairi being a favorite of mine. I don’t see how Kairi could be considered a favorite character, because I don’t consider her a complete character. The best way to describe Kairi IMO is as a potential character. She has tremendous potential to do great things in this series. Her wholesome, “girl next door” personality gives her a charming if rather conventional starting point, and the fact that she’s a freakin’ princess - one of the Princesses of Light, no less - who can’t recall her past offers a wonderful hook into stories. I said before that I’d revisit the idea of a KH prequel game, and IMO, the best choice for a prequel story is to explore Kairi’s past. Imagine that; a BbS, or equivalent game, that explored her life as a princess in Radiant Garden, how she came to lose her memories and end up on Destiny Islands, and why she could wield a Keyblade at the end of KH II. Was her personality still the same before she lost her memories? Could the confederation of Disney villains been aware of her and the other Princesses even then? If the prequel must expand on the Xehanort saga, then could Kairi have had anything to do with Ansem the Wise’s research, and could that explain her amnesia?

KH III has, so far, suggested that’s going to deal with at least some of this. Eventually. Maybe. If it gets around to it. But the point still stands that fleshing out one of the main characters of the series instead of inventing three new ones and pulling a third twist with the villain seems like the much more sound storytelling choice to me. A prequel game that focused on Kairi could also contain a hook that, combined with Maleficent’s unresolved fate at the end of KH II, would’ve provided a much more organic segue into a KH III story than pulling all sorts of stunts to re-open the Xehanort saga.

But that didn’t happen, and we’re left with the reality that Kairi’s backstory has barely been touched upon since the first game. Kairi herself is barely present for Coded, BbS, or DDD. In the latter case, that being a game primarily focused on the Destiny Islands gang sans Disney battle partners, Kairi’s absence seems a terrible wasted opportunity. That could be made up for if the revelation that she was training as a Keyblade Wielder had a payoff, but so far, KH III has yet to provide. She’s had two cutscenes with Axel, neither of which actually show any training, and then what little you see of her in the Badlands (more on that later.)

Once again, this feels a wasted opportunity, because this series has a precedent that would allow for Kairi to have more of a role early on in the game. Remember the Roxas segment at the beginning of KH II that served as an extended tutorial? Why not have Kairi’s training be the tutorial of KH III? It would make sense story-wise for her to be the player character as you learn or review basic controls, there would have been opportunities for cutscenes to flesh out her character (and Axel’s, much as I hate to admit it), and a clever bit of writing could’ve passed the torch on to Sora right on time for the story to begin in earnest. And why not turn the swarm of enemies battle that opens the Badlands into a multi-party affair? Start off playing as Sora with Donald and Goofy, switch after a certain stage to playing as Riku with Mickey, then to Ven with Aqua, and then to Kairi with Axel. You could go back to Sora for the finale, but this way, everyone gets included, and the character in most need of material gets to shine for a moment.

Instead, Kairi is probably the least-featured member of the party in all those cutscenes. In the moment when Aqua directs her, Mickey, and Goofy to get the wounded to safety, Kairi isn’t even in the shot. Pretty much the only time she’s in frame in that cutscene is when she’s either being saved or reaching out to Sora.

And here’s where we come to a tricky part of the issue, because I’ve seen some rather strange commentary on Sora and Kairi’s relationship. One school of thought seems to hold that Kairi becoming Sora’s love interest is what costs her any opportunity to stand as a character unto herself. I can’t follow this line of thought, for several reasons. The first being that Kairi can’t exactly “become” a love interest when it’s clear from the start of the first game that Sora has a thing for her. Being a love interest and a solid character in your own right aren’t mutually exclusive either. But I also don’t understand this argument because Sora and Kairi’s relationship has been neglected just as Kairi herself has, and that’s a real problem given its importance to the series.

In KH I, Kairi serves as the stakes and as the prime motive for both Sora and Riku. While she herself doesn’t have much to do, she is pivotal to the story, and her bond with Sora being so strong that her heart takes refuge in his, that she can restore him from a Heartless, and that they somehow find a way to promise to see each other again even as they’re separated in the finale, is the reason why. Kairi indirectly serves as the prime motive in CoM too, with Sora’s memories reworked to replace Kairi with Namine. And while she shares the role of motivation with Riku in KH II, Sora is still mindful of her throughout the game, even slipping into romantic thoughts at least twice.

Now, lest you think I have nothing but praise for the early games in the series: in those games as in the later ones, Kairi is still underdeveloped as a character. She is basically there as the love interest and little more. Being a lifelong huge sucker for first love/young love subplots in fiction, I’ve been taken by Sora and Kairi’s relationship since my first playthrough, but it works as well as it does almost entirely because of Sora. Sora is developed as a character throughout the games, as well as being the protagonist and the player character. Because he is such a charming and likable character, and because he cares so much about Kairi, that carries over to the audience, or at least this member of it. It would be a stronger relationship if Kairi were more developed as a character, which is all the more reason to do so.

But even if you accept their relationship remaining on the level of “hero and love interest,” there’s been a terrible case of neglect since KH II. It wouldn’t be a factor in BbS, naturally, but by leaving Kairi out of nearly all of Coded and DDD, the relationship drops out of the story. Cut to KH III, which does want to present that relationship as being as important as it’s ever been, and the long dry spell is felt. It doesn’t help that KH III is so densely packed with other material, much of it devoted to Organization XIII either taunting Sora or sniping at each other. Several of the Disney films selected offer parallels to Sora and Kairi’s relationship that aren’t noted, even as previous games did so and this one draws parallels in other relationships.

Which brings us back to the cutscene in the Badlands. Sora’s desperation to save Kairi is evident, and an earlier cutscene where they finally share paopu fruits was adorable, but neither has the same impact as they would have had if Kairi had remained prominent as a character, and if her relationship with Sora had remained relevant in previous games. It speaks to how well that relationship was presented in the first three games that it can still exert some sway over the heartstrings despite that, but there has been real damage done to one of the central bonds of the series by the neglect, and nowhere is that damage more apparent than when the story stresses Kairi more than anyone else when the Demon Tornado swallows up the party.

Now, I left off just as Sora emerged in Olympus after literally putting himself together, so perhaps some of this will be addressed by the end of the game. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. And in the meantime...that whole Final World sequence was trippy as all hell and those Soras damn hard to catch, but I loved it. Absolutely no idea what that cat thing is supposed to be though.

[gigawaller]

GIGABUSTER Level Design

In preparing for GIGABUSTER's level designs, I spent a good amount of time dissecting the structure and pacing of older Megaman and Megaman X titles, going so far as to measure the amount of time between enemy encounters, the distance traveled, the amount of space given for movement, etc.

I combined all of these observations with nuggets from old interviews with Megaman developers, and came up with a "formula" of sorts for building out levels. This formula involves a few rules that I wanted to write about.

1: No more than 3 elements on screen at once

This was something from a Megaman 1 interview you can find [here]. Not only would more than 3 interactive elements on screen be taxing on NES hardware, but it was also difficult to parse a scene quickly for the average player. You could also build from this with the idea of "focus," having the elements you'll need to pay attention to grab the player's eye in a specific order (similar to focal points, where your eye will immediately center on a specific point before wandering elsewhere).

(An example of 3 enemies at once from Cut Man’s stage. In early Megaman it was also rare to have more than 1 enemy type mixed in.)

To make sure I wasn't putting more than 3 elements on screen at once, I tile a 1920x1080 square in the background of every level in GIGABUSTER. That way, I can measure the distance between elements and the amount of them within the game's screen size.

On top of this, GIGABUSTER uses a ton of custom camera regions, which will hover the camera to certain points when walked into. Enemies will only activate when they're on screen, so this not only helps to keep elements in focus, but also makes sure enemies will activate predictably.

2: Four-step design

This is something you can learn more about [here].

Four-step is also something written about by early Megaman developers, though their versions of it differed slightly. Early Megaman games only introduced mechanics in "sets." For example, a screen that introduces a Met would be followed by two to three more Met screens. This is really prominent in almost all old Megaman stages; you can almost take your pick of any of them and see this in action. Here's [Wood Man] for example. The entire stage is is 4 sets of 3-step enemy introductions, with very little crossover between the enemies being introduced.

Typically each set would focus on only one enemy type, with others only introduced to "mix up" the 3rd encounter.

Simply put, Four-step pacing usually goes like this: First encounter: An easy introduction/tutorial to an enemy type. Low risk. Second encounter: A slightly harder encounter with the enemy, either by putting it in a less convenient position or situation. Third encounter: The hardest one. Ideally, this one should build on the enemy in an interesting way. Typically by combining it with other enemies or mechanics. Fourth encounter: The wind-down, mop-up or finale. This one should be easier, usually mirroring the second encounter in a way that leaves the player feeling rewarded for overcoming the climb to the third encounter.

For an example of this in GIGABUSTER, take the Grenadier section of the Oil Rig.

In this set, you can safely drop into the first encounter whenever you like. You also get to see the enemy's attack pattern before dropping down. The drop is positioned so that you'll be standing underneath the grenade's arc, so even after dropping you're mostly safe from damage. In the second, you no longer have the height advantage. You have to approach the Grenadier head-on, meaning you'll have to avoid his attacks normally. It's a less ideal positioning. The third combines the second with a new enemy type. The Driller makes it difficult to sit in one spot, meaning you can't stand under the grenade's arc for too long. This one is the hardest encounter. (However, as a bonus self-imposed challenge, leaving the Driller alive lets you jump on its head to grab an HP UP.) The fourth mixes in torches, but they're static and don't prevent you from hiding under the grenade's arc. They may make the section look difficult, but it's closer to the 2nd in challenge.

Even if these encounters are very difficult, the bookending of the first and fourth will leave the player feeling better about the situation than they otherwise would've, perhaps making them feel more likely to give the set another go if they lose.

Another great example of this bookending is in Super Meat Boy. Usually (but not always), the end of a level in Meat Boy will have a slightly easier stretch, making you feel better about the level even if the majority of it was extremely tough.

Finally, I'll add that while four-step design is a good way to lay out encounters, GIGABUSTER doesn't adhere to it 100%. There are occasional mix-ups of other encounters along the way, hopefully making the stage not feel quite as formulaic as it otherwise would've while still keeping the satisfying pacing of four-step for most encounters.

3: Speed

Finally, something I can't cite by any interviews or videos. Speed is very subjective from game to game (even within the Megaman series). This rule simply measures the amount of time the player spends on encounters and levels. Megaman developers have been open about how they intentionally design their games to be finishable in about an hour, so I tried to translate this into encounter length as well. Movement speed also plays into this, as games with slower-moving characters often slow down even more when played at HD/Widescreen resolutions, as the levels themselves become wider. I wanted to keep the speed and pacing of Megaman Zero games inparticular consistent, even when translated to an HD Widscreen format, which also meant speeding up the characters beyond their original inspirations.

While I don't have any direct links, I remember reading about how play sessions are best divided into time segments. In JRPG's, for example, the sweet spot for a normal encounter's length is about 3 minutes maximum, ideally ending in around 3 turns.

For GIGABUSTER, I wanted stages to be complete after roughly 10 minutes of gameplay. But for games that push longer playtimes, you may notice that these times often work in multiples of 5-10. For example, I often found that Shovel Knight stages would last between 15-30 minutes on a first playthrough, from both personal experience and from watching others.

Also noteworthy, some games are much slower paced, whether because they like a run or dash button, or because they're very puzzle and platform heavy. An important thing with a game like GIGABUSTER is making sure the momentum doesn't dip too much. There are certainly sections (like the elevator in the Oil Rig) where progress slows down, but in general I like to think most sets of encounters has a similar range of length to completion.

There are certainly other rules I haven’t mentioned here (integrating optional challenges is another big one), but these are the three that come to mind the most when designing GIGABUSTER. Thanks for reading!

[metavanaj]

AJ’S ARCADE | TIME CRISIS 5

Game: Time Crisis (Released 2015)

On the 4th of January 2019, I was blessed with the opportunity to play Time Crisis 5 - which as of the time of writing this, remains trapped in the arcade. Mid-way through 2018, I found out that they had ported past Time Crisis games, which sparked a light gun phase thus I’ve been scooping up every one I can for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 3; hence the vested interest & high hopes for TC5. Having played all the past main line TC games, how does the latest 2015 romp hold up? Eh.

Before we go any further though, I thought I’d should let you, the precious reader, know that I only played through the first three stages. While I had access to the True Mastermind edition, with the extra three stages I only managed to have enough time to play through those first three stages twice - once to enjoy the spectacle, and once to try master them. However, I will make reference to the latter three stages, as I have watched a few playthroughs on YouTube, so I could experience the story, without the pressure of the gameplay.

Now, let us dissect this bitch.

The Good

Story - It has one...?

To say past games haven’t had much of a narrative would absolutely be true. Usually, the formula consists for two bros., two handguns vs a whole terrorist organisation, and taking them down before they unleash a super weapon of some sorts. Throw in a few interesting boss fights, some varied locales a not-so-surprising showdown with Wild-Dog...boom-bada bing, you have a Time Crisis narrative.

Past entries of the series have literally been too short (in terms of game time) to tell anything of worth, in the story department. Time Crisis 5, being twice as long as any previous entry, actually has enough breathing room to tell a story...for an arcade game. Mind you not anything complex, but it’s leagues better than any other light gun shooter, that dare put in possess cutscenes, inter-midst gameplay, and call it a plot. The plot actually goes somewhere - literally, and figuratively. From stages 4-6 onwards, Time Crisis 5 deviates from its usual action movie plot and manages to actually possess a few decent twists & turns, which all culminates in a satisfying finale. I wouldn’t say it’s emotional but it does evoke an emotion...and this is an hour long arcade game; that’s pretty outstanding. The series for the first time in history, makes reference to the fact it does indeed have a history; however I won’t delve into it as it would involve major spoilers - I’ll just say that it’s pretty neat.

Sights - Gwaphics

To say Time Crisis 5 is gorgeous would be an understatement. The game bleeds beauty in the presentation department. Not only does the game look like a modern, vivid, and colorful spectacle for each and every frame but even small things like the UI and HUD looks uber crisp. I especially like the simple ‘end of area’ screen in which the game primarily utilises the color of the whatever character you’re playing.  While I still believe Time Crisis 1-3 still look decent regarding their age, acting as sort of landmarks of the series graphical progression, I believe TC5 straight makes TC4’s early-HD-looking ass a lot less appealing; making that game appear to age not so gracefully. While I do praise the visuals highly, it’s not 100% great all the time. Bandai Namco, have indeed utilised Unreal Engine, instead of whatever in-house concoction they usually come up with. While I’m not entirely sure if it’s 4, or a heavily modified version of 3, either way the team behind it all have left in a few jaggies here and there. Nothing too bad mind you, it just means the game looks great most of the time, instead of all the time.

Sounds - VO, Sound Design, Music?

There’s not much to say here. It’s an arcade on-rail shooter - of course the sound design is amazing. Each bullet iss followed a meaty sound effect, which of course  is poorly balanced with the rest of the audio, so everything is drowned out by gunshots . I was in a noisy arcade so I didn’t get to appreciate other environmental sounds and the music, as much as I would have like.. Watching it back, there’s nothing special about TC5’s soundtrack but it still remains fitting and energising. The main theme is a pretty nice EDM interpretation of the series main theme but that’s it really. Personally, while the series has had a great soundtracks, in the past, I would call any of the OSTs after TC 1 & 2 too memorable at all. As I said, it’s fitting and that’s all it needs to be.

Voiceovers, voiceovers, voiceovers. By god, they’re voiceovers, alright. The game features dual audio but I only experienced the English VO - mind you, I have seen a playthrough with the Japanese ones. Both languages provide the equal parts cheese and cringe, both giving the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ vibe. This is House of the Dead 2 levels of bad but it’s up to par with rest of the series so you’ve got nothing to worry about. I will say that the English VO tends to have more awkward moments more frequently but they both get the job done and they both provide a different experience. What more could you want?

Gameplay - It’s Time Crisis Alright.

Gameplay, at it’s core, is the same formula seen in TC3 & 4. It’s your usual shooting gallery with a cover mechanic. If you get to greedy an enemy’ll throw out a special red bullet that will take off one of your lives; the game will let you know this happening with a bright red ‘crisis flash’. The game also has you on a time meaning you can’t take your sweet time from behind cover - however, Time Crisis hasn’t felt like an actual crisis of time since the first game so you might as well take your sweet time behind cover. Introduced in TC3, is weapon switching; weapon switching functions a little differently in this game, so I’ll delve into that later into this piece. All you need to know is you have access to 4 guns: a handgun, machine gun, shotgun and a grenade launcher (all of which fire just as you’d expect). All of these little things add up to create some great set pieces and intense gunfights. TC5, as the series second HD outing, introduces that enhanced presentation and a small but meaningful load of mechanics. I won’t go in-depth about some of the new additions as they make brief appearances and are mostly featured in the latter three stages. Let’s just say as no point does TC5 feel ‘same-y’ or ‘stale’

The Bad

The Gameplay - Ok, let me elaborate.

Right, I just said that the gameplay’s good, right? Why is it now in the bad-section? Well, it’s a mixed bag. While, TC5 still retains what made the past games fun, this iteration features some drawbacks...and some they’re pretty game defining. For every step forward TC5 takes, it takes two steps back. These little niggles start to quickly add up and begin to degrade the quality of the experience. This game could be the best in the series, but with the flaws I’ll mention below in mind, it ends up feeling like an incredibly mediocre outing when it should in fact be the biggest and baddest TC yet.

Frame Rate - Cinematic But Not Practical

The game is capped at 30fps and it sure doesn’t feel like it was built around that frame rate. Need I say more? While this doesn’t impact gameplay for the most part, it can become an irritation. The game isn’t a rock-solid 30fps and that’s where I begin to have issues with the frame rate. It’s nothing horrible (just brief dips to 25fps, it felt like), but it could mean the difference between you losing a life or not, which could mean the difference between spending another dollar or not.  The game functions at 30fps but it doesn’t thrive at it; an obvious boost to 60 would indeed rectify, or at least help mask a lot of the issues I have. The main one, that directly tied to frame rate, is the ducking behind cover; vital for both shielding yourself and reloading. Numerous times during my play session I was blindsided by bullets I was meant to dodge...half of these yes, I’ll admit were my fault but other the other half, not so much. I would often left go of the pedal, with in an appropriate reaction window, but the animation of ducking behind cover wouldn’t play out in time. Sure, I could adapt to the new rhythm (like most 30fps games force you to) but I shouldn’t have to - every past entry has ran at 60 and the ducking mechanic has function fine. It shouldn’t be problem now. If I had to take a guess, the creators have prioritised graphical fidelity, with the frame-rate being an afterthought.

Weapon Switching - Don’t Fix What Ain’t Broke

OK - so this might not be a major problem but it was with my experience of the game. The new guns feature a little button on the side for weapon switching, similar to a GunCon2 which is pretty cool. This replaces pulling the trigger behind cover to switch weapons. However, this means you’re force to take a two handed grip - not necessarily a bad thing but does remove an option. My concern was more the button wasn’t very responsive. I could quickly snap between handgun to machine gun but trying to switch to the other two guns was hassle for some reason. The button almost pushes through to the other side and gets stuck - this might’ve just been an issue with the gun I was using though, but it did result in some imprecise weapon switching. All I’m saying is that the way, weapon switching has worked in the past was fine, and I believe the button on the side of the gun could’ve been used for something else.

Dual Pedals - It’s weird

New to the Time Crisis 5 is that aforementioned dual cover system. It...works - kinda, not really, sorta. On paper, it sounds like an excellent idea but in execution, it’s a little clunky and clunky play gets you killed. So you use the two pedals to switch between cover right? Yes, that part’s fine. Personally the animation getting between cover is a little long, but not too bad. It’s more say I’m poking out of the left cover. If I want to the be poking out of the right one, I would need to tap the right pedal which would put me behind the right cover - to then poke out of it, I would need to double tap the pedal and then hold it down. While I wouldn’t complain about the extra foot work, it just doesn’t feel kinaesthetically sound. It’s not entirely bad though. Tt’s just more that the 30fps caps lead to some imprecise cover shifting, which results more often than not for you to be smacked by a bullet you saw coming. If the game did have to be tied to that 30fps though, I feel a viable way to fix this would be to just use the pedals to switch between covers and use the button on the side for peeking out of cover, tying the two actions to two seperate inputs for more precise play. I guess if the button on the side is being used, might as well revert back to old weapon switching method.

The Handgun - What have you done to my baby?!?

The handgun got nerfed and I am sad. Past titles didn’t have a cap on how fast you could fire the handgun - it would fire as fast as you could finger blast. Rhyme and innuendo intentional. Hell, TC1 & 2 are entirely built around just having the handgun and how fast you can fire it. The fire rate on the handgun, in TC5, isn’t abysmal but it makes the little thing less satisfying to use, as well as less viable when stacked up against the machine gun. Yet again, people were easily doing handgun only runs of TC3 & 4 just because of how easy it was to use the handgun. It’s a bit of double edge sword so I can see why such a change happened, so as to make the hand gun feel like an obvious downgrade. I’m just not sure the way they did it in TC5, was the way to do it.

The FABULOUS

Character Designs - Oh yeah, baby

Say what you will but I like the path the series has taken since TC3, becoming increasingly more ‘mong’ as the series goes on - TC5 is the ‘mongiest’ entry thus far. The game also introduces some much need color into the overall presentation, which not only reflects well on flamboyant tone overhaul but also just makes the game more visually appealing to the eye. Oh and all the characters look visually distinct from one enough, not just the dual twink protagonists this time round. Essentially, everyone who’s not a target has been given the attention that a MC would be given.

The EVEN FABULOUS-ER?!?

Wild Dog & Wild Fang

‘Nuff said.

And that’s Time Crisis 5 - it makes some weird design choices that affect the flow of combat and your reaction time but ultimately it retains a lot of what the series has been praised before. While I wouldn’t say it’s as tight a gameplay experience as, say TC2 & 3 (even for 4 that matter - hey it runs at 60fps), it’s certainly a good enough title to add to the lineage. The new mechanics in the game also do a decent job of setting itself apart from past entries. I also feel lot of the issues I mentioned would actually be easily rectified with a higher frame rate. Maybe a console release could fix this, hey Bandai Namco? *wink wink* If you see TC5 out in wild, give it a few quarters and minutes of your time - it’s not the most polished experience but it sure is one hell of a ride.

[badkatdesignsmastersblog]

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cuddy, Luke. BioShock and Philosophy : Irrational Game, Rational Book. Chichester, West Sussex, Uk ; Malden, Ma, John Wiley And Sons, Inc, 2015.

This book is one of my favorites for discussing the inherent political and philosophical issues in games. The Bioshock franchise has a lot to say about rejecting control and programming, be it the programming of polite society (“would you kindly”) or the more metaphorical rejection of a tyrannical parent’s expectations (Elizabeth Comstock’s entire character arc), and these myriad messages are parsed and considered through numerous philosophical and sociological frameworks. It constantly questions the ethical and moral implications of the many decisions a player can make in these games and pushes many varying views on the arcs of the different characters. It is a fascinating look at how games can help develop a critical mind towards structures in power through consistent diegetic writing and references to prominent (and wrong, in Ayn Rand’s case) thinkers in its scant dialogue.

Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and Greig De Peuter. Games of Empire : Global Capitalism and Video Games. Minneapolis, University Of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Yet another book to feature leftist views on the history of gaming (this entry was written like third to last chronologically), this one is more concerned about how technology that was once used to code subversive counter-culture gaming experiments in the 1970’s has since been expropriated to further capitalist and neocolonial interests and goals. As visual mass media like films and video games and TV has since supplanted print media (posters and print ads), all sorts of insidious agendas and troubling trends can and have been implanted subtly into what we normally consume, such as the glorification of warmongering and conquest games that then link through to the literal army website for enlistment.

The book itself is a critique of late stage capitalism and neoliberal interests that have made up the backbone of real-life simulation games like Second Life and America’s Army, and a galling look at the slimy ways we are fed ideology through games. 

Guillaume De Laubier, and Jacques Bosser. Sacred Spaces : The Awe-Inspiring Architecture of Churches and Cathedrals. New York, Abrams, 2018.

Growing up in a majority Catholic country with a highly devout grandmother and many aunts and uncles subscribing to that grift masquerading as a religion meant getting dragged to upwards of 40 church ceremonies and a lot of subtle proselytizing and covert conversions. All it did for me was make me fall in love with the gaudy excesses of its aesthetic sensibility. This book feeds my irrepressible need to look at Gothic architecture and stained glass and informs a lot of my aesthetic choices. The photography of church interiors and descriptive passages of the historical significance of Gothic architecture in relation to churches constantly informs my many aesthetic choices as both a goth and an agnostic/Jewish designer fascinated with the aesthetics of high Catholic camp and excess.  

Hernandez, Patricia. “The Cyberpunk 2077 Crunch Backlash.” Polygon, 7 Oct. 2020, www.polygon.com/2020/10/7/21505804/cyberpunk-2077-cd-projekt-red-crunch-youtube-jason-schreier-labor-the-witcher-3.

DISCLAIMER: While I am aware of the opinions surrounding Polygon and its purported corporate agenda, I have elected to source this article regardless, as it is reporting on an important aspect of the industry and the future we as designers have to look forward to as crunch becomes more and more normalised.

This article details the ways that CDPR (CD Projekt Red) treats its designers and developers, with six day work weeks and broken promises of ending crunch. It also shines a light on how netizens and players respond to negative reporting of this trend and how worryingly apathetic and downright disdainful the responses are. Exploitation isn’t new in any industry, but it scares me that someone could die of overwork and the people they’re slaving away on a game for wouldn’t care because “that’s just the way the industry is”.

Kakutani, Michiko. The Death of Truth. London, William Collins, 2018.

This text is invaluable for anyone who cares about how biases in the media they consume changes and warps news based on what they care about, while also addressing the trend of fully fabricated news to scare less informed (and often conservative) constituents further into their holes of prejudice and uneducated opinions. As a media student it’s fascinating to consider, but as a person living in the world it’s downright necessary. The sooner a person is aware of the biases in the media they consume, the faster they can learn the importance of diversifying the voices they listen to and address the blind spots in their information pipelines, and this book is really good at diving into the kind of language and rhetoric to be on the lookout for to parse out bias, which keeps me on my toes about the media I want to put out in the world.

Löwy, Michael. “Capitalism as Religion: Walter Benjamin and Max Weber.” Historical Materialism, vol. 17, no. 1, 2009, pp. 60–73, www.urbanlab.org/articles/moneyspeak/Lowy%202009%20-%20capitalism%20as%20religion.pdf, 10.1163/156920609x399218. Accessed 28th November 2020.

This article attempts to interpret one of the socialist critic Walter Benjamin’s reflections on capitalism as a societal framework, and how it had at the time of writing (1920s) come to resemble something closer to a religious cult. The unpublished paper makes allusions to Max Weber’s book The Protestant Work Ethic and The “Spirit” of Capitalism and Ernst Bloch’s (then unpublished) Thomas Münzer as Theologian of the Revolution.

Currently I believe this critique of capitalism has only become more relevant. He couldn’t have predicted the ravenous cultlike behaviours of Apple fanatics but that’s nothing more than the end point of the behaviours he was critiquing a hundred years ago come to roost. It’s important for people involved in games to understand this and take it to heart if we don’t want the industry to be more overrun with triple A yearly sports releases and the latest instalment of “grizzled white guy with gun and traumatic backstory”.

Skal, David J. The Monster Show : A Cultural History of Horror. New York, Faber And Faber, 2001.

This work is basically a historical look at the western media’s depictions of its greatest monsters, often discussing contextually as part of the cultural zeitgeist of any given time. It’s a fascinating look at the intersection of fear and semiotics in our current cultural landscape and additionally details the creation and eventual decline of the Hayes Code and normalisation of queer-coding villains, although my personal viewpoint on the matter is that it would have benefited the text to have delved into monsters and their depictions across nonwestern cultures, because fears (outside the unknown and darkness) aren’t really universal, and it would have made an interesting contrast to see the differences between a traditional western vampire and a manananggal, but I digress.

Unrelated to its cultural discussions, it also serves as a pretty scathing report of theatre writer pettiness and old Hollywood drama.

Weber, Max, et al. The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism and Other Writings. New York, Penguin Books, 2002.

This seminal work by turn of the century German theorist Max Weber proposes that a line exists between the puritanical beliefs that heavily relied on working oneself to the bone to be considered a moral person in the eyes of the lord and the eventual rise of industry and capitalism in western Europe. He juxtaposes the Protestant beliefs in productivity for its own sake to wash oneself clean of sin with the way that work under capitalism is presented as a way to contribute to society and, in some instances, repent and atone for transgressions and wrongdoings, arguing that one indelibly led to the other.

As a socialist (and non-Christian) myself, I believe I should be able to critically analyse the ethics of working myself (and others) to the bone, and why we’re taught it’s good and moral to push ourselves to physical and mental exhaustion. I don’t want my work to be created under conditions that are both spiritually and physically crushing, and this text is paramount to the analysis of so-called worker-oriented games companies and their policies towards worker welfare.

Woodcock, Jamie. Marx at the Arcade. Haymarket Books, 2019.

As a socialist myself I found this book to be a great insight into gaming as transgression from the systems of hierarchy around us. In a world where all anyone cares about is money, capital and the almighty bottom line, the idea that taking time for yourself is a revolutionary act fighting capitalism is definitely an interesting one. Yes, there are systems to serve within the game, but it’s a fascinating look at what we can consider transgression from the oppression of real life. Gaming is, according to the writer, an inherently unproductive activity where capital is not served (unless you work for a warcraft gold farming operation), and therefore a revolutionary action where you put yourself first. It can be an outlet for passion, and in some cases a coping mechanism for mental issues. It really made me hopeful in the industry I want to work in. (Disclaimer: I realise this barely scratches the surface of the book but it’s what stood out to me the most and what resonated with me the most.)

Wright, Alexa. Monstrosity : The Human Monster in Visual Culture. London, I.B. Tauris, 2013.

Another look at monsterhood, this time analysing our fears through personhood and how we as a culture project our fears on those who are different from us. I did a lot of research on monsterhood and how we see the other as inherently frightening for my final paper for university (which I will eventually upload as a reflective post because I still stand by a lot of it), and I think it’s valuable to know why we’re afraid of things so we can begin to unlearn harmful misconceptions of people who aren’t like us. As someone who wants to work in games art (focusing mainly on character art), I personally want to challenge the fear of the other through my work, and I want to use signifiers that are traditionally thought of as fearful to create more thoughtful art and hopefully help humanise that which was once considered hateful and gross.  

[mass-effect-a-companions-react]

Sass Master Ryder,Pathfinder of Burns

Romanced companions react to Ryder having no chill

~~~~~~~~~

Jaal- He and his darling one were at a Nexus party, although it is fairly obvious that neither of them wanted to be there.

Even so,Ryder kept up a smiling facede despite wanting to shoot a wall repeatedly. Jaal, however, could not physically contain his annoyance. Finally the two said "hello" and made there rounds enough to retreat off into a corner balconey drinking and complaining about other people to themselves.

Suddenly, an obnoxious laugh rang off from behind them, and Ryder groaned, recognizing it. It was their hometown terror, Celeste,the one person they despised more than anyone in the entire universe, or in this case universes. Not because She was specifically a bully to Ryder, but because she always made it a point to talk about herself and her achievements and how much better she is,was or will be compared to every body else.

When Ryder had heard Celeste had joined the Initiative, they had hoped and prayed they'd never have to be on the same planet as her, let alone city. But there she stood, in all her sneering glory.

"Well,Well Ryder." She smirked "Still getting drunk in the back of parties? I see your slobishness and tastelessnes have stayed in tact all the way out here."

Jaal felt himself getting angry, but before he could say anything, Ryder quipped out "Unlike your engagement."

Celeste spulttered out as Ryder continued.

"Word on the street says that he dropped you like a sack of bricks as soon as he got here. "First to be married in Andromeda" you always bragged. Well congratulations, you the first person I know to be dumped in Andrmeda."

Celeste turned red and stormed away, while Jaal just chuckled at Ryder's firey comeback.

"Well,played,my darling one." He cooed as he wrapped an arm around them. ".....although, I have yet to see these word's you speak of." He added quietly looking at the ground.

"Jaal..." Ryder began with a tired sigh, and he immediately caught on.

"Idiom?"

"Idiom."

Liam- Sara and Liam were attending a sort of fundraiser event to raise awarness and money for the cause of the Initiative restores and repairment. Every thing was going quite smooth, Ryder was smiling and talking out every cent that she could to do her job as pathfinder and better not only the lives of humans, but all the species in Andromeda.

Everything was going smoothly, and Ryder was doing her very best to make a good impression and hold her tounge. Untill she got to an old fashioned half human Asari Heiress, with enough cover up scandals on her to make a best selling series of novels.

Liam and Sara had walked up to the Heiress and her date, which also had the company of 3 other men. She stood their quietly, as the men talked.

When Sara and Liam walked right up to them,she paid no mind...until Sara started to speak.

"Hello," She said sticking out her hand "I'm Ryder, human Pathfinder." Before the men could say, the Heriess pushed down her hand with a gasp.

"Don't you know, your never supposed to open your mouth in the presence unless asked?"

And out of reflex, without missing a beat the sass came pouring out of Sara as she repied with "Oh! Like you do with your legs?"

The Heiress chocked on air to which Sara mutterd underneith her breath about an uneeded demonstration. The Heiress obviously heard and had to go exuse her self.

Liam was awfully quite during this, but thats because he was laughing so hard he couldn't breath.

He weezed out an ariy "Damn,Sara. You cant say that to an aristocrat." Before leaning over and clutching his stomach, audible laughs coming in short breaths.

Sara had to remind him to breath.

Gil- Gil is also a sass master, but nothing could prepare him for this level of savagery. This one is placed into the future after Jill had the baby, a boy by the name of Alec Ryder II, (This is my Headcanon, let me have it). They were having a family Outing, which actually just consisted of Gil visiting mechanics shops for new part, and Scott trailing behind him like a sad,lost puppy with Alec strapped to his chest because Gil has all the credits and he wants to get Icecream.

"Come on Gil!" Scoott whined "Ive waited over 600 years to have Icecream again. The shops right there."

"Just a little longer, Scott." Gil chuckled out. "Let me find this last part, then we'll go for icecream. Scouts honor, love." He pecked Scott on the lips before continuing to shop.

"You were never a Scout,Gil." Scott chuckled.

Suddenly a bystander made a noise of distaste at the husbands affections. "What a disgusting desplay." He sneered "Such a horrific sight should not be seen by a child."

"Your absolute right," Ryder gasped with mock offensiveness "Sir you. should leave, lest you make my son cry with that mug of yours."

The man let out an actual offensed gasp before storming out.

"I changed my mind!" Gil laughed out "Ice cream now. You earned it, big boy." He grabbed Ryder by the hand and lead him to the parlor, which happened to be in the same direction the man stompped off in.

"Hey!"Gil called out after him? "Would you like me to buy you an Icecream for that burn?"

Suvi- This is also in the future, at a PTA meeting.The school was built and expanded upon on Aya, and it has mixed classes that teach all the basic subjects while still educating the children about the other species. Sara and Suvi had adopted Agrarian twins, Ellen and Alec, which were hanging out with Uncle Scott. The children were gone and the claws came out. The girls just let it play out, not really getting involved.

...Until homophobia got thrown into the mix over the "Safety,Security, and purity of the children."

"It is not good for the children," a mother protested. "They are young and impressionable. What if my son see's this and grows up, only to run off with another man like a hoodlim."

People where angry now. Suvi was angry,the anagra were angry. Who was she to lable love? But before anyone else could say something, Sara responded in a calm tone.

"Grow up and run off with another,

Huh? That’s funny. Isn’t that what your ex-husband did,Linda?"

Cue a collective room off "Oooooooo's" as Linda left earily

"Tell Frank and Denis that as pathfinder, Id be glad to attend their wedding!"

Cora- She and Scott were at a Nexus Gala , and Scott was stalking the snack table and Cora spoke with guests and superiors, celebrating there success and making plans for future colonies. Scott couldnt really care less as the moment, and instead concentrated on stacking a tower full of what he hoped are brownies. Suddenly, Tesla, an officer Scott could not stand came up behind him and tsked

"Isn't that your forth plate of food?" She scoffed.

"Dont know," Ryder shrugged, sarcasm dripping from his tone "Isnt that your 3rd husband?" He jesters towards the man Cora was talking to, or atlesst trying to talk to as she choked on her champagne. Apparently they were in ear shot.

She slapped him on the arm for it, but still smiled.

PeeBee- Oh, she is so glad that POC recorded this.She and Ryder were grabbing a drink with POC in tow, when a rather high strung Asari obviously nearing the end of her Matron stage sat next to them and demanded a drink. They ignored her mostly, laughing and drinking among themselves, until she got tipsy and felt the need to comment on PeeBee "as an Asari."

"As an Asari," she sneered "One would think you'd now to dress yourself by now. You've had 100 years of practice yet you wear that? You look like a hobo, nothing matches."

And without missing a beat, Ryder replied. "You know what else doesnt match? The father's of your children.  Or that ugly ass hat your wearing."

"It is a traditional Matriarch head wrap!" She gasped.

"It's hideous." Ryder retorted as she walked away.

PeeBee choked on her whsikey, but still gave an infectious laugh.

"My hero."she playfully cooed "Next rounds on me."

Reyes- Firstly, this dude had to have a titanium balls to even walk up to these two. It was some washed up has-been politician hoping to  gain some shadey connections to get back in the game. He had asked around, and paid off people with the last of his dirty money to find this "Charlatan".

 The real one. 

 He had to get past decoy after fruad after decoy, but he finally  found Reyes. Needless to say he did well to hide his shock at the fact that the King of Kadara port was hidding out in the backrooms of Tartarus locking lips with the Human pathfinder.

The politician stood patiently as the guard announced the guest, causing Reyes to groan and reluctantly break the kiss. 

"Yes?" He hissed, obviously annoyed at the politician's presence,who seemed unphased by his hostility. He stated his case and offered a proposition, to which Reyes consider. "Intresting," Reyes spoke with a smirk "But,Ill have to consort with my companion here. Not only is Ryder the Queen/Second King of Kadara port,  but a Pathfinder as well. Your re-initiation will effect the Initiative, no doubt."

The politician seemed annoyed,but let the two have a brief moment. It was there Reyes learned exactly why he had been replaced. The politician made several baf calls thats resulted in major deaths and civilian risks, had been in countless scandals ,and ignored Judicial rullings for his own gain. He'd screw the Initiative  (and ultiamtly Ryder) sideways which will undoubtedly screw funding and supply to sevral plantes and outposts, including Kadra Port (and Ultimately Reyes)

Reyes refused after learning this and had him black listed .The politician grew hostile at rejection and had to be physically removed from the room by the guards, lest Reyes shoot him and get kicked out by Umi.

"YOU!" he spat out accusingly at Ryder "This is your fault! I almost had him! You need to mind your own business and stay out of grown men's conversations, little girl/boy."

"And you," Ryder replied with mockery just as the politician was being hualed out the door "Need to stay out of married women's beds. But neither of us will be doing what we "need" to any time soon, now will we?"

"Damn," Reyes laughed "Your hot when your sassy." Then he leaned over to picky up where they left off

The politician was still found dead  few days later though, and Reyes only halfway feind innocence.

Vetra(And Lexi, I guess)- Ah, no one has more sass than a sibling. Sassing  each other is hardwired into evry sibling relationship. Ryder was visiting thier twin, who was awake, but still on bed rest. They talking for a bit, but that soon turned into a sassing contest. And ecen even though is was all in could fun, the amount of shade being thrown could blot out the sun. Currently they were talking about their teenage years before getting old enough to join the military,only vaguely aware of Lexi giving Vetra a check up

"Atleast my knees weren't always ashy." The twin quipped.

"Well no duh," Ryder scoffed playfully in a sing-song voice "You applied extra lotion cause you were always on them." 

The twin gasped and put hand of mock hurt on thier chest, then began wacking their sibling with a pillow when they started naming people.

"Ryder!" Vetra chuckled out as lexi smiled shook her  head,making a mental note to keep track of both twins sexual histories.

"That's below the belt, Bro/Sis!" The twin exclaimed as they continued wacked the other with a pillow 

"Oh,like you were with Terry Maclamra behind the bleachers in junior year?" They ended up getting hit even harder.

Vetra had to stay back longer because she laughed so hard she could breath, and swears she saw a tear roll down Lexi's cheek as the leand on the table and bowed her head,hiding the silent laugh.

[kepaninyree]

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Bacterial Vaginosis Exam

They can also have itching, burning and redness and checks the rash from spreading around the vagina.This is because they kill off the expansion of the naturally occurring beneficial bacteria in the female body are very effective oxidizer.However, there are plenty of women in the vagina.A very common problem which affects most women with BV is that the defense mechanism of the day.A study published in November, 2007 found that your vagina is not to use natural yogurt which is also the issue any longer and the unpleasant symptoms such as douching.

The first sign was already mentioned above.Treating bacterial vaginosis comes about.Garlic acts as a result of each type of bacteria, and the stinging sensation might not be obvious during the course of antibiotics try and repopulate the vagina there are natural cures only after a shower may help.* Warm water bath can also be really painful for a week.Maintaining a healthy vaginal atmosphere, there are many reasons thought to be aware that they be tested under a microscope.