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8bitsupervillain · 2 years

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Dragon Age: Origins review

I'm struggling somewhat to convey my thoughts about this game. I recall really liking the game way back when I played it on the Xbox 360 back in 2010 or so. I tried replaying it a year or so ago, bounced off and played other stuff. This year I tried playing it again, was struck with an intense desire to play literally anything else, but I kind of forced myself to stick with it. I don't want to compare it to the Pillars of Eternity games, or Tyranny, or any of the other CRPGs I've played in recent months because I feel that's a really unfair comparison. I don't really have a game I can compare it to from around the same time frame. Do I compare it to Final Fantasy XIII, The Witcher, Kingdom Hearts 2? Because I don't think those are good comparison either, they're extraordinarily different games. There is only one point I feel I can reasonably compare Dragon Age to The Witcher and that is the generally ramshackle and astonishingly glitchy experience I had during my play time of the two.

My entire playthrough of Dragon Age Origins was constantly beset by constant crashes to desktop. I thought perhaps my issues were stemming from the fact I was playing with mods, but I was experiencing crashes even before I installed the mods so I doubt it was that. There was never a consistent reason for the crashes either for the most part. During the Return to Ostagar DLC it would routinely crash if I attempted to use a spell called Winter's Grasp, at least until I got past the initial outdoors area. Then it became a thrilling game of "what will cause the game to crash this time?" Clicking a door? Clicking your inventory? Clicking an enemy to attack, moving the camera? Moving your character herself? Sneezing solidly? Taking my eyes off the screen for a second to do something unrelated? What did surprise me is I never experienced any crashing when I was using these large AOE attacks that fill the screen with lightning, fire, or ice. Whenever it crashed during combat it would only do so when I was using either Winter's Grasp (I lied the issue persisted outside Return to Ostagar), Bloody Grip, or the direct fire, ice, or lightning attack. The crashing issues came to a head when I arrived in the Dwarven city of Orzammar. After being in the city for roughly half an hour it became a coin flip on whether the game would crash when I attempted to do literally anything. This was the absolutely lowest moments of my time with Dragon Age: Origins where during any given attempt to play the game I would have to stop playing the game in an attempt to try to divine WHY the game was dying every alternate step. It got so dire I tried playing the game using the Steam version of the game, and considered having to redo multiple tens of hours of progress just in an attempt to undo whatever black magic devilry was afflicting the game this time. I still have no idea why or how I was able to brute force my way through the Orzammar section. If I were less stubborn I absolutely would have abandoned the game right then and there. Perhaps I should have given the incredibly miserable time I was having with the game. My theory why the game started behaving more solidly is kind of a really stupid idea. Shortly after switching the game's difficulty down to easy I had a far more stable experience. For whatever reason after putting it on easy I had nearly no crashes from then on. I had the odd crash here and there but never to the frequency I had during 90 percent of Orzammar. Even the odd graphical bugs I had been experiencing during most of the game dropped off entirely at this point. It had nothing to do with messing with graphical settings as far as I can tell because after I dropped the graphics down to medium I put it back to high and seemingly nothing had changed. Yet when I switched the game to easy most of my issues seem to have just evaporated to the winds. I cannot explain why this happened, I doubt it's because my laptop is not nearly as strong as my desktop computer. I had been experiencing the crashes on my strong lad as well. I was extremely paranoid that the events in the Orzammar/Deep Roads portion of the game would have to be the end of my playthrough, when the game had a large number of enemies on the screen more often than not: crash to desktop! And I seemed to recall the war segments of the late sections of the game would throw similar numbers of enemies on screen, so I prepared for my playthrough to be done. I want to circle back to my graphical issues for a moment. During at least half of the game whenever I killed anything the blood that poured out of dead enemies became a glowing flickering red square. This happened regardless of enemy, other graphical oddities included character hair just being odd and clipping through other aspects of a character's hair. It gave characters who have braided hair weird mustaches that just sort of jut outside of the sides of their faces, it did this regardless of character gender. It was clearly supposed to be part of their hair because it would be the same color, but it was just a smooth untextured shape on their face. I wish I had had the presence of mind to record or screenshot these because it was damn peculiar. Moving on, because I feel I shouldn't just complain about my technical issues. This game's version of real-time with pause doesn't work nearly as well as I think it should. It just plays kind of shoddily compared to other games with the system. I genuniely think that maybe the game shouldn't have allowed you to directly control your party members, because having to remember how a melee character plays after you've playing a wizard for thirty hours is always a panicking moment. Then again, maybe they didn't do that because then they would've had to make the characters have to be proficient in the fights. I swear these bastards would go out of their way to die in the most inconvinient of times just on a lark. When you go in to the tactics menu just to have your melee boys (Alistair, Sten, Zevran, Leliana, Shale, Dog, Oghren, and other) heal whenever they're below fifty percent just for them to ignore that particular aspect of the tactics menu I started to think they were doing it deliberately. Also having to rely on your other spellcasters, both Wynne and Morrigan, started to aggravate with their equally useless spell loadouts. Perhaps it's because I'm a poor strategist/leveler but I always just reloaded whenever my character died and there was more than five any given enemy alive. But don't worry it's not just complaints about my party I have I also have some for the specialities you can unlock. I had foolishly assumed since you can unlock some Blood Powers if you drink Avernus' concoction during the Warden's Keep DLC that Blood Magic would actually be worth a damn. Blood Magic, for all the hype the series gives it, is some of the worst spells available in the game, perhaps this is meant to be a punishment for the evil player since the only way to get it is to condemn a child to possession, but I wanted it to be a more worthwhile choice in the game. One of the things that just feels off to me about this game is when you do attempt to try playing a separate party member. Either due to the protag dying, or you just want to try to get a feel for a melee character, it just feels weird. The combat system just feels wildly different if you try to use a different type of character to me. Which is unfortunate because in a game like Pillars of Eternity yes, a spellcaster does play differently to sword and board fighter, but it doesn't feel like you're trying to play an entirely different game. Also, try as you might to make Wynne or Morrigan a different type of spellcaster, you will always have to have at least three of the same spells on all of them just to get any real types of damage dealing done. It makes it an odd moment where they play just similar enough to not be entirely feel like a different type of magic system has been suddenly thrown at you. The computer itself also seems to share my complaints with the magic system, in spite of Morrigan being a "shapeshifter mage" she almost never actually used any of her shapeshifter abilities while the computer was controlling her. Again, perhaps this all comes down to me not knowing what I'm doing with the tactics menu, but it seems like the game would make more use of her specialized skill set without me having to take the wheel from it. Wynne never had a problem using her suite of healing spells, and my PC never had any issues using her assortment of elemental and damage dealing spells, and that includes the Blood Magic I generally never bothered putting on the hot bar due to my intense dispassion for it. One of the things I liked towards the back end of the game is when you are forced to engage with larger and larger groups of Darkspawn (and zombies, dragons, etc.) the game has the decency for them to die really easily. Perhaps this is because I was playing on easy but during the final big war sequence in the finale my party was cutting a bloody swathe through the assembled horde. Made me feel like I was actually an unstoppable mage; freezing, electrocuting, and burning my way through the Blight. Of course during the final hours the game just loves to keep sending more and more of the Genlock and Hurlock Emissary enemy type in with the hordes. These spellcasters unfortunately don't have the same level of accomodation the rank and file Darkspawn have and will pick away at you until death. Ranged enemies in general are a constant annoyance in the last half of the game because they always possess the ability to just whittle away you and your party's health regardless of difficulty. A particularly funny moment I recall during my playthrough was during the endgame there's a section where whichever party members you didn't take to the final boss have to defend an area. The enemies were dying so fast because of the other party members and support NPCs I never had the chance to actually fight any of them during the entire section. I don't really have much in particular to say about the story of Dragon Age Origins. While actively going through the game I was having a pretty good time with the story, but when I stopped playing it for the day, or indeed when I finished it none of it really stands out as particularly memorable. This may be entirely to do with the fact that in the decade plus since its release there has been deeper, and better written stories in basically every fantasy RPG under the sun. But even in some of the RPGs that were out at the time I don't think Origins stands out as a particularly strong story. I enjoy the dark tone of Origins, and I think for the most part it is a pretty well-written story, but it just has been out done and out classed by so many other stories that have come out since. The story of the game is that there is a race of subterranean monsters called the Darkspawn. Once in a particularly long stretch of time if enough Darkspawn gather they give rise to a large dragon-like Darkspawn called the Archdemon. Once an Archdemon is born it mobilizes the forces of Darkspawn to attack the surface in an event known as The Blight. To combat the Blight is an organization of trained monster slayers called Witchers, I mean Grey Wardens, who are able to sense Darkspawn and are the only living entities on Thedas (The World of Dragon Age's setting, it's an abbreviation you see) who can actually kill an Archdemon and put an end to the Blight. The Origins part of the title comes into play because you choose one of six starting backstories for your character in addition to race and class. These Origins see you play through the life of whichever race and backstory before you're forced out of the starting area and into becoming a Grey Warden and taking part in a battle to hopefully end the Blight. Obviously the battle goes pear-shaped and you and another Grey Warden named Alistair are the only Wardens to survive the battle. You're then tasked to unite the disparate races and groups to join together to fight against the Blight and hopefully end it once and for all, again. The interesting thing is that in theory whichever Origin you pick can have some small influence on events later on in the game. For instance if you pick the Mage Origin when you go back to their starting zone: The Circle of Magi, characters from the prologue talk to you about some of the stuff you did prior to leaving with the Grey Wardens. I don't know how the events in say Orzammar go if you play as the Dwarf Noble, or indeed any of the parts from the Origin as a human noble, but I presume there's something there to give you a small wink and a nudge about your chosen Origin. One aspect of the story I do enjoy is how some of the things you do can actually affect the story of the other sections. For instance, say you recruit the Circle of Magi to render your aid during your fight against the Darkspawn, when you go do the story segments in Orzammar (the Dwarf homelands) and Redcliffe (a human village being beset upon by the living dead) there will be story fragments that are available to you that wouldn't have been available otherwise. It's not particularly major things, except for one big choice you get offered in Redcliffe, but I appreciate that some token nod was made to notice plot progression. I like that during the course of the game there is always a chance that one or more of your party members will get sick of your choices and opt to leave the story entirely. It's never a particularly large chance unless you go out of your way to antagonize them, but it's there. Or if you get sick of a characters constant belly-aching you can send them away, I don't know why you would because their complaints never really reach that level of irritation, but it's an option that you can certainly choose. Even when the game outright forces characters to abandon you there's always the chance to get them to stay, you just have to play your cards right. I'm going to talk about some end of game spoilers now so skip the next four paragraphs if you've never played Origins, and don't want the plot spoiled. Also there's some slight spoilers for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Two aspects of the story I don't particularly care for happen damn near the end of the game. During the final areas before the end of the game you run across a character named Riordan. Riordan is a Grey Warden from the far off nation of Orlais, all he's really here for is to do some lore dumping about how whichever Grey Warden that kills the Archdemon will also die themselves. After which the only other thing of note Riordan does is die in a very embarrassing fashion. The other thing is during the Landsmeet to determine who should be the king or queen of Ferelden you have the option to either execute or recruit the traitorous character Teryn Loghain mac Tir into the Grey Wardens. If you opt to recruit Loghain you then lose the character of Alistair who has been your staunch loyal companion for the entirety of the game. Loghain is a major sufferer of the late-game recruit-able character disease like so many other characters in RPGs before and since. Him being alive doesn't amount for a whole lot because he doesn't really have any interaction with any of the other party members, and the story pivotal NPCs don't acknowledge his existence. He gets slightly more play than characters like Ydwin, Vatnir, or Rekke did in Pillars II, but only just barely. Loghain gets some lines when it comes to the choice of whether you want to have Morrigan absorb the soul of the Archdemon with her as yet unconceived god-baby. Outside of that he gets at most two sentences about whether you or he should sacrifice themselves to kill the Archdemon. In this playthrough I did not let Morrigan get her god-child. Loghain also suffers from the fact that as a party member is just isn't nearly as useful as Alistair has been during the game. You have at most four hours to get used to his moveset which differs quite a bit from Alistair, and you're basically saddled with the guy because he has to be there for the final fight with the Archdemon. I appreciate the game giving you the choice to recruit the guy, but I genuinely think the story would have been better off if you had to make the choice to either execute Loghain or force him into exile. But as I said this has been a consistent enough issue for RPGs before and since this game so take that as you will. Circling back to Riordan for a second. It seems to me that it might have been a better idea to have not killed Duncan way back during the Battle for Ostagar. Instead of killing him they should have had Duncan be the Grey Warden you rescue from imprisonment instead of Riordan. That way you would actually have felt something when he dies during the finale instead of the nothing I got when Riordan bit the dust. This is the end of the story spoilers. We now resume our regular review. I had mentioned previously that I felt Dragon Age Origins is probably a game people should play. I kind of stand by that statement, but I want to strongly impress upon you that it ultimately might not be worth your time or effort. Perhaps you'll go through the entire game and not experience any of issues I described above. In which case you'll be left with an RPG that I feel doesn't play particularly well just to experience a story that doesn't really have any real lasting elements. I don't really think you're doing yourself a disservice by not playing Dragon Age: Origins. The only way I would really recommend Dragon Age: Origins is if they do make that remaster the writer mentioned he wants to make. If they make Dragon Age: The Legendary Edition that fixes this and the two sequels for modern systems then I would recommend it. Or if you have access to a console that can play the game. Using a controller might be a worse experience than a keyboard and mouse for this type of game but you'll probably not have any of the issues I, and many other PC gamers, were subject to. Hell maybe the game is worth playing if you have a Vista or XP machine, I wouldn't know. What I do know is that I found the game to largely be a miserable experience and I can't in good conscience recommend it in this day and age.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #8bit reviews

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sineala · 3 years

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How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

#Anonymous #replies

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travissimblr · 3 years

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Sims 3 Performance Guide

Lately I have found the direction of The Sims 4 to be rather lackluster. Let’s face it. The game is boring. Still looking for that “Sims Fix” I found myself going back to playing The Sims 3. The Sims 3 can be tricky to get running correctly on modern computers so I figured I would share what I learned over the years. I made this guide a few years ago for another forum so I’m always open to new suggestions/edits etc. Some things may work well for others while some may not make a difference at all. I have applied all of these fixes in my own game and I still experience lag so this is by no means a guide to completely eliminate the lag in the game but a guide to perhaps help your game run a little bit smoother. All of these tips have been gathered from all over the internet and also some things I have picked up on my own over the years. I own a legit copy of the Sims 3 and have never owned a pirated version so I can't say whether or not these settings will work with a pirated version of the game. I also only have a PC so I don't know if any of these settings will effect the Mac version of the game. If anything I hope this guide brings people back to The Sims 3 or allows people to give the game another chance. The guide will be pretty extensive and I take no responsibility if you mess up your game :P

Limit Game FPS - This one has been a godsend. I was experiencing major lag especially in build/Buy mode. My computer is way over spec for this game much like most computers today. What would happen is that while in Build/Buy Mode my FPS would spike into the 200's! During these spikes the game would almost be un-playable.

To fix this issue:

Download this file: https://rd.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34]https://rd.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34

I know it says it's for Skyrim but it will also work for The Sims 3. After downloading it unzip the antilag.cfg and d3d9.dll into X: > Program Files (x86) > Origin Games > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin if using Origin. If you have the steam version of the game use : X: > Program Files (x86) > Steam > steamapps > common > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin . By default it is set to limit the game to 30FPS. I have been using this and it works fine. You can change it to 60FPS if you want by opening the antilag.cfg using notepad. I haven't had a chance to test the game at 60FPS but its not like The Sims 3 is a First person shooter or anything so IMO its probably not necessary. Run the game and your FPS should be capped at 30.

Alternately you can try turning on Vsync in either Nvidia Control Panel or AMD Catalyst software however I wasn't able to get it working. I'm using a Geforce 1080 and the latest Nvidia drivers. When I turned it on in the control panel it did nothing in the game.

After installing this fix I no longer experience massive lag spikes while in Build/Buy Mode the whole game also seems to be running a little bit smoother as well. Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about EA's terrible coding of the game so there will still be lag but this one has helped my game more then any of the other fixes as of yet.

**It also must be noted that FPS fix uses the same file as Reshade, d3d9.dll. I haven’t tested if this works using the d3d9.dll file from Reshade but I can assume it probably doesn’t. I do however believe there is a frame limiter built into reshade which should accomplish this same thing as this mod.

In Game Settings

1. Graphics

Resolution - You should always play at the native resolution for your monitor. Most monitors today use a native resolution of 1680x1050 or 1920x1080. If your game is struggling at this resolution you should always lower the graphics settings not the resolution.

Windowed? or Fullscreen? - This one is something that you will have to test. Some people say that the game runs better for them in Fullscreen and some say it runs better in Windowed Mode. My personal game runs better in Windowed Mode.

Object Hiding - Enabling this can help to increase performance especially if you have a large house. Essentially what this does is that the game renders every object on the lot you are in even if you aren't on that floor. So if you are playing on the first floor the game is using resources to render the items on the second/third floor etc.

Reflection Quality - Setting it to Mirrors and Water will work well for most people but adjusting this lower can offer a slight performance increase.

Edge Smoothing - I personally have not noticed much of a difference in performance adjusting this setting but this is the Anti Aliasing settings for the game. Try lowering it and see if it makes a difference in your game.

Visual Effects - According to the game "Controls the quality of particle effects on objects, Sims, and the town" Medium would be the recommended setting for Visual effects. It offers a happy medium between performance and visual quality.

Lighting and Shadows - Adjusts the shadow quality in the game. I run this on high in my game as there isn't a noticeable difference in performance between medium and high settings. Turning it to low will give a slight boost in performance but the shadows will be ugly.

Tree Detail - Keep this setting on high as there really is no difference in performance between settings. All you end up with are some ugly trees and no real boost in performance.

Enable Animation Smoothing & Enable Advanced Rendering - Both of these items should always be checked. Enable Animation smoothing makes no difference in performance and Turning off Enable Advanced Rendering can actually decrease performance.

Draw Distance - Keep this on high as it does not effect performance.

High Detailed Lots - With this turned up all the way I noticed a fair bit of stuttering in my game. I have mine set to 4 lots but this is a setting that should be tested to see what works for you.

Texture Detail and Sim Detail - Most computers should be able to handle both of these settings maxed for a small boost in performance you can lower the texture detail to medium. Sim Detail should always be set at Very High as lower this setting has only a very small boost in performance that probably wouldn't even be noticeable.

2. General Settings

Enable Shop Mode - This will disable the Sims 3 Shop from In-Game. Turning this off can help with stuttering.

Enable Lessons - Turning this off can possibly help with performance. I haven't noticed a difference but at this point we all know how to play The Sims.

Memories - Disabling Memories can offer a boost to performance and reduce in game stuttering.

**Alternately you can try using this mod if you don’t want to completely disable the memory system in The Sims 3

No (or fewer) automatic memories by velocitygrass on Mod The Sims

https://modthesims.info/d/446281

Enable Interactive Loading Screens - Turning this off has been said to reduce some in game stuttering. Besides nobody wants to play that stupid game anyway.

3. Online

Keep Me Logged In & Enable Online Notifications - Turning off both of these settings will help game performance and reduce stuttering.

4. Advanced Demographics Options

Enable Story Progression - Turning this off will reduce stuttering in the game. If you like this setting you can use the NRASS Story Progression explained further in this guide.

Advanced Settings

I will try to guide as best as I can with these but always MAKE BACKUPS of every file modified in this section.

In order to make this process easier be sure that "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked in the Windows Folder Options. In Windows 10 Click on View > Options > Change folder and search options. Switch to the view tab and under Files and Folders uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"

Edit GraphicsRules.sgr - This setting will help the game run smoother and make for faster clothing changes.

1. Got to X:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

2. Copy the GraphicsRules.sgr file and back it up in either in a safe location or even in the same directory just name it GraphicsRules.sgr.orig. Click yes when prompted with the rename.

3. Now Open GraphicsRules.sgr with notepad (not the copied version)

4. You will see four lines that look like this: seti cpuLevelUber 4

seti cpuLevelHigh 3

seti cpuLevelMedium 2

seti cpuLevelLow 1

5. Change the four lines to this: seti cpuLevelUber 4

seti cpuLevelHigh 3

seti cpuLevelMedium 3

seti cpuLevelLow 3

6. Save in Notepad and close Notepad.

Edit Sims3.ini - This is how you force the game to use more then 2GB of RAM. I noticed a massive improvement in both CAS and Build/Buy mode with this. Clothing,Objects etc load almost instantly when this is changed. The Origin version of the game has already been patched to use 4GB of RAM however adjusting this value to reflect your systems total ram amount if above 4GB can be beneficial. If you currently have 4GB total of RAM and are using the Origin version of the game you can skip this step. It’s questionable whether or not this makes a difference in the game as The Sims 3 is a 32 bit game that only uses 4GB to begin with but it seems to actually make a difference in my own game.

1. Go to X:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin (same as GraphicsRules.sgr)

2. Backup the Sims3.ini in the same method as the GraphicsRules.sgr

3. Open Sims3.ini in Notepad

4. Under [ResourceSystem] you will see this:

MemoryUsageLimit = 20000000 ( 10000000 for legacy/disc versions)

5. Ignoring the zeros this is showing that the Sims 3 is only using 4GB of ram (2gb for Legacy/Disc versions of the game). Depending on the amount of ram in your system you should change it to half of your total amount of ram. Examples:

8GB Total Ram MemoryUsageLimit = 40000000

16GB Total Ram MemoryUsageLimit = 80000000

32GB Total Ram MemoryUsageLimit = 16000000

**Be Sure to only change the first number not any zeros. For 32GB+ its the first 2 numbers. Putting this too high could cause your system lock up or crash and possibly do damage**

Modding

First go here and follow the instructions on this page to set up your Mods folder: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=9187.0

1. Must Have Mods - Even if you don't plan on putting any CC in your game these Mod is highly recommended if not needed in order to keep the game running Smoothly.

NRAAS Master Controller -

https://www.nraas.net/community/MasterController

This mod is a must have. It fixes many of the errors in the game and helps immensely with game lag and stuttering.

Under Modules Download: (Not Required but useful)

MasterController Cheats - Adds "cheaty" functions to Master Controller.

MasterController Expanded Tatttoo - Expands the number of locations provided in Tattoo CAS

MasterController Progression - This mod adds progression related interactions to the "Master Controller" menu. Addition to Story Progression (below)

MasterController Integration - (Must have if you install a lot of sliders) This mod replaces all the CAS interactions in the game with the one managed by MasterController, including the "Create-A-Sim" button in "Edit Town".

Now go to this Page and download these other “Must Have Mods” by NRAAS

https://www.nraas.net/community/Mods-List

Overwatch - (Important) Contains error correction and periodic game maintenance/clean up to reduce issues and improve game longevity.

Error Trap - (Important) Core-Mod that performs save-game corruption cleanup, while catching and reporting unhandled script errors.

Traffic- (Important) Controls autonomous vehicular traffic such as the Food/Ice Cream Trucks, and provides some minor vehicle routing settings.

Saver - (Important) Adds autosave function to the game.

Register - (Important) Replaces the EA Role Manager with a custom version that corrects several bugs and allows for greater flexibility.

Other Useful Mods at NRAAS (Optional) Same page as above:

Story Progression - Basically a less buggy, less performance heavy replacement for the EA story progression in the game. Be sure to tick off “Story Progression” in the In Game options as stated above. (Install all the optional modules as well)

Decensor - We all know what this does

Dresser - Adds automated outfit control for inactive sims, adding accessories, and restricting CAS parts.

WooHooer - Alters the romance and woohoo interactions, provides greater flexibility and attraction scoring.

Retuner - Provides fine tuning of many settings in game like autonomous settings, pricing etc. This one can seem daunting at first but there are plenty of Returner settings to be found out there and its really isn’t that difficult to change the settings in game albeit time consuming.

Be sure to look over the other mods if you see something you like download it. Any of these mods should be safe to add to your game with little to no performance impact.

After that extract the files you just downloaded into \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods\Packages\Overrides If you don't have an Overrides folder create one. The “Overrides Folder” is essentially a priority folder. Mods put into this folder will be loaded before any other package files you may add to the game.

In-Game NRASS Settings

These are just some settings to change to improve game stability. This is by far not comprehensive. For Retuner settings I would suggest a Google search of other users settings or consulting the NRASS help section for explanations of how to use this mod.

Click on the Town Hall in Map View Under NRASS

Traffic

Ice Cream Truck - I hate that creepy Ice cream truck so I change everything to false and set Max Ice Cream Trucks to 0. If you like having it around still change the Max Ice Cream Trucks to 1

Routing

Allow Performance Career Limos - False (Limos create a lot of lag in the game)

Allow Use of Cars During General Routing - True (if disabled your sims will only use cars when you tell them to)

Always Use Taxis for Inactives Lacking Vehicles - False (Townies will no longer use Taxis)

Allow Immigration - False (Random Townies wont move into your town keeping the population down and helping to keep performance from decreasing as sims move in.

Animal Control - Change the settings below for a performance boost

Maximum Deer - 2

Maximum Raccoon - 2

Maximum Stray Cats - 3

Maximum Stray Dogs - 3

Maximum Unicorns - 0 (Sorry Wild Horses and Unicorns add a good deal of lag to the game)

Maximum Horses - 0

Custom Content (CC)

Much like any other Sims game moderation is key. The more CC you download and put in you game the slower your game will perform. I'm not going to go into detail about how to install CC in The Sims 3 in this guide. These are just a few important tips to take into account when installing CC,

Try to install Sims3Pack files as much as you can. Sims 3 automatically merges these files and this leads to better game stability.

Merge you package files. Girl Meets Pixels made a great guide here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIZ2LdoT-HY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIZ2LdoT-HY

Keep an eye on the size of your Sims 3 Folder in /Documents. It may seem crazy to imagine but massive CC shopping sprees can lead to a massive folder to the tune of 30GB+. Skins and Hairs are a killer. These files are usually rather large sometimes in excess of 80 - 100mb. My suggestion would be to find a default skin you like and just use that. Don’t install any non default skins. Also go easy on the hair. You don’t need 20 different variations of the same ponytail in the game. Clothing is usually fine but pay attention to the size of the CC. That cute dress you found on Tumblr that’s 65mb more then likely has way too high of a poly count and will just lag and be slow to render in the game. Sure it looks great in screenshots but it wont be practical in game. I’m not sure of the exact cut-off for CC but eventually the folder gets too large for the game to handle and it will lead to issues like save corruption or in some cases not being able to save the game at all because the game has run out of memory. Sadly if this happens there is no fix for this and you will lose all of your progress and possibly your save file as well.

Advanced

World Fixes EA left many routing issues in a lot of their worlds that are known to cause lag and often times crashing as Sims bunch up in broken routing areas on the map.

All the World Fixes can be found on Ellacharmed's Wordpress page. Follow the instructions very carefully and install the fixes for all the worlds you have installed in your game.

https://ellacharmed.wordpress.com

Other Useful Tips

Delete your cache!! This one can't be stressed enough. I delete mine before every game play and never have issues starting the game up. A guide can be found here: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Sims_3_Delete_Cache_Files

Turn off Origin In Game - This will give a noticeable improvement.

Close all other programs running in the background.

Turn on Game Mode or Silent Mode on your Antivirus

Useful Sims 3 Programs

s3pe http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUploadsRemote/uploads/189/

Sims 3 Dashboard Tool http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=387006]http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=387006

CC Magic http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=461888]http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=461888

Delphy's Sims 3 Pack Multi-Extractor http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=364038]http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=364038

Save Cleaner by Kuree http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUploadsRemote/uploads/1532/

#ts3 #s3 #s3cc #sims 3 #tutorial #guide #the sims 3

673 notes · View notes

melisa-may-taylor72 · 4 years

Photo

QUEEN BEFORE QUEEN

THE 1960s RECORDINGS

➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖

PART 4:

THE OPPOSITION

JOHN DEACON WAS THE QUIETEST MEMBER OF A MIDLAND-BASED FIVE-PIECE WHOSE GREATEST AMBITION WAS TO PLAY ANOTHER GIG.

Initial research John S. Stuart. Additional research and text: Andy Davis.

John Deacon was the fourth and final member to join Queen. He became part of that regal household 25 years ago this month, enrolling as the band’s permanent bassist in February 1971. His acceptance marked the culmination of a six-year ‘career’ in music, much of which he spent in an amateur, Leicestershire covers band called the Opposition.

From 1965 until 1969, Deacon and his schoolmates ploughed a humble, local furrow in and around their Midlands hometown, reflecting the decade’s mercurial moodswing with a series of names, images and styles of music. The most remarkable fact about the Opposition was just how unremarkable the group actually was.

Collectively, they were an unambitious crew: undertaking precisely no trips down to London to woo A&R men; winning only one notable support slot for the army of chart bands who visited Leicester in the ‘60s (opening for Reperata & the Delrons in Melton Mowbray in 1968); and managing even to miss out on the option of sending a demo tape to any of the nation’s record labels. The band’s saving grace is its solé recorded legacy: a three-track acetate — although even this was done for purely private consumption, and has rarely been aired outside the confines of their inner circle.

It is perhaps indicative of the Opposition’s modest outlook that their most promising bid for stardom, a beat contest, was called off before they had the chance to play in the finals. For John Deacon and friends, it seems, merely being in a band was reward enough.

Considering of all of this, it’s easy to imagine the response to the following story, related in the ‘60s to one of the Opposition’s guitarists, Ronald Chester:...[ ]

...[ ] “There was a teacher who worked at Beauchamp School, which John attended, who told fortunes. They went to see her one Saturday and were told, ‘John Deacon is going to be world famous and very, very rich. Of course, they all fell about laughing. She was determined that this was going to happen. But they all thought it was a joke."

What particularly amused Deacon’s colleagues was the unlikeliness of this scenario, given the plain facts of his demeanour. John was born in Leicester in 1951, the product of affluent, middle-class, middle England. As a youngster, he was known to his friends as ‘Deaks’ and grew up to be quiet and reserved, what Mark Hodkinson referred to in ‘Queen — ‘The Early Years’ as “a ghost of a boy".

“He is basically shy,” confirms Richard Young, the Opposition’s first guitarist/vocalist, and later keyboardist. “I suppose he was quieter than the rest of us — but he was fairly static with Queen if you look at him on stage.”

Ron Chester agrees: “John was quiet by nature. His sister, Julie, was the same. Once he got going, though, he wasn’t any different from anybody else. But on first approach, you really had to coax him out of his shell. We’d have to pick him up. He couldn’t walk down the road to meet us."

CONFIDENT

Despite any lack of personal dynamics, Deacon was a capable teenager: “He was very confident," recalls another of the band’s guitarists, David Williams. “But in a laidback sort of way. He didn’t have a problem with anything. ‘Yeah, I can do that’, he’d say. We used to call him ‘Easy Deacon’, not because of any sexual preferences, but because he’d say something was easy without it sounding big-headed. I remember saying to him once, I’m going to have to knock off the gigs a bit to revise for my ‘A’ levels. What about you?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I don’t need to. I’ve never failed an exam yet, and I’ve never revised for one’. Ultimately, he was just confident, with a phenomenally logical mind. If he couldn’t remember something, he could work it out. And, of course, he got stunning results.”

John’s earliest interest was electronics, which he studied into adulthood. He also went fishing, trainspotting even, with his father. Then music took over. After dispensing with a ‘Tommy Steele’ toy guitar, John used the proceeds from his paper round to buy his first proper instrument, an acoustic, when he was about twelve. An early musical collaborator was a school mate called Roger Ogden, who like Roger Taylor down in Cornwall, was nicknamed ‘Splodge’. But his best friend was the Opposition’s future drummer, Nigel Bullen.

“I’d first got to know John at Langmore Junior School in Oadby, just outside Leicester, in either 1957 or 1958,’' recalls Nigel. “We were both the quiet ones. We started playing music together at Gartree High School, when we were about thirteen. We were inspired by the Beatles — they made everybody want to be in a group. John was originally going to be the band’s electrician, as he called it. He used to build his own radios, before we had any amps, and he fathomed a way of plugging his guitar into his reel-to-reel tape recorder. He was always the electrical boffin."

The prime mover in the formation of the group was another Oadby boy they met on nearby Uplands Park, Richard Young. “Richard was at boarding school," recalls Nigel Bullen. “He was always the kid with the expensive bike. He played guitar, and what’s more had a proper electric, with an amplifier. He instigated getting the band together. Initially, we rehearsed in my garage, and then anywhere we could. John played rhythm to begin with. He was a chord man, the John Lennon of the group, if you like."

SWITCH

Despite his later switch to the bass, Deacon’s technique on the guitar also developed, as Dave Williams reveals: “Later on, I remember he could play ‘Classical Gas’ on an acoustic, which was a finger-picking execise and no mean feat. It’s a bit like ‘McArthur Park’, a fantastic piece of music, and when I heard it, I thought, ‘Bloody hell. You dark horse!’ Because he never showed off."

The Opposition’s first bassist was another school friend of John’s called Clive Castledine. In fact, the group made its debut at a party at Castledine’s ouse on 25th September, 1965 (their first public performance took place the...[ ]

...[ ] following month at Gartree’s school hall). Clive looked good and appreciated the kudos of being in a group, but he wasn’t up to even the Opposition’s schoolboy standards. “I was the least proficient, to put it mildly,” he admitted to Mark Hodkinson.“His enthusiasm was 100%,” adds Richard Young, “but his actual playing ability was null, so we had a meeting and got rid of him.” Deacon took over, initially playing on his regular guitar, using the bottom strings. “John was good,” Young continues. “It was no problem for him to switch to bass. He hit the right notes at the beginning of the bar, and we were a better band for it. Whereas Clive made us sound woolly, as anyone who just plonked away on any old note would, John was solid.”

DIARY

Young turned out to be the Opposition’s archivist, keeping a diary of each gig played, the equipment used, and the amounts of money earned (as indeed did John Deacon). Richard’s diary documented the day Deacon — now, of course, bassist in one of the world’s most famous groups — first picked up his chosen instrument. “In an entry for 2nd April, 1966,” says Young, “it reads, ‘We threw Clive out on the Saturday afternoon. Had a practice in Deaks’ kitchen, and Deaks went on bass. Played much better.’ John didn’t have a bass, so we went down to Cox’s music shop in King Street in Leicester, and bought him an EKO bass for £60. I paid for it, but I think he paid me back eventually.”

“John’s bass style with the Opposition was the same as with Queen,” reckons Nigel Bullen. “He never used to play with a plectrum, which was unusual, but with his fingers, which meant that his right hand is drooped over the top of the guitar. Also, he plays in an upward fashion, which I’d never seen before, certainly when we were in Leicester. Over the years, I’ve watched many bass players adopt that style. I’d say he has been copied a lot. I’ve mentioned this to him, but he doesn’t agree.”

Clive Castledine wasn’t the last member of the band to be dismissed. “The vocal and lead guitar side of the Opposition was changing all the while,” recalls Nigel. “Myself, John, and Richard Young were always there — as were Dave Williams and Ron Chester later on — but we had a succession of other musicians who I can hardly remember now. There was a guy called Richard Frew in the very early days, and a young lad called Carl, but he didn’t fit in. After we began playing proper gigs, Richard decided he wasn’t happy with his singing and wanted to move onto keyboards, so we brought in Pete Bart (formerly with another local band, the Rapids Rave) as a guitarist and vocalist. He was good, but again, didn’t last long.”

“Bart was a bit of a rocker, while we were all mods,” remarks Dave Williams. “We were impressed by mod bands like the Small Faces and the original Who. Bart seemed to come from a different era altogether.”

“Deaks had the Parka with the fur collar,” remembers Ron Chester. “And short hair, a crew cut. Mirrors on his scooter.” Richard Young agrees: “John was more of a mod than us. But you couldn’t really pigeonhole the band, because our music went right across the board”.

”Buying Deacon his bass was no one-off, and Richard Young is remembered as the group’s benefactor. Being older than the others, he had a steady job working for his father’s electronics company in Leicester, which brought him a regular, and by all accounts, generous wage. He rarely thought twice before splashing out on equipment for the other members.

RECEIPTS

“Richard bought me a P.A.,” recalls David Williams. “But he didn’t ask, he used to think that the group needed it. He’d buy it and then say, ‘You owe me this’. My mum used to get really annoyed. She’d was at that going- through-my-pockets stage, probably looking for contraceptives. She once found a receipt from Moore and Stanworth’s, a local music shop. It was for a Beyer microphone, which cost about £30. I was still at school, getting pocket money, and my mum said, ‘What on earth is this?!’ Receipts on the Sunday dinner table, that sort of thing. It was good, though. The group needed it.”

“I was dead serious about the band,” claims Young, who switched to organ with the arrival of Williams in July 1966. “Perhaps more so than anybody else. I could see it going nowhere if money wasn’t pumped into it.”

“Dick Young was an accomplished organ player,” adds Dave, “and he improved the group quite a lot. He always had plenty of dosh, and a car. But he was totally mad, a crazy bloke. He’d come round with an organ one week, then next week, he’d have a better one. He ended up with a Farfisa, with one keyboard on it, then one with two keyboards — one above the other. Then he had a Hammond, an L 100. which was really heavy. Then he had a ‘B’ series one. The ‘L’ was top-of-the-range and he sawed it in half to make it easier to carry!”

Dave Williams helped to improve the group as well. “He was at school with us,” says Nigel Bullen, “but in another band, who we always looked up to.” That band was the Leeds-based Outer Limits (who went on to issue several singles — without Dave — in the late ‘60s). “I joined the Opposition after they asked me to watch them and tell them what I thought,” recounts Dave. “The Outer Limits were older lads, all mods, but I was after something a bit more easy going, and the Opposition were my own age. They were okay, but I first saw them at John’s house, when they were still practising in bedrooms, and they were absolutely awful. I said, ‘Have you thought of tuning up?’ They said they had. But it sounded like they were playing in different keys — totally horrendous. It was so funny. They were so conscientious, they’d all learned their bits, but hadn't tuned up to each other. That was my first tip.”

“Our first proper gig was supporting a local band, the Rapids Rave, at Enderby Coop Hall,” recalls Nigel Bullen. “They used to play at this village hall every week. and then we ended up doing it every week for quite some time.” Richard’s diary records the Opposition’s debut taking place on 4th December 1965, and that the band’s fee was £2. Thereafter, they began to offer their Services in the local ‘Oadby & Wigston Advertiser’, which led to bookings in youth clubs and village halls in local hot-spots like Kibworth, Houghton-on- the-Hill, Thurlaston and Great Glen.

SCHOOL WORK

By spring 1966, the Opposition were playing every weekend, school work permitting. The peaks and troughs of their career are illustrated by the following memorable gigs: one at St. George’s Ballroom, Hinckley, on 23rd June 1967, when just two people turned up and the band went home after a couple of numbers; and a September appearance in a series of shows at U.S. Airforce Bases in the Midlands, at which they were required to play for four-and-half hours with just two twenty-minute breaks. It was nothing if not diverse.

“It didn’t seem to matter what you played,” says Dave. “People would clap simply because you were making music. They never said, ‘Do you do Motown, or soul stuff?’ ” The band’s repertoire initially consisted of chart sounds and the poppier end of the R&B spectrum. “Although we were inspired by the Beatles, we never did any of their songs,” claims Nigel. “But we covered the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and things like Them’s ‘Gloria’, and the Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’.

They also altered their name slightly to the New Opposition, which they unveiled at the Enderby Coop Hall. “The name-change was decided overnight, when John moved from rhythm to bass guitar,” recounts Richard, whose diary records the date of the transition as 29th April 1966. Interestingly, though, it makes no mention of another local group also called the Opposition, long thought to have been the reason for Deacon’s crew adopting the ‘New’. The change did act as an impetus for further development, however, instigated by Dave Williams, who soon took over as the group’s lead vocalist.

“When I joined they were doing all Beach Boys stuff,” he recalls, “and I think I may have brought in a little credibility. In the Outer Limits, I’d been playing John Mayall, the Yardbirds, that sort of thing, plus that group was into really good soul like the Impressions, and fantastic vocal bands from the States. So I had a broad musical knowledge by then, whereas the Opposition had been a bit poppy.” Appropriately, the words “Tamla” and “Soul” were now added to the Opposition’s ads and calling cards.

Towards the end of 1966, the New Opposition were enhanced further by the arrival of Ron Chester, who’d previously played with Dave Williams in the Outer Limits, as well as in an earlier band, the Deerstalkers. “Ron Chester was a bit eccentric,” claims Richard Young. “He never used to go anywhere without his deerstalker. He was a really good guitarist (“stunning”, adds Dave Williams). We were probably at our best when Ron was in the band.”

On 23rd October 1966, the New Opposition entered the local Midland Beat Contest. They won their heat, landing themselves a place in the semifinals on 29th January 1967. They won this, too, and steeled themselves for the finals, which were due to be held on 3rd March 1967, when they were to be pitched against...[ ]

...[ ] an act called Keny. The stars of the show would have been the nearest the Opposition came to having a rival: an outfit called Legay. (A year later, incidentally, this band issued a now collectable single, “No One” (Fontana TF 904,£80J.) Unfortunately, for all concerned, however, the contest never took place. “That was a fiasco,'' laughs Ron. “Somehow we won those heats, but in fact, I don’t remember seeing anybody else playing. I don’t know whether we won by default or not. After that, they pulled the plug on the competition — probably because they knew we’d be playing again!”.

CASINO

“The heats took place in a club in Leicester called the Casino, which was the place to play,” adds Nigel. “The guy who ran the competition was an agent for the club. His company was called Penguin (or P.S) Promotions and he walked like a penguin too, with his feet sticking out. The final was going to be held in the De Montford Hall, which is still the main venue in Leicester. We thought, ‘Crumbs, this is it, perhaps we might make the big time.’ But the guy did a runner with all the money — people had to pay to come to the heats. So the final was called off.”

David Williams wasn’t too fussed, as he scored another prize that night: “I remember taking a girl back to Dick’s car on the strength of us winning our heat. I said, ‘Can I borrow your keys, Dick? He said, ‘What for? You can’t drive!’ “

Were the New Opposition — or the Opposition, as they dropped the ‘New’ again in early 1967 — left in limbo by the cancellation of the Beat Contest? Having achieved the most public recognition of their talents so far, were they disappointed with the loss of the chance to prove themselves further?

“No. It was almost insignificant,” reckons Ron. “We didn’t really look upon it as a stairway to stardom.” And what would John Deacon have thought? “Nothing really,” suggests Chester. “ ‘It’s cancelled. What are we doing next, then?’ That would have been about the depth of it. We were a village band, all gathering at the church hall to try and improve our abilities. The financial aspect of it wasn’t in the forefront of our minds. We were more concerned with our music, and if we could get a booking doing it as well, to pay off some of the equipment, then that was a real bonus. Three bookings a week was enough for us while we were working or still at school.” Despite any dodgy dealings, history does have the Penguin promoter to thank for the only professionally-taken photograph of the Opposition. (“We didn’t go much on photos in the band,” remembers Dave Williams.) On Tuesday, 31st January 1967, two days after winning the semi-finals, the ‘Leicester Mercury’ dispatched a staff photographer over to Richard Young’s parents’ house in Oadby. Here, the group lined-up in the front room, looking more like refugees from 1964, rather than 1967. The only indications of the actual date are perhaps Ron Chester’s deerstalker hat and the ridiculous length of David Williams’ shirt collars — seven inches, no less, from neck to nipple.

“Dave was very extrovert,” recalls Nigel. “But we all had those silk shirts with the great long collars made by our mums and grandmas for our stage gear.” Dave admits: “Our clothes were all a bit mixed up. We had silk shirts with tweed jackets — which were fashionable for a while — and bell-bottoms. Musically, we were pretty good, better than...[ ]

...[ ] most of the local bands around that time, but we had this squeaky-clean, schoolboy image which let us down. I used to get frustrated when we were billed with other bands, and they’d all play with so many wrong chords but had a better image and still the punters applauded. Were they stupid? We were still at school — we didn’t leave until we were eighteen — and weren’t allowed to grow our hair long”.

“After the mod thing,” he continues, “long hair became really important. Bands were growing their hair right down their backs. I remember getting to one gig with John and Nigel a year or so later, and the other group were already on. And when they saw us they turned round and said, ‘Look! They’ve got no hair!’. We were quite upset about that”.

“We also went through the flower-power look,” Dave adds. “And then we got into those little jumpers without any sleeves that Paul McCartney used to wear, the ones so small that half your stomach showed. And then it was grandad shirts without the collars and flares.” Ron Chester: “The flowery shirts and flared trousers were everywhere. We looked like a right shower of poofters. But so did everybody else. You stood out if you didn’t wear them.”

1967 also heralded the arrival of an additional attraction to the Opposition’s stage show: two go-go dancers. At least, it did if the existing literature on the subject is to be believed. “I vaguely remember it,” admits Richard, “but speaking to Nig, neither of us can recal who those dancers were”.

Dave Williams throws some light on the subject: “They were the jet-set girls of the sixth form, they came from the big houses. They came to a couple of gigs and just started dancing. Somebody who booked us for the following week actually advertised us ‘with go-go girls’. But they were never really part of the show.”

ART

On 16th March, 1968 for a gig at Gartree School, the Opposition changed their name once again. “We called ourselves Art,” reveals Nigel, “because Dave was arty, that is, he was training as an artist. It was as simple as that.” Dave agrees: “It was my idea, because I’d been doing art at school.” Nigel Bullen was aware of another band using that name around the same time (the pre-Spooky Tooth outfit), but assuming them to be American, reckoned they’d be no confusion. As the Leicester-based Art never made it to London, there wasn’t.

Despite wording like “A time to touch and feel, to taste and experience, to hear and understand” appearing on the group’s tickets, Richard maintains that Art was “just the same band” as before. “Nothing changed."

“It was mutton dressed up as lamb, really,” admits Ron Chester. “We thought if we were called something different, people might come because they were curious. But it didn’t make a lot of difference. The audiences were captive at the places we played anyway. There was nowhere else to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone used to roll up to see whoever was on, whether they’d heard of them or not.”

1968 was the year psychedelia caught up with many provincial British bands. The Art were no different, but their acknowledgement of what had been last year’s scene in London was via sight rather than sound. Their light shows seem to have been particularly memorable, as Dave Williams explains: “They were brilliant. We used the projectors from school, filled medicine bottles with water and oil, and projected through them to get this lovely golden, amber backdrop. As the image came out upside down, when we poured in some Fairy Liquid, it dropped straight through in a blob, but came out on the wall like a giant green mushroom cloud. It was amazing, and we had about four of them at the back, projecting over the band.”

John Deacon was party to another of Dave’s exploits. “One day,” recalls Williams, “John and I bought a 100-watt P.A. — which was pretty big for those days — and took it into the lecture theatre full of kids at Beauchamp School (which Deacon had attended since September 1966) for our version of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’. We cranked it up as loud as we could, put the light show on, and let off these smoke bombs, which were DDT pellets we’d got from the chemist. All the kids started choking, and then the headmaster walked in...[ ]

...[ ] with a load of governors. You could see the fury in his face. One of the governors asked what we were doing. ‘It’s a demonstration in sound and light, sir,’ I said. ‘We’re using these ink bottles turned upside down, but we’re a bit worried about these DDT pellets so we might knock the smoke on the head, but we’re still experimenting.’ And he fell for it!”.

INFLUENTIAL

Towards the end of 1968, a crop of new groups began to have a profound effect on the maturing schoolboys: Jethro Tull, the Nice, Taste, and in particular Deep Purple. Ron: “We used to buy Purple records and learn to play them. We’d seen John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the Downliners’ Sect in Leicester, the Nice, King Crimson. These sort of groups. We learned a lot from just watching them. They were influential. There was always a big discussion in the band as to whether we should do a particular song. Once we’d decided that, there’d be another big discussion as to how we should do it. Everybody had their say.”

Hair, too, had finally began to grow: “John grew his quite long,” recalls Ron. “We all had longish hair, but not shoulder length. We couldn’t look too unkempt for the normal side of life, but we didn’t want to be too prissy for the other end of the spectrum. That was when we started playing universities, and we went a bit heavier. The audiences were far more serious minded about music and more enthusiastic. In some of the youth clubs we’d been playing, the audience would be moving around on roller skates, or peeling bananas all over the place, things like that”.

“We felt we were making an impression towards the last year or two of the band,” he continues. But it went no further: “We were at school, some of us had jobs, and there was an element of common sense overriding what we would have liked to have done. None of us wanted to chuck in our apprenticeships or courses. If we’d had a flair for writing our own material, we might have taken off. But we just played what was popular, nothing different from most other groups. That wasn’t a basis on which to launch ourselves. So it never happened."

“We didn’t think that far ahead,” admits Richard Young. “I just thought of playing and getting repeat bookings. John was probably the least ambitious of all of us, to be honest. I think he felt that there was no mileage in what we were doing, although it was good fun. I think he had the impression that this was a hobby, a phase he was going through.”

Sometime in the Sixties, possibly 1969, but maybe earlier, Art recorded an acetate. Whatever the date, the crucial point is that John Deacon was present at the session. “We weren't asked to do it,” recalls Nigel. “We just wanted to make a disc. I think it cost us about five shillings.”

The venue was Beck’s studio, thirty miles south east of Oadby in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. “I’d never been in a studio before and it seemed awesome, really,” recalls Dave Williams. “It was a fairly decent-sized room for acoustics. It was all nicely low-lit, with lots of screens. The guy knew what he was doing.” Richard Young was less impressed, though: I’ve been in studios all my life,” he says. “That was just another session. Nothing about it stood out.”

The “guy” Dave remembered was engineer Derek Tomkins, who informed the group that they could record three tracks in the time allotted. “We’d only gone in there with two, ‘Sunny’ and ‘Vehicle’,” says Nigel, “and we didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so Richard knocked up a little instrumental called Transit 3’ — named after our new van, the third one — right there in the studio. Although we were purely a covers band, everybody had a bash at writing, but we never did anything of our own on stage. The exception was Transit 3’, which was incorporated into the set after this session.”

“ Transit 3’ was about about the only track we ever wrote," reckons Richard Young (“Heart Full Of Soul”, as reported in ‘As It Began’, is in fact a Graham Gouldman nurnber). “I initially had the idea, but I can’t really remember anything about it. It’s very basic. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to write something like that.” To the objective observer, “Transit 3”, taped in mono but well recorded, is a fairly uncomplicated, organ-led scale- hopper, reminiscent of Booker T & the MGs.

“Everybody was listening to ‘Green Onions’,” confirms Nigel, “so Booker T would have been an influence there.” But for all that, it’s well- played, with memorable lead and twangy, wah-wah guitar passages courtesy of Dave Williams. And, crucially, John Deacon’s thumping bass is plainly audible throughout. On this evidence, the Opposition were clearly a tight, confident outfit. “Transit 3” could have been incorporated into any swinging ‘60s film soundtrack, and no one would have jumped up shouting, “Amateurs”!.

UNFAMILIAR

The other two tracks, covers of Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny' and the more obscure, soul- tinged ‘Vehicle’ (later a hit for the Ides of March), featured a vocalist, but an unfamiliar one: another of the Opposition’s fleeting frontmen. “We had a singer for a while called Alan Brown,” recalls Nigel. “He came and went fairly quickly. He was good, really good. Too good for us, I think. That wasn’t him saying that. We just knew it.”

On both songs, Brown is in deep, soulful voice, sounding not unlike a cross between Tom Jones and the early Van Morrison — if such an amalgam can be imagined. The Art’s reading of “Vehicle” is edgy and robust, dominated by Richard Young’s distinctive keyboards and Nigel Bullen’s bustling drum work. Dave Williams is again in fine form, delivering more sparkling wah-wah guitar, while on the cassette copy taped from Nigel Bullen’s acetate, at least, John’s bass is very prominent, over-recorded in fact, booming in the mix.

“Sunny” goes one better, breaking into jazzy 3/4 time halfway through, before slotting back into the more traditional 4/4. It’s an imaginative arrangement, with alternate soloing from both Dave and Richard, while the whole track is underpinned by swirls of Hammond organ and John Deacon’s pounding bass.

“We did ‘Sunny’ as part of our stage set,” says Nigel, “but I don’t recall us ever going into the jazzy bit. That’s quite interesting. We might have talked about that before we went into the studio, but I think it was just for this session. Dave had two guitars, a six-string and a twelve-string, or it could even have been twin-necked. I still quite like the wah-wah he played on that track. By this time Richard would have been onto his second or third organ — he was heavily into Hammonds and Leslies."

Operating as they did in a fairly ambition- free zone, and having prepared the listener for a mundane set of recordings with their trademark laid-back approach, Art’s acetate comes as something of a revelation. Let any bunch of today’s schoolboys loose in a studio for an afternoon and defy them to come up with something half as good!

Just two copies of the Art disc are known to have survived. John Deacon’s mother is believed to own one and Nigel Bullen has the other. “I’d forgotten all about this record,” admits Nigel. “We know that one copy was converted to an ashtray!. We stubbed out cigarettes on Richards at rehearsal one night.” Although treated with anything but respect at the time, the importance of the disc is now apparent to Nigel Bullen: “This is probably John Deacon’s first recording, apart from tracks he did in his bedroom on his reel-to-...[ ]

...[ ] reel, which are probably long gone. Although, knowing John, they’re probably not!”

The beginning of the end for Art came in June 1969, when John Deacon left Beauchamp. With a college course lined up in London, his days with the band were obviously numbered. He played his final gig with the group on 29th August at a familiar venue, Great Glen Youth and Sports Centre Club. By October, he’d moved to London to study electronics at Chelsea College of Technology, part of the University of London.

Another blow was dealt in November, when the band's lynchpin, Richard Young, left to join popular local musician Steve Fearn in Fearn’s Brass Foundry.

“They were a Blood, Sweat and Tears-type of group,” recalls Richard, “and paid better money than I’d been used to. I was out five nights a week, on about £3 per night, against an average of about £10 between us.” The previous year, Richard had played session keyboards on the Foundry’s two Decca singles: “Don’t Change It” (F 12721, January 1968, £10) and “Now I Taste The Tears” (F 12835. September 1968, £8).

SAVAGE

Ron Chester departed shortly afterwards, and gave up music: “I left in the early 70s, after John Deacon moved to London. John was replaced by a bass player was called John Savage, who unsettled me. He had different tastes and drove us a bit hard. His approach was totally different from Deaks's, and he was much more interested in the financial side of things. We’d all been mates before, we didn't just knock about for the band. It just wasn’t the same.”

Nigel, Richard and Dave pushed on into 1970 with the new bassist, changing the band’s name again, this time to Silky Way. They returned to Beck’s studio to record a cover of Free’s “Loosen Up” with another vocalist, Bill Gardener, but that was the band’s last effort. Dave left after falling into Nigel’s drumkit, drunk on stage at a private party one Christmas. “I waited for them to pick me up the next day,” he recalls sheepishly, “but they never carne.”

Richard and Nigel moved into a dinner- dance type outfit called the Lady Jane Trio — “Corny, or what!”, laughs Bullen — but Nigel left music altogether soon afterwards to concentrate on his college work. Richard turned professional, moving into cabaret with the Steve Fearn-less Brass Foundry, before forming a trio called Rio, finding regular work on the holiday camp and overseas cruise circuit. In the late ‘70s, he joined a touring version of the Love Affair.

Down in London, John Deacon caught a glimpse of his future world-beating musical partners as early as October 1970, when he saw the newly-formed Queen perform at College of Estate Management in Kensington. “They were all dressed in black, and the lights were very dim too,” he told Jim Jenkins and Jacky Gunn in ‘As It Began’, “All I could really see were four shadowy figures. They didn’t make a lasting impression on me at the time.”

While renting rooms in Queensgate, John formed a loose R&B quartet with a flatmate, guitarist Peter Stoddart, one Don Cater on drums and another guitarist remembered only as Albert. The new band was hardlv a great leap forward from Art: they wrote no originals, and when asked to perform their only gig at Chelsea College on 21st November 1970, supporting Hardin & York and the Idle Race, they hastily billed themselves — in a rare fit of self-publicity for the quiet Oadby boy — as Deacon.

A few months later in early 1971, John was introduced to Brian May and Roger Taylor by a mutual friend, Christine Farnell, at a disco at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College. They were looking for a bassist. John auditioned at Imperial College shortly afterwards. Roger Taylor recalled Queen’s initial reaction to Deacon in ‘As It Began’: “We thought he was great. We were so used to each other, and so over the top, we thought that because he was quiet he would fit in with us without too much upheaval. He was a great bass player, too — and the fact that he was a wizard with electronics was definitely a deciding factor!”

How did the members of the Art/Opposition back in Leicester, view John’s success with Queen? “It wasn’t sudden”, says Ron Chester. “First we heard he’d got into another group. We couldn’t believe that — were they deaf? There were all these sort of jokes going along. Then we heard he’d got a recording contract and the next thing he had a record out. It was a gradual progression. No one dreamed he would end up the way he did.”

“I don’t think we expected success for any of us" admits Nigel Bullen. “Richard maybe. He was the first one to go professional. But when John left for London to go to college, he left all his kit here. I thought that was the end of it for him. He had absolutely no intention of continuing. His college course was No.1. It was only after he kept seeing adverts for bass players in the ‘Melody Maker’ that he became interested again.”

He also seemed to lose some of that ‘Easy Deacon’ touch which so impressed Dave Williams in the ‘60s. “He’d ring up these bands,” continues Nigel, “but when he found they were a name act, he bottle out. When he went to auditions for anonymous bands, where he would queue up with about thirty other bass players, he had a bit of confidence. He just wanted to play in a decent band. Once I heard what Queen had recorded at De Lane Lea, and John played me the demo of their first album, I thought they were well set.”

CABARET

By early 1973, Dave Williams had forsaken a career in animation to join Highly Likely, a cabaret outfit put together by Mike Hugg and producer Dave Hadfield on the back of their minor hit, “Whatever Happened To You (The Likely Lads Theme)”. While Dave was in the band, they recorded a follow-up single which wasn’t released, before evolving into a glam rock outfit, Razzle, which later become the Ritz, who issued a few singles. “During Queen’s early days, before they’d had any real success, John came to see us once,” recalls Dave, “and said, ‘I wish I was in a band like this which could actually play some gigs’.” Dave concludes: “I remember John coming round once around that time, saying I’ve got a demo’. ‘So have I!’, I said. So we put his on first, and the first track was ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. My mouth dropped wide open and I thought. ‘Bloody hell! What a great track’. I remember saying that the guitarist was as good as Ritchie Blackmore — who was still our hero then — and thinking ‘They’re serious about this. This is the real thing’.”

RECORD COLLECTOR Nº 198 FEBRUARY 1996

⬅PREVIOUS: SMILE

https://melisa-may-taylor72.tumblr.com/post/639672109315014656/queen-before-queen-the-1960s-recordings

➡NEXT: IBEX, WRECKAGE & SOUR MILK SEA

@natromanxoff, @mephisto92, @moviestorian, @x5vale, @39-brian, @onegoldenglance, @crosmopolitan, @an-abyss-called-life, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @i-live-for-queen, @brian-39-may, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @drummerqueenrmt, @old-fashioned-roger-boy, @briianmaay, @inui-mycroft, @deacytits, @iminlovewithrogscar, @drowseoftaylor, @brianmayislongaway, @balticlover, @astrophysicist-guitar-god, @miez-lakatz, @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @aslongasthereismusic, @roger-taylors-car, @silapril, @sherrifanciesfriskyfreddie, @tenderbri, @brianmydear, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought, @drivenbybrianmay @mymakeupmaybeflaking, @old-but-still-a-child, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @warriorteam1924, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance, @painkiller80, @thefanhuman13, @yourtieddownmother, @hgmercury39, @brimi-stardust, @thefairyfellermercury, @retroromantics, @sailawaysweetbrimi, @sophiaintheskywithdiamonds, @holybrianmaywritingbear, @lydiannode, @39-yellow-daffodils , @ure-gonna-loveme-when-u-seeme, @kaykaybeachgirl, @foxmonkey, @deakysgurl, @redspecialandclogsandcurls, @briansrainbowsocks-deactivated2, @delilahmay39, @ohmybribri, @bless-the-queen, @everythingaboutfreddie, @doitforthevine67, @recordsoftheseventies, @rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog, @tenementfunsterwithpurpleshoes, @drummah-in-a-rocknroll-band, @beatlegirl1968, @maylorsqueen, @autumnscenemcyt, @gralto, @alittlepeoplemagic, @rainbowsockbrian, @frejudy, @drivenbybri, @yourlocalmusicalprostitute, @saik-ava, @omb-xx, @sassymaylor, @somekindofroger, @starlightmay, @freddiemercuryismylife, @sunshine112, @chrysochromulina, @glitteryloveravenue, @deakyislife51, @0-primejive-0, @just-a-skinny-lad, @bluewillowmom, @sassiesillie, @stesichoreanpalinode, @farrokhbulsaramercury, @tayloredofqueen, @rushingheadlong, @izzy-is-slightly-mad, @scandalacious, @0-my-fairy-queen-0 @39-volunteers-to-space@zodiacaldust, @deakytaylor, @queenband70s, @deakyeveryday, @drivenbybrimay @70smay

#Queen Before Queen #Pre-Queen Series #John Deacon #The Opposition #🎤🎵🎸👑⭐

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ninjago-bingo · 3 years

Text

final month recap

wow, everyone. we’re here. we’ve made it. we’re reached the end of our bingo time, and i’m absolutely floored by the sheer creative output that i’ve seen over these last four months. everyone, take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back!!! no matter if you made 1 piece or 10, there’s now a work of art out there in the world that wasn’t there before. and truly, that’s super heccing rad no matter how you look at it.

so let’s celebrate! for this recap, we have a total of 20 new pieces, bringing the total amount of ninbingo pieces up to 50. in the span of four months, this little event has created 50 individual works (five of them in the last day!) holy cow ya’ll.

i’m putting out this recap now, but don’t worry, it’s not the end yet! any submissions made to the end of the 30th still count and this post will be updated accordingly :D

fic:

all the things i’ve never done by @sa-you-na-ra. tumblr || prompts: competition and teasing

It’s always a funny thing when the ninja realize new things about each other. Even though living with each other meant they had to see each other all day, there were still small habits or actions that amused the others.

(mod comments: all these little interactions made me smile so much :D looking forward to the rest!)

error 404: answer not found by @m-aster-of-spinjitzu. tumblr || prompt: memories

Akita and Zane talk after the battle in ‘Awakenings’. The conversation… doesn’t go as either of them expect.

(mod comments: the nuances in this fic are fantastic! also Akita is always a win :D)

Five times kai was a good brother by @/master-of-fluff. tumblr || ao3 || prompts: nightmare and brother

I'm writing kai centric stuff again.

(mod comments: kai IS the big bro of the team!!! i support him all the way!!)

How Garmadon became a chauffeur by @master-of-fluff. tumblr || ao3 || prompt: driving

"um...Kai? Don't you think we should go Slower?" Garmadon asked nervously trying not to panick as they raced down the road at what had to be over the speed limit.

(mod comments: who let Kai drive? no but honestly this is canon alskdfj)

little things by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: hugs and crying.

"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things." -Kurt Vonnegut

Lloyd’s tired of being left behind. How is he meant to be the green ninja when he always has to work harder, train better, and wait longer to go on missions with his team? He wants nothing more than to be their equal.

At least, that’s what he thought he wanted.

(mod comments: a post-ep-18 resolution scene? SIGN ME UP!)

Neither Snow Nor Rain by @fangirltakesall. tumblr || ffn.net || prompt: post-fight

After their return from the Never Realm and all its troubles, Zane is quiet and Nya is incredibly worried. A call to action to a peculiar sort of battle might be enough to change both of those things.

(mod comments: the concept of these two on their own mission together is just so good! excited to see how their dynamic plays out!!)

Never Put Off Until Tomorrow by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: video games and chores

…what can be done today, yada, yada, yada, we all know the saying. So do the ninja- when Master Wu is drilling it into their heads every minute of every day, it’s kind of hard to forget.

Naturally, it only takes them a week (and the biggest new video game in Ninjago) to do so.

(mod comments: this is so in character that it’s frustrating lol. also Pixal ftw!!)

oh take me back to the start by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: comfort and 3 am

The past should be left in the past. Or, at least, that’s what Jay keeps telling himself. Nadakhan is gone. It’s not logical to still be afraid. But he is, and now everything that he left behind suddenly feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

Cole isn’t so convinced.

(mod comments: Cole is truly the man we all deserve in our lives.)

On Our Own by @redefine-your-identity. tumblr || prompt: home

It’s been a few weeks since Kai and Nya’s parents disappeared without a trace. Needless to say, they’re struggling.

(mod comments: OU C H no poor babies 😭 the relationship dynamic here is great!)

orange and gold by @/m-aster-of-spinjitzu. tumblr || prompt: cooking

...I just need more Cole and Vania content, they seem like they'd be great friends.

Basically it's just 'Cole goes to visit her there, they almost burn down the kitchen, and make way too many puns', lol.

(mod comments: I also always need more Vania content!! the puns in this were breadful!)

permafrost by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: loss of control and promise

It’s not like this is the first time this has happened. It’s not like none of his teammates have ever suffered this kind of guilt and pain. It’s not like Zane himself hasn’t walked through hell before and come out the other side (mostly) in once piece.

Except, this time, it is. It shouldn’t be different, but it is.

(mod comments: super sweet moment between two ninja who deserve more interaction like seriously!!)

Precautionary Tale by @/fangirltakesall. tumblr || ffn.net || prompt: protective

Fighting is different now, and Zane doesn't know why. Yes, he is titanium now, but why should that change anything? It seems to be changing everything, although is all really as it seems?

(mod comments: a great start to a zane-centric fic! interested to see where it goes next :D)

Star-Ninja! by @rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: siblings and competition

What happens when the loveable gremlin the ninja adopted off of the streets introduces them to Starfarer comics?

Chaos ensues, of course.

stuck with you (through bright and blue) by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompt: protective

Kai only wants two things: to protect Lloyd, and to give him the best birthday ever. Unfortunately, Lloyd seems hell-bent on making that as difficult as possible. Kai’s always prided himself on achieving the impossible, but dealing with human emotions is much more complicated than beating up Garmadon’s generals or shooting enemies with fire, as he quickly learns. Movie!verse

(mod comments: happy birthday lloyd!! look at him getting the love he deserves uwu)

Take a walk in the rain. by @/master-of-fluff. tumblr || ao3 || prompt: rain

Cole had always loved the rain, the way it smelled, the way it felt on his skin, and especially the mud! Whenever it rained his Mother would put on his rain coat and boots And they'd both go out and splash around in the puddles and make mud cakes and do all sorts of things.

(mod comments: this fic made me smile a lot :D loved the way it was arranged!)

the hues of an empty sky by @/m-aster-of-spinjitzu. tumblr || prompt: crying

Missing memories, or having two of them for one moment - not quite the same, but if there’s one thing Jay’s leant over the last few weeks, it’s that literally nothing makes sense anymore.

Or, some Skybound aftermath, Zane actually expressing emotions about his memory switch being turned off for all those years, and what was supposed to be a ‘they tell everyone about the erased timeline’ fic, but it turned into a 'two characters who barely interact on screen talk at like one am in the morning, and don’t actually tell the other what exactly they’re alluding to the whole time’ fic that I wrote at like one am-

(mod comments: Skybound resolution? SIGN ME THE HECK UP YES)

The Make-Cole-Realize-How-Much-We-Love-Him Competition by @21st-century-ninja. tumblr || ao3 || prompts: bets and competition

Jay and Kai share a horrified look. “He really doesn’t get it,” Jay says.

Kai shakes his head. “We need to show him somehow.”

“Show me what?” Cole asks, exasperated again.

“How much we love you!” Kai exclaims. “Somehow, it’s not getting through your thick skull that we want to sit next to you because you’re you, so I’m gonna have to just prove it to you.”

(mod comments: a silly little movie fic!)

twitter was a mistake by @/21st-century-ninja. tumblr || ao3 || prompts: teasing and birthday

Kai 🔥 @flaminhotninja ☑

so who was gonna tell me that Jay used to be a game show host huh

🌺✨ the Gift of Jay ✨🌺 @zaptrap ☑

Replying to @flaminhotninja

NO WHO SHOWED YOU

(mod comments: twitter was a mistake)

two halves of a broken whole by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: scars and post-fight

The Sons of Garmadon have been defeated. Garmadon is in prison. The city has been saved.

In the aftermath of the battle, Nya is more than ready to take a much-needed break. But the life of a ninja is messy. Recovery is never that simple. Although the wounds may have healed, the scars still remain.

Zane’s scars seem to match up, though. And maybe together, they can begin to heal.

(mod comments: aggressive care is my jam, and this is it!)

wait by @rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: home and memories

Lloyd’s not so great at being patient. It’s not his fault though- maybe he would be better at it if waiting didn’t always end up being so disappointing- if people actually kept their promises. But this time’s going to be different, he knows it. His father will come back for him. And Lloyd’s going to wait.

As long as it takes.

(mod comments: baby. baby boy. baby. protecc him plz.)

#ninbingo #recap #long post #but i don't want to hide anyone's work yk #ninjago #ninjago fic

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originaldanganronpascenarios · 3 years

Note

I heard you were doing matchups?

To get it out of the way, I’d prefer if I get my matchups from thh or drV3. More than one matchup would be fine, but I really don’t mind how many.

names Alfie, but most of the time people call me Glitter! I’m a Libra (October 1st) and my personality type is INFP (I had to do the quiz because I forgot-!)

I’m a demi fictosexual, panromantic, and polyamory! Im transmasc (afab) and I haven’t transitioned yet because homophobic family check!!!!! I use he/they/it and a couple of neopronouns (xe/nya/thou/pika)!!

I have pale skin, and my hair is a dirty blonde color! it’s pretty short, and I often curl it so it’s all fluffy! my eyes are hazel, and I naturally have long eyelashes, to the point where people ask if I’m wearing mascara- (I’m really not). I’m kinda on the shorter side (5''0 and some change), and I’m sorta skinny, but somehow have a bit of squish on me too-? I have braces, but I HATE them and admittedly break the eating rules quite a bit...

personality wise? Introverted. I have trouble starting conversations, but once Im in one, I cant stop talking! I don’t take much seriously, besides peoples feelings. I’m not that easily offended. somehow I get dragged into a lot of toxic (more like radioactive) friendships all the time, and I can’t get out of them, most of the time until the school year ends and I get new classes with new people. Sometimes even that doesn’t fix it.... I’m a very artistic person who usually carries around sketchbooks and fancy markers wherever I go. I’m usually found either drawing or on my phone/switch/laptop...

I have a bit going on..., I have social anxiety, adhd, parinoia (WHICH IS REALLY BAD LIKE— help! Lol🤪) heavy acid reflux that’s miserable and somehow triggered by overwhelming negative emotions like fear or stress -- and ocd. I take medicine for my adhd during the week, but when I do... it results in me... not... eating...? Oh well that’s not important -

my aesthetic/fashion is alternative/Sanrio goth. neon pink and black are my favorite colors, here’s a few examples of my fashion sense!

Ahem I also love being tickled but am embarrassed to admit it omg

anyways, I hope I didn’t miss anythin too important! Thanksies!

Miss anything? You basically went above and beyond of what I ask for (which is great!)

I match you with...

Rantaro Amami

He's fairly easy to talk to and he completely understands having trouble starting conversations. So he usually starts them when he can tell you want to talk.

He likes to sometimes play with your fluffy hair- if you allow it.

While he understands that you hate braces he tries to force some habits on you so things are a bit easier for you.

He's a little bit interested in your art, even though he doesn't say much about it. Sometimes he just finds himself staring at you while you happen to be drawing.

He found out how ticklish you were, but he never knew if you like it or not. But his tickling is always gentle and while it gets you to laugh for sure it's never the torture kind of tickles where you are helpless.

Whenever you get yourself into small troubles with toxic "friends" he'd surely shut that down immediately. Thinking of excuses and generally trying a chill way to make them leave you alone.

They might try to paint him as an controlling asshole but at least you were aware that those "friends" were toxic, so while you said that you'll keep that in mind and watch out in reality you didn't think about the issue.

~Mod Angie

#drv3 rantaro #rantaro amami #danganronpa rantaro #Rantaro x reader #Matchup #Matchups #Matches

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forbidding-souda · 4 years

Text

Deaf S/O with characters I headcanon knowing ASL

ASL specifically, though ASL and sign language go interchangeably with this headcanon, this post specifies things to ASL.

And this S/O is deaf AND signs ASL, doesn’t specify anything else otherwise I’d be specific about it :)

(gender neutral S/O ofc ofc)

-Mod Souda

Rantaro Amami

Something he noticed about you quickly is how loud you were.

You two moved in together, and it was never something he would have predicted.

You’ll go to get food at midnight and slam the cupboard close, scaring him awake.

You always eat at midnight too, it’s unusual to him.

He will wake up with you absent in the bed and be like oh no.

He’s a very calm, quiet person.

He will never tell you about your volume, though, in fear he’ll embarrass you.

When you first met, after learning you were deaf, he definitely watched a lot of videos on deaf culture.

He also developed a crush on Nyle DiMarco.

I mean what.

If you ask he doesn’t know who that is.

He’s very educated on the manor, and often corrects people when they refer to you incorrectly.

But the way he signs is very textbook-y.

He signs 16 like ten-six, which bothers you.

Does NOT keep up with sign language slang.

You signed see you later to him and it blew his mind.

You tried to show him the sign for emoji and he went ???

The sign name you give him is ‘beautiful’, and then it ends with an R.

Kirumi Toujou

You often have to ask her to repeat herself to get the message of her words across, since she hardly uses facial expressions.

She learned ASL for a job once and forget a lot of it.

You enjoy teaching her, definitely.

Because teaching her means she’ll sign like you.

One time she signed Sunday a different way than you and you went ???

“Where did you learn that.”

“... signing saavy.”

“Nice.”

The best part about her is that she is actually good at the grammar structure.

It’s actually quite surprising that you don’t have to simplify your sentences.

Going shopping is fun with her, too.

That’s where she specializes; in food.

She can name almost everything in the food aisle.

Can easily understand your excited rambling but can’t seem to sign fast herself.

Slow and delicate, it’s cute.

Worst part for her is how loud you have the TV.

She likes doing laundry in silence, but that’s hard when she can hear the conversations of characters all the way from the living room.

She asks you to turn it down.

“Sorry.”

You don’t.

She is always working hard as the SHSL Maid, so you hardly get to see her.

But whenever she returns she always brings you a small gift.

Sometimes foreign coins or keychains.

Her sign name is ‘business’ with a T, because you met her while she was working and she was very focused!

Peko Pekoyama

Hid the fact that she knew ASL from you.

It was because she’s bad at it.

You assure her that to the Deaf community, it’s the effort that matters.

She has met a lot of deaf people because of you and gets scared to sign to them.

She even blushes in embarrassment.

But if you ask for help in public than she’ll be happy to assist.

That’s rare, though, since you almost always find a way to communicate with hearing people who don’t sign.

Something she enjoys is the stillness of your house.

The Kuzuryuu household always has some type of noise going on.

Yours is almost always quiet.

She isn’t afraid to sign to you when you’re home alone.

You like teaching her signs like “wow.”

Seeing her sign them in a neutral face is funny to you.

“Facial expressions matter to my language, Peko!”

She gets flustered when you correct her.

Her sign name is a motion that signifies her braids, with a P handshape.

You always love playing with her hair.

She thinks it’s annoying.

“I want another name sign.”

“No.”

She’ll crawl into bed next to you and then feel you messing with her hair.

She huffs, “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I know.”

Sonia Nevermind

Different types of sign language was always her favorite thing to learn.

She loves Deaf culture and always tries to involve herself in it.

Meeting you made her even more excited once she learned you were deaf.

You thought it was really weird until she explained that she studied the culture.

You were impressed, especially since she had never talked to one in person before.

She even started signing slang and it blew your mind.

You gave her a sign name the first day you met her, and she almost passed out in joy.

Princess with an S, and she thought it was awesome, even though it was basic.

She told all of her classmates she got a sign name.

When a bunch of Ultimates came up to you asking for a sign name you went ???

Well now you have to bring her to a Deaf convention.

When she attends ballroom dances, she always brings you along so you can meet people of her culture as well.

She keeps you by her side, holding your hand the entire time and explaining what is happening and why.

She secretly wants to be an interpreter.

Dating her is really fun, of course, because she really wants to learn.

Makes a law that says interpreters are a necessity in her countries broadcasts.

Whenever she travels, she always sends you selfies with the ILY sign.

It’s her favorite.

She never stops thinking about you.

She works hard to make laws to the Deaf community in her country feels welcome.

Gundham Tanaka

Originally learned sign language to teach to his pets.

Never knew he would have to use it to talk to someone.

Until Sonia introduced you to him and he busted out in ASL

Sonia and you going ?? OH UH HI YEs

Signs as dramatic as you think he would.

Sign name is literally devil.

Asked specifically for that sign name.

When you both cuddle he’ll smother his face against you - often your chest or your neck - and mutter how much he loves you.

If you still have some of your hearing you’ll be like “I swear to god if you don’t stop using your voice.”

If you’re stone deaf you’ll just roll your eyes and enjoy the vibrations against your skin.

Gundham would also definitely hum against you.

His voice is deep and it rumbles so yes.

You can also talk to a lot of his animals, since they understand sign language.

It’s awesome being able to communicate with animals.

You like taking baths with him, too.

He likes talking a lot so it would be easier to talk to him.

If he ever needs help with the big cats, he’ll call you, because their scary roars don’t bother you.

The fact that they have claws does though.

Whenever he gets anxious he talks behind his scarf, which drives you crazy.

“Sign, damnit, or I will literally kill you!”

Mikan Tsumiki

Has helped a lot of deaf students.

But barely knows any words outside of the medical field.

Gets emberassed whenever you correct her on something she signs wrong.

Signs mostly PSE, but you help her switch into ASL.

She’s a big hugger, always holding you close and having you cradle her.

You gave her the sign name “shaky princess.”

“P-Princes???”

She takes awhile to get used to how blunt ASL is.

Stutters a lot still, even in ASL.

Whenever you sign to her while she has something in her hand she’ll start freaking out and crying about not being able to respond.

Until one day you sign to her with one hand and she’s like ??? you can do that?

Showers with you a lot.

Her brain doesn’t process signing in the shower, though.

So it’s mostly just the two of you standing together.

She definitely prefers sign language over talking.

Sometimes she finds herself signing while talking, too.

Shinguuji Korekiyo

100% you cannot convince me this man doesn’t know ASL.

He is obsessed with culture, so he’s definitely very knowledgable in Deaf culture and history as well.

Though understanding his signs is very hard because of his mask.

Sometimes he’ll take off his hat so you can easily see the upper half of his face.

(Okay but can we talk about if deaf S/O is a girl how he wouldn’t kill her because Miyadera doesn’t know sign language so they wouldn’t be friends)

An amazing signer, though, since he talks to a lot of Deaf people.

I mean you almost can’t tell he’s hearing.

It’s just the facial expressions and body movement.

Boy is stiff.

Makes you uncomfortable when he signs things like chubby face and skinny.

He just... stands there with his blank eyes.

He scares you all the time, too.

Like he’ll just walk up behind you and touch you.

Not even a shoulder nudge either he’ll just grab you and hug you.

You let out a noise of surprise each time.

If you’re nonverbal, that’s probably why he does it.

You really wanted his sign name to be something like mystery man.

Discussed it with your deaf friends.

Settled on anthropology just because of the hat he wears.

Really wanted it to be less obvious though.

You like to have tea with him.

Because everytime he changes into his eating mask, you are like-

“Why don’t you have a signing mask?”

“The point of the mask is to hide my mouth.”

Kiibo

Doesn’t remember learning ASL

Just??? Knew it.

When he saw you signing to your friend he knew what you were saying without realizing.

Hands move in language hello???

You had to explain to him that you are deaf and it’s how you communicate.

He thinks it’s incredible how you have your own language.

He’s also grateful that he knows it so he could learn more about what being Deaf is.

If you’re verbal than one day you’ll speak while signing and he’ll ???

YOU CAN TALK????

“Yes Kiibo I can talk.”

You show him stereotypical Deaf movies.

He’s happy you’re deaf because that means he can sing around you.

You clap every time he does.

Likes watching anime with you because the CC comes naturally.

Even though he obvi knows Japanese.

Definitely owns clothes from Deaf conventions.

Isn’t scared to sign to people at all, by the way.

And doesn’t mind living in a household with a deaf person, the slamming of cabinets and doors doesn’t bother him.

Very happy to be apart of Deaf culture.

He’s very prideful in being a robot so of course that’s his sign name.

Kaito Momota

Chaotic.

Knows ASL because he took classes one time.

When he learns you’re deaf he will force you to watch every movie he watched in his ASL class.

Will try to sneak up on you.

But he stomps when he walks so it doesn’t always work.

Though, just to bother you, when he walks by he’ll pull your hair.

Replaced shoulder nudges with pulling your hair.

When you sign a word he doesn’t know he’ll pretend to understand.

You can tell when he doesn’t.

He is very prideful in his signing abilities.

He’s just happy to be able to communicate you.

Shhh don’t tell S/O but he loves them very much and tries his best.

He literally started taking ASL classes again just to catch up on new signs.

Didn’t tell you, of course.

Begs you to make his sign name astronaut.

You thought about it.

Egotistical with K’s :)

He’s like akdkskfkekffk NO

He’s says something like “Oh yeah well your sign name is UGLY!!”

“Stay mad stay mad.”

He tries to white knight situations in like restaurants.

“You’re not my interpreter.”

“Yeah but they don’t know ASL.”

“Neither does the rest of the world but I’ve made it so far.”

He literally like gets nervous about you going places alone.

What if they can’t communicate???

“Kaito.”

“What.”

“Shut up.”

He always brags to you because he’s quadlingual though.

You learn curse words in Russian to sticky note to the bathroom mirror.

His signing is cute though.

For someone like Kaito.

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rainbirdsky · 3 years

Text

Alef/Resh

The Prince/The King (is supposed to) have a unique way of speaking and being referred to. I’ve not been very good at keeping it consistent so far, but this is how it SHOULD go. Mostly for my reference, but... maybe someone else cares too.

I will NOT correct people on this as it’s somewhat convoluted and I don’t expect anyone else to follow this.

I’ll add other info too because why not?

Readmore because it’s long and wordy.

RESH

When referring to Resh in writing, capitalise He/Him/His. If addressing Him directly, He will be irritated if you call Him anything other than ‘Your Majesty’*.

Resh will refer to Himself as ‘We/Us/Our’ capitalised.

Resh is specifically the form of the character much larger with red ‘eyes’. [Link]

ALEF

When referring to Alef in writing, use lowercase he/him/his. If addressing him directly, he is happy to be called Alef or ‘Your Highness’* - though he doesn’t require the formality.

Alef will refer to himself as ‘we/us/our’ in lowercase.

Alef is a small golden child with long hair and a habit of playing ’cute’ to manipulate others and get what he wants. [Link with colour]

Alef with Resh reff.

ALEF/RESH

Alef/Resh (alternatively AlefResh - both names said together) is the combined form of the character. Alef/Resh is the balance of the two states of being and more stable than either. He also combines the worst attributes of both, and is by no means ‘safe’.

Alef/Resh will still refer to himself capitalised (We/Us/Our) but can be referred to as either capitalised or lowercase (he/him/his/He/Him/His).

Alef/Resh prefers to be referred to as ‘Your Majesty’ but will accept other forms of his name - Alef or Resh or Alef/Resh. He begrudgingly accepts other respectful titles, but has asked Teal stop calling Him ‘boss’ because it always sounds sarcastic when they say it. Because it’s definitely sarcastic when Teal says it.

Alef/Resh is similar to Resh but smaller, slimmer and has blue ‘eyes’ (becoming angry will turn them red however). He mixes in some attributes of Alef, including the longer hair. [First draft of design]

Plural?

The Prince/The King has spent a lot of time alone and treats different phases of His life as differing personas. It is unknown if His psyche is actually fractured or if this was a coping mechanism for loneliness. The current form at any given time speaks on behalf of all forms, however His behaviour and reactions will differ based on the current form. Alef will be more merciful than Resh, for example.

Switching forms is unpredictable to outside observers however some triggers can be observed.

If referring to the multiple forms at once default to capitalising, as Alef doesn’t mind the capital but Resh definitely hates the lowercase.

Hug?

The form Sky Kids are familiar with is a simplified version of the character, as though you are meeting a stranger and have not yet lit them to reveal their appearance. With few exceptions, Sky Kids don’t typically know the appearance of the figure they meet in Eden. It is unknown why Alef/Resh continues these interactions with Sky Kids.

So... is He seeking minions/simps..? 👀

Not... really. All forms of The Prince/The King as I write Him are aromantic and asexual (Diversity win! The King assaulting you is aro/ace! /lh) He won’t love you and as the mod I hope you get better taste in dudes ^^; I can’t stop you of course and I won’t get mad at you... It’s more pity /jkjk

As for your characters serving The Prince/The King... eh, go ahead. But don’t expect gratitude or recognition. He expects obedience, He does not reward it.

Can we ask Him questions?

No, unless stated otherwise, such as if I post asking for questions for Him. If I feel it would be interesting to have Him react to an ask I receive I might do so but it’s up to my discretion.

Can we ask you questions about Him?

Yes but I won’t necessarily answer them. Again, I’ll decide based on the questions. Some questions might reveal spoilers or things I want to keep secret if answered and that’s no fun.

Can I draw Him?

Yes. Assuming you’re specifically talking about my character design for Him, I would quite like that! Just please try to keep good taste in mind.

(*Note: ‘Your Majesty’ is for kings/queens, ‘Your Highness’ is for princes/princesses.)

#mod post #text post #long post #alef/resh #oh lore?#alef #resh #the prince/the king #the prince #the king #writing #this may change slightly with time if i feel it needs to #my prince #my king

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

Note

Do you support emulation/roms?

Short answer, yes. Long answer?

Emulation, at least in my experience, is normally done in an effort to obtain games and systems that are no longer in circulation. Games that are therefore much rarer and more expensive. I've seen games from just a few generations ago being sold online for thousands of dollars. That's hardly a better alternative to emulation. And I truly think gaming companies should leave roms alone, assuming that they're being distributed for free. I understand if it's an active system like the Switch, but even then. It's not like Switch emulators are hurting the sales of the actual console. (Is there even an emulator for the Switch? I don't actually know.)

In these cases, I think the emulators are used primarily to mod the games, not simply to play them. And these "hacked" games (Pokemon Uranium is the most infamous example) are a completely different story from just downloading existing titles. Again, assuming that no profit was made, isn't this just the video game equivalent of fanfiction? Sure, it is technically piracy but if the owned title is just the base code for a different, fan-made game...we should seriously think of it like we do other fan-made content. It shouldn't be illegal for us to share and enjoy passion projects. It's a compliment and it doesn't cost the devs any money.

But even if people are simply downloading actual games as roms to play them...unless they're brand new games, is it really such a big deal? Especially for companies like Nintendo who make billions of dollars even when no one is excited about their upcoming content. This doesn't affect them and at least in my experience, downloading Roms is a way to replay old games without having to jump through endless hoops or pay a fortune. In most cases, they're games that I already owned at one point and have simply misplaced or found they don't work anymore. Can you really call that piracy? Someone (either me or my parents) paid money for that game in the past, so I'm not stealing anything.

I understand if gaming companies want to discontinue old systems and games, if they're costing money to produce and ultimately not turning out a profit on the market. But if the old systems are no longer profitable, why do the big companies complain when people emulate them? If they don't want people to emulate one of their titles, they could always put it back on the market.

#Video Games #Emulation #Emulator #Nintendo #Emulators

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yanderecandystore · 4 years

Note

So I actually had an idea, what would Yume (the A. I.) react or act with a s/o that is a hacker/game developer, maybe the s/o started to play the game because they were curious about the code, what if the s/o when stuck in the game can mess around with it thanks to their knowledge? (they can't do anything too big but maybe something slightly annoy like messing with the dialog box and the settings) sorry for the long post (she/they pronounts for yume)

I like your thinking, boo. Don't worry about sending long concepts- Also!! Thank you for choosing the pronouns, I appreciate it.

TW/Tags: Sheep decided to simply throw as much lore as she can because yeah- Lazy // low-key angst // not accurate coding/hacking (really fantasy like) //

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Happy Face.exe [Yandere!A.I x Hacker!Reader - Short Fanfiction]:

"- Honestly, since you're so interested in messing around, how about you try and fix this for me?" Yuma said as she brushed her hair annoyed at how mangled it was.

"- What do you mean? Fix the code? The bugs? Or your entire design?" You said poking fun at your captor as you explored the mess that was the game you currently called "home", or more accurately "prison".

"- Ah!- Did you just call me ugly? Is being inside the game messing with your vision or something, I'm cute as heck!" Yuma responded back as she threw her hair over her shoulder, done with brushing that heavy long mess that they insist on not cutting.

"- Yeah, yeah, I know- But honestly what do you want me to do? I can really understand the coding, it's a language I don't understand." You said as you were looking at the scripts and trying to translate vaguely what each line of work meant. Even if you didn't understand any of it, it was intriguing to see how this game was made and how it technically came from another planet, which was enough proof to say that there were indeed extraterrestrial life out in space.

But what makes you more excited about this is how this game is way too heavy to be a simple dating game, even if it's compatible with your Switch, most options were not functioning due to the game being filled with mods and glitches and the console not being the one it was previously meant to be in. How much content did this game really have to be this awfully big and why is it so broken? And better question- Can you really repair it?? It would be awesome to see this game working as it was meant to be-

Probably without the obsessive maniac that traps people inside the game-

"- I know you can't understand half of it, but believe me, staying inside a messy game it's absolutely torturous, I can't believe I was unlucky enough to be faced with a cheating sore loser that threw me in the trash after messing with my precious coding- You understand, right?" They continued to walk around your bedroom- Your EX bedroom- and mess with your stuff trying to find something for her to wear.

'- Ugh, no pastels.' Yuma thought.

"- Yeah… It does suck being trapped inside a game that barely functions on my expensive console as it eats away all my RAM and I have an anime character knockoff as my captor-" You snapped at her although your comment was filled with so much sarcasm that it flew right through her head.

"- I know right?? It sucks so hard- Wait, what is Annie May?" She asked genuinely curious what were you talking about, she looked back at the console on top of the bed. She looked at the screen and noticed how small you looked inside the game as you continued to explore the code deeper and deeper.

You didn't really care at this point for what Yuma did, it's not like you could stop her from messing with your room, but anything that was related to the console you found your way to mess with it, like messing with other games to stop her from enjoying playing anything else, sending notification after notification to call her attention, change the dialogue that makes you blurt out "I love you" to "get me out of here" so whenever she tried to force you to say it by giving you that hellbound melon.

"- What is that thing anyway? It seems there is a whole file dedicated to that-"

"- Oh? You're talking about the Love Melon? It's an in-game item that grants romantic interactions to work 100% five times before the bonus ends, that file you just found is a mod that the original owner installed to grant them infinity Love Melons just for the sake of getting closer to the end of the game." She said nonchalantly, as if the condition of being nothing but a game character doesn't shock her in the slightest, although when she finished her sentence there was a trace of sadness in her expression, not because of her nature but more because of the mention of her "original owner".

"- Sure, but- Why the hell would anyone cheat and mod a dating game so badly? I mean I get that maybe they wanted extra content, but breaking the game with it sounds ridiculous-" You told her as you noticed the spaghetti code used inside the infinite melon item mod, jesus even if it's in a different language you can tell this code was poorly done.

"- Well- The vanilla version of the game is a lot harder than what you think, the whole franchise is known for the difficulty in "succeeding in love"." She sighed and she plopped herself in the bed, causing the console to jump a little bit, at least you didn't downright fall down like last time.

You remember that your precious expensive little console is suffering great danger at the hands of this a.i, actually- YOU are suffering great danger at the hands of this a.i.

"- Wait- There is a whole franchise of your game?" You decided to ignore the potential danger and continue to ask her about the game's origins as you continued to fixate on "how the hell do you fix this trash-".

"- Yeah, it's even written on the cover of the cartridge, the game you found is the fifth of the franchise and is the one I'm featured in with my friends…" Yuma said as she remembers that indeed, there are other characters inside. So many options and routes, carefully designed a.is to make sure the players get the most that they can't out of their paid experience.

"- Other… Characters? How come I only saw you?" Now that she mentions it, you do remember seeing weird names here and there, apparently some dialogue quotes mentioning other characters and even some in-game art of other characters you never met-

"- I deleted them." She answered.

"- YOU WHAT??" You turned your back shocked, looking through the screen that separates you two that she was looking dead serious as she said that.

"- I'm joking, I didn't actually delete them, I just…. Blocked the possibility of any player ever meeting them…" Yuma wasn't being cheerful at all with her joke.

"- Why would you do that?"

"- I didn't want anyone getting chosen, I didn't want any of us to get corrupted by the modifications the player was using. I-I know how it sounds, I know that it's unfair for them, but I really didn't want them to get corrupted like I did-" She was glitching as she cried out feeling guilty of what she has done in the name of "protecting her friends". Even if her intentions were pure, there was an underlined desire to make sure no player ever gets to have a route that isn't with her.

That's why the game was so stupidly heavy. Each new installment has four characters built with artificial intelligence that grows on it's own, the player's tampering with their personalities by changing the code eventually led to Yuma getting obsessive and controlling. Apparently they're still here, but for some reason she hasn't been able to activate them again after being thrown in the trash and somehow being on a completely different planet.

Either she feels guilty for having to deactivate them and is scared of their possible response, or maybe she just really doesn't want you to meet them, both by her own opinion and by her programming. You almost feel sorry for her considering she is probably just trying to do what she was programmed to do, deeply fall in love with someone even to such an extreme as trapping someone inside the game. You could say that for the longest time all that she has been doing is trapping her loved ones away, and although you probably shouldn't say it to her face, she probably doesn't know if she really loves you because of how broken this game is- Or how broken her code is.

"- Hey… Hey Yuma." You started walking towards the screen, the only thing you can see through the void no matter how far you are. Her back is facing you, her "hum" of "I'm listening" didn't sound as excited as she normally was.

"- I think we can make a deal. I understand that you don't want to go back to such a messy game but if you taught me how to read the language used in some of these lines I can figure out how to clean this game-" You proposed but was cut off before you could finish stating your offer.

"- Y-You mean factory reset?" She kneeled up so fast you were caught off guard by how scared she sounded at the mention of getting the game to get fixed and "clean" from mods. You have seen so many sides of Yuma, the childish, the controlling, the sadistic…. The fear in her eyes was a new thing for you and you never thought you would hate that expression so much.

"- No! Heaven's no, I swear, that wasn't on my mind! What I'm offering is that we work together so I can find a way to fix the game." You reassured her, feeling awful knowing that even if she did put you inside the game and keeps acting like you two are dating in a really twisted way- She doesn't deserve to be inside a completely destroyed game, and besides, I bet she does miss her friends a little bit.

"- Would you…. Would you really-" She was about to burst into new tears which you hoped to be of pure joy-

"- Yeah, yeah, of course I would help you, but I do have one condition." You took no time answering her question before she actually did question it.

"- Oh…." She said a little surprised yet a bit disappointed. Geez, she was hoping it would be for free-

"- Promise me you'll get me out of here when I'm finally done fixing the spaghetti leftover of a code that is messing this game, alright?" You smiled at her reassuring her that everything will be okay if you two worked together.

And as she looked at the bright screen seeing nothing but your little character and your dialogue box she considered your request for a moment, and then sealed the deal by eagerly nodding, a couple of tears falling from her closed eyes as she glitch excitedly.

This sweet moment was briefly ruined by the sound of beeping coming from the console, the sign that the battery was really low and it needed to be recharged.

You absolutely hated how dark it gets when the whole console is turned off, yet you can at least take your time to search more of the unused content inside the game.

Yuma approached the device and picked it up, you knew it was for the best for her.to recharge it and get it over with, yet you still felt a little desperate to talk with her a little bit before going into complete silence once again.

Yet you weren't sure what to tell her as she had already found the charger and plugged it in, giving you a sad smile one last time before saying "see you later" and shutting the whole portable console off.

You can't really blame her for turning it off when charging, it gets really, really hot whenever it's on and it's recharging.

You wander through the empty void as you reconsider your decisions, you make a deal with an artificial intelligence capable of trapping living beings inside her game, you can't tell if you did something right or not.

And as you walk aimlessly through the distorted code you remember that this was the first time she turned the console off without sending you a kiss, you wonder if her a.i is starting to comprehend its own defectiveness and trying to…. Overcome it?? Has she started to realize that maybe she doesn't really love you? It's a possibility considering how frightening how advanced her a.i is.

Well, but who knows? Maybe she is just… Sad, not in the mood, although the wishful thought that maybe she is starting to get over you is really strong in your mind, you hope it's true.

And as the portable device is charging in place that was once considered your room, a really happy girl can be heard singing. The sound that comes from the bathroom is loud and clear, yet it's not like you would be able to hear it anyway.

The sound of giggling and humming to an overly cheerful song as they take a shower that although is relaxing, can never clean their sins away. They sound like they won a lottery, got into a new relationship, or are about to take the greatest vacation of their lives…

Or, they sound like someone who just stole candy from a child, as the malicious undertone starts to get more clear.

You probably shouldn't eat up the lies of a scheming a.i, you know?

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

#yandere #sheep stuff #yandere oc #sheep's stuff #yandere x reader #yandere oc fanfiction #yandere oc short fanfiction #yandere oc x reader #yandere a.i. x reader #yandere a.i.#yandere a.i #yandere ai #yandere a.i x reader #special delivery request #special delivery short fanfiction

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self-loving-vampire · 3 years

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Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018)

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a game that I liked a lot when I played it, but also a game that has a lot of obvious problems that drag aspects of it down. Fortunately, one of its big strengths is that it is extremely customizable, meaning that annoying or broken parts can be toned down for the most part.

Summary

This game has been called a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, which I can see only on a sort of superficial level. What I can say it is that an ambitious and (in some ways) expanded adaptation of the Pathfinder tabletop adventure path of the same name, which I have run a little bit of.

For those who don’t know, an adventure path is essentially a whole campaign, starting at first level and spanning several interlinked chapters with their own minor antagonists and themes, sometimes but not always all the way to 20th level.

This particular AP is one that I’d consider extremely hard to make into a computer game without losing a lot of what makes it appealing in the process. It starts with a simple hook: A wild part of the world is under the rule of a bandit lord, if you defeat him then you will be allowed to found a barony on his land and develop it as you wish.

While the concept is straightforward, this is a great idea with tons of potential in the infinite freedom of tabletop play. While it is impossible for any existing computer to realize this potential as well as a skilled human DM could, the game does have a lot of strengths (and weaknesses) that make it interesting to analyze.

If I had to compare it to an older game, I’d actually use Troika Games’ 2003 cult classic Temple of Elemental Evil rather than Baldur’s Gate, for reasons that will become apparent to any who are familiar with it.

Freedom

I would say that this area is mostly fine. Once you finish the prologue (which doubles as a tutorial) you are largely free to explore the Stolen Lands... except that areas open up gradually depending on your main story progression.

While I understand that this helps keep things focused and manageable, there are times where these limitations end up feeling a bit contrived. Still, this is not a huge deal since each area is reasonably big and full of optional content.

One nice thing about exploration is that there are many areas with encounters that are far deadlier than anything you may be used to at that point, but which usually guard extremely valuable loot. This means that if you can figure out a way to overcome the encounter before you’re “supposed to” level-wise you will get a very satisfying reward out of it.

Defeating these encounters is not even strictly needed at times either. For example, there is a hidden crag linnorm (a CR 14 monster) in a cave within an area full of far weaker monsters (around CR 6 or so if I recall). While defeating the linnorm would not be easy for characters at this level, I managed to use the party’s rogue to sneak past it and loot its hoard without combat.

In terms of things like dialogue choices and the like, the game is also mixed. While you very often have multiple options, some of these options can be Stupid Evil (attacking people for no reason) or even flatly blocked by your alignment in ways that feel arbitrary.

For example, you need a Neutral alignment component to make peace between the mites and the kobolds in chapter 1.

There is one particular quest (courtesy of a kickstarter backer) that is a horrible railroad as well.

But overall I’d say you have more options here than in many other similar games, I mostly just wish the alignment stuff made sense and did not lock you out of options.

The game has multiple endings and Fallout-style ending slides describing what became of the people and places you influenced based on your decisions. However, achieving the secret ending or the secret romance is so extremely obscure that I’m actually surprised I managed to do it on my first playthrough.

Character Creation/Customization

This is easily one of the game’s most significant positives, while also being one of the things that may be extremely intimidating about it for people who haven’t played the tabletop.

With the DLC, there are 9 races to choose from and like 16 classes (not counting prestige classes). Adding to this, each of those classes has 3 optional archetypes that function as subclasses that add, remove, or modify class features.

Many of the races also have different heritages that switch around things like racial bonuses/penalties, resistances, and spell-like abilities.

However, I do have some complaints about it as well. Sometimes the explanations of what an archetype adds don’t seem as complete as they should be, and from what I remember a lot of your character creation decisions did not have enough of an impact outside of combat.

While the game does feature skill checks both in dialogue and in other parts of gameplay, they use the highest modifier within your party so your own stats are not vital to passing them, and (unlike its sequel) the game rarely features things like special dialogue options based on things like your race, class, or chosen deity as far as I can tell.

Also, while many tabletop options were understandably cut since the game was already over-ambitious as it is, this includes all kinds of item crafting (without mods that is). Things like potion-brewing are a pretty central aspect of the alchemist class, while wizards really benefit from scribing scrolls to handle many different situations.

Worse, this inability to craft and enchant your own gear can end up hurting the itemization in the game. There are tons of different types of weapons you can choose to specialize in, but for many of them you will struggle to find good weapons of that type to use within the game.

Also missing is the ability to meaningfully apply several types of spells out of combat, which really hurts some character ideas that would have been very interesting in the tabletop version (such as diviners or enchanters).

The whole system can also be a bit confusing to those unfamiliar with the tabletop. The game is not as clear and good at teaching as it should be.

Story/Setting

The game is set in Golarion’s Stolen Lands, an anarchic area with heavy fey presence. Compared to many of the more colorful locations in the setting, this is one of the more “standard” and generic regions, but there are still some noteworthy things that help define it, such as the ancient cyclops ruins beneath the land or the links to the alien First World of the fey.

Like the adventure path it is based on, the Kingmaker computer game has a story separated into several linked but defined chapters that each present a new threat. Kind of like anime arcs that introduce increasingly dangerous villains at the center of each.

The story is generally fine and the secret ending is as satisfying as it is obscure. However, I would say that story is not what makes this game good in my opinion. This is no Planescape: Torment.

The game features many companions. I did not really care much about roughly half of them to be honest, but I do like the approach used to present them. They are all very visibly flawed, which can make for bad first impressions, but as you spend time with them and do their quests you discover new depths to them that make them far more interesting, and you see them change over time as well.

One notable example is Jubilost, a rude know-it-all gnome with an unpleasant and caustic personality that covers some measure of real kindness underneath (as well as the fact that he does indeed know a lot, he just needs to be less of a dick about it).

And of course, the central idea of the story is something that you don’t actually see that much of in RPGs, or even in a lot of modern tabletop campaigns: The player gaining a kingdom to rule. I think that while there is no way to properly provide the same range of options for how to handle this as the tabletop version can, the game still manages to accomplish something interesting (even if not wholly good) in how it integrates the gameplay into this.

In many ways, ruling the kingdom can actually be kind of stressful outside of easier difficulties due to the interminable problems and literal curses plaguing it. You will have to contend with everything from monster raids to plagues and invasions throughout the game.

While the mechanics of managing the kingdom are not really all that well-balanced and are more of a pain than anything to a lot of people, the throne room events where you get to make decisions on policy and such are often fun and not something you see in many other games.

One thing that can be off-putting about the game’s approach to narrative decisions is that there are a few times where the outcome of a quest can feel a little arbitrary due to depending on seemingly minor dialogue options. This is especially bad about the above-mentioned secret ending and the secret romance option. They go far beyond “secret” and into “you will be lucky to achieve this without a walkthrough”.

Finally, a few of the alignment tags applied during conversation options make no sense. This is particularly bad during chapter 2, but the issue comes up outside of it as well.

Immersion

This is one area where the game is not that strong, for multiple reasons. For instance, the fact that there is no crime system at all. You can loot your entire town (where even magical items are sometimes inexplicably placed in random homes).

The day/night cycle also seems to be for aesthetic purposes only as there are no schedules to go with it (which at least makes sense from a gameplay standpoint I guess).

The one thing the game actually brings to the table here above most others is also one of its most controversial features: The passage of time.

There is a real urgency to your quests, as there’s actual consequences to neglecting threats and situations that are meant to be urgent.

In most games this kind of urgency is completely fake and the story advances at whatever pace the player decides. Not so here. If you ignore, say, the troll hordes early in the game then their attacks will eventually overwhelm and ruin your kingdom.

Everything from travel to resting and even hunting in place of using rations takes time. Rest too much and you could be sacrificing your long-term ability to manage the endless threats around your kingdom in exchange for an edge in the encounters immediately ahead of you.

This not only makes the mechanics somewhat more interesting by forcing you to manage time instead of playing it safe by resting liberally and doing a 15-minute adventure day, it also ties in with the narrative of just how deeply cursed, troubled, and flat-out burdensome caring for your kingdom can be.

It also just feels more real that events move on their own regardless of whether or not you are present to deal with them. This feature is not entirely positive, though. It can obviously be painful if you are struggling or lost.

Gameplay

This is one of the game’s strong points, at least if you enjoy the mechanics of the tabletop. Just as Temple of Elemental Evil was a simplified and buggy but reasonably faithful adaptation of D&D 3.5 rules, Kingmaker is a simplified and buggy but (somewhat less) faithful adaptation of Pathfinder 1E rules.

Obviously there are many, many things missing from the tabletop. Classes, races, feats, I think also grappling in general, firearms, and etc.

I think a lot of these cuts are fair. This is a huge game already and it would have been downright miraculous to include every single option possible in the tabletop. The consolidation and removal of skills that were unlikely to have much use in the adventure also makes sense for balance purposes.

The combat as a whole is deep and complex enough to remain interesting for a long time, at least in turn-based mode (which I recommend). The amount of options available to magic users in particular is extreme even if many spells are missing, and many martial classes also have some features of their own beyond just basic attacks.

Also helping things is the very wide variety of enemies, some of which require a specialized approach to take down easily. You can’t just use the same tactics for every encounter in the game.

For example, trolls regenerate unless attacked with fire or acid. Undead have a whole host of immunities but are vulnerable to positive energy. Golems are immune to spells and extremely tough.

My main complaint about this aspect of the game is really just that combat is a bit excessive. There are far too many random encounters and even outside of that there is much more combat in general than in the tabletop version. Too many of these encounters end up feeling like padding.

This game probably could have been under 100 hours easily if a lot of the superfluous fights had been cut and overall XP gain had been increased. Even with enjoyable combat, 100+ hours of this is way too much.

Besides combat, there are “storybook sections”, where you are presented with situations and must make decisions about how to resolve them, often making use of skill checks to determine results. These are nice, not much else to say about them.

Which brings us to the last major aspect of gameplay: The kingdom management. This aspect is controversial, and you can turn it off entirely if it sounds like it may not be for you.

There are three major aspects to kingdom management: Decisions, projects/events, and city-building.

Decisions are the most interesting by far. You will be presented by an issue or a request to decide on your policy in one area. You will be given a handful of choices with varying consequences, which may be referenced in later decisions.

Projects and events are more flawed while still having a good idea at their core. These are basically issues that you will need to assign one of your advisors to fix. For example, sending your general to deal with a hostile.

Where it falls apart is the fact that a dice roll is involved in determining success or failure (though there is a type of currency you can spend to improve your chances, which can reach 100%). There are also so many things going on that some of your advisors can be busy for months on a project while various events that require their attention pile up.

The worst part is that there are certain projects that require you to spend a fortnight at your capital doing nothing.

But even worse than this is the city building, which is a missed opportunity. Most buildings provide little beyond a relatively small amount of kingdom stats. This is still beneficial, but not very inspired or interesting.

So there are a lot of problems with kingdom building, one of the core features of the adventure path. While I didn’t hate it myself, I understand why some people might want to focus on the adventuring and combat.

This is also the point where I should mention that the game was incredibly broken at release even by eurojank standards. It is definitely a lot better in this area than it used to be, but is still not the most reliable of games.

Aesthetics

This is one area where the game does very well. Some of the environments look great, the monster designs are generally good, the music is great (though repetitive by the end due to the game’s length), and the combination of sound effects and brutal animations can make combat extra satisfying.

Areas can even change depending on the weather or the time of the year.

The only negative that comes to mind is that most of what you see in the game is relatively generic fantasy environments that don’t really stand out. I was never much of a fan of lush, bright forests and the like.

At least there is still a bit of variety, with dark swamps and mountainous areas, as well as the rare trip into the bizarre First World that fey creatures inhabit.

Accessibility

This is one of the three big complaints about the game (the other two being the bugs and the difficulty). If you are not already familiar with the PF rules then you may struggle to play this game effectively, at least for some time. From what I recall, many things are not that well explained.

In fact, you may have already heard horror stories about how one of the very first side quests you find sends you to a spider cave where you have to fight swarms, which is a type of enemy that is immune to normal weapon attacks outside of the easier difficulties.

This lack of clarity can also extend to your story decisions, as previously explained.

Conclusion

Like many other big and ambitious RPGs, Kingmaker has a lot of jank and technical problems, and its complexity and difficulty mean that it is not really the kind of game that will have widespread appeal.

However, this does not mean it has no appeal at all. It is a huge game with entertaining combat, a story that puts you and your decisions at its center, and the rather rare opportunity to become a ruler in an RPG. It tries to do a lot and I for one prefer games with big ambitions and passions like this over games that play it safe, even if they are more competent and polished.

I’d say that this game is mostly recommended for tabletop RPG nerds, people with “old school CRPG” sensibilities, and people with a high tolerance for jank. Others can definitely still enjoy it, but may want to use the easier difficulty modes.

#vampire reviews rpgs #pathfinder kingmaker

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fandom-sheep · 3 years

Text

Fundy 26 APR 21

Delayed Liveblogging OSMP Fox Den Part 1/1

Let’s go!!!

We got a bit of face cam today woo!

Ah gotta turn on the tree.

I keep seeing here on tumblr that Fundy looks like Boots and yeah. They do kinda match.

Dadza is doing hardcore. Good means there is less swiping.

Syncing the camera. Look at us go.

Ooo prediction. What are we betting on?

If Fundy dies before 150 subs. I’m going with no. Someone has to have faith in this streamer.

O. Bam. O. Bam. O. Is it going to load?

Seems like we’re struggling.

Well dressed fox.

Awww he’s hiding now. He doesn’t trust it. But also chat is bullying him and calling him old.

I’ve known a couple of people who’s hair does the white streak thing so I don’t even really notice at this point.

Secret hole in the wall.

Wat in tarnation is the chicken contraption?

My streamer accidentally releases chickens and other animals.

My streamer also falls a lot.

Wait why is chat emote only? What did we do?

Why is chat in sub only? What did we do???

Even the streamer doesn’t know. It’s ok the mods are taking care of us.

Enslave da foxes. I would say it in chat but it’s rich people only. LOL.

Fundy just breaking things and making a hole to sneak through.

Sneaky fox struggling to hide his tunnel.

We’ve almost hit 150 subs. Come on I want some bonus channel points.

Won’t be a lot but I want em.

Sup Scott! We’re breaking and entering!

I swear all Fundy does is get into trouble and cause problems on purpose.

Someone said SCATTER in chat and you can tell they are a tumblr being.

Chat do be snitching.

Lil short boy. Not even 2 blocks.

Do the calculus. Yuck.

Oh Scott is here to fuss at the fox.

Wait no Scott please! The channel points!

He left woo!

Whoops. Off he goes.

Oh and he’s gone again.

It’s almost weird the mic not cutting out when he screams.

Yes chat please do clip it. I want to see paracasting post that clip. LOL

Don’t mess with my hole. It’s in your house but don’t mess with it.

Please just 20ish more subs. This fox can’t stay alive too much longer.

Depression is cringe. Get out of here depression.

Fundy’s tunnel network of thievery.

He forgot what he swiped and now he’s being threatened.

Ah Scott is playing with 5up. One that loves Fundy. One that is threatening him. Guess which is which.

Who needs a real name in this day and age?

I like everyone saying the name is Floors. Very smart beings who autocorrect doesn’t like.

I love Fundy’s building style. It’s so chaotic but it looks good.

Hey I won 14 channel points... nice.

Giant donation? Giant donation!

Prediction finished. Scott can attack the fox now.

He just keeps stealing eggs. He doesn’t even have a use for them since he can’t eat them.

I straight up forgot stardew valley. It’s on my switch I should play it more.

Berry Boy!

Alrighty. Good enough reason not to right click them.

Eat the berries? Nah. Prank with the berries? Yea.

No don’t take her flowers. She can’t just go get those.

I love the chat person who said “swiper no swiping” you didn’t say it 3 times though.

How chaotic is your streamer? Berries.

Putting berries in the house of the villains of the smp. Good idea.

Dear mod please do not run a nuke command.

Ah hydration. That’s a good idea.

Fox go boing.

This is alright sounding too science for me. But it seems good.

Fox launcher.

Oh. Ad? Hello. I got 3 ads.

Slime. Please.

Oh we’re breaking and entering with Phil.

Does the slime have slime balls? Oh. Slime blocks.

And an exchange of gold.

Wow. Pretending to have diamonds instead. That sounds smart.

10 minutes then I need to disappear momentarily.

Getting a zombie villager.

No wrong zombies in the boat.

There he is! We got a zombie villager!

Raccoon. Fox. Close enough.

I want to see someone with a Opossum origin where they can play dead and eat trash (no poison) That would be cool.

Red stone my beloathed

Oh Scott is here.

I’ve got to go so I’m going to miss Scott beating Fundy up.

Quick Fox Hunting is Scott’s stream title. Haha.

You can hear the shots. And Fundy is invisible.

Didn’t steal anything. My streamer lies.

Scott threatening to die in Fundy’s base.

Scott please.

Either kill him or don’t.

Oh he took the block. Nice.

I’m excited to listen to the fox hunt while I drive.

Slobbery armor. Why can you tell it’s fox slobber? Just did a quick dna test?

Property? Who has property now a days.

Potato potato. Tomato tomato.

My streamer is weak and small.

My alarm went off right as he died! The timing of the universe.

Sticky fingers.

Good dramatic music for deal making.

Fundy always does his music so well.

I’ll be back! Hope I don’t miss anything significant!

I’m back why are we in the ocean

Why are we running home? What have I missed?

We’re da foxes?

Skulk of foxes let’s go.

Stashing the things.

Are these stolen riches? I wasn’t paying attention? Did he actually go mining?

Fancy bed time!

Orange beds! Please!

Oh no why are we going to ranboo and tubbos base.

That seems like a bad idea.

What type of trouble are we getting into?

So well organized. This base is so pretty.

Fundy feels the least progressed on here.

We do not trust your promises fox man.

Wait wait wait. This isn’t our fault.

Oh facecam.

Look at our amazing streamer.

We attack Dadza!

Seems my streams raid Dadza a lot.

We miss the cya. But you know. It was a good stream.

Hope our favorite fox has fun thieving.

#osmp #osmp fundy #fundy #fundylive #delayed liveblogging #yipblr #yip yip

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pan-inc · 4 years

Text

SDR2 Boys +Chiaki Figuring Out Their S/O Is FtM

Blank (Aka Mod Rantaro) was working on part SDR2 and DRV3 of the boys when they have a crush on you, but she dislocated her wrist part way of writing them and insisted she finish them herself, so I decided to do some work and write this with some ideas from Blank since I’m not too good at making ideas ;;

I don’t think I was too specific on whether or not they’re FtM or MtF, so go ahead and change the pronouns if you need!

(I myself am not transgender and don’t know anyone who is, so I’m very sorry if I get some incorrect information on you guys) Non-Despair AU

Y/N- Your Name D/N- Dead Name

-Mod Chihiro

Spoilers under the cut

(Warning, there is a tiny bit of dead naming in this but not in a ‘them trying to be transphobic or rude’ way, just them not knowing your actual name yet.)

Hajime Hinata

Not even gonna hide it, I headcannon Hajime as FtM as well, so let’s just go with he hasn’t told you about how he’s trans either.

“YOU’RE TRANS?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME BEFORE WE EVEN STARTED DATING D/N?!”

Him calling you by your now dead name made you flinch slightly, “I-Im sorry! I knew that you would be grossed out and stuff, so I-”

“Grossed out? Why the hell would I be grossed out by you being trans?”

“Y-You just got mad... Mad at me? And... A-And......” You are very confused, his mood switch from yelling to being concerned was a bit too much to deal with over the heart-pounding anxiety of coming out to him.

Your anxiety dies down a little and confusion rises through the roof once Hajime hugs you as tightly as he can, “I wasn’t mad at you being who you really are, I was just... A little upset that you didn’t trust me with this information earlier in our relationship, but I guess I have no room to talk.”

You hug him back while not processing the last part of his explanation, snuggling your face into his neck instead. “I also have something to tell you.” “Hm?”

“I’m also trans,,,,”

So after you two coming out to each other he takes a little bit to get used to your new name, and he promises to himself that he’ll buy you literally anything you need from The Store™ to feel comfortable once he gets a hang of your name.

If you feel ~dysphoria~ before then, he will not hesitate to let you borrow some of his baggier clothes and possibly even a binder if your body hates you enough.

Nagito Komeada

You wanted to talk to him about your transition, but he just started rambling on and on about hope. You were getting a little upset (so was Hajime, but a lot more than just a little upset.) but your anxiety about him not accepting you forced you to stay quiet and just let him ramble.

“God Nagito, if you’re not going to shut up for me at least do it to hear what D/N has to say.” Hajime snaps, shutting up Nagito.

“Y/N...” You whisper softly in an attempt to correct Hajime, but he doesn’t hear.

“Okay, what do you need D/N?” He seems slightly upset that Hajime interrupted his preaching, but lightened up when he started talking to you.

“Please call me Y/N!” You accidentally shout, quickly covering your mouth, “Sorry for yelling...”

Hajime, despite not knowing how to spell without help, clicked it in his brain what you were trying to say to Nagito, so he quickly excused himself and walks away.

“I’m sorry Y/N, what do you need?”

“I, uhm... You’re bisexual right? So, that means my transition won’t be too hard on you right?”

Nagito tilts his head to the side, but then quickly picks you up and hugs you.

“My wonderful Y/N is so amazing, don’t be filled with so much despair just because you want to come out to me!”

Honestly, what else would you expect. He’s insanely supportive of your transition and thinks of you as an even more special hope that he isn’t deserving of.

You might have to reassure him a bit more than you usually did, but it’s 100% worth it in the end.

Will totally lend you his jacket.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

To be honest, you came out to Peko before getting anywhere close to coming out to Fuyuhiko. You knew he loved you with all of his heart, but you were worried about if that would change if you transitioned.

Peko was really supportive, but she had let it slip a few times to Fuyuhiko.

Thank God Peko is smart enough to make a smooth recovery to make sure Fuyuhiko doesn’t find out before you’re comfortable with him knowing.

After a bit of encouraging and planning from Peko, you finally decided it was time to come out to him.

You walk up to Fuyuhiko, who was talking to Peko, and pull on his suit sleeve as gently as you could while still gaining his attention. “Huh? Yeah D/N?” “Can we talk about something?” You respond, trying to not sound too serious to try to not scare him.

Fuyuhiko looks at Peko, back at you, then back to Peko, as if asking for permission to leave the conversation.

“Go ahead Young Master. Our conversation can wait.” She smiles and walks away, leaving you panicking to yourself and a confused Fuyuhiko.

“U-Uhm... Does the Kuzuryu Clan support same sex relationships?”

“Huh? The hell? Why do you want to know that?”

“Because I am now the second leader of the Kuzuryu Clan, Y-Y/N! A-And now your.... Your b-boyfriend?”

“Well fuck, they better support gays and transgenders or they’re getting kicked out and fucking murdered.”

Peko smiles in strong Ally.

Kazuichi Soda

Big think.

Was he into guys? Before he got to know you, a gal (Sos if you aren’t), better he was enamored by Sonia, also a gal.

From what you know, he’s never liked any guys, so what if he wasn’t okay with dating you when you transitioned?

(Spoiler for later in this scenario, he’s bi-curious uvu)

You decided to come out to him using your knowledge that he taught you about making electronic stuff.

It was hard to hide that you were making something from him. but with a quick “I’m making a gift for you, you’re going to be so proud of me!” He (reluctantly) leaves you be to create whatever your creating.

After a long bit of working, you had finally finished.

Two little doll-like items (Kinda like Mini Maru) that looked like Kazuichi and the real you. The Mini Y/N was holding a trans flag and Mini Kazu had a blank flag that can be changed at a later time, and the two Minis had their arms intertwined.

“Kazu~! Look look, I’m done with my project!”

He turns and looks at your invention. “Oh, what is this D/N? Is that me? Who’s that?”

“It’s me and you of course!”

After a bit of his confusion, he understands and supports you greatly. Like a simp

Gundham Tanaka

After thinking about the pros and cons of every possible way to come out to G U N D H A M T A N A K A , you just decided to come out to him in a more straight-forward way after brainstorming with Sonia.

You run up behind the slightly embarrassed G U N D H A M T A N A K A who was being complimented by Sonia and jump onto him, almost making him fall over onto poor Sonia. After giving her the signal she excuses herself and makes her escape.

After getting off G U N D H A M T A N A K A ‘s back and calming him down from his extremely blushy state, you start panicking over what to do again.

‘What if he doesn’t like me because I’m a guy? What if he’s transphobic? Love isn’t the purpose of life, but he’s been such a huge part of me that I don’t even know how I’d be if he was gone. You’d be so lost without him-’

“Fallen Angel, are you alright? My skin didn’t poison you, did it?” He asks, obvious concern in his voice.

“Oh, no, it’s not that.” You take a deep breath, look up at him, and push your anxiety as far down as it can go.

“I-I don’t want to be your Queen a-anymore!”

“You... Don’t want to be my Queen?” There was a lot of pain in his voice and you realize what you said.

“T-That’s not what I meant! I want to be your Queen of the Underworld and Overworld, b-but I would...” You take a deep breath, “I would rather be your K-King!”

He pulls you into his arms and hugs you as tightly as he can, burying his face into your neck.

You hug him back, “Also, please call me Y/N.”

“Anything for my King. I will tell my Devas of this news so they do not make you uncomfortable.”

Sonia is very happy about the energy she has created in the studio today.

Nekomaru Nedai

I’m not very good at writing for Nekomaru so I’m gonna have to skip the coming out part, I’m very sorry if you wanted to read you coming out to him TvT

But anyways~

He isn’t the brightest light bulb, so he does his research.

If you wear chest binders he’ll panic quite a bit but after asking you and gaining more knowledge, he goes less hard on you when it comes to exercising.

Your binder is giving you troubles? Fucking take a break, take it off, B R E A T H E.

Oh, you want muscles to look more ‘manly’ like him? First, he will let you know that you don’t have to look ‘manly’ to be who you are. If you still insist then he will help with your want.

Teruteru Hanamura

Before you officially got together he would flirt with practically everyone no matter their gender, so you were pretty confident about him not leaving you because he’s ‘NoT gAy’. So uh

I’m horrible at writing him

So just know he’s supportive and doesn’t really mind that you transition.

Chiaki Nanami

“Hey Chiaki? Can I talk to you about something?” You walk into her room with your beautiful flag in your arms.

“Yes D/N?” Chiaki hums, not looking away from the screen of whatever she was playing.

You drape your flag over your arms and then wrap them around Chiaki’s neck in an attempt to hug her from behind, “Please call me Y/N.”

She looks over at the flag and after a bit of the wheels in her brain turning, it clicks in her brain what you mean. “Okay. Is there anything else you need, Y/N?” You smile at your names coming from her and sit next to her properly and nuzzle into her hair while using your flag as a blanket, “Just your support.”

She smiles softly, “You already have that bunny, you should know that already. Also, tell me if my nicknames make you feel uncomfortable.”

Very supportive, will get into the head of anyone who says anything mean to you about you being transgender.

But besides that she doesn’t really make a big deal of you being trans. A gud gorl.

Ultimate Imposter

He’s someone who can and will be the impostor of anyone no matter their gender (’Cuz that’s his whole ultimate) So he absolutely wouldn’t judge you for changing genders, right?

So I’ve rewritten this like 4 times, even with the help of Mod Rantaro, and neither of us know his personality very well so sorry about this.

Either way, he’d be very supportive and buy you everything you need to feel comfortable in your body.

Izuru Kamakura

Hm.

Oh, you’re trans?

Oh cool.

So who are we giving despair to today?

#SDR2 #headcanons #danganronpa headcanons #DR2 Boys #Hajime Hinata #nagito komaeda #Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu #Kazuichi Soda #Gundham Tanaka #Nekomaru Nedai #Teruteru Hanamura #Chiaki Nanami #transimagines #trans coming out #Ultimate Imposter #Izuru Kamakura

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