#ive also almost bought one of the 'words are hard' designs so i could like. put another screen print above the text saying

[bitchfitch]

have you seen the evan and katelyn 1000 wick candle? they are just full of so much glee

yesss it's a Very fun vid.

[sneakyseventeen]

Junaho ✰ High Stress

Members: Model! Minghao x Photographer! Jun

Genre: Angst / Fluff

Word Count: 1k+

Disclaimer: deals with eating disorders and this is my first time writing btw members, hope you like it!

 ❀          ❀          ❀

Minghao loved his job. The fact that he could design then model his own clothes was a dream come true, along with his fame and success, and his boyfriend and photographer, Junhui.

Or at least that's how he pictured it. It wasn't at all like this. His company had hired a new designer for Minghao, as they didn't like his, "style". The job gave him a hectic scheduled, and he barely had time to rest. Waking up at ungodly hours, and going to sleep nearly at sunrise. They monitored what he ate nearly 24/7, which was driving Minghao to the way of an eating disorder. But the cherry on top of this nightmare sundae, was Junhui. Him and Minghao had met through their first year at collage, doing shoots for fun together, in hopes for a dream like this, but not as horrible, to happen. Suddenly, like they were both shot by cupid with an arrow, they feel in love. Being close was easy at first, but the agency/company barely allowed them time together, only during photo shoots. Not many members of the company even knew, because their relationship could ruin their career, and they hadn't even spoke and come out about it yet. Jun remembered the day Minghao did, which he will never forgot.

Jun had already known he himself was gay, when he found himself checking out dudes rather than girls in high school, and the feeling only grew when he met the younger boy. He went about 2 years wondering what Minghao was, as he was so desperately in love with him. Minghao confused Junhui, to the point of madness. He couldn't figure him out. Until one night, at around 9pm, he came home late, and walked into the apartment to hear Minghao crying. He ran into Minghao's room and found him on the floor in distress, tears streaming down his face.

"Minghao........are you ok?"

The question was so obvious, as he wasn't, not in the slightest. But he didn't know what else to say, as he'd never seen the boy like this. Minghao couldn't stop tearing, not even enough for him to speak. Then Jun sat next to the boy, and wrapped his arms around him, comforting his small frame. This made Minghao feel so safe, his crying softened.

"What's the matter?"

"It's me."

"What about you?"

"I feel so lost. I'm so confused. Jun please help me."

"What is it hao?"

The nickname Jun gave him pulled on his heart.

"I-" He choked on his words.

"I think....

UH how do I say this...." Jun didn't say anything. He stayed will his hands on Minghao's shoulders, trying to comfort and hold him up, as he stood almost shaking.

"I..... I think I might be bisexual."

Jun had a small smile on his face when the words left Minghao's mouth. He nervously looked at Jun, when Jun's words were bleak, Minghao started tearing up again and tried to loosen from his grip, but Jun wouldn't let him. He gave Minghao the warmest hug he had ever felt.

Again, he felt that safety.

Minghao continued talking, saying now Jun's favorite phrase.

"And- I..... think I love you......"

"I love you too."

The two spent the night laying in Minghao's bed, with snacks and candy, wathcing a Comedy to lighten the mood. Minghao quickly fell asleep from the previous stress, and Jun covered him with blankets, before kissing his forehead, and whispering, "Goodnight."

Jun would do anything, anything for Minghao to stop. Stop putting himself down, and stop doubting himself. Minghao was an amazing attractive guy, and Junhui was boggled how he couldn't see that. Normally he felt like he could help the other boy with his confidence. By complimenting him, showing affection, or taking photos of him. But the elder never thought 1 photo would get them to where they are now.

It all started when the two were bored on a day in spring. Minghao had just bought some clothes and decided to would be fun to have a photo shoot. He normally had no trouble setting up his tripod, and taking pictues of hinself alone, but today was one of those not so normal days. He called the only person who he trusted in taking good photos, Junhui, and after a hour of clicking, the boys had decided on one they liked, and Minghao posted it on his Instagram. What they didn't expect was for the two to wake up so close to each other, and for the picture on Minghao's account to have almost 10,000 likes. Their new jobs had sky rocketed from there. The company that they were now in recruiting the two boys, pushing them for nearly all of their adds or products. It was chaos for the both of them, but more for Minghao. He was naturally thinner than most people, but that came in handy as a model. It didn't mean he didn't receive comments though. If Minghao could list how many times someones told him he shouldn't be modeling, or that he wasn't good looking enough, and all in between, he would need more paper. But he never thought this day would come. He was eating at the bar the company had set up that day, and after accidentally skipping breakfast, he was hungry. The boss come over and pulled Minghao aside, scolding him pretty loudly. He back back out and thew away his food. He was on the brim of tears before Jun grabbed his hand and walked them out of there.

"Jun stop!"

Minghao was already upset enough, but his biggest fear is being exposed as a couple, as it wasn't accepted in China. That was the last thing Minghao wanted. Jun on the other hand, seemed more okay about it. It wasn't that Minghao was nervous..... well....it was. He didn’t know what everyone would think or view him, and he'd rather keep it that way.

"Minghao... I need to talk to you."

Junhui sounded serious. He sounded like he had on the night they both confessed. His voice was so soft, yet it felt hard like sand paper.

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

This is part 1!! Wirting part 2 currently. I've been in a really bad state lately, sorri for disappearing ! (Also I wrote this over a year ago and ive never written fanfic btw members, hope it turned out okay!)

[millionsofmarks]

INTRODUCTION POST

*** This is just an intro post, skip if you want and go straight to the design's post that you are looking***

*** Or if you looking for my Gogetfunding campaign, my store or my other social media accounts, there should be buttons somewhere here. But if they are missing, the links are listed at the bottom of this post***

Why Alien?

Because even though there are almost 8 billion humans on this planet, I can never get connected with any of them. It's like I'm different. An anomaly. The way I think, see and behave always been so different from others. So I have always been an outsider. Outside looking in. Never fit in anywhere. Also because I’m suffering from AvPD (avoidant personality disorder). Problem getting close to people. I’m born weird. It's like I don’t know how to be a human. So I avoid people. Lastly, I’m also a chronic dreamer. My head is always in the cloud. Or to be precise, in outer space. It's like there’s another planet in my head. So I believe there’s maybe some advantage for your humans to hear me out, it’s good to have a different perspective. Besides, I have a planet full of stories and ideas to share too.

My Lifelong Dream

I had this silly dream since small to make a difference in this planet. And I want to do it with my marks and by helping others. I just want my life to mean something and that I mattered before I die. And my mark so people might remember me when I gone.

The 'Dead' line

And my end, I believe, is quite close as I'm facing all kind of issues right now, some of which can end me before I can achieve my dream (You could learn more of them at Gogetfunding)

My Marks

So with clock’s ticking, I want to make my marks as quickly as possible. I already started a t-shirt designing business. And if it becomes successful and I’m still alive, other mediums like graphic novels, fiction books, tv shows, and movies will follow up suit too. So follow me as I create more marks in the future. And as for the “helping others” part, I'm donating 10% of whatever profit I made to a variety of charities depending on the cause that I’m promoting for that particular mark. And in the future, I hope I will give more. And as I still want to live until old age, the rest of those profits will go toward my self-preservation, solve some of the other issues that I’m facing and achieve my other dreams (more on that in Gogetfunding). But before that, there are things you should know about me.

My Many, Many Flaws

1)Like I mentioned before, I have AvPD. It’s really hard for me to interact with people. Just the thought of talking or replying to people will make me hyperventilating. So if I don’t reply to your comment or reply it with just a few words, please forgive me. I’m not trying to be snob or anything. It’s just that I’m programmed that way. I can’t be sociable even if my life depends on it. 2)I’m a born idiot. So I’m predisposed to making really stupid mistakes and offend people a lot. So if you are offended by any of my works, words or my actions, please forgive me. It’s not my intention to do so. 3)My drawing and my computer graphic designing skills are rudimentary at the best because the only training I got are bits and pieces that I get from youtube. And my social media and my I.T knowledge are even worse. Before this, I have avoided them like the plague. So if you think my work are bad, I’m truly sorry. But please do correct me if I did something wrong and teach me if you can (I love learning).   4)I'm not very articulate. It’s hard for me to say right words or what exactly in my mind. So, I tend to rewrite my post or my tweet a lot to get the message right. And I'm also my very own worst critic. So whatever work I have done, I always see flaws in them and I want to correct them always. And as I’m still in my learning stage, I will be experimenting a lot too. So if these annoy you, please forgive me. Just bear with me on this. It’s something that I can’t seem to shake off no matter how much I tried.  5) My marks usually have some messages behind it. I'm not trying to be holier than thou nor am I wise. Actually, I'm the total opposite. And because I want to represent everyone (men, women, race, religions, nationalities etc), I will put my two cents in everything. Ii’s just that I don’t usually don’t speak up in the outside world because of the fear of appearing stupid. But everyone should have a voice. So, here’s mine before my time’s up. And I tend to write long. It’s my nature. So, bear with me on this too. 6)There may be a long gap between my marks because (i)I’m still in my learning stage, (ii) I’m a slow pace person (iii)I’m a super-sensitive person. So, I get hurt easily from criticism or failures and these things takes time for me to heal (iv) I have to fight my many inner demons like depression, procrastination, fear, self-loathing, etc. to get anything done and the final reason is that (v) I'm dead. If it's come to that, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all your support, sorry and goodbye.

Dying Wish

1)I wish to be anonymous here. This way, I can be myself, my true self, the one behind the mask that I put on for the world. And if the people start looking for me with torches and pitchforks, I can always run back to whatever hole I was hiding before. 2)Please like and share my posts with as many people as you possibly can. Because you are my only hope link to this world.

Final Note

Follow me as I have lot of marks to show you. I hope you like them and make your mark too with me on this planet. Thank you for checking out my blog. And now, let my world domination begins. Muahaha.

STORE (to shop or to check out) GOGETFUNDING (to help me survive) TWITTER (Follow me here) INSTAGRAM (if you bought my apparels, take a picture wearing it and make your mark here using my hashtag #millionsofmarks)

[onkey-bedtime-stories]

EUNOIA - chapter 2

Chapter 1

----------------

“I met Donghae yesterday.”

That’s how Taemin greets his sister on a random phone call one afternoon. As hard as she tried to be chill about it, Eunsook cannot help but shake in panic, intrigued by his words. She ran to the closest bench she could find and put her camera safely on her laps.

“You know that we’re adults, right? We don’t need to inform each other anymore like when we were kids and used to match our scenario to lie to Mom and Dad.”

The tremble on her lips seemed readable from the other line, making Taemin snickers on his bed.

“And since we’re adults it means now we lie to each other instead to our parents? Wow. Just wow, Lee Eunsook.”

“As I remember you were the one who banned me for weeping around on anyone whom acquaintance with him. Am I right?”

“You are. You’re always right beside this particular choice on men.”

“So?”

“I just let you know that yesterday I met Donghae.”

“Just let me know? You think I didn’t know how sneaky you are telling me stuff just because you are childishly curious on how I would react? Well, try harder, baby boy.”

“My smart lady. I always knew you went to Milan not for nothing.”

“Ha. So funny.”

“Do you want me to tell you what happened or I need to wait for another year until you gather up your guts to ask me how it went?”

“Actually, I don’t really care. That wouldn’t change anything, would that?”

“It depends, though.”

“On what? On how I handle stuff? On how bad my mood right now? Or maybe, just maybe, on how bad I weep last night?”

So she still cried miserably at night?

Taemin sighed and Eunsook regrets raising her tones, unveiled her unstable mind unconsciously. However, she didn’t lie when she said she doesn’t really care since she would still be broken hearted and desperately wants to turn back time hoping she could fix any mistake they did during their relationship. Or more like what mistake she did.

“Donghae asked how you are doing.”

“You can tell him that I’m fine, having a really nice summer escapades and eating lots of good food. Really, I think I will gain at least five pounds by the end of the trip.”

“Unless it’s not really Donghae who asked.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t.”

Eunsook scribbled on the ground with her shoes, making random pattern on it, “Yes I do, Tae. Because he texted me two days ago and I kept writing and deleting my rant until this morning on how I’m doing now after he decided not to be in the same page with me anymore. Believe me I know, because this is the first time I didn’t reply on him right away after I saw his name appeared on my screen.”

Taemin doesn’t say anything and just listened to the sound of the wind, trying to not make everything more complicated for his sister.

“Maybe he overestimated me.. thinking that I would be just alright after everything. Having a blast in Netherlands, enjoying summer, going shopping and meeting my best friend after a long time. You know I always this ‘his strong woman’ or.. or ‘his only iron lady’ you know.. So this trip, couldn’t it be better than that?”

“Don’t resent anyone. You’re the one who said to me that this is the best way for both of you to be happier.”

“I told you maybe.”

“Anyway, I said that you’re fine. A little tired and overwhelmed but you’re good now.”

“Should I thank you for giving the wise back up and being the best brother in the world?”

“Not really. Because I told Donghae as well how you’re calling me every day at 3 AM mopping around threatening people you’d kill yourself if tomorrow you’re wake up and everything is not only in your dream.”

“You should have added the part I didn’t eat anything for a week and ran into the emergency room when my coworker found me passed out at the toilet.”

“Ah, if only you did a proper briefing before.”

She’s really grateful for the fact that she might really have the best brother in the world. Taemin never fail making her laughed. Though he had this ice prince exterior, his heart is the warmest, far from all the cold and mischievous image people around him familiar with.

“Now that I told you what to do, can you fix that when you met him again?”

“Let see. I got studio schedule again tomorrow and he will be the producer assistant the whole week. Yeah sure, I will tell him everything until the IV shot part.”

“Good boy.”

“I know I am.”

“And stop texting or calling Minho behind my back. It’s embarrassing.”

Now it’s Taemin turn to burst into laughter. It’s still stuck in his head how he decided to call Minho instead of his wife because Taemin couldn’t stand the idea of being yelled or interrogated by Junghee. That girl can speak two hours nonstop without giving break the other person.

“I’ll go to sleep now, it’s almost midnight here. Be good, sister.”

“Don’t wet the bed.”

“I’ve had my diaper on, no need to worry. I love you!”

“I love you, too!”

The second she put the phone down, Eunsook feels lonely again. Actually, she prefers having endless argument with anyone rather than swimming in her own thoughts. Inevitably, she checked the phone again. Rereading the text Jungsoo sent two days ago.

‘Good morning, sunshine! How’s the vacation?’

Ah, sunshine. It was nice to be sunshine for someone, a thought cross Eunsook’s mind. It was. She was sunshine. Night star. Moonlight. Making her questioning herself, is it not enough being her for he needed her to be something else? Was she not beautiful enough for he had the urge to always comparing her to something else?

“Eunsook?”

She lifted her head up and found a face she expected the least.

“Kibum?”

The latter smiles and tell the other guys walking with him to leave first. He then casually sits next to Eunsook, looks like a supermodel he is, swiping his hair back. When he looked to his left, Eunsook almost stoned, left him chuckles nervously again, a habit he developed whenever Eunsook’s around him.

“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you joined this group tour with the guy poking his umbrella to the sky!”

She squinted her tiny eyes, which in Kibum’s mind was too cute to handle.

“Oh, I was walking around doing some sketches taking photos and then my brother called so I gotta sit here and listen to him ranting about unimportant stuff.”

“You like taking photos?” Kibum almost jumped from his seat when he turned to face Eunsook completely.

“Just for fun. I love looking back to all the pictures I took while traveling. Give me lots of nice nostalgic feeling and of course a smooth slap on my head to work harder earning more money for the next trip.”

He cracks to her words, “That is actually hella true. May I see the camera?”

“Of course, Mr. Photographer.”

She smiles so bright while handing the camera, Kibum flustered involuntarily turned his ears all crimson red, “You always use 35mm film?”

He lifted the analog camera a bit.

“Mostly. Or Polaroid. One time I had the 120mm camera but nowadays it’s so hard to find the film.”

“Oh, you have no idea. It’s also freaking hard to find a place that can develop it. Tried to do it by myself, but I ruined it. There it goes all my memory in Hongkong. Gone in flash.”

Kibum cursed himself for convincing himself that Eunsook is the only girl in the world that makes a frown look that beautiful and amazing on a face. Before he embarrassed himself, he checked the camera again in his hand.

“By the way, this is nice camera. My friend had another type from the same brand. Where did you get this?”

“Actually, I bought it accidentally. It was from Porto. We were lost when tried to go back to the hostel and we found this street while wandering around with my friends.”

“Porto? As in Portugal?” she nods, “AH! I know that place! They sell cheap black and white films!”

“You really are a photographer, aren’t you?”

She cannot help but teasing when Kibum got so excited just on the thought of knowing the place she found the treasure. At this rate, not only his ears that rushed by blood.

“Only when I need money to pay my rent.”

“Hahaha!” she slapped his forearm lightly, he flinched silently, “And what brings you here?”

“We just finished a session with local teens. They’re quite having this too-cool-for-school attitude but fashion spread’s always interesting, isn’t it, Miss Designer?”

Eunsook secretly took out her imaginary good-deeds-book. Wits and jokes, checked.

“Anyhow, what are you doing after this?”

“Hmmm, nothing.”

“Fancy grabbing some sweets?”

“What kind of sweet?”

The way her eyes almost popped out her skull brighten Kibum’s day faster than when he received the first print of his magazine, “Pancake, waffle, crepe, anything you prefer as long as it can help with my sugar level.”

“Pancake sounds good.”

“Pancake it is! Let’s go!”

Kibum made a mistake almost embraced her by the shoulder then quietly pretending to push her to walk faster before the circumstance became more awkward.

Her phone beeps once again, she shook her head when she caught a text message arrived on the screen.

‘Eunsook, are you alright? Seems like the vacation is really great, am I right?’

This time she didn’t wait anymore.

‘Indeed, it’s the best summer escapade! I’m okay, by the way.’

***

“I told you not to touch her!”

Kibum massaged the back of his neck for the ten times, too tired for this silly confrontation.

“So, you said it’d better if I just left her alone there at the café while it was drenched outside instead of offering her a ride?”

“I’m tired of your excuse, you sweet mouth!  You should hadn’t dragged her to the café at the first place!”

“I’m the one who tired of your accusation! For God’s sake, Kim Junghee! I was just being nice! We lived under the same roof and I’m not allowed to cheer up someone I know who looked upset?”

“Not with such an agenda behind!”

“What kind of agenda are you talking about?!”

“Oh, don’t you dare testing me!” Kibum’s jaw dropped a few centimeter, disbelief with the whole sentence he just heard, “If you’re just being nice, you take her home right away after both of you finished your afternoon snack!”

“That’s the plan! But she said she needs more films for her camera! Am I wrong if I offered to accompany her looking for some?”

“Ha! You just saw your chance to slide in! What a little sneaky head!”

Kibum restrained himself not to raise his voice, he just didn’t want Minho finished his shower and found his best friend yelling to his wife.

“Look. It was raining. I offered her a ride to go back. She asked if I knew a place to buy films! I drove her there and it was still freaking rain. I got called by the people at work on the way. I said I’d get drop her off first at home before I headed to the studio. She said she could grab a taxi. Since I considered it’s not polite to let her do that, I asked her to come with me. That’s it!”

Junghee stomped on the kitchen floor so hard, “You could just drive her first!!!! You have no idea how stressful I was when I couldn’t contact her?!?!”

“Who knows her phone was dead?! She didn’t say anything to me! Had I know I would give her my phone to call or text you! At any rate, if she did find it necessary, she would ask me to make that damned call!”

“Stop it right there, it’s not Eunsook’s fault!”

“Neither mine!” he rolled his tongue inside his mouth trying to control himself, “I know she’s your best friend, Junghee, but she’s not a kid! She’s a grown up and let her be one!”

“Don’t talk like you know her!”

His fist getting harder on his side, “I didn’t. Look. I know you care about her. A lot. I understand. I’m aware that she’s somehow became more vulnerable after everything happened, but you shouldn’t treat her like this! She took the flight here to heal herself if you kept hogging her, when will she be able to heal?”

Kibum got his point but Junghee is too busy protecting her friend she doesn’t even try to swallow all the words from him.  

“I don’t need you lecturing me how I treat my friend! Just.. just keep your hand away from her!”

“What if I refuse?”

“What did you just said?!”

Kibum hesitated to say something more, so he just stood there, lips sealed together, his eyes drilling a hole through the air. Junghee flustered and doesn’t know what to do, she expected him to give some counter attack harsher than before. Not a serious answer like that.

“Listen, leave her alone or I would never speak to you again!”

She left him standing by the island counter and paced to her room upstairs. When she passed Eunsook who just went back inside the house after called her partner in Milan at the porch, she purposely darted her eyes away. The latter confused but knowing that her best friend has such a temper, she decided to let it go.

A small smile formed on her face when she saw Kibum’s by the kitchen.

“Is everything alright?” Kibum turned his head and just shrugged, “Kibum?”

Eunsook sensed something’s wrong by the flat expression on his face.

“Nothing.”

She’s the least person he wanted to encounter at the second, he tried to avoid her but the look she gave him just made everything more uncomfortable.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm.. I don’t think so.”

“No, really.”

“Come on, you can talk about it.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Eunsook, I’m okay. Let’s just shake it off, I’m tired.”

He told her the truth, actually. Kibum’s just exhausted and he needs his time to compose himself after the heated conversation with Junghee.

“What’s wrong with you? Is Junghee okay?”

“Why don’t you just ask your best friend, huh? She’s the one who started! Why should I am the one who feel guilty here?!”

It seems like that was his final giveaway. His pitched showed up, startling Eunsook a little bit. The stern look he put is not making it easier for her. Inside, Kibum wants to kick himself on the shin for being such an asshole just now, helpless under the invisible spell Eunsook sent him.

And feels guilty he is, indeed. She had nothing to do and he just exploded ridiculously in front of her. So he dropped the glass he hold to the sink recklessly, the loud clank on its metal surface dropped a frown on Eunsook’s face, and just went to his room, leaving strange stagnant on the air for her.

Confused and a little disappointed, Eunsook just swallowed back all the sentences she prepared to thank him for the nice afternoon they shared.

***

Thirty minutes passed with Kibum paced back and forth behind his closed door. Sometimes he sat at the edge of his bed, tapped his foot on the floor restlessly, and stood up again, repeating the monotonous anxiety attack.

Seriously, he felt awful not only because he snapped on a girl that supposed to be his current major crush until this morning, but also because he realized how helpless he was in front of the girl. And all those feeling had taken him sunken deep on ocean of guilty.

Junghee might be right, the way he treated Eunsook just now could cause huge mess. This is the first time since almost forever Kibum does care about his image in front of other. Suddenly he’s afraid she might think he’s the biggest jerk on earth who had this hot and cold attitude, once a very nice and kind guy then yell on her face for something she didn’t even know just for the reason he lose control on stupid stuffs.

He doesn’t want that.

“Why are you so stupid, Kim Kibum…”

He threw himself on the mattress and kept staring on the ceiling for solid ten minutes before he jolted to the door, took one deep breath, and carefully pushed it forward.

The living room is empty, leaving only small aquarium at the corner being the source of light. However, when looked across the room, dim light seeped through small gap between the floor and the door of Eunsook’s room.

She’s still awake.

“Eunsook?”

The soft knock on the door didn’t reciprocate. The drumroll banging inside his chest became louder each second passed in silent.

“Lee Eunsook? Can I come in?”

He waited again but nothing happened.

Is she mad at me? Shit.

Various scenarios flashed on his mind and not any single of it makes him comfortable. He might regret it later, but his guts are so much makes sense more than anything.

Slowly he opened the door, but the scene welcomes him is way more unpredictable.

On her bed, Eunsook’s sleeping like a five years old, blanket tucked until her chin and hair splattered here and there but somehow framed her soft jaw as if someone did it on purpose. And Kibum, Kibum just stiffen right on the threshold, hand glued to the handle.

How come a girl can turn someone defenseless without doing anything?

She just breathes, her shoulder moves in a slow rhythm. Kibum knew he’s crazy but he swear in such distance he can see how her eyelashes intertwined each other hiding the beautiful eyes she had, kissed her cheeks in silent melody. If he had camera in his hand, he would had already taken hundreds picture of her sleeping.

Creepy, he knows.

But in Kibum justification, everyone should be creepy once in a while when they’re in love, shouldn’t they?

Ah. In love?

Kibum gripped his chest for a moment and decided to turn of the light before he closed the door cautiously.

“Forget it, Kim Kibum..”

***

Chapter 3

[aarunomura]

MARGINAL#4 Index 1st Stage ~REVOLUTION!~ Chapter 6 - External★Galaxy (Translation)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

★ Please DO NOT re-translate or post this translation anywhere.

CHAPTER 6: External★Galaxy

As Universe FES is fast-approaching, our agency is also bustling with activity. Universe FES is where new talents from various agencies gather together. With the agency’s reputation at stake, I cannot be sloppy about my work.

(Umm, what was it that I needed to do after this?)

There are many things that I need to do.

(Ah, it’s almost time...)

Everyone’s dance lessons are just about over. Before they end, I want to see how much the boys have improved.

(They really do seem happy whenever I go to see them.)

As idols, they enjoy having everyone watch their performances. The four have said that it’s more motivating for them when I’m watching them compared to when it’s just them practising in silence. Ever since I heard that, I’ve been making an effort to watch them practise even if it’s only for the first or last few minutes.

(I have a rather hectic schedule, but if the four are happy, then I feel that I need to work hard.)

The four, who are entering the final stage in their preparations, seem to have it tough with dance and singing lessons, but I too am bombarded with work lately.

(Ah, right! I need to show them this.)

MARGINAL#4′s CD jacket design is complete. This jacket is a tour de force by Aru-kun. Just as I requested, it’s stylish and incorporates the imagery of stars and space. It’s also finished up with a not-too-subdued tint of colour. Things like the colour adjustments still need to be done so I can’t say that it’s perfect but... I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed if I show them it.

“Alright, I didn’t forget anything.”

I turn my eyes to the notes with the schedule and merchandise samples spread across the table. I need to return and continue with my work once I take a quick look of the four practising and have a quick chat to them. I stuffed the things that I was bringing along inside my bag and left the room.

☆★☆

When they noticed me arrive at the studio, one after another, the four, who had just finished with practice, came to where I was. The T-shirts they are wearing are soaking with sweat.

“Ah, Manager! How was my dancing?” “It’s gotten a lot better. Compared to before, your movements are now aligned.” “That is because everyone has worked extremely hard. To tell you the truth, I have been panicking recently because I feel that I will be left behind.” “There you go again about that~ We really can’t keep up with Rui-kun’s sharp movements.” “Hey, I wasn’t out of position, was I?” “Don’t worry, you were in sync with everyone.” “Really? That’s a relief~ I was the only one who was off for the last beat so it took quite a long time before I could memorise the right rhythm.” “Is that so? From what I saw just now, I wouldn’t have guessed.” “That’s good then!”

(They worked really hard with practice, didn’t they.)

“Ah, right. I bought you drinks! You must be thirsty, right?” “Seriously?! You sure are thoughtful! The drink I brought along became empty just like that.” “I’ll have some too~. It was tough since my throat’s all dry. I mean, there’s also a heater in this place. We were just about to become like dried-up marimo.” “Yes, I was also just getting thirsty. Thank you very much.” “It’s fine, this much is nothing.”

I hold out the bag with cold drinks to the four.

“Ah, and another thing. I thought I should show this to you all! Tah-dah!”

Making that sound effect, I take out and show the four the CD jacket design that arrived just now.

“Ah, this is...” “I tried to make the jacket exactly the way Aru-kun drew it. If there’s anything about it that is different from your image, I’d be happy if you could let me know as soon as possible.” “Wow...”

Aru-kun is surprised to see that his own drawing has now taken the form of a CD jacket. He’s spacing out with wide, round eyes as if he’s dreaming.

“Gosh, Aru looks so happy. ...Somehow, it’s even making me happy.” “Eru-kun?” “Up until now, there hasn’t been this many people who acknowledged Aru. I mean, since Aru talks using online gaming language, everyone tends to find it troublesome to understand him and gives up. So... thanks. It makes me happy that you properly see Aru’s good qualities.” “Not at all. I wouldn’t have been able to create this lovely jacket without Aru-kun’s help so I’m very grateful towards him.” “Heeeh... So Aru drew this, huh. Awesome, this is super awesome! I want to RT it badly.” “Very... There appears to be a similarity relation.” “Similarity relation?” “I mean that they resemble us a lot.” “Heeh.”

Atom-kun and Rui-kun peer at it with happy expressions. They must be elated to have something that they are involved in begin to take shape little by little. The four’s eyes are sparkling.

(...I’m so happy.)

It was worth putting in the effort.

“It will undergo some revisions but... the finished result will pretty much look like this.” “I think it looks great.” “I also like it.” “I’m fond of it as well. But it’s a shame there’s no marimo.” “Marimo is a little...” “I’m only joking!”

If I can see these four’s smiling faces, I am willing to keep on working hard.

“Anyway, why don’t you all get changed? You’ll catch a cold, sweating like that.” “You are right. Then let us go and get changed. What will you be doing after this, Manager?” “I plan to return to the agency, and continue with checking up on goods and Universe FES preparations.” “...Now?”

Aru-kun frowns. When I look at the clock, it is indeed already quite late.

“Yeah, but I need to work hard!”

Things will only become busier than they already are as Universe FES approaches closer.

“But you’re looking kinda pale, y’know?” “Eh? Really?” “Atom-kun is right. Are you getting enough sleep?” “Ah, now that you mention it, I guess my sleeping hours have slightly reduced lately...”

While I’m at the agency, I give priority to meetings and being the boys’ support. Because of that, the amount of work at the agency which I have brought home to do has increased.

“That won’t do. You’re a young girl. Your skin’s rough.” “W-Wah?!”

Eru-kun strokes my cheek. Although they are idols under my care, they are young and cool. They are boys engaging in idol activities. Even though I have become familiar with them, with this sudden close distance between us, my heart skips a beat.

“...Actually. Don’t you have a fever? Your cheeks are hot.” “That’s because Eru-kun just touched them out of nowhere!” “Really, Eru-kun. To suddenly lay a land on a girl...” “Eru, no.” “Alright, alright.”

When both Rui-kun and Aru-kun scolded him, Eru-kun finally removed his hand from my cheek.

“But it’s true that you don’t look well. Don’t push yourself too hard.” “We will also do what we can ourselves.” “Yeah, leave it to us.” “There’s no way we could let you take on the hardships yourself.” “Guys...”

It makes me happy that they are worried about me in this way even when we are in the final stages of preparation with all kinds of things going on.

“Thanks, but I’m alright! I’m going to give it my all as well so let’s all keep on going at full speed towards Universe FES!” “Yeah!” “Yes!” “Okaaay!” “Right!”

Our voices, which reaffirm our determination, echoes inside the studio. I see the boys, who are heading to the changing room, off and return to continue with my work.

A few days later, I ended up collapsing from overwork──────.

☆★☆

“...Awake?” “...H...uh?”

I blink absently. The first thing that came into sight was an unfamiliar, pure white ceiling.

“Director...?” “You collapsed at the agency. You don’t remember?” “Collapsed...? I...did?”

I don’t understand Director’s words.

(Um... What exactly happened?)

My memory is fuzzy. I have no memory whatsoever of where exactly I had lost consciousness. Before I knew it, I had woken up in this place.

“Is this... the hospital?” “That’s right. Since you collapsed all of a sudden, we had you quickly brought here. Your complexion looks a lot better now. I guess the IV drip is doing its job.” “I did feel... a little dizzy lately.” “...I see.”

(To think that I would faint...)

I wouldn’t have imagined. I had been giving priority to Universe FES preparations, and probably neglected my own health.

“Oh! Universe FES preparations...!” “...Don’t worry about that.”

Director stopped me, gently placing a hand on my shoulder, just as I was about to jump out of bed.

“And about MARGINAL#4...” “Yes, what about them?” “No, the problem doesn’t lie with them.”

(...Them?)

“It’s about you.” “Me?” “Yes. I know that you’ve been working hard with Universe FES preparations. But for you to collapse at this critical time, there isn’t anything you can do about being told that you lack self-management.” “...Yes.”

(She’s right. For me to fall sick like this at the busiest time is...)

“What is happening with MARGINAL#4 now...?” “The other staff are supporting them. If you had consulted me about your physical condition earlier, I could’ve transferred your duties to them more smoothly...” “...Yes.” “But no trouble occurred this time...” “...I am relieved to hear that.”

It seems my collapsing didn’t have a [negative] impact for the time being.

“I shall explain to you what will happen from here on.” “A-Alright...” “First off is for you to take a proper rest. This is your top priority.” “Yes.” “And... I’m having you step down as MARGINAL#4′s Manager.” “...!”

(No way...)

Although I was half-prepared for that, actually being told that made my heart heavily ache deep inside.

“The doctor in charge said that it’s best that you stay here for two weeks... Think of it as a good opportunity to let your body rest and try to recover. Your health is an important asset in this line of work, you know?” “...Yes. I am really sorry for the trouble I have caused.” “If you are careful next time, then that’s fine. I’ll come to visit you again when I have time. After all, even though I have removed you of your duty, you must be worried about the boys.” “...Yes.” “Rest well.” “I will...”

Director then left the hospital room, the sound of her heels clacking. The moment I was alone in the room, the reality of being removed as MARGINAL#4′s Manager sank in.

“...Fu.”

My eyes become filled with tears. Despite wishing to put in my utmost effort for their sake, I ended up abandoning them half way. Surely, I will [still] be slightly involved with them, given that they are talents of the agency. However, I am no longer their ‘Manager’. Even though I wanted to push them to the top idol seat with my own hands...

(The only thing I can do now is watch them.)

When I thought about that... I let the tears come, crying until there were none left.

☆★☆

“.........”

I absentmindedly stare at the TV. Now that I think about it, I had been so busy lately that I hardly watched any TV. To be lying in my hospital bed and spacing out in front of the TV, it’s as if my busy life up until now has been a lie.

(How boring...)

Even as I’m looking at the TV, it’s obvious that I’m thinking about something else. MARGINAL#4...... those four.

(Right now, they must be working hard with their dance and singing lessons.)

They must be putting in their all even without me here. And it would be nice if they were to feel even just a little sad because I am not there with them. I had negative thoughts such as that.

I could hear footsteps from outside approaching.

(...I wonder if it’s Director.)

She did say that she would come to visit again. As the sound of multiple footsteps gradually gets closer to the room I am in...

(Hm? There’s several?)

The door flung wide open before I could even look up.

“MANAGER!!” “A-Atom-kun?! E-Everyone?!”

The four members of MARGINAL#4 entered the hospital room with determined looks on their faces. And the one at the very back was Director.

“Um... What’s the meaning of this...?” “You see, these children have something to say to you.” “To me...?”

(Maybe... they are angry at me. After all, I abandoned them along the way.)

It’s not like I stopped being their Manager entirely, but in their eyes, I might have let them down.

“.........”

Heavy silence fills the hospital room. I need to say something, but I can’t find the words. The one who broke the silence was naturally Atom-kun.

“...Hey.” “What is it?” “We came today because we have a request.” “...Eh?”

(A request? They aren’t here to blame me?)

I had been constantly thinking that I would be blamed for my lack of willpower that resulted in my leaving the ‘MARGINAL#4′ project unfinished but... It seems I was wrong.

“After we heard that you collapsed, Manager, we did lots of thinking and came here.” “The reason you collapsed was because you overworked yourself for our sake.” “...We’re sorry for pushing you too hard.” “N-No, that’s not true. It’s not your fault so don’t apologise.”

The four hang their heads down, thinking that they were the ones who asked too much of me.

“...But you know, it has to be you.” “Eh?” “We are aware that our request will place great burden on you. However... you were the one who led us up to here from the start. Therefore, our Manager should be you to the end.” “Yeah, sorry. And if that’s the case, we need to tell you to get plenty of rest here. But hurry... and come back to us.” “I’ll work harder with my singing and dancing, and help you out. So please. Won’t you become our Manager again?” “You guys...” “...And that’s how it is. These four insisted that their Manager has to be you no matter what. Even though you can’t since it’s important that you take a break...” “U-Um...!” “What’s wrong?” “I have caused great inconvenience for everyone at the agency this time round. But... if you would allow it, I wish to return to being MARGINAL#4′s Manager.”

The four looked at me. I also directly looked back at them. These four with completely different personalities were suddenly told to form a group one day. I had been closely watching them put in the effort so that they can become one.

(I want to keep on watching over them.)

“Director, we’re begging you! Can’t you bring her back as our Manager?!” “I am asking you too. It is not MARGINAL#4 without her...!” “I’m begging you as well. I can share my prized marimo with you if you say you want one.” “Me too! I wish for her, who acknowledged me, to see me work hard.” “Director, me too... I wish to watch over them to the very end! I will definitely be careful so that something like this won’t happen again...! So please...!!”

“Please!!”

The four lowered their heads to Director. Remaining in bed, I also bowed my head low towards her way.

“.........”

Director ponders for a moment before slowly opening her mouth to speak.

“Then will you listen to a request of mine?” “Request...?” “I believe I told you at the start but... I want MARGINAL#4 to become top idols like the legendary STARMATE. They were truly great. STARMATE.”

Director murmurs that as if she’s in a world of her own.

“Therefore, I want you... to perform a legendary live that amounts to STARMATE’s at Universe FES.” “L-Legendary live?”

If I remember correctly, the legend left behind at STARMATE’s lives was... Stars showered upon earth, mesmerised by and drawn to their singing ────── or so people say.

(A legendary live that will bring forth a shower of stars...?)

I have no idea how we are supposed to do that exactly. And neither does MARGINAL#4. All of us look at each other, puzzled.

“If you promise me that... I shall allow her to return.” “We promise!!” “H-Hold on a second! Atom-kun!”

I hurriedly stopped Atom-kun, who was about to declare that immediately to Director. The fact that Director set a condition means that there should be a penalty should we fail to clear it. It is risky to make any promises before asking her about that.

“If... In the case that we fail to create a legendary live that meets your satisfaction, what will happen?” “MARGINAL#4 will be disbanded.” “EEEEEHH?!!”

(Disbanded?!)

“H-Hold on, Director! How can you suddenly disband us based on the outcome of our debut at the FES?!” “You don’t have to make that promise, you know? From the start, I got you to form MARGINAL#4 because I wanted you to surpass the legendary STARMATE. Either way, you need to be able to do that, starting from your debut.” “...!!”

For some reason, I feel like that condition was something Director had already decided on beforehand. It should’ve been the condition... for my return, and yet maybe it was something she had planned from the very beginning...

(Th-This is risky...!)

I was about to tell myself that I couldn’t let the four cross such a dangerous bridge.

“Bring it on!” “?!”

Atom-kun accepted Director’s challenge head-on.

“H-Hold on...!” “Fufufu, good answer! To be able to see that legendary live again... I’m looking forward to Universe FES more and more.” “Wai- Director...!”

Director is laughing happily. Now that I think about it, Director did stress that she wanted MARGINAL#4 to be a group that will surpass the legendary STARMATE. I have a feeling that she successfully got Atom-kun on board with this by using me as an excuse.

(Don’t tell me, her saying that she was removing me from my position as MARGINAL#4′s Manager was a set-up for that...?)

For some reason, I had that feeling.

“I’m really looking forward to your legendary live at Universe FES!”

With only that as her final words, Director left with a spring in her step.

“.........”

All that remained was the four from MARGINAL#4 and me, who didn’t know what to make of what just happened.

“If we fail to perform a legendary live, we will be disbanded...?” “Uwaah, what’s with that? I don’t really get it. To begin with, what does she mean by a legendary live?” “STARMATE’s live...?” “The rumours did say that they brought a shower of shooting stars, huh...” “That reminds me, I believe there is a formula to predict meteorites...” “I don’t think that’s it, Rui-kun.” “I guess you are right...”

If they fail to pull off a legendary live at Universe FES, MARGINAL#4 will be disbanded. This is a decision that has already been set in stone.

“W-What do we do...” “Well, don’t worry. We’re idols who deliver a kiss to the ends of the galaxy, remember?” “In any case, why don’t we start by gathering information about STARMATE?” “I’ll also turn to my connections and ask around.” “I’ll also try to look for info online.”

The four, who were all over the place in the beginning, are finally brought together as one as MARGINAL#4.  There is no way that I will let their dreams of becoming idols end here.

“No matter what it takes, let’s definitely make Universe FES a success, okay...!” “Hell yeah!” “Yes!” “Ye~p!” “Yeah!”

Again, we vowed to make that happen.

☆★☆

In order to increase the quality of their performances, they enthusiastically put more effort into practice than ever before. In order to make up for lost time I spent in bed, I also desperately got more work done compared to before I collapsed. We also kept an eye on the state of each other’s health.

Meanwhile, we also gathered information on STARMATE. STARMATE, who left behind a legend in which they brought a shower of stars at each of their lives. If we do not surpass STARMATE or fail to at least achieve the same level as them...  MARGINAL#4 will be disbanded. We tried to figure out what STARMATE’s lives were like but...

“What do you mean by live policy...” “T-To think that there are no records of footage remaining...” “Usually, they would make live DVDs, right?! I don’t believe this!” “Th-This is too much...”

Many live reports and books remain. Their CDs are also circulating to this very day so it’s generally possible to obtain them.

However, there is so little footage of their lives, where they left behind that legend, remaining that we might as well say that there is none at all.

(So that was part of their strategy.)

Legendary lives that you can only know about by attending them. The legend steadily grew through the spread of information from attendees.

“What are we supposed to do... Can we win against something we barely know about...” “To think that only information in the form of rumours and reports have widely circulated that we cannot grasp the true nature of it...” “I wonder how we’re going to deal with this now. Aru, isn’t there anything that can be done about it?” “Usually, no matter what kind of artist it is, live footage would circulate underground but... STARMATE’s will be uploaded and then deleted within seconds that it doesn’t make any sense.” “Within seconds?!” “I think their agency is extremely strict with checking up on that.” “...That’s amazing.”

I muttered seriously. Quite a number of years have passed since STARMATE broke up. Even so, it’s befitting that their agency’s management would be strict.

“”But now that it’s come to this, we’ve no longer got a choice but to fight with quality.” “You are right...” “In other words, creating a miracle with our true abilities without resorting to tricks, eh! Sounds pretty difficult and fun.” “The higher the difficulty level of the quest is, the more it is worth capturing.”

(That is true.)

Now that things have come to this, all they can do is put forth all of the strength they can muster as MARGINAL#4 at Universe FES.

“If that’s the case, it’s time to practise!” “Shall we work on our choreography a little longer?” “Eru, would you mind having a look at my dancing once more?” “Got it!”

The unusual challenge that we must overcome ────── surpass STARMATE’s legendary live. But for MARGINAL#4, who will defy that, their determination will not be broken by that.

“These four will be alright.”

We have decided to challenge that with just our true abilities. The four from MARGINAL#4 practise over and over, sweating blood, in order to carve a new legend at Universe FES. I also supported them with all my might.

And at long last, the day of Universe FES arrived──────.

To be continued. ➤ Chapter 7

Thanks for reading!

[smoothshift]

Why Car Enthusiasts don't like the new Supra via /r/cars

Why Car Enthusiasts don't like the new Supra

So there is a lot of back and forth between people among the car scene about the opinion of the new Supra. I wanted to explain why and why it upsets those of us who are very close to the Supra scene.

1.BMW is not Toyota.

What I mean by this is when I am looking at a BMW I have a different mind set. For those that are die hard BMW fans if you speak of the ups and downs of owning one it will quickly paint a picture very unique to BMW.

Yes you can modify a BMW which comes at a price, maintenance and part failures are a common thing within the BMW world.

Yes they handle nicely but the do not last nor are their engines are strong enough at least. Half the teams I assist in many Race series have engine failures on their vehicles this goes along with e30, e36 e46 e90 etc. They can be built strong and you can throw tons of money at them but they are not known as "reliable" among the racing community.

2.Toyota became the car company they are today for one thing "RELIABILITY"

If I ask a Camry owner why they bought it over any other car (Nissan, Chevy, VW, etc) They will almost always say the same thing. "Its more reliable, and less expensive to own"

Toyota builds their cars with simplicity and high quality in one, while also innovating new designs. When you look at a ISF engine or even a Corolla engine you will notice how everything is not over complicated even though one is a race bred engine and the other is a grocery getter. They are both easy to fix, and easy to maintain.

3 Toyota has forgot what a Toyota sports car was supposed to be.

If you watch ANY video review on the Supra you will hear words like "Over engineered" "simplistic design" "reliable"

80' and 90's Toyota knew what it took to make a sports car.

Over build the vehicle so it can handle anything you could throw at it. They wanted their flagship car to be as reliable as their corolla. They made no reserve in building the 2JZGTE. Which is why people love the car its a reliable car that even 25 years later their are 300k mile variants being daily driven!

4 Why are some of us willing to drop 60k+++ on a 25 year old car????

Believe it or not its not the body nor the looks, i would say half the people I speak to about the MK4 Supra don't even really like the way it looks.

What they like is what the look of the Supra "MEANS" what it means is you have a 2JZGTE and the chances of that engine making over 800hp is REALLY high.

My business is down the road from a Ferrari dealership, and the amount of times while on test drives ive had a Ferrari owner roll up next to be in one of my customers cars and ask "Nice car, How fast is she?" That is why the Supra is a legend. You pull up to any car owner and if they know what a Supra is they know its best not to try to mess with it.

5 It's the engine that made the Supra not the car.

The new Supra will not have a Toyota engine, and that was the main reason anyone loved the Mk1-mk4 Supra. If I swapped an M4 engine into a MK4 Supra 99% of people will ask the same thing. "Why????"

We wanted a reliable sports car that we could tinker with and make insane power numbers while not having to spend thousands on repairs and maintenance.

What we got was Toyota saying "HERE IS THE SUPRA !!! RIGHT????" while whispering to themselves that they don;t even know what the Supra was.

In closing

I am sure the new Z4 will be a very good BMW I have no qualms with the Z4 at all. Most people I know driving the previous generation BMW Z's will love the new one. However none of my customer who drive Supra's own a BMW Z3 or Z4.

You will not be talking about the MK5 Supra in 25 years in a positive light, assuming we will even remember the MK5 Supra?

Unless Toyota pays tons of money the MK5 Supra will not be the 'Hero car' in any car movie.

You will not see any 2000hp mk5 Supra's at the drag strip (with the original engine)

A Ferrari owner will not be impressed at your MK5 Supra.

Nobody will turn your way when you roll up to the local Cars & Coffee.

It will be a boring lack luster failure as a Toyota Sports car.

[amazingviralinfo]

It is on posters, mugs, tea towels and in headlines. Harking back to a blitz spirit and an age of public service, Keep Calm and Carry On has become ubiquitous. How did a cosy, middle-class joke assume darker connotations?

To get some sense of just what a monster it has become, try counting the number of times in a week you see some permutation of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster. In the last few days Ive seen it twice as a poster advertising a pubs New Years Eve party, several times in souvenir shops, in a photograph accompanying a Guardian article on the imminent doctors strike (Keep Calm and Save the NHS) and as the subject of too many internet memes to count. Some were related to the floods a flagrantly opportunistic Liberal Democrat poster, with Keep Calm and Survive Floods, and the somewhat more mordant Keep Calm and Make a Photo of Floods. Then there were those related to Islamic State: Keep Calm and Fight Isis on the standard red background with the crown above; and Keep Calm and Support Isis on a black background, with the crown replaced by the Isis logo. Around eight years after it started to appear, it has become quite possibly the most successful meme in history. And, unlike most memes, it has been astonishingly enduring, a canvas on to which practically anything can be projected while retaining a sense of ironic reassurance. It is the ruling emblem of an era that is increasingly defined by austerity nostalgia.

I can pinpoint the precise moment at which I realised that what had seemed a typically, somewhat insufferably, English phenomenon had gone completely and inescapably global. I was going into the flagship Warsaw branch of the Polish department store Empik and there, just past the revolving doors, was a collection of notebooks, mouse pads, diaries and the like, featuring a familiar English sans serif font, white on red, topped with the crown, in English:

KEEP CALM

AND

CARRY ON

It felt like confirmation that the image had entered the pantheon of truly global design icons. As an image, it was now up there alongside Rosie the Riveter, the muscular female munitions worker in the US second world war propaganda image; as easily identifiable as the headscarved Lily Brik bellowing BOOKS! on Rodchenkos famous poster. As a logo, it was nearly as recognisable as Coca-Cola or Apple. How had this happened? What was it that made the image so popular? How did it manage to grow from a minor English middle-class cult object into an international brand, and what exactly was meant by carry on? My assumption had been that the combination of message and design were inextricably tied up with a plethora of English obsessions, from the blitz spirit, through to the cults of the BBC, the NHS and the 1945 postwar consensus. Also contained in this bundle of signifiers was the enduring pretension of an extremely rich (if shoddy and dilapidated) country, the sadomasochistic Toryism imposed by the coalition government of 201015, and its presentation of austerity in a manner so brutal and moralistic that it almost seemed to luxuriate in its own parsimony. Some or none of these thoughts may have been in the heads of the customers at Empik buying their printed tea towels, or they may have just thought it was funny. However, few images of the last decade are quite so riddled with ideology, and few historical documents are quite so spectacularly false.

Imperial War Museum handout of a Dig for Victory poster by Mary Tunbridge. Photograph: Mary Tunbridge/PA

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster was not mass-produced until 2008. It is a historical object of a very peculiar sort. By 2009, when it had first become hugely popular, it seemed to respond to a particularly English malaise connected directly with the way Britain reacted to the credit crunch and the banking crash. From this moment of crisis, it tapped into an already established narrative about Britains finest hour the aerial Battle of Britain in 1940-41 when it was the only country left fighting the Third Reich. This was a moment of entirely indisputable and apparently uncomplicated national heroism, one that Britain has clung to through thick and thin. Even during the height of the boom, as the critical theorist Paul Gilroy flags up in his 2004 book, After Empire, the blitz and the victory were frequently invoked, made necessary by the need to get back to the place or moment before the country lost its moral and cultural bearings. The years 1940 and 1945 were obsessive repetitions, anxious and melancholic, morbid fetishes, clung to as a means of not thinking about other aspects of recent British history most obviously, its empire. This has only intensified since the financial crisis began.

The blitz spirit has been exploited by politicians largely since 1979. When Thatcherites and Blairites spoke of hard choices and muddling through, they often evoked the memories of 1941. It served to legitimate regimes that constantly argued that, despite appearances to the contrary, resources were scarce and there wasnt enough money to go around; the most persuasive way of explaining why someone (else) was inevitably going to suffer. Ironically, however, this rhetoric of sacrifice was often combined with a demand that consumers enrich themselves buy their house, get a new car, make something of themselves, aspire. Thus, by 200708, when the no return to boom and bust promised by Gordon Brown appeared to be abortive (despite the success of his very 1940s alternative of nationalising the banks and thus saving capitalism), the image started to become popular. It is worth noting that shortly after this point, a brief series of protests were being policed in increasingly ferocious ways. The authorities were allowed to make use of the apparatus of security and surveillance, and the proliferation of prevention of terrorism laws set up under the New Labour governments of 19972010, to combat any sign of dissent. In this context the poster became ever more ubiquitous, and, peculiarly, after 2011, it began to be used in what few protests remained, in an only mildly subverted form.

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster seemed to embody all the contradictions produced by a consumption economy attempting to adapt itself to thrift, and to normalise surveillance and security through an ironic, depoliticised aesthetic. Out of apparently nowhere, this image combining bare, faintly modernist typography with the consoling logo of the crown and a similarly reassuring message spread everywhere. I first noticed its ubiquity in the winter of 2009, when the poster appeared in dozens of windows in affluent London districts such as Blackheath during the prolonged snowy period and the attendant breakdown of National Rail; the implied message about hardiness in the face of adversity and the blitz spirit looked rather absurd in the context of a dusting of snow crippling the railway system. The poster seemed to exemplify a design phenomenon that had slowly crept up on us to the point where it became unavoidable. It is best described as austerity nostalgia. This aesthetic took the form of a yearning for the kind of public modernism that, rightly or wrongly, was seen to have characterised the period from the 1930s to the early 1970s; it could just as easily exemplify a more straightforwardly conservative longing for security and stability in hard times.

Unlike many forms of nostalgia, the memory invoked by the Keep Calm and Carry On poster is not based on lived experience. Most of those who have bought this poster, or worn the various bags, T-shirts and other memorabilia based on it, were probably born in the 1970s or 1980s. They have no memory whatsoever of the kind of benevolent statism the slogan purports to exemplify. In that sense, the poster is an example of the phenomenon given a capsule definition by Douglas Coupland in 1991: legislated nostalgia, that is, to force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess. However, there is more to it than that. No one who was around at the time, unless they had worked at the department of the Ministry of Information, for which the poster was designed, would have seen it. In fact, before 2008, few had ever seen the words Keep Calm and Carry On displayed in a public place.

The poster was designed in 1939, but its official website, which sells a variety of Keep Calm and Carry On merchandise, states that it never became an official propaganda poster; rather, a handful were printed on a test basis. The specific purpose of the poster was to stiffen resolve in the event of a Nazi invasion, and it was one in a set of three. The two others, which followed the same design principles, were:

YOUR COURAGE YOUR CHEERFULNESS YOUR RESOLUTION WILL BRING US VICTORY

and:

FREEDOM IS IN PERIL DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT

Both of these were printed up, and YOUR COURAGE was widely displayed during the blitz, given that the feared invasion did not take place after the German defeat in the Battle of Britain. You can see one on a billboard in the background of the last scene of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburgers 1943 film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, when the ageing, reactionary but charming soldier finds his house in Belgravia bombed. Of the three proposals, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON was discarded after the test printing. Possibly, this was because it was considered less appropriate to the conditions of the blitz than to the mass panic expected in the event of a German ground invasion. The other posters were heavily criticised. The social research project Mass Observation recorded many furious reactions to the patronising tone of YOUR COURAGE and its implied distinction between YOU, the common person, and US, the state to be defended. Anthony Burgess later claimed it was rage at posters like this that helped Labour win such an enormous landslide in the 1945 election. We can be fairly sure that if KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON had been mass-produced, it would have infuriated those who were being implored to be calm. Wrenched out of this context and exhumed in the 21st century, however, the poster appears to flatter, rather than hector, the public it is aimed at.

One of the few test printings of the poster was found in a consignment of secondhand books bought at auction by Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, which then created the first reproductions. First sold in London by the shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it became a middlebrow staple when the recession, initially merely the slightly euphemistic credit crunch, hit. Through this poster, the way to display ones commitment to the new austerity regime was to buy more consumer goods, albeit with a less garish aesthetic than was customary during the boom. This was similar to the Keep calm and carry on shopping commanded by George W Bush both after September 11 and when the sub-prime crisis hit America. The wartime use of this rhetoric escalated during the economic turmoil in the UK; witness the slogan of the 2010-15 coalition government, Were all in this together. The power of Keep Calm and Carry On comes from a yearning for an actual or imaginary English patrician attitude of stiff upper lips and muddling through. This is, however, something that largely survives only in the popular imagination, in a country devoted to services and consumption, where elections are decided on the basis of house-price value, and given to sudden, mawkish outpourings of sentiment. The poster isnt just a case of the return of the repressed, it is rather the return of repression itself. It is a nostalgia for the state of being repressed solid, stoic, public spirited, as opposed to the depoliticised, hysterical and privatised reality of Britain over the last 30 years.

At the same time as it evokes a sense of loss over the decline of an idea of Britain and the British, it is both reassuring and flattering, implying a virtuous (if highly self-aware) consumer stoicism. Of course, in the end, it is a bit of a joke: you dont really think your pay cut or your childrens inability to buy a house, or the fact that someone somewhere else has been made homeless because of the bedroom tax, or lost their benefit, or worked on a zero-hours contract, is really comparable to life during the blitz but its all a bit of fun, isnt it?

Unlike many forms of nostalgia, the memory invoked by the Keep Calm and Carry On poster is not based on lived experience.

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster is only the tip of an iceberg of austerity nostalgia. Although early examples of the mood can be seen as a reaction to the threat of terrorism and the allegedly attendant blitz spirit, it has become an increasingly prevalent response to the uncertainties of economic collapse. Interestingly, one of the first areas in which this happened was the consumption of food, an activity closely connected with the immediate satisfaction of desires. Along with the blitz came rationing, which was not fully abolished until the mid-1950s. Accounts of this vary; its egalitarianism meant that while the middle classes experienced a drastic decline in the quality and quantity of their diet, for many of the poor it was a minor improvement. Either way, it was a grim regime, aided by the emergence of various byproducts and substitutes Spam, corned beef which stuck around in the already famously dismal British diet for some time, before mass immigration gradually made eating in Britain a less awful experience. In the process, entire aspects of British cuisine the sort of thing listed by George Orwell in his essay In Defence of English Cooking such as suet dumplings, Lancashire hotpot, Yorkshire pudding, roast dinners, faggots, spotted dick and toad in the hole began to disappear, at least from the metropoles.

The figure of importance here is the Essex-born multimillionaire chef and Winston Churchill fan, Jamie Oliver. Clearly as decent and sincere a person as youll find on the Sunday Times Rich List, his various crusades for good food, and the manner in which he markets them, are inadvertently telling. After his initial fame as a New Labourera star, a relatively young and Beckham-coiffed celebrity chef, his main concern (aside from a massive chain-restaurant empire that stretches from Greenwich Market in London to the Hotel Moskva in Belgrade) has been to take good food locally sourced, cooked from scratch from being a preserve of the middle classes and bring it to the disadvantaged and socially excluded of inner-city London, ex-industrial towns, mining villages and other places slashed and burned by 30-plus years of Thatcherism. The first version of this was the TV series Jamies School Dinners, in which a camera crew documented him trying to influence the school meals choices of a comprehensive in Kidbrooke, a poor, and recently almost totally demolished, district in south-east London. Notoriously, this crusade was nearly thwarted by mothers bringing their kids fizzy drinks and burgers that they pushed through the fences so that they wouldnt have to suffer that healthy eating muck.

Essex-born multimillionaire chef and Winston Churchill fan, Jamie Oliver

The second phase was the book, TV series and chain of shops branded as the Ministry of Food. The name is taken directly from the wartime ministry charged with managing the rationed food economy of war-torn Britain. Using the assistance of a few public bodies, setting up a charity, pouring in some coalfield regeneration money and some cash of his own, Oliver planned to teach the proletariat to make itself real food with real ingredients. One could argue that he was the latest in a long line of people lecturing the lower orders on their choice of nutrition, part of an immense construction of grotesque neo-Victorian snobbery that has included former Channel 4 shows How Clean Is Your House?, Benefits Street and Immigration Street, exercises in Lets laugh at picturesque prole scum. But Oliver got in there, and got his hands dirty.

However, the story ended in a predictable manner: attempts to build this charitable action into something permanent and institutional foundered on the disinclination of any plausible British government to antagonise the supermarkets and sundry manufacturers who funnel money to the two main political parties. The appeal to a time when things such as food and information were apparently dispensed by a benign paternalist bureaucracy, before consumer choice carried all before it, can only be translated into the infrastructure of charity and PR, where we learn what happens over a few weeks during a TV show and then forget about it. A permanent network of Ministry of Food shops pop-ups that taught cooking skills and had a mostly voluntary staff were set up in the north of England in Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle and Rotherham, though the latter was forced to temporarily close following health and safety concerns in June 2013, reopening in September 2014.

Much more influential than this up by your bootstraps attempt to do a TV/charity version of the welfare state was the ministrys aesthetics. On the cover of the tie-in cookbook, Oliver sits at a table laid with a 1940s utility tablecloth in front of some bleakly cute postwar wallpaper, and MINISTRY OF FOOD is declared in that same derivative of Gill Sans typeface used on the Keep Calm and Carry On poster. This is familiar territory. There is a whole micro-industry of austerity nostalgia aimed straight at the stomach. There is Olivers own chain of Jamies restaurants, where you can order pork scratchings for £4 (they come with a side of English mustard) and enjoy neo-Victorian toilets. Beyond Olivers empire, middle-class operations such as the caterers Peyton and Byrne combine the sort of retro food common across the western world (lots of cupcakes) with elaborate versions of simple English grub including sausage and mash. Some of the interiors of their cafes (such as the one in Heals on Tottenham Court Road in central London) were designed by architects FAT in a pop spin on the faintly lavatorial institutional design common to the surviving fragments of genuine 1940s Britain that can still be found scattered around the UK pie and mash shops in Deptford in south-east London, ice-cream parlours in Worthing in Sussex, Glasgows dingier pubs, all featuring lots of wipe-clean tiles.

Make Do And Mend Photograph: Make Do And Mend

Other versions of this are more luxurious, such as Dinner, where Heston Blumenthal provides typically quirky English food as part of the attractions of One Hyde Park, the most expensive housing development on Earth. Something similar is offered at Canteen, which has branches in Londons Royal Festival Hall, Canary Wharf and after its scorched-earth gentrification courtesy of the Corporation of London and Norman Foster Spitalfields Market. Canteen serves Great British Food, beers, ciders and perrys [that] represent our countrys brewing history and cocktails that are British-led. The interior design is clearly part of the appeal, offering a strange, luxurious version of a works canteen, with benches, trays and sans serif signs that aim to be both modernist and nostalgic. It presents the incongruous spectacle of the very comfortable eating and imagining themselves in the dining hall of a branch of Tyrrell & Green circa 1960. Still more bizarre is Albion, a greengrocer for oligarchs, selling traditional English produce to the denizens of Neo Bankside, the Richard Rogers-designed towers alongside Tate Modern. Built into the ground floor of one of the towers, it sells its unpretentious fruit and veg next to posters advertising flats that start at the knock-down price of £2m.

Closer to reality as lived by most people is a mobile app called the Ration Book. On its website, it gives you a crash course on rationing, when the government made sure that in the face of shortage and blockade the population could still get lifes essentials in the form of the famous book, with its stamps to get X amount of dried egg, flour, pollock and Spam. It is an app that aggregates discounts on various brands via voucher codes for those facing the crunch the people the unfortunate Ed Miliband tried to reach out to as the squeezed middle. The website states: Our team of Ministers broker the best deals with the biggest brands, to give you the best value. Is there any better way of describing the UK in the second decade of the 21st century than as the sort of country that produces apps to simulate state rationing of basic goods, simply to shave a little bit off the price of high street brands?

This food-based austerity nostalgia is one way in which peoples peculiar longing for the 1940s is conveyed; much more can be found in music and design. Walk into the shops at the Royal Festival Hall or the Imperial War Museum in London, and you will find an avalanche of it. Posters from the 1940s, toys and trinkets, none of them later than around 1965, have been resurrected from the dustbin of history and laid out for you to buy, along with austerity cookbooks, the Design series of books on pre-1960s iconic graphic artists such as Abram Games, David Gentleman and Eric Ravilious, plus a whole cornucopia of Keep Calm-related accoutrements. A particularly established example is the use of the 1930s Penguin book covers as a logo for all manner of goods, deliberately calling to mind Penguins mid-century role as a substantially educative publisher. Then there are all those prints of modernist buildings, ready for Londoners to frame and place in their ex-council flats in zone 2 or 3: reduced, stark blow-ups of the outlines of modernist architecture, whether demolished (the Trinity Square car park in Gateshead seen in Get Carter) or protected (Londons National Theatre). The plate-making company, People Will Always Need Plates, has made a name for itself with its towels, mugs, plates and badges emblazoned with various British modernist buildings from the 1930s to the 1960s, elegantly redrawn in a bold, schematic form that sidesteps the often rather shabby reality of the buildings. By recreating the image of the historically untainted building, it manages to precisely reverse the original modernist ethos. If for Adolf Loos and generations of modernist architects ornament was crime, here modernist buildings are made into ornaments. Still, the choice of buildings is politically interesting. Blocks of 1930s collective housing, 1960s council flats, interwar London Underground stations exactly the sort of architectural projects now considered obsolete in favour of retail and property speculation.

Many of the buildings immortalised in these plates have been the subject of direct transfers of assets from the public sector into the private. The reclamation of postwar modernist architecture by the intelligentsia has been a contributory factor in the privatisation of social housing. An early instance of this was the sell-off of Keeling House, Denys Lasduns east London Cluster Block, to a private developer, who promptly marketed the flats to creatives. A series of gentrifications of modernist social housing followed, from the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury (turned from a rotting brutalist megastructure into the home of one of the largest branches of Waitrose in London), to Park Hill, an architecturally extraordinary council estate in Sheffield, given away free to the Mancunian developer Urban Splash, whose own favouring of compact flats has long been an example of austerity sold as luxury although after the boom, its privatisation scheme had to be bailed out by millions of pounds in public money. Another favourite on mugs and tea towels is Balfron Tower, a council tower block about to be sold to wealthy investors for its iconic quality. It is here, where the rage for 21st-century austerity chic meets the results of austerity as practised in the 1940s and 1950s, that a mildly creepy fad spills over into much darker territory. In aiding the sell-off of one of the greatest achievements of that era the housing built by a universal welfare state the revival of austerity chic is the literal destruction of the thing it claims to love.

The Ministry of Nostalgia by Owen Hatherley is published by Verso (£14.99). To order a copy for £11.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.

[symbianosgames]

Games Have Too Many Words: A Case Study.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

In this chapter, I unwisely critique the work of my betters.

I recently wrote an article about how video games have too many words. We designers don't properly edit our writing to make sure our words are worth a player’s time reading them.

I want to do a case study where I go through a wordy game, step-by-step, and show what it's doing right and wrong and how it could be doing better. Most game criticism frustrates me. It tends to deal with generalities and floaty ideas, instead of dirtying its hands with specifics that could actually help make for better games. This is my chance to egotistically provide a different approach.

This breakdown will be long and gritty, but I'll try to include a lot of solid pointers. I'll throw in some jokes along the way.

The Subject

Let's look at the very beginning of Pillars of Eternity, developed by Obsidian and released in 2015. This game was a huge hit, critically and financially, taking advantage of a shortage of quality Baldur's Gate-style, gritty, isometric-view, story-heavy titles.

I really wanted a game like that, so I bought it. I finished it in a little over 20 hours. The combat was fine, though really chaotic and hard to follow. (The best description I read was "clusterf***y".) The story was OK, but the game is loaded with words, many of them written by Kickstarter backers. I ended up getting through all the conversations in the back third of the game by typing the '1' key as fast as I could.

I did play Pillars until the end, which is rare for me. Overall, it was pretty good. It made a lot of money, and the crowdfunding for the sequel is doing quite well.

I don't usually like being negative about the work of other sincere, industrious creators. Luckily this game got enough cash and acclaim that its creators can comfortably ignore the nattering of a non-entity like me.

This is how I picture the devs of Pillars of Eternity. They walk everywhere with big clip art watermarks floating over their chests.

"So What's Your Complaint?"

Too many words.

Pillars of Eternity wants to have a really elaborate world and story, which is fine. It wants to have a creative game system, with new, innovative sorts of character classes and spells, which is great.

However, it doesn't do a good job of communicating stuff to the player, because there's no editing and care in giving out information. The game just floods the player with text, important bits buried in gushes of irrelevant detail, practically training the player to think that the words aren't really important. (Again, I played a huge chunk of the game without reading anything but the quest log.)

To illustrate this, I'm going to go, step by step, through the introduction and character creation, the stuff anyone who tries the game is sure to see. Let's see what the game thinks is worth the player's time and how good a job it does splitting up vital knowledge from static.

"So What? You're Just Scared of Words, You Sub-Literate?"

No, I have a problem with the pacing. The human brain can only absorb so many random facts about game systems and lore at one sitting. This stuff needs to be carefully paced out, or it'll just slide off of the brain.

But character creation in this game floods the player with tons of facts, both about the game and the world. I came out of it feeling numb and confused, and almost none of it stuck.

So. You start the game. You pick your difficulty. And then you begin the eleven (!!!) steps of character creation.

I. Introduction.

A pretty graphic and some basic text saying what is going on (you're on a caravan going to some fantasy town, you feel sick), read by an old guy. About 140 words. It's fine.

II. Pick Your Sex

And now the troubles begin. You need to choose whether you are male or female. Here's a description:

Describing the sexes is about 160 words total. But look, it mentions a bunch of different countries. Let's mouse over one of them and see what their deal is.

Yikes! That's a lot of words. All the descriptions together are about 330 words, much of it references to random game locations the player has no knowledge of. "Ein Glanfath" "Dyrwood" "Glanfathan" "Ixamitl" "Naasitaq" How can anyone get anything coherent from this tangle? This is literally the second thing the game shows you.

Seriously, try this: Read the description of "Eir Glanfath" above. Then close your eyes and count to ten. Then say everything you recall about Eir Glanfath. I'll bet you retained very little. And that's setting aside whether this stuff is actually necessary to play the game. (Not really.)

And, worse, it's all irrelevant to the actual choice the player has to make, because the vast majority of players will know whether they want to play a man or a woman before they even launch the game. If a woman only ever plays female characters, telling her, "The men of the Derpaderp Tribe of Sirius XII are in charge of all of their basket-weaving!" isn't going to turn her head around.

My Friendly Suggestion - Go through all these random facts and see if there are one or two of them the player MUST know. Pluck them out and put them in the Introduction. Cram the rest of the lore in books the player finds in the game world. Then make Male/Female be a toggle in the next screen.

III. Pick Your Race

OK, we're into solid fantasy RPG territory now. Here are six races to choose from:

You've never heard of three of the races. This is good. Pillars's desire to create new, weird things is one of its good points. Each race has about fifty words of description:

Now, this is a description of a "dwarf." But, if you have even the slightest familiarity with fantasy, you know what we're talking about here: Standard-issue, Tolkein dwarves. Short. Stocky. Like digging holes, gold, and ale. Grumpy. Scottish accents. We get it. All you need to say here is, "Strong, durable, great warriors."

For each of the races, the description mainly says the lands they live in. Let's be clear. This is useless information. If I tell you dwarves come from New Jersey, whether or not you've heard of New Jersey, this tells you nothing about whether you want to be a dwarf in your adolescent power fantasy.

It's a total cliche to say, "Show, Don't Tell," but this is a PERFECT example of why this is a key concept in writing. If I say, "Dwarves come from New Jersey," and you've never even heard of New Jersey (or dwarves), you won't care. But if you go to New Jersey, look around, and see nothing but dwarves, you'll instantly be all, "Oh, I get it! I'm in Dwarfland!"

But it gets trickier. This is the first choice you make that has actual impact on the gameplay. There are six statistics in the game, and your race affects what you start with. Each statistic description is 50 more words. Let's take a look at one:

What "Might" means is important information. The player needs this. This text needs to be punchy and clear. Something like, "Improves damage from all attacks. Gives a bonus when healing. Helps intimidate people in conversation."

And this description does that, but messily and with lots of extra words. Pillars tries to do a lot of things differently from other RPGs, so it needs to be extra-clear about the surprising stuff. Having the strength skill also improve spells and healing is neat, but it's also really unusual. ("Dwarves are better wizards? Wut!?")

My Friendly Suggestion - Editing pass. Shorter and clearer. Ask, "Why does the player need to know this?" If you don't have a good answer, save this lore for much later.

IV. Pick your Sub-Race

This is where the seriously over-designed quality of Pillars starts to show up. Picking a race isn't enough. You have to pick your sub-race:

So about 160 words (not counting rollover text), to learn about the woods dwarves and the mountain dwarves:

None of this lore has anything to do with the actual game.

What bugs me here is that this choice has gameplay significance. One choice gives you resistance to Poison and Disease (though you have no idea how serious these conditions are or how often they appear in the game), and one gives you a bonus against "Wilder" and "Primordial" creatures (though you have no idea what on Earth those are, let alone how often they show up in the game).

Giving a player seemingly high-impact decisions with no ability to tell which one is correct is stressful and confusing.

My Friendly Suggestion - Ditch sub-races. Instead, give Dwarves BOTH of these bonuses. This creates more distinction between the races and getting multiple bonuses helps the player feel more powerful instead of confused and stressed.

"Cutting Out Lore? What Is Your Problem With Lore In Games, You Jerk?"

Lore in games is great, as long is it's not thrown at the player too quickly and without any gameplay context that makes it mean something.

If you love lore, I want you to get lore, but in a way that spares the people who find huge dumps of it grueling. There are ways to make everyone happy!

Anyway, let's keep going. There's a LOT more screens to go.

V. Pick Your Class

Hokay! At last, this is the big one! This makes a huge difference in your play experience. Here are your eleven choices:

One of the coolest things about Pillars is that they tried to make some weird classes unlike anything in other games. The cost of creativity, however, is that you have to be extra-careful when explaining to the player the weird stuff they've never seen before.

When I started the game, my eyes were instantly drawn to "Cipher". That sounds neat! And here is the description ...

Yikes.

The main description of the class is four long sentences, but only the second sentence actually says much about what the class does. Then a very vague description of the powers, which involve something vitally important called a "Soul Whip," with no explanation of what that actually is. Then a bunch of algebra.

That's about 120 words, for one class. You have to go through all of it to get a vague idea of how the class plays. The other ten class descriptions are comparably complex.

This is just too much stuff to muck through, too early, for a choice so important to the play experience. Bear in mind that we are still less than halfway to actually playing a game.

My Friendly Suggestion - For each class, only show the stat bonuses and two or three carefully written sentences describing what it's like. Move all the weird lore and mathematical formulae to a different tab that can be opened by those who care. When the player starts using the class in the game, bring up some tutorial windows saying the key details of how to actually use it, like what a "Soul Whip" is.

VI. Pick Your Class Details.

If you're a priest, you have to pick your god. If you're a caster, you have to select a spell or two from the starting list. For the Cipher, the list looks like this ...

The spell descriptions look like this ...

Again, a ton of reading, referring to statistics, distances, statuses, damage amounts, damage types, etc. that mean nothing because you've never actually played the game.

My Friendly Suggestion - Lose this screen entirely. Pick one basic, useful ability (the best one) and give it to the character automatically to get through the tutorial. Then, after the first bunch of fights, have the player meet a trainer and be able to choose new abilities in an informed way.

VII. Edit Your Character Attributes.

Figure out how many points of Strength, Constitution, etc. you have. The game, to its credit, says which ones are most important for your class. Standard RPG fare.

VIII. Pick Your Culture

IF YOU'RE JUST SPEED-SCROLLING THROUGH THIS ARTICLE, STOP HERE AND READ THIS!!!!

Yeah, I know you aren't reading all of this. This post is wayyyyy too long and gritty and nit-picky and tedious. But reading this article takes much less time than actually picking through all of these windows in the game. Which is too long. That is my main point. Now scroll to the end and call me an idiot in comments.

Anyway, yeah, pick some country you're from ...

Each of the 7 contures has about 70 words of description.

None of this has anything to do with playing the game.

This is the most unnecessary step in the whole process. When making an RPG character, you need to build two things: Its stats/abilities and its personality.

Knowing your character is from "The White that Wends" tells you nothing about its abilities, and it's a lousy way to determine his or her personality. If you read the description of "The White that Wends," and learn that people from there are mean and selfish, that's still not the way you want to player to create a mean, selfish character. You do that by giving play options in the game that are mean and selfish and letting the player pick them. Show, don't tell.

My Friendly Suggestion - Lose it entirely.

IX. Pick Your Background.

Choose from one of nine backgrounds.

The main thing this affects is that, every once in a while, it will open up a new dialogue option. This never makes a big difference.

My Friendly Suggestion - There's a real lost opportunity here. Once again, "Show, Don't Tell." Instead of having me declare that my character is a Slave or Aristocrat or whatever, why not, once you’re in the game, make every conversation option for all of these different nine backgrounds available to me when the game starts.

Then, if I keep making the "Aristocrat" pick, start removing the other options, so that I end up always talking like an Aristocrat. Then my character's personality emerges organically from the sort of dialogue choices I make in the actual game.

X. Choose Appearance and Voice.

Standard appearance editor and list of different voices. It's fine.

XI. Choose Your Name.

Gladly.

XII. The Game.

And, finally, the games starts with the tutorial. Which begins with a long conversation. Which I barely pay attention to, because my stupid brain is tired.

It's all way too much. Too many words, too many irrelevant choices, exhausting when it should be informative. Not that they will listen to me, but it might be an improvement to look for in Pillars of Eternity 2, because the market is not what it was in 2015.

"But Who Cares? The Game Was a Hit, Right?"

The real test of how good a game it is, is not how it sells, but how much its sequel sells. And it is entirely fair to ask what business a pissant like me has criticizing a hit game written by a bunch of big names.

Let's leave behind the idea of craftsmanship and a desire to always keep improving our work.

Lately, sequels to hit RPGs have been selling far worse than their predecessors. Obsidian's successor to Pillars, Tyranny, by their own words, underperformed.

Also, I looked at the Steam achievement statistics for Pillars of Eternity. According to those, fewer than half of players finished the first chapter. Only about 10% of players completed the game.

Now granted, this is not unusual. Most games remain unfinished. But that still invites this question: If the vast majority of players didn't want to experience the Pillars of Eternity they already paid for, why think that they will want to buy more?

Everyone should keep improving, if just for their survival in this mercilessly competitive business.

Video games are a new art form, and there is still so much we have to figure out. That's the terrifying and awesome thing about making them. And now, having already written way too many words, I will take my own advice and cease.

###

The author sells his own flawed, wordy, old-school RPGs at Spiderweb Software. He opines on Twitter.

[vitalmindandbody]

How to get through chemotherapy: Decca Aitkenhead on cancer treatment

Before it happened to me, I never truly understood how terrible chemotherapy could be: no description can do it justice. But there are ways to ease its horrors that feature in none of the official advice, and I want everyone to know about them

If you were born after 1960, the odds that you will get cancer in your lifetime are now one in two. It is an extraordinary statistic. Even if you turn out to be one of the lucky ones, half of the people around your kitchen table this morning will at some point sit in a doctors surgery and be given the news that they have cancer. If the numbers continue in the same relentless direction, before long, it will be most of them.

Not all will have chemotherapy. The fortunate ones can be cured in other ways, while the truly unfortunate will have cancers chemo cannot treat. I met one of those unluckiest of souls only the other day. It hadnt occurred to me until then to feel very grateful for having been eligible for what was, without a doubt, the most unpleasant medical ordeal of my life.

Unpleasant is a word you hear a lot when people talk about chemo. It drove me to distraction when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer last summer, and was told I would undergo four months of chemotherapy. Like everyone else plunged into this frightening new world, I wanted to know what would happen. What would it be like?

Well, its doable, I read time and again, as I scanned online cancer forums for answers. Unpleasant but doable. It was maddening. Waiting to begin chemo is like being on medical death row; you know your body is about be attacked, but how it will feel is a sinister mystery, and unknowable dread only makes the waiting worse.

There is a reason for this inarticulacy. Human beings have had no historical need to evolve language applicable to the sensation of being systematically poisoned. Such a vocabulary has never before been necessary, so it does not exist. Chemotherapy patients are therefore obliged to deploy a limited repertoire of familiar but hopelessly inadequate substitutes; words that can only approximate to the experience, but fail to convey anything of its true essence. So we say that we are tired, and feel weak; that we have no energy, or feel somehow unrecognisably unlike ourselves. What we really mean and this doesnt capture it either, but its the best I can do is that we feel dead without having actually died. Chemotherapy strips away every last ounce of vitality or volition, until you are left only with the outward appearance of a living person. But you are a hollow husk, empty of all the essential constituents that make a person alive. It is a cruel irony that a drug designed to stop you dying makes you feel as if you have.

One of the many side-effects of chemotherapy of which Id been hitherto unaware is what it does to your brain. The medical profession was reluctant for many years to acknowledge a condition oncologists now call, with inelegant if commendable candour, chemo brain and like every other side-effect, it does not afflict everyone. But having witnessed the steady erosion of my own critical faculties, to the point where my IQ had sunk to marginally lower than my cats, I can testify that chemo makes some patients very, very stupid.

It is partly because of that that I hesitated to write this. A cancer diagnosis pitches you into a disorientating fog of confusing, alarming and often contradictory advice, which would be hard enough to navigate at the best of times. Trying to work out whats loopy and what might save your life or at least your sanity when you cant even follow the Jeremy Kyle Show can be profoundly frightening. Everyone is, of course, only trying to help, but when the stakes are so high and you cant think straight, the cacophony of advice is often counter-productive. I am reluctant to add to it.

Nevertheless, it is also the case that before I began chemotherapy I stumbled, quite by chance, upon two pieces of advice so invaluable that without them I do not like to think how I would have got through it. What is mystifying is why neither featured in a single NHS leaflet or cancer website I read. One is not cheap, and the other not easy, but both were more than worth it. I picked up some other tips along the way, which also feel worth sharing. So when anyone now asks me what advice I would offer to someone preparing for chemo, this is what I say.

Fake hair, real help

When I was first told I would have chemo, all I could think about was my hair. I would be having a double mastectomy, but losing my breasts didnt frighten me anything like as much as losing my hair. I remember feeling embarrassed and surprised by my sense of priorities. But you do not need to spend long in oncology waiting rooms to discover that the chief preoccupation of many, if not most, patients is the horror of going bald.

Some varieties of chemo dont make your hair fall out. Unfortunately, the kind I needed did. There are patients who manage to retain some hair by wearing a helmet of ice called a cold cap during every infusion but this is excruciatingly arduous, often doesnt work, and even when it does, will probably leave you with patchy wisps. I briefly considered the headscarf/turban alternative, but the futility of the artifice felt tragic. You might as well stick a sign on your head that says: LOOK! IVE GOT CANCER. A wig therefore seemed the only tenable solution but even the most ingeniously convincing one would still have to come off every night. I did not want to have to see myself bald and I wouldnt be the only one that had to. My sons were only five and four, and I knew they would hate it.

Decca Aitkenhead wearing her hair replacement system. Photograph: Shakira Kleiner

When an oncology nurse handed me a leaflet for Jennifer Effies Hair Solutions, offering an option I had never heard of, I thought it sounded too good to be true. (Other providers, I should say, are available.) If it really existed, how come no one else had mentioned it? The leaflet claimed I could have replacement hair glued to my head, which I would sleep in, wash and blow dry as normal, even wear in a pony tail, exactly as if it were my own. I read it doubtfully, in the waiting room of a private clinic. I was only there for a one-off consultation in search of a second opinion, and suspected this magical fake hair was probably a Harley Street racket to rip off the gullible rich.

But I couldnt help wondering what if it actually worked? Two days later I went to see Jennifer. A warm, smiley south Londoner, she seemed more like a therapist or nurse than a Mayfair hair stylist, and certainly nothing like a con artist. She had made it her lifes work to help women who had lost their hair, she said, by providing not wigs, they are not wigs. They are hair-replacement systems. For Jennifer it didnt sound like a business so much as a vocation, and the intent tenderness of her compassion quite disarmed me. She took three separate strands from my head, which would be sent to Russia, where human hair matching the different shades of blonde would be purchased. Then she wrapped Sellotape around my head to make a mould for a lace cap, on to which each individual strand would be hand stitched. The roots would then be coloured darker to make the hair look highlighted, like mine. As soon as my own hair began to fall out, I was to come in, and Jennifer would shave it off and glue on the hair replacement system using a special adhesive. My own hairdresser would cut and style it as normal, and no one would ever guess it wasnt mine.

The curious thing about losing ones hair is that even though you know it is going to fall out, the first clump to come away in your hand is a horrifying shock. I stared at it, in disbelief, and wept. To be so stunned made no sense at all, but is, I have subsequently learned, what almost everyone feels. I got on the train that afternoon, and went to see Jennifer to have my system applied.

To care so much about ones hair when you have cancer might seem like vanity, but really it is just a longing for normality. And the hair-replacement system made me normal. Jennifer was right no one could tell. After a month or so I told my children it wasnt my hair, and they were incredulous. A close friend I saw most days had no idea for months, until I happened to mention it. My oncologist even congratulated me for braving the cold cap, and marvelled at its success until I explained. The only difference between my hair and the system was that the fake hair, as my sons called it, looked considerably better.

It had to be removed and washed every three or four weeks, and occasionally repaired with replacement strands. These visits to Jennifer were if this is not too peculiar a word in such a context the highlight of my chemotherapy experience. The Macmillan Cancer Centre at University College Hospital in London, where I was treated, is an NHS flagship of oncology, and all the staff there work heroically and tirelessly. But they do so under impossibly overstretched conditions that make the kind of emotional support they long to give out of the question. I found it in Jennifers salon instead.

The system cost around 1,600, which will be prohibitively expensive for some. I wish everyone could get it: it bought me something I couldnt put a price on. I always made sure to face the salon wall, never the mirror, while Jennifer removed and worked on the system. I must therefore be one of the few chemotherapy patients to have lost all her hair and never once seen herself bald. That is a mercy for which I will be eternally grateful.

I discovered how it would feel to have others see me when I had the system removed before I underwent surgery. All week in hospital, I took care not to look in a mirror. But as soon as I stepped on to the street wearing a cancer bandana, strangers registered my baldness beneath it and stared with faintly repulsed pity, or quickly edged away. It was rush hour on the train home, and standing room only, but no one took the empty seat beside me. The relief to have the system re-applied after a week was indescribable.

Fasting to feel better

After nine months of cancer treatment, I still have not met one patient or medic who had heard of a hair-replacement system. Why my second piece of advice is not common knowledge either seems, if anything, even more surprising. I would never have come across it had a good friend not suffered from a chronic auto-immune condition, which the NHS treated with a drug for 20 years before deciding it could no longer afford it. An urgent search for alternative treatment strategies led my friend to an American-based Italian professor of gerontology called Dr Valter Longo, who specialises in the medical benefits of fasting. Astonished by his findings, she began to experiment with fasting for herself, and very soon felt better than she had for 20 years. Had I not witnessed this with my own eyes, I might not have paid attention when she told me to read Longos research into the benefits of fasting for chemotherapy patients.

The findings were certainly arresting. They fall into two categories. His early studies conducted on mice found that periods of severe fasting significantly increased the efficacy of chemotherapy. For example, among mice with a highly aggressive type of cancer, 20% of those in which the cancer had fully spread, and 40% with a more limited spread, were completely cured after fasting in conjunction with chemotherapy. In neither case did a single mouse treated with chemotherapy alone survive.

Further studies are ongoing, and human trials are under way. As I am completely unqualified to take a view, it would be absurd of me to wade into the scientific debate. But if I cant give a clinical recommendation, I can at least report my own experience regarding Longos second claim. His trials on humans found that fasting dramatically reduced the side effects of chemotherapy. Starvation conditions, I read, protected the bodys normal cells but not cancer cells from the toxicity. Again, further trials are under way in the US, but when I consulted oncologists at UCH, only one had heard about it. The evidence does look very interesting, she agreed. Until we can be sure it actually works, though, I dont want to tell patients to starve themselves on top of everything else theyre having to endure. But if you want to give it a go, go ahead.

The process Longo recommended sounded daunting, but fairly straightforward; you eat nothing for 72 hours prior to chemo, and for 24 hours afterwards. It doesnt have to be quite that brutal; small quantities of miso soup or steamed green vegetables are permissible. But I suspected that being tantalised by morsels of sustenance might make it harder, so opted for the nothing-but-water approach. I decided to try the first round of chemo without fasting, to find out how bad it would be, and then follow his advice for the second to see if it made any difference. If the whole business turned out to be utter quackery, at worst, all it meant was that I would have spent a few days feeling pointlessly hungry.

Had round one turned out not to be too bad, I probably wouldnt have tried fasting for the second. And for 24 hours following the first infusion, I wondered what all the fuss was about. If anything, I felt a bit of a fraud. There I was in the spare room of a friend, who had packed her family off for the weekend in order to look after me, and I was in no worse shape than she was. On day two, I suggested she might as well go to the gym, while I went for a walk.

Its a good job I followed a bus route. Twenty minutes later I hobbled back on a No 9, and it was a week before I emerged from her spare room to face the world again. What began as a recognisable sensation, like a very bad hangover, soon had me staring lifelessly at the ceiling, slack-jawed and vegetative, wondering how I would ever make it to the bathroom, which was less than six feet from the bed. This made the decision to try eating nothing for 96 hours the next time very easy.

People who fast regularly always say it gets easier after the first 24 hours. Id always assumed they were lying, but it turns out to be true. By the afternoon of day two I began to feel slightly light-headed, but was no longer hungry. The much-fabled starvation high kicked in on day three, and although by day four I was getting excited about the prospect of eating again, if Id had to go another day I would have felt surprisingly sanguine.

By then I was back in my friends spare room, braced for the toxic onslaught. I had come prepared with audio books this time, and went to bed that night assuming it would be days before I left the house again. I waited. And waited. And nothing happened. It was like lying down on the tracks for a train that never came. Eventually I got up, went out shopping, bought some trainers, and caught the train home.

What fasting could not do was spare me the cumulative devastation of chemo. Week by week, as the cycles wore on, I found myself sinking helplessly into a torpor of inertia. Each round stole more of my soul, until by the end and for months afterwards all I could do was watch Jeremy Kyle. But to have been spared the toxic intensity of the immediate aftermath of each round was miraculous, and going without food a tiny price to pay for such an astonishing dividend. I wasnt even tempted to eat. Friends assumed it must have been hellishly hard to live on water for four days, but nothing could have induced me to break each fast. To feel merely dead, as opposed to hideously ill and dead, felt like a lottery win.

Horsepower and tattoos

When chemotherapy ends, it takes at least a month before most patients even begin to feel better, and many more before you feel anything like your old self. There are, however, things you can do to hurry up the return of your old appearance.

Hair usually begins to grow back after about six weeks, but the process is painfully slow. If you want to accelerate it, my advice would be to ignore the ruinously expensive shampoos a Google search will recommend, and buy a brand called ManenTail. As the name suggests, it is actually designed for horses, but it is perfectly safe for human use, and the only product I have found that dramatically increases the pace and quality of regrowth.

For some reason, eyelashes and eyebrows grow back even more slowly. The eyebrow problem can be solved by taking pre-emptive action before they fall out, and having them tattooed. The process is surprisingly painless, and remarkably convincing; like the hair-replacement system, tattooed eyebrows were a happy improvement on my own. One important word of advice: do not wait until yours have fallen out before having them done. The tattooist wont know where your eyebrows normally lie, so you run the risk of ending up with two sets when yours grow back.

To speed up the return of eyelashes, the only product I would recommend is something called Revitalash, which you paint on to the rims of your eyelids once a day, and works. When your eyelashes are a few millimetres long, it is tempting to consider having semi-permanent extensions applied, but this is a bad idea. When they fall out they are in danger of taking your own with them, leaving you back to square one. A safer option are fibre eyelash extensions, made by a company called Cherry Blooms. The application process is just like mascara, if a trifle fiddlier, takes only two minutes, and transforms stumps into normal-looking lashes.

To any reader lucky enough to have never had cancer, none of this advice may sound terribly important. It was only when I got cancer myself that I realised how little I had understood of what friends whod had chemo had been through. When it isnt your own body that has to endure the agonies and indignities, all that really seems to matter is keeping it alive. When it is your own body, you discover how much more there is to care about.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post How to get through chemotherapy: Decca Aitkenhead on cancer treatment appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

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Games Have Too Many Words: A Case Study.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

In this chapter, I unwisely critique the work of my betters.

I recently wrote an article about how video games have too many words. We designers don't properly edit our writing to make sure our words are worth a player’s time reading them.

I want to do a case study where I go through a wordy game, step-by-step, and show what it's doing right and wrong and how it could be doing better. Most game criticism frustrates me. It tends to deal with generalities and floaty ideas, instead of dirtying its hands with specifics that could actually help make for better games. This is my chance to egotistically provide a different approach.

This breakdown will be long and gritty, but I'll try to include a lot of solid pointers. I'll throw in some jokes along the way.

The Subject

Let's look at the very beginning of Pillars of Eternity, developed by Obsidian and released in 2015. This game was a huge hit, critically and financially, taking advantage of a shortage of quality Baldur's Gate-style, gritty, isometric-view, story-heavy titles.

I really wanted a game like that, so I bought it. I finished it in a little over 20 hours. The combat was fine, though really chaotic and hard to follow. (The best description I read was "clusterf***y".) The story was OK, but the game is loaded with words, many of them written by Kickstarter backers. I ended up getting through all the conversations in the back third of the game by typing the '1' key as fast as I could.

I did play Pillars until the end, which is rare for me. Overall, it was pretty good. It made a lot of money, and the crowdfunding for the sequel is doing quite well.

I don't usually like being negative about the work of other sincere, industrious creators. Luckily this game got enough cash and acclaim that its creators can comfortably ignore the nattering of a non-entity like me.

This is how I picture the devs of Pillars of Eternity. They walk everywhere with big clip art watermarks floating over their chests.

"So What's Your Complaint?"

Too many words.

Pillars of Eternity wants to have a really elaborate world and story, which is fine. It wants to have a creative game system, with new, innovative sorts of character classes and spells, which is great.

However, it doesn't do a good job of communicating stuff to the player, because there's no editing and care in giving out information. The game just floods the player with text, important bits buried in gushes of irrelevant detail, practically training the player to think that the words aren't really important. (Again, I played a huge chunk of the game without reading anything but the quest log.)

To illustrate this, I'm going to go, step by step, through the introduction and character creation, the stuff anyone who tries the game is sure to see. Let's see what the game thinks is worth the player's time and how good a job it does splitting up vital knowledge from static.

"So What? You're Just Scared of Words, You Sub-Literate?"

No, I have a problem with the pacing. The human brain can only absorb so many random facts about game systems and lore at one sitting. This stuff needs to be carefully paced out, or it'll just slide off of the brain.

But character creation in this game floods the player with tons of facts, both about the game and the world. I came out of it feeling numb and confused, and almost none of it stuck.

So. You start the game. You pick your difficulty. And then you begin the eleven (!!!) steps of character creation.

I. Introduction.

A pretty graphic and some basic text saying what is going on (you're on a caravan going to some fantasy town, you feel sick), read by an old guy. About 140 words. It's fine.

II. Pick Your Sex

And now the troubles begin. You need to choose whether you are male or female. Here's a description:

Describing the sexes is about 160 words total. But look, it mentions a bunch of different countries. Let's mouse over one of them and see what their deal is.

Yikes! That's a lot of words. All the descriptions together are about 330 words, much of it references to random game locations the player has no knowledge of. "Ein Glanfath" "Dyrwood" "Glanfathan" "Ixamitl" "Naasitaq" How can anyone get anything coherent from this tangle? This is literally the second thing the game shows you.

Seriously, try this: Read the description of "Eir Glanfath" above. Then close your eyes and count to ten. Then say everything you recall about Eir Glanfath. I'll bet you retained very little. And that's setting aside whether this stuff is actually necessary to play the game. (Not really.)

And, worse, it's all irrelevant to the actual choice the player has to make, because the vast majority of players will know whether they want to play a man or a woman before they even launch the game. If a woman only ever plays female characters, telling her, "The men of the Derpaderp Tribe of Sirius XII are in charge of all of their basket-weaving!" isn't going to turn her head around.

My Friendly Suggestion - Go through all these random facts and see if there are one or two of them the player MUST know. Pluck them out and put them in the Introduction. Cram the rest of the lore in books the player finds in the game world. Then make Male/Female be a toggle in the next screen.

III. Pick Your Race

OK, we're into solid fantasy RPG territory now. Here are six races to choose from:

You've never heard of three of the races. This is good. Pillars's desire to create new, weird things is one of its good points. Each race has about fifty words of description:

Now, this is a description of a "dwarf." But, if you have even the slightest familiarity with fantasy, you know what we're talking about here: Standard-issue, Tolkein dwarves. Short. Stocky. Like digging holes, gold, and ale. Grumpy. Scottish accents. We get it. All you need to say here is, "Strong, durable, great warriors."

For each of the races, the description mainly says the lands they live in. Let's be clear. This is useless information. If I tell you dwarves come from New Jersey, whether or not you've heard of New Jersey, this tells you nothing about whether you want to be a dwarf in your adolescent power fantasy.

It's a total cliche to say, "Show, Don't Tell," but this is a PERFECT example of why this is a key concept in writing. If I say, "Dwarves come from New Jersey," and you've never even heard of New Jersey (or dwarves), you won't care. But if you go to New Jersey, look around, and see nothing but dwarves, you'll instantly be all, "Oh, I get it! I'm in Dwarfland!"

But it gets trickier. This is the first choice you make that has actual impact on the gameplay. There are six statistics in the game, and your race affects what you start with. Each statistic description is 50 more words. Let's take a look at one:

What "Might" means is important information. The player needs this. This text needs to be punchy and clear. Something like, "Improves damage from all attacks. Gives a bonus when healing. Helps intimidate people in conversation."

And this description does that, but messily and with lots of extra words. Pillars tries to do a lot of things differently from other RPGs, so it needs to be extra-clear about the surprising stuff. Having the strength skill also improve spells and healing is neat, but it's also really unusual. ("Dwarves are better wizards? Wut!?")

My Friendly Suggestion - Editing pass. Shorter and clearer. Ask, "Why does the player need to know this?" If you don't have a good answer, save this lore for much later.

IV. Pick your Sub-Race

This is where the seriously over-designed quality of Pillars starts to show up. Picking a race isn't enough. You have to pick your sub-race:

So about 160 words (not counting rollover text), to learn about the woods dwarves and the mountain dwarves:

None of this lore has anything to do with the actual game.

What bugs me here is that this choice has gameplay significance. One choice gives you resistance to Poison and Disease (though you have no idea how serious these conditions are or how often they appear in the game), and one gives you a bonus against "Wilder" and "Primordial" creatures (though you have no idea what on Earth those are, let alone how often they show up in the game).

Giving a player seemingly high-impact decisions with no ability to tell which one is correct is stressful and confusing.

My Friendly Suggestion - Ditch sub-races. Instead, give Dwarves BOTH of these bonuses. This creates more distinction between the races and getting multiple bonuses helps the player feel more powerful instead of confused and stressed.

"Cutting Out Lore? What Is Your Problem With Lore In Games, You Jerk?"

Lore in games is great, as long is it's not thrown at the player too quickly and without any gameplay context that makes it mean something.

If you love lore, I want you to get lore, but in a way that spares the people who find huge dumps of it grueling. There are ways to make everyone happy!

Anyway, let's keep going. There's a LOT more screens to go.

V. Pick Your Class

Hokay! At last, this is the big one! This makes a huge difference in your play experience. Here are your eleven choices:

One of the coolest things about Pillars is that they tried to make some weird classes unlike anything in other games. The cost of creativity, however, is that you have to be extra-careful when explaining to the player the weird stuff they've never seen before.

When I started the game, my eyes were instantly drawn to "Cipher". That sounds neat! And here is the description ...

Yikes.

The main description of the class is four long sentences, but only the second sentence actually says much about what the class does. Then a very vague description of the powers, which involve something vitally important called a "Soul Whip," with no explanation of what that actually is. Then a bunch of algebra.

That's about 120 words, for one class. You have to go through all of it to get a vague idea of how the class plays. The other ten class descriptions are comparably complex.

This is just too much stuff to muck through, too early, for a choice so important to the play experience. Bear in mind that we are still less than halfway to actually playing a game.

My Friendly Suggestion - For each class, only show the stat bonuses and two or three carefully written sentences describing what it's like. Move all the weird lore and mathematical formulae to a different tab that can be opened by those who care. When the player starts using the class in the game, bring up some tutorial windows saying the key details of how to actually use it, like what a "Soul Whip" is.

VI. Pick Your Class Details.

If you're a priest, you have to pick your god. If you're a caster, you have to select a spell or two from the starting list. For the Cipher, the list looks like this ...

The spell descriptions look like this ...

Again, a ton of reading, referring to statistics, distances, statuses, damage amounts, damage types, etc. that mean nothing because you've never actually played the game.

My Friendly Suggestion - Lose this screen entirely. Pick one basic, useful ability (the best one) and give it to the character automatically to get through the tutorial. Then, after the first bunch of fights, have the player meet a trainer and be able to choose new abilities in an informed way.

VII. Edit Your Character Attributes.

Figure out how many points of Strength, Constitution, etc. you have. The game, to its credit, says which ones are most important for your class. Standard RPG fare.

VIII. Pick Your Culture

IF YOU'RE JUST SPEED-SCROLLING THROUGH THIS ARTICLE, STOP HERE AND READ THIS!!!!

Yeah, I know you aren't reading all of this. This post is wayyyyy too long and gritty and nit-picky and tedious. But reading this article takes much less time than actually picking through all of these windows in the game. Which is too long. That is my main point. Now scroll to the end and call me an idiot in comments.

Anyway, yeah, pick some country you're from ...

Each of the 7 contures has about 70 words of description.

None of this has anything to do with playing the game.

This is the most unnecessary step in the whole process. When making an RPG character, you need to build two things: Its stats/abilities and its personality.

Knowing your character is from "The White that Wends" tells you nothing about its abilities, and it's a lousy way to determine his or her personality. If you read the description of "The White that Wends," and learn that people from there are mean and selfish, that's still not the way you want to player to create a mean, selfish character. You do that by giving play options in the game that are mean and selfish and letting the player pick them. Show, don't tell.

My Friendly Suggestion - Lose it entirely.

IX. Pick Your Background.

Choose from one of nine backgrounds.

The main thing this affects is that, every once in a while, it will open up a new dialogue option. This never makes a big difference.

My Friendly Suggestion - There's a real lost opportunity here. Once again, "Show, Don't Tell." Instead of having me declare that my character is a Slave or Aristocrat or whatever, why not, once you’re in the game, make every conversation option for all of these different nine backgrounds available to me when the game starts.

Then, if I keep making the "Aristocrat" pick, start removing the other options, so that I end up always talking like an Aristocrat. Then my character's personality emerges organically from the sort of dialogue choices I make in the actual game.

X. Choose Appearance and Voice.

Standard appearance editor and list of different voices. It's fine.

XI. Choose Your Name.

Gladly.

XII. The Game.

And, finally, the games starts with the tutorial. Which begins with a long conversation. Which I barely pay attention to, because my stupid brain is tired.

It's all way too much. Too many words, too many irrelevant choices, exhausting when it should be informative. Not that they will listen to me, but it might be an improvement to look for in Pillars of Eternity 2, because the market is not what it was in 2015.

"But Who Cares? The Game Was a Hit, Right?"

The real test of how good a game it is, is not how it sells, but how much its sequel sells. And it is entirely fair to ask what business a pissant like me has criticizing a hit game written by a bunch of big names.

Let's leave behind the idea of craftsmanship and a desire to always keep improving our work.

Lately, sequels to hit RPGs have been selling far worse than their predecessors. Obsidian's successor to Pillars, Tyranny, by their own words, underperformed.

Also, I looked at the Steam achievement statistics for Pillars of Eternity. According to those, fewer than half of players finished the first chapter. Only about 10% of players completed the game.

Now granted, this is not unusual. Most games remain unfinished. But that still invites this question: If the vast majority of players didn't want to experience the Pillars of Eternity they already paid for, why think that they will want to buy more?

Everyone should keep improving, if just for their survival in this mercilessly competitive business.

Video games are a new art form, and there is still so much we have to figure out. That's the terrifying and awesome thing about making them. And now, having already written way too many words, I will take my own advice and cease.

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The author sells his own flawed, wordy, old-school RPGs at Spiderweb Software. He opines on Twitter.