ecoskinlove

[sleepymarmot]

Morian Zenas will appear for the first time and Sotha Sil will return as NPCs in Necrom.

Now I understand why the loremaster Q&A was narrated by Divayth Fyr.

I’m 99.99% sure he’s back as a major NPC and we’re finally getting a sequel to the Unfortunate Love Triangle.

I can only hope that Dr. Alfidia Lupus shows up in person as well. 

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Bimonthly Media Roundup

- Kaiju No 8 (Anime) - Binged this on a whim and honestly it was a lot more wholesome and engaging than I thought it would be? I like that the majority of the characters are adults and act like it, people were pretty reasonable in how they approached issues and the team building aspect was very cute. I like the protags Kaiju form though given the weird body transformations we saw he was capable of I wish he would do something more interesting in fights than just punching really hard. Then again the fights clearly aren't the focus of the series and just serve the purpose of cooperation/character building which I guess is fine. The way the characters quip at eachother was pretty fun, I'd say the whole cast was likable though not super well developed at this point given how many we were given in just the first season. Shinomiya and Hoshina were the standouts given they had interesting designs, personalities, and fighting styles. The pacing was a little quick but it did mean that interesting things were always happening so I can't complain too much, though personally I think it's a missed opportunity that they moved away from the "Kaiju clean up job" as that some pretty interesting worldbuilding, even if they did keep Kafka's experience relevant. Honestly I'd recommend it, this was a good time - Will be watching Season 2 for sure.

- Pluto (Anime) - Pluto was an interesting little mini series about a murder mystery surrounding the deaths of the worlds most advanced AI. It was overall pretty good, it had a really solid middle chunk where tension was kept high, it never underestimated it's audience and trusted them to put pieces together, and characters felt very grounded and human. The ending was a little messy though, as certain plot beats felt pretty out of place for what was otherwise a very tightly written anti-war story. I don't really feel like talking about it beyond that as I don't have any interesting input, sometimes you just watch something and go. Yup that was good, I agree with it's themes. And that's the whole of it. Gesicht was cool, I feel bad for the little baby robot, I have no idea why sensing emotions is considered a robot ability, and the piano saga in episode One was probably my favorite single arc of the show.

- Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Dukes Mansion (Anime) - Didn't really have another entry for this week so I guess I'll mention this anime that my sister and I dropped pretty early on. I like the Villain/Villainess genre as a whole given it frequently uses one of my favorite tropes of "Using knowledge of the future to change the present for the better" as well as the "having to work your way up from the bottom" trope, but I've read enough to be a bit picky about the ones I keep up with and unfortunately Raelina didn't end up grabbing me, at least not in the first 5 episodes. I like the art style and the protagonists design overall as well as the idea of her being the first death to kick off a mystery novel rather than the standard dating sim plotline, but my main issue was just how un-interesting the plot, characters, and interactions have been thus far. The love interest especially seems very 'cookie cutter snarky pretty boy shoujo male' and I can't remember a single notable interaction or anything that stood out as being a memorable visual or interesting lore or anything, it was just kind of boring.

- Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) - I know I said previously that this show is truly a mixed bag with a lot of glaring flaws, and I stand by that, but I'd be lying if I said that I haven't been obsessed with it for the past month. Yes the worldbuilding and combat system are wack, and the show too frequently takes a tell-don't show approach with relationships and plot beats, but there is some genuinely engaging stuff in here - The entire hidden inventory arc, the sisyphisian cycle of curses constantly reforming as long as human hatred exists, the idea of being a god being a deeply in humanizing experience, the good humored moments of levity when the characters actually get to hang out, it's not nothing. What I'm saying is I could fix it okay? Give Jujutsu Kaisen to me. Also I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing what the kids call gender envy whenever I see Suguru, I adore his design, I need to look like that. Also also, both of Season Two's OPs are straight bangers.

- To Your Eternity (Anime) - I'll talk more about this next time as we've barely scraped the surface, but for now I'll say this is a truly unique and emotional story that unfortunately has the worst auto generated subtitles ever. Like it's so bad it takes you out of the show. The OP gets translated as Pig Blood, Pig Blood, the phrases are usually incorrect, and the names get changed each time to things like Google or Pierre. Please crunchyroll why do you hate us.

- House (TV) - Ah yes my favorite anime, House MD. Decided to watch this in between anime binges, and as expected revisiting it is a mixed bag. The medical mysteries and overall format are still very well done, a lot of the clinic scenes are still pretty funny, the characters all play off eachother well, and in general it stays engaging throughout its run-time which I can't say for a lot of 45 minute TV episodes. That being said House as a character can be....a lot. It's fine to have asshole protagonists and I don't really prescribe to the idea that media has to contain only morally upright material or otherwise punish moral wrongdoing in the narrative, but as a viewer I'm uninterested in media where it feels like the writers are actively disdainful towards (usually liberal) ideas or groups of people and trying to scold them into accepting 'the correct' viewpoint and House as a show can occasionally toe that line. To be fair it's usually not too bad, the show depicts positive wlw relationships pretty early on, characters will rightfully call House out when he's being a dick, Cuddy is a fun character that gets to one up House occasionally, and while the writing can be pretentious it's not usually mean spirited. It's a good enough show in every other respect that I still find myself enjoying it, but I can see how the tired narrative of "obnoxious white guy is a rude jerk that can do whatever he wants without being fired because he's just that much smarter and better than everyone else" is a hard sell to new viewers in 2024.

- The S Classes That I Raised (Webcomic) - Been seeing some discourse around Riette and while I do get it, Must a woman always be "a good person" and "redeemed by the narrative"? Is it not enough to be a butch hottie who is also a Dragon? I support women's wrongs.

- One Piece (Manga) - 27 years of One Piece apparently. Maybe it will end on the 30th anniversary? We shall see.

- Genshin Impact (Video Game) - The origami Event world is cute, I love collecting the figures and the little dragon design. Also excited to get Kirara.

Listening To: Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan, Two Birds by Regina Spektor, Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, All In by 6FU, Crazy cover by Walk of the Earth, SPECIALZ by King Gnu, Ao No Sumika by Tatsuya Kitani, Princess of China by Coldplay, Lay All Your Love On Me by ABBA, Boys by Lizzo, Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn, Jesus He Knows Me cover by Ghost, Tongues and Teeth by The Crane Wives

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 8/10/21

got a bunch of followers (many of you are Cool Teens, so also a reminder im 26 and an adult and you’re responsible for curating your own internet experience) anyway there’s a bunch of new folks since the last time this was a regular series, so i am going to pre-answer some things that popped up in my inbox last week.

a quick reminder that this is empathetically NOT a recommendations or review blog series. this is a quick snapshot of what i’m thinking about with regards to mass media this week, and sometimes i’m funny about it and sometimes i also do interesting diy shit

a work can be culturally or historically relevant and important in the history of a genre AND be extremely difficult to recommend unless i know you very well due to. hm. let us say many pitfalls due to the inherent nature of the genre or the time it was made in it any number of other factors that make it unpalatable to modern audiences but still worth knowing about. doesthedogdie dot com will be your friend here for anything i talk about ever

being critical of a work doesn’t just mean pointing out its flaws- was it successful in telling the story it wanted to tell? were the techniques it used effective? were the emotions it elicited in me probably the ones the creators set out to elicit? these are key components of a good review and often help me break down what i want to say about a particular piece of media in any given week, but this isn’t a review series of blog posts either.

i am literally just some guy and you should question everything i say

listening i’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair (from the musical South Pacific) brought to you by a random mix of classic movie musicals bc apparently im that kinda gay this week.

like a lot of other fifties media that aged like milk, i have fond memories of watching this with my grandmother. this isn’t even my favorite song from the musical (that would be bali hai’i) but i think it is one of the more technically interesting non-solo ones. specifically, the faint siren-y dissonance on “ahoy, ahoy!” has really been stuck in my head. the melancholy “ah fuck we’ve broken our hearts again” vibe on “rub him out of the roll call/and drum him out of your dreams” with all the girls singing is probably a result of a soprano-heavy cast, but it’s almost chimey in a way? the rhyme scheme of those lines has an excellent mouthfeel. ms gaynor singing “cancel hiiiiiim” has a very different vibe in 2021

two (really three? maybe four? the world is large and mysterious) things can be true at the same time: i don’t think i could watch this musical again as an adult because i don’t think there’s a good way to salvage or update it. the very qualities of this musical that make me go “fuckin yikes” as adult were the very qualities that made my grandmother love it so much. i can hold a bittersweet memory of a rare late movie night with a complicated lady and at the same time wish she were a better person. the dead never leave you with answers.

reading yet another fallow week. this field is turning back into forest

watching i often say “AAA video game (derogatory)” when talking offline about the bad batc/h, but this was a real bioshock ass lookin episode. i don’t think this show is succesful at making or having a point. mostly because it cannot contradict any existing lore in one of the most traversed time periods of this franchise, even with the expanded universe reboot. it falls into the uncomfortable realm of most starred wars media: this is a franchise for children but it also has to cater to legions of grownup fanatics with lots of money. but by god does it “feel” like starred wars. something not all the sequel trilogy movies or much of the clone wars series were successful at.

as a sidebar to that last sentence. the most memorable (imo) scene of the fucking sequel trilogy is the back-to-back battle couple thing in ep seven, which i have just rewatched, and it simply does not hold up. there are too many cuts to other sideplots, which kills any tension dead, and it’s mostly fighting on opposite sides of the room in frantic desperation instead of what i wanted, which was more than five seconds of synergy. it’s a bad rhyme of the final throne room fight in rotj and my memory of the thing is so much better, which is always disappointing.

back to the main point, i think a big part of something “feeling” like starred wars is big setpieces and fights that make you go “HAHA YES FUCKIN SICK WHY NOT!!!!” like, nobody ever Just gets shot in the head and temporarily incapacitated, they get half-vadered by the engines of a derelict ship trying to go to hyperspace while it’s grounded. this franchise has never met a location it couldn’t destroy in a beautiful and awful shower of light while the string sections of three combined orchestras play their hearts out.

this franchise is so fucking stupid and i am so invested in it

playing got my hands on the death trash early access, very hype to play it, have been too busy turning this apartment into a functional and comfortable space to live in for three separate people with their own separate toiletries and groceries and work from home/school schedules

making related to the above, the fucking kitchen table and chairs are done.

things wot i did friday night/saturday morning:

new rubber feeties on everybody

wrapped the legs that structurally couldn’t get new rubber feeties in jute to be kinder to my rental linoleum

bolted the legs back on the table and rebalanced it bc the jute wasn’t quite even

did a very halfassed job of fixing the drawer rails on the table

bolted the chair tubing back together

took all the old decorative tacks out of the backs of the chairs

scrubbed the seats and backs and the pieces the tacks were holding down with mild detergent (partially effective, it still has some patina but is sanitized)

re-covered the bottoms of the chairs in remnant black polyester to replace mildewed black canvas

put in new decorative tacks on the seat backs

bolted the vinyl parts to the chrome tubing parts (a long and frustrating process since there were two sizes of decidedly non-standard nuts and bolts)

wiped everything down again for idk good luck

sitting at my kitchen table in the sun eating a breakfast sandwich and some terrible iced tea on sunday morning was very nice. i lived in the south just long enough to get Opinions on iced tea and how the north can’t get it right. shouldn’t be gritty. shouldn’t be bitter. how is this even happening

some very very halfassed “during” pics

[aaaa-mpersand]

Why I Love Hollow Knight

aka a super long essay I wrote about why this game is,,,, ridiculously good. Spoilers, though I’ve tried to keep them minor for the most part and as cryptic as possible, if you want to go into this game blind, this is not something you want to read. It’s part prose part essay part me waxing poetic. TW: bugs, minor character death, existential dread some quotes are taken directly from the game. They are usually in bold or italics. - - - Higher beings, these words are for you alone. Beyond this point you enter the land of King and Creator. Step across this threshold and obey our laws. Bear witness to the last and only civilization, the eternal Kingdom Hallownest. It was a long trek to the city, and even the nail that has kept all enemies at bay is starting to feel heavy on your back. You have braved acid lakes, fended off husks gone mad with The Radiance, climbed Crystal Peaks, and fought the Mantis Lords. Now, you are finally here. Past the city gate, into the cavern that houses what was once the heart of a great kingdom. The City of Tears

You stand in one of the city’s large spires, the endless rain pattering like piano notes against the embellished windows. These architectural feats were marvels of their time, a testament to Hallownest’s greatness, an open declaration of defiance against the water pouring down from the lake above the caverns. They were made to stand for eras, a love letter to the eternal kingdom. Now, Hallownest is a rotting corpse, and only the rain cries for it. Zombie soldiers, eyes yellow with Radiance, continue their endless patrols. Husks of citizens sit, glowing eyes unblinking, in their homes, dead enough to rot but alive enough to attack any living thing that comes by. The foundations of the buildings are already starting to wear. One day, they will crumble. One day, the lake above will run dry. One day, the rain will stop, too. You find a bench. There is already someone sitting there, a traveller you met along the road named Quirrel. He is a mysterious but polite fellow, with the simple goal of seeing all the marvellous sights of the world. On his head is a hat that looks more like a mask, black holes for eyes carved into it. On his back is a nail, one that looks much like yours. Travellers do not get far without them. He gestures for you to sit beside him. Even if you could speak, you would be too tired to say your thanks, much less argue. “The capital lies before us, my friend. What a sombre place it seems, and one that holds the answers to many a mystery,” he says, “I, too, have felt the pull of this place, though now I sit before it, I find myself hesitant to descent. Is it fear, I wonder, or something else that holds me back?” The only sound between the two of you is the soft patter of rain. If your silence disturbs him, he does not let it on. “Isn’t this a wonderful place to rest? I so love the sound of the rain upon glass.” You rest your fill, and you move on. At the center of the city, you find a collection of four carved statues. Three smaller ones surrounding a large––far larger than you––horned figure with black, hollow eyes. City of Tears––the rain pouring off of them certainly makes them seem as if they are weeping. Hornet, a spider-like creature with a shell that looks similar to yours, lands in front of you. Unlike your last meeting, her needle is sheathed. ‘Little ghost,’ she calls you. She tells you to seek the Grave in Ash, if you wish to play a part in Hallownest’s perpetuation, knowing the sacrifices that keep its crumbling remains upright. Using a thread of silk as a grapple, she leaps back into the murky shadows of the city.You cannot speak, so you only stare as she leaves. Turning, you read the inscription of the statue. Memorial to the Hollow Knight: In the black vault far above. Through its sacrifice, Hallownest lasts eternal. You look around at the empty streets, the pouring rain, the husk of a Radiance-crazed sentry with a nail driven through it lying on the cobbled pavement. Hallownest is already dead. --- Gameplay and storytelling: Immersion is a large part of every story, but Hollow Knight really takes it a step further. It is a metroidvania game, so immersion and storytelling through settings is pretty much a given in its genre. All things considered, Hollow Knight has a good, but not really amazing, storyline. Rather, it is the way that it tells its story that makes it memorable. Hollow Knight is a videogame first and a story after, utilizing its gameplay to tell its story better than words could. This is why watching let’s plays is enjoyable, definitely a wonderful experience, but there is a difference between dying five times trying to beat a boss or platform through an area versus watching someone die five times trying to beat a boss or platform through an area. There is a moment of surprise you wouldn’t get if you only watched the lore video, to see a character alluded to only by other people in an awed or fearful tone, only to find the hilarious but horrible truth of their fate, and their small stature. However, it is definitely possible for a person to enjoy this game without personally playing it. The setting and music are enrapturing. There are small stories in every new room and every enemy and npc you meet, the love put into every detail is astounding. Evidence of previous battles, the cracked husks of beings that look suspiciously similar to you, a hostile enemy still unaware of your entering, staring out over an endless lake, Hollow Knight makes the player feel like their story is a small part of something bigger, something more than themselves. A good example of this is a minor character named Tiso, a proud warrior who says he wishes to travel into Hallownest and challenge the colosseum there. If you decide to challenge the colosseum yourself, you’ll meet the enemies that he had to face, too––and maybe die more than a couple times trying to do it. If you travel to the Kingdom's Edge, you’ll find his shield and hat with a pile of other remains––all that is left of those who fail the tests of the colosseum. It is possible to go through the whole game and come out knowing not much more story than when you went in. Of course, if you did that, then that’s a whole waste of 15 dollars, and why the hell did you buy this game in the first place. Rather, through the large map and its immersive storytelling, the game makes the player work for the story. A lot of the storytelling is open ended too. Instead of info dumping everything, the game assumes that you are capable of putting the pieces together yourself. It is a strong case of showing and not telling, but it definitely works. This greatly encourages players to go out of their way to find out what happened before. Lore tablets––and text in general––are very sparse in this game. Rather than loading you with information and npcs to talk to, you’ll be overjoyed to find an npc hidden away at the corner of the map. Each one is important, each one has its own story to tell. There are no characters that feel like throwaways or filler. In addition, the player can obtain the Dream Nail, used to reveal any npc or enemy’s true intentions and thoughts. This adds yet another layer to the game; most players immediately go around swinging their Dream Nail at everything they can find after discovering this. In conclusion, Hollow Knight uses a lot of very interesting storytelling elements and tools in the most effective ways possible. Music, characters, text, setting, flashbacks. Nothing ever feels like filler, or something to be disregarded. Instead, there is a joy in discovering and in asking questions. In a way, the playable character is a vessel through which the player can hear the stories of other characters as much as they are going through a journey of their own. --- Story: Hollow Knight’s story is a very interesting take on the “Chosen One” trope, among others. It starts as a story we’ve all heard before, “oceans rise, empires fall.” Maybe it’s for that reason that the game keeps most of the backstory elements secret until the very end of the game, forcing you to dig for it and spend time on it. Meanwhile, you grow attached to the playable character, the characters around them, the world, and the story, so when the curtain finally rises on the hidden secrets of Hallownest, you feel its meaning as if it were your own journey. In the most plain terms, to avoid completely spoiling the game, the story is this. The playable character travels into the remains of a kingdom long fallen: Hallownest. Along the way, you meet characters that tell you more and more about the kingdom and how it got here. The Pale King, a god in and of himself, travelled to this place to build his own eternal kingdom, but in his goal to unite all caverns and areas of the region under his rule, he trampled the already existing gods past recollection. One of these is The Radiance, who in a desperate effort for revenge and self-preservation, sent a sickness upon the kingdom that turns bugs mad. In an effort to combat this, The Pale King created the Pure Vessel, the Hollow Knight, to contain it, and recruited three dreamers to seal it. But when the moment of truth came, and the Radiance was to be sealed away, they found the Pure Vessel was not entirely empty, it was filled with a hope for love and recognition from the Pale King. Hallownest fell to The Radiance. Now, your goal is to find a means to an end for Hallownest, caught in a fate worse than death. Along the way, you will find the truth behind your own creation, the story of the dreamers, and the extent of the sacrifices Pale King made to preserve his eternal kingdom. This story, if not driven by its storytelling, is driven by its characters. You meet, or at least hear of, most of the key characters in the story by the beginning of the game. The Pale King is referred to in one of the lore tablets extremely early in the game. The Temple of the Black Egg, its door sealed, is where you meet Quirrel. The Daughter of Hallownest, Hornet, tries to cut you down, claiming she knows what you mean to do. All of these happen in the first two areas of the game. For the rest of your game, you learn about these characters bit by bit. You interact with them. You find them in corners of the map you wouldn’t expect, and find yourself happy to see them. By the end of the story, you realise that you are much more entangled in this than you realised. The Pure Vessel and the story surrounding him is one of the best ‘chosen ones’ I’ve seen. Even the playable character is technically a ‘chosen one,’ though it takes the role because they are the best candidate, and not because anyone wanted or forced them to. Its fandom has one of the best found families, and the endings are open-ended enough that it doesn’t feel confining. This story has a lot of things to say about imperialism, power, ambition, sacrifice, fate, and relationships, and sometimes all of that can be found in the spires of a city, watching the endless rain patter against the windows as the piano plays in the background. --- My Interpretation: For a large part of my life, I was scared of the dark. I couldn’t bear to go outside to throw the trash out when it got too dark to see. It took me a long time––far longer than most––to learn how to sleep quietly in my own bed. For a long time, I didn’t understand this fear. Nobody around me seemed to understand either, when I asked them for help. Logically, I lived a sheltered life, and my neighborhood was safe. Demons, ghosts, monsters: they didn’t exist. It’s only now I realise that that childhood fear was rooted in this fact: you are a very small person in a very big world. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you. You don’t know what’s out there. You know, instinctively, that you are an ant. The universe is very big, much much bigger than you could ever imagine, and that it doesn’t care for you. Not for your ambitions, your dreams, your fears, your safety. Hollow Knight takes this and deals with it in a way that I love. It’s indicative in the first few moments. Your playable character is smaller than almost every other character in the game. You travel deep into a bug kingdom, much much bigger than you would have dreamed. Everyone around you is a bug too, from the meek to the courageous to the regal. Outside this kingdom is a bigger world, just as harsh as this one, maybe harsher still. All you have is your nail to keep you safe. Travellers before you have fallen. You are the only person left to pick up what’s left of their stories. The world is endless, it stretches in infinity through time and space. People have tried to conquer it before. They have tried to build eternal kingdoms, immortal cities, taking what is not theirs in the hopes that finally, finally, they will be big enough, they will be good enough. They have tried to delay the inevitable––that all things end. Mistakes have been made, evils have been committed. “This place is not a place of honor. No highly-esteemed deeds are commemorated here.” The world is big. Kingdoms are small. You are smaller. Still, you move on. Someone needs to put this coughing, dying part of the world to rest. You will get no lore tablets in your name, no statues to commemorate your deed. Yet you cannot find it in you to be affected. Somewhere, Hornet wakes up and finds herself no longer tied to protect a monstrous ghost of a kingdom, her future now her own. Somewhere, you put your siblings to rest, their lost souls and empty eyes now at peace. Somehow, that is more important, more eternal, than any city or any god. It will follow you even after you are gone. There is strength in being small. There is strength in not knowing where you come from, or where you will go next, but going anyway. There is strength in achieving great things, not because of recognition or greatness or immortality that could brush the stars, but because that is the story you want to live through. That is the footprint you want to make, even if it fades away with time. You enter a large world with a nail on your back, looking for the means to an end, and you leave with less. Perhaps there is wisdom in that.  (and can you believe that this is an indie game, made by like, idk 3 people?? And it’s 15 dollars for a game you can spend 48 hours or more in total on. Absolutely insane sksksksks i love this game)

[aboleth-eye]

Hello! Would you have any advice for new DMs/things you wish you had been told when you started DMing? I'd like to try it myself, but I've only ever been a player, and just figuring out where to start is a bit overwhelming! Thank you in advance!

Great Question!  Here are my Lessons Learned from when I ran a game for the first time!  

There are Four Lessons I wish I’d known when I got started:  Have Your Resources Handy, Start Small (3 Parts), Things Go Awry, and Have Fun Together!   ((This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll cap it a little less than halfway down))

1.)  Have Your Resources Handy!

If this is your first time running a Tabletop RPG system, even if you’ve been playing for years, HAVE THE BOOK(S), WEBSITE(S) AND/OR PDF(S) NEARBY!  I’m serious about this, guys!  Playing a game or watching someone else play is a totally different monster to running it!  

When you first declare to the group that you’d like to host a game, I recommend you read the rules over at least two or three times before hand–start with a deep read first to get it all in your head, and then you can choose to speed read once you’ve had some time to digest the rules.  

But even if reading ttrpgs is your thing, have the resources within easy reach.  Either have your laptop available with open tabs to any pdfs/scans of the game source material and any relevant websites (like standard reference document pages), and/or have a physical copy of the game book with you.  If you are running certain monsters or encounters, I also recommend you copy down any stats and information to a separate text document (on laptop or printed) so you won’t have to page through stuff during the game.

2A.) Start Small: The Setting

If this is your first time or fiftieth time running a tabletop roleplaying game, and you are running a new system for the first time, limit the scope of project to start.  Writing campaign and world settings can be very intense, and it is very easy to write something too specific and railroad people into your lore and world.

For instance, don’t create a massive world with a continent of named cities and landmarks!  Don’t plan out every inch of your world, or else it’ll turn into a “fill-in-the-blank exploration” story instead of an organic world you can change as your group learns and grows!

My first campaign started in a very specifically written city on the edge of a vast magical desert.  I planned out a timetable of events that would catapult the players into the “open-world”.  The players noticed this and didn’t appreciate it. 

Also, do not bog your players down with Lore!  I’ve gone into campaigns where you need to know information “for backstory”!  This is your first campaign, it’s good to know what to introduce and when!  A group of starting adventurers typically doesn’t need to know your world’s entire array of deities, pages and pages of history, and legends “that shaped the world”!  You can introduce these things at character creation IF THE PLAYERS ASK, and then slowly dish things out as the characters live in your world.

It’s also good to not ties yourself down to specific placement of towns, countries, cities, landmarks, etc.  Leave the map blank save for the starting area, and any broadly defined areas such as forests and mountains.  Once characters finish their first missions and adventures, they’ll explore!  With all the “white space” of your world, you can insert places and things as you journey with the group!  

One of my favorite encounters when I was very new to D&D was when we accidentally burned down a forest.  We were fighting a massive tiger with a pixie NPC in a forest, and the pixie just trapped everyone (tiger included) in entangling vines.  Our pyromancer in the party tried to set the beast on fire, and they rolled a critical failure.  

The beast was set on fire and died!  And so did the pixie!  And now there’s a raging forest fire we have to run from!  We get an oxcart running and we take shifts to outrun the magical fire–FOR THREE DAYS!  It was an incredibly tense situation, and it was fun to add “an entire forest” to the pyromancer player’s list of things they set on fire.

You know what would have made all that suck?  If the DM had decided: “Okay, you pass through this location which is a lich’s hideout and have to face that; then the next day you’ll have to ford a river with the tired oxes.  Finally, you’ll be passing through this county’s border…”  

We just burned down a placeholder  forest, and all the consequences that came with it came AFTER we were finally safe!  The DM didn’t bog us down with heavy lore and their maps during a tense situation; they kept the focus on the action at hand.

Prioritize the players’ story before your own!  That’s the lesson I want to make absolutely clear.  You aren’t telling your story with friends as the characters; the Dungeon Master/Game Master/Storyteller is the worldbuilder who tells the character groups’ story as they interact with the world.

2B) Start Small: The First Encounters

Another item I want to bring up is Do Not Start Your Campaign with a “Unique Encounter”!  Start your campaign setting with a simple task for the players to face.  Here are the kinds of challenges I mean: defeat a bunch of zombies in a graveyard for a reward, go into a mine full of bats to retrieve a homing beacon, follow a simple mystery to find a girl’s lost dog, etc.  The Players’ should be introduced to your world with something simple to follow–that way they can make their marks and introduce how they roleplay to the story.  

Do Not try something you’ve “never seen before”!  Don’t have the characters whisked off to another plane or world while they slept!  Don’t have the players face fifteen or so mooks at once during an ambush!  Don’t have your characters struggle to tread water or leap floating platforms while fighting a monster!  These kinds of encounters instantly put players on guard and feel railroaded!  Give them the chance to decide how they integrate themselves into the adventure.

My first campaign violated this rule.  When the players left the city to enter the desert, they were suddenly beset by 12 monstrous scorpions!  And me, in my ambitious tunnel-vision, thought it’d be interesting to have each scorpion have its own turn.  I rolled twelve Initiatives for the scorpions and it was a LONG combat when it clearly didn’t have to be.  

It all looked so good in my head, but when you get players involved you can tell how grueling and boring something like that could be.  I learned a lot that session.

That combat ended the campaign for me.  I decided to go back to the drawing board because that kind of thinking was not going to fly for me and my friends.

Instead, give your players a task that could easily be solved in one or two sessions!  Do not give your players “only one way” to solve this!  For instance, if your first challenge is to get past some guards, let the players come up with the solution themselves.  They might decide to fight the guards, use magic/science to teleport past them, go off on a side quest to become guards so they can infiltrate them, or even walk up and attempt to socialize with them.  You as the storyteller/DM merely narrate the results of whatever the characters do; just bridge the gaps and think of consequences from the players’ actions.

ALSO!  Have a time limit for your first session, or plan breaks for food/drink/stretching.  This activity of DMing can be very stressful, and you might need a break to take stock of what problems and choices occurred during play.  

2C.) Start Small: The Players

Have your players build starting or low-level characters (I typically start with 3rd level for D&D).  The low levels will mean most powergaming and gamebreaking attempts by certain types of players will be nipped in the bud right from the start.  It will also typically limit the powers and abilities of your group (so you won’t have to memorize or look up high-level stuff until much later).  

Another thing I highly recommend is that you are present during character creation!  Do not let people determine/roll character abilities and stats without you.  Either be physically present when dice get rolled and abilities get determined, or be present digitally in a chatroom, discord or roll20 when electronic character sheets get filled in!  

My first campaign I allowed one of the players to bring a character from a friend’s campaign into it.  The original DM ended the campaign; and even though I had played in that campaign alongside this character I had no clue what they could do.  This made things challenging because this character “suddenly” remembered they could fly–so I had to add aerial combat onto my plate during the first fight of the campaign.

It made the situation tense, especially with my bad early encounters (see the 12 Scorpions combat above).

3.) Things Go Awry

If you’ve come this far, there’s one last piece of advice I want to give you.  Your first campaign is gonna suck in one way or another.

I don’t mean that to be disheartening; I want you to think of it as a learning experience.  Whenever a person learns a new skill or engages in a new activity for the first time, it’s always gonna suck.  (Even if someone has a “natural talent”).  You as the DM/Storyteller are going to notice problems crop up left and right; especially if you don’t take the advice I offered above.  For instance, if you start learning to paint with a new medium or start a sport you’ve never tried; you need to practice with the tools and techniques you’ve prepared to see what works for your style of learning.  

Running a roleplaying game is a very unique mashup of activities.  There’s typically a math element you need to consider behind every action the players take.  You need to workout your improvisation skills to bridge connections and gaps your players make.  You need to get in front of a group of people (sometimes more or less experienced than you) and tell a story that keeps their attention.  It’s a stressful mix of being an improv actor, a storyteller and the physical laws of your world.

Hopefully your players will understand when things get crazy and overwhelming.  Gametime might come to a halt because you need to look up a specific rule or wording that you aren’t familiar with.  It’s okay.  Until you get to know how your game world runs with your players in it, it is totally fine to take a breath and think things through.  Oftentimes you can ask your players for help in making a determination or house-ruling.

Last note on this topic: Get Feedback!  At the end of the session, be bold and ask your players if they enjoyed the session, what they liked and what they didn’t like.  Feedback is how DMs get insight on how the game is playing out.  While you’re DMing, your mind is on a million different topics; let the players tell you how they felt during gameplay, so you know what made them feel good or bad on the other side of the curtain.

4.) Have Fun Together!

This is something that needs to be said, if I’m honest.  Running a game can be a stressful activity that “ruins” some things about it now that you are “behind the curtain”.  This is your first session, in what you hope to be a series of games where you and your friends make all sorts of memories.

However, some DMs get incredibly discouraged and no-nonsense when they run a game for their first few times.  That is understandable, especially if being the “mastermind” is a challenge you haven’t prepared for.  A few sessions in and you might find the game isn’t fun for you and/or your players.  That might be a sign that you need to take a break from hosting–use that time to think how you can make the game fun for everyone, or if this campaign just needs to be scrapped!

The priority of the DM is to bring people together.  If a game system, campaign concept or player actions aren’t making the group (you included) happy; it’s better to stop things and take stock before things go too far.  It is never fun to admit your game isn’t viable or enjoyable, but hopefully you’ll have new experience you can take with you the next time you try your game.  

And heck, if you find you prefer playing at this time, that’s fine!  Even if this attempt didn’t have the results you expected, there is nothing to stop you from trying again later if you wanted.  But now that you know how it is behind the curtain, you are naturally more observant to how your own DM/GM runs their games and you can learn from it.

Remember how good the game system/lore/etc made you feel!  It’s why you wanted to DM in the first place; you recognized you had a story you wanted to tell, and this ttrpg had the tools to bring it to life!  No matter what problems arise when you’re behind the curtain, the game should still bring you enjoyment whether you play or manage the game.  Do not give up on the game just because of one bad session or two!  

When I decided to end my campaign, it really was a painful decision.  I loved the world as it was in my mind, but I was not executing it well so that my players enjoyed it.  I got feedback after that terrible 12 Scorpions combat, and decided to take some time to think about everything.  Our group went back to our original DM, with other members trying to DM in that time; and honestly I didn’t DM until I started a small separate group months later.  

During that gap in DMing I digested what I liked and didn’t like about my campaign, and had more time to reflect on the rules.  I decided to take a few steps back and learn from my mistakes.  I still made mistakes the second and third times I DMed, I make mistakes even to this day.  

But at the heart of it all, I love games so much that I want to constantly make my stories and worlds even better, even to this day.

I take the struggles of DMing as learning experiences, rather than let them define me as a writer, storyteller and game master.  I use them as stepping stones so I don’t fall through the gaps again.  I may have started out with a bad first campaign, but I would never take those mistakes away.  

I hope these lessons were helpful!  I love D&D and tabletop roleplaying games so much, and love giving out advice on how to make the experience your own.  I hope this helps a lot of new people bring their stories to life!  Also, I hope I helped everyone’s expectations into the right state of mind.  

Good luck and happy gaming everyone!!  Much love!

– Aboleth-Eye

[sometipsygnostalgic]

JUST FINISHED GRAVITY FALLS

weirdmageddon was amazing! FAR better than most finales tend to be.

i wanted to know what the zodiac thing was all about though... i’d never seen it before but it was obviously important to the fans who had theorised about it.... couldnt we at least see what it would have done???? it didn’t have to be the final conflict!

ANYWAY i dont have as much to say about gravity falls as adventure time for obvious reasons so im going to rank it... Without further ado, it’s time to heavily overthink about cartoons!!!

Animation: 5 out of 5 hats - this is one of the most BRILLIANTLY ANIMATED childrens cartoon shows ive seen. there’s no weird inbetweens, the lighting for each scene is absolutely spot-on, it looks and feels amazing! honestly gravity falls looks like one of the strongest arguments for using script-driven shows instead of storyboard-driven shows, because cartoon network has never in its life produced something that looks this good.  When it used 3D CGI it was implemented smoothly. The characters had no absence of body language and cues either, it was never boring to look at. Disney does it again!!!

Humor: 4 out of 5 hats - While I dont think this show is the literal funniest thing I’ve ever watched, it is consistently entertaining throughout the entire series which is more than I can say for the two cartoons (AT and SU) that i’m unfairly comparing it to. Humor is one of GF’s strongpoints, because the jokes it throws at you out of complete nowhere will always have you on ground. I laughed SO hard during this marathon, and the jokes are obscure enough that I’ll probably do the same thing on a rewatch. The animation helps significantly too. The character designs alone, especially Mabel and her sweaters, allow for plenty of visual humor. Soos is the sort of character that you dont know what hes going to do next. Grunkle Stan conning people got some of the hardest laughs out of me. Wendy is just.... Wendy reminds me so hard of early Marceline, except she will occasionally do something really cool cos shes from a family of lumberjacks. Let’s not forget Waddles, the MVP in the humor department.

Story: 3 out of 5 hats - If I made this post yesterday, I’d have ranked it 2 out of 5 hats. I never felt that there was any “story” to gravity falls, only some kind of ARG that added nothing to the experience because none of the questions were solvable until the answers had been revealed. But the second half of season 2 ups the ante on story by focusing on the Pines family and their relationships to each other, and you can feel tension rise especially when Dipper starts to hang aound Ford a little too much and you sense that poor Mabel is gonna be left in the dust just like Stan before her. Weirdmageddon also was way more entertaining than I expected! And how it ENDED? Oh jesus! The show’s final scenes were heartbreaking, if I’d been following for longer I might have started crying.

Characterisation: 4 out of 5 hats- holy crap, it’s just so much fun seeing the Pines family play off of each other. Each group has an entertaining dynamic, whether it’s playful like Mabel, Soos, and Wendy’s shenanigans, or more serious like Stan and Ford’s conflict. There was barely any time throughout the entire series that I was annoyed by how someone was acting, or thought that it was out of place and agitating. I think I might be giving this point a rather generous score because of how feelgood it was, rather than complex or deep, which in many areas it wasnt. For example earlier in the show the conflicts felt dumb, like the Jurassic Park episode where everyone was acting vaguely out of character to cause a sense of drama? idk. But later on it got more heartfelt, if predictable. Where else do I think it can do better?

Worldbuilding: 2 out of 5 hats - Yep, the area where I think Gravity Falls does the worst is worldbuilding. For 2 big reasons: The wasted potential of Gravity Falls itself, and the way its inhabitants were used. Maybe I’m just spoilt by the AMAZING job Adventure Time and Steven Universe do with this, but the land of Gravity Falls fails to be as interesting as Ooo or as realistic as Beach City. Idk, i think it’s more ENTERTAINING than Beach City but more because I get more laughs out of the show than recent SU. The issue with Gravity Falls’ civilians is that unless you’re a Pines, youre a straight up Cartoon Character. That rules your characterisation and your purpose for existence. This is fine and yes there are some memorable characters but they never have those hilarious moments of humanity, like the episode Root Beer Guy where the title character gets into conflict with his wife cos she thinks hes too involved with his actual realistic mystery novels, or the Graybles ep where Starchy ran away from the candy kingdom to get rid of a tracker in his tooth cos he knows  PB was spying on him, and he runs a little club conspiring against her like some kind of real life political group. His club and Kim Kil Whan having King of Ooo memorabilia lmao. I’m getting too into this but its moments like that which make Adventure Time feel great. 

As for GRAVITY FALLS ITSELF, yeah because the world doesn’t feel as real as it could be I never wanted to see what it had to offer next, and there’s never explanation for all of this. The journals play a much smaller role in the series than Dipper’s reactions over them would have you think. The closest thing to an explanation is the pondering over whether a spaceship caused the weirdness in GF or was drawn to the area because of this weirdness. But is it magic? Is it science? Is it different dimensions? Fuck knows! Is there any hint about the truth? I’m not sure! Yeah, not all things need to have answers, but it helps fire off the thinkpan. In Adventure Time the Land of Ooo’s weirdness is linked to an apocalypse that helped bring magic back to the land. The hint is that the magic potential was always there, because there were magical societies around millenia before humanity. Did magic disappear because of a comet hitting the planet? Is magic actually based on scientific principles? Like GF, not all these questions have direct answers, but unlike GF, you have enough incentive and evidence to construct your own theories. It lets you get absorbed in the lore of Ooo, of the characters inhibiting it. This is my own perspective anyway. 

I think the most amazing mysteries I ever saw unwravel were Simon and Marcy’s adventures, and more relevant to my own experiences, PB’s age. Like there was puzzle pieces and hints around indicating Peebles had been around way longer than 18 years or whatever but we finally got confirmation in Season 5.2 where we saw consecutive episodes showing her in the past. The theory was that she was younger than 1000, but could be any age older than about 50. The Vault was a shock origin story for not just Finn having had a past life as a girl without an arm (THE ARM BEING ANOTHER ADVENTURE TIME THING THAT EVENTUALLY GOT some really back and forth PAYOFF), it was an origin story for peebles and the candy kingdom! but why would she make it?? ? yeah this was all stuff we were able to construct theories for, and accurate theories, because the evidence was there and more significantly the Writers were putting it together at the same time. It almost felt like we were having an INPUT in the story because of this natural way it evolved over time. That’s why AT’s mysteries are far more engaging than those of Gravity Falls, at least for me.... but maybe the same thing happened to GF fans????? Because I wasn’t there to put the pieces together, to study the Pines family or the Bill Zodiac which.... was almost as much a copout as Finn’s arm but its ok cos the stan deleting his memories shit was a decent end anyway. I just dont know why theyd  put a mystery like that IN there if it was always going to be a red herring???

To conclude this description which..... ended up being another reason to talk about Adventure Time again, I want you to know that I REALLY enjoyed Gravity Falls. It reminded me of Over the Garden Wall in how it’s told, the characters it has, but much larger and grander than OtgW ever was. 

My favourite characters were Stan and Mabel. Yeah, Dipper and Ford were very interesting characters too, but while they’re among the top of their trope, they still feel like an overdone trope to me.... especially dipper and his Issues,,, Stan meanwhile I liked that he was a runaway fuckup nobody as a child who became a professional conman after his parents kicked him out. That was an interesting backstory.  

Gravity Falls, all in All, gets 3.5 out of 5 hats. To keep it real. Spend them wisely.

[timsim26]

Horizon Zero Dawn Review

Horizon Zero Dawn proves that developers who are known for one genre definitely have the ability to branch out and try new things. Guerrilla Games, well known for the Killzone series, have applied their knowledge and understanding of the Playstation brand to deliver one of the best open world role playing games available exclusively on the system. Horizon: Zero Dawn is an enormous game and is highly ambitious for a studio that is well known for making first person shooters. It is wonderful to see devs being given the trust and respect to try something new and take a risk that well and truly has paid off for gamers, the company and Playstation.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world role playing game with a science fiction hook that feels unique when compared with other fiction. Robot dinosaur like creatures roam the lands and the human race has been limited to living like tribes people before the ages of technology. It is clear that long before the current existence of animals, robots and humans that a deeply complex society developed remarkable technologies beyond our imagination. This society is hinted at making terrible mistakes and using this as a launching point, the game’s underlying narrative continues. We play as Aloy. An outcast who is raised by another outcast Rost. Early in the game it is revealed that outcasts are considered not worthy and should not even be addressed by people who do belong to a tribe.  Aloy fights for her survival and is guided by Rost throughout her life. We watch Aloy grow and begin her trials to join the tribes people and discover why she began her life as an outcast and who is responsible for her creation. The narrative of Horizon is well paced and often draws players into seeking out extra lore and information in the environment to piece together the mystery about Aloy’s past and also what happened to the society we currently know. The two narratives working together at the same time to introduce many interesting characters, surprising moments and a few predictable twists and turns along the way. The game left me satisfied with the end, however the big reveal was a little underwhelming and the game relies on the player listening to audio logs. I really can never excuse games for making the player wait and wait while a diary plays and Horizon does this consistently and towards the later stages of the game, it makes you wait for 5-10 minutes at a time and this is inexcusable for today’s standards. I remember being extremely frustrated by the original Bioshock as the content was so good, that engaging in combat and missing important story details was infuriating.

This really impacted the pacing for me and I felt the storylines occurring in the moment between the tribes and the way the robot animals impacted society was far more engaging. The history of the ‘old ones’ became very technical and required reading through journals and piecing together a lot of what went on for yourself. This is fine, but the game’s break neck pace makes these moments stand out and the mission structure around these moments are the poorest quality within the game. There are so many memorable missions, however the simplistic climb to the top of a structure, listen to an audio log, watch a cut scene grew boring. It is a shame that this is the way the game ends, as Horizon is an absolute joy to play and explore the huge open world. The gameplay is really where Horizon stands out from other games of this nature, as it encourages you to experiment and learn how enemies react to your existence and also what weapon work best for combat scenarios. Playing on the normal difficulty the game was quite challenging and felt like a good fit for players that wanted to enjoy the story and be moderately challenged by the game’s enemies. Aloy is a skilled hunter and wields a number of weapons to take down machines.

Early in the game Aloy finds a piece of futuristic tech used by the previous generation of humans called a focus. This tech allows Aloy to track enemies movements, identify weak points, locate left over tracks and trails and also find points of interest. The mechanic is very similar to the vision that Geralt used in the Witcher 3 and similar to eagle vision from the Assassins Creed franchise. This promotes careful planning and approaching enemies very similar to the Far Cry games. Enemies put up a fight and will swarm you in a number of ways. They are very animalistic in their approach and will often run if they feel they are in danger. While enemies are deadly, you always have the upper hand due to the stealthy nature of Aloy. She can use the long grass and environment to take enemies down with takedowns or even gain the high grand advantage and rain down bombs or arrows. Aloy can also use trip wire traps and bait enemies into traps and even use a rope launcher to tie some of the larger creatures to the ground. These options when used together are extremely effective and allows Aloy to dispose some of the toughest creatures with ease.

Combat is the primary form of gameplay experience in Horizon and different combat arenas unclock different abilities and areas. Cauldrons and Bandit camps are two of the main arenas for combat outside of the game’s side quests and main story. Cauldrons are where machines are being produced and act as Dungeons. In cauldrons there will be a series of combat sequences and also puzzles. Cauldrons unlock the ability to control enemy machines and use them for your bidding. It is satisfying to sneak into an area and override a machine and watch it destroy machines that are none the wiser to the situation. While cauldrons are machine based, bandit camps are huge areas that need to be cleared of human enemies. While human enemies do offer a nice change to pace to the hulking machines, they offer no real challenge and are very dumb. It is easy to bait them into trip wires or sneak up behind them and spear them through the chest. When bandit camps are cleared they offer another fast travel point around the world and also a merchant to sell items and gear.

Fast travel points are extremely valuable in Horizon as the world is absolutely enormous. It is clear now that the team at Guerrilla are capable of making beautiful video games. While Shadowfall was a poor game it looked remarkable when launching for for ps4 back in 2013. The polish, time and effort that Horizon has been given is that off a sequel to a very successful original game. It is clear in the world’s attention to detail and overall style. There are a number of distinct and gorgeous areas to explore that range from Forests full of oak trees, huge mountains covered in snow and large open spaces cornered in sandstone surrounded by snowy peaks. The game’s environment feels unique and is continually surprising as you explore each corner of the map. Every where you look there is more great environmental story telling of the rise of humans after clearly something so terrible. The game’s environment is enhanced so greatly by the atmosphere created by the gorgeous visual design. Multiple times I stopped to take in what I was seeing and there are some truly breath taking vistas to behold as the sun rises and sets. The lighting is absolutely incredible and the game looks remarkable at all stages of the day. Playing on a normal PS4, my experience of the game was still very satisfying and I can’t imagine how stunning this game would look with a great TV and PS4 Pro.

Horizon’s great gameplay loop is also supported by a number of upgradeable and collectibles. The game gives you a lot to do and see as you journey through the campaign that will take you anywhere from 20-40 hours depending on how thorough you are. Every successful kill of enemy, collectible found or objective complete nets you XP and loot. Loot can be used very similarly to Far Cry Primal’s upgrade system, where certain materials are required to increase your carry capacity of weapons, loot and ammo. XP can be used to upgrade your 3 skill trees that make Aloy considerably more powerful with each and every addition. The game rewards you for every single battle and the XP rewards are quite generous. Without completing all of the game’s hunting lodge quests I was still around level 44 of 50 when I finished the game. Strolling through the environment and taking your time to takedown enemies and then craft new arrows, bombs and trip wires is satisfying and consistently rewarding.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an impressive title for Sony to begin 2017 with and put Guerrilla Games on the map as a developer with a huge amount of talent. The writing and characters are well developed and strong enough to support a sequel to a franchise that is clearly setting itself up to be Sony’s next go to platform. The engaging combat, breath taking world and striking visuals are great selling points and Horizon delivered on a lot of the promise and hype that earned multiple E3 game of the show awards. This game is well worth your time and yet another impressive game added to the open world role playing game genre.

8.5/10

[olusegundare]

SAMSON & DEBBIE’S STORY CONTINUES

May 15th, 2014

Broda Samson says, "he has grown anoda wing". We talked late into d night afta we finished eating yamflour & ila asepo, "mai" lord do sleep early, probably bc of his daily midnight watch, but I did not allow him 2 sleep early 2da as we keep discusing various issues, from my akademiks 2 family life 2 d ongoing issue within d island, d increase tide of kidnappings & he said "the inception of politiks & d desire 2 get 2 echelon post @ all cost by d politicians are not un-associated with dis worrisome development, bc many of dem are using human blood as sacrifices, dey r using human blood 2 appeal 2 their gods 2 assist dem get 2 d topmost position, I think d politikal offices she be made less attractive", he enthused. Relationship is all about sacrifices if it is 2 be enjoyed by both parties. One ought not 2 be sacrificing with d oda person thinking it is my right, he or she also ought 2 balance up, by offering some needful sacrifices to make d journey a blessed one, enjoyable one. None of the partners should think and or lay the sacrifices needful for the growth of the relationship on his or her partner, because relationship involves two people and it shd be treated as such, "ohun aba jijọ wo, gigun lo ngun" so the elder says... IrreSpective of d person's age in d journey, bc some people are new, while some are old. Some are old bc of separation from many causes and or death...So, despite such age, both person needs 2 sacrifice if actually dey love being 2geda, if truly dey wanted 2 grow in love 2geda. Sister Debbie did not have any ugly past in dis journey of love, bc "mai" lord as she used 2 call her love is d only person she has ever given her nod of love to. And co-incidentally, broda Samson also did not have untoward experiences with other lass, except that many if not all d ladies he abinitio talked to never accepted his hand of fellowship in love.. Sister Debbie & Broda Samson are deeply in love, and every1 could attest 2 dat, they r enjoying themselves They are enjoying themselves in this love relationship... We talked & talked until I started dozing and I slept off with my head resting on his lap...He woke me up 2 go & sleep in d bedroom. The ffg day, afta our morning prayer, he left 4 shop early 2 go & tidy up some things bc it was d sales personnels who closed the shop yda..I am not expected in d office for I am on a leave...when I eventually got up, I did d tidying up dat was suspended d previous day...bc of his diary dat I read which later turn out 2 be a memorable outing 4 us...Afta dis, I left 4 d market 2 buy foodstuffs & soup ingredients...afta which I returned home 2 prepare d soup & dinner along 4 him in d office. "Ẹ ku ise o", Debbie said, as she walks to his side and embraced him. ""Uhm! Tabi iwọ ti a o ba ki ku isẹ." I thought u will not be able 2 come here again" "mai" lord said. "Kilode? Tabi e o fẹ ki n wa ni? Even if u do not want me 2 come, I have told u dat I have signed a life-long contract with u, u will neva be alone again, wherever u r, just look behind u, u will see me dia, I shall always be your undetachable tail... Broda Samson interjecting, as he dropped his pen, resting his back in d chair, placed his hands on d chairs arms, said, "Hun-hun?" Debbie continues, "...beni o, nitori tẹru-tẹru labuke nrin, tẹru tẹru labuke nwọlu, emi atiyin ni nibikibi, nitoripe bi igbin ba fa ikarahun a tẹ le ni", whereeva u be, I will always be dia by God's grace until death separates us" she concluded, as she drops d food warmers on a corner, pulled out a seat opposite "mai" lord to sit down, "oru ma mu mi kẹ". "It is bc u r just coming in, by d time u acclamatize to d office's weather, d perspiration would have gone", broda Samson enthused, and then I, Debbie, looked at the "The Light" Newspaper headlines on his desk, he buys Newspaper regularly I have been telling him to stop wasting his money on Newspapers because many of their reportage are false but he said 4m false one will extract true and dat he gets some facts from those newspapers...according to an elderly man, newspaper these days is more or less like a textbook or story book or whatever, it is usually loaded, full of myriads of infomation...so, I have to stop complaining...I took "The Light" Newspaper and was going thru it until I got to the section of the viewpoints, and there I saw a write up " BRUSHING ASIDE THE LIMITERS" by mr IRONIPEPE NPA. So, I asked "mai" lord, "have u read dis article?" He paused to answer, "which of the articles my love?", "Brushing aside the Limiters", Debbie said. "Oh yeah", "mai" lord replied, "it is interesting, d man who wrote d article and I got admitted into the University @ d same time, studying the same course, but in his 200Level he joined d institutuons mainstream politics and he was expelled in 300Level..." "Was dat so?" my love inquired. "Yes...afta his expulsion with about 7 others, they took the institution to court for unconstitutional expulsion, but while d instituted court case linger on, he obtained another University entrance form & got admitted into anoda university...By the time d legal tussle will be over, he was already in his final year & wouldnt need the verdict of d court again...Afta graduation, he became a freelance writer for the newspaper, and as the saying, "isẹ rẹ yio fi ọ han", when the management of the newspaper saw his make up he become employed as a member of staff of the newspaper". "Eh-hen. Someone who doesnt know dis may think he has not experienced much", Debbie said. "That is it, one must not judge people on surface level, "ikoko ti yo jata idi re yo gbona loro ile aiye", many of us have our pasts, it is only when we become blessed dat people see us and start complaining..." "That is it "mai" love", Debbie said. "When I was reading his article, I said 2 mysef, he has grown another wing...The institution abinitio pulled off his feathers, but he regathered d pieces of his life 2geda charting anoda course & path for .for himsef, and here he is today", broda Samson said. "There are so many ways to making it, when a route is blocked by enemies, one shd be sensitive enof to take anoda route & with dedication, doggedness, soon one will become exceptionally noticed in dat new way, but limiting one's self 2 a place, a closed channel is nay d best", Debbie said. "Not even in dis technologikal age, one should not be myopic, whateva evil anyone does, God usually overturn them, God usually change dem 2 one's good...but d problem with many a one is d ability to accept what happened early and take a new path..."Ẹ jọwọ ounjẹ ti ẹ gbewa da? Ebi ti de?" broda Samson said. Debbie standing up, said, "Ebi o kabọ o, o ku irin, mo ti n sed message si ẹ latarọ". "Bẹni ti ẹ ri, mo mọ awon ota mi tipẹ", "mai" lord said. "Awa ore yin na lẹ o ma pe lọta yin, awa ti a fe nyin fun ire, awa ti a fe itesiwaju ati ilosiwaju nyin, awa ti a nje ki oju nyin dan bi i omo jojolo" as she talks she is putting the food warmers on the table, ""mai" lord, do u know dat things are costly in d market 2da, me who does not like too much "pricing", had to join the train of the "pricers" today b4 I could buy those things I bought", she concluded. "Only God will save us, anytime the market women hear that salaries have been increased they also inflate the prices of their goods as it we are all salary earners", broda Samson said. "They said by doing that, they will also get their largesse 4m the govt, howeva, indirectly", Debbie said. "I will also have to increase d prices of my goods too, to get out of d largesse", "mai" lord said. "I will send messages to market control dept's office of d Island 2 come & enforce compliance in dis shop" Debbie said. "Sebi o niwo lore mi lekan ni? Aye ma le o", broda Samson said. "Ore awon mekunnu nimi lori oro yi o", Debbie said. "Aje wipe a o ma gba awẹ niyen o", broda samson said. "I reject dat in Jesus name. He has promised 2 supply all our needs according to His riche His riches in glory", Debbie said. "E sa wa jeun o", broda Samson said. "Mo ti jeun temi nile o", Debbie said, "do u think I can wait till this time?" "I wont eat again "niyen", maybe poison wa nibẹ", broda Samson said. "Ebi o ti payin niyen o, bi ebi ba pa yin, e o mo wipe ko si bi mo se fẹ se ounje yen ti mi o ni fi "love concortion" sinu ẹ"...as she starts eating with her love... TRANSLATION

May 15th, 2014

anoda (= another)

"ohun aba jijọ wo, gigun lo ngun"(Yoruba proverb meaning when we looked at something together we would correct the errors and it would be straightened)   ffg (means following) "Ẹ ku ise o", (means Weldone oh) ""Uhm! Tabi iwọ ti a o ba ki ku isẹ." (Uhmn! It is you that I should greet, that you are weldone) 

"Kilode? Tabi e o fẹ ki n wa ni? (Why? Or don’t you want me to come here in the first instance?)  

"...beni o, nitori tẹru-tẹru labuke nrin, tẹru tẹru labuke nwọlu, emi atiyin ni nibikibi, nitoripe bi igbin ba fa ikarahun a tẹ le ni", (means Yes oh, because the person with a hunch back enters the town with loads on his/her body (it’s a Yoruba proverb, clarifying the proverb she says) everywhere you go, it is you and me, (adding another Yoruba Proverb) because when snails crawl the shells will not be left behind)

"oru ma mu mi kẹ". (meaning, I am feeling heat (probably perspiring) "isẹ rẹ yio fi ọ han",(means your work will reveal you)

"ikoko ti yo jata idi re yo gbona loro ile aiye", (means life is like the pot that will cook a soup which will first be heated up by fire (it’s a Yoruba Proverb)

"Ẹ jọwọ ounjẹ ti ẹ gbewa da? Ebi ti de?" (Please where is the food you have prepared and brought for me? I am now hungry?”)

"Ebi o kabọ o, o ku irin, mo ti n send message si ẹ latarọ". (means Hunger, welcome oh, how was your journey? For quite a while now, I have been sending messages to you) "Bẹni ti ẹ ri, mo mọ awon ota mi tipẹ", "mai" lord said. (means I know you, I have long know those who are my enemies) "Awa ore yin na lẹ o ma pe lọta yin, awa ti a fe nyin fun ire, awa ti a fe itesiwaju ati ilosiwaju nyin, awa ti a nje ki oju nyin dan bi i omo jojolo" (means Those of us who are your friends are those you will be calling your enemies, those of us who want you to succeed, those of us who want your progress and growth, those of us who ensure that your face look babyish everyday are those you will be calling your enemies)  

"pricing", (means negotiating that prices of goods be reduced, it is the common thing in the local market in Nigeria and perhaps some African countries)  

"Sebi o niwo lore mi lekan ni? Aye ma le o", (means but are you not the one who called yourself my friend just a while ago? The world is wicked!”)  

"Ore awon mekunnu nimi lori oro yi o", (means on this case, I should be seen as friends to the indigent/poor ones in this matter). "Aje wipe a o ma gba awẹ niyen o", (meaning it means I shall be fasting oh). "E sa wa jeun o", (means come and join me on the table/come and eat with me) "Mo ti jeun temi nile o", (meaning, I have taken my food at home before coming here)   "I wont eat again "niyen", (meaning, that means I will not eat what you have prepared again)  maybe poison wa nibẹ" (meaning who knows may be you have put poison there), broda Samson said. "Ebi o ti payin niyen o, bi ebi ba pa yin, e o mo wipe ko si bi mo se fẹ se ounje yen ti mi o ni fi "love concortion" sinu ẹ" (meaning, that means you are pretending to be hungry, but you are actually  not, because assuming  you are you will know that there is no how I would prepare your food that I will not add love concortion there (love concortion is the African charms added to soup to make the opposite person love his/her partner the more, usually used for someone that one wants to win his/her love but may be the person is proving difficult or may be he or she is already engaged and would not look at the person eyeing her or him, when that concortion is added the person starts loving the person greatly)...as she starts eating with her love...