#rather than reducing a single version of the game to itself and not a game that had been released prior without being a true remake

[p3ta]

Here's the thing with "I would still like you no matter if you were a guy or a girl" with Ryoji Mochizuki—yes, on the surface it seems like a blatant lie. Ryoji doesn't even have a Social Link with the male protagonist! It's a bit hypocritical, no?

This observation fails to note that P3P is a shoestring budget adaptation. As it didn't have the space for assets, instead the writing was expanded. FeMC in specific was the addition here, with everything involving her being made from scratch. In subsequent developer interviews she was referred to as a "gimmick" to get people invested. Thusly, her route is entirely additive. The intended play for Persona 3 (regardless of what you actually picked, the P3P menu even clarifies this) is first as the boy, then the girl. Hence the line carries more meaning. The original game still lies under the surface. It's not retroactive, wherein the previous experience was modeled entirely for Portable, because it's not a remake. Due to the male route being (mostly) a port and the female route is new, she's allowed new dialogue with implications for both protagonists. Hence, Ryoji's comment. The male protagonist recieves a similar line himself, but this was a Portable addition as well.

(This is a reductive addition but I feel it's worth saying that while the male protagonist already has a bond with Ryoji (Pharos, Death), the female one simply has two.)

And yes, he still loves them.

[eienshi09]

Final Fantasy IV (DS) - Final Thoughts

I actually finished the game last... October? or so but haven't had the motivation to write down my thoughts about it in full. But I just started Final Fantasy V so I figure I should probably put something out about IV before getting too far along and... Well, I really wish I had picked up the Pixel Remaster or replayed the GBA version instead of the DS remake, but more on that later. Playing through Final Fantasy IV again at all was, for me, part nostalgia trip and part realization how far the series had come - both up to that point in the then-nascent franchise and since then til now. Final Fantasy IV is a culmination of the lessons learned from the first three - taking the grander scale in narrative of Final Fantasy II and the expanded job features of III - then adding a major focus on its cast and characters, combining them all into what would become the basis for every Final Fantasy game going forward. Or, as Dan Floyd of PlayFrame put much more elegantly: "Final Fantasy IV is where Final Fantasy becomes itself."

IV's story, though more epic and dramatic than entries past, does kind of just follow a basic Hero's Journey structure. However, what makes it compelling are its characters. While, yea, in 2024, FFIV's characters may bekind of one-note and trope-y but they're done well enough that you still care enough to want to see their story play out. And there is a sort of timelessness you get for playing in long-standing archetypes: Cecil is a man conflicted, wondering if he is doing the right thing even if he is just following orders then later dealing with the guilt of his horrific misdeeds and striving to atone for them. These themes of one's duty versus doing what's actually the right thing and of redemption and atonement are still very relatable today. Granted, the rest of the cast don't get near as much development but their characters still shine through the mechanics if not the actual narrative and dialogue. Final Fantasy IV is the first one to give its characters not only a job but also abilities to match their personalities. Yang is a stoic and disciplined martial artist so his unique skills as a Monk are Brace to reduce incoming damage and Focus to increase the power of his next attack; Rydia's trauma from her village burning down results in her not knowing the Fire spells; Edward doesn't fight very well and is kind of a coward so his other signature move is Hide. For such a subtle thing, it adds a lot of flavor to the characters and the world even. This extra care and attention given to the characters to make them lovable and charming and endearing will go on to create some of the most iconic and beloved characters in all of gaming, and it all starts here.

Now - while I still hold Final Fantasy IV as a whole in high regard - playing through it this time, I realized why I had so many abandoned starts with the DS remake before: the unbalanced difficulty did not make the game feel challenging or skill testing at all but rather made it feel grindy at best and outright frustrating at worst. And I promise I won't bring up random encounters for every single entry going forward, but you especially feel it here. In the early game when you mostly have just 2-3 party members - and when they tend to join several levels behind which normally would be one of those cute mechanics showing character things mentioned earlier - random encounters can be brutal and have very little counterplay. Just hope you don't see a certain enemy composition or get ambushed or you will lose a party member. It's not really a challenge when you have little other option except pray for good RNG or level grind: it's frustration or tedium. The increased difficulty did make some of the boss fights more engaging as I had think through my strategy and adapt it when I messed up an ATB timing or a hit was harder than I expected. But those fights were few and far between with only the tedious slog of random encounters in the interim even when you have a full party. And given that they added a new Normal Mode while making what was the DS version Hard Mode when they ported this 3D remake to mobile and PC, I feel is an admission they had overtuned the difficulty for a first playthrough. I can probably write an entire other post about why the DS version specifically sucks but if you read through all that and take just one thing away from this post: avoid the DS version of Final Fantasy IV and play literally any other version.

[miloscat]

[Review] Wario Land 3 (GBC)

A return to a childhood favourite.

Although I played this game to death growing up, I wanted to revisit it during this Wario Land series playthrough, to see if it holds up. Short answer: it does! Long answer:...

WL3 is very much standing on the shoulders of Wario Land 2. Most of the mechanics are straight up reused, including the exploratory focus and the various zany conditions that can empower or bother the invincible Wario. The enemy cast is completely new, owing to the new setting inside a magical music box, but many of their interactions with Wario are familiar, plus a bunch of new ones have been added like vampire mode, invisible mode, or wrapped-in-a-ball-of-string mode.

The sprites from Wario's forms to the enemy cast are all delightfully expressive, and make better use of the colour palettes, this now being a native GBC game. But I must admit that after two games with Captain Syrup and her crew, that I missed her as a villain; Rudy the evil clown is not only supremely ugly and an unsatisfying twist villain, but his boss fight is kind of bland as well. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Building on the puzzley interactivity that WL2 laid down, the dev team seem to have brought an infusion of Metroid DNA over to WL3. While there are still discrete stages (and the return of the world map), Wario unlocks new abilities over the course of the game through certain treasures, and others will open new paths in previous levels. In fact, each stage must be visited at least four times to discover new bite-size challenge rooms and find more stuff to unlock more paths and so on. The options can feel overwhelming, but twinkles on the map screen can clue you in to where changes have occurred, and the helpful cave god (who is not at all a baddy that is tricking Wario) will always give you a hot tip for which level to choose for optimal progress. Overall I think this game structure works really well; while a bit experimental, it's also a natural evolution of Wario Land design principles and Metroid cross-pollination.

Combining WL2 mechanics with a more robust version of WL1's underused world-changing system makes WL3 in some ways feel like the ultimate Wario game... except for a reduced focus on coins. You still pick them up, but rewarding you with rooms full of shiny gold has been replaced with more practical keys and chests for unique treasure, and the optional music coins; both these and ordinary coins lead into an inevitable examination of the golf minigame.

The series has always incorporated minigames, which spins off into the excellent Warioware subseries. Examples within the Wario Land games themselves have always been a bit lacking. The golf minigame here, while admittedly decent and the best yet, is a little overplayed. (By the way, it's actually Wario kicking a little mook enemy rather than clubs and balls.) It's a mandatory task for some treasures, and is the only purpose for money which otherwise caps at a measly 999. An optional, longer version can be expanded with new courses by finding all music coins in a single run of a stage... if one is so inclined. I opted out of this in my current playthrough. I've played enough of this minigame in my life, thanks.

I was pleased that my appreciation of WL3 wasn't just nostalgia, it's a genuinely great game. It still has the WL2 problem of deliberately wasting your time as a punishment, but it's a reasonable consequence of the novel dynamics they've invested in Wario as a player character. As for his personality within the series, WL3 is a bit lacking in characterising Wario as the amusingly greedy, lazy, and mean weirdo we know and love. But the game in itself is so charming and tightly designed. The world map and consistently well-sprited environments gives this little music box world a great sense of place, and the complex web of unlocks and interactions seems to be just the shot in the arm that the series needed to justify this iterative follow-up to WL2. The next sequel followed about 18 months later, but before that: the cast of this game specifically infiltrates Dr. Mario 64!

[mariacallous]

The U.S. alliance system: there’s never been anything quite like it. Ancient Athens helmed the Delian League. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck skillfully played Europe’s alliance game in the nineteenth century. The coalitions that won the world wars were nearly global in scope. But no peacetime alliance network has been so expansive, enduring, and effective as the one Washington has led since World War II. The U.S. alliance system has pacified what once were killing fields; it has forged a balance of power that favors the democracies.

Yet the existence—and achievements—of that system may actually make it harder for Americans to understand the challenge they now confront. Across the Eurasian landmass, Washington’s enemies are joining hands. China and Russia have a “no-limits” strategic partnership. Iran and Russia are enhancing a military relationship that U.S. officials deem a “profound threat” to the “whole world.” Illiberal friendships between Moscow and Pyongyang, and Beijing and Tehran, are flourishing. Americans may wonder if these interlocking relationships will someday add up to a formal alliance of U.S. enemies—the mirror image of the institutions Washington itself leads. Whatever the answer, it’s the wrong question to ask.

When Americans think of alliances, they usually think of their own alliances—formal, highly institutionalized relationships among countries that are linked by binding security guarantees as well as genuine friendship and trust. But alliances, as history reminds us, can serve many purposes and take many forms.

Some alliances are nothing more than nonaggression pacts that allow predators to devour their prey rather than devouring one another. Some alliances are military-technological partnerships in which countries build and share the capabilities they need to shatter the status quo. Some of the world’s most destructive alliances featured little coordination and even less affection: they were simply rough agreements to assail the existing order from all sides. Alliances can be secret or overt, formal or informal. They can be devoted to preserving the peace or abetting aggression. An alliance is merely a combination of states that seeks shared objectives. And relationships that seemed far less impressive than today’s U.S. alliances have caused geopolitical earthquakes in the past.

That’s the key to understanding the relationships among U.S. antagonists today. These relationships may be ambiguous and ambivalent. They may lack formal defense guarantees. But they still augment the military power revisionist states can muster and reduce the strategic isolation those countries might otherwise face. They intensify pressure on an imperiled international system by helping their members contest U.S. power on many fronts at once. And were U.S. antagonists to expand their cooperation in the future—by sharing more advanced defense technology or collaborating more extensively in crisis or conflict—they could upset the global equilibrium in even more disturbing ways. The United States may never face a single, full-fledged league of villains. But it wouldn’t take an illiberal, revisionist version of NATO to cause an overstretched superpower fits.

AMERICA’S EXCEPTIONAL ALLIANCES

Alliances are shaped by their circumstances, and U.S. alliances—namely, NATO and Washington’s Indo-Pacific alliances—are products of the early Cold War. Back then, the United States faced the dual dilemma of containing the Soviet Union and suppressing the tensions that had twice ripped the Western world apart. The contours of U.S. alliances have always reflected these founding facts.

For one thing, U.S. alliances are defensive pactsmeant to prevent aggression, not perpetrate it. Washington originally structured its alliances so their members could not use them as vehicles for territorial revanchism; when American alliances have expanded, they have done so with the consent of new members. U.S. alliances are also nuclear alliances: since the only way a distant superpower could check the Red Army was to threaten nuclear escalation, issues of nuclear strategy have dominated alliance politics from the outset. For related reasons, U.S. alliances are asymmetric. Washington has long shouldered an unequal share of the military burden, especially on nuclear matters, to avoid a scenario in which countries such as Germany or Japan might destabilize their regions—and terrify their former victims—by building full-spectrum defense capabilities of their own.

This point notwithstanding, U.S. alliances are deeply institutionalized: they feature remarkable cooperation and interoperability developed through decades of training to fight as a team. U.S. alliances are also democratic; they have survived for so long because their foremost members have a shared, enduring stake in preserving a world safe for liberalism. Finally, U.S. alliances aresanctified in written treaties and public pledges of commitment. That’s natural, because democracies cannot easily make secret treaties. It’s also vital because the beating heart of every U.S. alliance is Washington’s promise to aid its friends if they are attacked.

These features have made U.S. alliances tremendously attractive, effective, and stabilizing—which is why Europe and East Asia have been so peaceful since World War II and why Washington has more trouble keeping prospective members out than luring them in. But they also influence Americans’ views of alliances in ways that aren’t always helpful in understanding the modern world. After all, there is no rule that alliances must look like Washington’s—and some of history’s most pernicious alliances have not.

THE PREDATORS’ PACTS

Today isn’t the first time the world’s most aggressive states have made common cause. During the mid-twentieth century, an array of revisionist powers forged malign combinations to aid their serial assaults on the status quo.

In 1922, a still democratic Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Rapallo Pact, which promoted cooperation between these two losers of World War I. Between 1936 and 1940, fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and imperial Japan inked agreements culminating in the Tripartite Pact, a loose alliance committed to achieving a totalitarian “new order of things” around the world. Along the way, Berlin and Moscow sealed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a nonaggression treaty that included protocols on trade and the division of Eastern Europe. And after a hot war gave way to the Cold War, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong negotiated a Sino-Soviet alliance that linked the two communist giants in their fight against the capitalist world.

These were some of history’s most dysfunctional, ill-fated partnerships. In several cases, they were temporary truces between deadly rivals. In no case was there anything like the deep cooperation and strategic sympathy that distinguish U.S. alliances today. This isn’t surprising: regimes as vicious and ambitious as Adolf Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and Mao’s China shared little more than a desire to turn the world on its head. Yet this history is valuable because it shows how even the most transitory, tension-ridden partnerships can rupture the existing order, generating strong pressures in support of aggressive designs.

The Rapallo Pact was no full-fledged alliance: it was principally a détente in Eastern Europe, the region into which both Germany and the Soviet Union hoped to eventually expand. But the pact and the secret protocols that accompanied it turbocharged disruptive military innovation by international outcasts—Germany especially. At sites hidden within the Soviet interior, Germany began developing the tanks and planes the Treaty of Versailles had denied it, as well as operational concepts it would later use to great effect. This covert partnership collapsed when Hitler took power, but not before giving him a vital, deadly head start in Europe’s race to rearm in the 1930s.

Other revisionist pacts lowered the costs of aggression by reducing the isolation its perpetrators might otherwise have faced. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—the “new Rapallo” Hitler signed with Stalin on the eve of World War II—lasted less than two years. But during that period, it shielded Germany from the effects of the British blockade by giving it access to Soviet foodstuffs, minerals, and energy and by providing a conduit through which Hitler could access Japan’s growing empire in Asia. Molotov-Ribbentrop enabled Germany’s rampage through Europe by making much of Eurasia an economic hinterland for Berlin.

Molotov-Ribbentrop also enabled violent aggrandizement on one front by taming tensions on others; in this sense, it was a nonaggression treaty that encouraged world-shattering aggression. The pact set off World War II in Europe by assuring Hitler that he could fight Poland and the Western democracies without interference from the Soviet Union—and by setting off Soviet land grabs from Finland to Bessarabia by assuring Stalin that he could reorder his periphery without interference from Berlin. For two crucial years, Molotov-Ribbentrop made Europe a paradise for predators by freeing them from the threat of conflict with each other.

Revisionist pacts also backstopped aggressive behavior by creating solidarity in crises. The partnership between Nazi Germany and Italy was often uneasy. But during crises over Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler was emboldened, and France and the United Kingdom were hamstrung, by the knowledge that Italian leader Benito Mussolini—who had earlier opposed German expansion—now stood behind him. The Sino-Soviet alliance offers another example. After Chinese intervention in the Korean War in 1950, the United States had to pull its punches—refraining from striking targets in China, for instance—for fear of starting a fight with Moscow.

Finally, revisionist alliances created multiplier effects by battering the status quo on several fronts at once. After signing the Sino-Soviet pact, Stalin and Mao sealed a division of revolutionary labor—Beijing pushed the communist cause with new energy in Asia, and Moscow focused on Europe—that forced agonizing debates over resources and priorities in Washington. Yet even absent formal coordination, advances by one revisionist made opportunities for others. During the late 1930s, the United Kingdom hesitated to draw a hard line against Germany in Europe because it faced danger from Italy in the Mediterranean and Japan in Asia. The fascist powers helped one another simply by destabilizing a system suffering from too many threats.

THE NEW REVISIONIST PACTS

Cataloging the destruction caused by an earlier set of revisionist alliances provides insight into what really matters about the combinations taking shape today. These combinations are numerous and deepening. An ever-expanding Chinese-Russian partnership unites Eurasia’s two largest, most ambitious states. In Russia’s long-standing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran, aid and influence now flow both ways. China is drawing closer to Iran, to complement its decades-old alliance with North Korea. For years, Pyongyang and Tehran have collaborated to make missiles and mischief. This isn’t a single revisionist coalition. It is a more complex web of ties among autocratic powers that aim to reorder their regions and, thereby, reorder the world.

These relationships profit from proximity. During World War II, vast distances across hostile oceans impeded cooperation between Germany and Japan. But Russia, China, and North Korea share land borders with one another. Iran can reach Russia via inland sea. This invulnerability to interdiction facilitates ties among Eurasia’s revisionists—just as the war in Ukraine pushes them closer together by making Russia more dependent on, and willing to cut deals with, its autocratic brethren.

These relationships have their limits. Of the Eurasian revisionists, only China and North Korea have a formal defense treaty. Military cooperation is expanding, but none of these partnerships remotely rival NATO in interoperability or institutionalized cooperation. That’s partly because historical tensions and mistrust are pervasive: as one example, China still occasionally claims territory Russia considers its own. But even so, revisionist collaborations are producing some familiar effects.

Take, for example, the way that Chinese-Russian collaboration is turbocharging disruptive military innovation. Although China has been under Western arms embargoes since 1989, its record-breaking military modernization has benefited from purchases of Russian aircraft, missiles, and air defenses. Today, China and Russia are pursuing the joint development of helicopters, conventional attack submarines, missiles, and missile-launch early warning systems. Their cooperation increasingly includes shadowy coproduction and technology-sharing initiatives rather than simply the transfer of finished capabilities. If the United States one day fights China, it will be fighting a foe whose capabilities have been materially enhanced by Moscow.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defense technology relationships with other Eurasian autocracies are flourishing. Iran has sold Russia missiles and drones for use in Ukraine, even helping it build facilities that can produce the latter at the scale modern war demands. Russia, in exchange, has reportedly committed to delivering advanced air defenses, fighter aircraft, and other capabilities to Iran that could change the balance in the ever-contested Middle East. As in the Rapallo era, revisionist states are helping each other build up the military power they need to tear down the status quo.

Revisionist alliances are also—once again—making aggression less costly by mitigating the strategic isolation aggressors might otherwise face. Despite Western sanctions and horrific military losses, Russia has sustained its war in Ukraine thanks to the drones, shells, and missiles Tehran and Pyongyang have provided. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economy has stayed afloat because China has absorbed Russian exports and provided Moscow with microchips and other dual-use goods. Just as Hitler once relied on Eurasian resources to thwart the British blockade, Putin now relies on China to blunt the economic harms of confrontation with the West. Expect more of this, as the revisionists cultivate networks—whether the International North-South Transport Corridor connecting Iran and Russia or the Eurasian commercial and financial bloc Beijing is constructing—to keep their commerce beyond Washington’s reach.

These relationships, additionally, are maximizing the risk of violent instability on some frontiers by minimizing it on others. The Chinese-Russian border was once the world’s most militarized. Today, however, a de facto nonaggression pact has freed Putin from the threat of conflict with China, allowing him to hurl nearly his entire army at Ukraine. China, too, can push harder against U.S. positions in maritime Asia because it has a friendly Russia to its rear. Beijing and Moscow don’t need to fight shoulder to shoulder, as Washington does with its allies, if they fight back to back against the liberal world.

The same friendships are delivering another disruptive benefit by increasing the prospect of autocratic solidarity in crises. For decades, North Korea’s alliance with China has constrained Washington from responding more firmly to its provocations. More recently, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s increasing belligerence may be fueled by an expectation (warranted or not) that Putin will have his back. Likewise, in a future showdown over Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s booming military partnership with Moscow could give it stronger diplomatic support—and better arms—with which to resist. China and Russia, for their part, are conducting military exercises in potential conflict zones from the Baltic to the western Pacific. These activities may be meant to signal that one revisionist power won’t simply sit on the sidelines as Washington deals with another.

Not least, the revisionists enjoy a perverse symbiosis by weakening the international order from several directions at once. Russia is brutalizing Ukraine and threatening eastern Europe, as Iran and its proxies sow violent disorder across the Middle East. China grows more menacing in the Pacific, as North Korea drives its missile and nuclear programs forward. All this creates a pervasive sense that global order is eroding. It also poses sharp dilemmas for Washington: witness U.S. debates over Ukraine versus Taiwan, today’s actual wars versus tomorrow’s prospective ones. As during the 1930s, Eurasia’s autocracies help one another by overtaxing their common foe.

TROUBLE TO COME

American analysts still sometimes refer to relationships among U.S. adversaries as “alliances of convenience,” the implication being that clever diplomacy can precipitate a divorce. That’s unlikely to happen any time soon. The Eurasian autocracies are united by illiberal governance and hostility to U.S. power. If anything, growing international tensions are giving them stronger reasons for mutual support. Indeed, a Russia that remains isolated from the West will have little choice but to lean into partnerships with China, Iran, and North Korea. The United States may be able, periodically, to slow this process—as it did in 2022–23 by threatening China with harsh sanctions if it gave Russia lethal aid in Ukraine—but it probably can’t reverse the larger trend. And even if today’s revisionist ties never amount to a full-blown Eurasian alliance, they could plausibly evolve in ways that would strain U.S. power more severely.

More sensitive cooperation could make for more startling military breakthroughs. Russian technology will reportedly figure in China’s next-generation attack submarine, albeit through a process of “imitative innovation” rather than direct transfer. If Russia someday provides China—whose subs are still noisy and vulnerable—with state-of-the-art quieting technology, it could undercut U.S. advantages in one domain in which Washington still has outright supremacy over Beijing. Likewise, South Korean officials fear the payoff for North Korea’s arms shipments to Russia might be Russian aid to North Korea’s space, nuclear, and missile programs—which could help those programs advance faster than U.S. analysts expect. More broadly, as military cooperation morphs into coproduction or technology transfers, as opposed to the sale of finished weapons, it becomes harder to monitor—and increases the chances of capability jumps that catch outside observers off-guard.

Eurasia’s revisionists could create further dilemmas by cooperating more closely in crises. If Russia deployed naval forces in the East China Sea amid high U.S.-Chinese tensions—or if Moscow and Beijing sent vessels to the Persian Gulf during a crisis between Iran and the West—they could make the operational theater more complicated for U.S. forces, raising the risk that a fight with one might trigger unwanted escalation with others. The revisionist powers could even aid one another in outright war.

In a U.S.-Chinese conflict, Russia could conduct cyber-operations against U.S. logistics and infrastructure to make it harder for Washington to mobilize and project power. One revisionist power could fill critical capability gaps, whether by resupplying a friend when key munitions run low or—as China has done in Ukraine—providing vital components that don’t quite qualify as “lethal” aid. Or it might posture forces in threatening ways. During a fight between the United States and China, Russia would only have to move forces menacingly toward eastern Europe to make Washington account for the likelihood of conflicts on two fronts.

The Eurasian autocracies surely don’t wish to die for one another. But they presumably understand that a crushing American victory over one would leave the remainder more vulnerable. So they might try to help themselves by helping one another—if they can do so without plunging directly and overtly into the fight.

THINKING AHEAD

Ties between Eurasian revisionists may not look like alliances as Americans typically understand them, but they have plenty of alliance-like effects. This isn’t an entirely bad thing for Washington: the closer U.S. antagonists get, the more one’s bad behavior tarnishes the others. Since 2022, for instance, China’s image in Europe has suffered because Beijing tied itself so closely to Putin’s war in Ukraine. The opportunity, then, is to use adversary alignment to accelerate Washington’s own coalition-building efforts, just as the United States used the blowback from Russia’s invasion to induce greater European realism about China. Doing so will be critical, because today’s revisionist pacts are increasing the freedom of action U.S. rivals enjoy and the capabilities they wield. The United States must get used to a world in which the links among its rivals magnify the challenges that they individually and collectively pose.

This is an intellectual and analytical challenge as much as anything else. For example, the United States may need to revise assessments of how long its adversaries will take to reach key military milestones, given the help they are receiving—or could receive—from their friends. Washington must also rethink assumptions that it will face adversaries one-on-one in a crisis or conflict and account for the aid—covert or overt, kinetic or nonkinetic, enthusiastic or grudging—other revisionist powers could render as tensions escalate. The United States especially needs to wrestle with the risk that adversary relationships will promote a certain globalization of conflict—that the country could end up facing multiple, interlocking regional struggles against adversaries that cooperate in important, sometimes subtle ways.

Finally, U.S. officials should consider how these rivals’ partnerships could evolve in unexpected or nonlinear ways. Recent history is instructive. Although the Chinese-Russian strategic relationship has arisen over decades, that relationship—to say nothing of Moscow’s ties to Pyongyang and Tehran—has ripened considerably during the war in Ukraine. How might a future crisis over Taiwan, which triggers sharp U.S. sanctions on China, affect Beijing’s cost-benefit analysis regarding a still deeper alliance with Russia? Or how might a more thorough breakdown of order in one region tempt revisionist powers to intensify their campaigns in others?

Thinking through such scenarios is, unavoidably, an exercise in speculation. It is also an intellectual hedge against a future in which relationships—many of which have already exceeded U.S. expectations—continue to develop in disturbing ways. In the years ahead, the challenge of adversary alignment may well be inevitable. The degree to which it surprises is not.

[kusogamesss]

Kikori no Yosaku

ヘイヘイホー ヘイヘイホー 「hei hei hou, hei hei hou」

You're probably never going to play Yosaku. Nobody will. It appears only in scant screenshots, an arcade flyer, mention in SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, as an easter egg in The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise, and demonstrated in a single YouTube video. Releasing shortly before Safari Rally and Ozma Wars, Yosaku remains undumped (if not entirely lost) alongside SNK's earliest 'Micon Kit' Breakout clones. In spite of its obscurity, Yosaku is a foundational game not just for SNK, but for the early Japanese games market as a whole.

ヘイヘイホー ヘイヘイホー 「hei hei hou, hei hei hou」

The premise of Yosaku is pretty simple. The player is a lumberjack, toiling away in the forest while branches fall, birds defecate, boars charge, and snakes slither. Avoid danger, chop the trees, get a high score. It is by no means groundbreaking but for a 1979 release it seems to be decently fun. What is fascinating about Yosaku stems from what inspired it: an Enka song popularised by Saburou Kitajima in 1978.

トントントン トントントン 「tontonton, tontonton」

One of Sabu-chan's most famous works, Yosaku similarly tells the basic tale of the titular Yosaku chipping away at a tree while his wife performs domestic duties. Written by religious scholar and critic Kiminori Nanasawa, Yosaku was a submission to the long-running NHK musical variety show Anata no Melody. The conceit of the program was that amateur songwriters would submit their work to be performed by professional musicians. Yosaku's sparse lyrics are abound with onomotapoeia, and it's just a great track overall. In fact, the game Yosaku features part of the melody of the song Yosaku as sung by Sabu-chan, and it's officially licensed from the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, one of the first video games to bear their legal blessing.

トントントン トントントン 「tontonton, tontonton」

Lest we forget, this was the era of the arcade clone. Perhaps in a cruel twist of irony then for a company founded on Breakout clones, Yosaku is known less for its arcade release, and more for the unlicensed, unsanctioned copycat which released at the launch of the Epoch Cassette Vision. Kikori no Yosaku sees the detailed SNK original reduced to its barest geometries and most base elements. The much chunkier graphics reduce the playfield to just two trees instead of Yosaku's three. Unable to litter the space with smaller but more plentiful hazards, Kikori no Yosaku's dangers are the unhewn log to Yosaku's two-by-four. Rather than allow Yosaku to hide behind trees, Epoch's version leaps over boars. And even without the legal go ahead, Kikori no Yosaku has a crude rendition of those same bars from Sabu-chan's hit song.

ホーホー ホーホー 「houhou, houhou」

The Epoch Cassette Vision held 70% of the games console market in Japan by 1982. 'Video Games Console Library' makes the unsubstantiated claim that Kikori no Yosaku was the game that made the Cassette Vision as successful as it was. It's impossible to concretely corroborate this, but considering it was a launch title (and labelled as #1), it would certainly have drawn some customers in. Furthermore, Cassette Vision game releases were glacial, being made in-house by only three developers with a new title hitting shelves every quarter. An interview with Epoch designer and supervisor Masayuki Horie similarly asserts that Kikori no Yosaku is the first game people talk about when the Cassette Vision is discussed. Horie mentions that industry shows saw developers trying to discern which games would be popular, and thus fit for cloning, so Kikori no Yosaku's significance may well be true.

ヘイヘイホー ヘイヘイホー 「hei hei hou, hei hei hou」

With such a storied past, one might want to play Kikori no Yosaku for themselves. Well, you're probably never going to play the Cassette Vision release of Kikori no Yosaku, and not for lack of trying. A key quirk of the Cassette Vision is that the console itself is effectively just an AV passthrough. It lacks a processor. Unlike with other cartridge-based systems, Cassette Vision games house the software and hardware which allowed vastly faster operation. This means emulation is, while not impossible, entirely too cumbersome for anyone to have meaningfully tackled it thus far - ROM dumps for all eleven releases do now exist at least. Barring the purchase of antiquated hardware, Kikori no Yosaku is just as playable as Yosaku.

ヘイヘイホー ヘイヘイホー 「hei hei hou, hei hei hou」

Or so I thought. As it turns out, an unofficial port of Kikori no Yosaku came to the Sharp X68000 in 1991 thanks to IJI Team. This clone of a clone is a near-exact recreation of the Cassette Vision original, down to the graphical quirks of diagonal sprites. The only substantial difference I was able to spot has to do with the colours themselves, which are more pastel on Cassette Vision than they are on X68000 - this may be due to the oddities of RF connections.

トントントン トントントン 「tontonton, tontonton」

All told, Kikori no Yosaku is a pretty fun romp, albeit a pretty easy one when not playing on the higher difficulties. The circumstances of its creation as a clone of an oddly seminal title, which itself is only accessible thanks to another clone, make it noteworthy. Furthermore, the X68000 version is the only such recreation of an Epoch Cassette Vision game. Even the absurd Pac-Man clone PakPak Monster remains bound to the original hardware.

トントントン トントントン 「tontonton, tontonton」

Yosaku is a hit enka song written by an obscure amateur. Yosaku is one of the only lost SNK titles. Yosaku is one of the first games to have music licensed by JASRAC. Yosaku is perhaps responsible for the success of the Epoch Cassette Vision. Yosaku is emblematic of the wild west of early video game (non)copyright. Yosaku is a chunky, shameless copy. Yosaku is a near-perfect recreation. Yosaku is simple but elegant.

ホーホー ホーホー 「houhou, houhou」

[lazyliars]

/rp

DreamXD actually slots very nicely into a working theory I've had for about two or so months now, mainly centering around one question:

What happened to Dream?

Namely, why did Dream change, when exactly did it happen, and was it solely an internal change, or was there an external force at play, specifically a preternatural one?

I think with DreamXD, we might finally have an answer.

Or at least some clues to follow. DreamXD presents a shift in every single paradigm the Dream SMP has had. Like, I think most of it is just being so utterly blind-sided by George Lore Real, but part of it is the massive ramifications of an Actual God* being present in the storyline.

((*On the other resident god of the server, Foolish:

DreamXD is different than Foolish, in that his characterization is so dramatically inhuman - Foolish talks and acts like a (somewhat eccentric) person, and his powers are, as far as we know, limited in comparison to the creative-mode godhood that DreamXD occupies. And whether that is because Foolish is not a "full" god (having been referred to as a demigod) or simply because he's spent so much time around humans, we don't know, but we do know that either way, DreamXD is NOT that.

DreamXD's voice is marked by glitches and dramatic shifts in tone, he seems to lack control over the different aspects of his personality, like the more "Dream" part vs. the darker one that threatens to eat peoples souls. The "normal" part even displays confusion when George references things that the "darker" part said, implying that it may not be fully aware of itself.

TLDR: Foolish acts more human than DreamXD, who has a very eldritch personality.))

To get right to the point:

The Dream we knew before November 16th, and the Dream we know now are not the same. Something changed, and it changed for the worse.

Consider: Dream was always antagonistic to the L'manbergians - he was always imperious to them, and he was responsible for starting a number of fights between his faction and theirs, just as many if not more than they were.

But, he was also not... evil. He'd pick fights with Tommy, the disc wars were still a thing, but the gravity of the spats they had weren't dire. They were fun. They were... actually a game. He wasn't like the way he is now. While in hindsight we can look at these events and detect a serious undertone knowing what's to come, at the time they were far from it.

There is an argument to be made that he had the same tendencies as now, just not expressed as loudly, and while I believe it's a valid argument, I disagree that it's proof of Dream always being the way he is now.

Sapnap, Badboyhalo, Sam. They all remember Dream as their friend - they remember someone who was, maybe a little aggressive and a lot competitive, but not cruel. Not needlessly murderous. Not someone who steals sentimental items and lines the walls of a disgusting museum to use against them.

Dream cut them out. Sapnap was totally blindsided. Bad doesn't seem to fully believe it. Sam blamed himself for not realizing and tried to take the weight of that crime on his own shoulders by becoming the Warden.

There's also the competing theory that what happened to Dream was purely psychological - either the circumstances slowly isolating him from his friends driving him to the do things he's done, or a desire for control that started early and continued to fester until it overshadowed everything else, or any combination of both.

And those theories are still valid, they could still be the case, but I haven't been able to shake the idea that there is something deeper at play. I can't overstate how the exile arc and everything after it have been so inhumane, so cruel, and... not exactly out of character in the sense that I could never see Dream doing them, but in the sense that I could never see him doing them for no reason.

And there really doesn't seem to be one. Dream says himself, it's like a game. He sees people as toys, puppets. And there just doesn't seem to be an inciting incident that could explain how he made the leap from semi-authoritarian leader who, despite being a warmonger, does love his friends, to heartless murderer who wants to reduce everyone he knows to dolls.

There's... ways, he could get there, but nothing that we've seen makes sense. There is a missing piece, something that must have happened from his POV that we didn't get to see because he doesn't stream.

And DreamXD could be it. This godly entity that claims that it is "a part of [Dream]" but that it isn't him entirely. That seems to share the lack of understanding of humanity that Dream has been displaying like when he asks if resurrecting Tommy was “cool.” But that still loves George. He still, despite apparently not having the same history as Dream, desperately wants to be George's friend.

If I had to pinpoint the moment Dream changed, it would be the day that he revealed that he switched sides, and was going to be fighting against Pogtopia. He was paid for this betrayal in the Revive Book.

I mark this as the turning point in my theory because it is the first time Dream mentions his affinity for chaos in the context of hurting others. However, we also know that this likely wasn't the day he actually made the decision to betray - as he revealed that there was a traitor among the Pogtopians, a fact that he likely would have learned before this.

Now, I mark George's lore stream as the introduction of DreamXD proper, and I want that on the record because it isn't technically his first appearance on the server.

Most people will remember him from Techno's stream, where he logged on to break the End Portal in a panic. I doubt the character was properly written into the lore at that time, but it fits neatly with the rest of what we know about him - a guardian of the server, and the keeper of it's rules. No contradictions.

What less people might know, is that DreamXD has made an even earlier appearance, and it's this one where things begin to get... interesting.

Around roughly October of 2020, Tubbo and Fundy did some improv'd streams centering around Demon Hunting, or rather, "Dreamon" Hunting, and it's during the first of these two streams that DreamXD makes an appearance.

The bare bones of it was - Tubbo is an experienced "Dreamon Hunter" and teaches Fundy his ways. They find Dream, and realize that he has a Dreamon inside of him, which is basically an evil version of him. They attempt to exorcise the Dreamon from Dream via various shenanigans, and eventually, they do a ceremony to free Dream. However, they apparently botch it, and unleash the Dreamon within. After more shenanigans, one attempt to fix it utilizing Fundy and Dream's wedding appears to work, but then DreamXD logs on, flys around at Tubbo and Fundy threateningly, and they end stream on the idea that there are probably more Dreamons to hunt.

Now. There's a lot to unpack here. I'm not gonna go into the nitty gritty details in this post, but I do recommend watching the Dreamon streams, as they have A LOT of details that, if this is getting incorporated into the main story line, could be important - especially the focus on duality, having TWO versions of Dream, which end up being potentially separated from each other.

(Also, they're just really funny streams. Tubbo and Fundy are at PEAK chaos and Dream plays along with their inane bit perfectly, it's just good content.)

At the time of the Dreamon streams airing, they were explicitly non-canon. IIRC Tubbo and Fundy referred to them as taking place In an “alternate universe,” which makes sense considering they would have been on opposite sides at the time (Manburg and Pogtopia.)

However.

And this is where I show you my wall of red string and newspaper clippings.

My singular piece of evidence for this comes from one line DreamXD drops. He simply says: “At least you're not hunting me.”

The Dreamon streams take place around early October. Dream reveals his betrayal of Pogtopia around November 6th-7th. The timeline of the Dreamon streams would line up perfectly with the idea that there was a catalyzing event that put Dream on the proverbial path to hell.

I do not believe that they intended the Dreamon arc to be anything other than a side story at the time, but considering that DreamXD himself was barely canon until now, I don't think it's out of the question that they took a look back at a fan-favorite minor arc, saw an opportunity to co-opt it into the current story line, and potentially fill in some holes regarding Dream's characterization all in one move.

On the question of whether this would be a GOOD storytelling move?

The Dreamon theories were prevalent during the exile arc, and I've got to say, I was never a huge fan. The detachment of Dream's actions from his intentions, and by extension his morality, never sat right with me. It feels cheap to make him a victim and say “a Dreamon did it!” in regards to all of the horrible things that he's done. It strips his agency and makes everything that happened less impactful in my opinion, and I stand by that reading.

BUT. With DreamXD introduced, I feel like it's necessary to look at this from all angles. And with the way DreamXD was characterized in George's stream, I don't think it necessarily ruins Dream's character to say that an external force was involved with his descent into evil.

Namely, the idea that whatever happened to Dream was not really a “possession” so much as a gradual loss of humanity, could be an interesting way to look at this. It implies that Dream was always capable of his actions, but grants us understanding as to why he would actually perform them, and why he might have become isolated enough from his friends that they would let this happen.

The Dream we know now could be an expression of his “worst self” brought to the surface by a Dreamon/DreamXD/other. It also begs the question of what would happen if that force were to leave him, and how it might cause yet another shift in character, especially if it were to be portrayed as less of a switch being flipped, and more of a withdrawal, with a gradual process of realizing how far gone he was.

To close this out, I've been stewing on the idea that Dream hasn't entirely been himself since the climax of the Exile Arc.

I think this theory holds water, but it's also not waterproof... there are plenty of holes, and a lot of that comes from the fact that Dream doesn't stream. We're left in the dark when deciphering his character, and what might appear to be the key, could just as easily be revealed as a red herring, or even nothing at all.

Regardless of the validity of the Dreamon theory, I think that DreamXD is one of the most interesting developments we've had on the SMP in a long time, if simply because his arrival coincides with fucking George Lore Real. God. I still don't know how to deal with that.

I always appreciate people adding to the discussion by the way! Feel free to reblog with additions if you like or leave them in the replies.

And if a single one of you comes to my blog on THIS. THE DAY OF MY DAUGHTER'S WEDDING. And calls ME a c!Dream Apologist to MY FACE..... I will be v sad.

[luvteez]

at your service

pairing: san x fem!reader genre + tags: smut | humiliation (in the form of wearing a maid costume bc san is a kinky weeb), begging, master kink, cockwarming, edging, unprotected sex wc: 2.2k

A smirk creeps on San’s lips the moment the door flies open. He’s made himself comfortable on the bed, legs crossed and head resting against the headboard. Before he can let out the comment that’s been lying heavy on the tip of his tongue, you lash out first.

“I fucking hate you for making me wear this.”

“Yes, you told me that around six times already,” he drawls, visibly amused by the situation. “But we had a deal. You lost, so suck it up.”

The neckline plunges too low for your liking, and the skirt — can it even be considered a skirt? — is so short that you’re bound to flash the panties you’re wearing underneath whenever you as much as dare move. Perhaps you’d find the garter belt cute, if only you weren’t wearing it with this skimpy version of a maid uniform. How much did San pay for this? Actually, you don’t want to know.

San gets off the bed, eyes trained on you the entire time. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth once his gaze settles on your exposed legs, making you clench your thighs together. The way he blatantly eye-fucks you has you growing wet, and you fucking hate it. It’s one thing to be put through this humiliation, but wearing this maid outfit and being aroused? Your ego can only take so much.

Once he’s standing in front of you, the power imbalance couldn’t get any more obvious. There’s him, wearing a nice dress shirt with the top buttons undone and black jeans, and then there’s you in nothing but a slutty rendition of a servant costume. The look he sends you makes you tear your eyes away from him and heartbeat rise to your ears, and you just hope for the better that he doesn’t point it out.

Luckily, he doesn’t. Instead, he circles around you, giving you a once-over from every possible angle. It’s silent, save for the sound of San’s footsteps bouncing off the walls. You wait for him to say something with bated breath, but that never comes. Eventually, he stops right behind you, and you’re pretty sure he’s fixated on the part of your ass that the skirt doesn’t cover.

The silence is deafening, unbearable even, but you don’t plan on losing this unsaid game. If San already has you dressed as degradingly as it can get, you’re not going to entertain him any further. But then an arm wraps around your waist and pins your back against his chest, while another hand snakes down under your skirt and cups your covered cunt. You manage to bite back a moan at the sudden contact, but your body betrays you with how you jolt.

“Cute,” San snickers, before propping his chin on your shoulder. “Just adorable.” His breath is hot against your neck as he continues to put his fingers to use. He traces your folds over the panties that are slowly turning damper by the second, toys around with your clit, and even dares to shove some of your underwear into your entrance once you’re leaking enough to his liking. You struggle to stand still on both legs as he does how he pleases, deadset on withstanding him, even if this torture is the cost. 

“I hate you,” you say through gritted teeth, but it comes out rather comical when your knees finally give up on you and you lean on him for support. The subtle moan that follows suit doesn’t help either. San only smiles against your skin before he pushes your underwear aside and slides two digits in you. The messy technique is all over the place, but he curls his fingers in all the right angles and hits all of your weak spots precisely, reducing you into a panting wreck. You throw your head back, overwhelmed by everything that’s going on, and when he pays attention to your clit again, you’re on the verge. 

You’re so close that you can taste your sweet release, but then he stops. You’re about to complain because you know full well what he’s done, but he beats you to it first.

“Come again? What did you say? You’re my maid now, so you better act like one. This is part of the deal after all.” Although he’s muttering in your ear, he enunciates every single syllable with clarity that makes your skin crawl. “Apologize.”

You know exactly what he’s after. San wants to break you. wants to crush your pride and make you his little bitch. You’d put up a longer fight, but your mind is just revolving around sansansan and the desperate want to come. 

“Forgive me.” You cringe at how small your voice sounds, defenseless even. 

“Forgive me...?” he echoes as his fingers start to move again, albeit at a much slower pace than before. You’re confused by the implication, and turn all cogs in your brain in hopes of finding the answer. 

Oh.

Oh.

The daunting realization must’ve flashed across your face because San encourages you to speak. If only you could turn your head and face him, you’d give him a piece of your mind. Not that it would’ve been effective anyway, since he has you locked in his hold.

He whispers the first syllable of the word, and you gasp. Your suspicions were right all along, but the confirmation makes you burn up even more in embarrassment. He’s really trying to stoop you down onto the lowest level. 

But you can do it. you tell yourself you can do it. After all, a deal’s a deal.

“M-master. Forgive me, master.”

San wasn’t prepared for the delivery, judging by the way he flinches. To your dismay, he pulls out entirely, leaving you gaping, and the growl that follows is borderline feral. “You’re the maid, not me. You’re the one who should be doing all the work. If you want to cum, then earn it.” With that, he lets go of you before heading back to the bed. 

You’re at a loss of words. All you can do is stare at him as he makes himself comfy on the bed again, but you quickly scramble to him when he motions you towards him with a flick of his hand. 

“What do you want me to do?” San cocks a brow as if to say is this your best? and you quickly rephrase. “Is there anything I can help you with... master?” The word feels so foreign on your tongue, doesn’t slip the right way. You hate how it’s enough of a confirmation that he has the upper hand; a confirmation that you’re nothing but his little servant. 

He smiles lazily. “Sit on my cock.” And that’s all it takes to have you straddling him. You don’t waste any time pulling his pants down along with the black briefs, letting his length spring out. He’s fully hard and flushed red, just looking inviting to suck on, and it has your mouth watering. But then: “Keep the uniform on.”

Of course it was too good to be true. There’s no way San would let you forget who’s in absolute charge here. You can’t complain though, because you’re getting dicked earlier than expected. 

You manage to slide him inside of you without any complications. Breathy moans leave his mouth as you take him in inch by inch, and the way he struggles to lie still is a tiny victory for you. Meanwhile, the way his cock stretches you out has you whining in pleasure, and your head is only spinning around sansansan by the time you’ve taken him up to the hilt.

“Can I— do you want me to move, master?” 

Maybe it was because you got your hopes up to high, but you can’t help how disdain spreads all over you when San reaches for his phone on the nightstand. “No. Sit still.”

And just like that, he dismisses you nonchalantly and starts tapping rapidly on his phone; as if having you sit on his cock while wearing a maid outfit is a daily occurrence. Your jaw nearly drops when you realize he’s fucking texting. You’re about to speak up, but then the thought of him chastising you because you’re supposed to be a maid pops up in your brain. He’d definitely do that, and he’d definitely punish you too. The question is, how far is he willing to go?

You don’t want to find out. 

So you sit still, losing track of time. You don’t know how long you’ve been sitting on his lap, trying your best not to think about his cock pulsing in you, but it must’ve been a fucking while when San suddenly tilts his phone, thumbs no longer moving. That’s when you become acutely aware of the camera facing you, and you can’t help but wonder what on earth he’s watching. 

Or what if he’s filming you—

That thought has you unknowingly clenching your walls, and you inhale sharply as you realize he’s still snug in you. Luckily, San doesn’t stir, and that realization has you going on your rounds. Maybe if you do it one more time and he doesn’t budge, you could get away with it—

“A-are you recording?” The words are spoken out loud before you even realize it.

San looks up at you and tilts his head. “No, I’m not. Why?” His voice is dripping in innocence, but then he lifts a brow and you know you’re doomed. “Do you want me to record you? Does it turn you on? Is that the reason why you keep tightening around me? Why you’re quite literally dripping on my cock?” 

Your heart almost stops dead in its tracks. So he noticed the entire time.

“Please let me move, master. Please,” you blurt out, no longer caring about your fucking dignity. “Please let me come on your cock. W-want master to fuck me dumb and show me my place.” The number of times you said please in the last few seconds is pitiful, but you don’t find it within you to care. 

“That would imply that you were thinking in the first place. If you weren’t stupid, you wouldn’t have insulted me and said you hated me.”

“You’re right, master, I wasn’t thinking earlier. Please,” you beg, vision slowly getting blurry. San truly outdid himself and got what he fucking wanted, reducing you to the point where you’re so desperate you’re about to cry. Of course you’re desperate because there’s a cock filling you up but you’re not being fucked. And as if that wasn’t hell in itself, you’re wearing this godforsaken maid outfit because you lost a bet.

“Ssh, I got you, baby.” San’s eyes instantly soften and there’s fondness lying in them. You know what he’s about to ask, but you quickly give him the green light to continue. He mouths you an ‘okay’ and reassuringly squeezes your hand before settling both of his hands on your hips. 

There’s a playful glimmer in his eyes, and then he sets back into character, smugness written all over his face. “You want me to fuck you dumb? I’m gonna fuck your brains out, alright.”

In a split second, his grip on your hips tighten. the next thing you know, he snaps his hips against you, and you’re sent three dimensions over. 

His cock manages to reach you even deeper if that’s humanly possible, and you sob. Your moans overlap with his grunts as he thrusts in and out of you at a brutal pace. You barely find the energy to keep your body up, and it’s all San’s doing as he slams your hips down on him. Eventually, he manages to flip your positions around so that you’re pliant underneath him. He doesn’t let down with the intensity when he fumbles for your clit, and your eyes roll back as you feel your orgasm approaching. 

And just a few seconds before you unravel, he pulls his cock out entirely. Fighting back the tears welling up in your eyes, you choke when he nudges his head against your clit. Precum dribbles down your slit and mixes with your own slick, reminding you that he’s not letting you come again.

“Why?” you wince. San is unfazed by your desperation.

“You wanted me to show you your place, didn’t you?” He slides his head along your slit for good measure, and raises his voice to add, “I’ll show you your place and give you what you want if you do what master wants.”

Despite the buzz in your head, you get the underlying order. San isn’t fucking around and means business, always has, so you muster up the energy to ask, “What do you want, master?”

The sly grin he flashes is the only thing you see. “I want you to say my name over and over again. And once you’ve said it loud enough, I want you to scream it.” He gently grabs your chin, forcing you to maintain eye contact with him. “I want the whole neighbourhood to know who’s making you feel good.”

[thecreaturecodex]

Ultima Weapon

Image © Square Enix, accessed at the Final Fantasy Wiki here

[Commissioned by @warfares-bridge​. Ultima Weapon first appeared in Final Fantasy VI (although the FF3 import I grew up with referred to it as “Atma Weapon”). It has had multiple recurring appearances in the series since then, with different appearances and abilities. This version builds most heavily on the Final Fantasy XIV version, where it is the final boss of the main campaign. That battle has a timer on it--if Ultima Weapon isn’t killed within a certain time limit, it casts Ultima, which in that game is an auto-TPK. I wanted to capture that flavor, but instant death is frowned upon in Pathfinder, and I had to come up with a rationale as to why it wouldn’t just use that ability Round 1 and save itself a lot of trouble.]

Ultima Weapon CR 24 LE Outsider This colossus appears something like a mechanical reptilian centaur, but its body appears to be grown from metal rather than forged. Blade-like wings and a lashing tail grow from it, and all six of its limbs bear deadly claws. Its head is proportionately small, and vaguely like that of an insect.

Ultima Weapon is a relic of the early days of the multiverse. During the Titanomachy, when the thanatoic titans rebelled against the gods, the inevitables donated their services to create potent weapons to strike against the titans and their elemental allies. Multiple Weapons were forged, Ultima being the most infamous. Ultima Weapon was corrupted by the temptation of power and struck out against inevitables and titans alike. Ultima Weapon maintains a low profile for millennia at a time, and its appearance is a sure sign of cosmic calamity.

Ultima Weapon was designed to be a mobile prison, capable of binding titans to itself and delivering them for judgment. It still has the ability to bind powerful creatures, and hunts down exemplary outsiders such as balors, solars and pit fiends in order to enslave them. Any creature it has bound to itself it can call upon to assist in combat, and Ultima Weapon has rotated its cast of servants over the course of the ages to suit its needs. Even if its servants are defeated or dismissed, Ultima Weapon lives up to its name as a mobile artillery platform. It can fire beams of divine lightning from its hands and chest, direct powerful magic missile-like effects in an instant, and crush opposition with its claws and tail. Most feared is its namesake ability, which has only been activated three times in known history, each time when the Weapon was on the brink of death. The Ultima energy mimics an implosion spell but can affect dozens of targets at a time.

Ultima Weapon   CR 24 XP 1,230,000 LE Colossal outsider (evil, law) Init +12; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +37, see invisibility Aura awe (30 ft., Will DC 32) Defense AC 42, touch 21, flat-footed 33 (-8 size, +8 Dex, +21 natural, +1 dodge, +10 deflection) hp 492 (25d10+300 plus 80); regeneration 15 (epic) Fort +19, Ref +22, Will +23 DR 20/epic and good or epic and chaotic; Immune constructed; Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, sonic 10; SR 35 (40 vs. divination) Defensive Abilities freedom of movement, superior ferocity Offense Speed 60 ft., fly 180 ft. (average) Melee 2 claws +32 (4d6+15/19-20 plus 2d6 electricity), 2 wings +30 (2d8+7), tail slap +30 (4d12+22) Space 30 ft.; Reach 20 ft. (30 ft. with tail slap) Special Attacks binding shackles, force missiles, magitech beams, powerful blows (tail), trample (8d6+22, Ref DC 37), ultima Spell-like Abilities CL 25th, concentration +35 Constant—freedom of movement, nondetection (self only), planar adaptation, see invisibility At will—arcane sight, dimensional anchor, greater dispel magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. objects only), moment of prescience 3/day—binding (DC 28), earthquake, empowered meteor swarm (DC 29) 1/day—freedom, gate (planar travel only), imprisonment (DC 29) Statistics Str 40, Dex 26, Con 33, Int 21, Wis 29, Cha 30 Base Atk +25; CMB +48 (+52 bull rush); CMD 77 (79 vs. bull rush, 81 vs. trip) Feats Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Dodge, Empower SLA (meteor swarm), Greater Bull Rush, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (claw), Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Power Attack, Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical Skills Acrobatics +33, Diplomacy +35, Fly +28, Intimidate +38, Knowledge (arcana, planes) +33, Knowledge (dungeoneering, religion) +30, Perception +37, Sense Motive +37, Spellcraft +33 Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Giant, Infernal, truespeech SQ no breath, planar acclimation Ecology Environment any Organization unique Treasure triple standard Special Abilities Aura of Awe (Su) The first time a creature approaches within 30 feet of Ultima Weapon, it must succeed a DC 32 Will save or be dazed for 1d4 rounds. Regardless of whether it passes or fails the save, it cannot be affected by Ultima Weapon’s aura of awe for the next 24 hours. This is a mind-influencing effect and the save DC is Charisma based. Binding Shackles (Su) Ultima Weapon can use its own body as a spell component for the binding spell-like ability. When it uses binding, it can make its own body the focus of the minimus containment version of the spell. Ultima Weapon can shackle a number of creatures to itself equal to its Intelligence modifier. Ultima Weapon can only use this ability on creatures with Hit Dice equal to or less than its own. Ultima Weapon can summon a creature contained inside itself as a standard action. The creature appears within 60 feet of Ultima Weapon, obeys Ultima Weapon without question, and counts as a summoned creature for the purposes of spells and effects. The creature remains for one minute or until slain, whereupon it returns to within Ultima Weapon without harm. Ultima Weapon cannot summon more than one creature this way at a time, and may summon each bound creature once per day. When Ultima Weapon is slain, the creatures remain bound inside its corpse. If freed, they behave as normal for their attitude and alignment, although they will likely be at least indifferent to any rescuer, if not more favorably disposed. Constructed (Ex) Although Ultima Weapon is a living outsider, their body is constructed of physical components, and in many ways they function as constructs. For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as a ranger's favored enemy and bane weapons), Ultima Weapon counts as both an outsider and construct. They are immune to death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless). Ultima Weapon is not subject to nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain. They are not at risk of death from massive damage. They have bonus hit points as constructs of their size. Force Missiles (Su) As a swift action every 1d4 rounds, Ultima Weapon can fire 10 missiles of force. It may fire these all at a single target within 240 feet, or split fire between enemies, but multiple enemies must be within 30 feet of each other. Each missile strikes automatically, ignoring cover and concealment, and deals 2d4+2 force damage. Magitek Beams (Su) As a standard action every 1d4 rounds, Ultima Weapon may fire three beams of energy as 120 foot lines. A creature caught in each beam takes 25d6 damage, half of which is electricity and half of which is typeless (Reflex DC 33 half). A creature caught in multiple beams does not take additional damage, but suffers a -2 penalty to its save. These beams may be in fired in any direction from Ultima Weapon’s square. The save DC is Constitution based. Planar Acclimation (Ex) Ultima Weapon is always considered to be on its home plane, no matter what plane it is on. It never gains the extraplanar subtype, and the planar acclimation spell protects it from the hazards of any plane except the Material Plane. Superior Ferocity (Ex) Ulitma Weapon does not die until its negative hit points reach twice its Constitution score, or -66 hp. Ultima Weapon is not staggered when using ferocity, but does suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls and to the saving throws of its special abilities. Ultima (Su) As a standard action once per day, Ultima Weapon can set up a destructive resonance in the bodies of all corporeal creatures within 60 feet. A creature affected takes 250 points of damage (Fortitude DC 30 half). A creature reduced to 0 hit points by this damage is destroyed and can only be returned to life by a miracle, true resurrection or wish spell. This can affect undead and constructs as long as they have a physical body—creatures in gaseous form and incorporeal creatures are unaffected. Ultima Weapon can only use this ability when it is below 0 hit points, with its superior ferocity ability. The save DC is Charisma based and has a -2 penalty from superior ferocity.

[lahoreherald]

TODAY'S APPLE AND EPIC Loss

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers reached a settlement with both Epic and Apple on May 11, the seventh day of the Epic v. Apple trial. This has a concession neither party had sought for. She inquired of Epic’s economist, David Evans, as to whether it would be sufficient to overturn Apple’s anti-steering rules. This set of regulations prohibits developers from notifying you about an excellent external website where you may buy your subscription rather than via the app itself. And in this trial both Apple and epic suffered a great loss.

On the last day of the trial, on May 24, Judge Rogers indicated that she was still moving toward that precise kind of compromise. One that may not be acceptable to either party and one that could include Apple’s anti-steering regulations.

That is exactly what occurred today. Both teams have defeated. Epic, on the other hand, may have suffered a greater loss.

Although the ruling was favorable to developers, it was not favorable to Epic Games. Rogers granted an injunction against Apple, preventing the company from not only from keeping iPhone users in the dark about alternative payment methods, but also from potentially allowing developers to embed their own purchase mechanisms into their own apps. (“Button” has defined differently in different jurisdictions, so expect a lot of controversy and experimentation in this area.”)

Epic does not come away with a victory for two reasons. First and foremost, the court expressly ruled that Epic’s insertion of its own direct payment system into Fortnite on iOS. A move that has intended to trigger this whole case — was not permissible under law. The company failed to adhere to the terms of its agreement with Apple.

EPIC DIDN’T FREE FORTNITE AT ALL

Since even if Epic wanted to add, say, a PayPal button to Fortnite. It wouldn’t be able to because Apple cancelled Epic’s developer account after the business violated its contract. And Judge Rogers affirmed that Apple is well within its rights to permanently remove Epic from the App Store.

Apple has the contractual right to terminate its distribution partnership agreement (DPLA) with any or all of Epic Games. Wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other companies under Epic Games’ control at any time and in Apple’s sole discretion, according to Rogers.

Epic also suffered a direct loss of about $3.6 million, which it must reimburse to Apple. The reason for this is that Epic generated about $12.2 million in income through the direct payment mechanism. It inserted into Fortnite in violation of Apple’s regulations, and Rogers determined that Apple has entitled to a 30 percent share of that earnings.

On the other hand, you could argue that Epic has suffered a significant financial loss as a result of its efforts to make this lawsuit a success. Not only in legal fees, which it will not recover. But potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from people who would have been playing Fortnite on iOS. If the game had not been removed from Apple’s App Store. According to Epic’s statistics, the game earned $614 million on iOS alone in its first two years. And with $52.7 million of that coming in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Although it’s conceivable that individuals who’d previously loaded Fortnite continued to make purchases after the game has pulled from the App Store did so. It’s doubtful that they did so on a large scale. Fortnite users using Apple gear will lose cross-play, access to new events. And the ability to purchase new items in August 2020, when the game will be divided in half.

And, as Mark Gurman points out, all Epic has to show for its investment is… well, the largest shift in the history of the App Store. (If you want to see for yourself, here’s a link to our recently released history of the App Store’s key policy changes.) It’s only that, for the time being, Epic is unable to take use of it.

Apple Will Lose Billions Of Dollars

However, those millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars pale in contrast to the billions of dollars that Apple stands to lose. If the App Store reform has fully implemented and legally implemented. Apple generates roughly $19 billion in revenue from apps each year. With $6.3 billion of that coming from the United States where the ruling has legal standing. Epic isn’t even trying to sell today’s decision as a victory, which I believe is understandable given the company’s stated aim of FreeFortnite. Which it failed miserably to achieve in public. The iOS version of Fortnite is still under the control of Apple. As a result, rather than altering its tune, Epic will simply file an appeal.

Apple, on the other hand, is hailing the ruling as a “resounding triumph”. In light of Epic’s initial request for the courts to declare Apple an unlawful monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act. The court’s decision to reduce Epic’s original motion to a single injunction under the California Unfair Competition Law makes sense as well. Apple is not being forced to enable rival app stores or sideloading. Nor is it being forced to modify its 30 percent charge in any manner, shape, or form.

An actual win would not have left Apple watching billions of dollars in income possibly slip through its fingers nor would it have resulted in the company relinquishing any power at all (let alone exposing the company’s real character as a ruthless corporate organization to everyone on Earth). Rather than making large concessions, Apple prefers to make smaller ones. Such as when it volunteered to Japanese regulators that it could allow a specific category of “reader” apps to bypass its store for payments. Despite the fact that Apple has the final say on whether an app qualifies as a “reader.”

I believe Jason Schreier is correct in his assessment: with millions and billions of cash out the door, respectively. Both businesses have defeated in this battle.

So Epic lost on just about every count & will have to pay millions, while Apple now has to let apps use external payment processors, potentially costing them billions. Big win for everyone who was rooting for both companies to lose pic.twitter.com/7V2o9PoSRz

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) September 10, 2021

Read Also: Gmail app will soon allow users to call each other by using app

Published in Lahore Herald #lahoreherald #breakingnews #breaking

[alinaastarkov]

Worst game of thrones hairstyles and why. Go!

Hi! Thanks for the ask! I profusely apologise for the extensive rant that is about to follow.

I thought, before we jump into negativity, I would list some of my faves. I liked the hair more than the costumes, and a few of these were really pretty. Here we go!

These are some of my faves and I will just run through a few of them. Dany’s hair was really good until the enormous braids started coming in. At the start, with a few really pretty braids, and especially when she had her hair down cause it made her look so soft, she looked amazing. It showed Daenerys the queen and Daenerys the girl at the same time. Her hair in these early seasons is what Arya’s should have been. The same goes for Catelyn and Cersei. These styles were understated but pretty, and was all part of Catelyn adapting to the Northern style and Cersei playing on her beauty to fool people. The same goes for Margaery. It incorporated braids and curls in a really fashionable way, matching her intelligence to her need to be underestimated. Sansa’s hair in King’s Landing (when it was down) was pretty too as she adapted to her surroundings and the people around her, but it was still soft and gentle like her. Petyr is here because he looks the most like his book character, I think out of everyone. They really cast and styled him perfectly. Jon’s bun style was the closest to book!Jon he ever got, and though I love his curls, I preferred this to his earlier looks. It helps that it matched his father’s and Arya’s hair, too, so for the first time (because of poor casting) we saw the family resemblance. And these styles for Arya, apart from maybe a few in the HOBAW, were the only times she looked like a Northerner and was allowed to look like a girl. It’s not perfect, as her Northern braids aren’t woven into loose hair, but it did make her look a little wild and were the only times we saw a proper Northern hairstyle done well.

Now, onto the ones I don’t like:

I’ll get these in heere now because they’re not the worst. Joffrey and Tommen’s hair was weird. It’s not the long, golden waves as described in the books, they don’t really look like Lannisters apart from the colour, and the hair itself did not work with the crowns they both wear, especially Joffrey. I don’t know, it’s not terrible, but the men’s hair was mostly unremarkable, so, scraping the bottom for these. And then young Ned. *sigh* Why did 20-or-whatever-year-old Ned have the exact same hair as Sean Bean? He hasn’t changed his hair in 17 years? Lazy and boring and makes no sense. He should also have darker hair but that’s a book thing, so…

From now on, we’re gonna tackle this by character. Up first: Margaery Tyrell

Margaery almost escaped this list because her hair was often really good. As with the outfits, I know she was supposed to be pious, but the hair was a miss in that situation. It was basic and boring, and so far removed from the Margaery we had seen before. Why is her hair straight all of a sudden when it has always been curly? And the way she tied it back when she wore that awful dress in season 2 looked very strange. As for her wedding with Tommen, there was the opposite problem. As Tommen was younger, she needed to look more innocent and sweet, but instead they went over the top to make her look elaborate and rich, almost emphasising that her family was ambitious. Normally her hair and clothes struck a balance between innocent and ambitious, but this just went too far and it didn’t really fit her face. Though, I have to say, I don’t despise any of Margaery’s looks.

Now, Cersei Lannister

Some of these just made absolutely no sense. The helmets of braids she got, one of which was lopsided, just looked awful. It was far too much and they’re never seen again, which shows how bad they were. I don’t even know what her hair was supposed to be during the tourney but it didn’t work at all. And her short hair didn’t always look terrible, but it got far too shaggy for a Queen and here it didn’t fit the clothes she was wearing in this picture.

The Sand Snakes

Once again, I am simply bored by the Dornish characters in the show. There is no variation or variety, very little thought put in other than hair that might be useful in battle. They didn’t care to give them anything interesting and it shows. Where is Tyene, with her flowing golden hair? Where is Nymeria’s soft but deadly features? Where is the variation? It’s boring and does a disservice to the Sand Snakes.

Sansa Stark

I liked Arya’s northern braids, but Sansa’s version did not work. They were a lot messier than Arya’s (ironic, isn’t it?) and it wasn’t styled properly to fit the image of a proper northern/ southern lady. She would have been better off with hair more like her mother’s rather than braids, both aesthetically and storywise. Her hair in King’s Landing early on was similar to Cersei’s, which was definitely a bad thing. Her hair, which looked like a massive headband, was not as bad as Cersei’s version, but it wasn’t a good look. There were no strands or enough loose hair to properly frame the face, so that became the only thing to focus on and it didn’t work. Now, Sansa’s second wedding looked alright mostly (though I was not the hugest fan of the dress but I’ll get into that in another ask) but the hair was an issue story-wise. There was this thing going on with the Starks, supposedly the wildest and most rugged of the great families, where their hair was constantly super tight and pulled back, restrained when it should be free and wild. I know Sansa was being held against her will, but this wedding is also to give the Boltons a claim to Winterfell, so they needed to emphasise that she was a Stark, and that includes having Northern hair.

And once again we have the opposite problem. Her coronation hair had nothing to it. It was completely straight, unadorned and had no northern-ness to it at all. There were no waves to give it a bit of depth. It was super plain, boring and unimaginative. Then the Dragonpit, though it looked good, at that point Sansa had betrayed her Northern heritage and her family, so she shouldn’t have been the most northern-looking person on the screen. Once again, this is a style that Arya should have had, not Sansa.

Arya Stark

Just like the costumes, she had the same hair for 3 seasons. It got old quick, especially when she has different hair in the books during this time. It made sense for 1 season, not 3.

This monstrosity was one of the worst hairstyles in the show. The one time Arya gets the chance to dress like a girl, and this is the hair that goes with it? Really? It didn’t frame her face well, it reduced the feminine aspects that Arya was finally getting to express, and was a clear attempt to infantilize Arya and prevent the audience from thinking of her as a woman. It was also not a very nice style on its own; the buns should have been further back, but that would have been space buns and so very inaccurate, so she should have just worn it down anyway. Huge miss on this one. Super ugly. Only upside is she finally got the blue flowers she deserved.

This is what I said about the Starks having restrained, pulled back hair and it’s especially egregious for Arya, who is sooooo Northern and so wild. She needed her hair down, with braids woven in, longer and more natural. Instead, her hair looks like it’s covered in tar and there is nothing natural or northern about it. Once again, I am bored by the looks. And she kept this for two seasons straight, never changing. It’s ridiculous. The makers of this show just didn’t care about Maisie or Arya and it shows visually. It makes no sense for the princess of the north to have the same hair and clothes for years, with zero variation, especially when Sansa and Dany are out here with a new look every episode, sometimes two in a single episode.

This is what Arya’s hair should have looked like:

It’s extremely disappointing what we got instead.

Daenerys Targaryen

I mostly adored Dany’s hair, but as the seasons went on her braids got more and more elaborate and fake, and it started to become painfully obvious that it was a wig with huge braids stuck on. The looks with huge buns in the back just looked a bit silly, and I feel bad for Emilia who must have been so weighed down by all of that on her head. The braid she wore beyond the wall, and the one on the bottom row second from the right, were just a bit messy. As I said, her hair became a bit insane as it went on, making it less believable and less beautiful. And her finale hair, whilst fine from the front, was the most obvious example of braids being stuck on. It was basically a helmet and it made no sense. The braids were far too big and it didn’t work.

Sorry for the rant, nonny, but thank you for the ask!

[positivelyamazonian]

What do you mean by “more focused on general TRAOD lore than in Kurtis as character which doesn't surprise me anymore given what we know” - what is it given we know?

Hi, you’ve sent this question concerning my tags in the last post about Kurtis’ journal as merchandise from The Dark Angel project - just stating it for the readers that might be confused about what you’re asking about.

When I say “what we know” I refer mostly to all those - rather scarce - TRAOD/TR fans who have bothered to read every detail about TRAOD’s lore, every making off video and documentary concerning this game, every interview and beta/hidden/deleted/unused content related to all this universe - which I did. I also refer to those who have discussed all of it in this Tumblr over the past years - and honestly if you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s because, perhaps, you’re not totally up to date about it.

I would recommend to catch up  - and those are long hours of reading - with all this content so you can have the whole picture of what I’m talking about, but just to reduce it to the point that concerns us now, it’s not surprising Kurtis’ journal was gonna end being just a TRAOD lore concept art compendium than a Kurtis focused item as character because:

1. It was always announced and marketed like that. Murti Schofield has always stated the journal was gonna be a compendium of fresh TRAOD concept art - it’s not old, the old one you can find it in the notes I pledged for in the Kickstarter - more focused on Konstantin Heissturm - Kurtis’ father - character than in Kurtis himself. 

2. Murti also said there’s no content related to the game itself, but a collection of data and lore prior to the events of the game.

3. He also said there was not gonna be big notes or textes or written lore, mostly concept art, maps and short data file about some characters he didn’t have space to develop more in the final version of the game, such as the Cleaner. 

4. Finally, that most of the present lore belonged to Konstantin Heissturm and not Kurtis Trent. The journal belongs to his father in origin and he receives it from him. 

Now with all of this is not surprising the journal has turned out like this, but to be fair I must admit I, myself, was expecting a bit more because, after all, it’s called Kurtis’ journal, not Konstantin’s journal. I wanted it to look more rough, used, and worn out fitting not only Kurtis’ hazardous lifestyle - as it was marketed - but also Konstantin’s himself. But it’s Murti doing it, and Murti Schofield is extremely delicate and polished in his calligraphy and design. So in the end it’s more a Murti’s journal containing lore of the game than some item in-character. For me, it looks like more like an add-on to the old notes I pledged for than a whole new product.

Again, though I’m a bit disappointed - because I wanted to see more of KURTIS himself in here, not Murti/Konstantin - I am not surprised of the result and here’s the point you’re asking about: Murti was never that interested in releasing more lore concerning Kurtis himself. If you’ve paid attention to all of his interviews, statements, and the way he sees the whole TRAOD project itself - I am now talking about the game released in 2003, not the Dark Angel music project - which I did because I’ve been in some contact with him recently and also following his activity due to my backing of the project, Murti wasn’t the only creator of the story, neither he was of the characters, Kurtis included.

In fact, the final version of the story we see in the game has much more to do with Adrian Smith and Richard Morton’s involvement and creative decisions than with Murti as storywriter. Soon you realize he cares much more about Konstantin - a character that barely appears in the game because he’s already deceased, not even his name’s mentioned - than about Kurtis. That doesn’t mean he isn’t involved in his bio and lore and other details, because he absolutely was, I just mean that the final version of what we saw is a teamwork, not just Murti’s ideas. Even Murti is not at all behind the dynamic between Lara and Kurtis - the delicious dynamic we all know about - this being a product of the creative ideas and process of Morton rather than Murti.

From the moment only Murti Schofield was involved in TR Dark Angel project and not other Core Design members, I’ve had very clear in my mind than only a part of the final lore of the game was gonna be present at the project. And it’s fine, I don’t mind, it’s amazing they gave me the chance to meet this fantastic writer. But as I’ve been following all the content related with the project and the game I realized he doesn’t know everything or could answer to everything he was asked, because, naturally, he could only respond to the parts he was involved with - and that’s perfectly fine, and he had no problem to admit it, and nothing otherwise was expected!

This means many details about what Kurtis is, looks, and we enjoy about him were born by Richard Morton’s decision. So I knew this part was not gonna be present in the journal. Also, if you explore Murti’s activity and statements, he’s been recently working more on the past lore of the game. He’s been talking and headcanoning more about Konstantin than Kurtis, he’s been talking about more of the Nephilim, the Lux Veritatis, and producing content for Morgau and Eckhardt rather than for Kurtis and Lara at all. And it’s because he handles the part in which he was involved, the lore of the game, not the game content itself. For that, they should have included Morton or Smith, as far as I’ve found out.

This means Lara was never gonna be present at the journal, neither Kurtis as personality, because it was Richard Morton who created this personality - he chose the final name, I think, after all! Murti wanted him to be called Vance Renner - and of course Murti has been more seduced and interested recently in Konstantin as character than in Kurtis himself. And more invested in describing artefacts, power devices and other lore definitely not present in the final version of the game because he left the team before the game was released, since his task had been concluded: giving lore and plot. 

As you can see, this way, it is not surprising the journal is not a piece of merchandise that responds 100% to the final version you saw of what Kurtis is in the game, nor I expected it, but rather a recently crafted product that reflects more of the immediate past of the game’s universe, than the game plot itself. I would say it looks, at most, as if Kurtis has just gotten this diary from his father and the blank pages are still to be filled by him.

Which again, despite it was noted in advance, and we all could see photos of the inside pages, and nothing that wasn’t marketed was delivered, I still would have preferred it to look like a Kurtis’ journal, not a TRAOD lore concept art compendium whose pages don’t even look aged. But yet again, if you’ve been digging and listening to Murti’s part in the whole project, it was expectable in a way. And all of this I am not saying in a derogatory manner. It’s natural. TRAOD was the result of a teamwork, not just one single man. This one single man, thus, gives you his part in the story, but not the whole picture at all.

I hope I’ve made myself clear with this. Sorry for the long post, and I recommend you to read the whole content around this game, because it’s worth the time if you care about such things.

[dwollsadventures]

Pokémon Biology: Species and Evolution

Take a Pokémon evolution at face value: Zubat starts out as an eyeless, legless bat. Then, when it evolves into Golbat, it regains its eyes and diminutive legs. Finally, after being raised with loving care, it evolves into Crobat, a bat Pokémon with a significantly reduced mouth and four wings. What gives?

While they may appear to be similar, Pokémon species really are different species. The process of Evolution in Pokémon is not biological evolution, nor is it a normal metamorphosis into another stage of life or development, it is the complete transformation of one individual into another species.

To start with, let’s get our terminology correct. Evolution with an upper-case e will from here on out refer to Pokémon Evolution. This Evolution, as many have pointed out, is a rapid metamorphosis. Meanwhile, evolution with a lower-case e will from here on out refer to biological evolution; generational changes in a population as determined by natural selection. Which is not to say either are exclusive to Pokémon or non-Pokémon. Pokémon do evolve as other organisms do; Zubat and its relatives, Woobat and Swoobat, and Noibat and Noivern are all considered bat Pokémon because they are descended from a common bat Pokémon ancestor. Or, at least one member of their Evolutionary line is.

It may look like Evolution in Pokémon is simply a form of development, where a young animal gradually becomes grows and becomes a mature animal, but this is not the case. Development is seen in all Pokémon where the youngest start small and grow given time [just… ignore the fact that in-game sprites are always the same even if they’ve just hatched]. However, seeing a young Charizard is down-right impossible in the wild. This is because Evolution is not determined by age, like in development, but rather by ecological pressure and experience. Take the forests around Pallet Town: many Rattata and very few Raticate. This isn’t due to age, as Rattata have been observed being both young and elderly. Rather, there’s not enough food in the area to support a population of Raticate. In areas with more resources available we see many Raticate and little to no Rattata. Evolution in Pokémon occurs as a result of ecological pressure. In captivity Pokémon trainers find Pokémon evolve faster than in the wild, as the experience of battle and winning simulates that of an active, resource-heavy environment.

Some evolutions are pickier and require certain materials or a change in the environment or behavior. Evolutions such as these may be rarer due to the amount of energy required to sustain such a Pokémon. These Pokémon (Vikavolt, Magnezone, Elektross, etc.) are usually strong, but need more food and need to expend more time exercising their energy. Thus, their convoluted means of Evolution are a method of naturally capping how many enter a biosphere.

Back to the matter at hand. At one point, independent species of Pokémon formed close symbiotic bonds with others, eventually allowing one to Evolve into the other. Both benefit from this. Smaller Pokémon want access to more resources and larger Pokémon want a safe environment to raise their young. Eventually these relationships become naturalized, meaning that when a Raticate lays an egg it will always hatch into a Rattata.

As time goes on the Pokémon in the naturalized Evolutionary relationship will evolve to look closer to each other. This occurs as a result of this sustained relationship. Both species looking similar means they can easily identify and communicate with each other. In some cases, when evolution deems it necessary, the different species will become so similar they are indistinguishable. When Evolving, almost no difference occurs. From this, single stage Pokémon (such as Skarmory, Druddigon, and Tauros) occur. These Pokémon develop naturally and do not evolve into any other. Given time they may even enter into an Evolutionary relationship with another species and continue the cycle.

To support our hypothesis, we’ll look at a few examples:

- Growlithe & Arcanine: On the surface, two very similar looking Pokémon, right? Well, archaeological evidence (Lava et al, 2018) indicates this wasn’t always the case. Recent findings show Arcanine used to be a very different ‘mon: it lacked its distinctive stripes, had more feathery hair, and even had horse-like hooves! As time went on Arcanine evolved to look increasingly like its canine counterpart. A clear case of a gradually naturalizing relationship.

- Mime Jr. & Mr. Mime: How many times have you run into this issue? You need a Mime Jr. to fill out a slot in your pokédex, so you slap a Mr. Mime and a Ditto into the daycare. What pops out of the egg? A baby Mr. Mime! Why is this? The relationship between Mime Jr. and Mr. Mime is a recent one, only showcased globally in 2006. They do not physically resemble each other very much either. Mr. Mime can only produce a Mime Jr. under special circumstances. Their relationship has not yet reached a naturalized level.

- Squirtle, Wartortle & Blastoise: Many an eyebrow has been raised over the sudden changes between Wartortle and its Evolution Blastoise. Where do the swirling hairs go? Why does the tail shrink? Where do the cannons come from? New paleontological data shines light on these questions. Wartortle actually used to evolve into a completely different Pokémon, a larger-looking Wartortle with a sharper beak and larger wave-like tail. Blastoise meanwhile had one pre-Evolution, a smaller version of itself with weaker elbow-cannons. Both were very naturalized relationships as well, judging by their appearance. However, chaotic shifts in the environment led to the extinction of these Pokémon. Wartortle Sr. could not compete with the aggressive Gyarados, and Blastoise Jr.’s habitat was too competitive for it to survive. After their extinction, the two lines, both with similar gaps, met together and began the process anew. Now they are naturalized egg-wise. Anatomically differences still remain.

It may help that the two Pokémon lines were already quite similar to begin with. Both the Wartortle and Blastoise lines are turtle Pokémon, meaning they share a direct common ancestor in Tirtouga. Most Pokémon species act similarly, probably because it’s easy to form bonds with similarly related species. This is not always the case though. Remoraid (related to other bony fish like Arrokuda and Basculin) have seamlessly entered into a naturalized Evolution with Octillerly (whose closest relatives include Clobbopus and Grapploct).

This hypothesis cannot explain everything, however. The case of man-made Pokémon is especially vexing. Golett and Golurk, two Pokémon who are scientifically proven to have been created by humans thousands of years prior, are able to evolve into one another and breed like any other. Some suggest they were created with their Evolution in mind. Others say one of them was actually a completely separate Pokémon who entered into a relationship with the man-made one and became physically similar to it. Ditto and its unstable genetics also spring to mind, with scientific consensus being they are failed clones of Mew. Which brings us to Legendary Pokémon, always the exception. As well as the ever-confusing Ultra Beasts.

Barring these gaps, we can see no other alternative explanation into the mechanics of Pokémon evolution and its relation to Pokémon species.

[nostalgebraist]

Is there a standard name for the argument, or pattern of thought, that goes 

“sometimes (or perhaps always), a single choice you make has the moral or personal weight of making that choice over and over again in similar or identical situations: unless you can supply a detail that would distinguish this one situation from its ‘copies,’ by endorsing a choice here you endorse it in all those copies”

?

I feel like I’ve seen versions of this in various places, each different from the others but still with enough of a common thread to make it a thing.  Examples include

Eternal recurrence: willing something to happen once is like willing it to happen again and again in a universe that repeats itself identically

The categorical imperative: an injunction to use a version of this argument whenever you propose a moral principle

Some informal uses of game theory, specifically when games are used to think about action or morality in general rather than about a particular case, and especially when the games are one-shot. (I.e. saying that some real situation has the structure of a prisoner’s dilemma or stag hunt isn’t like this at all; taking moral inspiration from tit-for-tat or other iterated strategies is only slightly like this; viewing “cooperate in prisoner’s dilemmas” with no or few further specifications as a moral goal, as I see people do sometimes in the LW-sphere, is definitely like this)

When I was younger, I used to think this way reflexively about some things. For example, it seemed very important whether a person treated strangers well, because a stranger is someone you know almost nothing about and hence being mean to a stranger once seemed like a disturbing endorsement of a world where everyone is mean by default. I no longer think this way -- because even if the strangers are symmetrical the person being nice or mean to them will be in different situations over time -- but it was compelling at the time, so “obvious” I barely thought about it

Lately my mind has been using another version of it a lot: unlike most of the past, I’m in a life situation which I like and which has no natural end point, but this makes ill-spent time and bad habits seem worse than they used to.  Spending one day frivolously feels like deciding to spend every future day frivolously, because I can’t say “oh future days will be different eventually” with the ready confidence I used to have (I mean, they undoubtedly will be different in various ways, which is why I see this largely as a mental tic I want to reduce rather than a good argument, although there is some value to it. The thing I’m talking about involves deeming some group of situations “effectively the same,” but [except in eternal recurrence] no two situations are really identical, so it’s all a matter of where you draw the line when lumping or splitting situations.  If I’m wary of this thing, it’s because it depends on lumping more than is intuitively natural, and then puts intuition on the defensive -- “go on, show me the distinguishing factor!” -- rather than defending its own choice)

[it-will-not-last-the-night]

P5R

Having had a chance to now peruse a translation of the ending, albeit again not an official one and thus all I say is couched with the understanding it could be flawed, I wanted to talk a bit about how I felt concerning it.

At the outset I think it’s fine. It’s not bad or anything, at all, but it certainly to me doesn’t compare to Yldaboath’s representation of societal apathy and akrasia.

From a mechanical point of view the fight is perfectly good. I’d also like to give kudos to the game getting through that Maruki is determined. Having him several times lose but then come back, but make it that he comes back by pushing past limits, not doing a standard villain thing of ‘oh-ho I was holding back on purpose,’ helps to provide to you this idea that he does truly believe in what he fights for. So that’s good.

In addition; I do enjoy that Maruki will personally appeal to the team members you bring with you. I also like this as it helped me understand a bit about Ryuji’s wish which I will get to at the end when discussing the ‘wishes’ in general.

I’m personally satisfied that the fight is, simply, much lower level than the fight against Yldaboath. There is no ambiguity that Maruki is nowhere near as powerful as the personification of humanity’s apathy. Whilst Yldaboath was only able to be defeated by harnessing the power of all society shaking off it’s apathy for a moment, to form Satanael, Maruki is simply defeated by the efforts of the Phantom Thieves on their own, no galvanizing of the entire society to support them. So that’s fine but, again, makes me really feel like Maruki is an anti-climax after Yldaboath. He simply isn’t as powerful or pivotal. He’s a single human with a rather deranged plan, one he is incredibly motivated for, but still nothing like striking down the representation of all humanity’s akrasia.

For myself the highlight of the ending is actually the Monacopter sequence. All the PT’s calling out for him, Mona pushing himself to his limit, then coming through in the nick of time. As he is still meant to reflect a personification of human hope I like him to remain central to amazing moments like that, when powered by the hope of his friends.

So what are the negatives to this ending? To be honest the ending sequence itself has no real negatives beyond being, to me, an anti-climax coming after Yldaboath. The issues for me are...the Wish World, the concept of the Wishes, the revelation of how Maruki gained that power because it comes down to a single issue I have with the Third Trimester: It feels like a regression of completed character arcs for all the core PT’s.

So first we should discuss a bit about the ‘Wish World’ because it is nowhere near as wholistic or clean as I thought:

Maruki doesn’t create a world in which a person realizes their personal ideal wishes. Maruki creates a world in which he sets things the way he thinks people want it based off what they told him and gives precedence to the Phantom Thieves’ wishes over that of everyone else.

This last bit is very upsetting because it is explicitly said that the only reason that Maruki was able to make his world was because the Phantom Thieves wished for it by talking to him in his counselling office, which feels deceptive and also completely lacking in giving their actual wishes since, for example, Ryuji has his meeting with Maruki MONTHS before he completes his character arc, in which he learns what he truly wants is different to what he used to think it was.

It also rubs me the wrong way enormously that at the moment that the Phantom Thieves literally overcome the incarnation of society seeking to escape responsibility by placing it on the shoulders of a higher power...we’re now told they did just that, and shunted their responsibilities over to a higher power, Maruki, to deal with it for them.

The entire wish world feels just like character regression for the team. I understand why, of course, P5 was written as a complete game, the PT’s complete their character arcs in it, so P5R’s third trimester suddenly coming back to it and trying to use it as the main fuel of it’s plot leaves it feeling like the PT’s didn’t actually embrace the lessons about themselves they tell Ren that final time in the Velvet Room, when he gathers them for the final battle. It makes it seem like their convictions were flimsy and instantly abandoned.

Let’s talk about Ryuji: Ryuji’s character arc in the game sees him eventually come to decide that running isn’t, actually, something he intends to make the focus of his life anymore, even when he has the chance. He matures and, with the help of Ren, comes to realize that running isn’t the most important thing to him in the world, that his freedom, doing right by other’s, helping even when expecting nothing in return, all these things are more important. He explicitly turns down a chance to return to sprinting as anything more than a hobby in his character arc because he comes to realize he has other, deeper, dreams and wishes.

Maruki’s wish world, however, reduces him to just that. It turns his character development back and says that all his comments to Ren, his wilful decision to not continue to put sprinting at the core of his life, are something he drops to instead return to being that exact same way. It’s a little absolved by Maruki’s appeal to him in the final battle, where Maruki specifically doesn’t tempt him just with ‘running’ but with ‘running to make things easier for your mother’ bringing us back to Ryuji’s persistent character trait of feeling he is a burden to his mother and feeling he must find some way to alleviate that burden. But this, again, is part of his character development, overcoming the belief of needing to prove himself to others and the world, accepting he should find his own way, his own path, without doing things simply for others.

Ryuji rejects Maruki at the end, yes, but as this is a Ryuji already post-his scene in the Velvet Room that he at all accepted and embraced it, for even a moment, feels like massive character regression.

The wishes also don’t even reflect an ideal world. Yusuke’s wish involves nothing of his mother, something he’d ideally want. The wishes are very literally just constructs Maruki makes of specific things the Phantom Thieves tell him, making this not even truly a lotus eater machine, but more just one coder trying to give you things you told him about, and suborning other’s wishes to your own. 

Now; to be clear, Maruki’s wish world being flawed in such a way is fine, as if he could just honestly give everyone the actually ideal world in every sense it would raise questions as to why anyone should dislike this outcome, but the issue is that the granting of this wish world is now specifically hinged on character regression by all the PT’s at the very moment that they defeat Yldaboath, the figure reflecting the very thing they then do. It just feels enormously regressive and I strongly dislike it. I honestly think Maruki should have come before Yldaboath as, coming after him, it feels as if the character development of the PT’s is ignored just to make the Dream World work. I hate, for example, that if Ren gives up Maruki just is able to offscreen handwave everyone back into accepting this world even when they’ve shown the ability to now, of their own free will, if they just stop regressing, break free of it. Why can’t they just do that again? If they’ve done it once how can he just negate it automatically? It feels as if these pertinent questions of character development and the PT’s agency is ignored.

Also I am not a fan of Akechi being a cognitive version of himself simply because that isn’t Akechi then. Even if you made an identical copy of yourself that copy is still not you. They are their own entity with their own experiential and phenomenal data. It would be wrong and unfair, to him, to call Maruki-Akechi Akechi because he deserves to be acknowledged and recognized as his own living, thinking, entity. He isn’t Akechi, he’s a new life  born from Akechi, in a sense, but from the moment of his existence Maruki-Akechi is his own being, his own existence, separate to the existence that is Akechi.

And that just raises the question: why? If the character we’re being introduced to now, given a chance to come to grips with at last, isn’t the real Akechi, what purpose does this serve? If this isn’t actually Akechi then this development is meaningless and one-sided. If actual Akechi is alive he will not remember this, he will not know it, for he was not even there. Maruki-Akechi was. So I just find it a strange decision. Why not have the actual Akechi be there? Without that it feels like the plot point lacks teeth. 

[judefan850-blog]

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[tanadrin]

You seem to really like EU4, which, as it happens, is the one Paradox Grand Strategy game which I have *not* played (not counting Imperator, but then, does it really count as a Paradox game before the 4th DLC is released?), and I'm a little apprehensive about the usual 40-hours-to-familiarize-oneself investment which Paradox games tend to require. Would you mind selling me on it?

EU4 was the first Paradox game I played, funnily enough; I got into it before the first big DLC was released, although it must have been just about the time PDS was breaking out if its niche market with the release of CK2.

I actually have a lot of complaints about EU4: the modern DLC model incentivizes a bunch of tacked-on systems that don’t integrate with one another well, parts of the game get a lot of attention in one DLC and then are abandoned permanently. E.g., natives in CoP were given the ability to colonize without westernizing, I think so you could mimic, for instance, Iroquois expansionism in the 17th century, but it never really worked and now natives just... sit around. Institutions only kindasorta replicate the function of the old Westernization system--which was terrible! don’t get me wrong--but if anything getting institutions is a bit too frictionless now. And of course there’s the infamous lack of attention or balance to anything other than the 1444 start date, which is an artifact of the Great Error in developing EU4 (i.e., that there is anything other than a 1444 start date). And, of course, EU4 is a war game above all else: it does not simulate internal politics well (or at all), and it does not simulate economics well, and I crave, crave different forms of government that more profoundly affect how you play the game. And even in war, I crave systems that even permit the existence of asymmetrically distributed power between opponents to have a complex outcome, to say nothing of model it well. Historical example: East Frisia maintained its independence from the HRE for ages because the fens of the North Sea coast were super hard to invade and control for outside powers; but in EU4 that province just gets the bland “marsh” modifier, and Oldenburg or West Frisia conquers it in 2 seconds flat. There are ways you could model this! There are even ways you could model this within the constraints EU4 presents (province-based gameplay, generic battlespace), but the longer I spend with the game the more I realize just how much it leans, not in the “game about history” direction but the “game with historical coat of paint” direction.

That said, there’s a reason I have like 3800 hours played on Steam, and in comparison only 850 on CK2 and 1200 on Stellaris (aside from Stellaris being hella broken right now): I think the map-painting elements it has are done really well; wars are super fun; and I feel like I can play strategically in a way I can’t in, say, CK2. In CK2, the almost total reliance on event-driven systems, rather than geographically, economically, or politically-based systems, means that I very often feel like I’m being punished or rewarded solely on the basis of random chance. Even where some interpersonal contest is involved--say, my dastardly vassal trying to have me assassinated--it’s still often driven by random draws (% chance to discover a plot, etc) in a way that EU4 isn‘t. I think EU4 has had some of that, with events like the Iberian Wedding or the Burgundian Succession, but these are one-off artificial constructs meant to provide a point of reference to real-world history. They don’t drive the entire game. Personal unions are a big exception, as a mechanic, and one of my least favorite ones as a result; but even there you have a lot more control than it feels like you do in CK2.

And, of course, CK2 (along with, I gather, HOI4) has turned a bit more toward the “memey alt history” side of things than EU4 has. I’m not opposed to that in principle. Reforming the Germanic faith to become a religion of Amazonian cannibals, or electing a horse Pope or w/e is good wholesome fun for the whole family. But it’s not what drew me into EU4, which was basically the appeal of “here, let’s take all these disconnected things you vaguely learned about in history in school, remind you forcefully that they were happening at the same time, and give you a clear visual representation of them.” It doesn’t matter that the game itself probably isn’t a very good history teacher; its representations of history have made me much more interested in learning about, at different times, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the whole history of India, the succession of Chinese dynasties, and the history of central Asia. In comparison, CK2 suffers for being set at a time when a lot of the map has to be filled in by guesswork, and where it does touch on more clearly recorded elements of history, it filters them very much through a “this is what D&D nerds imagine the Middle Ages were like” lens. And maybe this is my bias for my exposure to medieval history showing through: but there is so much art and music and just general medieval Weltanschauung you could draw on to make a game about politics in the Middle Ages feel, well, medieval, and CK2 just... doesn’t. There’s a reason you can drop a total conversion mod like Elder Kings or that GoT mod on top of it and not have to change any of the art style or like 90% of the default events. EU4 does this a little better, via flavor events and specific mechanics like colonization and the layout of trade routes, that make it actually feel like you’re playing a game that has at least some contact with early modern history, instead of being a febrile hallucination by someone who fell asleep on top of some Penguin Atlases of World History.

This is turning into a generic rant about what I like and don’t like about PDS games, and before I go off on an enormous tangent about how I would design a history-based GSG, let me return to the original topic: if you like RTSes, and “strategy” as a game genre more generally, EU4 will have strong inherent appeal. There are a lot of DLCs, but several of them are deeply meh and totally skippable (especially Golden Century & Cradle of Civilization; and the single-nation-focused ones like Rule Britannia and Third Rome). I think a lot of people who get into CK2 but don’t like EU4 as much probably have a preference for RPG-style gameplay over strategy gameplay, which makes sense to me since I usually break the other way. But also, if you like the CK2 thing where you start as a count and work your way up to Roman Emperor or something, EU4 has a ton of opportunities for that extremely satisfying feeling of taking a tiny country and building it out to a big empire. The very late part of the game when you have defeated all your rivals and can blob freely can be pretty boring, but I’ve played to 1821 like twice, tops: the early and midgame are some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a single-player game. EU4 also deeply appeals to the Johnny in me, because I love stupid minmaxing strategies like seeing if it’s possible to go Coptic as the Mughals and massively reduce coring costs so you can conquer all of Asia for a handful of admin points. (DDRJake did a version of this back in the day with the Minghals IIRC, using the old faction system, that was pretty damn funny.)

Not sure how useful all that is, but I hope it’s worth something.