#surely 3.0 is kinda a disaster

[officialkrubs]

i work in tech. and i get real annoyed when im trying to have beers and chat with my fellow colleagues and say 'yeah i think this is wild how the 'net's going and i wanna work on something new' and they're like "yeah something new will come up soon" and it's like.

ugh, no. you're not getting me. I want to be part of that something new. i want to try even imagine what something new could look like. why don't you wanna play the game with me. why don't you want to imagine

[taco-calamitous]

Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time

****MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT*****

When did the last Rebuild of Evangelion movie come over to the States? Like, 2015? I remember watching it in my apartment in Arkansas, back when I was in the Air Force. That was a long time ago. So much life has happened since then. After I watched that one, I decided to write about it. I was kinda bewildered by my experience with that movie. There was a 14 year time jump between it and the second movie, and everyone was pissed off at Shinji, because he had somehow caused Third Impact. The last image I recall from the second movie was Kaoru’s Eva ramming a spear through Shinji’s Eva unit. All of the sudden, in the third movie, everyone but the Eva pilots have aged 14 years—something to do with their use of the Evas. Misato acted completely cold and distant to Shinji, contradictory to how she had been behaving at the end of the last movie. By the end of the third movie, however, Shinji had been duped by Nerve—which seemed to only consist anymore of Gendo and Kozo. After causing another disaster and watching Kaoru die, Shinji was dragged off somewhere by Asuka, alongside the… Third Rei, I believe (not the one Shinji seemed to have saved at the end of the second movie, if I recall correctly). So what’s going on in this fourth movie? Well, there’s no time jump this time, it seems. Misato’s new organization, which consists of old Nerve employees and new people—along with the new glasses-wearing Eva pilot girl, Mari—are trying to reset an AT field, or base, or something, in the heart of Paris, and they’re attacked by some Nerve robots while they’re doing this. They have these flying battleships that they use as shields, as well as Mari’s Eva, to protect themselves while they do this. Mari’s able to hold Nerve off, and they get the AT field going. This is the most action we see in the movie for over an hour, probably. For the next long while, we see Asuka drag Shinji and Rei through a red wasteland to a village of survivors, which is protected by a large AT field. We meet grown up Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari. Toji’s a doctor now, and married to Hikari. Kensuke is a surveyor or scientist or something. While here, the third Rei learns what it’s like to be human—works, makes friends, learns about concepts like “Good morning,” “good evening,” “good bye,” etc., and what cats and babies are. Shinji falls into a catatonic state of despair due to what he’s done, and watching Kaoru die. Asuka has no sympathy for him and is angry about how he is behaving. Kensuke thinks he just needs time and space, and allows him to run away to an abandoned building and stay there for weeks. It was cool to see some of these characters grown up, as we never got to see any of them age in the original series. Toji I remembered the most for punching Shinji in an early episode, but then coming around and being mostly cool, until he died when Unit 1 went out of control. Since Asuka was the victim of that episode in these movies, Toji got to live this time. It’s also cool to see these characters because they’re actually well-adjusted, and aren’t suffering from deep emotional damage. Eventually, the third Rei’s kindness seems to get through to Shinji, and he goes back to the village to help out. It’s then that he meets Misato and Kaji’s son. Misato made sure this kid never met her or knew anything about her, for some reason I don’t recall. Something to do with emotional damage, though. Meanwhile, the third Rei is finding that her body is failing because she has left Nerve facilities, I think. So after spending time watching her learn to be a human, we watch her say goodbye to Shinji, and then disintegrate. Asuka, who’s been hanging out either in her Eva suit or mostly naked for some reason, gets recalled back to Misato’s team, and Shinji decides to go with her. So she hits him with a stun gun and knocks him out. Shinji awakens to Toji’s little sister Sakura standing over him, who then slaps him and starts sobbing because he got back into an Eva after she’d told him not to. I vaguely remember her from the last movie (apparently she was dead all along in the original series. I went and looked her up just now to recall what she was like in the original series. I guess she wasn’t.) To keep Shinji from doing anything, they put him in a holding chamber. That Asuka and Mari are just able to go in and out of of their own free will, and he seems to just be able to leave later on in the movie. Maybe they didn’t put him holding chamber? I thought they said they were doing putting him in one, though. There’s this pink-haired girl who’s mad that he’s back on the ship. I think she was in the last movie. Her family died in Third Impact, and she blames him. Like everybody else. There’s some exposition stuff at this point in the movie between Misato and Ritsuko, and Gendo and Kozo. Misato and Ritsuko talk about the purpose of the ship they’re piloting to repopulate the Earth if Nerve succeeds in the Fourth and Final impact, and Kozo and Gendo talk about the Instrumentality Project, involving Christian symbology and names, but also talking about “the Gods,” and other things that wouldn’t exactly mesh with Christian ideas. After these two scenes of exposition, Misato’s team tells her that whatever Nerve’s headquarters or whatever are in has moved to its final destination, so they have to act now. Misato decides to use the ship they’re in as a weapon against Nerve, and deploys all the seeds it holds containing Earth’s life, or whatever. Then they go to where Nerve is, and try to break through it’s outer AT Field thing. There’s a line about humans trying to pass through to the Gods while still being in sin. My thought on that is that Gendo and Kozo are human, and they’re already in there, but eh. Anyway, Kozo pops up in a big ship and attacks them before they break through. They deploy Asuka and Mari’s Evas, who fight with a bunch of pilot-less Evas, until they drop to the ground, where Unit 13—which looks just like Unit 1—is laid out on a cross. Asuka tries to stab it with one of those giant spear things, but it puts up an AT Field, so she takes her eye patch off, and a power up item comes out from her eye. She rips open the AT Field, but then Unit 13 grabs her and starts choking her. Meanwhile, Kozo’s ship takes hold of Misato’s ship, and they realize that Gendo had been planning this, or something. The Second Rei, I think, appears to Asuka, disintegrates her body, and pulls her into Unit 13, I think. Next, Misato and Ritsuko meet Gendo some weird red landscape they all can get to, apparently. Ritsuko shoots Gendo in the head multiple times, but it only momentarily knocks him down, and reveals a glowing, cross-shaped hole where his eyes should be. He’s apparently ascended or something, using the information of the gods or whatever. He goes into Unit 13, and they realize they can’t stop him, but Shinji shows up and says he’s gonna pilot Unit 1 again to fight his father. Pink-haired girl and Sakura show up with guns to try and stop him, and Sakura actually tries to shoot Shinji, but Misato jumps in the way of the bullet. Earlier in the movie, she flashed back to when she was cheering Shinji on at the end of the second movie, just before Third Impact, and she states that as Shinji’s legal guardian, she’s still responsible for whatever he does. They let Shinji go, and Sakura treats Misato’s wound. As Shinji and Gendo start fighting, they end up locked together, falling into some weird “anti-reality” space, I think it was called, to the “Golgotha Object.” The two spears they’re carrying, “Hope” and “Despair,” Gendo plans to use at this “Golgotha Object” to make a wish. The two Evas fight in some virtual reality created by the gods or something, spanning across Shinji’s memories, and Gendo fights far more aggressively and effectively than Shinji, while yelling that Shinji doesn’t understand. Eventually, Shinji stops fighting and starts talking to Gendo. So Gendo explains everything, and seems to indicate that the End of Evangelion happened, but Shinji rejected it. That was Gendo’s initial wish, and now his new wish is to see his wife again, but everyone around there is Rei. Also, they see “Evangelion Imaginary,” which appears as the Black Lillith thing that was hung up on a cross in the original series. It comes off the cross, floats up to the world above, and turns into Giant Naked Rei from End of Evangelion. Also, all the weird wandering Evas out in the wasteland that I forgot to mention earlier start turning into less giant, headless, naked Reis, and start floating around. Misato decides as a last ditch effort to convert the power of her ship into making one last spear for Shinji to use to cancel out Gendo’s wish with his own. Also, Mari meets Kozo in his ship, he calls her “Mari Iscariot,” gives her permission to use his ship or something, and then he explodes into tang, like everybody did in End of Evangelion. I didn’t really understand the exchange, to be honest. Meanwhile, as the final preparations for Misato’s plans are finished, she orders everyone else to abandon the ship but stays on, as someone still has to get the spear to Shinji. I realized then that we had to watch Misato die again, and got kinda sad. In any case, she pilots the ship through Giant Naked Rei’s eye—with help from Mira and her Eva—gets the spear to Shinji, and then her ship explodes with her still in it. In the next few scenes, we learn about Gendo, Kaoru, and Asuka’s deepest issues. Gendo was always a loner and hated being around people until he met his wife, and then when she died, he thought being left with a son was punishment for himself, so he kept himself distant from Shinji. He realized he was afraid of Shinji, and I Shinji forgave him, they realized they were similar in some ways, and then he stepped off the virtual train they were on. Next, Kaoru appeared, but Kaji also appeared to explain to Kaoru that he thought making Shinji happy would make himself happy, and that he had to live his own life, or something. So he also exited the virtual reality—this time they were in a garage. Next, Asuka relived her childhood, being without her mother and father, thinking everyone hated her and would only except her as an Eva pilot, but Kensuke appeared to her and comforted her, and she also left. Finally, the second Rei appeared to Shinji, and Shinji explained that he planned to make a world where they wouldn’t have to pilot Evas, and that she could be whatever she wanted. She likes that, and leaves. Back in Unit 1, Shinji’s gonna stab through Unit 1 with the spear, but his mom appears as Unit 13, takes the spear away from him, and pushes him out of Unit 1, taking his place as the sacrifice. Shinji sees her and Gendo together, and goes back to reality, where the less giant, headless, naked Reis are turning into people and animals and descending back to Earth. Shinji appears on a beach, and Mari lands just offshore in her Eva, which disappears as she jumps out into the ocean. As Shinji reaches her, the scene jumps to him at a train station—I think the one we first met him in in the original series—and they’re there together, all dressed up. Mari’s coming on to him, he’s acting far more reciprocal and confident than he would have in the original series, they run out of the station together, and the credits roll. I think this ending makes more sense than the original End of Evangelion. I think it also had way less disturbing imagery in it, which is nice. It also felt less bewildering than the previous movie. Most of the characters that blamed Shinji for everything wrong in the last movie seemed to be more forgiving in this one, except for Asuka. Of course, Asuka is Asuka. She’s less loud and obnoxious, and more reserved than she was in the original series, although she’s also 14 years older than she was, even if her body remains that of a teenager. She just has a raging hate-boner for Shinji. She seems at least tolerant to everyone else. Meanwhile, we learn that Misato is a bit more conflicted about than she seemed in the last movie. She doesn’t just seem to blame him for everything that happened, like she did in the last movie. She also has a line to Ritsuko about being stoic being better than being emotional. I liked her a lot better in this movie than I did in the last one, as a result. I didn’t watch any of the other movies again before I watched this one, so a lot of the characters, names, and events weren’t fresh in my mind or anything. Most recently, I watched the first episode of the original series again with my brother, when he saw it was on Netflix. I might have understood things a bit better if I had watched those again, but then again, knowing Evangelion, maybe not. Overall, although I did like the last movie, I probably liked this one a bit better. It felt more coherent to me, and dealt with some of the things I found confusing from the last movie. If I recall correctly. But yeah. I just wrote this because I remembered writing a thing for the last movie, and I thought, “eh, why not do it again?”  I haven’t posted on this site in a while, but I remember writing about the last one on here, so eh. 

[wearesorcerer]

[5e] 7th-Level Spells

or “You’re Taking Teleport, Right?”

7th-level spells are like higher level ones in that you only learn one of them (unless you give up better magic) and can’t use it terribly often. Unlike 8th- or 9th-level spells, though, you aren’t outright godlike for using these: they're the sorts of things the most accomplished caster of a generation should be able to, but they are still fundamentally within the realm of fantastical human capability.

So, why teleport? Why are you worrying about this spell above all others?

Teleportation is, by definition, the most effective means of transportation. It ignores all problems specific to transportation except something (or someone) else being right where you want to be. Almost all drawbacks are theoretical -- indeed, they vary from one type of teleportation effect to another, even within works. In D&D, it negates most obstacles in, to, and from a dungeon, making it the bane of many a DM’s existence.

Teleport happens to be the best teleportation spell within D&D.

In fact, most other teleportation spells exist to reduce dependency on teleport. For instance, TSR created plane shift some time after the Expert set (1981); before it existed, teleport could go across planes. Dimension door is the oldest example of a lower-level teleportation spell for the tactical movement aspect -- obviously a major point of appeal. Really, the only teleportation spell that isn’t strictly “teleport, but...” is gate.

Teleport is so handy that after 3rd edition, they bumped normal teleport from 5th-level (as it had been since OD&D) to 7th-level, at the expense of greater teleport (3.5)/teleport without error (2e and 3.0) entirely. Some of this has to do with D&D not being great with sympathetic magic; some of it is how video games deal with teleporting; most of it is 4e. Still, it’s not for nothing that it was this one spell that required so much reworking.

The question is not “What spell should I take?” but “Is this worth giving up teleport for?”

The Main List

conjure hezrou · crown of stars · delayed blast fireball · etherealness · finger of death · fire storm · plane shift · power word pain · prismatic spray · reverse gravity · whirlwind

This level’s list pretty much demonstrates the main parts of the Sorcerer list in general: boom-boom (five dedicated spells), crowd control (four spells), some utility (three), and the occasional other (two summons).

Conjure Hezrou: you summon...a stinky frog demon with a thing for necrophagy; it will gleefully serve as a tank, but can’t do much else, and will turn on you. Did you read my rant? Pass. With extreme prejudice. #killitwithfireball

Crown of Stars: pretty much sunbeam combined with light, but the flavor is dancing lights. Functionally, it has two advantages over sunbeam: it has a longer duration that it doesn’t require concentration (both as light). However, it doesn’t provide true sunlight or affect as many targets. This should be a 4th-level spell at the highest. (I bet I’m going to have to defend that later...)

Delayed Blast Fireball: I’m not really certain what the point of this spell is anymore. I only reference it as much as I do because it works with queuing and casters = fireball users. The main point of DBF was in conjunction with time stop, but since it’s concentration that doesn’t really fly. Otherwise...hooray, a time bomb? I’d rather have this as a metamagic effect.

Etherealness: or intangibility. You probably won’t need it as long as the spell provides, but even there plane shift can outdo this spell. That said, it doesn’t cost you anything in materials and you won’t arrive in a semi-random location. I mean, it’s by no means bad...

Finger of Death: deal lots of necrotic damage, zomble target. This is niftier than the 3.5 version (which was just a save or die effect), but there was a metamagic feat (Fell Animate) that applied to any damaging spell. Ask your DM to convert the metamagic feat for you.

Fire Storm: one of the few spells on this list that is primarily a Druidic spell (you can tell by the bit about it ignoring vegetation). The sculpting aspect of this spell is nice and it’s slightly bigger and more damaging than wall of fire without requiring concentration. This + elemental spell = conscientious blasting. For a boom-boom, not bad.

Plane Shift: the other half of teleport, which is a bit sad given that this is now the level at which you get teleport. Unfortunately, it has a costly material component to it and isn’t a ritual. Depending on the game, this could be as important as teleport or entirely irrelevant.

Power Word Pain: (CRUCIO! -.-) you torture someone and get... minor results? I swear, if you want to be this evil, there are lower-level spells that would let you do it better.

Prismatic Spray: RANDOM! The CC effects are cool, but toned done from 3.5 (in which they’d take effect immediately, rather than over several turns). The rest depends: 10d6 is nice damage, but if you roll the wrong type then you’re just out of luck (and Elemental Metamagic won’t help you much, either). Since charging is now a feat, the range on the cone isn’t bad, but I’d much rather have a burst. I want to like it, but...

Reverse Gravity: this is funnest spell on this list and one of the more fun 7th-level spells period, yet it’s only so-so. It’s mainly there to throw creatures skyward. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just alter gravity in areas and make the game Super Mario Galaxy?

Whirlwind: other than crown of stars, this is my personal favorite for this list -- and it doesn’t come with caveats. You simply create a miniature tornado and destroy people’s lives. HOORAY NATURAL DISASTERS!

If you’re not taking teleport, you might be considering etherealness or plane shift. If you’re not, you’ve got some pretty good options and some...not so good ones. Y’know, like always.

Just remember about conjure hezrou: dishonor!

You got that? Good.

Moving on.

Cleric (Divine Soul) List

conjure celestial · divine word · regenerate · resurrection · symbol · temple of the gods

Conjure Celestial: you summon a celestial of CR 4 or lower (5 if you spend a 9th-level spell slot). CR 4- celestials include the couatl (flying shapeshifter healer) and several winged animals (bull, lion, horse [pegasus]) to serve as combat mounts. (Did you know that Pegasi prior to 5e also had spells to detect alignment? Yep. More than just a mount.) Upping the spell to 9th gets you a battleforce angel (flying paladin), a felidar (sometimes winged cat-thing with truesight to which you could bond if the spell’s duration didn’t prevent that), hollyphant (ridiculous elephant celestial thing), or a unicorn. For the sake of comparison, a unicorn in 3.5 is CR 3 and a 4th-level summoning spell could call one. (Summoning is much weaker in 5e, but lasts a lot longer.) I’m not sure what to say. I mean, the couatl and the unicorn would be nice if you needed healing, but you can probably do that yourself.

Divine Word: creatures of your choice within 30 ft. that can hear you must save (Cha) versus various effects based on HP. This is overall better than the equivalents in 3.5 (which were alignment pole based) and it’s an “I win” button against extraplanar creatures (except aberrations) that fail their saves, which could stop a cult in its tracks. Pretty powerful.

Regenerate: target creature is now a troll/starfish! Woot woot! It’s kinda sad that you have to wait this long for it and that it competes with your second best rez, but you can replace that rez with this once you get true rez (which of course you will). This should be mandatory in a game that uses slashing weapons so much.

Resurrection: holding out for true resurrection is not really a great idea. On the one hand, you don’t want to have to ask someone else for this spell -- and chances are there will come a time when you need it. You can replace this spell with true rez later. On the other, there are so many other things you might want. Need I say more?

Symbol: you spend a buttload of money to make magic traps. Why are these Cleric spells? Dunno. Why are they spells and not magic items you craft? Also dunno. They’re useful, but not so much that I’d want them as anything besides rituals (which they aren’t). -2 Sorcerousness.

Temple of the Gods: holy shit, this is neat. If you need to seal yourself and your party away from the world while still being able to access the world, you want this spell. Like, take Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion and make it more convenient. Great spell.

S’yeah, lots of lovely spells that you now have to decide upon vs. teleport. I do not envy you in making this decision.

[moderndaybard]

2020 Weekly Ficlet 30/52(? We’ll see?)

Just for You (Critical Role C1/Darrington Brigade Ficlet)

-

Things had been very quiet lately for the Darrington Brigade, and as the lull between clients grew longer and longer, it was the leader and founder himself who seemed to struggle the most with the prolonged inactivity—how could he prove to the world just how brilliant he was if it never gave him the opportunity?

As they so often did at such questions, Taryon’s thoughts turned to Vox Machina, and what they would’ve done. Well, setting aside the inimitable fact that adventure seemed to simply find them quite without any of them seeming to try, he knew form many late-night talks with darling Vex that, especially early on, when they weren’t given opportunities to display their talents, they made them.

That’s it!

----------

The next few weeks or so were quiet ones on the Darrington Estate—unless one went anywhere near Taryon’s workshop (which all of the Brigade members had learned the hard way to not do, by now). But eventually, the artificer emerged with his ‘masterpieces’ and began his rounds of the manor house.

----------

“Owlbear, I have taken it upon myself to craft these goggles and enchant them to give you darkvi—uh, I mean, to enhance your…um, shall we call it Owl Sight? Owl Vision? Anyhow, now you’ll be able to see in the dark—”

“Owlbears gave impeccable sight no matter the blackness of night.”

“Er, yes. And now yours will be even better.”

“…. Thank you.”

With that, the goggles were snatched from his hand and the door was slammed in his face.

“You’re welcome?”

----------

The concept for Damian’s ‘upgrade’ had been simple: no one could deny the fighter’s skill with the stiletto knives never far from hand, but it was also hard to imagine blades so small doing too terribly much in the way of damage.

The solution?

Why, exploding knives, of course!

---------- 

  “Taryon, I already have a staff that I can use. Besides, this is…more of a rod, no?”

“For now it is, Farriwen, which makes it so much easier to carry without accidentally hitting people or things—”

“—I do not do that—”

“—and then you simply press this button to release the spring-loaded extensions, and it expands into a full staff. No need to thank me, Farriwen, just knowing you love it is appreciation enough for my genius.”

“…Sure.”

----------

Hazel’s had been trickier, not in concept—as surely what the bard needed first and foremost was a way of duplicating her brilliant wax cylinders after recording his dazzling exploits, both for eventual distribution and for sake of having backup copies in the unlikely case of disaster—but in execution. Fortunately, Doty 3.0 was available to assist with the enchantment (practically volunteered to—and wasn’t that so nice?) and in the construct’s skilled hand, the Wand of duplication was eventually completed.

----------

“And for the two of you, the best idea involved delving into the fields of alchemy and potion making—not my usual areas of expertise, true, but also no match for my genius!—in order to create for you, Buddy, this Potion of Shrinking! (For those times we need to get him into tight spaces, Mac, you understand). And, since he won’t be able to carry you while shrunk, Mac, I made you this Potion of Growing! Ah, yes: I am brilliant. Brilliant!”

----------

“Lionel—”

“It’s alright, boss: I understand.”

“Lionel—”

“They’re the new guys, you gotta make them feel welcome; even though you didn’t make me anything when I joined.”

“Lionel—”

“And, I mean, I did kinda get taken over and turn on you guys a few months ago. I mean, I know I apologized a lot for how I hurt you guys a little; so I guess you’re still mas at me for that.”

“Lionel—”

“I’m just saying that it’s okay that you didn’t want to make me anything even when you were already making presents for everybody else…”

“LionelImadeyouthisquackinghammerjusttakeitalreadyit’sreallyheavy.”

The bard-barian’s eyes flew open wide, and he reached out for the gargantuan weapon with what could only be called reverence.

“Phew. Alright. Good. now, it is extremely loud, so probably best to use it only on actual missions, and only ones where we’re outside—”

He got no further as he had to duck to avoid Lionel’s test-swing, the hammer slamming to the hall floor with a window-shaking, ear-popping, chest-rattling—

*QUACK!*

(Continue reading on AO3)

[covirusgame]

Hi! Need to escape the utter boringness of a minor apocalypse?

Have you consumed countless works of fiction depicting a massive disaster menacing all of humanity? Did you ever think you will ever live inside such a story? Isn’t all of this really weird to you?

Is the world ending? No? Yeah, but is society collapsing? What? Not more than usual? I see... But capitalism is definitely kicking the bucket right? Right? Oh... Well at least we have a virus spreading globally, so we are all isolated in our homes with nothing but our infinite minds and an infinite internet of things to do.

And sure, the pandemic is a sad, horrifying thing that is spreading suffering everywhere. The situation is dire for countless people and the more vulnerable among us are the ones that risk the most. We must all protect us and others, trust in the power of science and community and just get through it.

But we are humans! We adapt, we fight, we find solutions! And we laugh in the face of death, and find the ridiculous in the tragic. We make memes out of indescribable pain. We still listen to music when bombs fall on our cities. We make love in stolen moments during an uprising. And last but not least we make and play games.

So here is a little game I devised so that you, your grandparents and your kids can pass the time in this weird time we are all living in. Maybe in a month it will be entirely useless. Maybe it will take a year or more for a cure and the return to normalcy. In the meantime we can have some fun or at least waste some time together.

The game is called Covirus and is and forever will be free. After all we can all agree that nobody should pay anything for a cure to coronavirus when we will find it, so why should there be money in a single page of rules for a silly time-waster?

It’s also untested and brand new, but you can participate in its development by sending me feedback and suggestions. Please be kind, I never did anything like this and am very awkward with people. Let’s call the current version of the rules “Alpha 0.1″, then if there will be any improvements I will update this blog.

Without further ado, here are the rules:

1. Have fun together and safely! If you have reason to isolate yourself completely you can still play with others through a videocall or similar methods. Kinda like chess wonks exchanging messages with their moves and gloating underwhelmingly when they win.

2. You need:

A piece of paper, preferably of the squared kind. A whiteboard can do if you're willing to draw the playfield squares.

A couple of differently colored pencils, pens or markers. Pencils have an obvious advantage: you can erase mistakes.

A couple of six-sided dice. You can steal them from a monopoly box. Eat the rich! Or you can kinda make some folding and gluing paper or something. Or you can download a dice roller for roleplaying games. Whatever works for you!

A reason to be stuck playing this game instead of going out to eat pizza and hug someone cute. Like a pandemic. Or a family reunion. It's gonna be fine. No, You Are Wrong! ITSNOTONFIRE!!! ... Just play the game will ya?

3. It's a two player game and it's played on a 20 by 40 squares field. Player 1 starts from one of the shorter sides and Player 2 from the other.

4. Each player rolls a die to determine order of play. Whoever gets the highest number gets to start first (and be the virus) and the other player follows (and is the cure). Don't be mean to people that are the virus or have the virus. Just don't be mean generally. Really...

5. You play in turns and you throw the dice. The numbers that come out of the throw determine what you do according to the following list:

Any combination of non identical numbers gives you a shape to put somewhere on you side of the field. Let's say you roll a 4 and a 2? Draw in your color a 4 by 2 squares rectangle. If it is your first move it can go anywhere in the bottom line, if it's not it must be on the bottom line or adjacent to your other shapes. You can only draw on unoccupied squares.

If you roll a double 6 you get to fill an entire line with you color, even if you already filled some of those squares. You can only choose lines that already have some squares with your color and you can’t choose one that has squares with your adversary’s color. If no eligible lines are present you lose the turn!

If you roll a double 1 you fill a single unfilled square anywhere you want!

If you roll any other double number you don't get a rectangle. Multiply the two numbers together to get a number of contiguous squares to fill as you like! Obviously you still can only fill unoccupied squares.

You lose the turn every time you can’t follow the previous rules according to the dice you rolled.

6. You both take turns rolling dice and filling squares until there is no more space on the field and there are no more moves or it is clear that continuing will change nothing. Or you are freed from isolation and can return to your life.

7. The player that manages to fill the most lines completely wins!

8. That's it! Play again!

We’re done for now. Spread the game, don’t spread the virus and let me know your thought about this weird little child of mine I send out into the world.

With love and hope.       D.

Disclaimers:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/it/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Italy License

That basically means I will not be mean to you if you share my work or make your derivative work from it while acknowledging mine, using the same license and not making any money off of it. Fair? Fair.

I only put this disclaimer here because I'm paranoid about people being jerks and dire situations like the one we are in currently bringing the worst out of humanity.

[locria-writes]

Introduce the entire meme squad!

ah yes, the meme gang, my favourite, the could-be-scooby-gang-but-there’s-too-many-people gang :D

with the exceptions of nikolaus, renata, and ulrich they collectively share about 3 brain cells

oskar // pinnacle of walking disaster; nikolaus’ younger brother; bffs with wolfram and johannes; sworn enemy of heinrich; a sweet and dumb tsundere

ignazio // the straight man who rightfully should not be in this squad but is; perpetually confused; just wants to sleep okay let the bby rest; a tired and hardworking kuudere

wolfram // resident drama queen hypebeast; ulrich’s older brother; bffs with oskar johannes; shows affection through insults; a dramatic and arrogant tsundere

nikolaus // the straight man 2.0 who makes sure nobody dies; oskar’s older brother; engaged to renata; honestly too good to be here; snarky and kinda mean asshole

johannes // resident cutie jock; renata’s step-brother and also in love with her; bffs with oskar and wolfram; a sweet and dumb jock with no sense of self-preservation

heinrich // resident hypebeast 2.0; sworn enemy of oskar; is actually really sweet, if a little dumb, most of the time; sweet and dumb drama queen

renata // too smart to be in this squad 2.0; johannes’ step-sister and hates his guts; engaged to nikolaus; pretty much fills the role of gossip girl; kinda mean and ambitious bitch

ulrich // too smart to be in this squad 3.0; wolfram’s younger brother; goes around cleaning up his brother’s messes; just happy to be here; sweet and happy bean

mc // rightfully belongs here because she’s Big Dumb

[journeywithaaron]

Update Time

Happy New Year!  It's already been 3 months since my declaration to keep Pusheen on.  Time for a LENGTHY post to evaluate what happened the past 3 months, and how thing's ought to change in the upcoming months in light of that.

So let's see what happened.

Career Building:  After 18 weeks of the 20/5/1.5, a total of 360 hours should have been clocked for career development.  According to the whiteboard (that has received much abuse), 224 hours were clocked, with 136 missing.  So I completed 62.2% of the intended hours toward building my career.  It's difficult to measure actual productive hours during the clocked hours, but I would imagine that all in all, I was probably able to effectively accomplish only 50% of what I intended to do.  I like to take the positive look toward this and say "In the past quarter, I did 224 hours toward bettering my career" instead of the negative "I failed to do 136 hours of what I expected."

Exercise:  I reached my weight goal on time, with an average of 118.6lbs/19.6% body fat for the month of November.  I wasn't able to reach my body fat goal of 18%, though I admit I haven't made any significant changes in my workout regimen/dietary habits.  The month of December was a disaster (as expected due to the holiday shenanigans).  The average went up 1.0lbs/1.0% for December, and hopefully January will pull it back down to November.  I admit the goal became a little hazy after November.  I was not expecting to drop down to 118, and my body fat was not dropping after a while.  At the same time, I was not willing to change up the workout regimen, so when the December holiday foods started to roll in, it's not surprising that my numbers went up.  At least for the month of January, I will continue to maintain the same regimen, and see if numbers drop without the holiday food.

Music:  Since my last update, KAMASOquartet was able to punch out another four pieces!  Granted, I was not responsible for arranging all of them, but there have definitely been opportunities for me to play.  Similarly to exercising, I admit the goal for music got a little hazy (or perhaps forgotten...) over the past 3 months.  Once I selected pieces that I felt were good practice pieces for violin, I only just powered through those pieces each time I clocked in for practice.  For guitar, once I learned a few basic chords, I thought the same, and just powered through them haphazardly each time I clocked in.  Since I knew internally how brain dead these practice regimens were, I ended up skipping quite a bit of practice near the tail end of the 3 months.  For violin, since there was an abundance of things to play for, doing that brain dead practice still happened frequently.  But since there was nothing to practice for for guitar, man I dropped the ball on that one relatively hard.

I'd say thats a relatively good summary of what happened the past 3 months.  As expected, Panasonic has been getting worse and worse (is that even possible?).  A good amount of my acquaintances have left the company, and hopes of career advancement here seems bleak.  Coupled that with all the company politics going on, I admit I ran into a little bit of a wall of impatience and frustration a few weeks ago.  Fortunately for me, I have a great support network that helps keep me focused.  

In light of the feedback and self-reflection, I decided that it was time to reevaluate my 20/5/1.5 schedule to better address my goals and aspirations for 2019.  So, here is the new battle plan.  Introducing the 15/8/1.5 plan!

Summary: (M  /  Tu  /  W  /  Th  /  Fr  /  Sa  /  Su) Career - 15 Hours (2.0 / 2.5 / 2.0 / 2.5 / 2.0 / 3.0 / 1.0) Exercise - 1.5 Hours (0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0) Violin - 1.5 Hours (0.5 / 0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0 / 0.0) Guitar - 1.5 Hours (0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0 / 0.5 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.5) Arrangements - 5 Hours (1.0 / 0.0 / 1.0 / 0.0 / 1.0 / 2.0 / 0.0) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total (3.5 / 3.5 / 3.5 / 3.5 / 3.5 / 5.5 / 1.5)

So let's start with the most obvious change.  I dropped career development hours from 20 to 15.  Why?  There are several reasons, but the most strikingly obvious reason for the change is that I was simply not doing 20 hours a week.  I believe the last time that I have actually done 20 hours of career work was week 2, which was 16 weeks ago.  As much as I am capable of doing 20 hours a week, I simply wasn't.  So, follow up question:  If I'm capable of doing it, why am I not?  I entertained several ideas, but the strongest idea for me personally was that I simply had other priorities in life that I preferred over meeting my 20 hour quota.  That, plus burn out was happening.  But as always, looking to the positive, I did clock 224 hours more than I would have doing nothing.  But now, time is less of a factor.  After some lovely chats, right now it's painfully obvious to me that I now have decent knowledge to not look like an idiot in an interview, but my resume simply doesn't have anything to show for my ability.  To some companies, I am already a prime candidate for an entry level SWE position, but I won't get seen because there's nothing to show for my ability.  Therefore, the number one priority for me now, is to show my ability in projects on my resume.  For these projects, it's not so much about time as it is setting a longer deadline and meeting it on my own juggle of time.  So I decided to aim to complete 3 projects in 2 months, giving myself 15 hours a week of time space to meet that deadline.  If I meet this, my resume should be ready to pass out by the end of February--a much more ideal situation than waiting til June.

The next change was my music time increase to 8 hours.  I kinda alluded to it in my earlier paragraph, but music simply is a priority in my life where I constantly regret not doing more while simultaneously hope that I will do more.  Brain dead practicing wasn't exciting, and the way that has gotten me going on that typically was having reasons to play.  In order to have something to play, whether that be for KAMASOquartet, or my own anime covers, I'm going to have to sit down and actually write something.  So, I'm taking the 5 hours I lost from my career development (that I typically never did in the first place) and introducing a time period to write arrangements.

Though I want to stay positive when it comes to my failed schedule, the fact of the matter though is that I was still missing quotas left and right for various reasons.  So, I removed a whopping 2 hours from my schedule by not practicing guitar every day.  Instead now, it is staggered with violin.  I think I don't sacrifice too much by doing this, and it will probably help in the grand scheme of things by giving me more breathing room day to day.

Overall, I hope that the new schedule for myself will emphasize project based goals instead of time commitment based goals.  Time commitment was very important in the beginning phases of my development, but now that I have taught myself a routine, it is very easy to try and fill the time quota without getting anything useful done.  So, to discourage that, here are the actual goals that the schedule aims to meet in the next 2 months:

Career: -  Divide and Conquer Coursera Course (Finish End of January) -  Python Specialization Project:  Making use of the AniList API (Finish End of January) -  Swift Project:  Make an app to consolidate development metrics (Finish Mid February) -  Java Specialization Project:  Making use of social network data (Finish End of February)

Music: -  Arrangements:  Write 1 arrangement per month (Hibike + 17-sai for January, TBD for February) -  Guitar:  Play and record a song with Matthew every Sunday afternoon before Perspectives -  Violin:  Maintain technique to be ready for any required recording/performance

Exercise: -  Hold previous workout regimen, observe if holiday weight disappears

And that's that!  The schedule is now on the table, now it's a matter of sticking to it.  I'm not sure when my next post will be, but if it ends up being the end of February, I hope that I will have good news to report.  Until then!