#which adds a bit of difficulty but I think will be well worth it in the end

[applejarjar]

I am SO EXCITED FOR THIS PROJECT

this thing is gonna kick absolute ass

all this time painstakingly working with my least favorite ring size is really gonna pay off I think!

I'll have to pivot ever so slightly because of the pins I just got in the mail, but overall it looks exactly how I was hoping it would :D

[captainmera]

I want to ask what Oliver thinks of the following bloods:

Cow blood, Bird blood (like doves or quail), deer blood, and lamb blood

Also, does he like blood sausages then?

details below! :) [read IBWR here!]

ANIMALS:

Cow: Expensive, but can taste really nice if the cow was healthy. But you seldom get blood from just one cow, it's a mixed liquid.

Bird: Oliver likes chicken blood most out of all birds he's had - which is.. not a lot. Most chickens in London were fed seeds lumped with butter. So their blood leaves the same feeling in the roof of his mouth as butter sauce does. - Doves he'd feel weird about as it's probably somebody's pet.... Not that he haven't tried it or anything. He just feels bad about it.

Deer: Never had it.

Horse: Has had it. It tastes terrible. He'd only drink horse blood if it was absolutely necessary. But that might just be an Oliver thing and not an every-vampire-thing.

Pig: Just as good as human, he'll pick it over any of the other. Some butchers are aware of this, though, and depending on the butcher, they'll either keep the pig blood the same for everyone, or add a bit to the price.

Lamb: Oliver actually really like lamb blood. But he feels a bit religiously torn about that. Paul told him it was fine and Darcy told him it wasn't. So Oliver kind of flip flops on whatever it's okay for him to drink it or not. He has asked his pastor about it and he gave the thumbs up in a pinch.

Rats: He's had rat blood before, it's about as bad as horse.

Dogs/Cats: He had dog, once. Never again. Never had cat, wont try cat. He still feels bad about the dog, even if it couldn't really be helped.

Fish: Light, tastes so clean it might as well be water. It's not potent at all and really difficult to measure how much of it is needed, probably a bucket full of fish gut to have the same potency as a soup-spoon of human blood. It's honestly barely worth measuring. It's the only blood vampires feel safe accidentally consuming because it's just so pointless. (which is Lucky for Oliver, as his best bud is a selkie who eats fish all the time and likes sharing fish with him)

BLOOD IN FOOD:

Blood in food is complicated for vampires in general.

If they make it themselves, fine! Then they know how much is in it, they get to measure it themselves and can be precise about the amount, and eat it in a timely manner so that they have consumed what they need in the time they need it.

Blood pudding, for one, is Oliver's favourite go-to when the blood is about to go bad. Then he can keep it shelfed a little longer.

There's also sealing blood in bottles. Basically you put the blood in the bottle or jar with a bit of lemon juice squeezed into it. Then you boil the bottle/jar with a lid on and then you can keep it in the cupboard for basically years and you've conserved the content - though, do check it regularly so the lid isn't popped or something. If you didn't screw it tightly then it's all work for nothing (you can do this with soup and any food too btw.)

Given you have access to lemon, that is. Or didn't fuck up the process somewhere.

WHEN GIVEN FOOD is where it gets complicated.

Someone might have thought it would be a welcoming gesture to serve blood sausages or meat with blood-wine sauce.

This often leads to awkward situations as the vampire will have to abstain from eating, then. As they cannot risk going over their consumption limit. They don't know how much blood is in each serving after all and may not be prepared (or able) to do the math on the spot.

Blood, basically, is something they need to keep track on regularly, lest it escalate and make their lives harder.

Some people don't understand the measurement thing and will get frustrated "but vampires need blood, right? I got out of my way to make something nifty for you. Im helping." and then there's conflict.

It's just difficult sometimes, to live life with invisible rules that dictate your life and only a handful of people are willing to listen and understand the difficulties of it.

People with allergies, medication, diabetes or other ailments might relate to this particular brand of problems, as sometimes people just don't know better - and sometimes they don't even bother to care a little bit.

Oliver's friends and family does, though. His father keeps blood in his house, just in-case Oliver doesn't have any. His buddy Sebastian tries to keep a perfume bottle of conserved blood on his person, in a pinch.

:)

[witchconnectingdotes]

✿｡PAC : Why do people fall in love with you ｡✿

Hello everyone ✿ !! How are you guys doing? Personally I have been doing just fine. Happy Eid to all the Muslim people celebrating it I hope you all had a great time.

Since I just got out of school I decided to get back to this account and retry this pick a card thingy (it's my second so far) because I find it to be really entertaining !

Keep in my that this is a general reading for entertainment purposes only, take what resonates leave what doesn't of course, if you want a personal reading hit my ask box I am reopening my free readings ^^ !

Without further due here are the piles :

Pile 1

Hello Pile one, welcome to your reading! Let me start off by saying that you guys have options. That message is loud and clear, and most of you know you do. This pile also feels like the pile of people who have a social media following or are very active on social media/ their community. You people know that you are the shit and no one can tell you otherwise. People love that in you, they can see how much love you have for yourselves and that you know your worth, and at the same time you are playful and fun.

When I think of you I have the word royalty in mind. You guys are quick to cut out people who are not up to your standards and you tend to treat people fairly. As I said you might be the pile who has a lot of suitors but that doesn't make you a player, quite the contrary you might be the type to only and exclusively focus on your love interest despite having other people begging for your attention. You guys are very selective with who you give your attention to and that makes your lover feel extremely special.

Your intelligence is also very attractive, people love how well read  and articulate you are, it adds to your air of confidence and majesty. Your lovers are in awe of having such a diamond.

Literal bad bitches keep it up !!

I just want to say as a note that for a first pull your energy was just wow I aspire to be as confident and hot as you pile 1

Song : Sure Thing - Miguel

Pile 2

Hello Pile two, welcome to your reading! So this pile's message came clearly too. This is the life lover material pile. People fall in love with how tranformative your energy is, your love brings healing and peace to your lover when they treat you right but it also brings chaos when there is healing that needs to be done. Your energy is not for the weak let me tell you that lmao. But I can tell you that your love is very strong.

Your love feels like a divine union to them. People might see you and think we're meant to be together, you are the one I want to be with forever. Your energy feels stable and unstable at the same time because I feel like you can be a very devoted lover but that doesn't mean you don't want your partner to evolve and grow. You triggrer in them the desire to change and heal, you trigger your lovers' growth.

You can also be the kind of person who doesn't surround themselves with a ton of people, you might appear alone in a crowded room and that draws your lovers in, they discover that under your colder exterior or more aloof exterior there is a very loving and giving person. People can tell you that you don't talk a lot put that just makes them want to know what in lying under your calmness. They want to read your mind.

Song : Lotus Flower Bomb - Wale

Pile 3

Hello Pile three, welcome to your reading! I am going to be honest, I had more difficulty with this pile because I feel like some of you tend to attract disappointing lovers. You guys are often seen as very feisty and exciting, you might be a flirt, some see you as a temptation even, but many of the people who come talk to you fail to understand that you guys can have a more traditional view of relationships. You want commitment yet attract those who aren't capable of providing it. Which can create a sense of frustration in the relationship.

I think it's a bit weird from the people who come to you but most are imediately sexually attracted to you. You guys have very focused minds especially in conflicts, you tend to know exactly what to say, and it sounds weird but people love that, they love to create tension between you two, I am sorry it's a very bizarre energy.

Those lovers tend to look back at you and feel a sense of incompletion, they feel as though they took you for granted, which I think they did to be honest, they themselves feel incomplete, they go to you hoping that you will fill the void or be the missing part in their puzzle. You appear to have your shit together and can fix their lives or at least give them a great time but you are worth more than that.

I really want to tell you guys that you are enough, you are great and lovable, you don't need those kinds of people in your life.

Song : Love - Keyshia Cole

Pile 4 

Hello Pile four, welcome to your reading! For you guys I think people fall in love with trying to figure you out. They like the challenge that comes with learning who you are. And I think for most you really test your lovers, you are the kind of person who won’t shy away from giving someone the silent treatment if they wrong you. I don’t know why I hear that they know you can leave them eventually? or they already see you leaving?

There is something that makes them feel like they can’t fully trust you, you might attract people with an anxious attachment style, and they are scared of you leaving at some point. They might think that you are strategic and discrete when it comes to achieving your goals. you also appear to be a very goal oriented person.

Most of your lovers see great potential in you and can see that you are the type of person who isn’t afraid of changing to plan B if plan A isn’t working. They admire your way of handling crisis and difficulty and would try to overcome everything to get to you.

Song : Clouded - Brent Fayez

Pile 5

Hello Pile five, welcome to your reading! Hey heartbreakers, how are you doing?;)?

Most people fall in love with how you break their hearts lmao. I think for most of you people

your suitors think they can depend on you, you might appear dependable. People have this idea on their mind that you are going to be someone they can get attached to but you refuse their codependency. Those people might get addicted to your energy even, it’s weird but your lack of commitment drives them mad?

Some people really think that they can “have you”? And I mean in the way of always being able to rely on you and come back to you whenever they want, but you don’t follow through with the script they made. You are not the one to stay and wait for someone to come back to everytime they feel like it. You seperate from those who project their expectation onto you and leave them hurt.

Girlboss lmao 

Song : Wet Dreams - J Cole

[cheeriecherrymain]

Incorrigible Flirts And Besweatered Men [Chapter 5]

Pairing: TA!Viktor x fem!Reader Rating: T Warnings: Descriptions of anxiety and stress, i wrote this without my adhd meds so, good luck you lot :S Proofread: no beta we die like men Chapter Summary: You officially start your career as a musician, and it’s nothing like you thought it would be; thankfully Viktor is kind, and does what he can to care for you, even though you feel like you don’t really deserve it.

On Monday, you finally find the energy to send an email back to the studio; apologizing for the delay and explaining that you’re a full time student. You thank them for the opportunity, and agree to set up a time to meet - whenever they’re available, of course, and you’ll do your best to work your schedule around it.

The professionalism and anxiety pretty much destroys your mood afterwards. You’re barely able to pay attention in class that day, too full of nervous energy to absorb the lecture.

Thankfully, Viktor texts you later and offers to send you a recording of the lesson.

—

On Tuesday, you’re able to recover a little bit. The only class you have that day is in the afternoon, and you’re thrilled to be able to sleep in for once; not as late as you’d like to, but waking at ten was still better than waking at seven.

You run into Viktor after your class, and the two of you end up grabbing coffee while he’s on his break. You talk for a little while, telling him about the meeting you had coming up on thursday and expressing your worries about everything.

He, as usual, encourages your skill and capability.

But the mood shifts when a couple of your classmates walk into the small cafe, and find seats not far from you. Viktor doesn’t seem to notice them - or if he does, he pays them no mind - and continues telling you about one of the most recent papers he’s read.

You, however, are unable to ignore the dirty looks being shot your way.

—

On Wednesday, you take the first test of the semester. There are seven of them in total - according to the syllabus you’d been given at the start of the course - worth twenty percent of your grade, and not including your final exam. 

Part of you is grateful that most of your grade relies on your ability to absorb information; as opposed to having to write, source, and properly format a multitude of academic papers. Sitting for hours while scouring through books and internet pages wasn’t your favourite way of learning, and more often than not it had you getting sucked down wikipedia rabbit holes that had nothing to do with the subject you were supposed to be researching.

Though you also kind of miss being able to add things to your bank of useless knowledge.

In any case, the test goes well, and you’re pleased with your performance. It had been challenging enough that you really had to think and apply what you’d learned in class, but still straightforward in its wording, and not purposefully convoluted as a means of confusing you.

—

On Thursday, you have your meeting at the studio.

You get lunch with Viktor beforehand, going over the prior days’ test and talking about which concepts you fully understood, and which ones you maybe had a little more difficulty with. He seemed to be fairly confident in your grasp of the course so far, going as far as revealing that you were among the top three students in the class.

“I would not be surprised if you get an invite to one of the winter galas,” Viktor had admitted, much to your surprise.

“I thought those were only for the faculty and university sponsors?”

“Typically, they are,” he’d explained, going on to tell you about the singular event at the end of the year where certain students could be invited to attend and talk about their experiences with the school.

“So it’s basically to get more funding?” you’d asked, and Viktor had nodded with a smile.

You were thankful that he’d been able to take the time to sit with you for a little while before your meeting, his presence temporarily mitigating your ever-present anxiety. You didn’t tell him that, but you weren’t sure you needed to; his hand on your shoulder and a gentle encouragement as you departed suggested he already knew how stressed you were.

Now, you’re waiting in a small lobby. Waiting to be called back into an office to discuss the next five years of your life. You poke idly at your phone, playing some silly, repetitive game that didn’t require any skill or thought, but it had cute cartoon cats in it, so it automatically held your interest.

Kind of.

It keeps you entertained for all of thirty seconds, before your thoughts start wandering. What would it be like to work with an actual studio? Would you have to write your own music, or would you have help? Thus far in your life, you’d gotten on by mostly playing covers - some with lyrics, some not; you’d only ever written a couple pieces, and none of them had words. God, how were you going to do this? You didn’t know how to write! You were a physicist in training, not a songwriter-

You ball your hands into fists, so tightly that your knuckles turn white and your nails bite into your palms, and you force yourself to take a deep breath. Wait a couple seconds, breathe out, says Viktor’s voice, in your mind. Again. That’s it, good girl.

You try not to think about how much the sound of his voice flusters you, instead focusing on the little encouragements and praises he’d give you: kind words, a pat on the shoulder. Maybe even his hand wrapped around yours, thumb smoothing over your skin, like he had done the weekend prior.

Your anxiety eventually recedes, though the fluttering in your chest remains. At least the palpitations aren’t from fear, you think, and slouch back in your chair.

—

Four hours later, you meander through the doorway of your home, dragging your feet and overwhelmed with exhaustion. The toe of your boot catches on the lip of the entrance, causing you to topple forwards. You barely manage to catch yourself on the way down, twisting so most of your weight lands on your knee instead of your face; and you still end up sprawled out on the floor surrounded by loose books, but at least you don’t have a broken nose.

You lay there in the front hallway for a few minutes, unmoving and unmotivated to get up. Even when the cold air starts coming in through the screen door, you remain frozen.

Disappearing into the woods sounded like a really good option.

You know that you’re just being dramatic, and that nothing particularly terrible had happened, but that’s not really the point. The point is that you know you’re going to be stressed in the coming weeks, and you’re not looking forward to it.

You’d gotten through your appointment without much issue - you’d talked through the contract with your new boss, and been honest with him about the fact that you were a full time student. You’d met your mentor, a couple of other people you’d be working with at some point, and gone over what would be expected of you should you sign with the studio.

Everything had been thorough and friendly, and it had been written into your terms that your schedule would be modified to fit your student lifestyle.

In theory, there was no reason to be anxious.

Yet here you were.

On the floor.

Seriously considering running into the woods to become a mushroom.

It would be easier than writing an entire album in six months, you think, finally gaining the willpower to push yourself up into a sitting position. You gather up the books strewn around you, carefully sorting them into little piles before sliding them back into the bags you’d carried them in. 

While the meeting had gone well, and everyone you’d been introduced to had been kind and understanding, you’d still been…criticized, to some extent. Or rather, you’d been told that at least two thirds of your first album needed pieces with lyrics.

“Your instrumentals are fantastic,” your new boss had said, pairing a couple more praises as you went through the CD you’d sent in weeks ago. Then, he skips ahead to one of your more impressive covers. “Your voice, though? That’s a gift not many people have.”

He’d been somewhat disappointed when you’d admitted that you’d never actually written lyrics before, and even moreso when you and your mentor had tried to come up with something on the spot.

It was obvious that they were looking for well-rounded musicians - not necessarily traditionally educated, but with at least some kind of natural talent that could be built upon. And you were certainly what they were looking for in most areas: you just…didn’t have a way with words. You couldn’t take your feelings and turn them into sung poetry.

Which was apparently a detriment only to you.

You’d left the studio with a modified contract - instead of five years, you were cut down to six months. If you could produce a worthwhile album in that amount of time, then the longer deal would be reextended and you’d officially become one of their artists.

And if not?

You didn’t want to think about that.

Your mentor had been kind enough to catch you on the way out of the studio, offering you a list of resources that you could look into to start learning how to write lyrics, as well as a few words of encouragement. You had thanked him, and exchanged numbers in case you had any questions, and he’d disappeared back into the building.

You’d stopped at a couple of bookstores on the way home, picking up as many of the recommended books as you could afford, and…well, now you were on the floor in your front hallway.

One of your cats chirps at your side, pressing up against you and knocking her head on your arm.

“You have no idea what kind of nonsense the world is,” you tell her, trailing your hand over her fur. She - as expected - says nothing, and begins to purr.

—

Your life gets a hell of a lot more hectic after that.

Every moment you’re not studying for class, you’re studying what it takes to write a decent song. Beats and syllables, word shapes and styles that are pleasing to the ear, how to breathe properly, what to avoid; it’s maddening, and not in a good way.

You knew that it would take longer than a week to grasp concepts that were entirely new to you - it had been years since you’d studied a subject that you didn’t already have some base knowledge of - but that didn’t do much to lessen the frustration you feel each time you try to write something, only to scribble it out minutes later because it sounded wrong.

You’d hardly had enough time to keep up with your classes before, but now?

Now you can hardly pay attention.

You’re tired, your sleep schedule is a mess, you’re stressed. Each time you walk into the lecture hall, you feel like the entire room is staring at you with malice, and yet you can’t find the ability to care, because all of your energy is being put towards spongeing up information.

You feel like you’re learning so little about music, that you even start bringing your books to class: you figure you know enough about physics to get by for a couple of days, a fact which proves true when you’re called upon to participate in some discussion taking place around you.

You can tell that Heimerdinger doesn’t quite believe you when you say that you’re ‘just distracted by writing everything down’, but he doesn’t press you on the matter, which you’re grateful for.

Viktor, on the other hand, is less gracious.

He wanders up to your seat once the lecture is finished, and finds a spot beside you. He doesn’t say anything while you pack up your things, but you can feel his gaze boring into you - you worry you’ll find disappointment if you look at him.

“Is there something on my face?” you ask, keeping your tone lighthearted. Viktor sighs.

“Are you alright?” he wonders quietly, making guilt well up in your stomach.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” you reply, but you know your resolve is slipping: and Viktor’s hand on your shoulder is the last straw.

“You’ve just started a very demanding job, and you’re still in class full-time,” he says, and then taps a finger against the cover of the book you’d been reading out of. “That, and I don’t think poetry is part of the curriculum.”

You cease gathering your things up, and slouch back in defeat. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” you mumble, “I’m in way over my head. I thought I knew so much about music, but now I- I’m learning entirely new concepts, and I have no idea how to apply them!”

Viktor quietly slides the thin textbook towards himself, glancing over the cover and opening it to take a look at the table of contents.

“I’m sure you didn’t always understand physics, either. Learning takes time, Y/N.”

“I know that,” you cry, “but I don’t have time! I have to make an entire album in six months! Less than that, really, because I’m spending so much time studying and not enough time actually writing, and a good chunk of the time I have is going to be spent recording so the writing needs to be done by then, and-”

A pair of warm hands cupping your jaw draws you out of your anxiety spiral.

“Darling, breathe.”

His thumbs stroke over your cheeks, giving you something to focus on while he helps you monitor your air intake: you’re amazed you don’t start crying, with how tenderly he cares for you.

It takes a couple of minutes, but finally, you sigh.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Viktor’s hands drop from your face, to your shoulders.

“We are going to head to the library, to go over what you missed in class today.”

“But-”

“No buts. We’re going to go over the entire curriculum, and we’re going to see which parts you need to study, and which parts you already understand. Then, we’re going to make a schedule around that.”

You cast your gaze away from him, anxiety beginning to claw its way back into your thoughts. “I’m not going to be able to change your mind, am I?” you ask, though you already know the answer.

“No,” he says, with every ounce of warmth and kindness he possesses. “But I could perhaps be convinced to stop for a snack on the way there, should you desire one.”

You perk up slightly. “But the library doesn’t allow food.”

Viktor smiles then, giving your shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “We can sit elsewhere while we eat,” he promises. “And maybe you can tell me more about ah…poetry and songwriting, is it? We could work it into your study schedule.”

[dankinamalur]

KoA helpful tips pt. 2

1. Always be aware of your surroundings. Period. Amalur is random af lmao one minute you’re trying to get some herbs or unlock a chest and the next minute 3 annoying ass sprites come outta nowhere and think they can feast upon you but THEY WILL NOT.

2. Adding to that, there is an area located in the Plains of Erathell where you will randomly be ambushed by, at the very least, one of each monster (even a bolgan!) so be mindful if you’re playing on a hard difficulty.

3. Make use of the radial menu often in combat! NGL the abilities in KoA are pretty helpful if you time them right and take the time to understand what they do; plus, the game doesn’t force you to use it, meaning the radial wont annoyingly stay on the screen. It just poofs and comes back when you ask it to. You’re the radial’s bitch lol.

4. The soundtrack is absolutely wonderful. It flows like the voice of a songstress as birds fluently speak amongst themselves in the midsts of bountiful brushes with lavish colors deep in the woods of Lorca-Rane. To me, anyway lol

5. Which brings me to my next inquiry, have you SEEN how BEAUTIFUL this game is?! Once again, please play around with the camera settings—you won’t regret it!

6. KoA is very generous with making gold. I’ve said this before but do yourself a favor and invest in the Mercantile skill; it really adds up when you destroy/sell your junked items!

7. With that said, during the opening quest Well of Souls, be sure to destroy any boxes and barrels—they may contain gold! You start out with 0 and can easily end up leaving the tower with 300+ gold! NOICE!

8. Also, items are reasonably priced, with the exception of when you get to Rathir; the armor sold there is HELLA expensive, but it’s also some of the best you will encounter early on.

9. SAVE OFTEN. I cannot stress this enough.

10. Gadflow is a worthless piece of Ettin shit and his death at the end is fucking hilarious. bonus: he is voiced by Jim Cummings!

11. the Fae have some of the best questlines, imo. The House of Sorrows, in particular, is very underrated because you gain one of the coolest staffs in the game after finishing their storyline—Staff of Sorrows, which does great lightning damage and looks dope af!

12. Lorestones are worth listening to and discovering. Each comes as part of a set that, when completed, offers a unique permanent bonus!

13. Around Didenhil, you may come across a random little boggart tucked away somewhere with an option to “tell me a joke” it’s a rather funny little easter egg! How many have you found?

14. Romance is implied in KoA, but the only true opportunity to woo anyone doesn’t show up until the Legend of Dead Kel DLC. Alyn will always have my heart tho 💙

15. Speaking of DLC’s, I highly recommend starting Teeth of Naros AFTER you finish the game. Not because of the story, but it is a bit difficult enemy-wise, so a high level is recommended. 30+ is preferable.

16. Dead Kel I also recommend atleast lvl 20, not 10, but that’s just me lol

17. Fatesworn can only be played once you beat the game, as it takes place after Gadflow is defeated.

18. Essence of Fate is a rare delicacy! If you find any on your travels, I recommend using them in potions OR collect them all until the very end and eat them during hard boss fights for that epic advantage! note: if you eat them, a chime will sound telling you when your Fate meter is full!

19. There is a hidden merchant at the Gorhart Inn named Gham Bleur, who sells rare and unique weapons/armor surprise boxes! He can be found roaming other places around Amalur as well!

[storm-demon]

almost done w totk and even tho i can't give thoughts on the final boss yet I wanna talk about what I thought

spoilers under cut

I don't think I've been more mixed on a game in a long time, this game has done things better than botw, but it's also made a lot of confusing choices and messed certain things up that I didn't have any issue with before. I'll maybe repeat myself a little here but I wanna start w the positives

-- The sky islands are a great addition that really make the paraglider feel important and more engaging than botw. The one downside that i've started to feel as I've gone on is that I really wish that they had expanded them, it kinda sucks how many of them are just isolated way out in the middle of nowhere with no interesting interactions.

-- Weapon fusing is a great addition that makes the weapon durability less intrusive (I already didn't even mind it too much in botw, but the ability to actually make weapons definitely makes the durability make more sense). Again only downside i felt as I went on is that there are times that the crafting can make the game a little grindy, I think this would really be balanced out if they'd just add a few more chests or drops with already decent fused weapons.

-- The new enemies, honestly botw really felt like it needed a little more diversity in it's enemy pool, so thank god totk takes steps to fix that. I think it could still use a few more, but the addition of things like actual miniboss fights like the gleekos and frox do help mix it up.

That's kinda the extent of the really positive stuff, a lot also just keeps the same quality of botw, which I like well enough. But now the things I didn't like, and I'll say now, there's quite a few of these.

-- They really fucked either the timing or the positioning of the perfect dodge from botw. It's not only way harder to do, but also a bit buggy because of it. I've had multiple instances of jumping out of the way of an attack only for an invisible aftershock to hit me. It also really brings to light a big issue with this game that there are just no i frames when dodging. This wasn't as noticible in botw because the parry dodge was decently easy to learn and get used to, but now with it near impossible to do it really goes to show how behind this game is compared to other character action games. I just wish that if nintendo wants to make a game like this, that they'd take the time to really learn from and understand games of this genre. Souls born games, for example, have i frames for a reason, and balance out their difficulty using things like your stamina meter and fast paced attack patterns. Hell these games already have a stamina feature, would it really be too hard to implement something like that?

-- The removal of the bomb ability also just,,, sucks. It makes fights like the molduga basically a waste of resources and time. Not to mention it makes breaking down rocks a constant resource sink, speaking of which

-- Why are there so many damn caves filled with rocks???? Not even really trying to 100% this game at all I ran into like 20 of them, they're an annoying resource sink, and the reward at the end is hardly ever worth it.

-- The depths suck. I'm sorry, but they're nowhere near as engaging as the sky layer when it comes to getting around, the darkness is just an annoyance, and a surprising amount of copy and paste landscape. I was also super disappointed to find that gloom resistance just... doesn't work. Made me instantly hate everything to do w the gloom.

-- Also on that not really not a fan of the gloom hands/phantom ganon. This kinda just exemplifies a bigger problem with this game, the lack of almost any i frames in this game makes the gloom hands just a constant stunlock. Every single guide I've looked at just suggests you cheese the fight by standing up on a ledge and shooting fire arrows at it. I think it's a sign of a really bad design when the way only/main suggested way to win a fight is to completely ignore the mechanics and cheese it. Not to mention it doesn't seem like the difficulty of the gloom hands is intentional because, honestly, the phantom ganon fight is not that hard at all. Hell the phantom ganon fight is honestly kinda laughable compared to the gloom hands, it's super unsatisfying and nearly ruined my opinion of the game entirely a few times.

--Lastly, and I hate to say it, I'm running into the exact same issue I had w botw that is the silver enemies. I was honestly really hoping with the introduction of actual mini bosses that we'd just drop these, but no such luck I guess. My main issue with the silver enemies is that in the point of the game that they show up they're not even really uniquely challenging, and they really just serve as hp sponges. My worst experience in botw was fighting a silver lynel, surviving pretty well, and getting off plently of perfect dodges, and then losing the fight simply because I smashed every single weapon i had on it's face. This is sliiiiightly better with the weapon crafting in this game, but really, not by much. I was talking abt this w my gf earlier but enemies like the darknuts were good examples of late game fights because the fight was a unique test of your skills, the silver enemies are annoying because it's just the same enemies i've been fighting the entire game, just stuffed with about 10 times as much hp. It's such a disappointing way to cap this game off, just the same way as botw

-- Almost forgot, but also having to walk up to a sage and talk to them with the A button is a really annoying way to use that. I know we're already using basically every button for this game, but certainly there was a better solution than that.

I think I'll avoid actually talking about the story until I finish the game, on a post of it's own, but before i finish off I think i wanna just rank all of the temple in the game

-- Wind temple

Great one to start with, was really fun to climb up to the temple, really got me used to using the ascend power and just made good use of the zonai powers in general. Not a super hard temple but that's fine honestly, especially because the boss fight here is easily the best. 8/10

-- Fire temple

Instantly falling from the first one (haha) it's unquestionable the worst, not just in this game, but maybe the worst temple I've played in any zelda game. The dungeon is SO incredibly tedious and slow, it takes forever just get around the damn thing, with the only real use of zonai powers being riding the minecarts on set tracks. Also using the hydrants I suppose (which also does not help the sluggishness of the dungeon). The temple is also painfully easy, the enemies are so scattered and isolated it's honestly just confusing, it feels like there was just no thought to where they were placed. Not the biggest fan of this boss either, which actually is a shame because i think it had promise but the camera fucks this whole fight up. Classic zelda games would pull the camera out a bit more for fights for this, but the botw engine just keeps the camera fully up link's ass the entire time, makes it a lot harder than it should be. 1/10

-- Water temple

This part was a rollercoaster because I went from the worst temple straight to the best, the water temple honestly kinda just does everything right where the fire temple did everything wrong. the climb up to it is honestly arguably even more fun than the wind temple, it makes such a great use of abilities unique to this game. Flinging up waterfalls w the zora armor and using those cool floating bubbles was such a wonderful change of pace from the last temple. The whole temple is really nicely paced, has some really unique puzzles, and the enemy placement makes a good bit more sense. Boss fight here's not bad, not quite as creative as the wind temple boss but a really fun design and decently fun fight! My only complaint would be that some of the quests leading up to it are a liiiittle bit overly tedious with how back and forth they are, but that's not a huge deal and doesn't really put any real strikes against the water temple itself. 9/10

-- Lightning temple

This one's basically the definition of mid to me, it doesn't do anything offensively bad, but it's not doing anything as creative and fun as the water temple either. I think the design of this one is very "classic zelda" and that kinda unfortunately works against it imo. It doesn't really feel like it's doing anything particularly interesting with the zonai powers, and with the lack of classic zelda items it's not really doing anything interesting with its base puzzles either. Just some really bog standard light puzzles. The boss is one i also feel was, unfortunately, fucked over by the camera. I really wanted to like this boss, I really like the designs for the gibdos in this game and think the bug theming is so cool. Unfortunately anytime I was targeted on the thing (which was most the time because the arena is so big) and it did that slam attack it would whip the camera around in way where I basically couldn't see anything, It made the fight a lot more annoying that it otherwise would have been. 6/10

-- Spirit temple

Barely even a temple, the puzzles to get the mech suit for mineru were just time consuming and annoying, robot fight was kinda neat once i got past the controls. Not much more to say. 4/10

[keire-ke]

Why is Way of Water

Avatar Way of Water was terrible, but in very interesting ways. It's better than the first one in that it's less paint by numbers, less white-saviory, and less boring (also less voice-over, thank god), but also worse in that it's a hot mess of everything under the fucking sun. It should either be one hour shorter or five hours longer, and it's not a good thing.

IDK maybe someone should go and check in on James Cameron, because this movie felt like he wasn't sure if he'd be able to make all seven sequels, so he tried to cram all of them here. As a result I'm not even sure what the movie wanted to be about, because we had, in no particular order, protecting family, rich are evil, difficulty of dealing with change, family: nature or nurture, humans are bad, but also humanity is in a crisis, also some humans can be good, is it better to run from conflict or to face it, the curse of being the middle child, Jesus was a lil' weirdo when you think about it, killing can be good, actually, societal consequences can be unfair, marines just gotta punch something.

None of it was done with any depth or well.

There were things I found absolutely enraging:

You have two parents: the father, who is thy commanding officer, and also the sapient planet that encompasses all

Neytiri was underutilised to the point of pain. I don't recall if she was even allowed to have a relationship with her own children beyond screaming for them occasionally. The movie starts with a voice over by Jake Sully, which eh, if you must. However, most of the events of the movie affect Neytiri much more profoundly than they affect him, so centering on weakens the overall impact. Most of the attempted themes are about family, but throughout Jake treats his family like a precious resource he needs to protect for himself, so it's pretty shallow, giving me serious John Winchester vibes. Every time one of the kids said "sir" to their father I was expecting something to come out of it, like "I'm the chief, so it's appropriate in battle, but now I am no longer that, we need to re-examine our relations". Spoiler: nothing did.

Meanwhile, Neytiri, a member of a species whose community ties are reinforced by their very real deity, is there upending her whole life and severing ties to her community, she's dealing with the inclusion of aliens in her family, as the (prospective) shaman it should have been her role to be the spiritual leader, alas.

Colonel Evil Marine

Are you fucking kidding me, what the fuck. That was some bullshit, start to finish.

The technology to upload memories into avatars kinda... invalidates the whole program from the first movie? If that's possible (and there was no indication this was something only just invented), shouldn't this be done for all potential avatar operators? In case they die from, IDK, extreme mental strain and/or random bar fight.

Why would he want to be cloned as an alien in the first place?

It's not entirely unbelievable he went from a commander guy who was willing to do everything to get his job done, to a single-minded revenge machine (although... yikes), but the fact that somehow he was able to commandeer all the resources for his personal revenge?

The subplot with the son... I mean. What a weird, heavy and meaty plotline to shove onto a background character and a two-bit villain.

Unobtainium 2.0

Yeah... what. What was the point. That ties into nothing, does nothing. I swear it's like James Cameron heard about whaling for the first time during brainstorming phase, and just needed to add it.

The unobtainium from the first movie is mocked as a MacGuffin, but for however clumsily it's explained there, it's a synecdoche for the source of conflict: humanity needs resources, Pandora has resources. Even without the background information that it's apparently for space travel and magnetic properties we can understand the idea.

Here it's a magic anti-aging serum worth millions for a small vial, ergo it's for rich individuals, but that's not the conflict we get introduced to earlier, which is, to wit, "Earth is dying, humanity needs to move".

The space Jesus and the rape jokes

So run this by me again: Sigourney Weaver was not uploaded into her avatar because she died during the transfer, avatars are not transferable, so instead of burying both bodies they... put the avatar... in storage...? Also she got mysteriously impregnated? And the kids joke about their (presumably) friends and mentors... raping the corpse?

The resulting child is able to straight up control the planets biosphere with her mind. Cool.

The kids

I rather liked them, which is impressive! Child characters are hard to pull off. Aside from the smallest one, that one was entirely pointless. Certain aspects were unclear, like at some point we're expected to believe that the middle child feels like he's a disappointment to his family because... why exactly? He gets the others in trouble, sure, but it's not like he actively fails at something, other than following (somewhat arbitrary) rules. He's already a warrior by the tribe's standard (I presume, by the fact he is involved in the attack early on), but he gets grounded like a child? His subplot with the whale suggests he's uncomfortable with societal rules, doesn't understand them and wants to do his own thing, except he very clearly isn't and doesn't, he gets in trouble for disobeying the letter not the spirit of the rules. He doesn't even get a proper "well done son guy", and his "reconciliation" with Jake is teaching him the water tribe skills, which would matter more if a) Jake was at any point having trouble with adjusting to living in the water, b) the skills were what was the problem.

Spider was fascinating. First, who did his manscaping? I demand to know! But jokes aside, if not about Neytiri the movie should have been about him.

The whale

Go whale! I'm team whale.

The way of water

Sure would be nice if we got to see more of the practices of the water tribes, instead of montage skipping to action scenes.

Aesthetics

Very beautiful. My only complaint was the Sigourney Weaver character, her face was too uncanny valley for me.

Music

Present.

Overall

I was really mad when I walked out of the cinema, and I had a hard time enjoying the visuals because there were just too many concepts to be absorbed and then disappointed by. There's so much in here that could have been a great movie! Or three! But like so many current blockbusters it feels like this movie was written by an AI, words slapped on a page, superficially connected and making sense, but the number of fingers does not add up to a hand.

[mickgaydolenz]

im absolutely enjoying studying degree theory because it does such a good job at fine-tuning these placements by giving them a purpose and drive, be it positive or negative, strong or weak.

even better, it's unlocking some new observations in the guys' charts that i hadn't thought of! a good example is that noticing that Saturn, the planet of time and patience, when in conjunction to another planet can add difficulties to that planet. i didn't ever realize this, even though i already knew Saturn's placement anywhere can cause problems in whatever house it's in and whatever placements it's in aspect to.

a version of this is obviously Peter's Saturn conjunct Mars. we've already kinda gone through this with talking about how Peter has always struggled to stand up for himself, and it seems like later on in life he was finally capable of doing exactly that after some time. his Mars was definetly the problem as it is in Taurus, and Taurus can be, well, stuck in their ways so to speak; also, Mars is impulsive while Taurus is know for its hedonist and materialistic tendencies, so you can put two-and-two together. in talking about degrees, his Mars is 17° Taurus which is not a very...jovial degree. "struggles between violence vs. non-violence" is a depressing statement for that to be in the 7th house, but also funny considering he knocked Davy silly that one time, and thats just another Peter-Davy connection for the books. "might be unpopular, and experiences failure often" also really sucked to read tbfh!!! but i think it's worth mentioning that just because he's stuck with a negative degree does not mean he's doomed; he likely got assistance from other placements that are well-aspected to his Mars. while it took time (again, Saturn's influence stalling it) he always prevailed and overcame these issues. sometimes the negative influences might've returned, but each and every time he would at the very least be more well-equipped with the experience and insight to deal with them.

but here's another crazy observation i made, and it could be a bit of a reach but hear me out cause this shit is actually bananas. (im only focusing on conjunctions here because im only studying degrees under individual signs right now).

when two signs conjunct, it's always more than likely that they're under the same sign. any other aspects (trines, squares, opposites, etc) are signs that are not the same; only conjunctions can produce aspects between two placements under the same sign.

Davy's Saturn also happens to conjunct his Mars. if we take the degrees of these planets and subtract them, they conjunct by 6° Cancer. an important factor to take note is that his Saturn is in his 4th house (home, family life, the past, roots), but his Mars is in his 5th house (children, love affairs, creativity, self-expression), therefore intertwining these areas of life interestingly together, his private life bleeding into his art -- the man loves theater and prides in being from Manchester for god sakes so of course his music reflects that. "emotional vulnerability" was something that stuck out when reading 6° Cancer, and a lot of his music does seem to mirror those emotions, most especially in love songs. another interesting thing is one of my ye olden sources saying "good-hearted but foolish and extravagant" which i think sums Davy entirely up in a nutshell if im being completely honest, because boy howdy does he keep falling in that repeated cycle of behavior. Cancer absolutely loves repeating cycles, more than any other sign, because it hates change. to say that this is a part of him is an understatement. there's also self-centeredness and vanity which is no surprise because i mean literally look at him. i think he would've dissolve thanos-style if no one was at his feet adoring him for more than five seconds LMAO.

remember that Mars and Saturn (+ Pluto, but she's not involved here) are malefic planets and their purpose is to cause problems wherever they're placed. even if they're well-aspected and the chart as a whole directs towards good and positive things, there's no avoiding these guys and the problems they bring. when reading a chart the focus is to expose habits and patterns of behavior, and if they need any reassessing. by ignoring that and avoiding improvement, they're only doomed to repeat them. Peter accomplished this with the right amount of patience and grace, but i don't think Davy seemed to get the memo unfortunetly.

kale fuck dude reading the peter stuff is always sad, but ngl reading davy’s actually fucking destroyed me because i can really, really see that for him and it’s so fucking sad 😢. ugh all of them really went through it and internalized their trauma so differently, huh? kind of off topic but, the four of them are a great case study of how inherent traits inform behaviour despite being faced with similar issues, and you are just fine tooth combing that exact thing 🙏😔

[professorpski]

Interweave Knits, Fall 2023

This issue has several cable sweaters perfect for colder weather and some oversized wraps, plus a color-work hat that is charming. The total is 4 pullovers, 3 cardigans, 3 wraps, 2 hats, 1 vest and 1 blanket.

The cover features the Mim Sweater by Debi Maige, only a 2 out of 4 for difficulty despite the slipped stitched color-work pattern. It is made in a yarn weighted only 1, Illimani Yarn Sabri which is a blend of cotton with a little bit of baby alpaca.

The grey pullover with cables and set-in sleeves is Silver Plume Pullover is my favorite sweater of this issue. It was designed by Therese Chynoweth and is a 3 out of 4 for difficulty. Its cables broaden as they move upwards, a nice way of creating more attention towards the face as well as creating more apparent width as you move from the waist to the shoulders. The yarn is Berroco Lanas Light, a fingering-weight yarn of pure wool.

Cilin Sweater in pale purple is knit in one piece with the sleeves knitted out sideways and is also a 3 out of 4 for difficulty. Vera Marcu designed it in DK weight yarn, Purl Soho Good Wool. Its ribbing which changes to cables as it moves upwards also moves the eye towards the face and broadens the upper body.

Memoir Cardigan by Evelyn Siatra in a pumpkin color also boasts cables, but not buttonholes. Since my whole purpose in donning a woolly sweater is to stay warm, and this one is made of Juniper Moon Farm Patagonia Organic Merino, I like cardigans to close all the way. One could change the front width and add buttonholes to the band, or just move to a less chilly latitude I guess ;-) The other cardigan you see in grey with buttons is a reprint, which you obtain via a QR code and a download, of the Essential Cardigan by Laura Grutzeck.

There are several interesting wraps including Revel Light Shawl by Jennifer Miller Comstock which uses several different colors of blue and green in The Fiber Seed Sprout Sock yarn, and is 2 out of 4. The pinks and purples of Stack Bond Wrap is done with a 6-row windowpane stitch and some knitting below in Manos del Uruguay Allegria a lace-weight yarn, designed by Jennifer Kent.

My favorite accessory is the Tilted Hat by Laura Barker which here uses two shades of grey in worsted weight Hazel Knits Cadence merino yarn, a 3 out of 4, but I think would be worth the effort. You can imagine a lot of nice contrasting pairs of colors for this one.

The patterns are the highlight in this issue, as the one article on yokes is a basic introduction, and then there is a bit on the fall yarns used and on new fall notions.

Find it at your local yarn store, or online here: https://www.interweave.com/product-category/knitting/knitting-magazines/knitting-magazines-interweave-knits/

[diavorchid]

Vyn Richter vs. Jack Seward

finally let myself sit down, think, and write this :D thanks @gabriel-shutterson for the vindication

here goes:

a) obvious:

doctor/psychiatrist

do a journal entry each day with a voice recorder

Jack owns a private asylum at 29 and Vyn (co-)owns a research & treatment centre at 27; both owning their own foundation at a young age

i think they're both still doing research? Vyn is a professor and Jack did want to make a breakthrough to help people

b) deeper:

Vyn's trope is love at the first sight. Jack falls in love with anyone in 5m radius that stays with him lol

...submissive. Jack "in our old adventures, quincey gave instructions and (arthur and) i followed" Seward and Vyn 2nd Anniversary SSR for the obvious one (tho it's always been there..👀)

there's this theme of Jack trying to prevent himself going on a path bc he knows it's where madness lies, he even questions he may even be mad; in Vyn top-up ssr iirc he has a friend who killed themselves and that friend loved their partner so much that it turned him possessive and hurt them, Vyn was shaken by this and afraid of what his love could become.

related to prev point, Jack's way of doing things is risky and sometime even borderline dangerous when he gives in to his curiosity; there's this conversation between Vyn and Darius in his PS Ch.3 where Darius disagreed with Vyn's way bringing MC to a dangerous PUA. [ss below] like, for both, the inclination is there.

difficulty in showing vulnerable side; Jack, in text, dictates men this women that but his actions shows that it's as if he's clinging desperately to follow that notion while fighting back his emotions, which eventually gets let out either way (worth nothing that what we've read is watered down, filtered version; and it still shows); early Vyn was.. let's talk about False Tears. i still think the best interpretation is, yes the emotion is there, and yes he exaggerates it to be comforted, BUT! only because he didn't think he deserved to be comforted (i dont think i explain this well but i can't remember where to find the old thread that actually did lol sorry). also, you know his worldview on broken things that got challenged in <Mended Hearts>? i do think it stems from his vulnerability and helplessness at his own incapability to help.

c) misc.:

early fandom experience is more or less the same lmaoo. oh to be a vyn stan at the start (~first 3 months was severe lol then again there are still. some. yk.) of tot glb... (it wasn't fun)

...daddy issues. vyn is canon while jack is (stolen) hc in the way that a lot of things about his character would make sense

crack time but they would not get along if they ever meet. only surface politeness.

they're both good with their hands; Jack with lock-picking and Vyn with crafting.

lastly, I'd say that before that modern au Jack would be close to Vyn in likeliness, but will never be like him because Vyn's self-confident and while he exudes a poor little meow meow vibes a bit, Jack's too much of a wet cat pathetic man.

---

may or may not add things later (probably no bc this is alr my 2nd time writing this, the other one somehow got lost😭); as expected I'm not eloquent enough to write this kind of things lmao

(ps. i saw your edit on the ask reblog, and don't worry i didn't even think to include that and don't really consider it to be comparison(?))

[shareoff-plays-games]

Dark Souls (For A Non Believer)

So recently I have finally completed a playthrough of the original 2011 Dark Souls (well, not quite. What I actually played was the 2018 remastered edition but as far as I can tell it is pretty much the exact same game with updated textures so. You know.) and I wanted to write down some of my thoughts. This review will be mostly spoiler-free, other than minor spoilers relating to the start of the game which are limited to a specific section wrapped with a warning.

Note: I have yet to play any other FromSoft game, so I cannot provide comparisons or speak on the Soulsborne series as a whole, only on the first Dark Souls game.

I add the subtitle "For A Non Believer" because, up until very shortly before starting the game, I was quite sure I would not enjoy a Souls game, let alone ever beat one. I started playing it as sort of a joke - my thoughts were "I'm going to try a little bit and die a thousand times and then give up, that sounds like it would be funny", and then I ended up being fairly surprised by how much the game sucked me in and just kept on going.

The reasons I thought I wouldn't enjoy it are pretty interesting in hindsight - some of them are, in my opinion, fair criticisms or gripes with the game, and were indeed aspects of the game I did not enjoy, and some of them were less so, either slightly inaccurate or completely inaccurate misconceptions. Obviously, I ended up enjoying the game a fair bit (or hence I would not have beat it), and so I find examining those thoughts interesting.

So here it is: why you think you won't enjoy dark souls (probably, I don't know your life, I'm really talking about myself here.)

Notion #1: The game is insanely difficult.

Verdict: Partially Debunked

So before I started playing Dark Souls I genuinely expected it to be the hardest game I've ever played by a wide margin. So I braced myself for an insanely hard game... and then that insanely hard game never came.

Don't get me wrong: Dark Souls is not an easy game, that much is certain. It is definitely punishing, sometimes extremely so; at times it is indeed quite difficult, and at other times surprisingly cerebral and thinky for what is ultimately a "punch bad guys" action romp. It asks, no, it demands that you do not play on auto pilot, that you pay attention, and that in itself can be genuinely hard, especially contrasted with lessons learned by other games.

However, when it comes to the actual difficulty of the challenges presented - I found the vast majority of them to be fair, and comparable to similar challenges presented in other hard games. Some particularly applicable examples that spring to mind are the original God of War trilogy (on the second-to-last difficulty: the hardest difficulty is a fair bit harder than Dark Souls) and Hollow Knight. Other difficult games, like Celeste or Furi, are perhaps harder to directly compare to DS but my experience of them is that they're still of vaguely similar difficulty.

It is worth noting that all of these games, unlike Dark Souls, punch their hardest in optional content which is actually far, far more difficult than anything offered in Dark Souls (player / community imposed challenges excluded).

Ultimately, my point is that as far as difficulty goes, the game doesn't really stand out. Yes, it's a challenging game, but it's a challenging game that honestly stands among so many other challenging games, and the internet fame and cult status it sort of ended up getting as "the hardest game ever" is entirely unwarranted. And in my opinion, it leverages this difficulty well to create a good experience, which brings me to point #2.

Notion #2: The game is difficult for the sake of being difficult OR: the game is incredibly dark and edgy for the sake of being edgy.

Verdict: Mostly Debunked

If you're anything like me, you have been at times put off by the discourse the Soulsbourne games have generated online. There's this sense of... bravado, that beating one of these games is somehow an indication of the player being somehow superior to other people.

It even sometimes feels like people talk of it as if it is an inherent moral virtue to be good at these games, or to persevere to beat these games despite the challenge.

If you're anything like me, this sort of discourse makes you:

Feel mildly irritated.

Roll your eyes so hard you forget their original orientation (metaphorically, of course, because you're just reading idiots online talking about a video game with a completely undue sense of self importance and it does not deserve the energy expenditure that reacting to it physically would be)

Want absolutely fucking nothing to do with the games.

Which I will admit is silly on my part, because first of all, the game does have a lot of players that aren't like this and are fairly reasonable, and secondly, you don't need to be a Dark Souls Fan™ to enjoy Dark Souls. And besides, people are entitled to their opinion... I guess. (this moral position really is dumb though lmao)

Anyway. So there's this Gamer™ sense that difficulty is inherently good and valuable, being gatekeep-y and allowing for massive bragging rights seemingly becoming virtues in their own right, which undeniably is the exact appeal of the game for a certain portion of the fanbase.

I will not lie - it is pretty satisfying to be able to say I beat the game, but my enjoyment and appreciation of the game goes so much beyond that.

The difficulty of the game is a crucial and inherent part of the game design, it is absolutely required to make the game work. I think the game design of Dark Souls is brilliant and well thought out, and the difficulty is a necessary cornerstone of that. Let me explain.

Let's take a hypothetical action RPG game that is, for the most part, not very difficult. (Substituting a game that fits the description in should be easy enough and is left an as exercise to the reader).

In those games, it logically follows that making a mistake is not generally punished (or punished in a way that allows you to ignore the punishment easily enough).

In that sense, these games do not teach you not to make mistakes, and do not ask of you to attempt to actively get better.

The end result of this is that these games are highly ineffective at teaching the player how to exploit their systems, get better, or generally play them well. Any "mistake" the player makes has to either be not a real mistake at all (because really the game allows it) or suddenly insanely punishing out of nowhere.

To be perfectly clear, this is not a criticism of any hypothetical game that fits this description: A game can opt for focusing on other things and still be a great game. It is, however, in defense of Dark Souls.

Why, then, is Dark Souls difficult? It is difficult because, counterintuitively, by being difficult, it allows you to learn in a way you just cannot in easier games.

It is difficult because it allows the game itself to make some paths and methods of facing down obstacles to be more correct than others, or some to be strictly incorrect or impossible, without it feeling downright unfair, because listening to the game and avoiding punishment is a core tenet of the entire game design.

It is difficult because, by being difficult, it can force you to go slowly and actually observe. Observe hints of danger; observe your own mistakes; observe enemy AI patterns; observe any advantages you can turn in your favor. The game being difficult gives all of these things meaning, brings them to life.

The start of Dark Souls 1 is infamous for being a bit brutal, but paradoxically, it is the kindest section of all - it teaches you so many lessons about how to play the game, and it is mostly brutal because you simply don't know how to listen yet. I personally absolutely adore the design of the first few hours of gameplay, and I think they absolutely show the game at its best and show an excellent example of what I mean by the design philosophy I described above.

WARNING: spoilers for the first few hours of gameplay

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

After a brief tutorial section lasting a couple of minutes that serves to teach you the basic controls, you are thrown into a "boss fight" with a message on the floor recommending you run away. I, like most first time players, attempted to fight the boss for a bit, which goes rather poorly because the boss deals a lot of damage to you but since you still only have the tutorial weapon the damage you deal to the boss is quite pathetic.

A careful examination of the boss arena shows an open door in one of the walls which is far smaller than the boss itself, allowing you to escape. By this, the game teaches you that some challenges may be too difficult for you and you need to run away before you are prepared to deal with them: Keep that in mind for later, and also consider that this is in the first place only possible if the game is difficult enough to force you to run away at times without it feeling completely jarring or out of place with the rest of the game.

So you run away. You rummage around a bit, end up finding a better weapon, and emerge on an overhang that overlooks the boss you just ran away from, with a clear crumble in the stone where you can jump down towards the boss.

The game teaches you the controls for a plunge attack from above, and by following the game's direction you jump down onto the boss, deal massive damage, and then with the HP it has left you find that you deal far, far more damage than you have before. Huh, so sometimes approaching things from another angle can give you an advantage... Interesting.

Shortly after the boss, you reach a large hub-like area with several NPCs and a few branching paths. The path I tried first had absurdly hard enemies, and due to the game's reputation for being incredibly difficult I attempted to defeat them for a while, before realizing I should possibly try and see if there's another path I missed.

Lo and behold, the other path had far easier enemies - still somewhat punishing and requiring careful approach, but far easier to deal with, and I found myself suddenly making a fair amount of progress.

Just as the game had taught me earlier, all I needed to do was run away and find another approach, and come back stronger. (when I eventually came back to the area, I found it far easier and more manageable to deal with, just as the tutorial boss had been).

Some time after, I reached what I'd consider to be the first "real" boss of the game. This boss is fought on a sort of narrow bridge. Attempting to fight it at first reveals a couple of archers on a tower overhead shooting at you at the same time, which is quite disadvantageous and I die pretty fast. Before my next attempt, I examine the tower on which they stand carefully and find a ladder that allows me to go up and kill them. One disadvantage down!

I try fighting the boss a few more times and quickly an observation about another disadvantage arises - the arena is quite unfavorable for fighting the boss, as dodging its attacks is either very hard or impossible in the extremely narrow arena.

A bit after realizing this, I look around to try and find an advantage I can use to offset this disadvantage. And then I remember - the archer tower! looking up at it reveals the same crumbled stone at the front facing the boss arena, just as in the overhang above the tutorial boss. I run there, making it just barely up the ladder before the boss slams at me (okay, maybe the boss killed me while climbing the ladder once or twice), go to the edge, jump down and BAM, massive jump attack damage which suddenly makes the boss feel like a joke to beat with all those attempts under my belt allowing me to easily combo down its remaining HP.

This, to me, is the true brilliance of Dark Souls 1. The way the game uses difficulty to force you to look for any advantage you can get, think of alternative solutions, carefully observe and notice your environment, while gently nudging you in the right direction... If you only care to listen.

-------End of spoilers-------

My thoughts on the game being "edgy" are somewhat related, although also separate. That the game has a dark world and many visually and thematically dark areas is undeniable - hell, it is even part of the name of the whole game. The world is gritty and a bit depressing, the lack of fire and firelight being significant both lore-wise and as a symbol, the darkness oppressive both in story and in gameplay. However, it is this darkness that allows the fire to shine so much brighter, both metaphorically and literally.

There really is no better feeling than reaching a bonfire in a desolate place, after fighting your way through a very dangerous zone and nearly depleting your resources. Seeing the glimmer of fire in the far distance is possible because it stands out in the environment so much, visually, and feeling the potent hope it represents is possible because it represents something that is so different from the rest of the game - if the game weren't so difficult, reprieve wouldn't be so meaningful.

In that sense, the game's ludonarrative is incredibly consistent and really drives the point home, because just as the bonfires represent hope and determination to you (as the player), a chance to keep going, they also literally represent the last dying hope of the denizens of the world (including your in game player character).

Beyond my musings on game design, it is also worth noting that while the game is fairly difficult, it does not generally speaking have meat shields or insanely grindy sections that make you hit enemies for ages without them dying. You die fast, true, but so do the enemies. I was a bit shocked by how much damage you deal to most bosses in the game (even ones considered quite difficult), and most normal enemies die in 1-4 hits (depending on the stage of the game and the specific enemy). Even some of the massive giant bosses really die in a few well placed combos.

Notion #3: Some elements of the game seem needlessly frustrating.

Verdict: Mostly True

This was one of my biggest preconceived gripes with the game, and possibly the one I consider in hindsight the most justified one. Personally, I particularly disliked the idea of very tough bosses combined with checkpoints (bonfires) that are decently far away, forcing you to run for minutes before starting your attempt each time, which ends up adding up to hours over a playthrough. Hours of just... Running the same segments over and over to get to bosses.

And, I'm gonna be real here - I still don't love this aspect of the game, although my opinion here does have a bit of nuance.

To explain what I think, I will start by saying that I don't think I'm particularly good at this kind of game, and believe my experience to be overall relatively indicative of the Average Dark Souls Experience™. I believe I probably did better at some bosses than the average, and worse at others.

All of this to say that really, at the end of the day, Dark Souls 1 really does not have that many difficult bosses, and bosses in which this problem is very prominent (as in, the run to the boss feels frustratingly long, and the boss is tough enough for the player to need to repeat it a lot) are surprisingly few.

Still, I am not attempting to defend this point - when it does happen, it sucks. A lot of the discourse online and in Soulsbourne fan spaces is that "it makes it all the more satisfying when you do beat the boss" - I consider that to be artificial difficulty, one that is unnecessary to boot, and this kind of adamant discussion in favor of every single difficult thing in the game is part of what turned me off the game in the first place and made me think it wasn't for me (because if the game glorifies difficulty for the sake of difficulty, I am not interested... but as explained in the previous point, I absolutely do not believe this is the case here)

There were other minor gripes I ended up having regarding the game being needlessly frustrating at points, ones that I wasn't necessarily prepared for beforehand and first encountered while playing the game myself.

Overall, my experience was that every game has imperfections that can manifest in either boredom or frustration, and in a way they just feel somewhat exaggerated and more frustrating in a game like Dark Souls which punishes you so heavily for mistakes.

The other gripes I had are much more specific to the design of certain areas or enemies, or related to random jank of the game mechanics (such as some hitboxes being really strange, the lock-on mechanic having several flaws, etc), and are therefore less interesting to discuss in my opinion - but they do exist, to be sure.

At the end of the day I enjoyed the game enough to be able to overlook all my gripes (although I certainly was frustrated at times).

Conclusion

It is fair to say I think Dark Souls is a good game. It uses its mostly rather fair difficulty to create a very satisfying experience. I mentioned some of the things I loved about it, and some of the things that annoyed me, but there were even more things I loved or didn't love that didn't really fit into any of my preconceived notions and thus didn't make it into this review. To mention a couple of them briefly:

The system for leaving messages for other players and seeing other players' bloodstains (how they died) makes you feel a bit less alone in the dark and lonely world, while also providing the feeling that every playthrough is a bit personal because other people who played the game did not see the exact same messages. The messages are often helpful, sometimes heartwarming, occasionally funny and sometimes provide misleading or deadly advice (which is funny in its own right... if you don't take it at the wrong time). In that way, it gives a dead world just that little extra spark of life.

The minimal UI really does serve the game well. There are no quest indicators, and yet there still are quests, even if they are more subtle than in other RPGs. The game clearly does put a lot of effort into guiding you to go where you need, even with minimal text and no map or quest log, although at times this can be flawed and you can certainly feel a bit lost. Unfortunately and as a direct consequence of this design choice, I think that if I ever stopped playing the game for like a month I would be completely lost so I sure am glad that did not happen.

The second half of the game is kind of noticeably worse and lower effort than the first half, in my opinion. Still good enough to be worth playing as a whole, but a lot of areas are a bit unmemorable or have things that are kind of bullshit (cough cough Bed of Chaos), and the bosses past the midway point are both a bit less interesting and a fair bit easier (although, objectively speaking, this part of the game probably is a fair bit harder... it just feels easier because of the skills you gain from playing through the first half)

And finally, the big question. Would I recommend Dark Souls, to a non believer such as myself? That depends, but if you want a deeply satisfying experience, with a solid emphasis on its own brand of exploration and trial and error, I would definitely recommend at least giving it a try with an open mind, taking the experience as it comes. I am very glad I gave it a shot, even though I never really intended to, and in a way glad for the misunderstandings I had because it allowed the game to surprise me so much more.

One last thing I'd like to say, in the wake of having completed the game, and this may be just me, but I really enjoy seeing the way Dark Souls influenced all these other games I have played and loved over the last decade, and appreciating the way it has forever changed the landscape of games in every genre. The game is so iconic that spotting shallow references to it in a game like Dead Cells is easy enough, but really being able to consider its wider design influence and compare and contrast it to other games is something I greatly enjoy.

It really is no exaggeration that Dark Souls (2011) changed the landscape of gaming forever. And to the non believer I say - are you curious about the game that changed history? You should be, it deserves it.

[kob131]

So some recent new info for SMTV: Vengeance came out along with me seeing a kind of dumb take has lead to wanting to talk about my thoughts on SMT V and my thoughts on Vengeance before release.

SMT V

Gameplay is good. It's the same old SMT stuff with a couple of changes. Magatushi skills are a cool new addition, if centralized due to the immense strength of Omigatiki: Critical. The massive nerf to Charge/Concentrate is pretty annoying, making them kind of useless since they only boost damage by 80%...when attacking twice would deal 100% more damage. And the nerfs to buff/debuff skills in both MP cost increased AND being temporary was too much in my opinion. You were often forced to add another layer of buffs to prevent them from expiring...which would cause a boss (read: Demi-Fiend) to use Dekaja/Dekunda, making it mute anyway.

My real compliant is that the difficulty in the game was pretty low for a mainline SMT game, especially with bosses using Magatushi skills telegraphing a certain attack...which makes it easy to use an item to block/reflect the attack which ends their turn. This rhythm makes it very easy to beat bosses. Hell, a selling point to the Shiva boss fight was that it was actually fairly challenging with the selling point of the Demi-fiend DLC being the final fight's brutality.

Exploration was pretty good too. Lots of space to manuever around demons so you could explore, relics to pick up for money, Mi-mans scattered around to encourage exploration. Even some side quests which were alright.

Visually the game's great. It's something you have to see to know but everything is rendered nicely, the models are all well made, the game's art direction is good if a bit samey due to the post-apocolaypse setting and the attacks are stunning. Same with the sound direction, especially Shiva and Demi-Fiend's boss themes.

The story...is probably the weakest part. It's not bad- Dazai is a reall interesting take on a Law-aligned character, the Chaos route is perhaps at it's most unique, Amanozaku was really cute and funny and seeing Lucifer's true form was absolutely worth it. It's just...Yuzuru and Tao are EXTREMELY underexplored and thus their motivations just aren't given for the most part, Bethal's inner conflict was just pulled at the last minute, Abdiel required you to know her myth to her understand her actions.

And...the true ending's requirements (of helping various demons) go completely against the true ending's details (creating a world without demons). Especially with Miyazu and Khoutsu, who you help then completely fuck over along with Amanozaku.

With SMT V, I really like the gameplay and visuals. But when I think about it, I can't help but also think of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. How that game's visuals were shot with it's release schedule and it ended up looking worse than SMT V...but also how a Pokemon game, a game based on child-like power fantasy, is able to have more fleshed out characters and a more compelling story than an SMT game, a series based on engaging the player with questions of philosophy.

I bring this up because of Vengeance.

SMT V: Vengeance

I think that balancing the level scaling is a good way of showing that you are addressing the complaints people had.

I also think that the Combo Skills added in could give incentive to play with themed teams and I love the look of the demons too. And things like a new difficulty and an increased level cap makes it even more replayable.

However...I dunno about the new story. A new story doesn't necessarily make it better since the original's flaws are still there. And unless time has been taken to smooth out the story- it'll just have recurring issues as well. I don't feel the new story is better or worse- I just hope they gave the writers what they needed this time to make sure it works.

I feel far more skeptical about the new 'unique' skills. I remember the Traits being added to Persona 5, an already very easy game, and they...basically lowered the difficulty even further by adding benefits without drawbacks to a game that already gave the player so much. This was fine then, since Persona wasn't built in a way that needed crushing difficulty. Thematically, tonally and visually- Persona 5 and Royal were suited for easier gameplay.

SMT...isn't. It needs that crushing difficulty to fit with the series' atmosphere, tone and themes. All these elements synergizing together is what makes SMT so special. Hell, it's these same features synergizing that makes Pokemon so special too. Making a Pokemon game too hard to the point of basically forcing the player to use a certain party goes against the whole point of Pokemon. And likewise-making the game so easy that there's no pressure goes against the point of SMT. And giving the player more options without ACCOUNTING for those options will lower the difficulty.

As for Demon Haunts- I don't know if I like them. The whole point of demons is that they're fairly amoral creatures who don't really care about you or their care is fleeting and capricious. It's why you can basically shove them into a blender and make a new, stronger demon with no guilt- the demons' don't really have a bond with you so you can sacrifice them for more power. And you HAVE to do this because a demon that starts at a higher level will almost always be stronger than a demon that leveled up to the point with better stats, better moves and more opportunities. So trying to let the player bond with the demons that they are encouraged to dispose of when the time is right seems counterintuitive. Especially with the true ending to the original game, where you basically DITCH these creatures for humans you've known for far less time.

All in all- I am excited to see what changes have been made. But I'm also concerned that this could be SMT starting to lose its distinct identity. My hope is for a more solid story and more challenging boss fights.

[semi-imaginary-place]

how to use felix in fe3h

Felix reaches his full potential progressing is down the brawling line finishing in War Master as this synergizes with everything about his character. He destroys early and mid game, and then with war master maintains momentum through endgame. Fist weapons synergize really well with Felix. Felix is a speed/strength build character so you want a class that can being out his full potential. On lower difficulties Felix will 4x opponents, and on maddening that high strength matters for the lower mt of gauntlets. His major crest has a high enough proc rate to make a meaningful difference so you want to maximize number of hit per attack because the more hits he makes the more chances there are that it will activate, thus gauntlets. His dex isn't bad either so when you add on War Master's built in +crit and killer gauntlets you get a decent number of crits. same as his crest the more hits he makes the more chances there are for him to crit. The growths and stats for the brawling line are also geared towards strength and speed which is exactly what you want for Felix as Felix's stat strengths are also in str and spd. Going down the brawling line enhances Felix's existing strengths to create one of the game's most powerful units. Brawl avoid war master (brawl avo from war monk) Felix is one of my favorite fun builds. This is one of the actual good crit dodge builds, he's soloing half the map, dodging everything and criting every other hit.

You can put Felix in down the sword class line especially on lower difficulties without problem but on maddening keep in mind that the low mt of most swords really hurts you'll have to specially scout out swords like rapier+ and Sword of Zoltan+. On swords in general his gameplay is weaker but especially in endgame, he's still a good unit but he's no longer a top tier unit. Narratively Felix was probably intended for a sword build, but brawl and sword builds both tend to go for high strength and high speed and brawl ensures a second hit. Swords in general kinda suck on maddening as the idea with sword builds is to be fast enough to double but on maddening enemy stats are so high that you almost never double and all you're left with is a single low damage hit, sword classes are also lackluster. Shame there isn't a brawl and sword class is this game. You can still make Felix a sword user, but it takes a bit more work as you will need to go out of your way to pick up powerful swords like Sword of Zoltan+, Mercurius, or Devil Sword+. Normal swords are just too low might of a weapon without the guaranteed second hit. Swordsmaster is a low investment build with an decent result but assassin tends to be the better class overall, both have swordfaire, swordsmaster gives crit, while assassin has good mobility. Other good options are Sniper and Wyvern Lord which are good classes in general on most units. Please note not every unit has to progress to a master class, advanced class are perfectly ok and better than master classes in some cases like physical sword builds. Please do not make Felix a mortal savant thinking it will improve his gameplay, it'll do the opposite. You want to keep him in swordsmaster/assassin and not put him in mortal savant, among the sword classes this best capitalizes on his speed and strength.

Mortal savant in general is a bad class and its especially bad on Felix, Felix is the opposite of optimal in mortal savant and he sucks at it too. Mortal savant doesn't offer a physical unit like Felix much. They get spell casting but usually these units have bad spells and get better damage from physical damage, like with a Felix a bow will do more damage than thoron. I guess you could use them for emergency healing but there are better units and classes for that. The reason investment is not worth it on Felix for what mortal savant gives (as well as what it takes. As a class mortal savant isn't competitive for Felix against swordsmaster or assassin. Neither of those tank his speed, unlike mortal savant which kills his speed. You do not want speedy physical characters like Felix in mortal savant. Mortal savant is a TERRIBLE choice for him gameplay wise. However on normal difficulty the game is easy enough that the drop in effectiveness doesn't matter or is easily compensated so if you are playing on normal and like the outfit or just feel like making him a mortal savant, go for it. On hard you can still do it but I'd advise caution since you are a new player as this will make him a worse though still useable unit. Ultimately you should do what is most fun. Aesthetics wise it's great and its so funny to see him running around with 6 swords, and from a narrative perspective I think its interesting. You can still do it for non gameplay reasons, I think its fun to put characters in non optimal classes.

Don't make Felix dancer for gameplay either, it's a waste of him as a unit. It's about opportunity cost, your dancer should be the useless unit that you never use. Felix is better off in a main damage role, as a dancer he would be dancing every turn instead of attacking. Or to put it another way because he has such high damage, Felix should be danced so he can attack again, he can't do that as dancer. Dancer drops the unit's stats like you give up on a dancer's stats and that's a waste of Felix's good stats.

[nihiltism]

oh boy I finished (citation needed) a new game time to add to the veedia tag again

metal: hellsinger (ps4)

this game is Lovely. this game is so fun. I cannot aim to save my god damn life. metal hellsinger accomplished a major feat in having the only possible setup in the entire world to encourage me to play a first person shooter (being, really good metal and rhythm mechanics) and to that I applaud it because I consider fpses to be sort of my mortal enemy? right next to mmos and fighters? im gonna go into it more let me not take up ur entire dash.

the gameplay is Lovely. i did play on easy mode but ough the. shotgun cocking effects to the beat of a good metal song. there is Nothing Like It. the difficulty is Honestly Not Bad ** given some practice time and its very much a delight to play. well. save for one part but ill get to that. its a darkly lit game which is a problem but all of the enemies are color coded, glow, and have their own sounds and that alleviates it a bit.

i will say that the game is. Not Optimized to PS4? it is. Quite Glitchy and while I don't mind most of them i know some people do and there were a few that very much got in my way (i posted the acheron boss glitch a couple hours ago). also sometimes enemies just get stuck in the floor and youre waiting for them to pop up so you can move on. thats fun. also the bug enemies suck. the shield enemies also suck. those arent glitches i just hate them.

as for plot uh. this game was not made for plot. i accept this. its kinda Just Okay but it doesnt really need to be more than that. you play a scary demon lady who wants nothing more than to rip the devil limb from limb. whats better than that. youve got a troy baker skull. the plot there is admittedly pretty cute especially if you try to analyze the lyrics but i am also very much a sap and it hit a specific genre of Relationship In Media That Is So (Kinda Just There) Its Not Even A Subplot which is one of the few genres i can actually stand. i will say i feel i got a bit beauty and the beasted at the ending but like. eh. it wasnt that much. anyway. next point

theres no bad songs in here. my favorite is this devastation easily. ost introduced me to arch enemy which is a band you can all tell I'm normal about. the lyrics only kick in when youre at max multiplier so being able to hear a good drop is a good motive to get decent and not get hit. i think my ranking of songs is this devastation - no tomorrow - burial at night/stygia - dissolution and then everything else is kind of at the bottom in no particular order. not to say i dont like them but theyre all the same level of like. also serj tankian is there. he is lovely. he does the final boss theme (no tomorrow) that I wish I could fucking hear him over damage sound effects and myself swearing. yeah now we get to that

** The Final Boss Is Bad. yeah my main problem (and kinda only Real Problem) with this game is uh. i dont think i can actually finish it? there is an Enormous difficulty spike at the final boss to the point where my first run of lasted a solid Two Minutes if that and i am on easy mode. my friend described it as (game is touhou now) and yeah i can see it. first person touhou. nobody wants to play first person touhou. i dont want to play first person touhou. i didnt actually beat the game i just watched the ending and resolved to get back to it when i feel like it (never) and do better things with my time. like draw unknown in little outfits.

anyway thats My Thoughts. its a good game and i will probably keep playing the levels over n over. for people who dont replay these games over n over it is definitely not worth the money as you can pretty easily slash through all the levels in one sitting if you know what youre doing but i am easily entertained and love rhythm games. stay tuned for doodles of the unknown with my general fashion sense. listen to the two best tunes also. maybe listen to the whole ost after if u like it.

[petegrammarman]

Monthly Consumption - October 2023 Part 1: Horror Games

Doing a new thing when where I write a short bit about stuff I consumed each month. It took longer than expected. This first part is just the horror games I played.

Video Games Part 1

Resident Evil 2 – Remake

Not as good as the first one but still a blast. Mr. X did not overstay his welcome and provided many a good haunt. I love the layout of these games, these remakes do such a good job of resource management and difficulty. You are always on the brink of running out of stuff. The one time I had absolutely no bullets, I still had a great time just running around the zombies and was able to eventually get ammo again. THAT’S GOOD PACING. This is probably one of the few horror games I know where challenge plays into the horror very well. If you don’t have that balance, frustration becomes the name of the game.

The Upturned

Silly little game that definitely feels like something from the PS2 era. I didn’t like all the padding and it felt like it was a bit repetitive. Having multiple levels of crows chasing you was just not fun. Plus all the repeated throwing of furniture was hurting my finger. Definitely a quirky game but it was more on the annoying side. Introducing challenge was a downside, I am not here to test my ability to throw furniture. Just let me throw stuff and have fun. The wave-based combat was totally unnecessary and just makes me not want to play it. I will try to finish it as there looks to be a lot of fun stuff I have yet to encounter, maybe even my opinion will change!

Spooky’s House of Jumpscares

Definitely reminds me of a time when everyone was making horror games. It starts simple and goes places. I don’t know if those places are interesting but it probably was a thrill back when it came out. Another game that is kind of plagued by trying to make itself challenging. Finding the exit as quick as possible became tedious and then having the game be about the different spooks made me more tired of the premise than excited. Another one that deserves more time to see if my opinion changes.

Scorn (kinda)

I played this last year but this year I watched my roommate play through most of it via her streams. It’s still a complete marvel of a thing. My problems with it mostly rely on the gaminess of it (woah just like the previous two on this list). The combat and puzzles are not my favorite thing, the former can definitely contribute to the overall narrative, and the latter can add to the sense of confusion to the world. But both kind of place this thing in GAME territory rather than EXPERIENCE, which is what Scorn really should be. I don’t think it can be anything else at this point in time, and it is still an amazing thing to have exist, but the context of GAMES as a whole kind of put an expectation on the whole thing that holds it back. Totally unique and worth playing though.

The Convenience Store

This one is purely narrative, the interactivity is limited but also beneficial to the story. There are a few easy puzzles, but it mostly just contains tasks to place you in the role and setting. I feel like horror games need to either exist in Resident Evil or Convenience Store in terms of interactivity and challenge. Not choosing one side of this spectrum just meddles with the experience in an unfun way.

Iron Lung

Great experience, uses the interactivity in a fun way. Just an amazing premise for a game with a tight horror plot. Really paces itself well and that ending hits perfectly. As far as challenge goes, there is some here, but it uses it to great affect similar to Resident Evil. The challenge is time-based, you have to get somewhere quickly without hitting the walls, and so it affects your play and adds tension. Simple yet effective.

[marssmellow]

I wanna share a bit of a life story to explain WHY I feel I am gonna crush this academic year and I'm finally gonna be the top of my class. Pay attention folks, because this is probably gonna be a once in a lifetime show. I am not usually that comfortable sharing my life story online — I also don't want to share anything because I really don't like the Internet BUT my journal is far away and I am too lazy to pick it up so I am writing here instead (I am, in fact, lying to you. My journal is in the bedside table next to my head right now. I am just too lazy at the moment). Btw I feel like this is a story worth knowing about me as a person that all of you, little people who follow this blog + my three (3) real life friends simply must know to understand me. So fasten your seatbelts, we are going down memory lane together.

(tw: mention of sexual assault)

So, when I was in elementary school I was your typical golden child. I was so good in all of the classes and I always got the best marks. Of course, you are thinking "Whaaat, elementary school is not hard??" You'd be surprised. For some reason, elementary schools in Italy are hard. We learn, of course, all the basics, like the alphabet and how to add numbers and all that shit, but we also learn stuff that your typical 6-year-old wouldn't, like rhyming schemes and syllable patterns, chemical reactions, a bit of algebra, the idea of historical process, English and all that stuff (disclaimer: I do not know if this was the case just for my school or my teachers. I just know that we didn't limit ourselves to the alphabets and the names of colours). Apart from a general difficulty in math (probably caused by an undiagnosed dyscalculia) I was very good. However, I had a competitor. My best friend ALSO wanted to be the best in my class. The only difference between us was that, while I was effortlessly talented (I am saying this with every ounce of humility in my body), she tried really hard. I learned this after a long time, but she had very strict parents that used to treat her very badly if she didn't get the highest mark in a test. She went as far as to complain to the teacher if I got a higher grade that hers in tests. And here's the kicker: she would take it out on me. She used to make me feel bad because I got the full mark while she didn't. Of course, it wasn't my fault, but my little brain did not know that and I remember feeling anxious every time the teacher would give us the result of a test because I wanted to know how HER test went. You can well imagine the effect this had on me. I started doubting myself and blaming myself for other people's results. Maybe that's why I want to be a professor now, or maybe it has nothing to do with that. We will never know. The point is that I started to seriously think that she was better than me because she put all this crazy effort into her test while I just...winged them. I seriously did not study that much. I found the tests easy. That's probably something to do with the fact that I was genuinely curious about the subjects and I absorbed the information like a sponge. Anyway, that was the first thing on my path.

In middle school I was heavily bullied and I even was abused by one of these classmates that thought it was funny to grab on my body (yes, I do have a nice set of boobs) whenever he thought convenient. If that guy is reading this, which I highly doubt, go fuck yourself. Anyway, those were the worst years of my life, let me tell you. I was even bullied by a teacher. This teacher used to be my brother's math teacher 13 years back, and he thought it was extremely funny to constantly remind me how my brother was so much better than me. Once again, nobody ever thought that my struggle with math was probably a product of an undiagnosed dyscalculia, but here I was. Bullied by my math teacher. Around this time, I still had competition in the classroom. Another of my classmates competed with me for the highest grades. But let me tell you. She was so beautiful. It was around this time that I should have started realizing that I probably liked girls because I now realize I had the biggest crush on her. I really didn't care if she was better than me, because she was beautiful, and she was cool and she was dating the boss of the bullies. The class used to hate on me every time I said in class that I loved a book, or every time I would answer a question, or that I would get a nice grade. I remember this classmate of mine that almost beat me up because I got a higher grade than him in technical art — because he wanted to be an architect but I was the top of the class. It was horrible. Those three years taught me to keep my interests to myself to not be hated. It made me hate all those things that made me happy. So I gradually convinced myself that the things I enjoyed...I was the only one enjoying them. Those things were mine and mine alone and nobody would ever understand me. I felt alone. Misunderstood. Hopeless, even. Because the things I liked I couldn't pursue.

This is why I chose a high school with a scientific path. Because my brother is an engineer and all my mother could say was how you couldn't live off of books. So I chose physics, chemistry, math and science in general. Because my family said those are the only things that matter. Because literature, and art, and history and philosophy will leave me jobless. Do you remember the undiagnosed dyscalculia? Yes, it wasn't funny. I failed pretty much all of my math tests. Physics I could pull off. I could decently pass chemistry and biology because it was mainly words and not a lot of numbers. But let me tell you — I was happy. My teachers were AMAZING. My math teacher, he is the nicest man in the world (he is also a feminist and an anarchist and I lost myself in conversations about the patriarchy with him a lot of times. He was very funny too. He is so intelligent, he probably could have guessed I had an undiagnosed dyscalculia but I forgive him for that). And my classmates were cool. They didn't bully me. We soon enough recognized that we were there for the same reason — we were all nerds in something. I was, of course, the nerd in humanities. The only incident I can report happened in the third year, when some of my classmates basically ambushed me and forced me to come out as an asexual bisexual (at the time I thought I was bi. Now I know that I was a lesbian in denial). I never forgave them because I used to trust them. But for the rest, things went smoothly. But where is the problem? Well, for four years I was forced to study things I didn't really enjoy. I was terrible. My grades sucked. I was good in Italian, in history and English and art and philosophy, but the key courses? Let's not even mention them. It was a disaster. I lost all of my confidence and all of my passion.

Which is why I decided to study Languages in uni. I wanted out of the scientific world. Back to humanities I go! It was not easy. My study methods were all calibrated to study and learn and memorize scientific stuff. I remember that I passed my Philology exam because I studied the High German consonant shift using my geometry method. I LOVED these past three years of uni. I don't think I was ever this happy. I finally was able to study something I liked, free of judgment (my family, by this point, recognized that my talents lied somewhere else, and not in chemistry or maths) and free of competition. I could be myself. Freedom.

But. There's always one, right? But this was not true freedom. I was still studying things I didn't really like. Like Spanish, for example. I had to choose a second language and Spanish was the easiest course — or so I was told, because let's be honest, that course was NOT easy, even as an Italian native speaker. Everyone that tells you that Spanish and Italian are similar is LYING. Anyway, you can well imagine how a person that lived through what I experienced can feel about studying stuff you don't like. It felt constraining.

During the past two years, I got very lucky. I found myself a partner that loves me for who I am. Friends that support me and love me and make me laugh and are there for me, and that are genuinely interested in my interests. Friends that root for me, even. My family did a complete 360 and now supports me and my plans for the future. I found a professor that not only accepted to be my supervisor but that goes on and beyond to help me in my career. I feel like I'm on top of the world.

Around two years ago, I realized which Master's I wanted to take. It's in the same university, my supervisor is one of the teachers. This means at least another year with my friends and my partner in the city I love, doing the things I enjoy the most. So, these last two years have felt like...a rite of passage. Like something I had to do in order to get to my Master's. Which can be a great motivator, but it can also transform everything that you do into a chore. I lacked intrinsic motivation. All of my motivation was external. "I have to take this Spanish exam so I can graduate and get to my Master's". That's what I thought for pretty much every single one of my exams. I am not gonna lie, if this is your mindset then studying becomes boring. That's what happened to me, I lost most of my motivation to study and do good. I wasn't studying for the sake of learning, I was studying to get a decent mark on the exam and get accepted in my Master's. It was not pretty. It got me pretty anxious too.

But now? Now everything is changing. I no longer have that kind of motivation. The classes I had to take "for the sake of the grade" are no longer there. All the classes of the next two years are interesting, fun, and motivating. Every single one of them will teach me something for my future career AND are genuinely interesting. Which means that, this time around, I have both internal AND external motivation.

Which is what brings me back to my main point. I feel, I KNOW I will crush this academic year. I have the potential to be at the top of my class again. I know I shouldn't brag (but damn I amaze and astonish, as Hamilton would say) but I really feel this way. My mindset shifted during these summer months and I cannot wait to test this new life philosophy. I really can't wait for this new, big adventure, and to see where it will take me. I hope it's somewhere bright and beautiful. I had enough of the darkness.