Bad Influence

i know i’m not adding anything new to the convo but god brother nier is such a good character you really don’t often see in media. he’s patient but he’s so quick tempered. he’s caring but violent. there’s so much hate in a character whose whole drive is love. he’s so scary but he’s so safe at the same time??? i don’t??? yoko taro the writer that you are

Just got into an argument with my mother about DEI and "whites no longer being the majority".

This is a woman who is actively critical of the current administration and sees what President Musk and the Grifter-in-Chief are doing as unconstitutional.

This is a woman who voted for Kamala Harris 4 months ago.

I think America remains fucked even if we can oust the goddamn Nazis.

I wish I had the money to live on my own, or the friends and connections to at least move out away from my parents. This sucks, sorry for the rant.

Fight scenes are such a joy to write, especially when working from a single perspective. The complex series of actions and reactions is hard to get *just* right, but when it's all said and done I feel like there's a movie in my mind. Feels fantastic.

Ive been pretty much using all of my free time to play Elden Ring for a week now. Haven't even read (or done writing for) fanfic. It's so much fun.

I just went back and killed the Grafted Scion and wow those swords are cool, excited to use em.

Really though... I should be writing...

This one is more of a question of what you headcanon taylon hober as, since there is technically a canonical answer, it's just that it's a stupid canonical answer and i've elected to ignore it (sick avengers 2012 reference)

sadly we don't have ranked choice voting, but I will lump answers within categories

there are so many options I had to cut because there are only 12 selectable answers for the poll. It's FUCKED okay? it's FUCKED. Honestly, you're kind of gonna have to write in for any answer since 12 options allows for basically no nuance.

the slug is not a gender

Make sure to tell me what you think and why you think it! Just. Don't yell, please?

So I beat O'Neil, fairly handily. Honestly I expected the arena to be scarlet rot so that was a pleasant surprise. Going to try to fight Radahn now, I wonder how many tries it will take

Going to try to beat Radahn tonight, but i want to respec some of my stats to be more precise, its a little all over the place currently and I want to be able to use Radahn's greatswords after the fight.

Im kind of considering fighting Commander O'Neil beforehand though, with the arrow cheese method

im always suuuuper chill when i see that service unavailable page

Just had some thoughts on soulsborne games and specifically the fanbase:

I think its fine to do things like "no hit/summon/magic/whatever" runs. They're pretty impressive things and it does take skill and effort to do so.

But.

There is not a "pure" or "superior" way to play these games. If it is a feature or mechanic within the game, it is a fair play as long as the boss dies. And its fine to not want to use those things in pursuit of being challenged and feeling fulfilled. What *isn't* fine is policing how other people play the game because it ruins a mythical image of souls games as exceptionally difficult or brutal.

It's really *really* easy to say a souls game is the hardest game ever when you're doing everything in your power to make it harder for yourself.

There is a lot I like about the other players in souls games, the messages I read as I travel through these worlds are usually witty or fun, and it goes a long way to making it feel like I'm having a shared experience with the broader playerbase. What I don't like is the imposition of specific playstyles as a purity test for worthiness. I can kinda get it for PvP because at that point its meta-gaming, but for PvE content? Stuff people are doing against the enemies of the game? Literally no one's problem but the player doing the fighting.

A win is a win is a win.

i really like how worm commits to making superpowered characters weird. i think in most superhero media, superpowered characters are largely distinct, normal individuals with powers tacked on like tools they can use. but in worm, having a power kind of inherently puts you to the left of being entirely human. in worm, the lines between the power and the person are blurred, both literally in terms of how shards work & in terms of how powers present themselves. you can’t have a power without it altering your relationship to your mind and body.

and the “relationship to your body” bit applies to almost all capes, not just the ones who have been physically altered by their powers! whenever the experience of having a (not physically altering) power is described, it‘s phrased as being some sort of additional sense or sensation in a way that is still inextricably connected to the cape’s physical self. imp’s power isn’t just “okay, i’m invisible now,” it’s “i can physically feel my power rolling over my skin and jabbing out into the air to push memories of me away.” 

the other examples i specifically have in mind here are skitter and regent. skitter’s power isn’t just “move the bugs and make them bite people,” they’re effectively a part of her. like additional limbs. she keeps functioning in fights when her human body is knocked the fuck out on the ground because the rest of her body–a million other little bodies–is still there to work with. the fact that she has millions of extra eyeballs at any given moment means it’s not actually so bad when the two of them that happen to be physically connected to her human body are blinded, which results in my favorite Worm Out Of Context ever:

and regent has one of my favorite subtle, uncanny examples of a power that seems like it shouldn’t alter the power-haver’s connection to their own body, but does anyway. in alec’s interlude, while he’s puppeting sophia, there’s a point where the undersiders get far away enough from her that it makes it more difficult for him to control her. he starts struggling to coordinate her movements.

the uncanny part is that he starts struggling to control his own body’s movements, as well. he puts his alec-self’s earbuds in so that he doesn’t have to talk to anyone, because he knows that if he did speak, he’d start stuttering and slurring his words from loss of physical control. sure, his alec-self is the body he’ll end up in when he’s done using his power, and his sophia-self was taken by force, so there’s obviously a distinction between the two, but that doesn’t make his alec-self easier to control. his power implicitly calls the separation between himself and the people he’s puppeting into question. he doesn’t get to have a “main” body he can control without effort, he has to divide his attention between each body and put concentration into moving each of them. in that way, his own body is placed in the same category as the bodies he’s hijacked. it’s Weird!

Didnt make a post earlier because I didnt stop playing until 2am lol.

So I've played some more Elden Ring, cleared the wooded area of the Siofra River, killed all the enemies got the Ancestor Spirit and the Dragonkin Soldier done in one go, later on I died to the Crucible Knight over on the isolated platform. Worst. Enemy. Ever.

Also explored like, half of Caelid? Went through Sellia and the surrounding cliffs, explored almost all of the western side of Caelid. I even visited Redmane Castle, though I did not fight Radahn yet. I also didn't fight the rotted dragon, I think I would die very fast, I see a big health bar.

I had a small excursion into Greyoll's Dragonbarrow, grabbed the map, visited the isolated merchant, and tried to scale the Divine Tower (i want the greatsword at the bottom) but I couldn't figure it out.

Still a basic bitch using Bloodhound's Fang for almost every encounter, but I found it on my own without a guide and I could care less what soulsborne purists think.

I think I'm going to take another small break from playing as well. Love this game, though.