#highly recommend playing btw

[ahollowgrave]

i'm having fun

#pigeon screens #odette hollows #prudence #prudence dubois #highly recommend playing btw

[silkysong]

#im playing games on flashpoint btw. highly recommend #this is barely art

[violetvulpini]

Doodle dump

#tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2k3 #teenage mutant ninja turtles #agent bishop #baxter stockman #cody jones #casey jones jr #casey jones rottmnt #torbin zixx #rat king and zukko are here too #fast forward #me sifting through my 20 thousand drawings of just Bishop making the same expressions over and over #Stockman is VERY fun to draw btw. highly recommend #ALSO. Some of these play off of teenagemutantninjatrauma's theory that Zixx is a Bishop clone! #I 100% buy it ngl. it's fully canon to me now #anyway both of them and RK hate each other #family gatherings are always really awkward #gun tw #doodles

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

INTENSE MWAMWA NOISES ‼️‼️💥💥💥

#i make bgs a lot better in ibispaint no kidding #i just played around and guys. highly recommend making bg outlines for your art its so good #in case it wasnt clear how goofy i am over red right now WELL HERE IT IS. WOW I LOVE HIM #i became so kilig when i colored his outfit like MEIN GOTT JIL YOU'RE SO SMART HOW DID YOU MAKE HIM SO POGI 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 #ALSO YES THAT'S HIS TRAINER OUTFIT ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️ ISN'T HE SO HANDSOMEEEEE #i should make a full body ref for that BUT. BUT. BNSNDNBDBDBD HES SO <3 GGGUUGHHHU #his hat still remains the same btw ehheeh #pokemon selfship #selfshipping #selfship #selfship community #♥️ appleshipping #~ art #wow... wifey so bold!!!!!!! kiss harder!!!!! #pikachu and togepi lookin like their kids rn for real #jaide (gameverse).insert #pipino tag

[crypticpatterns]

fwiw, before playing the sequel, here's my interpretation of monument valley, as someone who just played it for the first time:

long ago, there were a bird people of the air who became jealous of the humans and their sacred geometry. the princess of the crows stole this sacred geometry for her people. but as a consequence, the human society fell. the bird people were cursed to wander the ruins left behind by the humans, their flight and colors stolen from them. their princess was turned into a human and cursed as well, and she became the wandering girl named ida.

either due to the passage of time or the curse, ida forgot who she used to be, and only remembered her task, which was to return the sacred geometry to the people she stole it from. but by the time she returns, all the people are gone, and there is no one left to forgive her. the humans she once admired for their geometry, the humans whom she stole from and destroyed, are all gone.

ida continues her task for an untold length of time, learning the sacred geometry and growing to appreciate the thing she stole so callously long ago. after returning the final piece of sacred geometry, she is redeemed for her actions and freed from the curse. her crown restored as the crow princess, she and her people are able to fly among the sky as the colorful birds they once were long ago.

#idk if this all makes perfect sense since I've only played the game once but yeah! #I highly recommend this game btw it's soooo pretty and surprisingly emotional #and crow people!!!!!!! #monument valley #sera posts

[communistkenobi]

One of the most interesting papers I’ve read in years (sci-hub link for those curious) was about the state’s desire to “calculate” its own interior through the use of geospatial technology. It renders all aspects of space inside the borders of a country “calculable”, meaning land is assigned a number that corresponds to some larger system of data. And this effort has its historical roots in settler colonialism, in state surveillance, and a general desire to render everything within a state as knowable as possible - any part of a country may be viewed, at any time, by a government agent, and the corresponding information associated with that land via geospatial coordinates will return information about its size, location, ownership, and other such characteristics deemed important to “calculate”. The eventual goal of this being a comprehensive view of the state as divided into contiguous categorical bins - the location of every citizen knowable and quantified through the logic of numbers. This understanding of the state is modernist and positivist, meaning there is an assumed objective truth about the interior of a state that is discoverable and definable. It views all phenomena as quantifiable and categorical. There is no room for ambiguity in this conception of the state.

And this is reflected in the culture more broadly - up until like the early 2000s, for example, a lot of rural homes in the US didn’t have addresses, just box and route numbers for mail. Like their homes did not have an address, and often the roads they lived on only had informal local names, not official state ones. That seems absurd now with the ubiquity of things like google maps, and that was only 20 years ago! Our understanding of how we access information and move in space is dictated heavily by widespread access to incredibly precise geospatial technology. You can watch your goddamn Uber driver move around on the map on their way to pick you up, and Uber is barely a decade old. There is so little room for ambiguity and uncertainty now.

Anyway this is going to sound like an insane pivot in topic, but I’ve been thinking about the tendency people online have to over-pathologising their behaviour - claiming for example that organizing your notes is a sign of OCD, enjoying puzzles means you have ADHD, etc. And just in general, there seems to be a need to obsessively document every aspect of your personality; peoples’ fixation on personality tests, figuring out what everyone’s “love languages” are, this obsession with finely parsing all the particulars of your sexuality and gender, etc. There is this over-clocking of yourself, trying to calculate and “bin” every part of your identity until there is no room for ambiguity or uncategorised traits. And like idk if this is necessarily connected to what I was talking about above, but it just makes me wonder if, in this age of mass access to information and calculable data, people are trying to calculate the interior of their own personhood as a way to protect against the anxiety that ambiguity/uncertainty often evokes when you run into a piece of information that has not yet been fully calculated.

#idk wtf to even tag this as lmao #uhhh oh i know #book club #anyway highly recommend that article btw #im done being insane im gonna go play subnautica now

[b4kuch1n]

dedramatization

transcript

this is, indeed, fanart for @metanoia-blues! just straight up aped a whole scene from the latest episode (ep. 70) to draw into comic form lol. what a time I chose to join back in on the journey

#metanoia blues #willow jenkins #warfred bartosz #man. literally I have never felt this much rage about a fictional character. I need this bitch to die painfully On Screen #for folks without context here warfred (the guy with beard) and willow (guy with the robot mask) were in a question game #while warfred is a suspect in a murder like. two days ago #the question game is warfred's style which. speaks to the kind of person that he is. fuck that guy #willow's taken it upon themself (and so have their friends) to investigate the murder. which is why they're in his apartment on excuses #and they were coming to a draw on the question game. and willow laid down their ace which is a wound they knew warfred lied about #and instead of continue playing the game. well. you see #highly recommend reading the recaps and catching at least this episode btw. it was INSANE experiencing it live. it was Something Else #to give you an idea of how insane. right after that scene I plugged in my laptop to sketch and ink this comic. #and finished that in six hours. #this shit had me in a chokehold I'm not normal #actually first time an audio play actually managed to scare me! fucked up and evil!!! #you can find the recaps on the official blog I tagged #and the episodes are on youtube #search ''metanoia blues'' and it should come up! they're posting new episodes as they go #active call to people who like audio plays and dice improv. get into this with me. its so good

[crescentfool]

recently, i’ve been thinking about what a 100% social link/confidant run is like from the perspective of the persona protagonists, rather than the player. i’ve always been a sucker for thinking about the type of narrative created by a person’s gameplay choices (it can be so fun and deep) so!! i wrote this analysis / musing.

some notes before we start: this was written with the lens of persona 3 being the most recent game i played- but the concepts are applicable to the p4/p5 protagonists as well! no spoilers for any of the games are mentioned; this is moreso a general discussion of ludonarrative dissonance with the game mechanics and narrative and how it makes for fun angst (ft. personal interpretation).

(more under the cut!)

the framework: game mechanics

in all of the games, the social link system’s existence coincides with the social stats mechanic. certain social links require a specific set of stats in order to initiate it, or surpass a certain rank. each game has around 20 of these- each of which represent the major arcana (+ some bonuses, e.g. aeon / jester / faith / councilor).

for any players going for a 100% social link run, this basically requires each social stat to be maxed out. anyone who’s followed a guide for a 100% run would know that the beginning of the game tends to be very “strict” with how time can be used, most of which involves getting the stats raised  as soon as possible.

outside of characterization and worldbuilding, completing social links are incentivized for a variety of gameplay reasons. so how could this completionist play style affect the protagonists?

prioritizing social stats over everything else: a general view

regardless of which protagonist you want to put under a petri dish, with a 100% run, you’re essentially asking the protagonist to form amicable bonds with 20 or so people, give or take. granted, not everyone becomes adjoined to the hip to the protagonist.

personally, i feel that forming 20 different bonds over the course of a year would be rather strenuous. during these 100% runs, the protagonists may feel that they’re spreading themselves thin trying to dedicate their resources to multiple different people as well as raising their “social stats.” i find the implications that this has on said bonds is so, utterly fascinating.

while this isn’t reflected in the game and would be better represented within a fic, i find it difficult to believe that this type of behavior doesn’t have any ramifications on the quality of the protagonist’s closer relationships (or their self-image, for that matter).

just… imagine calling one of your close friends but then they consistently give responses along the lines of “lmao sorry i’m busy doing other things,” and they rarely make the time of day for you. how would you feel? gameplay-wise, this deterioration of the relationship is best represented in persona 3 with social links reversing if you haven’t spent time with them in awhile.

part of my fascination with this concept is influenced by my own experiences. trying to maintain so many relationships can be difficult to keep up with and it quickly gets overwhelming (see dunbar’s number for more information). jumping between so many people also makes it difficult to focus on a few relationships meaningfully- meaning that relationships may be limited to being simple pleasantries. even then, ‘successfully’ keeping every relationship satisfying comes at the cost of being unable to pursue your own development and interests.

overall, i think that trying to do so many things ends up lowering the quality of the relationship(s) involved, especially when you also consider the fatigue from going to school as well as fighting shadows.

playing the therapist friend / listening role: a general view

another aspect of the 100% run that i think about is how the protagonists rarely open up to other people. a good chunk of SLs follow a storyline of the protagonist acting as a therapist friend/helping the other person through one central issue. some SLs are an exception to this and have a more casual “we’re just hanging out vibe.”

basically, SLs tend to be weighted toward the other character’s growth, moreso than the protagonist’s (which is handled by the main story). that said, the idea of mostly playing a listening role across most of your relationships and not having many that you feel comfortable to speak freely about your own stuff… feels really unbalanced and unhealthy?

i do think that part of the lack of “input” can be attributed to the silent-protagonist approach taken in the games (which is a whole ‘nother topic). but!! i find that each protagonist’s options, while limited, are fun to think about! some of the traits and interpretations i’ve seen for the differing protags, to name a few, include:

being afraid to open up / get attached and keeping people at arm’s distance as a result

needing to be around other people, even if it’s just listening them, to distract from their own struggles / pretend nothing’s wrong with them

enjoying helping others, being a good and careful listener who can provide an appropriate and helpful response

the willingness to prioritize others over themselves; a lack of self-preservation

compulsive people pleasing

at its worst, the lack of “protagonist talking” or equal reciprocation in response could be misinterpreted by the other person as disinterest (like they’re talking to a wall). alternatively- the lack of “personal tidbits” could be taken as, “you don’t trust me enough to be able to open up, huh.” and i just think that seeing this in a fic would be the biggest shitshow ever (and i would read that).

concluding thoughts:

overall, i feel that the protagonists taking a predominantly listening approach to several relationships at once can lead to compassion fatigue and general burnout. the protagonists are rarely at the receiving end of being listened to and/or having their issues worked through… and that’s kind of sad?

while the 100% social link run can provide great power to any persona fusions (and other cool battle abilities + hijinks)... i ultimately think that there’d be a lot of mental strain that would make achieving this much more difficult when you take a narrative-emphasized approach.

i do realize that it is possible to see the general vibe of this post as “100% social link is bad,” but like… there’s something i find really appealing about the messiness of attempting to manage so many relations at once- only to fall short in several of them and attempting to salvage the last bits of their sanity. when you think about the complications of the 100% SL run from the shoes of the protagonist… yeah!! that’s the good shit!

anyways! if anyone knows of any fics with this kinda vibe for the p3/4/5 protags… feel free to drop it in my askbox… i like them all VERY much :3c… and if this raised any food for thought- i’d be equally honored! let the protags go through shit i wanna see their emotions and coping mechanisms damn it! 👏

#persona 3 #persona 4 #persona 5 #yes it is 3am and im posting this. i couldn't sleep so i wanted to write something that i've been thinking abt as of late :x #highly recommend looking up ludonarrative dissonance btw! if ur interested in game storywriting its SOO interesting bc its definitely- #an occurence that happens every now and then in a video game. persona included. like.. when game mechanics tell one story but the narrative #-ends up contradicting that (or some other thing in reality ends up doing that...). does that even make sense?? #i tried to keep this post general to p3/4/5 but if you know me well enough you'll see how my p3 bias has shaped this post. lmao #i also could go on a tangent about how i feel about orpheus telos as a thing w/rt p3 social links BUT I WONT. unless...? #i have more i want to say on the topic (maybe will do so at a later time) but feel free to ask for more specific hcs with the protags? #maybe not p4kun though just bc ive only watched p4 so i havent had the time to let it sit btwn play sessions #anyway bye im just going to let this float in the void while i sleep. have a good day #meta #hc and au nonsense #lizzy speaks

[chocolatecatcupcakecheese]

Having someone blocked on discord is so funny because my conversations look kinda like this:

#babymoding #I highly recommend blocking people on discord actually it really adds to the experience #especially when it’s one single person constantly talking about off-topic things #you can still click to see the blocked messages btw but when I open chat in the morning the annoyances are minimized #I also recommend making yourself a private server to fuck around in like this and play with bots LMAO

[g1ngerbeer]

percy is a stupid ridiculous nerd who thinks he's SOoO cool but in reality he runs around and gets his hand stuck in his own inventions and nearly gets blown up by running through fire with gunpowder in his pockets and has a pompous-ass name with 14 fucking syllables. i love him sm.

finished season 2 btw. it was fabulous how all the other characters got their issues delved into but also funny how its reading very much "here's a trauma episode for keyleth and here's an episode for the twins and here's an episode for grog and here's one for percy- actually wait you're really fucked up you need an entire season"

do you know what cr youtube episodes correspond with the show plot? I know that the first several aren't show related bc dnd copyright, but is there a confirmed period for s1/2?

~ percy anon

(thanks for letting me chat w/ u)

percival fredrickwhatever the fuck de rolo iii is so funny. hes my favorite pathetic little loserguy. now that he is (kind of) free from the tragic backstory demons he gets to be goofier :] builds an actual mousetrap out of forks and then sets it off on his own hand ... gives his ridiculous fancy coat to the girl he likes then tries to pretend hes not freezing his ass off ... he does NOT act like a guy with 16 wis. loser. and yeah honestly with the amount of gunpowder he has on him at all times im surprised he hasnt exploded yet. what a freak. what an absolute loser. nerd. i love how they do let him be cool with his tragic backstory and really good aesthetic and swagful competence at violence and murder. and yet he is still silly. and dumb <3 my little guy. bully him more its what taliesin would want

his name is a running joke in the campaign btw he'll introduce himself with all 17 syllables of it and at least two other people will immediately follow it up with "you can call him percy"

also WOW you got through this show fast. congratulations! and welcome to the eternal waiting-on-s3 trenches </3

actually episodes 1-2 of tlovm are a very loose adaptation of some of the pre-stream content (since they didn't start streaming until several years into the actual campaign)! they've got a summary video for all of the pre-stream stuff called the story of vox machina which has some really pretty illustrations. there's also "vox machina: origins" which is an ongoing series of comics adapting pre-stream vox machina. the briarwoods arc (tlovm season 1) corresponds to campaign episodes 24-36. they get the invitation to the feast with the briarwoods at the end of 23 though and it's all set up in 14 iirc. i'm not entirely sure of tlovm season 2 content since i actually only just started on campaign chroma conclave, but according to the wiki that whole arc would be episodes 39-83. although tlovm definitely hasn't gotten to campaign episode 69. so i think they're only halfway through that. the children yearn for season 3

(and yeah ofc np!!! its very nice to have somebody to yell about percy with sldkgjsljglsk)

#tlovm s1 is like lets fight percys tragic backstory. oh fuck. percys tragic backstory has hands #ask #percy anon #the cr wiki is quite detailed and well maintained btw id highly recommend using it as a resource. bless this fandom #its also got quotations at the end of each episode page so thats a useful highlight reel for when u dont want to sit thorugh all 3 hours #campaign is cool and fun. ive been playing it in the bg while i draw tho so unfortunately i dont catch everything #long post #i love rambling. heart emoji

[earthcookies]

concert pianist i saw at my uni said when she was a child she practiced 20 hours a day and i was almost gonna be like Wtf thats fucking crazy why would anyone do that but then i realized i used to draw for 10 hours straight as a child so i cant say anything. in conclusion there's something deeply wrong with all of us

#also its not like she was pressured she just loves playing piano LOL #her name is olga kern btw i highly recommend looking her up. i feel so blessed getting to see her for free

[keyleths]

playing honour mode with the extreme wild magic mod literally feels like i'm playing with fire every time my durge casts something i hope to god it doesn't summon a hostile spectator

#this mod will fuck with you but it's also very fun #i would highly recommend it to anyone playing a wild magic sorcerer #it's called d100 wild magic btw #bg3 lb #dl

[imaginecorporation]

Welcome back to Tumblr! Hope the past year has been kind to you and hope this year will be kinder.

You came back right on time to enjoy PM's Hell Chicken event! Especially since the pinned post mentioned you enjoyed Meursalt's character, which this event will gift you with hahahaha. Once you do watch it, and you'll know it when you see it, mind telling us what you think about it?

- Faithanon

OH WE BOTH ALREADY PLAYED IT! ALSO HELLO FAITHANON I HOPE THIS PAST YEAR HAS BEEN KIND TO YOU TOO... It was a super eventful one (good and bad) for us, but luckily most things are settling down and unless someone spontaneously explodes in front of me or something I should be fine (same with Mod Aleph I think, but I'll let her reblog this and say her thoughts when she wakes up)

I. Am. So obsessed with Meursault dude. I literally bought and read The Stranger and he is so like me for real. Admittedly I do mask my autism a little in public and on this blog, but in person when I'm not masking (or back when I was in school) I was legitimately almost exactly like Meursault, autism and all. I don't kin him though but he is helping me love myself, and I would marry him in a heartbeat, something something learning to love oneself through the lens of another something something

Also I am thriving with Meursault's blunt and frankly brutal critique of his team's cooking when led by Don Quixote, bonus points for the Yi Sang puns while verbally eviscerating Yi Sang for his shit job. 12/10 I was mentally proposing on the spot.

-Mod Finn

#mod finn posts #mod posts #mod post #we are all caught up and mildly obsessed #I play less often than Aleph does because I also play ACNH daily #and I am reading The Odyssey right now #I am trying to read every sinner's book and it really helps keep me interested #because I can compare and contrast the sinners to their book counterparts #though unlike Meursault I am nonverbal/nonspeaking! #i mean theoretically i could talk but its like pushing a boulder. and my therapist recommended i not do that #I've been happier since letting myself unmask and not speak btw I highly recommend shutting up to everyone #still love that I'm psychologically prescribed Shutting Up. it's hilarious

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

Got my souvenirs

Freeze dried skittles and handmade watercolors made by the owners of the art shop i got them at

They grind their own pigments and everything

Their business card is a 6inch ruler

#we dont have any good specialty art shops in Lawrence #we have a couple of places downtown that are kinda similar but they pretty much only have name brand stuff #nothing made locally #if it wasnt so expensive to start a business in Lawrence i might have a niche for handmade paints there #im trying to figure out what oil they used in their base to make it antimicrobial #cuz it smells really good lol #like my paints smell very strongly of cinnamon #im assuming clove oil since thats most common.....but idk if i can identify clove by smell #smells christmas-y tho #if i was more outgoing i mightve asked the owner some questions about it #my mom tried to talk me into getting the watercolor kit that had some little pieces of watercolor paper and a pencil and a brush #and i was like ''i have all that tho'' and she was like ''but then you could use them now.'' #''.....yea. i have all that WITH me.'' like. im not gonna travel without my favorite art supplies lol #i gave up suitcase space for my giant watercolor sketchbook just in case i wanted to paint #i have MOSTLY travel watercolor sets and brought all of them with me in my pencil bag #i specifically filled up all my watercolor brushes with water the night before we left and made sure i had my favorite mechanical pencil #(which btw if you have executive dysfunction and like to paint with watercolors i highly recommend the watercolor brushes you fill #with water. i paint way more than i used to cuz i dont have to fill a cup with water any time i wanna paint) #i have my regular sketchbook #i even brought my sudoku book and a couple pens in case i felt like playing sudoku #i dont travel without my bag of activities. i may not always do the activities i bring but i like to have options #at least its better than when i was a kid cuz i tried to bring activities AND like 5 stuffed animals #my suitcase was usually half stuffed animals #i also usually had a few shoved into my pillowcase with my blanky

[fakeasmr]

hey look I hacked my 3ds and it can play japanese games now

nifty

#had to see if the saiki k game worked because they advertised it in the anime but there was no way for me to play it #i can't read any of this btw I'm just glad it works #highly recommend doing this #it only took about an hour and the instructions were super easy to follow #you will need an sd card reader tho

[leafywillow]

late to the party but sunblind is god tier omfg

#ts4 #the sims 4 #ts4edit #ts4scenery #sunblind #ts4sunblind #ts4bettertogether #this is in the better together save file btw!! #its gorgeous highly recommend #my game went haywire after the update so ive been mia #love fixing three different games at once bc they all updated and broke lmaooo #at coral island and covet fashion too #its been a great time #but! after this weekend i should be able to play+post more! #got a big group project due for grad school kill me now