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scientia-rex · 3 years

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Reporting back on this whole "how is life as a new attending" thing: well, the good news is I have money and a lot more time. The bad news is I'm still me.

So we're buying a house--it's taking forever but it's also a really great house that's not like a mansion-mansion but is light-years beyond what anyone else I know my age who isn't a doctor or the child of rich people can afford--and I'm really, really excited about it. But I'm also still depressed, on an SNRI for it, getting godawful night sweats because of the SNRI for it, and prone to severe acid reflux and chronic nausea. Also, there's a random spot in my right lower quadrant that occasionally hurts like hell for no apparent reason and deep down I'm terrified that it's my appendix thinking about getting real infected and rupturing, or an ovarian cyst that starts to torse and then de-torse, or an endometriosis explant that's going to finally burrow all the way into my intestines one of these days and give me, I dunno, sepsis or a hemorrhage or something. Any one of those could spontaneously become a life-threatening surgical emergency with no warning. So yes, I still have anxiety.

I have started to resume something resembling a normal human sleep schedule. I only took a week (technically just under a week) off after graduating from residency. I'd already passed the boards so as soon as residency was officially over and my program director submitted the final things I was board-certified. Which is fucking bananas! I'm still me! I'm still just a weird chump with frizzy hair, two to three chins at any given time and slowly developing jowls, a mustache and over the last couple of years a beard I savagely beat into submission with my favorite tweezers every fucking day, the short-term memory of a goldfish, zero ability to remember anyone's face or name but a near-godlike recall for bit-part actors in television shows based on just a few seconds of hearing their voice, a long-term obsession with Sherlock Holmes since the 4th grade back in the early 90s long before Moffat put his greasy mitts all over them, and some weird kinks I literally never talk about because I don't want to. I am such a peculiar, obsessive, hoarding, strident freak! And now I'm a board-certified physician. Jesus Christ. The only thing worse than knowing that I'm a doctor is knowing that my classmates are doctors. Not the ones from residency, they're all cool, but the ones from my actual medical school. You know! The ones who accidentally boned the same woman on an away rotation they did sequentially and then made homophobic jokes about sloppy seconds! Those ones! The ones who wore shirts with boner jokes on them to class while being devout Mormons who thought women belonged in the kitchen! The one who said awful things about Tamir Rice and then said he couldn't be racist because his nephew was black! THOSE ASSHOLES! THEY'RE PROBABLY ALSO DOCTORS NOW! I don't know for sure because I'm not friends with any of them on Facebook because they're horrible assholes and I called them all homophobic and racist and sexist to their fucking faces, but DON'T TRUST DOCTORS UNTIL OR UNLESS THEY SHOW YOU A REASON TO.

Anyway, I've been finding some solace in obsessively looking at different things I might get for our house. We're closing soon, thank God, but the current owners wanted to stay until the end of August because they're building a new house and it won't be done until then (and do I believe it will actually be done then? No.) and we wanted to be very attractive buyers in this godforsaken housing market where you have to bring an elephant's weight in gold and several wine bottles of your own blood to even get a chance, so we said sure, so we're still a month and a half from moving in. UGH. It's worth it, but it's giving me all the anxiety. I feel paralyzed, because I can't do shit about most of the planning and decorating until I'm actually in the space. And somehow I can't do any of my other hobbies, either. I can't write. I can't bake. I've been getting stoned more often than usual, but I did that on Friday night and frankly it just annoyed me because I didn't enjoy losing the ability to string my thoughts together. Sometimes I'm really in the mood to get stoned and it feels lovely and freeing, and sometimes it's just an annoying hindrance.

And I can't drink because my acid reflux is so bad right now. I doubled up on the omeprazole, which I never tell patients to do, and it did help some, but I'm still always one acidic beverage away from feeling like I'm going to die. I threw up a couple of months ago and I honestly think it was from just having too much acid in my stomach for my body to cope with. So naturally I'm worried I've got one of those crazy tumors, starts with a Z, Zollingers? that tells your stomach to make acid. Do I? Almost certainly not! Will that stop me from worrying about it? Boy howdy, no!

However, I have had some really nice moments. Last week I had a patient who had a history of migratory polyarthralgias. He'd never been definitively diagnosed, though he'd been tentatively diagnosed with gout based on presentation and placed on allopurinol. He was sitting in my office with a huge, swollen, painful knee, and I thought, well fuck it he needs a knee aspiration. Have I done one of those before? No! But I've put enough corticosteroids and hyaluronic acid into knees that I figured I had a good shot at getting something out, and it wasn't pretty but I did it. I got a good sample of knee juice all by myself. It felt great. For me. The patient was in a substantial amount of pain. However, it did give us a definitive diagnosis--birefringent monodium urate crystals! That's gout, baby! Sure, it presented a little weird, but because I stuck a big-ass needle into his knee now we know for sure and I wrote him for colchicine, which somehow no one else had???? despite the diagnosis of gout on his chart???????

I haven't really felt completely at sea much at all these first couple weeks of being an attending. I have an MA who is a sweet ray of sunshine and she is very determined to do a good job, and we get along well. I'm slowly settling in. I feel more and more like a real doctor and less like some crazed impostor wearing a doctor suit every day.

There's bad stuff, plenty of it, but overall I'm feeling pretty lucky. Mostly. Except for how today I had a bunch of caffeine and dairy, so my stomach is telling me that this was a Mistake. But! In counterpoint, the Baskin-Robbins Flavor of the Month was really delicious, and I regret very little. Not nothing, but very little.

#signed sincerely doctor rex

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canaryatlaw · 4 years

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okay, well today was fine. I woke up briefly at like 10:15 and looked at my phone, people were talking about starting a gaming session and I considered getting up and participating but decided I wanted to sleep more, so I went back to sleep until like 2:24 I think when I woke up again and actually got up that time. I got clothes on and then came downstairs, had some food and then ended up getting sent on a trip to Target for a few things my mom needed and a few things I wanted to get. I really liked how the donuts from yesterday turned out and my brother wanted me to make more so I grabbed a few things for that, and I’d been wanting to try out the magnolia bakery banana pudding recipe they released recently so I got a few things for that, and an extra can of sweetened condensed milk (I already needed one for the banana pudding) in case I decide to make this recipe I found called “butter rolls” which is basically a variation of a cinnamon roll but cooked in like this creamy sauce and it looks really good, and we had all the other ingredients so I just grabbed that, and we’ll see what happens. I also grabbed some drinks and some snacks and a few other things, pretty successful trip overall. I came home to find we’d just been paid a visit by my cousin’s cousin whose family lives out east on LI (so it’s my uncle who married my mom’s sister’s family members, in this case his nephew) on a farm and they brought us a ton of like fresh produce and stuff and a whole bunch of like good quality snacks and like pancake mix and just a whole bunch of stuff, so that was good. I put the groceries away and shortly afterwards I had to somewhat participate in a phone call with the estate lawyer that’s helping us figure things out. It was a fairly boring conversation where I feel like we didn’t learn too much more than we already knew, and I kinda tuned out for some of it answering some twitter messages. the main thing here that’s actually going to matter is what we do with the law firm, which is either going to be that my older brother quits his job as a prosecutor and takes over, which was always supposed to be the plan, just not this soon, or if he chooses not to do so and then we’d have to figure out if we wanted to have someone else run it temporarily or sell it to another firm that we’d referred a lot of cases to and other such things. the thing is it has to be held by a lawyer licensed in New York, which of course means I don’t qualify, and we were talking about the possibility of maybe operating pro hac vice in NY (which just means temporary licensing basically) but that would probably be more trouble than it’s worth and tbh it’s not really something I want to do, like I will if necessary but it’s not what I would choose. so yeah, we’re figuring that out. I do think the best choice is my brother taking over, and I know my mom feels the same way, but we really don’t want to put any pressure on him about it because it absolutely needs to be his decision, it would obviously be a huge career shift for him and he’d have to out a lot of work into it, and it could be risky financially because he currently has a guaranteed salary at his job, whereas with the firm it would all be up in the air depending on the cases. so yeah, that was a lot. we finished up the phone call and had dinner shortly afterwards (more pasta leftovers) and then I grabbed my laptop and earbuds and watched this week’s batwoman episode. I tried taking notes while watching since I wasn’t livetweeting, but then of course they ended up being a lot more detailed than the notes I would write afterwards, so we’ll have to see how that works out. Once I was finished with that it was like 8 pm, so I took a few minutes to prep the first part of the banana pudding recipe (the pudding part) that needed to sit in the fridge overnight to set. that wasn’t terribly difficult, basically just combining sweetened condensed milk with vanilla pudding mix and some water, then sticking it in the fridge overnight. after that I just chilled for a bit until Legends came on at 9 for me to watch and livetweet. I really enjoyed this episode, I thought it was a lot of fun and very classic Legends humor. I still don’t know where they’re taking Sara’s plotline here with the powers and such, but I guess we’ll see what they do going forward. it’s been fun though, so that’s good, and I think the team is really starting to jive together with the more recent additions. after that was over I just kinda chilled in the kitchen for a bit with various family members around, my sister had pulled out the waffle maker and was trying to make waffles but only had the bisquick “shake and pour” mix that’s only supposed to be used for pancakes so it was very watery and the first like two waffles came out like kind of hollow with it mostly just being like the crust around it with not much inside, so she gave me one of those and it was actually really good for what it was haha so I enjoyed that. and yeah, basically I just chilled for a bit longer down there before coming upstairs to shower, do my pills for the week, and start getting ready for bed, and now I’m here. It’s just a bit past 1 am so definitely time for bed and I’ll end this here. Goodnight dearies. Sleep tight.

#daily journal #May 2020

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mysmashplaythroughs · 4 years

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Donkey Kong Playthrough

Fighter: Donkey Kong.

Game: Donkey Kong Country, Wii U Virtual Console (SNES). First released November 21st 1994.

Fighter Bio.

He’s the leader of the bunch, you know him well, he’s finally back, to kick some tail. Donkey Kong is a gorilla (although it might be more correct to say he’s of the Kong species which we’ll go into later) who lives on and is the leader of Donkey Kong Island. He is not the first Donkey Kong as the original DK was the one who fought Mario in the arcade game of the same name, however that Donkey Kong is now an elderly ape known as Cranky Kong. When it comes to the current Donkey Kong’s relation to Cranky Kong it has not always been entirely clear, with DK being called in the past Cranky Kong’s son and more commonly now his Grandson. Compounding this is that the original Donkey Kong had a son called Donkey Kong Jr, who initially was believed to be the current Donkey Kong, but now it’s said that the current DK is actually Jr’s son. As with most Nintendo characters, it’s not entirely important and the main point is that the Donkey Kong from Donkey Kong Country onward is the current DK.

Donkey Kong can be a hero, but more often than not is motivated by fairly simple means into action, one of the most common of which is his banana hoard being stolen and him going on a journey to take it back. He is more laid back than the original Donkey Kong, preferring to just laze about eating bananas, however he has inherited Cranky’s temper when it comes to people taking what he wants. In most cases this is justified such as when it comes to his banana hoard or having his Island taken over, but there have been some occasions where he has gone on a rampage for more selfish reasons, such as the new Mini Mario toy he wanted going out of stock, causing him to steal them from the factory. Despite this, he has often been shown to care about his friends and family, and help out others when he feels in the mood such as in various Mario series spin-off games.

He has great strength and despite not being the absolute strongest Kong, is also faster than the few who are more powerful than him such as Chunky Kong. One of his trademark skills is throwing barrels, something Cranky Kong did back during his rivalry with Mario, and something the current Donkey Kong does in various adventures he goes on when he can get his hands on them. Although his ‘nephew’ Diddy Kong and others are much faster, DK can still move pretty well both on land, jumping from platform to platform and swimming in the sea. He’s more intelligent than most animals being able to use tools such as a coconut gun and having his own treehouse, however there are other Kongs who are more industrious than him making him of fairly average intelligence in comparison. He has sometimes been shown able to speak, although it seems more often he can only communicate with other creatures from his island rather than humans such as Mario.

Friends: Donkey Kong’s best friend is Diddy Kong, who at times has been called DK’s nephew, although in other cases a “nephew-wannabe”. Another friend of his also considered his best friend besides Diddy is Funky Kong who despite the last name has no known relation to DK beyond being a friend. Kong seems to be more of a species of ape which the various characters on DK Island belong to than a family name. His implied love interest is Candy Kong although their true relationship remains a mystery. Cranky Kong as stated before is said to be Donkey Kong’s grandfather and as his name implies tends to be grouchy often going on about how much better games were back in his day before all these fancy graphics and gimmicks. Wrinkly Kong is DK’s grandmother who is married to Cranky Kong. She passed away following Donkey Kong Country 3, however she still returns as a ghost to help out the various Kongs from time to time. DK is mostly friendly with the other various Kongs in the series, however he has not often interacted as much with them, with often Diddy being more related to characters such as Swanky Kong. DK has teamed up with Diddy’s girlfriend Dixie Kong recently however, Dixie having saved Donkey Kong in the past when he had been kidnapped a couple of times.

DK also has various animal friends, often referred to as Animal Buddies who he can ride to help him through levels. The most famous and long running of these is Rambi the Rhino. Expresso the Ostrich, Winky the Frog and Enguarde the Swordfish have also let DK ride them in the past to help him in his adventure. Squawks the Parrot is unable to carry DK, but has helped him in other ways such as carrying a torch for him in dark places, delivering messages to him and helping DK spot rare collectables in a level. There are also the various Mario characters DK has interacted with in spin-off Mario games. These include characters such as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi and many others. DK has been shown to get along well with most of them, although he has a competitive spirit for many of the sports and other competitions he takes part in. He has also been a helpful character in games such as Mario Party often giving characters bonuses for landing on his spot on the board. Finally, it’s important to mention the character who the original Donkey Kong knew and kidnapped in his feud with Mario, Pauline. The current Donkey Kong has met Pauline a couple of times in the Mario vs Donkey Kong series, and often when he’s gotten upset he’s kidnapped her, however he often is calmed down by her and reconciles with her and Mario in the end, even working together one time to test Mario’s new Mini Mario toys.

Enemies/Rivals: DK’s main enemy is King K Rool, the leader of the Kremlings who has stolen his Banana Hoard multiple times. K Rool has also however managed to kidnap DK a couple of times, often by catching him off-guard, which makes him arguably the most dangerous villain he’s ever faced. Other enemies DK has faced over the years include the instrument themed Tiki Tak Tribe, the Viking Snowmads who took over his island and fairly rare run ins with Bowser in a couple of Mario Spin-off games where he’s playable. DK doesn’t have the same antagonistic relationship with Mario as Cranky Kong once did, however he has been at odds with him before, such as with the previously mentioned Mini Mario toy incident. Often this is due to DK’s temper however and afterwards he will calm down and reconcile with Mario. Finally, in one unusual case, Donkey Kong travelled to various Kingdoms fighting their kings in order to conquer their islands, which brought him into conflict with various Kongs and other large beasts, finally culminating with him battling the evil Cactus King. Following his defeat of the Cactus King he celebrated with the other Kongs which seemed to suggest they had become allies in the end. Personally I prefer to think of the somewhat unusual events of this game as actually being the original Donkey Kong as it would fit his more rage fuelled rampages than the current DK, but there’s no word really on it either way and the game’s too obscure for it to likely be clarified.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Donkey Kong himself has had a few crossovers over the years with other Smash Bros characters. In Mario Kart 8, DK crossed over with Link (his Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild incarnations), Inklings, Isabelle and some human Animal Crossing Villagers. Samus herself didn’t appear in Tropical Freeze, however her gunship can be seen in the background of Busted Bayou seemingly crash landed in the vines. Metroids also make a cameo appearance underwater in Amiss Abyss, appearing in the background floating up to the surface. Mr Game & Watch similarly to Mario crossed over with DK in the Game & Watch Gallery series, however it seems this version of DK is actually the original aka Cranky Kong, as he was often accompanied in this game by DK Jr rather than Diddy Kong. Mr Game & Watch also appeared in Donkey Kong Country Returns as a cameo in the background of the stage Foggy Fumes hammering a pipe. DK appeared as part of the group in the NES version of Tetris playing instruments, this being the original version of DK also. He was playing the drum alongside Pit, Samus, Link and Mario. DK was in all but the original Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series, first appearing in the first Olympic Winter Games, as such crossing over with Sonic and many characters from his series, often interacting most with other power-based characters such as Knuckles and Vector the Crocodile.

Although I do not want to go into other media too often, Donkey Kong technically appeared in Captain N the Games Master cartoon. In this he was based on the original DK and more like King Kong being a giant angry antagonistic ape. Through this show, DK crossed over with Megaman, Simon Belmont and Pit once again. Perhaps the biggest crossover for DK was his appearance in Punch-out on the Wii as a secret boss. DK would sometimes appear in the audience for matches watching as Little Mac made his way to become the champ. During Little Mac’s Last Stand, a mode where Little Mac will retire from boxing after three losses, he decides to take on the champ himself in the ring, making him the final new opponent faced in the game. The original DK and DK Jr also appeared in the crowd in the arcade Punch-out games. DK appeared in all of the Mario Kart GP arcade games, crossing over with Pac-Man, interestingly their only game crossover despite both being famous for starting as arcade games. Finally, despite a lot of association between the series, DK himself never crossed over with Banjo and Kazooie, although in an early beta version of DK64 there was a shower stall with their faces on it in DK’s Treehouse which was later removed. Whether this would have involved a crossover with the games such as the Stop N Swap features planned for Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie is unknown at this point.

Why this game?

Donkey Kong is known best as a character who is typically one of the most powerful in the games he’s in, including Smash Bros. Over the years he has had various games where he’s been playable, with his own series, Donkey Kong Country. What’s interesting with this series is that in the original three games DK himself was only playable in the very first, having been kidnapped by K Rool in the second and third games. He returned to being playable in DK64 where he was the first of 5 characters that were unlockable in the game being second only to Chunky Kong in strength. After Rareware, the developers of the Donkey Kong Country games and DK64 were sold to Microsoft, Nintendo came out with a new game, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. In this game DK was probably the most violent and powerful he’d been shown in a platformer, with his moves often involving beating his enemies repeatedly with powerful attacks. After this and a long break, the Donkey Kong Country series finally returned in a game called fittingly Donkey Kong Country Returns, a new 2.5D platformer in which DK had to go across his island to reclaim his banana hoard again. This time however, he had to take it back from the Tiki Tak Tribe rather than the Kremlings as in the original series. This game managed to make DK feel more powerful as he did in Jungle Beat but also keep the same platforming style of the original games with one of the most notable features being how the environments DK would travel through would often change based on his actions, with him smashing his way through various locations.

So, with many of the later games focusing more on DK’s power, why did I choose Donkey Kong Country rather than the later games to represent DK? Well, simply put because those games all build off of the foundation Donkey Kong Country set down. Before Donkey Kong Country, DK had only appeared in games where he was an enemy of Mario or in one case a pest exterminator called Stanley. With a remake of the original arcade game on Gameboy having come out within the same year, only a few months before DKC, it’s easy to compare the two to see just how different the original DK was to the one who’s used today. Donkey Kong in this new game was made into a new character from the original, with the original now becoming Cranky Kong, a grouchy old ape past his prime. Donkey Kong Country introduced DK’s new home of DK Island, a new cast who helped him on his adventure along with a new set of enemies in the Kremlings and their leader King K Rool. DK’s design was also changed, one which has stuck pretty much to this day with the odd sort of hairstyle the fur on his head makes. It’s for this reason I feel when looking at DK’s origins, this game is the best place to start, as it was the game that essentially redefined DK into the form he has to this day.

My past with this game.

This game and series as a whole are very important to me and a huge part of my gaming history. This series along with Mario were the games I grew up with, with this and Super Mario Bros 3 I believe being probably the first videogames I ever played. As such, I admit to having a massive nostalgia bias to the series, however, I still to this day feel this is a fantastic game, amongst some of my personal favourite games of all time. This game specifically isn’t my favourite of the series. In comparison to the other two Donkey Kong Country games, this game was shorter with less secrets, such as the secret worlds and secret final bosses the other two games had to offer. However, I definitely wouldn’t pass it up in favour of the other two games and I have enjoyed replaying it many times over the years. One aspect I have fond memories of personally is that this was one of the few games my parents would play with me, with my Dad in particular being a big fan of it. It was probably one of the only games where I had the experience of starting off being far worse at the game than my Father but gradually getting better until finally, I could beat the game, something he’d not been able to do. As such I suppose I could consider this game as sort of a benchmark for me with regards to finally starting to actually finish games. I have other personal memories from my childhood relating to this game, such as only really being able to play when my parents would allow me to set up the SNES as I was around 4-5 years old and having my Cousins over to play the game with me, but I don’t feel going into that much more would really add a lot to this.

With regards to the gameplay itself etc, the game was fairly simple to the point I could play it as my first game, but even now there are definitely a fair few challenges later down the line, granted nothing on the level of other games around at the time and earlier that I’d never played such as Megaman and Castlevania, but definitely parts that I had to play a lot of times to get past. I remember one specific stage I had trouble with to the point that I actually asked my parents if I could phone the Nintendo Helpline. The level in question was Slipslide Ride, a level where there were ropes you would climb, with the purple ones constantly sliding you down and the blue ones constantly sliding you up. The part I got stuck on was where the only option to proceed was to climb up two purple ropes, however trying to climb up wouldn’t work due to the constant slipping with you only at best being able to stay in place. I remember when I managed to get through on the Nintendo Helpline the operator on the other end gave me the solution, which was to jump between the two purple ropes which would let you gradually get higher until you could jump off them onto the platform above. So what’s the moral of the story? Well, I’d say it’s that I’ve always been a stinky cheater even before looking up solutions on the internet was a thing. Although really, I’m only mentioning this because I find it sort of an interesting example of one of the possible ways to get help with games before you could just look up a walkthrough on the internet. Of course, I believe book guides and game magazines were probably around at the time that I could have used, but being a fairly young kid then and not really seeing many other kids beyond my Cousins sometimes meant that I wasn’t really aware of most of these options. I forget now if the Nintendo Helpline was meant to be one for people with actual issues with their systems or games etc or was advertised as a service for help with “game tips” also, either way I was probably one of those kids who would lead to Nintendo’s attempts to put help features into games down the line, i.e. a true hero.

Something not particularly good for the subject of this post, Donkey Kong himself is he tended to be shown up in this game by his new friend Diddy, with his only real advantage being he could defeat a specific enemy Diddy couldn’t. DK could defeat Krusha a muscle-bound Kremling, and could defeat two other enemies Diddy couldn’t as easily, being Klump a Kremling with a hardhat that Diddy had to cartwheel into, and Army an Armadillo who Diddy would have to jump on once to bring him out of his ball form and then jump on again to defeat. DK could defeat both of these enemies with just a single jump. Diddy on the other hand, would move faster and was nimbler with his jumps, although DK could still manage to jump as far as was needed in the game, everyone I knew who played the game would always prefer to keep Diddy in reserve when playing. This brings me onto another aspect that at the time and even now I quite liked about the game, how the Kongs would team up. Instead of playing through stages as either DK or Diddy alone, you would play as one of the Kongs with the other following you. When you got hit by an enemy, the Kong who was hit would run away and you’d take control of the Kong who was following. The Kong who was following you wouldn’t be able to do anything, being more of a ghost really in actual gameplay, just following you along not being affected by enemies or obstacles. This I feel really added to the atmosphere of the game as you didn’t feel as alone as in other games unless you’d lost one of the Kongs, and with DK and Diddy often being on-screen together it helped make them feel more of a duo than other game characters at the time such as Mario and Luigi, who in most of their games then would take turns going through levels on their own rather than together. The game also did a good job of avoiding the screen becoming too cluttered or confusing the Kong you were controlling for the one you weren’t by making the one following have a slightly more faded look, making it easier to focus on the character you were specifically controlling at the time. In order to bring back one of the Kongs you’d lost when you were down to just one you would have to find a DK barrel to break them out of, which you might recognise in Smash as being DK and Diddy’s entrance animation.

Atmosphere is probably why this game has always been so nostalgic to me. I’ve never cared overly much for graphics (although I definitely can appreciate when something looks good) and whilst this game at the time was fairly breath-taking graphically, the music and the art style were probably the bigger aspect of why I loved the game, with me often as a kid enjoying drawing all the different characters and enemies and reading the instruction manual to look at the various artwork in it. The series would get even better from here, but there are a lot of visual aspects unique to this game that stand out even now. Probably one of the most cited examples at the time was in the very first stage where just before you reached the end of it the sun would set and the place would turn from day to night. It’s hard really to describe atmosphere much more as it’s something you get just from playing or seeing the game itself, so I think it’s best to leave it at saying simply I’ve always liked it in this game.

My Smash Playthrough.

As I’ve stated before, this is a game I’ve played through a few times before, and I was looking forward to doing so again. Although this is the second post I’m making, at the time this was probably the fifth game I played roughly. The reason why is that I made this list before Smash Bros Ultimate was announced and gave an order to the fighters, so rather than having DK as fighter 2 I had the characters more often shown in various trailers, such as the first trailer for Smash Wii U with Mario, Link, Kirby and Pikachu as the first ones on my list. It was due to this therefore I was on a roll and moved pretty quickly onto this game seeing as the previous game I’d played for Kirby wasn’t very long or difficult. Replaying this game from what I remember I didn’t run into many problems and it was overall the same fun experience I’ve always found it to be replaying it.

So when it comes to remembering this run again as it was some time ago there aren’t many things that stick out in my mind. Stages I remember having issues with were mostly ones I’ve always found difficult, and I think most people do. One of them, Tanked up Trouble was a level I’d always found irritating as you are on a platform with five lights on it which gradually go out. You have to collect fuel barrels in order to bring the lights back on, and if the lights all go out the platform would fall with you on it. Of course, you also had to stay on the moving platform the whole time or else you would fall off the stage, and enemies would be waiting to block your way requiring you to either avoid them or jump on them if you could all while not losing track of and landing back on the platform. I believe overall I didn’t find this level as difficult as I had in the past, although I definitely had a couple of deaths on it. Probably the hardest level overall was Platform Perils, the final regular level in the game which has you jumping between various small moving platforms. The biggest issue on this stage however was the grey Krushas, exclusive to this stage. These variations of Krusha enemies were strong enough that even DK couldn’t beat them by jumping on them, requiring a barrel to be thrown at them as the only way of defeating them. Due to this, often the stage would require you to carry a barrel on small moving platforms and not drop or accidentally break it before you reached the Krusha who is on another small platform you need to get onto. If you lost the barrel there was no way to defeat the Krusha meaning you’d end up dying and having to try the level again. This level took me many attempts I remember and was probably the biggest challenge I had, but eventually I beat it, leading on to me beating the final bosses not too much longer after.

When replaying this game, I’ll admit there was one negative that stood out to me more now than I remember when playing it as a kid, which is objects in the foreground. I think this is more a problem I’ve found myself than one that many people commonly find, but I’d sometimes find myself getting irritated in stages where there would be decorations in the foreground that go past. I would not find them big enough to actually block the view of gameplay, but moving quickly through a stage and having them go by would on some occasions be something I’d find irritating to look at, with some examples being the stalactites and stalagmites in the cave levels that would appear in the foreground as you went along. Another irritating visual effect I’ve found is the blizzard effect in the snow stages. The point of it of course is to make it more difficult to see, however I would find it somewhat taxing on my eyes at times, and with the stages often requiring either precise jumping on platforms or timing when to blast from one barrel cannon to another it could get very irritating. One improvement I’d say in the virtual console release is the removal of a specific effect in the stage Torchlight Trouble. In this stage you are going through a dark cave and require Squawks the Parrot to follow you with a torchlight so you could see where you’re going. In the original version of the game, every time you’d turn Squawks would turn and shine the torchlight directly at the screen creating a bright flash for a fraction of a second. This would happen every time you turned and I remember finding it could be very irritating, so I was glad to see the Virtual Console release had gotten rid of the flash.

The bosses are fairly average when it comes down to it, and out of the three games in the series probably the least interesting. This isn’t helped by two of them being basically recoloured harder versions of earlier bosses later in the game, although this game was hardly the first to do this. This does get a funny reference in the GBA remake of this game where Cranky Kong will appear to talk with DK after each boss, and on the first recolour boss he appears to basically complain about how lazy the designers are just reusing an earlier boss. Probably one of the few aspects of the remakes I liked. Most of the bosses simply require you to jump on them when you get the chance, with the others requiring you either to simply avoid them and kill the enemies they spawn, or throw barrels at them when they’re not invincible. The bosses consist of larger versions of regular enemies such as the giant beaver Very Gnawty which is a bigger version of the regular Gnawty enemies. The final boss King K Rool however is easily the best boss in the game. He’s fairly challenging and has a lot of fun attacks. I don’t want to spoil too much of the boss fight against him as a lot of it relates to his portrayal in Smash so I will simply say he makes a great conclusion to the game.

The game’s ending isn’t particularly special, but of course personally it holds a lot of nostalgia for me, especially being one of the first ever endings I actually got to in a game. The music for it is a really nice ending track and it has a nice cast call with every character, enemy and boss in the game walking through DK’s Treehouse with their name being displayed below. I tend to like these endings in games as it’s a fun recap of what you’ve gone through in the game. I didn’t 100% (or as this is a Rareware game 101%) the game, mostly as the only real reward is Cranky Kong’s dialogue changes from saying ‘if I’d been playing I’d have found everything’ to congratulating you. Also, I tend to leave some things in the games I’ve been playing through so I have something that if I feel like coming back to the game later down the line I can still do. Overall, despite the few complaints I brought up, this is still an amazing game and one that will always be very important to me personally which I enjoyed playing through again.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Donkey Kong in Smash.

Donkey Kong is another character who doesn’t really have equipment he uses in the game, nor any really customisable aspects. Unlike Mario in Super Mario 64 however, he also doesn’t have a lot of moves he really draws from this game. The only moves he has in Smash Bros that come from this game specifically are his forward roll, which was added in his later Smash Bros appearances, and his Hand Slap move. This move involves DK slapping the ground with his hands, often defeating enemies who are right in front of him when he does it, producing a single banana when they’re defeated and being usable sometimes to find hidden items in the floor. It is fairly difficult to use on enemies not having a very far reach and is fairly slow making it not very useful, especially in comparison to just jumping on or rolling into enemies. Later games such as Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze would make this ability far more powerful and useful, but this is where it originated and as such is what the move in Smash Bros is based on. One final aspect from this game that DK uses in Smash Bros is his ability to lift barrels and move around with them. In Smash Bros DK was one of the only characters in the original game who could lift heavy objects such as barrels and walk around with them. Later games would have other big characters such as Bowser also be able to do this, however DK has another ability unique to him. When grabbing another character, DK can lift them similar to how he lifts heavy objects such as barrels and he can carry them around before throwing them or they escape from his grasp, which is most likely based on his carrying abilities with barrels in this game. The only other thing of note which I mentioned earlier is DK’s stage entrance involves him breaking out of a DK barrel, similarly to how he will be trapped in one when playing as Diddy alone in this game and will have to be broken out of it.

Credits.

Information such as release dates were found through Super Mario Wiki and Donkey Kong Wiki.

Screenshots taken by me using Miiverse.

#Donkey Kong #DK #Donkey Kong Country #Super Smash Bros #SNES #Wii U #Virtual Console #My Smash Playthrough #My Smash Playthroughs

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mibasiamille · 7 years

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omg i forgot about paperboy please continue it!!!!

you ain’t the only one, anon. but ask and you shall receive! 😘

catch up on the first part here!

paperboy: part two

december 27th, 1982

Ian woke up the morning of December 27th around 4:45 AM, feeling rather warm–but not hotter than usual.

5:00 AM: He stepped into the shower, quickly rubbed a bar of soap over his body before shampooing his hair and jumping right back out again.

5:15 AM: After changing into his clothes, he ran down the staircase, brushing his teeth. He reached for a banana on the counter.

5:18 AM: His uncle rounded the corner from the study, looking intently at his nephew as he attempted to brush his teeth and eat at the same time.

“What in God’s name are ye doing, man?” He implored of his nephew, setting his newspaper down on the counter and leaning against it, eyebrows raised.

Ian looked from his toothbrush in one hand to the banana in the other, thinking of a proper way of explaining himself. He shrugged slightly, with a sheepish grin on his face. “Killin’ two birds with one stone?”

Jamie shook his head, a smile gracing his lips.

5:23 AM: Ian bid farewell to his uncle, and went to head out the door. Jamie stopped him, however, as soon as he hit the doorframe.

“Ian, the back of yer shirt is drenched.”

“Well,” Ian replied, “I did take a shower, Uncle.”

“I ken that, ye dolt. I mean that ye’re sweating, wi’ it bein’ freezing outside.” Jamie shook his head, then gestured his hand towards himself. “Come ‘ere, then.”

Ian, rolling his eyes slightly, and, shoulders slouched, walked towards his uncle. Jamie put the back of his hand against his nephew’s forehead, pursed his lips tightly before instructing the young lad to cough.

The boy did as he was bid, and a bunch of mucus seemed to jump from his lungs to his throat. The sound was thick and disgusting, and Jamie rose his eyebrows at his nephew.

“Looks like ye’re not going to work today, after all,” Jamie smiled, then pushed his nephew lightly on the shoulder towards the staircase. “Back to bed wi’ ye. Make sure you tell yer mother I told you to stay here.”

“Alright,” Ian agreed. He took a step forward but then turned back to his uncle, eyes wide. “What about Geordie?”

“Dinna worry about that, lad,” Jamie smiled. “I’ll take care o’ yer route for you.”

Nodding, Ian turned back to the staircase and took them two at a time, a wide smile on his lips as he went back to his room. Little did his uncle know that Ian was not sick, and just had taken a very hot shower.

And thank God for allergies, he thought to himself as he curled up in his bed, ecstatic at the idea of being able to sleep in.

Despite several attempts to get himself on his nephew’s bike, Jamie instead opted to drive his truck around the suburban neighborhoods of Boone, throwing the papers out the window as he passed. He was able to finish the route in just under an hour, which was much different than poor Ian Murray Jr.’s two-and-a-half-hour biking escapade.

When he pulled into the small subdivision of Simon’s Landing, his heart started to pound. Not from nerves–of course not from nerves–but just from the sheer knowledge of her presence.

He had tried, multiple times, to pick up the phone book and search for her phone number, skimming the yellow pages for Beauchamp, C. And amongst the Lambert’s and John’s and Harrison’s, his finger had hit that inked letter C–with the eight digits following–and he would slam the book closed. Both of the Ian’s had chastised him multiple times over the matter, and even his sister joined in the proceedings once or twice.

“Ask her on a date, ye clotheid,” she frustratedly muttered to her brother over breakfast one morning. “If you dinna want to do it, then I will do it for ye.”

The opportunity had presented itself to him this morning with Ian’s sickness. Whether this was a sign from God or not, he didn’t know. But he took it graciously, and asked Him not to let him screw this up.

With his nerves clogging up his throat, to the point he was almost suffocating, he walked up the few steps to her porch and approached her door. He rang the doorbell once and heard the shrill ring of it echo through the house. Rocking back and forth on his heels, he shoved his hands in his pockets, the newspaper squeezed between his arm and his side.

Every second that passed seemed like years. Each new breath that he exhaled came out in faster waves as his heartbeat increased, the cold morning air causing them to form into mist in front of him. Getting slightly impatient–and worried that she wasn’t inside–he looked through one of the front windows of her porch in search of her.

As soon as he did this, however, the door swung open and there she was.

“Good morning, Mr. Fraser,” she greeted, a warm smile on her face as she pulled her cardigan closer to her body against the brisk morning chill. She looked from his face to the newspaper in his arm and nodded at it. “Is that for me?”

Flustered, he fumbled with the paper in his hands and thrust it forward, unattractively and clumsily, at her face. “Aye, I–uh–yes, this is yours.”

The smile on her face grew ever wider, showing all of her beautiful white teeth. She stepped to the side and opened the door just a tad wider, inviting him to come inside. Still discomfited, he nodded once and came inside, allowing the warmth to envelope him in a blanket of comfort.

“Would you like some coffee? I just made a pot,” she inquired, gesturing to the kitchen where the coffee pot sat in his view. Shaking his head, but thanking her nonetheless, he watched her walk out of the entryway and into the brightly colored room. A moment passed before she turned towards him, a sheepish smile on her lips as she filled up a mug. “You can come in here, you know.”

He took a step, then realized that his boots were wet from the snow outside. Grimacing, he called to her as he went to place his shoes outside, “I’ll take my shoes off outside, so as to not ruin your floors.”

She waved a hand in dismissal, but he didn’t see it. He popped off his boots in front of the door and stepped back inside in his woolen socks.

“So, where’s your nephew this morning?” Claire asked as he stepped into the kitchen, eyebrows raised as she took a sip of her coffee. He committed her drink of choice to memory: Black, no sugar, no creamer.

“He’s at home sick. He woke up wi’ a fever this morning.”

A concerned look crossed over her face as she set down her cup and crossed her arms over her chest. “What were his other symptoms?”

Jamie shrugged, “I’m no’ one to ken exactly what to look for when someone is sick, but he was sweatin’ a lot; his whole shirt was soaked through. His head was hot to the touch and when I asked him to cough, ‘twas the most disgusting thing I’d ever heard.”

Her fingers tapped on her arm in thought before she asked, “Had he taken a shower this morning?”

“Aye,” He replied, eyebrows shrunk together in confusion as she chuckled lightly. “Why?”

She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. The look that she was giving him made him nervous, which caused him to voice a nervous, “What?”

“Well…” She tried to suppress laughter as she took another sip of her coffee. “I do believe that you have been played a fool.”

Jamie, flabbergasted, left out a huff of agitation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Since I haven’t seen him, I can’t say that I’m entirely right, but I do believe that he has nothing more than a small case of allergies.”

Getting rather annoyed, he crossed his arms and stared at her crossly. “And how do you know that, just from the wee bit of information that I’ve shared wi’ ye?”

She was trying so hard to keep her smile contained from behind the rim of her coffee cup. “Because I’m a pediatrician, Mr. Fraser. It’s my job.”

If he thought he was embarrassed before, he was downright mortified. His face flushed and words seemed to die in his throat; not a single one of the apologies he could think of were enough to excuse his error. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to kneel at her feet and beg for mercy.

As much as he thought she was mad at him, though, he could see that it was much the opposite. She seemed amused at his tongue-tied state, Damn her, and the smirk on her lips proved it.

Scrambling to find a way to make it up to her, he stammered out, “Can I take ye to dinner?”

A cringe formed on his face as he watched her eyes widen then return to their normal size, but the smile didn’t leave her face. Before she could answer, he went to explain himself, the words spilling out of his mouth in a long stream of word vomit. “I mean, not that I like ye more now that I know that ye’re a doctor. My opinion has really been the same since I first met ye, it’s just that–”

“I would love to go to dinner,” she interrupted, setting her coffee mug down on the counter. She turned from his shocked face to her refrigerator, where a small calendar rested to mark her schedule. He watched as she pulled a marker from the holder and went to find a day she had off, her slender finger pointing to the 31st. “What are your plans for New Year’s Eve, Mr. Fraser?”

Shifting from foot to foot, he shrugged. “Nothin’ much, I dinna think. I don’t start workin’ again until the New Year.”

“I work in the morning, but maybe we can do something that night,” she started to write his name down as Mr. Fraser but stopped short. She turned sheepishly to him and murmured, “I suppose since we know each other well enough now, we could know each other by our first names, right, Jamie?”

Jamie nodded with a smile, savoring the sound of his name on her lips. “I suppose so, Claire.”

#hey look i was able to write something!#woooooot #thanks for asking about it anon!#idk when this will ever get updated again but /shrugs #this is good enough for now #also i realize i love writing jamie and claire when they first meet #why? idk #paperboy #outlander fanfic #outlander au #mine #my fanfic

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