My vacation is not over but I've checked and over the last two weeks I've hit a private creative writing word count of 53,696 words and I gotta say it's felt good to grind away like that.

now that i’ve seen lord of the rings, i can truly appreciate all the memes

This kind of post is unconnected from the operating maneuvers of the century thus far from Iraq to Palestine to now. A baby's post. A child's answer. A deeply violent and self-harming mathematician's quibble. What are you doing?

Democrats fall asleep every night and dream about being as openly cruel as the right wing. They crave it. They truly resent that their path to political power had to be earned with a veneer of "decorum" and would love nothing more than to live as *deliciously* as the hyenas in the Shadowlands.

That's Cold Steel 3 done. Great time with this one. it moved at a brisk pace as well! *Easily* the most focused character writing of this arc bar none. no one's been more right about anything than Juna Crawford and whoever decided to give Rean these gay little glasses knew what they were doing.

I really don't now what a sane path forward is except a complete and fundamental re-imagining of this country's relationships with literally everyone. How can anyone, anywhere, not fear they're next?

it's a real symptom of widespread anti-progressive media bias that an explicitly progressive candidate is expected to feel a need to be apologetic about being progressive.

Show... a little more respect... for faerie tales, Riskbreaker.

See you later, 2025. You truly were a wretched year! And yet... Still here and still alive. Which is still something.

I've been on a Trails kick to finally hit up the Daybreak games and it really has been a fantastic time. It's a rich and varied series whose slow burn and long-run allows it to do some things that many stories in games don't always get to do! This remake is a great chance to get started!

agreed all-timer line

That's wraps on Cold Steel II! Just a better game all around than CS1 with more "stuff" happening. Much more momentum, improved writing even if some characters are a bit more flat than others. It also starts to cash a lot of very fun plot checks and that's kinda what we're all here for ain't it?

I think about Harvestella constantly. I tell people you should play Harvestella and grin like a demon dog when they ask if that's the farming game. Extreme run for Square-Enix only a handful of years ago when they made so much amazing stuff. Dungeon Encounters! God, Dungeon Encounters!

Watching THE GREEN KNIGHT again

campingbaras

yeah I finished the Living Memory series!!😇 this is just a dumb repost and many thanks to all RPs, likes and comments I have received🙏🙏🙏 Here I would like to talk more about the ideas abt these four and please check⬇️string if interested🥰💞

shmz’s random red cat collection!!

Me approaching the new members of Thors Military Academy to explain the rules of the new card battle game Blade, popular with many characters in Falcom's Trails of Cold Steel sub-series. "You know Blade's whole deal right? It's okay, we can play some now. Here's a deck to get you started...

Something I think critical spaces need to reckon with is that we're hitting a demographic turnover to a new audience. One that through no real fault of their own doesn't have a sense of the history re: certain topics/discussions. Not a bad thing by itself but I think it explains a lot.

Since I'm still championing Octopath 0 and really sticking by the "RPG battles are to games what songs are to theater" mindset... I do want to say that they do *exactly* that for Agnea's story path in OT2 and give it a completely unique track. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojMR...

Still thinking about Octopath 0 as the year closes out. Really chewed through my thoughts for my review but I think that if I could also do one tiny mini-pitch... This has the best final boss fight of any RPG I've played. kotaku.com/octopath-tra...

Deep nerd stuff on this Cold Steel II playthrough where I pause now and then to write out extra story scenes. Mostly to retrain my mind and hands on how to "Write On Demand." 23,460 words and counting of geek shit that none of will ever get to see. It's a pretty fun way to "play" with a text!

I know she's just kind of saying whatever, but it's on-brand for Bari Weiss to review a damning story about the US sending people to a concentration camp and respond "we can't air this, have you even asked Tom Homan if he feels bad about any of it yet?" Perfect readout of who she sees, and doesn't.

Volume 4 Page 54 #CITY #KeiichiArawi

We all possess energy, Inquisitor. But it is a negative energy. An energy that should not exist. Yet it does, and it awakens the sleeping power...

Titanfall 2 was one of the earliest games I ever reviewed and even now you can log into a storefront and see what I said: "Titanfall 2 is the pinnacle of first person shooters." It really is a little miracle of a game perfect for 1-2 amazing session. And it's a Source game! Daaamn!

bari weiss saw this and decided that she had to hide it from the american public

wow hi random person you are INCREDIBLY party member coded

Mega64 bit where I solemnly walk around my hometown and tell high school friends "Well, Arthur Morgan? You remember him? He died... savin' mah life..."

why bother getting up in the morning anymore

The one thing I didn't grapple with in the blog about Expedition 33 which I'm kinda regretting I could not do is that I think there's also just a nationalism thing happening there which extends beyond a simply a bit of haha quirkiness. And I dunno if anyone's really dug into that?

‘everyone in gamedev is using AI’ the business dumdums are using it to generate decks and write bad copy. They think it’s good because they think their basic lore ideas make a good game. that’s it that’s who is using AI

Phantasy Star Online ver.2 (DC / Sonic Team / 2001) - Pioneer II

There's a way in which many people in the audience (films, games, whatever) are inherently suspicious of storytellers and this is an example of how that manifests. It's a compulsion to *beat* the art they consume. Find a way to assert themselves over the work. Selfish and stupid.

That's the Trails of Cold Steel 1 re-play down! Gettin' done in one week ( 8 days really) is a pretty rapid pace. I like it more a second time around since I can pick up on the little things. Somehow scratches a kind of Skies of Arcadia itch for me in terms of how it plays too. Which is nice.

Interesting to see! I don't really expect major outlets to take a similarly hardline stance but I mean... y'could! I think every possible small pushback against GenAI in games is ultimately worth doing though. Even if I also think it's gonna be harder and harder to avoid contact with *in* games.

People are always saying this about my scrying but respectfully I disagree?

It's that time of the year again

Everyone deserves to exist #ffxivart

idr if I posted this whole thing here ,,

There's exceptions of course but the fact that so much of journalism (especially games journo) has been left in the hands of amoral enthusiasts with no personal principles of their own? bad bad bad bad bad

On the East Coast! Curled up with a dog and writing the most satisfyingly self-indulgent fan fiction. Maybe a hike later if weather clears. Pushing against the urge (especially now the freelancing has kicked off again) to turn everything into content. Just doin' stuff for me and it's pretty nice.

Why We're Boycotting Xbox: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybj1...

✅ Paid ✅ Remote (if preferred) ✅ You get to hang out in Slack with a bunch of idiot bloggers. What else do you need from an internship? defector.com/would-you-li...

I say this with zero irony: if you are even tangentially a part of a retro video game community, it is your civic duty to push back against this company and shun anyone who doesn't. This is fascism tapping gently at the door and as soon as you let it in, it's going to invite its friends.