greghousesgf: (Bertie Smile)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-08 11:03 am

(no subject)

I'm just hanging around here until I have to go to physical therapy this afternoon, looking forward to going to skeptics in the pub tonight once I hear from Dave. My legs hurt too damn much to go swimming the other day. I wish my neighbors would shut up, they're yelling at eachother, I don't know what they're arguing about and it's none of my business anyway but one of them has a very annoying voice.
rocky41_7: (bg3)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote2025-07-07 05:21 pm
Entry tags:

Recent Playing: Disco Elysium

This weekend I finished my first playthrough of Disco Elysium, a primarily text-based game which involves investigating a murder in a fictional world.
 
It's difficult to know what to say about Disco Elysium. The game has, as you may or may not have heard, a phenomenal amount of text in it, and you will only encounter a portion of it on any given playthrough. Having been through it only once, I've seen only a fraction of the game's full text. And it has a lot to say.
 
There's no political scheme that makes it out unscathed in Disco Elysium, from the equivocating and ineffective centrists to the racist fascists to the nostalgia-brained royalists to the flailing and failed communists to the selfish capitalists. Revachol, the country in which the game takes place, is a former monarchy-turned-violent-communist-revolution where other, wealthier nations eventually decided to intervene and now Revachol is ruled by a coalition government of outsiders. Given this situation (the revolution was roughly fifty years prior to the events in-game), everyone has an opinion on politics here. 
 
And the writing is remarkable! Incredibly descriptive, willing to make dark jokes which fit the characters at play while also creating moments of beautiful poignancy and pretty brutal commentary on the state of Revachol and what's been done to it and its people. There are truly lovely moments in Disco Elysium, but this is by no means a light-hearted or cozy game. Revachol, and the neighborhood in which the PC works in particular, is a pit. It's been made that way by the events of the last century, but a pit it is, and one that is teetering on the outbreak of further violence.
 
Furthermore, the PC, whose name I will not share for story reasons, is an absolute wreck of a man. Whatever you are picturing, it's worse. At least a dozen times I looked over my dialogue options and cringed at having to choose one of those. This guy undoubtedly should have been kicked off the force years ago, and muses at one point about whether or not he was sent on this case as a way to clown a rival police department (because he's such a loser). But the writers certainly have created a memorable character, and the PC certainly stands apart from stereotypes of competent lone wolf detectives. This guy wakes up in the opening scene of the game and can't remember his name or what the case is he's supposed to be investigating. 
 
I really enjoyed getting the glimpses into the lives of the NPCs, which felt rich and varied, and you could really believe they had their own stuff going on when the PC wasn't around. Disco Elysium presents a colorful and believable cast of characters hanging around this struggling neighborhood in a struggling country trying to overcome both its past and its present. And it's hard to advance anywhere in the main story if you aren't helping some of these folks out; it's the connections with the people around him that help the PC succeed for the most part, and offering a helping hand to people who've long grown accustomed to being kicked while they're down is the only real way to start breaking down the mistrust and tension in the city.
 
Complimenting this triumph of writing is the artwork! Absolutely gorgeous; vivid, detailed, and full of so much character, both in the designs of the characters themselves as well as the captivating scenery. I was in love with the look of this game from the start and I'm still in awe.
 
Similarly, the voice acting here was great. Since the game is largely text-based, it really relies on the art and the actors to bring it to life, and they do not shirk. Each character voice is unique and appropriate to the given character; I can't think of any who stood out to me as weak links. A superb job by the whole cast.
 
My only complaint is that I was not in love with the gameplay. Advancing the plot, either in main quests or side quests, often relies on passing skill checks. Many can be re-tried ad nauseum, but will become locked once you've failed it, and can only be unlocked by investing XP in the necessary skill. The area you can explore is relatively limited, which means it's unfortunately easy to end up in the position of not being able to advance the plot because the checks are locked, and not being able to unlock the checks because you're out of ways to gain XP. It made parts of the game a very dull slog for me and I had to convince myself to keep going, at some points brute forcing my way through plot-necessary skill checks just to get things moving again.

The "thought cabinet" mechanic is also lacking. While it's an interesting concept and a great idea for story/gameplay integration (various events in-game can trigger thoughts which you can internalize for various benefits or drawbacks), it just doesn't work very well. It takes hours of in-game time to internalize a thought into the network--and time only passes when you're in conversation, so you can spent thirty minutes running around Revachol and not have passed a minute of in-game time--and you can't see before engaging with it what the benefits or drawbacks of a thought might be. So you may spend an XP and hours to internalize a thought only to realize it's useless, or worse, detrimental to your play style. Then you have to spend another XP to remove that thought. It's unnecessarily clunky. 
 
However, having played it once and being more aware of the constraints of the gameplay, I probably will play it again, and hopefully avoid that issue, because the writing and characters in the game really do make it worth additional playthroughs I think. On the whole it's a very well-done game and deserves the attention its received. 

Crossposted to [community profile] gaming 

greghousesgf: (House Schroeder)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-07 01:32 pm

(no subject)

Had some orange blossom tea. I would have loved to get together with L. today but she was busy. Forwarded some SS threatening shit to my dad at his request and got a bracelet repaired by this super nice lady who works at one of the bookstores in my neighborhood (the jewelry stores were all closed, contrary to what it said on my cellphone). I heard today was world chocolate day so I went to my favorite cafe to get a piece of chocolate peanut butter roll cake but they stopped selling it. Booooooo! They didn't do the lemon cake anymore either, I know there's no chocolate in that but I really love that lemon cake too. Double boo! Ordered some new teas, one Yunan for me and one red chai for L. Talked to T. and confirmed that he will be picking me up Friday at 4:30 to go to the concert. I have been wanting to go to the movies lately but nothing seems to be playing around other than movies I already saw and wasn't that impressed with and the usual superhero bullshit. I heard there's something around called Fucktoys that sounded really interesting but it's not playing around here.
reeby10: 'don't worry what people think they don't do it very often' in grey with 'think' and 'often' in red (Default)
Reeby ([personal profile] reeby10) wrote2025-07-06 08:46 pm

Characters20in20 - Round 17 - William Brandt

20 William Brandt from Mission: Impossible icons for [community profile] characters20in20

Preview:


*Icons are free for use.
*Credit and comments are nice.

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greghousesgf: (pic#17096873)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-06 01:09 pm

(no subject)

Just watched a few Blackadders, that's such a great show and not just because Hugh.
rocky41_7: (bg3)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote2025-07-06 09:08 am
Entry tags:

Restart!

So years ago when Larian's last big game Divinity Original Sin II came out, I was very taken and bought it shortly after release. This solidified my loathing of turn-based combat and isometric RPGs, despite how much I enjoyed the art, characters, and story. There was one day I loaded it up and it had not saved a battle I'd finished the night before which had taken maybe an hour to get through and I was just done. I sold it back to Gamestop for like $10 the next day.

Having given BG3 a run and decided it was actually great fun and I could just put the combat on easy and work through it that way, I decided  maybe it was worth giving DOS2 another shot, so here we are. I rebought the game and loaded it up and Xbox prompts me to continue my last save from 2019. Yarmeau, my lizard of I-forgot-what-class-and-origin!

But I'm starting from scratch. I'm sure I messed up countless things on that playthrough and I've forgotten most of the plot. I can already see how playing BG3 has made it easier to get used to the DOS2 gameplay! 

Still playing as a pink lizard lady though. I will get one of them through the finish line here.
seerofrage: Future Catra (Catra future)
seerofrage ([personal profile] seerofrage) wrote2025-07-05 11:24 pm

KPDH + AS

I watched KPop Demon Hunters last night and had such a blast, it's such a fun movie! Some brief thoughts and spoilers under the cut!

the song we couldn't write, this is what it sounds like )

Alien Stage has had some developments since I last posted about it, with its final installment going up a week or so ago!

First up was Final, and I love the song, I listened to it a lot when it first dropped. Love how Luka messes with Till throughout this, just like he did with Mizi. And then Till spotting her in the end, and the flashback of them as kids while she's holding him in her lap, and her tears, ohh man! This series loves to hurt.

Speaking of!! Wiege is so hauntingly beautiful and just so devastating! Hyuna and Luka finally reunite, and her taking the shot for him after everything just destroys me, and that childlike joy on his face as he runs to her before that, oh man!! They have one of the most interesting dynamics in the series, to me, and it's just kind of heartbreaking how it all played out. But that's kind of the name of the game with this series, haha.

Karma is the finale, and ouch ouch does it hurt. So many beautiful shots in this, and I love all the symbolism with the hearts and the different relationships, super cool. And Mizi and Sua omgg, everything with them is just super heartbreaking! The shot of Sua grabbing Mizi from the cliff edge, and them in the bath, and Mizi running to her after catching her watching videos of the losers' deaths, just oh man, so good and devastating. The shot of them all happy together at the end, after everything that's happened, is just so bittersweet, awww. Such a good series!! Such interesting characters, it makes me feel a lot of things. I'll have to go back and watch it all in one go sometime, now that everything's out.
greghousesgf: (pic#17096885)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-05 04:02 pm

(no subject)

Having a great time at the Fillmore jazz festival but my legs hurt so bad!!
greghousesgf: (Hugh Smile)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-04 12:34 pm

(no subject)

A quick entry before I go to my favorite Irish pub:
I had a great time yesterday with my friends, we went swimming and had yummy Korean barbecue chicken wings and beef noodles and great drinks and ice cream and then hung out at their house and watched Rick and Morty and listened to music.
I love America, I just FUCKING HATE TRUMP.
greghousesgf: (Hugh Smile)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-03 08:56 am

(no subject)

There's been a change in plans, my friend is supposed to come over at 4 today to go swimming and then we're going to go out to dinner and to that place with the flaming drinks instead of tomorrow. Also they're doing one of those free lunch things in my apt bldg at 1. If they're gonna raise the damn rent and not fix elevators and things I'm gonna at least get free food out of them.
rocky41_7: (Default)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote2025-07-02 06:14 pm
Entry tags:

Recent Reading: The Witness for the Dead

You know that feeling where you're enjoying inhabiting a book so much you don't want to reach the end? This week I finished The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison, and that's how I felt.
 
Witness is a companion novel to Addison's breakout novel, The Goblin Emperor (TGE), which I read for the first time last year and never got around to reviewing. You don't need to have read TGE to enjoy this one at all; Witness focuses on a minor character from TGE and his adventures after the events of that novel. Thara Celehar is a prelate of the god Ulis, and his role in elven society is something like a cross between a priest and a private detective. He has the ability to commune, in a limited fashion, with the dead, and he is employed by the city to provide this service to the people. This may involve reporting a deceased's last thoughts to a mourner, asking a deceased to clarify a point on their will, or seeking answers from a murder victim to bring their killer to justice.
 
Witness doesn't precisely employ a "case of the week" formula, but it does cover a few, sometimes overlapping, cases of Thara's with an ongoing murder investigation as the slow-burning thread tying the rest together. 
 
Once again, Addison draws us into the complex politics of the realm she's created, and I do delight in that sort of thing. Thara tries very hard to avoid getting involved in anything that smacks of politics, but many more powerful players around him are keen to turn him into a political statement, forcing him to consider everything he does from about ten angles. 
 
The murder investigation centers on a dead opera singer found early in the novel, and this allows Addison to dig into the artistic scene of the city of Amalo as well, which provides some very interesting worldbuilding opportunities. Hearing about how Amalo runs its art scene, what sorts of things they have chosen to commit to the stage, and what the reception to those things is tells us so much about this society. It's a perspective quite removed from TGE, where the focus was on the highest echelons of Ethuverez's nobility, and taken together gives us a relatively well-rounded look at Addison's world.
 
Thara makes for such an easy protagonist to root for. He's genuinely dedicated to his job, which he refers to as his calling, and always tries to do the right thing. This was a particularly refreshing perspective after my last audiobook, Sundial, and its cadre of people doing terrible things to each other all the time! He's soft-spoken, understated, and wants above all to do right by the trust that his clients place in him, and I loved following him around Amalo at work (I also really enjoyed the voice the narrator used for him).
 
The writing flows very well. Addison shifts to a first-person perspective here, which brings us more intimately both into Amalo and into Thara's work as he speaks directly to the reader about what he's doing. Addison has a talent for long, graceful sentences that provide wonderfully vivid looks at the characters around her protagonist. Listening to them all unfold was great entertainment!
 
As I was drawing near the end, I tried to articulate what it was about Witness and TGE's world I found so pleasant to engage with, and I think it's the sense that Addison's narrative rewards goodness. I mentioned above how hard Thara works to do the right thing, to be patient, to be kind, to stay out of power politics—and as with Maia in TGE, it feels that in some small ways, he is rewarded for that effort. Or at the least, he isn't punished for it. On a shelf full of edgy dark fantasy where cynicism is survival (and I enjoy those too!), it was comforting to inhabit a story where, for the most part, I did not expect Thara's kindness to be repaid with a knife in the back. He may miss out on some  things-- as a dedicated prelate trying to stay off the political scene, he lives in relative poverty and has few resources at his disposal, and his political dodging mean he has few powerful allies on his side—but he chooses to accept this and is content with the ability to pursue his calling.
 
On the whole, I really enjoyed The Witness for the Dead, and I do plan to read the other two books in this series. I may pick up a hard copy of this to go with my TGE copy. Well done Ms. Addison!

Crossposted to [community profile] books 

reeby10: the lower half of a person laying on grass and reading with the words 'time to escape' and a ripped looking border (reading)
Reeby ([personal profile] reeby10) wrote2025-07-02 06:53 pm
Entry tags:

Wednesday What I'm...

Reading
  • Still on New World Witchery by Cory Thomas Hutcheson, but I'm very close to the end! Not that I've taken much time to read this week since I'm using the roommate's car to commute.
  • Ficwise, I'm still deep in Gradence. I think I'm starting to run out of the good stuff though, so we'll see how long until I switch to something else. Maybe the Stobotnik fics my friend sent me a couple of weeks ago lol
Watching
  • The roommate's out of town, so I've been watching some movies she doesn't  like. So far:
    • Python and Python 2. I liked Python alright, it had some fun moments and good character dynamics. The second movie starred the best character from the first movie, but they committed complete character assassination on him imo, which sucked.
    • Piranha. I was really surprised by how well this one held up! I liked it a lot, actually more than Jaws, which it's very similar to.
    • Dinoshark. Pretty ok, but definitely of the bad CGI variety lmao
    • Bad Moon. I was expecting to like this one more than I did tbh. Really did not like the werewolf guy and the werewolf effects were honestly pretty terrible.
    • Underground. Only made it 30 mins into this one before I gave up bc literally nothing was happening. They were still doing set up! And it was boring!
  • Forgot to say last week that I started watching some PBS Nova episodes that they've got posted on youtube. They're great to work to! So far:
    • Arctic Ghost Ship, about looking for the ships of the Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage. It kind of made me want to watch The Terror lol
    • Arctic Sinkholes, about arctic sinkholes caused by defrosting permafrost caused by climate change. Oof.
    • Ötzi the Iceman: A 5,000-Year-Old True Crime Murder Mystery, about researching Ötzi's origins and creating a replica for study.
    • Ancient Maya Metropolis, about a particular Mayan city but also about the decline of the civilization as a whole. It made me miss studying anthropology...
    • Ancient Builders of the Amazon, about the relatively new research into city building in the Amazon.
  • AEW as usual. It's fine.
Listening
  • Lots of radio time while I've got my roommate's car. Wish they'd play more than the same couple of songs on every station :/
Writing
  • I'm trying to get back to being active on [community profile] comment_fic for the first time since leaving LJ. I've written three fills so far!

greghousesgf: (pic#17096877)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-02 11:59 am

(no subject)

I was going to go out tonight but I'm too tired and I haven't even started cleaning the bathroom yet. I did get lots of groceries, also got a text from a friend while I was in the grocery store to join her for the afternoon of the Fourth of July at this bar she took me to before that has these flaming drinks. That place was really fun, nice friendly crowd and bartenders. When they did the flaming drinks we started going "Fire! Fire! Fire!" like Beavis.
greghousesgf: (pic#17098552)
greghousesgf ([personal profile] greghousesgf) wrote2025-07-01 08:50 am

(no subject)

I had the nicest time last night at the pub trivia! I couldn't get any of my friends to go with me because they were all busy or too tired or didn't feel like it but I got on the same team with four very nice, cool women and we had a great time, didn't win but we did good. Two bonuses:

1. Just the composition of our team would have pissed off all the Trumpazoids. Let's just say I was the only straight white person on the team.
2. I knew a lot of answers they didn't so I was a good team asset.

In other news they're doing another damn inspection in the apt bldg. They make a big deal about not having anything blocking the windows, they said they mean screens but I have a large chair near the window that can't really go anywhere else (I do not have a big apartment). It's not actually blocking the window, it's just near it. Also it's hard to clean the apt with a fucked up leg. The bathtub is a real nightmare. In the early 80's I just had a shower stall where I lived and I actually strongly prefer showers to baths anyway. Last time I took a bath was when they were installing new plumbing in the bathroom and hadn't finished hooking up the shower head and that was about what? 13 years ago?? Anyway, gotta clean the kitchen today, and pay rent and go to physical therapy too. Hope I have the damn energy.
I like listening to this one podcast while I clean but they haven't done a new episode since June 12th and that was a really short one.
zarla: me playing l4d (FRIENDLYFIRE:D)
Zarla ([personal profile] zarla) wrote2025-07-01 02:37 am
Entry tags:

~By all accounts a waste of time

This is just going to be a short post but it's been bugging me and it's not worth actually posting on Twitter since getting into any kind of disagreement on Twitter is stupid lol. But anyway there's a tendency in fandoms for things to lean a lot towards one intepretation of a character situation (Spamton is a poor little meowmeow) then whip to the other extreme as a backlash to the first trend (Spamton is Satan incarnate). Another one I've seen is Sans being devastated by Papyrus dying turning into Sans making flippant jokes about how he doesn't care about his death at all. The overcorrection doesn't fix anything and isn't any more accurate, it's just too far in the other direction to feel superior to the people from the first one. It's annoying! Flattening someone into black isn't any better than flattening them into white, except at least white feels less vindictive.

I think there's also an element of defensiveness for going to black-flattening to try and ward off criticism of being "too soft" on characters ahead of time by painting them as much worse than they are. I'm not one of those dumb fans who ignores their faults! I'm OBJECTIVE!

Anyway as you can probably guess this is about Spamton, who I've mostly seen on the demonized side lately (seen him called the most irredeemable, vicious, evil, unspeakably cruel character in the entire game) particularly given what happened in Chapter 3 of Deltarune. Someone posted a list of his crimes from the Villain Wiki as a kind of "gotcha" about what a bad person he is and half of these aren't accurate or don't even apply to him. >:| If you want to accuse him of crimes at least accuse him of ones he actually did! It bothers me so much I'm just going to go through them here because doing it on Twitter would just start pointless arguing that'd be an even bigger waste of time.

Overstatement is the name of the game )

The way people talk about Snowgrave lately you'd think Spamton shows up right when you get Noelle, puts a gun in her hands, and tells you to start blasting. :/

lj post
rocky41_7: (Default)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote2025-06-30 09:45 pm

Fanmix: Empress Chenelo



i. Exploration Amy Turk, Julia K ii. Les Sylphides VII. Waltz No. 7 in C-sharp Minor Ludwig van Beethoven, Berliner Philharmoniker iii. Mal di Luna Summer Watson iv. Little Bird The Weepies v. Shenandoah Hayley Westenra vi. Hope in the Air Laura Marling vii. Concerto for Flute and Harp, K.299; 2nd Movement Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields viii. Wasting My Young Years London Grammar ix. La Folia - Madness Antonio Vivaldi, Apollo's Fire x. Paradise Coldplay xi. The Tower Ramin Djawadi xii. Henry in Solitude Trevor Morris xiii. Greenpath Christpher Larkin xiv. Noble Maiden Fair Emma Thompson xv. The Journey Home John Doan xvi. Women of Ireland Joanie Madden xvii. Sacred Stones Sheila Chandra xviii. The Sixth Station Joe Hisaishi xix. Lullaby for a Stormy Night Vienna Teng xx. A Day Without Rain Enya xxi. Snow Loreena McKennitt xxii. When the Sun Rises in the West Ramin Djawadi

Track explanations and headcanons under the cut. Photo credit to Alice Alinari on Unsplash.

Read more... )


quailfence: A drawing of the TARDIS from Doctor Who in colored pencil (Default)
quailfence ([personal profile] quailfence) wrote2025-06-30 04:51 pm
Entry tags:

Battleship 2025 Letter

TBA, if I don't add in time check out past exchange letters for prompts and likes