dumbiee's diary

made progress in shadows of the erdtree today after a long hiatus ( just due to pain ). i got all the way to the final boss I ASSUME...... omggg....

like i'll talk more once i actually beat it, since i think i'm missing kind of a critical piece of the puzzle here, but the story is making me crazy. ok. as you know the character i'm playing through it with is a miquella fanboy; i made him before the dlc was even announced, so i've felt like disturbingly catered to through this whole thing. it's been soooooo goddamn fun, i love every boss & world & piece of the narrative i've found. but i have one gripe. which is.

why can you not ally yourself with miquella ...

like every other npc who has some sway over the nature of the universe ( ranni, fia, dungeater, etc ) all let you pick & choose what you wanted to do & whose ideas you agreed with. like literally the entire dlc i've been on Team Micky, all the way up until the penultimate fight with the various NPCs you met. and it was just like ... why do i have to oppose miquella ... i think it's right of him to want to completely destroy this thing from the ground up ... he's so disturbed by his own place within the greater will's conquest that he tears himself apart on a metaphysical level, just to try to beat this thing at its own game. i've always thought that ranni's ending was deceptive in its hope -- she's just doing the same thing as marika did, but using a different god; who is to say that her world will end up any different?

anyway, that's why i'm kind of biting my lip & holding out until the boss is done for. i assume i'll get some piece of info that will clarify to me why we aren't allowed to side with miquella, why his plan could not involve us ...

also of course i need to mention. fucking well had me get "caught" by the boss where micky kisses you to try & sway you to his side. she had me do it twice & the resulting "heart stolen" death scene had me screaming & clapping in glee, it was soooooooo. SOOOOOOOOOO good. it's completely in character for poor iowerth ... until i beat the dlc & think about a logical conclusion to his arc, since rn i'm kind of. confused. perhaps. since i was assuming we'd be able to side with micky in the end lmfao, OR we'd get a really clear reason to not be in support of him by this point. like he's definitely doing some wicked shit, but i'm ultimately still in favor of his vision for the world ( one without outer gods? )

so that's where i'm at. final boss isn't feeling too hard, i'm reeeeally excited to learn more, but i'm so god damn sad to see this ending. i love elden ring so much, and this dlc was just ... so fun & good ... getting new elden ring was so healing, i've felt so giddy the whole time i've been playing ... most noteworthy moments for me have been fighting the flower beast at the base of the scadutree, visiting marika's village, and of course, this entire ending moment with all the npcs & miquella.

aaaauauuuuuuu ... it's making me want to draw stupid shit..... aaahhhhhhh!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

finished up my second session of our fire emblem ttrpg today. it went well, but it was an rp heavy one ... so i had to talk a lot. i'm playing a charismatic character, but irl i flounder soooo hard talking & riffing off of people lol ... so some of the conversations i had with other characters felt really stilted, which i felt awful about, but i'm trying not to be too bummed about it.

mostly, i'm just TIRED. i don't have a social battery hahahah, so even these sparse sessions competely drain me ... but they're good for me ... i hope i don't frustrate or annoy my party members too much, i still don't know some of them very well so i don't know how to read them.

we ( me & the gm ) had been planning on revealing The Truth about my character ( that she's fibbing about her identity ) but things took too long & we didn't get to the moment we had picked for it. so i'm still stressed out about that!!! like will having more time to prep for that be good for me ... ? probably not ...

well & i finished our daily anime, which was princess tutu. it was good ... she described the structure of the story ( in terms of its excellence ) as being a "W" shape, which i completely agree with: strong start, strong middle, strong end, less impactful / interesting inbetweens. none of it was bad, but there were clear highlights in the narrative for me, all of which involved the greater narrative of reconciling living in a fairy tale & none of which involving the "monster of the week" type stuff, hahah.
i think using ballet as the vehicle for a story about stories was really smart, given ballet / dance in general is both highly interpretive & typically very dramatic. it's a nice story about living earnestly & in the present, and the use of theatrical lighting, music, and acting to highlight when drosselmeyer's influence is strongest was really well executed & made for a very distinct, fascinating feel.
there's stuff about it i don't like ... like the horrid bit with the dancers' teacher wanting to marry them ... but overall i thought it was fun. it suuuuuure feels like a show from the 2000's though. lol

anyway ... we've started witch from mercury as our next show! currently 2 episodes in ( prologue + first "real" ep ). i've been kind of craving sci-fi for a while lately, so i'm looking forward to it. :^) in my usual pettiness, i don't really ... like the main characters ... so my actual interest is kind of on the fence lol; but i think with more episodes i'll come around on it, because despite not liking them on a purely surface level ( personalities & designs are not my favorite ), i can already tell the substance of suletta & miorine's plots is good.
it seems like a well-composed story, albeit kind of heavy-handed at the moment. but it's not in a way that feels TOO heavy-handed ... it's just not pulling any punches with what it wants to say. it's actually striking a very delicate balance for me. so ... i like it?!

wow. months later & here we are -- my actual first post.

i need to bemoan the nintendy direct for the switch 2 ... it has left me feeling so grim. my opinion on it is like. i feel the prices of the console & the games are "fair", in that the materials & labor required to make these things have been downplayed for some time & it's a miracle we've been buying games for as "cheap" as we have been. like, people complain about games being regularly 60USD these days, but games have been that expensive since the 90's. they should have been more expensive years ago. but ...
at the same time, for the entire year i have seen nonstop posts about game devs being let go for cost-cutting measures. it has felt absolutely dire. nintendo keeps things under wraps, but they are no doubt following industry trends here ... so like, if it's not going towards fucking labor, where the hell are these inflated prices going to?? the answer is obvious, of course, but it's just like ... i don't know. it's so depressing.
who can afford to consistently buy games at that cost? is it really sustainable? do companies care?
also need to complain about the DRM shit nintendo is pulling, too. and how the instructional demo for the console ... costs an extra 10USD ... and how there is proprietary material out already, when there is only 1 new game for the console on release ... and how depressingly soulless the UI remains ...

the triple-A scene is just a mess right now. people have faith in indie scenes, but indie scenes can only flourish if people have time & money to make games ... if people want to have a career in making them, there is no hope. idk. we're just in a weird spot.

anyway. one final complaint i have is also about duskbloods. nothing new being said here, but 1) hilarious that fromsoft has made another IP console-exclusive, AND that it is very heavily derivative of bloodborne; 2) unbelievably miserable that this is the second "new" game they're releasing within a year that is mandatory online, and fucking battle royale PvPvE dredge to boot; 3) that they have made a console exclusive MMO game with a company who is NOTORIOUS FOR NOT SUPPORTING THEIR ONLINE SYSTEMS. every single nintendo online production has been squashed & destroyed within years of launch. this is such a poor fucking move on fromsoft's part, it is just ... so ... UGH!!!
in miyazaki's interview with nintendy, he did say that FS was still committed to making ~single-player experiences~ but it is really disheartening that they're stooping to this level. like, it's not like the game will be unfun or bad, nor that multiplayer games are bad inherently ... it's just that EVERYONE is making online multiplayer shit like this, and fromsoft was such a beacon of hope in an industry that was heavily pushing towards Games As Service As Standard, because it's the best way to milk money off of your player base ... it's just sad, you know. i don't know. it's just sad.

well, we'll see as time goes on. new mario kart looks cute i guess ...

here begins my posting journey! joy.

for sure expect this layout to grow with time. for now, i move on.