Avatar of Fabricant451

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23 days ago
Current You'd think after like 15 years I'd stop feeling like a fraud when writing posts but I still do which is both a statement on my self confidence and a compliment to how good my partners are as writers
15 likes
5 mos ago
Why are you talking about Final Fantasy 10 like that
5 mos ago
Final Fantasy 13 is a top five entry in the franchise but ya'll still ain't ready to have that conversation
6 mos ago
This Bears/Packers game is gonna make me believe in the power of Chicago Pope
2 likes
6 mos ago
The older I get the more I start to think BBQ potato chips are the worst flavor, actually.
3 likes

Bio

Look, I got lost on the way to getting some jajangmyeon and it'd be foolish to leave now.

Most Recent Posts

@Khyron Shadowfang Either works, really. I'm open to discuss it and work it out.
@Khyron Shadowfang Sure, we could do that
I'm willing to give this a shot.
Time to work on a sheet
If this were a democracy then the decision would have already been made; the vocal majority all seemed in favor of pushing forward with the idea of going to the bastion of capitalism and consumerism that was Costco. Of course, if it was a democracy then everyone in the group would have a say, but some seemed content to simply be taken under the umbrella of general safety. Jimmy still had her doubts no matter what people said. She found herself agreeing with one of the groupies that she hadn't really had time to get to know - she was sure he was named after a major city just that she wasn't sure which one exactly. Costco dealt in bulk and in socks that people enjoyed way too much, and a place like that was probably ransacked when the news first made a reporting of the undead. By now what would be left? Dog food? Only one member of this group would enjoy that.

"I won't stop you from going, I just don't want to run afoul of some people who might have decided to make Costco their new home. We're not exactly built for that." Jimmy hated sounding like the negative Nancy, but when something like a Costco presented itself it was easy to see why some would see the trees but not the forest. Still, she didn't have a better solution and it was better to think positive. Maybe there would be a box of cookies that fell under one of the shelves or maybe one of the coolers still had power and there was a trove of Ben and Jerry's ripe for the taking.

"I think I should go with the town group. If there's a drug store or pharmacy then I should be there to see what can be used. I'll go with whoever wants to come. I assume you're taking KT to Costco?" Jimmy looked to her side expecting KT to speak up, but she had gone back a ways and seemed to be speaking with an elderly member of the band. Regardless, it seemed the nearby town would be their next stop which was as sensible a decision as could be made. It got them off the interstate and a town at least had all the familiar trappings of how it used to be; not to mention that it was easier to hide from potential threats amongst buildings and such than it was on open road with clear sight lines.

"Whatever we do, we should take a headcount first. Just so we can be sure that we all reconvene no matter what we run into."

They were going into town. It was just a matter of who was going where, and Daisy didn't need to be there for that. She just needed to know where they were going and hoped someone knew how to get there. Navigation wasn't her job. Getting them to their destination safely was, and so far? She had a good track record. She couldn't take all the credit, it was a group effort even getting this far, but if anyone was keeping score like some kind of video game, Daisy was sure she'd be top of the leader board here. Every shambler sent back to the ground was another minute of survival for this group and it was another bullet saved.

While the adults, or the ones who pretended to be, talked it out, Daisy returned to the side rail to lean against it, taking stock of the immediate area and their place within it. The group really was large for the amount of supplies they had, and sooner or later the numbers would have to course correct however they could. It wasn't something she figured most people wanted to talk about, but the unfortunate reality of their situation was that some of these people belonged to the camp of expendable. With any luck it wouldn't even come to that, but the only luck around these days tended towards the bad side of things.

Daisy kept a list in her head of those she would just as soon excise like a bad tumor, but given that many likely disliked her for what they considered immoral and she considered pragmatic she kept that list firmly in the vault that was her mind. By the time their stop in Otwatonna County had concluded she wondered if her list would need to be updated, or names crossed off. It was no wonder damn near everyone kept their distance and saw her as a necessary evil; even Daisy wasn't a fan of the thoughts she was having of late. These people were more than just percentages, and yet...when she looked at them it was hard to remember that.

As if to nudge Daisy with a reminder, one of the members of their group had come to rest next to her. Old Man Ollivander (@BeastofDestiny), as she referred to him (though often without the 'Ollivander' part), with his cane and his composure. She was about ready to remove herself from the railing and the conversation as a whole...but then he had to go and talk about the one thing that sparked her interest. Sure, he might have been wrong in his assumption, but Daisy wasn't going to belittle him for that; he seemed a learned man but even the well educated had room to learn.

Maybe she would've taught him under better circumstances, assuming he was the type to frequent museums.

"You've got a decent eye, but it's not a falchion." Daisy was trying not to sound like how she spoke now. Brusque. It was difficult, but this was the first time anyone had asked her about the weapon at her waist other than one of the teenagers calling it a knife - which was damn near insulting. How rare it was, now especially, for her to be able to 'geek'. Once upon a time she led tours. Maybe one day she'd be able to do so again, but for now this would have to suffice. "Falchions are European swords that are similar to the more ancient Chinese sword known as the dao, which, interestingly enough, was one of the four traditional weapons along with the gun - or staff -, the qiang - spear -, and the jian which is a sword with a double edge." It was around this part where people visiting the exhibits typically nodded their head, said how interesting that tidbit was, and promptly moved on to go find the dinosaur bones.

"I don't recall of many Arabian warlords in history who would have used a falchion, theirs was more a curved blade. A scimitar or the Persian shamshir. Scimitars date back as early as the Abbasid Caliiphate, or the ninth century, where it was also used by Turkics." She was geeking. She was actually geeking and it was to Old Man Ollivander who probably was just trying to be nice and not move along to talk to someone else. Someone who wouldn't geek out about ancient weaponry and Asiatic cultures. "The Turkic scimitar is known as a kilij, by the way. But no, my sword isn't a falchion or a scimitar. It's South Asian in origin, Bhutanese. It's a patag, one of a select few to belong to the Lungdri Chenm family. If you're interested, the next time we make camp I'll tell you the myth about Dupthob Jangkha Lap and the first Lungdri Chenm."

Daisy cleared her throat, suddenly aware of how much she has spoken about. She had to remind herself of where they were, or else she would be caught rambling on about swords as a shambler ate her good arm. Still...it was nice to feel...normal, even for that brief moment in time.
Tamers is cool this is cool
I'm not gonna try and discuss this on a point by point basis or anything since that would be needlessly hostile for someone voicing their opinion but:

'Slow and deliberate' is good for setting tone but its not a fun gameplay mechanic.


I disagree with this. I disagree with some other points made, like the shooting mechanic being cumbersome and personally never running into a situation where I needed to keep hunting in order to feed the camp (especially since fishing takes less time and if you upgrade the camp fully food basically handles itself), and I think the brawling is bad, but the slow pace is kind of the most fascinating aspect of the game to me. Fascinating is a word I keep coming back to with Red Dead Redemption 2 because so many of its design decisions seem so deliberately obtuse, archaic, or otherwise a matter of respecting 'realism' over concepts like 'moment to moment fun'. Whereas most open world games have fast travel unlocked almost by default, here you have to unlock it deep in a menu and you still have to manually travel back to a central location just to travel elsewhere which makes you wonder why you bothered going back to camp and not just taken the journey to the town or wherever yourself.

I've barely interacted with the story, I'm only shortly into chapter three and already find the narrative of the feuding families far too familiar to care - there is almost no way to make a Hatfield/McCoy or Capulet/Montague type story interesting and from what I've played so far I don't think Rockstar will change that - and most of the gang members are one note that's been plucked to death. The game, to me, is at its best when it's just that frontier survival simulator of going out, tracking animals and looking for that perfect three star animal and getting the clean kill, taking the pelt to camp while selling the crappier pelts, then going after a legendary animal and taking a trip to the trapper. The problem with that is far too often the other part of the game gets in the way, with the random events popping up and all of them falling into basically four categories of dull.

One of the best times I had with the game was treasure hunting simply because it fell in line with how I was already playing the game. The serial killer mission was fun as well from an exploration aspect - and then it glitched out on me once it was resolved and the culprit fell through the geometry and I was reminded I was playing a video game again.

RDR2 is a game I think people will get out of it what they put into it. It's often chunky to control and it does a terrible job explaining its systems and I honestly think people who just wanted GTA but with horses are going to come away upset with how much it isn't that and how much it is a survival game down to weight management and needing to change your clothes or hide your face or remembering to take weapons off your horse.

The game seems like it was designed around trying to take the Mexico moment from the first game and making an entire game to feel like that, and it is full of those kind of moments. Those personal, immersive moments like when I had a particularly lengthy ride back to town after a hunt and as I slowly trotted along up a hill, the sun was setting at just the right moment to bathe the nearby town in its glow as a perfectly timed musical cue played. It was terrific in a way many games try to emulate in their narrative moments to ill effect.

I don't know if I'm having fun with it. But I'm constantly fascinated by it and this weekend I played it for about five hours and all I actually accomplished was killing an alligator, a beaver, and a deer. And even still I was enthralled for the entire time.
>A writer for Buzzfeed
>Finally Roz isn't the most hated journalist
I'm looking forward to reading Killing Commendatore which is the newest novel by Haruki Murakami. I haven't gotten it yet but I will soon. Murakami is an author that means a lot to me so I'm optimistic.
<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>
I was expecting a cute quirky comedy that had roots in realism


There's your first mistake, especially given that it's Boots Riley. The sudden turn, if we want to call it that, felt totally in line with an already surreal picture and a movie where 'white guy voice' is literal overdubbing with David Cross and Patton Oswalt and where the backbone of the movie is a world where slavery is effectively legalized via corporate contracting.
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