Lurker > MrMallard

World of Final Fantasy Maxima.

It looks fantastic on the Switch, the story is really funny, the monster capture mechanics legitimately doesn't suck as someone who doesn't generally like monster capture stuff outside of Pokemon, and the game isn't just Reference: The Video Game. It's a full video game adventure with a whole coherent conflict, and I was pleasantly surprised at the direction the game went in.

The little versions of the FF protagonists are separate entities exclusive to this world, so while those characters reference stuff you're likely to recognise, it's a lot lighter on the continuity than you might expect and I don't think that the game is spoilery for any of the source games. The game is interested in building its own continuity in a Final Fantasy sort of way rather than coasting on the Final Fantasy guest stars and mining those source games for ideas.

Honest to God, it's the perfect length. And I found it to be the opposite of a slog where I was booting up the game just because I wanted to play more of the game, rather than just trying to get it out of the way.

I cannot recommend WoFF enough. And hey, it's on sale at the moment.

After that other user played through the games in chronological order, I decided to do the same thing and play the Pre-Sequel for the first time before playing 2 again. And despite having a meh first leg with Deadlift - my god, talk about the dregs - I'm finding a lot of familiarity in the location names and even in one of the quests.

For example, the Jolly Swagman quest. I don't know how well-known Australian folklore is outside of the country, but the Jolly Swagman quest is a (cringy and meh) telling of Waltzing Matilda.

The plot of that song is that a swagman - a travelling labourer - is camped by a small river or lake known as a billabong. While he's camping, he notices a sheep, which he gets up and steals away in his tucker bag - "tucker" meaning food, meaning he was gonna keep the sheep to eat at a later date.

However, a police officer comes along and tries to arrest him for taking the sheep. The swagman, rather than lose his bounty and go to jail, decides to jump into the billabong and drown.

The in-game quest made next to no sense, and the "jumbuck" ended up being a shrunken Kraggon model. But it got me thinking about Australiana and about whether Americans got any of these references.

Another thing that's getting me are the place names. Burraburra is absolutely a town name we would have here in Australia. I'm sure I saw somewhere like Lawson's Point at one stage - Henry Lawson was a famous bush poet from the turn of the century, writing the Australian poem The Man from Snowy River. That's also why Miranda and her father from Mass Effect have the last name Lawson.

And the last thing I wanted to mention is RedBelly. First of all, the name is in reference to an Australian snake called the Red Belly Black Snake. Secondly, when Red and Belly are acting as one opponent, their armor is reminiscent of Ned Kelly, a notorious bushranger from back in the day.

I wonder what happened to 2K Australia before they shuttered. This game is much more of a love letter to our nation than I expected, and I'm really enjoying it.

Scummy as hell, what the fuck Ne-Yo.

But as bad as I feel saying this - after the last seven odd years, I'm kind of glad it was just cheating with hookers and not like grooming teenagers/trying to convince Ugandan women to come back to America and be in his sex cult. R Kelly really broke the scandal mold, and I swear to god every other celebrity scandal has tried to match that level of crazy.

It's a disapproving head shake for Ne-Yo, paired with a relieved sigh that he was a least a regular scumbag and not literally the most buttfuck insane criminal he could have been.

...are my dream picks for the eventual Fantastic Four movie.

I think two actors who've undergone significant injury and hardship in the Hollywood system and fallen by the wayside, much like Robert Downey Jr. before, would be amazing casting choices and I think it would pop.

The question is, who to cast as The Thing and the Human Torch.

I'd be down for Michael B. Jordan coming back in some weird roundabout way, but he's Killmonger so that's off the table. And my first choice for the Thing was Ron Perlman, but the dude's like 80 years old and he's doing a third Hellboy.

The Human Torch could be anyone, but I think a deep craggy voice is important for the Thing. I'm trying to think of a relevant actor who could do that justice.

Smashingpmkns posted...

Wasn't this dude a CEman at one point

CEman, not to my knowledge. GameFAQs board user, absolutely.

If this goes poorly, how much is your life going to suck without her?

Tyranthraxus posted...

It's just water but we're running it through lead pipes.

Makes sense that America is going the way of Rome, then.

The video itself is serious and intended to be respectful, and it comes down to personal pronunciation and upbringing and shit. Like it's not correct, but I see it as similar to the difference between "diabetes" and "diabeetus". One of them isn't correct, but it's a widespread vocal variant that is intended to be taken completely seriously.

It also doesn't remove the sincere intent of the video, in exposing a fundamental paper in the field of Alzheimer's disease research as being fraudulent.

It's a bit silly, but it isn't a big deal. There was no malicious intent, and the guy went out of his way to talk about something that has significant ramifications for the field of Alzheimer's research because he thought that what happened was wrong.

This is the end goal of the corporatised internet, and it's the natural end result of net neutrality being repealed. Everywhere has to kowtow to a narrow set of regulations to meet a kid-friendly bar of entry, and if you want to cultivate an 18+ space, your ability to monetize that site - whether for profit or for function, like any other website - will be significantly hampered.

Everywhere needs to be a billboard, but Frito-Lays doesn't want a flashing neon sign advertising Pringles next to a video of Elsa from Frozen getting deep-dicked by a magically bepenised Rapunzel, so what are you gonna do? You're not going to render any services anywhere that advertisers don't like, and that is going to choke off the NSFW corners of the internet in favour of bland, wholly accessible communities where you can't even say "fuck" without it being automatically censored.

"But more accessible communities are a good thing! Everyone should be able to have a comfortable and safe browsing experience anywhere they want to go!" - this treads a fine line, but I disagree. There should be spaces that everyone should be able to use and feel safe on; everyone should have spaces where everyone has an equal stake and where they can exist without inherent backlash. A place like Facebook should inherently exist. But there should also be specialised spaces for content that doesn't fit that mold, and they shouldn't be inherently less advantaged due to a difference in content guidelines. One company's sense of decency and morality should not inform the entire internet's ability to exist.

There are spaces that should be safe for children, like Neopets or other games, and they should be held to the highest standard for the continued entertainment and safety of the children it was meant to be used by. There should also be places where an informed, consenting adult should be able to seek out the sort of video I described earlier with Elsa and Rapunzel, if that is their preferred predilection and as long as those videos fall within the confines of the law. The same way woodworkers have specialty forums to talk shop and engage freely with an understood undercurrent of jargon, there should be places where people want to beat off and talk about beating off with others. Not everywhere is going to be universally traversable, and that's okay because everyone is different and seeks out different content.

But advertisers, in an effort to astroturf the internet so they can hawk their wares on every corner of the internet without fearing reprisal from the religious right for showing up next to a nutsack, are destroying that ecosystem. And for what? Their own benefit, and a smaller internet for all.

We're making the entire internet kid-friendly, but adults have interests and hobbies that aren't suitable for all demographics and that shouldn't be hampered because some orange juice executive wants to put a picture of a smiling orange on the internet without the risk of it showing up next to a boob. Reddit will keep shutting down NSFW content because the Apple store doesn't like it and their audience will crater if it's taken off of the only certified app store on a device that won't execute an application unless it goes through that one app store. And the few places that survive will have to do so with some of the most dubious and unsustainable ad set-ups that will never compete with AdSense, making those places even less tenable in the long run.

I mean shit, CE has an archival website that we're not allowed to mention because the ads they've got running advertise crack pipes and shit. Log onto any porn site and it's all scam links and videos that open up a phishing scam site when you hit play. I've said for years that the story of the internet is marked at every interval by the continued ability and resulting inability to say "fuck" due to content guidelines getting more and more strict.

This is wrong, but it's only going to get worse from here on out. If Metal's perceived Web 3.0 becomes the vision of the internet going forward, shit like this will only become more endemic and it will be socially unacceptable to engage with any form of NSFW content because there's no platform for it and any reference to it will be accessible to anyone who wants to see what you're talking about, whether you want that or not.

DespondentDeity posted...

There is only one transgender girl in the state that is currently participating in high school athletics, according to Equality Ohio and the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OSHAA).

One trans girl starts playing sports in Ohio.

The entire state bands together to make a law where any teenage girl suspected of being transgender has to expose their genitals to an authority figure - if memory serves right, it doesn't even have to be a doctor - to confirm their biological sex.

Next step, I would assume, is to blame the trans girl who wanted to play sports for causing these measures to be brought in and causing the sort of harm that this law will inevitably create. After all, tHiS wOuLdN't bE nEcEsSaRy iF sHe DiDn'T pLaY aNy SpOrTs!!!

Fucking watch that be the case.

Milk milk lemonade?

So as people are wont to do after a fucked up night of drinking that they regret immensely, I fixed up an old dating app profile in the hopes of meeting someone down the line. It was a pain in the ass, I had to change my phone number on the profile and get back into my account, but I feel confident about how I presented myself.

What do you guys think?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/2/6/AAbh80AADgqi.jpg

Joke's on you, my blood was already gravy. You basically gave me a gravy transplant, and it's made me so strong I could rip out the heart of an ox with my bare hands.

Fuck yeah

This is gonna be a flopic supreme because I feel like the Venn diagram between MASH fans and Weakerthans fans is like the thinnest sliver of arcane fuckin weirdo douchebag hipster dickheads like myself, but god I need to get this to some sort of wider audience.

First of all I heavily recommend listening to the Weakerthans song this post is about. It's called Sun in an Empty Room:

https://youtu.be/P6LhDUM02zM

Which is somewhat based on the famous painting of the same name by Edward Hopper, painted weeks before his death:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/0/AAbh80AADgpq.jpg

The Weakerthans song is more about the death of a relationship, which is a whole kettle of fish that I'm just gonna move past.

And then you have MASH, a landmark piece of television with arguably the best ending of any TV show ever. Probably the pinnacle of its craft. Maybe overshadowed since, but the original.

The crux of the show basically comes down to Hawkeye and his relationship with his significant friends over the course of the Korean war. It comes down to everyone's relationship with everyone, but Hawkeye is the main character and his close friendships drive a lot of the show.

His first best friend in the war, "Trapper" John McIntyre, left without saying goodbye. Hawkeye missed him by 12 minutes - he said he was going on leave, but he was going home from the war and when Hawkeye found out, he missed John's train by twelve minutes. A part of that is that Hawkeye has trouble saying goodbye - and while the act of leaving like that is significantly hurtful, I think that was Trapper's way of honouring Hawkeye in a messed up roundabout way.

Trapper's role as Hawkeye's best friend is soon filled by B.J. Honeycutt, a mustachioed man who complements Hawkeye instead of just filling a similar role. An early episode had Hawkeye and Trapper removing a healthy appendix from a young man so he would be sent home from Korea - when the show comes back to that idea, it creates conflict because Honeycutt sees it as mutilation and an affront to the Hippocratic oath. Hawkeye views it as saving a life, but Honeycutt sees it as a perversion of their craft.

That brings us to the final episode of MASH, where - spoilers - the war is over. They made it out alive. It's time to go home.

But remember, Hawkeye can't say goodbye.

Another part of that is that once you go home from the war, you'll probably never see your comrades again. You're going 5,000 miles back home, separated by any number of miles from your friends' town, state, street. This is the 50's, too - even writing would be a challenge, and it just wouldn't be the same. Those relationships, more often than not, just end. Remember how Trapper left - it can be intuited that Hawkeye never saw him again. And it's about to happen with B.J. Honeycutt too. Colonel Potter and Klinger and Hot Lips Houlihan too, but Honeycutt most of all.

And a big part of that final episode is getting around the problem of saying goodbye. And that's what makes it the first "best last episode of television", because they stick the fucking landing.

By now I'm assuming you've listened to the Weakerthans song. Let it sink in, chew on it for a while. Think about its relationship with what I've described about MASH.

Here's the post combining the two.

https://writtenbyalanalda.tumblr.com/post/681871299402940416/the-weakerthans-sun-in-an-empty-room

"We don't live here any more" indeed.

This post makes me go fucking feral. Like you have to understand, I love the Weakerthans. I had Sun in an Empty Room as my phone alarm for years. MASH is a masterpiece, even if I don't think about it very often.

For these two things to have gotten their wires crossed this perfectly is a miracle. This post scratches parts of my brain nowhere else can reach. Like are you kidding me? I want to eat this post. I don't want to print it out and eat a physical copy of it, I want to consume what this post is. Are you fucking kidding me.

Anyway hope you liked it too

I'm just putting this statement out into the world because I think I need to, but I don't want to burden my usual haunts with it. It's not that deep and I'm gonna be okay, but I still think I should put it into words.

If I keep drinking the way I'm drinking and living like this, I'm probably gonna die.

Again, just putting this out there for the sake of putting it into words, not for attention or anything.

Waddlez posted...

I just saw her/them yesterday. With back street boys. Are they popular

Fuck yeah

I'm about to karaoke hard without Delta Goodrem. Just being a weird wanker beforehand

https://youtu.be/7HIYMEsN-R0

Ashton Kutcher literally left acting to combat sex trafficking around the world. The other guy was free to rape and coerce for years.

Frankie Muniz drew a picture of himself getting walked like a dog by Lizzo.

And against all odds? They ended up okay.

They found a man and got pregnant. They gave birth, and now they're chilling day by day with the baby. The grief they feel about the first guy's death ghosted them for months, and to this day it still exists. But they're okay. They're stable. They're loved.

I feel really bad bc I latched onto their significant issue as a way of avoiding my own shit, but the fact that they're here now, they love their baby and are gonna be great parents - that's in the wind. That's them now. Thank Christ.

I guess I'm gonna drink more now

Crazyman93 posted...

A rouge wave slammed down on it and capsized it.

Which all things considered is better than the shipwreck on the great lakes where the ship split in half and the survivors mistook the still running stern half of their ship as a rescue party.

Almost like Gordon Lightfoot's account - as cobbled together as it was - was both respectful and accurate based on his research.

I feel bad for him, because the one time he gets to be Batman is informed by Alex Kurtsmann. Imagine being Gandhi if your lines were written by Mussolini.

cjsdowg posted...

His character was done better in every other thing we saw him in, besides his own movie. He is ACCIDENTALLY overshadowed by Killmonger , and purposefully overshadowed by everyone else in the cast.

T'Challa is up there brains department normally, but his Sister out classes him.

Maybe, but you can't help it when your main man dies of cancer.

fucked up that the anivax lady gets a spotlight focus with input from a significant villain tho

I'm conflicted because this guy seems like a clout chaser. He investigated a bunch of Amelia Earhart claims, he was all over the place. And after the body was exhumed - at his behest mind you - he got his evidence from hair caught in the original death mask?

Rathinor posted...

Absolutely this guy

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/user/1525563

If this joke was any better I'd kiss you on the mouth

Tails

I LOVE Killer Mike. Even if I'm not hot on any of this shit, I love Killer Mike.

Zeeak4444 posted...

woah I came in too late, dont skip out yet you havent even hit the best tracks.

Go with Legend has it Blockbuster Part 1 Ohh la La and close your eyes and count to fuck and panther like a pather for good songs similar to nobody speak.

then listen to Dont get captured and few words from the firing squad for some hard hitters.

at the very least. Theres other greats I didnt mention but if none of those get you then at least you tried a variety of the top tier.

pretty much what Im saying is you stopped before one of the best songs.

Thank you. I'm not gonna do the whole album structure thing any more, but I am down for these singles. Thank you for the pep talk.

Zeeak4444 posted...

2, 3 and 4 if Im not mistaken.

Thinking about TC liking nobody speak though I should have suggested oh my darling though.

Added that to the list my man

I don't get how they just do that without fuckin breaking out into tears and hugging each other onstage. What a fucking accomplishment.

My bad, they take a short break 22 minutes into the video.

Of course, that's after they play music for 22 minutes straight.

Gonna assume the lack of comments are because everyone is busy listening to this mad scientist's project.

I'm only commenting bc I have to take a leak

https://youtu.be/kKyGMh_qaJA

At best there's am intermission or two where the drummers keep the beat while everyone else gets a drink. I'd imagine it's a but better considering the band had two drummers at this point in time. Still though, the music doesn't end for forty eight minutes and thirty seconds which is so close to 50 minutes it's negligible.

Fall (Ghost Synth)

Bad_Mojo posted...

I'm not their biggest fan, tbh.

Turns out that neither am I. Definitely no hate, but they're not my cup of tea.

I might actually do a rune drop party when my smithing level is better.

A while back I did a giveaway as Gay Santa, because the rainbow scarf pride event had just happened and people were shitty about it. I got up in the Santa gear and equipped the scarf, and advertised a Gay Santa giveaway. Some people bit, and I gave away Mithril sets and some Adamant full helms. I mostly gave away steel sets I think. But then the Runescape bug stopped biting and I didn't complete the giveaway fully.

Sold all the shit I didn't give away months later and made like 800,000 gold lmao

I'm gonna abort here. The first track of RTJ2 is okay, but I'm just not vibing. I feel like I'm just gonna get more and more sour the more I listen, so it's for the best that I stop here.

Love Killer Mike, love how El-P sounds, and love the production. But Run the Jewels isn't for me, not even when I'm four cans in.

All up, I didn't like Run the Jewels 1 so much. I love Killer Mike, I really like El-P's vocal rasp and the production is truly fan-fucking-tastic. It's no wonder why they released the instrumentals separately. But in concert, I feel like those three things are like oil and water. I'm eating this production up, but the vocals take away from it - like how I love the beat on Eminem's Godzilla, but feel like Eminem is the worst part of the track.

And the unfortunate reality is that I'm gonna be comparing Run the Jewels' music to Nobody Speak, because that song might be close to perfect. I don't understand how that song is so close to perfection, but the same building blocks in RTJ1 fail to create something as compelling.

I'm a bit of a nerd, but I'm not super well versed in like music terms and shit - so take it with a grain of salt when I say that the issue I'm having may be with the mixing on this record.

In total, I like the potential of Run the Jewels, but in practice I'm very much on the fence.

So far, Killer Mike's verse on No Come Down is the standout of the record.

I'm four tracks into their first album, and the rapping/dynamic isn't really gripping me, but the production is fuck-off amazing.

This is a natural step for anyone who loves Gorillaz.

I hate the term "reacting", but it serves a purpose. I'm sitting here on my ass with a box full of liquor, and I'm going to listen to Run the Jewels for the first time and give my thoughts as I get blasted.

Here's the booze:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/2/7/AAbh80AADgfn.jpg

I have three longnecks of premixed whiskey, one six pack of low sugar alcoholic ginger beer and three cans of IPA. All up, it's around 18 standard drinks. I've also been boozing it up since lunch so I'm pretty hammered.

I'm listening to Run the Jewels now because I heard DJ Shadow's "Nobody Speak" in a movie called Booksmart and it's been in my regular rotation ever since. Booksmart has a dogshit trailer, but the actual movie is a better version of Superbad and I would recommend it.

Here's Nobody Speak:

https://youtu.be/NUC2EQvdzmY

I'm also going to be playing a drinking game with a couple of very simple rules. When a song ends, I'll take a big drink. When an album ends, I'll finish whatever I'm drinking.

Still hate em

The website as it functions has arguably never been better. HTML guides are fantastic, and dedicated users have been making some of the best game guides on the internet without the same profit motives as clickbait shitholes like The Gamer.

As far as the community goes, it's a community in decline. It happens. At least management grew a spine as began banning serial offenders.

nfearurspecimn posted...

Incorrect. They don't like me.

Didn't you say a bunch of racist shit? Like you admitted to jumping around going "ooga booga" at a black guy or something.

HMMMMMMMM-- okay I'll stop with the fake vegy shit

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/1/AAbh80AADgct.jpg

Hmmmm??? ;;ooooo

I don't see what the big deal is, because of course she's gonna be like any other GTA protagonist. She'll probably tell someone to suck her dick while jamming a gun under their jaw or something, typical GTA protag shit.

These games have always been profane and puerile, and I sincerely doubt they're going to cut back on that with a female protagonist. To assume they're going to turn GTA into Life is Strange because you play as someone with a vagina is fucking moronic.

To start off with, "weedbro" isn't synonymous with "pro-weed". Every time this topic comes up, I have to disclaim up and down that I'm pro-legalization and pro-regulation and pro-decriminalization - the latter to the point of releasing people in jail for weed-related offences. That's not just a smokescreen for me to crack down on the Devil's Lettuce or whatever the fuck - as someone who drinks way too much, I'm pro-weed because I think it's probably less harmful than excessive alcohol abuse. Let's get that out of the way: I have criticisms with how weed is presented as a substance with no downsides, but I am wholly pro-weed.

And what makes that so fucking hard is when the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet make these drooling statements about how weed/THC is less lethal than water, how smoking it is fine because there's no ammonia or other additives like in tobacco etc. And I've just discovered my next least favourite argument: telling people who've struggled with pot that it wasn't the weed that impacted them, it was that person's underlying mental conditions that weed exacerbated that was the real culprit. That, or that critiquing the mental effects of weed is bad because "you're in a minority of people that experience these effects this severely" - as if that disqualifies you from having anything important or relevant to say.

A YouTuber I follow just put up a community ask about how they're one year sober from weed, and that he's willing to answer any questions. He goes on to elaborate that marijuana usage amplified a sense of dissociation within his brain and made it significantly worse, to the point that he still deals with this amplified dissociation to this day, and that a big part of breaking free of weed as a substance he relied on was overcoming the spin that weed was some miracle drug.

Keep in mind, this is in reference to his own experiences getting clean from weed, which he sees as having a negative effect on his life. He's not saying "weed is bad, period", he's talking about how it affected him negatively on a community post about him being sober for a year which is something he's both proud of and willing to field questions about.

Enter this guy:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/1/7/AAbh80AADgIB.jpg
So he's in a minority of people who experience these problems, as if that discounts his struggles with smoking, and his own mental issues and paranoia are why things got worse for him when he was smoking.

Substance abuse is often fed by underlying mental health issues. But when those substances actively fuck with our brains and make us worse, and we realise what's happening and make a concerted effort to sober up, responding to that with "well actually it wasn't the substance that made things worse, it was you" is really fucking shitty. I feel like this is like telling a recovering alcoholic that they just couldn't handle their liquor.

And it's hard to talk about this because of course addiction issues are exacerbated by personal issues. Alcohol amplifies unhappiness, but there's often an underlying unhappiness that alcohol abuse feeds on. There is such a thing as blaming a substance for personal failings, like cursing someone out and blaming it on the alcohol.

But when you talk about how a substance affected you, and how you had to make a concerted effort to stop using it because it was making you worse - it's a real kick in the dick to hear someone go "well actually it's not the substance's fault, you're in a minority of people who are affected by this and you're blaming your own lack of responsibility and personal issues on a substance that I personally have had no such issues with. It's irresponsible to claim that these issues were caused by a substance when the real cause was your own shortcomings as a person".

Like who fucking does that?

You try to articulate a point like this and the fucking defence squad rolls out in full force to undermine the point and spruik for pot in place of the original point. You have the really entrenched people who are saying that any dissent from the party line is only to weaken the pro-weed platform and make it harder to legalise, and that a weed-critical viewpoint is ignorance informed by Big Pharma's years of disinformation against marijuana. And no matter how much you say "no, actually - I want weed to be regulated and sold like alcohol and tobacco, because I agree that it's a better alternative", the party line has to be "weed has no downsides, it's not addictive, it doesn't affect brain chemistry even if you smoke it for 30 years".

I'll reiterate that I'm pro-weed. I believe in legalisation, regulation and decriminalisation. But weedbros are fucking abhorrent, and downplaying anyone whose life has been negatively impacted by weed as a minority too small to seriously consider is irresponsible and shitty. Legalise weed, fuck weedbros.