I think for exercise I'm just gonna set a timer and do some stretches, I am running out of steam and the uhhhh 45 minutes of strength training I had scheduled sounds like a tomorrow problem
erikavonkaiser wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2024 4:17 pmdrop off library book and pick up new hold
finish clearing out Twitter account
make grocery list
get groceries
take Baby Dog on a long walk
shave my undercut cuz we scraggly
vacuum floors
put away laundry
make soup (DAAAAAAAAAAAVE)
exercise (tabled til tomorrow)
A++, time to sit down and become slug
btw the chicken pot pie soup was good but I want to workshop it and make it awesome, so maybe another batch next weekend unless I get sick of it
Having a snoozy doggy in your bed as your toasty warm little spoon is the best
okay here's my Endwalker rant:
let me go ahead and get what is my toxicity (well, the part of it I'm self-aware of, anyway) out of the way:
Yeah, it annoys me when people act like me not enjoying certain types of tragedies/dark content/etc is because I can't "handle" it, and yeah, getting reactions like "it's okay to not want to engage with that kind of content <3" does piss me off--
--because, like, thanks??? I guess??? I know people don't quite intend it the way it comes across, but in my irritation I hear "it's okay to have an incorrect opinion because you're emotional :)" and I will genuinely bite you with all of my teeth
So, yes, I'm a little prickly about it, and I do try not to be, but, yanno, only human and all
The part that is my actual criticism is that, I dunno man it's just not that compelling? It's kind of hard to criticize it without getting into the rest of FF14, which is a more lengthy review than I care to write (Endwalker is the end of a multi-expansions plotline), but none of the horrors and tragedies feel earned. You always get somewhere just in time to not save whoever it is and they die horrifically, over and over. A lot of people seem to find that compelling, but instead I'm just seeing sacrificial lamb after sacrificial lamb; after the third or fourth time, I've stopped caring about the lambs. It feels emotionally manipulative, which is what I mean by "not earned."
I was talking about this with Sophie the other day, but one of the zone quests in ESO (Stonefalls) is a tragedy (spoilering in case Fetian hasn't done it and doesn't want to perceive), wherein--
It's a tragedy, but there's hope and even though it ends in death, the storyline feels good and earned to me. I've heard fans of Endwalker tell me that the point is hope in the face of despair, but I am absolutely not seeing it. A few characters monologuing about carrying on doesn't do it for me, especially when I'm already tired of the visual novel pacing (a commonly quoted metric calculates Endwalker to have 23 hours of cutscenes). You go to point A, you listen to dialogue, you go to point B, you listen to dialogue, you kill one monster, you listen to dialogue, on and on and on. I guess, realistically, that's how most RPGs work, but I dunno man it's just a fuckin' lot
Right now where I'm at the "Final Days" is happening, so I do expect that to be, you know, unpleasant, or whatever. It's just ... like the most recent plot point is that despair turns people into monsters, right?
(which, btw, they had a grandmother freak out not knowing her grandson's fate and turn into a monster, which caused a bunch of destruction -- including seeing a Nice Lad (tm) NPC bitten completely in half -- and when you get to the village where her grandson is, guess what the first random despair monster says on your way in??? "graaandmaaaaaaaaaaa" 
)
Well, you spend several quest points searching for a specific couple and their baby. You find the dad too late, he's dead. You find the mom too late, she's dead. You find the baby, who Alphinaud heals, and another Nice Lad (tm) is tasked with running the baby to safety while the Scions fend off more despair monsters. The Nice Lad (tm) is a sweet boy, but cowardly, but he forces himself to be brave. Good for him! Well, it doesn't matter, because he starts to turn into a despair monster even though he is actively trying so, so hard to be brave, and THE FUCKING GODDAMN BABY STARTS TO TURN INTO A DESPAIR MONSTER ARE YOU HONESTLY TELLING ME AN INFANT CHILD UNDERSTANDS NIHILISM iasdgisdfh;ohdf
Anyways, they get saved at the last second (FINALLY) but I just can't do this shit anymore man, I am skipping cutscenes til we're off this stupid ride
Sometimes a tragedy is a bad tragedy and yeah that's just like, my opinion, man
It sounds like it's just beating you over the head with the "despair" part of it, and, like - you gotta have hope in the equation to have the "hope in the face of despair" messaging! You have to earn that! You can't just rely on the player to bring hope to the table because they came to you for that actually and now you've just got a plotline full of despair!
Fetian wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2024 7:18 pmIt sounds like it's just beating you over the head with the "despair" part of it, and, like - you gotta have hope in the equation to have the "hope in the face of despair" messaging! You have to earn that! You can't just rely on the player to bring hope to the table because they came to you for that actually and now you've just got a plotline full of despair!
yeah!! and ultimately, Endwalker lands for a lot of people but doesn't land for me, and that's fine, but genuinely the next time someone tries to gently tumblr therapyspeak to me about not liking tragic content I am going to beat them with the chip on my shoulder
(it's a big chip)
Also I exercised and ate a carbohydrate so I am ready to be a human being again
Tell them they should just admit they like whump and that's okay