👾 @alis@fandom.ink

It's a me, elsewhere:

https://alisx.dreamwidth.org/
https://ask.alis.me/
https://www.pillowfort.io/alis

So I never did an #introduction but I probably should, so...

I'm Alis! I'm an #sff #author and I love #monsters and so I write books about monsters. I also sometimes (very rarely) draw, and (mostly) play way too many #videogames.

I'm also the admin of fandom.ink, a small #fandom centric Masto instance, inspired by the #tumblr exodus and aimed at #fanart, #fanfic, #RP, and other general fannish content. (Also cat photos.)

So... hi!

Since I know I'm not the only text editor/Markdown fan here...

https://www.typora.io/

The Oxford comma is American imperialism.

Reading hot takes about the CATS trailer has forced me to confront, for the first time in my life, the fact that CATS… has an actual plot of some kind?

I literally always just thought it was about singing cats?

I did it! I DEFEATED THE SLUSH PILE! Mwahahahahahahaha~!

*stands triumphant atop the mound of UNNATURAL ORDER submissions*

Starting the workday crying over fanfic like a Real Adult™️.

(Also, while I'm on this rant: Not having customizable party member AI in a non-turn-based cRPG in the this Year Of Our Black Isle 2019 is ridic. Even the original BALDER'S GATE managed this back in the 90s! And, for a modern systems, PoE absolutely nails it.)

(Okay. I'm done now.)

Like... you can kind of feel where things went wrong (the game feels like a small studio over-reached, basically), and it's such a shame because with a few tiiiiiny tweaks* it'd be up there with, like, DEADFIRE as one of my favourite RPGs.

* Or even just one: let me play the game in my own damn time, Jesus. Fuck your immersion timeline bullshit; this is IMO one thing Bethesda gets pilloried for that I think they actually do right. Let the plot wait for the player, even if it's not "realistic".

It's a shame because there's so much that's really awesome in the game, that keeps making me want to come back to it (it looks fantastic, it implements Pathfinder's honestly wonky af rules really well, *some* of the writing is really good, the Kingdom management is really cool, it's meaty and long)...

And then there's... everything else (bugs, instant game over states if you don't do EXACTLY what the game wants EXACTLY when and how it wants you to, every part written by Chris Avellone...)

And I know this is just one little bug, but IMO it's kinda... indicative of why I find the game so frustrating.

Like, the game has a way it DEMANDS you play it, and if you do something even slightly outside of that, it breaks. If you're lucky, like in this case, it's just a few minutes of frustration. If you're not, you'll be reloading saves from hours ago or, at worst, realise you're in an unwinnable state.

This one is triggered if:

1. you have the "dead characters res after battle" option ticked
2. Character A died in, and resurrects in, a persistent AoE effect cast by Character B
3. Character B has the Dazzling Display feat.

Depending on how long the AoE persists, it can last for a few minutes, and crashed the game at least once. (Characters basically don't have AI other than "run straight at an enemy and attack!", meaning they don't avoid AoE.)

PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER (2018).

Never not wild to me that cowboy films, samurai films, and Sherlock Holmes are all basically set in the same decade (and all basically have the same underlying cultural meaning for the US, Japan, and Britain respectively).