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Discussion / DLCon 2020 - Vancouver v.2

« on: February 22, 2020, 11:24:07 PM »

After some discussion with Jim, we've decided that the best thing to do is to host the con in Vancouver, and then have a minimeet in October in Boston.

July sounds like the best time to host it for us, so if anyone has any input on particular dates, please let us know!

Signup thus far:
1. Ciatokins
2. Elfboy
3. CK
4. Meeple
5. Sierra
6. Laggy
7. Snowfire

Probably:
1. Ran
2. NotMiki
3. Tallychu
4. Saika
5. Gref

Nope:
1. Super

2

Discussion / Three Houses and Politics

« on: February 05, 2020, 05:16:34 AM »

Reiska posed a question to chat one day about Three Houses.

“Why do different people of different ideological stripes have such different reactions to this game’s plot?”

Spoilers for all routes, obviously.

I decided to tackle this as a question. A few ground rules:

-I am trying my best to take things in good faith. This isn’t to say that I am unwilling to criticize in characters or their actions, but I will try to understand different players’ points of view.
Note: With that being said, I am proudly in the pro-Edelgard, anti-Rhea camp and my opinions are generally seen from within that lens.
-I will not use loaded words such as ‘fascist’, ‘cultist’, or ‘waifu’. I don’t think that these terms engender positive discourse, so I will abstain from using them.
-I will try my best to cite things from in-game text as well as I can remember them. Some of the history stuff is just pulled from the Fire Emblem Wiki.

The game’s fundamental question that it presents you is “When is revolution justified?” So this essay aims to explore:

1. How strong is Rhea’s influence on society and what are her goals for the continent of Fodlan?
2. Do the social conditions in Fodlan at the time of the game necessitate large-scale upheaval?

I think most people would agree that, under certain conditions, revolution is the most just course of action. For a modern example, few would see a violent uprising to get rid of a repressive regime like the current North Korea leadership to be unjustified. On the other hand, most people would also agree that overthrowing a stable, peaceful government whose citizens are satisfied would not be a just course of action. The case of Fodlan clearly lies somewhere between these two extremes, but where?

1. How strong is Rhea’s influence on society and what are her goals for the continent of Fodlan?

The relationship between the three countries and the Church of Seiros

The Adrestian Empire once primarily occupied the continent. About 400 years ago, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus broke off from the Empire in a conflict called the War of the Eagle and Lion. Loog, the King of Lions, rebels against the Empire and the Church ends up mediating the end of the war and establishing the Holy Kingdom. The Church formally crowns Loog as the first king. About 100 years later the Kingdom split into two, forming the Leicester Alliance in the Crescent Moon War. Edelgard, in her case for going to war with the Church of Seiros (end of Chapter 11 speech), states that this split into three countries was instigated by the church, with the goals of dividing humanity and thus increasing the Church’s influence and authority. In Chapter 11, Manuela has a monastery dialogue that corroborates this idea; she comments on the oddity of the fact that Garrech Mach Monastery is situated in the exact centre of the three countries, despite having been built before the Kingdom and the Alliance were created.

Edelgard also states in Chapter 14 that she believes that Seiros/Rhea collected the artifacts of the 10 Elites after they were defeated in battle and then distributed them with the intention of starting a conflict between the Empire and the soon-to-be-Kingdom. There is nothing else in the game that contradicts this or confirms this (as far as I know), but it would make sense that Seiros had the artifacts of her defeated foes and since they are heirlooms passed from generation to generation today that at some point they were given to the Crest-bearers. Whether this was with any ill intention or not, as Edelgard claims, is up to interpretation. Seiros/Rhea doesn’t seem very pleased that humans have them, but she also has the mechanisms to take them back if she wanted, and has not. This might reflect her complicated feelings on the weapons due to their origin.

(Sylvain, in his paralogue, states that his family was concerned that Rhea was going to confiscate the Lance of Ruin as a result of Miklan’s actions, which sets precedence for the Church of Seiros having some degree of ownership/authority over those artifacts.)

The Church of Seiros as a center of power in Fodlan

There is a lot of evidence that establishes the Church of Seiros as an institution with a lot of power over the people of Fodlan.

-Pretty much all of the plot related to Lonato and Christophe.
 
1. In Ashe and Catherine’s support, we learn that Christophe was framed for his supposed role in the Tragedy of Duscur, but was executed because he was plotting against Rhea. So in other words, she executes someone for a crime they didn’t commit, and says it’s fine because they committed another unproven crime.
2. Lonato was a just and honest man, according to those who know him, but he started a rebellion and his head was put on the chopping block due to rebelling against the Central Church
3. In Blue Lions route, she commands the king-in-waiting to take up arms against a nobleman from his own country. That strongly implies that she has significant sway over even the royalty of Fodlan.
4. "I pray the students learned a valuable lesson about the fate that awaits all those who are foolish enough to point their blades toward the heavens."

-She crowns the kings and emperors of Fodlan

-All nobility are required to show piety to the Church as a part of their noble obligations (both Lorenz and Ferdinand talk about this, and Claude is seen as an outsider for not being very faithful.)

-The church has its own personal military that is praised as the most elite fighting force on the continent. In Alois/Shamir’s paralogue, the Knights of Seiros are sent to defend Derdriu, the capital of the Alliance, which clearly shows how much stronger the Church is militarily than the Alliance.

-In Crimson Flower, she (with her personal army) goes to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and makes it the new seat of her power. It isn’t clear who is in charge of this combined Church-Faerghus alliance but Dimitri certainly doesn’t seem to be predominantly in control of affairs.

-I generally feel that the Church’s hold is strongest in Faerghus, followed by the Alliance, followed by the Empire where the Church is the weakest. Reading some of the backstory on the Wiki, I see that the Southern Church tried to cause chaos in the Empire a few decades ago and was disbanded, which means that there is no core church in the Empire anymore.


What is Rhea’s view on the aristocratic system?

In the school that the church runs: On one hand, she expresses a desire to have the students at the monastery mingle with students of different social castes. On the other hand, she sets up a school system that is only accessible to those with large sums of money (the money requirement is discussed in Ignatz’s support with Byleth and Leonie’s support with Raphael, I believe). This indicates that this institution has been primarily set up as a way to train the children of elite people (and extract money from them, more cynically), but is technically not barred off from the common class. It’s just more difficult for the poor due to the money requirement.

Otherwise, she seems to see value in Fodlan’s nobility system as a means of maintaining her own power. In her post-Miklan dialogue, she expresses concern that the people will ‘lose faith in the nobility’ if they learn about the Demonic Beast transformation. However, we also know that Rhea likes to keep things related to transformation under wraps (see the scene where Seteth confiscates Claude’s documents about the Immaculate One), so that might be her primary motive rather than her stated goal during that scene.

Rhea does not necessarily intend malice toward any particular group of people and is quite pleasant to individual people. We see both Catherine and Cyril, two examples of people who idolize Rhea. In Remire, she takes in children who are orphaned by the events that occur there. She does seem to legitimately care about individual people that she likes, but her primary concern is making sure that people who oppose her are punished and that her own rule is upheld.

Most of your missions in Part 1 are primarily done with the purpose of defending the Church’s interests and honor, rather than helping the citizens of the nation with the wider spread problems of violence. Just to review…

(Chapter 1 - Battle vs. other houses)
Chapter 2 - Bandits have taken over Zanado Canyon, a sacred site in the Church of Seiros.
Chapter 3- Lonato. Lonato is directly challenging the authority of the church and thus is executed.
Chapter 4- Defending Rhea from a purported assassination plot which turns out to be a cover for robbing the Tomb of Seiros. This one is interesting because Rhea states that she feels like she is in no danger, but the church is being dishonored and thus you must destroy her enemies.
Chapter 5 - Miklan. Miklan has stolen a Hero’s Relic, which Rhea is very concerned about falling in the wrong hands, but it is clear that her concern is primarily out of desire to keep the Relics’ secrets under wraps rather than to protect the people who are being oppressed by Miklan et al.
Chapter 6- Flayn’s kidnapping. Defending the draconic bloodline.
(Chapter 7 - The Battle of the Eagle and Lion)
Chapter 8 - Remire. Again, people opposed to the church causing chaos. You can argue that this one is more out of concern for the citizens than some of the previous ones, where she expresses basically no concerns about the people’s suffering, but it is also beneficial to her directly.
Chapter 9 - Demonic Beasts in the school.
Chapter 10 - Kronya/Solon.
Chapter 11 - Desecrating the holy tomb. All three of these are in direct opposition to the Church and are serious threats.

I feel like the main times we see missions that are done of concern for the citizens of the countries are paralogues, which are initiated by different PCs from those territories rather than the Church directly (although the Church does give its permission). A few examples include Felix, Sylvain, Ignatz/Raph, and Dedue, all of which serve to protect the common people of their respective countries.

On the other hand, the paralogues that primarily concern Church characters, such as Seteth/Flayn and Ashe/Catherine, are primarily conflicts within the Church of Seiros, where both sides accuse each other of heresy. And as with most real-life conflicts like this, neither side comes off particularly well. In Seteth/Flayn’s paralogue, not only do both sides commit violence over sectarian differences over possession of a holy site, but the player is commanded to cut down fleeing enemies for their heresy.

How long has Rhea/Seiros been ruling Fodlan/the Church of Seiros and what is her leadership like?

One difference between Rhea and many real life authoritarian leaders is the fact that she is seemingly immortal and has been ruling for a long time. But for how long? Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of evidence that I have found that can state this definitively one way or another. We know that Jeralt is 113 years old, according to Alois/Byleth support, which places his blood transfusion to around 70-90 years ago, depending on how fast Jeralt ages + how old he was when it happened. We know that Rhea/Seiros was in charge of the church at that juncture. The other thing that we know is that Byleth is the 13th experiment that Rhea/Seiros does to try to revive Sothis, and her mother was the 12th. Rhea/Seiros states that she ‘created’ Byleth’s mother. Whether that is through vat experiments or birth is something I am unclear on, but what this does establish is that Rhea/Seiros has been at the very least active and ruling for most of if not all of the last 1000 years.

She clearly wields a lot of authority; we see Seteth, the seeming second most powerful member of the Church, defer to her on numerous occasions. Even when reasonable criticisms of her plans are voiced, she is able to command obedience simply by stating that this is her will. If she tells you to jump, you better damn well jump.

As a side note, I don’t think Rhea/Seiros is a Machiavellian mastermind. In Crimson Flower, she spends most of her time stuck in a trauma loop, incapable of making any rational arguments, due to having her authority challenged by her mother’s vessel. This is pretty consistent with the rest of her character work, where she primarily uses force of will, rather than reason or manipulation, to enact the things she desires. This style of leadership is perhaps why there is a lot of unrest and people dissatisfied with her rule.

So this all leads to…

2. Does the social condition in Fodlan at the time of the game necessitate large-scale upheaval?

So, what kind of world is Fodlan today?

The three major powers in Fodlan are currently at peace with each other, with the Central Church as a stabilizing force in the continent. Not that all seems to be well….

Violence is rampant:
-There is genocide in Duscur four years before the game starts, which is instigated primarily by Kingdom citizens who hate brown people, after nobles of the country and TWSID plotted the murder of the king. We see the naked racism against the remaining Duscur people crop up in a variety of different places in the game, including Dedue’s paralgoue, Dimitri/Dedue support, and even Ingrid/Felix expressing racist ideology.
-There is a lot of chaos in Faerghus; it seems to be fairly close to a failed state (see Felix/Sylvain paralogues). The Central Church seems to not be concerned with re-establishing order in Faerghus except for the instances where the events directly pertain to the Church (Lonato rebelling against the Church, Miklan possessing a Relic without having a Crest), so Faerghus has been in disorder for at least the last 4 years since the death of the king.
-There was a war between Faerghus and Sreng that ended about 10 years ago.
-Violence is so ingrained in the culture of Faerghus that both Dimitri and Felix learned to wield a weapon before they could write their own names. There is no suggestion that their experiences are atypical of Faerghus nobility.
-In the Alliance, the Duke of Gloucester, according to Raphael/Ignatz’s paralogue, assassinates the heir to House Riegan. The Alliance seems to be more stable than the Kingdom, but is constantly fending off pirates (Alois/Shamir’s paralogue; they are attacking the capital city of Derdriu, which is not a great sign) and Almyra is constantly a threat to invade. There seems to be a baseline amount of general banditry in the Alliance as well, although not as much as in the Kingdom.
-In the Empire, there was a large war against Dagda and Brigid, who tried to invade about ten years ago. I feel like the Empire is overall the best off; not sure there is as much banditry there but…
-Hanneman’s sister is killed by a nobleman for the crime of not bearing a Crest-baby (Edelgard A support)
-Bernadetta is beaten for not being good enough trophy wife material (Byleth B support)
-Dorothea mentions that she has to teach herself how to wield a weapon in order to protect herself while in the opera, implicitly from sexual assault (Felix A support)

The caste system is hugely important in the political structure of all three countries:
-People are valued primarily for their Crests;  Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes are all three examples of this culture.
-We see this manifest differently in the different countries. The Imperial nobility are indolent and coast primarily on their wealth, Crests, and family name, the Faerghus nobility are hyper-chivalrous and obsessed with honor, and the Alliance nobility are always politicking and in-fighting, involving all people, not just themselves. We see three different versions of unpleasant aristocratic cultures in these three countries.

While we don’t get many looks from the eyes of commoners in this game, what we do get tells us that they have a rough life:
-Ashe is so poor that, despite being one of the most virtuous people in the game, he turns to a life of crime in order for he and his younger siblings to survive. (from Ashe/Byleth B support)
-Dorothea, an orphan in the imperial capital, grew up drinking from drains and digging food from the trash. She was spit on and kicked by noblemen. As luck would have it, she ended up becoming an opera star, and instead was objectified by the same nobles who treated her poorly on the street. She believes that the goddess and ‘her noble regime’ are responsible for her suffering, which lends further credence to the nobility’s strong ties with the church. (from Dorothea/Hanneman B and Ferdie/Dorothea A)

It seems like a pretty typical European society during the height of the Papacy (except that the Pope has an actual army), but many of the people who live in the society itself are much more progressive and forward-thinking than the society that they live in. Many of the students question the values of the society that they’ve grown up in (Felix, Sylvain, Lysithea, Ingrid, Mercedes, Dorothea, Edelgard, Linhardt). In some ways the people who live in the world seem more progressive than the antiquated systems of government and social order that control their lives, and this incongruence will inherently lead to conflict of some kind. As established a few paragraphs ago, it seems as if Rhea/Seiros has been in charge of Fodlan into the knowable past and therefore we can assume that she will continue to be in charge of Fodlan for the foreseeable future, given no disruption of the status quo. And it seems as if Rhea is largely happy with the current structure of the world, so we can infer that the world won’t really change without some sort of conflict.

Could a solution have been reached that didn’t involve a war?

I don’t believe a peaceful solution could have been reached that involves Rhea/Seiros conceding power. We see example after example of how Rhea acts when her authority is questioned, and nothing in her behavior in Part 1 suggests that she will be reasoned with on this subject. To be honest, I think this would be an excellent course of action to take if your goal were to be executed.

I think the best-case scenario would be an alliance between Edelgard and Claude where each of them work together to seize power from the Church of Seiros. This would still end up as a large-scale conflict engulfing the continent, but ideally with both the Empire and Alliance on the same side, the war would have been less lengthy. I think the honest truth is that both Edelgard and Claude are control freaks and want things to be the way they want them, so I feel like an alliance between the two of them would ultimately have ended in failure, even if it worked out initially. And both of them are playing dangerous games involving defying the Church of Seiros while going to school at the monastery; in particular, if Edelgard reached out to Claude and he betrayed her to the church, it would end all of her plans, and almost certainly her life. Neither party had a good reason to trust the other, and good reason not to.

It is often said that Claude has a lot of the radical left trappings of Edelgard without being as violent/militant, but in practice, I’m not sure what Claude’s plan to take over/reform Fodlan was, before the war started. He definitely wants to take over Fodlan; in Crimson Flower, he explicitly states that he wanted to rule the continent. In his own route, he happily takes advantage of a large conflict once it is happening in order to consolidate the continent under his rule or that of someone close to him. During the war, he even brings a foreign military into Fodlan in order to achieve his goal, calling into question his reputation in the fandom as the one who seeks peaceful solutions.

But Luther, none of that answered the original question “Why do different people of different ideological stripes have such different reactions to this game’s plot?”

Good thinking, brain worm. The answer to #2 is “depends on who you ask”.

I think people who support Rhea have a few different reasons for doing so. One, some people believe that tradition and order are important parts of the social contract and government in general. The Church’s influence has been a stabilizing presence on the world, and while the world isn’t perfect, Rhea is a voice of moderation and reason and helps solve problems when they arise. For people of relatively conservative ideology who believe that the government’s primary role is to maintain order, Rhea’s actions are completely justified. In some debates over this game, some people have stated that “if you don’t oppose Rhea/Seiros, she is a very nice person!”. It is similar to the sentiment “good citizens wouldn’t get in trouble with the law” or views that “those hurt by the police deserve what they got”.

Another common pro-Rhea argument I’ve seen primarily comes from VW’s final scenes, where Rhea/Seiros reveals that her family was brutally slaughtered by the Nemesis and the 10 Elites 1000 years ago, and how she holds this long-standing sorrow in her heart about it, not to mention a distrust of humanity. To be honest, I feel that while this may explain her actions, it does not excuse them, nor in any way influences whether a revolution against her regime is justified or not. She can have legitimate grievances against humanity and still be an unfit ruler.

The third group of Rhea supporters I have encountered are people who have no problem with Rhea behavior in Part 1. To say that the authoritarian behavior of Rhea/Seiros in Part 1 is not enough reason to start a war against her is fair; saying that her behavior is totally, 100% fine confuses and alarms me. I feel that this might be due to the perception of Rhea as a “good guy” because she is initially presented as calm and motherly (channelling similarly designed Fire Emblem characters Emmeryn and Mikoto), and because she shows kindness and trust toward the main character. It’s not as if the game is trying to hide her faults; two of your most trusted companions Jeralt and Sothis both caution you to be wary of Rhea. But as the Milgram experiment showed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), many people have an inherent desire to obey an authority figure, particularly one who is reasonable to them, even as evidence mounts that what they are doing is wrong.

Edelgard, on the other hand, proposes that the Crest system, the nobility, and the church are all parts of a broken system, with the Church at its core, which needs to be removed and replaced. She acknowledges that her plan to do so, which involves a violent removal of Rhea and her followers from power, is one that promises short-term pain for Fodlan, but she believes that the long-term gains are easily worth the sacrifice.

The nature of these long-term gains is something that she gives a lot of consideration to. Edelgard, in her various supports, explores ideas on how to make the post-church world a better place; in her Hanneman support, they discuss how to eliminate the Crest system by either trying to remove them or by giving everyone access to them. In her Ferdinand support, they discuss free education as a way of decreasing inequality, closing the gap between the rich and the poor. In her Caspar support, she discusses her plans to have people earn titles rather than inherit them. In her Linhardt support, she discusses establishing a research institute for Crests and Relics. In her Manuela support, they talk about the place that faith and religion will hold in the new order, and Edelgard gains appreciation for the value of faith despite her contempt for organized religion. I think her fans are drawn to her care for the society she plans to build in this post-church world. I think Edelgard appeals more to people who have had to deal with the church’s powerful influence on society and other stripes of progressives that feel that our current world is unsatisfactory.

(Of course, some people like the characters for superficial reasons and take sides based on that but I am not really interested in that as a point of discussion.)

I think the answer to the question “Does the social condition in Fodlan at the time of the game necessitate large-scale upheaval?” comes down to whether one feels the ends justifies the means. Does Edelgard’s new vision for the world (more egalitarian, less stratified, more free and less controlled by a central church power) counter-balance the life lost in the war? In 300 years, will the people of Fodlan think of this event the same as people think of the French Revolution in our world today; a turbulent and violent event that brought about positive social change to the world? Or will it be seen as a vanity project, a way to stamp one’s name on history?

(Interestingly, Edelgard asks this very question in her C support with Dorothea: will she be remembered as “the revolutionary who guided the Empire to a new dawn...or the foolish ruler who took her revolution too far”?)

Unlike most game character rivalries, I think Edelgard versus Rhea gets people riled up because of its real world implications. “How could you think that war is justified?” “How could you believe that this status quo is acceptable, especially with an immortal ruler?” These questions are heavier than more typical fandom debates, such as one’s favorite ships or whether Caspar or Raphael is a better unit.

So why do you side with Edelgard?

In my analysis of the justification of revolution, I looked at the sum total of society’s ills as well as the unwillingness of Rhea’s administration to do anything about them, preferring to prioritize consolidation of its own power. I think for her to continue to be in power indefinitely is a grave mistake, and one that could hinder the social and political progress of Fodlan for the foreseeable future. I do not believe that peaceful methods are a realistic option for dealing with a power-hungry authoritarian and as a result I believe that a revolution is the only feasible solution to the problem.

I also do not believe that, as a risk-vs.-reward, that Edelgard reaching out to Claude is a good idea. It is a nice thought, and one that would have made the game different (and shorter!) than the one that we have, but as outlined above, I do not believe that it makes much sense in the context of both characters’ situations in Part 1. And in Part 2, Edelgard conquers Derdriu for a simple reason: she doesn’t want to be flanked by Claude while fighting against the Church, which is a real risk given Claude’s ambitions.

I do not believe that Edelgard and Dimitri could feasibly ally with each other because they are too ideologically different. One of the more interesting scenes in the game is on Azure Moon where the two of them discuss these differences and conclude that they are simply too far apart to compromise. Dimitri argues that “pushing your own sense of justice and your own ideals onto even one other person is nothing more than self-righteousness”. Edelgard responds with “Maybe it is self-righteousness, but it doesn’t matter. Someone has to take action and put a stop to this world’s endless, blood-stained history!” Despite Edelgard being the supposed ‘villain’ of the route, I found myself agreeing with her. Isn’t the point of being a leader to make decisions for many people, sometimes decisions that are difficult and unpopular at the time?

Does your choice of first route determine your outlook on this argument?

I think there is some correlation between the first set of eyes you see the game through and your ultimate opinion on this debate. On the other hand, I played Azure Moon first, and I still prefer Edelgard’s revolution to a world of stagnation, so maybe not completely. It might be a chicken or egg thing though; does Edelgard’s route, with its obviously coldly rational and assertive female lead, inherently appeal more to those who would be more inclined to give into its narrative? As a player, it would be interesting to rewind and play a different route first, but sadly, unlike Byleth, I do not have access to Divine Pulse.

But Luther, Edelgard bands with the Dubstepping Mole People, doesn’t that make her a bad girl?

On the day Edelgard was born
The nurses all gathered ‘round
To gaze in wide wonder
At the bitch they had found
The head nurse spoke up and said leave this one alone
They could tell right away that she was bad to the bone….
buh-buh-buh-bad

Don’t worry kids, her pet Hubert will deal with them in the epilogue. The enemy of your enemy, as it turns out, is just your enemy in the future. More seriously, I think that Edelgard saw them as a means to an end, just as she sees many other things. I don’t think it is a particularly noble thing for her to do, and she obviously despises them, but she defers dealing with them until post-game because they are useful tools at the time.

But Luther, Edelgard lies to her friends about who nukes Arianrhod, doesn’t that make her a bad girl?

A means to an end. For god’s sake brain worm, she wears fucking devil horns and she is called the Lady of Deceit. We love her because she’s buh-buh-buh-bad.

So what you’re saying is that she isn’t the nicest person in the world but she is doing what is overall best for the world so we should side with her anyway?

Yes.

Well, that was over 5000 words. Now I sleep~

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Discussion / DLCon 2020 or something resembling it

« on: December 13, 2019, 06:19:52 PM »

Hi all!

We haven't gotten together in a while, so I was thinking about organizing something in Vancouver for summer 2020. I am off work in July and August and think it would be really nice to host a group of people here. It doesn't necessarily have to be a large event, but I would like to see people and show people around the city if possible.

We could also meet in a different place if you guys prefer, but I am willing to organize any size event here.

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General Chat / The Journey Toward Something, Somewhere

« on: April 02, 2019, 05:19:51 AM »

Hi! This topic is primarily going to be focused on my journey to become healthier in a sustainable way.

Background: I have always lived and ate like a traditional southerner, being both inactive and eating a lot of unhealthy food. 36.5% of Oklahomans are obese. I have personally fluctuated between overweight and mildly obese in my life, but I haven’t been at the supposed target weight for a woman of my height… ever. I don’t put that much stock in this stuff, but I do put stock in trying to do better. I guess my goal, rather than becoming thin, is to simply make sure that I can be at a weight that I am happy with, even if that is considered ‘overweight’ by some fitness guru. I’ve been having some problems with acid reflux, which I’m hoping to alleviate with some weight loss as well.

It’s a difficult subject for me because I fiercely believe that people need to shut the fuck up about weight in general, but it’s something that has bothered me for most of my life. It is hard to run from ingrained expectations. I don’t really believe in fad diets / deprivation style diets, so I decided to assess what I wanted to do to improve my eating habits.

The first thing I decided was to cut out ‘stress eating’, which I definitely have fallen victim to many times in the past. That mostly translates as picking up a snack after work. I decided to start bringing snacks to work instead, and that was quite a good solution to the problem. I have only ate something after school once since the start of the new year. This wasn’t very hard because I realized that it was pretty stupid to start with.

A couple of snacks that I have had at work are: hummus and carrots/celery, which to be honest was a huge hit, especially once my coworker told me about making homemade hummus. It’s cheap and easy to make at home, and one can of chickpeas makes enough hummus for four weeks. I freeze three of the containers and get them out when I need them. The other one I tried was cashew butter and apples. Obviously this one is a little bit sweeter, but it’s still pretty tasty. Both provide nutrients and both hummus and cashew butter are reasonably filling. When I forget my snack it is definitely a bummer.

Rice/pasta substitutes: I’ve been tinkering with different ideas surrounding meals with pasta and rice. I tried making my own cauliflower rice. To be honest, it is really messy to shred and doesn’t really replicate rice that well in thinner-sauced dishes, but I liked it anyway. I’ve been eating it primarily with Thai curries. For Indian food, I tried eating veggie and lentils dishes without rice, which was fine and dandy. The meatier curry sauces I still like old fashioned rice for.

I’ve also tried making zucchini noodle pasta, which is a lot of work and a little messy. I ended up not really being satisfied with the amount of noodles when I tried to make it with red meat sauce, but it tasted really nice! After that, I have just been mixing it into some cream pasta dishes along with regular pasta, which is nice and also adds some veggies in.

Tinkering with breakfast: I’ve been trying to make my breakfast a little more diverse, with protein along with other things: First I tried boiling eggs and eating them with some cashew butter and a fruit salad. It was okay but not thrilling. I also decided to try overnight oats with apples and cinnamon, which I quite enjoy even if it seems like a lot of food.

Lentil soup: I’ve been making a big fucking pot of lentil soup every week and eating it at various times, including making up for any missed lunches rather than getting lunch at the gross cafeteria. If I don’t eat it during the week, I will usually cook it on Saturday.

The last thing I have been doing is exercising. I decided to buy a one year gym membership to the local gym, and so far I’ve been going about four times a week, usually from 30 minutes to 50 minutes per session. They tried to talk me into a personal trainer but I was like nah, I like my money. I’ve also been working on some at-home exercises and watching Youtube videos and stuff.

Lost 9 pounds so far since January. Last week was a bust diet-wise because vacation but I’m trying to get back in the groove this week.

5

Discussion / DLCon 2018 Travel Topic

« on: March 31, 2018, 07:50:55 PM »

A topic for posting travel plans~

Arrival:
Vancouver (YVR), CA
Thu, 16 Aug 2018, 14:20
New York (JFK), US
Thu, 16 Aug 2018, 22:35

Leaving:
New York (JFK), US
Tue, 21 Aug 2018, 00:20
Vancouver (YVR), CA
Tue, 21 Aug 2018, 03:20

6

Discussion / DLCon XI - Travel

« on: May 31, 2016, 10:28:06 PM »

This is just a place to post your travel plans. We'll just be taking the train from the airport to the house, getting off at King Edward skytrain station. The house's address is 561 W 20th Ave, which is about four blocks south of the King Edward station. if you are looking for a hotel to stay at in the city, I would probably look for something near the Canada Line Skytrain line, which goes from the airport to downtown.

7

Discussion / DLCon XI - O Canada

« on: March 04, 2016, 06:57:21 PM »

Welcome to Vancouver, where you can retreat to upon the election of President Trump. We have cookies.

The dates are August 11th - August 15th!

Okay, it looks like DLC Vancouver is going forward. First of all, given this, two things we need to know.

-What dates work best for you?
-Will you be attending? (and/or likelihood of doing so)

General information that may help with planning:

-If you intend to come, are not from Canada, and don't yet have a passport, start applying for your passport NOW. I can't stress this enough. Don't let your holidays be hostage to your government's bureaucracy. The passport is good for 10 years anyway (in many countries, at least) so it's hardly a bad investment even if you end up having to cancel.

-There are a few different ways to get to Vancouver by air:
--Vancouver airport (YVR) is by far the simplest. It's a quick Skytrain ride (20 minutes max) from there to downtown Vancouver, our apartment, and various other parts of the city. The downside is it has high fees to airline prices to Vancouver can be pretty pricy depending on where you are flying from.
--Seattle is about 2-3 hours away by car and 4 by bus. There is bus service which connects directly from Seattle-Tacoma airport to Vancouver, with only a small number of stops along the way (though the border takes a while). The travel time will obviously be longer if you go plane + bus, but it might be cheaper. (It might also not be, you'll have to do your research.)
--Bellingham is a small city just across the border from Vancouver. The same bus that services Seattle to Vancouver stops in Bellingham, so you can take that too. In my experience though, the only cheap flights Bellingham connect to relatively nearby parts of the country, but could be worth looking at for Californians.
--You can also fly to Seattle/Bellingham and rent a car (or, if you're coming from California or any other "close" places, drive from there). Do be careful, though: if you're renting, not all rentals will allow you to cross the border. (Some will, though.)

-We will most likely be renting a house, similar to what we've done in San Francisco in the past. The price will obviously depend on what we're able to find and how many people attend. We've tentatively found places which would run about $200 CDN ($150 US) per person for 12 people for 4 nights (Thursday night to Monday morning). You might want to budget a bit more than that in case prices rise by the time we actually get confirmation for dates and can book things.

-Prices for food and similar things in Vancouver are expensive, i.e. similar to priciest US cities like San Francisco and New York... normally. However, the current Canada-US exchange rate is extremely favourable for US travellers ($1 CDN = 74 US cents, at the time of this post), that should help a good deal; this is definitely the best time to visit Canada in this regard since DLCons first became a thing. (I haven't looked into the current exchange rates for Australia or Finland or the UK or Japan or anywhere else, sorry.)

More to come at some point, but for now, that's the basic info. Please give feedback about your availability as soon as possible.

Coming:

1. Elfboy
2. Ciato
3. Grefter
4. Snowfire
5. Excal
6. Meeple
7. Laggy
8. Magey
9. Gate
10. Lady Door
11. Andy
12. Tonfa
13. Djinn
14. Djinn's boyfriend
15. Sopko
16. Alex
17. Tal
18. Jim
19. Aziraphale
20. CK
21. MC

Maybe:
1. Gourry

Not coming:
1. Zenny
2. Super
3. Idun
4. Niu
5. Neph

For anyone who is interested, there is a Shakespeare festival going on in the city during the summer (http://bardonthebeach.org/). If you are interested, please let us know!

Passport information:

Since it looks like y'all will be having a con in Canada land and most of us aren't Canadian, and I work with passports, I figured I'd talk some about getting passports.

SO

I'm doing the math for you, but US Passports are gonna run you 135 dollars. I'm making some assumptions here. 1)You're getting the book and 2)You're getting a first time passport.

Go here. https://iafdb.travel.state.gov/ Stick in your zip code. Apply at that place. When do you apply? My recommendation is at least 7 weeks ahead of schedule, but honestly, more than that if you live in California, you guys are backed up. Apply early. Not applying early will come damn near to doubling your total cost and might not get you a passport anyhow.

What do you need?

A birth certificate. The original or a copy directly from Vital Records. No photocopies. Valid ID. A photo. Have a professional take the damn photo. Did I mention 135 dollars? Yeah. That's it.

8

Discussion / Long Live Astrasia or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 5e

« on: April 23, 2015, 06:43:35 AM »

There seemed to be a couple people in chat interested in in 5e, so I’m doing this as a bit of a log of my experiences with the system.

The idea to start up a 5e campaign was rather spontaneous. I wasn’t initially thrilled with a lot of the changes 5e brought about – the return of the complicated save system, where sometimes the player rolls and sometimes the DM rolls when you cast a spell, and the spell levels being reverted back to the needlessly complicated level naming system (why do you get a level 3 spell at level 5 again? Could you have at least given it a less goofy name, like ‘Rank 3’?

But I was eager to play in another campaign after our 4e campaign with the same group had gotten derailed, so we decided to get together a group of people (beginners and people who don’t min/max) to play.

Looking through the Player’s Handbook, I noticed that feats as a mechanic was drastically reduced. Feats is one of the things I found most daunting about 4e, so a de-emphasis on them is a good change. In this edition, you choose at certain levels to either take +2 in a stat (or +1 in two stats) or to take a feat. This makes taking feats vs. stats an interesting decision, and to compensate, feats are quite powerful.

Another thing I immediately noticed and liked was the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. In 4e, one of the most frustrating things in my opinion was keeping track of all of the buffs and debuffs. In this system, it is pretty simple. If you have Advantage, roll twice and take the better result, if you have Disadvantage, roll twice and take the worse result. If you have something that gives both (even if one is given more times than the other), you roll normally. Conditional buffs and debuffs were not the most elegant part of 4e.

The main other notable things is that the skill system is pretty similar to 4e, and the characters generally have less options, with the lack of dailies and encounter powers for classes like Rogue and other physical characters. This makes the game faster and more simple, the latter which can both be good and bad. Also, low level spells can be ranked up, so if you cast a level 1 spell from a level 2 slot, it is more powerful. I’m not sure if 3e really does that. There are also Cantrips for mages, which act as 4e At-Will powers. All of the mage classes get at least one damaging Cantrip, and the arcane casters (Warlock, Wizard, and Sorcerer) get more. These also level up over time.

Stats are generally lower and scale up more slowly than in 4e. The maximum stat is 20 normally, and proficiency bonuses replace the half-level mechanic from 4e. Proficiency bonus affects attack, saving throws in abilities which you are trained, and skills which you are trained. For the most part, skills in which you are not trained you will be bad at forever. AC does not rise with level, only with upgrading equipment and gaining Dex. Dex, btw, is kind of an overpowered stat in the system. You can use it to use some weapons, and it affects AC and Initiative. Con is back to being a dominant stat, because it affects your HP every level.

Another mechanic that the game has is Concentration, which I think 3e has as well but I’m not certain. If you are hit while casting a spell that has the Concentration tag (often buffs or debuffs will have this), you have to make a Con saving throw or else the spell ends. You can take feats to give you proficiency in Con saving throws or Advantage on Con saving throws to lower the chance of being screwed over by this. There’s also the Hit Dice mechanic, which allows you to heal yourself for your HP die + Con modifier for a number of times equal to your level, but hit die only come back per day equal to half your level (according to rules as written, you never get them back at Level 1, but that is kind of idiotic so pretty much everyone is houseruling that. The Hit Dice mechanic makes Cleric less vital, but you really want in-battle healing for revival so don’t worry Cleric fans, they are still good.

Going through all of the classes, the character balance is pretty good. Casters don’t feel overwhelmingly powerful, and all of their spell slots max out at 4 per level. I know more about the classes our characters are actually playing, so those entries are longer.

Barbarian – Pretty defensive and reasonably good at taking care of themselves. Rage gives them resistance to physical damage and a bit of extra damage, and Reckless Attack gives them Advantage against enemies in return for them getting Advantage back at you. Later, you get more movement, two attacks, and critting ability, as well as a primal path which lets you emphasize either nature or anger. Their capstone ability is +4 Str and Con, and the cap on those stats is raised by 4 as well.

Bard – A versatile buff/debuff/healbot with a decent physical attack option. One of their main niches is Bardic Inspiration, which allows allies to add a die to an attack roll, a saving throw, or an ability check. The die starts at d6 and goes up with level, and after a while it turns from CHA mod of times per long rest to CHA mod times per short rest*, which is a nifty improvement. The second niche they have is the ability to dip into other class’s spells at certain levels, giving them offensive or healing options that they otherwise don’t really have. They also have two choices for their subclass; one gets more skills and more spell dipping, and the other emphasizes a physical build, giving multiple attacks, medium armor, and shields. Each also has modifications to Bardic Inspiration.

*a short rest is an hour in this edition, so it is a little more stringent than 4e encounter powers

Cleric – Cleric is still their usual good self, with great healing options, large variety in paths, and Channel Divinities that are on average quite good. They get an attack buff (or cantrip buff in the case of the more casterish Cleric builds) a few levels later than the others get extra attack, which helps them somewhat keep up in damage with the physical fighters. They can also pick up heavy armor in some of their paths. One of the paths, Light Cleric, is reminiscent of 4e Invoker.

Druid – They are a diverse caster with healing, nature, and some attack options, and they can morph into animals which is quite interesting. They also have a cantrip that makes their physical run off their Wisdom which is kind of awesome. I’m not sure how practical or battle useful that the Wild Shape powers are, but turning into an elephant is fucking awesome and I won’t hear otherwise.

Fighter – Fighter is your basic weapons and defense person. They get all weapons and armor, and they get one of six abilities that allow them to be better at different fighting styles – ranged, one-handed, two-handed, two-sword – or better at defending – an AC booster and an ability to block incoming attacks from allies. They also get a once per short rest ability that lets them take an extra turn, which is quite rad. But probably their two biggest niches are their ability to acquire stats and feats at a faster clip than the other classes and their Extra Attacks, which they get four of (no one else gets more than two). The two paths for Fighters seem pretty complementary to the package rather than amazing.

Monk – Their big thing is the multi-attacking with the unarmed strike and the ridiculous mobility. They can also reduce the damage of projectiles, which is super cool, and later they can reduce the damage of spells.Ki points also offer them some movement versatility, with Disengage being a good action to take if you want to get somewhere without provoking an opportunity attack. Their level 5 ability to stun for a Ki point seems potentially quite potent as well.

Paladin – Paladin is naturally a personal favorite, and the 5e incarnation is interesting. They have some of the Fighter passives, but no duel wielding or ranged style. They emphasize protection and helping allies with auras and stuff, and one of their spells is kind of like a 4e mark. They can also be a secondary healer in a pinch, although they shouldn’t be the primary healer. They have spells buff their physical attacks as well and they get a single Extra Attack. The paths are pretty cool as always, and one of them resembles Avenger from 4e. And all of the paths have awesome transformations at level 20!

Ranger – I’ll be honest, Ranger seems like a worst of both worlds Fighter/Rogue. I don’t really even give enough of a fuck to go over it. They can attqck but not as well as Fighter, they can dodge and reduce damage but not as early as Rogue, blah blah whatever.

Rogue – Rogue is pretty freaking awesome, sneak attack dice go up ridiculously fast compared to the general low damage scale of the game, and you can even ranged attack with Sneak Attack as long as an ally is next to the enemy. Awesome. They can be a skill monkey, with Expertise making them better at skills than most, but Cunning Action is really their great ability. The ability to attack and hide, disengage, or take a second move action is so good. They also can halve damage with reaction (!) at level 5 and can dodge spells a bit later. Yeah, Rogue is really good.

Sorcerer – Sorcerer and Wizard are pretty similar classes in the style of the 3e spellcaster. They have the classic spell lists (although somewhat toned down in their overpoweredness). In the case of Sorcerer, their big feature is Metamagic, which gives you a few choices of different properties of the spells. A couple of personal favorites are the one that makes their burst spells ignore friends, the one that increased accuracy by imposing Disadvantage, and one that makes spells Bonus/minor actions rather than full actions. You use these abilities by spending Sorcery points, which you start with 2 at 2nd level and gain one per level after that. These points are limited at first, being only restorable after a long rest, but over time you can use them quite often. Dragon Sorcerer ends up seeming pretty nifty, but I’m not into Wild sorcerer so much.

Warlock – Warlock is like the Satan-worshipping cousin of Wizard, but they feel distinct from Wizard or Sorc because of the nature of their spells. They restore spells after a short rest rather than a long rest, which allows greater freedom with spells. They only get up to 4 spells per short rest though (2-3) at lower levels, unlike the crazy number of spells from some of the other classes. They get some great passive abilities called Eldritch Invocations, which give them the ability to cast daily spells at will (False Life, which gives you 8 temp HP forever, is pretty damn valuable and makes the Warlock feel tanky compared to the other two arcane casters). Another great EI is the one that boosts the damage of Eldritch Blast, which is one of the money cantrips of Warlock. At higher levels you get the ability to fire multiple shots of it at either one or several enemies, which makes it a great cantrip. Another interesting thing about Warlock is that their spell slots are always the highest level they can be, so all of Warlock’s spells act as level 2 spells when he or she is class level 3 or 4, and since most powers scale up at a higher level, Warlock is able to use scaled up versions

Wizard – Wizard is pretty boring and straightforward; they have arcane traditions for each style of magic, and each of them boost those particular types of magic. Evocation is definitely a heavy-hitting damage dealer and allows you to target spells ignoring friends, so that seemed pretty cool. I haven’t looked at all of the arcane traditions that throughly, though.

I ended up deciding on a Valor Bard, but it was a tough decision. I also decided to play as a Lightfoot Halfling. Halflings actually has a really cool power that makes up for their low movement and limited weapon choices, which I didn’t feel like they really had in 4e. The best thing they have is Lucky, which allows you to reroll 1s, using the second result, lowering the chance of massive failure dramatically.

We ended up with a Dragonborn Barbarian, a pacifist Dwarf Cleric who ended up leaving the party after his traumatic experience being a mercenary, a Halfling Rogue who sneak attacks people with her bow, a Warlock Drow, and my bard of course. We ended up replacing the Cleric with an Elf Monk, which is an interesting and very mobile class. You’ll note that there are no Humans in the party, as this game seems to be encouraging people not to play as Humans.

On, and as an aside, the 5e Player's Handbook is something I have very conflicted feelings about. On one hand, its art is magnificent and colorful and the characters depicted are diverse and generally are quite beautiful. On the other hand, the book loves drooling over Drizzt, and even talks extensively about his anime rival Artemis. In the book, his personal motivation is described as “I will not rest until I have proved myself better than Drizzt Do’Urden.” Seriously now, whose life motivation is solely to be better than some random person? Maybe a sibling or something, but just no otherwise. Lastly, whoever decided to organize the spells in alphabetical order instead of level, class, or even school of magic should probably be fired.

Next time I’ll talk a bit more about how the game actually plays rather than character creation. Any questions/comments/corrections would be appreciated.

9

General Chat / NHL 2014-2015: Holy Crap the Sabres

« on: October 31, 2014, 11:37:26 PM »

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/the-sabres-are----bad--no-way---trending-topics-203449918.html#more-id

After trading away their best player and letting another of their good players go on free agency, it looks like Buffalo MAY just be trying to get first in the draft. Too bad there's a draft lottery...

In non-trainwreck related news, the Sedins look like the Sedins again post-Torts. The OT goal Daniel scored last night against the Habs last night was a thing of beauty. And the Devils learned that it's okay to win shootouts~

10

Discussion / A comparison of the effectiveness of PCs in game based on gender.

« on: September 27, 2013, 06:40:47 AM »

Hello all! I am doing a little science to figure out about how good female PCs are relative to the average. I was initially wondering if women PCs tend to be better than they 'should' be because magic is often underrated by game designers and that's what gave me the idea to do a list about different casts. Obviously you are free to quibble with anything and I'd love for people with knowledge of games I haven't played or are uninterested in to help out!

I am generally including temps if they are around for a notable period of the game. So not, say, Lunar 1 Ghaleon, but yes to Alonso. This might be applied semi-inconsistently and I am interested in anything noting that.

Please keep in mind that these are averages. Particularly in large-cast games, a couple of great characters of one gender, especially the dominant one, will not necessarily mean a victory.

The biggest thing that I noticed when doing this is that a lot of game worst PCs tend to be male and screw up the averages even with the best character being male.

And obviously, YMMV.

Games disqualified for different reasons which seem obvious enough:
Final Fantasy 1/2/3/5/12/X-2/13-2/Dimensions
Pokemon in general
Mario and Luigi games
XCOM
Blue Dragon
Cthulhu’s Angels

Notable missing things:
WRPGs
N1 games
Tales of ____
Lufias
Skies of Arcadia
Dragon Quest not 8
Arc the Lads
Chrono Cross
Suikoden Tierkreis
Suikoden IV
Phantasy Star not 4
Grandia 1
Breath of Fire II
Persona 3/4
Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon
Paper Mario(for the mcs)

–

Breath of Fire
Cast distribution: 2 women, 6 men
Best PC: Male?
Higher average: Female

The gender without Mogu and Gobi wins.

Breath of Fire III
Cast distribution: 2 women, 3 men, 1 onion
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Ryu is one of the best PCs in RPG history. Momo can't compete with that; she has some trouble beating Garr and Rei. Nina meanwhile has trouble beating an onion.

Breath of Fire IV
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher Average: Female

Nina and Ursula is a lethal combo in this game. No one talks about the lethal Cray + anyone combo.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Cast distribution: 2 women, 1 man
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Sure, D-gauge, ez mode

Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena
Cast distribution: 26 women, 63 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Most all of the best knights are dudes. Cai, Dinadin, Paternus, Dryst, Vaynard, Gereint, ZEMECKIS, etc. Not sure if there are any countries that have two women in their top 4!

Chrono Trigger
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men
Best PC: Fe..male?
Higher average: Female/push

Everyone is about the same, except Frog who is worse. Done!

Cthulhu Saves the World
Cast distribution: 2 women, 5 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

I'm inclined to think that October is in the top half of PCs at least, and Umi is quite good.

Digital Devil Saga
Cast distribution: 1 woman, 4 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female

Heat and Cielo dragging the average down. Argilla is a respectable PC and that's all she needs to be.

Digital Devil Saga 2
Cast distribution: 2 women, 4 men
Best PC: It's complicated.
Higher average: Female
 
The best male PC and the best female PC are the same and they FUSE INTO A FEMALE PC. So... best PC is female? As for the average, Argilla is better than Gale, Cielo, and Roland due to Magic being the god stat in DDS.

Dragon Quest 8
Cast distribution: 1 woman, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female by definition

Twin Dragon Lash > your face. Guv has an argument for being the best PC but that doesn't change the outcome of this.

Final Fantasy 4
Cast distribution: 3 women, 9 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female

Edward and Cid and Kain and Edge and Yang all kinda suck. Cecil is good but not quite good enough to make up for the general badness of the other dude PCs. Even Porom, who is quite weak, can't bring Rydia and Rosa down enough.

Final Fantasy 4: The After Years
Cast distribution: 9 women, 13 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

I want to say the dudes have a small edge. The worst character is female and I don't think they have any big victories in individual comparisons.

Final Fantasy 6
Cast distribution: 3 women, 10 men, 1 unknown
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Minerva users win the day. Having a good Magic stat means you are good in this game, and the women all have the best magic stats in the game.

Final Fantasy 7
Cast distribution: 3 women, 6 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

um lol cloud

Final Fantasy 8
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Squall.

Final Fantasy 9
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men, 1 unknown
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Summon is good like in all FFs! Vivi is just not as good.

Final Fantasy 10
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

1/2/6 is my kneejerk for the female PC worth in this game. Yuna is more absurdly good than anyone is absurdly bad.

Final Fantasy 13
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Saboteur is more game-changing than Synergist, and those classes work along the male/female split. I think that's the biggest difference. Fang and Lightning also have the most damage. Hope is the main argument for the male cast but he's not enough.

Final Fantasy Tactics
Cast distribution: 4 women, 6 men, 2 neither
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Pretty obvious. The top two PCs are both male, and even with Cloud and Malak I think the average should still be higher due to terribleness in the lady cast.

Fire Emblem: The Sword of Seals
Cast distribution: 18 women, 32 men (counting Lalum, Echidna, and Sacae)
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Rutgar/Alan/Lance are probably top three, Sofiya poos on the average by being the rare 0.

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword
Cast distribution: 11 women, 28 men (including the splitpath PCs only once and not Farina or Karla)
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female?

A lot of the males are the dregs of the cast even though Raven/Lucius/Oswin/Hector are pretty awesome. If you are looking at the best, say, 12 PCs, a higher percentage of women are part of that. The cast is 28% women so if you think 4 women are in the top 12, women are better. Lyndis/Florina/Fiora/Priscilla/Ninian/Louise are all decent candidates. Not counting Karla helps the women, granted.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Cast distribution: 12 women, 21 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female

Ephraim, Tana, Vanessa, Eirika, and Seth is my tentative top five for the game. Lute is probably sixth! Don't think the male PCs make up for this anywhere else.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Cast distribution: 29 men, 14 women(only one royal, and no Nasir)
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female/push

This one is really close! But a lot of the female PCs hover around the top 15.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Cast distribution: 43 men, 25 women
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

The three PCs who compete for the crown of best character in this game are all male and the worst three PCs are all female. I think there isn't a huge swing to make up for this in the female direction.

Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem
Cast distribution: 17 women, 56 men, 1 neither(not counting the four female PCs on the last map)
Best PC: Either
Higher average: Female

Catria + Caeda + Palla raid the skies!

Fire Emblem: Awakening
Cast distribution: 15 women, 14 men, 1 either(21 women, 21 men if you count kids)
Best PC: Either is probably the answer ;)
Higher average: Female

Female Robin is better than male Robin by a hair(Dark Flier shenanigans) and the top 15 has 3 men and 11 women otherwise! Lulz, blowout. I will also note than most of the bad kid PCs are male as well.

Grandia 2
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Sweep up the place ya'll.

Grandia 3
Cast distribution: 4 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Women have higher magic stats, are better PCs. RPG rinse and repeat.

Legaia 2: Duel Saga
Cast distribution: 2 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Sharon is the best, Ayne is the worst.

Legend of Dragoon
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men
Best PC: Surely female, regardless.
Higher average: Female

Rose and Sharanda are the two best characters from many views, and Meru isn't BAD.

Lost Odyssey
Cast distribution: 4 women, 5 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

3/4 of the women are immortals, 1/5 of the men are. Done and done!

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Alex is the best PC and, while Jessica is a decent second, I don't think Mia is all that great at all. Luna is okay but clearly worse than Alex when she is around.

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Lemina is meh and Lucia is weird and kinda bad. Hiro takes the cake.

Mana Khemia: The Alchemists of Al-Revis
Cast distribution: 4 women, 4 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Pretty balanced cast, but Vayne has Scan and Roxis has time card shenanigans.

Mana Khemia: The Fall of Alchemy
Cast distribution: 5 women, 5 men
Best PC: Female on both paths!
Higher average: Female?

Ulrika and Lily are both pretty good.

Megaman X: Command Mission
Cast distribution: 2 women, 5 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Male

1/6 is the distribution, but Marino/X/Axl/Zero are all decent and Massimo and Cin kinda suck? So 3 vs. 1 and 1 vs. 1. Or something.

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen
Cast distribution: 11 men, 5 women, 1 either
Best PC: The elusive 'either'
Higher average: Male

Fenril and Rauny are good, but Fogel/Slust/Saradin/Deb/Tris are all around the same as them. Lans is also a good PC in the earlygame. I didn't rate the classes for me own sanity.

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Cast distribution: 3 men, 2 women
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Maya is better than the rest.

Phantasy Star IV
Cast distribution: 4 women, 6 men (counting Alys)
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Hahn and Gryz decide this handily for the female side. Thx bros.

Radiant Historia
Cast distribution: 4 men, 3 women
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Best PC in the game is male, another male PC is burp copy best PC. Eruca is worse than Rosch in a scrub-off, Raynie, Aht, and Gafka all fight over that third slot.

SaGa Frontier
Cast distribution: 13 men, 10 women, 15 neither
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female/push

I think the game is pretty balanced, but out of the six bad PCs, four are male. I think the men overall win at the top but my kneejerk is that it's not enough to make up for the loss in the lower ranks.

Seiken Densetsu 3
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male/push

Kevin is pretty good. Duran is pretty bad. Shit's hard, man!

Shadow Hearts
Cast distribution: 2 women, 4 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Yuri dominates and the rest of the PC cast is very bland.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Cast distribution: 5 men, 3 women
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Blah, I dunno.

Yuri is better than everyone, but the female PCs might be 2/3/4, depending on how much you like Kurando. Gepetto and Blanca are both pretty bad, though.

Shadow Hearts: From the New World
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Shania is a Harmonixer, Hilda has some awesome skills as Skinny Hilda, and Mao's magic is higher than the remaining characters. I personally would call this a sweeeep. Gets a misandry gold star.

Shining Force 2
Cast distribution: 6 women, 24 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Peter and Bowie, yeah yeah.

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters
Cast distribution: 7 male, 4 female, 1 either
Best PC: Either
Higher average: Female/push

Courtesy of Djinn:

<LoveBachelorDjinn> SN, if you ignore generics and Revya... Odie is probably the best, Danette and Trish are up there for spd/range, Vitali has utility, Levin/Juno/Grunzford are middle of the pack, Layna's good but not around long, Galahad and the angels kinda suck... works out to skew more Female slightly.

Star Ocean: The Second Story
Cast distribution: 5 women, 7 men
Best PC: Female? Not an SO2 expert.
Higher average: Female?

Leon and Ernest and Noel kinda suck.

Star Ocean: Til the End of Time
Cast distribution: 5 women, 5 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female/push

Mariaaaa~ Nel~

Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Cast distribution: 5 women, 3 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

I think the male cast holds up a bit better toward the bottom but otherwise it is balanced.

Suikoden
Cast distribution: 17 women, 58 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female?

Ronnie and Cleo and Valeria and Eileen and a lot of the bad PCs are male so eh. Makes up for Tir I think, I could be argued if anyone gave a damn.

Suikoden II
Cast distribution: 20/21 women, 50/51 men, 1 neither (The 50/51 is for the monsters, 20/21 is for Kasumi and Valeria).
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female

Out of the ~18 strongest PCs, 8 are female. Mostly just an informal poll done by yours truly. Suikoden is a bitch to quantify.

Suikoden III
Cast distribution: 22 women, 46 men, 1 neither
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Going through a list of characters, the women seem to win almost every victory.
Chris is better than the other Zexen Knights
Aila and Queen are better than Jacques, Ace, and Joker(although worse than Geddoe)
Elaine is better than the other Duke folks
Lilly is better than her manbitches
Emily is better than other plotless folks
Alma Kinan > lizards
Nei >>> Toppo
Sharon > Futch
Estella is better than the other pure mages
Lucia acquits herself reasonably well against her son(although is probably worse)
there are no duck women, who has their babies anyway
Juan is better than Cecile, but she kicks the ass of the other Budahec folks
Ayame is better than Watari
Geddoe and Hugo are the two big arguments on the male side, but don't think it's enough.

Suikoden V
Cast distribution: 30 women, 40 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female, I think.

Miakis + Lyon + Bernadette + ZERASE + Jeane + Cathari is better than Georg and Kyle and Prince and Belcoot, I feel. (Zerase being MVP due to MT death rained upon all that live. You could argue Georg, but he is just around for so much less blowing up time~)

Suikoden Tactics
Cast distribution:
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Archers + Kika + I don't count Lazlo.

Super Mario RPG
Cast distribution: 1 woman, 4 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female

Cheating averages is fun. Peach is above average.

Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier
Cast distribution: 5 women, 2 men(!)
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Male

Both Reiji and Haken are solid PCs, and I feel like two of the weaker PCs are women.

Valkyrie Profile
Cast distribution: 10 women, 12 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

I think the average is actually more female due to including multiple mages.

Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria
Cast distribution: Depends on how you count them
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Rufus tries, but the other girl archers and Alicia and things.

Vandal Hearts
Cast distribution: 3 women, 9 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Female

I am inclined to say that because Dolan/Grog/Clint are all in the atrocious Swordsman class, that would skew an average toward the women. Eleni and Zohar are both great but Eleni counts more in her average and has no crappy sworddudes to bring her down.

Wild Arms 1
Cast distribution: 1 woman, 2 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Cecilia's diversity is just too much.

Wild Arms 2
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male/push

Brad is the best?

Wild Arms 3
Cast distribution: 1 woman, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Mystic and speed makes Ginny gooood.

Wild Arms 4
Cast distribution: 2 women, 2 men
Best PC: Debatable, I lean female
Higher average: Female

I think Raquel is more potent in randoms than Arnaud and his tricks vs. bosses don't make up for that, and Yulie has some tricks which elevate her about Jude. Close, though!

Wild Arms 5
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

Avril is pretty cool. Otherwise, uh, see FF7.

Wild Arms XF
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female/push

Clarissa > Levin | Ragnar > Labby | Alexia > Felius is my general feeling for PC balance, and I don't think the gaps between any of those sets is very large.

Xenogears
Cast distribution: 4 women, 5 men
Best PC: Male
Higher average: Male

Citan is god.

Xenosaga 1
Cast distribution: 3 women, 3 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

KOS-MOS + MT heal bot Shion = sure, whatever. chaos is probably the worst PC.

Xenosaga 2
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

KOS and MOMO are probably the top two, and Shion isn't bad enough to bring that average down.

Xenosaga 3
Cast distribution: 3 women, 4 men
Best PC: Female
Higher average: Female

MOMO and KOS-MOS get that dumb damage buff.

11

Discussion / Tactics Ogre BS(feat. Macho Man Randy Savage)

« on: May 24, 2013, 03:48:32 AM »

I am as big of a fan of Tactics Ogre as anyone, but I felt like the plot goes off the rails on a crazy train toward the end and the new translation didn't change that. Barbas's plan is so goofy and there is very little to allude that he was going to do this or that the potential even existed...? I think TO has the one of the worst endgame plots I've ever seen in fact.

12

General Chat / 3DS Friend Codes

« on: February 24, 2013, 05:54:09 PM »

So I was wanting to compile some friend codes so we can play 3DS Mario Kart together. (: Maybe we could make a certain time to play?

5026-5082-5470 is my friend code.

13

General Chat / NFL 2011: Hand Over the Razors, Eagles Fans

« on: July 26, 2011, 06:36:34 PM »

I am suddenly embarrassingly excited about the season. Reading people giving Aaron Rodgers love makes me happy. Good times~

14

Heavy / Ephraim (FE8, General)

« on: February 02, 2011, 05:48:46 AM »

The Prince of Renais is a brave warrior whose lance can pierce into the heart of his foes. His upbeat personality keeps him going through hard times, but his foolhardiness is what defines him as a warrior. Headstrong and overconfident, Ephraim heads into trouble regardless of the risk. Armed with Reginleif, Siegmund, and his trusty Javelin, Ephraim can take on a variety of opponents. A Javelin helps him to counterattack enemies such as mages, whereas Reginleif lets him hit weakness on armored knights and horsemen. Lastly, Siegmund is both his most powerful weapon and it hits weakness on monsters, allowing him to have a lot of duelling versatility. His high defense and counterattacks allow him to stay in fights long enough to allow him to kill people with his high powered offense. Most opponents won't want to be on the wrong end of one of his lances!

15

Heavy / Delita Hyral (FFT, General)

« on: February 02, 2011, 05:33:26 AM »

While his title in-game and in the DL is 'Holy Knight', many would rightfully argue that Delita Hyral is anything but holy, considering his schemes to kill politicians and church leaders alike. Regardless of the prevailing opinions on his holiness, though, he <i>does </i> wield the skills of a Holy Knight with great effectiveness to both smite the church in-game and to crush his opponents in the DL. A Lightning Stab can both lay down the pain to his adversaries and silence the foolish healers who try to cheap their way out of a date with death, and a Holy Explosion can confuse many of his foes. The King of Ivalice will not be easy felled by weak opponents considering the tricks he has up his sleeve; his high HP, status, and high damage tend to be a deadly combination for most foes.

16

Middle / Lyon (FE8, General)

« on: February 02, 2011, 05:05:49 AM »

Lyon's road to hell was paved with good intentions, and the once kind-hearted young man was corrupted by the power of the Dark Stone and the evil being that lay dormant inside it. Lyon's innocent goal of reviving his father from the dead ended in a bloody, continent-wide rampage to destroy all the Sacred Stones in the land. The dark magic that he wield is his ultimate tool in battle. He has the most powerful tome in the game, Naglfar, at his  disposal, and he uses it to vanquish his enemies. Unfortunately for him, the tome is quite heavy, and it leaves him slower than most of his opponents, but he can overpower them with his prowess in the dark arts anyway. After all, with the power of a Demon King, you can't underestimate Lyon.

17

Middle / Valter (FE8, General)

« on: February 02, 2011, 04:31:52 AM »

Unlike his calm, ambitious counterpart Caellach and his golden boy fellow wyvern knight Glen, Valter just wants to rend and slaughter all that is in his way. Well, maybe he'd like to do something a little different with some of his prettier opponents, but he won't let that get in the way of his bloodlust <i>too</i> much. In a fight he is straightforward and obnoxious; he can both critical hit and ignore the defenses of his enemies, and he has a Spear to allow for countering mages and fighters alike. He also has the Fili Shield to protect him from arrows, which most wyvern riders fear. His only downfall is his Luck, as he is both speedy and strong, allowing him to both keep up with fast competition and having the strength to win in a fight against them. Regardless of the conditions of the fight, his arrogance will see him through to fight another day. And often, his enemies will be impaled on his spear.

18

Middle / Caellach (FE8, General)

« on: February 02, 2011, 04:30:51 AM »

"You’re just a stepping stone... and I’m moving up." Caellach may be a bold, callous bastard, but he is effective in his ruthlessness. He murdered a queen and blatantly defied his leader, and the smirk on his face tells you he's not sorry about it. Armed with a Silver Axe and a Tomahawk, he can wield a high-powered axe or throw one in the faces of all his opponents. Unlike most of his Fire Emblem counterparts, though, he is immune to critical hits due to his Hoplon Guard, which is helpful in duelling a variety of people. Between this and being able to counter many people with the Tomahawk, Caellach can lay down the law on anyone who gets in his way.

19

Writeup Graveyard / L'Arachel (vs. Venusaur)

« on: September 04, 2010, 04:01:52 AM »

A refined lady shouldn’t have to deal with such simpletons like this dinosaur, but today she shall destroy this blight off the face of the earth! Princess L’Arachel is a defender of justice and fights for all that is good, and some creepy dinosaur is the polar opposite of good! His grassy attacks are hard to reach the princess, considering that she is always mounted on her stead! She even can hit weakness on the dinosaur – a few fire spells later and Venusaur will be a puff of smoke and victory will go to the good guys again!

20

Writeup Graveyard / WW vs. Blastoise

« on: September 04, 2010, 03:15:59 AM »

A priestess such as White Wizard must be quite dutiful in order to maintain her position. Regardless of how cute and cuddly the opponent once was, now he has transformed into a monster, and he must be smote! This Pokemon has been wrecking the Arena since he arrived, but no more! He doesn’t stand a chance to the power of light. White Wizard will heal her way to victory (along with hitting him with a hammer REALLY hard) and there’s nothing Blastoise can do about it. Having only a few charges of your best moves has major drawbacks, and White Wizard will do her best to exploit that.

21

Discussion / Electric Six and Other Hijinks from Ciato

« on: August 23, 2010, 08:27:20 AM »

Hello and welcome all! I’ve decided to make a topic of random shit that comes to my mind. Today I’ve been filtering samples in a clean room and I decided to just turn Electric Six on shuffle. I realized that it would be fun to give a guide/my opinions on E6 CDs as I realized which CDs I was enjoying more or less. My brain is a little craaaaaaaaaazy right now due to weird sleeping patterns so bare with me.

Dick Valentine has estimated that "90 percent of our songs, maybe even higher than 90 percent" are "about absolutely nothing." Songs by Electric Six are often concerned with subjects human sexual behavior, masculinity, dancing, hypersexuality, fast food and fire.

Thank you Wikipedia! And now, for my blathering.

Note that the favorite lyric is not from any of the songs mentioned. I dunno why!

Fire

Fire is Electric Six’s first CD. It is ridiculous and wacky and awesome and completely blew me away. I thought to myself “I am going to try to pinpoint a favorite song from each CD” but with Fire it is so very hard because there are about five songs that I absolutely adore. I think it does a great job of blending comedy with catchy music.

Favorite song: Naked Pictures (of your mother). It is so delightfully evil; it’s a song about sexual blackmail. As most E6 songs are, it is quite fast and catchy. I’m not really a great music critic because I don’t really know much about instruments, I just know what makes me happy.

Honorable mention: Improper Dancing. Improper Dancing always makes me want to dance improperly in the middle of the street. I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M SEEING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET

Favorite lyric: I’m a man and I’m torn between vengeance and fashion.

Senor Smoke

I actually received both Fire and Senor Smoke at the same time, and I listened to them as a mismash so I can barely tell which song is from which CD. After reflecting on their track lists, I realized Senor Smoke’s songs just don’t quite appeal to me anymore the same way that Fire’s continue to.

Favorite song: Jimmy Carter. A much slower song than the average E6 song and not really about sex, but it does have the words nuclear war so we know it’s still them. It’s just a really random song and has lots of president names in it.

Honorable Mention: Be My Dark Angel. This one on the other hand is very catchy. The questions-the queries-the rhetoric-the theories is just a really fun little beat goin’ on there.

Favorite lyric: Girl I need to make you understand… I’m a man not a disco ball~ (Or “making money oh-my-god!”)

Switzerland

Switzerland goes for a bit of a different approach; less about fire and dancing and more about partying, drugs, and sex. I mean, the last three are present in the other CDs but not as much! I feel like this CD is a mixed bag; some of the songs hold up really well (Pink Flamingoes), whereas songs like There’s Something Very Wrong With Us don’t really hold up very well and just bore me a bit on listening to them again. Band in Hell is an interesting song; it’s very much against the E6 style in that it is possibly the only song I can think of that is purely serious. I quite like it, personally.

Favorite song: Pink Flamingoes. This song’s blend of hilarious camp western and awesome rockin’ness just really appeals to me. I really like the lyrics though; sexual in a different way than normal and just kind of silly. Second verse is good stuff; makes me think of Dick Valentine as a rebellious sheriff or something.

Honorable Mention: I find this one to be really tough. Rubber Rocket is deliciously stupidly innuendo-tastic, Slices of You has Shakespeare quote and is slightly more subtle in its perverseness. Mr. Woman is really catchy too. Slices of You I think it is though.

Favorite Lyric: I gave you my heart, I gave you my soul, now I’m just another number at the Center for Disease Control.

I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master

Because one word titles just aren’t coooooooooooool. Exterminate is different that basically any other Electric Six CD in that I can’t really say “I absolutely love this song and it is my favorite!”, but I feel like it has a lot of really solid tracks, just nothing that stands out as the best, but I think I have a couple of selections in mind. A little edgier and less silly but still has mostly silly moments regardless.

Favorite Song: Dirty Looks. This is a song I love to quote because I think it has a lot of good lines. I like the more cautious, less gung-ho about immediate sex approach the song takes (“If we make love… would it be a mistake? Would the aftermath be hard to take?”). In fact I feel like the song is just a goldmine of great lyrics and the smooth, electronic background with the sax is sweet. Reflecting on it, Dirty Looks is definitely my favorite song but in a pretty subtle way so it’s easy to overlook.

Honorable Mention: Lenny Kravitz. The song has nothing to do with LK until the end when he is randomly burned. Very catchy.

Favorite lyric: You're broken machine has questions for me wants to know a little bit about my history wants to know why I write these ridiculous songs wants to know everything that turns me on~

Flashy

I know there are a few people who are disappointed with the quality of the last two CDs even though I disagree, and most of these people like Flashy.  I also like Flashy because it’s awesome. It is a self-referencing mofo though so you should probably listen to the other CDs first. It has a couple of songs I am not enamored with like Formula 409 but is chalk full of great stuff. It has ten songs which I will outright go out of my way to listen to due to badassery, which is high even for Electric Six.

Favorite Song: Gay Bar Part 2. It is quick, catchy, shamelessly self-referencing, and awesome. It is unusually rockish for Electric Six and it works. Highest amount of plays on the ol’ iPod.

Honorable Mention: …this is really fuckin’ hard. Watching Evil Empires Fall Apart is delightful (and I smacked ya’ll with that in the music contest), Witchy Witchy Women is a man singing a song about being a sexy lesbian which is surreal in its own way, and Making Progress describes how I feel too often. Empires it is though.

Favorite lyric: THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH LIKING A FLASHY MAN!

Kill

The latest release, while solid, isn’t as good as Flashy and I got them at the same time. I’m actually still working on listening to it obsessively and thoroughly like the others. So you could call this a work in progress, even if I will give opinions.

Favorite Song: My Idea of Fun. Love the kind of… I can’t describe it. Old school music style it offers?

Honorable Mention: Simulated Love, my current obsessive song. I am disappointed that I forgot to quote it at DLC5 (I travelled a thousand miles just to cop a feel!)

Favorite lyric: Dunno yet, but there is a song called Newark Airport Boogie which has to be Super’s theme song.

In general, I feel like my ratings are as follows:

Fire > Flashy > Exterminate > Switerland > Senor Smoke, with Kill pretty closer to the bottom but gets an incomplete for now. Flashy I enjoy listening to more than Fire but it’s probably because I’ve listened to it less to death.

This was totally random and Grefter will probably come in and pwn me but whatever!

22

Discussion / Post-DLC5 Topic~

« on: August 16, 2010, 02:34:26 AM »

So, DLC5.

It was quite fun! Props to Gate and Jenna for helping us get the house. It was good! Kind of noisy, but good. Also had way too many people sleeping in random locations. Random people on stairs and such. I’m sure ya’ll could have found some floor space to stay on.

Glad to get to play SC4! I would like a 360 just for that. FF4TAS in French was good times.

Food was good. The Mexican place we went in downtown SF was pretty freaking amazing even though it was literally a trailer. Italian place was passable as well. When you guys went to Macaroni Grill I decided to bail because I wasn’t in the mood for it, having ate it the day before. We instead hit this rather awesome Thai restaurant near the hooker hotel.

Bowling was awesome as always! 123 on the second game was my highest at DLC? It was happy times. Playing DDR was … well… >_> no comment!

I got a Piplup from Djinn and a Piplup from Meeple. Life is good. I also got a Chikorita from Elfboy for him winning bowling~~~ SO MUCH CUTE!!! Thanks all three of you! <3.

Karaoke bar was too congested for me. I think I’d like something more if it was a private room instead of having to wait for people and being in front of other people. So Grefter and the elf and I wandered off because we didn’t feel like waiting, especially not a place which at least smelled smoky (not sure if that was the people in the bar or if there was actually smoking there…) Glad you guys had fun though. I wanted to talk with Djinn more there because I hadn’t had the chance to corner him before that. Well, whatever, hopefully we will be at next con!

Grefter is awesome. I already knew this, but he was an amazing houseguest; completely undemanding and one hilarious dude. He’s quite a classy guy too, very down to earth and very adultlike. He’s definitely the person I feel like I know a lot better now. Move to Vancouver!!!!

Meeple stayed with us a couple of days and definitely required more energy in those two days than Grefter required in two weeks. We had a lot fun together talking about stuff though and things were good. Car trip was quite fun. I enjoy bullying the Meeple~

I played my first game of Arkham Horror here. It takes a loooong time, but it’s good times. It reminds me a bit of DnD. Andy and Ashley were evil GMs. Grefter is the true being of evil, though. Two successes to close gates when there are two at -3? ;_; Yeah, it was bad. We lost.

I’m glad to see Kaitlyn in good spirits; you look absolutely awesome and I’m so happy to see you every time I see you. Your happy disposition makes me happier by proxy.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaagggyyyyyyyyyy wasn’t around enough but I got to annoy him/pick his brain a couple times. Awesomeness. I need to come down and just visit you at some point~ And hopefully drag Excal along!

Got to talk to Tallychu a bit, which made me happy~

Super…. Oh Super. You set yourself to be the infinite whipping boy. It’s kind of cute how much you love to be ridiculed~! And sad. Tai is doing his civic duty by threatening you with a baseball bat at all times. ^.^

Dhyer! Always fun to talk and be catty with you. I’m sorry the hottie was married.

OK! You are totally insane and I love you for it. Hope that all continues to go well with you~ And hopefully we can host the Con at your place next year!??!

Tai: Thanks for FFTA2! I will hopefully enjoy it~

New people!

Rat is amazingly normal and polite and it confuses me because I always thought he was ultra crazy. Like, hair that sticks in the hair, unkempt, which is basically the opposite of what Rat actually is. Probably the most kempt person at the Con in fact!

Archmage (Brian~!) is a cool dude, very laid-back and fun to talk to. I hope you had fun hanging out with all us crazy folks even if you don’t know a lot of us all that well.

Chiaki doesn’t talk much but he seems like a fun guy. ^_^ I approve of the pink DS! Hope you have fun in the States.

Getting to hang out at the airport with Jenna, as annoying as airports can be, was awesome. I felt like I was one of the few people who actually got to chat with her for a long period of time. I tried to take the time to corner everyone but since I had to leave early it was pretty difficult. I love the sprog too. Very cute kid.

Great time as always. Missed Hal and Shale and Pyro and Xer a lot.

On a side note: Great fun with my plane. I get to the BART station at like 9. I have trouble getting a ticket, I sit around waiting for a transfer for like nine minutes, and I was two minutes from missing my plane. It was epic. I got sent through the priority security even because I was so late and I had to run places. I was just glad my gate was close. I think I just underestimated the travel time rather epically.

If this post seems fragmented, that’s because I am kinda tired right now and I am typing all this on an airplane.

Anyway, I will emphasize that the Con was sweet and I can’t wait to go to one next year~ <3

23

General Chat / The playoffs?! Don't talk about the playoffs! NHL Hockey Playoffs '10

« on: April 22, 2010, 06:24:01 PM »

Since there is no hockey topic and I feel like musing on the games, I am making a topic.

Last night was such an amazing game. That Henrik Sedin goal may have saved the series. My officemate the Canucks hater is sulking like mad. I laughed.

Today, the Devils fight for their playoff life, but they are going back home so hopefully that will help!

I think Ottawa may be the first team eliminated today~

24

General Chat / It's your birthday... it's on Earth Day...

« on: March 27, 2010, 05:33:30 PM »

</Devin Townsend>

Anyway, I saw on zee facebooks that it is Piggy's birthday, so I decided to make a topic for it!!!

Happy birthday Piggy!

25

Discussion / FE10 In-Game Character Rankings

« on: February 22, 2010, 06:18:12 AM »

So basically Elfboy and myself decided to construct a beautiful~ list ranking the FE10 characters by usefulness . Some of your favorite characters may not be high (;_; Tal) but we've tried to be as objective as possible! So feel free to argue or discuss or ask about the logic or whatever. ^.^

And yes, the characters are ordered within their tier.

Oh, the herons were excluded. Just going to say Reyson > Leanne > Rafiel and leave it at that.

Gamebreakers

Volug
Ike
Haar
Titania
Naliah
Tibarn
Elincia
Caineghis

Awesome

Jill
Nolan
Janaff
Sothe
Ulki
Gatrie
Naesala
Nephenee
Mia
Giffca

Competent

Shinon
Rolf
Marcia
Micaiah
Zihark
Aran
Oscar
Ranulf
Calill
Volke
Stefan

Serviceable

Kieran
Nasir
Ena
Mist
Meg
Brom
Heather
Bastian
Soren
Pelleas
Laura
Danved
Tauroneo
Lethe
Kurthnaga
Tormod

MEDIOCRITIES!

Geoffrey
Tanith
Leonardo
Rhys
Sigrun
Muarim
Mordecai
Skirmir
Makalov
Renning
Lucia
Vika

Unhelpful

Edward
Sanaki
Boyd
Nealuchi
Kyza
Ilyana
Oliver
 
Failures

Gareth
Fiona
Astrid
Lyre