Laughter Through Tears

I formulated this post originally for the lore channel of the official Palia Discord server. It got a pretty positive response, so I decided to post a backup copy to Dreamwidth.

I know there's been a lot of chatter about the connection between ancient humans, Flow, and the emergence of Majiri people. I haven't read all the threads (so many!), so I probably missed a bunch of important stuff, but it's made me think. Especially in the context of Subira's temple quests, the consoles, and the "protocols" that they mention.

IIRC, two protocols are mentioned: the "Cosmos" protocol (here) and the "Mirror" protocol (which apparently predated it). Mudan personally enacted the Mirror Protocol, as per his letter to his wife (here). We have reason to believe that both protocols were attempts to fight whatever mysterious "shadow(s)" brought about the downfall of Mudan's golden age.

( More lore and speculation )

Alternatively, I could be full of it. That's always a distinct possibility.

For various reasons, I spent (almost) the entire weekend playing Palia. Normally, I'm not an MMO person, but the cozy vibes reeled me in.

Tumblr's recent flood of shipping polls made me think of this again.

( Table of 7KPP ships )

I'm playing winter, now, and it's an interesting season for the plot. The winter feast was fun. I finished the second [redacted] which led to a big plot reveal. I need to get my third [redacted], plus, I have a wedding planned. I've got all the farm's outbuildings completed. I'm guessing that pretty soon, I'll get the prompt to write the spell to change the season back to spring again.

I've unlocked all the fish but one and all the cooking recipes but one. I have almost everyone's favorability up to their max, except two of the Ravenwood folks and the two teens (who I can just ply with pizza until they like me). And yes, I'm aiming to unlock as many achievements as possible with my first game. This game is fun, but I don't think it has that kind of replayability (maybe the other kind).

It's also true that I will never resolve my feelings about Confines of the Crown.

Yes, I've been thinking about dating sims, lately.

Four years ago I brought home my new desktop computer. He's a very good boy who's allowed me to play many games in theory, but realistically, mainly Skyrim and The Sims 4. I'm predictable.

My week off is going pretty well, so far. Of course, the main goal is to try and give my brain a rest, and turning my brain off isn't that easy. I thought I might want to play more games and read more this week, but I have a backlog and it's a struggle not to think of these things (which I love! and genuinely want to read/play!) as to-do list items.

I'm okay, really. I got to see my family last Friday and I have a grocery order coming in. Covid numbers are still going down, although we're gradually opening up after second lockdown, so that trend is expected to reverse sometime this week. I'm really okay. It's just that I still sometimes get too grumpy too easily from very minor irritants, and I still don't know why that is.

(For the record, I'm never asking for advice unless I specifically ask for advice in explicit terms.)

The new Animal Crossing has been an absolute frenzy in this time of quarantine, layoffs and social isolation. I've never owned a console and I don't own a Switch, so I didn't consider getting it, even though it might be fun to join in on the hype, for a change. Instead I've been enjoying it (and self-soothing) by watching tons of livestreams and videos of people playing. Now, I watch a ton of these and they show up in my YT recommendations all the time, so I won't be linking all of them. They vary in length between 20 minutes and several hours.

Seri Pixel Biologist (serisims) is one of my favorite gaming YouTubers. I've been following her since I watched her Niche videos a few years back. She plays a lot of indie games and focuses mainly on the biological aspect. So a game where you can cross-polinate flowers and build an entire museum full of fossils is obviously right in her wheelhouse. Her videos are gentle, cheerful and wholesome and it's fun to see her get excited over every plant and every bug she catches. She also has an eye for detail and often points out little environmental details that I myself would totally miss (like in her Sims videos). A++, strong recommend.

Zack Scott is apparently a long-time AC fan so he plays the game like he's super familiar with it. I find his opening a little loud and obnoxious, but it's a nice chill playlist of pretty long episodes. He also doesn't race ahead too quickly with the goals, and like most of the videos I watch, he avoids cheats and plays the game in his native season.

Austin John's videos are much shorter, because they're a weird hybrid between an LP and an instructional video. He's very goals-focused and he likes to experiment with how the game AI works, and how far it can be pushed without cheats. His videos are edited but they're still fun to watch, even though I'm not playing myself. That's why I wouldn't class them as just how to's. He also pays a lot of attention to the aesthetics of his island, which is nice.

Griffin McElroy also did a long, long stream (three hours) where he visits some friends of his. One of them has a review copy that he's been playing since long before the game came out, so if you are playing AC, that could be classed as spoilers. Griffin is chill and playful and focuses more on hanging with his friends than anything else. Since it's a livestream, he also interacts with the chat some.

I don't have a cold, I just need a lot of tea and lozenges, and...

In other news, I'm redoing the whole outline of "Blue Rose", which is slightly terrifying. Also reading a lot, lately. Also I think it might finally be time to renew my Big Fish Games subscription, because I think I might be out of credits.

7KPP got an inordinately long Yuletide offering (not my gift, someone else's) which I read in installments over Weds/Thurs. I wasn't sure I would enjoy it, because it had a lot of unexpected things going on, but the writing is excellent and it gripped me from the very start. I could feel myself getting roped in.

And then yesterday afternoon, while I was trying to do my reading (still making my way through Le Guin's Steering the Craft) I was ambushed by a plot bunny. And wrote over four thousand words for it, in a single stretch. I haven't written like that, I think, since I was twenty. Like, wow, holy shit.

And it's not even finished, TBH.