main page.

random writings in here.
not put in any particular topic or order, except for the parts where it is.
prepare for a fortress of text.
most of this was put down through discord (rambling to myself in my own server) because....
mental illness. or something.
well, it will explain any weird formatting or strange context.
otherwise, enjoy.
or don't. it's not a big deal.

i just had a thought
earlier today, i was thinking about the idea that maybe it really is best to just accept i am completely alone in some sense, and nothing will change that as much as i might try to fight against it
alone in the sense that i may have people who care about me, and who i care about, in various ways, with various relationships, and what have you
but in some deep sense, i'm alone in what i have to do, in how i have to learn things and grow and figure out this tangled mess, or endure through it somehow
in some fundamental way
i guess if you want to think about it like a story, it's like when the main character has to go off on their own in the big castle or whatever
for some reason the example i always think of is in half life 2 when you leave barney and the rebels behind at the walls of the citadel, to infiltrate it all alone
maybe that's the most potent in my mind, because of how well that game makes you feel isolation
at points like those
all alone, in some strange, impossibly large alien structure, with no one to help you or lead you or tell you what to do or where to go
but you have to climb it, you have to do what you need to do
whatever it takes
i guess maybe that's a more interesting thought, than the one i just had
but i guess they go together
it just made me think, how i seem to conceptualize the type of things i want to make in two sort of general categories, or something
maybe even more broadly than that, like they're just two general themes i resonate with or something, i dont know how to say it
but it makes me think of, as a simple example, the difference between a game like undertale and a game like yume nikki
the sprawling story based emotional charming type adventure, and the odd abstract absurd isolating adventure
i guess if you can call the latter an "adventure"
but, you know, i think about it a lot
and how you might make a game or somethng exploring the type of experience each of those things gives off, the type of things i'd want to explore in each of them, or whatever, or even combining it somehow, or i dont know
guess thats complex enough for a rant of its own
but what i thought of is essentially this
i wonder if, in some sense, an adventure like undertale or deltarune or the mother games or whatever is the kind of adventure i always fantasized about, the kind of thing i've always wished for, the kind of adventure i still, in some sense, want to believe is possible in some weird way or another
but then an "adventure" like in yume nikki or that ending sequence of half life 2 or whatever is the kind of destiny i really have, in the end, it's the kind of story i'm really meant to tell
whether i like it or not, whether i accept it or not
at least for now, anyway
i dunno
just a thought
a few thoughts, that are long and drawn out
you know how it is
nice day today

https://www.dreamviews.com/nightmares-recurring-dreams/29794-geometric-night-terrors-%40-fever-dreams.html
i keep seeing this sort of thing mentioned around, it's really fascinating to me although i don't know if i've experienced a dream quite like this or anything
it makes me think of a experience i had with a fever one time where i had something i would consider a fever dream, but somehow i cant actually remember what the dream or experience consisted of, just that it was a "fever dream"
so maybe it was just something weird or i dunno, not sure if anything like this
i guess although i've never experienced these things in particular it just is fascinating also because it makes me think of similar things or imaginings, makes me wonder if they're related somehow at least
like i'm reminded of some specific memory that;s also really really vague for some reason
i just remember being in my parents bathroom as a kid and looking out into their bedroom and imagining some weird geometrical shit kind of like these dreams, not really with fear though
but i dont remember exactly how that fits together or something, or maybe that itself was a dream of some kind, although still not scary or with any feelings of like being sucked into voids or incomprehensible dread or anything
and then of course, i think there's just the aspect of this "incomprehensible geometric imaginings" or something that seems to show up a lot in various forms in my thoughts or experiences
i guess that gets into things that are hard or impossible to say with words, just feelings or glimpses into things
probably too much to just talk about now in something short
but you know, just reminds me of a lot of things basically
one maybe more comprehensible thing i can think of also is what i discovered as a kid where when you close your eyes sometimes, and focus a certain way, you can sort of "see" these strange patterns and geometric imagery that morphs around and stuff, a lot like those "trippy" drawings you think of with psychedelic stuff if that makes sense
like fractals too and things like that
kind of trying it now too to remind myself, remembered it helps or causes some different things to happen if you sorta press on your eyes too
i guess you kind of have to like focus on looking at your eyelids or something without trying to focus on imagining
i always thought that was weird as a kid too, thinking about that experience of looking at your eyelids with your eyes closed
most of the time without those patterns or whatever, it's just like this strange static
and i would think a lot like, is there even a color here, how can i tell this is "static" too
because usually, i mean think of tv static
its like the contrast between black and white, creating the visual of static
but when you're closing your eyes, it's just black, or something, but you can just tell it's like static somehow
so is it even black? or just "nothing"
just remembered too, i think its easier to see the pattersn and stuff if you attempt to focus on one "spot" in the darkness, and not move your eyes around
forgot about that
and thats an interesting sensation too really, trying to focus on a spot when theres nothing really there, i guess maybe the absurdity of that forces something or something like that
like looking at the sky on a clear day too is like that
trying to focus on one spot, you cant do it because its just
sky
so it gives a strange feeling to try that
a strange sensation
i also remember it's actually kind of even easier to see the pattern thing in just a pitch black room
i remember that happening to me a lot as a kid
just having your eyes open but you cant see anything
i would tell my mom a lot about weird stuff like this too
cause no one else to tell i guess
maybe my siblings but i just liked talking to my mom cause she’s always around and you know, i like asking stuff hoping she knew
so she got to hear all my weird questions about random things
i remember this one thing that’s pretty related, i would close my eyes and like see this circle of light or something, like a ring of greenish light or something like that
kind of like when you see an eye floater or whatever it’s called with your eyes closed, or maybe not floater, it’s like what happens when you look at a bright light and away and then it’s burned into your eyes for a minute
but it was this perfect ring sort of
i still see it occasionally actually, i saw it the other day closing my eyes
but i remember asking my mom about it, like i told her i see this ring of light when i close my eyes
and i forget what exactly she said but it was something like the ring of time or something, it was kind of weird actually, i don’t know what she said but there was some way interpreted it or something where i took it as like a ring of time elapsing the amount of time i had left to live or that i had lived so far, like my whole life visualized as a ring of time
so i dunno if she said anything like that or i just had the thought after
but i think about it a lot
like it was somehow significant
i dunno, weird vague memories

i was thinking last night about more weird visual stuff or whatever, like that stuff about seeing things when you close your eyes or whatever
because i was checking out just that a bit, it was dark and i was seeing that sort of thing with my eyes closed or just looking into the pitch black dark of the room
this time it was like kind of that "circle of time" i talked about but it was doing this thing where it would collapse in on itself and have another circle form from the edges as it did that, and that circle coming inwards and closing in on itself too while another formed, just that over and over like one of those gifs that sort of goes in on itself forever
i've seen that before too but was just seeing it again
i also saw like the same "visual stuff" sort of gathering against the edges of my vision after that or something, like it was a vignette sort of thing or something
that kind of effect
oh yeah, and i was noticing and remembering how when the visual stuff gets sort of chaotic or something, i can sort of make out strange faces and stuff in it sometimes
and it's weird, like it's almost half imagining it just using your minds eye but at the same time it's sort of there in that dark/closed eye vision as well for a moment, like it's inbetween somehow and you get a real glimpse of it
i remember as a kid that would scare me a lot since just generall the idea of "seeing weird or creepy faces" was one of the more terrifying things to me
and i think it was still kinda creepy last night, but i was trying to think about, you know, it's not too bad
kinda made me wonder if there are other things in my mind that i've just learned to avoid but never really confronted even to now or something
and that felt a little interesting, but don't know where to go with it
there's also something else i remembered happens to me sometimes, that i don't really know if anyone experiences but i also don't know how exactly to describe it
it's not really that crazy or deep or anything, it's like a sort of little minor experience that's just a bit strange
but i guess it's like
sometimes, just randomly, it doesn't seem to be caused by anything in particular, although it might actually happen when i'm either focusing too hard on one thing with my eyes or not focusing enough at all
but it's sort of like, you know how when you come inside after being out in the bright sun for a while, your eyes sort of "adjust" to the light, and everything looks a bit strange for a minute, like darker than usual or the light feels weird
this feeling i'm thinking of is almost like that, like your eyes are adjusting to something, but it's not exactly clear what it is
like something about the light or maybe perspective or something changes and adjusts somehow, you can feel it, but it's a very experiential thing where i'm not sure how to properly describe it, it's like a sense or something
maybe i should try to see if i can cause it to happen somehow
but not sure how
cause again it seems to be at least semi-random and sort of rare
i dunno, maybe this is a normal thing and it's just hard for anyone to explain so it's not talked about but dunno
it's happened as long as i can remember so it just seems a random part of experience
there is kind of a strange feeling to it though, like almost a very short sense of "what am i looking at, where am i really, what am i doing" kind of existential sense
but that could be some sort of learned thing somehow, like i just had that thought out of a strange confusion as a kid when having the sense and it would just become attached in my head
but maybe there isn't much of a meaningful difference there anyway

i've noticed something interesting
i feel like whenever i see a post online alongside a picture of an orangutan, it's always a really good high effort and genuine post
i don't know or understand why this is, but it is consistent
i just find that interesting

still have been spending most of my time GAMING
it feels nice having something to do
even if it's what you might consider in some sense a waste, or at least some people might, whatever
it's not all of my time which i think is the important part, just the time where i would otherwise be doing nothing
so it's improved
i beat morrowind main quest and have been doing a lot of other random stuff, just exploring the world and things like that, somehow even just wandering around and doing random stuff after i've beat the main game is fun on its own to me
searching for artifacts and stufff
which is also useful for the other thing im doing which is the expansion content, there are 2 and they both add new big zones with stuff in them and main quest lines and things
i've also been playing a little of oblivion because the amount i've enjoyed morrowind makes me want to try the other games
and oblivion at least is, you know, sort of fun so far at least, but i can definitely tell i'm probably going to be disappointed in some sense the whole time with a lot of things because it's not quite like morrowind is or something, i'm not really sure how best to say that but mayb e it makes sense
as flawed as morrowind still is i feel like it really hits a lot of the things i like about games and made me discover new things i like about them too, but it seems the other games might not have that level of appeal for me personally on that level even if they are still fun in their own way
but i dunno, i mean i'm mostly assuming by my gut feeling at this point so it could be different
but usually that gut feeling is indicative of something, like how even before i played morrowind seemed instantly more appealing than the other games to me
whatever, i'm sure i'll have more of use to say about it in time
after i play through or get bored of oblivion i'll probably try daggerfall, that one does actually look pretty cool even if in a way a lot different from the other games
and i dunno actually if i will even try skyrim, i remember like 6 years ago i tried it for like 2 hours or something, i cant remember how long but i didnt get very far before i got bored
but i guess at that point i probably had some kind of different mindset towards games so i dunno
but even now i kind of feel hesitant about it, maybe it's just memes getting to my head but skyrim seems most unappealing by far, and the idea of it being like the most casualized game (in an already apparently or arguably casualized series, mind you) seems kind of GAY too
but i guess i probably will still at least give it a good old College Try if i still feel up to it by then
that'd be kind of funny if i did literally every elder scrolls game before it though, going back to redguard and battlespire and shit too
THEN skyrim
the gaming equivalent of the brown part of the banana
but it has DRAGONS! and GLORY KILLS!
wowww

another GAMING UPDATE, i finished the tribunal expansion to morrowind and have been playing a ton of oblivion lately also after that
the tribunal expansion was kind of cool in a lot of ways, and cool just to have more morrowind and all, i tried doing it at a lower level a while ago but i think it really was meant for post-main quest characters because i couldnt do anything before then and got my ass kicked and it wasn't fun until i came back later and then it was more enjoyable
even then though the enemies still kind of kick your ass in an annoying way in some cases, i think the worst part of tribunal is actually probably the gameplay of it, or parts of it
because a lot of times it's like, in the actual combat areas, basically you have to navigate this maze of sewer systems and weird caves that feel kind of shitty to go through just on their own, i mean i don't mind exploratory stuff like that but somehow these felt annoying somehow, something about the design of the areas made the mazelike exploration feel grating rather than interesting or fun
and the combat parts can be annoying, like it feels like it kind of just spams enemies sometimes and they're not too hard but still have a lot of health and take down your armor so you have to keep repairing stuff all the time for enemies that arent really even just a challenge, just sort of annoying
and some enemies are also just straight up instakills if they hit you with their ranged attacks no matter what equipment you have pretty much, which i don't really like but it's not too bad once you realize that
it's just a lot different from anything they did before so it's like, feels like a strange decision
a lot of things are like that, playing oblivion it actually made me notice this expansion seemed to be like a transition into some of the design decisions they would take for oblivions stuff, a lot of it in a sort of bad way
or like, "why" kind of way
like the last "dungeon" of the expansion is this "clockwork city" that is really just a lot of sort of boring corridors and empty side rooms with nothing in them, and damage sponge enemies peppered around everywhere without much sense
and there are these doors that are activated through these wall switches or something, which is strange to me but is also kind of a thing in oblivion too for some reason
and there are switches on both sides to open and close the doors
just seems weird to me, i mean maybe it's like a "world" thing, like wow, it's like realistic because it serves no purpose to you but for someone in the world they could close the door using the switch after they go through it? i dont know
weird nitpick i know but, you know
but this expansion has those
cool boss fight at the end of that dungeon though at least
and the other coolest thing about this expansion though which i guess is the coolest thing generally about morrowind anyway, is the story stuff and the area and the visual design and everything
doing the story quests where you just talk to people or do town-based tasks was the most fun part really, for them ost part
and learning more about everything that's going on and new story stuff it introduces, which is actually kind of a lot for something like an expansion
somehow i would figure it was like not important or self contained but it has kind of big reprecussions for story stuff in a way, what happens
so that stuff was cool, and again like the visual design, or like the city it takes place in and the items you get and stuff, like there are royal guards with cool armor and special ordinators with also cool armor, things like that
so uh, i guess im basically just giving review for stuff now so maybe its a bit more than just an update but, you know
this stuff is very much on my mind you see, havent been doing much else but GAMING
but anyway, i still have the second expansion to do which i probably will soon enough
but for now i've also been playing oblivion
which, i guess maybe i can share some thoughts about that too so far
it's actually pretty fun
i said i thought it might be kind of disappointing in ways, but in some sense i think maybe if you go into it kind of not expecting something in particular, or kind of keeping in mind like, this is a very different kind of game in some respect, then there's a lot of things you can appreciate about it on it's own merits
i've heard it described as kind of like, i mean if morrowind or whatever was a more serious world this is sort of like a bit of a saturday morning cartoon version of it, which feels fitting somehow
and although there are serious aspects it's kind of like, it just feels fundamentally more lighthearted whether they intended that or not
and if you can go along with that it's pretty fun
i dunno, i mean even that feels sort of weird though, i'm not sure if it's entirely true actually
because it's not necessarily GOOFY or WACKY most of the time, even if certain aspects of it are obviously that way
it's just sort of absurd maybe
an absurd sort of half-seriousness
in a similar manner to life itself, you have to accept and carrying out your Role in this Role Playing Game while simultaneously entertaining hordes of potato men with shifty eyes yelling at you in cartoony posh voices
and if you can do this then it's a lot of fun in many ways
this time i decided to be a dunmer stealth mage kind of guy, who is less of like the "big altruistic but mysterious/reserved hero" as my morrowind character and more of like a "self serving do what i want and FUCK the n'wahs" kind of character or something
and i never really tried stealth before, so i dunno how good or bad it is in morrowind or anything
but it's actually really fun in this game, i've very much enjoyed playing this kind of character and doing like the theives guild and dark brotherhood quests and stuff, those have easily been highlights so far much of the time
and even just going around and breaking into houses to steal random shit to sell or like trying to find specific things you need
never really liked stealth in games because it always stressed me out but maybe i'm warming up to it with this
or at least how it works in this game
the other side of this though is that actual combat in this game feels like shit a lot, i don't like it too much
i mean it's okay sometimes, or i dunno, like it's fine to use magic or ranged attacks or of course sneak attacks with the KNIFE is fun
but like straight up melee combat out in the open, i dunno
i mean i've been slowly getting used to it and getting better at how it works so it's not too bad now i guess, it's just, mediocre to me maybe
this might seem crazy to say, at least for a lot of people, but i think i actually prefer morrowind's combat honestly
i know i know, it's the big meme of the game, but, honestly it really is better, i actually kind of like it for some reason
maybe i'm just a weirdo
i don't really mind the diceroll aspect of it, it makes sense to me somehow, i mean it's not an action game, it's an rpg, it makes sense to hav e that kind of mechanic for combat
and even then the meme about missing also which is a lot of peoples biggest problem, that can be avoided pretty easily i think
i dunno
it just, you know, it honestly FEELS better too
like the noises and effects and stuff of morrowind's combat, it feels good somehow
one thing i found fun was like when you're superpowered at the end and just run into a bandit cave and speed through and just SMACK each bandit in the face and they fall over in a cloud of blood before their AI even notices you exist
that'll teach THEM for enslaving my khajit and argonian brothas and sistas, you know
and it just feels good, the combat FEELS GOOD and i will NOT rescind this statement
oblivions combat does not FEEL GOOD
it FEELS GAY and RETARDED
it's like, i guess maybe it goes hand in hand with the level scaling maybe
but it's like the cool part about morrowind is that even if you suck at first you kind of start getting better, and hit more accuractely and stuff, so it's like the combat just feels better over time as you get more powerful
and maybe there's some of that eventually in oblivion, i mean i dunno yet how powerful you can get, but from what it seems i think it just feels kind of eh forever
i dunno
i mean like i said, it does actually feel good like, when you use a big magic attack over and over and they just ragdoll violently in some direction when they die, or when you sneak attack and kill in like one or two hits
so it can have weight to it and stuff
but i dunno, a lot of the time it just feels annoying somehow, like maybe not even weak necessarily, just annoying
but the sounds suck, visuals suck, feels GAY
but i dunno
maybe dont hvae full picture especially since i'm not really a warrior, i just have a shittly little knife(s) and some magics
but that's what i feel so far at least
but anyway, aside from combat
there are plenty of cool things in this game, people say the side quests are pretty awesome in this game (some of them at least) and i think that's true
there's a lot of cool ones, unique ones
ones you might not expect to be so interesting for just a side quest kind of thing, which i enjoy
like there's one where you investigate the disappearance of some famous painter guy or somethin g, and find he's trapped in his own painting because of some magic item and you need to recover it from some bandit who took it and get out of the painting world with him
or like there's one town where this Schizophrenic Individual talks to you about how he thinks people are stalking him and asks you to catch them gangstalking him and ask what's up, which they all have no idea what's going on and eventually he thinks youre in on it and tries to kill you (unsuccessfully)
things like that
aside from that also, i think generally it is just fun to have another world to explore, and it's pretty big, you know
what i mean to say is, a lot of the fundamentals i guess about elder scrolls are of course not lost here, like it's fun to explore and find random stuff, or get taken on a random quest for something after talking to someone, or just dealing with random stuff that happens, roleplaying your character in an expansive world, you know
it's a bit funny sometimes but it's still a big place with a lot to do
and it's still the same world as morrowind so in a sense it's kind of fulfilling just to see a continuation of that experience, to discover more about this world and what happens
you know
it is also kind of pretty, at least the environments
even if it is very much "generic fantasy" to the max, it's not bad looking
very nice looking really
it's not ugly like i feel skyrim kind of is
or well, i dunno
skyrim isn't ugly but from what i see it just seems really like, they really went hard on the "drab medieval gray filter" and i kind of dislike it a lot
there's something very pleasing and charming about the bright and sort of goofy look of oblivion
and of course the stylized look of morrowind
or whatever you call it
not an EXPERT
but you know
i also FUCKING HATE skyrim's minimalist menu design, seems like after 2010 or something every game has that retarded boring ass minimalist menu design and it is UGLY, it's BORING, and i DON'T like it
makes me think though oblivion has fine menu visual design but i think it's also a lot worse in terms of inventory management than morrowind
it's really annoying to have to scroll vertically through your inventory, even with the tab categories
i much prefer in morrowind where you just right click and have all the windows in front of you and can move them around and maximize or minimize each window for spells, items, stats, map, etc so it's all how you want exactly, i love that so much
oblivion really did just make it straight up worse i think, i don't think there's any improvement i can think of with oblivions inventory
they just made it different because they could and tried to solve its shittiness with category tabs or whatever but doesn't work well
i dunno, just my thoughts
but anyway, yeah, oblivion, looks nice
uhhh what else
i definitely hate how they made dunmer look though, they really do not translate well to potato-man aesthetic of oblivion
but i guess none of the humanoids do really, or you know, it's just goofy
i just want my cool dunmers.............
with gaunt faces and stern expressions....
i dunno
i kind of like how the beast races look in this though for some reason
it is somehow pleasing to me
it's some perfect mix of freaky and cool/pleasing looking that feels right somehow
can't describe it
orcs too
mike wasowski looking fellows
maybe that's why, it's like that sort of soft shiny mid-2000s CGI look
something nice about it
but yeah
dunno what else to say about it
for now...
i guess maybe it's interesting to mention, i like the turning into a vampire mechanic in these games
and that just happened to me last time i played, was the last thing i was dealig with before stopped playing yesterday
but you know, somehow i really like mechanics in games like that where it kind of can surprise you at any time and if it gets to you you kind of have to take a detour to deal with it, it feels fun or immersive or something in a specific way i like
reminds me of like, i guess happens with survvial type games in general
but like in subnautica for example, things like if your cyclops submarine runs out of battery deep underwater or something and you have to take your smaller sub out on a mission to get materials to craft new ones or something
like a sort of "emergent quest" type deal, some convoluted problem you don't plan for but just have to figure out using whatever you've got, i love that
and vampirism feels kinda like that, it happened to me in morrowind too and it was fun kind of having that diversion from what i was doing, where i would have to suddenly figure out ASAP how the fuck to cure vampirism or else nobody will talk to me
was a bit easier to figure out how in oblivion compared to morrowind but that's also because i knew a vampire character that i could just ask and went from there
but you know, it's just fun having to go through the cure vampirism quest and figure it out and plan around your new "issue"
or use it to your advantage for other quests along the way, vampirism is cool because it gives you buffs and powers as well which are helpful especially for thief/assassin stuff that i've been doing already
but yeah, you know, stuff like that is cool
i guess now that's all i have to say
i should probably past this kind of thing onto the site or something because it's kind of weird to dump text walls like this on a discord, i dunno, i think i'm just supremely lazy, mentally ill, and retarded, the killing combination
or dont do things that make sense because ????
but i'll probably do that eventually
after gaming....
makes me think also of something i've thought about lately
i think my life is less like "nightmare mode", like a starving poor person or someone who gets fucked over by everyone they meet or something like that
but my life is kind of like those video game challeenges like "can you BEAT MINECRAFT but WITHOUT MINING or CRAFTING??????"
like my life is that kin d of retarded seemingly arbitrary challenges that just make everything annoying for no good reason at all
beating REAL LIFE but it's EXTRA HARD to DRINK WATER and TAKE CARE OF BASIC HYGIENE???????
can you BEAT REAL LIFE if RANDOM SITUATIONS give you DEBILITATING IRRATIONAL FEARS that cause you to COMPLETELY AVOID IMPORTANT TASKS?????
part 1
hey what's going on guys so the rules for this challenge, before you guys start typing in the comments, NO, we're not just gonna use the suicide route to cheese it, okay, we're doing it for real
it really is just absurd though, lately i've been finding it strangely funny in that way
suppose you could just see that as a cope but you know, it sort of works
it's just funny, i don't know, i guess it sort of is hard to say in words but my existence just feels funny, my life or me as a person is just weird or absurd and funny
and that makes it a bit more enjoyable, or bearable, so i'll stick with it
minecraft challenge run life
mario but we can't touch any coins life
it's fun thinking about it like a sort of cosmic game too in the sense of, you know, it's less "oh man this sucks and then you die" and more like my higher self or whatever holding the controller like "oh man my little guy is pacing around in circles again not sure if he should eat hot dogs or chicken nuggets for lunch again, what a laugh"
or whatever, i mean you get what i mean
probably
God's Little Playtester
just walking into walls and chugging soda all day to see if i can break the game somehow, just iron out all the bugs

i'm just some guy, in some world, doing some things
i guess don't know what to say
i made ramen on the stove for the first time for lunch today
big successes in the minecraft challenge run life, i cleaned some stuff around the house too
feels weird that it's december and christmas soon, but it's nice, i like christmas
i just had a slightly weird feeling or perception, like "seeing" myself and i'm really small
not really like kid small somehow, but just, tiny
don't know if that means anything
i guess i really was, just a little guy
also i kind of started feeling bored with the bloodmoon expansion in morrowind somehow, but still really wanted to play it more, so i made a new character after also installing some mods
mostly just the big expansion ones theyve been making for years that adds the mainland morrowind and skyrim/cyrodiil lands and stuff
maybe ill add some other ones along the way also
but i made like an orc crusader character who uses mostly strong weapons and heavy armor but also a lot of protective magic, like a sort of super defensive guy or something, Strong Man with Strong Principles
i'm thinking he's a sociable and religious kind of guy too (perhaps unusual for an orc), so i'll join the tribunal temple and do those quests too and things like that
basically i guess trying to do more of a roleplayed character instead of the kind of "learning the game so fuck you ill do whatever i want" character that i had for first playthrough
so it's pretty fun so far even just still in vanilla areas doing some stuff i might have done or seen before, just in a different way or at a different level
but yeah, i dunno, it feels so good to play though, i mean i've said before but oblivion and stuff is nice but morrowind just feels GOOD to play, you know
the SOVL..........
VGH..... too much SOVL.......
oh yeah my orc character is named Gursum, it's like gerson, from undertale, he uses hammers, like gerson, from undertale, it's like undertaleeeeeee
i was gonna try to give him a last name like the orcs have, like gro-[something], but on the wiki it says the second part is like what stronghold they were born in or something so it actually makes more sense for him not to have a last name, because he just shows up being born from "uncertain parents" and all as part of the story

even more gaming
although my gaming adventures have taken another interesting turn
yesterday, i happened to open a thread about a super mario 64 romhack that was just updated, i guess it was somehow intriguing enough from the first post alone somehow
but after seeing a little bit more of it and understanding wht it was i downloaded it to try it out, i haven't played a rom hack in forever but i felt compelled for this one because it appeals to me so much just from the concept
and i've been playing pretty much all day yesterday and today
https://romhacking.com/hack/b3313-super-mario-64-internal-plexus
the creator(s) are a little light on explanation of what it actually is, which i guess in a way makes some kind of sense
but it's essentially kind of a yume nikki type experience but in mario 64, with assets and areas and themes from or based on parts of the beta content and the various "iceberg" type myth stuff people have built up over the past few years
ever since that stuff got popular and people were talking about it for a while making me think about all those things again, it always made me wish for something like this that would really explore some of these things properly if that makes sense
and i think this hack achieves that more perfectly than anything else i've seen before
somehow
with the nature of this sort of thing, i guess it's hard to talk about, something you kind of have to experience to fully understand in some sense, you have to know what i mean
but it makes me want to talk about it anyway
https://b3313.fandom.com/wiki/B3313
this page gives a little more general information also, and of course it's a wiki and actually does list all of the areas and stuff at least which can be helpful
but when i say it's like yume nikki in mario 64, i really do mean that, because there are countless amounts of worlds and areas you can explore and get lost in, or at least it feels that way
there are apparently 143 stars in the game, and in my hours of playing i don't think i have even half of that yet, nor have i even reached the "ending" which requires exploring pretty "deep"
it's very much that labyrinth of seemingly endless branching paths, most of which is apparently just the castle itself, although it's so strange at points that the line between being "in the castle" and "in a world" gets extremely blurry often
i guess i just realized, its funny, it actually kind of does have a similar mechanic to yume nikki too in the form of being able to actually "fast travel" in the pause menu at any time to the first lobby room you find in the castle, kind of like how you can pinch your cheek in yume nikki to wake up if you get hopelessly lost, or just stuck (which will also happen in this game)
becomes very useful, and also you find out it has a purpose in cycling through variations of the castle lobby (each variation having their own unique painting rooms alone, each with a different world or warp in each variation)
so even something as small as that becomes a key to more branching paths and getting lost
just this aspect alone is really captivating to me especially, it reminds me of playing yume nikki and yume 2kki for the first time, it absolutely captures that feeling of exploration where you find yourself surprised over and over at just how much there is to see, how much you can get lost, just opening another door you almost missed in an area you thought you knew already, just to find another hallway with 3 more doors, paintings, pipes, or other strange things that are interesting just to find on their own
which, there's the other major aspect of this i think, which is maybe the most important thing, what makes this what it is, you know
and it's maybe the hardest to put into words, generally
but the atmosphere, the feeling of it all, and the design, the way everything is
taking into account the inspiration, the game itself it's in, those weird feelings and thoughts or even dreams that the whole iceberg stuff or whatever you want to call it was dealing with, you know
you know, the STUFF, the uhhh, thing, the feeling, that
hard to say it and it's late so i won't try too hard to do something i know i can't really do, at least not now
but anyway
i don't know how, but this hack is one of the most perfect representations or expressions of such things i've seen, or at least some parts of all this, and that alone is very important to me
and making me think a lot about this of course, and taking it all in as i play
but you know, i guess to try and go into more examples
i said before, you know, the exploring is done through the castle and its many strange areas and rooms and connections, to worlds of paintings or otherwise

with the iceberg stuff, you would see images and videos with stuff like this often
and going along with this idea, just generally these sort of dreamlike, surreal, secret areas of the castle, or secret worlds, parts of them never seen, sometimes making sense, sometimes making none
and this hack is really good at creating these sorts of spaces and areas for you to explore
one thing i think contributes to this feeling of importance for me, is that before, i would probably wonder, looking at pictures like this, if it would have the same feeling if you could actually explore it for real, in waking life
would that ruin the feeling? would it be the same?
and i guess in some sense i still don't have a full answer to that, but i think playing this hack sort of shows me that it's definitely possible to at least give most of that feeling, or all of it, even if just for a while when it's still fresh in your mind, when you're still lost in it all
but anyway
i figure the creator of the areas in this hack must have some clear idea of this, like he's definitely not just aping some stupid video or meme idea of what this is, he actually understands it and expresses it properly or at least attempts at gets very close and effective most of the time

another classic image spread around with this sort of iceberg stuff, i always liked this one especially too somehow
and in this hack it actually shows up multiple times in multiple different areas, each time slightly different, which is interesting to me and i like a lot how it works out
the way it's done is just very right i guess, i don't know how to explain it, again
but you know, sometimes the hallways just lead into blackness, like a pitch black alcove with nothing, some of them lead into a sort of connecting hallway of sorts into the others, for seemingly no real purpose other than to just connect them all for the sake of connecting, more halls
the boos sort of taking that path straight, even when they start to follow you some
but still going on their way, to nowhere
but you know, even something as small of a feature as this is done really well i think
there have been a lot of times where i become overwhelmed with feeling in this game, because it's just, i don't know
it really makes you feel like you're in one of those dreams again, or in some distant memory, or imagined place, you're IN it and you're walking around, you're looking up through the fog and seeing the walls and the floors of that place you know so well but could never really visit again, you could never really see it that closely
it's quite incredible, i really almost wasn't sure if it was possible for anyone else to do anything like this
but i think it might be
the creator also somehow understands how not to "get in the way" with things that always seem to ruin stuff like this hard
makes me think of the backrooms for example, the original post and general idea is just about perfect, but then people often "get in the way" by adding things like a monster too it that just straight up ruin it completely, it becomes nothing and meaningless at that point, just another horror setting or something
and there have been of course plenty of that with mario 64 stuff in this vein, or even more generally with "weird 3d/analog creepiness" type art
but this, again, is very good i think with not doing anything like that
there are NPCs in this hack, for example, but they are few and far between, and their dialogue is all strange and cryptic and vague enough to feel completely right somehow with everything else
it almost makes you get this feeling, like when you've been wandering for hours and finally see an NPC somewhere and get excited wondering what it's going to say or something, almost like you've been desperately lonely in a strange world, just for them to say something like PURE EMPTINESS or just [PLACEHOLDER]
or even just like dialogue straight from the original game, unchanged
or the same one over and over whenever you meet the same kind of NPC, like when you find bowser fights, he always says the same thing after dying
and that kind of thing, i've always thought is the best, it's a sort of "hollow person" type feeling, i guess pretty much just like a dream, or how a dream feels to me anyway
because social interaction can be a sort of grounding thing, it brings you to the "real world"
but in a dream or something like this, there's this feeling, like that grounding is missing, everything people say is just hollow or strange and it makes you just feel more isolated that you were, like they're less real than everything around you even
this kind of factor is critical in a game or experience like this when there are NPCs or whatever to interact with, and this game does it really well i think, which again, is important
you can't have them be grounding or "real" in the way a character in a "regular" game would be, or else it breaks the atmosphere
and same with something sort of the opposite, too over the top or creepy or weird or whatever
or in your face horror elements
which, this game does have a few sort of "scary" moments, where a sort of strange mario clone thing or whatever else will be somewhere and either kill you or crash the game
but they aren't really jumpscares or anything, and i think they're done well enough
in a way it makes me wonder if maybe things like that, done well, are just as important as everything else i care about with this
the sort of "direct fear factor", a vague but terrifying entity that MIGHT be there, MIGHT be attacking you, or maybe not, and you dont know how or when either
or maybe you dont know anything at all
and something just shows up, whatever it is
but i dunno
it may have a place, regardless i think its done as well as it can be here
and there are various forms of this, like theres a strange yellow switch room that crashes you when you get close to it
thats sort of like the "scary thing", but more cool and mysterious, making you wonder less "what if THING will KILL ME" and more "what was that, what does it do, could you ever reach it and find out? does something not want me there?"
you know
or there's also a room i think where you get trapped with the eel in a dark aquarium, and basically either drown or get killed by it because there's no other escape
and i like that because it's not really over the top, it's just the eel from the original game, just in an uncomfortable and potentially scary situation that surprises you and might make you freak out a bit
no spooky eldritch creature or jumpscare-y effects needed
but yeah
dream stuff, scary stuff, atmosphere stuff
what else can i think of to say for now
oh yeah, i guess random thing to mention but it's something i keep thinking a bout a lot with the game
somethign really cool it does also is include some areas from the original game with little to no changes at all
at least not in appearance
and when you find those randomly it's such a strange feeling, it's really incredible how fucking weird it feels somehow
like earlier i found the vanilla basement area, and it was so strange, after wandering through weird nonsensical areas for so much time, going throuhg so much, and then you walk through some door and it's just the default basement
everything is there, everythng makes sense, even the rabbit is bouncing around and you can chase it and catch it and itll give you a star and everything
it's almost like a respite in some sense, like a retreat into the familiar for a small time, but even then it's also just unsettling, like the sort of "mostly normal but vaguely weird" aspect of uncanny familiarity opposite to the sort of "vaguely recognizable but mostly weird" aspect most of the game has otherwise
like the toads or whatever you might find all still have weird custom dialogue, some things are strange or just don't work, like you can't read the hint signs
in a way that's sort of dreamlike too, or reminiscent of certain dreams, where it's mostly normal but there are these things that are off because it's just how a dream is
and then you walk throuhg another door and it's some absurd hallway or intersection again or something
i just love that
i love all those moments in this where i just look at whatever area too and think like "man this is fucking weird"
that almost feels weird to say because it makes you think of somthing else, something le wacky or le high on drugs or something stupid
but i mean REAL weird, like something is wrong, something just doesn't make sense here
like some of the areas make you think like, you know where you are and what this is but you wonder what the creator was thinking or how certain things could even be created or intentional if that makes sense
it really just feels like it's from a dream sometimes, like only your dreaming mind could come up with the way some of the things are
and that's, weird, you know
it's strange how well that sort of thing is executed here, at least i think so
it's something a computer or a program with randomness or whatever could never do, it's something a person with the wrong intent could never do, you have to understand something a certain way, i dont know how to say it
i dont think it's a hard thing to understand, because it of course resonates with many people as is obvious
but i think it seems to be hard to focus in on for many people, or hard to grasp, hard to put any label on, you have to be on the same wavelength or something to do anything with it, i dunno, some weird thing like that
but whatever, i mean, it's late and i think i've said most of what i can for now about it
just getting it out, need to write this sort of thing down somewhere
https://b3313.fandom.com/wiki/Dry_Town
last thing for now is ill just post my favorite area so far
especially this view
but i guess you kind of have to walk around to really get it
but i dunno
there's something about this level, and it's music (which i cant find anywhere online, and i havent figured out how to rip music from rom hacks, which sucks, i NEED it but i guess itll have to wait for now)
something about walking around this huge empty town, i guess it's like wet dry worlds town if youd imagine it as a bigger place in a dream, a seaside city
the orange fog, it's like some strange sunset that never progresses or ends or moves, it's just a blanket cover on everything
i dunno
it's just really wonderful for me somehow, i kept coming back here even after i got the stars just to walk around and listen to the music along with it
walking around it also kind ofreminded me earlier of when i played minecraft for the first time, in the old classic mode, joining some multiplayer server wheree they had all these huge things built
that feeling of walking on this strange virtual flat expanse with towering buildings of all kinds looming over you as you go, their shadows covering you, and the ambient music playing in the background as you take it all in, everything these people have made, what they've left behind even if they're gone or away
or in this game's case, buildings no one really made at all almost, buildings with no purpose, or purposes unknown to you, just boxes dotting the square arena you're trapped in for now
look out over the weird flat sea, on the weird box house with weird flat windows and doors
i dunno, just aimlessly talking to maybe express something, dont know if it works
but it's a good world
it's one of those places i really could just relax in, just playing it even, sitting mario in a spot and just looking at the view, taking it in
i love those moments, in any game really, but games like this especially
this one is pretty special on top of that, special in a certain way, you know
but yeah, anyway, i think that's it for now
staying up too late again........
gotta sleep soon
perhaps i will finally dream of another secret painting behind a door behind a painting through a hallway
or something like that
as a kid that idea would have probably scared the hell out of me
which i guess is another topic for some time, this sort of thing as i imagined it as a child
because it was pretty complex for me, particularly regarding mario 64 itself specifically even
but again i guess that's something i can ramble about later
i guess we will see

its funny how it does feel like a creepypasta at times, or at least like it would sound like a creepypasta if you tried to explain some of the experience
"it was almost like the default bob omb battlefield level.... but different..... and the bob-ombs were yellow and had red eyes.... and said creepy stuff that WASNT fit for a kids game........ and the level was almost similar, but empty and devoid of life..... and the skybox was like wet dry world....... and there was weird fog............."
that makes it sound more retarded than it is but you know, i mean it works that way somehow
but yeah
it's not really that scary of course and even then that sort of element isn't much of what i care about in this, it's just there and not done horribly so i would mention it
i think in these sorts of games people seem to naturally gravitate toward those things though in a way, like with yume nikki and uboa being the most "talked about" part of the game in some sense
and with this the "scary parts" are a lot of what people talk about generally
i think maybe because, sort of along the lines of what i said about NPCs, it's almost like the closest thing to a social aspect in a game like this that there is
because a spooky moment, you can kind of share that, like "oh fuck guys look what i found" or just bonding over kind of a shared moment, when otherwise it's sort of isolating
just a thought, feels like it makes some sense to me
and i guess it's always weird, because again it's not really what i focus on with things like this, but i think i understand why it becomes a highlight for most people so it doesn't make me upset or anything
just interesting

https://b3313.fandom.com/wiki/Clock_Hall
one of my favorite areas somehow, i like the bluish sort of twilight fog
in the first picture area you dont see it but theres a sort of lake of water below the bridge too
also that mirror room is very tall
standing in there was one of those moments where i felt overwhelmed by feeling for whatever reason, something about the room really gets me i guess
or it almost felt more on the familiar side in some particular way
https://youtu.be/O4UuOjOloRE
makes me think of this from yume 2kki and the areas where it plays
most of the areas have a similar sort of bluish darkness twilight fog or whatever, similar color or feeling to it i guess, not sure how better to say it
i love this track a lot
i can't think of much music that evokes this same feeling, it's very specific even in this realm
reminds me also i was thinking if this hack could be improved by having more ambient stuff like this rather that just remixes of regular tracks or ones from other games
in some sense maybe, or maybe for areas like the one i posted, but in some sense it does make sense for it to have the kind of music it has
it's almost sort of contradictory in a way that makes it more eerie, like the music doesn't fit how strange it is or something
so it's debatable maybe
there is certainly something strangely comfortable about it, i don't know if most people feel it that way but it can be strong for me
i guess maybe there's at least a longing, like you sort of get into there too
but yeah
as a kid i guess i would be more afraid of it somehow
but now it's more like this
i wonder what that indicates, if anything
but yeah, i think this hack does get into that sort of thing in a really special way, so it would be worth playing absolutely if you feel that and understand it
i don't think i really talked about it yet either but i think super mario 64 as a game in particular does have a lot of attachment in my head, for i suppose strange reasons
strange in the sense that i didn't really grow up in the time that it came out or anything, but ended up becoming somewhat interested in it anyway
instead of asking for a n64 for christmas or something, i would just end up asking for the game on wii virtual console, for example
so it's strange in the sense of almost being a similar dynamic that other people who actually grew up thinking about it would have had, but much later on in a weird semi-similar way
i dunno
i guess that's a bit like my life in general in some sense if you think about it
almost like something you'd normally do, but not really
or almost forced or done in some roundabout way that usually doesnt make sense
well, anyway
playing this hack made me think of one memory a lot for some reason, even though it's not actually directly related to super mario 64 even, at least i don't think so
maybe it is in some strange, roundabout way
but as a kid i remember once as a family we went to some extended family's house or something, like something very extended like my aunt's parents or something, for a family gathering, i think maybe for thanksgiving or something, or someone's birthday
it was interesting i suppose in one sense because i had never been there before, i think it was kind of far away, and i think we never went there after that again
and i didn't often get to see other people's houses or new places so things like that automatically stick in my mind for that purpose, it almost becomes like another world or something
but i have various memories of things happening there that day, just random things
like being in the dining room, the way i remember it it feels like a strange layout, like the window was really huge and it was almost only big enough for the table and chairs
but i'm probably just remembering strangely
or i remember being in the backyard, and it being somehow very large and ornate or something, with a lot of greenery and plants and stuff, that i liked
sort of at a sunset time
i remember being in some room and watching my cousins play with like, those stilt things or something you walk around on
he knew how to use them or something, i dunno
maybe that was somewhere else
but i guess the main thing im getting at here, i remember, it feels like it was in a room right next to the dinin g table room
almost like a little weird alcove or something, i don't remember how it worked
but it had a television, and what i believe was an N64 hooked up to it with mario kart in it
or at least thats the game i remember playing on it, for a little bit
it's really vague but that memory somehow always stuck with me really hard, i think about it kind of a lot, or relatively a lot anyway
it feels special in that strange way, and like i said for some reason playing this game makes me think about it a lot
think about being in that house, or how strangely distant or vague it feels i suppose
i wonder if maybe it's attached to my interest in mario 64 and it's what made me want to know more about it and play it as a kid or something
or maybe it was just purely from stuff about it on the internet, like blooper videos or creepypasta stuff that i found myself interested in about it
i dunno
i think i always felt strange about the game though, it's sort of what i said earlier about how it's one of those things where as a kid it would scare me even though now it sort of feels comfortable or i long for something about it somehow
but at the very least i could feel that something weird about it as a kid, and that's why i guess with as much as the iceberg stuff becoming a meme was weird, it was still interesting to me on a base level because i of course always felt intrigued by that sort of thing too
i guess even if it was scary as a kid, i must have still been fascinated by it too like i am now, since i really wanted to play it anyway
i think one thing that especially always interested me was the idea of finding a secret area or whatever that no one had seen, like that sort of thing
and i guess that idea is sort of played out now, and explored kind of in the best way possible with this hack, but i just remember it being one of the things i always was really interested in
or like the whole unlocking luigi thing, wondering if that could be really true
but i think in some sense that's almost a lot of why i wanted to play the game as a kid, just to explore thing myself and see if i could find secret places or something
in a way i think with things like that i almost had like a magical way of thinking about it, like i knew it might not make sense logically but i figured, maybe i could just, find it, find something, just from wandering around for long enough, just FINDING it somehow, not just revealing something that was always there, but almost making it happen with my desire in some sense
i iguess that sort of thinking has carried over into a lot of things in my life, over time
like "it doesn't make sense, but maybe it will just happen"
i wonder if you could say something deeper about that, like it's some kind of failure to accept reality or something, like me refusing to be happy with the way things are and wanting "out" essentially
i dunno
maybe
like "yeah, maybe i can just 'fix' reality how i want using my head and nothing else and it will work"
you gotta admit though, it would be pretty cool and nice if that just worked

feels interesting to read the threads about b3313 and see a lot of people feeling a lot of things for it or becoming kind of obsessed almost, some feelings people talk about remind me of how i felt about this stuff as a kid too, like being really afraid of it in some weird way or having it cause weird existential feelings or something that they aren't prepared for
kind of surprising somehow, i didn't think as many people would care or "get" this kind of thing but i guess it does just need to be presented in the right way, or something
dunno, thinking about it
thinking, thinking, always wearing my thinking cap
but where was the thinking cap switch? i lost count 5 rooms ago
makes me think of how an even bigger scale of something like this could be achieved, or if this can be expanded
i think the creator said he would probably not work on this anymore which is unfortunate
i wonder if something like yume 2kki would work somehow, where it's the same concept but worked on by multiple people and added onto over time
the main problem with that of course is quality control, which i dont even know how 2kki does it so im lost there really
and the nature of this means there's way more people with ideas that frankly aren't good or don't fit at all and are just creepypasta shit or something else Gay and Boring
you might need a single guy with a firm grasp on this to do anything right in this way
i guess thats almost too obvious though
to say
of course it makes me want to do it myself one day, i mean i don't think i considered doing anything in mario 64 like this although it almost seems obvious now
i remember as a kid i tried for a while to learn how to use the toad tool or whatever to make levels because i thought it was such a cool idea, but never even got it working i dont think, or maybe i just looked around a level and didnt touch it after that
i dunno
there are limitations to the "platform" of something like this in mario 64 though, i mean i think even this had to use some tricks so that it could manage having so many seemingly separate areas and stuff
so you probably couldn't keep adding forever without issue like you might with something else
so in the end it might be best as what this is, quality over quantity and all that, i guess the creator felt it was right to wrap it up and this is what he ended with
that's something to think about actually
one of my main dream ideas for a game, i guess, is sort of like this
at least generally, something exploratory that i can just add on to forever, like crafting my own world, adding on to it indefinitely
so that it becomes sprawling and full of anything i can think of
and i guess a lot of my "creative roads" seem to lead there in some sense, it's what i always fantasize about with my website for example, or even something more isolated like with playing minecraft and always wanting to try and have a "main world" for example
and that feels almostl ike a magnum opus of sorts, like if i can achieve that then it's the pinnacle of anything i can do and i would dedicate my skills and effort to doing that at a point where i could properly
but i wonder if that's right, i mean, could there be a point where it's just adding on for the sake of it, and dragging things out, and it would be better to just try and craft something contained, wrap something up
because, you know, some things are better left unfinished, or unopened
if something is forever ongoing theres always a chance for everything to become finished and open, each update is just another nonzero chance that another thing may be explained or whatever
but i dunno
i guess you dont have to have just one project forever, there can be things made that are both sides of this
have random small things and the big personal world i add to forever
but i ugess in my head it seems to make sense that you would focus monomaniacally on this sort of project, there would be little time for anything else in any creative moments
also i just remembered i had a cool idea the other day and was gonna write it down but i forgot and i forgot the idea too
it's over.....
i just want to LOSE MYSELF in an ABSTRACT WORLD of my OWN DESIGN. is that so much to ask for?