I just finished a game I got for free called A Plague Tale: Requiem. Beautiful, great setting, OK mechanics, emotionally intelligent, and an awesome main character. But I haven’t been more pissed at a game’s ending since Last of Us.
Spoilers Ahoy!
You spend the entire game (and the previous game apparently) trying to save your cursed, 5 year old little brother from various bad guys and an evil force called the Macula. You kill dozens of people, die repeatedly, watch family and friends perish, all in order to save your brother.
The “ending” forces you (or your companion if you were too pissed at the game to do it) to kill your brother to save the world. That’s right, you murder, get stabbed, shot, fall from heights, suffer massive injuries, watch your family and friends die for absolutely nothing. And, working to keep him alive results in the death of tens to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people in the game because your brother can’t control anything. The best actual outcome for the game would be to allow yourself and your brother to die in the first scenario. It would save millions of lives, save your family and friends, and stop months of massive pain and suffering by the protagonists.
I actually thought about that when the game first started introducing the world. That maybe just killing him immediately is the best outcome ever. Turns out I was right.
I don’t need happy endings to love a game. Hell, Walking Dead Season 1 is my favorite game of all time. But this was ridiculous.
I feel so tired and put-upon today. I’m working on something someone else should have done. Half the people failed show up to my meeting today, which was pretty important, and I wasn’t able to get that piece done as a result. I’m very tired. I gave myself extra time to fall asleep last night and I slept another hour after I got my kid off to school and I’m still tired. I hope it’s not long COVID.
Annnnnndd now he’s in the hospital. He didn’t fall again but he was acting weird and his blood pressure and heart rate were really low. They have him in the ICU on a CPAP. My mom gave me all the details in a weird, discombobulated way. I don’t really know what is going on with him. But he’s definitely sick.
Meanwhile, the toddler greeted me today by puking all over the kitchen. The husband stayed home with him today and I’ll be home with him tomorrow. What a great start to the year.
And at the campus where I work in Beijing, there’s a herd, nay, a plague of feral cats. Why? Someone got the bright idea to have the student-run charity association “raise money to buy cat houses*, blankets, and food” for the critters. So we now have a bunch of miniature houses occupied by wild animals. And the food? Oh, that’s wonderful, too. If you’re putting out food to feed feral cats, you’re also putting out food to feed other animals, such as mice and rats.
Years ago, when the school had a foreign headmaster, he and I tried to do the trap, neuter, and return program for the feral creatures. No dice. The students are addicted to the idea that “cats = cute, cuddly, and friendly”. So what we have now is unvaccinated, non-neutered predator animals all over the campus. I’m wondering how soon it will be before one of the students gets a serious consequence from this. I already know what happened to the bird population on the campus.
It doesnt bring about an actual ending. If your character dies, it’s game over. If you dont save your brother or he dies, it’s game over. Anything outside of the ending is just head canon.
My mother has been texting me for two days asking about my opinion on something on FB. The “something” is a nice birthday video her frienemy posted in honor of her (my mother’s frienemy’s) daughter.
I replied at first that I hadn’t seen it. She sent me a direct link. It’s the mom proudly talking about her daughter’s achievements. Cool, cool.
Did I mention, “frienemy?”
Her daughter has a PhD. I only have a masters. Her daughter does fancy lectures at important universities. I currently work (quite happily, thankyouverymuch) at a pizza joint.
You think I haven’t been compared, for years?
The kicker is my mother’s last two messages.
1a.) Why don’t you ever post like that for my birthday, or your father’s? (cue pose of utter woe)
and
2b.) I can stop messaging your phone forever.
… I believe the final was meant as a threat, but, just like every group chat or message board thread ever where someone flounces out saying, “You’ll NEVER hear from me again!!” I can only just wish that were true.
I suppose a charity fundraiser to get birdseed, volunteers to build bird feeders and birdhouses, and pamphlets explaining how feral predators impact local wildlife is out of the question?
My work, and specifically the department I’m in, did a series of dumb things at a bad time. Right after our blackout period, when no one can schedule vacation, which is also right after Jan 1, when paid time banks get a boost, meaning that people can take time off spontaneously, multiple big processes got an overhaul. Meaning individual steps take more time, as we need to review multiple new policies and references. Just as the larger department has updated what is transferred to the department I’m in, increasing intake.
So more contacts, more complex contacts that take longer, on the fly corrections being made for sops where mistakes were made, when people have scheduled vacation or are potentially indulging in spontaneous time off, and things are crazy at work. Any one of those factors would have been a busy time, but doable.
Might as well put this here too, since it’s a pretty small rant:
The Polls Only thread has stopped updating me about new posts so I keep reading replies to ones I haven’t seen yet. I’ve tried changing from “tracking” to “watching” and back but that hasn’t worked.
I pit long outerwear (think rain coats or trench coats) that lack usable pockets. For a long time I have owned a Misty Harbor trench coat with a detachable lining. Now that I live in Oregon it could be far more useful than it was where bought it, but I never use it, because of the pockets. It has only two outer side pockets, slanted down towards the rear, and on the rearward side each pocket is only about three inches deep. So I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of carrying anything important like my wallet, keys, or phone there; in other words, any item the loss of which would be a day-wrecking minor disaster. Also there can be no pockets easier to pick, although that’s not something I usually have to worry about.
In addition to trench coats and similar garments, even short jackets should have at least one, but preferably two, inside pockets with zipper closures. Far more common are button pockets,but those are a pain to use.
A couple of days ago, it rained. My son (44) walks about two miles to work and he put his last two layers on in the front room, where I was checking email.
He zipped up a plastic-covered trench coat, shoved his hands down into the big front pockets and said: “You jealous, Mom? Seventeen pockets!” (That included all the layers and the cargo pants.)
