diff --git a/.obsidian/app.json b/.obsidian/app.json index 5a7dfe1..51f9bf1 100644 --- a/.obsidian/app.json +++ b/.obsidian/app.json @@ -1,4 +1,5 @@ { - "newFileLocation": "folder", - "newFileFolderPath": "content/posts" + "newFileLocation": "current", + "newFileFolderPath": "content/posts", + "promptDelete": false } \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/.obsidian/workspace.json b/.obsidian/workspace.json index 50e233a..7068e33 100644 --- a/.obsidian/workspace.json +++ b/.obsidian/workspace.json @@ -4,22 +4,22 @@ "type": "split", "children": [ { - "id": "78d56f8fcedcdea9", + "id": "fde8f1681d813673", "type": "tabs", "children": [ { - "id": "61b9ea0936754bde", + "id": "5f0567674abbf888", "type": "leaf", "state": { "type": "markdown", "state": { - "file": "content/posts/My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md", + "file": "content/posts/2019-11-13 My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s.md", "mode": "source", "source": false, "backlinks": false }, "icon": "lucide-file", - "title": "My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s" + "title": "2019-11-13 My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s" } } ] @@ -182,43 +182,43 @@ "obsidian-git:Open Git source control": false } }, - "active": "61b9ea0936754bde", + "active": "5f0567674abbf888", "lastOpenFiles": [ - "public/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s/index.html", - "public/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s", - "public/posts/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s/index.html", - "public/posts/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s", - "content/posts/an ode to gitsync.md", - "content/posts/My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md", - "content/week-notes/030.md", - "public/week-notes/30/index.html", - "public/week-notes/30", - "content/posts/Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2020.md", - "public/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2020/index.html", - "public/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2020", - "public/posts/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2020/index.html", - "public/posts/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2020", - "public/posts/heres-what-i-was-lis/index.html", - "content/posts/An Empty Promise to Blog More.md", - "content/posts/Women in a Sea of Men.md", - "content/week-notes/021.md", - "content/week-notes/022.md", - "content/week-notes/023.md", - "content/week-notes/024.md", - "content/week-notes/025.md", - "content/week-notes/026.md", - "content/week-notes/027.md", - "content/week-notes/028.md", - "content/week-notes/029.md", - "content/posts/Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2015.md", - "content/posts/Automattic's Write Brief AI is, unsurprisingly, full of shit.md", - "content/posts/Star Wars Has a Problem with Women and We’re Going to Fix It Together.md", - "content/posts/Life is Strange Episode 1 Chrysalis.md", - "content/posts/turning 30.md", - "content/posts/Revolutions.md", - "content/posts/Canopies and Drapes.md", - "content/posts/Princess Bubblegum & Marceline Still Just Almost Girlfriends.md", - "content/posts/House of Leaves Appendix II-E, The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute Letters (May 8th, 1987).md", - "conflict-files-obsidian-git.md" + "themes/neverhungoveragain/layouts/shortcodes/image.html", + "themes/neverhungoveragain/layouts/shortcodes/boxes.html", + "themes/neverhungoveragain/layouts/shortcodes/box.html", + "public/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html", + "public/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s", + "public/posts/2019-11-13-my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html", + "public/posts/2019-11-13-my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s", + "public/posts/2019-11-13/index.html", + "public/posts/2019-11-13", + "public/posts/20/index.html", + "public/posts/20", + "content/week-notes/031.md", + "content/posts/2019-11-13 My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s.md", + "content/posts/2024-04-14 Your silence will not protect you.md", + "content/posts/2016-09-28 Women in a Sea of Men.md", + "content/posts/2024-08-28 what's this (and how it works).md", + "content/posts/2023-07-26 What's This.md", + "content/posts/2025-08-12 Using Hugo to generate a podcast feed.md", + "content/drafts/turning 30.md", + "content/posts/2024-03-10 Thirteen to Know Me.md", + "content/posts/2015-12-14 Star Wars Has a Problem with Women and We’re Going to Fix It Together.md", + "content/posts/2023-08-15 Stages of Moving.md", + "content/posts/2024-08-08 smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.md", + "content/posts/2015-03-12 Revolutions.md", + "content/posts/2024-11-07 Reflections on elections.md", + "content/posts/2014-08-14 Princess Bubblegum & Marceline Still Just Almost Girlfriends.md", + "content/posts/2023-08-18 On Teaching.md", + "content/posts/2023-07-31 Old Woman Yells at the Cloud.md", + "content/posts/2024-01-01 my year in lists.md", + "content/posts/2019-12-20 My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md", + "content/posts/2024-08-02 Moving to a rack mount setup.md", + "content/posts/2024-03-10 Moving my home server to a new chassis.md", + "content/posts/2023-07-30 Media Log (July 2023).md", + "content/posts/2024-02-04 Media Log (January 2024).md", + "content/posts/2023-08-31 Media Log (August 2023).md", + "content/posts/2023-12-28 LITR 308 Emily Dickinson & Queer Theory.md" ] } \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Content.base b/Content.base index 277ad40..d05c08a 100644 --- a/Content.base +++ b/Content.base @@ -12,6 +12,6 @@ views: sort: - property: date direction: DESC - cardSize: 220 + cardSize: 390 image: note.cover - imageAspectRatio: 0.25 + imageAspectRatio: 0.7 diff --git a/content/posts/dad.md b/content/drafts/dad.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/dad.md rename to content/drafts/dad.md diff --git a/content/posts/turning 30.md b/content/drafts/turning 30.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/turning 30.md rename to content/drafts/turning 30.md diff --git a/content/posts/Princess Bubblegum & Marceline Still Just Almost Girlfriends.md b/content/posts/2014-08-14 Princess Bubblegum & Marceline Still Just Almost Girlfriends.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Princess Bubblegum & Marceline Still Just Almost Girlfriends.md rename to content/posts/2014-08-14 Princess Bubblegum & Marceline Still Just Almost Girlfriends.md diff --git a/content/posts/Canopies and Drapes.md b/content/posts/2014-11-09 Canopies and Drapes.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Canopies and Drapes.md rename to content/posts/2014-11-09 Canopies and Drapes.md diff --git a/content/posts/House of Leaves Appendix II-E, The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute Letters (May 8th, 1987).md b/content/posts/2015-01-01 House of Leaves.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/House of Leaves Appendix II-E, The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute Letters (May 8th, 1987).md rename to content/posts/2015-01-01 House of Leaves.md diff --git a/content/posts/Life is Strange Episode 1 Chrysalis.md b/content/posts/2015-02-05 Life is Strange Episode 1 Chrysalis.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Life is Strange Episode 1 Chrysalis.md rename to content/posts/2015-02-05 Life is Strange Episode 1 Chrysalis.md diff --git a/content/posts/Revolutions.md b/content/posts/2015-03-12 Revolutions.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Revolutions.md rename to content/posts/2015-03-12 Revolutions.md diff --git a/content/posts/Star Wars Has a Problem with Women and We’re Going to Fix It Together.md b/content/posts/2015-12-14 Star Wars Has a Problem with Women and We’re Going to Fix It Together.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Star Wars Has a Problem with Women and We’re Going to Fix It Together.md rename to content/posts/2015-12-14 Star Wars Has a Problem with Women and We’re Going to Fix It Together.md diff --git a/content/posts/Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2015.md b/content/posts/2016-01-07 Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2015.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2015.md rename to content/posts/2016-01-07 Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2015.md diff --git a/content/posts/Women in a Sea of Men.md b/content/posts/2016-09-28 Women in a Sea of Men.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Women in a Sea of Men.md rename to content/posts/2016-09-28 Women in a Sea of Men.md diff --git a/content/posts/2019-11-13 My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s.md b/content/posts/2019-11-13 My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a51552 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/2019-11-13 My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s.md @@ -0,0 +1,234 @@ +--- +title: My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s +date: 2019-11-13 +url: my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s +tags: + - games +draft: false +cover: https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/gamescolor.png +--- +Another decade in the book, another opportunity to represent my life in lists and data. + +Looking retrospectively, this past decade defined my interest in games. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a young child — I remember holing up in my mom’s basement, replaying the same minigames over and over in _Gus Goes to Cyberopolis_. My dad bought me a Gameboy Color for my fifth birthday, and I dedicated at least a decade of my life (regrettably) to the _Kingdom Hearts_ series. But in 2010, I started my first job, and so I finally had some disposable income to spend on my hobbies; I didn’t have to beg for games as birthday or Christmas or whenever presents. And so I played a lot more games in these past ten years. I started to follow industry news beyond new releases. I became more thoughtful about and critical of the industry. And I shifted my hobby into professional inquiry: in 2018, I co-wrote a book chapter about how video games could be used in educational settings, and in 2019, I piloted a camp that empowered kids to create their own video games. + +The games industry has shifted a lot in this decade, too. We’ve seen a renaissance of games that put character and narrative at their center, which has long been what I wanted to see out of the medium. Game designers continue to heighten the artistic potential of games, both in photo-realism and artistic expression. Put shortly, video games this decade have been _really_, _really_ good. + +Now, to offer a caveat to this list: I obviously didn’t play every game that came out in this decade. I didn’t even play _most_ games this decade. I missed major, beloved titles like _Red Dead Redemption 2_, the _Uncharted_ series, or any of the _Call of Duty_ games. Some of this comes down to personal taste, others to time (and monetary) restrictions. This list therefore will be limited to games that I actually played this decade, rather than some kind of pseudo-objective ranking of every game that released in this time frame — and I reserve the right to amend this list when I finally get around to playing _Control_. + +Editorially, I have also decided to omit remasters or re-releases from my consideration unless they dramatically transformed the content of the original game. I have also listed the platform(s) on which I played the games listed, as that may have affected my experience with them. +___ +## #10. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild +![Zelda alone in a pool of water](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/botwzelda.png) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2017" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="Nintendo Switch" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Nintendo" >}} + {{< box label="Time Played" value="105 hours" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +My feelings on _Breath of the Wild_ are complicated, to say the least. I’m sure many folks out there would recoil at it only just making my list; I’m sure it will appear at the top of most critical and personal lists, lists assembled by folks who are far better informed and well-equipped to talk about it than me. But here it is, at #10, even though it’s one of the games I pumped the most hours into within this decade (and threw the most curses at). + +I have a rocky history with _The Legend of Zelda_. Most of the games in the series that I’ve enjoyed and spent considerable time with — _Oracle of the Ages_, _Minish Cap_, and _Phantom Hourglass_ — are either widely disliked or, at least, considered the lesser games in the series. I’ve tried a few times to play through some of the classics in the series, like _Majora’s Mask_, but something never quite clicked for me in them. Other series staples, like _Wind Waker_ and _Twilight Princess_, were inaccessible to me because I never owned the appropriate console on which to play them. + +But _Breath of the Wild_ was something different, both for the series and for me. To begin with, I had access to it: my boyfriend got a Switch not long after it released, and _Breath of the Wild_ was the driving force behind that decision for him. I later would get a Switch of my own, and the ability to play _Breath of the Wild_ as both a handheld experience and and a traditional console game seemed to help me stick with it. + +_Breath of the Wild_ was also an entirely new direction for the series. While past games have had open worlds and a focus on exploration and puzzles, _Breath of the Wild_ did all that like no other. The simple act of traversing through the world works so, so well in _Breath of the Wild_, and the reason for that is that it never limits you in what you can do. You see a mountain, you can climb it — with the right gear, food, or stamina, of course — but _you can climb it_. The game never stands in your way when you are following your curiosity, and it rewards your wandering eye with breathtaking skylines, quirky characters, and new discoveries. Even after I had completed all the towers and unlocked fast travel points throughout the map, I would still choose to run great distances to an objective just to take in the splendor of the world, to enjoy the sparse yet powerful music, to meet other travelers along the road. This is why _Breath of the Wild_ eked its way onto my list. + +But as much as I loved my interactions with with world of _Breath of the Wild_, I hated just about everything surrounding it. The story, while competent, did not deviate too far from the _Zelda_ formula: fight some mini-bosses (the corrupted Divine Beasts) to prepare you to fight the big bad (Ganondorf). While that’s a simple story structure that _most_ games can be reduced to, _Breath of the Wild_ does not add anything particularly innovating or exciting on top of it. And while Zelda is more of a compelling character in _Breath of the Wild_ than she has been in some previous titles, she is still relegated to a damsel in distress role and is totally absent outside of the occasional flashback. I think the setup for her character is refreshing and interesting — a young woman attempting to discover her power and be worthy of the throne — but it’s still ancillary to the bulk of the game despite her name being in the title. + +_Breath of the Wild_ also offers no incentive to participate in its combat; by a certain point in the game, I had plenty of resources and powerful weapons, so the random Bokoblins and Moblins were more of an annoyance than anything else because I would not gain any experience points from defeating them — and when you factor in the weapon durability system, I felt actively discouraged from engaging in combat at all because I only served to lose from it. On top of that, I often felt I was fighting against the controls; the systems design of _Breath of the Wild_ simply felt too ambitious for the limited JoyCon, and while a Pro controller assuaged most of my control issues, it’s difficult to swallow that the game almost requires a $70 add-on. + +And then there are the shrines. My boyfriend, Joe, will insist that I hate puzzles and that’s why I did not enjoy the shrines in _Breath of the Wild_, and maybe that’s true. I don’t seem to derive the same fulfillment others do from sitting stuck at a puzzle for hours until you work it out; I’d much rather just look up the solution online and continue on my way. Many shrines I found had clear solutions, but they would be so tedious to actually perform that I simply handed the controller over to Joe and asked him to save me the frustration. While there are multiple possible solutions to many of these puzzles, I found the shrines overall to be so disconnected from the magic of the world above them — like entirely separate teams and design philosophies had inspired them compared to the parts of the game I actually liked. + +It probably doesn’t help that — for inexplicable reasons — the game’s developers placed [one of the most obtuse, irritating shrine puzzles](https://zeldauniverse.net/guides/breath-of-the-wild/sidequests/shrines-of-trials/myahm-agana-shrine-myahm-agana-apparatus/) so close to the Great Plateau, almost guaranteeing that most players would discover it in their early hours with the game. I did, and it did not leave a good first impression. + +Even with all these frustrations, I know in my heart of hearts that _Breath of the Wild_ is a phenomenal accomplishment — that it belongs on this list, that I secretly like it, because it does an open world unlike any game before it. Every so often, the game comes together in a beautiful harmony — I feel free, untethered, unrestricted, and in awe of the beautiful world before me, and then all my criticisms of the game slip away. And then I go down an elevator to a shrine and the din begins anew. I’m torn between that discordance, but it belongs here. +___ +## #9. Animal Crossing: New Leaf +![Various characters from New Leaf](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/acnl.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2012" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="Nintendo 3DS" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Monolith Soft" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +My love affair with the _Animal Crossing_ series started back on the Nintendo DS with _Animal Crossing: Wild World_. I spent many a hours in middle school decorating my player’s room, designing custom patterns, and visiting my the towns of my siblings and friends. I broached the 3DS library late, but when I picked mine up in 2015, I knew that _New Leaf_ would be a must buy. + +Now, I could talk about some of the more meaningful and enjoyable additions that _New Leaf_ brought to the series, like Dream Towns, Public Works projects, and more options for character customization. I could croon on about Isabelle, who I inexplicably and wholeheartedly love. And I could enumerate all the hours I dumped into the Desert Island Escape mini-game hidden within _New Leaf_, but I would rather not realize my shame and addiction on a semi-permanent platform like my blog. (I have since learned that Desert Island Escape is playable in _Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival_, making me one of four people who purchased _Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival_ for something other than the bundled amiibo.) + +_Animal Crossing_ simply works in that it is one of the coziest experiences in gaming. While other titles focus on leveling up your character, meeting impossible combat challenges, or working out team strategies in cooperative settings, the joys of _Animal Crossing_ are often found in solitude. Even if I have only twenty minutes to spare, I can load up my town and tackle whichever of _New Leaf_‘s numerous offerings best strike my fancy that day: I can catch fish, hunt for fossils, or design my house. I can build relationships with my townspeople or explore the towns other players have constructed. And even while some parts of the game can feel a bit tedious, like filling out the museum or raising enough bells to pay off a mortgage, the game never forces the player to complete any of it: all of these activities happen at the player’s pace, and the game encourages a sense of leisure. There’s certainly room to go hardcore in _Animal Crossing_, by time-traveling or hacking one’s game, but what I love most about _Animal Crossing_ is how it respects my time and how it seems naturally designed for self-care. _Animal Crossing_ is welcoming and playful in its art, music, and characters. It’s a game for taking a mental health day (or hour, or afternoon, or week), wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, and escaping to a world that is softer than our own. +___ +## #8. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn +![Key art from FFXIV showing Alphinaud, Alisaie, and the Warrior of Light](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/ffxivarr.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2013" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PlayStation 4, PC" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Square-Enix" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +I have had a rocky few years with Square Enix. As a company, they have released some of the most important games and series to me — I count _Final Fantasy X_, _Final Fantasy XII_, and _Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced_ among my all-time favorite games, and the _Kingdom Hearts_ series was my entryway into gaming as a more serious hobby and gaming as a community. Square’s releases in the 2010-2019 span were not such easy allies; the company clearly struggled to meet both the new challenges of developing high definition games as well as match the innovations other developers had made. Quite simply, they no longer enjoyed their top dog status. They lost the trust and brand recognition that blockbusters like _Final Fantasy VII_ and _Final Fantasy X_ afforded them, and I was actively offended by _Final Fantasy XIII_ series (!) and _Final Fantasy XV_. + +I started in with _Final Fantasy XIV_ on a whim. I had never played an MMORPG before, unless you count spending the better part of a day downloading _The Old Republic_ and promptly uninstalling it after just a few minutes of gameplay. But I liked the _Final Fantasy_ series, and it was free to sign up for the alpha. So I thought, _why not_? + +I fell in love with _Final Fantasy XIV_ quickly, even with the immense learning curve that any MMO would have. And I certainly had my ups and downs with the game; it is guilty of the infamously menial MMO quest design of fetch quests and killing squirrels to progress the story, of grinding out levels for hours just to access new content. Even so, I roped friends into playing with me, and part of my enjoyment of _Final Fantasy XIV_ became the relationships and socialization that happened around it: I was able to maintain and reconnect friendships through _XIV_. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to keep up with Square’s active roadmap for the game or set aside enough time in my increasingly busy life to justify the subscription cost. I’ve yet to even finish the _Heavensward_ expansion. But every time I come back to the game, I’m delighted by what I enjoyed the last time I played, and the new content only seems to get better and better. + +_Final Fantasy XIV_ represents hope, then, that a game company can take a critical eye to their releases, do right by their customers, and deliver something fantastic. The game’s original launch was a different sort of debacle than their other contemporary releases, and certainly larger in scale in that the game was pulled off shelves and rebuilt from the ground up. But the team behind _A Realm Reborn_ were able to raise the game from the ashes, and many critics agree that _XIV_‘s most recent expansion, _Shadowbringers_, is its most ambitious and powerful yet. And while I’m in one of my valleys with the game right now, distracted by the responsibilities of grad school, the opening notes of some Gridania’s field music are enough to wrap me in comfort and inspire me to return yet again to Eorzea. +___ +## #7. Marvel's Spider-Man +![Spider-Man perched atop the Empire State Building](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/spiderman.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2018" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PlayStation 4" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Insomniac" >}} + {{< box label="Trophies Earned" value="100%" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +I’m not a big superhero fan, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Spider-Man. The Sam Raimi films came out when I was young, and they were exactly the type of popcorn blockbuster that I wanted at that age. I also played a whole bunch of the _Spider-Man 2_ video game on my original Xbox; it was one of the first open world games that I played, and I would spend hours swinging around New York City or, my favorite, climbing to the top of the Empire State Building and seeing how close to the ground I could get before I had to swing off to safety. + +So when Insomniac announced their new Spider-Man game for the PlayStation 4, I was excited to relive the joys of one of my favorite childhood games, in a more modern and varied open world. I made it a few weeks after _Spider-Man_‘s release before I cashed in some coupons and dove in. I played every night for a week, and it was the first (and only) game I ever platinumed on PlayStation. + +_Spider-Man_ is simply a joy to play. The web swinging and traversal is fluid, allowing the player to zip around the city with ease and style. As entertaining as the fast travel cutscenes were, I rarely used the system simply because I loved travelling through the city so much. The game also has one of the best golden hours around; much of the action of the game takes place against golden sun rays and soft shadows. It’s a beautiful, beautiful game, and I appreciate any game with a cosmetic system as deep as _Spider-Man_‘s. I loved earning all the suits and cycling through them, especially the comic book suit. + +The story in _Spider-Man_ is better than it has any right to be for a superhero game. The twists and reveals are mostly predictable, but where the game shines is the relationships built between the characters. Peter and MJ have real chemistry, and the complications in their relationship are believable because MJ has an actual will in this version of the Spidey universe. She doesn’t want to stay away from the action and actively resists any damseling (and Peter’s attempts to protect her). Peter and Otto have a believeable mentorship, which makes his shift to Doc Ock more tragic. _Spider-Man_ cares about establishing and developing its characters, and it helps ground the superhero action in a human, emotional context. + +By far my favorite portions of the game were the sections where Peter was allowed to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man: retrieving his homeless friend’s escaped pigeons, chasing down a garbage truck that took his trashed belongings after he was evicted, and collecting the backpacks he had scattered through the city offer a nice reprieve from the big action of the main story. Again, it helps to humanize the character and ground the story; there was a levity to _Spider-Man_ that made it a joy to play. + +_Spider-Man_ was a triumph in how to make a _good_ superhero game — one that isn’t bogged down by a cinematic universe, one that doesn’t repeat the stories we’ve seen a dozen times on screen and in comics. Insomniac put their own fresh, original spin on the characters and the universe, making it accessible for folks like me who don’t know the character well while still being a satisfying homage to the character for superfans. +___ +## #6. Horizon Zero Dawn +![Aloy ziplining down from the top of a snowy mountain](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/hzd.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2017" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PlayStation 4" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Guerilla Games" >}} + {{< box label="Time Played" value="75 hours" >}} + {{< box label="Trophies Earned" value="100% (base game)" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +When _Horizon Zero Dawn_ was first shown at E3 2015, I was instantly interested: a new IP starring a badass, bow-wielding female character voiced by Ashly Burch? Sign me up. The setting looked unique, following our society’s fascination with post-apocalyptic societies but avoiding any cliches. _Horizon Zero Dawn_‘s world is harsh for some, but there are thriving settlements and communities, diverse tribes with real identities, and, well, robot dinosaurs. + +The way that _Horizon Zero Dawn_ contrasts its grounded tribal life with the high-tech machines makes for a visually splendid experience, often set against the backdrop of sweeping mountain ranges and decaying ruins. I found myself regularly pausing on mountaintops just to take in the beautiful, varied scenery of Aloy’s world, just as I did with _Breath of the Wild_. There’s a real sense that Aloy lives among the ruins of a world that once was, and the player discovers the story of that world’s downfall through some pretty incredible environmental storytelling. + +_Horizon Zero Dawn_ also focuses on stories that we do not usually see outside of novels geared specifically toward young women. We have had a prolific history of games about fatherhood — _Final Fantasy X_, _Heavy Rain, God of War, The Last of Us_, _BioShock Infinite_, to name a few — and many of them craft compelling, meaningful narratives. And fatherhood is important in _Horizon_, certainly: Rost, Aloy’s father figure, is killed in the opening hours of the game, but his influence on Aloy looms large throughout Aloy’s internal narrative and the ways he taught her to survive in their harsh world. That is all well and good, but _Horizon_ fills the comparative void that the industry has created for games about motherhood. _Horizon_ therefore distinguishes itself in that it focuses not only on a woman’s story, but the story of a young woman discovering her connection to her mother through the game’s narrative and, on a broader scale, Mother Earth. It’s not a coincidence that the person responsible for destroying the world before the events of the game is a man and that the person who works to heal it is a woman — a woman who goes on to create a female-coded entity to care for the inhabitants that will follow long after her death. And without spoiling the ending or events of the game (you can [click on this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQIqoTHY2MU) if you want to do that for yourself), _Horizon_ has a powerful final message: for women to nurture their daughters to be curious, brave, and compassionate women who can nurture the world under that ethos. + +In terms of gameplay, _Horizon Zero Dawn_ offers a varied experience; Aloy has many different bows, slings, traps, and other tools at her disposal, which the player can select according to their playstyle and the demands of the combat encounter ahead of them. I found myself favoring the Sharpshot Bow for stealthy, high-precision shots and its tear ammo, which will shoot pieces of armor off of enemies. Enemy encounters were always varied, as the terrain would often shape one’s approach, and enemies of different types were present together, adding a heightened challenge. + +_Horizon Zero Dawn_‘s shortcomings are especially stark when you consider that it released just days before _Breath of the Wild_, and I think that led many to overlook it. _Breath of the Wild_ very much follows the “if you can see it, you can climb it” philosophy, so long as the player has adequate stamina and it’s not raining. _Horizon Zero Dawn_ instead uses an _Uncharted_-style traversal system. It’s functional, but it lacks the fluidity and freedom of _Breath of the Wild_, which is jarring when the games are played soon after one another. _Horizon Zero Dawn_ also has a robust crafting and inventory system — in some ways, I prefer it to _Breath of the Wild_, as I can quickly craft some new arrows in _Horizon Zero Dawn_ as I need them, which gives me the freedom to use the weapons and tools I prefer in combat. But the gathering and inventory management in _Horizon_ can feel clunky at times, as the player is always having to figure out which resources to keep and which to sell off. + +All around, though, I have really enjoyed my time with _Horizon Zero Dawn_. Its world is vast and visually delightful, its story is gripping, and even the side quests have a level of care and detail put into them that other open world games struggle to embed. More than anything, it tells a story that actively values and empowers women and mothers, which few if any games do or do as well. I’m excited to see Guerilla fine-tune some of the clunkier aspects of the game and evolve Aloy and her world. +___ +## #5. Firewatch +![An empty firewatch tower at sunset](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/firewatch.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2016" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PC" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Campo Santo" >}} + {{< box label="Time Played" value="3.5 hours" >}} + {{< box label="Life Course" value="Permanently Changed & Altered" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +From _Firewatch_‘s art, it’s easy to get the wrong impression of the game. Its now iconic design features flat mountains against the glowing backdrop of the setting sun, rich trees to lose oneself in, and a lone firetower set on spindly legs for your quiet contemplation. It seems, then, to follow the Emersonian ideal of transcendentalism — of communing with nature to discover truth and beauty and the meaning of all things. It seems to be about living deliberately, separated from the constant phone calls and text messages and push notifications. But _Firewatch_‘s realities are far from these _Walden_-esque projections. + +Henry goes to the woods not to discover himself but to lose himself. _Firewatch_ is a game about escapism — about running from what’s tough in life, using solitude as a hideout, constructing fantasies to keep you from hardship, and the people we wrap into our paranoia as we jump at the shadows, afraid to confront what actually looms within us. It’s a game about learning that reality eventually catches up with you. We can only live in the fictions we’ve built to protect ourselves for so long, and the more we try to cling to them, the further we’ll be driven to madness. + +Part of what makes _Firewatch_ such an accomplishment is the way it is able to build human relationships through a walkie-talkie. The voice performance of the actors behind Henry and Delilah is terrific and helps create an intimacy between two people who have never met in person. And that, too, becomes part of _Firewatch_‘s power — it forces the player to question how well we know other people when we only see the sides of themselves they have constructed. We are rapt as we watch their romance evolve, and we root for it even though we know it is doomed. + +_Firewatch_‘s anti-climax is perhaps [one of the most divisive in gaming history](https://quarterly.camposanto.com/the-end-of-firewatch-8a7d334a9586), and it brings those themes to a head. When you talk to anyone about the game, your conversation will probably — and circuitously — start with what you thought about the ending. Henry and Delilah’s relationship was always going to end this way, because it had to, but that doesn’t stop the player from desiring that catharsis — they’re simply looking for it in the wrong place. That density and room for debate is the mark of a great piece of story — we’re able to still talk about it and dissect it years after its release. _Firewatch_ stakes out a place in your head and stays in there. It’s a work of art. +___ +## #4. Mass Effect 2 +![Liara and Female Shep kiss in the Shadow Broker's Lair](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/me2.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2010" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PlayStation 3" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="BioWare" >}} + {{< box label="Time Played" value="55.5 hours" >}} + {{< box label="Trophies Earned" value="79%" >}} + {{< box label="Life Course" value="made me gay" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +I have been quoted as saying that _Mass Effect 2_ is the “game of the century.” + +Such an assertion is impossible to make given that we’re only nineteen years _into_ this century; it’s obviously a hyperbole. But with _Mass Effect 2_ releasing in January of 2010, I hold that it established an ethos that would guide the games that came after it — and that ethos is character. + +The first _Mass Effect_ game was a trailblazer in its own way, of course. The level of choice, consequence, and cinematic storytelling included within it was unprecedented at the time, and it received appropriate accolades. But while the story is an enjoyable space opera, it’s pretty by the books — you play as a noted military hero who assembles a team of soldiers and experts to fight an operative gone rogue. _Mass Effect_ has its unique voice, and the story takes some exciting turns, but you’re still a hero who does heroic things (or, if you play Renegade, you’re a hero who does mostly heroic things with a sarcastic smirk and a willingness to line your own pockets in the process). + +_Mass Effect 2_ asserts that it is going to do something different within the first five minutes of starting the game — when the player character, Commander Shepard, is abruptly killed, then reincarnated two years later by rogue paramilitary group for what they make clear will be a Suicide Mission. + +From there, _Mass Effect 2_ does not launch any big twists or surprises onto the player. You always know that things are headed for the Suicide Mission, and you have to prepare as best you can for it. While you had the backing of the intergalactic government, vast military resources, and a highly qualified crew in _Mass Effect_, _Mass Effect 2_ sees you assemble a ragtag crew in a patchwork body; your crew consists of hackers, mad scientists, thieves, genetic experiments, and generally disturbed personalities. Even those characters who return from the first game are grizzled by time, with shifting moralities. Most of your assembled crew could give a damn about the fate of the galaxy or Cerberus’s interests, but _Mass Effect 2_ lives and dies by these characters. As you sort through each of your squad member’s personal traumas and help them find the peace they need before they join you on your Suicide Mission, the game posits that the way to overcome impossible odds and save the universe is by loving and caring for the people around you — of building bonds that mean they will follow you to death’s door (and, hopefully, back). +___ +## #3. Life is Strange +![Max and Chloe lay on a bed together in their underwear](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/lis.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2015" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PlayStation 4" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Dontnod Entertainment" >}} + {{< box label="Trophies Earned" value="60%" >}} + {{< box label="Life Course" value="made me gayer" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +When Dontnod released the first episode of _Life is Strange_, [I shared effusive praise about it](https://cassie.ink/life-is-strange-episode-1-chrysalis/). It was one of the few games that I felt represented me — that spoke to my experiences as a teenage girl, that did them justice, that felt authentic. I still feel that way. _Life is Strange_ continued its exploration of difficult topics in its later episodes — suicide, drug use, sexual abuse, cyberbullying — but it was never exploitative, nor did it ever feel like an afterschool special. It conveyed these harsh realities with grace and mindfulness — realities that most games are either too afraid to include or woefully mishandle. And in that way, it did justice to the stories of many. + +After I finished the fifth and final episode of _Life is Strange_, Polarized, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth: I didn’t feel that Dontnod delivered on its ambitious storytelling or tied up loose strings in its ending. I still haven’t quite made my peace with the game’s final choice, though learning about the time and resource crunch behind it softened it a little. But when I think about the game as a whole, I think about the good. I think about the incredibly deep and real and complicated and human characters that inhabit Arcadia Bay. I think about the way Dontnod masterfully uses licensed music to establish those characters and add an emotional weight to scenes. I think about the tension and twists in the narrative. And I think about how few games have been able to tell a story of this magnitude — a story that, by its nature, wraps the player in and doesn’t let go even after the credits roll. + +And I think about how _Life is Strange_ is unlike any other game. Sure, there are comparisons one can make across genre or mechanics, but what other game places a group so often excluded from and terrorized within gaming — teenage girls — at its center? What other game speaks to the ways that men victimize young women? What other game gives voice and power and agency to these young women, refusing to sideline or damsel them? + +As much as it is easy to goof on _Life is Strange_ for its, at times, cringe-inducing lines or its rampant _Twin Peaks_ references, it has a clear mission to represent the social and emotional realities of young people. And it manages to mix its ambitions for social commentary with a deeply affecting, resonant story; it never becomes too didactic or wrapped up in making a message — it’s always grounded in the characters and the story. I think about Max and Chloe and Kate and Rachel and Nathan and Victoria on a regular basis, and I was in anguish as I watched tragedy unfold around them. It’s a rollercoaster I loved riding. +___ +## #2. The Last of Us +![Ellie](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/tlou.jpg) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2013" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PlayStation 4" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="Naughty Dog" >}} + {{< box label="Trophies Earned" value="3%" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +When I started exploring video games as literature, the first game I thought of was _The Last of Us_. There are some phenomenal, emotional, impactful stories to be found within games — and I’ve included many of them on my list, lauded them for just that. But _The Last of Us_ is in a class all its own. + +Nothing about _The Last of Us_ would make one expect anything revolutionary. It’s a zombie game. It’s a big escort mission. The story, on paper, doesn’t seem like anything extraordinary or new for the genre. You’re Joel, a survivor twenty years into the zombie apocalypse who has lost his daughter and been tasked with escorting a 14-year-old girl across the country so that she can be studied for her immunity to the zombie virus. + +Where _The Last of Us_ distinguishes itself is in the extraordinary execution of that story. Joel and Ellie are made to be real by the complex motivations and ambitions and stories behind them. In the opening moments of the game, when the zombie virus first emerges, Joel loses his daughter Sarah _The Last of Us_ is about finding small glimpses of humanity in a bleak, punishing world. There is no easy mortality to _The Last of Us_, no clear villain or hero — there’s a darkness behind every character, a guilt that they have for continuing to exist in a world filled with senseless loss. As much as I hate Joel for his actions throughout the journey, I understand them. I understand that he clings to his concept of surviving at any cost because it’s all he has left. I understand the ways that he has been broken and twisted by loss, the way that Ellie represents his final remaining connection to his humanity. In the final moments of the game, when Ellie at last sees Joel for what he is, we understand that the world could do the same to her. + +_The Last of Us_ is a game about love because somehow, after all the traumatic blows that Joel, Ellie, and the player share, we still want to believe that love and humanity can endure. We want to prevail and do justice to the memory of the people we have lost along the way. We want to believe that our connections to the people we love can stop us from being swallowed by the harshness of the world. We want to look for the light — and the shreds of it that are found in _The Last of Us_ are made profound by their rarity. +___ +## #1. Stardew Valley +![Community Center](https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/sdv.png) + +{{< boxes >}} + {{< box label="Released" value="2016" >}} + {{< box label="Platform" value="PC, Nintendo Switch" >}} + {{< box label="Developer" value="ConcernedApe" >}} + {{< box label="Time Played" value="160 hours" >}} +{{< /boxes >}} + +Depression has been my quiet struggle for many years. When I picked up _Stardew Valley_, I had just started on a new medication that left me an emotional mess: up and down, crying all morning, needy for Joe to come around and pick me up. I wasn’t in school, and my next steps in life were totally uncertain. It was a dark time for me, and _Stardew_ was my light. The game was a good distraction; I could sink hours and hours into it at at time and never feel bored. And it made me feel like I was _accomplishing_ something, working on making things better, even if that “better” was happening in the context of the game — like upgrading my sprinklers so I wouldn’t have to do as much watering or getting the town bus line reopened so that Pam would have her job back. _Stardew_ gave me comfort; it became my game for self-care. And even when things aren’t so dire as my first months with the game, _Stardew Valley_ is still like an old friend I can come back to whenever I need some solace or just to kill a little time. + +It’s difficult to pitch _Stardew Valley_ to people. There’s an immensely personal bond I have to it, but on the surface, it doesn’t sound too interesting: it’s a farming simulator like _Harvest Moon_, kind of, with shades of _Terraria_ and _Animal Crossing_. But it’s more than that, too. And I think part of it has to be played and experienced to be understood. + +{{< image src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/krobus.png" width="600" alt="Please, don't be alarmed. I am different from the others." caption="Krobus has some of the best dialogue in the game." >}} + +To speak more broadly, though, I think the message _Stardew Valley_ carries is something we all need to help get us through the state of the world in 2019. _Stardew Valley_ is about community — about forming relationships with the people around us, about rekindling our connection to the earth and to family and to ourselves. _Stardew Valley_ posits this message early on, through Grandpa’s Letter, which suggests that the “dire change” the player needs can be accomplished by rediscovering what really matters in life: “real connections with other people and nature.” That ethos becomes the reason for the gameplay loop: rebuilding the town’s community center and pushing out the capitalistic forces that seek to place us in endless, soul-crushing competition with one another. _Stardew Valley_ carries an overwhelming hope that happiness is within reach if we work for it — that we can regain and rebuild our connections to the world through good, honest work, through communion with the land, through taking care of each other, through forming a sense of community in our increasingly separate, disconnected time. Sometimes I need reminders of that hope, and _Stardew Valley_ makes it all seem achievable — even if we know it won’t be as easy as picking some leeks in the forest or growing some gold star quality parsnips. It’s within reach, if we’re willing to work for it. +___ +## Honorable Mentions +**Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.** I played a lot of _Shadow of Mordor_ these past few years, and yet I somehow haven’t managed to finish it. _Mordor_ does not do much in terms of compelling narrative or world-building — which is shocking considering it takes place in the Tolkien legendarium — but what it does do phenomenally well is the Nemesis system. I hope to see more games implement similar systems within them — though the game has been out for five years now, and nobody has really delivered there yet. It made for some fun antics in what would otherwise be a pretty humdrum game. + +**The Order 1886.** Those who know me will know I was incredibly hyped for _The Order_, and it was one of my biggest gaming disappointments. I liked what was there, but it needed more to it. I still think that the setting and characters are incredibly compelling, and I hope — against odds — that Ready at Dawn will have another chance to give the IP the second shot it deserves. + +**Tomb Raider.** I had never played a _Tomb Raider_ game prior to playing _Tomb Raider_, the 2013 reboot by Crystal Dynamics. I had also never played an _Uncharted_ game, which I am told is very similar to playing _Tomb Raider_. This game was surprisingly gay and surprisingly good; what I expected to be a fun action romp actually had an enjoyable story and gave some solid development to Lara Croft. It was a commendable way to breathe life into an old, aged franchise. + +**The Sims 4.** I am a _Sims 4_ convert. I clung to _The Sims 3_ for a long time, lamenting the loss of the Create-A-Style system (and toddlers, and pools, and other things). _Sims 4_ recovered from a rocky launch and has turned into a streamlined version of _The Sims_ that I didn’t know I wanted. I can’t imagine going back to _TS3_ now — even if I did like the live neighborhoods. I’ve sunk a heck of a lot of time into _The Sims 4_, and I think the team behind it deserves recognition for bringing more equitable and diverse gender options to a game series that has previously been quite binary. + +**Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna).** I want there to be more games like _Never Alone_. _Never Alone_ was created in partnership with Alaskan native peoples to represent their stories, their heritage, and who they are now. While the gameplay and story are relatively simple, they gave me exposure to a culture that I would probably otherwise know or see very little about. I enjoyed unlocking all the little documentary-style clips, which I found incredibly well-done, and the educational potential of _Never Alone_ excites me as both a gamer and a teacher. + +**Pokemon Sun & Moon.** This _Pokemon_ game let me dress up my character, which is really all I ever needed out of a _Pokemon_ game. But it also streamlined a lot of things about the series, making it accessible again for me, someone who has flagged on it. Not having to deal with HMs alone was a huge difference from previous titles, and I don’t care what anyone says — experience share saves me time and makes it so I can actually finish these games. +___ +_I commissioned the phenomenal header image for this post from_ [_Nax Yoder_](https://naxdraws.com/)_._ _Follow the link through to see more of their work._ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/content/posts/My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md b/content/posts/2019-12-20 My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md rename to content/posts/2019-12-20 My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s.md diff --git a/content/posts/Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2020.md b/content/posts/2020-12-30 Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2020.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2020.md rename to content/posts/2020-12-30 Here’s What I Was Listening to in 2020.md diff --git a/content/posts/An Empty Promise to Blog More.md b/content/posts/2023-06-30 An Empty Promise to Blog More.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/An Empty Promise to Blog More.md rename to content/posts/2023-06-30 An Empty Promise to Blog More.md diff --git a/content/posts/What's This.md b/content/posts/2023-07-26 What's This.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/What's This.md rename to content/posts/2023-07-26 What's This.md diff --git a/content/posts/Media Log (July 2023).md b/content/posts/2023-07-30 Media Log (July 2023).md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Media Log (July 2023).md rename to content/posts/2023-07-30 Media Log (July 2023).md diff --git a/content/posts/Old Woman Yells at the Cloud.md b/content/posts/2023-07-31 Old Woman Yells at the Cloud.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Old Woman Yells at the Cloud.md rename to content/posts/2023-07-31 Old Woman Yells at the Cloud.md diff --git a/content/posts/Stages of Moving.md b/content/posts/2023-08-15 Stages of Moving.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Stages of Moving.md rename to content/posts/2023-08-15 Stages of Moving.md diff --git a/content/posts/On Teaching.md b/content/posts/2023-08-18 On Teaching.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/On Teaching.md rename to content/posts/2023-08-18 On Teaching.md diff --git a/content/posts/2023-08-31 Media Log (August 2023).md b/content/posts/2023-08-31 Media Log (August 2023).md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50ad029 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/2023-08-31 Media Log (August 2023).md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +title: Media Log (August 2023) +date: 2023-08-31 +url: media-log-august-2023 +tags: + - media-log +draft: false +--- +# Movies +_Barbie_ - I was underwhelmed. There's been lots of chatter, and I loved _Lady Bird_, but _Barbie_ didn't hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to _Barbie_ as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter. + +# Games +_Vampire Survivors_ - I originally played _Vampire Survivors_ for my video game podcast, [Pitch & Play](https://pitchandplay.org) (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don't really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded _Vampire Survivors_ onto my phone and went deep into it. It's a fantastic game that I'll come to associate with my early days in the house. + +# Books +_Walk Two Moons_ by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try _Walk Two Moons_ out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I've read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I'm an adult reading a book written for children and because I've read it before. I'm not sure it's the book I'm looking for, but it's not a bad read. diff --git a/content/posts/LITR 250 Close Reading 2E.md b/content/posts/2023-09-19 LITR 250 Close Reading 2E.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/LITR 250 Close Reading 2E.md rename to content/posts/2023-09-19 LITR 250 Close Reading 2E.md diff --git a/content/posts/Intentional Listening.md b/content/posts/2023-12-28 Intentional Listening.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Intentional Listening.md rename to content/posts/2023-12-28 Intentional Listening.md diff --git a/content/posts/LITR 308 Emily Dickinson & Queer Theory.md b/content/posts/2023-12-28 LITR 308 Emily Dickinson & Queer Theory.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/LITR 308 Emily Dickinson & Queer Theory.md rename to content/posts/2023-12-28 LITR 308 Emily Dickinson & Queer Theory.md diff --git a/content/posts/my year in lists.md b/content/posts/2024-01-01 my year in lists.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/my year in lists.md rename to content/posts/2024-01-01 my year in lists.md diff --git a/content/posts/hate for the island.md b/content/posts/2024-01-07 hate for the island.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/hate for the island.md rename to content/posts/2024-01-07 hate for the island.md diff --git a/content/posts/Media Log (January 2024).md b/content/posts/2024-02-04 Media Log (January 2024).md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Media Log (January 2024).md rename to content/posts/2024-02-04 Media Log (January 2024).md diff --git a/content/posts/Early thoughts on Pokémon Unbound.md b/content/posts/2024-02-23 Early thoughts on Pokémon Unbound.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Early thoughts on Pokémon Unbound.md rename to content/posts/2024-02-23 Early thoughts on Pokémon Unbound.md diff --git a/content/posts/Coming Out.md b/content/posts/2024-02-25 Coming Out.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Coming Out.md rename to content/posts/2024-02-25 Coming Out.md diff --git a/content/posts/Moving my home server to a new chassis.md b/content/posts/2024-03-10 Moving my home server to a new chassis.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Moving my home server to a new chassis.md rename to content/posts/2024-03-10 Moving my home server to a new chassis.md diff --git a/content/posts/Thirteen to Know Me.md b/content/posts/2024-03-10 Thirteen to Know Me.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Thirteen to Know Me.md rename to content/posts/2024-03-10 Thirteen to Know Me.md diff --git a/content/posts/Your silence will not protect you.md b/content/posts/2024-04-14 Your silence will not protect you.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Your silence will not protect you.md rename to content/posts/2024-04-14 Your silence will not protect you.md diff --git a/content/posts/breaking silences.md b/content/posts/2024-06-20 breaking silences.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/breaking silences.md rename to content/posts/2024-06-20 breaking silences.md diff --git a/content/posts/Moving to a rack mount setup.md b/content/posts/2024-08-02 Moving to a rack mount setup.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Moving to a rack mount setup.md rename to content/posts/2024-08-02 Moving to a rack mount setup.md diff --git a/content/posts/smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.md b/content/posts/2024-08-08 smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.md rename to content/posts/2024-08-08 smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.md diff --git a/content/posts/I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it.md b/content/posts/2024-08-17 I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it.md rename to content/posts/2024-08-17 I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it.md diff --git a/content/posts/Automattic's Write Brief AI is, unsurprisingly, full of shit.md b/content/posts/2024-08-28 Automattic's Write Brief AI is, unsurprisingly, full of shit.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Automattic's Write Brief AI is, unsurprisingly, full of shit.md rename to content/posts/2024-08-28 Automattic's Write Brief AI is, unsurprisingly, full of shit.md diff --git a/content/posts/what's this (and how it works).md b/content/posts/2024-08-28 what's this (and how it works).md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/what's this (and how it works).md rename to content/posts/2024-08-28 what's this (and how it works).md diff --git a/content/posts/Reflections on elections.md b/content/posts/2024-11-07 Reflections on elections.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Reflections on elections.md rename to content/posts/2024-11-07 Reflections on elections.md diff --git a/content/posts/an ode to gitsync.md b/content/posts/2024-12-01 an ode to gitsync.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/an ode to gitsync.md rename to content/posts/2024-12-01 an ode to gitsync.md diff --git a/content/posts/cassiedotink.md b/content/posts/2025-07-17 cassiedotink.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/cassiedotink.md rename to content/posts/2025-07-17 cassiedotink.md diff --git a/content/posts/Climbing my personal Mount Doom (I finished reading Lord of the Rings).md b/content/posts/2025-07-18 Climbing my personal Mount Doom (I finished reading Lord of the Rings).md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Climbing my personal Mount Doom (I finished reading Lord of the Rings).md rename to content/posts/2025-07-18 Climbing my personal Mount Doom (I finished reading Lord of the Rings).md diff --git a/content/posts/FX chains by the utterly inept.md b/content/posts/2025-07-24 FX chains by the utterly inept.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/FX chains by the utterly inept.md rename to content/posts/2025-07-24 FX chains by the utterly inept.md diff --git a/content/posts/Using Hugo to generate a podcast feed.md b/content/posts/2025-08-12 Using Hugo to generate a podcast feed.md similarity index 100% rename from content/posts/Using Hugo to generate a podcast feed.md rename to content/posts/2025-08-12 Using Hugo to generate a podcast feed.md diff --git a/content/posts/Media Log (August 2023).md b/content/posts/Media Log (August 2023).md deleted file mode 100644 index be52b59..0000000 --- a/content/posts/Media Log (August 2023).md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Media Log (August 2023) -date: 2023-08-31 -url: media-log-august-2023 -tags: - - media-log -draft: false ---- -# Movies -* _Barbie_ - I was underwhelmed. There's been lots of chatter, and I loved _Lady Bird_, but _Barbie_ didn't hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to _Barbie_ as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter. - -# Games -* _Vampire Survivors_ - I originally played _Vampire Survivors_ for my video game podcast, [Pitch & Play](https://pitchandplay.org) (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don't really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded _Vampire Survivors_ onto my phone and went deep into it. It's a fantastic game that I'll come to associate with my early days in the house. - -# Books -* _Walk Two Moons_ by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try _Walk Two Moons_ out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I've read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I'm an adult reading a book written for children and because I've read it before. I'm not sure it's the book I'm looking for, but it's not a bad read. diff --git a/content/week-notes/031.md b/content/week-notes/031.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21781b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/week-notes/031.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: (WN31) +url: +date: 2025-09-07 +tags: + - week-notes +draft: true +--- +## Doing + +## Reading + +## Watching + +## Playing + +## Listening \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/public/css/main.css b/public/css/main.css index 17af060..5aa3e46 100644 --- a/public/css/main.css +++ b/public/css/main.css @@ -374,6 +374,16 @@ nav ul { } +.cover { + width: 100%; + height: 100vw; + max-height: 500px; + background-size: cover; + background-position: center; + margin-top: 10px; +} + +/* Shortcodes */ .page .audio { audio { @@ -389,13 +399,31 @@ nav ul { } } -.cover { - width: 100%; - height: 100vw; - max-height: 500px; - background-size: cover; - background-position: center; - margin-top: 10px; +.boxes { + display: flex; + justify-content: center; + align-items: baseline; + gap: 10px; + flex-wrap: wrap; +} + +.box { + background-color: var(--blue); + color: #fff; + padding: 2%; + + .label { + font-family: 'Domaine Display', Georgia, serif; + font-weight: 900; + text-transform: uppercase; + margin-right: 5px; + } +} + +figcaption { + text-align: center; + font-size: .9rem; + font-style: italic; } /* section */ diff --git a/public/dad/index.html b/public/dad/index.html index c912df9..478e1fa 100644 --- a/public/dad/index.html +++ b/public/dad/index.html @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ About
  • - Posts + Posts
  • Week Notes diff --git a/public/drafts/index.html b/public/drafts/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ce3618 --- /dev/null +++ b/public/drafts/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,117 @@ + + + + + + + + + +Drafts | cassie.ink + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
    +

    + + cassie + + ink + +

    + + + + +
    +
    + +

    All Drafts

    + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
    + + + diff --git a/public/drafts/index.xml b/public/drafts/index.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50ee169 --- /dev/null +++ b/public/drafts/index.xml @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ + + + + Drafts on cassie.ink + http://localhost:1313/drafts/ + Recent content in Drafts on cassie.ink + Hugo + en-us + Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 + + + dad + http://localhost:1313/dad/ + Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 + http://localhost:1313/dad/ + <p>My father left when I was six and never stopped leaving. At school events, scheduled visits, personal lows, I scanned the crowd for his face and didn&rsquo;t find it. I grew used to his absence and started to resent the appearances he made; when he did show up, I&rsquo;d wish he hadn&rsquo;t. At my college graduation, he parted with the gift, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you&rsquo;re not a fuck up like me,&rdquo; turning my achievements into his own deluded, narcissistic pursuit of sympathy. He at least — and unwittingly — stumbled upon a truth: I succeeded despite his example and influence. Never because of it.</p> + + + + http://localhost:1313/drafts/turning-30/ + Mon, 25 Nov 2024 23:56:38 -0500 + http://localhost:1313/drafts/turning-30/ + <p>My thirtieth birthday party, the day before my actual turn from one decade to the next, was a beautiful night. My mom, both pre-emptively staking out her territory as an Italian-American grandmother and (past but an adverb?) fulfilling regrets at never having been able to throw me a childhood party, brought too much food and snacks and love — or staying up and out past the early afternoon, which is a kind of love for us; my friends, older than me in years and with busy families and schedules, brought wisdom and comfort in growing older gracefully; and my friends closer in age drove great distances to celebrate <em>me</em> — or at least, with me.</p> + + + diff --git a/public/drafts/page/1/index.html b/public/drafts/page/1/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e614ccf --- /dev/null +++ b/public/drafts/page/1/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ + + + + http://localhost:1313/drafts/ + + + + + + diff --git a/public/drafts/turning-30/index.html b/public/drafts/turning-30/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65e3bb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/public/drafts/turning-30/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,122 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + | cassie.ink + + + + + + + + + + + +
    +

    + + cassie + + ink + +

    + + + + +
    +
    + +
    + + + +

    + +
    + +
    + + + +

    My thirtieth birthday party, the day before my actual turn from one decade to the next, was a beautiful night. My mom, both pre-emptively staking out her territory as an Italian-American grandmother and (past but an adverb?) fulfilling regrets at never having been able to throw me a childhood party, brought too much food and snacks and love — or staying up and out past the early afternoon, which is a kind of love for us; my friends, older than me in years and with busy families and schedules, brought wisdom and comfort in growing older gracefully; and my friends closer in age drove great distances to celebrate me — or at least, with me.

    +

    The actual day passed uneventfully, cleaning and resting from the festivities, alone and at home with Joe. As the night wore on, however, I noticed, with (something something - mixed alarm, absence, desparation, and a painful normalcy) that I hadn’t heard from my dad, and I was suddenly borne ceaselessly back into the past.

    +

    After years of baggage and mixed-up emptions, ups and downs, I’ve entered a maintenance phase in my relationship with him: I maintain the most tenuous connection I possibly can while his mother, my grandmother, is still alive, and I have planned to sever those last vestiges when she passed. I’ve entertained fleeting fancies on what would happen when he goes — how I would find out, how I would react, if I would even bother to attend or instead seize it as an opportunity to enact my triumphant revenge by never showing up.

    +

    And yet, and yet, despite years of receiving a call on the wrong birthday, I’m back in the second grade, at an in-school Father’s Day celebration, waiting, waiting for any sign; mixed gratitude and crushing disappointment to see my maternal grandfather in my dad’s stead; and sunk lower by every playground busy-bpdy asking why my dad was so old and having to explain that it’s not actually my perfectly hale and hearty dad, who simply did not show up. I’m back in the schoolyard waiting for him — late again — to pick us up for his agreed upon custodial visits, so late the sun starts to set and a worried teacher contacts home seeing three abandoned kids who are realizing, slowly, that they are not important to their father. I’m back at my high school graduation and not bothering to invite him because I have almost two decades of experience to know the outcome, to know it’s better than to set myself up for disappointment by expecting him to show. I’m back at my college graduation, a tremendous, back-breaking accomplishment, shocked to see him show up but wishing he hadn’t as he makes it about himself: “I’m glad to see you’re not a fuck up like me.”

    +

    I am 30. Why now, on the cusp of starting my own family — of discussing the unsexy logistics of planned conception, (lack of sufficient) maternity leave, and childcare, do I need a call from my daddy on my birthday? Why have I not learned the lesson experience has so deeply (that isn’t the right word) taught me so many times over?

    +

    At a parent meeting for a beloved student, I sang praises about her while admiring the original: she is, in every respect — her mannerisms, dress, energy — her mother. A little shorter and less gray, but otherwise a carbon, in the ways that matter. And as I went home that evening and reflected, I wondered what in me I would pass along — those idiosyncrasies impossible to spot within oneself that would one day leave bemused teachers, friends, family to remark the same of my child and me.

    +

    And again, the lingering seven year old in me bubbled to the surface: what in me resembled my father — and, worse yet, what of his toxic line would seep (need a stronger verb, think like an oil spill) into another generation? Have I created enough distance to avoid his influence? Is there some latent biological evil in my genetics? And what of my traumas, my inability to move past my feelings of abandonment, would I, against my best efforts, inflict on my own?

    +

    People say girls look for their fathers in their partners. I’ve looked for the opposite. Joe is always gentle, always patient — the kind to drop everything just to be there for a friend in need. When I asked him if I had any mannerisms he thought I might pass along, he laughed and responded with a list, paramount upon which was my passion. He recalled nights at the movie theater sitting in a mostly one-sided conversation, listening to me monologue about some esoteric music bullshit and falling in love.

    +

    I hope for my children from me passion and devotion; that they stick wholeheartedly to that which — and who — they care about. I wish for them the softness that comes from having two parents who make them feel loved, valued, important.

    + + + + +
    + + +
    + + + diff --git a/public/index.xml b/public/index.xml index fa3ebac..77c6b39 100644 --- a/public/index.xml +++ b/public/index.xml @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ http://localhost:1313/fx-chains-by-the-utterly-inept/ Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/fx-chains-by-the-utterly-inept/ - <p>Once upon a time ago (and a time, and a time), I had a podcast. I miss podcasting dearly and think about going back often — otherwise, what am I to do with a partial, flawed understanding of normalizing to a target loudness and editing around the disgusting noises my mouth makes? Well, share it with others, of course.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup></p> <p>In case it was not clear, I am not a professional. I am a blockhead who likes to tinker and who has watched a lot of YouTube videos. These are the FX chains I use for my voice, which may or may not be helpful to other people who do not have my voice. This is also not an exhaustive audio guide or overview of <em>how</em> I edit my audio. Maybe another time.</p> <p>Currently, I use a RØDE Procaster as my microphone and a MOTU M2 as my interface. I have a Fethead between the two because otherwise people complain I am too quiet on Discord. I bought a pop filter designed for the RØDE Podmic; it fits on my Procaster and works, but it looks a little ridiculous, so sometimes I get risqué and take it off. I paid several hundred dollars for this setup so that I can capture my two dollar voice with fidelity.</p> <p>Back when I was podcasting with a co-host over long distances, I swore by <a href="https://ecastr.com/">Ennuicaster</a> for recording because I admired the creator&rsquo;s pedantic approach to audio and hostility toward their end user.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup> Ennuicaster is clunky and temperamental, but the pricing model is fair and the audio it spits out is top-notch. It is also the only recording application that I know of with a prominently featured weasel mascot. If I&rsquo;m recording just myself, or something in person, I record straight into <a href="https://www.reaper.fm/">Reaper</a>, which I also use to edit.</p> <p>I have a project template set up to automatically open in Reaper with my FX chains. Theoretically, they are specific to my voice, but I imagine you can steal a lot of this for yourself. I&rsquo;ll do my best to explain what each step does and provide an audio sample for A/B comparison.<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">3</a></sup></p> <p>Here is the raw audio I&rsquo;ll work with, with no editing aside from when I fucked up the second sentence of my favorite book.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Raw Audio</figcaption> </figure> <h2 id="individual-track-chain">Individual Track Chain</h2> <p>I start by normalizing the track to -23 LUFS. It&rsquo;s important to normalize as if it&rsquo;s one long item — I made cuts where I messed up, and if I normalized each item individually, there would be weird modulations in volume mid-sentence. Our final target volume will be -19 LUFS (for a mono podcast); I start with -23 to give me some headroom — I&rsquo;ll boost later in the chain.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20220700.png" alt="Normalization"></p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-2.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after normalization</figcaption> </figure> <p>Now I start adding FX to my individual track (not the master). I have collected many paid VSTs over the years; you can almost certainly copy their exact effects into Reaper&rsquo;s free (and excellent) equivalents. I start with <strong>FabFilter&rsquo;s Pro-DS</strong>, which removes some of the harsh sibilance.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">4</a></sup> I believe this is almost entirely the &ldquo;Female Wide Band&rdquo; preset. The settings are pretty conservative; I used to really hammer them down and produced many podcast episodes where I sounded as though I had a lisp.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">5</a></sup></p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20221619.png" alt="De-essing"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Mode: Single Vocal Threshold: -36 dB Range: 6 dB Band Processing: Wide Band Lookahead: 12.00 ms (enabled) High-Pass Frequency: 6.834 kHz Low-Pass Frequnecy: 14 kHz </code></pre><p>I like Pro-DS because it has a nice display of what it is and isn&rsquo;t attenuating. You could easily achieve this with a free de-esser or an EQ curve.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-3-ds.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after de-essing</figcaption> </figure> <p>I incidentally picked a great passage to read — there are a lot of <em>s</em> sounds. Can you notice a difference? Probably not, but they are ever-so-slightly softer.</p> <p>The next step is <strong>Mouth De-click</strong> from iZotope. If you spend money on <em>any</em> VST, I really recommend this one. It gets rid of the disgusting wet mouth sounds. If you ever want to vomit, check the box that says &ldquo;Output clicks only&rdquo; and listen through to your audio. I am almost certainly using a preset here, too.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20223107.png" alt="Mouth De-Click"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Sensitivity: 4.00 Frequency Skew: 0.00 </code></pre><figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-4.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after Mouth De-click</figcaption> </figure> <p>Next, I use <strong>ReaGate</strong> as to reduce noise and breaths, which I believe I copied <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBKoC1sPtWs">almost entirely from this video</a>. I tend to inhale sharply when I laugh, and I am in general not very good at breathing, so the gate cleans that up a little.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20223529.png" alt="ReaGate"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Threshold: -27 dB Attack: 3 ms Release: 100 ms Pre-open: 5 ms Hold: 5 ms Lowpass: 20000 Hz Hipass: 0 Hz Dry: -11.5 dB Wet: -3.8 dB </code></pre><p>I believe the video goes into this, but there&rsquo;s a mix of &ldquo;wet&rdquo; (the processed audio) and &ldquo;dry&rdquo; (the raw audio) going on here to make the effect a little more smooth: I&rsquo;m not removing <em>all</em> of the breath, just attenuating it. I like to think of it like lowering the opacity for a breathing layer in Photoshop. I have no recollection of how I arrived at these numbers, but I like them. In the example below, pay attention to the word &ldquo;neighborhood&rdquo; — the breath after it is way less noticeable.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-5.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after gate</figcaption> </figure> <p>Sometimes the gate can make certain words or laughs sound funny, in which case I use a bypass envelope.</p> <p>Now it&rsquo;s time for an EQ, which is perhaps the part of this chain most specific to my voice. I spent a lot of time playing with curves and settings (and, again, watching YouTube videos) until I found something I liked for my nasally voice. I am using FabFilter&rsquo;s <strong>Pro-Q 4</strong>, but again, you can just copy my curve into whatever EQ VST that you have.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20224618.png" alt="EQ Curve"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Band 1 Frequency: 80 Hz Band 1 Gain: 0.00 dB Band 1 Q: 1.036 Band 1 Shape: Low Cut Band 2 Frequency: 194.49 Hz Band 2 Gain: +3.59 dB Band 2 Q: .765 Band 2 Shape: Bell Band 3 Frequency: 617 Hz Band 3 Gain: -5.14 dB Band 3 Q: 2.096 Band 3 Shape: Bell Band 4 Frequency: 6966 Hz Band 4 Gain: +3.51 dB Band 4 Q: 1.0 Band 4 Shape: High Shelf </code></pre><p>I&rsquo;ve found this curve preserves a faithful representation of my voice but makes it a little more warm.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-6.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after EQing</figcaption> </figure> <p>Now, I add a second EQ curve — this time to tamp down the remaining sibilance, which may have been amplified by my previous EQ curve. The next step is compression where I don&rsquo;t want to further accentuate my whistly <em>s</em> sounds. This curve is again specific to my voice — I swept for the frequency that I found harsh and attenuated it.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20225711.png" alt="EQ De-essing"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Band 1 Frequency: 5540 Hz Band 1 Gain: -3.00 dB Band 1 Q: 3.800 Band 1 Shape: Bell </code></pre><p>There will still be whistle in here — I&rsquo;m working with the voice that I have — but it&rsquo;s a little bit smoother.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-7.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after second de-essing</figcaption> </figure> <p>Now it&rsquo;s time to compress! A compressor helps to even out the difference between loud speech and quieter speech. The example audio that I&rsquo;m using here is pretty even to begin with, but when I&rsquo;m talking to another human, I tend to be less monotone. I&rsquo;m again using a FabFilter VST — <strong>Pro-C 2</strong> — but you can copy these settings into any compressor.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20225928.png" alt="Compression"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Threshold: -12 dB Ratio: 4.00:1 Knee: +18.00 dB Range: +60.00 dB Attack: 1.000 ms Release: 100.0 ms Lookahead: 0.300 ms Hold: 0.000 ms Wet: 100% Dry: 0% Auto Gain: On Output Level: +2.00 dB </code></pre><p>This step boosts the overall loudness of the track, so the example audio should seem a bit boosted compared to the previous ones.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-8.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after compressing</figcaption> </figure> <p>This next step is entirely optional, but I use Slate&rsquo;s <a href="https://slatedigital.com/fresh-air-2/"><strong>Fresh Air</strong></a> to add a little bit of presence to my voice and get a touch of that NPR sound. It is very easy to overdo this effect, so take a tempered hand with it. The plug-in is free if you give them your email address.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20230542.png" alt="Fresh Air"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Mid-Air: 24% High Air: 14% </code></pre><figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-9.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after Fresh Air</figcaption> </figure> <p>Finally, for my individual track, I apply a limiter (<strong>ReaLimit</strong>) just to knock down any remaining peaks. Again, this is a fairly monotone clip, and I&rsquo;m conservative with my levels, so it doesn&rsquo;t kick in much at all here — it&rsquo;s more of a safety.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20230835.png" alt="ReaLimit"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Threshold: -2.00 dB Ceiling: -1.00 dB Release: 15.0 dB/sec </code></pre><figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-10.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after limiting</figcaption> </figure> <p>That&rsquo;s the end of the processing I do on my individual track. A co-host or guest&rsquo;s chain would be fairly similar, but I would tweak the EQ curve and de-essers to suit their voice and possibly add some more aggressive noise removal depending on their recording conditions.</p> <p>To recap, here is the chain for my <em>individual</em> track:</p> <ol> <li>Normalize entire track to -23 LUFS (treat as one item)</li> <li>De-ess</li> <li>Mouth De-click</li> <li>ReaGate</li> <li>EQ</li> <li>EQ (to de-ess)</li> <li>Compressor</li> <li>Fresh Air</li> <li>ReaLimit</li> </ol> <p>This latest example is peaking at -1.00 dB (thanks to the limiter), and the LUFS-I measure is -15.8. That&rsquo;s a little too loud for a podcast, but we&rsquo;ll take care of that on the master track.</p> <h2 id="master-track-chain">Master Track Chain</h2> <p>The example audio I&rsquo;ve been using only has one speaker, and if I was a solo podcaster, I could just put this chain at the end of the other chain. But if you have multiple hosts, or you use sound effects, you need to make sure that the audio is balanced — like if two people are talking at the same time (which you should generally avoid anyway). Additionally, we want to hit a target of or around -19 LUFS. I don&rsquo;t fully understand LUFS but I&rsquo;m going to try to explain it nonetheless: LUFS is a measure of the <em>average perceived loudness</em> of audio. There may be spikes or some quieter portions, but on <em>average</em> we want our podcast to hit -19 LUFS (a broadcast standard for mono audio). If all podcasts do this — which they should — it will mean that you can listen to an episode of one show then switch to a different show without having to adjust your device&rsquo;s volume. Ideally, dynamically inserted ads would also hit -19.0 LUFS and therefore be at the same perceived loudness as the regular episode, too. This has not been my experience with even professional shows.</p> <p>Now, LUFS isn&rsquo;t the only measure we care about, because we could reach an average but still have a wide dynamic range. We&rsquo;ve already taken care of that, though, with our compression on the individual tracks.</p> <p>I use only one effect on the master track. It is <strong>Waves PlaylistRider Mono,</strong> which takes care of the loudness targeting for me through some wizardry. <a href="https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2753/">TriLeveler 2</a> is a great free alternative that has way more buttons and sliders, but PlaylistRider works well for a knucklehead like me.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20232151.png" alt="Waves PlaylistRider Mono"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Tonal Character: On Attack: Slow Detector Threshold: -36 dB Target LKFS: -19 </code></pre><p>(I also have a Loudness Meter on the master track, but that&rsquo;s just for measuring.)</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-11.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Final processed audio</figcaption> </figure> <p>And here&rsquo;s the raw audio again, just for the sake of comparison:</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Raw Audio</figcaption> </figure> <p>This last export measures at -18.8 LUFS with a peak of -1.0 dB and an LRA of 3.6. Nobody is going to cry about ± 0.2 LUFS, so I&rsquo;m happy with what I have. However, if you want to be really sure, you can use the <strong>Normalize/fade</strong> option when you render your final export in Reaper; after Reaper finishes processing the export, it will apply a final boost to get to your target LUFS. In my experience, this works fine, but I&rsquo;d rather do the loudness targeting on my own.</p> <h1 id="please-be-aware-that-i-have-absolutely-no-fucking-clue-what-im-doing-ever">Please be aware that I have absolutely no fucking clue what I&rsquo;m doing, ever.</h1> <p>I am sure there are audio snobs reading this and laughing at my incompetence. I hope I have made clear that I&rsquo;m a dunce who has watched a lot of YouTube tutorials, so you can spare me the elitist bullshit: it&rsquo;s on you for expecting me to speak with any kind of authority. Of course, if you have genuine, well-meaning corrections, advice, or just ideas for me to play with, I&rsquo;d love to hear that! I love to tinker; I take pride in audio that I produce (despite appearances) and enjoy learning more. At this point, I&rsquo;m happy with the audio I spit out, even though it&rsquo;s far from perfect — but I hope what <em>I&rsquo;ve</em> learned can help other jackasses like me.</p> <p>To anyone podcasting, or thinking about podcasting, please <em>just start.</em> I have fallen into the gear acquisition syndrome trap too many times and told myself I need a $200 microphone and dozens of VSTs to get great sound. You don&rsquo;t, and you don&rsquo;t <em>need</em> great sound, either. There&rsquo;s a level of &ldquo;good enough&rdquo; audio that will please your listeners who are probably smashing episodes through their $12 dirty buds, anyway. Focus on having fun and making shit that makes you smile. That&rsquo;s all we have in the end.<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">6</a></sup></p> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <hr> <ol> <li id="fn:1"> <p>I believe the internet should be a platform for sharing information freely and openly. Unfortunately, I also believe I have two fundamental rights: (1) to be full of shit and (2) to have internet access. I hope that, as a critical thinker and consumer, you can discern that I have zero (0) fucking credibility&#160;<a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2"> <p>Not really, but who else would design a UI like that?&#160;<a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:3"> <p>I&rsquo;m exporting these audio files to 128kbps CBR mono MP3s, which is what my final export would look like for a podcast episode.&#160;<a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:4"> <p>I find that my voice has a lot of natural sibilance; my s&rsquo;s whistle. I have considered dental surgery to correct this (not really), but I fear a monkey&rsquo;s paw-esque repercussion and have instead decided to resign myself to my lot in life (being really fucking annoying)&#160;<a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:5"> <p>Please still podcast if you have a lisp. I do not have a lisp, and, again, my goal is to accurately capture my shitty voice, so I will not add a lisp in post.&#160;<a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:6"> <p>I didn&rsquo;t intend for this post to end on a nihilistic note, but <a href="https://genius.com/7983884">quoth Mac Miller</a>: &ldquo;I don’t know why all my albums end in death. I guess because that’s what happens in life.&rdquo;&#160;<a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> + <p>Once upon a time ago (and a time, and a time), I had a podcast. I miss podcasting dearly and think about going back often — otherwise, what am I to do with a partial, flawed understanding of normalizing to a target loudness and editing around the disgusting noises my mouth makes? Well, share it with others, of course.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup></p> <p>In case it was not clear, I am not a professional. I am a blockhead who likes to tinker and who has watched a lot of YouTube videos. These are the FX chains I use for my voice, which may or may not be helpful to other people who do not have my voice. This is also not an exhaustive audio guide or overview of <em>how</em> I edit my audio. Maybe another time.</p> <p>Currently, I use a RØDE Procaster as my microphone and a MOTU M2 as my interface. I have a Fethead between the two because otherwise people complain I am too quiet on Discord. I bought a pop filter designed for the RØDE Podmic; it fits on my Procaster and works, but it looks a little ridiculous, so sometimes I get risqué and take it off. I paid several hundred dollars for this setup so that I can capture my two dollar voice with fidelity.</p> <p>Back when I was podcasting with a co-host over long distances, I swore by <a href="https://ecastr.com/">Ennuicaster</a> for recording because I admired the creator&rsquo;s pedantic approach to audio and hostility toward their end user.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup> Ennuicaster is clunky and temperamental, but the pricing model is fair and the audio it spits out is top-notch. It is also the only recording application that I know of with a prominently featured weasel mascot. If I&rsquo;m recording just myself, or something in person, I record straight into <a href="https://www.reaper.fm/">Reaper</a>, which I also use to edit.</p> <p>I have a project template set up to automatically open in Reaper with my FX chains. Theoretically, they are specific to my voice, but I imagine you can steal a lot of this for yourself. I&rsquo;ll do my best to explain what each step does and provide an audio sample for A/B comparison.<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">3</a></sup></p> <p>Here is the raw audio I&rsquo;ll work with, with no editing aside from when I fucked up the second sentence of my favorite book.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Raw Audio</figcaption> </figure> <h2 id="individual-track-chain">Individual Track Chain</h2> <p>I start by normalizing the track to -23 LUFS. It&rsquo;s important to normalize as if it&rsquo;s one long item — I made cuts where I messed up, and if I normalized each item individually, there would be weird modulations in volume mid-sentence. Our final target volume will be -19 LUFS (for a mono podcast); I start with -23 to give me some headroom — I&rsquo;ll boost later in the chain.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20220700.png" alt="Normalization"></p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-2.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after normalization</figcaption> </figure> <p>Now I start adding FX to my individual track (not the master). I have collected many paid VSTs over the years; you can almost certainly copy their exact effects into Reaper&rsquo;s free (and excellent) equivalents. I start with <strong>FabFilter&rsquo;s Pro-DS</strong>, which removes some of the harsh sibilance.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">4</a></sup> I believe this is almost entirely the &ldquo;Female Wide Band&rdquo; preset. The settings are pretty conservative; I used to really hammer them down and produced many podcast episodes where I sounded as though I had a lisp.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">5</a></sup></p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20221619.png" alt="De-essing"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Mode: Single Vocal Threshold: -36 dB Range: 6 dB Band Processing: Wide Band Lookahead: 12.00 ms (enabled) High-Pass Frequency: 6.834 kHz Low-Pass Frequnecy: 14 kHz </code></pre><p>I like Pro-DS because it has a nice display of what it is and isn&rsquo;t attenuating. You could easily achieve this with a free de-esser or an EQ curve.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-3-ds.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after de-essing</figcaption> </figure> <p>I incidentally picked a great passage to read — there are a lot of <em>s</em> sounds. Can you notice a difference? Probably not, but they are ever-so-slightly softer.</p> <p>The next step is <strong>Mouth De-click</strong> from iZotope. If you spend money on <em>any</em> VST, I really recommend this one. It gets rid of the disgusting wet mouth sounds. If you ever want to vomit, check the box that says &ldquo;Output clicks only&rdquo; and listen through to your audio. I am almost certainly using a preset here, too.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20223107.png" alt="Mouth De-Click"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Sensitivity: 4.00 Frequency Skew: 0.00 </code></pre><figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-4.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after Mouth De-click</figcaption> </figure> <p>Next, I use <strong>ReaGate</strong> as to reduce noise and breaths, which I believe I copied <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBKoC1sPtWs">almost entirely from this video</a>. I tend to inhale sharply when I laugh, and I am in general not very good at breathing, so the gate cleans that up a little.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20223529.png" alt="ReaGate"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Threshold: -27 dB Attack: 3 ms Release: 100 ms Pre-open: 5 ms Hold: 5 ms Lowpass: 20000 Hz Hipass: 0 Hz Dry: -11.5 dB Wet: -3.8 dB </code></pre><p>I believe the video goes into this, but there&rsquo;s a mix of &ldquo;wet&rdquo; (the processed audio) and &ldquo;dry&rdquo; (the raw audio) going on here to make the effect a little more smooth: I&rsquo;m not removing <em>all</em> of the breath, just attenuating it. I like to think of it like lowering the opacity for a breathing layer in Photoshop. I have no recollection of how I arrived at these numbers, but I like them. In the example below, pay attention to the word &ldquo;neighborhood&rdquo; — the breath after it is way less noticeable.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-5.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after gate</figcaption> </figure> <p>Sometimes the gate can make certain words or laughs sound funny, in which case I use a bypass envelope.</p> <p>Now it&rsquo;s time for an EQ, which is perhaps the part of this chain most specific to my voice. I spent a lot of time playing with curves and settings (and, again, watching YouTube videos) until I found something I liked for my nasally voice. I am using FabFilter&rsquo;s <strong>Pro-Q 4</strong>, but again, you can just copy my curve into whatever EQ VST that you have.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20224618.png" alt="EQ Curve"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Band 1 Frequency: 80 Hz Band 1 Gain: 0.00 dB Band 1 Q: 1.036 Band 1 Shape: Low Cut Band 2 Frequency: 194.49 Hz Band 2 Gain: +3.59 dB Band 2 Q: .765 Band 2 Shape: Bell Band 3 Frequency: 617 Hz Band 3 Gain: -5.14 dB Band 3 Q: 2.096 Band 3 Shape: Bell Band 4 Frequency: 6966 Hz Band 4 Gain: +3.51 dB Band 4 Q: 1.0 Band 4 Shape: High Shelf </code></pre><p>I&rsquo;ve found this curve preserves a faithful representation of my voice but makes it a little more warm.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-6.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after EQing</figcaption> </figure> <p>Now, I add a second EQ curve — this time to tamp down the remaining sibilance, which may have been amplified by my previous EQ curve. The next step is compression where I don&rsquo;t want to further accentuate my whistly <em>s</em> sounds. This curve is again specific to my voice — I swept for the frequency that I found harsh and attenuated it.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20225711.png" alt="EQ De-essing"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Band 1 Frequency: 5540 Hz Band 1 Gain: -3.00 dB Band 1 Q: 3.800 Band 1 Shape: Bell </code></pre><p>There will still be whistle in here — I&rsquo;m working with the voice that I have — but it&rsquo;s a little bit smoother.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-7.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after second de-essing</figcaption> </figure> <p>Now it&rsquo;s time to compress! A compressor helps to even out the difference between loud speech and quieter speech. The example audio that I&rsquo;m using here is pretty even to begin with, but when I&rsquo;m talking to another human, I tend to be less monotone. I&rsquo;m again using a FabFilter VST — <strong>Pro-C 2</strong> — but you can copy these settings into any compressor.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20225928.png" alt="Compression"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Threshold: -12 dB Ratio: 4.00:1 Knee: +18.00 dB Range: +60.00 dB Attack: 1.000 ms Release: 100.0 ms Lookahead: 0.300 ms Hold: 0.000 ms Wet: 100% Dry: 0% Auto Gain: On Output Level: +2.00 dB </code></pre><p>This step boosts the overall loudness of the track, so the example audio should seem a bit boosted compared to the previous ones.</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-8.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after compressing</figcaption> </figure> <p>This next step is entirely optional, but I use Slate&rsquo;s <a href="https://slatedigital.com/fresh-air-2/"><strong>Fresh Air</strong></a> to add a little bit of presence to my voice and get a touch of that NPR sound. It is very easy to overdo this effect, so take a tempered hand with it. The plug-in is free if you give them your email address.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20230542.png" alt="Fresh Air"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Mid-Air: 24% High Air: 14% </code></pre><figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-9.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after Fresh Air</figcaption> </figure> <p>Finally, for my individual track, I apply a limiter (<strong>ReaLimit</strong>) just to knock down any remaining peaks. Again, this is a fairly monotone clip, and I&rsquo;m conservative with my levels, so it doesn&rsquo;t kick in much at all here — it&rsquo;s more of a safety.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20230835.png" alt="ReaLimit"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Threshold: -2.00 dB Ceiling: -1.00 dB Release: 15.0 dB/sec </code></pre><figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-10.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Audio after limiting</figcaption> </figure> <p>That&rsquo;s the end of the processing I do on my individual track. A co-host or guest&rsquo;s chain would be fairly similar, but I would tweak the EQ curve and de-essers to suit their voice and possibly add some more aggressive noise removal depending on their recording conditions.</p> <p>To recap, here is the chain for my <em>individual</em> track:</p> <ol> <li>Normalize entire track to -23 LUFS (treat as one item)</li> <li>De-ess</li> <li>Mouth De-click</li> <li>ReaGate</li> <li>EQ</li> <li>EQ (to de-ess)</li> <li>Compressor</li> <li>Fresh Air</li> <li>ReaLimit</li> </ol> <p>This latest example is peaking at -1.00 dB (thanks to the limiter), and the LUFS-I measure is -15.8. That&rsquo;s a little too loud for a podcast, but we&rsquo;ll take care of that on the master track.</p> <h2 id="master-track-chain">Master Track Chain</h2> <p>The example audio I&rsquo;ve been using only has one speaker, and if I was a solo podcaster, I could just put this chain at the end of the other chain. But if you have multiple hosts, or you use sound effects, you need to make sure that the audio is balanced — like if two people are talking at the same time (which you should generally avoid anyway). Additionally, we want to hit a target of or around -19 LUFS. I don&rsquo;t fully understand LUFS but I&rsquo;m going to try to explain it nonetheless: LUFS is a measure of the <em>average perceived loudness</em> of audio. There may be spikes or some quieter portions, but on <em>average</em> we want our podcast to hit -19 LUFS (a broadcast standard for mono audio). If all podcasts do this — which they should — it will mean that you can listen to an episode of one show then switch to a different show without having to adjust your device&rsquo;s volume. Ideally, dynamically inserted ads would also hit -19.0 LUFS and therefore be at the same perceived loudness as the regular episode, too. This has not been my experience with even professional shows.</p> <p>Now, LUFS isn&rsquo;t the only measure we care about, because we could reach an average but still have a wide dynamic range. We&rsquo;ve already taken care of that, though, with our compression on the individual tracks.</p> <p>I use only one effect on the master track. It is <strong>Waves PlaylistRider Mono,</strong> which takes care of the loudness targeting for me through some wizardry. <a href="https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2753/">TriLeveler 2</a> is a great free alternative that has way more buttons and sliders, but PlaylistRider works well for a knucklehead like me.</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2025/07/Screenshot%202025-07-24%20232151.png" alt="Waves PlaylistRider Mono"></p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>Tonal Character: On Attack: Slow Detector Threshold: -36 dB Target LKFS: -19 </code></pre><p>(I also have a Loudness Meter on the master track, but that&rsquo;s just for measuring.)</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-11.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Final processed audio</figcaption> </figure> <p>And here&rsquo;s the raw audio again, just for the sake of comparison:</p> <figure class="audio"> <audio controls preload="metadata"> <source src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/audio/2025/fxchainexample-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> </audio> <figcaption>Raw Audio</figcaption> </figure> <p>This last export measures at -18.8 LUFS with a peak of -1.0 dB and an LRA of 3.6. Nobody is going to cry about ± 0.2 LUFS, so I&rsquo;m happy with what I have. However, if you want to be really sure, you can use the <strong>Normalize/fade</strong> option when you render your final export in Reaper; after Reaper finishes processing the export, it will apply a final boost to get to your target LUFS. In my experience, this works fine, but I&rsquo;d rather do the loudness targeting on my own.</p> <h1 id="please-be-aware-that-i-have-absolutely-no-fucking-clue-what-im-doing-ever">Please be aware that I have absolutely no fucking clue what I&rsquo;m doing, ever.</h1> <p>I am sure there are audio snobs reading this and laughing at my incompetence. I hope I have made clear that I&rsquo;m a dunce who has watched a lot of YouTube tutorials, so you can spare me the elitist bullshit: it&rsquo;s on you for expecting me to speak with any kind of authority. Of course, if you have genuine, well-meaning corrections, advice, or just ideas for me to play with, I&rsquo;d love to hear that! I love to tinker; I take pride in audio that I produce (despite appearances) and enjoy learning more. At this point, I&rsquo;m happy with the audio I spit out, even though it&rsquo;s far from perfect — but I hope what <em>I&rsquo;ve</em> learned can help other jackasses like me.</p> <p>To anyone podcasting, or thinking about podcasting, please <em>just start.</em> I have fallen into the gear acquisition syndrome trap too many times and told myself I need a $200 microphone and dozens of VSTs to get great sound. You don&rsquo;t, and you don&rsquo;t <em>need</em> great sound, either. There&rsquo;s a level of &ldquo;good enough&rdquo; audio that will please your listeners who are probably smashing episodes through their $12 dirty buds, anyway. Focus on having fun and making shit that makes you smile. That&rsquo;s all we have in the end.<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">6</a></sup></p> <div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes"> <hr> <ol> <li id="fn:1"> <p>I believe the internet should be a platform for sharing information freely and openly. Unfortunately, I also believe I have two fundamental rights: (1) to be full of shit and (2) to have internet access. I hope that, as a critical thinker and consumer, you can discern that I have zero (0) fucking credibility&#160;<a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:2"> <p>Not really, but who else would design a UI like that?&#160;<a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:3"> <p>I&rsquo;m exporting these audio files to 128kbps CBR mono MP3s, which is what my final export would look like for a podcast episode.&#160;<a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:4"> <p>I find that my voice has a lot of natural sibilance; my s&rsquo;s whistle. I have considered dental surgery to correct this (not really), but I fear a monkey&rsquo;s paw-esque repercussion and have instead decided to resign myself to my lot in life (being really fucking annoying)&#160;<a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:5"> <p>Please still podcast if you have a lisp. I do not have a lisp, and, again, my goal is to accurately capture my shitty voice, so I will not add a lisp in post.&#160;<a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> <li id="fn:6"> <p>I didn&rsquo;t intend for this post to end on a nihilistic note, but <a href="https://genius.com/7983884">quoth Mac Miller</a>: &ldquo;I don’t know why all my albums end in death. I guess because that’s what happens in life.&rdquo;&#160;<a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-backref" role="doc-backlink">&#x21a9;&#xfe0e;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> Climbing my personal Mount Doom (I finished reading Lord of the Rings) @@ -171,9 +171,9 @@ - http://localhost:1313/posts/turning-30/ + http://localhost:1313/drafts/turning-30/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 23:56:38 -0500 - http://localhost:1313/posts/turning-30/ + http://localhost:1313/drafts/turning-30/ <p>My thirtieth birthday party, the day before my actual turn from one decade to the next, was a beautiful night. My mom, both pre-emptively staking out her territory as an Italian-American grandmother and (past but an adverb?) fulfilling regrets at never having been able to throw me a childhood party, brought too much food and snacks and love — or staying up and out past the early afternoon, which is a kind of love for us; my friends, older than me in years and with busy families and schedules, brought wisdom and comfort in growing older gracefully; and my friends closer in age drove great distances to celebrate <em>me</em> — or at least, with me.</p> <p>The actual day passed uneventfully, cleaning and resting from the festivities, alone and at home with Joe. As the night wore on, however, I noticed, with (something something - mixed alarm, absence, desparation, and a painful normalcy) that I hadn&rsquo;t heard from my dad, and I was suddenly borne ceaselessly back into the past.</p> <p>After years of baggage and mixed-up emptions, ups and downs, I&rsquo;ve entered a maintenance phase in my relationship with him: I maintain the most tenuous connection I possibly can while his mother, my grandmother, is still alive, and I have planned to sever those last vestiges when she passed. I&rsquo;ve entertained fleeting fancies on what would happen when <em>he</em> goes — how I would find out, how I would react, if I would even bother to attend or instead seize it as an opportunity to enact my triumphant revenge by never showing up.</p> <p>And yet, and yet, despite years of receiving a call on the wrong birthday, I&rsquo;m back in the second grade, at an in-school Father&rsquo;s Day celebration, waiting, waiting for any sign; mixed gratitude and crushing disappointment to see my maternal grandfather in my dad&rsquo;s stead; and sunk lower by every playground busy-bpdy asking why my dad was so old and having to explain that it&rsquo;s not actually my perfectly hale and hearty dad, who simply did not show up. I&rsquo;m back in the schoolyard waiting for him — late again — to pick us up for his agreed upon custodial visits, so late the sun starts to set and a worried teacher contacts home seeing three abandoned kids who are realizing, slowly, that they are not important to their father. I&rsquo;m back at my high school graduation and not bothering to invite him because I have almost two decades of experience to know the outcome, to know it&rsquo;s better than to set myself up for disappointment by expecting him to show. I&rsquo;m back at my college graduation, a tremendous, back-breaking accomplishment, shocked to see him show up but wishing he hadn&rsquo;t as he makes it about himself: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to see you&rsquo;re not a fuck up like me.&rdquo;</p> <p>I am 30. Why now, on the cusp of starting my own family — of discussing the unsexy logistics of planned conception, (lack of sufficient) maternity leave, and childcare, do I need a call from my daddy on my birthday? Why have I not learned the lesson experience has so deeply (that isn&rsquo;t the right word) taught me so many times over?</p> <p>At a parent meeting for a beloved student, I sang praises about her while admiring the original: she is, in every respect — her mannerisms, dress, energy — her mother. A little shorter and less gray, but otherwise a carbon, in the ways that matter. And as I went home that evening and reflected, I wondered what in me I would pass along — those idiosyncrasies impossible to spot within oneself that would one day leave bemused teachers, friends, family to remark the same of my child and me.</p> <p>And again, the lingering seven year old in me bubbled to the surface: what in me resembled my father — and, worse yet, what of his toxic line would seep (need a stronger verb, think like an oil spill) into another generation? Have I created enough distance to avoid his influence? Is there some latent biological evil in my genetics? And what of my traumas, my inability to move past my feelings of abandonment, would I, against my best efforts, inflict on my own?</p> <p>People say girls look for their fathers in their partners. I&rsquo;ve looked for the opposite. Joe is always gentle, always patient — the kind to drop everything just to be there for a friend in need. When I asked him if I had any mannerisms he thought I might pass along, he laughed and responded with a list, paramount upon which was my passion. He recalled nights at the movie theater sitting in a mostly one-sided conversation, listening to me monologue about some esoteric music bullshit and falling in love.</p> <p>I hope for my children from me passion and devotion; that they stick wholeheartedly to that which — and <em>who</em> — they care about. I wish for them the softness that comes from having two parents who make them feel loved, valued, important.</p> @@ -405,7 +405,7 @@ http://localhost:1313/media-log-august-2023/ Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/media-log-august-2023/ - <h1 id="movies">Movies</h1> <ul> <li><em>Barbie</em> - I was underwhelmed. There&rsquo;s been lots of chatter, and I loved <em>Lady Bird</em>, but <em>Barbie</em> didn&rsquo;t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to <em>Barbie</em> as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.</li> </ul> <h1 id="games">Games</h1> <ul> <li><em>Vampire Survivors</em> - I originally played <em>Vampire Survivors</em> for my video game podcast, <a href="https://pitchandplay.org">Pitch &amp; Play</a> (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don&rsquo;t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded <em>Vampire Survivors</em> onto my phone and went deep into it. It&rsquo;s a fantastic game that I&rsquo;ll come to associate with my early days in the house.</li> </ul> <h1 id="books">Books</h1> <ul> <li><em>Walk Two Moons</em> by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try <em>Walk Two Moons</em> out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I&rsquo;ve read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I&rsquo;m an adult reading a book written for children and because I&rsquo;ve read it before. I&rsquo;m not sure it&rsquo;s the book I&rsquo;m looking for, but it&rsquo;s not a bad read.</li> </ul> + <h1 id="movies">Movies</h1> <p><em>Barbie</em> - I was underwhelmed. There&rsquo;s been lots of chatter, and I loved <em>Lady Bird</em>, but <em>Barbie</em> didn&rsquo;t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to <em>Barbie</em> as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.</p> <h1 id="games">Games</h1> <p><em>Vampire Survivors</em> - I originally played <em>Vampire Survivors</em> for my video game podcast, <a href="https://pitchandplay.org">Pitch &amp; Play</a> (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don&rsquo;t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded <em>Vampire Survivors</em> onto my phone and went deep into it. It&rsquo;s a fantastic game that I&rsquo;ll come to associate with my early days in the house.</p> <h1 id="books">Books</h1> <p><em>Walk Two Moons</em> by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try <em>Walk Two Moons</em> out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I&rsquo;ve read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I&rsquo;m an adult reading a book written for children and because I&rsquo;ve read it before. I&rsquo;m not sure it&rsquo;s the book I&rsquo;m looking for, but it&rsquo;s not a bad read.</p> On Teaching @@ -463,6 +463,13 @@ http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s/ <p>That I’m a big ol’ music weirdo should come as no surprise to anyone who has read <a href="https://cassie.ink/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2015/">some</a> of my <a href="https://cassie.ink/revolutions/">previous</a> writing <a href="https://cassie.ink/canopies-and-drapes/">about</a> it. I have tracked just about all of my music listening to <a href="https://www.last.fm/user/wearebeautiful">last.fm</a> since 2014, both to maintain a record and gather minute statistics about myself.</p> <p>I turned 16 in 2010, and my 25th birthday was this past November. The latter half of my adolescent identity formation therefore took place during this past decade, and the music I listened to during those years acted as a score, a signpost, a catharsis, a reflection. I’ve come to mark events in my life with the music I was listening to at the time. And having spent my teen years sitting in front of a computer listening to music at pretty much all times, I developed a pretty large collection.</p> <p>As with any post in this series, I do want to offer a few caveats and disclaimers. A lot of music came out this decade, by artists I love and by artists I haven’t discovered yet. I’m human. I haven’t heard it all. I track very few bands’ new releases, and instead seek out new albums as interest and whims guide me. So this list is limited to the music I actually listened to during these years and what music from that collection I consider influential on my personal taste or mindset. It’s very likely that, a few years from now, I’ll stumble upon an album released in 2013 that I absolutely love, just as I listened to and loved plenty of albums from before 2010. But this list will be limited to releases from the decade that I listened to a lot; I did briefly consider whether I would permit myself to include more than one album by the same artist, but as I narrowed down the possibilities, I found that was not an issue. I did not make any distinctions between full albums or EPs in my selection process either.</p> <hr> <h2 id="10-grimes-visions-2012">#10. Grimes, <em>Visions</em> (2012)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/visions.jpg#album" alt="Visions album cover"> For the record, I am deeply uncomfortable being a Grimes fan in 2019. But 2012 was a different time — or, more accurately, 2013, when I started listening to Grimes.</p> <p>A recurring theme through the albums on this list will be that they mark some kind of notable shift or change in my musical tastes. I’d classify Grimes as “weird shit,” especially early Grimes, which I was no stranger to prior to picking up <em>Visions</em>. But Grimes was a new kind of weird for me: in <em>Visions</em> especially, the vocals and lyrics are at times abstracted and indistinct. They’re like another instrument, layered into wandering synthesizers and catchy beats. <em>Visions</em> sports some genuine bops and poppy tunes, like “Genesis” and “Oblivion”, but there’s still a darkness there — there’s also angsty tracks that sound like they were composed and sang by some kind of sewer nymph reaching out to be heard, seen, loved, but whose voice cannot travel far enough (“Soft skin / I’ll have you be near my heart / until I feel human / soft skin, oh / You were never in love to begin with / So now I’m suffering”). Instead, that voice remains distant, reverberating from a far-off place.</p> <p>It’s really hard to recommend Grimes these days, as she’s now inextricably linked to Elon Musk in my brain. But <em>Visions</em> is still my favorite album she’s put out, and it’s absolutely worth a listen, even if it’s probably bumping the speakers in the Cybertruck these days.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R00Vu7Ag7s">“Skin”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WizNXQGBMEk">“Genesis”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9MXj9nVjkk">“Ambrosia”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtH68PJIQLE">“Oblivion”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txcZix5caF0">“Infinite ♡ Without Fulfillment”</a></p> <hr> <h2 id="9-oberhofer-time-capsules-ii-2011">#9. Oberhofer, <em>Time Capsules II</em> (2011)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/timecapsules.jpg#album" alt="Time Capsules II album cover"> Of the albums on this list, <em>Time Capsules II</em> is one of the most embedded in the a specific point in my life. I discovered Oberhofer when I rewatched a season one episode of <em>Broad City</em>, which featured their song “o0Oo0Oo.” This would have been in March or April of 2015 — which is also when I began dating my boyfriend, Joe.</p> <p><em>Time Capsules II</em> became an early soundtrack for our relationship. For our one month anniversary (yes, we were/are big nerds), I gave Joe two mixtapes, the first of many I’d create for him throughout our relationship — one called “You,” the other “Me.” On them, I tried to capture emotion in music, tell him through I was through the songs that spoke to me, and tell him how I felt about him through the songs that reminded me of him. Of the 29 tracks that spanned the two CDs, because I was still burning CDs in 2015, three were Oberhofer songs: “Homebro,” “o0Oo0Oo,” and “Away Frm U.” The opening guitar in “Away Frm U” still fills me with nostalgia.</p> <p>Detaching the album from my own memories, it’s a fairly by the books indie rock tracks and surf rock revival, with some fun hints of Animal Collective mixed in for good measure. It’s catchy enough to sing along to, with enough depth to sustain interest. It’s the music you play when you drive through your hometown at night. But it’s hard to separate my memories from the album like this because Oberhofer is the soundtrack backing our early days. When I think back on the decade, I think about my relationship with Joe in the later half of it. So this album really is a bit of a time capsule for me, too.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:”</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMGdn4ojxtA">“Yr Face”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z40oHofP3E">“Away Frm U”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKMDY3T9eiM">“Haus”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj_uKLk-dYM">“Homebro”</a></p> <hr> <h2 id="8-mac-miller-swimming-2018">#8. Mac Miller, <em>Swimming</em> (2018)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/swimming.jpg#album" alt="Swimming album cover"> When Mac Miller’s death was announced in September of 2018, I knew hardly anything about him. I recognized the name and knew he was a rapper. I’d seen maybe a picture or two of him before, but I’d never heard any of his music. And yet, I was shaken by the announcement, for reasons I couldn’t fully comprehend. I read through pages and pages of folks pouring one out for another artist taken too young, grieving and despairing he never found the help he needed. I thought the only way to understand my reaction was to listen to his music — to pay my due to his passing, even if I’d never particularly connected with rap before (and, to the tell truth, hadn’t really tried). I downloaded his albums, skipped around, picked a few songs more or less at random, and rocked a playlist called “mac miller songs i think i like but idk.”</p> <p>Just as I was entranced by Miller’s death, I was fascinated with his music. It was something new to me, something entirely out of my comfort zone. But there was something compelling — there was a pain and an insight to his lyrics, a density to his production. Mac’s discography takes some defined turns and evolutions, jumping between the ambition and optimism of <em>Best Day Ever</em> to the troubled, strung-out suicidal ideation on <em>Faces</em>. It was, at times, hard for me to understand or digest — except for <em>Swimming</em>. His last release was the most accessible to me; it was my gateway to Mac, to comprehending the life journey that led to the album’s creation and the tragedy of it being cut too short. I’m not sure <em>Swimming</em> is my favorite Mac release — that might be <em>Macadelic</em>, or maybe <em>GO:OD AM</em>, or maybe <em>Faces</em> — but it was a doorway for me to step through into Mac’s world. <em>Swimming</em> was produced from years lived in scrutiny and pain, and Miller never shies away from expressing that on the album (“Well, I didn’t know what I was missing / Now I see a lil’ different / I was thinking too much / Got stuck in oblivion”). <em>Swimming</em> is about walking on the pathway to peace but stumbling along the road. <em>Swimming</em> taught me that you’ve got to jump in to swim.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsKT0s5J8ko">“Self Care”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B3YwcjQ_bU">“2009”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbSuMV7ghm8">“Perfecto”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnG7oL9Gg4o">“Jet Fuel”</a></p> <hr> <h2 id="7-how-to-dress-well--2014">#7. How to Dress Well, <em>&ldquo;What Is This Heart?&rdquo;</em> (2014)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/whatisthisheart.jpg#album" alt="What Is This Heart? album cover"> I discovered How to Dress Well in late 2011, at a time when I was awfully depressed and feeling trapped in my life. The ambiance and desperation in Tom Krell’s debut album, <em>Love Remains</em>, spoke to me in that time. I spent a lot of time with “Ready for the World” on repeat.</p> <p>I also enjoyed How to Dress Well’s next release, <em>Total Loss</em>, as it refined their sound, but it didn’t grab me the way <em>Love Remains</em> did, and so I was keen to see which direction their next release would take.</p> <p><em>“What Is This Heart?”</em> is closer, sonically, to <em>Total Loss</em> than <em>Love Remains</em>, but it hit me. There’s a pure emotion to it that <em>Love Remains</em> concealed under lo-fi beats and distorted vocals that sound like they were somehow produced off a VHS tape recording. <em>“What Is This Heart</em>?” is clear, honest, and beautiful. <em>“What Is This Heart?”</em> dissolves the weight of older tracks like “Ready for the World” and “Cold Nites,” replacing it with a kind of airy lightness that doesn’t sacrifice depth. The album acts as an answer to its titular question — it’s How to Dress Well wearing their heart on their sleeve, bringing Tom Krell’s voice and lyrics to the center, no longer obfuscated by noise. The album’s bare-faced, earnest emotion is embodied on no track better than “Pour Cyril,” which retains some of the noisy, warbling reverb of How to Dress Well’s previous albums but mixes it with heartfelt strings and brass. There’s a heart to this album that is immensely vulnerable and is made all the more captivating for it.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbOCLEIKZOo">“Words I Don’t Remember”</a>, <a href="https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/track/childhood-faith-in-love-everything-must-change-everything-must-stay-the-same">“Childhood Faith in Love (Everything Must Change, Everything Must Stay the Same”</a>, <a href="https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/track/pour-cyril">“Pour Cyril”</a>, <a href="https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/track/face-again">“Face Again”</a>, <a href="https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/track/repeat-pleasure">“Repeat Pleasure”</a> (and a special shout to <a href="https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/track/repeat-pleasure-a-g-cook-remix">A.G. Cook’s remix of it</a>)</p> <hr> <h2 id="6-the-peripheral-ones-chants-2014">#6. The Peripheral Ones, <em>Chants</em> (2014)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/peripheral.jpg#album" alt="Chants album cover"> This album will be maybe the most idiosyncratic entry on this list.</p> <p>In something like 2008 or 2009, I found a band on Myspace (!) called The Middle Ones. They made <a href="https://themiddleones.bandcamp.com/track/goodnight-song">charming little acoustic songs</a> that were very of their time and place and are still very good. I sang along to them (badly) for a few years, and then they became another relic of my music library that I’d revisit every now and then.</p> <p>Jump ahead to 2015, when I’m lurking on anorak for new music, and I see there’s a Middle Ones thread. I give some of the recent posts a read through and find <a href="https://anorakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;t=2918&amp;start=140#p235243">someone has shared a link to a Middle Ones cover album</a>. Enter The Peripheral Ones.</p> <p>I love these covers. I know it’s taboo to say, but sometimes I think I may love them more than the originals. <em>Chants</em> is clearly a product of love and reverence for The Middle Ones, but it’s not afraid to experiment. Sometimes they’re covers with a new twist, as in “Young Explorer.” Other times, they include <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/track/morningtime">a “lyrical interpolation” of Nicki Minaj’s “Superbass”</a> or replace the original harmonica <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/track/yeah-roy">with music from <em>The Legend of Zelda</em></a>. <em>Chants</em> is truly a special album to me — and it led me to other great projects by the members of The Peripheral Ones, namely Pigthe and Trust Fund. It is a goddamn shame that <em>Chants</em> has less than 900 scrobbles on last.fm as of writing (and I account for around a third of them). Please do yourself a favor and listen to it. I may have conceived of this album review post as an excuse to shill for <em>Chants</em>.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/track/morningtime">“Morningtime”</a>, <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/track/young-explorer">“Young Explorer”</a>, <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/track/drops">“Drops”</a>, <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/track/after">“After”</a></p> <p><em>Download</em> Chants <em>for free via The Peripheral Ones on <a href="https://theperipheralones.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a>.</em></p> <hr> <h2 id="5-pigthe-every-morning-i-wake-up-covered-in-blood-2019">#5. Pigthe, <em>every morning i wake up covered in blood</em> (2019)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/coveredinblood.jpg#album" alt="every morning i wake up covered in blood album cover"> Pigthe is the only artist to appear twice on my ranking for the decade, albeit under different names. Pigthe is also probably the most obscure shit to appear on this list, which keeps my hipster cred in tact.</p> <p><em>every morning i wake up covered in blood</em> seems, at times, to be a bizarre compilation. I don’t always know what to make of <em>every morning</em>. Sparse details are available about it online, or even about Pigthe in general. Of its nineteen total tracks, eight clock in at under a minute long on <em>every morning</em>. Four of those eight are under ten seconds. Scattered throughout are short, spoken word segments that are sometimes their own track (like “bad,” a nine second track whose complete lyrics read “The singing was boring and the lyrics were bad / The singing was boring and the song was bad”) or compete for attention over vocal tracks and strumming guitars in “JaneaneG++.” Other times, <em>every morning</em> covers Mariah Carey in “Beautiful” or laments on the desperation and emptiness that follow from the economic alienation in late-stage capitalism in “Consumer Blues part ii” or composes a thirteen minute opus in “Not Enough // Not Good Enough.” But as impenetrable as <em>every morning i wake up covered in blood</em> can sometimes feel, it speaks to me in a way I haven’t yet figured out or defined. It manages to be both catchy and intensely brooding at the many peaks of the album. It has stayed with me since its release a few months ago — and I think it will continue to stay with me for quite a bit longer.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://music.pigthe.com/track/consumer-blues-part-ii">“Consumer Blues part ii”</a>, <a href="https://music.pigthe.com/track/every-morning-i-wake-up-covered-in-blood">“Every Morning I Wake Up Covered in Blood”</a>, <a href="https://music.pigthe.com/track/not-enough-not-good-enough">“Not Enough // Not Good Enough”</a></p> <p><em>Download</em> every morning i wake up covered in blood <em>for free via Pigthe on <a href="https://music.pigthe.com/album/every-morning-i-wake-up-covered-in-blood">Bandcamp</a>.</em></p> <hr> <h2 id="4-sylvan-esso-sylvan-esso-2014">#4. Sylvan Esso, <em>Sylvan Esso</em> (2014)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/sylvanesso.jpg#album" alt="Sylvan Esso album cover"> <em>Sylvan Esso</em> is a masterclass in grabbing your listener with the first track.</p> <p>Their self-titled debut album opens with the infectious, repeated “Hey mami / I know what you want, mami.” It builds with slow claps and layered voices until the beat drops in. The song’s lyrics might be about a woman getting catcalled in the street, but there’s a breeziness, an airiness to “Hey Mami.” It sort of spreads in your brain, and it sticks there for a long time.</p> <p>But as explosive and electronic as “Hey Mami” is, and many of the other tracks on the album, Sylvan Esso is also able to deliver a warmth when they pull back into muted beats and smooth, untouched vocals in “Coffee” or “Uncatena.” No song on <em>Sylvan Esso</em> ever sounds forced, overproduced, or inorganic; it’s a wonderful fusion of beats and vocals. Sylvan Esso sounds like breathing in morning air with a twinkly piano in the background. <em>Sylvan Esso</em> was a new, innovative sound when it first released, and no one has really come close to it since — aside from maybe their sophomore release. But <em>Sylvan Esso</em> gets credit for being the first.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://sylvanesso.bandcamp.com/track/hey-mami">“Hey Mami”</a>, <a href="https://sylvanesso.bandcamp.com/track/dress">“Dress”</a>, <a href="https://sylvanesso.bandcamp.com/track/dreamy-bruises">“Dreamy Bruises”</a>, <a href="https://sylvanesso.bandcamp.com/track/coffee-3">“Coffee”</a></p> <hr> <h2 id="3-los-campesinos-sick-scenes-2017">#3. Los Campesinos!, <em>Sick Scenes</em> (2017)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/sickscenes.jpg#album" alt="Sick Scenes album cover"> Los Campesinos! are my favorite band, and they have been since their 2008 debut album, <em>Hold On Now, Youngster…</em> What’s absolutely remarkable about Los Campesinos! — and what has enabled them to hold their throne for so long — is that every one of their releases evolves their sound then adds something new. There’s a growth and progression inside their discography to which few artists can compare and which they have continued into their 2017 release, <em>Sick Scenes</em>.</p> <p>There’s something sparse about <em>Sick Scenes</em>, which lies in stark contrast to their early discography and which I mean with the highest esteem. Consider, for example, the breakdown in “Got Stendhal’s,” when a lone guitar kicks in, then drums and vocals are slowly reintroduced. In the <em>Tweexcore</em>-era, this might have been a cacophony of instruments all trying to be heard over the other. If you listen to a track from <em>HONY</em> then compare it to one from <em>Sick Scenes</em>, it’s hard to believe the same people were even remotely involved — and, indeed, much of their lineup has changed over the years, but they’ve kept true to their vision of being “your ex-girlfriend’s favourite band.” In <em>Sick Scenes</em>, Los Campesinos! learn to pull back, to focus their sound into something deceptively simple. <em>Sick Scenes</em> is Team Campesinos at their most refined and, I’m inclined to say, at their best.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://loscampesinos.bandcamp.com/track/here-s-to-the-fourth-time">“Here’s To The Fourth Time!”</a>, <a href="https://loscampesinos.bandcamp.com/track/got-stendhal-s">“Got Stendhal’s”</a>, <a href="https://loscampesinos.bandcamp.com/track/5-flucloxacillin">“5 Flucloxacillin”</a> <em>Purchase</em> Sick Scenes <em>in various formats starting at £7 on <a href="https://loscampesinos.bandcamp.com/album/sick-scenes">Bandcamp</a>.</em></p> <hr> <h2 id="2-altj-an-awesome-wave-2012">#2. alt+J, <em>An Awesome Wave</em> (2012)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/awesomewave.jpg#album" alt="An Awesome Wave album cover"> 2012 was a rough year for me. I graduated high school then, but the months leading up to it was the deepest depressions I’ve ever fallen into. I felt totally alienated from my immediate world and circle; I cared very little for my schoolwork or my friends or myself. I was ready to move onto college and start fresh, with new people and new passion — but I had to trudge through six more months of high school first.</p> <p><em>An Awesome Wave</em> released in May of 2012; I don’t know when I first discovered alt+J (through “Breezeblocks,” like everyone else on the planet), but I listened to them a <em>lot</em> in the weeks leading up to, and into, my first semester of college — and just like college, <em>An Awesome Wave</em> was something fresh. It was something new. To me, at least. And that’s precisely what I needed. It was a wave of relief — from my depression, and from months spent listening to “Hate for the Island” (from Los Campesinos!’s <em>Hello Sadness</em>) and Xiu Xiu’s <em>Dear God, I Hate Myself</em> on repeat. (Not the healthiest choices, in retrospect.)</p> <p>In 2019, <em>An Awesome Wave</em> has perhaps lost some of its fresh novelty; it was eclectic and experimental in 2012, but we’ve had years now of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBskd3IaNw">folks spoofing alt+J’s sound</a>. I love it dearly still, perhaps for the sound memories it has left, the way that “Bloodflood” washes me over with calm, the way that “Something Good” is now forever attached to <em>Life is Strange</em>, one of my favorite games from the decade, the way I try to croon along (badly) with “Matilda.” The album has lost some of its neoteric magic seven years later; maybe it’s a nostalgia speaking, but I consider it a new classic.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv-zbP7lyjA">“Bloodflood”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNYjOVo5IEw">“Something Good”</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVeMiVU77wo">“Breezeblocks”</a></p> <hr> <h2 id="1-stolen-jars-kept-2015">#1. Stolen Jars, <em>Kept</em> (2015)</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/kept.jpg#album" alt="Kept album cover"> I fell in love with Stolen Jars in the first time I heard the scattered din of percussion that opens the title track on <em>Kept</em> — and while I’m about to describe that love in detail, I really recommend that you just <a href="https://stolenjars.bandcamp.com/track/kept-2">go ahead and hear it for yourself</a>.</p> <p>To set the scene of my first contact with Stolen Jars, it was back when I worked at RadioShack; shifts were often dull as we waited out the days until the store closed. We ran a Pandora station on some rad speakers, but mostly I just zoned out or did homework. When I heard that percussion stumble on out, the song immediately grabbed me. I knew I had to hear more.</p> <p>Stolen Jars are not something entirely new or innovative, like some of my other entries on this list. Their music is accessible, even if it goes unnoticed by many. But what makes <em>Kept</em> so entrancing is how ethereal it is. <em>Kept</em> transports the listener to a dream-like state; there’s a warmth and a comfort to it, like being wrapped in a fluffy comforter and snoozing off into the clouds, otherworldly voices whispering that living takes time, asking to keep your hands close. There’s something organic yet mystical about <em>Kept</em>, something artful yet catchy, something pensive yet grounded. Their lyrics are often abstract (“some nights / when I’m alone / when I’m alone / I’ll look through faces of old occasions / of places, scattered now / on small plates painted / just to know them”), but they evoke sense memories embedded in the reflections of fleeting moments — of waking up to see your partner bathed in light, of the train whistle in your hometown, of golden memories of childhood games with friends. <em>Kept</em> reaches into our reveries and holds tight to them. The songs are all light and air, space turned sonic. It’s a beautiful piece of art that consistently leaves me in awe.</p> <p><strong>Favorite Tracks:</strong> <a href="https://stolenjars.bandcamp.com/track/kept-2">“Kept”</a>, <a href="https://stolenjars.bandcamp.com/track/another-november">“Another November”</a>, <a href="https://stolenjars.bandcamp.com/track/wreaths-rakes">“Wreaths Rakes”</a>, <a href="https://stolenjars.bandcamp.com/track/waves">“Waves”</a></p> + + My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s + http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/ + Wed, 13 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000 + http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/ + <p>Another decade in the book, another opportunity to represent my life in lists and data.</p> <p>Looking retrospectively, this past decade defined my interest in games. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a young child — I remember holing up in my mom’s basement, replaying the same minigames over and over in <em>Gus Goes to Cyberopolis</em>. My dad bought me a Gameboy Color for my fifth birthday, and I dedicated at least a decade of my life (regrettably) to the <em>Kingdom Hearts</em> series. But in 2010, I started my first job, and so I finally had some disposable income to spend on my hobbies; I didn’t have to beg for games as birthday or Christmas or whenever presents. And so I played a lot more games in these past ten years. I started to follow industry news beyond new releases. I became more thoughtful about and critical of the industry. And I shifted my hobby into professional inquiry: in 2018, I co-wrote a book chapter about how video games could be used in educational settings, and in 2019, I piloted a camp that empowered kids to create their own video games.</p> <p>The games industry has shifted a lot in this decade, too. We’ve seen a renaissance of games that put character and narrative at their center, which has long been what I wanted to see out of the medium. Game designers continue to heighten the artistic potential of games, both in photo-realism and artistic expression. Put shortly, video games this decade have been <em>really</em>, <em>really</em> good.</p> <p>Now, to offer a caveat to this list: I obviously didn’t play every game that came out in this decade. I didn’t even play <em>most</em> games this decade. I missed major, beloved titles like <em>Red Dead Redemption 2</em>, the <em>Uncharted</em> series, or any of the <em>Call of Duty</em> games. Some of this comes down to personal taste, others to time (and monetary) restrictions. This list therefore will be limited to games that I actually played this decade, rather than some kind of pseudo-objective ranking of every game that released in this time frame — and I reserve the right to amend this list when I finally get around to playing <em>Control</em>.</p> <p>Editorially, I have also decided to omit remasters or re-releases from my consideration unless they dramatically transformed the content of the original game. I have also listed the platform(s) on which I played the games listed, as that may have affected my experience with them.</p> <hr> <h2 id="10-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild">#10. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/botwzelda.png" alt="Zelda alone in a pool of water"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2017</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">Nintendo Switch</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Nintendo</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Time Played</span> <span class="value">105 hours</span> </div> </div> <p>My feelings on <em>Breath of the Wild</em> are complicated, to say the least. I’m sure many folks out there would recoil at it only just making my list; I’m sure it will appear at the top of most critical and personal lists, lists assembled by folks who are far better informed and well-equipped to talk about it than me. But here it is, at #10, even though it’s one of the games I pumped the most hours into within this decade (and threw the most curses at).</p> <p>I have a rocky history with <em>The Legend of Zelda</em>. Most of the games in the series that I’ve enjoyed and spent considerable time with — <em>Oracle of the Ages</em>, <em>Minish Cap</em>, and <em>Phantom Hourglass</em> — are either widely disliked or, at least, considered the lesser games in the series. I’ve tried a few times to play through some of the classics in the series, like <em>Majora’s Mask</em>, but something never quite clicked for me in them. Other series staples, like <em>Wind Waker</em> and <em>Twilight Princess</em>, were inaccessible to me because I never owned the appropriate console on which to play them.</p> <p>But <em>Breath of the Wild</em> was something different, both for the series and for me. To begin with, I had access to it: my boyfriend got a Switch not long after it released, and <em>Breath of the Wild</em> was the driving force behind that decision for him. I later would get a Switch of my own, and the ability to play <em>Breath of the Wild</em> as both a handheld experience and and a traditional console game seemed to help me stick with it.</p> <p><em>Breath of the Wild</em> was also an entirely new direction for the series. While past games have had open worlds and a focus on exploration and puzzles, <em>Breath of the Wild</em> did all that like no other. The simple act of traversing through the world works so, so well in <em>Breath of the Wild</em>, and the reason for that is that it never limits you in what you can do. You see a mountain, you can climb it — with the right gear, food, or stamina, of course — but <em>you can climb it</em>. The game never stands in your way when you are following your curiosity, and it rewards your wandering eye with breathtaking skylines, quirky characters, and new discoveries. Even after I had completed all the towers and unlocked fast travel points throughout the map, I would still choose to run great distances to an objective just to take in the splendor of the world, to enjoy the sparse yet powerful music, to meet other travelers along the road. This is why <em>Breath of the Wild</em> eked its way onto my list.</p> <p>But as much as I loved my interactions with with world of <em>Breath of the Wild</em>, I hated just about everything surrounding it. The story, while competent, did not deviate too far from the <em>Zelda</em> formula: fight some mini-bosses (the corrupted Divine Beasts) to prepare you to fight the big bad (Ganondorf). While that’s a simple story structure that <em>most</em> games can be reduced to, <em>Breath of the Wild</em> does not add anything particularly innovating or exciting on top of it. And while Zelda is more of a compelling character in <em>Breath of the Wild</em> than she has been in some previous titles, she is still relegated to a damsel in distress role and is totally absent outside of the occasional flashback. I think the setup for her character is refreshing and interesting — a young woman attempting to discover her power and be worthy of the throne — but it’s still ancillary to the bulk of the game despite her name being in the title.</p> <p><em>Breath of the Wild</em> also offers no incentive to participate in its combat; by a certain point in the game, I had plenty of resources and powerful weapons, so the random Bokoblins and Moblins were more of an annoyance than anything else because I would not gain any experience points from defeating them — and when you factor in the weapon durability system, I felt actively discouraged from engaging in combat at all because I only served to lose from it. On top of that, I often felt I was fighting against the controls; the systems design of <em>Breath of the Wild</em> simply felt too ambitious for the limited JoyCon, and while a Pro controller assuaged most of my control issues, it’s difficult to swallow that the game almost requires a $70 add-on.</p> <p>And then there are the shrines. My boyfriend, Joe, will insist that I hate puzzles and that’s why I did not enjoy the shrines in <em>Breath of the Wild</em>, and maybe that’s true. I don’t seem to derive the same fulfillment others do from sitting stuck at a puzzle for hours until you work it out; I’d much rather just look up the solution online and continue on my way. Many shrines I found had clear solutions, but they would be so tedious to actually perform that I simply handed the controller over to Joe and asked him to save me the frustration. While there are multiple possible solutions to many of these puzzles, I found the shrines overall to be so disconnected from the magic of the world above them — like entirely separate teams and design philosophies had inspired them compared to the parts of the game I actually liked.</p> <p>It probably doesn’t help that — for inexplicable reasons — the game’s developers placed <a href="https://zeldauniverse.net/guides/breath-of-the-wild/sidequests/shrines-of-trials/myahm-agana-shrine-myahm-agana-apparatus/">one of the most obtuse, irritating shrine puzzles</a> so close to the Great Plateau, almost guaranteeing that most players would discover it in their early hours with the game. I did, and it did not leave a good first impression.</p> <p>Even with all these frustrations, I know in my heart of hearts that <em>Breath of the Wild</em> is a phenomenal accomplishment — that it belongs on this list, that I secretly like it, because it does an open world unlike any game before it. Every so often, the game comes together in a beautiful harmony — I feel free, untethered, unrestricted, and in awe of the beautiful world before me, and then all my criticisms of the game slip away. And then I go down an elevator to a shrine and the din begins anew. I’m torn between that discordance, but it belongs here.</p> <hr> <h2 id="9-animal-crossing-new-leaf">#9. Animal Crossing: New Leaf</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/acnl.jpg" alt="Various characters from New Leaf"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2012</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">Nintendo 3DS</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Monolith Soft</span> </div> </div> <p>My love affair with the <em>Animal Crossing</em> series started back on the Nintendo DS with <em>Animal Crossing: Wild World</em>. I spent many a hours in middle school decorating my player’s room, designing custom patterns, and visiting my the towns of my siblings and friends. I broached the 3DS library late, but when I picked mine up in 2015, I knew that <em>New Leaf</em> would be a must buy.</p> <p>Now, I could talk about some of the more meaningful and enjoyable additions that <em>New Leaf</em> brought to the series, like Dream Towns, Public Works projects, and more options for character customization. I could croon on about Isabelle, who I inexplicably and wholeheartedly love. And I could enumerate all the hours I dumped into the Desert Island Escape mini-game hidden within <em>New Leaf</em>, but I would rather not realize my shame and addiction on a semi-permanent platform like my blog. (I have since learned that Desert Island Escape is playable in <em>Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival</em>, making me one of four people who purchased <em>Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival</em> for something other than the bundled amiibo.)</p> <p><em>Animal Crossing</em> simply works in that it is one of the coziest experiences in gaming. While other titles focus on leveling up your character, meeting impossible combat challenges, or working out team strategies in cooperative settings, the joys of <em>Animal Crossing</em> are often found in solitude. Even if I have only twenty minutes to spare, I can load up my town and tackle whichever of <em>New Leaf</em>‘s numerous offerings best strike my fancy that day: I can catch fish, hunt for fossils, or design my house. I can build relationships with my townspeople or explore the towns other players have constructed. And even while some parts of the game can feel a bit tedious, like filling out the museum or raising enough bells to pay off a mortgage, the game never forces the player to complete any of it: all of these activities happen at the player’s pace, and the game encourages a sense of leisure. There’s certainly room to go hardcore in <em>Animal Crossing</em>, by time-traveling or hacking one’s game, but what I love most about <em>Animal Crossing</em> is how it respects my time and how it seems naturally designed for self-care. <em>Animal Crossing</em> is welcoming and playful in its art, music, and characters. It’s a game for taking a mental health day (or hour, or afternoon, or week), wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, and escaping to a world that is softer than our own.</p> <hr> <h2 id="8-final-fantasy-xiv-a-realm-reborn">#8. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/ffxivarr.jpg" alt="Key art from FFXIV showing Alphinaud, Alisaie, and the Warrior of Light"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2013</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PlayStation 4, PC</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Square-Enix</span> </div> </div> <p>I have had a rocky few years with Square Enix. As a company, they have released some of the most important games and series to me — I count <em>Final Fantasy X</em>, <em>Final Fantasy XII</em>, and <em>Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced</em> among my all-time favorite games, and the <em>Kingdom Hearts</em> series was my entryway into gaming as a more serious hobby and gaming as a community. Square’s releases in the 2010-2019 span were not such easy allies; the company clearly struggled to meet both the new challenges of developing high definition games as well as match the innovations other developers had made. Quite simply, they no longer enjoyed their top dog status. They lost the trust and brand recognition that blockbusters like <em>Final Fantasy VII</em> and <em>Final Fantasy X</em> afforded them, and I was actively offended by <em>Final Fantasy XIII</em> series (!) and <em>Final Fantasy XV</em>.</p> <p>I started in with <em>Final Fantasy XIV</em> on a whim. I had never played an MMORPG before, unless you count spending the better part of a day downloading <em>The Old Republic</em> and promptly uninstalling it after just a few minutes of gameplay. But I liked the <em>Final Fantasy</em> series, and it was free to sign up for the alpha. So I thought, <em>why not</em>?</p> <p>I fell in love with <em>Final Fantasy XIV</em> quickly, even with the immense learning curve that any MMO would have. And I certainly had my ups and downs with the game; it is guilty of the infamously menial MMO quest design of fetch quests and killing squirrels to progress the story, of grinding out levels for hours just to access new content. Even so, I roped friends into playing with me, and part of my enjoyment of <em>Final Fantasy XIV</em> became the relationships and socialization that happened around it: I was able to maintain and reconnect friendships through <em>XIV</em>. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to keep up with Square’s active roadmap for the game or set aside enough time in my increasingly busy life to justify the subscription cost. I’ve yet to even finish the <em>Heavensward</em> expansion. But every time I come back to the game, I’m delighted by what I enjoyed the last time I played, and the new content only seems to get better and better.</p> <p><em>Final Fantasy XIV</em> represents hope, then, that a game company can take a critical eye to their releases, do right by their customers, and deliver something fantastic. The game’s original launch was a different sort of debacle than their other contemporary releases, and certainly larger in scale in that the game was pulled off shelves and rebuilt from the ground up. But the team behind <em>A Realm Reborn</em> were able to raise the game from the ashes, and many critics agree that <em>XIV</em>‘s most recent expansion, <em>Shadowbringers</em>, is its most ambitious and powerful yet. And while I’m in one of my valleys with the game right now, distracted by the responsibilities of grad school, the opening notes of some Gridania’s field music are enough to wrap me in comfort and inspire me to return yet again to Eorzea.</p> <hr> <h2 id="7-marvels-spider-man">#7. Marvel&rsquo;s Spider-Man</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/spiderman.jpg" alt="Spider-Man perched atop the Empire State Building"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2018</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PlayStation 4</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Insomniac</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Trophies Earned</span> <span class="value">100%</span> </div> </div> <p>I’m not a big superhero fan, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Spider-Man. The Sam Raimi films came out when I was young, and they were exactly the type of popcorn blockbuster that I wanted at that age. I also played a whole bunch of the <em>Spider-Man 2</em> video game on my original Xbox; it was one of the first open world games that I played, and I would spend hours swinging around New York City or, my favorite, climbing to the top of the Empire State Building and seeing how close to the ground I could get before I had to swing off to safety.</p> <p>So when Insomniac announced their new Spider-Man game for the PlayStation 4, I was excited to relive the joys of one of my favorite childhood games, in a more modern and varied open world. I made it a few weeks after <em>Spider-Man</em>‘s release before I cashed in some coupons and dove in. I played every night for a week, and it was the first (and only) game I ever platinumed on PlayStation.</p> <p><em>Spider-Man</em> is simply a joy to play. The web swinging and traversal is fluid, allowing the player to zip around the city with ease and style. As entertaining as the fast travel cutscenes were, I rarely used the system simply because I loved travelling through the city so much. The game also has one of the best golden hours around; much of the action of the game takes place against golden sun rays and soft shadows. It’s a beautiful, beautiful game, and I appreciate any game with a cosmetic system as deep as <em>Spider-Man</em>‘s. I loved earning all the suits and cycling through them, especially the comic book suit.</p> <p>The story in <em>Spider-Man</em> is better than it has any right to be for a superhero game. The twists and reveals are mostly predictable, but where the game shines is the relationships built between the characters. Peter and MJ have real chemistry, and the complications in their relationship are believable because MJ has an actual will in this version of the Spidey universe. She doesn’t want to stay away from the action and actively resists any damseling (and Peter’s attempts to protect her). Peter and Otto have a believeable mentorship, which makes his shift to Doc Ock more tragic. <em>Spider-Man</em> cares about establishing and developing its characters, and it helps ground the superhero action in a human, emotional context.</p> <p>By far my favorite portions of the game were the sections where Peter was allowed to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man: retrieving his homeless friend’s escaped pigeons, chasing down a garbage truck that took his trashed belongings after he was evicted, and collecting the backpacks he had scattered through the city offer a nice reprieve from the big action of the main story. Again, it helps to humanize the character and ground the story; there was a levity to <em>Spider-Man</em> that made it a joy to play.</p> <p><em>Spider-Man</em> was a triumph in how to make a <em>good</em> superhero game — one that isn’t bogged down by a cinematic universe, one that doesn’t repeat the stories we’ve seen a dozen times on screen and in comics. Insomniac put their own fresh, original spin on the characters and the universe, making it accessible for folks like me who don’t know the character well while still being a satisfying homage to the character for superfans.</p> <hr> <h2 id="6-horizon-zero-dawn">#6. Horizon Zero Dawn</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/hzd.jpg" alt="Aloy ziplining down from the top of a snowy mountain"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2017</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PlayStation 4</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Guerilla Games</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Time Played</span> <span class="value">75 hours</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Trophies Earned</span> <span class="value">100% (base game)</span> </div> </div> <p>When <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> was first shown at E3 2015, I was instantly interested: a new IP starring a badass, bow-wielding female character voiced by Ashly Burch? Sign me up. The setting looked unique, following our society’s fascination with post-apocalyptic societies but avoiding any cliches. <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em>‘s world is harsh for some, but there are thriving settlements and communities, diverse tribes with real identities, and, well, robot dinosaurs.</p> <p>The way that <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> contrasts its grounded tribal life with the high-tech machines makes for a visually splendid experience, often set against the backdrop of sweeping mountain ranges and decaying ruins. I found myself regularly pausing on mountaintops just to take in the beautiful, varied scenery of Aloy’s world, just as I did with <em>Breath of the Wild</em>. There’s a real sense that Aloy lives among the ruins of a world that once was, and the player discovers the story of that world’s downfall through some pretty incredible environmental storytelling.</p> <p><em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> also focuses on stories that we do not usually see outside of novels geared specifically toward young women. We have had a prolific history of games about fatherhood — <em>Final Fantasy X</em>, <em>Heavy Rain, God of War, The Last of Us</em>, <em>BioShock Infinite</em>, to name a few — and many of them craft compelling, meaningful narratives. And fatherhood is important in <em>Horizon</em>, certainly: Rost, Aloy’s father figure, is killed in the opening hours of the game, but his influence on Aloy looms large throughout Aloy’s internal narrative and the ways he taught her to survive in their harsh world. That is all well and good, but <em>Horizon</em> fills the comparative void that the industry has created for games about motherhood. <em>Horizon</em> therefore distinguishes itself in that it focuses not only on a woman’s story, but the story of a young woman discovering her connection to her mother through the game’s narrative and, on a broader scale, Mother Earth. It’s not a coincidence that the person responsible for destroying the world before the events of the game is a man and that the person who works to heal it is a woman — a woman who goes on to create a female-coded entity to care for the inhabitants that will follow long after her death. And without spoiling the ending or events of the game (you can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQIqoTHY2MU">click on this link</a> if you want to do that for yourself), <em>Horizon</em> has a powerful final message: for women to nurture their daughters to be curious, brave, and compassionate women who can nurture the world under that ethos.</p> <p>In terms of gameplay, <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> offers a varied experience; Aloy has many different bows, slings, traps, and other tools at her disposal, which the player can select according to their playstyle and the demands of the combat encounter ahead of them. I found myself favoring the Sharpshot Bow for stealthy, high-precision shots and its tear ammo, which will shoot pieces of armor off of enemies. Enemy encounters were always varied, as the terrain would often shape one’s approach, and enemies of different types were present together, adding a heightened challenge.</p> <p><em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em>‘s shortcomings are especially stark when you consider that it released just days before <em>Breath of the Wild</em>, and I think that led many to overlook it. <em>Breath of the Wild</em> very much follows the “if you can see it, you can climb it” philosophy, so long as the player has adequate stamina and it’s not raining. <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> instead uses an <em>Uncharted</em>-style traversal system. It’s functional, but it lacks the fluidity and freedom of <em>Breath of the Wild</em>, which is jarring when the games are played soon after one another. <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> also has a robust crafting and inventory system — in some ways, I prefer it to <em>Breath of the Wild</em>, as I can quickly craft some new arrows in <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em> as I need them, which gives me the freedom to use the weapons and tools I prefer in combat. But the gathering and inventory management in <em>Horizon</em> can feel clunky at times, as the player is always having to figure out which resources to keep and which to sell off.</p> <p>All around, though, I have really enjoyed my time with <em>Horizon Zero Dawn</em>. Its world is vast and visually delightful, its story is gripping, and even the side quests have a level of care and detail put into them that other open world games struggle to embed. More than anything, it tells a story that actively values and empowers women and mothers, which few if any games do or do as well. I’m excited to see Guerilla fine-tune some of the clunkier aspects of the game and evolve Aloy and her world.</p> <hr> <h2 id="5-firewatch">#5. Firewatch</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/firewatch.jpg" alt="An empty firewatch tower at sunset"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2016</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PC</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Campo Santo</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Time Played</span> <span class="value">3.5 hours</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Life Course</span> <span class="value">Permanently Changed &amp; Altered</span> </div> </div> <p>From <em>Firewatch</em>‘s art, it’s easy to get the wrong impression of the game. Its now iconic design features flat mountains against the glowing backdrop of the setting sun, rich trees to lose oneself in, and a lone firetower set on spindly legs for your quiet contemplation. It seems, then, to follow the Emersonian ideal of transcendentalism — of communing with nature to discover truth and beauty and the meaning of all things. It seems to be about living deliberately, separated from the constant phone calls and text messages and push notifications. But <em>Firewatch</em>‘s realities are far from these <em>Walden</em>-esque projections.</p> <p>Henry goes to the woods not to discover himself but to lose himself. <em>Firewatch</em> is a game about escapism — about running from what’s tough in life, using solitude as a hideout, constructing fantasies to keep you from hardship, and the people we wrap into our paranoia as we jump at the shadows, afraid to confront what actually looms within us. It’s a game about learning that reality eventually catches up with you. We can only live in the fictions we’ve built to protect ourselves for so long, and the more we try to cling to them, the further we’ll be driven to madness.</p> <p>Part of what makes <em>Firewatch</em> such an accomplishment is the way it is able to build human relationships through a walkie-talkie. The voice performance of the actors behind Henry and Delilah is terrific and helps create an intimacy between two people who have never met in person. And that, too, becomes part of <em>Firewatch</em>‘s power — it forces the player to question how well we know other people when we only see the sides of themselves they have constructed. We are rapt as we watch their romance evolve, and we root for it even though we know it is doomed.</p> <p><em>Firewatch</em>‘s anti-climax is perhaps <a href="https://quarterly.camposanto.com/the-end-of-firewatch-8a7d334a9586">one of the most divisive in gaming history</a>, and it brings those themes to a head. When you talk to anyone about the game, your conversation will probably — and circuitously — start with what you thought about the ending. Henry and Delilah’s relationship was always going to end this way, because it had to, but that doesn’t stop the player from desiring that catharsis — they’re simply looking for it in the wrong place. That density and room for debate is the mark of a great piece of story — we’re able to still talk about it and dissect it years after its release. <em>Firewatch</em> stakes out a place in your head and stays in there. It’s a work of art.</p> <hr> <hr> <h2 id="4-mass-effect-2">#4. Mass Effect 2</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/me2.jpg" alt="Liara and Female Shep kiss in the Shadow Broker&rsquo;s Lair"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2010</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PlayStation 3</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">BioWare</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Time Played</span> <span class="value">55.5 hours</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Trophies Earned</span> <span class="value">79%</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Life Course</span> <span class="value">made me gay</span> </div> </div> <p>I have been quoted as saying that <em>Mass Effect 2</em> is the “game of the century.”</p> <p>Such an assertion is impossible to make given that we’re only nineteen years <em>into</em> this century; it’s obviously a hyperbole. But with <em>Mass Effect 2</em> releasing in January of 2010, I hold that it established an ethos that would guide the games that came after it — and that ethos is character.</p> <p>The first <em>Mass Effect</em> game was a trailblazer in its own way, of course. The level of choice, consequence, and cinematic storytelling included within it was unprecedented at the time, and it received appropriate accolades. But while the story is an enjoyable space opera, it’s pretty by the books — you play as a noted military hero who assembles a team of soldiers and experts to fight an operative gone rogue. <em>Mass Effect</em> has its unique voice, and the story takes some exciting turns, but you’re still a hero who does heroic things (or, if you play Renegade, you’re a hero who does mostly heroic things with a sarcastic smirk and a willingness to line your own pockets in the process).</p> <p><em>Mass Effect 2</em> asserts that it is going to do something different within the first five minutes of starting the game — when the player character, Commander Shepard, is abruptly killed, then reincarnated two years later by rogue paramilitary group for what they make clear will be a Suicide Mission.</p> <p>From there, <em>Mass Effect 2</em> does not launch any big twists or surprises onto the player. You always know that things are headed for the Suicide Mission, and you have to prepare as best you can for it. While you had the backing of the intergalactic government, vast military resources, and a highly qualified crew in <em>Mass Effect</em>, <em>Mass Effect 2</em> sees you assemble a ragtag crew in a patchwork body; your crew consists of hackers, mad scientists, thieves, genetic experiments, and generally disturbed personalities. Even those characters who return from the first game are grizzled by time, with shifting moralities. Most of your assembled crew could give a damn about the fate of the galaxy or Cerberus’s interests, but <em>Mass Effect 2</em> lives and dies by these characters. As you sort through each of your squad member’s personal traumas and help them find the peace they need before they join you on your Suicide Mission, the game posits that the way to overcome impossible odds and save the universe is by loving and caring for the people around you — of building bonds that mean they will follow you to death’s door (and, hopefully, back).</p> <hr> <h2 id="3-life-is-strange">#3. Life is Strange</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/lis.jpg" alt="Max and Chloe lay on a bed together in their underwear"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2015</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PlayStation 4</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Dontnod Entertainment</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Trophies Earned</span> <span class="value">60%</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Life Course</span> <span class="value">made me gayer</span> </div> </div> <p>When Dontnod released the first episode of <em>Life is Strange</em>, <a href="https://cassie.ink/life-is-strange-episode-1-chrysalis/">I shared effusive praise about it</a>. It was one of the few games that I felt represented me — that spoke to my experiences as a teenage girl, that did them justice, that felt authentic. I still feel that way. <em>Life is Strange</em> continued its exploration of difficult topics in its later episodes — suicide, drug use, sexual abuse, cyberbullying — but it was never exploitative, nor did it ever feel like an afterschool special. It conveyed these harsh realities with grace and mindfulness — realities that most games are either too afraid to include or woefully mishandle. And in that way, it did justice to the stories of many.</p> <p>After I finished the fifth and final episode of <em>Life is Strange</em>, Polarized, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth: I didn’t feel that Dontnod delivered on its ambitious storytelling or tied up loose strings in its ending. I still haven’t quite made my peace with the game’s final choice, though learning about the time and resource crunch behind it softened it a little. But when I think about the game as a whole, I think about the good. I think about the incredibly deep and real and complicated and human characters that inhabit Arcadia Bay. I think about the way Dontnod masterfully uses licensed music to establish those characters and add an emotional weight to scenes. I think about the tension and twists in the narrative. And I think about how few games have been able to tell a story of this magnitude — a story that, by its nature, wraps the player in and doesn’t let go even after the credits roll.</p> <p>And I think about how <em>Life is Strange</em> is unlike any other game. Sure, there are comparisons one can make across genre or mechanics, but what other game places a group so often excluded from and terrorized within gaming — teenage girls — at its center? What other game speaks to the ways that men victimize young women? What other game gives voice and power and agency to these young women, refusing to sideline or damsel them?</p> <p>As much as it is easy to goof on <em>Life is Strange</em> for its, at times, cringe-inducing lines or its rampant <em>Twin Peaks</em> references, it has a clear mission to represent the social and emotional realities of young people. And it manages to mix its ambitions for social commentary with a deeply affecting, resonant story; it never becomes too didactic or wrapped up in making a message — it’s always grounded in the characters and the story. I think about Max and Chloe and Kate and Rachel and Nathan and Victoria on a regular basis, and I was in anguish as I watched tragedy unfold around them. It’s a rollercoaster I loved riding.</p> <hr> <h2 id="2-the-last-of-us">#2. The Last of Us</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/tlou.jpg" alt="Ellie"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2013</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PlayStation 4</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">Naughty Dog</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Trophies Earned</span> <span class="value">3%</span> </div> </div> <p>When I started exploring video games as literature, the first game I thought of was <em>The Last of Us</em>. There are some phenomenal, emotional, impactful stories to be found within games — and I’ve included many of them on my list, lauded them for just that. But <em>The Last of Us</em> is in a class all its own.</p> <p>Nothing about <em>The Last of Us</em> would make one expect anything revolutionary. It’s a zombie game. It’s a big escort mission. The story, on paper, doesn’t seem like anything extraordinary or new for the genre. You’re Joel, a survivor twenty years into the zombie apocalypse who has lost his daughter and been tasked with escorting a 14-year-old girl across the country so that she can be studied for her immunity to the zombie virus.</p> <p>Where <em>The Last of Us</em> distinguishes itself is in the extraordinary execution of that story. Joel and Ellie are made to be real by the complex motivations and ambitions and stories behind them. In the opening moments of the game, when the zombie virus first emerges, Joel loses his daughter Sarah <em>The Last of Us</em> is about finding small glimpses of humanity in a bleak, punishing world. There is no easy mortality to <em>The Last of Us</em>, no clear villain or hero — there’s a darkness behind every character, a guilt that they have for continuing to exist in a world filled with senseless loss. As much as I hate Joel for his actions throughout the journey, I understand them. I understand that he clings to his concept of surviving at any cost because it’s all he has left. I understand the ways that he has been broken and twisted by loss, the way that Ellie represents his final remaining connection to his humanity. In the final moments of the game, when Ellie at last sees Joel for what he is, we understand that the world could do the same to her.</p> <p><em>The Last of Us</em> is a game about love because somehow, after all the traumatic blows that Joel, Ellie, and the player share, we still want to believe that love and humanity can endure. We want to prevail and do justice to the memory of the people we have lost along the way. We want to believe that our connections to the people we love can stop us from being swallowed by the harshness of the world. We want to look for the light — and the shreds of it that are found in <em>The Last of Us</em> are made profound by their rarity.</p> <hr> <h2 id="1-stardew-valley">#1. Stardew Valley</h2> <p><img src="https://cdn.cassie.ink/images/2019/tlou.jpg" alt="Ellie"></p> <div class="boxes"> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Released</span> <span class="value">2016</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Platform</span> <span class="value">PC, Nintendo Switch</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Developer</span> <span class="value">ConcernedApe</span> </div> <div class="box"> <span class="label">Time Played</span> <span class="value">160 hours</span> </div> </div> <p>Depression has been my quiet struggle for many years. When I picked up <em>Stardew Valley</em>, I had just started on a new medication that left me an emotional mess: up and down, crying all morning, needy for Joe to come around and pick me up. I wasn’t in school, and my next steps in life were totally uncertain. It was a dark time for me, and <em>Stardew</em> was my light. The game was a good distraction; I could sink hours and hours into it at at time and never feel bored. And it made me feel like I was <em>accomplishing</em> something, working on making things better, even if that “better” was happening in the context of the game — like upgrading my sprinklers so I wouldn’t have to do as much watering or getting the town bus line reopened so that Pam would have her job back. <em>Stardew</em> gave me comfort; it became my game for self-care. And even when things aren’t so dire as my first months with the game, <em>Stardew Valley</em> is still like an old friend I can come back to whenever I need some solace or just to kill a little time.</p> <p>It’s difficult to pitch <em>Stardew Valley</em> to people. There’s an immensely personal bond I have to it, but on the surface, it doesn’t sound too interesting: it’s a farming simulator like <em>Harvest Moon</em>, kind of, with shades of <em>Terraria</em> and <em>Animal Crossing</em>. But it’s more than that, too. And I think part of it has to be played and experienced to be understood.</p> <p>To speak more broadly, though, I think the message <em>Stardew Valley</em> carries is something we all need to help get us through the state of the world in 2019. <em>Stardew Valley</em> is about community — about forming relationships with the people around us, about rekindling our connection to the earth and to family and to ourselves. <em>Stardew Valley</em> posits this message early on, through Grandpa’s Letter, which suggests that the “dire change” the player needs can be accomplished by rediscovering what really matters in life: “real connections with other people and nature.” That ethos becomes the reason for the gameplay loop: rebuilding the town’s community center and pushing out the capitalistic forces that seek to place us in endless, soul-crushing competition with one another. <em>Stardew Valley</em> carries an overwhelming hope that happiness is within reach if we work for it — that we can regain and rebuild our connections to the world through good, honest work, through communion with the land, through taking care of each other, through forming a sense of community in our increasingly separate, disconnected time. Sometimes I need reminders of that hope, and <em>Stardew Valley</em> makes it all seem achievable — even if we know it won’t be as easy as picking some leeks in the forest or growing some gold star quality parsnips. It’s within reach, if we’re willing to work for it.</p> + Women in a Sea of Men: The Representation of Women in The Curse of the Black Pearl http://localhost:1313/women-in-a-sea-of-men-the-representation-of-women-in-the-curse-of-the-black-pearl/ diff --git a/public/media-log-august-2023/index.html b/public/media-log-august-2023/index.html index 7ed13c2..2b559c9 100644 --- a/public/media-log-august-2023/index.html +++ b/public/media-log-august-2023/index.html @@ -4,7 +4,9 @@ - + @@ -61,17 +63,11 @@

    Movies

    - +

    Barbie - I was underwhelmed. There’s been lots of chatter, and I loved Lady Bird, but Barbie didn’t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to Barbie as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.

    Games

    - +

    Vampire Survivors - I originally played Vampire Survivors for my video game podcast, Pitch & Play (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don’t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded Vampire Survivors onto my phone and went deep into it. It’s a fantastic game that I’ll come to associate with my early days in the house.

    Books

    - +

    Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try Walk Two Moons out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I’ve read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I’m an adult reading a book written for children and because I’ve read it before. I’m not sure it’s the book I’m looking for, but it’s not a bad read.

    diff --git a/public/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html b/public/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71feaae --- /dev/null +++ b/public/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,435 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s | cassie.ink + + + + + + + + + + + +
    +

    + + cassie + + ink + +

    + + + + +
    +
    + +
    + + + +

    My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s

    + +
    + my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s +
    + + +
    + + +

    Another decade in the book, another opportunity to represent my life in lists and data.

    +

    Looking retrospectively, this past decade defined my interest in games. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a young child — I remember holing up in my mom’s basement, replaying the same minigames over and over in Gus Goes to Cyberopolis. My dad bought me a Gameboy Color for my fifth birthday, and I dedicated at least a decade of my life (regrettably) to the Kingdom Hearts series. But in 2010, I started my first job, and so I finally had some disposable income to spend on my hobbies; I didn’t have to beg for games as birthday or Christmas or whenever presents. And so I played a lot more games in these past ten years. I started to follow industry news beyond new releases. I became more thoughtful about and critical of the industry. And I shifted my hobby into professional inquiry: in 2018, I co-wrote a book chapter about how video games could be used in educational settings, and in 2019, I piloted a camp that empowered kids to create their own video games.

    +

    The games industry has shifted a lot in this decade, too. We’ve seen a renaissance of games that put character and narrative at their center, which has long been what I wanted to see out of the medium. Game designers continue to heighten the artistic potential of games, both in photo-realism and artistic expression. Put shortly, video games this decade have been really, really good.

    +

    Now, to offer a caveat to this list: I obviously didn’t play every game that came out in this decade. I didn’t even play most games this decade. I missed major, beloved titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, the Uncharted series, or any of the Call of Duty games. Some of this comes down to personal taste, others to time (and monetary) restrictions. This list therefore will be limited to games that I actually played this decade, rather than some kind of pseudo-objective ranking of every game that released in this time frame — and I reserve the right to amend this list when I finally get around to playing Control.

    +

    Editorially, I have also decided to omit remasters or re-releases from my consideration unless they dramatically transformed the content of the original game. I have also listed the platform(s) on which I played the games listed, as that may have affected my experience with them.

    +
    +

    #10. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

    +

    Zelda alone in a pool of water

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2017 +
    +
    + Platform + Nintendo Switch +
    +
    + Developer + Nintendo +
    +
    + Time Played + 105 hours +
    + +
    +

    My feelings on Breath of the Wild are complicated, to say the least. I’m sure many folks out there would recoil at it only just making my list; I’m sure it will appear at the top of most critical and personal lists, lists assembled by folks who are far better informed and well-equipped to talk about it than me. But here it is, at #10, even though it’s one of the games I pumped the most hours into within this decade (and threw the most curses at).

    +

    I have a rocky history with The Legend of Zelda. Most of the games in the series that I’ve enjoyed and spent considerable time with — Oracle of the Ages, Minish Cap, and Phantom Hourglass — are either widely disliked or, at least, considered the lesser games in the series. I’ve tried a few times to play through some of the classics in the series, like Majora’s Mask, but something never quite clicked for me in them. Other series staples, like Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, were inaccessible to me because I never owned the appropriate console on which to play them.

    +

    But Breath of the Wild was something different, both for the series and for me. To begin with, I had access to it: my boyfriend got a Switch not long after it released, and Breath of the Wild was the driving force behind that decision for him. I later would get a Switch of my own, and the ability to play Breath of the Wild as both a handheld experience and and a traditional console game seemed to help me stick with it.

    +

    Breath of the Wild was also an entirely new direction for the series. While past games have had open worlds and a focus on exploration and puzzles, Breath of the Wild did all that like no other. The simple act of traversing through the world works so, so well in Breath of the Wild, and the reason for that is that it never limits you in what you can do. You see a mountain, you can climb it — with the right gear, food, or stamina, of course — but you can climb it. The game never stands in your way when you are following your curiosity, and it rewards your wandering eye with breathtaking skylines, quirky characters, and new discoveries. Even after I had completed all the towers and unlocked fast travel points throughout the map, I would still choose to run great distances to an objective just to take in the splendor of the world, to enjoy the sparse yet powerful music, to meet other travelers along the road. This is why Breath of the Wild eked its way onto my list.

    +

    But as much as I loved my interactions with with world of Breath of the Wild, I hated just about everything surrounding it. The story, while competent, did not deviate too far from the Zelda formula: fight some mini-bosses (the corrupted Divine Beasts) to prepare you to fight the big bad (Ganondorf). While that’s a simple story structure that most games can be reduced to, Breath of the Wild does not add anything particularly innovating or exciting on top of it. And while Zelda is more of a compelling character in Breath of the Wild than she has been in some previous titles, she is still relegated to a damsel in distress role and is totally absent outside of the occasional flashback. I think the setup for her character is refreshing and interesting — a young woman attempting to discover her power and be worthy of the throne — but it’s still ancillary to the bulk of the game despite her name being in the title.

    +

    Breath of the Wild also offers no incentive to participate in its combat; by a certain point in the game, I had plenty of resources and powerful weapons, so the random Bokoblins and Moblins were more of an annoyance than anything else because I would not gain any experience points from defeating them — and when you factor in the weapon durability system, I felt actively discouraged from engaging in combat at all because I only served to lose from it. On top of that, I often felt I was fighting against the controls; the systems design of Breath of the Wild simply felt too ambitious for the limited JoyCon, and while a Pro controller assuaged most of my control issues, it’s difficult to swallow that the game almost requires a $70 add-on.

    +

    And then there are the shrines. My boyfriend, Joe, will insist that I hate puzzles and that’s why I did not enjoy the shrines in Breath of the Wild, and maybe that’s true. I don’t seem to derive the same fulfillment others do from sitting stuck at a puzzle for hours until you work it out; I’d much rather just look up the solution online and continue on my way. Many shrines I found had clear solutions, but they would be so tedious to actually perform that I simply handed the controller over to Joe and asked him to save me the frustration. While there are multiple possible solutions to many of these puzzles, I found the shrines overall to be so disconnected from the magic of the world above them — like entirely separate teams and design philosophies had inspired them compared to the parts of the game I actually liked.

    +

    It probably doesn’t help that — for inexplicable reasons — the game’s developers placed one of the most obtuse, irritating shrine puzzles so close to the Great Plateau, almost guaranteeing that most players would discover it in their early hours with the game. I did, and it did not leave a good first impression.

    +

    Even with all these frustrations, I know in my heart of hearts that Breath of the Wild is a phenomenal accomplishment — that it belongs on this list, that I secretly like it, because it does an open world unlike any game before it. Every so often, the game comes together in a beautiful harmony — I feel free, untethered, unrestricted, and in awe of the beautiful world before me, and then all my criticisms of the game slip away. And then I go down an elevator to a shrine and the din begins anew. I’m torn between that discordance, but it belongs here.

    +
    +

    #9. Animal Crossing: New Leaf

    +

    Various characters from New Leaf

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2012 +
    +
    + Platform + Nintendo 3DS +
    +
    + Developer + Monolith Soft +
    + +
    +

    My love affair with the Animal Crossing series started back on the Nintendo DS with Animal Crossing: Wild World. I spent many a hours in middle school decorating my player’s room, designing custom patterns, and visiting my the towns of my siblings and friends. I broached the 3DS library late, but when I picked mine up in 2015, I knew that New Leaf would be a must buy.

    +

    Now, I could talk about some of the more meaningful and enjoyable additions that New Leaf brought to the series, like Dream Towns, Public Works projects, and more options for character customization. I could croon on about Isabelle, who I inexplicably and wholeheartedly love. And I could enumerate all the hours I dumped into the Desert Island Escape mini-game hidden within New Leaf, but I would rather not realize my shame and addiction on a semi-permanent platform like my blog. (I have since learned that Desert Island Escape is playable in Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival, making me one of four people who purchased Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival for something other than the bundled amiibo.)

    +

    Animal Crossing simply works in that it is one of the coziest experiences in gaming. While other titles focus on leveling up your character, meeting impossible combat challenges, or working out team strategies in cooperative settings, the joys of Animal Crossing are often found in solitude. Even if I have only twenty minutes to spare, I can load up my town and tackle whichever of New Leaf‘s numerous offerings best strike my fancy that day: I can catch fish, hunt for fossils, or design my house. I can build relationships with my townspeople or explore the towns other players have constructed. And even while some parts of the game can feel a bit tedious, like filling out the museum or raising enough bells to pay off a mortgage, the game never forces the player to complete any of it: all of these activities happen at the player’s pace, and the game encourages a sense of leisure. There’s certainly room to go hardcore in Animal Crossing, by time-traveling or hacking one’s game, but what I love most about Animal Crossing is how it respects my time and how it seems naturally designed for self-care. Animal Crossing is welcoming and playful in its art, music, and characters. It’s a game for taking a mental health day (or hour, or afternoon, or week), wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, and escaping to a world that is softer than our own.

    +
    +

    #8. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

    +

    Key art from FFXIV showing Alphinaud, Alisaie, and the Warrior of Light

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2013 +
    +
    + Platform + PlayStation 4, PC +
    +
    + Developer + Square-Enix +
    + +
    +

    I have had a rocky few years with Square Enix. As a company, they have released some of the most important games and series to me — I count Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced among my all-time favorite games, and the Kingdom Hearts series was my entryway into gaming as a more serious hobby and gaming as a community. Square’s releases in the 2010-2019 span were not such easy allies; the company clearly struggled to meet both the new challenges of developing high definition games as well as match the innovations other developers had made. Quite simply, they no longer enjoyed their top dog status. They lost the trust and brand recognition that blockbusters like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X afforded them, and I was actively offended by Final Fantasy XIII series (!) and Final Fantasy XV.

    +

    I started in with Final Fantasy XIV on a whim. I had never played an MMORPG before, unless you count spending the better part of a day downloading The Old Republic and promptly uninstalling it after just a few minutes of gameplay. But I liked the Final Fantasy series, and it was free to sign up for the alpha. So I thought, why not?

    +

    I fell in love with Final Fantasy XIV quickly, even with the immense learning curve that any MMO would have. And I certainly had my ups and downs with the game; it is guilty of the infamously menial MMO quest design of fetch quests and killing squirrels to progress the story, of grinding out levels for hours just to access new content. Even so, I roped friends into playing with me, and part of my enjoyment of Final Fantasy XIV became the relationships and socialization that happened around it: I was able to maintain and reconnect friendships through XIV. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to keep up with Square’s active roadmap for the game or set aside enough time in my increasingly busy life to justify the subscription cost. I’ve yet to even finish the Heavensward expansion. But every time I come back to the game, I’m delighted by what I enjoyed the last time I played, and the new content only seems to get better and better.

    +

    Final Fantasy XIV represents hope, then, that a game company can take a critical eye to their releases, do right by their customers, and deliver something fantastic. The game’s original launch was a different sort of debacle than their other contemporary releases, and certainly larger in scale in that the game was pulled off shelves and rebuilt from the ground up. But the team behind A Realm Reborn were able to raise the game from the ashes, and many critics agree that XIV‘s most recent expansion, Shadowbringers, is its most ambitious and powerful yet. And while I’m in one of my valleys with the game right now, distracted by the responsibilities of grad school, the opening notes of some Gridania’s field music are enough to wrap me in comfort and inspire me to return yet again to Eorzea.

    +
    +

    #7. Marvel’s Spider-Man

    +

    Spider-Man perched atop the Empire State Building

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2018 +
    +
    + Platform + PlayStation 4 +
    +
    + Developer + Insomniac +
    +
    + Trophies Earned + 100% +
    + +
    +

    I’m not a big superhero fan, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Spider-Man. The Sam Raimi films came out when I was young, and they were exactly the type of popcorn blockbuster that I wanted at that age. I also played a whole bunch of the Spider-Man 2 video game on my original Xbox; it was one of the first open world games that I played, and I would spend hours swinging around New York City or, my favorite, climbing to the top of the Empire State Building and seeing how close to the ground I could get before I had to swing off to safety.

    +

    So when Insomniac announced their new Spider-Man game for the PlayStation 4, I was excited to relive the joys of one of my favorite childhood games, in a more modern and varied open world. I made it a few weeks after Spider-Man‘s release before I cashed in some coupons and dove in. I played every night for a week, and it was the first (and only) game I ever platinumed on PlayStation.

    +

    Spider-Man is simply a joy to play. The web swinging and traversal is fluid, allowing the player to zip around the city with ease and style. As entertaining as the fast travel cutscenes were, I rarely used the system simply because I loved travelling through the city so much. The game also has one of the best golden hours around; much of the action of the game takes place against golden sun rays and soft shadows. It’s a beautiful, beautiful game, and I appreciate any game with a cosmetic system as deep as Spider-Man‘s. I loved earning all the suits and cycling through them, especially the comic book suit.

    +

    The story in Spider-Man is better than it has any right to be for a superhero game. The twists and reveals are mostly predictable, but where the game shines is the relationships built between the characters. Peter and MJ have real chemistry, and the complications in their relationship are believable because MJ has an actual will in this version of the Spidey universe. She doesn’t want to stay away from the action and actively resists any damseling (and Peter’s attempts to protect her). Peter and Otto have a believeable mentorship, which makes his shift to Doc Ock more tragic. Spider-Man cares about establishing and developing its characters, and it helps ground the superhero action in a human, emotional context.

    +

    By far my favorite portions of the game were the sections where Peter was allowed to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man: retrieving his homeless friend’s escaped pigeons, chasing down a garbage truck that took his trashed belongings after he was evicted, and collecting the backpacks he had scattered through the city offer a nice reprieve from the big action of the main story. Again, it helps to humanize the character and ground the story; there was a levity to Spider-Man that made it a joy to play.

    +

    Spider-Man was a triumph in how to make a good superhero game — one that isn’t bogged down by a cinematic universe, one that doesn’t repeat the stories we’ve seen a dozen times on screen and in comics. Insomniac put their own fresh, original spin on the characters and the universe, making it accessible for folks like me who don’t know the character well while still being a satisfying homage to the character for superfans.

    +
    +

    #6. Horizon Zero Dawn

    +

    Aloy ziplining down from the top of a snowy mountain

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2017 +
    +
    + Platform + PlayStation 4 +
    +
    + Developer + Guerilla Games +
    +
    + Time Played + 75 hours +
    +
    + Trophies Earned + 100% (base game) +
    + +
    +

    When Horizon Zero Dawn was first shown at E3 2015, I was instantly interested: a new IP starring a badass, bow-wielding female character voiced by Ashly Burch? Sign me up. The setting looked unique, following our society’s fascination with post-apocalyptic societies but avoiding any cliches. Horizon Zero Dawn‘s world is harsh for some, but there are thriving settlements and communities, diverse tribes with real identities, and, well, robot dinosaurs.

    +

    The way that Horizon Zero Dawn contrasts its grounded tribal life with the high-tech machines makes for a visually splendid experience, often set against the backdrop of sweeping mountain ranges and decaying ruins. I found myself regularly pausing on mountaintops just to take in the beautiful, varied scenery of Aloy’s world, just as I did with Breath of the Wild. There’s a real sense that Aloy lives among the ruins of a world that once was, and the player discovers the story of that world’s downfall through some pretty incredible environmental storytelling.

    +

    Horizon Zero Dawn also focuses on stories that we do not usually see outside of novels geared specifically toward young women. We have had a prolific history of games about fatherhood — Final Fantasy X, Heavy Rain, God of War, The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, to name a few — and many of them craft compelling, meaningful narratives. And fatherhood is important in Horizon, certainly: Rost, Aloy’s father figure, is killed in the opening hours of the game, but his influence on Aloy looms large throughout Aloy’s internal narrative and the ways he taught her to survive in their harsh world. That is all well and good, but Horizon fills the comparative void that the industry has created for games about motherhood. Horizon therefore distinguishes itself in that it focuses not only on a woman’s story, but the story of a young woman discovering her connection to her mother through the game’s narrative and, on a broader scale, Mother Earth. It’s not a coincidence that the person responsible for destroying the world before the events of the game is a man and that the person who works to heal it is a woman — a woman who goes on to create a female-coded entity to care for the inhabitants that will follow long after her death. And without spoiling the ending or events of the game (you can click on this link if you want to do that for yourself), Horizon has a powerful final message: for women to nurture their daughters to be curious, brave, and compassionate women who can nurture the world under that ethos.

    +

    In terms of gameplay, Horizon Zero Dawn offers a varied experience; Aloy has many different bows, slings, traps, and other tools at her disposal, which the player can select according to their playstyle and the demands of the combat encounter ahead of them. I found myself favoring the Sharpshot Bow for stealthy, high-precision shots and its tear ammo, which will shoot pieces of armor off of enemies. Enemy encounters were always varied, as the terrain would often shape one’s approach, and enemies of different types were present together, adding a heightened challenge.

    +

    Horizon Zero Dawn‘s shortcomings are especially stark when you consider that it released just days before Breath of the Wild, and I think that led many to overlook it. Breath of the Wild very much follows the “if you can see it, you can climb it” philosophy, so long as the player has adequate stamina and it’s not raining. Horizon Zero Dawn instead uses an Uncharted-style traversal system. It’s functional, but it lacks the fluidity and freedom of Breath of the Wild, which is jarring when the games are played soon after one another. Horizon Zero Dawn also has a robust crafting and inventory system — in some ways, I prefer it to Breath of the Wild, as I can quickly craft some new arrows in Horizon Zero Dawn as I need them, which gives me the freedom to use the weapons and tools I prefer in combat. But the gathering and inventory management in Horizon can feel clunky at times, as the player is always having to figure out which resources to keep and which to sell off.

    +

    All around, though, I have really enjoyed my time with Horizon Zero Dawn. Its world is vast and visually delightful, its story is gripping, and even the side quests have a level of care and detail put into them that other open world games struggle to embed. More than anything, it tells a story that actively values and empowers women and mothers, which few if any games do or do as well. I’m excited to see Guerilla fine-tune some of the clunkier aspects of the game and evolve Aloy and her world.

    +
    +

    #5. Firewatch

    +

    An empty firewatch tower at sunset

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2016 +
    +
    + Platform + PC +
    +
    + Developer + Campo Santo +
    +
    + Time Played + 3.5 hours +
    +
    + Life Course + Permanently Changed & Altered +
    + +
    +

    From Firewatch‘s art, it’s easy to get the wrong impression of the game. Its now iconic design features flat mountains against the glowing backdrop of the setting sun, rich trees to lose oneself in, and a lone firetower set on spindly legs for your quiet contemplation. It seems, then, to follow the Emersonian ideal of transcendentalism — of communing with nature to discover truth and beauty and the meaning of all things. It seems to be about living deliberately, separated from the constant phone calls and text messages and push notifications. But Firewatch‘s realities are far from these Walden-esque projections.

    +

    Henry goes to the woods not to discover himself but to lose himself. Firewatch is a game about escapism — about running from what’s tough in life, using solitude as a hideout, constructing fantasies to keep you from hardship, and the people we wrap into our paranoia as we jump at the shadows, afraid to confront what actually looms within us. It’s a game about learning that reality eventually catches up with you. We can only live in the fictions we’ve built to protect ourselves for so long, and the more we try to cling to them, the further we’ll be driven to madness.

    +

    Part of what makes Firewatch such an accomplishment is the way it is able to build human relationships through a walkie-talkie. The voice performance of the actors behind Henry and Delilah is terrific and helps create an intimacy between two people who have never met in person. And that, too, becomes part of Firewatch‘s power — it forces the player to question how well we know other people when we only see the sides of themselves they have constructed. We are rapt as we watch their romance evolve, and we root for it even though we know it is doomed.

    +

    Firewatch‘s anti-climax is perhaps one of the most divisive in gaming history, and it brings those themes to a head. When you talk to anyone about the game, your conversation will probably — and circuitously — start with what you thought about the ending. Henry and Delilah’s relationship was always going to end this way, because it had to, but that doesn’t stop the player from desiring that catharsis — they’re simply looking for it in the wrong place. That density and room for debate is the mark of a great piece of story — we’re able to still talk about it and dissect it years after its release. Firewatch stakes out a place in your head and stays in there. It’s a work of art.

    +
    +

    #4. Mass Effect 2

    +

    Liara and Female Shep kiss in the Shadow Broker’s Lair

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2010 +
    +
    + Platform + PlayStation 3 +
    +
    + Developer + BioWare +
    +
    + Time Played + 55.5 hours +
    +
    + Trophies Earned + 79% +
    +
    + Life Course + made me gay +
    + +
    +

    I have been quoted as saying that Mass Effect 2 is the “game of the century.”

    +

    Such an assertion is impossible to make given that we’re only nineteen years into this century; it’s obviously a hyperbole. But with Mass Effect 2 releasing in January of 2010, I hold that it established an ethos that would guide the games that came after it — and that ethos is character.

    +

    The first Mass Effect game was a trailblazer in its own way, of course. The level of choice, consequence, and cinematic storytelling included within it was unprecedented at the time, and it received appropriate accolades. But while the story is an enjoyable space opera, it’s pretty by the books — you play as a noted military hero who assembles a team of soldiers and experts to fight an operative gone rogue. Mass Effect has its unique voice, and the story takes some exciting turns, but you’re still a hero who does heroic things (or, if you play Renegade, you’re a hero who does mostly heroic things with a sarcastic smirk and a willingness to line your own pockets in the process).

    +

    Mass Effect 2 asserts that it is going to do something different within the first five minutes of starting the game — when the player character, Commander Shepard, is abruptly killed, then reincarnated two years later by rogue paramilitary group for what they make clear will be a Suicide Mission.

    +

    From there, Mass Effect 2 does not launch any big twists or surprises onto the player. You always know that things are headed for the Suicide Mission, and you have to prepare as best you can for it. While you had the backing of the intergalactic government, vast military resources, and a highly qualified crew in Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 sees you assemble a ragtag crew in a patchwork body; your crew consists of hackers, mad scientists, thieves, genetic experiments, and generally disturbed personalities. Even those characters who return from the first game are grizzled by time, with shifting moralities. Most of your assembled crew could give a damn about the fate of the galaxy or Cerberus’s interests, but Mass Effect 2 lives and dies by these characters. As you sort through each of your squad member’s personal traumas and help them find the peace they need before they join you on your Suicide Mission, the game posits that the way to overcome impossible odds and save the universe is by loving and caring for the people around you — of building bonds that mean they will follow you to death’s door (and, hopefully, back).

    +
    +

    #3. Life is Strange

    +

    Max and Chloe lay on a bed together in their underwear

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2015 +
    +
    + Platform + PlayStation 4 +
    +
    + Developer + Dontnod Entertainment +
    +
    + Trophies Earned + 60% +
    +
    + Life Course + made me gayer +
    + +
    +

    When Dontnod released the first episode of Life is Strange, I shared effusive praise about it. It was one of the few games that I felt represented me — that spoke to my experiences as a teenage girl, that did them justice, that felt authentic. I still feel that way. Life is Strange continued its exploration of difficult topics in its later episodes — suicide, drug use, sexual abuse, cyberbullying — but it was never exploitative, nor did it ever feel like an afterschool special. It conveyed these harsh realities with grace and mindfulness — realities that most games are either too afraid to include or woefully mishandle. And in that way, it did justice to the stories of many.

    +

    After I finished the fifth and final episode of Life is Strange, Polarized, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth: I didn’t feel that Dontnod delivered on its ambitious storytelling or tied up loose strings in its ending. I still haven’t quite made my peace with the game’s final choice, though learning about the time and resource crunch behind it softened it a little. But when I think about the game as a whole, I think about the good. I think about the incredibly deep and real and complicated and human characters that inhabit Arcadia Bay. I think about the way Dontnod masterfully uses licensed music to establish those characters and add an emotional weight to scenes. I think about the tension and twists in the narrative. And I think about how few games have been able to tell a story of this magnitude — a story that, by its nature, wraps the player in and doesn’t let go even after the credits roll.

    +

    And I think about how Life is Strange is unlike any other game. Sure, there are comparisons one can make across genre or mechanics, but what other game places a group so often excluded from and terrorized within gaming — teenage girls — at its center? What other game speaks to the ways that men victimize young women? What other game gives voice and power and agency to these young women, refusing to sideline or damsel them?

    +

    As much as it is easy to goof on Life is Strange for its, at times, cringe-inducing lines or its rampant Twin Peaks references, it has a clear mission to represent the social and emotional realities of young people. And it manages to mix its ambitions for social commentary with a deeply affecting, resonant story; it never becomes too didactic or wrapped up in making a message — it’s always grounded in the characters and the story. I think about Max and Chloe and Kate and Rachel and Nathan and Victoria on a regular basis, and I was in anguish as I watched tragedy unfold around them. It’s a rollercoaster I loved riding.

    +
    +

    #2. The Last of Us

    +

    Ellie

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2013 +
    +
    + Platform + PlayStation 4 +
    +
    + Developer + Naughty Dog +
    +
    + Trophies Earned + 3% +
    + +
    +

    When I started exploring video games as literature, the first game I thought of was The Last of Us. There are some phenomenal, emotional, impactful stories to be found within games — and I’ve included many of them on my list, lauded them for just that. But The Last of Us is in a class all its own.

    +

    Nothing about The Last of Us would make one expect anything revolutionary. It’s a zombie game. It’s a big escort mission. The story, on paper, doesn’t seem like anything extraordinary or new for the genre. You’re Joel, a survivor twenty years into the zombie apocalypse who has lost his daughter and been tasked with escorting a 14-year-old girl across the country so that she can be studied for her immunity to the zombie virus.

    +

    Where The Last of Us distinguishes itself is in the extraordinary execution of that story. Joel and Ellie are made to be real by the complex motivations and ambitions and stories behind them. In the opening moments of the game, when the zombie virus first emerges, Joel loses his daughter Sarah The Last of Us is about finding small glimpses of humanity in a bleak, punishing world. There is no easy mortality to The Last of Us, no clear villain or hero — there’s a darkness behind every character, a guilt that they have for continuing to exist in a world filled with senseless loss. As much as I hate Joel for his actions throughout the journey, I understand them. I understand that he clings to his concept of surviving at any cost because it’s all he has left. I understand the ways that he has been broken and twisted by loss, the way that Ellie represents his final remaining connection to his humanity. In the final moments of the game, when Ellie at last sees Joel for what he is, we understand that the world could do the same to her.

    +

    The Last of Us is a game about love because somehow, after all the traumatic blows that Joel, Ellie, and the player share, we still want to believe that love and humanity can endure. We want to prevail and do justice to the memory of the people we have lost along the way. We want to believe that our connections to the people we love can stop us from being swallowed by the harshness of the world. We want to look for the light — and the shreds of it that are found in The Last of Us are made profound by their rarity.

    +
    +

    #1. Stardew Valley

    +

    Community Center

    +
    + +
    + Released + 2016 +
    +
    + Platform + PC, Nintendo Switch +
    +
    + Developer + ConcernedApe +
    +
    + Time Played + 160 hours +
    + +
    +

    Depression has been my quiet struggle for many years. When I picked up Stardew Valley, I had just started on a new medication that left me an emotional mess: up and down, crying all morning, needy for Joe to come around and pick me up. I wasn’t in school, and my next steps in life were totally uncertain. It was a dark time for me, and Stardew was my light. The game was a good distraction; I could sink hours and hours into it at at time and never feel bored. And it made me feel like I was accomplishing something, working on making things better, even if that “better” was happening in the context of the game — like upgrading my sprinklers so I wouldn’t have to do as much watering or getting the town bus line reopened so that Pam would have her job back. Stardew gave me comfort; it became my game for self-care. And even when things aren’t so dire as my first months with the game, Stardew Valley is still like an old friend I can come back to whenever I need some solace or just to kill a little time.

    +

    It’s difficult to pitch Stardew Valley to people. There’s an immensely personal bond I have to it, but on the surface, it doesn’t sound too interesting: it’s a farming simulator like Harvest Moon, kind of, with shades of Terraria and Animal Crossing. But it’s more than that, too. And I think part of it has to be played and experienced to be understood.

    +
    + Please, don't be alarmed. I am different from the others. +
    Krobus has some of the best dialogue in the game.
    +
    +

    To speak more broadly, though, I think the message Stardew Valley carries is something we all need to help get us through the state of the world in 2019. Stardew Valley is about community — about forming relationships with the people around us, about rekindling our connection to the earth and to family and to ourselves. Stardew Valley posits this message early on, through Grandpa’s Letter, which suggests that the “dire change” the player needs can be accomplished by rediscovering what really matters in life: “real connections with other people and nature.” That ethos becomes the reason for the gameplay loop: rebuilding the town’s community center and pushing out the capitalistic forces that seek to place us in endless, soul-crushing competition with one another. Stardew Valley carries an overwhelming hope that happiness is within reach if we work for it — that we can regain and rebuild our connections to the world through good, honest work, through communion with the land, through taking care of each other, through forming a sense of community in our increasingly separate, disconnected time. Sometimes I need reminders of that hope, and Stardew Valley makes it all seem achievable — even if we know it won’t be as easy as picking some leeks in the forest or growing some gold star quality parsnips. It’s within reach, if we’re willing to work for it.

    +
    +

    Honorable Mentions

    +

    Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. I played a lot of Shadow of Mordor these past few years, and yet I somehow haven’t managed to finish it. Mordor does not do much in terms of compelling narrative or world-building — which is shocking considering it takes place in the Tolkien legendarium — but what it does do phenomenally well is the Nemesis system. I hope to see more games implement similar systems within them — though the game has been out for five years now, and nobody has really delivered there yet. It made for some fun antics in what would otherwise be a pretty humdrum game.

    +

    The Order 1886. Those who know me will know I was incredibly hyped for The Order, and it was one of my biggest gaming disappointments. I liked what was there, but it needed more to it. I still think that the setting and characters are incredibly compelling, and I hope — against odds — that Ready at Dawn will have another chance to give the IP the second shot it deserves.

    +

    Tomb Raider. I had never played a Tomb Raider game prior to playing Tomb Raider, the 2013 reboot by Crystal Dynamics. I had also never played an Uncharted game, which I am told is very similar to playing Tomb Raider. This game was surprisingly gay and surprisingly good; what I expected to be a fun action romp actually had an enjoyable story and gave some solid development to Lara Croft. It was a commendable way to breathe life into an old, aged franchise.

    +

    The Sims 4. I am a Sims 4 convert. I clung to The Sims 3 for a long time, lamenting the loss of the Create-A-Style system (and toddlers, and pools, and other things). Sims 4 recovered from a rocky launch and has turned into a streamlined version of The Sims that I didn’t know I wanted. I can’t imagine going back to TS3 now — even if I did like the live neighborhoods. I’ve sunk a heck of a lot of time into The Sims 4, and I think the team behind it deserves recognition for bringing more equitable and diverse gender options to a game series that has previously been quite binary.

    +

    Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna). I want there to be more games like Never Alone. Never Alone was created in partnership with Alaskan native peoples to represent their stories, their heritage, and who they are now. While the gameplay and story are relatively simple, they gave me exposure to a culture that I would probably otherwise know or see very little about. I enjoyed unlocking all the little documentary-style clips, which I found incredibly well-done, and the educational potential of Never Alone excites me as both a gamer and a teacher.

    +

    Pokemon Sun & Moon. This Pokemon game let me dress up my character, which is really all I ever needed out of a Pokemon game. But it also streamlined a lot of things about the series, making it accessible again for me, someone who has flagged on it. Not having to deal with HMs alone was a huge difference from previous titles, and I don’t care what anyone says — experience share saves me time and makes it so I can actually finish these games.

    +
    +

    I commissioned the phenomenal header image for this post from Nax Yoder. Follow the link through to see more of their work.

    + + + +
    + +
    + +
    + + +
    + + + diff --git a/public/posts/20/index.html b/public/posts/20/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09e79c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/public/posts/20/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,112 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + | cassie.ink + + + + + + + + + + + +
    +

    + + cassie + + ink + +

    + + + + +
    +
    + +
    + + + +

    + +
    + +
    + + + + + + + +
    + + +
    + + + diff --git a/public/posts/2019-11-13-my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html b/public/posts/2019-11-13-my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec41d4e --- /dev/null +++ b/public/posts/2019-11-13-my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,112 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + +My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s | cassie.ink + + + + + + + + + + + +
    +

    + + cassie + + ink + +

    + + + + +
    +
    + +
    + + + +

    My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s

    + +
    + +
    + + + + + + + +
    + + +
    + + + diff --git a/public/posts/2019-11-13/index.html b/public/posts/2019-11-13/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09e79c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/public/posts/2019-11-13/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,112 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + | cassie.ink + + + + + + + + + + + +
    +

    + + cassie + + ink + +

    + + + + +
    +
    + +
    + + + +

    + +
    + +
    + + + + + + + +
    + + +
    + + + diff --git a/public/posts/index.html b/public/posts/index.html index 753a4d3..f6526b0 100644 --- a/public/posts/index.html +++ b/public/posts/index.html @@ -156,15 +156,27 @@
    -

    dad

    +

    an ode to gitsync

    - dad + an-ode-to-gitsync
    -

    My father left when I was six and never stopped leaving. At school events, scheduled visits, personal lows, I scanned the crowd for his face and didn’t find it. I grew used to his absence and started to resent the appearances he made; when he did show up, I’d wish he hadn’t. At my college graduation, he parted with the gift, “I’m glad you’re not a fuck up like me,” turning my achievements into his own deluded, narcissistic pursuit of sympathy. He at least — and unwittingly — stumbled upon a truth: I succeeded despite his example and influence. Never because of it.

    +

    Since I moved this site to Hugo, I’ve been using an app called GitJournal to post from my phone. I have a beautiful desk setup with a clacky mechanical keyboard that’s a joy to write on, but the simple fact is that I’m a lazy shit and want to update my blog from the couch. It’s all mostly worked fine, with some headaches. I originally intended to use GitJournal to store my Github repo to my phone’s filesystem and then point an Obsidian1 vault at that.

    +
    + +
    diff --git a/public/posts/index.xml b/public/posts/index.xml index 989a263..b88ec84 100644 --- a/public/posts/index.xml +++ b/public/posts/index.xml @@ -36,13 +36,6 @@ http://localhost:1313/cassie-ink-is-my-new-home/ <p>I moved domains, again.</p> <p>This blog started on bearblog.dev as cassie.land. Bearblog is a great platform, but I <a href="https://cassie.ink/what%27s-this-%28and-how-it-works%29/">wanted a challenge in my life</a>, I guess, so I taught myself to use Hugo and moved to esotericbullshit.net (cassie.land was repurposed for my NAS). I love the esotericbullshit moniker and URL — it makes me laugh — but as it turns out, it&rsquo;s kind of hard to share your link when it contains profanity.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> Perhaps that&rsquo;s copium for a growing domain purchasing addiction, but I intend to make this one stick.</p>     - - dad - http://localhost:1313/dad/ - Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 - http://localhost:1313/dad/ - <p>My father left when I was six and never stopped leaving. At school events, scheduled visits, personal lows, I scanned the crowd for his face and didn&rsquo;t find it. I grew used to his absence and started to resent the appearances he made; when he did show up, I&rsquo;d wish he hadn&rsquo;t. At my college graduation, he parted with the gift, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you&rsquo;re not a fuck up like me,&rdquo; turning my achievements into his own deluded, narcissistic pursuit of sympathy. He at least — and unwittingly — stumbled upon a truth: I succeeded despite his example and influence. Never because of it.</p> - an ode to gitsync http://localhost:1313/an-ode-to-gitsync/ @@ -50,13 +43,6 @@ http://localhost:1313/an-ode-to-gitsync/ <p>Since I <a href="https://cassie.ink/what%27s-this-%28and-how-it-works%29/">moved this site to Hugo</a>, I&rsquo;ve been using an app called GitJournal to post from my phone. I have a beautiful desk setup with a clacky mechanical keyboard that&rsquo;s a joy to write on, but the simple fact is that I&rsquo;m a lazy shit and want to update my blog from the couch. It&rsquo;s all mostly worked fine, with some headaches. I originally intended to use GitJournal to store my Github repo to my phone&rsquo;s filesystem and then point an Obsidian<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> vault at that.</p> - - - http://localhost:1313/posts/turning-30/ - Mon, 25 Nov 2024 23:56:38 -0500 - http://localhost:1313/posts/turning-30/ - <p>My thirtieth birthday party, the day before my actual turn from one decade to the next, was a beautiful night. My mom, both pre-emptively staking out her territory as an Italian-American grandmother and (past but an adverb?) fulfilling regrets at never having been able to throw me a childhood party, brought too much food and snacks and love — or staying up and out past the early afternoon, which is a kind of love for us; my friends, older than me in years and with busy families and schedules, brought wisdom and comfort in growing older gracefully; and my friends closer in age drove great distances to celebrate <em>me</em> — or at least, with me.</p> - Reflections on elections http://localhost:1313/reflections-on-elections/ @@ -188,7 +174,7 @@ http://localhost:1313/media-log-august-2023/ Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/media-log-august-2023/ - <h1 id="movies">Movies</h1> <ul> <li><em>Barbie</em> - I was underwhelmed. There&rsquo;s been lots of chatter, and I loved <em>Lady Bird</em>, but <em>Barbie</em> didn&rsquo;t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to <em>Barbie</em> as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.</li> </ul> <h1 id="games">Games</h1> <ul> <li><em>Vampire Survivors</em> - I originally played <em>Vampire Survivors</em> for my video game podcast, <a href="https://pitchandplay.org">Pitch &amp; Play</a> (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don&rsquo;t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded <em>Vampire Survivors</em> onto my phone and went deep into it. It&rsquo;s a fantastic game that I&rsquo;ll come to associate with my early days in the house.</li> </ul> <h1 id="books">Books</h1> <ul> <li><em>Walk Two Moons</em> by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try <em>Walk Two Moons</em> out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I&rsquo;ve read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I&rsquo;m an adult reading a book written for children and because I&rsquo;ve read it before. I&rsquo;m not sure it&rsquo;s the book I&rsquo;m looking for, but it&rsquo;s not a bad read.</li> </ul> + <h1 id="movies">Movies</h1> <p><em>Barbie</em> - I was underwhelmed. There&rsquo;s been lots of chatter, and I loved <em>Lady Bird</em>, but <em>Barbie</em> didn&rsquo;t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to <em>Barbie</em> as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.</p> <h1 id="games">Games</h1> <p><em>Vampire Survivors</em> - I originally played <em>Vampire Survivors</em> for my video game podcast, <a href="https://pitchandplay.org">Pitch &amp; Play</a> (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don&rsquo;t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded <em>Vampire Survivors</em> onto my phone and went deep into it. It&rsquo;s a fantastic game that I&rsquo;ll come to associate with my early days in the house.</p> On Teaching @@ -239,6 +225,20 @@ http://localhost:1313/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2020/ <p>It feels like most of my blog posts end up being about music. I’d like to pretend that this post is a piece of an annual tradition in which I review and analyze my listening patterns from the past year, but truth be told, I’ve <a href="https://cassie.ink/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2015/">only done this once before, in 2015</a>, and then <a href="https://cassie.ink/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s/">kind of early in 2020, when I reviewed my favorite albums from the last ten years</a>. Truth is, I’d like this to be a tradition, a habit I develop, but I’ve had about as much success with that as I have with my resolution to exercise more regularly.</p> + + My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s + http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s/ + Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 + http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s/ + <p>That I’m a big ol’ music weirdo should come as no surprise to anyone who has read <a href="https://cassie.ink/heres-what-i-was-listening-to-in-2015/">some</a> of my <a href="https://cassie.ink/revolutions/">previous</a> writing <a href="https://cassie.ink/canopies-and-drapes/">about</a> it. I have tracked just about all of my music listening to <a href="https://www.last.fm/user/wearebeautiful">last.fm</a> since 2014, both to maintain a record and gather minute statistics about myself.</p> <p>I turned 16 in 2010, and my 25th birthday was this past November. The latter half of my adolescent identity formation therefore took place during this past decade, and the music I listened to during those years acted as a score, a signpost, a catharsis, a reflection. I’ve come to mark events in my life with the music I was listening to at the time. And having spent my teen years sitting in front of a computer listening to music at pretty much all times, I developed a pretty large collection.</p> + + + My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s + http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/ + Wed, 13 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000 + http://localhost:1313/my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s/ + <p>Another decade in the book, another opportunity to represent my life in lists and data.</p> <p>Looking retrospectively, this past decade defined my interest in games. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a young child — I remember holing up in my mom’s basement, replaying the same minigames over and over in <em>Gus Goes to Cyberopolis</em>. My dad bought me a Gameboy Color for my fifth birthday, and I dedicated at least a decade of my life (regrettably) to the <em>Kingdom Hearts</em> series. But in 2010, I started my first job, and so I finally had some disposable income to spend on my hobbies; I didn’t have to beg for games as birthday or Christmas or whenever presents. And so I played a lot more games in these past ten years. I started to follow industry news beyond new releases. I became more thoughtful about and critical of the industry. And I shifted my hobby into professional inquiry: in 2018, I co-wrote a book chapter about how video games could be used in educational settings, and in 2019, I piloted a camp that empowered kids to create their own video games.</p> + Women in a Sea of Men: The Representation of Women in The Curse of the Black Pearl http://localhost:1313/women-in-a-sea-of-men-the-representation-of-women-in-the-curse-of-the-black-pearl/ diff --git a/public/posts/page/2/index.html b/public/posts/page/2/index.html index 8d84304..e1dbeb3 100644 --- a/public/posts/page/2/index.html +++ b/public/posts/page/2/index.html @@ -52,46 +52,6 @@ -
    - -

    an ode to gitsync

    -
    - an-ode-to-gitsync -
    - -

    Since I moved this site to Hugo, I’ve been using an app called GitJournal to post from my phone. I have a beautiful desk setup with a clacky mechanical keyboard that’s a joy to write on, but the simple fact is that I’m a lazy shit and want to update my blog from the couch. It’s all mostly worked fine, with some headaches. I originally intended to use GitJournal to store my Github repo to my phone’s filesystem and then point an Obsidian1 vault at that.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -

    -
    - -
    - -

    My thirtieth birthday party, the day before my actual turn from one decade to the next, was a beautiful night. My mom, both pre-emptively staking out her territory as an Italian-American grandmother and (past but an adverb?) fulfilling regrets at never having been able to throw me a childhood party, brought too much food and snacks and love — or staying up and out past the early afternoon, which is a kind of love for us; my friends, older than me in years and with busy families and schedules, brought wisdom and comfort in growing older gracefully; and my friends closer in age drove great distances to celebrate me — or at least, with me.

    - - -
    -
    +
    + +

    I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it

    +
    + the-basic-eight +
    + +

    Spoilers to follow.

    +

    I wrote in my week notes:

    +
    +

    The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler. Handler’s Adverbs is often what I cite when folks ask what my favorite book is, and I loved Watch Your Mouth, too. I need light reprieves from The Odyssey, too, so this seemed an excellent time to round out my reading of Handler’s bibliography. I’m about halfway through and enraptured by the narrative voice. It’s pretentious, as a story narrated by a precocious high school senior should be, without being cloying, and with Handler’s charming humor throughout. I love it so far and have faith that the feeling will continue. I normally hate books set in high school, but this one takes me back to my high school self — somehow, in a good way, which I don’t think I’ve ever felt before.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +

    smooth runs the water where the brook is deep

    +
    + smooth-runs-the-water-where-the-brook-is-deep +
    + +
    +

    Write a blog post about words of wisdom your younger self would have appreciated hearing. +(via blogprompts)1

    +

    I’m trying out doing blog prompts in an effort to populate this blog with more than just weekly round-ups and to get more comfortable writing about personal things.2

    +

    I’m going to select two quotes — both song lyrics — that have resonated for me.

    +

    The first is from “Banshee Beat” by Animal Collective, which I first heard in my late teens (maybe 16?) and still consider one of my favorite songs.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + diff --git a/public/posts/page/3/index.html b/public/posts/page/3/index.html index 17ffc13..79c53b6 100644 --- a/public/posts/page/3/index.html +++ b/public/posts/page/3/index.html @@ -52,66 +52,6 @@ -
    - -

    I finished The Basic Eight and I can't decide if I enjoyed it

    -
    - the-basic-eight -
    - -

    Spoilers to follow.

    -

    I wrote in my week notes:

    -
    -

    The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler. Handler’s Adverbs is often what I cite when folks ask what my favorite book is, and I loved Watch Your Mouth, too. I need light reprieves from The Odyssey, too, so this seemed an excellent time to round out my reading of Handler’s bibliography. I’m about halfway through and enraptured by the narrative voice. It’s pretentious, as a story narrated by a precocious high school senior should be, without being cloying, and with Handler’s charming humor throughout. I love it so far and have faith that the feeling will continue. I normally hate books set in high school, but this one takes me back to my high school self — somehow, in a good way, which I don’t think I’ve ever felt before.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -

    smooth runs the water where the brook is deep

    -
    - smooth-runs-the-water-where-the-brook-is-deep -
    - -
    -

    Write a blog post about words of wisdom your younger self would have appreciated hearing. -(via blogprompts)1

    -

    I’m trying out doing blog prompts in an effort to populate this blog with more than just weekly round-ups and to get more comfortable writing about personal things.2

    -

    I’m going to select two quotes — both song lyrics — that have resonated for me.

    -

    The first is from “Banshee Beat” by Animal Collective, which I first heard in my late teens (maybe 16?) and still consider one of my favorite songs.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    -
    +
    + +

    Moving my home server to a new chassis

    +
    + moving-my-home-server-to-a-new-chassis +
    + +

    I have a home server (running Unraid) that I use to backup computers, as media storage, and to run various apps. It’s mostly been cobbled together from used parts I found for cheap, and it generally followed Serverbuild’s NAS Killer 4 guide. It runs like a dream, and putting it together is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. More recently, with streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, etc. cracking down on password sharing, it has become my pathway to shedding some monthly subscriptions and owning my own media.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +

    Thirteen to Know Me

    +
    + thirteen-to-know-me +
    + +

    @jamesmckz shared the following challenge on X earlier this month:

    +
    +

    No cheating - your Quietus style Bakers Dozen. 13 albums (off the top of your head) to know you by. Not looking for a perfect list, looking for a list that you instantly regret posting because you then remember something else.

    +

    I approached my response largely as a list of albums that have meant something to me in my life — not necessarily what I’m actively listening to at the moment. Many of these albums I’ve not listened to much in years, but I consider them pivotal, essential listening for me.1

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + diff --git a/public/posts/page/4/index.html b/public/posts/page/4/index.html index 2efb1bb..9361076 100644 --- a/public/posts/page/4/index.html +++ b/public/posts/page/4/index.html @@ -52,65 +52,6 @@ -
    - -

    Moving my home server to a new chassis

    -
    - moving-my-home-server-to-a-new-chassis -
    - -

    I have a home server (running Unraid) that I use to backup computers, as media storage, and to run various apps. It’s mostly been cobbled together from used parts I found for cheap, and it generally followed Serverbuild’s NAS Killer 4 guide. It runs like a dream, and putting it together is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. More recently, with streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, etc. cracking down on password sharing, it has become my pathway to shedding some monthly subscriptions and owning my own media.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -

    Thirteen to Know Me

    -
    - thirteen-to-know-me -
    - -

    @jamesmckz shared the following challenge on X earlier this month:

    -
    -

    No cheating - your Quietus style Bakers Dozen. 13 albums (off the top of your head) to know you by. Not looking for a perfect list, looking for a list that you instantly regret posting because you then remember something else.

    -

    I approached my response largely as a list of albums that have meant something to me in my life — not necessarily what I’m actively listening to at the moment. Many of these albums I’ve not listened to much in years, but I consider them pivotal, essential listening for me.1

    - -
    - -
    - -
    -
    +
    + +

    hate for the island

    +
    + hate-for-the-island +
    + +

    I was born and raised on Long Island in a hamlet that rests along the Great South Bay.1 Known to most as a ferry town, this charming suburb lives and breathes the ocean. Most every resident has access to some kind of boat, whether through personal ownership or advantageous friendship. In the 90s, the town was voted the “friendliest town in America,” a slogan that still adorns the sign as you drive into town, by a mysterious group that awards such superlatives. That accolade, along with our yacht clubs, country clubs, lack of racial diversity, and generalized fear of anything outside the norm makes the town the near picture of 1950s suburban ideal.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +

    my year in lists

    +
    + my-year-in-lists +
    + +

    I’m not a New Years Resolution person; listening to a lot of “My Year in Lists” by Los Campesinos! as a teen made me quite cynical about the whole thing.

    +

    However, I am a very goal-oriented, reflective person. In late 2022, after years of gaining weight and developing some really negative patterns of self-talk around my body image, I decided to join a gym. Of course I’d like to see the number on the scale go down, but the main goal was just to get healthier and develop healthier habits. I started running, because that’s what I used to do (not well), and eventually convinced a friend to join with me. Together, we set the goal of running a 5K, and we did our first in May of 2023, in about 41 minutes (in our defense, it was an extremely hilly course, but also progress, progress1). We ran three more as the year went by; my most recent was November, where I finished in around 36 minutes.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + diff --git a/public/posts/page/5/index.html b/public/posts/page/5/index.html index dc5d3e7..e81e32d 100644 --- a/public/posts/page/5/index.html +++ b/public/posts/page/5/index.html @@ -52,67 +52,6 @@ -
    - -

    hate for the island

    -
    - hate-for-the-island -
    - -

    I was born and raised on Long Island in a hamlet that rests along the Great South Bay.1 Known to most as a ferry town, this charming suburb lives and breathes the ocean. Most every resident has access to some kind of boat, whether through personal ownership or advantageous friendship. In the 90s, the town was voted the “friendliest town in America,” a slogan that still adorns the sign as you drive into town, by a mysterious group that awards such superlatives. That accolade, along with our yacht clubs, country clubs, lack of racial diversity, and generalized fear of anything outside the norm makes the town the near picture of 1950s suburban ideal.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -

    my year in lists

    -
    - my-year-in-lists -
    - -

    I’m not a New Years Resolution person; listening to a lot of “My Year in Lists” by Los Campesinos! as a teen made me quite cynical about the whole thing.

    -

    However, I am a very goal-oriented, reflective person. In late 2022, after years of gaining weight and developing some really negative patterns of self-talk around my body image, I decided to join a gym. Of course I’d like to see the number on the scale go down, but the main goal was just to get healthier and develop healthier habits. I started running, because that’s what I used to do (not well), and eventually convinced a friend to join with me. Together, we set the goal of running a 5K, and we did our first in May of 2023, in about 41 minutes (in our defense, it was an extremely hilly course, but also progress, progress1). We ran three more as the year went by; my most recent was November, where I finished in around 36 minutes.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    -
    +
    + +

    Media Log (August 2023)

    +
    + media-log-august-2023 +
    + +

    Movies

    +

    Barbie - I was underwhelmed. There’s been lots of chatter, and I loved Lady Bird, but Barbie didn’t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to Barbie as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.

    +

    Games

    +

    Vampire Survivors - I originally played Vampire Survivors for my video game podcast, Pitch & Play (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don’t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded Vampire Survivors onto my phone and went deep into it. It’s a fantastic game that I’ll come to associate with my early days in the house.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +

    On Teaching

    +
    + on-teaching +
    + +

    This September marks the start of my fourth year teaching.

    +

    When I was a kid, I was always interested in teaching; my grandparents had an unfinished basement that, for some reason, had a little chalkboard and table. My siblings and I would play school down there, and I loved to play the role of teacher – despite being considerably younger than them.1 I loved school, too. I loved most every subject (especially grammar – I’m one of the few children who absolutely rejoiced when asked to take out my grammar workbook) and was, at the risk of conceit, good at academics. I also read voraciously in elementary school.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + diff --git a/public/posts/page/6/index.html b/public/posts/page/6/index.html index f5b1bac..bacc99c 100644 --- a/public/posts/page/6/index.html +++ b/public/posts/page/6/index.html @@ -52,62 +52,6 @@ -
    - -

    Media Log (August 2023)

    -
    - media-log-august-2023 -
    - -

    Movies

    -
      -
    • Barbie - I was underwhelmed. There’s been lots of chatter, and I loved Lady Bird, but Barbie didn’t hit for me; too much Ken (to be the hundredth person to whine about it) and the ending felt unearned and thematically confused. This was more of an homage to Barbie as a product than it was an homage to womanhood, but it pretended to be the latter.
      • -
    -

    Games

    -
      -
    • Vampire Survivors - I originally played Vampire Survivors for my video game podcast, Pitch & Play (on hiatus but will come back!); my friend and co-host Ross recommended it to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it given that I don’t really have nostalgia for this sort of game, but I played several hours of it and then became distracted by life. While moving this month, I was without internet for quite a while and had not hooked up my consoles (or my PC, still). To kill some time while my body recovered from lifting boxes and scrubbing surfaces, I downloaded Vampire Survivors onto my phone and went deep into it. It’s a fantastic game that I’ll come to associate with my early days in the house.
      • -
    -

    Books

    -
      -
    • Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech - I read this book originally as a child in the fifth grade. I remember loving it but little else. I have been looking for a text to add to my curriculum and wanted to try Walk Two Moons out. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised by how much of it came back to me even though I am (nearly) twenty years out from reading it the first time. I do think the Native American set dressing might be problematic given that the author is not, by any account I’ve read, actually Native; the plot is also predictable, but perhaps that is because I’m an adult reading a book written for children and because I’ve read it before. I’m not sure it’s the book I’m looking for, but it’s not a bad read.
      • -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -

    On Teaching

    -
    - on-teaching -
    - -

    This September marks the start of my fourth year teaching.

    -

    When I was a kid, I was always interested in teaching; my grandparents had an unfinished basement that, for some reason, had a little chalkboard and table. My siblings and I would play school down there, and I loved to play the role of teacher – despite being considerably younger than them.1 I loved school, too. I loved most every subject (especially grammar – I’m one of the few children who absolutely rejoiced when asked to take out my grammar workbook) and was, at the risk of conceit, good at academics. I also read voraciously in elementary school.

    - -
    - -
    - -
    -
    +
    + +

    What's This?

    +
    + what's-this +
    + +

    Well, I have another blog.

    +

    Welcome to cassie.land, the latest (as of writing this) web project that I’ve started and may promptly abandon.

    +

    Here’s the truth: These past few months have shown me the impermanence of online platforms. I have quit reddit with the third-party API shutdowns, and while I am probably better off for it, it does feel like losing one of the bastions of the internet I once knew. I regret to inform that I am officially an old person on the internet; I yearn for the days of hyper-specific Geocities pages with incredibly useful information written by a thirteen year old screaming into the void (and for the days where our search engines actually directed us to that information rather than some circuitous tripe written by AI that packs in every SEO keyword without actually saying anything).

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +

    An Empty Promise to Blog More

    +
    + an-empty-promise-to-blog-more +
    + +

    This past year has emphasized to me the impermanence of online platforms. I have quit reddit with the third-party API shutdowns, and while I am probably better off for it, it does feel like losing one of the bastions of the internet I once knew. I regret to inform that I am officially an old person on the internet; I yearn for the days of hyper-specific Geocities pages with incredibly useful information written by a thirteen year old screaming into the void (and for the days where our search engines actually directed us to that information rather than some circuitous tripe written by AI that packs in every SEO keyword without actually saying anything).

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + diff --git a/public/posts/page/7/index.html b/public/posts/page/7/index.html index fbb86d8..9585368 100644 --- a/public/posts/page/7/index.html +++ b/public/posts/page/7/index.html @@ -52,56 +52,6 @@ -
    - -

    What's This?

    -
    - what's-this -
    - -

    Well, I have another blog.

    -

    Welcome to cassie.land, the latest (as of writing this) web project that I’ve started and may promptly abandon.

    -

    Here’s the truth: These past few months have shown me the impermanence of online platforms. I have quit reddit with the third-party API shutdowns, and while I am probably better off for it, it does feel like losing one of the bastions of the internet I once knew. I regret to inform that I am officially an old person on the internet; I yearn for the days of hyper-specific Geocities pages with incredibly useful information written by a thirteen year old screaming into the void (and for the days where our search engines actually directed us to that information rather than some circuitous tripe written by AI that packs in every SEO keyword without actually saying anything).

    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -
    - -

    An Empty Promise to Blog More

    -
    - an-empty-promise-to-blog-more -
    - -

    This past year has emphasized to me the impermanence of online platforms. I have quit reddit with the third-party API shutdowns, and while I am probably better off for it, it does feel like losing one of the bastions of the internet I once knew. I regret to inform that I am officially an old person on the internet; I yearn for the days of hyper-specific Geocities pages with incredibly useful information written by a thirteen year old screaming into the void (and for the days where our search engines actually directed us to that information rather than some circuitous tripe written by AI that packs in every SEO keyword without actually saying anything).

    - -
    - -
    - -
    -
    +
    + +

    My Top Ten Albums from the 2010s

    +
    + my-top-ten-albums-from-the-2010s +
    + +

    That I’m a big ol’ music weirdo should come as no surprise to anyone who has read some of my previous writing about it. I have tracked just about all of my music listening to last.fm since 2014, both to maintain a record and gather minute statistics about myself.

    +

    I turned 16 in 2010, and my 25th birthday was this past November. The latter half of my adolescent identity formation therefore took place during this past decade, and the music I listened to during those years acted as a score, a signpost, a catharsis, a reflection. I’ve come to mark events in my life with the music I was listening to at the time. And having spent my teen years sitting in front of a computer listening to music at pretty much all times, I developed a pretty large collection.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +
    + +

    My Top Ten Video Games from the 2010s

    +
    + my-top-ten-video-games-from-the-2010s +
    + +

    Another decade in the book, another opportunity to represent my life in lists and data.

    +

    Looking retrospectively, this past decade defined my interest in games. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a young child — I remember holing up in my mom’s basement, replaying the same minigames over and over in Gus Goes to Cyberopolis. My dad bought me a Gameboy Color for my fifth birthday, and I dedicated at least a decade of my life (regrettably) to the Kingdom Hearts series. But in 2010, I started my first job, and so I finally had some disposable income to spend on my hobbies; I didn’t have to beg for games as birthday or Christmas or whenever presents. And so I played a lot more games in these past ten years. I started to follow industry news beyond new releases. I became more thoughtful about and critical of the industry. And I shifted my hobby into professional inquiry: in 2018, I co-wrote a book chapter about how video games could be used in educational settings, and in 2019, I piloted a camp that empowered kids to create their own video games.

    + +
    + +
    + +
    +
    + +
    + +