Level 2 Character, New Campaign

[Blue1323]

Hail and well met, 

 

Still figuring all of this out but my fiancé @Red1263 has been a member of this forum for awhile and suggested I try it out to help with my goals! I'm not new to fitness but I do have new goals for this year. I love to run and I've run 3 half marathons now, but it's time to step it up. I want to run a full marathon this year, and I also would like to be able to do 1 (or more) unassisted pullup and 10 (or more) unassisted pushups by the end of the year! Upper body strength has always been an issue for me and I'd like to change that. 

 

I've got big plans for non-fitness goals this year as well. For one, I'd like to make a career change. I've been a craft bartender for awhile and it's been a great creative outlet but I'm shifting gears and getting my teaching license! Additionally, I've decided to stop drinking for numerous reasons (currently 17 days strong) but I still want to be creative in that way and I love a fun beverage, so I have hopes of writing a  recipe book of non-alcoholic craft cocktails. I plan on getting very science-y with it to try to create some recipes that make you go "whoa, this is nonalcoholic?". Mouthfeel, heat, complexity, etc etc etc. Thirdly, I am getting married this year to the most wonderful man I have ever met and there is a lot of prep to be done! So my focus on my posts will still be fitness but I'll throw in some life updates as well. 

 

Looking forward to participating in my first challenge in February, and I hope to get to know some of y'all!

[Elastigirl]

Welcome and congratulations !! So excited for both of you.  Red is an awesome guy. I love the idea of non alcohlic cocktails. I love cocktails, but they are so calorie dense, I  don't have them often. But then when I have non alcoholic, it's usually way too sweet to overcompensate, or just meh.

[Artemis Prime]

Welcome! Your fitness goals are great, and a career change is exciting. What level/subject are you looking to teach?

 

My kitchen science is pretty remedial, but your approach to nonalcoholic drinks sounds fascinating. Congrats on 17 days!

[Blue1323]

6 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Welcome and congratulations !! So excited for both of you.  Red is an awesome guy. I love the idea of non alcohlic cocktails. I love cocktails, but they are so calorie dense, I  don't have them often. But then when I have non alcoholic, it's usually way too sweet to overcompensate, or just meh.

Thank you! I agree that most NA cocktails are overly sweet, I can't do a lot of sugar so that's definitely an issue for me and something I want to avoid when making mine! I'll share recipes as I finish them, especially the low-cal/healthier ones.

[Blue1323]

5 hours ago, Artemis Prime said:

Welcome! Your fitness goals are great, and a career change is exciting. What level/subject are you looking to teach?

 

My kitchen science is pretty remedial, but your approach to nonalcoholic drinks sounds fascinating. Congrats on 17 days!

Thanks for the welcome and the kind words! I'm thinking high school english/literature, I've always been an avid reader and I'm a linguistics nerd so I think it'd be a good fit. 

[ViperN7]

Hello and welcome! 

Congratulations to both you and Red! 

Good luck with your fitness goals! I love running too, but 5ks are my thing. Half marathons are impressive. Well done! And good luck building toward your marathon! 

Congratulations on 17 days (and maybe more by the time I'm writing this!) That's a huge accompishment. I hope you have fun with your non-alcoholic cocktail project. I, too, am interested in the results! 

And lastly good luck in your teaching endevours! 

[Blue1323]

6 minutes ago, ViperN7 said:

Hello and welcome! 

Congratulations to both you and Red! 

Good luck with your fitness goals! I love running too, but 5ks are my thing. Half marathons are impressive. Well done! And good luck building toward your marathon! 

Congratulations on 17 days (and maybe more by the time I'm writing this!) That's a huge accompishment. I hope you have fun with your non-alcoholic cocktail project. I, too, am interested in the results! 

And lastly good luck in your teaching endevours! 

Thank you so much!

 

I do love a good 5k, after I do the marathon I'll probably focus on speedwork for 5ks and 10ks but a marathon is something I want to accomplish at least once in my life and this year seems like a good time for it.

And I'm sure the cocktail project will end up taking longer than a year but it's going to be a lot of fun! 

 

By the way, I'm guessing you're a Mass Effect fan? That's one of my favorite franchises! I'm slightly more of a Dragon Age nerd but Bioware in general has been a huge part of my personality for over a decade lol, I even named my car Mako. What's your favorite thing about the series? And/or your favorite character?

[ViperN7]

Yes, and congratulations on being the first person to call out the Mass Effect reference! ?

Ahhh so you get to drive the Mako! Fantastic! 

I have not played Dragon Age...probably someday, a long time from now. Right now I'm deep in the Trails series, which will occupy the rest of this year. 

Aaaaaa I can (and have) talk about Mass Effect for many hours, but I only have a few minutes right now (and want to be mindful of spoilers, too). 

Kaiden is hands-down my favorite character. Joker is a significant second, with Liara close behind. There are So Many amazing characters, and that's one of the amazing things about Mass Effect. Tali, Garrus, Mordin, Thane, Wrex, Grunt, EDI, and Legion. Anderson is the space dad everyone deserves.

Mass Effect is amazing in its cutural and political scale. It's epic of course, but so many stories are. I'd say its strongest point is its deeply moral decision making, and the profound consequences of your decisions (that will follow you 2 whole games later, good or bad). I can't think of another story of that scale (or intricacy) where you can so profoundly affect what happens. That makes you *feel* the weight of your decisions and the panic of having to decide and hoping you chose right. 

How about you?

[Blue1323]

On 1/26/2024 at 1:55 PM, ViperN7 said:

Yes, and congratulations on being the first person to call out the Mass Effect reference! ?

Ahhh so you get to drive the Mako! Fantastic! 

I have not played Dragon Age...probably someday, a long time from now. Right now I'm deep in the Trails series, which will occupy the rest of this year. 

Aaaaaa I can (and have) talk about Mass Effect for many hours, but I only have a few minutes right now (and want to be mindful of spoilers, too). 

Kaiden is hands-down my favorite character. Joker is a significant second, with Liara close behind. There are So Many amazing characters, and that's one of the amazing things about Mass Effect. Tali, Garrus, Mordin, Thane, Wrex, Grunt, EDI, and Legion. Anderson is the space dad everyone deserves.

Mass Effect is amazing in its cutural and political scale. It's epic of course, but so many stories are. I'd say its strongest point is its deeply moral decision making, and the profound consequences of your decisions (that will follow you 2 whole games later, good or bad). I can't think of another story of that scale (or intricacy) where you can so profoundly affect what happens. That makes you *feel* the weight of your decisions and the panic of having to decide and hoping you chose right. 

How about you?

My mako doesn't do as well with difficult terrain though haha

 

Dragon Age is a lot of fun, really great companions, much like Mass Effect. Origins doesn't hold up as well nowadays but the story is still great. 2 is a blast, with my favorite companions in the series. Inquisition is more open world but still amazing.  

 

I'm a big Garrus fangirl but that's not exactly unique. There was that one tweet that was like "who are you romancing in legendary edition and why is it Garrus" hahaha but I love the characters in general. Bioware does an amazing job of making believable and loveable companions. I still have strong feelings about Legion. And Mordin. Oh man. 

 

I completely agree about the moral decision making and the consequences, it makes it feel far more real (and makes it impossible for me to play a renegade). In general I loved how strongly the games made me feel. The amount of tears I shed during ME2 and ME3 is almost embarrassing. The immersion is intense, the companions start to feel like friends, and you come out of the game fundamentally changed. Also, since I care more about the story than the combat, I loved that there was a "Narrative" difficulty. Such a cool feature for people like me who sometimes just want an immersive, visual novel-like experience from their games. 

[ViperN7]

On 1/27/2024 at 5:09 PM, Blue1323 said:

"who are you romancing in legendary edition and why is it Garrus" hahaha 

lolllll that's great. I play dude Shepard so Garrus was never a romance option for me, but he's a super awesome friend. And literally caused me to gasp for joy on two occassions. I love his verbal sparring with some of the other characters. Have you read his comic? It's a moment I wanted to see from his perspective when I was playing, and I was thrilled that they wrote the comic to show it! 

On 1/27/2024 at 5:09 PM, Blue1323 said:

I still have strong feelings about Legion. And Mordin. Oh man. 

Legion!!!!!! So! Many! Feeelingssssss! Aaaahhhhhh

And Mordin. So much wrapped up into one person. All of it fascinating. So many feels. 

I forgot Jack in my original list--such an awesome character arc that I totally did not see coming!  

On 1/27/2024 at 5:09 PM, Blue1323 said:

(and makes it impossible for me to play a renegade). 

I'm 90% paragon with a small, but important, 10% renegade. 

On 1/27/2024 at 5:09 PM, Blue1323 said:

I loved that there was a "Narrative" difficulty. Such a cool feature for people like me who sometimes just want an immersive, visual novel-like experience from their games. 

Since that's what you like I'm gonna plug/ask if you've played: 

The Trails series (Kiseki in Japanese, they're jrpgs) have a story mode as well. Like Mass Effect, it's complex, epic, and has a large, fantastic cast of party members/characters. A significant note of difference is that you do not get major decision making power in Trails--the story is the story, and your choices are more minor. 

And on the subject of visual novels, have you played Muv Luv? 

[Blue1323]

On 1/29/2024 at 7:26 PM, ViperN7 said:

Have you read his comic?

No I haven't, but it sounds like something I'd want to read! What's it called/where can I find it? 

[Blue1323]

On 1/29/2024 at 7:26 PM, ViperN7 said:

The Trails series (Kiseki in Japanese, they're jrpgs) have a story mode as well. Like Mass Effect, it's complex, epic, and has a large, fantastic cast of party members/characters. A significant note of difference is that you do not get major decision making power in Trails--the story is the story, and your choices are more minor. 

And on the subject of visual novels, have you played Muv Luv? 

I actually haven't heard of either but I'll look them up right now, thanks for the rec! Definitely sounds like it'd be up my alley. My problem is that I'm bad at playing new games, I tend to just replay games I like but I'm gonna try to change that so these are going on my list! 

[ViperN7]

2 hours ago, Blue1323 said:

No I haven't, but it sounds like something I'd want to read! What's it called/where can I find it? 

That's Mass Effect: Homeworlds issue #3!

I found out about the Mass Effect comics on the Wikipedia page for Mass Effect (click the "Media" tab and scroll way down). 

I got most of the Mass Effect comics as ebooks from my library through Overdrive. I had to find a few of the shorter comics elsewhere online through a bunch of googling. But the Homeworlds comics are in the Overdrive database! You can see if your local library has access to them. 

If you are interested in reading more of the Mass Effect comics in general, I highly recommend using the Wikipedia page to get oriented. The way they are labeled and sorted in Overdrive is rather chaotic. 

[ViperN7]

3 hours ago, Blue1323 said:

I actually haven't heard of either but I'll look them up right now, thanks for the rec! Definitely sounds like it'd be up my alley. My problem is that I'm bad at playing new games, I tend to just replay games I like but I'm gonna try to change that so these are going on my list! 

Yay! I'll try to give some more orientation to make the search easier. 

 

Trails is technically a subseries of the Legend of Heroes. *So far* there has been no connection between the Trails games and the original, older Legend of Heroes games (although there is a fan theory that they will connect eventually). 

There are currently 10 Trails games out in English; the 11th is coming some time this summer. (I just started playing 10 eeeeeeeeeeeeks!) 

There are several arcs. Each arc is multiple games, and takes you through a certain party/squad dealing with a certain problem in a certain country. As you progress through the arcs, you play through interlocking events in neighboring countries, with a massive policital/cultural plot unfolding on a grand scale. The further you get in the series, the more all the threads come together. 

The graphics (if you care about graphics) start out very simple and get far more detailed as time and game engines progress. All the Trails games have an easy mode, in some games it's actually called "story mode". 

The games are in order: 

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Third Chapter

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero

The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV

The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie

 

*I will put a trigger warning here, there is one scene in Trails in the Sky Third Chapter where you get a flashback of a certain character's childhood trauma. It is intense. It is not shown directly on screen. 

 

 

Muv Luv is a fantastic visual novel series, and extremely difficult to talk about without giving things away. 

How do you feel about romcoms? Because there's a funny thing about Muv Luv...It starts out as a tropey romcom. It ends as something very, very different. But I believe that you need the context of the tropey romcom to get the emotional impact of where the story eventually takes you. I personally despise romcoms almost catagorically, but Muv Luv is one of my favorite stories ever, and it was worth getting through the romcom to get there. If you like romcoms, then no problem, you'll love it. 

The visual novels are in order: 

Muv Luv Extra (yes, really, the *first game* is called Extra. I can only guess as to why)

Muv Luv Unlimited

Muv Luv Alternative 

Muv Luv Altered Fable (which I actually have not played yet...)

 

*Similar trigger warning, in Muv Luv Alternative there are intense scenes related to military PTSD and flashbacks of a certain character's trauma. They are intense. Some of it is shown directly on screen (to my memory, most but not all of it is telegraphed, so you can look away). At least one version of the game has part of a trauma flashback scene cut for rating reasons. 

 

 

That feels like a sad note to end on....they're amazing games!