Forget The Question Of...

Adrien: oh fiddlesticks! That really ruffles my feathers

Nino: please just say fuck

Best lines from the Finale

(mostly out of context of course)

“Hey! Even in a sack I still look better than you!”

“Larry King’s disembodied wax head wants num-nums.”

“I listen to a lot of AM radio so I knew what this meant–the end of the world.”

“We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when. Oh, I know we’ll meet again some, sunny day.”

“You know that couch is made from living human skin?”

 “What’s an “anime”?”

“These scribbles are a bunch of cockamamie balderdash! Excuse my French.”

“I keep accidentally flexing through my sweater.”

“Your hyperflamable merchandise is the only thing keepin’ me going.”

“I have butchered millions on countless moons.”

“He’s been forcing me to do cute dances in this cage for all eternity. I’m so tired of being cute!”

“This experience will forever scar Tad Strange.”

“I’ve tried forgettin’. Maybe I should try forgiving.”

“No, a prophecy. Although it would be a pretty fun game of hopscotch.”

“Destiny hoodie.”

“Hey Achilles! Nice work with the heel!”

“Do the one thing no one in our family has ever done–Touch the hillbilly.”

 “I’ve never held hands this long and I’m very uncomfortable.”

“Grammar, Stanley.”

“I know that hurts because I’ve accidentally done it to myself–multiple times!”

“I’ve got some children I need to make into corpses!”

“Like Grunkle Stan always says, when one door closes choose a nearby wall and bash it in with brute force.”

“I think I’m gonna kill one of ‘em now just for the heck of it!”

“Hey, look at me. Turn around and look at me you one-eyed demon! You’re a real wiseguy, but you made one fatal mistake: you messed with my family.”

“Guess I was good for something after all.”

“He saved the world. He saved me.”

“Hey, just cuz I have amnesia don’t go tryin’ to give yourself a raise, Soos.”

“He told us a lot about being a business man in the '80s and seemed happy when we pretended to listen.”

“Robbie, would you be a dear and get us the sawed-off shotgun?”

“Zap! Zap! We’re mad with power! And love!” 

“You’re only going to have one pony now.”

“Wa–oh! Woo! I’m bustin’ a move on this skatin’ board!”

“You know, on my first day here, if you had asked me what I wanted, I would have said adventure, mystery, true friends. But looking here at all of you I realize that every wish came true. I have everything I wanted.”

“If I had only one wish it would be to shrink all of you with the shrink ray and bring you home with us in my pocket!”

“I now officially declare you technically teenagers. Welcome to angst and acne forever.”

“I don’t just want someone to come with me Stanley, I want it to be you. Will you give me a second chance?”

“Like, this mermaid. It’s not just a dead fish butt sewn to a monkey carcass. It’s a marvelous creature that makes us believe that anything is possible.”

“You’re Mr. Mystery now, Soos. Try not to burn the place down.”

“I hate my dumb heart for making me feel things.”

“Kids, you knuckleheads were nothin’ but a nuisance and I’m glad to be rid of ya.”

 “If you’ve ever taken a road trip through the Pacific northwest, you’ve probably seen a bumper sticker for a place called Gravity Falls. It’s not on any maps, and most people have never heard of it. Some people think it’s a myth. But if you’re curious, don’t wait. Take a trip. Find it. It’s out there somewhere in the woods. Waiting.” 

I uh thought of this at 1am last night

being collectively screwed over by canon is vld fandom culture

This is interesting coming from a post-expansion perspective. I do feel Space Age in some ways tried to approach this problem, and succeeded in some ways. Ultimately someone else pointed out very well that this isn’t a problem inherent to Factorio. It’s a problem that stems from how humans approach problem solving as a whole. We like to find one-size fits all solutions that we can apply over and over again. Ultimately what the expansion tried to do to solve this problem was to introduce new mechanics to act as new constraints. Spoilage is a constraint, constraining your throughput by time. So is Aquilo’s increase power draw for bots. Likewise Fulgora’s inverted crafting tree and Vulcanus’ lava do force you to rethink how you approach certain problems and they don’t reward a one-size fits all solution. Sure, a bot base WILL WORK for EVERY planet, but…

Spoilage will cause a lot of unnecessary bot work, and bots do NOT take freshness into account, which I think is intentional. Aquilo requires a lot of bots to get anything done in a timely fashion and they drain power like crazy too. Fulgora’s biproducts likewise introduce more jobs for bots. They end up becoming very unscalable on 3 of the worlds, and I think that’s a good thing. Ultimately it won’t stop you from just building huge bot bases on them, but it definitely works to discourage that. Each planet tends to have different optimal solutions, and we’re currently in a time where we’re free to explore those. Admittedly there’s still some of the old problem as the “LDS Shuffle” presents a new endgame homogeneity for solving the Legendary production problem, but something like it would evolve regardless. I admit… I also turned around and went to modded playthroughs after finishing the vanilla game for similar reasons. And I still am doing that, but now it’s less of to explore the fun of the base game, and more to explore new mechanics because I like seeing how people try to create their own challenges for mods. Like I’ve been meaning to do a playthrough of Ultracube myself

there's something kind of amazing about this. that you can take an obviously terrible design approach on purpose as a challenge and then on some level it turns out there's still a one-size-fits-all solution that is... maybe not 'optimal', who knows, but, highly optimised? the whole factory is in large part the same basic building block stamped one time after another. the design constraint prevents the already-existing standard solutions from working but then you find there's a new kind of standard solution, even more uniform.

and on some level you'd think that was an artefact of this run, but no. i've seen this guy's other challenge runs, like the beltless one and the all-burner one. they all end up with 'yeah turns out there's a standard solution i am just going to keep implementing over and over'.

i am reminded of what @definitelynotplanetfall was saying about how the main bus architecture and more broadly the factorio 'meta' of standard arrays for doing things means it's very easy to just take The One Tool That Solves The Problem and implement it and it feels... a bit like drudgery? idk i don't want to put words in their mouth that's the impression i got from what they were saying. and like at the time i pushed back a little because, like, i am having fun playing.

which i am, but. idk. there's something there. it seems easy sometimes to take the tools that simplify your life in this game a little too far and simplify the fun away. but at the same time it's also the case that i hate it when i grow used to a tool and it goes away, like when i started a vanilla playthrough for reasons a while back and noticed how much lacking simple things like module inserter and autodeconstruct was annoying me.

The Author of the fanfics:

My friend

Current works in progress:

Heyo, it’s GravitiJatuh/Lxilani here. Summer is approaching, which means that updates on my fics will speed up a whole lot. Here is the future of my writing for the next few weeks:

Fearscape Of The Pines, Chapter 3: Our Phobias - out June 11/12

Scar-Crossed, Chapter 1: Orion’s Belt - out July 2016

Shooting The Star, Chapter 2: Blue Universe - out July 2016

unnamed fanfiction, Chapter 1 - out summer 2016

And an original story is in the works! It is called Venn and is inspired by Gravity Falls. I fully intend for it to become a full-length novel. The publication/finish date is completely unknown at this point; I haven’t even finished chapter 3 yet. I’ll give little updates and maybe excerpts of passages here and there until it’s finished, however long it may take (I’m guessing months or years). 

I’m sure you all are much more excited for my fanfics, though. Please look out for those, and thank you for reading!

Other tidbit is that even though dwarves are capable of forging steel, they’re only capable of that if they’re in a Dwarven civilization. Weirdly enough, a Goblin immigrant living in a Dwarven fort with full citizenship is completely capable of forging steel. As are Dwarven elves capable of felling trees. This isn’t exactly impossible to have them migrate into your fortress, but tends not to occur unless something odd has occurred in worldgen/history. The real strength of Dwarven soldiers in Goblin armies isn’t their size (the armor is interchangeable between goblins, elves and dwarves), but it is Martial Trances. Humans, Elves and Goblins in a siege do not worry me, but a Goblin Dwarf? They frighten me more than any other member of that group. The power of a martial trance is not to be ignored. I watched an axe dwarf with next to no armor enter a martial trance, and hack three goblin archers to pieces before the rest of the military could arrive from only a hallway away. He didn’t take a single blow

Thinking about kidnapped Dwarfs in Dwarf Fortress again.

Goblins can kidnap dwarvern children. It's not known why they do this, but they can.

What's stranger is that the goblins don't do anything nefarious with the children. They just appear to raise them.

Common theories range from amusing (they're saving the children from the horrors of Dwarf Fortresses) to reasonable (dwarfs are bigger and stronger than goblins on average, they can be used as metalssmiths or warriors)

What's probably most striking from the player's perspective is that adult dwarves that have been raised by goblin civilizations can join their raids and sieges of your fort.

Nothing appears to be forcing them to do this.

Imagine growing up with goblins, learning the goblin language, worshipping their gods and observing their customs.

You know you're different, the other children make that clear enough, but your belly is full in the summers and just as empty as anyone else's in the cold.

When you grow, you're a full two heads taller than anyone else. They try to put you to work in the forge, they think you should be good at it, you dont understand why. You're not. Your fingers fumble over the steel, you drop the tongs, you burn yourself on the flames.

You've let your family down, you're ashamed.

They put an axe in your hand, you start felling trees. It's easy for you. They send little hauling squads with you to collect the lumber, you free up half a dozen workers. Your family is proud of you, you're proud of yourself.

A set of armour is smithed for you, you don't need to put your name on it, no one else could wear it.

Suddenly, you're drilling, but it's no problem, people salute you in the hallways, you get choice rations with the other warriors. You're respected. It took you some time, but you've found a place in your home.

You keep shaving your beard out of habit.

Now your squad hauls back jewels, instruments, and armour that even you couldn't fit into.

One day you hit a hole in the ground. Defended by walls and traps your brethren fall to hidden blades and arrows. By the time you breach the dining hall, you've taken serious casualties.

In front of you is a hall of shrouded mirrors, they don't recognize you in your full helm, you don't even know what they are.

Your mother doesn't even recognize you as she cleaves your head in half.

You're laid to rest in the refuse pile, outside the fort with your brothers.

Dwarf Fortress is riduculous. a world I generated contains a manual on adhesives called "It Is Glue". it's 103 pages long and the game describes the writing as "completely serious, yes overflowing with sadness".