Most approachable? A dialectical review of Elden Ring

Dark Souls and other games made by FromSoft are legendary for their fans’ elitism. The phrase, “git gud”, archetypically spoken to the souls newb who asks for advice on game forums, resonates throughout gaming discourse. “Souls-like” and “The Dark Souls of” are practically synonymous with video game difficulty, and the conversation around it.

But when FromSoft released Elden Ring this year, I loosely followed the fan subreddit, and found that elitism was not nearly as common as reputed. The phrase “git gud” was rarely used, and only then as a joke–and not a funny joke either, but the kind everyone else would groan at. Perhaps I’m looking at the wrong fan-sites, but my impression is that the fans have moved beyond elitism. They have come to recognize that, actually, it would be great if more people enjoyed this series, so that they could make more of it.

It’s possible that fans and critics and have overcorrected for past elitism, now declaring that Elden Ring is FromSoft’s “most approachable game yet.” Other critics have pushed back, highlighting how the game can still be unfriendly to newcomers. To explore this issue, I present two reviews from different perspectives.

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Closed square origami box

closed square origami box

Closed Square Origami Box, designer unknown ETA: This design was independently created by Robyn Glynn and Tomoko Fuse

Some readers are interested in origami that they can actually make themselves.  The trouble with that is that many of the designs are quite complicated, or it’s difficult to get instructions that can be shared.  For original designs, it can take hours to draw diagrams even for relatively simple designs–and most of them are not very simple at all.  Other designs I get from books, and the diagrams are under copyright!  And for many designs, the only available instructions are the crease patterns.

Today I present a design that I happen to have diagrams for.  This closed square origami box is not my design, but I couldn’t find diagrams so I drew up some myself.  Someone also made a video.  Diagrams below the cut.

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Regulating data science with explanations

Data science has an increasing impact on our lives, and not always for the better. People speak of “Big Data”, and demand regulation, but they don’t really understand what that would look like. I work in one of the few areas where data science is regulated, so I want to discuss one particular regulation and its consequences.

So, it’s finally time for me to publicly admit… I work in the finance sector.

These regulations apply to many different financial trades, but for illustrative purposes, I’m going to talk about loans. The problem with taking out a loan is that you need to pay it back plus interest. The interest is needed to give lenders a return on their investment, and to offset the losses from other borrowers who don’t pay it off. Lenders can increase profit margins and/or lower interest rates if they can predict who won’t pay off their debt, and decline those people. Data science is used to help make those decline decisions.

The US imposes two major restrictions on the data science. First, there’s anti-discrimination laws (a subject I might discuss at a later time) (ETA: it’s here). Second, an explanation must be provided to people who are declined.

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Link Roundup: September 2022

In case anyone is interested, this month I wrote “How to tell if you’re allosexual, if you’re a journalist“, about low quality articles that seem intended to exploit SEO.

that female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough | Pervert Justice – Gatekeeping trans women from sports ultimately results in gatekeeping cis women as well.  I think this pragmatic argument isn’t the most satisfying, because it doesn’t make a positive case for the inclusion of trans women–but it is, after all, still correct.

Fixing My Brain with Automated Therapy | Jacob Geller (video, 53 min) – Jacob tried five different therapy apps, and talks about the history of teletherapy.  Plenty of interesting discussion, for instance, about how teletherapy constrains the kind of therapy.  He echoes what I’ve said about Eliza–this technology will be cheap, but bad.  More people could have access to therapy this way, and that’s a good thing… but it’s not good therapy.

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Talking about media you haven’t seen

Among people who are close to me, I am renowned for not liking movies or TV. If you’ve ever read my reviews of TV/movies, you’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, as I generally do not like things enough to watch them in the first place. I think it’s great living this way, I can only imagine how many lifetimes I have saved by not watching all that stuff. It’s a shame that I waste that extra time by watching media criticism instead.

That’s right, I enjoy video essays that analyze media that I have never watched, and do not have any intention of ever watching. And I’m sure I’m not alone. In the past six years, YouTube media criticism has emerged as a popular genre—as well as an influential source of progressive commentary.

What’s incredible about these videos, is that they appear to have solved one of my lifelong struggles. How do we have a discussion about unshared media—media that not everyone in the audience has experienced?

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Origami: Cootie catcher deluxe

Cootie catcher deluxe

Cootie catcher deluxe, designer unknown

Back when I was going to origami meetups, somebody showed me a design which they called the Cootie Catcher Deluxe.  It’s a variation on the cootie catcher, aka the fortune teller.  There’s some additional ornamentation where your fingers would go–which makes it non-functional as a fortune teller–but I’m not complaining.  Anyway, they couldn’t remember how they made it, and I couldn’t find any mention of it on the internet.  So here we have a legit reverse-engineering problem.  Those are fun.

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Love, Victor reviewed

After finishing and reviewing the first season of Heartstopper (TV series), we were looking for another show to watch, and landed on Love, Victor, available on Disney+. This is a very different kind of show than Heartstopper, and I daresay I prefer it. Where Heartstopper is a well-done if formulaic series committed to low stakes, Love, Victor is basically a soap opera that had us constantly yelling at the screen.

Love, Victor is a spinoff of the movie Love, Simon (which I have seen but do not remember). Victor is a closeted gay kid at Simon’s old high school, and he writes Simon hate mail because he thinks Simon must have had it so much easier. Simon responds much more kindly than I would have, and serves as a remote mentor for the first season and a half. The show primarily focuses on Victor and his circle of friends, who are seemingly embroiled in an endless series of love triangles.

I wrote a series of reactions/complaints as we watched Love, Victor over the past two months, and I have attempted to organize them into something coherent. I won’t be going through the whole show episode by episode, but I will include incidental spoilers for all three seasons.

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