Sineala

I know that everyone who wanted to play Hades has probably already played Hades and moved on to Hades 2, because Hades came out back in 2020, but this is my journal and I just finished the main storyline yesterday, so.

( Hades, including some plot spoilers )

Up next in gaming: Not sure. I might play TR-49, which I just bought; I think that's a short one, and it looked like a fun puzzle game. I might also just play more Slay the Spire in preparation for StS2 next month. I know I said I wasn't gonna do Ascensions in StS, but I lied and started doing them. Of course, I'm at, like, 2. Out of 20. I will probably not get to 20.

I am also starting to feel well enough that I might consider playing a game on the Switch, which I haven't done since the migraines got bad, really, because holding a Switch is apparently a lot to ask of me, whereas games on the laptop means that the laptop sits right here next to me, and the 8bitdo controller also sits in my lap, so I don't have to lift anything. Yeah, I know. I've been really tired. At least right now I have enough energy to type this.

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing. I have had a migraine every day.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Avengers #35, Nova Centurion #4, Ultimate Endgame #2, Ultimate Wolverine #14 )

What I'm Reading Next

I mean, it'd be nice to get to read something. I do get to switch migraine medication. Maybe I will get my brain back. How is it that I am reading comics, you ask? Well, if you click on my reviews, I'm finding them very confusing. I'm also not reading as many as I would like to.

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing! But, hey, I do get to increase my dose of migraine preventative! Hooray!

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Alien vs. Captain America #3, Captain America #6, Fantastic Four #7, New Avengers #8, Ultimate Black Panther #24, Wiccan Witches' Road #2 )

What I'm Reading Next

IDK. Ask me when I'm not having a migraine every 48 hours. If that ever happens.

As I think I have mentioned, I usually attempt to finish games before posting about them, but I suspend this rule when the game is clearly designed to be an unholy timesink. I'm not actually sure this game has an end. Or a plot.

I bought BALL x PIT during the Steam winter sale, which I mention because it is theoretically still the Steam sale for a few more hours and I don't want to deprive anyone else of the sale opportunity, although the game is reasonably cheap anyway. It is the new hotness of "roguelite games that have combined roguelite meta-progression with some other genre of popular game," most recently exemplified by Balatro (roguelite poker), Vampire Survivors (roguelite bullet-heaven, which is of course a variant of bullet-hell shooters) and my beloved Slay the Spire (roguelite deckbuilder, and, yes, I am counting down the months until the sequel hits Early Access; I would count down the days if they had said anything more specific than "a Thursday in March").

So BALL x PIT is a roguelite version of Breakout. Or Pong, I guess, if you prefer. You shoot bouncy balls at enemies. The balls have powers like poison and lightning and whatnot. You level them up and then combine them to make different balls with more powers. In between levels you retreat to your base, which is full of buildings and resources and so on that you arrange in order to have balls bounce around them with maximum efficiency like if SimCity were pinball, and then you build buildings that buff your characters. They have this gameplay loop down solid. It's fun.

Anyway, I am posting because I wanted to mention the accessibility options, since I watched a bunch of streamers and read a bunch of reviews, could not figure out if I could play this, bought it anyway, and then discovered I could.

So you can play this game either with keyboard/mouse or with a controller. If you're playing with keyboard/mouse, it's WASD to move and mouse to aim/fire, my least favorite control scheme. If you're playing with a controller, it's left stick to move, right stick to aim, right trigger to fire. (There's an option to aim in the direction of movement, but sadly only if you're using a mouse.) I will say that you can play this while not being especially great at aiming, because the balls will eventually bounce approximately where you want -- it's not like playing an actual shoot-'em-up.

You can remap the controls if you need to (Settings > General, then scroll down) but for me the most useful general thing is the ability to turn autofire on, which you can do while playing. Your character slows down a bit if you turn this on, but there are buffs during the game to bring your movement speed up, so it's not so bad. Then you just need to aim and move (and not fire), and I can do left and right stick with one hand if I have my 8bitdo Lite SE controller.

However, there are points where this game becomes an actual bullet-hell shooter. You can shoot down some projectiles, but not all of them, and the boss of the first stage -- for example -- shoots a bunch of intricate projectiles that you do in fact have to just dodge. Now, I bought this game anyway and figured I was just gonna die a lot, because I can't dodge worth a damn, but it turns out the devs thought of that! Under Settings > General, turn on "Allow slower movement speed."

The regular game has three movement speeds you can cycle through while playing, which I knew, and I nearly didn't select this option in the settings because I figured this was how you opted into that, but it turns out the three regular speeds are there anyway. What this option does is turn on super-slow "1/4" and "1/2" speeds so you have five speeds to choose from. Yay!

(As far as I can tell, this does not lock you out of achievements; you can get an achievement for completing a level even if you have fought the boss at half-speed. I don't know if there are any locked achievements for completing a level at a specific speed, in which case those are probably still locked.)

So it turns out that I can definitely mostly dodge projectiles in the boss fight in a bullet-hell game at half-speed and that there's still quarter-speed available if I need it. I hadn't seen any of the reviews mention this setting, so I thought I would bring it up. You too can play BALL x PIT even if your reflexes are not usually up to par for bullet-hell shooters!

So everyone in fandom has become obsessed with the gay hockey show, and lysimache and I watched it a couple days ago. Neither of us care about hockey (I think we are both hoping that fandom decides to care about baseball, though this seems unlikely -- but, hey, it's 42 days until pitchers and catchers report) but we do like gay things a lot.

It was nice? I mean, it's not going to be my new fandom, but I'm not sorry I watched it. I did nearly give up after the first two episodes for narrative reasons that I will explain below.

( Spoilers )

It's only six episodes, so... you might as well watch it if you like gay shows, I guess? It's not bad.

I somehow own the first book. I am not sure yet if I will read it.

For my last book of the year, I do indeed seem to be reading Pegasus: An Easy Ancient Greek Reader. This retells the story of Pegasus in very easy Ancient Greek with basically every word on the page in a facing glossary.

I had a big ol' book of Greek myths when I was a kid -- not one of the standard ones -- and of course my favorite story was the one about Bellerophon bridling Pegasus and then fighting the chimera. Because, you know. Horsie. It had, I think, a full-color plate for every story (this is why I suspect it wasn't one of the standard books because it was not heavily-illustrated). Now that I have looked around, I think it was this -- Myths Every Child Should Know -- which seems, uh, pretty obscure. I found a nicer PDF though.)

I remember being in, like, second grade and having painstakingly made and illustrated my own "book" of Pegasus, retelling the story in my own words, for some kind of school project, which I bound by having my parents help me wrap pieces of cardboard in pegasus-themed wrapping paper and then duct-taping the spine together. I definitely remember using my extremely fancy Prismacolor colored pencils to render the golden bridle. So I am deeply familiar with it... but only this one exact version.

Anyway, the story in Myths Every Child Should Know definitely did NOT mention that Bellerophon was in Lycia fighting the chimera because he'd been exiled from Corinth for killing a rando guy named Belleron -- apparently "Bellerophon" means "murderer of Belleron," and his previous name was Horse Mind (Hipponous) -- and he ended up in Argos as a guest of the king who ritually cleansed him of the miasma of his murder (lysimache says this is a cultural concept that everyone knows but I have never heard of this in my life) but then the queen decided she wanted to fuck Bellerophon and when he turned her down, she went to her husband the king and said Bellerophon had wanted to fuck her and therefore the king should have this guy killed. Of course she did.

So at this point in the story, Bellerophon is being sent to Lycia with a letter telling King Iobates (the wife's father) to have him killed, because the king of Argos can't just kill him because he's a guest he has ritually cleansed and eaten meals with and killing him is just Not Done. However, it's cool to send him to your father-in-law and have him kill him. That's fine. I love hospitality.

Apparently this part was not a Myth Every Child Should Know. Anyway! Looking forward to more unanticipated sex and violence!

What I Just Finished Reading

Katie Chandler, Backhanded Compliments: A f/f tennis rivals-to-lovers romance that's also a name-on-wrist soulmate story, because I guess this is just what Real Books are like now. It's... okay? The smut was actually decent, and there was some interesting worldbuilding in here (everyone visits the archaeological museum of Naples and talks about the classical views of soulmates), but I think the author should have built up the rivalry before having them actually realize they were soulmates, because pre-existing character investment is not happening in original fiction, and it wasn't really clear to me why they couldn't just be together.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Alien vs. Captain America #2, Avengers #33 )

What I'm Reading Next

I have to read one more book this year so that I do not fail my pitiful Goodreads challenge. lysimache says I should finish reading this novella about Pegasus written for students learning Ancient Greek, but my bookmark fell out and I don't remember where I was. Also I forgot the word for "bridle."

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing. It has been a very tiring week.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Doctor Strange #1, Fantastic Four #6, Ultimate Universe Two Years In #1, Ultimate X-Men #22, Wiccan Witches Road #1 )

What I'm Reading Next

Still working through the tennis soulmate romance.

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing. As you can tell, the past few weeks have really been Surprise Medical Problem Time, and while I have my brain back most of the time, I am not really having a lot of energy for sustained focus.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( X-Vengers #2 )

What I'm Reading Next

I just started reading a f/f tennis rivals-to-lovers name-on-wrist soulmate romance novel because I guess this is just what Real Books are like now.

What I Just Finished Reading

It has been an unexpectedly stressful week and I have read nothing, alas.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Captain America #5, Nova Centurion #1, One World Under Doom #9, Spider-Man Holiday Spectacular #1, Ultimates #18 )

What I'm Reading Next

Still not sure yet. Working on having enough energy to read stuff.