Major spoilers for Stranger of Paradise ahead, I guess.

Jack Garland is an angry man. Stranger of Paradise is a game about an angry man. That's what they told us we were going to get, and that's what we got.

And all the stuff you see is real, it's in the game - so much of the anger we are exposed to early on is goofy, it's superficial, it's almost parody. Jack Garland knows he has to kill Chaos. It's something he knows without understanding it - in his own words, he needs it in a way that is not a hope, or a dream - it is a hunger. It is instinctual.

And what is Chaos? Chaos is the mechanism by which the Lufenians control the world - it is a power that arises by drawing energy out of negative emotion - the Lufenians engineer it with catastrophes, then harvest it with fake heroes, Strangers from their inhuman Paradise. Humanity's anger has been stolen from them, made part of a system of control for the benefit of those who look down on them, who make callous decisions for 'their own good' that rack up an endless body count dismissed because the Lufenians can always 'fix' it later while that stolen power props up their Elysian kingdom.

He does not remember it, but Jack Garland has watched them take the people he loves away from him hundreds of times over. He has been the weapon in the hand of the Lufenians that maintains this system.

Jack Garland's real anger has been stolen from him. He relearns it as we watch. He suffers, again. He tramples the bodies of those he loves, again, unknowing. When he is allowed his own, honest anger again, the anger at injustice and stolen love, it is so much stronger than the fake anger he was given.

He makes Chaos his own, and drives the Lufenians from Cornelia, giving up Paradise for a world that belongs to real people.

Stranger of Paradise ends in the way they admitted it would. Jack Garland becomes Garland. By extension, he becomes Chaos. He and his friends become the villains - they do this so that the people they love can live in a world that is gentle enough for its own heroes, instead of having manufactured heroes forced upon it.

By implication, they do this as an acceptance of their own death. Their victory can only come in the world that is not for them, that destroys them.

Except.

That's not how Final Fantasy ends.

At the end of Final Fantasy, Garland returns to a Cornelia that no longer needs him to make that choice. He comes home to the people who love him.

Atma fell in love with this game beyond belief. Final Fantasy was the very first game she ever asked for money to buy - she was a child and it had a cool sword on the cover.

Stranger of Paradise loves Final Fantasy. Every stage is a reference to a previous game. Every step of the journey is a reference to the long road that brought us here. The world is made up of every journey we have been on until now.

Jack Garland's anger let him survive, but the thing that saves him is love. It's someone, all those years ago, buying their very first game because it had a sword on the cover and choosing to love it with all their heart.

Our world is not gentle enough for heroes. But I'm glad that she found a world that was.

I'm not watching the new gundam but I can tell it's going really well because the fanart of the lead characters on my feed has slowly progressed from 'making gooey eyes at each other' to 'crying, clinging together, spattered with blood, etc'

Re: worry, i actually feel like sometimes having anxiety over something is my brain's (ineffective) stopgap for wanting/needing to get something done, but not currently having the energy to do it.

Like, gods forbid i look at something, go, "i really need to get that done," put it on my to-do list, and then just. Let it sit there until i am having a day where i feel resourced enough to complete the task. No, of course i need to WORRY about it, i need to constantly self-flagulate about it or else......oh no.......i might be lazy.

Absolutely not helped at all by, 1.) My mom constantly calling me lazy in my teen years, but neither by 2.) Many posts describing executive functioning issues as Really wanting to do something but just Not being able to do it and Suffering over it and Not Being Able To Stop Thinking about it. Because, you know, the person is suffering! That's how you know they're not lazy! Lazy people just sit around not worrying about things!

Implying, of course, that if you're not worrying...then you are the lazy one.

But it turns out having anxiety over a task is not only unnecessary, but actively takes up mental energy that you could instead be saving up to actually complete the task that needs to be done.

Imagine.

This post activated my "you're right AND I'LL YELL EVEN LOUDER ABOUT HOW RIGHT YOU ARE" response so uhhh wall of loud cawing under the readmore

might i suggest looking at pathfinder 2e if you want a bigger name d20 system.

I suspect it and critical role are the reasons hasbro is trying so hard to close the open gaming license. They gotta pad out that 150 million dollars in d&d profit by wringing out its biggest competitor who made.......

checks notes

12 million dollars

PF2e is my favourite version of D&D, and I've played most editions. If you really want a D&D, it's got my endorsement.

If you want something fresh to take a break from D&D... have you heard of Hard Wired Island?

Lancer's pretty cool too. I've had a ton of fun with Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, also. There's a whole wealth of experiences to try once you broaden your horizons past the walled garden that is D&D.

You should check it out if you like fun things.