modern fantasy and sci-fi is so afraid of being demonstrably weird in any identifiable way, simultaneously defined by aesthetic baggage yet scared of signposting their influence

fromsoft's work, for all its warts and all their missteps, is undeniably afraid of none of these things.

just a fucking crumb of mythology not smothered by injecting modern pleasantries into the grime. just a sliver of weapon and armor and character design with real life inspiration. just some semblance of having read science fantasy work straddling genre bounds in the 60-80s. the barest minimum.

always saying this

so much of any conversation (especially with giant parties) is the push and pull of different wills, people jostling to get themselves in; if you're the ONE person who actively enables others you won't even have to stick your neck that far out. it's a solace a lot of people don't receive.

and i do mean this in an earnest way. you might not have the means or the personality to carry a conversation in the same manner as someone who is talkative but if people notice you're still being attentive they will seek you out (you might not like this) over and over again

will carry you 99.9% of the way to being a functioning human being. people will go "wow, they really listened to me complain about the new route i got assigned at work....." even if all you did was facilitate *them* yapping more because, well, you cared enough to enable their personality

i enjoy hearing others yap because i like leeching off their unbridled energy for nourishment and i'm a good listener. but also holy shit sometimes you DO just want to see the look on their face when you force them to stop.