'It Gets Better'-themed RPG could be better.

In the flash game A Closed World, you play a young man/woman from a village entirely closed off from the outside world by a dense forest full of demons. Though you're asked to select your character's gender before beginning, there are no visual indicators of it, nor of that of the character's lover, who, sick of the ridicule and abuse he/she faces due to his/her sexuality, has apparently fled into the wood. Your character sets out into the forest him/herself, and is forced to confront demons representing the people in his/her life. This is the battle system:



Oh, so that's how human conflict works. I will never lose an argument again!

Hit points are "Composure" - the demon loses Composure when you Logic/Passion/Ethics at it appropriately. Take this fight with your sibling:

I choose to defy the demon with ethics! "Why can't you just let me be who I am?" She trembled before the power of my ethics!

She stings me with bigoted curses! I lost some composure.

I choose to rattle the demon with passion! "You're not Mom, so stop trying to take her place!" She was stung by my passion!

She stings me with bigoted curses! I lost some composure.

I choose to frustrate the demon with logic! "Don't you judge me when your own 'normal' life is so rocky!" She dismissed my logic.

So this is not precisely Pulitzer material. It's not really consistent with the stated premise, either - I mean, what makes that first statement ethical? I'm also not sure about the logical one. This makes battles a matter of trial and error, given that it's not easy to figure out whether a demon's going for Logical, Ethical, or Passionate when it "tries to force you to believe in lies."

But the game's most noticeable failure isn't with its battle system, but rather with its use of pronouns, and horrors wreaked thereupon by the RNG.

( Mild spoilers. )

So, today we learn yet again that good intentions aren't enough! Mercedes Lackey probably wasn't involved this time, though.

I should not re-read City of Diamond again.

I just re-read it, and I need to stop re-reading stuff in general - I mean, I've only read two new books in the past two months. This must stop. I must force my brain to accept fictional narratives it doesn't already know.

...is there anything that's like, similar to City of Diamond?

The complex failure of a mnemonic device.

thegeekgene just called to ask a question. Mom answered it thusly:

Mom: You just have to remember "fall forward, spring back."

Dad, from the other room: No!

Mom: Isn't that right?... "Spring forward, fall back?"

Me: Mom, you can't fall forward.

Mom: I can fall on my face!

Me: I - okay, you can, I guess...