#New promotional post because I can't edit the original

[creature-competition]

CALLING ALL CREATURES!!!

It's time to settle which creature is Tumblr's most creature! Submit a creature so they will have a chance to claim the title!

Submit any fictional character you want! If they're a creature to you they are elligible for submission!

You can submit characters here and read rules and info here!

Something I forgot to add: please don't submit the same character twice. I know that's standard practice at this point, but just in case anyone didn't know.

[sonicboomseason3]

a brief recap of what has been going on with the sonic movieverse in the past several months:

paramount has come out in public support of israel

keanu reeves, a man who has publicly rubbed elbows with none other than benjamin netanyahu, reportedly gets cast as shadow for the upcoming third movie

james marsden, the guy who plays tom, got exposed as having written a letter of support for a convicted pedophile

there's fucking??? zionist propaganda in the knuckles series???

kind of connected to the last point but adam pally, the guy who plays wade, is evidently pro-israel too

this is a complete and utter joke.

EDIT AS OF 4/30/24: if people see this version of the post, i'd really appreciate it if you reblog it instead of the other versions, as it's the most updated one with all the information that i want included. thank you :]

you know, it's been a few days since i've made this post, and some of you (not most) are staying determined in defending/justifying/giving the benefit of the doubt to keanu for that photo with netanyahu, whether it's because "it was a decade ago," "him being civil to someone he ran into at a party one time doesn't mean anything," "he's probably just silent because his pr managers won't allow him to speak up," etc. i've made my thoughts on the matter quite clear by directly responding to these people, but at this point, i'm tired of both seeing them in my notes and repeating myself, so take this as my final word on the issue.

i can't help it if you don't think the photo with netanyahu is damning, and i'm done engaging with everyone going out of their way to tell me that. i obviously disagree, especially after finding out that 1. the host of the party, arnon milchan, is a former israeli spy who has a history of developing israel's nuclear program and promoting apartheid in south africa (information that had broken out a few months prior to the party and thus would've been fresh news around the time keanu chose to attend) and 2. keanu has been caught hanging around at least two other weirdos, but if you don't find any of that to be cause for reasonable concern, then there really is nothing else i can say afaik.

with all that said, i'm beginning to realize how strange it is that these people's first instinct when seeing this post is to start debating about keanu's political stances without ever acknowledging any of the other bullet points. you guys realize that this isn't just about him, right? i know tumblr reading comprehension is known for being piss-poor, but like… you realize that i was trying to make a point of how there are MULTIPLE terrible things that have broken out about the people and company involved in the sonic movies, right? and yet, a lot of the people leaping to speak on keanu's behalf in my notes are completely ignoring the parts where i bring up paramount, pally, etc. all in favor of zeroing in on the singular point about keanu and making bad faith assumptions about me for holding him accountable. really makes one wonder where your priorities lie if, in a post that talks about so many other things, me accusing an a-list celebrity with, according to google, a net worth of almost $400 million is where you draw the line and apparently the only thing worth your acknowledgment.

ultimately, what i'm trying to say is that the intention of this post was just to gather up everything that i had been hearing for the past several months and put it all together in one place. there were a bunch of people who didn't know about at least one of the bullet points before seeing this post, and i'm glad that i could help inform them, that was what i was hoping to do! but as for the keanu thing, i've said pretty much all i can say for now, and i don't want to derail the original post even more than i may have already. unless something new comes up, i'm done talking about him.

[jrwi-eldritchstrings-event]

Eldritchstrings Event Sign-Ups Open!!

Hi! Are you looking for some Apothy fun in these trying times of no new Apothesosis episodes? Wanna get together with other toxic yuri fans to make something swag? This post is to let you know that sign-ups are now open for the Eldritchstrings Event - an event centered on Exandroth and Rumi!!

This event is solely being run by @burning-sol (me) and @exandr0th-0f-viscera (my headmate). It probably won't be that large-scale, and we'll be kind of loose with management as we get an idea of what the members involved want from the event in terms of development and a final product. Our biggest rules are to HAVE FUN and TRY YOUR BEST!! If you don't feel like you're having fun, then this event is officially so joever.

If you're interested, please read through everything after the cut, the Sign-Up Form's link is at the end!! Sign-ups close November 16th.

Who can join?

If I've blocked you that's probably a bad sign... Obviously. But other than that, no limitations we can think of! Just know that Xander and I are pro-endo and pro-mspec lesbians; so if that gives you the impression you wouldn't gel well with the group, it's best to steer clear. All we ask of our participants is that they'll...!

Communicate clearly, and consciously try to take others in good faith.

At the least tolerate their cohorts if they can't outright get along with them.

AND, most importantly, they'll reach out to us if there are any issues!! It is no bother and it's actively better for the collective if you're open about anything that may have come up :3

What's the estimated time frame?

Sign-Ups close November 16th! ..however, the time frame for development and publishing will be up to participants to decide - with that process of consultation concluding before 2025.

At the LATEST the deadline for the works themselves will be July 31st, which will leave time for the editors to finesse the final product and publish it August 27th... (the anniversary of the first Eldritchstrings post!) So if you think you could make something by July 31st, even if you're initially busy, join the sign-ups!

If you miss it you will NOT be let into the event late, unfortunately. But no worries, because if the event goes well then there's a high probability another will be held in the future! :D

What contributions are we looking for?

Firstly, anyone who can help with visual design, editing, accessibility and publishing otherwise would be appreciated! There's also room for people who have general experience overseeing events and/or those who would like to help with promotion.

There will also (potentially) be groups, so if all you wanna do is hang around in case a pinch-hitter is needed, you can do that!

In terms of those submitting work to the event, ANY form of art goes! You may want to submit something like...

Fan-fiction, poetry, essays..

Illustrations, comics…

Banners, blinkies, icons…

Moodboards, stimboards, webweaves..

Textiles, cosplay, photography…

Edits, animations, PMVs, AMVs…

Original music, playlists…

Coding, games, 3D works…

Or whatever other weird and unique things you can think of…!

Romantic, platonic, situationship... Angst, comedy, abstract works, complete bullshit… Canon, non-canon, post-canon, somewhere in between… All is welcome so long at it centers on Exandroth and Rumi!!

Our ONLY limitations are that we will NOT be allowing any erotica, and no portrayal of genitalia in terms of artistic nudity! If you are otherwise unsure your work would be allowed, feel free to ask about it!

Also! Works that are exclusive to the event would be super cool, but you can submit older art or continue to work on something from your already existing WIPs if you'd like! The only catch is that you wouldn't be able to resubmit those to any future events... So if you're okay with that, go on ahead!

..and that's about it!

Make sure you've read over this and any relevant posts on this blog thoroughly. Participants will gather in a Discord server, the invites of which will be distributed via Tumblr PMs from this blog. If you're chill with everything stated above, here's the sign-up form!!

-> SIGN UP HERE <-

Note: We will not be personally promoting this event to other social medias, but you have our permission to share this sign-up with Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, etc!!

[baufive]

I had an inquiry about this chair on bluesky and it was one of the earliest things I released for S4 - it had recently been made for S3 and I liked it there. This is based on a real chair I bought and then restored with my father in the mid 80s. I don't think it ever got the love it deserved because it's not exactly MM, but in 'remastering' it I have to say - I still love the original just as much as the revamp. I can't believe I got the caning to work as well as it did (so early on in S4 creation). And while it's 'old' - this project makes me love it still - it's like a before and after and I like a bit of grime in my game.

I've taken an EA caning texture from one of the chairs and retextured the seating area. I made the finials a little less 'plumbob' and I fixed the turned back posts to have less sharp turns. That means more polys and it goes against my S3 rule of 1200 per square, but it's just above.[EDITING TO ADD: I still use S3 rules in S4 creation to the best of my ability - too many polys bogs down an already bloated game] These slight adjustments are not a strong visual change, but with the new colors, it did not look right for some reason. I like the textures of the original - they, like in real life, disguise a few things.

Looking at the caning specifically, the effects are the same - a flat surface is a much harder 'trick' to get that soft look. The EA texture is a little softer. I have wondered if phongalpha would be a better choice, but then it would not be a basegame item so I have not explored this - might for the sake of knowing. I could use TSRw to add a group [I could also eat a turd], but I will reserve my entirely accurate thoughts on TSR and my bewilderment on how the community still continues to promote them like they are not evil shitbags. [read: stop using them]

The shadow is also softer on the newer chair. Still have to refine the colors a bit - some of the colors need fussing with. There are the 12 flour cabinet 'milkpaint' colors, three to match the jelly cabinet (if you didn't like the original, I didn't want to recreate a worn chair again and if you liked the original - please keep it like I will) and a slew of 'brights' that end with a small selection of neutrals that I am currently questioning.

TLDR: new sort of, words words words, keep the old AND the new. TSR can suck a fart.

[goldenwoods]

I hope more GO fans in the separate art from artist camp gets into the habit of tagging their GO stuff with an obligatory #fuck gaiman. I see people doing this but not enough people. Like...I'm sorry guys but dude isn't going to purge himself from your fandom so you've got to do the work if you really want the work to be a separate entity from that monster in the public consciousness. Whether you like it or not gaiman ihas implanted himself firmly in the middle of GO tumblr: I've done my fair share of GO tumblr scrolling these few years and he is fucking EVERYWHERE. He actively engages with fan theories and fans loved it when he reacts to fan works because they looked up to him and loved his writing. The good omens tag right now is saturated with gaiman because it's showing top (i.e. older) posts by default. Gaiman's been using the popularity of good omens and its positive rep as a shield to make well-meaning kind people think he's one of them. I'm pretty undecided on the debate of whether you can separate the art from the artist but if you still want to promote any of his work by making fan content, making it abundantly clear that you are not promoting him is a great start. Separating the art from the artist must be a visible and active process for people plan to publicly engage and promote that art, not just something people tell themselves before going on their merry way drawing zira and crowley kissing as if nothing has happened within this past year.

edits in light of the comment(s): - No, don't flag the main gaiman news tag (my original suggestion is mistaken about how tumblr tagging works, see the comments). But yes, do find some way to disavow him if you're going to continue engaging with these stories.

-No, that doesn't mean things like streaming his shows. Please don't do anything that'll give him money. Satisfy your GO craving through non-gaiman means. Doesn't matter if the money you give him by streaming is only a drop in the ocean because en masse it's sending the signal that gaiman-involved productions are still profitable and we don't want him to continue cruising through the industry.

-Liking the work doesn't mean you're a fan of the guy. Was never a prolific gaiman consumer so idk about his books in general but GO? The show I watched? Can't find anything fcked up in it even after thinking about it retrospectively. Most of the folks from that show would punch gaiman if they were real.

-Probably don't recommend him to any non gaiman consumer though. That's just unnecessary.

[dbarn]

For anyone interested in Zootopia 2 who hasn't seen this elsewhere:

Disney's big expo, D23, opens tomorrow today. Everyone was expecting Z2 news, but some early pictures are coming out showing a big display.

(Note that these pictures are not mine -- I've pilfered them from /r/Zootopia, and the watermarks indicate Cinepop, but I wasn't able to find a post for these.)

Here's the "official" logo. Notice the scales on the tail of the number 2. Intriguing!

Here's a good angle of the display. A walrus, Nick and Judy in new outfits, and plenty of seafood- and nautical-based businesses. That's because...

This is apparently part of the Marshlands, which have been referred to in passing but not explored yet. I'm getting a New Orleans-type vibe from this. Just behind Judy is a sign for "blowhole decongestant", featuring a cartoon whale, which may indicate that there will be whales and/or dolphins in the new film.

Here's another angle of the scene. Hey, what's that right above the "O" in the watermark? Looks like a snake. Not coincidentally, I'm sure, from this distance it looks pretty similar to the design of Kaa from Jungle Book, or perhaps Sir Hiss from Robin Hood. That would provide a neat bookend for Nick's own Robin Hood-like design. The snake is an interesting inclusion, since the original film made no mention of sentient reptiles or amphibians.

And last, but not least, here's a closeup of the main character figures. They aren't in uniform, which has led to speculation already: are they on vacation? Conducting an undercover investigation? Have they been promoted to detectives? (Also, there's been a minor firestorm over whether Judy's paw resting on Nick's head is sporting a ring, or whether that's just an artifact of potato-quality pictures. BUT REMEMBER THE THING A FEW WEEKS AGO ABOUT NICK AND JUDY WEDDING RINGS BEING OFFERED IN JAPAN???)

EDIT: additional pictures have established that Judy is not wearing a ring.

Personally, I've been trying to decode this sign.

NO (wha?) AFTER SUNSET WITHOUT PERMIT

Mall curs? Hall cubs?

Anyway, I'm really excited about this and can't wait to hear more from the expo tomorrow.

[magical-wishies]

To love or not to love, that is the questio-

Ok whoops wrong reference. Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I made a MV of the song "Darling Dance" by Kairiki Bear featuring my favourite little tricksters for the occasion!

I'd rather you go straight to Youtube to watch it because Tumblr always finds a way to cut the quality, lol.

Eng subtitles are available too!

Here it is! Hope you enjoy my pride and joy. Basically like a hopeful child but in video format. Reblogs are specially appreciated because Youtube sucks at promoting new channels!

This also acts as a behind-the-scenes post, so let's get straight into that, shall we?

MV Project 1 "Darling Dance"

Illustration time: 37 hours

Editing time: Approx. 30-35 hours

Total: 70 hours

*Cough* Holy freakin' moly does making an MV take so long. Before you roll off your bed, I'll say that part of the reason making the art took so long was because I have trouble drawing Marx consistently.

Here's some unused assets! Look at them, they're all salty over not making the cut.

In all seriousness though, a lot of times I don't really see a lot of editors/ MV makers getting appreciation for their efforts. And now that I've personally experienced making an MV for the first time, it's also increased my admiration to the people who dedicate their time to this! All the kudos to them.

Now, I'll go scene by scene then comment along the way! Spoilers ahead!

Verse 1

Pretty good for what it is. In the first image, you see that heart behind Magolor? I discovered the motion of it on complete accident lol. Capcut is hard to figure out..

I also really like the color palette of 2nd image. That art of Marx was the last one I did during production (aka I drew it this morning), and just look at him. He's such a bastard he's the best.

Pre Chorus 1

Mmmm yeah it sure is the pre chorus! I put a bar behind the text in the middle because I didn't want people to stare into their soulless eyes for too long. That probably worked!

1st Chorus

When I first added in the expression change, I fangirled over it a little on the first rewatch. Like, come on! They suddenly look mischievous, and the color change on the background! I know I drew it but still!

For the rest, I experimented a little with all the "Nah"s! I think it ended up well. Most of the lyric editing in this MV is completely original, so I had a couple of things to try out!

Verse 2

This song is horrifically outdated because it says Twitter instead of X!! (/sarcasm)

This scene is my second favourite. I'm really proud of the details on the tabs and the editing at the beginning! Wish I could put more images but the app only allows ten. Bummer.

Pre Chorus 2

I think it's cute, and I used it as my pfp on YouTube! That's about it though.. image limit is killing me I can't put anything here :(

Chorus 2

...Not gonna spoil it! I like how I drew them, but there ain't anything notable. Unless you look at the last image I put right before the bridge. :)

Bridge

This is where my editing comes in freakin' clutch. Ooooooh it's so satisfying to look at. Chef's kiss. Also those Marxs (Marxes?) are really cute.

The second part of the bridge is nice as well! I tried to make the lyrics snap to the rhythm. Glad I added that tv effect in the bg too!

Chorus 3

This scene is my favourite! Wanna know why?

This sequence right here. I think I will etch it into my brain forever... I love me some snappy editing. Like a lot. Like a lot a lot!

The second part of the chorus is like the original song's MV! I loved the hearts popping in and out whoever thought of that is a genius. Putting it into the MV was a good decision!

And that's a wrap! Hope you enjoy the MV as much as I enjoyed making it. And, stay tuned for next time! I have a feeling a certain jester is getting his own solo MV...

Feel free to leave your thoughts either in the Youtube comments section or here. See you around!

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Traveller - Book 1

Here is a read-through I did about a year and a half ago (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the all time classics: Traveller by Game Designers' Workshop! This read-through just covers Book 1 - Characters and Combat from the original Traveller box set trio of books. - Christian

This is the 1981 Second Edition printing of the classic Traveller three zine box set! Been wanting to read this for ages now. It's discussed A LOT in Mothership circles.

Really interesting to see GM-less and solo play options here. Didn't realize that was being done explicitly at this time. Also, nice to see "he or she" language here rather than the just "he" you see a lot in older games.

The UPP is clearly the creation of an utterly deranged mind. This seems like a huge overcomplication of just listing stats (unless all your players are proficient in hexadecimal).

[Hi, it's me from the future here (aka now - 2024): I've learned to embrace and love the UPP (or more specifically the planet stat version from one of the other books). It's complicated at first but really quick and cool once you know how to read it.]

I really like Social Standing as a stat replacement for charisma or charm or other social skills you tend to see. Feels like it would have more impact on the story and less of a "Roll to see if you convince him, I guess" sort of anticlimax social skills have most of the time.

I'm now into the "you can die during char creation in Traveller" bits. Really cool in some ways. Really comical in others. It recommends you enlist your bad stat characters into the Scout service because of it's high mortality rate (so you can roll a diff char before play), lol.

Essentially, you roll stats and that's your entire character but to give them some experience they can enlist in a Service. You have to roll to get in and may get rejected. If so, you submit to the draft (get into one at random). You can die. You can gain skills and promotions.

Honestly, the char creation feels like a solo game unto itself. Risk v reward of how far to push your enlistments to boost your skills and standing and benefits. You could have a whole story in your head by the end of it. Great Session 0 material.

As a 34 yr old, this hurts. Apparently, I have -1 Strength, Dexterity and Endurance now...

I admire commitment but asking GMs to use this full char creator for all NPCs (which means generating chars until you get one capable of filling the role you need) is truly too wild. Best part: at the end, it just says you can also pick whatever you want for stats and skills.

The weapons and intro text have much more of a space as a new age of sail vibe to them than I was anticipating. It's cool. Far more Dune than Alien (so far).

Interestingly (unless I missed something), skills are detached from your stats. Your base stats make getting into a Service easier and help you with Saving Throws and such, but skills have their own modifiers based on the situation and your expertise. It's cool (if a bit dense)!

In case you were wondering, there is absolutely no art in this entire book. I'm hoping we'll get some in one of the other two books with vehicles and ships and such but won't be holding my breath. Gives the whole thing a very Serious vibe.

Always interesting to see how older games chose to handle this (or not).

Here's the UPP in action along with quick listing of other character info. Interesting even if it is just too overcomplicated for my tastes.

Can't overstate how much char creation feels like a whole solo game of its own. You can roll a character at age 18 and have them go through seven 4-yr terms in a Service before retiring and having substantial cash, specific possessions, memberships and social standings. Wild.

The character sheet mentions PSIONICS which is exciting (but I'll have to wait till Book 3 for more on that apparently).

Combat is straightforward but has some unique bits: a focus on stealth as an option and movement/attacks occur by all parties simultaneously which means everyone (enemies too) gets to move and then everyone chooses who to attack and you roll them all. Sounds really fun.

Stats have cool effects in battle. Your Endurance stat is the number of attacks you can make before needing to rest (can you imagine if DnD just didn't let you do a base attack at a point?). Strength and Dex can boost or lower certain weapon rolls like you'd expect.

If trained in a weapon, you can give your expertise as a negative mod to your enemy's rolls to attack you to reflect parrying and blocking which is cool. The skills also add to your attack rolls. Skills just seem really useful overall here.

I just love that we get stats for broadswords, revolvers, and laser carbines. Plus, there are even special tables for archaic weapons for when encountering lower-tech civilizations. It feels like a really wide open interpretation of what space could look like. Feels exciting.

A few more equipment tables and a final quick reference page at the back and that's all for Book 1. I'll be back with Book 2 and 3 in the coming days!

Main thoughts: Character creation is very involved but really cool - its own game practically. Skills are very deep in a way that feels refreshing when compared to more stat-focused games. Combat has some fun, chaotic twists. Feels like a wide universe of possibility here so far.

I'll add Books 2 and 3 to this thread when I give them their own read-throughs. In the meantime, here's my newsletter (last two months have Mothership freebies): https://meatcastle.substack.com

And here's my website (with links to my games and modules and all that good stuff): https://shop.meatcastlegameware.com/

Thanks for reading!

[pheiral]

Gathered some genazo parco exhibition spoiler crumbs, i read it with MTL..so beware errors caused by lack of understanding of the original language

And rambling about Gegero's voice

Note about character trait that's been said multiple times but I need to write it here:

Mizuki is handsome and Gegero is sexy

GEGERO'S UNDERWEAR IS 半股引

I'm not really sure how it look but i saw people posting this video as reference

(buttock warning ⚠️ because it's showing how to use the thing )

And his height is 185 cm (doesn't include geta)

Mizuki's height is said to be Gegero's eye level..so around 10cm shorter. Which mean he can be 165-170 ish cm

(fyi Sada Keiji, the actor Mizuki's design is based on, height is 173)

Gegero's height once mentioned in light novel of 2018 Kitaro's series to be around 180 cm. So glad we get to know his exact height

Everyone already know Gegero is thin, but they even draw his ribs sticking out. Total opposite of the muscly Mizuki

btw Mizuki's watch is Seiko Marvel

There are talk about storyboard of the story such as what this character feel in this scene such as Mizuki's fast eating habit, Osada's last cut, the meaning of Gegero's line when he said I've waited for you to Mizuki, Gegero entrust his wife to Mizuki scene,..etc

I'm not typing it all because my mind is too filled with Gegero's underwear.

Oh and Kozo is child of concubine

Visitor can choose audio guide for the exhibition. With Mizuki, visitors will be treated as guest and he'll be in work mode. With Gegero, visitors will be treated as someone who lost their way and Mizuki will act differently because visitor isn't his guest now.

The voicelines promotion for parco exhibition at Ikebukuro is pretty good. Mizuki in salesman mode and Gegero suddenly appear. They're pretty casual with each other according to fan's reviews.

Gegero voice is lighter and higher than the tone he use in movie. Jp fans said that's how he sound like in all new voicelines. That make sense if it's his normal voice and the movie one is his much subdued tone because he's been separated with his wife for years.

This Blu-ray DVD promotion ver. Kitaro's father can be used as reference to hear how high and cheery he can be. If the link isn't available anymore it's because they're privated.

Anyway, I think this cheery Gegero isn't strange because in the end he's that cute Medama Oyaji.

I love the contrast between Mizuki deep/heavy voice and Gegero's high/light voice. Mizuki can be pretty brusque while Gegero is much gentler. Gegero's laugh is fufufu (eigamura voiceline) so I think Mizuki's will be louder than him because they're always opposite. Not to mention he's showa man, so the image is he will laugh with mouth wide open

Edit 25/6: Kitaro's mom height including the heels, is around Gegero's eyes. So she's a bit shorter than Mizuki. Her right eye is 潰れ (crushed?)

...QAQ

Edit 27/6: At the last room of exhibition is where sculpt (?) of baby Kitaro birth, visitor can see his hand coming out of the grave. Gegero said he love this place the most, most reviewers pointed out this is his kindest and gentlest voice. And I just discovered this room also has the 6 bonus illustrations framed, it's no wonder Gegero love this place the most...not only it's when Kitaro is born but there's images where.. they're all alive and well, as if they survive the village intact and his wife is still alive. I can't....this is so tear jerking.

Gegero is called 子ゲゲ be the staff

[clairelsonao3]

Any Writers tried BookTok?

As some of you know, at some point in the New Year, I plan to self-publish a romance ebook. Over the next few months, I hope to start putting some more infrastructure in place to promote it for when the time comes to send out arcs, etc. I already have friends and supporters on Tumblr and A03, which is a great start. But of course, everyone says BookTok is the place to be, especially for romance writers. But I'm hesitating for a few reasons, which are:

Will I get canceled? To make a long story short, the book deals with topics that are not only dark but could be seen as controversial -- and are liable to be attacked by people who don't care that the book is the exact opposite of what they think it is and simply like canceling things based on certain phrases in titles, blurbs or loglines. Tumblr and Ao3, with a few unfortunate exceptions, have been mostly, blissfully free of these people, but BookTok strikes me as someplace that might have a lot of them. Idk, maybe I'm wrong. And if someone does try to cancel me, will I be able to handle it by simply refusing to engage?

I don't want to and can't really show my face for mostly professional reasons. (I like my face just fine, just not for TikTok!) I can use my own voice and, like, my hands or, something, but face is a no-go. Will I be severely hurting my chances of getting any eyeballs on my posts?

Is the culture toxic or likely to harm my mental health? No amount of promotion is worth something that's going to traumatize or hurt me (see above about cancellation). And if my work and/or my characters are hurt, I'm hurt. I've encountered toxicity on social media before and have largely stepped away from it, with Tumblr being the main exception because the community here is so wonderful.

Will it be too much of a time commitment? I know they suggest posting once a day, which seems like a lot, especially if it involves creating and editing original posts. And really anything that's going to take more than, say, 20 minutes out of my day (unless of course I really enjoy it, like I do Tumblr) is too much of a time commitment, in my opinion.

So, that said, I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with BookTok, especially writers of romance and ESPECIALLY writers of "dark," edgy, and/or controversial romance. Should I just try it for, say, a few weeks and see how I like it? (I have never used TikTok before, ever, so it would mostly just be getting a feel for it). Is that even possible?

Thank you for any opinions, anecdotes, or nuggets of wisdom anyone can offer!

[brehaaorgana]

You still do not understand the point. You are not Black. Therefore your analysis of the situation is not warranted or needed. You should instead, reblog Black bloggers, repost (with credit and links) from Black users of other social media and donate to Black people in need. Adding another non Black voice on the topic of antiblack racist violence is never helpful. You are not the exception.

Okay, so first, I think this is inherently going to be a difficult conversation since you're anonymous.

second, I think we're talking past each other here, and genuinely, I'm not really sure why you think it's unhelpful for me to tell non-black people to stop and ask themselves some questions about a call by a non-black person to go watch a black woman be murdered by the police. I didn't make a huge callout post or demand anything or insist anything.

this is i guess point three, but: in all my time in the world thus far, it has been understood that I, as a non-black person, should tell my fellow non-black people when they don't have the right to decide something or say something or demand something regarding antiblackness or black people.

Like...genuinely, did we stop doing "Somebody come get your cousin?" on the social justice internet in the last decade for some reason?

Was I NOT supposed to say anything when fellow non-black people were trying to make choices/claims/whatever that aren't theirs to make, because we're not black? am i not, as a non-black person, supposed to speak up if i see something potentially problematic about non-black people's behavior towards violence against black people, particularly police brutality and murder, and ask them to THINK ABOUT IT?

also this is just....a Real Take. Like.

i've had my literal (mexican-american, cop) uncle blocked on facebook since Freddie Gray was murdered in 2015 because I told him he was being antiblack, which he was.

was i supposed to just phone a black friend to do the emotional labor of telling him he was being antiblack since non-black people can't speak on the topic of antiblack racist violence? That's sort of what you're implying here.

anyways anon i edited my other post, so here you are:

Black Voices on the topic of Viral videos of Police Killings of Black People:

PBS: White people don’t understand the trauma of viral police-killing videos by Dr. Monnica Williams.

Al Jazeera: Videos of police brutality can perpetuate Black trauma — The wanton display of footage of violent Black deaths re-traumatises Black communities and promotes racist tropes.

Sage Perspectives: When Black Death Goes Viral: How Algorithms of Oppression (Re)Produce Racism and Racial Trauma

Jstor Daily: Viral Black Death: Why We Must Watch Citizen Videos of Police Violence

This whole book: Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism

What to Consider before Watching Videos of Police Brutality

the New Republic: What Does Seeing Black Men Die Do for You? (Apparently re-titled as: Videos of Police Killings Are Numbing Us to the Spectacle of Black Death)

NPR's Codeswitch: A Decade Of Watching Black People Die

hope that works.

edit -- also for context my full comments:

brehaaorgana

2h

Genuinely (as someone who has handled graphic original photo print documentation of genocide/war crimes before)*** I don't see a reason to make a spectacle of a video recording of a black woman's murder by cops in order to understand what happened. It's just not necessary to do. Being a direct eyewitness to this kind of thing is not always necessary or even something desired by surviving family/community/friends.

bolding my own. Generals and specifics my own.

Someone replied:

I mostly agree with you, but I do think there's something to be said about how disconnected most of us feel from these issues, I think sometimes it does help to actually see it, if you can handle it, and if it's done respectfully with intent to educate. I have a lot of thoughts on this that won't fit in a reply.

My response:

that's fair, I also have a lot of thoughts that won't fit in a reply. Another (less about ethics) concern I had was jury contamination when this goes to court. But in general I think it's not…great to encourage people to make a spectacle of black people being murdered, especially in the US, & especially given the horrific history of using black murders as a recreational visual consumption activity by non-black ppl in the US. basically I would say there's a lot of questions I believe ppl need to ask of themselves if they do this. "who decides if, how, and when it is respectful for you/me to watch someone's murder? How does seeing it in the wild on the internet ensure an educational understanding? How is watching a black murder today different from when people made souvenir photos of black lynchings in the past? What makes it different? Does watching murder teach me something new? like ultimately I don't need an answer from anyone or even your answer specifically. That's all hypotheticals. but there's a huge amount of labor, ethical & legal guidelines, praxis theory & usually multiple degreed people that goes into things like "presenting [community traumas and state violence] the Atlantic Slave Trade or Holocaust or Trail of Tears in meaningful, educational, and respectful contexts" and ppl encouraging folks watching a horrific murder online aren't…engaging in any of that.

Someone else just replied to me:

@brehaaorgana thank you so much for sharing your thoughts in such a thoughtful, understanding, & appropriately serious manner. You never admonished but you certainly didn't mince your words/hold back from implying that this is anything but superfluous, unnecessary, and garish. Watching is nothing but gawking, when details and precise relaying of the event exists. One doesn't need to watch to understand that the cop is repellent & unqualified to be armed w/ authority. I don't care how much it helps you to "engage"; you've now admitted that you're watching the butchering of a human life for a self-serving purpose, even if that purpose is part of an otherwise commendable effort to remain informed and critical.

idk i feel pretty okay saying i, personally, am wary of personally making a spectacle of black people being murdered by police.

***I've obviously been to holocaust museums, native american museums, black american history museums, and so on, but I am referring specifically here to personally handling albums of photos taken and developed by Japanese soldiers during World War II while working in a museum research context.

[black-arcana]

LACUNA COIL Is Putting Finishing Touches On New Studio Album: We Are 'Super Happy About The Result'

Italian metallers LACUNA COIL are putting the finishing touches on their new studio album.

Earlier today (Wednesday, July 24),LACUNA COIL bassist and main songwriter Marco "Maki" Coti-Zelati took to Instagram to share a photo from the studio, and he included the following message: "Getting closer to the end of the new album. I'm super happy about the result and super proud about my fellas! Few more days of editing, arrangements and mixing then finally we will be ready for the mastering. Thank you guys".

Last month, LACUNA COIL announced the departure of guitarist Diego Cavallotti.

Cavallotti, who joined LACUNA COIL in 2016, initially as a fill-in guitarist following the exit of Marco "Maus" Biazzi, later said in a social media post that "this decision is not the result of my dissatisfaction or desire to explore new opportunities."

When LACUNA COIL announced Cavallotti's departure on June 17, the band wrote in a statement: "As we step into a new cycle, writing and recording our next album, we are parting ways with Diego 'DD' Cavallotti. We thank him for the many unforgettable moments shared over the years and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours.

"All future live plans remain unchanged and the new songs are taking form, we can't wait to share them with our fans."

LACUNA COIL recently completed the "Ignite The Fire" U.S. tour with support from NEW YEARS DAY and OCEANS OF SLUMBER.

In April, LACUNA COIL released another new single, "In The Mean Time", featuring Ash Costello of NEW YEARS DAY. The song's title is a reference to the mean times the world is living in, as well as a reference to the state the band itself is in, between cycles.

Last July, LACUNA COIL released the official lyric video for a new track called "Never Dawn". For the song, the band partnered with CMON, the renowned board game publisher behind the popular game "Zombicide".

In a recent interview with Brazil's Sonoridades Inc., LACUNA COIL singer Cristina Scabbia spoke about the progress of the writing and recording sessions for the band's follow-up to 2019's "Black Anima" album. She said: "I can't really tell you a lot. I can tell you that we are progressing very fast. We are almost, like, 100… We completed, let's say, the demoing. We still have to record the rest of the songs, but we will soon — probably after the tour, after the [May 2024] North American tour. And if everything goes as projected, before the end of the year [it] will be released. And that's already a big news, because we always say, 'We don't know. Maybe.' … I absolutely love the songs. I'm part of the process. But I'm very pleased."

Asked if "Never Dawn" will be on the upcoming album, Cristina said: "I think it will be. I think it will be, 'cause it will make sense. And it also fits with the other songs — it really fits with the other songs. Many heavy songs."

LACUNA COIL has spent some of the last couple of years promoting "Comalies XX", the "deconstructed" and "transported" version of the band's third album, "Comalies".

"Comalies XX" was made available on October 14, 2022 via Century Media Records.

LACUNA COIL celebrated the 20th anniversary of "Comalies", by performing it in its entirety at a one-night-only concert on October 15, 2022 at Fabrique in Milano.

"Comalies" was originally released on October 29, 2002 through Century Media Records. The LP, which featured the band's breakthrough single "Heaven's A Lie", has reportedly gone on to sell over 300,000 copies in the United States alone.

[dropintomanga]

Berserk's Continued Popularity and Trauma

I often keep up with what's selling in the manga world, so it's not a surprise that I check out ICv2's Manga Week when the site posts up interviews and insights about the industry. What caught my eye this time was Kentaro Miura's Berserk still being a top-seller and a top manga franchise in the English-speaking side of the world.

How popular is Berserk right now? It was the top manga franchise of Fall 2023 beating out everything that was either Shonen Jump, Junji Ito or Attack on Titan. The Deluxe Editions have sold well for all of 2023, especially the first edition (which contains Volumes 1-3 of the series). It helps that Dark Horse Comics, the North American publisher for the manga, has been promoting the Berserk Deluxe Editions non-stop. Even when they didn't announce anything new at Anime NYC last year, Dark Horse made a huge note about the latest Berserk Deluxe Edition that would come out.

I think it's great that Berserk is getting a lot more attention (especially after Kentaro Miura died) because this is a story about trauma and how we still carry the wounds of it at times.

In my opinion, Berserk is a story about people trying to overcome their own trauma - one caused by interpersonal relations. Ultimately, it's about three people in particular. Guts, the main hero who falls into despair after his experiences in the Golden Age Arc and has to deal with the curse of constantly being hunted by monsters beyond his imagination. Griffith, the antagonist who once had admirable dreams, but fully gives into darkness after going through painful torture and is the main source of Guts' trauma. And Casca, the strong heroine who becomes a victim of Griffith's desires and mentally shattered as a result until recent events in the manga. The connection between all three characters says it all - sometimes, the trauma caused is not from strangers who are "dangerous," but those closest and dearest to us.

Berserk is so relatable because we carry on the weight of whatever personal trauma we experienced without realizing its hold on us until it becomes apparent. The worse thing is we often have a very hard time talking about it.

Around 2021, I heard about a certain book about trauma that took during the COVID pandemic. It was Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score. Originally published in 2014, the book blew up for good reason because COVID forced everyone to confront issues kept hidden for a long time. Van der Kolk talks about how horrible people can be to one another and that psychiatry seems to ignore the complexity of trauma when it comes to helping its victims.

Because of the nuance and how long it takes to heal, maybe that's why we can't talk about trauma easily.

Which is why I want to get to this point - I sometimes find it hard to talk about Berserk because of the sexual violence and horror aspects. Yes, fans love to call it the GOAT and/or recommending the manga to other manga/Western comics fans. But I will say I can't exactly recommend Berserk to anyone who's experienced trauma, especially sexual trauma. If they haven't come to terms and/or processed their pain, why would any manga fan shove Berserk in their face? I know there's heavy debate about microagressions and triggers, but just because it's critically-acclaimed doesn't mean it's for everyone.

I will say that the sexual violence in Berserk is used in a way to highlight the brutality of the real world at times. It serves its purpose in the story. Maybe I feel that Berserk is about acknowledging the dark side of life. The world is full of absolute cruelty. And maybe more importantly, you never fully move on. That's the key point. Moments that hurt will stick by you for a long time. People love to shame others for not being able to move on and/or cheer up. They don't know how trauma forces its victims to stay still out of a realistic yet unhelpful fear of certain kinds of people.

But you can still move forward. I'm admired by Guts fighting in the face of despair. He embodies the belief that you probably can never move on from whatever emotional pain you experience and that's okay. At least take the steps to make your own life worth living. It's the best you can do for yourself.

And a good start to moving forward is accepting the bad thoughts. I recently read how positive thinking is pushed so hard to promote better mental health. Some positivity is fine, but there's so much pain in this world that all the wellness industry strategies in the world will never make go away. It is a huge problem when we're told to grit and grind while suppressing our inner-most vulnerabilities.

A lot of people can't handle that kind of vulnerability. Maybe that's why I'm happy that Berserk is being discovered by new fans. Guts is a strong yet so very vulnerable hero. I think it's those vulnerabilities due to his trauma that allow him to gain some very good friends (Puck, Farnese, Serpico, Isidro, and Schierke) along the way who genuinely care about him.

We all want someone to acknowledge our pain and be willing to sit with and stick by us through the neck of it all.

I remember a friend who once told me that when they went to see someone perform, all of their grief and vulnerability was so apparent that they wished that they didn't need to air it out since a lot of people can't handle it. I told them I can handle it and they said that I was built different.

Much like the popularity of Berserk these days and what I hope the series encourages, I want my difference of being able to sit with trauma to be the norm.

[resonanteye]

I've realized I'm incapable of commissions. I can't focus myself enough to take directions, etc and then come through on a deadline and provide the works.

I can draw for a tattoo because I'm sketching; I'm getting paid for the tattoo time itself, the person is right there with me, and all of that makes it work magically.

non-tattoo stuff? I can't anymore. I never got many requests to begin with but the ones I did, felt like so difficult to do, like demand avoidance kicked in, wild feelings.

just hustle! right? like hustle hustle. I shouldn't be as poor as I am. but yet I am. I tried to hustle for a really long time. what now? what now?

I suppose I should move all my art scans to another print on demand site? all hundreds, maybe thousands of them? and then? pay to play, promote posts where? with what money? it's not like I'll make enough from that to cover the time and ad costs (and there's nowhere to post about Things For Sale where anyone would see it)

the books- well they're on amazon, but am I motivated to write the next? and having a publisher didn't gain me traction- all the exposure I got was my own doing. calling bookstores to organize a signing. a coloring contest. a poetry reading. the publisher did nothing at all. they relied on MY internet following on various sites to promote the books. so I went back to self-publishing. because what was I paying for?

I have a friend who does editing who did it cheaply for me. a print service and a Kickstarter and I was able to order the books in and sell myself. amazon prints them on demand. the publisher maybe just wasnt a great one? I don't know how I'd get a great one- I had an agent, even.

and then the art that's the originals, not prints- shipping, packing. or trying to find a gallery when I don't have ONE style of things enough to fill an entire show with ONE REPEATED IDEA or style of work; when group shows don't make sales. when there's 3 galleries local that would even show anything I've made.

so my art old and new- I ran out of drive to Sell The Things. that's all. I'm setting up a new studio space to work in and it's going slow because what will I do? anything I feel like making, I can make in there- but that's all. it'll be stored. not sold.

because I have no hustle left in me. and I don't quite know what to do to get by, without it. just, stick with my day job and put all the effort into that.

it's got to be good enough.

no choice really, it's got to be good enough.

[dani-says-stuff]

✧ Blog Info ✧

❥ Back to the Control Center

General info, Requesting Rules, and Tag Navigation

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

__ General __

❥ I will only write x readers on this blog, and will post longer stories with original characters on my wattpad account (the exception, is my fic graveyard)

❥ Most of my stories at the moment are fem!readers because it's the default way I write, however I am trying to change this and start having more gn!reader fics available

❥ Each fic has an individual dialouge key at the beginning, and the rest of the fic's dialouge will be color coded to match the person or character indicated at the beginning (this is usually only for my youtube video based fics like the Nate Hardy ones so the fic doesnt end up being 12k words explaining who is saying what)

❥ I dont have the time or extensive knowlege of grammar to sit down and edit most of my fics... so if errors bother you, this may not be the best experience, or place, for you to spend your time

❥ If you wanna be moots just send in an ask or message me to lemme know! I love talking to y'all! This also applies if you just want to be an anon, I don't think I have a big enough audience yet to have emoji anons, but I'm not against having some :)

__ Request Rules __

Requests are open !

❥ I can't guaruntee I will take every request and I can't guaruntee the amount of time it will take. It depends on how good of an idea i get at the time

❥ Please don't spam my ask box with the same request over and over

❥ Include a detailed explanation of what you'd like, plot point's you'd like me to hit, quotes, prompts, etc in your request. I will not be taking any that only say "(insert person) please!" or "can you write ____ smut/fluff/angst". I need somewhere to go with the request.

❥ Please be reasonable with your requests. All I'm saying, is I will have differing rules on if a fic is for the HoTD/GoT fandom than if it is for any other fandom. I am willing to be more lineant on those because I am brain broken like the rest of the fandom, iykyk.

❥Tbh I'm willing to write pretty much anything if I get a good enough idea for it, just give me details or its a guarunteed ✨no✨

__ Tag Navigation __

aka my attempt at organizing my chaos

#rambles - The random thoughts I have in a day, including but not limited to: everyday random stuff, potential fic ideas, funny things that go down... basically just my diary tbh

#just dani complaining - Usually accompanied by the ramble tag, but on the ones that are, as implied, just me complaining

#updates - New info on wips, fics, and requests. (for example, update schedules, changes to a plot, etc.)

#my hyperfixations - Basically the things i'm promoting out of pure excitment, the "go check out ___ bc it changed my lifeee" type beat

#fic recs - Pretty obvious and self explanatory, but its just my favorites :P

#mutuals - Things my loves and besties who i got the courage to ask to be mutuals are doing , i'm too afraid to just randomly start adding all my mutuals so this one may be more unreliable

#fic graveyard - There's nothing in here yet, but its the fics I have like one or two really good chapters for that I've abandoned. Snippets, ideas, etc.

#control center - All nav posts will be under this tag

I believe everything else is pretty self explanatory (___ masterlist, reblogs, ___ x reader, asks & requsts, etc.)

[mamthew]

I replayed Tales of Zestiria. It took 70 hours and the post-game DLC chapter took another 6.

Tales of Zestiria released at a time when I was big enough into Tales that I pre-ordered Special Editions and asked Gamestop employees if I could keep promotional posters after they were done with them (I still have the posters for Graces and Xillia). This means that Zestiria, as a Tales game on the brand-new PS4 hardware, had me vibrating with excitement and set me back over a hundred dollars. To call the game a disappointment would be underselling it. I skipped meals to afford this game and then couldn't bring myself to bother opening the Blu-ray movie that was packaged in the Special Edition, or to preorder the prequel, Tales of Berseria, two years later. Zestiria was inescapably bad.

Still, I'd expected to come away from this replay a decade later with a new appreciation for the game. I'm better at analyzing art now than I was then, and even bad art can have something interesting to say, even by accident. But the further I dug into this playthrough (which cost me an extra fucking $60, by the way, because my original disc has gone missing and i guess namco cant be bothered to lower their prices on 2015 offerings), the more appalled I was at Zestiria's lack of quality assurance, cut corners, bland story, and infuriating systems. Every Tales game has its fair share of jank. With Zestiria, the publishers clearly assumed this this meant Tales fans' jank threshold is through the sky. And given its 9/10 Steam rating, maybe they guessed correctly.

The best Tales games deconstruct genre tropes by first presenting those tropes at face value, then turning them on their heads halfway in. Symphonia is probably still the clearest example of this, as its Chosen One pilgrimage is revealed to hide something much bigger and more sinister behind it, but most games in the main series do this both with their main story and with one or more party members' individual arcs. The idea behind Zestiria and its prequel Berseria was a novel take on this series staple: have Team Destiny make a game with a doggedly cliche story and have Team Symphonia follow it up with a whole-ass game that turns all those cliches on their heads. I really appreciate this initial idea, and it actually works pretty well, still; Zestiria's story and characters are noticeably more complex and interesting after you've played Berseria and gotten that context.

But. Zestiria is a worse game than Berseria, by far. Once I'd played Berseria, replaying Zestiria to catch the new context was a massive chore, with its frustrating battle system, terrible area design, worse dungeons, and bland characters. It's easy to play Phantasia after its stealth prequel, Symphonia, because Phantasia PSX is fun and polished, and the areas where it is dated don't invite immediate comparison to the same areas in Symphonia. But Zestiria is unfun and unpolished and released only two years before Berseria on the same hardware. Zestiria's status as a sequel is simultaneously the most interesting thing about it and something that makes it even more inexcusable. While I don't know anything about the development of the two games, I can't help but wonder if the existence of Berseria is part of the reason why Zestiria feels so rushed and unfinished. They couldn't release Berseria first without ruining the whole point of the games' connection, for both of them. So if one game was going to have to drop on a strict deadline it would be Zestiria, the more cliche entry that allows for Berseria to function as a deconstruction. Now, though, 6-8 years later, it just means that only one of the two games in this legitimately cool experiment is actually worth a replay.

On its own merits, Zestiria's story is just a cliche. Sorey, our protagonist, is a human raised by Seraphs, elemental spirits invisible to most people. Because Sorey can see Seraphs, he takes on the role of Shepherd, a Chosen One religious figure that historically works with Seraphs to beat back the evil Lord of Calamity every time a new one crops up. He collects a team of Seraphs along with a human whom he gifts with the ability to work with him, and together the crew "purifies" "malevolence" by fighting monsters. At the end, he purifies the Lord of Calamity, sacrificing his friends and/or himself and/or his time (it's unclear, both accidentally and deliberately) to do so, thus saving the world. There's a few more wrinkles than that, but generally it's a fairly simple story. The neatest thing about it, actually, is that Sorey's Seraph friends can turn into weapons for him when they fuse with him, which is a fun reference to Tales of Destiny, a game in which certain characters had magical talking swords that only a select few people could hear.

It gets ideologically...troubled, though, when it comes to the concept of malevolence. In the world of Zestiria, feeling negative emotions can turn living things (and somehow also some inanimate objects) into monsters called hellions that serve the Lord of Calamity, which is essentially the being with the most malevolence in the world. By fighting those monsters Sorey can usually return them to their normal selves, unless they're "too" malevolent or they like their malevolence somehow and refuse to turn back, and he's forced to kill them. Malevolence isn't necessarily generated by doing bad things, it's generated by the negative emotions themselves. Someone doing bad things who think they're doing them for the right reason won't turn. Someone doing good but resentful of the fact that there's a systemic shortcoming requiring that they fill this need will turn. This essentially cordons off a chunk of the range of human emotions as "the bad ones," thus generally denying them to all the characters we're supposed to care about.

Every time Sorey gets frustrated by an injustice or his inability to help someone as much as he'd like, he's cautioned to stop feeling that way, or he might turn and in so doing, force all of his friends to turn too. And while plenty of good people turn, they can't be reasoned with until they've been purified, and their emotions reset. They do a few interesting things with this, like when Sorey must maintain a sort of radical empathy toward the man who tortured and killed his grandfather in cold blood, while the man taunts him about having done it. But for the most part, it means that Sorey's character does not really develop throughout the game. He must stay friendly and approachable but stoic and incorruptible because the story's stakes if he falls are so high that the writers can't let that happen. The intent here is to frame hellions as one thing so that when Berseria features a protagonist who is becoming a hellion, the player's conception of the world is challenged and broadened. A more interesting story would be one in which Sorey does become a hellion and has to figure out a way to stop his friends from changing too, but that would lean too much into what Tales of Berseria does, so Sorey must stay a bastion of positive emotions for the sake of the twist, which only happened two actual real-world human years later, and not to these characters.

I think Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is a useful comparison, here. In that game, feeling despair about the impending end of the world turns people into monsters, killing them instantly. It's a metaphor for the way inaction from the feeling of helplessness at the mind-boggling scale of the problem of global climate change keeps us from trying to do anything to fix the problem; the problem of "don't despair at the end of all things or you'll end sooner" is, purposely, a paradox because our current call to action is also a paradox. The problem's too big for any one of us but we can't let ourselves think that way or it'll only get worse. But the negative emotions in Zestiria aren't also unconstructive emotions. The central theme of Berseria is that angry people get shit done, which is demonstrably true in our world too! So it feels insincere when Zestiria frames anger as a problem that must be solved before any larger problems can be handled. Especially when one character, Rose, is an assassin whose mission is to kill people who use their power to ruin the world. She doesn't become a hellion because she doesn't kill out of anger, but the question then hangs over the entire game: why does that matter? If the evil Cardinal Forton was stabbed by someone who was mad at her, she wouldn't be any less stabbed. You can easily find lots of old forum posts from back when the game released of people trying to piece together why character A was a hellion but character B never changed, and in the end, the answer is it's arbitrary. The writers decided A was too angry or sad or something and that B hadn't reached that level.

It doesn't help that the translation is pretty shoddy in places. This was an issue with localizations of Japanese games at the time. I remember the discourse around the localization of Persona 5, a good game I like a lot with powerful themes and messages about real-world issues. The localization didn't really give its characters distinctive voices and had many sentences that were nonsensical or poorly structured, to the point that the localization of Persona 5 Royal had to go through with a scapel and rewrite a number of lines for clarity and voice. Zestiria has this problem but much worse. At the end of Persona 5, I knew what the characters were fighting against and why. The cutscene before the final boss of Tales of Zestiria is so hard to parse that I found myself questioning things I'd thought I knew about the basic parameters of the story and characters. This really does a disservice to the voice actors, who work valiantly to make their characters sound distinctive and individualized through a sludge of boring words. It's especially frustrating because for the first (and I believe only) time, they got some voice actors known for their internet presence for the game, and those guys had to work twice as hard to make their roles in a seminal JRPG series memorable.

I've written this much and barely touched on the gameplay yet. One of the most frustrating things about Tales of Zestiria is that its battle system is designed after the one in Tales of Graces, the game with my favorite battle system in the series, but it's tweaked in ways that make it borderline unplayable. In Graces, regular attacks that used the attack stat were called "A Artes" while special attacks that used the magic attack stat were called "B Artes." This game keeps that differentiation, calling them instead "martial artes" and "arcane artes" and adds a third category for spells, or "seraphic artes". The game attempts a rock-paper-scissors style tier system in which martial beats seraphic, seraphic beats arcane, and arcane beats martial. In practice, this means that each type of attack can't interrupt the attack type it's weak to. And then, instead of hitting them out of casting, arcane artes speed up the cast bar of any spell users they hit. This makes arcane artes (i.e., the cool moves you use in every Tales game because they're cool) a dangerous proposition because at any time their target might start casting and get off a powerful spell instantly as a result. It also makes the bad AI of CPU characters way more dangerous, as even if you know how to stop an enemy from casting, often your partner will run over to another and help it cast faster instead.

Also, no character type has access to all three types of artes. Humans can use martial and arcane, Seraphs can use martial and seraphic, and the powerful human-seraph fused forms can use arcane and seraphic. The fusing system means that there can only be as many Seraph characters on the field as Human, so a battle party is either two characters (Sorey and one Seraph) or four (Sorey, a partner, and two Seraphs). In the many parts of the story where Sorey is traveling only with his four Seraph friends, you're stuck with a battle party of two. If a Seraph dies in battle, they can be switched out on the fly and recover over about a minute while benched. If a human dies, they can revive by fusing with their partner Seraph. Fusing is the only way to revive human characters without items, and the only way human characters can get access to healing spells, which are used by spending gauge that's built up by comboing.

This means that players are disincentivized from playing as Seraphs, as if the Seraph dies, they'll have to switch to another character they're less familiar with until their character has been benched long enough to return. It also means that human characters at their weakest right after getting revived are in a dangerous position, as fused characters can only use arcane artes, which can make enemy spells cast faster, but they have to build gauge by hitting enemies in order to get enough to spend on a heal. The system is both overly complicated and makes it difficult to claw back out if things go south. It's the result of a lot of pretty good ideas stacked together until they're getting in each others' ways.

Another collection of pretty good ideas that get in each others' ways that is then stacked on top of all the rest is the equipment and skills system. Sort of like in Tales of Vesperia, equipment can have skills attached to them. Unlike in Vesperia, however, there's no way to permanently learn the skills attached to your equipment. Once you switch to a stronger weapon or armor piece, your character loses the skills attached to their previous gear. On top of this, each skill is placed on a 5x13 (I don't remember the exact proportions) tic-tac-toe style board. If you manage to place columns, rows, or stacks of skills on this board, you get better skills. But, again, those are wiped away if you replace your gear. If you find a sword with 60 more attack but it breaks the column that raises all your stats by 20, then all your other stats suffer if you equip it. If that same sword breaks the row that improves the character's attack growth rate for level-ups, then in twenty levels your character might have worse base attack than they would have if you'd kept the crappy sword that let you hold onto that growth rate. But then, on top of that, all characters' growth rates are decided by the stats of the equipment they're wearing when they leveled up. So maybe it's a better option to just wear the strongest gear and let that improve your growth rates that way? There's no way of knowing which one helps you more. And in the short-term, you're going to have a difficult time in battle if you're using weak equipment, even if it lights up your tic-tac-toe board like a christmas tree. Then, there's also an item fusing system where you can chunk items of the same type together to combine their equipped skills. But every time you fuse two of the same item with different skills in the same slot, the resulting skill is unavailable until you fight with that item equipped for a certain number of battles. If you fuse a piece of gear with a locked skill slot, that slot disappears, making the resulting piece of gear worse, rather than better. So to actually get good enough gear options, you have to fight wearing items you fused regardless of their stats or how they fit on your tic-tac-toe board (you can't even see where a locked skill will go on the board until you've unlocked it).

So you have to wear bad gear sometimes and some of that bad gear is going to affect your stat growths during levels, and suddenly this is three different decent ideas combined into a terrible chimera of a gear system. This makes equipment management for the six (sometimes seven) party members an agonizing process that often easily takes twenty minutes to slog through every time you get a new piece of equipment or visit a shop. There's even more complexity to this gear system than I've brought up here, but I'm exhausted just talking about it, so let's move on.

So we've got an equipment system that's overly complex and often contradictory in its modes of engagement, grafted onto a battle system that's engaging and occasionally interesting but unintentionally punishing and limiting. And all this is presented through the jankiest engine and worst art direction in the series. Zestiria is graphically ugly and runs like a nightmare, with a stuttering frame rate, a tiny draw distance, and bland, same-y environments. The developers had the idea of having battles take place on the main map, rather than placing them in separate flat arenas like in other Tales games, and while this makes sense in theory, in practice it means that the camera is actually hellish, often getting stuck on setpieces or other characters, or just...the idea of a slope. Dungeons are designed with this in mind, as nearly all of them are made up of thin corridors between large rooms where the enemies are placed, but enemies will follow the player character without ever giving up or tiring, often at a slightly faster pace than the player character. Enemies grouped together result in longer and more difficult encounters, where more enemies keep entering to replace the ones you dispatch.

If, for example, you're 50 hours into a game and trying to get to the next room of a dungeon without a fight, but all three enemies in a room catch up to you in a narrow hallway, then you're stuck fighting twenty enemies in groups of five at a time while the camera resolutely stares directly at the wall behind your character and at any time one or five of them might start casting a spell, which the partner character might speed up with an arcane art, and then the party's dead and you lost all the gameplay that got you to that point. While this is a worst case scenario that only happened to me a handful of times this playthrough, any combination of these issues plague nearly every enemy encounter in the game.

The six-hour DLC, which is really just a single 11-floor dungeon with fusing (and therefore player one's healing and reviving capabilities) removed, which provides no new story information, makes these issues even more apparent, and frustrating. A pathway up to the eighth floor is locked behind a hidden door on a wall on the sixth floor with three purple dots on it. The whole dungeon is tinged with a purple haze, so these dots are hard to make out, and it's made harder by the constant stream of enemies chasing you through the dungeon without stopping. In most of the game, if you fight an enemy, then all nearby enemies disappear when you finish the fight. In the DLC, though, they show right back up while you're recovering and keep chasing you, meaning you can get five to six encounters in a row with no chance to get your bearings, all while hunting for three small purple dots on a wall somewhere in a purple dungeon. It was clearly purposely designed this way to try to wring more time out of a miniscule DLC, and it worked, as I spent at least two of my six hours with that DLC just scouring the same three floors for that hidden door. That DLC was on release - and still is - ten whole dollars.

It's impossible not to have to grapple with the realization that Bandai-Namco forced this game to be bad. The game needed more development time that it did not get. The game needed more QA testing or, more likely, to actually respond to feedback received from testers. The game needed better localizers or, more likely, localizers with enough time to put the script through a few drafts before finalizing it. The game didn't need DLC, the DLC it got didn't need to be six hours long, and it definitely should never have been $10. The game itself should not be $60 now in the year of our lord 2023. And none of this is because Team Destiny said "let's make the game bad and expensive and frustrating." It's because someone higher up in the decision-making process said "I don't give a shit if the game is bad and expensive and frustrating." Tales of Xillia feels like it was made to be a benchmark of quality for the series. Tales of Zestiria proves that the developers were not being given the time or resources necessary to meet that benchmark. We'll see if we get another utter failure like Zestiria after Arise, or if they manage to maintain the new benchmark Arise has set. But knowing Bandai, I'm nervous about which way that's likely to fall.

Oh, the music's pretty good, though. Like six tracks in the game are really good and the rest is bad to fine, which is better than the vast majority of the series. Get Go Shiina to compose for more Tales games, please.