#We ignore that I reused the same exact background

[kitsunespawz]

Them.

I might have started a thing. I will now draw every Hermit dancing and that's a threath.

Here's the xB & Keralis art that made me start this

[dazais-guardian-angel]

I finished Curious Village again the other day, so here are some random thoughts. This is my first time replaying the main series since my... mid-to-late teen years? (though I guess it was later than I thought, if AL didn’t come out till 2014... I’m 25 now) so my memory of the fine details of them is a little hazy.

Flora really is wasted in the next two games, isn’t she... She’s introduced as part of the crew by the end of the game, especially with the additional epilogue cutscene in the hd version, but she literally gets the Kairi treatment, being left behind or used as a damsel for no discernable reason, when she could easily be just as capable as Luke... I mean she’s older than him, there’s no reason she couldn’t handle herself on their adventures if he can. -___- And like Kairi, I want to be more invested in her, but she barely has any focus and development, and it’s just ugh. I kind of like that it makes sense why Hershel would be so distant with her/not know how to parent properly, but I wish that was actually explored, and it’s not, so everyone ignoring her is just annoying and unnecessary-feeling instead. Tbh I’d rather her have just stayed behind altogether in the next two games instead of showing up just to be kidnapped or impersonated, if she wasn’t going to be made a main party member permanently.

People have said this before, but the main trilogy is honestly made so much better with knowledge of the prequels, in both emotional and absolutely buckwild ways, and it’s the funniest with CV - going from Azran Legacy straight into the mundane Curious Village is absolutely fucking HILARIOUS, as completely unintentional as it was by Level-5 lmaoooo

Hershel, after the shitshow that was Azran Legacy: “oh thank god, just an inheritance dispute.” Luke, who is easily impressed and apparently gets selective amnesia after every game: “THIS IS THE BIGGEST MYSTERY WE’LL EVER SOLVE-” Hershel, this close to murdering Luke a second time:

Can we make some connection between Bruno’s robot-making abilities and the Azran technology. And does the whole robot thing seriously trigger the boys as soon as it’s revealed because DEAR GOD NO NOT THIS AGAIN-

And related to that, I’m sure that was why Hershel could easily guess the robot thing early on; like seriously, nothing should faze this man anymore after what he’s been through (and yet, hilariously, the most ridiculous has yet to come, depending on how you look at it)

But he doesn’t have the faintest idea why Don Paolo would want revenge on him, which, like, even if he can’t think of anything specific... my dude, your family history is fucked up a;lsdlf;fd, there’s PLENTY OF OPTIONS (even if the actual reason is much less severe lol)

I’m sure we also all headcanon Descole to be slinking around in the background of the three main games somehow just because it’s more fun that way, so now that he’s no longer the rival, he’s the rival-turned-secret helper who makes sure everything goes right for Hershel (but he doesn’t do everything obviously cause he knows he can handle things himself), and probably bitchfights with Don Paolo some because that mental image is hilarious to me lmao

Post-UF scenario where Desmond helps Bruno with the robots with his technical prowess

and while we’re on that idea, Uncle Randall nerds out over everything robot in St. Mystere because let’s be real he would (Azran 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, But Without The Danger Or Trauma)

That scene when the tower is collapsing and Flora almost falls and Hershel catches her. Level-5 how could you completely accidentally and unintentionally create something so utterly painful out of such a small moment; I lie awake at night thinking about this!! :)))

Also Hershel yelling to Luke in that scene “I HAVE AN IDEYAHHH!” with his accent going off the rails on “idea” is an underrated iconic moment

Am I the only one who got the quiz question about Chelmey’s favorite food wrong because the answer was cakes something, and whatever the newspaper said it was was definitely not what I’d consider a cake

I love the implication that Pavel(?) is the only person in St Mystere besides Hershel, Luke, Don Paolo, Flora and Bruno who’s not a robot, and he just somehow ended up there by unknown means while trying to get to America??? and then somehow ends up on a high floor of the LOCKED tower, and still has no idea where tf he is. what a madlad

I never liked Luke’s squeaky UK voice, but I’m realizing his US one isn’t much better... and Flora’s voice in the new epilogue cutscene with the same voice actress years later is oof. why do the PL games just. reuse the same vas constantly for different characters. It’s obviously a thing in anime and games, but it’s especially noticeable in this series imo

fuck those puzzles with troll-y answers. also fuck that one with the chocolate bar and the coded letters with the bite marks

Matthew is probably one of my favorite npcs now; he’s just adorable <333 his little arms waggin’

Gordon needs to get a life

Pauly why are you the way that you are

“I’m not a detective”, Hershel continually says, as he unveils ridiculous plots that no one could have thought up in their wildest dreams, while gathering everyone together and pointing out the culprits dramatically, Agatha Christie style

I was tapping around for the exact pixel on painting Flora’s neck because it was ridiculously precise on the mobile version, and I never knew that if you tap her chest area, Hershel scolds Luke for not being a gentleman I-

Luke’s chubby head in the anime cutscenes sure is something... so glad it didn’t last. along with the front-facing Hershel sprite.

The ferris wheel attack is so great, I never really appreciated it before. The music, and the rain at the end with the rainbow 👌

We needed more of Hershel constructing things from random objects he finds lying around; iirc the only other time he does it is in Eternal Diva, though I guess the slot machine gun in UF counts too

I solved every slider puzzle in this game without a walkthrough, even the bonus ones. I do not expect this to last in the next games.

Overall I like Curious Village, though it remains one of my least favorites; there’s nothing wrong with it, and it was the very first so I’m not surprised it’s not very complex, with the mechanics and style still not fleshed out yet, but it doesn’t really hit me with The Feels™ as the best ones do, so it’s just okay. it started this wild ride of complete emotional devastation off, so I can appreciate it for that at least.

[dragon-ball-meta]

Just discovered your blog today and am enjoying it immensely. I do have some questions about which is more "valid" between the DBS anime and manga though. The manga at least on a surface level has a tighter adherence to the manga's continuity, such as the lack of Gregory, no showing the Trunks' first SS transformation from the anime version of his past, and the SS Caulifla and Kale fusion churning out a SS fusion, which would seem to be what Old Kai meant when warning Goku and Vegeta 1/2

“2/2 But those are ultimately minor I suppose and perhaps they have explanations like "Trunks wasn't transforming for the first time in the Super flashback". I'm not a Toyo stan by any stretch and can't stand how he butchered my boi GOATku among other things but it seems like the manga would be just as valid/canonical as the anime. Toriyama works closely with Toyo as with the anime team and calls the manga a continuation. Sorry if this has been asked before, and keep up the good work“

Well first and foremost, welcome. Glad you’re enjoying this blog. As for the question, I’ve touched on it before, but I’ll dip into it again.  There’s definitely a bit more of a hierarchy than people want to admit, at least in terms of which would be “more canon” when it comes to the mediums of Super. To that end, I like to look at continuity, characterization, and lead platform.  See, the thing about Super, as it stands, is that it was never meant to have an ongoing manga. At all. It was written, conceived, and meant to be an anime series with Toriyama’s involvement. The “manga”, as it were, was originally meant solely to be a preview/promotional series for said anime, something to hint at things to come. That’s why the Beerus arc is so short and rushed.  When it came to the Resurrection F arc, however, that was when Toyotaro pitched the idea of letting him turn the series into an actual, full-fledged series, something Toriyama was ok with more or less because it meant that at least he wouldn’t have to draw it, and because he was interested in seeing how the anime and manga writers respectively would adapt his storyline ideas.  In that sense, the anime was the original, intended medium and means by which the series was meant to be carried forward, hence why I would consider that the lead platform. Beyond that, let’s look at continuity. Truth be told, neither manga nor anime are 100% flawless in it, making references to things that were filler in the name of comedy, or simply forgetting or ignoring a detail or two from the past. But even in cases of references to filler, I’d argue that they don’t INHERENTLY represent continuity errors per se, as they don’t directly contradict events depicted, and on occasion don’t even necessarily indicate that the exact filler events actually happened; in some cases, they’re just in-jokes or references for longtime fans and viewers.   Trunks’ “first time” transformation also doesn’t necessarily pin it as his first time in continuity, so much as simply reuse the animation and have the boy transform in a moment of grief. Don’t recall any direct reference to that being his first transformation at all. Similarly, I wouldn’t say Gregory inherently means Filler Gregory is meant to be who this one is, as Gregory in Super really doesn’t speak or have anything close to the same personality.  Similarly, Android 18 being as mad as she was about the mispronunciation of Marron as Maron can be seen as a nod to Krillin’s filler ex-girlfriend without actually acknowledging her. (As well as clearing up the whole “she’s named after her” thing since even the pronunciation is different in Japanese.) They’re not necessarily baking these things into continuity, just referencing them. One big problem the Super MANGA has, however, in an internal continuity issue. Toyotaro often feels a need to EXPLAIN things that don’t necessarily need to be explained, in an effort to feel like he’s fleshing things out more. The problem is... he often writes himself into a corner that way, as he doesn’t seem to run his ideas by Toriyama or check them against the man’s notes as much as he should, and thus finds himself in trouble later. Case-in-point: His decision that Super Saiyan Blue’s use had a mandatory cooldown period between uses, or else the multiplier the user receives from the form drops exponentially each time. Seemed a good way to potentially limit the form at the time, keep it from being “overused”, except... they very quickly found themselves in situations where it would HAVE to be used, to say nothing of the narrative issue of having Vegeta be in a reduced state of Blue by the time he faced Hit, thus making Hit’s win less shocking, and Hit himself a bit less formidable, to say nothing of downplaying Goku’s skill and reaction to it; he should have had a far easier time naturally, after all. This also causes some issues with Vegeta’s tactic vs Zamasu of popping into SSG for a speed advantage and then quickly in and out of SSB to strike, as that should have lowered the effectiveness each time, and THAT was done to deal with ANOTHER restriction Toyotaro had baked into the form of it draining ki almost as quickly as SSJ3 had back in the Buu arc, and that Godly Aura was actually just wasted ki. All of this then had to be negated via Toyotaro’s own version of SSB Kaioken, which was just... “Perfected” Blue. Which is just Blue without an aura. Which then leads into Goku knowing how to use Hakai despite not actually being a God of Destruction, not having ever even practiced it to know if he could do it, and only allegedly having seen Beerus use it once offscreen, which has to be inferred by the reader.   These are actually just a FEW of said issues in the manga version of things, but in my opinion, the biggest signifier and offender comes in the final category: Characterization.   It’s no real secret that Super does retread some characterization ground, but there’s a reason for that. New viewers, same characters, etc. Vegeta was sort-of given a full arc already, but due to popularity and ‘demand’, he has to be given a central role and can’t sort of fade back like Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, etc. were able to do once their respective arcs were done. (This also allows their own mini-arcs in the anime to feel more fulfilling as they’re not constantly shoved in your face, and they can touch on things happening or building up in the background of episodes, BUT, let’s move on.) As a result, one of the purposes of Battle of Gods, and how it was handled as an arc and the eps that followed it, was to establish a new sort of rivalry between Goku and Vegeta so as to renew that arc/dynamic for this particular series.  

And that’s where the manga... sort of falls flat. Vegeta is kept in prominence despite a lack of any sort of established/renewed rivalry with Goku; BoG was done in shorthand, after all, and the events following that, as well as the entire Resurrection F arc, were skipped wholesale. In fact, Vegeta himself seems to have gone through a VERY radical personality shift in that... he’s... nice. And I don’t mean nice-ER, he’s outright nice. He shows open affection for his family, he literally runs over to embrace his baby in happiness and rejoices that it’s a girl, he engages in pleasantries with the rest of the cast before the Tournament of Power and asks about their wellbeing, he’s got almost none of his original character traits other than a flair for the dramatic... and bear in mind, Vegeta still has that hardass-ness to himself in the End of Z, which these events are supposed to lead into. And this isn’t even touching on how the narrative seems to shift frequently toward him being THE hero of the series, often actually placing Goku in near-helpless situations and having Vegeta inexplicably bail him out, or just have Goku be in awe or starstruck at how awesome Vegeta is now. The Future Trunks arc, for example, has Vegeta healed only to the point of being able to stand, yet when Goku is shrinking back in fear at the sight of TWO Fused Zamasus coming at him, Vegeta... transforms, swoops in, rescues Goku, AND nukes both Fused Zamasus with a single blow. (It doesn’t “win the day”, no, but it’s a mite riduculous). The current arc is also trying to wholesale shift focus away from Goku onto Vegeta in a leading role, which is a distinctly non-Toriyama move.   And now, let’s talk Goku himself. HOO boy, where to begin...   For all the talk of flanderization of Goku in the Super anime (which I could write entire rants on but I’ll refrain for now), the manga does him ten times worse. Almost every negative fandom meme or interpretation of Goku is reinforced in this arc, sometimes even to the point of literal, direct lampshading of it. For example: Goku in the anime makes a comment on how he doesn’t see why Bulma would “kill” Vegeta if he’s not right there when Bulma starts labor, as he was dead when Goten was born and Chi-Chi doesn’t hold ill will over it. The manga? It quite literally has Goku state he wasn’t around for the birth of Goten OR GOHAN. He couldn’t even be bothered to be there for the birth of his son he was alive to see. When Whis pops baby Bra out via magic so Vegeta can attend the ToP, Goku is... apparently still so dumb that he legitimately wonders aloud if that’s how ALL babies are born. Goku, in this same tournament, has ZERO strategic or technical skill, and relies solely on brute force and powerups (which is actually how VEGETA typically fights but I digress) and even has both Roshi admonish him for it and even has Goku agree with it and declare himself a “bad student” and say that he’s “done letting everyone around him down”. This manga also has Goku and Gohan’s relationship visibly strained, with Goku seemingly trying to cut himself out of Gohan’s life completely as the kid has no interest in fighting. To top this off, rather than attending the tournament in a gi fashioned after his father, whom Gohan canonically does admire, the manga has him deliberately ask to have another carbon copy of Piccolo’s. Hell, Gohan is so far from Manga!Goku’s mind here, that it doesn’t even occur to Goku to ASK Gohan if he wants to fight in the ToP after Buu falls asleep. In fact, Piccolo suggests it... and Goku PROTESTS the idea, saying the kid’s got no stomach for fighting and they should look elsewhere. The only time Goku seems to show an interest in Gohan is when he shows off his power in a fight vs Kefla. This is distinctly, demonstrably, simply NOT Toriyama’s Goku, in any way, shape, or form.   Now, to speak on the other characters and their characterization... when it does exist, it’s one-dimensional and also often based around fan conceptions and memes. Krillin? Comedic coward who can’t fight. Goku even says that he thinks Krillin’s sole usefulness in the ToP might come in the form of him “being really good at running away”. He’s literally only in because Toriyama said so, and is literally immediately ringed out before he can so much as move. Tee hee so funny. Tien, who has no personality of note, is then also immediately out. Piccolo is just Gohan’s coach, really. Android 18 shows no emotion at all, even for her brother’s apparent death; this is later played off as her knowing he didn’t have his bomb anymore (something even Krillin somehow forgot???) so knowing he couldn’t have self-destructed... even though there are other ways to do that besides a bomb but w/e. 17 literally shows more care and affection for 18′s husband than she herself does as well, and their bond is pretty much non-existent. Chi-Chi and Goten pretty much do not exist. Trunks’ reunion with Gohan, meeting his family? Never happens. And Bulma... OH BULMA. What he did to that woman is criminal. She mostly plays the role of the worried Soldier’s Wife, fretting as she awaits her dashing husband’s return from war! The Bulma that wouldn’t take no for an answer? The Bulma that always insisted on going to the front lines to try to see things for herself? The Bulma who would be eager to see this future and see if she could find the notes of her other self and what else she may have discovered? That Bulma does not exist in this manga. HELL, the Bulma who was the smartest woman in the world barely does; what was Pilaf noticing one small math error in an equation in the Super anime becomes Pilaf “WELL ACKSHUALLY”-ing both Bulma and Future Bulma here and PERFECTING Time Travel so they can go to any point they desire, with Bulma being visibly upset about being upstage-aaaaaand she’s pregnant. It’s just... not good at all in this arena.   Now one last thing to mention: Toriyama himself actually did explicitly state that his canon Broly movie, which he did write himself, was set to follow the events of the Super anime specifically, with him saying the manga would probably continue telling its own story. And indeed, there are things about the Broly movie that do tie into what people thought to be just “filler” in the anime, such as the number of wishes Shenron had left tying into the episode where they summoned him and then fought over wishes. The fact that he DOES specify that he wrote it to follow the anime, however, seems like a firm establishment of heirarchy to me personally. I’m sure some will disagree but... that’s life. lol Anyways, hope that helped clarify my stance on it, at least.

[baconpal]

Bravely Default and BD2

Here it is, the partially prompted bravely default rant/retrospective/whatever the fuck!

With the announcement and demo of bravely default 2 out now for a bigger market than the original game ever had, I feel that as a massive fan of the original I should put some amount of effort into explaining what the appeal of the original is, why bravely second missed a lot of the appeal, and why bravely default 2 has been very, very worrying so far.

If you care about any of that, come on in and I'll try to actually avoid spoilers this time and make this a more legitimate recommendation of a game than usual.

THE APPEAL OF BRAVELY DEFAULT The games obviously have a beautiful art style, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. Every city is like a painting, a beautifully composed shot that you see from just one direction to give you one very strong impression. While the overworld and dungeons are fully 3d and do not have as strong of an artistic impact, they are still very competent and have good colors and cohesive elements. The character design, including the job outfits, the monsters, and all the villains are just top notch. Simple, evocative designs that make the most of the 3DS' limited hardware and build upon the teams skill in making handheld games look good. (its the same team that did the ff3 remake and 4 heroes of light, which looks absolutely kino on original DS) The music is also consistently excellent, with great use of motifing, a full and varied orchestra, and many good slow paced tracks for most of the non-combat segments. Shit like "Conflict's Chime" being the main battle theme, "Infiltrating Hostile Territory" being a common dungeon theme, and "That person's name is" as the rival boss themes makes even the seemingly repetitive songs a constant joy to listen to.

The story is pretty decent, it's not the best part of the game, and there are definitely some aspects of the story some people loathe, but the characters (specifically ringabel fuckin love him) are pretty good and the make for an enjoyable experience. The side material like D's journal are really well done and integrate into the main narrative well for how tucked away and ignored it is.

The gameplay and systems are also some of the best of any RPG I've played, and I've played far too many. The job system from ff3 and 5 is brought to an even greater depth with the addition of universal job abilities, allowing any character of any job make use of another jobs features to create an endless depth to strategy. The way various jobs can mingle together, and how no job is completely perfect on its own makes for very compelling team composition and unit design. The extensive amount of jobs helps as well for replay value and for assuring that no easy winning strategy is found by all players.

The BP system makes battles take on a very unique pacing as the player and enemies can choose to save up turns or blow them all at once to make more complicated strategies possible, or to make the most of an enemies vulnerabilities. This powerful option gives the player a meaningful way to capitalize on their knowledge of the game, while also allowing them to make truly detrimental mistakes. That may sound not good if you're a fucking baby, but nobody wants an RPG you cant lose, but losing because you fucked up is much better than losing because the enemies are just stronger than you or anything to that effect.

But the single greatest part of bravely defaults, which creates the games wonderful balance and unique design philosophy, is that the player is expected to hit the level cap long before finishing the game. Reaching level 99 should occur somewhere just after the middle of the game, at the point where the player has access to almost every job and has encountered almost every type of threat. Reaching level 99 brings with it a certain security, the implication that from then on, all enemies will also be level 99, and that any failure to defeat an enemy will be a result of a bad strategy or the players own mistakes. The game is not easy, and is certainly intended for veteran final fantasy players used to the games with job systems and changing up your entire party to combat a single encounter. Leveling up is not a slow grind part of the game, as you have a lot of control over the speed and frequency of battles, and it is not difficult to keep up with the games level curve.

The other layer to this unique design is that the game expects you to "cheat", or use strategies that would be overpowered and frowned upon in most other games. Bravely default easily expects you to know or discover strategies such as: applying a status to all enemies and killing every enemy with that status using another spell, cycling a counter move over and over to have a nearly invincible party member, applying a healing attribute to a self-damaging character to get huge damage at little cost, casting reflect and dangerous spells on your own party to bounce them at the enemy, or duplicating a move that does maximum damage 15 times in a row. The game builds all of its encounters with the knowledge that your team will be the maximum level and that you will be using the most vile tactics you can come up with, and the game will do the same. Bosses and even common enemies will employ equally vile tactics using the exact same moves that you have access to, meaning you can learn from your enemies or quickly grasp the enemies strategy through your own experiences. One of the late game dungeons is entirely optional, but involves several fights against parties of 4 just like your, using the same jobs and skills you have gained during the game as a perfect test of your ability to develop counter-strategies, instead of relying on your own overpowered tactics. This type of design is really not something you find in many games due to the prominence of grinding or the lack testing strategies, and it is the most true appeal of bravely default to me.

BRAVELY SECOND EXISTS I GUESS So bravely second, a direct sequel to bravely default, definitely is a video game. It uses the original game as a base to generate more content, but completely misses the appeal of the original, and the new content added makes the experience even less focused. Overall, it's still a fairly alright RPG, but it fails to follow up on bravely default in a meaningful way or to provide as compelling of a gameplay experience. Here's some of the things it fucked up.

The game reuses almost everything the original game had, including the same music, world map, and most of the original's towns and dungeons, while adding a few of it's own. Going through areas you've been before never feels good, and the new areas lack the quality or brevity of the original game, leading to uninteresting areas that overstay their welcome, despite being the only break from repetitively reused content.

This extends to the classes but in an even worse sense. One important trait of the original jobs is that they were not perfect by themselves. While every job provided some useful abilities to be shared with other classes, or provided a good base with which to make a character, no class was without flaws. The new classes in bravely second are a lot of the opposite, they are closed loops that think of everything they could have to make a good standalone character. The 4 starter classes you get in bravely second are all brand new, and there's almost no reason to use any class besides those 4 as they are just insanely good. The priest and magician specifically augment magic in a way that makes spells infinity scalable into the end game, completely trampling on any other magic classes territory without needing the extra effort of grinding a new class out. Many of the new job concepts are actually really interesting, like going back in time to return to a healthier state, or a class that changes the stats and attributes of all units in a battle, allowing for all new kinds of strategies; but these classes lack any opportunity to be used to their full potential since they don't mesh well with other jobs and are limited by their self-centered design.

Another completely missed aspect of the original is the level curve discussed before. Bravely second only really requires you get somewhere in the ballpark of level 60-70 to comfortably beat the final boss, and getting too leveled up is really hard to avoid if you are plan to try out various jobs.

Second also fails to account for how many incredibly strong strategies the player can come up with, and even introduces some of its own strategies that it has no way to counteract, such as halfsies (the first skill the first class gets) pretty much splitting the game in two by tripling the value of items like phoenix downs, and allowing for fool-proof strategies by making 1 character focus entirely on defense, effectively making the party unkillable. Essentially, if you play second after having played the original (like any sane person would) then you will absolutely destroy the game with no sense of satisfaction.

The story is also a large step down, enough to become an annoyance, as the writing style changes to a strange romantic comedy situation with, for lack of a better term please forgive my sin, anime writing, but like bad anime writing, ya know the kind of shit that makes people write off all anime cus a lot of it is awkward and unpleasant to listen to. The story tries to mess with some big concepts like "what if new game + was a real thing???" and time travel and shit like that but it doesn't mesh with the tone the rest of the game has and that tone doesn't mesh with the world or art style and it's just a mess.

BRAVELY DEFAULT 2 SEEMS KINDA POOPIE SO FAR So unfortunately, the big appeal of bravely default being part of it's end game makes it hard to judge how 2 is gonna go given we only have a demo of the beginning, but given that the original team behind bravely default has slowly been stripped out of the series as it goes on, the outlook is bleek.

Most immediately obvious is that the artstyle has made a horrible transition from handheld to console, somehow even worse than pokemon. The areas are all fully 3d and lack the style or compositional excellence of bravely default, and the outside environment look like asset store products. The small proportioned characters with simple features to be readable on a small screen have been replaced with identically proportioned characters with excessive detail and ugly features, and look horrible up close on a big screen. Only the negatives of the art style have made it over, and everything good has been made unsavory. The character and enemy design overall is much worse as a result, everything is messy, unclear, and clashes with everything else. It's an absolutely shocking downgrade.

The characters themselves are overly hammy and feel like shallow attempts to have a similar party dynamic to the original without having identical character types, and the writing as a whole doesn't seem to have improved from second, which was already quite a step down from the original.

The gameplay also has not done anything different or interesting yet, and seems to be selling itself to people haven't heard of or gotten enough of the BP system. Enemies being on the overworld as opposed to random encounters shows they have dropped the player agency over encounter frequency, which is dumb. The battles lack any of the flow the original had, especially when using the battle speed option, as the camera does not present everything very well and changes position often as a result. Overall, I have not enjoyed the bravely default 2 demo and feel it shows nothing but a continued decline in the series that likely should have just been a single game. With the release date being set for sometime this year, I feel there is no chance any amount of player feedback could save the game or even begin to pull it in the right direction, as it seems to be fundamentally flawed with an inescapable feeling of shovelware.

SO WHAT? Basically, all I wanted to say here is that the original bravely default is a very unique experience I think every RPG fan should give a good chance (and just do all the optional stuff during the "repetitive" part of the game, it's where all the best content is you bozo) and that the sequels are NOT the same experience. I guess it's kind of mean to just say "hey don't buy or like this new thing cus its not like the old thing" but people should know why there's a bravely default 2 in the first place, and should fight for what made the original great. I worry that BD goes down the same sad path that FF did, becoming a completely hollow, middling series that strayed so far from it's home that a whole new series had to be made to give the fans of the old style a place to go.

Thanks for reading, and hope you got something out of it.

[drink-n-watch]

I knew it! I knew I could predict the future! Kinda, sorta, if you squint…. Maybe time leap machines are really quite common but no one has Reading Steiner? I’m just seeing echoes of a future past? I should reuse that line, it’s completely wasted in this silly preamble.

we have to talk about your post openings…

So friends, do you remember last week when I speculated that Steins;Gate 0 was throwing weird foreshadowing on Yuki simply to keep her relevant and make her romantic arc with Daru that much the sweeter? Remember? Ha!!! I was right! What? No one was disputing me? And it’s a little early to celebrate things could still take an unexpected turn? Well I was still right….

You know what else I said in last week’s review? I mentioned that Suzuha’s past was a barrel of nightmare fuel! We’ve always known this. Growing up in a violently war-torn country is just not going to be a picknick no matter what. Up until now though, we’ve only had a very vague outline. For the first time, Stein’s;Gate 0 gave us just a few tiny moments of Suzuha’s childhood. Like these things often go, it was both much better and much worse than I could have imagined.

The reason Suzuha held on to both her sanity and humanity despite the impossibility of her circumstances, is that she comes from a deeply caring family that loved her to the very tips of their fingers. The reason she is so rigid and uncompromising in her quest is that she saw that very family ripped apart and will do anything to avoid it. Both her softness and her resolve are built on that same love. And this week, Steins;Gate 0 gave us the very moment when that love bloomed. It shared it with all of us, like a little gift.

of course, booze was involved

For all intents and purposes, this week was yet another filler episode. I doubt we learned anything essential to the overarching narrative. However, as a balancing element, it brought something valuable to the story. The plot has been hauling us around breathlessly for the better part of the season. Breaks have been ruthlessly brief and few. There’s something grounding and precious about being reminded that all this suffering isn’t meaningless. That under all the tension is the simple and warm promise of a happy life surrounded by loved ones.

We saw it through the images of desolate landscapes on which little families take lovely family pictures. Of a young Suzu sulking at having to spend time with her parents, for no real reason. As we all have at some point. This meeting of the tragic and comforting spoke to me. I would also do anything I could to protect such fragile moments. They are everything after all.

the Back to the Future ref was amazing but they didn’t have to point it out…

This episode also wonderfully softened all of Daru’s most jagged edges. The character’s been slipping into creepy territory all season so it was nice to see him get pulled back into firmly lovable for a moment. This is the Daru I’ve been waiting for. The one that’s hiding his insecurities beneath all that pervy bluster. The one who knows a good thing when he sees it but gets paralyzed by the wonder of it all. The fact that Yuki happens to be the exact same type of dork is just icing on the cake. We all knew exactly how it was meant to play out from the very start. Just because something isn’t surprising doesn’t mean it isn’t satisfying. Yuki and Daru finally getting together was completely doki doki.

In the background of all this loveliness, events are still brewing of course. Steins;Gate 0 simply cannot stand still for one second. Maho is back and her presence promises future developments. Okabe and the mysterious Dr. L are getting closer for better or most likely for worse. And poor Mayuri, who’s really gotten to worst of it lately, is once again being pushed to the sidelines and ignored by everybody.

she didn’t even get a face this week

The delicate despair which is closing in on Mayuri is being carefully rendered in painful detail. Even if only in tiny moments during each episode. She has always been very important to the plot but as a catalyst and narrative device. Of all the characters, Mayuri is the one most consistently robbed of her agency. I wonder if they are slowly pushing her to the edge so that she may become stronger through trials and tribulations. I hope so.

I’m starting to think Steins;Gate 0 may be written for me. This is exactly the level of romance I am comfortable with. I enjoy my drama mixed with a good deal of comedy and mystery. As some of you may know, I’m a sucker for family dynamics. If I had been asked to write an episode – I would have written something completely different and much worse. We would all have missed out.

there would have been just as much drinking though

This week was a beautiful assortment of moments. That special instant when you connect with someone you really care about. That second when an idea takes over your mind and pushes everything else out. That day when you see your child as short-sighted and impudent and absolutely the very best part of you. That moment when you realize your parents are flawed and embarrassing and your heroes.

I was happy those moments were shared with me. I’m looking forward to more next week!

I have a feeling this may have been the calm before the storm

 A Nerdy Pespective opened my eyes to the wonder of slideshow galleries so that’s what I’m using this week!

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Steins;Gate 0 Ep 13 – Hope for the Future I knew it! I knew I could predict the future! Kinda, sorta, if you squint.... Maybe time leap machines are really quite common but no one has Reading Steiner?

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Some of the things I tend to repeat about Adoption with sources/history

Pretty much because I want to give credit where its due that twitter doesn’t always afford me, and because I actually do remember where they come from.

“Adoption and Foster Care are Band-Aids on the broken bones of society”

You’ll learn this about me, but I really, really love extended analogies. I mean I take an analogy and make a whole story out of it. This is how you can usually recognize my work.

So this took from about 2001? to about 2009-ish to figure out that the system was broken. Then a bunch of college education in there to realize that the system tends to absorb all of the ills of society. So the original version was, “Adoption absorbs all the ills of society and amplifies them.” But that wasn’t really concise enough. As I spent time interacting with white Adoptive parents, I wanted a better way to describe it and so they could see what adoption did. After talking to a lot of other transracial adoptees, etc, they floated around the idea that “Adoption covers up the ills of society.” and eventually “Adoption makes them worse because they aren’t really addressed.” One film from Korea’s new station also said that they were “ignored” via the Baby Box. So combining those concepts into a precise analogy and after a few rounds, I came up with, “Adoption is a Band-aid on the broken bones of society” taking an old adage and reusing it in a new context. But FFY input that it was Foster Care too, so I revised.

This wasn’t the work of one person. I might have come up with the specific words, but a whole host of people, thinking about it, putting in input and a lot of my own emotional labor. These are my words, but they are a reflection of a ton of work from the community, and particularly from Transracial adoptees over time. To you, you see words, to me, I see years and faces of people I liked, disliked and admired and their and my emotions.

“A person’s right to parent should not be more important than another’s to keep their child.”

Not my words. This is the work of acquaintances of mine. We hung out in the same spaces. I can name them, but they did not give consent to be outed like this and I’m not sure where they got it.

“Victorians started as institutionalized adoption. Adoption started as slavery.”

Partially History timeline, (also not mine), a reference, which I had, but I lost and recorded somewhere. (I have to find it), a bunch of watching of particularly UK “Who do you Think You are” and reading the background on Anne of Green Gables. Some Australian “Who do you think you are”

As for the poverty and being sold from workhouses... well, Ruth Goodman, a bunch of BBC docs on workhouses and semi-reality TV shows about living in the past, and there you go. How much time do you have? I watch a fearful amount of documentaries.

Point is I can source. And the reason I hate it taken from me isn’t only because it steals from me, it also steals from the emotional labor and effort put into those words by others teaching and informing me. There is no way to back trace, celebrate the originators, and give them credit. It harms the whole community when you see the sheer amount of DNA that goes into a single phrase. I can point and thank them, give credit back, even if it’s not their exact words. I can raise them up and give them memories. This is why copyright theft hurts. It feels like a betrayal of more than of me, it feels like everyone that worked that hard is also betrayed with it.

[lujehon-blog]

Easy to understand photo editing software for Windows 10 to scale photos and color depth

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Saturate a picture made easy with the helpful most requested photo editing software for Windows 10

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This photo editing software is actually well for excited learners along with a large amount of time in their hands to determine the as well technical features that would certainly worry away 1st time picture modifying individuals. It also comes geared up along with a three-sixty scenery system. Probably the gleaming treasure in the plan would be the beautiful skin end result, which removes reddish places as well as evens out the complexion. Whereas there is actually no self-regulating shade repair option very vital to repair the poor lighting up very most digital cameras squeeze, there are still the vital functions of flip photo. One of the most well-known misunderstood components of digital photography is what takes place after you take the shot in fact modifying your pictures. We are going to be cover some ideas for editing your images, from the basics like photo montage and also cropping a photo, via extra difficult activities. The cropping item permits you to alter the dimension of your photo, and also to transform the aspect ratio. You can crop a picture from a rectangle-shaped form to a square shape. There are lots of reasons you would wish to crop, consisting of for publishing in various layouts and also aspect relations. Compared to the original, I have cropped the photo with photo editing software to get rid of the colored component of the left-hand side of the photo as well as recomposed using the regulation of thirds. This makes the darkness bolt much more the focus of the shot. When taking the image, you may ask yourself why I didn't simply make up effectively. So in this instance, I was actually arranging a longish exposure photo shooting without needing a tripod, so had the cam stabilized on the side of the jetty for security. That really much minimal my capability to perfectly mount the moment, so I simply shot broader, understanding I had the ability to chop the picture suitably right after the fact. In both cases, cutting out is very basic and also it is just includes you selecting the cut out technique and after that choosing the area you intend to keep with your mouse. Then you use the changes and also your new cropped image prepares to go.

Photo editing software for Windows 10 download or program to edit photos to improve an image

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Helpful resources about the photo editing software free download for trainees and professionals with a lot of new features. Read all about Photo editing software for Windows 10 for Computer or software to edit photos to saturate pictures. Get the photo editing software for fast and smart rotate an image. In some cases there can be a single thing inside a photograph that you truly do not really wish to be right there, like an undesirable furuncle on a friend's face. This is simple to clear away in every the leading photo editing software. It is normally very easy to remove any sort of things directly out of a photography but the photo editing software performs great on distinct, little things that are usually covered by the same color schemes. This is due to the fact that the heal device needs to change the location you wish to remove with something else, as well as this works best when it has an area close by that looks similar. So for instance, a red spot on a face is surrounded by a great deal of likewise tinted skin, so the recover device can quickly compute what to change the red spot based upon the bordering area. This specific is since the photo editing software needs to repair the sector you desire to wipe out along with another thing besides, as well as that works optimal when it has a sector near that seems much the same. Photo editing software has come to be extremely complicated as well as impressive and it is usually possible to adjust images therefore they turn into completely various out of the original. There actually are dozens of photo editing software and multitudes of ways of creating the exact or comparable final results. My intention very most when it comes to many photos I upload procedure is to make them seem as normal as possible. I strongly believe this is an outstanding spot to begin, also if you wish to go on and develop much more unique appearing pictures. Coloration array on a picture is just one of the major concerns. Your eyes have the ability to generally see a broader variety of coloration than your video camera able to shot. The significance of image editing and enhancing is the act of adjusting a picture, basically. Still this is simplifying a topic which is rather intricate. You can usually execute simple photo modifying strategies just like write texts in photo rather easily as well as rapidly however complex strategies and also digital modifying might call for photo editing software for Windows 10 and more knowledge. Photo editing software for Windows 10 is a gadget which you can easily utilize to control and also enhance photos. Due to the fact that images include a boosting variety of uses, numerous firms are experiencing methods to reuse photos and also utilize them on lots of ways. Learn here about crop images with the photo editing software free download or powerful photo editing software for Computer to enhance images or editing photo software to photos gradation for amateurs. Crop a photo is excellent with the photo editing software for Windows 10. Free download photo editing software for Windows 10 for experienced and software to edit a photo to rotate a picture and fisheye effect.

[topmixtrends]

“The only members of the party not perhaps completely happy are the corgi dogs, feeling apparently just a little bit out of the picture.” – “Royal Family on Holiday” (1960)

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again…

Where

Are

The

Corgis????????

I never wonder this more often than I do when watching Netflix’s The Crown. However, the recent second season—which premiered on Netflix earlier this month—took my questioning to absurd degrees. It’s no secret that Queen Elizabeth II loves corgis—indeed, has loved corgis since before she was ever what she is most known for now, which is the longest-reigning British monarch, though even that is debatable because, Christ, the lady LOVES CORGIS. She loves them publicly. They love Meghan Markle. We saw them all over The Crown: Season 1. When I heard that there would be more seasons, I thought to myself: Ah yes, There Will Be Corgiez.

Where, then, exactly, in The Crown: Season 2, are they?

Here we glimpse them for the first time in Season 1—a total of THREE episodes in and during a flashback to Dec 10, 1936 (the day of King Edward VIII’s infamous abdication) no less:

During this first view of corgis (“Where are the corgis?” “There they are finally!”), we never see more than two corgis in one frame. Yet, we hear the girls on bikes (here, the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret) repeatedly shouting, “Gina! Carina! Ella!” while the dogs bark along, which suggests that there are in fact three corgis. As though to avoid any confusion about what “Gina,” “Carina,” and “Ella” rigidly designate, we see young Elizabeth turn a corner towards a corgi while saying, “Ella! Ella.”

Now, I always thought this scene was fishy. According to my records, Elizabeth never even owned any corgis under the names of Gina, Carina, or Ella. And it’s even more unlikely that she would’ve had all three of them in 1936, given that Dookie—Elizabeth’s first corgi—was introduced into the household only three years prior in 1933. (Something I recently learned was that, when selecting her first corgi puppy, Elizabeth went for the one with the slightly longer tail “so that we can see whether he is pleased or not.”) Dookie was followed three years later—aka 1936, during which this scene is set—with corgi Lady Jane (who Dookie actually didn’t really take to, but that’s another story), so it seems even more implausible that the princesses would be hanging around with Gina, Carina, Ella, et al here. Some further googling of these three names together leads me to one Maria Carter, who is the owner/trainer of—yes—three show corgis with these exact names (see here; they’re also supposedly featured in this advertisement for London, if you care to compare to image above).

It seems more than a little possible, then, that the actresses portraying young Elizabeth and Margaret in this scene are simply calling the actual names of the three show corgis, which doesn’t even make that much production sense if we assume that they hired these corgis to act and thus presumably respond to names that might not be their own. (Corgis have the IQ of a 5 year old FWIW…BUT CAN AN ANIMAL REALLY ACT?) This seems borderline offensive to me, especially if we remember that this is the first time we see any corgis on a show that is literally about the life of a famous monarch who basically “made corgis happen” and because it’s a bracketed representation of a historical date in what is already a historical drama! I get why the show needs to dial up the unreliable intrigue when it comes to Philip’s affairs, Jackie Kennedy, and whatnot, but there is zero reason why anyone needs to lie about how many corgis 10-year-old Elizabeth had or what their names were. And honestly, given Elizabeth’s penchant for liquor, “Gin” would have a far more plausible name than “Gina.” There’s simply no excuse for this shadiness.

Sit down folks, we’re going to be here all day.

The second time we see corgis on The Crown is in S1Ep7, during a meeting Elizabeth has with Winston Churchill. Here they are:

The middle one is drooling with excitement, and the one on the far right seems completely starstruck about meeting the Bulldog. Corgi on the left seems more chill, like maybe he could take it or leave it, but for now this is fine.

Moving on to the next corgi appearance, here they are in the following episode, appropriately titled “Pride and Joy”:

Our three corgis sit obediently near Elizabeth while she works. Corgis apparently come in threes in the Queen’s household. At this point, I’m starting to get a little suspicious. Is The Crown simply reusing the same three corgis for all their corgi scenes? Actors are expensive these days, but do they really need to skimp on corgis?

And given the primacy of Susan—Elizabeth’s famous “foundational bitch” from which all her current corgis derive—at the time, it seems more than a little egregious to represent the corgis of her early reign as some mere indistinguishable pack. Elizabeth and Susan (an 18th birthday gift following the unfortunate death of Lady Jane by car) were historically inseparable. Susan went with Elizabeth and Philip on their honeymoon to Scotland, after all! I would’ve liked to see more one-on-one with Susan in The Crown, and the level of deception and assumed ignorance on behalf of viewers is unsettling. Corgis are not simply background features in the Queen’s life. In fact, Elizabeth had to train Susan to accept the presence of new human offspring Charles when he was born, with tricks like introducing Susan to the baby while “stroking Susan all the time” and also to “when nursing baby let Susan have a nice saucer of milk or tea [???] beside you.” This corgi drinks tea. The corgi is part of the royal family, not some kind of quaint joke accessory.

Even more unforgivable is the fact that the corgis acting on The Crown are Pembrokes with a nontrivial amount of white fur. The Queen’s corgi aesthetics famously tended toward Pembrokes of the darker red persuasion (as the breed more commonly used to be), and with very little white on them. As Vanity Fair has reported, Elizabeth once remarked upon one of the corgis of the chairman of the Welsh Corgi League with the following disapproval: “Oh, he’s got a lot of white on him, hasn’t he?” What we have on The Crown, it seems, is the Americanization of the corgi. (To be sure, one of my favourite corgis is an all-white albino corgi named Winston, but that’s no excuse for period piece inaccuracy.)

Compare the above images, then, with an actual photograph of Susan:

Where is the white chest fur here? Exactly.

I bet the actual Queen cringes each time she sees a corgi on The Crown, if she’s even still watching, because this level of corgi-washing is unbearable.

Alas, onwards. Elizabeth returns from her 23-week tour of the Commonwealth countries to her children and corgis and doesn’t bend to hug either one:

DEAR GOD, SOMEONE GIVE THIS CORGI SOME LOVE!!!!

Look into the corgi’s desperate eyes, for they are trying to tell you something.

Now onto Season 2, where the corgis are at least introduced a bit earlier this time with their first appearance occurring near the end of episode 2:

Captions are featured here because at least someone cares to be specific about the corgis on this goddamn show.

Here we see them, leaving the car with the Queen as God intended them to. This is the only time The Crown eludes to the fact that Elizabeth travels everywhere with the corgis. Half of the public photographic record of the Queen’s corgis involve them getting in and out of cars, or up and down airplanes, so you’d think the show would make a point to feature travel scenes with corgis. This is not the case. When Elizabeth flies on The Crown, there are no corgis ever in sight.

Look, all I’m trying to say here is that the Queen goes everywhere with her corgis and The Crown doesn’t even try to respect this fact.

Beggars, it seems, cannot be choosers, so back to regular programming: after the corgis bound from the cars, they scurry inside, and we find the family sitting around the radio in anticipation of Philip’s Christmas speech:

Elizabeth isn’t even making eye contact with the corgi here.

The next time we see corgis in Season 2 is near the end of Episode 5, when the Queen invites a bunch of semi-commoners into the palace at the end and the corgis join too, presumably for promotional reasons? As if the corgis aren’t genuinely an integral part of Elizabeth’s daily life?

Once again, three corgis. Always (the same?) three corgis…

Near the beginning of Episode 8—otherwise known as The Kennedy Episode—we see three grumpy corgis (you can always tell by looking at how their ears begin to droop) at the back of her Land Rover:

Sure, give us corgis in vehicles only when the corgis appear to be suffering. These corgis are going through hell. I hope they fed them plenty of tea after this shoot.

And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for since you hit that click button and started reading this piece: The Corgi Room Scene. This scene is arguably the heart of the episode, which is further centered around the key to, yes, Elizabeth’s heart. In a moment of intimacy, the Queen takes Jackie Kennedy into the Corgi Room (this aspect of The Crown is at least accurate) and introduces her to Sugar and her puppies Whiskey and Sherry.

It’s a touching scene—a moment of what appears to be sincere empathy and affinity between the two women who bond over having each found themselves rather unwillingly in the public spotlight. Both Elizabeth and Jackie self-identify as the “shy” one between their respective sisters, and as “deep down […] happiest with animals.” Corgis are not simply background effects here, then. Instead, they crucially mediate the newfound closeness between Elizabeth and Jackie as well as become the literal topic of conversation. In this scene, corgis are both form and content. They are revealed as the background—the hidden Corgi Room—that in fact grounds the very core of what makes The Crown, well, uniquely Elizabeth. Viewers see this scene as a turning point for Elizabeth, as she opens up to Jackie on what is very much her turf. Both women are brought just a little bit more down to earth, as often happens when one is around corgis. And as if to allay any anxieties that the show might be recycling the same three corgis, the three corgis here are noticeably neither Gina, Carina, nor Ella as evinced by their darker markings and varying sizes. Viewers are further drawn then to understand this scene as a turning point for corgi representation on The Crown as well, in which the animals are finally recognized for the key figures they are.

Alas, for anyone who watched through to the end of the episode, this scene is yet another disappointing mirage. Elizabeth and Jackie aren’t really friends. Susan, Whiskey, and Sherry aren’t really the corgis we are led to believe they are. L To begin, the real Susan looked like this:

  Yes, folks, she is a lovely deep-hued red corgi. And the Susan on The Crown is, oh dear, a tri-colored corgi:

Sigh.

Equally troubling is the fact that while Whiskey and Sherry were born in 1955, the Kennedy visit to Buckingham Palace didn’t happen until June 1961. The most generous reading of the artistic decision to play fast and loose with dates here is that The Crown is replicating the illusion of corgi-lubricated intimacy played out between Elizabeth and Jackie here by simultaneously pulling the wool over viewers’ eyes with a bald lie about Sugar, Sherry, and Whiskey’s biographical details. Did they think we’d eat out of the palm of their hand here because of how naming Sugar’s puppies Sherry and Whiskey is SO HECKIN’ CUTE? How we move on from this I don’t even know.

It should go without saying that I adore The Crown so much, and, perhaps against my better judgment, still do. I’ll take any corgis I can get. But this season, especially, I felt increasingly that the corgis were featured as Easter Eggs—popping up here and there, always in threes—rather than what they actually are, which are living, breathing, frapping members of the royal household. Check yourself, The Crown, before you etc.

For instance, I started listing the moments where the show would be more plausible if there was a corgi in the scene. Besides almost all the scenes featuring a vehicle, think also about those where Elizabeth is sitting around the television. The Crown does excellent work of always reminding viewers that Elizabeth’s reign follows the arc of television’s increasingly everyday presence in people’s lives by having Elizabeth follow real-time world historical news on her television. Beginning with the televizing of Elizabeth’s own coronation, The Crown frequently thematizes how Elizabeth’s understanding of how the public views her through the medium of television is a first-order experience of how we as Netflix viewers come to understand Elizabeth through The Crown. In other words, there ought to be more corgis.

The TV they are watching is so small they could definitely fit a few corgis in here:

They even rented a TV for watching the Kennedys!:

You would think the Queen would definitely nap with corgis:

It just doesn’t add up! If The Crown is about both realism and entertainment, then wouldn’t both beg the presence of more corgis? It’s not like the show or the advertising around it isn’t already aware that corgis are a major selling point. All the articles featuring how the corgis “stole the show” on the red carpet, for example, led me to expect more of the same in the actual show itself. Consider too the enviable London promotion where one might “Borrow My Corgi” to binge-watch the premiere of the second season. Or The Crown’s little add-on spoofs featuring an all-corgi cast. I would have preferred if corgis weren’t treated like fluff to be paraded as some paratext to the show, and were actually taken seriously as the heart and spirit of the Queen—indeed, the Crown—itself. As with the first season, this one concludes too with a photographic portrait of Queen Elizabeth, except instead of a solo portrait, this time we have Elizabeth surrounded by her growing, bouncing, increasingly unruly family. This season, Elizabeth looks a little less put together, a little more dead inside:

Could it be because there is no corgi in the frame? That it is finally dawning upon Elizabeth that the corgis are being slowly erased from the life of the heroine? That, as Claire Foy sits here in her last appearance portraying the Queen on The Crown, she too is slowly coming to comprehend how the corgis have already gone long before her? A spectre is haunting Britain—the spectre of corgilessness.

  The post Occasional Corgis: The Crown’s Canine Politics appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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