#a slog to be honest

[flourmelon]

The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

👑🏇❤️‍🩹🌳⌛️

12.04.2024

[wintercalamity]

I wish the Honest Hearts dlc were better, but no, it just had to be a racist, white-savior mess with only a couple good characters in it. those being the survivalist (through terminal logs) and joshua, but even joshua takes part in the racism, too, it's just that almost all the other characters are written so poorly, they're almost all flat. And regardless of the time crunch the devs were under, there were so many other ways they could have handled the dlc but they picked the worst one. I love new vegas but Honest Hearts is just a mess.... it doesn't help the dlc is just a bunch of very boring fetch quests either.....

[claire-starsword]

Authentic Story of the Shining Force - Saint Fencer Max - Chapter 5

Translation notes:

All enemies so far were recognizable from the game, but here they seem to be original.

This might be Boken?? The only character in the game with a big backpack and hair. And he does show up in Dragonia in-game.

About the Ancient names. Mega Max is clearly alliterative in both languages. Giga Cain is almost that. K sounds in japanese become g sounds once you add a dakuten (ﾞ), so they're associated. And in english it kinda works out accidentally, because a G is basically a C with extras too. Vega Darksol though? No link. The pattern is lost. I'm kinda mad about it.

From an author's comment: "These two also appear in Tanuma-sensei's Shining Force (lol). Are they official members?" Yuichiro Tanuma is the artist for another Shining Force manga, Descent of Great Intention, whose scans I only found today (warning for a lot of ecchi/nudity/nsfw, i'm still going through but what i've seen is pretty horny already). And yes, these background characters also appear there. This manga was published before that one, though, so this is their first appearance.

"But Claire you're dodging the main topic, Cain just did exposition of the whole lore" yes yes, the similarities between it and the GBA version are what made me interested in this manga to begin with, but I've decided there's so much to compare between all versions of Max and Cain I'll make a whole huge ass post about it instead. Look forward to that.

I will mention however that Cain's bodysuit here reminds me a bit of the manual picture with Max being brought into Guardiana for the first time.

I did say we had to talk about Prompt (and then promptly forgot it in the first draft of these notes). Like Waral, Prompt is not seen anywhere in the beta map. And here, it is depicted as only ruins instead of the country it is in the final game. That in itself wouldn't mean much, however, Chapter 7, where Prompt is, has a lot more weirdness in it. It has peculiar unused content implying a whole deleted cutscene with Cain, Adam, Chaos and Darksol in Metapha, and it freezes the Debug Mode's Battle Test any time you Egress (also, Chapter Selection won't even load it from a save file of another chapter, which doesn't happen for any other chapter). Of course, I don't know the actual code of the game, but this gives me the impression that this Chapter 7 had some other Egress point that got removed later. Basically, if there's one part of the game you can expect to have changed late in development, it's Prompt and Metapha, so it could have been only ruins as the manga depicts here, and as I mentioned in the last chapter, some place or machine called Tenochtitlan could have existed.

Oh boy I keep forgetting notes this time! The goddamn chapter title. Both times the Chaos Breaker is mentioned here, it is written with the usual katakana, but also the kanji 対暗黒魔法剣 (Anti-Darkness Magic Sword) as furigana. I felt it was too clunky to mention both sword names in the dialogue, especially when Cain was already pushing the limits of a lot of speech bubbles this chapter. But anyway, yeah, it's supposed to be a bit of a title drop there.

I. forgot. yet. another. note. When Otrant recognizes the robot using an explosion spell, the manga actually says 核爆烈, a mix of 核 (nuclear) and 爆烈 (explosion). However, I couldn't find this exact wording in dictionaries, only fictional works, so it might just dramatic flavor, since nuclear explosions Don't Work Like That. I kept it ambiguous in the translation to not raise questions in the middle of the action, but it's worth noting since both the aforementioned Descent of Great Intention manga and the UK Sonic the Comic version of Shining Force bring up nuclear themes at some point.

[remesrobotics]

Counterclockwise...

[killjoy-prince]

If i had a nickel every time someone told me i should play s/tar r/ail id have two nickels

[gojohatemail]

WHO SAID THAT!?!?

[dilfsisko]

Finished House. Good show.

GOOD SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!

[briala-of-orlais]

i realize that i'm in the minority with this opinion but. i genuinely think that veilguard is a stronger game than inquisition, at least plot-wise.

that being said, i will also freely admit that veilguard is basically mass effect: fantasy edition, and bc i loved mass effect before i ever played dragon age, i am not exactly a neutral critic

[isekyaaa]

10,489 words in with the ending finally in sight thank God.

[scarlettfevor]

Blonde Chaeryeong changed lives

[trans-leek-cookie]

now that JJK is ending Nanako and Mimiko and Mechamaru and Mai Tsumiki are my children. Since Gege doesn't fuckin want them.

[silvermeww]

will someone ever tell me why cilan is afraid of purrloin???

[bittermarching]

Meh I didn't care for All of Us Strangers. 😒

*spoiler i guess* but

Personally, I'm so sick of sad stories about depressed lonely gay people whose lives are just one tragedy after another. I didn't need an extra depressing, gay Sixth Sense.

[lovely-v]

Doctor Who Diary

01x03 An Unearthly Child Part 3 ✅

[iamthekarmapolice]

best thing about cardio is how tired you feel right through the day. not so much that you can’t function but for me anyway, enough that i don’t have the energy to worry about unlikely hypothetical stuff or even just about the general future like i usually do. it feels peaceful

[uncriticalbunny]

thoughts on season 3. my first and last probably. spoilers ahead.

my least favorite season by far. first things first, there was way too much screen time devoted to the faks. literally unbearable. i was bored a lot of the time and after a certain point, i was watching just to get to the finish line. the episode ayo directed was far and above the best of the season. getting tina's backstory was wonderful. i really hope ayo gets to direct more, and that her, liza colon-zayas, and catherine schetina get some recognition for it.

this season was definitely a win for the "carmy doesn't deserve sydney" camp. after season 3, i really think the chances of sydcarmy happening has decreased heavily, and i'm not even sure i want it to at this point. which was probably the point. storer won *slow claps.* only in that regard though. season 3 has absolutely none of the magic of season 1. i don't think season 2 had it either if we're being honest, only a few moments here and there, but it was still a way better season with tighter writing and a more cohesive story. i wasn't all that optimistic about sydcarmy either way due to all the interview comments from the writers, showrunners, actors, etc. sorry to the sydcarmy peeps. the racists and platonic truthers are truly getting some undeserved vindication this season, and i hate to see it.

it was tough to see carmy continue being an asshole to everyone, but sydney especially. it was upsetting to see her so... diminished. she took a backseat to carmy's ego trip in the kitchen, publicly, and narratively. no recognition for all that she contributed to the restaurant. there was no partnership this season. no meaningful apologies to her from carmy. not to mention the racial implications of his behavior and him getting all the shine. i don't care about her being carmy's "calm" and i sure as fuck did not care for all the scenes juxtaposing her with claire [again]. her conflict of staying vs leaving the bear made a lot of sense and felt forced at the same time considering the 'ever' guy barely acknowledged her contribution when they first bumped into each other. throughout the series, she's been brilliant. the bear literally would not exist without her. and yet it still feels like she's had barely any wins in 3 seasons of this show. i feel like we barely saw her this season. she hardly exists outside of the restaurant.

and there's still zero romance for her character. there are no romantic displays of affection from her or towards her in 3 seasons, sans a botched attempt to ask her out on a date. all the white characters got their romantic displays though. we can always count on that. this season was a slog to get through and now i just feel tired. and also sad for my favorite character sydney adamu.