#also you can REALLY see what my taste is even if its not osts and its called Has String Instruments In It

[tibialtybalt]

Thanks for the tags @mdzs-rabbithole <33

List your top 5 songs right now:

In no particular order:

Eye of the Storm from the Guild Wars 1 OST

The Phantom Lady Butterfly from the Sekiro OST

Ashes by The Longest Johns

Golden Wildfire Camp (I) from the Fire Emblem: 3 Hopes OST

Lace from the Silksong OST

I'll tag @hoidingaroundthecosmere @heart-grem @a-dux and @pathos-logical

[thegingerheed]

How DELTATRAVELER is the funniest UT fangame by complete accident.

Over the course of the past year, I've talked a ton about various UT/DR fan-projects and my thoughts regarding them and their writing. One fan-work I have talked extensively about on various forums and threads being DELTATRAVELLER. For a while, I didn't know exactly how to feel about this game. It felt like an enigma to me. 

The game was enjoyable to play, it was entertaining to read. Yet I could never get myself invested in anything regarding the game's narrative or characters. It was as if the game was unintentionally written to obliterate (pun entirely intended) any and all chances for narrative investment in its story and characters. What the game did have over me was that it had me in histersics for the majority of its runtime. Yet, paradoxically, none of the jokes written to be funny landed for me. For a while I didn't fully know why and how it made me feel about the game as a whole. How can you say you enjoyed  something a lot whilst also laughing at it and acknowledging that under any other circumstance, it wouldn't be something that you'd consider to be good?

Spoiler alert: I found that answer, which I will now be explaining to YOU in weirdly esoteric detail !!!

But before we start, let's start of with the basic premise of DELTATRAVELER for those not in the know. 

What is a "DELTATRAVELER"

DELTATRAVELER is a UT/DR fangame about Kris, Susie and Noelle being isekai'd from a Post-Chapter 2 DELTARUNE into the worlds of various different video games and UNDERTALE on a quest to find a way home. The game was inspired and made off the back of "GOD FUCKING damnit KRIS where the FUCK are we!?" which was a very popular meme at the time of DELTARUNE: Chapter 2's release. 

Like DELTARUNE, the game is divided and released in chapters (dubbed 'sections' by the devs). Each chapter is set in a different world and has the Shit Squad (The objectively best name for the heroes) explore, fight and eventually find that world's "grey door" which serves as the end goal for the chapter as that will take the Shit Squad to the next world after the boss of the chapter is complete. In total the game is slated to have eight total chapters with what they are based on being revealed in advanced:

Chapter 1: UNDERTALE 

Chapter 2: Earthbound

Chapter 3: GG!UNDERFELL

Chapter 4: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Chapter 5: TS!UNDERSWAP

Chapter 6: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Chapter 7: Toontown Online

Chapter 8: The Dark (the game's finale)

Currently as of this post, DELTATRAVELER is still a work in progress with Chapter 3 being released back in December. As a result all discussion of the game of the game will be on Chapters 1-3 as those are what's out right now.

I think I should preface this post with me saying, I don't think DELTATRAVELER is a bad game, quite the opposite, actually! I enjoyed my time with it.

Mechanically, the gameplay is really well done, the physics feel very on point to UT/DR, which is surprisingly rare for a lot of UT fan-games. It felt like I was playing UT/DR and was rewarded for the skills I had gained from the collective hundreds of hours I have played these games. 

Visually, I think it looks very solid and charming. Seeing various locales and characters from other games being translated into UT/DR's iconic, sometimes janky artstyle is always cool to see and it will be very interesting to see how games like A Link to the Past are adapted in future chapters.

Musically, I think the game is fine. The original songs in the OST doesn't have anything I'd point to as "bangers" but also doesn't have anything I thought was particularly hard to listen to (With the outlier maybe being Eye for an Eye. The obligatory Megalo for the Sans fight in the GG!UNDERFELL chapter. But even then, I wouldn't even call the song "bad". I just don't like it too much and that's fine! just how music taste works.)

But to get to the main point. The most intreasting thing about DELTATRAVELER to me, is the way the game is written which has proven to be quite the controversial topic within the broader fandom which is what I'll try to give an in-depth and nuanced disection of but to put a long story short, I don't think this game is written well. Most of the core issues I have with DELTATRAVELER's writing can be attributed to a single, fundamental flaw. That being how the game handles it's "tone"

Explaining Tone

In writing, Tone is a very multi-factor concept, working as the bedrock for a given work. To put it simply and cleanly, tone is basically "the vibes" of a given thing. Tone can come in a lot of different flavours. Whether that be the tone of a given scene, the work itself or even the tone of an entire series. Tone is important as keeping tone consistent with itself is one of the major factors in narrative investment. It essentially tells the audience what they can and can't expect from a work of fiction.

Let's use this as an example:

You're watching a movie, in the movie there's a scene involving the protagonist having an anvil inexplicably dropped on their head by the antagonist.

If this movie was a comedy for children and family, the tone of this scene would ensure that this be as funny a punchline as possible or the set up for a funny punchline. This expectation built by the previous events of the story shields the narrative and characters from anything that might be too ill-fitting for the "comedy for child and family tone" it's trying to go for. At most the protagonist could be expected to suffer from a Loney Toons-like knockout rather than ending in a hospital bed with a shattered skull. Or, at worst, splattered and crushed across the pavement in an intensely gruesome fashion. If that happened, it wouldn't pass the story's "vibe check" which can cause something that I'll be calling "Tonal Whiplash"

If you want an example of "Tonal Whiplash" and the effects it can have on the audience, look no further than Shadow the Hedgehog

This game, to be frank. Is fucking hilarious and this is in part due to the mere concept of the game about Shadow using a gun breaking the tone set series-wide by other Sonic games and media in the past. (Expect Sonic Adventure 2, that has similar issues to a lesser extent)

It takes a series about stopping egg-themed villain from ruling the world to trying to assassinate the president and watching as a innocent girl gets shot in the back by what is basically, the USA military. And it all tries to do this in the Sonic series' iconic, albeit rather corny writing while also intened to appeal to older kids and be "cool". It leaves the game being kinda a clusterfuck even beyond just its tone issue, in a very funny way.

Now, this isn't to say that breaking tone is necessarily a bad thing all the time. Sometimes it's intentional, a way to make a moment hit harder, surprise the audience or all of the above. However, breaking tone is a narrative risk and if it fails you risk hurting the narrative investment your audience has within your work and to top it off once tone has been broken, it can't really be put back together with a story. You'll basically be shifting the tone of the story from that point on.

An easy example of this tonal shift is UT itself with it's Geno Route.

How UNDERTALE handles it's tone

UT's tone is one that acknowledges its nature as a video game with the usage of diegetic game mechanics like SAVING and the battle system.

This has many unique effects, for example means things like death as a concept is something that is treated rather lightly within the game's tone, the game even joking about it on the occasion. It's rather pointless treating death as anything other than a slight inconvenience to the human when you directly acknowledge that they can undo it by simply not wanting to die.

This treatment of death intentionally clashes with how it's treated when you kill monsters in a Geno Route. Papyrus is a shining example of this. Being something of an emotional obstacle for the player. Designed to make the player feel shit. Basically UT's writing is effectively, unapologetically trying to guilt trip you as another test of your determination to see this run to its completion.

The emotional weight of this scene is less carried by the idea of death and more so the fact that you hurt one of your favourite characters and won't see him anymore for the remainder of the run. It's more character focused, if you've already begun to withdraw your narrative investment and attachment to the characters or if you simply just don't give a fuck, it's not gonna make you feel anything. It'd just be another monster to slay, another number to increase.

Now you might find yourself wondering. How can UT be funny and sad without it leading to side effects normally seen by "tonal whiplash"? UT is funny, sure. There's a lot of jokes, each joke told in UT is a joke told by either a character or the world. Each joke means something beyond it being a funny line. But UT can also be heartfelt, like the walk up to Asgore. It all further fleshes these characters out making them feel more deep and layered, it treats it's world and characters not as jokes to be laughed at but as people, people who can be funny, people that can be sad and down even if you and the game both know that deep down, they aren't real. Just bundles of pixels and dialogue for your entertainment which is what makes Geno's clash work.

Your attachment to the characters and world. It's sudden, yes. But that's why it hits. NPCs vanish and their absence is felt, the once lively music replaced with a slowed drone. It all feels empty. It's dark, all because you have killed the things that gave this game its "light". UT's tone is something that . The tone of Pasifist runs reinforce and bring greater impact to Geno runs and that's why it feels less like tonal whiplash to the audience.

Now, let's get to DELTATRAVELER. If we want to establish how DELTATRAVELER establishes a tone for itself what best than analysis the beginning?

How DELTATRAVELER handles it's tone

After an amusing title screen and a quick file selection, we open with Kris and Susie on a bed of flowers, the first room of UT. After a brief moment of the two getting their bearings, they stand up and Susie turns to Kris before saying "God Damnit Kris! Where the hell are we?!!" fit with a silly pose and sound effect. A reference to the meme that inspired the game's creation.

The next scene is in the very next room and it's encounter with Flowey. Here he attempts the same speech he said in UT before Susie cuts him off, gets him to spill the beans that he was actually after Kris' SOUL before getting into a battle. Where they make a joke about DR battles being different from UT battles before Susie bashes her HUD into Kris' creating a unique one that DELTATRAVELER uses before blasting Flowey away with Rude Buster.

Off the cuff, DELTATRAVELER isn't really being serious. So far it's spent the first couple of scenes essentially making jokes around the characters, world and basic premise of the game and the game will continue to do this with inclusion such as Ralsei smoking a blunt, referencing a meme of the same name and Noelle making expressions referencing both a popular SpongeBob and MegaMind memes. On its own, this isn't really a bad thing, sure I may personally find it very unfunny but the game starting off with various memes isn't even a negative in principle, it just indicates that it doesn't want the audience to take it too seriously, which if that was the intention, would be fine. The issue DELTATRAVELER has with it's writing is that it unfortunately does want me to take it seriously.

The game makes an attempt to emulate UT's writing style, attempts to have serious moments sprinkled amongst jokes. However, unlike UT, DELTATRAVELER's brand of humour is basically solely self aware memes. Oftentimes, made at the expense of its own characters and world, leaving the moments where the game actually wants to be taken serious to fall flat.

Things like Kris' nightmare during Chapter 3, where they wonder why they are cursed with our control before lamenting about how much they want to rip their SOUL out and destroy it. Before crying out that they "Don't want to die alone." Doesn't have the impact the game wants it to have, because prior to that point, the game had basically already told the audience not to take the game too seriously, thus hurting any narrative and emotional investment the player could form with this interpretation of Kris as a character leading up to that point.

The same can be said with DELTATRAVELER's Geno Route equivalent, dubbed by the devs as The Obliteration Route watching the game in one route go from, "Ralsei Dobbie! No Bitches? Vine boom!" to beating and slaughtering a beloved protagonist and watching the kid bleed out on the ground as the other fights for revenge whilst a cover of (fucking) MEGALOVANIA starts playing in another takes what should be a very climactic and emotional moment and turns it into the single funniest boss fight I have played.

And that isn't counting the various other characterization issues present throughout the route as a whole. Characters like Noelle and Susie have no real reason to help Kris with the run once they notice them seemingly going around looking for people to slaughter. DELTATRAVELER especially when the game then goes out of its way to show the player that both party members have the digetic ability to reject the player's control, to the point where they can refuse to enter battles with Kris entirely.

But they don't, they'll even attack Ness and Paula under a certain percentage of health even after Susie tells explicitly Kris to not kill them. It leads to the game putting the blame on Kris and then The Player for a situation Susie and Noelle also have established agency over. Susie can help and kill a ton of monsters yet still be pissed at Kris for what is, under the game's internal logic, still a choice she chose to follow. The game tries to remedy this via Chapter 3's talk with the trio and it's better, sure. But it still leaves the writing in this strange place of hypocrisy with the characterization to me.

One scene that sticks out to me as particularly odd being after a secret Gaster lore dump cutscene on an Aborted Obliteration run has Noelle say:

"Kris..."

"If you were serious about not having control."

"You would've done it."

Directly implying that she thought Kris should've jumped off the cliff... which is just a strange inclusion, I feel is... Done more so to enlist a reaction in the player rather than creating important moments that respects the world and established characterization.

On the topic of weird characterization, let's talk Sans...

In the GG!UNDERFELL chapter, the main antagonists are Papyrus and Sans. Papyrus, is written, pretty recognisably from his Canon Counterpart. Sans however? Is a mess and a wonderful mess, at that. They take this very edgy, unhinged approach to his character, making him into an insane killer type of character similar to AUs like Dusttale. Throughout the chapter, he tries his damnest to kill Kris and take their SOUL, talking vaugely about a gurdge that doesn't ever get elaborated on. This approach creates a dynamic between Sans and Papyrus, where Sans is basically on Papyrus' metaphorically leash. Reaching a breaking point where he kicks Papyrus off a cliff, rushes at Kris like a feral dog before being being thrown off the bridge, leading to his battle.

His battle... oh my god his battle! It was easily the best part of the game, to the point it had to have its dialogue rewritten, the reason for this being honestly something I cannot begin to accurately describe to you while also doing the scene justice. So here's a clip from Andrew Cunningham's playthrough.

This isn't even the ironic either, this was just how Sans was written. The tone takes itself very seriously, this creates this type of divide where the game has already conditioned you not take it seriously, while trying to take itself completely seriously. It's peak tonal whiplash and it makes the scene, and the fight as a whole, unintentional hilarious.

Final Thoughts

The weirdest part? I don't even care. I've spent the better half of this essay arguing the flaws in DELTATRAVELER's writing, and while I do think they are all valid positions to have, for me? I don't really care about it that much, it's these issues that make me like the game. It's really funny in a very earnest, albeit unintentional way and at the end of the day. It's entertaining to read and there is value there. It's why I am not big on the rewrite of GG!Fell Sans. His issues come from fundemental aspect of his character that couldn't be changed with a simple rewrite, nor should it have it been expected to, as a result however, it doesn't really fix his character for me, it just takes a big part of what I enjoyed from him away. It's sort of a shining example on how when creating, you do not have a choice on how other people see your work. Some jokes you might tell might land and be funny, but also to some, may be brutally annoying and that's just the beauty of the beast. There's always room to analyse, to see if what the creator wanted to convey reads back to the audience. But even if there is critical flaws with the writing, enjoyment of that writing isn't inheritantly attached to author intentions or even the quality of the content, it's a feeling, a subjective one at that. It's why I could say I don't like Sonic the Hedgehog and Kingdom Hearts for being too corny and cheesey but to others, that's exactly what they love about it, and there's a lot of value in that.

There isn't a correct way to have an opinion, a right way to like or dislike something. You like things for the reasons you like them, you dislike you dislike them and that's fine.

However, I do want to take the time in this post to address pretty plevalent fandom issue perpetuated by the wider.

In the past, the UT/DR community was, to be frank rather toxic and elitist, it still is, depending on where you look. Overtime though, there's been a shift, whether be because those types of people moved on to other things or simply grew out of that behaviour, it doesn't matter why just that it has happened. There's a lot more positivity in this community and that is great to see. All healthy communities need such things. However, I do believe that as a result of this, the fandom now is suffering from a "rubber band mentality" where we've pulled too far in the opposite direction, leading to what feels like ironically "toxic positivity".

A lot of people feel very passionate about these fan-projects and that should be celebrated. However a trend I've seen in this fandom, one which has had a net negative effect on this community, is how we as a community react to people voicing opinions/ making jokes or just talking negatively about these beloved works.

You see it a lot with works like UNDERTALE: Yellow, DELTATRAVELER, Inverted Fate, all of the big fandom projects. Everytime a critique or just a joke about a fan-work gets more than like 10K Views on social media, the entire fandom begins to fold into basically damage control, regressing into "can we just not be so negative about the super popular fandom work loved by thousands?" People that voice their opinions on these work, especially negative opinions, get dogpiled, mocked and dismissed because according to them they "don't understand the writing", "hate fan works" or are just being "bitter about works made with passion and love and should simply shouldn't engage", even when said people once taking the time to actually hear them out, provide criticism that's honestly pretty valid.

I'd understand if people were directly going after devs, commenting under their tweets, invading their own communities just to mock and be the answer to a question nobody answered. That is wrong and should be called out. Voicing how funny or even terrible you think certain scenes are on your public social media? Ultimately, that's harmless in the grander scheme of things and I feel like fans and creators should be mindful of how they react to things because at the end of the day. People are allowed to voice their opinions, they are also allowed to make jokes and laugh at the writing, they are allowed to do all of that. People want to treat fan works like works of art and I am right there with them, but if you want to do that, you have to actually start treating them like art and accept it's a completely subjective thing. People will have different thoughts about them and that's okay! The moment you start policing what thoughts should and shouldn't be expressed is when any meaningful discussion dies. This whole mentality that since it took hard work and dedication to make a fan project should be celebrated to the highest order and treated as an object of reverence, absolved from all criticism is a harmful mentality to fall into. A thing can both require hard work and dedication and also be criticised and joked about by people. These two can co-exist. One doesn't somehow counteract and invalidate the other.

For some, analysing and critiquing media is a fun thing to do! It helps you get a better understand of the medium you're analysing, what works and what doesn't. It's legitimately fun to have discussions about. Being negative about works, even if they are works of passion aren't the end of the world, especially when they are just posts made by people just minding their own business. Jokes? Shitposts? They should all be allowed, because that's also how some people enjoy works of fiction. And if you don't want to see it? Valid but there are countless methods available to ensure that that don't involve creating a "good vibes only" type of fandom environment that everyone is forced to adhere to. That helps nobody and only breeds division within this community, I think.

[zabiume]

Hello! I just wanted to ask if you think Orihime might have been a little too complex for the audience that bleach was aimed at? (teenage boys that is). I mainly interact with the bleach fandom on tiktok (the bleach tiktok fandom is horrendous but moving on) the opinion of Orihime is kind of mixed on tiktok, there's a big portion of people who love her, but there's also a big portion of people who hate her. Whenever I get into an argument about her and ask why people think her writing is bad, they always say stuff like; ''she's too emotional/she has too many emotions'' and I'm just like ??? How does that make her a bad character?? To be fair the bleach tiktok fandom has A LOT of internalized misogyny so it's not that suprising that they hate Orihime, but again I wanna hear your opinion because I do feel like people on tiktok trow around the good/bad writing a lot without even really knowing what it means.

this is an interesting question! my joke answer is that it should be illegal to hate orihime😂, but my serious answer is that i feel like there's a difference between enjoying something as an audience member vs enjoying something as a critical reader, so if we're talking about pure enjoyment, it's perfectly okay for people to have preferences and like/hate certain characters based on those preferences. enjoying something as an audience is subjective. for instance, i really can't stand the kuroko no basket movie as a critical reader but i do enjoy it a lot as someone who was there to have a good time! i liked seeing my favorite characters again, i liked seeing them bicker and interact. sometimes stories fulfill simple needs, like "woah! that was a cool fight!" or "some dude had an incredible entrance backed with an incredible OST" and your knee jerk response is to just enjoy it. i have lots of characters that i don't really care about, so it's not surprising to me that orihime is a character lots of people don't care about. it's not a big deal.

but i think critical reading is a little more nuanced than that, especially if we're talking about what "counts" as good writing/bad writing. i don't think there's one particular way to write a Good Female Character, and i think trying to make good female characters a monolith is very bad for writing in general. trying to make any identity a monolith while writing them is obviously bad, and having different kinds of characters is a better indicator of good writing to me, which i would argue that bleach does, to a certain extent. there are lots of female characters in bleach and they're all very different from each other, and we do get to see some interiority, however rich or poor. BUT, i also think it's important to note that kubo does draw women like a freak, and a lot of the fanservice leaves a bad taste in my mouth. it's good to view a series in its totality — what it does well, what's kind of shitty, etc etc. you can acknowledge some of the great character beats for a lot of these female characters but also acknowledge that the story is not free from the author's perception of the world, and of women in particular. yes, a lot of them are interesting and have engaging storylines, but sometimes they are here to be Sexy keeping a specific kind of reader in mind (male) and orihime is not free from that kind of depiction, though she is nowhere near the only bleach character to be a "victim" of that! even ignoring the fanservice aspects of it, we could always make an argument about certain storylines and have those criticisms be valid, but it's important to do that in good-faith, which is what i mean by seeing a story in its totality!

and this is where the point you bring up comes in, because i think a lot of fans don't account for their own internalized misogyny, and how much accountability they have as an audience in writing certain characters off, especially if they're pushing goal posts that they wouldn't for male characters. yes, it's important to be critical, but you have to be critical of the series in a way that suits the genre. bleach is a shonen, which is historically a genre that appeals to the lowest common denominator of people — which means it's not going to be a transcendent, transgressive indie work of art that has radical things to say about gender and society and capitalism or whatever. if you want that, you have to pick up a manga that does that and assess how effectively or ineffectively it achieves those goals. as it stands, i think it's cruel to expect things from a story that it never even set out to do.

i know this is getting long, but my point is that when i look at orihime, i'm not holding her to the same standards that i would a character from a shoujousei or a seinen. i'm looking at her in relation to other characters in bleach, and seeing how effectively or ineffectively she fulfills her role in the story. and, if i'm allowed to be controversial: i think she's an amazing character for what her role is supposed to be! she's a love interest in a shonen, which should have doomed her from the start, but nope! she's got great relationships with characters other than ichigo, she has flaws, she has a complex belief system that is taken seriously + sometimes challenged/sometimes validated by the narrative, some of the biggest themes in bleach like the rain or the heart are explained through her, she has at least one pivotal scene in every arc (even when the plot of that arc isn't centered around her), and we get such a rich view of her inner life in every chapter centered around her. we know so much about her — from silly things like what she likes to watch and eat, to major things, like who she want to be, what she believes in, what her fears are. we get to spend so much time with her. she gets to have an antagonistic relationship with a character without actually being a full-fledged fighter. even the most bitter of orihime haters i've seen have at least acknowledged how iconic her moral clash with ulquiorra was, and the scene where he accepts defeat in front of her (he WAS accepting defeat and telling her he was wrong btw; you can't take a non-romance moment, convert it into a romantic moment, and then cry about how orihime's plotlines are only ever centered on romance. YOU are doing that, not her!), is routinely seen as one of the most iconic bleach scenes of all time. speaking of iconic scenes, orihime is in some of the most memorable bleach fights even when she's not an active participant, and a lot of times, her presence leads to a major change in how the battle is going

[literally 3/4 of those fights have a major moment with her in it, and they're voted 1st, 3rd and 4th place. yes, those were ichigo's fights but his relationship with orihime is at least hinted at or mentioned in of THREE OF THEM]

it's also worth noting just how seriously the narrative takes her feelings. we see orihime happy, angry, sad, jealous and she's allowed to be it so openly and sincerely, even at the risk of ridicule. she's allowed to cheer people up, but she doesn't exist just to do that! there are so many scenes where she's in need of comforting, where she needs reassurance, and she gets to be a scared, insecure teenager just as much as ichigo does. she's bright and vivacious, she's defiant, she's loud, she's a dreamer and a yearner, she's lonely, she's emotional, and she's so, so warm and kind and human. like, i'll be honest, so many shonen fans seem to think girls can either be tomboys or shy/submissive, but they're the ones boxing characters into those stereotypes when they don't even fit (orihime ESPECIALLY doesn't fit into either category but i've seen so many people do that)

and like, yeah, kubo can be a weirdo, but he defended her, and he considered her important enough to acknowledge her growth, even when he was running short of time. and he could have so easily made orihime's envy of rukia this catty thing of like. oooh girls are falling over themselves for ichigo, they're FIGHTING for him, but he doesn't...do that. he allows orihime to be insecure without making her the butt of a joke, and he allows her the complexity her feelings deserve. and he gave rukia enough respect to have orihime want to be her friend, even as she navigated her complicated feelings about her.

and these are all OUTSIDE of her role as a love interest. as a love interest, she's basically perfect. she has meaningful and thematic parallels with ichigo, she has so many heartfelt moments with him, her confession is almost universally loved by normal people, and ichigo is so kind to her that you never feel like she picked someone who doesn't value her or respect her. these are definitely bare minimum things, but again, i'm judging it by shonen standards, and by shonen standards, she is very, very lucky. i can work with this much material, this is good enough for me, but if people's standards are higher then maybe it's not hitting for them idk! maybe their expectations for good writing were different! at the end of the day, i think it's a good thing for characters to be widely discussed because it just means there's a lot to talk about, and that's always a good thing, but let me just plug my favorite tweet to summarize my thoughts on the matter

[jils-things]

But if you give me just one night You're gonna see me in a new light Yeah if you give me just one night To meet you underneath the moonlight

happy first anniversary to my beloved pookie bear and champion husby 🍎🍏

careful, incredibly corny and romantic lovemail coming through.... (you don't have to read it, i just love expressing myself.)

y'know part of me felt kinda bad for glitchy red because he was quite literally the reason why i ended up liking sun and moon red and he basically overpowered him ahuhudsa but i guess i can kinda thank the mod for being the catalyst for me to really get into pokemon again because before this i was not even touching pokemon since... i was a teenager.

the moment i saw red, i just knew i was gonna like him. no rhyme or reason apart from the fact he's super handsome and adorable as an adult (and my silly taste for brunets <3) and im absolutely here for it :] i'm really thankful i have friends who really supported my goofy admiration for him and helped me create what would be known today as appleshipping~ i have so much funny and heartwarming memories with him (like that time i fell asleep to his battle ost on discord calls many times 😭😭😭)

i remember dreading the fact, learning that i may never meet red properly in sun and moon (emulator on pc isn't really my preferred place to play unless i have no choice) but ohh man, what a blessing my classmate was to be a pokemon fan who had a 3ds with all sun and moon (and ultra) copies with him and since he had already finished all games years back - he happily allowed me to borrow his 3ds and reset his ultra sun file for me to play <3 i can't thank him enough for it, and it was simply because he wanted me to experience it. not only was it my first time to use a 3ds, but my first game would also be where i get to meet my hubby in game, and in a REAL console. it feels so cool, it definitely beats that feeling of using emulators.

i also remember eagerly making my way to the battle tree and even recorded my live reaction when he was actually there aeheheh im shy to share it but trust me when i say i was so squeaky and audible when he appeared... all im saying, im just happy i had a fun experience as a fan and as a selfshipper :]

alright, anyways - i like love red so much, as a character and someone i find pretty appealing eahudhuahf he looks so huggable and warm like a cozy snorlax sleeping in the winter night. i love his quiet but determined demeanor. it stands out from the rest of the characters and even if he was a protagonist at first, he's treated as a really cool legendary trainer that many characters respect and it just adds to the appeal (for ya girl, at least ehe). while many prefer his battling prowess, i love thinking of his emotional side, i think there's a lot to dissect there especially as a character who's silent most of the time, and of course when you're in a relationship its all about the connection and communication amirite ehhehafs ... while i'm a bit sad he's not really a popular character at the moment, at least he and my friends would know i'm (definitely) his biggest fan ehehee (twirls hair)

hooray for appleshipping! thank you for keeping my mood in high spirits this year, red 💚❤️

dividers: (x) (x)

[zeravmeta]

Thoughts on RvB Restoration Finale

not really that long just my 2 cents

I wanna say I liked the movie because I did enjoy myself watching it, but honestly I'm very much gonna stick to the RvB17 open ended finale

Overall the movie was... ok? It wasn't unwatchably bad the way RvB Zero was but it also just made a lot of choices that I disagree with fundamentally both with the writing and the core themes of the series as a whole. I've had this take ever since RvB14 on the fanbase and the writers but this movie flat out says it:

The writers are fucking unable to let go of PFL and Chorus in a meaningful way.

For a series thats core message is about saying goodbye, they literally dont let that part of the show die. They are functionally unable to let go of the past peaks of the franchise and write something new. And I get it: RvB fundamentally cycles with its storytelling, but what was so refreshing to me about RvB14-17 was that it actually progressed itself Past those peaks of RvB10 and 11-13 (and honestly people REALLY dont appreciate the good in those later seasons). It felt like a natural (if wacky) progression, and it definitely wasnt perfect but it gave the extended cast more opportunities to shine in ways we didnt appreciate before

This movie just doesnt do that? Honestly the fact that they KILLED Sarge and Doc was so... disrespectful to me? Like not in the sense that it was as bad as how RvB Zero (fake) killed Tucker, but more like it felt like the writers killed them off because they were following a book titled "How To Write Story" and saw 'killing off characters is good writing'. Sarge got a dramatic send off that also didnt feel that impactful? And I did see it coming from the start but having Doc be Washs' guilt haunting him just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Its a really self contained story, a whole bunch of characters outside the main 3 reds and Caboose felt ooc, a good chunk of characters dont even show up (dude where was DONUT??? youre telling me he only has 5 seconds in Simmons' mind in a cheerleading costume?), it was composed of like 3-4 sets total, Carolina, Tex and 479er all just kind of Show Up to be badasses in the way The New Person would show up in an MCU movie...

Honestly watching this movie I kind of felt like it would have a twist ending. Like the credits would play and then itd zoom out to show the Reds and Blues post S17 in a movie theater watching this dramatic finale, because thats honestly what it felt like: The whole movie was a cheap facsimile of RvB as a whole. The fact that Trocadero wasn't allowed/signed on to make the music for this finale really does influence this movie, since they used a whole bunch of songs and osts that felt out of place (though I will admit Vale Deah softly playing as Grimmons said goodbye to each other did make me choke up a little)

Despite my negative review, I do still recommend watching it, since there was stuff I did like: Simmons in a leader role, Tex and the fun reveal during her fight with Tucker-Meta, Grif FINALLY getting to retire, Caboose as a whole was really well written, there IS good in this movie! And again it's not unwatchable bad, it just... kind of leaves a somber, sour taste in my mouth. This movie threw a whole bunch of stuff to the wall not to see what would stick but to break it all and leave for the insurance money. Just a "hey since we're sinking might as well make all these callbacks and break a bunch of stuff along the way."

Welp. Goodbye, RvB. At least this way I know that RT dies without riding your coattails any longer. And hey given that RvB technically has 3 endings (RvB17, Zero and RvB19) you can just take your pick on what you like best anyways. Quick edit no jutsu I forgor to mention there is the sequence at the beginning of the movie where it is implied RvB19 COULD also be one of the simulations in and of itself so. yeah you can in fact just take it as you will

[jade-kyo]

Season 17 post restoration thoughts

Casually skipping 16 and going straight to 17 because lord knows I can’t afford to lose anymore braincells. I genuinely enjoy this season so I’m looking forward to the rewatch!

Ngl jumping straight from 15 to 17 really highlights how absurd this is like bro why is there gods and shit omg 😂

The fates are racist- that explains a lot

Donut my sweet baby boy

You know as much as I hate time travel stories this works way better for a “lets reference and call back to as many previous arcs and seasons as possible” nostalgia trip than Restoration did

Okay while I personally prefer the take that Donut is fully aware of all the innuendos he makes and is doing it to be a little shit I do think it being unintentional is really funny considering the ace Donut thing

“You have me all wrong” “I doubt it.” Donut the master at not getting gaslit

Donut knows Wash’s name is David- meaning Wash must have told all the reds and blues his real name

JESUS CHRIST DONT KILL JUNIOR

Felix is afraid of knives

Man I love it when Dr. Grey sounds like herself

We love insurance fraud

DONUT WASH TEAM UP MY BELOVED

Wash just silently shooting Donut again has me wheezing holy shit

The Wash and Carolina conflict is so freaking good man I love them

Man this season is just genuinely entertaining to watch despite everything- the way I wish we could’ve gotten this character writing with a better story

Oh what’s that a way to reference back to all the freelancers that includes Wyoming and the triplets. The concepts are wild again.

Also it’s just genuinely hilarious

WASH SCREAMING INSIDE HIS HELMET

DELTA OMG I FORGOT HE WAS IN THIS SEASON

I need to find the ost for when Wash and Carolina reunite and she’s saying how she trusts him and doesn’t know why bro this music is so pretty

Seriously I’m enjoying this as a nostalgia trip so much more than restoration

Oh I can feel my inner 15 year old desperately trying to take control of my body and send me down the carwash pipeline again holy shit- platonic or romantic. They’re good either way 🙂

OH GOD THE CABOOSE FEELS AGAIN THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL

Kai I love you with all my heart and soul but you do not disrespect Junior like that

STOP BEING MEAN TO DONUT HE IS DOING HIS BEST

Yes Caboose IS a genius and also my son

Kai messing with Tucker is glorious holy shit is that bit funny I love them

“Time is made of circles” what a nice, funny and succinct callback. Look at those concepts being wild.

Not Tucker dropping the “your mom” bit on Doc AGSKHAKS

HELL YEAH DONUT YOU FUCKING TELL THEM THATS MY BABY BOI!!!

PINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wash might be a competitor with Church for number one Donut Stan

Or simulation headcanon: Church is projecting his liking of Donut onto Wash

Okay but Donut should be in the caves not under the pelican FR PEOPLE STOP FORGETTING ABOUT THE CAVES!!!

Laughs in Spanish

I love competent Caboose and Donut

“My testicles send their regards” has no right being as badass as it is

Love a good Tucker moment- sure wish it wasn’t just redoing his character development that never should’ve been undone to begin with

OKAY BUT TUCKER AND DONUT MOMENT THO???? So good- can’t believe Donut is the “angsty bitch”

WASH AND CAROLINA AKDHAKBSKSHSKDHK

Love them talking about the AI like they’re Carolina’s siblings

Holy shit the voice acting between these two is so good

“If he’s single there’s no hope for any of us” sargington nation rise

Sarcastic Donut my beloved

I said this last time but seeing Church impaled by a golf club, even if it is actually Genkins, is entirely unnecessary bro I don’t wanna see that

THE LABYRINTH!!!

GOD CAROLINA VS CAROLINA AGAJSHKAH FROTHING AT THE MOUTH

Sarges vision is further proof that the correct ending for him is retirement

OKAY I STILL HATE THE LOPEZ VISION LISTEN I GET HE COMES BACK BUT ITS JUST IN POOR TASTE

“Don’t say toodles” LOVE sassy Donut so much

DOC BADASS MOMENT LETS GO

GRIF SIBLINGS MY BELOVED

Grif enlisted reveal you will always be famous to me

I never actually thought about it too deeply before but now that I am holy shit do I love that detail it’s so good and actually reminds me of my own brother who enlisted for similar reasons and regrets it now- seriously Grif enlisting is so realistic, a lot of kids sadly think the military is the only thing that can give them structure and purpose. It’s a great addition to the anti military themes of RvB

And yet- despite all these good red team moments- THEY FUCKING TURNED SIMMONS INTO A PENIS JOKE???? AND A BAD ONE AT THAT?????? COME ON S17 I THOUGHT YOU WERE BETTER THAN THIS THATS SOME S16 NONSENSE

TUCKER CANONICALLY HAS PANIC ATTACKS- the fact they kept his visions so vague is truly a CRIME

“Still got my penis” “what-“ GOD DAMN IT THAT ONE WAS ACTUALLY FUNNY COME ON I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A POINT EARLIER

AND WE DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO CABOOSE- honestly I know they probably didn’t have this arc planned back then but they should’ve used the labyrinth for Caboose to find closure in Church’s death rather than the Time Machine nonsense in s15. I feel like that would’ve been infinitely more interesting.

Carolina vs Carolina MY BELOVED HOLY SHIT I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH

OH FUCK THE FREELANCER TRAINING ROOM IM AKDHKAHSKSH THIS SHIT IS SO GOOD

GIGGLING KICKING MY FEET WE LOVE THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

Caboose gets it!!

GOD THE SLOW PIANO COVER OF BLOOD GULCH BLUES I CANT

AAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH

Man what nice fairly satisfying conclusions to everyone’s arc- don’t we love wild concepts.

Sure maybe it’s not anything super poetic or perfect like 13 but at least it makes sense

Hell I’ve even warmed up to Donut leaving! Bro deserves some him time and it’s not like he said it was permanent or anything… doesn’t that just really hit you in the wild concept 🙂

You know what- this season is genuinely such a delight at times. Im thinking about adding it to my regular rewatch list along with 1-13 as just like a little bonus I can have at the end cause it’s just such fun. Glorified fanfiction! We love to see it- maybe Restoration sucking was a blessing in disguise cause it really gave me a new appreciation for 15 and 17 (but 17 especially). I probably won’t rewatch 15 as much cause being honest I don’t really enjoy it in its entirety as much as 17 but it’s got good moments I love.

Now- I know the logical thing for me to do is go back and watch 16 and then Restoration but here’s the thing… I don’t want to.

I genuinely do not enjoy those seasons. I don’t want to put myself through something that’s just gonna make me angry and bitter just for the sake of giving commentary on them- not right now anyway. Maybe one day I’ll feel like being a bit salty and do it but that’s just really not how I want to spend my time with my favorite show. I’ve already rewatched any clips from restoration that I cared to rewatch and I don’t think any of my feelings on it are gonna change. And I’ve seen 16 enough times to know my feelings won’t change.

Now what I am considering doing is rewatching 1-13 for the 20th time (<- accurate number, I’ve kept count over the years) and continuing to do these thought posts cause they’re good fun to do! So who knows whenever the time comes you’ll probably have to deal with more of my insane ramblings 😂

[proxythe]

What kind of music can you see the P3 cast listening too? Your latest post just made me wonder that. Also just curious, what music do you listen to normally? I ask everyone this lol

im kind of unbelievably horrible at knowing music genres, let alone trying to assign specific genres to characters but i’ll try my best 😭 guys plz dont cook me if its bad im not that big of a musichead plz plz

Anyways. firstly, since minato and kotone both canonically listen to the p3 ost, i can assign them hip hop/rap/pop off rip. if it’s in their playlist, i think we can gather that they enjoy it.

minato - alt rock, pop punk, gothwave, video game osts. i say video game osts bc i yhink minato would like sitting around in a video game afk just to listen to the background music. i dont think minato is a goth but i feel as if gothwave has a sound he’d find enjoyable

kotone - alt rock, hip hop/rap, pop rock. she loves to lip sync to it and u can hear the song she’s lip syncing to bc i also know kotone probably turns her volume to max so loud you’d think she’ll damage her ears someday if not soon

yukari - dance pop, new wave, pop. she’s one of those people who hates country and sucks at listening to music outside her preferred genre. secretly likes a few alt songs but she’d never put them on her main playlist

junpei - hip hop, r&b. probably also a pop enjoyer, but honestly he’d like anything if it were catchy. he loves to dance and it sucks bc he’s really good at it so nobody can make fun of him

fuuka - alt/indie, pop. she’d also enjoy video game music, like minecraft ost and she cries to it. i think she mostly likes slower music. music that makes her feel like her soul is leaving her body and ascending to a different plane of existence

mitsuru - classical. rich girl… but i also think the girls would influence her taste to expand more and she’d find herself enjoying the worst songs you’ve ever heard in your life. it’s ok tho since it’s her first time branching out. she’ll grow…

akihiko - whatever’s on the radio, mostly enjoys upbeat faster paced music that can easily hype someone up. he’s kinda that one pic that’s like “Gym Beast Playlist” and the first song is hi high by loona

shinjiro - death metal, old school hip hop. death metal came to me bc i was thinking about casual outfits for shinjiro and i really wanted to put him in a death metal shirt bc of the font lmfaoo. but i prefer more old school hip hop for him and occasionally other things like old school rock music. he hates that new shit

ken - pop, alt/indie. ken is a kid so his taste is just beginning to form. he only knows pop radio. i also think ken’s music taste is music where you’d hear it and be like “god how does anyone like this” but he’s a child so he’s allowed to get away with it. and i say indie bc i also think ken is the type of person to be sad so he listens to more sad music as if it won’t make his mood worse. he goes on youtube and types “sad music playlist” when he’s in a bad mood

aigis - feel like she focuses more on the lyrics than the sound 😭 it’s her first day on earth she hasn’t yet learned that u can listen to music for the vibe instead of the lyricism. even then, i think aigis would probably enjoy almost any kind of music bc she thinks the creativity is beautiful

koromaru - adding him bc i think he’d have shinjiro’s taste from how much he loves him. he hears death metal and it puts him right to sleep…

ryoji - similar to aigis, but he’d probably heavily prefer whatever music the protagonist also enjoys. he has his own thing for classical music as well. he plays the piano and stuff …

+ thanks for asking what my taste is. i personally prefer to listen to a lot of rock, punk, metal, etc. if my cutesy art doesn’t make it so incredibly obvious BUT i enjoy anything as long as it sounds pleasant to my ears ✌️

[motheatencrow]

BUG GAME MASTERPOST (AS OF NOV. 2022)

heyhey! this isnt actually anything "official"! i just thought i’d make this for fun and to also spread around bug video games that others, who like the silly little critters as well, might enjoy!

(remember that this is as of nov. 29 2022 so if any game unreleased game on here is now released, it may have been after the date that this was made)

there will be 3 categories: released games, games to be released/are being developed, and honorable mentions

under the released games, i will also be stating if i have finished the game, played them, or simply heard of them (can range from "i have the game wishlisted", "owned but not played", literally only heard of it, etc.)

these bug games will also only list games where most invertebrates are the main focus of the game

other than that, i will be doing the following if possible!:

- i will be providing brief comments for what i think of each game (this is my opinion of each game!! everyone has their own tastes and its alright if you dont agree with what i say! and in no way is my comments for each game professional/an attempt to critique the game in any way ksfhskjd)

- what the gameplay is like (sort of. im not really good at explaining LMAO)

- where you can find these games (game websites may be linked if available instead!)

visual warnings for this post: gif/image heavy, bright imagery click here for the text-only version!

let's begin!

released games

hollow knight - website; finished - a challenging metroidvania! i personally found this game really fun though i did have to take breaks from the game due to some difficult fights and events lsfhdskj. its definitely the type of game thats fun to replay and see how much you've improved since first playing it! i also think the world building, implied lore, and characters are really well done! (i highly enjoy reading people's analysis posts of this game jksdfkj)

overall, i suggest this game if you enjoy challenging fights and platformers, creative characters, games with deep lore, and/or emotional osts!

bug fables - website; finished - i am emotionally attached to the blue moth. anyways! bug fables is a paper mario rpg inspired game (used to be called paper bugs actually!) and it has charming characters and a good story! this game has a very fun ost and you definitely fall in love with the characters as you learn more and more about them. i find the sidequests very much worth doing and also really fun as it makes you go around and interact with a lot of the npcs in the game! you'll end up seeing that a lot of them have unique personalities and are loveable in their own right :] !!

i suggest the game if you like rpgs, bright characters and settings, bubbly osts, and/or perhaps even learning a dark secret or 2?

bugsnax - website; finished - silly game about catching and eating bug-shaped foods! or food-shaped bugs? food bugs!!!! the horrors. all the bugsnax designs are super fun and some of them are challenging to catch which i think makes the game pretty fun! there's also a bunch of ways that u could catch a bugsnak, its just up to what you can think of! the horrors. the characters are also pretty loveable and they have really neat stories and getting to know them can change the course of the game (just the ending really actually)

highly suggest the game if you enjoy being a little creative with how you perform a task/solving puzzles, characters that are more than what they seem, and silly creative creature designs!

creepy castle - available on steam; played - i have yet to finish this game! but from what i've played, its pretty fun exploring around, reading lore tidbits, and doing the duel minigames! it has a neat retro style and you can change the colors/gui settings if i remember correctly!

i suggest the game if you like rpgs, pixelated style games, and/or minigames!

webbed - website; finished - super cute spider game about saving your bf, swinging around on and crafting webs, and making new friends! did i also mention that youre a spider that shoots lasers from their eyes? webbed is a really charming game that can be completed in just a few hours, even with all the bonus/side things that you can do!

i suggest it if you like pixelated style games, are a completionist, want a shorter game, or just want to be a silly little laser spider!

apico - website; finished - a relaxing game about keeping bees and restoring bee populations! recently they've added an update where you can help repopulate solitary bees and butterflies, and there's a bunch more content that they're planning to develop and release!! the characters have silly bee pun names and have neat dialogue! (they also have pronouns next to their names when you talk to them <3) bee management is not super demanding and with some mods, you can enhance your experience in the game. personally, i have not played with mods, i really enjoy the base game alone! you can also build pretty bases, listen to the relaxing ost, or trap yourself in menu hell!

i suggest the game if you want something that's more laidback (though there is a bit of management), like reading silly dialogue blurbs, want to have a calming ost to listen to, or just wanna do some beekeeping! (proceeds also go to charities that help repopulate native bee populations!)

grounded - website; played - grounded is an open world survival sandbox game (theres also a literal sandbox in the game) where you're a teen that's been shrunken down and must survive in the backyard while finding a way to bring yourself back to your original size. the game actually got a full release in back in september and i have yet to play it because my partner has not been able to play kfhskj. but we have played when it was in early access and it was super fun! there are giant spiders in the game but there's an accessibility setting that allows you to make the spiders more blobby in case you have arachnophobia! other than that it's really fun to go running around the game screaming and crying because the giant mosquito is about to 2-shot you. the base building is also pretty fun with a variety of materials you can make your base from as well as decor. there's also a variety of weapons and armors to choose from and create a build to optimally destroy bugs that are not so friendly. you can also tame some of the passive creatures and become extremely overprotective of them. (im not speaking from experience [lying]) there's actually a storyline to follow as well that helps encourage exploration and progression in the game!

i recommend the game if you enjoy open world sandbox survival games, being scared out of your mind when something you didnt see gets aggro'd on you, making neat bases, and/or strategizing and making builds to suit your playstyle! (i also highly recommend playing with friends!)

space moth dx - available on steam; played - an arcade-like shoot-em-up bullet hell where you play a moth shooting lasers at other laser shooting bugs! this is actually a fairly tough game if you're not familiar with these types of games. i personally have not gotten that far and have yet to play it again kslfhkjs but i think the art is super neat and the gameplay is pretty fun!

i recommend it if you enjoy bullet hells where you literally don't see anything But bullets (there is also space moth: lunar edition!)

bug academy - available on steam and switch; played - a pretty fun physics puzzle game where you control a swarm of bugs! there are different levels with different objectives and a star-based score depending on how well you do in each one! the only reason i havent finished this game is because im a completionist for it and got stuck on a level i have yet to get 3 stars on ksjfhkj. if you ever get this game, i highly recommend playing with a controller!

i suggest this game if you like puzzles, timed/stopwatch levels, trying to see how far you can chuck something, destroying buildings by chucking items, crying when you knock over your tower on accident, and/or being a silly bug swarm

crustacean nations - available on steam and itch.io; finished - woah moth!!! a game about crabs???? yeah they're getting a spot on this list, they're sea bugs to me. but anyways! crustacean nations is a fairly short game with only 3 levels (if i remember correctly) and a sandbox mode. you're essentially commanding a kingdom of crabs and you must defend your sand castle while destroying the other crab sand castles. there's also a pit where you can sacrifice crabs and summon a Big One. it doesn't take too much strategy to win each level but you still need to think about it a bit!

i suggest it if u want to play a brief n short army-building game! with crabs!

kill it with fire - website; finished - a silly game about exterminating spiders. as you progress through the game you get a bunch of new weapons to um. delete spiders with. there's also a bunch of challenges you can do and achievements to get! i've completely 100%'d the game just because it's kinda fun trying to do the challenges and collect all the achievements. the ending is also. a little messed up.

i suggest the game if you're a bit of a completionist, don't like spiders for some reason (i think theyre pretty neat), want to have a stress-relief game (or would it be stress inducing??), or want to see how goofy it gets

social moth - available on steam; heard of - a lot of my mutuals talk about and adore this game! i have not played it yet but it's wishlisted! here's a copy n pasted excerpt from the steam page: "Social Moth is a narrative platformer where you play as a small moth contending with social anxiety. Set in a close-knit community on the forest floor, the game allows the player to explore themes of mental health, relationships, and finding a sense of belonging."

i think i can suggest this game if you have social anxiety/want to understand social anxiety while also playing a puzzle platformer with an endearing art style and characters!

buggos - available on steam; heard of - ive had this game wishlisted for a while! here's a copy and pasted excerpt from the steam page: "Buggos is an RTS Auto Battler where you evolve your army into the perfect bug fighting force. You control a young hive mind bent on world domination, and your swarm will mostly listen to your every beck and call. Guide your swarm’s evolutionary path and breed your best bugs for world domination!"

i think i can suggest this game if you like the idea of world domination and slaughter, want a bug army building game, or enjoy pixelated style games.

i commissioned some bees - available on steam; heard of - did you know there's 10 of these games plus an advent edition?? these games are essentially just where's waldo bee edition and multiply those by like 1000. i've had this game wishlisted for a while but it hasnt been a priority pft. here's an excerpt from the steam page!: "The brief was simple. I commissioned artists to create a fantasy world, and hide as many bees as they can inside it. Now it’s your job to find them all! With 10 art pieces to choose from, and 1000+ bees, you will have a lot of searching to do."

bee simulator - website; heard of - i own the game but havent played it yet. the most ive done is watch markiplier play it hfkjsd. here's an excerpt from the epic games page: "The hive awakens as the sun's first rays warm the horizon. It's time to test your wings, receive orders from the Queen and begin your first mission. And that's just the start of your adventures. Humans want to cut down the tree that holds your hive, so your fate – and that of the whole swarm – rests on your tiny shoulders!" i think this game is more of an educational game aimed towards families and children but who knows! maybe some of you will enjoy it too?

i think i can recommend this game if you like bees :) and doing minigames/tasks/challenges!

black widow: recharged - website; heard of - an arcade shooter where you play a spider! i own this game but havent played it yet. here's an excerpt from the site: "Aim for a high score in the old school arcade mode and earn bragging rights with your name at the top of the leaderboard. Or test your skills and rank on the boards in one of 30 intensely creative challenges, which twist the gameplay in new and exciting ways. Collect cash from downed enemies to charge a powerful web blast, or pick up one of a dozen new power-ups including explosive blasts, spread-shots, and fear, trapping all enemies in your web. Every mode and level is playable in local co-op mode with a friend."

centipede recharged - website; heard of - i've played centipede in an actual arcade but it was not this specific game so i dont know if the experience is around the same. (i own it but havent played it) centipede recharged is similar to black widow: recharged in terms of an arcade shooter as well as the description given

empires of the undergrowth - website; played - an army building game about ants! in the "main zone", you're an experimental ant species that seems to be able to take on traits of many other ant species. you play levels as real-life ant species and try to grow your colony and complete objectives that are given to you. the rewards you get from these levels are used to upgrade your lab species and after completing a set of levels, you'll be given a challenge using the lab species. i havent completed this game due to being stuck on one of the challenge levels fhksjd but i think its kind of fun

i suggest this game if you like army building games (similar to starcraft or warhammer) and the idea of making a huge ant colony and competing against other colonies

yoku's island express - available on steam; heard of - there's actually a lot more places where you can purchase yoku's island express (epic games, switch, gog, etc.) but their website is down so i decided to resort to linking the steam page. i currently own the game but have not played it! it's a game about you being a tiny postman exploring around islands, delivering packages, while also making new friends and saving the islands where you reside. it's a pinball platformer adventure game and it seems really cute and fun to play!

earthtongue - available on steam and itch.io; heard of - this game actually just got recommended to me after this was posted! earthtongue is a game where you watch over a world inhabited by fungi and bugs. here's an excerpt about the game!: "You will spend most of your time watching life grow and eat each other to survive. Your subtle nudges will be required to maintain the balance of this world, but it can handle itself much of the time. Player given goals are limited, aside from maximizing the health of your ecosystem. You may choose to try to create a fungal garden to your liking. You may try your best to breed as many beetles as you can. You might use those beetles instead as food stock for the mantises. You might instead just peacefully watch the story of Earthtongue unfold on its own."

stonefly - website; heard of - stonefly is an adventure game where you control a bug-shaped mech! here's an excerpt from the site: "Harness the wind and soar through the wilderness of Stonefly, a chill and tranquil action-adventure game about self-discovery, legacy, and belonging. Glide your mech strategically among beautiful flora and dangerous fauna, confronting hungry bugs, adventures, and memorable characters."

to be released/in development games

hollow knight: silksong - website - the game that the hk fandom says doesn't exist and is actually a collective fever dream (it is 100% a real game, we're all just very excited for it to come out! /srs) the game is going to be like hollow knight (a challenging metroidvania) but this time the player plays as a new protagonist, who was a character in the first game, hornet! this game will have a new world to explore, new mechanics to master, new faces to meet, and much more.

bugaboo pocket - website - a really cute pixelated game about raising bugs! an excerpt from the site: "Bugaboo Pocket is a digital pet game where you raise bugs from egg to adult. How you care for your pet influences their personality and impacts the ecology around them. Inspired by real bugs!"

another crab's treasure - website - a game where you play as a hermit crab! you use trash in your surroundings as your shell and each "shell" provides a different effect that affects how you play the game! an excerpt from the site: "Another Crab’s Treasure is a soulslike adventure set in a crumbling underwater world. As Kril the hermit crab, you’ll need to wear the trash around you as shells to withstand attacks from enemies many times your size. Embark on an epic treasure hunt to buy back your repossessed shell, and discover the dark secrets behind the polluted ocean." (i recommend checking out their tiktok, some of the posts there are extremely funny)

dewdrop dynasty - steam page - a pixelated style metroidvania where you play as a gunslinging bee who lost their wings and finds themselves trapped in an unknown place. you'll meet interesting characters, challenging enemies, and also learn new skills and mechanics as you play the game. goodgis, dewdrop dynasty's dev, also posts a bunch of videos on youtube regarding game development tips and devlogs. (that's how my partner knew about the game and introduced it to me) a fun and charming game that will have mysteries to discover!

i am a caterpillar - dev's twitter - a game where you play as a caterpillar!: unbothered. slimey. thriving. in your moss. squelched up. wriggling. an excerpt from one of the dev's tweets!: "Become the squidgy lil' caterpillar you've always wanted to be, on a quest to stop your own metamorphosis. Crawl & wriggle all over anything in your path and explore the canopy."

a webbing journey - website - a cute 3D game where you play as a spider! you'll explore the world, making webs and slinging around on them. you'll also meet some friendly faces to talk to and do quests for them! an excerpt from the site: " You control a little spider equipped with all the typical spider abilities and a little bit more as you travel through various stunning islands searching for the most exotic flowers for your spider date. Along your journey you meet other spiders and animals who provide additional side stories and quests which challenge your spider abilities."

invertipets - dev's site / toyhou.se - a petsite game being made by @shadybugdev where you take care of bugs and bug-like pets! there's not much on it publicly available yet other than some pet concepts (which can be viewed through the toyhouse link!) but it's something to look out for! (the picture provided is some of the pets and their possible morphs!)

honorable mentions

an isopod game(?) being made by riley neville (part of sbuggames/made webbed) - this "game" has not actually been announced to be a game that will be published but it looks neat!

a worm game(?) being made by riley neville - same thing as the previous one!

all the games in my bug game collection on itch.io! (if i added all the ones in here i would be making this post forever. but please please check them out!!)

woah its the end!

that should be all i know! most of these games, if not all, are made by indie devs so i highly suggest checking them out and supporting them if you can!

thanks so much for reading and i hope i've helped you find a new bug game to pick up and enjoy! (or to wait for!) <3

[saiyomiya]

Mamiya Review

Man, I don't know many people who know what Mamiya is, and that's a shame. Hell, the only way I know it is because I checked Andrew Hodgson's portfolio the other day and was captured by the art.

People should REALLY check this out. It's like if Nisioisin and Subahibi and the bunker dream scene in Disco Elysium and your lingering yearning for whoever just came up in your mind just now had a love child with the brain the size of thousands of universes or something. Like is that not the most incredible sentence you've ever read? I'm me and I wrote that sentence but it would've made me want to read it.

Pros

Beautiful art

Incredibly curated freeware OST that made me a fan of Ludo for life

Great translation with beautiful and succinct prose

Incredibly well-paced and doesn't waste your time at all

Cons

There is some thematic messaging in the game that leaves a bad taste in my mouth which is obviously subjective but hey this is my review

Will probably leave you hanging and wanting more answers when you're done, maybe even a bit dissatisfied (warning: I am dumb and maybe something flew over my head, a single read is definitely not enough for this one)

Rating: It's good, great even. The part I don't really like about it is subjective and some/most people might be fine with it or understand something about it I don't. I tolerate it because the rest of the game is interesting and everything else about it is very up my alley. If you're interested, make sure you buy the DLC DoomsDayDreams as well. It contains the last chapter of the story.

Spoiler subjective rambling to myself below the cut. Warning: I am dumb and might be too stupid for this game

Steam | VNDB (Part 1)

Why this game is kino

The settings are super interesting and the writing is beautiful. Honestly I would love to fine tooth reread it someday, maybe in Japanese. (Too bad Textractor can't since the engine uses Javascript).

The scope of the game is impressive and how verbose it is about all of those things is an incredible accomplishment. There is something universally accessible about Mamiya's message. You don't need to read a trove of philosophy books to understand what it wants to say. (Though obviously there are references.) You don't need to tolerate great horrors to get to the good parts. The pacing is good and it doesn't waste your time. It doesn't think you're stupid and believes in your ability to figure stuff out. There's a chance I'm jabbing at a kamige a lot of people revere that I also like for the most part but despise at the same time

MAMIYA (meme), Natsume, and the trichiliocosm are all very interesting and well handled themes. I've never really been able to word these feelings myself, so reading a story that builds something about concepts I've felt in my core was very freeing. It kind of makes you feel like an atom, if we could understand how a single atom feels. I think we all have thought about these things at least once. As humans, we all worry and think of the beyond every once in a while.

The effect this story has on you is genuinely beautiful. How can you feel so small and yet so important at the same time? Not only are you a body, you are your soul, you are your mind, and you have an existence before anyone knew what you are. Yet at the same time, we are all part of an infinitely expanding universe that is not only what we ourselves see, but what everyone else generates.

You feel so cherished and yet so insignificant at the same time.

I find MAMIYA so fascinating as well. To verbalize and personify the idea of yearning and admiring a ghost of a person is super interesting. Everyone has felt that for someone else, a longing to be with or to become a beloved. A lot of people grow out of that, but what happens when you don't? What happens when the scars that that yearning left are too deep? Being able to write a story about this concept, give it a mind of its own, and make it metatextually infect actual readers is brilliant.

It's kaleidoscopic in nature. It's a story that is so many things. It wants to be a literal read, it wants to be an abstract read, it wants to be meta, it wants to haunt you, like a ghost, like a veil, for the rest of your life. It's an incredibly unique and unforgettable experience. The only other game to make me feel similarly was Subahibi but I felt way less miserable while going through Mamiya.

That, on top of watching these characters face their weaknesses and ultimately conquer them with their own strength really tickles the Nisioisin fan in me. Like, all of this is incredible stuff. EX is incredible too, even though it hurts so bad. The bittersweet and vague and confusing endings for me leave me wanting more and someone smarter than me to explain what happened help

It leaves you with a love that is yours alone.

If you like the Pink House characters don't read this word vomit

(Vague Door 2 Fata Morgana spoiler mention)

Okay, time to get negative. I dislike almost all of the Pink House characters. I mean, that's definitely by design. All of them are groomers who succumbed to mental weakness and also nobody likes a groomer. It's pretty hard for me to view them just as characters because they did such horrible things to vulnerable children for their own self-satisfaction and weakness. Like brother I'm sorry but I can't just look at characters like this as just characters.

I fucking hate Osamu as a person. He's my least favorite character. To instill MAMIYA is to leave yearning, but damn, him leaving Ryou with his abusive mother and his biological daughter behind is just despicable. He is insufferable to everyone he talks to, he's ugly asf too, I'm gonna kill him, give me ten dollars. If you like him, more power to you, you're better than me, but my brain just can't run the calculations to tolerate him. Just a subjective thing.

Mayuri's relationship with their mother is relatable and I think their struggles with their inner child and self love are very interesting. However, what they do to Minato throughout DDD is despicable and unforgivable to me and it's very hard for me to look at them objectively. Like I totally get that's a me problem.

I mean, I get it though. There are people in my life who've done awful things to me, but I don't want them to die. Rather, I want them to live and be happy, but away from me. I don't wanna know how they're doing either. In this way, I really have nothing against the better ending Minato has with Mayuri, and I found their duel together interesting. It's well done, in my opinion.

Touma is the least offensive of all of them to me and I don't have much to complain about with him, at least from my understanding of his struggles and what he did overall.

Okay he did bad shit too but somehow it didn't leave as bad of a taste in my mouth than the other two. That too, is subjective.

Finally, Samejima is so boring to me. I never cared about Yukimasa from Fatamoru, so more of the same is more shit I don't care about. He's not very interesting to me on a personal level. I just never cared for characters with his narrative.

I guess for me, since ALL of Natsume's friends patch things up with the Pink House quartet it starts to feel very vaguely like, the way to handle your abuser is to understand why they abused you and then accept that it is a cycle and maybe get along with them and cheer them on. Saying that hilariously minimizes every arc but I mean, this was the vibe I got from all four of them just... more or less forgiving their abusers who put them through psychological and sometimes physical hell. It just didn't sit right with me. I think, for a game like this, having at least one character NOT be the "bigger" person and not be amicable, not forgive even after trying, would've made the message come across more clearly. Forgiveness and handling of abuse is messy and a bit of inconsistency among the cast would've garnered a bit more goodwill on my end.

Of course I might be missing the point or blind. I might be dumb as hell who knows. I would love to be enlightened otherwise. It just left a really bad taste in my mouth for a story I overall liked and became the hugest con about it for me.

Character rankings

Upper layer: Nidome > Mamiya > Natsume > Librarian > Senior

Nidome is cute even though he doesn't do much. I liked his design and I felt like this whenever he called Natsume a silly goose. Librarian and Senior are cool I just wish we saw more of them. The upper layer itself is really cool conceptually and I would love a story about it, but who knows if that's gonna happen.

Natsume and Mamiya are givens to like. I honestly can't tell if I like one or the other more.

Natsume's friends: Minato > Haruki > Ryou > Keito

Minato's narrative is relatable and I like them a lot, Haruki I liked more than expected, Ryou is fine, and I like Keito enough, but I feel like as I've gotten older I've had less patience for characters of his archetype. Or don't care about them. Like he's just there to me.

Pink House: Touma > Samejima >> Mayuri >>> Osamu

Touma is the least offensive of them to me (to the point that I would say that I like him), I don't like how Mayuri was handled and Osamu is just trash to me for reasons I spoke of earlier. I don't feel anything for or against Samejima. It's not his fault I don't care for his narrative archetype, but at least he's better than the other two behind him.

Natsume: Spectator/Idea/As a part of MAMIYA > Body

I'm just fucking around at this point

Conclusion

What can I say that I haven't said? It's good and I hope it gets more popularity someday. It certainly deserves it and I think it could be considered a kamige among VN enthusiasts if they gave it a try. People are just going to have to spread the word. I do think that most people would more positive than me even though I feel relatively positive about it, so go crazy and become the salespeople Kenkou Land deserves.

I still feel like I have so many questions and want so many answers for the main endings themselves. EX is both heartbreaking and yet so freeing at the same time, and the main ending is bittersweet and confusing.

It's as if I woke up to news to my dear friend Natsume Souichirou dying myself.

[gmmtv-bl-tournament-but-evil]

i think dbk is honestly overrated, or at least that's how i felt about it. i get why people love it so much, but it left a very sour taste in my mouth. going into 2gether, i had already seen a lot of negativity about it, so i expected it to get bad (it did) but i did expect dbk to be a lot more bearable. i think the show just felt so stagnant in terms of petekao, and while i appreciate what it did with the coming out plot, i feel like petekao as a relationship felt really weak and i didn't really root for them to be together?

i didn't like how we could see how pete's possessive behavior having negative impacts on their relationship, and kao feeling compelled to hide things as a result (like, god. he wanted him to just refuse to tutor the kid cuz hes jealous?) was something that instead of being addressed seemed validated. i like flaws, i loooove when characters have big personality flaws, even. but this felt like it was just being validated. we get the vibe that pete was right, and at the end, kao affirms that he likes that pete is possessive. i feel like this would have landed a lot better if instead of possessiveness that feels detrimental, pete grew into being possessive but also respecting this boyfriend. it just felt. odd.

look. i love established relationship and i also ADORE break ups. i think a good break up -> getting back together can be really interesting. i am an exes to lovers enthusiast. but i also almost had zero care about petekao getting back together (this also happened when i watched kiss me again before dbk. i just did not care that much. as a side note the person who directed 2gether, puppy honey, kiss me again, teenage mom, social death vote, etc is my mortal enemy as a 4 pillars fan who has STRONG opinions on the quality of these???) because the show really just made me feel their relationship was really unstable at its foundation? of course, i know they’re good for each other. for example, pete becomes better because of kao. still? didn’t quite work for me.

then there's non. i have no idea how "18year old with a crush on kao who goes too far" became the main driving force of the entire story, because i think there were a multitude of ways to explore the coming out plot poignantly and non was! not it! and i've never enjoyed how they wrote non in the end. in a show where we sympathize with kao for his fear of coming out, i didn't like how we were pitted against the 18yr old with a shitty parent who was scared of coming out. yeah, he fucked up massively and almost ruined kao's life. i get that. but do i think not addressing the massive "bad parent" motivation elephant in the room felt odd? how is it a happy ending that he's just definitely going to suffer cuz of his goddamn strict dad? do we just not care about non? maybe i'm just overly sensitive about this as someone who sympathizes with people who do things because of the fear of their parents (looking at you, ben from nlmg!) and thought it was insulting to me personally that the show said that "a parent will always know what their children are" (i disagree) also pretty much abandoned non? i get most people just found him annoying, but damn. i felt bad. non is like pete in ways, but even more immature and without the presence of a supportive father

oh our skyy was bizarre to me, by the way. less relevant to my opinions on dbk but the characterization was SO off in it and it just felt unneeded. and i’m a kongart our skyy lover so maybe it’s that i subconsciously compared it (our skyy petekao just feels so markedly Not PeteKao of kiss me again OR dbk!) also this didn’t factor into my voting but the continuity changing between kma our skyy and dbk really annoyed me as someone who watched it in order.

i liked sunmork, but a side couple can never save a show for me. the ost & cinematography was nice as well (i looped the theme song so much!) but unfortunately, the show really didn’t work for me. honestly, dbk vs 2gether was hard for me because, well (i could write a rant of this length on 2gether 😭😭😭 maybe longer actually) yeah. but that’s the fun of the competition!

I agree almost completely with everything you say about DBK. Despite finding Non extremely annoying, it left a terrible taste in my mouth that the reason why he was such a dickhead was never addressed and I agree that he got dealt a terrible hand by the narrative.

As for SunMork, I understand your feelings but I have to say that if it wasn't for them I would have never finished DBK. Although it's also true that I watched Not Me way before DBK which endeared to me Gawin soooo much and was also already extremely in love with Podd. That is to say, I was personally invested.

The only episode from that season of Our Skyy I watched was the Puppy Honey one which I liked better than the entire show, so I can't really say anything on the matter of PeteKao there.

I had a completely different experience when first coming into contact with 2gether too and in fact, part of the reason I hate it so much is that I saw nothing but praise for it before watching it and it made me so fucking mad. All the people hailing 2gether as this fantastic, incredible, amazing, showstopping, revolutionary show made me extremely suspicious and then I watched it and completely hated it, and the suspicion turned into absolute fury. Especially when I see it compared to other, better shows as something they should aspire to be.

I realise I'm coming off as extremely mean about it but it pulls some visceral reactions out of me so I'll just stop here before I cross a line.

I love your message, Anon, but it's not lost on me that you didn't actually say which one you voted for!!!!

[merakiui]

OMG Hetalia!!! I used to be obsessed with the Show! I moved on but it still brings me joy when I see it from time to time (Also the fandom doesn't seem to die?? like even after almost 10+ years the fandom is somehow still alive?? 😭), even though hetalia had its Good and bad sides (the bad side the ship wars)

I also used to be obsessed with with England, the 2p's or the Nordics (AHEM Norway ♡)

Hima also added a few new characters! Indonesia, Singapore and Philippines!! AND FINALLY HE ADDED ENGLAND'S BROTHERS!!! I saw the tweet and like I said I'm not in the fandom anymore but the joy I felt when I saw Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ♡♡ I was so Excited!!!

but what frustrated me was the lack of female characters! 😭😤 we have like idk 10-12 female characters and the rest bunch of guys! I was so sad to find out that Portugal could have been a girl!!! 😭

Which leaves me wondering do you have favourite Female characters in hetalia or maybe Nyotalia?? If you like England and 2p England what about Nyo England ? or 2p Nyo England??

Are there any other shows/Games you like besides Hetalia, Genshin impact or twst ??

if you like Otome games I would recommend you playing (if you don’t know them already!) Mystic messenger and Obey me! they're really Good 👍

🌸Anon

The fandom truly is unable to die. I think it's something where you can break away from and return to eventually much later in your life, whether for nostalgia's sake or to get back into the fandom again. Either way, the fandom really is always alive no matter how many years pass. ^^;;;; it's actually quite admirable lol!!

Omg I was so obsessed with England. Like how Azul is my twst muse, England was my Hetalia muse. I would pen so many thoughts regarding him in my Google docs (and they still remain there even today. ;;;). >_< and the 2ps aaaaaa!!! I loved them, especially 2p FACE family. They were all so unhinged hehe. <3 AND NORWAY AAAAAA YES YES!!!! You have wonderful taste, 🌸 anon!!! Norway was another one of my favorites. :D

AND THE NEW CHARACTERS!!!! It was so nice to see. England's brothers are just as fine as England himself... orz I remember back in 2021 (??? was it 2021??) there was word of a new season! I remember I became excited, yet I am here now and I haven't watched it yet LOL. Perhaps I should do so now that the Hetalia worms have crawled back into my brain.

Omg yes!!! The lack of female characters is disheartening. T_T I wish there were more!!! Aaaa it would have been so cool if Portugal was a girl!!! I would have liked to see it!! But as for favorite female characters, I absolutely adore Hungary and Ukraine!! They are both so lovely and sweethearts and they deserve much love!!! Nyo England and nyo 2p England are both very adorable, but I think my favorite nyotalia lady would have to be France! Elegant lady!!!!! So very charming! I love her outfit as well!! ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡)

There are other games and shows I like outside of twst, Genshin, and Hetalia! I really like Little Nightmares. It's my favorite horror-adventure game. I love the art style and the storyline. I also want to play Omori when I have enough free time! The premise looks so interesting and I've listened to some of the osts from the game (world's end valentine is such a banger!!!). I also like Danganronpa. As for anime I have really enjoyed, Saiki K, Great Pretender, Devilman Crybaby, Soul Eater, Summertime Rendering, and ODDTAXI are among my favorites!!!

And I have played Obey Me! and Mystic Messenger before! Both are very fun! My favorites from both games are Mammon, Satan, and Belphegor and 707 and Saeran hehe!!! I was never a Jumin fan, but that one bad end... 🫣 so maybe I can consider liking a certain filthy-rich businessman... and something about yandere!Yoosung hits different. >:) in conclusion, unhinged characters are so *chef's kiss* !!!!!

[seoafin]

i can see it. barou working out in a dimly lit room all huffing puffing with his earphones plug in, and when someone ask what he is listening to bc he has that one serious face on…it's lacrimosa or moonlight sonata, by next week violinist!mc and him would be sitting tgt and discuss classical music or sth.

ironically, the next person who i can imagine to somehow get along with violinist!mc would be,, shidou. (idk why but admitting to liking him is kinda embarrassing, maybe it's bc of that scene in the u20 match LMFAO). not sure how when and why but they might be on a amicable term, considering that shidou top subject next to p.e is actually art…maybe he'll understand mc's grind and it somehow fell onto his whole speech thing

i gotta get this out, but how petty is violinist!mc even tho it has been 6 years, is she still bitter to the point that even on a 50%-70% discount day for shoes brands, if she saw either nagi or reo the first thing she walked in to the store as the store's wallpaper (they're the brand ambassador or sth) will she just turn on her heels and left then and there to find another brand instead 😭 and considering that mc may or may not went big (she's in the states?? i think?? bc you wrote "Times Square").

is she still playing violin on a stage/ competition, or has she branch out her like making osts for movies/ games/ etc. and why did nagi even suddenly thought of her after all those years and become a pining wife when her husband left for the sea. ,, if that's counted as spoiler for future chaps…then it's fine to leave us in the dark!!!

your fic never failed to reel ppl in, including me,, sth abt your writing style are so HFGDHGDGHVH

pls rion is absolutely gorg…her EYELASHES!!!!, when that director guy spill the beans i never been felt gobsmack…i thought that maybe she's in a 3rd party of the assassination community or sth instead of…[redacted].

and now that you point out, i have no idea why but i immediately link nagumo and the faceless men from GoT tgt???? probs its bc they are assassins but when you broke him down i just…connected sth…and idk why. tho i rly agree, that he's not entirely a blank slate, like he does have a personality before sth in the JCC flashback arc makes him on that 404 error personality if someone try to pry + that bloodlust scene in the temple when the guy pissed him off

chrollo and nagumo before the narrative sent them into a spiral are so!!!! they are my meow meows (but if i saw someone drag them in a post i probably would be laughing along tho dhfvbhdbhd like get their ass!!), the baby phantom troupes past are so TwT… - 🐱

spoilers for my nagireo fic

help not shidou.......but honestly i feel like any character that acknowledges violinmc's commitment and passion for the violin would immediately get along with her. she's the type to backtrack once they compliment her. she would definitely think shidou is a delinquent but then he says something about how her form was beautiful and she's like well. i was mistaken about him. but yes she's petty as hell but also there's off the screen character development bc she later acknowledges that the two of them were just kids and she was (un)rightfully hurt and immature about nagi making other friends LMAO

she issss in the states <3333 well briefly. i think after high school she went to a conservatory in germany and then played in various different orchestras as first chair. haven't ironed out those details yet. i think nagi has always kept violinmc in his mind lmao and tidbit i really really wanna add to a later drabble is that nagi was watching mc's performances on his phone in bllk. i think it'd just be very nagi esque for him to one day just go. yeah. i should talk to her. no rhyme or reason. one day it hits him how much he wants to see her again.

ahhfhhwbgbwe i love rion. i want to write the gayest drabble ever featuring that line of hers about how you can learn a lot about a person by tasting their tears or smt??? is that not the gayest thing ever.

[koii14]

Agonies in life: A Reflection Paper on the Anthology, “Lockdown Litanies: Countless Untold Stories” an essay by Christine Mae Marquiño

Introduction:

• Different Struggles of a Woman

• How people and society affects someone's feelings

Thesis Statement (Topic):

The Philippines have so many stories that are based in real life, which got the interest of the readers. Authors did not stop creating this kind of story because it helps the readers or audience to understand and realize more the meaning of life. 

Each of us have struggles in life, both men and women however in this anthology women played different roles. Society is a big factor for someone's mental health, as well as our loved ones. 

Body:

As I read the first poem entitled "Dear Diary", I can feel the persona's pain. She is hurt by the people around her, struggles in life, left alone, wanting to disappear but then overcomes all of it. I realized that people will truly come and go as stated in these lines from the poem, "Meeting strangers for warmth and solace, wanting for more. But all was left in me, I ended up alone" we will meet them not for a lifetime but for the meantime only and memories. Reading this poem reminds me the song Stronger by Kelly Clarkson where the tone is kind of hype because the lyrics explores in empowerment and recovering from heart aches that later on became stronger and doesn't feel alone which evident with the lyric, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Stand a little taller Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone".

In the next poem which is "The Tale of a Modern Sisyphus", the persona is a strong woman. It taught me that problems can be easier for us if we are together with someone as it is evident with the following lines from the poem, "To the human condition, we are not inherently alone. A burden is less felt when carried together" that in life, we are not alone. Problems could be the reason for us to become stronger. It reminds me Rachel Platten's Fight Song where the tone is so encouraging that will lift up the listeners with its lyric like, "My power's turned on

Starting right now I'll be strong"

"O’ Yayi (A Prose Poem)", the third poem. Proves to me that first love will last forever. However, it hurts when the love of your life keeps on thinking and talking about their past love, even if you did everything you can. We can read in the poem these lines,  "She received all the comfort and luxury a woman could ever get from a loving husband" "That spark in her eyes after saying his name" where we can feel the pain of the persona longing for his wife. This reminds me the song Remember Me an OST of a movie entitled Coco sang by Miguel where the tone is sad and longing for their loved ones but making sure that through this song they'll remember them as manifested with these lyrics, "I hold you in my heart" "Know that I'm with you" . 

In the fourth poem, "Two Red Laces On Wonderland" I have understood that if we fall in love with someone, no man can get our heart anymore. Love indeed is a strong feeling that we cannot control, also we can feel happiness whenever we are with him/her as it stated in these lines from the poem "All because of you, my Wonderwall. Heaven by your side, I’ve tasted wine" "And tried my luck with several men,

But you felt like home, where I belong" being with the love of our life is one of the best times in our life therefore it could also be the worst or painful day of our life. I remember the song Because of You by Kelly Clarkson, when we listen to this song we can feel the pain and sadness that is caused by the love of her life as manifested with these lyrics "Because of you I learned to play on the safe side, so I don't get hurt".

Upon reading the fifth poem, entitled " Umbilical" I have known that giving birth is not easy. From the title itself we can see that it is connected to a baby. In spite of the pain, the mother managed to deliver the child. Love that comes from a mother is really genuine, they will do everything just to take care of their child as evident in these lines from the poem, "The pain she suffered just for me to see:" "You have made your purpose, I guarantee. Hush, sleep tight. Everything will be alright." This reminds me Sad Song by We the Kings, which tone is sad and the lyrics is painful that we cannot live without our loved one or a mother rather as it manifested in the lyric, "Without you, I feel broke Like I'm half of a whole Without you, I've got no hand to hold".

Sixth poem entitled "RE: Paper (I’m Red, IMRaD)*", shows how hard the education is in different aspects. I realized that having the responsibility is not as easy as we think, especially if it is connected to someone. And sometimes we are limited to do things as evident in these lines from the poem, " If we keep on insisting quality education for students Why not allow teachers access quality to their extent?  Help teachers help students. After all, we cannot give what we don’t have" even if you know what's the best to do if it is not approved by those who are in position you can do nothing.  This reminds me of the song Sign of the Times by Harry Styles. Which sounds like a contemporary mashup where we can feel the pain of every lyric. And we'll know that this isn’t the first time we’ve been in a hard time, and it’s not going to be the last time as manifested with the lyric  "We never learn, we been here before"

"3 A.M. Awakening" is a seventh poem. I realized that depression and anxiety normally hit us at 3 in the morning which caused us to suffer alone. The persona in the poem is experiencing this also but I think that most of the time, we're thinking about what people did to us as it shows in these lines from the poem"People hold truth in fiery tongues and spit Eternal billows for us found in splits." that sometimes leads us not to lean on our friends' shoulders and just keep our problems to ourselves. As I read the poem I remember the song See You Again by Charlie Puth with a soft rhythm and message that there might have a problem between a friendship but at the end they'll still help each other as evident in the lyric, "It's been a long day without you, my friend

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"

In the eighth poem entitled "My Frail Lady", I understood that the persona was dreaming about herself struggling. However it was a realization through her dreams that led her to come up with this thinking as it states in these lines from the poem, "Freedom at long last Upon her long, quiet pause." that I think this helped her to find freedom for herself. It reminds me of the song by Maximillian, Beautiful Scars. The tone can give courage as well as the lyrics that even if we struggle in something we should learn to embrace it as well as our weakness, so that it is not that heavy for us anymore as manifested with this lyric, "Cause it's a part of you that will make you strong Embrace your flaws".

As I read the last poem entitled, " Major Arcana" I understand sometimes we put our hope on what other people saw, hence it lifts us up. However we have the idea on what's the best thing to do even if we are wondering, we know that our life is not tragic as evident in these lines from the poem "And so you went in wonder and surprise For you have seen what lies ahead," . I remember the song Scars To Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara. The lyrics can indeed be an encouragement to the listeners with its good rhythm. And as we listen to this song we will understand that there is a hope even if we are at our lowest as shown in this lyric "But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark".

Conclusion: 

Reading these stories caused me to experience a range of emotions, including pain and the realization of many life lessons. It's not always simple being a woman; we frequently handle all of our issues on our own. Making the decision to keep things to ourselves and ultimately breaking down. We experience suffering in many different ways, sometimes from other people and other times from within. We have to confront a new challenge every day, but we also have hope that we will eventually overcome our difficulties. We ladies have demonstrated our strength. Despite our faults, failures, and trials, we are still here, enjoying the life we have. Growing and learning new things.

[dany36]

woohoo!!! finally completed my replay of dawn of the new world!! 😌❤️ it had been over a decade since i last played this game, so my memory was a bit fuzzy on certain story aspects and i wanted to refresh it. plus, after i finished the original symphonia for like the nth time, i was aching for more of its world and its characters. yeah this game is far from perfect and is definitely not the sequel a lot of us were expecting, but still, it has its good moments. more long rambling junk thoughts below (lmao this turned out longer than expected but i just have so many feelings about the symphonia series so i have to spew them out somewhere)!

so let's start with the good things!

the original symphonia cast (bare with me here). this is probably like 90% of the reason why i wanted to replay this game cus my god do i love these characters so damn much. the first time colette appeared i screamed of joy and even more so when i heard her use the iconic angel feathers in an in-game cutscene. i've said it before but if we were only able to get one VA from the original main cast (yes i know kratos is back too but he's not part of the main party), i'm glad it was colette. i know i said earlier this year that colette wasn't in my top 5 fave tales of characters, but you know what? past dany is a FOOL because with my replay of symphonia 1 and now with this, has shown me that colette is a magnificent character and must be loved and protected at all costs!!! like her accepting right away in front of marta what she did that caused the destruction of palmacosta without any excuses whatsoever? HURT my heart to the core the pure look of sadness she had but also was interesting to get a glimpse of all the accusations colette (and maybe the rest of the party?) have had to deal with, and seeing how she chooses to deal with them is like DAMN...that's *my* chosen!

other than colette, i must state the obvious that it was great having sheena aka my fave from symphonia 1 in the party for the longest out of the og cast, and getting a taste of her fulfilling her duties as chief of mizuho was refreshing from her other duty of babysitting marta and emil. also i have to give credit to her VA, she really did a decent job at channeling some of that energy that made jennifer hale's performance so iconic in my mind. i didn't care much for regal in symphonia 1 but also his new VA (which I much prefer to the original...sorry!) and having him around for much longer in this game to act as a father figure to emil made me like him even more. it's a shame that we got presea so late into the game but her story is so tragic so it was nice seeing her thriving making charms and whatnot for regal's company. overall whenever someone from the og cast would make an appearance it would warm my heart cus i mean what else can i say!!! that game and its characters were my childhood!

the music. again i know i've ranted about this before in my other tales of posts but i've yet to play another tales of game that has music as good as the symphonia titles. symphonia 1 has such fantastic music, and hearing some of it remastered was just a pleasure to hear. like...water symphony aka the luin theme? ugh that song just pierces through my heart...i think i might even like it better than the original! others songs that i didn't give much thought in the original but shone this time around for me were "in a shadowy woods" (god it's so damn haunting!) and underground passage (this version is so much more intense!). of course it also has some good original songs like "with courage" (what a fantastic battle theme!) and the "wilderness of sadness". OH AND WHO CAN FORGET the *beautiful* orchestrated english opening from the wii?? hearing it along with the opening scenes still gives me chills to this day!! ANYWAY THE POINT IS that symphonia 1 has a fantastic ost and this game did a great job honoring it.

the new main characters. emil was whiny and too much of a coward at the beginning, but seeing him grow throughout the course of the journey and accepting his role in the fate of the world was very luke fon fabre of him and a joy to watch. same with marta, she was overly clingy and just kept pushing emil to be more like she kept imagining him to be, but seeing her grow to love emil just for who he was and like...not gonna lie, the girl was NOT afraid to speak her heart out and that is SO refreshing to see. like she knew she loved emil and would not hesitate to say it to him (which was kind of eugh at the beginning but as both emil and marta grow together, it's just right!!), unlike a lot of other female love protagonists who don't say anything until the end of the game and are all =uwu= about it. but here the long-awaited kiss between the two is done before you even go into the final level of the game, and it's like THANK YOU for not making me wait until the ending rolls around!! i actually really like this main couple pairing and thought the story did a great job at making you root for them. might even be one of my favorites out of the games i've played. just two kids in love!

the voice acting. laura bailey as marta was perfect and just made me glad that we got voiced skits for this game because wow, the og casting might have been subpar but with her and johnny yong bosch's performances...oof, just beyond fantastic. especially jyb, he literally had to do three different voices for emil and the way he handled it would just continuously blow my mind every time there was a switch between the three. i also really liked alice's VA but i mean i liked alice's character overall :) (was heartbroken you have to kill her at the end though...especially considering her background!) anyway i could have played this in japanese but laura bailey + heather hogan are worth it to play the english version instead :)

the ending. and everything leading up to it, actually. like, aqua defending richter with her literal life out of the love she had for him. emil pretending to be ratatosk so no one would find out his plan. being given the choice to defeat both marta/lloyd. marta figuring out emil's plan. and just...i forgot how nicely it explains into phantasia's setting about there not being a need for mana any longer and how it would take...1000 years for the laws of the world to be rewritten. also seeing the og cast say goodbye to emil....ahhhhh my fucking heart! like PRESEA...CARVING A WOODEN BEAR FOR EMIL TO REMEMBER HE'S NOT ALONE...*that's* the presea i love!! and of course, marta and emil getting the happy ending (and NOT ambiguous like ABYSS'S!!!) that they deserve!!! love truly does win!!!! :) none of this bittersweet ending stuff like berseria or zesteria where it would have been like oh no emil will never leave the ginnungagap and will never get to live his life as a human being with the person he loves. and then they both get the perfect partner title?? shionne and alphen could never.

alright, now for the things i didn't like about the game :)

the original symphonia cast. like...i swear it was either a high or a low for me with this. seeing colette literally do anything? "omg i love this game so much it's not as bad as people say it is!". having them run a character joke to the ground (raine's ruin mode, zelos's constant pervertedness, sheena falling into pits, colette's klutziness, regal's shackles, presea and paw pads)? lloyd shunning his friends and unwilling to explain just A BIT of what he was doing (no, the reason he gives sucks and that's not lloyd)? "god this game sucks why did the writers do this why am i even still playing this". also what the hell was up with presea's obsession with paw pads this time around?? i THINK i remember a symphonia 1 skit about this but it's like..that's all she would talk about during a lot of her dotnw skits, cutscenes, and even one of her battle quotes is about it? also isn't presea supposed to be like 14 years old (appearance-wise) now? why is she still dressed like she's 10? SAME THING WITH REGAL and his jail clothes like JUST....why. ALSO couldn't they have at least re-drawn the og cast's skit drawings so they wouldn't have to come up with a dumb reason why regal still wears his jail clothes?? also my god why does lloyd's in-game model look so BAD...they mostly did a decent job with the rest (not a fond of raine's either) but lloyd's just looks terrible and i couldn't take him seriously. like...lol i could rant more about this but just a lot of things about the way the og cast was handled seemed to be out of pure laziness and actually keeps me from enjoying this game to its fullest.

the pacing. honestly sometimes the pacing of the game just felt so wack, especially when you're just trying to track down lloyd. at the beginning it really does feel like you're just jumping from town to town just so the game gets its nostalgia points in. the whole bit in izoold and the gels was a snoozefest, same thing with the remoras in that one place near palmacosta. and then you suddenly get spit back out near iselia?? oh look it's the hometown of the chosen and just lakjdflasjfladsf i know the game is short compared to other tales games (i beat it at 30 hours when usually tales games take me 50+ hours) but i just felt like the first 4? 5? chapters or so (and there's only 8...) are just all over the place and rather...uninteresting. it's not until you stop following lloyd that things start to get a bit less dull, which is when i finally started enjoying the game and its characters.

and speaking of lloyd... i know i mentioned it above but my god was this part of the story awful and deserves its own call-out. props to zelos for quickly figuring out that there was a lloyd impostor because SHEESH they really butchered his character up to make it seem like he was truly evil and thus create some more conflict on top of the vanguard stuff. like oh look, lloyd, the fallen hero, who refuses to speak to his friends and is drawing his sword at them!!! that first skit you get of him where the og cast is trying to talk to him and he's just like "i've got nothing to say". worst lloyd. like just. get out of here.

alright i think i'll stop here cus it looks like my main problems with the game are the pacing and the way they handled certain aspects of the og cast inclusion. because i mean, the original story itself (ratatosk, the centurions, why the vanguard rose) is actually not that bad and is actually pretty interesting, but if you've played symphonia 1, it's hard to enjoy this game to its fullest. i didn't mention the monster system because i mean, yeah it's kinda of weird but it's not so terrible that i actively wasn't enjoying the game because of it. so I MEAN, definitely not the best tales game out there, but it's certainly not that bad if you just focus on the new cast and story. :)

but well, enough with the symphonia gameplays (that is, until the symphonia remaster comes out lol) cus up next in the list isssss FINALLY tales of xillia!!! beyond EXCITED to start playing it, so we'll see how that journey goes! :)

[cobaltaris]

Aris 2023 Media #16: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix (Critical)

guess it's time to try doing this on tumblr! and man what a time this was - i'll be tagging these with #Aris Media 2023 so you can easily check all my posts under this! :3 continuing from my Twitter thread that featured more short-form reviews of each: https://twitter.com/CobaltAris/status/161847855471879783 ANYWAY IT"S PEAK TIME BABY

full transparency: I used to not like this much! it's been like, almost 10 years since i played it in full, so basically infancy - between refusing to do anything besides basic combos, and my more Controversy Fueled brain, I was like, nah Kingdom Hearts 2 can't be THAT good - but sometime in 2021, I started playing through the series again to get a better taste of it than my frankly rushed and poor runs through it previously, completing each to 100%/Plat Trophy on the highest difficulty - and doing that with KH2 was so. life-changing oh my god? this combat FUCKS on Critical. I mean, it always fucks, but the tension going into every boss fight and having to learn "oh Reflect is a banger option everywhere" "Magnet is a lifesaver for crowd control" and "yes, Drive Forms CAN save your ass" changed, so much. especially learning more of the tricks from talking with friends and such, this game can make you feel on top of the world and take you down STRAIGHT to the deepest trench. you can take so little punishment but you hit back just as hard, one of the best difficulty options in any game and I think something to really give a shot if you want to know WHY fights in KH2 are so good. also even besides gameplay, KH2 is so charming? like. come on. you can't hate a game where Jack Skellington and Mulan are party members in the same group as the goofiest JRPG protag there was with Donald and Goofy. it's SO peak. every scene is such a joy to see unfold and pick apart for one reason or another (this game has so many dumb moments i quote endlessly, too many to choose just one ghfjfjfgj) plus you get really attached to the characters by the end and it has such a satisfying payoff for most of it and. uwah not to make puns but this game is charming as hell. except when you're grinding minigames n stuff for the journal that shit is DRY anyway i hope this explains why i came to really like KH2 all over again, there's so much fun to be had in it and it really reignited my want to get through this whole series again. its such a stylish, stupid series I can't get enough of sometimes :) without a doubt, an S grade game. also the soundtrack is one of the best holy shit how did i almost forget omg, 13th Struggle, The Other Promise, Waltz of the Damned, The Encounter, Sacred Moon are all in the SAME OST THATS WILD can't wait to play 358/2 Days for the first time later this year and suffer completing that its gonna be great </3

[speci-society]

23 and 29 for the music asks?

23: a song you think everyone should hear

OOH hay can i give like Three answers? Ive got 3 answers for 3 reasons

1. Transdermal Celebration - Ween

I've got a few Ween songs I'd recommend to people with the main purpose of showing a good sample of Ween outside of just Ocean Man or their genea reputation for making weird garbage music (which dont get me wrong, I like the weird garbage music, i'm a fan of The HIV Song, it's just that its not everyones taste). This is probably the best one out of those good samples tho, just because it's a good showcase of some Ween staples- weird but interesting lyrics that may or may not be about LSD, and REALLY good instrumentals that not only itch a specific part of your brain that responds to Good Music, but tenderly gives it a full massage and an arousing slap on the ass before tucking it into bed while making out with it. Listen and you'll get what i mean

2. Tardigrade Song - Cosmo Sheldrake

This one's pretty simple, i've loved cosmo sheldrake since middle school and especially this song, and i just think more people should know about his music! Also itches that part of my brain that responds to Good Music but this song (and by extension every other Cosmo Sheldrake song) instead takes it on a journey to a fairy circle in a swamp to visit The Bug King and his valued allies in The Flock Of The Marsh and then you're knocked out and dropped in a forest behind your house, even if you don't have Trees behind your house?

3. Arabesque - Coldplay

Also pretty simple, good coldplay song that I don't think got a whole lot of attention. I don't have a brain analogy for this one it's just good

29: a song that you remember from childhood

Ok Ig im doing 3 for this one too?????

1. Don't Panic - Coldplay

I basically was born to this album lmfao? Like Parachutes was on on various cds in the house for basically as long as I can remember. I listened to it pretty much every night up until i was about 6 and it rotated between this cd of african lullabies that my grandma found, and it basically stayed in a rotation of various other albums up until late 2020 when my schedule was shifted enough to where playing cds out loud to sleep to didnt really make sense in my house. As in. I was staying up too late lmfao. But anyway Dont Panic is the first song on that album, and it was definitely the album that I listened to the most as a young child, so its the first one thay comes to mind for childhood songs

2. How Does The Sun Shine? - They Might Be Giants

YAYYYY I GET TO TALK ABT TMBG NOW truthfully i didn't get super into tmbg untim a couple years ago BUT. my grandma bought me that science album when i was 6 and it was absolutely a favorite. Like probably my favorite album that wasn't coldplay when i was little. And this was my favorite track from there! Meet the elements was a close second

3. This Sound - EnV

A bit of a weird one, also from a bit later on in young childhood (about 9 or 10) but this was when I first got spotify and i GUESS just started dicking around looking at soundtracks to video games id mever heard of?? Or probably it saw that the only albums i saved were Every Coldplay Album, minecraft soundtrack(s) and terraria soundtrack(s) amd suggested a bunch of indie game osts including the original Binding of Isaac (NOT rebirth but the og), Crypt of the Necrodancer, Super Meat Boy, and Electronic Super Joy here. I also partially credit me finding a bunch of osts for various well known indie vames for me now vastly preferring indie games to basically any triple a games or series. Like I see artists make lineups of indie game characters and i can point out the names of about half of them and at the very least, what game they represent for a good 50-75% of them. No clue if i can do the same for like triple a series' ohtside of ones everhoen knows (mario link master chief etc) i just have my roots in very specifically indie games and their music lmfao

4. Kisses In The Wind - Rosie Ledet

This is one of my grandma's favorite songs! She played it a bunch while she was cooking when i was little! Good song, all there is to it