#anyways i love this series. not as much as i love touhou (not yet anyways) but i by no means think it's inferior or anything-

[shooks-stupid-stuff]

after like 3 years of saying i was going to, i've finally started playing len'en

i like this guy a lot

[dangan-kagura]

Have you ever played a game that you think is so cool, but you’re just so bad at it?

For a while, I’ve been trying to play Castlevania Dominus Collection, a compilation of the DS Castlevania games now available on PS5, Switch and Xbox Series X. They’re really great games, but… In my case, I’m really bad at them.

See, I’ve accepted that I’m really bad at the Metroidvania genre in gaming, and there are only a few games of this genre that I’m good at. One of them is the best Castlevania game, Symphony of the Night, or just SOTN. All my life, I’ve tried out almost all other Castlevania games that play similar to SOTN, but compared to that game, they’re just way too difficult. I’ve tried out the GBA and DS Castlevania games and couldn’t clear them. Yet this series is just so cool looking, I wish I was better at them, or at least I wish these games were easier for me.

To prove my point, I’ll share this. Let me compare Castlevania to the other Metroidvanias that I’m good at. The first one is the new Prince of Persia game, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

This was a fun game, and I’m glad that Ubisoft decided to revive Prince of Persia. The last entry in the series came out like, what? 2010? Anyway, this is a game that plays similar to a game like SOTN. Only differences are that this game comes with difficulty settings, so there was no shame for me to play the game on Easy. Castlevania on the other hand doesn’t have difficulty settings, and I had a hard time fighting certain bosses in the first quarter of certain games (go ahead, laugh at me for playing on Easy, see if I care). Also, Prince of Persia doesn’t have these RPG elements like with Castlevania. I don’t even have a clue what certain stats represent. Why can’t I just play the game without having to take massive damage from the enemy?

The other Metroidvania I like is Dead Cells.

This game is more like a Castlevania tribute game. What caught my attention for this game was the update from last year that included content from Castlevania, seeing as how that’s a series that doesn’t have a new installment. Anyway, Dead Cells is also a rogue game? I’m sorry, I’m new to understanding what a rogue game is. The point is, in Dead Cells, when you die, you go back to the start of the game with certain stats kept but you start with different weapons. That much I know. While it is a challenging game, it’s a lot of fun.

As for the other Metroidvanias I’ve played, I’ve tried out Metroid, Shantae, and even Touhou Luna Nights, but I was no good at them. Metroid is another series that I think is cool looking, but I’m just so bad at. I haven’t touched the series since I tried out Metroid Prime 3, and gave up. I think after giving up on Touhou Luna Nights, I came to the conclusion that Metroidvanias just aren’t for me.

Oh, I would’ve mentioned Koumajou Densetsu (or Koumajou Remilla if you’ve played it on console) but I wouldn’t exactly call it a Metroidvania since it plays more similar to the classic Castlevania games. I do actually like Koumajou Densetsu, but I love the sequel more. Actually, it was the sequel that led me to fall in love with Sakuya Izayoi. I just loved that the game gave her the role Alucard had in SOTN.

Getting back to Castlevania, now that I’ve played (and failed) almost all the games for the GBA and DS, I feel disappointed. Castlevania is a really cool looking series to me. I like the dark fantasy theme inspired after Dracula, and the timeline for the series is interesting if you can figure out each game in chronological order. The only other games in the series I do like and are good at are Lament of Innocence, Judgement, and The Adventure ReBirth. I don’t normally play the standard 2D games since I don’t normally play retro games from the 1980s. And you don’t need to tell me that there’s a lot of hate surrounding the 3D games in the series, but I try to avoid that.

But maybe I’m just bummed because obviously Konami doesn’t seem interested in making a new installment. If they do decide to make a new Castlevania game, it’d be great if such a game could improve all the things that made the GBA and DS games just so hard. Like have difficulty settings, include the option to use a continue when you die instead of getting a Game Over and going back to the main menu, or at least try to simplify the RPG elements. It doesn’t even have to be a new installment, it can be a next-gen remake of any of the old games from the 2000s. If such a game was made, I’d still play it even if I was bad at it.

Now you might be thinking, “Why not just play Castlevania: Lords of Shadow? That game isn’t a Metroidvania and doesn’t have RPG elements.” Well ironically, I didn’t like Lords of Shadow. Not because I was bad at it, but because I didn’t like the direction they went with for that game, but that’s a story for a different article.

So I’ll ask again. Is there a game series you think is cool looking but you’re just so bad at and wish you were better at? To me, Castlevania is just one of those games.

[peace-bone]

Yachie had been humiliated at least three times today already, now this miserable dog was rubbing it in much worse. Saki beat Son Biten without even realizing what was going on, but that was far from the worst of it. She had set aside a large chunk of her plan to simply getting Aunn away from the shrine. She thought the plan was excellent, and yet only now she remembers that Aunn can make two of herself! She felt humiliated, forgetting it considering it was Aunn's entire main ability!

Of course, doing that put Aunn at half strength, at best. And then she lost a fight to her! She planned on beating Aunn at full strength and expected no trouble!

"Ehehe, you're really silly. You do all this to bring half of me out here but you can't even beat me? Why are you trying to fight so much when you're so weak?" Aunn teased, rubbing the tiny Yachie into the dirt.And where did this dog learn to shrink people anyway?! Their foot was filthy, coated in dirt, bare, grimy, but the fact that Yachie was powerless and being ground under it was far worse that any filth!

"You're clearly no threat. So, since you're not a threat, how about I fufill your wish a bit? Come back to the shrine with me! There will be two of me to play with then~!" Aunn laughed, looking at the tiny girl underfoot.

Yachie paled as she heard it, not only were her plans all shot, but this might not be the end of it, either...

---------------------------------------------------

I'm running off of Twitter gossip cause there's no translation transcript out yet and I know approximately one 'nani' worth of moonrabbit speak, but I decided to write this anyway! IF I'M WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING I'M WRONG, LET THE DICE FALL.

Touhou 19 is out! So much to talk about with it. I wasn't that big on Yachie before, didn't have any real thoughts on her, but TH19 has made me immediately love her by making her the biggest failgirl in the series. A huge chunk of her plan is apparently devoted to distracting and luring Aunn away from the shrine, and she just flat out forgets Aunn's entire thing is being in two places at once. And apparently the two half-power Aunns are capable of independently thwarting any ideas Yachie had.

And I know even less about the other plot but apparently Yachie convinces Son Biten she's the Monkey King and sends her out to something something but Saki just beats them up without realizing she's thwarting more plans. CONGLATURATION

Aunn is best Touhou confirmed, I guess. Super cute, loyal, capable, and apparently super powerful and cunning, too. Did she causally spend her whole story using her two body ability? Does that mean she basically spends the whole game fighting at half power and is just that strong? Or is Yachie just THAT MUCH of a loser?

[zehecatl]

2024 media thread part MAY

6th May: Murder Drones 1-7

first of all, i cannot believe i decided to get into this when there's only one episode left. why have i done this. what evil energy have made me do that

anyway. jokes aside. Murder Drones is good. like, really good! there is some flaws, and i think you can very much tell this is the team's first proper series, but man- it is so frickin' good! the animation is genuinely jaw-dropping, like the lighting work is so fucking good, and there's never a moment where you like- fall out of the action because of bad animation? it's so slick and smooth, and just. chef's kiss. so good

and so is the rest of the more technical stuff- the voice acting is stellar, genuinely the kind of stuff i'd expect from a 'professional' series, and the music is- well, okay, i don't notice music, but that's probably a good thing here! that means it's doing its job! like, it's just genuinely a really professional job all across the board, and that's impressive

the writing, plot, and characters are also real good- i do think sometimes it stumbles a bit, either with a remark not quite clicking with the rest of the dialogue, or the fact that episode 4 and 5, while fantastic episodes on their own, doesn't quiiite connect with the rest of them, but that's like- it kind of doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, haha. it's a good fucking series, y'all

okay. okay. gushing time, now. first of- i frickin' LOVE the aesthetic of this show. it's SOOO tailored to me- this post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, with SNOW. THERE'S SNOW. SO MUCH SNOW. I LOVE THAT. and the MEAT element, like ough, the meatier stuff got, the happier i was. and i love the dichotomy with the human element, where they ran very... victorian? like, mansion and big fucking castle, like that's so fun. also i love the gore. i looooove the gore, like so much, i'm so delighted by this series dedication to edgy. it's a DELIGHT, okay! i love it!!!

also the characters... i love the characters, especially the girls- they're all so unhinged and fucked up, and that's such fun. i think my fave might be Doll? something about her arc just. it makes me FEEL. i am ADORE HER. i am thinking up fix it aus SO hard

also adore the trio of Uzi, N, and V- i do wish we had gotten more screentime with them, like i think more episodes would have served the series good, but. it is what it is! and i love them, genuinely. there's so much good meat here, so much to pick at and think about, and it's great

also, really liking N/Uzi, and how its being done! it's definitely important, both to the plot and characters, but it's not like. in your face. they're really cute, and i'm very excited to see how it's going to end in episode 7. i hope they get another hug. i think they both just deserve hugs :')

anyway. MD real frickin' good, is the note, here. i had a blast! definitely gonna do a rewatch when episode 7 drops. good fuckin' shit 👍

28th May: Touhou: A Summer Day's Dream

without a doubt not the best starting point of my Touhou journey, but man, what a good fanime. i really like how you can see the growth across the episodes (like, the animation of episode 4 is fantastic), and while the plot isn't as tight as it could be, and i could nitpick the hell out of some choices, it's just a fun little peek into Gensokyo

also considering it's a fanime, holy shit the voice acting is so good?? and the BACKGROUNDS... like, from the very first episodes, the background are just so good, and they just get better as they go- like ough, episode 4. some of that shit could be a wallpaper by themselves

i'm also really fascinated with the plot- there's something really interested here, and while it's obviously not finished yet, i cannot wait for the last (?) episode to wrap up all the threads

also, i now ship Marisa/Alice 👍

29th May: Atomicrops

252 hours later!!! and it is DONE!!!! (well, technically more like 237 hours, but shhh)

Atomicrops is a good rougelike. like. it's a really good roguelike, and it's definitely the kind you can just put on, do a round, and then feel satisfied. it's not as deep as something like Isaac (but what is), but something about it is just- satisfying. i never explored much outside of the first character, but i honestly didn't need to. something about the very basic concept of planting seeds and defeating them, just works fantastically. all around, it's a very good game, and i've had a great few months with it

30th May: Gushing Over Magical Girls

so, i don't really like ecchi. in general, i find it rather bland and boring, so while i've never turned down a show i was already interested in for it, it's not a genre i'd say i like

and yet, i absolutely adore Gushing Over Magical Girls

and this isn't just a yuri with ecchi. this is an ecchi show, through and through- in fact, sometimes it even goes beyond the label of ecchi, and flirts around with being a straight up hentai. and it's great! the whole story- its characters especially- relies so heavily on being an ecchi, that if it weren't one, it simply wouldn't work

Gushing Over Magical Girls is a story about sexuality, specifically kink. our main character, Utena, slowly comes to term with being a sadist over the first season, and every episode tends to feature a kink of some kind- there's wax play, there's age play, there's even a nod to 'forced to fuck'. like, this is a story that delights in being fetishistic, and very much hits this fun energy of 'baby's first kink exploration'

plus, it's not just that. it's also a genuinely well-written story with some really fun characters and character dynamics, and it ties the kinks into the characters, who, by the way, i found myself really enamoured with- especially Utena, our main character, who is just. she is so unhinged <3

i think the main reason Gushing Over Magical Girls is so good, is that it's such a sincere expression of love. watching it, i feel like the mangaka genuinely gets these things, and has an appreciation for it; not just for the kink aspect, but for the magical girls aspect, or even just the yuri. i know this show isn't for everyone, but i think for the people it is for, it's going to be a really, really, fun ride

[dianight]

Listen

I'm not one to like, care too much about what's canon and what has spawned out of some doujin 20 years ago and now 12 out of 10 touhou fans consider it 100% real, BUT.

Reimu is literally chilling most of the time. She does laze around quite a lot but it's like. Compare the regular days with how incidents work, no wonder she seems ultra violent to every single antagonist. If I spent my days just relaxing with my friends and my job was to keep balance between humans and youkai while pretending to be the defender of all humans in Gensokyo whenever shit hits the fan I'd try to solve it as fast as possible. The specialest girl in the world can just cheat, why wouldn't she? So all these depictions where she is bloodthirsty and whatnot, what are you on about? She is so sweet, even when youkai are obviously fucking around the village up to no good she tries to shoo them away with words or tells them off. Even when they hang around the shrine at worst she is a bit rude to them. They are never there to donate or bring gifts, it's always a problem or the other, when they're not stopping by to taunt her. Of course she's not going to welcome them, she's supposed to (in the eyes of humans) exterminate them. Anyway.

Happy ending! Humans involved with youkai end up eaten spirited away or have to be strong one way or another. Kosuzu is good with books, this was the only ending where she doesn't die. Possessed Kosuzu is kinda hot. Sorry I get distracted. Anyway.

Can't give examples right now but I like series where there's this weekly plot but overall the main one keeps advancing. Surely I can think of 4-koma where that happens, right? Nope, can't find the ones. Very interesting to see the daily lives of the villagers and protagonists (kinda) while at the same time is like. Damn, you humans live like this? Literal cattle (neutral) pretty much. Cattle that talks I guess, and makes for good entertainment for some youkai.

I am a believer in that theory that Yukari plans on expanding Gensokyo and whatnot, I also believe she is Maribel lost in time a few centuries later. I'm curious to see source material that confirms them.

Akyuu makes me feel so many things. No words, let's try. She will reincarnate and remember everything. She is afraid of dying. She didn't know Yukari yet? I was scared for her when she got close to the "truth" of Gensokyo. I was literally thinking that she should probably drop that train of thought before Yukari shows up and what do you know she's here. She looks so good with gloves. I understand why Yukari likes spooking her (I want to too but at the same time it's a bit too cruel). Let's hope she stays 29 for a few more years.

Everyone is drawn so cute! I considered posting more panels but I had to stop myself because there are so many good ones.

There is a melancholic(?) feeling that permeates Forbidden Scrollery, might just be me. Like. This is what being a human in Gensokyo is like; incidents happen and they get solved, weird things happen and then they are fine. Every unnamed character in the village is so... clueless about everything around them. Kosuzu gets to be "in", but there is a sort of double life that all humans in the know have where they get to see behind the scenes.

If this is the Gensokyo the gods loved, the gods seem to not give a shit about humans.

Finally finished Forbidden FScrollery. Lots to think about.

[godginrai]

I don’t want to make a whole essay’s worth about it but I really do want to talk about how much Revue Starlight really surprised me. Especially one particular character.

I don’t know when or where I had heard of the series, though very likely it was a Touhou server. My only surface level knowledge was maybe two or three things: There’s some sort of theatre school, there’s action with some nice animation and elaborate costumes, and of course, there’s a girl named Daiba Nana with a whole banana motif going on.

Around the start of this year I had seen some acquaintances suddenly talking about it again with excitement and recommending it, so with the ongoing anime binge with me and a close friend at the time, I thought it’d be fun to try something neither of us had seen.

I don’t really feel the need to go into the play-by-play of how the first episode went for us beyond “what the fuck is with the giraffe. is any of this really happening” etc. But it certainly got us intrigued to continue.

What *really* got us though was in the third episode during Karen and Maya’s Revue. At one point Maya talks about every stage girl’s ambitions and desires to be top star. During this, it shows brief flashes of other characters and their weapons, some of which had yet to fight on-screen. One of them was Nana. However, it was only a brief flash of her sword handle and little else.

Me and my friend immediately began to read into this slightly ominous shot and wondered “Is Nana actually the strongest?” We quickly got another hint at the end of the episodes when we saw she was ranked 3rd overall in the auditions.

We then spent the rest of the anime’s first half super pumped and wanting to see what Banana’s deal was. 

And then of course, the end of episode 6, during the title card preview, which was just a screen of nothing but “Daiba Nana”. They really knew.

I’m not sure if I was ready. I don’t think I am even now.

This may be entirely subjective to call her this, but I’m willing to say that Daiba Nana is one of my favourite antagonists in anything I’ve seen.

I think what does it is the simple fact she’s a genuine loving and caring friend first, and antagonist second. There’s no tragic and lengthy backstory we’re shown or overtly informed of. Everything that drives her misguided methods is entirely shown and enforced through her genuinely kind and loving actions as a friend to everyone.

Her motivations can be and ultimately are selfish, but it’s so very easy to understand what brought her to them and why. Her crippling loneliness, excess attachment to friends, and extreme fear of change are thoroughly human and grounded emotions. I think just about any other person you’d ask has a point in their life they’d happily return to if possible. I know I sure do anyway.

And that’s what I have to ask myself. Would I do the same in her situation? There’s a high chance yes. Would I repeat it countless times like her at least? That much is hard to say. I think what helps her case is how mundane a thing it really was she wanted to preserve. It wasn’t some high stakes changing of fate or anything. It was just a lonely girl wanting to see her friends at their alleged happiest.

Then there’s the movie. Nana is definitely one of the most prominent characters in conveying the themes of following an established role and doing what the audience wants to see. Revue of Annihilation is more or less fanservice. She didn’t *have* to curbstomp her friends to make them stop and consider their place in things. Surely some words could have done the same, right? But that’s not what we want to see, I don’t think.

I still can’t get over the presentation of that scene. The sheer buildup in the transforming stage, the tense and rushing music, then the reveal of Nana staring down her friends as the sole opposition. Her calm, piercing eyes but with a casual tap of her foot to the beat. That whole revue embodies the cool factor of Nana’s ruthless fighting style when she’s in an antagonistic role. I fucking love it so much.

Then the Revue of Hunting. I don’t know what opinions are online about this and I don’t really need to know. From the first viewing I always took away from it as Nana still knee deep in her “villain” role of the film in order to test and push Junna to be more confident.

But the bigger thing I really like and personally take away from that is a further wake up call on Nana’s character. Having probably some of the darkest and most emotional moments of any revue, it really comes off to me as acknowledging Nana’s unhealthily obsessive behaviour over Junna in particular. And by the end both of the pair have to acknowledge they may not be the best for each other.

Nana is a deeply flawed individual. But it all comes from what’s also so kind and uplifting about her. Her strength as a fictional character, as an antagonist, is not that I merely sympathize with her, but empathize. Her motivation and what she wants to protect genuinely makes me want to cry when I think about it, but I am glad she had the strength, love and help needed to move on.

[anchorshots]

...that sure was an ending! as disappointing as sotsu has been... it’s been fun, keeping up with everyone’s reactions and theory crafting and even just throwing my own thoughts into the ring. i’m definitely gonna miss higurashi thursdays, even if the product in question was... well, not the best quality? 

the stuff i loved about the ending: 

that gorgeous rendition of you playing at the end

the beauty of springtime hinamizawa (those cherry trees, oh my god???)

okonogi looking smug as hell because he's off to start a food distribution company and get in with the ushiromiya family

smol eua was very smol

SATOSHI WOKE UP HOLY SHIT

SHION GOT SCREENTIME HOLY SHIT

the message from the club that it’s okay if friends grow apart and don’t see each other all the time; they’re still friends at the end of the day, no matter where life takes them. 

the stuff i didn’t love: 

... a lot, honestly, but a lot of my issues with the last episode have to do with my issues with sotsu as a whole? so much of it just felt... rushed and kind of unearned? i think a lot of my feelings can be summed up as “cool ideas, awful execution”. 

this could’ve been really good, but either r07 yeeted the ball down like 34 flights of stairs when it came to giving passione his outline, or they did while adapting it. something went wrong there, and i think the push to market sotsugyou as newcomer friendly shot the entire project in the foot; we spend so much time retreading old ground that the new material barely has time to breathe and stand on its own, and any newcomers were just told “you really wanna go back and read the vn/read the manga/watch the anime before starting gou” anyways, so like... why bother with that?  

in any case, i really like what tomato akase’s been doing with the gou manga, so i have higher hopes for higurashi jun. hopefully its conclusion will be less of a trainwreck than sotsu! as it is, unless jun pulls off some gotdam miracles, i... am still not considering this canon to OUR matsuribayashi. maybe some other matsuribayashi fragment had all this happen, but the one we saw in the original series? nope. (there are happy st lucia timelines in mei, after all, so like... yeah.)

i think that’s all i really have to say, but i’ve rambled a bit more under the cut just... i dunno, to clear my head and process what i watched?

i was all for redeeming satoko in the end, but... one (1) round of looper thunderdome, a dbz/touhou inspired miko battle, then punching the heck out of each other in the river... does not feel like enough from what they’ve shown us?

if they’d built up to this moment more in the answer arcs by showing more of satoko’s hesitation, her guilt, any horror at what she’s doing to her friends, her desperately assuring herself that none of this will matter when rika finally, finally stays and they can all be happy... then led up to the tatariakashi breakdown and teppei murder where she kills off all of those conflicting feelings to win the game as quickly as possible so all of this can stop... i dunno, i feel like it’d be easier to stomach her being forgiven without question? like, the teppei and sea of fragments scenes were clearly meant to convey she’s been feeling like this the entire time- but when we actually saw satoko on her own, we got one scene of her being sad she pushed rena into murder, then it was all mustache twirling villainy from there on out until teppei?

or, hell, i’d have taken seeing her having to account for unexpected problems in her plans and adapt on the fly more. like... the biggest problems she encountered apart from the teppei guilt situation were to do with mion taking longer to go off the deep end ( requiring needling on her end to push mion into a more fragile state where she’d act out ), then having no idea whether mion had killed rika or not once the tragedy was kicked off. apart from that... there was nothing? she was totally in control the whole time? everything went according to plan 95% of the time? i get it, i get it, certainty(tm), but certainty isn’t an instant win button. certainty is perseverance. certainty is overcoming every single setback thrown at you and clawing your way to the top in the face of adversity. hard work and an iron will go rewarded. you know... takano’s entire thing? 

also... uh... how’d they get yeeted back into the original matsuribayashi fragment from the miko battle fragment? and... after the advice session from the club, did they just off themselves to do it over and go their separate ways properly? or can they just hop at will now without dying? huh??????????? 

lambda 100% split off from satoko in the ending, though, that’s for sure. i guess time is wonky in the sea of fragments, or as someone on reddit put it, lambda existing before bern was misdirection??? 

i guess my big question is where exactly bern split off from rika. saikoroshi was supposed to be the big split, but sotsugyou being where lambda split - and rika’s actions throughout the series, as well as their parting words - suggests that bern was still in there somewhere. maybe it was an incomplete split in saikoroshi, then sotsugyou finished it off? i dunno. 

also what the hell was that final eua-hanyuu battle. like, you go hanyuu, but... it was so anticlimactic, she deserved better.  

also kind of sad we didn’t get to see the satoshi-satoko and shion reunion but like,,, that makes sense. he just just woke up, boy’s not stepping out of that clinic for a while yet. still, i wish they’d done his scene first with irie in the room, then while irie was idk, stepping out to get something he needed, saw takano and tomitake come in and said something about how happy satoko would be to hear this... i dunno. just to allude to the fact that satoko has more in her life than rika. nii-nii’s back! once he’s confirmed safe to be around, she’ll be able to come see him! shion can, too!

god. i just. s i g h. 

it just sucks seeing my favourite series of all time treated so carelessly. maaaan...

i don’t think i hate sotsugyou. it had great ideas, but its flaws... hoo boy, they were flaaaaaaaws.

[nekoprankster218]

Just Wanted to Do 10 Fandoms, 10 Characters

Nobody tagged me but I saw one while scrolling and just felt the want to gush about 10 different characters (plus it said anyone who wanted to who wasn’t tag could, so that’s enough of an invitation for me!). In no particular order:

1. Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam from Halo

I love a bunch of Sangheili characters, and if the rule wasn’t “10 different fandoms”, half the list would just be them. But there’s one that just rises above the rest (funny, given he’s actually shorter).

2. Penny Polendina from RWBY

Ever since Volume 7, Penny’s quickly become my favorite RWBY character. Maybe it’s because of everything that happened in that volume, or starting a found family crossover fic with her as the focus, or something else. Either way - four episodes in, and I’m already worried about what the writers have planned for her this volume!

3. Entrapta from She-Ra: Princesses of Power

Probably the most recent favorite out of everyone on the list - she’s half the reason I finally started watching She-Ra (the only half was Catradora)! Not finished with the show (last I had time to binge, I finished season 3) yet, but I doubt anyone’s gonna take the “favorite character” medal away from her. Probably biased, because I am autistic and firmly believe she’s at least coded.

4. Paarthurnax from Skyrim

I like several named dragons from Skyrim, but Paarthurnax gets the honor of being on the list. Is it maybe convenient that a lot of his story arc mirrors Thel? Perhaps. I also attached to Sissel’s dialogue about her dragon dream immensely, despite knowing it probably meant nothing to Bethesda.

5. Sachiko Shinozaki from Corpse Party

I have a soft spot for ghost kids in horror stories, and Sachiko’s probably the epitome of that. She’s fun as a villain, has a nice balance between childish and mature that I like to see played around with, although you also can’t help but feel bad she ended up that way. You can tell she’s one of my favorites because she’s one of my go-to characters in multi-fandom crossovers (Thel also being one!).

6. Gajeel Redfox from Fairy Tail

Pretty sure Gajeel was the first time it really hit me that I liked reformed antagonists. I can’t even explain why he became my favorite (same for some of the other characters on this list, actually). It was just nice to see his arc develop over the series - his personal growth, his budding romance, his dynamics with others. (Also yes, I liked Fairy Tail, dunno why that’s such a controversial opinion in the anime community.)

7. Rattlesnake Jake from Rango

Speaking of antagonists! I know I just said I really like reformed antagonists, but villains without a redemption arc are good, too. Especially in Jake’s case, where you see he still has his own code; it’s just that, his own code. And let’s be honest. Rattlesnake with a gattling gun on his tail? He has only 10 minutes of screen time and he stole the whole damn movie. If they never make Rango 2, I really hope they at least make a Rattlesnake Jake spin-off.

8. Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy

Looking through the entries on this list, starting to think I just find intense/deep character arcs pretty neat. Rocket’s an a-hole, and usually I do not like a-holes, but he’s also a really interesting case. The MCU has yet to really say much about Rocket’s backstory, but the little crumbs it has given speaks volumes, so when Rocket’s doing his self-sabotaging behavior or talking out his mouth...only negative emotion I really feel is sadness. He tries to act tough, but he probably needs more therapy than Volume 8!Penny or Red!Sachiko.

9. Hakase from Nichijou

If I could put the whole Shinonome household, I would. Their segments were always my favorite part of the episodes just because kid scientist, big sister robot, and talking dad cat. You know how Ouran Host just got a second season announced? Can that happen to Nichijou? Just, please, there’s more manga to cover!

10. Godzilla from the MonsterVerse

‘Nuff said.

And that’s my 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, in no particular order and certainly missing plenty of characters from the same fandoms and different ones. Also tried to keep it varied. Kinda weird actually that I never once brought up-

11. TouHou Project

I. COULDN’T. DECIDE. There are so many good Touhou characters! I really couldn’t narrow it down to one! This is probably a promise that I’m gonna do a 10 favorites post just for TouHou Project.

Anyway, usually people tag 10 others, but I really don’t have the confidence to tag 10. So, uh... @katthescalie​ show me what you got (if you want).

[pangtasias-atelier]

Random questions but who's a character that you liked design wise but once their personality or their stats/usability in-game were revealed, you just hated them? Also, who's a character you hated design wise but ended up loving their personality or stats/ usability? (Characters can be from any game, not just FE)

THIS POST DOES INCLUDE CHARACTER HATE (AND LOTS OF IT LMAO)

Ooh, I love questions like these!!! This also turned out pretty long lmao

Characters I liked design wise but personality made me hate them:

Xander. (Fates) I can't stand him outside of a kink context. When the very first Fates trailer was shown (before we even knew it was the shitshow of different routes) he looked cute. But he's just so frustrating. I get that he's supposed to be the Camus archetype but he just falls so flat and doesn't work well. And that's cause there's absolutely no world building or any development at all to help give reasoning! It's just "I'm crown prince, and that's my father you're trying to kill," which like okay that's a fair reason. But the game doesn't do much more to justify it and Garon is so stupidly obviously evil that like, it makes Xander look so stupid. Plus the games keep trying to make him this badass warrior but Fates LOVES to tell not show so it's just informed attributes. Even in Conquest, he's not much better than he is in Birthright imo. If anything, Xander is worse in Conquest cause Conquest has the worst writing in the series by far. At the very least, he along with Camilla help make Lunatic conquest bearable. (Still haven't beaten it lol, but CQ Lunatic is just so unfair, and BS. Plus the last 2 chapters being back to back with no saves is the worst idea ever)

Sylvain. (Three Houses) His design was alright and I even manages to accidentally recruit him on my first playthrough while going for Ashe and Mercedes. But GOD his personality is just bleh. Womanizer types aren't inherently bad but the crests system being pushed as this unique thing makes Sylvain much more annoying since crest's aren't even unique or well done. Like, sure, people want him for his crest, but that's literally nobility in fucking general and also, Mercedes is right there with it being worse and she's so fucking sweet! Also, FE characters are lot deep, let's face it. Their interesting moments basically come from snippets of info about their past and intys makes it sad cause they know that catches people's attention. But most FE characters are pretty static. And that's fine! I love Grima and Corrin and they're pretty fucking godamn bland! But I'm not gonna act like they're these riveting 3 dimensional characters. Which people love to do for Sylvain and it just makes me hate him even more.

Felix. (Three Houses) I really enjoyed the Navarre archetypes. But Felix exaggerates it so much. And yeah, his scathing remarks and refusal to be anyway (I can't think of the word, FUCK) like willing to talk or come to an agreement is so just awful. Like, it makes sense since he's more like that with people he knows, but he's just such a fucking jackass. And the fandom praises it when he's really just a dick imo. Glad Seteth calls him out on it lmao. Also, sylvix is such a fucking straight ship, I cannot with it.

Characters I liked design wise but play style made me dislike them:

Regal Bryant. (Tales of Symphonia) Now, he's not a bad character or anyone I really hate at all! He's just so awful to actually play as in ToS. His attacks feel like they struggle to connect oftentimes and he has a much higher skill floor than other characters such as Lloyd, Kratos/Zelos, Sheena, and Presea. Genis and Raine should just never be used in the players hands cause magic casting times and the AI targeting the player lmao. Colette isn't too bad but like, honestly, just spam her paraball. Regal also gets shafted storywise but they at least fix it in the sequel. Also, he's a SPLENDID character. Regal being this buff man, yet he's just so calm and reserved while also having a playstyle usually reserved for women makes me love him even more. I just hate playing as him lol.

Assasin of Shinjuku/Yan Qing. (Fate/Grand Order) His part in Shinjuku was great, except for that wierd ending upon him fading away and all of sudden remembering, like it felt it was gonna make fun about the whole last limited rushed sympathy yet they play it so straight lmao. He's incredibly hot and he was so great in the Halloween Event. (The Mecha Eli and Osakabehime one. I forget the name) Yan Qing just literally offers no real meaningful team support and he also doesn't have any actual buffs to help boost his own damage. He has a use, it's just so pointless diverting crit stars when you can use a better servant with star generation to just make a bunch consistently. So, Yan Qing hits like a noodle and also dies to vasically any NP since he has no defensive skills. Even with his upgrade coming next year? he still just is so bad. I love him and he's lvl 90 but he's awful gameplay wise.

Byakuren Hijiri. (Touhou) I love Byakuren so much but she's just so unwieldy in the fighting games. I still tried to use her, but like, o was just so much better with Miko that I basically stayed Miko the entire time. Miko/Byakuren's story in Antinomy of Common Flowers.

Marisa Kirisame (Touhou) Marisa always gets the straightforward shot that does great damage. The problem with that is, she really really really REALLY struggles with stages and even some boss attacks. Plus Reimu has homing while unfocused and straightforward shot while focused PLUS smaller hitbox so Marisa is always at a disadvantage. Marisa being being the best shottype (to some, I prefer Youmu but Reimu is infact the worst shottype imo) in Wily Beast and Weakest Creature doesn't make up for Marisa being worse than Reimu in all other games besides maybe Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

In general there's not many characters that I hate due to design so these were harder

Character I hated design wise but loved due to gameplay.

Zhuge Liang (Fate/Grand Order) Granted, I basically know nothing about the Fate Series outside of FGO so I don't really know about Waver. But I just wasn't crazy about his design. And how he gets younger as you ascend him. But MY FUCKING GOODNESS! 50%NP charge is just way too good to pass up and he fits on literally any team whatsoever. Team Attack up, team efense up, targetable crit damage up, and NP drain+ stun chance on his NP makes him so versatile. And he's charging up people's NPs!! I use him for everything at this point lmao.

Character I hated due to design but liked due to character:

Scáthach=Skaði (Fate/Grand Order) The fact that Skaði looks like Scáthach really has no purpose in any meaningful way imo. Like, it's not Scáthach at all. And while I honestly would've preferred a brand new design, Skaði was just so wonderful in LB2. Especially since Ivan was kinda meh in LB1, so it really makes me look forward to the other Lostbelt Kings (Qin Shi Huang and Arjuna Alter. Both who I already love lmao) But yeah! Skaði being this kinda benevolent ruler who's doing everything she can to suppress Surtr's flames while trying to keep humans and giants from growing extinct due to her mother/goddess complex makes her so compelling to me. Also, LB2 focusing on women and the general theme of love was so touching. I didn't even care for her amazing gameplay, I was still gonna try for Skaði cause she was so great in Gotterdamerung.

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[radramblog]

posts of 2021

This is how the blog ends. Not with a bang, but with a meta. It’s fitting, I think.

We sit now at post number three hundred and sixty-five. One Full Year of posting. Unfortunately, I’d have to go for another 272 years to hit the dreaded power of one hundred thousand posts, and I don’t really plan on doing this until I’m literal dust.

Having to actually choose which of my own posts I liked most would be impossible. For one, I don’t remember all of them- though tumblr does have a relatively convenient archive function that makes it less difficult than it could possibly end up being to comb through them all. I have ones I am definitely proud of, and a few that I’ve gotten good comments (both on the site and irl) about, but even if I could vote for some of them I’d just have so much trouble killing my darlings. Well, like, a lot of them. Some of the posts are pretty bad.

With that in mind, I was wondering how else I could possibly discuss Posting in 2021. And fortunately, I found something of a solution- let the hands of the people decide (and by that, I mean some of the people and also whatever fucked-up algorithm Tumblr works using) and look at the most notable posts according to the site itself. That is, the ones with the most notes- likes, reblogs, comments, whatever.

None of them have that many. And that’s okay.

I think there was some part of me that desperately hoped that at some point, one of these posts would get spread around a bunch. That one of them would get caught in someone’s tag search and catch a reblog, then another, then more until I’d have to mute notifications or something. That obviously hasn’t happened, but I know so little about how this site functions from a user perspective that I feel comfortable appending a “yet” to that sentence.

One anonymous messenger told me that Tumblr as a platform was very “all-or-nothing” when it comes to visibility, and I can completely believe that. I’m pretty sure that unless you explicitly search for a tag, you aren’t going to see posts on your dash that aren’t from things you follow or reblogged by them. And I don’t exactly have that many followers (shoutout to all 32 of you!), nor do I follow literally anyone on this account- fun fact, I kinda don’t use tumblr in general, in case it wasn’t obvious.

Still, some of these posts somewhat caught on, so we take those. Not like they were meant for anyone else in the first place- I actually have no idea how well these read, because they basically don’t get edited beyond spellcheck. It’s called the ramblog because it’s a ramble blog, though I realise that my inclination towards the ovine makes it kinda look like it’s a bit more of a pun. That’s why they’re all (except the 11 I’ve apparently forgotten) tagged as #ramble!

Anyway, enough bullshitting. Fortunately, so I don’t have to search through the entire 365(+ admin posts) backlog, Tumblr does conveniently have a “year in review” thing that has a list of the top 5 posts noteswise. I’m not 100% sure it’s correct- the thing lists me having made 363 posts so far, which sent me into a brief spiral trying to figure out which day I missed.

(there are actually 369(nice) posts on this blog, because it includes the admin posts and the two from before this was what it is. But there are definitely 364 Actual Ramble Posts prior to this one)

So. What did the people want to read?

#5 (16 notes): “love me some fuckin toohoos” (March 21, 993 words)

 I have to assume this got spotted by people in the Touhou fandom proper, because it’s only got that as an unusual tag, and most people came straight to the post itself. It’s not a topic I ever really returned to, though- ultimately it’s a series I was definitively more into in high school than I am now or have been all year. I actually have no idea what exactly inspired it- prooobably seeing news about Unconnected Marketeers? That or checking my Steam Wishlist and remembering that basically every game in the series is on there.

The post itself kind of doesn’t hold up to my completely arbitrary standard, in my opinion. Mostly because I think I was trying largely to explain the series’s nature to a layman- and by that I mean my mates, who I thought were the most likely to read it, and thereby a lot of it is fairly basic stuff. Like, there’s a bit of looking at the impact of the series re: indie gaming and doujin culture, but not much, and that’s kind of a hugely important point to harp on about with the series. It’s a huge fucking deal, more than “some fuckin toohoos” belies, and I’m not sure that’s accurately represented here.

I still haven’t actually beaten any of the games save Phantasmagoria of Flower View, which arguably doesn’t count. Now that I actually own a legal copy of one of them, I might actually get around to doing it? If nothing else, I know it’ll be fun, if a tad frustrating.

 #4 (17 notes): “Every Boros Commander, Part 2” (January 9th, 1932 words)

I was actually pretty surprised by this one. Of all my allegedly 52 (damn that’s consistent) M:TG posts, why this one? It’s not like the part 1 is up there, is it- oh it’s also at 16 never mind. Honestly, while none of them (aside from these, apparently) are huge hits or anything, I think Magic was one of my topics where I’d much more consistently have one or two notes on most posts.

These “Every ___” posts were very much inspired by the weekly article series-es that one Joseph Megill writes on EDHREC, that I follow pretty religiously- essentially, taking a particular list of cards (planeswalkers, mana rocks, equipment, etc.), ranking them all by EDHREC usage, and then just. Going through them, 10 or so per week. I guess I just really like these listicles, because I spent a lot of time doing similar work, and getting well and truly out of hand in the process.

I did like having consistent themes to work on, though- saved the trouble of having to think of something to write. Like, even though I think these articles are on average really goddamn long, they actually didn’t take much longer if at all than a lot of other stuff, by simple nature of not having to think of a topic ahead of time, which always takes me for fucking ever. That, and I can do most of the writing and theorycrafting off-the-cuff, though to be fair, I do just about everything off the cuff on this blog.

(arguably one of the only things that’s not off the cuff is the Roxy post from earlier this week, and I’m so glad to see that making much more immediate traction than anything else because it was kind of a big thing for me)

Anyway. Magic is kind of in a weird place for me right now- I want to be playing more of it, but my opportunities to do so are either limited or frustrating, so I can’t really do much more than theorycraft. Sharehouse when? I will force my housemates to draft my cube, and they will learn to fucking enjoy it.

 #3 (20 notes): “and you don’t seem to understand” (January 6th, 873 words)

January sixth. The first goddamn week of this entire project. There is a slight bias towards the older posts on the blog, I think, but that’s probably just because they’ve had more time to get picked up.

In retrospect, this is such a weird fucking post. Kind of halfway simultaneously talking about Serial Experiments Lain, one of my favourite anime of all time, and Twilight, probably one of my favourite albums of all time, both connected through the song Duvet that opens both. I guarantee if I tried writing this now, I’d have rewatched a couple episodes of the show beforehand and listened through the entire album.

Anime is something I didn’t spend that long writing about in general. In part, that’s because the “anime fandom” is something I’ve kind of consciously avoided- even as much as I enjoy the medium, the stigma surrounding it is hard to shake, and i have been deep enough into it in the past to know that said stigma is arguably deserved. And I didn’t really want to alienate myself by talking about the stuff- at the end of the day, I can’t shake the idea that liking particular anime enough to write huge spiels about them is uncool. As if I’ve ever not been uncool.

Music, though, is something I’ve obviously spent ages discussing, and for good reason- I care a lot about it! And I have a lot of weird shit to share! And bôa is definitely an example of that. Honestly, I kind of want to go back to this album in my current, more detailed breakdown style- I’m still not sure if those are any good, for what it’s worth, but I feel better giving more attention to a piece of work when I’m sharing it to the world. Even in the cases where I end up shitting on some of the songs.

This post was born of me being unable to get Duvet out of my head. Top song of the year 2020, apparently, which did not surprise me at all at the time. It’s not even on this year’s list.

Wait, neither is Little Miss? What the fuck, me, that song goes.

 #2 (20 notes): “Halo Through its Guns: Halo CE” (September 1st, 1401 words)

 Man, this series. This is what finally got me to play Halo 5. Fucking hell.

The response to this post came quicker than I expected, which I think was part of what convinced me to buckle down and commit to the full series. That, and having half of it planned out ahead of time- I think the ones that weren’t quite as planned out are really obvious, though.

In part, I think this was inspired by Late Night Gaming’s video/series, The Evolution of Halo’s (weapon name here). Certainly, some of the ideas in this particular post were inspired by the Plasma Pistol video, which is very much to its benefit- I think this might be one of the strongest ones as far as analysis of game mechanics goes. But across the series, it kind of changed very much into something else.

There’s kind of no beating around the bush- the posts for Halo 5 and especially 4 were downright cathartic. The series was not intentionally building up to them, that was not a conscious decision, but it just kind of happened. 4 was a lot of opinions and emotion that had been simmering for a cool 9 years, and also something that had notes taken down and ideas toyed with for over a month at that point. And 5 was raw reaction, the result of both building something up in my head and of going into a game thinking “how bad could it possibly be” and, well, finding out. I’m still a little annoyed about how long I had to delay before said 5 post (something that also kinda made it seem like it had to be grander), but it just wasn’t a convenient time of year for driving half an hour to a mate’s place to borrow the old XBone.

I think I still might make an Infinite post at some point, once I’ve gotten to dive into more than the tutorial. While I may have gotten the game working a couple days ago, these last couple blog posts have taken a lot longer than they should, and also, it’s a busy time of year!

 So. What was the number goddamn one post of the year according to the whims of the masses? By over double as many hits as the last one? Um.

 #1 (43 notes): “have a plan to kill everyone you meet- Fallout New Vegas Genocide run notes” (January 16th, 1234 words)

 This is really confusing to me, actually. I mean, I guess it’s possibly one of the more useful ones, considering it straight up just has a walkthrough of how to do this dumb idea and part of how I worked out how all of it could work. In theory.

Ahh, fine, in practice. I definitely got, like, halfway through this before getting bored. Turns out a game like FNV is actually more fun if you talk to the characters instead of violently removing their body parts. So not only is this a weird walkthrough for a meme run of a game that actively avoids a lot of the best aspects of said game, not to mention the incredibly restrictive nature of the gameplay required to maximise the kill count to “every killable character except for three of them”, but doing it isn’t even that fun.

At the same time, it is kind of striking. “Genocide Run” is a concept that has taken off somewhat since, well, Undertale, and Fallout New Vegas is finally starting to get the cultural recognition it actually deserves. It’s one of the few games where the concept actually lines up kinda well to Undertale’s one in action- that is, it’s really grindy, mostly not hard at all except a few things, and because you’re killing all the interesting characters you don’t get to see all the interesting dialogue and plot. You do get to see some different plot elements, but at the end of the day, it’s still just going to end at Hoover Dam, but you have no friends this time.

At the end of the day, this is basically just a dumb idea that I took to its logical conclusion. And in a way, that’s kind of a metaphor for this entire blog project. So I suppose it’s fitting that this takes the number one spot.

 And that, uh. That does it, I guess. Dang.

 When I started this blog, a year ago, I definitely wasn’t confident that I’d actually make it through the other end. I didn’t think I’d manage a couple weeks of posting, let alone a few months, let alone the whole fucking year. And yet, here we are. It’s over. It’s complete. Fin.

Except, it’s not really over. I imagine I will cease posting completely at some point, but I still have things I want to talk about, ideas to explore, and maybe even things I’ll need to vent about. Obviously, it won’t be consistent, but hopefully this will mean I can put a bit more effort into the posts I do upload. If nothing else, I want to take a look at the year’s stats as far as word count goes (and notes)- and I might be halfway through harvesting that data already.

With that, I guess I bid thee adieu. Because I have to go get ready for the New Year’s party. Here’s hoping 2022 looks a bit better than 2021, and here’s hoping that I don’t have any more colossally silly ideas for new year’s resolutions. Or at the very least, have said ideas be a bit less time-consuming.

[mrgameandpie]

So hey, I’ve been drawing a lot of Joane Vemb lately, probably not gonna stop for a while, so now that y’all have seen her design (or what I’m capable of drawing of it, anyway) I may as well throw out some factoids about what she’s like!

I came up with Joane Vemb via a collision of two trains of thought.  For one, I really love both the Kirby and Mega Man series of videogames, and these series both share a central game mechanic in common: copying enemy abilities. Kirby copies regular enemies and tends to get powers that are often only tangentially related to what the specific enemy is capable of, having a wide variety of techniques for every ability. His main limitation is that when he gets hit he loses the ability he has (or has a chance of losing it depending on the game). Mega Man, meanwhile, copies only bosses, and the weapons he gets from them generally act exactly how the boss used the weapon and will only have on potential use. There are exceptions for both of those stipulations, but that’s the general rule of thumb.  Mega Man’s limitation is ammo, he can only use his special weapons so many times before they run out of shots and need to be refilled again.  Kirby can only have one copy ability on hand at a time (with the exception of during Milky Way Wishes and Kirby Squeak Squad) while Mega Man tends to get around 8 abilities he can switch between at will.  I looked at these mechanics, and thought, what if you put them together?  The ensuing concept was a game character that could absorb regular enemies, and get a slew of weapons associated with the enemy type.  So for example, lets say Kirby inhaled a fire enemy, and thus gained the ability to use Fire Storm, Atomic Fire, Pharaoh Shot, Flame Blast, Scorch Wheel, Flame Sword, Wave Burner, Magma Bazooka, and Solar Flare at will, but they all used the same ammo bar, and the only way to refill the ammo bar would be to gain a copy ability again.

The other train of thought requires much less explanation.  I find chubby women to be very aesthetically pleasing. I like sweetness and softness and a combination of both is absolutely fantastic.  However, I don’t generally see chubby women represented in media that often, and certainly never as the main starring role of an action/adventure story. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone when I say that it’d be nice to have more diversity among fictional characters in media.  As such, why not make our ability copying hero a chubby woman?  It’d certainly give the game a unique edge in the protagonist department right from the get-go!  There was also an element that games like Skullgirls and Shantae give basically every female character the same busty body type, while games like Touhou and Rabi Ribi give basically every female character the same moe body type, so what if I made a game where basically every female character had basically the same chubby body type?  I don’t think I’m gonna stick down that route, I’d imagine should I get to the point where the game is becoming a reality as a game it’ll have a wide assortment of body types, but still, it was something.

So hey, we got to see the early inspirations and conceptualizations for Joane, so what’s she actually like?  While most of this could change in the future at some point, this is the backstory I’ve got planned for her at this time.  The world we’re looking into has a variety of supering sources.  Super sciences, a variety of magic forces, extradimensional nonsense, the works.  As one might expect, most regions of the world have their own supervillains of the like always trying to take over.  Well, one day they all succeed practically simultaneously!  This is completely random happenstance, none of them were working together whatsoever.  So of course, now that these villains have taken over the region they’ve always sought after first, their next step in their world domination plan would be attacking eachother.  This climaxes in a huge battle where each force unleashes their Ultimate Weapons upon eachother, and what results is a massive vortex absorbing each of the weapons.  In just an instant, the backbone of each force’s capabilities disappear, resulting in a constant stalemate for an exceptionally long time on all fronts.  Out of this vortex, an infant appears, a baby Joane.  She was picked up and brought to a hidden civilization that raised her in a more peaceful situation than any place currently existing under the villains’ rule.  We skip forward to years later, and Joane is an adult with a full understanding of her abilities.  Due to the fact that her creation was the result of each faction’s greatest weapons being combined, her physical and magical biologies are unstable and flexible, allowing her to augment herself with any of the group’s weaponry, copying their abilities and powers.  Eventually, Joane decides that it’s time for her to do something, and goes out in the world with the intention of freeing the lands from their tyranny.

So we have our gal’s backstory, and that’s cool, but what about her as a person?  Well one thing to note is that she decides to go on this adventure of her own volition.  She has a unique birth into the world, certainly, but she’s not exactly a chosen one.  Nobody’s got any predestination “oh man you’ve gotta be the one to save the world” stuff going on.  Even within her family and community, nobody is particularly expecting her to go out and save the world herself.  Despite the fact that these empires have been continuing for well over 20 years, nobody within Joane’s community really takes them seriously.  “They’re not stable enough, they’ll collapse on themselves any day now!”  Well, Joane says any day now should be this day right now, and she’s gonna do something to make sure it is!  She cares about the people these empires are hurting, even if she hasn’t met them before, and she’s ready to use her incredible power to restore order and stability to the world.

Joane tends to be a sweet, positive person.  She believes in herself and she believes in you too!  Very little of what she says is ever mean-spirited, unless she sees someone as being particularly terrible, she can actually be something of a doormat to the people she particularly cares about.

If she wasn’t out adventuring and saving the world, Joane would definitely be a geologist.  She’s the kind of person to go out on a walk and just pick up pretty much any rock she sees.  She has a pretty big rock collection with only a few types of rocks due to the low variation found in the place she lives.  Maybe going on an adventure across the world will increase the variety in her collection!  She also has some interest in astronomy, mostly relating to how planets across the galaxy operate with the kind of rocks and minerals that would form given different planet densities, temperatures, and compositions.  In this regard she also has tangential knowledge of other studies like physics and chemistry, all areas she has a talent for.  Though ironically, despite her powers coming from her unique biology, that’s actually one of the few sciences she doesn’t have a natural knack for.

Joane tends to be a pretty silly person.  She loves laughter, both from others and from herself, and loves making people happy.  You can pretty easily expect her to make silly quips and puns for just about any situation she finds herself in, even if her life happens to be on the line.  Unsurprisingly, her favorite movies tend to be comedies.  She’s not afraid of being or looking ridiculous.  In fact, she kind of revels in it.  No matter how dark the world around her may become, Joane consistently acts as a light of positivity to look upon.

So, there you go, there’s some stuff about Joane Vemb.  Like I said near the beginning, a lot of this is liable to change over time, but I guess we can consider this something of a time capsule.  I hasn’t even been a full week yet since I came up with the character, and this is what I have so far.  Maybe in a few years this’ll all be totally different!  Either way, I’m gonna be working on this stuff quite a bit, so I hope y’all look forward to it!

[clarste]

Okay, so there’s been some controversy about this, and I recently talked to someone who misunderstood my reasons for stopping FS. First of all, this might have been way too early to make this announcement. We haven’t even gotten an official press release yet. Second of all, we’re in the middle of this first (and only?) major arc of the series, and basically I’m leaving everyone on a huge cliffhanger. Which wasn’t my intention; I didn’t think about that at all, actually. So, uh, sorry. My bad. I handled this very poorly.

Anyway, while I don’t feel like taking it back right now, if only because I would be dropping it again later for the same reasons, I have spoken to people who plan on finishing this arc, at the very least. So if that’s your concern, as a reader, you can probably rest easy. You won’t be waiting 3 years to find out what happens with Kosuzu and Yukari.

That said, a lot of people I’ve spoken to have talked about this as “drama”. As if my announcement has necessarily created a lot of “drama” that I have to deal with, from upset fans and the like. But that’s not how I feel at all. Mostly I’ve gotten a wave of thanks and support that’s frankly caught me completely off guard. It’s been an experience that can only be described as heartwarming.

When I made the announcement, I honestly didn’t expect people to care that much. I just figured it was something people should know. But now everyone’s acting like I’m retiring (which is weird because I’m still doing WaHH and VFiS) and telling me how much they respect me or look up to me or whatever, or that they’re worried if Yen Press can live up to the standard of quality I set, and, well, I didn’t realize that anyone cared about me? I’ve been giggling uncontrollably for the past day or so. So, uh, yeah. Thanks, everyone. Unexpectedly, this has meant a lot to me. And if you insulted me, well, I love you guys too. I’m glad you like Touhou.

I am left with this weird feeling that I tricked you somehow though, like I planned my own funeral to see who would show up, but seriously, that wasn’t my intent.

[sittschowrites]

Writing Schedule — October 2018

First off all, as previously stated on Twitter, I will be trying out quarterly schedule updates from here on out. Maybe I'll finally manage to hit a "deadline" or two that way...

Now, with the release of the next RWBY volume around the corner, the main focus for the next couple of months is pretty straight forward: RWBYNov.

The plan is to push an update for the main story in time with every new release of an episode, starting with the revisions for the second and third part followed by the "brand-new" fourth part (which is only about two years late...).

Beyond that, I plan on reviving what was supposed to be last year's Christmas special for this year's holiday season, which was a series of short stories introducing a Fairy Tail AU focused on Erza and Mira (who, in my opinion, should have been the main characters of that show).

And by Christmas special I mean something to be released over the holidays, not something with a Christmas theme. (Transposing holidays, especially religious ones, into universes where they have no place existing is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. It should never be done...)

Additionally, I have picked up and worked on several new-ish obsessions since the last update, which may or may not reach the showcase stage as side projects:

Touhou (Kaguya/Mokou, romantic)

Not actually a new obsession by any means but one I've finally made some progress on. I have outlines for an introductory story establishing the core relationship as well as several of the games' plot lines altered to include Kaguya, Mokou, or both.

I do love those two girls and their rather intense love-hate relationship, but for some reason that I don't quite understand, there is a drought of stories about them out there (at least in the English-speaking world) even though they feel like they should be the premiere pairing as far as Touhou is concerned.

Supergirl (Kara/Lena, romantic)

What an absolute train wreck of a show. Seriously, I haven't even made it through the first season yet and that is supposed to be the "good" one while everything beyond seems to be universally hated (Mon-el, apparently, is a bigger douche than Sun, which is hard to believe), and aside from a few clips, I haven't actually seen Lena on screen yet, but from what I have seen, Kara and Lena stand somewhere halfway in between Regina and Emma, and Korra and Asami, both of which happen to be among my favorite pairings.

I just couldn't help sketching out a few story lines for them while skimming over what other people have written, and it feels like one of those shows that really needs its story and how it treats its characters "fixed." (And I want to turn Lena into Tony Stark, high-tech combat suit and all...)

Also, it does go hand in hand with the next point on the list:

Teen Titans (Raven/Jinx, romantic; Raven/Terra, platonic)

I'm not a comic book person by any means---in fact, I quite dislike superhero stories in general---but Teen Titans just hit a nerve with young me and stuck with me over the years. More specifically, Raven is easily one of my favorite characters of all time, and I have been planning on working with her almost for as long as I've been writing stories...

Not being a comic book person, I do lack a lot of background about the convoluted universe created by DC, and fans will probably complain a lot about my rendition, but I do have several story arcs loosely based on the show plotted out, starting with the dawn of the Titans and going all the way past Raven turning proper demon lord. While the earlier parts would be more focused on being ensemble pieces (especially the first arc), the main focus, eventually, would be Raven's friendship with Terra and romance with Jinx.

I also like the possibilities for crossovers between Supergirl and Teen Titans as they both are technically set in the same universe. (Or parallel universes, which is a distinction easily enough to ignore.)

My Little Pony/Equestria Girls (Sunset/Sci-Twi, romantic)

In case anybody has been wondering why I haven't released much of late (not that anybody would), it might have to do with me "wasting" my time reading pretty much every Sunset/Twilight story ever written and plotting out a whole bibliography of stories spanning both the human and the pony universe.

Sunset is just too awesome a character not to love and she doesn't really get enough of the main character treatment in the actual show. There's always a Twilight around to upstage her even in her own universe and her stories always seem to play out the same way: Sunset looses friends for arbitrary reasons, Sunset mopes around about not having friends, Sunset learns a lesson about friendship, Sunset regains friends.

It's very repetitive, boring, and it doesn't do her character justice, which is why I have outlines for all the Equestria Girls stories as well as several of the major Friendship is Magic arcs revamped (and moved about on the timeline) around Sunset taking a starring role that doesn't just revolve around "making friends" but around her actually doing something.

On the romantic side I used to be a bit torn. I was perfectly happy pairing Sunset with Princess Twilight and I tend to stick with my first choice no matter what other characters come along, but human Twilight is just a better fit overall. With Princess Twilight, Sunset is the mentee, with human Twilight, she's the mentor in the relationship, which is a role that just feels more appropriate. (And they are kind of the same person anyway...)

Also, alicorn Sunset (eventually) with blood ties to Celestia. I mean, how could I not. Her backstory just becomes so much more interesting to play with if she is Celestia's daughter rather than some random, albeit gifted, personal student, and she bloody well deserves those wings for all the crap she had to go through.

I'm also quite fond of Rayla and Claudia from The Dragon Prince, but there just isn't enough material of that show or those characters around yet to actually work with. Maybe in a season or two. Besides, I'm pretty sure I've already put more on my plate than I can handle...

[antagonist-chan]

I kinda want to make a series where I just rant for a little while about franchises that I love to people who don’t know them?

Because, like, I spend an absurd amount of time fantasizing about conversations that I haven’t had yet, and 45% of the time, the topic is “me explaining franchises that I love to people who don’t know them” (another 20% of the time is actually showing off stuff from these franchises, like showing them episodes of Transformers or whatever; ANOTHER 20% is me explaining my own stories; and the remaining 15% is me talking about whatever the fuck). And, hey, sometimes I actually make posts about it.

And, like, why not make these into videos? I’d just have to make posts like that, actually revise them to make them actual analysis videos instead of just rambling (and I probably wouldn’t change them THAT much- making it at least a LITTLE bit rambly would take less work, be more unique, and better show my passion), voice them (and I’m working on training my voice to be more feminine anyways- for a while, I was scared of using my voice for anything because I wanted to wait until my voice was feminine enough, but I’m realizing more and more that in order for my transition to happen as soon as possible, I need to do things before I’m actually ready for them, so forcing myself to narrate something would be good for that), and make video footage to go along with my ramblings (and Adobe Premiere should help with that).

And, like, it’d all be about various things that I absolutely love.

So, some hypothetical episodes would include:

An Intro to the Transformers franchise - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to Vocaloid - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to the Hyperdimension Neptunia series (AKA the Neptune series) - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to Mass Effect - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (AKA JoJo No Kimyou Na Bouken) - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to Haruhi Suzumiya (AKA The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to Doctor Who - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to Touhou Project - Antagonistic Ramblings

An Intro to StarCraft - Antagonistic Ramblings

And, like, this wouldn’t be a series focused on being super accurate or informative- there are far better people out there for that. No, this series would just be me explaining why I love various series’. And, like, they’d be written primarily with non-fans in mind, but I’d also try to make sure that my fellow fans will be able to enjoy them, too, and maybe either gain a new perspective on the series OR find a kindred spirit in me.

And, like, all of the episodes above would be good choices, because they’re all things that are at least a little bit obscure (yes, Doctor Who has completely taken over England, and most people in America have at least heard of it, but it’s still in a place where it’s totally understandable for someone to not know jack shit about it other than that it exists; similarly, despite the fact that the Transformers movies are all smash hits, the franchise as a whole tends to be so ignored that lots of people- lots of usually well-informed people, even- are under the misconception that the Transformers franchise stopped existing after G1 ended and didn’t come back until Bay came along), things that are incredibly rich and full of things to analyze, and things that I really, really love and want to display my love for.

Honestly, I think this’d be a good way to help refine my style as an artist, create something that I want to create, and not put too much effort into, all without being all that intimidating because it’d literally just be fleshing out something that I often mindlessly do anyways.

[ol-razzle-dazazzle]

Old Adam Bar and the Idiot's Train