#but to its credit the games have gorgeous music

[scribz-ag24]

2, 5, and/or 10?

2. Pixel art is a win for me, the portraits in DS had SO much charm. the 3d models do a good job translating the emotions but... there's sth missing. Although credit where credit is due, the watercolour style in RTDX is GORGEOUS, and its official art even more so. Also, in terms of the story i think Gates and Super are actually superior in some ways, especially in world building and in, uh, not having a Darkrai-type final boss.

5 (i had to look up the pokedex bc i remember few pokemon from alola and didnt even play gen 8 wefnoief3oi)

From gen 7 i'd say Rockruff is a given, but I think Bounsweet or Mudbray could be good choices too.

From Gen 8, I have only known Chewtle for 3 minutes but if its not in the next MD game I will kill everyone in this room and then myself.

Although seeing PSMD's hero/partner choices, I don't know if a new game would add more pokemon outside starter lines except riolu and/or eevee.

10. the easy answer here would be se5 lol, love wins.

but I think Gates has the hardest-hitting ending of the saga. Somehow that finale keeps hitting me with the same emotional weight as the first time, unlike the rest of endings. there's sth about how it's shown, its dialogue, its music and the stakes it presents that simply work for me perfectly.

[gildasfantasy]

Id really like to credit my friend panda for helping me out on editing my story because they noticed mistakes I made <3 besides I'd like to have new ideas so it you guys want me to do something new like, new ships or share your plot ideas it'd be great !! I do oc/yn X any character from any show and game and fluff+nsfw+angst ect!!

First times in a relationship's can be scary especially if everytime you've had sexual contact, it wasn't filled with love you so desperately craved

Husk and angel had formed a friendship after their bonding near the bar that night, it was clear to everyone that there was more than friendship between the two and after awhile they made their attraction be known and a loving relationship blossomed between them but they promised to never let this relationship out the hotel to reach the ears of Valentino, angels boss. Many months has passed since they made it official and they found themselves at the 8 month mark, husk being the awkward romantic he is, he wanted it to be something immensely special for angel just to show how much he genuinely loved him.. Husk examined the stores down the pathways of the somewhat busy area but no matter how hard he searched all he could find was bondage stores, lingerie stores ect; and he didn't want that, he didn't want angel to think he was just like all the rest of the men he had to deal with and additionally, husk wasn't a big.. sex fiend.. sure he got urges but he had boundaries and the thought of leather wear and overly threatening sex felt disgusting to him, so he despised these types of stores..eventually after a long day of trying to search he sighed, he'd been to every ring, even the lust ring, but still he hasn't found what he felt was right for angel, what was he supposed to get for someone that gorgeous? He was down on his luck til he heard two strangers talking down the sidewalk as if they were married and raised his head to look at the imps. One imp had black hair, 'a girl' he noted absent-mindedly, and the other imp had white hair, 'a guy'." 'excuse me? Sorry, I don't mean to listen in on you folks but am I right to assume you're both..?" "Together? Yea we're married' the white haired imp spoke, his voice kind of scratchy that made husks ears twitch ever so slightly, 'great! I need help, me and my boyfriends 8 month mark is comin' up and I can't find anything romantic.. everywhere I look it's just.. sex novels or over-the-top sexual stores.'

The black haired imp girl spoke excitedly, her southern accent bounced off of her husband's demeanor like a bouncy-ball on a whiteboard "Well hi thereee! You're alright to ask, sugar —"

"I'd suggest checkin' out LooLoo Land stores! Even though its a theme park they have the gosh darnedest cutest things, my mox got me a thang from there!' 'christ' husk thought to himself, already he formed a headache solely because of her loud voice but despite it, he thanked her, she was kind enough to help "thanks" *his deep voice grumbled but his expression was as if he were genuinely trying to force an awkward smile and eventually they changed paths and husk found himself on the way to the infamous looloo land, loud blaring music and the sound of kids screaming and crying made husk furrow his brows and groan but it was worth it to find something angel could love..perhaps after an hour of searching he found it.. a stand filled with stuffed animals and one caught his eye immediately.. a white bear with crossed out red eyes stitched in along with round red cheeks at each side of its smile,

he knew it'd be beyond perfect for his angel and he threw a coin at the stand-man, a determined look plastered on his face. Husk picked up the toy-gun and shot water at the wooden stands. No matter the amount of times he hit them though, the standman rigged the game and after draining his coin pocket dry, Husk had enough and tackled the man. Pulling him close by the collar and holding a sharp claw up to his neck. "Give me the fuckin' bear." He growled, and while he would usually never lose his composure, he was not going to let that bear be dangled in front of him. Feeling the man shudder with a nod, he backed away to let him grab his prize; the bear and his money back in full. He loved it, the texture of the bear and the way it felt on his fur made him know Angel would adore it. A proud look made its way to his face subtly and he walked out of the park happily, believing that to be enough from LooLoo land today. he deserved everything. Angel deserved the universe, in Husk's eyes and as he walked, he found his eyes gravitating towards a jumper on the way back home. It was beautiful; the jumper was white with flowers trailing up the sleeves in pink stitching and a heart cutout on the chest and on the back. It looked as if it was made for Angel, with a lighter wallet and a newfound bag in his claws, along with a bouquet of Devil-Eye flowers (Mammon Special!) he made his way back home. Husk smiled as he walked through those hotel doors and stood in front of sir pentiouses big portrait on the wall and sighed. "Wish me luck, buddy." he muttered as he made his way to the second floor of the hotel and faced the door of Angel's room, staring at the picture of his boyfriend and their friends. It made Husk's heart melt and his fur grow hot at the beauty of Angel. with courage that took a few minutes to tame, he twisted the doorknob and opened it to see his Angel sitting with a book in his top hands. He cleared his throat lowly and watched as Angel perked up and smiled, "Whiska's! Ya made it!" he said In disbelief

lord, Angel adored husk more than afterlife itself

He knew Husk was genuine, but a part of him still doubted he'd show up for their 8th month. He was pleasingly surprised to be wrong as he pecked both sides of Husk's face and massaged his fingers into his cheek fluff and slid them up to scratch behind his ears; causing Husk to purr and melt lovingly into his touch and for his leg to ever so slightly start thumping "ah what's this then husky, this fa' mee?" Angel said teasingly, his tone joking to ready himself to be wrong. Angel couldn't believe it, he nervously took the gifts and smiled at the bouquet 'husk' he spoke 'i don't know what ta' say..' his voice seemed much softer as he sat down in his bed, the silk curtains draped up and the pink lighting above set such a pretty tone to the scene.. he placed the flowers down against his bedside table before taking a look at the jumper, sliding straight into it and it fit so perfectly. Husk could barely believe his eyes, all four arms fit so perfectly and angel suited it so well, it made husk feel hot N heavy, his cheeks slightly pink tinted 'i knew you'd like it ange' " he smiled softly just before angels tears slipped, his hand covering one side of his face to wipe his tears.. husk didn't know how to respond, 'aye what's wrong ange'.. do you not like it? I can take it bac-" "no!- no I love it I just.. didn't.. expect it' he admitted with a smile.. the two of his arms connected to his waist wrapped around himself like a self hug.. his heart was racing and in that moment husk was the only one he cared for, the only one he ever wanted to be with and die with.. he placed a kiss against husks lips, but it was soft, like their lips had barley even touched.. and before he could respond again he made contact with the bear husk had 'won' for him and got ecstatic "huska' it looks like me' awh you big-' he immediately wrapped his arms around husk and buried his cheek into his head, his fingertips stroking his cheek.. Husk laughed and held angels back to pull him closer, like this hug wasn't enough contact for him.. in the moment it's like a piece of a puzzle finally clicked and he took a deep breath, pulling away and holding one of angels hand 'i.. want.. you to know I'm ready' he smiled and this confused angel, 'ready fa' what huskie..' he responded like his heart dropped to his stomach 'to be intimate with you' he whispered, his eyes drifting up to meet angels gaze 'oh.. huska' don't force ya'self for lil ol' me.. I can wai-" "no, I want this.. I want you but I don't know.. what, I'm doing.. I'm scared I'll embarrass myself y'know' he sighed as he traced his fingers through his hair to push it back, a huff leaving his lips and his eyelashes fluttering shut to avoid angels stare 'aright then but.. I.. can help, we all start somewhere yaknow?'

It'd been awhile since husk had been intimate with anyone, the last time he did he was alive and walking earth, but this felt so different because he WANTED to be perfect for angel.. so he smiled and took his boyfriends hands, and kissing him, a passionate, gentle kiss that burned straight through with not just love but lust too, for once angel felt genuinely... Turned on by the thought of sex and he slowly shuffled down, propping himself up on his bottom elbows while his other arms hoisted around husks neck, the dim room only lit by the pink lighting above angels bed had made it feel so much more perfect, husk, being the nervous guy he was didn't know where to touch him so instinctively he moved his hands up to hold angels chest fluff and immediately angel pushed back, panting with only drool stringing their lips together, 'shit, I'm sorry' husk said immediately before angel shook his eyes, eyes wide and breath heavy 'nono, husk it's okay I just want expecting it, it's hard to..' husk frowned and lay flat against angel, his head against his chest fluff 'we don't have to do this ange' trust me I'm not a sex-maniac, I'll wait til you can feel safer with this whole thing' he spoke reassuringly, his hands moving up to hold angels cheeks, swirling his thumb just under his eye 'husk, it's fine, I want this but it's hard to.. know what people are gonna do when all I've ever been through was abuse and unconsenting touchy sex yaknow..' 'yea I know sweetheart' husk lifted himself up a little, angels legs around his waist as he peppered soft kisses down his neck towards his arms 'ill be gentle with you my love.. let me show you what love is, trust me, all I ever want to make you feel is my love'

And with that angel smiled and nodded, his head slowly cocking back as a sign of angel giving himself over to husk, at this point they could hear their own heartbeats as well as each others heartbeat, the sensuality raising the heat through the roof as husk slipped off angels shorts..his hand sliding down his hips and down his v-line til eventually he found himself grasping at angels cock, slowly moving his hand in a up and down motion while undressing himself, angels moans felt like music to his ears, knowing he was capable of actually making angel feel good sent knots of love and lust into his gut and he craved so much more..

but at the same time, watching angels face, his brows furrow and his mouth agape, his pretty waist jolting up and his hips bucking into husks touch as if he wanted more friction, god he looked gorgeous like that and husk let his desires take control. He pulled his hand away and slid his arms under angels back with his palms behind angels head, fingers interlocked into his hair before finding himself entering angels hole, a groan leaving his lips while angel wrapped his arms around husk, their bodies close enough to make the heat somehow hotter, angel seemed to grip onto husks fur and pull like he needed even closer so husk obliged and pushed himself up against angel, his head buried in his chest fluff and loud purrs alongside moans escaped his lips, he was quite the sensitive man, not very aggressive dominant, and angel adored it, The shockwaves of love being pumped into angel overwhelmed him, when it was more loving, it just felt better to angel, he let this pleasure be known via his whimpers, moans, cries, whispered begs for more, not just that but his body reacted so strangely.. his legs twitched and perked up sometimes and his hips arched upwards, the spiders hands gently stretching behind husks ears 'good kitty' angel whispered 'fuck, my god' hmmnph.." be cried out quietly all the while husk slowly thrusted into angel, his dick twitching inside angel causing a reaction from both of them, husker tightened his hug like grip on angel, holding him closely 'i love you, i love you, god.. i love you angie..' he moaned in chants, his hips bucking and his hands squeezing his hair, gently tugging at it as he opened his mouth, drooling a little as he did so.

Angel let his head fall back and succumbed to husks movements and words, his eyes slowly drifting backwards and eventually his moans became so loud that they clogged his throat sometimes, he was choking on his own pleasure.. his legs squeezing around husks waist and his hands unable to comprehend where to hold next. He wanted all of husk so he tried to speak through his moans despite the struggle 'i love ya.. t..oo..gh..whiskas" he whined out just as he felt himself release on his own chest..his hand moving up to cover his mouth and muffle his pretty moans.. and the sight of that to husk sent electricity down his guts, and almost like a wild animal, his last thrusts became power filled and he moved his arms from under angel, he found himself squeezing under angels thighs while also lifting them up a little, and let himself vunerabalise, his semen filling angel quickly. He forgot how good it felt to be intimate like that with someone and it was enough to make them both moan while hugging at eachother tightly.. the relaxation setting in while they gently rode their high out together "Christ" husk huffed through a chuckle, slowly pulling away from angel and sitting up, his eyes focusing on the quite red and lovely spider Infront of him.. he finally faced his fear and he did it, he let himself be that vulnerable with someone, "You ain't gonna leave are ya?' angel said almost nervously, despite his broken speaking and loud breathing, there was a sense of seriousness and scarseness to it 'what? No, no, baby, I'm just gonna get ya something to eat.. I ain't gonna just have sex with ya and not treat ya like a prince after' he reassured while standing up, sliding on a dark red robe he left behind the last time he went to angels, a smile forming from ear to ear that made angel feel easy 'ya really doin' that fa' me?' he spoke back as he pulled up the silk bedsheets, not taking his eyes of husk the entire time.

'of course ange, sweetheart, you deserve it' husk responded while leaning in and laying a kiss on angels forehead

[megamindsecretlair]

Get To Know Me Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @nerdieforpedro 😚 for anyone who cares, here's a bit about me! 🥹

General rule: I may overshare in dms and authors notes sometimes but Im generally a private person 🤣 to the point Ive lost friends over it. ive been working with my coworkers for 3 years and they dont know shit about me 🤣 I juss really love yall and feel safe with yall so here we go!

1. Were you named after anyone?

No. My mom didnt want our names to announce who we were on applications so we all got regular smegular names. My name is of Irish origin so my yt folks customer service voice got ppl thinkin I have red hair. I mean....technically yes but its buried under my braids 🤣

2. When was the last time you cried?

At the end of The Marvels. The first end credit had me in real, actual tears. On a more serious note, I last cried before my grandma died. Yall, its fn hard being a caretaker. I was not built Ford Tuff.

3. Do you have kids?

*ahem* 🗣🗣 fuck no! 🤣🤣🤣 I dont even have nieces or nephews. Kids make me nervous and Im pretty sure they can smell the fear on me. 🤣

4. What sports do you play/ have you played?

I played basketball and softball in HS. I love and miss softball all the time even though my big behind HATES running.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Sarcasm is one of my love languages. I put that shit on everything 🤣 Physical Touch is my main one since we sharing.

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Ooof, tough. Depends. Some quirk like glasses, lisp, moles. How they walk/talk, the way they laugh. I am a lurker by trade. Overly shy kid and writer by nature will do that to ya.

7. What is your eye color?

Dark brown. When that sun hits 🫠🫠🫦

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

I am a HUGE scaredy cat. I dont do scary movies nothin! Happy endings over here! 🤸🏽‍♀️ I will enjoy a thriller but only behind my hands and mostly starring Matthew Lillard.

9. Any talents?

.....no? I have a bunch of useless knowledge or trivia that no one asked for but ya gonna get 🤣 . Juss realized writing is considered a talent 😭 so that too 🤣

10. Where were you born?

US, West Coast baybeee

11. What are your hobbies?

Obvs, writing. Reading, sewing, cons, tarot, tv, listening to music, video games (xbox, switch, PC girlie) , Marvel. Marvel is a hobby. I will talk your ear off. That is both a threat and a promise 😚

12. Do you have any pets?

I have two gorgeous Boston Terriers who run me into the ground every day. Idk why my mom thought two was okay 🫠🫠 my Black ass tide 🥲 👏🏽

13. How tall are you?

Fun sized 5'3 and a half 👏🏽👏🏽🤣 pear shaped. I got ass for days but in the itty bitty titty committee. 😭😭😭😭😭

14. Favorite subject in high school?

Definitely English. My English teacher was so fine 🥲🥲 thats not WHY it was my fave but can ya blame me 😩 I loved reading the books but I hated the themes they shoved down our throats. What if that wasnt MY interpretation of the book??? Hmmm? Some faves include: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Teacake 🥵🥵🥵), Brave New World, Bright Lights Big City (probably where my love of second person is from) , Bronx Masquerade, and The Outsiders. And FUCK the Great Gatsby. If I hear about that damn green light one 👏🏽 mo 👏🏽 fn 👏🏽 time 👏🏽😩😡 and FUCK Of Mice and Men, he aint have to do all that in the end. And DOUBLE FUCK I Know Why the Caged Bird sings. Turned my stomach when she described the SA. Lemme stop 🥴

15. Dream Job?

Writer. I will publish, I will be successful, and I will live the life I want. I claim it 😩 on my Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, Danielle Allen shit 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Whew! That was fun 😭🤣

No pressure tags: @mybonafidefeelings @bratzmaraj @braverthanthenewworld @multiversefanfics @chaos-4baby @westside-rot @saturn-rings-writes @notapradagurl7 @wide-nose-and-wonderful @blowmymbackout @blackerthings @harmshake @targaryenvampireslayer and who wants to do one. I love learning bout my moots.

[preyed-llama]

For the record, Jonathan Sims didn’t write Slay the Princess, he was hired to to voice work for it. No one at Black Tabby Games have ever said he had any input in the writing process. Thanks for the game should go to to them.

Oh I know. I meant the voice acting. Hearing the narrator, skeptic, paranoid and smitten at once made my brain just collapse in on itself. His intonation and pacing for each of them means they feel like different characters.

But you’re right, I made that post while caught up in voice acting and I should’ve credited the whole creative team instead of focusing on an element of it. The art is incredible and flawless, shout out to Abby Howard for the gorgeous and unique designs in each run which make the princess just so visually stunning.

The music by brandon Boone is wonderful and makes the growing tension and each route feel so captivating. And the actual written story by Tony Howard-Arias and Abby Howard (again) was so creepy and heart breaking and funny and it is wonderful. The prose paints such beautiful pictures that you can’t help but fall in love.

The game is wonderful in all parts of its creation.

[no-sabo]

Alexander's Top 10 Games of 2023

#10: Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 is landing on my list de panzazo because I didn't play enough of Baldur's Gate to include it. Act 1 gang, rise up!

It's tough trying to find the same hype that I had playing Street Fighter IV on the Xbox 360. I don't think I ever put as much hours trying to get good at a fighting game since and I don't think I ever will. This isn't to say that I don't think 6 is as good. My main thing is that I don't think I'll ever be in that kind of place in my life, or have the same friends with the same free time. Getting older is so wack. Street Fighter 6 is cool as hell, though.

#9: Venba

I think for immigrants Venba's themes are well worn ground. Food is perhaps the most powerful anchor to one's culture. Venba is beautiful, touching, and deeply relatable to me as a first born child of immigrant parents.

Make sure you eat something before jumping into this one. I'm pretty sure I ordered Indian food the day after.

#8: A Space for the Unbound

I don't think there's a game on my list with such a stark difference with the level of enjoyment I had between the narrative and the actual play. At times A Space for the Unbound can be extremely tedious.

A lot of the play involves solving puzzles, usually with a pen and paper at hand. That stuff can be nice, however the brief but constant loading in between areas really strained my patience. There's also empty calories in the form of fetch quests that trip up the pacing.

In the end, once credits rolled, those complaints melted away. It's a gripping fantasy story about community, bullying, domestic abuse, anxiety, and depression wrapped in gorgeous, detailed pixel art. And there's an achievement for petting all the cats.

#7: Hi-Fi Rush

Hi-Fi Rush feels like the remake to a long lost Sega game that they developed for the Xbox during their messy Dreamcast console exit. It's tough for me to describe why it's on here. I think I just genuinely miss this tier of game existing. Like, this game had fucking music from Zwan in it. Zwan.

I don't know, man. It's a vibe. It's really well animated, the characters are bright and goofy, and the rhythm infused third person action combat smacks.

I think this was the first game I completed on my Steam Deck in 2023. Actually, I think it's the first game I beaten front to back on it period?

#6: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

I know it's in to trash the New Super Mario Bros. games but I genuinely never had any strong positive feelings for that first DS game and it only lead to further my resentment for that series. They just made so damn many of them.

Mario Wonder, with its Wile E. the Coyote ass animations is so damn refreshing. I think this is probably the best implementation of the self governed difficulty levels, too. A kid can breeze through a lot of these levels, but being a completionist can get brutal in a satisfying kind of way. It's just so nice to be excited for a 2D Mario game again.

#5: Mediterranea Inferno

Part visual novel, part art-house movie, Mediterranea Inferno takes you on vacation with three Italian twinks trying to move past their Covid-19 lock-down trauma. It's funny at times, but quickly veers into some deeply uncomfortable situations. Also, it can get spooky.

It's an important game, but please heed the content warnings.

#4: Eternights

There's something alluring to me about the Persona Social Link system and any time a game decides to mess with that kind of thing I'm game to give it a shot. Eternights' main sell was "dating action game", so, there it is.

The gist here is there's an apocalypse and your player character gets his arm cut off and replaced with a magical one that can transform into, I think, anything? It's a sword for 98% of the game that you use to kill monsters. It's in third person and for the most part it's an OK action game. You get a skill tree and all that and your buds help you fight, though I think the combat truly shines in the back quarter of the game.

The game's whole thing is that you've got a time limit for when a dungeon has to be completed and you can either choose to progress through it or spend time with your friends, who are mostly female.

Now, to my surprise there is a male character that joins your crew late in game who can serve as a love interest and I was curious to see how that would play out given the homophobia present in the games with which it was inspired by.

The same sex story is, I feel, the most interesting route. It flips the corny harem trope on its head and you get what I believe is the most touching and fulfilling end given that character's relationship to the plot. It's respectful in a way the rest of the game wouldn't suggest it.

At some point in the story your characters are falling from up high and to save everyone the player character turns his arm into a bra parachute because in a quick panic he remembers seeing them on one of the girls in your group. It's childish as hell to be sure, but there's a lot of heart here and I can't wait to see what this one man studio does next.

And I'd like to request for more RPGs to be sub-20 hours like this one. It does wonders for pacing.

#3: Jusant

I kinda' just melted into Jusant. This game is gorgeous and the danger free climbing was so meditative during some really dark and ongoing political unrest. It feels selfish to even say this but it felt good to get home and get lost in something that provided very little consequence.

Fuck Joe Biden and free Palestine.

#2: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Sega can keep Jet Set Radio. Team Reptile understood the assignment.

Look, there's a lot you can do to modernize Jet Set and I'm sure Sega's got their top engineers on it but fuck all that. This shit with its simplified graphics runs at 90 FPS on my Steam Deck. It's got all the vibes down and it manages to improve on the mobility and graffiti systems.

Like Hi-Fi Rush I just miss this tier of game but, like, x10 for this specific series. It improves on the concepts of the games that inspired it. I was eating here.

#1: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I don't think I have the capacity to express what Breathe of the Wild meant to me when I first played that game back in 2017. It's gotta' be my favorite game of all time. At least, it was? Still is? It's a toss up. Both Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild have surprisingly different philosophies and it sort of depends on how I'm feeling. All this to say that Tears of the Kingdom is a genuine master piece.

I'm sitting here trying to think of where to even begin. Is it the physics driven world that doesn't seem to break no matter what nonsense you throw at it? Do I talk about the fact that this is the most touching Zelda story to date? How about how the Colgera boss fight theme smacks? Why does this game look so good off like 2011 hardware?

Tears of the Kingdom embodies play. It begs you to be curious and creative. A sanbox with a capital S. My favorite game of 2023 and favorite game period?

Best Games of 2022 in 2023

2023 was stacked, but I had to make room for some stuff that I missed the previous year. If I do this list again the 2023 in 2024 section is gonna' be a damn mess.

Melatonin

I played Melatonin in December of 2023 and it came out December of 2022. i'm so sad it took me a whole year to check it out.

It's got cozy little Rhythm Heaven-like micro games that take place within an insomniac's melatonin infused dreams. It's dripping in pastels and good vibes.

Each level, or "night", has 4 or 5 stages that you navigate kind of like a Mario overworld. You'll walk to, say, the "Work" stage where it runs you through a brief tutorial. There you get a feel for the song and the beats you need to match with button presses. Once you get through that it begins your real run. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I like it a lot. The visuals are super pleasant and it's really satisfying when you nail those perfectly timed button presses to the beat of the music. I only just started it but felt compelled to throw it on here.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me

This one's tough to talk about. I feel like I don't need to be taking up oxygen in this conversation.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me is a short Game Boy game about sex work and trauma. This game isn't enjoyable, but it is profound and important.

Again, please heed the content warnings.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

If this game had come out in 2023 it would be my number 2.

You begin life on a colony as a 10 year old. You, your parents, and the other colonists escape an Earth on the brink of collapse and crash land on a barely habitable planet. From there you live your life through to adulthood, making choices along the way that affect you, your friends, and the overall colony.

There's a card system that carries a lot of your decision making as a sort of stand in for something like a skill check or a random dice roll. You obtain cards through specific actions and relationships. It's not the greatest mechanic but it's serviceable and feeds well into the gameplay loop.

The game ends when your character turns 20 where your story concludes in one of many different outcomes, but that's not where it stops. The game has a time loop mechanic. You're meant to roll back in on a NG+ and see a lot of the different ways the game could end where you're meant to "fix" mistakes you made in your first playthrough. It works really well and is a core part of the experience.

I binged this game for a whole weekend. I could not put my Steam Deck down. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is Young Adult fiction at its peak and in a year full of platitudes, "one of my all time favorites" feels like it has very little meaning, but man this one of my all time favorites.

[appears]

25th Anniversary

Faye Wong: Eyes On Me (1999.02.24)

While I'm not much of a gamer now, I used to play video games a lot when I was in grade school, and my top two favorite game franchises of all time also reflect two of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time: the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy, composed by Stewart Copeland (and famously, tragically, never officially released in either physical or digital format until very recently), and Final Fantasy VIII, composed by the prolific Nobuo Uematsu, who wrote the music for the Final Fantasy franchise in whole or in part through Final Fantasy XI.

Besides the gorgeous orchestral arrangements that make up the bulk of the soundtrack's sprawling four discs, there was also a notable vocal version of the central love theme. The central romantic story line in FFVIII was a notable game-changer for many young people who might not have found any reason to play video games before, bringing in many new players who would grow up to help expand the demand for alternative gaming, so its importance cannot be understated. The love theme between the characters Squall and Rinoa (and Laguna and Julie/Raine) was sung by ultra-popular Hong Kong-native Faye Wong, one of the most well-known figures in Asian pop culture at the time. Besides a storied career in films, Wong also had a history in popular music, having recorded several of her most well-known albums throughout the 1990s. I'm not sure how Uematsu was able to snag her for this soundtrack, but it created that delightful moment when the perfect song meets the perfect singer. "Eyes on Me" was released in Japan in February 1999, about two weeks after the release of the video game, and is a sweeping love ballad expanding upon the themes heard throughout the game, notably with cues like "Waltz for the Moon" and "Julia" (in fact, Wong is singing as the character Julia in the game, who is confessing her feelings toward Laguna during a performance). Wong's voice is lithe enough to keep the song light and sweet, rather than moody, which is perfect for the tone of the game, which is exciting, occasionally dangerous, and sometimes sad, but never dark or grim. There are many beautiful instrumental iterations of this theme throughout the game, but the song plays in its full vocal glory only twice: once toward the back half of the game, and again with an expanded orchestral arrangement upon the game's completion. They're all fantastic.

The single's c/w track is "ACACIA no Mi," a ballad composed by Jim Lau, this time sung in Mandarin. It's a pretty, though somewhat anemic, slow number that fits the mood of the disc, but of course comes nowhere near the grace and beauty of the A-side. The single finishes with the instrumental version of "Eyes on Me."

The single came in standard 3" mini-disc packaging, with the lyrics and credits written on the back of the cover. Not surprisingly, this song ended up being one of the most popular video game songs of all time, second only to Hikaru Utada's "Hikari," written for Kingdom Hearts. It hit #9 on the Oricon chart, which was also pretty impressive at that time for a song from a video game. The entire soundtrack to Final Fantasy VIII is incredible and merits many more words of analysis and praise, but this post is just for the game's most well-known song -- the four-disc soundtrack proper was released one week later. Like the rest of the OST, "Eyes on Me" has aged incredibly well, and still sounds as beautiful as the day it was released, a testament to both Faye Wong's impeccable vocals and Uematsu's bottomless capacity for moving melodies.

Catalog Number: TODT-5271

[black-arcana]

Every Lacuna Coil album ranked from worst to best

(Image credit: Cunene)

9. Shallow Life (2009)

Lacuna Coil’s fifth album was meant to be a critique on superficiality, but it fell flat musically. Missing the nu metal crunch of predecessor Karmacode and stripped of the opulence that characterised the band’s earlier material, Shallow Life meanders. Though it’s not a complete car crash (Spellbound is an obvious standout), it’s slim pickings.

8. Dark Adrenaline (2012)

Dark Adrenaline isn’t a terrible album; it’s just an unremarkable one. Meaty opener Trip The Darkness and a cinematic Intoxicated provide the highpoints amongst more generic, forgettable fare. There’s still little here we haven’t heard from the band before, however – plus that truly horrible cover of R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion misses the mark in every way. 

7. Broken Crown Halo (2014)

By the time Lacuna Coil released their seventh album, it felt like they had made the same statement at least three times in a row. The last release to feature the long-term members Cristiano “Pizza” Migliore  (guitars) and Cristiano “Criz” Mozzati (drums), Broken Crown Halo packs more grit and punch than predecessor Dark Adrenaline (Cybersleep and frequent set-closer Nothing Stands In Our Way are the highlights). Yet, there’s still no doubt by this point: the band were treading water. 

6. In A Reverie (1999)

Dreamy, doomy and gothic, Lacuna Coil’s debut has aged very well. Circle, To Myself I Turned and Glass Veins have lost none of their majesty and, while the Italians’ approach at this point is clearly indebted to Paradise Lost and The Gathering’s 1995 album Mandylion, Cristina and Andrea’s serene/raw vocal attack set this bunch apart right from the start. A promising beginning.

5. Karmacode (2006)

By the mid-2000s, Lacuna Coil had nailed their ethereal goth ways. So, it was a surprise when they changed gears with fourth album Karmacode, introducing a more mainstream, chunky, nu metal-flavoured sound with focus on melody. The move sacrificed much of their splendour and atmospherics, and tracks like The Game and Closer feel a tad too simplistic, but elsewhere, the band proved they had mastered a hook. Their excellent cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence broke them to an even bigger audience, too.

4. Unleashed Memories (2001)

Lacuna Coil’s second album is an elegant, slow-burning gem. You need to work a little harder to get under the surface of these songs, but once you do, there’s an abundance of gorgeous charms to discover. From the sumptuous and dignified Heir Of A Dying Day to a towering To Live Is To Hide, the still very Paradise Lost-influenced When A Dead Man Walks to the ornate Cold Heritage, the band were evolving at pace.

3. Delirium (2016)

In their post-Karmacode period, Lacuna Coil had settled into a safe, predictable groove. Then, with eighth album Delirium, they changed their methodology once again. On its release, tracks like Broken Things and Blood, Tears, Dust were dark and dripping with claustrophobic tension. They were startlingly heavy as well, helped in no small part by vocalist Andrea Ferro putting in some of his best guttural vocals to date. Foreboding, haunted and cold, it was the sound of a band renewed.  

2. Black Anima (2019)

Lacuna Coil’s most recent album finds them in fantastic form. Picking up where Delirium left off, the band have only continued to get heavier, leaving the generic, featherlight melodies of their mid-career slump far behind. Packed with atmosphere and highlights in Sword Of Anger and Layers Of Time, it’s not as stark as its predecessor, while the Exorcist vibes of Veneficium are definitely something they should lean into in the future. Whereas Cristina’s piercing vocals are dependably great, pushing her voice to new height on Reckless, the biggest surprise is Andrea,: unrecognisable from the band’s early days, his bowel-rattling vocals takes the band’s stylings to an ever more twisted realm.

1. Comalies (2002)

Comalies is the moment everything came together for Lacuna Coil in terms of aesthetics and sound, but also songwriting, which took everything up a notch. It was led by two excellent singles: the celestial Swamped and Heaven’s A Lie – which marries an earworm chorus with glossy, apocalyptic grandeur – and broke the band on MTV.

The opus is also a trove of emotionally-charged gems, with Daylight Dancer, Humane, Tight Rope and Entwined all deserving a place on a countdown of the band’s best songs. In 2022, Lacuna Coil celebrated the album’s 20th anniversary by rearranging and re-recording it for a retrospective, Comalies XX, adding a heavier, more ferocious slant to the tracklist. It couldn’t hold a candle to the original, though, which remains a goth metal classic – not to mention the band’s undisputed masterpiece. 

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I AM LOOKING RESPECTFULLY AT THAT SHINY NEW LEONA 👀 so hype for the Afterglow Savana event oml

[Referencing this post!]

I FOUND THE OTHER SUNSET SAVANNA TRIP CARDS (Kalim, Lilia, and Vil)!! There’s also these better quality images/close-ups. It seems like everyone is dressed a certain way to participate in a local event called “Catch the Tail” (name translation credited to Mystery Shop TLs)!

zbkb$/?&.!jc(.(dwnow0hGV Leona’s new artwork looks really gorgeous from the preview 🫠 There’s so many pretty patterns, colors, and accessories in his outfit cnvsjwbdkske even though his pose is so… casual 😂 He’s literally just lounging in a chair while smirking at the viewer????? I want to smack that smirk right off of his smugass face I also love that we can see Pride Rock in the background too, that’s a nice detail!

I heard from some friends that Leona’s clothing seems to borrow design elements and inspiration from the costumes for The Lion King Broadway musical, which have received critical acclaim for being well researched and well designed. It makes me really excited to see the HD drip in its entirety (and on the other characters!) when they’re released in the game!

I’m so excited for this event, man 😭 MORE TWISTED WONDERLAND WORLDBUILDING…

[flutteringfable]

OKAY SO!! DEAD PLATE IS REALLY GOOD AND IM HERE TO RAMBLE ABOUT IT. SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY LMAO

(all excitement aside, this game is best experienced blind imo! its free on itch, and there's no jumpscares [in case thats an issue for u like it is for me lolz]. there is tons of gore (mostly blood with very few organs), so please heed the warnings on the game page if that bothers u!)

okay ive talked about this before, but the art style is just soso gorgeous. the characters are so distinct and expressive, and even the npcs are beautifully designed. the art is, dare i say, tasty ;3

rody is literally the definition of a golden retriever boy (even to a fault!) and i adore his character so much. he's just a silly little guy trying to do his best but also he should really take some time to care for himself like manon suggested :(

vincent is also fantastic, i love that he warms up to rody if you continue talking to him, it's really sweet if you uh. ignore the horrors...

no jumpscares but GOD this game is fantastic at building a sense of dread. when the music cut out during the house party bit, i genuinely got nervous. manon's ghost (i assume) being in vince's window was also terrifying and honestly scared me so bad i hesitated to put my headphones back on lmao. i do love the lack of jumpscares, but that might just be my cowardice talking ahaha

u can feed the rat cheese but then vince feeds u the rat :(

i got the normal ending on my first go (as i assume most people do), and when manon didn't pick up when rody called her i knew immediately that she was the steak that you get at the end of that sequence. it felt really rewarding to find out that was true in the "best served hot" ending!!

"a dead plate" HAHAHAHAHAHA JUST LIKE THE NAME OF THE GAME (seconds later: oh god this is the manon steak)

the description of the plate changing to "the love of my life" actually hurt a little, ouch

when i had to go back to the freezer to get the ending where rody dies, i audibly went "haiii vincenttt" when he showed up lmao

when i first saw vincent bite rody, i thought he bit his neck and went "oh haha hot"

a few lines of dialogue later, i stood corrected lmaoo

finding out that vince doesnt actually like serve human meat at the restaurant was pretty interesting to hear! i like that take on the trope, because normally its more akin to games like bonnie's bakery where the food youre serving to customers IS customers lmao

learning how rody felt about manon made me super sad, esp after the post credit scene where she breaks up with him. again, i agree with her. bro needs some serious self care and needs to learn that its ok to care for himself too :(

uhhhhh vincent casual outfit hot. i mean what who said that

the normal food rewards you get for completing each day look absolutely incredible, esp the desserts

overall, just an amazing experience that i'm so happy to have done blind. not knowing what was next made it a lot more fun for me and i might give it a go again in the future! i have a few more horror rpg style games saved on my itchio that ive been meaning to try out :3

[cannibalistic-cucumber]

Okay so

For various reasons, Sonic Adventure (SA1) is among my dead favorite games. The two relevant to this rant are the characters and the gorgeous soundtrack (in fact, I might go on a tangent about individual songs at the end of this).

My favorite character in the game is E-102 “Gamma” (btw if you derail this post about Omega, you die), a robot built by Eggman, who runs on animal power, as Eggman’s robots usually do. However, Gamma contains a very special animal - it’s a surprise tool the will help us later. Five minutes into being born (and after training, ofc), he is forced to shoot his brother, E-101 “Beta”. Following this, he board’s Eggman’s ship (the Egg Carrier) and is tasked with catching the tailed frog. Upon collecting the frog, he is transported to the past, where he experiences childlike wonder at the chao. Back on the Egg Carrier, the rest of his siblings are cast out because of their failure to get the frog. After that, Gamma is sent to execute a prisoner. On the way, he makes a wrong turn and ends up in the machining room, where he experiences eldritch horror at the sight of his brother being disassembled and reassembled. In the prison, he finds Amy Rose, who has a blue bird flying around with her looking for its parents. She convinces him not to kill her a la Mindy Animaniacs, and protects Sonic out on the deck of the ship, further confusing Gamma. He leaves the crashing ship, now convinced to “rescue” his disowned brothers. After successfully disposing of them, he is ambushed on the Egg Carrier by Beta Mk II, who feigns death in order to shoot Gamma in the back, and they both die as a result. Lo and behold, Gamma and Beta contained the parents of the bird. Reunited, they fly off into the sunset.

TLDR: Gamma is Eggman robot who experiences eldritch horror and compassion and forsakes his master as a result. He “rescues” his siblings before dying himself, and the animal inside him reunites with its family.

Now, a little more background before we get to the main point. SEGA Sound Team popped off for this game. Each character has a theme song that plays during their respective recaps and end credits (each one has an entire storyline with slight variations on who does what (it’s all happening at once)). Side note: I’m like 70% sure SA1 is the origin of Knuckles jazz. It should also be noted that I have a youtube playlist of songs on queue for downloading, and when I run out of ideas I scroll through the recommended additions section.

E-102’s theme is in my top three favorite songs from SA1. You’ll never guess what it’s called! Theme of E-102γ. And that’s my first talking point. I was reading the comments on one of the music videos, and one of them made a connection that his theme doesn’t get a proper name because he’s just another cog in the machine. Even Big the Cat has a greater role in the main story than him. And yet, doomed by the narrative as he is, he gets his own story. As another comment pointed out, each story has its own (literary) theme: Sonic is Adventure, Tails is Independence, Knuckles is Recollection (I’m kinda iffy on that one), Amy is Protection, Big is Friendship, and Gamma? Gamma is heart and soul. Compassion. Morality, something that shouldn’t be possible, and definitely isn’t comprehensible for a robot, especially one of Eggman’s creation.

As a side tangent here, I’ve been putting rescued in quotes when it comes to Gamma and his brothers, but I realized something between the time I started writing this and now. The animals that drop from the E-series robots are birds. They’re all his brothers, inside and out. I had always assumed that Gamma had meant rescue only in the liberation sense. I never realized that he meant it both ways. I just… I’m need a moment.

As a side side tangent, I think this is one of the biggest differences between E-100 ZERO and the rest. To my knowledge, he didn’t have any animals, much less another bird, and that was what led him to the brutish oafishness that we see displayed by him.

Back to the main points, I think that all of this is reflected in the song. It starts out with all of the synth, vague vocals, electro, etc. that would be expected from the theme of a robot, and then you’ve got… PIANO. Oh my god the piano. Piano Man has its harmonica, and this song has its piano. In the midst of the circuits, the wires, the computers, there’s life, a heartbeat, a soul. And with the soul comes that twinge of sadness. Sure he freed the animals, but to do so, he had to kill his brothers with his own two (?)(does the gun count?) hands. Due to this and the cumulation of everything else, hearing the song (or the variation of it) during his final cutscene hits and hits hard.

THE REPRISE OF THE MAIN THEME PIANO AS HE DIES IN OBSCURITY. THE OTHER BIRDS ARE LIKELY THE ONLY ONES THAT END UP KNOWING ABOUT HIS DEATH

It’s okay I’m okay I’m so normal about this

Now that the main rant is over, it’s time for me to hoot about the other songs

Be Cool, Be Wild, Be Groovy …for Ice Cap

I get that it’s a snowboarding section, but still. THEY BOTHERED TO USE GUITAR IN A SNOW LEVEL. NAME ONE OTHER INSTANCE OF THAT THAT ISN’T LITTLE BIG PLANET’S THE WILDERNESS’S SITAR.

Limestone Cave …for Ice Cap

Ambience plain and simple. Good for falling asleep to

Snowy Mountain …for Ice Cap

Another ambience piece, this time with another guitar (no this doesn’t count for the challenge I posed above). Love the mix of electric and acoustic

Welcome To Station Square

“The train headed for the Mystic Ruins will be departing soon.” Came for the guitar, stayed for the trumpet.

Red Barrage Area …for Hot Shelter

SAX (shout outs to the rest of Hot Shelter’s music btw)

Militant Missionary … Boss Egg Walker & Egg Viper

Hopelessness, despair, DRAMA. Things may not have gone to plan, but Eggman is surely still the one in control.

And finally, shoutouts to Bad Taste Aquarium, Pleasure Castle, and Dilapidated Way for going full throttle right out the gate.

@green-mountain-goose @greetings-inferiors @cue-jay @kimu-dem

[margridarnauds]

top three period dramas?

Not counting musicals, because it would be a rigged game then:

(1) I, Claudius. Yes, it's inaccurate. Yes, its portrayal of the women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty is undoubtedly sexist, not helped by the fact that Robert Graves was a massive sexist. Yes, it's based on something by Robert Graves, who, as a Celticist, I am professionally obliged to have a strong hatred for.

But it's also well done, the actors are all phenomenal, I quote things from it every day ("WHERE ARE MY EAGLES?" "Don't eat the figs, dear" "You may kiss me and go" "Uncle CLAAAAAAUDDDDDIIIUUUUSSSS" "IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGGGHHHHHTAAAAHHHH"), and for something that was made with a limited budget, I think they actually do a good job of showing the intimate world of the dynasty in a way that a lot of more recent series (Rome) failed to do with bigger sets, and the scriptwriters deserve credit for dusting off Graves' incredibly dry prose and making an adaptation that's crackling with wit in just about every scene for all of its six episode run length.

(2) Pride and Prejudice (1995). Such a shame that there hasn't been one made since then, but I can't blame them, given this set such a high standard. As a child, me and my mom were up to 2 AM watching it because we had no idea how it was going to end and we kept going "just one more episode!" until we'd reached the end.

And sharing third place: The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and Ladyhawke (1985) -- Both of them were formative for me. The Man in the Iron Mask is very much putting multiple experienced actors together and letting them ham it up alongside Leonardo DiCaprio alongside gorgeous sets and costumes with a great score by Nick Glennie-Smith. It has next to no accuracy to the OG novel, it's wildly historically inaccurate, but my god it's *fun*. Ladyhawke, meanwhile, is probably one of my favorite depictions of the Middle Ages, specifically because it doesn't go into either the extreme of the Dung Ages or the extreme of, say, the 1950s where everyone is looking absolutely pristine. I think it's a nice compromise between the two of them. The plot itself, of two lovers forced to change shape, always together, never apart, by the machinations of a wicked bishop, reads like something from a medieval romance, even though I know, logically, that it isn't, just because it really does capture the *feeling* of the era. (And I will not hear a bad word against the soundtrack.)

Bonus round: Brennus, Enemy of Rome. This film is not good, but it IS the only film adaptation of Brennus' Invasion of Rome to date and...believe me, it being good would ruin the fun of it. ("KILL THE ROMANSSSSS ARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH" Best introduction to an antagonist ever.)

[terrainofheartfelt]

Lit™ Opera Lit - Abridged

for @clarasamelia

Jo enabled me into doing this though I’ve been tempted to for a WHILE, so here, have an Opera Primer Playlist, by me. A few notes before we begin:

This says Abridged, because the original Lit™ Opera Lit on my spotify is….5 ½ hours long, and I didn’t want to throw ALL that at someone new to the genre. So. (It is public on my spotify if you wanna take a peek)

Also, this is not a music history survey, and is therefore very biased to my tastes as a lover of romantic opera and as a trained mezzo soprano. #lowvoicesupremacy

And there is sooooooooooooooooooo much more I want to share so if anyone has any questions or wants a rec of something else please feel free to ask and I would be happy to answer! 

Actually, new ask game time: send me a pop culture media thing and I can relate it back to opera in 6 degrees or less. 

*means I’ve sung it before!

Okay, onto the playlist

Overture – La forza del destino, Verdi

You gotta start off an opera with a good overture right???? And this one is a fave, BY a fave. Overtures are sort of a…musical trailer of everything you’re going to hear in the show before it starts. It’s a sneak peek, it’s the opening credits, it’s a goddamn shame we don’t do them anymore. For real I went to a concert earlier this fall and the orchestra played the overture to The Sound of Music and it was glorious and I remember thinking “they don’t make em like this anymore!” Anyways, idk much about Forza because there’s no mezzos, but it’s a gutwrenching tragedy with glorious music, and this overture FUCKS

“Gira la cote!”* — Turandot, Puccini

First things first, lemme just say this outright, yes, this opera is racist. All white European composers were perpetrators of Orientalism in their music, Puccini being one of the more notorious. As such, opera is a thing that you have to engage with critically, but I don’t want to make that sound like it’s “work,” because I don’ twant to prolong this thing that you have to perform some sort of intellectual labor before you can enjoy opera, but you have to give it the same grace and critical eye you give other media, fuck I run a gossip girl blog, it’s like that, you know? Okay, sermon out of the way, this opera is about a Chinese princess, who vows to never marry because, honestly men have given her very little reason to want to, so she poses this challenge: if a man wants to marry her, he must answer three riddles, and if he gets even one of them wrong, she takes his head. This chorus is the opening of the show, when her latest failed suitor is about to get his head chopped off, the chorus of her subjects love the free show, and are shouting “gira la cote! / sharpen the blade!” and, reader, it fucks. 

“Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém (Song to the Moon)” — Rusalka, Dvořák

It’s the little mermaid!!!!!!!!! No, seriously, it’s based on the same myth. From my sweet Czech prince, Tony, this masterpiece tells its own spin on a Slavic version of the fairytale. This is, effectively, the “part of your world” song, Rusalka begs the moon to pass on a message of love to her human prince. And it is…one of the most glorious arias ever, to the point that sometimes I’m like “ugh, overdone” but really, it’s gorgeous, and when sung right, transcendent. 

“Čury mury fuk” — Rusalka, Dvořák

Ježibaba, aka Baba Yaga, aka Ursula, sings about how she’s gonna poison the beautiful sprite Rusalka. Fun fact: the saying for mezzo roles is: witches, bitches, and britches, because the archetypes low-voiced women always sing in opera are always either witches, bitches, or pants roles (women playing a male character, usually a teenaged boy). I was more a Mistresses and Princesses mezzo meself, so really…just bitches….

“Amami, Alfredo” — La Traviata, Verdi

Verdi is my absolute favorite, my opera blorbo, I love him so very much. The way he writes emotion into his orchestra is just hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Anyways. Traviata is perhaps the most popular opera in the world (tied with Carmen). If you don’t think you know it, you do. It’s based off Dumas’ La Dame aux Camellias, and the direct inspiration for the film Moulin Rouge! (though not the musical, evidently, it’s fine I’ve ranted about that elsewhere). AND, it’s featured in the garden party scene in Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement! What you here Anne Hathaway listening to there is the grand ending to the famous aria “Sempre libera,” but to me, the most sublime moment in the opera is this one, in Act II, Violetta’s lover’s father comes to plead with her to leave his son, Alfredo, because Violetta is a courtesan and therefore a detriment to the noble family’s reputation…yeah. And Violetta agrees, not wanting to send Alfredo’s family into poverty or ruin the reputation of his little sister (that she’s never met btw, fuckin catholics), plus, it’s hinted that Violetta already knows that she is dying of tuberculosis (consumption), so she decides to leave and go back to her old life, and when Alfredo returns as she’s trying to write him a farewell letter, she has this outburst of emotion. It’s brief, but, jesus christ—

Amami, Alfredo, quant'io t'amo. Addio. / Love me, Alfredo, how I love you. Goodbye.

"Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso" — La Rondine, Puccini

Another opera based of the lady of the camellias! (She was indeed a real person, Marie Duplessis, I read a biography about her! It’s so fascinating!) This one has a bit of a different plot and play out, but the theme is the same. There’s actually some dispute about there being multiple endings to this opera (Turandot too I guess, but I digress) Magda, a glamorous courtesan of Paris, bored of her gilded cage, puts on a disguise and goes out for the night, and meets up again with the hot young poet who came to her house party earlier that night, they share a drink, meanwhile Magda’s maid has a drink in the same bar with her tenor lover, what results is this, what me and my friends call The Best Quartet Ever. it sounds exactly like falling in love in Paris. No offense, but tswift could never.

"È amabile invero cotal giovinotto” — Rigoletto, Verdi†

Hi, it’s me with my low voice supremacy agenda again. There’s a much more famous quartet, but. My house.  Based off of a play by Victor Hugo, Rigoletto is a jester who has enough of his boss’ bullshit. His boss being the Duke. What puts him over the edge? The scumbag of a Duke seduces Rig’s daughter, Gilda, and now Gilda thinks she’s in love, but Rig has worked for the Duke long enough to know that, best case, she’ll have her heartbroken.  But that is all just BACKGROUND for this scene. Rigoletto hires an assassin-slash-bartender to take care of the Duke for him, so this guy, Sparafucile, gets the Duke drunk, but now, unfortunately, the assasin’s sister, Maddalena, has a crush on the fuck. She demands that her brother spare the duke’s life, but Sparafucile promised Rigoletto a body. So while a storm hits, Spara tells his sister “fine, the next person that knocks on the door, i’ll kill instead.” Gilda, of course, overhears all of this, and decides that what she has to do his take the place of the man she loves, and knocks on the door (babygirl, it’s NOT WORTH IT) †I��ve never done one of these roles, but I have been in the opera!

“Pourquoi me réveiller” — Werther, Massenet

An underrated, imho, French tragedy. Is it because the heroine is a mezzo? Who’s to say.  Based off Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther, it follows the tragic star-crossed love of Werther, the poet, and Charlotte, the woman who loves him, but for ehr family’s financial security and stature marries another man she doesn’t love. This moment in the opera comes after Charlotte’s two barn-burner arias, when she looks over her letters from Werther and realizes the depth of her feelings, Werther comes to see her in this moment of vulnerability, and recites this piece of poetry. It’s sexy and angsty and the build-up to the explosion of emotion that’s about to take place.  And because I’m me, I’ll just say: it’s dair-coded.

“Pietà! perdon!...O don fatale” — Don Carlos, Verdi†

Verdi wrote this opera for the bisexuals!!!! So, there’s a big ol’ convoluted love pentagon going on in the court of Phillip II of Spain, but what you need to know in this scene is: Eboli, a courtier and friend of the queen Elisabeth de Valois (daughter of Catherine de Medici, fun fact), frames Elisabeth for cheating on her husband with her stepson (complicated, I know). And Eboli is acting out of homoerotic jealousy because she wanted Carlo (the stepson) herself, and what is a rival if not a crush you’re mad about having? After her subterfuge blows up in her face, Eboli throws herself at Elisabeth’s feet begging for mercy (“pietà”), and confesses to setting Elisabeth up, and even, sleeping with the king. Elisabeth is heartbroken and furious at the betrayal, and banishes Eboli to a convent. Once alone, Eboli curses the beauty she was born with that brought her here, and laments that she’ll never see Elisabeth again (GAY). And then, she realizes there’s still a chance to save Carlo, who’s been jailed for treason.  This opera is in my top 5 favorites, and this excerpt has one of my top 5 favorite musical moments, the low strings after Eboli confesses, the pain and betrayal you can FEEL in the strings and it’s so !!!!! I am not capable of being normal about it. I’m listening while writing this and CHILLS (Also, I saw this live very recently and it was extraordinary! And they did something interesting with the supertitles and the acting that implied that – rather than a presumed consensual encounter – Phillip assaulted Eboli, which paints her aria cursing her looks in an entirely new light!!!!!) †I’ve not done this publicly, but it was in my repertoire

“E qual via scegliete?” — Tosca, Puccini†

I tried to keep this brief and not put on too many things, but I can’t not put Tosca on here! This is my second favorite part of the opera (my first favorite is the finale, but that’s like, only 30 seconds, so), and it fucks. Floria Tosca, a famous singer in Rome, is put in an impossible position by absolute dirtbag Scarpia, who takes her lover Mario Cavaradossi political prisoner. Cavaradossi, a republican and therefore enemy of the Italian state, is sentenced to death, but Scarpia promises he’ll set C free if Tosca spends a night with him. She’s heartbroken by this choice, but she agrees. She insists that Scarpia sign the paperwork granting the both of them safe passage out of Rome, and he also promises that the firing squad will fake C’s death to give them a cover to escape. The tension in this scene is delicious, and it builds and builds, and the STRINGS. While Scarpia is writing, Tosca takes a knife from his dinner table. When it’s done and her and her lover’s escape is promised (Scarpia will actually betray her one more time, but she doesn’t know that yet), Scarpia moves to put his arms around her (gross, I know), and says “Tosca, finalmente e mio! / Tosca is finally mine!” and she STABS him. Rather than being raped by this absolute toilet plunger of a man, she KILLS him. She stabs him, and he cries out and goes down, and she taunts him, telling him to “feel the kiss of Tosca” and she stands over him saying “Muori, muori,” in this raw, low voice like die, bitch! It is sooooo thrilling to watch. This is a scene I will never get tired of. In a genre where women characters are too frequently brutalized for nothing, seeing a woman kill her would-be rapist is just — so satisfying.  †I’ve only been in the chorus of this opera

“Ohimè!... morir mi sento!”(Scena del giudizio) — Aida, Verdi

Regrettably, my favorite mezzo recording of this (Dolora Zajick) involves both James Levine and Placido Domingo, both of whom are pieces of shit! I’ve selected Cossotto’s instead, but if you come away from this playlist knowing one thing, it’s that James Levine and Placido Domingo are pieces of shit whose supposed skill is not worth all the pain and misery they caused. And now back to the music! Also, this opera has a racist history that companies are still working to move away from. They could work a little bit faster, tbh. A favorite opera and a dream role for me, tbh. Amneris, daughter of the king, gets carried away with jealousy when she discovers the man of her affection, Radames, is in love with her servant Aida, a prisoner of war who turns out to be a princess of an enemy nation. Amneris’ fury gets Radames and Aida caught. Taken by regret and pain and, let’s face it, more homoerotic angst, Amneris eavesdrops on Radames’ trial before the elders, and her dread builds as Radames refuses to speak in his defense. He’s sentenced to death—buried alive—and Amneris and the orchestra react viscerally to the sentence. Like her pleas for mercy when the scene hits its climax, those pietas…

“O furibonda iena…Quest’ultimo bacio”* — La Gioconda, Ponchielli

UNDERRATED OPERA OF ALL TIME. No but really. This is just…everything. This is a grand opera masterwork by this guy, Amilcare, who was Puccini’s teacher, and so few people know about it which is a SHAME. But, understandable, it’s notoriously hard to produce, and expensive, since the finale of Act II involves sinking a pirate ship…but the MUSIC.  It’s another convoluted and vaguely homoerotic love triangle. Laura and Enzo were in love, then pulled apart. Enzo sought comfort in a singer, known only as La Gioconda, and she is madly in love with him, but when Laura comes back into his life, that’s it for him. There’s ship burnings and evil husbands and a ballet (which you may know as the K-9 Advantix commercial song), but it all comes to this finale. Though she vowed Laura was her rival, Gioconda learns that Laura saved her mother once, and was under her mother’s blessing, noted by the rosary Gioconda’s mother gave her, that Laura always carries with her. So, bound by honor to her mother and desire to see her ex Enzo happy, Gioconda schemes to help Laura fake her death to escape her abusive husband, and gets Enzo to come to them just as Laura’s waking up from her sleeping draught (think R&J, but happier ending).  Enzo comes in spitting mad, thinking Gioconda is responsible for his Laura’s death, and Gio—who’s going through some shit of her own—is ready to let him kill her, and then Laura wakes, and calls Enzo’s name, and the relief in the orchestra is PALPABLE, while Gioconda sings quietly to herself “oh darkness, hide me.” After they’ve reunited, Gioconda tells them the rest of her plan, she’s got a boat to get them out of the city, and from there they can start a new life. Through her own pain and grief, in an act of unbridled selflessness and compassion, she tells them: “Amatevi. Siate felici. / Love each other. Be happy.” and they thank her and promise to remember her. And, I mean, how often does the mezzo get to win like that?

LITTLE WOMEN* (2005) MY BELOVED. It’s not on spotify, but I couldn’t not put this opera on this playlist for you, Jo <333 so, please see below for youtube links. the story is already important to me, and being in the opera when I was in college only made it even more so, and it’s a forever favorite and forever special in my heart. This is the only contemporary opera on this list, and it’s a wide and varied field, but in many ways, it’s a host unto itself (but if anyone wants to hear more contemporary stuff, I’d be happy to share!) Now, LW has a mixed reputation amongst operaphiles, who’s to say why? Misogyny, misogyny is why. But more than that, LW is such a domestic drama in a way that is not really conventional in opera, with its fantasy plots and royal characters and otherworldliness about it, but LW has always been about the small intricacies of family, which is why when Greta Gerwig put in that line about domestic struggles and joys in her film I felt so fucking SEEN. It is a technically challenging work, rife with lots of 21st century music toughness that makes the music hard to learn, but it’s absolutely not inaccessible to listen to. But, you know, call a spade what it is, a goddamn shovel, and LW is an opera with a majority women cast. You can count the men in the show on one hand, and that combined with its lack of a typical “operatic” story, and it’s challenging 21st century sound, makes lots of people keen to dismiss it. But those people, are WRONG. It’s a beautiful opera, meaningful and powerful and it sounds pretty, and I will die on that hill. 

“Perfect as we are” — Little Women, Adamo

Jo has a total of…three? arias in the show, and this is the second. After a meeting of the pickwick club and a chat with Laurie, Jo is in her attic trying to write her next “potboiler,” but keeps getting distracted by what she and Laurie were talking about, mainly, the possibility of Meg being in love with Laurie’s tutor, Brooke. It’s another hint at the main conflict of the opera (which is plainly stated in the next selection). Jo is happy with her family and her best friend, and she doesn’t see why any of it has to change. But it won’t be up to her. I love this one because it goes back and forth between Jo trying to write and find the right words for her story, and monologuing at an invisible Laurie, and her monologue helps her find that word and then she’s back in it. It’s so whimsical and just very her. I love it so much. Low voice supremacy

“Things change, Jo”

THIS ARIA!!!!!! Jo is so upset when Meg decides to marry John Brooke, and she plaintively sings “Why don’t you love me anymore?” and her big sister says, “Of course I love you!....but once I saw him, once he looked at me….I can’t explain it, Jo. I love you. Things end – no,” and that’s the lead in to the aria. She’s trying to explain her heart to her sister, and the poetry of it is glorious and the MUSIC. It’s a plea, really, a begging for Jo to understand her side: childhood was always going to end, and what a happy ending. The “Things change, Jo,” leitmotif is repeated over and over again. It’s the central conflict: Jo versus Change. Laurie repeats the motif when he proposes to Jo, Beth repeats it as she’s dying (her death aria is EXQUISITE I just can’t include it here because it makes me too emotional), and interestingly, when Laurie and Amy are abroad together, he sings the dissonant three-note motif, and then Amy resolves it. “Things change, Amy.” / “And a good thing too.” GENIUS. Adamo is a genius. 

My best friend from college sings this aria and also preaches the gospel of Adamo’s LW to me, and she texted me out of the blue the other day: If someone doesn’t like Things Change Jo…they’re misogynist. I don’t make the rules. And she’s right. It may sound like I’m coming down hard but I have heard so many people (mostly cismen) talk down at this opera and at people for liking it, and I’m over it. It’s good!!!!!! This isn’t me trying to say “you better like this or ELSE” but “I have so much love for this and it means so much to me personally and so I dearly hope you’ll give yourself a chance to like it too.”

“Let me look at you”* (Quartet)

THEE finale! Jo is alone in her attic again, and she finally surrenders, to her grief, to the current of change running through her life. Surrounded by the ghosts of her sisters, she makes peace with each of them, and they sing about how life has pulled them to separate goals, but they will always still have the love between them. I want to cry even as I’m writing this, it’s so beautiful and so meaningful. Jo ends the quartet with the exact same line as the end of her aria above “how grateful I am,” but it means something different now!!!! And she echoes the melody of “perfect as we are” a minute later, when Bhaer knocks on the door and asks if now is a good time, she sings “Now is all there is.” best finale ever. Except tosca, maybe.

I sang the role of Marmee when I was in the opera, but on my senior recital, this was my closer, and I sang it with 3 of my closest friends who were also graduating that year. Our groupchat is still called the March Sisters. And. AND. my friend who sang Meg is getting married next summer, and we are all bridesmaids. She really did find her knight 😭😭😭😭😭

[poof346]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: A Rollercoaster Ride of Thrills (spoilers inbound)

So, last Sunday I finally got around to watching The Super Mario Bros. movie in theaters. I feel like I should preface my thoughts by giving a summary of my history with Mario as a series. When I was a kid, my family got a Wii around 2007, and I played a bunch of Mario Strikers and the Galaxy duology with my sibling. I got a DSi sometime afterwards and played a bunch of the first New Super Mario Bros., SM64DS, and Mario Party DS. From there, I eventually went on to play...pretty much every platformer this dude has starred in, alongside the mountain of spin-offs. Needless to say, I feel qualified to talk about how much I fucking loved this movie on nearly every front as a representation of the series.

Do I think it was great as a film? Ehhhh, not necessarily, the pacing was a little fast due to how Illumination writes their films and I think a longer runtime might've helped them flesh out certain interactions more. But I only really noticed these flaws when reflecting on what I saw at home. In the moment, I was overcome by a feeling of childlike joy and wonder at almost every scene, seeing every element I love about Mario on the big screen. The colorful world and art design, the beautiful and upbeat music, the kinetic and fluid platforming action...all of it. Pretty comparable to how I felt when I watched Sonic 2 in theaters, funny enough.

That said, I'm not really interested in comparing the two films against each other to see which is better. I got a similar level of enjoyment from both and can accept they're going for different approaches, while also wishing they would've made some improvements. This is solely about the Mario movie on its own, which I feel already gives me plenty to talk about. So, I wanna start with my negatives first so I can get to everything I loved in an uninterrupted burst.

As I alluded to before, my main issue was the pacing. Particularly, I think the speed at which scenes moved caused some character arcs to feel a little undercooked, like with Donkey Kong. The movie wanted a moment where Mario and DK realize they're not too different in chasing after approval from their fathers, but this exchange gets like, 30 seconds dedicated to it before they're back into action. I understand that as a kid's movie, it's probably preferred by the staff to have a high volume of fun stuff on screen to keep the kids entertained, but I always feel like Illumination struggles with a good balance.

While this is a much smaller issue in comparison, I also wish the soundtrack had remained entirely original without the licensed songs. Mario has a very particular kind of sound that these song choices didn't quite fit with, plus it meant that they took the place of original tracks written for the movie. There was also the case of songs lifted directly from the games, like the DK Rap and Fury Bowser's theme, where the original composers weren't credited for their work. Proper credit is generally a big issue with productions like these, so I wouldn't say it was surprising to see, I was just a little disappointed.

That's about my main issues out of the way, now for the fun part.

Most immediately striking, this is a gorgeous-looking movie, but that's something I had no doubts about going in. If nothing else, Illumination has proven to me they know how to make visually appealing films. However, I need to give special credit to the artists and animators for capturing the look and feel of Mario's world so perfectly in every detail. The blocks, the hills, the girders, the karts, everything is colorful and exactly how I wanted it to be. Plus, the scenes of action have great kinetic energy that matches the platforming you'd do in Mario games, they were all fun to watch.

The music is also a particular highlight for me. I feel like a lot of video game movie adaptations don't properly pay tribute to the soundtracks of what they're adapting, so hearing all these iconic Mario tracks seamlessly fitting into scenes is a treat. And of course, Bowser's piano ballad about Peach, absolute classic already. I would've been very upset if they didn't use the casting of Jack Black as Bowser for a musical number.

Since I mentioned casting, I'll also address the voice cast for the main characters. While I'm still not totally on-board with the practice of celebrities taking voice acting roles, they did pretty well! My personal highlights were Charlie Day as Luigi and Jack Black as Bowser, they really fit those roles. And yes, I did actually warm up to Chris Pratt as Mario. Honestly, the commercials must've had something out for him, the takes they selected didn't give a proper impression of his voice throughout the movie (and some weren't actually used, like the "Mushroom Kingdom, here we come" line).

In general, I would say the Mario movie was a great experience as a first watch! I compared it to a rollercoaster ride in the title for a reason: it was exciting and fun in the moment, but there's also not a lot to analyze in terms of story or anything like that. The mixed reception from critics does make sense to me after seeing it, since if you don't have the prior attachment to the Mario franchise, would probably feel like a lot of spectacle with little substance.

[wolfgabe]

The Super Mario Bros Movie My Review

Be warned will contain spoilers below.

The Story: This seems to be a major point of contention among the critics with how there was barely any character development and how bare bones the plot was but as I often keep saying to people "If you went into this movie expecting an Avengers grade plot with Oscar worthy storytelling you were basically just setting yourself up for disappointment. In my personal opinion the Mario Movie represents something I think has been missing from a lot of animated films as of late which is essentially a straightforward fun filled adventure the family can enjoy that isn't worried about trying to perform any social commentary or impart any big moral life lessons. A lot of the critic reviews also do complete disservice to the dynamic on display between Mario and Luigi in particular with Mario's drive to save his brother and his refusal to give up even when everything seems stacked against him really serving as the films emotional core. In essence one could say that the structure of the film is almost like a game in itself where the plot and character development essentially serve as a vehicle through which to drive viewers towards the next big set piece or as some have called it an amusement park ride. But at its most basic core the story of the Mario Movie is a tried-and-true origin story wrapped in a good old-fashioned tale of good versus evil which really serves Mario well in this case. In the span of 90 minutes we see Mario struggling to make it as a plumber, accidentally get him and his brother sent to a fantastical world, team up with Peach to save his brother from Bowser's clutches, stumble through a training course, and slug it out with Donkey Kong before teaming up to crash a wedding that ends up leading us right back to where we began complete with one final confrontation. All in the process finding new confidence in himself and coming out as a better man. It's nothing new for a plot but this is a Mario Movie and if you know Mario, you should know you probably aren't watching this film for the plot in the first place.

The Visuals and Presentation: I am gonna be honest here I didn't expect Illumination of all studios would manage to do justice to the look and feel of Mario, but I can safely say I was wrong in that regard. It's been mentioned how working with Nintendo pushed Illumination's VFX teams to new heights and their newfound effort clearly shows in every frame. You can clearly tell Nintendo's trademark commitment to polish and attention to detail has rubbed off on Illumination. It's not just in the gorgeous set pieces which I dare say rival some of Disney and Pixar's finest work or how Illumination's signature squash and stretch art style fits the Marioverse like a glove but also in the smattering of enough easter eggs and cameos to warrant many repeat viewings. You're not just watching a Mario Movie but in essence a celebration of Nintendo and Mario's legacy be it nods to iconic NES titles or blink, and you'll miss it cameos, this is clearly a film for the Mario and Nintendo fans first and foremost.

The Soundtrack: The music my god the music Its frankly incredible how Brian Tyler has managed to do such a masterful job of weaving Koji Kondo's most iconic melodies into a cinematic soundtrack. As a longtime Mario fan I found myself astounded at how I found myself remarking "I recognized that tune." during the film. Its also crazy to say this might be the first film soundtrack I actually have shown genuine interest in listening to in a long time. I highly encourage the Mario aficionados to stick around for the credits especially.

The Voice Actors: Now this was another major point of contention prior to the films release but I think I can safely say the voice acting for the most part works. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day does a surprisingly good job of playing up Mario and Luigi's Brooklyn roots. With their falsetto Italian accents cleverly being presented as a marketing tactic for their plumbing business and before you ask Charles Martinet Mario's original voice actor does make an appearance which I won't spoil. Anya Taylor Joy does a wonderful job casting Princess Peach as a strong devoted ruler while Keegan Micheal Key manages to radiate excellent sidekick energy as Toad. Seth Rogan manages to be well Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong who's dynamic with Mario makes for some of the film's funniest moments, but the real scene stealer is arguably Jack Black as Bowser. It's almost surreal how Black has managed to do such an amazing job bringing an air of goofiness and menace to the Koopa King that hasn't been seen in ages. One point he is burning down a penguin clan's Ice Palace just to take their Super Star and the next he is tapping into Jack's musical side belting out a Tenacious D style power ballad on the piano declaring his love for Princess Peach. Be warned you may struggle to get Peaches out of your head after watching this film.

Final Verdict: Personally The Super Mario Bros Movie is a film where I can safely say that if you are a fan of Mario and Nintendo you can basically ignore what the majority of the critics are saying because those critics are not the audience this movie was intended for in the first place. While there may be some pacing issues and some scenes could be fleshed out a bit more, The Super Mario Bros Movie manages to be a lovingly crafted celebration of Mario that isn't afraid to embrace its gaming roots. And with the movie well on the way to breaking the 1-billion-dollar box office mark and having already smashed several records this will no doubt become the video game movie against which video game film adaptations are judged for years to come. I still find it hard to believe that after all these years it would be Illumination of all studios that would end being the ones who redeemed Mario on the big screen and who essentially may have truly broken the video game movie curse. I think I can safely say I am excited to see where they go next on the big screen with Mario and likely other Nintendo franchises as well.

My final score for the Super Mario Bros Movie I would say probably 8/9 out of 10.

[curestardust]

Dust Watched: Macross Δ Movie 2: Zettai Live!!!

Genres: Action, Mecha, Music, Space // 2h movie // M01 (x)

My experience with this movie could be summed up in a single sentence which is “Slow the fuck down!!”

✧  story  ✧

Obligatory note that I’m not really into Macross or Mecha stuff. I do enjoy it but its plot leaves my brain the second the anime ends, which is kind of a problem when you’re trying to write about a franchise branching across 50 years.

Anyway, this movie is the sequel and ending to the previous one which shows us an Alternate Universe story of the events of the original Macross Delta series.

The biggest problem this movie suffers from is that it tries to tackle about 100 things at once. Character drama, character relationships, character progression, a movie only plot, expanding on the original plot, wrapping up elements of the original plot, wrapping up this movie only plot, referencing the previous franchises, bringing back old characters, introducing new characters, giving character focus to THESE characters, a huge dose of exposition dumping then add a sprinkle space battles in the mix and the flow and tonal shifts of the show felt like *I* was the one sitting in one of the mechas and going at lightspeed.

I feel like I’d need a thesis to talk about the story and not get something wrong so I won’t. All in all, it was your usual affair of Big Bad Mecha needs to be taken down, and then it is. Yay!

✧  characters  ✧

Offta, they really tried to force a lot of things on the characters. The tonal shifts are the worst here; we can go from one scene where Makina is pushing her boobs up against Mirage and they’re goofing around only to then transition into a scene of someone dying a tragic death. A good example of just how much is going on is Bogue; he goes from hating humans still, to losing one of his comrades in battle, to joining up with the humans and taking orders from their commander. All the while, we basically see no reaction from him to all this besides one or two side comments. They try to give Mirage a plotline as well, and it... I mean it’s alright? RIP to all Hayate/Mirage shippers out there tho. And speaking of...

Freyja, oh my dear girl. Freyja (and Hayate’s) plotline gets the most focus even though with everything going on their scenes have a lot less impact than they should have had.

<spoiler> I almost was about to say that the last scene was truly heartbreaking but they pussied out. BRO!!! Show me her passing on properly! Her vanishing into the wind in her lover’s arms would’ve been so impactful but before that can happen they just show the credits? Why?? This an AU, you don’t have to do the “did-she-or-didn’t-she” game here, she is alive in the original series, so just commit to it! <spoiler>

Oh right, almost forgot about them. Yami_Q_Ray, who are even on the cover, went really underutilized which is a big shame. Would’ve loved to see more of them.

✧  art  ✧

The art was also veeery wonky most of the time. The background art were gorgeous, the mechs looked good enough I guess (I don’t know anything about mechs) but the characters... in some scenes they looked like paper cutouts pasted on a background. They lacked detail and depth. The animation was the same. Weird and janky. The CGI looked the best (the inro sequence of Walküre was a treat). The battles were really hard to follow too.

✧  sound ✧

Fantastic as usual. Macross has always been about the music and I’m glad that at least that didn’t disappoint.

✧  overview ✧

In conclusion, I feel like they spent 90% of the budget on the 10 minute long Macross F short in the beginning of the movie. Which I didn’t talk about cause I genuinly have no clue what was going on but damn did it look great.

My Rating: 5/10

[novelmonger]

ICO

Final Fantasy X

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Jak II

Warcraft 3

ICO was a life-changer in so many ways, and I still count it my favorite game of all time. The story moved me like no other; never have I felt more connected to a video game character than I did with Yorda. I mainly bought this because I read an article about it in an issue of the gaming magazine my brother was subscribed to (oh for the early 2000s!), in a list of games that made the editors of the magazine shed actual tears. I was like, "Sign me up!" and sure enough, I cried like a baby through the credits (a;lkdfjs;kldfjd;l that credits song a;ldkfjd;sklfjdsl). But in the best possible way. This is one of the very few games I would literally change nothing about. It's perfect.

FFX will probably always be my favorite Final Fantasy, and still holds a lot of nostalgic power in my heart even though I can look at it more objectively after some 20-odd years and acknowledge it has its share of plot holes and flaws. But my brother and I bought FFX before we even purchased a PS2, we were that convinced it was going to be worth it - and it was! Oh, it definitely was. FFX enthralled me with its characters, world, and story so much that I started writing a novelization before I knew what one was, and before we'd even finished the game! FFX single-handedly got me into fanfiction, when my brother excitedly told me that I could post my novelization on FFNet and get other people to read it. I learned so much about writing from FFX, because I had to dissect a story that already worked and figure out why it worked, and how to shore up some of its shortcomings. A lot of my "ground-breaking" realizations as I wrote my novelization seem so quaint, looking back (like how you need to keep bringing up mentions of a certain element throughout the storyline if you want it to have a payoff at the end, or how every character in the main cast has a unique relationship with every other character in the cast, and every relationship needs to have an arc just like every individual character does), but they were so important as I began to get really serious about my writing.

Prince of Persia holds such a special place in my heart. While not without its flaws, the story is so good - riffing on classic legends like Aladdin or 1001 Nights, while still keeping you guessing. The fighting is so fun and fluid, the characters play off each other so well, the music is to die for, and the twist ending is still one of the best I've ever seen. The gorgeous Middle Eastern setting doesn't hurt at all.

Jak II was the installment I ended up picking for this list out of the Jak and Daxter franchise, because it was the one that got me into it, and it was a vital part of my teenage years. The games have a myriad of flaws and choices I disagree with, but I had never played a game quite like it at the time, and it expanded my imagination so much. (I remember thinking, "Oh, this is like GTA...only I actually want to play it!" XD) The story also got me seriously thinking through exactly why I love torture scenes in stories so much ^^' The angst potential in fanfiction about Jak is...almost limitless. Love it.

Warcraft 3 had to go on the list somewhere, because even though I think I've only played it once (or twice, if you count watching my brother) the Warcraft franchise dominated my teenage years. Because of uncertain internet connections and not having enough money for any sort of subscription fee, my brother and I could only dream of playing WoW, but instead we spent lots of time reading the tie-in novels, hanging around on forums, even attempting the tabletop roleplaying game. Azeroth blew my mind when I was first introduced to it, because the only fantasy I knew at that point was LotR, and...well, at that point, I certainly never expected that my favorite character would end up being an Orc!