#genuinely ended up being one of my favorite games I played through the entire year

[evostrashbin]

i see youre an even in tempest enjoyer 👀 love tht unhinged game! and u dressing up grima n summoner in tyril n anastasias outfits is so gooood!!! happy new year! 🥳

thank you and happy (slightly belated) new year to you too!! 🥺💕

and yeah I've been enjoying the game over the holidays, had an absolute blast with it!! Tyril and Anastasia fit Kiran and Grima really well considering their backstories and their struggles so I just had to do a little crossover episode 🫶

[knickynoo]

Well, I was sufficiently enabled for the idea, so here it is: ✨Alex P. Keaton's Top Neurodivergent Moments✨

The funny thing is that the amount of time I put into scrolling through my encyclopedic mental inventory of Family Ties scenes, compiling these moments in a list, making gifs, and finding past gifsets/analysis to link back to makes creating this post one of my most neurodivergent moments. Good for me.

These will be organized by season (easier for me than trying to rank on a scale) and are in no way ALL of the moments. I'd need like...15 posts for that. Also, tumblr only allows 30 images/gifs per post, so I'm going to include links to past posts when possible.

ENJOY!

• Alex gets his first-ever failing grade and immediately decides to quit school

Exactly what it says. Alex strolls into college all bright-eyed and confident and ends up a broken shell of a guy just a week or so later. The prototypical Gifted Kid from the moment he learned to speak, Alex cannot handle anything less than perfection. Getting the first F of his life shatters his entire self-image, and he wants to drop out of college entirely.

• Alex's friend Doug announces he's getting married, and Alex spirals into despair. As one does.

The entirety of the "Best Man" episode is one big Alex displaying neurodivergent behaviors moment, honestly. There are a whole lot of Alex-centered plots that are set into motion because A Change happens, and he just cannot deal with it, and this is one of the best examples. Alex is so distraught at the suddenly altered dynamic that he wanders the house like a lost soul—sad and confused and needy. He walks in on Steven's shower just to give him a hug, offers to go shopping with Mal and play dolls with Jen, and also draws up a seven-year contract for his other friends to sign to ensure they stick to their regularly scheduled card games, lest they also run off to get married and destroy his life.

• Alex P. Keaton: child development expert

When faced with the news of another sibling on the way, Alex has some very nurturing advice at the ready for when the baby is crying.

• The Keatons all laugh at a funny story. Alex is not amused.

This is one of my favorite Alex scenes of the series. Uncle Rob shares a memory of the time Steven was young and got in trouble because he started rebelling against the system and refused to write his name in the designated spot on his school test papers. The family shares a hearty laugh. Alex, king of black-and-white thinking and lover of rules, is deeply upset.

I love him so much. He genuinely cannot see how they're enjoying such a story. The Name Spot is for names. And his father dared to write in the Not For Names Spot?? Jail for Steven.

He's so ridiculously autistic.

• Alex's favorite childhood toy

It was a cardboard box. I can't quite put into words why this sets off my ND radar, but it does. Maybe it's the being attached to unusual items thing that's common with autism? The intense fixations that make other people go ????

The Alex and Ba-ba plotline provides some wonderful Alex Lore.

• Mr. Mustache

Yeah, those intense fixations? In the "Fool for Love" episode, Alex grows a mustache and legitimately cannot speak about anything else for the several days that follow. He's asked to present a speech at Mallory's homecoming dance and centers his entire speech around his mustache. He's unable to have a conversation that doesn't involve mustaches. It's incredible.

• Everything in "Matchmaker"

Alex is so sweet in this one. After Mallory comes home crying after a bad date, Alex promises to help her find a great guy. Unfortunately, putting someone who struggles socially and with processing emotions in charge of your love life isn't exactly a great fit. Alex uses the power of science to craft a formula to find Mallory's perfect match (he isn't), then tags along on their date and helps foster a very natural environment (it isn't) for the relationship to flourish (it doesn't).

The episode ends with a great scene between Alex and Mallory that shows just how well Mal understands the inner-workings of her big brother's head.

• Divorce is tough. Alex has some advice.

The Keaton kids are shocked to learn that their Uncle Rob is divorcing their Aunt Maureen. As Jen and Mallory reel from the information, Alex helps to reframe things.

He then pulls out the Special Interest Card and compares the divorce of their aunt and uncle to a "failed merger, not unlike the breakup of the phone company—although obviously less emotional. Nothing more than a natural fluctuation in the marketplace of love and marriage."

And the thing is, he IS impacted by the news. He just hasn't the slightest clue how to actually process it. So, a simple failed merger it is!

• You had one job

Mallory needs some croissants for a fancy get-together she's having with her poetry class. Alex helpfully offers to go pick them up.

Now, I debated about this one because there's part of me that's like, "Hmm, did Alex purposely do this to annoy Mallory?" Is this just a jerk move? But you know what? It stays on the list because the whole "I personally don't like this thing and struggle to see how anyone else could. Therefore, I will get the thing I like" is (for me) a relatable aspect of being ND.

• Every single second of "A, My Name is Alex"

For real, though. This episode is a deep dive into how Alex became the person he is, and it is FILLED with "flashbacks" of an intensely neurodivergent child whose issues were made worse by the people around him. (Mostly teachers and peers. Steven and Elyse did their best with him, but I do also have some critiques of the way they parented him). Anyway, he represses his emotions to the point of a meltdown

And then there's this

Full coin gifset here. Also, I made posts on the full episode, which can be found here and here.

• "Alex has a weird body"

That's Mallory's explanation to Andy as to why Alex can't help her when she needs someone to model one of her latest clothing creations. She says Alex's head is too big for his body, and those words, unfortunately, find their way back to him. In a mini plot reminiscent of the mustache one, Alex proceeds to obsess over the comment.

And I mean, I think being told your head is too big for your body would make anyone insecure, but it's the way Alex handles it. He's unable to have regular conversations for a while because he can't stop fixating on the size of his noggin'.

Both of the "Read it and Weep" episodes fit in this list, to be honest

• An accurate statement by Lauren

I've got to include this because it really does neatly condense a lot of who Alex is

So true, bestie.

And then, to wrap this whole thing up, there's all of this

And this is just what I can fit in this here post without going over the limit lol. Obsessed with the way MJF played Alex.

Thanks for reading ✌️

This is me with Alex, btw

[mystery-moose]

GAMES I PLAYED IN 2024: A LIST

Went looking through my Steam Replay thingy, and decided to type up some thoughts on my favorite games I played this year! Here they are in roughly chronological order:

Helldivers 2 rules. It nails the tone and atmosphere of its inspiration (the Paul Verhoeven masterwork Starship Troopers) so well that it renders me almost totally uninterested in the officially licensed and apparently quite good Starship Troopers games that came out recently! It's a perfectly absurdist, hilarious satire that's played so straight it almost becomes cool! Right up until you get into the game. Because yeah, when things go well, you can feel really cool and badass and like you're in an intense sci-fi war movie... but the real strength of Helldivers is its comedy, and I don't mean the writing. I mean the ragdolling, the constant, impossibly big explosions, the deaths that come fast and furious and reduce you to giblet gravy, and the respawn being a whole new, fresh Helldiver that airdrops in to replace the dead one. It either feels incredibly tense and tactical, or it feels like cartoon slapstick comedy, and there's almost no middle ground. It threads both needles simultaneously like no other game before.

Now, some folks might be mad when, say, the Democracy Space Station the entire community contributed to building does nothing but shell the shit out of whatever planet its orbiting, to the point that most missions on said planet become suicide runs that result in dozens of dead Helldivers. They might also be mad when the devs add mines with blast zones so large they kill Helldivers as much as enemies, or rocket launchers that airburst almost immediately and teamkill constantly, or a car with a manual transmission that handles like a drunk walrus when its tires get popped. But I think these things rule, because these things contribute to Helldivers greatest strengths: comedy and chaos.

I did fall off it for a few months, when it got a bit stale. There was a period where they nerfed a bunch of guns, and frankly I understand why they did, and equally understand why they rolled it back. The game has had controversies, live service problems, Sony-driven publisher nonsense and recently some microtransactions I thought were poorly priced, but on the whole? The galactic warfront has kept me in their discord just to know how things are going even when I'm not playing, and that's not something I do for basically any other game!

If you want a good time in co-op, and you like third-person shooting and some crackerjack production values, and you like to laugh (sometimes at yourself), you will love Helldivers 2!

Dragon's Dogma 2 is not a perfect game. It's not even close. It has a ton of issues with a lack of variety in its content, a story that struggles with pacing issues and maintaining interest, and some awkward AI that renders a number of skills less useful than they should be.

That being said, there is no other game like Dragon's Dogma. It is tactile and mechanically deep, with class customization built around a combat system that feels exceptionally satisfying to use. It has a genuine sense of multiplayer shenanigans and camaraderie in a single-player game, through its customizable NPCs that you summon from other players. It creates stories about being dragged away by wolves or carried away on the back of a griffon and ending up in another part of the world, encountering monsters fighting each other or attacking caravans... and there's truly nothing like emerging into a canyon, seeing a troll fighting a dragon, running down and climbing all over the beastie and stabbing it until it dies. The vibes are immaculate, and that carried me through most of the game on its own.

I still need to get through the ending (that's not an ending) and the new game plus (that's not a new game plus) but even without completing it, I have a lot of fondness for this weird, weird game. I wish parts of it were better -- like a LOT better -- and I still think it has content issues that could have been solved by another year or two in the oven... but god (and Capcom) willing, some DLC or an expansion will get us there. I'd purchase it in a heartbeat!

Halls of Torment and Death Must Die are two "bullet heaven" games I played this year! Halls of Torment is aping the aesthetic of Diablo 1 and 2, while Death Must Die (pictured above) is doing more of a pixelart, Hades-like kind of thing with its buffs and boons. They both have a heavy loot focus, and a lot of progression, but they're both satisfying in different ways. They're both in early access, but content-rich, and I'd recommend them both -- that is, if you've already played Vampire Survivors and exhausted it and wanted more. Vampire Survivors is, of course, still king of its genre.

Homeworld 3 is the most disappointed I've been by a game in years. Blackbird Interactive have done good work in the past, helped put together the excellent Homeworld Remastered Collection, made Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak which for my money still has immaculate vibes and an excellent aesthetic, and also put out Hardspace: Shipbreaker! They've made great games in the past! So how this game turned out the way it did... I can only blame Gearbox and their meddling, because holy god.

There are mechanical issues like ships not following orders correctly, the pathfinding being kind of nightmarish, and the gimmick of superstructures and cover almost never mattering outside of a handful of campaign moments. The season pass (because of course it had one) had a bizarre focus on a very odd co-op multiplayer run-based mode, for some reason, rather than skirmish multiplayer -- which also had a dearth of maps and modes at launch.

But all of that doesn't matter so much to me, because what matters to me when it comes to Homeworld is the vibes. The aesthetic. The ice-cool, clinical, sweeping sci-fi space opera. Less a focus on named characters and more a focus on grander civilizations, politics, or enemies. Even Deserts of Kharak, set on a single planet, captured these vibes. And instead we got... some of the most awkwardly animated, ham-handedly written, and cartoonish cutscenes I've seen in a game in a good while. When the villain shows up in a main character's dream sequence and vamps around like a Dreamworks villain about to break into song, that's when I put the game down. I still haven't gone back.

I preordered the goddamn collector's edition of this. I never do that! I should know better! But I made the mistake of thinking a pedigree and proven track record are enough to bet on. Frankly, I think they should be -- maybe Gearbox and their story consultants and brand managers are just poisonous. Regardless, this was a real king-size bummer for me this year. Homeworld is dead now -- I can't imagine it getting another swing after this. But believe me when I say it deserved better.

The Dead Space remake is, against all expectations, absolutely fantastic. There are some quibbles I have here and there; I think the new performances from the supporting cast are a little flat. I think Kyne in particular loses a lot of ambiguity. The story and characterization elsewhere has been made less cartoonish or obvious, but given that Dead Space is a pretty corny horror yarn, it loses some charm as a result. But other characters like Isaac and especially Nicole benefit tremendously from a rewrite, giving them agency and likability they did not have before, and the wrinkles they add in their relationship are fantastic.

And mechanically? Wow. The game has never played better, moved better, been structured better. Some areas feel different, more a sidegrade than an upgrade, but others, especially in the new dark sections? Awesomely spooky. I happily started a new game plus of this and I fully intend to go back to it every October like I do Dead Space 2. It's SO good. That we were denied a new sequel is proof positive that EA sucks eggs.

Space Marine 2 is a 7/10 action game from the Xbox 360 era, shined up and given some quality multiplayer features. I mean that as the highest compliment; we don't get many of those these days! It is one of the best representations of Warhammer as an aesthetic and a vibe, and mechanically it is incredibly satisfying. I don't think a parry and riposte has felt this good since Sifu or Sekiro, at least in terms of sound design and impact. And the multiplayer! Simple, effective, an satisfying, with fun separate progressions for co-op and PvP. Every part of this package is far better than it has any right to be, at every level. You don't need to be a Warhammer nerd to like this game, in fact it's a pretty neat introduction, but for super nerds or just sometimes fans like me? Certain setpieces are absolute cinema. Can't wait for that horde mode to hit next year!

If Homeworld 3 is the most I've been disappointed by a game, the Silent Hill 2 remake might be the most I've been surprised by one. I had zero expectations for this thing, given the developer's previous output, and Silent Hill 2 itself is one of those games that is genuinely Important Art. Not just on its own merits, but in how it influenced creatives in basically every other form of art there is. There's an argument to be made that Silent Hill 2 has quietly influenced more horror media than damn near anything else since 2002. And it earned that.

So when this remake turned out to be... like, actually great? And not just great, but restrained? Thoughtful, even? That's amazing. The core story remains the same, whole cutscenes lifted almost word for word, but the changes they do make are not made solely to be different or justify its existence; they're done purposefully, because time has passed, because the game now flows from its scenes and environments more fluidly. Because they wanted to add (or emphasize) certain aspects of characterization. And the scenes they do add are so in keeping with the rest that it's hard to tell where the new stuff begins and ends. Heck, even the new endings they added are kind of amazing!

This is the remake that Silent Hill 2 deserved. The original is still exceptional, and should be preserved, but if this is the only way someone can experience this story? That's okay. This has single-handedly made me interested in whatever Bloober Team makes next, and I hope that whatever it is, they can channel the talent that made this, rather than their previous output.

I have not yet completed Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but I can tell you now that it is good. Maybe not great! But good. Solid. It has mechanically dense and interesting combat, an exceptionally cool skill tree and class customization system, accessibility options out the wazoo, and some really great production values. It has fun characters (some more than others) and a really fun protagonist. Some of the writing can be... heavy-handed, I'll say. And some of it is obvious, or hammy, or kind of pat. It feels very different than past Dragon Age games, for better AND for worse. I'm gonna have a bunch of thoughts on it when I'm done, I can tell!

But as a showing for BioWare, to prove that they're still capable of putting out RPGs that matter? That their formula, as old as it is, still works? That they still belong in the conversation after Larian's Baldur's Gate 3? I think this is a tremendous success.

Maybe the ending will fumble the bag really badly. That's been known to happen in BioWare games! But even then, I'd still have had a lot of fun playing this thing.

And if nothing else? Man, the next Mass Effect is gonna be AWESOME. (If they're allowed to make it...)

I Am Your Beast is the latest game from Strange Scaffold, the folks what made El Paso, Elsewhere, Clickolding, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, and An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs. If nothing else, their title game is on point. My only experience with them was El Paso, a game written and performed by one of the main leads, Xalavier Nelson Jr. And let me tell you, that game put them on my radar.

And while El Paso, Elsewhere was a Max Payne pastiche, a game about relationships and a breakup and addiction and emotional catharsis filtered through slow-mo dives through windows shooting shotguns at werewolves, I Am Your Beast is a smaller, leaner production. It is about a guy who killed for the government, who doesn't wanna kill for the government anymore, and when they send men to make him do that, he kills them all. That's it, basically -- and yet the narrative, told entirely through voice acting and typography without a single animated cutscene or face in the entire game, is one of the most quietly confident and cathartic I've seen in a while. It's a revenge thriller, of the John Wick sort, but the simple humanity and humor that Xalavier and his fellow voice actors imbue into the characters in such a series of short scenes is really incredible. It's the sort of game I've kind of always wanted; a stylish riff on a popular subgenre of film that makes you feel like you're in it. Because for as much as video games ape movies, there's surprisingly few games that really do what this game does, or feel like how this game feels!

And mechanically? The game is a just a bit stiff, such that you can tell it didn't have as much money or time as maybe it could have used. But even with that, it is still fast and smooth and extremely satisfying. The game loads as fast as it moves, so when you fuck up, you can reset in less than a second and start right over, Super Meat Boy style. This is necessary, as it is a fast, score-based shooter that can demand a lot of you if you want to complete all the optional objectives, let alone S-rank everything. But really, the action IS the juice, the raw lizardbrain satisfaction of nailing headshot after headshot, running a route through a map that you've planned after numerous attempts and getting it just right, just perfect, with a little room for improvisation along the way. And your reward? Another great little bit of voice acting, some characterization, and another killer tune to vibe to as you shoot your way through another army of goons.

I Am Your Beast is very close to being the best possible version of itself, but even falling just short of that, it's still one of the absolute best games I've played this year, or any year. It's short, it's sweet, it's cathartic as hell, and it has one of the best final levels of any game I've played. I'm a sucker for when a song drops into gameplay, especially with lyrics, and boy they save that for a final level that's more a celebration than a challenge. This game kicks ass, and if you get anything from this list? I'd say get this one, for real.

Karate Survivor is another in the burgeoning subgenre of "bullet heaven," aka Vampire Survivors-clones. But this one is different, because it requires actual gameplay!

I jest, but this game does feel more active and more involving in terms of positioning than most games in this genre. Instead of building a suite of weapons that autofire, you're building a combo string that auto fires, and each attack goes in a specific direction with a specific arc of damage, and they're each part of different styles and different sequences that boost damage and add bonus effects when linked together and... you can see how there's some juice here!

But more importantly, Karate Survivor does something I did not expect: it made me feel like Jackie Chan. There are games that let you do a fight scene -- Sifu is one of my all-time favorite games, and that has some environmental stuff you can do, ottomans you can kick and bottles you can throw and tables to dive over, but it's all just a bit self-serious, a bit too cool. And that's good! I like those vibes! But a Jackie Chan movie, a good one? That has something different. There's an element of danger, of threat, of physicality and pain for sure, but there's also a distinct element throughout the choreography of slapstick comedy, of using the environment in creative ways.

And that's what this game does -- you have environmental interactions. You direct your karate man over to some bottles, and he'll automatically chuck them at the nearest enemy. He'll kick chairs and buckets, he'll pick up brooms and shovels and ladders, he'll kick out a support and send a shack tumbling down on his attackers. You can run up walls, you can throw open doors to smack dudes in the face (a move lifted directly from Rumble in the Bronx) and you can pole vault into locked rooms or across rooftops. The act of moving, of positioning yourself to funnel attackers and utilize the environment and grab whatever is laying around? That's Jackie Chan, baby. And no other game has really captured that feeling like this one has!

Karate Survivor fully justifies itself not as a clone of Vampire Survivors, but as its own game. It is unique, it has some excellent pixel art, it kicks ass, and best of all, it is very cheap. Absolutely check it out if you can!

Balatro is my game of the year. It kind of has to be. Yeah, I'm sure Astro Bot is incredible, I'll play it someday and love it death I'm sure. I hear that Indiana Jones game is shockingly excellent too! And Shadow of the Erdtree? I mean come on!

But you don't understand. You don't get it. I didn't either -- I thought I was over deckbuilding roguelikes, and the poker aesthetic? Who could care! I mean I like poker and all, but as a video game? Meh.

Then I watched someone play it for just a few minutes, and I knew I had to try it. Then I got it on mobile, and it was all over.

Balatro is a dopamine factory. Not in the same way that Vampire Survivors is, where it's all in the presentation and after a certain point the game sort of falls away and it's just flashing lights making brain chemicals happen. Balatro is a thinker. You gotta plan, you gotta react. You gotta play the right hands, get your cards in the proper order to maximize score. You gotta build your run on the fly, depending on the jokers you find. There is not a moment in Balatro that you are not making some meaningful decision, no matter how small or short. It has one of the best UI designs in games, with some really smart flourishes that make my pleasure centers light up like a Christmas tree. It is a game that you can break such that your high score is in scientific notation, but luck is also a factor, and you'll rarely see this unless you dig into seed science. It has a bunch of different decks that all radically change how you play, and a bunch of challenge modes that demand you play a certain way, and you're always unlocking one of the 150 jokers in the game that each completely change how you build your strategy.

Balatro is available on PC and mobile. Get it on both. You pay like fifteen bucks, and you get everything. No DLC, no microtransactions, no actual gambling, ever. The whole game. I've put at least fifty hours into this thing, probably more, and I'll put more into it in 2025. If I get the PC version, I might investigate the mod scene! People are adding new jokers that break the game even more! One-man developer LocalThunk is a baller, and I can't wait to see what he makes next, but if all he ever does is this? He's earned a spot in the history of this medium.

Balatro is the closest to a perfect game I've seen since Vampire Survivors. That two games this monumental by solo devs have come out so close together is proof enough to me that, for all its many MANY problems, we are in a golden age of video games. I sincerely hope it inspires tons of folks to make their own! So I can lose hundreds of hours to those, too.

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Undertale/ISAT crossover thoughts

Don't really want to write one myself (already got enough fics I'm failing to write XD) but ever since I finished In Stars and Time I've been thinking how I'd write a crossover between these two amazing games and I figured I'd share my notes in case anyone needs a bit of help/motivation in writing their own~ =D

Warning: These will mostly be in 'order of thought' as it's all barebones stuff. Also contains FULL spoilers for both Undertale and In Stars and Time so er, if you're still looking to play those/still getting through them don't read this and please play this incredible games.

Mt Ebott is located on The Island and the shattering of the Barrier brings the ability to see color back to all those on the (ISAT) surface.

Humans losing the ability to see color in ISAT was due to them/the 'wish wizards' of The Island sacrificing it (along side their seven strongest 'colour casters') in a Wish Craft ritual, naturally leading to humanity losing most of their 'colour magic' knowledge.

Undertale's 'sepia flashbacks' were all Chara's memories of how the world looked to them, BUT once in the Underground they were able to see (and remember things on the Surface) in color (hence the whole 'golden flowers' bit; it was still mostly just a cover story but Chara genuinely wished that they could see their favorite flower field as the 'gold' they realized it was rather than the 'mid tones' they saw it as on the Surface).

...The 'erasure' of the Island I'm thinking might've been accidentally poor Chara and Asriel's fault: with Chara's 'ritual' killing of themselves via buttercup taking three days to happen, Chara being from the Island insisting Asriel always give them flowers in groups of three, seven and thirteen, and an entire Underground filled with tons and tons of 'trapped' wishes from monster kind for their freedom combining with Chara's self loathing/desire to hurt those who hurt them trapping them in a loop that Just. Wouldn't. End. until Chara eventually snapped and pulled a 'May these people, this Island, EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WHO'D EVER HURT THE MONSTERS I LOVE including me BE ERASED UNTIL THE MONSTERS ARE FREE!' and um. Welp. There went an entire nation... (also Flowey eventually remembered some of this but only after going back to being Flowey post Asriel and probably it took a while for him to sort through all that).

Which er, means in this fic, that the people of The Island and the Island itself are still 100% there but they've all spent roughly 8 years or so all blitzed out of their minds: Need to think of Chara's exact wish wording so its not just 'corpses everywhere' but very good odds the people on the Island were either running on full automatic for years or able to remember some stuff but only if they very very carefully did not think of themselves as their own countrymen/used the languages of elsewhere/were careful not to think of where they were as any actual location within their country...

...Which naturally would effect the kids by far the most as their very language is basically a brown note (bilingual types could at least swap over to a different language but likely most of The Island was rendered silent) and well, pretty hard to remember Mt Ebbot is the mountain that must not be climbed when you can't think of the locations around you by name and the adults may or may not remember the kids exist half the time so... Yeah. Cue a lot of kids climbing up the mountain due to both lack of warnings and increased chances of feeling ignored/isolated/hurt.

Aka why in Undertale we can never hear/read anything Frisk says, why the monsters outside of Flowey/Asriel never refer to Chara by name and why no one remembers Frisk's name until after the Barrier shatters: Chara's 'Wish' couldn't be broken until then.

Not sure where all the anime and high tech that's washing into the Underground is coming from but either The Island used to be a massive tech hub prior to memory erasure, a LOT of tech was lost along with the loss of color or The Island's memory erasure in the ISAT world color magitech? maybe the wizards tried to seal away more than just monsters?, or IDK maybe the Underground barrier techincally had them displaced outside of Space and Time a bit and the garbage that was washing in was from literally everywhere thanks to the Universe wanting to help them or something (side note: realizing the memory erasure from Chara may have accidentally snipped Universe worship from the monsters as well since they clearly venerate the stars also but well. That longing for the stars DID cause them pain so..).

Imagining that Siffrin and party are in Bambouche meeting Bonnie's sister (or idk, having a vacation or reunion there if you wanna give Siff a bit more recovery/'explaining his issues to his family' time) when the Barrier is broken and all the colors come rushing back. Best first sunset ever (right before the entire Surface world kinda flips out over color, and to a lesser extent those familiar with The Island start remembering more and more details as the 'curse' weakens a little with every monster leaving Mt Ebbot) followed up by Siffren and the others absolutely losing their minds over how beautiful the stars are with just a tiny bit of color to them (the stars no longer being passively pushed out of people's awareness helps).

Anyway next day the party realize they have to investigate: Partly because Siff is well, kind of losing their mind over being able to see and remember home a little, but also because W.T.F and the Island is clearly the epicenter of everything going on. ...Also Siff may remember childhood stories about colors being locked away to serve as warning for if the Monsters returned so um. That's could be a thing.

Meanwhile the Monsters are getting a MUCH warmer reception from the local humans than they ever could've imagined (accidentally saving a nation from enforced amnesia kinda does that) and are also very confused as to why no one knows who they should get in contact with for formal alliance stuff (not sure if The Island has much of a government left at this point honestly...)

Would Flowey and the ghosty Chara acompanying Frisk count as Sadnesses???

... And er, that's all I got plot/setup wise. Most of my brain energy had been spent on imagining what soul colors all the ISAT cast have and also 'What Pokemon would they all be if they ended up in a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game?' so have a list with my reasoning on that front! =D

Siffrin: Blue/Integrity - Might seem like an odd choice given his constant lying/acting but like. Given all of the memory erasure and the torture of the loops Siffrin's absolute refusal to compromise his family's happiness/safety or use the loops for literally anything not 'helping family/ending the loops' based (even when he's basically losing his mind and could really use just... Taking a loop or three to goof off or something) just screams how devoted he is to what he believes in and well, the amount he lies syncs up well with how insane he's going so yeah. Siffren is an Integrity soul who's having a really really hard time being true to himself due to all the wobbie breaking he's gone through all his life. Specifically I like to picture his soul as a very dark, deep black/blue with little pinpricks of other colored light (mostly green, red and yellow), like a tiny heart shaped starry night's sky <3 (And er, bet that soul went very 'red/bleeding sky' as he was losing it in Act 5; Determination isn't his color by nature but they were not well at that point at all).

Isabeau: Cyan/Patience - Isa is super kind and all sorts of things but what really sets him apart is just how patient he is about everything (in ways both good and bad). I like to imagine his soul looking like a blue daytime sky, maybe with the odd white cloud and yellow 'sun' dot: partly because it fits him but also partly to cutely contrast Siffrin's. *cue me humming Like Morning Follows Night from the RWBY OST because I mean. It kinda fits honestly

Mirabelle: Orange/Bravery and/or Yellow/Justice - Again another 'you might not think so' but like. Mirabelle is hella gutsy despite her anxiety and I admire her so so much (also JUSTICE BARRIER REFLECT AGAINST THE KING YAAAAGH! XD) Not super attached to it as Isa and Siff's but the orange/yellow glow of a sunset (maybe with some pink/purple along the edges to show her Perseverance <3).

Odiel: Green/Kindness - She's hella awkward about how much she cares and not the greatest at reading situations/reacting gently but like. Her sheer affection towards the others, her always watching and coming out with the bandages and how she point blank tells Siff 'nope, not angry at you nearly blowing up the world. Also you trying to do that because you love us is cute' means I can't really see her any other way~ Not sure if her soul would be dark green (for more Integrity) or more light green (for more Justice) but all in all, very very green, like light/dark speckled leaves <3

Bonnie: Purple/Perseverance - This kid endures so much so well I swear (they're also really brave so a little orange would work well too but despite everything I don't think bravery is their main characteristic). I like to think of their soul as very 'purple evening clouds with bits of brave orange gold/setting sun on the edges'.

And Loop has a White boss monster soul for reasons; thinking that in this crossover that Monsters believe that they were born from the Universe's compassion (with The Islander's myths claiming they're the result of failed/'cursed' wishes like the 'brother who can understand my suffering Wish Craft' fairytale Siff finds in the Orary room) and both Monsters and the Islanders believing Sadnesses are born from forcing a wish of cruelty/sorrow that goes against the will of the Universe (cue Chara and Flowey who probably were Sadnesses in this until the breaking of the Barrier grumbling that yeah that sounds about right and The King from ISAT proving to even more aaagh than he already was).

And yeah. I'm out of babble thoughts now so hope that this was interesting for you all and please feel free to yoink any ideas that snag your interest <3

[veebs-hates-video-games]

It really is nice finally having a genuinely good Mana game for the first time in over 20 years, not counting remakes. Even counting them I only really thought the Trials one was particularly noteworthy because of how much stuff they improved, especially compared to playing the original with the extremely iffy fan translation when the patch first came out over 20 years ago. The others have been fine but haven't really offered much over the originals aside from looking a little nicer and not needing a console from the 90s to play them legit.

Anyway, as someone who got started with the series as a kid in the 90s, Visions of Mana is a lot of fun.

The people who worked on it really did their homework figuring out what makes the series work and made something that feels like it belongs right next to all the others. It's very much a 90s action JRPG with modern sensibilities and quality of life features, and an actually good translation (which is mostly worth mentioning with how questionable most of them were back then, even from big companies like Squaresoft).

They really captured the visual style of the series and somehow made it work in real time in 3D, full of bright colors and lush landscapes and all the silly little quirks of the Mana games like turning into a snowman when you get frozen. The music's pretty good too and calls back to a bunch of themes from previous games while introducing some new ones too. I don't think most of them will stick in my head for decades like some of the originals, but it's still pretty enjoyable.

Also enjoyable? All of the characters. The story isn't super deep, but it's got the kinds of themes the series likes to go for, and it gives lots of opportunities for the main cast to play off each other in fun ways. I liked them all, but I think Palamena (the squirrel queen who just wants to pretend to be normal but doesn't know how) and Morley (the sad catboy who blames himself for the loss of everyone he knew) ended up being my favorites.

It's kind of funny that the previous game in the series I played was the Trials remake, where the main character I played was the glass cannon magic user who's a princess and the biggest brat the series has ever seen. Then I came here and mostly played the glass cannon magic user who's instead a queen and just wants to be friends with and help everyone. Good contrast.

One of the devs mentioned in an interview that one of the things that inspired the world design was Xenoblade, and it shows (in a good way). Large areas, but not open world, fantastical landscapes with plenty of verticality, running around collecting glowing dots that give you minor resources along the way to wherever you're going, usually something or other in every random corner of the map you poke your way into, and specifically like XC1 a lot of kind of uninspired side quests to go kill or collect however many of whatever. I still did most of them, but most of them are really not the highlight of the game.

Combat's fun though, which is good because there's plenty of it along the way. Could be a little better and a little tighter, and I'd love better feedback on stuff like whether I time dodges right or not, but there's enough variety and customization that you can probably figure out something fun that works for you.

Really the only part that I didn't really like was in the post-game stuff. I liked that they used it to tie together and wrap up a few random side things from the main story, and it was good enough most of the way through, but the final boss of that side quest storyline was probably the single least fun thing in the entire series for me so far. It's not even that hard, just incredibly tedious and designed to counter any of the ways I like to actually play the game. Kind of wish I'd just stopped after the credits and ending, because having that as the last thing I did instead made me like the game very slightly less.

Anyway, it was nice to have something that starts with a vaguely similar premise to the pilgrimage in FFX but then turns out to actually be something I like instead of just getting progressively worse as it goes on like FFX did for me. It kinda sucks that the reward for the people who made it was getting their entire company shut down at the same time the game launched. Hopefully they all find work somewhere doing something interesting, because they're clearly good at what they do, and hopefully Squenix keeps making stuff like this for people like me who've been sick of what they're doing with stuff like FF for years at this point.

[atlur]

Anime 2024

I barely played any video games in 2024, but I did end up watching quite a bit of anime, both old and new. I did specifically make a push to watch a lot of current anime in 2024, and it was a lot of fun to see what all was coming out that I might not normally check out. I'm going to give my top 3 series that I watched in their entirety, and then cover shows that I only got partway through.

Top New Anime of 2024:

3. Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian The art style is unique and exceptional. I found the characters in this very charming, and that really carried this show for me. I did also find the general story of it engaging. I'm looking forward to more of this show.

2. Gushing Over Magical Girls Hear me out. Yes, it is incredibly lewd and horny, but it also handles its themes in a very genuine manner. It covers a wide array of fetishes and clearly cares about giving them proper representation. The characters are a ton of fun, and the story is really about a love for the magical girl genre and being true to who you are. It is far better than it had to be and I am looking forward to season 2 (though I have already read all of the manga up to current so I know what is coming).

1. Whisper Me a Love Song Hands down my show of the year. It combines my two favorite things in anime, girl bands and yuri. I watched this show with my wife, and we really connected and related to the characters. It is sweet and wholesome and just makes me happy. Plus, the music is great! It is a shame that the show had production issues, which stopped the last two episodes from being aired for months. Because of that, my wife and I both read the entire manga because we needed to know how the season was supposed to end. And honestly? The manga is even more amazing! I am glad we watched the show first though because actually hearing the songs really makes those scenes hit on a whole different level. The final two episodes did finally release just a few days ago, and I'm so glad they did, because it was really special to see those final moments animated.

Also watched all of: Days With My Stepsister - amazing characters, didn't like where the plot ended up. An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride - Actually a lot of fun, if a bit simple.

Top Anime of 2024 That I Started and Want to Finish: Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines - I really enjoyed the first 2 episodes, it seems like a neat premise. Jellyfish Can't Swim in The Night - The first episode is beautiful and the themes of it really spoke to me. Pseudo Harem - Seems like a really cute concept that was done well in the first episode. VTuber Legend - As someone who watches vtubers I've gotta watch more of this, it felt very genuine.

Other Anime of 2024 I Checked Out: Dan Da Dan - First episode left a bad taste in my mouth. Astro Note - Didn't connect with the characters or vibes. My Deer Friend Nokotan - Seems fun, might continue. Ranma 1/2 - Seems like a faithful adaptation, might watch more. Shoushimin: How to Become Ordinary - I am very intrigued by this, will probably continue. 2.5 Dimensional Seduction - Seemed fine. Kaijuu No. 8 - I hate the OP/ED but the series seems interesting. Viral Hit - Interesting premise, maybe? Wind Breaker - Action was very good, do want to continue this at some point. The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio - Very interesting first episode, strong characters. Train to the End of the World - Weird. A Condition Called Love - Didn't grab me. Bartender: Glass of God - Has potential, I want to watch this with Phoebe. A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics - The plot seemed interesting, may return to this. Gods' Games We Play - Kinda whatever.

Top Non-2024 Anime I Watched in 2024: Higurashi: When They Cry - LOVED this one, it's one of my wife's all time favorites and it was very special to get to experience it with her. Bocchi the Rock - Absolutely amazing in every way. Apothecary Diaries - Wonderful characters, really looking forward to the new season coming out.

[sibyl-of-space]

It's time for me to go to bed. And that means everybody gets a Procrastination Essay No One Asked For About Sonic Adventure 1 for the SEGA Dreamcast!

This game is one of my super mega ultra all-time favorites. Every single time I revisit it, I am so afraid that my love for it is entirely nostalgia goggles and it will lose its charm this time around, and every single time, I just have the time of my life because the game really is great. It is so fun. It does some very cool things. It is kind of stupid but it takes itself seriously, and that is very endearing and a million times more interesting than a game that's too afraid of being perceived as cringe to be sincere.

I love basically everything about it. I painted Big the Cat on my Dreamcast and even that is not enough to communicate my vast love for this game.

MANY WORDS BELOW CUT. Visuals, audio, gameplay, I love all of it.

Visuals

The game came out in 1998. It looks like a game that came out in 1998. But the world and character designs are fantastic and the world is so detailed. I could genuinely spend hours just moving around on the Egg Carrier overworld map appreciating all the gadgets and gizmos moving around that are purely 100% set dressing. It makes up for what it lacks in polygons with cool textures and fun trinkets everywhere. The animated CGs genuinely look amazing, and you can forgive the rest of it considering the game came out in 1998.

I also love the splash screens you get after finishing each route. They're so good.

(It goes without saying that the game looks its best on a CRT. There are some really cool lighting effects CRTs just capture better.)

Audio

It obviously has an insanely good soundtrack of just nonstop banger after banger. It also has a very 1998 dub and the sound mixing and implementation are some of the worst you'll ever hear. Eggman has like 5 voice lines that are re-used in every scene he's in. But who can complain about that when they're listening to the likes of "Bad Taste Aquarium"? Literally nobody. Who cares. Every single song slaps.

"But Leo half the time the songs start and stop mid-cutscene because of how the game handles loading" who cares. I can forgive just about ANYTHING a game does in terms of audio implementation if it has a song as good as "Bad Taste Aquarium" in its soundtrack.

Narrative

Setting aside the fact that the story is kind of stupid, I really think we need to appreciate the way it tells it. The way this game has you play through the same story from everyone's different perspective, and how the scenes that overlap actually play out differently depending on who you play as, is so big brain. You don't get the full picture of what's happening until you've played as everybody, and there is no "big group of heroes collectively take on the bad guy" until the very very end Super Sonic story... until then, it's just different people having wildly different journeys that overlap here and there and are all part of a single, bigger story.

That's just cool ass storytelling. Everyone loves to bitch about my good friend Big the Cat but the entire point is that this extremely chill guy who loves to fish and just wants to save his friend was caught up in this Adventure, and he was a small but vital part of it, and it affected him differently than it affected everybody else because he had a different reason for being involved. But that goes for everybody! Everyone's story has an arc with a start and a finish, and most of them don't come close to being involved in the whole thing. Even SONIC doesn't see everything (he doesn't have a Hot Shelter level at all). Knuckles's story ends on a really cool note, with him going "I may never know the full story of what happened here, but maybe it's better that way." Or something close to that.

I also just love the concept of benevolent protector water god goes apeshit at people, as well as the concept of a ghost from thousands of years ago trying to right ancient wrongs. Chaos and Tikal are great.

Gameplay

The thing I love about Sonic Adventure is that every single character is really fun to play. This comes at the "cost" of what you might call "balance," in that half of the characters are broken as fuck and you can just disregard the very concept of platforming with most of them. I couldn't really care less about that because I just enjoy how fun it is to play as everyone.

Sonic Adventure 2 understandably put Tails in a mech because outside of it he is too damn broken. Sonic Adventure 1 lets you play as him anyway, and it rules.

The ONLY gripe I have about the gameplay is that Big the Cat does not have the means to harm robots (because he is too nice and chill to do that), but as a result he is unable to collect animals to give the chao. I cannot think of a single character in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe who would be better suited to raise chao than Big the Cat, but Big the Cat is unable to give them animals to power up. This is a tragedy.

Overall

Sonic Adventure is a masterpiece. Every time I play it I'm like "this is the greatest game that has ever been made." The parts of it that are clunky, awkward, kind of dumb, or very dated are still endearing because it tries to do so many things that you really just have to respect it. This is the kind of game that is fantastic whether you sit down and play it straight through from plot point to plot point or you spend three hours throwing that statue around Station Square into oncoming traffic.

Of course it's not polished. It tries to do way too many cool ass things all at once to be polished. It is WAY too ambitious to be polished. That's what makes it so good. It's perfect exactly the way it is and the fact that people will play this incredible game and go "lol, 3D Sonic sucks" is a good reminder that gamers will bitch about anything and you should never care about what gamers have to say when making games.

Big the Cat has glow-in-the-dark eyes. Game of all time.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 07/07/2023

Epic Flintstones

Season 1 Featured on: GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume 7: Part mm2wood Also on: Now That's What I Call Quality!, SiIvaGunner: Starter Kit & Essentials

Ripped by Can of Nothing, wolfman1405, MtH Ending Visuals by Dosh

Look...it's the 7th day of the 7th month, in the midst of SiIvaGunner's 7th Season - during a year with the digital root of 7. (2+0+2+3 = 7). Today is when the stars align for the funniest number on the entire SiIvaGunner channel, the funny number that laid the foundation for everything the channel would eventually become. I couldn't NOT talk about it.

I get the impression from a lot of newer fans, or ones who maybe just pop in every now and then, that SiIva's neverending obsession with The Flintstones theme comes off as a bit of a gimmick. There was a novelty to it in Season 1, when the bait-and-switch nature of the channel was at full force, and people genuinely got caught off-guard hearing The Flintstones instead of their favorite game music: In turn parallelling Joel's original reaction to "MARIO 7" instead giving him Flintstones music. But a lot of time has obviously passed since then, to where even during the latter half of Season 1 people were starting to realize that just hearing the Flintstones wasn't really all that funny anymore. Even just the name Epic Flintstones comes from an in-joke during that time, where people like Triple-Q would post it as a form of ironic celebration over hearing the same old joke as always show up again.

So if that was the case even back in Season 1's final months, that long-time viewers were even then not really finding the joke funny and even growing a bit tired of it...how has it stayed with the channel for so long? And why did a rip like Epic Flintstones itself land so perfectly as the end of Season 1?

In my eyes, its entirely due to the emotional connection that viewers formed with the meme, in a way that feels almost exclusive to SiIvaGunner. There's no doubt that jokes like Grand Dad became played out to some people, yet its a joke that stems from the very origins of the channel - it represents how everything began, the core, beating heart of the entire ripping team. The first official story arc on the channel, Season 1's SiIvaGunner: Rebooted, used this emotional tie to jokes as the crux of its entire conflict: It gave viewers a look into an alternate world where all the channel's beloved jokes were replaced with equivalents, turning The Flintstones theme into The Simpsons, Love Live music into IDOLM@STER music, and so on. In terms of comedic effect, all of these really worked just as well as the original jokes. Yet they weren't the original jokes: The emotional attachment the community held for Grand Dad bound viewers together during the story arc as we all prayed for its return.

Its this kind of emotional attachment to the strangest of things that really draws me to the channel, and codified me as a die-hard fan when SiIvaGunner: Rebooted came to an end. And its this kind of emotional attachment that gives Grand Dad weight as a musical theme, even seven seasons in. The Flintstones theme has become a sort of celebratory anthem more than a joke: It cameos up in just about everything, from big joke medleys like Rips Are Forever to full-on event anthems like The King for Another Day Tournament's Main Theme, as a kind of way to remind us in the audience of just how far the channel's come whilst still being the same.

Which, brings us back to todays rip: Epic Flintstones, the finale of Season 1. Through music and visuals, it follows Grand Dad's journey throughout the channel's first nine months, walking along its history not as a joke, but as genuine celebration. It's celebratory, bittersweet, and genuinely heartfelt. The visuals, sound, and the animation by the end - none of it is played for laughs, and none of it was met with ridicule. It was met with becoming the 5th most viewed video on the channel.

There's little I can say about Epic Flintstones that isn't conveyed perfectly by the rip itself, but what I will say is that it hit me in every way it was intended to. Though it didn't end up marking the end of SiIvaGunner as a whole, it was a beautiful end to the channel's original run, and a testament to the emotional power these silly memes have to us fans.

[somechubbynerd]

That secret ending is genuinely one of my favorites ever, because it uses the medium of being a video game in order to make a strange and memorable moment out of what would otherwise kind of be a weird, off-hand thing you forget about since it happens so early in the game.

Tokiko asks you for "the nil number" in the earliest section of Chapter 2. You, playing for the first time, don't know what the fuck she's talking about, and you might have a ha ha funny moment about her being meta, since it turns into a gag if you don't have the information. She's also kind of explicitly tagged as a religious weirdo. "Moksha" and "nonuple X" and stuff.

So you're going through the game the rest of the time, maybe you've forgotten about her even asking about that number because, well, it's a murder mystery game. Murders are happening! These half-bodies are showing up across space and time! What the entire southwest fuck? You learn stuff about the player characters, you learn how the actual timeline of the game is going, and then you get to Tokiko's death.

Where a hologram recording of her reveals the nil number to you. A personalized number that every save file generates for itself, not something you can just look up.

In my case, I was more invested in continuing the plot than backtracking to replay old chapters, so I made my notes and forged ahead. We catch the killer, we solve the mystery, a disabled woman uses a minigun to mow down invisible people, the usual.

Everything's wrapped up nice and neat.

And then I remembered the number and figured I'd go see what was going on. Might be a fun Easter egg!

Oh boy.

It's an entire bonus chapter of a Weird Fucking Best Possible Timeline, all because Tokiko fucked off into a different reality.

The disabled girl is no longer disabled! People are alive that were chopped in half! Ryuki solved this case on the day Tokiko disappeared, so there was no need for the six year follow-up.

All because you, the player, Tokiko's fabled "Frayer", gave her information that she knew would be statistically improbable to guess, and impossible to know without going to the future and back with knowledge from a different person.

That's fucking amazing.

[meercacchi]

Tag game! What are you top 10 fandoms of all time? Name them and then tag ten more people. Feel free to write as much or as little about why you like them!

Tagged by @supreme-sauteer~ These are in no particular order and I ended rambling a lil too long LOL.

1. Kuroko no Basuke

Jk, ofc knb has to be first! It's been almost 10 years since I got into it and it's just the gift that keeps on giving. It's one of my comfort shows and it's gotten me through a lot tbh. Special shoutout to Kise, my baby who will forever be one of my favorite characters in media, and Kasamatsu, who I love with my entire being. Kaijou deserves better!!

2. Pokemon

My original hyperfixation before I even knew what that was, LOL. Pokemon has been there for me for as long as I can remember, and I don't think anything will ever quite replicate the feeling of home I get from this franchise, whether it's the games or merch or the show. I will def be there when gen 5028373 comes out, still playing the newest Pokemon game on the newest console no matter how old I am.

3. Xenoblade Chronicles

A newer fandom but one I fell into HARD. XC3 actually altered my brain chemistry and is probably my favorite game ever. My journey through the Xenoblade trilogy was magical and I can't get over how well the characters and stories are written, on top of having pretty fun gameplay. I'm super excited to finally check out XCX in March too!

4. TMNT 2003

Another childhood fave and another comfort show. These boys genuinely feel like family to me, they're just so cozy. I'm honestly shocked how well the show holds up even today; the writing is too good! It's criminal how slept on this version of the turtles is compared to others and I will die on this hill.

5. Akatsuki no Yona

The other day I realized I've been reading this manga for ten years which really made me have a belated quarter life crisis LOL. I migrated over from the anime, but man, it's SO SAD that they haven't animated the arcs after bc I love Yona (and everyone else's) growth through the series. I'm really anticipating how the series ends! Last chapter ripped out my heart thx.

6. Love Live!

I haven't kept up with Love Live and I was introduced to it through LLSIF (RIP) but I still listen to so many of the Muse/Aqours songs to this day! Kotori is incredibly special to me in particular bc I relate to her and I'll always smile when I see her pop up. Also I sometimes use the cards for fashion inspo bc their fits are too cute!

7. Rurouni Kenshin

I haven't felt comfortable following new RuroKen stuff considering everything, and tbh I don't think I'll ever be able to even reread/rewatch it bc it's forever tainted in my mind. But I can't deny how big of an impact it (esp Sano) had on me in my early teens, so here it is!

8. Sengoku BASARA

Tbh I'm not really in the fandom anymore, but I met SO MANY of my mutuals who I'm still friends with today through it, so it'll always hold a special place in my heart <3 Those were some wild and fun times LMAO.

9. Ys

Still making my way through all the older Ys games, but Ys 8 will forever be a legendary game imo and it has one of my fave OSTs of all time. Ys 9 and esp Ys 10 were also awesome! I finished Ys 10 a couple weeks ago and I'm still having withdrawals lol.

10. EXO

Alright this one is kinda eh bc I never got super into fandom stuff, but it's been such a crazy ride watching them from debut to now! Jongin esp is one of my favorite humans on the planet and as cheesy as it is, his words helped me tackle some of my insecurities growing up. I'll always be an erigom and an EXO-L <3

[prodigal-explorer]

speaking of your turn to die i need your turn to die mutuals you don't understand it's a need

so here are some your turn to die opinions and if you agree with them i'd love to be your homie! i promise i have lots of headcanons and goofy jokes and badly constructed essays.

spoilers for your turn to die up to 3-1b!

my top favorite characters of all time are reko, nao, kai, and jou! honorable mentions are kanna, gin, q-taro, sara, and shin!

i'm honestly not a massive fan of any of the floor masters or dolls in 3-1 purely because i feel like i didn't get the chance to know them well. it's a real shame too because i think they're super cool! just not quite fleshed out enough to my liking. i'm hoping we at least learn more about the floor masters in the finale because they have the potential to be so interesting!

i don't really like shipping in your turn to die, i kinda think it's unnecessary (though i don't hate on people who do ship!), but if i had to pick a ship i like, it would be reko x nao! i think it could be cute, and they have a lot of sweet moments in the game!

my favorite part of your turn to die to play is hands down 2-1. those attractions are so much fun! and all the mystery is insane, the part with the fake mishima ai was INSANEE. i also really liked 3-1 because of the part where you use the lantern to uncover people's memories about hiyori and asu-naro. it was so cool to get a glimpse of people's pasts!

to be honest i'm kind of a noob so i can never get it straight which route is logic is which is emotion (even though it's probably really obvious), but my favorite route is the one where kanna and reko live! i watched a playthrough of a route where shin lives but i didn't really like it as much, even though it was interesting to see that side of it!

this isn't really an opinion, just a confession, but i'm really dumb and really bad at the logic stuff so i lowkey thought it was impossible to save reko for the first like three years of playing the game...i figured it out though!

i've never once used a walkthrough to figure out your turn to die, i've always just used my own brain to figure things out. maybe...uh...maybe in hindsight, that's why it took me so long to figure out how to save reko...

the only character in the entire franchise that i genuinely dislike is keiji. i just think he's kinda creepy and off-putting (though that might be in part due to translation errors)? also i'm lesbian so i don't really find him hot i think he just looks like a muscly piece of popcorn.

in terms of my opinion on who the "mastermind" is i actually have literally no idea? the only idea i kind of have is that it's either sara or keiji because they're the only two who we don't get to see how they signed the asu-naro vow. but i also don't really get how it would be either of them because keiji was a victim of hiyori's tricks too, and sara just seems totally clueless. it makes my brain hurt to think about so i kinda choose not to.

i think the "gin is the mastermind" theory is mind-bogglingly stupid. sorry LMAO-

i think the theory of jou being the son of mr. policeman is actually super cool! i don't really know why it exists but i've seen people talking about it and i think that would be a cool connection.

i've read a few things about the referendum theory and i think it's a cool theory! it kinda make sense, though there are a few holes that i can't logic my way through quite yet. it seems very plausible though, and it would make for an interesting plot!

i don't think shin is overrated at all. he's a super interesting character and i love how he contributes to the story, and all the twists about him are so unique and exciting! i do hate when people water him down to like a soggy little man who's super weak and innocent, though. the coolest thing about him is his fortitude!

in case it wasn't obvious, i am on team "q-taro is the goat", especially after 3-1b. even after accidentally getting the ending where q-taro abandoned all of us i was like "okay but that was lowkey cunty af of him..." i've always been on homie q-taro's side and i also think it's hilarious that he's like supposed to be an american stereotype.

anyway that's all i can think of! i hope some of y'all wanna be friends!!

[1moreff-creator]

Not related to DRDT, But I saw in your pinned post you like FNAF. If you haven't answered this before, which FNAF game is your favorite? Or who is your favorite animatronic/character? I like fnaf1 foxy :)

Yee FNAF! I might not talk about it here much, but it is the fixation that Always Comes Back for me, so I’m glad to have an excuse to ramble about it :D

Favorite game is a bit complicated because I haven’t played all of them (my computer couldn’t handle the FLAF demo it is not running Security Breach), but depending on the day, it’s one of FNAF 1, Sister Location or Help Wanted.

FNAF 1 gets a ton of nostalgia points, the atmosphere is immaculate, and the little story it has is fantastic, though without as much complexity as later entries.

Sister Location is horrible on the replayability department… except I count the Custom Night DLC as part of the game, and that’s pretty fun. The game itself is fine on a first play through, has pretty good atmosphere, and (in my opinion) beats FNAF 1 in terms of self-contained story, themes and narrative weight, wider lore and character building. Night 5 is (in my opinion) one of the best written segments of any FNAF game, both Real and Fake ending.

Help Wanted also beats FNAF 1 in terms of self-contained story (those tapes are genuinely an awesome evolution of the Phone Guy concept), and the introduction of Vanny is genuinely captivating (regardless of how much they fumbled her in later entries), but it also added certain elements to the overall plot that I don’t quite like the ramifications of (even if I tend to ignore the “in-universe games” debacle, I dislike what it represents for theorizing). In gameplay it’s generally better than SL, but it’s not as charming as FNAF 1. Though I feel my opinion of it would change if I could actually play it in VR, but alas, that is not my situation.

It’s hard for me to pick between those, frankly. Probably Sister Location though, I just like the characters too much…

What shit I forgot Into the Pit. Yeah no it’s Into the Pit probably. Even accounting for recency bias the game’s insanely peak lol. Still gonna leave those other three there, for posterity xD

Speaking of liking SL characters; Baby and Puppet are my favorite animatronics, though admittedly that’s more of an extension of my favorite characters being Charlie and Elizabeth (that order). Btw, FNAF 1 Foxy is a very good and solid pick, I respect it :D

I genuinely think Baby in Sister Location has an argument for best written character of the entire franchise bar maybe Movie Mike, and I am willing to defend that take. A ruthless killer born of horrible circumstances, yet compassionate at heart (see: the very fact she chose to form Ennard instead of leaving with Michael’s body on her own, “the scooper only hurts for a moment” line), in her eyes betrayed by those she saved because of being… well, a child.

Shame her character got absolutely assassinated in FFPS. Unless she was trying to manipulate William. I know it’s not ever even remotely suggested, but I genuinely would have no (serious) complaints about Baby’s character if that’s what she was going for in the “I will make you proud” speech.

As for Puppet, old fan favorite for a reason. It was always a standout of the cast, which obviously meant I loved them, and the exploration of its personality in UCN in particular is pretty cool. To be clear, my enjoyment of Charlie as a character is based on highly specific interpretations of certain lines, but when literally 90% of the story is up to interpretation, I feel that’s not too surprising.

In particular, taking Charlie as a deeply regretful person, who realized how badly she fucked up by reviving the children only after dozens of night guards had been killed and they’d already been trapped for years, with possibly hundreds of deaths on her hands, just trying to make things right again. And, just, so, fucking, tired, by the time Lefty happens (see: Lefty UCN lines). And don’t even get me started on the angst potential of being tortured by her supposedly loving father in the Bear Torture Contraption, the mistakes of her past haunting her because Henry sees her as the bloodthirsty night guard killer that no longer exists (see: she doesn’t attack Michael in FNAF 3), and hearing that he wants to “save her now” as she burns half-alive. Etcetera.

Again, hyperspecific. But I like it, so.

For the sake of completionism:

My favorite Silver Eyes character is probably Elizabeth/Adult Charlie/Baby (why is this character so hard to refer to).

Favorite Frights character is probably Eleanor. She’s just so sassy and girlfailure and somewhat intriguing she’s fantastic (or, at least, better than other Frights characters in my books).

Favorite Steel Wool Era character is Gregory if he dropped the elevator and probably Vanessa if he didn’t (I wonder what that says about me lol).

Favorite Mega Cat games character is Oswald (not that many to pick from tbf).

Favorite movie character is Mike. Just a really amazing spin on the already solid basis of Michael Afton.

Favorite Interactive Novels character is Ralph (is it cheating if I mainly like him cuz he’s Phone Guy?).

And… do I really not like any character from Tales? I don’t remember almost any of the stories very well, but I guess if I’d liked the characters enough, I’d remember them.

Since I don’t care about Edwin for now, I guess the Mimic is the only real option, but I’m not the biggest fan. I have hope Secret of the Mimic will sway me to actually caring about the guy, though! I’m already enjoying what we have of Jackie, because in case it wasn’t obvious by the fact I picked Eleanor over Jake or Larson, I kinda enjoy the fucked up clown women quite a bit! Mimic will never be Ennard, but he can get close, and there’s worse things to be than worse-Ennard.

Thanks a lot for the ask! I might have been wanting to write about FNAF more than I’d realized lol.

[ao3-oner]

hello i just read your canmaker hcs and my heart just about melted bc they so cuuuute i swear your writing is god's gift to lol rpf readers

also, can we get hcs about rulhends too? i would love to hear more hcs from you especially about my favorite ship lol

Ahhh thank you so much for the compliment! CanMaker is indeed so cute - I'm glad that I can help other people appreciate that <3

Now for some RuLehends hcs! Yeah, I have a few of those:

Siwoo accidentally became something of a wingman for his brother (who's also a serial flirt imw) because girls kept asking him out and he'd be like 'sorry I'm gay... I do have a straight brother tho'. Eventually he got sick of it and started telling the girls who asked him out to stay away from his playboy brother but his bro found out and definitely got his revenge by not-so-subtly alluding to Siwoo's sexual exploits at the family dinner table. All in all the Son siblings are on good terms with each other but there's a lot of teasing and shenanigans between them. If either one of them were in trouble though the other would be there for them no questions asked (ig that's just how siblings are)

Jaehyuk, on the other hand, has always wished he had an older brother, which is part of the reason he's so close with his hyungs CoreJJ, Rascal, and Peanut. He likes having someone to look up to whom he can consult when he's unsure about the path he's on, since his relationship with his father is pretty stiff. To be honest, it scares him a bit that he's reaching the older side of pro-gamers (in the East, at least) because even after years in the industry he still feels like things are a bit out of his control, and Ruler very much likes being in control of things.

As for the two of them together, one hc grounded in truth is that they were both checking each other out long before they started playing together on GenG. They did a few streams together way back when Siwoo was on Griffin in which Siwoo is very objectively flirty. As in calling Jaehyuk "handsome" and "dear" and all that. And Jaehyuk is fine with it - he's curious. He wants to know exactly what Siwoo's game is. So he watches Siwoo's matches and his relationships and his highs and lows through the years. He knows the mutual attraction between them is there very early on, but he's hesitant to act on it because he knows Siwoo is so volatile and he doesn't like that. Then 2022 rolls around, and...

I alluded to this in MSI, might touch on it more in Worlds, but... hc that for the entirety of 2022, Siwoo was with Jaehyuk and only Jaehyuk. That was a condition of their relationship. And naturally, Siwoo pushed that line a little bit, did a little flirting with other ADCs, made his fair share of threats and what-ifs, but at the end of the day, he never slept with anyone but Jaehyuk all year. Siwoo, surprisingly, was very happy with that, because Jaehyuk is the only partner that Siwoo doesn't feel like he needs to put on a performance for. Jaehyuk's interested in Siwoo for exactly who and what he is, genuinely, or so Siwoo thinks, but then the year ends and Jaehyuk leaves him. And that was absolutely devastating for Siwoo and he relapsed hard (see: my entire 30,000 word fic on the topic).

Thank you so much for the ask! Hope this scratches your RuLehends itch for rn :)

[losercomputers]

Some of My Fav WOC Jazz Artists!

As it is officially the last day of Women's History Month, I thought it would be fitting to close it off by giving some of my favorite (and arguably underrated) WOC jazz artists some very well-deserved recognition!

Una Mae Carlisle (born December 26, 1915 – passed November 7, 1956) -

A truly talented jazz pianist, composer, and vocalist that specialized primarily in swing and crooner styles. With her voice highly resonant, leaving behind a lingering sweetness, and careful attention to detail in her piano-playing, Una Mae was not only one of the first WOC jazz composers to have her work end up on billboard charts, but her achievements are parallel to/went beyond the bounds of those other more conscientiously documented jazz performers in the early 20th century.

Discovered by Fats Waller at the young age of 17, Una Mae Carlisle had an early start in the entertainment industry with her true roots being in the little state of Ohio. Despite her early compositions and playing styles being heavily inspired by Waller, starting in the mid-late 1930s and continuing until her passing, Una Mae would go on to have her own solo career outside of touring and recording with him. In turn, she traveled across the states and even made her way throughout Europe and the UK (though eventually returning to the states and settling down in Harlem, New York).

Her achievements spanned from things such as her compositions becoming hits that proceeded to be performed and recorded by other highly-regarded jazz artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, etc, and taking residencies in big and bustling clubs around the world. She would do work in Paris, London, Amsterdam, and New York where she would appear and perform in several films, and worked alongside record labels such as Capitol Records and Bluebird Records. Eventually, in her later years of life, Una Mae would go on to become the first African-American woman to have her own radio program, named “Agile fingers and a voice that lingers," broadcasting to stations across different parts of the US.

There's a lot that I've left out as I could dedicate an entire essay to her, but please give her a listen and be prepared to feel like you're falling in love.

Teri Lyne Carrington (born August 4, 1965) -

A force to be reckoned with in the world of contemporary jazz, drummer, composer, activist, and educator, Teri Lyne Carrington, in my eyes, is a genuine SUPERHUMAN. She has and continues to breathe new life into the genre and has made significant contributions to expanding what jazz is all about.

As a lifelong musician, Teri Lyne Carrington, started her career as a professionally accounted for jazz artist at the young age of 10 and attended the Berklee College of Music at only 11. Throughout her career, Teri has worked and toured with other big names in jazz such as Cassandra Wilson, Stan Getz, Pharaoh Sanders, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter, and can also be recognized in other parts of the entertainment industry such as performing on several late night TV shows .

Teri lyne Carrington may also be recognized as the first woman ever to win a Grammy award in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category. However, she didn't do this just once, but SEVERAL times. She would recieve Grammy's for "The Mosaic Project," "Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue," "Waiting Game," and her most recent album "new STANDARDS vol.1" (LIKE I SAID, A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH)

Her artistry is not to be questioned and neither is her character! Teri has made archaic efforts in amplifying the voices of and creating an inclusive, safe, and welcoming space in the jazz world for marginalized groups. LISTEN TO THIS COOL ASS LADY!!!

​Melissa Aldana (born December 3, 1988) -

Highly influential and a true master of her craft, Chilean jazz saxophonist, Melissa Aldana, evokes a sort of poetic and soul-touching aura through her playing and does a superb job of not just performing jazz but feeling and speaking jazz.

Melissa got the ball rolling as a professional saxophonist by first playing jazz clubs as a young teen in Santiago, Chile. As she gained traction, she was eventually lead to study at the Berklee College of Music and would then move to New York City post-graduation, and during this time, was under the guidance of other respectable musicians such as Bill Pierce, Greg Osby, and George Coleman.

Outside of her musical education, Melissa Aldana has gone to the lengths of achieving things such as winning Altazor National Arts Award of Chile, being the first female musician, youngest musician, and South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, performing in multiple credible jazz festivals around the world, AND has won a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance.

Just like Una Mae Carlisle and Teri Lyne Carrington, Melissa Aldana's work ethic and eagerness to always keep learning and widening her perspectives is more than admirable.

These women make me so excited for the future directions of jazz and the incoming lineage of influential and innovative female jazz performers. As the genre evolves, it is figures like these outstanding women that unfailingly serve as a reminder as to how important women are to the arts and how we will forever stand as symbols of possibility.

Have a beautiful April~

[lyxthen]

I have so many thoughts on Farawell, My Turnabout. It is probably my personal favorite final case, even if I think Turnabout Goodbyes is better.

The thing about Justice for All is that it is set on making Phoenix, specifically, feel miserable. It is almost like a character study. The first game was all about Edgeworth, we didn't really get to know Phoenix as a person that well. But then the second game--- Oh, the second game. The second game starts by showing you his nightmare, one that reflects his imposter syndrome. He is insecure about his abilities as a lawyer and he is terrified that he won't be able to save everyone in the end.

In Reunion and Turnabout we learn that Phoenix is bitter about Edgeworth. And it's confusing, because didn't they resolve their differences at the end of the first game? Wait, why is Phoenix only talking in past tense? What's going on? He can't even bear to hear his name mentioned. Whatever it was, it was bad.

In Turnabout Big Top, we learn he committed suicide.

Oh. Oh.

So Phoenix wasn't able to save everyone in the end, was he? The reason he became a lawyer in the first place, everything he fought for, years of study and struggle, gone. He failed. He wasn't enough. He is mourning and he is angry and he has to just, go and investigate some clowns like it's nothing, having to deal with Edgeworth's violent sister along the way, a girl who is there pretty much just to shame him.

Like, my guy is having a pretty rough year, alright?

And then Maya is kidnapped for ransom and you have to take care of her little cousin. Because God forbid this man gets a break. No, no, we are going to put him through the emotional meat grinder. We are designing this game to make him suffer.

So, you are having a terrible time. It is stressful as fuck, like genuinely. You drop by criminal affairs to keep investigating, you know, to save Maya's life, and THEN. AND THEN.

And then Edgeworth shows up, with a brand new theme song, and a smug smirk across his pretty face, and he has THE BALLS. THE NERVE. to give you a lecture about the real meaning of the law and the purpose of being an attorney as though nothing happened. And Phoenix has had enough.

He is DONE with this shit.

The entirety of Farawell My Turnabout feels like that. It is stressful all around. You have to get around knowing that if you make a mistake it's done for Maya. You have to incriminate a possibly innocent woman and set aside your morals and *you* are the villain of the story now but it's not like you have a choice? Like, at all? You are actively making Adrian Andrews suffer and it hurts so much? And Edgeworth is twice as mean as always but it's worse because now he genuinely respects Phoenix as a person? And then Franziska gets shot and we are running against the clock?

It is so fucking angsty. It hurts to play through in a way no other case does. Everyone is emotionally on edge for the duration of that trial. For the first time, Phoenix has to defend a guilty client and he is so conflicted about it.

And maybe you manage to get a not guilty verdict in the end, but it's not satisfying. In the end you get one (1) correct choice and you have to get your client declared guilty for you to get the happy ending and I'm just, it's great? It's fucking great. I'm rambling but it's true. Also, this game introduced the magatama which is an amazing narrative and gameplay device.

Man I know I'm rambling but I really like Justice for All. Yes, I know it has Turnabout Big Top, which is my least favorite case in the entire world, but come on. Come on. It is still great. I love it.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

And now for something completely different: I actually finished an entire game and even liked it! Wild, I know.

I think 8 is still my favorite, but I had a lot of fun with Ys X and overall probably liked it about as much as 9, with some things a little better in one or the other.

Adol continues to be the most upbeat and wholesome and aroace shounen protagonist. He's just here to go on adventures and make friends and go on adventures with friends. I tend to be less likely to get invested in games or series that center around male protagonists, but Adol is just a decent guy who happens to get caught up in shenanigans constantly, and there's always an interesting cast of other characters surrounding him.

That's actually something I've really been appreciating about the modern games in the series. They've done a really good job for the most part of having a good amount of variety in terms of ages and genders of both important characters and minor ones you spend a decent amount of time with. The main party members tend to be in their teens and twenties, but it's nice that you end up hanging around with extremely mixed groups ranging from eight-year-old kids to middle aged parents to 70-year-olds, who all also tend to have interactions with each other too and are developed enough to get their own side quest storylines.

And it's also been fun jumping backwards and forwards through the timeline and seeing how recurring characters like Dogi develop too. In this one he's just barely joined up with Adol (I think it takes place immediately after 2 if I remember right?), and he's still not quite sure what to do with his life, while in 9, the previous game that takes place several years later, they've each grown to be the most important person in each other's life and someone they can count on no matter what happens. It's fun seeing little slices of that from different points in time, and it's always nice in general to see guys being genuinely good people with healthy relationships who just want to take care of the people around them.

I won't say too much about the story, but it's enjoyable too and has some good moments in it. I don't think it has anything super deep to say, but sometimes you just need to go on an adventure through absolutely bonkers European history fanfic.

And as far as the gameplay side of things goes, I think overall it might be my least favorite of the three recent-ish games in the series while also doing some things the best of the three.

The ship sections aren't bad, but they're definitely my least favorite thing in any of the three games. It gets better as you get more upgrades to make movement and stuff suck less than it does early on, but it still kinda kills the pacing at times compared to when you're on foot, and even on foot the movement options don't feel as good as their counterparts in 9 did.

I think the combat might actually also be my least favorite when fighting regular trash enemies, but at the same time it probably has the best boss fights. Switching to a block-heavy system and really de-emphasizing dodging didn't really click with me at first for a while, but a lot of the later boss fights get to be pretty satisfying as you learn their patterns and start pulling off perfect blocks and getting a huge damage multiplier as a reward. It's also fun how a lot of late-game enemies reward you for charging directly at them like an idiot and dodging directly into an attack so you get a free random finisher as a counter. It really works well with my tendency to be reckless, be stupid, have no plan, and improvise something when you get there.

The new engine works great on the Switch too compared to the previous one. Shadows and stuff still aren't great, but overall most things look much cleaner than they did in 8 or 9, and it feels a lot better to play without it constantly dropping frames like 9 did.

I'm just glad there are still people out there making mid-budget games like this that have almost disappeared in the sea of $100+ million AAA games and indie stuff made in someone's bedroom with a budget of like a buck fifty. They can still have the scope and polish most tiny indie games can't afford to, but without having to make too many concessions to reach the wildest possible audience because they need to sell 20 million copies to turn a profit. They can just keep doing their own thing for the niche that happens to be into that.