#good i don’t want them trying to appropriate cool mecha girls

[xbuster]

They can’t enjoy anything

[lynxgriffin]

DELTARUNE Chapter 2 Thoughts!!!

WOOO OKAY I stayed up WAY too late trying to finish Deltarune Chapter 2 last night!! It took me awhile because I suck at video games, but I finally did it!

While I normally type up commentary as I play first time, I didn’t get the chance to do that here, so I’ll get down all my general thoughts here!

Unspoilery thoughts: loved it, knew I would, will need to replay soon to see what all I missed, and am excited for whatever’s next!

SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 2 under the cut!!

(These are just as I think of them, not in any particular order!)

Okay overall I can see why this took two years and a much larger team to complete, the second chapter is SO much more expansive and heavy on scene-specific animations! It all looks SO GOOD

I already love Susie but now I love her even more, her expressions were SO GOOD

Susie has a (little nubby) tail confirmed?? That’s adorable

Okay this game is definitely reading the chapter 1 data, which I find interesting because I didn’t obtain it through Steam last time

But like, I gave the “Susie eats chalk” response to Noelle last time, and in chapter two she gave Susie the box of chalk, so awwww!

Also I missed Onionsan in my initial computer playthrough, so they didn’t show up this time, just got a moment of Susie and Kris sitting by the river together!

I find it REALLY interesting that while Ralsei is a Darkner, apparently he can jump around to other Dark Worlds whereas other Darkners like Lancer and Rouxls can’t so much…hmmm!

It was so nice to see everyone filling out the town now, though!

Noooo Susie probably doesn’t have her own room at home, awwww

Kris just casually jumping up to the classroom and bringing everyone back tho, perfect

Was right on there being multiple dark worlds in other locations, but honestly that part’s the least surprising to me, that always seemed like a pretty standard path to take!

The werewires were creepy and great; difficult to battle tho

QUEEN IS MY NEW FAVORITE

EVERY LINE OF HERS WAS A+

I’m so glad that I didn’t really go anywhere with Jevil’s line about the Queen in PT; nothing I came up with could’ve topped Queen being an absolute acid trip of an antagonist in this chapter

NOELLE SO SWEET

Her lil’ robot disguise! Her being afraid of mice at first!

I kinda wish we could have had her in the party more? She was super useful as a party member, honestly!

But sadly I guess we’re not gonna get more than the three-person party, awww

B E R D L Y

I cannot believe Berdly basically became incel Falco but also had a sympathetic backstory

Like I laughed a lot at all of Berdly’s expressions and dialogue while also going BERDLY YOU ARE THE WORST

Noelle’s WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? part = A+

I feel like Queen’s relationship with Noelle definitely had some uncomfy parallels with probably how she is dealing with her real mom

I AM NOT GOOD AT PUNCH-OUT AND THERE WAS A LOT OF THAT

I somehow missed the part where Susie is wearing Ralsei’s glasses??? Where is this

Also in general there was a LOT of puzzles and gameplay in the overworld map, which I was bad at but was also very cool

KRIS GET THE BANANA

The dolphin pop-up ads…

I DID NOT LIKE THE SPAMTON GUY

DISCOMFORT THE WHOLE TIME

Apparently he’s also the secret boss for this chapter?? That’s at least if the soundtrack is anything to go by. Maybe I’ll go back and try it on another playthrough, but aaaaagggghhhg

SO MANY GOOD SUSELLE MOMENTS

MY LIL SHIPPER HEART HAS A NICE SERVING AND WANTS MORE

The whole deal with the ferris wheel conversation and just awwwwuuuuuuh

Needs more Susiezilla now too (I picked the “something romantic” option because of course)

MORE PLZ, LET’S DIG DEEPER HERE

Also I cannot believe Susie has (at least) two people crushing on her and is just totally oblivious to it

There’s SO Many interesting HMM moments with Kris and that definitely included the entire acid tunnel of love scene with Kris and Ralsei

Interrupted of course by an appropriately silly Rouxls battle

But man the more we see (or often DON’T see) of Ralsei the more intriguing it gets

LET NOELLE RIDE IN THE TEACUP RIDE WITH SUSIE

I just knew going back to get that chest without Noelle would be something dumb

OKAY I ended up dying a lot to 1) the Mauswheel, and 2) the color-changing butlers?? So I ended up having to do the whole sequence with annoying dog blasting through everything in his path multiple times

I DID feel bad for Berdly during that boss battle where he was werewired; that was nice and body horror-ish

That said… “I NEED A KISS FROM A GAMER GIRL”

The giant mecha boss battle absolutely kicked my ass, though

Like it WAS badass but that took me a LOT of tries to get through

My thrash machine was very GUN’S

Overall the difficulty curve was definitely stepped up from chapter 1!

LOTS MORE DARK WORLD AND KNIGHT LORE FROM RALSEI HERE

And lots of talk about Noelle being pretty important to it, too!

I’m glad I got to bring Susie on the walkaround this time around town!

I AM GOING TO BE YOUR WACKY ROOMMATE NOW

King and Queen’s entire conversation was so hilarious

King just slides over to suck on that sweet, sweet giant hamster water bottle

BUNKER STILL BEIN SUSPICIOUS

Aww the pizzeria is not a creepy mascot Chuck-E-Cheese’s style, tho

Confirmation that Gerson was Alvin’s father! And I feel like there’s a lot we’re missing there, too

Still not allowed to see Papyrus…

Catti’s parents…

I wasn’t expecting this at all, but it feels like they may be introducing way more Lightners to the Dark World with each chapter, since both Noelle and Berdly ended up there?

And if that’s the case, I feel like it’s hinting that Catti and/or Jockington may be next

SUSIE STAYING AT KRIS’S PLACE FOR A SLEEPOVER WAS SO SWEET

IMMEDIATELY UNDERCUT BY KRIS GOING FERAL AGAIN

Like I dunno the whole scenario somehow managed to be both REALLY sinister and very funny at once??

Susie and Toriel are busy laughing and making a pie together, meanwhile Kris just sneaks the hell out and slashes Toriel’s tires because it’s KNIVES OUT TIME

Please let Susie watch more giant monster (and giant human) movies with her friends, she needs this

THAT SAID, THAT ENDING

HMM HMM HMMMMMMMMMM

SO THIS SEEMS TO BE INDICATING THAT KRIS IS THE KNIGHT

Which like…is in fact making SOME KIND OF SENSE in my head overall, but I definitely need more context to see how exactly

Like I’m all “THIS FEELS RIGHT BUT I DON’T KNOW WHY, I NEED MOOOORE”

Considering Ralsei’s reaction to Noelle and Berdly trying to make a new fountain, this definitely seems to be setting up some kind of future confrontation between Kris and Ralsei, which! HMMMM

I THINK IT’S TIME FOR THIS GIF AGAIN

Basically I HAD A GRAND TIME, I NEED TO REPLAY, EXCITED FOR THE REST WHENEVER IT COMES

[fizzingwizard]

Episode 13! I don’t have all that much to say about it. But there were three things in particular I really liked!

Sorato moments! It may be small (I mean, they’re kids and they’ve known each other for like a day), but no one will be able to say Sora and Yamato didn’t have any development in this season!

Sora Getting Shit Done! She’s as cool as Yamato. Scratch that, she’s cooler than Yamato. She’s honest and compassionate. She’s brave like Taichi, values her friends as much as Yamato, AND she can get along with both of them. Bahahaha.

SO MANY adorable Jou&Gomamon moments this episode. Like seriously. SO MANY.

I’ll just tack some here:

More below!

So our two groups are still separated! Jumping ahead, but next week we’ll see MegaKabuterimon, and that rounds out two episodes for each group. But that still leaves Zudomon’s appearance. Just a hunch, but my guess is we’ll see him the episode after which will be the reunion episode too. If not, I suppose the groups are gonna stay separated longer, but this is my guess.

So, once again, our kids have been in this world for Not Very Long At All. It doesn’t seem like they’ve had to stop and sleep so far, though they’ve eaten a bit. Probably it’s still the same day in digital world time o.o It’s completely plausible that they’ve been sleeping and we’re just not being told about it though. This is a kids show, next week Koushirou could be like “we’ve been walking for a week!” and we’ll just have to roll with it lol. But until that happens, I’m going with it’s been about a day and almost everyone’s easily got two evolutions under their belt. Evolving is much easier in this season - Taichi and Yamato even got a Jogress already - so it’s definitely past time to throw out old concepts of how evolving work. The kids clearly have Crests, but they don’t know what they are, which means that’s a thing we’ll be seeing in the future. In spite of that, they can evolve to higher levels. So, maybe something else is in store for them when the Crests become important. Very interesting.

We are back with the trio who’s got their shit slightly more together. Except for Jou’s stomach. Was really amused by Yamato using binoculars. I assume Sora brought them. I’m so used to Taichi’s telescope, but it only makes sense that each group should have some working gear!

Also par for the course, Yamato looking at what’s ahead while Jou’s being sick and Sora’s in between helping them both :P

They find this thing. The hive of brainwashed mecha soldier bees. The person who wrote this episode has definitely had a bad run in with suzumebachi.

As they try to escape, Jou immediately falls off Birdramon.

Me: “Oh no! Someone go help him!”

Gomamon:

Me: “NO NOT YOU”

Like I know they’re partners... but Gomamon doesn’t even have hands. xD All he can do (and all he does do!) is fall together. They’re partners so it’s not surprising, but still... Wheeeeeee!

Honestly though it is just so adorable to me how useless Jou is and how hard Gomamon tries for him... even though Gomamon has a lot more excuse for being useless. I mean, he’s made for a water habitat.

Gabumon: “Jou’s with Gomamon, so he should be okay...”

-___- You know nothing, Jon Snowmon. You know nothing about how much trouble Jou can get himself in

See!?!?!?!??!?! DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THEY’RE OKAY TO YOU, GABUMON??? EAT YOUR WORDS!!!

This is what happens when you try to too hard to make a bee cute. So overdesigned xP It’s like hitting me on the head saying “I’M CUTE, LOOK AT ME!! I’M CUTE!!!” like chill dude, it’s ok. just chill

I guess it works on Sora though, she’s as concerned for this cutie pie as she is for Jou... maybe more.

We make a quick switch to group number 2 who are finally living up to my expectations for how nuts they are. Koushirou’s connection is turbulent, to use the lingo Tumblr always pisses me off with!

Mimi offers to help. “My grandpa can get you a better one!” She... she tries.

Taichi offers to help too. “Times like this you just gotta whack it!” Koushirou looks appropriately terrorized.

I’m so relieved to know Taichi and Mimi are both still batshit.

Yamato and Sora hatch a plan to save Jou by getting themselves captured too. Honestly the show doesn’t spend enough time on the cool stuff like hatching this plan! It just happens! It def got me thinking how brave and cooperative Sora is. Like, we already know Yamato is cool, and he has more experience in the digital world than the others. But Sora just rolls with it. She’s not freaking out, she’s thinking things through, and she can help strategize. 99 Adventure was like “Girls don’t need to do things like pedal swan boats or take watch at night!” This ones like “Girls can definitely do those things! As long as they are pink when they do them!”

Jou and Gomamon arrive in the hive where they are immediately separated... and Jou is thrown out with the trash. BAHAHAHA. GEEZ this show will not ease up on Jou!!

by the way... Gabumon... ARE YOU EATING YOUR WORDS YET!?!?

Sora and Yamato make it inside and hitch a ride on Garurumon...

... They both jump like this when they need to get off so Garurumon can evolve. With jumping style like that, Sorato is a ship made n heaven.

Fuck everything I said about Gomamon working best in his water habitat, IT WAS ALL A LIE. First swimming through sand, now this. Jou has LITERALLY NO EXCUSE for being as useless as he is anymore

also Wolverfish is back, I am some day going to make one of those old geocities shrine sites just for Wolverfish

They are surrounded on all sides though, so what should we do? “Go down.” Yamato, DID YOU FORGET WE ARE IN THE AIR.

Once again Sora is A-OK with all of this! Jou’s the only one having a normal human reaction to A HOLE OPENING IN THE FLOOR OF AN AIRBORNE VESSEL

Gomamon T____T Jou would be mince meat without you

It turns out that Yamato’s shitty plan wasn’t so shitty after all, because either he and Sora talked about what they’d have to do if the couldn’t stay inside the hive, or Sora is psychic. Or just that good at cleaning up after hot-headed men. Anyway yeah Birdramon to the rescue.

For a hot second there it looked like Yamato was going to be like “We don’t have time to save those Digimon” again. Which, I thought we worked through last time, so I was confused. BUT it turns out he only wanted Sora to know he’s got her number. He’s figured out she’s not the type who can turn her back when someone needs help, even if she’s got her own priorities to think about. Sora’s selfless. Yamato clues into that. AND HE TOTALLY SUPPORTS HER <3

Urrrk can Yamato do anything that isn’t Cool

I just love the way he holds them.

Sora faces off with the hive... who’s blast causes a volcanic eruption or something!

Birdramon fights back!

It’s not very effective!!!

Now as much as this is supposedly a Sora episode... she’s had some cool moments but it doesn’t feel like Her Episode as much as last week felt like Mimi’s ep, or the weeks before felt like they belonged to Taichi and Yamato. So actually, that makes it strike number two for Sora, although this episode is definitely better than episode four. It’s not fair. I’m just glad we got some new stuff for her this time, but the writers seem so determined to make her the “good girl” that they forgot character development needs to involve some stakes. So, in place of that, they just do another montage.

First Sora reflects on how useless Jou is.

Then she reflects on how hot Yamato looks when he’s totally helpless.

Then she thinks about how the two of them remind her of pitiful baby bees.

The result... Garudamon!!! Always my favorite Ultimate evolution.

It’s a laaaaaaaser battle!!!!

Yamato’s like “Holy crap I’ve got to get with this girl”

We then set up the intro for next week’s episode, with Koushirou’s computer starting to work again, though not completely. I want it to not work at ALL so Koushirou can be like “i’m no longer useful to my friends, woe is me!” and his friends can be all “Koushirou you’re my best pal no matter what!” and then he saves the day using his noggin. If it was good enough for Mimi’s grandpa it’s good enough for you.

I’m also amused to learn that in spite of apparently selling computers, Mimi��s grandpa too is an advocate of hitting them to make them work.

Agumon mimicking every adorable thing Taichi does is adorableness overload.

Taichi once again offers to smack the computer, like the Taichi of my childhood. However, he claims he’s joking. He’s a 21st century kid after all.

Agumon tells him hitting the computer will hurt his hand, so he should let Agumon do it instead T___T omg that’s the cutest thing EVER I’d give this episode ten stars for this moment alone

but ignoring adorable Taichi/Agumon and Jou/Gomamon moments, I’ll give this episode a 6.5/10. It was almost there! It really needed more Sora though! You know, the spotlight character of the week??

I just don’t feel her as convincingly as the others... which is in part intentional, I think, because that’s Sora. She doesn’t talk about her own feelings so much, she’s private, but she cares very deeply about those around her. I absolutely am with that, but I think that’s really challenging to write, and it wouldn’t bother me so much if we were getting more development in small ways for all the kids all the time. Instead the primary way is these spotlight episodes. We had them in 99 Adventure too, but there was more dialogue between the kids. Watching this episode, I had a thought like “This reminds me of a formulaic Pokemon episode.” As in, there’s someone to rescue, we rescue them, it has little to no consequence for us on a personal level and next week we won’t even mention it happened. At least this episode, they did mention Neemon’s group, to show how this is a pattern for Sora. I’m gonna cross my fingers that means Sora’s going to come out big in the future, we just gotta believe in her and wait. That being said, I’m not trying to be negative, I am also happy that we got these bits for her at all, and especially that we got it confirmed that Yamato sees through her as much as she sees through him!

Next week’s preview...

Kabuterimon: koushirou, you are helpless without your computer, never forget that!

... x’D not

Totally stoked for a Koushirou episode. I hope it kicks butt. Even if it doesn’t, we still get a good helping of my boy Koushirou. <3

[silvia7272]

1 ~ My ‘Lying’ Prologue

You won’t believe how I had tried to write how Marinette was going to meet Rosina but then I started writing more and more ML-Class Salt and I couldn’t stop myself. It was quite enjoyable so I thought this would be a good place to start. This is how the class first started to become salty. You better grab some popcorn; you can hold the salt cause I’ve got plenty down here.

Word Count: 2094

***

Collège Françoise Dupont had always been a place Marinette had enjoyed going to. Besides fashion, baking and music, she loved hanging out with her friends.

She loved being friends with Alya and helping her with all her Ladyblog stuff as much as she could, talking to her about her dreams and aspirations had been a great past time.

She loved Rose with how honest she was towards her feelings.

She loved Juleka and how she was better at overcoming her shyness.

She loved Alix with her art and amazing roller-skating.

She loved Mylène with how passionate she was about what she believed in.

She loved hanging out with all her female friends, they had tried to help her with so many ridiculous schemes to confess her love to Adrien it was too many to count, but they stood by her side always.

She… Could tolerate Sabrina, and Chloé to an extent, she knew they held a close friendship and didn’t want to disturb it. And Chloé… Was Chloé. They tried not to get in each others way too often.

She loved Nino and his passion for music, his DJ skills were great, she was sure he could become famous in no time.

She loved being able to offer encouragement and support to Nathaniel and Marc, each of their comics looked so cool she couldn’t wait to read it.

She loved being friends with Kim, they had been ever since Kindergarten. His crazy bets were bound to excite her after school each day.

She loved Max and always playing games like Ultimate Mecha Strike III, and totally beating him by the way.

She loved Ivan for how sweet he could be when he tried to show his feelings for Mylène.

And she loved… Loved Adrien.

He was kind. Pushover

Generous. Pitied

Caring. Traitor

Forgiving. Afraid of repercussions

.

.

.

But she ruined it.

She had claimed so many tales that the others lapped up at any mention of fame.

She had strung every last one of her classmates along like sheep and cattle.

She had changed so much in the school, she was excluded to the back in her class, away from everyone else. And when Marinette had tried to expose her?

She had turned it all around.

She had threatened her, enough for an Akuma to be sent her way in the bath stall.

She had bid her time, waiting until people truly believed her, until she enacted on her plan to ‘Dethrone the Princess of the school’

She had first started with little remarks about the bluenette, ones that didn’t seem overly malicious as she couldn’t start out too big right?

She had to make sure they grew in size as an appropriate time passed on. And soon… It had worked.

She had… Turned everyone against her.

***

She remembered when she had come into class that exact morning, because she was late everyone had already taken their seats.

The moment she had entered the classroom all heads turned to her.

“Sorry, Mlle Bustier I had to err- um-” To her surprise, she held a hard glare at the girl. Actually, everyone did.

“That’s enough excuses Marinette, I should send you to the Principal after everything that’s happened” Mlle Bustier announced, shocking the girl.

“What but I-?” She wasn’t able to finish.

“I thought we were friends Marinette, but now you say I could never be an Olympian?”

“Or you thought my voice was painful for anyone within ear reach to listen to!”

“Or I should always be covered in any pictures ever taken because I’m such an eyesore!”

“Or I’ll never be anything in the music industry. How dare you lie to me all these years dude!?” The stray of accusations pointed to the girl were almost enough to make her cry… Almost.

“How could you!? I thought you ‘supported me’, but now I see that you’ve always been a deceitful manipulative liar!” Her former Best Friend held so much anger in her eyes as angry tears stained her cheeks.

“But I- I would never say that! You have to believe me, who told you?” Marinette pleaded. No, Alya was her best friend, there was no way she wouldn’t believe her. Right?

“From someone a lot more trustworthy, Lila told us all of your dirty little secrets. She couldn’t bear to keep the truth from us, even after you threatened her in the bathroom where no one else was there. That’s low Marinette, even for you! Just because you want Adrien all to yourself, Lila doesn’t even like him that way! How could you be such a jerk!” She stared in shock than anger as she looked at the liar.

“Why would you lie about all of this Lila, how could you?” Lila faked her cries as she covered her eyes.

“I had to tell them the truth, I knew you hated me, but I couldn’t stand by any longer and let you lie to everyone, I appreciate every one of my friends. I don’t care if you hate me more”

“If this is because you’re jealous forget it! That’s no excuse for doing this Marinette!” Alix yelled, she winced, even Alix? But she had always been so loyal.

‘Loyalty only goes so far’ She thought sadly.

“That was a brave thing to do Lila. Marinette apologise right now to Lila at once! I thought you were a good example for the class, not turn into a bully!”

“But she’s lying-” She got cut off.

“Not another word or you’ll be going home” Mlle Bustier warned.

“But!”

“Marinette this is your last warning!” She lowered her head and walked to the back as all the students glared at her, except for one.

***

Marinette sneaked off to the lockers. She couldn’t even cry, or she’d be turned into an Akuma, and nobody would want that.

Because she was Ladybug.

Soon you won’t have any friends left at all. Trust me.

You will lose your friends and wind up all alone.

“She was right, she really did turn everyone against me. I really am alone” She exhaled a shaky breath and before Tikki could comfort her the door opened.

“Marinette. There you are. I was wondering where you ran off to?”

‘Adrien, Adrien’s really here. He knows I’m telling the truth; he must be here to help me’ That was the last nice thought she had about him.

“Adrien I-”

“Marinette we talked about this, exposing her isn’t the right thing to do, what if she had become Akumatized in front of the whole class?” He held a disapproving gaze, one that shocked Marinette.

“But she really was lying, if I don’t say anything now, everyone truly will hate me for something I never did.”

“But we both know you’re strong enough already Marinette you’re our ‘Everyday Ladybug’. I know you can hold out from any Akuma until her lies are uncovered”

“Adrien what about my friends, they all think I said all of this stuff even though it's untrue”

“I’m sure if you do more nice things they’ll turn around in the end” She still looked unsure, so Adrien carried on.

“They’ll forgive and you’ll forget, then after everything, we’ll all be friends again. You’re strong enough already, I know a bit of solitude won’t hurt you. At least you aren’t always stuck in your room with no one to talk to. If you just take the high road and don’t rock the boat everything will turn out alright in the end, we’ll all be happy and forgive everyone for their mistakes. We may even forgive Lila. Ok? I’ll stand by you as well”

She wanted to say no, desperately wanted to. That this wasn’t fair on her, that she had only done what was right, that the truth should come out now.

But… This was Adrien, and her last friend.

So… She took his advice.

But he didn’t keep his promise.

***

After that day, she tried to follow his advice. She tried to get all of her friends to like her again. She made macarons and croissants, cakes and pastries for them all to try, she spent some nights staying up all night to perfect her recipes she was sure the class would like, even… Lila.

But Lila had been ‘specifically allergic’ to hers even if Marinette overheard how ‘lemon’ was her favourite.

So, they threw them all away.

She had tried to design and give homemade bags and controller skins to them, but Lila didn’t like the material even if she knew part of her outfit held the exact same material.

So, they threw them all away.

Her final straw had been when she had made so many class trips to Theme Parks, Museums, Gaming Centres, Conventions. As Class President, she had to be the one in charge of trips as the teachers were ‘too busy’ instead. She tried to include everyone's interest and so far it worked. They had absolutely loved the idea of it, claimed it would be the best time of their lives. There were so many praises being thrown around the girl thought.

‘Finally, they’ll see I want us to be friends again. We’ll all go out to meals and movies like before. They’ll apologise and we can be like we were before she came. We can plot and have me and Adrien together-’

“Wow Lila, it was so cool you got us the tickets for the last anime convention. I thought they ran out of them last I checked?” Nathaniel asked while studying the tickets, he had always wanted to go but thought the class wouldn’t want to do something like this but he was surprised, she had told him otherwise, just like she had told him to get rid of Marc, after all in Lila’s words ‘he was limiting your potential’

Marinette remembered him crying in the locker room with no one around, she had been the only one there to comfort and successfully stop an Akumatization from happening.

“Well you see when you know a family friend who actually works in this industry you get so many free passes”

‘What?’

“It's just a pity that Marinette was repulsed by the idea of all of us going. She said it was the stupidest thing she had ever heard and that I was such a loser to ever think of it in the first place. And the fact that she made me do all of the work, how could she be Class President?” The class glared at her, and each insulted her, even if it was her idea.

But when she looked over to see the familiar blond boy.

The sweet, blond who had promised would be there for her…

…Turned to look the other way.

Don’t rock the boat Marinette

I’ll stand by you as well

He lied.

Just like she had done.

Just like… Lila.

It shouldn’t have been surprising; he was a major pushover when it came to friends and his Father. When Chloé and Adrien were friends she could step all over him and he wouldn’t say a word, but had he really done anything for her?

Not really.

Huh, it seemed ironic, the one who hated liars had become a liar.

Marinette had lost her crush on Adrien after that.

She stopped talking to him after that.

He didn’t even talk to her, he was always too ‘busy’.

With all of the class trips happening she had been forgotten.

“Oopsie the times wrong, we go at 9, not 8”

She lied.

“Mlle Bustier? Marinette told me she couldn’t afford this trip and to take her off the form, she didn’t want to do it herself because she wanted to go for free”

She lied!

“How could you Marinette!? You know I have a fear of waterfalls, my Aunt fell down one last year, I had to spend months in the hospital by her side waiting for her to wake up.”

Why couldn’t anyone see she was lying!?

But it didn’t matter.

She didn’t have anyone else.

She had lost all her friends.

She had lost her crush.

She had lost the title of Class President, which was then given to the liar. Even when Chloé was Class President they never had a Re-Election because it would be unfair.

She got her way.

And she had lost everything.

.

.

.

Collège Françoise Dupont had always been a place Marinette had enjoyed going to. Besides fashion, baking and music, she loved hanging out with her friends.

…

Not anymore.

***

I really hope I did this right. And I hope I made up for the salt compared to the last one, I really hope it’s pouring with salt. Anyway, I hope you like this and hopefully the next one you’ll see the introduction of Marinette and Rosina. And just as a fun fact, I used 94 she’s in this, amazing huh. Not including that one by the way.

[v-mundi]

Thar be dragons! Metalseadramon and Seadramon were re-posed by my lovely fianceé, Danielle and she’s also my art and design partner for this project. Snakes are super hard to fit in a square frame. You basically have a couple tricks you can do. There’s the S-shape as seen by Metalseadramon (and old Seadramon). Those old arts were just screenshots of DMO (Digimon Masters Online) cut out by someone, so not great. You have the C shape as Metalseadramon DATA and Seadramon above (C-dramon...?). And you have the corkscrew shape not pictured here. There are more but we are sticking to ones that still give good model visibility through perspective.

That DATA card is a preview for the upcoming TOY set, which has some heavy Dark Masters themes. It’s only appropriate that we rework the design of Metalseadramon as well. In fact, all the Dark Masters will now be present and upgraded. I’ve previously shown off the upcoming TOY set with Fakedrimogemon, so...go digging for it ;D

If you play the game, you may have noticed this DATA has “Any Support Phase” instead of just Any Phase. That’s a change that’s coming down the pipeline for many DATAs. There’s some logic errors with certain effects being literally any time you want them. Confining effects to the Support phase will bring a bit more importance to the choice of playing the card. For example, if you could play this “Any Phase”, then you could wait till the Battle Phase when attacks are revealed before throwing down Triangle to 0. Since this game is based a lot on wagers and bluffing, that goes against the spirit of the game and provides a disgustingly easy shut-down as a hand trap. I do not like hand traps. That concept is from Yugioh and means cards being played directly from hand in response to something, with no indicator that your move will trigger this awful response. Their existence usually leads to hand control, which is a death spiral for metagames. Once people are trying to remove and control each other’s hand, they’re trying to stop the other person from playing the game as hard as possible and that’s no fun for anyone. So just one word makes the difference in an entire game’s death spiral.

For Seadramon and many other cards, I’m trying to make it so mixing types is less punishing. During the base release of the game, there wasn’t a lot of actual support for cross-type decks. The ones that you could make would be creative and good, but limited due to type-limited effects. Ultimately, most of them sought out to make the most broken combos possible which is a nightmare to balance and anticipate. Now that the game has existed for about 5 years, I have some experience with what players are actually abusing or not. I’ve tried replacing most of them with comparable conditions that type has no problem making but others might have to bend over backwards to get. Clever girl.

Lastly we got EBEmon or as the contest winner that created it said “Vademon Kai”. Again, all done up nice and neat by Danielle. If you’re wondering why there’s proportionally way more art from her lately than me, it’s not because I don’t have time. It’s because she’s way faster and better at this than me. She can usually do 3 to 4 poses in the time it takes me to get one right. We actually figured out that brown xenomorph bubble on its head isn’t just a Freiza reference, it’s supposed to be translucent and contain a long brain. No thanks. So...as it’s a rebuilt mecha Freiza...I mean Vademon, I wanted to do some cool stuff with the errata. Originally, it would get a DNA to increase the use of Omekamon’s effect, but instead I realized this is unnecessary since almost every Enigma Level U or M is getting one. So I stuck to the path. Forget DP -20 cost reductions, those are boring. Let’s remove the concept of your own hand size while you have access to draw 2! :D And I buffed every one of its “response probes” in the Passives section. They were all pretty good, since it’s not really a question of if an opponent will do these things but when. But more importantly, you don’t get to choose which ones happen. It’s completely dependent on what effects your opponent has (except the draw). So instead, it has a built-in Attack Chip and Recovery Floppy. Yay! The x3 VS was also reworked. We have cute little element names for each combination of types. When something has an attack that gets powered up versus something else, we give it x3 VS [that thing] mixed from our types, as if they were elemental blocks. Marine + Nature + Metal is “Grand” and refers to planetary things. EBEmon’s gun is a Planet Destroyer. Oh no.

Anyway, enjoy the new art and card preview!

[meditatemoremedicateless]

*deep inhale* amberchase marriage headcanons ✨

Amberchase Marriage HC

WOW. You went for it with a tough but interesting one. I’m guessing that, if you’ve read ANY of my headcanons that I always overthink it, so bear with me.

- So, to get as far as Rachel and Victoria getting married, we need to make some drastic changes. The first one is: this is a Love is Strange AU we’re talking about. No Jefferson, no powers, no nightmare realms, Rachel is poor, and Max returns junior year.

- Second AU note: if you’ve read basically any of my fan fiction, you’ve probably seen a reference to a head canon I have that Victoria and Rachel hooked up at a party early in their junior year, but Rachel ended up using that as fodder to make Victoria look sad and desperate, sparking further-escalating slander and humiliating hijinks between them. My concept for an Amberchase AU has always started at this point - Victoria waking up the following morning, Rachel is still there, and treats her affectionately. What follows is a series of misunderstandings and (apparently) one-sided pining (Nathan is a big part of this) for approximately one year.

- Because I’ve already said this is a Love is Strange AU, let’s just go for it and say that their next big development comes during the photo contest in their senior year. They pair up, naturally: Max might be a better photographer all-around than Victoria, but with Victoria’s eye for portraiture, Rachel swooped in to ask her before anyone else could get a chance. The following week gave them the one thing they never had: an excuse to be alone together. There’s drama, nostalgia, and although they acknowledge their mutual admiration and attraction, they don’t get together - they don’t want to do the long-distance thing.

 - Although Victoria does end up going to school in California, she does so in the Bay Area, and the two only talk occasionally on Facebook. Rachel is the busiest she’s ever been, especially when she starts trying to do school alongside her unstable modeling work. Living with Max and Chloe helps, but money is always hard, and now that Max and Chloe are dating, Rachel’s loneliness grows deeper.

- For a photography project in her sophomore year, Victoria asks if she can drive down and have Rachel model for her again (paid, of course - Victoria has standards to keep). “You know, you’re the best model I’ve ever had…” Rachel opens up about how hard it has been to stay in modeling. She’s never making enough to get by, and although scholarships and student loans are making up the difference for now. She’s thinking about quitting to devote herself full-time to a Law degree. And it’s not like Victoria thinks that’s a bad move, but at the same time… how much Rachel wanted to be a model was literally the first thing Victoria ever knew about her. She knows this is giving up the dream. And she doesn’t want that. So the two of them start talking more often, networking where possible (Victoria’s very good at that).

- Two years pass, and unlike Rachel, Victoria graduates on time (with a Business degree). And here’s the part of the AU I find tough to stomach, but it feels necessary: when Victoria decides to move to LA for work reasons, she knows about Rachel’s situation, including how much she’d want to stay close to Max and Chloe, but says that she wants a roommate, and she’d prefer Rachel as a roommate to someone she met online. To everyone’s surprise, a few weeks later Rachel says yes, and they sign a lease together. “It’s practical,” Rachel tells herself (and Max, and Chloe, and Victoria), but really, Max and Chloe’s 5-year relationship is just tighter than she is with them.

- When they move in together in Fall 2017, Rachel for the first time feels an incentive NOT to sleep with Victoria. Max and Chloe just moved into a new apartment, and if she blows things with Victoria, it’s a year of sleeping on their (or other friends’) couches. That’s all well and good, and Victoria doesn’t question it, but they like to complain to each other about work (they’re good at motivating each other), and eventually, almost off-hand, Victoria remarks, “God, this would be so much easier if we were married.” And Rachel says, “I guess we could be. Technically.”

- They get into a BIG talk about how they feel about marriage. They’re both lukewarm: Rachel because she doesn’t like the symbolism or how her parents’ marriage ended, and Victoria because her entire concept of marriage is based around a nuclear family whose sole purpose is to raise children. Rachel wants kids someday. Victoria doesn’t think she does. Still, the tax breaks, the medical rights – the literal hundreds of benefits of marriage in America weigh on them heavily. So they come to an agreement: let’s get married, then see if the benefits still outweigh the cons once a year.

- And once again, to the surprise of literally everyone, they do it. They refuse to have a ‘proper wedding’ precisely because they don’t want to give their families the impression that this is a ‘real marriage,’ but Max and Chloe are still witnesses and Courtney EXPLODES on Victoria’s timeline with shock and delight (they haven’t stayed close since high school – just close enough to be Facebook friends).

OKAY! WE’RE HERE! I DID IT! I GOT THEM MARRIED AND NOW I CAN TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE HEADCANONS.

-        This relationship is founded, above all, on mutual drive. These are two girls with dreams and the talent to make those dreams real. More importantly, they work like crazy – early on, work keeps them from really developing their feelings for each other.

-        Slowly, they get drawn more and more into each other’s interests. This starts before they get married, but after they’re married, they feel more incentive to get involved. Rachel loves improv and Vic kind of hates it because she thinks she sucks, but if the two of them get on stage? They’re powerhouses. They’re witty and charming and creative, and NOBODY throws out weird-but-cool twists faster than Rachel.

-        Of course, Rachel gets pulled into Victoria’s secret interests (not really that secret if you’re living with her, but still): catchy but meaningless pop songs, sci-fi/mecha anime, and computer games (Rachel refuses to try FPS until they buy a PS4).

-        Despite living together and being literally married (or, more accurately, because of these things), they’re relatively slow to develop and express their feelings. Doing so comes with the fear that life will, inevitably, pull them in different directions. It’s their little rituals that make these things manifest: sitting close and cuddling when watching TV (Rachel misses being sandwiched by Chloe and Max), picking each other up after work. One of the last ones to develop is kissing before Victoria leaves for work, which they’re super awkward about until eventually they do it automatically.

-        During the whole time they’ve been living together, Rachel has typically not had time to develop a steady relationship (Max and Chloe eat up most of the energy that work, and school don’t), but she has had plenty of hook-ups and friends with benefits. She did her best to keep that out of Victoria’s sight even before they were married, but after they started becoming romantic, she figured it was time to have an explicit conversation. To her surprise, Victoria was unbothered – she knew Rachel had no real designs towards monogamy, she just wanted to have more explicit conversations about what boundaries would be appropriate. Rachel figured Victoria would also seek other relationships, but Victoria always replied that she “wasn’t looking to date right now.”

-        Their first anniversary was also their first time discussing whether to continue their marriage for another year. Their financial situation was a little better than the year before, so their ‘Pros’ column was looking weaker than when they’d decided to get together. At least, until Rachel said, “Well, I also, like … love. you.” ‘Oh. I mean, I love you too.’ And after a very weird but tender moment, they wrote it down: Love

-        It’s pretty soon after this that they go shopping for sex toys for the first time. The sex they’d had since their junior year of high school had been very vanilla and typically very drunk, but if they were going to go and be in love or whatever, they might as well really go for it. It turns out their tastes still run pretty vanilla, but at least they pick up a LOT of vibrators over time (and a copy of Battlefield Lovers, which they only play ONCE but it sure does spark a new kink for Victoria).

-        We’re now caught up to 2019, so that’s all I’m going to do for this post, but the one thing I know going into the future is that the meeting they have every year to decide if they’re gonna stay married for another year slowly evolves into a session of trashing marriage as an institution and then talking about all the things they love about being married and each other.

[lidoshka]

Voltron Season 8 review!

Okay! Finally had the chance to watch season 8?

Not yet? Too bad, because the spoiler free week in this blog is officially over!

Before I start, If you would rather now hear about season 8 you can filter the tags #I will only grant you one spoiler free week #And that grace period is over #we been knew #I can't believe I was blindsided by this #so the leaks were actually a trial test?!

Also, I will try to stay positive and post good things about Voltron during the week, but if you want some salt you can catch all the vitriol about S8 on Sunday (with the tag #salty Sunday)

So onwards to my review! (And boy, I knew I should have worn a different kind of socks on the 14th!)

Overall, I’d say it was a good season…but it wasn’t the best. There were a bunch of small moments that made me really happy, and there were some cool aspects with the animation that I totally loved.

…but there were some things in the second half of the season that totally ruined it for me.

But let’s be positive and point out all the things that I liked for this season!

What I loved about this season:

• The animation was amazing! Both the 3d animation and the way the characters were drawn! Plus a bunch of interesting camera angles! If you compare season 1 art with the way everyone is drawn now you can see the improvement and it’s amazing. • Episode 4 killed me instantly. To me it was perfect. It was sad but also uplifting, and I wanted to cry as much as that Olkarion child with Ryner’s last words and yet appreciated the meaning in them. Yes, I was very sad to see Olkarion gone, but most of its people will live on. We also got to see the Weblum again, which I liked because it was an appropriate metaphor. :) • Allura and Lance had  a date! That was great, they both deserve all the good moments possible • Also, the MFE girls and the Paladin girls shopping is supper funny. • We get to see a lot of people from the Voltron coalition not just Olia’s crew, and it’s wonderful to see the MFE’s, the Rebels, the ATLAS and Voltron all working together! • Cosmo is a nice puppy… and I knew he was going to continue growing! X3 • All Pidge and Colleen’s interactions. All of the Holts interactions actually! I really love how Pidge has her dad wrapped around her pinky, but Colleen is not a pushover and demands a family photo in exchange of the tokens • And I loved that Matt’s (girlfriend? Partner? They sound female, but then again they are an alien so…) are in the photo too!! • I also liked Shiro entering that tournament, we know he has a competitive streak, but we don’t get to see it very often, and this was a good opportunity! • The vlog episode was gold! Not only do we get to see more about the MFE pilots, but we also see the paladins around and a bit of the daily life in the IGF Atlas, plus, it could have just been a silly filler but instead it still managed to move the story forwards. A+ • Shiro using a gun looks really cool and it makes me wonder if his Bayard would have actually turned into some form of firearm. • Lotor is back! Not in the way I hoped but I got to see a tiny Lotor, and I also saw a younger Lotor still full of hope and desire to please his father *sighs* he really deserved so much better… • Lotor literally stole Kova. :P • Honerva’s mecha? Her fusion with Sincline? Voltron/Atlas fusion? They are all amazing designs! • I liked the last scene with the lions saying their goodbyes to the paladins. It was bittersweet because it’s the end of an era but at the same time it’s a sign of hope. It’s like now that there’s peace (or at least the possibility of peace being achieved without the need of a WMD) the lions can retire. Maybe the lions are leaving to look for their new paladins, or maybe hide away again until Voltron is needed once more. That along with the image of the vehicles inside the Garrison hangar was a good nod towards Voltron Vehicle and maybe a future Voltron Force show. Ah yeah, good things.

But now what I really didn’t like:

After careful consideration and watching the season one more time I can say I’m only upset about 4 things: 1. Allura’s sacrifice 2. Episode 5 3. Honerva’s plan and her redemption 4. And the stills of the epilogue

Funny enough the four are connected together in one single sentence: bad writing decisions.

Now, me being critical of the show doesn't mean I don't like it anymore now that I wont enjoy watching it. There are a bunch of shows that have errors and flaws by the dozen, but I still enjoy them but I need to get this out of my chest

Alluras’s sacrifie: Why? Out of all the possible directions they could have taken their story, why this? Why kill one of their female protagonists?!

“but she has made similar sacrifices in other versions” yes, and she was Caucasian and had a romantic plot with the leader of Voltron too and VLD chose to deviate from that, so I don’t see why of all the things they chose to discard from previous versions they chose to keep this.

“She now gets to spend eternity with her father and the other paladins” Do I remind you that Allura lost everything (her family, her nation, her planet, her crown) and little by little she found a new family? VLD has been selling me the idea of “found family” since season 1, why are they changing the tune now?

“Allura was already too powerful, she couldn’t remai— “ No. this isn’t marvel, there were ways to decrease her powers if that was necessary: the creature that got inside her could have damaged her body somehow and had her powers decrease; she could have sacrificed only her alchemy (like Edward Elric in fma!) and she would be a regular Altean (or a regular human if they wanted to go with the allurance ending) and spend the rest of her life rebuilding her nation. There were ways to keep her powers down and still keep Allura around.

“It’s the only way” Allura herself said before she started saying her goodbyes to the paladins… but in this season alone they showed: - A tiny balmera - A whole bunch of balmera. - Voltron+atlas fusion - The paladins using the power of friendship and concentration to enter Honerva’s inner thoughts - The paladins using the power of friendship and concentration <i>again</i> to power up Voltron+atlas so it could escape a collapsing reality - Voltron+atlas giant wings to save the last remaining reality So if they were already pulling out all the rabbits out of the hat don’t tell me the production team couldn’t come up with another alternative other than having “the girl who is magic sacrificing herself for the sake of the universe”

…and why are Altea and Daibazaal back?! Didn’t Reyner said “you mustn’t cling too tightly to the past” and “the old must gave way to the new”? ugh.

*rants for 20 minutes more about poor script decisions*

Episode 5:

It’s bad. And it doesn’t add anything important to the narrative except some gratuitous scenes of the paladins in their underarmor. And the reason why I disliked this episode is about the way the writers try to redeem Ezor and Zethrid.

Last season they sold me on the idea that “this is war and sometimes people die”. This season they wanted to end with an uplifting “everyone has a chance at redemption” vibe which actually just makes me upset.

Oh yeah, Adam –the guy whose only negative mark was that he dumped Shiro—died and no one really mentions him again or talks about what an impact he had on other characters, but Ezor –who was more than willing to torture Pidge back in season 7— she gets to survive and change her ways??

Honerva’s ploy and redemption arc:

Honerva had dreams about being a mother and a wife and spending her life with her family, but she studied the creature from the rift a bit too closely and her mind was poisoned without her even realizing it. In that sense, she’s a victim, and it’s good that in her final moments she got to be back to be the person she was before.

… but as Haggar she helped conquer and destroy thousands of worlds! She was participant in the neglect and abuse of a Lotor throughout his childhood.

“But that was Haagar! Honerva deserves a second chance!” you’d say, but remember that after Oriande she has recovered her memories and she’s not Haggar anymore what did she do? Did she tried to mend her ways and help what remained of the universe to honor her child’s life? Nope. She blamed the Galra, she used the Alteans, she destroyed Olkarion and she dammed the whole universe (and then any other universe) to get the ending she wanted.

Everyone in these universe is gone because of her. And in the end, she got her dream of being with her family.

Even Zarkon got a bit of a redemption scene! He got to go to the same place as the former paladins, with his wife and his son…These three are responsible of 70% of all the bad things that happened in this universe in the last 10,00 years and they get to spend eternity together.

I don’t’ know why suddenly the production staff though this ending was cool.

4. The Epilogue

I think the only ‘last scenes’ I liked where Pidge’s ending and Kolivan and Krolia’s ending. They were nice. But the others? *frowns*

In the “one year later” scenes Hunk is seen in the ATLAS along with Shiro; it’s implied that Hunk is some sort of diplomat who also likes to cook for his guests. In the last image it just looks like he gave up that to become the next masterchef.

Lance’s final still looks sad. He’s the perfect picture of a widower and I think this is terrible unfair for all the Lance stans who were hoping season 8 was Lance’s season. Yeah, lance likes his family and he always missed earth, but there were other things they could have done with him. He could be teaching the new generation of garrison pilots! His ending just makes the audience think he’s recovering from a broken earth.

Keith's image in his ending still looks odd, I think hey were trying to an upper shot or something but his waist looks too slim, and there are several things thet feel weird with the perspective.

...not to mention it says "humanitarian relief organization" ...the blades are all Galra? the fact they didn't bother to spend 5 minutes thinking why "humanitarian" was not a word applicable here tells me all I need to know about the care they placed in this epilogue.

Shiro’s scene is strange because Shiro looks exactly the way he looks when they say goodbye to the lions, but Pidge and Hunk and Keith look like they do in the “years later” design. Consistency is lacking.

Then there’s the thing of how Shiro “found his happiness” with and image of him getting married. What, he wasn’t happy while he was single? Seeing the stars up close, traveling the universe, flying on Black and then leading ATLAS, that didn’t make Shiro happy? Are we now equaling marriage with happiness, is that it?

I get that an gay marriage and a gay kiss on screen is something commendable (it would have bene better if we had seen Shiro and his new hubbie actually interacting tho), and we all love Shiro, but I can think of several images that could have been more satisfactory for his character: him at the helm of the ATLAS, fulfilling his dreams of traveling the stars in peace; Shiro finally getting a vacation; maybe even a description with an older Shiro saying “and Shiro lived many years happy and in peace because he was not sick anymore” all of these would have been more rewarding.

…And the only scene that was animated was Shiro’s wedding? Why? Can you imagine how could it’d have been if instead of the weeding we saw something like “the lions came back one more time to bring back Allura” I wouldn’t even be here ranting for 20 minutes so far on top of my pile of salt if they had done something like that!

And it’s not even as if it was one simple person who made the ending: VLD has a staff of writers, several directors, many producers monitoring, a whole team of animators and several consulting departments…and none of them stopped to think this might not be a good ending to their series?

In the end, I’m still left with some questions:

What is the lifespan of an average Galra? What would be the expected lifespan for Keith or Axca and Ezor and Zethrid?

Does having Altean markings means Lance is now Altean? Cause the show was not clear, is this just a physical memento so Lance has something to remind him of Allura every day or will he live a long life now?

What’s the cosmic wolf’s name? did he ever told Keith?! How much more is he going to grow?

more importantly: What was the name of Keith’s father?!

[recentanimenews]

Craft & Wield Your Arsenal Against an AI Menace in DAEMON x MACHINA

There are only two things in this world that are completely and wholly synonymous with anime. The first is magical girls. The second is, of course, giant robots. In the decades since Mazinger Z exploded onto the scene in the early 1970s and established the mecha genre as we know it, countless anime fans in Japan and abroad have found themselves fascinated by these flying hunks of metal battling out among the stars. Many of anime’s most well-known and highly regarded properties are mecha, such as Patlabor, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenga Toppen Gurren Lagann, and the unforgettable Gundam franchise. Seriously, stop a random stranger on the street and show them a picture of your favorite Mobile Suit. After you correct them it’s not a Transformer, their next guess will probably be Gundam.

  This widespread fascination with mechas in media has also translated to the world of video games... somewhat. Plenty of games that let you pilot giant robots have risen over the years, though few have received widespread acclaim. The many Gundam and Super Robot Wars games have found their audiences mainly in fans of the shows they’re based on, while others carve out their own niches among mecha fans. Xenogears, Metal Wolf Chaos, and the Armored Core games may not rank among the most well-known franchises worldwide, but the fan bases they’ve found are nothing if not passionate about their mech games of choice. Armored Core in particular comes up more and more these days as a franchise that mech fans would like to see revitalized, especially given the FromSoftware pedigree behind it. Though it seems there’s no end in sight to the Armored Core drought just yet, a few series veterans have stepped in to fill the void with their new title DAEMON x MACHINA.

    DAEMON x MACHINA is a third-person action game developed by Marvelous for the Switch. This post-apocalyptic mech-piloting game takes place hundreds of years after the Moonfall―a cataclysmic event where pieces of the moon broke apart and fell to Earth. This unleashed a new form of energy across the Earth called Femto that corrupted AIs and turned them against humanity. Pushed to the brink of extinction, humanity now resides within a union of nation-conglomerates called the Oval Link. This Link is overseen by a group called Orbital tasked with contracting out various mercenary groups to forge the last line of defense against the AI threat.

  The stage that DAEMON X MACHINA sets for its story is a dire one indeed, though the game struggles with how much it tries to convey that. Players take on the role of “Rookie,” a custom-created character who sort of comes out of nowhere to join Orbital and wade into the world of mechs and mercenaries. After becoming accustomed to piloting the mechs (known as Arsenals) and passing the certification exam, you’re introduced to the Hanger, which is where you’ll spend all your time outside of missions. This enclosed area is your hub for viewing your Arsenal, purchasing upgrades, swapping out equipment, and accepting missions. The Hanger is populated with a handful of NPC mechanics with little to say, and outside of them the only other humans ever shown in the game are your fellow mercs. 

    There’s a civilization left to protect in DAEMON x MACHINA, but its complete absence from the game makes it easy to forget about. There are references to human refugee camps and settlements, but for whatever reason all your battles take place far, far away from them. The arenas you’ll be fighting in are total wastelands, complete with abandoned cars to throw and decaying buildings to topple on enemies. The saturation slider is turned up all the way as you battle under a blood red sky to industrial metal tunes as if to say “The world is already over, so just go hog wild in your giant robot.” DAEMON x MACHINA’s story is serviceable, and that’s all it really needed to be. I’m not saying that fans of mecha games don’t care about the stories at ALL, but let’s be honest, what the fans want most is to pilot giant robots and have fun doing it. 

  With that in mind, let me simplify things a bit. If you love to obsess over numbers, stats, and builds, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you. If you love convoluted control schemes that put you in situations where you’re holding virtually every button on the controller down at once, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you. If you love to feel like you’re actively fighting against the sheer weight of a zillion-ton metal behemoth while you’re playing video games, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you. If you like to build Gunplas and paint them purple and green like Unit 01, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you.

  Everything in DAEMON x MACHINA is designed around making you feel like an extremely cool person flying an extremely cool mech. The character customization options are rad, if a bit lacking in accessories compared to NPC pilots. The Arsenal customization goes far more in-depth, with loads and loads of swappable equipment to unlock and upgrade throughout the campaign. There are plenty of builds you can fashion for your mech depending on how you want to approach the mission. Whether you want to play go agile or tanky, melee or sniper, land or sky, the options are there for you. The customization goes even deeper as you can change your Arsenal’s paint job and cover it in unlockable emblems if you so desire. 

  In addition to affecting your own health and defense, the parts you outfit your Arsenal with have their own individual durability stats. If they take enough damage, these parts can break completely, leaving you more damage-prone and potentially missing an entire arm to attack with. Luckily, whenever an enemy Arsenal is downed in a mission it can be scavenged for parts. If you’re missing an arm or weapon, you can find a downed Arsenal and replace it with one of theirs. If all your gear is in good condition, scavenged parts are automatically sent to your Hanger for future use. While you can buy new equipment in the Hanger, scavenging off dead enemies was how I acquired nearly all of the equipment that I used throughout the game. 

    All these various stats and customization options were a little overwhelming for me, I’m not gonna lie. I found it hard to judge what builds to go for or what parts and weapons to bring to different missions because there was no real indicator what worked best against the enemies I would be facing. The most common enemy types all go down pretty quickly, but most of the game ends up being spent fighting other Arsenals. Without a database of them and their own builds its tough to get a sense of what works best against them without a bit of intense observation and a lot of trial and error. 

  This overwhelming feeling extended into the gameplay. Arsenals are big and complicated, and not only are you flying them all around everywhere, you’re doing it with a total of six different weapons attached. There are a total of sixteen buttons across both Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons, and most able-bodied people hold controllers with four fingers on a button at a time: both thumbs on the analog sticks and both index fingers on the triggers. At any given moment in DAEMON x MACHINA you’ll probably be holding down six buttons at once and still feel like you aren’t holding enough. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is all up to you. 

    While I did admittedly find it overwhelming (and frankly uncomfortable for my tiny hands) at times, I found it oddly appropriate. Have you ever looked at the cockpit inside of a plane? Imagine if that plane had two legs and arms and the dexterity to point accusingly at their archrival. It only ever became a hindrance when it came to the auxiliary weapons such as grenades. These weapons were mapped to the X button the Joy-Cons, so readying a grenade meant taking my thumb off the right analog stick to press the button. Problem is, that’s the stick that controls camera movement. Grenades were ultimately useless to me because there was no way to even aim them while inside the Arsenal. It seems like a major oversight, but fortunately controls are remappable and not every auxiliary weapon requires camera control anyway.

  While Arsenal control is awkward and clunky in an ultimately appropriate way, controlling the pilot outside of it feels plain bad. Your created characters in DAEMON x MACHINA aren’t solely there to look at in cutscenes, by the way. During missions you can bail out of your Arsenal and fight enemies on foot. However, I found there’s little―if any―reason to do so. The weapons at your disposal are much more limited and there’s no way to recover health if you’re hurt outside of your Arsenal. Also, the levels are clearly designed for Arsenals alone, so it’s easy to get caught on the collision of slight inclines that Arsenals just glide over. 

    You can eventually upgrade your pilot to a point where they can manually repair your Arsenal when outside of it, but the repair process is painfully slow and your Arsenal just takes more damage since it’s just a sitting duck out there. You can already find health canisters scattered throughout levels, so the only time being able to repair your Arsenal on foot would be when it’s destroyed and you’re automatically ejected from it. Unfortunately, the repair ability doesn’t work on Arsenals that have been destroyed. At that point your options are to either die or hope you’ve already taken enough health off any remaining enemies that you can just find a secure corner and cheese the rest of the fight out. Which, to be fair, that’s how I beat the final boss.

  The final boss, by the way, is terrible. It completely defies all strategies you’re taught to utilize up to that point throughout the game. Unlike every single other arena up to that point, there are no health or ammo pickups to be had. If your armor is destroyed, there are no enemies around to strip for parts. After trying it a few times I was so frustrated and in such disbelief over it that I turned to the internet for answers and found a good amount of others who had been stumped by it. I found out there’s a completely un-telegraphed gimmick to beating it that never actually worked whenever I attempted. I eventually managed to beat it and as a courtesy here’s my advice. Equip one of the katana weapons, upgrade chain attacks in the body mods, equip HIGH defense armor, and just go in over and over until it’s dead. If you can see ANYTHING other than the boss’s character model clipping through the camera then you’re doing something wrong. 

    Bee-lining through the story took in all about 16 hours, but there’s plenty left to do beyond that. As you progress through the story you’ll unlock side missions that can earn you parts and credits, and there are roughly as many side missions in DAEMON X MACHINA as there are story missions. If you’re tired of playing alone, there are also online modes available to players with a Nintendo Switch Online membership. You can play co-op missions with other players or face against them in 1v1 and 2v2 matches. My experience with the online modes is rather limited, but I found co-op missions went by extremely quickly given how many high-level players are there to farm for gear. I couldn’t find any 2v2 rooms open in the middle of the day on a weekend, but finding partners for 1v1 deathmatches was pretty easy. If showing off your cool mech design and challenging other players over who the better pilot is sound appealing to you, I’d definitely give these modes a shot. 

  The big question you’re probably still wondering though is, “If I like Armored Core will I like this?” As to that, well, I don’t know. I’ve never actually played a single Armored Core game before, and while DAEMON x MACHINA does seem similar to what I’ve seen of those games, for all I know the feel could be entirely different. I do know that there is some Armored Core pedigree behind it, though. Armored Core series producer Kenichiro Tsukuda acted as producer on DAEMON x MACHINA. Legendary mech designer Shoji Kawamori―who designed mechs for Armored Core, Macross, Patlabor, and many others―returned as well. The pedigree seemingly ends there, unfortunately. Marvelous developed and published this game, and a quick look into their previous output reveals few mechs and a lot of Senran Kagura.

    So while I can’t guarantee this is exactly what you want or are looking for, I can say that I had a real great time with it. There were things I found myself wanting from this game that it didn’t deliver. I wanted my character to be more like a character. I wanted to make decisions and bond with my fellow pilots. I wanted to join a group of mercs and fight it out among the rest for supremacy. The more I played and the more I wanted these things, I realized I was looking at DAEMON x MACHINA the wrong way. Those kinds of RPG elements might belong in game like, say, Battletech, but that’s not what DAEMON x MACHINA is about. Though limited in its scope, it dials in on what it believes matters most to mecha fans: having fun being a pilot. DAEMON x MACHINA bogs you down so many stats and parts and controls because it knows that’s what being a pilot means. And once you’ve finally crafted and mastered your own perfect mech, it sets you loose under its blood red skies and tells you to let ‘er rip.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Beautifully saturated wasteland environments 

+ Epic industrial metal soundtrack

+ Deeply customizable mechs

+ Controlling Arsenals feels clunky and convoluted in all the ways it should

+ Co-op and Vs. multiplayer options let you show off mechs and challenge fellow pilots

+/- Intriguing setting that the story does little to deliver on

- Control outside the Arsenal feels useless

- Abysmal final boss encounter

  Are you a fan of mecha games? Where does DAEMON x MACHINA rank among your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!

      -----

Danni Wilmoth is a Features writer for Crunchyroll and co-host of the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[mylifeatwar]

Book 2, Chapter 2, Page 9

Archived Text Follows:

Hey Everyone!

First, sorry for not replying to everyone’s comments as much as I normally do. Things have been hectic at work and other boring excuses.

Now onto things that are actually interesting. Where the fuck did Amalia come from? I don’t just mean her country of origin (The Federative Republic of Salbhaca) but I mean her character from a writing perspective.

So, when MLaW was first starting out, we had forums. Later on we canned them because it was too hard to keep them spam free and forums are already going the way of the dinosaur, hence our comment system. However, when the forums  were still up a user called ‘Lemonade’ showed up and talked about the Bechdel test, which is basically a quick and dirty method of seeing whether or not there are meaningful female characters in a given story.

Now, I’m assuming that Lemonade is female because I’ve never heard a guy open with a discussion of the Bechdel test, but I could be wrong. Either way the comic was still in the intro phase and there was some confusion about where the comic was heading. Betsy-Ray’s antagonistic feelings towards Missy and Lulu-Belle for their attractiveness was supposed to show that Betsy-Ray can be insecure and petty, just like all people. This was also supposed to help set up the revelation that Missy and Lulu-Belle are actually pretty good folks who have their own reasons for the way they dress and act. Lemonade was asserting that our characters didn’t really have a proper voice and that they were falling into old, familiar ruts of fiction. Lemonade asked why I wasn’t trying very different characters.

We went back and forth on this and I asserted that characters different from the ones we had didn’t fit the MLaW-verse and that to request otherwise was unfair to the story we had planned. Not my proudest moment really.

Her reply basically boiled down to “This is fiction. You’re writing about giant fucking robots. This mercenary company could be entirely composed of latina lesbians if you wanted to. You can do anything you want.” I replied to this basically with the fact that MLaW was going to end up being very different from what it was at the moment, but I couldn’t reveal anything because Spoilers. This was kind of a ho-hum response in my opinion. I think really I said that because I didn’t think I could write that characters like that (more on that in a second).

A few days later I was alone and drunk in my kitchen (a lot of my writing revelations happen like this) and I was mulling that exchange over. “Wait a second, why couldn’t I write that character? I’m a writer, making things up is like… all I’m good at”.

Just as an experiment I started trying to write a hispanic, lesbian character within the context of MLaW and Amalia just kind of… happened. Before I knew it, it was very hard to think of MLaW without her.

I think that, at least initially, I was scared of writing a character like Amalia because she’s so different than myself that I’d have no point of reference. This means that she could be inaccurate at best or insulting at worst, which isn’t a possibility I relished. Eventually I just fell back on the things that Amalia and I have in common:

We both like girls (*rimshot*)

We’ve both spent time in unfamiliar cultures trying to fit in

We both use assertive behavior to mask nervousness about social situations

It became a lot easier after that and it made me realize that, in all frankness, I was being cowardly about the characters I was making.

Did I alter anything about the MLaW universe or story to make this character? No, Matt and I intended this to be a mecha comic with a lot of female characters from the get-go because it seemed like a cool idea at the time. Salbhaca was in the MLaW fiction from the beginning and always had a Brazillian/Mayan/1960’s Space Race feel to it

We imported a lot of the forum discussions, I think you can still find that discussion in the archives somewhere (it’s on Page 13). So, while I doubt Lemonade still reads MLaW I can still say “Lemonade, this one’s for you”.

Thanks for reading,

– Luther out

PS: Yes, I realize the humor of having a butch-ish lesbian character whose job title is ‘Bull’. That was not intentional, but fuck it, I’m keeping it.

Comment Text Follows:

Iarei - Poor Amalia, that is some spectacular lack of concerned over personal space. Looks like she’s about ready to swallow that cigaro. I do remember Lemon referencing the Bechdel test in the comments section. It was the first I’d heard of it, and really the test struck me as a bit old fashioned. It only really applies to that one ‘Blondie’ stereotype. (See: Chic Young) If you had a female character that talked about nothing but makeup and clothes that would be another sexist stereotype. If you had a man who is powered by nothing but adrenaline and voltage. . . see where I’m going with this? What’s important is that you have (and I believe you do, have) characters that act consistently according to MANY character traits and/or flaws, rather than falling back on easy/familiar formulas or getting hung up on one trait. Sexuality is both a hugely important trait, and an incredibly private trait, so it can be overdone or crammed into a safe, comfortable stereotype easily. So, for what my opinion’s worth, I think you’ve handled it well, thus far. As much as I love Limbs breaking heads I think I look forward more to your character development. Oh, and it’s amusing to have a character act consistently based on flawed premises. (see: Dizzy’s perspective on Dhuvallian soldiers.) Do you have like, a mini biography to reference for each character when you’re planing out a scene? Ooh! Zat reminds me! I wonder is [REDACTED] is still good or if it’ll turn to crap behind the filter of years of matured (or at least well aged) brain. Sorry, I ramble when it’s 5 am. g’night.

Gillsing -  I don’t see what’s ‘old fashioned’ about the Bechdel test, or how it would even apply to individuals. As far as I’ve understood it, it’s mainly supposed to show how rare women are in a lot of fiction, and not judge the female characters or the work itself, whether it passes the test or not. That thing about ‘talking about something other than a man’ is not there because the women would be incapable of talking about something else, but rather because the story might only care about that part of their lives, so that’s the only thing that gets shown. Again, as far as I’ve understood it. I’m not an expert on the subject. 

Iarei - Just that I interpret that part as stemming from the mercifully dated concept that women exist to support their men. Be good wives / daughters / sisters rather than, as you aptly put it, focusing on other parts of their lives.  

tkg - There is also the issue of the test being woefully limited. When you consider that in a good story a character may change or develop you have to ask when the B-Test is appropriate. More so if such a character changes then is it fair to label a story with the b-test based not on what the major characters become but what they were? Somehow the b-test seems like unnecessary stratification.

Iarei - “unnecessary stratification” Those are some pretty words. I believe I shall steal them and probably misuse them.

Beanman - The Bechdel Test has been described as ‘the standard by which feminist critics judge television, movies, books and other media’ It simply judges if the characters in the story a meaningful to an extent. A film/book/comic ect passes the Bechdel test if: 1.It has at lest two women in it, 2.who talk to each other, 3.about something besides a man I am not certain about this particular conversation as Betsy initially seems to want to talk about men, however she is shut down fairly quickly and on the next page the conversation takes a much more serious tone. Personally I think it passes the test, others may disagree. http://www.mylifeatwar.com/?p=319 This conversation I feel, passes without issue. Again a male character is mentioned but as nothing more than a co-worker and the conversation is certainly not about him. http://www.mylifeatwar.com/?p=432 So I would hope that feminists would applaud the efforts of the MLaW team for portraying meaningful female characters. I know I do.

dwwolf - I told ya’all I saw a pickup line coming up.

Matti - If anybody cares, I know good BattleTech fan fic about two all woman mercenary units working together: http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,12316.0.html No mechas in that story though (no ‘Mechs either), but good read anyway

Killercow - I love this page.

Plaintextman - Most interesting. As others have said, the Bechdel test is a very simple and concise test that can go a long way demonstrating lack of female characters with substance. But it is really inadequate for properly judging fiction. Kind of like the “is it dissipating an unusual amount of heat lately?” test for checking whether a transistor still works. A great way to scan for problems, but it won’t tell you whether the thing’s gain curve is sane or not. Heck, a lot of times the heat is just a normal part of operation. So I might be stretching the analogy a little there, but I don’t believe that ∀x(GendersOK(x)→Bechdel(x)); they say Mulan is an example of a work that fails the test. Anyhow, I read an article the other day with which I can’t disagree: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters . In my opinion, having various gendered/cultured/whateverd characters with proper _agency_ is the most important. And so far I think you guys are doing a good job with MLAW in this regard.

Plaintextman - Hey! That golden dot besides Amalia’s right eye… wireless transmitter or other tech implant? IIRC it was mentioned that Salbhaca has “big plans for space” so I assume they are technologically advanced. Possibly also situated close to Dhuvalia and sharing tech?

nweismuller - It just looks like a facial piercing to me. I’ve seen similar piercings before in Real Life.

Plaintextman - Oh… that makes way more sense. It looked to me like it was flat against her skin until you mentioned that.

Killercow - Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was mentioned in the comments by the author as such.