#haven't played this version since 2020

[ladyfarona]

It's that time again...

[jojo-schmo]

✿ Forgotten Land Roleswap AU ✿

✦ 3rd Anniversary ✦

I was hoping to get this Light Novel cover redraw finished by today, but I haven't been feeling well and ran out of time- but I still wanted to at least share this WIP and muse on how much things have grown during these three years, and how much this project has meant to me so far.

April 12, 2022 was the day I created posted the first doodles that would, unbeknownst to me at the time, germinate the idea that would transform into a passion project spanning multiple years. I had just finished Kirby and the Forgotten Land's story and slowly getting back into the Kirby fandom space for the first time in years. It had been a long time since a game made me feel as wonderful as Forgotten Land did. I've loved Bandana Waddle Dee since I first played Return to Dreamland on the Wii when I was a kid, and wished he had more opportunities to shine outside of directly supporting Kirby in the game. I also love "What If" and "Roleswap" AUs, so I considered what would happen if I swapped Bandana Dee and King Dedede's role in the game.

The posts didn't really get much traction at first, which was fine. But I kept going back to the idea after a few days and thinking about how to push it further. Instead of just swapping Bandee and Dedede, what if Dedede was Player 1 to increase the stakes of rescuing the kidnapped Waddle Dees? Dedede wouldn't have access to Mouthful Mode, so how would the gameplay work then? Instead of Kirby taking care of everything with his own Mouthful Mode, it could be more fun to have Meta Knight be Player 2 instead, and explore their teamwork dynamics and problem-solving methods together!

So I explored an alternative- Combo Mode! And developing and researching ideas for that lit a spark within me! I had to keep going after that!

Now I had to consider, if I'm already swapping around all the main characters, I'm starting to have an entirely new universe here! What's next to change up? For the heroes' companion, I felt like Elfilin wouldn't behave very differently in this AU than in canon, he would probably continue to be friendly and helpful and sweet. Which would be okay- but to make things more interesting for myself, what if I played around with the origin story of the missing pieces of Fecto Forgo and switched "Elfilis" and "Elfilin" around? That way there's new obstacles and possibilities there and maybe I can even surprise some people with the lore down the line!

Now I'd had my Dream Team shuffled around, a very different mysterious companion for them... And why stop there? Why not play with the Beast Council's roles too while I'm at it to make things even more interesting for myself to write?!

From the early days of this AU Project...

To my more recent work...

...Now here we are.

It'd been a long, long time since I enjoyed the creation process of anything for myself like this! I was coming out of some pretty hard times in the early 2020s, and in a lot of ways, this AU has been there alongside me during a years-long journey to get help for my mental health, to become more confident in who I am and what I can bring to the world around me, and to love myself. Now I'm the best version of myself I've ever been, and I can pour so much more into my art and writing, especially with this AU!! <3

AND MAN, does it feel good to see physical evidence of my art style's evolution side-by-side! Like comparing my first Light Novel cover redraw from 2022 with my current WIP!

Creating this AU has taught me so much about storytelling, the medium of comics, organization, and most of all, to enjoy the process and really push my personal limits in a positive way. I've met so many amazing people since starting this story, some of whom have inspired me in ways I never could've imagined. Some very key people have even helped me ponder different mediums to tell this story.... Some animatics... or maybe even more interactive storytelling...? I am slow cooking some fun ideas, dear reader....

This AU gave me the confidence to become more involved in the fandom space and find community among people who have taught me so much. I am so, so grateful for this project.

I know it's taken some time to get here. I still work full-time and now I'm pursuing a second bachelor's in hopes of a career change that will allow me more time to focus on creating someday. But for now, free time can be frustratingly limited for me. It's also taken this long because I've put a lot of thought into how to set up the metaphorical "dominos" in the forms of foreshadowing and world-building I want, to do my best to make the wait worth it for the future plot pay-offs and reveals I have planned!! I'm hoping to continue to pick up speed with updates as I increase my skill and solidify my master plan for this story... MUAHAHA....

I plan on seeing this project to the very very end, and I can't wait to continue this journey with you all. Especially with the announcement of Star-Crossed Worlds!!! I'm not too worried about it turning my AU lore upside-down quite yet since it's post-game content and my bigger lore drops are still a little bit away, so I have time to navigate that when it does drop :3

Thank you to everyone who has read, enjoyed, and supported this project in any way, whether it's a like, comment, reblog tag, dm, carrier pigeon, paper airplane- whatever!! <3 I love, appreciate, and am beyond grateful for every reader, supporter, and friend I've gained in the past three years!!

Cheers to a successful three years under my belt, and I look forward to the future!! By the end of this journey, I hope you will enjoy reading this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

🫧 Love, Jojo T. Schmo 🫧

★○★○★○★○★○★○★○★

♫ Laughing loud! Even if you're far apart, they're right by your side. Hearts full of love! Everyone is welcome to live in this new world. ♫

｡⋆｡˚ ʚïɞ ˚｡⋆｡

[loregoddess]

HA! finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring today, I'm still not entirely sure why this worked to get me to read, but now that I know this works I will be continuing on with the rest of the trilogy...

while also balancing playing Echoes of Wisdom when it comes out, but I think I can balance the two

here's hoping I can find audio books of all the other books in my pile of to-read books, or at least that I can figure out some other way to trick my brain into reading time mode along the way

I think? I think I figured out a workaround around my mental block about reading for fun

since my main block was I couldn't focus on the text if it was too noisy, after much contemplation I went and found an audiobook so I could read along as I listened

(audio alone I can't do bc I will zone out but if I have something to look at this isn't an issue, and if I can't do text alone bc of background noise then maybe purposeful noise would help cover up the background noise <--my train of logic in developing this hypothesis).

And like? I'm a little over 100 pages into The Fellowship of the Ring, so it seems to be working.

[thealexchen]

thoughts on LIS: Double Exposure?

This is probably gonna be my hottest take in awhile, but: I deeply dislike the idea of an official LiS1 direct sequel game existing. Excluding all my thoughts on the gameplay, story, Max's character, etc. I don't think a game like Double Exposure is necessary.

This isn't a new take either; back in 2020 I made a Reddit post saying I was glad we never got a continuation of Max and Chloe's story, because in order to have a plot, you have to have conflict. And to have conflict means your characters are forced to change or struggle in some way, and I simply wasn't interested in seeing that again. I never even read the comics. As long as Max and Chloe's future existed only in the fanbase's collective imagination and not in an officially licensed game, Pricefield could be as happy as I wanted and I wouldn't have to witness DN or D9's version of canon.

A lot of fans, including myself, are also confused and upset as to where Chloe could be in Double Exposure. Even if Chloe winds up having a surprise role, it would likely be too logistically difficult to write Chloe into one version of the story and not the other. Either way, DE is strongly pointing to Chloe no longer being the deuteragonist. If D9 was going to make a direct sequel with Max and Chloe, I could at least be intrigued by how they might write their dynamic and how they'd use Max's power in new and interesting ways. But instead there's... none of that. Chloe's nowhere to be seen and Max can't time travel anymore.

On a narrative level, Max and Chloe are the heart of the original Life is Strange. They represent the game's central relationship, and their very first interaction (Max saving Chloe's life) kicks off the entire story. Throughout the story, their dynamic advances the plot and mutually motivates their character arcs. You can't have LiS1 without either Max or Chloe; the story simply wouldn't exist without them. Now in DE, they don't even seem to be in each other's lives anymore. It's true, this series is meant to reflect universal feelings and experiences, which could include breakups, but the romantic catharsis of Pricefield as canon soulmates who defied time and space itself to stay together forever is something you can only get from the beauty of fiction. To jab DE's story with a dose of reality and go, "Eh, they grew apart. Shit happens," totally undermines everything the Bae ending stood for.

On a technical level, Max's rewind was an objectively brilliant game mechanic. LiS1 arrived onto the scene after Telltale had paved the way for the resurgence of choice-based, episodic games, but LiS1 totally reinvented the wheel by giving the player the option to go back and weigh each option before continuing, essentially save-scumming in-game. But the right choice was never that easy to determine, and Rewind brilliantly complemented Max's character arc of overcoming her indecision and learning to live with her choices. Not to mention, you could also use Rewind to solve puzzles, instead of the endless fetch quests the later games had. No other LiS game since then has given the player that kind of agency and interactivity. LiS2 had telekinesis, but the player couldn't use it, only Daniel. D9 tried with Backtalk and Empathy, but Max's Rewind was truly the narrative and gameplay jackpot that they haven't been able to recreate since.

So if you take away one half of the central relationship that made the first game so memorable, and the supernatural power/game mechanic that made it so fun to play... why even bring Max back at all? It just feels like D9 threw away their golden opportunity to build upon the major selling points of the first game and are only relying on name recognition of the Life is Strange "brand" and Max Caulfield.

What upsets me most of all about a direct sequel existing is that it proves that Life is Strange, as a series, now stands more for profits than originality. Life is Strange will always be an IP meant to make money for Square, I know that, but back when LiS1 was just a brand new episodic game, it stood out for how different it dared to be. In a landscape saturated with shooters, sexualized female characters, and casual misogyny, LiS1 instead featured a teenage girl in a contemporary setting that took her seriously and made her the hero of her story. Before it was a franchise, LiS wasn't concerned with the bottom dollar; it was a piece of art that just wanted to tell a thoughtful, unique story.

Whether you love it or hate it, Life is Strange 2 was an insanely risky follow-up to Life is Strange that refused to rely on the convenience of a direct sequel because Dontnod stuck to their artistic vision. Meanwhile, all of Deck Nine's games have leaned on the first game's following to generate interest (BtS being a direct prequel, TC bringing back Steph, and Wavelengths expanding on Steph's connection to Chloe, Rachel, and Arcadia Bay). In other words, all of the subsequent LiS games by D9 have played it very, very safe. It's worked like a damn charm because there are still elements I love about each game, but the basic principle is nostalgia-baiting fans. It's just that now, Double Exposure isn't hiding that nostalgia bait at all anymore and prioritizing profits over telling a unique story. It's sad to see that LiS has strayed so far from its risky, daring, original, and unique artistic beginnings.

Before I end, I'll say that I can't be too cynical about it all, nor do I want to be. Because I can't deny how much joy this whole series has brought me, too. LiS was what got me into narrative adventure games and pushed the boundaries of what a video game could be. If nothing else, I am truly thrilled that Hannah Telle got the chance to play Max again. D9's always been great at maintaining relationships with their actors, and the casts of their games always have consistently great chemistry. Getting recognized by Erika Mori on my own blog is still unbelievable and speaks to the amazing community that LiS has built. As you can see, I'm still posting and reblogging stuff about Double Exposure. And while I don't see myself buying or playing this game for myself, I know it'll keep all of us talking for awhile, and I still live for a good discussion.

Thank you for asking! And thank you for reading.

[phoenixyfriend]

Feb. 26, 2025 - Status of the Colourpop New Moon Collection argument

Hi! No idea if you're a follower who's been following me and my decision to try to cyberbully a multimillion dollar company into doing the right thing. If you're not, you may be confused! I explain under the cut, including a timeline of actions so far.

If you're not new, then the latest is that they do appear to be deleting some comments on this issue, and possibly shadow-banning.

So... maybe it's working? Here are the links to the six places where they can be contacted. Pick one and have at it. Use one of my past posts (post one, post two) if you need suggested phrasing.

Email contact form: private, and slow response times, but this is the place where we can make the longest arguments/explanations of the issue and why we care. This is something you do once or twice, and keep polite, then go over to the social medias to grind them down.

Instagram: The one I've been haunting. They post several times a day, but often about specific products that I don't feel give me a segue option.

TikTok: I don't have TikTok but given its presence in the marketing world, I assume they post there as often as they do on Instagram, and with pretty much the same content as their reels. I feel like TikTok is wild enough for me to tell you to give 'em hell.

YouTube: exists, but they haven't used it in nine months, so not really on top of things. That said, if it's your ONLY social media, go for it. Can't hurt.

Facebook: I can't actually access this one so I don't know what's going on there, and the link appears to be broken. If you can find their page, go for it.

X/Twitter: Like Facebook, I can't really access this one (I'm using xcancel to see it in chronological form), but it looks like they're bragging about Chappell Roan approving of their makeup. So uh. If you follow her on any platform, ask her if she approves of the situation (also of the Harry Potter collaboration, which is directing money through merch royalties to JKR's transphobic lobbying, something I'm sure Chappell Roan would also be unhappy with).

EDIT: I put the wrong year up top, this post was made in 2025, not 2024. Hopefully this edit will show on reblogs of the original since it's under the cut. Sorry for the mistake.

The short explanation version: Colourpop is a cosmetics company known for fun colors and cool collaborations. At the start of 2024, they started releasing a collaboration with Twilight.* January of 2025, they dropped a New Moon collection. Given that the Quileute people have not seen a cent of the Twilight money despite the massive role their people and culture played in it, much of the fandom has decided that the best approach to any Twilight merchandise is to send a portion of the profits to the Quileute "Move to Higher Ground" fundraiser, meant to relocate their town away from the danger posed by higher sea levels. Colourpop has made no statements on donating to the fundraiser, and it's a topic I care about enough to try and galvanize people into making it happen.

The long version: here. And here. And here.

* I wasn't paying attention at the time, as I'd last purchased from them in 2020 (the Safiya Nygaard collaboration), and I'd only come back because they were having a massive sale back in early January. The New Moon collection hadn't dropped yet so I didn't see it, and the first Twilight collection was in colors I don't wear much, so I was more focused on being mad at the Harry Potter stuff.

I am not the first person to have expressed frustration about this to Colourpop, and it's not the first problematic collab they've done. However, they are smaller than many make-up companies, so it feels possible to actually move the needle here, which is what I'm hoping to do.

To be very clear: My goal is not to get the makeup pulled from shelves or to get a public apology. My goal is to get money directed to the fundraiser. That is what's important here, not any virtue signalling or grandstanding. If there is no donation, then we want a statement as to why. Those are the demands: donate, or explain why you won't. We focus on this.

Timeline:

I sent my first email on January 19th, posted about it here the same day, and then started commenting on their New Moon Instagram posts on February 3rd.

I sent a second email on February 9th, as the promised "3-5 business days to respond" had come and gone.

I was temporarily blocked from commenting on anything by instagram on suspicions of being a bot due to suspicious activity, lasting a week. During that time, I continued updating tumblr posts with links to instagram posts that I thought posed an opening (being about the New Moon collection, about sales that weren't content-specific, or that had some phrasing that I thought invited response, like 'what do you want to see?').

Feb. 10: In response to one comment where I admittedly baited them by being ambiguous enough for them to think I had a problem with an order instead of my usual comments, they deleted said comment and DMed me directly. I responded, explaining my actual issue, and they left me on read.

On February 14th, they responded to my Feb. 9th email, likely spurred by the DM conversation. I assume the folded whatever case file the Jan. 19th email had opened into that one. The response was very canned, but it was at least some response.

Since then, I tried sending another email through the contact form, and it failed to go through since I already have 'open threads,' which I'm guessing is an automatic filter and not targeted.

I have continued to comment on their Instagram posts, and have also encouraged others to do the same. One of those posts was taken down after a day, but I don't think it had to do with us; rather, they were getting a lot of flack for perceived violations of some kind of health and safety thing (iirc people were arguing over what length of beard required a net).

Today, February 26th, we have confirmation from @rairii that comments on this topic are being deleted. Not all, possibly for plausible deniability of 'see, we're not trying to hide the problem!' while still making it harder for the layperson to see, but at least one of theirs. This tumblr user also appears to have been shadow-blocked in some way, as they are unable to access colourpop's page at all on mobile.

So. That's where we're at now.

Let's hope we're getting a little closer to them making a statement on this issue.

[idontmindifuforgetme]

lmao girl, you're not ancient for starting at 22, i personally started at 7 but because i was a little kid who didn't appreciate that some stuff took effort to learn i hated it and now i wish i took it more seriously bc i was rlly behind in grades compared to ppl my age. my piano teacher died in 2020 and i haven't played seriously since then and now at 21 i really regret not trying again and i think as an adult, i'm more willing to go through trials and periods of failure than i was when i was young. starting at 22 is great bc you're an adult who has more resilience than the child version of you probably would

This is such a good perspective! I feel like we are taught that if we don’t start around 12 latest then we’re basically Doomed from being as good as our peers, but that’s not fair!! People who start later in life shouldn’t be limited to just being hobbyists… especially at my age. Like the last thing I want to feel is I started late when I’m literally in my early 20s

There’s nothing wrong w wanting to take up a hobby casually—but there’s also nothing wrong w being ambitious about it even if you start “later in life”

Btw you with piano is me w tennis!! I had formal tennis classes when I was 6-10, then discontinued it indefinitely and now want to pick it back up again!! I also fit the avid childhood reader to now trying to fit reading in as an adult pipeline lol — I used to write a lot too! I keep thinking about the pianist anon I got & translating these skills (from academia and reading/writing) into my musical learning in the present!

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

So I am very late into the game because I've just discovered Till's and Joey Kelly's adventures after I saw Joey collaborated with Flake! I love The Kelly Family since the late 90s!

Do we know how they've met? Are there any interviews they've done together? And most importantly, I cannot afford their books at the moment, so does anyone have them uploaded online or something?

Hi! You weren't the only one, the Kelly Family were *huge* back in the day (have to admit i had a bit of a crush on John 😊); and interestingly, the Kelly Family were big in the GDR too, which wasn't a given for a 'west' band

--

Yes, Till and Joey Kelly have collaborated in several trips and made lovely (photo)books, sadly I don't know of an online version, although some photos have been scanned and posted through the years on social media.

Till talked a bit about how he met Joey in this Metal Hammer interview which was kindly shared with us by @herrlindemann

In 2020 (i think) they also did an interview together for Playboy Magazine, here's a teaser to it, with some nice photos

and a great translation fellow Tumblrer @iinchicore did, and, also by @iinchicore shared by @endlich-allein , a transcription of an interview in 2021 with Metal Hammer. And this post by @endlich-allein has some great photos of them together.

--

Flake and Joey did a really nice tv trip together, that you can see here, if you haven't yet, i really recommend it 🌺

It is in German, in case you don't understand the language, i did a bit of a write-up of it at the time (shameless self promo 😄), not the same as the real thing, but it gives an idea..🌺

And ofcourse Joey participated, with several other friends, in Flake's project 'Flake feieet Weihnachten', but you probably already knew that 😊

and a small clip behind the scenes

--

But did you know there's another little connection? From Flake's book 'Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag' (page 86)

"Die Garderobenschränke haben wir von der Kelly Family geerbt. Das war eine Band, die nur aus Familienmitglieder bestand. Die haben in den neunziger Jahren Millionen von Platten verkauft und weltweit riesige Konzerte gegeben. Wenn wir stolz darauf sind, in einer Stadt das Stadion für unser Konzert ausverkauft zu haben, erzählen uns die Veranstalter, wenn sie uns am Vorabend des Konzertes zum Essen einladen, dass die Kelly Family dort eine Woche lang Zweimal am Tag gespielt hat. Erst als Vater Kelly gestorben ist, fiel die Band auseinander, sie gingen nicht mehr auf Tour, und so brauchten sie die vielen Garderobenschränke nicht mehr. Da haben wir sie geschenkt bekommen."

"We inherited the wardrobes from the Kelly Family. That was a band that only consisted of family members. They sold millions of records in the 1990s and gave huge concerts all over the world. When we are proud of selling out a stadium for a city, the organizers tell us when they invite us to dinner the evening before the concert that the Kelly Family played there twice a day for a week. It was only when father Kelly died that the band fell apart and no longer toured, and so they no longer needed those many wardrobes. Then we got them as a gift."

Till and Flake usually share a dresing room together and also these wardrobe cabinets, so whenever you see a pic of Till and Flake's, you are very likely looking at one that was from the Kelly Family in the past 🌺

🌺

[faultychips]

Old and New; The Moon, and 24 Killers

MOON. A classic “anti-rpg”, Influencing some of the most popular video game artwork of recent history, from Toby Fox, who said he... didn’t play it, but “(the game's) concept was an inspiration for UNDERTALE”, to Tony Domenico of Petscop, who doesn't know anything about it but notes perhaps he “saw a screenshot of that "catch" text somewhere and forgot about it”.

…In all seriousness, it’s really fascinating how even the vague idea of moon, in screenshots and summaries, has changed the landscape of video games. It’s hard to tell exactly how much it’s responsible for when the influence of its initial Japanese-only release in 1997 was of course very concentrated in Japan, and I wasn’t around to experience that era of video games myself… but there’s just so many novel ideas in moon that you can’t help but feel a spark of inspiration light up in your brain the more you know about it. The good news is that in 2020, they translated the game to English, and many people who only knew of the game from forum posts and anecdotes can now play the actual thing for themselves. So, let me tell you about my experience playing "moon" for my own self.

In moon: Remix RPG Adventure, you play as a young boy who gets sucked into his television and transported into the world of the stereotypical RPG videogame he was just playing. You don't have a proper body in this universe, but an old lady tells you that she is your "Gramby", and she happily welcomes you "back" into her home and gives you clothes to wear, allowing you to interact with the world around you. Now is when the game introduces it's main gameplay mechanic - a ticking clock, with both a daily and weekly schedule that advances whenever you're not in a dialogue or cutscene. There's a little arrow on this clock, and when the ticking hand reaches it, you will pass out and be given a GAME OVER. As a little bird Yoshida tells you in the town square: "If you ain't got love, you'll stop breathing and pass the heck out." If you want to be able to move around for longer before having to rest in a bed, you'll need to interact with the citizens of "Love-De-Gard" and catch the souls of the animals slain by the HERO to gain love and grow stronger.

The time limit is pretty harsh when you haven't gained any love yet, but thankfully there are a few easy ways to get around it and raise your level. Gramby gives you a task you can complete for love right away, and she will also give you a cookie every day. Eating food will move your time limit forward, giving you more time to move around, so you don't want to miss your opportunities to stock up here in the early game. There's also plenty of animals around to catch, though you'll have to follow the HERO around for a little bit first. Don't worry too much about the weekly schedule - it's really only important for getting all of the NPC related love, and you'll probably need an external guide for those anyway.

Speaking of guides, it should be noted that moon is pretty much impossible to play without one. You can go for a pretty nice long time without any help (I think I lasted about 5-10 hours on my own?) but inevitably you run out of answers, and to be honest, the game doesn't provide a way to get all of information you need to complete events or progress the story, so I don't think you should bother trying to struggle through figuring out everything on your own. That being said, I would go as long as you can without one, since lots of the things you can do in the early game aren't too complicated to figure out by yourself. When you do need one, I personally found this generally spoiler-free guide very helpful, and when I needed to understand how to progress the story (the Mushroom Forest in particular gave me some trouble) this speedrun worked nicely. There's a translated version of the official manual, too, which you can read before you start playing since it's good for a simple introduction.

One thing I appreciate about moon is that while it has some frustrating elements, the game sets itself apart from other obtuse titles from the same era in that it never absolutely requires you to do anything besides the main plot line. Once you reach the end of the main quest and reach love level 22, you are free to go straight to the ending, and there is no "true" ending to be gotten from catching all the animals' souls or doing everything the game has to offer. Still, I figured this was the case and rescued all 51 animals anyway, and stopped just a few hearts short of the max love level. Barring some few particularly annoying sidequests, moon is compelling enough that you want to experience and enjoy as much of it as you can. (...With a guide, of course.)

If there's one ultimate negative about moon's daily/weekly schedule mechanic, which causes certain events to happen only at certain times of day or even certain days of the week, it's that you will often be sitting around around waiting for something to happen, potentially for multiple in-game days...especially if you miss your cue and have to wait for the event to occur all over again. Thankfully moon has a really delightful way of making waiting pleasant: your character has a portable "MD" (Moon Disc) player, which you can get songs for and make a tracklist to listen to while you walk or sit around. I wish I had access to more MDs sooner, but save for two random discs, you can't get the majority of them until you get past the Rainbow Rocks area, so I recommend exploring that area as soon as possible and solving its puzzles so you can advance forward. You'll be able to get most of the obtainable tracks at an MD store afterwards, and thankfully, all the songs on my tracklist of favorites are sold there. You should give all of the tracks a try eventually –you'll have plenty of time to do so, trust me– but I think these are some nice, reliable ones to get you started. There were many times that the forced waiting, laying back while the music plays, was actually really enjoyable...it can be nice to slow down and pause sometimes, and not many video games take the initiative to actually abate tediousness like this. It should definitely let you use the MD player in more areas, though, since too many of them disable it completely, and still others allow it to play but have distracting background noises.

...Of course, you can only stand so much waiting before getting bored of even your favorite tracks, so when you start checking your phone during these musical breaks, it may be time to start wrapping up. When you are satisfied with your time in moon, you can probably go right ahead and see the main quest through to the ending. I had more than enough love to meet the endgame requirement when I was ready, so I went straight in, not looking at any guide for the final section. That...may have been a mistake. In "anti-RPG" fashion, the game throws a bit of a curveball at you in this part, giving you a choice to make after about 20 minutes of (unskippable) cutscenes. I chose effectively the wrong option, and the game ended abruptly. My first conclusion was that the last 20 minutes of dialogue was actually telling me that I had to 100% the game first before I could get a satisfying "true" ending, so I spent about a half hour in deep frustration thinking about all the things I bounced hard off of that I would have to return to, before checking an 100% playthrough and realizing that the game ends exactly the same there as it did in mine, and the ending depends entirely on that final choice from earlier regardless of your completion percentage. Ahhhhhhh. After going through the final cutscenes again, the true answer is a bit more obvious, but if you want to skip doing this ending twice, maybe check the guide before you lock in your answer. Regardless, the cinematic buildup is really well done here, both endings are fitting for the game, and on a broad level I like them both.

...So having played it, what is moon, and why does even just the idea of it inspire? It's a game about subverting the tropes of typical RPGs with knights in shining armor, calling into question the "inherent goodness" of an almighty, violent hero and the "inherent badness" of scary looking creatures. At the same time, it clearly loves the RPG genre; the world of moon is brimming with life, full of silly animals and goofy characters, all playing out their role in the narrative of the RPG, and it wants you to love and care for everything in it. I think I do love a lot of what moon is. You can feel its dated-ness in many, many ways, but there is –if you'll excuse me for this– a lot of love for videogames in its heart, and it offers new ways to think about and experience those games.

With this in mind, it's not at all surprising that moon was so influential - and clearly I'm not the only one who felt a spark of imagination light when they played it. Here’s a game that came out just last year that is truly, concretely inspired by moon, while being unique and quite modern; let’s take a look…

24 Killers initially caught my eye because, as the game's Steam page explains, it was inspired by moon. Since I was in the middle of playing moon when I heard about it, it seemed like a great followup title. And while 24 Killers implements some solid game mechanics and style from moon, like the daily energy allowance that refills with food, and progression centered around helping funky monsters, I found that the game's vibes and aesthetics also remind me a lot of something like Earthbound; it's a vibrant and whimsical world where anything can happen, and you're just settled in for the ride. There's almost a toy-like feel to how everything looks and sounds; it's got this upbeat "fun" energy at its core that's extremely charming. I have to admit I've never fully completed any of the Mother titles due to the grinding and the external guidance necessary, but 24 Killers offers up the same energy without either of those barriers.

In fact, one of my favorite things about 24 Killers is that I didn't have to look at a single guide to figure out any of the puzzles for my entire 11-hour initial playthrough. Everything in the game is pretty self-evident and figured out quickly through some decent thought and trial-and-error. moon offers a good point of comparison: for many puzzles there, you would have to open your inventory, select the specific item necessary, and then use it while standing close enough to an NPC to get them to react, requiring the player to guess at what item they would need to use to progress...assuming they had the item they needed in the first place, or that using an item is what they needed to do at all! In 24 Killers, you simply can't offer items randomly like this; if you talk to someone and you have the item they need, the game will ask you if you want to give the item. If you don't have the item, the game won't prompt you. Usually if characters need an item from you they'll also make it very clear when you talk to them. This, among other adjustments to old formulas, cuts out a lot of potential fumbling and blind guesswork, and I much prefer it above checking the guide for moon over and over. In this way and many others, the game feels very anti-esoteric, meeting the player on their level and making sure that even the grand exposition and lore doesn't go over your head. Even in the dialogue the characters regard you pretty plainly; "Bro please ferry me to the afterlife" is probably my favorite line from the whole game.

In moon, you would appease or disturb a monster, and then catch its soul so it can be revived and rescued. It's delightful to discover all these different creatures in that game, but you don't interact with them much besides grabbin' at 'em. In 24 Killers every monster is its own sentient person--and every one has something they'd love to yap to you about. You'll run laps, bounce balls, play games, and drive cars around with these guys, and I found that to be another much welcome deviation from moon's formula. moon frames its monsters as adjacent to wild animals, but the monsters of 24 Killers are just genuinely guys hanging out, and if you engage them, they can be your chill buds.

But why are you befriending the monsters? Because you are HOME, a cursed spirit doomed to wander in limbo until they are dragged into the corpse of a soldier and given a chance at escaping their affliction--as they befriend the monsters inhabiting the remote island of the game's setting, they lose the resentful bitterness that caused their curse to develop in the first place and can slowly heal themself. Basically, HOME is a lonely bro, and could use some good friends. We've all been there, you know how it is. Honestly, HOME is probably my favorite character of the whole game; their dual mixture of sarcastic attitude that can flip to genuine goofy dramatics and flair, based on essentially "if it would be funny, do it", was great and really made my time with the game; their personality a worthy selling point in its own right.

Now, I should mention the two small hiccups I encountered with this game. Somehow I made an extremely similar mistake to the one I made with moon - I assumed that "completion" of the game required a lot of extra steps and took a break, when in fact I was right at the finish line and just needed to step over it. To explain with relatively few spoilers: you need to collect three "Echoes" to reach the end credits. I collected two Echoes, which gave a cutscene with almost identical dialogue each time. I assumed that the repetition meant that you would be required to gather a lot more echoes to finish (maybe 24 echoes in line with the games namesake...?) but it takes a long time to get just one Echo, so I stopped playing that save file in order to check out the others. Whoops. Don't make my mistake; you just need three.

A quick explanation is also necessary for the save file gimmick; this is where the 24 in 24 Killers is actually relevant. You start the game with four save files, each offering a "blessing" that you obtain once you "meet the Husbandman" (i.e. progress to a certain point) on that file. Then, you can use that blessing from the start of your next fresh save file. For instance, I chose the file C-4 which has the "fast-forward" blessing; once I met the Husbandman in that playthrough I was able to start new games with that benefit, where it caused cutscenes and general animations to play much faster. If you get all the way to the credits on a save file, you then unlock another save file slot, with a limit of 24 available save files - 24 parallel universes with 24 "Killers", hence the title.

Once you know how to beat the game, you can get far enough in each save to get its blessing in about 3-4 hours each. I did this a couple times to see if there was anything new in these save files; aside from a few minor changes, the save files are identical to each other. I think the idea of having multiple different save files is fun, and the concept of creating a new "universe" (extra save file) every time you beat a session, which you can then also beat and then create another universe and repeat the cycle, is delightful fiction. However, I feel like it's mostly only substantial for the storytelling of the game; I can't really recommend playing the game over and over unless you genuinely just want more of the same experience you already had. Which is a legitimate draw of this title! I enjoyed playing around in 24 Killer's world quite a lot, enough to just go straight to replaying the game a couple times without extra fuss or worry that I was doing something wrong or right. I'm disappointed there wasn't much new to find outside of a few extra blessing-related lines of dialogue, but I don't regret the sidetracking; 24 Killers is just nice to play. Not necessarily “24 times over for 90+ hours” nice, but “extra time besides what's absolutely required” nice. ...Oh, and the other hiccup is that there's a little too many constant flashing lights in the game! Thankfully there's a "photosensitivity mode" option in the settings that works perfectly. Just worth mentioning because I think just about anybody would get bothered by the constant blinking lights in the UI.

Altogether, in its directness, (good) simplicity, and general vibrance and whimsy, 24 Killers is a genuinely "casual" game. It's a lot more appealing than many games I've seen that have grappled for the "cozy" brand; I hesitate to apply the same label to 24 Killers because it's usually reductive and honestly not that fitting here, but instead I found 24 Killers to be another game, like moon, that you can really enjoy just being in. If I had any extra criticism, I wish some dialogue and cutscenes played out a little slower, giving time to soak everything in just a little longer. I never really had this experience (my consoles growing up were all just Nintendo handhelds) but I can imagine it being the kind of game you could have purchased for your PlayStation back in the day, and you'd come home after school and plop down in front of the TV to mess around in it for a while to blow off steam. I hope that sounds like high praise, because it is, at least in my eyes. It definitely helps that the game picks up on the good bits of its predecessors, while making much desired quality of life changes to the old bits that needed work.

It can be a little hard to recommend moon for how old and hard-to-follow it can be; you might be better off watching a long-play online. I have no such issue with 24 Killers, and I encourage anyone who's remotely interested in the things I've mentioned here to check out the game on Itchio. (It's on Steam too of course, but the Itchio download comes with a Steam key anyway...!) Also as a final note, if you've got a switch and/or steam deck, both of these games are great candidates for handheld gaming; being able to pick these up whenever compliments their gameplay styles nicely.

moon: Remix RPG Adventure is available for $18.99 on: Steam, Nintendo Switch

24 Killers is available for $19.99 on: Itchio, Steam

[queeriouslyollie]

ACTUAL INTRO POST !!

hi !! i decided to make a proper introduction post :] i have no idea how ppl do these usually so. here have my awful version of one

general :]

my name is oliver, you can call me that or ollie or parsley. idrc.

i use he/him pronouns !!

i'm trans and queer (demi / pan) (testosterone: 10/22/2020; top surgery: 1/31/2025)

i have ADHD w/ some other problems lmao o[--(

i've also got four lovely kitties !!! they are my goobies

i consider this account multifandom, though specifically what it centers more will fluctuate based on my current interests and hyperfixation(s)

if anyone wants specifics (& just more rambly info) look below the break!! & if anyone's curious about things not mentioned here feel free to reach out (but don't be weird lol)

ps if you have seen me in streamer's chats. no you didn't. forget you ever saw this and how normal i totally am :]

pps have my troy lougferd i still want him at the top of my page

more about me!

things i like n whatnot (i wanna be more active in the fandoms):

just roll with it (i've seen literally everything except for the campaign before riptide) (like at least 70 times)

hermitcraft

pointcrow (& his circle)

slimecicle (& his circle) (duh)

invader zim !!!

probably a lot more i'm just not thinking of. but i'm also not very active in online fandoms and i want to be more !!!

games i like:

mineycraft (usually java, sometimes bedrock)

stardew valley

SPLATOON !!! (2 & 3) (i need to play 1)

SUBNAUTICA !!!!!!!

legend of zelda games (faves include TP, OoT, MM, & WW)

mario games (I LOVE SUPER MARIO BROS 3) (i've played a good chunk of them & the spinoffs)

yoshi's island (this one's seperate bc it holds such a special place in my heart)

kirby games (i gotta play more tho)

pokemon (i also gotta play the classics lmfao)

sonic (i also also gotta play a lot here but i think i've played a decent chunk)

raft

tf2

undertale

deltarune

powerwash sim (yes i still play that lmfao)

viscera cleanup detail

hollow knight

spore

music artists/genres/etc im into (not in any particular order): (tho i would say the very top ones are deffo much preferred)

wallows

glass animals

jack stauber

lemon demon

tally hall

lots of video game OSTs (minecraft, stardew valley, undertale, deltarune, LoZ, kirby, mario, etc etc)

charlie slimecicle's fucking bangers (begging for more pls)

smashing pumpkins

weezer

some orchestral music (from my time in orchestra) (allegretto my beloved [i was a second violin. ikyk])

some MARINA / marina and the diamonds

some musicals (heathers, be more chill)

trying to get more into gorillaz? (my sbib likes them and they're in our shared playlist, i think they're pretty good!)

some nirvana

a few red vox songs (also accredited to my sbib)

miscellaneous songs from the peak of the animation meme era

some? pearl jam

specifically the song "prisencolinensinainciusol" by adriano celentano (if you haven't heard it listen RN!!)

foo fighters (kinda? it hasn't been the same since the shit about grohl came out. but it was very integral to my childhood so. ugh.)

some songs from like. my childhood

misc. stuff:

i like collecting SNES games!! despite it being before my time, i grew up on the SNES. i got my hands on a well-functioning SNES and some games i grew up playing (currently: yoshi's island, DK country 1 & 2, the mario all-stars collection, & mario paint [+ the mouse n stuff]) !! (it's so hard bc im poor and they're expensive. so for now i focus on the ones i played as a kid)

me and my sibling also like vintage/older consoles in general!!

im currently studying to get my bachelor's in psychology (w/ minors in gender studies and behavioral neuroscience if anyone's interested). after this i want to go to graduate school with the ultimate goal of becoming a counselor/therapist !!

if you could not tell, i also do art n stuff !!

i played violin for 7 years thru middle & high school, loved it but my advisor told me not to take it in college (still pissed) but now i own my own violin and have been working on picking it back up. that's why i have a whole section on here for music, just cuz i've always been somewhat musically inclined and it's a very important thing for me. i played second section violin all throughout, but did get a couple solos (albeit rare), and played in the chamber and upper division orchestras.

roller skating !!! it's been years since i went bc skates are espensive and i don't really have anyone to go with but i rlly miss it

hiking, fishing, swimming and whatnot but that's whatever

one final thing is i really want to get into participating in theatre. i wanted to since high school but never did. i have no idea how. so idk if i ever will lol (tho i did help with props for our school's spongebob musical. that was fun)

anyways im happy i did this, the organization probably sucks but !!! ummm cry about it!!!!!!

[blogaliesa]

Bonus behind the scenes

I was screenshotting this in case I had to delete Gacha Life app since well I was still using my old phone back so not a lot of memory space. Here you would see beta version of Kagami's hair before I decided to go for a more simplified version that's more cleaner.

Here's a beta version with different dialogues. I was making this as if this it was like an episode (at the time they haven't really talk to each other yet) but I dropped it because like omg how tedious is it to handle Gacha. No wonder Gacha's story are the way that it is and only kids who have a way much free time could spend on making it. Hence why I decided to go straight to the point.

I also try to experiment different settings instead set in the forest, they both washed up near the beach but I opt for the forest because for more fairytale elements and emphasize on how weird the world they were transported in.

Unused early scenes. I never had planned to post it in video format but more so a blog format. I had a lost draft that narrates like a story (I was trying to do some sort of meta where the story narrates like a fairytale but of course I'm dumb and lazy lol)

Finally Gacha Club was released in 2020 and I had downloaded and play around by replicating Kagami and Luka. Of course I have to add details like noses, Kagami's freckles, and hair highlights as it was new addition. They're definitely more vibrant here compared to the old one but I kinda like the limitation in Gacha Life.

[twinklingwatermellon]

i've been meaning to ask: do you have any recs for kdramas available on amazon prime? other than marry my husband i haven't found a ton of the ones you've mentioned available on there :((

Hey honey! I’m so sorry for leaving this ask for so long 🫣 I kept thinking “I’m gonna find some for her soon” and then wouldn’t do it akajdh 💀

To be honest, I personally haven’t watched any kdramas on Prime besides MMH, but there are a couple that I’m a bit familiar with because my parents or friends have seen them, so here’s a few recs I pulled together for you 😉

My First Love (2018). This is on the shorter side, just 10 episodes. It’s about Kang Shinwoo, a high school teacher who has a chance to reunite with Jisoo, his first love from high school, only to hear that she’s died in a car accident. Then he’s transported back to high school, but as his own adult self, and tries to play cupid for his teenage self and Jisoo. I didn’t watch the first episode of this myself, I think I joined my parents about halfway through episode 2. It was pretty interesting, bittersweet but funny and cute.

My ID is Gangnam Beauty (2018). My mom watched this without me, but I think it was a cute one! It’s about a girl who’s been bullied for being ugly her whole life, so she gets plastic surgery in order to completely start over at college. And then she has her little romance with Cha Eun-woo’s character 🥰

Mischievous Kiss (2013). This is actually a jdrama, a remake of the 2010 kdrama Playful Kiss, but I’m only familiar with the Japanese version because my best friend was super into it a few years ago. (You know how I am about twinkle melon? That’s how she was about Mischievous Kiss 😆). This is an “oh my god, they were roommates!” story between two high school, and later university, students. (Unfortunately, season 2 isn’t included with Prime, only season 1.)

Secret Zoo (2020). I nearly forgot about this one!! This is a movie about a lawyer who’s assigned to bring business back to a zoo his firm has acquired. The only problem is, they have no animals, so they do the only thing they can and dress up as animals themselves. I just about died laughing with this movie, it’s a great mood lifter.

This is not a kdrama, but I just found out this beautiful movie is on Prime now and I’m going to take this chance to mention it: Running for Grace (2018). It’s a romance between a doctor’s ward and plantation owner’s daughter in 1920s Hawaii. It’s been a few years since I last watched it, but the grip it had on my heart 😩😩 10/10 recommend

[ethankyou]

A while back I had a chance to play Cyberpunk Red, which is the 4th edition of Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.

Red is also the successor to Cyberpunk 2020 which was the inspiration for the notorious Cyberpunk 2077 - haven't played, don't intend to, not the subject of my discussion here!

So how did it go?

Cyberpunk Red is a lot of crunch though plays really easy once you get past the initial learning curve of the rules.

But there are a lot of rules.

I find my go to when learning a new game is to find a video of someone trying to give a briefer on the game system and then go to the book to cement those ideas myself.

I found this video pretty helpful when researching character creation. XPLoveCat does a whole series guiding through the creation process. If you like to listen to someone explain things (it's a big help for me) this might be a great place for you to start too!

Once you pick your lifepath, if you're going with the beginner one (i don't remember what it's called it's been nearly a year sorry!) the creation process is pretty smooth, it's just following some steps. There's a medium and veteran version of the life paths that add more complexity to your character creation process and I feel like since our group was a bunch of RPG vets we could have handled that, but it does speed things up to go with the quicker start for a one shot.

Meanwhile Red is like "You have 60 skills and one of them is fashion and one of them is looking good."

Whenever I'm starting a new game I also like to have a character sheet handy so I can piece everything together. And once you get Red's character sheet in front of you, it really begins to feel like a game from the 90's with a modern coat of paint.

The character sheet in question. 3 pages!

There's a lot of fun to be had in older systems! But newer systems have opted to streamline things like skills and stats and stuff nowadays. I remember being glad that 4th edition D&D cut skills by more than half by just folding a lot of similar ones together, something that would continue into 5th edition as well. There were some casualties along the way though (rip use magic device, and all the extra knowledge skills!) and typically the stuff that got cut was stuff that would facilitate like... You know.... Playing a character? Not just murderhoboing your way across the country.

Pictured below, everything that is "Cool" in the year 2045 (taken from a custom character sheet)

Creating a character is an interesting process because it follows this lifepath system. So you choose one of several paths and the game streamlines the creation process by directing you which page to go to next in an almost "choose your own adventure" sort of layout. This is very helpful, but while it's easy to go forward, it's not so easy to go back. If you went to the wrong page or just didn't like what you read and want to try something else, you'll be searching for where you made that wrong turn. A lot of ttrpg books can be like this so this isn't exactly a new problem, but the way the book is laid out it really does need you to follow this path to new pages instead of discovering the information yourself by reading on. I guess just write down the page numbers of places you want to go back to before flipping forward.

Initially finding things on the sheet is tough because if you're told to make a "Tracking" check, you might not immediately assume that's an Int skill. Since the skills are grouped by attribute, you'll have to go through the process of figuring out what skill belongs to which group. I don't think this is a bad thing, because the alternative would be an alphabetical list of 60+ skills, which might make it harder to figure out their associated stat, or would just make the sheet more bloaty with repeated stats beside each and every skill. All games have an adjustment period to them and this is a pretty minor one. I remember this being a sticking point for our group after playing it originally but having some time to think on it I think there's a valid argument to be made either way. Someone in our group even mentioned this was one custom character sheet away from not being an issue and I agree. And apparently others do too because there's a lot of them out there! Many of which sort the skills differently and many also try to condense the 3 page sheet to 2. I know there's a lot of wasted real estate on the third page but it's pretty cool!

There are also apparently free quick start rules that come with premade characters and everything! Free is free and you can check that out on drive thru RPG! It's called easy mode but my understanding is this includes the core rules too. This would probably be the best choice for a one shot game to test the water but we just weren't aware of them at the time.

But a major part of creation is your role. This is the part I might be the most critical of. While they give you a lot of skills and everyone has access to the same skills, each role has basically one major ability that only they can do. The med tech can use medicines to help the groups, the netrunner can take more actions while in a netrun. That kind of thing. But that's pretty much it. Improving your role may allow you to use your role abilities better or more frequently, but there's not a lot in the way of new abilities.

And also the divisions between the roles feel pretty arbitrary. Like the med tech is the only one who can use a bunch of medicines. But why? Everyone has access to the first aid skill, which is something the med tech is also proficient in. What's stopping someone from taking one of their medicines and using it?

I think having well defined roles for each player is very important! And the roles do provide this, but I don't feel like they go far enough. We did only play one session though so perhaps this is something that would be more evident over time.

I played a Netrunner (a hacker) which ends up also having to play a little minigame separate from the rest of the action. I knew what I was getting into but wanted to try it out to see how the game handles it. In previous games that I've played a hacker, it bogged down the game by either having an entire session play out for the hacker while everyone else waits, or does nothing while everyone else is in the middle of the action because they have to stay with their big cool hacker rig. Red deals with this in a really great way - your rig is a headset that has wifi. And if you want to hack a secure system, you need to be hardwired into that system. This means the Netrunner has to be on site and still has an opportunity to join the action. Or may even be forced to do both at once.

As far as the actual hacking game goes, I really like the implementation of hacking a cyber infrastructure. You bring programs that all serve different functions, such as attacks or other actions and then you have to fight your way up the digitial infrastructure, with each level offering more rewards, but higher threats. The programs all have a fantasy aesthetic and the architecture functions kind of like a dungeon in Netspace. You can take multiple netspace actions, but you're still able to act in meatspace as well during this time. Sometimes you'll have to balance your actions in and out of netspace.

The biggest problem I had with the Netrunner goes back to my problem with roles. There's a Tech stat and several Tech skills so what kind of check do you make? Why, you add your role to your roll! The Netrunner uses their role, which starts at +4. Compared to their Tech skills which are floating around a +10 or so. Now the DVs for these checks are all lower to compensate for this but... Why do we gotta do it this way?

There could easily be a skill that could have covered this and the DVs could have been comparable to everything else in the game. You might think, well if other characters were allowed to hack, they could prove to be just as effective as the Netrunner so it has to be a balance issue right? Well the Netrunner role allows them to take 3 actions a round in Netspace which would make them much more efficient than someone without the role. But also having the role is what grants the interface feature, which is required to take NET actions at all! But even though the Netrunner is obviously the best choice for the task, what's stopping someone else with a rig from attempting the same thing and just being less efficient at it.

The way I guess this is addressed, is that you can take on other roles potentially? You have 4 in your starting role, so I believe you'd start with 1 in a new role. But with a +4 in my Netrunner role I found that I struggled a lot, so I can't even imagine floundering around with just a +1. You'd be at the whims of the dice.

Despite that though, I appreciate the game does allow this sort of multi-classing. Especially since many of the roles seem to be very gear based, so it feels silly to not allow any crossover.

In the end, the hacking did feel balanced, which is important. But it didn't feel awesome, which i guess is what it came down to for me. But I also failed a lot of those checks Netrunner checks, which brings me to my last major gripe.

Rolling a single d10 for checks is fine, but if you critically fail on a 1, which is 10% of the time, that is lame. I don't mind using a d10 for checks but without some kind of way to mitigate 1's it makes things brutal, not in a fun or challenging way. I feel like if I was going to play again, I would need the crit fails to just be gone altogether.

Overall, I did enjoy Cyberpunk Red! I think it's a bit hard to dig into for a oneshot, but we managed just fine. If you really wanted to get a feel for it though, I'd recommend you play a 3-5 session arc. This game is definitely worth your time!

I'm also curious about going back to previous iterations to see how it's changed over time.

So, fun fact time, Cyberpunk Red was published in 2020, 30 years after Cyberpunk 2020 was originally published which is goes hand in hand with every scifi media that has predicted a date in the "far future" that we have now reached (and passed!).

See you in 2045 for the 5th edition of Cyberpunk I suppose!

[andrewlloydwebber]

sondheim/furth's company should have stayed a retroactive period piece. when it premiered in 1970, it was set in present day and there have been several revisions since, even before the gender swapped "bobbie version". the idea is to update the setting to present day, which is fine i guess, but frankly stuff like changing "look i'll call you in the morning or my service will explain" to "i'll call you in the morning or i'll TEXT YOU and explain" or references to the seagrams building changing the infamous "drag" rhyme, is just the theatrical version of the "landlord special". the cultural references and plot points of company are so, so, so early 70s.

if bobby turned 35 in the year 1970, he was born in 1935. if bobby turned 35 in 1995, he was born in 1960. if bobbie turned 35 in 2020, she was born in 1985. the differences in generations/ages between these bobbies is not insignificant.

smoking weed might be a new and exciting experience for 30 somethings in the 1970s, but that's not really necessarily the case for someone who graduated high school in 1978 or 2003. the whole karate scene isn't really something that would happen in the "modern era".

the lyrics to "the ladies who lunch" describe women reading copies of time magazine ("just to keep in touch") and going to matinees of pinter plays (there were four total broadway productions of harold pinter plays between 2010 and 2020). they lounge in caftans and goes to classes in optical art and drinks vodka stingers. the woman joanne describes would be "of a certain age" in 1970, but elderly in 2020. at this point, sondheim should have rewritten the lyrics to reference botox and spanx, but at this point, they should have just written an entirely original musical.

just keep Company set in the original time period and watch it as a period piece, reflect on things that haven't changed and things that have.

[queenofcamelot]

ᴀʀᴛᴜʀɪᴀ'ꜱ ᴅʀ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

"There is nothing permanent except change."

-Heraclitus

ᴋᴇʏ

Have Shifted ➴

Haven't Shifted ﾒ

➴ Home Reality

You guessed it, this is my home! I've had this DR since late 2020 and it's been a part of my soul since. I won't share much as far as specifics, but just know that when I'm rambling about my husband, I am talking about this reality.

➴ Waiting Room

Another place I won't divulge many details about, my waiting room holes itself up in the center of my heart. It's a place that comes and goes in terms of my attention towards it, but it exists nonetheless and will continue to do so until the end of time.

➴ Fame DR

I never thought I would have a Fame DR, but here I am. I accidentally shifted there once and it weaseled its way into my brain. Here I'm an actress, a singer/musician, and a girl just trying to figure out whether to spend more time in America or England.

ﾒ Haikyuu DR

Who could say no to playing volleyball and goofing off in college? Not me, that's for sure. While I started down the lengthy path of getting a degree in Observational Astrophysics, I found myself drawn to the sport and with it came a large group of friends that quickly became a found family.

ﾒ Marauders DR

This was actually my very first DR (who didn't have some version of a Harry Potter DR at one point or another, though?). Every so often, I return to this reality like a moth to a flame and step into the shoes of a witch attending Hogwarts University.

Updated: 02-19-2025

Dividers: @saradika-graphics

[lokisasylum]

Another thing that irked me about the whole Army Group Chat fiasco was seeing the amount of Armys that were dragging and/or demeaning the artists that chose to collab with Jimin, but every other artist that collabed with the other members were highly praised.

Anyone who collabed with Jimin was openly mocked or referred to as a "nugu" for praising and thanking Jimin (and Pjms' support). Saying stupid shit like:

"Of course they've praise him, its thanks to HIM that they even charted anywhere otherwise they'd stay as nugus 😂"

But here's the thing....

Lauv wasn't a nugu artist when he collabed with Jikook, yet Armys deliberately chose to let the song tank.

J.Cole isn't a nugu artist when he collabed with Jhope, yet both his song and 2nd album didn't really do much better than his 1rst album before falling off the charts by week2.

UMI who collabed with V wasn't a nugu artist, yet that song tanked even with multiple version (and then she got very bitter because armys refused to support her music and called her a leech).

Meghan isn't a nugu artist, but how come Neva Play only charted for one week before the fandom dropped it (and RM is still secretly being dragged among armys for only charting thanks to her).

Halsey isn't a nugu artist, yet both times she has collabed with Suga their songs get hyped for a few days and then forgotten (both collabs haven't gone pass 100M since they got released in 2020 & 2023 and one of them was even the theme song to the Diablo franchise, maybe won 1 or 2 awards but that was it, nobody even remembers these collabs happened).

Taka from ONE OK ROCK isn't a nugu artist, yet his collab with Jin is stuck at 14M+ since HAPPY released.

So let me ask you.

Is it really the "nugu artist" fault that 5 out of 7 members are still doing so poorly on the charts despite having the "biggest fandom" to back them up?

Or is it simply another example of how ARMY as a fandom has become LAZY and overdependent of HYBE just throwing around tons of money in payola that they constantly feel the need to drag others for doing well without it (even though before 2020 it was a whole different story and armys would drag anyone for doing well on the charts thanks to payola).

Meanwhile Jimin doing great on the charts since debuting solo on 2023, thanks to 100% fan support is a vivid example of how far & stable an artist can go when given a strong, loyal and organized fanbase willing to work tirelessly for him around the clock.

Oh, but I forget. Armys don't believe solos or fans outside the fandom exist.

To them its just "company push probably", "company fave privileges" they say. Yet the same company in question is still refusing to pay for all the Gold and Double Platinum RIAA certifications Jimin's been eligible for in the past 2 years as a Soloist.

[bro3256]

FamiWiki - What, why, how?

Hello! It's been a while since I've last posted to Tumblr, but rest assured I have not forgotten about this place. I just haven't had anything interesting to post that would fit here. But let's not dwell on my absence for long, cause I want to talk about a project I've been working on for over 2 years as of writing, FamiWiki.

What is FamiWiki?

FamiWiki (famiwiki.net) is a wiki site that primary covers the Famicom in a Japanese first context. You're probably already familiar what a wiki site already is if you've been on the internet for long enough. For those who don't know what "Famicom" is, it is an abbreviation of Family Computer, which is the name of a home video game console Nintendo released on July 15, 1983 in Japan. You'll likely be familiar with the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES which is a rebranding and redesigned version of the Famicom that released two years later outside of Japan. But why "Japanese first context"? Part of this has to do with primarily covering Japanese material but also it is what makes FamiWiki unique from all other English-based wiki sites on the internet as even when covering Japanese material, it is usually written with the assumption that the western perspective takes priority including things that have never officially released outside of the country.

Why FamiWiki?

I started getting into collecting Japanese video games in the 2020s. I not only got hooked on the "cheap" prices but also the opportunity to learn something completely new from the games I was importing. Something that has always rubbed me the wrong way is how collecting older video games tends to be done for the sake of nostalgia, which is something I never fully agreed with. Sure it's a factor at play and for some a very important one that got them into this hobby but that said, it shouldn't be seen as the only way people can get into this stuff. I got into older video games for the sake of learning about them and being able to sit back and play a relatively simple game compared to modern offerings is a nice bonus. It also helped that this in a way let me engaged with the past since I was born in 2002 and didn't get to experience what it was like back decades ago so older video games are in a way tools to allow me to experience what it was like back then to a certain degree.

Anyways as for why this site exists, long story short I got a bit fed up with how people were covering Japanese video games as it was almost always within the western perspective. That said however, my searching would lead me to discovering a relatively unknown YouTube channel at the time under the name RndStranger. At the time when I discovered their channel, they were still uploading daily videos covering Famicom cartridge software in the Famidaily web series. Needless to say, I have a lot of respect for his work because he gives a spotlight to a particular Japanese game for however many minutes and goes over the context, reviews, and reception all within a Japanese perspective. His videos really opened my eyes to how much we were missing out when not discussing or even mentioning these details elsewhere on the English internet which alongside a few other dominoes that fell, led me to the idea for a Famicom-based wiki site with a Japanese first perspective.

How is FamiWiki?

FamiWiki went online in March 2023. As of the time I am writing this, there are 1,712 content pages, 5,809 pages overall, 2,569 uploaded files, and a total of 25,708 page edits with a 4.43 edits per page average. The site is hosted by The OpenWiki Project who also hosts other wiki sites such as Fire Emblem Wiki, Hard Drop, and WiKirby to name a few.

Currently, FamiWiki has pages for every single commercially released Famicom cartridge software from 1983 to 1994. Now granted the vast majority of those pages are still blank, with a few that are properly covered. Here are a few examples of what to expect from polished software pages.

Gimmick!

Nuts & Milk

Super Mario Bros.

Speaking of which, one of the biggest accomplishments the wiki site has achieved is featuring what I believe to be the most accurate list of Famicom software on the English internet.

List of Family Computer software

English Wikipedia actually used to have its own list of "Famicom games" but then merged it into the "NES games" list. But even so, it seems that Wikipedia list doesn't account for the weird edge cases of certain software not technically being for Famicom. What do I mean by this? There are certain releases that came on smaller cartridges that would need to be plugged into an adapter cartridge which is what actually plugs into the console. So things like the Datach Joint ROM System library often gets mistakenly included when really it should be separate. What makes the FamiWiki list different is that we define what media type is covered. The main list comprises of software that was commercially released on 60-pin Famicom cartridges. There are certain releases that did release on 60-pin cartridges but not to stores so those do not count towards the main list. The same goes for prize cartridges as well. Currently, the count on FamiWiki is 1041 60-pin Famicom cartridge software. Eventually I'd like to get around to making a similarly detailed list for NES cartridge software.

"Wait, NES? I thought you were only covering the Famicom!"

Truth is, the scope for FamiWiki actually goes further than the Famicom. It's actually both the Famicom and Super Famicom, but a more accurate description would be 8-bit Nintendo and 16-bit Nintendo coverage from all regions, but with Japan being priority. It didn't feel right to not include the NES and SNES since having that coverage would provide context for the Famicom and Super Famicom coverage as well. So even if you aren't into specifically Japanese games, you'll probably find something in FamiWiki in the future that will be of your interest in some way. There is a LOT to cover just from Nintendo's 8-bit and 16-bit home console history and I've pretty much been the sole major contributor to the site since it first went online over 2 years ago. I would very much like to get help from others especially in areas that I am not familiar with. It's also embarrassing to admit that despite running a site covering the Japanese perspective... my Japanese is pretty poor at the moment. I have been slowly learning since the site went up and I plan on being "fluent" enough to be able to better contribute in the coming years.

Until then, if any of this sounds remotely interesting to you please consider registering an account and contribute to the wiki site just a little bit. Any edits big or small would really help out. There are a couple of updates to the site that I am currently working on and hope to roll out soon but hopefully within the next few years we will have more coverage on these Japanese games than we did back when the internet was in its infancy.

To end things, here is one of my personal favorite pages on the entire site.

Family Computer cartridge variations