#he’s kinda like. idk a souls boss almost if that makes any sense <- has not played a souls game

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

Taking my own shot at a MK gijinka because it came to me in a vision. Don’t mind the swords in his back it’s like enrichment for him

[acerikus]

His presence in yellow wouldn't really make sense, as even if you tried to claim he could've been created when they'd only killed 5 humans, his save file is labelled file8, the one right before Frisk's file9, which would make the yellow soul either file6 or file7 depending on where you place lemon bread in all this (but likely file6 - which also means yellow soul had enough determination to save for themself and before flowey was around too). The only endings that don't canonically get reset also give him a lil too much character development for undertale to work after that and I do think he'd have toyed with more than just clover but other than that I think his vibes are really really fun, they nail a lot w him and neutral is absolutely FANTASTIC. that's flowey at his core. That's my little guy. Honestly my favourite part of yellow by a landslide. I like to think of yellow as an au where the yellow soul just fell later than they likely do in canon, and it kinda works that way bc it doesn't have to rely too heavily on undertale then.

Deltatraveler flowey seems like he's gonna be really cool in future sections, but not really vibing w his depiction in section 1 so far tbh. Think he'd have had a lil bit more of a 'HOLY FUCK CHARA' moment w Kris at first and I'm still kinda confused about how he managed to Become Big for his boss fight? (Not to mention confused about why he chose to attack THEN. If he knew they were gonna go through a door and leave undertale after the ruins then fair but. They don't really do this 😔)

And uhh. tsunderswap. So far probably my favourite of the three games but (at least rn, after doing pacifist, regular neutral and most of ruthless) I'm... Not too optimistic about flowey. Looking at the swaps I think they're meant to be monster kid but???? They're just acting almost exactly like regular flowey???? Maybe it'll change as they progress but I'm not seeing much of monster kid in there, and their mannerisms and ways of talking are basically just flowey. Not even a 'yo', we're still sticking w 'howdy'? If they were raised by the dreemurrs sure you could say it's based on their upbringing, but everyone else has FANTASTICALLY had their canon personality shine through without a shadow of a doubt.

Their name still being flowey also feels a lil odd, but I guess if you hc that papyrus or asgore picked the name it could still work (or even have it so Asriel suggested it here lmao).

And Asriel... Not much to go on here but I really, really hope he's not just Sweet Goat Guy. I'm a lil more optimistic here since he seems to be a big comic nerd and probably still into his funny oc bullshit (affectionate) but I hope they still let him be a lil bit of an ass. Flowey/azzy's my favourite little guyyyyyy pls don't let him be the one person who genuinely does just end up feeling personality swapped 😭

They could still do this REALLY well, but idk. Kinda thought tsunderswap flowey was still Asriel until people in town mentioned A S Dreamer and I saw him at the signing, and I'd be lying if I wasn't a little worried...

Also like. I can't remember if swap flowey is ever referred to with any pronouns directly in-game but on posts by the devs they're referred to w he/him. If that's supposed to be monster kid rather than Asriel then uhh. Hope they don't do that in game???? Monster kid doesn't use he/him 😭

Hmm, ngl out of The Big Three utdr fangames rn, I've gotta say at least at this moment in time, I do find it a lil sad that the fangame where it technically makes the least sense lore-wise for Flowey to be there is also the one where they Get Him the most.

[sugary-sheep]

An Analysis of How Deltarune Chapter 2′s Soundtrack Made Me Feel, Copied From My Discord Thread

Girl Next Door - a very good track for the beginning of the game. It serves to strongly establish noelle as a familiar, friendly character, since you might not have bothered learning too much about her in chapter which makes sense considering the later revealed fact that kris and noelle are chidlhood friendsIt doesn't have any strong hints of bittersweet, it's just a plain happy melody. You're just starting the game after all.

My Castle Town - this is where the first twinges of bittersweet/nostalgia come in.It's meant to bring back memories of your adventure three years ago, chapter 1. You're back "home," at least from the player's point of view, and the player is the one that all the music panders to. (which wouldn't be a thing to note if the game wasn't so meta). It isn't very strongly bittersweet though. It's a calming melody, meant to ease you into the world, and doesn't draw too much attention to itself. If Girl Next Door is a warm breeze, then My Castle Town is the pleasant chill of fall.

Queen - this song is a wacky and fun melody, borrowing both carnival rhythm and instrumentation. It has twinges of deeper emotion and all that but it's mainly just a funny clown theme for everyone's favorite clown: Queen.

A CYBER’S WORLD? - it starts off with the main melody outlined on a chiptune low-res synth, which drops into a rich collage of higher-res synths. It evokes emotions of adventure and energy and anticipation, while also being neutral enough to act as a backdrop for all the silly things you do in the cyber fields. it's a really damn good song. it doesn't tug on the heartstrings necessarily but it just. it's so nice to listen to.

A Simple Diversion - it’s. a simple diversion. chip tune rendition of the queen motif. it's good. nothing much to analyze.

Almost To The Guys , Cyber Battle , When I Get Happy I Dance Like This - (combined since basically the same instrumentation and the same motifs) god I fucking love these songs so much. they are so happy and sensitive and soft and warm. They are like the auditory version of a hug. idk what drugs toby fox put into these songs but it fucking. they fit these funny guys so perfectly. it's just a silly fun theme about these fun little dudes. it's energetic and happy and makes you wanna dance. It doesn't take itself too seriously and it's just. It solidifies that this is a Silly game with Silly things that happen and fun people that you can be friends with.

Cool Beat - too short to analyze.

When I Get Mad I Dance Like This - same as Cool Beat

Berdly’s Theme - bringing back the CLOWNS, this time without a harpsicord though. it's a synthesizer melody and emphasizes the silly gamer antagonism that berdly provides, while not painting him as a bad person. just an antagonist.

Smart Race - this is a particularly tense battle theme, playing off of the semi-betrayal and kind if indignation you feel towards berdly since like. He's a lightner like you! and he's working for queen! what the FRICK.

Faint Courage - an uplifting melody that (tries) to soothe the pain of getting a game over. The crunched nature of the synths is notable though, compared to other soothing songs on the soundtrack.

Welcome To The City - This is the first song that really starts to dip into the nostalgia. It's still an upbeat and adventurous melody, but like. Your friends just left you, and you're exploring the city alone. It has a lot of flourishes and flair that reminds you that you're in a cool exciting city, and slowly becomes more uplifting as it goes on, but still keeps the distinctly minor sound. (if it's in a major key shut up I don't care). It's also the theme for the time you spend with noelle, and like. in that context, it feels more like a friendly nostalgic melody than a bittersweet feeling. the familiarity of Girl Next Door is back, and honestly it borrows a lot of emotional cues from Girl Next Door. They are double edged and the feelings they evoke are very context sensitive. it can be a friendly warmth, or a wishing for better, older days. 

Mini Studio - a return of the resistance motif. noticably lower res synthesizers but like. your funny little dudes are here :] 

cool mixtape - Clown to the MAXIMUM. not in that it's the most carnival inspired but like. it's really bombastic and fun while also being built around queen's clowny and wacky motifs. The instrumentation also adds to the non-serious quality, making it sound like. well, a shittily recorded mixtape. Lol. It’s great.

Hey Every ! - This song evokes all the emotions of as corrupted seen on tv advertisements with a dash of clown. Very distinctly wacky upbeat song.

Spamton - This is where the creepy factor of spamton starts to kick in. It brings on the menacing atmosphere of being in this alleyway with an unstable puppet salesman who jumped out of the dumpster, however the silly vocals do take a LOT of the edge off the creepiness. Which is fitting for spamton. because he would more intimidating if his dialogue wasn't so ridiculous and silly, and if he wasn’t such a silly little guy.

Now's Your Chance to Be A - a very groovy and slightly menacing battle theme that makes you wanna get out of this situation, but it's not like. scary. it's just a little bit creepy. Like a haunted house. it's a really fun song though. the edge mostly serves to accentuate the wacky and fun qualities of the song, like salt enhancing the sweetness of a dessert.

Elegant Entrance - This has the same menacing/eerie quality as spamton’s battle theme, but much more genuine. it takes the formerly clowny harpsicord used with Queen’s themes, and makes it sound much more regal. It's not bittersweet though. just intimidating.

Bluebird of Misfortune - a VERY strongly minor sounding song, and while it's not a super deeply resonant sadness, it does minimize the wacky/funny factor.

Pandora Palace - the first majorly bombastic song. It's the buildup to the climax, and has a very unique blend of regal, groovy, and energetic sounds with a small sprinkle of bittersweet, mostly to build tension.

KEYGEN - really cool and gives an appropriate feeling for unlocking the door into the SECRET BOSS.

Acid Tunnel of Love - very relaxing, very happy melody. it almost dips into bittersweet at times, but is a solidly uplifting and soothing melody. It's a rest for the soul.

It's Pronounced "Rules" - Rgal in a way very different from Elegant Entrance and Pandora Palace. It's a kind of pretentious regalness, and is a big return to clowniness. Because Roulxs is a pretentious clown man.

Lost Girl - It’s. very bittersweet and nostalgic. It has solid uplifting moments to balance it out, but it's. not a super happy song. it's not a super sad one either. it's just. contemplative. emotional. it'd be a good song to cry to.

Ferris Wheel - A combination of Lost Girl and Girl Next Door, both in mood and actual motifs. It's got a lot more warmth than lost girl, and the chiptune main melody gives it the silliness it needs to take the edge off it’s bitersweetness. The upbeat and kinda whimsical harmonization helps with this too. It's a theme for two girls having an awkward but really nice and fun gay moment.

Attack of the Killer Queen  - oh man.oh MAN.Such a good song. It's absolutely bombastic, fulfilling all the promises of epic finality and regal power that have been set up throughout the mansion section. It makes queen feel like a POWERFUL and intimidating villain for honestly like. the first time in the game. It also has the emotional quality, the feeling of un-rightness, once again driven by berdly being an antagonist, but the context is stronger, since you had just had the emotional connection with him and bringing him to your side.

Giga Size - this song does not let down any of the pressure from killer queen. it has all the menacing strength that you would expect from it, and takes the regal intimidation up to another level. it's supposed to make you feel like you've lost, and as far as the player knows, they have. Also it's a lot longer than you would expect??? the soundtrack is honestly filled with really short songs. but Giga Size is one of the longer ones, despite the short amount of time it actually plays. I don't remember ever being in that portion of the cutscene long enough to hear the full thing. it's worth a listen to if you haven't already.

Powers Combined - the uplifting counterbalance to Giga Size. It gets you pumped, and it has an air of finality stronger than attack of the killer queen. This is the final push. you're on the precipice of victory.

Knock You Down - This theme continues everything from Powers combined. It's less bombastic than Attack of the Killer queen, though bviously it's still very energetic and cool. It's serious in a more uplifting sense, but also quite tense. there is a lot on the line. This is the do or die moment. It both hypes you up and calms you down, and evokes a very particular emotion, especially given the context. Really good for getting in the zone.

The Dark Truth - another song that, while more emotional, doesn't hit super deep. Imo it feels like it’s going for an "exaggerated" sense of danger and sadness. Which makes sense if it's meant to instill some doubt in ralsei's credibility. it's still a very serious song, but it feels like it's trying a little too hard. (not necessarily in a bad way)

Digital Roots - a very menacing song, and probably the most truly menacing song in the soundtrack. Sets the atmosphere for the basement perfectly.

Deal Gone Wrong - This is the climax of Digital Roots and the whole process of getting the secret boss. You're in real danger now. The puppet man wants to make a deal, and he wants your soul.

BIG SHOT - woooh boy. This song carries a lot of this menace, but brings in a ton of bombastic energy and a little bit of clown as well. it's like Now's Your Chance To Be A, but more intense. The vocal editing really adds so much to this track. The motifs are very well used, and it's just an incredibly fun and dramatic song. it's groovy! it's wacky! it's intimidating! It gets you pumped! it's a very good song

A Real Boy - This one is a really nice song. it's got a very nice uplifting quality and there's a very subtle and like. almost angelic sharp pad in the background of it that you wouldn't immediately notice adds a lot to the texture of it, combined with the crunched and low res main synth. the background of that scene fits it perfectly. Childishly painted sun and sky and all that. He’s a real boy now. You freed him :). He can escape his strings now :) 

dialtone - It’s like if you took one of the more emotional songs in the soundtrack and made it a little silly. Which makes sense. You're supposed to feel kinda bad for him, but he's still a weird wacky guy who just tried to kill you.

sans. - what do I need to say. it's sans's theme. it's wacky in an extremely chill way. it contrasts with basically all of deltarune's wacky characters, and that's perfectly cool. sans is a chill guy, especially in this game.

Chill Jailbreak Alarm To Study And Relax To - this one is just toby having fun. It's napstablook's theme with an alarm in the background. it's funny, it serves it's purpose as a gag. it's great.

You Can Always Come Home - this one has the nostalgic quality that I've been talking about very strongly, but the melody is just. It's so soothing and uplifting that you can't help but feel warm inside. it might be cold and snowing outside, but for now, you're home. you're with your family, you're sipping hot cocoa. Everything is right with the world, if only for a moment. You can always come home.

Until Next Time - another soothing melody, being a corrupted version of Don't Forget, and it evokes a lot of the same emotions, if a bit less strongly. It plays into the mystery of the ending, and would probably suit the snowgrave route pretty well. It's a good ending song in general though. It doesn't drown you in emotion. It lets you feel how you felt about what you just experienced.

Before the Story - really strong song. It's hard to fully analyze it given like. there isn't a lot of gameplay context. but it is a very dark and rich song. it's really good.

Berdly (Rejected Concept) - This song sucks ASS. it's like. pretentious. but also so cringe fail at the same.

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[miyomiikonran]

Burn the Witch Personal Review

I know how this sounds, especially I never did smth like that, so just pls treat it more like bunch of thoughts and opinions on this new title from long-term fan of Bleach rather than some professionally done review. I watched all three episodes and for now I didn't have much time to read the manga (I have a lot of stuff to read for my studies so ;;") so I just went through stuff written on fan wiki. So beware! Spoilers ahead!

So anyway, new title from Tite Kubo. I could not know who's the author and I still would've guessed who it is. It has such a familiar vibe for me, it's a lot like Bleach for me in terms of humor, dialogues, character interactions and so on. Backgrounds also have this kind of similar vibe but I can't tell what's exactly causing it cus I'm no artist. Kubo in his glory days always had great backgrounds so that's all I'm able to say. I think he catched some breath after Bleach's ending and came back with new energy, so his skills are back too.

About characters. I'm glad he did two main female characters this time, even though both Noel and Ninny annoyed me through most of these ~60 minutes. I'm gonna say that's how it usually is before you get to know these characters better. Balgo annoyed me the most because he's typical perverted guy (which I'm really tired of) but with sweet dumny appearance (I'm here for it) so we'll see where will this character go further. Ninny's idol type, so I wasn't really excited at first, but I really liked her interactions with Macy, so I see chances for future development. Kinda the same with Noel and Balgo, they have some chances to get better through their influence on each other. Noel is kinda boring on her own most of the time, but her drive for money is sooo relatable for me right now.

My absolute favourite for now is Osushi, which kinda amused me, cus it's complete opposite compared with how I reacted to Kon at first, who also was sort of mascot in Bleach. I think Kubo has a thing for "seems cute but can kill you" type of mascot...

Let's adress the elefant in the room now. It's the same damn universe as Bleach. It blew my mind completely since I read about this series. It's the same universe (12 years after the war) and it has witches and dragons! Don't get me wrong, tbh I think it could work, it makes sense in it's own twisted kind of way. I just wish we were given any clues about existence of other "reverse worlds"/Soul Societies before this title came out. Cus it makes sense when you think about it. For me it looks like each country/culture (cus idk if each country wouldn't be too much) could have it's own kind of reverse world coexisting with human world, with it's magic, creatures and rules rooted in it's history, culture and beliefs. That's why suddenly we have these european-looking dragons and completely different approach to them- rather than kill them, humans are using them for their own gain, which for me makes sense for country that started industrial age and was first capitalistic-kind of system in the world. Obviously they would be like "ey, it's kinda a waste to kill them, maybe we could use them to make our life easier?". In Bleach it was all more about restoring and keeping balance between worlds, moral duty, honor and strict rules which makes sense (at least for me) in japanese society. Same with Shinigami and their powers. Other stuff like Quincy and Arrancars kinda throw off this kind of logic but well, I'm just trying to find some sense in this madness.

How's the plot then going, in such weird curricumstances? For me it could easily defend itself as independent idea and separate universe. If someone didn't knew Bleach and watched this I'm pretty sure it would be viewed almost the same for now. Will it have more connections to stuff we know from Bleach? Idk, I hope so, cus if not then it's just kinda using the nostalgia left by previous series. This world is surely builded the same, we have two coexisting worlds, one with common humans and the other with people being able to see and fight supernatural beings that endanger both of these worlds. We have the same kind of structure of power as well, at least for me. Wind Bind is new Gotei 13, this time with symbolism based on zodiak signs. Cool, it would probably suggest 12 divisions, but for now we know about only 8 but once again, we'll see.

Each division has it's own field of work, responsibilities and leader. They all look just as weird and eccentric as Gotei 13 when we first met them, so hello darkness my old friend, especially one lady looks like nazi-wannabe again (Quincy I'm looking at you!). For now we only saw Bruno in action who's division is a fighting type, tasked with extermination of dangerous dragons. He's got very cool design and I adore style of magic he uses because I never saw anyone use spray paint for drawing magical symbols before. Very modern-looking guy and I'm here for it, especially he looks like Grimmjow's younger bro. In general this universe is on our typical technology level with smartphones and stuff everywhere, which is suprising to see having in mind whole traditionally japanese looking enviroment from original Soul Society. About the rest we barely know anything so well. We'll see, once again.

Do I see any clear villain in sight? Nah, not for now. For now we only know about 8 dangerous legendary dragons based on common fairy tales. Interesting concept, but I would like to see some classic villian too. However, we already got the same kind of lesson that Bleach served us- authorities cannot be easily trusted either, as their judgement also can be too strict, cruel and subcjetive without many possibilities to oppose them by avarage person. I smell more future drama in this topic. Especially we once again got elderly boss who looks similar to Yamamoto from Bleach.

One thing that kinda dissapointed me was music. Bleach made me used to very climatic, often dramatic soundtracks, kinda dark-sounding most of the time. Openings were mostly very good too, while here I barely noticed any music at all. Animation didn't really leave me in awe either, only fights seemed interesting and magic was nicely animated. But it's kinda boring compared to very dynamic animation in Bleach. First two episodes made me think of first two arcs of Bleach but it's been over 15 years! ;-;"

In the end, will I watch more? Yeah, for sure. I got very excited to see something new from Kubo, I'm rooting for him and his new series to be less damaging for his health and mental state so this time he'll have means to develop and finish it properly, ideally without more conflicts with Shounen Jump. If he'll play it right with connections to Bleach it might get every good and bring back old fanbase, maybe even make people forgive him completely for Bleach's rushed ending. I see he already got some lessons from that experience, as now he decided to publish chapters in small batches rather than weekly. For me it's good solution that may help him keep his sanity intact. I'm willing to wait if it means he'll get back to his fomer skills and glory because I loved Bleach with my whole heart. If only anime production will be okay with such work dynamic then sure, great. I hope music and animation will get better overtime, maybe with more people getting interested they'll be able to spend more time and effort on it. I'm waiting for more characters to appear for more screentime as well, despite what I said about weird looking leaders of Wind Bind. Kubo proved he can make interesting and unique looking characters before, as well as create engaging villians and fights that fans are waiting for for months or years even. Maybe he even learnt a thing or two from plot holes that happend before. We'll see, I'm hopefull and willing to see where this series will be going c:

[opalai-pixel-witch]

Merry christmas pal! ^^

“the idea of War with a kitty companion is sooooo cute ;;u;;”

War usually works outside, so if she sees a kitty, she will pet it, it´s a very cute and weird image: a skeleton with weapons that was killing someone a few seconds ago, stops short and walks towards a kitty to pet it X3

“I don’t feel bad for him at all, he killed Ramsey and tortured Balder and tried to hurt my son so he gets no sympathy from me >:|”

He wanted us to dislike him, how dare you hurt our bois?! >:,v

“Aha, that makes sense >.> So maybe people are giving them to him less because he’s Death and more because he sucks at being Death? :P”

I wouldn´t say he sucks being Death, he doesn´t matter directly, you know, the working conditions are very bad, that is, no motivation to work, also that his work is boring, if Death would do his job well, almost never he would come out of hell since he only has to guide the lost souls in the Hell

“Oddly enough, I don’t think he has a scythe at all in MS…I wonder why :o”

I guess they wanted to get out of the stereotype of Death, Idk

“Once again, your drawings are absolutely amazing!!!! I looove the one with Balder and Ramsey, sooo cute >u> And it’s interesting to see Famine off-duty too o.o”

Thanks a lot! Your drawings are great too! I saw the one with Milky replacing Sam in the robotic suit and Death looks very cute, it makes me want to touch his face, but he has no face XD So I better hug him, he looks so cute! X3 I love this boi! I don’t think I show it XD

I really liked the Bjorn and Pesto dolls, and I loved the comic where Pesto rips off Bjorn’s arm and she doesn’t understand what happened and Bjorn is there like: “Not again… :T ”

And I love Pesto and Bjorn Halloween Hustle/Holiday Hustle drawing X3 ♥ ♥ ♥

And speaking about drawings (I noticed that you like Milky a lot (by the way, how many fictional boyfriends do you have? XD), and there is a drawing where I put him as the bad guy in the story, but it’s not that I don’t like him, but I see him wanting to avoid the apocalypse, and the only way to avoid the apocalypse is to eliminate the horsemen, and well, there came that scene that appears in Helluva Boss and it seemed perfect, weird things, I don’t know XD):

https://sta.sh/22aj2xyaqwj3?edit=1

“Sometimes I wish that Helheim Hassle had a more popular fandom

But then I think about all the absolutely cursed shit that could happen

And then I think “yeah, this is okay” ”

I also think it would be fun to see more Perfectly Paranormal fans and then I remember fandoms like Villainous, Invader Zim, Eddsworld, where there are so many people, that it´s extremely toxic and uncomfortable to be there, it’s like the most important thing there is the sexual orientation of the character and not its personality or its role in the story, I like what you do, which is more based on friendship and you respect the personality of the characters, I remember that once I found an user who said he had drawings +18 from HH, I’m glad he respected the rules and didn’t post them, I want to continue seeing my bois like cute little characters :3

--------

Helloooo! Thank you so much!! Same to you, my friend! ^___^ May today be a fantastic one for you!

Ahh, I see o: I kinda wanna draw War with a bunch of cats now, but I’m afraid I’m not too good with drawing animals ;;o;;

So not cool of him >A>

Ah yeah, that’s true, my apologies o.o That also makes sense, it probably didn’t go with the feel they were trying to achieve either?

I’m glad you liked them!! Yeah, I’m not sure what compelled me to make that one :P Death is to you what Bjørn is to me, it would seem |D

Thank you!! I was a bit worried that a PP/LBP crossover would be weird…LBP fans coming across those pics in the tags must be so confused at the whole arm-being-ripped-off thing >o>

Ahahahaha! I’ve made it quite obvious >///> (To answer your question…4 or 5 o///o)

That’s an interesting concept! A heroic antagonist Milky sounds super cool :o Honestly I’m really curious about what Milky’s deal is and I hope we’ll get more info on him in the next game!! And it would be cool if he discovered how the system in Hell really worked and maybe realized that the horsemen really aren’t inherently evil and are just trying to do their jobs (except maybe Famine, his intentions are…debatable >_>)

Big fandoms seem to be a blessing and a curse, it would seem o.o I’m more worried about the type of content that might come up if it became more popular, I don’t wanna find any fetishy NSFW fanfiction about it >A> But I’m really happy to hear that you like what I do! To be honest there are times where I feel like I don’t really fit in well with the fandom (like I don’t “belawng” if you will :P) so I’m glad that that’s probably not the case! I enjoy seeing what you make too, as well as talking and sharing headcannons and stuff with you ^_^

[papytonpropaganda]

Unpopular opinion: mtt deserved better

definitely agree with this one, I’m disappointed in a lot of things regarding his character.

number one: despite all his screentime, he didn’t get to be a Lost Soul during Asriel’s battle, and I see no real reason he couldn’t have been. I mean, I guess you could argue that Toby only wanted 6 Lost Souls because that’s what fit in the menu, but... we hardly knew Asgore, I don’t think we were good enough “friends” with him to warrant him being a Lost Soul... idk. one way or another I’m a bit salty about Mettaton not being there.

number two: despite all his screentime, I don’t feel like he got developed very well. with other characters, we got extensive hangouts and phone calls so we could figure out things and see different sides to the characters, and with Mettaton, as much time as we spent with him, we... didn’t really get any of that. the most we got was him being sad about leaving Napstablook and his fans, and that was kind of it. there wasn’t as much depth to him as there is to Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, arguably even Asgore considering we got to hear about the different sides of him and the motivations he had almost all throughout our journey. Mettaton is flamboyant and comically self-centered, with his “twist” being that he really cares about his friends and fans... which... really isn’t that surprising? and we barely got time to see that twist play out, since it came at the very end of his battle and he basically goes unconscious afterwards. I’m kind of rambling at this point, but basically I really wish we’d gotten a hangout or something after, so we could learn about his flaws and insecurities more.

number three: the personality he was given was enjoyable for the most part, but there are things I really take issue with, like his treatment of Burgerpants, which is like. SO out of character considering how he treats all his other employees and fans. the behavior he displays toward Burgerpants is unprofessional and borderline abusive at times, and it doesn’t make any sense to me. I know all the Burgerpants stuff is just supposed to be funny and be the stereotypical teenager-working-for-minimum-wage type of stuff, but it really misses the mark for me. it was entirely possible to write such a character without making his boss act in a way that we see literally nowhere else in the game.

this is a lesser complaint of mine, but aside from Burgerpants, I don’t really care for that whole thing with Mettaton adding a statue of himself to that Royal Memorial Fountain in the resort. I know it’s just supposed to be funny again, but to me it just shows that Mettaton has no respect for these memorials, which I think is kinda dumb considering how much he cares about monsterkind. but that’s just my opinion.

number four: I already talked about how I wish the NEO fight had actually been challenging.

that’s all I can really think of right now... probably a Lot of unpopular opinions in there, but that was the point of the ask meme! basically it all adds up to wishing Mettaton was written better and given a more proper focus.

[thebiggest3vil]

STORY TIME! #2: I Got Cheated On And Embarassed In Front Of My Whole School😂😢😂 (*Funny!/ Fucked Up!)

So for this story time I'm gonna tell you about how I got cheated on . It's funny but fucked up at the same time so if you like reading then this is the post for you! So back, relax and read how I got PLAYED 😂.

So the first day of HS starts up and ya know things are different. Ya boy is a Sophmore and after a very weird freshman year of HS I started to find my way. I had more friends , I hit a growth spurt after being 4"11 and under my whole childhood life, I had a summer job so when I came back I was drippin in that Armani Exchange (Remember that store!? Damn) So when I came back my dress game went from like a 3 to a 12 and I don't care if that don't make sense it's my story lmao.

(Ok So where was I....OH Ok sophomore year)

So the day goes by and it's time for Gym. Now everyone knows that the first day of gym ain't really gym it's just niggas sitting on the bleachers and for 30 minutes and MAYBE they bring the basketballs out for the last 15. So I goto the bleachers and I see my mans at the top and I'm like "Yeoooo !!" And he went "Ayo boul!!" And that's how we signalled each other at the time lmao. So we sitting waiting for class to start and a bunch of kids walk in (I'm not paying them no mind) and as they got closer to the top all I hear is my name following "YOOO CUZ IT'S BEEN A GRIP!" I look over and it's my bro from my track team . At this point I'm like hype I got my homie in by gym class followed by my other homie...nigga gym was so tough. So as I dap him up these 2 girls walk behind him. One was kinda cute, Brown skin ass was glorious. The other was a lightskin girl, kinda tall was BAD (at the time) omg and I had my best shirt on nd shit I was fly but I'm not really worried cause all my niggas are in gym with me and when has that....ever happened when ALL your niggas had the same class besides lunch. So we sitting and my bro from track called me over and we started catching up. Out of nowhere the lightskin girl grabs my shoulder and asked what my name was (mind you was staring deep into my eyes like nigga my soul, I was beside myself) I told her my name and I went throughout my day.

So like a cool 2 weeks passed and ppl telling me "yoooo Brittney likes you" (Ima call her Brittney cause it's my story lol) mind you at this point it's been established by the brotherhood rank system aka period 8 lunch who were the baddest in school and everyone was tryna talk to them. They were arguably the 5 baddest in the school and niggas were on their heads. Now my one friend bagged one if them on the spot and the other one was already cuffed, but for them to tell me the most sought out one wanted me!? NI-GGA! I was feeling my self I started wearing shit I didn't usually wear to school (side note: I wore this Armani T shirt with the Black true religion jeans and some polo boots with this Hugo Boss jacket I was fly) Anyway weeks go by and I'm in music class talking to to homies and I tell them like yo....im bout to talk to Brittney....the problem was....

Brittney was the ex of my bro from track! So I'm like damn you my homie I'm not gonna do that to you etc I'm like I'm going to chalk It up, he goes "nah bro you good go head we friends but we broke up years ago" (THIS LOW-KEY WAS A WARNING But my dumb ass wanted a girlfriend so I'm like bet where she at?) Ok ok remember how HUGE MySpace use to be? Remember this.: So fast forward I ask for her number and she didn't have one cause idk but she had a house phone plus she added me on MySpace. So on MySpace that's were I started spitting THAT GAME and long story short I changed my relationship status from single to taken and THAT. SHIDD. FELT. GUUD! That shit felt like every nigga in that school had a shot and I came through like M'Baku like "Essssss challuuunge deeeeey" . You couldn't tell me shit , plus we had the same spanish class so we were out her being a couple nd shit and for the moment it was all going great.....until....

On one Friday it was a big ass party and instead of going I went to my Cousins house cause tbh fuck them parties they last like 1 hour always. So the weekend ended and Monday rolls by mind you I was getting calls from random ass numbers and I dont answer those like that so when Monday came around we had a fire drill and as SOON as everyone was outside and saw me they ran to me. I had atleast 8 people Coming up to to me saying "Dog bro you my mans get your girl she was at the party all up on some other nigga". me being naive as fuck is like " brittney? My baby? oh nooooo I don't believe yall shut up" but in the back of my mind I'm like ....wait....coikd she? Naah...so I go ask her and she immediately denies so I'm like ok cool. This was around the same time "rumors" started spread around the school that she was out here for the whole team was thottin and when I brought that up she goes "ww...well...that's not true who are you gonna believe your so called friends or someone who loves you?" AGAIN Me being a dickhead I'm like " Yeaaah baby Bonnie and Clyde, Hov and Bey, Angelina and Brad , we all we got! "(I'm laughing writing this cause I was like this..) Now along the way it was signs that were happening that I thought were weird. She would Always have "family" over or her "cousins" just came over out the blue and she had to get off the phone... 😂😂😂( I know man I know laugh! GO AHEAD! Its been almost 10 years fuck yall for laughing 😂🤣) Nd I'm like for an only child you sure have alot of family coming through. So the noise of it all started to get to me and I was over here questioning the relationship. I had a homie tell me to me face "Bro I do not want to see you get hurt and if you keep talking to her we NOT cool" so that night I'm like it's too many signs and tbh I don't wanna be with you anymore (even thoe I did....i did like fuck and I was acting like a bitch) so we broke it off and that's it.........WRONG!

Remember when I told y'all I was in love like a dickhead....well not even 3 days later we got back together cause she "missed me like crazy" and I'm like "baby I miss you too ajdgssnsjdndkd!😂" so we back together and like for them 5 days we were cool....the 6th day....nigga so I stayed after school with her and she was talking to me about Spanish tutoring and how this other nigga in my class was taking tutoring and that we should go....problem was the Spanish teacher got sick and cancelled so we stayed until the 4:00 bus...for her since she lived close it was the 2:45 shuttle so we kissed and she left. Fast forward to the after school bus my step sister stayed after with me and as we were riding back home she scream my name and says "Hey do you still go out with Brittney!?" Me confidently I'm like yeah whassup? She goes "Well hold on they talking bout she goes out with the one boul aka the NIGGA THAT WAS GETTING THE TUTORING IN SPANISH! I felt like a dickheaaaad on the bus. So many emotions, I felt like my lil bitch ass heart was ripped out, so I went home and called her she said message her in MySpace for right now. Thus is where I bring MySpace back.....how about I look on her shit and She put Boul in her TOP 5 behind me!!!!!!!! I was livid so.....

I messaged her like " Yo, are you and Bro talking what's going on...?" She hits me with a........

"Well I thought we were just friends talking " I was so angry I was like (From what I remember I wish I knew my account info but to sum it up I said ) "BITCH how dare you do that to me I loved you and you disrespected me you punk was blah blah blah " I wrote shawty a whole book angry and after I shut my laptop off.......and cried.

Smh lmao so my step sister growing up never like to see my super upset so idk HOW but she found her house number and I could hear downstairs her arguing with her nd etc. I didn't care I was upset I went on my MySpace and changes ALL my profile songs to breakup shit. Damn near a Chris Brown playlist I was HURT! I was writing cryptic ass messages talking about ima be lonley forever and yeah it was BAD! but eventuall I got over it....and the following Monday she ran straight over to me at was like "oh I'm sorry I really am and I'll get rid of all my contact and etc etc. We gotta spread some rulesnif we wanna make this work" I wasn't tryna hear dat shit. So in the end I said fuck it and we wentniur separate ways. I don't have any hate towards shawty but it was fucked up how I happened. Looking back, everytime I tell this story it gets funnier cause I was sprung. But yeah that's how I got Cheated on.....Never again thoe😂😂😂

[hycrans]

( the cuteST )

a bitch is Tired rn after pulling my usual shit, aka staying up until 5am for no reason only to wake up three hours later to watch bts run, so excuse the seeming lack of enthusiasm lkfdsjglk. hey i’m jules, i’m 20, canadian, and my current means of life rn are chocolate, the x files ( iM LATE IK SFGDJLK ) and 3am you in me listening parties with myself rip !! it’s been almost a month since its release, i need to Relax dammit. i’m a uni student who just got off for christmas break and in love with sowoo so you don’t wanna know the agony that came with picking one over the other without a bit of help. you can hmu on d*scord at HAPPY S*OKJIN DAY#2030 ( don’t.. call me out for not having an updated name since his birthday’s passed, i’m not v bright pls ) if you’d like and this is so boRING, it’s like the life is sucked out of me omg. anyways hyeran, a whole.. other positive muse bc jesus, how many of these do i have rn ?? this is so out of hand man, but nonetheless here’s a bit abt the brat:

- ̗̀ JEON SOMIN, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ̖́- – have you seen YUN HYERAN? people’ve said the TWENTY TWO year old has been running around the streets of jeju lately, which is odd because aren’t they a BARISTA/MUSIC PRODUCER during the day? anyways, i know they’re known to be EBULLIENT and TRANQUIL but recently i’ve heard they’ve been MAGNANIMOUS and DIFFIDENT, but i could be wrong. ( jules / 20 / gmt-3:30 / she/her )

EDIT: i somehow forgot to mention that she’s.. not sure where she is on the lgbt spectrum but she knows she’s Not Straight JFGDSLKJGK but she’s panromantic so yeah sgjkdl. i’m a whole mess today, i’m sorry lol

yun hyeran, a daegu native with an older and younger brother, an ambivert and an all around baby

tbh i don’t have much of her bg figured out, that’s always the last thing i get to so rip

buT she became involved in music through her father, who studied it in uni and ended up becoming a music instructor with a focus on piano, flute and vocals

her and her mom.. also her older brother, didn’t have the best relationship when she grew older, which seemed to die altogether when her parents divorced and her mom left. but her and her brother’s still exists, it’s just that he’s a bit of a toxic influence on her and she tends to distance herself from him

went to uni in seoul to pursue music like her father ( a daddy’s girl too like ) and found her way into the world of production !! by junior year, she’d transferred out of her original program and majored in that instead and has loved it ever since; she recently graduated

moved to jeju island bc an aunt lived there when she was young and she LOVED to visit, made a few friends there and would always whine abt the next time they could all go see her aunt again. so it made sense for her to live, at least for a little while, in one of her favourite places

she also adores said aunt, her dad’s sister and the maternal figure she Deserves, so she came partially to see her more often

for the time being, she works full-time as a barista at the café just a block from her cute little studio apartment while looking into internships at record labels for her to take on a little further down the line ( no rush bc it’s already quite competitive and she’d rather enjoy what she has going now )

she’s also making something of an income as the creator of an acct on youtube and soundcloud for her music, something she’s had for abt two years now

she’s not even close to making it big yet, and she doesn’t mind if she never works for a moderately to highly popular label — though she should if she wants to get by

among the aesthetic, lo-fi music crowd ( one of those yt accts with a livestream for certain playlists that go on for hours, rip ) where for the most part, it’s personal faves mixed with her own works, and has a substantial following as of now. but has an interest in experimenting, with mashups ( as a lover of them ?? i couldn’t help myself sgflkdsjg ) for example, with a small fear of how that change would be received

this is so short iK, it’s a little infuriating if you ask me ljkgdfjls

in terms of her personality and other things:

she’s a very loyal person, v e r y. while like i said, her relationship with her brother is Not Great, she hasn’t completely given up on him. maybe for the time being, but her being someone who’s open to the idea of people changing for the better somewhere down the line, leaves a bit of room for her to possibly change her mind if he does enough to allow her to consider it

so she can be a bit of a doormat in some cases, it all depends on how she sees the person that determines if that’s the case, but she generally won’t let you off if you’re being dumb/an ass to someone or if she gets advantageous vibes from you for example ( given she can.. be a little naive and is a p gentle soul ) so.. idk fgklsj good luck to the 99% ig ??

she does have a slight dependency on others despite her thinking all signs point to the opposite, and even though her and her mom never rly had a good relationship she still reels from the neglect/abandonment some days so handle her with Care if she deems you a close pal, 

spontaneous tbh, moving to jeju was a little last minute on her part, for one

she’s a little reclusive when focused on something, if she tells you she’s working on a track, it’s essentially a head’s up that you might not see her for a couple of days depending on how soon she gets it done — lowkey that bitch™ who makes up an illness to her boss, so she wouldn’t even show up for work if it’s more than just her fucking around

bc admittedly, a lot of what she posts is fucking around and liking it, her more thought-out and effort packed projects are hidden away on her laptop

a bit insecure with her work and just her general disposition ?? those first few points above mess with her a lot and leave her disheartened so.. my poor child

v strong overall, takes people’s shit and if it gets to her, she gets over it p fast. doesn’t dwell on much and will be courteous to you even if she’s declared you too toxic to stick around 24/7

isn’t exactly one to get angry ?? she’s basically just disappointed or annoyed at best 99% of the time, it takes a lot to get her beyond that

positive, ugh. maybe not sickeningly sweet, but still. kinda explained parts of it above and i’m 95% gone mentally rn, gotta spare that for other little details gsjklf

a cute bean who wants the best for everyone and is also clumsy as absolute fuCK

uhhh

plays piano and bass guitar ( you don’t know how tempted i was to say clarinet bc of jiwoo gjflkgds )

prob had some kind of little amateur rock band with a few music majors and took up bass for the hell of it lmao

loves animals, leans towards cats or big dogs. corgis and those little spaniels get a pass tho

speaking of, she has a cute little calico kitten ( i’m shit with pet names so that’s tba rgkjls ) who she Loves, her baby !!

sweater, ball cap and basic t shirt junkie

those glasses somin’s been wearing a lot of lately ?? hyeran wears them too but.. actually needs them, not even close to a fashion statement

doesn’t don much makeup unless someone’s dragging her to a party or something

thaT’S when she looks a little more like a classy early twenties bitch.. which lbr, is hard enough when adulthood is a whole Train Wreck for the most part LGFJSDL

not a heavy drinker, but the textbook definition of a lightweight so.. she’s always praying for anyone who has to deal with her dgfjklsfg

lattes are her livelihood

a bit of a hopeless romantic, god help her

her favourite subject in school was literature/writing and reads quite a bit on her breaks at the café

favourite music genres.. it’s easier to say what she doesn’t like/finds boring, which is prob country and some aspects of edm/pop, not into punk/metal either

these are super basic but.. i’ve gotta get myself together for the day so this’ll do for now i hope ??

so if you’d like to plot, im me here or on d*scord ! i prefer the latter personally, but whichever’s easiest for you. i have a list of a few of the specific wcs i have in mind ( for the time being, catch my lazy ass avoid listing all the basic ones and revising a few i have on an old blog ) for hyeran up now, which you can find here, so just lmk if any of them appeal to you !!

[spinneryesteryear]

Spinner plays FFXIV Heavensward

SPOILERS AHOY

- I made sure to unlock and lvl DRG before starting HW because reasons

- I… don’t really understand why people love Foulques so much? I can only presume it’s because they find him attractive

- at first I wondered why the lancers’ guild quests emphasized courage so much, but once you realize lancer upgrades to dragoon it all makes sense: they’re training the absolute maniacs who jump headfirst at DRAGONS; of course they’re going to emphasize courage

- the literal first thing I did as a dragoon after getting my soul crystal and the jump action was to launch myself into an AOE so clearly I’m playing my job right

- the drama between Alberic and Estinien was the only reason I made it through the 2.1 - 2.3 slog, tbh

- I picked up GLD/PLD somewhere in there, too, but the GLD quests weren’t exactly riveting and the PLD quests weren’t any better. I was just biding my time for DRK

- meanwhile I had hit like lvl 62 on WHM thanks to running lots of roulettes with Adventurer in Need: Healer so I’d switch to that while wandering through a lot of the HW regions so the mobs wouldn’t attack me. I did the HW story on DRG but ran dungeons as WHM the first time bc it’s my comfort role. 

- I’m… still not sure exactly how to do the mechanics on the Steps of Faith. Whoops. Fortunately, all but once I was WHM when I got it in roulette and I could just heal/spam Holy. The exception was on DRG and I just kinda… derped around killing what adds I could.

- those cutscenes at the end of 2.5, though. Dude. Duuuuuuude.

- it did give us Pipin Tarupin, however, and he is Best Lala.

- So, like… what exactly did Ysayle expect would happen when she broke Ishguard’s magic wards and opened it to assault by hordes of dragons??She seems genuinely regretful of the innocent lives lost when spoken to in the MSQ later in HW proper, but when she actually did the deed she was channeling ‘deranged witch’ for all it was worth and talking about how the sons should pay for the sins of their fathers. Did this incident give her a rude awakening about the Dravanian desire for vengeance?? Idk, maybe further quests will explain this.

—– me: *just arrives in Ishgard*

—– me: *taking the grand tour of the city*

—– me: *notices mob near cathedral, inquires about it, learns about recent violent death of heretic*

—– me: *finds heretic corpse*

—– me: *derails grand tour of Ishgard by slaughtering my way through the streets and through various chapels, laughing maniacally as I enjoy the greater reach of my brand-new greatsword and spam Unleash*

—– me, standing amid the broken corpses of a few dozen temple knights: Count Fortemps is probably gonna regret letting me into this city.

- that one dude in Camp Cloudtop who’s entirely too obsessed with the menu deserves to be booted off his lookout platform. I’ll even rescue him via flying mount before he splatters on the ground (however far down the ground happens to be, idk), but I really want to kick him off at least once. He gave me far too many fetch quests and my inner Fray is disgruntled, to say the least.

- me, just trying to make my way across the map: WILL EVERYTHING IN COERTHAS STOP CHASING ME???

- other people think the gaelicats are too cute to kill them. I, however, just want to kill them all the more. I’d be perfectly content to leave the mobs alone and continue on my merry way, but, nooooooo, they have to attack me. So I respond in savage kind.

- me, doing sidequest chains and getting mildly attached to extremely minor characters: So, I kinda ship Ayleth and Saintrelmaux now…

- ever since I unlocked it, I get Dusk Vigil all the time in lvling roulette so I’m now an expert on ice age megafauna, undead knights, and murderous griffins of the non-Sloppeh type

- Ravana is my fave HW primal, hands down, and his theme is definitely among my fave primal music. I would say it’s my absolute fave (I have listened to it on repeat for hours at a time, but I’ve done that with other music, so it’s not conclusive evidence) but it has stiff competition in the form of the Ultima theme, Leviathan’s theme, and the Knights of the Round theme.

- going on a life-changing field trip with Alphinaud, Estinien, and Ysayle was amazing. All we needed was Zuko.

- far too many side quests in Tailfeather. Far too many. And that one quest chain ended up with the poor dude’s pet baby chocobo as chicken tenders? If I didn’t hate chickens so much IRL that would have been super painful.

- the moogle quests required to progress the MSQ weren’t that bad. The sheer amount of moogle sidequests needed to unlock flying for that zone and their beast tribe quests, however…. well, I’m completely on board now with any plans Sidurgu might have for utter moogle genocide.

- lol, the moogles were about to give us more chores to do but Estinien’s sheer murderous rage panicked their chieftain into sending us on our way. I love him. (Estinien, that is. Not the moogles. I love to hate them.)

- Estinien is just… I love him so much. It’s more than his armor. It’s more than his jumps. It’s more than his sass and swearing. No stereotypical elf qualities to be found here, folks. Honestly, he could give some elves from The Silmarillion a run for their money, with even his own equivalent of Angband PTSD post-Nidhogg. I also immensely love that he’s a character on a power level similar to the WoL. (I don’t actually enjoy the main character being the most powerful person in the world, without equal. I like someone else being better in at least some ways and that being okay.) Heck, when possessed by Nidhogg he’s the final boss of the expansion + patches. And he lives. (Which is in itself a pretty powerful moment and Alphinaud and the WoL’s desire to save him lifts the whole plot point/theme into something more sublime. It would have been easy to kill him regretfully, both from a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective. The devs had no problems throwing painful deaths at us in this expansion. But we took the harder route. And it was worth it.)

- low-key painful Heavensward moments (bc heavens know there’s enough high-key painful moments): Alberic is extremely worried about his adopted son, whom he last saw nearly possessed by a dragon’s millennium’s worth of hate and rage, and who then vanished in an explosion, but he can’t do anything about it so instead he helps another retired dragoon worry about his own missing daughter

- ngl there was some red herring foreshadowing that the primal Archbishop Thordan planned to summon was actually Halone, the Fury, Goddess of Justice and Patroness of Ishgard. Which would have been badass. But I’m pretty sure Square Enix is going the Dragon Age route of never confirming/denying the presence of the Maker with their Twelve, Halone included, so I deemed it unlikely even as I secretly hoped. A lot of players probably missed these fake hints and would wonder what I’m even talking about. 

- I couldn’t even get mad about all the bad things that happened during the Vault because the characters were juggling Idiot Balls. (1) Aymeric thought his father, who has been consorting with Ascians and plans to summon a primal, could be reasoned with. (2) Aymeric went alone to go reason with him and was correspondingly captured and tortured. (3) We fought three of the twelve Heaven’s Ward in the Vault itself and NO ONE APPARENTLY QUESTIONED WHERE THE OTHER NINE WERE. Plus, said three have clearly already been tempered and are feeding off primal energy for their second forms, even if the mechanics are unknown. Those without the Echo should have promptly skedaddled after rescuing Aymeric. (4) After a dungeon full of ambush mobs, no one thought to secure the little airship landing behind the Vault before arguing with Archbishop Thordan. In Ishgard, city of verticality with its gravity-defying dragoons, personal airplanes, and millennium-long war against flying dragons. Everyone involved should have thought to check the nearby roofs for hostiles. Am I seriously the only person who has ever thought tactically about this situation??? (5) The WoL and Haurchefant rush forward to delay the Archbishop, again without considering the whereabouts of the rest of his presumably also tempered bodyguards or whether any hostiles remain in the building behind us. And so events happened as they did.

- Regula van Hydrus has a cool name and a cool silhouette with that helmet. Better than Varis, anyway. 

- the Vundu are probably my fave HW beast tribe. The moogles are the crafting tribe so Imma do them anyway (and have fun tricking them into doing work) but I’m actually looking forward to the Vundu. I’m just benevolently apathetic towards the Gnath.

- I just, like… did not care about Azys Lla in the slightest. It was more Allagan BS and I hated the map. (I still don’t have it fully explored??? What am I doing??) The ‘terms and conditions’ bit with the node was amusing, but… the entire place got old almost immediately. Finding Tiamat and talking to her with Midgardsormr was the only high point.

- why isn’t there an option to have Hrasevelgr come and talk to Tiamat to persuade her to abandon her self-chosen imprisonment??? Or to have Estinien later come and talk to her to possibly give her Nidhogg’s perspective? Bc I think Nidhogg would have some insight into her situation, definitely. She summoned elder primal Bahamut out of grief at his loss, while Nidhogg launched a millennium-long war out of grief at Ratatoskr’s loss, and now they’ve both abandoned their vengeance. 

- ARF TILL YOU BARF

- idk, man, the Aetherochemical Research Facility is such a weird conglomerate of things for a dugneon. Firstly, you got Allagan tech and machines. Then you got mutant creatures the Allagans made (bc, if it was mad science, then the Allagans were all over it). Then you got Ascians, evil ghosty dudes who laugh evilly and throw standard Evil Ascian Attacks at you before doing the fusion dance from Dragonball Z and becoming a Giant Evil Ascian. Igeyhorm has a feminine voice but is she(?) actually female or is she just presumably possessing a female body? Do Ascians have gender or do they even care about such things? (I am very much Not Thinking about Solus/Emet-Selch reproducing here.) 

- Archbishop Thordan reveals the millennium-old, perfectly preserved corpse of Haldrath, the original Thordan’s dragoon son, with NIDHOGG’S OTHER EYE FUSED INTO THE CORPSE’S CHEST, and, like, no one really comments on it in- or out-of-universe???? What happened??? Haldrath gave up the throne, apparently because he wasn’t 100% on board with his dad’s treachery against Ratatoskr and consequent decision to kill all dragons to maintain power. Dragoons were apparently already a thing at this point (HC: to combat the voidsent infesting Abalathia’s Spine and the mountains between Coerthas and Gridania, e.g. Witches’ Drop), so what happened to Haldrath? Is this explained somewhere and I missed it??? Did Nidhogg hijack his mind? Estinien had Nidhogg’s eyes (both of them, incidentally, which Haldrath didn’t have to deal with) fused to his arm & shoulder but Haldrath had an eye fused to his chest. To his HEART. What happened.

- And then Archbishop Thordan somehow turns Haldrath’s corpse + armor + Nidhogg’s eye into a sword, the primal version of presumably Ascalon, King Thordan’s sword, somehow designing it to eat primal/Ascian aether. And then he kills Lahabrea, which, no great loss there. But it leaves my questions unanswered.

- Thordan + Knights of the Round is such a cool trial, I love it to death and not because it’s easy. It could be as hard as Nidhogg Normal and I’d still love it. I wish I had a static with whom I could do Thordan Ex and other more complicated content.

- finishing that fight and the cutscenes after, however… man, I didn’t know how to feel. I was screaming internally and torn in at least three different directions. Couldn’t get through the patch content fast enough to fight Nidhogg.

- had to fight Raubahn as DRG to represent my decimated Knights Dragoon brethren and my missing possessed dragoon brother and restore their honor. I’m also 100% convinced Raubahn learned of Ifrit’s nail trick and decided, “I can totally do that with Tizona.”

- has Aymeric ever done a dragoon jump? No? Then he’s not a real Azure Dragoon even if he has a nice color scheme and has ridden a dragon. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can do a dragoon jump (he’s survived years as Estinien’s friend somehow, and I can’t help but imagine he’s dragged Estinien off more than one rooftop), but until he does it I’m not budging on this. 

- Aymeric getting stabbed by a rando with a pocketknife and nearly dying was (1) surprisingly realistic and (2) made him look wimpy next to all the punishment so many of the other characters take without dying. Sorry, man. It had to be said. I love you, Aymeric, but still.

- standing there on the Final Steps of Faith, on the broken bridge to the Gate of Judgment, staring down Nidhogg while that beautiful music plays (TELL ME WHY BREAK TRUST, WHY TURN THE PAST TO DUST) and waiting for the queue to pop… that was a powerful emotion unlike any other. Stormblood couldn’t match it.

- Nidhogg is such a fun fight because it’s still hard and I hate that I don’t get it in trial roulette more often. (Trial roulette is my favorite, actually. I love almost all trials - with the notable exception of the Chrysalis bc everyone runs around like chickens with their heads cut off on it and rages in chat, and with the possible exception of non-Final Steps of Faith.) Akh Morn is still a killer, I sometimes just want to watch bodies hit the floor, and Final Chorus is such a badass moment even as we’re all dodging for our puny lives. We’re fighting Bahamut’s brother. 

- Estinien takes advantage of Nidhogg’s temporary aether depletion to regain enough control over his body to try to kill himself before being used to wreak any more havoc. Estinien survived weeks, possibly months of possession via ancient angry dragon, and having two giant dragon eyeballs embedded in his body and feeding him enormous amounts of foreign aether. Estinien survived his body being aetherically remade into the shape of an enormous dragon and then into a giant dragon-man hybrid. Estinien survived the Warrior of Light. IMHO he doesn’t get enough credit for this. 

- do u ever wonder about Hraesvelgr and Estinien later meeting and Hraesvelgr identifying the spirit of his brother lingering within Estinien? Bc I think a lot of us have headcanon’d that Estinien is not as free of Nidhogg as one might think, what with his red fiery aura in SB and all. On the other hand… some of us further theorize that Estinien can’t be tempered now, so he could help us fight primals. It’d be awesome.