#i don't think there's a lot of that kind of thing in ds over all – as a cohesive thing it's very much Monsters Real !

[widowshill]

this is just an idle thought so i'm not sure i can word this well but there's ... something about supernatural narrative ambiguity (such as in cases like carmilla) that really interests me with V's ultimate fate. i.e. i think in one reading ... she did fall from the cliffs that evening at widows' hill, just like carolyn prophesied she would & roger joked endlessly about, and liz did not save her. and victoria getting her quote "happy ending," miraculously getting sent back to be with her vanished husband into a long gone century, returning to an earlier past, is just the silver telling the story version of it. her Savannah, if you will.

"I had to return him to an earlier state of being." / "I found a way to reach into the past and undo it." / "To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be."

moreover i think it's Compelling who liz is with when she finds victoria in each case: professor stokes as V contemplates suicide on the hill, and barnabas when she vanishes into the past with jeff. stokes, who certainly is more than involved with the supernatural but who comparatively represents rational thought, research, learning, Truth and accepting even difficult truth ( "I'm afraid, my dear Miss Winters, that if he is here, he feels as I do. Your place is here. Your time is now. The only way you can join him is to die." ) and barnabas of rewritten myths, of vampires, false identities, the transmutation of women's very sense of self, who has never accepted anything be it feeling or fact and has made every effort to forcibly change it, even if that is only in the telling.

[inbabylontheywept]

Realizing in hindsight that the only reason I was so skeptical about your camp story is that being covered in a combination of crusty, sticky pink residue and rotten fish oil for days on end while sleeping on a wooden floor in the Arizona heat sounded like such unbearable sensory agony that I wanted to convince myself it was fake, because I didn't want to believe that anybody had genuinely been through that. I'd have walked out of that place with a rucksack of pink ooze and either find my way back to civilization or become crispy pink buzzard chow after day 2.

Like, legitimately, I think about my reaction to that post a lot. The imagery was so deeply unpleasant that I was desperately scrambling to convince myself it wasn't true like I'd just found out my spouse was a serial killer. There was no torture, no death, no hunger or disease, just a bunch of sweaty guys being covered in sticky fruit-flavored slime, subjected to unpleasant smells, and sleeping blanketless on the floor. And you can't even smell! You were spared a good third of it! Yet your experience still horrified me worse than any war story, medieval torture device or horror movie for reasons I cannot hope to fathom.

idk, I've had this ask stewing in my head for months, but I keep forgetting to actually write and send it. In my heart of hearts, I knew your story was perfectly plausible. I was just grasping at straws, praying for you to admit that no, nobody has ever showered in off-brand Gatorade and then not slept for 3 days while being expected to attend uni lectures. It's all untrue, a ruse, a trick, and such things could never happen outside of the cruelest depths of hell. Santa Claus is real, teachers live in the school, babies are delivered by storks, and the pink sauce incident never happened.

My mom pulls me into a warm hug after I scrape my knee. The plastic egg I found under the couch opens to reveal a piece of chocolate. A dollar magically appears under the pillow where I'd put my tooth. All is well. I am safe. The universe is kind, and whoever's running it loves me.

It's a sunny August day and I'm holding a popsicle on the swingset. I'm using my plastic dinosaurs to act out an improvised battle between good guys and bad guys as I sit on the carpeted floor. I'm playing Fossil Fighters on my dinged-up Nintendo DS in the plush brown armchair by the window.

I add the carrot nose to my snowman. Candy plops into my Halloween bag. The speaker on the classroom wall announces that school's out for summer, and we all bound out the door with wild glee, free at last.

Panting, wheezing, I drag my battered form back into the cobbled-together wreckage of my innocence, only one arm remaining with which to drag myself, blood and intestines trailing behind me as the storm rages overhead, washing my entrails downstream. I huddle underneath what remains of my once-pristine shelter from the cold and wet, pulling the shards back together as best I can as the wind howls angrily, hatefully. It's no use. It's broken. It's gone. It cannot be repaired. My innocence will never return to me. The rain seeps through the cracks and lands upon my face.

The rain is pink, I realize, and I cry.

First off: I haven’t actually been on the receiving end of this before and I have to say, it's an almost literally gripping experience. I felt this rat for the last three paragraphs.

Incredibly well done. Second: If you just didnt' want to believe, that's fine, I barely have room in me for medium fries - a grudge would just pour out the top, too much tea for my cup. But you don't have to like, gaslight yourself into thinking the story is totally normal and believable (I always stretch my stories out a little) or beat yourself up over it for months. I meant it when I said we're good, you and I. It still makes me happy to see a comment or a like or, rarely, a question like this from you.

If it's just something that pops into your mind every now and again, I dunno, don't sweat it. I'd hate to give you a complex. Did I mention that I loved that writing for this? Incredible experience.

[ilovemylawyer]

hiii, im back <3333

i was just thinking about how doyoung kind of remains mysterious in his rituals, like i for once never seem to fully understand what tf is going on inside in his mind maybe i just didn't put enough effort in understanding his microexpressions, still ive been thinking about him winding down for the day lately and every trivial aspect of him like getting out of bath and using body oil or something, bonus points if it gets anomalous teehee because unlike some allegations of him being greasy i think he takes his hygiene very seriously!! atleast whenever he could. sooooo could you pleaaseee maybe sometime write about him just indulging himself in his unwind routine and getting ready for his next day, it's just very important for my mental health i think...yeahh and it doesn't matter which part of timeline it's set in, possibly somewhere in ep 6? im not being serious here, i never was.

lots of love byeee 💗💗💗

hihihi welcome back dear <33

doyoung is totally mysterious! i think it is absolutely intended by the show to make us, the viewers, not privy to the interworkings of his mind. this makes it easier for us to sympathize with dongsoo (to a point..) and it makes it easier for us as viewers to write doyoung off as a psycho criminal killer and NOT understand him as an inexperienced lovesick fool. i think this is totally intentional so i don't think you Missed anything by not scrubbing every scene <3

re: hygeine. HMMMM... so i am more of a greasetruther. at least up until the silver jacket gets replaced with suits and such. but all of that, the fashion upgrade for dy and his men, i see as a direct result of ds' desires. pre-suited dy and gang, his hair is noticeably like. greasy. it just is. i think if he cared about hygiene/appearance on his own, he'd keep his hair shorter and maybe own more than one pair of pants.

BUT! in ep6, he does change to become Cleaner. so your timing here would be correct. like i said i think this is only because of dongsoo. he realizes just how important status/respect/appearance* is to dongsoo, and decides to make himself more desirable by slicking his hair back and dressing like an adult. but i unfortunately do not think he would ever make this decision if not for dongsoo's high standards.

if i do this i think i can make it ep6, a little pre-funeral prep sesh. here are my problems: this would be totally doyoung centric, doyoung pov doyoung brained solo doyoung alone in his big borrowed house. this is AWESOME in theory, but i THRIVE with dialogue, back and forths and quips and spoken lies and stuff. i do not feel like i have a strong, detailed voice for bathtime relaxation. but also ep6 is a rocky dyds episode, ds is supposedly leaving for good and never coming back, dy knows his (ds') mom is going to be executed, dy has already said his would-be final goodbyes... this is tough.

and this: "im not being serious here, i never was." i think (and i could be wrong, i don't quite know, this is only my best guess) that you're trying to say something like "haha jk... unless?" but i am not entirely sure. but i take everything (EVERYTHING) very very very seriously even in our extremely fast paced irony-poisoned world. my friends call me "serious" all the time. there is no need to be anything but serious w/ me! otherwise i actually get pretty confused (which may be evident rn) but plzzz never feel any kind of shame or embarrassment for any kind of ask to me! FR!

i take this show and my contributions to it like, deathly seriously. that is the only reason i cannot 100% guarantee u that i can pull this off. i have started a doc and jotted down my initial notes/thoughts, so it is there! but this will not be my main focus rn. the longer i think on things the more ideas i get, so this request might just take me some time to mull over/break down/work out. and maybe it'll turn out like super radical gnarly awesome cool. this is something that we will find out together!

MUCH LOVE ALWAYS! thank u forever for ur ask and i promise i will think some more on this and see if i can't figure it out <33

[callmearcturus]

Arc Plays Games: Nora to Toki no Koubou: Kiri no Mori no Majo (NDS)

(apparently in English that's something like "Nora the Time Witch")

I'm gonna try something and try to keep track of all the games I play this year. First up is this extremely cute little that honestly got me through being sick as hell over the holiday. It is kind of perfect as a game for your brain at 40%.

Nora is a DS game that has better "Cozy" feel than most games under the cozy game genre. Basically, Nora (the character) is a chronomancer, so she can do time magic. She's a rookie so she's supposed to be learning how to get good at chronomancy. She's sent to a lil cottage in the woods to bone up on her skills.

The house and garden are extremely precious. You can redecorate the cottage, move furniture and crafting items around, change the walls and floor. The garden has friends and you can lure in cute creatures.

The main loop of the game is in three parts. First is making items to fulfill requests for townsfolk and friends. You'll be asked to make a certain item, and have to figure out the best way to do so with time magic, dismantling raw materials, and processing materials into new stuff. You start off with just a work table and the time magic thingie, then get more and more crafting options like sewing tables and smokers and stuff.

Then you turn in those items and get other items in return and make people happy!

There's also foraging, bc obviously you need materials to make stuff.

There's a whole map with multiple places to go and each of those locations has different materials to gather.

When you arrive at a location, there are interactable things that will give you different materials. Some are sparkly and also give you random effects, like increased rarity, more items, or monsters.

You might want to grab the sparklies first to try and booth the number of materials you get, but on the other hand you might find a monster instead.

Battles are the third pillar. There are a SHOCKING amount of party members, and you can pick and choose teams depending on what you want.

Want to make sure you survive really tough monsters? Go with the errant knight lady and the big friendly city watch guy. Want to get more materials? Go with the soft-spoken clinic worker who can spot more herbs of the 12 year old shop girl who fucking LOVES rocks and can find you more rocks. But the clinic girl isn't great in a fight, so you gotta be careful.

Party members include: a weird mercenary dude who just wants to be the cool knight lady, the buff city watch man who has tea parties and tries to kill monsters with stale bread, the clinic lady who secretly can deadlift a tree, aforementioned 12 year old who thinks rocks are just soooooo cool, the hot knight lady who i think has the hots for Nora but i'm not sure, a Capitalist, a thief who kinda sucks, and a mascot character.

I weirdly ADORE the economy/shop system in this game.

Sometimes when you are selling off old equipment or excess materials, the shopowner will counteroffer your request for money with rare items instead.

YOU CAN DO THIS TOO. Most of the stock in the shops can be bought outright OR you can choose "Buy with items" and offer up stuff in exchange for the item you want.

Shops have normal stock but also special stock you can only get by trading the right materials. The armory guy has swords and stuff BUT if you want the good shit, bring him a dragon scale instead.

I bounce off a lot of these kind of soft, cute games because they don't feel like they have depth but this game sooooo does. I would say the only downside is when you struggle to make a certain items or find a certain material, you... sometimes just gotta figure it out, because this game was an oddball Japanese-only Atlus title and the fan translation isn't super well-known, there isn't a robust wiki to refer you. Just figure it out!

Anyway, solid fucking 4 out of 5 on this game. If you can emulate DS games, you can locate this one pretty easily if you know where to look. (And if you don't know where to look, send me an ask off-anon and I will direct you a bit.)

gd i maybe need to try an atelier game...........

[astralartefact]

just some doodles of some character designs I like from the Inazuma Eleven demo (i love raimon's new long water kazemaru)

i don't know if we even have confirmation that suruga's friends are team members but we need eleven+ people so it seems likely

Thoughts on the Demo (with Story Mode) below the cut

If I had to summarize my feelings in one sentence it would be: "This can't be the last game, right???"

I'm afraid it will be, but nooooooooooo q_q it can't beeee

I know Inazuma Eleven is so beyond niche that it was clear it wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell and given Level5's recent struggles I should be grateful that Victory Road even gets to exist at all, but q_____q I will miss Inazuma Eleven already q_q That's what the Demo makes me feel.

Like, I thought about it, but I think I don't even like Inazuma Eleven ironically, I just genuinely like it so much. If you like RPGs get yourself a copy of one of the DS games and have a good time, just shut your brain off a little bit and do not think even once. Me? I'm fine thinking about it, I was born into this utmost sincerity, I was molded by it, but as irony-poisoned as the world has become I have to point out it's.... a little bit wild. Just be prepared that Soccer might cry.

I like what they're doing with Unmei, I think the idea to have him be a non soccer player makes a lot of sense (no clue how I didn't notice that he wasn't playing in any of the promotional material)

Don't know if I like that 5 vs. 5's are gone. On one hand, probably a good choice, I think they can be much more creative with this new thing they're doing and small battles in the new control scheme would probably take forever and/or be weird af - on the other kind of lame, that takes a bunch of the soccer out of the soccer game.

I'm wondering how important the School Council President and that one other white haired girl are going to be. I kind of hope they won't be relegated to Manager roles, because as fun as those characters might have been (were they?) in OG and Go those don't really get to do anything and we already have 11 Characters + Bench already. you could just make them players...

I don't know what their scope with the Main Story is going to be. It seems very 'regular' - the Story seems to be weirdly front-loaded as usual, where everything happens all at once before the inevitable road to victory happens, but... I don't know, I think if this (last?) game really just has the scope of IE1 or Go1 I would be kind of disappointed ngl :/

In the same vein I'm somewhat scared for how far out this game is? This game seems absolutely massive and given what they've shown so far they could be 15% done and all they have is this little bit of story and all of the imported stuff. Maybe they just are much further along then I'm expecting them to be, but I don't know. Crossing my fingers that they know what they're doing.

Also what is the Budget of this game. Non stop animated segments, even if they were CG heavy. And how many VAs did you have for the Demo alone???? And you want to add everyone from all the games?????

"Escape Freud" you don't understand I'm trying

I don't hate the Translated Names (yet, the Go ones were a struggle though) but I do wish they had a Japanese Name Mode to go with JP VA

I miss drawing the arrows to control the team so much q____q I don't hate the new system and I get why it's kind of hard to translate the old one to gamepad controls but I feel like I have no clear control over anybody... I still think that you could turn that entire mechanic into so many cool game concepts btw, it's kind of weird that nobody ever made 'sensical' Inazuma Eleven clones

I put FF14 and Hasunosora as Cross-Over Requests in the Online Survey. The first one would be hilarious to me (and it would be possible given Yokai Watch) and for the second one I'm pretty certain that that Venn Diagram overlaps in a single dot and that single dot is me. I just think Megumegu would look great in Raimon's Uniform, okay.

[kob131]

So question.

Is Pokemon DLC 'Pay To Win' competitively?

This is an accusation I've heard lobbied quite a bit and to be honest it's kind of confusing. For those who don't know- A 'pay to win' feature that allows you to pay real world money in order to get an advantage over players who do not. Think paying from a great DPS gun in an online competitive shooter or boosting XP for an online game with RPG elements.

The argument around Pokemon DLC being 'Pay To Win' revolves around two main pillars- DLC exclusive Pokemon and returning Pokemon. The 'DLC Exclusives' revolve around the Pokemon Urshifu, Calrex Rider and Ogerpon. All three of these Pokemon have seen/are seeing widespread usage in competitive and are exclusive to their own DLCs. Thus by not having access to these Pokemon- you are at a disadvantage and thus you must buy the DLC. Which sounds like Pay To Win...

Until you remember that each DLC's launch comes with an update that allows for all Pokemon, including DLC exclusives, to be compatible with games that do not have it. Thus you can simply trade for it.

'But no one is going to trade away their 30 Pay To Win bear!'

Well, thing is. Pokemon trading works a lot like bartering- you offer something worthwhile in exchange for something you want. For example, you could trade a Shiny or Legendary or even a starter in exchange for the Pokemon. And it's not like you only get the DLC once- You get it for all profiles on your Switch. So if you were to offer a highly valued Pokemon then someone will work to get it, especially since the likes of Urshifu aren't hard to get. (Can get one before the second Gym). Same with Ogerpon. The only one that doesn't count to is Calrex, which is rather shitty but Ogerpon and Urshifu are the main 'culprits' and they're also the easiest to get and trade with.

'But that's just using an exploit and it's not intended!'

... How is the DLC being downloaded on all profiles an exploit? It's not a glitch or oversight- it's basic consumer friendliness. They had to have known this was a thing.

Another argument is that returning Pokemon inevitably shake up the metagame, introducing new staples, and thus the people who bought the DLC have an advantage. Again this fails to me because you can simply trade for the Pokemon. It isn't completely locked off from you.

Of course people will argue that I'm just defending shitty business practices that modern Game Freak are employing and that they wouldn't have done this in the past. To that I answer-

How do you catch a Heatran in Pokemon Black/White?

It's a simple question- Heatran is a famously evergreen competitive Pokemon. One would consider having access to Heatran as a necessary tool for competitive players. If not Heatran than what about Laitos, the number 1 most used Pokemon in competitive BW according to Pikalytics? If not that then what about Garchomp, not even a Legendary by this point? How do you catch these Pokemon in the most widely beloved Pokemon games?

Simple answer- You don't. You CANNOT catch these Pokemon in Black and White. You either have to buy the sequel games (which is effectively full game priced DLC here) or you buy Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platnium and/or Ruby/Sapphore/Emerald to get them. As well as a second DS to transfer them.

And this is a major problem I have with these arguments. They never take into account how transfers inherently give older players an advantage over new players and how this basically makes older, full priced games necessary to compete. That really, the DLC are in fact the more consumer friendly alternative because you get access to more Pokemon than a sequel or third version would give you; you can easily obtain multiples of Pokemon and unlike some cases- you don't need a duplicate console.

Or in other words- the Pokemon fanbase doesn't seem to realize they're actively calling for Game Freak to fuck them harder.

[hyouta]

More KH ramblings as I finished KH2 for the first time!! ...And damn this was in my drafts for so long that I've also finished my 358/2 days replay and played + finished BBS for the first time...

Once again just very long text post of me saying nothing but none of my twitter mutuals like KH so I feel bad spamming tweets too much.

I'd attach some of my KH wips (there's a surprising amount) but I feel self-conscious posting stuff that unfinished...

Yeah so, just like the raimi spider-man movies, I experienced the game without getting too bothered by annoying fans and I had a good time overall.

I felt like the disney worlds were a little bit lacking in areas but better than my experience in KH1... I think lol...

Some things I forgot to talk about in my original post

D-mode Riku was the saving grace of Reverse/Rebirth, I hated the limited card decks... I'm also dumb and it took me until the middle to understand the dueling system.

100 acre woods WRECKED me in all 3 games, I don't know why... the childhood innocence of it all? Legitimately the few times I have teared up playing through the series so far (other times was Betwixt and Between, and fighting Roxas).

❤︎

Anyway, similar to Re:Com I grinded up pretty far for standard mode, at least compared to the minimum level recommendation. I've maxed every form except Limit and Summon (I never use summons... and I didn't until the very end of KH1) (nevermind, did it quickly before the final Xemnas fight). Final form with Bond of Flame and spamming Firaga is very satisfying - just read that it's good with Master too but I have yet to try it.

Xigbar cooked my ass worse than Xaldin but I had to restart as many times as I fought Roxas. I'm pretty mid at these kind of games.

And after making it to the end of the Cave of Rembrance (because I wanted to get all the puzzle pieces/treasures BEFORE I finished the story)... I just... had a moment of silence... people really be playing this game on Proud/Critical yikes kfdjghfd;;

Last thought it damn why was it so much easier to get Ultima in this than KH1FM.

Anyway...

KH2 > Re:Com > KH1...... maybe, might be recency bias. Despite how Re:Com is hell I think it's also sort of rewarding once you have the right deck. Also, I think the final boss in KH1 is better than KH2.

My tweets: "Not that the xemnas fight was bad... but the over reliance on the reaction command for a fancier looking battle made it more hands off" "Kh1 had me stressed the whole last fight Kh2 I had no idea what I was doing but got there in the end Also I swear it cut his last health bar like 75% just to get me to that reflect ending"

"I do think the cinematic finishes are cool but I was so ??? Trying to figure out if I was missing a prompt bc the second to last phase was stuck at 1 hp forever"

❤︎

I changed my plans and watched the Days movie first, and while it was nice I think it strips a lot of the charm from the DS game; though I have zero idea if it maybe is closer to the original japanese version...? (On a side note watching the days opening now having played Re:Com and KH2- oh! That scene!- oh! Xigbar! Fuck that guy---- Days was my first KH game it's a wonder I understood anything).

I could have sworn I wrote down notes for this playthrough... I don't have a lot more to say than how I've felt about this game over the years. It still might be my favourite... I know the trio is DEFINITELY my favourite of the trios... I know I hated Agrabah for ages because of it but this playthrough helped me get over it and I found myself actually liking the monotony of the gameplay. Leechgrave and Ruler of the sky were way easier than when I was younger I think people exaggerate how hard those bosses are.

Oh right, I never played mission mode or challenge missions that much when I first played it and I don't get why, it's useful and fun!!

❤︎

Ok so I've got something to admit... despite being a fan of KH for a while now I've never watched like.... hmmm 90% of BBS cutscenes. Gave myself a brief synopsis but just never got around to delving deeper.

BBS dumps so much information and tutorials on you that I still do not fully understand how the command board is supposed to work and at this point I'm too afraid to ask. I'm not sure how beginner friendly this game is... kinda feels like a game for a lot of experimentation or game guides.

It has been years since I've played DDD so getting used to that command deck in BBS was ROUGH, took me until after Radiant Garden to get used to (at least I think it'll prepare me for my DDD replay).

I didn't really get the trio until maybe... fighting Master Eraqus (also, fuck that guy, and his battle). It was from there going forward that I got into the story. To be honest I wasn't sure what to make of Aqua until I played her story and that's when it all fit together, yes... yes I like them all. Still didn't really get too emotional until the point where she is in the realm of darkness and gets saved by those keyblades (I thought it was going to be Mickey - so now I don't know where those Mickey comments about him leaving her there for 10 years come from??).

Mini notes I made during my playthrough:

Obtains reversal and asks what it is before realising it was like Roxas and Sora's reversal move and I was like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YO (proceeds to never activate it, cause I suck).

One note is just me writing "Captain Justice???????" I assume when he appeared on the command board before I saw him in Ventus' story.

The Spirit of the Magic Mirror is a genuenily terrifying design I hate it so much, and you fight him twice? (not hard, just scary)

Aqua vs Terranort phase 2 was my Legends Arceus Origin Forme Giratina (but thankfully it was MILES easier than the first phase).

I love that when you visit disney worlds in the different stories it plays at different points in time/merges together at some point.

Pacing was a little weird for me because I finished each story in under 10 hours (considering Reverse/Rebirth took me 15 hours) it was pretty surprising... but I think... I like that? I've never been big on JRPGs but I can see BBS as being the easiest to replay for how short each story is. I don't know what they'd do but I'd love another game like this, regardless if it fits into a bigger picture. Let me play side characters like this more PLEASE.

❤︎

Now, I've owned Re:coded on the DS longer than I've had the PS4 collection but I will be playing that next for the first time, I've heard mixed opinion but if the different gameplay is true then that's huge.

For this I WILL play the DS game first before watching the movie and with any luck I should finish it before the new year.

[misc-obeyme]

oh I love talking abt tbwse my creativity block is go n e

I like to think most of them don't live at the castle, though. Like they just work there and come and go and have varying shifts. Uhh but that's if they're just normal people and not criminals lol!

this too! in my hc Lil Ds, Maidservants, cooks & scullions and others with a criminal past lived at the castle while others worked shifts. some also didn't need shifts since their jobs weren't that heavy. some of the ones who's family live far away from the castle also do live there, younger ones as well. oh to be a teen wingless demon running erands at the castle and knowing Barbatos....,,,

I suppose whether or not they actually did something terrible has to do with how deranged you want Diavolo to be. Like if he was really kinda off the deep end, he could absolutely just obtain people he thinks are pretty and for no other reason. That's real villain behavior generally speaking. But if you want him to be a little less that way, you could say they were criminals. Then at least there's a legit reason for it, even if the punishment is a bit intense... they are demons, so really there's a lot of ways you can go with it!

My Diavolo is the villain.. in other people's stories lol /j i just love my man being a tiny bit cruel. he's actually pretty kind, and way kinder than the older kings. they ruled with iron fists and even something as small as stealing bread for your hungry child was punished with amputation-

the past devildom was horrible to say if you weren't a noble. When Diavolo took over the throne it became way better and even commoners could live a comfortable life.

most of those "I just thought they're pretty" staff are from the timed either he was a child or still new to the throne. he did learn, although still sometimes he can't help it. plus, demons are hard to rule, they're not like humans. one sign of weakness and you're done for. if it wasn't for Diavolo showing his power, MC & the angels were possibly dead at the first weeks lol (although, since RAD .. is a royal academy, the students are nobles or have family members work at the castle, similar things. also its smth like all grades are there so Luke makes sense >:( RAD isn't that populated as well- but itsbpopulated with famous people >:) )

but that doesn't mean the whole city RAD takes place in is like that though!. RAD may be safe, but the outdoors are not.

Ohh it sounds like you've worked out quite a bit about how these things work! It definitely makes sense for there to be a lot more people living and/or working at the castle.

Okay I dunno how I missed the part about Luke... if he's really supposed to be ten why is he attending school with everybody else?!?!? How did I not realize this previously?!?!?!

Anyway... that just isn't something I really thought about before, but now it's gonna bug me lol.

I think it makes sense for previous demon kings to be... well, demons. Then you get Diavolo who is still definitely a demon, but unique enough to have his own ideas, which makes him just a tiny bit softer than the others. I like the consideration of the fact that demons are harder to rule than humans. That makes sense to me. And I think canon could use a little bit more expansion on that in general. Just because they aren't humans, but sometimes the stuff the characters say makes me go hmm.

But anyway, I quite like your worldbuilding here, expanding on canon in a way that makes it a little darker, but also more realistic. Since we are dealing with demons!

I don't mind the demons being fluffy at all, but it's also interesting to explore them being more villainous in general!

[iantheartandtapecollector]

Hey guys, I decided to try another top 10, and this time I'll be talking about my top 10 unpopular opinions. Now keep in mind, these are my unpopular opinions, so if you disagree with me, that's completely fine. Now without further ado, let's get to the list.

10. I hate Gacha Life

Yeah, I know I'm gonna get shot for saying this but I hate Gacha Life, In my opinion, it's overrated in a bad way, overused, and it really gets on my nerves. @asherbuddy uses this from what I've heard. Anyways, you won't be seeing me use Gacha Life AT ALL!

9. I find VHS better than DVD

As a kid, I always had a fondness for VHS, I especially loved seeing the nostalgic previews, the different promo material that can be included inside the VHS along with the tape, and the different colors that the actual tape can be. DVD on the other hand, I hate it. Discs get scratched easily, some previews can't be seen on DVDs. But yeah, VHS is my preferred format.

8. I like cartoony games better than games that are real

You know how I prefer animation over live action? Well the same could be said with video games. When it comes to video games, I prefer a cartoony and distinct style better than games that look real and boring. Games like any FPS game, feel like they look the same, and I find it overrated in a bad way. But when it comes to cartoony games like Spyro the Dragon or Crash Bandicoot, they have very unique styles for their games. So yeah, I would rather play games that are cartoony rather than games that look real, boring, and cheap for a quick paycheck.

7. I prefer Nintendo consoles

I'm a huge Nintendo fan, especially with their consoles. I always played them a lot even as a kid. As for the PlayStation consoles, I have played those consoles a few times, but as for Xbox consoles, I hate Xbox mainly because they have so many FPS's and I hate them. Nintendo's got a lot of distinct games which is why I've been on the Nintendo bandwagon for so long.

6. I prefer cartoons with anthropomorphic animals, food, or vehicles

When it comes to cartoons, one thing that I like seeing the most, is seeing different cartoon characters that are either animals, food, or vehicles. Shows like Elinor Wonders Why, Work it Out Wombats, or VeggieTales, make it different because they decided to try something different character-wise. But cartoons where it's nothing but humans, I get bored of it real fast. Although there are a few exceptions like The Loud House, Peanuts, or The Powerpuff Girls for example.

5. I prefer the original version of Super Mario 64 over the Nintendo DS remake

For those who've been following me for a while now, you'll know that Super Mario 64 is one of my favorite games of all time. Heck, it was thanks to Super Mario 64 that it introduced me to video games in general and I've played it countless times. In 2004, came the release of the Nintendo DS, and the launch title, Super Mario 64 DS, which is a remake of the original. But in my opinion, I prefer the Nintendo 64 original over the DS remake. The Nintendo 64 original is simple yet charming, but the DS remake in my opinion, there's been stuff that's either added or changed, and I'm not one for changes like this.

4. I hate RPG's as a whole

If there's a genre for video games that I hate, it's RPG's. I just find RPG's to be boring, repetitive, and overrated. Games like Final Fantasy, Paper Mario, and some others, are not really for me. I'm more of a platformer kind of person in my opinion. When it comes to video games, you won't see me playing any RPG's any time soon.

3. Thomas and Friends Season 6 doesn't look that bad

I know you guys are gonna kill me for this but I don't think Season 6 of Thomas and Friends is that bad. A majority of the fans say that the writing in some episodes is sloppy, the narration is flat, or the visuals are dull. But me on the other hand, I don't think it's not so bad. I think Season 6 has a majority of good or okay stories (except for Middle Engine. That story was shit).

2. Wilbur is underrated

Who remembers Discovery Kids? I know I do. One thing that Discovery Kids did on their channel was a special block called "Ready, Set, Learn" and there was two shows I enjoyed from the block, which were Peep and the Big Wide World, and of course Wilbur. When it comes to Wilbur, I feel like it's just underrated. The characters are quite cute, especially since Dasha's my favorite character, and the stories they tell have a good moral too. It just saddens me that this series doesn't get talked about as much as it used to back when it first aired.

1. I prefer the Lyrick Studios releases of VeggieTales episodes more than the Word Entertainment releases

When I was a kid, I had an unhealthy obsession with VeggieTales, especially when I first owned the episodes on VHS, specifically the Lyrick Studios releases. And as a kid, these were the best releases compared to the Word Entertainment releases. These Word Entertainment releases just don't do it for me. I honestly thought they lacked something, but when it comes to the Lyrick releases, they're amazing. Especially with the cover art for the different releases they had.

And those are my top 10 unpopular opinions. If you disagree with me, that's completely fine.

[widowshill]

Top 3 missed opportunities for DS - whether that's wishing a role had been cast differently, a plotline had another resolution, or an arc you wished they'd done/story they'd adapted! Please and thank you!

Sleepover asks.

1. PT Maxim and Mrs. de Winter should have been Lou and Alexandra. this is honestly the ds hill that I will die on, not that I can do anything about it. and it's not that I don't love Louis playing a smartass, wicked Jack Favell – I adore it! PT Roger is a delightful character to watch, and clearly one that Lou is getting a kick out of playing, which makes it even more fun for the audience. but. he would have been an excellent, excellent Maxim, which I base not only on his other performances in ds, but the kind of roles he was getting on the stage. as much as I like Selby, this was egregiously miscast, and frankly, I think, stupid not to put Lou in the role since they had him around. (even if they just had them switch places! Selby would have gone ham playing a part like that, pining over Lara!)

With Alexandra it's a little harder to say, well — it could have happened, since Alex had long left the show at that point and you'd really have to persuade her to come back as Vicki, but I think she might have enjoyed playing her slightly to the left. KLS does ... okay? she's the best choice out of the remaining cast (though — Nancy playing it would have been fun) but to be perfectly honest I don't think KLS does doe-eyed ingenue as well as Alexandra, she shines brightest (imo) in roles like Kitty, or Maggie when she had sharper edges. she'd have made a fucking fantastic Bea to Alexandra's Mrs. de W2. also generally I think Lou and Alex play really well with each other, they have really good stage chemistry. one of the big weaknesses of parallel time is how uncompelling the main couple is compared to everyone else, but having Lou and Alex play the de Winter's in all their shades of romance and jealousy and loneliness and horror would have been. ugh. it upsets me greatly that we didn't get this! plus. victoria winters? c'mon.

2. Continuing the theme of why couldn't we have Alexandra back :( I suppose, I do think a massive missed opportunity is a version of supernatural Vicki. for one thing, AM was eager to play that, and asked specifically to make Vicki a monster or to let her have some more exciting villainous part, and Dan refused, and she never came back, and the people weep, 60 years later. or at least I do.

there's a lot of different directions you could have gone with this, I think the obvious one is a more robust haunting after Vicki's death, which would have been a) less demanding on new-mother-Alexandra than some other variety of supernatural nonsense, and b) extremely devastating for the characters to deal with. because the character of Victoria Winters is so utterly unmoored — there are no oil portraits of her, like there is for Josette. I think we see one small headshot in Jeff's hotel room. she's another stranger to Collinsport who met only tragedy, much like Josette, and like that prophecy went when Vicki first arrived, she's finally taken her place. patron saint of outsiders. and of course she haunts Collinwood: it's the closest thing to home Vicki ever knew. and it would be horrible in the fun way to watch the household deal with that: David finding Vicki among the rotation of his ghost friends — Liz knowing she helped create another ghost of a lonely widow — Roger trying to shield his heart with his skepticism and not acknowledge the scent of lilacs in the room, or hear Vicki's voice in the wails on the cliff.

if not a ghost, then perhaps a vampire — and we already have a variation on this in an au, but I think it has the potential to tie in thematically to Vicki's relentlessly-foiled search for her parents, because being sired by a vampire is a kind of adoptive fatherhood (without Barnabas literally fathering her, which I think is probably one of the silliest semi-canon explanations). that Vicki could have a version of her wishes granted — her search for blood ties with the Collinses — but not in the way she wants. or that Vicki, who has accustomed herself (and accustomed us to seeing her) as polite, good, modest, asking for little, and rarely acknowledging her own desires outside of the social order of marriage, forced violently into hunger, a soft unobtrusive girl suddenly given sharp teeth. which I think then begs the question of what she is to the family when she is not useful and good — when she does not take care of them but instead needs taken care of — when her dependence on them turns into parasitism. and I don't think that question has a simple answer, even if they love Vicki. Dark Shadows never really seems to consider that Julia might cure any other vampires than Barnabas, but that could be an option — certainly more merciful than letting Vicki live if that means living as something she hates.

third option ... something else? a monster that dark shadows has hitherto missed: there's precious little mention of any watermonsters in our seaside eldritch town, and I know I've bandied around the idea of a mermaid or siren Vicki with people before, especially as a form of rebirth after a drowning off the cliff. what feels difficult about putting that in the show itself as opposed to tie-ins (and probably why we never got any particularly watery creatures) is that it feels difficult to shoot, and they're certainly not going to regularly scout location footage of semi-topless AM on a Newport beach. even though, objectively, that'd be pretty great. there is that watery cove set in 1897, though, which I have just remembered, which feels more than do-able. if a little, um. H2O: Just Add Water.

I have a little bit less defined idea about what it would entail, but I do have this persistent association with Vicki being a kind of deer girl — doe-eyed, doe-skinned, beautiful in a faerie sort of way, prone to swerving cars, etc. and making up a kind of deer creature (in the way that Laura is a phoenix without us actually needing to see a bird?) feels in line with what we could do in rural Maine, especially with deer being symbolic of a connection between worlds and other realms and the Other Side. maybe an arc partly inspired by princess transformation folklore, like The White Doe — vampire-ish, certainly, with the element of needing to avoid being touched by sunlight! and fairytale is the other side of the coin of gothic romance. or something Artemis-esque — especially given Vicki's connotations with chastity and protecting young children. what does that look like exactly ... ? Roger accidentally sees Vicki in the bath and gets mauled by the local werewolf population? maybe. I'll have to think more on this!

🚫‼️ SKIP THIS FOR NOW UNTIL WE GET FURTHER INTO LEVIATHANS. TORTIE DO NOT READ !!! DO NOT CLICK READ MORE NOT PASS GO !!! ‼️🚫

3. No one cares about this on the whole entire planet but me, but instead of the werewolf being the ancient enemy of the Leviathans, they should have got Laura to return for the end of the arc. Now. Listen. Just hear me out. In the first place, werewolves being the leviathans' only weakness doesn't make any goddamn sense. and I say this in a show that doesn't care about making sense as a general rule, this dings way higher on the bullshit scale than usual. It's a lazy addition to try to connect Chris' plotline to our main story because we're losing interest in his problems as we get way bigger things on our plate. A noble goal, I guess (if you still care about Chris) but they don't convince me.

it's frankly nonsense that in a world before man there would have been werewolves (because ... they're men who occasionally transform into something else, by definition). it's even more nonsensical that there are werewolves before the universe, when there's only matter and energy. there are no men. there are no wolves. there's not even a moon that's been formed to howl at! this is malarkey, jack. and in no world whatsoever do I buy that a dark shadows werewolf can take on the kind of powers that they show us jeb and the leviathans having; werewolves only have physical strength, which is deadly to an unarmed human but more or less equal to an armed one, and lesser than a human armed with anything silver. the leviathans already dwarf that before jeb comes into power, but jeb especially is not even in the same league as werewolves. they're not even playing the same sport. coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.

now. if we're going to pull a sudden "actually the weakness for the leviathans has been here all along and it's this supernatural creature you've already been introduced to!" it should be the phoenix. the bird vs. snake motif has very strong mythological roots across culture and religion: in the Iliad, you have the omen sent to the Trojans.

“an eagle flew up high from right to left and held the army back. His talons clutched a huge red snake, still breathing and alive,” who had not given up the struggle yet. The snake coiled back and bit the eagle’s breast under his neck. In agony, the eagle let fall the snake upon the ground, among the crowd of men, and with a screeching cry he flew away upon the breath of wind.” (tr. Wilson, 2023)

There's the Mexica legend about the founding of Tenochtitlán, where the sun god Huitzilopochtli sends the image of an eagle devouring a snake on the spot where the city will be built; in China you have the fenghuang paired to the dragon; the Iranian simurgh and the serpent who repeatedly feasts on her eggs; and early Christian writers sometimes showed the struggle of Christ and the devil as between bird and serpent. Most notably: the enemy of the sun god Ra (portrayed as a falcon) is the god Apep, the embodiment of darkness and disorder which takes the form of a massive serpent. And in Hindu and Buddhist mythos the Nagas, the symbol of the Leviathans, are ancient enemies with the Garuda(s) — an eagle-like sun bird deity which spends eternity hunting and killing them.

Reintroducing Laura as the ancient enemy to the Leviathan would have given the story a lot more weight behind it — because the show has already done so much leg work connecting Laura's origins and power to Ra, and establishing the origin myth of the Leviathans as something primordial and semi-divine. They already separately embody the meaning in most of these stories, which is rarely good vs. evil, but warmth, light, rebirth, knowledge vs cold, dark, fertility, chaos. I'd more readily buy into the phoenix as an ancient pre-human enemy in part because the Dark Shadows phoenix is something non-human taking a human form (as opposed to a human afflicted with with lycanthropy); and as myths go, the phoenix is much older than the medieval Christian conception of werewolves (though there are wolf-men elsewhere in mythology).

From an in-universe perspective — Laura is already connected to the werewolves they want to make relevant again. Her immortal ex-boyfriend Quentin is running around, who's got plenty of practice contacting witchy women through fires with his extensive practice in the black arts. She has no reason to help them out of selflessness, she does have reason to act out of a desire not to surrender control of the Collinses to her enemies — especially her son, firmly under the Leviathan thumb, but also her grandchildren(husband), and her great-grandaughter (and reflection of herself), who really has the most to lose. There's a lot you could play with about ... the overlapping themes of Laura's monstrous marriage and motherhood coinciding with what the Leviathans have planned for Carolyn, this notion of a deathly, poisonous womb. And I think it would make a nice parallel to Paul — the Collins spouse thought formerly to be dead, making a strange return — and Roger's also working against the cult, and to save Carolyn, which would put him as unlikely allies with Laura to the same end with opposite motivations. Again. Which would be delightful to watch.

The biggest problem is that it hasn't been all that that long since her death in '67 — but 1897 already threw the rule of the 100 year reincarnation out the window. Things are dire. We've got demons more ancient than the universe running around installing the antichrist and invoking the end of days. Ra can give her a hall pass.

[snapscube]

Hi Penny really been enjoying your dive into Dragon Quest VII! Been curious, what made u decide on playing the PS2 version over the 3DS version of the game?

(gonna assume you meant DQ VIII and answer for that!) A few things! Obviously the 3DS version was tempting with the extra content and all that (especially knowing now that one of the added party members is Red UGHHGHHGHGHGHGHGGHGG god i wish) but the PS2 version, in turn, has

an orchestrated soundtrack (VERY IMPORTANT, Strange World does NOT hit the same through MIDI)

better visuals! i like the color palette of the PS2 visuals a lot better, and there's a lot more detail in the environment that brings things together nicely.

randomized battles, which is obviously gonna be different for a lot of people and a lot of situations in terms of whether it's considered a pro or a con. normally, i don't prefer random encounters BUT in my experience with DQ11 i found that when I had the option of skipping combat encounters I really would not level up as much as I should have before hitting a roadblock and needing to grind for at least a couple of hours. so far, though there has been a LITTLE grinding, being forced to engage with the combat system in the overworld while exploring and get a consistent flow of XP has really helped pace my playthrough a lot better!

Not to mention, at the time of choosing which platform to play on, I did not have any capture solution for 3DS fully setup and I was really resistant to the idea of emulating since I prefer playing on original hardware when I can help it. I've since settled on the fact that until I can get my hands on a hardware capture mod, emulation is gonna be the way to go for any 3DS/DS streaming I do. And I've got a setup that I think looks nice and runs well now but, again, at the time I did not.

Honestly though the BIGGEST reason, even after considering all of this stuff, is that when I think of Dragon Quest I think "large, cozy adventure". It has real nostalgic vibes even though I didn't grow up with the series. A perfect cozy-up-with-tea-before-bed kind of series. And I'm not sure if any game system complements those vibes better to me than the PS2 does. The PS2 has this pitch-perfect nostalgia factor in nearly everything about the way it runs, the way it renders visuals, and thankfully a lot of those things are in tact even when running on a backwards compatible PS3. And it does that without losing the inherent feeling of scale you get when playing a console game on a TV compared to a handheld game on a small screen. That perfect balance of comfort vs. scale is the biggest reason why I chose the PS2 version, and so far I do NOT regret the decision.

[thecodeveronica]

Well I'm dying to talk about Castlevania or I'll explode so here's my tier list for the "modern" era, regular timeline (non-LoS) games (basically SotN and onward), in honor of me getting the Platinum trophy for Dominus Collection last night :)

Reasons under the cut:

S Tier

Portrait of Ruin - LOOOOOVE this one. It's been my fave since pretty much the very first time I played it back on the DS and still is after my recent replay with the collection. Jonathan and Charlotte are just such fun protagonists and stand out a lot in this series, and I think the story is actually pretty decent in this one. By CV standards lol. Soundtrack is AMAZING, please listen to "Gaze Up at the Darkness" because it RULES. PoR also has very fair boss fights and a fair level EXP gain rate, and good drops from enemies too. The paintings are super neat too, mixes up the usual "well, here's Dracula's castle" of most of the games.

Lament of Innocence - I actually think OoE is an objectively better game overall, but I have a lot of love for Lament and am one of its big defenders so I'll put it one slot above lol. Leon! My favorite Belmont! He goes through the wringer in this game, and it's a very interesting origin story for the Belmont fight against Dracula. The gameplay is fun, kind of DMC-lite but with a whip (and cool elemental versions you can get from some optional fights). The level design is a lot of long hallways, but it has good atmosphere, and the game doesn't overstay its welcome as it is pretty short. Another FANTASTIC soundtrack too btw.

Order of Ecclesia - a game I didn't like at all back on the DS but fell in love with after my Dominus replay. Once the gameplay clicks, it is so satisfying swapping glyph loadouts and hitting weaknesses on enemies. You have to play smarter in this game, and it was fun improving. Hype as hell when you finally get to the castle, too. Shanoa is a very cool protagonist and has some of the best lines in the series, and I'm unabashedly obsessed with Albus. GOD he was so asdjfk;ls sorry, but damn was he perfectly tailored to my tastes. Story was good in this one, actually made me a bit emotional ngl, which is something I don't expect from this series lol. I lose my mind over the songs "Sorrow's Distortion" and "Rituals" just so you know

A Tier

Aria of Sorrow - extremely good game where the handheld ones found their footing fully, with a very cool concept of "what if Dracula was gone, but maybe he isn't ;)" Soma is iconic for good reason, and the Soul System is fun with a lot of options, even if I'm not nuts enough to ever try for 100% soul completion lmao. The castle is a little small in this one and it feels oddly short for the Metroidvania-era games, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I like the almost... soft?... look of the visuals in this one. Graham is also one of the villains I kinda like the most in this series, so that's cool.

Dawn of Sorrow - Pretty much Aria of Sorrow 2 lol. But I think it loses a little without the novelty of AoS's questions about Soma as the Dark Lord and all. Also, the villains in this game are fucking goobers lol, their character designs are godawful. Other than the castle being larger this time around, I think DoS doesn't really do anything different than AoS, and since I'm a freak who values story, I prefer Aria overall. That said, Julius Mode is pretty sick and I think Dawn's soundtrack is a little stronger overall.

B Tier

Symphony of the Night - I feel like it's blasphemy putting SotN this far down, but I honestly think it is a bit overrated. Good certainly and extremely important to the franchise, but also kinda jank to go back and play. I don't like the way equipment or items work in this game, and I'm not... super fond of the castle layout compared to the higher tier games. Inverted castle is also kinda meh, the only time I like that is when PoR did it with the paintings. However, I do love the original PS1 dub of this game. Absolutely iconic. The newer one sucks because it's so safe that it loses the charm. Like, come on. I think a series that has giant Frankenstein's Monster enemies shooting bullets out of its elbows can afford to have some cheesy lines and voice acting.

Harmony of Despair - a really fun multiplayer game! But it could use more maps (that it'll never get since it's long been abandoned 😭), and character balance is a little iffy. But I have a lot of fun with this one, even just with two players! It's functionally co-op Metroidvania, what's not to like? I think this game would do quite well with a revival on modern consoles and cross-play, and I dream of a world where that exists and they add new DLC. why the hell wasn't Albus in this game btw, like wtf he literally was playable in OoE and had sprites available

Harmony of Dissonance - ...this is confusing putting the two games with "Harmony" in their name right next to each other when they're not connected at all lol. Anyway, I like HoD, but it has some definite issues, the most of the games in this tier. The visuals are... hoo boy. The color palette is a bit much. And the music is uh... it's infamous in the series for a reason. The sad thing is that I think the actual compositions are solid, just hamstrung by the shitty Gameboy sound chip or whatever, and I'm someone who usually likes retro game music. Gameplay is solid, though! The A/B castle thing is kind of annoying because this game has some atrocious warp room locations IMO, but it's fun being able to dash and slide with reckless abandon as Juste. Wind+Bible is also a godly subweapon combo

Grimoire of Souls - damn you, Apple Arcade, for having this as an exclusive. I can't speak to the gameplay on this one for that reason, but I watched a whole 3.5 hour playthrough for the story, so I'm judging on that, mostly. A fun little plot that let characters from a lot of different time periods/games interact, which is cool. Lucy and Hermina were good original characters, too. Death in this game was kinda 👀 Lol I kid I kid, I only have eyes for Albus, who was not nearly as important in this game as I'd hoped but had an extremely nice scene with Shanoa, so it was worth. Jonathan and Charlotte were also very entertaining here, as always. I'll be real: those three were the whole reason I watched this tbh

C Tier

Circle of the Moon - this game is SO HARD. Like, I eventually got good in Order of Ecclesia to overcome the difficulty, but that moment of understanding just never hit me in this game. And there are no shops!! Oh my goooooooood, why??? If you could get potions more easily, it might be a little more reasonable, but I don't think the drop rates were even that good to make up for it. The boss fights were so tough, man... If I give this another try, I might have to do the DSS glitch, which I didn't know about at the time.

Curse of Darkness - Real talk, I don't remember this one very well at this point. I mostly just remember not liking the Innocent Devil system or the map design that much and thinking it was disappointing after I loved Lament so much. Maybe I'd like it better if I tried it again now, I dunno. Not much to say here.

D Tier

Judgment - Look, I have some good memories from this game. I used to play it against my sisters. I was super excited for it at the time. But it's just a super jank game. And the story mode is BAD (aside from a few characters). Like, I can handle anime cringe. But this is the BAD kind of anime cringe, the "boob envy"-kind of anime cringe. Maria's story is *gag sounds* Also not a fan of the roster choices here. CV3 in particular gets way too much rep, the GBA-DS era not enough (only Shanoa, and even then they murdered her design???). I can't believe Soma at least didn't make it in, a character with so many moveset options? Good for Cornell being in though, nice seeing the N64 characters actually acknowledged and he had one of the better story modes too. Speaking of characters, who thought it was a good idea to do a game that was functionally a big ol' celebration of the series with character designs that so drastically changed most characters into being unrecognizable? The Death Note expy jokes are played out, but they're so true nonetheless. The worst thing is still Maria's story mode and especially her interaction with Sypha, though. I cannot stress enough how bad it is. It makes me feel embarrassed just thinking about it lmfao

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS : Platinum Version

Game: Pokemon Platinum Version (September 13, 2008)

Console: Nintendo DS (Via emulation)

Another day, another Pokemon. After a really stressful and bad move. There was only one thing I wanted to do to destress: PLAY POKEMON PLATINUM!! So I did! And now I'm here to tell YOU what I thought about it!

That's all I got for an intro. So as always, this isn't a review! Just my thoughts on the game after beating it! If I ever talk about a game that interests you, regardless of my opinion, you owe it to yourself to PLAY THE GAME!!

AS ALWAYS, POKEMON PLATINUM SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Opening

So, much like Emerald last year, this is actually my first time playing through a Sinnoh region game! In a weird way I have a lot of nostalgia for DPP, while also having less nostalgia for it than RSE? For example, it's featured very prominently in Brawl. But like, I had barely seen any gameplay of these games before. But also, I played SoulSilver as a kid. So there is a connection there even if it's all over the place! I actually have a fond memory of picking my brother up from school and having him tell me that the new Pokemon generation would have a Monkey, Penguin, and Turtle starters... Crazy how time (and space) just seems to slip on like that. But there's no time (nor space) for that! Let's get right into Pokemon Platinum!

Stuff I liked

So... first off... This game is gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. The music and sprites really hit a sensitive spot in my brain and heart and soul. Cause my first night playing I was almost moved to tears by how pretty it was! I'm not kidding! It just really got to me for some reason! I think having actual day / night cycle that line up with real life is so charming. Even if I did end up mostly playing at night it actually made me want to play at different times to day so I could see the changes and hear the different TOD music. The sprites are seriously legendary, GBA sprites might still be a personal favorite but I think Pokemon have never looked better than they do specifically in the DS Main Series games. I still kind of consider them to be the gold standard for how a lot of Pokemon look and tend to pull out DS era sprites as reference more than their official artwork lol. And not only that, but 3D Models are used in this pretty heavily for the first time in the series. And maybe it's just cause I'm a sucker for 2D sprites on 3D backdrops, but I think it looks great! Visually, I think hands down this is the best Pokemon thusfar.

Next up, the music. Oh it was so nice, I loved a lot of the town themes this time. They were all really relaxing and comforting (again maybe cause I mostly played at night lol) and my personal favorite theme was Route 209 which I think might be a super generic choice BUT IT'S GOOD!! In general DS Pokemon has a really nice and cute soundfont. Maybe I'm just nostaglic from HGSS but... I'dunno! I like it a lot!

And the whole world of Platinum continues my personal favorite things I've been really loving about this series. Technology, and each region having a specific theme that shapes the plot and legendaries. On the technology side, the Poketech RULES. I made basically no use of it, but it's super cute and I feel like I would have been IRRITATING pulling out Platinum for the calculator constantly as a kid lol. And getting to collect new apps for it was super cute. I really love seeing the technology upgrade in the world as the technology in real life upgrades, even when tech in Pokemon is so sci-fi, it's very connected to our real world technology. And of course this ties into the tech the consoles are on with this game having online and TOD stuff. It's just... SO COOL how these games actually use technology to make each game so fascinating and cool in a tech way?? Idk.

As for the theme. Kanto had science, Jhoto had Spirituality, Hoenn had Prehistory, Sinnoh seems to be deeply rooted in... I don't know how to put it. Creation? Existence? As this focused more on human origin and creation? It has some interesting religious stuff too, even featuring a church which is surprising for a Nintendo game lol. But the whole theme of the fabric of reality with Time and Space and Distortion was very cool. And an interesting theme to set the plot around with the villains going from being kinda Rocket-esc lowlifes to becoming full blown terrorists to having the most INSANE plan yet. With the highest stakes of ANY villain team so far. It's neat.

Speaking of that, I did think the distortion world was kinda cool. I was pleasantly surprised to have the chance to actually fight the Boxart legendary after I felt a little robbed of that in Emerald. It was a neat set piece and having that last tense showdown with Cyrus in this bizarre purple hellscape was exciting! In general, I would really like to see more boss fights against Pokemon that aren't controlled by a trainer in the main story.

Sinnoh in general, I quite liked. It felt oddly familiar to me in a way. I think because so much of it is comprised of forests and lakes? It felt like something you'd see down where I live. And it has some pretty interesting areas like the beach town where they use solar panels as roads??? Totally solar punk dude I LOVED that. Super cute NPCs with some nice Gym Leader designs (a lot of hot girls in this game Cynthia was so FINE), Dawn is one of the peak Pokemon protagonist designs. It's a nice region with a lot of nice areas and people to love.

But, most importantly. How about those Pokemon? This is what it always comes down to for me. I play these games FOR THE POKEMON. They're who I want to see! Honestly? I quite like the Sinnoh dex! As a kid I remember really hating a lot of the Pokemon in this region. But I think that was childish genwunner brain. It's a GREAT selection of Pokemon with some genuinely fascinating choices for monsters. A venus fly trap, a straight up portal. Some of my favorite Pokemon come from this region like Mismagius and Darkria. And, I think DPPT does an OKAY job with the distribution. I was able to meet a lot of new faces and ultimately build a team with a few Pokemon I really wanted. But it's not perfect. Let's jump into that next section to talk about some issues I had when catching Pokemon.

Stuff I didn't like

So, yeah, I built a nice team and caught a lot of Pokemon. The distribution isn't bad. But it's not... great? So, at the start you'll be catching new guys left and right. Buizel, Bidoof, Kricketot, Shellos, Shinx... And then for about half the game you'll kinda realize... You're STILL running into those same guys over and over and over! So you end up with most of the Pokemon you'll meet right out the gate. Yes that's not entirely true, and when you get to the snowy region the selection opens up more. But still you'll be fighting the same handful of Pokemon for a good chunk of the game. And for as much as I like the selection of Pokemon, a lot of them are kind of weird looking and never really grew on me. And I think they rely a little too much on evolutions of old Pokemon. A surprising amount of them are evolutions. And while some of the new forms are personal favorites like Mismagius and Mammoswine. Sometimes they just ruin a line with something like Rhyperior!!

Alright alright. So, for as much as I liked Platinum. It had a lot of really weird shortcomings in my opinion. A big one being, you may have noticed... I don't compliment the story pretty much at all. I think it's kind of weak overall. The game opens and the reason you get your starter feels really weak and rushed. Like it's all just kind of happening to you really quickly? And then the plot is sort of nothing for most of the game. Galactic is there and doing low level crimes... Looker is there and he do be looking. Your rival is there and he talks... But there's not much happening for a good portion of the game and it just kinda feels like, underwhelming? And then part way through Galactic become terrorists and the game goes from 0 to 100 out of NOWHERE! JUST YESTERDAY I WAS COINCIDENTALLY RUNNING INTO A GUY WHO GAVE ME A TURTLE NOW I HAVE TO GO TO AN ALTERNATE REALITY!? It's not bad exactly it just feels so... Odd to me.

Then the gameplay, I can't help but be disappointed about team battles. Emerald introduced 2v2 battles and even had one whole single team battle with a partner! Platinum has way more 2v2 team battles! One where you fight alongside a green haired baddie and one where you fight alongside a guy who looked like sir aaron from the Lucario movie! That's awesome! But, and I know this was an unrealistic expectation... My beautiful 3v3 battles... Why didn't it happen? Just one battle where I control 3 Pokemon? Or it's me and 2 other people fighting all at once? I want MORE interesting things playing on the traditional battle system! I know BW will have 2 rivals. But somethings telling me to not get my hopes up for 3 way battles.

And lastly. The difficulty. Dude. I don't know if it was just me, but this game was HARD. Like, easily the hardest Pokemon game thusfar. I don't know what happened! I feel like every single story fight was a massive roadblock where I just couldn't made any progress to save my life. Grinding felt slower than the last 3 games, and it really felt like no matter how much I grinded or how high a level I was. The gym leader's final Pokemon would be 10 levels lower than me and still wipe my entire team by spamming a single move. I hit these roadblocks CONSTANTLY. During EVERY major boss battle in the game. I'm not kidding. I genuinely have no idea what I was doing wrong! I'm not a team building expert but I never had EVERY boss be a total roadblock. And sadly, this kind of made the game a drag. I knew I'd had to grind like crazy and just pray for good luck during each fight because being overleveled didn't help, odds are I'd miss all my attacks and get wiped insantly. And it really sucked the air out of a lot of scenes for me.

Final Thoughts

Platinum is a very good game. I completely understand why so many people say it's their favorite. It is COOL! It's easily the prettiest looking, maybe one of my favorite soundtracks so far in the main series. It's got a great selection of Pokemon and is fun. But ultimately, I just can't help but feel like it's missing something. Like it just has a lot of shortcomings in important areas I needed it to not have shortcomings in. If that makes sense?

Let's take a look at that tier list:

I always feel like a bit of a crazy person when I put any of these games lower than Red. OBVIOUSLY they are objectively superior to Red in nearly every way. But ultimately, for everything Platinum does better. I think Red still beats it at distribution of Pokemon, it's story, and making good use of its characters and villains. I do think this game IS a step up, but it's just not personally my favorite I don't think. However, it's still a cool game and I'm very happy I played through it!

===

That's that! Lately I'm a little swamped with irl stuff and work lately but I really had an itch to write some afterthoughts today! There's so much I'm playing atm and still some games I need to write about and there's so many upcoming games I wanna try and so many games I have that I haven't played. But we'll get to it.

Also this is completely random, but I like to mess around with the content for a game in Smash Bros. when I beat its origin game. And while I always liked Spear Pillar, after playing Platinum, it is straight up one of my all time favorite stages. It RULES! So chaotic, so gorgeous, and the detail of the bottom layer being the underground mechanic? That's SO FUCKING COOL!! Genuinely a new favorite!

Next up is Black & White! Which I actually have tried before! But never beat. So I'll hopefully be fixing that... Sometimes soonish!

If you wanna see the cold ass crew for Platinum you can right here!

And as always, you can follow me on twitter to see what I'm playing right as I beat it!

That's all I got! Go out and play something you wanted to as a kid, but never got around to!

[katierosefun]

Hello!

I’m rewatching BE (again) and I’m curious what you think of the timeline of jwds. Some people are like oh yeah they def did stuff/something after [insert arrest/clue/chase scene/homoerotic moment] and stuff like that. I personally think that while there was a lot of sexual tension going on, nothing really happened until the ds arrest scene which was basically a confession. If I had to add anything to what happened in that scene I would say the “missing” part is that I think ds stopped jw from full on confessing bc ds knew he was going to jail. He didn’t want anything to happen bc it would leave jw tied to him but also not really tied to him and he didn’t want jw to wait for him or feel trapped. Jw has had no one in his life to count on and be cared for by. Letting jw create that link between them only to be whisked off to prison two seconds later would exacerbate his abandonment issues. Homeboy literally cried over ds’s hands he would not have handled an acknowledgment of anything beyond “juwoon-a” well. Also I fully believe that jw did not visit him in prison and ds wouldn’t have allowed him to if he’d gone.

But yeah anyways those are my very messy thoughts lol. What do you think about the timeline? Do you think anything happened that wasn’t shown in the show and/or how things went at the end and after Nam Sang Bae’s death anniversary (I also think that was the first time they’d seen each other since ds got out of prison)?

Thanks!

hi anon!

to answer your questions: i honestly think part of my love for beyond evil is that there are some pretty ambiguous moments where it seems like dong sik and joo won hung around each other more than was seen on screen, so i personally love playing with whatever might have happened between them during that time.

that said, from a more technical perspective: i think the beauty of a lot of television shows (not just beyond evil, but especially beyond evil) is that there's always going to be an ambiguity of what happens where and what's shown on screen or not. i think true film theory professors/geeks could ramble for hours about the power of the camera in storytelling and how it completely changes the medium of what we know vs. what we don't. which is really all to say that i think since it's a show that has a camera that turns on and then turns off, beyond evil inherently is going to have scenes that probably happened but just aren't actually shown to the audience.

so just by default, i think there must have always been things happening between dong sik and joo won that just didn't happen in the show, and that's just by virtue that this is a television series that's made deliciously more ambiguous by director shim na yeon and writer kim su jin's creative choices.

but from a fan's perspective: oh yeah, i think dong sik and joo won absolutely had some closer will they-won't they moments that we didn't get on screen. not necessarily because the cast and creators cut them, but just talking about the characters themselves here--i like to think that joo won and dong sik had plenty tenser moments of just. figuring out whatever the hell is going on with their relationship.

and as a fan/fanfic writer, i definitely love playing with what could have happened in those kinds of moments. in some versions, i like the idea of one of the two of them crossing a line somewhere . . . and in other versions, i like the idea of the two of them telling themselves that what they have is enough, and neither of them will do a single thing about it until maybe a year or ten years after the events of beyond evil. but who knows! the world is our oyster when it comes to things like that. it's just always nice to see when people have different interpretations and different ideas of how joo won and dong sik might have finally gotten together :)

[autoplaysdigimon]

thinking about that one video (Pokémon Fan Plays A Digimon Game And Hated It) about that girl who somehow beat Dawn without learning how to dedigivolve or scan new Digimon. She beat the game with an Apollomon, a MetalSeadramon, a Megidramon, and no idea what was happening or how to play at all

Jaiden Animations! I LOVE her videos! I saw someone posting to an ace blog I follow going "DID YOU SEE JAIDEN IS ONE OF US" like. minutes after she posted that coming out video so I've been watching hers ever since haha.

Anyway, yeah! I saw that video and it was SPOT ON in like almost every way, like in the background there were people mourning ReArise and all (I was like "THAT'S ME") but I did wince a little at the top screen island being empty... girl no

But, like, if someone came up to me and asked "Hey, I hear you like Digimon, I'm looking to get into it, which game should I start with?" I... don't know what I would say. Probably ask what kind of genre they liked, since they cover such a wide range. But yeah,

Digimon World 1 is a game I'd suggest to someone if I could guide them through it directly because it's so weird and difficult (in the same way that a petulant child can be difficult)

DW2 I think I played in a really weird and roundabout way anyway so I don't know if I'd rec that but it's not really bad per se

DW3 my complaints are EXACTLY what she brought up (no fast travel and LOTS of backtracking)

DW4 I haven't actually played all that much so all I can say is "idk it seems okay"

Rumble Arena 1 and 2 are pretty good if you like fighting games and they've got some cool mechanics but there's not much substance to them

Digimon World DS, Dawn and Dusk are pretty neat but they can be pretty finicky to deal with (and I share her pain at the absolute maze nature of the damn maps) but by god the sprite work is gorgeous

Cyber Sleuth is WHERE IT'S AT so I guess I'd suggest that one? I figured out that the continuous missions from the board are random and not essential several weeks into it so idk maybe don't do that over and over? I haven't played Hacker's Memory yet but I'm gonna!

Battle Spirit = no

Digimon Racing = I would play this game if you paid me for it but otherwise I ALREADY DID MY TIME.

Obviously Digimon World Re:Digitize and Next 0rder have the same gameplay problems as Digimon World 1, mayyyybe I'd suggest Next 0rder for the perfect blend of weird and interesting gameplay and modern gameplay experience? If it's not your thing to play, it's not your thing, tbh. (It very much is MY thing, though haha)

I think I posted a comment on the video when I watched it, but I guess my suggestion for which game to play first is... don't? Watch the anime first?? idk man it's better to go in for the love of the creatures bc I will probably suffer through a terrible game if they gove me a Veemon to make up for it but if you don't have that sort of attachment then it's hard to make it feel worth it!!

ALSO ALSO.

I saw which Digimon was used as the wild encounter, and.

Leave him alone :(

[0nelittlebirdtoldme]

Writer asks

Got tagged by @bluecatwriter. With another year of writing slowly coming to an end, why not look over some of my stuff? Thanks for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

143 works, however 2 or 3 of them are just some of my crossposted fanart.

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 428,434. Wanted to get to 500k this year, but i suppose i am not quite there yet.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Still just Dracula/Dracula 2020. Some IWTV, some Fight Club. 2 for Empire of the Vampire which i have neither finished reading, nor is there a proper fandom for.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Death's Sunrise (of course, the only fic to gain over 1k kudos). 1,071 as of now

3 Sandman fics i don't care for anymore so i am not gonna name them (if you are curious, just look them up yourself, you know where to find them)

The Gathered Night 

Touch as Soft as Ice (Harkula Tumblr Prompts) (the tumblr prompt collection which i kind of have disbanded by now - i just post the prompt fics by themselves these days)

Ladybugs Don't Fly at Night 

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, but sometimes i just lack the energy. I do get a lot of comments, in all fairness, but even if i don't reply right away, i just want you to know that i do read and appreciate them all! <3

6. What's the fic you wrote that has the angstiest ending?

The majority is really angsty. If I had to guess, either DS or Completed - a quadruple drabble in which Dracula, in his delusion, is holding onto Jonathan's very dead corpse, somehow still waiting for him to come back to (un)life.

7. What's the fic you wrote that has the happiest ending?

Either something from Castles in the Air, my softer drabble collection, or something like Keeping Family - a very self indulgent murder husbands + accidental baby acquisition fic.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

By god, the things i find in my inbox some days are really something. (Side bar: just because a writer writes specific themes and topic it doesn't make it alright to send them death and grape threats christ on a cracker)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Oh yes. My smut always flirts with the idea of consent and power dynamics. I think it's in general on the more intense side, although i do have some softer, slower works. A personal favorite of mine are the really sweet and sloppy ones - consensual somno and the like.

10. Do you write crossovers?

TGN, my beloved. My Dracula x IWTV crossover. Not really related to either Dracula or Interview with the Vampire, but i just wanted to put my 4 vamps (Jonathan, Drac, Louis and Lestat) like mentos into a carbonated soda bottle and shake them around real good, just to see what happens.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Er. Yes. Was a whole deal. Sorted it out. Kinda. Hope it doesn't happen any longer.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not officially (see no. 11)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I would be down for it! I do some beta reading for KINGBeerZ on ao3, both for his Dracula fics as well as currently an original work, which is fun and interesting, but i could totally see myself actually co-writing a fic with someone else if we had the same vision for the story.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Forgive me, but yes, it is Harkula. Sorry not sorry. I like them messy, i like them problematic, and i am aware of it. Also i just like to see Jonathan properly dishevelled and out of breath.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

There has been one fic i pulled and have not looked at since. It was giving me trouble the second i posted it, made me have a mental break down and freak out. Didn't get much feedback on it the weeks after so i decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Probably wouldn't do it that way these days, but eh.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel like i am quite good with dialogue, quick snappy banter and teasing and the like. Maybe also the way i describe pain, body horror, etc.?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Grammar. I swear. As a non native speaker, it is always grammar for me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I either translate it right away, put it in italics, or leave it as it. Totally depends on what effect i want to achieve.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

With great shame i have to say that i started out on Wattpad. 15 year old me has discovered BBC's Sherlock and was unstoppable (well, at least until i switched to ao3 and nuked the wattpad account). On ao3 my first fic was DS, and the fandom Dracula (2020)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Hard to say. I still love DS despite the typos and messy plot, and am currently obsessed with TGN. But there are so many others i am quite proud of.

Leaving a tag for @argyleheir as well as @chthonic-cassandra and anyone else who feels like it, but absolutely no pressure!