#i really gotta replay the dlc

[twipsai]

is it an unpopular opinion to say that i like The End's fight in the base game rather than the dlc?

[jonny-b-meowborn]

So I've been playing Echoes of the Eye for a while now, and I still have a lot to discover but as the resident furry/monsterfucker I have to say, I'd 100% kiss the owl people. They're tall and scary, which honestly would be enough for me, but also they're weirdly polite and make some banging tunes. They look like they're very soft to the touch, and like they're great huggers. Overall 10/10 creatures

[anime-grimmy]

Soooo, you've probably noticed Ive been replaying HZD recently so my mind's been stuck on the franchise for a while.

I finally took the time to actually try and experience Burning Shores for the first time, this time with an unbiased opinion.

Bcs, ngl, when it came out, I was very negative towards it for a couple of reasons. It already started out with me not being able to freaking play this DLC, even though I was so excited for it, cos while HFW was on PS4, the DLC wasnt. And Im wasnt going to buy a whole ass PS5 just for a DLC.

(I will get it once I buy a PS5 for MH Wilds though).

And then, ofc, the elephant in the room - Seyka, or rather Aloy's relationship with her.

I'll preface this with, though it should be obvious with my content, I do NOT have a problem with Aloy being in a gay relationship.

What rly irked me, and honestly still irks me, is that Aloy finally gets to experience new feelings IN A FUCKING DLC. AN EXTENSION A LOT OF THE PLAYERBASE WONT PLAY.

The second reason I didnt enjoy this decision was bcs it felt so rushed. I mean, we're talking about Aloy here! Miss "I dont have time for feelings bcs I gotta save the world"! Miss "I barely just learnt to let others in"!

From what Ive heard, the DLC is over the course of a few weeks/months, so it's not like they fell in love just like that, but Ive also heard that while playing you do not get a feel for that passage of time. I'll have to experience that for myself though.

Now that Ive had some distance from the franchise though, my feelings have changed a bit

Im not going to lie and say I now loooove this decision. No, I am still miffed such enourmous character developement for Aloy is stuck IN A DLC. Not to mention that it was such a bold move to try this with a new character, cos this relationship being perceived well hinges on the player liking Seykay and that fast. Imo she's a fine character but also nothing special.

Now, I do have to say, I am really happy that Aloy has finally come so far that she allows such intimate feelings to develop, or rather, that the devs let her be this way. I know a lot of us still perceive Aloy as this single minded protag, that wont let anyone in bcs "the mission is too important", so Im glad Guerilla shows us that Aloy has undergone quite the growth.

Im also pleasantly surprised that Guerilla has the guts to include romance for Aloy, bcs they were one leg in the "strong women need no (wo)men" pit, so it's great to see they dont let Aloy fall into that trope.

Now, for the FUN part.

I actually have a conspiracy theory, ie I am gaslighting myself on why such a big thing is stuck in a DLC.

I think Guerilla is testing the waters to see how players react. I am pretty sure they can gather the data on what dialogue options players used, so Im thinking this:

Guerilla is trying to gauge the player reaction on a) Aloy developing feelings, b) players thinking Aloy is ready/willing for a relationship, c) same sex relationships. They tried killing quite a few birds with one stone.

I have seen quite a few teasing, winky face posts and replies from Guerilla staff about romance options in the third installment, so my guess (delusion) is that the relationship is hidden in the DLC so Guerilla can plan on how much and obvious to include several romance options in the last title.

I know this is all just wishful thinking, but even if Seyka is a good character, I hope to fucking god that they dont just take that relationship decision away from us, esp with a character bound to a DLC.

Guerilla gave us such a wonderful cast of characters over the last two games, and if they want to give Aloy an "end game" in the third title, I hope they do let us choose with who. Or at least I hope they dont force a relationship we cant choose onto us.

Cos as much as Aloy is her own person, it is still US that make the decisions in game. Through our individual playstyles , we give Aloy our own interpretation. Now, we cant change her core values, but still, I hope to GAIA that Guerilla will give us enough wiggle room.

(Guerilla, Im begging you, Ive already waited 8 years, please dont let my ship sink)

[apostaterevolutionary]

So another thing I want to talk about post-veilguard re: the lore. There's been plenty of long explorations of the de-fanging or just skipping entirely when it comes to the political stuff and I think the topic's been covered pretty well by others at this point, so I won't dwell on that. But I do want to talk a bit about the higher, more mystical lore with respect to gods/religions and the direction it's taken since inquisition's dlcs. Because... ngl, I didn't love it then, and I don't love it now

(Veilguard spoilers, but this also is about inquisition's dlcs too)

So. First off: I have not actually played the descent or trespasser. Because, at the time they were released, I was playing on previous gen consoles and thus I literally could not buy them even if I’d wanted to (and at the time, I did want to). I maintain that was incredibly dumb 10 years later, given trespasser was the actual ending of the game locked behind a price tag, but let's not beat skeletal horses huh lmao

Anyway. So I have only read about the events of those on the wiki/in people's posts (I don't enjoy watching let's plays unless it's someone doing something weird so). I own all the dlcs now, as I now have a computer that can run the game and I bought all of them, but every attempt to replay inquisition since my insane fervour when it first released has failed. I just can't finish the game, so I can't play the dlcs. Anyway. All of this to say: my knowledge of what happens in them may be skewed and even wrong. But I'm gonna talk about the topics anyway, so please feel free to chime in if I’ve got something wrong

So firstly: the titans. I remember really not liking this development when the dlc came out cause like. What? I read the wiki page then (and again recently, cause I remembered very little lmao) and honestly I still don't like it cause it just feels so... at odds with everything else in the lore? Idk. I still don't get how it fits in with absolutely anything. Feels out of nowhere and doesn’t really fit. But okay, they’re here now, and I’ll talk about their tie in to the rest of the lore later. But suffice to say: it just felt like a weird thing then and I maintain it does now too. Like it just doesn’t fit and feels like a weirdly forced addition. I guess that’s personal opinion but I gotta say it

But the bigger part of this is. The sort of... removal of all religions in Thedas for the sake of just. Elves were everything? At first, I really disliked the rewriting of elven gods as tyrants cause it's like... the simple, silly elves mourning everything they lost but actually what they lost was oppression and slavery even worse than today!!! That has implications I really dislike. But now it's... okay Tevinter gods? Well, people worshipping dragons makes sense, even if they weren't really gods - sike! They weren't just dragons either, they were fucked up dragons controlled by the elven gods. The elven gods which aren't even gods, but really just random people. Except those people were also fade spirits made physical. But still not gods! It's important that they are not in fact gods and just powerful mages! Oh also the maker is bullshit too and Solas was the maker, at least in the context of the golden city story (I'm actually fine with the maker and that story specifically not being real it's just. The combo of everything, you know). Also the elven not-gods destroyed the titans too! So also dwarven problems were their fault too! And destroying the titans created the fucking BLIGHT!!! You know, the worst thing to ever exist! Everything comes back to just these guys!!!

Like. It’s all Solas and the Evanuris all the way down. Everything is just them. It makes the world feel so… small. I don't like how everything's just narrowing in on one thing here? Fantasy with different races and religions are fun because it's like. I found the original stories interesting. The story of the elven gods and the forgotten ones being locked away by a trickster so that only he remains is such classic myth shit. I enjoy that. Lyrium being a weird, magic rock that just exists and also it’s poison? Yeah, that makes sense - we have radioactivity in real life lmao, why can't rocks be weird in a land of magic. The blight just. Existing as an evil thing, either as a result of the golden city story or something else - that’s also fine. And as much as the andrastian religion has done some terrible stuff (and the like. it just being christianity but jesus was a woman this time is kind of boring), the concept of worshipping an absent god is actually pretty interesting

And now it just feels like

Idk to me it feels so limited to just boil all of these interesting mythologies and beliefs down to just... well it was all the Evanuris. Everything was the Evanuris. Also they weren't even gods, they were just terrible. There are no gods in this world. If you want a religion, better bring paragon worship to the surface or go join the Qun cause apparently they're the only ones who have any kind of factual stuff going on in their religions (for now, at least lmao)

I recall seeing a post somewhere asking why no one in this game is religious at all. Well, I think this is why: most of the religions are about to not exist anymore. The dwarves are mostly okay, cause paragons are just ancestors, they were real people (though I'm sure there are some who's history has been distorted). Like the titan thing is a thing but idk how bothered most dwarves are by that, it’s not really brought up much. The Qun doesn’t have any sort of deity that we know of so like. They're okay. Except they don't have a military so. That's a problem for the nation, which could lead to the religion ceasing to exist if anyone decides to conquer them back after all the shit. Idk. I'm an atheist irl lmao so this feels kinda weird to harp on but it is very weird to me for a fantasy game to just. Destroy all the gods and beliefs like that. I suppose it's a unique choice but still... Why

(I also just remembered we still have the Avvar I guess, but they worship spirits, no? Which are also not really gods, but at least that’s also a believable religious concept. I’ve never seen a fantasy setting with no real gods before honestly. It’s a very bold choice, one I’m not sure I like)

And maybe! I'm missing something, either something that was maybe hidden in a codex or book I haven’t read or something that happened in one of the dlcs I haven't played but. Idk. The world of thedas feels just so small and cramped now that we know that everything most citizens of the world has ever believed was false and just boiled down to a small handful of old timey tyrants. Even the falseness I could deal with, but the limiting of just. Oh it was all just these guys. That’s it. All them. That's just... I don't like it. The larger context of dragon age lore is… idk it’s been getting smaller and smaller since the end of inquisition and I don’t like that

I started drafting this partway through playing and one of the things I also talked about was ‘where the hell are future games going to go now???’ but now I’ve also seen the secret ending and that… once again implies there’s something bigger behind absolutely everything? I sincerely hope that’s in a like. Subtle influence thing and not ‘oh yeah, Loghain and Bartrand were actually ~manipulated~’ way cause taking away their agency makes them infinitely less interesting characters (plus Bartrand already has the lyrium idol as part of the reason he did what he did). Like pls don’t let this turn into an idea that people can’t just do terrible things. Please, we really don’t need that. That may not be where it’s going but idk, that got my hackles up lmao

AND apparently in the reddit AMA they said they were done with the Evanuris’ story but like… the Evanuris were just everything that’s ever been believed in? I guess they don’t have to personally show up but… idk I kinda figured there’s no way to get away from them now. Also Solas, is still kicking around, even though presumably with the veil being tied to him... assuming he did get out or was freed again, he wouldn't kill himself to tear down the veil, right? Right??? This isn't an issue that may come up one day????? I kinda feel like it's a little bit of a plot hole

But that’s kind of a side point. The larger thing here is how we see the major religions and mythologies in Thedas all just converge on the same thing, a thing which is no longer an issue so. They’re mostly just gone? I can’t imagine the chantry is going anywhere soon (though with the south so thoroughly fucked, who knows, maybe too many people died and the religion will die too cause the political power structure is completely gone – if Tevinter didn’t get a new, good leader during veilguard I’d say they’re definitely going to take advantage of the weakness of the south to make their empire big again. Also ngl I actually think that would be an interesting thing to happen but oh well lmao). Not only are there no actual gods in Thedas, almost every religion was actually this one group and that’s it. That’s just so bizarre to me and I don’t like the implications. Fantasy settings and religions and deities go hand in hand and I guess they don’t have to but. It does feel like the world is smaller now, not bigger

Idk I don’t really have a real big conclusion here it’s just. Why do this? Why tie so much of the lore back to just one group? A group you’re also apparently done with now? And with the secret ending hinting at yet another group that even more things are going to be tied back to… This feels like very simplistic storytelling, not complex storytelling to me. And I don’t like that

[imageingrunge]

Okayyhhh finished da2 last night it really has the best storyline of the series (after DAO of course 😭) and it makes me SO maddddd that it got universally dumped bc ppl wanted racial specs so bad!! I only have one complaint abt it and it’s that I hate the maps/layout (but I hated that aspect in dao too) so while I’m sitting here trying to get dai to load without crashing I gotta wonder is it even worth it to replay it? Outside of your love interest the inquisitior doesn’t have a personality or really any personal struggles- unlike hawke and the warden ur characters backstory exists 80% in your head and 20% in dialogue. all EA did was give us a codex entry. You can’t even be funny it’s either ignorant, sad, or mad and then ur voice reverts to a neutral posh persona. Don’t even get me started on the dialogue wheel cuz u never know what ur character is going to say 😭 the large scale mage Templar uprising is done by act 1 n ur stuck w Corypheus the cousin Greg of all DA villains as the main conflict. Why am I laughing at Cullen praying to andraste that I don’t get killed in the final battle ?? Babe it’ll be over in two minutes. Anyways the only saving point of DAI is the dlc now that was tasty and well Cullen’s arc when u marry him at the end imo ❤️

[solid-six]

14, 16, and 24 for the game asks! :)

14. A song that’s sure to hit your nostalgia buttons

Deepest, most nostalgia-y cut has gotta be anything from the Jurassic Park SNES game. Everything from it is still a banger.

16. A game you’d like to replay that you haven’t

Oooh I’d say the Resident Evil 4 remake! I played it once and had a lot of fun, but I remember it feeling looooong and ultimately exhausting. I REALLY love the Ada Wong DLC cause playing as her is so fun, it’s way shorter and punchier and still just as cool and I played that one several times. I love Leon too but man the boss-fight-after-boss-fight-after-boss-fight is a little much.

24. A game with a cool art style

Most of what I play is more on the ‘realism’ side, so for something outside of that and more on the stylistic side, I’d go with Firewatch. It’s so pretty, and! that’s how I got into virtual photography, with the little disposable camera you get and then get to see the shots you took at the end.

[stormikins]

Mass Effect Trilogy Tag

tagged by @nowandthane thank you!! Warning I ramble a bit in this lol

I am a fan since: 2017, I got it for Christmas in 2016 so I always just say '17

Favorite Game of the series: By virtue of simply replaying it the most, three. I really love the combat in it so I've played it near thirty times? But all time fave would have to 1 because of the aesthetic, tone, and story. There's something about first discovering a world which is what me1 is about.

MShep or Femshep? Gotta go with Femshep. I have played both, its just hard to capture the male shepard image I have in my head in the character creator so Femshep it is.

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer: earthborn! My main Shepard Jenn is earthborn so that's what I'm going with. Though, I have numerous Shepard's are various background combinations. I have feelings about each background trust me

Biotics or tech: Both! Though I really do love biotics, you can do some cool stuff with them, setting up and detonating both biotic and tech explosions.

Paragon or Renegade: I have to repeat what nowandthane said, paragon choices, renegade dialogue.

Favorite Class: Sentinel. I love the versatility of the class, but I do have an affection for Infiltrator because that's what got me through me2 on insanity.

Favorite Companion: Tali. By story value, Javik. He's like one of the most important characters

Least Favorite Companion: Javik, throw your attitude out the airlock. IM JOKING! (he has every reason to be like he is. I love him very much) Liara is my answer though only because I don't like some of the story choices the devs did with her. (ex: why does she have Shepard's armor in a display case when i didn't even romance her??? I can't mention this at all??)

My squad selection: For Jenn's playthrough: Wrex/Tali in me1. Garrus/Mordin/Miranda generally in me2. Thane and Miranda/Samara for the collector base. Kaidan/Javik/James in me3. Of course, I mix it up based on story aspects and the difficulty settings. But me3 is pretty fixed bc I always play on insanity.

Favorite in-game Romance: Tali and Garrus. I'm a sucker for awkward, wet cat of a man like Garrus is. But Tali's romance man.... her parting line to Shepard during the beam run "I have a home" makes me insane actually

Other pairings I like: Obligatory Nihlus/Shepard/Kal (and the duos within in this throuple) mention here. Other than that, Joker/Miranda and Joker/James, Ashley/Garrus, and Shepard/Wrex, I could list a whole lot so I'll keep it to those ships lol

Favorite NPC: Nihlus and Kal'Reegar for sure. Victus and of course Niftu Cal our favorite biotic god.

Favorite Antagonist: Saren. He's the best one that we get in all three games (Harby could have been number one if they did anything with him in three but that's a rant for another time lmao)

Favorite Mission: Haestrom/Tali's Loyalty mission because that's when I get to see Kal <3 and blow up a colossus with the Cain. Also, the Collector Ship mission I have to mention because it's frankly the only mission besides the two previously stated where I've loaded up the save to play it on insanity when I'm bored. It's fun. Of course, this is with the Infiltrator.

Favorite Loyalty Mission: Tali for numerous reasons. Kal mention here. But I love the insight into Quarian culture we get. Also we see that fire in her when she's talking to the Board which I always appreciate. Along with her dialogue at the end, "I got better, Shepard. I got you." and then on the ship afterwards, "I don't think life is about what we deserve." I love her so much.

Favorite DLC: Leviathan. Only because of the horror aspect.

Control, Sythesis, or Destroy? Destroy. I have so many issues with the ending and that's the least worst option in my opinion so. (I too ignore that it wipes out the Geth and Edi fuck that)

Favorite Weapon: The M-90 Cain or the M-99 Saber aka the "Big Iron". Lancer in three was my favorite weapon before I found the Saber. Special mention to my bud the Mattock, I have been convinced of its glory. I do not think the Harrier is better anymore lol which my brother would be happy to hear

Favorite Place: me1 Citadel my BELOVED.

A quote I like Quotes I Like: The ENTIRETY of Sovereign's dialogue on Virmire GOD ITS SO GOOD!!!! / "Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer." / "Does this unit have a soul?" / "Just followed your example, Shepard. Yell loud enough and eventually someone will come over to see what all the fuss is about." / "I won't let fear compromise who I am." / "I MADE A MISTAKE!" / "Help me out here, Shepard. The line between friend and foe is getting a little blurry from where I stand." / There are so many great quotes in these games I could go on and on but I'll stop myself

No pressure tags: @spacebunshep @jtownnn

[cyborg-squid]

i've been replaying ER (5th time) for like the past week. and while you have the upcoming DLC and big Lore stuff. you also just gotta stop and think. "What was going through character's head at X moment?"

like the Ranni and Godwyn synced death, Night of Black Knives. seems to have been intentional on her end, but how did she feel about it? sad? begrudgingly acknowledging it as necessary? or was Godwyn a guy that was pretty far away on the family line that killing him barely counts as fratricide?

or when you have to beat Radahn to continue her quest. how does she feel at that point, orchestrating the slaying another one of her brothers, one that she seemed to (potentially) have more of a connection to? at that point, the state Radahn was in, it could be considered a mercy killing, but no less tragic.

and then Radahn, him verses Malenia, what was going through their minds when they clashed for the first and last time?! i've seen it posited that Malenia may have thought Radahn was targeting Miquella, which is part of why she ended up pushed to the brink and unleashing the Rot. but then on Radahn's side, maybe you have him facing down his half-sister, yes, but the child of the union (Marika and Radagon) that just absolutely devastated his own mother, these children potentially doted on by his father, who abandoned Rennala. it's not hard to imagine that some anger at that could have manifested itself in that conflict.

And Marika. and the Shattering. what must have been going through her mind then, to shatter the Elden Ring?! i think the timeline places it shortly after the Night of Black Knives, so maybe it was out of grief for her dead son? but i find that rather unlikely, it's probably more so that, perhaps alongside Ranni, she sought to break free from the yoke of the Greater Will, and like Ranni utilizing Godwyn's moment of death, Marika used that same moment and ensuing chaos as either her own or humanity's chance to break free, depending on how you view things.

and then for! after all that, for Radagon to try to reforge the shattered Ring, what was he thinking?! in the very literal sense! how entwined are the two of them?! could he see what she saw? could he feel her intent? or did he just 'wake up', come to, and see a son dead and the Ring broken, and tried to do what he could to physically fix things?!

it's really fascinating to think about, the "what happened here?", not just in the Lore sense with all their big Outer Gods and previous civilizations, but also in terms of the personal relationships and conflicts that end up bring a really big driver of this.

[queen-scribbles]

*crawls out of the woodwork* hi hi! Just wanted to say your vesper x kurt fics are amazing and thank you for sharing content. Have been back to this Fandom in the year of our lord 2024 lol. And I just wanted to scream about the de vespe DLC with a kurt fan and....

*swoons*

It's everything I hope for and more!! Would love to hear about your initial thoughts especially the dialog with kurt!

HI! Always nice to meet another Kurt fan! :D You're very welcome for sharing content, thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed them bc I do love writing about them.

OH LORD, the de Vespe DLC, I was excited for more content when that came out and it delivered. Especially for Kurt and his romance, holy cow. (In other words I WOULD LOVE TO TALK ABOUT IT THANKS FOR GIVING ME AN EXCUSE) I have multiple posts from various playthroughs in my Greedfall gaming tag about the Kurt stuff, from how protective and supportive he is, to him being all "Don't believe the nonsense in Aurelia's files on us" when his is just that he cares too much about the recruits and is too loyal to be bribed and I'm just like. Dude. I knew these things already. Neither one is nonsense, sorry I know you're actually a gigantic softie, in my defense you DIDN'T HIDE IT VERY WELL but his romance dialogue

HOLY

SHIT

I also have several posts joking about Kurt's VA owing me compensation for emotional damage with how well he does a lot of personal quest/romance scenes, but the KURT ROMANCE DIALOGUE IN THE DLC OH MY GODDDDDD. OH MY GOD. I have a save right before that conversation and I redid it about five times on the initial run, at least three on each replay, and will occasionally load that save JUST TO HEAR IT AGAIN bc it's so GOOD. He worries about you but knows you can handle yourself, no what's bugging him(and I love that DS is so gentle about the "you know you can talk to me right?") is the arranged marriage thing bc OFC you deserve "better"(/eyeroll) and he's being all doubting his worth again and YOU CAN ASK HIM TO MARRY YOU (THE WAY I WHOOPED first time through, seeing that option) before your uncle can go arranging anything and HIS VOICE. That quiet little "do you really mean what you just said?" is permanently etched into my brain partly bc I've heard eighteen times but whatever. He can't believe it, he has to be dreaming, and then you confirm and his only hesitation is worrying what will happen to you(bc he doesn't matter, he's an insignificant mercenary and Kurt buddy you MATTER TO HER we gotta work on that). And I gotta say that I love your response boiling down to "what's my uncle gonna do about it, he's halfway around the world and he needs me here😎" BAD.ASS. And once he's sure you're sure he's 100% in favor and you exchange I love yous and I melted into an extremely happy puddle.

(I did write a Ves/Kurt wedding fic and it's one of the most breathlessly joyful pieces I've made in my life, both of them were practically vibrating they were so happy)

[wfagamerants]

A bit late because lol, rl, but as a blog about my Mario opinions, I can’t resist rambling a bit about my opinions of stuff in a direct full of Mario stuff.

Ordering them in how excited I am for each of them, though in the end I am happy about all of these, it’s just a way to decide how to order them.

Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon Switch

I genuinely like Dark Moon and honestly don’t think it's rep as the lesser of the three games in some circles is earned, so seeing a Switch version is welcome in my book.

That said, I do have some concerns with how choppy the game looks in places. The original had a few moments like this too, but in a HD re-release…yeah you gotta clean that up. Odds are that may even happen, given the game isn’t due until next year.

Besides that, yeah, Dark Moon on Switch. I like the game and will gladly get this and use it as an excuse to replay it, but odds are there isn’t gonna be much new here. Not a bad thing, just makes me struggle to put this higher up here.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope DLC

It looks good, I’ll play it and that is honestly it.

This may be worth a discussion of its own, but while I like Sparks of Hope and even prefer some aspects of it over the original, it didn’t stick with me in the long run like the first game and it seems many feel the same way.

Hard to say what it is, but I am sure I will enjoy this, it’s just that at this point, I am really mostly interested in Rayman when it comes to this game,

The mechanical King Bob-omb’s pretty sick though.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Wave 5

Fun idea for a new racetrack and a very solid selection of new characters. Good first impressions.

We still don’t know the other 7 tracks, but I do genuinely think every new wave so far has been better than the last, so I am in good spirits about it and Mario Kart 8 is something I can keep coming back to for another round very easily.

New Peach Game

This is easily the most surprising one in its mere existence.

With how little has been shown so far, it’s hard to really have a strong opinion on things, but the stage play theme does make one wonder what could be and little details like Peach not having her crown really are curious.

Above all else though, I am just excited this is a thing. Spin-offs focusing on other characters are always among the most interesting new releases. They allow for experimentation with ideas that may be seen as not fitting Mario himself and after the 2000s, the well of new ones dried up really substantially.

Peach is also still a very unexplored character for this, even her first game is still heavily grounded in regular Mario stuff, while this is looking to be more of a Luigi’s Mansion kind of spin-off, so I am very intrigued.

Super Mario Wonder

Quite frankly, this game, in everything we have seen, feels like an outright apology for how static and safe 2D Marios have been in the NSMB era.

With this is one, it really feels like there was a desire to just get weird and I can vibe with that. The sections for collecting Wonder Seeds seem really creative and out there, with a lot of variety at that and the trippy nature of the first one in particular is a stand-out.

Besides that we got a surprising roster of characters, with the most out there choice being Daisy. Nintendo actually using their characters? Crazy talk.

In all seriousness, I appreciate them expanding beyond Mario and Luigi on a more regular basis now and what helps charm me even more is how expressive and alive the characters are.

Everyone around on social media has likely seen these comparison shots already:

But even beyond that you have little things like the characters reacting to the spiked boulder about to chase them:

I just adore stuff like this and hope the game is full of that.

Beyond that there are still a lot of little things, like the not-Toad NPC, the elephant power-up, that wild looking Bowser Jr, etc. Loads to see and I can’t wait for more info.

My only gripe is that they are still passing up Toad in favor of colorful generics. It’s not gonna make me less excited for the game, even though I feel cheated out of one of my favs, but I wish Nintendo would finally stop doing that.

Super Mario RPG Remake

I won’t lie, when leakers mentioned this one, I wasn’t all that thrilled.

Not because I don’t like RPG or the idea of a remake, but because I expected it to be butchered. Part of its charm is that it is a time capsule to an era where Mario’s now known visual identity and several concepts didn’t exist yet. I fully expected that to be done away with, for the sake of brand consistency, on top of some of the more undesirable changes from the Mario & Luigi remakes.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Genuinely, I was so caught off-guard by everything shown here. Mario, Peach and Bowser are updated to their modern looks, which is perfectly fine, but beyond that, it is genuinely amazing how much they retained the original.

All the original characters are still present which, granted, wasn't unlikely, but still lovely to see.

They retained a more chibi proportioned look, in-line with the original’s renders and sprites.

The environments still look as they did back then, no NSMB colorful hills in the grassland area or anything. They even resisted the temptation to update Peach’s castle to its standard look.

Most shocking of all, the old Toad NPC designs, my favorites in all Mario games, are left intact:

And as an extra bone as a Toad fan, after Wonder disappointed, they even gave him dibs on the blue vest, to further distinguish him from the rest of his species.

Everything just looks so nice. The models and environments, the music, the cutscenes, it’s a charmer across the board.

Much like with Luigi’s Mansion, it’s up in the air how much new there will be content-wise, but honestly, I am fine regardless what direction it takes.

I’m just happy to have a reminder of what Mario RPGs used to be and I will gladly support it to show I miss that kinda stuff, on top of my adoration for the original.

WarioWare Move It!

The Wario fan is most excited for the Wario game, say what?

In all seriousness of course this makes me incredibly happy. Smooth Moves was my favorite WarioWare before the big revival with Gold and GiT and a follow-up with the joycon as the main focus always made sense.

This is very much a traditional WarioWare to its core and frankly, that is amazing, it even embraces the low quality, cursed 3D models from Smooth Moves that I love with all my heart. I would have also liked a GiT follow-up, but this always made the most sense for a second Switch entry and I am happy they aren’t sleeping on it.

The extra stuff like the board game mode also adds some intrigue, not enough to see what this will be like yet, but I am always glad to get some extra offerings beyond the regular stages.

That aside you got the fun vacation theme, 13-Amp possibly being a host now, some lovely Smooth Moves callbacks like the return of forms and so on. I am nothing but excited.

And this is yet another one I am happy just exists. This is the first time since the Wii that Wario has gotten more than one new game on a system and so soon after GiT no less. WarioWare is in a healthy state again and that is huge.

So yeah, banger after banger and a nice uptick after the 2022 Mario output was on the lacking side. I’ll always defend Battle League in many aspects, but it still sucks content-wise and Sparks of Hope, while good, is pretty lacking in the Mario aspect.

Between the 2023 releases out of these and the movie though, we truly have a banger year for anything Mario.

[yaaaayeeyeaaaa]

In honor of the DLC coming out tomorrow I’ve replayed Error 143 to enjoy the adorable dork that is Micah Yujin. So let me gush about him will ya.

Micah Yujin is the main character and only love interest of the indie dating sim called Error 143 made by Jenny Vi Pham and her crew. The main premise is that you, the player, lost in a coding/hacking competition to your rival (Micah) and you as the sane level headed person as you are decided to troll him by hacking his computer and leaving a note “Ha, whose the better hacker now”. In response Micah hacks you back and puts you in his not discord server that he made and from then on comedy ensues.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward, it’s like every other dating sim. There’s the occasional hacking minigame that is just hangman which is neat, but the whole design of the whole game is so cool. I love pixel art and not discord looks fantastic with it. I also find it elegant that the parts without voice acting look like chat conversations, and the conversations with voice acting to be video calls is fucking great!

Also his voice actor goes hard!!! Corey Wilder is a talented va and I wish nothing but the best for them!^^

Micah himself is a funny playful cheeky guy with a shit eating grin on his face. His banter with the player is honestly hilarious and wholesome at times. He doesn’t hide the fact that he thinks you’re hot and he starts being flirty around day one or two. Him and the player have some good chemistry and they really match each other’s vibe. (Oh yeah forgot to mention but the player character actually have a personality in this game. They’re not a fully fleshed out character but it’s more than what the player character gets in these games. The only other time I can think something similar happened was in The Arcana [also a great dating sim I do recommend that])

The story spans out 5 days (well, 4 actually cuz day 4 is pretty short). In those 5 days the player and Micah get to know each other pretty quickly and it’s pretty obvious you both really like each other. And Micah puts his money where his mouth is because on day 5 he makes your dream first date come true. I find that so wholesome and sweet like on my first playthrough my first thought ‘I wanna hug him’ and ‘AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!’ (And that’s just one of the sweetest things he does in game, there’s like two other one which I both adore a ton.)

But I couldn’t because the game ended! 🥲🥲🥲🥲 (Thankfully the dlc is coming and will probably give me that option and I honestly cannot wait!^^) It is a short game but it’s definitely one of the best ones out there!

I also remember when this game first came out it got really popular in just a few short days. And I also cannot forget how in just one night a bunch of twitter ghouls jumped on the creator and accused her of fetishizing black men, hiring a va who voiced in a pe** game and how her writing is actually very racist because….. she shared some old concept ideas for Micah’s parents that are not even canon. Back then I was pretty scared about those accusations because I myself am not white and thought “oh fuck what if actual black people found something actually problematic that I’ve missed”. In reality what actually happened was a bunch of racists didn’t like that there was a dating sim out there with the main love interest being a half Korean half African American. And they hurled shit on both Jenny and Corey. I even saw people whom I used to follow take those accusations seriously and write it of as “ah even when we get a dating sim with a black love interest there’s always a catch”. (I was honestly baffled by them cuz, ‘wha- you can’t be serious! There’s gotta be something more to this’.) Thankfully Jenny managed to resolve that drama in the end by explaining everything in a tweet longer? (idk the exact name of it but you know what that is) and addressing every main accusation while also addressing how the harassment has affected her. I’m honestly proud how she managed to still write on Twitter where most would’ve gone silent to take a break from that bullshit. But she and Corey shouldn’t have been subjected to that kind of harassment in the first fucking place.

Still, I’m so happy that things are better now. I don’t have Twitter anymore (and I’ve been much happier since) so I don’t know if anything similar happened since then (hopefully not).

Amidst all that bullshit tho there were some people who gave genuine constructive criticism, one I can remember is about Micah’s inconsistent hair texture. Since there are a lot of artists in the team they all drew his hair a little differently every time. Jenny responded to that critique apologizing and doing some research before deciding what Micah’s hair type is gonna be. Ever since then his hair has been consistent in official arts. The assets in game hadn’t been switched out but by the sneak peeks she posted on Instagram, it looks like they’re gonna be finally.

(Ok I originally wanted to write down his hair type but I’m actually not sure what she said cuz I forgor but comparing his hair to pictures on google, seems to his hair is either 4B, 4C or a mix between those two. I’m sorry I don’t remember 🥲)

My apologies for the detour there. My final thoughts about the game though is that it’s amazing, fun and I adore Micah a lot! If you like dating sims, fun and wholesome cheesy romance then I can recommend it to you wholeheartedly!^^

[farfromdaylight]

more talk (complaining?) about ff7 remake below...

one thing i hate in video games is when you, the player, have to go through a long dungeon fighting through everything and solving puzzles and everything, and then a NPC shows up once you reach the end, having somehow skipped past all of the hard work you did to get to the end. this is a very specific complaint, i realize this, but it happens in multiple games. (final fantasy 12 is a big one. YOU CAN'T HAVE A HUNDRED-FLOOR FINAL DUNGEON THAT YOU PAINSTAKINGLY CLIMB UP AND THEN HAVE NPCS SHOW UP AT THE TOP AS IF BY MAGIC.)

anyway, ff7 remake does this and i'd forgotten about it and i'm annoyed about it. how the FUCK did wedge get to domino's office? LITERALLY, HOW THE FUCK?

sigh. let's move on.

i left off at chapter 14 last time, which is where a bunch of sidequests open up. i skipped most of them in my first playthrough in pursuit of story, and frankly i'd probably do that again on a replay. i don't think these sidequests meaningfully add to the game or story. like cool, i get to fight a tonberry and a behemoth...? yay...? they weren't at all memorable otherwise.

chapter 14 is straight up filler. chapter 15 is semi-filler, but at least the best song in the game is there. (look up "the valkyrie," it's really fucking good.) chapter 16 gets back to the main plot, at least, but still has completely unnecessary shit like tifa's platforming section — which for some reason i remembered very clearly despite not remembering WHY there was platforming.

i took the elevator up shinra hq for once in my life (i always take the stairs in the original game, and did on my first playthrough of remake), so at least that was different.

i do still like domino being part of avalanche. i also quite like the scene with tseng and reno & rude kind of coping with what they did to sector 7. i continue to ship rufus/tseng even though i haven't gotten to the part with rufus yet. i do hope we get more rufus in rebirth, i find him very interesting.

sometimes this game makes wild deviations from the original game. and sometimes, in a plot choice that made very little sense in the original game, they stick to it 100%. so, it's up and down. (am i talking about The Bathroom Vent That Lets You Spy On The Bad Guys? yes.)

it's clear that aerith knows more about the plot than she's letting on, but i also don't really remember how the game ends other than some Wack Bullshit, so i guess we'll see where that goes.

i'm sad nanaki is a guest character in this one. at least i get to run around and play as nanaki in the next game.

i think that's it for now. i left off at the start of chapter 17 (which i recall is The Hojo Filler Section) so... sighs... gotta get that done i guess. i did buy the DLC since it was on sale, so i'll be playing that after i finish. i know weiss shows up, which is a fucking bizarre choice, but i know almost nothing else about the dlc, so i have that to look forward to.

i still have very mixed feelings on remake. we'll see if that changes. (it probably won't.)

also, i don't know how anyone can play this game and not feel like they only got a fraction of the story. seriously, play the original fucking game if you want to know what it's actually about.

[webbedphantom]

BEAT TACTICA!!

Took way longer than I expected, but that's probably because I'm an idiot and decided to do every quest-

Anyways, full spoiler breakdown below the thing

Okay, so I called a lot of the twists for the third kingdom ahead of time. Like the second I saw Eri, I was like "She's gonna die," and when they kept covering up the ruler's name in static, I was like "It's Toshiro's shadow"

But like even though I kinda called it, those moments still hit me hard. Like I didn't think the creepy principal would push her in front of a train, or that she'd survive only to have her spirit broken.

And while I kinda saw the God thing coming too, I didn't think the Shadow was a fake created by him, or that Erina would turn out to be TOSHIRO'S PERSONA LIKE WHAT???

(Though that does mean that my whole concept of Arsène becoming his own person is now substantiated in canon, so that's neat)

Also the Velvet Room becomes a Train because shut up it's cool

The final kingdom was a bit of a slog, though probably because I'd been marathoning the entire game for several hours with no sleep, but still doing a boss rush, broken up by lengthy combat arenas is like... like the most padding that has ever padding'd.

Still I did it, beat all those refights, and even did the bonus quests to unlock everyone's ultimate skill which was SUPER NOT WORTH IT FOR EVERYONE BESIDES JOKER AND TOSHIRO BECAUSE LITERALLY ALL OF THEIR GUNS DO MORE DAMAGE

(And I'm pretty sure Joker would've been in the same boat if I grinded to get his best weapon)

Granted, that's my fault for not putting points into the amplifiers, and spending a lot of time fiddling with Personas to get the best weapons possible, but still like c'mon! Why would you ever want to spend like 75 SP for a big blast when I could just use my gun and do like 10-15 more damage??

Granted, the AOE on those attacks came in handy sometimes, but because by the time I unlocked them for everyone (because yes you still have to put points in for them after doing the quests), I was at the final boss, so there weren't a lot of enemies to blow up

Final boss was a good time though! Had some fun gimmicks, a cool design, actually made me think for a bit, didn't last too long, had great music, all the good stuff you'd want from a final boss. Certainly better than Midnight Suns final boss, I'll tell you that much-

AND THAT ENDING FINISHER HOLY SHOCK

I thought Strikers had a good ending with them doing an All Out Attack on the final boss, but this-!! OH MAN, this a whole other level of cool

Literally an entire shonen anime fight scene to cap the whole thing off, everyone gets a moment to shine, Joker uses his grappling hook in some very Spidey-esk maneuvers, Erina has a Super Saiyan moment, turning into her Persona form to blast away some gears, it is EVERYTHING I could've ever wanted.

The ending was really sweet too. I had a feeling Erina wouldn't be coming into reality, as much as I wanted her to, but they had a touching good bye, Toshiro exposes his father's crimes and breaks it off with his "fiance" on live TV, the team has a cute scene in Leblanc, and then after the credits-

ERI SHOWS UP

We don't get to see much of her sadly, nor much of their reunion, but it still really tugged at my heart strings, as all Persona games are apparently required by law to do now.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Tactica. Is it worth $60? Honestly not sure. It's definitely short for an RPG, but there's definitely some extra content to keep you coming back. I'm looking forward to replaying the game on hard whenever I eventually save up enough to get my own copy (gotta play that DLC at some point)

So, while I do recommend it, especially if you're into Tactics games, maybe try to get it on a sale if you're planning to get the DLC. $60 was already pushing it, but $80?? Yeah, no thanks-

Strikers is still my favorite spin off though. Doesn't even come close.

PLAY STRIKERS I SWEAR TO GOD

[dany36]

now that i've S-ranked every stage in the DLC and also completed the map, just have some final junk thoughts from the sonic frontiers dlc (plus me raving some more about the music) before i move on to another game :)

i know i mentioned that playing as amy is the best out of the new playable characters, and i still stand by that opinion, but MAN is tails' MAX rings cyclone flying ability fun as FUCK. like, i kind of have a hate-love relationship with it. on one hand, who the hell doesn't like flying around the island at max speed? like, oh, there's something all the way over there, let me just ZOOM right over in a few seconds!! AND the fact that you can control its height unlike knuckles' flying is just insanely cool. on the OTHER hand though, yes it cheapens tails' flying ability because honestly once you get the cyclone ability, you don't even have to do any of the set-paths that the game wants you to follow to get to the map kocos or skill kocos. you can just fly up to them and boom, didn't have to do the set path. which is kind of sad because those can be really fun and satisfying to complete, so what i'd end up doing was get to the area where the map koco would be, and instead of just flying up to it, try to follow the path and get the map that way to not just suck the fun out of the entire thing

but also, that one M-puzzle where it lit up 3 or 4 red beams of light all across the island and you had to reach all of them under a time limit??? MAN i think that was my favorite puzzle of all!!! i first bumped into that one when i was playing with amy, and at first i thought i was gonna have to come back to it with sonic since i didn't think i'd get another character that would be as fast as him (also didn't have the spin dash ability yet since this was early in the game). but holy shit once i unlocked that ability and saw just how fucking fast you could fly around the island (skells from xenoblade x my beloved), i immediately went back to that puzzle and just completed it as tails. just so damn awesome!!

and SPEAKING OF the spin dash....wow. amy, knuckles, and tails may not be as fast as sonic, but they become just as fast as him with this skill. and i can't believe i went through the entire main game without using the spin dash more often. spin dashing around the island and abusing the hell of its physics was just something that never got old, even in the sonic stages. i don't think i ever used the fast travel with the portals since i mean....spin dashing everywhere the island is just like a damn dream come true: it's always something i'd do in sonic adventures' mystic ruins but at a smaller scale, but this time? the ouranos island is fucking huge and gorgeous and then with that beautiful music playing in the background and just rolling around everywhere at high speeds AAAAAAAAAA this game is honestly just the perfect sonic game!!!!!

i think i already talked about this earlier but the new stages were super fun and actually challenging to S rank, unlike the main game. there were some i wasn't too fond of (like that one where sonic's speed as "gears"?? what was that lol) but overall they were a joy to replay over and over and try to bring my time down. i think my favorites were definitely 4-A (with the rocket boosters and beehive-looking things) and 4-B (the one with the hologram tails and the falling platforms).

the music. GOD how does sega keep doing this!!! every single new character theme is just so on fucking point, but i gotta say amy wins this one as well: there's something just so hauntingly beautiful about her theme that just honestly fits the overall mood of the game. but honestly, all just so good. i neeeeed to get my hands on the ost, especially since i'm late to the party and realized that now they have a GORGEOUS BEAUTIFUL AMAZING remixed version of the windy and ripply (emerald coast 2) song AKA a song so dear and beloved and nostalgic to my heart that just thinking about it makes me want to cry tears of joy. like, running around the islands with that music playing in the background is just so freeing and beautiful and exciting that just makes you feel glad that you get to experience a sonic game like this.

oh shit got sidetracked talking about this game's overall out-of-this-world soundtrack again um um um what else. i mean, i really don't know what else to say except frontiers just knocked it out of the park and surpassed my expectations in every single way possible. as i was playing the game and would just be exploring the island and completing puzzles/paths, i'd just keep saying to myself "this game is fucking amazing" every once in a while. sega just fucking nailed the 3d sonic formula and any doubt i had about an open-world sonic game was just thrown out the window: i couldn't stop thinking about this being a MUCH larger, more fun, and more gorgeous version of running around mystic ruins than i could have ever imagined, and it's exactly the type of exploration freedom that i had been itching for in a sonic game.

and it goes without saying that sega bringing back amy, tails, and knuckles as playable characters was just soooo fucking good and refreshing to see, and my god did they do them justice. last time they were all playable was, what...sonic adventure?? really?? like, holy crap. sonic frontiers really was a love letter to 3d sonic games and ughhhh i just can't stop saying good things about it. EVERYONE NEEDS TO PLAY THIS GAME!!!

anyway!!! can't wait to see where the sonic 3d series is headed after this, but for now, time to wait for sonic superstars (holy shit that's soon!!!) since that looks fun as hell too, and that's me saying it as someone who prefers 3d sonic vs 2d sonic!

[foxingpeculiar]

FF16 Blogging: The final episode. Spoilers for the whole damn thing.

Okay. So. The end was fine. Ultima was challenging enough and the meat and like, thematic stuff wrapped up nicely. I feel like this ending is… more ambiguous than usual, and as such, I feel the best way to address my feelings on it is to highlight the 5 biggest things I still have questions about.

1. What’s the deal with Metia. It’s something in space, in stable orbit a specific distance from the moon. It’s also connected to either aether or Clive or something, cos Jill watches it go out and that’s when she loses it. But like, why does it actually go out, just then? How is it up there in the first place? What, actually in a physical sense, is it? This is not sufficiently addressed for how… weird it is. What’s actually going on there? And, while we’re on it, who’s Greagor? How did that story come about? Like, the Circle of Malleus or w/e can’t be the only ones who sort of got it right—I wanna know more about the belief systems here.

2. So… who died? Did Clive successfully revive Joshua? Did HE succumb to the curse after absorbing Ultima’s power or whatever (that was implied re: his hand on the beach)? Did Joshua actually write the book or did Clive, under his name? Also, not for nothing, but those boys in the post credits sequence looked a lot like the two of them, and I thought their mother was an aged Jill for a second—is there something to that, or are they just randos? Also, what happened to Dion? It seemed like he died, but that’s not exactly confirmed. Like… what…. actually happened, y’know? Why be so coy?

3. What was the deal with the Fallen and the Final Sin and shit? Like, okay, Ultima created humans. Was that (The Final Sin) like a diluvian moment, like “nah, gotta start over.” Or (and this is more interesting), were they not human, but rather the indigenous inhabitants of Valisthea that Ultima basically colonized overtop of. If they ever really explained what happened there, or why Fallen tech was so advanced, I missed it. But that could be a cool DLC space.

4. Speaking of missing things, there were at least 2, maybe 3, empty slots on Clive’s memory wall or w/e by the time I was done. I did everything I came across, so I’m like—is that an NG+ thing, or did I miss some shit? And if so, how, cos I talked to everyone and went everywhere I could. (It’s probably the chronoliths—I didn’t really do that.)

5. What happened to Leviathan? It’s clearly established that when a Dominant dies, eventually a new one will awaken and the Eikonic line continues. So how does one get lost? What would it take to stop that from happening? My first thought was that it’s somehow related to the Mothercrystals that have been destroyed before the storyline begins. But that’s 3 of them, so why only one lost Eikon? But then, I remembered that, based on how Phoenix works, there seems to be some genetic component to that Eikonic line. So like, given that, a genocide might explain the loss of an Eikon. Is that an intentional implication? What’s going on there?

That what I can think of right now.

Overall, I enjoyed it—more than I did 13 or 15; I’d put it on a par with 12. But that’s one of my favorites and I’m definitely gonna replay this one.

I also found out you 1) can basically solo FF14 if you want to; like use NPCs for raiding parties and do a lot of shit on your own, and 2) the whole base game and first expansion are playable without a subscription fee.

So maybe after AC6, I’ll think about it.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Finished the main game with my qunari. (Again, 3rd time, this series has me so hard.) I'm very ready for this run to be done.

The 'make Solas hate me' thing wasn't even remotely easy for me. Though, I gotta admit antagonizing him was fun for a while. 😅 I'm only playing Trespasser with this character, (not the other DLCs) because I'm having painful dysphoria issues with the curvier female qunari form.

There's a reason I usually play male elves. Skinny little twinks are pretty androgynous and don't bother my dysphoria so much. Even female elves don't bother me. They're all pretty androgynous. If only I were.

Plus pointed ears. My entire family has slightly pointed ears so it's just fun.

I actually only gave Sera a Romance chance because of a tumblr post I saw. I'm glad I did. It was the hardest Romance of all for me, but it’s actually really sweet and happy. Good brain chemicals.

As soon as I finish Trespasser to get angry Solas end lines, I'm going to take another run at modding Frostbite. (Seeing bitchy Solas in game was way more powerful for me than a YouTube watch would be.)

I've been modding games since modding became a thing, so it wasn't fun to realize how bloody difficult Frostbite is to mod.

But because I really want to play DA:I with some of the mods, and because DA:DW is built on Frostbite too, I gotta figure it out. It was mostly an ADHD patience/frustration thing, I think. I expected reasonable levels of difficulty in modding Frostbite and it is an absolute monster.

I'm actually tempted to play the whole series again since I'm almost done with reading the books and comics. They added so much depth to the games and characters that I'm curious about how it'll change my perception of them.

And I've heard there's art and references to 'The Dread Wolf' in all games. Curiousity absolutely gets me into trouble, frequently. 😅

It's how I ended up on the Solavellan Hell train. I knew who Solas was 'cause I'd already played DA:I, but I still did a Solavellan playthrough out of curiousity.

Being a writer/editor/literary analyst, I didn't truly think that Weekes would snag me, much less snag me so fucking hard!

So, yeah. A day or two, depending on how much time I have to game, to finish Trespasser, and then I'll be trying again to mod this beast of a game engine.

Once you're an insider in publishing, it becomes more and more difficult throughout the years for stories to capture you. I know all the tropes and can see where things are going so easily because I've been working professionally in this field for close to a decade.

Even with that, Weekes grabbed me by the heart then proceeded to rip my heart out. (He did it in Masked Empire too, great book.) Gotta love star crossed lovers. It's one of my very favourite tropes and I'm actually grateful that Weekes reached me. So little does anymore. And to think I got into this field after leaving STEM because I love to read 🤣, oh... sweet summer child.

Once I get it successfully modded, I'll decide on a full series replay (it would give me more to write about) or not.

Right now, I'm so stressed out by my job search that I'm clinging to DA as my only real stress relief. Usually special interests aren't this chronologically long lasting for me. I tend to cycle through them more quickly.

But with the job search being what it is, and my stress levels being through the roof, I'm just grateful this one hasn't abandoned me yet.

You really wouldn't think finding a decent job (something I'm good at, salary with good benefits, ideally remote because I'm more productive from my home office) would be so difficult, would you?

Anyway, enough of me jawing about DA for now. I need to make an online portfolio for my graphic design stuff. I've been doing it as long as I've been doing editing & literary critique (24 years), and writing for 33 years, but having an online portfolio hasn't ever been a priority because my clients have always found me by word of mouth.

Sigh. I'd rather be doing many other things. I just want a job I can be good at that I'm paid a living wage for that actually uses my skills and maybe pushes me a little to increase my abilities. One that doesn't require my autistic/ADHD ass to do social things because that's probably around the 7th layer of hell for me. Why is that so hard to find?