#i remember coming across this song on my quest to find inspiration specifically for this playlist

[chirpsythismorning]

📝 💐 🛼 💔⏪️💭🧊🌄❤️‍🩹

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ by The Righteous Brothers

previous ⏪︎ now playing ⏩ next back to playlist

[legolaslovely]

Across the Hall

A/N: Written for FiKi Week 2020! Whoohoo! Prompt for Wednesday, July 1: Inspired by Music. I promise this was inspired by Hungry by Dotan before it grew and took on a life of its own! Thank you @dreams-of-wander for showing me this great song and awesome group.

Pairing: FiKi

Ratings/Warnings: Rated Mature for non-explicit smut, comfort, Pre-Quest of Erebor

Summary: Fíli and Kíli spent most of every day together and up until recently, spent even nights together as they shared a room far into their adulthood. Then, it was only their mother who encouraged them to sleep across the hall from each other, and though Fíli adored her, he wouldn’t forget who forced endless, lonely nights upon him.

Of course Fíli loved his little brother. That wasn’t even a question. They were family, as close as brothers could get. Fíli and Kíli spent most of every day together and up until recently, spent even nights together as they shared a room far into their adulthood. Then, it was only their mother who encouraged them to sleep across the hall from each other, and though Fíli adored her, he wouldn’t forget who forced endless, lonely nights upon him. Nights without Kíli seemed cold.

But days with Kíli were always bright and warm. No matter what terrors or intrusive thoughts lurked in the darkness, Kíli was always there in the morning to hide all the evils away, like a high tide bringing well worked sand to cover any sharp rocks on the ocean floor. And Kíli himself was just as mesmerizing as the boundless sea.

This Fíli began to notice when Kíli moved into the other bedroom.

That was one thing their separation gave Fíli- this realization that sibling love was not enough. He wanted more.

***

That night when Kíli stated that he was tired and wanted to go to bed for the night, Fíli agreed and led the way to their bedroom. He fully expected his little brother to follow him as he always did. Kíli would crawl into the small bed on his side of the room, leave the candle extinguishing to Fíli, rip off his tunic, throw it on the floor and wish Fíli a good night. It was routine.

Instead, Kíli halted in front of the other door and smiled. “You’re free to snore all you want now,” he said.

It hit Fíli like an ax. “You’ll still hear me from all the way over there.”

Kíli laughed. A sweet sound. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Night, Fee.”

“Goodnight, Kíli.”

Fíli did not snore because Fíli didn’t sleep. He slid his tunic over his shoulders and left it folded in the top drawer. The last candle was extinguished and he was left in the pitch black bedroom. Before his eyes could adjust and remind him he was alone, he said good night to the empty side of the room and climbed in his bed.

Tonight there was no rustling as Kíli tossed and turned until he landed in a comfortable position which happened to be the one he was first laying in. There was no pillow punching or fluffing, no sighing, no Kíli giggles as he thought of the day’s events and no quiet storytelling. None of Kíli’s clothes were there. Those and the bed had been moved across the hall, and yet the room still smelled of him. A scent that was indescribable, but so unquestionably Kíli.

So because he was alone and he could, Fíli jerked himself off. He closed his eyes and inhaled the lingering smell that would soon be replaced with candle smoke and dust and thought of nothing but the old tricks his hand knew to make him finish fast. He came over his bare belly but it wasn’t satisfying, just something to do to make him fall asleep. It didn’t work. He laid there all night and maybe he drifted off a bit, but it felt as if the moon had won out against the sun, and dawn was never going to come.

Until it did. And so did Kíli.

“Miss me?” he asked. He’d barged into their room- Fíli’s room- without a knock as Fíli was dressing.

“Nope.”

Kíli stole the tunic from Fíli’s hands and whipped him with it. “You were right, you know.”

Fíli went after his shirt, but missed. “I’m always right. What are you referring to now?”

“I could hear your snoring from across the hall.” Kíli threw the ball of fabric at Fíli and ran out of the room like a dwarfling racing through a game of Kings and Orcs. His heavy feet could be heard stomping down the hall to safety.

Fíli chuckled. He wouldn’t correct Kíli.

He fished through the oversized tunic for its neck and when his head popped out the other side, he saw Kíli standing in his doorway again.

“What?”

Kíli smiled. Soft, genuine, irresistible. “Missed you too.”

***

As the days grew warmer, Fíli and Kíli would spar together in the early morning. After their father died, Thorin was the one to encourage the training at least a few times a week. He left his nephews to decide when they went out into the far field as long as they actually went.

Although Fíli despised early mornings, he took pity on Kíli who detested the heat that came quickly in the middle of the summer. Fíli himself threw off heat like a forge flame, but while he would glisten with a handsome sheen and healthy glow, his baby brother would simply wilt beneath the high noon sun. Fíli finally decided he’d rather graciously give up a few hours of sleep than listen to Kíli complain and beg to be carried back to the mountain after an abbreviated session.

But getting out of bed at dawn was easier said than done for Fíli.

This morning Kíli woke his brother particularly early to escape the sun’s heat. When he opened the door with enough force to send the knob into the wall with a bang, Fíli only grumbled and flipped over to face the wall.

“Too early.”

“Fee, it’s the middle of the hottest summer Erebor has known in decades.” He whipped the light sheet off Fíli’s body with no mercy. “If we don’t go out to the field now, I’m not going at all and you know what Uncle will say to that.”

“He will drag you out there himself in the peak of the afternoon and beat your ass.”

“And I will die.”

Fíli squinted over his shoulder. “Some Durin you are.” He squished his face into the pillow before Kíli could steal it away. He heard Kíli sigh.

“You know, I had a real nice treat to give you this morning, but now I don’t think you deserve it.”

Fíli flopped to his stomach, rolling slightly so he could look at Kíli with one eye. “What was it?”

“Not telling.”

Kíli left. And Fíli wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t. Fíli could have easily taken hold of his brother and dragged him into his bed to spend the rest of the morning in a sleepy haze. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d shared a bed after years of adolescence and months spent traveling. Maybe this time Kíli would shimmy down the bed so he could rest his head on Fíli’s shoulder. Maybe they’d tangle their limbs together and make a cocoon of their own, only busting out like ripe, seasoned butterflies when they were too hungry to stand it. But Fíli was sure he’d starve himself before leaving a shared bed with Kíli.

Real nice treat indeed.

However, Kíli had left and he’d let the door swing open on his way out. The smell of freshly baked cakes wafted into the room, past Fíli’s fantasies, and between his nose and the soft pillow that specific feature was currently stuffed into.

“Ma made your favorite and I’m going to eat them all!” Kíli called.

By the time Fíli stumbled from his bed, full of grumbling and embittered sighs, Kíli was standing in the doorway with one of the sacred cakes in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth and watched Fíli’s reaction carefully.

“If you don’t save me one I’m going to slice your throat with my dullest sword,” Fíli said, standing in the middle of the room with hair so disheveled, it rivaled a warg’s tail.

Kíli shoved the cake in his mouth- a mean feat for spite. “You’d never do that,” he said around the sweet treat that filled his maw to the brim. “You love me too much. You’re just grumpy in the morning.”

Fíli’s groggy eyes sharpened like a pair of daggers when he trudged in the kitchen and saw his mother’s baking plate sitting in the middle of their small dining table. The dish boasted its neatly painted decoration along with a few crumbs toward the center, but no cakes.

Before Fíli could find a more menacing threat for his brother, the culprit, Kíli took the last cake from his pocket and held it out to Fíli.

“For you, brother,” he said. “And I hope you remember this kind act next time you try to intimidate me with your dullest sword.”

Fíli took the cake, stuffed it in his mouth, and smacked the back of Kíli’s head as he walked out the door. “Come on,” he said, leading the way. “Before Your Highness melts in the heat.”

Melt, Kíli did. After a half hour of sword training and about the same of hand-to-hand sparring, Kíli was dripping and his once crisp clothes were drenched. To his credit, he wasn’t yet drooping or wilting, for he’d grown stronger and more tolerant over the years, which Fíli began to notice. Yes, he noticed.

Fíli noticed how perfectly messy Kíli’s dark hair looked when all of it was pulled into one clip on the back of his neck. His stubborn bangs and whisps of errant locks around his pointed ears clung to his damp skin and flew around like raven’s wings whenever he moved his head.

And Fíli noticed when Kíli shed his last layered tunic and threw it on his pack, leaving his tanned skin gleaming in the low sun. More hair sticking, more lean muscle rippling, more sweat dripping down his bare torso. His chest was heated red and heaving from the effort he was putting forth into his training.

“I’m too old for you to be taking pity on me, Fíli. Don’t go easy.”

Fíli handed Kíli the cool canteen from his own pack in the shade and watched as his brother gulped at it. Rogue drops slid from the corner of his pink lips, down his jaw, and pooled in the divots and hollows of his neck. The skin was tossed back Fíli’s way and Kíli turned his back, lifting his hands over his head for relief.

Fíli forgot how thirsty the morning’s work had made him. His mind was elsewhere.

With Kíli this breathless, it wouldn’t be an awfully hard feat to press his back up against a tree. Touch him. Kiss him. Feel his heart beating under Fíli’s wide palms. Kíli had seen his brother bare from the belly up hundreds of times, but what would he think if Fíli ripped his tunic off his body and pressed their chests together? Plunged his tongue into Kíli’s waiting mouth and nipped at his lips? Stood on his toes so he could grind his hips against his little brother’s? Would anything stand at attention in greeting? Which words would come from his mouth-

In an instant, Fíli was knocked to the ground with the air slapped from his lungs.

“You should follow your own advice, brother. Never let your guard down.”

Kíli hovered over him with a smile like fire- bright, hot, and hypnotizing. His hands were planted on either side of Fíli’s head until one lifted to wipe the drip from his eyes. “Now, let’s get back to the house, hm? Sun’s rising fast.”

Fíli hummed, relishing his brother’s closeness for another moment, before knocking him off balance and to the ground. He fearlessly slotted his entire body over Kíli’s in a power move that scratched his fantasy itch for the moment. “Another piece of advice, little one. Don’t get cocky.”

***

Months passed, but spending nights alone in their- his- bedroom didn’t get any easier for Fíli. He refused to grow used to it. But he did grow more clever, more convincing, more creative in finding ways to share his nights with Kíli. The pair would go on hunting trips that lasted days longer than planned. After hours of traveling and tracking that quickly turned into swimming and picnicking, Kíli and Fíli slept under the stars. Kíli would share his secrets and Fíli would attempt to give advice and end up spilling his own fears and before he knew it, the sun was warming the blanket they shared and Kíli was slapping him awake. “I forgot how loud you snore!” he’d yell and scare every bird within a two league radius.

But this night was one both the brothers had been looking forward to for weeks. It was Kíli’s 75th birthday.

The day had flown by as Fíli knew it would. Their mother had made a delicious breakfast that Kíli barely got a bite of because of the constant callers that began their visits just after sunrise. Thorin made an appearance before dragging both brothers to the forge for the day. No rest for the weary, and no time off for the line of Durin. Apparently.

Which is why Fíli had planned a night in Kíli’s favorite pub after a tiring day and a refreshing supper with their mother. Kíli deserved time to kick back and celebrate. Three quarters of a century was quite a milestone, even for a dwarf. And if he partied a little too hard, Fíli would be there to take him back home and taunt him about it all in the morning.

But an ax was thrown into his carefully laid out plans.

“What do you mean you-” Fíli lowered his voice, grinding out the rest of his sentence to Bofur. “What do you mean you ‘got him a dam’?”

Bofur’s shoulders rose in a shrug and stayed pinned to his ears as he tried to explain. “Well, you know, someone to... treat him well on his birthday.”

The dam was already doing just that. She sat in Kíli’s lap, skirts rucked up to the middle of her thighs as she kissed his beat red cheek that was rounded with his grin. She took his hand and led it along her leg and under her skirts and Kíli’s entire stature went from sweet and tipsy to focused and lustful in a single blink of an eye. Fíli’s stomach sank at the sight.

“I thought that’s why we brought him here,” Bofur said.

“We brought him here because Kíli likes the pies.”

“He’ll be getting some sort of pie,” Dwalin said from behind Fíli. A heavy hand came down on Fíli’s shoulder as he continued. “Let the lad have his fun. You’ve had plenty a workin’ dams yourself, Fíli. Share the lot with some of us!”

That sent the dwarves around into a laughing fit, but Fíli’s veins filled with stone. As he watched Kíli get pulled from his seat and led up the stairs, he couldn’t even nod his head, though he knew Kíli was waiting for his brother’s approval. But when Kíli tried to stop, he was only yanked forward by that shrieking little dam with red hair and a tightly tied corset. Then he was gone.

And so was the rest of the party.

“He’ll be up there for the rest of the night!”

“And into the morning, if he’s lucky!”

Fíli barely heard the voices from outside the tavern. He stood still as a statue, feeling an oversupply of emotions swirling through him like stale beer, threatening to make him lose all that he’d drunk so far.

“Fíli, you coming?” Bofur asked.

“No,” he said. “Go on with the others. I’ll wait for Kíli.”

“He could be all night.”

Fíli didn’t look from the frothy golden ale in his mug. “He’ll need someone to walk him home.”

Even after Bofur left, Fíli wasn’t left alone. Not completely. His thoughts crowded him and taunted him just as his friends had. He knew this wasn’t the first time Kíli had taken a lover for the night, but this was the first time Fíli ever had anything to do with it. In fact, this time, he felt like he had front row seats for it all. He could practically hear his brother upstairs in the corner bedroom, moaning and groaning at the tricks all those dams knew.

Yes, Kíli deserved to be worshipped, but whatever that paid lass was making him feel wasn’t real. No one else could give Kíli a sliver of what Fíli could give him.

He wanted to be the one touching Kíli now.

Fíli pushed his half empty mug away and let his mind wander. He could easily conjure the image of Kíli lying naked on a bed- his bed. He’d thought of it so many times before in the past months. Wriggling and writhing; impatient, yet lost in bliss. Long fingers gripping the sheets, or Fíli’s hair or arms as he left his marks. Pink rings of teeth, purple medals of not-so-honorable but oh, so delicious suction, shining sheens of sweat over his forehead or down his back, thick fluid pooling over his belly and coating raven curls.

He could see his brother’s face as he realized what it meant to be cherished, teased, appreciated. Loved.

Someone sat across the table from Fíli and he felt a snarl unfurling in his chest. He looked up to deliver it, but instead- “Kíli.”

How long had it been? Those around him had barely moved, but that didn’t tell him much. The dwarves he knew could drink for hours on end before feeling the urge to move for any reason. Then he found the clock on the wall.

“That was quick,” he said.

“Time enough,” Kíli said. There was a permanent flush on his chest from his… activities, but now his ears caught under Fíli’s glare. “Not exactly what I was expecting for tonight. But there are some things you can’t exactly say no to when they’re, uh, right in front of you.”

Fíli stood. “Let’s go. You ready?”

Kíli caught his arm. “Wait. Have a drink with me.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Fee,” Kíli said, chasing him around the table. “I’ve barely seen you all day. Just one drink.” He clasped Fíli’s shoulders, standing close enough for his scent to wrap around Fíli like a well worn blanket. He only smelled like Kíli, no one else. Granted, he smelled like a Kíli who’d had their bedroom to himself in his adolescent years, but he didn’t smell of any dam or any tavern bedsheets. Only Kíli.

Brown eyes twinkled. He knew he’d won. “You’re buying,” Kíli said, pulling Fíli to sit at the table.

“As if you’d ever buy.”

With a slap on the shoulder and a scoff, the two settled in at their table. They sipped from their mugs, arguing, teasing, and reminiscing on another year gone. The evening’s blight was forgotten, despite the working dams circling the pair like vultures for a kill. They and their feathers were eventually shooed away by the tender who kept the tavern open an extra hour thanks to the golden prince’s gentle persuasions.

Though Fíli did his best to stretch out another night with his brother, they too soon had to head for home.

They ambled along as one mass, arms wrapped around a thinner waist or draped over shorter shoulders. One section of the mass tripped, sending it toppling over and down to the ground, but somehow it found its way home after much ribbing about a certain half failing to keep up with the other, birthday or not.

When the challenge of fitting through the backdoor of their home presented itself too difficult, the dark half pulled away, like a bubble growing out of too much soap and separating from the main suds to float through the air.

“Wait,” Kíli said.

“What?”

Kíli took the heavy blanket from the top of the wood pile by the door and shook out the dust. Then he laid it messily out on the ground, ignoring the lumps of fabric in the middle. “Let’s sleep out here tonight.” He plopped down harder than he meant to and watched the clouds above that kept the earth warm while the sun was away.

Fíli joined him and felt sleep’s lure the moment he settled down at Kíli’s side. But his eyes snapped open, wide awake, when Kíli rested his head on Fíli’s shoulder and sighed. Content.

“Happy birthday, Kíli.”

“Thanks, Fee. For everything.”

***

No matter how Fíli tried, there were still nights he spent alone in his room. Though he’d lay on the bare mattress- blankets kicked to the floor and pillows thrown far away- he still felt suffocated. As the hours between dusk and dawn stretched on, his thoughts pounded in his head, like a hammer bludgeoned fiery metal in a forge.

He was completely alone, and would be for the rest of his life. He’d watch his brother, his One, eventually find someone else to love and make a life of his own without him. Fíli would keep Kíli as long as he could- he was an island whose waves crashed on the shore and destroyed each getaway raft, and whose fires extinguished any hope of forging another escape. But soon, someone would see the smoke and make a daring rescue, stealing from Fíli what he so longed to keep for himself. It was only a matter of time. He would be left utterly desolate.

Yet, he was constantly and forever surrounded, mauled by his people, his king, and his duties. The stress of his realm lived on his shoulders and drove him far down into the ground, below any mine ever built, until his worst fears would be realized: he could never be a good king. And what was the point of ruling if he couldn’t do his people the justice they deserved? He knew ‘King Fíli’ would never be celebrated, only cursed, and the line of Durin would crumble under his throne.

Uncle Thorin says pressure builds diamonds. For Fíli, it only made him crack.

And so the dark nights went on. Sometimes he would doze in a light, distant sleep, but he would soon wake and mull over which was worse- his latest nightmare or his future as king. Often before he came to a conclusion, he would drift off again, diving back into very real images of his people spitting on him, stoning him, despising him- and facing it all completely alone.

When dawn finally came this morning, he found his bed neatly arranged around him. A pillow lay under his head and a blanket covered him comfortably, though he distinctly remembered tossing it all away in the middle of the night. It was as if the terrors of the darkness never came. With all of his might, he decided he had imagined it all and went to find Kíli.

Sneaking up on Kíli never worked. Not since he had started hunting with his bow. His senses were far too keen for his heavy-footed brother, but he didn’t turn from his focus as Fíli approached. Just off the hill behind their home was a deer and her fawn, grazing on the fresh, dewy grass and Kíli watched them, fascinated.

With Kíli’s focus elsewhere, Fíli was briefly allowed to admire the golden halo of the sunrise that left the crown of Kíli’s hair red and glowing. But Kíli caught him and smiled.

“Rough night, last night,” he said.

“I’m sorry if I woke you.”

Kíli shook his head. “You put too much pressure on yourself, brother.”

“Considering what Uncle has planned, I think I’m putting exactly the right amount of pressure on myself.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to face it all alone.”

The deer fled. Big and small, together they ran across the field and over the hill, into the safety of the trees. The bushes quivered in their wind and a small flock of birds flew through the pink sky.

“You’re scaring the animals.”

“This isn’t funny!” Kíli hissed. “What kind of a life is this for you? Spending full days in council meetings and never sleeping at night?” He blew out a breath and set a heavy hand on Fíli’s shoulder. “Why won’t you ever lean on me? A king does not rule alone, he has his council and his army. His family.” A squeeze. “You are never going to be alone so stop acting like it.”

Kíli always knew.

Fíli’s view of him was framed with clear, waving tears. He blinked them away, brushing the one rogue droplet off his cheek. Though he opened his mouth to speak, no sound would come.

Kíli rubbed his shoulder. “You’re exhausted. Let’s go down to the lake today and lay out under the trees, hm? Have a swim and some rest.”

“Yeah,” Fíli nodded. “Sounds good.”

“But first, breakfast. I could eat a whole warg after worrying about you all night.”

Fíli smacked him. But before he could lead the way inside, Kíli stopped him. Kíli said his name, took hold of his arm, and barely cupped his jaw with trembling, nervous fingers. The wet line on Fíli’s cheek, the remnants of any fear between them, was wiped away. Then Kíli kissed his lips. Tender and protective.

“I love you,” Kíli said.

He kissed Fíli again. Fíli kissed him back with everything he had.

***

Of course Fíli loved his little brother. And Kíli loved him back, that wasn’t even a question. “I love you” had always been something said often and anywhere and those around just assumed the brothers were as close as family could get. Which was true.

But now, “I love you” not only meant “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” and “You’re everything to me.” It also meant “You are mine and I am yours regardless of what happens and regardless of who tries to come between us. I will care for you, fight for you, and love you forever. Brother.”

It didn’t take long to move all of Kíli’s things back into their bedroom. This time the two beds were pushed together into one, as were the brothers. Kíli still left his tunics on the floor and Fíli still extinguished all the candles before climbing into bed and acting as Kíli’s pillow.

However, Fíli’s nights were no longer cold or lonely. He didn’t have to find creative ways to keep Kíli close. As the golden shore of the island is caressed and surrounded by the cool tide, so was Fíli constantly soothed by Kíli’s presence. No matter how his terrain changed over the years, he had someone to lean on.

[getitinbusan]

Chapter 3: Liability

Y/N doesn't want a relationship, especially not with an idol. Jaebeom only wants her.

Love after heartbreak and all the things that fall in between.

Angst, Cheating, Fluff, Smut

A new series inspired by lyrics, each chapter has a specific song that goes with it.

Chapter 1 : Nice to Meet Ya

Chapter 2 : Blood in the Cut

Chapter 3 : Liability

Chapter 4 : That's just the way you make me feel

Liability - Lorde

The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy

'Til all of the tricks don't work anymore

And then they are bored of me

I know that it's exciting

Running through the night, but

Every perfect summer's

Eating me alive until you're gone

Better on my own

It had been four days and you were still on his mind. He couldn't figure it out; it's not like you'd even given him a flicker of hope.

"Fuck," he said aloud as his fingers sent the text.

JB: You've got to find out about Y/N for me. I can't stop thinking about her.

Yug: Why her JB? She's 100% negative press. Name somebody, anybody else and I'll hook it up.

JB: I never ask you for anything. Can't you just fucking call Jungkook and get me her details.

………......................

Yug: She owns a small bookstore in Ikseon-dong called Serendipity. Listen, Jungkook wasn't happy about you asking. He said she's been through enough, and you'd better not fuck her over.

JB: Thanks, I owe you one.

Yug: I hope this doesn't bite you in the ass.

A bookstore, he grinned, well that was just fate or...serendipity. He could just pretend running into you was a coincidence, everybody knew he loved books.

He pulled it up on Google.

Serendipity, a Bookstore/Cafe located in the heart of Ikseon. A charming Old Hanok hidden amongst the Dongs tiny alleyways

While he scribbled down the address, the reviews caught his eye.

⭐ I don't know who this whore thinks she is, but I hope her store goes out of business.

⭐ This store is trash just like the owner.

⭐ Stupid bitch deserved to get dumped. I can't believe Yoongi would find her attractive.

⭐ Poverty ass gold digger. You'd better stay away from our boys.

His heart broke for you, he knew fans could be possessive, but these were just cruel. What terrible things for you to have to read, and for what? False ownership of their idol.

..................................

Opening the door, the smell of coffee and books filtered through his nostrils, if he could create his own signature fragrance, this would be it. His eyes scanned the shop until he found you, glasses on sitting behind a computer screen at the checkout.

Browsing around he'd glance up every now and again taking you in. He noted how comfortable you looked in your own environment. Unlike at the bar your face was relaxed, soft, even more beautiful than he remembered.

You smiled at the customer you were serving, and he knew he was a goner.

He went back to perusing the shelves, his heart was beating quickly. How was he going to approach you?

"Can I help you find anything," came from behind him.

He scanned the books quickly, and turned with a smile, "I'm just looking for I Want to Die, But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki."

You gave no reaction

"Well that's pretty convenient Jaebeom, because you're standing right beside it."

Starting to walk away he caught your hand, "Hey, come on, I'm just trying to know you."

"Funny, I think you already know all about me, you found me easily enough." You pulled your hand away.

"Listen JB, I'm a real career killer and it seems like you're doing pretty well for yourself. Why would you want this kind of drama?"

He knew the words were going to come out wrong but he was trying to say them before you could leave.

"I feel bad for how you've been treated, you deserve better. I think that I could make you better, fuck, not that there's anything wrong with you.. I mean that we could be better....together, not separate."

"I don't need anyone feeling sorry for me Jaebeom, last call for the pity party ended a while ago. I'm doing just fine putting myself back together."

"I'm sorry, I promise I'm not usually like this. I don't know why I can't talk to you without sounding like an idiot."

He sighed deeply, "I'm just...is it okay if I stay? I promise I'll just have a coffee and read, I really like it here."

"It's bad business for me to chase away customers, stay as long as you want "

You felt kind of bad, maybe you were being to harsh on him. Bringing his coffee to the table you set it down placing a slice of cheesecake next to it. "It's on me."

"Thanks," he smiled shyly.

"Can I ask why you chose Serendipity? It's kind of a romantic notion for someone who's so cynical."

Cocking a brow you asked, "Are you really interested, or is this you hitting on me?"

He laughed, "I'm not going to stop hitting on you, but yeah, I really want to know."

You walked away and grabbed a book off the shelf. Sitting beside him, you slid it across the table.

"Have you heard of The Three Princes of Serendip?" He shook his head no.

"It's a fairy tale. The heroes were always discovering things they weren't in quest of."

He thumbed through the pages while he listened to your explanation.

"That day a few months ago," you interrupted yourself, "I'm assuming you know what day I mean?"

He pursed his lips and nodded.

"Well, I quit the job I hated, I lost my boyfriend and the whole world treated me like I'd done something wrong."

You shrugged, still not understanding how it all happened.

"I was lost, I had nothing but myself and a handful of hush money from Big Hit. I came here to hideout but instead I found this place for sale. If that's not a Serendipitous string of events, I don't know what is."

He smiled and closed the book, "I think I'll take this one today."

Pretending to be shocked you questioned him, "What? You didn't really want I Want to Die, But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki? "

"I think I'll leave that one as an excuse to come back."

His deep chocolate brown eyes were heavy on you, you know because you made the mistake of looking into them.

"This is a public space, you don't need to make excuses to come." You tried to sound flippant.

"And JB...I wasn't always this cynical, life just hasn't given me a chance to be anything but."

................................

He laid in bed reading, or trying to at least. He'd been over the same sentence about four times unable to stop thinking about you. 

................................

You were laying in bed when you heard the ping. You knew it was a stupid idea, but after he left you stalked his accounts, and turned on his post notifications.

...............................

The Vlive began, he wanted to tell everyone about a great book he was reading that he'd found in a cool little shop in Ikseon-dong. 

📖 Lady: I'm glad you like it.

Reading your comment he smiled, he really was a beautiful man. You examined his features and expressions but they suddenly changed. He tried to quickly sign off but it was too late.

😭Is he talking about y/n?

😱Are you kidding JB? 

🤮I can't believe he's going after Yoongi's sloppy seconds.

Part 3 for @persephones-seoul 💜

[ishgard]

Could I submit 3? If you only do 2 at a time though, ignore the last: G'raha and the Exarch (done together or separely), Kai-Shirr and Liavinne.

 Yes, thank you so much! I did the Exarch over here so I’ll do the other two. Sorry it took so long!!

First impression

I mean despite it all? Good boy. Good egg just doing his best even if that meant doing something pretty bad. Though I definitely was side-eying Alphy the whole time my genius boy-son why do you think this is a good idea this is NOT going to end well for this poor cat. 

Impression now

Well, first, glad it didn’t end as badly as it could have. I’ve been happy to see someone who kind of felt like… almost a throw-away side character rise to such… fairly decent prominence in the story all things considered. I think I was a little afraid he might have fallen into some cliche/unnecessary tropes early on that he gracefully side-stepped and instead he grew into a fine character in his own right. I haven’t done his delivery quests yet cuz I’m shit at crafting but I’m glad it seems like he finally found his friends again… even though I def thought they were asshats in the beginning. :/ 

Favorite moment

Idk if there’s one specific defining moment, as opposed to every time he’s had the choice to fall back and into a dark place but instead found silver-lining and got back up, grew into a better and better person. I think his role in 5.1 wraps it all up in a fairly nice bow for him, not content to simply be left behind while others are striving forward.

Idea for a story

Can’t say I have one, sadly! Maybe if I get around to those quests of his I’d find stumble across some ideas. 

Unpopular opinion

Don’t think I have one of these either. Uhh… His friends struck me as shitheads, maybe?

Favorite relationship

Since I haven’t done his delivery quests yet I’m not sure how his relationship with his friends are depicted, so I can’t really count those… but I enjoy his general relationship with most everyone he’s interacted with, really. Alphinaud and Chai-Nuzz are probably most prominent in my mind, and the ways they’ve inspired and motivated him to be better and do his best.

Favorite headcanon

Again, nothing that jumps to mind! Who knows where story will go, but maybe the idea of him and the Chai’s regularly getting together to reminisce about Alphinaud and the Warriors of Darkness after they’re gone?

First impression

Man, that was SO long ago. But I definitely remember talking to and really thinking about a lot of the NPCs back then, and outside Sastasha thinking ‘wow what an ass’ p much, but then that was me @ most of Avere’s group at the time. I actually! did not realize she was the same lady when she joined the Scions later for the longest time! Like her name didn’t register/click for whatever reason and then yanno, Tam Tara HM came along and I was like OH! OH SHIT! I’m actually really, really disappointed I hadn’t caught it back then cuz I can’t imagine the sort of headcanons or impact it all might have had.

Impression now

Overall an interesting little side-character plot, and her being regretful about the way things ended with Avere’s group and how she treated Edda, and wanting to be better and contribute as a Scion in retrospect was refreshing and gosh I would have had such high hopes for her I’m sure if I’d realized, only for them to be violently quashed. She didn’t really have time to grow and do better, making her all the more tragic, however small her role ultimately was or seemed.

Favorite moment

Again it’s all kind of hindsight 20/20 (multiple alt playthroughs) with this one, but her joining the Scions, I’d have to say, even if it wasn’t really a ‘moment’ and she was just… there one day. 

Idea for a story

Nothing specific or that I’d really thought about beforehand, but I’d like to put some thought into how her and Ahru might have interacted during her brief time with the Scions.

Unpopular opinion

Hm, I like her? I wish there’d been even a slightest bit more attention to side characters like her as there has been with side characters like Kai-Shirr actually, but that can probably be chalked up to one of ARR’s general failings - it just had a LOT it was trying to do while the dev team also figured they wouldn’t have so much success with it. But anyway, that’s off topic.

Favorite relationship

I got nothing here, tbh. She was nasty to Edda, thirsted after Avere, and we don’t really get many other implications to her and Paiyo Reiyo’s relationship apart from they were just kinda There together. Not a lot to go off of, even if it’d possibly be interesting to maybe see more.

Favorite headcanon

Hm. Maybe her and Ahru were drinking buddies… :|a

Actually, bonus, I think I will do G’raha since I definitely did focus more on the Exarch in the other.

First impression

Again, “Who the fuck is this little shit?” He annoyed me a bit in those early days, but only really insofar as he felt like he was supposed to? It was in a friendly sort of way though, like siblings. Overall I was endeared to him, and found him to be a very interesting and sadly underrated character - always wondering if or when we’d ever see him again. Also, it was exciting finally seeing a male miqo’te prominent in the story! U tribe guys don’t count.

Impression now

-BANGING POTS AND PANS OUTSIDE THE CRYSTAL TOWER ON THE SOURCE-

Favorite moment

Augh, the Crystal Tower was just really good and full of good G’raha moments! Him pouting cuz Rammbroes won’t let him do what he wants, being a sassy lil shit, and man definitely when he accepted his legacy and made the hard choices just… aughgghgghghgh. 

Idea for a story

I think this is pretty common actually, but I started maining and played bard through most of CT, I just love the idea of them (him and Ahru) playing songs together during their down time. 

Unpopular opinion

Hm… :|a None that come to mind!

Favorite relationship

His interactions with most of the Sons and Ironworks characters were fun and endearing, but it’s absolutely hands down his relationship with the WoL - albeit greatly skewed by the knowledge of what happens in Shadowbringers especially. Just knowing how much of an impact they’ve had on him… Good stuff. ; w ;

Favorite headcanon

I’m sticking with the story/bard idea and thinking about how Ahru was still a little rough around the musical edges back then, so the idea of him teasing but otherwise giving her a hand with this or that and helping her along is ; W ;b

[theoriesontheory]

The Making of - ‘Disney’s Hyperfantasia’ - Sal Viejo

How do you (or I) write a cathartic song? The more I look at this question the more it becomes increasingly simple and complicated in my mind. On one hand, I know how to do it. I’ve done it for three years as Sal Viejo, listened to cathartic music from other bands and watched performances that sent waves of catharsis through the room. You just do it. On the other hand, saying “you (or I) just do it” is an answer that is unsatisfying, and I know that there have been times where I have been unable to write a cathartic song where the advice “just do it” would have sent me into a rage. So, I decided to write a cathartic song, as I have done before but this time, using autoethnographic research methods, explore my process not only documenting what I was doing but reflecting on the parts of my real life that went into the song.

Catharsis as a feeling is difficult to define, especially from an academic perspective. An interesting note from some of my reading into music therapy is that the music we listen to shapes our lives and experience. (Barnes, 2013) Continuing from this idea, Barnes points out a case where a neuropsychologist was struggling down the side of a mountain with a broken leg and eleviated some of the mental strain and pain by focusing on a song. (ibid.) Looking specifically for references to catharsis I found an explanation of the phenomenon in a film text, “Catharsis is Aristotle’s term for the experience of audiences at the end of tragedy – overwhelming feelings of sorrow, pity, or some other strong emotions caused by the representation of tragic and piteous events… Aristotle and most of his commentators agree that catharsis, whatever it is, occurs to the beneficial effect of the audience.” (Plantinga, 2009) I feel that mainstream media has changed the meaning of the cathartic experience, in that rather than leaving stories on tragic endings, the trend is to send the crowd home happy. There has been a trend in media to end stories on more tragic notes recently, in my view closer to how things end in real life, Breaking Bad is a great recent example. Tying the two ideas together now, when looking for information on catharsis through music, there proved to be some gaps in the literature. There are discussions of how works have been performed in contexts that have made them cathartic, (Ansari, 2013) how communities use musicking to cope with their economic and social stresses (Stamatis, 2015) and even how music is being used in physiotherapy sessions, showing the role of psychology in pain treatment and management. (le Roux, 1998) My approach to this question hinges on creating a song that provides some level of catharsis, either for me or the listener. Despite my reading, coming to a clear and understood definition of catharsis seems difficult and thus, I think it makes sense to g to the original, Aristotelian definition as provided by Plantinga, overwhelming feelings at the end of a tragedy.

My understanding of autoethnography as a research method comes from some time considering it in the course of my honours and masters study up to this point. One of the core elements that draws me to it is my understanding that at the core of the research is the individual and their creative work (in the context of creative autoethnographic projects). Adams, Jones and Elis describe autoethnography as practice that; uses a researchers personal experience in describing and critiquing culture, acknowledges and values the reasearchers relationships, uses reflexivity – reflecting on the way the individual interacts with the world, shows “people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles”, balances emotional and intellectual work and strives to make the world better. (2014)

I was inspired to write in this way by David Carless whose paper Throughness was the first autoethnographic study of song writing that I came across. In reviewing the literature there were many papers focused on performance or composition of art music pieces but when looking for contemporary song writing used as autoethnography the field was sparse. In this paper Carless asks many of the same questions I face myself,

“How do we write songs as qualitative research? What kinds of processes matter when writing a song? What can we do to support and nurture these processes? What might we draw upon when writing songs about our own or another’s life? And how is it that culture, politics and personal biography can become so powerfully entwined in a song?” (2018)

In answering these questions Carless submits a series of Diary entries that they call a story that details the specific moments where the creation of the song was happening as well as their personal reflection on their own song writing process. In a similar way, I have been drawing from a journal I use specifically to write thoughts I have when I am in a negative mental headspace for lyrics and ideas and building songs up around them. Unlike Carless’ work, I will be covering not only the song writing process but also the process of cutting together a demo version of the song for release on Bandcamp. In putting together my story I will be including transcriptions of events based on my personal notes and my memory, images from my journal and other writing and personal reflections, some of which will touch on themes of self-harm, depression, and suicide. Please read in a safe mental place and look after yourself. If you need help, please seek it:

Lifeline: 13 11 14 Beyond Blue: 1300224636 Suicide Call Bank Service 1300659467 Process: In late July of 2021 I found myself experimenting with chords in open D after having uploaded a cover of Hot Mulligan’s I Fell in Love with Princess Peach. Open D feels like such a powerful tuning, so easy to get big brash sounds. I have been avoiding writing in alternate tunings because the idea of tuning on stage stresses me out, but I have a show coming up and want to play that Hot Mulligan cover to impress someone I think might be there so to justify the tuning I figured I would try and write another song using it.

I always have way more chords or instrumental parts for songs before I have lyrics. I find that I will often even have a vague melody line that I can hum or make random syllables around while I play the parts on my guitar. I have been trying to just say the first thing that comes to mind, trusting the part of my brain that knows what good lyrics sound like to figure something out under pressure, but I have found this process works best with some stimulation.

My mental health is something I have struggled with, largely in silence for my life, since probably my mid to late teens. I was on medication for a while, it didn’t go so well (see twelve) and since then have been trying to come to terms with my mental health through mindfulness, mediation, and introspection. PLEASE NOTE I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND DO NOT ADVISE THIS. GO AND SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP BEFORE UNDERTAKING ANY CHANGES TO MEDICATION OR TREATMENT. One way I have done this is by having a specific journal to write in on nights where I feel I am having particularly negative thoughts, the idea being that when I have these thoughts, I find they tend to circulate inside my head and writing them down is a way that I can get them out of my head. Additionally, it allows me to go back and reflect on the patterns of thinking and try and figure out where they come from. On one night, I’m going to guess late June, early July based on my memory I was having negative thoughts that led me to write down this across two pages

Transcription: Im sick of all my friends being worried.

No matter how hard I try I can’t see what comes next Static the cards the stars everything Static

I wish I could still dream, maybe I could if there was a future to see

Why do I keep seeing myself in a carcrash?

When I drive around at night I think about driving into the side of the road. Not really thinking about it but it just happening. I feel Like I’ve done it. I feel like I am doing it. It’s beautiful, its silent. I am calm. No more thinking.

I DON’T WANT TO DIE YET (the word “breathe” is written five times through the lines underneath the statement)

One day at a time -Next Page- (a crude single line drawing of a sunset over an ocean above the margin)

I clearly need to go talk to someone

Most of the time i feel like I look normal –

Everyone is suffering, its easier to pretend Its harder to tell the people you love youreinpainbecausetheycant… (I can’t read what I wrote) Head feels like static

Trying to fill the noise Beniah knows too

Amy asked if I was doing ok I said yes I don’t think she believes me anymore I hate the Look in their Eyes when they See me Everyone knows youre sick Can’t have them know… (I can’t read what I wrote) I think Im doing ok now

I feel like I am good at adjusting to how I feel. Didn’t go for a drive

Remembering parts of this night I know that I didn’t write all of this at once. The first page was written largely at the same time, the second page in bursts, idea by idea, sometimes writing new ideas in and around older ones, writing more frantically. I feel like there are two stories being told here, on the first page, an internal negative feeling, I have never told anyone about the car thing until releasing this song. The second page, the negative feelings growing and being self-aware about wanting to appear ok around my friends and housemates and feeling that pressure.

So now I had a couple of pages of personal emotional outpourings, some chords that I like the sound of and a quest to make a song cathartic. More important to me than how cathartic the song is, as with all my song writing, is that it was honest so in sorting through my scribblings I wanted to put together an accurate representation of my mind at the time. I first jotted down what felt like the most unique imagery to me, the false memories of being in a car crash and coming to terms with that. I am not sure what it means, but it is scary at times. I thought that because it is such a unique experience that detailing might be an interesting part of the song and thus the pre-chorus and chorus were put together. I had the melody of the chorus on a voice memo on my phone when working on the guitar part and I remember thinking to myself, for such happy chords the melody was lending itself to something almost being howled out, it felt like a question almost. After I had written the pre-chorus and chorus the next thing that felt natural to do was to frame the response to that statement which is the second verse. Reflecting on the pages, a lot of my worries on the second page seemed focused on how my friends and the ones I care about perceive me. I think this is a common feeling for people who struggle with their mental health and something that I am less concerned with when I am not in a negative mental space. The lyricism in the second verse is intentionally a little frantic, I wanted it to mimic in a small way how my mind can jump from idea to idea. I always find opening songs difficult; I think it’s important as a songwriter to have an impactful first few lines, especially in a song that is being made with the intent of an emotional experience in listening to it. I decided to borrow the writing style from some of my favourite US mid-western emo bands who often frame difficult to swallow truths in upbeat melodic phrasing and whimsical turns of phrase. A quite extreme example can be heard on The Front Bottoms’ “Father” which opens with some quite graphic imagery and is about the lead singers strained and complex relationship with his father, but I have seen people cheer and sing and dance along when the song is played live. And so, I decided to be very honest about the background of the feelings, maintaining some semblance of the narrative that I am ok while showing really that I am not, heading into the pre-chorus. The bridge was the last section to come together, both musically and lyrically. The rest of the piece was pretty much put together and being fine polished as far as vocal phrase lengths and how I would play the guitar part. The lyrics for the bridge started as what could have been a verse, describing the images but I decided that the pre-chorus was a more functional way of doing that, introducing the idea in a semi-palatable way. I knew I would close the song with the bridge (potentially put a chorus at the end) and decided to add some weight to the end of the work, almost like a Shakespearian tragedy, everyone dies at the end. I don’t think I make it feel like there is death at the end of the piece but the way I stack the layers of the pre-chorus and bridge sections before cutting right at the end to the first line of the pre-chorus was designed to add to the emotional impact at the end. Initially the guitar part for the bridge was more complex, I wanted to try and show that I was a good guitar player and had been practicing. This led me to retuning the guitar to Open D to come up with a pretty and impressive riff. I had a few ideas but in the context of playing solo and recording a demo I want the core guitar part, the part I play, to be something that I can do while I sing and give an overall engaged performance, which I’m not quite good enough to do with impressive guitar bits yet.

Lyrics: I feel well adjusted, sometimes I feel fine, or I lie which I know I shouldn’t do to my friends But we all pretend, because it’s easier than admitting how scared we are Have I told you about the weird thing that happened the other night in my car?

I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head Of me losing control, on the free way And it plays in slow motion And the strangest thing about it to me always is

I don’t scream I don’t scream

I know I worry you, I’m worried too don’t think I want to die yet Look at the sunset, take a deep breath, hold on for one more day I’m ok, that’s what I say but I don’t think you believe me Static on the TV, looks like my tea leaves, Don’t worry about me

I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head Of me losing control, on the free way And it plays in slow motion But the strangest thing about it to me always is

I don’t scream I don’t scream I don’t scream I don’t scream

As I watch bumper meet divider, Sparks and metal fly up Into the night sky I wonder how it would feel I wonder how it feels to…

As I watch bumper meet divider, I’ve been seeing pictures, Sparks and metal fly up almost like memories in my head Into the night sky of me losing control I wonder how it would feel on the freeway I wonder how it feels to… And it plays in slow motion But the strangest thing about it to me always is

As I watch bumper meet divider, I don’t Scream Sparks and metal fly up Into the night sky I wonder how it would feel I don’t scream I wonder how it feels to…

I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head

Once the song was structured, I began practicing it, getting ready to cut a demo to put out into the world. In practicing it, I found the song easier to engage with on some days rather than other. I make recordings of me playing new songs so I can remember how they go at later dates but also to watch back and think about melodic choices and I found on one particular day while I could technically perform the song ok, I know I had played it better in the past. I have this relationship with most of the Sal Viejo songs that are about hard things from my life. I can perform most of them at the drop of a hat, but I know the performance is better when I am in the right mental place. I find it is a fine balance between being where you were during those hard times, but still able to perform. I feel like ‘Sal Viejo’ almost acts like a mediator sometimes, an outside observer who can sing about these things because they didn’t live through them, they saw them happen.

Heading into the day of recording I was a little stressed. Not only was I recording something still pretty fresh with the intention of sharing it to the world, but I also had just moved, had just gotten out of quarantine due to a secondary covid contact, was working a new job and had lots of uni work to do. I started the day by going and getting a coffee, thinking about the song as I went on my morning walk. My thoughts were mostly about the melody, the chords, the rhythm but also, I was beginning to make some mental adjustments to get me to the place I felt like I needed to be. When I got home, I had the intention of going slowly, setting up at my own pace and warming up but I felt the compulsion to just get it done. I started with guitar tracking, taking a signal from a mic set up near the body of the guitar and a line from the guitar, through an acoustic reverb pedal. It was during the guitar tracking process that I realised I had to simplify the line in the bridge. To get the timing right, I was playing to a metronome and singing to myself to figure out where the chord hits were and realised that I couldn’t actually play the part and sing, making it useless for live shows. After I finished the guitar did a quick mix and took lunch. I decided that I would try some vocals, but I didn’t know how they would go. I started singing and quickly realised that the phrasing would prove difficult and so I would have to punch in some of the sections. I found this really challenging because a part of the emotional engagement with the song comes from singing whole phrases, not just particular lines. What I decided to do was do multiple, full length takes, each one hitting the entrance of a section and cut it together. This meant that I could stay in the right emotional place while performing for recording and worry about the engineering side later. I wanted the mix to be fairly transparent for the demo, wanting people to hear the emotion and the story without too much distraction. I cut the vocals together and did a mix that I felt like let the vocals pierce through enough while still feeling tied to the guitar. There is a charm in the small amounts of string buzz and mic popping in the demo for me, in the mixing process I tried to get rid of some of it but decided that macro level edits would take away some of the human delivery. One decision I did make at this point was editing the lryics. The original lyric in the bridge was, “I wonder how it would feel, I wonder how it feels to die” I thought that the impact of that phrase would be increased if that word was censored, as subtly as possible but in a way that leaves listeners hanging on what the end of the phrase is. There are clues in the rhyming structure and content around it and you can figure it out if you listen to it, also I don’t know that I necessarily want a song in the world where I am explicitly asking what death feels like, I don’t know that I am at that level of openness as a songwriter yet.

In the rush of creative energy, I also cut a DIY, proof of concept music video which I attached the master of the song to which can be watched and heard here.

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A post shared by Sal Viejo (@sal_viejo)

Reflections: Digging into my song writing process has proved an interesting and at times challenging experience. In many ways I think I was fortunate to already have the bones of the song together before I started approaching the writing and making of the song as research as I don’t know that I could have been as honest in my lyricism knowing that I might have to explain where it came from. One observation I made is, through digging through the emotional distress that lies at the heart of this song, I found myself having cathartic emotional responses, forcing myself to consider where my songs come from. Also, as I practiced I found that having the research idea and the goal of catharsis beneficial as I made performance choices. I am unsure whether or not I have definitively answered the question, ‘how does one write a cathartic song?’ But in conducting this autoethnographic study of my process of writing a song with catharsis in mind I think I have answered, here is one way that I can do it.

References:

Adams, T. E., Holman, J. S., & Ellis, C. (2014). Autoethnography. ProQuest Ebook Central

Ansari, E., A. (2013) “Vindication, cleansing, catharsis, hope”: interracial reconciliation and the dilemmas of multiculturalism in Kay and Dorr’s Jubilee (1976). American Music, 31 (4), https://go-gale-com.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA401094780&docType=Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-MOD1&prodId=EAIM&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA401094780&searchId=R1&userGroupName=saeinstitute&inPS=true

Barnes, H. (Ed.). (2013). Arts activism, education, and therapies : Transforming communities across africa. ProQuest Ebook Central

 Carless, D. (2018). “Throughness”: A Story About Songwriting as Auto/Ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3), 227–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417704465

le Roux, F. (1998). Music: A new intergrated model in physiotherapy. South African Journal of Physiotherapy, 54(2), 10-11. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/sajp.v54i2.593

Plantinga, C. (2009). Moving viewers : American film and the spectator's experience. ProQuest Ebook Central

[sg2tiger]

Back again for another year of games!! I dunno, making these lists is kinda fun, and it also tends to help me actually finish games I’ve started, so I’ll probably keep doing it at the end of the year for as long as I can be bothered.

As usual, the images mostly speak for themselves, but the obligatory TL;DR reviews are under the cut. May contain spoilers.

—————————————— Kingdom: New Lands (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— For a game that only requires one button and a joystick (or some WASD if you're into that sort of thing), Kingdom is surprisingly fun. I hesitate to call it 'tower defense' because it's not, but it's definitely got a similar sort of feeling to it. Like tower defense meets resource management/building game. You - the monarch - ride around on your horse and use your carefully-managed budget of coins (and by carefully-managed I mean you can and will probably run out at some point and fuck yourself over if you haven't planned well) and recruit peasants to join and defend your steadily-growing kingdom. Give them a coin and either a bow or a hammer and a peasant will become a worker, to build and repair your towers, or an archer, to hunt by day (to earn you coins) and defend your towers from the monsters who come out at night. You can have workers cut down trees to expand your kingdom further, allowing more room for towers and eventually farms to be built to keep your coin supply steady, and upgrade your intially-tiny campsite into a true fortress. Your goal is essentially to keep building your kingdom out as far as you can across the island, while making sure it's not overrun by the monsters who get steadily more powerful every night. The monsters can and will destroy your towers, and if they catch your workers and archers they'll turn back into wandering peasants who you will need to seek out once more to give new coins. This can be tricky, too, since their campsites may be deep in the woods, and night can fall quickly if you venture out there unprepared - having the monsters attack while you're not behind the safety of your castle walls can instantly spell game over. If you manage your resources right, though, you will eventually have enough of a coin surplus to repair the broken ship lying somewhere in the wilderness, which you need in order to escape the island and move onto the next level.

All in all Kingdom is as mechanically simple as it gets, but can prove quite a challenge to survive. I think my best game lasted about 38 days, and I did manage to get at least to the second island. Plus, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful pixel art and lighting. It's a great game to play if you just want to unwind without thinking about anything too complicated.

—————————————— Stardew Valley (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— If you like Harvest Moon, you'll like Stardew Valley. I'm sure this has been said a million times, but really it's about as simple as that. That's not to say SV is just a 'HM clone' of course, but the similarities and inspirations are abundantly clear. There's a lot to do, interesting characters, and even a lot of mods if you get bored of the base game after a while. I think I got through about my first year before I started losing steam, and never got around to tinkering too much with mods. I should go back and give it another go sometime.

As consequence of writing this review practically an entire year since I last played, I can't think of anything more specific to say. But I do remember enjoying it.

—————————————— Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— If you liked Borderlands 2, I can't think of a good reason NOT to play TPS. It seems to get an awful lot of undeserved hate simply because 'it's not BL2', which, well, is stupid. Borderlands 2 is a great game and I can understand people feeling like TPS didn't quite live up to that reputation, but that alone doesn't make it a bad game. It's not Borderlands 3 after all - it's The Pre-Sequel. It exists to fill in the gaps between the first and second games while providing an experience and humor more similar to the second, if somewhat shorter.

One thing I particularly liked and hope we see again in future installments is that the player characters felt more real. They actually TALK to the other characters during the storyline quests, rather than feeling like essentially blank slates outside of their combat banter and backstory Echoes (of which I was never able to find all in BL2). It made me feel like my character was more involved in what was going on, and actually had more of a connection to these events and characters. I played Athena in my singleplayer game because she's the narrator of the framing story, but I was Nisha in my multiplayer game and played with a Baroness and Holo-Jack. It was fun hearing the vastly different types of commentary depending on which one of us handed in a quest, which gave more variety to the characters. I'd like to do another solo run as someone else someday even just to hear all their unique quest responses.

Also, managing O2 isn't THAT bad once you get used to it. It's a little bit of a pain early on, but once you get a decent Oz-Kit it's pretty manageable. Oxygen bubbles are plentiful on the moon's surface, and there's a lot of zones that take place almost entirely in oxygenated areas to boot. Plus, slamming is a lot of fun. I thought the mechanic was a nice way of differenciating the game a bit more from BL2, in a sorta gimmicky way without feeling terribly frustrating. Also, the grinder made getting Legendary weapons somewhat feasible compared to BL2, and there were many times I'd just spend over an hour going between the loot chest and grinder over and over. ...I mean, I don't do that. Using a save editor to give yourself infinite gold keys and playing the whole game with purple guns is cheating, and I would never do that in BL2 or TPS. Not ever.

Anyway, TPS was fun. I never got around to playing the DLC, so I guess I'll have something to look forward to next time I get the urge to do a new solo playthrough as a different character.

—————————————— Riff Racer (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended ——————————————

Another one of those 'zip around a track to your own music collection' games, so naturally I had to take a look at it. Audiosurf was my first Steam game, after all. Unlike Audiosurf, though (to which comparisons are inevitable since they're similar at a glance), Riff Racer is actually a RACING game. At least to the extent that one can race against oneself. You basically load up a song to generate a track, just like Audiosurf and similar games. If you're the first person to ever run that song, any other player who ever plays that song will be racing against your ghost - likewise, if you do a song someone else created first, they're the score you wanna beat. There's no actual other cars on the track though, just you and a lot of obstacles to avoid, ramps to jump and curvy tracks to drift. Drifting is the main way to earn points, and is also the most fun part of the game. It took me a bit to really get the hang of it, but once I did I started seeking out songs that were likely to have a lot of tight corners to drift around. I was floored when I actually managed to pull off the achievement for drifting 16 beats in one maneuver, because for the longest time I could barely manage to drift 4. And the feeling you get when you're actually able to beat a powerful ghost is [relieved] [okhand]

Of course, a lot of people play this sort of game just to chill out and not worry about things like leaderboards and high scores. That's totally fine too!! It's a great game to just sit back and chill out with, just drifting along the track with your favorite tunes. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who's into games like Audiosurf - I get the feeling it's a bit of a lesser-known gem, and it totally deserves some more love.

—————————————— Persona 3 Portable (PSP) FINAL VERDICT: UNFINISHED —————————————— I started playing this in March, I think...as I write this, it's December, and I still haven't finished. I know P3 is one of those games that makes the 'must play' and favorite lists of a LOOOOT of people, and many will hail it as the best JRPG of all time...but I have to wonder how much of that is just being blinded by nostalgia. I certainly don't think there's ENOUGH of a difference between the Portable and PS2 versions that I'm missing some great secret that makes this game so much more amazing than I can see, at least.

I haven't picked it up in a while (I've played it on and off throughout the year) but I believe I'm somewhere around the end of September or beginning of October in-game. So I'm certainly not dismissing it after only a few hours. In fact, I'm not dismissing it at all - as a MegaTen fan, I do want to finish it at some point. Really, I just keep getting burned out by Tartarus. For me, games are games - if all I wanted was a compelling story and interesting characters, I'd read a book. A game needs to first and foremost engage me with its GAMEPLAY, and while I do enjoy story-driven games with interesting characters, that alone isn't enough to save it if the GAMEPLAY isn't engaging me enough first!! And Tartarus is just...bad. I'm sorry, but one dungeon with semi-randomized floors where the decor only slightly changes periodically as you climb higher and every single floor is practically the same grind of collect items/attack or avoid enemies/find the stairs...that's just not fun. Like not even a little. It got old somewhere around the second block, and by now I'm on, what, fifth or sixth? I can't remember, it's all the fucking same. And while I enjoy MegaTen combat, and P3 is sorta similar to the push-turn system, even those get old after a while of the same 3 encounters ad nauseum for the next 15-odd floors until you hit the next boss. It didn't take long for me to start playing with my volume muted outside story segments (I use the undub patch, otherwise I'd probably have it muted for the entirety of the game) because I was sick of hearing the same OOOOOH YEAH!!! DADADA-DA DADADA-DA!!! over and over again. One thing I've always hated is games that run on having a LOT of battles and grinding, but only one piece of battle music outside boss fights. It's cruel and unusual.

Anyway. Tartarus aside, the game's alright. I personally find social links a little odd, because I'm linking with people unrelated to my struggle against the Shadows (I still haven't hit lofty the requirements to link with the girls, and outside the PSP-exclusive non-canon Girl Route you can NEVER link with your male teammates). It's this bizarre sort of disconnect - I understand that these people are part of my life in their own ways, but it feels very segregated. I should be bonding with the people in my party, the ones living in my dorm, my fellow Persona users who understand the stress we're under and can relate to my struggles. Instead, I'm cringing at a wannabe playboy who thinks his teacher wants to bone him, or a rules-obsessed student council jerkbag, both of whom I have to tell what they WANT to hear and not how I ACTUALLY feel because it's all about leveling up those sweet sweet link ranks. Devil Survivor 2 used a similar link system (most likely inspired by P3, since I believe that came first), but instead of being random people from my class/town I was actually linking with my party members. Being able to bond with the people I'm spending most of my game with felt a lot more meaningful to me than the P3 links - in fact, for the first in-game month or two, I kept waiting for some of my early links to find out about Shadows and get moved into the dorm as playable characters. I was very surprised to find out that they just ultimately had nothing to do with the main gameplay and storyline whatsoever. Maybe that's the point. Maybe there's some profound reason for this that I don't know yet because I haven't finished the game. But to me, it feels disjointed and unrelated to the main game I'm supposed to be playing here.

Social Links, and Tartarus. Aside from the storyline itself, those are basically what make up this game - and I'm not terribly fond of either. Sure, I'm enjoying the story well enough, and the glimpses I get of my party members through the main storyline and things like the hidden camera videos...but that's not enough for me. The GAMEPLAY needs to win me over as much as the story, and it's just not. I'd like to stick it out and finish it, and I do still pick it up from time to time...but there's a reason I haven't finished it despite starting it so many months ago, and this is basically it. I simply don't find it fun. And it's great if it's the favorite game or best JRPG for a lot of people? But it's not that for me.

(I'd also like to play P4 and even P5 someday, but I don't own any consoles so I'm basically riding on the popularity of things like Dangan Ronpa to convince more Japanese developers that porting their games to Steam is worthwhile...otherwise I'll probably never get to play either of those)

—————————————— Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— While I ultimately burned out before I could finish my NG+ all the way through and then go to Bitterblack Isle, I had a lot of fun with this game. DLC aside, I basically 100% completed everything else - all normal quests (had to catch a few missable ones on my NG+ for the achievement), all regular notice board quests (including the annoying ones like mining a fuckton of that one rare mineral or getting 100 clumps of hair or whatever it was, and the one with all the skulls), and even got all the badges (also including the missable ones on my NG+). The badge sidequest should absolutely have an achievement attached. I'm not sure why I bothered actually...personal satisfaction, I guess. Either way, I only bother to put that kind of effort into a game if I really enjoy it, so that says it all right there.

Dragon's Dogma, on the surface, is a fairly generic fantasy RPG. The world of Gransys is pretty dull - aside from the small village where you grew up, there's pretty much just the One Big City, and long stretches of wilderness with a fortress or two. The NPCs are mostly generic peasants with a handful of quest givers, aside from the story-important characters...and everyone talks in this weirdly forced archaic style where 'aught' is the most popular word in the entire world. Hearing your pawns say the same 3 stock phrases over and over again also gets really old - yes, I know that goblins ill like fire, I've probably killed more than a million of them by now!! The story is also told in a really confusing style to where you probably won't grasp what's actually going on until you go through a New Game+ - not because it's terribly difficult in itself, but just because of the odd way in which the game gives out information. Having to talk to an NPC 3 or 4 times in order to hear all they have to say in a given conversation doesn't help matters, either, because if you don't know enough to do that you may well only speak to them once and then walk away, simply not having enough information to know what just happened. It's basically Capcom trying to apply JRPG logic to an open, WPRG-style world, and it doesn't always work.

That aside, however...the real meat of the game is in the combat. The hack-and-slash combat and multiple character classes with their own abilities and playstyles is what really makes the game. I found it similar to Kingdoms of Amalur, if slighly more robust - not surprising, though, since it's from the same company responsible for Devil May Cry. So you can be certain that the combat always feels engaging and solid. The best part to me, though, is the giant monsters. After a while you'll get sick of cyclopes and chimera (the most common large monsters), but in the early game they're appropriately terrifying. You're ENCOURAGED to climb up on them and go after their weak points, rather than standing at their feet slashing away like an idiot. If you're fighting a cyclops, naturally you'd go for the eye. But what if it's an armored cyclops, with a helmet protecting the eye? Then you have to get the helmet off before you can really damage it. If you're fighting a chimera, each part of the beast does something different - you generally want to kill the snake first so it can't poison you, but meanwhile the goat is shooting magic at you and the lion is tearing you to shreds with its claws, so situationally it may be better to take out one of those parts first. With each part, you disable and severely weaken the beast, making it easier to finish it off. Every enemy has a weakness like that, and it's particularly important for the giant ones. And God forbid you don't take advantage of the weaknesses when fighting a dragon (sorry, a drake/wyvern/wyrm), you're pretty much guaranteed to die.

Another thing I really liked was how much nighttime really ups the terror of encountering giant dangerous enemies like this. Gransys isn't nearly so big a world as it tricks you into thinking, because there's no mounts and fast travel is fairly limited/difficult for the first half of the game or so. This means that if you want to get anywhere significantly far across the map, you're going to have to pack enough lantern oil and prepare to travel during the night. Night in Dragon's Dogma - even with a lantern - is PUNISHINGLY dark. This is the kind of darkness you WISH your Skyrim lighting mods and ENB could achieve. Your lantern only illuminates a small circle around your character - just enough to see where you're going and not bump into things. But not enough to warn you of a chimera about to leap at you from the darkness before it's far too late to dodge...something that happened to me once during the early game and nearly gave me a heart attack (I don't play horror games because I can't handle jump scares, but this chimera had more or less the same effect on me). You have to be very cautious and very quiet, and sticking to the roads can mean the difference between life and death. Resource management is also important and you can't just stock up on 300 mega-heal potions at once - even in the late game, you'll still only be buying/finding the lowbie herbs, so you've got to combine them together yourself to make more powerful healing items. The crafting system is also forgivingly simple (a case of 1 + 2 = 3, across the board) so it doesn't get overly tedious to have to spend a little prep time rifling through your bank storage and combining some items before adventuring.

The pawn system is also a lot of fun (despite how much their repetitive dialogue will grate on you after the first hour). I've always preferred that JRPG feel of traveling with a party of adventurers to the WRPG style of being a wandering solo hero (I'd travel with 3 followers in Skyrim if having even one follower didn't tip the game balance so far in the 'too easy' direction). By mid-game I'd basically settled into Magic Archer as my class, so I'd usually have a fighter (my pawn), a mage (dem heals), and either a ranger or strider to fill in the gaps. It really captures that sort of oldschool JRPG feel of traveling the little 8-bit lands with your little 8-bit party...but like, in a 3D third-person open-world(ish) way, so more immersive. I only wish there were more dungeons - after backtracking to the catacombs and the canyon place 300 times within a playthrough, it got pretty stale. But the first time through the Water God's Altar I remember feeling like this was a JRPG-style dungeon given life, with the puzzle solving that's almost never present in WRPGs.

In the end, while Gransys itself always left me wanting something more, the core mechanics of the game were solid enough to keep even the multiple backtracking trips to the same 5 places fun. And while the story was a bit convoluted in how it was told, once I really put together what HAPPENED in the end, I was speechless. Not to say it was some kind of incredibly profound, award-worthy storytelling experience, but it was one of those moments where it all clicks together at once and the realization sets in and you just sit there for a few moments thinking, 'oh my God'. I won't say anything more so as not to spoil it, but don't be quick to dismiss the story as just an excuse plot for a game that's only about the combat, either. All in all I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs, J- and W- alike, and I really really wish we'd get Dragon's Dogma online someday, or another single player game as a sequel, or something. I just want more.

Guess I'd better get my ass to Bitterblack Isle.

—————————————— Sunless Sea (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— Having played Fallen London before (on and off, with very long breaks in between because I keep forgetting it exists...then I go back for a bit, rinse, repeat), I sorta knew what to expect with Sunless Sea in terms of narrativ style, setting, and general weirdness. What I didn't realize was just how HARD it was gonna be. Within less than 5 minutes of making my first character, I got eaten by a shark. Amazingly though, through numerous EXTREMELY CLOSE brushes with death and, dare I say, miracles...my second character (Tigeru 2, in a name scheme that shows just how long I expected this character to last) is miraculously STILL ALIVE. In addition to surviving, though, Tigeru 2's life goals consist of finding the bones of their lost father and also killing crabs. Lots of crabs. Like, all of them. Because fuck those guys. Anyway, it's hard to REALLY give a solid verdict on this one given the general style of the game and the fact that I haven't gotten very FAR yet...but it's good at being what it set out to be, and that's a difficult exploration game set in the Fallen London universe.

—————————————— Darkest Dungeon (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— I had my eye on Darkest Dungeon for a while before it left early access, but was never quite ready to drop any money on it because the reviews would often swing wildly between positives and negatives. Conceptually, I loved the idea - that the reality of dungeon crawling would not just be heroic, climactic battles but also stress, resource management, and fear. But while it sounds good on paper, it also sounded like something that might work better as an anime plot than a video game, because maintaining those exact same resources could quickly go from 'fun' to 'chore'. Anyway, I finally decided to take the plunge during the summer sale, and it's almost addictively fun...in small bursts. It's the kind of game where I can get caught up in the 'just one more level' dynamic for a while, but also the kind of game that feels repetitive and tedious after so many runs fighting the same enemies over and over. But I also think that I'm playing it 'wrong', in a way - because I don't want to lose the characters I've worked so hard to build, I'm playing it too safe. I'm so terrified of dying against bosses that I've actually OVERLEVELED my best characters, not realizing that characters who are TOO strong will refuse to take on levels and bosses they deem beneath their ability. If your heroes are too strong for the weaker missions, you just won't be allowed to bring them.

Some might call this a type of 'fake difficulty' but I'd disagree because it really does enforce the game's entire theme. Which is actually kind of nice because it ensures you're forced OUT of that 'playing it safe' comfort zone that I was trapping myself in, waiting until you're so OP you can stomp anything that comes your way. That sort of gameplay goes against everything Darkest Dungeon stands for - the whole point of the game is that you're NEVER going to be truly prepared for the horrors that lurk here, and that there's no such thing as weak enemies or an invincible party. Your preparedness to tackle a dungeon lies not in your character's levels and OP abilities but your ability to manage resources, trinkets, phobias and diseases, and picking the right heroes for the job instead of steamrolling every level with your 4 favorites. And even then, there's the RNG...which is something I really hate, and the subject of many negative reviews, but I honestly think it also makes sense for this game. Again, no matter how prepared you are, you're going up against unspeakable eldritch horrors here. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY ACCOUNT FOR EVERY CONTINGENCY. Sometimes you can do your absolute best and things will still end up going terribly wrong because you were just unlucky. Heroes will die. You may have to drop rare treasures and flee just to save at least one life. It's bound to be frustrating, sure, but it's the very nature of this game to be like that. All you can do is make the best of a bad situation, and rebuild from your losses to continue on. No, it's not going to be easy - but if that's what you expected, you picked the wrong game in the first place.

—————————————— Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: BUGGY AS FUCK ——————————————

I grew up on Baldur's Gate (well, Baldur's Gate II moreso) when I was just a wee child. Thus, when I found out they were rereleasing 'enhanced' editions, I was very excited. However...anyone who has played Baldur's Gate or similar CRPGs from the days of yore knows that they're long, and often tedious games. So while both enhanced editions sat in my Steam library for a long time, I could never bring myself to actually want to sit down and PLAY them because the idea of starting such a long saga was daunting. But during the summer, some friends I often play co-op games with proposed the idea of doing a multiplayer run...and it sounded fun!! At first.

At least, until we realized that Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition was barely 'enhanced' at all. Aside from a few new characters, it was basically just the original game...bugs and all. And there are a LOT of bugs. In fact, this is quite possibly the buggiest game I have ever played, and I wish I were exaggerating. We tried our best to deal with the snags and press on, but it eventually just got to be too much, and none of us were really having any fun with it. Thus, we decided to call it quits and do a multiplayer run of Neverwinter Nights II instead.

Unless you're a hardcore fan of the originals or a serious masochist, I couldn't recommend this game. Maybe the enhanced BG II is better...and maybe someday I'll find out. That was literally my childhood game, after all. But BG I EE...is just bad.

0/10 would not Enhance again.

—————————————— Tabletop Simulator (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— Simultaneously not an actual game, but yet, every game known to man. You know that feeling when you walk into the local comic and games shop and see all these really cool games that you and your friends would have a lot of fun with...if your friends didn't all live halfway across the country - if not other countries entirely? Because I know that feel, and it sucks. Enter Tabletop Simulator, where those games probably already have mods...and if they don't, you can make your own with just a little ambition and elbow grease!! In fact, I've got 181 hours in TTS currently, and I'd wager less than 50 of that was spent actually playing games with friends - the rest has been me MAKING games to play with my friends. I made Umineko Clue (AKA Clumineko) as well as a version skinned for my friends and our roleplaying OCs...then I adapted the Risk-based game of gang warfare that I'd made as a final project in my game design class in college...then I just spent ungodly amounts of time decorating a 3D room with 3D objects to play games in with my friends, AND applied the same treatment to revamping the Clumineko mod into an entire 3D room based on the iconic witches tea room. Never in a million years would I call myself a 'modder', but I actually learned how to do some basic stuff in Blender and Unity ENTIRELY so I could make fun games and shit to do in TTS with my pals.

It may not be a 'game' so much as a sandbox physics engine with which to make and play many games with ease, but even so I'd be hard-pressed not to call it one of the best games of all time. If you have a good group of online pals I seriously could not recommend this one enough.

—————————————— ICEY (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— At the very last minute I found out about the Steam Link bundle deal in which you'd get the normally-expensive device for $1 with purchase of a little-known little 2D action game. Despite not having a great interest in the Link, I could hardly pass up the offer to get it for a dollar, and the game seemed pretty fun besides. On the surface, ICEY is a pretty fun little action platformer...but ALSO on the surface, it's a meta game. And that's because it advertises itself in exactly this way. That's the biggest flaw with ICEY, I think - you don't make a meta game and then say 'hey, this secretly is a meta game!!'. If it had downplayed those aspects and just branded it as an action platformer with maybe some cryptic hints that there was more to it than that, encouraging players to explore and find out what's going on in the game's multilayered world...it would have been a lot better, and maybe could have gone on to become a cult favorite instead of flying under everyone's radar. That aside, it's a pretty good game. The action is actually quite fun on its own, and uncovering the various endings is entertaining. The English voice over could use some work, but it's a Chinese game that only recently even GOT an English voiceover, apparently, so it's hard to fault that too much. Again, the meta aspects would have been more enjoyable if the game didn't advertise it outright, but it's alright.

I haven't actually finished it yet (think I have another boss or two to go; I got stuck and haven't yet gone back to it) but if the story actually ends up making sense in the end that'd be nice. I'm sort of waiting for that kind of payoff because right now everything just seems a little nonsensical. For what it's worth, though, I did have fun playing it.

—————————————— World of Warcraft: Legion (PC) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— I first included WoW on my 2015 games list, back when I first started playing. My verdict was essentially 'it's okay I guess, but it feels super dated all around and not very welcoming to players expecting a more modern game'. Well, obviously that hasn't changed - old content is still old content - BUT, with Legion, I feel like the newer content is at least taking steps in the right direction towards making the game feel less dated overall.

Legion was actually my fourth WoW subscription. Since my best friend has been playing for like 8 years and is really into the game, I get free subs thrown at me at least once a year, and I play for a few months until next time. My previous subscription ended just on the heels of Legion's release, and the changes to all the classes hit me pretty hard when suddenly my preferred Rogue spec (Combat) was altered so completely that I just did not want to play anymore. Everything I was used to was retooled, if not completely gone...and I was angry. But having an entire year to cool off and lose that muscle memory, I came into Legion with a fresh spec (Outlaw) and a new region to explore.

Legion content was definitely the most enjoyable to me so far. After making it through all the older content during leveling, my highest version during my first subscription (and review) was Pandaria, so I spent by far the most time playing in that zone. I liked the aesthetic, but the gameplay still felt dated, and I spent most of my time working on my farm or building rep with two factions who had mounts I wanted. Draenor wasn't TERRIBLE, though I had more fun building my garrison than I did questing the actual Draenor zones. Legion was the first time I felt like I actually had a LOT of different things to do, and had a real sense of character progression for the first time. I admit I know almost nothing about WoW lore (nor do I care to go down the rabbit hole of learning it), so there was a lot of ??? during the main Legion questline, but I still felt like I was being engaged in a real STORY for once. The cutscenes and voiced dialogue went a long way to making the game feel less old-fashioned, for one thing. For another, having the order of each zone be up to player's choice because of leveled enemies gave me some much-needed freedom during leveling, and not feeling like I either had to stick around in a lowbie zone with no EXP for the sake of following a storyline...or moving through the zones so fast that it wasn't even worth bothering to follow along with the stories because I'd only abandon them all halfway to move onto the next higher-level area. In Legion, I ended up doing basically every single quest in a zone before moving onto the next one (though I'd then do all the mandatory dungeons in one burst rather than one at a time). I actually read through the quest text instead of skipping along and just trying to hit 100 as soon as possible. And when I DID hit 100, halfway through Highmountain (having done Azsuna and Val'sharah already), I continued the Highmountain quest to the end and then did all of Stormheim.

Hitting level cap no longer felt like I'd met the 'goal' of the expansion, and had nothing really left to do but fuck around. After finishing all four main zones, there was Suramar, and the Broken Shore. There were world quests and the reputation tied to those. There were the class weapon quests, and the goal of gaining the class mount. There were even the falcosaur quests which I just barely managed to finish before my sub ran out!! Plus, having played September/October/November, I also had a lot of holiday events to work on (it was my first Brewfest, and then I went about finishing the Halloween and Thanksgiving achievements I didn't get last time I played in the fall). And in addition to all of THAT...I also got my Hunter through the rest of Draenor so he could do Legion content, too. I had wanted to make a Demon Hunter after that because it seems like the sort of class I'd enjoy playing, but I didn't end up having the time for that. Point being - for the first time, Legion gave me a whole lot of stuff to do, and I never really felt like I was 'done'. Every time I met one goal, there was another to work towards. That's the kind of experience I feel is really important in a game like this...but something I always sorta felt I was dragging myself through in past subscriptions, where I'd spend more time doing pet battles or trying to get transmog gear and mounts and basically anything but actually questing. This time, the questing and dungeoning didn't feel like a chore, or just a means to an end. The whole Legion experience managed to be enjoyable - and I never even wound up going to Argus.

By the time I play next, the newest expansion will be out, and I'll have even more to do. I hear there's gonna be new playable races this time, so maybe I'll even end up making another alt once I get my Rogue and possibly my Hunter through the expac content. Plus I can still make that Demon Hunter and go through Legion again. All in all I think WoW is finally breaking through my initial perceptions of it being a dated game, more fun for long-term players or hardcore raiders and not so much for newcomers who are more into PVE. What the new expac brings remains to be seen, but for once I'm optimistic that I'll end up having some fun with whatever that is.

—————————————— ARK: Survival Evolved (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— Growing up, there were three things in particular that captivated my interest (and also conveniently my Lego sets): pirates, ancient Egypt, and dinosaurs. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag captivated the first. Assassin's Creed: Origins will no doubt captivate the second, once it drops in price enough that I can actually buy it. And since I somehow doubt that assassins existed in the prehistoric eras, picking up the third interest is ARK.

I'd been watching ARK with a close eye since the early access days, precisely because the very concept of taming and riding dinosaurs sounded rad as fuck. It made it from my 'following' list, to my wishlist, to my 'groans sadly' list during every Steam sale when it'd drop no lower than $18 which was still far more than I was willing to spend on an early access game whose reviews were always swinging wildly between positives and negatives - particularly in the optimization department, as I had doubts that my computer could even RUN the game comfortably in its then-current state. Finally a friend of mine (who had bought and refunded the game several times already, also I believe due to optimization issues) had started playing it comfortably and generously gifted it to me about a year ago, just a short time before it finally left early access and went for full standard retail price. As predicted, I could barely run the game...even on the lowest graphic settings, with no sky effects and on the low memory setting, I was getting about 15 FPS just trying to walk around on the initial beach where I'd spawned. I sadly had to shelf the game and hope that I'd be able to play it someday in the future, when it was either optimized better or I'd upgraded to better hardware.

Now, both of those things have happened, so I decided to give it another go. Now that I can run it at an average 50 FPS on a mix of medium to high graphics settings and have actually been able to PLAY the game, it's the early days of Minecraft all over again, and I can't stop. I've been playing both singleplayer and multiplayer with a friend on an unofficial PVP server, and each game is sort of its own experience. The PVP server has everything set to 10x, so gathering resources and EXP all goes REALLY fast. I'm already like level 70 after only playing two days of multiplayer, and we've gone from a somewhat crude houseboat base to a slightly less crude base in the mountains with a decent crop of early to midgame dinos (we had more, but some died to alpha raptor injuries with others being on the wrong end of a tame and otherwise non-hostile T-Rex and its fertilized egg). Meanwhile in singleplayer, which I've actually spent more time in (only doing multi when my friend is available), I just hit level 30 and am only now starting to feel confident enough to venture away from my crude campsite on the beach where you first spawn...and have faced more than a few setbacks already. I did turn my dinosaur tame settings up to 10x (because waiting several REAL WORLD HOURS to tame critters is like, unreasonable) but otherwise I'm running just standard growth rates for everything, plus going solo...so it's a much slower experience overall. I want to keep my singleplayer experience a bit slow and steady, with more of the intended 'harsh survival' feel to help me better grasp the basics of the game before getting too adventurous playing on servers without the help of my friend, but once I feel that I've got a good handle on the game and its dangers I will definitely branch out more.

Between PVP, PVE and mod-based servers, not to mention the other official DLC maps, ARK is a game with a LOT to do. If I ever actually manage to conquer The Island, there's still a ton of content left waiting for me, giving the game a long life with lots of replay value. The only thing is that I tend to get burned out on games that have SO much to do and little in the way of like, actual endgame goals, so I'm sure I'll hit that at some point - but for now, I'm just having a blast enjoying the ride.

—————————————— Fire Emblem Heroes (Mobile) FINAL VERDICT: S'Alright —————————————— I don't normally include mobile games on these...well, probably in no small part because I don't normally PLAY mobile games. But, being a fan of the main Fire Emblem games, I decided to check out Heroes back when it first launched earlier this year. And it kept my interest for several months, which is impressive considering, again, I'm not really that into mobile games. I was impressed by how much it captured the same basic feeling of a Fire Emblem game despite being distilled down into a simplistic bite-sized mobile system - incredibly easy to just pop on and kill some time, but also enough to provide a challenge for those who want it. The 'story' was never really anything more than an excuse plot, but it's not as though I would have expected much more for a game like this in the first place so I don't really dock any points for that. All in all it's very good at being what it set out to be - a simple implementation of Fire Emblem as a mobile gatcha game.

Before long, however, it got very stale. For quite a while, new characters were introduced few and far between. It felt like 90% of the roster either came from Awakening or Fates (at the time the most recent games in the franchise), with almost everyone else from the Marth games. Games like Path of Radiance and Sacred Stones had next to no representation. As someone who has yet to play Fates, having that HUGE pool of characters from both games making up most of the heroes felt alienating from the start. Naturally, in a game like this, you most look forward to getting your favorite units...so for me, that part of the appeal was already lost, since most of my favorites weren't even IN the game. By the time they started adding in more variety my interest in the game was already waning, because it just felt like there wasn't much to DO. Once you've cleared all the story maps, it's basically just grinding your units up in the training tower, doing the arena 3 times a day (unless you build up a small fortune of dueling swords over time from the daily login rewards, which I did), and waiting around for a decent challenge map Tempest trials didn't even exist at that point. Of course, there was always quests, which for a long time I did try to complete as many as possible of before the month was up - the problem is how incredibly unfair so, SO many of the quests are. Almost every one with a worthwhile reward requires all 4 units to survive, which is fine...good rewards should be earned through challenge. But when you add to that '...and you have to use all red units' or 'a team of fliers' or something extremely specific like that, and the map is specifically designed to pit you against a bunch of blue units or archers...asking all four units to survive ON TOP OF THAT is just outrageously unfair. There's a big difference between the sort of strategic challenge of a regular Fire Emblem game and the kind of 'fake difficulty' imposed by these quests, and it got to where they just plain weren't fun anymore.

Without wanting to do quests, things got boring quickly. Sure, they introduced skill inheritence, adding a new layer of customization...but not only does that sort of micro-managing not appeal to me personally, but having to go up against ridiculously overpowered units in the arena and losing constantly made THAT not fun anymore either. No longer was it just about what units you got lucky enough to pull in a summon and took the time to raise to 5 star max level, but ALSO about what units you were lucky enough to pull and feed to your 5 star max level units to create the most broken and unbeatable character builds. That was around the point where I stopped logging in every day, only playing sporadically...and then, eventually, almost never at all.

I know by now they've introduced even more changes. Suddenly there's been a huge surge of new characters from the new and upcoming games, and then I log in and see that winning in the arena now nets you coins and other items that I have no idea what they're used for, or how I see some kind of element marker next to my name that I also don't understand. There's new story mode quests now, it seems, but for me it's all just too little too late. The initial months of the game were very stagnant compared to now, and it wasn't enough to keep my interest. By now, my lofty arena rank has fallen due to inactivity, and my once massive stockpile of orbs has dropped down to less than 10 because the most I might do is hop on and run one of the new summoning events in hopes of getting a character I actually care about, but end up walking away with 5 3-star Ests yet again.

I'm a Fire Emblem fan, but not a mobile gatcha game fan. It's hard to really say whether I'm FEH's target audience or not. All I know is that I had some fun for a while, but that time's now passed.

—————————————— Dragonball Z: Dokkan Battle (Mobile) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— After the above review, it may be surprising that I ended up giving another mechanically similar mobile gatcha game a try. It's no secret to most who know me personally that I have a very love/hate relationship with Dragonball. It was my adolescent obsession and the reason I even got into this crazy anime world in the first place, and will always hold a special place in my heart...but I also despise literally everything the franchise has become, and Super just plain does not exist in my world. So why would I play a game that basically exists to promote the Dragonball of today, full of Super characters and weird SSJ3 fusions and all kinds of other stuff that I hate? Peer pressure, mostly.

That aside, I've only been playing for a few weeks now (I think my consecutive logins are in the 20s, and I've logged in every day since I began), but I'm enjoying it so far. There are a lot of systems that are naturally very similar to FEH given they're both the same genre of mobile game, but in most cases I feel that Dokkan implements them better. For instance, duplicate units. In FEH, all those 3-star Ests are useless. 3-stars are almost never worthwhile for skill inheritence, and the effort it would take to rank them up is simply not worth it when you could invest your feathers in 4-star characters. In Dokkan, however, I can use those duplicates to increase the special attack of the original, or to unlock paths in their hidden potential. Plus, ranking up weak units is a lot easier. A 3-star Est may not be worth investing the time into raising, but an R or SR Dokkan unit can be trained with very easy-to-acquire training items and awakened to a higher level - and oftentimes awakened even further if they're given a Dokkan mode. In the event that you pull characters that truly are useless, you can at least cash them in for some trade points that can be used to buy rare items or characters in Baba's Shop, or just sell them for Zeni, which will get you more use than the small pittance of feathers you'd get for releasing duplicates in FEH.

Of course, aside from sharing those gatcha game staples, they're two totally different games and it's probably not entirely fair to compare them...but since I have played both and have no experience with other gatcha games, naturally I'm going to compare my experiences. Gameplay-wise, Dokkan seems at first like a pretty simple 'tap to match the colored line' game, which is a far cry from even the simplified Fire Emblem strategy battles in FEH. The complexity of Dokkan comes less from the orb tapping itself and more from the other aspects of team building. Using units with good skills, and who share links to power each other up, is often just as important as getting your purple character to get a long chain of purple orbs. Gathering medals from maps and using them to train and awaken your characters, and unlocking their hidden potential, are all more important in the long run than tapping the pretty colored lights. Basically, the actual 'battle' of Dokkan Battle is the least important part...though they can still require some strategy in the more difficult missions (where just having your purple unit grab a lot of green orbs isn't going to be 'good enough'), and you can still feel satisfied if you manage to pull off a really long chain and activate a super attack at just the right moment.

As I said, it hasn't been long. I may very well get bored of Dokkan in a few months just like FEH before it. But for now, I'm having fun, and I think a lot of the gameplay is more fair and balanced than the often-frustrating FEH. I will probably continue playing at least a little bit each day for some time yet.

[thebootybitchdragon]

Episodes Of (or Things In) Dude! That's My Ghost! I Want But Will Never Have (in no particular order)

Billy getting captured at the end of an episode by Madame X and the next episode, Spencer goes to rescue him all by himself, evading and outsmarting crazy cartoon boobytraps like a boss.

Spencer getting hurt and Billy absolutely loosing his shit bc no one hurts his brotato aight? No. One.

Spencer and Billy needing to go to Madame X for help and her requesting something from Billy as payment like a creeper creep.

Billy actually figuring out how to ghost good.

Billy temporarily being brought back to life and trying to resume his old life, but slowly realizing its not the same and he likes being a ghost better.

Madame X Character Builder Episode.

Time travel episode or Alternate Universe episode where Billy and Spencer need to deal with an Alive!Billy who's somehow even more dramatic than his ghost self. Bonus: Both Billy's can't stand one another bc they both think the other is too egotistical.

PREQUEL EPISODE GODDAMMIT SHOW ME HOW BILLY AND SPENCE MET

Danny Phantom Crossover episode. ir two. or twenty.

Camping episode where they come across something that goes bump in the night and it turns out to be another supernatural, ideally another ghost. Preferably a "wild" one who's been dead and alone for so long they don't remember how to behave in social situations. Bonus: They're better at being a ghost than Billy and that irritates him.

Spencer getting involved with a singing contest and singing one of Billy's songs to win. Perhaps introduces a formal rival of Billy's as a new antagonist who wants to take everything away from Spencer and slander Billy's reputation.

Spencer going on a class trip to somewhere and disaster striking. The main school cast needs to work together to get back home, with Spencer spearheading everything due to his knowledge of stuff and Billy's help. A lot of arguing with Ponzi until Spencer eventually proves hes better suited to lead. Optional: they get stuck in knockoff Ghost Zone.

Alternative: Spencer (and Billy) “winning” a trip to another country and getting into an accident, leading to them being stranded in the middle of nowhere bc the trip was actually a plot by the Rival. Spencer takes this opportunity to film a horror music video, Blare Witch-style, which he then makes an original song for with Billy’s help to get back at the rival.

Billy learns how to become visible to everyone, but can't figure out how to turn back invisible and everyone freaks out about seeing a ghost. Spencer (and friends) has to help him hide the entire Episode.

Billy possessing Spencer, and being unable to figure how to get back out. The two have to exist in the same body for an entire day.

Alternative: Billy and Spence somehow switch places, with Spencer being trapped in Billy's body and and Billy being trapped in Spencer’s.

Collection quest series of episodes, preferably a ghostly artifact or important item(s) of Billy’s that was stolen.

Typical "honey i shrunk the kids" episode where Billy/Spence gets shrunk and The Other needs to figure out how to restore him to his proper size. Bonus: Spence traps MiniBilly in a cup when Billy starts throwing a diva fit.

More episodes focusing on Wild Ghost and Pissy Rival, the specifics of which i can't think of rn. Lolo would prolly have a crush on Rival.

Billy stumbling into a section of the Ghost Zone (or a knockoff version, preferably purple and black) thru a natural portal and being scared by the amount of ghosts. He needs to find his way back home.

With the addition of Knockoff Ghost Zone, Billy and Spence going exploring. Billy finds a ghost guitar that amplifies his abilities and functions similar to Ember's. Optional: the addition of a ghostly antagonist who will stop at nothing to steal Spencer’s living body.

The revelation of another relative of Billy who's involved with things. Preferably Billy's newly discovered father.

An episode focusing on Rajeev and Shanilla, another one focusing on Lolo.

Bobby returning, either as an antagonist or hesitant ally. Confirmation that he’s a mimicking ghost bc honestly that’s just cool.

Billy's body is stolen, and Spencer initially blame's Madame X but it turns out she's equally pissed off at the thief bc how dare someone disrupt her idol's corpse who does that.

Three words: Board Game Ghost. Preferably with inspiration from Board James.

Billy's father learning about his ghost and the two being forced to collaborate. Billy is Not At All Happy about it. Preferably leads to an emotional outburst from Billy about him hating his father bc he wasn't there. Bonus: a conversation with Spencer in a later episode that hints at the fact that the father blames himself for Billy’s death.

Billy getting stuck in a video game, and Spencer needs to help him cheat in order to get back out.

Billy's ectoplasm turning the fallowing into monsters with the typical shenanigans occurring: Wendy, an intelligent bird, a cat, a spider, a dinosaur skeleton, a doll, and Jessica.

An Episode where Billy and Wild Ghost's ectoplasm get accidentally merged and creates a new ghost bc honestly, that just sounds logical. Billy makes it a point to assure Spencer, Rajeeve and Shanilla that the new entity is NOT his kid, despite it absolutely being basically his kid. No one’s fooled.

Another episode where Spencer and others need to become ghosts for some reason. Preferably includes Lolo bc that would be hilarious.

Billy learning how to use songs to do ghost stuff.

A GDAMN MUSICAL EPISODE I MEAN C'MON BILLY'S A MUSICIAN I FEEL CHEATED, SHOW

A Hanukkah episode bc Billy's prolly Jewish and also there's too many Christmas episodes from other cartoons.

Billy organizing a party for Spencer's birthday and shenanigans happening to keep it a secret from him.

Literal vampire and werewolf episodes pls.

Maybe a real zombie? Spencer would flip his lid. Bonus: He’s the smartest, most well spoken and obsessively clean character bc that’s just funny to me.

Evil Overgrown Plant due to Billy's ectoplasm episode. Title is required to be a pun of Little Shop of Horrors. Must have no less than five plant puns.

Episode where Billy and his kid need to deal with each other and the kid tries his best to impress Billy to no avail. his attempts result in imminent disaster, from which Billy saves him then later denies he did it out of worry.

Crossover episode where Danny and Billy get displaced to each other's worlds. Spencer needs to deal with Danny and Billy needs to protect Amity Park. Optional: Vlad tries to pull one of his plots but Billy annoys him too much. Bonus: Billy just keeps swiping Vlad’s football stuff and untying his hair.

Wild Ghost accidentally makes Spencer a demonic being with her ectoplasm (It’s more volatile than Billy’s which is why it would affect humans like that?) and Rajeeve and Shanilla need to work with her to return him to normal before he trashes the Cobra Mansion completely.

Crossover episode where Ponzi (or another antagonist) calls the Fenton's to Beverly Beverly High bc he figures out Billy's a ghost and wants to get rid of him. Danny can see Billy without a personal item due to being half ghost.

Family Vacation episode including Billy's dad, Wild Ghost, and Kid.

Billy and his antagonist rival need to team up for some reason.

A lot of scenes of Wild Ghost just....floating upside down. Running gag with Spencer turning her right back up, occasionally only for her to flop right back upside down again after he leaves.

Spencer being put into a stereotypical insane asylum bc Ponzi thinks he’s crazy for talking to himself (and it also gets Spencer out of the school) and all three of the ghosts have to help break him out.

Billy breaking a wall down with his guitar bc they’re trapped somewhere despite the fact that Spencer just lockpicked the lock door open.