#i think id be able to ignore like 90% of my issues with modern games if i was endeared to the writing

[richea]

4 and 5 for the meme

Tales asks

4. Something you wish to see in future games

A lot of this I'll answer in #5 but to keep things positive I'll just list actual wants up here. Though for some reason my brain is only coming up with character concepts right now haha.

I'd like to see another female protagonist of course, but I want to emphasize here that I want her to feel... unique? Velvet took inspiration from Milla (I know they're very differently written but I'm talking about their base appeal here), which is fine but I'd like something different next time. (Mika exists too but her game is deader than dead...) I'd love to see a character akin to Meredy or Colette take control of the story.

I won't go into this too much on here but I would like to see more characters like Mark in Summoner's Lineage.

I also feel like we could always use more characters who are musicians; I adore Johnny and absolutely love how Tear was handled, and I need more of it! Rays Recollection had an idol character which was nice.

5. Something you hope never is used again in future games

Going to put this under the read more for anyone sensitive to criticism who might not want to see it. I will warn it's a bit strongly articulated.

Cooking/food jokes, especially when it comes to someone being bad at it. This one got old decades ago; the amount of cooking skits in Rays is almost mind-numbing and do not get me started on how it felt as if all of the "fun" skits in Arise were just about this.

I would like Tales to chill out on the "sex appeal" rage they've been on the past handful of titles. I've only heard good things about Luminaria's writing but I still haven't been able to stomach the designs enough to actually start on it, which is not good. I know the franchise has always had shades of this but it's been especially noticeable as of late, and it feels like a huge step backwards. I don't think I'll ever move on from hearing how Iwamoto pressured Inomata into designing Velvet, and my subsequent reaction when Kisara was revealed and my joy at her being a knight was immediately overridden by wondering why on earth her design had to be the way it is. It's just very wild to me when back in the day, Keele of all characters was considered one of the "hottest" Tales characters and he's designed in a way where you can't even see any part of his silhouette. I don't believe we need none of it, but I at least would like them to step back with it just a little bit.

Ufotable is a big one. I really, really do not like Ufotable's Tales work. I wrote two threads about this on Twitter (part 1, part 2). In a world where Wit was put on the mobile games, there's no reason to keep using Ufotable for mainline Tales games.

I think Ufotable was perfectly fine in the Symphonia OVA; after all, none of the anime adaptations sans the Vesperia movie were done by IG. But that's the thing―it being a spinoff media is one thing, but it being the main art in the mainline games is where I draw the line. Each Tales title has its own art identity (for instance, Phantasia's art looked different from Legendia's which looked different from Graces), but they all still tried to keep to the staple Tales style. Ufotable does not care about this. I also am just going to be honest when I say my mind registers Xillia and beyond as "different" from the games prior and it's in part because of Ufotable's art identity being so divorced from the prior art direction in the franchise. Xillia was one of the more early titles I got to, so it's not even like I had years and years of IG "bias" before playing it, I just felt like something was off when I played it. They are truly doing their own thing and it does impact how a number of fans view the games, whether a lot of people want to acknowledge this or not. For anyone on the fence or thinking I'm unreasonable or overthinking it: Production IG was literally hired by Inomata herself because they were the only animators who were capable of adapting her style correctly.

Meanwhile Wit has been putting out work that not only follows the "style" perfectly, but it's also some of the best art this franchise has ever seen, if not the best. I really, really want to see them take over for the mainline games, and I am hoping this is the angle they're going for now that we have no mobile games.

I also need series staples to come back: 2D art and victory quotes being my biggest. There is not a single part of me that can process how this was actually greenlit for Arise. The skit format doesn't bother me as much as it does for other people, but these things, I cannot bend on, because it's not stemming from "wanting to try something new" (which Tales does all the time and is how I view the skit format change), it stems from the producer wanting to make Tales appeal to literally everybody except its targeted demographic and removing the things that drew people to this franchise in the first place. I don't think a franchise branching out is bad, but when it actively makes tons of old fans, who have kept the franchise afloat for decades, start to collectively lose interest in the future of the franchise, it's not a good sign. Even if there are people who "don't care," there are people who do and will drop the franchise if the franchise stops doing all of the small things that made them love it in the first place, especially if there's no real reason to be removing said things.

...Anyway sorry I got a bit heated. I love this franchise to death, and Rays really restored a lot of lost faith I had after I wasn't super sure the franchise was going in the right direction for me in the mainline games (I know a lot of people love it but even Berseria something just didn't quite feel right to me), so I hope Bamco can take some notes from what went well in it and incorporate that in future titles. I know I did my part and did the survey they put out, asking for a number of the things I listed here.

[gadgetsrevv]

Why Sergino Dest should represent Netherlands instead of the U.S.

Edwin van der Sar speaks exclusively to ESPN FC about Sergino Dest’s international future.

Oct. 2 was quite a day for Sergino Dest. First, Ajax’s 18-year-old Dutch-American right-back was unexpectedly missing from the U.S. men’s roster announced for the upcoming games against Cuba and Canada. These are competitive matches, in the CONCACAF Nations League, so if Dest had played, he would have been bound to the USMNT rather than the Netherlands for his career. That evening, he played all 90 minutes in Ajax’s 0-3 triumph at Valencia in the Champions League. After the game, he appeared on Dutch TV.

Dutch fans hoped he would announce that he had decided to play for their national team. Instead, he said he hadn’t chosen either country yet. “I still need to think longer about both options … It is a decision I have to make for the rest of my life and I want to handle that carefully.”

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He said he hoped to have a decision by next month. Gregg Berhalter, the U.S. coach, who had previously found Dest “enthusiastic” about playing for the USMNT, now sounded guarded. “I���ve had conversations with Sergino. The conversations were positive, and the content of these conversations is going to remain private,” Berhalter told the Washington Post.

The cautious conclusion must be that the Netherlands are favorites to win this race. Certainly, they would be the rational choice for Dest. And though it’s far too early to tell, he may prove a prize worth having for the next 15 years.

Dest was born and raised in Almere, a working-class town just outside Amsterdam, with a Dutch mother and a Surinamese-American father from Brooklyn. The first time he set foot in the U.S., on a visit to his dad’s hometown, was in 2014. “At home in Almere we just spoke Dutch,” Dest told the Ajax website. “In fact, a couple of years ago my English was still very mediocre. And I wasn’t thinking about my American roots [until] I started to play in U.S. youth teams. From then on my English improved, and I kept feeling more American. I realised: hey, this is my nationality too. And the U.S. passport is one of the most beautiful in the world.”

Dest had arrived at Ajax from Almere City as a child winger in 2012, and gradually transformed into an attacking right-back. Other Dutch boys’ teams enduring the ritual humiliation at Ajax’s youth complex, De Toekomst in those days, recall him flashing down the touchline, while his teammates queued in the box shouting “Serra,” each begging Dest to grant them the final touch. After every cross, Dest would trot tirelessly back to position and resume his tackling, dribbles and “pannas” (Dutch-Surinamese slang for nutmegs). He was the Everywhere Back, sometimes popping up at center-forward, but for all his activity he made few mistakes, despite being a year younger than his teammates.

Yet the Dutch federation didn’t pick Dest for its national youth teams. “I never got a chance,” he says. The U.S. Soccer Federation pounced after Dutchman Dave van den Bergh, then one of the federation’s youth coaches, heard from Ajax about the boy’s American passport. Dest represented the U.S. in the Under-17 World Cup in 2017 (Ajax didn’t wanted him to go) and excelled in the team’s run to the quarterfinals of this summer’s Under-20 World Cup.

For a long time, Ajax seemed ambivalent about Dest, possibly because although he’s dedicated, he was also rather headstrong. Even last fall, when he was already 18, he looked headed for the exit in Amsterdam. Only in December did Ajax finally come through with a professional contract.

Dest is an aggressive full-back that a high-pressing side like Ajax needs, though his defending remains a work in progress.

This summer, his career took off. After the Under-20 World Cup, Ajax head coach, Erik ten Hag, requested that Dest be given just 10 days holiday. Ten Hag had plans for him. Dest made his first-team debut in late July, and since then has become a regular, usually as a starter.

You can see why, because he is the full-back that a high-pressing modern side needs. Ten Hag says, “A back at Ajax has to be able to function as a midfielder and winger, too. It’s a very dynamic role. We want to introduce a lot of variation into our game, to surprise opponents.”

That’s Dest’s way. He told Amsterdam’s Het Parool newspaper, “I think of myself [as someone who has] a good technique. I don’t get frightened when I get the ball — also not when under pressure, or on the opponents’ half.”

His high-risk game gives Ajax an attacking threat from right-back that they lacked even in their extraordinary last season. “Maybe in the past, when I first got into a higher team, I’d take it easy,” Dest says. “But I’ve stopped doing that. Now I show at once what I can do.”

In Ajax’s opening Champions League game in September, a 3-0 win over Lille, he produced a roulette through two opponents from the full-back position — a showboating move that Ten Hag may not have enjoyed as much as the fans did. Dest also has the good fortune that his partner on Ajax’s right wing is Hakim Ziyech, a world-class player whose continued presence in the humble Dutch league is a mystery.

Dest’s main shortcoming, for now, is that for a defender, he isn’t great at defending. Being the speediest member of Ajax’s back four, he’s essential in snuffing out counter attacks, but he sometimes gets caught out of position. (Ajax’s opening two clean sheets in the Champions League are above all down to keeper Andre Onana, surely headed for a giant club next summer.) Ajax demands that players “defend forward,” that is, charge into challenges to try to win the ball back fast rather than sit back and cover space. Dest has yet to master this difficult art.

The consensus in the Netherlands is that he isn’t ready for Oranje. Still, the Dutch federation knows it has to act fast. In September, Berhalter gave him his debut for the USMNT, starting him against Mexico and Uruguay. But these were non-binding friendly games; Dest retains the option to switch to the Netherlands. The Dutch would like to give him a full cap in a competitive match to claim him for life, then let him mature in the under-21s side.

The Dutch federation still laments missing out on Ziyech, who trained with Oranje in 2015 before choosing Morocco. It’s determined not to make that mistake again. It is focused on recruiting Dest and the possibly even more talented 17-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Mohamed Ihattaren, PSV Eindhoven’s playmaker who is tearing up the Dutch league.

Like the U.S., the Netherlands is short a top-class right-back: PSV’s Denzel Dumfries, who has been filling the role with Oranje, lacks the technique for international level. Netherlands’ coach, Ronald Koeman, and the Dutch FA’s director of “topvoetbal,” Nico-Jan Hoogma, sat down with Dest in September. Hoogma reported afterwards: “You can’t promise someone a first-team place, but you can indicate who their rivals are. Based on our story, Dest has to make a decision.”

Koeman said, “I’m not promising anyone anything, but I indicated to him that I see a future for him with the Dutch team. He decided to take his time. That he hasn’t travelled to the U.S. now shows that the issue isn’t decided for him.”

The Dutch have a good story to tell. Since the U.S. returned to World Cups, in 1990, the Americans have progressed further than Oranje at a tournament only once, in 2002. (Of course, both countries failed to qualify for 2018 in Russia.) Moreover, if Dest chooses the Netherlands, he won’t have to spend his career making disruptive exhausting trips to play second-rate national teams from the CONCACAF region.

On the other hand, Dest has an emotional attachment to the U.S., and the USSF was good to him at youth level when the Dutch FA ignored him. The Americans have a chance. But as battles for binationals become the norm in international soccer, the Dest case ought to be a prompt for the U.S. to ask itself: Why does the tiny fraction of American passport-holders raised in western Europe still produce such a disproportionate share of this giant country’s best players?

Meanwhile, in a joint interview on the Ajax website with the U.S.-Mexican Alex Mendez, who plays for Ajax’s reserves, the conflicted Dest turned to Mendez and asked: “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

These decisions are always in part matters of the heart, but the betting must be that Dest chooses Oranje.

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[babaleshy]

I know I haven’t touched this thing for a while but whatever. I’m gonna rant. Yes, it’s about my folks. Yes, they are Trump supporters. No, I still can’t move out because my husband and I cannot afford it nor is there any jobs in the area that pay enough for us to move out.

On with the rant (plus, like, a mental health update which I will do first).

Going to get re-evaluated for ADHD because as much as I loved seeing Mark for counseling, he wanted to simply focus on my struggles, hence why I was diagnosed with EFD. He was great, helpful, all that. Just... There’s other stuff going on with all of these signs pointing to ADHD, and I actually forget that sometimes symptoms outside of executive functioning issues can get in the way because my depression makes me forget shit.

On top of this, Paulnetta (my new counselor) has referred me to a couple of places to go and get tested for dyslexia and other learning disabilities. What has kept me from getting tested the past couple of months is that my ID expired back in April and I fucking forgot about it. I’m going to the DMV tomorrow to get my ID renewed but will have to wait for it to appear in the mail, now, because of bureaucratic bullshit. Once I get my ID, I can finally get tested for a learning disability and FINALLY apply for goddamn Medicaid.

I’m getting mighty sick of what my parents are pulling. I’ll start with my mom since there’s not TOO much bullshit to bitch about with her like there is with my dad.

My mom still won’t engage much with me in conversation about anything I want to talk about. But the moment she decides to talk, she immediately changes the topic to her favorite country singer or something about horses. I don’t hate horses as in the animal, but looking at anything involving horses has me feeling rage because of her. She keeps getting old horses (never surpassing 3 horses) that aren’t really able to be ridden, wanting a few for companionship so no one feels alone when my mom rides the only one that is capable of being ridden. Horses are social animals. I get this. All fine and well. But my mother does the ABSOLUTE FUCKING BARE MINIMUM care for these animals. They’re healthy and doing okay mentally, but she has yet to ride since I moved back that I can remember. SHE SPENT WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH MONEY ON A ROUND PEN AND SHE STILL HASN’T RIDDEN THE HORSE SHE WANTS TO RIDE. She just sits on the couch on her phone AND tablet watching livestreams of her favorite country singer who has developed this cult surrounding the pledge of allegiance while being on FB interacting with other horse owners. My mom seems to like the aesthetic of the western/country/farm lifestyle without actually LIVING it, and I’m betting it’s because she’s too old and tired from working 6 days a week at a minimum wage job she’s been at since the mid 90s and refused to consider looking for another because she knows people who work there and shop there (small business hardware store). On top of all of this, she refuses to listen to any other radio station unless it’s country, so that plays on constant in the living room for the dog when my parents aren’t home, or she has it on in the truck and wonders why I have my earbuds in. She BLASTS anything she and my dad watch, which includes but is not limited to things like Last Man Standing, NCIS, faux news, and pseudo-hillbilly shit shows from the 60s and 70s on YouTube.

This woman did not interact with me on my terms in the past unless it was something she was interested in. If I distracted her from her soap operas or baseball/football games, she got pissed. As an adult? If she does interact with me, it’s because it involves the topic of money. My mom IMMEDIATELY gets pissed at me when I inquire about our financial situation. I don’t complain, I’m not nosy as fuck, I just wanna know “hey, can I get some help getting thirty-something bucks worth of lumber so I can build shelves for my room since I have no income?” Nope, the topic bothers my mom too much. I don’t even think she listens to me talk to her when she doesn’t participate in conversation because she is just... ADDICTED to FB. Like, hopelessly fucking addicted. And she used to get on my ass about being on MY computer too much in high school! (circa 2005-2007)

And now, onto the dumpster fire that is my father.

The bastard is having us live in a meatlocker. The air is so cold and so dry here that my skin is very dry, my nose is CONSTANTLY running and bleeding, and I’m too cold to do ANYTHING most of the time, including sitting at my desk to do anything from art to surfing the web! He uses his breathing issues as an excuse, but it was never this cold in the summer last year or any years prior. He says it’s to keep the humidity down. By the same damn excuse, because we do NOT have a working ventilation fan, and opening the bathroom window (which faces the street) would expose us and give us no privacy, my dad HAS THE HAIR DRYER RUNNING BY THE BATHROOM SINK WHILE HE SHOWERS. His logic? “The heat will cause the moisture to evaporate!” Not kidding. But he’s huffing and wheezing by the time he’s done in the bathroom. And he won’t listen to me when I tell him just how wrong he is.

The bitter old bastard has whatever they’re watching on blast in the living room. He re-clutters whatever I de-clutter. He tries picking fights with my husband by purposefully trying to engage him in topics my husband doesn’t want to talk about to get my husband to react a certain way (never works because my husband caught on real fast). This is all my dad trying to “establish dominance” or some bullshit like that. He’s flaunting the fact that he can be a piece of shit all he wants to us, and if we put up enough of a fight, he can kick us out. He’s also hoping (and he’s used a similar logic on other shit before in the past) that he pisses us off enough to move out, because he thinks we can move out whenever we want. This guy has not been in the real world since ‘95 or ‘96, and before that, hadn’t had to look for a job since the ‘70s, hadn’t had to look for another place to live since the ‘90s. He has no idea how expensive rent is, how shit the job opportunities are around here, how it’s impossible to find a decent paying job and be expected to make rent while being able to feed one’s self, etc. He is so detached from reality that he’s trying to delude himself that shit still works like it did in the 70s.

I had to make up a lie that I get car sick unless I have my music. The reality of it is that my dad stresses me out so much I fear him bringing up a topic we both know I won’t be able to keep my mouth shut on to where he will then stress me out, threaten my life, and then tell me he threatened my life “just so I would shut up.” So, dad believing that I get car sick without my music, he claims it’s a “problem with the middle ear,” which is a thing with some people, so I’m playing along with that. Gives me an excuse to not listen to my mom’s piece of shit radio station in the truck on those VERY DAMN FEW times she takes me somewhere (seriously, unless it’s to work, seeing a local country concert, or seeing her sister, my mom doesn’t wanna leave the house) and not have to explain to her why I bury my head in my own music when she won’t fucking talk to me about shit I wanna talk about, shit I’ve wanted to talk about since childhood but she doesn’t fucking care. She tried so hard to get me to be like her, wanting to live on a farm, but it failed. She knows it failed. So she doesn’t wanna talk unless it’s about the lifestyle she always wanted.

And this is the weird part, they have views and shit that would make you go “that’s not very typical of a Trump supporter” so because they’re “not so bad” to other moderates or right-wingers, I don’t have a right to complain. My parents know evolution is a thing (yet are climate change deniers), have no problem with me being a Pagan or practicing witchcraft (but will talk shit about Muslims), think that Halloween is too kiddified and the fun is sucked out of it (but there’s a “war on xmas”), and thought I spent way too much time in my room on my computer in high school (but they rarely leave their own internet devices in the living room; dad just has a computer but refuses to touch social media and hates modern technology despite being hopelessly addicted to YouTube). Like...?

Here’s what’s sad...

When my parents first got together and had me, they were a loving married couple with a kid. My brother came along, things were still smooth sailing. Dad gets hurt and we’re plunged into inescapable poverty and all of a sudden dad ignores me, mom ignores me, only interaction is breakfast, dinner, and screaming and belittling. That’s it. There was still favorites, and because the favorite died, it’s like I don’t matter that much to them, especially since I didn’t turn out anything special like they’d hoped for. They won’t own up to their mistakes, they conveniently ignore that half the time growing up I was yelled at for lack of social interaction outside of forced interaction with my brother and having ADHD and anxiety. In fact, I still can’t tell if they’re the cause of my anxiety or if I was born with it because of how young I was when the complete one-eighty with them happened.

And yet they still act like they’ll be wealthy someday, so they support the rich getting tax cuts and worship the cheetoh in office. I think they banked on me and my brother becoming successful and wealthy after high school that they continued to avoid admitting they’re stuck in poverty. Now they think they’ll eventually get wealthy with the fucking royalties on the oil (spoilers: no, lol, they’re kinda getting screwed actually but won’t admit it) or hitting the lottery.

Dad presses all of these money-making ideas onto me, ideas I don’t care about or don’t like, and won’t do it himself. He won’t even write stories to have them published because that would mean he’d have a hobby. Too much work. He even said the whole reason why he got a job at the steel mill was so he didn’t have to think. He literally claimed he’d rather have someone think for him and admitted that he’s proud to be ignorant of technology. No, I’m not kidding.

So my husband and I are forced to live with these two assholes, whose marriage is barely held together (they barely interact with one another, and when they do, half the time one is pissed at the other) and only keep the marriage going because divorce is expensive and at least they’re not as bad as their exes (mom had her jaw broken by an ex, dad was nearly killed by an ex).

Once they move north, we’ll be going with them, attend Kent State, and get the fuck out of Ohio. And I’m never looking back.