#i think it’s the best of the classic games tbh. the level design just Works for me. i enjoy exploring these levels! it’s fun!

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

found a sonic cd video essay that’s 8 hours long hell yeah video made for Me And Only Me

[emblemxeno]

Finished the rest of the Classic Castlevania Titles

I have finished Super Castlevania 4, Bloodlines, Dracula X, and Haunted Castle Revisted!

---SC4: It was phenomenal, probably my favorite of the classic style games. Great level design, great control and ease of movement, great art style and aesthetic, just all around amazing. I will say, I love the soundtrack, though I do prefer the type of music in Castlevania 1, and while Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears and Beginning are in this game, I still like the heart pumping tracks more than SC4's more... understated(?) approach. Simon's Theme is fucking baller though, love it to death. Lastly, I think it's a somewhat common opinion that the whip is overpowered in the game, to the point where it invalidates the sub-weapons, but I don't agree tbh. Multi directions and projectile blocking is great, however, the sheer utility of the sub-weapons are still just as good. The cross' boomerang provides great coverage, the axe gets pesky enemies from above (especially on stairs), the holy water gets multi hits on the ground, and the stopwatch is forever an awesome safety net. Maybe it's because I'm not that great at platformers, but I found the whip and weapons to be of equal value, just as the other games.

---Bloodlines: I played as Eric because any non-standard gameplay style is exciting to me. The spear gameplay was great! Great range, the high jump felt good, the power ups and spin attack worked wonders on covering me. The game is probably the most beautiful out of the classics I've played (other than Haunted Castle Revisited but that's a new age title), with great sprite work, animations, and aesthetic, with even a palitable gore factor. Absolutely stellar music as well, for both returning tracks and the new ones. Shout out specifically to Reincarnated Soul, The Sinking Old Sanctuary, Iron Blue Intention and Calling From Heaven. Love that good ol Genesis sound system.

---Dracula X: Probably my low point of these 4 games, didn't really enjoy my time with it as much. Part of that is a form of bias, because I'm aware how it's a downsized version of Rondo of Blood, which is considered by many to be the best of the Classic style Castlevania games. But even judging the game by its own merits, it kind of falls flat. The control scheme is worse, which is awful for stairs, precise jumps, and especially going back to subweapons requiring pressing up and attack rather than having its own button is extremely aggravating; the physics are jank, in that Richter carries so much forward momentum and you can't really change that in mid-air; the actual looks of the levels can make certain platforms and interactable objects hard to discern; they somehow cut down an already barebones story, even making Maria the sister of Annette for some reason.

And overall, the game is in the very hard-to-describe area when it comes to difficulty. It's not hard in the way that 1 and 3 are hard. It's more like it's frustratingly regressive. It doesn't feel satisfying to finally triumph like in 1 and 3, because despite all the (relatively archaic) bullshit those games had, they still tested reflexes, patience and knowledge. Dracula X isn't as fulfilling, and I would guess that it's because it was made as an intentionally cut down version of what I assume is a really well made game. But I digress; SC4 and Bloodlines were really good, Dracula X just pales in comparison. Still good soundtrack tho.

---Haunted Castle Revisted: I tried the OG Haunted Castle for like 10 minutes and quickly decided "nope." But the Revisited version? Pretty great! Amazing sprite work and 2D graphics, the game is gorgeous. Wonderfully composed soundtrack. The game feels extremely good to play, with easy to understand mechanics and interactions. Good challenge level, like if SC4 or Bloodlines were more compact and shorter. Very much felt like an arcade game but designed to be a great play first, rather than a quarter muncher like the OG one felt like.

So, if I had to rank the Classic Castlevania games (aside from Kid Dracula and Haunted Catle because the former is a spin off and the latter isn't canon), it'd be:

SC4

Bloodlines

3: Dracula's Curse

OG

Dracula X

Belmont's Revenge

2: Simon's Quest

The Adventure

Personal thoughts ahead, you don't have to read it, I just need to get it out there.

Now, while playing these games, this thought creeped into my head: Should I have just gotten the Dominus Collection instead of all three collections? Part of my interest for Castlevania was lore, music, and gameplay-but only the gameplay of the MetroidVania variety that started with Symphony of the night.

I like 2D platformers, but I'm very bad at them for reasons that I can't really explain other than "I have twitchy hands that make left-to-right planes difficult for me to stay steady on or react well to." But this only applies to strict beginning-to-goal platformers (I'm very shit at 2D Mario and Sonic as well for example lol). Add in RPG elements, and it suddenly isn't as much a problem.

I actually already owned Aria of Sorrow when I bought it many years back on the Wii U virtual console, and I loved every minute playing it, for the same reasons why I loved the few Metroid games I've played. Platforming but not in a strict "if you fall you die and have to restart" way, with exploration and upgrade elements, makes things click for me.

With me already owning Aria of Sorrow, Circle of the Moon being non-canon and Harmony of Dissonance being divisive, there was a devil on my shoulder saying "you should've only gotten the Dominus Collection since you're not good at strict platformers and you already own the best part of the Advance Collection."

But, some semblance of purchase regret is always gonna be a factor because money and capitalism is a fucking bitch. And even then... I feel as if I kind of grew as a person playing the Classic games, for was weird as that sounds. Like, I got better at reacting to things, timing jumps, appreciating level design philosophy, stuff like that.

Do I necessarily want to go back and replay most of them? Eh no, only SC4, Bloodlines and maybe Dracula's Curse and Haunted Castle. However, I feel as if I'm a true Castlevania fan having played and beaten all these games, getting to experience the foundation on which my preferred genre is built upon. So no, I don't regret my purchase for a second, evil voice in my head. For all the frustration, I have had equal parts elation and satisfaction.

Now I'm even more excited for Metroidvanias!

[itswashington17]

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble is great! Like so great! It's the best post-GC Monkey Ball game by a long shot!

There are a few issues like the performance tanking in Battle Mode and the sound design for the ball still lacking, but everything is amazing!

The Adventure Mode is classic Monkey Ball done right. The controls and physics feel so good and are better than Banana Mania. Plus the new Spin Dash move fits in with series much more than a jump button, since you're still using momentum physics with it and you can pull off some amazing skips with it. Seriously, the Spin Dash opens up a lot of speedrunning opportunities and I can't wait for the insane skips that I could do.

The game has some of the best stages in the series since the classics with the level design in general being creative, varied and most importantly, challenging. The later worlds in the Adventure Mode are quite hard, but the EX stages is where the game's difficulty shines where you will likely Fall Out a lot when taking them on the first time. The last 3 EX worlds in particular will literally test your skills, with them falling into late Expert/Master territory. Like the stand out stage is EX10-7, which is so brutal that it might fall in with the likes of Exam-C and Stamina Master as the hardest stages in Monkey Ball history.

Plus we got cutscenes in the series again since Adventure (SMB2 if you're counting only the more traditional Monkey Ball games) and they delivered on them. While the story is simple (which is expected out of Monkey Ball) and not as wacky as SMB2's story, it is carried by the charming character interactions with AiAi, MeeMee, YanYan and Palette being the highlights. It even gets a bit emotional, especially in the last 2 worlds, which you don't really see with this series. I love the cutscenes in this game and I hope future games don't abandon them again.

Then there's the Battle Mode. While it is the weakest part of the game (although I mainly play Monkey Ball for the challenging stages), it is still pretty good. As mentioned, the performance tanks in this mode since there's 16 players which is probably taxing for the 7 year old Switch, but if you can get past that, it is really fun, especially online. The online works for the most part (only had two instances of the game booting me out due to a connection problem) and it can get chaotic. Race and Ba-BOOM! are my favourites, with Race being a larger Monkey Ball stage and since you control like in the main game, you can get away with the same insane skips like in the Adventure Mode. And Ba-BOOM being chaotic as heck where you need to stay on your toes to avoid getting a bomb. However, I do think Banana Hunt is my least favourite. It's not bad, but I do think it's a bit boring when compared to the other modes.

If you're looking for any Party Games like Monkey Target, sorry, but the Battle Mode replaces the Party Games in Banana Rumble. Honesty, I think it's better off that way, considering that certain Party Games were butchered in Banana Mania. I would have no Monkey Target than another one that doesn't match the same qualities as the classics. Also, it's nice to try something entirely new and if that doesn't work out, then they can come back to the Party Games in future games. But IMO, the Battle Mode does its job as being a good distraction from the main game.

In terms of other online stuff in the Battle Mode, it has the most friendliest Battle Pass I've seen in an online game. It lasts for two weeks, but it only has around 12 tiers of cosmetics and if you're good, you could finish it in just one play session. There's also the Lucky Monkey Lottery to win more prizes, but you can only access it if you play online daily (which tbh, since we live in a gaming era where there's paid loot boxes, it's best they leave it like that).

Now lets talk about the presentation and IMO, Banana Rumble has to be the Monkey Ball game with the most soul and passion put into it since the OG games. Firstly, I love the new art style and character designs for the monkeys. They combine the best parts of their GC and Banana Blitz designs, while adding in some new flair into them and they look adorable. Plus they're a lot more expressive than any other game in the series, especially when compared to the Banana Blitz era games. Plus the new characters look really good and you can even play as them. Like all of the major characters in the story of this game are playable, including Dr. Bad-Boon despite not appearing in the story at all.

Visually, the game looks good. While cheap in a few places, the worlds look quite stunning with Caelum being my favourite. Plus there's plenty of attention to detail to the presentation that I like such as the maps for the first 7 worlds being holiday/tourist maps and the last 3 worlds being ancient maps.

In terms of the soundtrack, I think it's great. It's not the best soundtrack in the series, but I do think there are some bangers here and there. My personal favourites being Banana Farm, Rose Garden, Oceanus, Astrum, Race and Ba-BOOM! However, the sound design for the ball is still lacking when compared to the original games and even Banana Splitz, which is a shame (like seriously, they address many issues from Banana Mania, but they couldn't even address the ball SFX).

Overall, Super Monkey Ball is truly back and I'm so happy that it is! Despite a rocky comeback with the remakes, Banana Rumble manages to tilt the series directly into the right direction and proves that RGG Studio can cook up a great Monkey Ball game that can be considered the best game since the originals. In fact, this could be considered as the Crash 4 of the Monkey Ball series. Let's hope it gets enough support to last long and get ported to other consoles down the line. But as of right now, what a great game!

[iregreteverythingpleasehelpme]

oh my goodness! I did not expect this to blow up so much! Thanks!

Now while i'm here... may as well rate all the gens...

(please note this is just my personal opinion, so don't pay too much mind if you don't agree. Also some of these are pretty biased, so emm... yeah.)

ALSO! I am not rating the remakes in this.

Gen 1(blue/yellow) A classic, the beginning of it all. Pokemon are memorable, gameplay is kinda hard(for me at least haha), I haven't beaten elite four yet cuz I got lost in victory road without an escape rope(I know, I was being stupid). Music is good and probably most memorable, some sprite work is a wee bit wonky but tbh I probably couldn't do much better. Gameplay got a bit boring at times, but I also have literally no attention span. Yellow was probably the best. I liked my lil chonky pikachu. 7/10

Gen 2(gold/crystal): I don't really remember much from my attempted playthrough since it's been a while since i've last played it(note, I didn't get past the 6th gym leader because back when I played it I was kinda lazy so I refused to level up and train my pokemon.), but i'm gonna try to rate it anyway. I like the features they introduced like pokemon breeding, shinies, and the phone(useless but I love it anyway) Good legendaries and characters but I do not like the level scaling(at least I think thats what its called) for the gym leaders, wild pokemon and elite four(even though I didn't beat it, I still tried to do some research). Love the fact they included all of Kanto in the postgame, I wish they would make better postgames for modern games. 6/10

Gen 3(sapphire): The first Pokemon game I played was sapphire! Love the characters, some of the pokemon and the level scaling(or curve? I still can't remember what the correct term is) is pretty good. Sprite work is cute and I like the story. I have not beaten Sapphire yet because a year or so ago my brother deleted my save file(I was at the elite four) and I was pretty bummed so I did not play it for a while, but I recently made a new save and I am going to beat it soon! Right now I am about to fight Winona. Music is definitely second most memorable, absolutely love those trumpet-y bangers of town themes. Love the introduction of pokemon contests, postgame from what I've heard is pretty good too. Hoenn as a region itself is probably a 7.8/10, too much water, but the games themselves? 9/10

Gen 4(platinum): Love these games. First pokemon game I actually beat was platinum. Nice characters, great story, super fun pokemon contests, best legendaries by far, fun, good postgame and something I have not seen in a long time(personally) in pokemon, MEMORABLE BATTLES! I will never forget that final moment in battle when I finally had made it, and beat Cynthia. I was shaking, after grinding for hours and so many failed attempts at beating the elite four, after hearing that intimidating theme song, I will always remember it! I will also remember the battle against Giratina, I had bought over 100 ultra balls for that battle(I wanted the masterball for a post game legendary) and It took many resets before I could catch her. But it was amazing! Gen 4 has some of the best games(especially hggs, but i'm not going over that today)so i'm rating it... 10/10

Gen 5: I have not played much of gen 5 since I am waiting until I get a physical copy before I go more into it(I tried an emulator, but playing the real games always hits different), so I will update once my copy has arrived(It's in the mail!) and I have beaten it. However, from what I have seen and heard about it, it seems amazing. I am automatically giving it a high rating because I love the character design, lore, agencyshipping, Nintendo DS sprite work(best sprite work in the history of pokemon)N and Pidove. I also enjoyed the black and white pokemon anime when I was younger. 11/10

Gen 6: Haven't played it, I want to someday but I can't find an emulator and I don't own a 2ds or 3ds. All I know about it is it introduced pokemon amie, mega evolutions, was the first 3D pokemon game and apparently had issues with the shared exp system(just from what my friends have told me). I was a huge fan of the X and Y anime when I was younger and me and my siblings would pretend to be ash and other trainers from it haha. I like the pokespe arc though, pretty good. Since I haven't played X or Y, I am gonna base this off how much I enjoyed the anime when I was younger and how much I like the pokespe arc. 8/10

Gen 7: Haven't played it either but I really want to, unfortunately until find a way to emulate it somewhere or afford a 3ds, I won't be able to play it. I like some of the pokemon and character designs. It looks like fun, but I also will be rating this based off the anime since I know nothing about it. 5/10 only because when I was younger I was disgusted by the anime. The games look really good though. Hope I can play one of them someday!

Gen 8(sword): Thank goodness im almost done. For me I liked the graphics, and that I could change my characters clothes. Sword was the first 3D pokemon game i played. I thought the 3D aspect was cool, me and my family loved the fact Galar is based off Scotland(we are scottish), however the champion battle kinda disappointed me. Leon was kinda hyped up a bit too much considering I one-shot most of his team. The battles leading up to him weren't really challenging either, and especially since after just finishing platinum, sword really felt like a walk in the park. It was a nice walk in the park though, I enjoyed it. I really liked the camping feature and that I could make curry. I was so very disappointed by the post game though. There's some stuff to do, but unless you enjoy something like pokemon breeding or competitive battling then there's not much to do other than get some more legendaries, buy stuff and complete your pokedex(unless you have the dlc.) Overall, 7/10. Lots of stupid memes and headcanons came out of swsh so...

Gen 9(scarlet): Scarlet was good, could have been so much better though. I like the open world feature, but the fps is so low I feel like i am trying to run a minecraft server on an N64, but slower.(sorry that might have been a little too harsh,) Nintendo literally released a half finished game. I love the concept. I do not like the execution. Also, the textures for the mountains look like they are just copy pasted out of ocarina of time or something. They also should have made the gym leaders not in a specific order? Like if its open world, shouldn't they not have a specific order?? I had no idea about this when first played and I ended up fighting the 4th gym leader first, 8th gym leader sixth and 1st gym leader last. I forget about the rest, but it's kinda funny imagining me walking in with my level 60+ team going into this poor little bug gym and sweeping the leader. Despite all this, the main problem with scarlet and violet are the battles, they are not really memorable, or significant, like I don't really get this warm feeling of satisfaction and pride thinking about when I beat scarlet, not like the feeling I get thinking about the battles in Sapphire or Platinum. Even Sword had more satisfactory and strugglesome battles than scarlet. I would talk about Geeta being too weak and too hyped up throughout the game(I one shot half her team), but everybody has already heard all of the Geeta slander by now, so i'm just going to end it by saying, post game was better than sword, still a little eh without the dlc but relatively good, and my favourite part of scarlet is that I can make the most horrific sandwiches known to mankind in this game. All that being said, I really liked scarlet, I just think Game Freak needs to stop rushing pokemon games and releasing them half finished. I am willing to wait another year as long as it's done(also, it gives Hidenori Kusaka and Satoshi Yamamoto more time to work on new pokespe chapters!! Give them a break, they just got back off hiatus, don't rush them!) For scarlet, i'll give it a 7/10. Only because I don't want this game only to be remembered by poor graphics, but by the horrific sandwiches i made, so i am removing the graphics and low fps from my final rating(however the Geeta battle did take it down from 8 point to 7. I'm sorry but she's so disappointing.

TLDR, Gen 5, 4 and 3 are my favourites.

[kayliemusing]

42: top 3s

1: Top 3 ice cream flavors - classic vanilla, birthday cake/birthday batter, bubblegum

2: Top 3 Disney Movies - Mulan, Onward, Soul (but this changes frequently lol)

3: Top 3 vacation destinations - I've never been outside of my home country so I'll say my top 3 DREAM destinations: NYC, Hawaii, a random countryside in either France or the UK

4: Top 3 places to shop - Dynamite, Sephora, Winners/Homesense

5: Top 3 subjects of study/classes to take - English/anything creative writing related, Interior Decorating/Design, Communications?

6: Top 3 make up products - YSL Touche Eclat Foundation, literally any Mac Lipstick but it has to be matte, & Fenty Beauty contour stick

7: Top 3 music artists - Taylor Swift - Of Monsters and Men - The Lumineers

8: Top 3 spices/herbs - Cinnamon - Nutmeg (literally tastes like autumn) - Paprika

9: Top 3 drinks - Diet Coke - Hot Chocolate - Vanilla Bean Frappe

10: Top 3 apps to use - Instagram - Pinterest -iBooks

11: Top 3 months of the year - May, October, December

12: Top 3 clothing items - My black/white turtle neck, high waisted jeans, plaid blazer

13: Top 3 binge perfect tv shows - Bones, Supernatural, Brooklyn Nine Nine

14: Top 3 romantic dates - (I've never been on a date but if I had, it would be this) Evening walk, late night drive, late night coffee date (tbh anything at night feels romantic)

15: Top 3 kinds of flower - Water lilies, cherry blossoms, roses

16: Top 3 christmas movies - A Christmas Carol (2009), Home Alone, The Polar Express

17: Top 3 OTPs - Nesta and Cassian from ACOTAR series by SJM, Manon and Dorian from Throne of Glass series by SJM, Casteel and Poppy from From Blood and Ash series by JLM.

18: Top 3 quotes to describe your life - "I write not to find, but to leave" by Scherezade Siobhan - "I want to be myself again. I want to be six. I want to stop knowing everything I know" by Catherynne M. Valente - "The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get" by Joanna Hoffman.

19: Top 3 characteristics you love about yourself - my kindness bc it's not surface level kindness, but actually something deeply rooted within me - my resilience even tho sometimes it doesn't feel like resilience - my loyalty bc it is a hard as steel kind of loyalty

20: Top 3 kinds of candy - Maltesers, Kit kats, smarties

21: Top 3 ways to exercise/ be active - Walking, dancing, mowing the lawn/shoveling the sidewalk

22: Top 3 spirit animals - wolf, hummingbird, tiger (i googled it bc i didn't know and i was scared it was a joke but)

23: Top 3 petnames - I like 'lovebug', 'love', 'sweetheart'

24: Top 3 books read outside of school - The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas but viewers discretion is advised, Crush by Richard Siken

25: Top 3 most used websites - Youtube, Tumblr, Pinterest

26: Top 3 people you last texted - my mom, my bestie megan, and my sister bc they're the only people i text...

27: Top 3 hashtags you use - the only time i use hashtags is if i'm trying to promote some of my writing so I'll usually use writingcommunity, writersonig, poetryonig lol

28: Top 3 instagram accounts you follow - Trista Mateer, Griefmother, obviously taylor swift

29: Top 3 guilty pleasures - buzzfeed quizzes, early 2000s music, romance novels

30: Top 3 summer activities - Going to the zoo, long evening walks, campfires and s'mores

31: Top 3 things to draw/doodle - hearts, flowers, random swirls bc it's the only thing i can doodle...

32: Top 3 aesthetics - cityscape aesthetic, autumn aesthetic, rustic aesthetic

33: Top 3 things you'd buy if you gained three million dollars - a new car, a condo, another cat

34: Top 3 ways to treat yourself - facial, a large bag of maltesers, buying the makeup i really want but have been putting off

35: Top 3 celebrity crushes - Evan Peters, Matthew Daddario, henry cavill

36: Top 3 books from your childhood - Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, The Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl, and Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmens

37: Top 3 accents to hear - Australian, super poshy british accent, new zealand accent

38: Top 3 scents - Fresh rain, vanilla, sweet cinnamon pumpkin from bath and body works

39: Top 3 "Friends" quotes - "WE WERE ON A BREAK" -Ross, "Guess things were just going too well for me" -also ross, and "it's so exhausting waiting for death" - phoebe

40: Top 3 cupcake flavors - tbh I haven't tried that many cupcakes so your typical vanilla, chocolate, and Pink Lady Cupcake from Babycakes Cupcakery

41: Top 3 fruits - Pomegranates, Strawberries, Raspberries

42: Top 3 places you've had amazing pizza from - Pizzahut, Dominos, Pizza73

43: Top 3 sports teams to watch - i don't

44: Top 3 crayola colors - uh, i guess red, purple, and pink??

45: Top 3 things you hope to accomplish in college - Certificates/Degrees in Copyediting and Creative Writing, and I think simply just deeper critical thinking skills when it comes to writing and books

46: Top 3 fanfictions you've read - I read more books than fanfics, I've read a couple on tumblr but don't remember the names sorry :/

47: Top 3 people you miss right now - my dad, my best friend bc she's in vancouver, taylor swift bc she's not on tumblr anymore rip

48: Top 3 fears - Failure, Loss, not achieving anything in life/not reaching my full potential

49: Top 3 favorite literary devices - Foreshadowing is always god tier, cliffhangers although evil i love those too, symbolism

50: Top 3 pet peeves - People dragging their shoes on the floor when they walk, when you tell someone your fav hobby/music artist/interest and they immediately go 'oh I hate X!', and people who go 'you're so quiet!!!' but in a way that draws in more attention and/or makes me feel more uncomfortable like i would literally rather die

51: Top 3 physical things you find attractive - Hands, nice hair, defined jawlines

52: Top 3 bad habits - Nailbiting, picking at my blemishes oops, lip biting

53: Top 3 pets you've had/wish to have - Cats bc they complete me, I've always wanted a Samoyed, and I've always wanted a turtle

54: Top 3 types of foreign food - Chicken Chow Mein, deep fried shrimp, japanese chicken wings

55: Top 3 things you want to say to someone in your lifetime - 'I quit', 'I love you', 'you changed my life'

56: Top 3 dog breeds - Samoyed, german shepherds, collies

57: Top 3 cheesy romance movies - You've Got Mail, How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days, 10 Things I Hate About You

58: Top 3 languages you speak/wish to speak - French, Sign, and maybe Japanese?

59: Top 3 series (book, movie, television) - The Cruel Prince series by Holly Black, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (but literally only for Cassian and Nesta), From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout

60: Top 3 pizza toppings - Mushrooms, alfredo sauce, pineapple

61: Top 3 youtubers you're subscribed to - Game Grumps, Charlotte Dobre, Megan Batoon

62: Top 3 tattoo / piercing ideas - I want to get a tattoo on my wrist of the last thing my dad ever wrote me, a hummingbird tattoo right next to it, and then a cross on my index finger

63: Top 3 awards you want to win - National Book Awards, Nobel Prize, and maybe even Goodreads Choice Awards lol

64: Top 3 emojis - Laugh/Crying emoji, the please sir emoji that kinda gives off those puss n boots eyes, and the stars emoji

65: Top 3 cars you dream of owning - 1970s Chev Impala, tbh a cute little Hyundai Venue, and maaaaybe the 1964 ferarri 250 gt luso (idk if that name was totally right but i had to do tons of googling to find it. i don't know a lot about cars and i don't really have a top 3 lol)

66: Top 3 authors - Right now I'm really into Sarah J Maas, Sally Thorne, and Holly Black maybe?

67: Top 3 historical figures - Jesus, Anne Frank, Vincent Van Gogh

68: Top 3 baby names - Ryder, Leila, Gracie

69: Top 3 DIYs - Candles, refurnishing old furniture (i.e. my mom and i painted our wooden garbage can), and really just any type of autumn diy

70: Top 3 smoothie combos/flavors - Strawberry/Banana, Mango, Strawberry-Mango

71: Top 3 songs of this month - Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish, Biblical by Calum Scott, and Visiting Hours by Ed Sheeran

72: Top 3 questions of this post you want to be asked - I did them all bc I made it a survey instead of an ask meme ;)

73: Top 3 villains - Regina/The Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time, Cruella De Vil, and Moriarty from Sherlock

74: Top 3 Cities you want to see - Montreal, NYC, Vancouver (honorable mention: LA)

75: Top 3 recipes you want to try - different kind of salad and/or burger bowls, Stuffed bell peppers, and homemade lemon loaf

76: Top 3 dream jobs - Bestselling author, the person who runs a companies social media accounts, youtuber/blogger

77: Top 3 lucky items - tbh don't have one

78: Top 3 traditions you have - Christmas Eve Service and if I don't go to that at least incorporating reading the christmas story on christmas day or eve, idk if this counts as tradition but going to the corn maze every fall, and whenever it's easter/christmas/thanksgiving we always have a big meal w/ family

79: Top 3 things you miss about being a kid - reckless abandon, dreaming about growing up with hopefulness and no dashed hopes, experiencing holidays like halloween and christmas as a kid

80: Top 3 harry potter characters - I've never read or watched Harry Potter rip (ok well i saw the first and second (and maybe third?) movie in the sixth grade I think) but I think I really liked Hermoine, Harry obviously and Dobby

81: Top 3 lies you were told - i don't have 3, but this one has a story but basically when my sister and i were in elementary school my sister got hit by a car and so the insurance thing was that she would recieve 10k when she was 18 and as a child i thought that was unfair so my dad told me that my sister had to split it with me when we were 18 lmao obviously that didn't happen (i think i realized that wasn't true in middle school)

82: Top 3 pictures in your camera roll right now - Pictures of my cat, one of my sister in a hilarious filter, and a picture of my rocking my TS merch

83: Top 3 turn ons - Kindness, defined jawline, easy going

84: Top 3 turn offs - arrogance, unkempt, super loud and obnoxious

85: Top 3 magazines/news papers/ journals to read - I don't read much of those so I'll tell you some sites I love for writing purpose's: there's Wellstoried, justwriterlythings, springhole.net (which is filled with generators if you're stuck and also tons of infomation and advice)

86: Top 3 things you wish you had known earlier - that toad in Mario Party was wearing a mushroom hat and that it is actually not his head, that immaculate means 'clean' before i misused that word like several times over the years, and that the one turn i always take on my way to work where i thought everyone didn't know how to drive was actually bc i didn't have the right of way rip me

87: Top 3 spongebob episodes - the one episode where spongebob and patrick find a ghost ship, that one episode where they form a bikini bottom band and perform it at a football game in a little fish tank, and the one episode where squidward has his first snowball fight

88: Top 3 places to be in the world - I'd love to be in NYC, Montreal, or Hawaii

89: Top 3 things you'd do differently - I would not have applied for RDC, similarly I should have just paid the 500 dollars to the one certificate program I wanted to do instead of overthinking it, and I wish I wouldn't have ended a friendship the way I did

90: Top 3 TV shows from your childhood - Spongebob Squarepants, That's So Raven, and Hannah Montana

91: Top 3 meals you love - Turkey Burgers, Chilli, and Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

92: Top 3 kinds of tea - i don't drink tea

93: Top 3 embarrassing moments - one time in sixth grade I tripped and fell right on my face in front of my crush, this other time like a couple years ago i opened the door to my car and only realized much too late while i was staring at this random family that it was not my car, and when i went to the gas station to get gas and couldn't get my gas lid on my car opened and this guy had to help me which was already embarrassing enough but then the gas pump wouldn't work so i had to go inside to pay just to realize i forgot my wallet and had to shamefully walk back to my car and then run back inside the convenience store and then pay and then walk back to my car and finally fill my tank.

94: Top 3 holidays to celebrate - Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving

95: Top 3 things to do in the rain - have an existential crisis, pretend you're in a music video, walk through puddles like you're six again

96: Top 3 things to do in the snow - Sledding, Build a snowman, shovel it even tho you don't want to

97: Top 3 items you can't leave the house w/o - phone, keys, wallet

98: Top 3 movies you'd like to see - Jurassic World 3, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania bc i'm a child, and the animation of the addams family

99: Top 3 art mediums - Writing fiction/poetry, painting, music

100: Top 3 museums you've been to - Royal Tyrell Museum, Canadian History one in edmonton lol, and heritage park in calgary

101: Top 3 school memories - Middle school dances when the popular kids would grind to the song "Low" which was always an interesting experience, in the twelfth grade at winter formal when we all shouted "SHUT UP AND DANCE!" at the same time when they played Shut Up and Dance, and the day i left

102: Top 3 things you don't/Won't miss - School, my sisters ex, 2016 bc she was a rough year yikes

103: Top 3 pick up lines - "My name is Will. God's Will.", "I'd like to take you to the movies but they don't like you bring your own snacks", "are you from tennessee bc you're the only 10 i see"

104: Top 3 sports to watch - none of them

105: Top 3 taylor swift songs - all too well - exile - coney island

[mydoorin]

this is long and made for no one but myself

I like certain aspects of C1, and a lot of Vox Machina is endearing and wonderful, but I find all of the first campaign really hard to watch

From a player and a DM perspective I just cannot watch a 5 1/2 long episode with half the cast yelling over each other and the other half doing world-breaking shit. I know there was a sort of loosey-goosey transition between their Pathfinder homegames and 5e, and Matt and Taliesin are used to editions older than 4th even, but there were a lot of times when I felt basic rules got swept under the rug for Vax and Percy but were unfairly or even sometimes incorrectly applied to Keyleth and Vex. Vax literally broke the game multiple times, and I know a lot of the campaign was like Matt’s gift to Liam, but it’s a campaign with 8 of your friends that you’re now producing as a show so it can’t just be about the one guy anymore. No one likes playing D&D where one character is literally touched by fate and can move 120 feet and doing 5 attacks a round. even if the rest of the team are like, high level barbarians fighters and spellcasters it feels unbalanced and it isn’t fun to watch.

a lot of the combat mechanics in C1 feel sloppy too, in terms that PCs didnt know their own character abilities or had a misunderstanding of how Action-Bonus Action-Reaction 5e combat works. It’s not really anyone’s fault, that happens when you change game systems, but to the point that I actually skip combat scenes, which unfortunately can be like a majority of the episode (and have really important character moments, like death). the Kraken fight comes to mind (there aren’t 40 feet fast eels Keyleth I’m sorry), it felt like Grog had the best grasp on his character’s mechanics and goals, and I was yelling at the screen for the other PCs to look at their character sheets. i dont know why Keyleth wasnt a water elemental to start or why Vax didn’t spend all his time stealth-investigating for the lodestones or why Percy didnt think to try luring the beast or talking to it or why Vex didn’t- actually Vex did everything she could Rangers have massive drawbacks. But!! These are issues I have with VM in most fights, theyve gotten better in their level 20 one shots, but still there I want them to please read their character sheets, bc Keyleth is an archdruid who doesnt use spell components anymore and can cast from Wild Shape and that’s tight as hell. Vex’s character mechanics still suck at level 20 but that is not her fault at all 5e literally just hates Rangers. And can we talk about that? Why do Rangers not get half the shit other classes get? How come Rangers have to wait until level 17 to use hide as a bonus action? Rogues get that at 2nd level. Anyway.

I think another part of it comes from player experience, and what kind of PCs are and are not fun to have at the table. Personally I dont like the fate touched concept, I don’t have fun as a player when one character is designed from the start to be more special and important, esp when that character talks about hating it so much all the time. TBH I don’t know why Vax is such a shit about the Raven Queen deal it seems like you got something no one else has ever gotten (she let you have your sister back bro) and you literally signed up for this. A God is giving you Special Awesome God Powers that make you more of a terrifying game breaking monster and you’re gonna keep calling the Raven Queen a bitch? for what? because you didn’t check for traps? because you didnt have a spellcaster that could use telekinesis? what about that situation wasnt entirely character choices lmao

betwen Vax and Percy (dont get me started on Mr. I Know Better Than Everyone, i really fucking hate PCs like that and i will fight about my distaste for percival von frankenstein monsterenergydrink the third) there are a lot of moments in C1 that aren’t fun to watch bc I know they arent fun for everyone at the table to play. it can be really cool to watch someone else’s backstory unfold, but if that’s all you’re doing it’s super easy to check out (I dont think it’s an RP decision when Grog has no idea what’s happening, I too haven’t been listening to Percy argue about this inconsequential thing to no one in particular) think of all the early C2 Caleb-Beau moments when it was clear half the tabl wasn’t paying attention, and how quickly that was resolved after people voiced their opinions on it (Matt for sure talked to them about dominating RP and making too many smaller moments that leave out the rest of the table, I wish a certain wizard would take it to heart), but that didnt feel like a conversation anyone had during the first campaign.

maybe it’s because i didnt watch C1 live or because I watched C2 first, but I have- not even a preference really a deference to the Mighty Nein. I think they’re more fun, more entertaining to watch, more emotionally involved and driven, better developed and created, better in all aspects, smarter and funnier and sexier than Vox Machina. I dont care about high fantasy stories with legendary heroes that are basically gods that is such a boring way to play D&D, I want the dumbass characters to use and magic to play pranks on local shopkeepers and i want the lesbians to have a slow burn romance.

I dont even wanna touch on C1 romance bc like, gag me with a spoon I don’t like the way Kashaw or Vax interact with Keyleth theyre both so fucking annoying. Idk why men cant be normal and talk to the fantasy girl they have a fantasy crush on, but Fjord managed just fucking fine.

i need to go back to sleep but in essence my opinions are that C1 was a classic 1980s D&D campaign that would have made Gary Gygax proud. And now that D&D is a lot better than it was in the 80s, more accessible and a lot less shitty, we can have cool modern fantasy stories that expect more from PCs, DMs, and the audience. We can do cooler, better things than we used to, and the structure of 5e actually helps facilitate more roleplaying between characters. The 5e PHB has whole sections devoted to roleplaying your character, and now Tasha’s gives everyone a way to get rid of stupid racist features and make your characters cooler. I’m really happy to see the progession of both WOTC and Critical Role into better, cooler, more awesome and less shitty versions of themselves (this isnt a WOTC defense post im not a shill they should pay the Dragonlance writers)

[joecial-distancing]

2019 in review in review:

A few years ago I started tracking yearly goals, books read, movies watched etc in a year, along with overview blurbs, in private posts. End of 2019/beginning of 2020 I was really frazzled/burned out about a lot of stuff and just never finished up making the thing. 8 months later, got the urge to read back what I’d got done, then figured I’d maybe go ahead and see about finishing. 

Media tracking below the break. thoughts/blurbs written in 2020 italicized, 2019 not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Didn’t do so hot on explicit personal goals, but had a lot of stuff go ok around them this year.

School’s been fine/better than fine.

Job’s probably the biggest failing. Still with same job, haven’t made the firm moves to jump off, dragging my feet too much on exploring stuff w/ Columbia/NASA GISS.

Did not get better with covid, lol

Dating life still non-existent, but I’ve registered on apps, gotten more comfortable with selfies, improved general social life dramatically, been flirted with, updated my wardrobe, and generally started to get comfortable accepting that I’m a hot person.

Somehow got extremely better during covid.

Books

Grant (finished)

We stan a taurus legend

Guy was good at exactly one job, and was fortunate enough to have been in the right place/right time to get to do it.

Mort (discworld)

Definitely best discworld I’ve gotten to so far.

Don Quixote p. II

Really entertaining in a way that part 1 wasn’t; I was shocked how much the meta element landed for me.

Consider the Lobster (DFW collection)

had zero context on who DFW is/was when I read, and still don’t exactly tbh. Wanted to wait for a pause in The Discourse before diving into more of him, but dunno if I’m ever going to get that.

Crime and Punishment (revisited)

Weirdly didn’t get much more out of this than I did the first time I’d read it

Better Than Sex (HST Gonzo papers)

Xerox/widespread fax accessibility opening citizen access to mass media in a manner really reminiscent of what social media would go on to do at a much larger scale. Has a much more deliberate narrative arc than the other gonzo papers collections, also has that excellent HST richard nixon eulogy

The Brothers Karamazov

SPQR

Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Didion collection)

Pet Sematary

Not my favorite King, but not bad

Sourcery (discworld)

still funny/charming, but Mort really made clear/reminded me how much the hapless sadsack Rincewind mold of protagonist wears on me after a while.

The Devil's Teeth

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Liked it a lot more once I realized it was doing a Fear and Loathing thing.

Homage to Catalonia

This should be the Orwell that gets taught in schools. Make it a followup to All Quiet on the Western Front or something, jeez.

Lyndon Johnson I

Having now finished all of them, this one’s probably the least-interesting but sets up a bunch of important context that the others still then feel the need to retread.

The Razor's Edge

Recommended to me as a “white guy discovers eastern mysticism” book, but also is more interesting in its treatment of that than I’d expected (helps it was written in the 40s). 

Cat's Cradle

There’s a part in this where Vonnegut’s making fun of people who try to bond with strangers over being Hoosiers, and my dumbass immediate thought was “ooh, Vonnegut’s a hoosier? Me too!”

Lyndon Johnson II

Robert Caro felt compelled to apologize for spending so much words lionizing Coke Stevens, segregationist opponent to Johnson’s senate run. His goal was pretty clearly to show lbj’s lack of campaign charisma by contrast, definitely definitely overcommitted in his own narrativising.

Libra

I want to go back to this after reading some more De Lillo.

Gravity's Rainbow

This book absolutely kicked my ass

Overstuffed and referential in a specific way that really keeps me hooked in instead of put off. When I learn about some piece of cultural context that I retroactively recognize as being referenced in this, I want to go back and reread the entire thing.

From Caligari to Hitler

Kind of fails both as film criticism and cultural analysis, but absolutely made me want to run for the hills when considering current relationship between mainstream movies and demands of pop culture.

I took a class on Weimar cinema in undergrad that I now realize was probably biting pretty heavily from this and never once referenced it.

Movies

Venom

Movie itself is not as fun as the Tom Hardy hype coverage. PG13 was the absolute worst space to aim for, PG- or R- versions of this could have been a blast.

Harryhauser Argonauts

Was tripping when I put this on, and it was all kinds of fun.

2001: a Space Oddyssey

First time seeing this, all-time classic for a reason!

A Good American (the NSA doc)

Dr. Strangelove

Mel Brooks History of the World p. I

Not my favorite Brooks, best joke was at the beginning.

In Bruges

Had been a while since I saw a proper dark comedy.

Spiderverse

Fukkin awesome!

Visually great, and extremely better than usual superhero stuff for being aimed at PG instead of PG-13.

You Only Live Twice

Highlander (Revisited)

I watched The Old Guard on netflix recently and it mostly just made me wish I was watching Highlander instead, because at least Highlander knows exactly how goofy it is

Moonraker

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Much like The Shining, I though this would have been 100% spoiled for me by cultural osmosis, but turns out it wasn’t, and even the scenes I had seen *totally landed* in-context still.

Kung Fu Hustle

Ichi the Killer

Really gross, really fun

Matrix Reloaded (watched thru highway scene) (Revisited)

The highway scene was not nearly as cool as I remembered it being.

John Wick 3*

Probably dumbest plot of all of them, best choreography. I like how every single fight had its own distinct flavor. “Knife museum fight” “horse fight” “halle berry dogs fight” 

Akira

A classic

Pet Sematary * (ugh, bad)

Why can’t john lithgow be in good movies anymore

The Revenant

MCU Spiderman

Fuck this was awful.

MCU Spiderman 2*

Really weird, complete Rorschach Test of a movie: it’d be totally valid to read into this that global warming is Fake News, for instance.

Lmao this was completely awful

Rites

Dredd (non-stallone)

oh hey Lena Headey’s in this

For All Mankind!

Watched in honor of moon landing anniversary

Lion King *

Watched it way too stoned, was like dark side of the moon + wizard of oz except instead it’s a lion king script reading + nature footage edited for lip syncing.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood *

Many scenes of very long setups for really stupid shaggy dog jokes, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I do kinda want to rewatch now knowing more about manson, which I knew pretty much nothing about beforehand

Blowout

A good john lithgow movie

also I think I like travolta in things.

Lord of War

A Good cage movie

I like when Eamon Walker shows up in stuff.

Taxi Driver

A classic

Snowpiercer

Watched in a bar with only one speaker working, which is the correct way to watch. Weirder and funnier than I thought it was going to be, which still doesn’t make it good, but,

dbz big green dub

Exorcist III

Brad Dourif just tearing it apart

Deep Red (argento)

Suspiria (1977)

Watched the remake in 2020, which was ok, but nothing tops the Goblin score.

Elf Bowling

Thanks, Gnome

Parasite *

Interesting to me that this one seems poised to hang around people’s good esteem for a while

TV

FMA: B

Rick & Morty

Saw some episodes, generally pretty funny, some misanthropy that’s probably appealing to a certain type of teen al a something like House, but ultimately I don’t totally Get the intensity of discourse about it.

Leterkenny

Mob Psycho 100

One Punch Man

Deadwood

Watchmen

Only watched like half of it. Was playing around with a lot of hefty imagery/thematics, but didn’t really seem ready to rise above playing (tho also I feel like it’s weird on some level to *expect* them to rise above that in the first place)

Music

New Avantasia

HEALTH/ show

lol remember concerts

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard/ show

Just learned about King Gizz in 2019 and got completely obsessed with them. I don’t tend to expand my music selection very readily, and a lot of what I currently *do* know is old/inactive stuff, so it was/is incredibly exciting to have an active group with good momentum just immediately win me over like that.

Mistimed the edibles and ended up with a really good finale and a really long subway ride home.

New Yeasayer

Sad they split up

Steve Wilson Tull remixes

Aqualung’s a good album and the sound mixing’s kinda bad, so I liked this project.

Stonefield

Opened for Gizzard. Really good as studying music

Video Games

Civ VI: Gathering Storm

Hades

Turns out Supergiant’s design proclivities all work *extremely well* on a roguelike

Baba is You

Untitled Goose Game

Cute, if maybe a bit overhyped

finally fucking finished Pillars of Eternity

Had fun with it, but too long, and really dour for how long it is.

Pillars II

Kinda drifted off it eventually, but I do genuinely like that the flavor of the fantasy is colonial era rather than medieval.

There’s a Balancing Bastard Factions element where it’s like the writers are just being smartasses after a while. Having to go extremely out of their way to make siding with colonizers seem like a competitive option.

Pokemon shield

Cuphead

pisses me off, which was a nice outlet when I was stranded by flight cancellations during thanksgiving

Celeste

Also very difficult, but really easy to stay patient with, which is nice.

Disco Elysium

None of the discourse made me want to play this, but people talking about the mechanical stuff it did got me extremely interested. Mostly Delivered IMO.

Breath of the Wild

You can approach the nodes of the main quest in the order you choose, and the second one I chose made ninjas start fucking spawning everywhere when I’m just trying to explore, and there’s no way to make it stop. May go back to it one day.

Podcasts

Relentless Picnic Patreon feed

The treats really helped me start distinguishing individual personalities, compared to the regular eps.

Picnic Discord!

<3

FatT Counterweight

Fun, but also I think Mechs are not my shit.

FatT Spring in Hieron/ end of that particular world

8 months since I’ve last tuned into FatT. ah well.

Law School

He’s in everythiiiing!

You Must Remember This: Manson family

*There’s* the context

Misc.

Kindle train guy

Times Square sleeping guy + kids taking selfies w/ him

toddler singing along after Psycho killer (a, ya, ya ya, ya)

drunk and dragged to a drag show

Central park football family

Soft Steel Drum Subway Busker

Weird old lady going to grand central for oysters

2018 in review (cards):

MySelf (CC)

Self: Tower

Blocked: 10 Cups

Ethereal/subconscious: 8 Swords

Material: 3 Swords

Past: Justice

Future: Page Wands

Attitude: Sun

External: King Swords

Hopes/Fears: 5 Coins

Trajectory: High Priestess

Also Self:

Hierophant

7 Cups

7 Coins

Blind Spot:

(self & others): 5 cups    ||    (others not self): High Priestess

(self not others): Moon   ||    (nobody): 3 Cups

[jane-penvellyn-of-blackmoor]

Nancy Drew #33 Midnight in Salem Game Review

So I gave in and paid the damn $30 to play the dribble that HER's pawning off as their latest game. While there has been major controversy within the fandom over the latest Nancy Drew Game and HerInteractive in general, I'm going to stick to just the game here. My thoughts and opinions on how HER managed the fandom after Penny Miliken came onto the scene have been made clear on my sh!tposts on my blog lol. So we're talking just the game here, nothing pre-start menu - that includes real world HerInteractive drama, none of that. So let's begin...

The Start Menu - Tbh I hated the start menu. It was like a FNAF game's opening menu, clearly made in Unity and the grass textures were nightmarish. If this were my first Nancy Drew game and this was the first sight I saw upon booting the game up, I would never buy another one again.

Voice Acting - Now before ya'll go off on "That's just your nostalgia talking, give it a chance" I will have you know that I tried, I really really tried to like the new voice actress for Nancy but ugh I can't stand it. She sounds like someone pretending to be Olivia Benson off Law & Order: SVU. Like I get they wanted Nancy to sound more like a modern teenager and less "Barbie voice" like Lani's voice would stray towards but letting go of Lani was their biggest mistake. If they had kept Lani as Nancy's voice - especially for such a drastically different game setup - would have helped keep fans fixed within the Nancy Drew world that we've been following for years. Everyone else was great, I especially liked Mei and Lauren's voices and the emotions expressed within them. Also Tourist Girl outside of the Town Hall needs to be brought back in the next game and have her lines recorded on actual recording equipment because what you did HerInteractive was hysterically pathetic and unfair. I don't know if that was a place holder that got overlooked or what but for a $30 game released by a company with so many quality games under it's belt - I expect better.

Storyline - Was pretty good. Fire, robberies, political unrest, sabotage, fraud, hidden wills, all things we've seen before a dozen times but they never get old. I think it's safe to say that the storyline itself is actually what kept me playing, however about half way through I did know it was one of two suspects who was the villian and the very next reveal ensured me which one it was. Still though good story.

Script - Whoever was in charge of the character conversations, for the love of all that is holy please water the interactions down! I felt like 99% of the game was never ending conversations about crap that wasn't useful to the plot. Like filler and fluff is great but conversations that drag on and on and on aren't fun. Have a character say a line or two, then it's Nancy's turn - all this monologuing has me flying through conversations just so I can move onto the next thing. Also some of the way the lines are written make it hard for the actors to read and sound authentic. Like "I can not." (versus "I can't.") levels of unauthentic lines.

Characters - Loved the different characters, would have appreciated more that had models you could interact with.

Puzzles - Needed way more puzzles. Like WAY more. It felt like there was less than 10 puzzles in the game and the majority were stupid easy, the only 'difficult' ones were easy once you understood what they wanted you to do which for some reason wasn't made clear at the start of the puzzle.

Mini Games - Loved making Johnny Cakes and mixing herbs.

Graphics - Horrific. I played on the highest settings of graphics on my HD computer, I had zero issues with it rendering or playing through as intended and smoothly - the graphics were still shit. I've seen better graphics in Barbie's Horse Adventures or The Sims 3. If you're entire argument of shifting onto Unity was for better graphics, HerInteractive, then you need to deliver and you failed miserably at that.

Navigation - I actually had zero issue with the 'swoosh' way we moved around. At times it felt a little restrictive (like in Town Square getting around the stage) but it was fine. I just actually didn't care for the camera tilt feature, it made things ten times more complicated trying to figure out what nooks and crannies they wanted you to notice and which they didn't. I'd happily go back to the old navigation and old engines but I'm fine with the new one so long as they work on making it better.

Cursor - Hated the new cursor, bring back the magnifying glass plz.

Location - I felt that the location of Salem, MA. wasn't utilized to it's fullest potential and that the layout of the town square and the maps of the city were surprisingly unsimilar to IRL Salem. I liked the aesthetic of Lauren's Shop, The Cemetary, The Hathorne House, and Olivia's Store but all of those locations fell victim to the game's graphics, still though props to the designer of those locations in the game.

Austrian Castle - This was jarring. To have a game so drenched in it's location of Salem then it starts off in Austria, it was weird. I get it that they were like "It's connected to the Salem Witch Trials cuz of da Judge dude" but it was super unnecessary and felt like a strange sub-plot location to a game set in Salem, MA. 

Music - I liked the music, felt a little Harry Potter-ish at times and the 'indie rock' music they had that had zero lyrics was annoying but overall it was fine.

Witchy Stuff - I myself am a real practitioning witch, I am an ecclectic pagan wiccan and I know I am in the minority here but some of the puzzles were obnoxiously easy if you know anything about witchcraft. Like even the most basic level of witchcraft. If you ever skimmed through a wicca book in highschool with your edgy friends than you already know more than this game expects you to know. What pissed me off is that it's never actually explained to you. Like they bring up Samhain and fling the word around so it's all spooky and mystifying but they never once have a book or person discuss real Witchcraft with you. Like yeah Olivia is a 'real witch' or whatever and Lauren teaches you about mixing some herbs but it's still not like "Here is The Wheel of the Year, These are Sabbats and Esbats, This is an Athame, This is what we use brooms for we call them Besoms, etc" like the fact that we didn't get a wise old lady who was a clear rip off of Laurie Cabot teaching us about real Witchcraft in a very censor friendly and warm way pisses me off to no end. MISSED OPPORTUNITY HER!!!

Nancy's Behavior - So many times in this game Nancy behaved out of character to me. Like I get it, ya wanted to be all like "let's challenge her belief in ghooooosts!!" but it wasn't done correctly. Nancy wouldn't react to seeing ghosts like Scooby Doo and Shaggy.

Call Backs/Easter Egg - I appreciated the Easter Egg in this game being a literal colorful egg but it was a lame spot to hide it considering it was in plain view. However I appreciated the call backs to previous games with KoKo Kringles, Robotic Cats, and the Dear Sweet Charlotte jack-o-lantern.

Ghosts and Jumpscares - 10/10 best aspect of the game by far. The witch ghost over the bed actually got me really good and the ghosts in the underground tunnels were the best graphics of the game.

Pumpkins - Another charming part of the game that I actually enjoyed more than I anticipated. It was really cute and a fun stupid little thing to work on through out the game to find all the candles and put a pumpkin on each one.

Hardy Boys - PLEASE BRING THEM BACK FOR MORE GAMES AND NEVER STOP THE FRANCY SHIPPING. Also I could be tempted for Joe/Deirdre shipping js.

Overall - I'd rate the game a 4/10 and that's being nice. I liked it more than RAN but that’s really not saying much. It doesn’t come close to classic Nancy Drew Games.

Final Thoughts - I can't see any person who isn't a die hard Nancy Drew fan playing this and being like "Yeah I'll buy more of HerInteractive's future games!" like no. But I do see potential. I can see this as a beautiful beginning on a new platform making more immersive games. Or you know this could be the last game we get from HER and they close and go bankrupt and get flushed away and then the Miss Clue crew buys the rights for Nancy Drew and they make new Nancy Drew Games on the old platform with the old team....whichever works just fine for me :)

[moviegroovies]

so to me, one of the hallmarks of a good piece of media is people willingly thinking about the characters after it’s over.

obviously, this isn’t like, a 100% success rate kind of thing. there are objectively good, enjoyable pieces of media out there that have no “fandom” type presence on the internet, because, while it exhibited great worldbuilding/storytelling/framing/what have you, it just wasn’t made up of the kinds of characters that people latch on to; the joke about avatar (2009) having less than 100 fics on ao3 despite being the best selling movie of all time for a solid decade is well known because of this phenomenon exactly. amazing cgi, solid plot, but at the end of the day, not that many people cared about jake sully. even still, i think this character-imprinting thing has an important, often overlooked role in intrinsically endearing people to movies that, outside of this factor, might be easily forgettable or even outright disliked. 

case in point: my movie of the day/week/month (how often do i post on this blog, anyway?)....

that’s right, lads, today i’m going to talk about the lost boys. 

if you’ve seen the lost boys, you’ll probably know that it’s not like, objectively, a masterpiece. in fact, if i were feeling particularly uncharitable, it would be easy for me to describe it as a fairly straightforward, low-budget horror b-movie, with a aesop-heavy and simplistic plot and a penchant for cheesy special effects, saved only by its rockin’ soundtrack.

...but i won’t.

i won’t, because using that description would leave out a detail i think it’s completely unfair of me not to touch on: the characters. i love them!! i was hooked from just about the very start of the movie by david’s creepy, affably evil leadership style, sam’s dorky little brother-ness, and michael’s 3cool5school airs. each of the characters, down to the frog brothers (named edgar and allan after the esteemed mr. poe, which really tickled me), the other lost boys, grandpa, lucy, and max, have their own distinct quirkiness that makes them memorable and draws me to want to explore more of their world, more of their stories. 

not enough to watch the infamous direct-to-dvd sequels, of course, but you get what i’m saying. 

there’s an old tip in writing that says something along the lines of “good characters can save a bad plot, but a good plot can’t save bad characters,” and that pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly on this movie. like, the plot itself is pretty much the message ‘peer pressure is bad’ wrapped up in some ugly monster makeup; not exactly cult classic material. however, like i’ve said, the characters and the fact that we get genuine, endearing interactions between them outside of just furthering the plot save it from the dumpster fire and, together, put together a story greater than the sum of its parts. no, it’s not a fuckin’ cinematic masterpiece by any stretch of the words, but it’s a fun movie, and there’s a reason i’ve watched it four times in the past three days, you know? 

(a good chunk of that reason was me slowly losing my grip on my sanity as i frantically put in the dvd over and over again, desperately trying to make myself attracted to kiefer sutherland so i could enjoy the movie to the fullest extent of my ability. i’m proud to announce a perfect success rate, and a slightly degraded sense of taste in men, reflecting the completion of that goal. 

if you too want to find something to lust after beyond his objectively ugly as sin face, trust me when i say it’s all in the voice. mmmmm) 

my favorite thing that the lost boys did was the exploration of different types of friendship and familial bonds. that’s the most striking thing about the movie for me; not only are the characters individuals whom i would like to explore, their interactions with each other are touching and worth exploring in their own right. there’s definitely something about some stories that drives people to write fanfiction (or is that just me? ha ha), and imo, the lost boys totally has it. in fact, while the fandom is sitting pretty at 600+ fics on ao3 (take that, avatar), i was honestly sort of surprised there weren’t more, exploring all the interesting ‘what if’s’ the film presented, and expounding on the bonds that we got to see the effects of in the limited screentime we had. 

what i liked about those bonds was that there were such a multitude of them. there were quite a few platonic bonds making up the crux of the movie (being, in my opinion, much more interesting than the main romantic bond which was explored through star and michael, although isn’t that kind of always the case in these 80′s teen movies? i can’t think of a single designated couple i was actually invested in except for veronica sawyer and jason dean... ferris bueller and sloane peterson, maybe? but i also feel like those two were making a cameron sandwich, so idk if it counts lol), but the way they were treated was cool in that they were unique: we got to see two different kinds of sibling bonds, with michael and sam emerson joking around in an easy, teasing way that totally screamed “wow, this movie was written by someone who actually has a brother” to me (isn’t it sad that some people have clearly never so much as seen a set of siblings in their life, judging by the way they write them?) while edgar and allan frog seem to take themselves more seriously, like a pair of army buddies, we got to see the pack-like bond of the lost boys and the (mostly) good-natured way they hazed michael into their group before things went to shit with them, we got to see star (and some of the lost boys, if you pay attention) being protective and maternal around laddie, and we got to see the uneasy alliance turned nerdy friendship between the frogs and sam. there are also three parent-child bonds that get explored, between lucy and her father (it’s a pretty sweet take on the kindhearted grown child taking care of senile-ish father thing) and lucy and her boys, each of which she has a distinct relationship with: sam is the baby, while michael she seems to level with and trust more, even after he starts getting into trouble and acting up. 

then of course there are two (three, if you count the widow johnson/grandpa emerson subplot, which.... i totally do) romantic relationships: star and michael falling in a sort of love-at-first-sight passionate relationship that soon dooms mikey and eventually saves star, while lucy tries her best to get back into the dating game with max, who is nefarious, of course, but also a little bit sad. remember what i said about what-ifs? i would love to see a fic exploring what might have happened had max’s plan worked out after all, but i guess that’s neither here nor there.

not to be a blatant slash shipper jumping on any two male characters who move or anything, but i think possibly the most important/influential relationship in the whole thing was that between david and michael; michael, obviously, got drawn into the lost boys’ circle by his insta-attraction to star, but he sticks around because of david. he pretty much ignores star once they get to the cliff that night, his attention focused on david because he’s there, and he’s intense, and michael is kind of a dumb bi bitch totally captivated. he drinks max’s blood at david’s taunting, and in direct opposition to star’s advice. there’s a lot i could say on this subject but tbh i’m running out of steam, so that might be a thing for a whole different post.

basically, there are a lot of cool interactions in this movie, and i think a lot of film makers could take note of that. even critically acclaimed, award winning movies being made in today’s world tend to fail to hit that special note, that character-imprintation which makes the audience not only stay engaged to the end, but also to care. not every movie needs that, of course; not everything can launch a darkhorse fandom the way the lost boys has, and honestly, not everything should... unless it’s trying to cater to my interests, in which case, well. 

if all movies were made to cater to my interests, i would have the time of my fucking life, but it’d probably be dark days for the rest of y’all.

thinking about it now, the lack of that element is kind of what makes me wary of the horror genre in the first place; i find so many of those movies just boring as all hell, because they’re too into the “scaring” thing without any of the “caring” thing. people, if we don’t care about the characters we’re watching, then who the fuck gives a shit if they get devoured by shitsucking vampires, anyway? finding the lost boys, a “horror” (i guess i use the term loosely) movie which relied heavily on those character interactions was honestly a godsend, because THIS is what i want to see more of. going down that line of thought, i think it’s honestly a shame and a half that the sequels which joel schumacher planned never got to see the light of day (and, of course, that we were instead left with the tribe, which for the life of me i refuse to fucking watch). the interactions between the lost boys could have been the most interesting part of the movie, if only they had been spotlighted a bit more. that would have been the case in the proposed prequel, the beginning, which would see the boys start out before they became vampires at all. reading about the script for that is honestly sending me, tbh. we could have seen that, and what we got instead were “sequels” that focused mainly on the frogs, when they connected to the original movie at all? where’s the fucking justice?

whatever. that’s the one thing about this franchise i never could stomach; all the damn frog brothers.

(till next time!)

[jlf23tumble]

1D Day, Hour Two

The file I’m watching on YouTube is much shorter than an hour (44 minutes!!), but that’s because the poster kindly removed the “VT” (shudder) from random countries (it always boils down to [insert country’s name’s] fans wilding, and there’s only so much of that I can take).

Still, hour 2 is fucking ICONIC for many reasons, the biggest being Harry’s barely constrained rage. Yes, Louis’s “done with it all” demeanor on 1D Day is (justifiably) legendary, but Harry’s right there with him (twin flames, y’all). I can’t tell if he’s coked up, genuinely angry, or just passive-aggressively petty because someone told him he had to speak more quickly, much more loudly, and with some enthusiasm, for chrissakes. Oh, he delivers, all right, so much maniacal shouting. Deets under the cut.

Hour 2 is all Lirry, and I, for one, love Lirry, so it’s 44 minutes well spent. Liam tells us, “We’re kicking it off with VT from  France, give it up for France!” (“FRANCAIS!” Harry yells), and after the missing bit of French VT, we’re back to Lirry, with Harry vacillating between murdering the French language (“Mercy boo coo to France”) and shouting “I ATE SNAILS” as his contribution to what they did in France last time they were there (Liam played football with some guys near the Eiffel Tower, fwiw).

The first guest is Dynamo (or, “DYNAMO, EVERYBODY” if you’re Harry), and he’s here for card tricks and more (“OH, SNAP” is Harry’s response to Dynamo nearly twisting his own finger off, and god, it’s horrifying). Harry’s fairly manic through the entirety of the card tricks, but I love Liam because he’s me in every card trick (“I’m glad mine’s easy to remember because I’d probably forget,” which is true of any card you take, like, ever???):

“WHO LOVES MAGIC!” Harry shouts, and there’s a needlessly complicated special interactive trick that gets introduced here, with Dynamo saying that he wrote a prediction on a piece of paper and sealed it in a box at the beginning of the day, so he needs to Harry to keep the key safe. Points if you correctly assumed that Harry will stuff that key right in next to his dick as a joke.

Because nobody rehearsed or prepared for this epic full-day live event, there are all kinds of problems with the cameras, and if you want a fun drinking game to get you hammered within 45 minutes, take a shot every time you see a variation of this (Liam looking vaguely concerned while Harry aggressively points at the sky or the camera while shouting):

A horrifically bad segment that’s a poorly disguised advert for Google Hangouts (lmaoaoaoaooaoaoa) kicks off questions from all over the world (the audio is bad, none of the visuals syncs), but we get some iconic answers to deeply important questions, like, “If you were in the Hunger Games, who would  survive the longest?” Liam says he’d hide and then kill passersby (yikes), and Harry says he’s more of a lover than a fighter, so he’d hide in a tree until it all blew over. Liam: “Oh, yeah, you’re definitely more of a lover.” Harry: “Easy there, Piers Morgan.”

The next question is from a group of girls wearing Christmas sweaters, which annoys Harry because “it’s a whole month and two days early,” but I think his issues are bigger than jumping the gun on holidays (and honestly, the UK doesn’t have the twin buffers of T’day and H’ween, so you KNOW this is just part of his general rage). Anyway, they want to know what other careers these two would be involved with, sans the D, and because they’re five, Liam says spaceman and Harry says baker.

After a series of horrible glitches, the next question is about which superhero they’d be, and me as Harry, blowing a giant raspberry as he ponders this important question with the level of exhaustion he surely must feel, three years into this band/interview technique. Liam can read the room, so he picks this one up and says he’d be Kung-Fu Panda, which makes it easy for Harry to say Hong Kong Fuey (!!!) or Top Cat.

With that mess done, it’s time to “ROLL THE VT!” (according to Harry) for Switzerland, and because the producers here are nothing if not cliché lovers, that means tiny cowbells for Harry to play with when we come back. He quickly tires of this, throws the cowbells off stage, yells “WE NEED A CAMERA,” and walks straight into the call box with the overwhelmed girls from hour 1. These girls are still weeping, but Harry says, “Thank you for listening to the album, you’re getting kicked out, sorry,” in the flattest voice possible, so good cop Liam hurries over to ask the weeping girls which song they liked and usher in two new people.

“Happily” is debuted, but we don’t get to see it, boo, but we do get ushered over to a theater with some contest winners. Or as Harry says, “We’re here backstage to meet some fans who have won a chance to be here…SHUT UP…in our VIP cinema,” and then, “You’re crying…is that because I told you to shut up? I didn’t mean it.” Liam is there again to save the day, but there are lots of sound problems, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening, tbh.

Anyway, these fans get to ask some iconic questions, such as, “What would we find in your fridge?” which gives us this classic from Harry: “I DON’T LIVE ANYWHERE, SO NO FOOD,” as the audience says, “awwwwww” in the background.

There’s a question from a lady on the screen, saying that she’s in front of the X Factor studios, and she wants to know what they would change their audition song to, if they could go back in time, and because Harry’s well aware of his various stalkers, he says, “I saw her the other day at the X Factor studios, 100 percent” (fwiw, Harry would do “Wrecking Ball” with props, and Liam would do “Mirrors”).

The last question is what they would change if they could go back in time, and Liam says probably his older haircuts, and Harry says that one day in April (and he mentions April again later in the hour, so someone investigate), he had a dodgy breakfast burrito, so he’d probably change that (he also had a dodgy batch of prawns one time, too, but that’s a different story, and god, he’s an underrated comedian). The sound is for shit, but Liam doubts this, prompting Harry to scream, “DON’T JUDGE ME, LIAM, I’M TRYING MY BEST,” and whyyyyyy is he so on fire (and why do I love it so much):

We get back to the studio with an inexplicably breathless Scott Mills (he says he ran…but from where, lmao) and do another spin to figure out who the official 1D account (????) will follow on twitter. Harry starts cheating before people start yelling at him to stop, which is a shame, really, just follow all of these poor bastards, honestly!

We don’t get to see the VT from Germany, but we do get to see Lirry bickering about camera problems and stolen lines, plus an exhaustive rundown of all the thrilling things to come, and I’m so thankful to the person who made this moment a Dua Lipa meme all those months ago:

One of my favorite segments has a really awkward setup, but tl/dr/dw, Harry brags, “I’m a bit of a chef myself, and if I’m honest, Liam, I’m pretty damned good at it,” so we get a “ROLL VT!” and an aggressive finger point, both from Harry, and a silly but charming cook off with the tour chef, who seems like a lovely lady (p.s. look at how glorious his hair was under all those tablecloths…also, he’s chewing gum in a gross way, but this whole bit is worth watching in full):

The cook off is genuinely funny and results in a beautiful pavlova from Sarah and a basic sandwich (with pickle and paprika) from Harry, judged by Mark Jarvis, Gemma Styles, and Lou Teasdale, all of whom Harry bribes. I’m more fascinated with this ring, and my head canon has it either saying ILY or JEN (both of which make me smile):

With that bit over, we move on to more rapping of random tweets, and it’s embarrassing, so I won’t get into that. But the VT of Liam surfing is something special, not only because he looks so obviously happy while he’s doing it, but also because he says some very profound things in the interview around it: “I get followed a lot, so it’s quite nice to get out in the sea where nobody can follow you […] it’s so nice and peaceful […] it doesn’t matter what you look like, you can just have a good time, it’s a bit of an escape,” and ouchhhhhh, that’s some real talk.

We head back to the studio for a fashion segment with Louise someone; a handful of lucky fans in Sweden won a t-shirt design contest, and Lirry are gonna do some modeling. Louise is happy that Harry knows where Sweden is (Harry:  “I got a B in geography…might have been a C, can’t remember”), and some poor shlub working on this trainwreck in the shadow gets dragged out on camera because he’s wearing green jeans, but he’s not there for long (Harry: “GET OUT” *shove*). Louise describes the fashion show to come, and Harry says that he’s quite good at walking in straight lines, but Liam reminds him that he tends to fall over a lot on stage and that the tiny catwalk is actually pretty shiny (god bless Liam for being so responsible).

Luckily for all of us, professional model Cindy Crawford is there to help with some tips (she’s introduced as “IT’S ONLY BLOODY CINDY CRAWFORD” by Harry, and I die with Cindy’s “Hello, boys,” and Harry’s “Hello, Mrs. Crawford”…followed swiftly by Cindy’s, “Please don’t call me Mrs. Crawford”). There’s some sexi modeling, and even though he only wears two shirts to Harry’s three (*and* Harry gets down on the ground to pose), Liam wins, according to the Swedes. He requests a model  off with Cindy as his prize, and he’s surprisingly good?

The last segment is with Dynamo, the magic man, and for some reason, Harry’s weirdly agro about his own shirt mic, like, unnecessarily so, ripping it off to speak with Dynamo before gently putting it back where it belongs. Maybe he’s just frustrated about how they have to use Google+ (lololololol) for a totally convoluted imaginary concert that ultimately doesn’t work (me as him, tbh). 

While Liam does tech support live on air (!!), Harry asks Dynamo to do some card tricks to stall for time after literally nobody says a word when he monotones, “We’re having a technical difficulty…does anybody know any jokes.” Harry pulls a card as directed, but then, for seemingly no reason, he suddenly starts yelling, “THIS ISN’T WORKING, SHALL WE SEE SOME HIGHLIGHTS? HIGHLIGHTS!!! ROLL HIGHLIGHTS [aggressive pointing]!!” and the highlights are truly awful, and I hope he’s enjoying his smoke break for hour 3, jfc.

[acid-eater]

LOGH 100 Question Meme

Under the cut bc this is huge

1) How did you get into LOGH? 

It was back in 98 when I used to “work” with some friends fansubbing anime in a home studio. One day one of my friends, who used to go to japan a lot because his family was living there as dekasegi, brought some episodes of logh (half of the 1st season) telling us that we should start subbing it because it was “the best space opera ever to exist”. We found the script on the internet and watched it. It was awesome, but we never subbed it because we were too lazy.

2) What did you watch/read from LOGH?  I haven’t watched Golden Wings 

3) Which one did you get started with? the first of the 110 episodes

4) What do you plan to watch/read from LOGH in the future? hmm nothing I guess

5) What books do you own from LOGH? Yoshiki Tanaka‘s novels

6)What video support do you own from LOGH? 720p and old 480p

7)What LOGH videogames do you own? Physical copy none, but I have all pc88 and pc98 games (only to take screenshots because I can’t play them in japanese haha)

8)What’s your favorite LOGH videogame? n/a

9)What goods from LOGH do you own (toys, clothes, etc.) this is everything logh related I own

(thanks to my favorite girls hisohiso and karisomeotome)

10)If you could wish for a LOGH good that doesn’t exist yet, what would that be? idk, an audiobook, maybe? 

11)Do you own LOGH models? Nope

12)Did you ever thought “OH MY GOD I AM A LOGH FREAK”? Nope

13)Did you ever sang a LOGH song in a karaoke? No, I’ve never been to a karaoke x_x

14)What is your favorite season of the show? 2

15)And your less favorite? Maybe 1? x_x Idk...

16)What is your favorite episode and/or movie? episode 54

17)Favorite scene or event? Reinhard and Yang Wenli meeting

18)Favorite battle? Vermillion! (see? 2nd season is the best) but also Shiva

19)Less favorite scene or event? 3 terrible scenes involving: kircheis, yang wenli and reuenthal 

20)Favorite song? I love Hikaru no Hashi wo Koete and Sea of the Stars

21)Favorite sountrack? Mahler’s Symphony No 2, “Resurrection”. Mostly because of episode 98 ;____;

22)Favorite quote? “Information is a living organism - with a short lifespan.” Yang the Wenli on Spiral Labyrinth and “The people have democratic principles on their lips, but cannot spare the effort to safeguard them! The collapse of a government is the sin of its rulers and leaders. The collapse of democratic rule is the sin of every citizen.” Bucock - The man, the legend   

23)Who would you have sided with if you had a choice? The solitary and hopeless struggle of Jessica Edwards

24)Where would you live? In Heinessenpolis

25)What job/function would you have had? an irrelevant one

26)Which character is the most alike to you? I have NO idea 

27)Which character would you like to be like? Ugh... Bucock, maybe.

28)Who is your favorite character? Miracle Yang

29)Which character were you impressed by the most? Reuenthal

30)Your OTP…? Mitts & Reuenthal

31)…and NOTP? all the hetero u_u

32)Who is the perfect, ideal couple? Reinhardo-sama and Kircheis 

33)Less favorite character? Every fuckin Phezzani (except for Boris Konev) 

34)Who is the sassiest man in the galaxy? Dusty or Schenkopp

35)Who is the smartest character? Oberstein

36)And the sexiest? Reuenthal 

37)Who has the best strategy? Yang Wenli

38)Who has the best strategy from the opposite side? Reinhard

39)Who has the worst strategy?  Braunschweig is really incompetent 

40)Who is the most evil? The whole Terraist Church and of course the Phezzani behind it

41)Who is the most honest? Kircheis and Mittermeyer

42)Which character can’t be ignored yet not your favorite one? Cazellnu

43)WHO IS GALAXY’S GREATEST HERO? maybe kesler, maybe mitts

44)Favorite ship (as in spaceship not your OTP again)? Barbarossa

45)Favorite planet? Heinessen

46)Who are, gradually, the five best officers from the Alliance? Bucock, Yang, Julian, Schenkopp, Dusty

47)And from the Empire? Reuenthal, Muller, Kessler,Mitts, Oberstein

48)Who would you like to have as your subordinate? Julian

49)Who would you like to have as your superior? Yang or Bucock or Merkatz

50)Who would you hate to have as your superior? Reinhard u_u

WOW!! Halfway through, here’s a cookie!!

51)Who would you hate to have as your subordinate? Poplan

52)Who would you like to have as your opponent? Reinhard

53)Who would you hate to have as your opponent? Yang

54)If you could befriend a character, who would that be? Mittermeyer

55)Which character would you have a talk with? Mittermeyer

56)If you could be one of the characters for one day, who would it be and when? One of Cazellnu daughters 

57)Which character could you fall in love with? Reuenthal

58)Which character do you want to treat badly? Reuenthal lol

59)Which character would you have liked to live? Kircheis (end of the anime) and Yang

60)Which character do you wish to see dead (earlier)? Rubinsky

61)What death affected you the most? 3: kircheis, yang and reuenthal

62)What death did you celebrate? Rubinsky

63)What death is the most heroical? Bucock

64)What death is the silliest? Andrew Fork

65)Who is right of Yang and Reinhard? Yang

66)Between the Trunicht Government and the Goldenbaum Government, which would you choose? Revolution!!!!

67)If you were in Yang’s position, how would you have reacted to the Greenhill Coup d’Etat?  The NSMC was a mistake and it would obviously destroy itself, Yang did well in putting that guy (I forgot his name) to talk publicly denouncing that the coup was supported by the Empire, but he took so long to actually attack them somehow.

68)Who used the best technique to destroy the Artemis necklackle, Kircheis or Yang? Yang

69) Would you have killed Reinhard in Vermillion if you were in Yang’s position? Without a doubt

70)Who would you have sided with in Merkatz place? He did the right thing, I would do the same.

71)If it were you instead of Yang, would you have sided with Reinhard after the battle of Vermillion? No. Impossible.

72)Do you prefer Oberstein or Bittenfeld? Tough one... Bittenfeld, probably 

73)Were you sad about Oberstein’s death? More than I expected tbh

74)If you could choose to marry either Frederica or Hilda, who would it be? Frederica, for sure.

75)Who do you think Julian slept with? Mashengo (my otp)

76)In your humble opinion, how many times did Reinhard and Hilda did “the thing”? lol just once and she probably didn't even cum

77)Do you think Reinhard was poisoned? Some questions are better left unanswered 

78)Do you prefer the books, the anime or the manga (or the remake :B)? Anime

79)Do you like Golden Wings/Ougon no Tsubasa? haven’t seen

79)Do you wish the OVA looked like GW/OnT? Noooo

80)Do you like other works from Yoshiki Tanaka? I don’t know any other

81)Do you like other works from Noboru Ishiguro? Of course! Especially Macross, Megazone and Yamato. 

82)Who is your favorite seiyuu? I don’t have one.

83)Who would you like to see in your own language dubcast? huh no one

84)Who is your favorite classical music composer from the soundtrack? Gustav Mahler

85)If there was a LOGH live action movie, who would you like to see in the cast? Please, no.

86)Do you have friends you can share your love for LOGH with? YES!

87)Are you a LOGH proselyte and try to get new people into it? All the time (it never works tho)

88)What is the message from LOGH you will remember? obviously “In every time, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same.”

89)What did you like in LOGH? A LOT of things. I liked the writing, the fact that the story is thought and presented as if it were historical data, is really believable most of the time. I like the characters, aesthetically speaking, their design are so varied and unique I could pretty much imagine how they would look like as real people. On a psychological level as well, their variety and depth is amazing and I mention this show as an example on how the best stories are those where both the plot and the characters are awesome.

90)What did you hate in LOGH? That it had to end

91)What do you think of democracy as depicted in LOGH? Democracy is not something that should be taken for granted and LOGH has the best way to remind us about it.

92)What do you think of autocracy as depicted in LOGH? Obviously depicted in a positive way but doesn’t neglect to highlight the limits of this system as well, with Reinhard’s statement that Alec should not reign were he unfitting for the task and him agreeing to give the Empire a constitution.

93)Did LOGH changed your views about politics or history? Not really, it just reassured things I’ve already known and presented they 

94)How did you feel after finishing episode 110?  Ewige Wiederkunft

95)How would you describe LOGH in few words? A modern definition of an Epic.

96)What do you expect from LOGH in the future? Nothing

97)Do you casually read LOGH fanfiction? No

98)Do you casually write LOGH fanficition? Nope

99)Do you casually draw LOGH-related art? No D:

100)Any last words? 

Because I said too many NOs in the last questions.

Congratulations! You did it! A true galactic hero!

Don’t forget to tag your post with #logh100questions so I we can read your answers (and send you the official Galactic Hero Medal (made of fine Swiss chocolate ;D)

[Translated from the original french meme from this forum:http://www.cosmic-era.com/forum/][Some questions were replaced because of reasons]

BLANK MEME here

[ganymedesclock]

Compiling for the meme. Also I want to say as an aro/ace person, for “hotness level” I will merely be evaluating character aesthetics and how appealing I find them, since otherwise everyone would be solidly reading “meh”.

Since these got super long, I’m splitting these up and doing all Voltrons, and then all TFA asks.

@a-trolli​ said:  for the character ask, lotor of course!

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

Me, Clockie Radioactivesupersonic, loving Lotor as a character???? The very idea. 

In less mocking news I’ve been pretty much consistently excited about Lotor since pre-s2. I kid you not- my earliest meta on the subject was analyzing the “Weblum Galra” (Acxa’s s2e9 appearance) from the s2 trailer and speculating that was either Lotor or an agent thereof. I did a comic about it. 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

Whether or not you agree with every decision of VLD’s writing, it’s visually gorgeous and Lotor is no exception. VLD’s offering of Lotor is easily one of my aesthetic favorites- the DDP design is a good contender and the classic poncho is an interesting statement, but, ultimately, the sleek blue-black armor, the added volume to his hair, even personalizing touches like those electric blues and the curl of hair next to his face are very nice touches. The “Mulan” strand in particular does a nice job adding a sense of youthfulness to his design, and AJ LoCascio does such a good job giving him this rolling, statesman’s eloquence. 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

Lotor’s a raven who makes occasional passes at imitating a snake, methinks. He values power and loyalty, can be brash in certain situations, and is quite diligent, but, ultimately what Lotor respects the most is the pursuit of knowledge. Basically every time Lotor’s overcome a wall, it’s because when the going got hard, he hit the books. Given he started studying Altea towards his exile, it raises the clear implication that he responded to feeling bereaved and alone by seeking more information, and used that information to build a sense of belonging.

best quality:

Probably his sense of strategic observation, opportunism, and ambush tactics. It’s just a real delight to watch an effective strategist, especially one like Lotor where he’s not quite a villain so you can actually root for his plans to succeed.

worst quality: 

I mean, the part where he keeps ending up alone after his interpersonal connections spectacularly self-destruct and he cuts them off out of fear, but that’s not exactly mostly on him, now is it HAGGAR.

ship them with: 

Primarily Allura.

brotp them with: 

Did you know that before s4 I had a pet theory that Lotor had met the Generals when they all were children and they’d grown up together. I still think about that. 

needs to stay away from:

beep beep, Honerva it’s child protection services and they’re not impressed with your bullshit excuses about the rift.

misc. thoughts:

I don’t have a lot since I tend to just aggressively pour my Lotor thoughts right into the tag but just once I want to see Lotor get frustrated by something and have a frustrated huff that flutters his single forelock.

@thenorthernphoenix​ said:  For that character thing you're doing: Lance

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

MY BOY.

I genuinely deeply love Lance. And not just because I genuinely deeply love Heart aspect characters in general. He totally blindsided me as far as VLD characters- I latched hard onto Keith and Pidge first, then Shiro. Lance took a long, hard time growing on me! (I love Hunk and Allura too, they just didn’t do time as my Reigning Fave before Lotor stole that particular crown)

Which I think is kinda hilarious, since, uh, well, Lance is probably the character out of VLD I think I have the most in common with, and I think leaping to the notion that the rest of the cast is just a little more interesting than Lance is a very Lance thing to do.

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

I stand by what I said with Lotor, VLD is a nicely designed show, and Lance is cute. You wanna ruffle his hair. I’d say he doesn’t have any particularly striking or eye-catching features. A lot of his appeal as a character is less his physical features or clothing and more the body language with which he wears those things.

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

Of the Hogwarts headcanons I’ve posted this is one people often fight me on and I think this is because of a differentiation- I think people often sort characters based on who’s good at the particular House’s virtue, and not what they value. Knowledge takes many forms, and Ravenclaw isn’t obligatorily the domain of the most erudite- that would be pursuing a single, narrow facet of knowledge which doesn’t exactly speak to the wisest.

To me, Lance is a Ravenclaw because he’s motivated heavily by curiosity. He’s earnestly fascinated by people, by the world, by situations. We can tell a lot from the characters by how they respond to their Lion first meeting them- and Lance’s reaction to Blue is basically to just stroll right in and make himself at home. As soon as Blue seems like someone who has something to say, Lance is all ears. 

best quality:

Empathy and compassion

worst quality: 

I mean, it’s not exactly unforgivable but definitely the one that tends to bite him the most often is his tendency to just wildly try things when he’s got no expertise in a given area/ isn’t sure.

ship them with: 

Mostly Keith, but I’m decently amenable to him with Hunk or Allura. 

brotp them with: 

The whole team tbh but I think him and Shiro and him and Pidge are both underrated dynamics. Also, my undying esteem to the first person who writes him and Lotor getting stranded on a planet and having to work their way out with the power of emotional bonding and a lot of sarcasm.

needs to stay away from:

The Langst crowd. In seriousness, can’t think of anybody that’s a Lance-specific hazard and not generally bad for everyone else’s health.

misc. thoughts:

the Lance face from the WINNER flag is still my favicon. as it should be.

@oxfordmodernfairytales asked:  For the character ask thing, Shiro?

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

Shiro’s come through a lot, and, while I think there are some ways he could have been fleshed out more, it’s really good to see him back on his feet again and I’m optimistic about this thing with the IGF Atlas. He really lights up when he’s on the bridge, and it’s nice to see. 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

Given the amount of thirst art I see about him, it’s fair to say the fan consensus of Shiro is he’s way hot, and I do think he looks very handsome and charming but I don’t quite find him an Unstoppable Stud of a man. Being fair to Shiro this is probably a lot more to do with my sexuality than anything about his looks.

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

Josh Keaton aired this as his personal headcanon and, honestly, I’d see it. While Shiro is brave, and can and will challenge things directly that he sees as wrong, his greatest successes as a character are games of endurance. Both of his dry, sarcastic comments- one in s2e2 and one in s7e6- involve a cheerfully recited Long List of things that have failed to kill him so far. And what stands out about him to Keith in s7e1, their first meeting, isn’t the charismatic foot Shiro puts forwards- it’s his refusal to give up on Keith.

best quality:

All of the paladins get angry at cruelty, but Shiro has this particular eviscerating fury that really only comes from someone who passionately, earnestly believes in a good world and cannot tolerate the idea that you’re breaking from it.

worst quality: 

His tendency to put himself second and suffer in silence for long periods. He’s the biggest advocate of teamwork and the last one to open up about drowning, even when the water’s up to his chin.

ship them with: 

Adam, in that... as much as we saw him at a chapter of conflict, I’m a little frustrated at the note it ended on. I think it’d be really interesting to see more out of these guys- their stubbornness, strength of will, and, also, their connection and how much they care about each other.

brotp them with: 

His team, of course, but, honestly, he and Allura make a darn good platonic power couple. Let’s see more situations like s1e10.

needs to stay away from:

HAGGAR...

misc. thoughts:

his monolids... are not eyeliner.

[ivanaskye]

So I finished KH3.  Some thoughts, in a bullet-point list, because my brain isn’t quite working well enough for connected prose:

There… wasn’t a lot of signaling to the audience about when the game would start ramping up to end.  Specifically, there was no middle game—there was plenty of low-consequences world-hopping and gallivanting, right up to the point where suddenly we’re rescuing Aqua and then everyone’s talking about a final battle and then oh heck it’s over.

Lots of things could have made this better, but the most glaring omission was an actual *final checkpoint* before heading onto the last battle.  Previous games had huge doors you had to pass, which would actually say “there is no turning back from this point, do you want to proceed?”.  This game didn’t, and it really could have used it (especially since there were some false endings before the actual final ending.)

Similarly, keyblade power levels didn’t ramp up quite enough as the game went on—yeah, there were some pretty powerful ones, but there wasn’t really an equivalent to Oblivion as an actual late-game keyblade.  There also didn’t seem to be a lot of form-changes with minor teleportation abilities other than Rage Form—and since those were the most powerful form-changes in BBS, it’s what I would have expected as a signal for “okay, we’re almost at full power, the game will end soon.”

Actually, just… the transition directly from a disney world to the freaking Keyblade Graveyard was.  Not a good idea.  A full location in between as buffer would have been really nice.

ALSO, some of the final -ga spells, and freaking glide, only got obtained in the Keyblade Graveyard!  That really implied that either the Graveyard would be larger than it was, or that there’d be something after it, or… something.

Pivoting thoughts here, the treasure chest situation was the best the series has done since the very first game—you actually had to work to find some of these, which was always one of my favorite parts about the first game.

The lucky emblems added to that a lot too.

Although every single time I found a lucky emblem, I screamed and/or groaned.  “REALLY?  THAT PILE OF BARRELS IS MICKEY TOO? HE’S EVERYWHERE!!”

Ratatouille is adorable and I love him.

But cracking eggs is apparently not one of Sora’s skills.

Actually, Sora pretty much has no skills other than hitting things with a big key.  Literally everyone teases him for this.  All of Sora’s conversations seem to end in him getting ROASTED, which is hilarious.

But of course, the best roast in the game was from Woody to Xehanort: “You’ve never had friends, have you?”

As always, there are just so many Xehanorts.

But unfortunately, despite that one speech about how if the world starts over maybe there’ll be less darkness(???), his motivations are still pretty unclear.  “Yeah I time-traveled a lot and recruited a bunch of people and created all these heartless and put in decades of work…. because uhhhh…. there will be more light in the world if it starts over!”

Meanwhile, Eraqus: “lol dude, #AtItAgain I see, you should probably stop trying to end the world, but then do you wanna hug?”

Speaking of characters, THE WHOLE GANG WAS HERE.  Literally basically everyone made an appearance.  Which I really liked!

But… the villains who had whole worlds to introduce their return in (Larxene, Marluxia, Evil!Riku, Vanitas, Luxord) didn’t have full-scale battles in those worlds.  Which would have been fine if they had them later!  They were, each of them, set up to become a bigger deal as the game went on… and then barely re-appeared between their introduction world and the Keyblade Graveyard, in which you didn’t even fight them one at a time, but three at a time, like each was suddenly inconsequential or something?  TBH, Luxord probably got the best deal of the bunch, because at least you kinda do fight him one-on-one in the carribbean.

Poor Demyx, though…. dude only had two scenes…

Even/Vexen was also kinda sidelined, but in a way that worked better (especially since he’s had plenty of spotlight earlier in the series)

HOWEVER, as a general thing, the return of LITERALLY EVERYONE was super cool!  I screamed in excitement when Ienzo showed up.  NEVER had I even DARED TO HOPE that he might get a moment in this game, and here he was with several!

THE IENZO + EVEN + AELEUS + ANSEM THE WISE (+ DEMYX???) REFORMED EVIL SCIENTIST CROWD.  I LOVE THEM.

See also: Xion’s return, THE SAIX THING, pretty much everything to do with Axel, Namine…

On the other hand, I kind of wanted more content for most of these groups.  I didn’t really expect it, but come on, if this game can’t throw me the bone of EXPLAINING IT’S MAIN VILLAIN’S PRIMARY MOTIVATION, it can at least distract me with more drawn-out side goodies…

I haven’t even talked about the gameplay yet

Bullet lists are hard

ANYWAY THE BATTLE SYSTEM WAS GREAT, and basically had everything I wanted???  Good motivation to use a LOT of magic, frequent form-changes(!!!), other cool/weird ways to do damage (focus lock, attractions), and of course the usual attack mechanisms.  Some form-changes even gave ways to attack at range!

(I ended up using ranged combat whenever possible, wearing three cufflinks at once for ALL THE HIGH MAGIC.  I avoided using cure pretty much always so that I could keep up the magic, lol.)

(On that note, I used a LOT of aero and water in the early game, because I got those cufflinks first, but unfortunately, like always, Thundaga eventually replaced almost all other magic as the clear most powerful.  Sigh.)

Also!  Wall-running and flowmotion!  Those are pretty much literally just The Things Sora Did In The Final Battle of KH2, but now he can do them All The Time, which really shows the character power progression even though due to video game mechanics, he had to start over at level 1, lolsob.

Speaking of Sora progression, he kind of has character development now!  I sort of finally care about him!  And then he just disappears forever lmao

Having ALL the characters back together really highlights KH’s tendency to have, basically, RECURSIVE TRIOS, which is kind of cool even though I kind of wish that maybe ONE of these trios could have two+ girls instead of one or none??? Please???

Speaking of sexism, Aqua saying “it’s my time to shine” and then immediately getting thrown across the room for Ventus to save her was… uh, classic.

Otoh Anti-Aqua was one of the coolest villain designs of the series

There were Not Enough worlds.

HOWEVER, The Caribbean in this game was the best KH world in the franchise’s history, IMO.  GORGEOUS underwater scenery, also gorgeous above-land scenery, AND SO MANY ISLANDS TO EXPLORE.  Completely non-plot-relevant islands!  That you could just go to!  And look for treasure in, like a pirate!  (There was a lot of treasure… that one sunken ship had, what, five chests in one place?  It was the ideal pirate aesthetic.)

Also the Caribbean had the best BG music.

Sora DEFINITELY has a crush on Jack Sparrow.

…On the other hand, if I’m gonna mention worlds I DIDN’T like, the plot in San Fransokyo was so cheesy I almost died.

Olympus was great though!  It had such good design!

Corona made me desperately want it to be summer, it was great.

IT’S TOO COLD OUTSIDE FOR ARENDELLE, ESPECIALLY WHEN SORA DOESN’T HAVE A COAT— but it was really, really pretty.

Axel’s “Don’t you know how popular I am?  I have tons of fans rooting for me!” was one of the funniest lines of the series.

There is not enough Winnie The Pooh content and that makes me really sad.

It’s even WORSE in that Sora actually SAYS, “oh, I’m losing my connection to Pooh, and I think I know why,” and then just… leaves, like that’s fine??? IT’S NOT FINE, SORA.

IT’S NOT FINE

Also idk if that cat plushie is a character from some FF game, but they’re the Worst Possible Version of Mandos.

(Cute, but. Hmmmm.)

ALL THAT SAID…

I have yet to mention the most important part of the game.

WHICH IS THE FLANTASTIC SEVEN.

They… are pudding.

They wiggle!

They ask you to play games with them!

They’re so cute!

They’re into vore!

I LOVE THEM!

.

Tl;dr: The game felt like it ended too suddenly, which made me sad because it was doing so much to fight my depression.  But I loved playing most of it, and I really need a flan plushie now…

[rxnningfreetoday-a]

A Series of Nice Things bc We Deserve Them

Set in Eliot's 'I got drunk married to a sports superstar wat do' verse, co-starring aftg's Kevin Day but honestly if you’re just looking for some Nice Eliot & Quentin content after that dumpster fire of a finale, i welcome you with open arms;; verse tag is here, the tl;dr is el accidentally marries a Very Famous Sports Guy while drunk in vegas and shenanigans ensue and they fall in love for real. dedicated ofc to @im-possiblelimits ♥

The 'what am I fucking doing for the rest of my life if magic never comes back' fear comes creeping back on him. 

He and Kevin have multiple important conversations. 

Kevin Day gives the best fucking pep talks ever. Eliot walks away from every hard conversation with him wondering how he got so lucky. 

 Eliot becomes a fashion designer 

 And hes fahcking BALLER at it !!!!!!! 

 He collaborates with Margo for a few collections; they become instant classics. 

 Margo models in like every show. 

Eliot watches in Absolute pride. 

Frankly???? El designs all his dresses for her specifically. 

Routinely he either flies Quentin and Margo out to Chicago or goes to New York and crashes on Margo's couch. 

Obviously Margo and Q stay in The Condo, in Eliot's old room which still houses a good portion of his stuff. 

 Once he starts raking in that Goöd designer cash, he gets them both stupid expensive gifts just cause. 

 "Eliot this bikini top is made from Swarovski fucking crystal" 

"Eliot I CAN'T accept this case of Moët" 

 ........"please just let me love you :( " 

Of fuckin COURSE he gets box seats to a T Swift concert & takes Q along. 

"How did you...?" "I'm making her a dress. Oh yeah, we're meeting tomorrow to consult and you're coming with." " .O." 

 This hurts extra good and cozy bc when Eliot moves from NY he makes Q promise him to always text him a singular emoji if he feels Bad(TM). 

Eliot tells him that he doesn't care what time it is or what he has going on or even how bad Q feels, he'll drop just about anything. 

El always texts back asking if hes up for a phone call. Usually he is; cue Eliot gently asking about what he ate last, how much he's slept, if he's taken his meds. 

One time Q's completely despondent and Eliot starts racking his brain on what the next question should be when it just.......comes out of his mouth;; 

I stay out too late. Got nothing in my brain. That's what people say... 

 "...I had no idea you knew that song." 

 Kevin totally hears him but thinks better of ever saying anything about it. 

 Margo however razzes the hell out of him (only lovingly) 

Suddenly its Eliot taking Kevin to events instead of vice versa and everyone loves him 

Eliot does some of his best sketch work at Kevin's practices. 

Just practices tho, games are too high stakes and theres too many people around.  

He always makes jokes at the end of the season about it being the end of the season for him too bc of that. 

Eliot does try very very hard to balance attending exy games & practices and his own shit. 

He's way more willing to go to a game than go to an event alone; he'd so much rather go with Kevin especially as he cuts his drinking back to almost nothing. 

The exceptions tend to be when Margo (and Q) are in town. He's been known to bring them both. 

 Since its years later and his romantic feelings for Q are p much buried he gets a special kind of resentful about the fact that he can't just take Q to an event without it being An Issue(TM). 

Even when it's the 3 of them, rumors fly. Eliot's extra conscious of his body language at that point and hates that he has to be. 

He gets completely mortified one day bc of a hickey-slip that the press asks Kevin about. 

 "We think Q left it, what do you have to say?" 

 Kevin, raising his eyebrows: "No that was definitely me...." 

Eliot, putting his head in his hands: "Ohhhhh my god....." -Can we get back to politics (please?)- 

Q thinks the rumors are kind of funny He gets asked about it and hes just like "you've SEEN Kevin, right? Like......there's no competing with that, El's a lucky guy." 

Really who doesn't think Kevin's hot?????? ofc Q’s not immune

Idk how but through sheer force of will Q and Kevin become friends 

(or at least friendly-ish, which for Kevin? Fucking huge.) 

Like obviously its nowhere near the level of friendship between Eliot and Q but Somethin noice happens there however many years later. 

Q goes thru a bad breakup sometime down the line. Eliot asks Kevin if it's okay to fly him in. 

Kevin patiently tells him that he doesn't need to ask that anymore. 

 Eliot's floored bc hes never actually been with a guy who was so secure????? It gives him a lot of feelings about being trusted and loved and accepted for who he is and how he expresses his affection. 

 Idk all I can think of is it being like Friday night and the 3 of them are on the couch together. 

Q's sad and sleepy, his head on Eliot's lap, barely registering the Buffy episode El put on. Eliot's leaning against Kevin's shoulder, one hand holding his and the other absently playing with Q's hair, snarking lovingly every few minutes about the campiness. 

 Q apologizes to Kevin privately later on because oh god his head was just in his husband's lap and that's Super Weird, sorry.... 

That's probably about the time Kevin decides earnestly that Q's alright.   

Idk how but SOMEHOW Eliot's left with a toddler for a minute and we all cry together in this chili's 

 I decided its Q's, let Q be a dad tbh. He's together with Eliot's makeup artist who was a single father before Q came into their lives. 

 Anyway Eliot’s sketching--like always. He hands over his notebook for color palette planning and a few colored pencils. "You wanna color with me?" 

 Everything's fine until bab starts Screamin.   

 (Gentle voice) "What's wrong?" [Screaming] "You hungry?" [No.] "Are you thirsty?" [No] "Are you tired?" [Soft affirmative noises] "Let's take a little nap then."   

 Eliot just picks bab up with so much care and love in his eyes, holding them gently and off on a mission to find either a guardian or a soft reclining chair. 

Kevin witnesses all of this and is probably pretty sure he's never seen anything more wholesome in his damn life. 

 Kevin's most likely the one who suggests kids  (I'm guessing he's retired) 

Eliot probably would have but he just doesn't even think about it?? And then Kevin says in so many words that he'd be a good father and Eliot just about loses it 

 I can't decide if their kid's definitely a jock or definitely not a jock. Maybe they're a dancer? 

Regardless, they're both endlessly supportive 

 Eliot of fucking Course joins the PTA. 

His gym buddies flip their collective shits. 

 He's really out here advocating for good sex ed & preserving arts in schools bc hes a fuckin hero 

 Also family vacations to Everywhere but especially beachy places!!

[taipresecpe1984-blog]

If you talk to the guy, and he blows you off and does it again. THEN you are well within your rights to call him and asshole and leave. But you gotta TALK about it first. Just how huge the Tell Me, Gee, and Sorry Sorry crazes were. Not just in Korea but they also swept across Asia and really turned Hallyu into a tsunami force. I don't think any gen 3 artists have been able to achieve that level of monster popularity, it's a shame that some newer kpop fans have never listened to these classics!. Gender identity in children is complex and a lot of gender non conforming children do not necessarily transition and that fine. Those children should be supported through a difficult time and it can often be that the children who don transition discover through therapy that it actually that they gay, or that they have a mental health issue relating to trauma that they trying to escape from. But the children who do turn out to be trans and who experience gender dysphoria (the diagnosable, medically treatable side of being transgender, which not everyone experiences) need treatment, and best practice is for hormone blockers to be administered on the cusp of puberty because this is an incredibly traumatic and damaging experience for someone who is fully aware that it is wrong. I find it kind of funny that basically everything I regularly use are 4 4.5 stars, but literally NOTHING I regularly use comes first on the list. I love to do this vs my most expensive makeup, oldest makeup, or also trying to consider ratings on Sephora (but probably want because SO MUCH EFFORT). 9 points submitted 3 days ago. Short description: AN IMPORTANT NOTE : THIS IS NOT A STAND ALONE APPLICATION. YOU MUST PURCHASE KWGT PRO IF YOU WANT TO USE THIS SET OF WIDGETS The app doesn support Android 4.4 due to limitations not up to me. If you have 4.4 please do not download the appWhat you getting: + A bunch of beautiful self designed widgets.+ A few self made shiny icons to choose from (Implemented as widgets , not as regular ic.. If Armor units continue to have a low Move and Speed value, there should be other facets that make up for it. Maybe they have access to unique skills like reducing ranged damage for nearby allies, making them more strategically valuable beyond literally standing in the way of the enemy and make them worth escorting. Personally, I don feel that just raising the Move and/or Speed is necessarily the solution; why not just include a class like the Soldier/Halberdier or Spear Master, at that point? Sure, there less weapon flexibility with those classes, but you don have to worry about anti armor weapons (among other Armor shortcomings), which feel quite common in a lot of the games.. I don mean to compare this to the example at all because mine sounds incredibly petty compared to what that sister went through. But it felt very, very strange to read WebSleuths threads about a missing person I knew and see the over emotional language from complete strangers. "Poor precious baby angel!" "Oh no. I been using Freshly for about three weeks now. I signed up with them because I don have an oven at home or work and their meals are prepacked and microwavable. TBH I frigging love it. In addition to acne around my jawline, I had combo skin with tons of clogged pores along 남원출장안마 my nose, inner cheeks (surrounding nose) and forehead with some fines on my forehead. I always notice my forehead 남원출장안마 and nose really shiny and wake up with tons of oil along that area. My outer cheeks are on the dry side with some acne.

[themadnessthatis]

So, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness...

Warning, this is going to be a long-ass post, mostly me rambling about how TR6 was a game with good concepts but shitty execution. Expect a bit of non-linear ranting.

I have some serious Opinions™ on this game, now having finished it (which was a quasi-Herculean feat in of itself from fighting against the game the whole time, but more on that in a bit).

When I first got this game, eyes full of wonder and amazement, I was like “aw yeah, a new Tomb Raider for a new generation of consoles!”. Having only played it for a bit my opinion quickly soured, and the game was never played after having fallen down a hole and dying in the Parisian sewers. All I said to myself at the time was “wow, this game is shit,never playing this again :| .”

Which I didn’t, until recently.

Fast forward a bit, and a friend of mine lends me her PC copies of Tomb Raider 2-through-6 (sadly no copy of TR1  :’[ ), which I sat down and played, all while eyeing up the box containing AoD with animosity. Boy did I regret saying I wouldn’t mind if she lent me that one as well.

But after going through the other games with various degrees of ease, from the “wow it’s over already?” of Chronicles to the “Will it never end?” of TR3 (which I personally rate as the worst of the “old school” Tomb Raiders. Just....fuck that game, the best part of it is the credits, but I digress.), we were left with just one more game; Angel of Darkness, sitting there, almost expectantly.

“Well, it’s been a while, maybe I was just bad at the game, and it’s actually alright?” I said as I set about installing it, ready to give the game the benefit of the doubt.

Well the fact that controller setup was a pain in the arse should’ve been a dead giveaway that something was up. Though is was nowhere near as infuriating as Chronicles, which required a fucking JoyToKey configuration to get it to work smoothly, otherwise jumps would result in Lara just careening off to the side every.fucking.time.)

Actually, when you first play AoD, the controls are really the first thing you’ll pick up on. I.E: they’re the worst. Really they’re the biggest flaw of this whole game, and if they weren’t as clunky and gods-awful as they are, AoD might’ve been a much better experience. Lara controls like a fucking Mark IV from 1917; turns, speed, everything. It’s such a jarring shift from the previous installments that it really takes some time getting used to, and could be a reall deal-breaker. Also Lara no longer runs like she used to, more like a slow jog, only gaining the ability to sprint later in the game (you know, the thing she could do at the very beginning of TR3, 4 and 5? Like she has to learn how to use her legs, after all of her previous escapades?!). Jumping also seems to have undergone some hideous transformation; from somewhat fluid sequences to an absolutely jerky mess of a mechanic, not helped by Lara needing some space to build up momentum (from walk to jog). Like the only time she handles almost smoothly is when she’s swimming (which thank fuck no longer has her getting stuck on the walls and floor like she did in previous games.).

When you’re not busy fighting against the controls and some of the early Capcom-esque fixed camera angles, you might be able to notice some of the changes to the TR formula, for better or for worse.

Perhaps the most noticeable is Lara’s equipment; gone are her iconic (not Ubisoft iconic, mind you) pistols with unlimited ammo. In their place Lara can collect a plethora of new pistols, including a very nice taser. Though this is moot when Lara eventually loses all of her acquired weapons, as she is wont to do if TR1, 2 and 3 are anything to go by. You also get the classic shotgun and two SMGs. Though tbh, and this might just be me, but don’t all of the weapons in this game feel like the do the same amount of damage?

One thing that was a nice touch was the inventory revamp. The ring-like setup from previous TRs is gone, and now each type of item (health, weapons and puzzle clues) have their own inventory sections, making it less of an eyesore than the cluttered messes of the previous game’s inventories. Speaking of health, the repertoire of healing items has been increased, with various items granting various degrees of health restoration, which is nice, no more wasting medikits (though i do not understand how a chocolate bar could heal a person, but whatever, video game logic, i guess.). The puzzle clues section does get kinda cluttered though, as Lara doesn’t seem to want to get rid of anything she picks up, even if she no longer needs it, so her pockets are basically just full of security cards and bits of paper until the end of the game like JESUS CHRIST ON A STICK JUST DUMP THAT SHIT IN A BIN, LARA!”.

On the subject of puzzles, it’s great that that is an element that has carried over to AoD nicely, unlike some of the more modern titles (looking at you, Tomb Raider 2013). The Hall of Seasons was a great example of this, and is very reminiscent of the St Francis’ Folly from the original games, what with its God-themed rooms. Granted that there were other “puzzles” that were a little too obvious, like “push table to find mixture to kill giant plant”. But overall,  the puzzle side of Tomb Raider is definitely there. Although, there are no secrets to find (but after TR3 and 4′s “And your reward is FLARES” bullshit, I’m okay with that).

So, what about the story? To be perfectly honest, it’s as about as normal as a Tomb Raider story line can be: Secret sect looking for paintings so they can resurrect an ancient race of human/angel hybrids that was destroyed back in biblical times except not all of them, and Lara gets involved b/c they killed Von Croy and she was framed for it... Look, it’s certainly not as far-fetched as “Italian mafia dude looking for magic Chinese knife that turns people into dragons instead of corpses when stabbed with it.” (Love you, TR2, but what even...), or whatever the hell was going on in TR3 with its magical ancient Polynesian artifacts and “rapid evolution”, but it’s out there.

Mechanics wise, there have been some changes that are quite nice in concept, but are failed by poor execution (a running theme for this game). The grip meter is a new thing, and is influenced by Lara’s upper body strength (like how her jumping/sprinting and door-kicking are affected by her lower body strength), like a sort of RPG attribute. These body strength factors are a nice tough and could’ve been a plus in a good game, but here the attributes are given out at arbitrary moments throughout the game and feel forced, like at one moment Lara must gain an upper body strength upgrade by just shunting a pile of boxes around for no real reason. When you couple this with the sluggish momentum-based “running”, it’s almost like the developers were trying to go for a more “realistic” feel but didn’t really know how to go about it.

There’s also a certain Bioware-esque dialogue tree that pops up from time to time in the game. While it’s a nice touch, the fact that there’s no real change to the outcome (bar 3 exceptions) kind of makes the interactions pointless.

Going past the mechanics, the game itself (at least on PC), is a glitchy, buggy mess that would crash for no reason. Textures are missing, walls vanish in some of Kurtis’ (a boring, bland secondary character we get to play as, and I’ll get to him in a second.) levels for no reason, not to mention that one level can be skipped entirely thanks to a bug where Lara just has to roll into a fucking wall. Also, not certain if it’s more an exploit than it is a bug, but it’s kinda of an anticlimax that the last two bosses can be cheesed by just commando-crawling under their projectiles. The greatest menaces to humanity, outdone by toddler maneuvers .

Now, onto Kurtis...Kurtis is a member of an organisation dedicated to stomping out evil, particularly sorcery and alchemy (thus pitting him against the big baddie, Eckhardt, who looks like he just got done trying to audition for the part of Auron from Final Fantasy). He’s supposed to come across as some sort of bad boy with magical powers, but honestly he’s a boring, ugly, fucking Broody McGravelvoice with no personality. You get to play as him for all of 3 (or was it 4?) levels, and boy oh boy, you will hat him throughout all of them. Somehow, and I didn’t know it was possible, somehow he controls WORSE than Lara. He moves like he’s got a broom up his arse and jumps like he’s on the fucking moon. His levels feel like they were  some De-mastered edition of Until Dawn, full of enemies that serve no purpose other than to drain you of resources, and are capped off with the worst boss fight ever, thanks to twitchy auto-aim and Kurtis’ shoddy controls. Like fucking Mark Williard at  the end of TR3 was more feasible than this cavalcade of bullshit. Also the first time he meets Lara in the Louvre, the cut-scene is just so unsettling and creepy, she should’ve just beat his arse into the tiled floor there and then. I seriously hope he’s dead.

And the ending... What a bloody disappointment; Lara wanders off into a dark passage after killing the bigger bad, and then...nothing. No credits, no “the end” screen, the game just shits you back onto the “Press Start” screen.

But in the end, after all was said and done, I think my opinion of AoD has shifted somewhat. I don’t hate it like I thought I did, I’m just, I dunno, disappointed...This game had so many good ideas that were handled so poorly, and it certainly wasn’t helped that, at least on the PC version, it was a glitch-fest and the controls were piss-poor. And as a final insult? Jiggle physics. I’m not fucking kidding like Core Design  couldn’t iron out the bugs and do something about the arse-backwards controls, but they gotta make sure dem jiggly titties are in there? -_-’ Fucking hell what a dumpster fire of a game. Like I want to like it but the fuck-headedness of it all just, just no.