#i'll still play it and the mode is still there but i expect a drop in quality and population significantly

[thefirstknife]

rip gambit you will be missed 😔

Don't even know what to say tbh.

For those that don't know, the big State of the Game article came out detailing incoming changes and adjustments and all the big stuff. Gambit was mentioned! But at what cost. Basically, they are ceasing any kind of support for Gambit. What we have now is what it is. We will get the Dreaming City map back in TFS and they will add Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive as enemy factions in TFS. That's all.

Full text:

As many of you have noticed, we’ve been quiet on Gambit since last year’s overhaul that launched alongside The Witch Queen. In that revamp, the team made significant changes across five categories in Gambit: core activity fundamentals, Primeval tuning, invasions, ammo economy, and rewards. Unfortunately, these updates didn’t move the needle for player engagement. Although we know our Gambit fans mostly care about new or returning maps, this is an area of the game with lower engagement that would take resources away from more popular parts of the game to shore up.   While we don’t have plans to dedicate more resources to significantly transform Gambit, we do have a few updates planned for the year of The Final Shape. These include porting the Cathedral of Scars map and its beautiful Dreaming City setting into the latest version of Destiny 2, as well as adding the Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive enemy types. 

I don't know how to tell you this Bungie, but the reason "engagement is low" in Gambit is because Gambit sucks. Ever since half of it was removed with DCV, it just sucked. It has no variety, the gameplay is largely busted, it's not sufficiently updated, ammo changes suck, invasion cycle sucks (why is the enemy even getting a portal when their Primeval is at 5% health and the other team is still in mote collecting phase is beyond me), there are no cool armour sets to chase (just look at Iron Banner and Trials stuff, imagine dedicated cosmetics) and finally there are simply no weapons that are worth anything. Both Vanguard and Crucible have more weapons and also adept versions. There is zero reason to go into Gambit without major changes to Gambit. And now with the further changes to how playlists and challenges will work, there will be even less reason to go into Gambit. Observe:

Before then, we’re making Gambit entirely optional to maximize your rewards unless you’re looking for a piece of gear that’s specific to the mode. Gambit will continue to serve as a source of Exotic engrams via weekly challenges, though as we mentioned above, you’ll be able to complete all your weekly challenges in any ritual you’d like starting in Season 22. If you want to stick to Vanguard or Crucible challenges without touching Gambit, now you can.  We’re also reducing the number of Gambit-specific Seasonal Challenges starting in Season 22, so players won’t need to bank motes to be able to earn that big purse of Bright Dust for completing nearly every challenge in the Season. Finally, we’re adding Fireteam Matchmaking to Gambit next Season, which will replace the Freelance node and should result in faster, better matchmaking by combining both Gambit playlists. We’ll keep an eye on reception and player engagement after these additions take place, and we hope you’ll visit ‘ol Drifter next Season to get your hands on his new Void Machine Gun. 

Ngl, but I don't think anyone besides like a total of 6 people will play Gambit next season. The incentive to go in there is completely removed. You won't even have to go in there for pinnacles or for challenges. The Void Machine Gun will not be enough of an incentive because the chance of that gun being better than two recently available craftable Void Machine Guns (Commemoration and Retrofit Escapade) is very low. And besides, once you get it at the end of your first match, you can leave Gambit forever.

This is the feedback loop that just reinforces the idea that people don't like Gambit. And I mean. Who would at this point. I'm pretty sure that if Crucible had stayed the same as it was at the start of Beyond Light, engagement would be low there too. But you know. Crucible has received major updates pretty much every season since with multiple new modes, several Trials overhauls, Iron Banner overhaul, competitive overhaul, new armours and weapons added and YES, even new maps. God forbid even 5% of these resources went into Gambit.

Anyway, this is the whole section about Gambit in 6500 words. It's basically a "you guys aren't playing this so we're doing the bare minimum of keeping it in the game as is, no new work will be done on it ever." Thanks I guess.

And for the record, something I also added while having a rant in my discord, I want to make it clear that I don't want anyone to spiral into a Bungie hate train. Even for this. I understand perfectly well what's the community attitude towards Gambit and what it's been for years now. People just don't like it and they're not incentivised to like it and they're actively encouraged to hate it. Spending resources into a game mode on the hope that maybe you can change people's minds would be insanity. Like, the amount of change Gambit would need to MAYBE start appealing to gamers would be beyond any reasonable time and resources Bungie can put in. And if you could guarantee that people would love and play Gambit then, fine. But you can't. Most likely, even if major changes happened, people would still just do their weekly stuff and bail. It's simply not worth it. In order for people to like it, it needs to be completely and thoroughly overhauled in a way that would need more time and effort than the entire Light subclass overhaul and it's just not a reasonable expectation, nor is it guaranteed to work. So I get it.

I'm still disappointed and annoyed about it because I believe it wasn't given a fair chance at all. I also know how good it can be and how Gambit Prime could've been improved upon over the years if they tried. Instead, it got removed and that was honestly the death sentence for Gambit. It's unfortunate. It's my favourite game mode that could've been so much better was it given even a fraction of attention of Crucible.

I'll still be playing it. You will find me in the Gambit queue waiting for 2 hours to find 7 other lunatics to play with, don't worry about it. But I'm absolutely incredibly sad about them being basically forced to axe the potential of the whole game mode that is incredibly creative and fits with the type of game Destiny is perfectly.

There's other interesting stuff in the article and some upcoming really cool improvements and changes to the game. But if you're a fan of Gambit in any capacity, this is a death certificate for the mode. I suggest coming to terms with it quickly because Bungie changing their minds about this is highly unlikely.

[kxsagi]

can u do one where the blue lock boys try teaching u how to play soccer but they get too concentrated and score a point against u / make u fall LMFAO

"𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬, 𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲"

a/n: YES THIS WOULD BE ME

ft. isagi yoichi, itoshi rin, nagi seishiro, mikage reo, bachira meguru, chigiri hyoma, kunigami rensuke, otoya eita, itoshi sae, shidou ryusei, kaiser michael, ness alexis

isagi yoichi

he tries to be gentle. he really does. but the moment he sees an opening? muscle memory kicks in. 

"okay, just block me when i try to dribble –" 

ankle broken (not actually but nearly). you're on the ground. 

he gasps and runs to you like 😰 “waitwaitwait are you okay?! i didn’t mean to!!” 

you glare up at him. "you said this was a light lesson." 

"i blacked out," he says, genuinely remorseful. 

buys you snacks and offers to carry you for the rest of the day. 

itoshi rin

doesn't even register that you're a beginner. starts demo-ing a drill and asks you to copy it. 

you: tries and trips over the ball 

rin: "... are you doing that on purpose?" 

you: "no?!" 

ten minutes in, he accidentally sends a bullet of a pass straight into your stomach. 

you're folded over. he's staring. 

“… you said you wanted to learn,” he says, like that justifies it.

nagi seishiro

he means well. he even tries to make it fun. like, “here, try to get the ball from me.” 

you do. 

he doesn’t let you. 

he’s barely moving and you still can’t catch him. 

he yawns, juggles it over your head, and scores while scratching the back of his neck. 

you just stand there, blinking. 

“… was i not supposed to do that?” 

no, nagi. no you were not. 

mikage reo

is so excited to teach you. gives you a whole rundown. drills. stretches. strategies. 

then he forgets to dial it down and tackles you like it’s the world cup. 

you hit the grass and stare at the sky. 

reo’s above you like 😨 “OH MY GOSH I’M SO SORRY, ARE YOU OKAY??? YOU CAN HIT ME– WAIT NO DON'T ACTUALLY–" 

buys you an iced drink and carries you around all day to make it up to you. 

bachira meguru

turns it into a game. full of giggles and “try to catch meee~” 

you’re actually having fun until he does one spin move too many. 

you reach for the ball… 

slip… 

and face plant. 

bachira runs over like “you okay?? that was a sick fall tho!! wanna see it in slow-mo?” 

you consider using him as a goalpost. 

chigiri hyoma

says he'll go easy. he says that. 

but then he does one little sprint and forgets you’re not a track star. 

he’s halfway down the field when he turns around and realizes you’re on your knees, gasping. 

"oh… whoops." 

he jogs back with a sheepish grin. 

offers you water and piggybacks you home like “i’ll just be your personal uber from now on.” 

kunigami rensuke (pre-wild card)

really tries to be gentle. like he even speaks softer. explains things carefully. 

but the moment he takes a shot to demo proper form? 

it tears through the net. 

you just turn and look at him like: 👁️👄👁️ 

“… i'll, uh… use less strength next time,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

he does not use less strength next time. 

otoya eita

flirty coach energy. keeps touching your shoulders like “relax, baby ~ soccer’s all about the hips.” 

then immediately forgets himself and goes full striker mode the second you try to take the ball. 

you fall. again. 

he drops to the grass next to you like, “you okay? want mouth-to-mouth?” 

you smack his arm. 

he grins. “so you're not that injured.” 

itoshi sae 

you said you wanted to learn. he showed up in full gear. 

he watches you dribble once, tilts his head, and says, “that’s cute.” 

next thing you know, he casually flicks the ball past you, nutmegs you, and scores without blinking. 

you stare. 

he just shrugs. “maybe soccer’s not for you.” 

he does buy you lunch afterward, though. that’s his version of affection. 

shidou ryusei

you expected guidance. support. maybe a little flirting. 

“okay, stand there. try to block me,” he says, grinning. 

you take your stance. 

he charges at you like a bull. you immediately regret everything. 

he fakes left, spins right, throws in a random front flip for fun, and launches the ball straight into the net so hard it bounces back and hits you in the chest. 

you wheeze and drop to the ground. 

he laughs. laughs. 

“you okay, baby? that looked like it hurt. but hey, at least you looked cute dying.” 

you threaten to hit him with the ball. 

he tells you he’d let you, as long as you call him “coach” first. 

kaiser michael

you say “can you teach me soccer?” 

kaiser smirks. “only if you can handle greatness, schatz.” 

you should’ve known. 

he spends the first ten minutes making fun of your stance. mimics you with exaggerated arms and waddles like a penguin. 

you try to kick the ball. he sidesteps it like you’re in slow motion. 

you try to block him. he rainbow flicks over your head and pats your shoulder on the way past you. 

the disrespect. 

“that was cute,” he grins, brushing his hair back. “but maybe you should just watch me instead. it's safer for your pride.” 

you try to smack him. he dodges and winks. 

then he scores a goal, points at you, and says, “that one was dedicated to your downfall, liebe.”

ness alexis

"don’t worry, i’ll go easy on you," he says with the most patronizingly sweet smile you've ever seen. 

you blink. “you said that last time and i ended up face-first in the grass.” 

he giggles. “that was your balance issue, not my fault.” 

he insists on doing “basic footwork drills” with you. sounds safe, right? wrong. 

within five minutes, you’re dizzy. he’s doing little feints and twirls around you like it’s a figure skating routine. you can’t even tell where the ball is anymore. 

when you finally manage to poke the ball away from him, you celebrate – 

but he steals it back immediately, nutmegs you, and flicks it into the goal like it was nothing. 

“aww, almost!” he says, clapping like a soccer mom. “i believe in you! well, kind of…” 

you throw a cone at him. he ducks and giggles again. 

“was that an attempt at offense? cute!” 

© 𝐤𝐱𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢

[juukai]

DCAtober day 6: Hue

moon/sun x reader, ~3k words, fluff

plz be kind I haven't posted my writing in years

The question was innocent enough and asked extremely casually. Somehow it still threw you off just enough to have you looking up from tying Jamie's shoes for her so that she could leave.

"Huh?"

"Your favorite color, star! Somehow we don't have that information yet. Which is weird, I could have sworn we would have asked as part of your first introduction day..." Sun tapped his chin and gave the impression that he wasn't quite looking at you, though without pupils it was hard to tell. He seemed to be muttering that last part to himself- or to the both of them in there- at any rate.

You shrugged and tightened the last of the bows for Jamie and sent her off to her waiting guardian. An early pick-up today, it hadn't even been nap time yet. You hoped that she was going to get to do something fun at home with her family.

"Well, I suppose if you ask again reeeally nicely this time, I'll let you in on the secret."

Sun huffed in obvious play outrage. "I asked you nicely the first time! My manners are impeccable!" You grinned at the lack of the plural there- it was no secret that Sun thought Moon was slacking on manners. The two of you watched each other for a few moments before his shoulders dropped and he gave you a simulated sigh.

Ha! Point to you.

He must have seen the smugness creeping in, because just as suddenly he had his hand clasped to his chest and another outstretched in your direction as he swept into a bow. Point lost, now he was going into full thespian mode.

It was really hard to not either push at him to get him to stop or to start laughing before he could even speak.

"Please, my dearest and most precious friend!" Oh, he was really leaning into it. He had a little accent going and everything. "We cannot continue like this. Will you not gift us with the knowledge of the hue held closest, the most cherished, in your heart?"

You were doing a terrible job of not laughing at him. Some of the children were giving the two of you strange looks, while a couple others were giggling at the theatrics.

"Oh my god, please stop."

His grin hadn't changed and yet somehow it looked so self-satisfied. If there weren't a bunch of kids around to set a good example for, you'd definitely be pushing him now. It was still very tempting anyways.

He rolled his wrist, reminding you that he was waiting for you to answer him. Between chuckles you finally gave him the response that he was waiting for and dipped lower in his bow before standing up straight with a flourish.

"You're so dramatic." You didn't give him a shove, but you did purposely bump into him once he was completely upright again. He let you and swayed with the motion to give you the effect that you were looking for, and probably also to soften your thunk against his hard frame a little for your benefit.

His rays spun merrily as he looked out over the daycare to get a beat on what the kids were all doing, then returned his attention to you. "Why thank you! We do try our best."

For a while the two of you just stood near one another, the both of you watching different zones to make sure that everyone was following the rules and playing nice. Sun didn't always seem to prefer when there wasn't a guided activity going, but naptime was coming up before too long and you knew Moon harped in their headspace that the kids needed a little wearing out before they were expected to sleep. There was only so much the moondrops could do to help them get to sleep, and the kids always settled for a story better if they were tuckered out.

"Why'd you want to know my favorite color, anyway?" you asked after a while.

"Hmm?" Sun perked up at your question, though he kept looking out across the room. "Oh, one of the little ones wanted to give you a star sticker earlier, for being such a good helper and since we usually call you star! But it seems like they might have forgotten now. I can still give you a sticker, though, if you'd like."

You laughed and waved one hand vaguely. "No, that's okay. Now you know for next time. I guess that got missed somewhere in our introductions." You looked at him and then thought about it for a moment. "... Y'know, I don't know yours either. What's your favorite color, Sunny?"

"Yellow!" He answered so quickly that you had to wonder if that was what he legitimately preferred or if it was a scripted like- sometimes the animatronics, for all that you forgot that they were programmed to be the way that they were sometimes and that they weren't just really weird looking people, couldn't escape a coded response.

"Uh huh. Not sure if I expected that or not." It seemed like too obvious an answer, since he was yellow. But then, it still would have been fitting, you supposed.

The two of you went your separate ways for a while a little later, Sun going to return to taking a hands-on approach to playtime when one of the kids came up and asked to go to the bathroom. It wasn't too long once you came back that it was time to start clearing the softer area of toys and foam shapes to drag out the nap mats and blankets, You helped to get them all set up with the children while Sun made his way to the light switch.

The music shifted to a version of the normal song that was much calmer and quieter, and lacked the goofy sound effects sprinkled in, as the lights dimmed. You stayed off to the side as Moon came back to the area and passed out little wrapped candies to everyone who sat nicely for story time. He gave you a rather impish little look as he made a big show of skipping over you with the distribution of the drops, which earned an echo of amused little giggles. You didn't really want one anyway but you still put one hand on your hip and wagged a chastising finger at him.

You collected all of the wrappers from the candies while Moon took a poll on what story everyone wanted to hear and then started to recite from his internal library. Sometimes he used physical books just so that he would have pictures to share with the kiddos, but today he recited it without one while the kids hunkered down. Most of them were asleep before the story ended and you watched from a good distance away as Moon checked on the remaining few stragglers to make sure that they didn't need anything, then he left their immediate area so as not to disturb them.

You knew that his sensors had picked up that they'd fallen asleep when he approached you. He only put so much distance between him and them when everyone was out and he wouldn't be needed for a while.

"Finished hovering?"

His chuckled softly. "Brat. Are you going to go take your break?"

You shrugged. "In a bit. Thought I'd keep you company first, I'm sure Sun won't mind if my break bleeds over into his time a little."

Moon's faceplate ticked to the side once, twice, and then a full spin in delight. "Oh, he minds. But Mr. Manners needs to learn to share." You laughed, though you were mindful of your volume. You'd gotten plenty of scolding in the past from the naptime attendant, who took his job of making sure sleep happened very seriously. It and security were about the only things he seemed to take seriously.

"You two bickering again? Over lil' ol' me?" You snickered. "You see me almost every day, I don't believe for a minute that either of you actually mind me going on break."

Without having pupils to make it visible, Moon was forced to roll his eyes with his whole head. "Of course we don't, we want you to take your breaks." You could see him pause to give his programming time to work through not needing to tell you to rest. It was a process, he had explained once, bypassing certain triggers to his protocols since adults weren't people that he was in charge of unless it was for security. "That doesn't mean," he continued, "that we like missing time with you."

You were not getting flustered by the robot. "Aw, shucks," you joked as a distraction. "You two are going to make me blush."

He made an amused sound before a comfortable silence settled between the two of you for a couple moments. He watched the children for some of that time, on the look out for any signs that someone was stirring, but luckily most naptimes went very smoothly and stayed dull. You made your way over to one of the craft tables after a while and Moon shadowed you all too quietly for a tall animatronic covered in bells.

You started to clear the table and get things organized again when you came across a sheet of stickers that reminded you of earlier. "Hey, Moon Man?"

"Yes, Starling," he answered in a sickly-sweet tone. You might have deserved that teasing, you know that he doesn't like 'Moon Man', you just used it anyway to annoy him.

"What's your favorite color?"

He hesitated, tilting his head at you before he looked down at the stickers in your hand. You saw the lightbulb in his brain go on. "I am obligated to tell you blue or purple."

You wrinkled your nose at that. "Okay, gross. They really don't let you guys pick your own favorites? Is Sun's actually yellow?"

He stared at you for a moment that felt like it stretched on a little too long. Was he trying to think of something to say? Was he talking to Sun? There couldn't have been something in his programming that kept him from talking bad about the rest of his programming, right?

You only noticed that he'd been slowly leaning in close to you when he stopped. "No."

"No..?"

He didn't move back at all. "No, it's not his favorite."

"Oh." The atmosphere between the two of you was starting to feel slightly heavy but at the same time you didn't move to put any extra space there. "What... are your actual favorite colors? Can you even answer that?" Hopefully they could.

It took some time for Moon to respond but this time you really did get the feeling that he was having some sort of communication with his counterpart. It was a loaded silence.

"Yours."

Huh? "Mine? What, you both like my favorite one?"

He shook his head slightly and the bell on the end of his nightcap jingled softly. "No." He seemed to hesitate and you let him have time to give you an actual answer, just like you'd let him have time to get around the knee-jerk reaction to tell you to nap. "Your color is our favorite."

You started to open your mouth to express your confusion about that, but stopped short when his cool, clawed fingers met your cheek with extremely gentle tenderness. "The color of your skin, your hair, your eyes." His hand cupped your face and tilted it a little further up towards his. "The colors of the clothes you wear aside from your uniform, the ones you pick the most often during crafts time, the one of your phone case."

You were pretty sure that your brain was short circuiting. Was he really saying these things, holding onto you like this? Sure, you and the both of them had gotten pretty close over the time that you'd been working inside the daycare, especially recently, but nothing like this. Was he joking? This wasn't the way that he had ever messed with you before, you had no reason to believe that he would be now, but him being serious made just about as little sense. Your lips parted like you were going to say something, though you had no idea what it could have been. Nothing actually came out.

"The color of your lips," he continued as if your floundering had drawn his attention there and you felt the pointed tip of his thumb just barely brush underneath your bottom lip, which made you squeak. "Your blush."

And now you could feel that you were blushing. Your cheek felt hot against the contrasting temperature of his hand.

"I..." You didn't actually know what to say. You stared up at him, still pole-axed, for a moment before his intensity came down by a few degrees. The way that he held you and looked at you was still achingly gentle, but the pressure of it lessened enough that you could feel some of your higher thought processes rebooting. "You... You both?"

His free hand came up to hold your other cheek and he used that to hold you still as he pressed the teeth of his faceplate against your forehead. "Both of us, I assure you, starlight." He stayed there for a moment before pulling back with a soft chuckle. "Did you not notice?"

You shook your head, dumbfounded and wide-eyed.

"Sun thought he was being so obvious. He's losing his mind that I was right and we just needed to be a little more... forward." He practically purred the word and you felt your face heat even further.

"Was he? Being obvious?" You didn't have any idea that this was coming. Were there signs that you had missed? You thought that he was just being friendly! That they were both just friendly! For as much as you found yourself forgetting that they weren't actually just sentient and independent beings also performing a job every day it had never once occurred to you that they could develop feelings like this. That felt like it was doing them a massive disservice now while Moon held you in place and stared at you.

Another chuckle. "A little, but obviously not enough." He backed a little more out of your space, and took in the look of surprise still on your face. A hesitation came over him then, though he didn't release you. "Is this okay? Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No, no! It's okay!" You reached up and held onto his wrists over the ribbons and bells on each. "I just... can't believe..."

He snickered and you could see the way that his constant smile strained at the edges into something so mischievous and smug but with the hold that you had on him and him on you, you could also feel the way that he seemed to be nearly vibrating with energy. He didn't look it, he always outwardly seemed so much calmer and nonchalant than Sun, but you could feel the slight tremor against your skin and you could hear the muffled way that his internal cooling system was working hard to keep his temperature even.

"Then we have your permission to pursue this?"

The answer was out of your mouth before you even had a chance to think about it. "Yes. Both of you." It didn't strike you as something strange until after you'd said it. You had never really considered how logistics with one of the highly advanced animatronics would go, let alone with two separate AI. But this didn't seem strange to them, or at least to Moon. And Sun had never brought anything up before, though he had obviously spoken with Moon about it if there had been this supposed conversation about the tactic that they should take for their approach. He'd chastised Sun teasingly to you for needing to learn to share, but it seemed like there must have already been some sort of discussion about doing just that.

Moon's expression was downright devilish. "Good. In that case, would you mind staying a little late tonight? I think I might need some help once the daycare's closed..." He laughed at your spluttered response and leaned to press his mouth against your forehead one more time before letting you go with visible reluctance. "Don't worry, I'll put in a note to your manager for an overtime request. Now, naptime's over."

You felt very much like a mouse being cornered by a cat as he looked at you for another few seconds before he took a couple steps backwards. "Have fun with Sun, little star."

Oh. He was making his way to the light switch. "Wait-!"

He cackled at you before he lunged for the light and slapped the button.

You missed the change between the naptime and the daytime appearance as you blinked to adjust your eyes to the light. There was a moment where no one made a sound while Sun completely took over and the standard daycare music started back up. A couple of the children started to rouse but there'd still be a small window of peace until you went and got them up for lunchtime and whatever other activities Sun had on the docket for the day.

That quiet was shattered when Sun's eyes landed on you just before he started marching your way. "Moon got to kiss you first?!"

Oh, so that was what he'd been doing to your forehead? "Oh boy," you breathed as seven feet of excited and agitated robot burst your personal bubble.

[satsuha]

i've been very slowly replaying aa4 in korean because i emulated aa4 the first time i played it which means my switch cartridge doesn't have completed save data for 4... i thought about story mode-ing it all but i figured i might see something interesting if i play it in a different language

the korean aa localization isn't much of a localization because the names are the same as the japanese and the characters explicitly say they're japanese people IN japan but there are still a few differences that i find interesting that the korean version added:

in 4-2, when apollo meets trucy properly for the first time, he starts off by talking to her in polite/formal language because clearly he's here expecting a job interview or something, but drops it at one point when he decides he doesn't want to keep being formal with a kid LOL

Apollo: O-of course. This is the Wright & Co. Law Offices, right? (formal language) ???: ...That's what I thought. ???: Sometimes... we still get people coming here with the wrong idea. Apollo: ...Sorry, but I'm going to speak plainly. Who are you? (informal language)

what i find interesting here is that i went to cross check the japanese version and while it does seem like he Might be a little more informal than he was previously, he doesn't literally say anything about dropping the formal language with her.

Apollo: ...Er, who are YOU supposed to be?

here's the same exchange in english just as a reference:

something similar happens shortly after when they go see phoenix in the clinic, where phoenix drops the title in apollo's name - in 4-1, he refers to apollo exclusively as 오도로키 변호사 (lit. "attorney justice", the localized equivalent would be "mr. justice") but calls him just 오도로키 (his surname without an honorific, the localized equivalent would be "apollo") from this point onwards.

Phoenix: Hello. You're here earlier than I thought. Ah, I'll speak to you plainly from now on, Apollo. Apollo: Mr. Wright...

again, there's no mention of him explicitly dropping the honorific in japanese, particularly because phoenix calls him オドロキくん (his surname "odoroki-kun", localized equivalent would be "apollo") even during 4-1.

the "-kun" honorific equivalent does actually exist in korea but it's far less widely used hence the removal of the honorific entirely in korean... but i do find it interesting that the korean version had phoenix talk to apollo in a much more professional way in 4-1 and explicitly changing it in 4-2 once they're out of the courtroom.

Phoenix: Good morning. You're here faster than I expected. ...Apollo.

again, english version for reference:

none of this really means anything i just simultaneously find it a bit funny that despite not localizing any other part of it, the korean localization team still felt like they had to adhere closer to korean formalities instead of sticking to how the characters talk in japanese, but also i'm always interested in breaking down how characters talk to each other... since i do look at korean/japanese fanwork a lot it's interesting to see how these kinds of nuances affected different interpretations between languages too.

anyway i'm only halfway through 4-2 and also prioritizing playing other games so who knows how long this will take me but maybe i'll make a post every now and then if i see anything that interests me

[hawberries]

holy shit, could you share some of your ratios/artis because multiple top percents is nuts and I wanna see the stats

HAHA TY! Unfortunately you've activated my yap card, so I'm really sorry about how the rest of this post is going to go. I do want to admit that it actually isn't that impressive because there's ways to sort of "game" the Akasha leaderboard system, usually by sharing high CV pieces between your characters, overbuilding crit rate and ER or finding specific leaderboards that aren't as competitive, but it still is a fun sort of low-stakes, inconsequential PVP mode that I enjoy! This is my Akasha page. As you can see my Emilie and Kinich are not doing well.

One notable way I've "cheated" is the fact that my Chiori's ranking is on the Jade Cutter leaderboard, but that's not a real place, because my Chiori is on a Wolfs-Fang. I'm thinking of going for her sword next time she reruns, actually, so she may lose her ranking soon. The boards only look at your artifacts and then make their own assumptions, so board ranking is a VERY poor reflection of in-game performance. Another example is for any Childe mains who have him on Nymph's Dream: it's not actually that good of a set for him! The boards overestimate the uptime, but in actual gameplay, especially if you look at International speedruns, the uptime is bad and he often performs better with mixed sets. However, the difference is not likely to be felt in a practical scenario outside of speedruns and high-level play, so it's reasonable to keep him there for the valour, since he's still going to be good enough.

the reason my Mualani is so high even though I am not a Mualani main is because 1) she's so new that everyone is still working on her domain and using placeholder pieces and 2) I hit her with the yassify beam (gave her this absolutely stupid Hydro dmg goblet which is by far the best piece on my entire account). It just gets passed around between all my watery guys depending on whose personal damage I'm depending on the most at the time, but since Mualani is a hypercarry and Ayato and Yelan are more supportive, it makes the most sense to leave it on her. I expect her to drop a lot in the rankings once people have a chance to farm the Codex set more.

I'm very chuffed with my Navia's build because I recently crafted a new feather for her with the artifact transmuter. Feathers are not broadly recommended to craft, but Navia's feather was by far the most obvious weak link on my account – in the sense that not only was it so bad that it would be easy to get an upgrade (it had 4 low rolls of crit damage and NO other useful stats, not even lower-value ones like atk% or ER) but the rest Navia's pieces were good enough that I had no reason to still be actively farming her domain. Anyway, I got quite lucky with the crafted feather, though as you can see it's still easily the weakest of all her pieces. This is enough to tide me over until Nighttime Whispers is in the strongbox :D

I've worked really hard on my Xiao's build – I've strongboxed 364 Vermilion pieces to date – but Xiao, being an older character with dedicated mains, has a very competitive board, so I don't expect to ever get much higher than this. Isn't that feather disgusting, though? I farmed Marechaussee domain a lot but never got a build good enough to replace this one, especially considering I'm on Jade and therefore about to overcap on crit rate just by sneezing. He has 97% crit rate WITH A CDMG HAT, I want to point out! I am considering crafting a circlet for him as his current one is relatively weak, but that's a problem for future Phee to think about, since I'll want to rebalance his build anyway once I get Xianyun – he'll need less ER and less crit rate.

What level of nerd am I about combat stats in the video game Jenshin Intact? I do my own damage calculations to see which pieces are best! That's why Xiao is on an attack goblet instead of an Anemo DMG one 😔

Also… see how my Wanderer is top 2%? I still don't have an EM goblet on the Flower of Paradise Lost set. RNG is really so funny sometimes. Anyway, at the moment I've allotted myself 6 weeks of farming time to try and get Emilie at least a good 2pc 2pc, after which I'll probably go back to making my Kinich not suck!

[moonfang256]

The Switch 2 direct was pretty good!

Let's start with the talk and the things that interested me:

I love how this new Mario Kart looks and its modes.

When I saw this new feature, I just thought: "Discord!" "Giggles" But it's pretty cool.

I think it was kind of necessary at this point, right? 😉

Besides, imagine the kind of crazy things you could do with the camera "smirks."

I love these games (and I didn't expect Kirby to have more content now. I'll have to check a playthrough of that).

Haha, look at them go. 😄

When I saw this, my jaw dropped. I've never played this game, but even I can recognize a diamond in the rough.

Damn, Hogwarts looking good. 😋

Tony Hawk! :D

When I saw this, before everything was shown, I screamed:

"007, YES!!!"

I'm curious to see what else they're going to add to the story.

When I saw the trailer, I screamed with joy and tears almost came from my eyes (yep, it got me emotional).

Oh my god...

There's so much to talk about, but I'll save it for the next post, which will be dedicated to all things related to Deltarune.

Are you still ALIVE?!!! "gasp"

Damn, we're eating good today. ¡Cheers Silksong fans! 🥂

And hello? Kirby Air ride?! 😲

🎵 He's the leader of the bunch, you know him well He's finally back to kick some tail! 🎵

--------

I'm still a bit in shock from everything they showed on the direct, but at least I'm calmer now.

Too much hype. Need to recover, haha. 🤭

[jazeswhbhaven]

From what I've been seeing it feels like PB is focusing on quantity over quality. Things like Obey Me, TWST, and Nu-Carnival has a sizeable group of characters, but they're not too huge so it allows them to flesh each one out to a certain extent, but then they can introduce a diverse set of cards on each of them so you're not starving too much.

WHB has not only has 6 Kings and one more on the way, but they also keep introducing more nobles and angels. In a way it's not bad, but this is why I seriously feel it is a case of quantity and not enough quality. From what I've seen in this community, characters that have been in the game since Day 1 are being super neglected. Then we a have every new L card released being paywalled, nightmare passes that also have the top rewards paywalled, are more frequent, even this time around the S+ card requires more gold keys and it doesn't have anything remotely special about it whereas the last S+ did which was extremely exclusive only. Honestly it's...really sad. Now you don't NEED these cards and I'm not asking for freebies, but in the end they are asking for your life savings for even just the decent stuff, and then you still have to deal with the gacha to do that.

I personally need a decent amount of characterization to really appreciate a character so I do appreciate the world building but no character has stuck with me yet. So everytime a new one is released I go: "Okay but what about like...the existing ones?" Our last one was Leraye, which I'm sorry, it's just a reskinned of his OG card and I found that really scummy which was probably why he was locked through achievements which...was the saving grace still it was the only time it happened. The story was nice though.

I don't want to come off as ungrateful and I probably am, but I just don't understand PB's decisions on what they're doing anymore. We can't use the "they're a small company" card, I'm sure they're not the only small company, but I don't have any sources, but so far this is the first time I seen company really just throw their community into a blender like this...then again I only played like 3 other gachas which isn't a lot.

💭

hey there 💭 anon!

This observation came right in time with how I'd like to pretty much introduce the game to new players that are flocking in.

PB's decisions as of late to change how we get currencies, paid banners, and the progression of the main story and character building has been a damn journey.

I don't think you're ungrateful, I wouldn't call anyone that honestly because as the consumer YOU are the the one, p2p or f2p, in the end that has be entertained by this nsfw game. The only one in existence that is catered to both women and men audiences. With that in mind, you'd expect to see something worth buying/taking up nearly 8gb of space on your phone for.

When the game was first teased, me and my friend were talking about it and she was overwhelmed by the amount of characters they kept showing, I met her through the Obey Me fandom, so that was our bread and butter for the majority of conversations. When I moved on to WHB, she didn't come with, she stayed for like maybe a week or two and dropped it. I forget mostly why which I could ask her again on her opinion.

But I'll let you in on something I saw the other day, the community over in LaDS has been having some issues with their banners/other gacha related things as well stating that this recent banner is driving players away. I don't play LaDS but PB isn't the only company it seems starting to switch things up when it comes to decisions.

The S+ cards confuse me because what they introduced was hey here's beach Rara (Raphael) and he has an adore mode, a story with mild spice, and you chats/more lore about this bitey boi. I had so much fun reading through that. Amy and Sitri's all we get are the likability things and well from the previous expectation? That made me shake my head. (also for the extra gold keys thing, apparently it's only that high if you want to get it early, the card is going into the banner immediately after the event so in theory we all literally could have waited to pull them so we wouldn't have to spend that amount of gold keys)

As far as content goes, I think ultimately there's too many characters to work with. If anyone on the staff has a brain like me, it would be very easy to neglect characters here and there. I also do not like that Gehenna has yet ANOTHER noble (sorry Amy) but other countries are lackin'.

Also unrelated...WHERE IS GEHENNA'S GROUP PHOTO U G H.

Niflheim needs one too.

All in all I hear you. Chapter 6 and Mammons/Amy's events though have me believing that the best has yet to come, these banners though....we will see... Maybe things will pop off when Asmodeus debuts..

[miammey]

Playing Bizarre Brigade with the ZZZ Characters and Judging Them!!!

Please note!! I only included the characters I have and that I can play with. This is in order of who I played with

I know what you're thinking, "why the hell did you waste your time beating the game with every playable character you have??" And to that I say, I'm top 0% in this game, I broke endless mode being too immortal and only closed out of it because the game froze. So now I feel like I have to invest myself into this minigame.

To begin, let me say this, if you wanna do this challenge yourself (not much of a challenge, just me wasting time), note that they all suck, you will be hard carrying, so play a character you're good at and know how to build. Ok let's start. Also I have the characters in front of me so I can double check what they do.

Evelyn - Gulpy

She definitely had no idea what she was doing, it really did feel like she was just playing because I wanted to and she just wanted to hang out. Also the character she chose opens chests to gain HP, and the NPCs can't open chests, so...

Astra - Queen Card

I have personal beef with Queen Card so I'm a bit biased, but basically you play her by only rarely getting hit, because she only has 12 HP, and when you're hit everything takes 500 damage, and your health goes down permanently. This seems different in co-op games because it feels like she doesn't do the 500 damage thing?? Or at least I never saw it happening. Also babygirl Astra kept getting hit and she had a total of 1 HP half way through the game

Asaba - Derpy Woof

Another one who just didn't play their character directly. You play them by adding as much dodge and speed as possible and barreling through enemies like a madman, but guess what?? This guys decided that no, running away from the enemies was a better way to play. Let me tell you, you cannot win just by running, by later stages there's just too many of them, you gotta learn to kill.

Miyabi - Gulpy

Same problem as with Eve and this character, but Miyabi kept trying to I guess circle behind the enemies?? It only got her killed. Idk, I remember her character just being weird.

Soukaku - Boo Fortress

I actually don't have this unit yet, so this was my first time seeing them (still haven't figured out how to make myself massive), but let me tell you Soukaku was actually really helpful, at least when she was alive. This unit drops dynamite all over the map, but Soukaku also just kept dying early so I only had that for a bit in later levels

Lighter - Slippy

This bastard 100% was using me to win, I know it. The unit he chose does negative damage but has 200% knockback, but the NPCs also don't knock enemies back, he chose this unit just to give me the extra treasure detection and income to help me carry and did jack all shit else, you're lucky I love you, you little shit

Piper - Baggy

Yeah, I really should have expected she'd go for the character that straight up doesn't move. Baggy's actually one of my favorites to play, but the thing is you gotta get the right items and also stay still, none of which she did. Girl, you could have literally AFK'd the whole game other than to buy some items, but you kept hopping around a centimeter at a time, girl I thought you didn't like moving!!

Lucy - Omnom

You have one job, ram into enemies and kill as many as possible so your HP doesn't drop. Why the hell are you running away!? You chose the tank character, play the tank!! Build up your collision damage and armor!! Sweetie, it's not hard!!

Caesar - Jade Cabbage

I'll be honest, I didn't expect the cabbage, but it suits her. The thing is this unit's whole thing is buying little baby cabbages in the shop and building up an army, but she just didn't buy any?? She bought maybe 2 of them, but even when I snag the other items she just didn't grab them, raise your children!!

Seth - Omnom

I had higher expectations for you, Seth, but you had the same issue as Lucy of running away. At least you tried to fight a bit, so I'll give you a cookie for that

Jane - Queen Card

She did not want to play, let me tell you. Same issues as with Astra, but it really felt like she was just there to keep me company, which I appreciate, but company isn't gonna let me win this on my own, at least try a bit!!

Lycaon - Capped Gallant

This unit honestly fit him, but I think he was just bad?? Like, I gave him all the companions the shop had to offer (this unit uses the powers of the companions they get), but it just??? Didn't work?? That's probably not Lycaon's fault, but what is his fault is him running from the enemies and backing himself in a corner multiple times

Ellen - Mr. Work

Yeah, it makes sense she'd go for the basic unit who looks like they haven't slept since the game came out. She also just wasn't trying at all, girl keep up!!

Corin - Periwinky

Sweet baby girl, I think she was playing in a way to help me rather than herself. It's like she knew her own skill level so she bought things that helped the brigade a lot. The unit she chose also reflected that since one of their things is a guaranteed chance of the alter activating. I couldn't even get mad at her for dying, she's too sweet

Koleda - Sir Purrcival

Koleda, sweetie, you can't use a character built on dodge as a steamroller!!! She was riding that roomba straight into battle like a knight on a horse, and then proceeding to not buy anything that could help her character in any way. You're supposed to be smarter than this!!

Grace - Red Scale

What the hell. She was actually good?? Idk how but she managed to get her HP and recovery so high that she just didn't die until much later stages??? I was not expecting her to be so good with that damn fish, I haven't even beaten the game with it yet, holy...

Anton - Frosty

Frosty works by shooting a ton when moving and healing when not, and Anton didn't build for either of those. One thing I do is if I see something that could help my companion's unit, I'd leave it for them to buy, but he never bought it?? What, was his Bro playing instead of him?? Actually, the Jackhammer could probably make a build better than him (/j, sorry that sounds so mean)

Ben - Box Shell

The unit he chose is odd because it focuses on companions, mostly, since after 25 seconds it switches everyone's ranged damage to melee and quadruples the damage they do. Same as Corin, I think he played to help the team (me, basically) rather than himself. I couldn't get mad at him

Nicole - Herself

The Cunning Hares are all units in the game, so they play as themselves. True to Nicole, she used everything, including her own damn HP, as currency. Also, with her the shop will sell knockoff products for super cheap, and she bought everything she could, no matter how bad of an item. Girl, you have 1 hp and have bought items that only give negative effects, please try harder

Anby - Herself

Her unit is complicated, so it makes sense for the AI to not know what to do with her, but the answer is definitely not to run into enemies and not buy the necessary dodge items she needs. She was also super hesitant to buy anything, for some reason?? Like, she took way longer choosing than the other units

Billy - Himself

Billy I had a lot of fun with because when you knock him around he'll fire a ton of bullets, so all I had to do was increase projectile speed and follow him around smacking him, and he turned into a bullet tornado. He only died a couple times because I ran off to collect coins and stuff, but other than that it was great

Yeah, I know these are just AI units and not actual thinking people, but it's still fun to imaging them as the characters playstyles, for some reason everything just kinda fit, but I doubt they had individual AI made for each and every character.

This was fun, I'm gonna go try and beat the game with more units now

[trollol360]

396, 397, 398

399

Sorry, I meant to make this way earlier, I just got distracted and busy with other projects.

This was originally written 9/1/23:

MHA 399 dropped and it literally made me cry. I have much to say because oh my god.

"These should boost my speed and mobility for tighter turns! He must be getting bored of the one-sided struggle." The way Toshi has to rely on the support gear because it's all he has left. He has no quirk.

"Tentacole, plus... Froppy Suction Pads!" Eleventh and Twelfth; Shoji and Tsuyu

"Tail-Man. Shoto" Thirteenth and Fourteenth; Ojiro and Shoto

"And then... I'll set the trap." Originally, I was using a fan translation when I wrote this, and it said: "Now... I'm on the hunt." And I said: "Well, well, well, how the turn tables." Not much to say that I haven't already said, lol

"Assuming repeated, massive damage to that body shortens his life span... I know just the quirk to get the job done all at once..." The way he thinks and he's quick on his feet. Toshinori has always been smart (much to Endeavor's "All flash and no brains" comment about him)

"The problem is the power source! Playing this by the book won't be all too effective. Lend me a hand, Anima?" Fifteenth; Kouda. Toshinori specifically states that doing it the regular way won't be enough. All Might knows that All for One can tank hits, so (my assumption at least), he needs to wear him down first to be effective. [Which, now knowing what happens, is incorrect. He needs to give it enough time to power up before he uses it]

"Cackling like a mad fool one minute and scampering and hiding the next?" He's back to being an asshole, but he's still chasing after All Might. Seems like he forgot what he's doing.

"Here he comes!" Uh oh, smile's gone. Didn't expect himself to be found so easily/followed quickly

"Your goal here is no mystery to me. And I don't need to waste excess strength... To twist that grin into an agonized grimace. Power-saver mode is plenty enough for killing you." Jesus fucking Christ, All for One is scary. The people who've said they'd kill All Might during Kamino, but he didn't kill Toshi (nor did he kill his drive). Despite it seeming like All for One captured All Might for one panel, he breaks free. He can just kill him, but either he won't (and wants to drag it out), or he can't (All Might's just too good).

"Rise!! Liar!! Descend!!" (Despite this being a serious battle, Toshi looks really silly, but that might just be me, lol) He's not smiling anymore, something closer to a grimace. Both in the way that All for One said he'd do, but also in the way during the USJ incident (and others). (I.e: "All Might's here... And he's not smiling."

"Hmm? No, I really am conserving my power." All for One says he's going to kill Toshinori with low effort, but it seems like he's trying his all (or something close to it) [He's trying to act like he can kill All Might really easily? Or just bluffing about it]

"Now where'd that lovely smile go? You're nothing but a bag of bones missing half his guts! An old fool providing hospice care for himself... With shoddy simulacrums of the children's powers!" All for one notices that All Might's smile is gone. We're shown that Class 1-A's quirks do and have protected Toshinori. During USJ, the first movie, etc. Deku, Todoroki, and Balugou are the students who are closest to All Might's power (Deku being a given). But All for One hasn't seen how well they are [or at least refuses to believe that they've improved]

"Smile, you're still on camera!! The whole world's watching, remember?! They'll see the Symbol of Peace falling to his doom... As the Symbol of Impotence!" 'Impotence -- Inability to take effective action; helplessness'. All Might has already fallen from grace by society's standards because he's not really there anymore (I.e: Stain saying that he's a failure). Toshinori couldn't use his Mech Suit trying to help society anyway, because he knew he'd have to fight All for One eventually. It's not that he's abandoned them. Far from it. Toshinori is a man who wants to help people when he can, that's why he's so god damn depressed in S6. He's seeing Deku abandon him to go out on his own and he couldn't do anything to help. Society fell back to how it was when he was a child. In all his 40 years, society fell back to how it was with just one attack that he couldn't do anything against. When he lost his quirk, it was basically him being quirkless all over again. Being ignored, attempted to be killed, and unhelpful. That's why he's so fulfilled helping again. Because while it's his fight (One for All) with All for One, he's still saving hundreds of thousands of lives again.

"Their guiding light is about to be snuffed out." The way All for One no longer looks human. He fucking slams Toshinori to the ground on his left side.

The ashes of the snuffed-out flame. He doesn't have an ounce of One for All left in him.

"You still don't get it... Good buddy!!" All Might is not done (even when All for One hits him straight on). He puts the Shoto canon in All for One's mouth and fires. He plans on killing him. He wants to kill him.

"Lights tend to flicker on and off! So while my light might be snuffed out... Someone's sure to pick up my torch and shine on!" This isn't a death flag. He's not talking about his life, he's talking about his legacy. Deku, Bakugou, and Todoroki will carry All Might's legacy, while Class 1-A as a whole will carry Toshinori's legacy (at least that's the way I see it).

I don't have much to say about Aoyama's part in this chapter, sorry (but I do love his character). The heroes are downed and Aoyama's one of the only heroes left to fight. Roses coming out of him feels like symbolism. "Hence why I said "merci"... Reminding myself of how shamefully I've lived... Is what spurred me on to follow in the wake of the light they bring! It's given me the desire to shine... From deep down within my core!!" These lines of dialog show Aoyama's character growth from being found out as the traitor.

"Let there be light in the darkness!" The way Aoyama smiles/grits his teeth just like All Might is so... *Chefs kiss*

"So that I might twinkle as well!!" Toshinori doesn't need One for All to keep going, but the lights of his students and people who believe in him. The flame doesn't have to return.

"So no, I'm not here to lose, All for One!!" All Might restates it yet again, cementing it in. He'll kill All for One if he has to.

"Know this name... As you burn away!!" HIS SMILE IS FUCKING BACK!! He looks so tired, beaten, and bruised, but he's still smiling. (The way his face is drawn makes me want him carnally... But that's my simp for him speaking)

"CAN'T STOP TWINKLING! ★" Sixteenth; Aoyama. The parallels of them both attacking with the laser, GOD. This chapter made me so fucking ill. I literally cried and felt like screaming.

[drkineildwicks]

So apparently it's Pokémon Day

And to tell you how much I was looking forward to it I found out through a discord convo and my exact reaction was "...oh."

I feel like if Nintendo/Game Freak/TPC hadn't blown all their goodwill out of the water with the rom takedowns and the lawsuit against Palworld, I might feel a little something about Z-A

Because I remember actually being tentatively excited for Z-A, definitely was thrilled that they're taking their time, but even knowing it's going to be the holiday release and that any potential Gen X is going to be next year...it's still very meh to me.

If they hadn't spent the last 10-15 years eroding consumer trust, I'd be hyped. Unfortunately, they're expecting us to get excited for a game that--even with being cutting edge for Pokemon--is a good five years behind the rest of the gaming industry insofar as the mechanics are concerned. We can jump now? Yay?

I can't really bring myself to care because they've done too much to make me not care. I can't even bring myself to go back to PLA because Palword did it better, and I haven't touched a mainline game without thinking I could be playing Nexomon or Temtem instead. I have not PAID for a mainline Pokemon game since Sun/Moon.

And it's not from the consumer outgrowing the product--I can still go back to RSE and be challenged. Nexomon, Temtem, Palworld, they still have the cutesiness but balances that with some challenge to sink your teeth into. Temtem and Palworld run on dropping you into the situation and going good luck, you'll need it, and having started with Gen III, I needed that. I do not need my hand held in a Pokemon game, I don't need to be reading a visual novel instead of playing a Pokemon game. I don't need to waste my time on a game that looks and runs worse than the games that were on the GameCube or N64.

Not to mention all the direct targeting and dismissing of their fanbase--rom takedowns aside, they have gone on record to say that they read out fan suggestions to laugh at them, and what kills me is that--thanks to the Teraleak--we know that those same complaints were registered by their QA testers twenty years ago. They aren't interested in innovation, and I imagine what innovation is happening is done with the kicking and screaming involved. Having done up a Pokemon group with some friends, I can tell you it is not that hard to brainstorm a new region, fill it with new Pokemon, and add in mechanics. Three people are able to do that. We might not be making big 3D sets, but then again if we were expected to do that we'd involve more people instead of saying oh but we're just a poor little indie company! Hi, Palworld just entered the chat and did what Nintendon't.

The Nintendo/Game Freak/TPC trifecta is in Disney mode right now: all goodwill gone, will have to release a TON of bangers to get people looking at them again, and even at that they've lost me as a customer. Considering with mainline games alone that's a minimum $360 of lost revenue from me, and I'm not the only one, this is going to start adding up for them. If they want to stop from hitting that trust thermocline, then they'd better make sure every game for the next ten years is gold, and I'm not sure they have it in them.

So...thanks, but no. If I play Z-A, it'll be on an emulator. In the meantime, I think I'll celebrate Pokemon Day by playing Palworld instead.

[gunilslaugh]

I have been inspired by others asks.

What would xdh reactions be to you being their sibling and them finding out youre dating one of the members?

All members <[+_+]>

Summary: Your brother, Xdinary Heroes, reaction to you dating another member.

WC:~1k

Warning:grammar 

photo not mine credits to owner.

Gunil

Surprised, he genuinely did not see you dating Jungsu coming. It takes him a moment to wrap his head around it

“I think we broke him,” you tell Jungsu as the two of you were waiting for Gunil to say something about your relationship news.

“Gunil, are you ok?” Jungsu calls out, snapping Gunil out of his frozen processing state.

“Oh yeah I’m ok. I just never expected you and y/n would date,” he explains.

“So you’re ok with it?” you asked.

“Yes, I’m happy for you guys,” Gunil throws his arms around you both in a hug. However he switched into protective brother mode after he pulled away.

“If you ever hurt y/n though. I don’t care if you’re my member, I'll beat you to a pulp, understand?” he threatened Jungsu, but you found it hard to take your brother seriously. Letting out a laugh at his threat. However Jungsu played along with Gunil answering.

“Trust me I’ll never hurt y/n,” smiling while looking in your direction. 

“Good, cause you know what happens if you do,” Gunil says and again you laugh.

Jungsu

The news of you dating Gunil didn’t exactly come as a surprise. He could tell that the two of you were smitten from the moment you guys met. The fact that you actually laughed at his dad jokes gave him some indication that the two of you could possibly be a thing. That indication was later confirmed when you guys announced that you were dating. He was ok with the two of you dating, he trusted that Gunil would treat you right. It’s what would happen if you guys broke up that made him leery.

“You guys are sure you like each other?” Jungsu questions, causing both you and Gunil to burst into laughter.

“Yes, we're sure Jungsu,” you told him, after catching your breath. 

“Ok, but don’t act all couple-ly in front of me I don’t want to see it,” he claims, yet he still took photos of you and Gunil napping on the couch together when he came home one day. He would never admit it, but thinks you and Gunil make a cute couple.

 Gaon/Jiseok

Jiseok actually found out that you had a crush on Seungmin and wouldn’t leave you alone about it. He would take photos of him cuddled up with Seungmin and send you the photo with a text saying “Wish you were me,”. After you and Seungmin got together you told Jiseok that you guys were dating in the same way. You took a photo of you and Seungmin all cuddled up, sending it to Jiseok with the message “But I am you now,”. 

“Seungmin you traitor!” Jiseok exclaimed upon entering your house. “Leaving me for y/n. My own sibling,” Jiseok feigned being betrayed, putting a hand over his heart.

“That’s right I replaced you,” you said, wrapping yourself around Seungmin’s side. To which he places an arm around you, pulling you closer.

“You two look good together,” Jiseok states, dropping his being betrayed act. He’s happy for the both of you, but sometimes he still sends you photos of him and Seungmin. Joking that he could steal him from you.

O.de/Seungmin

Sengmin never was that interested in your love life, but that changed a bit at the news of you and Hyeongjun dating. He never thought that it was even a possibility for you to end up dating one of his members. He knows that Hyeongjun is a good guy, so he’s not worried about him hurting you. It’s the other way around actually. Hyeongjun doesn’t get the protective brother saying “If you hurt them I’ll hurt you,” 

“If you hurt our Hyeongjun you're done for y/n,” is what he tells you instead. 

“Rest assured. I would also beat myself up if I ever hurt Hyeongjun,” you told Seungmin.

“Shouldn’t you be protective over y/n they’re your sibling?” Hyeonjun pipes up.

“I like you more than them,” is all Seungmin says.

“I like Hyeongjun more than you too,” you rebutted. This only causes Hyeongjun to get flustered, so he takes your hand pulling you away from Seungmin. Before it turns into a battle, of who loves Hyeongjun more.     

Junhan/Hyeongjun.

Hyeongjun doesn’t exactly know how to react to the announcement of you dating Jooyeon. He doesn’t hate the thought of you two being together, rather he thinks it’s a bit odd. His sibling and his member, it was an unexpected pair for him. 

“As long as the two of you are happy,” is what he concludes. Making you and Jooyeon smile, looking at each other.

“We definitely are,” Jooyeon states. It takes Hyeongjun a bit of time to adjust to the fact that you and Jooyeon are a couple. Once he does though he finds that he actually likes you two being together. It makes him happy seeing how happy the two of you are and he’s glad that you have someone else to lean on. He can tell that Jooyeon cares about you very much. Despite the fact that he’s the one who gets babied in their group, he sees how Jooyeon steps up to take care of you. In the end he comes to the conclusion that your relationship greatly benefits each other, so he’s very supportive of it.

Jooyeon

“I knew I shouldn’t have introduced you,” are the first words that leave Jooyeon’s mouth once you and Jiseok revealed that you two were dating. 

“What are you saying?” you laughed out. You don’t know what reaction you were expecting from Jooyeon, but it wasn’t that. 

“I just mean out of all the people in the world you choose to date my member and you Jiseok out of all people you pick my sibling?” Jooyeon remarks.

“You know they say it’s a small world,” Jiseok points. 

“Don’t worry I’m not gonna get in the way of your Nugget Time,” you tell Jooyeon, which immediately made him perk up. 

“Yeah Nugget Time forever bro,” Jiseok said, sticking out an arm. They both said their Nugget Time chant as Jooyeon crossed his arm over Jiseoks. When Jiseok would come over to your house Jooyeon would jokingly ask “Are you here as my friend, or y/n’s boyfriend?” Jiseok even occasionally joins you and Jooyeon in your sibling activity, playing games. 

[nilolol30]

Mei x reader

"Finally! Todays date day is gonna be the best one yet!" Mei shouts as she parked her motorbike it took your soul to catch up with your body with how much she was speeding "If we don't get arrested..." Mei only giggled as she deactivated both of your helmets and you both hop off the bike.

"Wouldn't be the first time buut anyway let's commence our first arcade date!" Mei pulled you close to take multiple selfies then you both walk Infront of the arcade sign and take a picture Mei posting it on her socials then you both start to actually walk inside "So what games do you wanna play?" She asked shoving her phone back in her pocket.

"Eh why not walk around the place and stop by at whatever we feel like playing? Honestly you and Mk come here more than I have" Mei insisted on paying for both yours and hers passes since shes been a loyal member she gets pretty good discounts.

"True I was gonna bring you with me and him last time but I thought he'd feel bad for third wheeling but thank goodness I didn't since it was a clone and turned all party crazy" Mei shutters thinking back to 'Porty mk.'

You both started wondering the arcade ducking into some games that interested you both there was a motorcycle racing game that Mei immediately dragged you down begging you to race her unfortunately she is well versed in gaming and riding so of course she won but it was still fun then you both jumped into a photo booth taking two photo sessions so you both can keep the photo strips.

"Ooh! A claw machine! Did I tell you I am amazing at claw machines~" Mei strolled over to the machine giving a playful wink "Really? Thought you always tell everyone they're scam" laughing you lean over her shoulder to peak at what kind of prizes are inside it a green bunny caught your eye Mei noticing smirks pulling out some tokens.

"Well I'm infact a champ at scamming scams~ and I'm totally getting you a fluffy friend!" Mei immediately went into ultra claw machine focus mode trying her best to get the right angle obviously doing her best to get the green bunny.

"And just like that ah boom~" with her eyes closed she pushed the button smiling expecting to hear the automated congratulations but unfortunately the claw didn't hold onto the bunny and dropped it causing a game over Mei getting over her shock laughed a bit "Ha obviously just a fluke give me a sec-" and so the cycle of Mei shoving tokens into the machine and her slowly growing annoyance began "You know Mei you don't have to win we can just get a prize from the-" "Never! I'm totally getting you that damn rabbit if it's the last thing I do!" It's almost like you can see a green fire radiating from her.

Finally when it looks like the claw is holding onto the bunny you both watch as it slowly takes it to the flap "I swear if it doesn't get in I'll punch this thing" Mei mumbled her face pressed against the glass "Yeah let's not set off alarms" then the claw let go and the bunny fell through the slot Mei rushed to pull it out and yelled out in victory.

"Yes! I did it! I'm the best girlfriend everrr!!" She held out the stuffed toy to you smiling "Here you go~" it's almost like she didn't want to murder the creator of those machines second ago you take the bunny and kissed her on the cheek.

"Of course you're the best girlfriend the best girlfriend in the world" you can hear Mei let out a small internal squeal pulling you into a hug "okay let's continue this date let playy...Oh oh that game!" You two go off to play nearly all the games the arcade has to offer the both of you agreed to keep away from any more claw machines for a bit.

[purplekoop]

So it's been about a week into actually playing with OW2's new Perks, and as I predicted, the system as a whole is a breath of fresh air that totally reinvents some heroes... and leaves some others wanting for a bit more. I think this is to be expected for any kind of character modifying system, there's always gonna be winners and losers, especially on a first pass. That said, with it being confirmed some perk options will be shuffled out over time in favor of new ones, I'd like to get my foot in the door with some ideas to replace some of the dull or otherwise unwanted perk options we have currently. I also just have some ideas for perks whether or not they're really needed, so indulge me on that.

For this post specifically, I'll be focusing on my three favorite characters from the Tank role: Ramattra, Reinhardt, and Junker Queen. I won't be getting to every character because some of them already have good perks, others are characters I don't feel qualified to critique because I suck as them, and others I just plain don't have any interesting ideas for. I'll be doing another post on Doomfist, D.va, Roadhog, and Mauga soon, while the other six tanks either have stellar perk sets already (Sigma, Zarya, Orisa), have unexciting perks but are already otherwise fine and don't need the help (Hazard), or aren't my field of expertise and I'm just trusting popular consensus that they're okay (Winston, Wrecking Ball). Don't expect me to do DPS or Support, I'm still not sure how to process those roles' perks but we'll see if that changes.

But with that said, here's:

Overwatch 2 Potential Perks (part 1)

Starting with one of my favorites in the whole cast:

Ramattra:

Ramattra is my most played tank so far this update thanks to his incredible minor perk Void Surge and major perk Vengeful Vortex. The amount of extra close-range burst damage from Void Surge makes Omnic form his ideal tank-buster now and lets him use his staff in far more interesting ways, and Vengeful Vortex give so many new plays from the airburst detonation. 50 extra AOE damage is nearly a whole Nemesis punch, not to mention leading into the following normal Vortex for additional chip damage, not to mention the midair detonations or ability to drop it midair over ledges and such. My pick for the most fun perk in the game that doesn't give an outright new ability, but it might as well at this point.

As good as those two are though, every time I've picked the alternatives has been a misinput. Prolonged Barrier is probably the most insulting perk in the game that isn't outright bad, increasing Void Barrier's duration from 4 to 5 whole seconds. This can matter a bit for cycling defensive cooldowns, but it's such an embarrassingly low amount for what's not even an interesting effect anyways. Nanite Repair at least sounds thematically cool, using the nanomachines that make up his abilities to repair Ramattra's body, but in practice it's almost always a waste. 50 health per second to Ramattra while standing in his vortex just isn't enough to justify the positioning and cooldown commitment, since you can rarely get the full mileage out of both the healing and damage. Plus there's just the major (no pun intended) of not picking the airbust alternative.

So for the replacements, I wanna add more to Nemesis Form, which none of his current perks benefit directly. This might be because any perk that benefits the regular form swap ability also benefits Annihilation, which could be a lot for one minor or major perk to do. My counterpoint though is that now Nemesis form is his least engaging aspect with Void Surge and Vengeful Vortex making Omnic form a much more competent burst damage dealer and an even better tank buster by comparison. I don't think this mode needs more power, and Ramattra as a whole certainly doesn't need more sustain, so let's instead replace these two subpar options with:

Pummel Shockwave (minor perk 2): Pummel projectiles now travel 50% farther, but deal reduced damage beyond their normal range.

(Notes: Not my favorite idea of the bunch, but this should make Pummels easier to land on enemies just outside of your max range escaping with barely a sliver of health. May be too "safe" of a pick, but creates more of a dynamic with Void Surge when determining whether you want to get more reliable damage with your lower-uptime form, or more damage that takes more skill to use in your less durable form.)

Nimble Nemesis (major perk 1): Hold Jump next to a wall in Nemesis Form to climb up a short distance. However you have 100 less armor* when entering Nemesis Form.

*(Currently the Armor gained from Nemesis Form is 300, increasing Ramattra's total health from 500 to 800 in 5v5 role queue. This would be lowered to 200 extra for a total max of 700 with this perk.)

(Notes: This is kind of a wild one I think I made as a joke a while back, with Hazard's release I loved the idea of Ramattra using his big lumbering arms in Nemesis Form to pull himself up short ledges. This would be even weaker range than Hazard's Vault, but would still be just enough to give you a ton of new positions for free, aside from the cost of Nemesis Form's cooldown. This could be incredibly strong though given Ramattra's insane damage negation potential, so in exchange for that flexible of a movement option, it felt fair to give him a cut somewhere else to his defensive power. This could've been a nerf to Block's effectiveness or to the form swap's cooldown or duration, but I figured lowering the health gain would have the right amount of tradeoff and increase in counterplay while not harming Ramattra's feel to play as severely. Plus it felt logically intuitive, like his armor is lighter and thus less durable but more maneuverable. As a counterpart to Vengeful Vortex this gives a much harder choice between burst damage and stronger CC versus mobility, both things Ramattra very much wants but doesn't have much of by default. V-Vortex is a lot more skill-dependent and is more helpful in some matchups but can get value in any scenario, while Nimble Nemesis would be simpler to use but requires making use of map-specific geometry to make use of, and would be a waste on maps without useful high ground.)

Now from my second favorite tank to my all-time favorite:

Reinhardt:

Rein, unlike Ram, got some pretty shoddy perks, with both his minor picks being pretty hard to make use of and his major perks being undertuned. Shield Slam is probably underrated right now, and it'll take time figuring out how to weave it into his normal melee combat, but the cooldown is fairly high in comparison to his squire's much more innately useful counterpart.

Crusader's Resolve meanwhile is kind of just pathetic, only speeding up how fast your global passive health regen kicks in while your shield is up. That's 2.5 seconds just to start healing like, 50 health per second, which on Rein is kind of pathetic, especially given how long it requires you to be holding up your shield instead of do anything else. Fiery Uptake is better, restoring your Barrier's health equal to how much Fire Strike damage you deal, but this is a lot smaller of an amount than you think it'd be relative to how much health your shield has overall. Crushing Victory sounded a lot better on paper than it did in practice, with half of your damage dealt from a charge pin being a mere 150 max of a reward in overhealth.

Fiery Uptake is almost fine, but I think the reward it grants is going to the wrong health pool. Instead of giving it to your barrier's health, we're stealing Crushing Victory's stat of giving you 50% of the damage dealt by Fire Strikes to Reinhardt directly as overhealth. This is a much more significant reward despite being numerically less just because of how much more you can do with your shield down, letting you actually leverage that extra health. This might need a cap of some kind though, so let's say it maxes at 200 total overhealth.

For his other minor perk meanwhile, here's another Fire Strike-based one that can act as a sidegrade.

Burnout Strike (minor perk 1): Fires Strike projectiles travel 50% faster, but become smaller and deal less damage as they travel.

(Notes: This one would let Rein realistically pressure from longer ranges, actually scaring ranged enemies with realistic damage, though the damage at longer ranges is less threatening to compensate. Between Fiery Uptake and this, the choice between greater sustain from landing your fire strikes or more reliable mid-range and long-range shots at the cost of reduced potential damage sounds much more compelling.)

For his new Major meanwhile, I have an interesting idea for a different charge-focused perk:

Drift Thruster (major perk 2): Turn control while charging is increased, and gain 25% increased movement speed for 3 seconds when a charge ends. However, pinning an enemy deals 35% less damage*.

*(Charge currently does 300 damage by default to a pinned enemy. This damage reduction reduces it to 195, letting every hero other than Tracer and mechless D.va survive a pin from full health.)

(Notes: These are aimed at making Charge a much more flexible movement option, letting you aim your charges better and give you straight-up better basic movement for shortly after the ability ends. Being able to more accurately land a pin and move faster afterwards to potentially retreat would be extremely potent if said pin would still one-shot squishies, so the damage reduction would require either the enemy already be at less than full health, or you use your precious speed boost time to land an additional followup swing. There's so many ways a Charge-based perk could go, increasing its control or utility in favor of losing the one shot, I could easily see this going several other ways but this is the implementation I like the most right now.)

Keeping up with my favorites, next up:

Junker Queen:

None of Queen's perks are bad per say, but almost all of them are a little dull. Battle Shout is a fine enough minor perk, being able to boost allied reload speed could absolutely have some fascinating use cases. The rest however all factor into either maintaining Wound damage or otherwise increasing your self sustain. This isn't a bad idea necessarily, Queen is a very easy hero to die as without near perfect play, but none of these perks really change her play style in any meaningful way aside from slightly changing the exact details of her self sustain. There's also just a few mechanics that feel underexplored for Queen that I think a couple perks could really highlight.

Rending Recall, her first minor perk, has a kind of confusing effect, refreshing the wound of an enemy directly stuck by it. This has so minimal impact and just rewards landing direct hits like usual instead of doing anything more interesting with Jagged Blade's mechanics. For its replacement, we'll keep the name but give it a new effect:

Rending Recall (minor perk 1): Jagged Blade does 15 damage on impact and 100% increased* wound damage to all enemies hit when recalled.

*(Currently, recalling a blade through an enemy only inflicts 15 wound damage over 3 seconds, healing Queen at a staggering 11.25 hps per target hit, or 33.75 healing per wound. This increases the bleed damage to 30 total, healing at a rate of 22.5 hps per target and 67.5 damage total per wound.)

(Notes: the intent here is to reward throwing Jagged Blade behind multiple enemies, potentially dealing greater damage and healing you more for successful multi-hits. Landing a direct hit has the added advantage of pulling the single enemy in for a more certain death, but this provides another option for how to get value out of the ability.)

For her major perks meanwhile, I have a great idea but I'm not which of the current ones to keep. Both are about as interesting, with Deep Wounds causing your Scattergun to slightly extend the duration of your inflicted Wounds, while Savage Satiation causes her axe swings to heal 100% of the direct impact damage dealt, on top of the additional lingering lifesteal. Both are good, but still very much encourage playing Queen the same as usual, just with either more wound uptime or more direct burst sustain. No clue which to get rid of, as both encourage wildly different playstyles than:

Magnet Rush (major perk 1 or 2): Carnage is replaced with Magnet Rush ability. Hold the ability button to charge and increase the distance you travel, then release to dash forward* and slice through any enemies you pass through, damaging and wounding them.

*(The animation is the same as her ultimate, Rampage, though with a less extreme particle effect. The dash has similar mechanics to Rampage, with the same physics and third-person angle while charging, but only damages enemies Queen passes through directly and does not apply an anti-heal effect. The maximum charge time is 1 second, while the maximum range is slightly shorter than Rampage's max distance. The damage dealt is 25 impact damage and 40 wound damage over 3 seconds, the same wounds as Carnage. The cooldown mechanics are also shared with Carnage, starting at 8 seconds but being reduced by 2 seconds per enemy successfully hit.)

(Notes: So like. Have you seen Rollout Queen montages? In case you didn't know, Rampage has some insane tech from being used to launch yourself off of map geometry in borderline Doomfistian ways. The tragedy is that this is very stupid to use in an actual game, because it's using an ult for a positioning play. It looks sick when it works, but then you have to wait for your whole ult to do it again. Even beyond that, the intent here is to offer a more mobile and dynamic playstyle by giving Queen effectively her own take on Doomfist's punch, a charged movement option that trades a stun and burst damage for damage over time, self sustain, and better crowd coverage. Admittedly I'm concerned what could happen from chaining the ability into itself thanks to Carnage's cooldown mechanic given to something with much more potential area coverage, but the intended counterbalance is that the charge time will give enemies an opening to react to the next dash. A briefly charged dash can only hit so much, meaning you're less likely to get these big chain hits unless you charge fully or near fully, in which case any number of things can stop you.)

So that's this quick batch of ideas. Obviously these ideas likely aren't perfect, but really the point here is less to offer serious replacements and tweaks and more to have fun theorycrafting ways to utilize this new system by iterating past the current lineup of options. If I had to pick one of these to be implemented it'd be Magnet Dash for Queen, just as the most playstyle-altering option possible, but Ramattra getting a wall climb in nemesis form also sounds good enough for me to consider passing up his current airburst vortex... maybe.

I feel fairly sound in these ideas, I'd like to think I have a pretty sound understanding of how this sort of stuff works, but any feedback is appreciated.

[niuttuc]

Tawnos, Solemn Survivor is my favorite commander and I try to upgrade them a little every set, got any cool tech for this guy? It's all about making tokens, and making tokens that make tokens, and playing cool artifact stuff, and making tokens of cool artifact stuff...

I do have some neat stuff for artifacts, let's start with an innocuous one.

This is a simple artifact that sits on the cheap end for your deck, cycles into another card, makes you a second artifact as a token, makes sure your mana is used because all of that is at instant speed, and then it has a third mode that mostly doesn't matter... But in your deck can allow you to put it into your graveyard if you don't have any other way to bring it back with Tawnos. And then Tawnos can start making copies of it to draw more cards and make more food to feed more activations. It's not the flashiest artifact, but it gives a pretty nice floor for a one drop artifact.

People don't expect the Act of Treason effect from the esper deck, and definitely not one every turn as you keep copying your apple. It puts itself in the graveyard if you need it to, then you can start doing it at instant speed with Tawnos. The tokens legend rule each other, but you don't really care.

If you're editing it with every set I'll assume you've already taken a look at the Big Score artifact stuff and the entire crafting archetype from Lost Caverns of Ixalan, of course, that probably gave you some nice tools. If you haven't, this is a reminder to look at it.

Some of the more fun mana rocks for this archetype, I don't often see Noble's Purse played, but it's particularly nice here to keep generating tokens for Tawnos once you copy it. Misleading Signpost is just very neat to start making instant speed copies of.

Machine-God's Effigy is REALLY good here, but even better if you're aware how it interacts: if you copy something with it, and then later make token copies of it, they will be artifacts that have the text of whatever the original Machine-God's Effigy copied (with the mana ability), whether that thing is still on the battlefield. However, you CAN choose to copy nothing when it enters, and then you'll be able to copy different creatures when you do copy Machine-God's Effigy. It's up to you to figure out when that might be the correct line of play.

Speaking of copies, you probably already know about Phyrexian Metamorph, but Synth Infiltrator went a bit stealthier in the fallout precons. It's trivial to improvise it down to two mana. Sadly, both of these are base 0/0s, so you can't usually do the same trick as with Machine-God's Effigy where you leave them as the original, but they're another way to convert any creature on the battlefield into an artifact. Imposter Mech can though, and just like Machine-God's Effigy, it can sit around immune to creature board wipes and only costs 2 mana.

To have some suggestions that aren't blue: The necron deck is probably one you might want to give a look, plenty of artifact goodies in there. Necron Deathmark is just a good card, an instant speed removal with a big body that ALSO mills you AND happens to be an artifact for extra shenanigans. Imotekh is more specifically for Tawnos's second ability, since activating it exiles an artifact from your graveyard, making two tokens to fuel it again whenever you want to activate it again. It's less good on its own if you don't have more stuff to get artifacts out of the graveyard though, so might not be worth the slot.

[deebormzone]

Deeborm's Big New Year's Gamer Post!

Happy New Year!

Will it be a happy new year? Probably not. But as the Greek philosophers once wrote:

pls rember that wen u feel scare or frigten never forget ttimes wen u feeled happy wen day is dark alway rember happy day

And in the spirit of those wise words, here's some good stuff I've enjoyed recently, as well as some stuff to look forward to in the year to come.

Yet Another Steam Sale

It's been a long time since these sales have been anything special, but for Gamers like me, they're still good opportunities to scan for bargains.

I mainly look for indie games on deep discounts. Bonus points if they're relaxing. I'm an old man now, and if something on screen moves too quickly I panic and drop my mouse.

Wilmot Works it Out

The perfect game for me. You play as a happy square who puts jigsaw puzzles together and then has a cup of tea. I think there may soon be a too-close-to-home subplot about how Wilmot needs to go touch grass, but for now I am safe.

Webfishing

It's Animal Crossing but for fishing only. Also allows the player to talk to freaks online while doing the fishing. Very relaxing, and there's progression! Unfortunately fishing is dull so I can only do this for 5 minutes at a time.

Atlyss

I was pretty skeptical of this one despite hearing about how good an action RPG it is, but then it went on sale and I gave up trying to avoid it. Movement is fast and fluid! But you have to use that speed to skillfully avoid enemies. Harder than expected! Maybe I picked a bad class (rogue?).

Grindstone

I love Match-3 games! But it feels like nobody really makes them nowadays. The most popular one lately is, what, Huniepop? And I'm not usually about that life.

Grindstone isn't a Match-3 but it's close. It has the player drawing a line through colors of enemies, and then you get a bunch of points. Satisfying, but I wish they didn't use so much toilet humor. I hate that shit, literally.

Robo Quest

As part of my endless quest to find a Borderlands game that doesn't have Borderlands humor (see: toilet), I picked up this one. Great so far; despite the action it's fast and fun. Roguelites are favorites of mine since in those, even failure has its benefits.

Additional Gaming (Non-Steam Sale) (Real)

Palworld

I finally got an upgraded computer, so I can finally play this one!

I think I've finally grown out of Pokemon. It just feels dopey these days, and I suspect that's because it always was, I just never cared until now. But the disease (Pokerus?) still festers within me.

Thus, Palworld. It's been doing very well for itself lately! It's not really a Pokemon successor, but it does a lot of stuff with the concept that Pokemon won't do, and I don't mean the factory farming or automatic weaponry. Having your Pals use their powers to help with building and cooking really adds to the team-building feel of the game, while also reducing the tedium of base building.

Fallout 4

As part of my endless quest to find a Borderlands game that doesn't have Borderlands humor (see: toilet), here's Fallout again. I love the series but I've played it exhaustively. To keep things fresh, I'm trying the ultra hard Survival Mode, which should last about 10 more minutes before a roach kills me and I give up.

Against the Storm

This roguelike town-builder has had a bunch of updates since I played it last. For one thing, it's now possible to beat the game. I think.

There are also a bunch of new resources, like "tea". But it's not for drinking - the only use for tea is something called "treatment" at the "Tea Doctor". I don't know what that means, but the people in my settlement love it so much that I win games due to accumulated happiness. Until proven otherwise, I'll assume the Doctor pours it directly onto people's heads.

The Game Awards 2024

I got tricked into watching TGA again this year. I know it's going to be mostly crap, but I fall for it every time anyway. Fortunately they got the top shelf Muppets to attend this time.

I don't really care about the awards themselves. I'm mostly in it for the reveals. But there were some good ones!

Dog Game 2 is frankly astonishing. Team Clover's revival also means Viewtiful Joe could be back on the table as well, but I won't get greedy. This game will do for now, and I look forward to its release in 2035.

Project Century is also interesting. I don't know if it's Yakuza or what, but it sure looks like it. LaD Ishin was a lot of fun in its historical setting, and this could be similar.

It's a lot of fun seeing Balatro nominated for Game of the Year at the Game Awards (and elsewhere). The game industry nowadays is made of billion dollar projects worked on by thousands of people, all of whom get laid off five minutes before release. And this year, sitting next to them at the pinnacle of the medium, is one guy with a deck of cards.

The most dramatic depiction of this is the Game Awards GOTY medley, which is always a highlight of the show.

Nowadays the Game Awards gets more viewers than the Super Bowl, and here on the world stage is the main theme - and only song - from Balatro being played by full orchestra right next to fucking Elden Ring. That poor solo dev must feel like he's in a permanent, waking dream.

My one complaint about Balatro is that it means my beloved UFO 50, probably my own GOTY, got snubbed in every indie category. Mossmouth worked on that gargantuan collection for years and years, and deserved better. I hope it shows up again for a console release - it'd be perfect on Switch.

The Future Of Gameing

There's some good stuff coming up soon.

Firstly is Dog Game 2 (pirate edition). This will be short for an RGG game but I'm down for anything the studio puts out.

One day later is Civilization 7, which is currently PC Gamer's Most Anticipated Game.

This is actually a very big deal for me. I grew up playing Civ 2, back when you would earn fabulous AMVs for building world wonders.

And lately I've been playing a LOT of Civilization. It's the perfect old man game.

Of course Civ 7 screwed up the whole series formula and is going to be a lot more expensive, but that's true of any new installment of anything. It's possible the changes to core systems could actually make a more enjoyable game.

Also the playable leaders are getting real crazy. You get to be Machiavelli.

He claimed that his experience and reading of history showed him that politics has always involved deception, treachery, and crime. He advised rulers to engage in evil when political necessity requires it, and argued specifically that successful reformers of states should not be blamed for killing other leaders who could block change.

Speaking of which, the Switch 2 is likely to release this year.

I'm not too excited about having to buy another console. Nintendo hasn't been great lately - probably because they're getting ready for Switch 2 - so they'd need some solid launch titles to grab me. It would take either

A new 3d Mario AND a new 3d Zelda

or

Smash

In Closinge

This might be the year I get back to work on my own game, Evil Justice.

Right now, it's a story with 146,000 words, with about a four-hour playtime. I think it's the most successful project I've ever had!

But between the effort required and my demanding job, I've fallen off. Lately, though, I've been feeling some of that old drive... fingers crossed.

That's all for now. I hope everyone has a very good 2025! If I've learned anything, it's that self-esteem is the key, so make sure to treat yourself like a friend.

[imaginespazzi]

Bestie bestie bestie!

Hello :) Where to even begin after so much time.. I guess first I'll note that my last anon to you is starred below just so we can follow the thread of last convo somewhat (and honestly just wanted to ensure you knew I at one point wrote in over you hiatuses)..

Ok on to more new stuff: Biggest news is Im off to the wifeys motherland (ironic a bit as I believe shes currently playing in my fatherland). I'll report back on food a day drink 😋 ca va?

Yay Liberty, they did it! 🗽Plenty of kudos to the Lynx as well. Was a great series all around. Even if my nerves barely withstood those overtimes & dramatic endings.

Coaching movement in the W continues to make my head spin. OMG the Thibaults are gone, didnt see that coming tbh! I remain seated for all the hirings/happenings to come. And cant believe we're almost to the lottery selection w still so much upheaval in place 🤯

Hope all is well w you despite lifes busyness. Take care

** Hi hi hi bestie! Yes that anon was me ha. I realized after sending that I left of my emoji signature, but was pretty sure youd connect things, given some hyper specific topics ha. Hope life is treating you alright apart from just being busy!

Im personally just relieved that the Libs managed to even things up last night, while still trying to process the 2nd half & OT of game 1 lol. That one was all just absolutely bonkers. Crazy entertaining, even if it hurt my NY supporting heart at the time.

When it comes to the coaching moves, def in agreement that Indy doesnt deserve good things. What do you make of who the Valks named HC? Seems a good hire to me at a quick glance, but Im also leery of anyone who might be involved w the Aces lawsuit ordeal (tbf Im not super well informed on that, but dont believe Ive ever seen her referenced w that stuff). Yeah objectively I dont feel that a (random) late winning run/playoff push, external circumstances w the standings aside, was worth dropping your odds of getting #1/Paige from like 30 to 10 %. Still struggle to understand why they ended up trying to fight the path that established itself early on. Granted kind of unexpected and extreme circumstances, but still, lemons to lemonade if you will. Im not feeling eager for the draw next month..

Honestly it will be interesting now to see/follow any Liz activity while she hits the offseason as college ball starts up soon. Curious to see if any crumbs or reactions come up at all. W those two seeming to be at an avoidance phase, another college wbb couple needs to step up and provide us w some (non toxic) drama to follow over the season ha! Not you tho Pazzi, you stay lovely/wholesome/stable/healthy

One additional GH note - I obvi live for snark, so wanted to share my fav lines from Ch 10

“Won’t somebody please think about the complications” Jana in full menace mode and so funny. "I mean other than the woman you married as well that is" The fact that Azzi will not ever say her name I just love. I also have this idea that Stephie, when older and knows pretty much everything re her parents history, will continue the she who shall not be named thing in support of her mama. (And Im not entirely discounting the possibility of a bit of real time drama w Olivia that wont help w this whole Azzi grudge).

Wishing you a good start to the week!! -☕️ **

Hi hi lovely I missed you <3

Ah babes that must have gotten lost in my sea of asks because I've been so bad about answering them. It's funny how much has change since whenever you sent that thought because the W has become a revolving door of coaching changes.

I really like the Valks HC choice. She's been very effective with the LVAces and I expect that to continue. Same with the recent news we go today of Tyler Marsh with the Sky. I think LVAces coaching staff in general is so strong and them branching off is good for the league and both the Valks and the Sky with these coaches and a little bit of time for player development should eventually be really good. Ultimately the lawsuit is a front office issue and I don't think these two had much to do with it and so until I see issues in their new respective teams, I don't think we can hold it against them.

LIBERTYYYYYYY. So happy for them and of course props to the Lynx. And honestly thank you to both teams for giving us what I think, despite that one foul, is the greatest W finals we've ever had.

THE THIBAULTS ARE GONE. You were one of the first people I thought of when I saw that news. Honestly I have no idea what to think. I really didn't see it coming and as much as I've done a lot of nepo baby this nepo baby that, I don't necessarily know if this is the right choice but I'll wait to see who they appoint as the head coach to really figure out my thoughts.

Lottery in 2 weeks?? What the actual hell? Like y'all we're likely gonna know where Paige is going before we even see Azzi on the court and that's insane to me.

OOOOH I have some CWBB drama if anyone wants it. Did y'all peep Last-Tear's Poa's shady insta caption she deleted? Her and Sam'yah Smith were a thing and streets are saying maybe she cheated?

Pazzi are being wholesome as always. "Silly girl" - what if I jump off a cliff :)