#i'm getting a free 5 star regardless of my points anyway

[rubys-domain]

feeling super bleh rn

[hananoami]

Oh my goodness... lemme tell y'all about my pulls for Entwined Shadows limited-time banner; it was a wild adventure. I managed to pull and obtain all three new memories within 200 pulls to obtain all of the Romantic blessing rewards, but the order and way Floral Promise, Snowy Serenity, and 21 Days came was definitely unexpected. I can't tell if I was lucky or if unlucky; regardless I'm still really happy/excited that these stellar memories are apart of my collection, heh~ ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

For my 1ST PRECISE WISH I selected ZAYNE (ofc I had to go for him first), but I lost the 50/50 to Rafayel's [Floral Promise] in 61 pulls. It wasn't a bad thing since I was going to roll for him anyway so I was glad to get his memory like this. It took me another 61 pulls to get Zayne's guaranteed [Snowy Serenity], however, I had a surprise 5-star memory pop up along with him! Xavier's [Precious Bonfire] came home too, but I already fully ranked out that memory... Still, this gave me a new achievement -- Surprise Encounter -- bringing me to 150 achievement points!

I also learned today that if there's a selector active where your wish point is 1/1, even if you pull multiple 5-stars in that pull with your guaranteed, it does not count towards your pity for your next 5-star. I'm not sure if I explained that well... [Precious Bonfire] should have been my soft pity, but because I had the Precise Wish active for Zayne it did not count towards my next Memory. Kinda unfortunate, but it is what it is.

My 2ND PRECISE WISH was for XAVIER. I thought it would have been a guaranteed pull, but nope. I lost the 50/50 in 67 pulls to Zayne's [Snowy Serenity] bringing him to R1. By this point I already had 190 wishes made. The Romantic Blessings reward for 200 wishes made this banner was the Affection Crate, where you can choose one of the three 5-star memories this banner. So I pulled my last 10, didn't get anything aside from the guaranteed 4-star memory, and ended up selecting [21 Days].

I wonder if my Precise Wish pity count will carry over to the next limited time banner? I am 56 54* pulls away from my guaranteed...

*EDIT: I had 2 free tickets from the event shop still so I used them to build my pity (if it carries over to the next banner). My total wishes made on this banner is now 202.

[seriouslycromulent]

My rewatch of The John Larroquette Show (so far)

In my effort to keep my Larroquette obsession thriving, I've recently started a rewatch of The John Larroquette Show. Like Night Court (which I rewatched in 2022), I remember watching this show when it originally aired.

But unlike Night Court, my memory of most of the episodes is a bit fuzzy. I remember the main characters and their personalities just fine, but not so much what happens in terms of the storyline.

Regardless, I'm enjoying the rewatch, and I'm pleasantly surprised by how much the show holds up over time, how evergreen the topics are, and how strong the jokes are. Seriously. They are constantly telling jokes that I swear are as old as vaudeville, but they kill in terms of laughs from the audience and from me as well.

Example: In s2e8 "The Book of Rachel," Mayim Bialik guest stars as a young hippie-ish woman named Rachel who shows up in hopes of finding out if John Hemingway (JL's character) is her real dad. She's narrowed down the search to 3 men who knew her mom, who was living wild and free back in the '70s, around that time.

When John asks how her mother's doing, Rachel says, "She's doing pretty good. She's been clean for about 5 years now." John, a recovering alcoholic who's been sober for 1 year, says, "That's great! So no more drugs and booze, huh?" And Rachel says, "Oh no, there's still plenty of drugs and booze. She's just been bathing regularly for 5 years."

I'm not telling it very well in writing, but I swear to you, that joke is funny as hell, and Mayim and JL's delivery is perfection. Plus, it got a huge laugh from the audience, which speaks to its timeless nature.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a thought or two on the show so far. (I'm on episode 12 of Season 2, just in case anyone wants to know the context.)

Here are some random thoughts I've had so far:

Like Night Court, the show does a solid job of mixing comedy and drama. The first season is a bit more drama heavy because they dealt more with the recovery storyline, but I think it still worked and the whole concept is still pretty daring (i.e., revolving around the unglamorous lives of people who work in and around a bus station at night) even compared to today's sitcoms, which still tend to play it safe.

JL's hair in the first season is absurdly long. Or at least it gets to be absurdly long about halfway through the season. And it's not a good look. Not because he looks bad with long hair, but because it looks like it takes a lot of upkeep. And a man who is working 3rd shift at a bus station and lives in a halfway house/SRO building doesn't seem like he'd have a strict hair care regimen to make it appear perfectly tamed at all time. Seriously, at one point I had to ask out loud, "I wonder if they curl the ends with a curling iron or do they use rollers?"

This may be the first TV show I ever saw Chi McBride in. Despite seeing him on plenty of TV shows and films over the years, I never knew he had such a lovely singing voice. I'm glad they gave him a chance to share his singing talent. His version of "Danny Boy" in season 1 was very good.

The 2 corrupt police officers who blatantly flaunt their bias and awfulness are both funny and a great commentary on what was happening in America at the time (i.e., the Rodney King police beating, and the aftermath of the verdict was still very fresh in everyone's minds then). Sadly, it is an evergreen topic for the U.S., but I think it says a lot about the writers for TJLS that they attacked the subject so openly and didn't shy away of being critical of police or lampooning them. I don't think a modern American sitcom would approach the subject so brazenly and unapologetically today. JL has said in a number of interviews that the show was kind of ahead of its time. And I'm inclined to agree with him, at least in some areas.

It's so cool going back to watch old TV shows and catching actors who have now become bigger names in the business. I just watched an episode with Jane Lynch working as a mental health care professional. Of course, this was way before she found success on Glee and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Does JL manage to work in a reference to Samuel Beckett into everything he works on starting with this series? It's starting to function as his own career Easter egg at this point. I'm not complaining. Just wondering.

I know Don Reo created the show, but I suspect JL had a small amount of his life's adventures and details shape the John Hemingway character (like the Beckett references, his running commentary on anything that happened in the 1960s, his openness about being friends with anyone from any background, etc.). But the only way to truly know this is for JL to 1) tell us in Q&As or interviews, or 2) write an autobiography already, dammit!

In s2e1 "Changes," JL sits down in a chair by swinging his leg over the back of it, and I immediately thought of the Riker Maneuver. I know JL did it before Jonathan Frakes on TNG, but it will always be the Riker Maneuver to me.

Another way the show was ahead of its time was in its portrayal of sex workers and trans people. Most of the time, it's played for comedy on the show (I mean, it is a sitcom after all), but there's a very real attempt to share stories of Carly, Teddi and Pat that are humanizing. Teddi and Pat are trans sex workers, but they are accepted by most (not the male cop) and aren't just the butt of jokes. They even get included in simple things like group poker games and asked to watch the lunch counter when Dexter runs off to do something or other. That might seem like not a big deal, but at that time (the mid-90s), most inclusion of hookers and trans folks on TV usually involved heavy drama like trying to save them from their lives or begrudgingly acknowledging that they were a part of society with disdain and ridicule. And the overall acceptance of Carly as a friend and possible love interest without trying to save her or judge her was also a bit ahead of its time. And when there were moments of judgment, they were faced head on and challenged.

[harvestdew]

Yo sorry if this question takes a while to awnser, but if Cleo and Kiki were NPCs what do you think thief heart events will be like? If you don't want to awnser this that's fine, I'm just curious.

no problem! i actually need a break from my essay anyway i wrote 4 pages and it took me 5 hours/made me stressed, so this is a good way to decompress for me!

kiki’s 2 heart event - standard, boring 2 heart event... enter pelican town on a sunny day anywhere from 9am to 4pm. you see kiki on her way out of pierre’s and her grocery bag breaks. you have 4 options:

ask “are you okay?” and help her (+30 friendship). kiki is embarrassed someone saw her, but says “thank you so much for helping me! that was pretty funny, wasn’t it? i guess i bought too much”

“i didn’t see anything” (no effect on friendship). kiki just laughs it off

ignore her/do nothing (no effect on friendship). kiki goes “...” before telling herself she’s so clumsy and running off

“wow, that was dumb of you.” (-50 friendship) kiki, trying to remain deadpan, responds “yeah, you’re right”

kiki’s 4 heart event - (similar to leah’s 4 heart event) enter kiki’s house when she’s there. for some reason, she doesn’t notice you entered and you hear someone else talking unintelligibly on the landline, but she isn’t responding. after a while, she hangs up without saying anything, notices you, and jumps, asking “have you been here the whole time?” you have 3 options:

lie and say “i just got here” (no effect on friendship). kiki sighs and says “oh, okay. that’s good”

"who was that?” (no effect on friendship). kiki goes “...” and tells you it was just an annoying telemarketer. then she asks if she can help you with anything

"are you okay?” (+20 friendship). kiki tells you she just got an unwanted call from someone she doesn’t want to talk to but doesn’t elaborate. she mentions being worried someone’s going to come over, then realizes you’re still there and laughs it off as a joke, trying to cover it up with a random fact about tulips

kiki’s 6 heart event - (similar to haley’s 6 heart event) enter the cindersap forest from 5pm to 9pm while it’s raining. kiki spots you (“!”) and asks for help, explaining her cat (ghost) ran away because she didn’t properly lock her door and the storm blew it open (this literally happened to me and my cat didn’t come home for 3 days LOL). she explains how important her cat is to her. you have 2 options:

"i’ll help you find him!” (+30 friendship)

“just get another cat?” (-30 friendship)

either way, you can walk around the cindersap forest and click on a bunch of shrubs. the cat will come out of one of them and you bring it back to her. kiki hugs you and says she felt too guilty to ask anyone else for help. she also points out because it was raining you should go back inside before you get sick, so she offers to walk you home 

also: fun fact the farmer replaces sebastian in here because this was something i wrote for him, but it feels like a good 6 heart one imo

kiki’s 8 heart event - done here!

kiki’s 10 heart event - (similar to emily and maru’s) you get a letter in the mail from kiki that says something along the lines “come by the forest tonight!” if you enter the cindersap forest from anytime between 7pm to 11pm ONLY during the summer you’ll trigger the event. it turns out she wanted to look at constellations with you and borrowed maru’s telescope. kiki starts talking about how she was figuring out how to make up for you finding her cat but didn’t want to do anything boring. you only have 1 option:

"wait, is this a date?” (no effect on friendship)

kiki gets MEGA embarrassed, explaining she thought it was obvious but isn’t going to be mad if you don’t like her. you now have 3 options:

"wait, i do like you!” (no effect on friendship). kiki goes, “seriously? you mean it? i’m so happy!” and you resume the date. before the cutscene ends, she has you look at some stars and explains the story of altair & vega which originated in china (“have you heard about the story of altair and vega? it’s about a cowherd and a weaver girl who fell in love but were separated by a river which is supposed to be the milky way. it’s sad, but once a year a bunch of magpies form a bridge and they reunite. romantic, right?”)

“i’m sorry, i don’t like you” (no effect on friendship). kiki tells you she understands, explaining you’re just as good of a friend and will be fine

“ew” (-30 on friendship). kiki sighs and tells her she better return maru’s telescope

as for cleo i have no idea if cleo would be a marriageable npc... we’ll see. let’s get to her heart events though (excluding her 10 heart event)

cleo’s 2 heart event - enter cleo’s room whenever she’s in there. cleo asks why you didn’t knock out of annoyance, but gets over it to complain she smells like fish (because she’s a fisherwoman LOL). you have 2 options:

“if you hate the smell of fish so much, why are you a fisherman?” (no effect on friendship). cleo explains she picks up fishing because that’s the 1 condition kiki has if she wants to stay with her free of rent. she complains about her cousin for trying to teach her some work ethic, then goes on to say she can’t wait til she and whatever sam’s band is called gets famous and she can stop fishing

“not my problem” (-30 friendship). cleo gets irritated and tells you “look, i didn’t ask to be a fisherwoman, okay? i hate farming and mining doesn’t make that much money. why are you even in here?”

cleo’s 4 heart event - enter pelican town any time during the day when it’s sunny. you overhear haley berating cleo with a magazine (even though they’re friends), who asks why she never mentioned she modeled. cleo gets annoyed and tells haley to back off because she doesn’t want to talk about it. you have 2 options:

do absolutely nothing (-30 friendship). haley finally walks off; cleo looks at you and goes, “what are you looking at? don’t listen to stuff that isn’t any of your business”

tell haley to stop (+30 friendship). haley sighs and apologizes to cleo for being nosey and leaves. cleo awkwardly thanks you and says something offhand like “i guess you’re cool” before running off

make up an excuse to pull cleo aside like “cleo, i don’t get how to use my fishing rod, can you help?” (+50 friendship). cleo thanks you for not making a huge scene and sighs. she explains haley figured out how used to be a model and wouldn’t stop asking why she quit. she also mentions she knows you probably want to know and claims it’s just “stupid personal garbage” and “the modeling industry is shit”

cleo’s 6 heart event - enter cleo’s room whenever she’s in there again. you find her mumbling to herself out of annoyance before she notices you and greets you. then, she explains she just figured out that everyone in her old band seems to be doing really well and she’s worried they’re going to get a gig for the band SHE started. you have 2 options:

ask “what band?” (no effect on friendship). cleo explains her mom wouldn’t let her go to a gig for the band to punish her, leaving them without a bassist. she says when she snuck out to go, the lead guitarist had immediately replaced her and decided to kick her out of the band, which is why cleo ran away out of humiliation. plus, she thinks their new music sounds like shit 

“who cares? you don’t need them!” (+30 friendship). cleo goes silent before telling you you’re SO right and tells you that good-for-nothing guitarist that kicked her out wasn’t even that good of a guitarist!

“maybe you were a bad bassist” (-50 friendship). cleo gets defensive and tells she was a perfectly good bassist. then she sighs and says she wonders if she’s not as good as she thinks she is and should just stick to fishing, before telling you to get out

cleo’s 8 heart event - (similar to sam’s 8 heart event) cleo shows up to your door when you wake up and gives you a flyer for a battle of the bands in zuzu city. the next day, you go to the venue with cleo and she realizes she’s going up against her old band before freaking out. she tells you she doesn’t know what to do because she’s scared she’ll mess up and prove them right. you have 3 options:

"you can do this!” (+50 friendship). cleo tells you that’s cheesy but you’re right. she goes on to say “screw all of them! i don’t care!”

“who cares? show them what they’re missing!” (+50 friendship). cleo gets pumped and agrees with you before saying, “ugh, what was i thinking? i don’t care what any of them think”

"don’t be a baby” (no effect on friendship). cleo goes “ugh” before begrudgingly admitting you’re right

either way, you get to hear them play like in sam’s 8 heart event. it should correspond with whatever music genre you chose for him in his own events. sam’s band also wins and cleo makes fun of her old band. the lead guitarist gets annoyed and tries to fight with her over it. you have 2 options:

“get him cleo!” (no effect on friendship). cleo punches the lead guitarist off the screen the way pierre punches morris at the community center

“ignore him, he’s just a loser” (no effect on friendship). cleo says she guesses taking the higher road is better and doesn’t wanna mess up her hands

regardless of what option you pick, at the end of the cutscene, cleo thanks your farmer for encouraging her not to giving up and how she couldn't have done it w/o your help

okay that’s it! i’m sorry for taking so long to write this, but i hope it was interesting and i promise really appreciate the ask <3 it was fun to write

[him-e]

Hi, I'm the anon who wrote the 5 asks about the Dany plotline and GRRM. I'd like to apologize to u for lashing out, it was uncalled for and u have every right to state those opinions regardless of what I (or anyone else) think. Feeling hurt by the show wrt Dany's story made me react badly to the idea that it was actually acceptable, especially coming from someone whose ideas I appreciate so much and have spent hours invested on. You can answer them, delete them, idk, I just wanted to say sorry.

No need to apologize, anon! I’m currently on semi-to-full hiatus and that’s why I’m being so slow at answering messages—and yeah, I understand the frustration completely, and I don’t blame you for it. ;))

I’m going to answer your ask anyway. Long reply after the cut:

I hope this doesn’t come off as offensive or confrontational bc that’s not the point, I’ve enjoyed reading your ASOIAF/GoT and TB metas for years and would not reply to them if I weren’t invested on them. That said, I’d like to ask why do you insist on 1) arguing that Dany’s dark turn was reasonable if you don’t hate her and 2) defending D&D and blaming GRRM for what happened on the show. When it comes to 1), sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented (in that she had the choice to not kill anyone but did). You argue that that direction was valid of because of the recurring theme of how power corrupts, but then I’d argue, what if it were Sansa, another character very much involved in the world of politics? Would you be ok if people argued that it’d make sense for her to give up her ideals and become just as power-hungry and cynic and bitter as Littlefinger? Probably not; what’s the point if those characters become their worst possible selves? Dany was made a villain, was implied to be mad and was called “your satanic majesty”. I really can’t see how you could call those writing decisions valid. When it comes to 2), I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

The reason why I maintain that the show’s ending is a (badly written) version of GRRM’s ending is that I can 100% see Martin’s blueprint in the climax+anticlimax structure of the season. The way it twists the audience’s expectations and delves into what happens AFTER the final battle is won, the way it subverts the most reliable narrative conventions and, instead of building up in a crescendo towards a final spectacle where the heroes would sacrifice their lives to save the world in a blaze of glory, it shifts gears almost unpleasantly, slows down to show what happens to them once their heroic purpose is fulfilled and zooms in on their identity crisis, their depression and isolation and sudden lack of purpose… it’s all too deliberate, and IN MY PERSONAL OPINION it’s done with a vision in mind—something I don’t believe d&d would spontaneously put any effort in, especially not if GRRM had already served them a perfectly fine, crowd-pleasing endgame involving Dany’s heroic sacrifice against the Others.

I understand my stance might come across as “defending d&d and blaming GRRM”, but I’m really not? I’ve often repeated how I believe d&d messed things up and that GRRM’s version will make infinitely more sense and be infinitely better written, and I’m sure he will avoid the pitfalls of cynical, circular storytelling, because he’s ultimately a better writer and someone who believes in idealism and true heroism even as he deconstructs it. How can the overall narrative remain uplifting & give a message of hope and faith for humanity while still telling a story that ends with Dany’s descent into “true villainy” (but haven’t we repeated ad nauseam that heroes and villains are too reductive categories for asoiaf?), I don’t know, but it’s not my job to figure it out, and I ultimately trust & respect Martin’s vision and ability to tell the story HE wants.

sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented

1) I’ve always conceded that, while I think the gist of the storyline is Martin’s, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the battle of King’s Landing will go as we’ve seen in the show, or even happen at the same point of the story (for one thing, Young Griff & JonCon will probably be involved, and that seems more likely to happen before, and not after, the war for the dawn);

2) That said, what I’m relatively confident of, at this point, is that Dany will NOT die in the WftD as a self sacrificial hero (this is entirely FANON SPECULATION, and people treating it like a fixed point in the universe, something the narrative is “inevitably” building towards, is one of the reasons the fandom seems unable to critically analyze show!Dany’s evolution without going hysterical about it and resorting to no true scotsman arguments. I’ve often complained about the dangers of elevating fan theories to canon status, and trust me I never wanted to go full cassandra about this, but here we are). The details and plot points leading up to this might be wildly different from the show’s version, but I think Dany will survive the WftD, which will leave her directionless and purposeless and doubting the truth of her heroic destiny for the first time in her life after she hatched the dragons, and that she’ll cross the ultimate moral horizon in a hail mary to restore that sense of self, that sense of purpose, completing her parabola from princess in rags, to breaker of chains, to conqueror, to savior of humanity, to conqueror again, to TRAGIC HERO. How can this be a valid writing decision, you asked—well, why shouldn’t it? Is something only valid as long as it pleases the audience? What screams tragic hero more than the hero turning into the very thing she swore to eradicate, and realizing it only when it’s too late? There’s something genuinely chilly in Dany’s “if I look back, I’m lost” refrain. This is the mantra of someone who thinks the only way to stay alive is to cross one threshold after the other. So far this coping mechanism has brought her higher, and higher, and higher. But what if it will be her downfall? “I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell”, indeed;

3) Dany’s burning KL *accidentally* is like Stannis burning Shireen “but only if the circumstances are dire enough / the stakes are high enough”. No offense, but this is typical stan logic: you admit the possibility that your faves might go through a dark phase but you don’t want to have to unstan them, so you want them to do bad things for good reasons, or because there’s no other choice, or because “they didn’t know”. That’s understandable, but I don’t think Martin is the type of writer to give his character free passes or soften the blow of their moral crucibles like that. This is NOT to say that the show did Dany’s dark turn WELL, because it DIDN’T—her motivations were all over the place, the turning point (the bells) wasn’t believable because it lacked connection to her character arc, the narrative backed away from showing the attack from her pov which betrays the writers’ inability to make sense of this psychological downfall from HER perspective, etc. But to say “Dany will NEVER! BURN! INNOCENTS! ON PURPOSE!” sounds very, very premature to me.

(re: Sansa, hasn’t power corrupted her too, to an extent? Hasn’t she lied, schemed, manipulated, spilled secrets, in order to restore & secure the Stark hold on the North? Isn’t she queen, in part, because the rest of her family was scattered at the four corners of the known world? I’m not particularly happy with the way she was written this season, and I think some of her choices were questionable; but at the same time I reject the idea that a character ending up more flawed, or morally ambiguous, or less likeable than they were at the beginning must necessarily be bad storytelling)

I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

Martin is not responsible of the show’s writing, but he is responsible of the outline he gave to the showrunners, and right now I have no reason to believe they didn’t follow it, at least for the most part. For years I’ve been told that “the show is not the books”, and while that’s certainly true, I can’t, and won’t, separate the show from the books when it comes to book speculation, because the show is still for all intents and purposes an ADAPTATION of the book series, and while it’s irresponsible to expect it to be a 1:1 transcription of what will happen in TWOW and ADOS, it’s also equally (imo) irresponsible to act like the two canons have nothing to do with each other and that it’s stupid to use the show as a resource for book speculation. If people want to pretend the show never happened, good for them, but that’s not the way I think, personally. I don’t blame GRRM for the show’s faults, and my reservations are actually 90% about the EXECUTION of the plot which is ENTIRELY on d&d, but there’s a 10% of my concerns that is about the IDEA in itself, regardless of context and execution—the idea of the story ending with a bittersweet anticlimax involving the death/downfall of the MOST PROMINENT FEMALE HERO OF THE SERIES, who is also the carrier of the most subversive anti-establishment political message in the story.

tldr: I’m not criticizing GRRM for what he hasn’t written yet, but I can certainly criticize him for what I think is a (however botched) adaptation of his outline, if the main selling points of said outline are questionable in themselves. No one can convince me that GRRM told d&d that Jon and Dany would die heroically to save the world and they ARBITRARILY decided to fuck it up for shock value or whatever, and just accidentally stumbled onto a more subversive and provocative ending than what Martin HIMSELF was planning. (that would make them two geniuses, even if the execution sucked, lol)

and if i’m wrong about it, well:

but until then…