#it gives creators so much more to work with in terms of mapping out their relationship development

[thatdeadaquarius]

sagau with the language barrier issue except... the creator is sick and tired of trying to ask for things so they do everything themself.

and it gives their followers mass anxiety bc they can't even ask what you're doing... bc they know they won't understand anything...

SUCH A GENIUS NARVI 10/10 GOOD WORK SORRY IM SUPER LATE BUT THIS IS *chefs kiss*

Like, that's literally how I feel like I first played Genshin LMAO

Also this has a cont. Part 2 at the bottom bc tumblr fucking hates me UPDATE I FIXED IT THANK FUCK

Paimon was like "and then we go to Mondstadt- ! NO, not Wolvendom, to Mondstadt! NOT THE THOUSAND WIND TEMPLE WITH ENEMIES OUT OF UR LEAGUE, ENTER MONDSTADT FOR THE FIRST TIME BEFORE U EXPLORE THE REST OF THE MAP!! >:("

SO MANY IDEAS YET SO LITTLE WRITING SKILL GUYS HELP-

Also warning this is ROUGH in terms of spelling and editing and im so sorry abt that! I have my art show today so you're welcome to come back if you want to see it a little more readable tomorrow lmao

Edit Update 4/6/23:

Revised and fixed all the bad spelling and grammar (hopefully) so make sure to give another read if you havent read the cleaned up version lol

I dont have a beta reader so its just me trying my best ok-

Everything was like kinda chaos tbh at first

WOW- MY FIRST 1,000+ NOTES POST??!?! U GUYS, WHAT ARE R YOU DOIN??!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! IM GLAD U GUYS ENJOYED IT SM!! Also look out for more encoded stuff in the future since i mentioned wanting to continue stuff like this + ARG stuff :) <3

Edit 9/7/23: 2,000+ NOTES?? THANK YOU???

Like u wake up under the Irminsul, and u think ur hallucinating a goddamn gacha game for like a solid 5 minutes, or ur lucid dreaming, 

but once u actually took what felt like hours to process that u might actually be in fucking Genshin Impact-

Nahida came running from, somewhere?? Its kinda just very floaty dreamy in here so, unclear, she’s beaming with a giddy little smile (💘)

It’s… so much more than what her game model could manage.

I mean, you knew that, of course you did, but- to see the tiny goddess smiling in person, her cute chubby arms waving in the air, her cheeks all plump with baby fat from her excited smile, pretty green eyes that sparkle only in the way excited toddlers do-

It was just…wow. 🥺

You can’t help it, her sheer carefree excitement, exactly like a child but you know that she must be really overwhelmed with joy if shes letting herself act like that so blatantly, you feel ur muscles tug gently into a smile, you try to muffle it but ur happiness leaks out anyway

She's panting as she stumbles on short chubby legs to reach you.

After just staring at you with those big green clover eyes for a few seconds, she physically shakes her head to knock herself out of it,

Nahida places her hand over her heart, and bows elegantly, going back to looking at you with a small but bright smile, her voice is kind of quiet, muffled in a soft way, much like her game depiction,

“Hzozn! R'ev yvvm dzrgrmt gl nvvg blf! R wrwm'g gsrmp blf dlfow wvhxvmw fmgro R dzh zg ovzhg z uvd gslfhzmw bvzih low!” *

…Nahida begins to look a little concerned… her eyes get impossibly bigger.

…Oh no.

♧

Nahida had apparently quickly spread the news that you can’t understand them, but luckily it seems like all the characters still know you!

Alhaitham is pretty much a constant by your side, you knew he was vaguely studying linguistics in the akademiya… but that knowledge still didn’t prepare you to be intensely stared at with his diamond pupils for hours. 💀

Then he’d tap your shoulder or something, and you quickly picked up that he wanted you to just try and say something.

Then he would scribble for hours.

Turns out they can understand you about as much as you understand Teyvat language (s? You can’t even tell if there are multiple languages, that’s how unrecognizable this language is, damn)

The more extroverted or friendly people, like Venti, Yoimiya, Kazuha, Jean, Noelle, Amber, Xingqiu, Hu Tao, Zhongli, Ganyu, Barbara, Beidou, Collei, Ayaka, Gorou, Nilou

At least attempt to talk to you, and try very hard to watch what you gesture with your hands or body language

They're pretty much ready to play charades at all times for you lol

Interestingly enough, they only ever understood you when you typed in the chat (with other ppl)

But even then not immediately, 

Sumeru scholars basically had to make a whole new department (regardless of how much you play with others) to decipher your ancient language (to them) like those old clay tablets with cuneiform we’re still translating?

Like that, your words appear in elemental magic heavy places (so like that abyss lang. It’ll appear on walls or structures, so like Andrius’ stone colosseum? in Wolvendom gained some of your chat replies inscribed and glowing a rainbow of colors on the top edges of the walls)

Much like the abyss language you see throughout genshin, most Teyvat scholars (across nations/internationally) agreed your language is the oldest form of language known!

It’s like modern languages having roots in older ones, like English with Latin, greek, or German roots, or Sanskrit and the Prakrit for Hindi language today

…so of course no one really speaks the root languages anymore, because they’re so old, so those ancestors who spoke those languages would have little to no understanding of their modern counterparts…

◇

Occasionally if you turned your mic on for whatever reason there would be a gentle whisper on the winds in Mondstadt of your voice,

or your laugh in the waves washing ashore in Inazuma and Fontaine,

your startled noises or screams from battling bosses mixed with the landslides in the mountains of Liyue

So they know what you sound like, but that doesn’t mean they understood your language :/

Nahida had been hoping that you’re actual physical form being here would help improve the language barrier

But unfortunately, those things remained the same, but at least you were physically here to talk to now and give more content for the scholars to study rather than them having to make do with your snippets of language from chats

…so needless to say, it took you a long time to realize they viewed you as a god of sorts.

You kind of knew something was up when at least two allogenes were by your sides at all times, or eremites would replace them if they really couldn’t stick around

You figured they knew you weren’t nearly as combatant-ready as they were at all times, hell you obviously didn’t have a vision hanging off you somewhere, and you only really had a knife strapped to a belt, courtesy of the Thirty Corps

You are still kind of convinced that the people of Teyvat, or Sumeru at least, are just pretty polite (and in the allogenes case, very kind or friendly, even people like Alhaitham or Cyno, resting bitch faces they have, seem to soften a little when they’re walking around with you… maybe you’re just imagining it…)

And as much as you would love to wait until they understand you to do something more fun, as you can see the frustration on Tighnari’s face (and his ears try to flatten back hehe) as he looked like he was debating heatedly with some of the Sumeru sages who insist you stay in the city

…so why not go?

It’s not like they’re going to get it anytime soon, and it’s still too frustrating for yourself to charade things or draw things for them because you can’t even hear their guesses 💀

You can totally handle being like the traveler too, 

You still have access to your inventory afterall! Plus, lucky for you, you still find a pass for the Serenitea Pot in your little pocket dimension!

So now you have somewhere to sleep at night, and while most of your stuff went to the traveler’s pack, the things like Primogems

(which.. Okay now you really want primogems bc theyre so pretty and shiny irl)✨️

And other high-level things, or just objects of no use for the traveler (so basically all your hoarded level up stuff and infinite amount of weapons lol) came along with you

So you did have to wander the first week or so around the city and even commission the Adventurer’s Guild to grab you food supplies to cook with

Filling up, along with a few big waterskins, you’re off!

...and everyone collectively has a heart attack!

◇

When you show up in Ghandaraville essentially all “✨️💖☺️✨️” on Tighnari’s doorstep-

He chokes on the tea he’d been sipping on before he opened the door lol

He looks a little frazzled so you try to just gesture with “calm yourself small animal” energy with your hands

“Tivzgvhg Oliw! R'n- R- sld wrw blf-?! Mvevinrmw, xlnv rm, xlnv rm, ivhg! ...R mvvw gl hvmw z nroorlm ovggvih mld gl ylgs gsv vmgriv xrgb lu Hfnvif, gsv Zxgrmt Tizmw Hztv, zmw gsv Nzgiz nlhg orpvob…” he began out looking at you and talking and gesturing to his small dining table (the game sucks, his house looks great and has lots of cool rooms filled with interesting plants… oooo…so pretty...) 

But then he kinda just devolved into rambling, no need to understand, you can read the vibes and just know that's what he's doing lol

Collei eventually ducks in, and she looks a little panicked?

She’s quickly followed by Cyno, pushing past her to call out into the house,

His voice seems hard and stressed, looking at Tighnari, “Grtsmzir, szev blf hvvm gsv Tivzgvhg Oliw zmbdsviv, gsvb dviv hvvm xlnrmt gl Tszmwziezeroov ozhg-” 

Cyno stops and blinks.

Collei’s mouth is slightly dropped open, she also just, blinks.

You blink. 

Tighnari blinks tiredly, he looks like he’d rather be done for the day, you think.

The doctor sighs, and moves his head to nod towards the other dining seats.

◇

Sumeru foods are so much better looking in real life, and they’re so good too, your practically bloated by the end of dinner, 

As a thank you, bc u cant say it obv, you just gesture for Tighnari to stay sitting, and he gives you a raised eyebrow and a suspicious ear twitch

But stays still, and you reach out to finally hit the eight-pointed star hovering over his, and all playable characters chests at all times.

Like you suspected, it brings up a holographic character menu, but rather than his full model, it kind of hovers in front of Tighnari’s face, replacing his old 3D model self with framing the real thing for a portrait just in front of his face

The poor Denro user nearly jumps a foot out of his chair as he looks in shock at your screen, you do the same “chillll boy” gesture with your hands and press his shoulders for a second to remind him to not run off or panic

Cyno and Collei had done the dishes and put up leftovers, and are now standing behind Tighnari, watching with equally wide eyes,

“...Dszg ziv gsvb wlrmt gl blf?

Cyno’s voice is even deeper and quieter than usual, you feel goosebumps run up your spine

“Ziv blf tvggrmt yovhhvw, Nzhgvi Grtsmzir?!” Collei’s sweet voice is also hushed like she’s witnessing something sacred, Tighnari gently shakes his head negatively in response, his shoulders shrugging,

“Nzbyv? R uvvo... z orggov hgilmtvi, zmw nb Erhrlm rh zxgrmt fk zh dvoo…”

Though he’s replying, Tighnari’s eyes haven’t once left your ancient magic? technology device? hovering in front of him,

and as he crosses his arms and squints to try and look closer at everything floating in front of him, you can see the childlike gleam of awe in his green eyes, (so cute) in fact, now that you glance up and look, both Collei and Cyno have the same quietly excited and fascinated sparkle in their eyes too

With a displeased sneer, you chuck his old level one bow into the material grinding spots, hope he wasn’t attached to that…

Oh well, he’ll like the new one better, afterall, with no characters, all your best weapons and artifacts are ready to use!

With a small smile of reassurance, you finally finish gearing Tighnari up, tap a miniature version of that 8-point star in the corner like an “X” button, and it retreats like a classic TV set📺 turning off into his chest, he startles but then carefully stands

You decide to just start making decisions bc its worked out so far ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And grab his hand and haul him out into the forest, Collei letting out a surprised squeak, her and Cyno hurrying after

You reach the nearest clearing, and gesture at Tighnari like a bow and arrow firing, he gets it, and your glad he already trusts you, because he doesn’t take long to summon his bow

He takes aim at a smaller tree about two cars length away

You can feel them all holding their breathe, as Tighnari charges it with Dendro, the arrowhead glowing, (it looks so cool and badass irl god you feel envious even tho ur already here-)

The ranger lets it fly, it streaks neon green, whistling through the air, it hits the tree-

and it fucking explodes.

Vines and leaves and the trees roots all rapidly swell like theyre filled with water, like it literally got hit by a superhero with plant powers, which, not that far off actually.

The green floating Dendro seeds make a ring around the tree its so full of elemental energy-

You give a wild grin, you still got it, hell yeah. >:)

Your grin widens as you look over at Tighnari, Collei, and Cyno

Cyno has a smirk lighting up his face, eyes eager, Collei’s jaw has dropped and she’s just frozen staring as the tree finally settles from the burst of the dendro powered arrow

…Tighnari has lowered his bow, and his mouth is only slightly open, his ears perked straight up into the air, shaking with excitement? Happiness? Interest? You don’t know how peopl-animal-hybrid ears work,

and you STILL cant talk to any of them to ask what they thought, so looks will have to do >:/

Tighnari is the first to move, his head snapping over to look at you, the brightest, kinda feral tbh, smile taking over his face-

“Blf pmld, dv xzm'g fmwvihgzmw blf, zmw blf fh, bvg R xzm'g dzrg gl hvv dszg rm gsv dliow blf'iv tlrmt gl wl mvcg. Blf'iv znzarmt."

… and you just 🙂? Cool!

And give a thumbs up👍LMAO

☆

Bonus:

Alhaitham was literally running around Sumeru City trying to find you when you left, tho you did try and leave a translatable-in-3-to-5-business days-note, he didn’t have time to translate that because you were gone.

Or worse, lost in the city, and he would never forgive himself if he lost you, esp as Acting Grand Sage-

Kaveh got a letter a day and a half later from Tighnari letting them know you were having a sleepover in Ghandarvaville lol

Kaveh also had to hunt down Alhaitham to give him said news, then force his roommate to go sit or lay down for the rest of the day to recover lmao

(Haitham honestly kinda freaked Kaveh out bc he’s never seen him that... desperate, it was like seeing a statue emote lol)

♡

ARE YOU KIDDING WE ALMOST HIT LIMIT AGAIN?!

Bro has anyone else had this problem???

I literally had to switch from PC to mobile and copy and paste it there to get all my shit in and tumblr not throw a hissy fit???!!!

FUCKING TUMBLR- SUCK MY BIG FAT- 👹👹 UGH

ANYWAYYYY SO I FINALLY CAVED 

And started doing ciphers for when you dont get teyvat’s language! I meant to do something fun like this for awhile but I wasn’t sure if that would be kind of annoying, but if you’re interested in learning what they actually say (which the whole point of this is that dw it doesnt rlly matter lol) here’s a hint:

*hint = Atbash

:> good luck!

Wish me luck on my art exhibition today!! Then I’ll be homefreeeee 😭

Safe Travels,

💀♒

♡ the beloveds ♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist

[healpimp]

#FixTF2 Masterpost: Important Information Regarding the Movement

As promised, here is a comprehensive post about the #FixTF2 movement, the issues it tries to bring up and where to find more information and follow developments.

It is now day 7 of the protest with no response form Valve. Either this is them trying to wait for this to blow over or waiting for the signatures of the petition to be printed out and brought to their office, or they are still preparing a proper response to the movement. Regardless, this protest is still ongoing.

❓What's going on with TF2?❓

I'm sure everyone and their grandma knows by now, but TF2's most popular game mode, Casual, has been plagued by bots for several years by now. This is in fact not the first attempted protest and you may have heard of the one conducted two years ago named #SaveTF2. The movement wrested a response from Valve, which since the first protest has earned infamy and a status as a blatant lie among the game's players.

However, this task has seemingly been abandoned entirely. The last time in recent memory with no bots was when the game upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit, which seemed to break the bots for a while. This was something the bothosters remedied a few days later, and no steps to remove them from the game has been made ever since.

It is worth mentioning that TF2 has had updates to battle the bot issue many times after #SaveTF2. They did indeed move to make TF2 a bot-free game for a while.

❓Why is this even bad?❓

Now, this might seem like a non-problem; TF2 is a video game and no more than that. People could simply move on and play similar games, like Overwatch, Paladins, Splatoon, etc. This would certainly be an easy solution but this has roots much deeper than simply playing a game.

For one, this game has been around for about 17 years by now. Ancient by FPS standards, but that the game is still played and talked about to this day stands as a testament to the love and passion the playerbase and general fandom has for it. The playerbase is loyal, the potential for content is seemingly endless and many are willing to pay money for the game. And therein lies some issues.

TF2 has millions of dollars invested in it by the playerbase. Loot boxes, MvM tickets and any sale made in the community market all gives Valve a steady and reliable revenue stream. This is significant, because you will have to make the assumption that this money will come back to sustain the game from imploding in on itself and remain functional. In the case with MvM, the PvE mode (that has not been updated in QUITE a while), the chances of receiving valuable loot from the missions is actually so small that there is no way to feasibly make any of your money back.

Additionally, any content updates added to the game every event (Summer Update, Scream Fortress and Smissmass) is community made. This means Valve picks and chooses cosmetics, emotes, unusual effects, warpaints and maps made by fans in the workshop.

While the creators of these items are compensated for their work, Valve naturally profits from these content updates.

In shorter terms: Valve profits off a game that has been in a near-unplayable state for more than 5 years by doing next to nothing.

And that isn't even the end of it. This is just the general negligence of Valve. It gets a lot uglier when delving into the punishable crimes conducted by the bothosters.

This video by TheWhat Show talks about this in depth, focusing on a particularly important case that involves MegaScatterBomb, who was harassed, doxxed, impersonated and swatted for trying to develop a working anti-cheat for casual.

This video is also in a document form for those who would rather read.

A more recent development with the bots has been their blatant advertising and promotion of CSAM, which you may better know as CP.

After #FixTF2 started, bots have been found spamming links in text chat that they claim is CSAM, while micspamming disturbing audio into the voice chat that is either edited to sound like or is legitimately CSAM. Valve has yet to respond to these reports, but good amount of players on Twitter/X have already started notifying FBI about this situation.

Another thing worth noting is that the bothosters have actively attempted to take down the petition website by DDoSing it and by filing a fake DMCA claim, both which are punishable crimes.

So to summarize:

It is wholly unsafe to play the game due to the bothosters and their willingness to commit crimes in the name of ruining the game experience.

Valve is profiting from keeping this broken product running, yet refuses to put any meaningful effort into fixing the bot problem.

The community actively contributes to the game by designing cosmetics and maps, and while they are compensated for their work, Valve are the ones who profit the most from their contributions.

Real people have been and are being harmed by the bot problem, and as far as we are aware, no one has been held accountable.

This is wholly unacceptable, both from a professional and unprofessional standpoint. If Valve fancies themselves a corporation worth using money on, their choice to simply ignore the problem speaks volumes of their priorities.

As Valve is releasing their new game Deadlock, there are serious concerns about the security of this game. TF2 is far from the only game that has bot/cheater problems. CS2 has had a similar problem for a long while as well and there is a clip of a Chinese bot farm that has been going around and which has even breached into the #FixTF2 movement.

❓What should we do?❓

Sign the petition while it is still up. At the time of this post, the petition has reached 270k+ signatures. The website has more general information as well.

Add to the #FixTF2 tag on mainly Twitter/X. Tag your posts with it, retweet and like posts in the tag and put the focus on the bots and ONLY the bots. One of the issues of the last movement, #SaveTF2, was that it wasn't focused enough on any particular problem and Valve could get away with making no promises. So, post clips, fanart and rants to your heart's content, so long it is specifically about the bots.

Watch youtube videos with #FixTF2 as the subject. Here are some good places to start:

4. Boycott any transactions in TF2. While Weezy was against this method in his video above, he has since changed his opinion. It has been established that Valve is very unlikely to shut down TF2, since the TF2 community market has millions of dollars invested in it and shutting down TF2 would render all items useless, thereby fully taking away any and all investments any players have put into the game. This would not just be devastating to the general economy of Valve's marketplaces, but a huge blow to their reputation if they want to remain reliable in the eyes of consumers.

5. Don't interact directly with bothosters. This includes harassment and any attempts at doxxing/swatting. These individuals are bigoted and some are even criminals. They have no remorse for their actions and talking to them would be a fruitless endeavor. Refrain from mentioning their names/aliases, as they are fond of attention and are getting just about enough of it since #FixTF2 started.

6. Don't give up.

❓Where can I keep up with any news?❓

Here are accounts to start with if you want to follow any important proceedings regarding #FixTF2:

Weezy (One of the biggest voices for #FixTF2 and spearhead of the protest):

Weezy's Youtube Channel

Weezy's Twitter

TheWhat Show (Similar to Weezy, outspoken supporter and spearhead):

TheWhat's Youtube Channel

TheWhat's Twitter

Shork (Outspoken supporter and generally active in the fandom)

Shork's Twitter

MegaScatterBomb (Creator of the TF2 cheater database and attempting to make a working anti-cheat for casual)

Mega's Youtube

If you discover new information, inconsistencies, broken/repeated/wrong links, etc., please speak up! Use the comments section, reblog with a comment or DM me!

[cult-bull]

Crowns of Sins Thoughts

What's up with the red crown and sin? Why does it promote it? Does it eat it? Does it need its host to grow stronger? (Most certainly making a Crowns and Hosts thoughts posts later too)

Obviously, the sins of the flesh update came later on in the game's development and in interviews I remember the creators talking about coming up with ideas and letting their writers figure out how it fits into the lore afterwards, so who knows how much is intended from the start and how much just came later.

The red crown being able to talk seems to have been there from the start, since it has speech coming from it so to say during doctrine choosing, at least it feels implied now that we know it can speak.

How sins work seems quite separate from the bishops and their crowns… until you try to think about it. Kind of. Maybe it's retroactively fitting pieces into where they could belong but hey, this is my blog and my journal of random cult of the lamb thoughts not proper theory crafting XD

I don't think it works though when just limiting yourself to the Christian seven deadly sins.

Leshy I'm throwing out the window instantly. I'm not sure what sin his chaotic ass could represent, as I'm saving wrath for someone else and even then, Leshy doesn't really seem... wrathful. Angry, loud, first boss energy, but not wrathful. He is the youngest god though, so maybe he just didn't have the time to be that sinful.

The only sin he is so far guilty of is being a weirdly cute follower

Heket is almost too easy in comparison. Gluttony, and even greed in terms of hoarding food from others by causing famines and giving their followers food if they worship well, and possibly because Mida's cave is near it, being pretty close to it on Jalala's map right between it and darkwood

It would be a bit easier to tell if we got more proper lines of where each "territory" of a bishop ends and begins. How large something actually stretches is questionable

Anyway, Heket would certainly fit right into a user of a ritual like the cannibalism one (and regain all her devotion through the mushroom drugs) so it just fits right in there.

Kallamar is where my "seven deadly sin" thing not working comes up. He is not guilty of any classic sin, nor does he promote it. I know we all in the fandom like to make him lustful, partially due to that one bishop hotline video I'm sure, but I'm not sure if anything else points him into a lust category in game though, If yes, feel free to correct me.

However

I do say betrayal and selfishness could count as sinful. He is a scaredy-cat (a powerful scaredy-cat but still), but he rather throws his siblings, especially a broken Shamura under the bus of your vengeful wrath when you come to get him post killing Leshy and Heket, just to somehow live. He's a coward, a backstabber, no matter if he feels bad about it afterwards or not. That feels ripe for a sin.

Shamura is weird too, not because nothing fits, but more because it's speculating about their past self. Their broken mind self is... well, broken. Love them, but clearly something changed about them.

Through the lore tablets in game we learn a young Shamura was the one who asked/threatened the older gods to bow to their old-back-then-new faith and began a war against the many gods with at least I presume, the other bishops.

Shamura is a god of war, of conquest, and probably even wrath back then too. Once again, it feels ripe for sin to have someone who seeks the blood spilled in the battlefield. Again though, that's speculations about a past Shamura.

Narinder is a bit easier again, since one can likely assume pride to be a good sin for him. Prideful as he tried to rise, he fell, and retained his high and mighty pride when thinking the lamb couldn't possibly ever stand up to them until being forcefully shown that fact of life.

And fall he did, like he usually does.

With all the bishops having "access" to a main sin source though (except leshy), they could have easily had a way to make their cults, their temples and more, stronger. In the game, we only upgrade the temple visually, but since a god grows stronger with worship, likely do their crowns as well, and it just helps feed that.

Likely a way of how the new gods Shamura and co rose up to power that much could be through this, though i have other thoughts for later dates too on that (and if Narinder was around back then, having the literal death god as your sibling probably helped in a war too-)

The crowns and their relationship to the gods of new and old need more exploring in general, I feel like. Not just from the game, but like, I want to see other people throw their totally-not-a-crown hat into the ring. Where they came from, how they work, etc.

Ramble times over, did this make sense? Probably not. But I like my randoms to an audience of mostly myself👍

[zahri-melitor]

Newish Comics:

The Flash #7: The Linear Men? The Linear Men??? Si Spurrier, what is cooking in your brain and can you keep giving me a direct line to it? (I mean bringing the Linear Men in a series that also gave us Gold Beetle makes perfect sense because Rip would be so into her but wow. It looks like they've barely been used since Flashpoint too). Also it's fascinating watching the re-establishment of Max and Bart's relationship.

Barry seems to finally have risen out of his ennui a bit, only to notice Something Is Wrong With Linda and then immediately suspect (wrongly) it's Hartley. Still pretty sure Linda's main issue is PPD but it being imposed by an external source is certainly something.

Green Arrow #10: this is another issue that mostly exists for people to hug each other, while Williamson goes 'remember that these people had relationships?' Sean Izaakse's art is just so good in terms of drawing the memory backgrounds so well I can pick out the specific issues and storylines he used as references (Batman + Arsenal shoutout!)

Also, remember when Amanda Waller didn't put bombs in people's heads, she just very occasionally put explosive collars or wristbands on the most dangerous and/or irritating Suicide Squad members? (Like Captain Boomerang?) Because I do. I remember Suicide Squad 1987.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11: part of this is me just being contrary, I know, but I am extremely not convinced we are going to see Maps as an active Robin in a main title, given Kerschl is a Gotham Academy creator anyway, and she's currently getting appearances as Meridian over in Birds of Prey. Gotham Academy continuity is only about 1/4 linked to main book continuity. (Someone is going to try and point out 'they appeared in Robin War' or something but it was an active and new title then, and honestly, nobody writing most Bat titles cares about them. It's its own sub universe. Also this story has Bruce dating Isla MacPherson, something I guarantee will not be followed up anywhere else)

Also imagine being called Karl Kerschl and coming to DC to write? How much time does this poor man spend saying "no, not Kesel".

The Artemis story remains amazing and I am fully supportive of it retconning whatever character crimes it is currently trying to excuse as weird.

Also how did we get so unlucky as to have both a Bat Lash AND a Sgt Rock story in this issue?

Amazons Attack #6: and this tied things off nicely! Honestly for an event that didn't need to happen, Josie Campbell did well with it, featured a whole host of Wonder Woman characters that Tom King's barely interacting with, and added to some relationships between characters that needed additional work.

Alan Scott: The Green Lantern #5: I am sure this is a far more meaningful issue if you care deeply about Green Lantern lore. Also DELIGHTED that the JSA team up in this series actually happens on page rather than in the final splash like in Wesley Dodds: The Sandman. (Wesley Dodds is still the best of the three minis to me, but I'm happy here that we're going to get JSA backup).

The Warlord #45: Previously on Lost World of the Warlord (I said I would) Travis set out to find out what had happened to his daughter Jennifer. He goes back to the village of dwarfs and gets his old sword back (since he chucked Hellfire into a lake), and ends up fighting some Cyclops' that took several of the dwarves to eat. Tragically nothing particularly fun happens here (though a skeleton IS tied to a cross, the bondage isn't involving any characters I care about AND it's just a warning threat)

Also something weird went on with the lettering this issue where what I think were script directions ended up as text boxes for all the scene transitions. If it was a stylistic choice on Grell's part it's a particularly odd one.

[hirazuki]

12, 14, & 16 for the tolkien 20 questions ask game?

12. Tolkien's work contains a lot of interesting themes: devastation of war, things lost that cannot be restored, rebirth/renewal, holding true to one's companions even when it is darkest, and others. Which is the most important to you?

Oh, the subject of creation and destruction and the link between the two, no question! Among my favorite aspects are: creation/destruction being two sides of the same coin, with someone who is primarily a creator becoming a destroyer through his pursuit of perfectionism and order or someone who initially seeks to create turns to destruction as a response to being forbidden but then ends up creating through destruction all the same, for example; exploring the notion of creating so viscerally you pour your soul into it, and what that means for the creation/creator relationship in terms of identity, fragmentation/degradation of soul, etc.; and so much more.

As someone who has both extremely creative and extremely destructive urges, it's a theme that means a lot to me and it's rare to see it handled with such intricacy and on such an immense scale -- parts that belong to different portions of the stories across books that still fit together, the sheer scope of the fictional universe where the microcosm still manages to echo the macrocosm -- as in the legendarium.

14. You are dropped into the middle of the map in the Third Age (that's roughly between Mirkwood and Lothlorien) during the events of Lord of the Rings. Where you are headed first?

So... Dol Guldur's doorstep??? XD Ideally, I'd like to know when in the Third Age this is, but broadly speaking: assuming I don't run into orcs or Nazgul, I'd make my way towards Mirkwood, sticking to the edge of the tree line to avoid both the open plain and the spiders further deep in the forest, until I hit the Old Forest Road and make my way to Thranduil's halls :) I can be very polite and am well-mannered unlike some, and I've no doubt I would be treated well and offered food and rest while I figured out my next steps (I go by book!Mirkwood not movie!Mirkwood :D).

........... in the unfortunate circumstance I did run into orcs or Nazgul and for some bizarre reason was captured instead of killed outright, I'd do my best Pythia impression and bait both them and subsequently Sauron with my knowledge of future events to make myself Too Important To Kill Or Torture, walking a fine line between giving away too much and becoming unnecessary and not giving away enough to be worth the continued hassle; probably kept at Dol Guldur until the move back to Mordor yeah, I'd be aiding the enemy but hey; survival is important to me XD

16. In a similar vein, the peoples of Middle Earth fight in different styles. You have the opportunity to train in one of the armies - which one would you pick and why?

Ooooh, this one is tough. As a swordsman, I'd love to train in any of the armies that had an emphasis on close combat and experience their blade work. Ideally an army that has a lot of frequent engagements with enemy forces, as that tends to give people an edge and an immediacy to their style that others often lack, and it's an aspect I'm essentially addicted to in my own practice (if my sparring isn't realistic enough to drive me, I perform poorly lol). And my favorite Age is the First Age so, I'm going to say the Noldor army under Maedhros at Himring :)

[thenten]

Ben 10 Alien Comparisons: Smart-Alecks

This is part of a series of headcanons (see the tag) that I'll post every once in a while comparing aliens with similar abilities, outlining the differences, advantages, and weaknesses of each one to help establish why one isn't just the blanket best for every job.

We'll be starting off the aliens with Super-Intelligence:

Grey Matter

Species: Galvan.

Home Planet: Galvan Prime.

The original smarty-pants alien, of the same species as the creator of the Omnitrix himself, Azmuth. Needless to say, Grey Matter is Ben's most intelligent alien- not necessarily because they are intellectually superior to their close-competitors (heavily debated topic), but more so that a Galvan being the Omnitrix's creator allows it to more effectively map out innate information of the species neurologically, and produce a pinnacle example of their race.

But just as his strengths are obvious, Grey Matter's weaknesses are even more so- Galvans are small and physically weak, even if proportionately they're actually fairly competent for their size. Grey Matter works best when Ben has a long-term project to work on, but can also jump into an open machine and rewire it from the inside pretty easily if he needs to. Though, there are more ideal aliens.

Brainstorm

Species: Cerebrocrustacean.

Home Planet: Encephalonus IV.

The second genius-level intellect alien for Ben to use, which his Omnitrix recalibrated and gave him a different playlist of aliens. Brainstorm is pretty soundly considered his second smartest alien in terms of general knowledge, and can actually think faster & analyze more information immediately than Grey Matter can, due to his much larger brain (which doesn't equate more intelligence, just the capacity to become more intelligent). Could've been Ben's smartest one, but again, that's debatable and not really the point of the discussion.

Back to the topic at hand, Brainstorm has the significant advantage over Grey Matter of actually being a functional direct combatant, with electrical blasts and shields and levitation and such, which does allow him more versatility than the Galvan.

However, it comes at the cost of turning Ben into a complete smartass who uses big words just because it sounds smarter.

Juryrigg

Species: Planchaküle.

Home Planet: Aul-Turrhen.

Unlocked randomly in Ultimate Alien and initially appearing almost uncontrollable, Ben eventually learned how to make this alien's rabid mechanical prowess work wonders for him.

Juryrigg definitely isn't as smart as Grey Matter or Brainstorm, and he's also not particularity impressive for direct combat on his own- however, he more than makes up for it in the sheer speed at which he's able to work, being capable of completely disassembling full alien robots in seconds, and rebuild them all into one new machine under his command just as fast.

He is the absolute best alien for dealing with a piece of technology under a time limit, and is also just endearing as fuck.

Frankenstrike

Species: Transylian.

Home Planet: Anur Transyl.

While it's not as obvious of a feature of the alien as it is for the others here, Frankenstrike is commonly considered one of Ben's naturally smarter aliens- a version of Ben 10,000 having used him in conjunction with Grey Matter and Upgrade to create an entire new Omnitrix for his son, Ken Tennyson.

This is something that's rarely brought up in the actual series, and has possibly been forgotten... but, not by me. Frankenstrike is definitely not as smart as the former three, but he still gives Ben a useful bit of extra brainpower- particularly, I'd say he's exceptional at medical knowledge, due to it's common practice in his species.

Moreover, Frankenstrike is easily the strongest alien with a superior intellect in terms of actual fighting, having strength comparable to Tetramands and electrical firepower comparable to Shocksquatch.

Gutrot

Species: Unknown.

Home Planet: Unknown.

An alien species Ben still doesn't really know anything about, short of their abilities, which in itself he only learned because Future Animo is an idiot and just chose to explain it to him.

Gutrot is a lot more specialized than Grey Matter or Brainstorm, more along the lines of Juryrigg of having a very specific intellectual niche instead of a wide range of applicable knowledge. For him, obviously, it's chemistry and species biology, giving Ben the capacity to properly create chemicals despite chemistry being his weakest subject in school, showing it's definitively the transformation.

He's also shown impressive knowledge on technology and time travel, even if it's not as applicable with his power set.

Gutrot's versatility is clear as day, he can theoretically create any gaseous chemical compound, for offense or utility.

Special Mention: Upgrade

Upgrade does not grant Ben any intellectual boost- in fact, Ben's DNA actually compromises the capacity of a Galvanic Mechamorph to retain knowledge of technology it's interfaced with and recreate it at will, as the information doesn't translate properly to Ben's mind.

However, he's still an amazing alien for other reasons.

[abigailshorel6]

Stack Magazine

Stack Magazine was mentioned in my tutorial so I thought I would have a look at how they create a narrative through the magazine as I am struggling to define the narrative for mine.

A magazine for getting lost

'a tri-fold structure that separates the text from the images, and encourages readers to flick back and forth between the two.'

You almost get lost in the book, I love the concept of linking the narrative to the user experience - encourages users to get lost.

Coordinates instead of page numbers.

‘Terra Incognita’, the term used on maps to show areas not yet explored

Allows the user to explore the book in a unique way and make their own parings of word and image

Yep Yep

Inspired by childs willingness to play and experimentation

Image based

Mirrored pages - have to read words through reflection of the page

Play with no right and no wrong

Avoiding audience capture

Investigates the phenomenon of creators being controlled by their audiences

Unrestricted contents

Encourages readers to read book in whatever order they want

'(In a further break from boring old front-to-back linear reading, each article finishes with a ‘choose your own adventure’ A/B selection, encouraging the reader to pick their way through the magazine, flipping forwards and back to jump from story to story.)'

She interviews locals and photographs the scenes she finds along the way, creating an image of a messy, chaotic but characterful neighbourhood. 

By contrast the contents page uses the clean, clear grid layout of the streets themselves to show where photographs were taken, giving the reader an extra layer of context and also emphasising the difference between looking at a neat map, and being lost in the landscape itself.

Meantime

The new issue of Meantime is themed ‘Bad Stories’, with seven sections inspired by the seven deadly sins.

A corner has been sliced off the magazine, so when it’s stood on end it looks like it’s sinking

The missing corner, then, came to represent the stories that have been cut out of the magazine, and instead of sinking into the ground, this issue becomes the tip of the iceberg; the part that’s visible above the waterline, the version of Singapore that Meantime wants to create.

A hole lot of fun

'‘Space’ and comes with a literal space drilled through the middle of the magazine...giving the pages an unusual focal point and interacting with the text and other page elements.'

Touch

Comes wrapped in a lovely soft, flocked cover

Gossamer is nominally a magazine about cannabis

“Naturally, the experience of touch is heightened by cannabis, whether in beverage, flower, or even infused popping candy form. 

The Untouchables

The latest issue of Indie is less interested in touch as a theme, but uses it to create a totally distinctive publication that subtly plays on ideas of past and future.

“Why do we romanticise the past? / Why are we obsessed with the future? / Are we there yet?”

The issue becomes a sort of scrapbook of looks and ideas, mixing nostalgic memories with exciting ideas of the future, all bound up within its thick covers.

The theme of the issue is clothes, and it brings together a collection of stories that consider the things we wear as the most fundamental building blocks of fashion. There’s critical writing on the history of clothing, stories that consider the impact clothes have on us, and brilliantly bizarre, extreme experiments in fashion and performance.

Feeling blue?

Every issue of Sindroms is based around a different colour. This time it’s blue, and the magazine has decided to interpret that colour emotionally: in other words, this is an entire magazine themed around sadness. 

I loved looking at stack magazines, it has given me so much inspiration for editorial projects. I love that they all tell a narrative throughout the magazine and express this in a visually interesting way. I would love to do some more editorial work for FMP, I think I could create a typeface of some kind and then present this in an editorial format. The ideas I have been looking at are quite abstract so an editorial piece will let me explain my idea and concept in more detail.

[apkfanda]

Countersnipe

It's an all out war between the agents of Axiom, those self-appointed defenders of global stability, and the operatives of Havoc, the champions of a new world order. Choose your faction, customize your weapon, then scour the map for hidden enemy agents and take them out! Join up with 3 other players for quick, intense four-versus-four matches. Featuring a unique blend of target seeking and skill-based shooting, every game is a new challenge as agents appear randomly across hundreds of possible locations on each map. Set up custom builds of weapon, upgrades, agent, skills, activated items, armor, and ammo type to suit your play style, and team up with friends to create your ultimate 4 person squad. Victory means more rewards as well as progress through episodic unlocks that include powerful in-game items and rare cosmetic upgrades for guns and agents. CRAFTED GAMEPLAY * 3 distinct maps with hundreds of possible agent locations, distractions, and destroyable objects * Balanced variation - spawn points change each game but are shared by both teams to ensure each match is fair * Target seeking is key to victory - quick scanning, pattern recognition, movement sense, and memory can give your team the edge * Wide spectrum of gun handling and scopes, further modified by upgrades, attachments, agent skills, and mastery, which allows for nuance and refinement with each weapon * Balanced multiplayer - squad formation and match selection factor in gun tier and agent level to find the fairest match MASSIVE DEPTH * 4 gun manufacturers, each with their own styles - Griffin, Blackburn, LAO, and K&B * 25 guns across 5 tiers of power, 280+ upgrades, and 28 attachments for incredible variety in handling and play * 180 levels of Mastery in 9 critical areas for each gun allows expert fine tuning * 8 Agents with 10 upgrades each and an assortment of 24 skills that can amplify offense or defense * 100+ awesome unlockable rewards each Episode * Plus 80+ achievements, Gun Training, Events, new Episodes and tons more! Jump in and try the most fun, competitive, and surprising free-to-play sniper game out there. Then see how much more fun it is when your squad of friends pulls off that epic, down to the last elimination, come from behind win! Download Countersnipe and play for free now! Best experienced on Galaxy S8, equivalent, or above. ********** Ninja Kiwi Notes: REQUIRES INTERNET CONNECTION TO PLAY Please review our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You will be prompted in-game to accept these terms in order to cloud save and protect your game progress: https://ninjakiwi.com/terms https://ninjakiwi.com/privacy_policy Countersnipe contains in-game items and a subscription can be purchased with real money. You can disable in-app purchases and manage your subscriptions in your device's settings, or reach us at support@ninjakiwi.com for help. Countersnipe also includes ads, mainly as optional accelerators for game progress. Please note that ad-blockers may disrupt core features of the game. Your purchases and ad views fund our development of updates and new games, and we sincerely appreciate your support! Ninja Kiwi Community: We love hearing from our players, so please get in touch with any feedback, positive or negative, at support@ninjakiwi.com. If it's stuff you want the whole community to see and talk about, then join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/ninjakiwigames/ https://twitter.com/ninjakiwigames https://www.instagram.com/realninjakiwi/ Streamers and Video Creators: Ninja Kiwi is actively promoting channel creators on YouTube and Twitch. If you are not already working with us, keep making videos and tell us about your channel at youtube@ninjakiwi.com. Read the full article

[gertlushgaming]

Akibas Trip Undead And Undressed Director’s Cut Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

For this Akibas Trip Undead And Undressed Director’s Cut Review, we find out that This suburban Tokyo ward's seen it all, from Japan's post-war reconstruction to the economic bubblegum crisis of the '80s. Always on the cutting edge of progress, with a little something to offer even the most fetishistic of appetites, it was almost inevitable that this singular technocracy of indulgence would give birth to a whole new kind of appetite altogether. Enter, the “Synthisters” – vampires who prey upon the life energy of the town’s unsuspecting figurine-chasers, maid café connoisseurs, and cosplayers. Those victimized by Synthisters take on the properties of their attackers while also withdrawing from society and becoming veritable shut-ins due to their newfound fatal weakness to sunlight.  

Akibas Trip Undead And Undressed Director’s Cut Review Pros: - Anime graphics. - 3.1GB download size. - Has its own in-game achievements. - Text and/or voice can be changed between English and Japanese. - Three difficulty options: Easy,  Casual, and Gamer. - Opening and ongoing tutorial. - Display settings - damage display, experience display, counter guide ui, and map ui. - Auto,  Skip, and fast-forward buttons for cut scenes and conversations. - Eight control layouts. - Basic character creator but you get clothing all the time so it doesn't really matter. - Smartphone wallpaper unlocks. - Excellent voice work. - Invert axis option. - Toy box mode: Here you have free roam of the Akibas and have all abilities and items unlocked. - Toy Box mode has the same 3 difficulty options as the main game. - The entertaining story is loosely based on Vampire equivalents. You can answer and set branching questions and answers.  The answers given affect the story in multiple ways. - Lightening fast loading times. - Smartphone, Your hub contains all the options and menus. Here you can read emails,  read Potter, and change game options like save/load.  The whole phone can be customized with pictures taken from cut scenes etc. - Combat: your aim is to strip your enemies of all their clothes.  you have a high medium and low attack which are used to target specific pieces of clothing. Once that particular piece of clothing is flashing,  You can then rip off the garment. - Unlock and use Fast travel points found around the map. - Random street fights. - Music is a mix of J-Pop meets techno with a layer of nuts to it all. Hear music booming from hops and cars as you stroll the streets. - Huge living,  breathing world. - Pitter is the game in the world social media app where you can get information. - E-mail is a place to get side mission opportunities and hear from certain characters. - defeated enemies drop loot. - marker in the game for main story missions and a few key side missions. - Combat relies heavily on combos and you can actually chain moves together,  Wrapping them into a strip frenzy where you can strip a whole gang in one chain. - get arrested by cops for fighting,  Pay a bailout price penalty. - Save/Load whenever. - A full 3D world with full 360-degree camera control. - Cutscenes are a mix of in-game shorts and character art interactions. - Shops are scattered all over the area and each seller is unique in terms of pricing and stock. - Battle arenas. Fight off against waves of enemies,  Rank up, and earn loot and cash. - Side missions are optional and plentiful. - Fuse (craft)  items together to make new ones, make current weapons stronger, and much more. - Collect flyers from salespeople in the street.  These flyers are for real-world shops that you can visit. - New game features unlock as you go through the main story missions. - Memorable characters. - Ui is clean and bright. - Looks just as crisp as the big-boy console versions. - Weaponry is crazy with such weapons as laptops,  umbrellas, and even suitcases can be used. - Earn experience and level up and learn new moves and gain better stats. - Finishing moves can be performed where you take your opponent's underwear. - The game is very fast-paced but so playable. - Multiple choice encounters. - Full camera photo mode for you but also used for missions. - The definitive version of the game for both looks and performance. - Difficulty affects combat and easier difficulties disable high, mid, and low attacks. - Can skip cutscenes. - Full stats screen with a detailed breakdown. - The visual editor lets you fully tinker and customize the look of the game with - presets, character colors, map color, sky color and contrast, fog, and color offset.

Akibas Trip Undead And Undressed Director’s Cut Review Cons: - The a slight learning curve at the begininng. - So slow to start with as you get so much information and mechanic knowledge. - Fighting is the trickiest part to learn especially with no proper lock-on options. - Very little in terms of character creation. - Watching out for when to strip is hard, especially in group fights. - You can bring up a marker on screen but it's only for main missions,  We could do with one for active side quests. - Very slight slowdown in places. - Picking up items is a pain, especially after fights as you have to quickly grab them all,  Due to the crazy weapons,  some can be crazy small. - Some of the shop fronts in the world look bland,  pixel aged, and dare I say it,  PlayStation 1-era looking. - Pervert,  Sexual tone throughout.  I mean you expect it somewhat from a game that evolves around stripping your enemies but it kicks it up a notch.  You can zoom your camera in on your female party members and actually jiggle their breasts. - Toybox mode disables achievements and it doesn't recognize clear data. - Cannot rebind controls. - An FYI that it doesn't support any sort of save transfer. - The choices you make don't feel that impactful. Related Post: Legend Bowl Review (PlayStation 5)

Akibas Trip Undead And Undressed Director’s Cut: Official website. Developer: 株式会社アクワイア ACQUIRE Corp. Publisher:  Home | XSEED Games Store Links - Nintendo Read the full article

[snat-snailcat]

TLDR: I have a lot of feelings about 5e adventures, good and bad. And I refuse to proofread this.

Okay, I've been thinking about this most of the morning, so here's my take as someone who has skimmed nearly every Forgotten Realms-Adjacent 5e module/adventure for the purpose of wiki editing/map making/general autistic need.

I HAVE NOT PLAYED ALL OF THESE! But I do have opinions.

Lost Mines of Phandelver/Starter Set: This one is beloved by many. I haven't read much of it because I was Supposed to play in it, but that didn't happen. Universally beloved to the point that it got a sequel this year. Good into to 5e.

Rise of Tiamat/Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Don't know much of these, other than they are very D&D Next. That is to say, these are the first 5e adventure officially published and its sequel. They carry over a lot of storytelling and mechanical beats that you see in the 5e playtest material and Adventurer's League stuff. You get breakdowns of things sometimes down to how each session should play. There's a dungeon, and then there's roleplay beats. Very structured for a DM new to 5e, because at that point, that was every DM. Kobold Press wrote these alongside WotC.

Princes of the Apocalypse: Technically this is a 'remake' of the original Elemental Evil adventure(s) of editions past. Sasquatch Studios brings in familiar names of writers/designers like Richard Baker and Ed Greenwood (creator of the setting) which I think really helps with the amount of showcasing of the Forgotten Realms setting, especially as they entered 5e. Similar to the Rise of the Dragons duology, you have a more structured story, lots of location maps, and dungeons with lots of detail. There's not a lot of information if your party goes off the beaten path, but it's a pretty solid standard sort of dnd adventure.

Out of the Abyss: My partner wants to run this one with me as a player, so I have not read it. However, FR pals have said that they enjoy it. I'm disappointed its the only Underdark-heavy thing in 5e (Give us a lore book you COWARDS), but I love the art that I've seen. As someone who is a sucker for Drow, I'd likely love it. Still relatively structured with guardrails in terms of story.

Curse of Strahd: Only played on session of this, I'm not a real Gothic Monster person, and this same adventure has been rewritten since 2e. Everyone has a Strahd story. I've heard good and bad things, but it's not FR so I don't have a ton of interest. HOWEVER I am buds with Adam Seat, who worked on One Night Strahd so I am going to plug it for them here.

Storm King's Thunder: I've taken a LOT of maps and general worldbuilding from this one, and for a beginning adventure (levels 1-5) I think it does a pretty decent job setting up the world, and you get to see a good amount of Faerûn! I cannot emphasize enough that a good portion of this book is dedicated to just locations. As a FR historian/occasional wiki editor, I immediately appreciate this adventure for possibly giving a better post-spellplague vision of the Sword Coast that the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide really did. At this point, we are still getting NPC RP notes on the regular, and I deeply appreciate the attention put into the Giants and NPCs in general. I cannot speak to the plot for the life of me, but it seems pretty standard adventurer's fare. Big evil is happening and you need to save the day! Loosens up on some structure for times of sandbox-y play, but overall still has a through-line to follow.

Tomb of Annihilation: I have incredibly mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, it is loosely based on Tomb of Horrors, an infamously ridiculous adventure that is frustrating and overly brutal to the players. On the other hand, we get Chult!!! I have mostly read the parts of this module that take place before delving into the Tomb, and I love the Tabaxi rep (even if it was actually an error in communication/reading comprehension that brought us cat peoples, I LOVE cat peoples), I love the art and culture of Chult. It's an interesting location! This adventure probably has the highest ratio of POC NPCs in 5e, take of that what you will. However, once you get to the Tomb, it's a BIG dungeon crawl, and I'm just not a fan of dungeon crawls. I've heard ToA described as being built for convention play: you bring in a character, and you expect them to die after a few hours tops, so that someone else can take your seat at the table. People don't expect their starting character to survive to the end. It's not my type of game, but no shade if that's what you like.

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: This is the module I have the very most to say, because I have both played and run this game, and it has been amazing. But, I also *hate* this book for a lot of reasons. Since it's the one OP mentions, I'll break it down a little more:

WDH has a very fun beginning, especially for new players. You start in a famous tavern, you go through a dungeon, and at the end, you get a base for your team to renovate as they see fit. My party got involved with a bunch of side quests to help get money, and one PC made a devil contract in part because he was really serious about fixing it up! I adore Trollskull Manor, the neighbors that you get, and everything about Waterdeep. The player's guide portion of the book is by far one of the most valuable things about the adventure, as well as the big map of Waterdeep.

Dragon Heist is best played as a sandbox. Once you as a DM know what the PCs are interested in, you can point them in the direction of what they would care about in that sandbox. Chapter 2 has all the faction assignments that can be given: most of these quests as written do not give enough information to be narratively satisfying (WE ARE LOOKING AT YOU, SCARECROW QUEST FROM THE EMERALD ENCLAVE). However, with some extra care from the DM, there are so many things that can just bring the city to life. For example, there are several quests for different groups that talk about a group of dopplegangers in the city. Well, one of my players is a changeling criminal, and so we decided that the rumors were not only true, but about his gang in particular. This made for so much cool RP and character building moments. One of my players is a cleric of Gond, so we visited the House of Inspired hands more than just what chapter 3 asked of us. I let my players voice NPCs as well as PCs, and the city comes alive.

However, once the Fireball goes off, things change. I was already so far off the script that coming back to the book for Fireball was a little jarring, and I had to HB it, but that's the nature of the game! From here on out, there's not a lot of strict guidance for the DM like was seen in previous 5e adventures. The Stone comes into play, the villain(s) and the Gralhunds, and the way the book has it all written is kinda abysmal. I had Urstul, for example, moving through the city just after the Fireball, and just by chance of where the characters were going at the time, one of them saw him, followed, and one accidental wild magic lightning bolt later, they had the Stone of Golorr. I could not have been happier, because honestly, the trails of encounters later in the book were just exhausting to set up, the villain's ambitions weren't clicking, and so I picked it up and rewrote from the bones of the adventure.

A published adventure should not require a DM to completely rewrite it. However, sometimes it is better if they do. Matt Mercer is credited for helping with this adventure, and as someone who doesn't follow his work but knows the reputation, I'm just not impressed. The Vault of Dragons at the end has to be the least interesting dungeon I've tried to play by the book. It makes so little sense. The puzzles are dull. At the point my party finally "Heisted the Dragon" they already had so many other motivations to do other things, and this was just money. They gave it back to the city to help with city funding. They went on to the next adventure.

So, overall, I love Dragon Heist. Not because it is a good module, not because it is well written, but because the premise and the setting are such a ripe bed for creativity to flourish in.

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Let me tell you, if you are playing WDH and want to continue past heisting the dragon, and you figure that since the end of the book says to pick up Mad Mage that it's a good idea, STOP. These two adventures are just so fundamentally different that transitioning between the two is like driving into a brick wall. Mad Mage is a 20-level dungeon crawl. Sure, there's little quests to do on each floor, but if your players are smart or you have more than 4 of them, the balance of the dungeon is so off. The maps are huge. And I like Undermountain! I used pieces of Mad Mage for a side quest in my WDH game, and it was fun! But after about 4-5 sessions, the party that was used to RP and mundane city life just didn't care for much more of the dungeon. They had some events in Skullport, and went back home. My honest recommendation is to use pieces of Mad Mage to add to a different game and switch things up, but you've got to be either a power gamer or mad yourself to play it all the way through.

(I also was a player in a game that did a few floors of Undermountain, and let me tell you, it was the worst part of that game. BUT I did get to bring my axebeak, because the ceilings in Undermountain are surprisingly tall.)

Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus: Much like Mad Mage, I used this book to augment my own game post-WDH. As written, it's fine? I think it does a decent job with Baldur's Gate as a location (as someone who doesn't play the games) (also this came out when it did to begin hype for Baldur's Gate 3). Elturel has been known to have a bit of an infernal connection in lore pre-DiA, and the premise is cool. Who doesn't want to either redeem the fallen angel lord of Avernus or kill her? But there's a few things that I've heard time and time again.

First, if you don't immediately endear your party to Lulu the hollyphant, then they probably aren't going to care too much about her or the main plot. Many a person I've read from says that they or their party find her annoying. Second, once you're in Avernus, you're going to notice a LOT of fetch quests. It doesn't matter which path you choose, Devils or Demons, you're going to see a lot of the actually cool locations through the lense of each stop being another step on another side quest. For example, I ran my party through just a few of these and it became them needing a hammer for a Dao, which they received by helping a hag get the blood of a titan, but the titan was trapped as a spinegon, and to help him they needed the blood of tiamat, and to get the blood of Tiamat, they needed to talk to a cameo character from Critical Role, and to get it from him without a fight they had to give him an Orb of Dragonkind and by the time all this happened, they were sick to death of this train of side quests. I skipped so many things the book told me to do.

The other complain is the Mad Max aesthetics, but like, it's fine. The infernal war machines are fine. I ended up adding a lot of things from old Planescape materials. After my party got what they came for, they left. No hooks I gave them made them actually want to fight/redeem Zariel. I'm sad we don't get more of Baator, but oh well.

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden: I'm a player in this game, but OH MY GODS this is my favorite one that I've played. My DM is actually running it very close to the book, but there are a lot of of things I think this book does amazingly from my side of the screen. The first is secrets. Each player starts with at least one secret that is assigned to them or picked at random. These add SO MUCH to the game!! There's so many funny moments, like with the Old Flame secret, you can just point to any one NPC and say "Yeah, we used to be a couple" and the table LOSES THEIR MINDS. A lot of the secrets, like the one I got, connect to future dungeons. It's a horror story, but in the sense that everyone is going to succumb to a horrible frozen death if you don't do anything. Very few pre-written games have given me the sense of dread as this one, knowing that the town that I became Speaker of was getting wiped out while I was a whole 20 hours of travel away. It's brutal, but I LOVE it. It's not for everyone, and having a good DM has likely been a big part of my love for it, but I always recommend this one.

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: I just started running this one for a teen group as a volunteer DM, and I am just so enamored by it. The setting is so fun. I adore the carnival, I adore that it was written in such a way that combat is 100% optional, I love that you have a few different ways to start it off. Last night, at time of writing, we finished setting up the things the PCs lost to the feywild, and though some of the examples in the book are like "a childhood toy" or "your sense of fashion" my kiddos decided on "I lost my ability to read" and "My clockworker lost his sense of time" and there's just SO MUCH room for exploration there. Fey stuff is fun. From all I've read and prepared for, I think the carnival minigames need more love, but the aesthetic is so on point. Excellent game for introducing people into dnd. I can't wait to see where it goes. Also, I used some of the carnival stuff in a Planescape thing I was doing like two years ago (pre-5e planescape coming out) and was impressed with the flexibility.

I can't speak for any of the other adventures that have come out since, and I won't bother anyone with the anthologies, but hopefully this can give a little insight from a D&D veteran and lore fiend.

And if anyone wants to bitch about previous edition stuff, please don't! I have read so many adventures/modules/lore books from every edition of the game. I believe that 5e is by far the best place for someone right now to get into the game- it's a simplified form of D&D in a lot of ways, and the community and amount you can do with homebrew is amazing.

Speaking of homebrew, I kinda hate WotC! A lot! But I'll stop rambling

btw, I mostly run homebrew dnd stuff and am not going to stop my campaign for a bit anyway but

what have been experiences with pre written campaigns, official or not, for 5e? I've run dragonheist before, and like anything it's more a framework that relies on good GMing more than anything... but also dragonheist is SUCH a mess and I wouldn't recc it to a GM. How do others stack up?

[whattheheehaw]

"Zutara is a valid ship no matter what antis say" and "If you say Zutara is fanon, you're wrong" are two entirely different statements, and I think it’s important that a distinction is made between them. Just because Zutara is fanon does not mean that it is an invalid ship. However, that does not mean Zutara is canon.

Yes, people can view fan works as canon, but they cannot force their interpretations and opinions of these fan works onto others. Behavior like this can actually end up driving some people away from fandom. Like, you hear Kataang and Maiko shippers complain about "canon Zutara shippers" and I can understand that. When you have people actively making posts about "Zutara is canon" when in reality, it is not, it does send the message that some members of the Zutara fandom are "delusional". Just because you consider fan work as canon, does not mean that Zutara—in the context of the show—is canon.

Canon does not necessarily mean that something is valid, and I think a lot of people would benefit from being reminded of that fact.

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[rpgsandbox]

Blue Planet is a compelling RPG journey into humanity’s precarious future on a distant waterworld where political unrest and a hungry alien ecology threaten the nascent colony effort. A planet where GEO marshals struggle to maintain peace, Incorporate mercenaries wage amphibious proxy wars, and native insurgents fight for their adopted world. A frontier where human desperation and corporate greed ravage an uncanny ecology, threatening to plunge humanity into a war of survival with an ancient, alien legacy.

Though the original Blue Planet predates many of these titles, the setting is evoked by the movies Avatar, Blade Runner and Outland, the television series The Expanse, Firefly and Earth II and the books Legacy of Heorot, Songs of Distant Earth and the Mars Trilogy. A reviewer once gave a glib but accurate elevator pitch for Blue Planet as "Space marshal Cowboy and his cybernetic dolphin sidekick fight eco-crimes in alien Hawaii."

The Full Premise

Blue Planet's uniqueness and enduring appeal are in its deep, realistic, hard science fiction setting, and to really describe it requires more than a few sentences. For those new to the waterworld, we recommend exploring the more detailed premise here.

This campaign will fund the production of a new third edition of the critically acclaimed Blue Planet roleplaying game. We’ve brought Blue Planet to Kickstarter because we're excited to make the definitive edition of the game, but we need your help to do that.

We want to design a uniquely beautiful, full-color, two-volume, 600-page masterpiece, overflowing with evocative art, captivating text, and exceptional production values. We want to make the books themselves works of art with UV cover highlights, endpaper maps and page-marking ribbons. We want to fill them with a new rules set, stunning art, expansive color maps and compelling new locations, social structures, future technologies and alien secrets.

These features and content exceed our capacity to resource on our own, so we are here asking you to join the Blue Planet team and help us make the new version of this classic game truly exceptional.

Download the Blue Planet: Recontact Quickstart Guide here. This 80+ page, full color primer is free and contains the new version of the rules, a setting sampler and a demo scenario called "Trouble in Paradise," complete with ready-to-play characters.

The Recontact project includes

• An extensive evolution of the core mechanics, taking advantage of two decades of RPG development. The new system can be found here in our free, 80+ page Recontact primer.

• All new, full-color artwork bringing the waterworld to life in stunning, evocative imagery.

• Full-color world and regional maps, including submarine geography, redesigned and rendered by professional cartographer and game designer Mark Richardson (Green Hat Design).

• A series of campaign archetypes to help moderators jumpstart their games in the vast adventure space of Poseidon (see below).

• Updated speculative technologies.

• New sociopolitical systems, organizations, institutions and conflicts.

• New locations, settlements and facilities.

The Recontact project does not include

• Fundamental changes to the core sociopolitical tensions - the themes will remain staunchly pro-environmental and anti-colonial.

• Timeline advancements - the setting was originally - and intentionally - poised on a sociopolitical precipice, rife with plot and storytelling potential, and we want to maintain that same narrative tension.

• Global rewrites of the setting material - though updates, sensitivity edits and additions are being made throughout, we believe Blue Planet’s deep setting is why the game has endured, and so we are not making major alterations to that essential content.

A word about the delivery date

We know a reward delivery date of October 2022 seems unexpectedly far away. Though we intend to deliver Blue Planet sooner, our experience, and the last year in particular, have proven an essential truth about Kickstarter management - set a generous delivery date, then add six months. We hope this date does not discourage folks from becoming backers, but instead demonstrates our commitment to realistic planning and transparent communication.

All reward tiers (digital and physical) will receive PDFs of the out-of-print Blue Planet books the day after the campaign ends. Single book pledges will receive the corresponding v2 PDF, and book set pledges will receive copies of everything ever published for the line. All 10 past Blue Planet titles - over 1700 pages of waterworld adventure - as immediate rewards!

First edition Blue Planet, Archipelago, Access Denied, v2 Blue Planet Player's and Moderator's Guides, Fluid Mechanics, First Colony, Frontier Justice, Natural Selection and Ancient Echoes.

Blue Planet has received broad acclaim, particularly for its deep, detailed, and realistic setting, and has remained well regarded since its original publication. However, that publication was almost 25 years ago, and in the intervening decades, all versions have gone out of print and game design has evolved dramatically. We are therefore excited at the prospect of giving the game system an overdue overhaul and the opportunity to share Blue Planet with a new generation of players.  

More personally, Blue Planet features critical environmental themes, presenting a precarious future threatened by the dire consequences of ecological collapse. If issues like biodiversity loss, ocean acidification and climate change were only obscure concerns within the scientific community 25 years ago, they are now clear and present existential threats to the human species. This new edition will let us add our own small voice to those demanding true stewardship of our original blue planet.

Compelled by these reasons, the original creators at Biohazard Games have teamed up with publisher Gallant Knight Games to produce a modern edition of this classic RPG.

Recontact is the in-game term for the fateful day in 2165 when the UNSS Admiral Robert Perry entered orbit around Poseidon, “reestablishing contact” with Earth 69 years after the original colonists were abandoned. Given that more than two decades have passed since the publication of the first edition of Blue Planet, RECONTACT seemed a fitting subtitle for this new version of the game.

Anyone familiar with Blue Planet v2’s Synergy rules will recognize the new system as a modern evolution of those mechanics, sharing a little of that design's genetics and the same intent to support the hard science realism of the setting. Players will also find the new system is simultaneously simpler and more robust, while supporting richer, more evocative character creation that's focused as much on who characters are as what characters can do.

Characters have 4 attributes with optional foci and up to 8 skill sets - areas of expertise based on player-generated descriptors that evoke a character’s origins, training, occupation and experiences. The core mechanic is roll ≤ (attribute rank)+(skill set rank). The roll is made with either 1, 2 or 3 d10, depending upon whether the general, core or specialty in a given skill set is being used. For those who know v2, these elements should seem familiar. There are fewer attributes, but they work similarly, and the variable dice pool is a streamlined take on the aptitude mechanic. The skill sets are simultaneously simpler and more robust than the long list of specific aptitudes and skills in the 2nd edition.

Blue Planet does remain a realistically dangerous game, keeping the  wound levels and trauma tests from the 2nd edition. Weapons and sea monsters are therefore quite deadly, so characters should try to avoid getting shot. Or eaten.

The new mechanics also lean in to the qualitative roleplaying aspects of modern character design, providing Tags, Tracks and Ties unique to each player's character concept and each moderator's campaign. The emphasis is as much on who a character is as what they can do.

Tags are specific consequences, benefits, convictions, motivations or other active descriptors that a character incurs during their adventures - generally the result of narrative events, important tests, fallout from interactions with other characters and injuries.

Tracks model the range of specific character emotions, attitudes and mental states. They are usually campaign or party specific and can be offered by the moderator or created by the players for their party or their individual characters.

Ties describe a character’s primary relationships, identifying the people and organizations to whom the character is connected, as well as the nature of the obligations they must meet to maintain those relationships.

The only consistent criticism Blue Planet has received over the years is that the setting is so vast and wide open, it’s often challenging for game moderators to know where to start. They struggle to choose a single campaign current from among the sea of ideas in the setting. Blue Planet: Recontact will therefore provide a diverse set of campaign archetypes to provide ready-made options for GMs new to the game.

It’s common practice for RPG books to present a range of character archetypes, providing players with detailed examples of the kinds of PCs available to play. These campaign archetypes are similar in that they offer guidance for a variety of different adventure types that can be run in the world of Blue Planet, providing GMs with starting points, directions and enough details to get a variety of different campaigns underway. Each archetype outlines a premise, PC suggestions, unique NPCs, key locations, resources, themes, and plot threads from which a GM can build their perfect Blue Planet campaign.

Read the full first example - Red Sky Charters - in the Recontact Primer here.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Wed, May 5 2021 3:00 AM BST

Website: [Biohazard Games] [Biohazard twitter] [Gallant Knight Games] [Gallant Knight twitter]

[saipng]

re7 anon, im bad with horror in general so im progressing really slowly but i genuinely thought losing hands was a re8 thing and i felt quite bad for ethan when he lost his left hand like .. he got it back but also i wish he could keep his hands. also if you don't mind me asking, why is re8 a bad game? i dont know anything about this franchise i just jumped straight into the 7th game with 0 knowledge

man oh man how i WISH you hadn’t asked that, for both our sakes. cuz now it is 5 am the day after my birth and there is no way that i am not going to go into an overtly long rant that idk if anyone will care about. but hey, you brought this upon us, so.

without spoilers, why is re8 a bad, bad game?

well, you see. that is simply because it is not a game.

it is a part of a franchise.

listen. listen here. what the hell is that supposed to mean???

there are plenty of franchised games, right. just because a game is part of a franchise, or even a sequel to another game, obviously doesn’t make it automatically bad.

the reason re8 is bad, however, is because that’s all it’s meant to be. it is a sequel and a prequel to yet another sequel. it is not a game.

because, if you look at it from the point of view of a self contained game, it is bad.

the story is all over the place. absolutely nothing is answered or explained, and only more questions are created with the promise to be explored in future games. new characters are introduced only to be very obvious sequel baiting, and absolutely none of them are explored beyond the surfacest of surface levels.

moreover, the reason for things to happen simply isn’t there. the story is so bad, the characters in canon literally cannot explain it to you. the reason is ‘just cuz’. it feels like capcom threw all of their budget into rendering every follicle on dimitrescu’s tiddies as opposed to actually creating a cohesive narrative that doesn’t fall apart at the simplest probing.

see, the reason that re7 worked and re8 doesn’t was because re7 was a GAME. any person, even a person like you, who has never heard of anything resident evil before or even cared about the franchise, could jump in and enjoy their experience with it. the horror works, the story works, the characters work. the pacing is immaculate. i’m not saying it’s a perfect game obviously, but it WORKS and it is FUN. and, for those who DO know resident evil, you get the hints and implications and the lore and even a familiar face and eventually, the dlc. it was an AMAZING reboot to the franchise.

re8 though? re8 assumes you’ve played all of resident evil games before and you’ve enjoyed them immensely and you want more and you will play again and again and again.

im not saying that a game, especially a sequel, has to be completely free of references or call backs to previous games or work alone without any previous knowledge. i mean. that’s not how sequels work.

but in the end, they’re still supposed to make sense. a game is supposed to be that - a game. doesn’t matter if it’s the first or eighth or seventeenth.

re8 feels like a weird wobbly bridge that you got across before the other side is finished building. it is awkward. it feels incomplete, stitched together from different concepts and ideas. they brought back ethan winters only to have no idea what to do with him. they introduced the lords only to be short term hype generators. they shoehorned in chris redfield because he is chris redfield and it really doesn’t matter how much he doesn’t fit.

in my humble opinion, the game needs to be at least 5 hours longer for it to actually start making sense. at LEAST.

the characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, need to actually be explored, the pacing fixed, flimsy writing tied together, map expanded, puzzles actually added in. then, it would be a better game. i don’t know about good. but definitely better.

that being said, you may be thinking. why the HELL is everyone obsessed with this trainwreck????

well, because we’re all mentally ill, that’s why.

okay, serious answer - because the less the assholes give us, the more power it gives us to project and play around. they created these extremely fun concepts and didn’t bother developing them despite the enormous potential and that pissed us all off. well, me. it pissed me off.

and, as we all know, NOTHING motivates me more than spite at this point. so me and the other content creators basically ripped the lords and ethan and rose and all the others out of capcom’s undeserving hands and said ‘okay thanks ours now’.

because dammit, resident evil village could have been SUCH a good game. the idea of it is FUN and we all love it.

the execution? perfectly terrible.

and again, i’m not saying that you’ll hate it. i think you can, and should play it (or at least watch a playthrough). and moreover, i think you’ll enjoy it. i think you’ll have fun, still. i think you’ll like it a lot, as did many others.

none of that erases the fact that it is still very much a bad, bad game.

now, i could go more into how the horror elements greatly suffered because of capcom’s desperate need to rehash re4, or just how much of re4 they actually ripped off and shoved into this game; i could talk about how ethan winters (and mia, to an extent) is a terrible character in this game and reason he works in re7; i could talk at extent why the bakers were truly scary and the lords very much arent; i could even mention all the unnecessary mechanics and how much they truly contributed jack shit to the experience.

i could, but i’m not gonna. this is long enough as it is, and i hope it all made sense, at least somewhat. i tried to not include any spoilers (as much as was possible).

and i also really hope i didn’t dissuade you from giving re8 a try.

because, like i said, it’s still fun. capcom gave us steel beams and pieces of plastic and said ‘go wild’ and we built our own playground. it’s like that post that’s like ‘this amazing new restaurant everyone talks about and you finally go there and they serve white toast bread and everyone brought their own jam’. literally that.

but it can be so good, if that’s something that you can be into !!!

oh and. this is my own personal take on the game, of course. draw your own conclusions, yada yada. but if you’re bad with horror, you’ll find this game easier to digest for sure.

anyway. periodt.😩✌️

[doubleddenden]

Well I said I was going to have to figure out how to work out the team shot and trainer card, but it turns out I didn't need to do much, so it all went about as planned.

All of these Fakemon are not made by me, and in this case are made by Watertrainer from DA. I did do another lazy splice and rearrange of my own trainer sprite though. I wanted to sort of give myself a similar vibe to the protagonist design, and I think I'm okay with the design, although I am a bit too lazy to resize my head lol.

Anyway, my team from Solar Light and Lunar Dark.

more under the cut

I actually played a demo a few years back that went about to Rassic City, but got stuck due to a bug that stopped me around gym 4 or 5. The game's creators are (or were at the least) pretty cool, with one even offering to fix my bug for me (and he probably did, I just didn't know how to implement the fix). I said it in my review, but I really like the fakemon concepts and designs, and there was so many that I wish I had room for about 4 more Pokemon. Apparently a lot of the designs were conceptualized pre gen 4, and that's just fantastic.

I've been trying to do some unique things with my regional cards, but SLLD is actually somewhat unique among the fakemon games I've played because it's pretty unique in that its more traditional without a regional gimmick. So, I improvised a bit with sort of a clipped design and some zig zags at the corners. I also made a new background design by making a grid out of a series of circles, so hopefully that looks good too. Plus, I used pentagons instead of my usual stuff to try and account for the bigger sprites, and I had space between them, so I did a little sun and moon mural for the Solar and Lunar title thing

As for how Poke Den got to Rikoto, well, how does he get anywhere other than by accident? I feel like he probably went for a boat ride in Tandor or something, took a nap, and found himself in Poke New Zealand Rikoto. The stakes weren't really as high as other regions, so I imagine he just kinda went "fuck it" and decided to explore and take in the beautiful scenery. And as usual, for some reason he pisses off just the right people and ends up babysitting some kids that keep claiming they're his rivals.

Gonna be real, I liked the fact that I stumbled across the New Zealand map in the game because I wasn't able to tell before, but now its super obvious. Rikoto is a beautiful region and probably my favorite in terms of diversity in the recent fan games I've played, not to mention I would KILL to live in the tropical areas.

this is my team

1. (Mega) Salaslam: Water/Poison: Our starter for the region, and funnily enough, just like my first Pokemon ever, a Typhlosion in Silver, I didn't realize she was a girl until like, 7 gyms in. She's strong boi, and I relied on her a bunch especially in late game after I acquired her mega. I think I like water types in theory the best, so I imagine it was a very obvious pick for me, especially when its baby form is so adorable. Probably went from the rambunctious baby to friendly but dangerous monster as it evolved.

2. Aeroma: Flying/Grass: One of the earliest caught Pokemon on the team, and I almost replaced him, but he's honestly very useful and comes in clutch when I need him to the most. I imagine ours sings a lot since it learned Sing and Grass Whistle at some point in our journey

3. Lunape: Psychic: A traded monke boy that I loved so much as a Moonky. I just loved saying his name. Moonky. It awoke something primal in me. Its funny because I accidentally over trained him at first, so he initially wouldn't listen to me until until like gym 3. I imagine we're good friends now. He's actually pretty good for capturing Pokemon, not so much for battles, but he comes in clutch sometimes. In fact, he pretty much carried my team in the champion battle.

4. Werehide (Shiny): My favorite of the bunch I believe. Apparently there's a bug that makes it easier to find Shinies in this game, which I believe since I found 2 of them, but this one was my first and I decided to keep her. She spent the longest time as her previous form, Beopup, until like level 53 so she could learn Play Rough. I imagine she was my shoulder buddy for the longest time because of that, and despite being theoretically the "weaker" of the team, she kept up just fine as Beopup. After evolving, she became SO much stronger, I actually solo'd the ice gym with her, I think. The only issue is that Werehide's ability is Hustle, which makes her hit like a fuckin truck, but she's about as accurate as a broken clock. I do imagine she's like my dog and is a good doggo that likes pets, but goes feral in a fight.

5. Dinopion: Fighting/Dragon. I almost replaced him too, but there was really no reason. As a Dinomite, he was kinda weak and kept getting KO'd a lot, but once he evolved he started kicking ass and didn't ever stop. His Moxie ability, monstrous attack, and diverse move pool make him such a MONSTER to deal with for my enemies, but he is kinda frail. But if he outspeeds you and knocks out one of your guys, you've basically already lost the battle. My Dinopion was basically able to Solo Rick's Elite 4 team. I gotta imagine he's a rough and rowdy but good dino boy with a hankering for power and glory. I think my guy likes him a lot now because he's a DINOSAUR, and we like dinosaurs in this house.

6. Natoron: Ground. I LOVE DINOSAURS. And this guy is a heckin' dinosaur!!! He had a tough time at the beginning, but once he evolved once, he started kicking ass. There was an awkward time towards the last few gyms where after he evolved again, he started losing a lot more, but he's been very reliable as a wall and tank. By the end, he had both Earthquake, Head Smash, and Stone Edge, so he could dish out a SHIT ton of damage. I gotta imagine he's a bit slower, usually tries to eat grass when he sees it, and he's a gentle giant that my Poke self adores because he's a DINOSAUR

Anyway this was fun to make. I'm gonna be looking for more fakemon games to play through because I just love em, and I love making little trainer cards for my playthroughs.

[thedigitalpen]

My 10 favourite... beefcake animes!

Okay yes, I realise that this is a rather weird title. I had originally thought to call it something along the lines of my favourite martial arts or fighting animes, but because the animes don’t always fall into that category, I decided to call a spade, a spade (or a beefcake, a beefcake) and admit that, most times sometimes, I just enjoy animes with muscular guys in them. That’s not to forget the ladies though because some of these shows also feature some rather muscular ladies in the mix too. So there’s something for everyone!

So, in no particular order (because the genres are sometimes different so making comparisons wouldn’t be fair):

1. Street Fighter series.

Hardly a surprise considering that this is a series that has a legacy firmly placed in the gaming world. Although you don’t really need to know who’s who in order to watch these shows, it doesn’t hurt to know a little about the characters before you jump in - mainly because the creators assume that those who watch it are fans of the show. Expect a fair amount of fighting (the name gives that one away), lots of bromance (Ryu and Ken 4eva!) and the eternal fight of good vs. evil (which is usually the plot of every show/movie)! Even if you aren’t familiar with Ryu & co., the show won’t lead you astray so you can watch without worry. Oh and let me just say - Chun Li is ma gurl! If you want to see a woman that’s not only beautiful but can also kick your ass, then watch these shows - especially Street Fight II the movie! 

2. Hajime no Ippo.

One of my most favourite sports animes of all time which tells the tale of Makunouchi Ippo and his rise up the ranks of the boxing world. He starts off as a kid that just wants to get stronger so that he can fend off the bullies who harass him. Sick of his weak self (and after a couple of incidents here and there), Ippo joins a boxing gym, starting from scratch and going through basic training. His coach sees his potential and helps shape Ippo into a power boxer who fights head on and never backs down from the fight. Throughout the series, we get to know the other boxers in the gym as well as the competitors that they face, and we watch them battle it out in the ring. It’s a story with a great balance of sports, a sprinkling of slice of life (well, the life of a boxer) and comedy. And, of course, boxing boys come with boxing bodies... and I’m not complaining! And if you enjoy this and want more, try either “Ashita no Joe” (old school classic) or it’s more recent spin-off, “Megalo Box”. Oh and in terms of strong women - no one beats Ippo’s mom! She’s a powerhouse!

3. Baki the Grappler.

More of an MMA vibe with this one - it’s about a kid (he’s like 13 when we first meet him) who has been raised to be a fighter since he was born - his mother gets him the best trainers and equipment money can buy. He eventually feels like he’s outgrown the traditional training method and starts to find other ways to become a better fighter, which includes following his fathers footsteps - training the same way he did and with the people he did - and taking on some of the other fighters he meets along the way. After an altercation with his father (using that term rather lightly), Baki’s path eventually leads to the underground fight scene where challengers can test their strength and face off against each other in an anything-goes type of fight, using whatever techniques, power and skills they have at their disposal. And Baki’s ultimate goal? To defeat his father! It’s got some family drama as the foundation, but when it comes to beefcakes, there’s no shortage here - even if it is a 17-year old kid looking like a grown-ass man. Oh, best to be aware that (excluding the OVAs) there 3 seasons of Baki - the anime series from 2001 and the 2018 Netflix version which covers the "Most Evil Death Row Convicts" arc. 

4. Kengan Ashura.

When I first started watching this, the first thing I thought was - ahhh! this reminds me of Baki! And, indeed, there are quite a few elements that are similar. There isn’t any family drama here but there is an underground fight scene where anything goes in terms of fight style. However, the premise here is that the fighters don’t fight for themselves (well, not officially anyway) but that they fight for various companies who settle their business disputes via these types of organised “kengan” matches. It eventually reaches a situation where some of the other businessmen wish to get rid of the current Kengan chairman, and so this chairman organises a huge battle royale for any companies that wish to enter. The prize? The owner of the winning company gets to be the next chairman! This sets the stage for a number of one-on-one showdowns between the various fighter representatives. In terms of background stories, we have two main protagonists and their stories. The one is about a salaryman (turned “CEO”) and his life, as well his relationship with his son, and the other is about a fighter and the vendetta he holds against another fighter for a past incident. Personally, I love the way the fights are presented in this show - not only because of the eye-candy - but because it really does feel like you’re at a grand show! Oh, and unlike Baki, at least most of the fighers are adults.

5. Golden Kamuy.

Bring on the boys! Honestly one of the most entertaining shows I’ve watched in a while (and one where I demand that there be another season at least!) and also culturally/historically interesting too. It’s set around the time of the Russo-Japanese war and follows the story of Immortal Sugimoto - a soldier who left active service and finds out that there may be Ainu gold hidden somewhere in Hokkaido. The only problem is that the map has been tattooed in pieces, onto the torsos of various prisoners, most of whom have dispersed to different areas. Nevertheless, thus begins the hunt for the map! Along the way, Sugimoto meets various people along the way - making allies with some and enemies with others - all of whom are associated with each other in interconnecting ways. And all of whom are working toward one goal - get the gold! It’s a brilliant show that’s got some fighting, some mystery, some espionage vibes, some comedy (some of which is could be considered dark and/or weird) and some feels. It balances it all out and makes for an interesting and entertaining watch. Oh, and let’s not forget - a very enjoyable watch too! Mm mm mmm...

6. All Out!!

Another sport anime here, but this time it’s rugby! As someone from a country where rugby is a staple, national sport, this was totally up my ally! The premise is similar to most other school-based sports animes - a kid who’s self-conscious about his height joins the rugby team and learns to get along with the other boys as he trains and works together with them as part of the team. This is not only so that he can help the team improve, but to also prove his own worth. The team goes through training camps and they play against other schools, getting to know some of the opposing teams’ members and establishing some rivalries along the way. It’s pretty typical fare, but damn are these boys stacked! It’s pretty accurate though since rugby is a contact sport which requires some power (and apparently some short, tight shorts) to get the job done. It’s a light watch, but that eye candy is truly sweet!

7. Tiger Mask W.

From rugby to wrestling! This actually a continuation of sorts to the original Tiger Mask and Tiger Mask II series, building on the legacy and keeping related in the same sphere, but not directly incorporating the older characters. Unfortunately, the original series is hella hard to get hold of but even without it, you can watch Tiger Mask W without much of an issue. So the story is about a guy who had decided to join a wrestling gym and was pretty happy there until the gym was destroyed by another rival gym. Vowing to take that other gym down, he strikes out on his own and eventually joins one of the national wrestling associations, working in their match roster. But it’s all so that he can reach his goal of taking down that other gym by defeating the players supported by them. Enter into the ring various wrestling friends and both friendly and unfriendly rivals (including an old friend - bromance anyone?) and you get plenty of matches, plenty of muscles and some satisfying action! They also don’t forget the female wrestlers, which is a nice touch! Another one that’s light enough to enjoy at face value - much like how you’d enjoy real wrestling too.

8. Gifuu Doudou!! Kanetsugu to Keiji. 

A historical vibe with this one - it’s actually based on the spin-off of the original manga, “Keiji” which was created by Tetsuo Hara. And if that name doesn’t ring a bell, check number 10 on this list and you’ll know who I’m talking about - that’s right, it’s the guy who worked on Hokuto no Ken - and that should immediately give you an idea as to why this show is on the list. It’s a period piece about the friendship between Maeda Keiji and Naoe Kanetsugu - both of whom found their accomplishments on the battlefield. It’s told in hindsight, where they sit together, have a drink or three and reminisce about their younger days and what it took to get to where they are now. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it was pretty entertaining - especially when you see just how clever these guys were when it came to political maneuvering as well as in a fight. Of course, they’re pretty high in the beefcake stakes so if you like your men manly, then you’ve come to the right era. 

9. Dragon Ball series.

I’m pretty sure that I don’t have to talk about this anime, but in the interest of completeness, let me give you the wiki breakdown about what this anime is about: “The series follows the adventures of the protagonist, Son Goku, from his childhood through adulthood as he trains in martial arts. He spents his life far from civilization, until he is found by Bloomer, a teen girl who encourages him to explore the world in search of the seven orbs known as the Dragon Balls, which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along his journey, Goku makes several friends and battles a wide variety of villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.” (source). Of course, this is continued throughout the various series that follow, where Goku has his own family etc. But when it comes to the muscle factor in this show, it’s got it where it counts - everywhere! It’s a classic for a reason so even if you aren’t into beefcake guys, you should still probably watch it if you haven’t already.

10. Hokuto no Ken.

It just wouldn’t feel right if I had to leave this off the list because when someone says “manly anime”, I’m betting that 99.9% of the time most people think about Hokuto no Ken / Fist of the North Star. It’s the post-apocalyptic era and times are tough, with everyone fighting to survive with what little there is on the planet. Some guys want to be rulers, some guys want to be thugs, but one guy just wants to find his fiancee and do what he can to right the wrongs of the world and make a difference to the people he meets. That one man is, of course, Kenshiro. It’s full-tilt action, usually incorporating martial arts through the various fighting styles of the characters - whether it’s Hokuto Shinken, Nanto Seiken or sometimes just brute force and good old hand-to-hand combat. There’s a few female characters here and there who also kick ass so it isn’t completely one-sided, but they usually end up getting saved by the dudes so take that with a pinch of salt. Post-apocalyptic world or not, these guys sure can maintain their physiques. And when it comes time for a fight, you best believe they pull no punches! If you like pure fighting animes where you get to see people explode each episode, followed by the most epic line ever said in anime, then this is the one! 

Honourable mentions.

...because, can we really do without more muscular men and women in our lives?

1. Terra Formars - if you’re looking specifically for that muscular vibe, then try season 1. While I enjoyed both, season 1 had better animation (for me) and they all looked badass when defeating those nasty roaches - both the men and the ladies! 2. Hinomaru Sumo - a sports anime that revolves around a newly formed high school sumo club and the career path of the main protagonist. Informative if you don’t know much about sumo and, as expected, loads of meaty guys aiming for victory and aiming for the position of yokozuna. 3. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure - another show that hardly requires an introduction and would probably take way too long to explain considering how many Jojo’s there are, but rest assured, the guys are packed, stacked and ready to attack! 4. One Punch Man - if only because there a few characters who fit the beefcake category perfectly, e.g. Suiryu (hello there!), Garou and Tanktop Master to name a few. An anime that’s some parts serious, some part hilarious but always flipping shounen tropes on its head. 5. Sengoku Basara - also, not completely beefed out, but there are a few characters who would make the grade, e.g. Maeda Keiji (dejavu from number 8?) and Oda Nobunaga. Another period anime, based on a Capcom game, that uses a lot of poetic licence to make it an exciting watch with very memorable characters. 6. Free! - “Make us free na Splash! Kasaneta... 👏 👏 !” Swimmers bodies - that is all. If you’ve ever seen a swimmer’s bodies in real life, you’ll know what I mean ‘cos they have muscles in all the right places. A slice-of-life sports anime that revolves around high school boys (who eventually become college boys) who engage in competitive swimming. 7. Air Master - The ladies take over in this one, which is a show that revolves around street fighting and the goal of those various street fighters and martial artists to become number 1 on the Fukamichi Rankings. It’s more of that underground fight scene vibe but the main protagonist is a gymnast-turned-street fighter who takes on anyone who’ll challenge her (man or woman) and usually kick their ass. It’s got a quirky/weird sense of humour to it, but that’s part of why I liked it.

Well, I’m pretty sure that there are other shows that I’ve missed, and mountains of characters who have that A-grade beef, but I tried to choose shows that specifically have that muscular aesthetic as a default setting in the show. Hopefully I hit the mark here, sharing my faves with you, but if there’s some show or character that I absolutely must see, feel free to let me know! Because just like Tanigaki’s shirt, I’m always open to suggestions.