#it’s actually SO bizarre and good and interesting

[swappermanent]

Reverse Inheritance

The first time Leo told me he could astral project, I didn't think much of it. My grandson had been living with me ever since his father—my son—went to prison, and though he was 20n now, he still had that same wild imagination he'd had as a kid.

Just last month, he'd been on about reincarnation, saying he remembered fragments of past lives. And before that, he was convinced our neighbor was running a smuggling ring out of his garage. Normally, I didn’t mind letting him ramble on. But lately, I was starting to get a bit tired of it.

Today, however, Leo seemed particularly insistent. “I’m serious, Grandpa. I can do it. Astral projection. It’s real.”

I scoffed. "Alright, then. Let’s do a little experiment."

"Sure, what kind of experiment?"

I reached over to a drawer and pulled out an old deck of cards, shuffling them a couple of times until I was satisfied. I fanned the cards out, then carefully picked one from the middle, holding it up so only I could see. “If you’re telling the truth, you should be able to ~float out of your body~ and go behind me to tell me what this card is,” I challenged, leaning back.

Leo took a deep breath, closing his eyes. His breathing slowed, his shoulders relaxing in a way I’d never seen before. For a second, I actually thought he might’ve fallen asleep. But then, with his eyes still closed, he whispered, “Eight of spades.”

I froze.  Placing the card face up on the table—the eight of spades.

I forced a laugh. “Lucky guess. Let’s go again.”

Leo gave a small shrug and smirked. “Alright. Let’s.”

I shuffled the deck again, this time picking a card off the top. “Alright, wise guy,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “What is it?”

He closed his eyes again, barely a few seconds this time. “Three of hearts.”

I looked down at the card, and my stomach did a small flip. “Alright,” I said, trying to mask my surprise. “That was another good guess, I’ll give you that. Let’s see if you’re really up to it.”

This time, I picked three cards at once, spreading them face down on the table. “No way you’re getting all of these right,” I muttered, almost to myself.

But a few seconds later, He rattled them off without a second thought. “Queen of diamonds, five of clubs, ace of spades.”

I looked at each card in my hand, and they were all correct. My jaw dropped, and I couldn’t hide it. “Shit… wow,” I breathed. “Alright, kid, you got me. I believe you.”

Leo’s eyes opened, and he gave me a small, satisfied smile. “You want me to teach you how?”

My heart was pounding a little faster than usual. “You think I could?” I asked, half-joking but more curious than I wanted to let on.

Leo leaned forward, his face serious. “Yeah. But you have to really want to do it. Like, let go of everything. All those thoughts that keep you grounded here.”

"Let go of everything…" I repeated.

---

Over the next few weeks, Leo patiently taught me to master astral projection. At first, it felt like some sort of strange meditation. But gradually, I learned how to slip out of my physical body, just as Leo did, until I could stand beside myself, looking down at the slouched figure.

Each session, Leo and I would push the boundaries a little more. We couldn’t go too far since our astral projections only seemed to last about four hours at a time, and even then, we couldn’t travel much faster than a brisk jog. But I was fine with that; I wasn’t interested in dashing across the city, only in seeing how far I could push this strange new freedom.

When we’d reach the end of our limit and weren’t back in our bodies yet, something bizarre would happen. Our astral selves would start to get get pulled back, as if our bodies had a magnetic force calling us home. Those first few times, it was disorienting, hurtling back through space until I snapped back into my skin, breathless, my heart pounding. Leo explained that it was the body’s way of keeping us tethered, that if we stayed out too long, our astral forms would dissipate like smoke, and we’d cease to exist.

“Cease to exist?” I asked him one night, feeling the weight of that warning.

Leo nodded, his face solemn. “I haven’t pushed it that far, Grandpa. And I don’t think we should. The pull back gets stronger the closer we get to that limit. But if we ignore it…” He shrugged, letting the words hang in the air, dark and final.

Still, despite the risk, I found myself craving these nightly adventures. For the first time in years, I felt alive, truly alive. As someone who’d all but resigned myself to the slow, tired rhythms of old age, it was thrilling. But as our nights stretched on, I started to wonder about Leo’s fascination with this skill. He was young; he didn’t have a curfew, he didn’t have an old, weary body holding him back. He could be out living his life instead of hovering in ghostly form around the house or strolling through empty streets with his old grandpa. What was he getting out of this?

One night, as we settled into our chairs to begin our ritual, I glanced over at Leo’s body. He’d gotten comfortable, his head tilted back, his breathing already slowing, his eyelids fluttering shut. It struck me how young and full of life he looked, even when he was so still. I felt an odd pang of longing, a desire that surprised me in its intensity.

When had I last felt young? Truly young, without the weight of decades pressing down on my shoulders? What would it be like to feel like that one more time, to feel that boundless energy I saw in Leo.

As Leo’s breathing grew steady, his astral self drifting beside me, I looked back at his empty body, sitting there, vulnerable and untouched. The thought tugged at me, and for a moment, I felt an almost irresistible urge to reach out, take his body for myself just for one fleeting moment

---

The idea had been lingering in the back of my mind for weeks now. Every time I saw Leo drifting out of his body, the temptation grew a little stronger.

He was shy about his body, sure, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that felt like a betrayal somehow, slipping into him without asking. But there’s no way he’d ever say yes. Besides, I would be in and out before he’d ever know, right?

Finally, I gathered the courage. One evening, Leo announced he was heading out and asked me to join. “I’ll be back in a couple hours, wanna come with,” he said with a grin as he leaned back, his breathing slowing as he began the process.

I shook my head no, feigning sleepiness. “I’ll stay in tonight,” I replied. “I could use the rest.”

As his body drifted to sleep, I waited, counting each minute until I was sure his astral form was far enough away. Then, with my heart racing, I initiated my own astral walk and hovered towards his body .

A deep anticipation rushed over me as I prepared to enter. “Just a half hour, tops” I told myself.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to slip in as gently as possible. But something was wrong. As soon as I began, it felt as if I were pushing against a wall. I couldn’t just slide in like I usually did with my own body. I adjusted my position, aligning myself more carefully with his form, and tried again. This time, I felt a bit of give, and gradually, I was able to push through, inch by inch.

First my legs merged with his, then my torso. I felt the strength in his muscles as I took on his form. I kept pushing, my hands now matching his, aligning, filling out his arms, until finally, my head was nearly there, just hovering over his own.

But then, out of nowhere, I saw Leo’s astral form float towards me from across the room, his face a mixture of shock and fear. Me entering his body must’ve attracted his astral form back as a defense mechansim. Panic flared within me. If he re-entered his body while I was halfway in… I didn’t even know what would happen, but I didn’t want to find out. Before he could reach me, I shoved my head down, slipping fully inside.

---

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, I realized I was fully conscious—inside Leo’s body. My vision felt sharper, my muscles responsive, and as I looked down, I took in his smooth, toned arms, the strength and youth radiating through every limb. It was exhilarating.

I hopped up, feeling the lightness in my step that I hadn’t felt in years. Each movement was effortless, as if my body itself had forgotten what it meant to be heavy. I walked around the room, flexing his hands, rolling his shoulders, feeling every inch of youth as it coursed through me.

But then I felt something odd—a light tapping on my stomach, almost like a faint punch or a persistent nudge. Instinctively, I flexed Leo’s abs, the sensation dulling a bit, and that’s when it hit me. That tapping—that was Leo, trying to get his body back.

“Leo…” I whispered, feeling a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry, kid. I’ll be out soon, I promise.”

I let myself enjoy the feeling of his body, each sensation crisp and vivid. As I explored myself, I felt a familiar tension grow in my pants, one that I hadn’t felt in years. Instinctively, I reached down to my waistband and grabbed down to tug at my new, surprisingly hairy ball sack. That was enough to get my cock to throb.

I began stroking my new, uncut cock while feeling up my smooth torso with my other hand. As I did, my mind wandered to all the hot guys I could pull in this body if Leo ever let me borrow it again. Concentrating on that thought was all it took to send me over the edge. Slowly and sensually tugging at my shaft, I spurted all over my chest, completely draining mysefl.

Finally, as I lay back into the bed, a wave of satisfaction washed over me, leaving me feeling both exhilarated and calm. The room was warm and quiet, and with the last bit of energy fading from me, I felt a sudden drowsiness settle in. I lay down, and before I could convince myself to leave, I drifted into sleep, enveloped in the softness of youth and the quiet of Leo’s room.

--

I jolted awake, my heart racing as I felt hands gripping my shoulders, shaking me roughly. Blinking in confusion, I looked up—and there was my old, familiar face, creased with panic and rage, staring down at me.

“What the hell did you do?” he demanded, his voice hoarse and furious.

It took me a second to process, my mind still foggy from sleep. I tried to sit up, disoriented, and felt the youthful energy of Leo’s body springing into action, as if the night hadn’t worn it down in the slightest.

“What…” I managed, words failing me. But he kept going, too upset to wait for me to catch up.

“I had no choice but to take your body,” he said, his voice laced with frustration. “Otherwise, I’d have just… disappeared. Astral projection doesn’t work for body swapping. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. I never told you that because I didn’t think you’d ever try something like this.”

The full weight of his words settled over me, each one hitting like a cold punch. “So… we can’t just switch back?”

He shook his—my—head, a bitter smile flashing across his face. “No. There's a refractory period before we can attempt any switch again. It’s designed to prevent exactly what you just did. We’d have to wait ten years before we could even try to go back.”

“Ten years…” I repeated, the words sinking in like stones in my stomach. My old body—now his—was 90. I knew my own heart, knew how every joint ached, knew how every year was harder than the last. The odds of it lasting another decade were slim to none.

The guilt knotted in my chest, sharp and sour. I opened my mouth to apologize, to try to explain, but the words caught in my throat. What could I even say?

But then, unbidden, a different thought crept in. In ten years, this body would be 30. That meant I had Leo’s—my entire 20s to live again, the years I’d once cherished and missed deeply. I looked down at my youthful hands, the strength and vitality I could feel coursing through every inch of Leo’s body, and felt a strange, conflicted thrill rise within me.

He must’ve noticed the shift in my expression, because his face—my old, familiar face—darkened. “Are you… are you happy about this?” he whispered, incredulous.

I shook my head, trying to fight the feelings rising up within me, but they were relentless. The shame of it burned hot, yet I couldn’t deny the excitement simmering just beneath.

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my expression steady. “Leo,” I said softly, but I didn’t know how to finish.

He watched me, a flash of betrayal in his eyes as he seemed to understand, even without me saying it. And then, with a bitter laugh, he turned away.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror across the room. Fuck, this’ll be fun.

[crypticmillipede]

show so heartbreaking and sad you gotta “it’s okay it’s just fiction” “wow these actors are so talented” “this is some incredible cgi work”

[leupagus]

Am I writing the Meereen scenes as essentially "1776" with less singing and more threats of burning each other alive? Look,

x

Just then a group entered the library, arguing at and over each other. They were the most unlikely hodgepodge collection of people Tyrion had ever seen in his life: a young man in the rough spun smock favored by Meereen's freedmen, a tall bearded fellow wearing ornate robes that identified him as a member of one of the "great families," a woman dressed in the silk sleeveless tunic of a prostitute, and a half-dozen others, each more surprising than the last.

"All I am saying, my lord Hizdahr," said one woman, wearing a flowing dress and the choker that signaled her status as a Red Priestess, "is that your ridiculous notion of religious 'persecution' is so broad as to render any religious judgement meaningless!"

The tall bearded one slammed the door shut behind them and followed the group as it meandered its way over to a large oval table near a window, piled high with scrolls and books and half-written sheets of paper. "And all I am saying, my lady Kinvara, is that reducing the population via pyrotechnics is directly contradictory to achieving peace and stability, as well as freedom for all Meereenese!"

"Both of you shut up," sighed the man in the smock as they all settled into what seemed to be their usual seats. Thus far none of them had taken notice of either their queen or of him. One of the group, an old man with a white beard and a limp, got up almost immediately to totter over to one of the bookshelves, pulling out an alarming number of tomes with a thoughtful expression on his face. "And stop calling each other 'my lord' and 'my lady' when you're irritated, it makes my hands itch and I just want to wrap them around your throats."

"And you would be free to do so, were we followers of the Drowned God," snapped the one called Hizdahr as he rose to his feet, striding over to the old man and taking the pile of books. This evidently didn't put much of a damper on his ability to argue, however, as he twisted round to glare at the Red Priestess. "Any blood shed by a faith is fine, so long as it's your own devout you're killing? That seems to be your definition of 'religious freedom.'"

"Does the Drowned God punish its criminals by strangling them?" asked a young person surrounded by papers, fingers blue from ink and scribbling madly. "I thought it would be. Well. Drowning."

This seemed to side-track the conversation for a bit, and Daenerys moved away toward the door at the opposite end of the library.

"Who in the hells are they?" asked Tyrion as he followed her, before remembering his audience and wincing.

"Meereen's new Governance Charter Council," replied Daenerys, looking torn between annoyance and amusement. "They're drawing up a new system of laws and regulations for the city, as well as a system to choose their leaders."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does," she added, somewhat reluctantly. "But tyranny has its advantages."

"For the tyrant, certainly," he agreed, and winced again.

Fortunately, she laughed. "Certainly. But I mean for everyone. A just form of government will still fail its people, after all. And then who do they blame? Themselves, for choosing their own leaders? At least with me, Meereen has someone to hate."

"Do they hate you?" asked Tyrion, somewhat surprised. Granted, he'd not had much chance to mingle among the hoi polloi, but the crowd at the fighting pits had seemed quite approving of their new queen.

"They don't love me."

Tyrion rolled his eyes. "Well, love. That always fades in the end, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Daenerys looked thoughtful. They had arrived at the other door and a librarian opened it for them. She did not bow, he noted; simply nodded and closed the door behind them. Daenerys seemed not even to notice, mulling over his question as though it had been a serious one.

[istherewifiinhell]

reading a single tf comedy fic will confront u with the authors viewpoints on: heads of military, heads of state, stance on revolutionary politics, reporters, freedom of the press, cops, class stigmatized labour, civilian liberties, criminalized... miscreantism? blows big breath kicks can down the road... minorities?

[lususnatura]

who are you in this haunted house story?

the dark entity.

you’re not from here. you don’t need what they need. their fear is so…. trivial. they are small, so very small compared to you. they eat and walk and cry and laugh. you just watch. it’s fascinating, really, their little rituals and their meaningless concerns. sometimes, you envy their small joys or even their modest pain. they don’t know what it is to wait in the dark, unfeeling, as time passes over you as eternal as the sea. but my, how you are glad to have guests again. you see, over your many years, you've become aware of a secret: fear tastes sweet.

tagged by: @sortilegii (thanks so much for the tag :D)

tagging: @sifonie, @greenleads, @volucerrubidus, @masquenoire, and anyone else who might like to complete this quiz!

[allegoryofthebeast]

I am obsessed that Jedi: Survivor explores Cal more or less slipping into the dark side/dark behaviors and patterns and how leaning into emotion as a Jedi can make you significantly more powerful though also extremely reckless and aggressive - however a balance could perhaps be reached by Jedi with the patience and support to understand their darker emotions and how it could be beneficial or harmful given the situation. But they fr don’t. Every time something within that vein happens to Cal everyone is like damn… crazy. Anyway

[voluptuarian]

idk I really love the ideas explored in cosmic horror and I think those ideas could be used in non-horror genres, or in less straightforward combination with other genres to create really interesting fiction. Cosmic horror is like: an event happened. It was terrible, and beautiful, and utterly beyond previous understanding. Like trauma it can only be lived through, not told or explained, and so surviving it is the ultimate isolation for those who see it alone, and a supreme bond for those with shared experience. It has destroyed your previous worldviews, changed your understanding of everything, altered your mind, changed perhaps even your body. You are different and you cannot explain why or how. You have been cast adrift from the old world and are now at least eternally on the edge of a new one. You can choose to turn away from this new reality but you cannot leave it behind, no more than you can change the neural pathways in your brain or the pattern of your cells.

And like, maybe this is horrible for you. Or maybe it was once. Maybe this is only the temporary anguish of growth and you will emerge transformed into something else. Maybe this horror is only the fear of unfamiliarity and inexperience, and like a first taste or a first sexual experience, fear will give way to something strange, but desirable. Maybe you will come not only to enjoy the new, but prefer it. Rather than isolate you, maybe you will be joined to a new community. In losing your old understanding, reality, self, maybe you have found freedom.

Wouldn't a caterpillar fear change if it could understand what would happen to it, that it would first be unmade in order to be made anew? Wouldn't the cocoon be a place of total horror, the future butterfly self a nightmare scenario? And then, after all, when it has changed-- it's a no more an immature crawling thing, but something more profound, with avenues of movement and understanding beyond anything it's old self could have conceived of. Would that still be a horrific reality for the butterfly, or what it had been meant for all along?

Even if the moth could be warned that the fire would kill it, wouldnt there still be an attraction in the flames, even as they burned it?

We are frightened of many things that pose no danger to us, and no ill will. And anything frightening, looked at long enough, will lose its fearfulness, become mundane, absurd, attractive. If you look into the abyss long enough, what will look back at you? What do you bring with you into the abyss, and how will the abyss itself be changed your influence? And will the abyss, altered intimately by your presence, experience horror at the change and fear of the one who brought it?

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

Can- can I start one of those homoerotic love-hate one sided vendetta type relationships with Instagram

[claire-starsword]

Authentic Story of the Shining Force - Saint Fencer Max - Chapter 3

Translation notes:

So, uh. Elliot's name is rendered with two t's in the og game, but a single one in the GBA version. I had never paid attention to that at all until I had already edited all these pages, and I don't care enough to change it.

Cain's sword causes an explosion here. In the game, it is indeed capable of summoning flames.

This is a perfect illustration of how I feel about these names, but I do wonder what the actual intention was, since Cain is supposed to be already gone. The original image is even cut off weirdly in the middle of the text, and i don't think it's a problem with the scan, since every scanned page has a black border showing that the paper itself doesn't cut there. I wonder about the production of this thing, but i'll wait until i translate the author's comments before saying more.

The map in the previous chapter was very accurate to the beta map of the game. The smaller map here showing Rindo however looks off, the coast is different, and there seems to be a river directly to the north of Rindo, as opposed to the path to Shade Abbey. Perhaps fitting since Shade is skipped here.

Metaphaluna, huh? Needlessly to say, the country of the gods/Ancients is called only Metapha in the final game. Also, in this panel, it pops up as an alternate reading for 前世紀 (ancient times), not the name of a country specifically. I chose to romanize the last part as "luna" for three reasons. One is that the continent of Rune is actually rendered as Lune in at least two guides. I take romanizations from JP guides with a grain of salt since they sometimes look bad/unnatural, or are inconsistent (Pelle's name for example has been romanized as both Peil or Payle depending on the book). I checked though, and town names however are consistent in both the books I've seen romanizing things. The second reason is that the beta map used at this point has a fairly noticeable crescent moon shaped island right in the middle. In the final game, we can't know exactly where Metapha is, because you only teleport there. But I wonder if this island had something to do with it at some point. The third reason is simply I saw no better reason. Metaphalna and Metapharuna would be just as valid, but don't have any meaning to them.

The biggest equation next to Tao as she explains the magic types is very clearly a E=mc². Look close.

I've retranslated Elliot's scenes from the game thinking it would be relevant to these notes. Now I feel it really isn't, but you get more content so you should be happy.

My main point with that is that Elliot does not say anything about Cain in the game. In the GBA version, Balbazak does try revealing Max, Cain and Darksol's identities before dying, but that's not a thing in the og. So yeah I really translated a bunch of stuff for nothing this time! Except not because Darksol is awesome in that scene and everyone should get to see it.

Now let's talk about Otrant. I have mentioned before that Otrant's gender is never explicitly said, and they speak in a mostly gender neutral way (I feel like there's a few masculine patterns in some lines, but I'm not confident enough to say for certain). What I hadn't noticed is that they also use lipstick in the games, which is probably what sparked these observations to begin with, but i'm uh, occasionally not smart. In any case, if any of these aspects were done at this point in development the artist here sure ignored them, and drew a regular old man who gets called an old man. They hate to see an androgynous boss winning.

I don't recall Otrant's third eye being called "Eye of Truth" anywhere else, but the manual of the game does say it can see the past and the future.

Otrant's naming of the Shining Force is a bit more elaborate here, but the wording is very similar to the actual game.

Finally, let's play spot the cameo!

We've got Gong, Zylo, one of the birds, and probably Anri. Easy.

Here, besides the obvious three who were actually introduced in the story, we again have a bird, Anri between Ken and Hans, Gong to the right, and Mae and Gort behind Luke. If you read the pre-release page you know that Gort was meant to be Mae's servant at some point, so this might be why they're together, or it's just coincidence because they still join around the same time in the final game. More importantly, to Ken's left we have...

Some guys. Who are these. They could be made up by the artist (there will be another case of this), but I find it curious that the artist had to do that when there are so many character to pick from, and he clearly wanted to depict official characters here. For one, there's evidence that Earnest was already designed at that point in development. However, that link also shows that Vankar didn't have a portrait by that time at least, and Vankar would have already joined by this point in the story. So could the bald centaur here be a beta Vankar, or the artist's interpretation of Vankar via unfinished art? Maybe, but just a guess in the end. Mostly I'm just fascinated by how detailed this guy is compared to even Mae and Gort's cameos. The other guy isn't so i don't think about them nearly as much.

[thedevotionaltour]

thinking about daredevil yellow again im not. going to make it Guys.

[gayvampcentral]

love when a new trailer for a sims pack drops and I watch it and think "this is the worst one yet literally not a single person wants this" and then I look at the comments and ALL of them are like "THANK you I've been wanting this for YEARS" girl what do you MEAN you've been wanting to pay EA 10 bucks to give you a fucking waffle iron in your game for years. we play very differently.

[victorluvsalice]

Tis Fall Tuesday in the Chill Valicer Save as of this update, and as usual, it's a busy one! So let's dive right into it, shall we --

-->Okay, first of all, it occurred to me that you guys probably didn't get a great look at some of the pictures the gang took on their vacation when I took the initial screenshots of the various photo collages I had made -- so here's a close-up of the four in Smiler's party barn, which I think show off some of the best poses I put the trio in. :p What, I like showing off their photographs!

-->All right, all right, we'll get into the actual game now -- I started the morning after Spookfest, with Alice having just finished her brief rampage and Victor having gotten up early because, well, their bed is amazing. I had Victor take a moment to remove Shadow's Spookfest costume, then left the dog bopping around to the tunes on the phonograph while Victor went to go challenge Smiler to a game of chest while Alice finished up her latest surreal painting in the background. Smiler ended up winning, but Victor ended up getting to Logic skill 4 during the game, so I'd say they both won. :)

-->Guidry also put in an appearance -- after checking in on Shadow (settling down for a nap on the couch), he wandered into the studio room to start bothering Alice as she tried to finish her painting. She indulged him a little at first...but then I had her change back into her human form right after finishing up her painting, and of course Guidry (despite being a GHOST PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR) got terrified and decided this was the worst thing ever. *sigh* I really think werewolves turning back to HUMANS shouldn't be scary to onlookers, or at least not as scary as the other way around. On the plus side, Alice getting a negative sentiment claiming that she was a People Person reminded me that, "oh yeah, the game gave her that lifestyle again," and allowed me to grab the Lifestyle-Go-Poof potion and get rid of it. Really gotta track down that mod that makes it so it takes a lot more to become a People Person...

-->Anyway -- Alice was a bit tired, so after hitting the bathroom and taking a short detour to take Kelly's taco costume off, she hit the sack while Victor and Smiler did some more upgrades to the washer and dryer (Smiler giving the washer a tungsten drum so it would break less often, Victor giving the dryer a speed cycle so it would dry clothes faster). Smiler finished first and headed out into the greenhouse to unleash Bugs and Elmer upon it and grab all their herbalism stuff. And doesn't the greenhouse look good? For once everything was in bloom and nothing was being affected by that stupid "plants revert to dirt piles occasionally" bug! We love to see it.

-->We also love to see Victor's magic being helpful around the farm -- when I sent him out to help tend and harvest the rest of the crop once his upgrade was done, I noticed that the cow shed was stinking a bit. Normally this would prompt me to send a Sim in there to clean it, but this time I decided to check if Victor could just Scruberoo it -- and he could! So I had him do that. :D Magic -- it makes farm chores easier! Though it didn't get Victor out of weeding his oversized crops (Floralorial doesn't work on those -- and even if it DID, that's a per-plant thing, so it's a bit of a pain on a greenhouse as big as this one) or Smiler out of feeding the chickens, but that's okay. Some stuff is better done "by hand," as it were. :p

[waywardsalt]

before i actually go through the phantom hourglass manga to critique it i’m going to quickly just toss out a bullet point list of things i actually liked in the ph manga

- i like how the stuff w/ tetra in the first chapter not only sets her up but serves to contrast how she is as a captain vs. how linebeck initially is as a captain. the line ‘as captain, nothing is more important than the lives of my crew’ specifically

- link’s cute. hes just a little guy

- i’m a big fan of the added detail that linebeck tends to stick out his bottom lip. it fits really well with his character. as a smaller side note i like the way his nose is drawn. i just like the shape they went with lol

- the bit with the point card for eddo’s garage that is specifically noted to be Not In The Video Game is good

- for all intents and purposes what is done with the bellumbeck fight is really good

thats it everything else i either feel neutral about or hate/feel frustrated with

[monstraduplicia]

just watched ma mere and that was without a doubt the strangest movie i have ever seen. louis garrel was beautiful and a pathetic mess but at what cost

[jaythelay]

"legally" obtained Cyberpunk and it's been a ride.

It's a very confused game. Much of it feels undesigned, like they had an idea, implemented it, and barely adjusted it from there. That's not a claim, that's what it feels like, to be clear.

To me, it's weird having an open world at all for something that thus far feels like hallway after hallway designs. Sometimes it gets so absurd, like climbing very boring rubble with little to look at to continue the story, and it's got platforming but I can only ask what would be lost if they did anything else? One time so far an elevator failed, so I had to walk left, press F, then it came down and I could continue normally. What. Was the point.

The inventory system is as cool as it feels undesigned. All the UI is terrible and none of the stats carry meaning. It's just how they shoot differently, and that, is really cool. I found a sniper rifle that shoots 9 shots in a circle, that's cool as hell. Gives me borderlands vibes, but I imagine every gun like it does the same, so it starts to feel more like they had far too many designs and didn't want to leave any off the table. I'm usually fine with this but the sheer abundance of the exact same weapon duplicating in your inventory is rather undesigned feeling. Idunno what to dissasemble nor where to put shit up. Though the fact some are shooting differently from one another is rather refreshing in the FPS scene.

I skipped the intro. Fully expected the intro to take far, far, far too long before anything of real interest happens. As far as the story goes it's confused. I'm saving the US president? In the first hour essentially? Eh, honestly the president has been pretty fuckin' badass so I'm able to focus on her characterization more than her job being The Most Importantest Thing Everz (we can't write story but can characters, aka) I'm a Street Punk who suddenly is protecting America's Democracy ans president.... yay cyberpuuunk....

Performance is all over the place and visually the game is incompetent without raytracing. It looks fine enough with RT, but without, oh wow, nobody spent much time on that. HDR settings are fake and meaninglessly unusable like most games, no setting other than RT seems to improve performance either. Even upscalers aren't doin' nothin'. Primarily the lighting and brightness of the game is downright awful. Simple Darks becomes Black and Brights become White. You'll be needing Reshade for this one folks, I can't stress enough how much work it took to get the game to be Visible??

In terms of gameplay, man what's going on with the scroll wheel for weapons. The hell are these god awful claws? Why do they keep showing up when I'm scrolling through guns? I'm in the middle of a firefight trying to switch to a sniper and they pull out fuckin claws? Can't even unequip them and melee in the game has thus far proven rather poor, fruitless, unfun, and not worthwhile. A real joke of a weapon forced into your weapon scrolling. Can't quick change either, gotta wait on the pull out animation. Gunplay is...bulletspongey for the sake of it. They had big guys with big guns at 2 points so far and I've never been able to use their gun on a single enemy thus far. It's cool they don't just ragdoll upon death, and play an animation as long as they're being shot, though, maybe the giant mech could've ragdolled when only it's toe was on the upper floor.

Exploration is borked head to toe. There's one section where you're on the story path, and ya look around every possible direction but forward, just to eventually find a small square of the area in between doesn't have double jumping for some reason. So you double jump in areas you can to explore and find....absolutely nothing there was 0 reasons to have a random square non-double jumpable and exploration didn't matter other than ammo...of which the game gave me 999 for every single one basically at the end of every encounter? You're never gonna go below 700 bullets. Might as well not even bother with ammo pick ups? It's really, really "undesigned" stuff.

In order to get what feels like a rather essential and basic skill, I have to unlock an entire section for? with like 13 points or some shit I have NO CLUE where to obtain? Leveling up in general is exceptionally poor. Nothin' is organized or makes an ounce of sense. There's 40 different things to level up and 0 direction for what any of it is. Just kinda...saving points til I can actually buy something...rather simple? Meh.

Hacking is an absolute joke. I sincerely hope whoever designed that crap never gets another job in gaming. It's indescribably bad. There is no way to elaborate. You see it, and genuinely want to punch the creator of it. Bad. Exceptionally so and doesn't take much time to realize it.

Oh and they have QTE that uses the Dialogue Box for input. Absolutely. Hilarious. I don't even know if I should call it bad, if it works it works, but man, it's really lame, rather lazy feeling. Imagine if Fallout had QTE using their dialogue boxes, it feels rather poor.

But bizarrely, despite all this, I can't say it's been a bad time. I haven't gone "Bro what even is the point in continuing" or "Wow ya'll really didn't think to playtest this part huh." nah it's been fine. A decent middle of the road 6/10 experience that you easily can get elsewhere and better. But it's not dreadful. It's interesting in some areas, the MC's writing is unbearable to enjoyable, the other characters....exist. The designs of everyone is dogshit, Idunno who said Cyberpunk needed the ugliest looks but boy they went with it.

I don't reccomend it however. It really has been middle of the road generic slop. Far too much of a budget for the gameplay it actually is, and thus far too costly given the price. Get it on sale for 20$ bargain bin prices and you'll have a fair trade. Surprisingly playable, but unsurprisingly incompetent, but even more surprisingly, not a bad time. Just not a very good one. You'll feel a higher quality in indie titles, as usual.

It's confused as hell and doesn't got a clue what it is or wants to be, but the ideas inside, while not well executed, do keep the game feeling fresh at times. It does feel a cut above the average FPS in moments, but it overall does nothing better or new than any previous game similar. Just shootin' guys, poor stealth mechanics, and endless talking, with dogshit exploration, in poor level design sections. But it's fun enough to not focus on all of that, the pace of the story keeps bad ideas from lasting too long (sans the giant mech fight nobody playtested) but in turn you're gonna pass out waiting on story to give up it's stolen turn of fun so you can get back to having fun. It really does start to become "okay when does gameplay happen?" after a while. Dialogue choices thus far are frivilous.

It's just...confusing this game had so much time and budget...there's...nothing here. Nothing to indicate it took a decade and a half to come out. Not one aspect feels like the budget helped. Just the graphics which have awful visuals without RT. How does a game made a decade before RT existed, look horrific without it?

Oh and the bugs and jank. It's not as bad as release day but this shit's Jank-yyy. Like people just...spawn inside you. Or walk into walls? One time an enemy's feet was stuck in the ground... It's not embarrassingly bad like most modern titles, but it is noticeably poor at times.

I don't have much else to say. I wouldn't even say much about this if it didn't have a marketing team ensuring people made claims of the game based on emotion they created in their head based off concepts in the game, but not anything actually in-game. It really is a generic slop of an experience, but given today's standards, I guess that's high quality now. Meh. It's not horrific, just...forgettable. Nothing in here makes me go "Oh man I wish my friends got to experience this!" it's just mindless for the most part. I sincerely don't see the hype for the game, it really is amateur hour between the higher budgeted sections for story primarily if not solely.

Why bother with an open world if you're just gonna make a streamlined linear experience? There's no reason to go killing at random and less reason to explore. Rather empty but cluttered with the exact same burrito vending machine over and over. NPCs got nothin to say. It really is just a confused game top to bottom. But the difference between other confused titles and this one, is they actually seemed confident enough to make poor ideas into unbothersome ideas. From mediocre to decent.

I just Do Not Think anyone had a clue towards game design on this product. It's painful how confused it is. And it's even harder to explain such a point in a game riddled with half-ideas polished into half a doorknob. If I were best to describe it, it feels like 4 teams worked on the game at the same time, and then they had to put it together at some point far too late to fix any inconsistencies or poor designs. Like they had 4 versions of the game and grabbed what worked best from each and put it in with reckless abandon.

At no point does it feel like a path was fully intended. It just feels like they're using assets they only just saw and only were just provided. Exploration is the largest part of this confusion factor, as it's just dreadful.

Anyways, nah this ain't a rant. It's more of a "Wow despite all of yourself, you're still fun" it feels like if a bargain bin game got far too much of a budget and too long to develop, but the devs were passionate enough to make it work regardless. It's impressive in that, despite all it's flaws, you can still have a pretty above average time in it, just...don't expect anything revolutionary or approaching as much. It's all ideas you've seen before and done better half-slapped into here with little regard.

But it is fun. It is decent. Just not...the size of it, good, the size and passion of the community, good. It's Greg levels. Ya don't hate Greg, but ya don't really want to be around them, though when you are you never have a bad time. That, is Cyberpunk 2077. Greg.

[skipppppy]

The life of Stanford Pines must be so bizarre from the perspective of a random townsperson who doesn’t know him. Imagine you live in a sleepy lumber town, where the most interesting thing you’ve heard this week is that a plot of land on the outskirts of the woods was sold and someone has started constructing a cabin on there.

You later learn by word of mouth that he’s a phd student doing some kind of long-term research project. You don’t see his face until one night he comes blasting down the street on a trail of destruction, eyes yellow and glazed over, trashing public property, inflicting gruesome injuries on himself, and laughing like he’s on an erratic, drug-fuelled bender. He then goes home and locks himself in his cabin again. This becomes a cycle; he stays isolated for weeks, then comes out once in a blue moon to wreak havoc and be a nuisance to the authorities.

Then one day it stops. He doesn’t come back out. The next time you see him he’s at a grocery store looking completely different to how you remember; his hair is grown out, he’s put on weight, his clothes are completely different and he’s stopped wearing glasses. Some townsfolk finally work up the nerve to talk to him and you learn that he invited them to his cabin on a tour. His home is apparently FULL of dangerous research equipment and the scientist, who had allegedly been very quiet and level-headed on the days he wasn’t having his “episodes,” has had a complete personality change, he’s loud and confident and less than honest and a little sleazy but a damn good salesman and entertainer.

He hosts tours out of his home for the next 30 years. Over time he’d changed it into a museum of sorts that sells overpriced knickknacks to unsuspecting tourists, but aside from his shady business practices he’s a well known member of his community. He changes up the exhibits every few months, brings his niece and nephew to stay one summer and they become town darlings, and even exposes a beloved public figure for running a spyware scheme.

One day you hear he got visited by the FBI. They start going round town asking about him. A week or so later he gets arrested. The town goes CRAZY theorising why but then there’s a massive earthquake and in the chaos of that you forget what happened to him. One minute you hear that the feds were surrounding his house and the next they’re all leaving like they forgot what they came for. Another week later he resurfaces and announces he’s going to run for Mayor, dominated the polls, wins the popular vote, but loses his position immediately due to an extensive criminal record.

Then there’s gossip that he completely changed his appearance again. He’s lost his fez and is walking around in a coat and cable knit turtleneck in the middle of the July heat. Then you hear from someone else that he looks the exact same and didn’t change anything. Then you see two identical men walking down the street, one matching the description you saw. People are BUZZING to know what happened and you eventually learn that the “new guy” was actually the same Scientist and the guy that had been running the museum was his twin brother who stole his identity after he went missing. Then the apocalypse happens