#like just the basic one. and that was incredibly rewarding i liked the team on that one v much

[moe-broey]

Yesterday I remembered Soul Silver existed

I love how my team is like... a mix of basic and huh. Where'd you get That..... that's kinda the gimmick behind it though! Plus, making choices I typically wouldn't make. Like, usually I'd pick Umbreon over Espeon, I've never actually used the red Gyarados in a playthrough before. There are some Pokemon in Johto that are near impossible for me to say no to though (Chikorita line they could NEVER make me hate you.... Togepi line is Always a given for me. But even then, I'm p sure you're not supposed to have the stone to fully evolve it at this point -- I traded one in!)

Most notable team members...

This was a lucky find! I wasn't even using the Radar. Impulsively I REALLY wanted to shiny hunt one, so I set up the garden to get Porygon encounters (that Pearl is semi-fresh as well), and... literally. Just a few random encounters. I fucking ran into this guy. Insane. I've kinda opted not to fully evolve it! I think it's soooo cutes... I love Porygon-Z too, but I also had one on my team in that Pearl file I mentioned LMFAO. So it was neat actually! Getting a feel for how Porygon-2 is different than Porygon-Z! I also just love.... the rubber duckie of it all... the. It's literally called a drinking bird? The desk toy. Okay. Well I love that too! It's very cute!!!

This one.... you know it. We all know it. The HG/SS starter hunt. REALLY fun hunt! But man. To be so real Iggy is bittersweet, to me. I went through a really rough patch where I couldn't get myself to enjoy Pokemon anymore when I first came out as trans. I tried really hard to make what was given to me... work. So a lot of my old Pokemon/save files had my deadname as the OT (and even if they didn't, they'd always be the girl trainer). It's kinda sweet, though. I've long since nuked that save. Iggy is the soul (hah) survivor of it. A second chance at life, perhaps? It was really nice to actually use him on a team, after being dormant all these years. And... yeah okay fine Typhlosion is fucking good. Okay. I'll admit it. Still I will live and die by my pokey ass flower dinosaur it's CUTE. OKAY. WHATEVER... (which is to say! Newfound appreciation for the Cyndaquil line! It's a Pokemon I never felt especially strongly about prior!)

And! The rest!

Again just most basic run of the mill Johto team ever. Special shoutouts to Shrimp for carrying my ass against Lance (everybody say thank you Ice Fang). Poly2 ALSO carried during that fight though (everybody say thank you Discharge -- also Poly2 is surprisingly defensive? Huh!). Everyone did their part though! (... Chikpea's part is to look cute). Also having an Espeon on my team (miss Lulu...) DOES fill me w an INCREDIBLE YEARNING for the radioactive toxic slutch bitch.................... I really didn't want to stop everything and hunt for it for god knows how long though. Not here. Not now. Another place... maybe.

The BIGGEST reason I wanted to just buckle down and tear the bandaid off though (save was abandoned like right at Victory Road lmfao), is. I really want to See. If I can get the endlessly time consuming and convoluted Safari Zone set up before/just in time for June. I think I started a little late if I want it fully decked out, but. Really the biggest struggle I run into lately w Pokemon is just feeling... aimless. I Can have fun if I have a set goal in mind. But I think the sadness of having to uproot everything and start over and over and over again just never left.

I need NEW sadness. EXCITING sadness. EXHILARATING SADNESS. I have to do Safari Week. I Have To. I HAVE TO‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️IT WILL FIX ME BY BREAKING ME I HAVE TO DO SAFARI WEEK AND I HAVE TO DO IT ALL THE FUCKING WAY OR SO HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I actually did a hint of Safari Week last year in Leaf Green, no goal in mind, very noncommittal (also didn't find anything, for better or worse lmfao). I only have one cart as well. Nothing fancy. I think it could be more rewarding (and less painful. Maybe.) if I could do hunts across dif games! I'm compelled by the Hoenn Safari too, but... feels like.... too much set up.... <- guy who's picking the infinitely more set up heavy option LMFAOOO

BUT I THINK. SS HAS POTENTIAL. ESP in the variety of Pokemon you can encounter if you put the work/research in. Plus is just an objectively cool game to have shinies in! I also just kinda like the idea that it gives me something to work towards, maybe. If I lose a shiny, I'll want to reclaim it. Reclaiming run away shinies can sometimes be a yearly process, when you partake in Safari Week! There's also just very specific things I like about Safari hunting actually... like the understanding that just SEEING specific Pokemon as shinies is an incredible rarity, nevermind actually catching them. Think Chansey, but also the white whale of the FR/LG Safari, the 1% Dragonair fishing encounter (not a single person has caught that specific encounter yet!!!!!! And I am not going for it. I'm leaving that to god's strongest warriors.)

Idk idk, I just think it's neat. And maybe I like the idea of taking immense emotional damage. It's enrichment... for me...... but I also really like the idea of participating in a community driven event, too! I don't know how strong of a presence it has outside of youtube, but! Shiny hunting while watching someone else shiny hunt will never get old. To me.

[tr1nd2de]

Captain Marvel is disconcerting

I was looking at wonderjanga's post (Marvel and YJ) and I realized how disconcerting it is to see Captain Marvel going from a powerhouse to a person unqualified to be an adult.

Captain Marvel has always been someone very wise given the wisdom of Solomon, however it is not uncommon to see that the man. doing something very good, but it's disconcerting. And the league...doesn't understand how someone who not only acts like a child can change so quickly.

Even though the stories he creates while alone are as simple as a child's, they can be so different from the stationery he hands over to Batman. In his paperwork there is nothing but extremely perfect text. No spelling mistakes that indicate that the papers that Marvel writes for himself, have indications that they are made by the same person.

(not that this applies to me, spelling mistakes are just the basics)

Then comes the drawings, which are so different from each other. Marvel felt comfortable drawing at the end of a meeting, and the drawing was deplorable, done in a way that reminds someone who has never drawn so much in his life, even though he apparently lived as long as Diana. So Marvel, after returning from a mission, takes a painting and paint, which not even the league knew were in the tower. And draws a never-before-seen work of art, in a way that is quite innovative, just because Dinha jokingly asked that she should earn a reward from the big red cheese, for helping him make a wardrobe with normal clothes from this century.

(The painting must be worth a lot of money, and Dinah is perplexed that she got a piece of art, just because she picked out some clothes for Marvel)

(This idea also came from wonderjanga’s post (Marvel Wearing C.C.’s Clothes)

I can imagine how disconcerting it must be for Batman to try to understand Marvel, he always acts like a child most of the time, but when he asks Marvel to give an insight into the plan, Marvel describes an extremely efficient military tactic that Batman himself hadn't thought of.

Marvel was chosen to be YJ's den mother, just because Red Tornado and Black Canary were on a mission. It was supposed to be something simple, right? Give the teenagers a break. We sent Marvel so he could distract the team and they could rest. So it was extremely disconcerting for the league to see Marvel trying to get all the teens on their toes in an experimental combat class. Marvel usually acts like a child around the league, so why does he act like he should here? being a serious person in passing the oral lesson and giving useful tips to YJ

Which brings us to the next question: why when Marvel fights, he fights in such an incredibly sloppy way. Superman has seen Marvel hold back from biting his opponents. In practically all the fights so far it has been like this, Marvel doesn't seem to be taking this seriously, so one day Hawkgirl gives Marvel an ultimatum, either he learns to fight properly or he won't go on missions for a while. So Marvel, seeing that he has no option to deny or flee, he fights. Using the same fighting art as Diana, it was quite efficient, let's say, it's a bit scary to see Marvel fight seriously.

This idea also came from a post by imnotditzy ( Billy and Marvel have very different fighting styles.)

It's disconcerting to everyone that Marvel acts like a child, but in reality he is extremely efficient in everything he does.

Batman is having trouble dealing with Marvel's contingency plan, especially after he discovers that the supposed demigod is nothing more than a 13-year-old child. It is extremely disconcerting that such power was given to a homeless and orphaned child. At least now the league understands why Marvel acts the way it does. And all attempts to send him to YJ are vehemently denied. expelling Marvel is also not an option since, as the saying goes: he will not stop doing his job as a "champion of magic" and hero.

So even though it's disconcerting, the league now has a 13-year-old capable of going head-to-head with the most powerful beings in the world and beyond. And OH, his last name is Batson.

[captainuranium543]

Fairy tail headcannon a nobody wanted at all😊

- most of the dragon slayers+erza eat bugs regularly and it's gross AF to everyone

-Natsu because he grew up in the woods and they were like the number one abundant source of food, same for Wendy but she stopped for a while because Carla told her it was nasty (as soon as she joined the fairy tail guild she reverted so incredibly fast)

-gajeel pretends to thinks it's gross but secretly he really likes the taste he just doesn't wanna have that in common with natsu

- erza and Erik because in the evil slave tower where everyone was starving if you found a bug you ate it before anyone else could grab it from you.

- sting did not do that growing up but started when natsu told him it was good, he does not agree but does it anyway so natsu thinks he's cool

- rogue only tried it a couple times because frosch wanted to try it to be more like a frog and rogue is nothing if not supportive

- laxus grew up normal and thinks all of them are disgusting

- Lucy has the WORST financial skills. Legit they are awful. Everyone thinks she's always broke cuz of the tpd (team property damage) constantly making them lose their reward to repair bills but (while that is a factor) when Lucy sees smth cute that would look great in her apartment she just cannot help herself. Lucy will be so careful trying to save her money then she'll see a new set of stationary and goes "haha rent what rent"

- the hand me down game at fairy tail was fucking insane when they where kids. For levy and lisanna basically everything they owned had been passed down like 6 times already

- that red shirt natsu wore in the flashbacks? Before him it was erza's, and before her it was canas, and before her it was laxus.

- gray wears almost exclusively white jackets because jackets are expensive and if he loses them he would rather they be easy to spot so he can find them again rather then have to buy a new one

- sometimes people will invite erza places for the scary dog privilege when they dont want to be bothered by strangers. Erza has no idea thats the reason she just thought people really liked walking with her through rough parts of town in the middle of the night.

- Carla and lilly have insane beef, for no damn reason. Like both of them are fairly polite so neither will say it openly but every conversation between the two is the most passive aggressive petty insult battle you could imagine

- freed, levy, Lucy and later jellal have a book club where they all meet up and talk about whatever they're reading and play Scrabble and talk a lot of shit about their annoying ass friends.

- happy sometimes comes but he is under no circumstances allowed to bring natsu(he knows what he did)

- when erza met seigrain/jellal in the magic counsel she first tried to attack him, when that proved to be a bad idea she later started specifically destroying stuff under his jurisdiction to make sure he had to deal with as much paperwork as possible

- for her modelling, Mira used to use a very light spray of holy water to remove body hair because it burns it off💀

- wendy romeo and chelia are actually best friends like they are constantly hanging out together just to go do stuff

- erza and Erik hate each other for no reason at all. Like over that year that she worked with crime sorciere they where ALWAYS BEEFING. Every time they were near each other erza was thinking insults she knew he could hear and Erik was fighting for his life not to strangle her to death.

When erza became sclass she used to sit on the 5th step of the stairs because Mira wasn't allowed on those stairs yet and it really pissed her off. She was like, just barely out of reach, so Mira would stand at the bottom the stairs yelling death threats at her and erza would be like "whattt I'm not doing anything I don't even know what your talking about in literally just sitting what are you so mad about"

- when Warren invented cellphones, despite all of them looking like modern smartphones, freed somehow managed to get one that looked exactly like a Blackberry and refuses to get a different one

- Mira used to cut her siblings hair and because she didn't know any good haircuts yet her 2 options where 1- bald or 2- bowl cut. Hence lisannas horrifying cut as a child

[project-sekai-facts]

Fes gacha updates

Before I say anything else I'm just gonna say the vast majority of the fes updates are incredibly disappointing, especially if you're F2P. Like seriously if you're F2P don't expect to come out of this post entirely happy. I can be mean to clpl because I'm F2P and this is total bullshit. Anyway.

Starting from the fes gacha on this sunday, Colorful Festival will now be known as Bloom Festival! It also has a newly designed logo as seen in the picture above, complete with flowers in all the unit colors, including Virtual Singer, which pretty much confirms that all 26 characters will be getting 2nd fes cards. The good thing about this confirmation is that unless they fuck with the schedule again and put 3 characters on one banner a few times, this means the story will continue past 6th anniversary, something there'd previously been concerns about. There's only 9 fes banners before 6th anniversary (10 if you include 6th anniversary), but you need 13 banners to cover everyone. So that's really nice news!

More information that we were told on stream, as well as story and gacha lineup predictions can be found below the cut!

Unfortunately we have not yet been told what exactly the differences between colofes and bloomfes are in terms of story. Based on the whole journey to bloom/world bloom (internal name for WLEs) thing, I reckon it could be something like the characters' Fragment SEKAI expanding, like what happened with the Tree SEKAI in Let Your Song Resonate. It would also tie into the plot of WLEs, so it would make a lot of sense. Some other speculation I've seen since March is that they might have entirely new Fragment SEKAI, which I think is entirely plausible due to character development and changes in their personal conflicts, and another was that these could be like bandori's kirafes cards, which focus on relationships. While I think this would be interesting, and makes some sense since prsk does take influence from bandori in some ways due to sharing a parent company (craftegg), I feel like they would've mentioned that.

We do know a lot about the differences between bloomfes and colofes on a meta and gameplay level, and unfortunately this is the not f2p-friendly part.

The main gimmick of bloom festival that differentiates them from colofes is that bloomfes cards will have 2 skills! One skill will apply for the untrained card, and one for the trained card. You can switch them at any time, presumably by flipping the illustration when it's on your deck. There's a catch though. The catch is that to train bloomfes cards, you will need 3 Wish Drops (the items used to level up area items past lvl10) on top of all the regular 4* training materials. All players will be given 3 wish drops for free, but aside from that these are incredibly hard to earn for casual players due to being the most expensive item in the event shop at 50000 tokens per wish drop. Basically the game is forcing you to sacrifice other shop rewards, tier, or spend money. Not that colopale needs it when the game earns millions a month.

(translated graphic from @/pjsekai_eng on Twitter)

The skills are also not the most fairly balanced. That's an understatement actually. You have to be a massive whale to get the max skill on these cards, it is literally impossible for casual players.

The untrained card skills vary between virtual singers and human characters. For vsingers, at max level, they give a 90% score boost, but gain +30% boost for every different unit type on your team (though it only applies to two types max, giving you a total of 150% bonus). This is pretty easy to achieve, so that's good for scoring purposes!

For human characters, you get an 80% base score boost at max skill level. By selecting one other card in your team, you get an additional boost of half of that card's skill increase (eg: if the card selected has a score boost of 100%, the bloomfes score boost will get 50% added to its base 80%, for 130% total). I'm not sure if this card is selected manually or automatically. But nonetheless this is a pretty good skill too!

The issue lies with the trained skill. At max level, it gives a base score boost of 110%, which is pretty good, but the additional boost is scaled by your Character Rank, with +1% score boost per 2 ranks (eg: a player with a CR40 Miku will get a bonus 20% score boost) on top of the 110, for 130% boost total). The issue here is that the absolute max boost you can get require CR100, which is ridiculously hard to get without spending money, and is near impossible to do for multiple characters. In other words, this skill is for your oshi, and you have to be willing to spend a lot or grind a lot for said oshi. And also be lucky enough to even pull your oshi from the gacha. It's incredibly geared towards P2P players and is totally unfair for F2P players. There's also the issue of the fact you need 3 wish drops to even unlock this skill, another thing that is against F2P players.

Anyway, let's move on to something a bit more fun! Who is gonna be fes? Here's an overview of how it's looking right now:

There's three possible ways that the fes cards could be paired up: using the same pairs as colofes, using different but still same-unit pairs, or using mixed unit pairs.

I think the second or third option is more likely. If you wanted to do the first option, it would have to be Honami/Shiho, Haruka/Airi or An/Toya, but there's still chance that An could be on Kohane5, Haruka only very recently had a card (though this has not stopped other characters, and Shiho is quite likely to be on the event.

In terms of alternate same-unit pairs, I think Kanade/Ena and Airi/Shizuku are the most likely. Kanade and Ena are both reward cards on the current Mafuyu event, so it could be a sign that they'll be fes, plus Kanade hasn't had a 4* since February. However, both of them have a lot of 4*s right now, with Niigo having the most in the game overall. Alternatively there's Shizuku and Airi. Airi is the second-most due for a lim out of all the characters, with her last one being released at the end of October last year. Shizuku only very recently got a card, but again this has not been much of an issue in the past, with Minori, Tsukasa, and Emu all getting fes cards very soon after an event where they got 4*s (or an event where they got unit-gacha lims for Tsukasa and Emu).

However if you wanted to go for mixed unit pairings, the most likely options are probably Ichika/Kanade, Honami/Kanade, or Airi/Ena. However if the june event isn't 2-B lims, the Hinomori sisters and Saki/Airi are also options. Ichika hasn't had a 4* since white day, neither has Kanade, and Honami hasn't had one since Rise as One. However, we know they will be getting cards soon, and under the assumption that 2-B lims happen, it seems a bit unfair to give 3/4 of Leoneed lims just before WLE. I don't have an argument against Airi/Ena, it's definitely the most likely out of these options.

However, just for consistency I'm willing to bet that they'll stick with same-unit pairs. In that case, I think either Kanade/Ena or Airi/Shizuku is very likely. Maybe I'm leaning a bit more towards Airi, but only because she's more in need of a lim.

But just to throw one last thing out there: the next update will implement an increased, 25% event bonus for default virtual singers, a bonus that pretty much exclusively applies to fes cards since players are far less likely to use the default vsinger 1*s and 2* on their team. So there's a chance, albeit slim, that they could throw us under the bus with Len/KAITO fes. I still think Kanade/Ena or Airi/Shizuku is more likely.

Anyway, that's all for now. Some of these updates are a bit disappointing but I'm interested to see the cards and read their stories! I'll update this post if we learn any more information.

[casualaruanienjoyer]

What jobs could AOT characters have? 🌻

Ahhhhh I love this one! LET'S GO!

What jobs could AOT characters have?

Eren: He strikes me as someone who changes jobs often. He'd get bored of one activity pretty quickly. To him, his job is just a way to earn some money that he can use to have fun with his friends. Pensions who, am I right?

Mikasa: Kindergarten carer. Her motherly personality is perfect for this, and she loves kids so much. The kids also love being lifted high up in the air so they often use Mikasa as a seesaw.

Armin: Teacher, most likely geography. He's the type to travel the world and teach in different countries. This lifestyle allows him to learn more about local cultures, languages and traditions. It fascinates him!

Annie: Traveling the world with Armin means finding work can be quite tough unless you know the language. When she can, she will work as a bartender. She quite enjoys mixing drinks and listening to people's life stories. She gets fired pretty often for her lack of customer service etiquette though.

Jean: Corporate job. He wanted to be an artist but didn't quite try hard enough, so now he's stuck between grey walls that drive him insane. The pay is good thankfully, so in his spare time he can afford luxurious trips and dinners. Reiner often encourages him to keep working towards his dream of becoming an artist and even offers to pose for Jean to draw.

Reiner: Counsellor. He likes being able to help people get over their troubles just like he did with his own. It's not an easy job but it's very rewarding when successful. Though, sometimes he ends up being the patient while Jean listens to him complain about his life. Or Pieck... or Annie... or...

Connie: Personal trainer. This dude will get you into the exact shape that you want. It's so hard to keep up with him, he's way faster than you. More agile, more flexible. How the hell does he bend like that? One day you try to do the same, but you end up in hospital. Don't worry, Connie has insurance.

Sasha: Camp instructor! Loves organizing all sorts of activities with kids and teens including archery, canoeing, climbing, hiking. She loves being in nature. The only thing she hates about this job is the horror story time around the campfire.

Pieck: Work? Pieck? Nah! If anyone's got some sort of sugar daddy, it would be Pieck. She lives incredibly comfortably for someone who appears to be both single and unemployed. Ah, the joys of being both incredibly beautiful and incredibly devilish.

Falco and Gabi: They are still young, so the best they could do is work over the summer at a theme park. The pay is shit but the location is amazing and they get to ride for free!

Yelena: Lawyer. Like, we all know Yelena. It's better to have her on your side than be against her. And it's even better if she's your lawyer. You could get away with almost anything! Right??

Zeke: Baseball instructor. He trains the local team and is known as one of the best players in the area. Now he uses his time to help kids learn how to play. Legend says Zeke can throw a ball so far away that some are still stuck orbiting around Earth.

Onyankopon: Pilot. Passengers usually take a liking to him. He's so charismatic and friendly. He enjoys making jokes over the radio with the other members of the crew. The amazing views is what he loves the most about his job. And the free snacks.

Levi and Hange: This man's in no shape to do any kind of physical work right now, but instead aids Hange with her job. She owns a private Pathology clinic. How does Levi help, exactly? Well he makes sure she stays hydrated and does her taxes. Basically a secretary of some sorts. He even has a cute nameplate on his desk.

[sunnysidesevenup]

Okay since apparently more people than me have seen those “fellow honest doesn’t know basic math” takes/jokes whatever lol, I’m gonna ramble about how I write Tilly and Fellow because they’re SO FREAKING SMART and they have very different skill sets born out of their respective lives. Obviously this is all made up headcanons for Fellow since we know basically nothing about him lmao so. do with my headcanons what you will ig.

First off I believe Fellow probably had some basic schooling and either got kicked out of the school itself, or whatever guardians he had stopped sending him because it “wasn’t worth it” or smth. I don’t think his resentment would be born out of just not going y’know? So I think he definitely learned basic math and writing/reading/science, etc from a more formal education, but all his actual practical knowledge is entirely him seeking it out on his own. He definitely went to a library and used those resources to learn anything that could help him.

Fellow does all the budgeting in the household, managing rent, electricity, food bills, etc. his sewing skills help cut down on clothing cost a little, and he has various skills from taking odd jobs. He definitely started out only doing honest work but then rapidly realized that no one was paying him very much, and none of it could cover the cost of anything, and he just probably slowly slid into less than legal means to make money. He’s VERY good at weighing risk vs reward, can talk his way out of things, and in general is just really, really clever.

Tilly on the other hand has zero formal schooling, and all his knowledge is entirely from listening to other people talk. He doesn’t ask anyone to teach him anything because that will put him in a vulnerable position, so he pretends he knows things until he figures it out. He also has no need for any type of budgeting considering he doesn’t stay anywhere and mostly just convinces people to give him things, so his math skills are much weaker and he’s happy to have Fellow do any of that. His reading is also not great, considering it’s hard to learn to read from just watching other people and he doesn’t seek any resources out. He’s also dyslexic, so the few times he was trying to learn, what people were saying was NOT matching up with what he was seeing, so he gave up. Fellow tries to teach him some stuff and Tilly straight up believes he’s messing around because what do you MEAN the letters are not supposed to float around and flip??? They eventually figure out what’s going on though.

However, his ability to read people and his memory for what people tell him is incredible. He listens VERY closely to what people are saying and then incorporates it into whatever lies he’s telling that week, which is how he’s able to convince certain high society people that he’s actually one of them sometimes. People often complain to him about their work life, so if the company is big enough, he’ll steal whatever he needs to get into the building and wait long enough for them to believe they just lost it. And then he’ll just walk in, identify people from description and context clues, and just greet them like he works there. I mean, the company is pretty big, so if this guy knows their name and work drama then surely he works there, right? (He’s stolen so many things this way lmao).

Tilly can learn the history of places, local stories, the best and worst areas of the city, who to avoid and who is helpful, maps and directions for wherever he is, just from talking to people, and he remembers it all even months later. He’s good at blending in and imitating people’s attitudes and knowledge.

They are both incredibly skilled at using people’s own egos and expectations against them. Fellow tends to use flattery and Tilly uses distraction, so teamed up together it’s hard not to end up doing what they want. They’re good at surviving separately, but things are much easier together. Tilly is often surprised by how quick Fellow can make calculations in his head, and Fellow is often surprised when Tilly can recite things he learned years ago from overheard conversations like it happened yesterday.

Both of them are still terrible at cooking, though, so congrats to Gidel for being the only person in the household who can make any thing edible.

[axolator]

Clocktower Character Analysis: Why The Wizard Barely Misses The Mark

A new Blood on the Clocktower character came out! I really like it. It's a very flexible, VERY fun evil character that an evil team will never not want to have. It can do basically anything, if it wishes for it.

However, there are some issues I have with it that I've alluded to before, and I'm a little surprised haven't been addressed as thoughtfully as I'd have wanted, given we've known about this character for a while.

Without further ado, let's get into my thoughts on the character.

The things about Wizard I think are cool

Wizard is infinitely flexible. You can wish for literally anything, and that's super strong and INCREDIBLY cool.

What's more, creativity is rewarded while not making the Wizard do all the overhead. The Wizard doesn't need to jump through hoops and use lawyer-speak to do what they want, and the ST isn't fighting them - they just have to say the word, pow-wow with the ST a bit, and then the fun thing happens!

It's fun to fight for the good team! In the hands of a good ST, a Wizard wish doesn't devolve into unsolvable goop - it's fun, it's fair, and it's balanced, and the clue allows for good to figure out what's going on and deal with the evil team.

It's very fun to be the Wizard and go outed evil with a public wish! Allowing players to wish publicly is super fun, and it channels the same energy as characters like Vizier and Psychopath, which is really, really fun, as many of my IRL group will attest.

The things about Wizard I think are flawed

Really, there's one big one (and thank you Elluna, creator of The Bootlegger's Anthology, for being the loudest voice about it; you're doing amazing work & your homebrew is amazing):

The Wizard is strongly incentivized to privately consult the ST to use their ability.

Given that this is trackable, it encourages the good team to police visits to the Storyteller, since anyone doing so could be a Wizard (an evil Minion). This is an incredibly unfun play pattern that doesn't have an easy solution to fix it.

And, to preempt some of the reblogs:

What if I as the ST just tell people not to meta that? Like, you could, but it doesn't really solve the underlying issue with the character, does it? And it doesn't really work, anyway, because people will take notice of who's talking to the ST even if you ask them not to - they have eyes.

What if I just run a script that has a ton of good-sided consult roles to cover for the Wizard (e.g. Savant, Artist, Amnesiac)? This might actually make it worse! Policing ST visits is still optimal for the good team - it just makes it slightly unfun for more people in addition to making it very unfun for one person.

Does it really matter if the Wizard is spent after they consult? Absolutely! Most importantly, it matters to everyone else who's now incentivized not to talk to the Storyteller at all to avoid being a Wizard candidate.

I'm going to zoom into that last point, because talking to the Storyteller is very important in Clocktower for one key reason: they're a neutral party who knows what's going on, and they are your port of call when asking about the rules.

Wizard, by encouraging policing of ST consults, also discourages going to the ST to ask rules questions, lest you seem like a Minion.

I don't think I need to say why this is indefensible as a consequence.

How Wizard could be altered to fix these problems

Not gonna lie, this is hard now that the character is released. Elluna suggested Wizard as a Traveler, which solves the policing issue entirely, but we got Minion Wizard, which makes things tricky:

Allowing the Wizard to wish at night. This is the easy one to think about, but logistics become difficult when one considers that BotC is a game designed to be played in-person:

Just have them nod their head to say "yes, I'd like to use my wish?" It's accessible, but loses all of its cool flexibility.

Use a notepad, phone, or other way of communicating using words at night? It's flexible, but loses necessary accessibility, especially to disabled players.

Force the Wizard to wish publicly. This is, as of the day after release, my preferred solution to dealing with this. Public wishing is cool, and ST-policing has the natural consequence of outing the Wizard anyway if they try and use their ability - why not lean into it and have the Wizard go outed evil to use their wish? Give them a big moment, then discuss the details privately with the Storyteller. However, this has the downside of making the Wizard an outed-evil character, which isn't the most uncontroversially appreciated thing ever, especially for people hoping to pretend to be good after wishing.

A glimpse into a Wizard executed differently

I'm going to take a moment to delve into homebrew here, so bear with me.

Lies, Spies, and Eyes is a homebrew script created by Emptyset, which features some very, very cool characters I'll probably talk about at some point on this blog. It's rough around the edges, but that's to be expected of a homebrew created in 2021.

One of the on-script Minions, the Omen, is wildly popular and has some deceptively simple flavortext.

As a Minion, the Omen has infinite potential (like the Wizard!) and can do basically anything of its design (like the Wizard!), but is limited by the Storyteller, since it could just not happen (again, like the Wizard). The cost, however, is publicity - the Omen must publicly try and convince others that the boon they want has already happened! If they're trying to save their Demon's hide, they have to convince town that no, they don't have the Demon on the block, and that it's probably on a Minion instead. If they want to create an extra evil, they have to turn town against them first. As someone who's both played and run the Omen - it is difficult, but it is incredibly rewarding for everyone involved. It's a Wizard that might not be able to parley as much with the ST, but dodges all the unfun play patterns while maintaining all the flexibility.

Conclusion

The Wizard's high concept is super freakin' cool. As the Wizard, you have all the power to help your team in any way you see fit. Wait until you're on the block, then cast a spell that throws the game into chaos! Wait until your Demon's getting suspected, then throw the good team off the trail! The Wizard is infinitely adaptable, and that's rad — it's just a shame its execution encourages some really toxic metas.

[redredribbon]

OKAY SO. Endgame, and all the choices that came before. I got positives and critiques. This is gonna get long. Spoilers all over the place, especially for end game.

Choice rundown:

Saved Treviso (my Rook's logic was Minrathous has a standing army and Antiva is much more at risk of everyone getting blighted, even if it means the Venatori grab power)

Romanced Harding

Punched the First Warden

Harding: embraced compassion

Taash: embraced Rivain

Bellara: freed the archive

Davrin: sent the griffons to Arlathan

Emmrich: resurrected Manfred, no lichdom

Lucanis: imprisoned Illario

Neve: shadowy protector

Inquisitor (I used my solas romance for this one, not my "canon" inquisitor): told to DUMP HIM

Endgame choices:

Chose Davrin to lead the 2nd team over Harding (I saw the writing on the wall. I turned to my roommate who had already finished and said "Is this an Ashley and Kaidan situation?" They would not answer so I knew. And romancing Harding? I would have had a breakdown watching her die.)

Chose Bellara to undo the wards

Everyone survived, all factions in tact, except for Davrin (and Assan 😭😭😭😭😭 WHY)

I talked Solas down with Mythal and my inquisitor. He went it alone.

I did get the "secret" after credits ending.

Overall, I do think this was a very solid entry into the DA canon. I guess I'll sort of break down my thoughts into categories.

Gameplay

Positives:

I loved the new approach to combat. I think it changed things up in a very satisfying way with a new system that wasn't difficult to learn and maximize.

I played a rogue and being able to seamlessly switch between bow and blades was stellar. LOVED that change. It was so fun and so easy to learn, I found it incredibly rewarding.

I really liked not having to control my companions beyond maximizing their abilities. I didn't feel any loss of the third party member of previous games.

I appreciated how much more fast paced and imminent the combat felt, and loved how much they explored new avenues with the kind of enemies and attacks they did. It felt much more dynamic and exciting.

Loved how much more interactive the environments felt. Adding more things to climb for or balance on, having to get more creative with reaching hidden things, it reminded me of why I loved the Descent so much.

LOVED the appearance mechanic for armor. While I do miss how intimately customizable things were in DAI, it was so nice to pick a fave armor appearance without having to sacrifice stats.

Speaking of stats, I like the departure from the old D&D system of stats. Focusing more on abilities and passives without how it's affected by stats made it easier to focus on the play instead of the build. I get why others might not be fans of that, but I really liked it.

I appreciate that environments felt more dynamic, too. I think limiting the space was a good choice over the semi-open world of DAI. It really allowed attention to detail. I love DAI, don't get me wrong, and the environments were gorgeous. I just think the smaller environments served this game's structure better than open world would have.

The game did an excellent job of giving you immersive reasons to return to other places that didn't have active quests. I liked that you got pulled back to Arlathan or Hossberg or the Necropolis not for minor fetch quests but for side quests that did feel important.

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME PET THE PETS

Critiques:

It's not a major detriment, but I would have liked to be able to decorate the shared spaces of the Lighthouse more myself, especially amassing so many decorations I couldn't use. I liked the themes, but more of a mix of control there would have been nice.

This may be the fault of playing on super easy mode, but I 100%'d the Crossroads in Act 1, and got Mythal's cooperation in Act 1. After that, I basically did not have another reason to come back and skipped over it for the rest of the game. I wish more of it had been level-locked. Forcing the player to experience Solas's memories and regrets more over time would have added more flavor, and made the Crossroads more worthwhile to return to over time, instead of just get re-attacked by the same enemies in the same places. I also would have liked more memories to fill in more of the things left unaddressed in elven lore, which I'll expand on below.

Again minor, but I wish there were more casual wear option separate from the armor.

What is happening in the helmet department???

Companions

Positives:

I LOVED how much each one of the companions felt like whole, independent people. One of my favorite things about DA2 was how much the game did to convey that the companions had lives and friends and jobs/commitments outside of Hawke. It shines here too. It makes them so much more colorful and interesting!

Such a huge fan of the companions moving around the lighthouse to talk to each other. What a great way to get extra banter, and again just convey that they're connecting with each other outside of Rook.

Love the personalized rooms and spaces, and how they fill in as you progress their personal quests. It's so fun to get to see what changes and how they settle in.

There really wasn't a companion I wasn't compelled by. I have my favorites of course, but there's always been a couple companions in previous games I didn't jive with at all and just didn't really end up caring about much. That was not the case here.

I appreciate how natural most of their growth and personal quests felt over the course of the game. I liked that you were forced to progress their connections gradually, it kept them all really engaging the whole length of the game, rather than maxing one out and never having anything else to say again.

I'm not sure if this will be controversial, but I liked that some of your choices strained your relationships with the characters. That felt honest and natural.

Loved the side romances. Neve/Lucanis is very sweet. I didn't get to see Taash/Harding but I like the idea.

Critiques:

While I do think this improved from DAI, and did often feel more like giving advice than actually making the choice for them, I still didn't love how much I as the player figure into telling some of the companions who/how to be? Particularly thinking of Taash here, which I'll get more into in a minute. But pushing them to embrace Rivain or the Qun felt like a choice I was not qualified to make for them. It also felt like a clumsy vehicle for their identity struggle to me, it didn't quite 1-to-1 there with the gender struggle when this is a cultural choice. It worked better in other places, like I did like that you don't get a say in whether Illario lives, that felt right to not have Rook's input on.

So, Taash. Let me preface by saying I would defer to trans/nonbinary friends here on how successful or well-represented their journey was. I am not qualified to judge that. I very much like that it was included, and I want game developers to keep trying. It felt much more thoughtful than how Krem was handled. But it did still feel clunky to me, a little too formulaic and clinical in places, and I really, really wish they had come up with an in-universe term instead of "nonbinary"? I know that comes with its own pitfalls but it felt so out of place and took me out of the story a lot. Especially when you're including the Qunari culture in it, who define gender a little differently and a little more tied to role. The apology scene with Isabela felt even more cringey to me on top of things. Again, I appreciate they're including this and it was a big step up, so I'll take that

Really did not love the choice for Taash's mother to die. That felt like a deeply unsatisfying lack of resolution. I think it would have meant so much more if that quest was the catalyst for them to talk more openly. I don't think it was intentional but it felt like we resorted to killing off mom to free Taash up to be themself. I think it would have been more meaningful to show them starting to find understanding with each other.

Honestly... I know how this will sound, and believe me I'm not trying to simplify this down to "everyone was too nice," but I really felt like we needed more conflict that took more than one banter to solve between characters. I did not need it more grimdark, I actually like that it wasn't despite the themes. I like that everyone is more encouraging and finding a lot of hope. Just more tension or having to butt heads a little to find common ground would have meant more. There were some good moments of this here and there, especially early game! But as time went on, some of those differences seemed to resolve a little too easily, at least for me personally. Like Lucanis and Davrin back down from their conflict almost immediately. Harding goes a little overboard apologizing to Lucanis later for being pretty reasonably suspicious. I don't need another Fenris and Anders situation, but I think DAI had the best balance of the four with this, and I do miss it because some tension could really enhance character dynamic a lot.

I enjoyed the factions, but it did feel very weird to have the Crows presented as scrappy underdog freedom fighters when they're... assassins? They're fighting for the right to continue to be assassins? Yes the patriotism was genuine, and I loved the whole crew as characters, but the last 3 games have depicted them as cruel and dangerous, they've done a lot of awful stuff. This worked in Minrathous because it's a group fighting against established tyranny, but the Crows kind of are the established tyranny in Antiva (I know that's oversimplifying), so it's harder to buy them as equal. While I appreciate a new perspective, I couldn't shake the overall feeling of trying to paint this mafia crime family of killers as sympathetic in a way that I'm not sure I liked.

Small nitpick. I like that there was a side romance involving an NPC, but I do have to confess Emmrich/Strife fell flat for me. I just didn't really get any chemistry or build up, and it felt a little forced for me.

Lore

Positives:

Looooooved getting so deep into the elven lore at last. I am such a huge fan of the twist of the gods just being tyrannical mages. This is so juicy to me. What an interesting way to turn all we knew so far on its head.

Very much loved seeing the trickster side of Solas in full swing. I didn't trust him for a moment and for good reason, it turns out. But it really highlights what a mastermind he is and why he was such a legend.

Sooo cool to get more information on the Forgotten Ones, and have them start to be more than just codex whispers.

I really liked seeing new kinds of magic and magical abilities! It makes a lot of sense that countries more willing to embrace magic would have talents and abilities we've never seen, and it felt like a natural way to upgrade gameplay and still be true to the story. Same with having the environments more affected by magic and enchantment.

Honestly, incredibly amused how much this game makes Ferelden look like Our Weird Hyper-Catholic Cousins

LOVED the lore reveals in Solas's memories. I had correctly guessed some of it, and my roommate called that Solas was originally a spirit back in DAI times, but learning they were all originally spirits was so interesting. And using the titan blood to create bodies? I have questions we'll get to in a second but very intrigued by the idea. And that it created the blight! No wonder Solas is upset with himself!

Such a breath of fresh air to see some new cultures, customs, and approaches to the world. I love all the games and seeing all the different lands, but it's really nice to break out of the mold and see radically different attitudes and ideas serving as the foundations of new societies.

Critiques:

I feel like this is the area I was ultimately the most disappointed in, so apologies if this gets even longer.

I definitely understand the journey this game went on, having to rebuild from a scratched MMO and losing so many veteran developers. So I am grateful we have a game at all, and not only that, but a very enjoyable one.

It's hard to separate how much of a deep lore nerd I am from picturing this as a new player. I have way more of a lore recall than average (for me) for this game, and for me, that created some unsatisfying gaps, or things I wanted more explanation for. Top of the list: what happened to the other gods? I was assuming they were in other prisons, but then the reveal at the end that killing Elgar'nan would bring down the Veil implies everyone else is dead if the Veil was tied to their life forces. Did they die when their archdemons died? If so why? Did they just fade out over time? Seems weird! And it just felt really unsatisfying to know they just died off screen and now we'll never really have a chance to get their real stories and memories and perspectives. This is another place that having additional memories to unlock in Crossroads would have really enhanced things.

We got some reaction, but man I would really have liked to have more from the Dalish finding out their gods are monsters. More denial? More doubt? I think this could have been handled with codex entries, found letters and things, but it would have been nice

I would also really have loved any reaction at all from the Chantry. Don't get me wrong, I was absolutely thrilled to get away from it and hear from other religions and customs, but it feels very weird to have them be Sir Not Appearing in This Game, and not to have any voice at all to bridge the gap. Especially when the Black Divine and the Tevinter Chantry had been so built up as looming, foreboding figures in the south. I was looking forward to seeing the reality and it was just nonexistent.

I was looking forward to seeing how the breach and the events of DAI had affected the north, and what the fallout was as far as mages and acceptance or fear of magic. It was disappointing not to even get a point of comparison. I know magic is less restricted outside Ferelden and Orlais and the Free Marches, but I guess it would have been nice to just have more acknowledgement of the impact of that conflict up north. More comparisons to the demons hitting Minrathous at the beginning to what it was like when there were Fade tears, things like that? What even are circles like in Antiva, etc.?

That also extends to the party in some cases. I was surprised everyone was pretty accepting overall of Lucanis and Spite after some initial suspicion? But more than that, acceptance from the Crows? Even just overhearing some conversations asking Lucanis if he was going to try to separate from Spite or questioning him more? Don't misunderstand, I like him and Spite and am in favor of them being accepted, it just felt a little too easy?

The nonchalance around the eluvians and living in the Fade was also jarring. In DAI, entering the Fade bodily is cause for intense alarm and a lot of religious upheaval. Here it's more like "oh okay this is weird but I guess we live here now." Even the companions don't seem to have much of any reaction to it, when this is not a normal thing? Traveling by eluvian is unheard of and still largely secret from the population? It just felt so strange to have very little reaction to it overall.

While I love and accept the lore reveals, I have questions about the mechanics I felt went unanswered. How did the spirits know they could use lyrium to make bodies? Who figured that out? Who even figured out titan blood specifically had properties of magic? 

In the same vein, while I think it's an interesting explanation for the blight, I still feel sort of confused on red lyrium being corrupted titan blood but the blight also somehow resulting from the same process? So they're two separate substances? I'm confused about the nature of blight as a substance, I guess.

On the subject, I know they probably don't want to address it, but darkspawn springing fully formed out of blight pools is definitely a change from the brood mother method lol. Curious if that is just because Ghilan'nain is super powerful and can command the blight in unique ways whereas without the gods there's not enough power to do that? I dunno, just got some questions there lol.

Establishing that dwarves came after the titans were made tranquil raised some questions for me. If they didn't already exist, how were they created? Was the tranquilization a cause? Was it a last act of defiance? If all dwarves were originally like the Sha-Brytol, were dwarves almost like a titan immune response? Like white blood cells? And what made them erase the titans from the memories, at least in Orzammar? Was it out of shame for selling lyrium? Something else?

I felt like there were some lore contradictions I was also a little confused by. Previous lore had that Arlathan was sunk into the earth by Tevinter, and no one knew where it was precisely I thought? Hence my theory that it was the Black City, which I think may still be implied. But to see part of it still there and everyone acting like of course it's there felt weird. Couldn't the Dalish have explored it sooner? Like I'm totally fine with finding out maybe that was false or rumor or anything else, it just feels weird to have had the option to find some of this history sooner.

Smaller thing, but I did feel a little disappointed that DAI spent so much time canonizing different metals and fabrics and that all kind of disappeared here. I get that it was simpler to implement, and again, it didn't make any kind of gameplay difference. But I liked all the dynamics of the variety and that it even impacted the world with the types of mines you find.

I think that's all I can think of right now. Again, overall, really enjoyed it. Surpassed my expectations for sure. And gave me hope for future games, which I did not have going in.

[saucylittlesmile]

I only started watching ice dance after the move to the +5 GOE system - can you share what you mean (I know it was tongue in cheek!) by tech used to mean something?

Oh boy, let’s see if I’ve got it in me to give the kind of long and in-depth answer that I used to without getting too sidetracked lol.

To start off, let me say I think that the ISU is very happy with this turn of events - it’s a return to the shady dealings of the 6.0 with the aura of legitimacy of CoP.

Naturally, my expertise mostly comes from the VM era, which was entirely before the +5/-5 era. While the current shenanigans in ice dance cannot be completely attributed to the change in GOE, it is probably the most obvious and egregious component.

The ISU started the process of dumbing down the tech with slowly removing the compulsory dance, lessening the number of difficult steps and turns in some step sequences, reducing the number of lifts, and increasing the number of ‘choreographic’ elements (which have some basic rules and requirements but overall are based on the judge’s decisions as to what they like).

They also reduced the worth of earning a level - not the literal value, as that can change from season to season and does not matter when comparing across competitions, but between teams at the same competition, whose results could be determined by small increments. For example, a level 4 step sequence used to have a base value of 8.00, and a level 3 was a base value of 6.50 - 1.50 points difference. Now (using Worlds 2023), a base value level 4 step sequence is 8.96 and a true level 3 is 8.20 - only 0.76 points!

Not only has that important earned level been reduced in points, it used to be that both members of the team had to achieve a level 4 to get rewarded a level 4. Now, with each skater being evaluated individually, the point differential can be lessened even more if one of them achieves a higher level.

A 1.5 point base value difference between teams used to be a death knell, if they were considered to be teams fairly equal otherwise in a competition. There was simply no way to make up that deficit, and so it was crucial to be achieving the highest level on every element, to be technically impeccable.

Watching the slow motion fall of the technical side of ice dance was difficult. Watching the ISU create the +5/-5 GOE for the sport on the whole, with no regard for how it would affect ice dance, was downright painful.

In theory, singles and pairs can increase their difficulty to achieve a higher score. Of course, they are still at the mercy of what points their element is worth, but they still have the option. Ice dance, on the other hand is limited by levels - no matter how difficult an element is, they cannot increase their scores beyond a level 4. The GOE descriptions do not give extra for ‘hey that was so hard!’. Teams can get the same, or even more points for elements that just barely fulfill the requirements but are pretty and smooth and fast, as teams that stretch the imagination of what can happen while still following the rules, with great feats of strength or balance or flexibility or edges. It really does not make any difference in the points earned. Twizzles do not earn more points if they do a different edge or more revolutions - they simply fulfill level 4 requirements, or they don’t.

Being hemmed in by technical point restrictions and in which even the difference between levels is minimal, means that the judges’ GOE and PCS is almost the sole deciding factor in any event. The judges may have bullet points for the categories as to what is acceptable, but they also have an incredible amount of leeway and face little to no repercussions to hiking up their points for whatever team or country they want, and the +5/-5 GOE makes it achievable.

One of the reasons I answered this now was the results of the GPF 2023. With the understanding that I have not watched the competition and can’t speak to the details, the points speak for themselves. In particular, the top two teams were deemed to have the same technical content in the free dance. But, the sixth place team was also said to have that same technical content. The base value was the same. And yet, on the basis of GOE and PCS, all from the judges, rather than being in contention for a medal, the sixth place team was deemed to be more than 11 points behind silver. Even taking out PCS (which here was significant) there was still 6.34 points between silver and sixth place - that is over six points in GOE alone and rendered their technical accomplishments moot

To give some comparison, look at Skate Canada 2016. VM lost the FD to Chock/Bates, and almost entirely on lost levels. They had identical levels except for one step sequence and their twizzles. Overall, the judges gave the GOE edge to VM - they beat CB in every element for GOE except for one choreographic element in which they tied, and in the twizzles. (They even had higher GOE on their lower level step sequence, though factoring the level and GOE together gave them fewer points.) VM beat CB soundly in PCS (+2 points!). The overall GOE was simply not enough to make up for amount of points they lost by losing those levels.

VM had the advantage in almost every way. And they still lost the FD, because they had a twizzle error, and a single missed edge or turn in one step sequence.

And that is what I mean by tech used to mean something.

tl;dr - the ISU has created an ice dance world in which the Chosen Team will do very well and it doesn’t matter if they can’t skate.

[nugulover69]

I too am a member of the Taiya-hater club and every episode I question why I'm not dropping this show until they show me scraps of Mira or Agent Shirabe or the Three Idiots, but I think from now on I'll be fastforwarding through new eps just for them. My only sentai are Zenkai and halfway through Donbros so being forced to watch Boonboom Red as the main character is like beibg fed cardboard after a pizza.

Oh man. if your only sentai experience is zenkai and donbros, two very experimental and Not A Typical Sentai sentais, yeah boonboom must hit a real sour note since its a return to basics lol

I personally wouldn't call it bad so far, a solid B+ imo, but Taiya is def the weakest character, and his blandness is only more evident whenever an episode is focused on him

I can suggest some good sentais that are more typical in structure for you to watch in the future:

Gokaiger- the core team is phenomenal here, bursting with personality and incredible chemistry between each of them. this IS an anniversary sentai, meaning past rangers are constantly showing up to be apart of the plot, but you do NOT need to have seen their shows to get the gist and have a fun time. you're following the gokaigers and their character arcs are always the main focus. plus they're aliens (space pirates even) that don't know jackshit abt Earth, so you and them are on the same level of knowledge lol

Idk why folks don't recommend this as a starter sentai more often. it was my first ever sentai and I picked the next sentais I watched based on how entertained I was by a past characters appearance. its how I watched go-onger and carranger (and liveman but I don't wanna talk abt that)

Also Marvelous is best red. this is an objective fact we as a community all agree on, even if he's not our own personal favorite red

Speaking of go-on

Go-onger- the canon, main strength of this team is their stupidity. VERY CARTOONY, heavy on hijinks, light on serious plot (it was written by a veteran kids anime writer and boy can you tell). if you like loud genki kinda assholeish shonen protags than you'll love the red Sosuke. if you don't...perhaps skip this one lol. Sosuke is a biiiig make or break of someone's enjoyment of go-on. the villains are great tho, very team rocket, kinda like the Sanseaters in boonboom

(and its a much better car sentai. Speedor is there all the time. boonboom only has Speedor for one episode. I rest my case)

Zyuohger- if you need an animal sentai under your belt, this is the best one. the red, Yamato, does get more focus than the rest of the team (many more power ups as well) but he's a likeable character played by a guy who can actually act. GREAT VILLAINS, they evolve over time as well and I can't say much w/o spoiling things, but I'll just say Genis caused his own demise

Also I haven't seen donbros but I know the donbros sixth is deranged, so if you need more deranged sixths in your life you should watch zyuoh for Misao

Gekiranger- if you really love serialized story telling and characters growing and changing and all that, I cannot recommend geki enough. in a lot of sentai, the weapons are usually just found or given, which isn't inherently a bad thing but I can see why someone wouldn't care for that. every weapon and power up the gekis get is always earned thru them overcoming some obstacle, literal or figurative, so its that much more rewarding when the new Marketable Touy is used

Also they're kung fu fighting cats. did I mention they're kung fu fighting cats. the red was raised in the woods and literally acts like a feral animal most of the time. he does mellow out over the course of the show, but honestly if someone doesn't like Jan from the jump I don't trust them (he has CRAZY yaois with the main villain Leo btw)

[writing-time-bitches]

Let Us Depart// PLA au

Hi hi, most if not all of these will be written via Ingo’s pov EXCEPT for a smidge of this one bc we all know the player’s feelings about the entire game. I also need practice with him and limited 3rd person so

Masterlist// CHAPTER ONE

Akari was having a bad day. Or well more like several bad days.

She was essentially evicted from her home dimension just four days ago and was now forced into what was basically child labor. Her inner Unovan rattles violently against its cage at the thought. Not like she wasn’t used to doing things for high risk and little to no reward, she saved Sinnoh from the clashing of realms when she was only twelve! Twelve!! All just for some fancy title and a little too much money no child should have.

And now, at the oh so tender age of fifteen, she was risking her life once more.

“Stupid fucking all knowing god..” she muttered to herself, feeling incredibly free knowing she could curse somewhat aloud without risk of being hounded by a slipper.

“Come on bud, we have to go.”

“Shaaaaaa…”

“Oshawott.” Akari frowned. Her newest starter was definitely more difficult than her lovely torterra. The fat fucker was clearly overfed and had way too much mass for something so small. Akari didn’t know if it was because he was treated lavishly by Laventon or other or he was simply a glutton who got way too many treats.

When the overweight water-type didn’t budge from his napping position she sighed and simply picked him up into her arms. She silently thanked the clefable and torterra from her original team for preparing her muscles for such heavy pokemon. She was definitely going to fix this oshawott’s diet if its the last thing she does.

Oshawott growled agitatedly when he was lifted, tail lifting to lightly tap her arm and cracked open his bleary eyes. She ignored her friend’s protests and reached for her phone. Her fingers flinched at the strangely fleshy feeling of her Arc Phone. Akari took a moment to stare at her phone screen.

It was the same model as other roto-phones issued by the League of the future to gym challengers. It was the same screen protector. It was the same… everything. She looked at her reflection, looking at her new and unbearably itchy clothes, the thick scarf wrapped around her neck and handkerchief on her head. An uncomfortable feeling of isolation overcame her and the terrible, god awful dread came with it. She doesn’t belong here..

She was quick to pull herself away from the bunnelby hole of dark thoughts and shoved her phone into her inner breast pocket of the Survey Corps uniform. One thing she liked about this uniform was its multitude of pockets.

“Shwo?” Oshawott questioned, now fully awake and sitting comfortably on the crook of her elbow, gripping the thick fabric with his small claws. Akari smiled and ran her hands through Oshawott’s thick white fur on his head,”I’m fine. We can save existential crises for later. Preferably when we’re not being called by Kamado.” Oshawott nodded sagely.

“Akari! Come on, Kamado can’t wait all day!” Rei called from outside her quarters. Akari let out a long suffering sigh as she placed her pudgy oshawott on her shoulder,”We’re coming! Jeez!”

She stepped outside, blinking away the sunlight. She gave a little wave to the older Galaxy member. Wow that was weird to think when Team Galactic exists in the future.

“Finally! I’ve been waiting here since sunrise!” Rei frowned, eyes flicking from the pokemon on her shoulders with quickly hidden surprise before returning to her face. Akari rolled her eyes,”No one in there right mind would be up at sunrise except maybe the guardsmen. Especially not you since you adore your sleep don’t you?” She smirked triumphantly when Rei narrowed his eyes at her, god he was bad at this,”You don’t know that.”

“Yes, actually I do. Laventon always talks fondly about how he has to wake you up like some father with his kid. It’s actually really cute how he gets so smiley about it.” Rei sputtered flusteredly and huffed, pulling his shredded scarf to cover his red cheeks,”… shut up.”

Akari snickered and elbowed her peer’s ribs gently,”Didn’t you say we were late to a meeting?” Rei groaned, sucking in a breath to regain his composure and shoved playfully at Akari’s shoulder,”You are the one who’s late and I—“

“Look who’s being punctual! Finally realized you’re waisting almighty Sinnoh’s precious time by bowing to a sham?”

“There you go again, insisting on your false image of almighty Sinnoh as a ruler of time! My people follow the true almighty Sinnoh—the font of all creation and ruler of space!”

Akari and Oshawott tilted their heads. Are… they fighting over which “Sinnoh” is real? Oh is that how future Sinnoh got its name? Like how Unova was renamed from Alleos? Rei groaned as he recognized the voices, Akari gave him a look.

“Hah! You could have the space there is and still not know what to do with it.” The man in a long blue kimono sneered, leaning down the glare at the shorter blonde in way-too-big shoes. The woman bristled, not backing down and returning the other’ glare with just as much ferocity as a feraligatr,”Excuse me? Are you really suggesting that make better use of you time than we make of vast Hisui’s space?!” The man scoffed, crossing his arms,”Better than some! It’s a miracle you showed up on, oh mighty leader of the Pearl Clan. I worried you’d get lost in the pointlessly vast space you’re so fond of and never show up.” He teased, merciless.

The woman laughed mirthlessly and waved him away dismissively,”Me, get lost? In almighty Sinnoh’s great gift to the Pear Clan—in our world’s very basis?” She then snapped her eyes to him, leveling him with a stare icy enough to freeze water,”You wish!” The man flinched under the glare before putting his palm to his head with a suffering sigh,”I wish that hadn’t let myself get dragged into arguing with you. Almighty Sinnoh forgive me—what a waste of time! I’m off to Commander Kamado’s office!”

The woman clad in pink huffed, turning to the office in almost perfect tandem with the man,”I believe it was you who started this!” They shared a long look of animosity before walking to the large double doors of the Galaxy Team building.

Rei sighed with a shake of his head,”Just another day with those two, I see. The man’s name is Adaman. The the leader of the Diamond Clan, they put a lot of importance on time, as you could probably tell. And the girl is Irida, leader of the Pearl Clan. They’re all about space—you heard what she called it right? ‘Our world’s very basis.’ Whenever they run into each other, those same arguments flare up.” He mindlessly scratched at his arm with a quite frankly exhausted look,”Seems like they’ve inherited some bad blood from their predecessors’ strife.”

“But then shouldn’t we help them sort it out?” Akari questioned, her water-type companion nodded in agreement. Rei shrugged,”Yeah well, as much as it would lessen tensions between the village and the clans it’s not really our problem. But you’ll have problems if you don’t get yourself to the commander’s office, Akari! I have to go to the Mirelands for an investigation. Anyway, good luck you two!” He said as he headed for the gates that lead to the Fieldlands.

At the mention of mirelands, Akari imagined he meant the marsh around Pastoria City and shivered at the memory of her several near-heatstrokes in the humid and sweaty marsh. She called her goodbyes after him and skipped to the building next door. Beauregard and her exchanged familiar nods as she entered.

As she ascended the steps she heard the raised voices of Kamado’s guests. Are they still screaming at each other? Oshawott grumbled, deigning to crawl into Akari’s arms and buried his face into her armpit holding his ears down. She chuckled, stroking Oshawott’s fur.

“What do you intend to do about that Kleavor, Commander Kamado?!” Adaman hissed, leaning on his hands against Kamado’ desk basically all up in the Galaxy Team’s unflappable leader’s face,”He may be descended from a warrior of almighty Sinnoh’s, but look at the mess he causing. We can’t sit back and let him rage on!” Kamado let out a long sigh,”You do get right to the point, Adaman…” he grumbled from behind his desk. Adaman frowned and stood back up straight and crossed his arms,”Time wasted is lost.”

“Well, tell me—what would you have us do? Kleavor is a precious lord of the Pearl Clan, is he not?” Kamado said, leisurely cleaning his desk of papers and other documents to put into proper piles. Adaman growled with quickly declining patience,”That’s the point. My clan can’t intervene directly where a lord of the Pearl Clan’s concerned. If my people were to do something, our two clans might end up back at each other’s throats—just like we used to be.”

Adaman shook his head, genuine concern dancing in his eyes,”But even folk of the Galaxy Team have been wounded, haven’t they? Seems someone’s got to something here…” he pressed, glancing discreetly at his opposite clan leader. The glance was not as discreet as he thought it as Irida shot an affronted look to Adaman,”Who, then? Would the Diamond Clan have the Pearl Clan bring down one of its own honored nobles?” She asked with an air of offense, clenching her fists as if ready to fist fight the taller man. He scoffed and turned to face his opposite, as if daring her to raise a hand,”I don’t believe I said it. Thought it, maybe.”

“You might as well have said it, you fool!” She hissed, taking a threatening step forward. Akari finally took notice of the short girl’s musculature, limbs tensing like torracat readying to pounce on an unsuspecting pidgey. Adaman flinched slightly,”Look—we don’t even know what drove Lord Kleavor into such a violent frenzy.” She said, relaxing upon seeing Adaman take a step back. Kamado, the ever quiet man, simply stood by watching like a braviary.

“I’d like to know that myself. This is a first as far as my clan knows, too. Do your folk know anything of this phenomenon, Commander?” Kamado shook his head with a disappointed grunt. Oshawott sneezed loudly, breaking the brief lapse of silence and causing all eyes to dart to Akari. Kamado quietly let out a sigh of relief,”Hrrm. I see you’ve arrived.”

Akari tensed under the scrutinizing gazes of all three leaders. Even Cynthia had never looked at her so harshly and judgemental. Cynthia’s eyes were kind and soft, like a nurturing mother. Her pokemon yawned as Kamado spoke,”This is Akari, the newest member of our Survey Corps.”

At the mention of her name, Adaman brightened and flashed her a charismatic and warm smile,”Aha! I hear from Mai you earned Wyrdeer’s favor. Good to finally meet you, stranger from the rift! I’m ‘Adaman, leader of the Diamond Clan,’ if you want to be formal! But that’s a mouthful. Just call me Adaman.” He said and stuck out his hand for a shake. Akari didn’t return the favor and simply bowed slightly at the hip,”A pleasure, Mr. Adaman.” Adaman hummed lightly and bowed to her as well with smile.

Irida spoke up, a tone of distrust in her words,”If you came from beyond the space-time rift… could you be from the space where almighty Sinnoh is said to reside?” She shook her head and leveled Akari with a cautious look,”I’m Irida of the Pearl Clan! Caution and foresight are my watchwords. Which is why I have trouble believing in such tale. Could you really have passed through that rift?”

Akari couldn’t help but notice a glint of familiarity in Irida’s blue eyes. It was oddly reminiscent of something like deja vu. What for? For some reason, Akari couldn’t stop her mouth from moving,”Mrs. Irida, do you… have someone from the rift as well? You look like you’re having déjà vu…” Irida paused, blinking. Adaman looked at the new Galaxy girl with interest and Kamado furrowed his brows, he hurried to alleviate tension,”Akari, that is inappropriate—”

“We do. He is currently a warden up in Mt. Coronet.” Irida responded over him. The men in the room shared a surprised look. Akari nodded, a spark of hope for some semblance of familiarity in her heart,”Can I ask his name?” Irida nodded slowly, as if trying to figure out why she was telling the youth this at all,”His name is Ingo. He is an peculiar man, speaking in odd terms; his charge, Lady Sneasler, is quite fond of him. Unfortunately, he suffers from amnesia and cannot remember much outside of his name. Is he important to you?” Irida questioned softly, allowing herself to feel a little bit hopeful for her amnesiac warden, perhaps this child could assist in finding his scattered memories.

Akari, however, felt a waterfall of horror befall her. She tried to keep her voice even as she spoke,”Does… does he wear a long black coat..?” Irida sucked in a breath and excitedly exclaimed,”Yes! Do you know him?” Akari took in a deep, deep breath and nodded,”Yeah, I know him…” ‘How could I not know Ingo Whitlock?! He’s a famous battle facility head from Unova with his brother!’ Akari shrieked inside her head. Irida, now suddenly on cloud nine and hopelessly overjoyed, clapped her hands together,”After we quell our Woodland Lord’s frenzy, I will happily introduce him to you.” Akari smiled crookedly, cold sweat running down the back of her neck,”Me too..!”

The Diamond head laughed and Kamado grumbled and cleared his throat,”I have a proposition.” He stated with a purpose,”Why not send this one to study Kleavor before deciding what must be done?” Both leaders’ smiles faltered,”You’d send this child, who recently fell from the rift, to study Kleavor? A greenhorn with no experience? That’s—”

The Diamond scoffed at Irida’s irony,”Says the leader with almost no experience.” The earlier air of frustration radiated off of the Pearl again,”Being a good leader isn’t a matter of time—it’s a matter of embracing Hisui’s vastness without fear!” Adaman smirked before slinging a slim bandaged arm around Akari’s shoulders, turning to Kamado,”Well then, there you have it. If how new you are doesn’t matter, then let’s give the girl her chance. I’m sold, Commander. Let’s try this your way!”

Irida frowned worriedly,”Now hold on—“

“Hey, shouldn’t I get a say in this?” Akari piped up, gently clutching Oshawott in her arms,”Afterall, it’s me you’re sending. I think I should—“

“Child. Do not speak out of turn.” The Galaxy commander growled coldly, his eyes like a barren prairie in Orre. His hard stare sent a shiver of fear down Akari’s back and Oshawott’s bristled, lips drawn back protective of his trainer. Both clan leaders tensed at the sudden change of atmosphere before Adaman attempted to alleviate it,”This should be fun. I’ll get to see how good you Galaxy folk really are, with all your weird ways—putting pokémon in those strange balls and what have you.”

Irida jumped on the bandwagon with a genuine spark of annoyance,”That whole practice bothers me! Almoghty Sinnoh made Hisui vast so pokémon could live freely throughout. We’re meant to stand alongside pokémon, not count ourselves above them!”

Kamado let out a long sigh as he explained to the Pearl leader,”We do not use poké-balls from a desire to control our pokémon. Only so that we can live together,” he took a single step forward, hand placed across his chest sincerely,”Allow us to show you what we can do!”

She looked between the rift-summoned girl with a pokémon in her arms, her fellow clan head and the commander, weighing her options and possible consequences. After a beat, her stiff shoulders lowered a little and she nodded hesitantly,”… Alright. We will assist Akari in her investigations.”

The tall foreigner nodded his thanks and turned to the greenhorn Survey Corp member,”This is your mission, Akari. I order you to study Kleavor and help us find the truth of this situation.” He boomed, Galarian accent rolling off his tongue and command no doubt heard through the building. Akari bit her inner lip and nodded with defeat. It not like she could deny it, she was ordered to do this,”.. Okay. I’ll do it.” Adaman snuck an empathetic glance at the young girl who was basically being shoved into danger without any real preparation. It was almost as if Commander Kamado wanted to rid his unsteady village of an unseen danger.

“Remember that you are a stranger who appeared one day put the very sky above us. People are naturally suspicious of your presence here. If you wish to be fully accepted and trusted, you must work hard. Work yourself to the very bone.” Kamado’s speech was supposed to cheer her up but Akari couldn’t help but feel like he meant something else. She sighed, she’ll think on it more later, when she isn’t dealing with a pokemon gone mad.

“Well, that’s settled. And there’s not time like the present!” Adaman grinned encouragingly at the young Galaxy member. Irida spoke up, informing Akari of the subject of her new mission,”The Lord of the Woods—Kleavor—is descended from a pokemon that was blessed with almighty Sinnoh’s own power. No other pokemon you’ve yet encountered can compare to his strength. Be warned.” She cautioned. She placed a hand on Akari’s shoulder,”Do take care of yourself. I’m sure Ingo would love to speak with you.”

Both leaders nodded to her and Kammado before leaving. Which left Akari and commander Kamado alone in the latter’s office. She sucked in a deep breath, not liking the stiff air between them both,”Welp! I guess I better go get read—”

“Listen to me.” He commanded with a hard tone,”The Galaxy Expedition Team has come to the Hisui region as a group of outsiders. Some might even call us interlopers. We mustn’t do anything to threaten our relations with the Diamond and Pearl Clans. Understand?” Another dreadful shiver raked up Akari’s spine and she meekly nodded, Oshawott was quietly growling in her arms, paw on the pale scalchop shell on his stomach.

The novice Survey Corp turned with a sigh and was greeted by Cyllene’s unwavering stare,”Join me downstairs, Akari. We’ll cover the details of this new mission.”

She grumbled, shifting Oshawott’s weight in her arms and followed after her new boss. Its been almost a week since she fell here and she was already being told to help the people once again.

Ingo could not sleep. His schedule had been thrown off since that odd dream he had a week prior. Lady Sneasler has no doubt noticed his lack of proper maintenance and has forcibly laid him to rest many times. His overtime is slowly catching up to him.

Why was he avoiding sleep? He didn’t really know himself and was too afraid to look at why. Maybe it was the sheer oddity of that dream that has thrown off track, or perhaps the man in white. Upon looking back, Ingo couldn’t even describe the man’s face anymore and his voice was becoming distorted. A feeling of foreboding crawling into the back of his mind, feeling like someone or something was tampering with his memories now.

But the words spoken were seemingly seared into his mind, unable to leave like a permanent scar; “Accompany the child and ensure their safety.”

He hissed, jerking away when his knife cut into his skin. He dropped his newest woodcarving. He wasn’t very skilled and had only recently just picked it up, so he was far from dexterous with a carving blade. He looked at his thumb, blood trickling slowly down the pad of his finger. He groaned, setting down the crude pine wood imitation of a nosepass and picked up the smooth black handkerchief on his thigh. Ingo pressed his thumb into it, he’ll clean it properly later.

His frown deepened as he stared at the wooden figurine laying abandoned on the floor, compared to the ones Melli had shown him, it looked disfigured and uneven, splintered and immaturely cut as if by a toddler. It hurt his pride in all honesty but he was a stubborn man.

“Skarrrr!” Ingo looked beside him in time to see a purple dart crash into his chest with a purr. He coughed at the impact but felt his lips quiver upward,”Ah. Gligar, where is your companion?” At the question, Ingo heard the familiar buzz above his head and he raised his uninjured hand to lower the mangeton to eye level,”Hello to you too, Magenton.” They twirled one of their magnets as their way of waving while giving a low metallic hum. All three eyes creased upward happily and returned to floating around Ingo’s head.

He smiled, a small almost shy expression and picked up his shoddy attempt at carving. Gligar had taken it upon herself to bury her little body between Ingo’s tall coat collar and his neck, chirping happily with Magneton hovering leisurely beside them. He put his carving knife inside one of his inner coat pockets along with the figurine.

The skin around his right eye started to itch again. He twitched and ignored the urge to scratch at it. That too has been frequent since the dream. He had been ignoring the feeling and only scratching when it became unbearable, it was annoying to deal with and seemingly had no cure.

Whatever the case he began his trek back to his mountain cabin. He picked up local herbs and checked the traps he had set around as he did, Gligar coming out of her favorite hiding place to assist in carrying his week’s food. The sky was a scenic twilight, the rising sun blanketing the cold mountainside in a fiery orange like a charmander’s scales. The long shadows from the pines seemed to almost be reaching for Coronet’s peak, like greedy adventurers in search of gold-plated treasure.

Reaching his home, Gligar and Magneton let themselves in. The glider leapt off Ingo’s shoulder and soared into the kitchenette, holding a couple of dead magikarp by the tailfins the little beast managed to catch on the way by the stinger and landing gracefully on the counter edge. Magneton trilled happily as they hovered around the little old copper statuette of Lady Sneasler, little electric shocks bouncing off of metal. Ingo, after setting down the buneary from a nearby trap next to the magikarp, bent down to the abra who had immediately clung to his leg upon his entry,”Hello, Houdini. You been alright? I hope my temporary departure wasn’t too sudden.” He apologized.

The abra chittered reassuringly, tail wagging happily. Ingo chuckled and lifted the psychic-type to rest atop his hat, Houdini’s preferred spot. Gligar, who saw such action, clicked possessively, crawling up Ingo’s arm to try to shove Houdini off of Ingo. The warden was quick to pull Gligar off and cradle her in his arms,”No pushing others over the yellow line.” He reprimanded with a scowl.

Gligar pouted and stuck her tongue out in an attempt to placate her human friend. Ingo was unfazed however,”I mean it, Gligar. You cannot allow your jealousy to push you off track.” Gligar deflated and belatedly curled up in Ingo’s arms, settling for that if she can’t have his hat. He sighed and went to sit on the single chair of his abode’s small table. A table that should be bigger, his heart tells him, bigger to accommodate at least two other people. He taps the old worn wood with his finger, feeling Gligar shift sleepily into the crook of his elbow and Houdini lay all his weight on Ingo’s hat that squealed quietly like a wheeze.

Eventually he, too, found himself drifting off in the chair despite knowing this was the improper station for such. He didn’t bother to move though, conscious of Gligar’s pincers that would undoubtedly nip painfully at his sides for disturbing her rest. Perhaps today he won’t have dreams.

[tchtra]

Best video game.

Why?

Oh that's difficult.

Gonna have to say ULTRAKILL

Massive rant about it and a few other games below

The fast-paced first person shooter has literally everything I would want for a fps. Cool mechanics (slam-storage, railcoin, chargeback), not much dialogue (the only time you're forced to listen to someone talk without being able to fight it's either skipable or at the very end of the act). The boss fights are incredibly fun, like I would gladly replay any of them just for fun. The P-Rank makes the game very replayable and the reward of getting to fight an even more difficult boss is so worth it.

Plus, despite not getting all that much screen time, the main characters/bosses in ULTRAKILL are very memorable.

Like Gabriel, who was seen as a disgrace by the angel council for losing to you, a simple machine. The council removes his holy light and will perish in 24 hours. Instead of enjoying his time left, he decides to fight us once more, enraged by what you've done to him. Half way through the fight, he starts laughing, genuinely enjoying the combat with you. When he looses, he comes to the realisation of how corrupt the angel council was and does the only reasonable thing and kills every single member. He'll still die though.

The concept itself is very interesting as well. You're a war machine that runs on blood and you're going to kill everything until there's nothing left. Humanity is dead so you travel through hell killing husks, machines and even gods. This plays into the gameplay and mechanics of the game more than you'd expect.

The mechanics in the game are so so fun. There's the basics like being able to slide and groundslam. But with your first unlockable weapon, the marksman, it opens up new opportunities for tech and all that gun does is allow you to throw a coin which if you shoot, it guarantees a bit on any nearby enemies. And that's just one weapon. Then you've got the ability to parry projectiles which. Funnily enough, the shotgun pellets count as a projectile so when you "parry" them after shooting, it causes an explosion. It's honestly my favourite way to rack up style points but I can't do complex tech like chargebacks and dead coining. The addition of a style meter makes you want to play in a way which gets you the most stylish way possible.

As well as the main story levels, there's an endless arena area called the Cybergrind where you try and survive for as long as possible while killing enemies stylishly. As with most endless modes, it gets more difficult the longer you survive with harder waves spawning and the introduction of radiant enemies (enemies with more health, speed and damage). This makes Ultrakill infinitely replayable as people try to get the highest score on it. My best is wave 23 on Violent and 25 on Standard.

I'm definitely not the best at it, I haven't P-ranked most of Layer 7 and I haven't even gotten past the many enemies to complete P-2 but this game is great and I can't wait to see what waits for us in the rest of act 3

Honourable mentions to Half Life and TF2. Both are great games by Valve which will never get a third installment.

TF2 is so much fun but the bot problem has really been ruining it. I hope VALVE actually try to fix it after this #savetf2 movement. I personally main Medic which just means I can't aim to save my bloody life- I love the characters, their personalities and playstyles. They're all so unique yet yet stereotypical at the same time. I love the meet the team shorts and how well they establish the characters. This as well as their adventures in the comics really shows the world of TF2 well. The various hats you can get are unique and allow you to make the mercs your own (I have watched death of an art style but I don't think that the cosmetics are the biggest problem for TF2 right now-). The community is completely insane and I'm glad we're all still here after everything the game has been through. I love the fan-made projects so much. The various sfm animations talented creators have made never fail to impress. Like Emesis Blue, a psychological horror movie about the TF2 mercenaries made entirely in SFM, a software that's around as old as TF2 itself! TF2 is really being carried by the community and thank you to anyone who contributes, you guys are incredible. I know I've gone off about the community more than the actual game but without the community, there would be no TF2. But yeah TF2 is amazing, I miss the PS3 version as that was how I first played TF2 when I didn't have a pc.

Half Life as a game series is absolutely incredible. Valve completely changed the opinion of FPS games and the gameplay as a whole. The slower build to the resonance cascade, the scientists chatter, the interactivity as a whole contributes so much to the world building if the first game. The combat options were unique and fun to experiment with while providing interesting enemies to use them on. Of course, the Xen chapters were a bit bland but they still set the atmosphere of what was to come. And Black Mesa's complete remake of Xen completely fixes that if you do have a major issue with it.

Half Life 2 completely blew my mind the first time I played it. I had never seen anything to do with Half Life (except the references to it in TF2) so when I played it, it was amazing. Just like TF2, I first played it on the PS3. There's not many differences except the load times (which were horrid) but I still completed the game.

I hardly remember anything from my first play through of Episode 1 but I did get really attached to Alyx. Oh and I found the kleiner broadcast funny. Episode 2 is a completely different story. I loved every single second of it (there weren't achievements on PS3 version so I didn't do the gnome challenge and it shows-). The car section was fun. I liked looking for those supply crates and doing the physics puzzles to get to them. Hunters were really fun to fight but once I discovered they get instakilled by the jalope, I just started running them over. Made the final sequence much easier. The helicopter fight was interesting. And the ending. Oh my god, the ending. I ain't gonna lie, that shit hurt. It's a shame they rewrote it for Half Life Alyx.

Speaking of Half Life Alyx, I never got to play it but it looks incredible. I hope to be able to play it some day but right now, I have to stick to watching playthroughs.

I love Half Life but at this current moment I prefer ULTRAKILL, may change.

Uh yeah, I'm normal about all these games

[the-sky-is-my-home]

Endless list of things I love about post-ts haikyuu (misc. ver.)

having "part 2" chapters like the greatest decoy pt2, king of the court pt2, the greatest challenger pt 2... they show off so perfectly how everyone has grown!!

everyone getting their high school banners. looks so cool and is just a nice touch

everyone reuniting after the game it's just so wholesome

us not knowing who won the olympics or the ali roma/asas sao paulo game or the allstar match cuz it genuinely doesn't matter. no game is the end, and it's not the results that count but the process which includes both winning and losing and either way the world doesn't end. you keep playing and it keeps being fun. or you stop and find something else. just whatever makes you happy

kuroo and oikawa finally canonically meeting in the special

also oikawa and atsumu meeting. we so needed that, esp with iwaizumi there

the incredibly healthy outlook on volleyball the whole series has (this deserves its own post so I shan't elaborate here)

kageyama inviting kindaichi and kunimi to play together! finally these idiots get over what happened in middle school it's so nice to see. and kageyama's smile when they agree is so so cute

the fact that we got the beach volleyball outing with kageyama, kunimi and kindaichi (and hinata). like it's so good and such good closure. kindaichi gets to hit a spike off a perfect set from kageyama, looking like he has the time of his life. in the series proper, one of the ways it was shown that oikawa was a better setter than kageyama even if he wasn't at kageyama's technical level was him communicating with kunimi, recognizing his playstyle, and making the best use of it rather than berating him. in the special, even if kunimi hasn't played for years, kageyama assesses his play style and then suggests he should play beach volleyball for real, because it suits him. not only is it cathartic to see these three happy and on good terms, it shows off so well how much kageyama has grown since those days

the atsuhina dynamic is so good during the game as a whole there's so much there. they both replace each other's former partner, atsumu obv by doing the freak quick with hinata, but hinata also becomes a reliable emergency setter as osamu was, and pulls off one of osamu's moves from their game in hs. atsumu explaining kageyama's thought process to hinata (my points are mine, my hitters' points are also mine). atsumu blaming hinata for waking kageyama up even tho HE'S the one who called him a goody two shoes and got his character development started. hinata jumping for the quick and atsumu going "rn???" while osamu goes "yes this is the time to do it!!" and that's when atsumu gets his banner of "we don't need memories"

(honestly the kageyama/hinata/atsumu/osamu dynamic as a whole deserves its own post which also includes pre-ts stuff because there is just. SO MUCH)

and last but certainly not least, this:

all the little info we get about everyone. like yeah anyone would attempt to give the main characters of their story a satisfying conclusion. it's great haikyuu has done that, but it's amazing that like. basically every single side character has that. ikejiri still plays volleyball! he hasn't given up on it just cuz he sucks. who cares? I do! I care about aone and futakuchi still terrorizing volleyball players as an iron wall on a local team. I care about ukai and nekomata still having video calls. I care about fukunaga being a comedian. I care about saeko and akane being happy to see each other. I care about iizuna being able to keep playing, with a guy from inubushi no less. I care about suna still taking blackmail pics of atsumu like ten years later, now with access to instagram. I care that life has gone on for all of them, with or without volleyball in the picture, but that they're united by playing it together, at the same time, however flimsy or strong a particular connection might be. I care so much and haikyuu rewards me for it with so many good crumbs it's insane

[a-dragons-journal]

Hey, I don't know how much of Frontiers you have played yet (so feel free to hold off on answering until you play a bit more, if you want) but how are you liking it? 👀 How do you feel the devs did on the game?

I am asking because I DO want to hear you gush about Frontiers (or give your criticisms), but also for slightly selfish reasons because the team who made Frontiers is also making the open world Star Wars game and I am a bit hyped lmao. I am hoping that if the team did a great job on Frontiers, they might also do a great job with my hearthome as well c:

But for real, please gush if you want, I love hearing about your hearthome stuff and seeing people get excited over things like that brings me so much joy.

@starrun (sideblog woes, gotta send on anon)

(Ayyyy, fellow hearthome-haver! :D)

So here's the thing about Frontiers, and thank you for giving me an excuse to make this post.

I'm going to preface this by saying I am not very far into the story yet, so this may well just be a case of me not being far enough in to have a good grasp on it. I haven't even gotten to getting my ikran yet, and I know that's considered relatively early in the story.

With that being said: If one of your primary desires with Frontiers of Pandora is to experience Pandora, you will have a fantastic time with this game. If that's not something you're really interested in, and you're only focused on other aspects of gameplay... it might not be worth the price tag for you.

I am in love with this game, let me be very clear about that. I've been playing it obsessively in every spare minute I have. But my primary desire with it is to experience Eywa'eveng, story and other gameplay aspects be damned. In that, Frontiers does a spectacular job - the world is impossibly detailed and interactive and beautiful, the animals and plants are fun and interesting and I haven't even gotten out of the jungle where they really put together a bunch of new stuff yet, the feeling of the world is flawless. Weather cycles are a thing, day-night cycles are a thing, and both of them are extremely well-done in terms of duration and beauty. The gathering and crafting systems focusing on immersiveness and quality over quantity is great; the cooking system is genuinely fun to experiment with (though that probably won't last terribly long lol). The Na'vi actually speak well-pronounced Na'vi! Although the subtitles could use some corrections and there's a couple of weird instances where character names are misspelled according to Na'vi phonetics (looking at you, Eetu - that should be Itu). The character concepts are very strong and interesting, and I'm in love with a couple of them. The music is incredible. Running around in the world feels fantastic - you really feel how strong and agile you are as a Na'vi, and they really understood how important verticality is to Eywa'eveng; you can climb basically anything you want and you're rewarded for exploring by finding neat things and resources. I can't wait to be able to fly.

However, it's clear that they focused so hard on that aspect of the game that, in my opinion at least, some other aspects of it suffered. There's some weird little things, like the fact that NPCs in the world who have something for you but don't have a whole cutscene don't turn to face you when they talk to you, and the ones that do have a cutscene tend to glitch and teleport when the cutscene ends sometimes (mostly this seems to happen with cutscenes that aren't directly plot-relevant, though, so it's not like it's gotten in the way of anything, it's just jarring). The character and story concepts are very strong, fun, and interesting, but the execution is... kind of meh so far, to be honest. A good portion of the dialogue feels a little unpolished.

There's also a few game decisions I just plain don't like, even though it's clear that's just a case of "they were going for something different from my preference" rather than "this is poorly done". For instance, there's no dialogue options when you talk to NPCs; the player character just says what they're going to say, and for me, even if a dialogue option doesn't actually change anything, it's still nice to have it and makes it feel more interactive and engaging. As it is, I feel a little disconnected from the character I'm playing as. Similarly, while there's a lot of ambient dialogue from NPCs as you walk around (which is fun and nice), I kind of miss the ability a lot of RPGs have to walk up to the major/named NPCs and interact with them to prompt a dialogue line when they don't actually have a full conversation for you.

But, again, a lot of the weak points are things that might well get ironed out as I get further into the story, and might just be a symptom of that weird little portion a lot of games have toward the start where they're trying to get you fully set and going on the story and thus things have to be a little weird to make that happen. A lot of the characters' mehness is not that they feel flat, but that they feel unexplored, and like... there's plenty of time for them to be explored in, it just hasn't happened yet. So I'm reticent to say any of this is a very fair critique just yet, but it's what I've got for you.

[creatureshrieks]

I don't have a bio page up for Frank yet because I'm so, so lazy so I'll write up some headcanons I have for him here in the meantime.

Though I have read the comic, most of my interpretation does not actively follow the comic's canon and is instead inspired by it. The rest of my interpretation is my own ideas plus my discussions with Storm due to them basically being my canon Julie.

Frank, despite what he may say, does not see himself as equal to the rest of the Legion but, instead, their leader. In the comics they have each member pick what they want to do for the night, though in the original DBD lore it states Frank is the one that goaded them into performing their nightly chaos. I go with the original DBD lore. Frank is older than them all by at least a year and has always had the desire for control. He has never had control over his life, so he enacts control in other ways. Such as controlling his friends, manipulating them, and pushing them further and further down a path of his making. It's Frank who really decides what they do and where they go, even if he pretends it's someone else's idea.

Frank always had violent tendencies and these only worsened throughout his life, though this was not entirely the Entity's doing. Frank didn't need much to go down darker and darker paths and murder was, partially, on his mind. Especially when he was put into especially bad foster homes. Frank jumping from assault to murder was always going to happen at some point, Frank was just rewarded for it. Due to this and due to Frank being the 'leader' of the Legion and the one constantly pushing his friends to do more and more violent acts, Frank shares the highest 'affinity' with the Entity within his group. Julie is second.

Frank loves Julie, but this is obviously not a healthy love. It's possessive, jealous, controlling, and toxic. He sees parts of himself in Julie and he also opened up to Julie. Let her in and gave her his heart. He truly fell in love with Julie, but she, too, is not spared any of his violet outbursts. He's never hurt Julie, but he'll yell and have a fit if he thinks she's gone against him. He's also incredibly jealous, even going out of his way to hack up survivors if he thinks they're getting just a little too close to Julie. This is also why he so readily stabbed a guy - Julie is his and you won't harm her.

Despite Frank's love for Julie and his genuine care for his friends, he also isn't entirely above killing them if need be. They're a team, they're in this together. So they need to stay together. If you pull too hard, try to break away, drag your feet, Frank will push you to keep going. If you can't, he doesn't need someone that can drag the rest of them down. If you're not part of the Legion, you're not part of the Legion. However, Frank is also incredibly protective of his friends. Fuck with them, you fuck with all of them. He'll kill anyone that tries to touch his friends.

Frank had some really shitty and occasionally abusive foster homes. He had some good ones, too, but they often didn't keep him long due to him lashing out. However, the DBD lore states that: “No matter how many times he'd lashed out, threw tantrums and got into fights, they'd kept moving him to new, unfamiliar houses.” Frank was one of those kids that struggles with his emotions, especially his anger. He had no control, no safety, so he tried to enact any amount of control in his life he could. But Frank really just wanted to actually feel as if he was loved, he wanted a place that would love him unconditionally and actually want him around. However, the constant moves only made him understand that love is conditional. It can be taken away. And it was constantly taken from him.

Frank is bisexual. This is not deep it's just that all my muses are gay/bisexual because I say so, lol. ( Likewise, I am not single ship on any of my muses. Even Frank is available if you really wanna deal with this guy. )

Frank likes art and canonically designed the tattoo on his neck. Him and Julie often draw on each other and make temporary 'couple's tattoos' with each other a lot.

Frank is very good at bringing people up. He likes to be admired, likes to be looked up to, he likes to feel and seem cool. He also knows what to say to make people listen to him, want to listen to him. He knows how to make people want his attention and knows how to make them want to do what he says. He builds you up, but he can bring you down just as hard. Frank likes to make it so when he takes his attention away, you'll do whatever you can to get it back.

[vecnawrites]

Patreon Reward: Pure Support Group: Weiss

Another meeting of FABJA, and this time it's Weiss's turn to speak...

“Hello, everyone, welcome to the monthly meeting of FABJA.” Pyrrha said softly, looking around at today’s gathered members. She was the only one form her team tonight to be here, Nora having been delegated to “Joan’s Teddy Bear” for the night (a small fire of jealousy was burning in her belly at that knowledge) and Lian was...recovering from Nora ‘preparing’ to be in Joan’s arms all night.

Velvet was here, her ears twitching as she curled into a half ball, and glanced around, while Coco gently stroked her back. Part of Pyrrha knew what was wrong with the sweet girl, but she knew that unless they had time after the conversation, Velvet wouldn’t be able to speak tonight. She was the main member of the last meeting they had, after all.

Sitting next to them as May Zedong, the incredibly shy girl wearing her hoodie even though it was the middle of the night and the rest of them were all dressed in their pajamas. She didn’t quite understand why, since all of them knew what she was ‘hiding’ underneath. But she understood figurative, and literal, armor.

Next to them were Cinder, Emerald, and Neo, the trio showing solidarity here, despite their apparent rivalry outside of the room. She was glad for that, though she was glad that she, Nora, and Lian were all friends as well.

Next to her was Ciel Soliel, who was sitting rigidly next to Neon Katt, who was quietly talking to her. At first glance, it seemed that the pigtailed cat faunus was being ignored, but she could see Ciel’s eyes flickering over to her and her head bobbing in small nods every now and then.

However, what caught her attention the most was the fact that Ruby, Blake, and Yang were all hovering around an utterly humiliated looking Weiss, the white haired girl curled up into a ball on her seat and hugging her own legs, although this gave Pyrrha a perfect view up underneath the girls nightgown, seeing her massive balls bulging through her pristine white panties.

But then, she knew why they were all here. Easter had just happened, and well…

...all of them had been affected. Some, just by peripheral (like most of the room) had been hit by what had happened, but Weiss and Velvet had gotten hit the hardest, Weiss the most, which was why she was the one who was going to be speaking tonight.

“Weiss is the one who needs to speak tonight. You likely all know why this meeting has been called, since all of us were effected, but Weiss apparently was severely effected.” Pyrrha said. “Weiss, are you ready to speak?”

Between her teammates, the white haired girl shuddered, slowly raising her head to reveal cheeks that rivaled Ruby’s namesake, her eyes glassy. But she nodded resolutely.

“I...it happened before the incident…” she began, settling into place as she looked around the group.

~

Weiss shuffled uncomfortably as she stood outside of Team JNPR’s dorm room, having been sent a message by Joan, asking her to come over to help critique an outfit that she was going to wear for Easter.

When she had mentioned that Coco might have been a better choice for that (internally screaming at herself for basically waving the girl she wanted to try and become better friends with away), but thankfully, Joan had almost immediately responded back that she wanted her opinion, not anyone elses.

...after hearing that, there was no way that Weiss could say no, was there?

So here she was, shifting from one foot to the next, standing outside of Team JNPR’s dorm room as she tried to gather the courage necessary to raise her hand and actually knock. Her instincts were telling her that if she did and entered, something was going to happen.

...granted, she supposed on some level that it was less instinct and more common sense at this point since things often happened around Joan. If she had actually thought the blonde capable of it, she would have assumed every single incident that she had been a part of was on purpose!

...but that wasn’t true. There was just some deity that enjoyed the great cosmic joke that was leaving a single, indescribably beautiful and kind girl (who Weiss honestly suspected to be one of the incredibly rare, once in a generation Pure Girls) in a school full of horny hunters-in-training, and watching the ensuing chaos of them losing control over their own bodies.

Her scroll buzzed in her pocket, making her look down at it to see a new message from Joan. Are you coming?

Weiss swallowed hard, before steeling herself and typing back. Right outside of your dorm, Joan. Her heart leapt into her chest as she realized what she had just sent, but forced herself to calm down.

Though her nerves spiked when she got an almost immediate response. Come on in! I’m in the bathroom putting the finishing touches on the outfit now~!

Well now...that was ominous, Weiss thought, her cock twitching and her balls, which had admittedly been...neglected...the past few days, churning heavily at the thought of what might be behind the door.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to the dorm room, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. The sound of the door seemed to ring like a prison cell to her, a tone of finality that meant that she was going to be in deep trouble…

But that was silly, wasn’t it?

“Joan? I’m here!” she called out, glancing around, seeing no one in the room. She was thankful for that, since there was no way she wanted to try and explain why she was here to Pyrrha, Nora, or Lian.

“Okay! Will be right out!” Weiss turned to the closed door where Joan’s voice had bled through, and swallowed hard as her nerves suddenly flared up, but she had to stay strong! This wasn’t going to turn out badly! She was going to have a nice, calm conversation with Joan and then head back to her dorm!

“Okay, I’m coming out!” Weiss’s eyes flickered over to the door leading to the bathroom, her nerves spiking more as she saw the doorknob turn, wondering what she was about to see come out at her. She took a deep breath-

Only for it to freeze in her chest as the door opened and sin personified stepped out. Absolute, sluttily dressed sin.

Well, ‘slutty’ was an incredibly crude term to call Joan. The bubbly blonde was anything but a slut (a derisive part of her mind whispered that the term aptly fit Yang and Blake with how they acted at times), but no other word could accurately describe what she was seeing.

Joan Arc came out dressed in a bunny suit. And not a normal bunny suit, like “Easter Bunny” suit, but the fetishistic type. One that was a leotard, with fishnet leggings and high heels...and a bunny ear headband to top it off.

Her heartbeat, having stalled for a long few seconds, suddenly kicked back into high gear, slamming against her ribcage like a hummingbird as her blood boiled and libido surged into her lower regions, her panties bulging out due to her cock reaching full mast in seconds, and her balls gurgling as the cum within churned around.

It was worse when Joan posed, like a model on a runway, arching in such a way that her bust and rear were on more display, showcasing just how tight the material was clinging to her body. “Well? What do you think, Weiss?”

Weiss’s brain broke, the internal gears that made her able to even comprehend what she was seeing stalling due to something lodging between the cogs.

Joan bounced in place, her tits and ass jiggling, and something inside her brain died. ‘Nope!’ she thought, her brain and libido thinking in unison, ‘Nope, nope, nope! Can NOT handle!’ wide eyed, she took several steps back, her hand reaching blindly for the doorknob in order to get out of the room before her cock erupted, emptying her balls onto the floor before the beautiful blonde, or worse, over her.

Her mouth moved, but most mortifying, only incoherent noises spilled from her lips as her fried brain tried to take the vision her eyes were giving her and put it to words.

For some reason, Joan pouted (critical damage!) and darted around her (so much jiggling and bouncing…!) and stood before the door, blocking her way out. Unfortunately, as her body was still moving at the time, she hit Joan’s more bouncy bits and fell onto her back, her skirt fluttering dangerously as she forced herself to look away, otherwise...she dare not think about what would happen.

However, she was not prepared for the girl to sit on her stomach, putting her hands on her shoulders. “Weiss, please look at me! I really want your opinion about this!”

Weiss dared open her eyes, and her doom was dealt. The combination of enormous cleavage, captivating blue eyes, pouty lips, and the sweet scent…

Her balls kicked into overdrive, her cock springing out of her panties and her skirt flipping as she began to paint the wall and door behind them with her cum. Violently.

Managing to untangle her tongue through her panic, she fought for words so Joan didn’t see what was happening behind her.

“I...it...it looks wonderful, Joan…” she grunted, somehow managing to maintain a level tone of voice. “It frames you well, and the color a-accentuates your skin tone and hair perfectly.” she wasn’t lying, either, the shade of blue she was wearing complemented her perfectly. “It will be perfect for wh-whatever you plan on wearing it for.” needless to say, her fantasies involved Joan wearing it for her, but that was beside the point.

She watched as Joan literally glowed and released a ‘squee’ of enthusiasm, before to her horror, starting to bounce on her, the soft ass hitting her belly repeatedly and those massive breasts bouncing and wobbling and shaking-

More cum surged from her balls as she passed out from the stimulation overload.

~

“I...I woke up in the infirmary...thankfully, Joan didn’t notice somehow that I soaked her dorm room door in several liters of cum…” Weiss buried her face into her hands, though she was still so red that steam practically poured off of her.

Pyrrha coughed into her hand. “Yes, well, Joan was more worried about you and why you passed out. Fortunately we were the next ones there and managed to get the room cleaned.” left unsaid was the utter miracle that was somehow Joan not being seen in the bunny suit carrying Weiss to the infirmary.

“What worse is, even though I was already exposed to it, I still had the same issue on Easter!” Cinder snorted at Weiss’s words.

“Please, you know the girl has a way of getting all of us to blow...thankfully, she’s not doing it on purpose...can you imagine if she was like Shirona Star?” the golden eyed brunette asked rhetorically.

There was silence, before whimpers filled the air as bottoms swelled, cocks and balls surging with arousal as they thought of their innocent Joan being an almost sadistic temptress like the only other Pure Girl alive.

Moans, splats, and musk filled the air as every single one of them came.

“M-muh-Meeting a-ad-adjourned!” Pyrrha groaned out, cupping herself as she spilled rope after rope of cum onto the floor. Though, considering where they were at the moment, at least they were among friends?