#my personal theory as to why i HAD to ult is the universe needed to water dirk's insanity down somehow and it made me both of them

[ephemeralbreakpoint]

ah yes. and then that happened. juno died, and then suddenly end of evanjohnlion.

there aren't words that really put into perspective how grim ulting was-- for me, anyway, apparently everyone else got a much better deal. well, it started kind of like a Kin Awakening-- he killed himself without ever saying a word to anyone about why, and the overwhelming sense of guilt i got wasn't that i wasn't there for him, but that i did it in the first place. and it'd put into perspective fucking everything-- why i occasionally had prescient knowledge of our timeline completely separate from the... well, prescient knowledge being a first guardian gave me, why the two of us always had issues of talking through each other (exactly what it sounds like) and not being able to acknowledge we were separate people, how i knew dave and nepeta before i actually knew them...

so, yeah. i realized i was him before i was me. and then i remembered all the timelines he had cut short via time bullshit, which led to a snowball effect of remembering unrelated timelines (where did those come from? i don't know) and i couldn't stop. at first i tried to ignore it and go on with my day, wanting to deal with something that serious after getting accustomed to my best bro being dead, but nothing i could do could shut my mind up. it was like the universe itself had grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved my face in the ground with my ontological purpose written all over it and i couldn't escape it.

it was about once i'd given up on trying to clear my thoughts that i started accessing the narrative, unintentionally. i couldn't STOP narrating so it was a lot of asking "why am i in the narrative. get me out." but over the course of maybe like, an hour or so, that cycle of remembering things and realizing facets of my existence i never should have known spiralled so far out of control i just... entirely shut down. i remember laying face down on my kitchen floor, motionless, with the most head splitting migraine ever because i was so consumed by it i couldn't even think to move.

eventually it had seemed to me that it was starting to let up, enough that i was finally coherent enough again to say as much. except not at all, because everything went black and gcat took over and kept yapping (becsprite style). that didn't last very long though. i felt my ego die in real time, and then i guess i was dead because i never woke back up.

i died alone. i thought everyone had just conveniently left me to die. but apparently, this was a canon event for some fucking reason and no one could have done anything about it. also, jade was just doing the fucking dishes while listening to me live blog my death apparently. why it is something that HAD to happen, i'm not sure either. but there is probably something there.

[maskeraith]

big eldar scrolls on line post about what i thought about it

may have some spoilers for the morrowind storyline and sidequests idk also I am inevitably gonna compare it to ffxiv a lot as it’s the only other mmorpg I’ve played good luck

Writing this after finishing writing the rest wow this got too long there is a tldr though haha

so the first thing I will say is that eso’s overworld exploration and sidequesting blows ffxiv away completely, there is so much to do and fun to be had in eso simply by exploring around! the enemies feel cool to fight, there are delves and solo dungeons to just stumble across with quests in there, skill points just lying around if you look hard enough, gathering spots that you can just gather from without having to be a specific profession or something, WORLD bosses that you need a group to battle just OUT there it’s really cool! Ffxiv does have some really beautiful environments but in terms of actual stuff to do, there’s literally just fates and they’re pretty shit to be honest, and i guess the sightseeing log??

and sidequests! all my time in the game was spent in the morrowind area (vvardenfall I think? my eso lore is zero watch out) and every sidequest I did had a really engaging storyline. They do mostly amount to fetch quests and slay monster quests in terms of gameplay with some puzzle moments sometimes, but the storylines were captivating enough to justify most of what you had to do. compared to ffxiv which is BLOATED with boring fetch quests with uninteresting storylines eso has it figured out. the characters you meet and their dialogue is great and sometimes you can even make choices which affect the final outcome of the quest which is always fun (your character having the personality of a brick aside). I actually think I enjoyed certain sidequests more than the main story of morrowind they’re that involved

Also there are world events but I didn’t really get into them, there was like a huge tornado which spawned some enemies that give you massive exp, but my horsey was too slow and I only got there at the tail end because they’re great for farming so every player in the world goes there and kills them instantly they seem cool though

in terms of lore, I’m not someone who is super interested in the lore of the elder scrolls universe but I found myself learning a whole lot of very crazy stuff from the friends I was playing with who DO know all about it, and I will say that if the lore of the elder scrolls universe interests you in any way you’ll love this game! so I learned that there are Eras in this universe, and eso takes place in the second era I believe. The other main series games all take place in the third or fourth I think, so eso is able to like set the groundwork for those games and explain the history behind stuff going on in all the main games, which I think is a really good idea, perfect for fans of the lore and stuff. Like I remember the funny talking dog from skyrim and he’s like the primary antagonist of the morrowind main story like woah

The combat is where I think the game started to fall off for me, again with the ffxiv comparison but it just wasn’t reaching levels nearly as interesting as the combat in that game for me.

Firstly, there’s no tab targetting (unless there’s a setting in the menu somewhere i missed?) you actually aim all your attacks, single target, aoe, whatever. for me this made it harder to be able to gain a situational awareness, and I have to keep my camera aimed at the boss and I’m not able to move it around to see if there was anything else going on. I do see how aiming your attacks could actually make the game more appealing to some people, though, as it does give a sense that you are more actively participating in the battle and not just standing there pressing buttons, but for me this sort of thing doesn’t make any difference

The second thing was the amount of abilities you have at any one time - you have 10 abilities and 2 ultimates slotted at any one time. Five and one ult are active at a time, and you have to swap weapons (it’s as easy as the press of a button) to switch to your second bar with the other 5 and 1 ult. This does make the game a lot more accessible I think, but it also means the stuff you get to do is just gonna be a lot more straightforward and spammy compared to the interesting and involved rotations you get in ffxiv. as a tank, I set myself up to put three dots and a debuff on the enemy and then spam my one damaging attack, until I had to reapply the stuff again, and that was basically it. I had some tank cooldowns too like a shield, heal, a grab and so on. I did look up the Most Complicated Rotation to see how hard it could get, which seemed to be stamina nightblade, and even that has “Ability x11″ or something in its rotation

Simple rotations would be fine for me if the bosses themselves were more difficult or complicated to compensate, but honestly nothing was any more difficult or involved than ffxiv. On youtube I’ve watched like 5 dungeons and a trial on the hardest Veteran difficulty, and the dungeons don’t look like anything more than what you would get in other mmos. The trials looks like really great content honestly, but there’s no party finder for them as far as I know so you have to manually gather 11 other people which is never something I enjoy trying to do in multiplayer games lol

i also didn’t super appreciate that the game wanted to like hide a bunch of info from me by default? like a few hours in I complained that it was impossible to know when my dots and self buffs ran out because all I had was like little particle effects on the enemy/myself to go off, and my friends were like “oh yeah you need to turn on these tooltips in the options” like huh?? I need to know this stuff come on

There is some really cool stuff in the combat though! Every player has like a basic bash attack, which can interrupt certain attacks, and then a basic heavy attack, which can knock down staggered enemies (they get staggered if you interrupt them) so there is more to do than just your abilities.

One thing I will mention though, is that I think a huge part of the combat is resource management - you spend stamina/mana on your abilities and if you’re not careful it’s easy to run out. As a tank, blocking takes up stamina, and sometimes I would not manage it correctly and run out and be unable to use my anything for a bit. You get it back by doing heavy attacks (contrary to every game ever) and other like passives unique to whatever build you might have going on. A lot of the game’s difficulty in harder content might come from this, but I didn’t get that deep into any of that sort of thing

I think the way you pick your abilities is really cool - you level up a whole bunch of different skill trees at a time, and you can slot any ability from any tree at any time (other than weapon skills specifically, you must be weilding that weapon) into your 10 slots. Your class has three unique trees, then there’s like a tree for every weapon type, for mage and fighter’s guild, this weird guild called the undaunted, werewolf and vampire, probably more I forgot about. All of them have 5 skills that you unlock as you level that tree, and all of those skills can be morphed into one of two “strong” versions of that skill once you level that specific skill. So there is a huge amount of player choice in how you build your character! I remember getting loads of advice from my friends but also just thinking to myself “but this skill though...” (i am so sorry). There are loads of passives too but they’re kind of lame and you just sort of put your excess skill points in them to make yourself passively stronger. I am sure there are Optimal builds, but playing casually you can literally just do anything

I do think levelling them can sometimes be a pain though because like, if you want the fifth ability in Skill Tree 1 but you don’t really use any of the first four, well actually you do have to start using a bunch of those skills you don’t want because you gain more exp for that skill tree the more of its skills you use, sort of a minor thing I guess

Finally I will talk about how I really do not like the execution of the loot system... So you get armour sets in this game and if you wear 5 of them you get a very significant passive, like whenever you crit you summon a big ghoul to shoot acid, or all of your aoe abilities also taunt. I think this is a super cool idea in theory, and it allows for even further personal customisation of the kind of character you want to play. However..

So the max level is 50, but the real max level is like 180 or something because at 50, you continue to level up but each level just gives you a point to put into these big huge bonus passive skill trees which continue to increase your stats up to the 180th point or something like that. In eso, though, you can go anywhere and do anything and all the enemies are scaled to you. But, it’s actually that you are scaled to the enemies - while below level 50, you get an invisible buff that makes you as strong as a level 50 character. This means that every level you gain, you actually get slightly weaker, if you’re not updating your armour.

Armour drops at whatever level you are, up to the cap of 180 where you are the strongest you can be. So ultimately what this means is every piece of armour you get up until you reach the level cap will quickly become obsolete. Every time I collected 5 pieces of a set and got a cool passive, all I could think was “this will be fun for about 4 levels” because I knew I’d need to swap it all out for stronger stuff. Essentially I felt locked out of seriously farming for the gear sets I wanted until I reached Max Max level, which made everything I collected seem pretty pointless to me.

Also, always being as strong as a level 50 character did kind of make it feel like I wasn’t really levelling up at all? It’s why I broke my rule of “I will get to level 50 before stopping” because I actually was level 50 all along, I got all the abilities from my skill trees that I wanted and ran a bunch of dungeons with them and I was in the 30s, but there were no other skills I could really see myself swapping out so I was essentially “max level”, as far as I was concerned.

so yeah tl;dr these are my two main opinions:

This game is an awesome time running around and exploring the environment, doing quests and running dungeons! If you’re a fan of the elder scrolls world and lore it is absolutely a must play!

Customising your character’s skills and armour sets is a lot of fun, but I do think it comes at the expense of not having a really finely tuned, coherant combat style, it feels a lot like I’m Just Hitting All The Buttons.

The end lol

[bananban-feature]

Stan Talent, Stan Pentagon

So many reasons to stan Pentagon:

1. Self-Produced

They just have a ton of talented songwriters in here! Cube is popular for self-produced idols after all, like BtoB, another super talented group.

Hui is a composer-producer, not really a secret because he’s well-known as a genius as he also composed hit songs for other popular groups (such as Energetic by Wanna One)

Kino and Wooseok wrote a lot of songs in their albums too, including some of my favorites Spring Snow (Kino) and Nostalgia (Wooseok). Kino also wrote their special single Eternal Flame. Wooseok had a big contribution in writing my absolute favorite, Daisy (but mostly written by Hui), and honestly his songwriting talent seems to be underrated.

Jinho has also composed a few and helped write a lot. Yuto also composed songs (aside from his rap lines), one song being Camella that a lot of “unis” love. *Universe/Unis = fandom name

Both Kino and Yuto have their own soundclouds for the songs they write/produce.

Yeo One composed his own solo songs (yes, even as rookies, they were already composing), and they’re actually so good. 

Also, in general, they are so creative in their songs and performances. Example: their Road To Kingdom performances, and also their super fun b-sides like Round 1 and Round 2!

My personal favorites: Obviously the genius Hui, Wooseok (I love him so much!), and Kino (such a talented person)

2. Vocal Kings

Their main vocals (Hui and Jinho) are absolutely top-tier vocalists, two of the strongest ones in the kpop world (imo).

Jinho was LITERALLY a vocal coach of kpop stars. Incredible vocal range.

Their lead vocals Hongseok (actually now a main vocal) and Yeo One are potential main vocals! And their sub-vocals, Kino (honestly surprised he was a sub-vocal cause he’s waaaay too good to be sub!), Yan An and Shinwon, are on par or better than other groups’ lead vocals, imo.

Vocal kings of harmonization. I love it so much, they sound so good! They take after their sunbaes BtoB, the OG harmonization kings. (Song references: You Are, and Shine acapella version).

Wooseok and Yuto’s rap are also so good! Honestly, I go crazy sometimes, especially with Wooseok’s delivery.

Edit, random trivia: I actually found out Wooseok auditioned in Cube as a vocalist and a model. Thank God, he discovered his talent in rapping later on, because dang, this guy is SICK. His rap touches my heart. He is proof that the basis of what a good rapper is doesn’t need to be about how fast you can say your words.

My personal favorites: Hui, Jinho, and Yeo One (what a beautiful voice, and he’s so good and stable live, halp huhu, totally underrated), Wooseok’s rap (I’m a big fan, my eyes are filled with hearts)

3. Musical ability (in general) and Dance

Being composers/producers, they have a good understanding of music theory and techniques, especially for Hui (obviously, the genius), Jinho (as a vocal coach) and Kino (I think).

Musical Instruments: Almost all of them (except for Hongseok) plays musical instruments

Piano: Hui, Jinho, Kino, Shinwon - I have to make a special note here. These guys can really play. They’re not the type to say they play the piano but only press a few chords here and there a bit and sing a song. They play their keys!

Guitar: Yuto (he is really good! he posts electric guitar covers on Twitter), Wooseok, Jinho, Hui, Yeo One, Shinwon

Erhu (Chinese traditional instrument): Yan An - studied it for 10 years. Haha! This is so unique, I’ve never seen him play it, and it’s not exactly a useful instrument to have for kpop music, but I love it!

Edit: I also found out Wooseok can play the violin. Not only that, he’s won a violin competition.. I couldn’t believe it! Violin it’s such a hard instrument. It’s not easy to be good at violin, let alone win a violin competition. Wooseok really surprises me with the musical talent he has sometimes.

Dance: Quite obvious as a kpop idol group, even though admittedly they aren’t exactly the best as a whole group. 

But anyway, Kino is the main dancer. (Also known for being such a good dancer of girl group songs. Hihi cute)

Lead dancers: Hui, Yuto, Yeo One

Apparently, Kino is also the choreographer! I think he was the main choreographer for Daisy. (Don’t @ me, I’m not sure. But in general, yes, he does choreograph for the group.)

My personal favorites: Kino, Hui - this also includes stage presence.

4. Visuals

Their official visual is Yan An. (Pentagon is whipped for Yanan, btw.)

Other unofficial visuals, at least in my book: Yuto, Hongseok, Yeo One, Kino (but tbf, as a well-loved idol group, everyone becomes an unofficial visual)

Shinwon was actually a legit model before being an idol, and he became viral for being “the handsome part-timer” at a cafe Exo went to.

Men’s Health Korea models (YES, ACTUAL MEN’S HEALTH COVER BOYS aka gym freaks): Hongseok, Yeo One. *PS: I have a feeling Yuto will also be on there soon, one of these days

Let me just reiterate though that while Hongseok is known for his muscles, he more than his abs. He’s smart, funny, and talented, as you can see in this whole post. So yeah, basically, please don’t objectify him.

My personal favorites: Yuto (the reason why I checked Pentagon out in the first place! my heart went deugun deugun), Hongseok (what a great face, beautiful eyes), Yeo One (cutie), Kino (very very pretty face)

*check ending for gifs/pics*

5. Other talents

Acting

Literally THREE of them are musical theatre actors, and all were actually the main characters in their respective musicals: Jinho (already a theatre sunbae), Hui and Yeo One. Honestly, this shows both acting skills and strong vocal ability. (Imagine the strong vocal ability of the lead vocal, in PTG, Yeo One, a main character of a musical. It gives you an idea of how good the vocal line up is.)

I think some of them had some acting in dramas, like Hongseok and Yeo One

Update: Yanan and Wooseok are also on dramas/will be on dramas now. That makes almost everybody in Pentagon (still waiting for Yuto and Shinwon) an actor.

Another update: Kino is now hosting his second podcast with Dive Studios! :)

Randoms

Hongseok, Jinho and Kino speaks three languages pretty comfortably: Hongseok/Jinho (Korean, English, Chinese), Kino (Korean, English, Japanese) ---not super fluent but able to have good conversations. And foreigners Yanan (Korean, Chinese), and Yuto (Korean, Japanese) are obviously fluent bilinguals.

Kino drew and painted the album art for WE:TH / daisy. He even gifted a painted version to Hui for his studio!

6. Personality

Let me start by saying Pentagon is a crazy group. They aren’t really kids but they are so chaotic. I love that they have no filter!

Even the leader, Hui, who’s not really young, is very chaotic! Hui is actually such a cutie pie. And also so funny, especially in their TMIs

Hongseok is so funny, so witty, and has absolutely no shame. I love it!

Shinwon is very witty, and is known to be the mood-maker of the group.

Yeo One is a little 4D. He’s like a messy kid and sometimes has his own world. :)) An absolute cutie!!!

Kino is the sweetest person ever! He never fails to tell Universe how much he appreciates us.

Jinho is known to be the kind and caring hyung they can depend on.

My personal favorites: Hongseok (hilarious and crazy, has me dying), Hui, Yeo One (ugghhhh super cute personality!), Kino also!!!

Overall: They have a bunch of all-rounders! (My personal favorite all-rounders: Hui, Kino, and Yeo One) They’re so talented and deserve a lot of recognition and support.

Hui is my bias and my ult, but I can’t decide who’s my next bias.

Update: I think Kino is my next bias, cause he’s just so good, so multi-talented! I can’t with this guy. I’m even considering adding him to my ult list.

But my gosh, Changgu is absolutely adorable. Wooseok talent. Huhu idk if second tier bias or...

***Not to be this obsessive OT10 fan, but I really like Dawn (formerly E’Dawn), so I’m writing his skills as well: Great composer (Shine, one of my faves huhu), such a great Rapper (he gets some amount of hate for his voice, but I actually really like it!), Main Dancer (what a good dancer tbh), and very unique personality. I love him, he’s so talented. (But anyway, even with him gone, Pentagon isn’t lacking! They’re still so great!)

If you wanna see my fave visuals, click below:

The legendary Yuto ponytail

PG-13 Hongseok GIFs only!!!

Also PG-13 Changgu only 

Sweet sweet Kino