#or 150's

[karlydraws]

Welcome to Michael's Coffee ☕

Saw this pathetic forty-something guy trying to hit on twenty-something barista

[meltedmush]

Dumbass thought but shizun (sy) x Tony the tiger

I’M CRYING

[dyinggirldied]

Sung Hyunjae is the King and Han Yoojin is the queen I can't -

[gentlemanmotorslifestyle]

[neeeeeoposts]

KEVEDD YURI KEVEDD YURI we all say in unison except im just now realizing i made kevins hair too dark but im too lazy to change it

[misforgotten2]

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #734

Cover by Walter Brooks -- 1953

[entropyvoid]

Golden Hour (+ lineart below cut)

I took a picture of the lines for once and did some basic crappy photo editing on my phone, so you could probably print this out and use it as a coloring page or something if you so wish lol. Do with it what you will.

[badgopher]

"Saturdays by Twin Shadow (feat. HAIM)" is how I've mentally started every post I've made here on a Saturday for the past however many years that song's been out.

I decided I needed bath bombs so I set out to do that and only realized my error when I saw the traffic control person as soon as I turned into the mall. On the Saturday before Christmas. lol

My upstairs neighbor moved out a month ago so I no longer hear about their sex life through my ceiling. My next door neighbor moved out last week so I no longer have to wear my active noise cancelling earplugs to muffle their snoring. It’s quieter around here, but the hot water takes longer to find my tap in the morning.

I deleted a whole chapter about that computer case. You’re welcome.

Never did end up doing Christmas cards this year. I’ve got mixed feelings about that.

I want to do a bunch of dumb end of year data analysis things, but I have to pull a bunch of data to do it, and that’ll take me like a dozen minutes, and that's like a dozen minutes that I could spend not doing that thing. You see my dilemma. Stay tuned, I guess?

I’m the only one on my team not scheduled off on Monday and I think Tuesday next week (and, actually, most of the next 2 weeks). It’s easy enough to keep Teams active and my work email open while I tinker on side quests.

The checkout person at LUSH is always like “oh, are these a gift?” as I unload 9 bath bombs from my basket, as if they don't get many solo middle aged dudes stocking up on bath bombs on Saturday afternoons.

Turns out I miscounted and have 1 too many bath bombs so I’m taking a bath about it.

[manhwamuneca]

Ha! More volleyball torture this chapter!

(Idk this one never got posted)

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Proč mě bůh nenávidí

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Do you like overwatch - and if so who's your fav?

//long drag of cigarette// overwatch huh.... havent heard that name in years..... i remember her fondly tho...

[next-semester]

I'll have some of whatever the pilots are smoking bc how are we justifying $150 for the fan premier exhibit on top of $200 for concert tickets.....

[randomnameless]

tbh, I stopped caring about houses that much when I found out that it's an otome/dating sim game with srpg gameplay sprinkled on top. In other FE games, you either gather supports by pair ups or by having units standing against one another. And mechanics like cooking in Fates were done to get some more stat boosts. And even if the avatarization of the game started with New Mystery, Robin and Corrin feel more like customizable characters than an avatar for the player.

In houses, Byleth is like every typical dating sim protag, that does not speak and the few times they do is by having the player choose options that may raise heart points with a character or lower them, you have to find lost items and when you give them back you gain heart points, you have to give them gifts to gain heart points and cooking now doesn't give you any beneficts in battle and only works for, you've guessed it, getting heart points. And let's not kid ourselves, tea time is like the "dates" in otome games, in which you can spam gifts till you raise the affection to the max. The only thing that distincts those points from the otome ones, is that those are necessary for proficency and for unit classes.

Heck, we even have a ring to give to the chosen blorbo in order to get a special custom made cutscene, when in pasts games getting an S support gave you a broken unit to deploy and a little blurb of text during the credits. And of course, calendar/day systems are also common in these tipes of games too.

People complained about awakening and fates for turning the franchise into a dating sim, but 3Houses is literally one in and of itself, and yet is praised as peack FE experience and as peack srpg.

(I could also argue that is because of this otome nature why the characters are "tell don't show" with their given trauma, unlike in pasts games when it was "show don't tell" (Nino, Reison, Camilla, Leif, Soren...))

Well,

When you put it like that, it becomes obvious that the other games (FEH, Engage) mentionning Fodlan are stuck on the uwu monastery part of the part 1 and not the, y'know, events happening that will lead to part 2 because as you said, the SRPG aspect is just "sprinkled on top" lol

However, the "pair up your units and build their relationships!" has been a non gameplay mechanics for decades now (FE4's was a gameplay mechanic, it had no support convos - FE6 added the support convos and gave a small gameplay boost but it didn't commit and we had no endings, FE7/8 had endings, FE9 had convos but FE10 removed them and yet had endings depending on the pairs, etc etc) even without avatars.

Then we entered the avatar era and if it added the "my waifu and my bae" shenanigans, FE13/14 were still more centered on the story aspect that on the "dating sim" aspect, as in, even if you could raise affinity with a character by doing X or Y, it wasn't really coded in a minigame - came FE16 which you analysed perfectly : tea time, gifts, eating, S-support CG, etc etc.

That being said, FE is a RPG, meaning it has characters : you play FE for the solid gameplay but you also build characters, and imo the best way to develop and write characters is to interconnect them with other characters, and/or with the plot/lore.

Sure, Arden functions as a wall/tank. But through the 5 lines he has, you learn that he is part of a group of knights, has friends who often tease him but is relied upon by those people and takes pride in that, he'd also like to find a wife someday and has self-esteem issues.

Is he as developped as, say, Xillia's Alvin? Hell no! But they're characters from two different genres, Arden has those 5 lines that puts him above any "generic" armor.

(I find it interesting how UO and in a way, FE11, gives you the opportunity to play with generics instead of playing with named characters, in UO generics will turn out to be better since you can change their growths, but they're generics. Do you want the RPG of the Tactics/Strategy aspect?)

So, I'd say that support conversations are important, I love Saias and Ralf to bits, but I'm sure I'd love them more if they had more lines. And since support through battle can be a chore (hello FE GBA and trying to get Bartre and Karla's supports when she joins 2 chapters before the end!), I initially welcome any way to grind those supports faster lol.

However, it can quickly spiral in, well, the otome mechanics we have in FE16 - if you want to build support then why not have an entire mini-game for that, and meals and chorals and whatever else?

It's all about finding balance between developping your characters without turning your game in a dating sim or what I'd call "playing the sims and pairing those dolls with those other dolls you like".

Still, let's not kid ourselves, nowadays the "dating sim" aspect of the series is, while decried by some, very popular - and FE is first and foremost, a series that has to sell.

3H is not peak SRPG not peak gaming experience or even in FE gameplay that'd be FE5 but I can't ignore the fact that its dating sim aspects might be part of the reason why it's still very popular.

[allinsideyourhead]

Simon and Garfunkel performing at Hippodrome d'Auteuil in Paris, June 1982

[wyvernne]

i’m working on the frwad sequel and casually thinking about how vampluc would definitely burn down mondstadt if the holy knight asked him to goodbye

[shiftingwithmars]

CODY SAYING THAT HE LITERALLY WENT OUT INTO THE RAIN TO TAPE 150 HERSHEY KISSES TO THE TOP OF AN APARTMENT COMPLEX FOR HIS SICK GIRLFRIEND?!?

SKWJIDJD

THIS IS FUELING MY BRETT OBSESSION