#probably more than 1 writeup actually

[hustlerose]

oops, all rpgs! hades has been eliminated because i already did that one

[tallykale]

episode 19

as you can probably tell, i've thought a lot about what post-canon one would look like in my vision... i've said before that i have issues with straightforward fix-its, and i do genuinely love the tragic open-ended conclusion that the series has, but i... am not immune to playing with characters like dolls LOL

here's some writeups about where everyone is at mentally in these pictures. please please please PLEEEASE feel free to ask me more about this cuz i love talking about my beautiful mind palace

charlotte: somehow the most optimistic person in here, mostly out of necessity. when she died, she saw parker leading her out of a cave as her waiting room and was about to take his hand when airy respawned her, so she has a brief moment of bonding with bryce when he talks about the waiting room and seeing stella. with the knowledge that there is potentially a way to get out (bryce and liam being the proof) and the fear of rotting away again she is by far the most actively motivated to help liam figure out the computer. a lot of her days are spent talking to liam over the mic and writing out the code in the dirt so she can try to understand it. she still has to push against her natural misanthropy (and often shouts at liam or bryce for being fucking stupid and useless) but both working on the code and helping amelia give her something concrete to focus on outside herself. she wants to get home so she can make amends with her friends. charlotte is scared of dying! she's really genuinely horribly scared of dying and has awful vivid nightmares about rotting away. she often pushes amelia into talking about her life which causes some tension, but it's because she really hates seeing amelia lose herself like that - a metaphorical rotting away of the self.

subway seat & atom: not on the same level of pure existential depression as the batch 1 contestants, but they both feel the hopeless mood pretty harshly regardless. subway feels very lonely as the only hidden object still 'awake', and likes to carry whippy creamy around rather than just leave him sitting on the ground constantly. tray is too big and unwieldy for him to do that with, but he 'hangs out' with her anyway, talking to her and whippy creamy in the hopes that it'll get them to want to wake up again. atom doesn't talk much, but he still carries his piece of grass. he's definitely the person who's the least affected by the prospect of being stuck on the plane forever, since he… doesn't really perceive existence in the same way as everyone else? he's an atom. but his time in the competition definitely made him view everyone else as friends, and he feels even more powerless than usual in the face of this incomprehensibly difficult problem.

amelia: falls into total hopelessness when bryce rejoins, basically seeing it as the final sign that they're never going home. still calls everyone their competition names (she actually gets into a big fight with bryce about it lol). she gets really clingy and dependent on bryce when he first comes back but it crashes and burns pretty quickly when, during an argument, bryce tells her how much he wishes he could just go back and never have let liam in and forgot about everything… which really sucks for amelia to hear, given that she's part of that everything. after that, with bryce isolating himself, she's kind of reliant on charlotte to keep her going. she blames liam for airy dying and secretly kind of thinks he killed him but just isn't telling them… she also doesn't really believe there's any way of getting out and is just kind of waiting around to die of, like, old age i guess. after how long she's been here, amelia is convinced that she has nothing to even go back to and frequently forgets details about her life. regularly cries and hates being alone. the shift markings on the side of the water tub have changed from being a way to keep track of time and stay sane to a horrible reminder of how long they've been here and how much longer of an eternity they have before them.

bryce: hates himself and liam and airy and the plane and his entire stupid fucking life. bryce is really, really fucking pissed off at liam for losing the notes and letting texty die and every other mistake he's made, and isn't shy about telling him that. as well as being angry, he's also incredibly miserable, because he was finally starting to turn his life around (he quit drinking after the plane) and now it's all for nothing - and even worse, those 7 months he spent getting better were 7 months he did nothing to help the rest of them, especially amelia. he's horribly guilty about that, and that he didn't tell amelia about the fake votes before he was eliminated… but finds it easier to just let liam take the heat for that one at first. after he fights with amelia about it he becomes a bit of a hermit, hanging out by himself next to the plug, and never responds when liam tries to talk. contemplates suicide regularly but pretty much the only option is drowning himself, and the idea of that still scares him more than staying like this forever. would kill for a beer.

liam: tortured by horrible guilt every day over a million different things. these include getting bryce pulled back into this (plus delayed guilt over getting him for real killed), letting texty die and not saying anything about the charger, not telling amelia that everything was fake, knowing that charlotte is going to die if he doesn't get really smart really fast… he's frequently gripped by fits of rage where he almost smashes the computer and has to hobble around outside with the axe for a while to blow off steam. he has really bad nightmares and dissociative episodes, made worse by the isolation and spending hours in a dark cave. liam really wants to fix things with everyone but genuinely has no idea how to start that conversation. he assumes airy killed himself (and views it as an unforgiveably cowardly move) and directs a lot of resentment towards him. he has a lot of things he wants to say, especially to bryce, but the fact that he cant talk to anybody one on one makes things difficult. spends a lot of time just reading through the code, too afraid to actually make any changes in case everyone explodes, but talking it through with charlotte at least makes him feel like he's doing something. more than he would like to admit, liam catches himself staring at the plane as if it's a simulation or a livestream.

[remxedmoon]

“an innocent kid. its bleeding can fill the belly of even the strongest warrior, but do you have the heart to do it?”

hooved

0 power - 1 health - 1 blood

worthy sacrifice - cards bearing this sigil count as 3 blood rather than 1 blood when sacrificed.

morsel - when a card bearing this sigil is sacrificed, ⁣it adds its stat values to the card it was sacrificed for.

hidden trait - hearty meal

when this card is sacrificed, add an additional +3 power, +2 health to the card it was sacrificed to summon. this trait stacks with the morsel sigil and stat increases from the campfire event.

teehee. people are going to yell at me for this one i think. ANYWAYS!! BONIBAHS!! THE KID!!! my poor little blorbothing. they get extra card art because they’re my favorite (joking). writeup below!!!

sowwyyy this one’s evil. i think the sigils are pretty self explanatory this time? worthy sacrifice lets you play super powerful cards, and morsel lets you buff em even more. plus!! with the hearty meal trait they get at least +3 in both stats! the ethics are questionable though.

this was like. the second card i designed out of all of them. my original concept (when it was like 1 am and i was half asleep) was uh… morsel, trinket bearer, and waterborne? trinket bearer because they carry the items, and waterborne to keep them out of danger. but that’s a really weird card. plus…

baby goats are called kids!! the name is wordplay!! i decided to make them a variant on the black goat purely for that reason. and just like the black goat, the symbol on their head is the symbol for sacrifices!

ok i should probably acknowledge the sog in the room. in the base game, you’re able to replace your eye with a goat’s eye. this decision does literally nothing except make the black goat cuter. and bonnie’s a goat!! so they also get silly art. they turn into a sopping wet pathetic cat. i don’t have an inhabited version of this sprite because i couldn’t. find footage of it being inhabited. which is probably because you can’t get the goat’s eye in kaycee’s mod but. eh… i don’t want to deal with the sigil patch nonsense again.

my initial sketch of this card had them as a 2 blood but… it kinda made them worse than the regular black goat thanks to the fair hand mechanic. so they’re the only 1 blood here. they’re my blorbo they can be overpowered. as a treat.

the sigil patch is many lives! which allows a card to be sacrificed without actually killing it. both for synergy with worthy sacrifice and also because i’m Evil

also additional fun fact: the black goat is actually my favorite card in vanilla inscryption!! i basically cheesed the entirety of kaycee’s mod with it. i like it a lot :). i didn’t intend to fuse my favorite character and my favorite card together but it’s a happy lil coincidence.

huh. weird. that’s the entire party right? it feels like we’re missing one though… whatever. patchless alt below!

[aeolianblues]

Difference between the US and international releases of Is This It by The Strokes. The international cover was the original artwork for the album, but RCA deemed it too offensive for US audiences, and fearing backlash, particularly from American conservatives (a band on their first album! Come on), it was changed to a photograph of subatomic particle tracks in a bubble chamber. Julian found the US cover 'cooler than the ass pic', but the international versions were already out, since the album released in Australia in July, and in Japan and the UK in August.

That wasn't the only change on the album though, the following month, as 9/11 happened, New York City Cops was dropped from the US CD version of the album. For obvious United States reactionary reasons (though they're hardly the only ones to get sniffles from references. The BBC in the UK was known for banning songs with references to unfortunate events relevant to the British public since forever, never quite forgetting its Reithian roots).

But it was too late to recall or change the vinyl versions, which were released with New York City Cops on it, because the vinyl came out on—I shit you not—11 September. They replaced it on the CDs with When It Started.

Can you listen to New York City Cops on American versions of music platforms? Not on the album, not yet in fact! You can find it on the Hard To Explain single that came out before the album.

Can you listen to When It Started outside the US? Yeah, but weirdly not even as a Strokes single, on Apple Music it's only on the 2002 Spider-Man film soundtrack. I imagine they'll probably consolidate both songs if they ever reissue/remaster the album, but if there was ever a time to do that it was in 2001, which was 1. 20 years since the album came out 2. when the band were literally together, having put out The New Abnormal in 2020 and literally even appearing together from a warehouse (???) to accept their Grammy for that album (though I will maintain till my dying day that TNA is not a better album than Fontaines D.C.'s A Hero's Death. Come on.)

Anyway, my little presentation on a couple of differences between different versions of Is This It, while I'm procrastinating on some work I should've completed an hour ago. Though I have noticed, any new vinyl I've seen of the album these days has the subatomic particle artwork. Maybe the band requested it, having actually liked it more. Maybe it's a marketability thing. Or a reflection of a hell world that's becoming more conservative.

Apple Music's writeup about the album below the cut, for anyone interested.

[suckishima]

haikyuu rewatch s01e01

i've been itching to rewatch the series lately and a few years ago i did something similar for miraculous ladybug where i wrote up like a stream of consciousness/commentary post and made a gifset for each episode and i wanna try to do it again for haikyuu?? we'll see if i stay committed or not lol—gifsets per ep probably a lot more likely to continue than commentaries tbh, these things are long and not thought out so,

anyway let's start with episode 1, who wants to take bets on how many times i get teary-eyed?

ughhhhh how did i not know IMMEDIATELY my first time watching what a fucking banger of a show this would be. this opening scene is sooo aah. the voice over with the sounds of the balls and shoes, the actual content of the 'a tall tall wall' monologue, and then the visuals of just hinatas shoes stepping up to the line and then 'it was a view i could never see on my own' and the rest of the teams shoes step in??? FUCK

holyyyyy and bc im obsessed i know who is who based on their shoes in that lineup and after thir 'onigaishimasu' and they run onto the court they all run in at different speeds?? and like tanaka goes quick and kageyama bounces on his toes and tsukki is all like unenthusiastic?? what the fuCK bro

its been literally 40 seconds and im in awe aaah

oh.. oh no it's the intro. i was joking before about getting teary-eyed but uhhh

how long has it been since i watched season 1 omgg 😭😭😭

gOD the opening is so good, not just imagination but the visuals rrr the practicing shots and the animation on all the volleyball looks so great wowow

one of the less talked about of the many crimes of getting movies instead of a 5th season is definitely the loss of another amazing opening and ending

damn did i really never realize that karasuno of the little giant's time didnt JUST go to nationals but theyre playing on center court when hinata catches them on tv? meaning its either the semi finals or finals, damn lol

hmmmm i am already conflicted about whether or not i wanna talk about manga spoilers in these writeups lmao. tumblr blockout spoiler text WHEN

anywayyyy manga readers hinata on his bike watching little giant on tv iykyk (and if you know me lol) right

rrrr the imagery of the crow flying into hinata from the screen with still the sounds of the balls and whistles aaah what a cool way to show inspiriation

huh, the libero is no.2 not no.4 is that manga accurate from just before furudate decided that it was a Thing for karasuno or did the animation not check?

okay i checked and you literally can only see the little giant in the manga and none of the rest of the team so im calling it an oversight on the animation side lol (understandable, tbh when youre just making people up to fill in the shot, you arent thinking about jersey lore)

no one cares but my japanese is surprisingly better than when i first watched (at which time i knew nothing) and i can actually understand a few bits here and there without the subs

reading the occasional katakana in the background is fun too. mmmm i should try looking at og scans of the manga to see how the sound effects are intended to be read, ive heard the way furudate incorporates the characters into the action as the sound itself is really well done

air salonpas!

oooo one of the teams practicing spikes had one guy hit left handed, thats a fun detail!

dude hinatas friends are such homies i swearrrr

'whats our opponent kitagawa daiichi even like' 'idk! but we're gonna win!' lmaooo hinata you coulda done SOME research

ooo the shot of kitagawa walking in and looming above hinata is so well done, they look huuuge. i know factually that kindaichi and kunimi are tall but i tend to forget, kunimi especially, hes got short energy to me 😅

yessss and the shot of kagyama walking by and just like his Aura is enough for hinata to pick up on the king vibes yooo its so goood

kitagawa daiichi banner is just 'victory' lol okay

i could use some of hinatas blind confidence in my life lmao

oh jk its bathroom tummy ache time

man the set up for kageyama as like powerful early on is SO good, weve only seen him twice so far and both times it all above the king cape, which im pretty sure is also supposed to represent how hinata sees him which rrrr what a great way to set up their dynamic knowing everything that's to come. greatest opponent to greatest ally etc etc

also thinking about how this IS basically all hinatas POV (including the quote i just referenced) and what kageyamas POV of hinata is when he looks back on it all 👀

kageyama telling hinata he shouldnt talk big bc he isnt even physically ready (referencing tummy ache), and hinata right off the bat telling kageyama 'the six of us go all the way' and kageyama responds 'i will win every game' oooo yep they both got some things to learn from each otherr

seriously how is hinata like the friendliest person on the planet. his team is SO bad and all he cares about is that he's finally on the court, he's so positive and determined even when they're doing terribly and his friends dont know wtf is going on

🥺🥺🥺 he's so happy seeing his palm all red after spiking the ball successfully the first time waaah

sjkhdk i always laugh at 'well there IS a foxy senpai on the girls team' lmaoo like he could have just ignored that part of the question, and who translated it to 'foxy' anyway lmaoo

koji, soccer friend, coming in for a foot receive! he missed lol but for real hinatas friends are so cool showing up for him like this

i mean, they are also avoiding him when he tries to practice throughout middle school, but they showed up here when it counts

love that you can see the 'mild internal bleeding,' as kuroo would call it, on izumi's arms when he tells hinata that his arms hurt lol

akjhsakjsasj they hype hinatas jumping skills, the music swells, you think hes got it, aaaand then immediately triple blocked and the music cuts back out lmaoo. honestly, love how haikyu always plays with expectations like that

half time serve routines my beloved.... i miss you..

'we keep trying.. because we havent lost yet' <333

but also kunimi, what a mood lmao

the animation on hinatas slide hit after the toss missss aaaah, and kageyamas bangs like whipping in the wind before he reaches as far as he can aah god this whole sequence is so beautiful

kageyama after knowing hinata for roughly 30 minutes: "this guy overwhelms me" skagsajsa

he has every quality to be someone even better but—WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THESE PAST 3 YEARS?? 😭😭😭😭

karasuno senpai in the crowd!! related dumb question time, why isnt tanakas hair blond here? he should be a first year atm, and the beginning of the ep said this match is about 3 years and 3 months after little giants nationals (which is in january, although iirc the month changed sometime around those years so possibly it was in march during his time—hence why call 'spring tournament') but either way if hinata and kageyama are still middle school third years then tanaka should be a first year and thats when his hair was blonde. likely in universe answer i guess is just that this tournament is after the practice match where karasuno loses badly and gets made fun of which makes tanaka respect his senpai more and shave his head lol. which also, if hes here with them at this middle school tournament also makes sense with that so. question answered i guess

'if you want to be the last one standing then become strong' waaah

awwww the first years that he recruited to fill out his team stayed with him to practice with the middle school girls team!! they caught the volleyball bug <3

not me pausing to try and see which one of them is the foxy senpai..

lmaoooo the "old ladies team" that hinata practices with are called the yukigoaka beauties lol nice

yoooo hinatas running toward the gym for the first time and a crow flys away and a feather crossed in front of hinata niiiiice

let me tell you i had relatively low expectations for haikyu my very first time. i just wanted something easy to watch while i ate my lunch during the day, and i thought it would just be a predictable underdog story where hinata gets revenge for middle school. and i wasnt against that, i was relatively entertained this whole episode, then it gets to the end and reveals that kageyama has to be his teammate and i was like OH this is gonna be GOOD good. immediately have me hope and reassurance that the show knew what it was doing and wasnt gonna just be typical cliches etc

fuck i wish i could watch again for the first time

i warned you this would be long lol, honestly these writeups are more for me in the future to like remember my thoughts etc and like i said we'll see if i keep it up lol

[switch]

hiii switch! I'm the same new Moriarty fan who sent you an ask before, I just got my NP3 Mori after speedrunning up to Traum! very happy about it. what I'm not happy about is... Ruleriarty. absolutely baffled to know that this is supposed to be the same old Moriarty from Shinjuku? I feel like I'm being gaslit because when I look at him, he looks like a knock-off Joker. also absolutely a clown and replaceable as a villain in Traum too btw. I didn't like him before and I don't now. you're the no. 1 Moriarty understander so I'd like to hear you thoughts about him

congrats on np3 moriarty! he really does need it with that unbuffed mod

well that’s the neat part. they’re not the same person. they’re from different timelines, except when the writers decide they are the same person anyway, except when the writers decide they aren’t the same person— don’t even fucking worry about it. it’s all net negative information.......

my thoughts are difficult to put succinctly because there's a lot of context required to explain my intense levels of frustration... i’m frankly really not actually keen to talk about ruler in general.. it's kind of a raw spot... those are all certainly reasons for disliking him, but it’s kind of just scratching the surface of a pile of proverbial straw that broke my proverbial back... you nailed the "replaceable" part, given he and other elements were written in during a later revision and implemented so poorly that people could tell even without external confirmation...

but i do still want people to understand why the bigger picture situation surrounding this character was and is such absolute shit (and how it's just one of many microcosms of fgo's egregious patterns of bold-faced shithead decision making the past 5 years), and that it was never just "lol angry that he's not an old man" or "lol can't handle another interpretation of a character you like", so i'm always open to answering that kind of stuff.

this post i made answering another anon is probably the briefest possible writeup of my thoughts i'll ever be capable of making, so i'll leave you with this.

TL;DR if you made the mistake of Actually Reading the text contents of The Video Game Fate Grand Order and you are capable of remembering or caring about said text contents for more than 2 years you can just go straight to hell because this game is ruled by the whims of one parts marketing department and one parts cowboy-committee. this incident is far from the only case of that, mind you. it's just the one that was Literally 9/11 to me specifically.

[motionpicturedemise]

myth's game writeup of 2023

i waited until the new year to finish this in case i managed to beat a game during december. i did not. ANYWAY.

this will contain new games as well as games i only got around to in 2023. light on spoilers but be warned

Octopath Traveler II (2023)

as far as i remember, this was the first new game I played this year, and god did it deliver. I've been a fan of octopath since the first one came out on switch in 2018, counting it as my favorite game of all time, so to have a sequel after all this time was thrilling. it did almost everything octopath 1 did and better. new path actions, day/night system, branching stories, fucking boats?? incredible.

my biggest gripe has to be the new hidden classes. I started with throne so getting inventor 10 minutes after my chapter one did definitely fuck up the progression a little bit. I think I preferred ot1 hidden classes. while the dungeons were underwhelming, the boss battles really make you fight for these secret techniques, something absent in 3 out of the 4 hidden classes of octopath 2.

overall: 4/5 BP.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (2023)

xenoblade 3 as the end of the klaus trilogy really didn't sit well with me, for reasons that don't belong on my review of its dlc, but future redeemed fixed nearly every problem i had with base xc3 — both story and gameplay wise. it ties every xenoblade game and even some of gears and saga into a neat little 40 hour bow, and is truly a love letter to the entire series. I can only think of one problem I still have with it. the fucking menu music.

where do i even fucking start with this one really. relatively speaking, I'm a new xenoblade fan, having started xc1 in march 2022 during a harrowing experience with adhd meds, and since then it had kinda consumed me. I finished it in about a week, went on to watch xenoblade 2 because I had heard the gameplay wasn't great, and got my hands on xenoblade 3 day of release.

overall: 5 dance apples.

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

as someone who was not immune to the hype surrounding botw, I had high hopes for the sequel. hopes that were painfully, slowly, fed into a trash compactor over my playthrough. this is another game I got on release day, lining up outside gamestop in the heat, and lets not forget that it's the only first-party switch game with a price tag of seventy bucks.

the game plays like a tech demo. I have a lot of love in my heart for it. the story was better that botw, the world was more expansive than botw, but the problem here is that everything it does is directly compared to breath of the wild. it doesn't get enough time to shine, because we're in the exact same world as 6 years ago, but instead of pinkish black malice we have blackish pink gloom. i much prefer the runes to the zonai abilities, and the sense of wonder that permeated breath of the wild is replaced by a sense of nostalgia that just doesn't appeal to me much.

all of this isn't to say it's a bad game. I think it's a great game, honestly, but a great game that wasn't meant for me. I've seen the insane shit people do with ultrahand, but it just... isn't my style.

overall: 441/1000 korok seeds

Pikmin 4 (2023)

it's pikmin. i dont have much to say about it. it was a lot of fun, loved that part where i bulborbed all over those guys. im not a gameplay reviewer, at heart i mostly talk about story, and a game like pikmin doesn't have much for me to comment on. good fun. lived up to expectations. probably wouldn't replay.

overall: 7500 sparklium

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood (2017)

oh, stormblood... the rage you still fill my veins with. I'm not going to spend too long on this one because I have better things to do with my life than shit on an expansion everyone already hates, but let me make it clear I actually do have reasons for disliking it.

having ala mhigo built up since the very start of a realm reborn, only to have half of the ala mhigo expansion take place halfway across the star, was very disappointing. the monotony of the three areas in gyr abania compared to the three far east areas was very disappointing. the treatment of the people of the steppe and honestly that entire segment in the main story quest was very disappointing. hien, as a character, in his entirety, was very disappointing.

I will say it had strong parts. the 61-70 quests for several jobs were the strongest in their entire story (see: dark knight). the dungeons started to get more interesting. it gave us the quest Child Labor, which is hilarious and I'll never be finishing it because I want it there forever.

overall: 1/3 WHM Lillies.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (2019)

ffxiv immediately got better the second 4.0 was over. even the patch quests instantly shot up in quality. it's not even funny. the lead up to shadowbringers was the most fun I had had with the game since a realm reborn, and all of the first was heartbreaking to go through even though I was spoiled on That Character's Identity.

the duty trust system (is that what it was called?) made dungeons much more fun. getting to go through hell with alphinaud alisaie and thancred made everything 10x better, even if it was a lot slower. the story, again, heartbreaking — ryne's arc in particular felt like being stabbed by thousands of little needles while trying to play. in the best way, of course. and amaurot... amaurot. getting to quote our favorite knight in there was my 8th umbral calamity.

shadowbringers also marks when a lot of your job's functionality is really unlocked, so doing the level 80 raid series was genuinely a ton of fun. and again the thousands of little needles. i cried at least 7 times during the main story.

overall: 85/100 kenki gauge.

Katana Zero (2019)

possibly my favorite game this year. the protagonist, zero (or as i like to call him, katana from zero,) ticked all the boxes for a character I'd be absolutely obsessed with. true enough, i fell in love. the fast-paced gameplay, the diegesis of gameplay elements which would typically go unquestioned, and the care that seeps through every dialogue choice all solidify katana zero as one of my favorite game experiences ever. I'll leave it at this, because I encourage everyone to at least give it a try.

overall: Yes, that should work.

Fire Emblem Engage (2023)

this is one of the few 2023 releases on this list that I didn't get on launch, because at the time I had relatively little interest in fire emblem as a series. then I made a lot of friends who enjoy it, and in october, bestie sen decided to buy it for me as an early birthday present. everyone say thank you sen.

considering this is my first fire emblem game, i have absolutely no deeper insight into how it matches up compared to the others, and plenty of people more eloquent than me have already talked about that. what I do know is that the gameplay was surprisingly fun as my first tactical rpg, and the story was passable. all the characters were appealing in one way or another, and I'm still mad I had to choose between marrying kagetsu or fogado. they're both my husbands at heart.

overall: I didn't internalize enough of this game to come up with a clever rating.

Fire Emblem Engage: Fell Xenologue (2023)

I was expecting the dlc to continue the main story, so I put it off until I had finished the base game. in hindsight, I regret it, because I'd love to have brought the winds and twins with me to fight their evil versions and alternate universe dad. the story was... alright. I really liked all the small battle interactions between fell characters and our party members which they would've known. I instantly recognized fogado in chapter 1 because I am in love with him by the way.

overall: i dont know. 1¾ dragonstones

with 2024 upon us, I'll probably be writing reviews for games as I play them. I'm trying to use tumblr more as a social platform instead of just reblogging. we'll see how that plays out. if you like any of these games (yes, even tears of the kingdom) please talk to me about them! that's all for now. look out for my mangled thoughts on SANABI and Nier: Automata next :)

[oddygaul]

Quick Hits #1 - The Land Before Time, I Used to be Funny, Godzilla vs. Biollante

Okay, if I’m going to keep doing this with regularity, and use it as the journal it was intended to be and not a half-assed review blog, I really have to let myself do incredibly short writeups now and then, and not get hung up on trying to have Real Takes on everything. Quick hits! Here we go!

The Land Before Time

This was like, weaponized nostalgia for me. There’s the parts I expected to hit me like a truck, like Littlefoot’s mom dying and the scene where the T-Rex is battering down the walls of the big spiky tree. But then there were bits that fully activated every neuron in my brain that I didn’t even remember beforehand, like the way the sand is animated as Ducky’s egg rolls down the hill, Spike eating grass, or the iconic sequence of Littlefoot’s egg rolling away.

As is common with older children’s entertainment, I was pretty shocked how dark The Land Before Time was willing to get. It’s a weirdly common staple of kid’s movies to feature the death of a parent, but the sheer length of time Littlefoot is given to wallow in depression afterwards was pretty striking - this cute little dude is ready to give up and die for damn near half the movie’s runtime.

Also, the backgrounds are fucking lit - it looks like the Phyrexians brought the glistening oil through this place, god damn. I love it, though - it makes the environment really feel like a place out of time.

Now, I do love the approach contemporary dinosaur media takes to provide a more realistic view of the world dinosaurs would have inhabited. Seeing the creatures of Prehistoric Planet roam through an Earth not so different from our own puts things into perspective, and helps us understand how dinosaurs actually lived. But there’s a certain charm to the old-school approach of Land Before Time or Fantasia, with their blasted rockscapes and murky horizons. It makes the setting feel otherworldly, like the dinosaurs exist in a totally different, impenetrable reality, which is pretty intoxicating for the imagination of a child.

Stand By Me is an entire movie based around how seeing a corpse changed a group of kids. Meanwhile these mfs walk by corpses ten times a day and don’t give a fuck

I Used to be Funny

Loved all the acting and all the writing.

10/10 no notes

Godzilla vs. Biollante

This is probably my favorite of the old-school Zillas I’ve watched so far - a pretty perfect blend of camp and dope shit.

The human story is a bit of a mess - they touch on a lot of interesting themes, but never quite succeed in making them matter. It is also, however, absolutely chock-full of wild, memorable moments. The Saradian assassin dramatically showing up from off-screen nearly half a dozen times, the weirdly gormless, shades-wearing Colonel Gondo and his Big Damn Hero Moment with the bazooka, Demon Kogure’s baffling cameo, the kids in the Seasoning City Awakening Lab drawing their visions of Godzilla, hell, the totally unexplained psychic girl herself - a lot of weird shit happens in this movie.

Then the monster side is choice, too. I haven’t seen a better-looking suited Godzilla than this one - the movement is spot-on, and the catlike, double-fanged Godzilla manages to be menacing even in close-ups. Biollante is really great, too. I was sold already when she was just an imposing, eldritch rosebush, and then we get a whole crocodilian puppet, replete with dozens of swaying vines? Very cool.

Also, the soundtrack slaps.

[firstginger]

hey there, i don't knoe if you're the best person to ask but you seem pretty knowlegable. Do you know of any good resources for Pullman forms? I know the Daemon forum has a good index, but they all seem to be analytical forms. Thanks!

oh TDF actually has a separate section on pullman forms now! it doesn't have as many entries as the analytical section, but it's actually pretty extensive and will probably be a good starting place to even get a feel for what type of animal embodies you. they're also just so fun to read through, as i'm pretty unfamiliar with animal symbolism/associations outside of my own culture.

here's the link to the portrait/sketch museum! they also take form-finding requests on the forum and i know they have a discord too that i'm sure would be happy to chat about it.

TDF aside, i did an overview on jungian character archetypes and pullman forms that i think people found helpful -- here's the link to that! i recommended this quiz for identifying your top 2-3 archetypes which might help you to start identifying animals that are associated with that character archetype.

and then personal research is also fun! when examining pullman forms, i tend to zoom in on three categories:

1. The class/order of the animal. In the original series, specific patterns were developed such as scholars and academics having bird daemons and civil servants and care providers having domestic canine daemons. For this i'm going to lean into the Jungian archetypes: we can attribute certain species to fitting archetypes of the creator, the lover, the explorer, the outlaw, etc, which is a good starting place for understanding what animal class/order/genus form might fit you best before you funnel into a specific species.

2. The geographical location of the animal. People have animal daemons from the region they feel is most like home. For some this might be where you grew up, for others it might be a place you're drawn to or realized you were home when you arrived. This includes continent or country but also biome.

3. And of course, the symbolic associations of the animal. In these shorter roundups, I'm going to try and put forth three essential associations for each form to be explored as to not make each analysis too lengthy. These will be under the umbrella of what's associated with the animal form in general (so like how you'd first have to fit an owl form -> and here are the specific associations of a burrowing owl).

so for example, here's a pullman writeup for a douglas squirrel i have rotting away in my drafts:

DOUGLAS SQUIRREL, Tamiasciurus douglasii Class: The Douglas squirrel can first be broadly interpreted as a rodent form, and then specifically a type of squirrel. The squirrel can often be considered an artist: they are self-motivated, imaginative, and hyperactive, people who enjoy both working hard and playing hard. As opposed to other species who rely a lot on creation or tool use, squirrels' specialty is in knowledge-gathering and preparation. This sets them apart in this category as they may also assume some of the explorer archetype: open-minded and restless, with difficulty committing to one thing or feeling satisfied with their outcomes. Finally, squirrels are often seen as the jester. They are noisy and playful, but it is important to note that it's not at the expense of their resources and drive. They are most motivated by discovery and a good standing in life, with just a pinch of anxiety. Region: The Douglas squirrel is a Pacific Northwest animal, found in northern California through southwestern Canada. They live in old-growth coniferous forests or other forests with conifers. Most of their regional associations revolve around evergreens, forests, and the Pacific Northwest; they're not as urban as the gray squirrel, and are much more connected to rural and wilderness environments rather than urban and city ones. Associations: Three essential associations for the Douglas squirrel are curiosity, gathering, and self-expression. These people are going to be ruled by imagination and collection, gatherers of physical items or of knowledge and defending it. They are shaped by their sense of preparation and yet their energy is often scattered. It is almost impossible for them to not be true to themselves; they are bringers of self-expression with noise and mischief. This person is therefore one that is drawn to explore the world around them, naturally gathers and surrounds themselves with comfort, and has a boisterous but genuine nature.

hope this helps! :)

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 2,343

Kanaya: Answer CA.

Author commentary:

Get ready for this awful child. The obnoxious, romantically tragic, genocidal fuckboy of the group. It should be a familiar online archetype to most by now. Earlier I referred to Nepeta as being somewhat a writeup of the enthusiastic fandom type, which could be summarily branded as the "Tumblr fangirl." And in that sense, she reads as a less focused rough draft of Calliope, who brought more clarity to that role later. So thinking in those terms, you could also view Eridan as a writeup of the "4chan nastyboy," and therefore an unfocused draft of Caliborn, who similarly distilled that role. I think there's a lot to say about Eridan, particularly as a raw precursor to that villainous presence in the story later. I'll wait until he's on-screen before diving into that, though. Just setting up here! You've been warned.

The fact that Eridan's being so loose with strange romantic terms is how you know we're getting awfully close to the troll romance info dump. It's like a Geiger counter that's starting to beep like crazy. Eridan has something in common with Karkat in that he appears well versed in the subject of romance. Later we see that, even though they don't like each other much, they sort of act like "bros" when it comes to this subject. However, Karkat treats the subject more academically, with a sort of hobbyist's enthusiasm, and seems to carry a certain respect for the knowledge. Whereas Eridan clearly tries to exploit his knowledge of romance to his advantage, behaves manipulatively, sort of in the vein of a pickup artist (and a very unsuccessful one at that). We detect signs of this here. His entire scheme with the doomsday device appears to have more to do with roping Vriska into a blackrom relationship than it does with his interest in wiping out land dwellers (still a valid motivation, but secondary to his sad romantic pursuits). He also uses his romantic insights to manipulate people in other ways, even if he's not trying to court them. Like pinning Kanaya down as a natural auspistice and using it to get her to set him up with Vriska. Maybe even "mediate" between them, since that's what she apparently likes to do with Vriska anyway. In fact, the more you unpack what he's doing here, if you understand the ashen quadrant, the more it actually seems like he is hitting on Kanaya, with kind of a backdoor approach. He's proposing a menage-a-clubs, with him and Vriska. He literally never stops working all possible angles to fill his quadrants.

The only reason I made him say "powwwwoww" is because I wanted to type four w's in a row. This should be obvious to everyone. It's worth pausing here to behold how completely ridiculous Eridan's entire verbal existence is, when you take into account his silly double w/v quirk, which conveys an absurd "accent" of some sort, his run-on cadence, unyieldingly indignant tone, and colorful vocabulary that feels like a baffling mashup of pirate speak, soccer hooliganism, and the fuckboy joker always sliding into your DMs. His eclectic vocabulary and obsession with romance means that we suddenly get this whole rush of quadrant vernacular we hadn't heard before. Which is pretty intriguing on a worldbuilding basis, to start picking up how many average trolls probably allude to each other's romantic habits in casual conversation. Things like being "ruddy" for someone, or waxing this way or that. There's a whole manner of speaking about this stuff that can only be picked up through enough exposure to contextual banter.

Okay, "savvvvy" was just another excuse to type four v's in a row. Calling myself out here at every turn. "Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands" is another Homestuck tagline. I'm just going to keep making note of these when I see them. They will always do one of the following: 1) reference dying too much 2) address the difficulties of growing up 3) involve the fact that nobody ever really knows what the hell is going on 4) insinuate in some way that I am a buffoon, a liar, a sadist, or a megalomaniacal genius, or 5) all of the above. In fact, this entire note can be a tagline too.

[thorn-amidst-roses]

Had an idea for a writeup last night, and once I start I can’t stop so guess who was up until 1:30am on a worknight writing blorbo shit.

Then I went immediately to bed and dreamed blorbo shit.

In the dream, we’d realized that we had too many major NPCs in the game (who were, in this dream, somehow actual semi-people semi-existing vaguely around us, but they still weren’t any more ‘real’ than they actually are, despite having a physical form) and that we would have to cull one.

So we held a contest, and I was like, big deal, it’ll probably end up being the guy we’ve literally never even used once.

But somehow, Tenya’s fucking husband lost the contest, and I had to basically just deal with sitting with him while he was “dying”.

NOT A COOL TIME.

[clockworksteel]

Well, I guess my usual end of year thing is to look back at goals and say how they went. Honestly, the year was kinda rough, and I think I spent most of the second half of the year in some stage of burnout, so I'm not gonna worry too much about things that didn't get finished.

Serious Goals

Exercise: Some token efforts were made, but no true habit formed. Maybe next year.

Take care of something around the house: I did put a new auto-closer on the back door, as was one of the tasks I listed as something I might do, so technically accomplished already in January. I also arranged to have the water heater replaced, so a bit of a bonus. There were a couple things I was honestly hoping I'd get around to that I didn't, but honestly, it's fine. Plus even though it wasn't an emergency replacement or anything, getting a new water heater was probably better than getting the outside of the house painted.

Clearing the stacks of paper from my desk: Well… I think the stacks of paper might be shorter? Also, vaguely related, I did at least take care of a lot of the plastic bottles and snack containers that had built up nearby, so that's something.

Gender progress: I feel like I didn't gather any new evidence this year. I'm currently kinda going with the idea that I'm almost agender, but, like there's 3% of a gender just kinda wobbling around, which I guess technically could be called something like demi-genderfluid but I feel like that label implies way more gender non-conforming than I've been doing. I've compared my current gender to a TV remote that's basically out of batteries but can still produce a little signal if you're lucky. Two years ago I definitely had 3 months of feeling transfem, but, I mean, if you bottle up 1-3% of a gender for 3 decades maybe that does come out to 3 months. I haven't done the math. Of course, anytime I make an avatar of some sort of a video game lately I'm like, "Well, time to make a girl and see if there's trans flag clothing" so there's really no way of knowing whether there's more going on. I mean, I'm about to go to my parents' house, so maybe it's better not to dwell too hard on that anyway.

Fun Goals

Earn at least 100 Challenge Enthusiasts Points: Doubled the goal. Site updates adjusted some point values and added some objectives I'd already done, but my best attempt at adding up everything I actually did this year comes out to 200 points, anyway. Turns out the fun ones are kinda easier to stick with, although honestly, the points were mostly frontloaded in the year. Burnout even affected my gaming.

Finish Factorio and at least one other game I stopped playing for at least 4 months: Yep, did this too. Factorio, Hue, and Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe.

I'm not gonna try to get too into next year's goals yet. That's kinda an activity for me in the car closer to New Year's. I just thought I'd get the wrap-up done now since it's not like I'm gonna do anything more while I'm gone.

I do want to actually finish those monster-type writeups for The Void Rains Upon Her Heart though. I've written most of a post on Glyph Monsters and already have the screenshots I want from story events.

[ribbithe8]

2022 Music Highlights

I know I look like I exclusively listen to Kpop based on my Kpop writeup/s but that’s because I just run out of steam by the time I’ve finished them… so I neglect to write about the other music I listen to 😓 I am not only Kpop/popular music listener!!! Actually outside of Kpop, I listen to a lot of niche music… Whenever I check Obscurify I always get 99%+ more obscure than the rest of US listeners SLKDFJDSLKFJ.

Gonna try to organize this by general genre/artist so hopefully you can find new music to listen to ^o^

Experimental, Indie Pop

Blood Cultures

Shout out to my coworker for introducing me to Blood Cultures… while I’m not into their entire discography, the songs that I do enjoy have me by the neck…

Best for You

Best For You is probably my favorite song of 2022, period T___TT at first I thought it was just pleasant but the more I looped it the more I could not stop… It has such a dreamy surreal quality to it that it automatically helps me relax. It feels emotional, cathartic, full, and lush all at once. As for the lyrics, even though they’re kind of muffled by the instrumental, I like that they carry a lot of emotion and longing… I think if I had listened to this in college I wouldn’t have seen the appeal, but now as my music taste has matured I’ve discovered I do like psychedelic soundscapes. Anywho my coworker sent it to me in February and I listened to it pretty much every week of 2022, and still am listening to it! How’s that for staying power.

Phospholipid

Phospholipid is another of my favorites!! It’s entrancing and relaxing, and there’s not a single section of the song I don’t like. When the part at 1:03 kicks in it’s perfection, but then the guitar that kicks in at 1:23 is pure bliss. And then the electronic part at 2:23 is also great too… I just really enjoy this song and its pulsing textures lol

Wednesday Campanella

Not really sure where to put Wedcamp since even though they do a lot of EDM, it feels more experimental… so I will put them here. I feel like Wedcamp is a little hard to classify/discuss since there’s a significant difference in their sound pre-KOM_I leaving and now, with their current vocalist Utaha. Their music definitely sounds more poppy now to match Utaha’s “cuter” and lusher vocal color, but still retains some of their earlier quirkiness. If anything I wish I was fluent in Japanese so I could fully appreciate all the wordplay in their lyrics.

Alice

Waaaaah Alice T_T Another huge stand out in music I found in 2022…! I’ve been obsessed with this song since first listen. I love Utaha’s voice and how rich it is, especially in this song. The entire structure of this song is pretty unique I think… the edm drop/break is sandwiched between the chorus and second verse, when usually it’s the first part of the chorus or used as a bridge. My favorite part of Alice is from 1:38 to 2:27… IT’S PURE BLISS!!!!! The steady beat, Utaha’s gorgeous singing style, the woowoo awoo awoo part with the added guitar layer, and the quirky whistling… so so addictive. If you watch some of Utaha’s performances on The First Take, you can really see and hear the joy in her voice as she sings… she’s having fun singing and performing ;__;

Orihime

ORIHIME IS SOOOOO GOOD the beat is infectious, and I love how it changes things up constantly throughout the song. It starts off sounding like a pretty normal catchy pop song, but then you hit the rap break/chorus(?) that’s jarring at first, but actually slaps……

Now onto KOM_I Wedcamp songs!

Aladdin

Aladdin is musical perfection. Like, just listen to the intro. If you aren’t sold on the song by the intro alone then who are you even… This song just makes you want to groove!!!! It feels like disco and aquatic at the same time… KOM_I’s singing style has a wispy air to it but is super expressive in this song, it’s the cherry on top to a FANTASTIC, dense, full of life instrumental. The instrumental break at 2:43 to 3:13 is 🤯

Melos

Holy shit this song. Melos is gorgeous, both the MV (shot in Mongolia) and song. That jazzy, stripped back intro is pure bliss…… however I do wish the chorus had kept the same style as the rest of the song lol. The edm shift and future bass drop is a bit jarring and I honestly haven’t adjusted to it as warmly as I have with Orihime, BUT that doesn’t detract from the work of art Melos is. And Wedcamp is experimental for a reason.

Seraph - DPR IAN

Idk if I should categorize Ian as experimental pop/indie but hmm.. I think this song kinda fits the bill? It’s very. How do I describe it. It feels transcendent and almost religious. This song caught me so off guard when I heard it in teasers for the first time, I could not stop looping it. I’m still in awe of it, and I think it outshines every other song on the album LOL. Like it starts off so minimalist and atmospheric, with some violins, gradually layering on electronic sounds and what sounds so much like Tuvan throat singing. It feels hypnotizing, and then suddenly as Ian starts actually singing, the instrumental erupts like a cathartic release…like you’re ascending to the heavens… THIS SONG IS SO GOOD. The layering and production and everything…

珂拉琪 (Collage)

Collage was such a pleasant surprise on my Discover Weekly playlist… I am niche music liker so finding a really good Taiwanese band that sings in Amis (Taiwanese indigenous language) as well as Taiwanese and Japanese all in the same song/s makes me 🤩 I think their style is kinda pop-rocky with some jazz/folk elements?

MALIYANG

Maliyang feels more like straightforward popular music with some acoustic/folk elements compared to some of their other stuff. It starts out in Japanese then changes to Amis. Natsuko (the female vocalist) sounds great here.

TORATORAW

Toratoraw sounds more unique I think. I love the kinda raspy delivery of the first lines…

L’enfer - Stromae

Ok I know Stromae isn’t indie but I didn’t want to make an entire section that’s just “French” and have only this song ALKJDFKLSJF. I think L’enfer is experimental… this song is breathtaking musically on its own. But then when you read the lyrics, it hits so much harder. I think I cried the first time I listened to it while reading the lyrics… it’s so powerful. The electronic drops throughout the song go hard, but they also really convey the feeling of internal torment and pain that depression and suicidal ideation can bring. Just… man. This song makes you feel despair, empathy, pain… Stromae is a musical genius to me…

Moody…? Chinese Music

I don’t really know how to group these songs lol but they’re all kinda slower or more emotional than my other music…

不算經常 但是偶爾 - GONG

Oh my god… this song is probably my favorite GONG song since I heard 劫 (Inhibition). There’s something about the soft instrumental and his emotional voice that transports me to another place… I’m so happy this song is 6 minutes long too because I could listen to this for 24 hours straight and not get sick of it… it’s so beautiful… even though I like his hip hop inspired tracks too, his more experimental ambient songs are my favorite T_T His voice is just so fitted for them

完美天氣 - 李桑野 ft. NINEONE#

I love how atmospheric and mellow this song is :’) Also really like the vocal effects during the chorus.

再也沒有 - Ryan.B, AY杨佬叁

Love how emotional and smooth this song is. It’s very sentimental/has a regretful feeling to it… You can feel such raw emotion during the chorus when he sings 我再也沒有對你��氣.

終究還是因為愛 - TRASH

Yooooo Taiwan (Mandarin) rock + edm????!!! Sign me up. I really enjoy this song…很好聽

Ok less moody Chinese songs now.

羞花 - 音阙诗听, 王梓钰

I listen to a lot of 音阙诗听’s music since it’s traditional but with a modern twist so it feels a little poppy… this one feels a little more modern than some of their other songs and it’s so catchy. Her voice is really sweet too.

地球逃离计划 - 江迟同学

I really love the mood of this song T_T!!! It feels a little old-school like songs I’d listen to in the mid-2000s, it puts me in a good mood… I also really like the rap combined with the refreshing acoustic-ish vibe.

Electronic

I realize “electronic” is very broad but I dunno how else to categorize this music lol… admittedly the majority of what I listen to is edm-adjacent.

Sakana uo Sakana (bakui)

LOVE LOVE LOVE bakui’s work… I feel so blessed my mutual retweeted a clip of IESIAS onto my TL and I happened to unmute the video. As someone who used to be super into Vocaloid, I think their music would appeal to a lot of Vocaloid listeners…? Their work has a very nostalgic, kind of video gamey, retro/VHS (at times) atmosphere that’s both relaxing and enthralling at once. Paired with their incredible animations it transports you into another world… What’s most impressive about their work is that they’re the sole creator for all their videos/work, they animate all their videos along with producing the music. All the characters and stories depicted in their videos are their own. It’s really incredible storytelling. You can learn more about their OCs here on their site.

IESIAS

Here’s IESIAS!!!!! I feel like this animation paired with the song injected dopamine straight into my veins. It’s just SOOOO COOL… The way that the animation is timed with the music, the hypnotic and kind of psychedelic trippy effects, the bold colors… so so so cool. I was obsessed with this video last March and still am. It also reminds me a bit of indie horror games–not exactly PS1 graphics aesthetic but almost? If you keep up with indie horror game releases you know what I mean.

Man rewatching this video right now, it still gives me chills. IT’S JUST SO SICK!!!!!!! Goddamn!!! If you want to buy this track to support bakui, you can check out their bandcamp!

THINGS SO FAR

THINGS SO FAR is actually my favorite song from bakui, though only barely… Personally I like the piano ver. of it even more, but both versions are amazing. This one has more of a nostalgic, wistful, and tragic element to it compared to IESIAS’s fast-paced energy. Listening to THINGS SO FAR makes me feel like I’m entering a dreamlike environment in a retro video game… Anyways here’s the piano ver. on Spotify:

Aiobahn

Aiobahn isn’t a new artist for me since I discovered him in 2019, but I haven’t been connecting to his recent work as much… until I found Needy Streamer Overload! I didn’t even realize he was the producer for the OST until after I watched ManlyBadassHero’s lp of it… It sounds really different from his usual style but it’s soooo so good. My fav tracks from the game:

Desire for Approval

Sounds like normal peppy 8-bit at first… but then if you wait a bit, you get hit with that massive SICK beat drop. Like holy shit the beat drop goes so hard 😭 Head-banging… I can’t believe this was hidden in the innocuous cute menu theme…If you were too quick to start or load the game you would miss out entirely on the best part of the song

No Salvation, No Angels

Ok this one isn’t actually EDM but I’m grouping it here because it’s part of the same OST… it’s such a melancholic/resigned piano piece. It’s probably my favorite in the ost after Desire For Approval…

Mawaru Kagami (Mirror Ball) - Perfume

Yeah ok Perfume isn’t niche but I need to include Mawaru Kagami here… I haven’t fiercely loved a Perfume song in so long but when I heard Mawaru Kagami for the first time I was awestruck ;__; It reminds me of the first time I listened to Spending All My Time in 2013 and Tokyo Girl in 2017… I felt like Nakata kinda fell off ever since Future Pop era (with some exceptions like Let Me Know and Saisei) but DAMN he redeemed himself solely with this song. Mawaru Kagami’s synths and atmosphere feel very reminiscent of older Perfume, while still having some of their more recent sound. I sent this to my coworker who likes old Perfume discog (like Game and Triangle) and she approved of it lol.

New Genesis - Ado (prod. Yasutaka Nakata)

The first time I listened to New Genesis I somehow wasn’t that taken with it… fast forward like a month, I overheard it at AX at the One Piece booth, and it got stuck in my head… now I wholeheartedly love it T_T The prechorus builds up so much momentum and then the chorus really blows it out of the water… The synths are so good and really pulse and strike at you… and of course Ado’s voice is insane in this. I personally like Ado singing more melodic poppy stuff like this than her other releases so this is very up my alley :> And this lines up with my sentiment of Nakata really upping his game in 2022 LOL

manimani - r-906

THE BASS IN THIS GOES SOOOOOO HARD. I love the flourishes of traditional instruments throughout the song too. This is a Miku song but it’s largely just a sick instrumental song. Despite that, the vocal/melodic parts that are sprinkled throughout the song still shine on their own too.

nightshift - Kurubukko

This is a very ambient bgm song… it’s very calming and nice to have on in the background when you’re working or focusing on stuff I think. Calming repetition and all.

Never Alone - Yuta Imai

YEAHHHH HARDSTYLE EDM this song goes so hard. I really like listening to it while I’m driving or working…

Scared - SABAI

Honestly this is a pretty basic edm song but the house beat with the vocal chops drop is muah 👩‍🍳💋

Heartbreak Anthem - Galantis, David Guetta, & Little Mix

I usually listen to the local LGBTQ radio station if I don’t use my phone’s bluetooth when I’m driving, since I like house/club music. And this one caught my attention! I don’t typically listen to any of these artists but I do appreciate David Guetta’s house stuff from time to time… This song is just very satisfying and Little Mix sounds great here. (I don’t listen to them usually idk what they sound like in other songs lol)

K-Indie

My Ceiling Disappeared - Stella Jang

I call myself Stella Jang fan but I feel kinda 🙈 that I didn’t find this song until 2022… It’s so quaint and relaxing. Lovely little song…

Yeah - TRPP

Yeahhhhhh shoegaze!!! I dunno if I can consider myself into shoegaze officially just yet but I really love Yeah by TRPP. The repeating “Yeah, yeah, yeah” is mesmerizing. The only thing I dislike is how short this song is and how abruptly it ends :(

Retro (City Pop, 80’s Synthpop, etc.)

I listen to a lot of retro-inspired music (this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows my music taste) so I’m just piling them in this section lol even if they also count as K-Indie

Drive - Kim Areum

HELLLLLLOOOO THAT INTRO the sparkling sounds, the bits of synths, bits of house, THE SAXOPHONE? Oh my goodness. Those first 30 seconds sold me already. Kim Areum’s voice is also really pleasant and perfectly complements the city pop vibe of this song. This song is magical and great for night drives.

Waves - Glen Check

Oh my goooooooooodddddddddddd when this song came on when I was listening to Glen Check’s new album I think my eyes widened… it makes me feel so nostalgic. The instrumental that kicks in at 1:08 is 😭😭😭😭😭😇🙏🙏🙏🤲 BLISS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to listen to this while driving down the coast with the windows open….

Modern Romance - Satellite Young

It’s hard to believe this song released in 2017 because it sounds exactly like a 1980s song with a dash of city pop… Seriously such a good, catchy song.

Suraqtar - Ninety One

Even though Ninety One released a house/retro track in 2021 (Darn), I didn’t actually expect them to follow up with a full blown 80s synthpop song????!! I was so surprised hearing this for the first time. IT’S SO CATCHY and satisfying, I definitely looped this a ton the month it came out…

LMLY - Jackson Wang

Such a good 80’s song… I don’t really listen to Jackson’s stuff but I think his smooth kinda restrained sounding voice works well for the sentiment of this song.

Strip - w-inds.

I don’t listen to a lot of male Jpop groups so Strip was a really pleasant surprise, I feel like the groovy funky sound isn’t suuuuuper popular with boy bands in Japan? I guess these guys have a leg up since they’re older and in their late 30s LOL. The chorus in this is sooooo groovy it’s so good T_T

Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order

Hahahaha you weren’t expecting an actual 80’s song here were you. I also heard this on the LGBTQ radio station and thought, “Wow this slaps”. It’s so groovy…

Mayonaka no Door - Miki Matsubara

Another genuine 80s song :~) I think Mayonaka no Door may actually be better than Plastic Love, but both songs are wonderful… I just love how she sings this song. Stay with meeeeee~~

J-Music

Uhhhhh. I guess these are Jpop but not quite? 🤷‍♀️

Violet - NORTH

I really really like this song!!!! I love the infectious guitar that continues throughout the song and the chorus feels so refreshing… The bridge and last chorus are both so satisfying too.

Make a wish - color-code

Peaceful comforting song 🥹 it really makes me feel hopeful!!!

INU-HIME - Queen Bee

I actually didn’t click with this song on first listen, I remember watching the mv excitedly because Kenjiro Tsuda is in it ALKJASDFJKSLDJF but I heard it again recently and was really taken with it… I love traditional-inspired music and woooow Queen Bee knocked this one out of the park. It’s both catchy and mesmerizing… I LOVE THE VOCAL EFFECTS DURING THE PRECHORUS, that segment is so hypnotizing.

花時雨 - Qyoto

This song feels so nostalgic like a 2000s anime song LOL. I’m genuinely surprised it was released in 2019 because it sounds like a 2007 anime ending slkdfjdslkfj… it’s peaceful.

I love you in anyway - Takayan

Pretty much any Takayan song is guaranteed to be good but this one really caught my attention… I just really like it T u T the prechorus and chorus are powerful, catchy, and satisfying… Um also crying I haven’t actually seen the video for this until now alkjaskdjf I didn’t realize he dressed up to sing along to it (even though I know this is his shtick). King shit

Simple - BBHF

Like its namesake, this song keeps it simple and great. Two of the members are from Galileo Galilei and I think you can hear it… the relaxing guitar…

[momotech764]

okay, after a couple iterations, i've settled on this:

it's a little bit all over the place, but that's because it's designed to basically cancel out as many resource-related issues from living at 80% habitability as possible (writeup below):

Fanatic Materialist gives +10% research speed, which i think due to research stations is actually a net positive with the -10% production malus. -20% robot upkeep is a nice bonus for later, too, if you decide to use them.

Conservationist only covers pop consumer goods upkeep- and thus doesn't account for job upkeep, thus still being net negative with the production malus, but it certainly helps.

Traditional directly counteracts the malus for Unity, increasing unity production from jobs by 10%. Mutagenic Spas just offsets the Cave Dweller/habitability-based reductions to pop growth speed a bit. it's mainly just there to make use of the minimum habitability, and make Industrial Districts a little more useful in comparison to mining districts. Authoritarian & Strong gives +7.5% worker resource production (i think? i'm assuming the bonuses are additive), which is a little less than you need to cancel the -10% reduction from habitability. luckily, Food is relatively easy to come by, and you can always sell some surplus Minerals if you're short on Energy. Speaking of which...

Subterranean's 15% miner production bonus + Mining Guilds' +1 mineral from miners = LOTS of minerals, even before factoring in Strong, which is really good early-game. (plus, the Mining Guild council seat gives .05 stability per miner per skill level, which is a pretty huge boost with uncapped mining districts)

also, Imperial authority gives a big fat +10% resource bonus from jobs in your capital system, which is pretty decent early on and has the potential to become a massive bonus if you move your capital to a nice system (tri-colony systems, anyone?) or when you unlock habitats later on

as for the long-term game plan... it's pretty easy to do just about anything. it's a pretty versatile build, so you can pretty much do any ascension path, though it's... probably not *ideal* to go for Psionic without some tweaking.

you could swap out Fanatic Materialist for Fanatic Spiritualist or spiritualist/xenophobe, maybe, and take Intelligent instead of Traditional... but i digress.

all the other ascension paths work pretty well as it is. as for your third civic... mostly up to you, but for me, it depends on my chosen ascension path

if i was using bio ascension, i would use Relentless Industrialists (80% minimum habitability, baby!) and give all my pops Radiotrophic once I unlocked the transgenesis techs.

if i was using synth ascension, i would instead get Masterful Crafters, since that way i not only get trade value out of my industrial districts, but i can also switch to a militarized economy without hurting consumer goods production too much (ALSO, the trade value can feed into even more consumer goods using the trade policy for that if i decide to take Mercantile traditions at some point... also it basically means i don't even need city districts anymore except for amenity production, since it removes food upkeep and i now get both trade value and building slots from my Industrial districts)

that's about it. thanks for reading!

REBLOGGED TO THE WRONG FUCKING BLOG AGAIN

i'm sure i'll get better at this eventually.

in other news, i don't have access to my PC at the moment but i'm theorycrafting a Subterranean build that uses Noxious to have a big fat 80 habitability on Every Planet. there are a lot of directions i could take it but I'm currently working with Nonadaptive.

it's basically a free trait point, seeing as with Sub/Nox you have a guaranteed 80% on all planets (except for 'ideal' worlds- gaia, ring, homeworld etc) and probably Very Strong to counter the -10% resource loss from habitability.

fuck. i was cooking this post up for so long that i'm actually at my PC now so. will post what i come up with

[thewertsearch]

Asks compilation: 09/05

God ok that actually sounds like it would work really well. John would be a huge McElroy fan, wouldn’t he?

I just looked up the Washington accent to compare it to Griffin’s, and wow, my mental voice for John is completely different. I probably have all the wrong accents for these characters in my head, since I don’t have a clue which accent maps to which state. 

At least we’re all in the same boat about not knowing Jade’s accent - unless we learn where Grandpa grew up later on, since she’d probably have picked up his.

Brilliant! Yeah, no, I’ve been trying to nail down that font for ages.

Dammit, I just realized I could have inspected homestuck.com’s source >:(

It narrowly edges out Gen 4, for me. D/P/Pt were great, but Black and White were the games which really perfected the formula. I honestly don’t think they should have gone 3D, but whatcha gonna do?

Oh my god, of course there are. I’m going to rewatch that show some day and lose my mind, aren’t I?

Hey, thanks for the ask! 

I thought about this back when I was first starting the blog. I dunno, though. You’re really not missing much - my live reactions aren’t nearly as coherent as the writeups - mostly just a lot of ‘oh my god, what?’ moments. I write more articulately than I speak. Trust me on this. 

I’m honestly impressed you came up with something more headache inducing than the bogo algorithm, which for the uninitiated literally means ‘randomly shuffle a list until it’s sorted’. 

aw fuck we’re getting a bogo modus aren’t we

I like Bogleech’s writing, especially his creature design reviews, but I could never get more than a handful of pages into Awful Hospital. I respect his commitment to the stereotypically ‘gross’ organic aesthetic, but it kind of just squicks me out. Plus, I dunno. The premise is really dark, but the comic seems to be a full-on comedy. The dissonance just doesn’t really work for me. 

Still, though. Pokéween is some of my favorite writing on the web. Check out his stuff. 

I’ve never been super into horror. Mind you, I like having something to listen to when I’m out on a walk, and I’ve heard good things about the Magnus Archives, so maybe this is my opportunity to give it another chance?

No, yeah, we have a winner. Step aside, Broderick.

I have come to accept that Hussie is just really prone to making unintentional references. When Dave Strider is one of your primary characters, you probably can’t avoid constantly referencing pop culture - even, it seems, accidentality!

The Queen is dead! everything has gone to shit! Long live Jack the Ascended!  

Haha, I never considered that tumblr’s format does kind of resemble John and CG’s inverted conversations, in a way. When you reblog a connected pair of joke posts, you even have to make sure to reblog them backwards, or you’ll invert them! 

Ah, indie devs. Heads, they’re legends, tails, they’re assholes. 

I’ve never played it, but it’s been sitting in my steam library for months! If it’s anything like Celeste, I should have started playing it yesterday. Lore is pretty much the only thing Celeste is missing - not that it needs it. 

Those giant Underlings are nothing compared to what you see in Pipecorp. This is just another day in the office for Harold P. Egbert. 

Awesome! Yeah, I already see why the comic’s music is so popular. And considering we’ve got Toby ‘Leitmotifs’ Fox on the music team, these are all sure to return. 

So what, it’s like, Act 6: Act 1? We’re going to start recursing?

Don’t lie to me, guys. This comic is a fractal, isn’t it? It goes on forever, the sub-acts shrinking into the infinitesimal. 

I know not what awaits me. 

Six, right? Based on the above ask, there can’t be room for any more, unless they shrink dramatically after Act 6. 

I have no idea how many sub-acts there could be, though. Once you pop open that can of worms, you can’t easily close it. 

Done! From now on, all theoryposts will be tagged #theories!

Yeah, noted! I didn’t expect Homestuck to require the equivalent of waiting for the post-credits scene, but here we are?

In what sense? The Trollslum showed up pretty soon after Jade’s intro, and CG chimed in up not long after. The sense I always got was that Hussie improvised a lot of the comic, but maybe the trolls were a particularly spontaneous addition?

Liveblogging a liveblog! I can get behind that. Yeah, like I’ve alluded to before, I’d be having a very different experience with this comic if I wasn’t reading it in bite-sized chunks. 

Thank you!! I’m really trying to convey the same feelings that I’m getting while I’m reading this comic. I’m glad it’s working!

Honestly, my guessing technique is essentially just throwing theories at the wall to see what sticks. 

I usually have like, two or three explanations for a a given event in the comic, which means I can be eerily correct and ironically wrong about the same thing -  or ironically wrong twice over, as is probably more likely.

[pochapal]

Random question of the day - thoughts on the rumored 20 tons of gold? Either on its narrative purpose, or predictions on what will happen surrounding it, or anything else that comes into your brain

not really spoken about the gold since it's not come up in the chapters i've been doing my writeups on (part of me really wants to go back and reread chapters 1 through 6 and make extensive notes on them too but if i do that i fear i will be on episode 1 forever) but i have a few thoughts about its literal and narrative presence:

(under a readmore because this got very long and tangential because actually i have more thoughts on this topic than i'd previously assumed lol)

i think given all we know and krauss's shifty behaviour the gold is real and part of if not all of it is somewhere on rokkenjima. loose theory is that there's a kind of cavity behind the beatrice portrait that leads to some kind of vault, wherein if you "gouge and kill" the witch you're actually inputting some kind of elaborate unlocking combination or something - the epitaph does actually lead to the gold as much as it does the resurrection of beatrice, in some kind of dual-purpose that can benefit either kinzo or his family depending on who wins out on the "battle of wits" as i think it was described at some point.

its literal presence in the narrative won't amount to much i think. none of the major actors in the crimes of rokkenjima seem all that interested in the physical gold. kinzo only cares about reviving the golden witch. kanon only cares about the functional advantage of the title of "ushiromiya head" as far as it advances his own agenda. krauss, having already discovered the gold and having already probably embezzled a portion of it to bail himself out, came at this whole thing from a defensive position and then died first so he doesn't really matter in the long run.

the siblings, however, obviously do care about the gold a hell of a lot, as evidenced by an entire chapter which hinged around hammering that point into our heads. i think there is a chance that any sussy ushiromiya siblings may be acting now as a means of consolidating the gold for themselves since i am thinking that at least a portion of the siblings that were killed during the first twilight died because of some kind of gold dispute turned ugly. perhaps someone will find the gold at some point but then it becomes apparent it's all worthless in the face of beatrice's wrath. idk.

thematically, the gold is obviously a stand in for both capitalist brainrot poison and umineko's metaphor-within-metaphor framing. i think it's apparent what "massive pile of dubiously obtained gold that makes a bunch of rich people murder each other over" could mean. as for the multi-layered metaphor thing, we're introduced to it through kinzo's statement of, and i am paraphrasing here, "beatrice conjured the gold for me after lured and bargained with her".

the facts that are known about the gold are that kinzo, down on his luck, somehow managed to turn his fortune around at the latter end of or just after the war, and that he used at least one gold ingot as collateral for a business deal with a major company owner, as allegedly verified by krauss. only the one ingot has been confirmed to exist but for the kind of wealth kinzo has accrued, the whole stockpile seems more likely.

what is more nebulous is the whole "beatrice conjured it for me" part of the story. we do not know what "beatrice" refers to in this context: an investment company or a potential rich sponsor as the siblings surmised, or an actual golden witch? all we know is that through "beatrice" kinzo acquired 10 tons of gold, and used that gold to build a vast fortune for himself from virtually nothing.

i think an examination of the gold may enlighten us on the specifics of how beatrice's magic actually works in more detail. since right now, as of midway through episode 1, she seems to be a very belief-based operator. believe in beatrice and her magic, and it is beatrice who granted you your wish. what i think needs clearing up is whether or not beatrice's magic literally impacts reality, or if it's another kind of way of couching the truth in metaphor - ie even if you doubt beatrice, the event still happens, but you are forced to adopt a less magical explanation for it. so here it would be that if kinzo hadn't had his meeting with the golden witch, would he still have come into possession of the gold but with a different explanation?

and if all that is the case and beatrice is the pretty metaphor for something uglier, just what is this gold anyway? how did kinzo acquire it?

i have some nebulous thoughts here circling around the timeframe that kinzo likely obtained the gold, the geopolitics of the time, his involvement in post-war profiteering(?), that one weird tangent the story gave about wartime bonds, the distinctly european flare to the name/identity beatrice, and just who politically in the mid 20th century was very big on the kind of western occultism kinzo practices. like i'm not saying "kinzo did a dodgy deal in the war and has been sitting on a bunch of fascist gold for the last 40 years" but i'm not not saying that either. and like, if that were the case, "the golden witch conjured it for me" is a much more palatable narrative to have going around than "i swindled western fascists out of their bigbucks and now i'm gonna use this to build my own personal fortune and maybe also literally entrap an otherworldly being lmao".

idk. to make any conclusions i think i need more information on kinzo, beatrice and the gold itself, but this is the general ballpark where my thoughts are at rn. if the story talks more about the gold i'll be sure to revisit all this in whatever writeup but for now this is where i'm at.