#so I'm trying not to reuse my favorite clips over and over

[scribble-dee-vee]

5 Lines Tag Game

Tagged by @somethingclevermahogony!! Check out his lines here.

Your lines are: A joyful line, A line with temperature, A line with fear, a funny line, and a line with color

A joyful line:

“I can still play the damsel in distress, if you’d like.” He’d appeared so swiftly, and so silently, that Jamie gave a panicked squeak. I leapt up from the table. Charles still wore riding clothes. His auburn curls were ruffled by the wind. I embraced him, unable to help myself, making some embarrassing noise between a yelp and a sob. He smelled of horse and rust. I drew away, clutching his forearms, assuring myself that he was real. His lips were dark and full, beautifully shaped to his smile, but I couldn’t kiss him here. Later. Later, all night, or as long as he’d let me. “Hi,” he said, with the hint of a laugh.

Your honor they are CUTE they are BOYFRIENDS let them KISS 😭

A line with temperature:

He didn’t say any more. He didn’t acknowledge me with any look or movement, but I felt his focus drape around me like the snow. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t burning. He’d made a space of stillness, not hazy like the inside of the Club, but pure and clear. We stood close enough that I could feel his body heat and sense his arm trembling. But we did not touch. We watched the snow fall.

HeheheHEHEHEHE (yearning stage of fictional romance my beloved)

A line with fear:

I hurried across the factory floor, between the many worktables, to cuff him. He didn’t resist, but he started crying as the locks clicked tight. “I’m not one of them,” he said. “I’m- I’m loyal to Order, I’m trying to help you-“ I yanked him up by the chain and pulled him down the steps. “You look like a nice girl.” It sounded like begging. “Pretty girl. You won’t drag me off to the Imperial Quarter for visiting the wrong place at the wrong time. Please. Please. I promise, I promise, I’m not one of them-“ “Be quiet,” I said, “until we question you.” He twisted hard against his bonds. I jabbed him in the throat and swept out his legs, and his body smacked against the hard floor. I stood aside as he fought to catch his breath.

Owie

A funny line:

Jamie stood, saluted, and hurtled into the stacks. I heard her crash between the shelves, dropping volumes, announcing her departure to every half-deaf Academic in the building.

Idk if this is funny out of context, but I do enjoy that this woman is a Looney Tunes character trapped inside a tragic fantasy novel

A line with color:

The room was drenched in blood. I froze, but- no. It wasn’t gore. Just glossy, crimson paint. Everything was shocking, lurid red, from the sumptuous chaise lounges to the glowing taper candles to the glasses and the drinks. Every possible shade of ruby, scarlet, and vermillion pervaded the floors and the curtains. Even the fireplace on the left wall burned dusky red, through some mysterious chemical means.

The Rosehip Club!!! This place Sucks but it's Pretty

Tagging: @illarian-rambling, @poethill, @dove-actually, @jezifster, and @tabswrites, if you wish. Also, tag is open, as always!

For your 5 lines, try to find: a line describing liquid, a line with regret, a line with darkness, a line about food, a line with a lie

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3

[alwayswritewithcoffee]

OK, now I'm intrigued. What makes Still one of the best clip episodes to ever air in network television? I think the banter is great, and I find many of the segues very clever. But is there more to it than that? It's my favorite clip episode too, bit it's nice to hear it from someone who knows a thing or two about TV production.

Well, just because I know some stuff about tv production doesn’t mean that my opinion on what episodes are better than others is any more valid than anyone else.

I think one of the reasons Still stands out is because it’s not that common for an hour-long drama to go all in on weaving a clip show into the actual script. It’s been far more common for hour-long television to have a recap episode that airs separately, usually before a season or series finale. Sitcoms are usually the format where the clips are edited into the show, such as the Friends episode where Monica and Chandler tell Rachel, Ross, Phoebe, and Joey that they are planning to move out of the city and they all reminisce about what has happened in their years living together in NYC. (Friends actually did a bunch of clip shows, but that’s the one that always sticks in my head.)

Clip shows are inherently difficult to do, even if they’re meant to be easier on the production budget and the filming schedule. For one, it’s hard to make a compelling story if half your airtime is made up of previous clips. You’ve got to figure out a story that will make sense, find clips that will support that story, and still manage to make it entertaining. For me, most clip shows just come off as cheesy and kind of boring because it almost always revolves around some life-changing event in the course of the show. In the case of Friends, Monica and Chandler deciding to move out of the city was the first step in setting up the fact that show would be ending. Others have used clip shows to send characters off to college or to new jobs that effectively remove them from the weekly narrative.

Then you have to consider why clip shows are often needed in the first place. The practice started with movie studios reusing old footage in new movies to try and save some money, or to recap ongoing short films in the early 1900s in case the audience might have missed the previous installment. Sometimes when clip shows are used, it’s to create what is termed a bottle episode.

If you’ve been in the Castle fandom long enough, you’ve probably heard the term tossed around. What it essentially means is that the production team figured out a way to make an episode on the cheap. Usually, that will mean shooting on stages that they already have, or minimizing/forgoing location shoots and the number of sets that have to be constructed for a specific episode. It also would include avoiding hiring numerous actors to fill out parts called for in the script, and it’s a bonus if you can avoid a bunch of special effects that would also cost money.

In the case of Still, ABC ordered an extra episode very late into the production of season five. And by late I mean that the writer’s room had already plotted out the end of the season and begun work on breaking the story down. Since it was near the end of the season, the budget was also pretty tight, and that meant that the production team had to create an episode by spending minimal money.

I think for me part of the greatness of that episode is that the premise fits seamlessly into the Castle universe. Sometimes clip shows just feel monotonous, and a bit stunted because you are watching an entire episode to get maybe five minutes of character development and an actual plot. With Still, you are dumped into a sweet moment between two people who are very much in love and a moment which fans had long been waiting for but had yet to see on screen. It’s also one of the most intimate interactions between Castle and Beckett in season five, and one of the few in the series that doesn’t take place with an investigation looming over their heads which requires immediate action.

Yes, the banter is great, it never fails to make me laugh to watch Castle needling Beckett about their relationship in an effort to keep her mind off the fact she’s standing on a bomb. The clips interspersed with their dialogue do a great job of backing up the concept of just how far they’ve come and just how head over heels they are for one another. But the thing that always draws me back to the episode is how dedicated Castle is in waiting for Beckett and, as time starts to run out, how quietly desperate he becomes.

In general, Richard Castle isn’t the sort of person that buries his emotion when it comes to Kate Beckett; especially in season five. Even though he spends most of the season downplaying just how far gone he is over her, he also doesn’t ever actively hide that he loves her and worries about her except in this episode. He spends the whole thing being a cheerleader and a distractor, but from the time they are told that they can’t just transfer weight from the pressure plate so that Beckett can step off the bomb, there’s a very quiet level of panic that slowly rises.

And then you’ve got the contrast of Beckett who, while worried at first, isn’t concerned that she might die until she learns about the timer. It scares her, you can see the way her eyes flicker, and her jaw tightens when she finds out, but she downplays it because she knows Castle and she can see that he’s trying to keep his panic on the inside. So, to soothe him (and probably herself), she maintains that stoic nature that she’s developed over her years as a cop. But she also knows that she’s going to die. She knows it from the point that she asks Castle to do something for her and then puts him off until the timer has almost hit zero.

The fact that she calls her dad and leaves him the most matter-of-fact voicemail while standing on a bomb will never fail to mess me up, and then, of course, you have her telling Castle that she loves him. While it’s the first time that she says it on screen for all of us to hear, it’s definitely not the first time she’s told Castle, but when she says it, they both know it might be the last time, and neither of them wants to admit it.

Castle coming back is a whole different discussion that I find fascinating. On some level, he’s walking back into the room with the knowledge that if they are wrong, he’s gonna blow up with her and I think that plays beautifully into some of the nuances of what comes later with Erik Vaughn, the job offer with the Attorney General’s office, and Castle deciding to propose. (Though I freely admit that the entire arc needed another episode to really make it work.)

I love the episode for all of those reasons and then there’s a plot advancement/development when you learn that Gates has known about their relationship all along and just played dumb so they could keep working together. It’s just the icing on the cake of an episode that really could have been phoned in where Beckett stands on a bomb, Castle cracks some jokes until she’s off the bomb, and they go back to business as usual.

Instead, it’s got some layers to it and I just always really enjoy watching it. Even more so when you take into account that Rob Hanning wrote the majority of the episode in two days or so once Marlowe assigned the script to him.