#some overwatch 2 foreshadowing lets go

[nic990sstuff]

Hello

This may be completely different from what I'm used to posting, but I couldn't keep these thoughts to myself. Therefore, I'm about to go on my first Overwatch rant-

If you hadn't noticed already, I'm very much a huge fan of Tracer and quite literally everything that involves her. I'm always happy seeing new skins and content for her, including her girlfriend Emily. Unfortunately, not everything is perfect. Despite loving the London's Calling comics, I do have many issues with it. I could rant about every single one, but we'd be here for hours. So I'll just focus on the one thing that bothers me the most, and that is the one and only Emily.

I did say just 5 seconds ago that I loved her, and I do! But the way she was portrayed in the comics has always been something that I feel they could've done so much better. When the comics were announced and they stated that it was going to be about Tracer's life after Overwatch was disbanded, I felt excited to see how her day-to-day life was and how they'd include Emily in it. I, of course, knew the comics wouldn't be "Tracer and Emily" centered, but I expected to have probably a couple of pages to show their relationship and dynamic.

By part 3 of the comics, I noticed a pattern that doesn't seem to only bother me: Emily was literally glued to that COUCH, or just inside the house in general. I'm here for them to chill in the comfort of their home, but the only times we saw Emily anywhere outside was when she found Lizzy and Tracer (probably outside the flat) as Tracer's Chronal Accelerator malfunctioned and in the HOSPITAL accompanying Tracer, both in which were only one or two panels. There was never a change of scenery when they were together. They'd only interact with each other for that one page inside their home. While it may not be that big of an issue, it almost feels like Emily's trapped inside her flat and doesn't have other places to go or be, you know, have a life of her own!

However, this is not my biggest issue with Emily and I could've let it slide if it wasn't for the following.

I truly love Emily, but unfortunately, she seems to barely have a personality. So far, we've seen how supportive and loving she is towards Lena, and that's great! I loved how Emily still worried for Lena's happiness by not being in Overwatch as well as how panicked she was when Lena's Chronal Accelerator malfunctioned. But her being Tracer's emotional support is truly everything we've ever seen, even since Reflections. We got a glimpse of a piece of her mind while she and Lena were searching for parts or when she was panicked as she told Lena about the protest that omnics were doing in that ONE panel, but that was it. I'm not saying Emily being Lena's emotional support is wrong, but using that as Emily's whole personality and purpose seems like...

It would've been nice to see Emily's opinions on the matter as well as how it may affect some of Lena's decisions or even foreshadow things that would happen eventually. For example, I'd personally would leave part 1 of the comics as it is because it's a great introduction to what is happening and what will come, ending with Tracer being on her way to meet Em at the pub only to get cornered by omnics that straight up attack her.

In part 2, however, I would've changed it, so it had one more page where we see Tracer and Emily in that pub date and have Tracer tell her the events that just happened, maybe by starting with Emily's obvious worried reaction when someone you love tells you they were jumped by 10 or so omnics to gunpoint. Here's where I'd give Emily some personality by maybe having her express how bad she feels about the omnics and the deplorable condition the Underworld is in, perhaps even make her take the initiative by telling Lena they can later sit and search for parts for them or something of that thought. Lastly, ending the page by having her be a somewhat voice of reason, warning Lena that those 10+ omnics most likely aren't the only ones with that unwelcoming attitude; encouraging Lena to help but to be cautious since some don't really seem to care that Tracer has good intentions. After that, the comic part can continue as it is. This whole page would not only give Emily a change of scenery but also give more insight into her opinion about omnics.

And as a final touch, I would've loved if they would've showed Emily perhaps encouraging Winston to come back Lena up after she goes to save Iggy (which is a headcanon that lives rent-free in my mind) or something similar in a couple of panels. While we don't have Emily actively participate with Lena in the fights or in the protests, we would've seen Emily's way of helping and how it can also make a significant impact without having her take the spotlight.

While I would change something in part 3 where Emily reassured Lena that it was not her fault about the death of Mondatta, it doesn't fall under this rant, so I will probably leave it for another 2 a.m. rant.

Despite all this, I'm still very happy Emily was featured into this story in some way. While it wasn't the greatest, it still gave Emily some content and a lot of cute and different outfits that I love, as well as very adorable moments between her and Lena which is something I was looking for. I was very Lemon Tea starved back then (still kind of am AHAHAHA I need more Lemon Tea content pls).

[mercycall]

"Hey… do you want to talk?" (Hi, I meant to reach out sooner, but deadlines were killing me <3)

COMFORTING WORDS

"Cole...? Hah, what a pleasant surprise. Still smoking, cowboy?" she teased, the doctor's way of lightening up the mood. Clearly she had held back a lot. "I suppose i'm not good at hiding my anxieties." She took a seat, surely a small break wouldn't hurt. "I suppose. It will help to get off my chest. Aside from my busy schedule. It's Overwatch coming back. Part of me is excited, the people need help! ...On the other hand; the dangers. Should we really bring it back? What about Talon? What if we fail- Sorry i'm rambling. I'm sure you understand my points though." She rubbed the back of her neck out of worry. She sure had been holding a lot in and it felt good to see a familiar face.

[overdrivels]

I am so glad that chapter 16 is finally out because I finally get to talk about something I’ve always wanted to talk about. This stupid excerpt from Chapter 5. 

‘How nice it is to be a cook,’ he [Hanzo] thinks bitterly. To know nothing except the fire and food. To know nothing of having blood on your hands, or the corruption, of the dark dealings, of sacrifice, of the harsh experiences of the people you serve. Only to eat all day and devote yourself to mixing flavors and cultures onto a plate.

Enviable, enviable.

I wanted to try my hand at foreshadowing since I had already known what I was going to do the chef way early on. It took 2 years and 16 chapters, but I finally managed to reach the white collar crime part of my story which I grabbed a lot of experience from the time I worked at my previous job. 

Everything that Hanzo mentions in this except has happened or already happened in the story. The blood on hands portion happened when Chef got shot. Chef was a part of the ‘corruption’ and ‘dark dealings’ with the money laundering stuff happening. Sacrifices...eh, I was going to make this more explicit, but I just didn’t have anywhere to put it. But Chef’s given up a lot of sleep, food, and time for Overwatch. And as for harsh experiences...well, Overwatch itself is a harsh experience, let’s just put it that way. 

Somehow, I feel like it’s a lot that’s happened but when you pick things up one by one, it doesn’t seem like a lot at the time. So, Chef’s dug a grave long before meeting Hanzo and in time did Hanzo realize just how deeply it’s been done. In a way, I find that it reflects real life where people do one thing to help but don’t realize what deep shit they’re sunken themselves into, and suddenly you’re at the center of some crazy plot that seems insane to normal people, but for you, it’s just...another day and another task you have to do. 

I can’t wait for Hanzo to realize that your life is very, very far from enviable, but he’s probably forgotten all about this line now. 

[msbeccieboo]

Arrow 7x17 brain dump

So, this week’s episode was ok. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. I had expected to not really be fussed by this week’s offering and as such wasn’t deeply disappointed. I really missed my Olicity babies in this episode though. The upside of the episode being a bit meh, is that this review didn’t take me 57 years to write, which whilst sick, was a bonus haha!!

Olicity

Olicity weren’t the focus of this episode, but we still managed to get some cute little moments and touches thrown in there. Felicity’s praise when Oliver came back to the lair looking like a prize fighter, was too cute! I love how smitten she still is with him even after all this time, and how bashful and blushing and gorgeous he gets in response is just 😍😍

Source: olicitygifs

We also got a lovely little comfort scene once Oliver realised that Emiko was in fact evil (shocker, I know). Felicity cupping Oliver’s face whilst stroking her baby belly was so damned adorable!!

Source: oliverxfelicity

Continued under the cut

Oliver

Oliver being so open and trusting and just happy to be training with Emiko was so lovely and so heartbreaking because you just knew she would let him down. He mentioned Thea (yay!) and said that she’d always wanted a sister 😭😭 Why does this leave me feeling like Thea is gonna come back and try and kill Emiko??

I also loved seeing Oliver telling people the truth straight up, when asked how he knew about Emiko, listening to Dig’s advice (if not his wife’s) and just being an all-round hopeful bean!!  The growth he shows is amazing, it’s just a shame that his hope and faith in his sister didn’t pay off. He so badly wants to be in her life, to help her be good, and in turn redeem the Queen family name in her eyes. His line “If I abandon her now I’m no better than my father” just made me so sad. His parents were so important to him he wants them redeemed, so in turn it can redeem him too (not that he needs it). I don’t think he does, or will, find out just how much of a shitty Dad Robert was to Emiko, which is a shame, as I think it would give him some peace that some things just cannot be redeemed and that it isn’t a reflection on him. He had such faith in Emiko being good, he still didn’t think of her at first when he found the signal jammer in the lair. Even now I think he will continue trying to bring her back, despite Dig’s advice and reminder that sometimes evil siblings are just evil siblings 😂 I hope this isn’t foreshadowing Oliver having to kill Emiko like Dig did with Andy?

Bonus: Oliver shooting all the drones was so damn hot 🔥🔥

Source: legends-of-today

Felicity

Our girl didn’t have a huge role this week, but what we did get was fabulous! Felicity’s little pep talk to herself at the beginning of the episode about having it all was too adorable for words! 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

We got to see the beginnings of Smoak Technologies, along with the first name drop of the company I think? I love that she brought Alena in to be CTO, she gets to have a friend in her company that won’t try and mansplain everything to her at last!! Alena’s reaction is all of us!

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

It was so nice to see her back as Overwatch on the comms, and just generally people being back in the lair! We even got a couple of OTA moments! I loved her “computers will never replace people” line too!

Bonus: Felicity being cute in the lair gives me life!

Source: ebett

Emiko/Robert

This was really Emiko’s villain origin episode. We saw her as a child being evicted and abandoned by Robert, who yet again, proves to be the scum of the earth, and the true villain of the entire series. Upon overhearing that Robert was kicking them out of their home and would no longer support them, the only words of comfort he had for her were “Life isn’t fair, we don’t always get what we want”…Robert Queen was a prize dick!! His reasons for abandoning his family? Moira will take his company, money and kids if he doesn’t. GTFO you philandering old bastard, you made your bed…lie in it! Ugh he was the actual worst!

So as a penniless and possibly homeless 11 year old in Starling City, Emiko naturally turns to a life of crime in order to support her and her mother when she meets Dante. (For the record, I found the younger Emiko far more compelling to watch than the adult version 😬) Dante evidently enrols her into the Ninth Circle, who present her with a gift, as her final induction…the plans to blow up the Queen’s Gambit. She goes back to Robert with a business plan for a new subsidiary of Queen Consolidated, a chance to prove herself to her family and earn some money, and despite the solid plan, Robert wants nothing to do with it, telling her that QC is Oliver’s legacy and that she needs to remain a secret, before leaving her again for his trip on the Gambit. Crestfallen and angry, she doesn’t show him the plans and lets him leave to meet his fate.  The horrible irony here is that Emiko would have failed the Ninth Circle’s ‘test’ and saved Robert/Oliver/Sara, had Robert not been such a massive douchenozzle.

I like that they managed to link everything with Emiko back to the Gambit, and they did so without retconning. Malcolm still had the yacht sabotaged, but it looks like he did it via the Ninth Circle.  The big ‘twist’ we see at the end of the episode is that Emiko is now, in fact, the leader of the Ninth Circle, not Dante, and as such appears to be the season’s Big Bad. Part of me is like yaaaasss female Big Bad woohoo! But then the way it has come about has been lacklustre to say the least, and we weren’t given the time (or the writing) to get to like Emiko in order to actually care or feel the impact or shock value of her turning on Oliver. Instead we’re just all left feeling a bit meh.

Emiko still seems to have a soft spot for Rene (someone has to I guess) and with both of them being Oliver/Team Arrow traitors, they make a good fit 😜  We also found out that she still hasn’t found her mother’s killer. Maybe if Oliver could help her solve her mother’s murder and Rene keeps making eyes at her she will come back round to the good side??? Doubtful haha, but just a suggestion. The season’s theme is redemption after all!

Black Siren

Whilst Oliver is at home, preparing dinner for wifey (adorbs), he gets a visit from an injured Laurel, looking for Felicity. Instead, she tells Oliver about Emiko killing Diaz, and not being as squeaky clean as he thinks. This, as to be expected, leads to a confrontation between the two, which is interesting, because we all know that Laurel is telling the truth. When accused of having a blind spot for his family, Oliver hits back with “it’s called loyalty, I know that’s a concept you don’t totally understand”. Burn. Their scenes are so much better when they are open in their dislike for each other! Much as I have enjoyed Felicity and BS friendship this season, the petty bitch in me still laughs at Oliver’s clear disdain for her…he didn’t even help her with her wound, just gave her some supplies and left her to it 😂😂 He ‘helps’ her here purely for Felicity’s sake, which is lovely though!

Next, Dinah gets on her arse about doing things by the book, which ordinarily I would agree with, but Dinah is a vigilante herself! And although they are now sanctioned by the SCPD, Dinah has herself coerced witnesses, stolen evidence and violated the law in about a dozen other ways in her pursuit of justice.  This is the premise of the show people! The hypocrisy is real! BS is just a little further behind on her journey than Dinah. Dinah later accuses BS of killing the gangster guy (I wasn’t really paying attention to who he was), bringing up her killing Vinnie, which immediately gets her back up. BS says that she has earned the benefit of the doubt, which I agree with to an extent. Dinah then effectively washes her hands of her.

I can empathise with BS for trying to do the right thing, and not being believed/trusted by anyone. I think it was intentional to not see a scene with her and Felicity this week, so as to keep her feeling isolated, whereas Felicity would have believed/reassured her. Felicity even defended her in the bunker to Rene. The episode finishes up with Emiko ‘outing’ her to the press, and ‘setting her free’ to be evil again. This will all set up her apparent return to her evil roots next week. I think she will ultimately end up being redeemed. We know (I think we know?) she is leaving for good after next week’s episode, so hopefully she will go back off to Earth 2 or something like that to become Black Canary there, and she can take all her little comic book friends with her, and everyone will be happy!

Other stuff

The drone attack in this episode was a practice run. Is this sarin gas attack going to be the thing that brings down the city, and causes it to turn on Oliver and the team?

Was the episode synopsis written whilst on crack?? I know we all laughed a little bit when we first saw how it was worded, but after watching the episode it was literally nothing like what actually happened??

Why on earth did they bring in Highlander, just for him to end up being Emiko’s lackey?? It’s like Cayden James/Michael Emerson being usurped by Diaz all over again!

Source: arrowdaily

I miss the flash-forwards!! I need me some Mia/William/Felicity goodness now please!!!

Anyway thank you as always to the gifmakers. Fabulous work as ever! 💗

[casualmoonninja]

On LGBT+ Characters in RWBY

Initially I was just going to make a crude joke about it, but I’m going to try to preserve credibility by not doing so and making this as constructive as possible.

I’ve long since given up on the prospect of LGBT+ characters in RWBY. At the ABSOLUTE best, one may expect some background side character that is unimportant to the overall plot.

The central idea on which I’ve concluded this is that it’s pretty obvious that the writers don’t want to do it, or at least don’t care about it. Let’s be frank, the only reason they feel the pressure to do this, and make these “promises” (quotations since I don’t think they’re promises, but that’s a diff. post) is because they’ve been asked on numerous occasions about it. Do you think they’d do it if nobody had asked? It wouldn’t even enter their minds...because even when we have asked, and hoped, and frankly been strung along thus far, we’ve had to watch through:

-Jaune and Pyrrha, a romance heavily connected to character growth and plot

-Ren and Nora, a romance for a ship that more or less set sail before the show even began.

-Blake and Sun, a heavily-hinted-to-be-in-development relationship

-Jaune and Weiss, a onesided thing where Jaune pined after Weiss because...it would be funny...to people? Maybe? Idk.

-Weiss and Neptune, this one genuinely stumped me...it is downright purposeless.

-A disaster prom arc that produced forced romance and embittered a lot of people.

-Neptune hitting on anything with a vag

-Yang commenting on dudes in V1 ep. 2

-RWBY Chibi, a show that more or less shoves all of these previous elements back in our faces repeatedly.

(I’m not saying any of the above are bad things, by the way, I’m just pulling examples of explicit romance in the show)

So, that’s all very extensive...I think we got a dude holding up a sign? Anyway, the point of the list is to show how comfortable the writers are with writing romance/sexuality/flirting/etc....they do it all the time, especially for a show that is not centered on romance, but what are people told when they ask for LGBT? The writers have said they want it to “feel natural”. Now, I have no clue what they meant by that because there are multiple interpretations...I’ll try and tackle them all:

We want to ease fans into the idea of an LGBT+ character: They have done nothing...virtually no build up or slow burn or foreshadowing has even begun to develop to suggest that any of the characters are LGBT+, so this is out the window because no “easing into” has happened, four volumes in...

We want to get better at romance/writing so the character(s) doesn’t get squandered: The writers have a proven record of writing romance decently, or at least writing romance most people are in favor of (Examples: Yorkalina, Arkos, Renora - all widely regarded as decent ships). They also did Renora in V4 despite them using the wanting to get better at romance excuse prior to V4, so it’s a tad hypocritical. 

We want there to be subtlety in their identity: Yeah, okay, but why? RWBY has characters flaunting their straightness all the time, why should LGBT in particular be under wraps when the whole dance arc was a straight parade and characters constantly flirt with the opposite sex? If you really wanted to get off easy, AND do a good job of representation, you’d just have a character nonchalantly hitting on someone of the same sex, or just outright portraying it in the show! Overwatch did it without a hitch...just one little scene and it was sealed forever, no drama, no big reveal, just a good, clean portrayal. What is the writer’s aversion to just doing that? That is the most NATURAL way of doing it. A character’s identity does not have to be some Big Reveal.

Put bluntly, the fact that the “feel natural” excuse only applies to LGBT+ is disturbing to me. Especially when they went full steam ahead with Renora in volume 4 despite making the “no good at romance” excuse before that in the context of the prospect of an LGBT character. So LGBT+ characters/relationships get the “we want it to feel natural” stuff while the others ships don’t have such hindrances/excuses? It’s all very discouraging.

I might just be cynical, but this double standard they make between LGBT “has to feel natural “ and standard hetero ships “full steam ahead for Volume 4/Chibi/etc.″ implies to me a more likely message that they have nothing in the works, they’ll just throw in some random, irrelevant character and make him/her gay, and then chuck them away never to be seen again because they’ll have fulfilled their “promise”. If they truly wanted it done “naturally”, we would have seen it ages ago because the dance arc would have been a pretty damn easy opportunity. Are they just scared to do it? I don’t know, it’s incredibly confusing...it’s not a difficult thing to do, so I’m left to assume they’re just uncomfortable about it or don’t care about doing it or regret mentioning/promising it at all or any combination of those things.

It has been quite a few years; RWBY is approaching its fifth volume. Either do it or don’t - quit getting people’s hopes up by answering all these questions and then having nothing to show for it after yet another volume’s completed. It is getting old and it serves no one’s interests beneficially.

tl;dr: they’re probably not working on anything, they don’t particularly care and will probably only do it because they’ve been asked a million times and they’re locked in now, and most of the fandom’s favorite ships have zilch to negative chances of being canon because the writers are avoiding this like the plague. Prepare for disappointment.

[vadathheilsang]

Why I don’t like Soldier being Gay (Please read the whole thing before you give me hate.)

The main reason was that I felt it could have been handled much better than it did. The entire short story gave us so much more information about Ana, Overwatch, and the future world as a whole. And then Soldier 76 is gay. If I literally had to reread a paragraph because I thought I messed up reading, you’ve either done something really well or really bad, and in this case I felt it was bad.

My reasoning for this is that it was just so out of left field and unexpected. The story was supposed to be about Ana, and suddenly we are getting more information about Jack. (Such as him not having a family and that he has a Wolverine-esque healing factor.) I was a big fan of this, since Soldier is one of my favorite characters. (Don’t get me wrong, he still is one of my favorite characters.) However, I was expecting a story about Ana to be more about... Well... Ana.

Ana is another one of those Overwatch characters whom I feel didn’t have as much lore as some other of the Overwatch Agents, which made me feel a sort of disconnect while playing as her. This short story fixed that. A story that was focused around Ana gave her more background and character, which is good. However, making Soldier 76 gay in this story sort of undermines the entire story, because people aren’t seeing “New Ana Lore!” in their news feed. Instead, they see “Soldier 76 is gay and white cis het men are evil for not liking it!”.

Suddenly, people are focusing on Soldier 76, the character who is not the focus of the story, instead of on Ana, the character who IS the focus of the story. A lot of cool Ana lore was revealed here, such as how she is scared of telling her family that she is alive and well, as well as how she donned the mask of Bastet. But no, news articles, Reddit, and Tumblr all have to focus on how Jack is gay. And don’t tell me that Blizzard didn’t see this coming; people have being crying in the forums about LGBT heroes (and changing current heroes to be LGBT) for the longest time. Blizzard knew exactly what they were doing. (Because of this, it just feels like they wanted to pander to an audience instead of trying to seriously make soldier gay, since it was just kind of slapped on.)

I actually have come up with two ways as to how this reveal could have been done better: One with the same outcome but in a more positive light, and the other being radically different from what Blizzard actually gave us.

1. If you are gonna do the soldier is gay reveal, do it right. Do it in a story, comic, or animated short dedicated to and based around soldier 76, and NOT steal the spotlight from another character. (Seriously, how many people have you seen who actually discuss the new Ana lore? I can’t have conversations with anyone about it because whenever I ask someone about the short story they freak out about gay soldier.)

2. Make a comic/story/short while introducing a NEW character and make the new character gay. Funny enough, if you introduce a new hero as being gay, and do it well, then some people might actually focus on the aspect of the lore that is the focus of that media while also not complaining about how the character being gay was just tacked on. (Yeah, people will still complain. I know that. But it will be a significantly smaller number than the current one.) Heck, I even came up with an idea for how a comic for this Vincent character could have played out.

(The idea) Vincent is at home and watching tv with his family or something. Suddenly, it gets interrupted and we see the broadcast that Winston made. Vincent then goes on to remember some of his past experiences from when he was in the super soldier program. (Pretty sure that the Ana story mentions that he and Jack knew each other back during Omnic Crisis as soldiers, before Overwatch was created. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.) After we see the flashback, Vincent thinks about how he was never able to tell Jack how he felt, as he thought that Jack’s job as the strike commander of Overwatch would prevent the two from being together. We then see Vincent prepare himself for battle as his family asks if he truly needs to go, to which he answers, that yes, the world does need heroes to protect it. End of media. (Actually, now that I think about it, I kind of just ripped off Honor and Glory by complete accident. If anyone has any better ideas for this, let me know please!)

So yeah. I believe that this was a bad piece of Overwatch media because the actual lore being pushed forward was just completely overshadowed by one reveal that was not important to the story at hand. (Had the reveal been done earlier, the way it was implemented would have been fine since it would give Jack a bit more lore while also not overshadowing everything else.)

PS I swear to god, anyone who mentions that this was foreshadowed by the picture in reflections has worse eyesight than Helen Keller. Jack is wearing different outfits in the pictures, he wears his hair in a different style (he looks like 76 in Reflections but looks like Jack in Bastet), and the hair just straight up is different colors as well. It’s very clearly NOT the same image. (And if it is supposed to be the same image, why the hell you be changing the picture Blizzard?)

PSS Just before I was about to post this, I saw the video for the Bastet Challenge, and uh... Yeah. Blizzard is trying to push the soldier thing by straight up making one of the items during ANA’S BASTET CHALLENGE a spray of the picture that Soldier 76 looks at in the short story. How the hell is that an “Ana themed spray”?! That kind of just backed up my point on how Blizzard was trying to pander rather than move the Overwatch story forward.

But what do you all think? Depending on whether you give an intelligent answer or not, I will reply in a kind and thoughtful way, or a Winston insulting my main man Reaper kind of way. (That’s a reference to an in-game joke dialogue to anyone who just follows to the story and doesn’t play.)

[aurimeanswind]

Trying to Relax—Sunday Chats—5/20/18

So, I was writing this, and then the webpage crashed, and I lost about half of the entire post, so to be honest I’m a little frustrated. This didn’t used to happen, but I’m sure Tumblr is just trying to give me an anueurism. I will try to recapture what I was trying to say before, but forgive me if it doesn’t live up.

I’ve missed a few Sundays here, and for that I’m sorry. Instead of doing a so-called “editorial” here, I wanted to start with more a stream of consciousness; something to convey my feelings and maybe help me feel a tad better.

I’ve been in this down-well of motivation as of late, and it spreads out to everything. Not just the want to play games, but to reach out to people, to talk to friends, to be an editor. And it’s caused me to be a worse friend, a worse editor, a worse person, and it weighs on me. I hope by writing it out I can convince myself to step up and do something about it. It’s one of those burnout sensaitons, and maybe its that feeling coming off of PAX East, maybe not, but it’s defintiely felt across all the things I do.

If you’ve ever been through something like this, I’d love to chat about it, so feel free to reach out.

But those motivation sensations have led me to trying to really relax. To really take some time to rebuild that motivation. It’s not the first time something like this has happened in my life, and I’m certain it won’t be the last, but I’m trying to be better, starting with writing this Sunday Chats, even if my browser did crash halfway through and really frustrated me.

Now with all the mopey-business out of the way, let’s get to some video games.

What’s on Tap

I’ve been jumping around a lot, and originally I had some things to say about all of these games, but I’ll keep it a bit shorter here. Suffice to say, I’ve been in a bit of a gaming rut, which I’ve been through before, but it’s been quite a while, and so I haven’t really been able to get into any one game.

Overwatch

The Sword of Ditto

Ni No Kuni 2

Persona 5

Persona 5 is really the only thing I’ve been able to sink some time into, and wanted to.

I needed something meaty to really get into, and this worked. Going back and seeing the opening 10 or so hours again, I’m re-appreciating all the groundwork and foreshadowing they set up very early on in that first arc, outlining some of the villains you’ll see later in the game.

I’m also just really appreciating how gorgeous that game is.

Diablo 3 Necromancer DLC

Also in my rut I continued my quest to restart Diablo 3 as many times as I can and never finish it. While I did finish it oriignally on PC, I never did with any of the DLC or on console.

This time around I returned to Diablo 3 because I needed something mindless while I listen to something with any hope of it making me feel happier or better, like a podcast or what have you. Diablo has been a good background thumb-distrator for this, and it’s reminded me just how mindless it really is.

It’s also a bummer because I wish I could focus on just anything since I’m remembering how great Diablo 3 is. I actually really liked the story in this.

Questions

I’ve actually thought about this a lot all day. 

I think it’d be a thing where, and forgive me for establishing my own head cannon, because I pictured the sky glitched out just for a moment, and a bunch of people went on believing that it wasn't a simulation, and I imagine I'd get way into an underground forum where like, the real heroes are out there trying to stop the simulation. Maybe because it’s been all this Persona 5 I’ve been playing, but I think in that world I’d be the kid that was obsessed with what the people who are out there trying to take down the simulation would be doing. Following on their very own Phan-Site.

I think that’d be a cool story in itself too.

As for if I could leave. I mean probably. I’d understand I’d probably regret it, but I wouldn’t know that at the time, ya know? If it’s a thing where I know what it’s like on the outside, if they’ve come back in and told us, I’d almost definitely stay in the simulation.

Yeah there is one specific tattoo I’d get, which is the Hylian symbol on my back. It’s something I’ve thought about for years, and I know I’d for sure get it. My best friends want to get a tattoo together too, and while I’m not really into the idea that we came up with, I’ve resigned to getting it since it’ll make them happy. 

Outside of that I’d want to get a Harry Potter tattoo of some sort, but I just haven’t thought of a good one. I’ve also thought about maybe an Irrational Passions Tattoo, but that’d be way down the line.

Haha, I don’t think it’s really diminished the show. I mean they talked about in on the Giant Bombcast and the Easy Allies Podcast, but this happens every year. Sometimes it’s a bit of a bummer, since I’d definitely be more jazzed for a Rage 2 if I saw it for the first time during Bethesda’s show, because lord knows I don’t care about it now, but it’s really minor stuff. I think still seeing a new Splinter Cell, or really anything Nintendo has, or the big gameplay reveals, those still outlast any leaks.

Besides. We’re getting the Kingdom Hearts 3 release date. It’s going to happen, And nothing will diminish that moment.

I mean Year five even, of these consoles. I think there is still room to announce surprises in the consoles. Microsoft has it down with different systems or services, they can still announce stuff like that that gets you jazzed. And moreover, Microsoft hasn’t shown us the thing that takes advantage of the Xbox One X yet, and I feel like they have it. It’s not Crackdown 3, it’s gotta be something else, and they’re saving it for when it’s ready.

As for Sony and PlayStation, I think they’re honestly at the end of their rope with me. I know they have games I’m excited about, but they’re just drawing it out, and I have to steel myself to not get excited for their junk since I never know if it’ll ever come out.

Nintendo has all the room left to surprise. I think the Switch has done nothing but surprise so far, from sales, to reception, to games even. I bet they still have things that’ll give us child-like glee, whether it be on a service level or a game level, yet to announce.

Thank you all for always checking in and supporting me. Next week I want to do a Sunday Chats for E3 predictions, so I’ll be asking for those next week. 

Thanks for reading, being my unending support, and the good vibes you all send ever-so-often. All my love, keep it real.

(The Naruto gif is for me, since I’ve been so damn into it lately)