#that's part of like the game history class its kinda neat. at least i get to go play old arcade cabinets <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[mysunshine-youremoonlight]

you got any fun classes this semester?

fun? eh. my game history class can be cool. we get to talk abt old games and stuff.

otherwise it's mostly just business classes and boring shit (i am a business major..... the worst major...)

[crystalelemental]

Remember how I was playing Echoes of Wisdom? Well I took a break from it, which is probably not a great indicator for it long-term given I rarely take a break from any game, but even more damning is that I took a break from it to play Etrian Odyssey 2. I don't think anyone should be playing Etrian Odyssey 2. But I beat it.

A bit of context: I am playing on the Switch rerelease. I have the original DS cart, but I played that once, and I could not handle it. I will not lie to you, I cheated horrifically to make it through that game, and even with cheating this game is ridiculous. It's so fucking hard. Easy Mode on the new release is like the only way I consider it reasonably accessible.

That's not...entirely fair? There are some really broken components in your favor as well, mostly through Dark Hunter and Hexer (though I only learned the Hexer thing after the fact). Binds are devastating, and if you can get the Dominator whip, it's really easy to keep up that bind pressure in a fight and really lay on heavy damage. I did all my boss fights on the moderate difficulty and could win just fine. The bigger issue was random encounters, honestly. Damage numbers feel very high.

But aside from some familiarity with the series and really keying in on what the broken strats are...this game is the least accessible in the series. EO1 is jankier, but you have Immunize and it kinda trivializes every fight. EO2 doesn't have anything that overpowering, so you get a lot of the same absurdities without that cheat button. To make matters worse, exploration is a bitch. There are fewer shortcuts and several floors where there's not an easy way to get to the next floor, so you deal with a lot of encounters on runbacks. They had extra geomagnetic poles midway through the strata, but you can activate only one at a time, so you lose the previous options, just as new quests pop up that are put in those center floors.

Quests and FOEs also don't give experience. Your level cap only increases by retiring, and by 1 level each time you do it. Floor 23 is a thing they did on purpose. War Magus has no ability to revive, so good luck if you didn't choose Medic. Also there are a ton of areas where you need a specific class, or 3 characters, or in some cases 1 character only, to access and get items. They're optional but Christ, who does this? There's one that opens up to like 150 consecutive tiles of pain floor, and an area where you send a solo Beast into an area with an FOE that basically negates all damage but Ice, and the Beast can't use Ice. Everything in this game is so mean to you.

So it's really weird that I do kinda love it.

Look, for all its jank, High Lagaard is a really neat place with a lot of personality. The cast of the town is quirky and fun, I like Cass a lot and Abigail is precious and my child. While they didn't all turn out so well, the new classes were really inventive; I love War Magus and Gunner. The introduction of the game being a guard blindfolding you and dropping you in the forest to either prove you're good enough to return, or die alone if you're not up to it, is metal as fuck. The constant need to go back to hard to access floors gets frustrating, but it feels much more like a labyrinth that people would have trouble exploring. The introduction of quests that just sit in your list for like four floors (or like 20 in the case of the Queen piece quest) is fairly organic; people will need certain things you may not even have access to, and it's up to you to figure out where it is.

The later parts of the game are also pretty fun. I like what's going on with Canaan and the winged people. I like what the Overlord has going on, with his history and why these monsters came to be. I really like the concept of the Forbidden Forest, being this calming looking area that's home to the most violent and uncontrollable monsters in the world. The story bits are fun and interesting when they start taking off.

It's...strange. I don't think I could stand playing this game in its original incarnation, but bless Easy mode for just trivializing this shit. That said, I feel like EO2 has it worst of any game in this series. EO2 classic has a lot of problems just in terms of being engaging to play, and even with the new Easy mode, it's a step too far to be an engaging difficulty. But EO2U has the same problem. Its base difficulty is kind of frustrating, mostly due to how the game was balanced around the damned grimoires, but easy is so trivially easy that there's barely a point to play. It's so frustrating, because I feel like this could easily be a favorite, but I tend to find it one of the most frustrating Etrian Odyssey games.

[fallintosanity]

the common fandom interpretation of mts is that they’re half-daemonified people inside suits of armor, which isn’t true according to either the main game or episode: prompto

but what the actual fuck besithia was doing with the clones is really hard to work out. 

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15

“C’mon,” Future Prompto said over his shoulder as he sauntered toward the ramp down the side of the haven. “It’s a twenty-minute walk out to the water tower and if we take too long we’re gonna get sunburned.” 

“Right,” Prompto said, and scrambled after him. 

They walked for a few minutes in silence, following a faint track along the sun-hardened ground. In the distance, Prompto could see a short, squat water tower, probably their destination. His future self, despite what he’d said about sunburn, was walking at a lazy pace, his face tilted up to the sun again. Prompto trailed behind him, feeling awkward and unsure. How did you start a conversation with your future self, anyway? 

He picked at the gauze that wrapped his right wrist in place of the familiar wristband Ardyn Izunia had sliced off. He couldn’t see his future self’s wrist; the crisp sleeves of his Kingsglaive uniform jacket covered it. The uniform looked surprisingly good on him. Prompto had never thought about joining the Kingsglaive, or even the Crownsguard, not seriously at least. The Crownsguard was for people like Gladio and Ignis, who’d trained since birth in all kinds of crazy fighting arts, who were muscular and powerful and brave. Prompto figured the former out-of-shape, shy kid who’d been too chicken to even talk to the other kids at school wouldn’t stand a chance.

No, Prompto had just planned to get through high school and find a job taking photos for magazines or something. Maybe see if Noctis wanted a royal photographer, though he’d known that was unlikely. Not that the Lucis Caelums didn’t have royal photographers, but like the Crownsguard, that was a prestigious role reserved for the country’s best. Not some nobody orphan with a barcode on his wrist. 

But apparently his future self had ended up a Kingsglaive. He looked good, too - other than the unhealthy sunless pallor of his skin, which all four of the future adults had because apparently the sun went away in the future too, what the hell. But he was a couple of inches taller than Prompto, and while he was no Gladio, he’d filled out with muscle. Prompto’s own arms and legs were basically twigs, all skin and bone after a growth spurt he hadn’t planned for in his diet, and he felt constantly awkward and clumsy. His future self moved with easy confidence, the way Gladio did, the way the guards who followed Noctis everywhere did. 

As if sensing his scrutiny, Future Prompto met his gaze. His mouth quirked, a small expression that wasn’t quite a smile. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask.”

“Ask what?” Prompto said, nerves making his voioce less steady than he would have liked.

His future self waved a hand vaguely. “You have questions, right? Ask ‘em. It’ll be easier like that than if I just start babbling, you know?” 

“Uh, right,” Prompto said. He rubbed at the gauze over his tattoo, took a deep breath, and blurted, “Your Noctis knows, doesn’t he? About… about the…” He waved his wrist. “Does that… does that mean you know, too?” 

Future Prompto nodded. “Yeah.”

“So…” He almost couldn’t get the question out. He hadn’t thought he’d ever know the truth, and definitely hadn’t thought he’d learn it like this. “What is it? What does it mean?” He didn’t have to say what am I? If anyone would understand, it was his future self. 

For a long moment Future Prompto said nothing, his gaze turned up toward the sky. Then he sighed and stopped walking, turning to meet Prompto’s eyes again. “You sure you want to know?” 

Prompto opened his mouth to say Of course I’m sure, but the words didn’t come. Future Prompto wouldn’t be asking that if he didn’t think Prompto had a very good reason not to want to know. Instead he asked, very quietly, “It’s… it’s bad, isn’t it.”

His future self didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Prompto swallowed hard, looking away, eyes skating over the bright yellow desert landscape without really seeing it. But there really was only one option he could take. The barcode had haunted him his whole life; he couldn’t let it keep being a phantom holding him back. He said, “I’m sure. I want to know, even if it’s bad. Especially if it’s bad.” 

Future Prompto started walking again. “Have you had that world history class yet, the one with, what’s his face, that one teacher who hated Noct?” 

Prompto frowned at the non-sequiter, hurrying to catch up. “Mr. Malazan? Yeah, we have him this year, why?” 

“Have you done the Niflheim module yet?”

“Yeah, last semester.” 

“So you know about the origin of MTs.” 

“Uh. I guess?” Prompto tried to remember what they’d covered. He hadn’t paid much attention to the lessons; he hadn’t thought he would ever need it, for one, and for two the whole idea of robot soldiers wigged him out. It wasn’t fair, Niflheim fighting with robots they could build and replace, while Lucis had to send humans to fight and die. “They were first created like thirty years ago by some Niff scientist, but didn’t start showing up in combat for another ten years or so.” 

His future self nodded. “Thirty-two years ago from now. Forty-four from my time. The name of the scientist was Verstael Besithia. They didn’t show you a picture of him in class, did they?” 

“They did, but it was some old grainy thing,” Prompto said. “All I remember was he was bald on top and kinda spotty. Why are you asking about this?” He wanted his future self to get to the point. 

Future Prompto snorted. “Spotty,” he muttered, and shook his head. He held out a hand; blue magic shimmered between his fingers and suddenly he held a small, battered notebook. Prompto watched in amazement - even Noct didn’t use the magic of the royal Lucis armory that freely, and it was strange to see his future self treat it with the casualness of reaching into a pocket. Future Prompto handed him the notebook. “Take a look.” 

Prompto frowned at him, but flipped through the book. The pages were covered with his own neat handwriting, and various newspaper clippings and photos had been wedged in between. Most of the handwritten blurbs were marked with the words “Transcript”, dates - all between ME 757 and 763 - and strings of letters that might have been abbreviated place names. The newspaper clippings were much older, dating back to 721, mostly from Niflheim and talking about Besithia and the production of magitek troopers. 

Then he flipped a page and found a photo of himself staring back. 

Except it wasn’t him. For a second he thought it was his older self instead, but that wasn’t right, either. The man in the photo was probably in his mid- to late forties, his blond hair fading to grey around the edges, his freckles turning into age spots above his beard. His outfit was ostentatious, brightly colored with a tall collar and broad shoulder pads, and matched the arrogance in his expression. 

Prompto looked up at his older self in horror. “Who…?”

“Verstael Besithia,” Future Prompto answered shortly. His eyes had gone dark and shuttered, the way Noct’s did the rare few times someone mentioned the daemon attack he’d suffered as a child. 

“But…” Prompto looked at the picture again, then up at his future self. They were damn near identical save for age. Even Gladio didn’t look that much like his dad. “He’s - he looks like—” 

“Yeah,” Future Prompto said. “Noct mentioned where daemons come from, right? Last night?” Prompto nodded, not trusting his voice. Future Prompto continued, his voice flat, “Besithia needed daemon miasma to power his MTs. But using regular daemons didn’t work well, and when he tried using people who were in the process of turning, that didn’t work either because of something he called ‘ego death’. So he figured, why not use babies? They don’t have egos.” 

His voice was bitter and sharp enough to cut, and Prompto flinched. His future self noticed and took a deep breath, visibly reining himself in, before continuing. “He cloned himself. He eventually figured out a way to speed up the babies’ aging without actually letting them develop as people enough to have egos. But before he did… some Lucian spy stole one of those cloned babies.” 

Prompto stared at his future self, horror curdling his stomach; he was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. “That was—You mean—we were—”

Future Prompto nodded. “We were just one of thousands of clones meant to be infected with Starscourge and harvested for daemon miasma to power MTs.” He reached out and flipped the pages in the notebook Prompto’d forgotten he held, stopping on a page that had nothing but a photo taped to it.

A photo of tall narrow glass tubes, each one holding Prompto. A Prompto, a clone, one of many in a row, each with Prompto’s face and a barcode stamped on its right wrist.

“I was taking photos of every room I went into,” Future Prompto said tonelessly. “I figured the intel might be useful. I didn’t realize what I was looking at until after I took the shot.” 

The world swayed and for a second Prompto had to focus on staying upright, on not collapsing to the hard desert rock and throwing up or passing out or screaming. The notebook fell from his fingers, shattering into blue crystal light before it could hit the ground. “But… but…” 

Future Prompto said nothing. When Prompto looked up, his future self was staring at him, his expression grim. Prompto managed, “Noctis - your Noctis - knows? He knows?! And Gladio and Ignis?” 

Last night, in the van, Future Noctis had said, It’s nothing to worry about. You’re fine.

Except Future Noctis had been wrong. How could Prompto be fine, how could he ever be fine again when he was—was that?!  

His future self just nodded, and said softly, “They don’t care. They’re—It’s rare, people that good.”

“Does anyone else know? In the future?”

Future Prompto’s expression darkened and he gripped his own right wrist. “Everyone.” At Prompto’s horrified look, he added grimly, “Ardyn thought it would be fun to spread the news.” He met Prompto’s gaze, eyes cold and sharp and deadly. “He’s probably gonna do it again. He hates Besithia damn near as much as he hates Noctis, and Besithia’s dead in my time, so guess who he’s taking it out on. The guys are okay—” with a tilt of his head back toward the haven to indicate Noct and Gladio and Ignis— “but from now on, you don’t turn your back on anyone. Not strangers. Not people you think are friends.” His eyes closed for a moment, his fingers tightening around his wrist so hard the leather of his glove creaked. “Especially not people you think are friends.” 

Prompto shivered. Despite the desert heat, a chill had seeped down into his bones, one he doubted any amount of sun or warmth could dispel. It was too much to take in all at once, too much to process, to understand. He couldn’t think, the photos of Verstael Besithia, of the clones in their tubes - him in a tube, hairless and placid and stamped with a barcode like the property he’d been created as - spinning through his brain. He doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing hard like he’d just finished a run, like he’d pushed himself past his physical limits only this time it was his mental limits, his ability to comprehend his own freaking existence, not who he was but what he was— 

His future self hooked an arm around his shoulders, jolting him back to awareness. “Sorry,” Future Prompto said ruefully. “I didn’t…” He sighed. “I fucked this up. You need to know, but… it’s a lot to take in at once.” 

That startled a laugh out of Prompto, watery and maybe a little more hysterical than he’d have liked. “A lot. Yeah.”

“C’mon,” his future self said, and ruffled his hair. “Let’s get to that water shed before we both get burned crispier than the steak when Noct’s cooking.” 

Prompto snorted another almost-laugh, nearly choking on the hysteria before he wrangled himself under control. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Okay.��� 

[cielospeaks]

go 2017 wishes

-free servants: well they made jeanne (well jalter) and shishou so hoping for some free forms of altera and/or okita. free archimedes too pls.

-new servants: so like everyone on the leak list i was particularly invested in has already been out for the most part, save hecking ivan the terrible im so ready pls dont be 5* i must get u (would guess unless top tier waifu or “hot relevant” bishounen would be 4* or lower? but thats just my hope pls my natm team is starving its literally just lancelot and an altera support cries)

-like crazy improbable dream but classicaloid crossover. code for beto (like for lily) so he can have 3 outfits (first is sad deaf history beto from the flashback in ep 9, second is frustrated main outfit classicaloid gyoza beto, last is guitar wielding musik betto who has the hottest smile) but also free 4* classicaloid character (probably caster class. and np is musik with an insert art of whichever classicaloid in musik outfit). i need beto for at least 2 teams and bc i love music and historybeto and seriously even otogi and eiyuu beat ya to the punch on this go. and also i dont think i could find a better beto than classyloid beto (besides we need a go sugita voiced character to redeem us from the asshole that was reff)

-but yea. more historical figures (like from eiyuu senki, or natm, or batea since the mpathg team is pretty complete) pls i just want to see the designs and stuff pls. non series related histfigs? sakamoto pls (guess thats kinda kamen rider ghost lol) would like to see. non classicaloid composers motsu references haydn and salieri i would flip my shit if there were any composers added. or alternate mozarts (and sansons and deons to go w marie) already freaking out i could get his and cascus chocos at valentines my husbandos. and dr roman pls. puts on hipster glasses i cared about doctor roman before he was deemed attractive and dead by the western fanbase

-as far as the last yrs events, i think they were all pretty ok? saber wars was good to get lily but too hard for me, the star wars twist was certainly funny tho. valentines was grindalicious and a little frustrating but the mashu ce was so pretty and it was worth it to get everyones chocos~ (hope they make the boys’ chocos cheaper since u kno im grinding for all of em cries) knk was ridiculously fun well as much as it could be and i loved getting into the series. white day was short but kinda interesting, got almost all the ces besides robins cries, and mc was too hard but w/e. da vinci was neat for the ce’s but missed the end bc of computer crash. accel order was amazing both storywise and new stuff wise, got my first 5* there~ missed ibaraki as well due to underleveled, but did get shuten! journey to the west was fun bc i love saiyuki but would have rather got a free 4*, completely missed onigashima due to helltour ugh (hope they rerun it cries), summer event was i think overall a good time, prilya was suspenseful but fun, both halloween events were great, the rerun salter was a fking godsend (missed it last yr) and smallter is a bae. think thats all the events of the yr.

-so basically what im getting at is the best tier ones were either interesting/fun story (like saiyuki, but thats just my preference. jalter/bryn fans and mhx fans were probably more fans of da vinci and saber wars respectively), more interactions w servants (valentines), or free 4* (all of them). overall i’d say ones that dont have day unlocks a la braveliz and both santas are more nervewracking due to worry of a crash, but overall most of the time it works out? so hoping for more fun story and neat 4*s. overall out of the free servants i think my favs are probably shiki and maybe smalter? shiki for her badassness both in game and knk, and smallter is so cute (and also a jeanne right??) so i guess im kinda neutral about new/crossover character vs alt version of existing character? i rlly ended up liking knk and also like iri and kuro’s characters so didnt mind them (and u know if any of the composerbaes would show up i would be so happy) but yea as far as alt versions pls an altera. altera lily? altera alter? beach altera? heck yes. and okita (for honnouji rerun lol) idk nobu kinda dominates the black/red altery color scheme so a different sort of okita would be interesting to see! maybe okita lily but they could throw any weird twist on her and id see it (dude okita? i think the western fans would shit bricks due to hatred of genderbents and saberfaces)

-anyways i hope they just announce a new event (w free 4* pls) soon i kno ive got a recital and motsu and schuus birthdays to work on but fk that shit i need to have a new servant winks at grand order now would be a good time for that classicaloid crossover event lol

[edibleflowerseu]

WORDS

Geoffrey Chaucer || The Canterbury Tales || (1387)

“ Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, / And bathed every veyne in swich licour / Of which vertu engendred is the flour.”

...

I.

I've owned this book since high school. I never took any Honors lit classes, and due to a variety of circumstances, I have never taken any Honors classes period. Until now, The Canterbury Tales could have been about anything and I would have believed it.

True to form, I worked on this book in bursts. I started it a few months ago but after finishing the Knight's Tale (which was the longest and worst one), I banged through it. I thought it was all gonna be like the Knight's Tale but when it starts deteriorating into jokes about farting and fucking then I became way more game. It strikes me as a medieval equivalent to a TV horror anthology, just sans horror.

This version had the original essentially un-readable English alongside a new modern English translation. I tried a bit to read both but it became a boring headache so I stopped.

I can see why people – especially people who go bonkers for medieval shit – would dig this. I mean, I dug it too, but within reason. It is rich with of-its-times secrets to pull apart and understand Britain in the 1300s. What a time to be alive. John Darnielle is wicked into this book and I kept thinking about that the entire time I read it but I wish I didn't.

This copy omits several “Tales” which are either fragments or would just take up too much damn space. Bit of a bummer but I just read synopses of each Tale on Wikipedia to fill in what I missed.

II.

The book takes place in medieval (then contemporary) England and follows a cast of some 30 pilgrims plus a host and Chaucer himself as they make the pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Beckett at Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury. It's supposed to consist of each pilgrim telling two tales each on the way there, and then two tales each on the way back. But it doesn't do that. It just lets a few pilgrims tell their Tales. These Tales are supposed to be entertainment for the long journey, and the winner gets like a free meal and some gold or some shit. I didn't pay attention.

Most characters don't get much characterization, and when they do have proper names they are usually referred to more so by their title (e.g. The Knight, The Pardoner, The Miller, The Reeve, etc.). One exception is the Wife of Bath, who has a very long introduction to her tale espousing her feminist beliefs, which were ahead of their time for Chaucer's day. The Tales range from moral tales to tales wrought with foul language and sexual innuendo and straight up fucking. It's lauded for it's range of voices from all layers of society. Many characters have distinct accents based on the region they hail from, a detail masked by most translations.

The narrator is Chaucer himself I think but also he makes an appearance himself and maybe tells his own tale? It's unclear and wasn't part of my edition.

The shorter tales were the best ones. The Knight's Tale about some idiot knights who want to fuck a girl was a dumb story (long as fuck!!). The Miller's Tale about a dude who wants to fuck an idiot carpenter's wife was good. The Reeve's Tale about two college kids fucking an idiot Miller's daughter and wife was good. The Prioress's Tale was antisemitic as hell. The Nun's Priest's Tale was about some talking animals. The Pardoner's Tale was about some dumbasses trying to kill Death or some shit. The Wife of Bath's tale was mostly her talking about how women deserve sovereignty over themselves and their husbands, but also about some Knight who feels wicked bad about raping someone for no reason. I only skimmed The Franklin's Tale.

There's a good scene in The Miller's Tale where a women tricks one of her suitors into kissing her butthole.

III.

The book is written in some old English my feeble cishet mind cannot comprehend. It uses innuendo and metaphor and dialects and some neat tricks to be a glorious work of its day.

The themes and imagery vary from story to story, which I guess is another thing for which people commend Chaucer.

Chaucer wrote some other books but I ain't reading those. They ain't as good.

IV.

Chaucer wrote for noble courts and traveled a lot between Britain and France. I don't know how much is known about his life. I read a bit a few weeks ago but I forget most of it. Not sure if he was a noble or what. I think he spoke French and Italian and probs like Latin alongside English.

He def read Boccaccio's The Decameron but probs didn't own a copy cause a lot of his Tales have parallels in that collection of stories. I kinda wanna read it. Early Renaissance literature.

Based on Chaucer's writing in the Wife of Bath's Tale it would seem he was progressive for his day, and gave equal merit to secular and Christian ideas, or at least was not above lampooning the hypocrisy of so-called pious men.

Chaucer well-fed as fuck. Thick ass bitch.

V.

Medieval scholarship sounds like a fun field. If I wasn't so horribly anxious and depressed these days I would maybe do some more research on that front. I would much rather discuss and analyze The Canterbury Tales as a product of its time that offers insight into history rather than discuss them on its own merit or whatever.

I didn’t do much research or article-snagging before crapping this post out but that’s fine. This is a bit of a test run, you see. Do u understand??