#the prologue starts off with spoiling the ending that they die for a reason

[marcirose]

As someone who's read and reread Romeo and Juliet and studied the damn thing for almost a decade ever since I first read it in high school, every time I see someone compare it to sk, I roll my eyes and let out the most audible frustrated sigh I can and no it's not cause of the star-crossed lovers thing

[randomnameless]

I forgot to comment :(

I keep remembering Ingrid is dead 😭 And we forced Shamir to join us by threatening Catherine 😭

Keep remembering then, because those plot points will be, uh, totally relevant later on. I mean, as relevant as anything can be in a BE route.

Why, though? Edelgard just said in her support with Balthus she intends to conquer all of Fodlan. Does she see Claude as the least threatening? I’d like to know why Claude thinks it’s a good idea too.

No she’s just after Rhea!!!

Given how Claude accepted to side with her - instead of being folded - it seems like a good move on her part, but remember who we’re talking about, the lady only had one supply line :)

I’m having Shez be such an ass. He turned down sparing with Holst and made things awkward.

Holtz is a disappointment looks and character wise, so I don’t think Shez is being an ass here lol

Edelgard just called it an “invasion” too. So at least she’s honest.

But only because they took RhEa in bcs she’s BaD and the reason why the war started!!!

Surprisingly enough, this isn’t only parroted by die hard edelstans :(

I love how Hubert is spinning Dimitri wiping out the Western lords as some evil thing. But, like, those people organized a genocide.

When it comes from Hubert, it’s hilarious because Papa Vestra was killed off-screen for, uh, reasons we will never know, and we’re not supposed to care. I love how Hubert brings out the double standard in his routes (remember the Dimitri BaD in CF bcs he didn’t came to salute them before fighting to their deaths in Tailtean?) - but if he is the one supposed to play it straight, the game didn’t get the memo that, hey, it’s Hubert. He isn’t supposed to be the most, uh, neutral narrator out there!

Claude, Edelgard, Linhardt and just about everyone else is bemoaning all the people who are going to die in the war. for daring to … defend their lives But my girl Dorothea is the only one who seems to realize that her side is the cause of the bloodshed. Not the people who would never have to fight if Edelgard didn’t force them too.

Mhh. Did you get her support with her beloved leader?

“When people think someone is after what the possess, they respond with fear - even if the thought is all in their head.” - Ferdinand. Except, it’s not?

Ferdie and Caspar were really butchered to make sense in Nopes as characters who cannot defect, so now Ferdie acts like, say, someone making statements that are completely wrong about everything.

IIRC he has a line in the game where he mentions the Kingdom values CrEsTs more than the Empire, and that’s why there are more crested generals/peons in the Kingdom than in the Empire... Except that someone compiled the data for the npcs, and lo, the Empire still has more npcs/generals with crests than the Kingdom lol.

Edelgard openly wants to rule their lands with absolute authority. She’s already stolen everything from one of her enemies, why should the Kingdom believe they wouldn’t get the same treatment Rhea did?

I will not spoil, but... no, I won’t spoil!

I wish the game would make it clear what Edelgard would do to Dimitri and co if they did surrender. Because, like, does anyone really think Hubert would leave them alive? Or Edelgard for that matter? If she wants to rule the Kingdom, Dimitri and most of the Blue Lions would HAVE to die. Wouldn’t she throw Dimitri and his supporters out of their homes and replace them with Empire nobility at best? It’s not in their heads.

This made me think, in CF, Edel specifically asks for Dimitri’s death.

Hey, at least this is the first interesting thing that’s happened in SB since the prologue lamo. I hope it’s not just back to CF now except Claude is now Edelgard’s toady.

Mmh.

The ending is particulary awesome too, very shonen-esque.

Weird support. Ferdinand is getting respected and admired by a Black Eagle instead of being the butt monkey. Caspar is thinking and questioning having something in his life other than furthering his reputation via killing people. I like it.

Well... Given how Caspar was retconned to be the dumb bloodthirsty muscle, this support sort of works, even if I suppose it would also have worked in FE16, but with a different setting.

He wants to defend Edelgard because her promoting him changed his life.

Remember how he sort of chewed her out for starting her war in the C support? But now, Shez only looks after his own hide and thanks her for giving him a promotion. It’s way more down to earth and sort of materialistic, but Shez is Shez.

I’d like to hear your opinions about him when you’ll finish all routes!

Sorry, but this was boring af. Never thought I’d say that about a Hubert support.

Imagine if Hapi discovered Hubie was in cahoots with Cordelia, who experimented on her - oh wait, this is a BE route.

Instead of tackling the elephant in the room, let’s talk about coffee instead.

I honestly really don’t like CF!Caspar, but SB!Caspar seems even worse, like he’s just his dad’s little killing-happy puppet.

When you remember in FE16 his paralogue was all about him leeroy jenkins against the Death Knight, who captures and kills (?) young ladies - Caspar used to be the stupid shonen sidekick raving about justice (remember his catherine support?) but now he dgaf and wants to kill with daddy. Yay.

Have you done their paralogue? It’s very, uh, interesting meritocracy wise.

Randolph is still a little shit. He WANTS to invade the Alliance. IDK, I just cannot fathom wanting something like that of any country let alone an ally

Randy is a weird case, we hear all those things about how great and nice he is supposed to be, but when we see him, he wants to invade his allies, and disses on Edel’s army that is made up of commoners...

Lamo, Edelgard literally just said might makes right.

What can you expect from #Nemesisdidnothingwrong and #Nemesiswasachampionofhumanity ? Might makes right was his motto (completely with the hypocrisy of defeating a sleeping/comatose Sothis, but hey)

Hilda legit just asked Claude why he’s made a strategy that limits casualties. Are people from Faerghus the only ones who don’t love killing people? She is doubting the Empire at least. She really doesn’t like Edelgard, lol.

Eh, Hilda is a character that is... complicated, to say the least.

She is doubting the Empire, so that’s cookie points for her, but wondering why Claude is limiting casualties... is it because she doesn’t care about other people dying? I think it’s developed in one of her supports, but I’ll wait until you unlock them in GW!

Not seeing Ingrid with the others hurts. They’re really out here just trying to stop everyone else from trying to murder them

#toxicmasculinity #chivalrybad

They’re BaD for not accepting Adrestian rule!

See this is why Dimitri’s the best one - “The old ways must die - with that I agree. But shove that down the people’s throats, and you risk breaking the very land you’re trying to rule.”

To some people, this line means Dimitri doesn’t want to change the status quo thus is centrist, or some other thing.

But it takes an entire new meaning when we realise Dimitri might be talking about Lambert, he died because he tried to push reforms, and some people in Faerghus planned for a regicide, effectively breaking the land (until he came)...

Anyways, Faerghus BaD. Don’t forget it, it’ll be important later on in this route!

I’m guessing Jeralt gives Byleth his sword in every route

:)

Let’s say Good Ol’Jerry forgot to return Rhea’s sword when he bailed out some years ago.

I can’t imagine this is going to be anything but nauseating.

:(

Ohhh, wow, they really went there. Edelgard tells Monica to her face that she only rescued Monica because it suited her, didn’t plan on it, and would let Monica die if it helped her goals.

And of course, just like in CF, when she reveals she had been using people and planned on letting them die to reach her goals, she is met with opposition, distrust, anger and maybe people bailing out on her?

Learning this changes exactly nothing about Monica.

At this point idk if it’s a thing about Monica, or the games not being able to write a character being angry at Edel and having face the consequences or backlash of her own actions without Hubert acting as a proxy

In case you didn’t read my GW reaction, I was quite pleased to see Byleth actually pissed about someone almost hurt their dad given how little they ask Edelgard about her involvement in that in CF.

That’s why I was talking about with the “Hubert proxy”, Edel promises Billy to tell them more about the agarthans, but it’s Hubert who does, in his paralogue. Not Edel, never her, of course :)

The Byleth plot is very interesting, as you might see in other routes, because it opens another can of worms that was, sort of, retconned in FE Heroes!

I love how they go from celebrating the deaths of Faerghus to lamenting their own loses, without any acknowledgment that THEY are responsible for all of this or that the people they killed were just as “alive” as they are.

:)

:’)

Scarlet Blaze Ch 10

I don't remember if there's 13, 14, or 15 chapters per route in this game, but here we go with SB Ch 10.

STORY

I keep remembering Ingrid is dead 😭 And we forced Shamir to join us by threatening Catherine 😭

Oh, boy, Claude just became Edelgard's bitch boy. Can't say I didn't suspect this.

Why, though? Edelgard just said in her support with Balthus she intends to conquer all of Fodlan. Does she see Claude as the least threatening? I'd like to know why Claude thinks it's a good idea too.

So I take it this time Claude is getting shoe-horned into Edelgard's story rather than Byleth's? I wonder if we'll see this in AG and GW too. Or if it'll be a bit different.

I'm having Shez be such an ass. He turned down sparing with Holst and made things awkward.

Is Claude still king in this route?

"We'll be invading Fraldarius" no 😭😭.

Edelgard just called it an "invasion" too. So at least she's honest.

I love how Hubert is spinning Dimitri wiping out the Western lords as some evil thing. But, like, those people organized a genocide.

DOROTHEA, my beloved!!! THANK GOD.

Claude, Edelgard, Linhardt and just about everyone else is bemoaning all the people who are going to die in the war. for daring to . . . defend their lives But my girl Dorothea is the only one who seems to realize that her side is the cause of the bloodshed. Not the people who would never have to fight if Edelgard didn't force them too.

"Whatever our intent, we're the instigators here. We can't expect the enemy to do anything less than defend their land with tooth and claw." Dorothea is queen. A hypocrite, but at least the game realizes who's really at fault.

"When people think someone is after what the possess, they respond with fear - even if the thought is all in their head." - Ferdinand. Except, it's not?

Edelgard openly wants to rule their lands with absolute authority. She's already stolen everything from one of her enemies, why should the Kingdom believe they wouldn't get the same treatment Rhea did? I wish the game would make it clear what Edelgard would do to Dimitri and co if they did surrender. Because, like, does anyone really think Hubert would leave them alive? Or Edelgard for that matter? If she wants to rule the Kingdom, Dimitri and most of the Blue Lions would HAVE to die. Wouldn't she throw Dimitri and his supporters out of their homes and replace them with Empire nobility at best? It's not in their heads.

Hey, at least this is the first interesting thing that's happened in SB since the prologue lamo. I hope it's not just back to CF now except Claude is now Edelgard's toady.

CASPAR & FERDINAND A SUPPORT

Ok guys, for anyone who's curious, this is where I picked up after finishing FE Engage. Feels a lot less daunting knowing I'm already a good numbers of ch into every route.

Weird support. Ferdinand is getting respected and admired by a Black Eagle instead of being the butt monkey. Caspar is thinking and questioning having something in his life other than furthering his reputation via killing people. I like it.

Ferdie called himself a master of none and admired Caspar back.

LINHARDT & DOROTHEA A SUPPORT

Wasn't this B support the one where we learned Edelgard had a single sole supply line? Lamo.

Dorothea's not going to keep taking notes for Linhardt lol.

She got hurt, so Linhardt took notes for her. She's surprised, but pleased.

She told him he had his own charm, and he's like "please, no." I love him.

I don't think this support really showed a new side to the characters, though. It felt like an emptier version of their OG one.

SHEZ & EDELGARD B SUPPORT

Shez wants her to trust him. She says she does now.

He feels purposeless and wants to be her bodyguard.

Lamo, one of Shez's response options is "stand there slack-jawed." I forgot how much I liked Shez.

He wants to defend Edelgard because her promoting him changed his life.

HUBERT & HAPI A SUPPORT

Hapi is trying to make nice with Hubert.

They're bonding over coffee.

Now they're having coffee and talking about it. I'm more of a tea person, tbh.

Sorry, but this was boring af. Never thought I'd say that about a Hubert support.

CAMP + SIDE BATTLES

Dimitri took Cornelia down in this route too. Badass.

Ashe is so miserable, poor dude. Mercie isn't happy either.

I honestly really don't like CF!Caspar, but SB!Caspar seems even worse, like he's just his dad's little killing-happy puppet.

Randolph is still a little shit. He WANTS to invade the Alliance. IDK, I just cannot fathom wanting something like that of any country let alone an ally.

Lamo, Edelgard literally just said might makes right.

Shit, I just remembered that Ingrid's dead in this timeline.

Hilda legit just asked Claude why he's made a strategy that limits casualties. Are people from Faerghus the only ones who don't love killing people? She is doubting the Empire at least. She really doesn't like Edelgard, lol.

Not seeing Ingrid with the others hurts. They're really out here just trying to stop everyone else from trying to murder them.

See this is why Dimitri's the best one - "The old ways must die - with that I agree. But shove that down the people's throats, and you risk breaking the very land you're trying to rule." If Edelgard had her way, there'd be nothing left to rule except the Empire.

Yeah, the reason you can't work with the Empire, Dimitri, is that Edelgard wants to rule all of Fodlan. Her alliance with Claude has made it really clear that the Empire still intends a hostile take over of even their own allies. Which, honestly, I do appreciate SB for being a bit more honest than CF.

I really don't want to fight Rodrigue. I do think it's funny that your enemy always hires Jeralt though.

I'm guessing Jeralt gives Byleth his sword in every route.

SHEZ & BERNADETTA B SUPPORT

Starts with her screaming and shrieking about something.

Anna showed up! She's selling something to Bernadetta that will help her with her shyness. Also sells her something shifty. Or tries. Because Bernadetta assumes Anna's up to no good (probably true) and buys nothing.

Shez calls her judgmental lol. He's not wrong.

BERNADETTA & FERDINAND C SUPPORT

This is their only support. Kinda weird given their past history.

She's eating plants. Ferdinand is concerned she's eating bad stuff. Ferdinand wants to have a competition over who collects the most edible plants.

Poor Bernie. His "competition" really reminded me of those guys who are like "oh, prove it, name xxx!" when I say I like this sport or that fandom because I must be lying to impress them or some shit. (except I don't think Ferdie is being sexist here, just annoying af).

Bernie gets hurt and one of Ferdie's plants can help fix it.

Also, he lost.

EDELGARD & MONICA B SUPPORT

I can't imagine this is going to be anything but nauseating.

Haha, Edelgard just said in another world they may have lost Monica forever (to TWSITD).

Edelgard says she only saved Monica because it was the best move lol. And like, we know this is actually true because, well . . .

Ohhh, wow, they really went there. Edelgard tells Monica to her face that she only rescued Monica because it suited her, didn't plan on it, and would let Monica die if it helped her goals.

I know a lot of times people play off Edelgard's harshness as "oh, she's just insecure and saying that!" But here you can't really make that argument because it happens in Houses lamo.

She literally didn't rescue Monica because she needed TWSITD soldiers.

Learning this changes exactly nothing about Monica.

It added some stuff to Edelgard, but Monica is still horribly one-note.

FERDINAND & DOROTHEA B SUPPORT

I know a lot of people like their Houses support chain, but I kinda don't? It's drama over something really silly.

Edelgard is here. Ugh. I want Dorothea, not her.

Oh, good grief, it's going to be about the same annoying thing. Ferdinand is remembering seeing Dorothea and being stunned by her beauty.

(like, imagine getting pissed off that someone stares at you when you're butt-ass naked in public and dripping wet)

Dorothea's a lot more reasonable this time, getting flustered hearing this.

MAIN BATTLE

Every time I log back into this, I remember that Ingrid's dead :(

Oh, God, please tell me that I'm not killing Rodrigue and Felix now.

They go from "oh, bummer, we have to kill people to! Let's go Empire!!!" Bit of a whiplash, but Dorothea's the only one who seems to realize they're killing people and not NPCs lamo.

Same conversation between Shez and Arval. Guessing I'll get it in AG when it's time for recruiting Byleth too.

Ok, like with Golden Wildfire, I'll try to unlock Byleth. But unlike with GW where I reset and tried a few times, I'm only trying once. Because I really want to finish this and get to other games. AG is the only route where I'll put in real effort to get Byleth because I care more about those characters getting a fully happy ending than the rest.

I think I failed again lol. It changed from a side goal to the main goal to fight Byleth. I didn't move around the map fast enough.

God, I love Rodrigue.

Rodrigue died. I'm guessing if I recruit Byleth, that doesn't change? How many other Blue Lions does SB force me to kill?

Cut scene time. So who dies in SB?

LAMO, it's Randolph. OFC it's Randolph. This guy is just allergic to surviving.

Is it bad I'm more upset that Rodrigue died? He's a WAYYYYY better person than Randolph.

In case you didn't read my GW reaction, I was quite pleased to see Byleth actually pissed about someone almost hurt their dad given how little they ask Edelgard about her involvement in that in CF.

I like how they expect us to care about Randolph. Like, Judith, makes sense. She's close to Claude. She's cool. Randolph is really unlikable and has no special connection to anyone except Fleche.

Does this mean Fleche will cause a level where she goes crazy against Byleth?

This conversation falls so flat compared to the GW one. Because in GW, you were talking to Claude. Here, it's . . . Fleche. In GW it was actually an emotional moment (and made me feel a bit guilty). Here, not so much.

I do feel bad for Byleth and Alois though.

Ok, the Sothis-Byleth merging happening.

I love how they go from celebrating the deaths of Faerghus to lamenting their own loses, without any acknowledgment that THEY are responsible for all of this or that the people they killed were just as "alive" as they are.

Haha, even SB lets you recognize that Randolph means very little personally to you or any of the main cast.

xxxxx

[damnredthing]

Did my wishes come true? – Season 1 recap

This post will of course contain spoilers for the entire season 1 of Strange New Worlds. If you haven’t watched the show or all episodes yet and don’t want to get spoiled, please don’t read any further.

I might not be able to write long ramblings right because -> 👀 my eyes are still kaput, but I can check off my wish list which I wrote before season 1 started:

I’ll not repeat the entire text here, just the headlines. Please check out my old post (link above) if you’d like to read more details about my wishes.

Different tones in different episodes

CHECK! Definitely CHECK. And I love it! The writers even went so far to take the big risk of going full comedy. As expected the Elysium Kingdom and also the Serene Squall have gotten a lot of review bombings, but you’ll see as the months and years fly by, the rating will improve. Comedic episodes in Star Trek often turned out to be classic episodes which received the proper appreciation years later.

Tribbles!

Naw. ☹️ We didn’t get any tribbles in season 1. But there is not to say we won’t get them in the future! Especially as they already teased them cute fluffy balls…

Pike being the hero

Check, he did have his moments when he was allowed to shine. His hero moments came with tactics (Memento Mori, Serene Squall) and diplomacy (Strange New Worlds, Spock Amok). It never felt over the top or dominating to me. His crew got their own moments to shine as well. Pike is not part of every landing party. I think the show found a good and realistic balance.

Don’t let Pike act like a reckless invincible madman

Check. Thank God, check! I wasn’t the only one who feared that with Pike having the knowledge of his future, he feels like he is invincible and can do the craziest things and still survive them. Especially with the season finale this is not possible anymore. Pike now knows that he CAN change his fate. That means he now also knows that if he throws himself in unnecessary danger, he CAN get himself get killed and that WILL change the future and puts his fate upon Spock.

Let Pike learn a hard lesson

Only partly check. He did learn a very hard lesson in the season finale when he learnt that he cannot save all cadets and that no matter how he’d change his fate, it will always end up in Spock getting killed. But I had hoped for a hard lesson that falls upon himself if he had risked his life over and over thinking that he’s invincible. As this did not happen, this point is kinda obsolete now.

Psychological evaluation

Nope. This point is also obsolete now.

Don’t let Pike have a girl on every planet

Le sigh… nope. In just 10 episodes Pike already has one Captain with benefits (although not anymore me thinks), and one alien flame he met years ago and who seduced him way too easily. I mean I get it. He knows his fate, so he knows he will cause his partner a lot of grief should he be in a serious relationship. It makes more sense for him to just enjoy the time he has left without boundaries. I personally just think having changing affairs doesn’t fit his character. I just hope the writers keep it at a reasonable level.

A pet for Pike

Nope. ☹️ And I know I am just wishful thinking here. It is unrealistic. But I’d die for him to find a planet that has mini horses, maybe the size of a cat and one of them horsies befriends Pike and doesn’t wanna leave his side and… okay I’m getting carried away.

Spock mind melting with Pike

Check! Although it didn’t happen after all. But Pike remembers everything from his alternate future, so he also remembers that. The whole scene was just too fast and too meaningless though. So I hope we’ll get to see it again in the prime timeline, but this time with a bit more effort?

No retconning Pike’s fate, but continue thereafter

First part check, second part unknown.

I think the season finale pretty much sealed Pike’s fate up until the Menagerie. Whether the show will go even further than that will have to be seen. But I certainly hope so! Because otherwise it would be a fatal message that disabled people cannot participate in our community and all we can do for them is sending them to exile and to live in an illusion. I’d much rather see the show deal with how to aid Pike in a way that grants him a choice again. We have seen what is possible with Airiam, and we have learnt that other species are further developed in medicine. Fully recovering Pike would be over the top and would send another wrong message out, but it would be nice to see him getting aided with medicine and technology that it allows him to be included again. And also Vina! If they both then choose to stay on Talos IV and help the Talosians to rebuild, fine. But at least then they truly have a choice!

Time travel to Earth in the year 202X

Nope. We might get to see it in season 2 as there seems to be a time travel episode. But we’ve only seen leaked photos from Earth with La’an and Kirk so Pike might not even be part of it. We gotta wait and see.

Let Pike be the alien in one episode

70% check. They made him an alien right in the first episode and I loved it. But it’s not quite the way I’d hoped for. I thought Pike was more hellbent on the prime directive, and here he was sending it down the drain right in the first episode lol. I am still hoping for a shuttle crash episode or some such where Pike is the only human on a planet, and he’s very clearly the alien. I keep my fingers crossed for this.

Horses

CHECK!!!! We cannot have enough horses around Pike. I hope the show is going to drop more of his horse names. Sir Neighs-a-lot? This had me in stitches.

No Kirk please

Yeah, I know, I know. This is a lost fight on all levels. He even showed up in season 1 already. Look, this topic is like a red rag to a bull for me that I just cannot write about it in an objective way. I don’t want to cause bad feelings for anyone. So what I’m saying now will be the last time I’ll address this topic until I’ve seen it unfold in season 2:

I hope that SNW will remain focused on Pike as Captain of the Enterprise and his crew which I learnt to love in season 1. I hope the writers will keep in mind that 10 episodes per season is not much time and that we already have a lot of characters to cover who haven’t been covered enough in other shows. I hope that the intro will remain as “These are the voyages of the USS Enterprise”. I hope we won’t see a transition of captaincy for at least another 4 seasons, preferably even later. I hope the show will not just end with a handover to Kirk, but rather go even beyond the Menagerie.

Do not turn the Pike show into a Kirk show

Same gist. I’m not going to repeat myself here.

A black collar for the uniforms

Nah. Not in season 1 anyways. And as it looks like, not in season 2 either. And if the sneak peek to the future is a reflection of what is to expect, the uniforms will not change at all until 2266 except for gold rank stripes for all uniforms (instead of gold on gold, red on red and blue on blue, which is stupid). 🥺

Pike shutting down technobabble

Hmmm… I am not sure to be honest. I cannot recall a moment when he did that in season 1. So I’d go with nope. But maybe I missed something.

Bring back Tenavik

Sadly nope. Not sure it would even be possible, but there also isn’t a reason for that story wise anymore. The season 1 finale pretty much wrapped up Pike’s fate. There is no need for the Klingon monks or the time crystals to show up anymore.

Bring back Ash Tyler (and continue the rivalry with Pike)

Also sadly nope. And I don’t even get why they missed that chance? Did Section 31 go all undercover again? It was such a big and important story arc in Discovery, why is that a complete non-topic in SNW?

Please no Mirror Universe

Check! And I hope it stays this way (although I know this is wishful thinking).

Tholians

No. ☹️ And this makes me extremely sad. The Tholians would fit perfectly in this point in time. And they look so very alien that it would be so much fun to watch. But I guess production costs are too high for that. There is still hope for future seasons though!

Forced recruiting

Okay I admit I was led a bit too much by the book “The Enterprise War” for this. I am not hellbent on this wish anymore. It would be an interesting story sure, but I feel the writers have other plans with SNW that involves a certain other future Captain which will use up a lot of the limited time we have.

Robert April

CHECK! And I hope we’ll get a lot more of him. Hopefully already in the season 2 starter when it’ll all be about getting Una back. Can we also see April in action please? I want to see his command style. I want to see him team up with Pike so we get to see how well they click.

Gorn

Check! Altho we didn’t get to see Pike fighting one. ☹️ Will we see them again? Will we get to see a fully grown Gorn? Will we get an explanation why the Gorn in “Arena” looked like he came straight from an old people’s home in comparison?

Novel “Burning Dreams”

Nope. So far I haven’t seen anything from the novel built into the show. But I still keep my fingers crossed. Now that the whole Pike’s fate thingie is out of the way, the writers can focus on telling us a bit more about his past.

Family background

10% check maybe? But overall nope, which is very disappointing. Do we really have much background about Pike? We know a lot more about La’an, Una and Uhura. All we know is that Pike had (or still has?) parents, that his dad was (is?) religious (which we learnt in Disco, mind you!) and that they had to put one of his pony’s down. That’s all. Does he have siblings? What are even his parents’ names? Is any of his family background in the novel “Burning Dreams” canon?

Surprising reveal

Nah. As we got no background information about Pike, there’s of course also no surprising reveal about him. But we did get a surprising reveal about Una though. So, wish come true but for another character… sorta.

Spiders

Nope, and I am surprised this wasn’t picked up at all. Not even in a mention. I am hoping for an episode sometime in the next seasons in which Pike has to face his arachnophobia, but it turns out the spiders are the good guys (I’m actually writing a story about that as we speak… although I had to pause on that because -> 👀).

I’m suffering from severe arachnophobia myself so this is a heartfelt wish for me.

Pike’s Nemesis

Nope. And with the episodic nature of the show I am not sure the writers will ever go that route. I think he should have one though. Every great Captain in Star Trek has one. Season 2 would be the perfect moment to introduce Pike’s nemesis, so there’s enough time in later seasons to develop that ill relationship.

[just-like-playing-tag]

A Letter from Norman reactions

Tonight I was feeling like reorganizing the notes I took after reading the novel for the first time. Just some random personal reactions I had after reading it; if anything catches your attention and you'd like to know more about a particular event from the novel, please feel free to ask and I'll be happy to help!!!

Under the cut because it's l o n g. That is, if Tumblr allows me to add a "read more", which has never happened before, but I'll keep hoping in it.

• Disclaimer: I'm suing anyone who ever said that the novel is all about NorEmma. I've literally put off reading it because I didn't want to get into something overly romantic while there's??? Nearly nothing about it that is romantic??????? Just a slight mention in that last chapter and that's it???????? Why are y'all like this

Prologue

• I need you all to know that the important letter™ through which Norman informed Emma about his plan starts with him describing the weather. I just think it's a relevant information.

• Ok I'm at freaking page 1 of “A letter from Norman” and. NORMAN IT'S A FREAKING LETTER TO EMMA NOT A SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY THERE'S LITERALLY NO REASON TO BE THIS POETIC

Maybe, I would get it if it was directed to Ray, but to Emma?????

Chapter 1

• Emma in 2038: Let's befriend ghosts

Emma in 2047: let's befriend demons

Seems like a logic consecution to me

• Ok but why has nobody ever mentioned the extremely precious Emma / Gilda moments in the novel???? My heart was completely melting that was the most adorable thing I've ever read??????

• The way Norman is constantly in awe of Ray is so adorable... Baby is so sweet I swear, he deserves the world

Chapter 2

• OK BUT THE SWEET EXCHANGE between Ray and Isabella before him and Emma go out at night?????? Ray is so pure is swear... He's a precious baby who didn't deserve all the shit he went through.

Reporting it in case anyone's curious; for context, Norman is sick, and Emma wants to go out look for a flower that she's read is going to help him feel better. Emma and Ray are convinced that Norman is going to die because babies are just that dramatic, and easily impressionable as well. They're seven here.

“ «Ray, I'm counting on you!»

Isabella pressed an hand on the boy's shoulder, who turned his face to her and diligently nodded, before continuing: «Differently from Emma, I don't think the flower is going to help Norman heal».

«What do you mean?»

«However, it's better than having to sit back and watch without doing anything. I too, like her, want him to heal as soon as possible.»

«Sure, I understand...» ”

NOW that hits so hard. You have to understand, this is after Ray had made the deal with Isabella. He had already started to plan the escape. In this occasion, he was on a very thin line: alone at night with Emma, outside the House, a child who knew the truth. Isabella knew those were the right conditions for him to attempt an escape, so she decided to test his loyalty; one misstep, and their deal - which was fundamental for the escape Ray was planning - would have ended.

But at the same time, Ray needed to go. Because, just like Emma, he just couldn't stand to lose Norman. And to see these three children caring so deeply about each other even at such a young age makes me honestly bawl. This is quite certainly my favorite thing from this series. And Ray deserves the world.

• Ray was so determined to save his two friends, he even considered for a moment, in the woods, to tell Emma the truth about the orphanage. I find it very nice how the novel hinted of all these times Ray almost revealed the truth, it really puts emphasis on how he was trying to find the best moment for the escape- but it also hints to how desperate he was to share this grievous burden he was forced to carry for the longest time.

• “ Ray, you must keep on living, Norman whispered to himself like a prayer. ”

I'm... I'M 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Doesn't help the fact that this bit was literally at the end of pages of Norman praising Ray and how brave he had been for so long.

• “ Nobody in the House would have wanted for Ray to pay with his life to amend the silence of all those years. ”

I love this bit. Nobody between the children ever hated Ray for speechlessly assisting to dozens of his siblings being lead to death, because they all immediately understood how much he was suffering, how powerless he must had felt, and also, even though it only led to him being even more hurt, how deeply he loved them all. It's really nice to realize that no children ever hated Ray- no one besides from himself. His siblings love him unconditionally, and that's precisely what he deserves 🤧🤧💕💕💕

• Norman: *adventures in a detailed description of Ray's features and gestures for no other apparent reason than the fact that he finds him pretty*

Chapter 3

• Ok I know people use to see Ray and Susan's interactions under the light of Ray having a crush on her but honestly? I think they make the cutest brotp. I never knew how much I needed Ray-having-an-older-sister content untill now.

• For real though!! What hits you really hard is to find out, even though he would had never ever showed it, how desperate he was to have somebody care about him, and to be loved. He literally grieves for losing someone that looks after him and is there to check on him in his lowest days- we know it's the thing Isabella never gave him. Man, this boy didn't deserve all the shit that happened to him. Tpn may have become an old known story for me, but Ray's sufferings in his early age will never stop tearing my heart apart.

• Ok, I wasn't ready for all this angst on Ray's part. I mean, I obviously know GF were hard times for him, but I didn't expect for him to take over the pov. Sis, how wrong I was. Now I'm crying.

• Coming to the realization that Ray's initial plan actually was to bring everyone in the escape, but he clearly had to give up on it after having realized it would have been impossible to save them 🥺🥺🥺

(I mean it was not impossible. He believed it was. But it wasn't.)

• Ok but. The last part of the Ner chapter. I really don't want to spoil it for anyone because it really was a beautiful chapter but I really need to say: Emma and Norman. The way it wasn't just Ray always being there for them, protecting them from afar; no matter their blissful ignorance, they have always been there for him too. They never abandoned that lonely boy, and they made it so that he could have a last reason not to give up. A single, dim light of hope in that pitch black, devastating world he was born in. I may or may not be crying my eyes out.

(Btw I had written this before the Ray special chapter came out, and it's kinda funny to look back at it now)

• The thing with the Ner chapter is: you enter in it after reading two chapters of normal, wholesome children's stories. There's a dark undertune in it, but it's very subtle and it doesn't interfere with the happy, cheerful atmosphere of these children facing adventures together with each other. But then the Ner chapter strikes, and the Ray pov arrives, and it's like being beaten with a bat in the stomach several times. Deep down, you had always known it; but you suddenly realize that all these children are going to die. And, even worse, there's one child who knows. There's one child who has to assist to everything powerlessly. There's one child, one freaking-nine-years-old who knows that all his siblings are going to die, and there's nothing he can do. That a single mistake could ruin the chances of making just two of his siblings survive, which is everything he's hanging to right now. One child who only needs to be loved. Well that... That hits hard.

Me expressing my thoughts: girl this form is shit you can't write something that is understandable to save your life can you

• Also can we please appreciate Norman taking so long to get out of the forest as it's a recurrent characterizzation of his character to be desperately willing to live just *French chef kiss*

• I really like how the novel underlined how Norman's choice of sacrificing himself corresponded to a betrayal toward his friends (when you think about it, Emma definitely felt betrayed). It's almost like in his last moments Norman chose to switch roles with Ray, taking on his shoulders the burden of being both the traitor and the sacrifice.

Chapter 4

• Norman: * “ He instinctively closed his eyes and abandoned himself to the sweet memory of that time he understood how deeply loved he was. ” *

Somewhere, Ray: Can't relate

• Emma: Norman, what you want to do when you grow up?

Norman: It's a secret.

Me:

• “ Ray woke up before everyone, as usual. ”

A remarkable detail. You'd think Ray, as a good depressed person as he is, would sleep more than the average. The truth is: he doesn't sleep at all.

• Norman: There's... Another person I like

Me:

• OK NOW WHY did none tell me about the nine (9) lines of Norman / Don interacting it was worth reading the novel solely for that.

• WHY DID NONE TELL ME ABOUT DON ALMOST STRANGLING NORMAN AND MAKING HIM LITERALLY PASS AWAY IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH READING THE NOVEL SOLELY FOR THAT

• Reading about Conny being there hurts a lot but reading about Sadie and Hao brings up a totally different kind of pain. Also who the hell is Cindy?

• Norman: Oh yes, Emma and Ray, my most dear friends, my closest siblings, the reason I wake up in the morning, my only reason to live, the ones I'd entrust my life with,

Also Norman: Dunnot in the last thirteen hours and six minutes they have been acting pretty sus, I'm kinda sure they're betraying me somehow ://

• “ «I agree, but it feels like you've fallen down a rabbit hole. You're restless, you constantly look off...» said the raven haired boy, distorting his mouth in an hardly intelligible grimace and giving his friend a meaningful look.

«Norman, about that mysterious girl...»

«No, you're mistaken! I...»

Norman, filled with frustration, raised up his voice, starting to lose the coolness that was usually characteristic of him.

«But I haven't said anything yet!»

That being said Ray, with slightly mocking doing, turned on his feet and went away, leaving Norman like that. ”

I LOVE THIS BIT SO INEXPLICABLY MUCH I'm always *so* in for Oreo finishing each other sentences / reading each other's thoughts. Here, Norman answered Ray's question before he could even expose it, because he already knew what it would have been. Equally, Ray knew what Norman was going to say even though he cut his answer halfway through.

I love how much on the same page they are, they really... Totally and fully understand each other even without words, and I find it so sweet. Seriously, their dynamic is so wholesome

• Norman's last birthday gift: the thing that matters the most to him: his family's happiness

Emma's reward: the thing that matters the most to her: her family's happiness

Some things hit harder than others.

• I don't know like. When you read the novel after the series has ended, everything hurts so much more, because you know these are all memories Emma has lost forever.

• So you made colorful clothing by "coloring old clothes"? Have fun realizing y'all have celebrated Norman's birthday wearing your dead siblings' clothes

Bonus this epic note I randomly took I completely forgot the context of:

• Isabella is a bitch. I don't give a fuck about your dramatic past woman, leave that boy alone

(When the protect Ray mood hits™)

[leighas-life]

Review Of Meg, The Trench, Primal Waters, Origins By Steve Alten

Meg #1 (4/5 stars)

*I didn’t write a review for this one, but my thoughts for the second 2 sum up how I feel about Meg (and probably the series as a whole when I finish it.)

The Trench (Meg #2) - 3.5/5

***Trigger warning: Rape is mentioned, along with the person being tortured, there were two attempted rape scenes, one quite graphic and incest.*** The author needs a better editing team. The writing style was good and enjoyable for the most part, although one thing stood out which was the repetitiveness. Jonas felt his temper flaring practically every other page. There was a lot of flashing. How many times can a person flash a smile, or flash their eyes in anger, flash this, flash that....? "For a surreal moment" is also used many times. Once you notice the repetitiveness, it is almost impossible not to notice, which brings you out of the story. Another thing that stood out that took away some enjoyment was a lot of telling instead of showing. Too many characters. I gave up trying to keep track of them. 99% were not important, just written in to be killed. I like how Masao treats Jonas as a true son and not a son-in-law. They have a couple of sweet father-son moments. The actions scenes were suspenseful. I truly felt Terry's terror as she goes through the stuff she went through. There are a couple of characters I hated so much and admit, I was hoping they would die, so Steve Alten is good at writing characters you hate. I do plan on reading more, as I love the entertaining value in these. Some of the triggering and problematic things you can overlook if you go in knowing what to expect. I hope the books get better as the series progresses.

Primal Waters (Meg #3) - 4/5 very problematic stars. 

TW: Because yes, this will have triggers, like the first two. Misogyny, implied/mentioned sex between adults and underage girls, suicide is mentioned, abortion is mentioned, slut and fat-shaming (blink and you might miss the slut-shaming, but it is there.) *** You can go into a vintage horror (or any genre) novel and expect some dark and nasty stuff, including how females are treated, and hey, maybe you even like those books, despite the problematic elements. Those books were a product of the time. I'm honestly not judging your taste in books, because I read them, too. It is nice to be able to turn your brain off sometimes. That being said, the way females are treated in this book just doesn't make sense. Because it is about killer sharks, does that mean it is marketed toward men and that is why all the girls are treated like eye candy, along with underage eye candy to boot? It is just cringy how Terry is described. (The Asian beauty with almond eyes.) I wasn't even at the 30% point and already suicide was mentioned, two instances of underage sex mentioned (with an adult) and one instance of what seems like a forced abortion (man paying for and probably making the underage girl abort her baby), and a cheating scumbag. (And later on in the book there are slut and fat-shaming.) Oh, and of course some shark kills! Which is the real reason to read these, right? Why in the world would Jonas let his underage daughter be one of the "Candy Girls" without even saying a word of protest? “I was hoping you might be able to use Dani behind the scenes, you know, assisting the film crew . . . something to keep her busy.” “Behind the scenes?” Erik laughs. “Your daughter’s eye-candy, Professor, and we can never have too much of that. Dani, as soon as you get settled, come find me and I’ll hook you up with wardrobe. They’ll pick out some nice bikinis, maybe a few after-hour numbers. We’ll pay you to be one of our Candy Girls, my pet name for our Daredevil groupies.” “Excellent.” Danielle’s gloating smile tweaks her father’s blood pressure. *** Also, I can do without shaming people for having body hair. It was just a silly and unneeded line. "God, I miss California. If I date one more woman with hairy legs, I think I’ll—" *** Erik points to the bow where a cocoa-brown African-American woman in a white thong bikini is posing before a photographer and two cameramen. “Not much of an actress, but who cares, she makes—” “I know, great eye-candy.” So, we have an almond-eyed Asian beauty and now a cocoa-brown African American...can't we describe POC without using food? And you don't have to keep reminding us that Terry's Asian as well. We remember! (Later on, there is an olive-skinned Italian as well.) I saw someone call these books "Shallow Entertainment" and they sure are that! I notice that he really likes to go into detail of describing how a female looks, using words like "shapely" a lot. Also, I noticed he points out skin color and eye color of the females often, but only one time did he mention the eye color of a man. I wonder why it is? So we know what eye color the females have when we fantasize about them? I mean, he writes them like "Eye Candy!" The girls on the boat are even called "Candy Girls" by the camera crew. It is basically "Girl's Gone Wild" with stupid daredevil stunts that get people killed. How has this film crew not been sued and how are they allowed to show the deaths on tv? I've never watched the real Girl's Gone Wild, but this book is similar to the Piranha (2010) movie, if you remember the GGW film crew, well, yeah, this book is like that, but with some hungry sharks and people who don't use their brains. Of course, the sex and nudity in this are not graphic or anything, but you get what I mean. That is because Steve does a lot of telling, and not showing. All the people in this book that get put in danger (and end up getting killed) are getting what they deserve. I would never say that about a real-life situation, toward a real victim, but seriously, these characters have bricks for brains. The camera, still looped around his neck, bounces against his chest— —calling out his name. Brian stares at temptation, his fear momentarily subsiding. 'The whale’s dying. Angel’s got to be circling below, waiting to feed again. One shot, just a quick one before you lose the light, then get to shore as fast as you can.' He stops paddling, allowing the kayak to drift as he glances back at Charlie. 'Calm and steady and the Meg won’t even know you’re here. One great shot of her next attack, just one killer shot.' 'Sorry Charlie, but that’s life in the food chain. Damn, this looks good. Okay, Angel, one more time for Daddy while we still have the light. Definitely a cover shot on National Geographic, maybe even Time . . .' This is why I root for the shark! A certain thing keeps happening in this book and jarring me out of the story. Steve Alten has a broken way of writing what are supposed to be suspenseful moments. Personally, I don't like this style. I don't know how to describe it, so I will show you. Balancing atop the wall, he runs back to the arena and the safety of the bleachers as fast as he can— —nitrogen bubbling in his bloodstream. Fergie bounds over another swell and pulls hard on his control strut— —as a powerful updraft catches the kite. Losing the wind, he plummets—a seabird with clipped wings— —as the Megalodon breeches, its head rising at him like a missile, its jaws yawning open, offering an impossible target to miss. Devin flees— —only to be confronted by an even bigger nightmare. This way of writing might be fine if it only happened a couple of times, but it is littered throughout the whole book. One last thing I want to add about Dani, which is a spoiler-ish. [Dani starts off as a teenage spoiled brat; there is no way to say it nicely. I liked how she grew and eventually stopped being such a pain, and she and her father started to see eye to eye again.] Don't get me wrong, despite my complaints, I really do like these books. As I said, it is nice to turn your brain off and enjoy some B movie type books.

Meg Origins (Meg #.05) 2/5 stars.

If you read and liked Meg, this tells the story of when Jonas first met the prehistoric shark. This book is interesting, to say the least. However, some of the writing was dry, dare I say boring. There were some repetitive chapter openings that annoyed me. I guess the editing team didn't notice. Once you notice these repetitive things, it is hard to keep from noticing them and it takes you out of the story. For example: In the Prologue "Captian George Nares stood defiantly on the heaving gun deck." In Chapter 1: "Captian Richard Danielson stood defiantly on the main deck." How does one stand defiantly? Do you stand in a Superman pose, with your hands on your hips? There were so many characters. I wrote a list of characters in case someone was important later on. Large casts are often forgettable. I counted about 20 characters (Plus some more that were not given proper names.) 90% of these people were not important. I liked how there was a nod to the Jaws movie. "Good God, Man! That's more than half the length of the Challenger. A creature that size... we'd need a bigger boat." Steve didn't copy Jaws. Maybe he was inspired somewhat, but the storyline of Meg is completely different from Jaws, yet people are going to still scream copycat. Misogyny, treatment of women. One girl in this is only known by her big boobs. I think she's given a name, but that's about it. You can tell this was written by a man by the way characters describe women. "...tan, oiled breasts two swollen grapefruits in the skimpy red bikini." "...hawkish eyes moved from the pair of jacks in his right hand to the D-cup breasts barely contained beneath the brunette's olive-green tee-shirt." How do you know they're D-cup? Did you measure them, or did she tell you? "Hey, so my boobs are d-cup." These are grown men, but they sound like they are teen boys who just discovered boobs. I'm not a prude by any means, but I can't say I liked this manner of describing people. I notice the men are never described this way. Don't get me wrong, I really do like these books. So far. Meg Origins should be saved only if you are a die-hard fan of the series, though. None of it is new info. It just goes into detail of what the first book already mentioned.

[out-of-this-dimension]

For the writing meme- 2, 14, 20?

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

I am really excited to jump back into Star-Crossed specifically for 2 things -- the Captain Dreadfang reveal and the Mr. B reveal.  These are both characters that I think will surprise the readers... hopefully in a good way?  There’s also another antagonistic figure (shown in the prologue-- the mysterious, supernatural figure) that I’ve yet to introduce that I’ve quickly become to adore in my headcanons.  He’s based off of a scrapped character from SF2 and I’ve taken some liberties with some of the worldbuilding I’ve been doing in my works to pad out his character.  That’s all I’mma say about him. 

The focus of Star-Crossed is the dynamic between Star Wolf and Star Fox, of course, but I wanted the bad guys to not necessarily be too random.  So I worked pretty hard on developing them and I hope people like them when they are (eventually) revealed.

No one will ever top Archie though.  I miss that guy.

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

It depends!  Sometimes I come up with the title after I’ve started writing.  Sometimes I come up with a title immediately. Burning Stars was titled almost at once but it started off being titled “Lost Among the Stars”.  Star-Crossed was titled almost at once, too.  Legacies Never Die was just called “Legacy” but that felt too generic so I changed it.  I did entertain calling it “Memento” or “Inheritance” but eh, I stuck with Legacies Never Die.  I really should get to wrapping up the next chapter of that because it’s been sitting mostly-done on my PC for like 3 months now lol.

My shorter pieces tend to have fluctuating titles as I write them.  Reservations started off being titled “Welcome to the Family”.  Rush started off as being named “Fortunan Sunsets”.  Expectations vs Reality was called “Knives” for the longest time.  Liminal Spaces was “Sargasso Nights” until towards the end of writing it.  

I tend to immediately come up with a good name or I just sub in a name until I think of something better, tbh.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

HNGHHHHH.  Let’s talk about hidden references and callbacks.

Star-Crossed is full of references to Burning Stars already.  Every time someone sends me feedback, they point out something different that’s a call to BS and I know they’re all just 1 gander at each other’s comments from realizing certain things.  I want to list them all out but I feel like it’ll spoil something later.  Just... the last chapter I posted has so many hints.  So many.  There’s overt ones like Savanna coming back from BS’s ending and mentions of Richard de Lyonne.  But there’s... more subtle ones too.  There’s also a huge foreshadowing moment in the upcoming chapter and it’s something Fox says.

I kick myself when I look back at my BS post-ending author’s note because I forgot to add that Klaus and Wolf were supposed to be implied to have been a couple.  I feel like it was implied but I hate myself for not stating it overtly at the end.  Same with Kevin Mouser being Mouser from the Hot Rodder’s brother-- the reason he broke into Archie’s manor was because he was hired by Richard to steal back a prototype weapon.  Richard bailing those people out at the end is supposed to be him bailing the Hot Rodders out.  Which was going to be my excuse as to why Katt wasn’t with them in SF64-- they were in jail for causing general shenanigans.  I didn’t get to go into that as much as I would have liked but I left the reference in for any keen observers.  

Could probably go on for ages but I’ll cut myself off there before I spoil something. :x 

[domoz]

I read War of the Spark last night (yes all of it, all last night.... its like that when you get into a book sometimes)

Thoughts, musings, gripes and spoilers under the cut.

I feel like I should start off by saying that I really liked the book. Like, enough to keep me reading through to 7 am kinda.... but it... suffers quite a few issues.

 I have always been very negative on how theyve handled releasing their stories for mtg. One would think that if they’re changing how the story is gonna be released from online to book form they would give a little more context in what the hell is going for people who are just jumping in here, but it feels like everything the gatewatch has ever been involved in is required reading to get a picture of whats going on.That and the fact that so much of what the hell is going on depends on stuff that happened in a prologue that hasn’t even been released yet. And when they do exposit its just ‘oh heres a summary of what happened, moving on’. Not super engaging. 

Yeah... Kaya (who... I don’t even know much about but shes a main character in this) and Ral and Vraska and Lavnia and some other character i dont even remember the name of were all buds and then shit went down and blah blah. Why didn’t they include that in the book? Why did they decide to go the route of making the book very confusing and spoiling the future story that has yet to be released?? its such a puzzling decision and i hate it.

The story itself was uh... very much an avengers/smash bros “everyone is here!” situation ... to the point where its not clear whos supposed to be important? like the gatewatch is, and the people in named chapters are but they make a big deal about kiora showing up and she’s mentioned once. Meanwhile Angrath gets a bunch of scenes and basically does nothing with them besides fight some zombies.

I dunno, if youre wondering if you should read it, wait until this prologue thing comes out in june and hopefully you'll be a little less lost then i was when reading it.

It does really feel like just a story you read to see what the gatewatch and your faves are doing. But you know, if you like tamiyo or tibalt then too bad youre out of luck. 

I got lucky in that a lot of mine were IN, so.... reactions on that (more heavy spoilers):

Ral - I am ... so happy with him in this. He written SO much better than he was in the original ravnica novels, he turns out not to be a villain like I was worried about but hes still kinda the bastard we love. Also he has a boyfriend? Its like.. a major sort of plot point but not really explained because its in that fucking prologue i assume. He seems nice though.

Lavnia - powerful , all of her drama, is not explained at all within the book itself.

Vraska - She also suffers from “everything important in my character arc happened in a story thats not out yet” syndrome. But shes still vraska, who I adore and shes in the story. And she and Jace hook up at the end which considering that Ixalan was actually well written and made that seem Good for both of them, I’m fine with.

Sarkhan - I dont even think his story will be covered much in this unreleased prologue but hes like... not evil or mind controlled by bolas now and hes works with ugin instead (which i also dont trust but at least he doesn’t make him lose his mind). Ugins little quip at the end about “you must have done something to make him very mad was... real good. I hope he gets a little chance to be redeemed and be less an asshole

Domri - i always kinda knew that the way i had him in my head probably didn’t line up much with wizards canon. but uh... awfully bold of wizards to go “here’s the youngest planeswalker! he’s like 16! lets kill him brutally!” They didn’t really make it clear in the text that hes like... very young (younger than Teyo) and his stupid actions are probably the result of being a dumb teen, so he just comes off like an asshole.

Teyo - new, obviously meant to be an audience surrogate but he has a crush on a girl named rat and hes trying so hard so I like him.

Niv Mizzet - horrid bastard man who i love. if he messes up ravnica i will destroy him.

Honorable shutout to Ob Nixilis for being just the right amount of villianous asshole, and to Dack Fayden (who i did not care about before because again with how they release stuff... i dont even know how to get a hold of the comics/books hes in) who got a lot of the book time being built up as someone who was getting willing to actually help and be a hero and then just fuckin dies.

Also honorable shout out to Maree, Arlinn and Narset who didn’t do much but were at least mentioned.

As for some less favorite moments:

Nissa comes back to do nothing but destroy vitu-gazi. (And then profess her love for chandra which i think does make it worth it in the end, so). But does anyone feel like they don’t know what to do with mono green characters? garruk is just fucking Gone, Nissa only just showed back up and viven was similarly not super relevant except to say to people that Nicol Bolas is Real Bad Guys!

Lilliana just spent the whole story going “i can’t betray bolas or ill die so i wont but i hate him :)”, and then when she decides that she actually would rather die than have him win and maybe redeem herself gideon takes the bullet for her. It was made clear that shes Genuinely Upset about but ... with her its too little too late all the time. At the very least she’ll probably be dealt with soon-ish? 

And gideon... I kinda went into it expecting that someone in the gatewatch would die, either him or jace. There were all sorts of ways they could have just as easily not killed him but they decided to do it so they wanted him written out for.. some reason? Like I said, at least Lilli feels bad about it, not that it will stop her from doing future villainous things.

They seeded their future villains a little obviously (3 of them being literally named dropped at the end of the book and Ob literally doing an evil laugh and leaving as soon as he got the chance) but I think it’ll be nice to not have a “one big evil villain is responsible for everything bad that ever happens ever” scenario for a little while.

[accidentally-logince]

Guardian Angel - Prologue

Summary: Virgil, sick of always dying and being resurrected again, decides to finally work out a way to end it for good. The only problem- he left Patton alone and depressed. Virgil makes it his goal to keep Patton alive until the time comes for him to join Virgil in the land of the dead. High School AU (kind of)

There will be a summary of the Prologue at the start of the first chapter. This happens to be one of the worst parts of the story in terms of subject matter, the rest of the story is much more tame. If you still want to read the story, there will be summaries of the more graphic chapters so that you aren’t required to read them. (I’d say there are maybe 3 or 4 graphic chapters in the whole story, out of at least 20 parts)

Warnings: Suicide mention, blood, food mention, Deceit (the character), mentions of cheating, self-harm mentions, death mention, swearing, minor mention of eating disorder 

Word Count: 2.5k (Totally short enough to be a Prologue, guys)

Pairings: Royality, future Moxiety

(This story does have some of the Sanders Shorts characters in it. There are recognizable ones like Remy/Sleep, but there are also more obscure ones. You don’t need to know the characters to understand the story)

---

I learned something today. 

An immortal can die without being killed by another immortal. 

It wasn't easy. But it's possible. And I plan on testing it out tonight. I already made the deal, and this is the perfect night to do it, because no one else will be around to watch. 

The city is usually quiet in the night. I don't expect to see cars all over the place. Maybe every hour or so there'll be some out-of-towners that are driving through, but pretty much everyone who lives here is either at the school watching the football game or sitting on their asses staring at their TVs. Which means that I'm stuck wandering around for awhile.

Around ten, headlights in the distance pierce through the darkness. A grin tugs at my mouth, and I slowly pull my hands out of my sweater pockets as the bus gets closer. While it technically won't matter in the end, some part of me says that I have to time this perfectly.

I don't remember exactly when I start running, only that one second I was on the sidewalk, and the next I was in the line of fire of the bus. I lift my arm, the cuts under my jacket protesting at the movement, while the bus driver freaks out in his seat. My hand opens quickly, and a pulse shoots out around me. The bus stops, the driver mid-scream, and my breathing is heavy. It worked.

I look up. The clouds are still. None of the stars twinkle. The full moon is clear. I'm the only thing that moves. I can't help giving a little laugh of relief. If this part worked, then, with luck, I'll be dead by the end of the night.

For a few seconds, I just grin up at the bus, breathing heavily as I put my hands back into my pockets. Then I turn around and walk down the street, leaving the frozen bus behind me.

---

The school is barely lit up, since the game is outside on the field. When I push the door open, only the front lobby has its lights on, and there are tables with food on them. And, of course, who do I see there but Demitri, frozen in time just like the bus, leaning against the table with a plastic cup in one hand. 

Over the last few years, Dee has become infamous around town. I've seen evidence of him putting up graffiti all around the city, but he's tagged just about every surface in the school at least once. It's not uncommon to come into school and see his name plastered on your locker. 

He's been suspended no less than twenty times, and it's a mystery why he hasn't been expelled yet. The rumour being spread is that his family is paying the school, and I wouldn't doubt it— Dee is the richest kid in school, and he's a total spoiled brat. I still wonder why we hang out with him.

I start to make my way out to the field, but before I reach the door, I turn back around and nail Demitri's frozen form right in the nuts. 

"I hope you break the table when you fall over, asshole." Without any sound around, my voice is clear. I hope he hears it in his head when everything unfreezes. I hope someone comes in and finds him with chocolate spilled all over his stupid coat, and all the damn food on the floor. 

Outside, the stands are packed. I always wondered why everyone cared so much about the school sports teams. Honestly, none of us were really good. Maybe Roman, if anyone

Speaking of Roman...

I scan the crowd, looking for the letterman jacket—in all the years we'd been friends, I don't think any of us ever changed our wardrobes. I find Remy Delacore, glaring up at someone behind him. I follow his gaze to find Roman in the fourth row, with his arm around Patton, leaning back in his seat.

Was it really any surprise that Roman and Patton had gotten together? They'd been "best friends" forever. They were inseparable, especially now. They literally never left each other's side. Every night, they would either be at Roman's house or Patton's, laying asleep on the couch with the TV on in front of them.

Roman had cheated on Remy with Patton for three months before he found out. Remy was quick to break up with him after that, and if you'd been anywhere near Roman for the next few weeks, all you would hear about was how much of a relief it was for Rem to finally be out of the picture. It got really annoying really quick. I'm glad it stopped after a month. 

But it isn't Roman I'm worried about. It's Patton.

Sometimes, I wonder if his relationship with Roman is just a way to keep him feeling important. Patton is... he's not really a happy kid, to put it lightly. I always felt like I connected with him the most because of that. He never talks about it with anyone else but me. Demitri for obvious reasons, but he doesn't want Roman to worry about him, either.

He's showed me the cuts on his arms and legs, and—for a little while— his ribs that you could see through his skin if he pulled up his shirt. I'd eventually been able to talk with him enough that he eats regularly, but it still seems that almost every day he'll bump into something and wince, rubbing at his arms. I feel bad for him, hypocritical as that may be. Twice now, I've stolen bottles of pills from his room so he couldn't use them.

"Virgil. Come on. You know it won't stop if I keep going."

"No. Think of Roman. What would this do to Roman? And me. I'd miss you too, Pat. We'll both wish we'd done more."

"Roman... He'll eventually realize that things are better without me. And you already know I can't stop."

"I don't care. I'll help you get better even if it takes a lifetime. You're more important than a lot of people, Patton. Don't you forget that."

I don't think he ever realized that I was talking about myself.

The bright lights on the field blind me when I look away from the bleachers, and I turn back to the school. 

I pass Dee in the lobby again, and I sit down on the steps with my chin in my hands. I flip him off, my arms once again crying out in pain. I roll up my sleeve. X's and lines litter my skin. They only really sting when I move my arm a lot. It feels... unfitting for tonight. I push myself up, rolling down my sleeve, and make my way down the dark hallway, running my hand against the wall.

The door to the home ec room isn't locked, and I flick the lights on to find the kitchens still a mess. No one cared enough to clean up after class, I guess. I walk into one of the tiny kitchens, opening the knife drawer and pulling out the biggest blade I can find.

---

I leave the home ec room with freshly bleeding gashes. I untie my sweater from around my waist— I hadn't wanted it in the way— and pull it over my arms. It immediately starts to stick to me, drenching in blood quickly. 

A gash on my forehead drips down toward my eye, and I close it just as the drop of blood runs down to my cheek. My depth perception is a little fucked up now, but I don't wipe the blood away. I let it dry, sticking my eye shut loosely.

The bathroom lights don't flicker on automatically when I push the door open, and I feel around for the switch before making my way to the sinks. I place my hands onto the counter and lean forward, staring myself down in the mirror. The sink below me is full of water, with a wad of tissue clogging up the drain. A drop of blood falls into the pool and swirls around before settling at the bottom. 

Seeing my face covered in blood secures me, as strange as that may seem. I think it's the certainty it gives me. I'm still somehow human. I can bleed. I can feel pain. Oh, god, can I feel the pain. A collection of stinging and throbbing and the heat coming from the exposed skin. It's really therapeutic. 

I laugh out loud. This is how a psychopath thinks, right? 

But I think I've put this off long enough. 

I leave the bathroom, shutting the light off behind me. I leave the lobby, kicking Demitri in the nuts once more for good measure. 

It's weird to be outside and not feel at least a little bit of cold wind nipping at my ears. I raise my arm up, the cuts screaming at me, and feel no air passing between my fingers. It's still cold out though; the temperature isn't affected by the time stopping.

I find the bus again. The driver's eyes are still wide open. It's weird to think that for him, no time at all has passed. For Roman and Patton and Dee, I was never at the school. When I lift my hand again, they won't know that they were frozen. It's still 10:07. It's been 10:07 for almost two hours now.

I stand right in front of the bus. It hadn't slowed down enough before I stopped it. My hand balls into a fist. This better work. If I wake up in my bed, free of pain, my skin clear... I'm going to lose it.

I gave that demon a lot of shit for my death.

My hand raises up again and the pulse from before rewinds itself, running back towards me as the bus starts moving. It hits me almost immediately, and I'm thrust backwards, my head smashing against the pavement. 

---

I lift my head, pushing myself up in rage at the lack of pain in my limbs, until I look down.

I thought I'd woken up in my bed, but I see a body below me, eyes closed, blood seeping out onto the road as the bus driver runs out of his seat to come to its side. I float up, away from the body, and can feel the rise and fall of wings carrying me up by my command.

My wings.

My body.

My blood.

I'm dead.

Of course I've been in this state before. I'll wake up and rise up on angel wings, away from my dead body. I usually have to actually wait until morning before I wake up in bed, so only time will tell if I stay dead. I don't want to jinx myself, but I float down, right next to the driver's ear.

"Thank you," I whisper, and I fly off as he looks around.

But I know he can't see me.

---

The sun rises, and still I'm in the sky. My wings are still on my back. I stand right in front of the crowd of kids walking into the school, and none of them acknowledge me. In fact, a lot of them walk straight through me.

I sit down in my usual seat in class. It'll be fun to watch the day without having to do anything. The morning announcements play, and the teacher starts to ramble on about... something. I don't really care enough to pay attention. I notice Patton casting glances at my seat. He's probably wondering where I am.

I'm right here.

But I'm not, at the same time. I smile. Isn't this fun?

"Demitri Maverik, Logan Crofter, Roman Prince, and Patton Meadows to the Principal's office."

They start to stand up, Logan looking especially worried. I might as well follow them. They're my friends after all. Besides, I think I might know why they're being called. 

There are four seats in front of Principal Woodfield's desk. Of course, no one could have known I would be here, so I just stand behind Patton, leaning against the door.

"Boys... I'm sure you noticed the absence of your friend Virgil in class this morning."

"Not really," Demitri says, rolling his eyes. I see Patton fiddling with the zipper on his coat, looking down at his lap. I take a step forward and put my hand on his shoulder. I hope he can feel it, at least a little bit. Out of everything, I think I feel the worst about leaving Patton.

"Well... um... he was found in the street this morning..." Woodfield starts, her eyes darting around. She's trying to stall, but Roman catches on quickly.

"Found?" he asks. "Do you mean, like... like was he passed out?" Okay, maybe not so quickly.

"No, he was... well, he was... dead, boys."

Patton's head shoots up. "What?"

"I'm sorry boys. He was hit by a bus last night."

"No. No, you're lying," Patton says. Tears well up in his eyes, but he tries to smile. It's weak. "You're joking. Dee payed you or something. Virgil's gonna... he's gonna jump out... a-and say 'gotcha' or something..." He looks around desperately, trying to find me.

I'm right here!!!

I walk out in front of him and hug him as he cries. I hope he can feel me hugging him. I hope he can understand I'm still here. I hope, I hope, I hope...

Roman leans over and puts his arms around Patton as well. Dee scoffs beside us and mutters something about "get a room". Across the room, Logan has gone still, no doubt trying to process the information. I want to console him too, so I stretch one of my wings out and stroke his cheek. He lifts his hand to his cheek, holding it to the spot where my wing is touching him. If I relax my eyes enough, I can even make it look like he's grabbing the edge of it. Like he knows it's there.

I realize all at once that this is what's best. For everyone.

Just because I'm dead doesn't mean that I can't still be around them. They just won't know that I'm here. But I know now more than ever that I need to protect them. I have to make sure that they know I still care. I'll figure out a way to make sure they know. I think I can do that better now than when I was alive.

Not everyone is meant to be alive. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made so that someone gets their Guardian Angel. 

---

My Other Fics

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[ask-danganronpa-students]

My impressions of Danganronpa : Killing Harmony.

If you are fine with being spoiled or already know everything about the game then you can read this ^^

So! As I said here is what I thought of the game! I’m not really used to do game review so don’t expect too much! I’m going to talk about each chapter and then I will answer some of your questions ^^ Prologue : Really interesting, I liked how they started it by showing bits of all the previous game, really helped “hyping” the game. The story of the prologue was also really good like I was really into it and having some mysteries right from the beginning was a good idea! :)

I also was really happy to be able to play a female protagonist (poor naive me).

Chapter 1 :

Okay so. That chapter destroyed me. And I doubt I’m the only one xD

BUT. I was really not a big fan of the way we had been “tricked” into thinking that the protagonist for this game was a girl. Like with the rest of the game I learned to love Shuichi but damn. Let the girl be the main hero at least once.

Aaaand…Rantaro was one of the character I loved the most. And he was soooo interesting!! When I first saw him I was sure that he was going to be one of the last students alive. Boy was I wrong. I nearly stopped playing when I saw that he was THE FIRST victim. I understand why they did it but for me it’s still a BIG waste of potential. (Plus I’m still bitter that we don’t know his talent. Like he is supposed to be the Ulitimate Survivor but what was his talent in the previous killing game?) Kaede “murder” wasn’t that well thought but since it was more or less something decided at the last moment/day I guess it’s okay. Plus when it got explained I remember thinking “well she was still (un)lucky that it really fell on him and didn’t miss him”…Well…

Her execution��Damn. Poor Kaede…Like when she got dragged away and Shuichi was trying to grab her hand…My heart… And the last scene in her lab with the music finished destroying my heart.

Chapter 2 :

I liked this chapter just fine but to be honest the chapter 1 was soooo “big” that the chapter 2 seemed almost lacking.

I didn’t mind the way they brought back the “motive video” with the new twist. It was interesting. I laughed way too hard at the Bug Meeting XD Kukichi had the right idea once again but he really should have explained everything right from the beginning but well, he wouldn’t be him if he had done so haha! At first I found Kaito really obnoxious (and I thought he was going to be the killer when he asked me to meet him outside and then take off my jacket, like I thought he had stolen my room key and was going to see his motive) but he was really well written so I quickly started liking him ^^

Ryoma…I found him really interesting too so I was really sad to see him be the next victim. Especially the way/reason for his death…Like damn. He really needed a hug, not someone to murder him.

Kirumi was really smart, her murder was nearly perfect and even the way she tried to manipulate everyone after her trial… Also I couldn’t help but cheer for her when she ran away even if I knew that it was useless. And the CG we got when she was running for her life while saying that she wasn’t going to die…Damn… Her execution too…She tried so hard…And yet…

Chapter 3 :

Sooo…I liked Angie at first, she was cute and her sprites were really funny. But she really started creeped me out in chapter 2 and by the time we got to chapter 3 I was really hoping that she would be the next victim (yes, shame on me, but I liked the others farr better >w

So when we discovered Angie body instead of being “oh no she is dead” I was more “couldn’t she at least resurrect him before dying?!”…Yes, I know, shame on me. But c’mon, Rantaro was one of my fave! (I hoped for his return until the last second of the game)

I think it was at the end of the previous chapter that we learned Maki talent and if at first the way she acted reminded me a bit too much of Kirigiri the way she was developped was really good and I liked her more and more with every chapter!

Plus the scene where Kaito hugs her bc he is afraid was just too cute haha!

Back to the murders! When Korekiyo suggested to do a seance and said that it would have to be pitch black and be into one of the three room I knew right away that one new murder was going to happen. But I thought that Kiyo was the one who was going to die (and that Kaito would be the killer). Until I heard Tenko said that she would do it and saying all those things to Himiko. At that point she had so much death flags around her that there was no way that could survive. I didn’t like her that much at first but chapter 2 (trial) and chapter 3 really made me like her so I was sad to know that she was going to be killed.

Also am I the only one who saw a lot of commun things between Himiko/Tenko and Saionji/Mahiru? And between the 3rd chapter’s murder(er) of sdr2 and v3?

I don’t have much to say about the trial appart…wtf Korekiyo!?

The CG of Kiyo and his sister with the little * was funny though XD

I was pretty neutral about him (hadn’t seen a lot of his FTE) and his trial didn’t really made me feel pity for him so I wasn’t too sad that he got executed.

I’m still really curious about how a character could have been brought back to life…

Chapter 4 :

The concept of this chapter was really interesting!! I’m not going to lie I was a bit disappointed with how they treated Miu, she was supposed to be a genius but she hadn’t been really useful until that moment. And even when she talked in trial she mostly said stupid/dirty things.

Also I couldn’t help but think that most of the things she did build was the same things that Souda could have done so I would have liked to see more special things about her ^^

But her idea for the murder was just really good. Her only mistake was to target Ouma. He is the smartest character of the game. Don’t pull anything on him. He WILL know. And he did and was able to act against it.

Let’s talk about the trial. I really liked how it went. The way Kokichi spilled everything because people were telling him that the truth was always better, just to show them how terrible the truth can be. One of the part that really made me stop for a second was the moment everyone was telling him to stop harrassing Gonta and he just said something like “oh, but you were all fine with ganging up on me earlier?”. He had a lot of moments like this when he just become serious and says things that make you think and I loved it.

About Gonta. Okay…Hear me out. How cool would it have been if Gonta had actually done all this by himself and was just pretending to be “stupid” since the beginning but was in fact a bit like Celeste (in the way that he was fooling everyone and waiting for the right time)

Don’t misunderstand, I love Gonta, got heartbroken over his crying sprites/voice but at one point during his trial I was like “omg don’t tell me that he his actually evil!? No way!!” and yeah, he wasn’t.

I’m really bad with bugs (sorry Gonta) so his execution was even worse for me than it would have been with something else.

Also I remember being really curious about the motive and frustrated that AI Gonta wouldn’t say anything x)

Chapter 5:

Can you just imagine how different the story would have been if Miu had trusted the others with her inventions? Just…Why, Miu??

So…I know a lot of you love Kaito and I do too but I was really hoping during all the chapter that he was the one who had died. Of course things never go as I want to.

Once again we were able to see how smart Kokichi was and the way we were able to glimpse a bit at his true feelings was, well…At least we got something out of his death T_T

And can we talk about his death? Out of all the death since the beginning of the DR games I think it was one of the most horrible.

To be honest when we saw the moment where Kaito told Maki to run and that he was going to do something I thought that he was going to kill himself. That way Maki wouldn’t have been the blackened and no one else would be executed. I also thought that Kukichi had done this to his body so it would be “less boring”. Of course it couldn’t have been so easy.

Can you even imagine the inteligence of Kokichi though? He was able to write a whole scenario for what would happen during the trial? Who could have done that??

Kaito’s execution…Well in your face Monokuma! Congrats Kaito! I wasn’t sad for him even if I really liked him because he was able to go out with a bang, like a true hero.

Also Maki’s confession and teary sprite…My heart…

Chapter 6:

Sooo…I knew that something was going to happen with Keebo when we saw that he got hurt during Kaito’s execution…But I didn’t expect that XD

But he was badass.

I really like the exploring (Kokichi’s bedroom and lab please) and the concept of “time left”. Plus finally knowing more about Rantaro was a good thing.

For the trial and the big reveal……I’m not a big fan? Like I don’t know the direction the game took was a bit too “breaking the fourth wall” and a bit too insisting on the whole “this is the last game”. Tsumugi was really good as a mastermind though, I didn’t expect it at all, and especially not like that!

But, but. I’m going with the last suggestion Shuichi made : that most of the thing they remember are in fact true. Let me explain.

Tsumugi said that the “light” put informations/new memories into your brain. But for me it’s more likely that it could only overwrite/modify memories. There is no way that it was able to create Talent. And just thinking that you have a talent doesn’t make you suddenly talented. And we were able to see with multiple characters (like Miu) that they were indeed true Ultimate. Plus creating a personality doesn’t give you an illness, or make you fall in love (especially since it didn’t happen right away). Also I get that they were suposed to be all fan of the game but how were they able to have all this technology (like Monokuma) if it was really just a game? So I can’t say for sure what is true and false right now because IT IS complicated but for me they were real Ultimate and most of their personalities/memories were true.

Next…Noooo Keebo!! Not you too!!

In your face Tsumugi! Bye, bye Monokuma (he made me laugh so much during the trial, especially when he said things like “you can’t end this game…Or I’ll be out of job!” and “Everyone love me, I can even become like this *become ultra muscular*)

I thought the game was going to end with an open-ending like “are they still alive?” but I’m glad it didn’t. But damn, only 3 survivors? And nearly all of my fave are dead…

Soooo that’s all for my opinion on each chapter, I probably forgot a lot of things but you know most of it! Now I’ll try to answer questions I got about the game!

Who are my favorites characters?

With how I talked about him that will surprise absolutely no one but : Kokichi!

He is not the only one though, in no particular order: Rantaro, Keebo, Maki, Shuichi, Kaede, Tenko.

Will I play the V3 characters?

Yes! I love them so much that I absolutely want to play them. But I have a few things to think about ;

On this blog or another? Having them all on this blog might be a bit too much, don’t you think? 16 more characters and yeah I don’t want to only play the survivors….Let me know what you think about it!

How? By that I mean what story can I do that will let them be on a blog and all alive? I can go with them having been put on a simulation too like the dr2 cast or I can make it so as if all the death weren’t real and they were in fact still all keeped alive somewhere (one of the only way I could see the resurrection that should have happened in chapter 2 work), maybe they were put in a simulation where they really “experimented” their death. Or I can go with the story of the bonus mode (that it was for a love show and not a killing game) but that would take away a lot of things…

Do you ship some of the characters?

If you know me then you know that yes, of course I do XD

Shuichi x Kaede (the FTE and the scene at the love hotel made me ship it even more)

Kaito x Maki

Gonta x Tsumugi (before knowing that Tsumugi was the mastermind, now I don’t know if I still ship them)

Himiko x Tenko

Keebo x Kokichi / Kokichi x Rantaro (I was shipping those two before the game and the really few things that happened between them still make me ship them, like how Kokichi called Rantaro “my dearest” when he found him dead or how he kept his statue in his bedroom) So I don’t know with who I ship Kokichi x)

And I think that’s all! Tell me if I forgot something!

-mod lili

[thesummonerofaskr]

Salt 3: Fire Emblem Fates, the Story

Post under the read more

I decided to go ahead and make this since I am currently sick, agitated, and ready to rant about something. I've poked fun at Fates' narrative or outright insulted it before, but I've never said anything about why it's bad. Why is that? Well that would probably be because most Fire Emblem fans are expected to hate Fates' story at this point and so saying that you hate it is just a given. But you know what? I can do better then that. I've done it twice already, so why not? Now to be fair, I will admit I'm a bit spoiled. My first Fire Emblem game was Path of Radiance, a Fire Emblem game considered to have one of the best stories in the series this side of Genealogy of the Holy War. So when I went in and played Awakening, with its fun-yet-busted gameplay and yet still flawed narrative, I was slightly disappointed. I still love Awakening and how it helped save the series, but I'm not above saying it could've been better. Still, when Fates, or rather "if," was announced, I couldn't help but fall in love with the premise. Two families, two different storylines, and a choice to make on which side you would follow? The ability to customize your own personal fortress? It sounded like a dream come true. But then the game to the States and... it crushed sales. You know why Fates gets all the seasonal units in Heroes alongside Awakening? It's because those games sold well, so of course they're going to get more attention whether we like it or not. However, Fates did disappoint... a lot... with the execution of its narrative. I feel like we all convinced ourselves that this was going to be the best game ever only to get something sub-par, which to the hyped up fan can end up being the worst thing ever. Where did Fates fail and how can it be improved? Well that's what I'd like to explore.

Prologue: If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Fates may not have been the best game in the world, but it certainly wasn't the worst. If you ask some people in the fandom about Fates, they'll get onto their high horse and tell you that everything about Fates was horrible, there wasn't a single redeeming factor, and it single-handedly ruined the entire franchise to such a degree that it took Echoes being made to save it. (And if I ever get around to beating Echoes, I'm sure I could make a rant on how little fun I've been having with it, to the point where I can't beat it.) Those people are... exaggerating. So before we jump into the negativity, I'll offer some positives. For starters, much as with Awakening, I found myself getting attached to a good majority of the characters. Sure there were exceptions (Niles and Hayato), but there always are and that doesn't necessarily make the characters bad for the purpose they were created. Secondly, the village customization was everything I hoped it would be. Yes, I did enjoy playing around with the My Castle feature. I've always been a bit of a world builder, driving my interest in RTS games like Age of Empires and the original Warcraft, and even a small little thing like this got me thinking on how to make my castle pretty. Gameplay mechanics introduced in Awakening were fixed. Pair Up mechanics were no longer broken and allowed you to be more strategic regarding both offensive and defensive measure. Archers and Knights were made not only useful, but amazing, and so characters you wouldn't have used in other games suddenly becomes amazing in this one. Personal skills now exist and even a few of those aforementioned people will turn around and say they would bring personal skills back for future installments. The music... why would people even hate the soundtrack? It was absolutely beautiful. As a sucker for both Japanese and Celtic music, I can certainly say there was not a track in this game that I despised. And I know that some people like how battles get their own music in other games before Awakening, but I've never been fond of that. It feels like I don't get to hear enough of the music in game before it switches over to Battle and back, again and again, until the Enemy Phase... Thanks Echoes. Also, dagger weapons... I hope those return next game to be honest. I don't expect there to be a duality like in Fates, but I do hope there's at least some manner of throwing debuff weapon.

Perhaps this wasn't the most eloquently written paragraph in the history of the world, but I did want to at least start off on a high note... now let's delve into the topic at hand, shall we?

Chapter 1: Pre-Determined Destiny

One of the first issues with Fire Emblem Fates was how it was advertised versus how it was shipped. One of the things we saw leading up to the game's release was how there was going to be a choice between which side you wanted to affiliate with. Would you stand with your blood family, the Kingdom or Hoshido, or the family that raised you, the Kingdom of Nohr? It was a question that actually got a lot of people both excited and competetive, a light battle that I'd only seen in the Warcraft fandom, though not nearly as tense and hostile as Alliance vs. Horde to be fair. But then tragedy immediately struck when it was revealed that to make your choice, you had to purchase the right game for it, split between Birthright and Conquest. That's one hell of a way to make this seeming question lose its meaning. The first five chapters are spent introducing you to both Nohr and Hoshido and by Chapter 6 you're supposed to make your decision based on what you know and how you feel, but that will only work if you had purchased the Special Edition of Fates or, more realistically, if you'd ended up paying the extra $20 to put the other side on your 3DS digitally. Otherwise you'll end up with a 50% chance on whether you now want to side with the kingdom you bought ther version for still or if you'll end up like "wait no I actually want to side with the others," but you can't because this is the version of the game you paid for, kiddo.

It stank of greed to a lot of people and there were even comparisons made to Pokemon as a result. Now to be fair, these comparisons are still completely incorrect. Birthright and Conquest, and the third story released later in Revelations, do in fact tell different stories. There's more major differences in the narrative then which units you get. But it overall came up to $80 in total. Couldn't you have just put Birthright and Conquest on the same cartridge and then made Revelations cost $40 on its own then? Well no, that still would've pissed people off and for good reason. I feel bad for cartridge owners who wanted the game. I heard there was a way to get both on cartridge for $60, but I bought all my Fates content digitally, so I cannot confirm. There's no real way to improve this because it was on Nintendo's marketing for giving the illusion that the choice came in game, not immediately based on version.

Chapter 2: The Avatar of Salt

Honestly self-insert characters are the worst. In a game like The Legend of Zelda, it works because the story takes a backseat to gameplay and Link doesn't need to be anything more then the silent hero who will save the day and bring peace to Hyrule no matter what the challenges are that come to test him. Fire Emblem doesn't get that luxury. Being a tactical RPG that weaves both story and gameplay together as important as the other, it needs characters that can serve to further the narrative while still being interesting and enjoyable. None should be more so then the main character of the game, especially if they're a major talker in the story. RPGs like Suikoden and Persona can get away with not having the main character say much because the focus goes into secondary characters more so then the primary one and so you can enjoy them more extensively, watching them interact amongst each other as well, but Fire Emblem doesn't often bring secondary characters into the main narrative and usually reserves their development and storyline importance for supports to look into. Awakening and Fates are especially guilty of this, with the former utilizing mainly Chrom, the Avatar, Frederick, and Lissa over anyone else. In Fates, it would be the Avatar, Azura, and the royals. So it is important that these characters at least be able to carry the story well enough and... they don't always. But Awakening gets some leeway in that its self insert Robin, while plot integral enough to be a flaw on Awakening's story, is not the main character. That would actually be Chrom. Fates' Avatar, Corrin, serves as both the self insert... and the main character. It goes about as well as you expect.

Many consider Corrin to be the worst lord in the series, more so then even Roy, Eliwood, and Gaiden!Alm before Echoes turned him into a good boy. A lot of this is because of how static Corrin is. In the first five chapters, Corrin is given some leeway because they are still sheltered and naive. They were raised by the Nohrian royals, who are not complete monsters like their father, and so of course they would be horrified at the thought of executing prisoners for fun. After being kidnapped by Hoshido and shown around, they would of course expect to die, be confused by their circumstances, and only after a horrific traumatic effect bringing back their memories ends up disturbed by what happened to them. These five chapters were better storywise then the rest of the game by far because after choosing their side and going through an admittedly heartfelt battle... they seem to just settle in and end up a static character. Whether it's the justified avenger in Birthright or the suffering deceiver in Conquest, they never really show any change in their character. There's no major development for them as they have to stay in a certain role that is easy to insert themself into, even though in some cases they also fail in this.

Revelations is the worst in this regard. Corrin keeps their naivete to the very end. This gets them into a lot of trouble with a certain character who ends up betraying the group, yet this behavior is never called out on. In fact, their overtrusting nature is commended and encouraged, which I suppose is natural considering the fact that they were manipulated by both Hoshido and Nohr in their own right. Obviously Nohr was manipulating Corrin into believe they were of Nohrian decent, but Hoshido, or rather... only Ryoma, never bothered to let Corrin know the truth that they were adopted. I suppose they would want Corrin to remain the same way. It gives them further leeway over Corrin in the future.

I know there are people who like Corrin the way they are, especially the female Corrin, though how much of that is between her looks and the fact that one out of all six voices has the best performance in Chapter 5's cutscene and it's her default voice I don't know, but if I had to change the story without removing Corrin in order to preserve the original premise of choosing one of your two families, I would definitely have Corrin "mature" throughout each path in a different way. In Birthright, I would have them start off as bitter towards Garon for what happened to Mikoto, but still not hating Nohr and so being angry at characters like Hinoka, Takumi, and Oboro for their constant racist tendencies. As they progress, however, they see what Nohr has done to their people and so they feel that Nohr would be much more prosperous under Hoshidan rule. On the other side, Conquest's Corrin would still want to change Nohr from the inside and that would be the ultimate goal regardless, but going into Hoshido, they would notice all of these goods, all this food and luxury, that Hoshido's been hoarding to itself. They might think conquering Hoshido would be good for Nohr in more ways then one and so feel less sympathetic when going through the battles. Revelations' Corrin is such an enigma that I feel like the game would need to be drawn out longer to justify everything that happened in it. Corrin gets both families working together half way in, so I guess they would feel that being the same would work out. I guess you can't win them all.

Chapter 3: Black and White, for what is Gray and Grey?

Whenever you play a Fire Emblem game, you usually see multiple perspectives. The enemy's side has good people in it and so you might be inclined to sympathize with them to a degree while the good guys still have to deal with issues of internal corruption and strife. Tellius did a good job with this as there were people within Daein who could not stand Ashnard's rule despite being forced to follow him, such as Jill's father, while Begnion had its internal corruption in spades between the massive racism against Laguz that allowed slave trafficking to progress as far as it did, especially in the hands of senators like Oliver. Radiant Dawn furthered this by having Daein in such a state of suffering to Begnion after the war in the first game that our heroine Micaiah is leading a revolution within. Even Awakening did this to a small degree in its first third with the character Mustafa, a Plegian general who had been touched by Emmeryn's words after her death, offered to shelter Chrom and the Ylisseans if they surrendered, and who allowed his men to leave if they so desired because of how hard they found it to fight with the knowledge of what they'd done, though none of them ended up leaving after his compassion and so chose to fight and die for him.

You'd think with Fates' premise, it would be the perfect Gray on Grey story, with both Hoshido and Nohr having its goods and bads. Unfortunately that is not the case. In many aspects, it looks incredibly like Hoshido did nothing wrong and does nothing wrong ever while Nohr is essentially Nazi Germany. Hoshido wanted to stay out of a war. They even have a barrier around the country that makes enemy soldiers lose the will to fight, keeping everything seemingly peaceful. What a bloody MacGuffin that barrier is, but hey, the Nohrians found a way to combat it by calling upon the Faceless, soulless creatures that can rampage villages even in the barriers, though they are so monstrous they can even kill the mages that summoned them if not properly controlled. I wonder who the baddies are in this situation.

For starters, Hoshdio's food hoarding needs to be addressed by the Nohrian royals as a reason for Nohr to invade. Nohr's conditions as a practically barren wasteland where food cannot easily grow also needs to be brought up. Hoshido also needs an equivalent to Hans and Iago. Some might point out Kotaro, but he is not actually a part of Hoshido and so does not count. Even if they cannot be as bad as the aforementioned two, they need to be a driving force of antagonism that can make Hoshido at least look less then perfect. Perhaps their racism against Nohrians can make Oboro look like an equal opportunist. Or maybe they act nice on the outside, but are secretly plotting to usurp Mikoto and take the throne for themselves. Speaking of which...

Chapter 4: The Father, the Mother, and the Holy Spirit

What are the similarities between Mikoto and Garon? You might say that there is no simlarity, that both could not be more different in any single manner. But after Chapter 5 and in Revelations, there are two simlarities between the two. They also share these simlarities with Sumeragi. Both are dead and possessed by Anankos. This causes Mikoto be removed from the story and it is the reason why Garon is an old tyrannical cunt more one-dimensional then the inability to conceive the horizontal and vertical. These characters are nothing more then wasted potential. The former gives Corrin their memories of Hoshido back with her death and the latter is a walking giant with a sign pointing at him in neon letters saying "I'm basically Ivan the Terrible in Fire Emblem!" Certainly there must be ways to make better use of them, yes?

The first step is avoiding that anime urge to kill off Mikoto. That's right... don't have her die. Instead, let her remain the driving force for Hoshido as she is injured so much she cannot keep the barrier up, but otherwise remains alive. You might argue that this wouldn't be fair to Nohr as Garon is already the way he is and that it goes against the pre-determined ending of both Ryoma and Xander being made the kings of each country respectively, but it would also allow us to build up Mikoto more then just this "perfect messiah" figure in a similar vein to Emmeryn and maybe even make her more memorable as a character. Now in Revelations, she might get killed and brought back just because it is what it is in that damn story, but in Birthright, there's a chance for her to grow as a leader when she learns of how Nohr has been suffering and so does not hesitate in offering diplomacy when Leo is instated as King. In Conquest, we could see her being the driving force for Ryoma to be as uncharacteristically desperate to get Corrin back as he turns out to be, encouraging him to do whatever it takes, even if it means forsaking his honor. Sounds rather ruthless, I know, but hell hath no fury like a mother scorned after all.

But what about Garon? Well Garon's issue is that he has no traits outside of being evil. What he used to be like is all told in supports. And we all know that "show, don't tell" is the golden rule of writing, so why is Garon nothing but evil when an Anankos possessed Mikoto is able to act kind and loving? My proposal is that Garon is shown to have a more loving side. For instance, what if he actually expressed happiness that Azura was brought back as opposed to... brushing her off? It would be heavily out of character to how we know him now, but it would definitely fit the descriptions of him as a loving father we've been told by Xander, Camilla, and Leo. It would also make putting him down all the more sad in Conquest when we're revealed to his true form, building onto the whole "tragedy" feel that it's supposed to have all the way through as opposed to this cathartic break until possessed Takumi. "But then why would he be evil? Why would he want to conquer Hoshido?" If diplomacy failed and Garon was pushed to that point in life, he might've kept his new perspective on conquering in death. He has men like Hans and Iago around to give him the results he needs and they could be seen as the ones manipulating him into doing evil, except Corrin and Azura know the truth thanks to that crystal ball. All I'm saying is that making Garon less of a twat would give Nohr that push it needs to be more reasonable a pick. As opposed to picking it because your brothers are hot... oh, and about that...

Chapter 5: Genealogy of the Holy Fate

And now the Jugdral fans will tear me apart for that joke. Time to jump into the triggering topic of incest. Now I'm going to go ahead and make this section mercifully short, even if it still requires a trigger warning, but what I am going to say is that these supports were an utter mistake. For starters, on Hoshido's side, you initially believe you're blood related to them. Why is Mikoto writing letters to everyone but Ryoma on the off chance that they fall in love with their middle sibling? What kind of mother does that? That's just stupid. And even though Ryoma knows the truth, he should still see Corrin as a sister regardless. They're in-laws. Are you kidding me? On the Nohrian side of things, they may not have ever been blood related, but Corrin was raised there for so long that them developing any feelings for the Nohrian siblings is even closer to developing feelings for an actual brother and sister then it would be for Hoshido's side.

It's amazing that the actual incestuous couple is more understandable then the pseudo-ones. Corrin and Azura together were a very popular pair when they were first revealed in the same vein of Chrom and Robin being a popular pair. Two main characters, very close together, it all ends up working out in that manner. The problem is that Revelations drops in one line something that isn't stated in any support conversations, world building lines, or any part of the story apart from that one line, that one sentence of dialogue from a dying Mikoto that killed an entire ship. "Azura's mother and I are sisters." Corrin and Azura barely knew each other as they were raised in entirely different kingdoms. They were perfect strangers until Mikoto stated this. Now they're first cousins and so the once beloved ship is so problematic that your previous posts praising it are probably getting you anon hate even now unless you delete them.

The solution to this is obvious. Remove the ability to S-Rank them. Add in a few more characters if you need to, but no more Azzurrin, Corriander, Corryoma, Camillin, Hinokin, Takurrin, Correo, Sakurrin, and Corrlise... no more weird ship names in general to be honest.

Chapter 6: We Must Go Deeper

I love the children units of Genealogy and Awakening. I feel they bring in some neat personalities in the latter's case and in the former's case continue the story in a way that was never done before. However, Fates' case is... horrible. Just simply horrible. In an attempt to recapture some of the glory from Awakening's use of the children, without understanding why it worked in Awakening the way it did, the children units in Fates are literally child soldiers aged up to a proper age in Fates' equivalent of Hyperbolic Time Chambers. Sure they weren't intended to be, either in-universe or from the perspective of the writers, but that's sure what they look like when their presence is entirely optional, has no bearing on the stories whatsoever, and their existence is justified with one of the worst concepts I ever seen... the Deeprealms.

The Deeprealms as a construct are disgusting and unncessary. Their existence and the unit's use of them is actually harmful to the likeability of every single character in the game. They essentially place their own children in these pocket dimensions to be raised away from the horrors of their war without considering the ramifications of doing such a thing. It worked in Genealogy because they had no parallel dimensions to store their children in, having them sent to other lands away from where the fighting would be and them only growing after years of development proper. It worked in Awakening because the kids came from the future and so had already been through a world without their parents because of how Awakening's story functions. In Fates, however, they tried to combine the two and what we get are children who grow up with abandonment issues because that's essentially what their parents did. They abandoned the kids in worlds that have time streams that run slower then "the real world's" and caused them to age exponentially quicker from their perspective as a result. From this, we get Rhajat being older then her own father, Velouria being expected to break away from her parents despite barely getting to spend time with them and becoming obsessive to the point of... see the above chapter, Percy hating his father and considering him a villain, Asugi wanting to escape his identity as the next Saizo, and various other examples. Sure some of the kids continue to love their families like Midori, Soleil, Ophelia, Caeldori, and Selkie, but you'd still have to question if said families deserve it.

As much as we make like these characters, it would overall be better if they did not exist at all. It would cease being a stain on the first gen characters. If they had to exist, there could be DLC for them as opposed to them being in the base game.

Chapter 7: The Vallite Expedition

Valla's story is the worst story of the three. Conquest can still be enjoyable. Birthright is cliche, but simple. Revelations, however, is a story that utterly suffers from its incompetence. The characters are all swift to join Corrin's side due to the "chapter limit" that the games consistently hold themselves to, the Hoshidan and Nohrian conflict is explained to be the machinations of a bigger threat to life itself, and everything that we know from the previous two games no longer manages to be an issue because now there's something bigger we can blame. Revelations is to Fates what the end of Mists of Pandaria was to Warcraft and Anankos is essentially this game's Garrosh Hellscream. Why even worry about moral relativity, economic issues, and the bonds of family when it was all a dragon's fault?

Valla boasts bad writing from beginning to end and culminates in an asspull of epic proportions. It's true you see Anankos name dropped in Conquest, as well as get to see Valla proper, but neither of these needed to really be in the game. Anankos didn't need to be a thing. And if he did, then he needed more development or needed to be mentioned by Garon more. After all, Anankos is a very important character. He's Corrin's father for fuck's sake. Sadly Valla couldn't get any world building at all though because of a coincidental curse that kills anyone who name drops it. Really makes building it up into a proper threat difficult, doesn't it? It's a world you can't talk about unless you go there. So when you go there, you have no idea what to make of it because you've never heard about it before. And then you can't tell your friends or family about it because it'll kill you if you do, which means Corrin has to convince a bunch of people to jump into a bottomless canyon without name dropping it, except they're totally prepared to name drop it and die... only for said people to say they'll trust Corrin entirely.

Between that, Corrin being encouraged to remain trusting to the point of insanity, Anthony existing, the sentence that made a popular ship incestuous... I'm not sure there's even a way to save Valla. It pisses all over the premise that got people excited for Fates to begin with, that these two families who have good reasons for going to war want you to join only one of them to fight the other. Why do that when you can have both and fight against a big evil dragon?

ENDGAME: The Path is filled with Legos

I am by no means a professional writer. I've considered multiple ways to salvage Fire Emblem Fates' story. I've seen people say there is no way to salvage it and that it should burn. I've seen people state the only way to save it is to remove Corrin from it and make it more like Radiant Dawn with the two kingdoms being playable and having their own tales. I've seen people state the game is fine as it is already and that not too many changes need to made except removing the Deeprealms. I've seen people not mess with the story and only mention how much they hate the weapons now that they're unbreakable thanks to the stat issues on them. Fates is a game with many opinions on it because of how controversial it is. I suppose one could argue that this is a good thing. Fates will always have people talking about it. Even if it's mostly critique and anger, it's still publicity that'll get people looking at it. And if they find that they do in fact like what they see, that's another Fates fan added to the pool, which is not a bad thing.

For better or worse, Awakening saved the franchise and Fates made it popular. You can argue that this sucks because the S-Support and children somehow "makes it a dating sim." I take it as another chance, a potential to see more stories utilizing the Fire Emblem formula, and it's not like this salvation turned out to be for the worst. We got Heroes, which is currently going through some turbulent times and yet is still one of the best gacha games made. We got Warriors, which may be surrounded by controversy concerning its roster and yet is still a fun experience. We got Echoes, which I may not have personally enjoyed, but I've seen a lot of people happy for it and stating it has one of the best stories in the franchise. And we have Fire Emblem 16 coming out for the Switch at some point.

Fates' story is... problematic. It's very irritating as you expected a manga writer to do better then what he did. But I suppose if it didn't exist at all, things would've been for the worst. So I still love Fates. I still respect what it did for the series. Just... not enough to not make this post.

[gamerszone2019-blog]

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Review - Synchronized Sinking

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/the-dark-pictures-man-of-medan-review-synchronized-sinking/

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Review - Synchronized Sinking

Man of Medan is set almost entirely at sea on an enormous, abandoned boat. Loosely based on the real-life mystery of the OSS Ourang Medan, which became a shipwreck in the late 1940s after its entire crew were lost under mysterious circumstances, Man of Medan is also the first part of Supermassive Games’ proposed Dark Pictures Anthology–a series of short, branching horror narrative experiences in the vein of its tremendous 2015 surprise hit, Until Dawn. If you’ve played Until Dawn, you’ll know what to expect. But despite a smart online co-op mode, Man of Medan’s weak narrative ultimately makes it a disappointing first installment.

The game’s plot jumps between five different playable characters who are all experiencing the same event. You’ll determine their ultimate fates by making decisions for them, as well as responding to quick-time events. There are reportedly 69 different potential deaths you can experience (including those of non-playable characters), but it’s also entirely possible that your whole crew will survive. Alternatively, they might all die. Man of Medan’s main selling point is that your decisions will affect how things play out, how the relationships between your characters will develop, and what you’ll uncover and experience along the way.

In conversations, and at pivotal points in the plot, you’ll often be given three options, one of which is always to say or do nothing. So focused is Man of Medan on its story, there are no puzzles to solve or combat systems to master outside of these choices, just lots of exploring and quick-time events. However, the game is plagued by a big central problem: a fundamentally weak plot.

The story isn’t engaging, as the player is given little reason to care about the characters and the horror tropes being explored mostly feel hackneyed and uncreative. After a brief prologue scene set in the ’40s, you spend Man of Medan’s four-hour (give or take) runtime in the present day. The story opens with the crew planning a dive to a previously untouched sunken fighter plane from World War II, which ultimately leads to a series of events that sees them trapped on the Medan, a seemingly haunted abandoned ship, held captive by a pirate gang who are convinced that the ship–which is riddled with dead bodies–contains treasure. Naturally, things start going bump in the night, and the gang finds themselves dealing with various ghouls and terrors too.

There are plot holes and character inconsistencies throughout, some minor, some more blatant. It’s perhaps easy to forgive the questionable presence of rats all over the boat, still gnawing on hunks of meat that have been on the ship since the 40s, but it’s less easy to excuse how blasé the characters act about the horrifying situations they find themselves in. They’re mostly unlikeable, too–There’s the cool but insecure Alex, his dorky younger brother Brad, Alex’s outgoing, wealthy partner Julia, Julia’s obnoxious but well-meaning brother Conrad, and Fliss, the captain of the small boat the four have chartered at the story’s opening. The dialogue is generally not very good; at times it successfully recreates the feeling of watching a fun-but-silly teen slasher, occasionally hitting that good-bad sweet-spot as a character awkwardly refers to something as ‘lit’ or flirts awkwardly, but it can also be annoying when the five central characters’ interactions sound stilted and unrealistic. Without spoiling anything, the story also explains a little too much about what’s happening on the Medan in a way that makes repeated playthroughs much less satisfying.

There’s also an over-reliance on jump scares, which cheapens the horror experience. One standout sequence midway through the game that does a great job of getting under your skin, as Brad finds himself stuck in a looping hallway that grows just a bit weirder every time he travels down it, but otherwise Man of Medan is reliant on spring-loaded cats and lots of suddenly-morphing faces. On the plus side, it looks tremendous–the character models can be a bit waxy, but the ship is extremely detailed and creepy, and the game effectively communicates how unpleasant the act of exploring a creaky rustbucket full of dark corners and rotting corpses must be. The trade-off, at least on a base PS4, is that animations frequently stutter, breaking the mood as frames slip away.

There are pacing issues, too, especially with the extremely slow opening section that weighs down repeat playthroughs. While you can see different scenes or experience unique outcomes with each playthrough, some scenes will be essentially unchanged each time, which can quickly grate. You’ll also occasionally have to check in on ‘The Curator’, an omnipresent suited man who is clearly meant to be the mascot for and host of the Dark Pictures Anthology. He’s a pompous version of the Crypt Keeper (from Tales From The Crypt), but without any of the “good evening, boys and ghouls” merriment you want from a horror anthology host, and as a result, he doesn’t quite fit.

Multiplayer is Man of Medan’s big addition to the formula laid out by Until Dawn. There are two forms of co-op: Shared Story, in which two players tackle the game together online, and Movie Night, where up to five players can play together offline, playing through the chapters of whichever characters they are assigned at the start. Playing together on the couch is perhaps meant to evoke that “don’t go in there” feeling of watching a fun horror movie with friends, but Man of Medan’s relatively straightforward level designs, which never make it seem dangerous to wander off-path and explore the open doors and alternate pathways you encounter, don’t particularly facilitate this. Death is more often down to a failed QTE rather than a dialogue choice you made or because you decided to investigate something spooky. In fact, right near the end, a mistimed button press can be the difference between everyone surviving and everyone dying–being responsible for that in front of your friends is more embarrassing than it is funny.

However, so many of the game’s issues feel like much less of a problem when you jump into the smart and innovative online mode. It is, without a doubt, the definitive way to experience Man of Medan, especially if you’re playing with another person who is familiar with the material. Shared Story sees you both playing at the same time, taking control of different characters as their scenes play out simultaneously. You’ll both, eventually, get a turn with every character (if they live long enough), and often your paths will diverge. Once the five main characters meet after the initial prologue, Shared Story immediately offers a more engaging experience than the single-player campaign can.

Early on, for instance, I played through a sequence where two characters dived down to inspect something underwater, while my co-op buddy stayed on the boat and experienced a different part of the story. In single-player, you’ll still see both scenes, but one will be greatly truncated. In online co-op, some scenes are expanded, or you might occasionally see parts of the story, or make choices, that cannot be accessed in single-player.

This led to the two of us conspiring to make certain things happen, to bend the game’s story to our will. We were more successful with some outcomes than others (a failed quick-time event led to an unexpected death early on), but working together to achieve dramatic satisfaction, and choosing when to reveal what just happened and when to let the other player try to figure out what we’d done in our scenes, was a delight. Each player won’t see every scene when playing this way, and it’s entirely possible to play without ever communicating, which makes the plot more unpredictable.

No matter how much or little you choose to share, though, Shared Story is absolutely the right way to play the game. It’s very well designed; my co-op partner and I never found ourselves waiting for the other player to hurry up and trigger the next cutscene, and being able to see how your friend is trying to direct a scene, and deciding whether to help or hinder them in that, is excellent. It feels like you’re working together to wring as many interesting outcomes as you can out of the game, and effectively doubling the number of potential choices leads to a much stronger sense of variety.

Man of Medan is still telling a weak story, though, as much as Shared Story plasters over this with its excellent take on co-op, which lets you plan things out and work together to craft the narrative you want to tell (and kill the characters you find the most annoying). If you can organize a session with someone else who owns the game and play through the whole thing together, it’s an excellent experience; but if you’re after another single-player horror narrative experience like the one offered in Until Dawn, it’s very disappointing. As a show of the potential for the Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan is largely a success, but as a first episode, it leaves plenty to be desired.

Source : Gamesport

[tialovestelevision]

My Euphonium

We’re wrapping up the first season of Sound! Euphonium now. Next to last regular episode!

1. Previously On, then opening credits.

2. After “Doublemeat Palace” and before “Waiting in the Wings,” which is also about mistreated labor, I urgently need this.

3. They’ve been practicing constantly. Now Taki adds the euphoniums to a part being played by the contrabass. It’s a very difficult part.

4. Kumiko and Asuka are at sectionals. Asuka is playing the section. Wow, her fingers dance. Kumiko is giving the section a try. She’s stumbling through it a bit. She’s going to go practice by herself. She has Tuba-kun on her hankerchief. Wow, she’s having a hard time with this section. Reina joins her, and her playing immediately improves. Kumiko tells Reina that she wants to be special like her; Reina says she’ll have to become even more special. Kumiko blushes. We get more of Kumiko practicing. Kumiko’s nose is bleeding. She’s missing ensemble, and is in her gym clothes because she bled on her uniform. She just downed a whole bottle of water. She wants to go practice more. Hazuki is impressed by how determined she is. She says she wants to improve more than she did before. That she was inspired by Reina at the second audition. She has a feverish desire to improve.

5. Shuichi is playing trombone at the river. Kumio is playing euphonium on the other side. Then we see Kumiko walking home and running into Aoi, who’s on her way to cram school. Aoi is asking if Kumiko thinks they’ll make nationals; Kumiko doesn’t know but says they’re much improved. She asks Aoi if she regrets leaving; Aoi says she doesn’t because entrance exams were more important, and she didn’t have a reason to stay.

6. Kumiko’s sister is home and doesn’t want her playing the euphonium. Kumiko has flashbacks about her sister and Aoi leaving band. Then she starts playing.

7. Ensemble practice is happening. It sounds great! Taki says they’ve gotten better but aren’t at the sound they need. He asks which trombone missed the entrance; Shuichi raises his hand and gets chewed out. Now they’re on the hard section. They play a bit and Taki stops them. He asks Kumiko to play the section on her own. She’s stumbling again. Taki stops her. He asks her if she can play that bit at the performance. She says yes. He asks again; she says she can. They start to play again.

8. Kumiko is practicing alone, and telling us about how she knows how to play this section. She just can’t do it, and it’s frustrating her. She stops for a moment, and Reina gives her water. Yay, she won’t get a nosebleed this time. Now they’re playing together. Reina’s play is flawless; Kumiko is stumbling. But it’s beautiful.

9. The trumpets are talking about Kumiko’s trouble. Reina says she wants to say something. She apologizes for how smug she was. Kaori apologizes in return. Yuuko blushes, then gets in a fight with Natsuki. It’s ten days until the competition. Midori is bandaging her hand. Kumiko has improved a lot. Kumiko is sure she’ll make it if she keeps practicing. The ensemble is getting instructions. They’re at the section again. Taki stops them. Gives instructions to trumpets and horns. Then tells Asuka to play the section alone. Kumiko looks poleaxed. They’re now playing without her. “We’re at war to make it to the Kansai competition.”

10. Midori and Hazuki are asking Kumiko out to eat. She’s leaving her euphonium, and forgot her phone. Now they’re eating bread. Midori says Kumiko reached for the moon. Kumiko is thinking about how it felt to get cut out of playing that section. She’s walking faster, thinking, “I want to improve,” over and over. And running. And crying. “I want to be better than everyone.” She slows down and leans against the railing of a bridge. She screams, “I want to improve!” at the sky. Shuichi shows up on the other side of the road and asks her what’s up. She screams those same words at him. He screams, “I want to improve too!” She’s crying and throws herself at a post. “I’m so upset. I’m so upset, I could die.” Those are the words Reina said in the prologue, when they failed to advance to regionals. “That’s when I realized how much it hurts. I realized how Reina felt back then.” She smiles a little, under her tears.

11. She’s laying diagonally across her bed, feet off the side. Her sister walks in and complains about the heat and invites her to dinner. Asks her about her study. Kumiko isn’t emoting at all. Now she’s pissed, and yelling about liking the euphonium. She sits on the bed and looks at herself in the mirror and whispers, “I like the euphonium.”

12. Kumiko went back to school to get her phone. She met Taki there. He’s getting yelled at by the vice principal for making them practice so much. Kumiko is asking Taki about his family life - his father, the conductor. His father was band advisor at Kitauji a decade ago. He says he enjoys doing this job. Kumiko has a revelation that’s hard to describe, and starts to leave, and Taki tells her to keep practicing that section for the regional competition.She has her phone now, and a lot of messages from Reina. She calls Reina and asks to meet up.

13. She’s telling Reina about her meeting with Taki, but gets sidetracked when the capsule machine has Euphonium-kun. She’s very happy and Reina is very confused, and the episode ends.

Overall: Reina and Kumiko playing together is the lasting image of this episode, but it simply reinforces what we know about them from “Festival Triangle” and “Welcome Back, Audition,” though it does so in a new and very pretty way. Seriously, this has a moment of symphonic music being played in a way that’s both technically inept and utterly beautiful, and that alone is worth the runtime of the episode.

Taki and Kumiko’s conversation is more enlightening. It tells us a bit about Taki - that he remembers Kumiko saying she would be able to play the part, that he wants her to do so. That there is kindness under all that business and ruthlessness. It humanizes him in a way the show hadn’t really done up until now.

Asuka, too, is humanized here, with the stricken expression and momentary delay between Taki’s instruction to her to play the section alone and her response to him.

Shuichi and Kumiko yelling across the street is one of the few moments when I almost believe there being chemistry between them. In the light novels, the two of them eventually date; I don’t think I’m spoiling much by saying that’s not the case in the anime, where they have few scenes and even less chemistry. That scene is also one of Shuichi’s strongest moments overall so far in the series.

But the big scene here is Kumiko and Reina outside the school, playing that section of the piece. Everything else works around that.

[asumplicity]

NieR: Automata - game diary pt. 1

Hey. I've felt like doing something with the games I play for a while. Like creating some kind of content with them, written or video or whatever. Recording and uploading let's plays to Youtube or something. But that wasn't really my thing. Just writing reviews seemed boring to me, too. So I decided I'll do game diaries. I started playing NieR: Automata yesterday. I'll do a write-up of my day 1 experience. Full spoilers ahead.

I honestly was really excited for what was expecting me in NieR: Automata. I looked at the series and knew what kind of genre it was, that it was made in Japan and some of the history around it. I hadn't really looked at much more than trailers and Wikipedia articles for any of the games though. I didn't know how the actual gameplay would go, what kind of story it was or anything. All the actual info that was known to me was that it was supposedly good, the main characters were called "2B" and "9S" and there were mech enemies with kinda cute looking faces (I find them fucking adorable for some reason), so I decided I would want to give it a try.

(Just for the info: I’m playing the game with Japanese audio, English subtitles and on Normal difficulty.)

I jumped in. The game didn't give me a lot of time to breathe. First thing I get is a white screen and a female voice talking to me. "Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle and wonder if we'll ever have the chance to kill him."

Well that's unsettling. Here I am, not knowing a thing and some unknown voice gives me that. Stating life as something like a curse and wanting to kill their creator. Alright then. I wasn’t expecting that, but I was already getting excited. The game goes on to start with a fun to play and decently made shmup sequence, which I didn't even know the game had any of, in which my allies just died like flies and I got left alone. Five allies. Just wiped away. They all got one shotted by some huge scary laser. Did I already say it all felt unsettling to me? I wasn't prepared for anything the game threw at me to that point.

Eventually, it settled down a little, when my flying mech-thingy was destroyed and I was left on foot. That's what I actually was kinda prepared for. Seeing my character and fighting on foot. I encountered the mechs with the cute looking faces and killed 'em. I felt how I wasn't ready to take in the combat system yet and took hits all over the place. Since there was auto-use of healing items when you got low hp it was all good so far though. I got through my first on-foot fighting sequence and got to meet 9S. He’s a polite and really chill dude imo. Before moving on I ran in circles, admiring the scenery for about 5 minutes. Everything looked nice. It was some kinda factory and some things looked kinda broken and everything, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere and I‌ still liked the looks of everything.

I moved on, ready to face and kill more mechs and complete my mission, which apparently was to find and destroy some "Goliath". I figured "Goliath" would translate to something like "real fucking big machine" and I got a destination marker on my map, which I supposed would be where the fight will take place. Every fight on the way was rather clunky on my part. I tried to get used to the game's mechanics and how they worked and took a lot of damage and used up a bunch of items in the meantime. I already noticed how there were a few alternative paths to take, which rewarded me with items, if I saw and took them. The game felt really immersive to me, I really got into the atmosphere and everything that was going on. Not much before I reached my first destination, I saw birds and a patch of green and when the birds flew away 2B slowed down and in disbelief mumbled "Are those..?" and 9S was like "You mean the birds? Yeah, there are more plants and animals here than there used to be" and I was feeling that moment.

I arrived at my destination. I had thought right. A boss fight took place. At this point, let me mention how much I like the music. Even in fights before that boss I already was lifted up by the music, featuring very distinct vocals and instrumentals which I really enjoy. It's hard for me to describe. Go give it a listen if you're interested in music, because it's fairly interesting (and good) music imo. Anyway, I died miserably after two giant sawblades hit me like 20 times in 5 attacks, because everything was way too much for me. Then, the game returned me to the main menu. I thought "wow, that looked quite hard. Weird it returned me to the main menu. But I'll restart at some kind of checkpoint for sure, right?" Let me tell you, I was wrong. I got returned to the very start, with the voice telling me how everything is designed to end and the shmup sequence. I looked at the time. I had played for like 40-45 minutes. I closed the game, mad, googling if that's actually what's supposed to happen, since the PC port, as I had noticed, did have some problems. Luckily nothing was spoiled storywise, but it was confirmed that that's what's supposed to happen.

I was pissed. I was going to go back to that guy and beat him up real bad. I jumped back in. The shmup sequence's controls came to me quite intuitively on the first run already, so that went equally good. When I got into the first fight on foot I noticed how it went much better than the first time. My determination to go and beat up the guy certainly helped with the speed I went through. Within 15-20 minutes I was at the same point I was at before, again fighting the boss. The sawblades-phase I died at before went flawless, if I recall correctly I didn't get hit once. It was a really satisfying feeling. That wasn't all there was to it though and the fight was a lot more than just beating up two sawblade-arms. It was a fun ~10 minute dance of kicking ass and getting ass kicked. However, I managed it. When I took the Goliath down, the game went into a cutscene, where I went to 9S' aid, who got badly damaged during the fight. There was some dialogue. The camera angle changed and I saw how there were 5 or 6 or something more of the same Goliaths surrounding the destroyed one we were chilling on. 9S held up a black cube and told me that the "black box" is ready. I had one too, I don't know if I didn't pay attention or if it wasn't introduced before, I didn't know what it was and where it came from. They triggered it, and everything blew up, including 2B, 9S and supposedly the Goliaths and the mech-producing factory the prologue took place in (not confirmed though).

The screen faded out and the next thing I know is that I was on some kinda space station. Everything seemed strange to me tbh. I just exploded right? So how did I get there? Dialogues happened, I learned that 2B and 9S are androids, that don't really die and even though we blew up ourselves, we simply were brought back. (I think for the sake of this moment of surprise + the message this sends combined with the opening dialogue of the game, the whole prologue had to be started over on death?) I encountered operators/commanders and other fighting units on that station called “Bunker”, which I imagine is going to be something like the main hub for the game. People told me I did great and stuff and sent me off to the next mission, to meet up with the human resistance on earth. To a stunning place introduced as “City Ruins”. I was allowed to roam around freely. There were more machines, but they were neutral/only hostile if I attacked. Plants everywhere and peaceful music.

I went exploring for a while, because I was amazed and wanted to look around before heading to the camp. I found loot lying around a lot, some hostile machines that I could kill without feeling too evil and saving points, which also provided map data. (I saved at every one obviously after the traumatic prologue death.) I didn’t have any problems with any encounters, though I found a couple of dead bodies by other players lying around the place. I approached enemies with care and was able to take them down smoothly. Eventually I went to the resistance camp and did some quests, but honestly it was more of a side thing. I was much more focused on absorbing the beautiful environment, exploring, enjoying the music and having fun. I afkd at least 10 minutes in the camp just listening to the music. Eventually while exploring I found an old rusty tower I could climb up, which I did and decided that beautiful sight was a great point to stop playing for the day.

Aight, that’s it for the write-up of my first session with NieR. I’ll be quite amazed if you actually read this far. It’s been fun writing this and I can’t wait to continue playing, haha. So far I’ve really enjoyed it and I absolutely can’t wait to fight the next boss and learn more about the story, even though I kinda also want to just explore everything around the City Ruins. I hope I’ll have the commitment to finish my diary throughout the whole game. I imagine it’ll be a lot to write once I start going for progress-heavy playing sessions, but I guess I’ll also get a little more routine into it and I’ll be much faster. We’ll see. If you did read up to here, I’ll admit that it would make me happy if you shared this, as I don’t have a real readership, but this has been a bit of effort and I imagine future entries to be as well and it would motivate me if people would read. No pressure though, I’m happy if you read this either way.

I’ll send you off with a listening recommendation, since I really love this song. Thanks for reading, cya.

[quonit-aceattorney]

Buying Game 1 - Playing 1 and 2

Put these all together because they were so short... and not even really recorded.

Rules:

Q = Me, Quonit.

BF = Bardic Feline, the friend that made me spend 30 dollars on the game and whom I am messaging

I don’t use those when I send the messages close enough my username doesn’t appear.

Any typos (unless they are funny and part of the conversation) will be fixed.

Index

—

(Backstory: Bardic feline and I have been talking about a fic she told me she was working one (Link here when i get it). Few about a week or so I’ve been motivating her to help her to finish it by the 20th, her deadline.)

3/20/2018

Q: did you get the thing out?

BF: I didn't finish both parts of what I wanted to do, but i did enough to post the fic prologue on AO3

Q: yaaaaay that is something. Good job.

BF: thanks. ^^;;;

LESS THAN I WANTED TO DO IS STILL BETTER THAN NOTHING

Q: yaaay can I have a link?

BF: Aaah hold up.  Also, going to warn you right now, it absolutely spoils the crap out of Farewell My Turnabout, aka 2-4

Q: dammit

I need to get the game how much is it and is it on steam or do i need to get it somewhere else

BF: Like it goes in assuming you already know the big twist

Q: welp I do not know

BF: You can get it on iOS or Android or from the 3DS shop

Q: I still call the people in the game "the objection guys"

BF: Hee hee fair enough

Q: dammit

well I have a 3DS so it can still work why not

BF: But when I say it assumes you know stuff, I mean it like straight up pulls the reveal that happens most of the way through the case

And yay!  That’s the easiest way to get it

Q: dang

I should've played the game yaaaaay :D

BF: You can get the whole original trilogy in one package on the e-shop

Q: Funny thing about the 3DS: I got it from a pawn shop for 60 bucks thinking it was a 2DS because well, it was. It is a 2DS it has that on the back it says everywhere on the thing it is a 2DS. When you open it though, it thinks it's a 3DS. This works out well because a 2DS has more power and the 3DS has more available games

I'll go find it. How long is it will I be able to play to the twist by the end of today?

BF: Unless you just fly through the first game?  It’s the last case of the second game

So...proooobably not

Q: dammit

do I have to pay for all three games??? Can't I just watch somebody else play it on youtube

BF: You can if you like? Or do an emulator?  I’m not gonna tell you how to do it.  Though I will say that that bundle is WAY less than what I paid for all three games used for the DS

They were probably about 15-20 bucks EACH individually

Q: dammit

well it's gonna be a while before I read that fanfic I helped encourage you to do. What out for that review 2-3 years for now.

BF: Hahaha awww

BF: It doesn’t take THAT long to play any of the games. XD

It’s just longer than a single night

Cause it’s like reading a book where you have to solve puzzles to advance

Q: well it better be good if im going to end up spending 60 dollars on it. At least I get to understand yet another one of Zarla's interests so many of her comics are based off of

I don't even wanna read all of those fanfictions why couldn't it just be mostly comic based with like 6 fanfics like with the ladies

BF: It’s not going to be 60 bucks!

happy summer

3 games and they're like 15-20 something about a bundle how much is that

BF: That’s what each was a INDIVIDUALLY

By themselves

On the DS

BF: When you had to but the individual CARTRIDGES

Q: going in the shop to see if I can find it

ohhhh wonder how much they are now im looking in the shop

BF: The BUNDLE is all three games at once for like...16 or 20 bucks TOTAL

For all three games together

Q: :o that's not 60!

BF: That’s what I was trying to say haha

That it’s a BARGAIN

Even when it’s not discounted it’s a bargain

Q: im looking for it bleh i haven't used this thing in a while where is the search bar for a specific game

BF: Search “Ace Attorney”

And aww those eggs sound pretty

Q: where is the problem it just has filters

I remembered the thing about using vinigar instead of water for the color to stick on better and it worked very well

BF: Umm...there should be a search function

Q: there is one but that's just filters for some reason

I'm calling my brother one moment

BF: You may have parental controls on too high or something

Q: nope I got it

it's 30$...

bleh ill get it whatever

BF: Aaaah sorry

Q: it's fine!

BF: I was thinking when it was discounted, forgive meeee

Q: I'll probably like

BF: That’s STILL less than what I paid individually

And it’s a good series!

I really think you’ll like it

Q: yaaaay

BF: It’s so ridiculous and over the top Hahaha

Q: I can't face the shame I'm giving my brother the money so he can buy it

why I'M GETTING THE GAMES THOUGH

YOU INFLUENCED A LIFE DECISION

BF: Hahaha aaaah forgive meeeee

it is fine lol

BF: Ooooh!

Q: dumpster

it was your idea

it's downloading

Q: how many days do I wait before it's approprait to send Jaz another email

Q: I spent 30 dollars because of you

working on comic, very good progress. Got all of the backgrounds done and am doing pretty good on the characters.

Q: ALRIGHT IT FNISHED DOWNLOADING

Just when the game opened I saw what you meant by it being over the top this is great imma play it

Q: 2014???

must be when the bundle was released...?

BF: That sounds about right dang

Was it that long ago when the HD bundle got released

-Case 1-

Q: Back!

Finished chapter 1: I feel smart I very much enjoy this game. Wonderful. Good that I'm apparently better then most people at remembering names :D when will juan die

BF: last case of the second game!

hahah just settle in and enjoy a Juan-less first game

BF: and I really do sincerely enjoy every part of the first game

Q: BACK

I do too it'

Q: It’s hard to believe Juan is even in the game

you made me spend 30 dollars on it and I am thoroughly enjoying it

(Edit: Thoughts i remember having but didn't record.

1st Case:

Hey look the tutorial person! She's a boob joke. of course.

I had no reaction to Winston, mainly it was just "objection guy".)

-Case 2-

Q:

Me: game about laywers. Somehow it was successful. Me later: and magic??? why is there magic why is there a chapter on why does this game exist it's so over-the-top I swear what was it's goal?

Q: the girl is too talkative

I should sleep >:( It's your fualt I can't

Q: why does the girl even call me nick

why does phoenix allow this his name isn't nick

(Edit: I refuse to call him Nick to this day.)

Q: where the hell is the save button i just wanna leeeaaave

Q: I MISS THE TRIALS NOW IT'S JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GO

>:( well I'm almost to a save point in the game

Q: dooone

Maybe I'm just tiered in the morning I won't despise the girl

BF: Hahaha aaah I love Maya, personally

BF: And yeah, there are times in the investigation periods where it’s all godammit where do I go next.  But half the fun for me is going around and poking at stuff just to see what Phoenix and Maya will say about it

BF: I guess Maya gets Nick from PhoeNICx...I dunno I stopped questioning it ages ago

BF: There is a way to save when you are investing though

BF: I’ll tell you where to find it in the morning haha

Q: I figured out it's the start button.

Maybe I could look up where she got the name. She just asked if she could call me 'nick' and phoenix had no objection so I GUESS IM NICK NOW. I really like seeing what characters say about stuff too, but sometimes you just wanna get to it and 'ohmygod just shut up i wanna be able to figure this out i've already heard this before what am I missing'. Also I was tired, but ya they are enjoyable for the most part. HONESTLY with Juan I see him as a Zarla character, him being in the game is just absolutely stellar... it feels like a huuuuge bonus. I know he originally came from here but I learnt about him from the ladyverse and a quick scroll through her ace attorney folder on devart. He seems like her character. Concept: The people making the anime actually did see one or two of Zarla's comics and liked the color she had for his shirt and kept that Me at first: ehhhhh i don't really like him. he should just... go over there. Me later: oooo cross universe? More interesting, still don't like him much. Me now: I WILL PROTECT WITH BOY WITH MY LIFE WHEN I FIND HIM AND HE'S ALREADY DEAD WHOEVER DID THIS YOU WILL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE

(Edit: HOW COULD I HAVE EVER HAVE NOT LOVED HIM HE IS SUCH AN INTERESTING CHARACTER NO MATTER WHAT UNIVERSE HE’S IN)

BF: Hahahaha

Yeah, I kinda consider him to be more Zarla’s character than the game’s because of how much of a blank slate character he really is

BF: I know I’ve made up traits for him practically from whole cloth, or based on the smallest clues I can glean from the game script

Q: niiice

I'm getting through it, thankfully I'm not getting stuck as often as I did.

Q: "guess I better go there later..." YES, ALRIGHT, HOW DO I MAKE TIME MOVE FORWARD THOUGH?

BF: lol a lot of time when they say that, that means 'head on over to that location if it's on the menu"

(Edit: This goes DIRECTLY into my 1-3 reaction. The very next message.)

(Edit: Thoughts i remember having but didn't record.

2nd Case:

Sense the beginning I knew "IT'S THE WHITE GUY". The cutscene had what looked to me somebody with white hair but later i found a guy named Redd White and knew It was him because "HE'S THE WHITE GUY”

"Aw no looks like the tutorial girl is dead. Oh well."

"So she has a sister, okay."

"weird, i haven't seen this before. this is cool. (investigation mode)"

I absolutely hated April May. She was the worst character to me.

"HEY LOOK IT'S THAT OBJECTION BUDDY (Edgeworth) :D" I didn't have much thought on him besides that. He was the other objection guy. I knew him from the little I've seen of Ace Attorney beforehand (mainly one ace attorney tumblr post).

"There's magic in this game. guess her death meant nothing apparently.")

[hentaihunblog-blog]

Dangan Ronpa v3: Killing Harmony

New Post has been published on https://hentaihun.com/blog/2018/03/28/dangan-ronpa-v3-killing-harmony/

Dangan Ronpa v3: Killing Harmony

Welcome back to the World of Dangan Ronpa. Monochrome mascots, pink blood, 16 students locked in a closed area and murder around every corner. In this new game we follow protagonist Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist  as she wakes up in a strange enclosed cage containing a school, dorms, and various ‘Ultimate’ labs. They are being kept here by not just Monokuma, but also the monokubs. Monotaro, Monosuke, Monodam, Monokid and Monophanie. Who are apparently Monokuma’s children? Can robotic bears even have children? Who cares!?

In the prologue you go around and meet with the other Ultimate Students. This killing games roster of talents include. Ultimate Robot, Ultimate Supreme Leader, Ultimate Cosplayer, Ultimate Artist, Ultimate Entomologist, Ultimate “Mage” [Magiancian],Ultimate Astronaut, Ultimate Maid, Ultimate Anthropologist,Ultimate Child Caregiver, Ultimate Inventor, Ultimate Tennis Pro, Ultimate Detective and of course the Ultimate ???.

In the first chapter, Akamatsu teams up with the Ultimate Detective, Shuichi Saihara to try to find the ‘mastermind’ behind everything and investigate the mystery of why they are being kept locked up. Meanwhile, Monokuma introduces two motives to the group. The first motive, the “First blood perk.” meaning you could kill, own up for it, graduate, with no class trial involved. So basically, a get out of jail free card for the killer. The second motive, a time limit. If there has been no killing in two days time, they will all perish. So with this, it becomes imperative that they find the mastermind quickly.  Saihara discovers a hidden door in the library and the two of them come up with a plan to monitor it with hidden camera’s and catch the mastermind…

If only things went that well.

And honestly, this is all I can really say about the game without spoilers because this game does not pull it’s punches. When it first came out in Japan, I made the grave mistake of thinking and saying “It’s only chapter one. How much can it spoil?” I made the grave mistake of underestimating Kodaka. I will never be making this mistake again in any future games he is involved in. Also, another thing to be said, if you are here and are not going to make it past the picture of Monotaro because you want to avoid spoilers. I should note, that even by Dangan Ronpa standards the executions in this game are a little more brutal the the ones in the previous games. So if you liked the previous installments but struggled with watching the executions. That is something to note for V3.

With that being said as in my previous reviews of this game series, here’s a picture to distract you and let you leave if you want too before I start picking away at the spoilers. This time, check out this cool picture of Monotaro. Isn’t he a good boy?

Still with me? Good. So as the time limit approaches we see a group of the students head to the basement and then, the sensor goes off showing that the camera’s in the library have activated. Akamatsu and Saihara make their way to the basement and we find Rantaro Amami, the Ultimate ??? dead. This is unprecedented for a lot of reasons. First, this is the first game to kill the student with the unknown talent but also because Amami was featured heavily in the promotional materials and had a character design very reminiscent of Komaeda’s design from Super Dangan Ronpa 2. He was set up entirely as a red herring character and was made for the entire audience to think he was more important then he was. This was not the only deception from the promotional materials either though.

so at the end of chapter 1. We are left with the realization that all of the promotional material has duped us completely and that Akamatsu is not the protagonist but instead it’s Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective, which is both a good and a bad thing if you ask me. It’s interesting to have a detective as the main character as opposed to a support character like in Dangan Ronpa 1. However, it takes away the satisfaction of having a female protagonist in a main series game, something that a lot of the fandom was really excited for. It was neat to have the character you were playing as up until this point be the killer though. With only a few omitted details of actions, you realize that you set up the entire murder for the most part…of course. If we are being blatant about spoilers by now, you know that Akamatsu did not kill anyone in fact and the mastermind was truly Amami’s killer but it doesn’t take away from the fact that she did set up a way to murder someone and had the intent.

I could sit here and reflect on my thoughts on every trial, but this review will probably be long enough as it is without that. So the story progresses from here in a very standard Dangan Ronpa manner. sometimes even more exaggerated then before, such as having a secret killer among the group. This time, there is two. Having the true talent of the Ultimate Child Caregiver be the Ultimate Assassin. Having the Anthropologist be a serial killer of women. The standard chapter 3 double murder. Having the big bara sweetheart die in chapter 4. Chapter 5 be the death of one of the trial point trio and to top it all off. The inevitable tie in to the rest of the series and the reappearance of  everyone’s favorite psycho, Junko Enoshima.[though this time, through her #1 fangirl, our mastermind, the Ultimate Cosplayer. Tsumugi Shirogane.]

This is where the writing becomes questionable and the fandom splits down the middle on how they feel about it. v3, the v being the roman numeral 50 is the 53rd season of a popular reality show produced by Team Dangan Ronpa. It claims that all 3 games have been a part of this franchise and none of it from the Hope’s Peak saga to now was real. You can take that at face value of course. The ‘never real’, ‘all a dream’, ‘all a tv show’ trope however is often viewed as poor writing. I can certainly see where Kodaka was going with it, he was making a commentary on not just his own series. The horror of writing a series about people killing one another and having thousands of people enjoying it. There is also some commentary to be said on what is expected from game sequels.

Oddly enough, I saw a post about the New Smash Brothers that reminded me of a lot of the points that v3 was trying to make. How fans want things to be the same, but different, but they don’t want anything changed and they want it the way it was in x game in the franchise.  That’s why v3 consisted of so many throwbacks and things that the fandom has come to expect.

However, true to the games ideas and nature of the idea of ‘Truth vs Lies’ in the after credits there is some doubt thrown in the idea that all of the series had been fictional. While v3 might have, the Hope’s Peak saga may of existed and it is ultimately left to the player to decide what they want to believe. What is the truth and what is the lie. I think if in fact the Hope’s Peak saga was real, it puts a even more chilling social commentary on the narrative. How we dramatize and fictionalize real life tragedies, and how this fictionalizations can become more known then the truth of the situation and the tragedy itself. [Example: People not knowing that the Titanic was real when the movie came out.]

This may not of been the intention that Kodaka was going for. Honestly, in the end, v3 left a lot of fans of the series polarized about how they felt. Which can be both a good and bad thing, was it the best ending for the franchise? No. Was it worth playing and exploring the ideas and getting to enjoy the colorful cast that Kodaka laid out for us this time? Absolutely. The writing was not perfect. It was ambitious, the game is collectively larger then the first two games combined and it was in production simultaneously with DR3 Future and Despair arcs. So the attention of the writers was drawn thin and both productions suffered.

What did not suffer though, was gameplay. For the most part, the trials functioned like the ones in the previous games however with slight improvements and new additions here and there. They certainly improved the Hangman’s gambit [Thank god], the logic dive was slightly easier this time around and other gameplay elements have been tweaked. However, by far the most popular addition to the trials was the scrum debates in which the cast is split down the middle and they have to argue their points against one another.

Outside of the main game there is plenty of side material as well. Of course, the standard school life mode [Salmon Mode], in which you can finish off the Free Time Events that you were unable to obtain in the main story and date the other members of the school. There is also the board game mode, called the Talent Development plan which is pretty much the cross game non-despair AU the fandom has wanted for ages. You collect character cards through a gacha machine by getting coins in the other side bonus mode. A rpg style dungeon with Monokuma shaped Monsters. The talent plan is fun and you get a lot of character interactions that are otherwise impossible. Such as Izuru Kamukura/Sakura Oogami or Kaito Momota/Mikan Tsumiki. Fair warning though, it may cause odd cross series crack shipping [please, can more people support Mukuro/Amami? It’s sooo good! Their interactions are so pure!] Last but not least of the side material for the game is the casino. In which you can play various mini-games to get tokens where you can either buy gifts for your classmate or unlock the Ultimate prize. A key to the Love Hotel.

The love hotel event will trigger when you have a key and pick a character and you will visit them in a dream. In which you can see their ideal fantasy. It’s um, something, and considering how many coins it is to get a Love Hotel key it’s very unlikely you’re going to go through and get all of these unless you are collecting clips for youtube or are just extremely obsessive about completion.

In conclusion, while the writing is spotty in places and the plot is a mess the game is still very fun and I honestly think it is more then worth the time it takes to play it. The characters are fun and the gameplay makes for a good experience. As for the ending, what is the truth? What is the lie? Was the entire series a reality show or was the tragedy real and it just faded into obscurity over time? I personally like to think it was the second one…but that’s just a theory…a…wait, best not get myself sued for copyright.

~MidnightDevont

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[steroidusr]

golden sun (chaos mode hack) part 4: Isaac cannot resist.

so now that sand dollar lady is in place, we can push the statue on the tile (and strike a pose) but safely this time

yes, that certainly is what just took place

how exactly are you going to--

aaaaand he's gone

AM I SUPPOSED TO "WAIT OVER THERE" OR "HANDLE THE REST”

(man look at those tiles in the middle, that is some really nice pixel art)

this is the slowest lp in the world

wooo

things i thought was weird about this game when i was 11: kraden saying "Sol" and "Luna" instead of "the sun" and "the moon" i mean obviously i knew that that's what "sol" and "luna" mean, but he's saying them like people's names ("a picture of Luna")?? there doesnt... really seem to be a reason for this? i dont remember the sun and moon being referred to like that anywhere else in the game

by the way, what exactly is supposed to be happening with that laser? it's coming up from the floor, but... hitting the wall

????? 2d video game overworld perspective is really weird tbh

LET ME LEVEL GRIND, KRADEN

so if you touch the wall (or talk to it, depending on what you think the A button does) a portal appears

...which lifts you up and voips you away. but stays open. GOOD THING THERE ARENT ANY THIEVES FOLLOWING US OR ANYTHING

...and we end up here. (the portal also appears to have shrunk isaac's sprite a bit. wh...oops...?)

(fyi: for some reason this game's world is flat. so he does actually literally mean "the end of the world".) (...and "endless water", since it all falls off the edge but doesnt run out. dont ask me how that works. maybe it's like a fountain?)

....humans are made of fire?????????

kraden: "as i have told you many times--" (tells us again anyway)

jfc he's starting to sound like my dad also you absolutely couldve fit that last part into one text box, come ON

i really, really wish i could capture these emoji word balloons because

kraden: ❤️ jenna: 😟

YES. "MANY TIMES", IN FACT.

GARET WHY

so after telling us how powerful and dangerous these stones are... and how with just one you could conquer the entire world... and how it would be REALLY BAD if they were to fall into the wrong hands... 

...kraden wants us to bring them over here for him to examine. ok

all of them. all four of them. im pretty sure this is exactly why no one is allowed in here.

OKAY THANK YOU KRADEN

[each time you take a star, there’s a short earthquake, and more pillars rise up out of the water. this allows you access to the next star.]

UH, TAKING THAT CAUSED A SMALL EARTHQUAKE, THIS IS PROBABLY A BAD IDEA

CANT YOU JUST EXAMINE ONE, ISNT THAT GOOD ENOUGH

YOURE NOT HELPING

three hours and we're still stuck in the fucking prologue. fortunately we're almost done, probably

incidentally, did you know you can change the color of the text boxes in this game?

.... i cant make it the same color as steroidusr :(

anyway back to collecting these extremely dangerous world-destroying artifacts for funsies

UH-OH! NOBODY SAW THIS TWIST COMING

(i figured out how to cap all those adorable little emoji balloons, thanks to the miracle of save states. youre welcome.)

im pretty sure we'd have to hop through here to get to the last one, but....

unlike us, who only meant to simply borrow all of them at once, which surely would have no repercussions

how dare you overhear the plans we were loudly discussing nearby your house! ...and to you, at your house. wait what

hey it's the third dude who was with them who we only know about through optional and easily-missable conversations

...i just realized saturos has a blue undercut. too bad they dont have blogs in weyard.....

what if we just... gently put all the stars back. golden sun solved

so, uh.... if youre gonna have a dramatic "i thought you were dead" reveal you probably shouldnt have it this early in the game

like this is clearly meant to be an emotional scene, but we never got any time to actually, like... get attached to felix? which couldve still worked if we'd gotten time for Green Mask Guy to develop instead, and establish him as our enemy, or something then, plot twist, he was jenna's brother all along! ... which would work even better if we kept jenna around and she didnt get kidnapped like, have them kidnap garet or something, idk, jenna's a fire adept too so she could easily fill that party role anyway this way the Big Reveal would have way much more impact, and--

oh ok

yes, we definitely shouldve let garet get kidnapped instead

oh right, there's a fourth one too. alex does almost nothing of value through the entire game, yet somehow by the end he's the most important character ever, despite still having done almost nothing of value. he's also in the third game. he's still useless.

what do you mean "oh great", you were just about to hand them over anyway

are you guys, like, allergic to these things??? like you cant hold them yourselves if theyre not in bags????

YOU CAN FLY. YOU ARE FLYING RIGHT NOW. NO, I DONT UNDERSTAND!!!!

also, yes, the only way to the mars star is through here. so until we got it, they were planning to "hide", out in the open, in a place we would soon be walking through, right in front of the path we'd be coming to that place through

you guys couldnt have, like, waited back in the sanctum to ambush us or something? no? no. of course not.

WELL, YES,

also, shockingly, that star is never actually getting to that merry band of thieves. sorry for spoiling such an amazing twist.

--where it will stay, taking up an inventory slot, useless, for the entire game.

fun fact: golden sun, like the first generation of pokemon games, has no key item slot. we all remember how that went in engreen... also, each character has a separate inventory, which other characters cant access. so if, for example,  you have four herbs, you can either stack them all in one character's inventory, or spread them out among everyone. if you want to save inventory space, the first option seems the most reasonable... until the guy holding all the herbs dies in battle.

................i miss etrian odyssey

oh also the cave is collapsing now and we're all going to die

(does a thing) uh-oh! that fucked everything up! how could this happen! (does exact same thing three years later) uh-oh! that fucked everyth

WHO'S THAT POKEMON?

:(

anyway this guy's important, and he saves us later, but also tries to get us killed by a dragon for some reason?

he also blinks more than any documented living creature in the universe, as evidenced by these screencaps

how the fuck are you planning to get the mars star then

YEAH NO KIDDING

WELL WE DEFINITELY WILL BE IF WE KEEP STANDING AROUND TALKING ABOUT IT

THAT'S WHAT IM TRYING TO TELL HIM

hey, you know what a good place for this text box would be? right up there, completely obscuring the fucking speaker "uh, there's plenty of space there in the bottom corner--" "RIGHT. UP. THERE."

oh man ok alright here it comes

i fucking love golden sun

If the Elemental Stars ignite the flames of the four lighthouses, that power will be released. As long as the four lighthouses remain unlit...

im not sure why he's leaving out the part about the world eroding and inevitably being destroyed if alchemy doesnt get released? (minor details, i guess)

"seriously, there arent any characters over there at all, we could easily--" "COVER THAT FUCKER UP"

so he teleports us back to the sanctum. what a nice floating roc--

garet youre kind of a dick

i guess all the monsters evacuated, because no battles are happening. goodbye, experience points....

(there's an eruption. the mountain is erupting. youll have to take our word for it.)

"multiple times, actually. those googly-eye mushrooms are vicious"

WHY ARE THEY JUST CASUALLY STROLLING OUT OF AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS ERUPTING VOLCANO

I CHOSE "YES” AS A JOKE BUT THEY ACTUALLY START TO CASUALLY STROLL RIGHT BACK UP

mom will you please stop being such a negative nancy

im not sure garet "what's an ocean" lastname even realizes other towns exist

The elemental lighthouses will loose that power upon the world. Once the power of the gems has been released, the whole world will...

i see the wise one is omitting that one li'l detail about alchemy actually being a good thing again

"the entire world could be completely destroyed" "darn :///"

"we cant wait around for someone to save us. isaac, go save us"

well, it's been quite a ride, but that's it for golden sun! if you enjoyed this livetweet, make sure to like, comment and fol--

-----siiiiigh.

we're fucked.

"SWEET JESUS GARET THAT'S NOT AN ORANGE, YOURE EATING THE MARS STAR"

anyway isaac's mom is disowning her son until he saves the world or whatever, but not before having this delivered to him

JUST LEAVE, GET OUT OF HERE