#very very interesting use of a pretty out-there character concept; i was not sold on them at the end of s2 but like i get it now

[queerfables]

My impressions of 911, as at the end of 1x04:

So far I like the show a bunch!

I'd heard Buck starts out as a bit of a jerk but so far he's been a likeable one. It helps that there are (very nearly) consequences for his more outrageous behaviour.

I like Abby and Buck for each other but Abby as a character is appallingly under utilised. I feel like her role as a 911 operator underpinned the entire PREMISE of the show and yet it only took one episode for them to realise they didn't know what to do with her. She's also just... not a super compelling character? Maybe she'll get more interesting, I'm mostly mad because I think the concept is really solid but I'm not sold on the execution. The big problem with her personal life is that she doesn't have one, so it drags a bit when we spend so much time with her outside her job. At this stage I'm unsurprised she left after the first season, just because it feels like they don't quite know how to write for her.

I love Athena and oh boy is she doing it tough but I desperately need her to not use her power as a police officer to harass teenage girls. What the girl bullying her daughter did was terrible but she was still waaay out of line.

Related though, something I like about this show so far is that the characters' strengths are also their weaknesses. Buck is impulsive in ways that are good and bad; Abby is caring and empathetic, sometimes to a fault; the passion and assertiveness that makes Athena out of line with her daughter's bully is the same thing that makes her great at standing up to the assholes who deserve it. It's good character building.

I also like that characters are allowed to do shit bad enough to actually warrant censure from higher ups. And then receive appropriate condemnation for their behaviour. Often when shows try to do that kind of story line they go too soft on the characters either by over justifying why their bad behaviour is understandable or by having the consequences be wildly disproportionate to the wrongdoing in a way that makes them feel like the victim. So far 911 seem to be be striking a pretty solid balance on trusting the audience to empathise with the characters even when they do bad things and get called out by the narrative for those things.

I don't think the show has killed any kids yet, which I'm grateful for but also wary about. I'm betting they're saving that up for a real gut punch of an episode. I already cried over the mother in the plane who DIDN'T die?? If there are any big Kids Dying episodes I should watch out for maybe let me know. (I'm already aware of the basics of Bobby's backstory, though)

#911 abc

[astriiformes]

Friend groupchat has been doing TOH finale analysis all afternoon and @thesixthstar made the comment "Luz is the Collector's Azura" and I am going to be rotating that one in my mind for. A long time. Forever maybe.

#the way the collector was used to really dig into/emphasize some of the most important parts of both luz and king's arcs #simultaneously but also uniquely #and didn't as specifically dig into eda's but still did a little because it emphasized her connection to the latter two so well #like the fact that they all walked through their relationship as a story and can share that story with someone else now #very very interesting use of a pretty out-there character concept; i was not sold on them at the end of s2 but like i get it now #(they also made for such an interesting contrast to belos -- someone who caused harm on accident instead of on purpose) #(and thus helped with fleshing out that theme of like. what really is morality/accountability for causing harm) #(which MAN i have a lot of feelings about the episode digging into that with luz given my own brain lately) #the finale was just. such an episode #anyways this post is mostly me doing the will smith hands at sharon's point because she is SO right #toh spoilers #f: us weirdos have to stick together

[xzhdjsj]

Ranking Sakuverse Characters!

I've seen a couple of these on my feed and thought I'd give it a try :))

- Zaros

I honestly don't know how he made his way to the top. When he was first let out of saku's basement, I raved about how much of an asshole he is and that I'd never like him but uhhh that didn’t quite age well did it?🤡 I also LOVEEEEEE fantasy settings so he definitely has my attention there.

- Andrew

Would've been number 1 if it wasn't for that menace of a man (seriously help me) Andrew was the first character I was introduced to and I love him too damn much. Forbidden romance always had me running laps and the way this man speaks AGHEHWJEJWJKSWKKWKSKW ACCENT>>>

- Xanthus

He's a vampire and I. LOVE. VAMPIRES. (No, I have not seen Twilight tho) Like come over here and take all my blood idc (I have iron deficiency💀) But on a serious note Xanthus is such a cool character and his story is a genius concept! Can't wait to see him beat Audric's ass🙏

- Isaac

Pookie wookie Isaac! I loved the slowburn of his story and I really enjoyed his chatacter development. He's so thoughtful and sweet too🥹 Deserves all the kisses!

- Jonah

As everyone has been saying GAMER BOY GAMER BOY GAMER BOY GAMER BOY +he gives me huge malewife energy! Need I say more?

- Elias

Another gamer boy, only partially but it counts! I especially enjoyed when he forced batista to call him pretty😭 like yes baby you are pretty DEMAND TO BE CALLED A PRETTY BOY! I also loveee his ear piercings! He's one of the reasons I got some myself🤭

- Kayson

Oh I love this idiot, he's another character that gives me malewife vibes. He's so supportive and sweet! Everyone deserves a Kayson in their life!

- Dontis

I didn't expect him to be this far down on my list😭 Dontis is quite the character. He's unique and I definitely feel his charm radiating through my screen. (He better make it out alive or I'm going to start a war) Oh and also accent>>> (Can you tell I'm a sucker for accents?)

- Rowan

GOLDEN RETRIEVER BOY. He's so damn sweet and I can't wait to see how his story progresses!

- Asirel

I spell this man's name wrong on a regular (Azirel/ Asriel) so if you've seen that look the other way pookie.

His motives and his relationship with pet is interesting and I wanna see what happens next!

- Cevyk

Just a silly, goofy guy (not really) The skin peeling caught me off guard but I think its very creative. I mean he's a demon what were we expecting when we sold our soul😭 This is another story I can't wait to see develop in the future!

- Alex

No. Absolutely not🧍‍♀️ I loved him at first but god that whole argument to break-up segment really freaking hurt me. So now his dumbass at the bottom

Extra

Tried to watch Luca vids but his voice reminds me of someone I used to know😭 I got war flashbacks and quit💀 but he seems like a cutie patootie!

#zsakuva #sakuverse #asmr #zaros #zaros atha’lin #andrew #andrew marston #xanthus #xanthus claiborne #isaac #isaac rhoades #jonah #elias #kayson #dontis #rowan #asirel #cevyk #alex

[muffinrecord]

Somethin' kind of interesting about Mikoto is that she's this evil gal who is like. Well. I mean, she's trying to end the world, right.

But you see stuff like this and then you look at her quote video,

and like, you start to realize that this is just her way of wanting to stop pain and suffering.

One thing about Magia Record is that it doesn't have straight up evil characters (well playable characters). Everyone is redeemable. Everyone can become a friend.

This can be frustrating sometimes. Promised Blood lead to deaths in Kamihama. Himena tried to commit fascist genocide. Oriko tried to kill Mitama (and totally killed a bunch of people through Kirika before her respective event). Alina is Alina. Like, some of these girls committed heinous things, but at the end, everyone is saved, redeemed, and made into friends.

I think additionally, one can argue that it's out of capitalist desire to do this, not necessarily out of a desire for good writing. You want your girls to have some likable traits, right? Otherwise who the hell would roll for them? You want your precious blorbo to have enough good qualities that people aren't just completely turned off on the concept of them. There are people on tumblr who believe that Alina fucking Gray was in the right the whole time; this is strategic shit on their part. Even if you don't give them enough good to outweigh the bad, you want to give the girl the best kind of ending possible for her (yes even for the girls who died).

That means Alina isn't going to get killed and forgotten about, it means that Himena gets saved before turning into a witch, it means that Yuna doesn't ultimately give into her hatred and become a kimochi monster, it means at the very last moment Oriko won't go through with killing Mitama. Everyone stops just short of crossing that event horizon of punishment and retribution for their actions.

But to be honest, I also kind of like it about Magia Record too, even if can feel "weak" writing-wise. I feel like there is a message behind the story-- that all of these magical girls have a shared suffering, a shared trauma, that only they have ever experienced, and that's why they need to work together. Even if some of them have done horrible things. Because truthfully, the worst thing done was done to them by the society they live (aka Kyubey). Their sacrifices are used to power change that benefits the universe at their expense.

I think one can easily use this as a metaphor for real life issues regarding marginalized people. Magical girls perform invisible labor that doesn't get acknowledged outside of their community as part of the inherent system. I think it's pretty easy to relate this to women as a whole for large parts of history. One reason that men historically have been able to accomplish so much is because their wives were helping them in the background-- either in assisting in the actual research or "simply" by taking over all the household labor and tasks, freeing up their husbands' time to study the universe or whatever. But I don't think you can "just" relate this to women's issues; I think it can definitely be argued that it can relate to a bunch of other marginalized groups.

And with that in mind, I kind of like that all of these girls are able to get along. Every single one shares this one piece of trauma. There are many different ways that trauma can look like-- sometimes it's knowing that you sold your soul for a wish you didn't really want. Sometimes it's knowing that you have to fight for the rest of your life. It might be knowing that your fate is to become a witch. It might result in loneliness. It might result in fights amongst your fellow magical girl peers, because there aren't enough resources to go around. It might be from watching your friends die and become a witch, aka magical girl food.

The really evil characters who are always presented as such are non-magical girls. Yeah, that's again because you want your playable characters to be likeable and sellable-- but it's also fascinating in it's own right. Mikoshiba gets almost no kind displays on her part. One could argue that it's a poor writing attempt to make a villain. One could also argue that she's perpetuating the system and trauma that these girls face and using it for her own advantage, with no regard for the tools she's set up to sacrifice. Acting out and trying to fight back isn't irredeemable. Knowing better and taking advantage of these girls is.

Then we come back to Mikoto, and why I think she's actually compelling, even if she's probably the most "evil" playable character. This girl has suffered a hell of a lot-- in addition to her own horrible homelife and schoollife, she becomes a witch and then a parasite-- but that parasitedom is really just another way to hammer in her suffering. She can't affect the world while she's in Hanna's head, she can only tell Hanna what to do and hope that Hanna follows it-- and sometimes Hanna does. Sometimes she doesn't. And then you have Mikoto seeing all of the various bad ends that magical girls get when they turn into witches. Doom, despair, suffering, and failure are burnt into her psyche. And when Hanna dies, it must feel like Mikoto really doesn't have anything at all, but a cruel universe that toys with her and shows her nice things, only to take them away. The world and all its beauty feels like its a mockery of what she can't have for herself.

With that in mind... yeah Mikoto is like, not a great person or anything, but we see how her problems stem from society's treatment/neglect towards her. It's like the game is saying, "by not protecting our most vulnerable, we make monsters. And that's our wrong, not theirs."

IDK. Maybe I'm really overthinking it? Very possible. But I like that the game points to some of these poor girls and says that they need help, not condemnation. They need understanding, love, and friendship. They need hope. The world can be an unkind place, but it can also be a beautiful one, and they deserve to feel that beauty and love too.

Anyways thanks for listening to my long rambling rant.

#Magia Record #Mikoto Sena #Farewell Storage #a little embarrassed to put this out there but let's see how it goes

[inconspicious-random-thoughts]

My theory is that Mimzy was once Alastor’s best friend, he maybe even thought he might have been in love with her at one point, in that manner aroace people who don’t know they’re aroace often do, that she was then sacrificed by this cult, and that Alastor had them infiltrated and taken down every member of that cult over decades, losing more and more of himself each time as those he killed grew less and less directly connected to the crime, “sorry you just got in my way, maybe I enjoy it just a little bit does that make me insane”, but that in the act of doing so, that contradiction of righteous intent and pure depravity, along with whatever ritual for power the cult had initially started upon, let’s say in honour of Roo (the root of all evil in the Hellaverse, a character yet to be introduced), and that on Alastor’s eventual death, he then found himself in Hell all-powerful, and set about bringing down those Overlords beneath his power continuing this moral code, until he hit a wall, finding himself having ended all Overlords less powerful than him / otherwise came to his senses on meeting Mimzy again and finding her to have gone to hell, recognising that “weren’t you an old pal of mine” and really nothing more and deciding mere power, entertainment is all he now desires. But that still, out of obligation, that he must kill Lucifer, the Devil, for a sense of completion, while still being allowed to exist himself afterward. Which leads to whatever deal he ended up trapped in seven years before the events of the series, and him getting Charlie to make a deal with him to “harm no one” at a certain point in the future: to ensure that when the time comes that he will be able to kill Lucifer, and the one person able to stop him won’t be able to. To really make Alastor a true Exterminator, more measured, the embodiment of how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

My first message on this blog! Everyone feel free to do so. I be happy to heart thoughts or possibly give opinions or disscussion.

That's interesting. It keep overlooking the concept of cults when I theorize. I just slips my mind its a thing. I wrote something about Vox and someone mention him being a cult leader, and I have to admit....it makes sense. He fits cult leader material perfectly. The charisma, the hypnotism. "Trust us..." Which, would an added layer to their rivalry of Vox recognized Alastor as the 'notorious cult member killer' from decades before his time to fit your theory.

I personally headcanon the reason he was so powerful when he fell was voodoo. I haven't done a 30 minute research for me to flush it out tho. But based off my very poor memory of Disney the princess and the frog...Alastor was into Voodoo while alive.

Been mention through the show, "His voodoo magic." And maybe, his voodoo aided him to be a successful serial killer. Basing Dr. Facilier to Alastor, (remember my memories are sketchy) and my non existent knowledge of voodoo,he sold his soul already to someone in Hell while he was alive to perform voodoo, and his body count counted to the demon he sold his soul to power. Aware but not fully digested the weight of that action and what it truly entailed to sell his soul. That Hell is forever. So when he died, his master pretty much granted him immense power for a job well done as well treat him like a lieutenant type of underling. Every time Alastor increase his power, it increase his master. He nearly has free range do whatever he wants but he still has commands to follow.

I think that's why Charlies dream seem so laughable to him.When Charlie asked Alastor if he thought it was possible for the souls can be redeemed. He said (paraphrase) "There's no undoing what is done while they were alive, and now they pay the price in their after life." Which tbh, Alastor right...that's what Hell is about. But I think it may have a stronger meaning to Alastor. His deal he made while alive.

I agree with the Lilith and Eve theories for as his master, which does check out. But I'm not throwing Zestial out the window. I find it odd that Alastor nearly wiped out all the older generation overlords but he remained. Also, how everyone overly fears him when the show introduced him and literally did nothing with him. (I have a feeling he minimal use is keeping him on low profile until he becomes a big player later.) Alastor did seem a tad apprehensive when Zestial appeared calm enough knowing harm not coming his way. The only reason I haven't made a post of it because Zestial question the 7 year absence/-which I can't explain. I think he would know what his powerful underling been up too.

The reason he got into killing I assume is his father. Alastor is a momma boy and I can see him taking out his father trying to defend his mother. Then it just kept morphing into a defender of woman and selecting men who rape woman and children or he see a very abusive man to his wife and it just keep recalling the memories of his own parents. His soul already damn, might as well put it to use, can't damn it more! He found himself good at cold murder, enjoying it. Or rather...entertained. The stalking, planning out every detail, the chase. He gives me slow death vibes, relishing their 'song and dance' as they scream and writhe in pain. It gave him a high,holding that much power over someone, the power of their life in his hands (god complex we get to witness) Then the satisfaction of getting away with it. It becoming more of a game then a (in his mind) service of justice.

Maybe he got into cannibalism when he fed come gaters to rid of the evidence and was like 'hmmm, maybe them gators have something there..." and kept a calf to try and was hooked since then. Then the killing became more of feed an appetite and boredom, that he had to seek a suitable victim to fulfill his needs. When it use to be, he witness/has knowledge of a deplorable act, he killed to end it from continuing. His 'kind' service became a greedy hunger of flesh, power, and entertainment.

But the last part of you message was extremely interesting. I never consider Alastor deal with Charlie is to use his favor to have her not get involved and stop him from fulfilling a task he needed/wanted. It really clever and keeps the harm no one part.

Love the part that Hell was paved with good intentions, because of the apple of knowledge/free will what created Hell. Such a lovely and fun way to put it. Then applied it to Alastor with what started as good intention murders.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel headcanon #hazbin hotel theory #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel lucifer #zestial #hazbin zestial #hazbin hotel zestial #hazbin theory #hazbin headcanons

[secretgamergirl]

Consider cloning one of these games...

So the other day someone was showing me the trailer to some neat new indie game they were getting into, and my immediate thought was "that does look pretty nice but FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING! INDIE DEVS, PLAY A SECOND GAME ALREADY!"

Presumably you've already guessed this, but it was a nice little handcrafted thing that was very plainly inspired primarily by Super Metroid. Even had those bubble-looking platforms. I'd say what it was specifically, but I already forgot the name, because, you know, I've kinda seen a few games do this before.

It's not like Super Metroid isn't one of my favorite games of all time, obviously. I'm one of the shockingly few people who played it when it was new and totally fell in love then. And it's also not like there aren't several games made in its image that I also love. It's just that there's way too damn many of them out there for anyone to play, and while I'd never be one to tell someone not to make the thing they want to make due to market saturation or whatever, I kinda feel like we're doing a huge disservice to our collective creativity and appreciation of classic games to all be so hyper-focused on putting our own spins on this one particular game, especially when it kinda knocked things out of the park back when this wasn't a genre it was just this one super cool game with, among other things, a compelling structure to it.

Like, I do love that Super Metroid became A game that's served as a focal point for indie devs to try and recreate. Back when it was first released it actually sold kinda terribly by Nintendo's standards, and didn't really have anything else out there trying to iterate on the concept until we eventually got the Castlevania series going that route, and Cave Story. But at this point, yeah, Super Metroid has been all canonized and studied to death and if you're the sort of person who cares about this sort of thing in the slightest you know all about how it ticks and the appeal and what other ways the basic premise can be pulled in. So it's well past time for people to take another game that's super great and fairly unique and use that as a jumping off point to make some new things. So I'm just going to ramble here a little about some real gems that nobody's ever really gotten around to trying to replicate.

Punch-Out!!

I want to say we're all familiar with Punch-Out!! but... are we? It's a famously difficult game, so odds are good you've seen speedruns or other challenge runs, but you really have to play it for yourself to see what's so interesting about it. A big part of the initial appeal of course was having these really expressive screen-filling characters, which isn't something we're lacking now. It's also real twitchy, basically unplayable towards the end if you're dealing with any sort of input lag at all, which isn't super unique these days, but structurally, the way it's coded, there's all this weird artificial drama to it.

Like, on the surface, it's a pretty straightforward thing. Enemies have tells for their attacks, you dodge those, you hit them in the resulting openings. But there's also the round based structure, knock-downs, and one-off gimmick mechanics in the mix. Officially, we're playing by the rules of boxing where the outcome of a match is decided by either knocking someone down and them not getting back up, knocking them down three times in a round, or running out of time and having to go to some judge's decision. But that's not REALLY how it works.

There's no random chance of someone going down and staying down. You've got HP meters, you take one down, your opponent falls over, waits until late in the count and gets up, forcing you to drain that HP down three times before the round ends, and if yours bottoms out, you get to mash buttons to stand up and have your other two chances. But then there's times you CAN take someone down, not only keeping them down for a KO win, but even getting there without your opponent bottoming out on HP first. The most famous example, I believe of both of these, being Bald Bull's charge. The big dramatic make or break where he just keeps using this special move which isn't terribly hard to dodge, but deadly if it connects, and dodging doesn't really help as he won't stop until the round ends, and then might spend the whole second round doing nothing but. You need to take that risk, and get that frame perfect stomach strike just before he connects to dramatically KO him and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat... or you can do this:

I was actually looking for an example of the all or nothing strike when I found this. If you don't face the charge in round 1, he gets into it sooner in round 2 to force the matter, but if you're still not confident enough to go for it there, turns out you can just drop him early into round 3 and have him stay down... and the only real consistent rule any of this follows is drama. Heck looking at the opening screen here, this person knows tricks for getting a KO on at least the first 10 opponents. Most of them I've always just taken the TKOs on myself. Point is though, the mechanics really run on drama. AI scripts change up if you move onto new rounds. Knock-downs turn into knock outs if and only if it fits a certain narrative. This sort of thing is super fascinating to me. Makes me want to look through the game's code line by line. And the only thing I can think of in any other game that even comes close is, of all things, the Ace Attorney series, with those scenery chewing meltdowns, and scattered scenes that "break the rules" with instant failure penalties or no-win situations where you're then suddenly saved by a friendly NPC's dramatic appearance.

I wouldn't suggest anyone literally try to make a Punch-Out!! clone. There's no real reason to stick to the boxing framework. I'd definitely advise against copying all the broad stereotypes. But there's a real unique soul to the drama-driven mechanics breaking stated rules I'd love to see people really digging into to gain a deep understanding of it and apply that to original games.

Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic

I'm not just being pretentious and refusing to say Super Mario Bros. 2. When it was Mario-ized, there were two huge changes- A run button the original FDS game didn't have, and the fundamental structural change of just having you finish levels with whatever character you like (or use warp zones to skip them entirely). In the original game, in order to see the proper ending, you had to play each and every level with each and every character with no run button. And that's neat, actually.

See, just as an example, there's a bit of a skip early on in both versons of the game, where you can avoid taking a door through some whole area by just leaping across a big waterfall. In Super Mario Bros. 2 anyone can do this, just needing a running start, but in the original release, there are no running starts. Either you can jump that gap by way of good airtime, or you can't. Depends which character you play as. Everyone has different stats, so being forced through the same full set of levels, there's a few little things like this where you have to alter your strategy to reflect the character you're running with at the time. That's cool. The whole mechanic of lifting things and throwing them, or riding on enemies' heads, or stacking blocks to reach higher areas or block fireballs, this is also just cool (and another thing SMB2 tweaked actually, play both and see for yourself).

I have seen literally one indie game that riffed on this idea, Curse of the Crescent Isle.

Umihara Kawase

If you've played it, you know. If you haven't, please just watch this speedrun:

Nothing has physics quite like this game. Nothing really has the same weird mildly distressing dream sort of tone to it either, or weird as hell branching level structure, or the weird system where the game has a time limit, but rather than giving a game over just makes it end after your current level. Other games have played with grappling hooks, but nothing I've ever seen has made me feel like this here is what they were going for.

Altered Beast

You know, I don't even particularly LIKE Altered Beast. I always thought it was a bit too short, a bit too simple, and still somehow it felt like you were just killing time until getting the power-ups that kinda make you invincible for the rest of the level.

There's... something here though. Somewhere with these bodies getting so bulky and beefy with no change to their heads and the voice samples and the sense of spectacle to it all, and yeah the dramatic gameplay shifts with the power-ups. I don't quite know what the secret sauce is, but if you find it, bottle it up, and slather it over something less shallow, you might really have something there.

Ecco the Dolphin

There is such a weird mix in the whole series of new age hippie save the whales vibes and genuinely disquieting horror just kinda seamlessly blended together. So much of it is the sound design, but the claustrophobia, the weird sense of speed, the constant pressure of drowning or suddenly being in the face of some huge nasty thing that'll basically one-shot you. The... unspoken but pronounced notion that this is set in a world where all of humanity died and are totally unremembered. There's a hell of a lot you could do with any of this, and the only game I can think of that comes close to hitting the same notes is Subnautica. Actually for that matter...

Subnautica

I don't want to get into what's so great about Subnautica here, because the most common sentiment I hear from people who have played it is they wish there was some way they could play Subnautica for the first time, again. Just... yeah. If you haven't already, play through it all completely blind, and if you can think of how to recapture all of that, do it, and put it in my hands without a word.

X-Com Apocalypse

So... X-Com is a truly amazing game that to this day feels like a unique enough beast it also wouldn't be bad to try and learn from, but there's actually a good number of attempts at clones already, none quite seem willing to get into the same levels of complexity, and there's the whole remade Firaxis series with a simpler take that a lot of games are using as a template. But Apocalypse? The original third game? That tried to do a lot of new and different stuff. I don't know how much of it didn't work vs. how much is secretly amazing if you internalize how it works vs. what's sort of half-baked per se, but there's some real ambition with mixing the original's tactical intricacies and destructible terrain and such (which somehow works even better with the realtime mode this one has), with this living breathing city. You aren't intercepting UFOs on a featureless world map. You've got a whole separate combat engine on a persistent map where stray shots can damage roads and cause long-term problems because the supplies you order get shipped via trucks that travel on those roads. Tons of factions you ideally want support from but can go attack and rob if they feel like lost causes. A tech tree with really dramatic progress and early discoveries that are either double-edges swords or genuinely just terrible things to try to use.

And then the endgame is really neat because instead of just one big final mission, you flip the whole script, and suddenly you're invading an alien city, picking targets to wreak havoc on and ultimately destroy, one by one. Incidentally this also did headcrabs before Half-Life so... I feel like it should be better known just for historical context.

Shadow of the Colossus

I know this is kind of a big technical ask, but why the hell were we not FLOODED with a whole generation of grandiose setpiece-y boss rush games after this first dropped? Perhaps more than anything else on here, someone really needs to get onto scratching this specific itch again, immediately.

I could totally keep going, but more importantly I'm sure you had some game that really left a mark on you that's been largely forgotten since, which I don't even know about, and you should really, if you're up to it, try and teach the world about it and how great it was by blending the old with something new of your own.

Just... draw from wider pools of inspiration, people.

#game design #inspiration #indie games #lost gems #punch out!! #doki doki panic #ecco the dolphin #subnautica #shadow of the colossus #altered beast #umihara kawase #x-com apocalypse #when I say 'play a second game' don't you dare just go play Dark Souls too #Youtube

[ketsukane]

these r fun so i will do more. request things and i’ll do them lol.

helluva boss characters’ reactions to their s/o saying “i love you” for the first time! i’ll make more in the future if you all like this one.

blitzø:

“oh. um. you said what now?”

doesn’t know how to handle this. this poor guy believes he is ultimately worthless and undeserving of anything positive. so you saying this… was a surprise, to say the least.

it takes him a minute, but he does say it back. it makes him tear up a little. he really isn’t used to this, but it’s okay, because you can learn together!

stolas:

omgomgomgomg he is SO HAPPY.

he literally freaks out for about five minutes before actually returning to his senses and saying it back.

“did you just say what— you— well— ahem. i love you too, dearest.”

this man’s face is so red the entire time. it’s actually pretty endearing. he’s craved love forever, since he never got it from his arranged marriage, so by god is he eating your words up rn.

striker:

*blinks*

“…how and why?”

yeah, so it takes a minute to settle in. striker is sort of absorbed in his bad boy aesthetic and therefore believes everyone would be afraid of him, or expect him to he invulnerable. he’s actually relieved that you said it first, because now he can drop the facade and actually be with you.

“well, i’ll be a son of a gun, sweet pea. you’ve got some interesting tastes. i share the sentiment, though.”

you’d better believe the hat is comin off for the cowboy hat-hidden kiss.

it takes him a little to learn how to say it back. he’s still sort of stuck in that cold exterior. but you can warm him up no problem!

stella:

(seriously): “it’ll pass.”

moxxie:

“OMGILOVEYOUTOO. I DIDN’T THINK I’D HEAR YOU SAY IT, BUT YOU’RE SAYING IT, AND I’M JUST SO HAPPY, I JUST-“

he’s going to go on a lil ramble because he is so elated. he might even sing about it.

he gives you a kiss on your cheek and smiles ecstatically. “i love you too, so, so much.”

he is so sincere with it. so in love.

millie:

“well, i love you too, baby!”

she’ll kiss you and hold you super close, probably going in for a nice cuddle sesh.

she is really happy that you said it, even if she seems casual at the time.

she feels like she found the right person and wants to settle down with you in the future, but tries not to get too carried away with that thought.

loona:

she acts like it isn’t a big deal and says it back nonchalantly, but it is. a big ass deal.

loona grew up having no one to love her, no one to care about her; she was viewed as a pet to be sold and treated with no respect.

until blitz took her in, and even then, we see how she acts around blitz. she believes she’s undeserving of the parental love he provides her, so it would be the same scenario with romantic love.

overtime, she’d probably start to understand how to handle it. but the first time her s/o says it, she probably cries when no one is looking.

chaz:

alr we know this guy is a fuck boy but he did date both moxxie and millie, so i think he does know how to love? just not well.

probably feels like a jackass deep down for screwing them both over the way he did, especially moxxie. he probably thinks he’s not worthy of being trusted by someone again, so he just hides it all beneath the f boi attitude.

however, when you say it, his entire demeanor shifts for a second. at first, he doesn’t believe he heard you correctly. then you say it again, and he visibly just. softens? like he doesn’t feel the need to act like a total idiot for once?

“i, uh… i love you too, babes!” and then the f boi attitude returns after that small moment of shock. he’s like, “i knew you’d say it at some point, who could resist me?”

verosika:

she would be a little stunned. she’s a succubus, after all; she feeds off of lust, not love. it’s not a concept she’s familiar with.

she’d look at you very flirtatiously, as if you just said some sort of magic words she’d been hoping to hear from someone one day (even if she’d never admit it.)

“love you too. let’s go to a club.”

y’all get crunk and make out, the end <3

#helluva boss #hazbin hotel #hellaverse #helluva boss imagine #helluva boss headcanon

[possiblylando]

Jojolands Chapter 7 Thoughts

I really liked Jojolands Chapter 7. I'll do this in the same sort of way I do my CSM posts. I probably won't talk about every single chapter in Jojolands but we'll see.

Jojoland gets the Ultrajump cover this time. Araki has said theres no canon color pallet for these characters but he's just lying to our faces. He is sold on this single Jodio color scheme. this is just how Jodio is colored. I do find it interesting he made Dragona white for some reason. It's one of those weird Araki coloring quirks you don't really see anywhere else. It's happened with Pucci and Avdol before and as pointed out by someone else on twitter, This is just how Araki colors these spreads. He uses a single skin color for every character. Still odd. Usagi's color pallet is basically a perfect Mirror of Idubbbz's Green "Dude" character. With each chapter we get slowly closer to pink Usagi.

We get the Jojolands emblem which I rather like.

Jodio's pose is still pretty dumb. I get that it's him being arrested but like- Cmon. I know for a FACT araki could've come up with something more interesting. I guess it's not that out of place for Jojo's main poses. Jotaro just pointed and grabbed his hat. Notably Jodio still has some sort of writing in this hood. I can't really make out what it says still however.

Continuing through the Cat ambush we get more information on November Rain. It's effective range is directly around Jodio with it's maximum range sitting somewhere below 7 Meters. Additionally November Rain does THIS

Which is is sorta akin to my previous theory about how it worked. It seems to have a certain amount of gravity control. However it may not be directly under it as I previously predicted but instead it's able to control the gravity of it's rain drops. So the Cats are 100% Rock Animals or some other concept for weird animals Araki is gonna reveal in the coming chapters.

Given that these cats all share the same ability to turn their hair into wires it seems reasonable to assume they're the same sort of species and this is just an ability they possess. However we've seen that some animals develop the same stands with the rats in part 4. Both of which are able to develop the stand Ratt. And then of course MY BOY RETURNS

Usagi continues to prove he's the best character in this part.

He manages to prove in just a few pages that he has an insanely high deductive reasoning skill. He was able to figure out what the Lava Rock did, Then he acted on it to win the fight. The other characters may see Usagi as a Greenhorn idiot but he's undeniably really smart. This also goes to show how dangerous the Lava Rock is. It's able to attract things of value which are inside a person or animal. It likely has a threshold on the value of objects it attracts. But we could end up with a disgustingly strong object which is able to attract organs out of people's bodies.

So Jodio's line of thinking is interesting here. It implies one of two things. 1. The cats were already stalking Rohan in search of the Lava rock 2. The cats were sent by someone searching for the Lava Rock They could very much be set up for the main antagonist(s) of this part. Possible being another antagonist group instead of just a single one. It seems like Araki is taking the criticism of Part 8 to heart and is going to be giving us our main antagonist sooner rather than later. However we've already been set up with a Traitor among the main crew who could easily end up being the main antagonist. The cats could just be setting up a minor Antagonist or Group and not the main one. Good chapter.

#jojo part 9 #jojolands #usagi alohaoe #jodio joestar #november rain #jojolands chapter 7

[azerothtravel]

Secret Origin

I'm just an old time Warcraft nerd who's too dumb to quit. My first WC game was Warcraft II, when I was in high school. I gravitated toward the Horde because they were funnier. I liked the game, but wasn't too good at it. Jump ahead to the release of Warcraft III, it's a whole other thing. I read all the lore in the huge manual. I was completely taken with the concept of orcs as once noble, tragic victims trying to make their way in the world and atone for their crimes. A friend of mine had me read some of the novels. I was suddenly way, way into the setting. Plus, I knew a lot of people who played WC3. I enjoyed the Orgrimmar campaign in Frozen Throne with no idea it was more or less a test run for WoW.

But I didn't like MMOs. I wasn't sure about WoW. Then I got into the beta. I hauled my whole-ass desktop over to the house of the same friend who loaned me those books, and we were up til 4am downloading the client and then getting started. Gormorash the orc warrior was born that night (And so was Skarsnik the troll hunter, but he lost interest after BC). I was immediately sold. Running around Azeroth at ground level, full of detail from the RTS games, was a ton of fun. Gormorash went on many strange adventures in beta, like a hilariously inept "raid" on Westfall where half our group died before we got there and none of us were even level 60.

Then Gormorash was rebooted on Argent Dawn US when the game launched, a member of <Flaming Skull Clan> with several other friends of mine.

By middle 2005, almost literally everyone I knew played WoW. My oldest friends, friends from college, friends from the internet, relatives. Basically 2 friends and my parents were the only people not playing. Friends of mine who didn't know each other met and bonded through WoW. It was a glorious time.

By the end of 2006, I'd been through 2 guild collapses and one server move, as they opened up free transfers to Eitrigg and my friends all took it. I wasn't sure I'd keep playing. The novelty had worn off for most of my friends. I wasn't that into raiding, and doing Arathi Basin over and over was only so interesting (Gormorash just lived in Hammerfall for like a year). I was maybe gonna quit. And then, in early 2007, my brother found 2 Collector's Editions of BC just sitting on a shelf in a store, and asked if I wanted one. I had the vanilla CE, but I'd missed BC when they were released, and didn't buy BC at all. He bought them and shipped me one, and we leveled 60-70 together. It was a lot of fun.

Along the way, I started a new guild with some online friends, and Gormorash is still in it. He's never missed an expansion. Most people have fallen off the wagon. Our guild typically only has 3 active members at any given time these days, but that's fine with me. Sometimes a couple people come back for major content. It was lore that got me into all this, and that remains my primary motivator for playing. My endgame is more PvP and leveling alts than raiding, but the game has literally never supported those 2 things better than right now (2023), so that's pretty good. I still have a good time. And that's why I have hundreds of screenshots to choose from stretching from the 2004 open beta to just a few days ago to post on this blog. With the sad exception of most of 2006, lost in a hard drive failure, I have a comprehensive collection of every screenshot I ever took, and that's what this blog is all about.

I've made a few other Gormorashes on other servers, but rarely leveled them very far. Someone out there made a Gormorash that isn't me, a fact that shocked me when I found out. Who stole my name? Was it you? I have characters of every race on both factions, but still tend to prefer Horde. If you see me, say hello!

Gormorash is an orc warrior who came of age in the camps. With his brother, Rugurrash, he's led a guild of adventures for many years, with trusty allies Snarfner, Vallkillmore and Canon rounding out the core group. His hair's started to gray after saving the world 8 or 9 times, traveling through space and time and the realms of death, but he's still out there, still exploring, still getting into trouble and mostly getting back out of it. He's an alchemist and herbalist in his spare time, and has a completely unmanageable collection of pets. He is really, really tired of being forced to fight his own Warchief, and really hopes the gods don't lean on that already very tired trope again in the future.

#wow #world of warcraft

[blueberry-lemon]

When trailers outshine themselves

I like watching trailers. Maybe even more now than I used to.

I’m well aware that the purpose of a trailer is to build hype and interest. It’s a commercial, to get you to buy something. In some cases, they spoil or ruin the very story they’re advertising. In some cases, it’s way better to go in “blind” than to look at marketing materials.

But, like many of us, I can’t help myself.

I really love a good trailer. It’s a cool artform. Somewhere between an advertisement and a music video. And because the trailer is such a different artform than the actual movie or game that it’s advertising, sometimes the trailer itself is even better than the final product. Sometimes I’ll go back and rewatch a trailer over and over, even after I’ve completed the actual thing it was hyping it.

I write this post not to complain about being disappointed about films or TV shows or games, but rather to give a shout-out to the trailer teams who I think did a fantastic job with their assignment.

The first examples that always jump to my mind are from Marvel Studios. I think they’re pretty great at trailers. I started noticing this when they started making their Disney+ shows. 

WandaVision: Both the initial trailer and the mid-season trailer are fantastic. I’ve watched them over and over. They do a good job of being charming, romantic, and lovesick. They do an even better job of being mysterious and unsettling. It’s a pitch-perfect way to get you to buy into the concept and want to check out the show. I enjoyed watching the full WandaVision show, maybe moreso than any other MCU Disney+ show, but I wouldn’t hesitate to admit that I like these two trailers even more than the show. Kudos to the editors that put these together.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier: I had absolutely no intention of watching this show. I’m not particularly interested in this genre or either of these two characters. But the trailer sold me on it, with its hype music choices and intense cutting. I ended up enjoying the show enough in the end, but definitely not as much as this hype trailer.

I thought Marvel did a great job again with Loki’s trailer and Hawkeye’s trailer. Loki’s trailer makes the show seem a lot more mysterious and surreal than it actually ended up being, haha. Hawkeye does that classic “sweet Christmas music juxtaposed with action sequences” trick.

They got me again with Moon Knight, a character I didn’t know anything about. Although I’ll give credit, I feel like Moon Knight was about as weird and wild as the trailer hyped up it would be. So in this case I think it was a satisfying match.

Another satisfying match? The trailers made for Undertale. The release trailer and Nintendo Switch trailer come to mind. They’re fun, funny, and show off how the game works. I love this unique version of the Bonetrousle track that they use, which becomes very dramatic and grandiose. They’re also good examples of including original material into trailers that aren’t actually in the final product. That practice, generally speaking, doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind if trailers “lie” or show different footage, so long as it’s effective and doesn’t feel misleading. 

There are other trailers that I feel like match pretty well. I didn’t feel any gulf in expectation or emotion between the trailers for Avengers Infinity War + Endgame versus their final movie versions.

The trailers for Pixar’s Turning Red made me blubber and tear up, and the full film completely lived up to that and even exceeded it. So for me, that was a great film where the trailer editors captured it perfectly.

And for an example of one where I felt mixed on the end product, both the trailer for Pixar’s Elemental and the full Elemental film felt pretty equivalent to me. It wasn’t my favorite movie in the world, and I feel like I got that vibe accurately from the trailers.

But now, finally, for the trailers that brought me to writing this.

I really love the trailers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

I’ll include two here. One is the “release date announcement”, and the second was the “theme song announcement” that was aired at The Game Awards.

This is great. It’s moody. It moves into one of the game’s fantastic battle themes (which is itself a sweeping battle rendition of the original game’s main theme.) It’s shows off how the combat works beautifully, intercut with tantalizing plot snippets. The trailer builds up mystery and adventure. It confirms that Yuffie and Cait Sith are playable. It shows cool Synergy combo moves. It manages to somehow transition gracefully into Golden Saucer minigame mayhem. Love it.

Another fantastic one. And the last piece of marketing material I would ever need to see to sell me on getting the game.

The trailer is split into two halves. The first half establishes the plot of the game. It gives us Cloud and Zack’s stories intertwined. It shows us weird, confusing story stuff that sets the Remake trilogy apart from the original. It shows us different environments you’ll travel through. Gives us a heartfelt conversation between Cloud and Tifa. Snippets of Barret’s story too.

The second half is the new original song for the game, No Promises to Keep, which was performed live at The Game Awards along with the footage. I really adore this song, to be blunt, so maybe that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting here. But it really makes me emotional and ties a lot of these disparate clips together. The animation of Aerith singing is beautiful, and it ends on a heart-tugging cliffhanger.

Now….my partner and I have been playing Rebirth. I’m early on, but they’ve only got about a quarter of the game left. We’re enjoying it, it’s great.

But…

…would it be out of line for me to say that the trailers are more effective than the game itself?

Much like WandaVision, the trailers for Rebirth sew all of the different scenes and emotions together into a seamless tapestry. It makes everything feel intentional, beautiful, well-paced, and packing an emotional punch. When my partner and I play the game itself, it feels harder for that intentionality and emotion to come through. Of course your mileage will vary. But, for me, it’s hard for the minigames to live up to the frantic montage when playing them in-game isn’t super fun. It’s hard for the emotional storytelling of the game to live up to the trailer when it’s spread out thin over hours and hours. Nothing in the game itself as made me feel as emotional or hooked in as these two trailers have, at least so far.

Again, this is not a knock on Rebirth. It’s the reality of how much easier it is to move hearts with a 2-minute trailer versus a 60-hour video game. A completely different artform.

And, most of all, it’s kudos to the trailer teams who work at Square and at all these companies for knowing the assignment and knocking it out of the park. I really love what they did with it.

#blogofkylelab #blog #final fantasy vii rebirth #ff7 rebirth #Youtube

[aboutanancientenquiry]

This is an introduction to Herodotus from the blog Mistaking Histories of Classicist Helen King, retired professor of Classical History. Now, King is with no doubt a good Classicist, with work focused especially on ancient medicine and ancient conceptions of human body. However, the truth is that I find her introduction to Herodotus somehow superficial, because Herodotus is of course much interested in death, food, and (to a lesser degree) sex, but he is also interested for instance in institutions and their influence on human characters and in the conflict between the opposite aspirations to imperial expansion and freedom in history. Moreover, I think that she underestimates how often Herodotus gives reliable ethnographic and historical information and she is out of phase with the reappreciation of Herodotus’ work the last decades. Anyway, here is Helen King’s introductory text on Herodotus:

“DEATH, FOOD, SEX

Bed, Bread and Dead: The Dummies’ Guide to Herodotus

May 4, 2017

Herodotus has to be my favourite ancient historian. Hailed as both ‘father of history’ and ‘father of lies’, he wrote a history of the time of the Persian Wars that was everything the later Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars was not: racy, dodgy and fond of tangents. It’s from Herodotus that many of the best stories of ancient Greece come. For example, in Book 6.127-129 he tells the tale of Hippocleides, who was doing pretty well in the contest to win the hand of the daughter of Cleisthenes until he drank rather more than he could handle and danced on a table, ending by standing on his head and beating time with his legs. Cleisthenes told him he’d blown his chances and Hippocleides replied ‘It’s all the same to Hippocleides!’

When I used to teach Herodotus to first-year students at university, I developed a simple way of remembering the basic points about how he categorizes different peoples: bed, bread and dead. That’s to say, when describing anyone, whether that’s the Egyptians or the Amazons, the main things that grip him are what they do sexually, what they eat and how they deal with their dead.

Different ways of handling marriage fascinate him. He tells us that the Babylonians run an annual marriage market in which the unmarried women of each village are graded by their looks and auctioned off, starting with the most beautiful. When these are all sold, the less attractive are given a dowry from the proceeds of the sale, so that all end up married.

He frequently goes into the details of burial customs. The Thracians lay out the bodies of the dead for three days. At the funeral of a king, the Scythians kill one of his concubines and various other personal attendants, then get high on hemp, before killing more servants – and horses – a year later.

He is particularly interested in those who mix up the categories of bed, bread and dead – for example, the Egyptian mummifiers who like to have sex with the corpses of attractive women before mummifying them, or the Issedones who eat their dead fathers, mixing up the flesh with some lamb, and then gild their skulls.

It’s still debated whether stories like this contain any truth, but they were clearly very appealing to Herodotus and to his audience. So why were these the big three areas of interest? The ancient Greeks had very clear ideas about what was ‘normal’ and ‘right’ in each of them. Marriage should be between one man and one woman, arranged by their families. The Amazons come out as pretty weird here, because in various ancient versions of their customs, they either have an annual sex binge with the men of a neighbouring tribe, or they have tame men who are lamed to stop them running away. And in Herodotus they need to kill three men in battle before they are allowed to marry.

Food should consist of what is cooked, not what is raw, and a key aspect of this was the staple product of bread. The dead should be treated with appropriate respect and placed in the earth; think here of the play Antigone in which the disrespectful treatment of the body of the heroine’s brother is at the heart of the drama. Those who had contact with a corpse were polluted. There were rules on how a corpse should be prepared for burial, on where people could be buried, and on how long the period of mourning should last. Eating people was wrong – but so was a completely vegetarian diet.

Bed, bread and dead: so important in ancient Greek anthropology, precisely because they were the areas of human life by which the Greeks defined themselves.”

https://mistakinghistories.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/bed-bread-and-dead-the-dummies-guide-to-herodotus/

Helen King (see how she describes her career and work on https://mistakinghistories.wordpress.com/about/ )

#herodotus #the histories #ancient greek classics #helen king

[artisticdemon]

Book Review because I'm Bored (1)

~Heartless by Marissa Meyer 💔

Leave if you don't want any spoilers because I AIN'T holding back.

Ok, you're still here, let's gooooo!

I was drawn in by the cover, the queen's face with the thorns around it, and bought it immediately. An origin story for the Queen of Hearts? Sold! Also, I do that quite a lot, I read the last paragraph and that made me wanna buy it right on the spot.

The story grabbed me and never let me go till the end, the scenes that were introducing the characters were top-notch. I didn't expect the action to be this good, to be honest. When I read that it includes a love story I kinda rolled my eyes a bit because love stories in many books are meh but if they are written properly then yes hit me up. And this one was good.

I was rooting for Catherine and Jest to escape and live their life and I can't count the times that I screamed at Catherine's cowardness and not taking her life into her hands despite her place in society. Someone will say that it wouldn't be easy but she needed to try and fight more! I hate it when people in books and in real life go down like that! Also, her mother can shut the Hell up. QUIET YOU OLD HAG! She was the typical oppressive mother that you want to scream at till your vocal cords bleed and put her in her place and show her that you are not a kid anymore but a person with feelings, needs and dreams.

I could talk about her mother for hours but I need to continue!

The Mad Hatter stole the show for me, his scenes were wild and entertaining and I actually used the scene where Kath asks him to become her business partner for a university project. That's how much I liked it. He was an antihero a bit in my eyes but still meant well and he did nothing wrong! NOTHING! Those pumpkin seeds were planted there by accident! He did nothing wrong! Also as I was reading his parts I could only see him as Undertaker from Black Butler XD I don't know why but it fit somehow XD

ANYWAY!

The secondary characters were fun and interesting too, especially Cheshire but he gets a pass because he is my favourite in general. Cheshire is there for the gossip and helps only when it suits him and this is very clear in the final act of the book.

The Kingdom of Hearts was full of people that wanted to have fun and not take themselves seriously and the King is a prime example of that. He wasn't bad or evil but really out of place. And when you have to deal with a threat, you need to be serious. And so needed the people of the kingdom.

Sir Peter was a scary enemy, the scenes with him and his wife sent chills down my spine because I could feel that these two were up to no good. And I knew his wife was the Jabberwock. I just knew it and it was confirmed when he built a giant pumpkin cage. Like, who are you putting in there Peter? //__-

Also, I didn't really understand how time works in Chess and in the Kingdom of Hearts so I need to read these parts again. But it had a nice touch, I was very anxious at some parts that time would run out. I don't know XD

At some point, Jest suggested a solution to their problem, telling Cath if they do a chess move the war will stop and they could live together in Chess. Yes, they were supposed to do a chess move and that part fried my brain because I don't know chess. I only know the pawns' names. And that's enough.

Now let's talk about the Sisters!

First of all, I loved how the author used the concept of the number 3, Fate and Fates from Greek mythology and the concept we have for Fate and I will share it with you: No matter what you do you will never escape it or change it, you will just stall it for a bit till she finds you again and I loved that! And I'm pretty sure you have heard about the number 3 and its meaning in folklore and myths.

Oh my Ghoul, I couldn't put the book down from chapter 42 till the end. It had gone dark and I loved every second of it, it was a horror movie on its own! When Jest, Catherine and Hatter entered their domain and the Sisters started asking for the heroes to hand them over something till the end in the courthouse I wasn't breathing from the anticipation. I felt trapped in that place too.

The journey and the desperation of Cath to change her fate and her transformation from a girl in love with dreams to a heartless creature was so macabrely beautiful and I didn't expect Jest to die to be honest, I thought he would survive but the pictures the Sisters had drawn were not there just for decoration. But his death should have been more dramatic. Give us the ANGST, HURT/COMFORT Marissa! But I feel like his decapitation was symbolic given the fact that's the Red Queen's choice for the whole series.

The change in Catherine's character it's amazing, she basically says to everyone who was controlling her life that making her the Queen will be the biggest mistake they ever made. And how far she was willing to go to find Peter and bring him to justice. I wanted her to be more cruel and don't hold back the things she wanted to say to everyone after the final battle but she didn't! I was like "Girl! They screwed you over! Scream at them, don't hold back! Make them cry! YOU DON'T HAVE A HEART ANYMORE!". But what ended up happening, in my opinion, was ok.

I visualize everything when I read and this made the experience so much better. I really loved the book and I hope Marissa Meyer writes more fairytale-inspired origin stories because she is so good. And the villain of the story for all of us XD

8 out of 10 black hearts for me 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

#book review #book recommendations #heartless #red queen #the queen of hearts #marissa meyer

[syncogon]

misc thoughts fresh off finishing yumi and the nightmare painter: 

* i should’ve taken my time reading this ahaha. books definitely hit different when savored and on larger screen/pages

- there were some tropes i didn’t like here, like painter pretending to yumi to be all cooler and more heroic than he actually was = cringe when it comes falling down. at least that part was relatively short. but like digging a hole with your lies ughhhhhhh hate that hate misunderstandings hate people not believing you when you tell the truth 

- was not convinced to care about the side characters. they didn’t really get any development. i wasn’t even sold on the old friend group being friends with each other - their banter wasn’t that good, and I’m sensitive to this kinda thing atm since I’m in my own struggle of writing convincing and interesting friend group interactions - nor were they written particularly compellingly as individuals. akane was kind but that was about it. i love the sleepless as a concept and masaka was great but she really came out of nowhere to help. and liyun could have used more development 

- speaking of masaka this is a hot take as a cosmere fan but i think there’s a point where the cosmere references get too much and detract from the story at hand. felt that a bit with lost metal, at times with tress, and definitely here. 

- hoid’s narration - i thought it fine in tress, suited the fairytale storytelling tone, but his comments felt kind of more annoying and distracting and out of place in this one. at least he had an actual role in tress...

+ the twist was very cool, big fan, i was totally misled, but 

- the reveal was... the fact that what happened was so complicated that it needed SUCH a big exposition dump, i was not a fan. like im grateful to hoid that he knew i was confused. but it shouldn’t have been so confusing, there had to have been a better and more elegant way to present what happened 

- and im still a little confused about what we saw of yumi’s world was real 

- also like who were the actual aliens they encountered lmao we’re just moving right along

+ so i was ready to throw hands when i saw “epilogue”. and then “another epilogue” ahaha. to be fair that sad ending was still a good ending itself but god i would’ve been so upset hahaha

+ the ending made me feel things. almost eked out some tears. such a good ending overall.

+ the art ahhhhhhhhh so pretty. def my fav artist / artwork of the four (i’m just a big fan of this kind of aesthetic. traditional korea + futuristic japan) 

- though i was a little disappointed with the cover. not sure why. the pure outlines don’t stand out very well and the text font/color... idk... 

* for some reason i thought that the colors being cyan and magenta meant that there’d be significance in the missing third color yellow or lime or smth. i thought there was a WoB or smth. oh well 

* are maipon sticks actually any different from chopsticks. why not just also call them chopsticks. 

- i think the preview chapters gave me expectation that there’d be a bit more with their respective magics and worldbuilding which were so cool and i wish we saw more of that, b/c that kind of stuff interests me more. top tier aesthetics for these worlds. but i guess this was always supposed to be more “inward” and more focused on the romance... 

- i think i didn’t find yumi or painter super likable on a personal / personality level either. this is kind of a me thing though. i know they’re supposed to be Like That with their backgrounds, histories etc. i suspect i’d appreciate them more on reread.

- oh yeah and i want to know more about the other yoki hijo too! 

+ this is a pretty focused book even if i do want to know more. i can respect that. like how this was a lifeswap not a bodyswap, allows for keeping the focus on the story he wants to tell 

+ will admit it was super funny that painter was seen as yumi but yumi was still just seen as herself 

+ was gonna cry at the introduction of the Machine to replace Art. but then it was like, maybe it’s worth it if it saves any other girls from suffering the - abuse, basically - that yumi had to go through? but in the end the Machine is unequivocally the evil here 

+ i do love yumi Stacking Things whenever stressed ahaha

this sounds like a lot of negative points but those are more interesting to talk about and those are what come to mind quickly esp since i’m just pulling thoughts out very quickly and haphazardly here. to some extent the good parts go without saying and id appreciate them more on (a slower) reread and tbh i might make a follow up post as i think more on this. i think i was just a little disappointed bc i came in with really high expectations... ah well. still a good book overall, and i want to give it a reread to better understand and catch some things. i think my current ranking is tress > yumi > frugal 

but im gonna hit post for now to forcibly stop myself from adding more

#yumi and the nightmare painter #synco talks

[sa311]

Tamagotchi Connection and Plus series, comparison

The Tamagotchi Connection series is comprised of the Tamagotchi released in the west during the aughts, starting with the V1 and ending with the Friends.

The Tamagotchi Plus series is comprised of the Tamagotchi released in Japan during that same period of time. The Connection releases up to the V5.5 were based on these Japanese releases. But only the V1, V5 and V5.5 had mostly the same gameplay as their Japanese counterparts. The others were quite different so I would like to talk about these differences. because if i see the keitai getting called “japanese V3” or the entama getting called “japanese V4” one more time i WILL start biting people

So let’s start with the Japanese releases.

The Plus was the first release, introducing the IR communication. It was pretty basic in terms of functionality, but it had some charm that is missing from the future releases, like the idle animations and each adult tier having their own food.

If you had a Plus in Japan in 2004, you would have access to something we never got in the west: the Deka Tamagotchi.

All it did at this point was play a little animation with your own Tamagotchi, but this wasn’t the case for the next release, the Keitai series.

The Keitai series introduced the concept of money (Gotchi Points) in Tamagotchi. And with it, naturally, several items to buy. But the Keitai does not have a built-in shop, it just has a vendor that comes by at certain times and brings one item to sell. This is because, just like the matchmaker is a last resort in case you can’t connect with another device, the vendor is meant to be a way of getting items the days you didn’t have access to your nearest Deka Tama Shop or a phone with the Keitai app.

Similarly, there are just 3 built-in games and winning them only gets you 100 points. This is because you are meant to also be able to go to the Deka Tamagotchi Game Center, which had 5 games more. The phone app is not well documented, but it probably had more things to do other than shop.

The Entama and Uratama also relied on the Deka releases like this, but instead of the phone app it had e-tamago, the Japanese equivalent of TamaTown. This website had a very complete shop, with the gimmick of having some of the items be “sold out” some days.

Also, the Japanese releases tend to be cleaner in a way. There were guides explaining how to get each character and it’s easy to get the character you want every single time. All characters had a personality and an official artwork.

The Keitai series had very few characters in comparison to the V3, but their sprites were clean and the had more C-click reactions. The items you could use changed from character to character, and some items would unlock new connection games.

The Entama and Uratama have similar characters to their Connection counterparts, but in these you can always know who you are going to get from the moment you get a baby. The special families are obtained using an item you get from a Deka, and apparently also from a TV game.

The Plus series had a lot of features, but most were only accessible in Japan and / or are lost media now. But you can still get most if not all of the items via passwords and code generators.

Let’s talk about the Connections now.

The Plus had an interesting transition to the V1. First it was translated into English in an... interesting way with the European Tamagotchi Connexion, which was still mostly the same as the Plus. Then the USA Tamagotchi Connection was released, featuring the translation and the pause function that would persist on all the future releases of the series. This one altered many sprites to tone down the Japanese cultural elements present in the original Plus.

They couldn’t afford to do all the Deka stuff over here so they had to change how to get items in the V2. They made a built-in shop and added more games that could pay more if won. Since it could not connect to a phone, they did not give the V2 an antenna like the one the Keitai has. But then they did use the antenna with the V3, which now could connect to TamaTown.

And that’s it. That’s all the Keitai and the V3 have in common. The antenna. And one (1) game and some characters but the gameplay is completely different. The V2 and V3 just added stuff to the V1. More characters, more items and all adults can use all items.

But we didn’t get a guide and the characters you get are a bit randomized anyway. The Keitai series, had few carefully made characters with their own personalities and artwork. The Connections had a lot more characters but they were presented like this.

This is an official chart by Bandai.

I am not joking. They only used artwork and descriptions for the characters that got one in Japan.

Also, some of the sprites made for the Connections are a bit rougher than the ones found in the Plus series.

The V4 was closer to the Entama since they took the main teens and adults and the whole skill system and career features. But you have no way of predicting what kind of adult you’ll get until you have a teen. Each toddler is more likely to become some specific teens, but there’s still randomness to it, unlike with the Entama. And the special families were replaced by a neglect family that you get if you don’t train them enough or neglect them too much. The V4 also had actual minigames for the jobs. It also retained the features found in the V3, like having an actual in-game shop instead of forcing you to use TamaTown or wait for some vendor.

So basically TLDR

The Plus series had less built-in content. Everything in them is very carefully thought and cleaner looking, but without access to many of the features lost to time some might find them lacking in content.

The Connections have way more characters and in-built games, but they are all based on the V1 and look a bit messier. Also the characters you get are a bit random so you never know who you will get.

I love them both but they are very different.

#tamagotchi

[blueeyedrat]

Steam Next Fest, summer 2023, sort of. I've been busier at work lately, and I've been spending a lot of my free time playing the new Zelda, so I wasn't sure I'd have room for trying out some new offerings on Steam. Luckily, with all the summer events and showcases, a bunch of the games I was interested in dropped their demos early, so I was able to get a head start.

(Part 2)

Beastieball — The latest project from Wishes Unlimited, the devs who made Wandersong and Chicory, so of course I jumped on this one. A sports-themed RPG that wears its Pokémon influence on its sleeve — not my usual fare, but my interest has been piqued all the same. There's a lot of style and charm to it, and the competitive aspect seems like it'll have a good amount of depth. There's a good chance this game will end up occupying the same space Pokémon does for me: "The gameplay isn't really my thing, but I like these characters and this setting and this aesthetic. I'm glad this exists."

Station to Station — A minimalist puzzle game about placing train tracks and connecting supply lines. This one seems neat! It's a simple enough concept to pick up, it's satisfying to make nice-looking train routes, and there's just enough layers of complexity (ensuring you have enough money to build stations and tracks, leaving yourself enough space for additional construction, setting up combos to earn more points, etc.) to make it interesting. Keeping an eye on this one for sure.

Growth — Another game with the trappings of a Dorfromantik-like: a high score puzzle on a hexagon grid, reminiscent of a board game, with an aesthetic of fields and forests and mountains. Gameplay-wise it's actually not that similar: rather than building up a map, a large area is placed from the start and your resources are spent to unveil more of that area, extend your influence, and reach new areas. It does its own thing, and it seems like a nice, simple time-waster.

Bubblegum Galaxy — On the other end of the scale, here's a Dorfromantik-like with very similar gameplay, but a much different aesthetic, a series of levels and challenges rather than a simple high score mode (though the latter does exist, and most of my time in the demo was spent there), and most intriguingly, a narrative. I've seen my fair share of hexagon tile builders, but this seems to be the most polished of the lot.

Wanderful — Here's another spin on the idea (on a square grid rather than hexagonal, but who's counting): What if you were playing as a character on the map, exploring outward for as long as you can keep earning resources to place new tiles and make new paths? It's a neat concept, though I'm not entirely sold on how it's implemented in this demo. In addition to the tiles you use to expand the map, you also have to manage a separate "lantern" resource that's replenished by reaching new fires on the map (which also gives you new tiles), but slowly drains as you travel (or in a pinch, can be spent to make tiles). It feels oddly restrictive, especially when the resource is finite and backtracking to places you've already been becomes a costly risk. Some of the ideas that piqued my interest in the first place don't seem to be there yet, but I'm willing to chalk that up to it being an early demo, and hopefully they'll be added later in development. We shall see.

Let's! Revolution! — A turn-based strategy roguelite where you traverse a series of maps with something akin to Minesweeper logic. I ended up liking this one a lot, even beyond the charming aesthetic. There's plenty to keep track of, as is typical for roguelites, but there’s something almost puzzle-game-ish about it that clicked with me. The two available characters in the demo play in completely different but both pretty intuitive ways, and the game lends itself well to quick playthroughs with a good amount of variety between runs. Consider me interested.

#beastieball #let's! revolution! #station to station game #bubblegum galaxy #growth game #wanderful game #bryan writes about games

[fumifooms]

HarukAsa

I’m disappointed in the Chainsaw Man fandom. I can’t believe I have to embarrass myself by being the first one to say it. How can the world do this to me.

So like. Wouldn’t it be kinda interesting, wouldn’t it be kinda neat, to ship Asa and Haruka and see where it goes…

Ok so I’ve been holding it back for a few weeks. The first thing that drew my eye to this ship concept is that he was* pretending to be Chainsaw Man, so that gives Asa incentives to interact with him and from there a lot of fun scenarios can happen. Hruka’s personality is just being flamboyant and lying about himself to seem cooler, being a cold bitch as an authority figure and also being pathetic and cringefail. He’s just a highschooler that’s a hardcore Chainsaw Man fanboy and wants to be liked and respected and cooler but is just… A dumb teen. C’monnn he’s flamboyant and she wants to be invisible. He thinks he’s hot shit and she just wants to dig herself a hole to hide in. He’s the powerless & pathetic one that seems well-adjusted and she’s the messy war machine!! All I’m saying is that I like Haruka and I think harukasa would be funny and cute and maybe even heartfelt. Give me an Haruka character arc, canon, please, I beg. If you want more of my thoughts on him, here’s a post of mine theorizing!

WHICH. He *is* some level of smart, don’t get me wrong. He’s good at assessing situations and forming plans, as seen as how he directed people in the Aquarium crisis. The fact he freaked out after a couple days is fair, so did everyone else and not even Yoshida or Chainsaw Man were able to find any way out. Let the guy cry for his life. Anyways- so he’s kinda smart, plus he’s student council president so he’s supposed to have his shit together, AND he’s obsessed with a devil who’s a devil hunter. He’s the devil hunter club’s leader. I would not be surprised at all if as the page below implies Haruka would sus out Asa having a devil contract or even straight up being a horsemen. Famine’s on his team, who knows at this point.

So that’s even more fun scenarios harukasa can sprout!!! Also imo after how he talked to her at the Aquarium I don’t think Asa would feel very guilty over transforming him into a weapon… At first anyways, then she learns how much of a sad lonely loser he is and her heart is taken from then on. Just think about it!! The “oh mighty” devil hunting club president who’s actually pretty loser and his -surprise!- badass devil girlfriend who will protect him and carry him bridal style through the guts of a devil he got too close to and that she killed for him. You can sprinkle in so many flavors!! Do they bond over feeling lonely and outcast and stupid? Is there a lot of tension and dislike??! Is it chainsaw man superfan vs hater?! Does she lowkey crave his validation as her club president?! 

Putting the rest under a cut for space reasons but give this a chance please maybe… I am incoherent and desperate and us Haruka fans are so rare

Wow, look at this compilation of Haruka being love interest material!! /hj

Also he called her attagirl… Idk that’s just a fun pet name I think Asa would love it in general. Makes her feel competent and appreciated

Hehe look at him trying to make a grand introduction and getting interrupted, he’s so pissed and petulant 💕he prob feels powerless in his life in general and tries to compensate with his meager social status tbh

They even have a lil’ heart to heart!! Oh to be curled up in foetal position against the wall as your love interest is laying on the floor waiting for death in misery and all your walls of secrets and illusions of grandeur come down. There isn’t any sense of propriety or pretense left here.

All that I’m saying is that Denji is great but also Asa deserves a boyfriend that will be scared shitless of her devil form. Or actively want to kill her. Also his hair looks stupid.

ALSO. 

I mean….. I MEAN…….

Ok if I’ve not sold you on the aesthetic just think: wouldn’t it be funny. Imagine in an AU where Haruka hasn’t revealed he isn’t Chainsaw Man, Yoru is like “Ok whatever, your thing with Denji isn’t progressing with the plan, what if you try getting close to Chainsaw Man instead? Seduce him!” And the irony is ofc that she’s leaving Denji for a fake Chainsaw Man AND OH HOW GLORIOUS THAT WOULD BE. When the charade is blown and Haruka isn’t Chainsaw Man, maybe like he confesses it to her in a vulnerable moment when they officially become a couple, and then Yoru immediately turns him into a weapon even if Asa had started to like him. Or! Love triangle with Denji that’d be so funny. Maybe Haruka takes an interest in her once he sees her powers, wants to investigate or smth! 

Haruka is just a funny little guy that’s even more loser than Asa and Denji because he’s actually powerless and I want him to get into dangerous shit and freak out and then try to save face & look cool anyways, start having white hairs from stress at the age of 20 bc he can’t handle any of this shit and yet. He’s a clown for liking Asa but also I think it’d be a cute clown where he’d let himself be sillier and less important and whatever. Anyways!!!!! Fumi out, enjoy the food for thought 🤡

Asaden is becoming canon so I want to drive the car in a wild other & new direction! I don’t care about the tragic incredible well-written narrative!! Give me the crackship that somehow works!!

#chainsaw man #csm manga #haruka iseumi #asa mitaka #harukasa #asa x haruka #asa is just so shippable #i’m sorry guys i have a disease that makes me root for rarepairs #Csm manga spoilers #ship analysis #character analysis #sorta #lite version #fumi rambles #why is haruka highkey fit tho