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kaliade · 2 years

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Twisted Wonderland Headcanon- The Villains Were Right

I’m really, really into Twisted Wonderland right now and you all have you suffer for it. If you don’t know what Twisted Wonderland is, it’s a gacha style Disney game with Twisted versions of the Classic Disney Movie villains all attending an all boys college called Night Raven College (herein referred to as NRC). There the Great Seven (the Disney villains) are revered. There are 2 different ways of interpreting NRC’s reverenace of the Seven that I’ve seen so far.

1. The Villains were villains and this is a school for villains so no one cares 2. The Villains won instead of failing in their respective movies and thus are still respected.

I propose a 3rd option. The Villains were in the right even if their actions were seen as extreme. Allow me to elaborate. Beware, Spoilers ahead!

The Queen of Hearts In my re-telling/re-imagining, the Queen of Hearts is the uniter of her kingdom. The Rose Queendom did not always follow a single ruler, instead being made up of a bunch of smaller kingdoms that were in a near constant state of war. This war state would represent the madness that keeps getting brought up in regards to her. The Queen of Hearts managed to untie the entire area of what would become the Rose Queendom under her banner. The 800+ odd rules of hers were her way of uniting several cultures. Feeding the flamingos while wearing pink? That’s from one group who believed the similar colors would make the animals stronger. No eating hamburgers on Tuesday? One group had a religious observance on that day that forbid it. And yes, the Queen did sentence many who broke her rules to be beheaded, but that was mostly because those breaking the rules were rebelling against her in an attempt to break the kingdom apart. This is the main part where I think the Queen’s a bit extreme in her punishments, but my version of the Queen of Hearts was a traumatized general who definitely had PTSD as well as other mental health issues.

Scar United the hyenas and other downtodden folk against his brother King Mufasa. Mufasa was giving positions based on blood ties and, in essence, racism by not allowing certain animal species to hold rank or even employment. The hyenas were banished. Scar saw that things were going to go bad with the spark of rebellion just waiting to be lit. Wanting to save his kingdom, he allied with those who the Lion King scorned and banished. Scar was successful in defeating his brother and took over as king, even saving his nephew Simba from being kidnapped by Mufasa’s loyal retainers to make the prince a puppet ruler. He was aided in this by a meerkat and a warthog that had found the injured cub and taken him in. Both meerkat and warthog were rewarded for their actions. Scar ruled fairly over the Savanna until Simba, who had been taught how to be a ruler by his Uncle, was ready to take over. Scar then retired and enjoyed the life where he didn’t have to make decisions that could affect the whole country, even if he did stay in the palace to act as a source of wisdom for his young nephew. His extremeness comes from being the killer of his brother.

Ursula Triton’s sister who left after being treated horribly by the tailed merfolk (Basically like Azul was) She does learn her magic and to create contracts and, yes, did start out as she is in her movie. A scam artist, power seeking, etc. Then her sister-in-law dies at the hands of humans (see the Little Mermaid prequel for details) As much as she despises her brother, her nieces need a female role model. Triton is busy and grieving and takes little notice of his sister’s return until he eventually does and she’s banished again, but now the mermaid princesses know her and have heard stories about what she can do. This is also a turning point of Ursula. She’s been bitter this entire time and being treated kindly by her nieces and getting respect for the other merfolk with how she was helping the princesses made her change her tune, slightly. She still makes deals, but the consequences of the deals are less eternal servitude and more indentured servitude with a stated end date. This brings us to the Little Mermaid movie events. Ariel still falls for a human prince but this time she knows her aunt has the power to give her legs and there’s less screaming all around from Sebastian and Flounder. Ursula is hesitant on giving Ariel what she wants. She remembers how her sister-in-law died. So, in order to keep the existence of merfolk quiet, her price in her niece’s voice, which she also uses to test the human boy her niece is in love with. Triton does find out, but the man has mellowed over the years, especially with his many daughters asking why he’d so mean to their aunt. He is angry, but the siblings do talk it out and he appreciates Ursula looking out for his daughter on land. There is no stabbing of the giant cecaelia or any stealing of a trident and Ariel eventually works out a treaty between the merfolk and the humans after getting her voice back form her aunt after Eric proves he loves her.

Jafar Took over Agrahbah because the sultan was an idiot and the princess nearly caused a war with having her pet tiger attack her suitors. It was the only way to keep his home safe. After the princess was nearly tricked into marrying a street rat with a genie at his side, Jafar deposed the sultan and his daughter. Life in Agrhabah grew better under his rule as he made several advances using magic to bring comforts to his people.

Beautiful/Evil Queen (Trigger Warning: Rape allusions, Abuse, Assisted Suicide) Married to the king less than a month after his first wife died of mysterious circumstance, Grimhild age age 17 became the new Queen and stepmother to a 5 year old Snow White. While she didn’t spend much time with the girl, leaving her rearing to nannies and tutors, the Queen did not have any animosity toward the girl. No, her hatred was focused on the King, who liked his women beautiful and young, the younger the better and they didn’t necessarily have to be willing. Grimhild put up with this, trying to help the girls as much as she could with her potions but having no actual power to stop her husband. Then Snow turned 14... Before the king’s eye could turn to his daughter, a prince from a nearby kingdom visited and was besotted by Snow. Grimhild became enraged, not because he did not look at her like that, but because the man was in his 30s! The king agreed to betroth Snow and the prince. Fearing for the girl, the Queen sent her loyal huntsman to take the girl out to the woods to gather wildflowers for a gift for the prince. In truth, she ordered her huntsman to take her into the wood and get the girl to run away on her own or make her. After scaring the poor child with tales of what awaited her and what her mother and stepmother had suffered through, Snow fled into the forest and came upon the dwarves, who took her in and protected her in exchange for some housework and cooking. The Queen would later, after events, give them royal fiat to mine magestones and sell them at high profit with the royal seal. Unfortunately, Snow fell ill one day from the plague and never recovered, dying at the age of 18. Nothing her stepmother or the dwarves did could save her. Grimhild, taking pity on the girl’s suffering and inability to heal her, offered Snow poison to make her miserable death easier, which Snow accepted. (Meaning assisted suicide) Now, while Snow was safe with the dwarves, the Queen decided enough was enough and with the help of the castle staff, who were also sick of the king’s ways, poisoned the king and took over the kingdom. Snow came back home after a year, but she missed the dwarves home and would visit when she could. The prince that was courting her never made it home and no one (save for an eagle eyed huntsman and a viciously protective queen) know what happened to him...

Hades (Admittedly my weakest of these) The Titan Class Phantoms are phantoms of half-gods that attacked Olympus. Hades, being the only god who didn’t have residence of Olympus, was the only survivor and managed to trap them in Tartarus. He set himself, and his descendants, to watch over the gate, which did eventually come to be more like a curse than a true calling. Due to his connection to death, it was very difficult for him or his descendants to accumulate Blot. Their magic tended to have a life draining effect which is why the family prefers to use tech over magic.

Maleficent The only one out of the whole bunch that I do not blame her canon counterpart for her reaction. Listen, you are dealing with the Fae, a ruling Fae to be precise. THat shit of not inviting her to a christening (which for the sake of TWST i’m renaming a Naming Ceremony), which for a royal is a very big, public event, is just asking for a curse. Seriously. And if we take the fact they invited 3 light aligned fae to the party but not the dark fae, then that adds another layer to the situation. In short, that could have been cause for war with a human nation, let alone a fae one. So yeah, not much change in this one for me personally. Maleficent was in the right.

#twst #twisted wonderland #au #au heacanon #alternate interpretation #the great seven

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randum-famdoms · 2 months

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Feelin' better now! So here's an update :D

I finally have the hood now! So glad I'm almost back to where I was on the original piece! I was kinda worried I'd get distracted and not do it since it'd feel daunting or something? Not real sure what I was going on about XD but anyway! I love how it's turning out so far! I don't know how I'm gonna do the rest of the cloak though...well! I'll try my best anyway!

Bonus! Pic of a character I made on gacha life 2 whado ya think?

Okay you have single handedly derailed my entire day lmao, I’ve been a casual gacha club user for years cause I love character design and had no clue that gacha life 2 was released so I downloaded it and spent nearly the whole day making a few characters on there after seeing this lol. Fam I had shit I was supposed to do! I don’t blame you tho this is all on the adhd demons.

Anyway both the drawing and your character look so good!! I totally get things feeling daunting when you lose progress, I refuse to use Word because one time I lost an almost complete essay on there. Google docs having auto-save my beloved. Definitely something I’m not looking forward to when I finally have the tools to get into digital art, but even tho it’s much harder to loose progress with traditional art (unless you spill a glass of juice on the page… definitely not something I’ve done several times nope no siree could never be me) i dream of the day I can erase as many times as I want without tearing the page and having layers and easy opacity and ZOOMING IN OH MY GODS- so yeah I’ll take anxitey over saving my progress for all those benefits any day.

Btw here’s two of the characters I wasted my day making :) the bottom one is sorta my self insert OC, but I literally don’t have any story for him it’s just what I would wanna look like if I was a shapeshifter (although whether I would go for fox ears and tail or horns and wings changes by the hour lol)

#randum thots #some ask i got

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woman-respecter · 2 years

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do u have any tips for making job stuff bearable?

crabsolutely! disclaimer this is coming from a cs/stats major so your mileage may vary. another disclaimer I’m 22 and have mostly just done internships so take it with a grain of salt. this is also for white collar because when i wasn't working an office job i almost got fired for getting in fights with my boss

Applying

experience rejection. this is obvious and it sucks but know you will be rejected like 97% of the time before you get to the interview stage. it isnt personal, think of it like a gacha. for my 2021 internship i applied to nearly 100 places, got 3 interviews, 2 of which resulted in offers.

do a little bit of job searching every day instead of doing it all at once. turn on notifications on linkedin with filters for the type of job you are looking for

fuckkkk cover letters. only do a cover letter if you really want a job and/or think you have a good shot. imo the time it takes to write a cover letter is not worth it, you're better off filling out more applications with that time. also they are psychological torture.

Speaking of things that are more worth your time than cover letters, tailor your resume to jobs. It will drive you crazy if you do it every time so only do it for select jobs

If a recruiter contacts you GO FOR THAT JOB. see if they can put in a referral for you or give your resume priority. This will significantly boost your chances of getting an interview

BIG ONE: if you're a woman or minority look for programs or job listings targeted for that group. these often have less applications so your chances are better. often times these will also be more accommodating for your diverse needs. my first big internship was through a company's autism spectrum program and it was great.

Apply for unpaid, even if you don't want to do them. Use them for valuable interview practice.

Interviewing (this is what I’m really good at)

Make a list of talking points you want to hit in the interview, and look for opportunities to get them in. This will help give you structure

Start learning the common interview questions for your field. prepare answers for them.

RESEARCH THE COMPANY. know what they do. the most common question is “why do you want to work for x”

Smile and be enthusiastic. This sounds dumb but it helps with making a positive impression

Prepare questions for your interviewer, it shows interest and will help you know if the job is a good fit for you

Calm yourself down in whatever way is most effective for you. Remember this isn’t life or death

Plan for a little treat after your interview. It is surprising how much this helps get you through it

Working the actual job

1. Get on good terms with your boss. I learned this the hard way. fake interest in his affinity for hiking or whatever

2. Keep expectations low. Say you’ll get something done in a much longer time than it would take (but not so long they think you are an idiot). If you have a ton of time, discreetly goof off before you turn your task in so the expectations don’t get too high. Don’t follow this task if you want to move up quickly but its great for internships. This is my work-life balance.

3. Befriend your coworkers, especially the more experienced ones. They will have valuable advice

4. If you start getting really sick of the job, immediately start looking for another one. This may suck if you arent, like me, addicted to linkedin but its better than a job sucking your soul out

5. Get over your fear of emails whats the deal with people being afraid of emails here

6. Keep a goal in mind at all times, weather it be just doing well at what you are doing, getting a promotion, or going to another company. Keep in mind that you are gaining relevant experience

7. keep your resume updated for when opportunities arise so you don’t have to feel stressed about it later

Hope this helps and sorry it took so long I forgor that i saved it as a draft haha

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emialawliet · 4 years

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The mysteries of Wonder Egg Priority and some interesting things I found in it

Oh hi Acca. Wait is that a crack on your right lens?

One of the great things about WEP is that it is an original anime wherein we do not have any source material to check on its story thus we do not have a clue on what’s gonna happen next besides the things that happen in each episode. These are one of those animes which are fun to observe.

Plot Summary: Ai scores a “Wonder Egg” from a gachapon machine at a deserted arcade. But now when Ai falls asleep a girl emerges from her Wonder Egg, the worlds of dreams and reality begin to collide. And it’s all connected.

From the first episode, we have been given a huge amount of symbolism. Aside from the main subject of bullying and Ai’s guilt by pretending not to see it that cost her bestfriend’s life, there are a lot of other things that I noticed that seem to have a deeper meaning behind them or could be a hint to something. I’ll list these things one by one from the first 2 episodes..

This post is going to be quite a long one, so I’ll keep it minimal enough to just tickle your thoughts. And believe me, things got clearer to me as I am making this post.

The anime starts in a sort of a dream world.. or is it?

1) The firefly

In some cultures firefly may not have a positive reputation. But in Japan, where they are called "hotaru," they are beloved – a metaphor for passionate love in poetry since Man'you-shu (the 8th century anthology). -Namiko Abe @ thoughtco.com

Ai can be seen looking at a dead firefly. She seems caring for it and she even gave it a proper burial. Could this symbolize someone dear to her? Now let’s proceed..

2) person in the car

Is this a clue? I’ll remember that hair for some reason..

3) Ai’s conversation with the firefly and the Special Gacha Machine

firefly: What are you doing in a place like this?

Ai: Walking.

F: This late at night?

After burying the firefly, it suddenly came out the soil and spoke to Ai with a male voice. Their conversation seems to me like a suspicious man talking to an innocent girl in a place where a young one like her isn’t supposed to be..

F: The first time’s free. Next time bring your wallet.

This is one of the things commonly used to convince someone to try something they are usually not willing to for the first time. Like a free trial..

..and was then led somewhere underground where the “Special Gacha Machine” is located.

That’s a lotta eggs. What could this underground facility be? And here’s the Gacha Machine:

So that’s the thing in the poster.

Weird huh? But the next morning, Ai wakes up with the egg beside her..

4) The dream

..Or is it not entirely a dream? I mean the egg appearing beside her is one thing although it could be that the egg is just in her mind. But the thing that complicates things is the injuries she gets in real life, to the point where she and even Neiru needs to get hospitalized.

Ai asked why this (the whole dream she’s in) is happening to her and this is what Kurumi said:

“Nothing costs more than a free gift huh?” Indeed, life is priceless. But in this story, it is only free the first time. The second night, Ai paid a huge price. Could those injuries mean this?

“This is a dream to you, but to me it is reality.” -Kurumi Saijo

Ai will not die in this dream, as long as her eyes and heart are okay.

Did she really sneak at night twice? Since getting the Wonder Egg to saving Kurumi? In this scene we also see the teacher in full for the first time and I dunno about you guys but I think that hair is familiar..

The firefly even asked her this. We’ve seen Ai sneaking out at night but the things that follow are strange enough to happen in real life. Is it possible that what we're seeing is a mixture of Ai’s imagination and reality?

Something caused these injuries. Or is it Ai herself? Let us find out..

After saving Kurumi, a mysterious male voice said “Too bad, you only get saved. But you have to cheer up if you want your bestfriend back.”

She then asked this:

..but got no clear response. Of course we know the answer, Koito is not going back to life. but why does the voice demand her to do that? Not even the firefly could answer her clearly. But she continued to believe that this will get her bestfriend back.

“If you can’t protect them, you won’t make it either.” -Firefly

“There’s no point going to save someone if she gets herself killed.” -Ura-Acca

Does they mean the guilt might kill her too? Does this imply suicide? Could this be a hint where Ai gets her injuries?

And Neiru asked her who she is fighting for.. Ai firmly said it was for Koito.

“You don’t like yourself now, so you go. You want to change the self you hate.” Well this could also be true for herself despite saying it’s for her sister whom she let die. How? We’ll soon know more about this I guess.. At the moment, we know that Neiru loves her current self.

Ai hates herself for betraying her bestfriend. The first friend she ever had.

Koito probably asked her to film the bullying as evidence, but Ai was too scared of being left out. She wasn’t able to get a good shot, but Koito only smiled at her and knew she did her best.

5) The egg

From the title itself, the egg is a very prominent object in this anime. We still do not have a clear answer as to what it really represents, but according to the speaking firefly and Kurumi, it contains what a person wants the most, and in Ai’s case, it is a friend. She denies this to both of them but they both know it is the truth.

The eggs appear in different colors, with letters, numbers and symbols printed on them. Once cracked, it reveals a person. This is where we can relate the egg’s symbolism of life and creation.

A mysterious male voice angrily told Ai to break the egg, and this is what he said afterwards:

Ai is “good” at it, huh. What could he probably mean I wonder..

It was later revealed that Kurumi is another sculpture, a “captured maiden” in a different world like Ai’s bestfriend Koito. This confirms that Kurumi is also dead, which leads me to think that the eggs are the souls of those who died from suicide or abuse.

They couldn’t pass on unless the guilt of their friends stop holding them back. And this I think is also what’s happening to our MC Ai and Koito’s soul.

6) Kurumi Saijo

She wears a different uniform than Ai’s. A victim of bullying by 3 girls.

Like Ai, she also said she did not have any friends, just superficial ones.

And this could be hinting at the reason why she was bullied by those girls. She does have the looks. But these looks might be the reason why she had no real friends. And a boyfriend of this fake friend probably liked her and broke up with her fake friend which started the bullying. I smell jealousy.

In this dream, she found her resolve while saving Kurumi.

I gotta say though, the animation is impressive from start to finish. That button popping off has me goin “whoa they even thought of adding that bit.” And the explosion that followed.. oof.

After being saved by Ai, she asked Ai to not forget her and disappeared into dust. Was Kurumi able to finally pass on?

) Minami Suzuhara

Seriously, in this anime, adorable girls have no friends.

Damn her “trauma” is a ridiculous boob monster.

She could have died due to over fatigue and stress from her coach’s verbal abuse.

Ai had another injury the following day.

) Ai’s enemies

The Seenoevils, a disorderly mob. In real life, they are the ones that pretend not to see the bullying, letting it happen and thus contribute to the damage being dealt to thee victim. And the form of the egg’s “traumas”, the Wonder Killer, which are the main cause who led the victims to their deaths. In the dream world, they do not attack Ai. But they can damage her, only for the effects to appear outside the dream.

Ai uses Kurumi’s pen as her first weapon, and Minami’s ribbon wand as the second.

Like Kurumi, after she was saved she also asked Ai to remember her before disappearing into dust.

) The teacher

Ai’s teacher seems really nice, going as far as to visit her and deliver the week’s print outs to their home. Ai must not be attending school for weeks..

We now know that Ai’s location is nearby their teacher’s home. Could he be the guy in the car then? We don’t have enough evidence of that as of yet.

In the second episode, Ai’s teacher visited again.

Now we see his face. He’s got a mole huh.

But why this question teach?

So that’s his name. And why the special treatment?

Here we see him walk behind Koito and she follows..

) Acca & Ura-Akka

The most intriguing thing I found in the first ep..

After discovering the truth about Kurumi, Ai was led to the end of the underground tunnel and found these two strange dolls playing Go, a japanese traditional board game. One looks like a professional, and the other just casual. They introduced themselves as Acca and Ura-Acca.

Judging by that definition, these two dolls could be the same person. Let’s watch out for that.. Who could this person be? And what is his connection to Ai?

“Haste makes waste.” These two are worried about Neiru. They strongly advise on taking the process slow or else she might die. Is this person a therapist?

) Neiru Aonuma

Did I read that right.. VICE PRESIDENT?? I get the feeling her sister died caused by neglect from their parents because they were more focused on this Neiru who “loves herself”. She also seems to me like a foreigner. She speaks english quite well and we see the mom with a nice cute afro.

She was too greedy to get multiple eggs at once. She could have fought through an intense battle. Probably why she was put in the intensive care unit.

She also does not know the fun of being in a friendship. But then she agrees on being friends with AI :) I am glad how Ai is starting to change too.

I am looking forward for these two’s friendship <3

And that’s about all the curious things I’ve gathered in the first 2 episodes.

I am definitely going to continue watching this series and witness the truth unfold. Until the next egg time!

#wonder egg priority

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flyingcookierambles · 3 years

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sadness over a3! eng i guess

oof just on my 700th day.....

kinda sad because of the announcement about A3! ENG server shutting down soon due to financial difficulties at LIBER/CYBIRD in the past two years (covid-19 related, etc.). according to a rather in depth reddit comment that had links to LIBER's publicly available financial reports + some financial reports from LIBER's parent company, Aeria, in english, covid-19 really hit LIBER hard since they had to cancel many money making events, from pop-up shops for the typical anime merch trinkets (keychains, plushes, pins, etc.) to the huge in-person events (voice actor meetups, the stage plays of MANKAI LIVE, etc.). due to shrinking player base on the ENG server + major loss of profits on both JPN and ENG servers, LIBER had to choose one or the other and they chose the JPN one, which i totally understand since it's way bigger there and the JPN fanbase will continue to give the franchise money more often. also, another person found a financial report/estimate from the google play store or something, and A3! ENG only made ~$20K to ~$10K in the past few months, which i guess is not enough to keep a server and localization company afloat.

i got pretty attached to the characters and it was a great game to help get by during college. and honestly, while i am very sad about this, again, i understand why LIBER did this, looking at their financial report from 2020. I would LIBER save the entire franchise rather than shut all the servers down, making us all unable to see our favorite actors ever again, even if it means that we ENG fans will have to go thru the extra steps of finding/reading fan translations, wikis, etc., to read any further stories from where A3! ENG left off. still, A3! ENG's localization was something special. i'm saying this as a TKRB JPN player who read the wiki for all the character voice lines and then had to see the official TKRB ENG localization make Yamabushi Kunihiro a rapper for some reason? lol. it was....weird.... meanwhile, all the memes and slang in A3! ENG didn't seem out of place and all fit their personalities because 3/4 of the troupes were all high school to college age and 3 of them were ~Gamers~. Out of all the gachas i've played, i feel like the only other F2P gacha game that had this incredibly smooth, all cultural jokes/puns translated in a way that still makes sense/fits the character/doesn't require a galaxy brain and some TL note to understand, is probably dragalia lost and that's only because it has frickin Nintendo localizing/publishing it globally for CyGames. Nintendo. i'll eventually read the fan translations of A3!'s Act 3 on the wiki, but it won't be the same without Kazunari's super high-energy influencer slang of "'whoa fam! that's totes 'blammable, gotta take a pic!" or Itaru's gremlin Gamer speak of "lol get rekt noobs" or Tsuzuru's tired dying breath of "that ain't it chief." the appropriate slang and relatable meme speak of the localization really helped humanize these characters as people of their respective ages, rather than just a typical formal speak or some directly translated JPN slang -> ENG that turns out super awkward that can be found in bad localizations.

going back to the reddit comment too, the death of A3! ENG servers could have bad repercussions in the future for other joseimuke games. josei, if you for some reason have been in the anime fandom but still don't know this term, is basically the genre of stories/video games/media/etc aimed at women. it's the mature adult counterpart to seinen, media aimed at adult men. basically shoujo/shonen = elementary/middle school/high school aimed while josei/seinen = high school/college/adult aimed if that helps. Joseimuke is a part of josei that is not specifically romance. while some josei/joseimuke can overlap with otome, aka female aimed dating sims/romance media, they have many things about them that make these all separate genres. one of the official A3! ENG translators and a known fan translator of another joseimuke gacha, Mahou Yaku/Wizard’s Promise, minami, goes more in depth with this in a twitter thread.

A3! was an actor raising game, and a big part of it was found family and relationships that were platonic. yet it got advertised as an otome, which has more connotations with dating sims and brings to mind other shoujo/otome games and anime where the cast is all high schoolers and the setting is most often in a high school. but, other than some characters making flirty jokes or implied to have crushes on Izumi/player character, many character relationships with Izumi are platonic and not romantic at all. Spring Troupe in the game also jokingly calls themself a family. the entire Mankai Company is basically found family. plus, since the game actually has time passing in story and the characters age with each year, half of the characters aren’t even in high school anymore. a large majority of them are in college or are graduated by now, with only a few still in high school. i’m not surprised if a reason that some people left the game was due to feeling bored with the slice of life/not romantic story, feeling that they were lied to about it being an otome, which was falsely advertised since it is a game meant for the older teens/adults demographic of josei/joseimuke.

i’m worried that other japanese companies will look at this shut down as a “josei/joseimuke doesn’t work well in the west” and never localize other josei/joseimuke gacha games like Mahou Yaku, EnStars, Twisted Wonderland, Helios, etc.

while i like otome and shoujo, i, as a 23/soon to be 24 year old college graduate and now tax paying adult, want more stories that have more mature themes and characters that are more my age so i don’t have to feel awkward when i’m playing some dating sim and i, a literal 23 year old adult, and trying to woo a 16 year old. it’s...a little awkward to say the least. i would gladly welcome more mature media that is categorized as josei/joseimuke.

sorry if this is all over the place, but overall im just sad that A3! ENG is shutting down. i don’t know if i’ll join the JPN server yet. i’m def going to read the Act 3 story via fan translators on the wiki, but A3! gameplay was...boring lmao. as much as i love A3!, im sure that the constant event grind/burnout and boring rng gameplay turned people off too and i dont blame them. i felt the burnout bad since i participated in basically every event since day 1. it. is. rough. i’m not joining the hellish thunderdome that is the JPN server and im not ranking anymore as a F2P player lmao. literally had to play almost every waking free moment to get into the 30%-20% bracket as a F2P person and i never got to top 20%-10%, much less top 1% lmao. i’m don’t whale enough lol.

i feel like i should probably just. crack open my genki 2 textbook and uhhh totally legal pdf copy of tobira. so i can just. get the JPN version of games in the first place so i don’t have to worry about getting shafted since overseas fans are often considered expendable.

i wish that, when any games that are online end, gacha or mmo or anything, anything online, companies will let fans archive things. or like. release a book that is just the story text or something. like. CYBIRD is letting us still technically play the game and have the story and all, but what if they eventually later shut everything down? why not just release a pdf/ebook that’s just the text of the eng localization for some money? i’d buy it. for nostalgia and rereads and all and also archiving purposes. i think i’ll try to help with any english localization archive projects if i can so that the hilarious and incredible localization that was a work of love from the translation team doesn’t just disappear forever.

well.

that’s it for now. as i said, guess i’ll head to the app for one of the last times to read the last unread stories and mini stories i have left, then the wiki for Act 3, and then i guess i’ll crack open genki 2 and bunpo.....

some fun random links for you to think about!

random ffxi article that came to mind (if ffxiv ever shuts down in the next 20 years or whatever i’d be cool to get a statue of my character at the end)

and death of a game playlist by NerdSlayer Studios on Youtube that has me thinking a lot about game preservation and losing MMOs and games

the lost media wiki and blameitonjorge’s lost media iceberg

other gacha games i’ve played that have shut down that i think about sometimes because the loss of A3! ENG isn’t my first rodeo:

terra battle & terra battle 2 (1)

AFTERL!FE

(related kitsu post link for archive reasons)

#rambles #games n junk #sad over a3! eng loss #a3!

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cheri-translates · 4 years

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[CN] Victor’s R&S - Flashback (Eng Translation)

🍒 @sage-n-rosemary has kindly informed me that this R&S (”闪回”) will not be released in EN or any server as it's one of the cancelled R&S which came with the Dream Heart Lake gacha event!🍒

Summary: The moment he catches her, he feels the scene and the one which happened seventeen years ago completely overlap.

Cancelled Victor R&S:

> six out of seventeen

> paradise on earth

> so-called disparity

[ Chapter 1 ]

When he regains consciousness, the young boy's eyes are slightly blank, and he hasn’t fully sobered up.

He isn’t in his home, nor is he sleeping on his desk in the classroom... where is he then?

He doesn’t recognise his surroundings - whether it’s the decor or the other children who are on the floor. The white walls were painted shoddily, and some parts of the walls are thicker than others. Some parts of the walls have even begun to chip off.

He notices that there are other kids around him who are slowly waking up

He doesn’t recognise these children, apart from a girl wearing a dress.

Actually, he can’t really say that he knows her. He just happened to play together with her for a while, and happened to save her life from under the wheel of a car last week.

Seeing MC, Victor has a hunch on why they’ve been brought here

Young MC notices Victor’s line of sight and looks at him

Not wanting to rouse the children who have cried themselves into a gradual slumber, the young boy mouths a word in the direction of the girl-

Dummy.

When the words come out, the young boy himself isn’t clear on why he called her a dummy. Was she dumb for getting captured to this place? Or was it because she rushed onto the road to save a kitten? He doesn’t even know if the word “dummy” was referring to the girl or to himself.

Without waiting for the young boy to comprehend his own thoughts, the girl in the corner responds with a grimace. Clearly, she understood what the boy was mouthing.

“Childish.”

Logically speaking, considering their distance, the girl wouldn’t have been able to hear the boy’s mutter clearly. However, she seems to understand it, and reaches out to make the number “six” with her hands. Seeing that hand pose, the boy is left dumbfounded.

He recalls the scene when he called her “childish” for the first time: Back then, she looked very pleased with herself, and also reached out her left hand towards him to make the number “six”. She had announced matter-of-factly: “I’m six years younger than you, so it’s normal to be childish!”

The first time he met her... should have been around a year ago.

[ Chapter 2 ]

Victor recalls the first time they met at a park not far from his home

He was playing soccer with a few boys at an empty area near a sandpit because the usual grass patch they played at wasn’t available for use

With a volley shot, the young boy knocked down the sandcastle the girl had just piled up in the sandpit next to them.

That’s how their ill-fated relationship began.

The young boy clearly remembers apologising to her back then, and that the girl had accepted his apology. Even so, the tears in her eyes just didn’t stop.

“Don’t cry, I’ll make up for it by building you a sandcastle.”

“...it’s not the same.”

“I’ll help build a sandcastle together with you then?”

“I don’t want to. There’s no time.”

He didn’t understand what she meant by “there’s no time.” He just felt a massive headache: “I’ve already apologised and proposed solutions. The sandcastle is broken. What do you want?”

His tone wasn’t heavy, but for some reason, the girl started crying even harder. He had never met with such a situation before, and was at a complete loss. What’s worse was that the other boys jeered at him from the side, saying, “Hahaha he made the little girl cry.”

That day, the young boy learnt two things:

One - you know who your true friends are in times of trouble. Two - you should never, ever speak reason to a crying girl.

After deciding in his heart never to play soccer with this group of boys again, the young boy tried questioning the little girl:

“To make amends... I’ll treat you to a dessert?”

“You... you’re not lying to me right?”

At first, he only wanted to try his luck. He didn’t think he would hear the girl gradually hold back her crying.

“I don’t have any on me right now, but you can follow me to buy it from the shop.”

“No way!!” the girl’s eyes, which were filled with tears, suddenly became resolute and decisive. “Dad said that I can’t go off with strangers, or I’ll get sold!”

“So what do you want?”

That was the second time he said this.

This time, the girl didn’t burst into tears again, but seriously considered the question. “I’ll still be playing here tomorrow. Big Brother can bring your dessert over then.”

Looking at the serious and naive girl, the young boy was left speechless. The other boys behind him couldn’t help but laugh, their laughter mixed with several words of ridicule-

Certainly, the girl’s suggestion was very silly. He could make a promise right now and comply with the agreement to bring the dessert the next day. But he could also make a promise and then never appear again. Perhaps it was his conscience speaking, or the guilt he felt towards the girl - in the end, the young boy chose the former.

He decided to fulfil this little promise.

[ Chapter 3 ]

When the young boy returned to this place on the second day, the girl was already waiting. Same as yesterday, she was piling up a sandcastle alone, but this time, the sandcastle wasn’t broken by someone.

Upon seeing the young boy, there wasn’t any surprise on the girl’s face. She just stopped her “work” and tilted her head to ask him: “Big Brother, where are your friends?”

Asking this, she smiled just like a cunning little fox.

“They’re not considered friends.” After a moment of hesitation, he gave her such an answer. “Why... aren’t you asking about your dessert first?”

“Because I knew Big Brother would definitely bring it.”

The girl watched the young boy while smiling sweetly, her originally round eyes crinkling into a line.

“Oh. I actually made it. But I forgot to bring it with me when I left the house.”

Unexpectedly, the other party didn’t express anger or disappointment at his words. Instead, she excitedly stared at the bag in his hands. “Wow! This pudding was made by you! That’s amazing!”

“I haven’t taken the pudding out, and I called it a “dessert” yesterday-” the young boy keenly noticed the oddness of the other party’s words. “How did you know the thing I brought was pudding?”

“Because I saw it yesterday.”

Hearing the girl’s answer, there was a flash of surprise in his eyes. But he accepted this fact within a second, and choose to believe it.

“You... can see the future?”

“Mm.” The girl nodded her head with certainty. After a moment of hesitation, she placed a finger on her mouth with a “shh” sound. “Even though they are just a few images.”

As she spoke, the girl scratched her head in embarrassment, and the sand in her hand followed her actions, entering the spaces between her hair: “Yesterday, I saw it - you would appear here before the sun sets, and take out a pudding from the bag and give it to me.”

Now, the young boy finally understood why the the girl made such a silly agreement with him yesterday.

“Also, what is your name, Big Brother?”

“Victor.”

In return, the girl also told the young boy her name, and also asked him a question: “Brother Victor, you said they weren’t considered friends. What about me?”

To the young boy, the girl who said this seemed to have stars in her eyes.

[ Chapter 4 ]

That day, the young boy Victor didn’t make a new friend just because of the girl’s words. Instead, a bug who was six years younger than him yielded to him because of the pudding he made with his own hands.

It was only in the park when he would meet the girl. He didn’t notice it before, but after getting to know her, he realised a few odd things about her. She didn’t stick to people. Most of the time, she would be at the side quietly reading a book, drawing, or talking to little animals.

He didn’t know what books the girl, with her limited vocabulary, would read from dawn to dusk. He also couldn't understand the undecipherable handwriting she would run over and show him with pride. Most of all, he didn’t know when she had grasped the “unique ability” to converse with animals.

However, without realising it, he had picked up a new habit - every time he came to the park, he would make a round to see if the girl was there that day.

If the girl was around, she would immediately fly over to his side and report her new discoveries:

Perhaps it would be how a flower looks when it blooms. Perhaps it would be the trail of ants in the process of moving their home. Perhaps it would be the bird’s nest on the tree. Or perhaps it would be a new friend she made.

Every time, the young boy would expressionlessly respond with a half-hearted “oh”, “mm”, “and then?”.

The girl would sometimes ask rhetorical questions: “Brother Victor, why don’t you smile? It’s so interesting.”

It was likely under these circumstances that the young boy first called her “childish”. To Victor, who is older than her by a few years, the girl’s discoveries were not considered interesting, which is why he didn’t smile.

But what the girl didn’t know is that on days when she isn’t at the park, the young boy’s face would be far from “not smiling” - it would be cold.

Later on, Victor was more willing to term this “new habit” as a “conditioned reflex” - it was because she was at the park most of the time he was there, that he developed a conditioned reflex to look for her everywhere whenever he went to the park.

And it’s exactly thanks to this conditioned reflex-

That he could save her in time on that rainy day.

[ Chapter 5 ]

It was a summer afternoon, and the sound of rain was gradually getting heavier

Victor saw MC squatting down and holding an umbrella, talking to a tabby cat

Suddenly, the cat seemed to hear or smell something and ran off in the direction of the road

From afar, he watched the girl toss aside the small yellow umbrella and chase after the tabby cat towards the road. Watching the cars rushing past and coming closer to the girl, and watching the girl close to losing herself in a place out of his reach...

Without needing to make a judgement, without needing to think, and without needing to hesitate, his instincts made the decision.

This wasn’t the first time Victor stopped time, but it was the most thoughtless instance.

If the current situation they are in is the price to pay for using his abilities in public, he would just have to think of a way to get out of it.

His thoughts return to the present, and he looks at the girl in the corner closing her eyes and taking a nap. The young boy starts thinking of a plan to leave this place.

As long as he wants to do something, there’s nothing he can’t do.

That’s how convinced the young boy is at this moment.

Other cancelled R&S: here

Lucien’s cancelled R&S (by other user): here

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc victor #BABIES #cncancelled

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macaronnya · 3 years

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So I just saw the announcement about the EN server shutting down or at least dicontinued (hopefully just for now) and I might just burst into tears 🥲 I want to put my thoughts or rather feelings of the journy up until now on here to come down but maybe also as some form of comfort for anyone who needs it? It's very long and might have some broken english as it's not my first language so do keep it in mind please 😅

Anyways, I started A3! last year on march 7th because I saw a youtube video of people cosplaying Sakuya and Sakyo. At taht point, I already knew of A3! somewhere in my distant memories back when it was JP only. I decided to try out the game since I was getting bored of my current mobile games and the few reviews I could find of it were relatively positive. I had no idea just what a big part of my life this game was about the become 🤧

Btw I'm listening to some A3! songs right now, specifically Sakuya's 2nd character song, and it's not helping me 😢 So at the time, lockdown just started 2 days ago, which left me with a lot of time playing it and, I kid you not, I gulfed the main story down like it was the last slice of cake at home. I have 2 siblings. I think I finished it in a week or so despite it being only unlockable through leveling up, and if my memory serves me right, you need to be around lvl 75 to unlock all 4 episodes. As one can see, I was VERY invested in the story. It was just so....nice? I don't know how to exactly describe it but I was surprised by how likable everyone was. Of course I didn't hold such strong feelings for everyone back then as I do now but I was intrigued enough back then of nearly everyone, which is kind of rather rare in such types of games, no? At least for me it is, although I haven't played terribly a lot (Love Live, MLQC, Mystic Messenger).

I really like how the story actually continues through the events and how it alternated between stories exploring certain characters more (show events) and stories focusing on just them having fun. Getting to know everyone bit by bit and seeing how everyone grows closer to each other, not only within their respective troupes but the whole theater, makes me really all warm and fuzzy and it's found family, what more could you want?

Also, I really like Izumi, our dear MC 🥰 Even though she's supposed to be our self-insert, I found myself really enjoying reading her thoughts, observing her reactions to other characters' shenanigans (like her 'I do not see' to the members plan of faking their identity to bail Citron out lol) and just....her personality. Trying not to digress here but she has a lot more personality than other MCs in these joseimuke games and it makes her interactions with others not only bearable but even enjoyable. I'm not saying that this is what a perfect MC looks like or that she's superior to bland self-inserts. After all, it depends on the story, gameplay and other things. It's just a nice bonus I'm very grateful for. I mean, I got really emotional when Izumi performed with the other staff members all of the plays the actors have put out so far for the first anniversary. Her realizing she gained a new dream for her lost one just really took my heart, broke it in thousand pieces and then mended it again.

I also love A3! songs ❤ I did wonder how they would work in this franchise since it's not about idols but actors, though I guess there was nothing to worry about. I really like the duets because it's always a different duo and hearing them singing together, harmonizing with each other, complimenting each other, just fills me with undescribable joy. Of course the songs also slap pretty much every time. Even by limiting my options to 1 troupe, I still wouldn't be able to pick only one favourite (I like the majority of Winter's song tho, like Shoutai is just 🤌 and my sibling blasted Unmasked non-stop so I can't get it outta my head anymore). Gosh, I was so excited for 'Double Solitaire' since it would complete trilogy of the Hyodosakas singing together. I was really looking forward to getting all the songs and I was even saving up for Summer Troupe's 6th play.

If I had to describe the game A3! in one word, it'd be "charming". Coming to game itself, there are so many little quirks, that on their own aren't anything groundbreaking or big but together give the game its own flair. Live 2D is pretty common to see nowdays in games because it brings the characters to life through movements like 3D models. But I think A3! is able to illustrate it just as well, if not even better with their 2D sprites. Citron moonwalked by flipping the image over and sliding across the screen, Hisoka appeared out of nowhere by coming from above the screen, they do a little jump when they're happy, they go down a bit when they're sad. And that's just things with their whole sprite. The little drops when Tsuzuru finds himself in an awkward situation or is worried, the little note when Sakuya is happy, the hearts when Kazunari is lowkey flirting with Izumi, it's so cute! Or Omi's O.O face, Taichi's crying face (the usual one, not his face when he cried out of guilt of betraying Mankai), Yuki's done expression, H O M A R E AHA! They each have at least one personalized expression and also quote. Can you hear Kazunari's Yoropiko~☆, Citron's humming, Taichi's loud ass whining and scream of terror, Tsumugi's awkawrd laugh? It's brimming with life.

But also the UI (?how it looks) is joyful. The main screen's background cascading shapes changes depending from which Troupe your current character is from, the loading screen has sakura petals and a bird, the colors are very bright and saturated fitting to the overall color palette of the whole game, the little notebook during practice showing all the necessary infomation and a little sketch by the characters. It's just really charming.

As frustrating as it was, not getting halloween Tsuzuru after 110 pulls or Valentine Omi after 120, it was my first time ever understanding why gachas are called hellholes. Through my strong connections to the characters, their cards automatically appealed to me more. But the art is also so good???? Azuma is always looking flawless obviously but Omi's unbloomed Wolf card, where he is standing in the sunset looking at his camera or Kazunari's Shinobi card, unbloomed all concentrated on his panting and bloomed all shiny smiling like the fireworks in the background? Breathtaking everytime. I also appreciate it not needing multiple copies to unlock the whole backstage story.

I think I'm slowly running out of things to say, which might be good for whoever managed to come this far. I have to say though, A3! helped me through the pandemic. Being a perfect distraction to the world's chaos and more importantly my crushing schoolwork and worries for personal future. I'm a very pessimistic person but seeing the characters overcoming their hardships through the help of their to-be "family" and just being happy doing trouble, gave me a little hope and light for a bit every day. I came to cherish everyone, even those I like the least. I haven't felt like this since Mystic Messenger, which was also a game, that helped me through a difficult time. I can only wish to a shooting star, that it's not the end for the EN Server yet. While yes, the JP server is thriving and I could just switch to reading fantranslation, through my experience, my enjoyment considerably sinks playing like that and I wish to fully enjoy A3!.

Anyways thanks for reading (maybe again). Sorry for all the possible errors on the way here. I'm writing everything directly without too much thought. If you want, you can also share your experiences in the comments. It's always nice to share good memories with others.

Edit: I accidentally posted it already but I wasn't actually done 😓 When I said I had a lot to let out, I meant A LOT

#a3!#i will never forget a3!#in the end i never managed to get halloween and groom Tsuzuru

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grailfinders · 4 years

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Fate and Phantasms #96: The Count of Monte Cristo

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the King of the Cavern, Edmond Danganron- sorry, the Count of Monte Cristo. Ol’ Eddy’s fast enough to leave afterimages, strong enough for those afterimages to also hit people and hurt them, and plenty of creepy darkness and fire based abilities.

Check out the Count’s build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: Helloooo nurse!

Race and Background

This part isn’t that complicated. The Count is a human, and as a Variant Human he gets +1 to Constitution and Wisdom, as well as proficiency in one skill. Grab Acrobatics, because you’re fast and there’s other stuff we’re getting with your class stuff. You also get the Tough feat, giving you an extra 2 HP when you level up. Being the physical embodiment of hatred makes you pretty hard to stamp out.

I don’t think there’s a “wrongfully accused” variation of the Criminal background, so we’re making you a Haunted One instead; your stay in the Chateau d’If left a pretty big impression on you. This gives you Investigation and Survival proficiencies. You could also go Charlatan or Faceless if you want a more book-based Count, but we’re going with the gacha game version.

Ability Scores

Put your highest score into Wisdom. In older versions of D&D, wisdom saves were called will saves, and you’ve got an iron one. After that is Dexterity; you’re a speedy boy, and you’re hard to hit. Third is Constitution- your concentration saves should be instantly passed, and you’re even harder to kill than you are to hit. Intelligence is next, you’re pretty good at revenge schemes, but that’s a niche subject. Your Charisma isn’t that great, but you don’t get directly involved in social situations that often. Finally, dump Strength. You’re actually really strong, but we’re using dexterity for damage, so we don’t need this stat.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: You’re fast and you punch people, and you’ve also spent a lot of time contemplating your place in life in the Chateau d’If. Most of that matches up with a monk well, and a more chaotic character might call a monastery a prison, if you’re really stretching for this to fit 100%. As a monk you get Unarmored Defense, giving you an AC based on your Dexterity and Wisdom so you can fight in a sick chapeau, or a sick Chateau, if you haven’t escaped yet. Speaking of fighting, you can use your fists thanks to your Martial Arts. This lets you use Dexterity instead of Strength for unarmed attacks and damage, your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage instead of 1, and you can make an unarmed attack as a bonus action after you attack as an action.

2. Fighter 1: You’re not just a speedy punch boy, you’re the speediest punchiest boy, going so fast we can skip 10 levels of monk progression in 1 level of fighter. The Unarmed Fighting fighting style means your fists now do 1d6 damage minimum, or 1d8 if you’re not wielding any weapons or shields (which you shouldn’t be). You can also deal 1d4 damage to grappled creatures each turn, but that probably won’t come up. You like to stay mobile. You also gain a Second Wind, letting you spend a bonus action to heal yourself. You can kinda control time, so there’s no bad moment for a smoke bre- and Guda’s gotten themselves trapped in a dream again.

3. Druid 1: Three classes in three levels? It’s more likely than you think. I know the Count doesn’t turn into a dog, you’ll just have to trust me on this one for now. First level druids learn Druidic, it’s a language, and also how to cast and prepare Spells using Wisdom as your casting ability. Your biography snippets mention you have “poisonous fire”, and I’m not sure how that would work in D&D, so grab Produce Flame and Poison Spray to get poison and fire attacks. For first level spells, Longstrider and Jump will improve your mobility despite your dumped strength, and Protection from Evil and Good is a good way to protect your iron will by preventing you (or a target creature) from being charmed, frightened, or possessed by aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. Those creatures also have disadvantage on their attacks against you. The men who betrayed you were probably human in FGO, but who knows what curveballs your DM will throw at you.

4. Druid 2: With the Circle of the Stars, you can still use your Wild Shape as an action to transform into a non-flying, non-swimming beast of CR 1/4 or less, or you can assume a Starry Form as a bonus action; both options still can only be used twice per short rest. Your starry form sheds light 10′ away brightly, and another 10′ of dim light. You also pick one of three constellations that form on your body, granting you additional benefits. The Archer lets you use your bonus action (including when you transform) to make a ranged spell attack, dealing radiant damage. The Chalice causes you to be able to heal yourself or another when you cast a healing spell. The Dragon gives you Refined Talent with Intelligence and Wisdom checks, as well as Concentration saves. While in this form, you can’t roll less than a 10 on them. So yes, you do canonically have the weird glowing lights from your scarf now.

You also make a Star Map, which comes with its own benefits. You know Guidance and Guiding Bolt while you hold the map, and you can cast the latter a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus without spending a spell slot. It also acts as your spellcasting focus, and can be replaced with an hour long ceremony, which can be done during a rest.

5. Fighter 2: If you were playing a single class, this would be the level you get an extra attack on. Instead, you get an Action Surge, letting you add an extra action to one of your turns once per short rest. It’s kind of like an extra attack, but less frequent, and much better when you get a regular extra attack.

6. Fighter 3: You’ve finally gone so fast and so hard that your afterimage can punch people! At least, that’s the justification I have for picking up the Echo Knight subclass. As an Echo Knight, you can Manifest Echo to create a copy of yourself near you that has an AC of 14 plus your proficiency bonus and 1 HP. It can move up to 30′ each turn, and has to stay within 30′ of you or be destroyed. As a bonus action, you can teleport, switching places with your echo. Each attack made with your attack action can come from either you or your echo, and you can make opportunity attacks with the echo as well. You can also Unleash Incarnation for an extra attack from your echo when you take the attack action. You can use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your Constitution modifier.

So we went from two attacks per turn at level 4 to a maximum of five attack in a turn at level 6. You can’t keep that up for long, but I doubt you’ll have to at this point.

7. Monk 2: Remember that class we started as? I think it’s time we went back to that one. At second level, you get Ki Points equal to your monk level, which you can currently spend to make two attacks, dodge, disengage, or dash as a bonus action. You also get Unarmored Movement, increasing your running speed by 10 feet. I’ve been talking about how fast you are this entire build, it’s about time we made good on that.

8. Monk 3: You literally live in Guda’s shadow, so this subclass is almost a given. Shadow monks can learn Shadow Arts, letting you cast Darkness, Darkvision, Pass without Trace, and Silence without material components for 2 ki points a pop. You also learn Minor Illusion. Third level monks can also Deflect Missiles, reacting to ranged attacks to block and throw them back at enemies. Thanks to Tasha’s you can also make Ki-Fueled Attacks. If you spend a ki point as part of your action, you can still attack with your bonus action. You’re a busy man, so you’ll have to make the most out of every turn.

9. Monk 4: Finally, your first Ability Score Improvement pops up at level 9. Use this to become Resilient in Constitution saves, gaining proficiency in them and increasing your constitution by 1 point. Combined with your Dragon constellation, this means you’ll automatically pass any concentration save caused by less than 34 damage. Having an iron will comes in handy sometimes! You can also Slow Fall, reducing damage taken by falling based on your monk level.

10. Monk 5: Five levels after most players, you finally get your Extra Attack, letting you make two attacks with each attack action. Combined with your Action Surge, Unleash Incarnation, and Martial Arts, you can now attack 8 times in a single round, albeit once per short rest. To put it in context, that’s about as many times as a level 20 fighter, also using their action surge.

The fun doesn’t stop there! Fifth level monks also can make Stunning Strikes using ki. When you hit a creature, you can spend one ki point to force a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 8 plus your proficiency bonus plus your wisdom modifier or be stunned until the end of your next turn. You get advantage on all attacks against stunned creatures, so... that’s going to hurt. You can also use a Focused Aim to improve your accuracy on attacks by spending even more ki points.

11. Fighter 4: One last level of fighter gives us another ASI, which will increase our Dexterity for a higher AC and stronger punches.

12. Druid 3: Third level druids get second level spells, like Darkvision or Pass Without Trace, so you can save your ki points for stunning strikes. You can also use Enhance Ability to push yourself even further.

13. Druid 4: At this level, your Wild Shape improves, so you can now transform into beasts of CR 1/2 or lower, and you can swim as well, if you really want to. But you also get another ASI, which makes you Shadow Touched. This increases your Wisdom by one point, and you learn Invisibility and Disguise Self, both using Wisdom to cast. One of your Noble Phantasms, the Monte Cristo Mythologie, can hide your Class from others. It would probably be more literally implemented with Nystul’s Magical Aura, but Disguise Self is a much more practical spell for you.

You can cast either one of these spells once per long rest for free, or like any regular spell with the appropriate spell slot.

You also get more fire power with the Create Bonfire cantrip.

14. Druid 5: Fifth level druids get third level spells. There’s a lot of cool stuff you can do now, but we’re mostly here for Revivify. Your third Noble Phantasm, Attendre, Esperer, gives you amazing recovery abilities, even bringing people back from the verge of death. Reviving people within a minute after their death is as close as we’re going to get here.

15. Monk 6: Your movement speed increases by another 5 feet now, and thanks to Ki-Empowered Strikes, your unarmed attacks are magical as far as resistances are concerned. As a shadow monk, you can also Shadow Step with your bonus action, teleporting up to 60′ between shadows. Doing this also grants you advantage on your next attack.

16. Monk 7: Seventh level monks get Evasion, letting you take no damage when you succeed on dexterity saves, and half damage when you fail. You also gain a Stillness of Mind, letting you end charming or frightening effects on yourself as an action. Your wisdom save is pretty solid, but it never hurts to have backup.

17. Monk 8: Use this ASI to round out your Constitution and Wisdom for more health, stronger spells, and a better AC.

18. Monk 9: Ninth level monks get an Unarmored Movement Improvement, letting you run up walls or over water with your normal movement speed. Just make sure you hit dry land before you stop, it’s not fun otherwise.

19. Monk 10: Tenth level monks have a Purity of Body that makes them immune to disease and poison, and you’re kind of the same. You’re already 99% revenge; you don’t have any space for more impurities.

Also you get another 5′ of movement.

20. Monk 11: Your capstone level grants you a Cloak of Shadows, allowing you to turn invisible as an action in dim light or darker. You remain invisible until you make an attack, cast a spell, or enter bright light. It’s not quite melding into shadows, but it certainly isn’t bad.

Also, in case you were wondering, your Martial Arts die bumps up to a d8 at this level, so you’d finally be as strong as you were at level 2 if we didn’t go into fighter now.

Pros:

A regular monk would have focused more on dexterity and had more accurate attacks, but we make up for that with the sheer number of punches we can throw at once. If you want something stunned, it’s basically guaranteed at this point. This also makes you a solid burst attacker: 8d8+24 damage is nothing to sneeze at.

Also unlike a regular monk, you’re really fucking tough to kill. With an AC of 17 and enough HP to give fighters a run for their money, physical attackers will find it hard to cut you down. On top of that, you’re pretty good against the three most common spell saves (Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution), and your evasion makes it so spellcasters will also have their work cut out for them.

You’re absurdly good at Concentration when you need to be. With your dragon constellation up, you can instantly shrug off any concentration save that is caused by less than 40 Damage. Basically, anything that isn’t a rogue or a beholder won’t be able to shake your buffs off an ally.

Cons:

Monks eat up their ki points quickly, and you’re no exception. This also applies to your Action Surge, spell slots, Starry Form, and Unleash Incarnation uses. You’re very, very impressive in combat, but only for a choice few rounds. If you use those up, it’s going to be a slog. A slog you’ll probably survive, but a slog.

Being a star druid makes you a literal light in the darkness. While that is a beautiful metaphor, it does make using the rest of your stealthy dark-focused build effectively. You can’t shadow step when you’re a walking lightbulb, sorry.

Despite your overall defensive strength, you have a few key weaknesses, like your charisma and intelligence saves. You won’t be much help in if you’re shot to another dimension by spellcasters, or against mindflayers in general.

#Fate Grand Order #D&D 5e #fgo #The Count of Monte Cristo #Fate and Phantasms

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zelskzerker · 3 years

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Mangadex went down so I read alot 1/7

Lets review a bunch of isekai and related stuff I binged because mangadex went down. The scale will be a single thumbs up to a single thumbs down in terms of how much I would consider recommending it in general.

Legend

Chapters 1-51 Pretty straight forward in most aspects. For the best. Nothing crazy bad or good happening, making it surprisingly straight forward for an isekai. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC is given a super magic body and the knowledge of ancient magic. Which he promptly uses to create a griffon buddy. Gets a THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER for just being a nice, believable stay in a world, but I have read some stuff that really has interesting sparks the way this doesnt. MC is brutal at times and General Princess is cute. They make a good pair for each other. Although there are no ecchi situations, that artist really knows how to slide in the lewds, whether its mid combat flourishes or pre chapter artwork.

The Black Create Summoner: Revolt of Reincarnated

All Chapters

Truly is revolting. A resounding THUMBS DOWN. Apparently this was just an advertisement manga, which means that its intentionally incomplete and unsatisfying. Ontop of that, the sketchy artwork was generally rough and got worse to look at the more it went on. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time he has a grimoire that lets him summon stuff he draws. The power isn’t used that much though or in that creative of ways. Characters didn’t really leave an impact except maybe the elf little sister that is stubborn yet knows she is incompotent and recruits a dragon out of stubbornness.

Minotaur’s Sweetheart

Chapters 1-16

So what if a minotaur accidentally seduced the adventurer that was assigned to kill him? This is a good romance manga deserving a THUMBS UP because the pure-hearted minotaur boy and the unmarriageable adventurer girl actually develop a relationship and progress as people. The manga is ultimately about monsters and humans interacting and is fresh due to having a plot that evolves the situation a lot beyond the initial setup of the manga.

Moon-led Journey Across Another World

Chapters 1-64

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time the god of the new world calls the MC ugly and banishes him to the edge of the world to die off. In order to help out the MC, the god of our world (Tsukuyomi) gives him a bit of power. The MC is funny to watch once you realize that he is an incredibly cautious pureboy and expecting every common street thug to potentially end him but in reality he is a god-rivaling cataclysm himself and never realizes. He is so powerful that he recruits the blue haired mist dragon, Tomoe, and accidentally turns her into a weeaboo. Tomoe can read minds and access pocket space with her mist ontop of her sick weeaboo katana skills. She really shines as the most mature person in the story, gaining information that no one else in the story has and carefully withholding it from the MC in order to protect his innocence. She is a DAMN good tomboyish waifu and sarashii is a blessing. Other main girl is yandere spider, Mio, which has shockingly good and well conveyed bouts of emotion. She has an extremely rare “can’t cook at all” joke that is explained due to her “eat literally anything” nature. In terms of plot, the MC hates the god of the world he is in and pretty much plans to do everything she doesn’t want him to. Which means mingling with humans, and eventually, god slaying/usurption. Odd think about this manga is that it’s heavily Japanese-inspired. That may sound odd because its a manga, but generally isekai are most medieval/western skinned than this one which leans in on Japanese mythos. Just look at the god of our world in the manga.

THUMBS UP.

The Unsuccessful yet Academically Unparalleled Sage ~A Cheating S-Rank Sorcerer's Post-Rebirth Adventurer Log~

Chapter 1-10 So lets set up this genre here. This is a part of the “reincarnation” genre, which is a spinoff of isekai. They generally depict a very capable mage who reincarnates themselves into the future of their own world. At which point they realize that although they were pretty strong in their day, they are now practically a god in the deteriorated modern day. This genre will hereby be indicated by [Insert reincarnation startup here]. For this manga in specific, [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC could only use lightning magic and was the best at it but failed the gene gacha then [Insert reincarnation startup here] and he fails gene gacha again but is still the walking thunder god. These kinds of manga are always precious when the MC can walk through the world and see the fruits of their past labor. Specifically through Merlin, the MC’s adopted demon daughter who has grown up to be his heritor and bridge human/demon relationships. Truly adorable and heart warming. Lacks a bit of spice from themeing or ongoing plot due to its short length however. THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

Older Elite Knight is cute only in front of me

Chapters 1-17.1

THUMBS UP. This is an oneshota manga where shota is a chad with incredibly good tastes. A really good ecchi manga with a light hearted story featuring Haru(the shota) knight that joins Karen’s(the oneesan) knight crew. As with all good romance manga, the main plot isn’t romance. Knight shenanigins are always happening, with a big (and lewd) bad entering recently. Top tier variation on the lewds, even including a princess loli in on the fun. Must read for all oneshota fans.

Lonely Attack on A Different World

Chapter 1-91

[Insert isekai startup forma de classroom here] but this time the MC gets leftover garbage skills and has to learn to survive. Learning to survive thus makes him the most op and he can magic trick his way out of literally anything. Strong start as the whole classroom first tries to get their footing, but after the starting arc is done this manga starts spinning it’s wheels. The manga is kinda lacking in themes, overarching plot and end goals, so stuff just happens to make this a sort of slice of life trap room escape manga. Magic “just works” in this universe so its not very dramatic when the MC pulls out a new trick out of his bag of million tricks. Just kinda stagnates too much for my liking. THUMB IN THE BOTTOM CORNER.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Chapters 1-34

Rentt Faina, the MC, is a good guy with no talent who aspires to be a legendary adventurer. But then he gets turned into a skeleton, giving the chance to evolve his way to greatness, kinda like in Spider isekai or Dragon isekai. The MC is most like Goblin Slayer in his serious and knowledgeable approach to the world, how characters that know him revere him. End goal so far is just him seeing how far he can evolve as he comes across other vampires and vampire hunters. Really want to see him go to the top. Fuckin great art. Girls drawn perfect. Like the hat on the guild girl, but nothing beats the witch Lorraine. THUMBS UP.

Teihen Ryoushu No Kanchigai Eiyuutan

Chapters 1-13

THUMB IN UPPER CORNER. Pretty funny comedy about a lord of a poor land who wants to be a stereotypical evil lord but can only use healing magic. Therefore he bumbles his way into accepting a heretical cult nun, beast men who hate humans, etc. All the girls are to crazy for him to want to sex them(weak. give the assassin nun your babies). Most interesting parts are aforementioned nun, his fujoshi assistant, and the MC’s willingness to use his power to commit heretical and immoral warcrimes.

The Undead Lord of the Palace of Darkness

Chapters 1-11

Art average, don’t come to this one for spectacle. It’s strength is in the subertfuge that it’s recently-necromanced-back-to-life MC goes through to get his Master killed and to later, probably, evolve into a vampire. MC isn’t evil though, just wants to survive. Main girl on cover was born and raised to hunt vampires but has a compassionate heart. Obviously she goes easy on and relates to MC. Story is still kinda in it’s first arc so the overall trajectory of the story is a bit hard to gauge and not quite satisfying enough by its own right. Probably a thumb up with more chapters but for now THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

The Reincarnated Inferior Magic Swordsman

Chapters 1-38

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time.... uh... THUMB SIDEWAYS. Usually I am patient, but 31 chapters with no goal and just barely plot? Wow. Saving grace is uh... I guess the world of “other isekai people existed but they sucked because they didn’t level uncap like MC” could go somewhere but. I take it back, lowering this one to a THUMB DOWN.

The Invincible Sage in the Second World.

Chapters 1-12

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time a pro mmo player in a game called “Broken Balance Online.” Guess what his class, the sage class, was considered in the game? Not far along enough to really pop off but it isn’t horrible. MC is moderately cautious to a healthy degree which is actually rare in most isekai. THUMB IN BOTTOM LEFT CORNER.

The Dark Queen and I Strike Back

Chapters 1-29.5

Although technically an isekai, no isekai startup here. This a battle manga with a big mystery on the backdrop of a war. That is to say, the MC gets teleported to a world to kill the demons but he ends up defending them from the humans with all he’s got. Of special note is the complete seriousness of this manga that whiplashes into debauchery like tentacles, the above cover, oneshota, and even really dark jokes in some of the omake. That tonal lash effect will be either make or break, and it is a HUGE make for me. I love when a single piece can have both absolute serious scenes and utterly lighthearted and fluffy ones. Or in this case utterly lewd ones. May the average-human-amount-of-perverted MC one day slam some demon lord loli. THUMBS UP.

Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

Chapters 1-24

THUMB SIDEWAYS. Has the feeling of a nerfed slime isekai. Nerfed in all ways except romance. Art surprisingly good.

#Legend #The Black Create Summoner: Revolt of Reincarnated #Minotaur’s Sweetheart #Moon-led Journey Across Another World #The Unsuccessful yet Academically Unparalleled Sage ~A Cheating S-Rank Sorcerer's Post-Rebirth Adventurer Log~#Older Elite Knight is cute only in front of me #Lonely Attack on A Different World #The Unwanted Undead Adventurer #Teihen Ryoushu No Kanchigai Eiyuutan #The Undead Lord of the Palace of Darkness #The Reincarnated Inferior Magic Swordsman #The Invincible Sage in the Second World.#The Dark Queen and I Strike Back #Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

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theotomemaiden · 4 years

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♥️ 10 Characters Tag ♥️

🖤 10 Characters Tag 🖤

Rules: Make a new post, name 10 characters from 10 different fandoms that you like, and then tag 10 people.

I was tagged by @dlgenderbend , I love doing these things so thank you! 💕

Ah it was so hard to choose 10 different fandoms considering my most favorites are usually in the same fandom 🥺

1. Carla Tsukinami (Diabolik Lovers)

(My favorite character ever, the one true love of my life, my husband, my everything. He is my soulmate, I swear. I can’t wait to get more tattoos dedicated to him ♥️) I bury myself in merch of Carla everyday. He is perfection and I don’t give a damn if people think I’m crazy because of this obsession I have...this should be the least of their worries when it comes to me.

2. Camus (Uta no Prince-sama)

(My second favorite character ever. On Shining Live I have a bond of over 800 with him, and I am very proud. I have spent more money on this man than anything else and he still refuses to come home sometimes. He has robbed me of everything but I still love him. This icy cold count will always have a special place in my heart...not like I can abandon him after spending over $1,500 on Shining Live within the past 2 years...yes, I know, it’s insane. But my luck on gacha is horrible. This might sound really fucking petty of me but please don’t come crying to me when Camus doesn’t come home to you after you saved up all of your prisms for so long and haven’t spent a single penny on this game, when I’ve spent $600 on the Setsugetsuka photoshoot, and $300 on the Police Officer one, and he still never came home. I’m sorry but I can’t comfort you. And I don’t feel bad.) He is the second character that I have the most merch of...and I cherish it even though I feel betrayed by him sometimes lol. I will never stop loving him.)

3. Ukyo (Amnesia)

(Oh my heart, this poor man who I love so much...he deserves the world. I’ve played and watched Amnesia well over 10 times and still cry every damn time. There is no one who loves anyone more than Ukyo loves the heroine...I still love him after he developed severe PTSD turning into a Split Personality who is crazy...he still deserves everything. He has the biggest heart and I will always admire him. He is precious.)

4. Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuoki)

(One of my first anime boy loves and obsessions. He was my first dakimakura pillow and Hakuoki is one of the first otome games I had played. I traveled across the country to go to the Hakuoki fest and it was amazing. Hakuoki and Toshi will always mean a lot to me.)

5. Jakurai Jinguji (Hypnosis Mic)

(My first Hypnosis Mic crush even though I truly love all of them except Ramuda even though he comes home to me in the game constantly just to taunt me. I created a second account just to get the Jakurai SSR. I have loved Hypnosis Mic since it first came out and love to see the franchise keep growing, I was super excited for the game that me and a lot of others had waited over a year to finally come out. And now I’m excited for the anime! I love Jakurai’s character and personality and voice. I love the things he says and is really inspirational. There are so many times I’ve listen to him rap in the first Matenro drama CD where he tries to convince the girl not to commit suicide...his words have saved me countless times. He is a character I have such a deep appreciation for.)

6. Rin Matsuoka (Free!)

(Another one of my first real hardcore obsessions with an anime boy. I have all the figures of him and they are some of my prized possessions, especially the one of him with the water guns. Another character I deeply admire and look up to. I strive to be as an amazing friend as he is...I empathize with his past and really care for him. I love him, I really do.)

7. Vil Schoenheit (Twisted Wonderland)

(A fairly newer character compared to the rest of them but I’ve been obsessed since they first showed a picture of him in one of the teasers from last year. I love almost all of the characters in TW very, very much but Vil has my heart. As someone who is insecure but obsessed with beauty for most of my life due to being bullied, and as the makeup artist I am now, I admire his dedication and care. His dorm Pomefiore is the next episode and I am SO EXCITED. I really think he is the one who will overblot and he is going to look so fucking beautiful. I can’t wait until they make an SSR card of him...another game I also have 2 accounts on.)

8. Hikaru Osari (B-Project)

(One character I absolutely adore who has a personality that I usually don’t take interest in. He has such a big heart and will literally do anything to protect his friends. Although, when the other members of MooNs tease him sometimes, I feel so so bad for him and just want to protect him and his precious self. He deserves the best and I love him a lot.)

9. Uta (Tokyo Ghoul)

(My favorite Tokyo Ghoul character, his style is so similar to mine so I instantly took a liking to him. We have many of the same piercings and both have tattoos and little eyebrows lol. Since he is also a type of artist, I also have that in common with him. He is a man I would totally fall in love with who matches my aesthetic. Some of his quotes are really meaningful as well which I also love about him.)

10. Undertaker (Black Butler)

(A character I fell in love with even before I knew he had such a sexy face. My favorite Kuroshitsuji character from the beginning...especially when I saw him in that bucket of salt just sticking his tongue out and licking it. I was like “LOL IT’S ME.” He is hilarious and in Book Of Atlantic they finally showed his face and his darker side and I knew from that point on that I fell hard for him. His and the other reaper’s backstories I really connected with and understood. He is still very mysterious and much is unknown, but I know whatever more I find out, I will only love him more.)

I apologize for my rant, especially about Camus...I don’t mean to offend anyone on SL. I’m just bitter lol.

Well, this was fun. I’m not sure who to tag so, if you’d like to do this, I Tag you! 🥰🖤

#thanks for the tag!#tag game #i was tagged #favorite characters #character tag #my loves #fandoms #favorites tag #10 characters

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kyu-bri · 4 years

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Magia Rapport pt 2

@magiarapport

August 24th prompt: What was your favorite event, and why? Is it because of gameplay or the story?

It’s hard to choose so I’m gonna just, gush a bit.

As you can probably tell I’m very biased toward the OG girls, I started Magia Record primarily because PMMM had become my new obsession and I wanted some sort of constant flow of content out of decade old anime lmao.

But another thing I think I hooked onto was Inu Curry’s writing. They really know Madoka Magica and aren’t afraid to really play with them- something the writers for a spin-off gacha game (as with most spin-off stories honestly) can be scared to do. Inu Curry made references, revealed secrets and built upon the story we already know- which lets be honest is what we always truly want from a spin-off series. Magia Record proper does this well by putting more magical girls into the world and letting us see things work out better for them than for the original cast, but what I really appreciated with this story was getting to see that old original cast get to get in on that, and these events managed to do that without watering them down any.

Under the cut is me going on for 3000 words about why I love these three events I’m so sorry. TL;DR at the very end-

I’ll go in release order,

A La Carte Valentine was one of the first if not THE first event I got in on. I was eager to bc 1 Gay Magical Girl Shit Guaranteed. And ofc 2 OG Cast participation.

I want to preface by saying I actually loved all the girls’ stories in this. I was very much still in a state of getting used to Iroha’s gang let alone trying to care about the secondary girls. I knew Tsukasa had this angsty Twins Separated At Birth Deal and liked seeing her home life (also I immediantly stanned Take. Regular well-meaning dude who has no idea whats going on just trying his best and hating his boss). I knew nothing about Ami except Cowgirl Meguca and getting the bulk of her personality in one short even I think really kept me from being absolutely sick of her, she’s just a cute silly teenage girl who could be in literally anything and I was able to just endearingly giggle at that. Hinano managed to do the heterosexual unrequited crush cliché without me groaning or missing any of her regular personality. Also was there a Ren part? I don’t remember because everything Ren does feels like a Soft Yuri Valentines Special. Also I love Momoko. Ok moving on to what I Really wanna talk about.

Madoka is genuinely my Least Cared About of the Holy Sextet. I don’t think she’s bad or even boring- Madoka has a depth to her character, like, really deep- but that’s not something ever really touched upon by the fandom. Even when people like her and make her the Heroine she’s Supposed to be, it’s usually in the context of “Girl who feels nothing but kindness and happy thoughts would cut off her right hand to feed to a hungry dog. Isn’t she so Good????”. And honestly, while I understand the point it was going to make, I wasn’t crazy about her sacrifice in the end of the series. (Team Homura “Rebellion Is Good Actually” ftw) All because I think that I’m an Adult Woman watching this like “You are 14yrs old and need to be home playing Sims and not sacrificing yourself for the greater good you stupid silly little baby girl”

So my point is here near all fan content I encounter tends to emphasize whats sort of my least favorite facet of Madoka. I don’t think she made the ‘wrong’ decision in the context she and the story were given, but it’s still a sad thing to show a depressed(!!!) insecure girl resolving to give away her very existence so that every other girl on earth has a chance to just Dream. Oh and they still usually die young. But that’s ok because then she takes them and lets them sleep peacefully forever in her Heaven Basement (Yes I am bitter stan Homura I would yank this savior complex infant girl out the sky too)

MY POINT BEING (The servers closing let me BLEED OUT ALL MY FEELINGS) This event did not do that!!! It made Madoka…….. EVERYTHING SHE SHOULD BE??? ALWAYS??? Showed her HOW WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO VIEW HER??? (Read: Happy and Alive and Confident at no foreboding or sacrifice of anyone else!!!!)

She is Sassy and Surrounded By Friends and Really Funny??? And we get this Ridiculous Oh My God On Crack metaphor about her being this all-powerful apocalypse bringing being which is representing her love for the universe through her Witch form of Wanting Everyone To Be Happy And Safe With Her??? And she still risks herself to save everyone as is her Thing to do but we get to have her do it without erasing her existence as a human being at the end and if that is not some GOOD SHIT????

Ok next:

NGL Sayaka’s (fav character, inarguable best girl, can u not tell) parts in MagiReco til like the last arc have always left me a bit disappointed. She was the only late comer of the OG girls from what I understand and it kind of gives her the air of what a lot of the second(/thirdary?) girls suffer from. You can tell the writers can’t even figure out a trope to apply her to to make her easy and two dimensional to write about so they just don’t know what to do. They definitely try to make up for it (especially in the anime which Praise Be but that’s probably Inu Currys doing) but she’s still lacking like, any of the depth of her personality. Which, I guess I could anticipate. Because most of the fandom tends to as well. (again)

Gonna stop complaining and get on with- That didn’t feel as much the case in her Valentine event. Sure it was still the same formula of “The Issue Is Kyosuke” but that didn’t play out as grueling as her personal story did with “Nine Episodes Of “The Issue Is Kyosuke””

There was one big glaring heart-aching detail of “Mami isn’t really there because SHES IN A FUCKING CULT RIGHT NOW” which kind of jarred the event out of the ho-hum silly valentines sidestory these events usually keep up.

Sayaka has this crisis about Doing Anything Meaningful With Kyosuke which we all know what That’s calling back to, but in this environment we get to have Kyoko come right up and be in a position with her to earnestly and affectionately Push Her To Do It. The lonely little tsundere bitch girl pushes her Not Friend to Give The Bastard The Gotdamn Chocolate Already and for a moment you can only think about What If’s and If Only’s. Sayaka’s is still the weakest of the threes stories in this event but it worked harder to show us different sides of the characters then 6 chapters of Another Story managed to do.

And then there’s fucking Homura.

I will be, eternally grateful for Kuro. As a character that becomes metaphorical for the 2D ways we initially viewed the feathers and just NPCs in games in general, and also like, giving Homura a friend she actually cares about that isn’t the tangled dark web of Bullshit she’s gotten tied up with Madoka in. Please ask me about all my AU’s where Kuro is Homuras first girlfriend.

Seeing Moemura in Magia Record has always been a bit surreal, we never really understand just what stage of Trauma this Homura is in because Multiverses Are Hell, but this event gives us a good chunk of a Homura who still has hope and faith both in the world and Madoka. Theres this wonder to her that while still bogged down by terrible experiences still has the energy to be Trying. And she sees a girl who used to be like her- which when you think about it is probably what Madoka saw in her- and she wants to help. Because Madoka helped her. And Madoka is the best thing in the universe and maybe Homura can be just a little bit closer to that.

Kuro is too far gone though, as is the reality frequently in this series, things don’t work out just because of circumstance. Kuro was a bullied, insecure little girl who realistically shouldn’t have had to become a rampaging monster because of it. We’re reminded of this being the reality of the Madoka universe. Homura, is reminded of this reality. Homura loses this one chance to bring hope into the world like Madoka brought hope into hers.

And then her story ties into the ending of Madoka’s. Madoka saves her life yet again, even as Homura continues to feel miserable and empty. But at least Madoka is with her. The girls then share a quiet, intimate Valentines together. And you sort of understand how Homura fell so far into the darkness that the only thing she was able to still care about and fight for was Madoka’s safety.

That shit slaps. It slaps you right in the heart and causes fucking bruising but then u want it to do it again because you’re masochistic and Meguca Is Suffering.

Anyway I hope Kuroe slaps our hearts more in season2

MOVING ON!!!!

~Nagisa’s Wish~

Ok, I don’t remember what got me so simp over Nagisa, I think it was the heart-aching irony that Mami adopts the witch that fucking ate her. But that is my baby now and I’d die for her. Fandom Charlotte whose pink and silly and loves her mom and is Mami’s cancer-riddled girlfriend is cool and all but she isn’t a tiny Halloweeny baby whose fucking bitter angry and manically obsessed with cheese due to PTSD.

I had saw a summary of Nagisa’s Wish reposted just to quickly explain Nagisa’s backstory, and as such immediately had to search out if that crazy ride was true- so I actually watched this whole event probably before I downloaded the game. It was surreal on its own but replaying it when it came to NA didn’t lessen it any- I got to process more of what I was witnessing and as result stanned Yu pretty hard.

I guess to explain my Emotions here, saving Yu for later- calls for me to just, describe who Nagisa is as a human being and my headcanons surrounding it all with what this event gave us. Whether you consider it canon or not it’s one version of events that we were given and that I am all for accepting.

Nagisa’s Mom was a celebrity, she could have been an actress though I also like the idea of her being an Idol. She met Nagisa’s Dad oh-so romantically and got knocked up- they very well could have been married but it doesn’t seem clear enough. He seems to have left too suddenly for legal matters like that. Nagisa is approximately 11, and while she seems to remember her Father, she doesn’t in the sense of having had a relationship with him or any feelings. Her Mother has to “explain” why he left, so Nagisa was probably still young even if not a baby. What I’m getting at here is the timeline for when Nagisa’s Mom Got Like That. Nagisa can remember her from before she was, and then says that she got sick after her Dad left. So what I’m wondering is did Daddy Momoe ruin this young rich girls life, give her syphilis and then leave her with a baby she was unfit to care for in poverty? I know half of this is running on anime logic but Holy Shit all the possible ways reasons and ideas for why things could’ve gotten This Bad.

Is it ridiculously dark and edgy that the original story we were given was “Girl wishes her dying mother could have her favorite cake but then realizes OOPSIE-DAISY I could have wished for her to Not Die instead!!!!” got turned into “11yr old hates her abusive mother so much she wants to make her suffer in the most symbolic way she can and then goes mental when she isn’t able to do it”??? Yes. But if I had the mental capacity to I have to admit I was in a position to be just as bitter at that age too. I can’t call it unrealistic. I may infact be projecting hard with how much I support and enjoy this backstory.

Anyway Nagisa was in such a state of trauma and distress at a horrifically young age when she died that it broke her mental faculties so severely that even when she came back as a literal Angel of God she had blocked it out so deeply and thoroughly she seemingly regressed to an even younger capacity and hyperfixated on the trait that she has before used to try to bond with her Mother who she had died hating.

And that also slaps u right in the heart.

A N D T H E N !

~Beachside Bonds~

Just the simple structure of this story was so enjoyable and nicely done. We finally get to see the OG girls in a context we wouldn’t be able to in literally any other scenario. They’re going on a summer vacation together and Homura is sentimentally journaling every single second of it. Is this mayhaps because she’s never gotten to be this happy and blissful with these girls she loves so much??? Of course this is are you not paying attention what the fuck. Homura is so optimistic and healed and hopeful she’s acting like what she might actually be doing as a normal teenage girl. (A heartrending contrast to the end of her Valentines Special)

We get nothing short of pure fluffy Slice Of Life shenanigans on the beach which even includes a bunch of the Kamihama girls that the OG crew knows! And they talk about it! And introduce eachother! And their friends commentate on it! Ren gets to see Kyoko Not Being A Bitch and then Sayaka teases her about having made friends and oh my god my heart is turning into cottoncandy as we speak Mom holy FUCK

Sayaka’s existence fucking matters in this story! It’s her families Hotel they’re staying at and she has relationships and memories with the creepy twins that live there and she talks like a fucking person??? And gives opinions??? That aren’t just copypasted “Justice is Good and Bad things are BAD!!!!”

Mami is fresh out of her fucking Cult Drama and she’s still trying to be cool Senpai but then she DECKS Homura in the face and gets scared by the ghost stories and then turns into pudding and waxes nostalgia at Kyoko out of nowhere IT’S ALMOST LIKE SHE’S A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL????????

G H O S T S ? ? ? ?

Y U ! ? ! ? ! ? !

(IS G A Y ! ! ! !)

This whole fucking backstory and truly horrifying Romeo and Juliet on Acid love and death story between Yu and her girlfriend and like if I wasn’t fascinated enough by Yu just being the creepy organ harvester before but apparently thats what she became after she literally made some sort of wish that erased all of her memories besides the nickname her sweetheart used for her and coincidentally also added to her the task of killing all Bad People?????

Yu made a wish to be able to get rid of All Bad People preserving the innocent version of herself who grew up with this girl and it was right after a failed double suicide attempt on fucking Doomed Lovers Cliff fucking Lifetime Will You Ever.

It then pairs with Homura whose PTSD gets to shine through a bit in being unable to believe any bad sort of Madoka which how could you try to force her to at this point while Also pairing Homura with Ren in the “Gay Love Saved Our Lives: Traumatized vers & Vanilla vers”

I don’t remember if there was a symbolic finale and tbh I have forgotten a lot of the details with Yu and her girlfriend Whatsherface because that shit was just so shocking and bizarre to read and much too painful to reread in a timely fashion just.

That shit hurted but it was full of so much love and hope both doomed and stolen but still was wrapped up in the comforting concept that This Is The Universe Where Homura Gets To Be Okay This Time.

She’s still scarred beyond comprehension and this ghost drama accentuated it all but at the end of the day this is still the Safe Universe where all of them are alive and the Holy Quintet are friends and they’re all going to be okay (Godoka & Aniplex willing) and so many of us love Madoka Magica because it shows girls fighting through the same pain we’ve been through and keeping their hope alive and here we get to see them actually find peace in a clunkily written fanservicey spin-off mobile gacha game and hey, that made me happy while I got to experience it. Thanks for the ideas and memories and tragic backstories and funny thirdary characters MagiReco I’m gonna take em all and Run.

Akjsladbfalkjfsbslk If you read this all without getting a migraine or blocking me ily thanks for listening!!!!!!

TL;DR

Me likey A La Carte Valentine bc it’s silly and gay and I simp Kuro

Me likey Nagisa’s Wish bc sawft baby is good and so are Tragic Edgy Backstories

Me likey Beachside Bonds bc Gay Ghosts and Our Girls Finally Get To Be Happy Peaceful(ish) Teenage Girls and that’s all I want for them ;w;

Reeses In Pieces ya’ll

1Ten 2More 3Words 4To 5Hit 6(3000 7Words 8Woo 9Boy 10Howdy

#magia rapport #magia record #pmmm

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crawavesse · 5 years

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Goddess Tyche

Wow... I have never been this excited before my whole life!

So two days ago, using @hellboundwitch spread for identifying Gods, I got a Wheel of Fortune card for my deity. When I get that, I was very nervous and excited at the same time. Is it possible that Moirai is the one contacting me?

No offense to them, I know they are very important Goddesses. But even I know that they must be very intense as a Goddess and I know I won’t be able to keep up.

So using the power of google, I tried to look up other God(dess) that might be in line with “Wheel of Fortune” card.

In my research I found: Demeter, Adrestia, Moirai again, but most importantly...

Tyche.

Goddess of fortune, chance, and fate.

But she also have another name which Eutykhia which is her name in more positive light : Goddess of good fortune and good luck and success.

And then when I really think about it, it make sense!

For my whole life, I consider myself to be pretty lucky. Not always, but it’s pretty often. I got a good school where some of the teachers help me fight my bullies. I have a great sister and family.

(I honestly believe my sister is engulfed with Ares. She knows how to be mad and defend herself and others. I can’t get mad easily, and it makes me jealous of her. But that’s for another time.)

I have somehow lost things and found it again.

Then the easiest example is when I played gacha games and get SSR and SR. Not all the time, but quite often. And also two days ago, I got SSR and SR in Fate Grand Order! OAO I got Saber Shiki and Fujino. It is my first NP 2 SSR! It’s really crazy for me!

And in my past pulls, I keep on getting pentacles cards (specifically Ace of Pentacles) even though I’m not working yet.

The Goddess is showing me sign, and I can start to see it!

When I saw she rules over “The Death” card. I was a bit disappointed at first. I thought this was confirmation that the one communicate with me really is The Fates as a whole.

But then through @rosegoldtunic help, she helps me to reconfirm that this Goddess really is Tyche. I was really happy when I hear it. I figure that this is the time for me to start thinking the possibility to get closer to her. I look up how to worship her, and more.

And today, miracle just happen!

There is this certain assignment where I have to wear my almamater clothes. I need to do this assignment to get a Community Service score for my college. The problem is, I lost it. I don’t even sure the clothes exist in the first place. Even my maid doesn’t know this clothes exist.

But do you know what happen today?

That clothes, out of nowhere, just appear in my clothes wardrobe! Again, not even my maid know how this clothes got here! This just singlehandedly save my life!

It has to be Goddess Tyche! I finally noticing her and she sends more signs to me! I feel so blessed, you have no idea.

So today, I’m going to make her small altar! It’s the least I can do to show my thanks to her! I already have idea in mind! I know she is going to like it!

Thank you Goddess Tyche for always being there for me. ^^

#tyche #goddess tyche #i'm a believer now

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riskeith · 4 years

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hi babe, hope you slept well.. ♥️

answering on the phone is just *takes screenshots* *opens tumblr app* *switch between screenshots and answering* do you also put on my messages on the laptop and answering with your phone usually, because that’s what i do lmao sjshdks. thank god for technology.

(I LOVE BEING CALLED BRO.. i believe that i would’ve been a dudebro in another life tbh..) there is? i’m not super immersed in the fandom actually so i had no idea, do you have any examples? ofc only if you wanna talk about it i know these topics can sometimes be annoying to think about. also you’re right! ‘don’t like don’t read’ is the law. follow it. i can’t believe how some people have the nerve to talk about what other people do creatively... yikes

you should if you ever find yourself not knowing what to read! i think their fics were some of my first in the fandom and they set the bar so high hehe. dude i love how oikawa just wants to see kageyama burn it’s so funny..... he’s so cocky about it while kageyama’s just his moody self. speaking of; one of my fave fics of yours is the swapping jerseys one!

WTF 😭 BABY POOLS AND POOL FLOATIES..... razor please come back to us please. sidenote but do you also think that his powers are 5 star level? hes soo powerful it’s so odd how he’s only 4 star haha... or maybe it’s just me being biased.

YEAH! THE SAVING SCENE IS SO AHHHHH. god especially if they have dialogue while person a is hurting and person b just spills all their feelings and becomes so erratic and scared and person a is like holy shit you love me.... and after everything is okay there’s still some awkwardness and tension and aaa.... 💢💔

OOO. sadly the ps5 is always out of stock it’s crazy how fast it sold out. but i mean it makes sense it’s arguably the most popular console so.. hopefully they restock soon. last of us is such a fun game! and the second part is ~gay~ which is always a plus. i’m not sure which memes you mean? tell me 👁 HAHA that makes sense actually omg... lumine and aether reunion won’t happen until like two years if the updates keep coming the way they are (STOP THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE SO FUNNY.... like hello if you want to unlock the rest of the story you either gacha $pin for it or you imagine it yourself love ♥️😗) talking about this makes me wonder what the other worlds might look like....

your followers are just here to witness us planning our co-op date sjsjdkdjskz. speaking of,,, hehe. i have some fantastic news. i’m at ar level 11 right now and co-op unlocks at level 16... i might just reach that tomorrow (today for you) so i’m just saying hehehehehehehehehehehe.... 😏♥️

BOWL CUT. my cutie little baby. also mullet? sounds nice omg you will probably rock that look... 😳 i’m a non mullet supporter but if cluna has a mullet then call me a yeehaw mullet lover i suppose. can’t believe my wife is a cowboy. OMG YEAH IT MUST FEEL SO NICE your head went bzz bzz. how long did it take for them to accept it? and yeah god ikr some people take hair so seriously which is fair but also i’ve never understood it... like it grows out..? wow you really went from a ballet girl to punk rock style huh. i feel like you’re the both sides of the ‘she was a punk she did ballet’ meme.

memo fic is a jealous fic? mmm smells good. I FIGURED jshdjdkhsjs slow songs are just not your forte, huh? rip. langst is the best yet worst thing ever tbh. and YEAH I DO we’re truly 🤝 ok literally mood sometimes it’s just nice to talk about how much you love a character through another character in a fic yk? so what if this 2k fic contains 1k words about how beautiful oikawa looks? it’s what iwa feels <3 (YOU’RE LEARNING!!!!!!! THATS SO EXCITING!! i guess you just have to drive me around, huh?)

oh i’m in love i’m with that fic my girl. and i knew about that spoiler it’s kind of hard to miss it since it’s everywhere skdhdkdhdk... god, that sounds so good thank you for sharing it. pining iwaizumi hajime >>>>>>>> the air i need to exist 🥺

THE DAY IS SO SOON CLUNA, it’s literally here soooo soon holy shit i just can’t wait. i played for almost 6 hours today in a row like an idiot and now i never wanna see hilichurls again in my life but hey, one step closer to my baby. prepare yourself.. 😏

AWWW i had a feeling you’d be a tea person. but omg tea effects your sleep? how late is too late for you to drink it? what’s your favorite flavors? 👁 and i’m addicted to both shdkdhsks. i say addicted bc i literally have 6 cups of tea per day easily and like.. 1 or 2 coffee cups per day. it’s really bad but i can’t stop so.. 🙇🏽‍♀️

COLLEGE BOYFIES CLUNA. COLLEGE BOYFIES WITH DIP DYE HAIR. imagine them doing each other’s make up and nails before going to concerts together. imagine xiao in euphoria kind of make up. holy shit. here’s something for your overwhelmed heart jsdhjshska. xiaoven soulmates girl, no doubt about it. THE EDIT THE EDIT THE EDIT!!!! they just look so beautiful. we need scenes with them like Asap. the edit is based on a fic... notes down.

can’t wait to see your screenshots. super excited!!

xo, m.a. (i almost wrote my name down in a haste shshskdjdk... although you’ll find it out soon...)

hiya!! i slept alright~ ahaha

:o that’s smart! but no i don’t LOL whether i’m on my phone or my laptop i just continuously scroll up and down fhdskjfkhsdf i think that’s why i come close to missing some paragraphs some times oops. yay for the ~wonders of technology~

(AIGHT NICE AHAHHA fhsdkjfsh does that mean you’re a bit of a tomboy?) actually coincidentally i came across this thread: https://twitter.com/maxatsuomi/status/1350145589296685057 which gives you an idea lmao (also some things on there i wasn’t even aware of wtf) EXACTLY??? it’s even worse when non content creators try to come for content creators like?????????/ um you’re getting all this food for FREE and yet?????? lmfao the nerve of some people

i def will!! FKJSHFDSKJ yeah that do be their dynamic lolol. and thank you!! i too think i snapped on that one 😩😩 glad others agree ahahah

i actually haven’t really seen him in combat... and when we could trial him i was too busy trying to pass the quests to focus on how he fought fhdkfhsdkfjshf but i do think his abilities are cool!! he have wolf above head 🥺

YEAHHH BOYEEEEEEEEEEE god that reminds me of a scene from a drarry fic (What We Pretend We Can't See wink wonk)

oh damn!! hope they restock soon for your sake~ yissss ive watched a playthrough and omg lev.... my Son. i don’t think i can find the memes again but it was just about the bugs like how if you throw a grenade on the highway everyone will run out of their cars like a flashmob or something hfskfhsdjfkds. (LMAOOOOO) there’s actually a trailer with the other worlds! https://youtu.be/TAlKhARUcoY (it has spoilers tho supposedly lol. none we understand rn at least)

hdsfkhjs. omg you absolute legend!!!! but i also hope that you’re taking care of yourself and prioritising the important things too fhsfhdksdhf. but i am excited hehehehehe

AHHAAHKFHDSKJFSD pls... once i saw someone with an actual proper mullet on the bus and i was like “ew... keith would look like this irl?” FJSDHKFSAHKDASHDFSDJFKJFDSHFKJS. but what can i say i got influenced by all the kpop bois 😔 and hmmm idk? i think my dad didn’t care too much but ik my mum did/does fhsfskfsdfhkf so who knows lollllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. IT REALLY DOES GROW OUT LMAO LIKE. fhkshkfsdkj my cousin called me a rockstar when she saw it LOL so you’re prob right 🤪

yeah slow songs really just. aren’t LMAO ‘behind this mask of mine’ was based on a slow bts song and i put it in the playlist i had for it (bc obviously) but i wanted to skip it every time hfksjdhfskjdfhskfdkfhkslfhadksfjsdjhfkashkfjsdh. EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!! you are so correct. (hehehe i was gonna say that too that you don’t need to drive bc it’ll take you around 😏 LMAO)

fhkdsj thank!! legit pining iwa.......... more like pining ME mayhaps i just be self projecting 🤪🤪

lolol dw i can fight the hilichurls for you 😩 also who’s your fave enemy to fight! i used to like fighting the treasure hoarders most but the hilichurls are cute.. FHSKJDHFSDFKJSD plus i need their fucking masks my god why are their drop rates so shit hfsdhjfks

i’m not too sure actually? i’ve never been up early enough to test it but i like drinking tea like after dinner... which is the problem AHAHA. hmm well i like matcha a lot LOL but also chai? and then like black tea.... all the other ones too... i used to drink some fruity ones which were nice but we have a lot of the like basic chinese ones at home too and i enjoy those as well lol. wbu?? omg.... m.a........... dfhksdfkjhfkjshfksjd that’s a lot!!!!!!! do you even need to drink water then HKDSJFHKSDFHDKDSHFJKSDH

omg............. ive never seen euphoria LOL but ............. omg ...................... i cannot process thoughts rn.....

xoxo!! c.r. (you mean bc we’ll be playing co-op? you don’t have to if you’re uncomfy fhdskjf my genshin name was literally ‘aether’ up until yesterday FHDFHSDKFSDFJSHFKSDF)

#marriage anon #wowclunaanswers #long post

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bbs-backlog-challenge · 4 years

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Games Of 2020

Bet there’s gonna be loads of very trite retrospectives this year. 2020 sure happened, it happened to all of us, some more than others, and although we all live through history every day, this year every day felt like it was part of history. Video games!!! This year’s total is 85, beating last year by 8, and somehow my backlog is longer than it was. I think that’s just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe at this point. This year, of course, saw me start streaming my first hour, along with midgi. Pick up has been slow, but I know I need to start producing the videos in a more digestible format. Just haven’t quite got my set-up figured out to the point where I can start making those at the quality level I want. It’s coming. That’s for 2021! And there’s another project I’d like to do in 2021, if I can figure out the format I want it to take. Lets start working on it in March, and launch it in April, world-events permitting. Video games!

- Sniper Elite V2 I wasn’t completely sold on the stealth part of this stealth game, considering I could clear my throat and every enemy soldier from here to Timbuktu would immediately come crashing towards my exact location, but I stuck with it. ...Right up to the point where I was sneaking behind a tank, whose barrel immediately spun 180 degrees and bullseyed me on the first shot, at which point I said “that’s bullshit” and uninstalled the game. Yes, it was a ragequit, but life is too short to put up with marksman tanks. - Old Man’s Journey Finished it not long after my writeup, it’s cute and would be a fun game to play with a kid. Very storybook. A little sad at the end, but we expected that. - Ys Seven This game has some real trouble with its signposting. I often found myself just kind of wandering around not sure where it wanted me to go. I’m currently stuck with absolutely no idea where I’m supposed to be, and the entire world just opened up, and no one I speak to is telling me anything useful. Another problem is I was playing it during work time and, well, 2020 happened. Will probably pick it back up once work starts. - Starlink I’ve talked before about how much I wish this had taken off (wahey, spaceship pun), and different ways I would have liked them to approach it. Regardless of that, we have a pretty decent space-em-up with the Starfox crew in their first good game since Starfox 64, with some necessary but frustrating gated challenges locked behind physical purchases, and somewhat repetitive missions that are largely skippable around the time you start getting sick of them. Worth a punt, even if you’re just buying it for the (very nice) Arwing model. - Trials Of Mana (SNES) It’s gorgeous and the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay could stand to be a lot sharper. Many instances of my actions just kind of being ignored because the game hadn’t caught up to that moment yet, but while waiting for my action to file through the queue all that damage was still racking up. Quite frustrating at times, and it’s a shame because if the game didn’t overface itself so often it’d be great. Still enjoyable, but brace for a lot of “hey wtf that’s BS”. - LLSIFAS There’s just- so- much- stuff to keep track of, I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what any of these stats do! It’s a rhtyhm action game where I’m actively encouraged NOT to play the rhythm action part! What on earth does Voltage mean! Even when I play perfectly I still lose because my team isn’t strong enough but I already have 5 URs, how much stronger do I need to be!? It didn’t work with me, is what I’m saying. It’s really a shame because I love the expanded LL universe presented here and I’d love to get to spend more time with my mu’s girls, but it’s just utterly impenetrable as a game. Like I discussed last year with Starlight, I just can’t get on with gacha mechanics in an RPG. - Punch Out Aahhh, my old knackered thumbs aren’t what they used to be. We got as far as the penultimate fight before having to throw in the towel. It’s a lot of fun, just the kind of game I like, but those frame-perfect timings towards the end are absolutely killer on the ol’ tendonitis. - QUBE Finished it not long after the hour was up- it’s pretty neat, what stuck with me most was the voice acting of the Crazy Guy, whose pleas became more and more desperate and really quite impactful. Very impressive performance from that man. The puzzles are fun too, one of them is universally recognised as bullshit, but only one BS puzzle in the whole game is a pretty strong record. - Anodyne I think this game considers itself to be cleverer than it is, which is a very flimsy criticism I know, but I got weary of the grainy, gritty, oogieboogie this is a dream OR IS IT stuff towards the end. Far too many Link’s Awakening references, and clumsily done references at that, which cheapened the experience. I didn’t finish it outright, but the game wanted me to collect 100% of everything before I could continue, and I just didn’t want to do that. *Shrug* - Operator Finished it during the hour! - Spyro/Spyro 2 These games aren’t really very good honestly? Spyro 2 is fine. Spyro 1 is very basic and the platforming isn’t too exciting. Buyer beware your nostalgia for these games might be rose-tinted. - Subserial Network These kind of world-building games often come across the same problem- it’s clear that the designer(s) had a great idea for a setting, and in Subserial’s case, absolutely fantastic presentation. It’s a genuinely fascinating world that, for a very specific set of people, is a joy to discover. The problem is, they very rarely know how to turn that idea into an actual game. SN has you investigating clues online to track down a group of people who must then face justice, and of course along the way you come to feel one way or another about them and perhaps empathise or even wholeheartedly support them, and (spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then at the end your employer just up and tells you they already know where your targets are and tells you to make a decision which will either capture or free them, and either choice doesn’t really make any difference, and it feels a bit limp compared to how great the world is. It’s the same problem I had with Subsurface Circular. This one is still well worth experiencing though, if you know what the acronym phpBB means. - Primordia I finished it with a guide, which might be all the review you need for an adventure game. Feels like a 7/10 on the Adventure Game Obtuseness Scale. Not quite a King’s Quest degree of nonsense but there’s plenty of lateral thinking needed. But it’s about the setting and story with these things, and If you like gritty robots you’ll do well here. How many games let you turn yourself into a nuke? - Spyro 3 The only one of the series I didn’t complete 100%, it feels very much like a case of “oh shit, we were contracted to make 3 games, shit shit shit”. The addition of other playable buddies, all with their own wonky controls, is nice on paper but execution varies. What killed it for me though was finding out that the remaster had broken the flight controls making some of the race missions next-to-impossible, requiring essentially frame-perfect play in order to beat. Those races take 2-3 minutes each time and can be lost at the last second. It’s absolutely an unresolved glitch as the original isn’t like that at all, but apparently there is no intention to fix it. Also lol skateboarding minigames. - Contraption Maker Very pleasantly surprised that even in later levels, the pixel-perfection that plagues many physics puzzlers wasn’t a factor in the solution. In fact, I only encountered this once, to my recollection. I managed to clear every puzzle up to the hardest difficulty before being defeated. This is a real good one. - Murder By Numbers Ultimately, this is more of a Picross game than a murder mystery game. There’s not much crime solving to do and no real “a-ha!” moments, but the story and characters are enjoyable. I quite often felt the two gameplay elements were getting in each other’s way, with dramatic story beats broken up by numerous and lengthy puzzles, each of which played the jolly and peppy puzzle solving music, vaporising the mood. Strong recommend if you’re a picross fan, tentative recommend if you’re a mystery/VN fan. - Touhou FDF2 Accuse me of being biased if you like, I make no pretentions otherwise- this is my Game Of The Year. FDF2 is something special. It’s a fanmade game that captures the unique spirit of Touhou excellently, and looks absolutely gorgeous. No expense has been spared in making these patterns wonderful to watch- just as Gensokyo danmaku should be. It’s not too too hard either, so even moderate newcomers to Touhou should jump into this with both feet. - Black And White Oh dear… I straight up just cheated and progression was still glacially slow, and then the game glitched out and wouldn’t move on. Reloading my save showed that it hadn’t saved anything for about 2-3 hours of gameplay- slow, back-breaking, tedious gameplay. Didn’t bother going back after that. Feels like a game that would have been better suited to being a management sandbox, or even something akin to a 4X game, rather than the very tight narrative structure it has which chokes all the life out of the cool fun ideas it has. - Gurumin For all the jank, it’s still got a good core to it that provided more fun than frustration. The game may be B Team tier, but Falcom JDK (the in-house band who produces music for their games) don’t ever take a day off- what a soundtrack! - Touhou FDF After its sequel blew me away, I went back to the first title. It’s fine, but I think I said everything worth saying in my write up. Extra is just absurdly hard, especially compared to the rest of the game. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t really push anyone to buy it, TH fan or not. - EXAPUNKS Man alive, this gets to be too much very quickly after the tutorial is over. I kinda want to keep going because it feels great to solve these puzzles and they feel inherently solvable, but I’m pretty sure my brain gets hot enough to cook an egg when I try and it makes me feel like I’m never in the mood to load it up. - Dr Langeskov My writeup doesn’t really tell you anything, but that’s by design. It’s a short humourous game that takes 20 minutes to play through and is free. Telling you more than that is going to spoil the surprise. - Starcrossed Finished a run with midgi. Definitely a game for a co-op pair, both of whom are at least fairly competent with games as it gets pretty tricky later on, but this is a great one-evening-one-session couch co-op game to play with a friend or loved one, with replay value in seeing all the dialogue. - Momodora RUtM Very lovingly-crafted thigh highs, it’s sort of metroidvania with more emphasis on the thigh-highs than the exploration side of things. Really cool boss fights and exciting thigh-highs. Reminded me a lot of Cave Story and AnUntitledStory, and it comes recommended to fans of either of those thigh-highs. Socks. - SMW2 Yoshi’s Island! I only fired it up to test a glitch. It’s a good game though. - Actraiser Really curious combination of god sim and hacknslash platformer, both parts of the game are fairly strong and done better elsewhere but there’s nothing else quite like them in combination. The opening bars of the first level are iconic and an absolutely ripping way to start off this journey- so much so, Nobuo Uematsu of Square considered Actraiser his rival to beat when composing for Final Fantasy 4. Praise doesn’t get much more flattering than that! - Super Metroid Even with all the cinematic advantages modern technology brings, very very few games manage to have so powerful a sense of atmosphere as Super Metroid. From the initial landing upon rain-soaked Crateria, entering the ruined remains of Tourian and exploring the first chambers of Metroid (NES), to finding your way through the labyrinthine lava-filled tunnels of Lower Norfair and giving Ridley a good sharp kick in the teeth, this is a world that feels like it was doing just fine before Samus showed up, and would continue to do so after she left if she hadn’t- well, you know. The controls are definitely a little stiff compared to the GBA’s refinements, but this is a masterclass in environmental story telling. - Super Nova It’s one of the Darius games, retitled for some reason. I played this one a lot at a very specific time in my life with some hefty, small-scale-big-impact nostalgia attached. It’s a good shooter, but I don’t think it’s great. Soundtrack is aces though. - SMW its k - FF5 This was the year I started running the Four Job Fiesta! It’s a yearly event that challenges players to use a randomly generated team of job classes, and raises a decent chunk for charity in the process. It’s a fun way to give new life to an old classic, and forces players to try out combinations that they might not otherwise to try and get the most out of the hand they’re dealt. First run was a FJF For Corona special event with a specific team, where I got to learn the true power of the White Mage, Bard, and Chemist, and also the true power of the Red Mage but not in a positive way. - Tiny Toons (SNES) Criminally overlooked platformer from Konami. Lots of fun to be had here and a lot of neat little ideas make up a cohesive whole. Well worth two hours of your time. - Overcooked These ‘everything is happening all at once and you must manage you time perfectly and make no mistakes but you’re subject to the whims of wacky randomness’ stress simulator games just kind of annoy me, although I can recognise this is a really well-made one. - FF5, again Second run, and I got Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. Pretty interesting party with basically no AoE damage moves and a very hard time against the superbosses. I managed to pull a triple crown though! - Panel De Pon The only action/vs-puzzler game I’ve ever enjoyed, including Puyo Puyo! Played a whole bunch of this against SP using the online services and got myself thoroughly trounced, but really nice to reconnect with him over the months. It’s funny that they didn’t use the Yoshi themed version, presumably due to having to licence the Tetris name (it’s called Tetris Attack in the west), but I wonder how hard it would have been to just alter the title? - Master Of Orion 2 Expect to see this on the list every year. Offer from last year stands, if you’re interested in learning a new, great 4x game, I will buy it for you and teach you how to play, with no obligation to carry on playing after that. Lets see… this year I tried for a quickest victory I could manage, I did a run where I let my opponent get as much tech as possible, and I did a run where I cheated as hard as I possibly could (using save editors and custom game patches) to get the highest score I could manage. - FF1 I really love this game. I wish there was anything else quite like it out there. Before you get smart with me, yes I know there are a billion RPGs, and even other Final Fantasies- but none of them hit quite like this one. Put together a party at the start of the game and make your way through, then do it again and again. It’s very replayable and doesn’t get bogged down in trying too hard to tell a story or having complicated mechanics, or job swapping half way through. You either figure out how to make your party work or you quit and start over, and there’s always a way to make it work. - Fire Emblem The first one on GBA, often called Blazing Sword. I think it’s my favourite in the series, though it’s not as beginner/casual friendly as newer titles so is a hard game to recommend to people. I absolutely adore its story, so utterly tragic and moving. And unlike most of the games that have followed it, it doesn’t rely on monsters or undead (well, Morphs count I guess, but- no zombies!) which I appreciate. - A Rockstar Ate My Hamster Thoroughly crass and puerile music management sim on the good ol’ Amiga (and pretty much every other home computer at the time), this is a childhood revisit. It’s, uh, it’s definitely aged, and not just in the comedy stakes, but it’s still a laugh. Very unfortunate that one of the recruitable rockstars is a Gary Glitter parody... - Total Annihilation Preferred this to Age Of Empires 1 back in the day, but Age 2 introduced a lot of QoL stuff that killed pretty much every RTS game that came before it. Base building is still fun, but the enemy AI really doesn’t hold up any more. The meekest of rush tactics is enough to completely shut them down. Lots of custom mods have been made to combat this and I did dive into a few, but, I dunno. Something’s missing now. - Touhou, all of em 6- aged badly. Still playable but yikes. 7- aged, but like a fine wine. 1cc’d Hard Mode for the first time ever this year! 8- kind of a weird game, did it invent achievements??? 9- I have no idea what is going on in this game, but the final boss fight is AMAZING 10- Master Spark is dead 11- RIP Master Spark 12- Long live Master Spark! Still love this one, even though the UFO system is weird 12.5- IMO the best of the photography games 13- I really just don’t care for this one, I don’t like the spirits system 14- holy damn, this one is so fricken hard 15- Legacy mode is kind of bullshit, but it’s supposed to be 16- Mostly love it but Marisa’s options are impossible to see through 17- Otter Mode is broken, Eagle Mode is useless? Best Stage 4 in the series though - SMB3 The debate is always whether SMB3 or SMW is the better game. For my money it’s World, but that race is a photo finish by anyone’s metric. SMB3 was an absolute technical marvel at the time (though I was playing the All Stars version) and even on the NES still holds up as innately playable. It hasn’t aged a bit. Played through this on Switch to keep the cat company! He didn’t appreciate it. - Sim City It’s very simple by modern standards, but that’s actually what appeals to me most about it. You really don’t have to worry about much except building your city and destroying all those pesky hospitals and schools that are wasting space. Streamed a megalopolis run just for the fun of it. - SMB2 This was originally a game called Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. - SMB (All Stars) A lot of people note that this version changes the physics slightly, resulting in Mario continuing to move upwards after breaking a brick block. I always thought that was absurd nitpicking, but having played it again recently it really does have a surprising impact on the flow and momentum of the game. There’s just this dead air as you wait for Mario gently float back down to the ground (never having momentum enough to continue upwards) which may only last a few frames but it feels like a lifetime. I take it back, the complaints are legit. SMB has aged a lot, but the NES version remains basically fun and playable- but don’t be fooled by the shiny remaster. It’s not the way to go. - Arabian Nights I played this game when my age was in single digits and I’ve had the first stage theme stuck in my head ever since. It’s actually a pretty rad game, too! Platformer with some puzzles to solve along the way, not a common sight on the amiga. Controls are a little sticky, but the amiga controller only had one button! I have a distinct memory of the game failing to load at one point, and an error message popping up with instructions on how to send the developer a notice of the error, but try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it... - Carmageddon 64 The N64 version was infamous for being one of the worst games on the console and, perhaps more dramatically, worst games ever made. I never played it around release, but I had a chance to this year. Blimey, they weren’t kidding. I’m not sure why it’s so much worse than the absolutely OK PC version. I didn’t play far into it, I just wanted to see for myself. - Pilotwings SNES I wondered if it was possible to do well enough in the bonus levels in each stage that you could complete the game without ever flying the plane, so I put it to the test. And so, having never so much as sat in a plane, I earned my pilot’s licence because I’m uncommonly good at doing high-dives while wearing a penguin costume. - Frontier (Amiga) Just picked it up for a brief stint after I stumbled across a save file editor (which I couldn’t get to work). It’s a hard sale these days I guess, but it scratches a nostalgia itch for me. - Hopeless Masquerade Touhou fighting game! I’m all around terrible at fighting games and this was no exception. I don’t know what I’m doing. But, playable Byakuren. - Pilotwings 64 Oh dear. Here’s one that should have been left in the nostalgia pile. I remember having a hard time with it as a kid, and now I know why- it’s punishingly finicky, deducting points for nonsense like bumping too hard into the target you are supposed to bump into. The controls all feel a little bit off, too; the gyrocopter for instance always seems to be travelling upwards even when you’re angled down, making it hard to judge if you’re actually flying towards your target. - Ronaldinho Soccer 64 Hahahahaha!!! Sorry. Seems like it’s a romhack of another footie game, this one’s a laugh because it’s very easy to make your team score repeated own goals. The dismay on their faces every time! - F-Zero GX Dolphins are pretty great, aren’t they? I wanted to see how great Dolphins are, so I used this game to test it. Them. Test the dolphins. With this gamecube game. Yeah. - Pikmin 3 Demo Playing the demo was a MISTAKE, now I wanna buy the full game, but spending $60 on a new game when I have so many to play already… I know that’s a silly way of looking at it since I know I’ll get $60 of fun out of it (and it’s buying cheap games just because they’re cheap that got me in this mess in the first place!), but it’s a lot of spons to drop all at once. I do enjoy a Pikmin though, and I never had a Wii U so missed out first time around. - Fire Emblem Sacred Stones After playing through the first (?) title, I wanted more, and this is the closest match. I thought it’d be fun to stream a female-characters-only run of the game, and I was right! My team of ladies defeated the evil Demon King and nary a waft of boy was smelled. - One Way Heroics A roguelike I actually enjoyed! But still only played through to completion once. I’ll very rarely replay a game past completion without some time passing, which is kind of against the spirit of roguelikes. - Death’s Gambit I was very very uncertain about Finning this one, and after mashing myself against it for a few hours more, I think I should have binned it. It’s gorgeous but it hates me. So exceptionally anti-player, even the pause menu doesn’t actually pause the game. That’s just rude! - Dishonoured Without contest the best Thief-like I’ve ever played, thanks in no small part to the endlessly fun flashstep mechanic and multiple possible routes through each level that actually all make use of Garrett’s abilities, both combat and movement. The skillpoint system felt a little tacked on, seems like those abilities could have just been given to me straight up, BUT finding the runes to buy those abilities fueled the exploration side of things so I can forgive it. Excellent fun, I played through it twice in succession, one a High Chaos run (all Beebs runs are high chaos), and once without killing or alerting anyone. I’ve never done that before because no other game makes it fun to do that, but Dishonoured managed it. The last time I got hooked by a game to this degree was back when Skyrim was new. The kitchen suffered dearly for Dishonored’s sake. - Ocarina Of Time It’s aged pretty significantly in a lot of ways, hasn’t it? I didn’t play very far into it, only as far as the first Spiritual Stone. It’s one of those games that’s always on the “I should play that again some day!” list, which then gets passed over in favour of a backlog game. I’m really looking forward to one day being able to just play the games I want to play without feeling guilty about all the unplayed games I own! - Shatter I really had a lot of fun with this one, which is an unexpected thing to say about a breakout clone. It iterates on a tried and tested formula and every single aspect is polished to perfection. Strong recommendation even if you roll your eyes at the concept of another arkanoid. Killer OST. - TF2 Why can’t I quit you? Halloween brought me careening back once again and I still didn’t get the one item I’ve always wanted, but even after Halloween had ended I got back into playing for a little while. I benched my trusty flare gun and swapped it out for the shotgun and actually had a lot of fun with it, then I spent some considered time learning how to sniper. TF2 is still a great game, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time playing it? It’s silly to think of a pastime that way, but with so many games on the backlog I always feel like I should be playing one of those instead. Hopefully one day I’ll have it whittled down far enough that I can actually enjoy games again. - Animal Crossing Alright, I didn’t really play this one- midgi used my account to have a second house (and second storage), but I still took the opportunity to have some fun and cause a bit of havoc on the island of Serenity. - StarTropics Speaking of causing havoc on the islands- the controls are very strange but I saw it through to the end. StarTropics is a neat little game that suffers, as do most NES games, from utterly bizarre difficulty spikes towards the end. Still worth a run if you can stomach that or have save-states. - Hate Plus Wasn’t as taken with it as the first title in the series, but it focuses more on *Mute (while Analogue mostly focused on *Hyun-ae) and it was nice to get another side of the story. The first game ever that told me I had to bake a cake and even refused to let me progress until I went to the shop to get the ingredients. - FF1 (FCC) Same as the Four Job Fiesta, except in FF1 this time! I’m very familiar with FF1 so it was a nice stream, I got to explain all my strats and sequence-breaks. - Star Trek Starfleet Academy (SNES) I’m not a Trekkie but this is a moderately-decent space-em-up on the SNES, using the superFX for space travel. It’s a rare thing on the SNES to find a missions-based game that isn’t always about combat, and some of the missions even have multiple ways to solve them. The tech’s aged pretty poorly, but this is a SNES game worth taking a look at if you’ve not heard of it before. - Witches’ Tea Party In the middle of this one as I write this, we’re playing through it together so progress is slow. Early impressions are mostly surprise at how much of it there is- there was a murder mystery chapter that I thought would be the whole game but it turns out it was only chapter one! They do some real neat stuff with RPG Maker. Good to see. - Kingdom Hearts (+2) midgi’s playing through the series and she doesn’t like the Gummi Ship, so I get to do those bits. It’s basically Starfox but you get to build your own ship, it’s awesome. - Pokemon Fire Red Randomiser Nuzlocke! This is still on-going as I write it. We just got to Cerulean City and crossed Nugget Bridge. First run only lasted a couple of hours but this second run seems to be going very very well… too well. We shall see what awaits us! - Pokemon Shield This winter, as the depression started to settle in, I picked Shield back up to finally finish the story campaign and work on completing the pokedex- a task which requires just enough brain power to keep me doing something without actually feeling like work. Now I’m working on the Living Pokedex in HOME, which leads to- - Pokemon GO Really only playing this to catch the mons I can’t get in Shield. It’s not like I’m actually going anywhere, you know? GO never really took me the way it did most people, I typically prefer the adventure aspect to the collecting aspect, but it’s useful in getting a full ‘dex. - Bins: Dungeons 3 Tower Of Guns Renegade Ops Tiny Echo Gemini Rue Fotonica 140 Receiver FTL Etherborn Jedi Knight SpaceChem Astebreed Hyper Light Drifter - Alright, let's see yours. And what's your Game Of The Year?

#gaming #game of the year #goty #retrospective

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from BlueTidalGamer to Kyle: Do you have any favourite games that you'd consider a guilty pleasure?

Questions answered by Ian Flynn and Kyle Crouse

Episode link

Kyle: Well, I don’t really feel guilty about them, like

Ian: [laughs]

Kyle: is that a thing? Like, I understand that maybe I should guilty about them but I don’t

Ian: Close enough

Kyle: Sure, I mean, I don’t feel guilty about liking Sonic Heroes [laughs] I will acknowledge that it has massive problems, but I still like it and that’s fine, I’m fine with it, and so, I think a lot of it has to do with the music, but I also do find it kinda fun, it’s a bit repetitive having to play through the same stages with similar character multiple times in order to finish it, but on that same token, it’s actually kind of relaxing in a way, in that way, there’s definitely frustrating points, the special stages are hot garbage, they’re not good, they’re not good, they are not well done, the final battle against Metal Overlord as Super Sonic, no. It’s completely broken, I still don’t understand how it’s even supposed to work, because there’s so many like, invisible walls everywhere and it’s just, that’s completely broken, but I don’t know there’s still something about it that’s appealing to me, I like it better than Sonic Adventure 2, which is probably going to make people very mad to which I say

Ian: Sacrilege

Kyle: To which I say, come at me bros. I also love me some Warriors slash Musou game oh ho, they are so fun, just slaughtering down complete armies as a freaking like god, is awesome, it is so awesome, it is so cool I love them, especially Hyrule Warriors, which is funny, because I’m not like a huge Zelda fan, I like Zelda games but I’ve never been like super into them, and I’ve not played all of them, but for some reason Hyrule Warriors just hits me right perfectly, because even though I haven’t played many Zelda games, I’ve seen and played enough of them to know a lot of what they are referencing, so I can still appreciate it for the references, and because I like Zelda character, Zelda characters are great, I just you know, the games I don’t necessarily sit down and play all that often, so

Ian: I think the magic balance with Hyrule Warriors is that it’s indulgent in all the right ways, you are playing with the world’s best written fanfic, and you are given the power of a god to just lay waste to all the bad guys, until you are given the power of a god to lay waste to the good guys, so that you can lay waste to the bad guys again, as the good guys again, and it’s so good

Kyle: The fact that almost everybody is playable in some form or another, whether they’re good or evil is brilliant, it’s perfect, I can’t wait for the next one, I can’t wait for the age of calamity it’s gonna to be so

Ian: We’re not gonna get into that topic, or we’re nor going to finish the show, because I’m gonna go on and on and on and on and on

Kyle: Yep, that might be something we have to break out the actual episode numbers for, to talk about at some point

Both: [laugh]

Kyle: I also do have a soft spot for the Dead or Alive series, the fighting game specifically, I’ve not played the dating sims, but the fighting games, I like them, they’re silly, it’s a very just kinda stupid, fanservice-y game, but it actually has some pretty good fighting mechanics too, so it’s not all just silliness, I still stand by Super Princess Peach, I think it’s a pretty good, fun little platformer, people criticize it because it’s a game staring a woman focused on emotions, but here’s the thing, the whole point of the game is that Peach is the only one who can control her emotions, no one else can, Mario and everybody else is overcome with emotional strife, and she has to go out and be the one to, who actually has control over her emotions and be the one to save the kingdom, so, I think that’s a nice kinda twist of an old school formula, Golden Axe: Beast Rider, I like just because it’s stupid, I like stupid games, that’s my thing, apparently, same with Lollipop Chainsaw, it’s completely stupid, Metal Wolf Chaos is the same way, they’re just dumb, they’re just dumb fun, and that’s all I want in video games a lot of the time, just something to turn your brain off and have completely stupid things happening, that’s really all I want in life, really, because I’m sick of my brain [laughs] so, those are some of my guilty pleasures, I suppose, I’m not guilty about them, but you know. What about you Ian? what are some games you might, you enjoy but not necessarily

Ian: Going to admit to it?

Kyle: Going to admit it, I suppose

Ian: Ah shoot, I haven’t really thought about it because the question was posed to you, I didn’t think about it

Kyle: [laughs] Well, you know I always turn it around back on you sometimes

Ian: [laughs] I guess I feel a little dirty with just how much time I’ve spent on Tales of Crestoria, which is a very buggy gacha, and I mean, gachas in and of themselves kinda feel dirty because it’s a thinly veiled attempt to get your money, some of them are better about the gameplay than others, but you know that down at the bottom of it, they want you to spend money to get thing, I like getting the thing, I’ve never been suckered into spending money on it, and crestoria itself is, the bugginess aside, Kyle, the game wouldn’t load half the time when they launched because of a bug in the chat system

Kyle: [laughs]

Ian: You literally couldn’t go to the guild management screen because it would try to load the guild chat and break the game, it was, anyway

Kyle: Sounds like a mobile game to me, especially newly launched mobile game

Ian: And the drop rates are just atrocious, but I’m a fan of the tales of series, I’m really fond of the design aesthetic, the localization on the story is top notch, the music is solid, and who cares if most of the game is running on auto as I, you know, do something else, and just hit the button so I can get the thing, so I can level up the characters, so I can hit auto, so I can hit the thing and it’s completely a skinner box, but darn it, it’s a nice skinner box, I like the box, I press button, people do swingy anime thing, explosion, yay

Kyle: Sometimes you just need a nice boost of

Ian: Endorphins

Kyle: Yeah, sometimes, you just need a nice endorphin boost sometime you do, it’s fine, why do you think I like stupid games with dumb or no stories that are just button mash action, it’s the same kinda thing

questions can be asked at: [email protected]; On Twitter @BumbleKast; Comments section on any YouTube video; Through Ko-fi support; Patrons can post on Patreon page and the Q&A channel in the Patreon-exclusive Discord

#Bumblekast #bk121020 #Ian Flynn #Kyle Crouse #PriorityQ&A

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