#I ended taking a few-hour break on the liveblog

[twotailednekomata]

So, after replaying the scene a couple times, I feel like mentioning the Ghost Chatter (I think that's what it's called, I couldn't fully tell).

The Ghost Chatter, as mentioned by Jack, takes 'the mysterious sounds that ghosts make' and translate them into English. When Danny speaks 'boo' into the device (after some deliberation), the device translated it as 'I am a ghost, fear me'. Danny has a freak out and yells 'I better get to school!' which the device leaves the sentence the exactly the same with an added 'fear me'. (Bonus: a video I remember watching about the word 'boo')

While the translated lines above were most likely added for comedy, I feel the concept could be tweaked in interesting ways. For example, what if instead of the second instance being the same sentence but with a few added words, it instead translated as 'I have to get away. School is far enough. Safe with my friends. Have to leave now' since Danny is part human and speaking English, which means the sentence should've stayed the same, but he was feeling a sense of fear at the moment, which effected the 'mysterious sounds' he would be producing due to his ghost half, which caused the sentence to be distorted in the translation. (think of this concept as Twisted Translations (youtube), in a sense)

I, also, feel it is accepted fanon that ghosts project their feelings outwards for others to sense so maybe that could be what the device is translating which means the result of the 'have to go to school' line could've been:

Danny: I better get to school! Ghost Chatter: fear-can't know-safety The rest of the Fenton family: *confused & concerned stares*

This is just me suggesting a couple of stuff based on a short scene but I hoped you guys enjoyed the speculations.

[makeste]

[39 weeks later]

well all right then. I owe some explanations and some updates, so let's just get straight to that.

1. "what the hell, makeste. you can't just disappear for nine months and leave a sign on your blog that says "gone leavin'.'"

yeah I know. sorry guys.

so there are a lot of reasons for my long absence, but when you boil it all down, the essence is basically as follows: at its absolute max capacity, my ADHD brain is capable of keeping up with any two of the following: (1) work; (2) school; (3) tumblr. that's it. only two. no more and no less.

and for years this has not mattered at all because school was no longer in the picture! but as mentioned in my last two update posts, as of this past January, I had to start taking classes again for career advancement reasons, meaning my brain was quickly overloaded and something had to give. so yeah. I can assure you the past nine months have absolutely sucked and I am not AT ALL sure that it was worth it, but it is what it is.

I also want to add that I never intended to basically fall off the face of the earth anywhere near to this extent, let alone for this long. but in retrospect I probably should have seen it coming, seeing as this is not the first time it's happened, sob. and also in hindsight, towards the end of last year (during which I was already struggling to keep up with the weekly BnHA reactions) someone mentioned that it sounded like I was showing signs of being potentially close to burnout. turns out that observation was spot on lol.

so yeah. tl;dr, burnout + an obnoxiously busy real life schedule + a sprinkling of good old-fashioned ADHD "somehow I always underestimate how hard it is to restart something after taking a long break from it, and the longer I go without returning the worse it gets" brain shenanigans (more on that last part further down).

2. "MAKESTE. WHILE YOU WERE GONE, IN THE MANGA, THERE WAS A THING -- "

yes I have unfortunately been spoiled about The Thing.

3. "so wait, exactly how spoiled are you?? CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE THING"

I will make a separate post to talk about The Thing! I expect that many people will want to talk about this, and tbh I've really been wanting to talk about it too! I'm telling you, when I say the past nine months have sucked, I mean they have truly SUCKED, you guys. school is so fucking boring and I miss rambling about fandom stuff so fucking much.

anyway but with that said, ~*~PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT ANY SPOILERS IN THIS POST~*~. I don't want to delete anybody's comments! but I will if necessary because I am a spoiler narc and I don't want to risk accidentally ruining stuff on the off chance that a non-spoiled person comes across this post. so yeah. however please do feel free to message me or comment in my other post (which I will link once it’s up; eta: here it is) if you do want to talk about The Thing.

4. "so aside from The Thing, are you otherwise caught up with the BnHA manga currently?"

so here's the hilarious part: no, I am not caught up. not even remotely. literally the last chapter of BnHA I read was chapter 339, which is the most recent chapter that I liveblogged, all the way back on December 31, 2021. I literally have not read a single new BnHA chapter in the year of our lord 2022 lol. :') basically for the same reasons I mentioned in my previous update post. tl;dr, reading/liveblogging a single new BnHA chapter is a minimum 4+ hour commitment for me, and by this point I have accrued a backlog of... oh sweet lord. 35 total chapters lol. so yeah. that's approximately 140 hours of catch-up that I need to do, which is paralyzing just to think about.

I do still plan on catching up, obviously! I'm just not sure how, lol. I may have some time to spare this weekend, so I might try to binge a few chapters and see how it goes. then I'll have to come up with some sort of sustainable posting schedule. I've been thinking about this for a while and I might try to do a Mon/Wed/Fri thing if I can swing it, but I don't want to commit to anything for sure yet until I see how those first few chapters go. fingers crossed, though.

anyway so I guess that's it. post is getting long. anything more will just be rambling.

sorry again, guys. how is everyone? what did I miss. aside from twitter dying and tumblr welcoming the refugees into our culture by inviting them to participate in the newly created fandom of a nonexistent 1970s mafia film.

[researchhpurposes]

AND THAT’S THE END OF THE INTERMISSION!

I am going to take a break here, I’ll continue the liveblog in a few hours. I will Now Process Everything.

[kyogre-blue]

White Clouds done for the first time. It took almost exactly 30 hours, whew.

I slowed down a bit toward the end because I started talking to every student in my class after Jeralt's death. They don't generally have much interesting to say, but I've hit the majority of available B ranks, so they've grown on me.

So, first, about this specific section. The escalation pace felt a bit fast though not necessarily in a bad way. It's just that the rest of the year had drip fed relevant info at such a comparatively slow rate that the last few month felt kinda crazy. Crazy villagers! Students turning into monsters! Jeralt dies! Byleth almost dies and merges with Sothis! Edelgard is the Flame Emperor and invading now! Bam, timeskip.

I think there is something to be said about this kind of pre-war period to help build up the characters and relationships before we get to the juicy part, but 30 hours of doing what I'd consider a fairly average amount of stuff is kind of a lot to hit what would be the inciting incident of older FE games. The calendar did not help with the pacing issues for sure.

Aside from that, I think we've gotten all the Byleth-related lore we're gonna get for a good while, and I spent a fair amount of time trying to ponder out what Rhea thinks is going on and what she wants to happen to Byleth. She talks about Byleth regaining their lost memories, which makes it seem like she considers them to be amnesiac Sothis, but she also refers to them as a vessel that will become one with the power within them, thus resurrecting Sothis...? It's really unclear what she thinks of the current Byleth, what she thinks will happen concretely, and how this would affect Byleth as an individual.

However, all this discussion only takes place AFTER Solon, so Sothis and Byleth have already merged. Byleth not only came out on top (albeit presumably based on Sothis's decision that it be so), but the first thing post timeskip text scroll is Sothis talking to you again, so it seems like the merger aspect might not even be the end of the subsumed personality.

The main point being, Byleth is not really in danger from anything except Rhea potentially reacting badly if we reveal that Sothis is gone. And since her actual aims are so unclear, it's hard to feel any particular concern or unease at that point. As a budding Rhea apologist, I wish we could had had more elaboration on this storyline.

As for White Clouds as a whole...

The pacing really is a mess. And while playing through once can be considered a reasonable experience, I do not enjoy the idea of doing it every single branch, especially with how little variation there seems to be. Up until Remire or so, what would even be different except the supports? And since you can recruit anyway.... Not great, to put it mildly.

It's unfortunate, because I think the calendar and monastery base could be have provided very good worldbuilding and immersion, but they just did not have enough put into them, whether because the developers did not understand how to use them, did not focus on this aspect enough, or did not have the time/budget to realize their vision. The calendar is very poorly laid out and too bare aside from repetitive grinding in the middle of the month, the explorable areas do not change according to seasons, making the calendar feel tacked on, etc. Just a lot of presentational shortcomings.

Liveblogging notes:

Kinda forgor what happened since Jeralt bit it because I took a few days break.

Well, regardless of the mission I forgot, I do recall Kronya got offed by her own ally, which was funny but kind of useless? I didn't really feel anything.

And then Solon had Byleth "swallowed by the mystical darkness of a forbidden spell." I guess if you can't deal with a problem (the protagonist), just yeet them into the void.

Lysithea shows no particular reaction to Solon, and neither does Flayn. I guess they're speaking generic lines here, which can go to practically any team member who is still alive to say them.

Everyone quite underreacts to the situation tbh. Claude's canned animations are very funny to see here.

Sothis speculates that Byleth was emotionless because of her. Presumably because she was still asleep until the start of the game, so Byleth, who is connected to her, was not entirely "awake" either?

It's kind of funny that Sothis calls herself a progenitor god but also the one who watches over Fodlan and all its creatures. But this world explicitly has more than just Fodlan. There's Almyra and other lands as well... Usually, the FE games are on separated continents specifically to avoid these questions.

The stuff Sothis says about needing to relinquish her power to you because she doesn't have a body... doesn't she directly possess Byleth in Hopes?

Sothis's soul with join with Byleth's, which I guess means Byleth does have their own soul.

The visuals somehow... feel so dated, it's weird.

Solon seems to not have realized that Byleth IS Sothis before this.

Seteth snuck a peak at Jeralt's diary too?? man, no privacy or respect for the dead. Interesting that Seteth has been so unsettled by Rhea's shenanigans that he's gone behind her back to investigate.

Rhea seems to think Sothis will revive through you for reals?

The monastery was built over the Holy Tomb, where Sothis sleeps... so they left her sleeping a ways from Zanado, where they lived, which is interesting.

This entire scene is hilarious if you know everyone's identities. Rhea is spouting pure nonsense about Seiros while being Seiros, and Seteth who knows all this and is in full doubt mode still has to go along with it.

Claude just directly eavesdrops on your meeting with Rhea? lmao

According to Cyril, Almyra is all plains and sky. Also has a city.

Ignatz just casually goes "let's go to Almyra after the war :D" Which is... Uh. Interesting that this doesn't present any travel concerns, but also what war

Imperial Army invades the Holy Tomb, wanting to take the Crest Stones there... But whose crest stones are they? I think dragons can traditionally create more than one dragonstone, but I'm not sure how crest stones function. I'm asking because it's unclear how many dragons there actually were. We have murals with the 10-something that have specific crests (who do not otherwise belong to any unified group, btw), but those crest stones would largely be accounted for, so were there other dragons too?

Also, not entirely sure what Rhea was expecting to happen. It doesn't seem like she directly expects you to get replaced by Sothis? My best guess is she expects Sothis to awaken (memories intact) and speak to you, but she doesn't know amnesia Sothis was already awake and is now gone...?

Suddenly, Edelgard

Edelgard's big invasion speech is hilariously propaganda. Ah yeah, Seteth and Rhea sure do want rule the world. Seteth is a grumpy but well meaning man, and Rhea has consistently cared about misuse of Relics/Crest Stones and Byleth and.... basically nothing else.

Also, this is not a subtle game. They want you to know Tomas is sus? Boy, they will make sure you know it. So Edelgard going "they divided the Kingdom and the Alliance from the Empire" "they live in extravagance by exploiting the masses"... NONE of this has ever been even slightly supported. There's nothing particularly extravagant about the monastery, and we have never even heard of people paying tithe. And while the Kingdom and Alliance history was mentioned somewhere, the Church was never brought up in association.

No one among the Deer students has anything to say about Edelgard's speech, just concern about this being a war. There's not even a hint that anyone thinks she's right lol

Seteth directly says that Edelgard is out to conquer the continent. His first thought after confirmation of the invasion is to have the surrounding villages evacuate.

OK, Rhea thinks Byleth's "lost memories" are beginning to return and that they've guessed "the truth of who they are." She says she has acted as "the proxy" for "Byleth." But to Seteth, she describes Byleth as a "vessel" and in time, the vessel will become one with the power within, at which point the progenitor god will return to this world. It's not entirely clear what she thinks of Byleth as an individual. She asks Seteth to "help our friend and in doing so, help her." So Byleth is a friend, but... they mention stuff like Flayn owing her life to Byleth and that Byleth may prove to be "their brethren"... Really hard to parse what they think is going to happen, specifically.

But since Sothis has already merged with Byleth and Byleth is obviously fine, there's not really anything to fear from this. It can't really read as ominous when the merging has already happened lol Edelgard supposedly spent the entire year gathering her forces at the monastery, speaking them in disguised as merchants and pilgrims.

Funny how all the Empire students are chilling at the monastery, telling us how their fathers and such are supporting Edelgard. Good thing we're too nice to take them hostage or something.

Sitri 1139 - 1159, Jeralt ?? - 1180. I guess we're in 1181 now...? Hang on, it's the 3rd month. Holy Tomb was 2nd month. Sothis merger would have been first month. So Jeralt death was 12th month of previous year, right?

It's cute how Claude says he'll always be on Byleth's side. Tbh I think the story would benefit from being able to highlight his ride or die side more. But since Byleth has very little direction in their own story, it ends up being more about Claude's ambitions.

Who the heck are Randolph and Ladislava

This music is very cool tho

The monastery walls are hella tall? Wow

I'm not sure what to make of this angle of Rhea leaving the monastery and the Church to Byleth.

Rhea just body slams the invading army.

The masked black beasts are creepy. Masks are a control mechanism, I suppose.

Byleth gets bodied by Thales lol. Where did this pit even come from

And that's that! The Unification of Fodlan has begun.

[macgyvertape]

D2 Season of Defiance thoughts

Usually for a seasonal write up I do a bullet point list liveblog style as the season progresses, but I took a break after the campaign came out (except for raid nights) this season so I did most seasonal stuff during Guardian Games. So I had a different view of the story after doing it in 2 days, and of the gameplay at the beginning of the season with low light lvl, vs end of season pinnacle capped after difficulty changes rollback. Personally this has been my least favorite D2 season both gameplay and story wise, and it seems to have led to several friends and acquaintances taking a break as well.

I already wrote a long essay on 3/20 expressing my frustration with the difficulty changes, and everyone who commented mentioned how the difficulty changes negatively impacted their enjoyment of the game as well. The difficulty changes and how they were rolled back is the most obvious example of design philosophy or what issues discussed/discovered from playtesting being out of sync with seemingly general community sentiment. 

Vexcalibur as a mission is the epitome of this; the mission features infinite waves of enemies, it is as long as a dungeon but with no checkpoints, the difficulty is increased if you play it with others in a way that still feels gatekeeping even after the difficulty rollback. Talking with a friend who plays casually they were frustrated and upset that they felt locked out from a paid seasonal activity, in a way they hadn’t felt about past legendary seasonal activities. I wonder how long it took playtesters, and for how many people this will be the barrier for getting the Queensguard title?

Guardian ranks are an example of the design gameplay philosophy could have used some more questioning or review, difficulty goals like soloing dungeons were not retroactive on launch, flawless legend lost sector was originally rank 6, or nightfall score thresholds were impossible on some nightfalls until midseason patch. I stopped on rank 8 because the GMs I did at rank 7 didn’t count. I haven’t found Guardian Ranks to provide helpful info on how experienced an LFG member is, most everyone who didn’t grind commendations was rank 6 for the first few weeks, and later in the season I didn’t notice any difference between rank 7-10 in terms of how skilled or experienced a player would be, not helped by the common sentiment that with ranks resetting it wasn’t worth the grind. Bungie has said they are meant to help with new player experience and I’m genuinely curious from new players what has been their experience with them. 

In terms of earning new exotic engrams, lost sectors are a lot tougher (both the new Neomuna ones and the power grind to be at level) but the drop rate is still really low and inconsistent. Vex Strike force was introduced as the new and casual way to unlock new exotics but doesn’t spawn in same zone of terminal overload so every 3rd day it won’t spawn, if there aren’t a bunch of blueberries around you won’t finish it, and it can be multi hours between spawns so the only reasonable way to track it is via the discord bot which isn’t something new or casual players will be doings. This season I’ve only done 1 Vex Strike force despite my best efforts to do more. 

Supremecy is a fun concept game mode, but in practice turned out to be a fucking miserable experience especially as it was half of the guardian games. Bungie’s PVP philosophy has been that skill based matchmaking provides better games, and indeed I’ve enjoyed PVP more than ever since those changes. I’m not sure why in contrast Supremacy has no skill based matchmaking and no mercy rule; it was extremely frustrating to repeatedly be placed in games where my team would be spawn camped or join into a 3 person vs 6 person match. 

Defiant Battleground in playlist feel like a completely different activity from the beginning of the season vs post difficulty changes and at pinnacle cap, and even though I did most of them in the last 3 weeks there weren’t enough required by the seasonal challenges to make me sick of them. I enjoy the Favor mechanic, it encourages moving around and a risk vs reward approach for ducking out of cover for the favors but it works well with having to do the same to pick up orbs. However given all the problems with the Seraph battlegrounds, while I would enjoy them in the Strike playlist I don’t want them to become Nightfalls without the Favor mechanic.

Mars Seraph Battleground was a showcase of how seasonal activities and nightfalls have very different design requirements. Myself and others found it frustrating and unproductive for difficulty vs rewards; non-stop adds, Wizard spam firing like a turret, axe wielding one hit KO boss, more adds, instant kill lazers on jumping puzzles, and almost forgot: Champions, champions, and more champions with no clear indication if you got them all. I don’t understand the logic that the mid season difficulty lowering actually made it more frustrating by removing the lazer-ball above the doorway, a decision that got walked back when people complained.  

One thing that I’ve come to love is the revamped mod system, when everyone has the same mods it probably allows for less time spent accounting for edge cases and there aren’t a whole set of mods like warmind cells that have been nerfed into the ground since they were too far outside intended play. 

Writing wise the wyvern in the room is Amanda’s death and how it was written.

It felt awkward to have Crow be the one calling for retribution and his grief focused on; him calling for vengeance for Amanda’s death was obviously meant to parallel Forsaken and Uldren but it falls flat when we aren’t fighting a person but the leaderless shadow legion, and foot soldiers that are empty husks. Crow during Retribution mission: “remember what they took from us, don’t let anything stand in your way”. Me: uuuhhh so the Hive Guardians killed a lot of Guardians last year, enough to cause a fighting power shortage. What about not letting anything stand in our way then??

I had to go back and check that Crow didn’t talk about regretting Amanda died before they reconciled, seeing as this season amped up Amanda’s dislike of him; she accidentally shot him in a week 1 cutscene, then she was rolling her eyes (unfondly) when he was joking with her. 

 The aftermath of Amanda’s death felt like it retreaded ground that Season of the Haunted covered. Thematically what’s the point; some people die in war for questionable gains (that was Rohan’s arc in Lightfall) and non guardians can also make the heroic self-sacrifice (that was Rasputin’s death in Season of the Seraph)? On a meta level there’s some gallows humor that every NPC in the Tower Hanger is now dead except for Saint-14 who got brought back, and it's really slimmed down the cast of characters. What felt weird was the following TWAB to be a half assed tribute to her character where they did a eulogy in the beginning then had no Amanda art focus. Like where was this eulogy for Rasputin? It also raises the question of who else is important enough to get a memorial plaque next to Cayde when they die?

I wasn’t expecting to see Eramis this season, and I wasn’t sure why Eramis was the exploding base mission and on the radio afterwards other than to say “I told you so”; how does this play into her larger character arc that her trying to kill-sat the Traveler didn’t do? For a minute I thought she was the one to plant the explosives and trap the base. Is Bungie trying for a redemption arc or another moment of her calling Mithrax a dumbass?

The season that came out during WQ release explored what the Hive were doing since Savathun died and set up clear consequences like Xivu Arath, this season explores what Calus’ faction is doing since he died but there’s no explanation of why they are capturing civilians, they would probably die if we didn’t free them but its not the same urgent stakes of the Red War despite the parallels. There’s no stated power vacuum or explanation of who is the leader and where Vereziia Revenant of the Witness came from; it was a point of discussion among friends of whether it was weird there was a new boss Tormentor after Nezzy died and the Witness went through the portal, but we didn’t see anything ingame to provide clarity.  

Like others have said it’s odd Mara is the one to give the mournful speech about Amanda’s death, she didn’t know Amanda personally and they weren’t friends. Her speech afterwards wasn't a speech a commanding officer or regent gives about someone who dies under their command. The following week her speech is very much about the surivor’s guilt she and Zavala have, and that's the lackluster note the season ends on.

For a season that between the whole “Queensguard” themes and Mara focus in week 1, it really wasn’t about Mara personally which is a shame because I’ve been wanting to see her and Petra (and Sjur) be the focus of a season where the Awoken are the focus and not Crow. I am very curious how much Voice Actor availability is influencing characters like Crow being the focus while Petra (mentioned in Royal Executioner) and Suraya Hawthorne (0 entries) do not appear in a season when they could be very plot relevant.

Other Minor things

Devrim’s line of having a double date with Marc, great to see this when I think of Bungie promising to do better after the IGN writers expose. Really it was great having him back in the story since Red War.

I really enjoy the Best Dressed commendation its really my favorite one to give and give

I wish Nazerac dialogue around Neomuna hadn’t been a week and a half FOMO thing, it was fun dialogue and I wish it would have stuck around

In a season about civilians on Earth, while the campaign was just released that has a lot of info about Neomuna civilians its odd theres nothing about Reef civilians, there really hasn’t been aside from those that escaped the time loop.

For grinding playlist rank resets Gambit has somehow become my favorite especially with freelance playlist. Its generous with rank points, I like the guns, and it's easy to watch a show while doing it

[silvermuffins]

Pokemon Legends Arceus: the continuing impossibility of a clever title

It's been a few days. Not that I haven't wanted to play, I just went back to work after The England Trip. And then got distracted in the evenings. But the wilds of Hisui, they call.

i honestly cannot express enough how much i just want to run away into the wilderness and find somewhere i belong. PLA is pure escapism for me, because if i can't do it for real at least I can get sucked into a game where I can for 12 hours at a time.

but that's too heavy for this liveblog! we are here for an idiot running headlong into and away from danger!

hm. i see. it's nighttime and i am crouching in a patch of grass.

good time to wait it out as i eat some cereal, there are fungal pieces of shit about

hm. i see ingo and warden bitchqueen waiting. she'd better get some character development or so help me i WILL sic every pokemon i've got on her.

"I'll beat him" i see, i've been mistaken. warden bitchking will know my wrath. and the wrath of my walrein.

skuntank.....okay.

dude you lost. get lost.

sup volo!

everyone be like "yeah you fell out of the sky and threw snacks at hangry demigods so you gotta do all of literally everything"

one break for delivering things that somehow ended up in my bag at the end of the trip later, let's get on with it

should really keep feather balls on hand for unown....

aaaaaaAAAAAAAAA URSARING

bronzor points over the river....i'm not sure basculegion was the "correct" solution but it got me there in one jump

and i think i spotted another bronzor......yep there it be

i wonder what a wound on a bronzor looks like

it...it's a metal disk. do they bleed????

theres mushrooms growing on the cliffsides....i need to be able to reach those

ah. hidden moves. HMs. clever....and thus Sneasler will give me Rock Climb

battle!!!

sneasler laughed at meeee

oh! she's poison??? apparently????

oh my fucking god sneasler carries me in a lil basket

all i can see are mY EYES HELP--

!!! CHERUBI get over here you little drupe-y fuck-

man i wish fewer pokemon were aggro

like it kinda sucks that i can't just wander, i HAVE to be running for my life

ig that's what stealth sprays are for but meehhhh

anyway thers graves here

"look to the ruined pillars of celestica" care to be a tad more specific????

OKAY im done with these ruins where everything wants to hurt me, melli probably gonna fight me again, fuck you sir

FUCK YOU, SIR

adaman you're the leader of the diamond clan can you just like, fire this dipshit

like, into the sun

melli please just STOP TALKING. give me the balms and shut the fuck up.

guh this is rough, but so was arcanine

this is easier thus far

DONE

wait am i a time traveler or a full on isekai.....eh i'll roll with yes

shut up melli i want to push you off a cliff

i think i might've seen some wild basculin but they disappeared before i could even attempt to catch and i can't get them to respawn

anyway. PLOT.

actually, first, SIDEQUEST HEEELLLLL

awww....kamado takes such good care of me

also, one of the NPCs mentioned he has no home to return to, which was definitely the vibe i'd been getting from him

oh hey you took me right to kamado this morning instead of making me walk there myself, thanks game

avalugg....ooooey, and like, i know the mobility noble has to be braviary!

....the fuck was that just now with cyllene and wurmple?

pesselle. i am nearly always completely out of medicinal leeks. i need those for both potions and revives. and you want me to save up A HUNDRED?!

haha hooboy here come brain weasels, no one invited those

so im just going to aggressively play!!!

....y'know, ideally one would purchase some nice warm clothes to go to the icelands in, but we're just gonna keep wearing this fancy kimono

hm. avalugg hasn't hurt anybody, but i'm going into major danger for this...

is the pearl clan village out here? i haven't found it yet, but i did find the diamond clan's...

FINALLY found and caught a misdreavus. new hairstyles here i come.

meanwhile i repeaatedly get lost in the snowfields

gaeric also looks familiar

god. game does set up this bit of moral quandary. is it fine to quell a noble who hasn't hurt anyone?

i mean there is an implication that being frenzied is bad for the pokemon so THAT'S important but it's not settling definitively into "they need help"

anyway, i have fire

sabi! is she...cheryl?

you know i feel like these ancestors are a golden opportunity to fuse character designs and tell people like "hey misty and riley share a common ancestor, isnt' that neat?"

which i guess they sorta did with the Miss Fortunes! i can't quite identify Charm, sure, but Coin and Clover prove Candice and Saturn share ancestry!

yesss the pearl clan's village IS out here!

so i get plates from the ten nobles, that's all well and good, but presumably i'm going to need to pick up the other eight somewhere?

finally. goddamn basculin.

nearly to the temple now!

oooh puzzles? but why am i going into Snowpoint Temple....i know what's down here,

hmmm not much to interact with here...

oh it's simon says but with more running

hooboy there was an alpha gallade here two seconds ago, no idea where it went and it's like when you lose track of a spider. burn the temple down.

oof. rhyperior, magmortar, and electivire....hm. well, Walrein can take care of two out of three. just gonna need to deal with the electivire first....i have no ground moves, though, this will be rough.

electivire down, come on out my dear walrus~

fuck i really needed to oneshot the rhyperior, now they get four moves in and i need to use a revive

dammit magmortar down but i need to revive my walrein again. also my staraptor is down but that's not like...a Teammate Teammate if you know what i mean? i haven't shoved any grit down its beak it's here for numbers

k it was p fun murdering the rhyperior with a roselia

oh i need to battle braviary now? okay uh get out here Luxray

heyyyy god's calling! been a while! how you been, buddy?

okay....so it's less flying and more gliding, you can't go up

man volo really gets around huh

oh. oh shit we going right in.

oh snap that's

big

slightly regretting only wearing fancy zori

well whatever, i have a typhlosion, here we gooooo

fuck

fuck x2

fuck x3

fuck x4

fuck x5

FINALLY

more unown get, too

fuck that balloon race was hard

i think im ready to go back to jubilife

people keep talking about back to normal but a moral quandary does not a climax make. some shit is gonna happen.

THANK YOU REI. finally someone acknowledging that maybe i might have, you know, a home to go back to. and that i might want to! and maybe if the rift closes i'll be stuck!!!

we are entirely too happy

yep, there it is

oh, the skybox glitched--

i got told i will always have a home in jubilife ergo this is the part where suddenly i become a pariah because everyone is convinced 1) that this is my fault and 2) that this was my goal from the beginning

yeah...kamado never fully trusted me

wowe fuck me i guess

kamado i know you've probably got trauma but.....

this is really harsh

fuck. lian and melli are going to have my head, in particular.

lian and mai both want to help. but won't. because politics.

Shinx?

aww....

...!!! Volo!!! god if im banished from jubilife and neither diamond nor pearl will help me it's ONLY ginkgo left....they'll help me right???

looking for me???

where are we now

ancient retreat????

is cogita an ancestor od cynthia too

exposition time!

....cyllene's abra. cyllene is sending help with the pastures....

oh no they're finally making me choose diamond or pearl

i must maintain my loyalty to pearl. it's an ooc thing. much as i love adaman....i wanna date irida--

(poly is an option tho)

iridaaaaa

yesss i trust adaman to Handle kamado

changes up my team and movesets.....i think it's time to evolve Togetic and Roselia

i have more budews and roselias, and i can catch another togepi

we have also added a riolu to my team in place of staraptor

hmmm i wonder what the Miss Fortunes are up to....three lakes, three of them...hm

time to go prove myself to mesprit

oooof. alpha goodra.

wait that thing is part steel?!

thank goodness i brought riolu but uh....this is little dude's first fight

revives....

that does not look like a plume

cogita is harsh with volo

searches for vulpix and remains of a village because fuck you kamado i WILL have a future

ohhhh dear, i know this story is about a froslass

okay uhhh i have some unown to hunt down, too....three pillars and an unusual stone....

found the latter!

mmkay time to go up to the lake!!!

oh fuck alpha zoroark. okay. uhhh...ghost's weaknesses....uhhh fuck this thing is ONLY weak to dark isn't it, okay then.

i wonder if there's any lore reasons linking the guardian alphas to the lake trio

fox down

oh, just one question this time?

who knows what would happen if the red chain fell into the wrong hands. what use would the wrong hands have for it.

stares into the camera like im on the office

that does not look like a claw

cogita keeps implying something's up with volo

also something's coming out of the rift. lots of things it could be!

valor time

qwilfish evolution. the fuck is this thing?

qwilfish is dark/poison so...riolu again perhaps?

that thing has spikes coming from its eyes! what the fuck!

overqwil.....yeah it overqwilled my riolu!!!

watches it qwil itself

oh fuck i gotta balm azelf now???

that does not look like a fang

oh it's just taking me to the shrouded ruins

a remarkable pokemon that flits across Hisui....oh it's gotta be cresselia

fucking hell kamado sit your ass down

rei what are you up to

awww laventon and rei

fuck kamado already left

teehee tsun cyllene

a lucario came to give me a quest?

Rye.... riley!!!

also we are in the "talk to all the NPCs" phase of the finale

cyllene is So Good

okay soon...we head up to Mt. Coronet

green clouds of dust that....are harmless???

sus

beni???? what is the mochi man doing here

why am i fighting the mochi man

why is he talking like i've been a meddling brat instead of a good little girl

what the FUCK dude

yooooo

save kamado from himself...hooboy

wow that getup

aaaaaa only a few of my team are strong enough for thiiiis

stop KOing my pokemon you bastard

and then i KOd all of his

aaaaaaaaaaa now what awaits at the top....!

heeeere's palkia!!! aaaaaaa

oh fuck it broke the chain

OH FUCK I NEED TO BATTLE IT

and hopefully catch it....

done

oh shit another frenzy

do we HAVE any balms for a god???

dialga is frenzied......eesh

can melli Stop

glue his goddamn mouth Shut

cute, the primeval grotto has skeletons of bastiodon and rampardos

oh THERE the sisters are

wait... are they related? there was an npc in pearl village who mentioned a girl with a croagunk who ran off, implying coin....and clover walked out on the diamond clan....

yeah coin left the pearl clan

well, charm was a pushover

worried about us....

why are we back to town???

are we making a masterball

rei is making a masterball

...............correction

that's a fuckin' cherish ball

i JUST realized colza is an ancestor to gardenia

buys riley's hat

OKAY fuck i hope im nearly done im getting tired but i can't stop now

volo again!!!

1: this music is awesome

2: dialga's lookin' a little....different

3: so that's how the spear pillar ruins got ruined!

fuck

fuck x2

fuck x3

fuck x4

gottem

holy shit.....

teehee kamado is crying

party time? party time.

roll credits!

....i still have my mission from god,

this is pokemon legends arceus and a certain godllama has yet to appear! other than int he intro

we shall save the postgame for another time~

[hazelplaysgames]

   my annual February shiny hunt is on soon! February, if that title is to be believed. this year, i’ll try to get two games going: Y and Legends Arceus! i’ll prefer hunting in Y if i have to choose, but i think it could be fun to get the two working together.

   in Y, i’ll be in Route 4. i am specifically going for a Shiny Combee, and the closest thing to a zonk is gonna be Ledyba. i expect four, even if i stick to the Yellow Flowers.    that said, every other encounter on the route i consider good. if i somehow manage to get plenty of all ‘mons off of that route, i’ll swoop around to route 22, as that gives a pretty healthy selection with no repeats and no real misses to me. if i somehow manage to get a bunch of ‘mons there too, then i’m gonna call it a good month. :p

   as for Arceus’ role in this, it’s to hunt in those Space-Time Distortions. Johtonian Sneasel, Porygon, Magnemite, Cranidos, and Shieldon are exclusive to the bubbles, and i want to make a solid effort to get a full-as-possible living shiny dex in that game, since those are really the big things holding it back. also, Cherubi, sorta, but because i expect there to be a ton of waiting around for the former to pop up, i think it’ll be nice to weave the two together.

   depending on exactly how many encounters i get, we might be looking at weekly updates from Y, or possibly a mid-month and end-of-month update about that. Arceus, if i’m lucky, will have enough encounters to stitch together a video for. i’ll hit a bit a ton on the plans and ideas for the rest of the year, i excluded a tangent that seemed a bit much. i’ll just put it under a Keep Reading, because details can get long and i want to respect Dashes.

   first things first, the most common thing on this blog, Switch games. hopefully, there’s not gonna be much going on in Splat 3 in Feb. i’d give a sigh of relief if, if there is some event, it was at the end of the month. the rest of the year is gonna be fine, i just don’t want it crunching on the shiny hunt. i expect the DLC this year, but no sense in rushing that. the new game i got for the holidays(i’m excepting World’s End Club) are queuing up, not much to say there. if i get the majority of Distortion Pokemon in Arceus, maybe a small uptick from that afterwards.    about like a week ago, i learned i can way more easily move my teams from any game that can connect to Pokemon Home to my main files, so i want to do a Poison monotype in Shield this year. if anyone wants me to specifically try another type sooner or later, i’m open to the idea, i was thinking about it a bit and realized that Shield is a shockingly light game for me, and i won’t feel too roughed up about replaying that a bit more. that said, if i’m the only one, i already got a priority list lined up(i’m feeling Rock, ice, and Dragon, to match gens 6 & 7, and Steel, which i’ll elaborate on when i get to it, so i know now next years monotypes for X and UM). i doubt i’d do all 18 types, but i’m already considering five, what’s 13 more? maybe trim content, at that point badge completion is more a formality on my end. i don’t feel the need to do a major revisit to any other games i played before.    you know, i think i’m getting a better handle on why i like Nemona so much...

   i think the only new full game i know about this year will be Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. it’s on my radar.    that said, 30 minute(maybe more like 3 hour) break, taking a bit to look into planned releases coming up, and a quick browse through the eShop, i got myself a list of other games to keep an eye out for, i figure i’ll get them as i get them if i want to get them. i’m kinda leaning towards other Monster Master sorts of games, the three big ones i saw on there being Temtem, Coromon, and Nexomon. Temtem’s the priciest by about double, i’ll look into the trio sooner or later, see what’s up with them. Dark Souls Remastered sounds serviceable on Switch, and there’s a few others i didn’t expect to find either.

   off of the Switch, a small liveblog of Digimon Dawn, which i figure i’ll go with way less posts compared to Dusk, more so detailing differences. for that, i think i’ll aim to start mid-March. then i got some Dragon monotypes between X and Ultra Moon, the latter of which we can expect to see photos from. to better guide me on timing, i know i have a trip to visit family in July, and after that i’ll do a liveblog for a Smeargle team in Moon. maybe a handful of photos from that one? it’s kinda silly to have multiple photos of a single Pokemon over a whole game, especially since the Photo Club isn’t actually IN Moon, and it just gets sillier when the idea of doing an Ultra Moon run is still not wholly off the table in my book.    i don’t want to do a Smeargle run in Ultra Moon yet because, frankly, Molayne scares me more than Hala. this is meant to say more about Molayne than Hala, truthfully. in either case though, the relatively early Route 2 provides Smeargles in both games, so this marks the first time i won’t feel i need to trade a team in. exciting! i got a few ideas already, but i’m not gonna look up much details until later, i’m planning to do this sometime starting in July after all.

[brave-symphonia]

Not only am I crying during emotional moments when I play Heart of the Woods, I also end up crying when I make the posts detailing my thoughts on those moments in my liveblog.

I just get hit twice as hard doing this.

I was going to continue HotW after posting this next set of posts, but that’s not happening. My current system will probably be to read the vn for a section or two, take a break for at least a few hours, make my posts, followed by another equally long break, and then back to reading.

I’m just over halfway done with the VN, I’m not finishing before Mahoyo.

It’s funny, my first liveblog post for this game was me mentioning how I hope that I don’t take too long to finish it, because I’d have to put it down for Mahoyo, but now I’m worried the opposite will happen. That I won’t be able to start Mahoyo.

Maybe that’s not the case, I might be able to switch off between the two, and I’ll get at least a little Mahoyo time in on the car drive home from college.

[rubecso]

I liveblogged that Greg Ellis video and now you can suffer with me

So I did not intend to watch the whole of Greg Ellis’ rant, but I guess I’m a masochist. I ended up liveblogging it so here, you can get the highlights without having to sit through 37:55 like I did. ETA: Holy shit, it got privated in the time it took me to copy this out. I might be one of the last people to watch it. What did I do to deserve this honour.

holy shit I'm on the video that Greg Ellis did in Cullen's voice and the like-dislike ratio is 124:1.4k

What the fuck this is 37:55 long?????

How did he bitch for 37:55??????????

HOLY SHIT 56 seconds in and he's talking about a 'mob of social justice warriors' wtf????

guys my soul has left my body

"Integrity is earned in turmoil, not simply asserted in comfort" what the fuck is this hasfdk;lsfdajlksfda;lksfda;sfda

HE IS TALKING ABOUT TWITTER DRAMA LIKE ITS A FANTASY WAR I CAN'T

"Join us on this most magnificent morality quest" WHAT

"Help us banish the reputation savages ((savagers?)) and cancel culture hedonists"

sfdsajklsfda this keeps getting weirder what the fuck

"Intellectual glitterati" he can't keep doing this

he can't keep making it weirder

i can't take it

i just can't

he's literally reading an Intellectual Dark Web manifesto in the voice of his character with Dragon Age background music and a bunch of hamfisted references to the dragon age world and general fantasy tropes

HE'S TALKING ABOUT THE CHIVALRIC CODE

"How can men and woman, who are profoundly different from one another, be equals? ~~Chivalry~~~"

I can't he's still voice acting he's acting this like he's actually voicing an emotional scene in the game i fucking can't

THE FUCKING MUSIC RAMPING UP UNDER HIS DRIVELLING BULLSHIT

"Join me, for this new adventure. Like. Follow. Subscribe."

If you aren't listening to this please please just imagine all this said with the upmost sincerity. Like, if you've done Cullen's romance picture it as the voice he used for the really emotional scenes.

Oh fuck I'm gonna listen to this whole thing, aren't I?

He's... he's talking about Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean

In Cullen's voice

Why is Cullen talking to me about Johnny Depp

He's talking about some time when him and another voice actor tried to hold an event where I guess they could try and launder their image after supporting JK Rowling?

Anyway this leads to him saying: "None of the mob showed up. Why..... WHY???"

THE PREGNANT PAUSES

THE INTERSECTIONAL MOB

OH god another "WHY???"

His voice quavering with OTT emotion

Fuck he really does want to be JBP, huh?

He's literally just bitching about people not showing up to his events now

“THE CANCELLATION OF CULLEN RUTHERFORD”

I CAN'T THIS IS JUST TOO FUNNY

OKay now he's just playing a propaganda film he made about the BLM protests??

Okay back to the cringe now

"In response to one angry mobster, Greg stated that every life has value~~~~~~..."

Okay I have now heard Cullen Rutherford say "All lives matter" with 100% sincerity

"We are living in an era of woke capitalism, in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism."

Okay but like... you know that the 'capitalism' part of that is the problem and not the 'social justice' part right?

"Vile and LIBELOUS messages followed. They were posted online by a SELECT FEW..."

ooooooooh he's on to bitchiing about Mark Darrah this ought to be good

"Not to defend Greg or Cullen from the libelous and ridiculous aspersions...."

DUDE YOUR CHARACTER DIDN'T NEED DEFENDING WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT????

Okay my chances of ever not hating Cullen have dissolved now, sorry this is all I'll hear when I hear his voice now

"And giving these negative nnnnnnincompoops exactly what they demanded..."

He literally drew out the 'n' in 'nincompoops'

"This post... had 6 likes. One of two comments.... was posted...." *dramatic reveal voice* ".... by MARK DARRAH"

"Mark Darrah... is the worst kind... of corporate coward. He has :’( no code..... of honour :’("

there are 10 minutes left i'm going to die

OKAY i have now heard Cullen Rutherford, commander of the inqusition, say the words "Go woke, go broke"

"One doesn't challenge The Maker.... without consequences"

I think the Maker here is Bioware?????

"Greg and Cullen were summarily lumped together.... and generalised!!!"

DUDE CULLEN IS NOT REAL

YOU CANNOT LUMP HIM IN WITH ANYONE

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

HE DID IT AGAIN

HE PUT "THE CANCELLATION OF CULLEN RUTHERFORD" TWICE

"The racist trolls came out of the woodwork to cancel Cullen, once... and for ALL!"

"I stand... for HUMAN... RIGHTS :’’’’’’’’’’’’(“ IT'S A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER

"BLACK.... LIVES... MATTER.” *long pause* “AND THEY DON'T MATTER MORE..... THAN ANYONE.... ELSE’S."

Yes. Correct. You are correct. Well done.

*insert the ‘You’re Correct Horse’ video*

"I love.... I ~~~~~love~~~~~~.... everyone "

"So yes.... alll... LIVES... DO... INDEED.... MATTER.... TO MEEEEEEE~~~~~~”

"This moment of history is harsh and merciless.... and in this moment.... I'm choosing.... LOVE"

HE'S LITERALLY JUST REPEATED THE 'WOKE CAPITALISM' LINE FROM EARLIER WORD-FOR-WORD

"Mobbing.... is social murder!"

"And by definition.... people cannot survive their own murder!"

(Again, just imagine his voice breaking with ~~~~~~~emotion~~~~~~~ on that line)

"How do we move from hateful to grateful????"

(The worst part is I know that this shit is going to be convincing to some people and that makes me actually sad)

"Exercise from the neck-up, during this.... PANIC-DEMIC!"

HE'S QUOTING CULLEN I FUCKING CAN'T

"As fans eagerly and patiently await the release of Dragon Age 4, and hope for the inclusion of their ~~~~beloved~~~~~~ Cullen" 

*vomit*

okay now he's just telling Cullen's backstory?

I'm guessing this is going to lead somehow into the whole "DON'T BE MEAN TO ME FOR THE SHITTY THINGS I DID IN THE PAST!!!!" thing?

Okay no he just... said it and then moved on?

"Only time.... and the Maker... will tell”

THAT’S IT

what the fuck i am going mad help

this video should come with a warning I got sucked in and trapped for half an hour

[adhd-disaster-willie]

you’re the one that brings the sun; chapter 3/6

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Warnings: None

Notes: I was actually going to post this yesterday but apparently a post limit is a thing, oops. I think that constitutes as me winning the liveblogging. /j

Also, yes I changed Willie’s pronouns because I’ve developed an attachment to he/they Willie :)))

Anyway! Here’s chapter 3, I hope you like it :)))

---

Alex doesn’t quite know when it happened, but the coffee… not-dates, have become a thing. Willie seems to have a sort of sixth sense that just knows when Alex needs coffee and a breath of fresh air. It’s odd, the way they’ve sunk into a routine in just a month and a half. Alex has Willie’s schedule memorized, he knows that Willie likes skating to his classes and that he only has caffeine on Saturdays and that he has a favorite tree he likes to study under. He refuses to admit to himself that Willie seems to know him just as well, from buying him more bandaids when he knows the ones in his fannypack are running low, to calling him and making sure he doesn’t stay up too late studying that one night when Willie was at Caleb’s for the weekend.

Alex has a tendency to stay up late studying, because he has this ridiculous, innate desire to get everything perfect. He supposes it comes from the fact that at one point, he was sure he wouldn’t even be in college, so now that he is, he feels like he has to succeed or his entire everything will come crashing down. So despite the fact that he’s gone over his notes a million times and the only noise is the clock ticking past 2am, he remains glued to the couch, eyes straining to read the page in his history textbook.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve been staring at that page for 30 minutes.” Willie’s standing in the entrance to the living room, smiling, their hair pulled into a loose braid that makes them look soft around the edges. He’s holding a cup of tea in one hand and Alex’s favorite blanket in the other.

Alex looks up, rubbing his eyes blearily. “Hm? Thought you were asleep,” he says, stifling a yawn. He feels a pang of guilt at the thought that he woke Willie up. Willie has a hard enough time falling asleep as it is.

Willie shrugs and moves to sit beside him on the couch, offering him the steaming mug. “I woke up to go to the bathroom and saw the light was still on. Drink the tea, it’s peppermint.”

“Peppermint makes me tired.”

“That’s the whole point.”

Alex eyes the tea suspiciously, but he’s weak for peppermint tea, and Willie knows it. He gives in, sipping it and sighing contentedly. His eyes threaten to flutter shut, and the prospect seems so tempting. “You should go to sleep,” he murmurs.

Willie shakes their head. “Not until you do.” They reach over and shut Alex’s textbook, ignoring his protesting. “You have a 9am class, you need to sleep, hotdog.” Willie’s voice is gentle in the way that makes Alex’s stomach do flips. He tosses the blanket over Alex’s lap, making sure it covers his feet, which are always cold, because anxiety sucks like that.

“I will,” Alex replies indignantly. “I just- I just gotta finish this one thing-” He cuts himself off with a loud yawn and Willie shakes his head knowingly.

“It’s 2am dude, you’re incapable of getting anything done past 1 and we both know it.”

“Not true.”

Willie raises an eyebrow. “Really? C’mon man, all that studying is gonna go to waste if you’re too tired to even take the test. Sleep, now.”

Alex hums in response, too tired to get out another coherent sentence. He supposes it wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes for a few minutes. “Five minutes,” he mumbles. “Then you wake me up.”

“Of course, hotdog,” Willie whispers. His hand hovers just over Alex’s, hesitant. He pulls back before Alex can overthink it, but there’s something hanging heavy in the air.

Alex pulls the blanket up to his chin and half asleep, offers Willie one corner. Willie swallows thickly before carefully taking the blanket and wrapping it around himself, drawing them closer together. If he’d been fully awake, Alex never would’ve done what he did next, letting his head drop unceremoniously onto Willie’s shoulder before drifting off to sleep, lulled by the sound of Willie’s heartbeat. It’s reminiscent of his drums and the way they soothe his anxiety, a steady, warm beat that feels like home. He’s sure that he’s dreaming when he feels Willie’s hand card through his hair, but oh what a lovely dream it is.

Alex wakes up to muffled cursing and the sun shining in his eyes. He blinks the sleep away, noting that the light is coming from the wrong angle and his neck is incredibly sore. The events of the night before come flooding back and he considers holing up in his room and never looking Willie in the eyes again. And yet, despite the mortification of falling asleep on Willie’s shoulder and the cramp in his neck, he feels more rested than he has in weeks.

A sudden crash from the kitchen snaps Alex out of his daydreaming  It takes him a good couple minutes to register that Willie is practically hopping around the kitchen, narrowly avoiding dropping more things on the floor, and he almost smiles at the sight before remembering that Willie has admitted to being a terrible cook and Alex should probably intervene before something gets set on fire.

Alex trudges up to the counter, eyes still heavy with sleep. “What’re you doing?”

Willie looks up and Alex breaks down, laughing so hard his stomach hurts. There’s flour smeared all across Willie’s cheeks and what looks to be milk dripping from their hair and their eyes are wild with panic and laughter. Willie reaches over and pokes Alex’s chest. “Stop it,” they whine, biting their lip to keep from laughing. “I’m trying to make waffles but…” he looks around at the mess in the kitchen and sighs in resignation. “This was a bad idea. The dining hall waffles taste like cardboard, and I would just make pancakes since those are easier, but I know you like waffles better since they have little compartments for the syrup. So I thought y’know, it can’t be that hard, I just need a recipe and a waffle maker. But did you know there are a lot of rules to cooking that are not stated like anywhere? And waffle makers? Not very easy to use. A pain to clean too.”

“Where did you even get a waffle maker?” Alex questions, glancing over at the contraption cautiously.

“That girl from my art history class owed me a favor.”

“The one you gave skateboarding lessons so she could impress her crush? She just has a waffle maker lying around?”

Willie nods. “Yup.”

“And you went all the way over to the girls dorms at-” Alex glances at the clock and subtracts an hour from the current time. “- 7am. So you could borrow her waffle maker?”

“Well when you put it like that…” Willie runs his hands over his face, laughing. “It’s stupid. But uh… I got you coffee?”

“It’s not stupid,” Alex says. “I uh, I think it’s sweet. Really. Just, please don’t try it again, I don’t want the dorm burnt down.” He chuckles lightly and begins toying with his hoodie strings, cheeks slightly pink. “Coffee?”

Willie reaches into the fridge and pulls out a coldbrew. “I didn’t want it to get warm and I didn’t know when you’d wake up, but uh, here.”

Alex takes the coffee and something in his heart bursts just a little bit. “You remembered my coffee order.”

“I mean yea it’s… it’s what you get every time.” Willie scratches the back of their neck, rocking back and forth on his heels anxiously.

“Your memory sucks, dude.” Alex continues to stare at the cup like it’s something from an alien planet. “I- thank you.”

“Yea, yea of course.” Willie smiles softly, sitting next to Alex and nudging his shoulder. “It’s what friends are for.”

“I’m not helping you clean the kitchen.”

“Rude, I hate you.”

---

Alex is fairly sure he didn’t fail his history test, and his professor for his last class of the day had to cancel, so he’s let off early. All in all, satisfactory for a Monday.

It’s a fairly warm day, but chilly enough for him to be wearing a denim jacket. LA doesn’t really see actual fall until well into November, but having lived there his whole life, Alex needs a jacket as soon as it hits 65 degrees. There’s a bounce in his step as he walks across campus, a grin tugging at the ends of his lips. He’d agreed to meet Willie at the skatepark, and it sounds stupid that he’s so excited to see them, considering they live together, but this feels different. It isn’t a date, he reminds himself that he couldn’t be that lucky, but it’s nice. It’s nice to be able to spend time together as friends instead of just roommates.

Alex swings his rollerblades over his shoulder, bringing his other hand up to his face in order to block the sun, hoping to make it easier to find Willie. It isn’t hard to spot him, Willie stands out, and Alex wonders if that’s because of Willie himself or… something else. They’re like a light, the center of Alex’s messy, muddled universe. Willie’s perched on the back of a wooden bench, feet planted on the actual seat and looking off at the sky, they drum theiir feet to the beat of whatever song is playing in their headphones and mouths the lyrics quietly. Alex has always has a habit of noticing things. It stems from his anxiety, but it isn’t so bad when the things he notices is the golden haze around Willie’s head from the way the sun is positioned, or the way the light breeze snakes through his hair. Willie is very pretty, it’s a simple fact, one that Alex had never failed to take notice of; but watching him so… at peace, lost in his thoughts, it hits Alex like a truck.

Alex sidles up to the bench, standing over Willie’s shoulder. “Whatchya listening to?”

Willie yelps and leaps slightly in the air, clutching at his chest. “Christ Alex, you’re like a ghost! How’re you so quiet?”

“Hmm, I think you’re just oblivious.”

“Am not.”

“Are too,” Alex hops over the back of the bench to sit beside Willie. “What’re you thinking about? You had your daydream face on.”

“I don’t have a daydream face.”

“You totally do!” Alex snickers. “It’s like…” He gives a poor rendition of Willie’s so called daydream face, sending the other boy into a fit of giggles.

“I sure hope that isn’t my face,” Willie breathes, clutching onto Alex’s shoulder for balance. Alex begs his heart to please beat a bit slower. When Willie finally calms down, his hand lingers on Alex for a few moments, like he doesn’t quite know how to move it. When they do, Alex’s shoulder feels cold, and he thinks that Willie holding onto him was helping to balance them both, in a way. He shakes that thought from his mind, forcing himself to focus on the present, not the possibilities. Willie is swinging their feet, occasionally brushing Alex’s knees or his calves. His hair is let down and slightly tangled from his helmet, which is resting on the bench beside his skateboard. Alex lets out a gentle breath. Focus on the present. God, he sounds like a therapist.

“Are we gonna skate?” Alex asks, gesturing at his rollerblades and Willie’s skateboard.

Willie seems to think about it for a moment before shaking their head. “Two more songs,” they decide. “I’ll feel incomplete if I don’t finish the playlist.”

Alex peeks over his shoulder at his phone, where Spotify is open. “What’re you listening to?”

Willie scoots closer and Alex is painfully aware of how close they are, their knees knocking together. He offers Alex his other earbud and his voice is soft when he asks if Alex wants to listen with him. It’s like he’s holding a piece of himself in his hands, Alex recalls a time where Luke said that showing someone your music is like showing them your soul. Alex thought he was being dramatic, but now he thinks that he wouldn’t mind having a part of Willie’s soul to keep. He takes the earbud, and they have to move their heads closer to avoid any accidents with the wire. Their foreheads are inches apart, Alex can see the reflection in Willies eyes, soft and earthy, like the bark on his favorite tree that he used to climb until he felt like he could fly.

“Hmm, Green Day’s good,” Alex says, softly lip-syncing the ending of American Idiot. Willie nods in agreement, the movement causing a few loose strands of hair to brush across Alex’s face. Alex has to close his eyes for a few seconds, breath catching in the back of his throat.

A beat of silence passes between songs; Alex can hear Willie’s even breathing and he’s sure Willie can hear his sporadic heartbeat. It’s like they’re trapped in their own little bubble, where the sun never sets and they’re always wrapped in gold. And then it’s over and another song begins.

“Avril Lavigne?” Alex means it to come out as teasing, but his voice is far more tender than he intended.

“Don’t make fun of me!” Willie giggles, bumping Alex’s shoulder. “Shhh, let me listen to the song.”

Alex is so focused on his proximity to Willie that he isn’t paying too much attention to the lyrics that everyone’s heard a million times. “I like ballet,” he mutters absentmindedly in response to the song, not really clocking the way Willie’s face flushes crimson. He quirks a curious eyebrow when Willie shoots up, shoving their phone and earbuds into their pocket. “We didn’t finish the-”

“Lets skate!” Willie cuts in, plastering on a false smile. “I just REALLY wanna skate, so lets do that! Yup! Okay!” They hop on their skateboard, bouncing in anticipation and Alex can’t even admire the way that their hair dances in the wind because he’s just so confused. He’s sure he didn’t do anything wrong. He just said that he likes ballet and-oh. Alex buries his face in his hands at the realization, internally cursing himself. Well that’s one way to accidentally admit to your blossoming crush. Lovely.

Alex opens his mouth to get out an apology, but it’s stuck in the back of his throat. He fumbles with his blades, straps too small and agile beneath his shaking hands. Whatever. It’s fine. If he doesn’t mention it, it didn’t happen right? Willie doesn’t seem to be making any moves to talk about it, so he doesn’t either. Willie still has one foot on his board, looking ready to flee any moment, his eyes glued to the pavement.

“So, you dance?” Willie asks casually, but Alex can hear the tension behind the question.

“Uh yea, since I was little. Another way I disappointed my parents, they always told me dancing was girly and it’d turn me gay.” He laughs ruefully. “We all know how that worked out.” Willie nods distantly. “I danced in high school, mostly jazz, I was never great at ballet.”

“Jazz?!” Alex gasps in mock offense.

“Stupid egotistical ballerina,” Willie teases. The tension seeps from Alex’s shoulders when Willie finally makes eye contact and there isn’t anything hidden behind his gaze. Alex lets a tentative smile creep onto his face, but there’s still something unspoken dangling precariously in the air above them.

---

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

Notes: ok so this chapter was originally like 1,000 words longer but I cut out the last scene FOR GOOD REASON I PROMISE! 

I hope you liked it :)))

Taglist: @thatsanewflavor @spookiest-sapphic @dovesgrangers @julie-n-phantoms @frostknyte @thegaylink @nervousmiracletrash @crummycassidy @fairygclds @reallyintrospectivepeople @madsmax-37 @swamp-acad @kat-maybe-not @sunsetcurve123 @lookingthroughmirrors @queer-fandom-enby @over-under-through1 @willex-n-waffles @caliibee @herequeerandcantdrinkbeer @nickalicious @andwhenwepart @maizsnex @fanofthepod

[brakingpoint]

okay i'm still technically on hiatus but i wanted to get this out into the world now rather than coming back after like a week when the vibes have hopefully settled a lot more just to be like AND ANOTHER THING. guess i'm becoming an f1blr essayist now. insert meme about either dying a hero or living long enough to see yourself become the villain here.

i know tumblr is for a lot of us a website where we come to express our opinions on f1, and opinions can get very polarising and heated because that's the nature of following sports, especially in situations like sundays where the stakes were so high (a crash that could easily have ended a lot worse on the one hand, and a stark reminder that every misstep by black athletes is read as an open invitation for racist abuse on the other). but i think sunday's drama was a culmination of what i've been feeling for a very long time which is that the energy on this website during this championship battle has been getting - to use my Word Of The 2021 Season - absolutely fucking rancid

like i am a 24 year old adult who has been on tumblr for coming up to 9 years. on main i've had controversial popular posts, i've done months-long bouts of fandom discourse, i've had anon hate, i've seen it all. i would consider myself a generally unbothered & seasoned tumblr user at this point. and this is the first time i've ever felt so absolutely awful coming onto a website i use for fun that i've had to go on hiatus for the sake of my mental health. on a smaller scale i should not have to feel like i have to go for an hour long walk after every single race just to avoid the peak of people scrapping on here. i mean the walks are lovely i would recommend that to all of you but still

i think there's a little bit of an "if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen" attitude on here, but there's a difference between someone throwing a tantrum at a little bit of healthy debate or differing opinions & people feeling like they can't even be on this website because every time something happens in this sport people start whipping out flamethrowers in the proverbial kitchen. for the past few races i think we have been toeing the line of what constitutes healthy normal sports fan debate vs outright negativity. and considering i know i am not the only person who has felt the need to take a break from tumblr in the aftermath of this weekend (and i've seen people saying this who are lewis fans, max fans, both fans, neither fans, so this is something affecting people on all sides of this debate) i think i can safely say that line has been well and truly crossed

at the end of the day i think it's important for all of us to remember that this is a website where posts are public and the blocking functions are buggy at best. not only that but we all know how f1 trends every time a driver blinks because the liveblogging-heavy culture in this fandom means that posts come in an absolute barrage because everyone feels the need to share their opinions on absolutely everything. so a) it isn't always possible to avoid content you don't want to see and b) after a race as controversial as sunday's the sheer number and concentration of posts can very quickly make someone's entire dash an uninhabitable zone

so idk where exactly i'm going with this other than i think a lot of people really need to start thinking a bit harder about what they post & the fact that if your emotions are high after a race, it's very likely that other people's will be too. your blog isn't a closed discord where only your friends who agree with you & asked for your opinions will see them. just like. remember at the end of the day that this is a website people use for fun, not every thought you have needs to be publicly posted uncensored for clout, it is so easy to just DM your mates instead

we don't have to make f1blr a happy shiny discourse-free place where everyone holds hands and sings songs together after every grand prix. but i don't think the current state of affairs is remotely sustainable or healthy for anyone involved

[discotreque]

LwD 1.10, “No Small Parts”

Well, that was the most fun I've had watching Star Trek in literally a quarter of a century.

I had high hopes for this series. I love TAS, largely because of its wacky outsized concepts that could only have worked in animation—not that they all did work, but the potential was so apparent to me, even as a kid reading the Alan Dean Foster novelizations—and as an adult, there's something about the imagination of Lower Decks's FX setpieces that transcends even the glorious CGI bonanzas of Discovery.

Pause for a confession. I've long pushed back against criticism of serialization in new Trek. That's just how TV is now, okay? Might as well complain about it being in widescreen. But I'm backing down a little, because I've realized there is something about Star Trek that's inextricable from at least a partially-episodic format. And while Picard was telling a different kind of story, I can't deny that my favourite episodes of Disco have been the ones with a mostly self-contained A-plot. After 10 delightfully episodic instalments of LwD, its focus on long-term development of characters instead of a season-spanning puzzle-plot (okay, mostly just Mariner, but we only have 10 × 22 minutes and she is the star) has been downright refreshing.

So here we are, at the end of the most consistent and well-executed Season 1 of a Star Trek series since, arguably, Those Old Scientists. And sure, if they'd had to produce another... yikes, 42 episodes? Then sure, they probably would have dropped a clunker or two—but they didn't, and winning on a technicality is still winning. I'm practically vibrating with excitement for Disco to come back next week, but damn, I'm going to miss this little show while it's on hiatus.

Spoilers below:

Something I've been keeping track of finally paid off this week! (Which never happens to me, lol.) The destruction of the USS Solvang marked the first present-day death(s) of any Starfleet officer on Lower Decks, the only other on-screen killing at all being a flashback in "Cupid's Errant Arrow". Which makes sense, being (a) a comedy, and (b) about typically "expendable" characters: it hasn't been afraid to flirt with a little darkness here and there, but killing people off at Star Trek's usual pace wouldn't just be wrong for the tone, it would be downright bizarre.

But... people die on Star Trek. That's one of the core themes of the show, really: space is full of knowledge and beauty, but also danger and terror, and believing that the former is worth the risk of the latter is (according to Trek) one of humanity's most noble traits. I'm the least bloodthirsty TV watcher I know, but the longer we went with a body count of nil—ships completely evacuated before they were destroyed, main characters hilariously maimed without permanent consequences, etc.—well, I didn't mind per se, but the absence of truly deadly stakes was definitely getting conspicuous.

Turns out they were saving it up for maximum impact. And holy fuck, I've never felt such a pit in my stomach watching a ship get destroyed that wasn't named Enterprise. It felt grim and brutal and somehow both much too quick and dreadfully inevitable—and yeah, it looked extremely fucking cool—and I'd like every other Star Trek property for the rest of time to take notes under a large bold heading labeled RESTRAINT.

Comedy doesn't need to do this, but my favourite comedy does, and in a way that few other art forms can even approach: lower my emotional defences by making me laugh, endear character(s) to me with goofy-but-relatable antics—then BAM, sucker-punch me in the motherfucking feels. M*A*S*H is probably the classic example on TV, Futurama was notorious for it, and even Archer has pulled it off a few times; it's also a staple of some of my favourite standup. I wasn't sure if Lower Decks was going to go there in Season 1—and wasn't sure if they'd earn it—but I knew if they did, that they'd nail it, and damn. Feels good to be right.

Last batch of notes for the season!!! I rambled enough already, so let's do it liveblog-style:

I fucking KNEW they were going to use "archive" visuals from TAS at some point, I KNEW IT :D

"THOSE OLD SCIENTISTS" ahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I like chill and confident Boimler a lot? You can really see—

oh bRADWARD NOOOOO

That opening shot of the Solvang tracking down to the red giant was extremely Discovery-esque... minus the motion sickness, that is

A lady captain AND a lady first officer? That's—oh hey, it's Captain Dayton's brand-new ship. Hahaha, that means they're totally fucked, right?.

Yep! They sure a—umm, wh—shit, okay, but—oh no—no, you can't—wait DON'T

...fuck

FUCK.

Narrator: "And then Amy needed a five-hour break."

[live-action Star Trek showrunner voice] "Gee, Mike! Why does CBS let you have two cold opens?"

Okay, yes, the bit with Rutherford cycling through all the different attitudes in his implant was transparently an excuse for Eugene Cardero to vamp while waiting for something to do in the story, but as far as I'm concerned they can contrive a reason for him to do a bunch of different silly Rutherfords in a row any time they damn well want, because that was classic!!!

EXOCOMP EXOCOMP EXOCOMP EXOCOMP

AND THE EXOCOMP IS PAINTED LIKE THE EXOCOMP IS WEARING A LITTLE EXOCOMP-SIZED STARFLEET UNIFORM

EXOCOMP!!!!!

The slow burn and now the payoff of the Mariner-is-Freeman's-secret-daughter plot has been executed so well. I'm beyond impressed with this writer's room, y'all—they are threading a hell of a needle here

"Wolf 359 was an inside job" would have been a spit-take if I'd had anything in my mouth

...how many memos do you think Starfleet Command has had to issue asking people to stop calling the USS Sacramento "the Sac"?

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THEY'VE DECORATED THE SHUTTLECRAFT SEQUOIA THOUGH

Is, uh, is it weird if I'm starting to ship Tendi and Peanut Hamper a little? It is weird, isn't it. I knew it was weird...

Coital barbs??? I take back everything I said about wanting to know more about Shaxs/T'Ana.

The "good officer" version of Mariner is... kind of hot, tbh! But Tawny Newsome has done such a great job of building this character all season that her voice getting uncharacteristically clipped and martial and "sir! yes, sir!" is also deeply, deeply weird

Ah, so this is literally exactly like when TNG (and DS9) would bring in, and then blow up, a never-before-seen Galaxy-class ship, just to underscore that we're facing a real threat this week, baby. And hey, it fucking worked—my heart was in my throat, omg, for the reveal of the—

PAKLEDS?????????

The fucking PAKLEDS have been gluing weapons to their ships for the last 15 years. GREAT.

(We interrupt the SHIP BEING SLICED INTO SCRAP for an interesting bit of world-building: on Earth, the traditional First Contact Day meal is salmon!)

"I need a dangerous, half-baked solution that breaks Starfleet codes and totally pisses me off! That's an order." I'm starting to think Captain Freeman might actually be overqualified for the Cerritos, y'all—she's REALLY awesome

OH SHIT IT'S BADGEY, this is a TERRIBLE IDEA

"How much contraband have you hidden on my ship?" "I don't know! A lot!"

Awwww, Boims!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, FUCK THIS, PEANUT HAMPER OUT

BADGEY NOOOOO

AUGHHHHH WHAT THE CHRIST DID HE JUST—BUT—RUTHERFORD'S IMPLANT????

RUTHERFORD!!!!!!!!!!

SHAXS!!!!!!

F U C K ! ! ! ! !

ahaIOPugdfhagntpgjrq90e5mgu90qe5;oigoqgw4ouegrw5SP;IAEHURVa IT’S THE TITAN???????????

IT'S CAPTAIN WILLIAM T. RIKER ON THE MOTHERFUCKING TITAN??????????

i'm screaming I'M SCREAMINGGGGGG​TGGGTGQER;​LBHAOIBVNV;​OAPBIJNVagr;h;​oagruipuwtnaetbaetgq35ghqet

I'M SO GLAD THIS WASN'T SPOILED FOR ME WTF

I AM WEEPING LIKE A CHILD

...

(Just a brief 20-minute pause this time)

And oh wow, seeing Will and Deanna hits different after Picard too, in a few different ways, which I may even get into later now that my heartrate is back to normal, lmao

Oh, I am always here for some jokes at the expense of the Sovereign class. The Enterprise-E sucked. They should have built a new bigger model of the D and new Galaxy-class interiors for the TNG movies, and I will die on that hill

OKAY, FINE, YOU GOT ME, RUTHERFORD × TENDI WOULD BE ADORABLE AND THIS IS ACTUALLY A PRETTY GOOD SETUP FOR IT

Awwww, Shaxs though :( Congrats on the single most badass death in Star Trek history, dude. The Prophets would—well, the actual Prophets would probably be slightly confused about most of it, but Kira Nerys would be proud of you and I feel like that probably counts for more. RIP, Papa Bear

I am here all damn DAY for the Mariner–Riker parallels, ahahahahaha

Pausing it to record my prediction that Boimler's commitment to not caring about rank anymore is going to last 3... 2...

Yep.

Bradward, how DARE YOU.

"Those guys had a long road, getting from there to here." OH FOR THE LOVE OF—

What a brilliant way to resolve and renew the various character arcs and relationships moving into Season 2! The writers could easily have brought everything back to status quo—chaotic Mariner fighting with her mom and being a bad influence on Boimler, etc.—and done another 10 just like these, but I suspect that wouldn't have been ambitious enough for these writers. What a blast. I cannot wait for more.

Thanks for following along, friends! Stay tuned for my (similarly patchy and amateur) coverage of Discovery, starting next week!

[keyofjetwolf]

Bonus Question Answers! (anime heat 2)

I asked a silly question! You gave me incredible answers. SO VERY MANY INCREDIBLE ANSWERS. Now, I present my favourites! And really, they were ALL favourites. Mmm, headcanony goodness.

Oh, special shoutout to this unattributed one, which I suspect fell prey to someone submitting early, but as phrased, made me snort laugh: “one of my longest held headcanons is that ami“

SAME, FRIEND

Anyway, If your answer is listed below, you’ve earned an entry in a random draw to win a GIFTENING liveblog OF YOUR CHOICE

—

Q: Senshi headcanon time! Intrigue me, humour me, crush me, FEED ME.

* Michiru actually did have a guardian cat, once. It was silvery grey with dark blue eyes. It did not speak, but it was always there to provide support and comfort in a life which had little of either. The first time Michiru had a strong vision, which left her cold and senseless on the floor of her room, it was the small warmth from her cat that brought her back to the world of color and light and solidity. The cat was a friend and confidante in those early days, when Michiru was unsure if this experience was real or the beginnings of schizophrenia. The fact that her mother could see the cat, and regularly make comments about the uncleanliness of such creatures, was proof of Michiru's new reality. So when the cat entered the fray to distract a youma, saving Michiru, but being killed in the process, it became one more thing that the Moon had given her, only to steal away. Michiru promised herself to never rely on another again, or to allow the Moon to have her heart again. And she had done fairly well at this. Haruka, for all her charms, was a plaything, and not something to sacrifice herself for. But pausing outside the Marine Cathedral, Michiru found herself looking into dark blue eyes, so different, but so similar, and knew that she would do anything and everything in her power to keep from having to watch them close, again. -- @incorrecttact  [YOU ARE ALSO KILLING THESE QUESTIONS. This hit me right in the kokoro, and I welcomed its sweet sweet pain.]

~~

*  Mako teaches Hotaru, Chibiusa, and the Amazon Quartet to cook and bake as a bonding activity. Hotaru LOVES making cakes and decorating them. Chibiusa likes cooking with noodles and even making her own; it doesn’t sound special, but the food she makes is DELICIOUS. Ves, the red one, finds cooking easy, but doesn’t like it and so never does outside of being coaxed into it. Jun, the green one, finds baking easy, but also doesn’t like sweet things, which limits her repertoire. Cere, the pink one, has no natural talent, but she very much WANTS to be good at it, so she turns out to be the best cook of her Senshi group. Palla takes to neither, but she is very enthusiastic about eating their experiments.  --  Jules  [I am an absolute slut for Mako and moments with the kids, and including the Quartet was a brilliant stroke.]

~~

*  A Serenity is not supposed to be reborn. They are born, they live, they die, and they are done. They are not like the Senshi, whose souls reincarnate, carefully bound to Serenity blood. They are not supposed to be reborn, so when Queen Serenity sees everything fail and decides to send their souls to the future, the Senshi are easy. Serenity is not. In desperation, Serenity does something she would have never considered in any other circumstance: she ties Serenity's soul to the Senshi. What was once a one way tie, has now become an equal bond, and so everything changes.  -- @madegeeky  [Ooo, this is some lovely twists on my own reincarnation headcanons, while still keeping the “this is a mistake” flavour. IT TASTES GOOD.]

~~

*  How about more Rei whistle antics? You headcanon Usagi would use the whistle for every mundane thing and Rei would come. Usagi would do this at 2 AM in the morning too and Rei would still be woken up and still come even in pajamas if she need be because Usagi had a spooky nightmare or "Rei-chan I fell off my bed and now my face hurts". Knowing Rei whistle antics can be funny for us and maybe aggravating for Rei at times because "Usagi you blew the whistle because you fell off the bed?" what if we can make it a pinch sad? Like what if Rei can tell what sort of peril Usagi is in by the way she blows the whistle in tone? Like when it's a sad somewhat weaker whistle, even if it's just a tiny subtle tone, Rei can IMMEDIATELLY tell "USAGI IS SAD AND NEEDS ME" and she will RUSH over in 5 seconds like in her Rei way, she might even have the mind to bring snacks, cocoa and plush to hug for the comfort.  --  Mrs. Duckling  [HOW ABOUT INDEED. I hadn’t thought about the different ways the whistle can be blown and what it might say, what a wonderful addition. THANK YOU FOR CATERING DIRECTLY TO ME AND MY NEEDS]

~~

*  PGSM!Sailor Mars - [REDACTED] Oh. Right. You're not there yet. Awkward... Anime!Minako is a huge fan of romance manga, but for all the wrong reasons. She tried drawing doujinshi of crack ships before realizing that A) she's not really a writer and B) she's REALLY not an artist. She plans on using some of her rich idol singer money to commission really bizarre romance stories. The sort that make you go WTF?! Of course, step one is "become a rich and famous idol"... Meanwhile, Rei also buys the romance manga that Minako gets into, (partially so she'll shut up about it) but mainly just analyzes them for mood and the characters, and gets frustrated when they inevitably devolve into nothing but sappy kissing and mooning over each other. She's trying to see why Minako gets so obsessed, but doesn't want to flat out admit that she doesn't get it and have to ask. -- Peter "Pigeons!" Svensson  [I had nothing but fun with this, fantastic. ps: THANK YOU FOR THE PIGEONS NOMINATION]

~~

* If these four* Senshi were to meet you, I think they'd each also be meeting some of their best qualities: Usagi is love, and that love is infectious as HELL. Much like a certain blogger who has amassed an international following on the strength of her love for her favourite media, wouldn't you say? Ami is very impressed by your office set-up! But when she sees you re-enter the room with a sprightly little black cat riding on your shoulder, she knows she has discovered a kindred spirit. Where can Rei-chan possibly begin? From your passionately informed and encyclopedic knowledge of their interactions ("She has RECEIPTS, Usagi!"), to your, let's call it tenacity ("She stirred that sugar for TWO HOURS, Usagi!!"), Rei finds so much to admire. And while no one could ever possibly love Rei as much as she loves herself, she magnanimously allows that you are a close second. As for Haruka, well! World Shaking? More like Toilet Breaking! You wrecked that shit and unleashed the sea. She can certainly relate *eyebrows, eyebrows* *would that i had time to write out blurbs for the others! but we're heading back into lockdown today, and i need to get to the post office to mail you a package. PRIORITIES! xo  -- @rasiqra-revulva​  [Okay look when I said “crush me” I didn’t mean WITH NICENESS. Also thank you for the huge laughs. *eyebrows, eyebrows*]

~~

*  Minako manages to write a tell-all book (anonymously, of course, and with names changed to protect the relevant,) about their first few years as Senshi in the lull between Stars and Shit Escalating Again. Even more astoundingly, she manages to get it optioned as a film and play Sailor Mars without blowing her cover! Rei seethes. Minako’s annoyed because she tried out for Usagi. Usagi’s just happy Minako’s successful. The film manages to pick up nominations come award season, and Michiru even arranges for the rest of the Senshi to attend. Minako loses to some film from a really overrated director that manages to out-award bait her reenactment of D-Point. She’s silently fuming through his acceptance speech when he’s Burning Mandala’d mid-sentence. And that’s how the Senshi discovered that Jadeite survived getting run over with planes, joined the entertainment industry after Beryl’s defeat, and had been using it to drain energy ever since! Sailor Mars’s speech about how he disgraces the passion of filmmakers everywhere and her comrade’s hard work goes viral. -- Regalli  [LOVED THE TWIST ENDING, also Rei basically stealing the awards show stage, as we all know she would]

~~

*  Not Senshi, but cats! One day, when Usagi is queen, she's going to decide to knight the cats. Luna thinks it's silly and figures Usagi is just acting on a whim, but Artemis has his chest puffed out and is glowing with pride. They're given tiny medals made by Endymion. -- RibbonFinale  [Oh I DID want this. I wanted this very much, THANK YOU.]

~~

*  Makoto can't culture bonsai trees. It's not a matter of ability, or scale — she can work with tiny tools with equal facility as large ones — but she can't bring herself to push the things down, to cut and twist and bind them to grow the way _she_ wants, not the way it wants to grow.   The tiny pine she bought to try it out, years ago, is in a pot in the corner of her apartment; it's just now grown taller than she is. -- Taperwolf  [I didn’t expect this one to hit me as hard as it did when I started reading. Love it, love it, love it.]

~~

*  You know those 'meetings Usagi doesn't know about'? the ones where the girls dive into the nitty gritty about being senshi, the ones where they decide who will take up being the Disguise Pen Decoy if Minako is killed? Usagi knows about them. it was one of those 'character A eavesdrops and hears character B talking about them' setups, but instead of hearing Ami call Usagi a ditz, she hears Ami saying 'I'm the weakest fighter, if Minako is assassinated and we need someone to be decoy it'd be easier to explain away my absence than Rei's or Mako's' In these meetings they speak very coldly about themselves, Ami is always first to call herself the weak one, Minako calls into attention her showboating, Mako will openly remind people she doesn't think things through on the battlefield, and Rei derides herself on her inability to keep her cool (heh) and they all come up with contingencies to cover for eachother to the minutest detail. Usagi only ever evesdrops on one of these meetings, but now she knows they happen. and she can't un-know.  -- Vega  [OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.]

~~

Manga Sailor Pluto has picked her nose 2,013,417 times. -- too ashamed to say  [WHY THE SHAME THIS IS CORRECT  AND NOW RIGHTFULLY CANON]

---

I’ll be drawing for the bonus liveblog around the start of THE GIFTENING 2020 (currently looking to be Monday, 11 January 2021). Each bonus question is another chance to earn an entry! I CAN ABSOLUTELY AND SHAMELESSLY BE BOUGHT.

[sortasirius]

What do you think is the biggest piece of evidence people are overlooking in their endgame spec, whether textual or in terms of production, etc?

This is a really good question, but I don’t think the problem is that people are ignoring or aren’t seeing a piece of evidence, I think it’s that they’re just...fans.

I have a system when I watch a new episode.  I liveblog it as it airs, that’s my big fan time.  I scream at my TV, cry, post incoherently on here, and just generally lose my shit.  After the episode is over, I take a few minutes to decompress (sometimes that’s harder than others lol), and then I sit down, and watch the episode again, this time looking for things that jump out at me thematically or structurally, or something that just caught my attention.

I usually write my initial meta post while I’m doing this, so it takes me a couple of hours to get through the episode, since I pause it and write down my thoughts as I go.

I know this sounds weirdly detached and clinical, which it sorta is, certainly much more detached than when I’m watching the episode live, but I catch all these things because I don’t act like a fan when I’m breaking down the episode, I look at it from a writer and a storyteller’s perspective.

I think the biggest thing that people overlook when they start talking about how the show is going to end is that they forget to put their own feelings aside.  They get scared of being let down, of being convinced that things are going to end one way and they end another.  They protect themselves from that potential disappointment by assuming the worst.

It’s very hard to love something as much as we love Supernatural and still look at it in a critical way, (I mean breaking it down and not going on about how bad the show is, fans certainly do that quite a bit).  I’m able to do this effectively because, not only am I lucky enough to be able to record the episodes and immediately watch it again, but also because I do this all the time with my *own* work.  Nobody loves my work as much as me, and criticism hurts, you want to get defensive, want to tell the person critiquing you that they’re wrong and aren’t seeing your work correctly.  But ultimately, the person you gave your work to is detached from loving it the way that you do, so they’re able to see things that don’t work more clearly.

Basically, people have emotional blinders on.  Again, I don’t blame them, they love the show and they want certain things from it and don’t want to get hurt if those things do happen.  But if you take a step back, and really approach the episodes as text, as a structured story and not a TV show that you really really really love, it’s easier to break it down and see where the arc of the story is going, and see that it’s going in a positive direction.

@winchestersingerautorepair also wrote about this here, if you’d like another perspective!

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3

[thelreads]

Very happy to hear it's over, but please take care of yourself first :((! If tomorrow night is close to the end of the assignment, absolutely take a break first and foremost!!!

Oh don't worry, I'll hand over the file during the morning, so I'll have the rest of the work day, plus a few hours during the night before I actually get to liveblogging.

Also I'll have coffee by my side

Lots of coffee