#fantastic art op its so cute

[gallowsdancer]

Manhua/Manga List, ongoing reads (or dismissed, for their following reasons)

Villains are Destined to Die It's very good. There's visceral feels. I revisit this one when I want the hurt ( and some of you know exactly what I mean). Penelope is always invited to my table where she'll promptly be treated like the queen she is, having to deal with all these peasants.

Cooking Sorcerer It's cute but not overstated. Also, tatted FMC, who satisfyingly uses her knowledge gleaned from her more "modern" universe to overcome obstacles. The OFC and OMC are super cute together.

Please Don't Come to The Villainess' Stationary Store The story's decent, though not particularly outstanding, but the child characters are so cute and the art is very good.

The Beloved Fake Saint The peanut gallery of Actual Deities(tm). They are the best part. There are a number of scenes that are extremely funny. The art is okay, the plot is interesting, but some of the turns are either mundane or out-of-pocket.

I Shall Master this Family Girlbossing to the peak. If you want a delightfully badass FMC (and cast) who primarily uses her brain to trounce her adversaries, this is it.

The Broken Ring: This Marriage will Fail Anyway NSFW, and it proves it. The art is fantastic, the plot is satisfying, and gut-wrenching at times. There is a satisfying look into the historical context of mental illness and trauma and a personal one that builds the characters further. It can also get very cute and steamy. This work could also be aptly renamed: You Activated the Wife Guy When You Called Him an Uninteresting Man Whore.

Your Majesty, Please Spare Me this Time The art is fantastic, the humor on point, the emotional connect is strong because they've built the characters in you before the initial upheaval caused in the plot. The handsome, crossdressing smug arsehole with a gun is a favorite of mine.

Let's Hide My Little Brother First Another violent, crossdressing pretty boy who grows up too handsome (maybe I have a type). There's limited gore, a sword-wielding FMC, and the funniest side-character couple.

How to Win My Husband Over According to some people in the comments, sometimes the FMC is annoying - but I imagine that's because it seems redundant to try and help someone with actual mental illness. I'm staying because I like the art, but the plot isn't the most interesting. The beginnings of the justified revenge are satisfying to read in the most recent chapters, though.

I Stan the Prince I hate the title, but the art is fantastic and the plot is fascinating. The humor and secondhand embarrassment have prompted IRL reactions that have spooked the unsuspecting bystanders around me. I have only put this one down for fear there won't be enough chapters to immediately satisfy me the next time I pick it up.

The Baengri Clan's Unwanted Granddaughter Girlboss moments with satisfying supporting characters. The small moments of enacted revenge are swift and sweet. I like the way the daughter reflects on the past and the way she's moved forward. She doesn't condemn them all, and actively recruits the grey area characters, so bravo. There are twists that I like that other stories would've differed on, losses that the FL actually has to deal with that typical OP FLs wouldn't. That stands out in this one.

I'm Being Raised by Villains Cute. No large amount of emotional connection on my part, but it's the formula childcare story where the child becomes OP later on. A very reliable comfort read with amusing characters you'll grow fond of.

Too Cute to Handle Repetitive formula childcare tale. Obvious plot, overstated. But! Art is cute. Possible revisit in the future.

Not-Sew-Wicked Stepmother Funny and delightful. The different sub-plot arcs are not drawn out for too long, with wonderful art and humor to punctuate. It stands out with fashion as its particular theme, but has a satisfying and realistic response to different characters' traumas.

Secret Lady/The Lady's Secret This one is more in-depth in politics, or actually is reasonably political for a story based on political hierarchal upheaval. I'm not crapping on the others, but this one does take a somewhat more realistic view of political conflict. (If I had taken a shot for every time I said political-)

Author of My Own Destiny OP FMC, but it does differ some with the fact that the FMC faces a certain amount of guilt and revisits it for the trouble she originally caused being in charge before she transmigrated.

The Strongest Characters are Obsessed with Me I love the art, and the plot line is satisfying. I like the actual variety in the characters, and the slow but sure character development. If you like Who Made Me a Princess? you'll like this one as well.

The Little Lady Behind the Scenes Repetitive formula childcare tale, but with no parents. Drawn out plot, and it's overstated. FMC is kind of aggravating in the miscommunication kind of way.

Can We Become Family? Formula, not outstanding, but satisfying - also I don't think we're far enough in to properly judge the plot as a whole. The art is okay.

Roxanna I fucking love this one. So (of course) it may have been permanently cancelled. I think it was a poisonous publisher or editor and the artist's own failing health, in which case, I wish them the best and their (hopefully ex) supervisors the worst. I still revisit this one all the time. The FMC is graceful and vengeful and will receive what she wants. (Edit: It is probably cancelled, so I'm marking out, but I still fully recommend you read it.)

The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine I really like this one. It's heavy on the figurative fourth wall breaks that happen for transmigrators, and the humor is top notch. If you liked The Beloved Fake Saint and liked it for the deity interactions, you'll like this one too.

Cassmire: The Loyal Sword Fun take on a family obsessed with the op FMC (who deserves the borderline obsession). The male leads are funny and frustrated.

Divorcing my Tyrant Husband You'll not like it going in if you're hellbent on hating the Emperor. I like it okay, and I'm in it for the havoc the FMC wreaks trying (and failing) to be a proper villainess. It's repetitive, and I can see the ending coming from miles off. It'll be a fallback read, maybe, but the very first thing I've said about it, I won't eagerly recommend it.

The Villainess is a Marionette Level with Roxanna in my love. How dare they. Oof, we love to see an ML turn into a good little boy. Every single one of those men is wrapped around her finger and she is a world-class schemer. I aspire to her strategic greatness.

The Male Lead's Little Lion Daughter The author or the artist is Islamaphobic. Sucks, because the art is good and the plot - while formula - was reasonably interesting. But I'm only mentioning it so you all are warned. I'm not supporting them.

The Falcon Princess It's interesting with a realistic view of Suddenly!Plot. The art and the humor is satisfying. The FMC and her male lead are such cutie patooties.

I Raised my Fiancé with Money Male lead is a big ole (handsomest) teddy bear with the sluttiest little waist - it's actually one-third of his wide-ass shoulders. FMC is a rich girlboss who recovers her self-confidence like we all wish we could.

The Villainess Empress's Attendant The male lead is secondary and kind of uninteresting. I actually wanted it to switch into a GL because the FMC has undeniable chemistry with another character.

Charming the Duke of the North Charming and funny. The male lead is a little lamb and the FMC is a wolf (on accident). Very enjoyable unless you suffer excessively from secondhand embarrassment (which I do, but I'm still reading it).

Mother's Contract Marriage The art is basically the definition of "filigree." The color combinations can be actually blinding. It wouldn't be my typical read, but the plot is actually interesting and the POV for it makes it stand out - not the transmigrator, but her daughter.

The Baby Prisoner Formula childcare. There's not been enough chapters to make any kind of informed review.

Betrayal of Dignity Red flag sadist and drama and its so a historical soap opera. The art is good and the tensions are high. I like it.

The Archduke's Adopted Saint Formula childcare with op FMC, with a maybe obvious plot, but it's interesting enough. There's not been too much though so I can't say this is an informed review.

With Vengeance, Sincerely, Your Broken Saint The better Astarte, with a hint of murder-mystery.

Forget My Husband, I'll Go Make Money The FL is so cute, and also so accidentally hilarious. I fully enjoy how the story is going so far, and the art is fine. I need to catch up on the chapters - I left this one to marinate.

Being a Maid is Better than Being a Princess There's not been enough chapters to make any kind of informed review. But it's good so far. (There's also a violent crossdressing hottie. It's confirmed: I have a type.)

The Archvillain's Daughter-in-Law Very nice art, but there's not been enough chapters to make any kind of informed review.

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All Crossdressing hottie (what's this, number fifty-three?) but it's shojo-ai. Two rock meganerds, one with a very hot uncle, to the tune of opposites attract. It's delightful, and its one I frequently revisit and froth at the mouth waiting for updates.

Revolutionary Princess Eve It has okay art (one guy's face gets homogonized when it should definitely not) but the plot is interesting. The romantic plot (the separate emotional story interacting with the original) is fascinating though. I like that there's more interaction with the political repercussions. It's plot is very well thought-out and focused at the same time.

The Fantasy of a Stepmother/A Stepmother's Marchen How much time do you have and are you willing to be lectured with a 198-slide PowerPoint on why this is a fantastic read, why Shuri is my new God(tm), and every reason you should read it before you die? The art, divine; the plot, divine; the emotional connection you have? I will kill and die for Shuri. If she has no fans, there's no one alive on this planet.

I Became a Tyrant's Dishonest Advisor The art is good, the plot is interesting so far, but there's not been enough chapters to make any kind of informed review.

Nan Hao and Shang Feng, The Odd Couple I have never laughed so hard in my life. It could've been gay - it's not - but its funnier because its obvious where it could've been shounen-ai. Constantly revisit this, especially when I need a laugh.

My Dress-Up Darling The art is great, the plot is fantastic as well. I am the biggest fan of our delightful nerd couple, and the satisfying cast of support characters are the whipped cream on my milkshake.

Here Comes the Silver Spoon! Rich girlboss v. white lily sister. The dad is the best because he's absolutely merit-based, and all of the characters have interesting personalities.

Master Villainess the Invincible! It's another op FMC, a bit formula, but the art is good and the plot is relatively interesting. There's a level of respect I have for the FMC for how she treats her adversaries, and the friends the original had spurned.

Screw the Noble Life, I'm Going Home Hilarious. The art is good, the story is still relatively new, so there's not been enough for me to make any kind of informed review, but it's something I'm actively reading.

The Hero's Savior The FMC is annoying in the miscommunication/oh no! I screwed the plot up! kind of way with very little visible redemption. But can I tell you that the yandere was yandere-ing for a singular heart-stopping panel that I still have in my folder for rotating backgrounds on my phone. (Will post it on request.)

[splashink-games]

Climbing a Mountain (again)

Bread & Fred is a co-op platformer by Sandcastles Studios! Jump, swing, and climb up to the peak with a good pal!

I'm planning to play the game solo soon-ish but I've beaten the game with a friend! Great experience. 10/10. Checkpoints are a feature.

Actually, let's start with that. Checkpoints are a mechanic that you actually turn on in the game, though it did take us a hot minute to do so. The fact that there aren't static checkpoints is kinda wacky if you ask me. Especially since you can kind of abuse the checkpoints by placing them on any immovable, unbreaking platform.

My friend compared the no-checkpoint experience to Getting Over It, with way better controls.

But the game was super solid. Movement was always satisfying, even when you're falling 50+ metres down the mountain. Absolutely hilarious watching the penguins spin and circle and slam every platform on the way down.

Swinging around a platform in a full circle (which we called "power swinging") was super cool and I liked that the game does mention it explicitly in the manual. Mixing it with the wind really does send the penguins flying.

I actually find it really interesting in hindsight that the control of the timing always relies on the anchor. They decide the take off on a power swing. They decide when to let go of a wall to swing to a platform. Everything except jumping relies on the anchor and I find that really awesome.

One of the best features of the game was the in-game countdown. Due to latency, it was immensely useful (and would have otherwise been impossible) to time our jumping. Using voice chat would always be a count off, surprisingly. But the countdown was on-point, even when we weren't.

Other than that, we found a couple of ways to break the rope-pulling mechanic to make the last two sections a bit easier on our minds. Well, whether it's a feature or a glitch, we don't know, so we'll assume the former. The first was pulling together so the wind didn't push us (as opposed to anchoring). The second was pulling together so as to not slide on the ice (where anchoring/walking didn't help at all)! Super helpful for the last two sections of the mountain.

The mechanics combined with the graphics definitely remind me of another mountain climbing platformer. *cough* Celeste *cough*

Oh, but the graphics! One of the reasons I really like this game is its visual resemblance to Celeste (aka one of my favourite games of all time). The cool tones, the cute pixel art. Fantastic winter vibes. Kind of a waste to have played it in the summer, but that's alright.

As another game that's light on story, I do wish there was more. For the main story, I don't get much of anything? Old Man Penguin wants us to climb the mountain for whatever reason and there are photographs he wants us to collect on the way. I don't know why we climb the mountain. We simply climb. And I didn't really even understand the ending.

One thing I'd want to explore more is the side missions. I didn't get to look into them because the game is actually kind of mentally taxing when you're "bad" at it. But also, how do you bring items to places while also needing to platform?? I'll only wonder.

But these side missions do look like they'd hold some fun stories. There's only 3 or 4 of them so maybe I'll get to that some day.

Surprisingly, the music went over my head. Probably because I was too busy dealing with plummeting after face-planting on a wall and sliding off some perfectly placed ice slopes.

However, the sound effects were top tier. Very awesome falling sounds. Jumping and swinging feels a lot more satisfying, along with the countdown, with the sounds. Especially when your partner jumps at the same exact time and the sound just overlaps.

Overall, I think my friend and I had an amazing time with this game.

So grab a friend, friends, because Bread & Fred is a great game to lose your minds to!

As always,

Enjoy Gaming!

[warm-soda-solutions]

SUMMER ANIME FIRST IMPRESSIONS/RANKING WOW!!!!!!!

bunch of shows are coming out and i'm watching some of them!!!!! now that each show has 3+ eps i'm gonna rank them from worst to best by my enjoyment of them so far. 12. My Deer Friend Nokotan: probably a controversial pick for last place but i dropped this one after 2 eps because it was painfully unfunny and also not nearly as wacky as i was hoping it would be.

11. Days With My Stepsister: i don't get the generally positive reception this show was getting. dropped after 1 ep because it was real boring. this kind of premise is trashy no matter how you try to dress it up, and doing that rather than leaning into the trashy aspects like Domestic Girlfriend makes this show a lot less entertaining than that one. essentially this is a trashy show pretending to not be one and i dislike that sort of thing greatly. 10. Narenare -Cheer for you!- : dropped this one after 2 eps because it still wasn't really clear what the motivations of the protagonist were or where the plot might go. felt like it was juggling too many characters and i wasn't super interested in any of them. parkour was cool though. big gap in quality between the bottom two and this one. 9. ATRI -My Dear Moments- : dropped after 1 episode not because it was bad, it was honestly pretty solid, but because i found the whole robot girl thing to be done in a way that's kinda cliche and uninteresting to me. definitely check this out if you want a Key-esque thing but other shows were just more interesting to me.

8. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin: this is where we get to shows i'm actually still keeping up with, and this one is just a cute little farming show. i like the character designs and the world a lot, but i'm pretty mixed on the characters themselves and the focus on rice farming after the premiere is expected and done solidly but also not quite as interesting to me as the more fantastical elements from the premiere. unsure if i want to stick with this the whole way through 7. Wistoria: Wand and Sword: absolutely killer visuals and music elevate a very generic Harry Potter/Mashle/Black Clover thing into a solidly enjoyable spectacle. if this were at all dumb or annoying i'd probably drop it but it's fairly inoffensive when it comes to dumb anime bs surprisingly.

6. The Elusive Samurai: some of the best art and animation i have ever seen in a TV anime (less so in the newer episode for justifiable reasons) and a very solid premise mixed with some awful, tonally dissonant humor and not super interesting characters so far. thankfully it seems like the show is getting the humor in check but it's gonna have to keep up the good elements of the story and the quality of the animation to keep me watching. 5. Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!: this one is mostly a very good romcom so far with a great, kinda grounded visual style that i really like. the op and ed here are also both fantastic. i think this shows's got a really good sense of comedic timing and a very likeable cast of dorks so i generally feel quite positive on it BUT i'm worried it could very easily become some garbage-y wish fulfillment harem stuff, and an awful, out of place fanservice scene in episode 2 has made me highly suspicious of the show's direction in the future. if this stays good, which it so far has, i will keep watching, and if it doesn't i will not. 4. Senpai is an Otokonoko: this is kind of the unexpected sleeper hit of the season for me. i was worried going into this one that it would handle its subject matter poorly since i don't really trust most anime to handle LGBTQ+ issues sensitively or all that well in general (not that i can particularly speak to this personally). however, it turned out to be mostly very good in that area and all the characters are quite layered and enjoyable. it's a great mix of fun slice of life shenanigans, a little bit of romance, and some surprisingly compelling if somewhat too quickly paced character drama. likely sticking with this one all the way through. 3. Mayonaka Punch: just a super fun romp about making YouTube videos from a lot of the same people behind Ya Boi Kongming, which i also loved. i think this show's got a really strong sense of style visually, and i enjoy getting an anime where the protagonist is actually an adult, i feel like that sort of thing is far too rare. every character here is fun in their own way, and the show seems intent on meaningfully developing them as well. i also like that the protagonist is really not a great person, so i'm curious how she'll change over the course of the show. 2. TASUKETSU -Fate of the Majority- : this show sucks really really bad but it's so unintentionally funny that it's easily one of my favorites of the season. the combination of an edgy nonsense premise, beyblade looking characters, limited animation, and completely out of control pacing make for the most fun i've had with a trainwreck of a show since EX-ARM. this honestly might be at number 1 if it weren't for the pacing grinding to a halt for no reason in the 4th episode, but even that just kinda adds to the fascination of this show. 1. SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary: i really like Hyouka, so unsurprisingly this is my favorite of the season so far by a decent margin. it's a ton of fun to watch the two leads solve such incredibly mundane mysteries. you'd expect that kind of thing to be boring but the characters and direction work really well together to make it actually super engaging. i also love that the leads are something of a mystery themselves, with the audience slowly learning more and more about why they are the way they are each episode. it seems like it's just beginning to get to some even meatier character stuff so i'm very excited for that. i also really love the ED for this show, the live action settings with the anime characters just fits the whole show's vibe so well.

[tubadorashifts]

Things i’m excited for in ⠀⠀⠀my Marauders DR!

˗ˏˋ THE CLASSES ´ˎ˗

I’ve been a massive fan of harry potter since I was a kid and my favourite parts of the books and the movies are when we get to see them doing normal schoolwork. As soon as I shift there i’m literally going to spend all day reading my school books to learn more about the wizarding world. I just know Sirius and James will be sick of me because you’ll never not find me in the library. This’ll probably be the only reality where i’m actually excited to study and do homework lmao

˗ˏˋ THE MAGICAL CREATURES ´ˎ˗

HAVE U SEEN ALL OF THE CUTE CREATURES IN FANTASTIC BEASTS??? I’M SO EXCITED TO SEE THEM ALL. I’m going to be besties with Hagrid I just know it. Even better my dad in this dr is Newt Scamander, so i’ll have grown up around magical creatures. I’m just going to end up being a mini version of my dad tbh. I can’t wait to meet Pickett he’s so adorable i’m going to give him so much smooches.

˗ˏˋ MY FAMILY ´ˎ˗

So I said this in the last section but my dad is Newt Scamander and my mum is Tina Goldstein!!! I’m not even kidding, I think this is one of the only realities where I actually scripted parents but you can’t tell me that they wouldn’t be such great parents? I can imagine that instead of reading me bedtime stories, they would tell me stories of all of their adventures together. ALSO I can’t forget about Queenie and Jacob, I can’t wait to meet them too! I can’t wait to go out shopping with Queenie or have Jacob teach me how to bake. I’ve also scripted that Newt is the Care of Magical Creatures teacher and his brother Theseus is the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, so i’ll be seeing both of them around a lot teehee

˗ˏˋ MY FIRST DAY ´ˎ˗

The first time I shift to my marauders dr, i’ll have arrived the day before the rest of the students because my dad is a teacher, so this will give me time to explore the school by myself so I can try to figure out where i’m going lmao. This is also because I want to practice some magic and underage wizards can only do this at Hogwarts i’m pretty sure? I’m honestly just nervous that I won’t remember any spells 😭 I’ve scripted that I have been writing diaries since I was little and they also have little pictures in them that I took and I can’t wait to read them and see what my childhood was like (I know i’ll have memories of my childhood but I also figured this was a good idea!)

˗ˏˋ MY SPECIAL ABILITIES ´ˎ˗

You best believe i’ve made myself one of the most op wizards in the wizarding world because why wouldn’t I? In this dr, I am part veela, part siren, metamorphmagus and an animagus 💀 One of the first things i’m going to end up doing is fucking around with my appearance and seeing what I can do. ALSO I’VE SEEN LITERALLY NO ONE TALK ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE AN ANIMAGUS??? LIKE YOU’RE TURNING INTO AN ANIMAL ITS GOTTA BE REALLY STRANGE. I’m adopted in this dr so that’s why i’m part veela and siren. The reason why I scripted this is because I have a serious case of ‘I have to be the main character’ and being part veela basically means i’m going to look hot no matter what, so obviously i’m scripting that. For the siren part, i’m just living my 9 year old dreams of being a mermaid ngl

˗ˏˋ HOGWARTS ´ˎ˗

I’m so gonna end up crying the first time I see the outside of Hogwarts, i’m not kidding. Every time I see a picture of Hogwarts, I get so emotional, it’s seriously so prettysjakkslsakka. I also keep forgetting the forbidden forest is forbidden even though it’s in the name lmao? No one can stop me from exploring the forbidden forest, not even death. You’ll have to drag me out by my ankles or in a body bag. ALSO, I have to go to the astronomy tower so badly, i’m freaking out, like you know when Harry was like “I never realised how beautiful Hogwarts was” in the 6th movie or something? I was so confused. You’ve spent like 6 years here and not once have you noticed how beautiful it is???

˗ˏˋ MY FRIENDS ´ˎ˗

I’M SO EXCITED TO MEET MY FRIENDS ANSJJKAKAKHHSJKKS. So i’ve known James since we were kids because we grew up right next to each other and I used to stay with his family when my parents went on dangerous missions or whatever when I was younger so we’re very close. And then once I start Hogwarts, i’ll meet the rest of the marauders as well as Lily, Marlene and Mary. My friends are one of the main reasons why i’m shifting to this dr. I’ve always wanted an extremely close friend group where we could tell each other anything or do anything together. They’re going to end up hating me, i’m going to be so clingy once I shift there i’m never going to stop hugging them. I’m so excited to get ready for balls together with the girls and have sleepovers with them or do pranks and play quidditch with the marauders

˗ˏˋ QUIDDITCH ´ˎ˗

I’m obsessed with quidditch and it’s not even real 😔 (the flying kind I mean). Like it’s to the point where I might rival James or Oliver Wood with my obsession, it’s really bad. I listen to the Harry Potter audiobooks on my way to work and whenever they start playing quidditch I get so hyped. Like my hearts beating super fast and I get sweaty, it’s ridiculous. I act like I don’t know what’s going to happen 💀. Anyway, I’m going to be the seeker for the Gryffindor team and I’M SO EXCITED. The first couple of times James wakes me up for quidditch practice i’ll be excited until it’s lashing rain and then i’ll end up hating him forever. I might end up being either a professional quidditch player or a magizoologist in the future. But i’m going to be the coolest quidditch player in Hogwarts, trust me 😎

Thank you for reading this post!! It’s kinda long and I don’t even know if it’s interesting or if I just rambled the entire time but whatever lol

[zephyr-rat]

2023 Final Games Ranking and Thoughts

Heya folks. This is just a ranking of games that I have played and personally enjoyed, similar to last year.

Overall, I'm very mixed this year. While we had some fantastic games, there seems to be a lot of terrible games that I did not play including Redfall, Silent Hill Asension, Gollum, or anything GameMill entertainment has made. Additionally, this was the year the game industry had the most layoffs after both the Pandemic bubble and the Live Service bubble bursted. Luckily I didn't touch any of the really bad games; most of the games I've played were decent, but I do hope the games industry actually gets their act together in the coming years. If the Game Awards this year was any indicator, they won't. So here's my list, counting backwards

13) Baldur's Gate 3: I highly respect this game's writing and extremely open gameplay systems, and from what I heard from DnD and RPG fans, its very faithful to DnD, but god does onboarding new players suck (I never played DnD or a Larian game in my life).

12) Convergence: A very frustrating game that, as a fan of Zaun and metroidvanias, I was hyped for. The gameplay is inconsistent, going from some of the most fun combat to just bullet hell nonsense. The rewind just feels like an extra life for how much the developers said it was designed to be more than that. Also, this has to be the worst story of any Riot Forge game. Most of the champion cameos felt worthless, they butchered Camille's character, and they didn't advance anyone's character or story. At least the art's pretty though. -------------------------- GAP------------------------------- 11) Song of Nunu: A very cute game with mostly okay and functional gameplay. Willump is super cute. My biggest complaint is that the ending didn't advance Lissandra's story that much given the events that actually happened, making it feel rushed and somewhat incomplete. I also think this game will probably be the representative of what I expect from Riot Forge stories. They star the characters you love in a different context, allows you to explore the world of runeterra, and advance the main character's arc BUT they will not advance too much. The status quo still lingers over us all.

10) Have a Nice Death: A cute roguelike-metroidvania with a beautiful artstyle and sometimes comedic writing. The gameplay feels solid with decent combat and powerups. That being said, there is some gamefeel and balance issues that can get annoying. Some weapons just do not feel good to use at all and there can be ALOT of visual clutter with all of the effects running around

9) Stray Gods: Extremely good visual novel story with a very unique take on greek urban fantasy with fantastic Worldbuilding and thought. Good artstyle and general staging. My biggest complaint and why its not ranked higher is simply because the music wasn't memorable. For a game that markets itself as a musical, that's a pretty big flaw

8) Cassette Beasts: An actual modern take on Pokemon that beats Pokemon Scarlet and Violet out of the water. It has a great doubles combat system, a unique typing system that forces players to think, and a lot of interesting story hooks and mysteries for the world it creates. If Pokemon Scarlet and Violet made me jaded about these types of games, Cassette Beasts revitalized my interest. I still think it needed a bit more polish and the ending felt a bit sudden, but overall a good game.

7) Street Fighter 6: The first game in the new modern generation of fighting games and its a very promising start. Modern controls and a very substantial storymode to onboard newer players with extreme mechanical depth with the drive gauge system for older, pro players. I think this might be the best launch Street Fighter has ever had.

6) Super Mario Wonder: A super mario game that made mario feel fresh and polished. It has extremely fun co-op with really cool game moments with the wonder flowers, albeit a bit short-lived. It has extremely fun co-op that I was able to play with both my sister and my dad, who never plays that many games.

5) Mageseekers: A game that adapts Sylas kit extremely well and actually gives the mages of Demacia a legitimate voice against the Mageseekers without having to sugarcoat the horrific warcrimes of a fascistic anti-mage state. There some gripes, but this is definitely the best Riot Forge game currently. Also Jarvan the 4th should not be king.

4) Pikmin 4: An incredibly polished and engaging gameplay loop that was hard to get out of once you find yourself in a flow. It was relaxing to just command Pikmin and watch them do your orders. It singlehandedly made me a Pikmin fan and I'm excited to see more of the franchise.

3) Little Gator Game: An incredibly cute game that's a perfect duration for what it offers. It's not a long game, but I was always charmed by the fun writing and solid movement tools. The ending even made me tear up.

2) Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom: This is essentially an expansion pass of BotW, but goddamn is it a fantastic expansion. The bosses are better, the resource crafting is cool, the machine creation allows a lot of creativity, and the world is still fun to explore. The ending is extremely climactic and satisfying with a decently solid fantasy story. This game has a lot more flaws than #3 and #4, but I admire the ambition and craft on display.

Hi-Fi Rush: This was easily the GotY for me. It has an extremely fun rhythm mechanic that works extremely well for the 3D style beat-em-up. The Saturday Morning cartoon artstyle is breathtaking with a witty, comical story to perfectly match its tone. The audio engineers deserve all of the awards for this work to get everything to bop to the beat. The music is not good on its own, but when you play the game, its fantastic in motion. Easily best art direction, best game direction, and best audio design for me.

[featheredadora]

KeyWe Review!

For those of you wondering why I've just posted some fancily dressed kiwi art out of nowhere, here's the game review to go along with it!

I've been playing KeyWe recently, and it's a fantastic little birb game!

I really love co-op games, and Overcooked is one of my 3 favourite games of all time. If you loved Overcooked, you'll love KeyWe too!

This game has so much heart and character - the little kiwis (and other background characters) are adorable, the level design is charming, and there are loads of cute costume pieces and skins to decorate your kiwi with.

But the gameplay is where KeyWe really shines in my opinion. There are 36 main levels, and while there are broadly four 'types', almost every level feels entirely different even mechanically - you definitely won't feel the game is lacking variety. To be honest, my only real 'criticism' is that I would have happily had a few more 'clones' of levels, simply because I enjoyed them so much (e.g there is only one level where you make cookies, one level where you search for the correct arts and craft parts, etc - I would have loved more!)

Each level feels completely new and fresh, and most importantly fun! While still giving you all the guidance you need so that you never feel lost. I actually think the difficulty is pretty perfect - if you are happy just completing the levels, they're pretty easy, so even people who find videogames challenging can still get through the game and access all the content. But if you wanna gold rank them all? Oh man! I haven't even gold ranked them all yet!

Similarly, there are lots of little collectables to find by doing little secret puzzles within certain levels. This is a fantastic addition! If you want a bit of a challenge, you can try to find them all on your own (We managed all but 3). Or, you can use your in-game points to buy up to 3 hints per collectable, meaning you don't have to miss out on this part of the game if you're struggling.

But wait, there's more! In addition to the 36 main levels, there are 9 bonus levels. Each of these 9 levels is tons of fun (except the dang music one!), another chance to challenge yourself to get gold-rank, and a way to earn extra in-game points to buy outfits for your kiwi. (The music level is fine actually, we just really struggled to get the gold!)

Honestly, as someone who replays the whole of Overcooked (that's the first and second games, and all of the DLC) about 3 times a year, KeyWe is exactly what I was looking for to fill the void in my heart while I wait for Overcooked 3, and is a fantastic game in its own right that deserves praise even beyond the Overcooked comparison. I'd definitely recommend it!

[voicefromthecorner]

TWEWY Anime Impressions

I finally watched the TWEWY anime! So here’s a hodgepodge of my thoughts for anyone who’s up for hearing them.

Putting a read-more up because this gonna be looong. Seriously, like, stupidly long. Strap in if you’re reading:

In General:

As far as anime adaptations of video games go, this is definitely a good one in so many ways. I have a few issues that I’ll get into, but this was obviously made with talent, passion, creativity and a good love of the source material.

One big flaw which is squarely the fault of how much the makers of the show had to work with is the pacing. 12 episodes is barely enough to do this game justice and it isn’t enough to get so much of what makes this game and these characters great come across. You’re squeezing a week’s worth of missions into 3 episodes with the first week alone, when the missions have their greatest relevance. The day-to-day struggle of going through the game and taking the time to get the missions right and getting to know each other is something that feels like a process, which is what the Reaper’s Game is meant to be. But that doesn’t come across too well because of how crammed the pacing is. It makes moments like Shiki thinking over the impact of the game feel cheap because it’s barely been that much time for us. So there’s a big risk of me just making this list tons of nit-picks of omissions, but I’ll try to avoid that. At the end of the day, things had to be cut and rearranged to make this show work, so it’s better to raise issue where there were more avoidable problems. The bottom line is that while I’m ultimately more glad to have this show than to not have it, it needs to be said right off the bat that it deserved better and would have benefitted from being able to stretch out its story by even just a few more episodes.

There’s lots of great little references to little aspects of the game throughout the show, like billboards, pins and even people once or twice. Love a good reference, I do.

It’s hardly new or surprising to say that the animation is fantastic. That OP intro is the sickest thing! The action especially is really fun, flashy and fluid.

That said, they do take the easy way out a bit by having Neku default to fire attacks all the time with occasional dips into other psych abilities, without ever really getting into the pins that his psychs are sourced from. He has so much more range, one of the cool things about playing as him. I miss that versatility.

On top of that, a lot of the fights are pretty formulaic. The tough battles, however flashy and cool they are, just boil down to [Neku and Partner exchange blows with enemy] -> [Enemy gets them on the ropes] -> [Neku and Partner unleash fusion attack and defeat enemy]. It’s the same routine and as cool as it is, it makes battles predictable.

I generally really like the art style of the anime. Everyone looks very much like themselves, even if not as stylised. They’re still stylised in a different way for the show, which makes it distinct but close and I like that.

Having said that, it does make everybody look a bit more cute-sy. This largely doesn’t bother me, but we did lose two good men out there. Well, I say ‘good’... What I’m saying is that Joshua and Kariya are the biggest casualties here. Joshua’s sly eyes that are always mocking you just aren’t there and is he even really Joshua without those?? Same kinda goes for Kariya, who wore experience all over him along with his lackadaisical attitude at almost all times. You nearly never saw him without some kind of grin and it was so incredibly weird to see him almost never so much as smirking, or looking like a plush toy when he finally did.

This issue extends a bit into characterisation too. Kariya accompanies Uzuki when she tries to get Neku to kill Shiki and just watches. I feel like Kariya would pull a Hanekoma and reel Uzuki in here. He’s lazy but not a rebel to the rules. He just seems way too detached by being there as a spectator. In general, he doesn’t have anything close to the same dynamic with Uzuki. They don’t bicker or debate like an old married couple, they don’t make bets for ramen like siblings and in general they don’t talk like they’re best friends nearly as much and it’s disappointing because their friendship was one of the really fun and interesting parts of the Reapers as a group. Take it away and they’re just kind of boring.

I’ll say right now that I’m not a fan of unnecessary changes. I can see some weird changes that I’m not a fan of but I understand them because they serve a purpose in the altered narrative, usually altered to fit the story into a more episodic format. I can get a few rearrangements and things, but things like scanning being a more intimate process of touching people individually is visually kinda cool and nothing else. It’s an alteration of the lore that nettles me more than you’d think because of the theme. Noise. Music. Cacaphony. Scanning is meant to be like having the radio turned on at every station at once that you need to focus through. It’s meant to be overwhelming but a display of Shibuya’s diversity and conflict. It’s a feeling that gets changed in Week 3 when you only receive one signal from all people. You can see how it’s a minor thing that doesn’t matter in the big picture, but it’s a thematic visualisation of society and how they’re affected that gets lost here.

Also not sure what I think of the noise possessing people in the UG. It’s something that actually got theorised about in the secret reports of the game, but here it just happens regularly because of “negative emotion” which is a trope that I feel always comes across as playing with fire. Emotions are a complex thing and simplifying it to “Very angry=bad” and such always feels cheap. In general, there’s a similar kind of cheapness across the show of its themes, big and small. An inevitable part of the adaptation process, but a sad one to see.

On that note, Neku’s character development. I have to be fair and acknowledge that a game like TWEWY with its length, depth and length of depth was never going to get the kind of nuanced growth that Neku got in the games, especially in the aforementioned 12 episodes. So with that in mind, the show does a decent job. Even so, some of the choices with him are... choices. It really downplays his anti-social behaviour at the start of the game, which is pretty critical. You don’t get to see his utter dismissal and complete distrust of other people. He’s way too tolerant of Shiki at the start and as such, it’s harder to accept that he’s someone in need of redemption. His character development is good given the circumstances that it’s in, but I get the sense that the challenge was lessened for the sake of ease here. It’s one of the major things that really deserved better, but I do appreciate that they tried.

The noise were really done justice here! They look so cool, they have tons of variance and whether they fight the same as they do in the game or not, they’re an intimidating challenge that Neku and the gang have to earn victories from. I never realised how much I like the noise until watching this, actually.

The anime lets us see many more random Players outside of Neku’s circles, which is great. It’s cool to see the Game as a much bigger thing with lots of lives at stake that you can actually see. We originally only got a simple display of that in an early cutscene of the game. Also lets us witness the noise being a lot more menacing as they literally have cannon fodder to wipe out.

There’s also more variance to the designs of the other Reaper randos, which is such a blessing to not see the same red hooded guy and black hooded guy everywhere Neku goes.

Megumi kind of defaulted to smiling in all but one of his sprites, so it’s really weird to not only not see him smile in the first place, but for him to smile so rarely during meetings and things. I miss seeing his regular good humoured manner, even while giving serious instructions. It just feels like I’m watching a different character... With a drinking problem... He got done dirty by this show.

I’ll be honest and admit I’m bad at paying attention to this kind of thing my first time through unless it really stands out, but the soundtrack is great from what I’ve noticed. Good cameos from the original game but also some cool music of its own. Thumbs up on that front!

Week 1 (Episodes 1-3):

I kind of like Shiki telling Neku about the UG rather than Hanekoma. You’d think info like that would be commonplace among the players, except for Neku, of course.

In spite of the decent job the show does with Neku’s growth, it takes away Neku’s choice in trying to kill Shiki by making him possessed by the noise instead of naturally distrustful of her. It’s less of a failure on his part to trust others and more a failure of his ability to control his emotions, which has almost nothing to do with his anti-social personality. The growth is less “Trust your partner” and more “Do what you want, just don’t be so mad, bro”.

I do like that he’s more apologetic for almost killing her though.

Also, I’d wondered this before, but it does make much more sense for Megumi to issue the order for all players to get erased after they’ve done the mission that enacts his red skull trend that was crucial to his month long broader game. Then again, I guess if that’d happened, he’d still have beaten the Composer’s proxy and won the game that way, assuming that was valid in the face of his “Fix Shibuya” win-requirement. So it’s pretty smart of him to issue his big gambit plan with the survivors of that mission, ensuring the best players handle his big plan since it’s possible that they won’t get erased as easily as he’d like. Mind blown! Right here! Anyway, yeah, it’s cool that the show gives us that with two birds in one stone.

I don’t like the anguis hax sky lasers after the red skull mission. Part of what sets Higashizawa up as a character and sets Week 1 apart as a week of the game is that there are no shenanigans screwing up what’s normally a legal process and we get to witness that firsthand for a full week before everything goes off-rails. Higashizawa doesn’t need to cheat the players because he’s just a clever and efficient GM (proxy) who comes up with a gambit that screws everyone over. Here, he just cheats and apocalypses everyone. It’s kinda weak.

Shiki’s arc is a mixed bag. They did her well but it was also really rushed. I went on for ages about Day 6 in the game liveblog, so you know my passion for that day and Shiki’s arc there if you’ve seen that. Here, her issues are downplayed a bit as is her way of getting over it. Neku’s first encouragement to her happen a little too easily and fix things a little too quickly, when the original game had that comment be more of a precursor to her healing - a first step. It was also a dramatic line to hear from Neku, whereas anime Neku isn’t super nice, but you don’t get the sense that praising someone else is out of the ordinary for him, so that feeling of surprise growth from him isn’t really there. As for Shiki, she just kind of wallows a bit but doesn’t really shut down as much as she did in the game, partly due to not having our Week 1 antagonist throw it in her face. I do love the way we see her and Eri breaking down over each other, but that then kind of muddles in the reveal that everyone in the UG is dead and I think I’d be a bit lost if this was my first time through the story. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I can understand this is largely another issue that’s caused by the pacing. I basically don’t want to reproach too much of this because what is properly given time is pretty good, but it could have used more set up and development.

Neku referencing specific moments from the game to show her strengths to her is neat. I do miss his more general Neku-advice about being you, but this is an effective way of demonstrating a similar point about self-acceptance.

Oof. That shot that showed Sota and Nao’s accident that gets them into the game. I take it back, no more references please!

OH MY GOODNESS the brutality of Rhyme’s death is WAY worse than it was in the game! That was a sucker punch!

It looks a bit like Rhyme was Uzuki’s kill but I feel like it’s implied that Kariya was the one who killed Rhyme in the game, though it’s a bit of a moot point. It’s a weird thing for me to fixate on. I’m more sad that Kariya doesn’t rationally blame Beat for her demise more as that was one of the harder hitting aspects of her loss. He just kind of behaves like the cartoon villain the show has kind of made him into. I miss his nuance.

That final fight against Higashizawa was AWESOME! Could have used more giant Mr Mew though. Underused hero of the story here!

Yodai doesn’t congratulate Shiki on the win, but then he didn’t have a pre-existing enemy relationship with her here, so there’d be less point if they did. Alas poor chef.

I see the anime isn’t doing the whole “Throw the audience into the next game and flashback to explain what happened later” thing. It’s not an issue for me, but ironically I think that approach would have been better served in an episodic setting like this.

Neku and Shiki don’t see Beat become a Reaper here, which is a good idea. Builds up the suspense of what happened to him and makes it more of a reveal when he shows up as a Reaper. It was a bit funny that Neku seemed so surprised by that in the original game.

They don’t bother mentioning the points system here, which is probably a good call. It was weirdly complicated and underexplained when you think about it in the original game, which I called up before. Here, Megumi’s just like “This game is different and Shiki, you’re the only one because you had the best character development” and dang, that’s a simplification that actually kind of makes a lot of sense? Like it’s a more believable excuse than the “Composer says so because points” one he gives in the game.

“Neku went through a much bigger change” Mmm, did he though, Shiki? In the game, definitely. Here, it’s not that noticable. Kinda plays to the anime’s favour, actually.

So Shiki getting taken as Neku’s entry fee hurts her. It’s another mixed bag for me because it kind of makes the Reaper’s look more evil, which they’re not meant to generally be, plus we’re basically watching our girl get tortured. But it does amp up the drama and seeing Neku so concerned for her to her face is quite touching.

Week 2 (Episodes 4-7):

I don’t know they did it, but they really found a way to make Sho even more extra (or, extra extra, if you will)

The scan-via-touch thing hits an inconsistancy pretty quickly when Neku literally falls into Joshua’s arms when he meets him but doesn’t sense anything, but then when it’s convenient for the narrative, he gets those flashes when he touches Joshua’s shoulder.

Now Sho too? Why does the show have to make the GM’s seem desperate to kill players by breaking the rules so much? It gave us a cool moment of Neku trying to rally everyone to trust their partners, but still...

I always figured the trash heaps were in the UG. Hard to know for sure how physical objects in the UG work and all, but if those towers of trash were in the RG, I’d have thought they’d draw too much attention to the Reapers. Then again, the game did have Konishi ordering a couple of Reaper mooks to clear those piles up, so maybe that’s exactly the case. Either way, Sho is more of a loose cannon than I knew.

That scene with Neku and Eri in the flower shop was so sweet. When the anime takes its time, you get really good scenes out of it! I like seeing more of Eri and her grief for Shiki as well as how Neku in his own grief starts thinking more about who he is.

Ooh! I love that Neku has his talks with Hanekoma and Joshua openly while all three are sitting together. You get to see Mr H is clearly gunning to change Neku’s mind and Joshua is aware of it and has a different take. It’s like a friendly game of chess is happening between them as they talk that Neku isn’t aware of. That’s a cool detail.

We see them very briefly, but I love how Tenho and BJ get the classic Reaper mook designs as their own. Good for them.

This is such a simple detail that I doubt most people will care about, but I love the fact that the time travel camera only works a couple of times a day because it drains the battery. That’s way more believable and logical than an arbitrary 3 shot limit. (Though I do still like Neku and Josh both being joint annoyed at Hanekoma for the arbitrary limit). I swear, they made it a video camera here just so they could include that line “This mic is zetta sexy!” didn’t they? Good for them.

Sota and Nao get their time in the sun! And it is glorious! The anime seriously found a way to make them even bigger sweethearts than they already were. I love them so much! It was kinda cool how the show spaced out their talk with Neku, giving them more time to think over their perspective and bond with him over a couple of days instead of one nice meeting. They were done so well. Their deaths were sadly a bit rushed though.

Did, uh... Did Tenho and BJ die? I made a point about them having the OG basic Reaper designs and then we saw those designs bite the dust. I think it was the same voices too. Even if that wasn’t them, seeing that makes me major sad. I’m very attached to all those guys.

That detail of the actual map from the game being used as Joshua describes the path of Route 5 was sooo slick!

I like Uzuki and Kariya helping out Neku to pay him back for helping them. I notice Neku helping them has no vindictive reasoning this time around, but given how none of the other events from that day were as present, it was kind of the only opportunity to show Neku helping people.

They also just come right out and say that Beat is totally screwing around with his mission to take them out and is even low-key protecting them here. I do like that; that’s pretty cool.

Getting to see Neku and Josh drop the freaking moon on Minamimoto was pretty awesome, but now I feel cheated out of Mr Mewzilla.

JOSHUA THREW NEKU OFF THE BUILDING!! It’s just what I wanted for Christmas! I always imagined Joshua doing that to Neku and it’s great to see that’s what was meant to be.

Week 3 (Episodes 8-12)

Aww, Rhyme helping Beat out in the battle to save Neku is a really nice touch.

I’m a little gutted that there’s no Uzuki-Beat banter. We were so close to the thin ice line... Plus, she’s just not as rage-happy as she was in the game.

Dang, Beat’s just coming right out of the gate with the Rhyme reveal. Honestly, it’s a fairly easy twist to call, so I think it flows better here.

Also, the anime’s confirming Mr H gave Beat a LOT of information. It’s like it’s implying that Hanekoma planted the idea in Beat’s head that he needs to become the Composer. I’m fairly sure info like that was at least unconfirmed, if not outright just a different source.

Considering how erasing people was something we never outright saw Neku and Beat do, even regularly seeing them not erase people, did they just erase that rando Reaper who attacked them and then not even comment on it? They just moved right along, huh? Brutal.

Oh my goodness, we DID see BJ and Tenho die! Awww noooooooo!! 777 was wearing their hoodies! It’s bad enough that they’re left behind in the original game, now 777 is the one left behind here, before Konishi shows up to wipe out Def March. That’s so SAD! 777 refusing to wear an O-pin is also a nice touch.

Oh no, we actually get to see the moment Beat and Rhyme died! I’m not really a fan of how they did that to be honest. The original story according to Beat had Beat literally running away across the road and Rhyme chasing after him in such a hurry that she ran into the path of an oncoming car. Sure, Rhyme was pursuing Beat here but the car going out of control was a freak accident heading off the road, after Rhyme had stopped moving, no less. It’s less a case of Rhyme’s route taking her to the car and more the car’s route taking it to her. The fact that Rhyme went after Beat being a direct correlation to her death is still here, but I think it’s less strong.

It seems like they just combined all of the Beat and Rhyme conversations into one here. I’m not really against that, because if I’m honest, those Week 3 conversations did feel a bit like one big long talk split into three for the sake of pacing, which works fine, but here it seems like we’re losing out on the whole dream stuff, even though Beat set up for it earlier when he said he wanted to be the greatest skateboarder. Yeah, he brings it up later, but it gets morphed into sounding like being the greatest skateboarder really is his dream, rather than an excuse made to comfort Rhyme, which was the whole point of the dream thing in the first place as well as setting up what Rhyme’s actual entry fee was. It’s one less emotional punch to the story as well.

I do like how they’re kind of self-aware about how Neku’s “you’re an idiot” pep talk is so backhanded. That’s a fun thing to acknowledge.

Since Kariya and Uzuki don’t have a presence at this point, I like the implication that starting at the Underpass where Beat died looks more like it was Konishi’s doing than Kariya’s. Wasn’t totally out of character for Kariya, but it did seem a bit mean for him.

Beat gets to be a bit more big-brain here since the anime doesn’t have the time to have him figure things out slowly. Good for him! But having said that, it does mean we see less of his personality. I miss his childlike attitude as he wrestled to figure things out, got excited when he thought he had it and was disappointed when he was shot down. We’re only really getting to see his serious deduction work and we’re losing out on some of the fun that Beat is to be around.

That added scene with Beat and Neku helping Eri was really nice! I’m glad Eri gets to have a bigger presence in the anime. She just kinda disappeared after her role in the story. Plus, the Lv2 Fusion attack was awesome!

It’s cool how Week 3 has the sky being an ominous red colour as more and more of the city falls to the red skull pins. It’s a great atmosphere.

The fight against Kariya and Uzuki was as fun and frantic as it should have been. Really good action and good use of our villains duo!

Oh snap, Lv2 and Lv3 fusion in one episode? It’s only episode 9! How do you go up from that?

Kariya and Uzuki’s confrontation about promotion is decent, but again it feels watered down a bit. There could have been more pauses or something because it feels like we just suddenly get into it and that it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal as it should be if Kariya is just casually getting into it. It’s interesting to hear him be more sincere and less sarcastic about enjoying spending his time with Uzuki.

Seeing Konishi actively gathering data at the expense of Kariya and Uzuki, as well as Hanekoma clearly bringing back Sho was honestly really cool to see!

It took me a while to realise that the whole “5 days to live” thing that Beat got for leaving the Reapers wasn’t here, which is honestly for the best. It never really went anywhere in the game anyway. I am sad to lose Beat’s freakouts, of course.

Interesting choice to have Neku and Beat on the events of Day 7 by Day 6, a whole day ahead of schedule.

Neku and Beat channelling power into the Rhyme noise so that she can go through a Pokemon evolution and fight Konishi herself for a devastating victory was immensely satisfying!

Extending Neku and Shiki’s conversation about her being his entry fee a little was really cute. It did trail off a bit abruptly in the original game, I felt.

Combining the first two battles against Megumi into one was a decent move, actually. It saves a little time and looks pretty good. We may not have gotten the giant Mr Mew, but the Mr Mew legion is a solid substitute!

That said, while it’s a flashy battle, Draco Cantus is done before the opening title of the last episode and Neku fights it the same way the game had us fighting the second Megumi battle. I can see how it condenses the story quite effectively, but it’s a bit less climactic.

A shorter monologue of his plan, no personal appeal to Neku, no questioning of Neku’s journey, no attempt to imprint on Neku and subsequent reveal of the second player pin, no farewell to Joshua, no well wishes to Neku, gets erased before his timer even runs out with less than 2 minutes left, half of his plan gets explained by Josh and Hanekoma later and not even so much as a smile throughout the entire anime. Megumi got done SO dirty by this show and honestly, that really gets to me. It’s probably the thing I’m most annoyed about.

I prefer the Room of Reckoning, but I do like the show making more use of the corridor with all the CAT graffiti. It’s a good spot for a final confrontation.

Dat effect when Joshua summoned the guns. That was so cool.

Joshua mentioning needing to punish Hanekoma is weird to me. I feel like it’s better that how much he knows about Mr H’s involvement and how he feels about it is more ambiguous. Plus, I always saw their roles as close to equal, so it’s weird to see him specifically talk down about Hanekoma.

Oh flipping heck.

No.

That is so bad.

Gosh freaking darn it.

Are you kidding?

“I’ll trust you”???

Screw this.

SERIOUSLY!?

They BUTCHERED that scene!

Neku having those thoughts and taking inventory while we get those clear shots of him thinking things through right before he throws his gun down to the floor and warmly declares that he’s going to trust Joshua just RIPS away all the ambiguity, the emotion, the panic, the pain, the confusion, the risk, the uncertainty and turns this dramatic and jaw-dropping moment into a freaking Disney movie. And I’m talking direct-to-DVD Disney sequel here. That is just awful. It strips the gravitas away from the moment, it strips the complexity away from Neku and it strips the tension away from the audience. That. Sucked.

The RG people being in full colour the moment Neku is brought back to life fully was awesome! It’s so weird how used to their discoloured effect I was and I was only really aware of it when it was gone, so that was actually really well done! I don’t know if they were always around, but I immediately started recognising shopkeepers in the background like the Mus Rattus and Wild Boar girls, as well as Shooter and Yammer. Really nice detail.

Oh my gosh, the reunion was such a cute scene. The way we saw Shiki without seeing her was really good. The way parts of it paralleled the game’s ending shot-for-shot and NEKU TAKING OFF HIS HEADPHONES RIGHT THEN AND THERE!! That was awesome!

Joshua and Hanekoma’s secret ending moment getting an extension to go over some secret reports info for anime audiences is a good move and quite an interesting one. That said, the differences are really weird. They make Megumi sound like a total crook even though everything he did was fair game for the sake of enacting his plan to play against the Composer in their wager. Then they go on to just declare that Joshua went one further than simply giving Neku a spare Player Pin as a precaution and Hanekoma also gave Neku powers beyond what he was supposed to be capable of. In other words, both Joshua and Mr H cheated the game. THAT. ROYALLY. SUCKS. No honour, no real foresight, no faith in Neku and no respect for Kitaniji. What the heck. This game that was such a grandiose gathering of gambits as well as growth in skill in the original game just got reduced to a set of loaded dice.

And them just outright explaining why Joshua didn’t destroy Shibuya is so lame, again stripping the ending of all ambiguity or at least leaving the audience with the freedom to use their heads. But I do get that one. We were shown the reasons why plain as day throughout the game. The anime had to shorten everything so badly that it didn’t really get that luxury.

SOTA AND NAO ARE ALIVE AAAAAAHHHHHHH YYYEEEEESSSSSS AND THEY’RE FRIENDS WITH NEKU AND CO

777 AND DEF MARCH ARE ALIVE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Never mind, this is the best ending ever.

Genuinely though, the way we get to see Neku and everyone heading over to check out some CAT graffiti while montaging through other characters carrying on enjoying life is really lovely. It’s a good ending to the anime and the graffiti of Neku’s headphones was a nice touch. We don’t get Neku’s final monologue unfortunately, nor his big freaked out “What the hell!?” when he’s brough back to life, but since the duel between him and Joshua got utterly ruined, I honestly don’t care much at this point. I’m just glad the ending is an overall happy experience.

Closing Thoughts

I think my favourite adaptation of a video game’s story to another medium remains the Persona 4 anime followed closely by the Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days manga. This wasn’t bad, but it should have been better and falls short of the kind of quality other attempts have achieved. At their best, adaptations like this can do justice to the original story, retell events in creative ways and even potentially expand on the characters if it’s willing to take the time to do so.

I don’t know the reasons behind the choices of this anime. I don’t know why it was only 12 episodes and I’m happy to hear the answer to that if someone knows it. All I know is that the final result shows that decision to be a very flawed one. Some episodes, particularly some of the later episodes, were actually well paced, but it came at the expense of pacing for earlier episodes. You can see good ideas here and it’s obvious that if this show had had the time, it could have not only done justice to at least most of the stories and characters in the original game, it could even have given us fun new takes on them. As it stands, those ideas are rushed or implemented in a crammed way. Emotionally powerful moments from the original pack the punch of a teddy bear and the gradual growth of our main character, the centrepiece of this story, happens in leaps rather than the steady pace that felt so natural in the game.

But like I said, it’s not bad. Sure, certain critical moments were destroyed, characters like Joshua and Kariya felt pretty off and poor sweet Megumi was completely massacred, but the show is a visual and audial feast, the intro is sick, the noise are really cool, some of the new ideas do get to shine pretty well and some depictions of old scenes are at least decently well done.

Overall, it’s difficult to get my bearings on how I feel about it and I might need more time, because it’s one of those things that I really want to like and there is good stuff in it, but the disappointment of the few specific things that really bug me will always hold it back massively. I certainly don’t hate it but I can’t love it either. I just like it and even then, I don’t how much I like the whole, though I know there are a bunch of individual parts that I really like.

So, sorry if that’s ridiculously long-winded and/or pretentious, but there you have it. Those are my thoughts on TWEWY The Animation.

[ellasadventuresinfandoms]

Okay, back in May @isolatedphenomenon asked me if I had an les mis fic recs and I went "oh boy do I !" and then promptly fucked off and disappeared from tumblr for like 6 months...

Anyway on the off chance people are interested, here is my vastly too long list of  my favourite les mis fanfic (that I'm almost 100% sure I'll have accidentally missed some of my favourites off of...)

The vast majority of these are main pairing Enjolras/Grantaire, so I've put those first, divided into multi-chaptered and then one-shots. Below that will be other pairings!

Multi-chaptered

• Witch Boy Series : magic AU, starting with Grantaire solving Enjolras' curse - this is just Incredible world building which gets better as it goes on - my favourite is the Babet interlude

• World Ain't Ready : you know how fandoms tend to have a fic that is just associated with it ? in my experience, for les mis this is it - and well deserved ! High school, fake dating AU with some of the most engaging writing

• BE : Enjolras is dragged back into theatre production, helping Eponine put on a production of Hamlet - really love the characterisation in this, and this is really one of those modern AUs that actually feels like real life - really good writing

• After the End : the definitive apocalypse AU in my eyes - les amis are an underground resistance to the dystopian government - really wonderful characterisation of Grantaire and the amis

• You never have to wonder; you never have to ask. : I tend to find fic by scrolling through bookmarks of a pairing, which means I often see repeats; this is a fic that if I see I just re-read cause I know I'll enjoy it - the amis sparked a failed rebellion, and now 18 months later Grantaire ends up staying at Enjolras' after returning to Paris for Marius and Cosette's wedding

• Your Heart on Your Skin : Soulmate AU with flower tattoos marking important emotions and events - wonderful concept and world building 

• Impatient to Be Free : Daughters of Bilitis AU - if that doesn't make you excited I don't know what else to say to convince you (aside from saying the author is a simply wonderful writer)

• You Dance Dreams : Okay. Not to be over dramatic, but this fic did genuinely qualitatively change my life, in that it was the first thing that got me looking up contemporary ballet and now that's like one of my favourite things and big hobby So. Also its really great writing; music/creative arts school les amis with Grantaire choreohraphing the ballet for Combeferre's opera, with a heavy emphasis on Grantaire realising he really never actually got over Enjolras

• philia : this one is an absolute classic to me, but not given nearly enough recognition - one of the more realistic college AUs ever written, and the writing of Grantaire is so good because it hits the perfect balance of sympathy and annoyance about his behaviour (that's a genuine compliment) 

• Coffee Hooligans : fucking tragedy this never got properly finished, Enjolras leads the amis as social justice vigilantes and tries to hide the criminal bits of his life from R

• Fighting the Hurricane : Pacific Rim AU that's less an AU and more just placing the les mis characters in the Pacific Rim universe. Really good and riveting read, also super interesting depiction of Grantaire

• Weaving Olden Dances : Fairy AU - Grantaire "claims" Enjolras to prevent his execution - really good writing, love Grantaires characterisation 

• Paris Burning : canon era (sort of) where cities have a physical being - Grantaire is Paris and becomes entangled in Enjolras' revolution - oh the world building is truly *chefs kiss*

• Euphoria is You For Me : Enjolras and Grantaire keep meet cuting in a wonderfully written Brooklyn - feels like a love letter to Brooklyn at times, and I really like the characterisation of Grantaire 

• so please just fall in love with me this christmas : Enjolras works for the environmental company Grantaire volunteers at, and keeps getting secret gifts at Christmas - I sound a little like a broken record but the Grantaire characterisation is very good

• You Are the Moon : Wild West esque Space AU - Grantaire has to call on the amis to help rescue Valjean and Cosette, despite Grantaire leaving the amis 6 months before. On re-reading the Enjolras characterisation feels a little rushed, but overall fantastic story telling and the Grantaire arc is a Delight 

• Pandemos : Enjolras is aphrodite, and seeks peace from all his suitors in R/Hephestus' cave

• Pining for You : Hallmark christmas romance - Grantaire returns home to work on his father's tree farm, and Enjolras is the lawyer helping prevent the farm being sold - cute as shit imo

• Once We're Kings : Fantasy AU - a country hosts a ball to marry Prince Enjolras and the rival country sends Grantaire as a fuck you - one of the best ways of doing Enjolras as a prince in a fantasy and just really nicely written

• Never Bitter and All Delicious : Fairy Godmother AU - yes really, yes its genuinely a very good read

• On One Condition : Fantasy AU - Enjolras is a bored knight who finally goes to check out the local dragon, which turns out to be Grantaire - I really like how they capture Enjolras' stubborn nature and it's such a well written soft growth of love between them

• That's How Easy Love Can Be : Les Amis work at a primary school; and its secret santa time! very fun portrayal of Enjolras

• The Lark and Her Lieutenants : re write of canon where Cosette is the leader of the revolution - just *chefs kiss*

• If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh : Grantaire is Enjolras' secret android - really good at writing a relationship that's incredibly loving but just keeps being antagonistic and coming off wrong 

One Shots

• True Colours : AU where you leave colours on the people important to you - Enjolras and Grantaire falling for each other is so soft and gently written its lovely, this is genuinely one of my favourites

• Keep It Kind, Keep It Good, Keep It Right : this one is so good to me, because it builds off my pet hatred of everyone assuming Enjolras doesn't care about (or at least actively show he cares about) his friends

• blooming : very soft post-dystopian utopia that has just a really wonderful sense of hope and light to me

• and the wall leaned away (or: The Pros and Cons of Tilling) : perfectly realised characterizations of the amis, Grantaire needs a date to her final year art exhibition - deals with anxiety over protest in a way that actually hits for me

• not just one of the crowd : R helps run a leftist bakery and bike repair shop - very cute characterisation, and I think more les mis fanfic should link to anarchist essays

• Lovesickness : Enjolras is an idiot and thinks he's sick rather than having a crush - the writing of Joly and Combeferre in this is some of my favourite depictions of these two

• If there's a rocket, tie me to it : absolutely heartbreaking sci-fi AU about the amis as doomed mecha pilots

• Where I Fall is Where I Land : Enjolras is a Roman commander as Rome's power is leaving England, and then meets the pict Grantaire (+ fun soulmark stuff !)

• You Started Foreign to Me : Enjolras moves to america and R is the overnight grocery clerk who helps her learn Spanish - cute fluffy lesbians with a wonderfully written driven Enjolras

• Love Is Touching Souls : very cute soulmate AU - and one I really love for really truly considering the implications of soul marks and creating historical lore around it

• Ten Years : R is a musician, and it non-linearly charts his relationship to Enj from high school to 10 years later

• put up with me then I'll make you see : Grantaire lives above Enjolras, and its christmas - I find it to have a very fun interpretation of pining Enjolras

• A Cat Called Trash Can : this was one of the first les mis fics I ever read (yes I know it says it was published in 2020, but I think it has to be a re-upload or something?) and it does still have a special place in my heart - Grantaire rescues a cat, but Enjolras is the only one with an apartment free to look after it 

• Still I'm Begging to Be Free : inception AU where les amis have to rescue a sleeping R from his own brain

•I'm in it for You : cw: illness, cancer - R has cancer and is being a martyr about telling his friends so Enjolras drives him back from chemo

• walls come tumbling down : sky high au - a very good high school AU with the perfect level of campy superhero powers

• This brave new world's not like yesterday : Enjolras needs a job, so ends up working in a bowling alley with Grantaire and bonding

Enjolras/Grantaire/Combeferre

• In Defiance of All Geometry : les amis are a student co-op house, Enjolras and Combeferre are pining friends and Grantaire is the newbie

• Still the Same : this is very good writing and very compelling - if you can get over the (imo) plot hole of Enjolras working for the FBI. R was an art thief Enj put away and is briefly helping the FBI out, and Combeferre is Enjolras' husband

• To Kingdom Come : cw: war and PTSD from that, Enjolras and Combeferre are part of a group of refugees that have crossed into a more fantasy land, and Grantaire is a lone traveller from that land that attempts to help - that was a shit summary of this very emotional, wonderfully written fic about war and love in all forms

• Gonna need (a spark to ignite) : I always love a twist on a classic trope, and this is a very fun take on the soulmate AU - Enjolras loses feeling in his soul mark as a child, falls in love with Grantaire and then his soulmate, Combeferre, turns up

Eponine/Cosette

• Pretty Girls Don't Know the Things That I Know : simply stunning writing - perfect example of soft writing about a harsh world

• she knows her way around : Eponine and Cosette bond, ostensibly so Eponine can find out about her for Marius, and their interactions are so playful and realistic, its wonderful

• always find me floating on oceans : Cosette stows away on Eponine's pirate ship - I do always have a soft spot for eposette fics (not just cause I ship it) because they truly characterise Cosette in a really considered and interesting way

• There's No Making Love : I'm putting this under eposette even though there is some significant enjolras/grantaire content, because the Cosette characterisation is so fun and cute

• round and round again : this fic really beautifully translates Cosette's bad childhood and then isolated teenage years, and the impact that would have on her as an adult into a modern AU

• Underwater Thunderheards : this is based off the book The Scorpio Races, and is just a really nice short fic  about longing

• How To Change The World Without Taking Power : Marius has a crush on Cosette and she's tried being polite and subtle in turning him down, so just ends up fake dating Eponine instead

• blood red fruit and poison's kiss : Snow White AU - Cosette as Snow White

• The Winters Cannot Fade Her : Snow White Au 2.0 - Eponine as Snow White - this was written as a pair to the one above which is just so cute to me

• marriage à la mode : Cosette and Eponine run a bridal shop together and it's very cute !

• Temporary Hold : I personally find this a really fun and very unique take on Cosette - with exams coming up she decides she needs to get laid on the reg and so hits up Eponine to act as if they're already long term girlfriends

Combeferre/Courfeyrac

• better than you had it : fake dating but kick it up an emotional notch - Courf and Ferre pretend to still be together after breaking up for a family event

• take flight, come near : nice and cute low fantasy, where Combeferre runs a dragon sanctuary and Courf finds an injured dragon

Rare Pairs

• The Future's Owned by You and Me : cute Enjolras/Feuilly with actual radical politics and real life organising difficulties and wins

• First Dates and Other Dangers : Combeferre and Grantaire agree to go on a blind date and it's awkward until it isn't - just cute !

• after midnight : Combeferre has insomnia and meets Grantaire in various all night fast food chains

• as you are : Bahorel and Jehan getting ready together

• Almost Romantic : Jehan works at a museum, and takes Combeferre on a little tour

• Understudy : Jehan/Combeferre, with Combeferre's insecurities regarding being seen as second best to Enjolras

• Here There Be Dragons : Courf/Enj/Ferre - Courf and Enj are superheroes and Ferre is the doctor that patches them up

• To Let it Occur (Laisser Faire la Nature) : Feuilly has a stupidly long stopover in Paris and meets Enjolras

• rule of three : Courf/Enj/Ferre as spies and loving boyfriends

• Good Rhetoric : snapshots of cute cuddly courf/enj/ferre

• subluxate, dislocate, replace : found family and chronic illness with Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta

• Strike stone, strike home (like lightning) : so this fic took one minor piece of lore about Tolkien's dwarves and made a beautiful j/b/m fic from it

• Almost Inevitable : Bahorel/Feuilly friends-with-benefits

• god only knows (what I'd be without you) : Bahorel/Feuilly with a closeted Feuilly and a beautiful Feuilly and Eponine friendship

[sinemoras09]

comic rec: the touch of sunlight

“Every wish has its price. And once each full moon, a fae emerges from a timeworn well to accept them. But what should befall, when a guest makes a bewildering wish they fail to grant? What role should they play, when they aren't expected to give?” - From  The Touch of Sunlight

Oh my god. Everybody needs to read  The Touch of Sunlight by @sandflakedraws​. It’s seriously one of the most beautiful webcomics I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. The comic is posted in its entirety at WEBTOON but the OP is also posting it at tumblr. Since this isn’t AO3 and I can’t leave a long gushing review on OP’s post, I’m just gonna have to do it here :)

Spoilery review under the cut.

The Touch of Sunlight  is a webcomic about a wish-granting being, Nulo (they/them), who resides in a mysterious well that appears whenever there’s a full moon. Wish-seekers are drawn to it; they ask Nulo to grant their wish in exchange for a small token. Nulo grants their wishes, but often in ways they don’t expect.

(The chick in the picture wished for her crops to be better than her neighbor’s. Her crops were better but her neighbor struck oil XDD)

One day, Nulo meets Eyya, a woman who visits them at the well and has no wish for herself. Their first meeting is hilarious:

THEY ARE SO CUTE I CAN’T EVEN sajfd;aslkdfjsd XD XD XD XD

First of all, the art is amazing. Everything is done under moonlight, and the way OP draws the lighting and the shadows is just gorgeous.

Look at the detail in this cap! The dappled moonlight, the strands of grass by the rocks and the leaves of the bushes. Gorgeous!

I also love the way OP draws their facial expressions. It’s just so well-done, you can see what they’re feeling even if they don’t say it out loud.

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW:

(Nulo realizing their wish).

And then this part here, where Nulo tells her:

The romance is so heartfelt and tender. At the end (SPOILERS) when Nulo and Eyya are finally together, Nulo starts to cry. It’s such a tender moment, because you really feel how lonely they’ve been sitting in the darkness waiting to grant wishes with no one to call their own.

I love this panel so much. Their one wish was just to wipe the dirt off her face! Aww Nulo XDDD

The OP does a fantastic job sketching out the characters in just a few panels. Nulo is such a lonely character, I just wanted them to get all the hugs and snuggles and sunlight. And the ending is so beautifully written, you can almost picture how the rest of their life unfolds, with someone who loves them for themselves and finally able to feel the warmth of the sun.

My favorite panel from the whole series XDD

I’m so excited that the OP is posting this on tumblr. On WEBTOON it’s only five chapters, but each chapter is very image heavy and I can imagine with tumblr’s constraints how hard it is trying to format each image to fit in each post. Right now they’ve posted two parts to their blog and I’m super excited to see the whole thing. Seriously everybody needs to read this. It is amazing. Read the first part on @sandflakedraws​ on tumblr or read the full comic here.

[curestardust]

Dust Watched: Heaven's Design Team

Genres: Educational, SoL, Comedy // 12 episodes + 1 Special

A good teacher does wonders.

✧  story  ✧

"God then populated the Earth with all sorts of animals. Or at least that was the plan but it got too tedious so he outsourced it.”

Is the basis for our story. An angel called Shimoda is sent to relay God’s messages (commissions) to “Heaven’s Design Team” who are responsible for coming up with various animals atfer God’s incredibly vague requests, like “make a cute animal that actually isn’t cute”.

The episodes ususally have 2 stories. Sometimes they’re almost completely focused on the process of getting from the base design of an animal to its final form. These parts are fun as you can try to guess along what animal has these features in real life and thus what the result will be but there’s also so much information thrown at you in this format that it can get a little dry. The second type of storytelling more uses the characters and puts them in situations which usually result in an idea for an animal. These are less informative but the cast and writing is fun. The 2 storytelling styles are constantly switched up and thus the anime manages to be extremely informative without coming off as overbearing while also being fun to watch. I also really like the fact that this anime not only explains biology but uses the backdrop of suffering artists trying to deal with an important client’s stupid requests. (I’m sure artists who take commissions will find these parts relatable.)

✧  characters  ✧

While the focus is on animals and biology, “Tendebu” has a really fun cast of characters with great chemistry. All the designers have specific strengths and preferences so their reactions to others creations is often hilarious and their different approaches to the same idea is fun (and also educational). Shimoda is our “straight-man” who plays the role of the viewer, asking questions we’d be wondering and (probably) having the same reactions as us to different animals. The Design team is well-balanced, with a variety of personalities. Also there’s a trans woman! Hooray for representation!

✧  art  ✧

The art style is very pleasing to the eyes, I personally quite love it. It uses pastels and muted dark colours with the occasional pop of primary colours, making it very easy on the eyes. The characters faces are occasionally a bit off but it happens so rarely some people might not even notice. And as this is an educational anime, yes, the animals are drawn quite accurately as well.

✧  sound ✧

Oh, the OST is fantastic! Lots of synth but the good kind. The OP is quite the banger as well.

✧  overview ✧

I had a really bad biology teacher back in the day who was only interested in showing information down our throat so we could regurgitate it on the tests. Therefore, I always dreaded these kinds of topics but if she taught us about animals like THIS? I already know that there’ll be things I was taught by this anime that I’ll remember in the longterm. All in all, a very fun anime while also being educational without it getting too much or too boring. Definitely recommend it!

My Rating: 8.5/10

[botwstoriesandsuch]

[Image ID: A screenshot of an anon asking saying “I just wanna say that your tags whenever you rb art and fics are so cute 🥺 you reblogged something of mine the other day and the tags were just so nice and innocent??? It’s like watching a little kid at an aquarium 😝so as an artist I thank you, hope you don’t take it as cringy” End ID]

- - - - - 

Cringey?? nonononono I may be a young kid watching the pretty fish swim aimlessly in the aquarium but I will

recklessly enjoy other people’s content don’t test me

I try to keep it in the tags cause I don’t wanna take away from the op’s original work, plus it makes it easier for other people to rb it from me, but I will amp up the love and appreciation when the situation calls for it. You could straight up come into my inbox or messages and just ask me to give you a reblog and I will do it, I do not care I love you, content creators.

Cringe Culture is dead it’s time to gush plus if I do this often enough people might do it more for me so it’s a win win hehe

Legit, I got a super sweet comment on one of my fics quoting something I wrote and it made me so happy so I was like “huh, guess I’ll do that more often then” and now I’m doing that, that’s how impressionable I am asdfghjk

Also hello?? specifically *my* tags helped you out?? I am a nobody, CLEARLY not enough people are doing this smh, allow me to teach the masses for a sec here

How To Make A Content Creator Happy: the world’s simplest guide to spreading serotonin through a keyboard

Step fucking one) You reblog it. I mean, that’s a given. You’ve all seen those “reblogs help creators out and likes do nothing” posts so I won’t rant too much. Likes are good, but reblogs are like handing someone a stack of a hundred dollars and all it takes is one click! 

(PRO TIP: Hold down the button and swipe for mobile, and hold the left alt button and click once for computer [though it will only rb to your main blog. if you want it for a side-blog then you’re stuck with two clicks but HEY two clicks to help out a creator you like is nothing!])

You share it! Just share stuff. Share the ao3 like, please do it. Don’t repost, don’t just mention it, give the links especially when you’re just in conversation or talking about it around plz I swear it does wonders

Ok moving on to the super simple stuff for commenting and putting stuff in the tags because I guarantee that the op will read them

write A N Y T H I N G and I literally mean anything just fucking:

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sdjflksdjfkjh

?!?!?!?!!?

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghghhhhhhhhh

:OOOOOOOOO

prettyyy

<33333333333333333

just fucking go ham, go nuts, it doesn’t need to be coherent it just needs to EXIST the very existence of someone enjoying someone’s content gives so much serotonin so stop being silent cowards and give us a smiley face from time to time

uh what else what else....hmm [golden rule is treat others the way you want to be treated, so if you’re a creator yourself, just give whatever you would want seen in the comments of your stuff! I mean that’s how I came up with all this...]

Point out the details! I mentioned earlier about quoting stuff from fics (that stuff is just 👌👌👌 so delicious) but I’m pretty sure (I’m not an artist myself don’t quote me) that the exact same effect is present when you talk about details in art or something. So talk about that pretty snowflake in the background! Or that piece of dialogue that made you laugh. Just a simple nod to the details is a big difference between saying “I like this” versus “I like this thing that you took the time to make the effort you put into the details did not go unnoticed”

just ALL the feedback please and thank you

this might vary from person to person, though personally I love when people are like “The way you write imagery is so good please do more!!” so just give a little nod to someone like “The way you draw this character is amazing please do more” or something like that

I wouldn’t go as far as to give criticism (although personally I’m the type of person that loves the occasionally critique for future reference, cause it means that you care as much as I do about the quality of my work) 

But along the same lines as the details thing, a nice nod to a creator about what they’re doing right is sooooo good! makes the butterflies flutter

                ~~~~~~Did that post give you emotions?~~~~~~

   G   O   O   D

 ~~FUCKING TELL US~~

THE ACT OF SOMEONE WRITING A SET OF LETTERS, OR SOMEONE SKETCHING A BLOB MADE ANOTHER DISTANT HUMAN BEING DEVELOP CHEMICALS IN THEIR BRAIN?? SURE WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT BECAUSE WOW THAT’S AMAZING!?!??

just go “I’m so happy” or “I’m so sad” just “TT__TT” just fucking “:OO” or just “I hate this” [HUMOURISTICALLY] and “I can’t believe you’ve done” just give it yes tell us the emotion that you have felt we love it

I don’t think enough people understand how amazing that is???? You were once in a normal, neutral state, and then a piece of content that I created just made you smile or laugh or cry like WHAT that’s amazing omg

Ok so that’s pretty much the simple stuff right, that’s your elementary classwork right there

Just give something, literally anything and just go “I love this so much!!!!!” bam done, you just murdered the op with your love, great job

So yeah, that’s that. Pretty simple stuff, no?

...but you wanna graduate to master class?

You wanna fucking go ape shit

you wanna just

g o    t o    town?

I said this was gonna be a simple guide so don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell you that you have to write a full length essay on every post that you come across

[BUT IF YOU WANT TO DON’T LET ME STOP YOU THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE AMAZING?? HELL WRITING OUT A PARAGRAPH OF A COMMENT IS ALREADY JUST *CHEFS KISS* MASTERCLASS OF MURDERING THE OP WITH LOVE JUST ANALYZING THE SHIT OUT OF THE COLORS AND SHADING AND FRAMING OR JUST POINTING OUT THE THEMES AND SUBTEXT AND CHARACTERIZATION --part of the reason I love betaing stuff so much because I can analyze shit and shower it with premature love while also helping fics to be even better than they were originally ugh so cleansing for my literature heart-- SO YEAH GIVE CREATORS A PARAGRAPH, DARE I DREAM OF PARAGRAPHS, BECAUSE WOW YES PLEASE YES]

...ahem anyway

the way to graduate from good to great as a receiver of content is

to do all this

any of this

any of this simple stupid amazing shit

and just

put it in an ask or message

that’s literally it

Let me tell you why that’s so amazing, it pumps up the already amazing dopamine dosage of these actions alone, and multiplies it by a hundred, let me tell you why

Let’s say you read a drabble. You loved it, you reblogged it, you gave it hearts and emojis and ranted for a few tags about how it made you drop your muffin on the ground. Fantastic work, you just made the op pass out.

Then you go about your day and that’s the end of that.

BUT

if you do all that

and then put it in an ASK

dare you even a direct message?? (probably not most of us on here are cowards I get that)

but an ASK, anon or otherwise?

The message you just sent to the op was “I interacted with the post you made, and I loved it so much that I went the extra mile of going to your blog to make extra extra sure you understand how much I liked your thing”

There’s a wordless wall with every post! You like and reblog the thing and move on with your day. 

But the fact that YOU sent a HEART a SINGLE sentence about how you liked a thing? the fact that you BREACHED that wall and just fucking keyboard smashed in the inbox? the fact that you did that is the most amazing thing in the world

you just ambush the op with good vibes. we were expecting the bare minimum in the comments and tags, but the fact you when out of your way to make it a message or ask???? superb, outstanding, the sheer SHOCK of it will shift tectonic plates

you’re my fucking hero if you do this. you’re a godsend. I would kill for you,👏people👏would👏kill👏for👏you.

AT LEAST THEY WOULD KILL FOR YOU IF THIS ACTION DIDN’T ALREADY MURDER THEM

BE A MURDERER, NAY, A SERIAL KILLER. MURDER CONTENT CREATORS WITH LOVE

BE RECKLESSLY KIND AND LOVING YOU PIECE OF SHIT, ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE CRINGY TO STARVING AND DYING WRITERS AND ARTISTS WE WILL TAKE IT ALL GOD DAMMIT

YOU ARE A CHILD STARING UP AT AN AQUARIUM IN WONDER.

MAKE YOUR HAPPINESS STIR THE TIDES, LET YOUR PRESCENCE BE KNOWN PAST THE REFLECTION OF THE GLASS.

THE FISH ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR SMILE. 

[lunetual]

✨ can i.... do i... yeah.... SLCKSKLD ive always been curious abt this cause u say how all my works are ur favourite ):< i am not worthy of such a compliment

OKAY WOO!! cmere. cmere and let me fight say nice things about your work. i know i always say that... everything you make is my favorite so. i’m going to pick my MOST favorite favorites, but keep in mind. they’re all my favorite. just in general, you have just a fantastic eye for design! i know you favor neutral and earth tones but when you venture out you do a great job with palettes that pop without like. making your eyes burn. and you are GREAT with fonts. literally cannot wait to see what you make in the future really!!!

hmm.... this is gonna go under the cut. in no particular order!!

1. okay okay so. i might be fond of this because it was the first piece of Wootent(TM) i saw BUT. i really love all the little details and easter eggs you slipped into your netflix edit! like really all the details... insane. i know i mentioned i noticed how you hid your handle and integrated it into the edit and i was like... op is CLEVER. a THINKER. ;aldskfjldksfj. not to mention i was sooo delighted by the fact that you incorporated both video and still graphics into the post. like why don’t we do that more? we should do that more. i actually hate video work so i won’t be doing that. but. in general. if people like video they should do it more. it was really the way i was like. help i want this netflix show so badly.

2. i know you!!! said you were fighting every step of the way with this one aslkdfjalsdjf but i loved your top kpop songs of 2021 so far set. it was really fun and creative and you colored the gifs beautifully. the spinning records were so cute and again i loved the overall layout of each song.

3. a;sdkfjls;ldkf i only have three slots left help!!! okay okay so. gyugle! it was just SUCH a cute idea to begin with. and then you really. worked so hard on every little detail!! the neutral color palette... the icons... all of the motion graphic elements... all of the emails, the file names, the sidebar.... INSANE. i literally could NEVER i bow down in awe at your patience etc. and i’m still sobbing about how cute the bear ears are.......

4. moarevival ul:kin yeonjun. obviously. the 3d rendering, insanely cool. as i said. i could never!! it looks so good too ahhhh. so skill level to achieve all of this aside, this one is a personal favorite because this is an aesthetic i tend to favor! the neutrals and blacks are delicious.... really.... and every single panel is perfect on its own, and then altogether it’s so harmonious and pleasing to the eye. like literally when you dropped this i spent. so much time staring at each individual panel and then all of it together and i’m still so so so impressed by it! (my favorite panel is probably! the second one...... loved the transition from the abstract shapes to those photos of yeonjun split across the circle. also typeface-wise, great choice as always + i love an outline font. very ~editorial~ feeling like really i could keep this talking about this one but i’ll spare you!!!

5. YELLOW CAB X YEONJUN!!!!! really really i looooved this one so much. first of all. fight teaser...... lives rent free in my head it’s really my favorite of the two concepts like theeee way it made me feel..... and then you slapped that together with yellow cab?? the taste... the taste. i loved the colors and how well you integrated the aesthetic of yellow cab throughout each panel AND i loved the way certain graphic elements were split across images too! makes it flow so well. i adored every single element you clipped gifs into but the microsoft paint window ESPECIALLY. the overall look of this was so killer you have such a great eye for balance and for being intentional about every part of your graphics. i never ever feel like you slap something on just for the sake of it, everything you add has a reason and that’s like. THE key to good graphic design. every decision with a purpose. you’re so so good already <3 and you’re just going to get better <3 i mean it when i say you are one of the most creative designers i’ve come across and literally in grad school. evaluating art directors was. one of my jobs a;dslkfjsdlkffak so!!!

bestie i’m so sorry that was so long. <3 but. wootent fan blog first txt blog second!!! mwah ily keep up the amazing work, you KNOW i’ll be hyping you up!!

[akamarulover]

Winter 2020 watchlist

Anime I’m following this season!

Sequel series

Haikyuu!! To the Top (season 4)

Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story

New/Original series

Keep Your Hands off Eizouken -3 girls, (character designer, concept artist, and a hustler) try to make an anime together. Very loose, fluid style. Imaginative and unique. FANTASTIC OP.

In/Spectre -a young girl, kidnapped by spirits, is asked to become their goddess of wisdom. She becomes a mediator for them and solves problems between the spirits and the human world.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun -Really pretty art style! This series is visually incredible!! OP is great. Story is silly and characters are pretty goofy but its a fun series so far. Does get a bit dark at times, so it might take a turn at some point. 

A Destructive God Sits Next to Me -Silly, funny school antics show with entertaining characters. The main boy tries to fight his position as the straight man, but he’s actually really stupid so he often falls for the tricks of the other characters. His desk neighbor is a hard-core chuunibyou who often embarasses himself trying to act cool. Their third friend is an asshole who likes to stir shit up.

Somali and the Forest Spirit -Emotionless golem dad adopts a human girl he finds in the forest and brings her along on his travels while trying to keep her safe from other creatures.

Smile Down the Runway -A pretty, short girl who dreams of becoming a model is shut down because of her height. She meets a boy who dreams of becoming a clothing designer but can’t because of his family obligations and financial situation. They work together to both achieve their dreams. -I don’t care for fashion literally at all, but the story is really engaging! The main characters are well written and likeable and I was quite invested in them within the first episode! Very good story so far.

If My favorite Pop Idol Made it to the Budokan, I would Die -Idol anime from the perspectives of fans. Slice of life, soft-yuri vibes. About the #1, obsessively supportive fangirl of an unpopular idol, and the idol who secretly harbors feeling for her fan, but can’t act on them because of her position. Explores the boundary between idols and fans and the blurred line between supportive and obsessive.

Asteroid in Love -Cute, soft, yuri, slice of life moe anime. A girl and a boy make a childhood promise together to discover an asteroid and name it after him. They separate and the girl holds the promise and the boy in her heart. They reunite years later in high school and the girl discovers her friend was actually a girl! They continue to work together in the astrology club to achieve their dream/promise.

Pet -Weird, introspective, mind games stuff. It’s kinda like inception with dream/mind dives and rewriting memories. Main characters are pretty morally ambiguous. And also gay? I think?

Darwin’s Game -Terrible trashy death game fun. Same vibe as Kings Game

Continuing series

Chihayafuru (season 3) -PLEASE watch! I love this series to death

Black Clover -Its getting really good right now for this arc!

My Hero Academia (season 4) -School festival arc!

Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia -Second half!! Its gonna hurt!!

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Madoka, Wonder Egg Priority, and the Future of Late-Night Magical Girl Shows

  Beware! This article contains spoilers for the beginning of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

  It is January 21st, 2011. In the shadows of a witch’s labyrinth, two girls named Madoka and Mami form a close bond. Mami is a magical girl, powerful but lonely. Madoka decides, then and there, to fight by Mami’s side. But then, in the middle of combat, the witch Charlotte transforms into a giant worm and bites off Mami’s head. Madoka’s eyes widen in shock. A broken china cup seeps tea on the ground. Smash cut to the wails of goth rock trio Kalafina as black clouds roil and a single flickering shape strides toward oblivion. Three episodes in, Puella Magi Madoka Magica threw down the gauntlet. Over ten years later, the mark it left is still there.

  Puella Magi Madoka Magica was special. But why? Not because it was the “first dark magical girl series.” Sailor Moon, the modern magical girl standard-bearer, became popular not just because of its charming characters but because the show could do things like briefly kill everyone during the series finale. Even magical girl series aimed at younger audiences, like Ojamajo Doremi, tackled subjects like the death of a pet or the aftermath of a divorce. Not to mention the infamous 46th episode of Magical Girl Minky Momo from 1983, when the titular heroine was hit by a truck! Truly, everything has been done before.

  The secret to Madoka Magica’s success is that it is not really a magical girl show. It is a suspense thriller cunningly disguised as a magical girl show. It has as much in common with Kamen Rider Ryuuki as it has with Sailor Moon, and was written by Gen Urobuchi, a former eroge game writer who ran in the same circles as Kinoko Nasu and Hoshizora Meteo. Madoka Magica is not interested in the slow process of endearment by which magical girl series ease you into the daily routines of their characters — the weekly monsters, transformation stock footage, holidays, and very special episodes. It presents as such only as long as it takes to put you off guard, and then (clad in the gorgeous raiment of art team Gekidan Inu Curry) it goes for your throat. 

    So it was that Madoka Magica became the standard-bearer of a new kind of late-night anime. Rather than “cute girls doing cute things,” let’s call this genre “cruel things happening to cute girls.” Take something charming and unassuming, like a magical girl story or a high school slice-of-life show. Populate it with fun, marketable characters. Then set those characters screaming when the real story pops out like a jack-in-the-box. The frisson between cute and scary hopefully generates enough charge to catch the attention of audiences, but  — most importantly  — audiences don’t have to reach that far to engage with it. That is because these shows are built off those same conventions that anime fans are familiar with. Those conventions just happen to be evil this time.

  As often happens in the entertainment industry, the success of Madoka spawned many copies. These projects did not have Gen Urobuchi, and they were often not lucky enough to have an art team as singular as Gekidan Inu Curry. All things considered, they tried their best. YUKI YUNA IS A HERO brought a different former eroge game writer, Takahiro, on board. Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka made its team of magical girls a proper military unit. More recently, GRANBELM added giant robots to the stew. I’d say Granbelm is my favorite of these, if only because the giant robots were pretty cool! I’d love to see them in a Super Robot Wars game one day.

    Some of the more interesting entries in the “cruel things happening to cute girls” genre didn’t have any magical girls in them at all. Selector Infected Wixoss was a card battle show about teens fighting for wishes; writer Mari Okada smartly changed focus from the cruel system tearing the characters apart to the way that individual selfishness keeps cruel systems running perpetually. SCHOOL-LIVE! featured a group of schoolgirls continuing their slice of life activities within a world devastated by a zombie apocalypse; the anime production was bolstered by a murderer’s row of writers from Nitroplus, Urobuchi’s former stomping ground. Episode 3 — a flashback to teacher Megumi on the day of the outbreak — is a genuine triumph, precisely because it is so earnest. Rather than pushing hard to shock or disgust the viewer, it allows the characters to breathe in the moments leading to disaster and lets the horror come naturally.

  Traditional magical girl shows, in the meantime, have been doing just fine. We’ve seen several good seasons of Precure and two fantastic ones, the all-rounder Go! Princess Precure and uneven but groundbreaking Hugtto! Precure. Sailor Moon’s Crystal remake seasons and movies have steadily improved after a rocky start. The first few seasons of magical idol series Aikatsu are charming and introduce a fun legacy quirk that ties together characters from different seasons. Even Ojamajo Doremi has seen a follow-up film that puts the spotlight on the generation who grew up watching it.

    Madoka’s successors, on the other hand, are in a trickier place. Some of them have been successful, others have been good, but none have recaptured that lightning in a bottle that made Madoka a hit. Even a recent Madoka Magica series based on a phone game, written by Gekidan Inu Curry themselves, came and went without much buzz.

  In the years since Madoka aired, there have been plenty of folks who have expressed their reservations about the “cruel things happening to cute girls” genre. After all, magical girl series can be revolutionary or transgressive without being cruel. Hugtto! Precure introduced the series’ first male Precure (equally comfortable wearing dresses as skating outfits) and featured a romantic partnership between two of its female leads. Go! Princess Precure’s best fight scenes are as spectacular as anything in this year’s Jujutsu Kaisen, yet remain perfectly accessible for its target audience of young girls. Madoka's progeny may have been targeted at older — and often, male — audiences, but outside of some blood and gore just a few of these series were more genuinely mature than the children’s series they riffed upon.

  Image via HiDive

  I do still see a future for late-night magical girl shows. In 2016, a weird magical girl series called Flip Flappers aired. Directed by animation wunderkind Kiyotaka Oshiyama, it featured two girls in love traveling through many strange and colorful environments in search of macguffins. Hidden inside a candy coating of marketable elements was everything from the Freudian fairy tale theories of Bruno Bettelheim, to architectural oddities such as thomassons, to occult figures like Jakob von Uexkull. Flip Flappers harnessed some of Madoka Magica’s sense of danger, putting its cast into intense and scary situations from the very first episode. But it was not a show about girls being tortured by an evil system; it was a show about girls exploring surreal dreamscapes. A new genre had been created: “cute girls doing weird things.”

  Here are the cornerstones for the “cute girls doing weird things” genre: you need girls of course, maybe even magical girls, but the rules behind their magic are nebulous. Rather than take children’s genres and corrupt them, you build out atmospheric settings, drop in the characters, and see what happens next. You give the cast room to express themselves within the bounds of the story, rather than leading them down an assembly line to their doom. The malevolence of Madoka is not off-limits, but more useful still than malevolence is uncertainty. The goal is to unsettle the viewer rather than disgust them.

  Image via Funimation

  Five years after Flip Flappers, a new show walks these same steps: Wonder Egg Priority, an original series from CloverWorks. Of course, Wonder Egg Priority is aiming at something totally different than Flip Flappers. Its spooky environments are incidental. Its main aim is, through riffing on the work of Kyoto Animation and famed director Naoko Yamada, depicting in full and uncompromising detail the difficult emotional lives of teenage girls living in the modern-day. Those lives just happen to be filtered through an anime lens of trauma manifesting as horrific creatures that have to be destroyed, and girls that need to be saved. Yet to me, Wonder Egg Priority captures the dreamlike atmosphere that Flip Flappers achieved in its best moments — the means by which characters exploring unfamiliar spaces reveal themselves in new and different forms. Despite being made of familiar parts, in execution, I think it is something new.

Somewhere between Flip Flappers and Wonder Egg Priority lies the future of late-night magical girl shows. They should not ever replace the ones made for kids; those do perfectly fine on their own, thank you very much. But in their embrace of uncertainty, I recognize a ghost of what I once felt when I first saw Charlotte’s gaping maw. The sensation that the ground had disappeared, and that — like magic — anything was possible.

  What's your favorite recent magical girl show? Are you excited for the newest season of Precure? Does Wonder Egg Priority terrify you on a weekly basis like it terrifies me? Let us know in the comments!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he isn't reciting lines from Revolutionary Girl Utena, he sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at @wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[kingjasnah]

Is there the full list of brandersons favourite games reposted somewhere?

i dont think so? or not that ive seen. u can literally just sign up for the newsletter on his website but screw it ill just post them for u. it sure was a TRIP scrolling past these to get to the interlude though. undertale is on this list.....im shakign at the thought that adolin was based off ff10 tidus but i cant get it out of my head now

#10: Katamari Damaci

I love things that make me look at the world in a new way. Katamari did this in spades. It is an imaginative, bizarre vision with unique gameplay. It is like nothing else in the world and I love it for all its strangeness and occasional lack of gameplay polish.

I was transfixed the first time I played it, and have looked forward to it being remade and rereleased on multiple different consoles. I love the cute—and somehow creepy at the same time—storyline. It feels like a fever dream more than a game sometimes, and is probably the closest I’ll ever get to understanding what it’s like to do drugs.

#9: Undertale

This is an oddball on this list because I think it’s the only game that is not a franchise from a major studio—but is instead an indie game, which I believe was originally funded on Kickstarter.I loved how this felt like a novel as much as a game. It was one person’s vision; a single story told really well, with a huge amount of personality. The humor was just my kind of wonderful/terrible, and I was instantly enamored with the characters.That probably would have been enough, but it is a nice deconstruction of video games as a medium—and has not one, but multiple innovative gameplay mechanics. Together, the package left me enamored. This is a work of genius that I feel everyone should at least try, even if it ends up not being for them.

#8: Fallout: New Vegas

I have played all of the core Fallout games, and I was one of the (it seems few) who was really excited when it moved from turn-based tactics to first-person shooter. While Fallout 3 was good, it didn’t have the charm of the first two.New Vegas delivered on everything I was hoping to see. The charm was back, the writing sharp, the quests imaginative. The gameplay was engaging and branched in a variety of directions, the gunplay was solid, and the atmosphere immersive. I of course love the first two games in the series—but New Vegas combines everything I like in gaming into one package. (As a note, I own the Outer Worlds, and am looking forward to digging into it. Consider this item on the list a recommendation of other Obsidian games—like Knights of the Old Republic Two—regardless of genre, as I’ve found them universally to be superior to their contemporaries.)

#7 Super Mario World

When I was eleven, I flew (alone, which was very exciting to me) from Nebraska to visit my uncle Devon in Salt Lake City. Before I left, my father gave me $200 and told me to pay for my own meals while on the trip—but of course, my uncle didn’t allow this. At the end of the trip, I tried to give him the money, which he wouldn’t take.I mentioned my dad would take the money back when I got home, but that was okay. Well, my uncle would have none of that, and drove me to the local mall and made me spend it on a Nintendo Entertainment System. (This uncle, you might guess, is an awesome human being.)Since that day of first plugging it in and experiencing Mario for the first time, I was hooked. This is the only platformer on the list, as I don’t love those. But one makes an exception for Mario. There’s just so much polish, so much elegance to the control schemes, that even a guy who prefers an FPS or an RPG like me has to admit these are great games. I picked World as my favorite as it’s the one I’ve gone back to and played the most.

#7: The Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3)

I kind of miss the golden age of adventure gaming, and I don’t know that anyone ever got it as right as they did with this game. It is the pinnacle of the genre, in my opinion—no offense to Grim Fandango fans.This game came out right before gaming’s awkward teenage phase where everything moved to 3-d polygons. For a while after, games looked pretty bad, though they could do more because of the swap. But if you want to go see what life was like before that change, play Monkey Island 3. Composed of beautiful art pieces that look like cells from Disney movies, with streamlined controls (the genre had come a long way from ���Get yon torch”) and fantastic voice acting, this game still plays really well.This is one of the few games I’ve been able to get my non-gamer wife to play through with me, and it worked really well as a co-op game with the two of us trying to talk through problems. It’s a lovingly crafted time capsule of a previous era of gaming, and if you missed it, it’s really worth trying all these years later. (The first and second games hold up surprisingly well too, as a note, particularly with the redone art that came out a decade or so ago.)Also, again, this one has my kind of humor.

#6: Breath of the Wild

I never thought a Zelda game would unseat A Link to the Past as my favorite Zelda, but Breath of the Wild managed it. It combined the magic of classic gameplay with modern design aesthetic, and I loved this game.There’s not a lot to say about it that others haven’t said before, but I particularly liked how it took the elements of the previous games in the series (giving you specific tools to beat specific challenges) and let you have them all at once. I like how the dungeons became little mini puzzles to beat, instead of (sometimes seemingly endless) slogs to get through. I liked the exploration, the fluidity of the controls, and the use of a non-linear narrative in flashbacks. It’s worth buying a Switch just to play this one and Mario—but in case you want, you can also play Dark Souls on Switch... (That’s foreshadowing.)

#5: Halo 2

Telling stories about Halo Two on stream is what made me think of writing this list.I’m sometimes surprised that this game isn’t talked about as much as I think it should be. Granted, the franchise is very popular—but people tend to love either Reach or games 1 or 3 more than two. Two, however, is the only one I ever wanted to replay—and I’ve done so three or four times at this point. (It’s also the only one I ever beat on Legendary.)It’s made me think on why I love this one, while so many others seem to just consider it one of many in a strong—but in many ways unexceptional—series of games. I think part of this is because I focus primarily on the single-player aspects of a game (which is why there aren’t any MMOs on this list.) Others prefer Halo games with more balanced/polished multiplayer. But I like to game by myself, and don’t really look for a multiplayer experience. (Though this is changing as I game with my sons more and more.)I really like good writing—which I suppose you’d expect. But in games, I specifically prefer writing that enhances the style of game I’m playing. Just dumping a bunch of story on me isn’t enough; it has to be suited to the gameplay and the feel of the game. In that context, I’ve rarely encountered writing as good as Halo 2. From the opening—with the intercutting and juxtaposition of the two narratives—to the quotes barked out by the marines, the writing in this game is great. It stands out starkly against other Halo games, to the point that I wonder what the difference is.Yes, Halo Two is a bombastic hero fantasy about a super soldier stomping aliens. But it has subtle, yet powerful worldbuilding sprinkled all through it—and the music...it does things with the story that I envy. It’s kind of cheating that games and films get to have powerful scores to help with mood.The guns in Two feel so much better than Halo One, and the vehicles drive far better. The only complaint I have is that it’s only half a story—as in, Halo 2 and 3 seem like they were one game broken in two pieces. And while 3 is good (and Reach does something different, which I approve of in general) neither did it for me the way Two did, and continues to do.

#3: Final Fantasy X

You probably knew Final Fantasy was coming. People often ask if the way these games handle magic was an influence upon me. All I can say is that I’ve played them since the first one, and so they’re bound to have had an influence.On one hand, these games are really strange. I mean, I don’t think we gamers stop quite often enough to note how downright bizarre this series gets. Final Fantasy doesn’t always make the most sense—but the games are always ambitious.Ten is my favorite for a couple of reasons. I felt like the worldbuilding was among the strongest, and I really connected with the characters. That’s strange, because this is one of the FF games without an angst-filled teen as the protagonist. Instead, it has a kind of stable happy-go-lucky jock as the protagonist.But that’s what I needed, right then. A game that didn’t give me the same old protagonist, but instead gave me someone new and showed me I could bond to them just as well. Ten was the first with full voice acting, and that jump added a lot for me. It has my favorite music of the series, and all together is what I consider the perfect final fantasy game. (Though admittedly, I find it more and more difficult to get into turn-based battle mechanics as I grow older.)

#2: Bloodborne

Those who follow my streams, or who read other interviews I’ve done, probably expected this series to be at or near the top. The question wasn’t whether Souls would be here, but which one to pick as my favorite.I went with Bloodborne, though it could have been any of them. (Even Dark Souls 2—which I really like, despite its reputation in the fandom.) I’ve been following FromSoftware’s games since the King’s Field games, and Demon’s Souls was a huge triumph—with the director Hidetaka Miyazaki deserving much of the praise for its design, and Dark Souls (which is really just a more polished version of Demon’s Souls).As I am a fan of cosmic horror, Bloodborne is probably my favorite overall. It really hit the mix of cosmic and gothic horror perfectly. It forced me to change up my gameplay from the other Souls games, and I loved the beautiful visuals.I am a fan of hard games—but I like hard games that are what I consider “fair.” (For example, I don’t love those impossible fan-made Mario levels, or many of the super-crazy “bullet hell”-style games.) Dark Souls is a different kind of hard. Difficult like a stern instructor, expecting you to learn—but giving you the tools to do so. It presents a challenge, rather than being hard just to be hard.If I have a problem with Final Fantasy, it’s that the games sometimes feel like the gameplay is an afterthought to telling the story. But in the Souls games, story and gameplay are intermixed in a way I’d never seen done before. You have to construct the story like an archeologist, using dialogue and lore from descriptions of in-game objects. I find this fascinating; the series tells stories in a way a book never could. I’m always glad when a game series can show off the specific strengths of the medium.In fact, this series would be #1 except for the little fact that I have way too much time on Steam logged playing...

#1: Civilization VI

This series had to take #1 by sheer weight of gameplay time. I discovered the first on a friend’s computer in the dorms my freshman year—and I can still remember the feeling of the birds chirping outside, realizing I’d been playing all night and really should get back to my own dorm room.That still happens, and has happened, with every game in the series. I have a lot of thoughts on this series, many of them granular and too specific for this list. (Like, it’s obvious AI technology isn’t up to the task of playing a game this complex—so could we instead get a roguelike set of modifiers, game modes, etc. to liven up the games, rather than just having a difficulty slider that changes a few simple aspects of the game?)I’ll try not to rant, because I really do love this game series. A lot of people consider IV to be the pinnacle of the series, but after V unstacked units—and VI unstacked cities—there was no way I could ever go back. If for some reason, you’ve never played this grand patriarch of the 4X game genre, it’s about starting with a single stone-age settler who can found a city—then playing through eras of a civilization, growing your empire, to try to eventually get offworld with a space program. (Or, if you prefer, conquering the world.)It’s a load of fun in the way I like to have fun, and I feel like the series has only gotten better over the years. My hat is off to the developers, who keep reinventing the series, rather than making the exact same game over and over.Now, about that request for difficulty modes...

there are runner ups but for the sake of anyone whos on mobile and cant get past a read more (first of all omg im SO sorry) ill refrain. anyway he thought WHAT loz game was the best before botw?

[shinymixedbag]

With everyone being stuck indoors, have you watched any good anime or read manga you would recommend?

Indeed I have! ^^ Lucky for me, everything I read and watched were really enjoyable so I’d recommend em all:

I finally watched the Bleach anime ❤️ I cannot wait for the anime adaptation of the final arc.

I also managed to watch Banana fish at last. The anime OP1 and ED1 are AWESOME. Hmm... While I found it a lil repetitive how the main antagonist kept pulling one bad dude after another out of his arse to torture and capture the MC, it was a good watch overall. Considering its infamy for being an absolute tearkjerker, I’d even spoiled myself in advance so as to not break down crying. Yeah, that didn’t work. I cried rivers :| (I read the final volume of the manga afterwards and that added to the pain)

BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA SEASON 4. Oh my god the season finale was EPIC. (I’m a big fan of the series so you should definitely watch it if you haven’t already)

Fruits basket season 2. My love affair with furuba started when I read the manga as a young teen. Watching the anime after almost a decade has well and truly reinforced it. MUST WATCH. MUST READ. Shoujo manga fan or not. [Anime: ONGOING]

Wotaku ni koi wa muzukashii. A lighthearted story that purely entertaining. Otaku will find it hilarious :D The OP song is FUN!

Fugou keiji - balance: UNLIMITED. Started watching it on a whim after a friend said one of the MC’s is a “rich ikemen detective” and I WAS SOLD :D Maybe it’s a bit too soon to judge, but I don’t think it’s gonna have a compelling plotline. It’s entertaining though. The OP song is fantastic. [ONGOING]

Arte. Started on a whim. I like it so far. Young MC is the daughter of a noble in renaissance era Italy. She runs away from home after the death of her father to pursue her passion- art. She’s ballsy but also naive. [ONGOING]

Take your pick! ^

As for manga and manhwa (all BL :P)... As always, I’ll recommend: Wolf in the house, momentum, given, sasaki to miyano, and, saezuru tori wa habatakanai. 

I enjoyed these: See you later mermaid [beautiful]  3ban sen no campanella [depressing but really nice]  penthouse xxx [funny]  path to you [CUTE!] 

Some authors whose work I enjoy: Enjo, Itz, Furuya Nagisa... Natsume Isaku, Hinohara meguru, Ichikawa kei and Yamamoto Kotetsuko.

That’s it for now! I hope you’ll find something you enjoy from this list :) Stay safe and have fun!