#get me started on dragalia and i will not shut up

[orion-bnuuy]

Dragalia Lost spoilers utc!! (Spoilers for the final chapter)

Wow… I can’t believe the story has finally come to an end. Not only that but the conclusion was just so,, brilliant as well (at least, to me). I cried throughout the chapter since it was so well-done.

It was a wild journey from start to finish. A lot Euden’s hardships and burdens stemmed from the royal family, and to have him be a commoner that’s no longer shouldering those secrets and burdens anymore is so gratifying to me. He finally gets to live a life free of the stress given to him by the past—I’m just really glad he gets to be happy now

Since he’s presumed dead by Midgardsormr, I’d imagine the Greatwyrm would be very surprised to see him alive. Though, I don’t think Mids would actually say anything regarding the past since I imagine he’d want the former Prince to be happy. He’d most likely look after Euden when the now commoner is brought over by Zethia to hang out with her, as Mids would still think of him as the boy he once watched over on his journey.

Speaking of Zethia: I imagine that she and Euden become close friends (a bond almost as if they were still siblings). Zethia wouldn’t exactly remember what happened prior to the new world’s creation, but I think she’d just know or feel that they were once close. She wouldn’t bring it up to him, but she’d feel at peace just knowing that he’s alive (whether she understands why she feels that or not).

With that out of the way… I’m glad I got to experience this game. It wasn’t perfect but to me? It’ll always be the best gacha game I’ve ever played. I’m so thankful for trying out this game, even if I only started playing during the second anniversary. Playing Dragalia Lost always made my day and I hope to carry these joyful memories with me after the game shuts down.

[raichana]

Favourites~

Tagged by @omgfloofy

this looks super fun so lets jump in! 

favourite colour: Red, I love the colour red and will always pick it above anything else, pink and purple are closeseconds but Red is where it’s at~ 

favourite flavour: Ginger, ever since i was little it has always been my fav. grom gingerale to ginger cookies I just love the stuff. 

favourite music: So I almost exclusively listen to video gaem soundtracks and jpop. every once in a while I try to listen to current/popular music and most of it just sounds like droning noise to me... every once in  while i’ll hear something and be like this is greta but yeah... mostly jpop and game/anime soundtracks for me...

favourite movie: Princess Bride, people think I am kidding when I say this and I assure you I am not. I love that film with every fiber of my being and could probably recite the whole thing from start to end with only minor mistakes cause I have easily watched it far too many times.

favourite series: gunna take a page from floofy. Games it’s easily Ys or Kiseki, maybe a slight nod to Ys but I really love both. Anime: I have a few but as to not repeat myself in a second I’ll say Natsume Yuujinchou. Book: Ascendance of a bookworm, I just love everything about it from the character and story growth to the world building to the fact we get a volume every other month. 

last song: According to Itunes it’s Sunnyboy Rainygirl by Daoko which was an album i got cause she did music for dragalia and I was sad the game i loved was being shut down. 

last movie: uhhhhh.... I watched a little bit of groundhog day with the family but the last film I watched was No Way Out with Kevin Costner. it was on the movie chanel and really enjoyable. 

currently reading: It’s technically re-reading but Ascendance of a bookworm part 3 vol 1. I had read it before on kindle but now i have the physical book so i had to reread~ 

currently watching: ........ *sighs* too much... ok On crunchyroll: The tale of outcast, saving 80 000 gold in another world for my retirement (may drop), Legend of heroes: trails of cold steel northern war, Sugar apple fairy tale (fav this season so far), The magical revolution of the reincarnated princess and the genius girl, campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skills, welcome to demon school iruma kun, chilling in my 30s after getting fired from the demon kings army, Neir: automata ver 1.1a, bungo stray dogs s4, buddy dadies, trigun stampede, revenger and eventually the misfit of demon king academy (may drop) and by the grace of the gods season 2 (may drop)....... then on hidive: is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon season 4 (also highly recommend the LN for this even if it’s embarrassing to say one of your fav series has such a bad title) The latest on tsundere villian liselotte and eventually tsurune 2, i’m avoiding starting sequels right now cause i am watching WAY to much... i never watch this much in a season normally it’s like 4-7 shows... 

currently working on: I’m planning an ambitious felt of my oc Ciella, thinking about some stands to make and then wait for a zap sale and then maybe throw some valentines art on the pile cause i just have nothing to do apparently 

tagging: Only do it if you want to of course but I tag @teresashiho @greywaysart @cloudedpoetry

[claitea]

would you recommend dragalia? ive been eyeing it for a while (not like i need another gacha game) but idk how it works

OOO HELL YEAH I RECOMMEND DRAGALIA

first off, it's one of the fairest gacha games i've ever played. i've tried a few — the battle cats, kh union cross, animal crossing pocket camp, pokemon masters, ff brave exvius — and none of them come CLOSE to how generous dragalia is. very steady stream of summon currency, they lowered it a bit recently but its still pretty decent, 250~ summons a month if i remember correctly but that sounds really off haha... its summon system also features a pity rate, where every 10 summons you do without summoning a 5-star, you get an increased chance to summon one in subsequent summons. they also recently introduced wyrmsigils: every summon you do earns you a wyrmsigil, get 300 and you can just pick from the rate-up characters on the banner. 300 sounds like a lot but its not really!!

even if you didn't summon a 5-star, a lot of 4 and even 3 stars are just as good if not better sometimes. they're constantly buffing old adventurers, so you don't have to continously summon the new ones bc of powercreep!

adding to how generous it is, its very kind to newbies and free-to-players. upgrade materials aren't stupidly hard to come by and newbies get so many rewards to start them off. i will say the recent update made the wyrmprint system harder to access especially for newcomers, bc the cost of upgrading your prints has skyrocketed... lots of people complained so i'm hoping they change it, even i'm struggling with the stupid thing

the game itself is really fun imo, just the right level of difficulty for me, lots of different playstyles for all the weapon types and adventurers. its just repeatedly tapping the screen to hit things but like? its so fun??? the 2nd anniversary happened 2 months ago and it overhauled nearly the entire game, including buffing almost the whole roster so EVERYONE is at least decent (except vice. he got nerfed. such an injustice.)

along with that the game is constantly uodated with new events every 1-2 weeks, they may all kind of be the exact same gameplay but somehow i barely ever get tired of it.

what i really like is all the extra content you get alongside the main campaign and events!! every adventurer and dragon you can get comes with a story you can read, there's extra castle stories which are similar little skits, and it has a joke comic strip, reminiscent of newspaper funnies, with an ultra cute art style that i ADORE. honestly some of the side plotlines are better than the main one... (i am talking specifically about heinwald, curran and lathna)

almost every character is really unique and charming, so many really varied designs which i love. best one is orsem of course, i will not be persuaded otherwise this is non-negotiable

OOOO AND THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD... they collaborate with a lot of different artists so a lot of the recent events especially have unique themes. checkmate, we are the lights, bon fever, force your way, cinderella step and bokurano network are personal favorites! and the menu theme from the fire emblem collab... so good

speaking of collabs, its also done ones with mega man and monster hunter, granblue fantasy characters make appearances and theres the princess connect collab coming up! i know nothing about those series but maybe you do? idk

main drawback is the 5+gb space it requires hdgjfjtdjf i can't even try genshin impact bc of it... i have no room :(

tl;dr: i adore dragalia because its a quality game and its super underappreciated so i want more people to play it. please play it. this was not a sponsored post.

[tainbocuailnge]

fgo criticisms have been flaring up in the wake of dw’s sakura wars mobile game quitting after only half a year but I have a disease that makes me get defensive when people try to rip fgo apart as this uniquely terrible game with uniquely terrible devs so i’m going to complain about people who are complaining for a bit.

i hadn’t heard of the sakura wars game before it shut down but from what i’ve been able to find it suffered from a lot of the same problems as (launch) fgo, terrible gacha rates with no pity, slow ap recovery rates, barebones repetitive gameplay. so i guess seeing how fast sakura wars was shut down people feel like it’s only the fate name holding up fgo and in the early launch days of barely playable fgo that was definitely the case but I don’t think it’s fair to fgo to act like people only continue to play it because it’s fate, and “being like fgo” wasn’t the only problem with sakura wars either. sakura wars is a vn/dating sim series that attempted to revive the series with a mobile game that featured none of the original cast that fans cared about while fate was already a series with new characters and a new setting every instalment and the thing that stood out in this new game was actually that it DID have characters from previous fates available. hell, it’s not fair to sakura wars to claim that its series name is simply weaker than fate’s when there were other factors involved in its failure beyond “being a delightworks game”

fgo DOES improve, launch fgo is unrecognisable compared to current fgo in a good way. events have become more streamlined (events have mid- to lategame enemy hp scaling but feature damage ce’s to let newer players keep up, mission events are set up so that they basically clear themselves just by farming the most recently unlocked node), they experiment with new game modes and gameplay mechanics on the regular, they’re taking more care to make viable permanent servants and buff the older ones, and the past few months there’s also been a noticeable effort to throw out random banners for minor things as an excuse to rerun old limited servants more often. I’ll admit the bar is on the low side (strengthening quests are a ridiculous model, there shouldn’t be this many limiteds to need reruns in the first place, etc) and progress is slower than many people are willing to put up with, and I’m not saying anyone Has to put up with it or they’re a fake fan or whatever, but like, granblue fantasy is seven years old and still doesn’t have the ability to uncap a weapon multiple stages at a time when its entire gameplay loop centers around farming and uncapping weapons and they’ve buffed heles like 7 times but she’s still shit, none of fgo’s problems are exclusive to fgo.

i LIKE playing fgo. i like tapping the cards and watching my little guys go and coming up with different teams to make them go harder or just look good together or even lean into the Themes. and this is going a little bit on a tangent but i have this post window open anyway i was talking with friends earlier that one problem that a lot of mobile games seem to have is that they use “making the game play itself” as substitute for “making the game fun to play”. the only game with autobattle functionality (out of the ones I play, i don’t know everything that’s out there of course) that I feel DOESN’T do this is arknights, where you solve the puzzle that the stage presents in order to earn the right to not have to solve the puzzle every single time you play the stage and coming up with different efficient or perhaps ridiculous ways to solve the puzzle is part of playing the game. the worst case I know is dragalia lost which upon realizing that playing it sucks implemented an item to just let you skip playing stages altogether. “this game is good because you don’t have to play it” is not the selling point some people (and devs) think it is, and fgo refuses to fall into that trap - something I believe is an intentional decision because of their explicit refusal to implement NP skip.

one big advantage that fgo has over the other mobile games i’ve played is that it’s entirely turn based with no real time elements beyond start and end times of events. fgo doesn’t NEED to continue playing itself when you look away because looking away has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to clear the quest, fgo doesn’t give a shit if you look away for six hours and then close the game and only reopen it another ten hours later, you can continue right where you left off. the problem is not that you have to manually play the quest, because as far as the system is concerned you can take as much time as you like to clear that quest, it’s that the greater structure of the game wants you to repeatedly manually clear the same low-stakes quest for disproportionately small rewards. this one’s easy enough to solve by just increasing material droprates across the board. repeat clearing a low level quest is much less frustrating if you actually get drops every other clear.

but that’s a bandaid solution, because related to the issue of having to manually farm low-stakes quests is the lack of high-stakes quests to do when you want to do something a little more engaging than routine farming. outside of event challenge quests with their time limited availability, certain main story chapters that you can’t replay, and recently on JP the permanently available kiara challenge quest in the main interlude, there simply isn’t any difficult content to play. you could argue about fgo’s merit as strategy rpg in the first place i suppose but if you ask me it does have that merit and there is a clear effort from dw’s part to improve the depth of fgo’s strategy elements, the issue is that there is simply not that much content available to unleash those strategies on. of course you’re gonna get bored if all there is to do is either brainlessly repeat the same quest for minimal rewards or play the specific challenge quest that the game hands you right this moment regardless of whether that’s the kind of challenge you feel like facing right now. the solution to this one, although it’s likely going to take some significant effort on dw’s side to implement, is to make main story quests replayable.

you want to flex your brain muscles but there’s no challenge event right now? you stomped on a boss by using overpowered servants the first time but want to challenge yourself with some 3* this time? or the other way around, you beat a boss by the skin of your teeth the first time but want to stomp all over them now that you rolled some bitching 5*? you rolled a servant that’s not that suitable for day to day farming but would really shine in more difficult content and you want to try them out? you have a silly strategy in mind that would only work against certain story enemies? you’re like me and just really crave the shimosa duels? all of this involves content that already exists and is available in the game, dw would just have to figure out a way to let you access it again after clearing the chapter. and of course ideally this extends to event story quests once they’re added to the main interlude

i guess another way to put it is that i think the reason a lot of people say fgo has bad gameplay is not that its gameplay system is actually bad, in fact it has the potential to be very engaging, but rather that it’s a system that is set up to respect your time through the ability to put down the game absolutely whenever you want without being penalised, only for the game around it to go and penalise you for putting it down anyway. if you don’t diligently spend all your ap farming this quest you won’t get single damn material drop, and if you don’t play the event while it‘s happening you’re going to miss out because you can’t be sure when if ever it’ll return. so the number one way to solve the problem of fgo’s “bad gameplay” is not to make the game play itself whenever it tells you to play, but rather to make content more easily available so you don’t have to play if you don’t want to and CAN play if you do want to. thank you for coming to my ted talk i suppose

[mxthtea]

another break from req to write somethin dragalia !! hope no one minds, this is a slight vent piece but i hope it's okay <3

note: modern au! laxi and mascula are siblings and the relationship with the reader is platonic, but can be read as romantic if you wish. (will write romantic stories with the two separately another time)

request info (send in dragalia + bsd req if you want ahaha)

laxi x gn!reader x mascula warnings: reader is going through stressful time, crying, hugging, ooc laxi and mascula, grammar + spelling mistakes, tell me if i forgot any. description:

someone who will cry over the slightest change and have a breakdown from it. a little kid who finds themself throwing a fit each time one of their friends has to leave the park and go back home. a kid who cries when they don't get what they want. that's what you were.

but on this night, it was different. you still cried, of course. but this time you weren't on your own for once.

word count: 1.1k

the days felt so long to you and the nights felt so short. a lot in your life has changed over the past few months that it feels so unnatural to now be able to cool down from it all. but even then, it still feels like the earth is spinning at top speed and you can't do anything about it anymore. you're simply stuck on the ride that might not ever end.

so of course, you end yourself crying on many nights. laying on your bed as a river of tears starts to drip from your face into your hands to create puddles of horrible memories. they drip over your hands into the sheets and turn them a deeper color, different from the ones you find yourself falling asleep on after the tears. that's why, whenever you look at yourself in the mirror, you see a crybaby instead of yourself.

someone who will cry over the slightest change and have a breakdown from it. a little kid who finds themself throwing a fit each time one of their friends has to leave the park and go back home. a kid who cries when they don't get what they want. that's what you were.

but on this night, it was different. you still cried, of course. but this time you weren't on your own for once.

your friends, mascula and laxi, promised that they'd come over to your nice for the day to help you with things. after talking to them about what's happening, they said they wanted to come over and help you with the house to take some stress off of your shoulders. laxi said that she'd be staying the night as well to make sure you were okay in the morning and mascula agreed to do so as well. and with their help, the three of you set up space in the living room for them to sleep.

yet you still found yourself crying in your room again. even after all the help your two best friends did, you were still crying? you weren't a kid that cried when they didn't what they wanted. you were now just a kid that cried whenever. nothing to spark the tears other than yourself. it made you feel so guilty.

how dare you have such good friends that help you when you're in need yet still cry after everything they've done.

the creak of the door threw you off.

you jumped as you saw a familiar petite figure walk in.

"laxi?" you rubbed your eyes to save yourself a bit of dignity, "why're you up at this hour?"

"i could ask you the same thing. it's just as late for you too," laxi replied.

she walked up to your bed and sat at the opposite end of it from you. not making herself get too close to you in case you were uncomfortable but still letting you know she was there to comfort you.

"did me crying wake you up? i'm so-"

"you don't have to apologize. a lot of been happening, right? you can cry all you want if it makes you feel better."

you sighed and looked at your window, the moon was too high up in the deep sky to light up your room. a few minutes ago, it made you feel just as lonely.

"that's the thing though… i've been crying every night lately. i feel like a little kid now, a crybaby that never shuts up. it makes me feel so weird but i don't know what else to do anymore."

laxi scooted closer to you and took one of your hands in hers, just as another figure entered the room.

"about time, mascula," laxi semi-teased.

"mmm whatever, it's early," mascula yawned as he walked up to your side of the bed. he didn't sit next to you or laxi but he stood by the bed and wrapped his arms around you.

"we're here for you, y/n. you know what right?" mascula asked.

tears welled in your eyes again. staining your face again as they dripped down onto mascula this time.

"it's just… i feel so weak crying so much now. it makes me feel so useless. and i'm even crying when i have the both of you here to help me, even after everything you two have done today."

"of course you'd still be sad" laxi said as she tightened the hold she had on your hand, "we can't fix everything here. you're still feeling stressed from everything, right? your sibling moving farther away from you and the other changes that have been happening with your other family members. it's not something that can be fixed with your friends staying at your place for the day and sleeping over as well."

mascula nodded at his sister's words, "but we're still here for you. we can stay over for a few more nights and help you with things around the house. i won't lie but i'm pretty good at cooking and laxi can help with the cleaning. just don't put anything on the top shelf or she can't reach-"

mascula's words were cut off as laxi reached and flicked him right on his forehead. it made you chuckle. even in such a bleak moment at night, they still found a way to make you laugh once again.

"as i was saying before rudely interrupted, we're both here for you y/n. and if you need anything, then we can help you with it. we can't heal every single on of your wounds even if we wish we could, but we can still help you bring out the tools you need to patch yourself help. if you need as well, i can help you find someone to talk to."

you used your free hand to reach up and wipe your eyes from the tears once again welling up from their sweet words. it felt so strange to you to receive such affection you felt you didn't ever deserve. yet you knew, if you tried to reject it, they'd come back with something even sweeter to say to you.

"th-thanks you two- it means a lot," you said, your voice sounded different from all the crying and restless nights combined together.

"you have no need to thank us, me and my brother love you a lot."

"i love you too, laxi."

mascula let out a lighthearted huff and hugged you tighter.

"and i love you too, mascula."

you heard an amused breath from laxi as she let go of your hand.

"we can stay with you for the night if you want us to," laxi suggested.

you nodded, "that'd be nice."

laxi laid on the other side of the bed as you too laid down in the middle beside her, mascula laying on your side as he still held you. laxi took your hands in hers and hold them gently, drifting off quickly. mascula followed soon after judging from how his breathing calmed down into a steady rhythm from behind you.

after some time, you too found yourself drifting into a dreamless sleep for once in a while.

[zephyr-paladyn]

masculaxi character analysis/appreciation

it's been over a year since gala masculaxi's release and i'm still not over it

(heavy dragalia lost spoilers ahead)

(gala mascula does not exist btw) i just love how mascula and laxi are designed as two parts of a whole, basically one half of the same ideal/same person. you can't have one without the other. if you heavily favor one over the other i dont trust you... only half joking. when laxi went berserk and mascula had to save her by giving her his heart in their debut ch11, that was just... such a moment... it shows them at their most "separate" (laxi in berserk/annihilation mode, and mascula stopping at nothing to disengage combat.) which sets us up for their development as two hearts in one body. in masculaxi (flame blade)'s story, they're still at odds but they begin to learn to cooperate in the same body, and this is the beginning of their "convergence." in ch14 of the main story is when we see the beginnings of eden mode. when all the androids sacrifice themselves for euden and co to advance, mascula realizes it his empathetic heart that influenced them and led them to their painful deaths. he then shuts down his ego circuit out of guilt. when the team is in a tight spot, and only masculaxi can save the day (since their body is unaffected due to the miasma only affecting organic lifeforms,) laxi goes into their heart to search for mascula and plead him to help her. all this time, laxi had envied mascula's heart for being "more human," but realized that maestro had written the fear of death in all of the android's hearts, and as such, laxi understood the weight of their yearning for peace, with the act of their self-sacrifice for euden. (later we do learn with gala masculaxi that mascula had been influencing laxi more. here we see laxi's influence on mascula to urge him to fight.) laxi gets mascula out of the gay baby jail zone, releases her limiters, and activates annihilation mode hastily. mascula then guides her attacks to the correct targets, which is the first instance we see of mascula engaging in any sort of fighting. in this state of laxi's annihilation mode combined with mascula's guided assault, a new mode beyond annihilation mode becomes available to them: eden mode, when their hearts become one. this mode concentrates all the mana around them inside their body's mana kiln, and gives them even more power. mascula still dislikes fighting and does not want to do it as much, but has a newfound conviction and will not run away when he is needed. an interesting line here is mascula saying this: ▷It's as if he knew our hearts would one day become one. But how...?◁ indicating that from the start, they were truly two halves of a whole ideal. shortly after the release of ch14, we get the release of the flame dagger gala masculaxi unit, which contains eden mode in their gameplay, and expands upon the "two hearts acting as one" deal they have going on. laxi, mascula, and luca head to the ruins of maestro's lab in order to gain more clues on how eden mode works. laxi equips a new armament meant to accommodate eden mode (and demands praise of how good she looks, lol. also laxi is much more snarky in this story which is a treat. she's so funny. but also this shows mascula's emotional influence on her!!!!!) laxi learns of how eden mode works, and essentially it's a release of all limiters and rerouting all circuits to their internal mana kiln, but elimination protocol is activated automatically as well which does not make any distinction between friend and foe. it enhances laxi's combat ability, but mascula has to take care of elimination protocol since he has access and control of it. hence, in eden mode, laxi goes all out in attacking, while mascula controls the body's movements and targets. however this is only possible if their hearts act as one. the two are attacked by dyrenell forces and activate eden mode against them, but mascula temporarily loses the will to fight in the middle of the battle, destabilizing and deactivating eden mode. luca is captured and a villager shields them from an oncoming attack, believing in mascula's peaceful ideals. laxi engages tactical retreat and they escape. they engage in a plan to save luca but are attacked by imperials again. they try to go into eden mode but mascula once again disengages eden mode. mascula tells laxi of his regrets and frustrations that he keeps holding her back, but laxi tells him that she found herself synchronizing with him. with the villager (that mascula had saved before and in turn protected masculaxi earlier,) laxi found the value in mercy for enemies. by having laxi bend towards mascula's will, they're able to take on the imperials who chased after them with a truly synchronized eden mode. ▷Laxi, give me the strength to fight!◁ Granted. Now give me the kindness required to temper my actions. ▷Heh. Take all you need!◁ their system strain falls, and they're able to defeat the imperials. laxi, mascula, luca, and euden talk together after all is done. laxi takes interest in a cat, while mascula teaches her how to interact with it. Euden: Laxi and Mascula say the maestro who made them was a peace-loving man, but... Luca: No, I getcha. Why would some peacenik give something THIS much power? ch14 and their gala story really shows how the two embodied different sides of the same ideal -- "fighting for peace," and how they begin to converge upon that ideal. initially laxi only focused on "fighting" and mascula only focused on "peace," but A compassionate heart. ▷The courage to fight.◁ -Eden Mode, activate!- their character development after this is a bit wonky at times because it sets up for gala mascula who is really poorly written and doesn't necessarily align with the ideals established within ch14 and gala masculaxi, or even the development directly before it either. with ageless artifice and ch18 (when the team first enters the faerie kingdom and gets lost,) we get teasers of mascula with his own body. in ageless artifice, eirene steals mascula's body and intends to use it against masculaxi, but mascula takes control of his body and proclaims that his body isn't necessarily him, but what IS him is his resolve to fight for peace alongside his friends. (stays in line with gala masculaxi, right?) in ch18 we also see mascula having a "nightmare/illusion" in which he gains his body back but at the cost of laxi going berserk once more, showing that they truly cannot function at their "fullest ideal" without each other in the same body. laxi asks mascula if he wants his own body back, and mascula says he sometimes misses it but overall he wants to continue fighting with her the way they are. this is echoed in ch19, take this exchange for example: Mascula, I know you were thinking of your own body while lost in the mountain's illusions. You gave up your body to save me, and I owe you an apology for that. ▷Don't apologize—I wanted to do it. Plus, being with you makes me happy.◁ I want to see a peaceful world just as we are in this body now—together. ▷I feel the exact same way.◁ ▷No more hesitation. You and I are going to fight with Maestro as a team.◁ And together... ▷...we will bring peace.◁ reaffirming their ideals together and keeping in line with their development, right? mascula doesn't WANT his own body back. he wants to keep fighting with laxi, that's THE WHOLE POINT OF THEIR CHARACTERS. which does not make sense when we get the remote control BS IN THE SAME CHAPTER??? (teased from the ending of ageless artifice with chelle) and mascula has his own body again as a remote control system. now the portrayal in the main story wasn't AS bad but... the real problem comes to gala mascula as an adventurer with his stories and voice lines. this "mascula" proclaims of how much he loves/misses his body and how he "doesn't need laxi dragging him around anymore." like sure he sometimes feels being in laxi's body with her is bothersome but overall, at his heart, he wouldn't really say something like that??? mascula your voice lines are so contradictory to what just happened in the main story and what you said in ageless artifice what happened!!!!!!! his adventurer story lacks the cooperative laxi-mascula dynamic we knew and loved, and instead pushes mascula front and center to try to push him to do things himself. we didn't really need mascula getting his own body back anyways, but you COULD'VE AT LEAST written it so that they have more emphasis on cooperation with each other?? god im sorry i just. AUGH he's so OBVIOUSLY hastily pushed into their development arc and he loses his characterization. it's obvious gala mascula wasn't intended to be a thing in the initial plan for masculaxi... i am not forgiving every single one of you who sent in feedback for playable mascula. once again only half joking... maybe only a quarter joking. 1/8ths joking. radioactive decay graph joking. (also just a tiny nitpick: you can apparently run gala mascula and laxi/gala laxi on the same team. lore compliancy who? eden mode can't be activated while the remote control unit is active. but whatever) though another interesting plot point is brought up in his story though? maestro's origins, the writing of "seek peace" on mascula and laxi's bodies being in a language that only the sky city ark people would know.. with such an elaborate plan for such a complex android duo, and everything else mysterious about this man, just who is he? his master plan of masculaxi was really amazing to see come to fruition... maestro fought on the side of dyrenell, against dragons -- against elysium you could say. although ex machina seeks the destruction of terrestrial life because they "allied with the dragons" (a misconception,) on the contrary maybe maestro aimed to create an ultimate weapon for terrestrials to defend themselves against the dragons. however this weapon had to also understand the value of what it was fighting for -- learning for itself how to go about "fighting for peace." thus, the creation of the twins mascula and laxi; two halves of a whole. by having a compassionate and adaptable heart, they can change with the times, understand the people around them, and decide on their own what the best course of action is in various situations. i love love LOVE masculaxi and how they're written!! (for the most part.) two of my faves in the game and i love them and their characterization so much, i just wish more people could see the intricacies of their relationship and how they're literally like. 1/2 of the same thing. it's such a beautifully written dynamic and development, and i want others to appreciate it too.

a little bonus, in this character art, you can see the "star tetrahedron" shapes. in sacred geometry symbolism, the "star tetrahedron" is the sixth shape enclosed within "metatron's cube." these shapes, and this cube, are said to maintain the balance of the world itself and its flows/processes. as for the "star tetrahedron" itself, it represents duality: physical body and spiritual self; male and female; and heaven and earth. this ties into mascula and laxi's characters: mascula controlling the "mind" in eden mode while laxi focuses on the attacking "body;" and mascula and laxi being of different genders. as for "heaven" and "earth," this could represent maestro coming from the sky city ark, and masculaxi being technology intended to aid humans. alternatively for "heaven" and "earth," the fact that the star tetrahedron is enclosed within "metatron's cube" may be a pointer to metatron in-universe. the archangels all have white hair, a trait shared by masculaxi. additionally, sandalphon is somewhat mechanical/technological herself. masculaxi being man-made (of the earth,) versus their potential connection to the angels (of the heavens.)

[flyingcookierambles]

hm reflection on afterl!fe?

i feel a bit sad that the game got shut down so young. like. super young. it was only about 4 or 5 months old i think? it was just. wow. up to that point i’ve never seen a gacha go down so fast. im not sure if it was mainly due to the pandemic or not, but im sure that the pandemic didn’t help at all.

but also to be totally honest i. couldn’t get into the game. and i think the reason is how they introduced the characters. which is to say that they didn’t really? 

sure the story started with you starting off as a manager of a soul reaper class/dorm/ its been months so i honestly forget? the boys are there and you go on your first mission with them (it was also their first mission i believe?). the main cast has 20 boys. they’re all introduced to you at once. it. a lot. or, it was a lot for me at least. i feel like i might’ve gotten more into it if it did something like A3! did with introducing all the characters troupe by troupe so that you only got 5 new guys 4 times. plus the 4 or 5 other mankai members (ken, matsukawa, yuzo, etc.), plus the god troupe (only 2 guys) got introduced gradually and in small amounts at the first act. and then, recently since A3! English got to Act 2, we have 4 more new characters, the rookies. again, they were introduced gradually and we had a 30-34-ish chapter episode to learn about the new guys of each troupe in Act 1. so, even tho A3! total character count is larger than After L!fe, I didn’t feel overwhelmed. And maybe After L1fe didn’t have to have entire episodes to have whole character arcs for the boys, but i do feel like having the player character/manager have 2 or 3 short chapters of interacting exclusively with only one reaper team rather than tossing all 20 characters at you at once would’ve helped me not feel overwhelmed. 

i think that the sense of being overwhelmed like something is just too much is also what prevents me from, or at least makes me really really procrastinate, another gacha game, GranBlue Fantasy. Unlike After L!fe, GBF is actually 6 years or so now, has 100+ characters, and about 1000+ main story chapters. its ridiculous. by logic, as a person who knows that there’s games that have even more stuff going on, i should not have felt the feeling on a new baby game with a small manageable cast was too much, but i did. and so the game just ended up sitting in my phone storage until i decided to delete it in favor of having more space for my other gacha games and apps.

and i felt a bit bad because i wanted to like after l!fe. it has a cool supernatural concept that i feel like not a lot of other fantasy gacha have tried, i feel like a lot of other fantasy gacha is more traditional LOTR/living people-fantasy (gbf, dragalia, etc. the art was nice and the app was fast. (i did get a bit lost in the menus tho, what the heck was that....)

for people that did actually get into the game, i do hope that the company can make a comeback or something someday so you can play it again. i also never got into the main story due to *gestures vaguely above*, but i heard that it was really good and there was some giant cool plot twist at the end of where the main story ended before the game shut down and now im kinda really curious about it. is there at least a wiki or summary i can read of the main story?

[iturbide]

Are there any non-3H headcanons you want to share? Also... how are you doing? Been (re)playing anything lately?

that's such a broad question i literally don't even know where to start

I have a lot of problems trying to answer things that don't give me much direction. It's one thing to say "a 3H headcanon," because that gives me a single specific game to focus on; it's another entirely to say the opposite, because then the options include the long list of fics I have in progress, or other FE games like Awakening or Heroes, or non-FE games like Ace Attorney or Pokemon, or completely unrelated media like Promare or Into the Spiderverse. For me that's honestly overwhelming and my brain kind of goes into overload and then shut-down trying to process it all. So for headcanon stuff, if people could state a specific title they do want instead of one they don't want, that's a lot easier for me to deal with.

(In the interests of giving some kind of answer, I'm just going to say that in Spiderverse I have a headcanon that the Aunt May from Miles' universe is actually the one who built most of Peter Parker's gear and his spider base.)

I haven't been doing much of anything lately, to be honest. I've been having trouble focusing on writing, so mostly I've just been throwing a lot of time into Dragalia Lost, doing my daily rounds in Animal Crossing, etc. I started the new Pokemon Snap when it came out and I've been obsessive about getting nice shots but I also haven't felt compelled to pick it up again recently, so I'm only halfway through. Heck, I ended up making a blanket a couple weekends ago just because counting the stitches gave me something solid to pay attention to...and then I ended up finishing it in a day and a half because I hyperfocused a little whoops. I've been thinking about art but after the whole 'making a blanket it two days' thing I'm trying to give my wrist a break before I put too much stress on it, so things are just...weird? The lack of focus really bugs me though which is part of why I put out ask requests as an attempt to give my brain something to latch onto for a bit.