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bleachposting · 2 years

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just finished bleach anime and

i really feel the arc it has gotten to take as a shounen anime has been perfect and i’m really glad i got to experience it at this time.

i started bleach in december of last year, just before it was confirmed it would be returning as an anime. i remember tearing through the soul society arc, back when the show had great pacing (haha) before i finally ran into the announcement trailer so this news came as a gift(!) rather than a suggestion to watch the show. in some ways i feel like i’ve been bingeing bleach all year (but can’t be true otherwise i would have finished long ago) and in other ways i feel surprised i beat the deadline to have caught up to the anime (i had to set a goal to watch one episode a day).

i think some people would scoff at this opinion but i really think bleach is getting the perfect run as a shounen and by that i mean, it’s a series that has been fortunate enough to be a classic long-running weekly anime, existed for a while in the era of seasonal shounens then gets rebooted at a perfect time in terms of great animation, pacing and just general hype around anime! even the fact that ya okay there were a lot of tedious filler arcs to distance itself from the manga but rather than continue with that until the manga concluded, they chose to seemingly end the show in respect of the story’s pride (laughs in byakuya), it’s like bleach got the best of both worlds. like silly filler is really just a mark of 2000s era shounen and honestly like ya im eternally raging when im in it but its definitely a product of that period and all those shows which was an iconic time. but at the same time it was never so saturated with filler, or maybe more true is it was self-aware enough when it was filler, that it never made the overall storyline overly convoluted and off-putting.

i also feel arcs 1-15 were very classic weekly shounen energy, like similar energy to naruto, but the lost agent arc was getting closer to the new-gen of shounen that i feel emerged around 2012 with shows like aot and tokyo ghoul. i feel like those shows became a lot more contained within a season, so had better pacing and idk if this was just different subject material or a product of the pacing, but a psychological aspect was added to the anime. i don’t know how gassed up or critiqued arc 16 is, and even for me i wouldn’t be like ‘wow fave arc’ at all but there was something rewarding about the mystery of ichigo regaining his powers. it just felt like an entirely different show and even though i knew it wasn’t filler, i really had to double check that the arc was in the manga as well as if it was still a weekly running, rather than seasonal (it was). also just the improvement in animation and set design that season really made it feel like it was a complete different season of bleach. and all the tropes of that season! the time skip, the losing/regaining powers arc, that the usual allies don’t appear (mostly) until Ichigo needs them pov story-telling, the character redesigns, the absolutely new all-knowing cast of characters, like !!! so perfect!!! just iconic anime tropes that deserved to be explored in bleach!!! idc if people say that’s cliche, i say its signature!!!

it makes me so glad that this new season will probably bring that same energy, mainly in the redesigns. although i’m not a manga reader, it seems lost agent arc was a tedious but necessary story to get ichigo his power backs and get the plot to a point where an epic arc can be told so I’m glad it was covered in 2012.

:’) just feeling v v glad i timed my watching of bleach right and that it was the shounen i chose to revisit at this age. it had just the right amount of nostalgia, in that i’m under the impression i watched but barely retained the first two arcs (in anime) and read the manga sporadically (i remember owning the physical volume with ulquiorra on it!!) about ten years-ish ago so i’d have slight moments of deja vu for characters but for the most part it was a new story.

but ya i guess this is gonna be a bleach fan blog lmao if any one wants to gas up bleach together, has advice on best anime blogs to follow, etc! also if anyone knows how to hide tags so i don’t get spoiled would also be lovely to know hehe tumblr has changed A L O T since i was last here and i don’t want to read the manga, just want to experience the anime fresh ;u; (also this blog will be pretty soon i just want to express my feelings haha also silly but i been sitting on this blog/url for like six months which is c r a z y)

also hisagi is best boy no.1 and urahara and hirako are tied for best boy no.2 and i live for hisagi x kira broship this has been a psa

#bleach #bleach anime

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victorlimadelta · 4 years

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// @preuzien pokeverse au //

Name: Katherine Ann “Pidge” Holt Age: 17 Gender: Cis female Ethnicity: Italian Sexuality: Bisexual Occupation: Electric Gym Leader of Preuzien Religion: Atheist (raised Catholic) Languages: German (fluent), Italian (fluent), English (fluent), French (conversational), Russian (conversational), Japanese (still picking up, a small amount and written only) FC: Bex Taylor-Klaus as Sin from Green Arrow, except with auburn hair

Notes Her father, Sam Holt, and brother, Matt Holt, were influential Prussian battle scientists, but have been missing for nearly a year now. There was a public press announcement about their deaths, along with the death of one of the region's Gym Leaders for whom they had been working--but that Gym Leader has come back, so where is her family? (Long story short: there was an Incident with a Dialga and they were kind of all set adrift in time, but Takashi Shirogane made it back--her family still hasn't.) She fraudulently enrolled in Trainer School at age eight and a half. Because no one tells Pidge Holt where she can and can't be, where she can and can't go, and who she can or can't impersonate to get what she wants. Her precocity rivals the Champion's own; she was one of the ones watching his lectures when she was his age and laughing along with his jokes. Really, she's uncomfortably like Tobias in a lot of ways, including her similar paranoia, except hers isn't neurotic like his is. She sees it as a practical defense mechanism against an unforgiving and unpredictable world. She got into the habit of making casual dossiers on people she was close to, not because she dislikes them but because she likes to think she knows them and "just in case the worst happens, I want to be prepared."

Gym Pidge's gym is a series of puzzles and endurance challenges. Yes, there's a lot of hurrhurr make the current match, make the polarity match like you find in other regions' Electric-type Gyms, but ramped up to 11. You can and will get electrocuted if you fail some of these timed puzzles. You can and will drop out of her Gym if you don't make it through enough of them in a row. There's quite a few convolutions here, though. The Electric Gym will occasionally have more than one solution to a puzzle, or will have unsolvable puzzles that require alternative 'solutions' to break through to the next challenge. If you're not creative, if you can't think out of the box, if you can't innovate your way out of the situation, you're not going to make it. In addition, as you go, Pidge and her Trainers are creating a dossier on you, of how you work with your team, how you approach each problem and how you choose to solve it. Pidge will occasionally let you go on to the next challenge even if it appears that you failed the previous one. She will occasionally stop you from proceeding even if it looks like you found the correct solution. Even if you make it to her Gym Leader battle, and beat her, she occasionally will not give you her Badge because you didn't do it "the right way." You will bust your brain on her Gym. If it doesn't break you intellectually at least a little bit, it's not doing its job. You cannot brute force this Gym, because so often it appears to be outright random. Speaking of breaking you intellectually: the final 'challenge' of Pidge's Gym is the traditional Milgram Experiment. She was hesitant to include this without feedback from Tobias and Renate, but they've convinced her eventually that this was, maybe not a good idea, but an acceptable one. - For those who don't know the reference at once: the Milgram Experiment involved asking a participant in a psychological experiment to administer an electric shock when someone made a mistake in memorizing and recalling a list of words. The issue here is that the test subject was the administrator, not the recipient. The recipient never received an electric shock, but instead gave audio feedback from the other side of a wall on the supposed pain of the electric shock. The electric shocks were fake, but the doses were calculated to run from annoying to fatal. The actors receiving the shocks were instructed to react accordingly. If any test subject expressed reticence about administering the shocks upon cries of pain from the actors, the person running the test said a phrase similar to 'The test requires that you continue.' Nothing more, nothing less. - This test was designed to tell to what level a human being could attribute their decisionmaking process to a person in authority telling them to do something, and how much responsibility they felt they could absolve if it was no longer up to them to stop. Because the tests were originally conducted in the 1950s at the inception of the Cold War (and also, consequently, after the conclusion of WWII and the revelation of Nazi human experimentation), some of the original “test subjects” were suspicious and apparently threw some of the test results by deliberately being cruel when they figured out it was a farce... it’s an interesting read because of that, because why would you want to throw test results for that. Anyway. - For Pidge, it's also a test of whether you're willing in the first place to administer an electric shock to someone who's done absolutely nothing wrong to you for the sole reason that they've made a mistake on an arbitrary task that has no social or ethical ramifications on whether it's successful or a failure. This is crucial for Preuzien's growth as a country away from what they were and towards what they could be. Strength isn't about using it at every given opportunity, it's about justice in its application. - The only way to ‘pass’ this test is to refuse to participate whatsoever. By the time you've gotten this far, Pidge knows whether it's because you already know what the experiment is, or because you simply refuse to inflict pain on a fellow human being for no reason.

Pokémon This is most of Pidge's battle squad:

Xurkitree

Ability: Beast Boost Notes: Yes, an Ultra Beast. She spent just over a year in Ultra Space hunting down the perfect competitive 'mon, actually; she has almost two and a half boxes full of stat 'fails.' Fun fact, this one knows Power Whip. Have fun with those Ground types you brought to this Gym!

Toxtricity (Low Key) (Gigantamax)

Ability: Punk Rock Notes: Toxtricity is a lot like Pidge: make eye contact and you'll really wish you hadn't. This girl is powerful, can Status your team in two different ways, and has a bad attitude.

Vikavolt

Ability: Levitate Notes: Listen. Vikavolt is a good Poke. It's actually a super strong Bug-type contender and I like alt-types for Gym Leaders to use in their 'single-type' Gyms. Immune to Ground even before Levitate. Again, have fun.

Rotom (nn. "Gremlin")

Ability: Levitate Notes: "It's a gimmick!" You bet your ass it's a gimmick. Pidge keeps making up new little devices for this baby to haunt, too. It's flighty and doesn't like to stay in one device for too long, so you're going to have to deal with some weird STAB changes every few turns. By turn 15, it gains the ability to enter a new device Pidge has invented for it while she's teaching it to Ability Evolve its Levitate to affect her entire team. (The device Levitates her entire team. Including her Toxtricity and her Reuniclus, who are 4x weak to Ground.)

Prussian variant Reuniclus (ace)

Type: Steel/Electric Ability: Infection (evolved Ability from Effect Spore). At the end of each turn, this Pokemon inflicts one of six Status conditions on your Pokemon in sequence. Original Effect Spore has a 10% chance of randomly inflicting Poison, Paralysis, or Sleep on the opponent, a 3.3% chance of each. Infection has a 100% chance to inflict Paralysis on the first turn, Burn on the second, Sleep on the third, Poison on the fourth, Frozen on the fifth, and Infected on the sixth. An Infected Pokemon no longer obeys its Trainer and only obeys Pidge. "That sounds OP!" Preuzien is OP. Also, the style of Preuzien Gym Leader Battles, with its Squad format, really takes the edge off of this Ability whereas it'd be lethal in Singles or Doubles, because the Ability doesn't pick a particular Pokemon to affect, just one of the four opponent Pokemon on the field. That said, you should probably defeat Reuniclus in fewer than six turns so it doesn't cripple your team. Notes: Prussian Solosis (who looks like a little soft wormy boy, sort of like a space caterpillar) was Pidge's first ever Pokemon as a four-year-old child, but he's grown into an absolute monster over the years. Imagine this motherfucker staring you down from the other end of the battlefield. He's terrifying. That's because he looks like a bacteriophage, which is literally a type of virus. (Prussian Duosion looks like an influenza virus, but with arms/hands. If original Reuniclus looks like a bacterial blob, this is just a different form of infective vector.)

#Δ ooc #φ alternate reality #φ preuzien #π headcanon

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tlbodine · 5 years

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1960s: Alfred Hitchcock Appreciation Week

We kicked off the 1960s with a pair of Hitchcock’s best-known and finest films: Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963).

Alfred Hitchcock’s career began with silent films in the 1920s, directing more than 50 feature films in his lifetime. He won 6 Oscars and was nominated for 46. His name is basically synonymous with a certain type of horror-thriller storytelling, and he’s one of my creative influences and part of the reason I fell in love with horror -- I watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents every night as a kid, bundled up in the dark when everyone was asleep. We could do a whole film series on him alone some day, and hell, maybe we will.

But first...

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Psycho is considered by some to be the first modern horror movie and the parent to the slasher genre. It pushed the envelope of propriety in several ways, from its sexual content to its violence (tame by modern standards, but risque for its time). One of the reasons the film was shot in black-and-white was to get past the censors, who definitely would not have approved the amount of on-screen blood released in the famous shower scene.

The story opens on Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh, who is Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother, for the trivia buffs out there), a secretary embroiled in a secretive affair with a freshly divorced lover. They have financial woes that keep them from running off together...which is probably why, when she has the opportunity to steal $40,000 in cash from her employer, she does so. (in 1960, $40k is the equivalent of like $360k modern dollars, because inflation is terrible)

Paranoid and on the run, Crane bumbles her way through her freshly criminal lifestyle before stopping off at a little family-owned motel off a rarely-raveled stretch of highway. There she meets Norman Bates, the owner, who is a truly enigmatic character: Socially awkward, boyish (and vaguely effeminate), alternately charming and off-putting, and with a decidedly unhealthy relationship with his mother.

If you know anything about horror cinema, you know what happens next. If you’ve somehow never seen it or heard of it, I won’t ruin it for you. I can’t imagine what it must have been like watching that movie in 1960, without knowing what would happen.

What truly elevates Psycho and makes it well worth watching even today is Anthony Perkins’ truly spectacular performance as Norman Bates. He sells the role perfectly, delivering a perfect quiet menace (accompanied by a signature dead-eyed stare and vacant, sinister smile).

Here’s a great article about the influence and legacy of Psycho, which I will link to you here instead of rambling on because I could talk about this movie all day: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8593508.stm

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The Birds is one of those movies that has absolutely no right to be as terrifying as it is. “Small coastal town plagued by a swarm of birds” is a patently ridiculous concept, which goes to show what a creative genius Hitchcock is.

The story kicks off when a wealthy socialite with a tabloid reputation (played by Tippi Hedren) has a meet-cute of sorts with an attorney and becomes intrigued enough to look him up for a social call. The story slowly unspools with all the trappings of what could be a screwball romantic comedy, complete with some flirtatious stalking and some (probably unintentional) homoeroticism between two women who are both attracted to the same guy. There’s this whole convoluted personal drama unfolding...that then goes insanely, horribly sideways when birds start attacking.

It’s absolute genius, honestly, and a true signature of Hitchcock’s filmmaking. He spends so much time crafting these characters and this storyline and then crash lands into it with the horror elements. Here are normal people just living their lives -- dramatic in petty ways, as all of our lives are -- and then out of nowhere, here is a horrible thing that happens to them! That’s how horror occurs in real life, and it’s honestly a technique that isn’t used enough in storytelling.

The scene where the crows gather on playground equipment -- first one, then three, then hundreds -- is deeply unsettling. And if you’ve ever lived somewhere where birds swarm and flock, you’ll never look at them the same after watching this film.

Unfortunately, for all his creative genius, Hitchcock was also a sleazy asshole. He psychologically tortured Tippi Hedren during filming and essentially destroyed her career when she turned down his sexual advances, and that wasn’t even an isolated incident. Sadly, that’s a bit of a recurring trend in filmmaking; many of our faves are problematic. That doesn’t take away from his creative legacy, though, or the influence his stories would have, and for that reason he still deserves a spot in the essential canon.

#horror movies #alfred hitchcock #the birds #psycho #I love hitchcock films #I just bought an essential box set #I'm very excited for it #horror by the decade #horror through the decades

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skaian-fiddler · 5 years

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Classpect Analysis: Unraveling Brian David Gilbert

Ill preface this one by saying this: if you havent watched any of the Polygon series “Unraveled” im begging you to please go check it out, it will make your soul happier

Trying to document the defining traits of any media personality is always a problematic pursuit. Think about the Mind aspect: You never know how closely a person’s external identity matches what theyre like in real life. We as a fandom dont know these people personally, and it is often hard to separate the fact from the fiction. But I feel like I can make some good guesses anyway.

So what aspect is the best fit for the Polygon twink, you might ask? I didnt have too much trouble narrowing this one down. He’s manically efficient enough to be a Time player, sure, and the boy definitely has some strong Rage tendencies (the progression of the Sonic video is pretty on par with Gamzee’s whole episode), but I think its pretty safe to say that BDG is basically a poster child of the Light aspect. He excels at synthesizing information from an incredibly vast scope of data to a point that he is arguably best known for making convoluted diagrams and spreadsheets. I toyed with the idea of him being a Prince or Bard of Void as well - god knows that boy is a destructive force, and it would be fitting if his class reflected the complete annihilation of any semblance of obscurity. Eventually, I settled on a Light class that felt like a much better fit: the Page of Light.

Most Unraveled videos follow what is more or less the same trajectory:

BDG approaches a complex and/or daunting topic with the intent of mastering his understanding of it in the time he is allowed

BDG realizes that he is in way over his head and has set an unattainable goal

BDG comes to terms with the fact that in pursuing said unattainable goal, he has still managed to absorb and organize an incredible amount of information

Pretty Page-like behavior, right? Pages are famous for boasting mastery of their aspect and then falling short time and time again in order to learn the aspect’s hard earned truths. I get the impression that actual Brian is a totally humble dude who doesnt actually think he knows everything already - but the character he plays in Unraveled does. Whether his initial boast is “I am going to give you the tools to understand every story, ever”, or “I am going to create a foolproof formula to calculate the perfect game”, his designs very quickly fall to pieces in a ways that are very reminiscient of Tavros’s boasts about his agency, and Jake’s boasts about his gumption.

The best example of this is his Castlevania vid - which, hilariously, wasnt even staged. This dude honestly looked at reviewing the 600+ monsters of the game enough to describe them all in detail in a 15 minute long video and was like: “Yeah. I can do that.” Hubris. The absolute gall.

And just in case you still need convincing

I rest my case

#homestuck #classpect #Light Aspect #page class #page of light #bdg #bdg unraveled #unraveled #such a great ass #god #this fucking heartthrob

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annashipper · 5 years

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JT Anon - Ben & Sophies creepy PR marriage

ah yes of course we get this lovely little story right when Enty says there’s a weird contract between Ben and his totally totally real for love not profit wife. Because love matches have public relations contracts and publicity arrangements in place. oh wait, whats that i hear in the distance? nans drooling as they shout “he is just supporting her any good husband would do that!!11!"

I actually agree w our slobbery pals, it would make perfect sense that a supportive husband would be thrilled to use his resources to help promote his wife a la a family brand! its a little odd considering he has never shown for any of her work. i mean, the guy couldn’t even be bothered to show up for a literal 14min show. doesn’t exactly paint the picture of a man starry eyed for his wifes brilliance

i think people are rightfully disturbed by the way in which this arrangement has ben hammered out. theres a creepy, kinda dark bubbly underneath this, isn’t there?

when we were all laughing that sophie had pals who helped her get attention, that was just kinda sad. this is not sad. this is disturbing.

how incredibly creepy is it that bens pr has been instructed not to simply promote their stars wifes work, but that there is a caveat that this promotion MUST immediately follow any publicity ben gets.

i mean, we didn’t need Enty to tell us this, we’ve seen this pattern so much that its become a running joke. we count down the days to a sophie article after ben gets any shine. it seems now its w/in 24 hours that we get some new tidbit

i say that this is creepy and dark because, think of the type of discussion that had to take place between the two lovebird for an agreement w this specificity to come to fruition.

The reason that i find this whole publicity thing creepy is that…it makes no sense unless Sophie is actually resentful and hateful w regards to bens success.

It makes absolutely zero sense that ben would demand such a convoluted arrangement from his PR w regards to his wifes work. It just makes no sense. Lots of celebrity wives kinda become demi celebs off their spouses. Wives get book deals and fashion lines hosting gigs and modelling jobs all the time (see Leos entire dating history).

its this demand that she get equal amounts of publicity w in a certain time period of Ben getting publicity that has a sinister vibe to it.

the only reason that anyone would want that specific of an arrangement is if they were resentful of the other party getting attention. what other explanation is there for this exact sched.

because sophies calendar is hardly booked in a way that required time sensitive publicity, you know what i mean? for example, its not like she has a play coming out next month, so why exactly did she NEED that interview released IMMEDIATELY after ben did a charity event?

all of the press sophie has got in the past year has absolutely not required that it come on the heels of attention for Ben, so why not wait a week or two?

Only someone who is jealous and resentful of the attention ben gets would have this specific caveat in place. its completely unnecessary. they could easily mention ben in her copy to make sure it gets trending. i mean they went so far as to put "wife of benedict cumberbatch” to get people interested in her, right? add a hashtag, i promise you, all the same people reading about his charity will see her thing also

under what circumstances is this request appropriate

“Thank you honey, I appreciate the support! Just one small thing, I need you to make sure that I get the same amount of media mentions you do, even if I don’t have any active projects, and I must get media attention anytime you do, ok? thanks love!"

I dunno about you all, but thats…creepy. its creepy. it just simmers w jealousy and resentment.

can you imagine being married to someone who resents your success so much that they make demands like this? because why else would she even think to add this in? why would a tit for tat arrangement even cross her mind?

its got to be so unnerving living w someone who is so simmering w jealousy and resentment over your success that they go so far as to, rather than receive bens help w grace and love, make sure there are rules so that ben doesn’t get a single stitch of attention w out her getting some also

im not w other skeptics who diagnose people over the net, but i will say, this is creepy creepy creepy. it really, to me, makes sophie out to be terribly unbalanced imo. only an extremely fragile and jealous person would ask to have it set up like this

poor ben. he has worked so hard to get so far. the wonderful career he seemed to be building is not exactly on fire, and now his team has to extend its resources making sure his wife gets just the exact same amount of publicity he does, and it must be ready to go w/in a few days.

I can’t imagine living w someone so unbalanced and creepy and clawing that they would even think to have this sort of agreement in place

Ill just leave you w this, since my gf reads Annas blog (hey there girlie ;-) . She just got a wicked wicked promotion at work. Not only is it a really big jump, but its history making given who she is. she is telling everyone who will listen (rightfully so) all about it. family, friends, co workers, the deli guy she sees all the time (reasons).

under no circumstances would i tell her that while she is rightfully boasting and enjoying her moment after a lot of hard work, that she had to mention and talk about something im working on.

it would also never, ever cross my mind to quickly follow up her story and joy w my own story just to make sure i was also getting praise and attention

why? because i love my partner, and im proud of her work, and i love it when she gets positive attention. i love it. im not jealous of it, and i don’t have any desire to ride her coat tails and sponge off her.

sophie, on the other hand, cannot seem to stomach ben getting praise or attention. otherwise, why have this sort of arrangement?

J I hope ben mentions this in an interview and desperately tries to make it out like this was his idea T anon

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I have to say I disagree with you JT.

I don’t think it’s jealousy or resentment that drives the re-re-re-re-re-re-introductions of Madame Fetchless within a couple of days of Ben getting press of his own.

I believe it’s nothing more than making sure Weirdo’s pieces in the (progressively growing in obscurity) media outlets will get maximum exposure. If people are interested in a piece of news surrounding Ben, it only makes sense to attach his wife’s re-introductions to that piece of news within a brief timeframe, so that people will be tricked into reading the articles re-introducing her to the world as well.

Anyway, I digress.

CONGRATULATIONS on the big promotion JT’s girlfriend!!!

#JT anon

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pickyperkypenguin · 5 years

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Recently I remembered that Mabel podcast exists. As I had an upcoming journey, it seemed like a perfect occasion to renew my interest in it, and to get to know how the story of Anna Limon and Mabel unfolds.

(Disclaimer: I am writing all this after listening to twenty five episodes. I don’t exclude the possibility that I’d change my mind, had I listened to more, but for now this is what I think. Also, I had no idea I’ve had so much to say about Mabel podcast, so the length of this text is a surprise both for you and for me. tl;dr: I love the idea of this story, execution could be better.)

What I realised after listening to a couple of episodes after a long break (and the natural break in the narrative, at which point I initially finished), was that it’s, like, Really Bad. But, you know, sort of in a good way.

The general premise is something that a person ( I, the person. When I say we or a person I mean I, but it’s too late to care about my phrasing now) wishes badly to exist. Who doesn’t want a queered fairy tale, dramatic and tragic lesbian romance, the kind that somehow feels like in every single scene the heroes (heroines, in this case) are standing over the edge of a cliff, their ripped white shirts barely covering their chests, their bodies shivering from the wind, and somebody is about to kill or kiss the other person. You know, the romantic as in the historical period kind. Everything over the top, but better, because it’s not subtextually, but screamingly textually queer.

And it works at certain points, really – the queerness of the heroines queers the structure of the story, it plays on the archetypes and sort of fulfils the desire to appropriate them for the queer self for once. It’s a pleasant feeling.

The descriptions are flowy and opulent, the romance goes how certain type of straight romances would go – assuming that the listener will assume the same stuff about a queer couple, as about heterosexual one. And it provides the portrait of an unhinged, feral, burning and at times tender love I see so rarely in queer narratives, because it often would be considered “problematic” (again, it would not, was it a straight romance, but we do tend to have higher expectations for queer romances) or simply botched (it often is in straight romances). It’s the love that’s not really supposed to be nice, and that’s based on imagining and idealisation of the other person more than the reality of the connection (and it goes both ways, as we see after finally getting Mabel’s POV). It is indeed for the most of time disconnected, here by literally a wall between the worlds, but not as the finishing scene, but by the duration. The sun and moon type of romance (and the podcast seems self-aware of all that, I think the creators are delighting in the fact that they can construct it like this).

And I think that till a certain point it all sort of works out more or less, minus the details I’ll be complaining about. When it comes to the luscious descriptions creating the atmosphere of a fairy tale in vivid detail, they are really over the top, bordering on purple prose (or sometimes just plunging right into it). The repetitions and flowery adjectives have their own charm and work in small amounts. I thought – maybe it was not made for binge listening? But no, on the other hand the structure of plot is slow to unfold and convoluted enough, that were I listening to it week-by-week, I’d get nothing from it, really, and would probably be discouraged by the fact that it’s not as much that I don’t understand anything, but I can’t see the larger plot that’s supposed to be unfolding. It’s a mystery-based podcast at first, and I would probably forget what would be considered as base-level unusual in-world, and it would not make an effective impression on me with the increase of oddity.

Another explanation of the purple language – maybe it’s Anna Limon’s character? Maybe she is that kind of girl – after all, for what we know she might as well be going crazy in an old lady’s house, fixating on mysteries and family history that’s not hers for the lack of anything to do? The voicemail “letters” (for a lack of better word, but it has that feel of XIXth century love letters, you know) charm at first. Well, at least me. (Same went with Alice Isn’t Dead, with the main character constantly addressing her wife that she misses – that was I think the first time I encountered a wlw affection showed like this, and I liked the idea very much).

Unfortunately, the formula starts breaking when the first arc of the story ends, and we get to know Mabel’s point of view and Mabel’s character. Here the similarities of that language start grating: Mabel is a not-really-a-girl-what-does-human-mean-at-this-point who has been isolated for a long time in the Kingdom Under the Hill, where concepts work in a slightly different way than in the real world, and she could be this over the top just from the isolation and existing for a long time among this non-euclidean post-death plant-gymnastics.

Both Anna and Mabel could have their own reasons to be speaking like this (speaking! That also changes the feeling of it, it read distinctively different in text form). But when those reasons are so different from one another, and yet the language stays about the same, it’s just obvious that it’s the writing of the show, and unfortunately, as I said, in larger quantities, in it not being a distinctive characteristic but how the script is written, and also because it’s all spoken, it starts charming and ends up jarring. It’s becomes too over the top, if I can say it like that, and it doesn’t work as it should, also because – and here we come with another thing – it takes itself so. damn. seriously.

The Mabel podcast does not joke, but it contains a lot of unhinged, wild and hysterical laughing, giggling and sobbing. Maybe it’s the fault of the voice acting (and sorry if it’s rude, but I’m afraid I think the voice acting is really not good overall), but at a point it just started getting on my nerves. The show never stops to give itself a breather, but rides the high C all the time, and there is no rest. That cheapens, I’m afraid, the moments that are supposed to be impactful and end up less so, because they have no chance of shining brighter than the others, as everything tries to shine at once.

I also think that the voice acting itself is annoying me more than it should. I don’t really find the cadence of the voices pleasant – especially Mabel, who is unfinishing her sentences a lot but in a way that sounds artificial. It’s like amateur actors who know they are supposed to not finish a sentence, because it has been written in the script that another character will interrupt them. So, they go off from their way to facilitate that, and there is the minuscule but noticeable pause that just sounds stupid for the spectator. It’s even worse when there is no other character to interrupt, just one person abandoning a sentence – but they have long ago known they will abandon it in the first place, oh my god, it doesn’t make sense. Sorry, I think I really didn’t like Mabel’s way of talking.

I mean, at first it was sort of incredible – I remember the impact it made on me when I finally heard Mabel’s voice! And she was so angry! She was angry at Anna for switching places without asking her if she even wants that, and she didn’t fit in the real world acutely, and she has had a lot of pretensions and grievances. She was yelling a lot and hitting things. It was awesome. And then, sadly, it all lost the impact, because I then started noticing everything that I listed above and all this became just a baseline communication for her, and nothing had the time to reverberate. Her appearance was the best and the worst that could happen, because it could be executed so well, but instead has basically destroyed the formula of the show that seduced me in the first place.

And the formula was this – one sided relation from events we don’t know if they are actually happening, or if it’s a portrait of a person losing herself and going insane. The distortions instead of voices when the worlds were colliding and the other world and its inhabitants were communicating was absolutely selling that ambiguity. It was providing a certain foundation to Anna’s self-doubt if she isn’t going insane, and at the same time giving us the structure of the narrative that we’re familiar with, because we’ve been (I was, in Central Eastern Europe) raised on it. It was (and is, I stand by it) an amazing choice for showing an encounter with the Other, with strangeness that the modern world (and its recording devices) is not equipped to handle, and the heroes are barely able to as well. I do believe the only way to scare us at all in the XXI century and the time of incredibly realistic special effects is to leave us guessing, because only then we’ll be able to scare ourselves. The theatricality will work out where the gore fails, and here it worked spectacularly. I still don’t know who exactly was speaking in which moments, if the house was speaking at all, if it was maybe Luna Thorn or the King. Who the fuck knows, and what a delight it is.

But the story started to fall apart, as I said, when we finally had both girls actually talking to each other, and then them speaking of the other as if she was not theoretically right next to her. In the exact manner as when they were apart, divided by the veil between the real world and the fairy kingdom. The distance disappeared, we got both points of view, and that should be the moment of losing the gravity, and I think it would kind of saved the show. Unfortunately, I say as a mantra here, even though the attempts were made – bravo for Anna, expressing her desire for Mabel to just fucking talk to her like a normal person and to co-exist, be in the same spacetime. To which we got a counterargument that oh, of bloody course Anna wants normalcy because that’s her fetish, and Mabel is not normal because she’s barely human and did even Anna love her all this time, can she love her after confronting that otherness of Mabel? Aaand there it went. I mean, it does make narrative sense a lot, but it also prevents from riding out the narrative high C, and so we are still listening to an equivalent of ten hour version of the last phrase from the Phantom of the Opera theme song.

The romance starts showing its imperfections, and normally it would be good, because it would lead us to the protagonists deepening the connection, going from the abstract, ideative one, to one forged in the fire of just being in near proximity, and in situations where they are supposed to work out compromises to rely on each other, instead of making decisions for the other and expecting gratitude. At the point which I listened to last, they confronted that issue, but didn’t seem like it was going anywhere (yet?). Which leads me to a point, that I will probably listen to at least a couple more episodes, both because I sort of want to give it a chance and to know how it will unfold, and also because I have another upcoming journey and what you expect me to be doing on a train?

Yeah, that’s about that. Gods, what the hell, I had no idea I would write this much. There might be several grammatical mistakes in this meta, because I am not a native speaker and there is no way I am going to go over 2k of words that nobody may even read, and I should seriously be going back to what I should be doing instead of this. Though I admit, right now I will try to go to the gym, because I am highly caffeinated (have you noticed???) and I, like, cannot really do caffeine. At all. Why did I do that? Oh yeah, I had to because I was working on some stuff before. Oh gods, how will I even fall asleep today.

#mabel podcast #meta #to whomstever it may concern: i am so sorry i drank this yerba mate based drink i will be punished by my own system anyway

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lyntendoswitch · 4 years

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At the tail end of 2020 I discovered the video content of Tim Rogers who has inspired me to also voice my game opinions in an unnecessarily verbose and personal way. I don’t recommend clicking on the read more, but if you’d like to read a little bit about the best games I played this year, go on ahead.

10. What Remains of Edith Finch 9. A Short Hike 8. Disco Elysium 7. Personal 5 The Royal 6. Persona 3 Dancing In Moonlight 5. Vestaria Saga War of the Scions 4. Ring FIt Adventure 3. Final Fantasy 7 Remake 2. Hades 1. Animal Crossing New Horizons

2020 found me with an unprecedented amount of free time. I spent most of this year working for the government (a job with a very small brain effort that left me with evenings and weekends free to do whatever the hell). Additionally, I spent most of the year in quarantine with video games as my true, real friend and life companion. Compiling this list gave me more titles than ever to choose from, so I feel better about my list than ever. So here are the best games that I played this year.

Before I get into the top 10 I want to give 4 honourable mentions.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim This is the most recent game I played since making this list. I loved so many things about this game - the soft art style, the harsh music, the convoluted crazy plot. I love the aesthetic of this game and loved the characters - I believe it is rare to have an anime game where none of the characters irritate you. I even loved the combat, although I did not think I would. Something about shooting so very many missiles is so satisfying even when you don’t exactly know what is going on in the screen. The final battle in this game was definitely my favourite moment in this game - it was stressful, it was engaging, it was so extremely fun. The tragedy of this game comes down to personal taste. All time travel stories with complex timelines are bound to fall apart eventually, because no writer can keep all the threads together in a logical sense. 13 sentinels had so many story beats, plot twists, betrayals, and sci-fi tropes crammed into their storyline that I knew halfway through the story that there was no way they would be able to resolve all of it in a fulfilling way. I was, unfortunately, right - the ending explanation for all the chaos is, in my (correct) opinion, extremely lame. However, I certainly had fun on the journey.

Fire Emblem 3 Houses: Ashen Demons DLC I did not place this on my ranking since it is not really fleshed out enough to be considered its own game (unlike in previous years, where I have confidently but the Splatoon 2 Octoling Expansion as a separate title from Splatoon 2). However, this blog is, above all else, a Fire Emblem stan account, and I will not NOT talk about Fire Emblem. I do not care for the Abyss house. I think the characters are too close to being plucked out of the Fire Emblem Fates universe for comfort, and I mean this to be as profound an insult as possible. These characters are gimmicks above all else. I also do not care for the expanded lore that the sewer city brings to Garreg Mach. The idea of a centralized church school army is already so unstable, and to have a population of rat people living under it makes the whole foundation of the world crumble a little. However, the story and gameplay of the Ashen Demons DLC added something that the base game did not, which is challenge. (As an aside, I play on normal mode and am aware that there is challenge available to me if I wish for it.) FE3H offers you so many characters, so many paralogues, so many opportunities for training and stat increases, that eventually plot missions become completely boring. Ashen demons limiting everyone to new and interesting classes, limiting your available units, and preventing any sort of training made the chapters fun again. I found the chapter where you were supposed to outrun a golem before some gates closed fun as hell - it was my favourite part of the entire side story.

Kentucky: Route Zero I played this game in February, and I remember not liking it at any point. It is confusing, disorienting, and lacked a clear goal. However, it has now been 10 months and I still think about it constantly - both the vignettes presented in it, and the way it made me feel. The Besties podcast made an excellent point about this game when they said that no one who plays this game ever compares it to other games - only books, movies, or paintings. The whole game is so fascinating and sticks with you - the wretched circle of a highway, the horse funeral. My favourite part is the live performance you attend at a run down diner with your party of four as the only audience. It is so quiet and contemplative and melancholy, and the scene is absolutely perfect. Kentucky Route Zero might be my favourite high concept artsy abstract artwork ever.

Blaseball As with everyone, it is difficult to call Blaseball a game. As the website says, it is a cultural event that I am so happy to participate in. I am so happy to have found a piece of media to fill the aching void that left by Homestuck when it ended, then re-opened the wound with their awful post-epilogue novel. I deleted my Twitter account this summer because I was tired of being angry and doomscrolling. And then, after Chris Plante on the Besties told me about Blaseball, I happily remade a Twitter account that only followed the official Blaseball account, the devs, and the numerous RP accounts. The quality of life improvement that having simulated, pleasant, hilarious social media to check every day is indescribable. It helped me cope with a rough life transition. Thank you, Blaseball. My favourite moment of 2020 is the 11pm boss battle of Shoe Thieves vs The Shelled One’s Pods.

And now....... The List.

10. What Remains of Edith Finch The start of 2020 was incredible because games journalism websites were churning out endless top 10 lists for both the end of 2019 as well as the end of the decade. I religiously picked through all of these lists and wrote down a list of 30 best indie games of this past decade that I missed out on for whatever reason. It was my first and last experience with a backlog - previously, I would simply impulse purchase games I really wanted to play, and I would not rest until the game is beaten. Having a backlog of things to try stressed me out endless and it dampened the impact of almost all of these quirky 1-6 hour indie experiences. However, not even the stress of meeting a self-imposed quota could dampen the impact of What Remains of Edith Finch. Exploring this house and playing through its various scenarios was so fascinating and beautiful. For me, the most impactful moment of the game was playing as the little girl who became an owl who became a sea serpent. That was when I realized I was not playing something that I would be thinking about for a very long time.

9. A Short Hike A Short Hike was the very first game I played off my backlog list of Best Indie Games. And boy, is it ever. This game takes 2 hours to finish but is absolutely saturated with heart and the exploration makes those 2 hours feel like you have been on a much longer and more fulfilling journey than you believed possible with so few hours. It is Animal Crossing and Legend of Zelda combined, condensed, and polished into a beautiful pearl. I was so instantly in love with the characters and loved doing the little side quests. I also loved getting totally lost because I wanted to see how far I could swim and ended up on a different part of the island. The most impactful moment of this game is its finale, which I won’t spoil, but it is absolutely incredible.

8. Disco Elysium Many people more eloquent than me have said great things about Disco Elysium, and they are all correct. As someone who loves character building and creating a character to roleplay instead of playing as myself in a game, I have never been more enabled to do just that than Disco Elysium. The mystery was so cool, the mechanics are exactly what I like, the exploration is great. The one drawback of this game is that I literally cannot remember a single song from it. Maybe it had an amazing OST? Every game that is released nowadays has to have an amazing OST. There is so much reading in this game that the music really has to be unintrusive, and so it faded right into the background and out of my memory. I love that you could create your own persona in the game, but that you find your identification later and discover who you were before. Also, I would die for Kim Kitsuragi. The finale of this game also kicks ass - I will not spoil it but there is a moment that is so quiet and intimate that it took my breath away. What an amazing experience.

7. Persona 5: The Royal In 2017, I did something that is not the deciding factor, but definitely contributed to, my being sent to hell after I die. I was in an unhappy relationship and really wanted out, but my boyfriend at the time had a PS4 and I did not, and I really wanted to play Persona 5. As such, when he got the game and I borrowed it, I tried to finish it as quickly as possible so that I could give it back and break up with him. To my dismay, Persona 5 is upwards of 80 hours long, and I was burned out long before it was over. I finished the game with such resentment in my heart that I could not fathom why anyone would like it. As someone who is older, wiser, PS4-er, and in a better mental state, I decided to give P5R a try. Playing the remake at a much slower pace and really contemplating the story and characters made for a totally different and much more pleasant experience. I finally was able to shed my dislike for these characters who held me hostage 3 years ago and really appreciate them. Additionally, the new content they added to the original was SO good. The new music in Mementos makes that whole section bearable!! Akechi’s entirely reworked social link!! Maruki is one of Atlus’s most interesting characters, and the final dungeon was so so so interesting!! I am profoundly sad that I can’t recommend this game to anyone because 120 hours is just prohibitively long. Most impactful moment: when Akechi joins the party and he is like, totally feral, lol

6. Persona 3: Dancing In Moonlight Every once in a while my palms start to itch because it has been entirely too long since I’ve played a rhythm game. This palm itch feeling sunk me deep into Theatrhythm Final Fantasy back in 2017, and this feeling forced me to impulse buy Persona 3 Dance. I am furious that I liked this game so much, because I know it was created simply to extract money from fools like me. The story was so blatant about it! “It’s a dream, ok? We’re all dancing because it’s a dream and none of this matters. Go play a song, idiot.” I’m not even angry at this - I almost respect the hustle. Additionally, it was so wonderful to hang out with the Persona 3 crew again. I did also play Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight, but since I had already spent a hundred and twenty hours with the phantom thieves, there was no feeling of being reunited like with P3D. Also, in my mind palace, I consider P3D to have “actually happened”, and P5D to be the money grab hustle. S.E.E.S. is a cohesive unit. If Mitsuru Kirijo says it is time to dance, then dance we shall. I cannot be made to believe that Ryuji, Futaba, or Makoto will be compelled to dance even in a dream. Finally, having Elizabeth as your velvet room attendant did wonders. If there is a line between being a loveable eccentric and being annoying, Elizabeth tiptoes just around the former, whereas the twins are squarely located in the latter. The remixes in P3D also all kick ass (Burn My Dread Novoiski Mix? Deep Mentality Lotus Juice Mix?? Neither had any right to go as hard as they did), and I loved how they personalized the dance styles to the characters’ personalities. Even if this game was a money grabber, it was still made with love and respect for the series, and I loved playing it. Most impactful moment: That first king crazy ranking on all night difficulty... god damn

5. Vestaria Saga: War of the Scions I had mentioned earlier that I appreciated the FE3H DLC for adding challenge back into 3 houses, but then I played Vestaria Saga and I realized I simply did not remember what challenge actually was. Vestaria Saga, the game by Fire Emblem’s creator, is the hardest Fire Emblem game I’ve ever played. This game honestly rules - it closes its door to the waifus of modern fire emblem games and is a return to form with political intrigue and smart tactical decisions and well-rounded characters. Every single chapter has these wonderful and deeply stressful plot twists and you always have to scramble to get all of the objectives complete without dying. There is a moment in this game where the main Lord, Zade, scolds princess Athol for being so reckless, how he had to force the army to fight a losing battle to rescue her, and look at how exhausted everyone is. He gestures to his army, and for the first time in a tactical RPG, I felt it. In all the fire emblems I play, my units end up being able to dodge and tank any hits they receive, but in Vestaria Saga finishing a map was a stressful, long, and sweaty process. I loved every second of playing this game - it is so rewarding in its gameplay and so rewarding in its story. Most impactful moment: the kiss!!! And how all of them face consequences immediately afterwards!!! I adore this game.

4. Ring Fit Adventure Ring Fit Adventure is the most fun I’ve ever had with a gimmicky fitness game. This game finally understands that they key to continuing with the game and building good habits is the ability to unlock and equip beautiful athleisure clothing. I actually got gains from Ring Fit Adventure, and I know this because I stopped playing it for a month, came back, and was unable to finish the reps at the difficulty I set for myself. This game make gym stuff so genuinely fun in a way that no one else has been able to do. I also really like the feel of the ring con! I have a few moderate complaints about it (a fitness game will never be perfect, unfortunately): you always start reps on the same side, and if you kill enemies then you don’t get a chance to try the other side at all, the motion sensor on yoga poses is wack, and FUCK the robot baseball minigame game to hell. Despite this, I absolutely adore this game and what it stands for. I may never beat the campaign, but it will always have a place in my heart. Most impactful moment: the first fight with Drageaux

3. Final Fantasy 7 Remake I was so so so curious about the hype surrounding this game that in the month before its release I manically played through the original Final Fantasy 7 so that I would have enough background information to be able to play and enjoy the remake. I was very glad I did. FF7R kicks ass. It is my favourite Final Fantasy game ever, and maybe it will always be so. I take a lot of issue with most FF games because they get too cosmically big and ridiculous and nonsensical by the end and that ruins the immersion of the story for me. Since FF7R only covers the Midgar portion of the original, it is forced to create grounded characters and a grounded, smaller scale story. And it is AMAZING. I loved every single minute of this game. The OST is incredible, and the art in it is absolutely unbelievable. I love how they incorporated random encounter enemies in this more realistic version. Also the dialogue!!! The way these characters banter with each other is so life-like and true to character that it boggles my mind. Even the NPC side conversations - never has a city or town felt so alive and filled with people than in FF7R. The ending of this game filled me with PRIMAL fear for the future, but it is so clear that the team making this game loves the world and its characters so much that I cautiously say I trust them to take the story further in the later remakes. Most impactful moment: Cloud saying “bring it on bitch” to an enemy made me black out laughing

2. Hades I generally stay away from rogue-likes and from real-time combat because for a game-liker I SURE am bad at video games. However, everything Supergiant Games ever makes seems tailor made for me, so when Hades came out of early access I bought it, and then I didn’t stop playing it until 80 hours later when I had unlocked everything ever. This game is SO good. The voice acting and storytelling is phenomenal. They did a spectacular job blending the story with the core gameplay elements. They made dying in a rogue-like fun and rewarding. The music is (as always) transcendent. I cannot say enough good things about Hades. Most impactful moment: a tie between the first time you watch the sunrise after your first successful escape, and the romance social link between Zagreus and Thanatos

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons Of course... Death Stranding may have prophesized the pandemic, but Nintendo created it to sell copies Animal Crossing New Horizons. This game saved all of us. The experience of having so many people I knew playing the same game all the time for the entirety of March and April was so incredible. I have plenty of quips about ACNH with relation to old games in the series (I loathe crafting, I loathe printing out Nook Miles Tickets one by one, and I worry that the sandbox landscaping feel of this game makes me less inclined than ever to actually talk to my villagers), but while they are all valid criticisms, they certainly did not stop me from pouring 350 hours and counting into this game. I have loved slowly, carefully crafting my island into a replica of Garreg Mach. I have loved collecting furniture and making turnip money and completing the museum. There is simply no other game that can be 2020′s game of the year. Most impactful moment: checking your mail and having one of your friends mail you an item that reminded them of you

#adventures of big man

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nevertobeships · 7 years

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Do you have any writing advice for someone who really struggles with writing body language? I have a hard time reading it in the real world and I'm lost on how to write it in my fics. I think my dialogue is fine it just seems like everything else is lacking. The transition from rp writing to fanfiction is really tough, and I can't seem to adapt to the now popular fanfiction trends of the way things are written. I'd be very grateful for any advice.

Anon, do not worry! Many people, including myself, strugglewith this. I’m going to make a couple of assumptions to get us started (if theyare incorrect just shoot me another ask and I can go in a different direction).I assume that if you are coming to me then you have read some of my writing andtherefore I also assume that you enjoy supercorp. With those two assumptions inmind I’m going to use that arena to give my advice. But please keep in mindthat this is only MY opinion. I’ve been writing pretty much my whole life andI’ve learned that there really is no right or wrong way to go about writing.Sure, there are preferred styles, grammatical rules, trends that may bepopular, etc…but essentially you have to find YOUR flow and style. Writing andwhat is considered the right way to write so subjective.

And just as a quick note I have never done rp writing sokeep that in mind.

Here is my advice (and I explain each point below):

1. Keep trying at the real life body language and understandthe pros and cons of having that information.

2. Use the resources you have (e.g., the show and gifs).

3. Find actors/actresses to use as muses and inspiration whoare really talented and who also put everything into their characters.

4. Read!

Reading body language in the real world is hard. When youare interacting with another person there is so much else going on. Not onlyare you most likely participating in that interaction but you are trying toprocess what the other person is saying and doing on top of consideringenvironmental/situational variables, analyzing your own intentions while alsotrying to gauge the other person’s intentions – its crazy! This is why so fewpeople are good at this. Yet body language is crucial in many cases. Hell, in apersonal example of mine just recently – I was saying everything I could tosomeone, being EXPLICIT with my diction and my intentions and they just didn’tget it (or chose to ignore it for what it was :/) and…*sigh* well it’s a messlet me tell you. And I wonder if the interactions between us had happened inperson where there was body language (i.e., extra data) to process then perhapsthings wouldn’t have become so convoluted? There has been a lot of research thatshows we humans are not really good at conveying what we mean in simple text.If someone sends you a text that IS IN ALL CAPS you know something is going onout of the ordinary. They are excited, angry, etc… and are trying to getcertain information across in that way. That helps to a point. And its funnythat the rise of emojis was supposed to help us communicate better, beyond capsand punctuation, in written form but new research is showing that we evenmisinterpret those as well lol. So obviously body language can help us withthis problem but again for many of us that can be overwhelming to deal with inthe real world. That being said, writing body language still needs to berealistic and convey important information but in fiction we can process iteasier than if it was happening live in front of us.

Lucky for us, we are writing fanfiction and we have thosecharacters on our screen where we can watch them over and over in the privacyof our own homes with little distractions. If you are in the supercorp fandomthen even more lucky because we have some of the best gif makers in the entireSupergirl fandom and they are an absolute blessing. I think gifs are underratedwhen it comes to character analysis but they are so good for body languagestudy because you have a small amount of data input, three to ten seconds orso, and it automatically repeats so no pausing and rewinding back on Netflix oryour stream. So let us look at an example:

These gifs were created by @brielarsan and you can find the original post here.

Holy shit. This is a writer’s gold mine. I mean look atthis: we know Lena doesn’t have a lot of friends (really none at this point inS2, our poor precious baby *cries*). We know she only ever felt accepted by Lexand look what he did to the world and ultimately her. And we’ve seen the longgazes, the smiles, the lip bites between her and Kara/Supergirl. We alreadyknow all of this – we have this data! So in that mindset, what does this mean?What does that sudden breath mean for Lena when Kara finally opens the doorknowing what we know? She has found acceptance in someone else – Kara – someonewho knew she was a Luthor from the start but has put her belief in Lenaregardless. But even if you don’t know or don’t use all of this data look ather body! Look at her hands, for example. They are in a classic worry positionone that other characters have done (see Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy asjust one example) and Lena has done this herself several times across many episodesbecause she is a soft precious baby who is really worried how others perceiveher. Now look at her facial expression. You can tell exactly when Kara openedthe door and realized it was Lena. Even though we can’t see Kara’s face we cantell from Lena’s face when Kara smiles because we see that relief on Lena’sface. And then in that second gif what does that little shy sway mean? What doyou pick up from her doing that? To me, she is not only relieved that Kara isletting her in her home and doesn’t seem at all freaked out that she is there butalso in a way she is in a giddy disbelief that she’s not being turned away akashe feels accepted (and of course these two fools love each other and we cansee that here). And look how we can see all of that in how her hands start torelax too! My biggest piece of advice is to study stuff like this and/or mimicit in your own fics. Also look at what people say about gifs in the tags! Its so frustrating when people don’t put anything in the tags and I can be guilty of it but some people do the type of interpretation I just did above in the tags of gif posts and you can learn a lot by seeing how others are interpreting a scene.

You really can’t do anything that I just mentioned above ifyou don’t have that talented person on your screen though. Lucky for us we havethe one and only Katie McGrath who conveys more character information in twoseconds of acting than some of the other characters on Supergirl do in anentire episode. I could probably write two pages of description based on thetwo short gifs above and that is all in thanks to Katie and her wonderfulness. Katieis also a perfect example at someone who puts her heart and soul into hercharacters. You can tell that by how she does her interviews and the in-depthanswers she provides. She really IS Lena on screen. Chyler is another greatexample on Supergirl. I mean, Chyler should be earning Emmys for her portrayalof Alex in both Season 1 and 2 but I’m biased (and Katie too for Lena’s character). Sasha Alexander as Maura Isleson the TNT’s now concluded show Rizzoli and Isles is yet another example thathas benefitted me. When you have amazing characters and actors/actresses behind them they can inspire you to write your best stuff and give you so much to workwith.

Lastly one of the other things you can do is to read.Whether its published fiction or fanfiction just read and see how others are conveyingbody language. When you read a section and get that vivid imagery as a readerstop and evaluate that section. What did that author do to set up that scene foryou? How do they have the characters interacting with one another and theenvironment around them? If you ever get to beta for somebody take thatopportunity! It will give you the chance to read someone’s fic and be in themindset of editing where you are looking at how the story is coming togetherthrough dialogue and body language. Or you can even contact one of yourfavorite writers and just tell them about your favorite sections of their pieceand list the reasons why. Not only will you make that author’s day but that mayalso help get a conversation started where you can discuss the intricacies ofthe characters including body language. This is really how @stennnn06 and I gotstarted talking. We squealed about Katie (as we still do) but then we startedlooking at each other’s writing, beta-ing for one another, and collaborating. Ican’t speak for sten but I know that I write better after discussing Lena andour headcanons with her. You can try to get a beta for your stuff too! Whenyour beta starts analyzing your stuff and asking you questions it really putsit in perspective for you and you can learn so much. I can tell you right nowthat I learned more about one of MY OWN stories by having @mssirey beta it andgive me feedback.

On another note, also check out some writing blogs for tips. @heywriters is a great source and would be a good start for you. You can alsogo to my blog on tumblr (not tumblr mobile) and I have a page on the right handside labeled ‘Writing References’ and you’ll find a bunch of sources. Just out ofcuriosity I searched ‘body language’ on the search function on my blog and itbrought up some good posts so maybe check those out too!

I know this is long and probably not anything you wanted butthere is my advice :)

#jess answers #writing #supergirl #supercorp #fanfiction #fanfic #god I hope that helps you anon!#I might have rambled too much #sorry!

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meowsaidmayaanime · 7 years

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2016 Monthly Watches and Top Picks

An amalgamation of links to my personal watches and top picks, that being said there are a lot of anime I have not watched. If there is an anime that you think I should watch, recommend it to me in my Suggestions page or in the respective comments sections of my posts.

NOTE: I do not have any monthly watches or top picks from January to April, because I started this site in May of this year.

Links To My Monthly Watches (New links will be added soon)

My Monthly Top Picks

May Top Pick

Tokyo Ghoul

Only a few minutes before my 21st birthday I finished this series. Which means that I was an emotional wreck crying out ‘he knew!!’ while also being super excited to go out and buy my first drink; a Bloody Mary, approximately 17 minutes after officially being 21. Anyway, Tokyo Ghoul is so good. I loved it because it did not follow the path I expected it to, every event and conclusion ended up surprising me but in a good way! Without spoiling too much or going into a full review, the main character never became a ‘Mary Sue’ and the way it ended was not typical in the least. I have so many things to say but they all contain spoilers, anyway I’m glad I wasn’t deterred from the anime because one of my friends said he didn’t like the manga because of his assumption about the character. Dude, you were way off, I haven’t read the manga, but the anime is so different and so amazing. 5 out of 5 would recommend!

June Top Pick

Blue Exorcist Movie

The movie has nothing to do with the plot of the anime at all, and takes place after the events in the series. Atleast I’m fairly certain it does? There’s an important (and spoiler-y) thing that happens at the end of the series, that is never addressed or acknowledged in the movie which I think is really weird….. Either way, the movie itself is simply a completely stand alone story from the series. And it was absolutely stunning! Sooooo much detail went into all of the backgrounds and items. On top of that its very well scripted, and the plot flowed incredibly well together without being convoluted, which is surprising since a number of movie sequels to tv series’s tend to go overboard by stuffing too much information into an hour and a half.

It was amazing. Its possible that someone could watch the movie without watching the single season anime, just because of how it was written. However you would not know the relationships or the back story of the main character, which helps to explain a lot of the terminology and setting. Especially the part about demons ect ect.

Either way, I LOVED this movie. I didn’t even know that there was a movie at all until just now. I’m going to re-watch it with a friend when she gets back into town and I am soooooo excited because I KNOW she will love it too. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. I RECOMMEND THIS SO HARD.

July Top Pick

Haikyuu!!

I have boarded the sports anime train, and I don't think I'm ever getting off. This is the fifth sports anime I'm watching and I think it may be my favourite. It's funny too because I only recently started watching sports anime when I watched Free! last December.

This anime is fabulous! I know I say that a lot, but it is so true! Haikyuu!! is about Hinata who joins his high school Volley ball team. The rest of the show is about the developing relationships between the team, the development of their characters and skills, and their relationships between the teams they play against as they try to make it to the Nationals.

I love so much about this anime, every character is different, has their own reasons for playing, their own personalities, their own skills, and their own developmental journey. The characters are amazing!! On top of all that the animation is great, they animate the games incredibly well, and whenever someone does something that's particularly fast or strong they do a fabulous job of showing it through the art style and movements. Ah, I could watch this show for days, well, more days than I already have. (Click the image to view the gif, cause for some reason it won't automatically play...)

Look at the smooth animation!!

Speaking of the art style, It's different than whats common in anime, feeling a little more like a manga, but that's what makes it so great. The style allows them to make fabulous faces/expressions and movements. and Oh man the faces are great, I LOVE an anime that's able to use such a variety of expressions on so many different characters. Look at these faces!

Its such a feel good anime, its so light-hearted, and bright, and funny, and intense! There are only two season out right now, but the third season is to air this fall! I'm so excited!! so, So, SO excited!!! AAAHHHHHH~

This is a must watch. It doesn't matter what genre of anime you like, everyone should give this one a chance.

August Top Pick

Hyouka

So the first thing i need to mention is that this show is first and foremost a slcie of life that happens to include a lot of mystery. Not a mystery that happens to be a slice of life. I originally thought it was the latter which was why I was disappointed that it didn't end the series with a mystery arc, but instead the way a slice of life would.When you acknowledge the show for what it really is, a natural slice of life, it is amazing. For numerous reasons.

First the artwork is so incredibly detailed and beautiful. Second the visuals are distinctly different for each thing ti tries to convey, and completely succeeds in doing so. The audio is amazing, the music is beautiful, the animation is so smooth and they even animate things that aren't necessary to the plot but are animated anyway to make it all feel so REAL. Not to mention the episodes and mysteries are so well written!

look at the incredible amount of detail they put into EVERY SINGLE SCENE.

even when the background is blurred even people who we never learn about or see again have details in their clothes, faces, and expressions. I checked, we NEVER see these people below actually interact with the main OR minor cast.

I almost forgot, this show is about Houtarou a high schooler that sees the world in 'gray'and whose motto is "If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, I'll make it quick." Convinced by his already graduated sister, he joins the classics club which was endangered to be disbanded because there were no more members. He meets a girl named Eru who also joins the club and discovers that he has a knack for solving mysteries. That is, only when Eru earnestly goes to him and yearns for him to solve the mystery because her curiosity cannot be contained. From there they quickly discover that the classics club has a past shrouded in mystery.

Its incredibly well done, I love slow the pacing myself, because it fits the flow and nature of the anime. However I do have a number of issues with it myself (some reveal content spoilers so I won't state those here). I admit that the way they ordered large mystery arch and single episode mysteries was not handled well at the very end. Don't get me wrong the ending fit the characters incredibly well and was very good and realistic, however considering the quality of the larger mysteries that were prevalent through the rest of the anime, I feel that they should have ended the series with a multi-episode arc and then one final single episode arc, rather than many single episode arcs strung together. The anime was an adaptation of a light novel, which covered 4 out of the 5 published novels. I've taken a look at the titles of the chapters and it seems that the 5th book is quite the elaborate story. One I would have liked to have seen in the anime, though would clearly have gone over the 22 episodes the anime ended at. Perhaps since this write up for the episode is already so long, I will create a post just about this anime. It definitely deserves more talking about!

Anyway, I do recommend it to veteran-ed anime watchers. It has a wonderful pace that does not push by quickly, great character development and insight, and fascinating mysteries and dialogue regarding such. Its perfect for anyone who loves natural slice of life. Those who enjoy mysteries would also enjoy this, as long as they understand that it is mostly a slice of life, and thus will follow the format of slice of life and not the format of a mystery anime. Its a stunning anime.

September Top Pick

Natsume's Book of Friends

This is an incredibly adorable show. Its heartwarming and has a 'feel good' movie feel to it. If anything taking into account the art style and how good it makes you feel it reminds me a lot of Fruits Basket. Don't get me wrong, its nothing like Fruits Basket in terms of story, but its got the same 'feel'.... if that makes sense.

Anyway, the premise is that Natsume is the only one able to see yokai (Japanese monsters/spirits/gods). After moving into a new town with some distant relatives, Natsume finds out that is deceased grandmother could also see yokai and made quite the reputation among them. She would take the names of local yokai and put it into a book called the book of friends, with their names she could control the yokai. Now yokai are coming after Natsume either to ask him to return their names or to take the book of friends for themselves.

The majority of the show is about Natsume steadily coming to understand both humans and yokai more clearly than he has before. Making friends, learning about the lives of others, learning about his grandmother, and finding out what it really means to be apart of a family and not be ostracized by others because of his ability.

This show is wonderful, its not as gripping or super emotion/action driven as some other shows are, but its very well done. The character are great, the stories are so heartwarming, and it breaks a number of the stereotypical cliches that are often found with anime about a character who can see something that others cannot. An example that I particularly love is how other characters who come into the mix who are also able to see yokai are not automatically 'evil' or an antagonist. So rather than causing mroe trouble for Natsume from the 'get go' they are actually there to help develop him into a better character. Which I love~ Any actual antagonist that shows up are antagonists for a real reason, rather than just for the purpose of having one.

If your into exorcism anime or anime that focuses on traditional Japanese monsters/spirits/gods you will love this one. It is slower paced and focuses more on story than action so keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that there are only 4 season out right now as of this post. Season 5 will be coming out with this falls simulcasts and I'm super excited for it

#2016 #msma 2016 #haikyuu!!#hyouka #natsume yuujinchou #natsume's book of friends #blue excorsist #blue exorsict movie #tokyo ghoul #msma monthly watch

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gamerspasm · 8 years

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Top 15 Wii U Games

Well, here we are. We all knew this day was coming; it was always inevitable, but it’s still sad that it came around so soon. The Wii U’s life has drawn to a close. Commercially the console could be called a failure. It was unequivocally Nintendo’s “mistake” system, being hit by bad decision after bad decision and undergoing trouble from the very moment the game pad appeared in Satoru Iwata’s hands. It lost support from third parties, mainstream media regarded it as a joke, and no matter how hard it tried it just couldn’t get off the ground. But I’m not here to talk about the obvious and blatant flaws; many other people have been doing that for some 4 years now. No, I want to talk about the successes; more specifically the games. Even though the Wii U had a rocky life, I still defended it for one reason: the games. Honestly, the Wii may be Nintendo’s best selling system, but the Wii U’s library is vastly superior in quality. So, if we are to say goodbye to the Wii U, let’s do it right by honouring the amazing experiences it gave us. And, just to prove a point, I am only going to be including exclusives. Starting with:

15. Xenoblade Chronicles X

Don’t let anyone tell you the Wii U only caters to the young or the casual. Why? Because Xenoblade Chronicles X exists. Simply put, this is, without a doubt, the most complex and hardcore gaming experience I’ve ever played. This is both a good thing and bad thing. Good, because for those who enjoy statistics for days, there’s a lot to love; bad, because for those that don’t, prepare for a rocky ride. There is a gigantic barrier of entry here. Information is thrown at you left and right, and some parts are a little convoluted. It can make your head spin sometimes. So, no, this game isn’t for everyone, but if you’re willing to stick it through and entrench yourself, you’ll be rewarded with an engaging and enjoyable experience. The sheer scale and scope of this game defies description. It is huge. Absolutely enormous; and the best thing about that is the level of immersion it delivers as a result. The genuine feeling of vertigo as you leap off a cliff to the ocean below; the real sense of distance as you make your way toward a mountain on the horizon, and best of all (if you install the game data onto the system) it’s all incredibly seamless. No loading times between areas or lag. It’s all rather astonishing, and when there’s so much to do in this massive world, you’ll be at it for months. Long story short, Xenoblade Chronicles X is a niche time sink and a half, but in terms of adventure, you’re not going to find a greater supply on this system.

14. Nintendo Land

One of the best gaming memories I’ve ever had was getting my Wii and playing Wii sports for the first time. It was a great way to show off the strengths of the console, while still being a fairly decent game in its own right. Even though the Wii U didn’t quite capture the same experience, I have to say the bundled in showcase-game is arguably the better of the two. Not only does this game show off the strengths of the Wii U’s Gamepad, it also has a surprising amount of depth. Even more surprising is that depth has variety. Whether want a quick little mini-game to kill some time, or something a little more adventurous, it’s all here. The game also doubles up as a party game too, offering a lot of laughs as well as some great experiences. Even though the Wii U’s launch was arguably weak, and the first 6 months of its life weren’t much better, Nintendo Land still made me excited for what was still to come.

13. Captain Toad Treasure Tracker

It’s true what they say about big things and small packages. One glance at Captain Toad Treasure Tracker and you’d think Nintendo just weren’t trying anymore, and yet, this experience is so utterly delightful, so effortlessly charming, that I dare you not to enjoy yourself. The premise is simple; the design, layered; and the gameplay instinctively fun. There’s also a surprising amount of things to do. There are mission challenges, time trials, and bonus extra mini-games. Not only that but everything looks amazing. Treasure Tracker may not be a full Mario title, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s perfectly good at being what it is, and what it is is wonderful fun.

12. Bayonetta 2

It was clear before the console launch that Nintendo was serious about delivering games. Naming Bayonetta’s sequel as a Wii U exclusive was a huge move. It infuriated a lot of fans needlessly (I mean c’mon, the game wouldn’t be happening at all if it wasn’t for Nintendo footing the bill) but it quickly got on to a lot of people’s “best of Wii U” lists. It’s a shame the game didn’t have the pull to get more people to jump on Nintendo’s side, but regardless it’s still a blast. Platinum keeps its form strong as it echoes the previous cult-classic, whilst also slipping in some new things along the way. It does feel a little too close to its predecessor at times and it can lack the scale, scope, and initial wow factor too, but taken as it is, it’s still a phenomenal title to get stuck in with. Looking for action? This is the game for you. Of course, there’s also...

11. The Wonderful 101

One name: Hideki Kamiya. Bayonetta 2 was missing its size and scope because this man was no longer directing. Put simply, Kamiya likes things to be big. He’s the Rita Repulsa of the video game industry. If he can have a monster the size of a planet, it’s going in his game. If he can fill a screen with so much mayhem and carnage and yet maintain a cohesive experience, it’s going to happen. This is the case for the Wonderful 101. A game I didn’t even know I wanted until I booted it up. An inspired and chaotic game that is completely unique. Its writing is on comic point; its imagery is beautifully creative; its unabashed self-awareness is a breath of fresh air; and it is a wild ride from start to finish. A common complaint from players was that its control style was fiddly and unresponsive inputs tainted the experience, but I very rarely had these issues. It’s a shame this game came out right when Wii U opinion was at its lowest. This game deserves more love. It’s wonderful.

10. Star Fox Zero

Go ahead, call me a fanboy, I’m at the point where I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what you think of me, Star Fox Zero is a good game. I stand by that, 100%. The fact that I am a Nintendo fan makes it harder to convey this authentically. “Oh but the controls are garbage” They’re fine. Seriously, if you think they’re unplayable its because you’re either an impatient gamer or a cynic, or both. I played through the whole first level without using the “awkward” controls at all (granted you have to use them during the final scene but the point still stands), and the more I played, the more adept I became. Also, did I mention that this is the best Star Fox game since the N64? Because it is. Yes, it is more or less a reboot of Star Fox 64 (and I hope they don’t just keep doing this as the series moves on) but if like me you’ve been waiting patiently for another genuine Star Fox outing for some 20 years or so, a reboot is more than welcome. Every now and again I’ll keep thinking about it and I just get the urge to jump back in and have a blast. No other game on the Wii U has that much draw for me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and the internet has handed down its verdict, but as far as I’m concerned Star Fox Zero is excellent.

9. Super Mario Maker

When it comes to celebrating the 30th anniversary of their mascot, Nintendo doesn’t mess around. Getting the chance to make your own Mario levels has been the dream of a lot of fans since the franchise first started, and the Wii U seemed like the perfect system to let it happen. With a near limitless amount of fun to be had, Super Mario Maker offers a simplistic design to an arguably complex task. Making levels is highly enjoyable, and seeing what other talented designers can come up with can lead to some of the best Mario experiences ever. Realistically, it could do no wrong, but it’s such a shame Nintendo let the side down by failing to curate the content it was pushing. Genuinely brilliant levels were trampled by a stampede of half-baked, terrible ones, and sometimes creating levels has no value when they can just be deleted at random (thanks again for that, Nintendo, I’m not going to get that hour back). However, even with this in mind, I maintain that this is still a strong game. I don’t regret the hours I poured into it, and it was a fantastic way to flex some creative muscles. It also acted as a basic guide to game design. Sure, it’s now on 3DS as well, but I will still class this game as a Wii U title first and foremost; and it’s one of the best too.

8. Hyrule Warriors

Super Mario Maker may seem like a time sink, but that sink is only as deep as the creativity of those playing. If you really want a time sink on Wii U, look no further than Hyrule Warriors. This game has such an inordinate amount of content it can drive people to madness, and all you do is mash, slam, and maul your way through endless enemy forces. And I love it. Being a Zelda fan helps with the world and characters on display here, but realistically you don’t need to be a fan of that franchise. You just need to be a fan of carnage and all its cathartic wonders. Furthermore it suits all gamers - those looking for a half-hour session or those looking for something bigger. Put simply, Hyrule Warriors is fun. Its design is fun. Its stages are fun. It - is - fun. Yes, like Super Mario Maker, it’s also found its way onto the 3DS, but if you’re asking which is the definitive version, it’s the Wii U, hands down.

7. Super Smash Bros. For Wii U

Super Mario Maker was a little bit of a show-stealer at E3 2015, but it has nothing on the year prior. Super Smash Bros. dominated that stage with its invitational tournament and promise. It was the first of the franchise to go portable on the 3DS, and whilst I personally think the portability makes that the better of the two, when it comes to content and general quality, it has to be the Wii U version. This game just has so much to offer, perhaps not on the scale of say Hyrule Warriors, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in variety. You’ve got 8 player smash; multiplayer in single player modes; events; more courses to choose from; amiibo functionality (for non new 3DS or puck owners) and that’s all on top of everything the series is used to bringing. In terms of direction, this game doesn’t have it, but that’s the best part. What you have here is a playground where you can do whatever you want, however you want, with whomever you want. If I had any drawbacks it would be the DLC. Not that DLC is a problem in general here, but rather the way Nintendo decided to handle it. Having to pay more to get the same DLC on both Wii U and 3DS is not cool, guys, since that actually punishes the loyal fans who bought both copies. It’s stupid. Luckily, you don’t need the DLC to still have an absolute blast with this game. It’s easily one of the best multiplayer experiences on the Wii U.

6. Splatoon

Speaking of multiplayer, I couldn’t really make a best of Wii U list without putting Splatoon in there, now could I. This game caught everyone off guard. By all accounts this should have been a massive failure. Not because it’s bad, but rather because the climate around the Wii U at the time was temperamental at best. Not only was the console getting no real support from the media, but also, Nintendo had decided to release a brand new IP for their most unpopular system. With no built-in fanbase, to say this game was a risk is an understatement. Yet, despite it all, it paid off. Almost overnight Splatoon became the Wii U’s most celebrated game. Not only was it a great game, but it also reinvigorated an arguably tired genre, offering a new twist on an already established experience as well as rewarding consumers with weekly updates, keeping the game...well...fresh. Now I will say that multiplayer focused online games aren’t my forte, but even with that said, every time I played Splatoon, whether it was just for a quick few games, or whether I was getting involved in the Splatfests, I had an incredible amount of fun. It’s not hard to see why this game is so beloved and why it’s sequel is already getting a lot of attention on the Switch.

5. Yoshi’s Woolly World

I really loved Yoshi’s Island on the SNES. It’s without a doubt one of my favourite games of all time; but it seems that Nintendo just couldn’t bottle lightning twice. Until Woolly World came out. Finally, we have a worthy successor. Woolly World gets the balance perfect. There’s all the familiar that the fans know and love, but the elements that always felt shoe-horned in before have been dropped. The wool motif isn’t just an ascetic choice either, it’s actually creatively put into the design, leading to some inventive puzzles, as well as ingenious stages. Furthermore, the design here is so tight. This game teaches you about itself as you play. By the last world you’ll be able to see all the hidden areas with ease; and that’s not even going into how each level is completely original. I had so much fun playing I was genuinely saddened when it all came to an end. It’s safe to say that I love this game.

4. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

The fate of Tropical Freeze is quite a sad one. Y’see, at the start of 2014 when this game came out, the Wii U was circling the drain as far as public opinion was concerned. Sure, it had one or two good games in 2013, but let’s face it the Wii U was dead in the water - many people thought. As a result, this game received no love from critics. Criticised for its design being too similar to its predecessor, among other petty things, Tropical Freeze just never really saw much of the light of day. Ask anyone now though, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is probably the best 2D platformer in years. I will admit some critiques stick, but they do nothing to tarnish the strength of this game. Every level is well designed and unique; the introduction of more kongs varies and shakes up the play style; the look and feel is absolutely fantastic; and the music...oh the music. Quite possibly the best soundtrack of 2014, and if you know what soundtracks came out in that year, you’ll know that is saying something. Honestly, I was considering this game for a higher position on my list, but you have to understand, even though this game is amazing (and it IS amazing) there are still 3 games I consider as better. Such as...

3. Pikmin 3

After somewhat of a hiatus on the Wii, Pikmin returned on the Wii U in what can only be described as the series best. I say that in disbelief. The first Pikmin was such a momentous time-management game, and a staple of the Gamecube era; it’s sequel was also a wonderful game, how does the third instalment match up to them? First it truly utilises the Gamepad’s functionality, allowing for insane multitasking feats, and second it reinvents part of its key formula. Pikmin 1 gave you 30 days to succeed; whereas Pikmin 2 didn’t give you any deadline at all. Pikmin 3 however, gives you as much time as you need, provided you can get it. No longer are you searching for salvage in order to escape the planet, you’re looking for food - to survive long enough to escape the planet. Literally, if you are not careful with your time, the game will just end on you. Same pressure, different style. In addition, the game looks gorgeous; has so much love, charm, and character; and has such a draw of replay-ability, my brother actually played it twice in quick succession to try and do things better on the second go. Thinking back, I’m actually struggling to pinpoint anything bad about it. It’s a true marvel.

2. Super Mario 3D World

A lot of people said when the Wii U launched back in November 2012 that it came out a year early. This was because, as I said before, the launch line up wasn’t too impressive, and the wait for some big new games took practically 6 months. Though it pains me to say it, I have to agree. If the Wii U launched in November 2013, we’d have Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 both at launch for a start, But we’d also have Super Mario 3D World on top of that. Whilst the Wii U did launch with a Mario game, there’s no doubt which title is superior. Super Mario 3D World, as many people have said, is the game the console should have launched with. That’s not to say New Super Mario Bros. U is a bad game by any means, but it pales in comparison to this stellar achievement of entertainment and design. Continuing the style of the incredible Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS, 3D World takes everything up to 11. Level design is some of the series best; power ups are new and are actually interesting; a mixture of play styles and characters to choose from to keep things unique; outstanding graphics and music; and a whole boat load of things to do. Just when you think you’ve beaten the game, another world opens up; then another one after that, and then more after that. It’s truly a gift that keeps on giving and it’s all remarkably fun to boot. Not only that but 3D World delivers what I would say is the hardest level ever made by official Nintendo devs: the infamous Champion’s Road. It is as the name implies: only masters of Mario should attempt, and even then they should be wary. All in all, Super Mario 3D World is easily one of the finest Mario games ever made, let alone on Wii U. It’s absolutely fantastic; but it is still not the best game the Wii U has to offer. It is a majestic game to be sure, but if there’s one title that deserves the crown for best Wii U game, it has to be...

1. Mario Kart 8

Without a doubt. What other game could it be? When compiling this list, as difficult as it was to rank all the other games here, I knew this game was number 1. It is the most refined Mario Kart experience yet. Everything looks gorgeous; environments old and new are beautifully presented; the tracks are some of the best in the franchise; the music is extraordinarily brilliant; and the gameplay is not only seamless and enjoyable, its also addictive. Oh but the fun doesn’t stop there, as online functionality gives this game a near limitless amount of play time. “Oh but what if other players just stop playing?” Ha, what? I wager I could boot the game up right now and find people from all over the world playing it. The only way those servers are going to get empty before April 28th 2017 is if Nintendo closes them down. It’s the best selling and most popular game on the system, and with good reason. But, Mario Kart 8 isn’t just an outstanding game, it’s also served as the flagship of the Wii U. Do you remember before when I mentioned how low the opinion of the console was back in early 2014? This game, when it launched in May that year, was so great, it changed the Wii U perception dramatically, and it gave rise to one of the console’s strongest years. Furthermore it was one of the first Nintendo games to do DLC, and it even hit it out of the park there. For a reasonable fee, players were given extra characters as well as four new grand prixs; essentially, players were getting a bonus Mario Kart game on top of the one they already owned. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Nintendo just added a 200cc mode for free. The sheer level of content given to us was astounding. Only a short-sighted battle mode brought this game down from perfection, but as far as I’m concerned that’s barely a dent. Mario Kart 8 is the Wii U’s best game, plain and simple, and if you disagree I will fight you.

#Wii U #Top 15 #List #Mario #Zelda #Star Fox #Pikmin #Donkey Kong #super smash bros wii u #Yoshi #Splatoon

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hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat · 8 years

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Anime Review: When the Seagulls Cry (Umineko)

On the remote island of Rokkenjima, only accessible by ferry, the esteemed Ushiromiya family gather for important family matters. The head of the family Kinzo is dying, and his four children Rosa, Krauss, Rudolf and Eva are already in talks for the headship. Their own descendants are also present; Jessica, George, Maria and Battler. Also there are the Ushiromiya servants, and Kinzo’s longtime friend and physician, Dr Nanjo. It is a gathering of friends and family, although not everybody is as happy as their family’s status would suggest. Relationships are strained, and jealousy is rife.

Not that it will matter in the end. For Kinzo has a dark secret involving the black arts and the legendary Golden Witch, Beatrice. And, in what could be a conspiracy and what could be a game, he has locked his friends and family on the island, now inaccessible due to a typhoon, and with a murderous sorceress on the loose.

When the typhoon passes, and the seagulls cry, the Ushiromiya family will be dead.

Or will they? For there is a larger game at stake here, and one of the family may have the ability to solve the mystery and change the family’s fate for good.

In the early 2000s, an anime was released based on the popular visual novel Higurashi: When They Cry (approximately translating to When the Cicadas Cry).The anime has quickly hit cult status for its severe genre shifting between soft slice-of-life and dark, horror murder mystery. And not just once, either, since the show would flip back and forth pretty much effortlessly. Whether you like the show or not (I personally appreciate it more than I actually like it) there’s no doubt that it was very good at what it did. The writing was tight and knew exactly where it was going and which cards to hold back and show at any given time. The characters were slowly explored well using a unique plot-point that kept the stakes and the mystery up. Even the cheap art style was used remarkably effectively, with the bouncy moe girls switching back and forth between cute and axe-crazy at the drop of a hat (Higurashi Face still remains one of my favourite tropes). It’s not perfect, but it’s one of those shows that I’d recommend everybody at least watch, if only to experience it.

So given the low-key success of Higurashi, it would make sense to bring back the director, series compositor and script-writer, and the same studio do adapt the spiritual successor of the VN, Umineko: When they Cry in 2009. Surely the same skills and combination of great source and great adaptation would make for another great show...surely...

(SPOILERS: It didn’t)

Let’s start with the animation. This is a Studio DEEN effort, and...yeah, it has the look of a Studio DEEN effort. I can’t really say the animation is any worse than Higurashi; they’re both obviously budgeted shows. Nor are the character designs particularly bad, especially compared to the original VN artwork (it’s kind of a ONE deal going on where the storytelling far, FAR surpasses the presentation). What is sadly lacking here though is the direction; everything just feels very flat. Bits that are supposed to be scary just sort of hover in subspace and don’t really fit, which is bizarre because the designs are far less moe-fied than Higurashi, and yet the two aspects don’t blend anywhere near as well. Maybe the increased contrast means they fit better together? Possibly.

The music is also a little flat; none of it is bad but it’s not particularly noteworthy either. However the real standout bits of the presentation are the opening and ending themes; hooooly dang, they are cool. It’s pretty much as explicit in faux-epic as you can get but the massive Italian choirs and pumping synth orchestra is just cheesy enough to actually kind of work. The singers also help, with Akiko Shikata providing a soft and slightly sinister purveyor of oncoming tragedy in the opening, and Jimang absolutely knocking it out of the park with his booming scratchy vocals in the ending, as he lays out his plans and desires as Kinzo Ushiromiya himself. Along with bombastic visuals, it’s truly wonderful stuff that is frankly far better than the show it’s attached to.

So, that plot synopsis I gave above? Yeah...um...that’s kind of a lie. I thought that was what was going to happen, since I was expecting something along the lines of Higurashi. There’s even a similar narrative plotpoint which enables the exploration of the characters and the mystery. But there are a few key differences. For one...the hints at the supernatural in Higurashi? Yeah, they’re massively explicit here. Like...they’re not just hinted at. They are spectating the events and providing a running commentary. I’m not even lying. And you know what happens when you’re taking out from one group of characters and have somebody sit in fancy chairs and explain things? That’s right, it’s really obnoxious and confusing and boring. It’s really hard to get into anything when it gets interspersed with talking heads like a friggin’ reaction video.

But, I could have lived with that. After all, there’s still the mystery which needs to be solved, and the way to save the family of Ushiromiya...oh...wait. No. That doesn’t happen. Sorry but...instead of solving that mystery, we’re going to make another mystery. Which completely defeats the point of the first mystery. There’s a game going on between Beatrice and one of the family, in which they are trying to disprove the existence of witches.

But instead of trying to solve the ACTUAL mystery, the witch makes ANOTHER mystery where she clearly is the murder, and magic clearly exists. And once that finishes, she does it again, bringing in even more magic. In fact, the only way it’s at all possible to win against her is when another witch enters the fray and passes on knowledge and magic in order to effectively fight her (in, what I will mention, are blatant VN ‘magics’ which just feel forced and wrong). So we’ve reached the point where we’re watching several different murder mysteries going on, all with different characters and motivations, all being overseen by a witch doing it basically for shits and giggles and a guy using magic to try and disprove the use of magic.

Except we’re not, because apparently the writers don’t know how actual character development works when the guy basically ragequits the game when he realises that the murderous psycho witch was actually a murderous psycho witch...and she gets all depressed and wonders what she was doing wrong. And all the while there’s all this turmoil with the family and with the OTHER witches, and for crying out loud the show just keeps rolling out character after character and dumb plotpoint after dumb plotpoint, CONSTANTLY contradicting itself.

And all the while, the actual family members are basically acting as flesh-puppets. Some of them do get some backstory and motivation, which would be interesting and allow for a motive in order to make them both sympathetic and/or a potential culprit. But we spend so little time on them and far too much on the magical bullcrap going on around them, that they all just feel so flat and two-dimensional. And don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of emotional baggage here, but the delivery is just so...out of place that at best it’s boring and at worst it’s downright unpleasant. And the fact that there are several different versions of these characters going on at the same time makes it very difficult to actually relate to anyone. The worst culprit is probably Maria, the creepy little girl who is so obviously evil that apparently she wasn’t in the end and is a Pure Sweet Cinnamon RollTM except she...never was. Not that it matters in the end because most people just die multiple times.

So what we have here is a murder mystery that is never actually solved, a family which is never explored, all looked over by a group of witches doing witch things and a main player witch who isn’t actually a witch although she is using magic to do things while asking someone to prove she’s not doing magic to do things while other witches are playing a game with her and some poor guy standing there trying to disprove magic by using magic and by the way magic here is the very pinnacle of “It’s Magic, I Don’t Have To Explain It”, except when it isn’t and it does have proper rules which they never actually tell people and the show decides to change itself up again and follow a character we’ve never met go through a completely different story which amounts to...basically nothing because we kind of end this whole debacle exactly where we started, just because somebody felt like it, and did I mention that all the servants have magical Green Lantern powers and there’s a sassy devil butler and schoolgirl versions of the seven deadly sins (for crying out loud, again?) and there are weird bunny girl demons and talking lion plush toys and

By which point any sane person has already picked up this Cluedo board and flung it out the window.

I’ve seen incompetent shows. Shows far more dull, bad, offensive and just downright wrong shows than this. But this, without a doubt, is the most convoluted and utterly insane waste of time I’ve ever watched. And you know what? Half the time...it wasn’t even that bad. I mean, the stuff on screen. There were some decent horror moments, and some moments which went so far into the degree of tastelessness that it almost felt like a fetish show. And there was an awful lot of potential in both the characters and the mystery itself.

So what happened? The only thing I know is that when this anime was made...the visual novel had yet to be released. And I must just sit back and ask myself, why. Why would you make something before the source material is even out.

But even then, it could have worked as an adaptation. There was a great Higurashi-level mystery just waiting here, blending the supernatural and the all too possible nicely. The idea that magic is dependent on faith is a great idea, and if the first mystery was far more impossible, both on a physical and a moral level, it would have made for great stakes to examine that game and throughout the story find different ways in which the murder could have been explained. While at the same time, the characters’ backstories and motivations could be discovered as we try and discover who really did it, therefore thwarting the witch and settling the family problems to rest.

But no. No, we instead got twenty-six episodes of complete and utter insanity, that, in the end, is completely pointless and non-canon anyway. Ugh. If you want to know the story, play the visual novel instead. If you don’t, then...I don’t know, play some Phoenix Wright or Danganronpa. Anything’s got to be better than this.

Despite a fantastic premise, a lot of potential and a group of people who had proved they could do this well (seriously guys, what happened?), Umineko is a great big murder mystery mess of muck. Nothing is consistent, nothing is explored, and nothing is accomplished. Despite one or two decent parts, and a few moments that were entertaining on a purely WTH level, there is nothing that can stop this show from being ultimately a complete waste of time. Not the absolute worst, but easy to skip.

My score: 3/10

#umineko no naku koro ni #umineko: when they cry #when the seagulls cry #anime 2009 #studio deen

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Trials of Mana Review — Class Changing Into a Brand New Form

April 22, 2020 11:00 AM EST

Despite a few hiccups along the way, Trials of Mana is a worthy remake of the original and also serves as a great entry point for new fans.

Seiken Densetsu 3 first made its appearance in 1995 for the Super Famicom but unfortunately, the game would never receive a Western release in its original form. Now, under the new name Trials of Mana, the game has finally arrived outside of Japan as a full 3D remake of Seiken Densetsu 3. Everything from the monsters, towns, gameplay, dungeons, and character models have been lovingly translated from the original 2D title.

And while this may be a solid entry in the Mana series, it begs the question of whether this can be considered a solid JRPG in its own right.

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Trials of Mana follows a pretty standard fantasy plot that revolves around a diverse cast of JRPG archetypes as they save their respective kingdoms and the world from evil forces that are attempting to activate the Mana Stones and gain the power of the Mana Sword. Along the way, these characters aid the elementals that represent each stone and gain their alliance in return.

Although the story could have easily been annoyingly cliched and boring, there’s something about having such a straightforward plot with characters who are clear cut and consistent in their motives and behaviors. It’s charming almost and a refreshing change from the more convoluted plots that tend to drag down other narrative-heavy titles.

“Everything from the monsters, towns, gameplay, dungeons, and character models have been lovingly translated from the original 2D title.”

The real draw of Trials of Mana, however, is how the story and antagonist changes depending on the protagonist you choose at the start. Two characters share one villain though between them there may be vast differences in their narrative arcs. For instance, Duran and Angela have the same foe, the Crimson Wizard, but the reasons for why they oppose this baddie comes from opposite starting points.

Depending on what two party members you choose also affects how the overall story unfolds. A good example is my own party composition: thanks to how events unfold in-game, Riesz’s resolution with her kingdom, Laurent, occurred fairly early, while Kevin must wait until later chapters before his main plot is addressed. This also meant that due to Angela being the leading lady in my playthrough, Duran took a more passive role when Valsena’s liberation comes into play.

Even now, this kind of storytelling style is a rare find but it’s even more surprising when you consider that the original Seiken Densetsu 3 was made in 1995. Playing through Trials of Mana, I found myself amazed at how much dialogue variety there is since the scriptwriters had to predict every conceivable scenario for the player’s party composition. It’s not a perfect system, as sometimes story beats can be a bit awkward as they show their age, but it’s an extensive one that adds an incredible level of replayability to the game.

The gameplay in Trials of Mana is an absolute blast as the 2D combat from the original translates well to the 3D plane as characters move, attack, and dodge smoothly. You have a variety of basic moves–attacks, power strikes, and charge attacks –as well as Clash Strikes, which are denoted by a special double gauge called the CS gauge.

Despite the palette swapping and slight model changing of most enemy “families,” each type has a distinctive moveset, pattern of attack, and unique abilities. For instance, there are several foes that evolve into a stronger form mid-battle when a certain condition is fulfilled. The changing strategies among foes forces you to re-examine and modify your own strategy. It’s a constantly shifting environment that prevents you from getting too complacent, which makes for thrilling battles.

Bosses are no slouch, either. The first two or so are lightweights that merely test how well you’ve mastered the combat mechanics. After this point, the game takes off the proverbial kid gloves and proceeds to pound you into the dirt if you haven’t been allocating your training points, are too low level, aren’t paying attention to AOE moves, or haven’t taken advantage of class upgrades.

There are plenty of hiccups in combat, though. The camera, as in many action and action RPG titles, can be your worst enemy at times. Most of the time, it’s easy enough to adjust on the fly and enemies won’t punish you for not having them in your sights at all times. But when it gets stuck on corners or in tight corridors, wrestling back control while maintaining a steady assault becomes an exercise in patience that I didn’t consent to. There’s also the inconsistent nature of the targeting system, which can make the camera go haywire at times and will de-lock at random intervals.

“The gameplay in Trials of Mana is an absolute blast as the 2D combat from the original translates well to the 3D plane.”

The AI for party members can be hit or miss as well. AI is generally smart enough to dodge most AOE attacks, target foes with moves that make sense (ie: using aerial attacks on aerial enemies), and overall do well at abiding by the AI behavior you set for them. And if you set the proper behaviors, your supports and healers will reliably use the corresponding spells and abilities.

However, they tend to have trouble with more complex behaviors such as avoiding very precise AOE moves or any sort of damage from normal attacks. It’s frustrating to say the least when party members fall prey to easily avoidable attacks and you’re forced to pick up the slack. This is compounded even more so if, like me, you have no white mage in your party and rely on your limited supply of items.

These shortcomings do very little to take away from both my overall enjoyment of combat and from my favorite part of Trials of Mana: the dungeons. While nothing is wrong with the more linear experience of modern JRPGs such as Final Fantasy VII Remake or Persona 5 Royal, I missed the more sprawling dungeon maps of classic titles. Fortunately, Trials of Mana completely delivers on that front.

Each area is set up with a unique gimmick that serves as the key to navigating. But as players will soon notice, there are tons of alternate pathways filled with hidden secrets and valuable treasures; completely optional but well worth your time to fully explore them. There’s also a Lil’ Cactus (which is literally a cute and tiny cactus, a franchise staple NPC) hidden in nearly every dungeon and town, and finding a certain amount of them grants you useful effects such as shop discounts, occasional double experience points post-battle, and more. Having the option to go nearly everywhere in a given dungeon is refreshing and reminds me of some of the best aspects of old school JRPGs.

As the party defeats enemies and levels up they begin to earn training points. These training points can be allocated to abilities and stat increases that correspond with the five categories: stamina, strength, intelligence, luck, and spirit. Naturally, characters have leanings depending on their class specialties. Trials of Mana does well in incentivizing the allocation of points to every category regardless of their perceived relevance by ensuring useful abilities and stat gains.

After a certain point in the game, Mana Stones grant the party the ability to class change. Each character can choose between Light and Dark paths, which determine future abilities they’ll have access to as well as how their stats will grow. The training points and the class system is simple but offers some nice options; even within the restrictions of each class, there are many ways to customize your allies depending on your playstyle.

Despite Trials of Mana being a remake of a mid-90s Super Famicom title, this game unabashedly takes its cues from early 2000s JRPGs. From the bright and colorful visuals, to the simple story, to the more experimental free-movement action combat style that started to emerge in that era to even the voice work, Mana is entrenched in bizarrely misplaced nostalgia. And yet its presentation works almost entirely in its favor, as it allows Mana to stand out from the crowd of super-stylized or hyper-realistic titles, much like how Xenoblade Chronicles 2 did so when it released in 2017.

The visuals absolutely shine as a result of this design choice, as they manage to balance simple designs and vibrant colors with genuinely stunning and detailed environments. Every time I enter a new area, I look forward to seeing how they’ll interpret its original 2D look into the new (yet retro) graphics.

Even better than the graphics is the soundtrack which is brimming with fantastic remixes. One of my favorites is the boss theme which blares as Full Metal Hugger emerges from the cave. The rest of the soundtrack is just as phenomenal, ranging from energetic battle theme chords to upbeat town melodies to the solemn music featured during more dire straits. Fans of the original Seiken Densetsu 3 are sure to be pleased by the amount of care and effort that has been put into this OST.

“Trials of Mana is an easy recommendation to both fans of the franchise as well as newcomers looking for an entry point into the series.”

Conversely, the voice acting is where this stylistic choice suffers the most. Voice acting, which was a new frontier for many developers in the early 2000s, isn’t spectacular here, either. The English voice work is extremely inconsistent, as some actors sound quite comfortable in their roles while others flounder to summon any sort of consistent character voice and emotion. Don’t think you’ll avoid this issue by switching to Japanese either, as the voice acting is just as mediocre. If voice acting quality is a major concern for you, this could have a huge impact on your experience. As for myself, I found the voice work growing on me as I played through the game to the point where I honestly forgot how awkward it was.

Though not a perfect game, Trials of Mana is still a solid remake of a 2D classic that tragically never made it to the West until now. With a fun and strategic battle system, ample character class customization, impressive visuals, a fantastic soundtrack, and a post-game story episode with new classes for each playable character, Trials of Mana is an easy recommendation to both fans of the franchise as well as newcomers looking for an entry point into the series.

April 22, 2020 11:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/trials-of-mana-review-class-changing-into-a-brand-new-form/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trials-of-mana-review-class-changing-into-a-brand-new-form

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puclpodcast · 6 years

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PDL Week 4 Recap

This is the final week before the first bye week and teams are giving it all they have got before a well deserved week of rest.

DEP vs. BAL: 2-0

NWN vs. AUK: 0-4

HEH vs. MIN: 0-3

VAV vs. DCC: 0-4

TOT vs. MIL: 0-3

BFS vs. MID: 0-3

COG vs. ITA: 6-0

SHS vs. LOL: 6-0

SLC vs. JAX: 3-0

NJJ vs. HFW: 0-5

BEN vs. PIP: 3-0

NYY vs. BLP: 3-0

This week the Corsola Cola Division played off against the Rhyhorn Steakhouse and lets just say that Corsola Cola can’t overpower the flavor form the Rhyhorn Steakhouse. With 5 out of the 6 games going in favor of the Rhyhorn Steakhouse division. The same outcome happened between the Green Tauros division and the Toxapepsi Division. The hooves from Green Tauros stopped the Merciless flavors of Toxapepsi in almost every match. The past 3 weeks have pinned division vs division and those matches overall were closer with the Rhyhorn Steakhouse coming out with the most wins of all the divisions thus far. Is this telling of how things will look for playoffs or is this just week 4 madness stretching across the conference. I guess we will find out soon enough.

I have to mention how impressed I am with how well teams are adapting to this format and improving already. A bunch of team got their first win, or made strides towards the top of the standings, with now only 3 teams left undefeated. What’s becoming more and more apparent is that the teams that do good prep usually come out on top. There is one match in particular that highlights how useful prep can be when your opponents don’t expect something. That would be the AUK vs NWN game. Sparky! Coached his team through a difficult match up and showed why he is a force to be reckoned with this season. (If you want to see Vileplume, tied for #3 on the MVP leaderboard, sweep a team I recommend checking out the HFW vs. NJJ game.)

AUK Side: DG6G-WWWW-WWWL-B2AY

NWN Side: AEJG-WWWW-WWWL-R29W

Pick’ems

These are becoming tougher and tougher to pick correctly with the majority of teams this week with only 7 correct. However no one got a perfect week so they do not get mentioned here. The reason for that is because of the 4 Pick ‘em upsets. Despite COG being 3-0 ,at the top of the standings and a previous UUTC winner, the majority of picks 9 went in favor of ITA the most current UUTC winner. While this is not a traditional upset it is one in terms a pick ‘ems. The second one comes at SHS taking down LOL with the same margin 9-4. NYY gets their first win over BLP who came off an upset win last week. Those picks were 10-3 in favor of BLP. Finally there was one person who called the BEN upset over PIP this week. Clearly and match no one saw coming.

Trades

Here are the Trades from week 4 that will be live week 5 after the bye

DCC Tyranitar T1 Free Agent Reuniclus DCC Hitmontop T4 Free Agent Aerodactyl NYY Azumarill T1 Free Agent Tyranitar VAV Rotom-W T1 Free Agent Azumarill VAV Gardevoir T3 Free Agent Meloetta VAV Altaria T5 Free Agent Servine

DCC after a rough start made some necessary changes to help improve their matchups in weeks to come by adding Aerodactyl and Reuniclus to their roster. Some fancy mon dropping in free agency allowed NYY to drop Azumarill to pick up the Tyranitar that DCC dropped and VAV picked up the Azumarill. VAV also added Meloetta dn servine to their roster which is bound to bring in new energy to the team.

Interview with Hydra

This week I’m joined by (In my opinion, one of the better battlers in PUCL) Hydra.

C9: Thank you Hydra for taking the time to answer these questions for the fans. Being randomly selected for first pick of the draft, how did you feel about?

Hydra: Whenever I see I’ve gotten first pick in a league, there’s always a rush of excitement due to all the options it gives for starting a draft. So, I was definitely happy that I could build a plan that didn’t have to factor being sniped in round 1.

C9: How do you think that impacted your draft, if at all?

Hydra: Due to the way PDL does S-tier picks, there’s a cost associated with picking the usual draft format no-brainers like Tapu Koko or Celesteela, and you can’t just jump on one of those round 1 without consequences. Additionally, the mons I ended up desiring weren’t ones I usually see taken quickly in draft format. As a result, I don’t think it ultimately influenced my draft much.

C9: What are your goals for this season of PDL?

Hydra: I’d ideally like to use all of my Pokemon to their full potential, and with a wider variety of sets. Last season I was using pokemon with more straightforward roles (also there were some Free Agency trades over an awkwardly long period of time,) and as a result there just wasn’t as much variety week to week.

C9: Who are most looking forward to battling this season?

Hydra: Geo for sure. Going off his record he seems like a strong battler, and we may or may not have had disagreements in the past involving a flying prehistoric pokemon with facial hair.

C9: Is there anyone you are glad you don’t have to face in the regular season?

Hydra: I’d say Thatch. I faced him twice last season, and although I can’t recall if it was bad plays, prep, or just an unfortunate draft matchup, I lost to him both times. So, it’s nice to not have to worry about a third match (at least until a potential comeback in season 3!)

C9: I know I’m not looking forward to our match, week 7, but either way it should be a fun battle.

Hydra: I’m flattered by your dread! But as long as we’re not going to fight twice in a row like we had to in the UUTC, it should be fun. Back-to-back battles aren’t usually a great time, but maybe that’s just me.

C9: Why did you choose the team name, The Norwalk Nosepass?

Hydra: I’m glad you asked- it’s the violently creative combination of my hometown, Norwalk, and a pokemon that possesses my favorite type, Nosepass. Despite both this Connecticut town and gen 3 Pokemon lacking any noteworthy characteristics I can discern, I’ve got a fondness for both of them.

C9: Were there any secret techs that you brought for your matchups that you didn’t get to showcase?

Hydra: There’s surprisingly already been a few. Though I did get to show off Shattered Psyche Serperior (EM Mirror Coat being the base) as a finishing move, it didn’t prove to be the surprise game winner I thought it would be as my opponent didn’t bring the Pokemon it was meant to break through, Amoonguss. I feel like I might end up bringing the other wacky techs again sometime soon, so I’ll keep quiet on those.

C9: Who would you say is the mon you are most excited to use on your team this year?

Hydra: Surprisingly, it’s proven to be Miltank. I wasn’t terribly excited about using it at first, and simply picked it to add some bulk to my draft. But it’s been a very effective and versatile Pokemon, so much so that every week so far I’ve had reason to breed a new set on it. Makes sense considering usable stats for several roles, an expansive movepool, and three good abilities to pick from.

C9: Let’s learn about you as a pokemon Fan. When did you start listening to PUCL?

Hydra: I was really into the VGC15 meta, especially post worlds, and at the time was also expanding the amount of different podcasts I listened to quite a bit. PUCL was the only one I could find that covered the format and competitive battling overall in any meaningful sense, and I’ve been a listener since.

C9: What pokemon generation did you start with?

Hydra: For me, it started back- I mean, right around gen 4. No particularly interesting story to tell, unfortunately. I’d been obsessed with the cards or anime from time to time, and eventually got Pearl upon hearing about from my older brother (but not yet understanding) the wonders this franchise had to offer in video game form.

C9: What is your favorite region?

Hydra: I’d probably go with Hoenn. As far as I remember it has the most diverse locations (and did a lot of them first,) featuring volcanoes, forests, deserts, pillars that touch the sky, and just the right amount of water. Now that I think about it, Alola is probably just as diverse in terms of locations, but it needed multiple islands to get that done so I’ll stick with Hoenn.

C9: Who is your favorite pokemon?

Hydra: Hydreigon! Ever since I first saw it and its incomparably cool typing browsing Serebii while waiting for BW’s American Release, it’s been my favorite. Worth even the absolutely ridiculous grind for level 64 and a 4x weakness resulting from it being too broken in gen 5. Snorlax and Psyduck would be my honorable mentions.

C9: If you had to pick: Attack or Special Attack?

Hydra: I’d go with Special Attack. Intimidate is gross, and moves like Psyshock or Secret Sword mean you can get the best of both worlds going with Special sometimes.

C9: What is your battle style: Stall/Hyper Offense/Bulky Offense/Balance?

Hydra: I generally lean Hyper Offense, simply because it’s quicker/easier to build for and battle with, which of course means more time for more battles!

C9: Do you prefer Speed or Trick Room?

Hydra: The answer’s probably obvious to anyone who battled me in the UUTC this year, but Trick Room. The setup is convoluted of course and means that you’re often better off going for straight speed in singles, but the payoff is immense when it works. It’s usually my default strategy when trying to figure out a new VGC format as well.

C9: What is your favorite Weather; Hail/Sand/Rain or Sun?

Hydra: Definitely Hail, partly due to it being the underdog of weather conditions for so long and me being a New Englander who doesn’t mind the cold weather. Hail was my favorite playstyle in the previously mentioned VGC15, as Blizzard would largely tear apart CHALK type teams if you had Heatran covered. The new tools it got in gen 7 finally put it on par with the other weather conditions too, so it’s less of an uphill battle to use it now.

C9: Electric/Misty/Grassy or Psychic Terrain?

Hydra: Grassy Terrain! I like Bulu a whole lot, and the effects of Grassy terrain lend themselves better than the other terrains to building defensive cores. Heatran’s another Pokemon I really like, and it can form an impeccable core with Bulu thanks to the three effects of Grassy Terrain that all benefit it.

C9: Favorite status to inflict: Sleep/Freeze/Paralysis/Burn or Poison?

Hydra: Paralysis for me. Even though it only cuts speed by 50% now, that’s still enough to make most things slower than even a lot of your walls, and that 25% chance of total immobility can mean you pulling of all kinds of things you otherwise couldn’t. And of course, I thought that the animation for it looked really neat in Diamond and Pearl.

C9: Have you watched the Pokemon anime? If yes, what is your favorite Theme song?

Hydra: I unfortunately haven’t watched the anime in quite some time, so it’s hard to say. But, I’ve heard that a Patrat goes for a high five but gets left hanging in one of the Black and White theme songs, and that sounds fantastic to me, so I’ll go with that.

C9: Thank you Hydra, for joining us today! We will be back in 2 weeks after the week 5 matches. See ya soon

from PDL Week 4 Recap

#pokemon #pucl #pokemon podcast #ORAS #nintendo #video games

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