#it's kinda fun that some quests are very nice to girls

[haunted-xander]

Finished the 6.55 MSQ so here's my (very positive) thoughts:

‌Love love LOVE Wuk Lamat she's so fun and her dynamic with Erenville is hilarious. Very excited to see more of her in Dawntrail.

‌Krile is already getting some nice scenes and I'm very happy she's finally gonna get the spotlight in dt. My girls been side-lined for 4 expacs it's about damn time she gets to shine.

‌The inventor of Pictomancy is literally Relm. Like they name drop her. Obv not the same Relm as in VI but still! Relm is real! And she was an Archon! tbh them naming an important character related to this type of magic after her isn't surprising- I just expected it to be something in the job quests rather than the MSQ.

‌Zero made super-spicy dishes popular in Thavnair lol. Wuk Lamat trying to toughen it out was hilarious. God I love her.

‌Wuk Lamat & Erenville being childhood friends was not something I expected! Very fun.

‌The catboy from the dawntrail promotional artwork is probably Wuk Lamat's brother, Koana(Was that his name? tbh I forgot. But she has a Miqo brother that's what's important). He looks smart, and it's possible he's gonna be another candidate claiming for the throne.

‌Based on the artwork, I had figured our main group was gonna be WoL, Krile, Thancred and Urianger, as they are the only Scions featured, but based on the quest it'll probably be Wol, Krile, Alphinaud and Alisaie. G'raha is allegedly staying behind, but since he's shown in Tural in the trailer I think he'll find an excuse to come along anyway lol.

‌Thancred and Urianger are going to be competing against us, which will be interesting. I think it'll be fun to see some of the Scions take on a more rival-y role, if only for a bit. It looks like they were petitioned by someone else participating in the Rite of Succession, so maybe they're working for Miqo boy? They're on his side of the artwork after all 🤔

‌(Also I think the writers know how popular those two have gotten together lol they're like making it a point to have them with each other at all times)

‌Estinien is going to Tural just for the hell of it which I think is hilariously in character. Literally going there at the same time as us purely by coincidence. He really can't escape us can he.

‌Y'shtola is neither seen nor heard of which tbh I think is fair given how much screentime and focus she got during the whole Zero arc. I do wonder why she's going to Tural tho, she's in the trailer too so I'm certain she will be there.

‌(Also, since G'raha, Estinien and Y'shtola aren't aligned with any particular side as of now, I think they'll be a neutral third party in the Succession rivalries going on. That, or they'll end up siding with the 3rd sibling that isn't the Obvious Villain (based on Wuk Lamat and Erenville's accounts) somehow. Will be fun to see in any case.)

‌The little memory dialogue from Emet was nice :) just a reminder of the adventures yet to be had. Also he's finally in the unending codex which I think is nice (ngl I kinda forgot about the codex until he got added to it)

ALSO I almost forgot to include it BUT we have a nice heart-to-heart scene with G'raha alone on a bridge and if the writers weren't COWARDS (and/or worried about romance ambiguity, at least for those relating to the WoL) he could've proposed to us then and there. You know he wants you. Do not hold him back writers let him do what he wants. (I'd have said yes ofc)

‌Backpack :)

[thormanick]

NATLAN ARCHON QUEST SPOILERS BEWARE

soooooooo my feelings related to the recent archon quest might be a bit confusing in their nature (there is something about the ratio between overall pacing and lore/character/cutscene moments that made me trip a bit, I'm not sure what exactly or why), bUT I have some things to say:

I didn't expect to like Mualani as much as I like her now, as a character AND a playable unit

If anyone so much as looks at Kachina the wrong way I will tear them to pieces. There will be blood and it won't be mine. Do not touch that precious girl (I say all of this with the context of liking Kachina the least when the new Natlan characters were revealed. I truly didn't think they'd manage to make me interested in her. But her characterization really really made me root for her with all the roots I had (and I think the VA did a very good job). I think her segments had very good writing, and her interactions with Mualani served very well to build both of the characters equally)

I kinda expected to see more of Kinich? But overall my initial opinion on him didn't change - which is, I don't really have an opinion on him either way. (well his interactions with Ajaw were nice in terms of glimpsing into his/their character/s, but otherwise I really don't have much to say).

I'm kinda conflicted on Mavuika bc while everything about her character progression made sense I still had a strong feeling like there should have been at least one more scene with her sometime in the beginning/middle that could have established her a bit more as an authority figure that was chosen to be an archon, but it never happened. But it feels like there should have been something else. Idk idk (overall I really liked how they approached her character as an archon and explained her existence.)

That cliffhanger at the end. I'm watching you, Hoyo.

I liked all the battle segments, especially in the People of the Springs section. I think that was fun. It felt exciting.

Overall I have a good impression from this quest, I just wish we had more time. Not because pacing was off, but because I feel like there could have been even more material put into this first part of the Natlan Arc. Idk idk

P. S. Oh yeah Chasca??? Was there a lot??? I didn't expect that at all. I liked her character (in fact purely character-wise she might be one of my top Anemo characters??? probably??? (I'm sorry anemo folks I... generally don't like anemo characters as much as most of the fandom I feel like... (exceptLynetteshe'samazing))). But boy... I still can't comprehend her design. Which is sad because color palette is pretty and should (and could) work well, it's just... I think it's the garments, maybe the cape (? is it even cape?) in particular. I wish it wasn't split in half but was a one piece instead. And I wish she had both gloves. Or both pants. One or the other, Something about that current asymmetrical symmetry is not working as intended, but that's just my opinion.

P.P.S. When the Pyro Lector appeared my immediate reaction was: "You are not the Thing Calling Itself Enjou >:[ !!!"

[enden-k]

btw now that i can get to it (was busy and had someone over) i can babble a little abt zzz and give my thoughts so far on it if anyone is still wondering whether they should try it or not

first thing i have to say is, to me it feels like a cozy casual kinda game. and i love it. i think thats the part i saw some ppl complain abt

it reminds me a lot of P5 w the overall vibes etc (i played on first release years ago but not the additional stuff afterwards so idk if there were changes to the plot or anything with whatever royal is about) and it was a comfort game for me back then so yea. this might add a lot to why zzz feels like such a comfort game to me

the siblings are not active, playable characters in combat since theyre the proxy guiding and supporting the playable characters (agents) in the hollows (compare it to domains). outside of the hollows you run around with ur chosen sibling and whoever you picked, the other doesnt disappear or becomes irrelevant. they are a unit, run their video store together, theyre one proxy, supporting each other. i already love how trailblazer is more vocal than traveler but the siblings are active, talking parts in cutscenes and whenever theres dialogue choices, your chosen sibling ACTUALLY SAYS IT. this is smth i wished for a while in gnshn so seeing it in zzz made me super happy. it gives them sm life and gets me into it idk how to say it

(this is them btw. pretty mfs)

anw its not overwhelming like gnshn feels to me. gnshn has sm to explore and sm story and its smth i both enjoy and feel exhausted by. now, if you played persona or are familiar, its easier for me to use for comparison. you get to run around as the chosen sibling in the city but the fighting (w the agents you pull from the gacha) all happens in the hollows (similar to when you enter the metaverse). it runs with a day-night cycle and depending on the time, npcs and quests pop up. you can pass the time if you need a specific time of day for an objective, by doing hollow exploration or simply resting in ur room. theres side stuff you do, like running your store and visiting the arcade and play snake akjscbk

the combat itself reminds me of HI3 and wuwa and feels super smooth and fun to me

it has cutscenes etc but the story parts in between are illustrated and presented in a comic/storyboard kinda way? which fits the whole video/movie aesthetics well. its pretty cool

overall, if you didnt try it out yet bc you think it requires lots of energy and time like gnshn, its nothing like that at all. ofc im not through with everything but so far it feels like a very nice game to play casually, w a big cozy bonus when youre spending the day freely in game. i play only on pc or on console when i wanna lay down but this game even i would play on phone or ipad to chill akjscbk

the characters are also pretty fun and cool looking! like, look at them, so far we got

the most chaotic ragtag group in all of new eridu (they share one braincell and its anby who is in charge of it)

fresh looking heavy industry workers (they have a bear)

classic horror housekeeping service who will poison ur tea ig

motorcycle gang (oggling the glasses guy and boss lady super hard, they will be mine when playable-)

public security (they have an actual catboy in case weve got catboy enjoyers here)

special hollow operation elite squad aka the coolest strongest mfs out there taking care of hollow disasters

ALSO THE NPCS!!! LIKE!!! look at the cook!!! tinmaster running the coffee shop!!! the girl selling gadgets or the bunny person running the arcade!!!

even the regular npcs just roaming the streets. theres lots of cool details and life in every bit, its really cool

anw!! idk if this helped or made sense, this is also just my own impressions and feelings so far so yeee. if someone decides to play, i hope you will have fun and get whoever you really really want!!

[flightfoot]

I just finished the seasons of Pretty Cure I was interested in, here's my rankings for them!

For reference, the Precure seasons I've completed are Futari Wa, Max Heart, Fresh, Heartcatch, Go Princess, Mahou Tsukai, Kira Kira, Hugtto, Star Twinkle, Delicious Party, Otona, and Hirogaru Sky.

I'm gonna rank them from worst to best and give my opinion on them. Warning that there may be spoilers in my review.

Hirogaru Sky

This season was a MASSIVE disappointment. It started off strong, but the plot just kind of meandered around until the last few episodes, the pacing was terrible. Most of the episodes are just the characters going to some location and hanging out being cute, and while that's fine for the occasional breather episode, it got really boring really quickly. The character arcs were also pretty lackluster for the most part, Sora's especially. C'mon, you can do so much more interesting things with the desire to "be a hero". Cure Majesty managed to be the most boring cure in existence, she lost all semblance of personality in her transformation from Ellee. Some good things: Tsubasa's character design was amazing, and his two episode introduction was one of the best I've seen for a non-midseason. I also really enjoyed how Mashiro and Battamonda foiled off of each other, I hadn't expected that. If only that arc encompassed more than just three episodes, that was the best part of the show.

Futari Wa

It's okay, it's neat to see where the show started and Nagisa and Honoka are fun to watch. I wish it'd given more even focus to both leads instead of focusing so heavily on Nagisa though, given that there was only the two of them, and it's overall pretty generic by magical girl standards.

Max Heart

I like Max Heart a little better than Futari Wa. Hikari's just okay and the Heartiels are a really poor fetch quest for showing progression (they just kinda show up when it's time), but there's a bit of a mystery element going on with figuring out what Hikari is and how she's connected to the mysterious boy, and overall the plot and ending are a little better than the first season.

Star Twinkle

Now we're getting into the really solid seasons, the ones with a lot to offer, even if they still have major flaws. I love how expansive the world is, all the Cures are interesting and have their own problems, and the way the villains foil with the heroes is cool. It does have some major flaws, however. The season refuses to actually commit to the moral ambiguity it sets up. Like with its cool phantom thief character: she's stealing back the treasures that were illegally stolen from her homeworld after all her people were petrified. Unfortunately, the show doesn't want to promote stealing, so she ends up being scolded about how "stealing is bad" and that they need to simply ask the mob boss nicely to hand over the jewelry he bought. It also has problems with something that's going to come up a lot with the more ambitious, darker entries on this list: terminal vagueness. Precure is frequently extremely vague when tackling darker subjects in the narrative, which can be to its detriment. Like for instance, Kappard hates outsiders because outsiders took his planets resources. It's unclear from what little we see whether outsiders conquered and colonized their world, or whether there were just too many exploitive tourists and the government was incompetent and decided not to do anything about it. I also just kinda got bored after awhile and started wanting it to be over, though there was a lot of interesting stuff in the series. Overall still a good series with a varied world that attempts to tackle and comment on a lot of interesting subjects, but doesn't always manage to do it well.

Heartcatch

So this is a fan-favorite season. Funny thing is, I think it actually sucks at the things it's most well-known for, but is very good at some other things. It's known for being really dark, but I thought its dark elements were poorly executed, with little explanation being given for why Cure Moonlight's father felt the need to put on that damn mask, and little explanation being given about how the main villains came to be. Honestly, for any of them except for Dark Precure. Dune is particularly nonsensical, I have no idea whether he's an alien, a god, or some primordial force. He just kinda popped up. It also set up some plot threads at the beginning with some unsatisfactory pay-offs, like with Cure Blossom supposedly being the weakest Precure and that mostly not mattering after the first episode, or the mystery of who the hunky guy who saved her actually was. Him being Coupe transformed to look like her dead grandpa was unsatisfying. Heartcatch DOES, however, have solid characters and the best monster-of-the-week episodes in the franchise. The premise of Heartcatch was well-crafted for going over and helping to resolve the emotional problems various people run into in their day-to-day lives. For that aspect, I'd recommend Heartcatch to people, even with the problems I have with the actual plot.

Go Princess

This is a really good, solid season that you can hand to most newcomers and be confident they'll have a good time. The character arcs are just kind of okay, but the season's well-paced, I really love the message about pursuing your dreams, putting in the work to fulfill your ambitions, and it's got solid episodic episodes. The thing it's REALLY good at and is known for are the fight scenes and boss fights though. There are boss fights roughly every ten episodes and they're pretty epic, and the fighting is pretty brutal this season in general.

Delicious Party

This is the most underrated Precure season. I think it's something about the silliness of being a food-based season? But I loved its full-throated sincerity when espousing how food brings people together, and it has one of the most plot-filled, excellently paced storylines, since it has this mystery running throughout it of who stole the recipebon, where it is now, and what, exactly, happened to Cinnamon. I really enjoyed some of the character arcs this time around, Cure Spicy's in particular, with her and her parents trying to reconnect, she's one of my favorite cures! Overall, I can understand some of the complaints about this season, but I loved it.

Mahou Tsukai

This season is more than the sum of its parts. Its villains are fun, if not ground-breaking, and it has pretty good world-building, arguably the best of any Precure season - not that that's saying a lot, that is not one of Precure's strengths. It's not really the character ARCS that are amazing this season, it's how the main characters play off each other. This is the most cohesive, closest team of Cures I've seen. Helps that the two main Cures raised a child together XD. Anyway, while a few episodes were kinda slow, I really enjoyed seeing the Magic world and the epilogue left me on the verge of tears, which is the most I've been emotionally affected by ANYTHING in Precure. Highly recommend this season.

Otona

This one's hard to place, since it was only a single cour instead of just four. Still, I think it earns this place. I love how while all the Cures achieved their "dream" jobs, it didn't mean that everything was perfect and sunny in their lives, and looming threats like Global Warming were brought up. All the cures had their own, individual problems, ones that couldn't just be naively dealt with like when they were kids - they had to come up with actual adult answers for them. I love how Otona didn't just like, make everything dark and gloomy, but DID actually seem interested in tackling what might happen with a group of adult magical girls in a genuinely mature way. It felt even-handed. I'd recommend this to even some non-Precure fans who were interested in this sort of premise.

Fresh

I did not like this season at first. I could tell that the villains were gonna be interesting, but I wasn't all that interested in Miki, Buki, Love, or Chiffon. I thought this was gonna be a mediocre season. ...then Eas got those cards and the plot went into overdrive and never went back. The first ten or so episodes of Fresh are just kinda okay, but after that, once Setsuna's arc kicks into high gear, it becomes one of the best Precure seasons, with the single best plot, ending, villains, and single character arc in the series. Setsuna's redemption arc is very compelling, especially since her having been a villain never stops mattering. Reminds me of Ken Ichijouji's, in that way. And the villains are all a blast to watch, and for different reasons. Westar's a himbo, Soular's a sneaky schemer, and Eas gets divided loyalties pretty quickly. They have different sorts of villains they make too. I especially like Soular's villains, they have creative powers. The main things keeping Fresh from being higher are its early mediocre episodes and Chiffon. Chiffon's role in the plot makes no sense. Once again, Precure's just very vague and has Chiffon be this infinity thing that can be used to take over worlds and has a music box to help undo the transformation... just because? it's never explained why Chiffon is the way she is, and she's too important to the plot for that to just be handwaved away. Overall though, I think this season has the most of the best stuff to offer, it's just that there's enough important things it does poorly to keep it off the top of this list.

Hugtto

This season is excellently paced with great character arcs for all the Cures AND even a bunch of the side characters, such as Henri and Masato. Hugtan is a great magical Precure baby and Hariham Harry is an amazing mascot/mentor. The episodes are almost all highly enjoyable and the villains stick around after being defeated, popping up in their new jobs repeatedly. The main thing keeping it off the top spot is the whole "terminal vagueness" problem I've talked about before. It's not totally clear why a lot of the villains want to stop time or why some of them even joined the organization to begin with, or why they made certain other decisions. Like Doctor Traum just sort of attempting to murder his coworker because he could, or why Hariham's brethren decided to stick with Criasu Corp as much as they did after everyone else had gotten hit with an unexplained illness and then had the village burnt down and everyone die in a similarly unexplained fire. The ending was highly disappointing because of how vague it was about these sort of motivations, it just kinda felt like stuff was happening. The epilogue was really good though, I loved seeing what was happening in this new future.

Kira Kira

This is, in my opinion, the single best Precure season. It's got well-orchestrated character arcs for everyone, memorable villains (well, half of the villains, at least), excellent pacing, and the earnestness with which it pursues its baking theme is great to watch. I also really love how Ichika actually kinda sucked at baking at first and had to slowly become better through experience, it was satisfying and realistic! Also the ending was really good and the epilogue had me jumping out of my seat, I STILL can't believe that something that'd been bugging me since episode 2 was finally answered IN THE VERY LAST EPISODE. Honestly my biggest complaint is the lack of Cure Waffle, we were ROBBED. Still, I'm very glad Pikario existed in the first place at least.

[spacerangersam]

If, in an alternative universe, Yonderland wasn't cancelled abruptly after the Christmas special and instead got renewed for a 4th series/season or at least the Six Idiots instead wanted to continue it one last time, what kind of storylines would you personally like to have seen explored in that hypothetical 4th series/season and why?

I've been thinking of a hypothetical 4th season for like a week now, so thank you for the chance to talk about it!

The main thing I would love to see, and basically what the entire season would be centred around in my mind, is Debbie becoming an Elder like her father! I think it'd be a nice way for her to connect with the dad she never got to meet, and just a way to cement that she'll always have a home in Yonderland/prove just how important she is to everyone there. It would be especially sweet if she could have her father's old robe and broach but idk if that would even be possible.

And I think it could have led to some interesting situations/episodes, ie:

an episode where Debbie has to go on a fetch quest to get some item that's needed to become an Elder. The Elders claim all who wish to join the council must go on this perilous quest, but after a bit of needling, they admit yeah, no, we just lost it and we need you to go get it. I would love for Negaus to get involved, like, he's determined to stop her and ruin everything- but he's bad at it and keeps accidentally helping Debbie. She doesn't realise that until the end, and when she does she's just like 'Oh! Thanks! Want to come to the ceremony? :)'. He does, he was just throwing a hissy fit because he didn't get an invitation. (Ho-Tan did send one, she just got his name wrong and it ended up with a Nagetus instead)

(Honestly, I just really want a Negatus arc where he does completely become a good guy who just awkwardly hangs around the Elders and Debbie while denying to his demons that he's good now. I think they kinda did that in the final season but I also think they kind of undid it at the end, which is a shame)

an episode where, amongst all the planning for the ceremony, Debbie's a bit sad she can't invite Pete and the kids. She admits that Elf+Nick after being mopey all episode, at which point they say no one ever told her she had to keep Yonderland a secret. She just did that (because that's the fantasy trope, that's what you do, keep it a secret) and no one thought to correct her.

an episode where she does finally, after multiple interruptions, tell Pete and bring him to Yonderland. He of course loves it, and it takes Debbie like an hour to talk him down from the idea of moving there. He immediately latches onto Negatus, thinks he's the coolest thing ever, and Negatus is very confused but happy with the attention. Pete almost dies about seven times, but it does nothing to dampen his glee. The kids think it's alright. They'd like it better if the wi-fi was good.

an episode where Debbie, Negatus and Pete go on a quest to sort out some squabble in a nearby town. Negatus and Pete are separated from Debbie and have to team up to 'save the day'. Meanwhile, she just ended up at someone's house, enjoying a cup of tea and a chat.

an episode of Elders in the real world hijinks. I think we could do with more of that, especially if it led to Debbie and Ho-tan having a clothes montage set to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. They deserve it.

and of course, an episode with big, grand 'crowning' ceremony with the Elders, Pete, and Negatus desperately trying to make sure everything goes to plan and refusing to let Debbie know/help, Elf and Nick doing their best to distract her. Somehow, it all works out in the end though and Debbie becomes an Elder, surrounded by her all of her family

[chibishortdeath]

I did a little bit of background practice yesterday. I usually forget that I could be drawing scenery and stuff so I’m kinda rough at it. It took like three tries to get the results of that first picture (second picture was one of those tries, and I’m not even showing the other one it was really bad 💀💀💀)

Also just throwing in some other doodles cause yeah :3. Simon. Some of these are from the same page and some of these are ones I think I forgot to post a bit ago so if there’s repeats then eh whatever lol. Explanations under a cut :)

This is pretty much just a study of a photo of a graveyard I ran into on Pinterest. Liminal spaces are very nice for finding background references because you can be sure no one is gonna be in them and they have the weird vibe that The Guy™️ should be in. But holy HELL trees are HARD. Like obviously I know what a tree looks like but the second I have to draw branches trees suddenly do not make sense anymore 💀

Another liminal space, this one was a path with the sky completely blacked out. I tried putting Simon into it but he kinda ended up a little muddled and too small augh. I’m also not very great at combining people and backgrounds so uh yeah. This one was also a much faster doodle just trying to warm up for the first one. But eh it’s cool idk. I need to put him in more liminal spaces or like try to draw the Simon’s Quest areas in 3D eventually.

Small practice comic! There’s no words, Simon just kinda walks a bit and passes out. I was gonna have more things happen but I didn’t have the room for it and decided to just leave it as a little practical piece. He’s probably gonna get up in a little bit and freak out about how much time he wasted.

Just a Simon head :3. His hair is fun to draw! I usually end up simplifying things as like a little uh polygonal… I think that’s the word… When drawing skulls, I usually go for octagons instead of circles because that’s much easier, but that ends up bleeding into how I draw hair making it kinda spikey and pointy in some spots on the top. I feel like I draw pretty inconsistently, but he’s very pretty and fun to draw regardless of how he ends up :3

This is some weird ass fan art of two things that aren’t related at all lmao. Sometimes you gotta crossover things that don’t make sense for the fun of it. This is Simon drawn based on a scene from the Fear Garden music video! Fear Garden is a banger, shout out to Chaa fr, it’s a vocaloid song about a girl who has a weird obsession with hands (Kira joke lol) and kills people to plant their hands in her secret garden where she treats them like flowers. Yeah, again it makes no sense, but the pose with the two mirrored characters was really cool and idk the vibes were there—

Simon sitting in between two graves, both say “BELMONT” in big letters, but one is for Christopher and Cyncia and the other is for Soleil and whoever his significant other was, we don’t have a name so it’s cut off. This has me thinking about the time in between all these characters hmm. Doing the math, Soliel would’ve been in his 90s when Simon was born, so there’s actually a good chance he wasn’t Simon’s grandfather, rather his great grandfather :O. Which means that there’s two generations we know nothing about between these two. And also that Simon would’ve never met either Soleil or Christopher or Cyncia :(. Then that has me thinking about fan comic stuff and how I’m gonna depict Simon hmmmmmmm. I imagine Simon spent a lot of time in the family graveyard tbh.

Simon is totally me when I dramatically collapse on a large marble monument of some sort in the graveyard— There’s also a couple attempts at drawing his paldrons at different angles but aaaa I can’t visualize these things properly. They’re just like kinda flared half ovals, why are they so hard to draw at any angle but like head on and top view 💀💀💀??? I’m trying to get out of the habit of drawing them bent in angles that don’t make sense but argggggg it’s hard lol.

Yeah, recent doodles tho yippie d(^^ )!

[soft-persephone]

Jake Johnson Bonus Facts

Girl dad of two twin girls. The inteview playlist will go into details for you.

He was married his whole acting career!

Very sweet.

He built this log cabin during the pandemic and even did some of his zoom interviews in it.

We now know, I don’t remember if it from an interview with another podcast or on his own, he revealed that the photographers asked him if he wanted to put on shoes first before they started and he said no.

They are in his backyard and he’s one minute away from a pair of shoes, and he said no, for no reason at all.

That’s why we love him. (Or me at least. I can’t actually speak for you guys.)

I forgot three movies for part one, but also, tumblr won’t let me add any more photos to part one, so it’s fine. However, So sorry!

Ceremony

One of the first big movies he’s done. I don’t have all the facts on it, but it does have the earliest release date of most of his movies, so it’s safe to assume.

He’s not the main character, but he does have somewhat of a large role to the plot of the movie.

I’d argue it’s still worth watching!

Lee Pace is in it! As well as Uma Thurman!

It’s about this young guy who’s in love with this married woman and somehow he ends up at their wedding retreat and keeps trying to win her back, but she’s kinda leading him on. . . Or maybe she isn’t and he’s delusional.😏

Maybe it’s trying to be deep, maybe it’s not, but Jake Johnson is funny and he does drunk wacky uncle brother so well.

It’s not as intense as I’m making it sound.

It’s actually a joy with sentimental moments.

And also like watching a car wreck level of drama.

No Strings Attacthed

Mid 2000s typical romcom with Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.

Ludacris and Mindy Kaling is also in it!

That’s it. That’s the movie.

Jake Johnson is the wacky guy best friend of the main guy and he doesn’t have a lot of time in it, but it’s not a super long watch and he has a horrible goatee in the first few scenes. So that’s pretty fun to see.

And his character has an odd nice guy side quest romance going on with another girl.

It’s supposed to balance out how assholey the main couple gets to each other sometimes, but not really.

Imagine if hallmark was fancy and had a bigger budget and wasn’t afraid to say fuck and show sex.

Also!

This movie got him Nick Miller on New girl.

I think the writer of new girl was working on this movie and she liked him in this and it played a part in him getting picked for his audition!

Safety Not Guaranteed

A wacky movie about these journalist trying to find a bug story and the woman of the group deciding if local crazy guy actually can time travel or not.

Despite how wild the plot is, it is oddly super romantic and endearing…….or maybe it’s the part of my brain that finds the oddest things romantic because it wasn’t presented in a typical romcom formula.

Jake is a little mean in this one if I remember correctly, but I think that’s something we all like about him. He’s fun to watch when he’s angry or mean or yelling or maybe I’m just telling on myself.

It’s not my favorite, but it was a super fun to watch. It’s well made and if nothing else gets you, the suspense of knowing if the guy is really crazy or not will.

More fun facts!!!

He loves talking business so there’s more in common with him and Doug Renetti than you might think. It’s a bit of his. He does this a lot on his podcast We’re Here to Help.

He loves doing indie movies.

He has love for everything he does and truly won’t take a role if he doesn’t like it in some way or feel like he would enjoy the experience from working on it or working with the other people there.

He lives for collaboration and a group effort and team work. Which he talks all about in some of his interviews.

He likes having a say so on his character and trying to do as much as he can with it, and if you ask me, it shows in everything he does, and it’s a part of why all of his charters have a certain Jake Johnson feel to all of them. However, he is still a good actor and they are very distinct in their roles and purposes for each and every show.

He’s just, very good at his job.

He also talks a lot about his life in certain interviews and I tried to compile them in a playlist that you can find on

This post.

If you are a sports fan, go to YouTube and search Jake Johnson Chicago Bears or Cubs or ..sports…

I’m not sure tbh.

He looks homeless sometimes, especially during the pandemic interviews, but I am used to this and find it endearing. If you’ve never seen him look like this and are weirded out or disgusted, I am sorry and not sorry.

I only watched them because i can listen to him talk about anything. I just like hearing his voice and looking at his face.

It’s amazing background noise when you have to work or study. Some of these sports podcast are so long and go on forever.

If you want help finding access to some of his more hard to find movies, please let me know and I will help as much as I can. Do not hesitate to dm me for any additional information

Thank you for reading, and I really hope these two posts have helped!

[oh-my-may]

Hi it's me. Finished playing main quest in Wuthering Waves so lemme give you a few thoughts on it, and development with the game in general.

First of all I like the length of the main quests so far. Long enpugh to tell the story in proper parts that feel concluded, but short enough to not lose my attention. Overall gameplay for me for most parts of the story so far was like 2 hours I think? Very good length.

The final chapter focused more on Jiyan and the Threnodian more so than the Fractsidus, since their active involvement kinda came to a stop when Scar got arrested. They focused a lot on them in the previous chapter so that was alright with me. They'll save mlre important stuff for later, which is totally alright with me.

Something that WuWa does that I really like is giving us complete trial teams for certain parts of the story, so it felt even more immersive going thrpugh the battlefield with Rover, Jiyan, YangYang and Jianxin. Still a big fan of the combat in this game, I wonder what future characters are gonna be like gameplay wise and how they'll influence the playstyle and meta.

I like that we get scraps of Rover's identity and backstory pretty early on. They make it no secret that Rover woke up on the world before and had a previous life? And also the girl who wakes Rover up/gives them life or so in the very forst scene in game being explained pretty early on is very helpful. I wonder where they will take this story.

Also love Aalto and Encore. Kinda a sucker for quirky child with adult extroverted guy as their guardian who do shenanigens together. They were very fun.

The story boss fights don't feel too hard, which is very nice for someone like me who is only slowly getting a hang of the battle gameplay on mobile. Still have a problem coordinating my exact thumb placement at times. Me problem.

Final boss was cool. Havoc MC is very cool, too. Just MC on general. Still haven't taken her off my team, probably won't for a while. Slays with either Spectro or Havoc. Very refreshing. In hyv games I dropped MC at around level 50 and only took them again later (genshin with dendro and hsr with harmony now).

I'm quite curious to see where else they'll take the story now. The threat of the Threnodian is quelled (for now?) so the one enemy we have remaining is the Fractsidus. There's also the Black Shores ofc, who seem to know A LOT about the world and Rover'a origin. Very funny how I first thpught Chamellya was with the Fractsidus. Must have been the colour palette lol. Loved her though, but I'm curious to find out what her deal is and what she wants from us. They did tell us a few basic informations about Rovers origin and backstory, but its still very little.

There is still Jinhsi and the missing Jue. She will be playablw next patch and apparently Jue will be a new boss? Curious to see where this will go.

Thid leads me to talk a bit about current changes to the game. Because of certain improvements the devs want to implemdnt sonner rather than later they have pushed forward content by 1 week and already gave us Yinlin banner and second phase events. I understand that to a certain extend but I was really worried I wasn't gonna be able to pull Jiyan in time 😭 SO I decided to pull then and there and got an early, which was Jianxin. Wasn't gonna complain but I was kinda losing hope. Jiyan came through for me at like 40 pulls. This game has blessed me with lots of early 5stars until now. Idk if I'll get Yinlin, her gameplay is really cool tho. Gonna take some time to think. Bit since I habe decided to take WuWa more casually than hsr and genshin, where I am careful with who I pull for, I might just make a few pulls on her banner and see what happens.

I'm now at level 31 in the game and still have basically the entire map to explore still. They have announced that controller support is gonna be a thing for mobile in future patches, which means it won't be implemented in 1.1. It's okay, though. I have gotten a good understanding of most controls now and I'm starting to level my characters and look for good builds. There's just so many layers to the character leveling, and having the bosses cost 60 waveplates for the 2 drops you get feels kinda expensive. Apparently they will work on that too? Implement a system tp save excess waveplates when you have reached full storage of them like in hsr and stuff.

Overall having good experiences with the game so far! Really looking forward to future patches, maybe I might also save for Scar? Idk.

As always, some screenshots from my gameplay!

(btw gotta mention love how basically everyone is in love with Rover. Everyone they meet is immediately down bad. Scar, Jiyan, Yangyang, Chamellya. Jinhsi... same)

[xgodxaspectx]

✥ Specially For You ✥ [Male Reader x Shoto Todoroki]

Warning: Kissing, Fluff

Minors DNI

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As a kid, Shoto was most of the time abused by his cruel father, a secret their family only knew. In fact, it was at a point that one day his mother poured boiling hot water on the little boy face earning a very bad red burn on his left side of his face by his mother by the anger raging within herself towards her husband. This make the boy to Hate his father with all his life.

He always had a cold expression after that day on. Wanting nothing but pure revenge on his father for the things he had done. But....on his quest of becoming a hero, he didn't quite understand How and When he fell in love with a certain boy. It was a total mystery.

.

.

.

Present day

.

.

.

"Surprise!?" Everyone exclaimed at Mina and the other girls words. "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Iida asked, some of the classmates agreeing. "NoNoNo, I swear it's nothing bad!" Toru responded, "It'll be fun!". The whole class accepted to join for this 'surprise'.

"Ok then, meet us at the entrance after school. And Iida, don't worry, I asked sensei for permission" Mina grinned as the blue haired male felt the urge of asking 'for what?' But denied himself. "If it's not anything sus, I'm excited!" Y/n exclaimed while he smiled making the girls heart flattered. "Wait, SUS? When I ever do something sus..?" The whole class slapped their forehead.

Y/n sat on his seat as he blankly stared at the board in front of him. He was not playing any attention to the teacher' words. 'I wonder what the surprise might be..' he thought, leaning back on his seat as he wondered.

After few minutes the bell rang signaling the end of today's class. Everyone hurried themselves out of the classroom, making their way to their dorm as soon as possible. They were all excited and somehow, Shoto was excited too deep down, but denied himself.

Time-skip

"Woah!" Everyone bursted in amusement. They all stood in front of a beautiful, luxurious hotel with beach-side view beside it. "How did you girls pull this out!?" Denki exclaimed as Momo cleared her throat catching everyone's attention holding a card in her hand. "Oh right" he nervously laughed.

Anyways, everyone walked towards their hotel room that was provided. "Meet us the swimming pool after you all freshen up!" Urarake waved as the girl squad left. The rest of us just walked to our hotel room. 'Im guessing a pool party...huh'

Y/n's pov

I popped onto the soft bed of my hotel room as I spread my arms onto the bed as I let of sign a relief 'Damn this bed is SO soft' I snuggled . I rested on the bed for a while before getting my lazy ass out of it giving a one last stretch. I walked towards my baggage and dig for the swimsuit in it 'Luckily I brought it in case' I smiled. After finding it, I went to the bathroom near me along with some extra clothes. I quickly changed myself into the swimsuit and wore a casual shirt and pant over it. I rinsed my face with water and headed out of the bathroom. 'Better get going'

2nd person pov

As you reached the swimming pool situated beside the hotel, you saw all you friends scattered all around there. But one certain boy caught your attention, the duo haired male, Shoto. He was your kinda close friend ever since you guys met. You knew more of his history than anyone in the class including Izuku, but never showed it. He was sitting on a deck chair while looking at his surroundings. You took the initiative to approach him. You footsteps caused him to look towards you and give a small noticeable smile.You waved at him, smiling at him innocently. You take a seat on the deckchair beside his.

"Enjoying?" You asked as he lightly nodded his head, "Yeah, I guess.." You gave a giggle to the male at his reply. "Nice swimsuit though" you flirted. His upper half was naked which was half coved by a open button beach suit . A faint blush creeping onto his face. "Thanks.."

"Hey guys!! We are going in, Care to join?!" The girls exclaimed, "Don't mind if we do!" Karishima bursted jumping into the water, Bakugo followed after few seconds of the others jumping in, "Wait for me!" Deku exclaimed as he did the same. You stood up from the chair and stripped yourself down to your swimsuit only. You tossed your clothes to the chair you were sitting on and extended your hand to Shoto, "Care to join?" You queried as another blush was formed on his face as he met your beautiful (body type) body. [You also only wore a swim shorts] He removed his upper garment and took your hand. You two ran to towards the pool and dived into it leaving a big splash. Everyone chuckled and began playing games.

You all had a lot of fun that day. After the pool party, you all went to the mall nearby and shopped for almost the whole day. The girls took a lot of time picking their clothes but you and the boys didn't care knowing the girls. Uraraka was SO happy that she finally didn't have to care about spending limited money.

3rd person pov

After all the fun, they all were so exhausted. It was around half-past eleven and almost everyone were sleeping soundly. But not everyone, Y/n had other plans.

At sharp 11:50 a bell rang in hotel room where Shoto stayed. He tiredly walked towards the door "Who could be here at this hour?" he yawned and rubbed his eye as he swung open his room door. He was puzzled when he saw no one in front of his door but when he was about to close his door, he noticed a note lying on the ground. He picked it up and began reading it,

'Meet me at the beach at sharp 11:58' he read. "11:58? Why 11:58?And who sent this?" He questioned himself but shrugged it off and follow the orders. He quickly got ready and headed towards the beach.

On reaching there he saw nothing or no one but darkness. It was 11:59. He signed in disappointment. 'Someone's playing pranks on me aren't they...'

He was about to leave when a bright light caught his attention.

12a.m...

"Happy birthday Shoto/Todoroki !!"

Everyone cheered which caught him off guard. Colorful balloons flew into the air.The whole class was present there. Shoto started approaching a table containing a large cake, still shock from the surprise.

"Make a wish!" Shoto eyes widened but closed his eyes and made his wish, later cutting the cake. They all exchanged smiles. "W-Who did this..?"

"It was all Y/n's Plan!" Y/n nervously laughed, scratching the back of his neck "It was thank to all of them" He answered.

For few minutes or hours they all played so many games. After a while, Shoto walked towards Y/n. "Hey Y/n" Y/n turned towards him "Yeah?", "Could I talk to you....privately?" Y/n's eyes widen but nodded.

Y/n started to follow the other as he lead them a bit far from the setup. "What is it?" Y/n asked when the other stopped on his track. "Thank you" he blushed. Y/n was surprised to see the male blushing but let out a smile. "That's the least I can do for my Lover-" The duo haired haired male chocked on his own saliva which caused Y/n to comprehend the words he just said, "Wa-wa-wait, what! T-That's not what I-I meant!" Y/n said nervously. Just before he could finish what he was meaning to say, the other male grabbed onto Y/n's (s/c) cheeks and joined their lips together for a second.

"I L-Love you too" he spilled. Y/n gasped at the male's reply and grabbed onto his waist, joining their lips once again. Shoto wrapped his arm around the (h/c)-ette's neck as they leaned into a heart warming kiss.

Y/n pushed his tongue against his lovers lip,asking for entrance. Shoto slightly parted his lip as y/n brushed his tongue around the other males mouth. They both fought for dominance, but the duo haired male gave out easily. They kissed like that for what seems to be like minutes. They broke the kiss, gasping for air as a string of saliva connected both our lips.

"So, does this makes us both boyfriends?" Y/n said joining our forehead's together. He nodded his head against Y/n with a smile, "Mhmm"

"I love you soo fucking much"

"I love you too. You are the best thing that ever happened to me"

They shared one more kiss before returning back to the group.

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[the-moth-of-all-time]

Hi gravity rush bestieeeeee

Please convince me to continue playing GR2. I love Kat and the whole cast of characters, but some of the missions and (camera oh my god) are so frustrating me :(

I beat GR1 and I love it! Janky and annoying at parts but god damn it's just good! 2 feels like polished but for looks instead of feel :(

Okay tips for GR2, both to perform better and to have more fun: - Honestly just fuck around. Some of the best parts of the game are just enjoying traversal. Plus picking up gems will make a lot of challenges significantly easier because your gravity gauge and shifting speed can go up - The best way to enjoy Gravity Rush is to get in character. Walk around and chat with NPCs, enjoy the way people treat Kat more like the nice girl next door with superpowers than a superhero. Just Kinda Vibe! GR2 is like, the best cell-shaded game visually short of Guilty Gear. Explore! - The main upgrade in terms of playability has been changing the controls for stasis field and gravity slide. Give yourself time to get used to them working slightly differently, it's so much more convenient once you have a feel for it - There is a "recenter camera" button that aligns the camera with the horizon. I can't recall it off the top of my head right now but don't be afraid to take a sec to re-orient! (I think it might be the touchpad but don't quote me on that). Remember: no matter what direction gravity is, Kat's hair and scarf will always point downward! - As a heads up: The Raven's Choice DLC which takes place shortly after GR1 is free! You play as Raven and the plot really holds a light up to her whole character, it's great! - If you're struggling with combat, the easy way through it is fuck it, we Gravity Kick. Fuck it, we Gravity Kick. Fuck it, we Gravity Kick. until you're out of things to Gravity Kick. - If speed challenges are more of a concern, Gravity Slide is your friend! If you jump during a Gravity Slide and hit a wall, you'll automatically shift onto that wall and then you can slide more along the wall!

As for motivation to continue! - Raven and Kat are very gay in this game. They went from bitter rivals to friendly rivals by the end of GR1 but GR2 makes them so blatantly girlfriends. Raven cannot stand being apart from Kat and if the Overture animated shorts are to be believed (Look up Gravity Rush Overture if you haven't seen them) Raven moved into Kat's pipe-house between games. - the side quest stories are pretty good! One of the side-quests plays into the previous point - You learn So Much More about how the Gravity Rush world works - There are new gravity powers you unlock later in the story and they're AWESOME. I won't spoil them for you but they're really cool. - Look I know forced stealth sections are bad, we all know they're bad. But right after the mission in the military base you get to experience a cutscene that permanently changed my brain chemistry and Kat gets to wear a pretty red dress that you get to keep as an outfit - Syd has more character development than you think. No, more than that. Liiiittle more. Yeah that's about right. - Kat has cute lil emotes and you unlock more as you go. You can make her meow. Please send me additional asks if you need specific advice. Gravity Rush is taking up the space my highschool education used to be in my brain.

[crystalelemental]

Oh good. After writing up seven paragraphs, my computer did that thing where the screen goes completely black, and wouldn't come back until I hard shut it down, so there goes all that work.

Anyway, finished Little Goody Two Shoes. Spoiler thoughts below.

This is the worst good game I've played maybe ever.

It is a minor miracle I came away from this game with a positive impression overall. I think the general vibe gets me. It's engaging to play through once, but I don't think I'll ever do so again.

The main issue is gameplay itself. This game fucking sucks to play. The puzzles get wildly obtuse around Tuesday, with things like hints being given only after you've beaten them, puzzles completely lacking any indication of what you're supposed to be doing and expecting you to brute force it with guesswork, and some areas just being impossible unless you're popping healing items constantly because fuck dude, I don't know how to move through this maze without getting either myself or Apfel stabbed. I actually don't think I can. It is ridiculous.

A major issue was just money, and this is entirely my own fault. Resources got a shitzillion dollars compared to what you make, and with Muffy over here extorting me for fucking soup, I can't keep up with anything. Part of that is my own fault for trying to keep up with both Rozenmarine and Lebkuchen's story routes simultaneously, limiting me to one job a day. I'll own it, probably should've just picked one. I didn't expect resources to get that bad. What's worse is, once I did stop focusing on both and picked one? It never got better. I never ended a day with money on hand. It was all gone to have something to eat, or to have some healing items, or to restore sanity on the notes quest. Which, related, do not do the notes quest while also trying to do two routes. You cannot keep up with this. Maybe it would be less devastating if I could afford more pretzels. I doubt it, though!

Character-wise, as mentioned, I tried to keep up with Rozenmarine and Lebkuchen. Freya...never really did anything. I'd talk to her, but you make a decision day 1 between her and Leb, and Freya exuded nothing of interest, while Leb had that kinda "viewed as the nice girl and knows it, but has a deep frustration with the whole thing" that endeared me very quickly. So when it came down to her or Rozenmarine, who is a quirky weirdo I kinda like but felt a bit too much in on the whole fate thing, I went Leb. So I got Leb's good and bad end, the "fuck up the gifts" end, as well as the notes ending. I will note quickly that I very much like Elise as a protagonist. She's very fun. I have almost nothing to say about the townsfolk.

Notes ending is weird. It's very abrupt and...well okay, the ending specifically answers nothing. The notes themselves answer a good bit, while still not fully answering much. What I do know is that Ozzy's an archdemon who granted Halle's wish for a child, that the witch had nothing to do with it, but the witch of the forest is pissed about the demon taking up residence. This ending is basically identical to the "fuck up the gifts" ending. Regardless of which you get, the witch just shows up and takes your body, implying that her goal was to resurrect as you, in order to accomplish the one thing she could never do: bear life. Basically, she wanted to live as a woman who can give birth, apparently. I'm not 100% sure if this was always a goal, because she says she tried to learn how to produce life, or if this is specifically just spite over the archdemon creating life and her being like fuck off I can do that too you're not special. I kind of assume Rozenmarine's ending would make it a little clearer, since she seems to be the likely Lore Route.

As for Leb's...the main thing is, I'm stunned it was so black and white. Like, there is no gray area. If you go through with your wish, Leb is killed, you become rich but isolated and miserable all your life and the demon eats your second kid you have when you have twins. If you back down, everything is so good that you and Leb travel the world happily, then come back, settle down, and make the town better than ever. It's...kinda weird, actually. Like, a big thing I think is interesting is how the game's structure does make you feel for Elise's status in the town, based on how hard it is to get good ranks on the minigames and how little money you get for how much effort goes in. It sells the idea that she's under-appreciated here and that yeah, of course she'd want to get out and live a life of ease. But I had expected the ending tradeoff to be a bit more...nuanced, I guess? Like, the choice to be that going through with the wish would indeed provide the luxurious wealth and comfort at the cost of loneliness and living with what you did, while not going through with it means you have a mundane life of constant toil, but at least there's love. It wasn't expecting this to go so "deals with the devil are strictly bad and hard work pays off." My point being, the refusal ending feels too clean. Like that's basically ideal. There's no struggle to that ending and no real point to have done anything else if you're looking for a happy life. Maybe that's the point?

I don't really know what my final takeaway is, because even now as I write this, I am still annoyed. This has shifted now to annoyance at my computer, but it started because I did the bad ending where you sacrifice them last, and I feel like it's absolute bullshit the doors shuffle without warning or pause, and that one piece of ceiling fell on me, slapped me into a corner where I was trapped and just had to wait to die. What I'm trying to say is that the gameplay is exceedingly frustrating. And that it kinda warps my perception of the game overall. Because I think if some of these puzzles were less obnoxious? Excellent. Really enjoyed myself. But so many situations are hit by me being outright infuriated about some of these solutions. I think if you have a good tolerance for this kind of thing, game's excellent. If you're like me, honestly just use this guide. I gave up at the snake domain and just looked this up, I wasn't in the mood. Though it won't save you with Dick Crow's Witching Hour Fuckfest Act 2. That's just pure misery.

[cynthiaandsamus]

So just got home and watched the Direct:

Was never the hugest fan of the Mario & Luigi games but they do always look fun so excited for that.

Never played the original DKCR so may look into that one at some point idk my backlog's already so bad XD

Same with the Dragon Quest games, it's neat that they're on the Switch now and they look nice but I was really hoping for Chrono Trigger

I'm kind of baffled that there's a Funko Pop video game and I have no idea how Funko and Fortnite can get liscences for everything to put them in their low-effort stuff and crossover games that actually want to put effort into their portrayal always seem to have to jump through enormous hurdles.

I'm actually really excited for the Four Swords/Zero Mission release, believe it or not my actual experience playing Metroid Games is kind of limited and I've never finished Zero Mission so I may legitimately play that sometime soon. Never played Turok or Perfect Dark either so might check those out, feels odd to have a "17+" category for something you get for free anyway but if it means we get a wider variety then sure, just wondering what makes those two 17+ but Goldeneye's fine.

New Super Mario Party sure is a Super Mario Party.

Echoes of Wisdom looks kinda fun, like I love the idea of making Zelda a protagonist and using her wisdom stat to make it a puzzle game but I am kind of wary of the "magical item makes it so they don't have to directly fight and can basically be magical girls and zap everything away" being the only way girls are able to get protagonist roles but whatever it takes I guess.

My mom's been really into the Lego games lately but she has no idea what Horizon Zero Dawn is so I may or may not recommend it to her.

I am REALLY hyped for Stray, I've wanted it on the switch for so long now why can't it be sooner like the game's been out so long why is it still six months away I wanna play the kitty game now.

Both my mom and Little Sister have been playing life/farm sims so the Hobbit Stardew Valley Thing(tm) may be another recommendation for them.

The creators of Danganronpa create Danganronpa again for like the fifth time, this time with Tower Defense I guess? Nintendo really wants their own Danganronpa series but isn't willing to lean into the raunchier stuff that made horny teens love Danganronpa in the first place.

FINALLY news on Metroid Prime 4, it's not much but I love how they give a date at the very end just to keep people from going "oh, no new details?" the landscape looks beautiful and I'm excited to have Samus around again, hoping for those Metroid 2/3 remakes sometime this year so people who haven't played games that released literally twenty years ago can fill in the blanks.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Ok I should probably do the Harvestella thing before I get too far distant from it and forget everything. 13 Sentinels has consumed my brain over the past week, so let's do this before I lose what's left of Harvestella.

I know it got kind of mediocre reviews and a bunch of people were underwhelmed by it, but I actually thought it was pretty great. From what I've seen it failed to find the right audience, probably because the very little promotion it got made it look like a farming sim with kind of a Final Fantasy-style story tacked on, and people who expected that from it were disappointed. When it did manage to find the people who were into what it actually is (85% JRPG with like 15% farming sim layered on top) a lot of them loved it though.

It's kind of a weird game, because the farming stuff is simplified somewhat from games where that's the primary focus, and some of the RPG stuff is also not done quite as well or as in depth as in a pure RPG (mainly the combat), but if the combination works for you like it does for me it really does have a lot going for it.

I'm someone who loves the idea of farming games but can never really get into them and stick with them long term, whether it's Harvest Moon or Rune Factory or Stardew Valley or whatever else. I had the best luck with SDV, but after about 10 hours I just couldn't get myself to keep going, and most other stuff in the genre I don't even last that long. It's streamlined enough in this and has enough other stuff to balance it out that I actually enjoyed that part of the game this time though, so that was nice for a change.

The big surprise was the story and characters and world though. I played the demo almost a year ago and could tell that it was going to have Typical Final Fantasy-style Nonsense (affectionate) (not to be confused with most recent actual mainline Final Fantasy games, which for me keep turning out to be Typical Final Fantasy-style Nonsense (derogatory)), but I didn't expect it would do that stuff as well as it ultimately did.

The initial premise of the game is pretty straightforward, but the world turns out to be a lot more interesting than it seems at first as more gets revealed about it throughout the game, and there are a bunch of interesting characters who get their own storylines and develop pretty well through them too. It gets increasingly serious sci-fi story in the latter half of the game, but earlier on there are lots of fun and simple bits that establish various characters and the world and why you should care about it in the first place.

Interestingly in those earlier parts, and kind of in side quests in general, there's a lot more focus on the kinds of stuff you'd expect to see in Games for Girls™ that you don't usually see quite as much of in big RPGs. There are a whole bunch of side quests and storylines focusing on people's interpersonal relationships and families, and multiple things get resolved through getting people to actually communicate or listening to children and taking them seriously as people. I think that's kinda great and that more games should include stuff like that more.

Exploring for more materials and ingredients or to do story or side quest missions is fun and satisfying enough. I normally hate stamina systems and being time limited, but if you eat literally any food at all you get free stamina regen for a while so that's not a problem, and there are like eight billion fast travel checkpoints and various shortcuts that you can unlock all over the world, so it doesn't feel like you have to constantly redo stuff after running out of time. You just go home at the end of the day and can pick up right where you left off usually (after tending to your farm stuff in the morning, of course).

The weakest part of the game is probably the combat though. It's...fine? I guess? It's both too simple and too complex at the same time. Like there's not a lot of incentive to do anything but spam basic attacks against trash mobs, and in boss fights there's not much reason to do any more than that other than use your skills when they're off cooldown. But there are like 37 different damage types that your different attacks can deal, and different enemies are weak against different flavors, and against bosses you can get a "break" that causes them to take more damage if you use the right kind(s) against them enough.

There's potential there for something interesting, but it's terrible at telling you what type of damage you're doing or what kind you should be doing, there are way too many different kinds with no meaningful difference between them other than visual effects, and I'm not going to memorize what every stupid attack in the game does when I can't even see the little symbols on the break gauge that represent different types or remember what each one means anyway.

Also you don't get a block or a dodge (certain jobs do sort of get a dash ability, but it's not great), so a lot of the time against a lot of kinds of enemies your options are basically limited to just take damage and deal with it, which I'm gonna be honest is stupid and not fun. Yes it does incentivize you to cook food/throw stuff in the juicer and use those things to heal yourself, but it's just annoying going into the menu to use them, and it's not particularly satisfying cheesing boss fights by drinking 14 glasses of juice instead of like...actually using the combat mechanics the game provides you?

If you can get past that most other stuff is pretty enjoyable though. I liked the art style more than most of Squenix's big main games these days like what I've seen of FF16, and there's some unreasonably great music in it. Like they did not have to go this hard in 5/8 or whatever in the farming game about farming, but I'm glad they did because it's kind of amazing. Thank you Go Shiina for your excellent work.

So yeah, definitely not a game for everyone if you're not into the kinda weird combination of things it tries to do and (mostly) succeeds at, but if it is your kind of thing it's a surprisingly fun world and collection of characters and unexpectedly well done story. Like I liked the storytelling more than in probably 90% of Final Fantasy games I've played (which I know isn't saying that much because I perpetually complain about them, but still).

It's a game about running your own farm but also hope and the absence of it and what it means to be human, and I thought that was pretty neat.

[forlorn-plushie]

Starting a Media Tag: Stardew Valley 1.6

Why? Fuck it! Why not! I like stuff, and I like yapping, and I've been told media breads are good for getting yourself into more stuff.

So, to start off, I've played the game to perfection once and am in the middle of a second round. Both were rather heavily modded, which I'll probably talk about later. This is just about the base game and additions.

It's good! It's a progress quest with cute NPCs, ranging from lovable girls like Leah and Sebastian to really unpleasant sorts like Pierre and Lewis. I like progress quests and I like interesting NPCs.

Anything I could say about the base game has been said before, probably, and the 1.6 changes are all great. Big chests are a godsend, even moreso in modded.

I'm fairly sure NPCs reacting to what you've sold is new as well, which is nice when I'm shipping strawberries and wine... but when everyone I talk to lets me know they hate cranberries it becomes a bit sad.

In my first playthrough to Perfection, mods were the biggest obstacle - in particular, unfinished mods in which not everything is obtainable. The perfection vouchers were necessary, unfortunately, because there's no cheat commands for 'set has cooked' and no way around broken recipes.

My current playthrough, I set my favorite thing as "Cheating" and included some very unfair mods. Fishing assist, because after the first run my fuckin finger hurt, and Tractor, because... my finger hurt. Also Heelies, because it's very funny and saves me a lotta time. And Skull Cavern Elevator, because I wanted to.

The thing about it that I didn't expect? I'm not having any less fun! Even when I use the mods in kinda unfair ways, like clear-cutting a forest or deleting every rock in the mines. It's fun to do, even, and doesn't diminish the rest of the game.

Skull Cavern Elevator + Tractor is extremely stupid and I love it. It's cathartic to just skip to floor 2000 and shit on everything.

I originally started playing these with the goal "Reach Perfection before Silksong releases". Given the modded impediment, I'd say I more than succeeded.

Incoming part 2+ probably:

Ridgeside Village

East Scarp (and co)

Sword and Sorcery

SDV Expanded

[recurring-polynya]

6 & 30 the writer’s asks

For 30 - who are your biggest writing influences?

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

My current one that I re-read the most is Chicken, by @bleachbleachbleach because I'm obsessed with it. It's a story about what it means to share your life with a person you love, good, bad, and smelling like a chicken coop, and it is very, very beautiful and I love it. (I re-read a lot of B3's other stories, too, but in a broader rotation)

I read all of @gizkasparadise 's Renruki stories habitually, but probably that which cannot be seen (Renji dies and Ichika looks for him) and Proposals and Paperwork (Renji wants to propose to Rukia but has to deal with Byakuya first) are my favorites.

I will also go diving thru @zabiume 's Works List whenever I want something nice to read, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I end up on she's not afraid more often than not (Renruki go on a date)

It's kind of an undertaking, but I have re-read the Roots of Heaven by paperiuni (rated M), um, a lot of times. Rukia gets lost in another dimension after the war and Renji and Ichigo track her down. It is a masterpiece, maybe one of the finest pieces of fanfic I have ever read.

It's even more of an undertaking, but A Thin Red Line, the biggest and best Hisana Lived! AU by @afinepiece is also worth an annual re-read.

Once We Closed that Distance by todaslasmadrugadas is a great story where Renji tries to step back and just be a good friend to Rukia because he thinks she's in love with Ichigo (he's an idiot). The writing style is fantastic, and it is at turns sweet and funny and emotionally devastating.

Let the Rain Kiss You by Jetamors. Kira invites everyone to his beach house (I think Kira should have a beach house) and kinda regrets it but also kinda doesn't.

Stay by eosdawnaurora. (rated M) It's just the platonic ideal of a certain kind of Renruki fic-- they're at a Kuchiki party and they have some tension and then they have sex, and it all wraps up in 7k words, what else could you want?

The Curse of the Zanpakutou by c2t2. (rated E) This is THE Bad Rukongai story and while I am not raw enough to write stuff like this, it lurks at the back of my consciousness whenever I am writing Inuzuri stuff.

13 by @mothmckrakken is a Renruki try to figure stuff out after the war fic that is just cute and fun and nice and I haven't re-read it in a while which probably means it's time again.

I think that's...enough? (I also have my favorite smuts, but that's embarassing)

For 30 - who are your biggest writing influences?

I think my single most obvious writing influence is Terry Pratchett, but here is a list of formative influences on my writing, which I decided to consider from all media categories. These are not necessarily endorsements, just things that rotted my brain into its current state, in rough order of appearance:

Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sacher

E. B. White (I wouldn't have thought this until I re-read Trumpet of the Swan and Charlotte's Web to my kids and it was like...hmmmm)

The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander

Mercedes Lackey, particularly the Valdemar books (sorry to everyone who has to find this out, but my shinigami-zanpakutou relationship comes directly from the magical psychic horses. I hate this as much as you do)

Sierra On-Line point and click adventure games, incl. the Quest for Glory series and the Gabriel Knight games

The X-Man fanfiction community of the late 1990s

Grendel by John Gardner

Takahashi Rumiko's Ranma 1/2

Vision of Escaflowne

The melange of Neil Gaiman/Flash Girls/Emma Bull/Boiled in Lead/Tori Amos/Ellen Datlow Fantasy anthology all us 90s urban fantasy girlies were incredibly sauced on

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Princess Mononoke

The honors English 101 class I took on romantic novels

Angela Carter, whom I discovered through the above

Books of Magic, by John Ney Rieber

Ursula K. LeGuin, primarily the Earthsea books

Kishiro Yukito's Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita

The Japanese film course I took in college

Garth Nix's Old Kingdom novels

Naomi Novik

Bleach, obvs

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace (don't at me I got real mixed feelings about him but I read it twice and it rearranged my brain)

the-toast.net

The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

N.K. Jemison, primarily the Broken Earth trilogy and the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms which I'm still not sure I liked, but I sure do think about a lot

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (book only, and only the 1st one)

Jane Austen (spent 40 years trying not to be a P&P girlie but turns out maybe I am a P&P girlie)

I'm sure there are others, but I think that list is long and embarrassing enough.

[jinhsiimain]

The Magistrates Diary ♡ Entry 1

Menu - Diary - Archive Date - 23rd May 2024 - contains spoilers See end of entry for important notes !

My Journey began at 4:08 am, after loading and veryfiying. I made a Whatsapp chat to record all of this :D The intro cutscene reminded me a lot of the unknown god scene from genshin. (I apologize for the comparisons to hoyogames, that how I connect info and make it go into my brain-)

The animations are beautiful and the goddess is etheral. I picked the female rover! cuz i thought the short hair looked so cool and then i noticed she joined the rat tail gang :/

Running around was so fun and Yangyang and chixia are adorable. I almost freaked out when I first saw Baizhi, she's so pretty.

One thing I noticed almost immediately is that the dialoge is really messy (cut off, fading out ??).

But the animation when they talk is so nice, like it has variety and not just the same two Expressions for every character, it gives them more charm.

AND I found the skip button - I told myself not to abuse it tho cuz I wanna know the story and understand everything.

I love that we have an actual name in the game for now like i love rover sm.

The thing about me finding out about Echos: "Oh i unlocked echos hihi!" "no echo for me :(" "WHAT" "ECHO FOR ME?"

I absorbed the echo with my body and was SO confused.

The OST is so cool and nice to listen to. I almost exploded over their facial expressions.

THEN I FELL IN LOVE no seriously, I met Jinhsi

"MY ROMAN EMPIRE?" "SHE WANTS TO MEET ME" "like a date 🤞🤞" "jkjk" "BUT LOWKEY I'M INVESTED" "surrounded by pretty girls" "what a day to be alive"

I got invested in the story, finding out we're important to the nation and becoming friends with Chixia and Yangyang! I also slowly got used to combat, especially enjoyign the echo abilities! The turtle is super fun.

"BRO IS HAVING A DANCE PARTY"

THEEEEEN I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE DOUBLE JUMP - best thing that ever happened.

short environment rant before I continue!! I love the way the open world feels so far! it's amazing to see a seemingly normal open world with little oddities and familiar entities! like the enemies can be turtles, shrooms and random floaty things or stone golems. Some of the animals I saw so far were obviously birds, lizards and fish but there's also rabbits and goats running around which I find really cute.

the design of the world feels really nice too like the colors aren't like "boom in your face!" but rather bend well. Things like the villages and the huge cherry tree stand out that way and I love that so far. and it feels so peaceful and immersing?? Does that make sense??

I found out how to increase stamina and i can run up walls!!! It's amazing, as well as the dodging ability. I was playing honkai impact just hours before the release so i was already used to evasion skills hihi!!

Another thing that started bothering me is that the dialog of the main story is kind of repetitive and doesn't feel that natural (yet), but I think it's due to the localization issues kurogames had before. I'm sure It'll get better soon!

3 hours in, I got my very first 5 Star

"I actually wanted her most next to Jianxin :3" "she has those creepy ass puppets but that's exactly the stuff I like 🤞"

I planned to save my limited banner pulls for future characters bc i think the guy looks kinda goofy- "I hope jinshi is limited and available soon🫶🏻"

At 11 am I lit up the entire map except the top part :D

I got used to playing Encore, since I'm a Yanfei main I found she feels kinda similiar", and its really fun!!!!!!

Then I came up with my goals for this patch but I'm in no way pressuring myself to meet them or play because I want this game to stay fun! FUN!!!

100% the current map

finish the main quest

collect all the available sonace caskets

max / main encore

In Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail I (used to) collect all the 4 stars and i was thinking about doing that too in WuWa but I'm not sure about that yet since I actually have no pressure/desire to pull.

I continued the main story and met Jianxin, she's so cool!!

"I just noticed that all the black haired girls so far have like colored hair parts and I was thinking that it aligns with their element? but rover is spectra (currently) so idk? but also everyone kind of has elements colored hair- lemme verify that" ↳ okay so hair theory only partly fits

Every resonator has the tacet discord mark? as far as I can tell (yes genius did you pay attention?)

my team so far is Encore, rover/yangyang and baizhi and once I get jianxin I'll replace rover / yangyang probably

I fought my first "big" boss - caraspace engine zero, no death + achievement!! or rather "Trophy"!

Yangyang is a midnight ranger, like chixia, okay!!

Did some more story and got lore dumps! There's a voice inside us?

Also it's so cool that yangyang can feel stuff in the wind please do more with that!! We can read tacet discord coordinates?? Yangyang can also hear in the wind?? that ahhh so cool

I desperately want more elemental lore, it's so interesting!

We met scar - "Mr bad man Mr Scar okay he's the bad guy??" "Yangyang found a cat and vanished" "Mr bad guy is a little insane" "his eyes are freaky" "WHY DOES HE KNOW ABOUT OUR BACK STORY" "HIS NAILS ARE SO LONG FOR WHAT"

"I KNEW IT THEY'RE ALL SUSSY" "lowkey I trust him with the lore dumps but not so much with him wanting to be our friend" "he's possessive girl get a grip" (lowkey he's so flirty and hot and ngh) "okay I think he's really not lying, like I said, not friend, but a reliable source. gonna call him Mr lore!" "Jinhsi is in on it too girl what are you doing?" "So Mr lore wants equality between the resonators and normal humans?"

The story book tale is actually so cool and while I as playing i tried to understand and puzzle the pieces together! " The black lamb was their scapegoat… they sacrificed her… but there's a black goat in the back still. The flock blamed someone again after the shepherd stopped granting wishes. The village is guilty of their own greed."

It turned out that Scar wasn't the shepherd and I never suspected as such, he seems more like a black lamb himself!

Then he trapped us in his Elysium, which is an interesting ability. I don't know if you guys have the same "problem?" but I'm so fast at beating the enemies that the voicelines are too slow. I haven't even leveled the weapons and echos.

We met scars companion? The spider lily girl. Her voice is adorable and she's soo cool!!! The character designs in general are amazing.

So Yangyang is sus of scar and eventhough I'm as well, I still think he is right in some aspects and the story book like tale he told holds at least some meaning and is mostly true.

SANHUA FOLLOWED US?? I KNEW SHE WAS STILL INVOLVED!

ok so I found a diary in the quest which basically confirms what scar told me. okay done with I act III, dailies unlocked!!! I need to reach Union Level 14 to continue which was to be expected!

Im gonna spend some of my wave plates and them I'll log off for today. I feel like I got a vague understanding of the world and the mechanics so far and I really don't need to overdo it since I wanna have fun with the game going forward!!!

Details/More

Gameplay: - I don't like the camera lock on feature - puzzles so far are simple enough so I can familiarize myself with the world but interesting enough to be fun if that makes sense - mutterflies are basically seelies - found my first parallel perception cave and that's one fun game mode, I beat with with just one second over the 3 "star" mark so I did it first try!! - decryption puzzle 10/10 - Fragile block has actual physics and collapsed onto me 💯/💯 - the cooking is cool too, it's just auto cooking but at least you have a skill thingy - Theres no underground map for the qichi village cave but that's just some spoilt genshin kid nitpicking on my end

Plot holes (or i didnt pay attention properly, please correct me!!): - why do we know jianxins name? like we just started calling her master jianxin?

Archive notes: - Tacet Discords - Etheric Sea - Waveworn Phenomenon - Lament - You can't seem to collect humanoid echos - Fall Damage - Switching Characters - Midnight Rangers - Fractsidus - Voice inside Rover? - Tacet Discord or Goddess? - Yangyangs Aero Affinity

Bugs I encountered: - Dialog stuff (non visible text, diverging voice acting) - most of the npcs seem to be buggy tho like they don't properly load in? eventhough my PC supports highest graphics without stuttering or excessive loading times

End of Entry Stats: Team: Encore, Rover, Baizhi UL: 14 Wishes: (corrupted)

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