#like. story characters designs etc etc literally everything sucked .

[hebezunet]

fellas. im working on feverbot again

[mdhwrites]

TOH's Double Ending Error

The show ends twice and the second one is way more fanservicey... And just objectively worse. Worse yet, it literally takes longer than the first ending by two minutes, making it so that six minutes of the finale is just... Pointless. In a show that was shortened and people say needed every bit of time it needed.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the first ending is what happens right after Belos is beaten. We get narration over scenes by Luz who is letting us know effectively the aftermath of the big events. This is actually pretty classic as far as endings go because it's a good way to de-escalate things and cover questions people might have. Here we see scenes showing people are safe, happy, back with their loved ones, better off than they were before, etc. like that. It even takes a realistic but optimistic viewpoint on how the Isles will be after Belos' defeat. That it will be hard but that people are interested in coming back together and putting aside old pains. The lingering shadows will be dealt with and the future is bright.

And then we have Luz come out of The Owl House with Stringbean to reminisce about herself. A farewell to the main character as she does mourn her magic but assures us that she doesn't need it anymore. That everything has made her stronger and ready to face the future. It is a genuinely good, final moment for her arc, regardless of if you think she has gone on an arc at all. Then, we get a glamour shot of her thinking about how this isn't the end of her story, but the start of a new chapter!

I... Genuinely like this ending. The only issues I have with it effectively are just ones that plague the entire series, like how Luz still has Stringbean so still has magic, just not the magic that made her special. The fact that she hasn't really changed or grown. She's just whined. And yes, the Collector does just bluntly suck dicks, especially without helping with the actual rebuilding efforts. But in general, objectively, this is a good ending. It works just on its own, brings the thematics together for a final statement, leaves the future open but also makes sure people know that everyone is happy and safe. It is classic, it works and it is a great capstone that takes four minutes.

There are still six minutes of the episode left.

The second finale is longer, shows off way more characters that I bet half of the viewers barely recognize if they even realize who they are, has a genuinely good like 30 seconds of showing the removal of the sigils, glamor shots of the Isles that really just highlight how few places we went to, are worse than the glamor shots in the first ending, and also remind people how few monsters were actually in the show. We do get future designs but a lot of people's jobs don't actually function with them or are so blunt as to be pointless to show. Luz is right back to wanting to be a witch of all trades explicitly when the first ending allowed some wiggle room for one to claim she did let go of her fantasies, or more so had a healthier relationship with them and reality now, and will move on to treating life differently. More responsibly. Like she isn't the hero of the story. That's part of why the first ending works thematically but now? Now Luz is just Luz from fucking episode one. The First Day at the latest. It just sucks.

All the thematic weight, all the resolution of plotlines, all the theoretical nuance and possibility space for what the future of the Isles would look like? GONE. And in it's place? Repetition. We already saw people get their happy endings. We already saw they were safe and going to do well. We already saw Luz have her twin families. I guess this ending gives us a portal door but we didn't need to see that when it was so blunt already that Luz would live in both worlds... Except because of the killing off Luz's final character moment by having her study EVERYTHING at the Isles' school, we're pretty much told that the human realm is just her Summer home. She clearly doesn't give a shit about anything other than her fantasy world or else she might have actually decided on a major than "A witch without magic."

It says so incredibly little about anything and loses even a nice, thematic ending that is supposed to be taken as the message of the show for... A fairy tale goodbye with some really lazy jokes and fanservice.

Which also explains why I pretty much ONLY heard about this ending. The first one is entirely skipped by the fandom to go "FUTURE DESIGNS!" And admittedly, why shouldn't they? The second ending invalidates the first but also the first ending makes the second one look like a joke. It's just a disaster.

Now, I actually want to bring up what could be considered something similar but... Not quite. Amphibia could be argued to have two endings as well. The first is after the Core's defeat where everyone is saying farewell to those closest to them. Marcy and the Newts, Sasha and Grime, and of course Anne and the Plantars. But... It's not actually presented as quite the end.

It is a final conflict. An acknowledgement that this does hurt and it's a pain not everyone wants. It shows how this final change is one that is reasonable to be scared of. Anne does talk about how they'll always have each other though and that could work for the final message, especially since that's theoretically the message the show wants to go out on. The problem is... That's a lot of tell, not a lot of show.

And so we get the actual ending of the timeskip. The show thematically wants to say that change is a positive thing and that even what you think you lose, still strengthens you for the better. So time HAD to pass. It's also why the narration over top only starts now, though it's mostly just a montage until we get to Anne's final thoughts. It shows how much better people are off now and how they don't forget those old connections. It is proving its thesis and then tacking on a final note that helps bring back a more optimistic tone.

"But of the things you let go, you'll be surprised what makes its way back to you."

A final note that says you don't have to lose things forever. A prayer that distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder. That change in all it's form, in loss and gain, can be positive. All while it keeps the possibility space of the girls' future, Amphibia's and everyone else's open but still lets us know that they'll be alright because these experiences and connections made them better.

It is a secondary finale that has a point to exist. It's not just for a victory lap and fanservice, it's actually thematically important and its message would not have hit as hard if not for the timeskip. It needed to be there, so it is.

TOH's timeskip doesn't have that excuse. It's just a circle jerk to give the fandom one more treat, one more redesign, and then leave. That is all it genuinely adds AND it takes over 10% of the finale just for that SINGLE purpose. Any other purpose was just as unnecessary, could have been just another minute on top of the first ending, or actively damages the story of the show.

Never tell me the shortening hurt the show. Not when even in its final moments, it undercut its own themes and pushed the story to the side just for fanservice, especially when this isn't new for TOH. Not by a long shot.

======+++++======

This post helped me know I could still be at least fair-ish to TOH. Genuinely, I liked the first ending. That wasn't just to setup the failure of the second ending, which I'd always thought fine before seeing the finale properly, but that I can appreciate a good, happy ending with a positive message. And that is a comfort to me I guess.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[overthinkinglotr]

RE: the Hobbit characters as the Magnus Archives entities—

Smaug is the Desolation, obviously, that’s not up for debate! He’s defined by his destructive fire and his devastation is referred to as “the desolation of Smaug.”

Bilbo begins the story very close to the Lonely, living alone and “unattached” in his empty home; after he finds the One Ring, he obviously also starts to become an avatar for the Eye as well. (It’s also relevant that after the journey, he becomes obsessive about writing and recording everything he saw on his adventures!)

Thorin is either the Slaughter or the Desolation— probably a combination of the two. The Slaughter is the entity of war, and Thorin nearly helps kickstart a massive war between dwarves, elves, and men; the desolation makes sense because he’s meant to be a parallel to Smaug, and etc etc.

Thranduil is the Spiral or the Web. I argue the Spiral because his “elven path” in Mirkwood turns out to be a meaningless endless maze, that stops abruptly at a horrible dead end; his elves lure people off the path into an endless labyrinth of darkness. The characters are lured off the path feel as if they might lose their minds in the darkness; they touch the enchanted rivers in his kingdom and have uncanny dreams that cause them to lose their memories. His woodland halls are similarly a horrible maze of magically closing doors that require a lot of cunning to escape.

But he’s also the Web because his forest is literally a forest of spiders and traps. Thranduil creates cunning plans to lure the dwarves off the path and trap them away and get himself a share of the treasure; the dwarves become stuck in his dungeons like flies in his web. However, unlike the Web, his plans kinda suck. But to be fair, it’s hard when the dwarves have a secret lone invisible embodiment of the Eye on their side.

Beorn is the Hunt. Does this need an explanation?

The Goblins are War or the Slaughter; I lean towards War.

Gandalf is the Web, but a positive version? He’s got his own mysterious plans, and he won’t tell you about them; but in the end everything will uncannily come together exactly as he designed.

And those are my hot takes, feel free to add more!

[burning--heart]

the inside of my brain is quite literally just caramelldansen and dea wigs rn. come on this journey with me

bristol: short length effectively shows that she prioritizes comfort over style without also implying that she can't take care of herself (unlike some of the styles on this list. cough). sensory friendly and low maintenance. i've had more or less this exact style before so i know she's chilling. it's cute. it looks like hair. love it. no notes.

london 1: WHAT HAPPENED. WHO DID THIS TO YOU. what's with the random braids. i can't even parse everything that's happening here. it looks really uncomfortable to have on her head. i feel neutrally about the fabric strips. i'll be honest, i don't know what the story behind the two different wigs is, but most of the photos of the london performance have her wearing this one so i imagine that this one came first and they changed it at some point after the press photos. its bad!

london 2: an improvement over the last one, but that's a low, LOW bar. my main gripe with this one is that it just really looks like a wig and i think that short hair suits her better. passable.

moscow (Vilena Sokolova): this production had a split cast, therefore two deas. this does not read as a wig to me, which is a win, and i don't mind this one being longer because they re-bookified dea (according to a post by mjrdm). having said that, I DO MIND THAT THEY RE-BOOKIFIED HER. THAT PART SUCKS. I DON'T LIKE IT. IT WAS A SHITTY CHOICE. but best practice imo is to design based on the character (even if they fucked the character). all things considered works well for her character in this version.

moscow (Daria Yanvarina): the texture of this one baffles me. why would she crimp her hair? what's with the random curled strands? there's even a couple of little braids for good measure. what is going on here? i wish i knew. the other one was fine, the difference between the two perplexes me. still better than the first london one but barely.

(bonus) london cast album/script cover: this one is a bonus because i'm pretty sure it's just Sanne Den Besten's actual hair? i find this an interesting choice. joke answer is that the original london wig was so bad they couldn't use it in promo material. more serious answer is that despite them committing to dea having albinism in both bristol and london, there's no reference to it in the script. i'm not equipped to comment on the morality of this one way or the other: all i can do is tell you that the choice to give her white hair was likely based in aesthetics (anything white reflects light really well, which suits her name, plus it contrasts with grinpayne's dark hair), and by not including it in the published version they chose to leave it open to other aesthetic choices (brown to match the book, red like her mother, etc). make of this what you will.

[purplepuddlesuwu]

Small Vent cause stressed ahhhh

Lowkey think people take games, anime, books,movies, shows and just fandoms in general waaaay too seriously.

Like yes I get it, it can suck when a character to adore gets misrepresented by others. But they are just fictional characters at the end of the day. Maybe I'm just mostly saying this to myself to remind myself that it's okay that someone doesn't see a character like how I do. Because I'm deadass in multiple fandoms where we really just go but wild with our own versions of the characters. Like I'm in the Warrior cats AND the My hero academia fandom... And both of them are known for taking the canon and wiping their buts with it and or ignoring older material. Because well it just happens.

At first I use to get upset about it like how the warrior fandom made Bramblestar out to be this abusive monster without acknowledging the archs before hand and how in My hero academia doing.... Literally anything lmao(I love y'all though... Half of you anyway)

But seriously I just started to realize that the fandoms I'm in aren't My fandoms like I don't own them and I don't own the source material or the IP or whatever. And sometimes you never know why someone images certain characters they way they do. Whether it's for comfort or they think it's funny or they find it attractive or just to annoy people or literally just whatever.

But I always gotta remind myself that hey... THE BITCHES AIN'T REAL LMAO. Why get pressed about how other people illustrate characters. Like seriously I had to sit myself down like I was my own parent and ask myself why do I care about a fictional character being written out of character or drawn with a different design. And I really was just like... Damn yeah why do I care? These artists/writers are having fun and that's what it means to be in a fandom to just have fun.

The only time when I do get serious is when people try to harass others for characters they like because of how they see them vs canon.

Example: I saw this young artist get a bunch of hate comments under a drawing of Bramblestar/Brambleclaw because a massive part of the fandom claimed he was an abuser. Happened again with someone draw Crowfeather x Leafpool fan art because of how seriously people took Leafpool x Mothwing

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED WITH MHA! They harasses the creator of the show sooooo many times in the past and current because of ships :T SHIPS YALL. Like I understand how frustrating it can be to see the show not end up how you wanted it to or not see too characters make out or whateva but God damn... They are fictional characters chill and just enjoy what we have or hell make what you wanted to happen. I literally do it all the time on my other page @purplestaruwu

Hell I'm still upset about how many characters were botched (in my eyes) in warriors, MHA, Naruto, bleach, marvel, DC etc.

But I think the fun in the fandom is making the what it's and creating our own versions of he characters and sharing it with others who feel the same or who just want to enjoy seeing the characters being draw in different designs, Au's, etc

I use to be so stuck up about everything being close to canon... But then I was just like "You know what it's not hurting anyone, you do whatever" and after that I feel like I became more relaxed being in fandoms... At least I try to be sometimes I do slip up but I stopped commenting on peoples different pov or au's or whatever unless I was gonna say something nice like complimenting the art or the writing or how good the plot of the story was.

It just got easier to just enjoy things and to just well not be so aggressive on the internet and not be online so much.

Cause whenever I get made about seeing a fictional character drawn in a way I don't like and I feel the need to say something... I just be like "yeaaah it's time to take a break for the day I think I've been online for too long"

This also goes for real things that happen online too lmao I just learned to take breaks and breath and remind myself that the online world is just that... The online world... And fandoms are just that fandoms...

I'm venting right now because I'm stressed out or more than likely I stressed myself out with because of online crap. And I just wanted to kind of put this here for me and for anyone else who kind of needs that reminder than you don't need to be online so much and you don't need to protect fictional characters or shows or movies or games or whatever it's not worth hurting someone's feelings because that.

But yeah that's all I think. Have a nice day and go drink some water c:

[red-in-every-sense-of-the-word]

Ive tagged this post to high heaven so if you somehow get spoilered because of this idk what to tell you. I've played through storymode, good chunk of invasions, and had a crack at the endings towers. Ngl Mortal Kombat 1 is a massive fucking fail and I'm so mad I didn't listen and cancelled my preorder.

After the first half or slightly under of the storymode it took a massive nose dive into complete mess, like not even mess as in the choices we're ill-advised, but mess as in you barely know wtf is going on and neither does the actual plot, they forget half the characters exist (they dropped Bi-Han's traitor plot completely after the Scorpion chapter and forgot about Smoke and Kuai Liang, Kung Lao may as well be a background character, Ashrah and Reptile fucking disappear after entering Earthrealm etc),

They ripped off other games ideas while also forgetting plot points from previous games they're going off of (the blatant Armageddon ending/MK9 opening final act ripoff that would've been better if it wasn't flooded with those stupid mutant champions and random copies no one asked for, forgetting the whole Shinnok's Amulet harms the user who uses it thing with Shao and forgetting the madness it causes, ripping off MK11's final battle with all the realms against the time keeper battle all over again etc.)

Essentially, this game has some good ideas and a very good first half up until Shinnoks Amulet randomly got dropped into the mix. I liked the twist of both MK11 endings being canon, I didn't like the fact that the writers decided to make a fucking avengers endgame ripoff out of the idea only for everything to magically snap back to normal reality after its all over. What the actual fuck.

They have such good ideas but never explain a single fucking thing about it in-game. Does Cris divorce Johnny instead of Sonya and Johnny divorcing then getting back together to spare them that pain in Liu Kangs design? Do Ashrah and Sareena know each other since they both worked under Quan Chi? Wtf is Rain's motivation for betraying his Edenian family? How about what happened to Hanzo Hasashi or Bi Han and Kuai Liang's father? Does Kenshi end up restoring his family's glory? Where do Ashrah and Reptile end up? How about Sareena? What the fuck is going on with Jerrodmac? Is Sonya ever gonna be apart of the damned story considering how important she is/was to Earthrealm getting a better timeline? Where the fuck does Kung Lao fit into the story now he's been sidelined AGAIN despite MK11 implying he'd finally get a shot at being the chosen one? Where is Raiden's personality for 95% of the game until timekeeper old Raiden shows up?

They leave all of this unanswered and instead just. Blow everything up and make it all substanceless epic emptiness. Like literally nothing meaningful happens in the last act on that pyramid. At all. The first section of Johnny's chapter where he's basically Indiana Jones had more substance to it then the whole last half of the game did! Oh yeah btw I love Megan Fox (Transformers Movie Fan) but God her Nitara voice acting blows so hard. MK11 Sonya wasn't bad at all yall give her too much shit and then they get bigger names to do roles in this shit and its just worse. Nitara was another character they did not explain at all. So was Khameleon and Darrius and Sareena. They were just There.

It sucks because there were some really cool concepts like Johnny and the gang in the Wu Shi instead of just the usual monks, the Johnny and Kenshi mini storyline was very good and sweet (honestly I see zero romantic chemistry there idk where yall are getting this from but their friendship here is so fucking good and builds off of their friendship in MKX very well and I'm glad it's still there and flourishing. There's not many well-written and healthy male friendships in media that I've seen and I'm glad this turned out to be a perfect example of one). I loved the way they portrayed Bi Han's descent into ambition driven betrayel and it would've been perfect if we were given more explanation. Especially when he gave Kuai Liang his infamous scar. That was sick as hell.

I know not many people were happy that he was being made a villain again but honestly if they tried making him a good guy I doubt they'd be able to pull off anything better than a bitchier version of Kuai Liang and we've already got one good Sub-Zero, it's more interesting to see the worser side of Bi-Han and if they explore him with Sareena again it could make their relationship more interesting when she joins the side of good eventually without him.

Essentially it comes down to a lot of wasted potential, the interface of the game and the towers and some of the rendering in invasions mode and the end of fight standing over you cutscene in story mode is so bad. I don't even think they properly rendered dark Raiden in one cutscene at all. It feels sloppy and rushed. The gear setup is worse and shittier then MK11, there's no variations. The Palette setup is an improvement from the rehash of a skin in 40 odd colours but there's only one gear option instead of three. The actual outfits in the game are very hit or miss mostly miss with such dull colours and clothing/accessories just not sitting right like Kung Laos hat and the odd choice of colours for Sindel (beige) and others.

As for the Kameo system, it's useless. I literally barely use it and when I do it's exactly like using the Konsumables in MK11 except they've changed the damned enhance button to the trigger to make room for a feature absolutely no one wanted ☠️

It's just disappointing. And I probably have more to say about it but rn I'm on almost 24 hours of not sleeping and have to make it another 4 hours before I'm allowed to crash so I'll leave it here for now.

Oh yeah and the Kombat Kids geting slaughtered. Only giving Cassie her "lesbian cut" on her MK11 model specifically now and massacring Jin's design only to kill them all. Didn't like that. I genuinely almost cried because seeing Cassie I almost got my hopes up for a possible playable future for her and then I saw Jin and I've never been more devastated in my life. He looks like Kabal for fucks sake.

Good evening and I'm never preordering a Mortal Kombat game again

[rantceratops]

I just. Feel like. I get so upset and irritable and depressed because I can’t participate in something I love anymore. Something that means the world to me, something that, I feel, is supposed to be the reason I’m here. It’s all I ever really felt like I was good at.

And that was creating.

I’m beating a dead horse here but. I genuinely just get so so so fucking upset. I either have so many ideas swirling in my head but no way to release them (because I can’t draw, or can’t get myself to or to even find joy in it anymore) and I can’t write, so I’m stuck with ideas and nothing to do with them. Or, oppositely and more commonly, I FEEL like I have the urge to create, and I’m so inspired by others, but I CAN’T come up with a single thing. No cool ideas, no cool aus, no character designs, no story ideas, etc.

And it’s SO goddamn frustrating and upsetting and disheartening that I cannot honestly put it to words.

And this also just leads into me having really bad imposter syndrome as well as “I’m not an artist, I’m not a creative, I’m just trying to force myself to be something that clearly I just was not meant to be or that no longer gives me joy.” (And it sucks, because I know the DEPRESSION is what’s taken my joy away. But I really believe with all my heart that I’m not meant to even draw and I’m just trying to force something. And that makes me so goddamn fucked up because I DESPERATELY WANT to be creative and an artist and make things. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I just want to make things. I want to have an imagination like I used to.)

It’s so DEVASTATING to me that I struggle to put it into proper words. Like I’m drowning and desperately reaching out to be able to be that one fucking thing I WANT with all my heart to be, but I can’t seem to get my fingers around it. It dances out of my reach because I’m just a pretender, I was never an artist and I need to accept it.

But I can’t. I don’t want to.

And yet... how can I hope to do anything if my depression keeps me from even having any desire to draw to begin with? The sense of failure is too great, I know it will be bad before I even try and it discourages me. Or I’m just... so fucking devoid of energy or care that I can’t make myself.

I’m just venting. Today has been one of those days where no matter what I try to distract myself with, I just can’t stay focused. I can’t watch Youtube, I can’t read, video games stopped working after a couple hours, etc.

I LITERALLY just don’t know what to do with myself. I wish I could express myself like this to my therapist but sometimes I wonder if she even reads/listens to everything I say to her.

I should probably try and see her more often than I do.

[daemion]

Hi! :)

I'm daemion (he/it 22) literally a cat in real life unfortunately sorry

trans (T💉since 3/21/23) and bi lol

I post art sometimes and make nonsense posts.

Name tags are exclusively my original characters. I don't tag any characters for fandoms, as I'm not really in any fandoms.

My interests/hobbies: Writing, drawing, comics/manga, and Video games (splatoon, terraria, minecraft, free mmo type games).

dni: terfs, transphobes, etc. i block people !

My projects:

+: My main project. Currently on my tenth draft of it that makes pretty significant changes to the plot, structure, and characters. It's about a group of young adults trying to find out what happened to two of their friends who went missing.

I really like + and i enjoy talking about it more than any other project. I've been working on it since late 2015 so there are a lot of different versions of it. The most important drafts (ones I talk about the most) are draft 2, 7, 8, 9 and the most current one 10. Draft 6 is also relevant because it is the worst version that has written content. Drafts 1, 3, 4, and 5 most exist as notes and art, draft 1 is entirely physical comics I drew in 2015, so I don't have much to say about them.

If you're curious about any specifics about the project, please feel free to ask questions about it! I'm currently trying to motivate myself to write out comprehensive character information and make full designs for a lot of the characters.

When talking about specific aspects of + drafts I try to tag the draft (example: draft 9 +) and any characters discussed. This is mainly for me and a lot of them are contextualized fully because they're for me, but if you wanna look you can :)

Characters: David, Chris, Valentine, Eli, Clementine, Madi, Olive, Jay, Jaxson, Evan, Vincent, Vanessa, and a few more, but the main ones you'll be hearing about on my blog are the first 5 listed.

She Saw: My comic based on an old draft of +, draft 2. A 3 and half part long story about a lesbian who finds the dead body of one of her best friend's boyfriends and gets sucked into a conflict involving that, all the while experiencing high school and seeing horrific visions. What is complete of it is posted on tumblr and DA as well as a few other comic sites? I believe. If you're interested its @shesawcomic, I haven't worked on completing it since 2019.

If your curious about the + connection, every character in She Saw has a direct analog in draft 2 + character. The main character, who's name isn't revealed until the end of the current part, is Veronica (now Madi) from +, Faith is Valentine, the unnamed boy is Daemion (now David), Terrance is Chris (arguably also Eli, they are interchangeable in draft 2), Mary is Mary, Kate is Kathy. There was an additional character who was not revealed at the time I stopped writing, and was the only character without a + analog, though her situation could be based on a number of characters I've written before. Everything I write is derivative of itself.

Characters: Her (shesaw), him (shesaw), Terrance, Faith, Mary, Kate. (All of them got finished refs this summer :D)

WWW: New project. A comic based on an old draft of +, draft 2, 3, and 4. Unlike She Saw, which sought to recreate the high school segment of draft 2 (a, if I am remembering correctly, 16 page long section) WWW seeks to replicate and add on to the main plot of draft 2, taking into consideration traits added to the characters after that draft. The comic is about Cici who lives in the middle of nowhere on a dairy farm separated from the rest of society until a woman named Juliet comes and helps him escape. Juliet, a woman obsessed with obscure religious groups, practices, and magic, convinces Cici help her work towards her goal of achieving immortality. Unfortunately, when they do achieve something, it's not a glamorous as Juliet described it to be. - WWW is an abbreviation of a test/temporary name that might not stick.

Similar to She Saw, WWW characters also has connections to + characters, but they're really obvious in my mind so i'm just choosing to have that be a funny thing that people who know + characters would notice.

Characters: Cici, Juliet, Sammy.

Seagull: Another newer project. A comic/short story about a half wolf half human man who's sent to work and live on a "lighthouse" in the middle of the ocean to keep watch for "something in the water". He quickly discovers that his lighthouse has attracted a strange angel that resembles the seagulls.

Characters: Jupiter, Seagull (haven't named him yet), Coral

For the 3 projects that are not + listed above, I'm happy to answer any questions! WWW is my main focus aside from +, She Saw is in limbo, and Seagull is kind of a side project.

[airasora]

This is probably a strange thing to say out of seemingly nowhere, but...

I don't like canon Holli Would.

Let me explain. I just came across a NOTP Hollina video and for those unaware, a NOTP is a non-OTP, basically a ship you really dislike. In their description, one of the things they mentioned as the reason for not liking Hollina is that they hate Holli and think both her character and her movie suck.

Let me make it abundantly clear that I 100% AGREE 😂

I don't like Holli Would as a character. I don't like the Cool World movie. I don't ship canon Holli with Lina or anyone else. She's boring, one-dimensional villain and a result of an originally cool and dark idea, turned into the senseless production company bullshit Cool World became.

But that's canon Holli. Who I like is fanon Holli.

Canon is the original story and character personality. Fanon is how the fan base interprets or re-creates a character for multiple reasons. That's what Holli is to me, she's a character inspired by canon Holli Would, but she's NOT the same character.

I don't even really like the Thumbelina movie that much either. Don't get me wrong, it's light-years better than Cool World, but it's incredibly flawed and Thumbelina is wishy-washy and whiny.

My Holli and Lina, despite being inspired by their canon selves, are in fact "my" characters.

Their personalities and stories are what my mind has come up with. Truthfully, I could just give them different names and designs and I could fully claim them as my own, copyright and everything. Because they are indeed THAT different from their canon.

So when people say they dislike Hollina because they, for example, dislike Holli's personality or movies etc, just know that I would 100% NOT ship Hollina either 😂 I would NOT be interested in a story mash-up of Cool World and Thumbelina. Good grief would that be mind-numbingly boring and non-sensical.

Holli and Lina have been shaped and developed in my head as two completely new characters, they have very little in common with their canon selves. If I gave them new names an designs, no one would know they were once upon a time Holli Would and Thumbelina 😂

When I first created Hollina, this is how it happened: I wanted a badass, hardcore and sexy lesbian helping a shy and sweet in the closet girl out of a toxic relationship with her boyfriend. Holli and Lina were literally just the two characters who matched that dynamic. That's it. THAT'S how they came to be 😂

I know this sounds like a rant, but it's not meant to be. I just realized that I don't think I've ever actually shared the fact that I don't think of Hollina as, well, Holli Would and Thumbelina... They're face-claims, slightly similar to their canon selves. But that's it.

And that's probably why they're so important to me; they're my own characters. They just happen to have been inspired by pre-existing characters 6 years ago. But they've become my own new characters at this point.

That's it, just felt like talking about that 🥰

[gimblestank-the-goblin]

Rewatching RWBY Season 1 - Part 1

Just saw Icequeendom, so I decided to try rewatching the first season of RWBY to compare it to. Have gotten through Emerald Forest (roughly the first half of the season) and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by how strong it starts. 

RWBY is good when it first starts. Really good. Its got some weak voice acting here or there and some shoddy animation of course, it is a semi-professional web-series at this point, but despite all that it is very fun to watch and you can really see the glimmers of something great being made. The characters are fun and likable, their interactions feel natural, the art design is fantastic and Mounty is firing on all cylinders with these fights.*

Ruby is of course the stand out, with some great and memorable lines. She’s got the comedic ones - bee’s knees, I drink milk, etc - but she’s also got some really powerful ones. Ruby’s line about how “that’s why we’re here, to make things better” is powerful and perfectly acted. 

The rest of the characters are well done as well. Yang and Pyrrha’s voice actresses haven’t quite hit their stride yet, but the characters themselves are still fun. 

The other stand out besides Ruby, is Jaune. And not in a good way. He starts out really strong. He shows up to give Ruby a helping hand after her whole Weiss explosion fiasco, literally helping her to her feet when she’s feeling overwhelmed and unsure of herself, instantly endearing him to the audience. Then we’ve got some fantastic, really natural feeling banter between him and Ruby where we see her own feelings of inadequacy mirrored in his, cementing a shared struggle and setting him up to be her ally, friend and mirror. Then we get the “short, sweet, ladies love it” line which is just charmingly dorky. 

He’s great. Then we get two short comedic scenes (bunny pajama’s and him lamenting that he couldn’t have put his weapons in locker 636 because he would have remembered having to count that high). 

Then everything goes downhill. He inserts himself into Weiss and Pyrrha’s conversation in what is clearly an attempt to tell the same “short, sweet, etc” joke as before but this time it comes across as smarmy rather endearing (it lasts too long and Weiss is clearly uncomfortable) and this sets the tone for the rest of his time in the arc. Every scene he has from here on is either him being a smarmy pest hitting on Weiss, sucking in a way which is meant to be funny but comes off as annoying, or acting as an audience surrogate so that the writers can exposit to us*. Its a real shame, because he started real strong and could have been a fun character***.

*And like all good fight choreographers he understands that fights are part of the story. The best written parts of the show are the fights scenes for how the characterize people and move the plot forward in interesting directions. 

** I maintain RWBY’s target audience has seen enough anime to not need aurra explained to them, but if the writers really felt the need to do that there were more natural ways. Here’s my solution after 5 minutes of work:

Cardin/Jaune fight. Cardin hits Jaune, shattering his aura. We cut to the aura life bar draining to zero and “no aura” flashing across the screen. Cardin goes to get another hit in because he’s a bully. Glynda stops him saying “Stop Cardin, he’s out of aura. Any more hits and he could be hurt.”

Later, Jaune has to move something heavy. He tries before giving up and saying “Pyrrha? Little help,” helpless gesture “no aura”. She then picks it up with ease. 

Done, we’ve know established it stops things from hurting you and gives you super strength. 

*** Honestly, I think Jaune would have been a lot more compelling if they removed the transcript plot. Jaune as a huntsman who’s just kinda shitty at fighting is much more compelling then Jaune the slacker who cheated his way into school and then doesn’t try to improve himself and spent no time preparing to be a huntsman at all apparently. Plus it cuts the whole bullying plot which took time away from the main characters. Let him be a B character who exists to serve as a mirror to Ruby, not a main character in his own right. 

[onewomancitadel]

The persona and other Jung stuff in RWBY

I was thinking about Jung today (obviously, made lots of annoying posts about it) and who and what the personae are in RWBY. I tend to pay attention to Shadows and anima/animus because that's where my interest more often is, since the persona is:

“[…] a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual.” - C.G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953

and the path to the Self and individuation is effectively slaying this false self, or identifying where you really begin and where it really ends.

I would also like to note that this quote is a good one to use on the persona, and Nightbloomwitch also used it in her essay on the Darkling, which I recommend for reading if you're interested in an analysis of his character, 'tracing his literary ancestry'. I also asked her permission a while ago to borrow her Jungian mindmapping, because I hadn't seen it done before. It really is a great essay - I hope she's doing well wherever she is - and incredibly fascinating, not to sound like I'm sucking up. (;

Here's an abbreviated description of the persona on the Carl Jung website, with its academic citation in the link (want to save space lol):

One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.

A character such as Ben Solo has a persona of Kylo Ren, The Darkling is a persona etc. and that's why he reveals his true name to Alina when he dies (though TGT isn't a stellar example of Jungian storytelling). It's why what happens in Dark happens the way it does. Darth Vader - one of the best examples from the story that basically began the conscious repurposing of the monomyth - is the persona of Anakin Skywalker, that's why he is finally able to pass peacefully with the mask off.

But Cinder is an interesting case because her persona - like Raistlin from Dragonlance - is represented by another character that she imitates and wishes she were more like, who is Salem. Salem is also her master and whom she is literally enslaved to (slave to a mask/persona). This is why I've always talked about Cinder and masks.

Or, Salem and Madame are one conflated persona since she essentially tries to imitate both. When she killed Madame, she never truly killed the false self, and she was vulnerable to Salem. That's not her happy ending (or bad ending) or the end of her individuation. That's why Cinder needs to be meaningfully freed. ("Without you I am nothing," - without the mask/enslavement, she can't see who she truly is. See: the Fall Maiden's lesson she needs to learn. Look at everything already in front of you).

Salem's ending will be a reconciled peaceful death, I suspect. I was also thinking about Ruby. I think Ruby's persona is Summer Rose. I am currently wondering how many personae of the characters have to die. Qrow's persona was Clover, for instance.

That's why he teams up with his Shadow to kill the mask. (Qrow literally calls it a 'deal with the darkness'. I can't make this shit up, it's so obvious it hurts).

In summary, I love revealing things and the truth and narrative patterns. Let me supplement a Jungian mental psyche map, with Cinder's mapped out to complement it:

So you can see what I'm getting at visually lol.

[lem-cup-rev]

Going Under (2020)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

God damn the gamefeel and difficulty were terrible! I loved everything else.

And of course, when I say that, I only mean my subjective experience, because clearly the devs must have been able to play through and enjoy their own creation and others will too.

It’s a top-down action game in enclosed spaces with goofy, bouncy 3D graphics, and for me it achieved a nightmarish level of stiff, mushy, confusing clunkiness. I could definitely have fun and enjoy the madcap chases and satisfying weapons when it was easy, but at a certain difficulty I felt like I hit an absolute ceiling where I had no real control and no way to do better whatsoever. Wanting to see the rest of the game, I juiced the accessibility options up to max and shoved my way through, but even that didn’t make the final final final boss fight easy, so I gave up.

I also would have LOVED if the gameplay actually focused on scrambling around the office throwing any and all of the fully interactable objects at your enemies, but this is made entirely useless compared to the stronger weapons provided.

The gameplay problems had to work hard to overcome my affection for the aesthetic, humor, story, characters, themes, and cute gameplay ideas.

It’s an extremely charming, quirky, acidic, cartoonish modern-fantasy parody of startup culture, and I was so into it even without any connection to the subject. The entire game is portrayed in a version of the “corporate art style”, the mild, pleasant, stiff and noodly colorful figures that populate advertising material and web services. All of the gameplay mechanics are ciphered through corporatespeak – power-ups are skills on your resume, doing quests for characters is gaining mentorship, your score for a dungeon run is a performance review.

The game’s structure and narrative cuts deep and lampoons the over-intimate small team corporate nightmare world in extremely clever and cohesive ways. The dungeons you fight through – they’re previous failed startups that yours is literally built on top of, their workers cursed to become monsters in endless shitty jobs! And there are so many more layers from there. After what I fully believed was the final boss fight, a second half of the game opened up revealing not only the hard modes of the dungeons, but an exquisitely weird thematic change undergone by every single character.

The characters have really distinct, striking designs and distinct, funny personalities, each representing a different facet of the startup ecosystem, and all of them are a joy to talk to every time you get the chance. I especially like the two women, a stocky pessimistic programmer and a pretty people-pleasing marketer who are initially at each other’s throats.

Every little element is laden with weird, ghoulish, creative humor, from the gig worker goblins crashing rideshare cars around the levels to the amazon drones delivering purchased items in ‘2-5 business encounters’ to the cans of your own soda product in bizarre flavors used as explosive area weapons, etc etc etc. There are so many over-the-top gameplay ideas meant to add irreverent, thrilling chaos to the adventure.

Honestly, probably the majority of the fun I had was from exploring all the creative, funny stuff they fit in every aspect of the experience, more than from the gameplay itself. It sucked so hard to end up wanting to quit playing this game because it wasn't fun! Se la vie.

[sparklebeasts]

Watched The Void yesterday.. thoughts under cut! Tw for: pregnancy, miscarriage, gore/violence discussion

genuinely good horror effects and theme, but

1.)

A. We focus on The Grieving-Secretly-Relieved Cop Father instead of the nurse who miscarried in the "things bursting out from inside you, trying to cheat death, bring them back" movie. She is literally a reflection of the villain bc she too lost a child and it ruined her! She Should Be The Main character

B. Also these two are written badly. Like when they interact together. In general their whole thing is bland which isnt great when theyre the Reason for the theme but at least the theme is executed overall better. The cop is an unnecessary character. I could talk about how annoying it is to make a guy the main character when its obvious it should be her instead and everything would make More Sense? You could still have him happen to be the cop to find a guy and haul him in, Sure. But he like.. doesnt serve enough of a purpose to be a Main character. He does still have his own arc and Issues, but personally the story works better if her issues are center while his are trails off of that. Because who would you rather wanna follow in the horror movie about trying to put a baby back into you and its a gorey flesh monster: the guy who was relieved when the baby died and wants his wife back or the one who actually miscarried and is still grieving and works for the doctor behind everything.

2.) Does the dog die does not have "stigma against addicts" as a filter on there. Did you know that? The only thing they seem to have for drugs is about overdosing. So the "guy whos only crime was wanting drugs gets yelled at and forced to go first and be scared and get his head smashed in" scene wasnt fun to me dude literally just walked into a murder scene and got blamed for it even after he explained he was literally not involved .

3.) The doctor doesnt need followers yawn. People can have religious fervor all on their own. The cult people are really just there to have a reason they cant leave but imo it wouldve been a bit cooler if these were also dead-alive beings that were able to keep from bursting enough to walk around in cloaks? Theyre still unnecesary and detract from the focus on a father's grief and a doctor's wonder at the human body and life and death and Insides and Meat. but at least making them creepier/more connected to the Gore Religion is better than white cloaks with black triangles? Why are they wearing that. The triangle is white and glowing that should be the eye catcher. Get better designers stop making them look Like That . Also stop doing cults theyre not needed here you cldve just had patients-turned-monster leap out of windows and shit and stalk outside or something. Couldve been Cool

4.) Why does pushing the doctor into the white glowing triangle he's giving a speech in front of work. Why would you stand in front of the portal if going into it fucks everything over.

5.) Why is the doctor not in there with the cop and why is the cop's ex wife there and why is it some grey landscape with a big 3D black pyramid. Where is any of the carnal mess and horror. Or where is the Essence of void in it. Make it a familiar landscape but sucked of all color and joy. Dont show it at all, Rather! Why is no one else here. What does this resolvement of the themes, arcs, and messages in the film say?

6.) I hate that he gets to keep caling her his wife and its all about him holding her hand and etc etc. It couldve been so much better if it was her. Because even if him not letting go in those ways is meant to be purposeful what all that means is we dont see her be anything more than his. I just feel like your whole movie functions better with her as the main character okay i have to keep saying it

7.) The teenage boy who's family got murdered and wrapped up in all this? Fun. Thats a good character to have in this movie, especially as ur showing this supposed stranger to him acting as a parental figure, gestures back to the central themes . Wish his flashback got a teeny bit more time, wanted to see the Horror of what happened in his home a bit better. i got excited when the scene started!

8.) They dont explain the guy who saved the teenage boy? Which is fair, i guess he didnt want to explain his backstory, its just funny to me. Like you werent kidding he just Isnt gonna share..

All that said, fantastic monster design, fantastic horror, fantastic villain. This movie deserved more horror because those parts were done Very good

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Being Great: Leonardo Da Vinci

Note on the text: I used Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci as published by Simon and Schuster in 2017

Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. Reading about just the way in which his mind worked was amazing and what I loved most about him was the way in which he gave himself permission to explore everything he wanted to explore in his life, and how he gave himself permission to be everything that he was. 

No one is one thing and what amazed me about reading this book was just how varied Da Vinci’s interests were. Although he is known mostly as a painter he was also interested in learning about hydraulics, engineering, and how the human body worked. He even dissected multiple bodies (both human and animal) to see how the various bones, muscles, ligaments etc worked just because he wanted to know. Yes he also wanted to create realistic paintings with characters that conveyed a full range of emotions, but that was also something he just wanted to know about. He designed war machines, flying machines, and did various science experiments. He was a true lifelong learner who was more than willing to let life lead him wherever it wanted to him to go, even if it didn’t exactly make sense. 

He had the courage to go wherever life would take him no matter what anyone said. There’s a story that he tells of a time where he stumbled upon a dark cave while hiking around Florence. Upon seeing the cave there arose in him “two contrary emotions, fear and desire- fear of the dark threatening cave, desire to see if there were any marvelous thing[s] within it” (28). On that day desire won out and he went into the cave to discover that there was the fossil of a whale. That one incident taught him to never let his fear of the unknown keep him from doing anything. Now it wasn’t all peaches and cream, and not every one of his adventures resulted in success. He was a human just like the rest of us. He “was not always a [genius]. He made mistakes. He went on tangents, literally pursuing math problems that became time sucking diversions. Notoriously he left many of his paintings unfinished. . .  As a result there exists now at most fifteen paintings [that are] fully or mainly attributable to him” (8). 

It’s also worth noting that he was born at a time where “the mixing of ideas from different disciplines [had become] the norm” (26). This is important when talking about Da Vinci’s abilities to cater all the different sides of himself- he grew up in a society where he was encouraged to do so. No one is just one thing. We are all made up of many different interests and passions. The problem is that most of, especially when we become adults, fall into the trap of assuming that everything has to have a practical purpose. The idea of learning how to do something just because you want to, even if it has no practical purpose, is certainly not in vogue now. Da Vinci however never allowed something as trivial as practicality to get in his way. He took full advantage of everything that life had to offer him. Sometimes he wanted to learn things that had a practical application for his life, like when he would dissect human bodies so that he could study their muscles and skeletal structure so that he could paint human figures that are more realistic and emotive. Other times he just wanted to know how the beak of a woodpecker worked just because he was curious. These various endeavors, as myriad as they were, served to greatly enrich his life, and, for Da Vinci, that was the point. Life was something to savored and explored in every way possible.

That’s how you’re supposed to live. That’s how one becomes a genius. Leonardo was always stretching himself, pushing himself to try new things, to get better. Don’t limit yourself to one thing. You are more than just one thing and deserve to live a life that is worthy of the unique and beautiful human being that you are

[fireemblems24]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Review

I FINALLY finished all 4 routes. It took me FOREVER, but here we are. I didn't pick a first route for this game, but decided to play all 4 at once to avoid bias. And it's finally come to a close.

This review isn't about the individual routes, but about things that are the same in all 4 routes. So it's mostly focused on gameplay. I'll be reviewing all four of the routes later.

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

Overall, I really like playing this game, but holy hell this game is a lot. I really think doing all 4 at the same time caused a lot of burnout at times that wouldn't have happened if I did it one at a time like a normal person.

Still, I think it's a good sign that I really want to replay it (after a break). Because I think this game will be even more fun if I'm only focusing on building one team and not four. I literally can't wait to turn all my favorite students and teachers into killing machines.

Overall, I find this a really solid, top-tier FE game in terms of mechanics (story is varied per route), but it's not perfect. Please, also keep in mind I'm not much of a "gamer." Outside of Fire Emblem, my gaming experience is limited, so I'm no expert at game design. My reviews on characters and plots will be a lot more through since that's something I know how to really analyze.

CUSTOMIZATION

The high level of customization is by far my favorite aspect of the game. There's a lot to manage: skills, battalions, abilities, spell lists, classes and pathways, growth rates (and modifiers), base stats, crests, personal skills, and OMG it keeps going. I don't want all future FE games to do all of this, but it's super fun having one that lets you customize your characters to this level.

I love that you're less limited in what characters you can use. In the past, there's been characters I love who suck in gameplay or are stuck in a class that holds them back or I hate using. FE3H scoots around this by letting me reclass anyone into anything I want (more or less). Even the worst characters in the game can end up disgusting if you pour enough time into plotting their growth over the game. It also means that Dedue isn't stuck being an armored knight. I love him, but my God do I hate the armored knight class. For that reason alone, I bless this game.

It also means that I can keep using my favorites over and over again and get a totally different gameplay experience. I'm, once again, not stuck between having to choose between using the exact same units who function the exact same way or use characters I'm not as fond of. With 3H, I can make Ingrid a pegasus knight once, put her on a dragon next, make her the dancer elsewhere, and etc . . . I get to keep using Ingrid, but without having her act the same way as a unit over and over, which avoids things getting stale because a.) I'm using the same thing again or b.) I don't care about the characters I'm using.

That said, they made some weird choices with customization. I don't understand why they gender locked some classes. I'd love to have pegasus knight!Dimitri or war master!Edelgard, but IS said "no" for some unknown reason despite making customization such an important part of the gameplay. The classes aren't even remotely balanced either, which isn't anything new, but it undermines the customization severely when some of the options are so obviously inferior to others. Many characters also seemed borderline forced into certain class paths. Again, nothing in the world is stopping me from dragon knight!Linhardt, but when everything about his character is shoved into being a mage, it makes me wonder why bother with that level of customization at all? 95% of the skills also seem totally useless, which is a weird choice.

Overall though, I really love how much they let you pick and choose things. It's not perfect, but it is fun. It did get overwhelming at times having to mirco-manage characters with so many different things, but I imagine it's a lot easier when you're focusing on one team - an experience I'm really looking forward to in the future.

RECRUITMENT

I have mixed feelings about how recruitment works in this game. I understand the necessity of it, but it feels like a missed opportunity.

For starters, I miss traditional recruitment. For the uninitiated, in every other Fire Emblem game, there were often enemy units you had to talk to in order for them to switch sides - often, but not always, with the main character. It posed a unique challenge, because there was always the risk that you accidentally killed them or they killed you. The recruitment conversations sometimes led to hilarious reasonings for flipping sides too. Caeda, for example, often flirted them away from the enemy, confusing Marth afterwards who had no idea who these people were. I wish this game included it, but I understand why it didn't.

From a gameplay perspective, how recruitment works in 3H makes a lot of sense. Unlike previous FE games where you end up with a large cast at the end, 3H gives you a limited in-house cast, making easy recruitment a necessity. They also had to work within the confines of the game's narrative, which demands that three different character sets exist from the start of the game. This stands in stark contrast with most FE games that have a small starting cast that slowly builds. The way 3H is demands that the bulk of your characters are there from the start, so changing up how you add to your starter pack makes sense.

However, I feel recruitment is a missed opportunity here both in terms of gameplay and characterization. For gameplay, I think they should've changed how students join your team for each route. It would've given each route more uniqueness and provided new cool challenges. I'll go into more detail about what I think each route should've done in a future post, since I actually ended up with too much thoughts on how changing it up could've made recruitment fit characters and route themes better and it just took up too much space here.

Recruitment also hurts characterization. It's a bit confusing to me that they wrote these incredibly interesting and nuanced characters, and had most of the switch sides dialogue boil down to "my teacher is here." It seems wildly OOC that someone like Raphael will drench the Alliance in blood in CF because his teacher decided to fight for Edelgard. It's a little less hard to swallow switching around between VW, SS, and AM, but even then the "reasonings" are half-baked for characters who otherwise seem fairly consistent. It makes the majority of the recruitable cast look incredibly wish-washy and like they stand for and believe in nothing other than whatever Byleth does. I just wish they put a bit more nuance into the dialogues these characters have when they're out of house, because I know they can do that because they did at least once with Felix. Unlike the rest of the cast, it seems like the writers put actual thought into how switching sides might effect Felix's growth and gave him meaningful dialogue that give deeper reasons behind his actions and changes outside of "Byleth." That no one else got the "Felix treatment," I'll forever lament.

REPETATIVE

This part is largely negative. This game is very repetitive. I burnt out multiple times because it was the same thing over and over. While it's true I did 4 routes at the same time and therefore partly my fault, I think it's safe to assume anyone who played all 4 routes find things like the monastery, reused maps, and lack of unique map goals tiring. Even CF, which has the most unique plot, plays the exact same way as every other single route.

The monastery gets old fast. Having four weeks in-between levels is too much time. They should've cut that in half. Even the battle options get boring eventually because it's the same thing over and over - route enemy. Half the things in the monastery have no real value either and could've been cut without losing much of anything (singing lessons, lost items? why waste time on this?). You basically go and eat like 6 meals and then run around leveling up Byleth's skill while ignoring every other function because they're so vastly inferior. I strongly believe this game should've spent less time on creating a fishing mini-game and more time smoothing out the pacing or part two of giving up a few different maps.

The levels themselves are often repetitive too. Unless I'm forgetting something, every single level is route enemy or kill boss - not even any siege levels. A few paralogues add something unique - like trying to keep green units alive or defeating Duscur soldiers before enemies do - but those are few and far between. Defend levels are some of my favorites in past FE games, but it doesn't really exist here. Nor are there many levels with other challenges, like sneaking around or having to light fires or break people out of prison or time limits that matter, or avoiding killing certain enemies, or recruitment, or - you get the idea. Everything is a bit too straight-forward and bland regarding chapter goals.

All that said, I, overall, really do love playing this game. I don't think it'll be too long before I start playing the DLC and going back and giving one route all my attention - which I am really looking forward to. This game isn't perfect, and with some changes it could've been close, but it is one that I enjoy playing and will rank among my favorite FE games.

[olreid]

hi! could you rec me some sci fi books if u dont mind?

YEAH!

ender's game - i know orson scott card sucks and everything else ive ever tried to read by him sucks but ender's game might be my fave scifi of all time. if you've only ever read the first one or seen the movie or something you should really check out the sequels - the world opens up in a huge way and it's about how to do an ethnography of aliens and what it means to die too soon but also what it's like to outlive everyone you ever knew and about redemption for both individuals and entire species as a whole.. what if your first contact with aliens was a devastating war that did unspeakable damage to another culture and society? could your relationship ever recover? i'm not even scratching the surface of all that these books have to say i just think they r great.

DUNE - SORRY it's just great!!! i love dune!!! dune is the kind of series where every chapter has an epigraph from a book in-world that frank herbert made up for flavor!!! but instead of leaving it at that in later books you actually meet the authors of those books as fleshed out characters!!! he's nuts!!! only the first three are worth reading imo but it's like. such an immersive world with cool technology and factional politics and urgent questions of planetary and societal preservation and it's about consolidation of power and how to rule an empire and the futility of trying to outrun your destiny and also BIG WORMS.

roadside picnic - first contact story that's more about the ramifications of first contact on earth and its inhabitants; you never actually see the aliens onscreen but rather come to know them through the things they left behind. ur classic place-that's-super-fucked-up story <3 can we ever understand alien life? do we want to?

murderbot - murderbot!!! series made up of short little installments that are easy and engaging reads. what if a robot designed as an instrument of war emancipated itself so that it could have more free time to watch tv and then accidentally ended up caring about and trying to protect a bunch of human scientists who accidentally got themselves tangled up in corporate espionage and cover-ups and assassination attempts etc.? GOOD BOOKS, THATS WHAT.

hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - on the off-chance that u haven't read this or the sequels, you should! easy and fun to read and has a surrealist approach to scifi that i really appreciate. science fiction is a genre where quite literally anything can happen and douglas adams takes that premise seriously!!! mice created the earth. robots have manic depression. you can watch the end of the world as many times as you want. it's all here baby and it BOPS

solaris - BOOK OF ALL TIME!!! scientists have discovered a planet that's covered in a sentient ocean and the main character is one of the few scientists remaining in a remote observation station orbiting the planet itself. psychological horror and cool made-up science! what more could u want.

the three-body problem - putting the SCIENCE in science fiction. the pacing on this one is a bit slow and it's a first-contact story so it takes place on earth rather than in space but the last 30 pages of this book.... bonkers. made me excited about science which is a real feat. also has some cool stuff to say about video games that reminds me a lot of ender's game, but i digress.

the left hand of darkness - technically scifi altho this has a much more speculative fiction/future fantasy feel to it imo? much more emphasis on worldbuilding and statecraft and politics and less on like. Science and Technology. GREAT book tho! gay people who need each other to survive the winter.. never gets old

ancillary justice / imperial radch series - also heavier on the politics and statecraft and lighter on the technology but SERIES OF ALL TIME!!!! it's about sentience and agency and loyalty and revenge and empire and when you're stuck on a road trip with someone who was born to annoy you. i read it weeks ago and simply cant stop thinking about it

i think that's all for now? anyone else is welcome to add their scifi recs below <3