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thiscrimsonsoul · 2 years

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what were your thoughts on MOM?

{out of paprikash} Spoilers for MoM ahead!

I LOVED MoM for a lot of reasons. Yes, it hurt to see Wanda going down this path, but I was actually pleasantly surprised with how much comic influence this particular installment had compared to others for Wanda. And that was hard to do considering she began from a place that totally scrapped 90% of her background in the comics. But without retconning or weirdly changing anything, they brought in several things from the comics, such as Mount Wundagore, Chthon, her motivations, and her descent into obsessive madness. Even though they didn’t play exactly the same role or unfold the same way as they did in the comics, it was cool that they took her in more of a comic direction, even though my heart bleeds for Wanda that all this had to happen this way for her. Such things are canon now in the MCU so it’ll be interesting to see what if anything more is done with them in the future.

I loved Strange throughout the entire movie, as well as all his variants. Just... yes, 12/10, approved. I also really liked Wong, he needs more airtime and his own movie at this point because yes. A lot of what Stephen went through made my heart ache but from a storytelling and characterization point of view, I really loved it. It’s made me want to write him so badly, and if I thought I could do it well, I would bring him to my multi on here. Unfortunately, I just don’t feel I write him well and I’m not confident doing that. However, I do write him with a close friend off Tumblr where I can hide inside my mediocrity haha, and I’ve branched out from writing standard 616 Stephen to writing Dark!Stephen, and it’s just been harrowing and sad and I love it hahaha. Not what you expected me to say probably, but I’m enjoying writing an obsessive, unhinged, but still core Stephen version of him, it’s very interesting.

As far as the movie as a whole, I absolutely adored it. I’m a huge Raimi fan, have been since the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies in the 80s. I also am a hardcore horror fan. I’ve been watching horror movies since I was four, it’s my go-to genre, even more so than fantasy, which would be my second favorite. I actually don’t overly like action/superhero movies. I’ve been watching MCU movies just for the characters I like, heh, which is why I still haven’t seen a lot of them. So for me to have my favorite witchy girl in a movie that let her go full horror was awesome. Loved the Ring-esque way she crawled out of the Mirror Dimension, loved Zombie!Stephen, loved mentally askew Dark!Stephen, and I have to give the movie credit for actually surprising me with a horror element, heh. I’ve seen SO many horror movies, and nothing really scares or surprises me anymore. I actually was surprised by Black Bolt’s death, just the visual aspects of it. I actually gasped and was like, “Oh! My goodness.” Which is saying a lot for me with horror stuff because it usually doesn’t grab me like that.

I loved the fantasy/creature elements. Zombie!Stephen was great, I LOVED the eyeball creature in the beginning, and... here’s where I reveal just how weird of a person I am... I actually thought the temple guardians were really cute. The big ogre guys that bowed to Wanda? THEY WERE! THEY HAD LITTLE SCRUNCHY FACES AND TINY EYES. I’m... a strange person, haha. But yeah, a lot of the creature elements were right up my alley. I also loved the sorcery. I can watch Stephen making hand gestures all day and night, and Wanda battling sorcerers from around the world at Kamar-Taj? *chef’s kiss* So overall I came out of the movie super excited and happy and having really enjoyed it. It has inspired me so much and breathed new life back into Wanda, who I had begun to feel very stagnant with writing of late, so that’s great. Also the multiverse aspect makes crossovers and bringing OCs into rp that much easier and I just love it. Not that all of us weren’t already writing whatever the heck we wanted anyway, but now we have a canon vehicle for it. I just... ugh, loved this movie.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t things about it I didn’t like. From a story-telling point of view, there were things that didn’t make sense or that were just stupid. For example... Captain Marvel and others look completely different in different parts of the multiverse but all Stephen Strange variants are... the same. Just change the hair. Meh. I get why they needed to do that from an actor standpoint but it still made things seem less... multiversal.

Also... the timing of things was not consistent. Towards the beginning of the movie, Wanda was able to grab America and almost drain her dry of her power in seconds, but at the end of the movie she... inexplicably leaves her lying on an altar for... however long... waiting for... what, exactly? And then takes forever to start the process of draining her? Why? I mean, the reason is because we had to give 616-Stephen-inside-zombie-Stephen time to get to her but.... again, meh. Wanda could’ve had what she wanted in seconds, and she should have. If you need to make her wait, come up with another obstacle, don’t just have her wait for absolutely no reason, that was dumb.

But all in all my criticisms of it are pretty minor. I would absolutely see more MCU movies like this one. MoM is now my favorite MCU movie, and before that my fav was AoU, so that’s saying a lot, heh. And no, I don’t believe Wanda is dead. That little poof of red energy we saw as the rubble collapsed? Yeah that was her either poofing herself somewhere else or creating a shield, and nobody will tell me otherwise until they show it to me in another movie, heh. It would be absolute bullshit to kill off a being as powerful as Wanda in such a mundane manner.

Okay, that’s everything I can think of as far as a general review. If anybody has specific questions about things, I’d be more than happy to answer them, but yeah, overall I loved the movie. =)

#{ out of paprikash } ᵒᵒᶜ #dsmom spoilers #multiverse of madness

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struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor · 3 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor/742051249296474112/since-solo-era-began-my-opinions-on-btss-vocal?source=share

You're kinda right. I'm not a jk biased but i do think there's a difference in his skills vs other vl when it comes to singing Acapella. I'm a jm biased more like just jm fan, I don't bother too much with other members other than him if I'm being honest here. Jm's voice, live singing i think was great like i prefered his voice nd singing than anyone else in BTS's vl from their early years but recently more like for few yrs his singing doens't give me that which it used to give me back and it's about like Acapella only cause he sounds of course great in albums, solo songs etc. But i don't think he sounds that good live singing now comapred to in the past. I do believe jk is kinda ahead of other 3 vl members Cause he's got that skills and voice. Jm's voice recently sounds like he has strained his voice maybe because of all those yrs of him hitting high notes, you know them making him sing way beyond his range so it might have damaged his voice. The breathing was too obvious. But recently he's doing good since he's taking the vocal lessons ig. I really hope he's taking it from outside of hybe, who actually knows what he needs to work on.

But apart from that i think everything else they go wayy good than other groups, but i do think some of other vocalist of some of other groups can do better.

I think with Jimin, the way he sings now is different. Like, before he used less falsetto - his voice sounded grittier and deeper - and he didn't add all of those vocal cries and use vocal fry. These are stylistic choices that honestly make his voice perfect for records - especially when it's smoothed out in the studio - but kind of weird on its own, because it doesn't sound "normal". It's like seeing someone wear an outlandish runway outfit irl - it might look fashionable and artsy in the runway, but weird and ugly in the streets. Jimin's voice works best with a instrumental backing him up. He also lacks confidence acapella or on his own without a loud instrumental. Beyond that, I think Jimin, from a technical pov that I won't pretend to know much about, has a few weak spots. Like, he always sounds a bit off when he's humming, but it may be that his singing style just makes it sound different. I also think the members have always relied on Jungkook for technically challenging parts, or for stuff like adlibs, runs, harmonies, so they aren't as practiced.

A lot of groups have one or two good vocalists and a lot of so so vocalists who are definitely worse than V or Jin - who aren't so-so vocalists imo. The thing is that Hybe doesn't often know how to play to their strengths and can even make them sound worse in the studio than live (I'm thinking of Jungkook's For Youth bridge, for one). Imo other labels give weak vocalists easier notes and know how to mix their vocals better. It's like Hybe doesn't know how to. They blend Jungkook's voice with V's a lot in harder parts - to the point where you hear Jungkook more than V (YTC and Run BTS pre-chorus, Bad Decisions, etc.) - but they insist on giving the members really high songs they struggle with. BTS vocal line isn't the strongest ever, but if we're talking about active groups, I think it has to be in the top 10. Most vocals lines have more members so they have more than one good vocalist and more than one weak one. BTS vocal line is only 4 members, which people forget when comparing it to vocal lines double that. People also tend to only focus on the best singers in a vocal line, but with BTS they don't. Like, Seventeen has how many members in their vocal line? Plus, the dance line members sing more than rap. Only 4 of them are genuinely good - DK, Seungkwan, Woozi and Hoshi imo - and the other members are mediocre or weak, and don't even have unique tones. Yet they're considered a great vocal line. In numbers they have more great vocalists than BTS, but BTS have way less members who sing. Their roles are clearly defined - 3 rappers and 4 singers.

Anyway, I think the way vocal lines are compared is flawed. But I also acknowledge BTS's vocal line limitations.

Thanks for the ask!

#ask #bts #jimin #jungkook #v #text #thanks for the ask

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maybebrilliant · 3 years

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My ridiculous fandoms:

I know, multifandom much?!

I have a LOT, although I will post mostly AoS shit. (I don’t make things for all of these, don’t worry lmao, mostly I just spectate and sometimes reblog stuff.) Up to know I’ve put them all up in my bio, but I’ve decided only to do the top, say, three, otherwise it just gets wayyy too long. However, I’m putting it all here, so that anyone, if they feel so inclined, can see what shit I’m interested in.

I will also be putting a bunch of my favourite quotes from the shows there, because, well, I’m a total nerd xD.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

”With great responsibility comes...a ton of weird shit you are not prepared to deal with.”

“The steps you take don’t have to be big, they just need to take you in the right direction.”

“Sometimes, making a difference means being different.”

Star Trek: Discovery (sauce)

“You had me at unsanctioned mission...”

“Deal with me, universe, while I deal with her.”

And...(though this is not a real quote, exactly) Sauce Afirma Sauce Eterna. :)

Derry Girls

“If anyone is feeling anxious, worried or maybe you just want a chat, please, please do not come crying to me.”

“We got the gist. They ran out of spuds, everyone was raging.”

“Slainte, motherfuckers!”

Julie and the Phantoms

“Chill man, Street Dogs haven’t killed us yet.”

“I cried in a room for twenty-five years and didn’t get a single hug from either of you!”

“Oh. She said oh. That’s what you say if you get socks on your birthday, not when you’re invited to join the most epic band ever!”

Brigerton

“Having a nice face and pleasant hair is not an accomplishment. Do you know what is an accomplishment? Attending university! If I were a man, I could do that, you know.”

“You would actually have to be interesting for me to bother spying on you"

“All is fair in love and war but some battles leave no victor, only a trail of broken hearts that makes us wonder if the price we pay is ever worth the fight.”

Simon Snow series

“You were the sun, and I was crashing into you.”

“Sharing a room with the person you want most is like sharing a room with an open fire. He's constantly drawing you in. And you're constantly stepping too close. And you know it's not good--that there is no good--that there's absolutely nothing that can ever come of it. But you do it anyway. And then... Well. Then you burn.”

“I'd cross every line for him. I'm in love with him. And he likes this better than fighting.”

Avatar the Last Airbender

“Life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not.”

“My first girlfriend turned into the moon.” “That’s rough buddy.”

“Why am I so bad at being good?”

Harry Potter

“It’s leviOsa, not levioSA!”

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”

“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.”

The Queen’s Gambit

"I Would Say It Is Much Easier To Play Chess Without The Burden Of An Adam's Apple."

"I'm Not Your Guardian Angel. I'm Not Here To Save You. Hell, I Can Barely Save Me."

“Again?”

Once Upon A Time

"That's How You Know You've Really Got A Home. 'Cause When You Leave It ...There's This Feeling You Can't Shake. You Just Miss It."

"Sometimes The Best Teacup Is Chipped."

"All Magic Comes With A Price."

The Good Place

“I’m just not a ‘new experience’ kind of guy. My comfort zone is basically like, that chair, and honestly? The arms are a little sharp.”

“What matters isn’t if people are good or bad. What matters is, if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday. You asked me where my hope comes from? That’s my answer.”

“We do nothing. We hope that our early successes make up for the embarrassing mess we’ve become. Like Facebook. Or America.”

Community

"We'll definitely be back next year. If not, it'll be because an asteroid has destroyed all human civilization. And that's canon."

"GAAYYY MARRIAAGEE!!"

“Our Captain was killed on duty tonight. Leaves behind two kids and a pregnant wife. So you’re missing a Batman DVD?”

Zoey’s Extraoridnary Playlist

“Who wants some freshly delivered, slightly cold, mediocre pizza?”

“Songs are all just an expression of our deepest wants and desires… Joy, pain, heartbreak, yearning, forgiveness, revenge. Good music can make you feel things you can’t express in words.”

“I just found out a guy I like is engaged, and I am either going totally nuts, or I suddenly can hear people’s innermost thoughts as big musical numbers.”

The Old Gaurd

“Depends on the century.”

“You're an incurable romantic...”

“SHIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!”

Merlin (BBC)

“Merlin should take some of the credit, turns out he’s not always entirely stupid.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” -Arthur | “No, I’m saying the belt is one hole shy away from perfection.”

Artemis Fowl

“I am the future queen of this world, at the very least. You may refer to me as Mistress Koboi for the next five minutes. After that you may refer to me as Aaaaarrrrgh, hold your throat, die screaming, and so on.”

“We lost the crickets,” she said. “Even you can’t make that sound tough.”

“I never tell anyone exactly how clever I am. They would be too scared.”

How To Train Your Dragon

“ Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile!”

“You just gestured to all of me.”

“Toothless, what are you doing? We need her to LIKE us!”

The Dragon Prince

“I’m just a kid. I haven’t fought in any battles. I haven’t read many books of wisdom. I haven’t gone through the things that made my father the king he was. So I’ve decided that I don’t have to be the king my father was. My father made choices to keep fighting battles that started hundreds of years before he was born. To punish enemies for crimes their parents committed! I don’t want to be that kind of king.”

“The dragon prince is alive! And he’s really cute, by the way.”

“What? WHAAAAAAAT!”

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”

“A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”

“The Answer to the Great Question... Of Life, the Universe and Everything... Is... Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.”

“Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.”

sorry for the five I couldn’t choose only 3

But there you have it, my insane, ridiculous, way-too-many fandoms. For anyone who cares. ;)

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tosikoarts · 4 years

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SFW Alphabet | Tsurumi Tokushirou

Wow, this one seems to be the apogee of my writing. You can check tosikowrites tag for more. Warning: there’s a lot under the cut.

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Finally, a man who knows what he is doing. Tsurumi is a sly devil but he also got a taste of love, and those two points combined made him a danger to anyone he puts an eye on. The entire 7th division holds their breath watching how skillfully First Lieutenant pulls the unsuspecting victim into his snares.

Understandably, his main weapon would be the art of word. Tsurumi knows how to keep dialogue entertaining; moreover, he is well versed in complimenting his favorite person. He murmurs sweet nothings into their ear in public and in private, under the sergeant's condemning gaze and right under the nose of the jealous Second Lieutenant. Tsurumi does it wisely though, avoiding Usami’s uncontrollable obsession.

Gallantry is his middle name. As soon as they appear on the horizon with a bag or a stack of heavy books, Tsurumi miraculously finds himself next to them taking all of their stuff in his hands. Always accompanies them on the way home, from time to time pleases them with a small bouquet of lavender, moves the chair away from the table so that they sit down. At the same time, his gestures and moves, all looks natural like Tsurumi has been born with it.

Oh, also, he likes to spoil his loved one, pamper them without any limits. If they want to take a picture together, he will hire a western artist to paint a portrait of them. If they want a bar of chocolate, he will order to find the best dessert chef in Hokkaido. This is not his constant behavior, but Tsurumi quite often goes over the board with his affection.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Let’s be honest, to be best friends with Tsurumi you have to be at least no stupider than him and, better, even a little bit smarter. Otherwise, he will treat the person like another pawn in the game. Mind is a measure of strength, and those who are weaker than him do not deserve more than condescending attitude.

His best friend has to be patient and steadfast as a tin soldier: the hole in the head and lack of a brain piece deprived the First Lieutenant of poise so he is prone to outbursts of unwarranted violence. He may jokingly threaten to bite off their nose. Likewise, he may introduce them to the general madness of his division in the face of Usami or Nikaidou. They just have to deal with the crazy without going bonkers themself.

In addition, they have to have a wide range of interests or be willing to learn new things. Tsurumi is the one to offer to go to horse race, win (or lose) some money, and, without delay, go to the nearest theater. His broad knowledge in various areas makes it possible to boast in every possible way on every possible topic and he expects his best friend to keep the conversation going. Of course, his favorite topic is war and weapons so they must be familiar with it.

The advantages of friendship with this remarkable individual are: respect in all circles he is in; initiation into his plans or most of them; life will seem a lot easier than before since obstacles become suspiciously fewer…

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He has a weird desire for them to look into his face while cuddling. To be mentioned, Tsurumi takes off his enamel head plate in private and it works like a magic: his expression transforms into one of person who has been gone for too long, who was yet to see the horrors of Russo-Japanese war. So, Tsurumi likes to keep them on his lap, hands placed on their thighs or waist, and talk, talk, talk. For some reason avoids spooning: if they try to spoon him, he will slip away from their hands, turn around, and plant a gentle kiss on their forehead.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

It’s complicated. Considering his past with Fina, the whole idea of settling down evokes the unconscious resistance in Tsurumi. Grand plans for hidden gold are the one thing that interests him at the moment, or this is what he convinced himself in. Even in the case of having the most suitable partner, Tsurumi will choose treasure hunt over binding relationship. Same goes for children. His henchmen are his kids, his hellhounds, his creations that he nurtured with distorted version of love and adoration. It is unlikely that he has even a little healthy parental affection left. Great at making desserts, mediocre at cooking overall, doesn’t care about cleaning and leaves it to the partner.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Break-up can go different ways.

In the best case scenario, Tsurumi acts like a gentleman until the very end. On the designated day, he invites a partner to a quiet place and makes sure nobody disturbs their conversation. Even if it happens in the barracks, all soldiers are strictly ordered to stay away from the First Lieutenant's office. There are two cups of a soothing herbal tea on his table as well as dessert associated with them. In calm steady voice Tsurumi explains why they have to break up and how it would be inevitable in the future if they choose to stay together for little longer. In the end of his speech, they feel almost like they initiated this break-up and Tsurumi just conducted their thoughts like his own. It is harmless and easy break-up with no hard feelings after all.

Other options aren’t that innocuous. He can easily make up a kidnapping scheme to remove them from the sight. It may or may not be violent, may or may not leave them traumatized. In the worst case, Tsurumi with heavy heart will give the order to eliminate them and hide all signs of their existence. It is a pity that one cannot erase the marks left on him and his life.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, formalizing a relationship is far from the first thing on the Tsurumi’s To-Do list. His partner can try to hint at marriage but he will either completely ignore it or adroitly dissuade them from such stupid undertaking. In a relationship, he remains faithful despite the absence of some fictitiously important pieces of signed paper.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Well, even if he is gentle in any variation, this gentleness carries a sadistic undertone. Tsurumi’s physical affection borders on pain and it is impossible to tell if his vulnerable moments are a theatrical performance or not. He can laugh endlessly, kiss their fingertips and bare knuckles, purposely tickle their neck with his long eyelashes or handlebar moustache but the very next second a predatory grin distorts his face, sending thing in darker direction. Only God knows what is going on in his head, really.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

A truly romantic hug so often shown in films and described in books: his hand rests on their waist, pulling them closer, and other hand catches theirs as if in a slow dance. Each time the distance between him and his partner becomes less and less, but what remains constant, it is a subtle smile and piercing gaze of dark eyes. When in a cheery, exclusively friendly mood, Tsurumi likes to give the partner a tight bear hug or a short greetings-like hug with resting his chin either on their shoulder or on the top of their head.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

It takes years for Tsurumi to say “I love you” out loud. About 3-4 to be exact. Either because he cannot call his feelings real love, or because he does not want to let them ease off. Confession imposes the stamp of some kind of completeness on the relationship and it isn’t fun at all. In his speech, the magic three words are replaced by softer analogues like “I really like you” or “Aren’t you my sunshine” so his partner does not put much thought to why Tsurumi avoids confession. Oh, one hundred percent the day he finally chooses to confess will be an anniversary date. Expect a day dedicated solely to satisfaction of his partner’s desires.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Oh no no no, please, we don’t have that much space in the cemetery. Flirting with Tsurumi’s partner is like playing Russian roulette with five bullets in cylinder – highly lethal game of chance. After spotting unlucky admirer, Tsurumi tries to identify them and dig up as much information as possible. Their fate depends on it. If it's some kind of midge, a cockroach, First Lieutenant forgets about this situation pretty fast. He doesn’t want to deal with such squalor anyway. If this is a more serious figure, Tsurumi may want to teach them a lesson how rude it is to encroach on someone else's love. Probably pulls a couple of strings to get them into some kind of trouble. Get them fired, discharged, robbed, assaulted, whatever. At the same time, he doesn’t even mention them while talking to the loved one.

Provoking Tsurumi to jealousy is just as dangerous. His actions are not as radical as in the first case but his partner will have to learn that this is not an acceptable behavior. It is hard to imagine how far he can go though, methods may vary from simple manipulation to straightforward psychological abuse. The latter is the last and the least appealing option, which Tsurumi won’t use unless he is forced to.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Sometimes you just wonder where he learned all these tricks with his tongue. Tsurumi is a playful skilled kisser with excellent flair to where and when to apply fine knowledge of French... technique. Bites are not uncommon either. He has a habit of marking his loved one so everybody around knows who they belong to, and at least one hickey has to flaunt on their neck to keep him satisfied. Tsurumi prefers to kiss his partner wherever they want to be kissed, especially if they ask nicely, and to where to be kissed… a straight line from razor-sharp cheekbones to the notch between the collarbones is a great start.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Stranger’s kids are terrified of Tsurumi. Little ones burst into tears as they notice his wide smile, and those who are a little older stare at him with confusion. Teens try to stay away from this man since he fits the stranger danger statement very well. Thus to say, Tsurumi isn’t fond of being near children and prefers to pass the buck to the subordinates. If we are talking about his own (highly hypothetical) kids that is another story: they get the best of the best, they are spoiled rotten just like his partner. Of course, as kids grow up, Tsurumi switches to the carrot and stick approach spoiling them only as a reward for good behavior. Not that bad around children, really. It's not his fault that he fits the description of Boogeyman.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

On rare days when Tsurumi decides to spend the day with a partner, he never rushes. Those mornings are complete opposite of his usual mornings: they are slow, lazy, maximally filled with intimacy. No one is in a hurry to get out from under the blanket and if his loved one tries to sneak out, Tsurumi deftly catches them by the waist and drags back. I think it is clear that he is immensely touchy in the morning hours. The rest of the time is spent in a kitchen over a cup of green tea, in lively conversation on a variety of topics. No, he is not going to leave the house until the late noon.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Get ready for experiments and new experiences. Have they ever tried horseback riding? No? Good, he will be their teacher. Calligraphy? He will help to put their hand on a brush correctly. Nyotaimori or nantaimori? He will ask either Koito or another twunk to serve as a model. Tsurumi presents every evening date as a surprise that will not leave one indifferent and still he somehow manages to not overstep the bounds of decency. When their mood doesn’t fit his own adventurous impulses, the choice falls on a more classic pastime like late night walk or dinner date but there is not much that can be said about it.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

His partner won’t hear a bit of personal information, a single bit, until Tsurumi is one hundred percent sure that they are here to stay. Until then, he will feed the partner common unremarkable phrases which cannot compromise him in any way. Even after this, a lot of uncertainties remain: Tsurumi seems to describe events only in positive or neutral light, avoiding situations that obviously carry a grim implications. For example, not a word will be said about Fina or Olga and even if partner witnesses him fiddling small bones in his fingers, Tsurumi will make some fable up. Revelations happen but it is not something they will have a chance to get used to.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Easily angered but pulls himself together in the blink of the eye. His malice usually spills out in a form of nervous thrill so it is rare to see Tsurumi screaming his lungs out or getting into a fight. In a relationship, he puts on a mask of an eternally patient partner so his loved one won’t even guess about his anger issues.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

Liar is obligated to have a great memory, do you get where I’m coming from? Now only he remembers what his partner has to say but also somehow knows what they hide from him too. If the information seems to be of low priority, Tsurumi immediately forgets it. Like what is he supposed to do with the fact that theirs first dog was called Akira? Best of all he remembers theirs crucial ups and downs both to establish the emotional connection and have some control levers in the future.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Difficult question. Not any of “first experiences”, not anniversary. Probably, the first time he introduced them to the group of closer soldiers like Tsukishima and Co. For the first time Tsurumi decided to “show off” his partner in the headquarters just to establish a clear boundaries between himself and subordinates. Of course, he was well aware of the risks and consequences but chose to do it anyway. The reaction of some was quite expected: Koito's face expressed unpleasant surprise and qualm, he couldn’t switch back from Satsuma dialect and when it finally happened, there were more awkward pauses than comprehendible words; Usami screwed up his eyes as if he was evaluating a competitor simultaneously deciding on the best method to eliminate them. Nikaidou didn’t really cared. Kikuta did neither. Tsukishima’s reaction was the most adequate of all: he politely bowed, mumbled words of courtesy, and got back to his routine. However, on the way to the office he decided to warn them that lovely Tokushirou might differ from their expectations. At the end, Tsurumi was extremely pleased by the flaunting and gave them opportunity to choose how he will thank them for the shown patience.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Tell me, who in their right mind would want to provoke this man? Like, who? His very presence is enough to scare any foe away, not to mention how lethal his overprotectiveness can be. Tsurumi is great at managing resources to make sure his partner is okay: there is always an armed invisible observer in the city they are staying in, sometimes they are sent letters in which Tsurumi takes interest in how their days are going, etc. On the other hand, in moments of real danger, his subordinates are those who take care of his loved one: soldiers are obliged to protect them since Tsurumi usually holds a leading position rather than actively participates in the dirty work. Has no need to be protected, however, partner’s impulses to do it are always met with tender emotion and sincere drawling “aww”.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Tsurumi has an enviable ability of being seemingly the most caring and charming man in the world without even trying. He is natural in wooing, it feels like the whole world is on his side: if he forgets to buy a present for the anniversary (which never happens, may I assure you), a hurrying seller will be selling cute necklace at discount price. Whenever he decides to go to another city with his loved one, there will be a festival or celebration. To be fair, Tsurumi does put efforts in the relationship and keeping his partner happy. He just has it easier than most of your common men.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

His own motives and desires will always be prioritized over his partner’s. It is reality that they just have to deal with. If his partner feels confident in enough, they can try to fight Tsurumi with his own weapon - flattery, ruse, and equivalent exchange, - but success still entirely depends on his mood.

Military career implies long partings with the risk of never seeing the partner again. For the person who cannot live without their loved one’s physical presence, relationship like this will feel like living hell.

To mention something more lighthearted, Tsurumi is constantly surrounded by subordinates that have questionable… adoration towards him. It asks for deep dive in military psychology, workplace psychology, and additional peek into sexual psychopathology but you get what I mean. Usami gets off talking about how First Lieutenant will be upset with him and, probably, will punish him, okay.

Tsurumi is shady man overall, damaged both physically and emotionally, he is missing a piece of the brain and it is already a long list of reason why one should think twice before getting in with him.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Tsurumi actually cares for his looks. He takes his time to shave the moustache and goatee just the way he wants it to be, thoroughly washes the hair twice a week, keeps the head plate clean by wiping it with wet cloth and disinfecting with alcohol. The main reason of his concerns is desire to look presentable and influential, not a banal narcissism. Does the face scar bother him? When there’s nothing to occupy his mind – yes. Tsurumi understands how drastically it changed his overall look and sometimes regrets what happened but what is the point of overthinking unalterable? Right, there is none.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Break-up is a huge deal in the sense that Tsurumi's reaction could be anything. Unpredictable. Up to monstrous consequences. The safest option would be drop everything and run away since he won’t chase them to the end of the world. Yes, he would feel betrayed and fueled with anger but whatever, it is not the most important thing on the agenda. Sooner or later their paths will cross again and it will be the chance for Tsurumi to show his disinterest. You know, this “I am a bad bitch, you can’t hurt me” style. Direct confrontation leads to a passionate interrogation on why they decided to leave. Is there anything he can do to prevent them from such imprudent step? Does their relationship lack anything? This conversation quickly escalates into preparation of feelings during which Tsurumi scrutinizes all their ins and outs. If they successfully survive this psychological torture mixed with all kinds of manipulation – congrats! – they are allowed to leave. Now he has left his mark on them, on their heart and soul, so they have to carry it wherever they choose to go.

In the case of their death, Tsurumi grieves. How does a man like him grieve? Through sublimation, of course. To stop thinking about the time spent together, he pays more attention to treasure hunt. Tsukishima unobtrusively plays the role of a First Lieutenant’s personal therapist, listening to his pensive monologues, but it doesn’t make any difference. Just like his Sergeant, Tsurumi has difficulties with experiencing repeated loss, and second time feels even worse than the first one.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Remember this clear liquid oozing from under his head plate? It is actually сerebrospinal fluid that provides mechanical and immunological protection to the brain. Constant leaking of CSF leads to a condition known as orthostatic headache: this type of headache intensifies while person is standing and eases when lying down. Tsurumi has extreme headaches after his excited leaks that are usually weakened by general thrill. Once agitation excitation wears off, he becomes incredibly irritable and searches for a quiet place to lie down. The one person who knows about such side effect is Tsukishima. He has saved a dozen of lives already by preventing fellow soldiers from talking to resting First Lieutenant.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He has specific requirements for his environment and a list of traits its members have to lack.

For example, curiosity did kill the cat. People by his side should not pry into his personal business unless they want to get bitten. It is dangerous for them, for Tsurumi, and for plans he has built, so his partner has to either be incurious or keep themself in check when it comes to bunch of stuff.

Freedom-loving and willfulness are the worst enemies of manipulator, no wonder that First Lieutenant looks for someone submissive. Guess, for those achieving high ranks, powerplay is an integral part of social interaction.

Ah, but at the same time, lack of personality makes Tsurumi yawn. Such people do not provide the kind of entertainment he is looking for and it is natural for him to overlook them in the crowd.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

Sleeps suspiciously well for a person who bites people’s fingers off. Brain injury left him dreamless for the rest of the life so as soon as Tsurumi’s head touches the pillow he immediately goes into a deep sleep. His sleeping schedule is nothing special too. Obeying the laws of army life, First Lieutenant wakes up early at the same time very day and goes to bed no later than 10 pm. Lies on the belly with arms straight up along the body. Without the head plate, obviously.

With the advent of a permanent partner in his life, Tsurumi’s sleep became more restless. Now he feels way too energetic, tosses and turns in bed, and cannot find a comfortable position in the bed. Since most of the time they still sleep apart (he has a reputation to maintain, blah-blah-blah), Tsurumi has to take a walk to blow off steam and get rid of swarming thoughts. Sometimes it does not help at all so he rushes to their house hoping to find peace in their arms. And so it happens. Tsukishima has almost come to terms with the frequent absence of the First Lieutenant in the mornings. However, Koito is not that happy about it and keeps bothering sergeant with questions to which he has no answer. Poor young man.

#golden kamuy #tsurumi tokushirou #golden kamuy headcanon #golden kamuy imagine #tosikoswrites

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gavillain · 3 years

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Thoughts on the Loki tv show then?

Short version: I'm liking it! I fully expected to hate the show given that I hated almost everything they did with Loki in the MCU after Dark World. However, they're doing a pretty good job. I think overall, it's a mixed bag for me, but a mixed bag is so much better than I was expecting that I'm very happy with it. Episode 3 really was a big step up after the first two eps and I hope future episodes continue.

Now if you want the long version, I've been writing up my thoughts after each episode to share on a private forum, so I'll copy and paste under the cut. Also spoilers galore past this point:

Ep.1 "Glorious Purpose" Loki himself is the big important thing so I'm gonna talk about him first, and I was both happy and disappointed with his characterization here. Let me explain. Tom Hiddleston obviously plays everything perfectly, and he did a great job on every moment. But the writing on Loki's character is pretty inconsistent. There were a LOT of moments that genuinely felt like they were right out of the golden era of MCU Loki that captured his speech patterns perfectly, his mannerisms, his world view, his humor. Those moments were legitimately there, and they were there more often than I was expecting. Ragnarok had Loki written wrong down to the dialogue and his manner of speaking, and so it was actually very refreshing to see him written generally well, particularly in his conversations with Agent Mobius. However there were multiple moments where he was blatantly written out of character to pander to jokes or to dip into that Ragnarok jokey joke tone. I audibly groaned at the "Am I robot" bit, which was SUCH low brow human and so not in line with the fact that Loki literally knows exactly what he is and had a "species reveal" that was very important to his character. I also would have liked him to be a little more violent. This man came out of a portal, saw SHIELD agents threatening him and immediately went into kill mode in Avengers. Yet this guy stands around and lets himself be taken and forced into situations a lot. But overall, I was happy with his general characterization because I expected the bad stuff to be much worse and it wasn't and the good stuff was more plentiful than I expected. I wasn't fond of the "I don't enjoy hurting people" bit because it's weepy and wrong, but it also was an expected development and I do appreciate that they're at least delving deep into his character on an intellectual level and playing off that "Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself" line of Frigga's. There's potential to do something interesting with him here, so I'm intrigued if not convinced. The Time Keepers concept I hate, but I think I hate it because Loki ALSO hates it and we're a bit too alike in a few regards even here XD I just kind of wish it was less bureaucratic and "we're a joke about corporate offices" and was something more mystical and other worldly. I feel like if it was more science fantasy and ethereal feeling, I would probably be a lot more down for it. But I guess you gotta save money somehow. Agent Mobius is likable, and I like how he can go toe to toe with Loki and how he's kind of morally neutral. I called that Loki was the dangerous time variant disrupting the timeline before it was revealed, but I have to wonder why in the final scene they kept his face hidden. That would have been a great opportunity to show Hiddles hamming up the evil bloodlust, and I am HUNGRY for that. But they kept that Loki hidden in shadows for a reason, and I have two theories regarding why: 1. It actually ISN'T Loki and Agent Mobius is wrong and our villain is someone else. 2. Our villain is LADY Loki and they're saving the reveal that villain Loki is a woman for a later episode. We'll see if I'm right. I HOPE it's number 2 if they kept him in shadow for a reason. So yeah. Not exactly what I wanted but we're on the right track at least for now. I hope this track leads somewhere interesting.

Ep.2 "The Variant" So, first things first, this episode had "I Need a Hero" during a fight scene and TOTALLY botched it. It was way too early to play that card, the action didn't sync with the battle, and it was between a few nameless TVA agents and the evil Loki with the evil Loki still masked in shadow and not really doing much. It just lacked the OOMPH that I felt was necessary for it to be satisfying. This should have been done better. Loki characterization update: less good and less bad than episode one at the same time. There was no "Am I a robot?" cringe, but there was a lot less of the really good Loki dialogue that caught my attention in episode 1. His seemed to have kinda settled back to the mediocrity of Ragnarok Loki with occasional moments of intrigue such as his whole bit about a wolf's ears and teeth. Loki's obviously planning to overthrow the time keepers and to become the new master of time, and he even says as much to his alternate counterpart this episode. I have a sick feeling they're going to have him grow to like the TVA and to save the time stream, but I really want him to follow through with his plans because I think that's much more interesting than the alternative. Will they do it? Time will tell. I also like how much he utterly does not give a shit about Mobius's condolences about Ragnarok happening. That was a good touch. Speaking of Mobius, I still don't care for him or the TVA. They're all just very boring to me, and I don't like Loki being caged to follow their bidding. It's restraining a hurricane of excitement by forcing it to play within this very structured framework instead of burning through freely. With Loki escaping into the timestream to chase after the other Loki, hopefully that will change for the better next episode. Mobius himself gets his character expanded a bit, but his expansion is literally that he is just a cog who doesn't question his purpose and does what he does because it's what he's told to do. And that's just not compelling to me. Sidebar: Ravona, Kang the Conqueror's lover, is the head of the TVA. A fun tidbit but where's Kang? I like the way the episode explored how time variants can't happen during massive catastrophes and apocalypses because everyone dies and everything gets destroyed, so they're safe places for time variants to hide and interact with history. I enjoyed Loki and Mobius going back and messing with Pompeii right before Vesuvius erupts to test that theory. That was fun (though I wish Loki would have, instead of just acting silly and making a scene, would have done his "Kneel before me" bit on the Pompeiians or something more villainous). And I liked the whole aesthetic of them exploring a massive hurricane in Alabama in 2050 and the whole aesthetic going on there. It gave the episode an epic quality. The evil Loki was revealed in this episode, and the twist is that she's Lady Loki. Yeah, I called it. She hasn't done much herself yet and we haven't seen her do much except posses the bodies of various others and then break the timeline with multiple sprawling timeline variants, both of which is very cool. I'm excited for her, though my biggest complaint is that she has blonde hair. No. Lady Loki has BLACK hair. Why didn't they stick her in a black wig or have the actress dye her hair??? AMORA is the blonde Asgardian villainess. Lady Loki has the same hair color as Loki. And... look, I know it's a dumb detail to get hung up on, but the black hair matters to me because Loki has black hair and his beautiful female form does too and I always liked that for personal reasons. Also, she doesn't want to be called "Loki" apparently which is weird but okay, so what DOES she want to be called? I swear if they name her Amora or Sigyn, I'm gonna throw something.

But yeah, the next episode I think promises to be a change of pace, and we can see if Loki can truly spread his wings free of the TVA. I hope he does.

Ep.3 "Lamentis" This was the best episode yet! And for MULTIPLE reasons. This episode sees Loki and Lady Loki Sylvie stranded together in time. It was away from the TVA and it's boring qualities, which was great, and it put two very interesting characters in a situation where they had to rely on each other. This is more of what I was HOPING we'd get from the show. It's a lot more engaging and fun. The TVA always feel like they have their boot on our necks, and having that boot gone, it's amazing how much easier it is to breathe. And I honestly think that was intentional too with regards to how Sylvie outright calls them tyrannical fascist time police. The whole thing with Loki and Sylvie being stranded on the planet Lamentis during its apocalypse is super cool too. First of all, Lamentis is BEAUTIFULLY designed. I can tell they relied on desert locales to save on the budget, but the purple sky, the colorful train, and the neon alien city are all really pleasing to look at. And with the sky literally falling around them, it looks even cooler and the stakes feel cosmic and intense because they ARE. A very good setting that felt refreshing after the very mundane TVA headquarters and Earth scenes. Loki continues to be a sort of mixed bag with weird moments of humor that feel like they were written by someone else for another character, but those moments were a lot more sparse this time around too. Tom is still unmatched in the role, and I love the way he got to be serious, smug, manipulative, and sincere in this episode. I've kinda accepted and settled into anti-hero Loki for this series, and I'm honestly pretty okay with it here. See, I think my issues with Loki being "good" is that it comes with making amends with Thor or working for the TVA. Seeing him pursuing his own agenda on his own terms and collaborating with a kindred spirit who he seems to genuinely like is a lot easier to stomach because it feels a lot more true to the freedom that is so potent about his villainy. I loved him talking about Frigga and how she taught him her magic. That was a genuinely powerful moment. Also even though his dagger metaphor for love got kinda undercut by a joke, I think it was quite good writing and really cut to the point of what makes Loki tic. Also this episode marks a VERY important moment: Loki was canonized on screen as being bisexual in the MCU. He is the FIRST queer main character in the MCU and the first queer main protagonist of a Disney show. And I like the way they did it too! The way Sylvie asked about if he had any dalliances with princesses and then adds "or princes" and Loki says "a bit of both." It was simple and direct and unambiguous, and I love it because Loki has always BEEN queer in the MCU and the writing for him has been very queercoded. Even if that little moment is all it amounts to, it really matters and means a lot to me that they did it and I'm so happy for it. I hope they give him a boyfriend though. Like PLEEEEASE Marvel. Sylvie I'm more okay with this time around. She IS established as Sylvie and not really identifying as Loki anymore, so I can separate her from my preconception of Lady Loki and not mind the BLONDE so much. Sylvie is the name of the second Enchantress in the comics, an Enchantress that Loki himself created. I'm interested to see where they go with her backstory and who she is and what her deal is because they've been implying that she differs from the main Loki quite a lot to the point where she barely even remembers who Frigga was. I also like that Loki's response to the bisexual question implies that Sylvie is bi too. Get that MLM/WLW solidarity. I hope they don't ship them, but I hope they DO stay friends and allies because I'm loving their friendship chemistry. Also, a minor thing in the grand scheme of this episode, but Loki SINGS in this one! And I love it! Tom's always had a very pretty voice that he's gotten to show off in other roles so I'm glad he got to show off his singing in this role too. The Norse folk song he sings was both jovial and somber all at once, and I

loved it. We deserved this Minor nitpick: please give Loki his Asgardian clothes back or something. Because this TVA suit is fucking ugly and I hate it. Sylvie looks so good next to him, and he deserves to be just as stylish. This was a GREAT turning point. PLEEEEEASE keep it up. F&WS failed to. But I genuinely believe that Loki can do it.

#Loki #Loki series

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sazorak · 3 years

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Every Game I Played in 2020, Ranked

2020. Boy, what a garbo year huh? Didn't actually play that many games this year all-in-all. Happens! My backlog is getting pretty big, but I just find it hard to focus on games when I could be working on something. Or put off working on something, as it may happen to be at times.

My arbitrary decision from years ago to only attach a numbered ranking to same-year releases is getting increasingly silly, especially given my propensity to wait on playing games until I’m in the right mood, but whatever. That order matters than the dumb numerical numbering anyway.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

Later Alligator – 2019 – Steam – ★★

The style of this game is very cute, and the jokes are funny enough. But… ok, look, I’m not one to be precious about what is or isn’t a game. But this really isn’t a game. It’s a series of disconnected, unrelated challenges clipped from Atari Free Mini Game Collection 100, wrapped in a very non-interactive adventure-game. It’s cute, it’s kind of sweet, but it’s dull. Dull dull dull. There’s a pointless, mandatory sliding block puzzle early on that infuriated me by its mere existence. Them giving the ability to skip it because “wow you’re bad at this huh”, which, while accurate, also just sold the whole point meaningless of the “““interactive experience”””.

Also: when a huge part of your game is WOW WE ANIMATED EVERYONE REALLY GOOD, text boxes that reveal word-by-word, far away from the animations that occur when said characters talk? Kind of stinks!

8. Carrion – 2020 – Steam – ★★

What Carrion does well— the whole “You’re controlling The Thing and just rippin’ people apart!” shtick— is really neat. They made that bootleg The Thing animate real-ass good.

The actual game as a whole though? Kind of garbage. Imagine a Metroidvania with zero actual exploration, where every opportunity you have to venture off the path instead results in immediate railroading with constant, utterly inexplicable one-way pipes. It’s not that it’s linear, it’s that it actively slaps you when you attempt to explore. It’s very frustrating! Add the fact that the tentacle-monster-shtick makes challenging to actually, y’know, move around and control all your bits… the only reason I finished the game was due to foreknowledge of its extreme brevity.

I think if the game were more open and less obsessed with constantly handing out upgrades, as well as having less of a focus on pure combat, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays – 2019 – Steam – ★★

It is well documented at this point that I am both an active Gundam fan, and as well as an on-again-off-again tactical RPG aficionado. A SD Gundam game appearing on Steam with a good English translation and localization is… exciting, to say the least. That said, I have never had much context for this game series beyond the basic facts that the combat tended to be pretty well animated CG, and that it’s vaguely similar to Super Robot Wars. Turns out… it’s really different from SRW? I dunno how the rest of the series fairs, but Cross Rays is weird as hell.

For one, there’s zero tutorialization at all. None. Almost all of what I’m going to explain here is me figuring stuff out by trial and error, or by reading junk online. Gundam is insanely popular, you’d think they’d be interested in explaining how it all works, but… nope. Even Super Robot Wars has multi-level introductory bits for new folks to show them the rope these days.

So: Cross Rays is a tactical RPG where you can playthrough the storyline of various Gundam AUs. You can play through them in any order. These playthroughs are fairly literal translations of the stories. You take control of the lead mecha from those series, fight enemy mobile suits that show up in SRW-like tactical RPG combat, until all reinforcements cease. Pretty straight forward. There are occasionally mission variants like “prevent enemies from reaching X” or “prevent enemies from destroying Y”, but even those can be just reduced to “kill everything very quickly please.”

But here’s the thing: while there is a story progression, the characters in the story itself actually have no character progression. These characters and mecha are actually considered guests, despite it being ostensibly their story. Instead, you are able to field “permanent” mecha and pilots of your own choosing, which do have progressions. There is no plot justification for this or anything like it. The game does not recognize that it’s weird that during Iron-Blooded Orphans intro where nobody knows what a Gundam even is, you can have 25 Gundams show up at once and just fire lasers at everything. That’s because this game is actually about repeatedly grinding the same set of missions over and over.

Pilots are recruited by completing certain in-mission requirements. Mecha are acquired by either by getting enough kills with the progression-less “guest” mecha, combining mecha you already have gashopon-style, completing certain quests, or by leveling up mecha and then “evolving them”. This is the actual core of the game.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is basically Disgaea, it turns out? You’re grinding story missions at various difficulty levels in order to complete missions, try to recruit specific pilots, equip them with stats and levels to make them stronger, and then hitting mecha together in a sort of quasi-SMT fusion system until you get all the powerful mobile suits you desire.

The combat itself is kind of… bland? There’s a lot of systems, but they mostly seem in service of making an already easy game easier, or burning through tedium. There are four different difficulty modes, because there’s not actually that many different missions you can play through. The expectation is you’ll just work your way through every story beat while ramping the difficulty up over time to where the “guest” mecha would not be able to handle on their own. In fact, letting the story mecha act out the story beats is actually bad after a point, unless you’re still trying to get those lead mobile suits, or if you’re trying to complete some mission requirement in order to recruit Named Wing Grunt Pilot #246.

There is something to the notion of “I want to get N and N and N and N on a team, piloting weird but powerful mobile suits, and just solo every Gundam AU in a row,” but the whole premise seems kind of against purpose. Why bother recreating story beats at all, then? It’s not like the game even acknowledges any of that going on.

If the point is that I’m supposed to be, like in other grind-heavy tactical RPGs, breaking the systems to my own end in order to proceed… why not make the missions you play challenges focused towards that? The story progression literally only exists to facilitate the mission-based unlock conditions, which makes all the energy put into making them JUST LIKE THE ANIME really damn pointless.

I like tactical RPGs, I like breaking RPG systems so as to beat hard challenges (I beat all the insanely hard extra bosses in FFXII for crying out loud), I looooove Gundam. I should like this. But I don’t really have the “god, I NEED TO FILL THIS LIST” gene that some folks have… except as an excuse to continue to engage in gameplay I enjoy. The gameplay here seems in service of the collection, rather than the way around.

7. Pokemon Sword: The Isle of Armor – 2020 – ★★★

Pokemon’s first foray into actually doing DLC is… a mixed bag. As a positive, they’ve improved the Wild Area concept I liked from the main game, and even brought back buddy Pokemon walking behind you. That’s neat. On the other hand: the actual progression in it is completable in like an hour, it doesn’t scale with you, so you’re bound to be over leveled for it, and all the raid stuff, while still conceptually neat, is just as flawed as in the base game. And so, you’re just left with even more new Pokemon to RNG grind on to continue to catch-them-all. Nah, I’m good.

Astral Chain – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Platinum knows how to make good character action games. They’ve made a bunch of them. Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. They also know how to make some kind of mediocre character action games. Transformers: Devastation, Wonderful 101, their various shovelware character action games like Korra. Astral Chain falls somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Astral Chain has all the production of their good games. It has some stylish, cool action. It has a neat core mechanical idea, in that it’s essentially a two-character action game where you control both characters at once. It has a lot of the old mechanics from some of their best games brought in; witch-time last second dodging from Bayonetta, Nier’s shooting-and-slashing combination, the Zandatsu mechanic from Metal Gear Rising, even Wonderful 101’s multi-unit shenanigans. The setting is different, and there’s some neat world flavor all in all.

But, of all games I’ve played over the past few years, Astral Chain made me more vividly angry than any other. It’s not that it’s too hard— far from it, really, I found its combat incredibly mashy. No, the problem is that it has so many shitty mechanics slathered on that it become a chore to get to the “good bits”.

Why would you put forced stealth sequences in your character action game, especially when your movement controls are not suited for it?

Why the HELL would you put platforming sections in your character action game, constantly, especially when your stupid ghost buddy can accidentally yank you off the edge, your auto-combos can just throw you off the edge, or literally anything can knock you off the edge and make you lose life?

Why would you put so many constant excuses into the world to force me use the digital sensor in the game, that also makes it miserable to walk around while using it?

WHO THE LIVING FUCK THINKS THESE SHITTY BOX BALANCING MINI-GAMES ARE FUN???

These games are supposed to encourage me to perfect everything, right? Why keep putting fucking fights you need to complete in order to get an S rank behind backtracking, or Legions I don’t have yet? That isn’t adding replayability, that’s just wasting my time. There are even in-level missions that have fail conditions that you never even know about. Surprise!!! A lot of them involve chasing after guys and catching them with your chain, which is really obnoxious to do!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story is just Bad Evangelion, straight up. Every story beat from Evangelion is here, executed worse. They also make your character have a twin just so they can have a character who can talk and feel emotions, because your boring-ass protagonist is stuck being an emotionless audience cipher. Cool!!!

Tetris Effect – 2018 – Origin – ★★★

It’s drugs Tetris. I personally don’t use, or have synesthesia for that matter. I imagine this game is better if you do. It’s an enjoyable enough experience but it feels incredibly slight for what I was expecting from it, or even compared to something like Lumines, which has tons of replayability by way of its difficulty. Tetris just isn’t that hard, unless you’re forcing yourself to do weird shit to get points. I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO T-SPIN. Never.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection – 2019 – Steam – ★★★

Kind of an unremarkable Castlevania collection. Neat that it has an official translation of Kid Dracula in there, but also… look, I prefer Metroidvania Castlevanias, OK?

6. Spelunky 2 – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

I’m not entirely sure why this doesn’t click for me where Spelunky 1 did. More annoying intro levels? Too many fiddly requirements for different ending-progression? Gameplay additions that just make things more annoying? Spelunky 1 was hard, but there was a kind straight-forwardness to it, even with its weird secrets, that made it much easier to grok and continue banging your head against. I’m just not having as much fun with this. Difficulty should be challenging, not a hassle.

5. Stellaris: Federations – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

This is the year that Stellaris just broke for me.

Federations itself is a good DLC; it adds some really interesting mechanics tied to various types of multi-national unions (the titular federations, as well as the Space UN), as well as the addition of unique “origins” that allow you to further specialize your gameplay. The origins in particular are a great addition that allows more specialization and roleplay.

I’m just tired of the sheer amount of busywork Stellaris forces you to do. Every DLC adds more junk you need to keep an eye on, and the fact that the AI doesn’t even bother with it (compensating with copious economy boosts in order to keep up) makes the whole thing frustrating. It’s like playing fetch with yourself; you just get tired of chasing after your own ball after a point.

I have to wonder if they’re pivoting towards a notional Stellaris 2 at this point? Might not be a bad idea for them, though it is weird with all they talked up adding more origins when Federations came out.

4. GranBlue Fantasy Versus – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★

This is probably the fighting game I got most into over the past few years. There’s just this nice, almost Street Fighter-esque ease of execution to the controls, and that Arc Systems Works 3D-as-2D style continues to just do work. I don’t give a single shit about GranBlue Fantasy (frankly, I think I’d enjoy this game more if it wasn’t attached to a property) but the characters are fun enough to play and look at.

The big problem here is two things: no crossplay, and no rollback netcode. In the span of a month, this game became a total ghost town on PC, and it doesn’t sound like PS4 faired that much better.

Ring Fit Adventure – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’ve fallen on-and-off this game all year. At its heart: it works, it’s a fun exercise game. I don’t think it really feels like a “game” (in the sense that I’m not really coming to it for riveting gameplay or anything) as much as just a guided exercise experience, but… that’s fine? The in-game story is kind of flat, but funny in the fact of it existing at all. Buff Nicol Bolas and all.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – 2017 – Steam – ★★★★

XCOM2: War of the Chosen is a great answer to what XCOM2 struggled with. As I discussed back in 2016 (Jesus Christ), XCOM2 tried to push against player’s worst instincts by incentivizing them to keep being aggressive through a whole bunch of timers— which, kind of just weren’t fun given how much accidentally walking into an ambush could “ruin” dozens of hours of play. War of the Chosen dials that back in some intelligent ways, by instead making the encounter designs themselves, as well as much more grab-and-bail mission types, encourage players to push ahead instead. Smart!

The addition of the Chosen makes the game feel more alive, and they really do make missions harder— particularly early on. But they’ve somehow accidentally fell into the hole, where XCOM just… isn’t that hard? Early on it’s challenging, particularly with the resource restrictions and all. But they keep giving you more and more options (that aren’t especially meaningful choices) that make your team more and more powerful, without increasing the strength of the enemy as time goes on. By the five-hour mark, you basically know if you’re going to steam roll the game or not.

The amount of additional character and variety in the gameplay is great, I just wish it had a more challenging difficulty curve. Maybe make the meta-layer of when enemies show up more targeted to where players are at. If a player is doing well, ramp up the difficulty, if they’re struggling, pull it back a bit. I should always feel like I’m just barely keeping ahead with XCOM, not like I’m bored. And by the end of War of the Chosen, I was kind of getting bored, really. Oh well.

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 – Switch – ★★★★

This is probably the video game that I spent the most time with hours-wise this year. I’m not entirely sure why? It’s a nice evolution of New Leaf, in that the crafting, environment shaping, and general quality-of-life improvements made are quite nice. There’s clearly been some thought on how people play these games, and ways to make the experience less frustrating.

… and yet, they kept so much tedium in the game. Like yes, the schedule stretching is the point, I get it. As someone who for some reason decided not to play with the clock, I only just recently finished the fish, fossils, and insects for the museum. But there’s just so many weird, little things that just make it hard to keep coming back to it. It’s like… to what end? When I’ve unlocked everything, and basically seen the entirety of the item list at this point, and the holiday events all being the game meaningless collectathons…. Why? I’m not going to try completing the collection; the museum stuff is about my limit, really (and even the paintings I can probably pass on).

I guess even an idealized, digital representation of a quasi-domestic life has the spiritual emptiness of consumerism-for-consumerism sake. Thanks???

Hypnospace Outlaw – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

I grew up on the internet of the early 00s. I had an AngelFire website, mostly consisting of shitty sprite webcomics and hosted Gundam pics. I remember when Google wasn’t really a thing and you would heavily rely on website compilation sites like the Anime Web Turnpike in order to find anything of value online. It was weird, it was wild. It was exciting!

The internet seemed so different back then. There was a ton of garbage online, but also, like… there was a sense of optimism to it. Folks were shitty, there was plenty of bad stuff online, but it felt so disconnected from the fabric of the physicality of real-life that it was at the same time a perfect escape.

I was young when I first got “online”, something like 12. I remember having this notion that the internet was going to be this great equalizer, that it had infinite potential to change how people behave and interact. Boy, huh.

Hypnospace Outlaw is essentially a splendid alternate universe GeoCities recreation, where you’re a volunteer moderator of a grouping of websites on HypnOS, an internet-analog you access while you are sleep. At the surface level, it’s mostly about poking around the weird alternate-historical version of the internet they created, full of kids feuding, bizarre historical divergences, and plenty of amazing bespoke weirdness. All of this is great; there’s an incredible amount of content that’s just great to poke at, listen to, and explore.

Below the surface, there’s also a rolling plotline about the ethics of this industry-owned platform, those who run it, and the way corporations handle new technology, new platforms, and emerging digital societies. There’s a late game turn that’s pretty damn affecting. And as someone who has moderator his share of internet forums in his time, trying to balance ‘do it for the community’ and what your ostensible ‘bosses’ require of you, it was kind of a weird throwback in more ways than one.

Minecraft – 2011 – PC – ★★★★★

Turns out, Minecraft is really as good still who knew??? Started playing a bunch more of it this year due to Giant Bomb deciding to do so, and yeah: still good!

2. Hades – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— Supergiant makes damn good games. I’d been holding off on checking out Hades until its full release due to my tendency to burn out on games easily, and I’m glad I waited. Hades is a fantastic rogue-lite experience. The way it makes narrative progression part of the reiterative, randomized rogue-lite structure is just perfect.

It’s got all the usual Supergiant bullet points. Great characters, voice acting, narration, and music. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably their least ambitious game— playing something like a cousin to their original game, Bastion— but it’s also been polished to a mirror sheen. It just feels really damn good to play, over and over and over.

That being said, the second (final?) ending feels kind of…. Tacked on? It’s fine as a goal to go for while continuing to do the game’s relationship mechanics for additional story bits, but it ends up feeling kind of unfulfilling compared to the payoff of the first one.

1. Crusader Kings III – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Despite my interest, the sheer mechanical heft and unintuitive interface made the game a wall that I just couldn’t get over. I’m sure if I’d dedicated myself I probably could have learned it, but… ehhhhhh.

Crusader Kings III, on the other hand, has a good tutorial, a cleaned-up UI, and a very helpful highlight and tooltip system that make it much easier to understand how to actually play the game through resources inside the game itself. And, as it turns out: I rather love this game.

I mean, conceptually it’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Historical politics is something I enjoy broadly. I liked Stellaris but wish it had more narrative, roleplaying elements. They outright say that “winning” isn’t really the point of the game. Instead, it’s more about emergent storytelling and playing with the different systems and seeing what you can do with it.

My current game has had me taking the Haesteinn dynasty from its Viking origins into England, forming a London-seated Northern Sea Empire that encompasses all of Britannia, Iceland, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. I am currently working on hegemonizing Norse religious control over enough Asatru holy sites to finally reform the religion, such that more unified feudalization can occur. To that end, my current ruler’s predecessor invaded West Francia and conquered the whole of its territory, substantially reducing the foothold of Catholicism in mainland Europe… which seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest, given the Crusade I’m going to need to contend with next time I boot up the game.

Of course, a complicating matter is that my current ruler— the Emperor of the North Sea, King of Ireland and the Danelaw, liege of the King of Denmark, was elected from the extended Haesteinn family via Thing, the Scandinavian council of his erstwhile vassals. Where the previous emperor, the one who manufactured the invasion of Francia, was quite religious and beloved for his adherence to the old ways, I discovered as I took over as his successor that he really, really is into just boning down across Europe. We’re talking constantly attempting to seduce neighboring Queens and Princesses. His vassals are not thrilled with this. They also don’t care for his propensity for torturing people to death, constantly.

I had no real say in this; attempting to stay on top of a dynasty is kind of like riding a bucking-bronco, so many things are only tenuously under your control that some weird shit can happen. This is especially true when you use the systems that make it easier to maintain the coherency of your domain. The Norse religion encouraging concubinage results in you having a lot of kids, which means there’s a lot of domain partition going on (someday, primogeniture, someday). Naturally, using Thing election reduces that, but also makes you sometimes end up having to play Emperor Stabbo-Fucko because they thought he was the best candidate at the time. Hell, I thought he was the best candidate at the time until I discovered just how many people he’d be laying with on the low. But you just have to roll with it.

The way the game forces you to play ball with character traits is great. Doing things that match with the character’s traits makes them lose stress. Doing things against their character increases stress. Too much stress can force you to make the character take up vices (which can make them suffer health or opinion maluses, as well as altering their aptitudes), or even die outright. And sometimes those vices and attitudes can be boons, given they open up opportunities for different character interactions.

Emperor Stab-and-Fuck-Kingdom is perhaps the most relaxed person alive, it turns out, because his sadism makes him really enjoy sacrificing infidels, which makes the gods happy. It also freaks the fuck out of all of his vassals, so they’re a good supplicant mix of both appreciative of my religious sentiments and also utterly terrified of my skull piles. Some especially brave vassals occasionally try to assassinate me, but my lovers keep jumping in front of the knife and saving my life mid-coitus. Iiiiiit happens! :D

The game can be incredibly fun to just watch, as it becomes emergently weird. Georgia right now is incredibly Jewish in game. I’m not sure how that happened; I guess someone made a random Jewish guy into a vassal, who somehow moved up enough in the world to make it a movement? The Byzantine princes elected a Coptic as Emperor, which over the course of the decade resulted in very accelerated balkanization as Byzantium just lost its shit. The Middle East and notional HRE haven’t really unified in a meaningful way, so I’m curious how things are going to go if/when the Mongols unify and roll-on in.

It’s one of those “Just one more thing” games that can completely devour time. I have more than a few times checked the clock mid-game to see that it’s 4AM and that I’ve totally ruined my sleep schedule in the process of play. Oooooops.

I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious; the introductory, pre-release video series Paradox put out showing off the game does a pretty good job of showing the core gameplay loop and also how weird it can get.

#GAME OF THE YEAR #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #2020 #Crusader Kings 3 #Hades #SD Gundam #Animal Crossing

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gaminginferno · 4 years

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Borderlands 3: Bounty of Blood. A cacophony of mediocrity

Mild spoilers abound, HEAVY spoilers at the end. enter at your own risk

Most people who know me as a gamer know that Borderlands is one of my favorite game series of all time. I have very fond memories of playing Borderlands 2 time and time again with siblings on Xbox 360, on PS Vita and again when the handsome collection released on the PS4. Despite beating the game dozens of times, I always find myself coming back to find another legendary or just spend time killing random mobs. When Borderlands 3 came out, I was obviously excited and while I do have some issues, more on that at another time, I was ultimately pleased with the game and even more so with the DLC, until now. The Bounty of Blood DLC is a western-style adventure featuring a fresh cast of characters and tons of gunslinging and hijinks so what went wrong?

1. It has a weird aesthetic?

Let’s get the biggest elephant in the room out first: Why the hell is there a Japanese aesthetic in the Western DLC??? It serves no purpose in the story, is never mentioned, or even hinted at. It just feels like an addition that somebody thought was fun and never had any thought outside “Hey this would be cool”. The only mention is that the people call you “tomodachi” instead of “amigo” as you would expect from a western. It makes even less sense when you consider that “The Company” as they call it (a weapon manufacturing corporation with a strong western feel, I wonder what it could be?) would never make the decision to abandon their own aesthetic for the sake of Japanese without there being a serious reason. And it severely hinders the game especially because…

2. It doesn’t feel like a western

This is by far the most disappointing point to me because the Borderlands 2 Lynchwood section was a wonderful western section, but it didn’t really have much to do with the rest of the story so I was really excited to see what they would do and it really fell flat. It felt more like a recycled borderlands story than anything I would expect from a western movie. Even the Lynchwood stories had the train robberies and bank heists that you would think of for a traditional western, but this DLC doesn’t have shootouts at high noon, standoffs, duels, or anything close to westerns in the missions and, coupled with the Japanese aesthetic, it makes it easy to forget that there is a western theme in the first place.

3. The new battle mechanics are useless

So, this new DLC brings a whopping three new mechanics that can be used in gameplay, both in gunfights and in platforming and puzzles. The biggest one, and the one that is used the most, is the green core crystal. These are used to break various items and hurt enemies with corrosive power and honestly are a fun and interesting addition to the combat. The problem is it isn’t the only ones they chose to implement. A charming plant that makes enemies fight for you and teleportation are also brought in in this DLC and it makes the whole thing seem conflated. The charming seem useless since most enemies are dead long before the plant can slowly make its way to the enemy to charm it. The teleporting comes so late into the game that it doesn’t get used often and moving from one space to another in an instant seems so foreign and is usually ignored completely during normal playing because moving around that much isn’t really how Borderlands is played. It makes sense in Doom because you’re constantly running, but for this game it’s more strafing and shooting. Putting all of these together just makes battlefields confusing and it seems much easier to just shoot stuff like usual.

4. I’ve already forgotten the characters

I’m not going to say much about this to avoid spoilers, but the only person who seems to have any sort of personality is the main antagonist. Everyone else seems like generic background character, like you would see giving out random sidequests. Even the character models of the other characters seem uninspired and bland. For them to mention having a new cast of characters, it feels really rushed and none of the characters seem like they would make any impact outside of the DLC.

Last Pre-Spoiler thoughts

The DLC as a whole seems really forgettable, like it’s a filler until they can put out the Krieg-centered DLC later on this year. They put a lot of decent concepts into it, but none of them connected with any of the others and so the whole process seems disjunct and pointless. I would have much rather they fully went towards the Japanese aesthetic and made a samurai story as opposed to half do a western without much western in it.

Story Spoilers underneath, you’ve been warned!

5. Story thoughts

One of the main reasons that the story falls flat is that it feels like a recycled borderlands story as opposed to anything western related. It’s the same old story of the big bad person has some magical artifact that we are looking to get back, only to find out the main bad guy wants to unleash a powerful creature to destroy everything, then you chase after them, fighting through their minions and lieutenants only to reach them just as they unleash the monster and you kill them, and then the monster in question. It’s basically the same beats as Borderlands 2, except without any of the character building or plot timing of a full game. It completely forgets the whole western aspect, (much like the base game forgets about the livestreamer aspect, again, more on that later) and goes back to their normal routine, further cementing to me that this DLC was more of an afterthought or a filler than a DLC that has much thought towards it.

#borderlands #gearbox #gaming

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learnerteachergentleman · 4 years

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Pathfinder Second Edition: Introductory Character Guide

If you’re reading this, there’s a decent chance you’re at least familiar with Dungeons and Dragons. Pathfinder is a game system which grew out of D&D 3.5E, and emphasises breadth and depth of choice in character building, and diversity and tactical complexity in encounters. PF1 in particular is a min-maxer’s paradise, with immensely powerful feat chains and functionally invincible high level spellcasters.

PF2 is a humbler creature, with very tightly refined math. Combined with it’s three-action system and +/-10 system towards crits and crit fails, it makes for a wonderfully balanced (and thus hard to break) system.

But it can still be a daunting system to jump into. Character creation has multiple steps, each of them meaningful. Here’s a quick summation of the ancestries and classes you’ll be choosing from.

Ancestries

Dwarves

Strengths: CON and WIS boosts, good ancestral HP, and their feat selections all combine to make them very sturdy and resilient. Dwarves are typically lawful, honorable and reliable

Weaknesses: CHA penalty means they’re usually not the make sociable of folks. Their movement speed is also the slowest of all ancestries.

Elves

Strengths: DEX and INT boosts, plus access to variable skills, and the best movement speeds make elves highly versatile in and out of combat. Elves tend to be a little aloof and detached as a consequence of their vast lifespans and experiences.

Weaknesses: CON penalty and low ancestral HP makes them very fragile.

Gnomes

Strengths: CON and CHA boosts combine with their feats to make gnomes the most innately magical folk. They’re curious and friendly and constantly seeking new experiences so they don’t die from boredom (literally).

Weaknesses: STR penalty, and they’re seldom taken very seriously.

Goblins

Strengths: DEX and CHA boosts. They have an eclectic selection of feats which can provide bonuses to stealth, setting things on fire, annoying enemies, and using/eating garbage.

Weaknesses: WIS penalty, and thus a tendency towards impulsiveness. They’re still seen as vermin in most parts of the world, so expect racism.

Halflings

Strengths: DEX and WIS boosts, plus their feat options enabling stealth and luck bonuses make halflings surprisingly hardy. They’re great at flying under the radar and getting ignored.

Weaknesses: STR penalty, and like gnomes, being a small and humble race means they’re not automatically taken seriously.

Humans

Strengths: Hugely versatile, with their choice of two ability boosts and feats that enable them to go in any direction. Humans encompass the full spectrum of possibilities.

Weaknesses: Humans don’t really have many weaknesses- their adaptability ensures that- but they also don’t have special strengths they can lean into.

Classes

Alchemists

Why play an Alchemist? Do you want to play with fire? Plan ahead and outwit and outplay your foes? Throw bombs, do drugs, and poison your enemies? Alchemy might be the path for you.

Core Mechanic: Alchemy. Alchemists can make a large supply of alchemical items daily for free.

Subclass Options: Bombers specialise in the use of bombs to damage and debuff foes. Chirugeons specialise in healing potions to cure wounds and remove poisons and diseases. Mutagenists specialise in augmenting abilities through the use of mutagens.

Strengths: A good support class, since they can alter their loadouts daily to meet the needs of the party and the situation. They bring good healing and lots of little debuffing conditions to the fight.

Weaknesses: Their proficiencies and damage don’t keep up in the endgame, and they need a lot of system mastery to play well. They’re also dependent on having both a good Intelligence for their crafting and a good Dexterity for their throwing arm.

Barbarians

Why play a Barbarian? Do you want to hit stuff really hard? Do you like shrugging off damage? Do you have deep seated anger management issues? Do you want to be in the thick of every problem, and use violence as the answer? Barbarian might be the solution to your problems (or therapy).

Core Mechanic: Rage. While raging, Barbarians hit harder, but are easier to hit themselves.

Subclass Options: Animal Instinct enables one to transform to fight with fang and claw. Dragon Instinct brings elemental damage, and eventually breath weapons and wings. Fury Instinct is just pure anger. Giant Instinct grants you an oversized weapon to do more damage than any other build in the game at cost of even worse defenses. Spirit Instinct makes you better at fighting ghosts and spooky things.

Strengths: A powerful frontline striker and tank, with great damage output and plentiful HP. They can also be pretty mobile, and chase foes down with ease.

Weaknesses: Mediocre Reflex saves and lowered AC means they get hit very hard.

Bards

Why play a Bard? Do you have an innate desire to perform and inspire your friends? Do you want to know lots of weird and useless trivia, random lyrics, and tricks to befuddle the mind and heart? Do you have a deep seated urge to fornicate with dragons (pls no)? If so, Bard might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Compositions. Bards get some really powerful supporting abilities which can boost the entire team with ease. Occult Spellcasting (spontaneous). Bards have a strong selection of debuffing and illusion spells.

Subclass Options: The Engima muse grants you ALL the knowledge. The Maestro muse drives you to be the ultimate performer. The Polymath muse enables you to apply your performance skills in all kinds of different situations.

Strengths: Easily the most powerful support class in the game. Their composition cantrips put many actual buffing spells (which they also have) to shame. Strong Perception and Will saves keep them alert and sane.

Weaknesses: A little fragile, and have really poor damage output.

Champions

Why play a Champion? Do you want to protect your friends and stand your ground? Do you want some healing magic with your martial might? Do you want to SMITE EVIL? Have you heard of our inheritor and savior Iomedae? If so, maybe you want to be a Champion.

Core Mechanic: Champion Causes grant them unique defensive reactions which protect allies from damage, and holy focus spells for healing and weakening foes. Divine Allies grant either boost to one’s weapon, one’s shield, or come as a mount.

Subclass Options: Paladins are Lawful Good, and are here to put evil into the ground by beating it the hell to death when it goes after their allies. Redeemers are Neutral Good, and seek more peaceful outcomes by weakening foes or preventing damage completely. Liberators are Chaotic Good, and keep their allies moving and away from threats and bondage.

Strengths: The premium tanking class, with the highest AC proficiencies, their ally protecting reactions, damage reduction on armour, and their healing Lay on Hands.

Weaknesses: Their damage output is decidedly mediocre for a martial class.

Clerics

Why play a Cleric? Do you want to channel holy magic to heal your friends and weaken your foes? Do you want to spread the good word and will of your god? Do you want to wreck evil and praise the sun? If so, Cleric might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Divine Font gives Clerics a bunch of extra healing spells. Divine Spellcasting (prepared). A good supply of supporting and buffing spells, and heaps of things to really punish evil.

Subclass Options: Cloistered Clerics are fully fledged casters with extra focus spells. Warpriests trade off a little casting power for weapons and armour.

Strengths: The divine spell list punches well above curve when fighting foes opposed to your alignment. Cleric healing is very powerful and efficient in combat.

Weaknesses: Over-reliance on alignment based spells leaves them in a bad place when dealing with neutral threats. The Divine list lacks a lot of overall power.

Druids

Why play a Druid? Do you want to run wild with a 6-foot wolverine animal companion? Do you want to turn into a dragon and unleash hell? Do you want absolute command over the elements? If so, Druid might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Primal Spellcasting (prepared). Lots of good blasting and support spells.

Subclass Options: Animal for those who want an animal companion. Leaf for those who want a familiar and extra healing. Storm for those who want more firepower. Wild for transformation specialists.

Strengths: Versatile to build, good defenses and proficiencies for a caster, plenty of quality blasting.

Weaknesses: Limited control options. Summoning is quite weak.

Fighters

Why play a Fighter? Do you want to cleave foes in twain with big-ass weapons? Dance across the battlefield with a sword in each hand? Snipe foes from afar? Hold the line with endless shield blocks or parries? Crit everything you can see? If so, Fighter might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Fighters don’t really have a core mechanic like other classes. Instead, they’re a full proficiency rank ahead of every other martial, and get flexible extra class feats, making them highly consistent, powerful and adaptable.

Subclass Options: Likewise, Fighters don’t have subclasses. They’re differentiated by their feat selections (broadly speaking, one-handed fencers, two-handed brutes, dual-wielders, sword-and-board defenders, archers, and other niche options).

Strengths: Numerically superior to every other class in terms of offenses. Only Giant Barbarians beat them for damage output (but are way weaker defensively). Only Champions beat them for armour rating (but fall well behind on offense). Hugely flexible in build and tactics. Good Perception.

Weaknesses: Not many. Will saves are average, and one can’t do everything, but otherwise Fighters are overall very good.

Monks

Why play a Monk? Do you want to beat everything to death with your bare hands? Run faster, jump higher and dodge better than everyone else? Use moves right out of an old-school wire-fun martial arts film? Name every one of your attacks like it’s a shounen anime? If so, Monk might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Stances. Monks can learn a variety of stances which grant access to special unarmed attacks and other bonuses. Ki. Monks can learn to channel mystical magic known as Ki for extra mobility or special attacks.

Subclass Options: Like Fighters, Monks don’t have subclasses, instead being defined by their feat choices. Crane, Dragon, Mountain, Embers, Tiger, Wolf, Ironblood and Tangled Forest stances each offer different playstyles, as does the selection of various Ki feats.

Strengths: Highly mobile. Excellent AC (only the Champion can get better), good HP and the best saving throw proficiencies all combine to make them very tough to kill.

Weaknesses: Damage output isn’t the best.

Rangers

Why play a Ranger? Do you want to snipe foes from hundreds of feet away? Unleash flurries of arrows or swift attacks? Go into battle astride a feral direwolf? Be able to find (and kill) anyone or anything that pisses you off? If so, Ranger might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Hunt Prey. Rangers focus on a single target at a time, gaining benefits against their selected prey.

Subclass Options: Flurry Edge enables Rangers to make multiple attacks with a great reduced downside compared to everyone else. Outwit Edge makes them superior trackers and better defensively. Precision Edge grants them more power on their first hit.

Strengths: Excellent single target damage. Decent defenses. Better archery range than anyone else. The only class which can actually make crossbows viable.

Weaknesses: Awkward against swarms of enemies, since they need to keep spending actions to shift their Hunted Prey.

Rogues

Why play a Rogue? Do you like stabbing people in the back and watching them bleed out helplessly?Do you like stealing from anyone and anything you can? Do you like your character being really edgy and good at everything? If so, Rogue might be the class for you (and prison might be the place).

Core Mechanic: Sneak Attack. Rogues get more damage against flat-footed targets while using precise weapons.

Subclass Options: Ruffians are tankier and better with brutal bludgeoning weapons. Scoundrels are experts at deceiving and surprising their foes. Thieves are light and lethal with finesse weapons.

Strengths: Twice as many skills and skill feats as any other class means that Rogues can literally be good at everything. Sneak Attack keeps them competitive with other martial classes for damage.

Weaknesses: A little fragile compared to the other martial classes.

Sorcerers

Why play a Sorcerer? Do you like being naturally gifted at stuff? Do you like the feeling of power at your fingertips and your enemies beneath your boot? Do you want to make stuff go BOOM? Did your granny engage in appropriate relations with magical beings? If so, Sorcerer might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: Bloodline and blood magic. Sorcerers get focus spells and extra powers depending when they cast spells. Spontaneous spellcasting. Sorcerers to choose if they’re Arcane, Divine, Occult or Primal spellcasters.

Subclass Options: Aberrant and Hag bloodlines for Occult magic. Angelic, Diabolic, Demonic or Undead bloodlines for Divine magic. Elemental and Fey bloodlines for Primal magic. Draconic and Imperial bloodlines for Arcane magic.

Strengths: Solid feats chasis enables particular niches other spellcasters can’t access (like Divine counterspells or Arcane healing). Extra spell slots keeps them going longer and harder than other casters.

Weaknesses: No armour, poor AC, and weak saves means that Sorcerers earn their designation as ‘squishies’.

Wizards

Why play a Wizard? Do you like planning ahead for exact eventualities? Do you like delving deep into lore and legend to truly understand your art? Are you a massive nerd (if you’re reading this, probably)? Do you think writing an entire thesis is the best way to demonstrate one’s mastery of a subject? If so, Wizard might be the class for you.

Core Mechanic: School specialisation. Wizards choose a school of magic and get extra abilties and spell slots for that school only. Arcane spellcasting (prepared). Arcane magic gives wizards a wide breadth of tactical options, with buffs, debuffs, blasting, controlling, and heaps of niche silver bullets for opposing magic. Everything excepting healing, basically.

Subclass Options: The Improved Familiar Attunement thesis grants the wizard a useful familiar. The Metamagical Experimentation thesis grants the wizard additional metamagic options for altering their spells. The Spell Blending thesis enables wizards to trade out weaker slots for a few stronger ones. The Spell Substitution thesis enables the wizard to swap out their prepared spells, keeping them adaptable to new information.

Strengths: Solid feats chasis enables them to get the most out of their abundant supply of spells, with metamagics and other spell augmenting options. The arcane list is powerful and deep.

Weaknesses: No armour? Check. Poor AC? Check. Weak saves? Check. Yep, Wizards are squishy.

#pathfinder

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bakagamieru · 6 years

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Now that the audition episodes of X Factor are over, I have to say I’ve noticed something: they cut out pretty much every bit of any of the contestants fanboying or fangirling over Louis.

There was a little lip service in the first two episodes about both Robbie and Louis having fans, but while they showed people fawning over Robbie and even over Simon quite a bit during interviews or on stage, they never did the same for Louis. I know this can’t be the case, but if you watched the show, you’d think that none of the contestants were excited over seeing Louis.

In fact, I know some of the contestants we saw liked Louis best, but it wasn’t because of anything explicit they said; it was because of how they said Louis’ name so often when responding to him. My guess is that at least SOME of them did say something explicit about being Louis’ fan, but that it was cut out.

They made a whole big deal about Robbie getting up on stage and singing with a contestant to his song, but they never showed any of the people that auditioned with 1D songs or even solo 1D songs. We know there were several because of fan footage of the auditions.

Even during the bit about who the contestants wanted to coach their category, Robbie got a definite yes from one person, Ayda got a definite yes from one person, Simon got a definite yes from one person, and then there was someone who was debating between Robbie and Louis and then ended up considering Simon as well.

They don’t seem to want to give the appearance that Louis is someone people are excited to see and that definitely rubs me the wrong way, especially since it’s pretty obvious that they’re using Louis to boost the show’s popularity.

There were several other things about the overall production that I found weird and honestly counterproductive to the goal of the show. They want viewers and they want the show to be interesting, but they seem to have cut out any of the tension that show would naturally provide.

They rarely show anyone who doesn’t get 4 yes’s or 4 no’s anymore.

Actually, they rarely show a bad audition anymore. I feel like the vast majority of the auditions were one person getting praised after another after another. While I don’t approve of letting people through the preliminaries just to get humiliated like they’ve clearly done in the past, I find it odd that they haven’t at least been showing shaky auditions that end up being a no.

They skip chunks of auditions in such a way that it’s obvious that something’s missing.

For that matter, they show bits of auditions that don’t come across as very impressive and then cut to the judges praising them like crazy and I have to assume that either something was missing from the audition footage shown or that the judges are all completely incompetent.

I also felt strongly at times that the audience reactions I was hearing were manipulated. Sometimes the amount of cheering or the lack of cheering just didn’t seem to match up right with what was on the screen.

I feel like not many groups got shown. A lot were shown waiting to audition, but there were very few straight up boy or girl groups that got shown in auditions.

They start the episode with a montage and then the music keeps playing up until the first person starts singing and it’s hard to even realize that the show has started, giving it a surreal feel.

They seem to try to portray each episode as one day each of auditions, but then they combine film from various days where the judges were obviously wearing different outfits.

They’ve gotten rid of boot camp and instead cut more than half of the people who originally got through auditions immediately which just seems cruel and makes the auditions feel semi-pointless if people are going to get told yes and then have it switched to a no without any chance to show their stuff in between.

I also think getting rid of boot camp is a mistake because it doesn’t allow the contestants as much time to grow and to bond with each other. Seeing the contestants struggle and grow gives the audience a proprietary feeling and also helps personalities show through, and having contestants that are closer means better extra footage of them being silly together which is honestly the best part.

This last thing isn’t about production or tension, but it’s another thing that rubbed me the wrong way. The way they talk about boy/girl bands is like the only reason someone would be in one is because they aren’t good enough to be solo. The reality is that yes, having more people to split the spotlight and responsibility with can make things a bit easier, but finding the right chemistry and dealing with multiple stressed out people trying not to get into fights makes things a lot harder. Being a mediocre solo singer is relatively easy, but being an exceptional one is difficult, and the same is true for boy/girl bands.

All this said, I’m relatively relieved that so far Louis has been portrayed closely to how he actually is rather than anything more negative. The next big hurdle is who ends up being guest judge for Louis. Ideally it would be a 1D member, but if that’s off the table, some of the other potential options worry me.

#one direction #louis tomlinson #x factor #bakagamieru #speculation

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delineative · 5 years

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writing year in review: 2018

total number of completed stories: 9

total word count:

ao3: 43 879

(+ ~5k on socks)

fandoms written in:

dorohedoro

we both chose each other - noi/shin

houseki no kuni

growing without rest - phos/phos

idol producer / nine percent

counting flower petals all day long - xukun/zhengting

leaving nothing behind - xukun/zhengting

when we see each other again - jun/zhengting, ziyi/zhengting, yanjun/zhangjing/zhengting, xukun/zhengting, justin/chengcheng/zhengting

take one step closer - xukun/yanjun/zhengting

nct

from first principles - 00line

produce 101 china / rocket girls

coincidence makes sense - yamy/meiqi/xuanyi

seventeen

the earth in its turning stopped (last 2 chapters) - seungcheol/jeonghan/joshua

reaching for you from the endless dream - wonwoo/jun

wips:

out of the wips i’m currently working on:

dirtmix assignment (will be revealed very shortly!)

nahyuck pacific rim au

markrenmin enemies to lovers fantasy au

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

around what i expected... i was aiming for 1 fic a month and didn’t quite manage to hit that but i feel like each fic was longer than usual (i’m a terminal shortfic writer so anything over 3k is long for me). like i kept going 1-4k over my projected wordcount which was extremely panic-inducing when i was trying to write to deadlines lmao so overall i’m okay with the quantity of words i produced this year!

what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

fandom-wise probably the survival show spiral and moving into ncity... if 2017 was the year of yugioh then 2018 was the year of rpf. some of the stuff i posted to socks was very uncharacteristic of my usual m.o but i think everything i put on main was very true to brand i.e ambiguous relationships + vague pining + emo conversations in the dark

did you take any writing risks this year? what did you learn from them?

i signed up for svtbb and had to drop out due to exam pressure, which was sad bc it’s the first exchange/fest i’ve ever defaulted on, but then i went and did lordeventeen and yuletide even though they partly ran through exam seasons too so i guess i learned nothing?!?

actually i think i probably could have afforded to take a few more risks genre-wise, i feel like everything i wrote in 2018 recycled the exact same themes but also at the same time those themes are the only thing i can write. terrible taste i will never change i will never improve that is a promise etc etc

what’s your own favorite story of the year?

reaching for you from the endless dream had me tearing my hair out while i was writing it but ultimately i feel like it paid off! i’ve always wanted to try canon compliant + magic and this ended up with some of the best writing i’ve ever done, plus i’m happy i was finally able to write something for one of my favourite svt ships <3 honourable mention to the concept behind when we see each other again, my post-disbandment allzzt ship manifesto titled after csc_uri_dasi_bol_ttae.mp3

best story of the year?

also reaching for you from the endless dream! i’m really proud of how this one turned out both in terms of technical quality (.... *repeats the same phrase 300 times* Is This Thematic Consistency?) and emotional beats, and it got so many lovely comments. i think this is probably one of my best fics ever, and i’m glad it struck a chord with other people too!

most popular story of the year?

not counting teiits since most of that was posted in 2017, it’s counting flower petals all day long, which really surprised me when i checked my ao3 stats? i must have hit the sweet spot of fandom growth + burgeoning ship popularity bc literally nothing happens in the fic other than one (1) kiss, but thank you for giving it so much love 💖

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

omg i think everything i wrote this year was WAY over-appreciated but coincidence makes sense, which features a f/f/f rarepair (raretrio?) in a fandom with very little western fan presence, so i’m not surprised by its stats but i’m still pretty fond of this one and consider it one of the better fics i wrote in 2018, and one of the best idolverse fics i’ve ever written

most fun story to write:

from first principles, the debate au fic i’ve wanted to write for like 6 years, my beloved pet project through the month of august, and i think it shows? i tripled my projected word count and in the process of writing fully converted to dreamyism(/renjunism), so a lot of love went into it, even though there are places you can tell i definitely rushed the execution. one day i’ll do justice to a proper nct sports anime fic...

story with the single sexiest moment:

all the rated content i wrote this year was posted to socks other than the brief dance studio 3some scene in take one step closer, but i genuinely have no idea if that was even sxc since i wrote it on my phone in a feverish last-minute sprint on a plane while blasting twice bdz and haven’t reread it at all jhfgdfjdfh

most sweet story:

the general tone of everything i wrote in 2018 was much less depressing than 2017 but i guess the sweetest story was we both chose each other... what’s more romantic than dismembering a bunch of thugs with your beloved partner and then jumping off a cliff together!!

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

kind of a weird question to apply to rpf... characterisation perceptions are constantly shifting based on current meta and au role needs, though i feel like i’m always struggling to play catchup and by the time i publish anything the general image has shifted ;__;

most unintentionally telling story:

from first principles draws heavily on my own experiences with high school debating... lots of 3rd speaker related anxieties and hangups projection all over the place in there lmao

hardest story to write:

every time i’m working on something, especially when i’m close to finishing, it is the hardest thing i have ever written... i can’t remember if writing has always been this difficult for me or if it’s an rpf thing. probably i struggled the most with reaching for you from the endless dream bc i’m deeply intimidated by writing jun (light of my life) due to the fear of not doing him justice, and also the deadline pressure nearly killed me. also at one point i called writing from first principles the worst experience of my life but looking back it wasn’t even that bad... mostly it was just that it kept getting longer and longer and eventually i was like Please God Let It End Already

biggest disappointment:

not finishing my svtbb fic... i am literally twitter user juncheolsoo i owe them SOMETHING!! not writing more fic. mediocre execution of decent concepts bc i got too impatient and rushed to finish things before i got bored of them

biggest surprise:

all of my fics about idol boys except one have over 100 kudos, which is just a ridiculous amount?! idol rpf fandoms have been so kind to me... i will work hard to become a better content creator in 2019!!

favourite opening line(s):

from leaving nothing behind:

“Are you looking for Justin?”

Xukun rears back, knuckles still poised to knock on the doorframe. “I—what?”

“Are you looking for Justin?” Zhengting repeats. He’s sprawled across the bottom bunk, leg dangling inelegantly off the edge. The phone in his hand casts an unsteady ellipse of light over his collarbone.

favourite closing line(s):

from growing without rest:

Beyond the arches the world is silent. The gem Phosphophyllite will become returns their gaze steadily, evenly. The shadows lengthen. In the distance behind them, a flicker of white, like light needling off somebody’s back, or the gleam of a pearl eye.

favourite 5 line(s) from anywhere:

from first principles:

“If only Mark-hyung was still here,” Renjun said, only half-jokingly. There was a brief moment of solemn silence as the three of them paused to consider their ex-captain, who had passed on last year to the realm of university debating.

when we see each other again:

So maybe they weren’t friends, but they were something. You couldn’t inhabit the same space for two years and come out the other side as strangers. Sometimes Zhengting thought that might have been easier than whatever this intimacy limbo was supposed to be, knowing somebody in the minutest details, what they looked like at the height of their intensity or the moments before they fell asleep, without really knowing them at all. Looking, and not having the gesture returned, or at least not equally.

coincidence makes sense:

The song ends, starts over. Meiqi doesn’t, though, pivoting to face them, and that’s all the invitation Xuanyi needs to unfold from her position beside Guo Ying and cross the floor. Like two halves of a single movement Meiqi reaches out to Xuanyi and Xuanyi presses their palms together, interlacing their fingers. The tilt of their heads towards each other like it’s something irresistible.

reaching for you from the endless dream:

Junhui was practically raised by the industry. The stage lying close enough to the bone it would be indistinguishable from it. He leaves his intensity on the stage but glimpses of it show through in odd moments, seamlessness without ease. It’s hard for Wonwoo to understand, but most things about Junhui are.

take one step closer:

You want to look into somebody, of course you have to let them look back. This is why he kept away in the first place, the terror of vulnerability when it could be staved off indefinitely instead, though he’d wanted to be seen, hoped for it, even, despite himself, something in the marrow singing out to be known.

It’s like an infection, a second heart in his ribs. A kind of longing that bites right through his hand. Strikes down to the quick. Severs the whole thing clean off. He ran so far from himself he landed in somebody else’s body, and here he is, still trying to escape.

top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated:

jun lifting zzt up and spinning him around, from when we see each other again (;___; #junting_agenda_seeding)

wonwoo and jun in the kitchen with nectarines spilling out of the open fridge, from reaching for you from the endless dream

cxkzzt conversation in the dark while zzt is wearing a facemask, from leaving nothing behind

00z sports shounen hug, from from first principles

phos getting crushed by their future self’s gold arms, from growing without rest

honourable mention to noishin leaping off a cliff from we both chose each other, which actually did get illustrated in dorohedorozine <3

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

cut down my wip list... please i have 25+ wips on my spreadsheet i just want to FINISH something for once in my life instead of constantly starting new wips and letting them rot in the graveyard of my gdocs

practise writing actual shipfic and not poorly disguised gen. i WILL get better at writing kiss scenes

try to write something over 10k again

relearn what figurative language is and how to use it. rpf boosted my productivity stats but at what cost...

#ash writes #i literally log on once a year to make this post

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Michael in the Mainstream: The Last Jedi review

It has been a year since I first saw this, and it has given me plenty of time to sort out my thoughts on it. This film was very divisive in my mind, as it has been to filmgoers at large; no two people seem to have the same take on it. Alex of IHE liked it and thought it got better with each viewing; Schaffrillas Productions thinks the movie is really stupid and fails at what it set out to do; and Doug Walker, AKA the Nostalgia Critic, is somewhere in the middle, saying it has some of the best Star Wars has to offer as well as some of the worst. And that isn’t even getting into fan response, with the ever-hyperbolic Star Wars fandom screaming for ages about how this is an utter travesty of filmmaking, and how the whole movie should be retconned, and so on.

Frankly, such hyperbole should just be dismissed entirely out of hand. If you honestly think this film is the worst Star Wars film, or even an objectively bad film in general, you either have lived a very sheltered life or do not know a thing about films or filmmaking. Now, does that mean I think this is a GOOD film? Well… no. I think I most agree with Doug Walker on this; the film has a lot of great stuff, a lot of stuff done better than every other Star Wars movie; but for every great thing, there is an unbelievably awful thing too, balancing out the movie into being a literal divisive work, with half the film being a great Star Wars entry and the other half being a stream of idiocy, fluff, and filler. And the most baffling part is it isn’t even hard to tell which parts are good and which aren’t the awful parts stick out uncomfortably. Say what you will about something like Jar Jar, he at least seemed somewhat plausible within the universe of Star Wars. But the casino on Canto Bright, and the weird space horses? It just feels too weird, too whimsical, too Harry Potter-esque for Star Wars.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As far as story goes, we have this: Rey is off trying to convince the cranky hermit Luke Skywalker to train her, though this is easier said than done, as Luke seems rather content with milking alien walruses and just in general being a hermit to want to help her out. Meanwhile, the rebels are being chased down by the First Order, with Poe desperately trying to take command of the situation and his commanding officer not having any of it, which leads Poe to send Finn on a mission to find a way to sabotage the ships. This leads to Canto Bright as they search for a skilled hacker. Meanwhile, Rey is finding out she has a very interesting connection to Kylo Ren. There’s a lot going on this time in the galaxy far, far away, and it becomes unclear if things will come out on top for the rebels this time around.

So, let’s talk about what works first. The movie’s greatest strength is certainly the cinematography; this is hands down, indisputably, the best-looking Star Wars film to day. There are so many gorgeous, beautiful shots, so many scenes made better by the fantastic camera work. The presentation in this film is just top notch, and so much in this film is just a treat for the eyes. And the beauty isn’t just the shots, the actual lightsaber duels we get are easily some of the finest in the history of the franchise, with Rey and Kylo’s fight against the Praetorian Guards, as well as the final duel between Kylo and Luke on the salt field, moments like this deserve to be held up among the best in all of Star Wars history.

Then we have basically everything involving Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren in this movie. The scenes revolving around these characters are the most engaging and interesting in the entire film. Luke especially is a fascinating character, Mark Hamill giving his all to the performance and showcasing the natural progression from a well-meaning but hotheaded young hero to a jaded, cynical hermit who has, like his master before him, put himself into self-imposed exile due to his failures. Rey and Kylo have an intriguing dynamic, and they get so much focus and development. A lot of the film focuses on Kylo, giving much-needed development, though unfortunately it does jettison a lot of what made him interesting in the precious film. Gone are his tantrums, struggle with the light side of the Force, and emulation of his grandfather… but in comes a performance from Adam Driver that I felt at some points emulated Javier Bardem’s from No Country for Old Men. Yes, Kylo Ren managed to be as terrifying and ruthless as Anton Chigurh.

But of course, there are a great deal of problems, namely anything in he film that doesn’t focus around the three aforementioned characters. Outside of the opening space battle, just about everything with the rebels is a tedious slog of a chase scene, with the First Order apparently never once considering speeding up a little bit to catch up with the rebel ships slowly running out of gas. Despite what some very sad, strange people on the internet might convince you, there’s no overtly political messaging in the dynamic between Poe and Holdo; the only thing there is just really poor writing, where two characters who should be smarter act ridiculously stupid for poorly defined reasons. It’s pretty telling when Leia, probably the only person in the rebellion with a cool head on her shoulders, gets taken out of commission for a large chunk of the film early on.

The film also wastes a lot of characters that were built up to be more important than they ended up being. Phasma is unceremoniously killed (or maybe not) after an extremely brief battle, to the point where reading this sentence will probably take more time than her appearance onscreen in this film. The hacker that Finn and his new partner rose find on Canto Bright, portrayed by Benicio Del Toro, seems like he might end up an interesting morally ambiguous figure, and up until his final appearance he offers some interesting characterization, but then he stabs Finn and Rose in the back and vanishes from the film. Still, neither of the previous examples are anything compared to what happened to Snoke, the mysterious evil emperor figure who corrupted Ben Solo into becoming Kylo Ren. Some have said they didn’t find Snoke interesting to begin with, and that his death wasn’t too bad of a move, but on the same token there is so little revealed about him despite the fact that he is integral to a major character’s backstory that he ends up feeling like a missed opportunity. The fact that he is played by Andy Serkis only compounds my irritation; why get such a fantastic actor to play a wasted character like this? I have much the same feeling towards the disrespectful usage of Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens; pointlessly tossing great actors into minor, throwaway roles is utterly depressing when you think of what their talents could have added to the story.

But of course, I have saved the worst for last: Rose Tico and Canto Bright. He two go hand in hand, as Canto Bright is where Rose gets much of her screentime and development with Finn. Canto Bright is a very odd locale, featuring a shiny casino and weird alien horses. The whole tone of the place is far too whimsical and jarring for the film it’s in, and it ends up badly clashing with the other scenes. It also ends up hogging a lot of screentime from the far more interesting and intriguing plot with Rey and Luke. The biggest issue, though, is how pointless the entire venture ends up being, as after all they go through, they end up failing miserably, which leads to a lot of the issues in the film’s final third. The whole thing ends up just being a pointless diversion from the more interesting plot and comes off as a way to pad out the runtime with hamfisted morals and glurge.

And then we have Rose, who, in this film anyway, is probably the least likable character in any Star Wars film. She is utterly bland and uninteresting as a character, which is a shame as her sister, a character with limited screentime who only appears in the opening before dying, was far more interesting in the few minutes she was onscreen than Rose is in her entirety. The biggest problem with Rose is that she almost feels like a fan insert character, with how she gushes over Finn at first and gets to kiss him at the end despite the two having rather mediocre chemistry. Said kiss also comes after a moment where she ruins a moment that could have been an excellent culmination of Finn’s character arc and been a hugely subversive and expectation-defying moment, and then utters the most vomit-inducingly bad line in Star Wars history: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love." Nothing about this line works, makes sense, or does anything but make the viewer cringe hard. This is worse than Anakin’s comments about sand, worse than anything in the prequels really, and I don’t think this is hyperbolic in the slightest, since we have had over a decade and a lack of George Lucas involvement to fine-tune scripts and not deliver lines that sound like they belong in a Hallmark special.

Overall, the film absolutely fails to do what it sets out to do: deliver a subversive film that defies audience expectations. Nothing in the film really subverts or plays with audience expectations in a positive way; all of the big subversions come from characters acting as insanely stupid as possible, and they all come from a dull plotline that hogs the screentime from the far more intriguing plotline. The Rey/Luke/Kylo stuff in this movie is easily some of the best and most engaging Star Wars content to date, but it gets shoved aside far too often, and a lot of elements of it seem to be left hanging. Built up elements like Rey’s parents, Snoke, and Phasma are unceremoniously dropped in frankly insulting ways, and at the end of the movie everyone is basically at the spot they were at at the end of the first one.

And that, right there, is my true issue with the film: it all feels very pointless. The heroes accomplish next to nothing, and the overall effects on the franchise are utterly minor. This is a Star Wars film I could almost say you could skip when viewing them for how little it adds… but what little it does add is really good and essential. This is definitely a movie that home viewing will make better, since at home you can skip through the awful Canto Bright and rebel chase sequences to get to the good stuff. The lightspeed ram, the Praetorian duel, Luke and Kylo’s confrontation… all of that stuff is worth seeing.

Ultimately, the film is neither really good nor bad. It’s just a mixed bag that is not nearly as subversive or expectation-defying as a contemporary blockbuster film like Infinity War or even an older film like The Empire Strikes Back. What it does succeed at is delivering a visually stunning film with excellent character dynamics between the three big players. So, it is easy to see why the film is divisive, but it is impossible to see why people could possibly write the film off as the “Worst ever” or “a film so bad it should be retconned.” If you honestly believe this film is so utterly, irredeemably awful, I frankly don’t think your opinions on film are worth much. If you think the film isn’t so good but at least can find a few things to respect in it, well, I find that a far more respectable position than the blind, frothing-at-the-mouth hatred the film has gotten. It really doesn’t deserve it, though it also doesn’t deserve to be held up as the gold standard of Star Wars films either. It does contain some of the worst moments, if not exactly the absolute worst, in the history of the franchise, after all. But on the same token, it contains some of the absolute best, top ten or twenty best moments of the franchise as well. To write the film off or to praise it blindly as a masterpiece are equally foolhardy decisions.

The way this film wraps up leaves me wondering what could possibly be done for the next film; I have no idea where the series could possibly go, and it fills me with a sense of worry and of suspense. The future of Star Wars is uncertain, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned after being a lifelong fan of the franchise, it’s that Star Wars always finds a way to come out on top eventually.

#Michael in the Mainstream #Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Luke Skywalker #sci-fi #Disney #review #movie review

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thedappleddragon · 3 years

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hehehe today I did something exiting >:) BUT IF UR MY IRL FRIEND STOP READING BECAUSE ITS A SURPRISE.

but first we’re going chronologically. my cat woke me up by clawing at my sheets for the first time in a while. every morning she used to paw at my sheets, snag one claw in them, and detach it with her mouth until I got up to feed her or whatever. so it felt weird and reminded me of when I was waking up at noon everyday for a while. I said goodbye to my mom because she’s taking a trip to see her best friend/boyfriend to help with her mental health. I talked with her a bit and waved her goodbye and went back inside. I had breakfast and lily wanted to keep going outside, but I didnt want to go out because it was cold. I went out the first couple times she asked, but for the rest of the day I just opened the door to let her in and out, keeping an eye on her. I filled out 2 sketchbook pages because my brain was busy with other things. I played a little harvest moon and got to summer and finally looked up some of the mechanics like fertilizer and stuff. but mostly I was thinking about my friend’s birthday party and the formal dress code for the first half, how I dont have many dresses, and how cool it would be to make one myself. so I scoured Etsy and joann’s for dress patterns until I found one with a circle skirt and a sweetheart neckline that I thought looked really cute. ive never make clothes before, so I hope I do a good job. I wanted to go to Joanns but I had to wait for my sister to get home from track practice, so I just kinda sat at home alone. I'm usually more or less alone all day anyway, so I dont know why this felt so different. when she finally did come home dad handed us $40 for Taco Bell and to put gas in his car and we were off. my sister and I talked about what she did at track and my job interview yesterday while I did a mediocre job driving. when we got there I wasn't really sure what I was looking for, so I just kept going around in the clearence section touching everything that I thought could be a cute color/pattern for this dress. there were a lot of interesting fabrics and a lot of ugly ones I could only imagine on a toddlers and tiaras beautypagent dress. we settled on this light blue fabric with a white flower/leaf design and a soft plain blue fabric for the front panel and lining. it was about $33 worth of fabric, which I thought was a little expensive until I realized we would have paid more than double if it was full price. the patterned fabric is thin and flows nicely but isn't see-through which I really like, and the solid blue is very soft and stretchy. I'll probably use scraps from both after I'm done for other stuff. I wasn't sure what measurements I needed so I handed the lady at the fabric cutting booth my phone with a picture of the fabric requirements. she was very sleepy and had to convert between centimeters and yards, and I just watched as she unrolled the fabric and made very small snips. aaaah I love the fabric section of Joanns, even tho im horribly indecisive and I spent way too long just wandering and mulling it over. but im happy with my choice! I didnt want to pick a fabric I wasn't in love with, since it would suck ass if I put hundreds of hours of work into this dress and hated the outcome. OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERD THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. THIS DRESS WILL HAVE POCKETS!! :D I can make the pockets as big as I please >:) I'm fitting a small child in these pockets if it kills me. lmao I'll probably just follow the pattern and do the size it tells me. speaking of sizing after we got home with Taco Bell and joking about among us tiktoks in the car, I read through the pdfs and locked myself in the bathroom to take measurements, going through the list 3 times just to make sure I got an average. I kept landing between a 44 and a 46, but I must have taken my front and back waist measurements wrong?? they were way too short and not even on the sizing chart, so I guess I was thinking my waist was higher than it actually is. I decided for simplicity to use the 46 pattern all around. I only landed in 44 with the neck and bust numbers, but I can alwasy pull it in at the seams I need be. ohhhh I hope it turns out good.... I haven't even begin cutting or patterning yet, I still need to cut out the paper pattern I printed off. but first I wanted to use a big paper cutter to cut a centimeter off each page to make lining up and taping things easier. my little paper cutter only fits the short side of printer paper :( so I'll either use and exacto knife and a ruler on all 25 sheets or see if dad's work or the library will let me use a big one. tbh I'll probably do the first thing. I also learned how to do a bunch of seams today, some of which I might practice and use for my dress. and I called my dad’s boss about job openings, but he didnt answer so I left a message. I ALSO said for gas in cash for the first time today, which was a little weird. it was simple enough but I probably looked like a fool to the booth lady. I would get stared on at least prepping the paper patterns tonight, but its almost 2 am and my cat is asleep on my feet so I guess im trapped here.

#while I was looking through dress patterns online I saw one for a French victorian ball gown and tbh I was tempted #I thought about doing a gingham dress since its a picnic party but I thought that linings the little squares would be too much work and #next to impossible #thanks for coming to my ted talk #April 2021 daily #2021 daily #im obsessed with how the lady folded my yards of fabric into neat little squares

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bigklingy · 6 years

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Pokemon Generation Thoughts

Since a blog I follow did this, I thought I’d do mine. Gen 1:

Pros: -The one that started it all. -How crazily into it kids at school were. -Gym Leaders were pretty memorable. -For the time, a good twist for the final battle. -Glitches are fun to mess with. -The crit formula based on base speed was actually kind of interesting. Cons: -Incredibly glitchy, to the point where speedrunners keep finding more and more insane ways to break the game. Spawning item balls that are also trainers that are actually wild Pokemon?! Making a sign give you an Eevee?! Beating the game in 0:00?!?! I know these are glitches you’re unlikely to find without intentionally trying, but there are MANY game-breaking ones you’re very likely to encounter by accident. -Very unbalanced battle system. Psychic types are broken, some moves were coded badly and worse than useless (Focus Energy QUARTERED your crit rate), X Accuracy + OHKOs destroys the game, Wrap/Fire Spin etc were extremely annoying. -Most of the Pokemon haven’t aged well stat-wise. Gen 2: Pros: -I liked the Johto region. -Greatly fixed a lot of Gen 1′s gameplay, far less glitches. -Split Special into Special Attack and Special Defense. -Introduced breeding. -Had another entire region for the postgame, with 8 more badges. -Normal trainers have names now! Phone numbers gave them a bit of personality. -You can actually delete HMs now! -You can catch both mascot legendaries regardless of your game. Cons: -Most of the new Pokemon are extremely mediocre or outright terrible, with very few good ones (stat-wise). -IMO, second worst starters in the series. Typhlosion’s stats are directly copied from Charizard, why?? -The “split path” after the 4th badge, where you could get the 5th, 6th and 7th badges in any order, was a good idea in theory but not well implemented. Whichever path you take last ends up horribly underleveled. -Low levels overall, leading to a fairly easy main story. -Kanto is horribly balanced, almost everything is a joke for the point you have access to it. -Until Crystal, phone calls were generic and boring. In all versions though, phone calls get very annoying. -Cross-gen trading is clunky and awkward, you had to manually delete any move that didn’t exist in Gen 1. -Introduced roaming legendaries. Gen 3: Pros: -Nice graphical upgrade. -Abilities, Natures and the revamped EV system add more strategy to battling. -Introduced a new way to play in Double Battles. -The Hoenn region is pretty nice if you ignore the water areas. Some cool new area concepts we haven’t seen before, like deserts and volcanoes. -Significant plot differences between versions now. -Emerald’s Battle Frontier is very fun. Cons: -Loss of compatibility with older versions, meaning that a huge number of old Pokemon weren’t available until Kanto remakes. -Hoenn in general went really crazy with required HM usage. WHY DID THEY MAKE ROCK SMASH AN HM! -Vanilla Ruby/Sapphire have the worst postgame in the entire series by far. (Just a Battle Tower and one roaming legend) Fixed in Emerald and slightly fixed in the remakes. -Team Magma and Aqua were lame and unmemorable. Fixed in the remakes. -Introduction of version-exclusive legendaries. -Champions excluded, Hoenn probably has the worst Elite Four in the series, with incredibly boring, repetitive teams. -Completing the national dex was insanely convoluted, as Pokemon were split up across multiple games and spinoffs. You needed at bare minimum 4 games, a Gamecube and a Gamecube to GBA cable to do it. Gen 4: Pros: -Physical/Special split, increasing the viability of a lot of Pokemon. -Introduced WiFi, making trading MUCH easier. -Expanded the TM list, allowing for more options. -Most of the new Pokemon introduced had good stats and movepools. My favourite new batch of Pokemon. -Gave much-needed evolutions to many mediocre old Pokemon. -The “route split” where you can choose whether to fight Maylene or Wake 3rd, was kind of well-done. -Best starters in the series imo. Cons: -Diamond and Pearl are PAINFULLY SLOW. Both on the field and in battle. Saving takes forever. Surfing is horrendous. Platinum fixed some of this though. -Diamond and Pearl’s regional dex is horrible. Only one Fire type besides the starters, some of the newly-introduced Pokemon aren’t even in the dex! -And they made some very questionable choices to go with it. Protip: if your regional dex only has two Fire type lines, you PROBABLY shouldn’t have a Fire type Elite Four member. -Team Galactic and Cyrus are my least favourite villains by far. Their plot is a giant mess and it’s not paced well. I could go into more detail, of all their encounters before the halfway point, only one has any bearing on their main goal. The rest are just random acts of villainy for no reason. The Grunts don’t even know what the bosses are planning. -Main story is badly paced, HUGE drought between badges 2 and 3 (fixed in Platinum), and the massive level jump between Gym 8 and the Elite 4 forces a ton of grinding right at the very end (also fixed in Platinum) -No random online battling. -GTS is a mess, only trade via online forums or chatrooms. -Worst Safari Zone in the series by far. -The snow routes are awful. Good music though. Gen 5: Pros: -The fresh start the series desperately needed. -A regional dex of all new Pokemon. -Most new Pokemon have VERY good stats. -Main adventure is very balanced overall. Pokemon are available at just the right times, for the most part (Larvesta and Deino are exceptions) -Introduction of exp scaling, making it hard to get too overleveled during the main story and letting you more easily train low-level Pokemon to Lv 50 in the postgame. -HMs, besides one forced use of Cut, are entirely optional. Thank Arceus. -Gym Leaders are decently challenging, and actually do things in the story. -Some of the best storylines and characters in a Pokemon game. -Awesome twist on the formula at the end. -BW2 are full sequels instead of 3rd versions. Add new areas.. -BW2 has the best balance of old vs new in a regional dex, with an almost exactly 50/50 split. Some old Pokemon are given fresh new spins, like Riolu and Eevee being catchable early in the game. -BW2 has probably the best postgame in the series. -PWT is an awesome callback and a pretty fun battle facility. -Battle Facilities in general stopped cheating as much as they used to. -Added Shiny Charm, giving a non-cosmetic reward for completing the Dex. Cons: -Competitive metagame was kind of a mess, Smogon had to make several complex bans to try and keep everything under control. Mostly only applies to Singles though. -Introduced random online battles, but Ragequitting was rampant. -Introduced Triple and Rotation Battles, but were very under-used and barely anyone plays them competitively. -Worst starters in the series imo. -The Unova region is very linear and, at least in BW1, a quarter of it is postgame-only. -BW2′s plot was far more standard for a Pokemon game. -Some of the new Pokemon evolve at painfully high levels, which got bad when they showed up earlier in later games. Gen 6:

Pros: -First full 3D main series game. -I kind of like Kalos as a region. -Added Fairy type, helping nerf Dragons. (Though they might have gone overboard, Fairy is now kind of overpowered) -The starters are pretty good. -Ruby/Sapphire remakes were nice. -Added tons of nice Quality-Of-Life features, especially making breeding and EV training WAY easier and more accessible. -WiFi is amazing, especially the PSS. -A lot of Pokemon available in the dex. -Sycamore is a cool professor. Shame he wasn’t the Champion. -You won’t know it if you use the Exp Share, but basic trainers are actually very challenging, often having smart movesets and strategies, even egg moves. Try a no-exp share run sometime. These are actually among the hardest Pokemon games if you do. -The postgame Looker quest actually has a better story than the main game.

Cons: -Game Freak did a total 180 on their stance with Gen 5, and decided Pokemon would now be all about the old rather than the new. The games began a trend of GF extensively pandering to Genwunners at the expense of actual new stuff. Very few new Pokemon, all of them almost intentionally made rare. It almost felt like GF was ASHAMED of them, and had to hide them from the wrath of the Genwunners. Other pandering included a direct rehash of Viridian Forest, Snorlax, and a forced first encounter with a Pidgey. Not a new Pokemon, a Pidgey. -Worst tutorials in the series. It’s possible to catch a full team of 6... AND THEN BE GIVEN THE CAPTURE TUTORIAL. -Way too many rivals. Tierno and Trevor are barely there, and Calem/Serena feels undeveloped. -Team Flare are my second least-favourite evil team. They shouldn’t have bothered trying to hide Lysandre as the villain, it was so obvious. -Early pacing issues. Big gap between Gyms 1 and 2 (could’ve easily been solved by making Clemont Leader 2), Team Flare plot doesn’t start until pretty late in. -Worst Champion in the entire series. -Most Gym Leaders and all the E4 not named Seibold are jokes. (XY are weird in that on a challenge run, you’ll be steamrolling the bosses but getting destroyed by basic trainers) -THE EXP SHARE IS HORRIFICALLY BROKEN. Have it on all game, and you’ll be overleveling everyone by 20-30. It ruins what would otherwise be a pretty challenging game. -Kalos Route 13 is the worst route in Pokemon history. -THEY BROUGHT BACK SINNOH’S STICKING MUD, WHY?! -Sky Battles and Inverse Battles are really underused for something they spent a lot of effort marketing. Neither can be done in multiplayer. Sky Battles limited to a bunch of one-time trainers, Inverse Battles limited to only one. Neither can be done in multiplayer. -Controversial opinion, but I actually really hate Super Training. The EVs/Time ratio is way too small to be worth it, horde battles are far better. I only use it to finish off the last couple of EVs on a spread. -Mega Evolution is a mixed bag. It makes some weaker Pokemon useful (Beedrill, Kangaskhan, Charizard), but also makes some already good Pokemon even better (Scizor, Metagross, Gengar, Lucario, SALAMENCE). This means a lot of the more interesting Mega options go unused because you can only have one Mega slot. Evidence of not just popularity power, but more Genwunner pandering is on display. I like Charizard and Mewtwo, but I don’t think they needed two Megas. And NO Gen 5 Megas at all, and even after ORAS only one? (And it’s terrible?) -No new non-Uber legendaries, instead re-using, you guessed it, the Gen 1 legendaries. Gen 7:

Pros: -NO MORE HMs, FINALLY! -More new Pokemon than Gen 6. Each new Pokemon is given at least one unique gameplay trait, which is cool. -Alola is a pretty nice region. -Story and characters are great. Not as good as BW but a big step up from XY. -Team Skull are hilarious, playing all the unintentionally funny things about past evil teams for intentional comedy, almost acting as a bit of self-aware parody. -Genwunner pandering is less evident. Yeah only Gen 1 Pokes got Alolan Forms, but most of them needed upgrades anyway. NPCs from all gens get cameos, not just Gen 1 NPCs. -The Big Bad of vanilla Sun/Moon is a great villain. -The Exp Share is actually kind of balanced now, oddly enough. -Some of the trials are great boss fights, even better than most Gyms. -Poke Pelago’s “EV Bake Oven” allows for easy EV training. Cons: -Went back on a lot of Gen 6′s good multiplayer features. Festival Plaza is confusing and terrible. -Removed horde battles, replacing them with the extremely annoying SOS Battles. This also means EV training is a lot harder. Poke Pelago is good, but it’s non-interactive. -The first island is very hand-holdy and takes a while. -Island 3 feels oddly small for how big it’s supposed to be. -Still not THAT many new Pokemon. -Crabrawler and Charjabug’s evolution methods are DUMB, making them useless for the main story despite being catchable early. -USUM ruined Sun/Moon’s Big Bad’s characterization. Overall favourite to least-favourite: Gen 5 Gen 2 Gen 7 Gen 3 Gen 1 Gen 6 Gen 4 (But my favourite for competitive battling)

#Pokemon #Opinions #Thoughts #Generation 1 #Generation 2 #Generation 3 #Generation 4 #Generation 5 #Generation 6 #Generation 7

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simmancy · 6 years

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I was wondering how you first started your berry legacy? Did you make a new simblr for it? How did you first start posting and getting into a routine? I really want to make a legacy myself but i'm scared that it would look really mediocre and unorganized! Any tips on how to plan out the storyline and start posting? Thank you!! (asking this to a few different blogs so sorry if yo see this question somewhere else)

I’m honestly super honored that you’re asking me! I’m still a pretty small simblr compared to a lot of people.

I’m going to put this under a cut, just so it doesn’t clutter up people’s dashes because I RAMBLE (like seriously, I’m re-reading it all now and I go on and on and on) but I’m gonna cover everything you asked!

TL;DR: get mildly inspired, get involved in the community and have fun with it!

I cannot recommending creating a new blog enough. While it’s definitely easier to just create a sub-blog off your personal, you’ll have a harder go at keeping things separate once things take off. Plus then you probably won’t have ALL your million tumblr things that you’re already following mixed in with your sim stuff, making things so much harder to follow.

Once you start your simblr (whether a sub-blog or whole new tumblr), TAG EVERYTHING. XKIT SAVES LIVES. Not really, but it will save you a lot of time once you install the Quick Tags and make tag bundles. Seriously.

At least once a day, a “reblog if you’re a maxis match simblr” thing comes across my dash–don’t be afraid to reblog those when you’re starting out. (Or the alpha equivalent if that’s your thing).

Seriously, don’t be afraid to reach out to people and get involved. Ask for sim requests, reply to things, join a Discord server–don’t be afraid to talk to people! I’ve actually made a few good friends this time around. It’s awesome.

This is just one of the unfortunate realities about things–if your pictures look good, you’ll get noticed quicker and blah blah. You can get by on just writing, but it’s a lot harder. This is still tumblr. It’s microblogging. LOOOOONG text posts (like this one lmao) are not what it’s geared towards.

Anyway. I play TS4 on Ultra, and that does a lot of work for me. Sometimes all you really need to do is sharpen and brighten things up. Reshade is another good alternative, if your computer can handle it–that takes a lot of the decision making out because it edits for you! I used to use PickyPikachu’s reshade presets. The downside is that it’s pretty resource heavy.

The basic point here is that having good lookin’ pictures goes a long way to making your stuff look “not mediocre.”

Also, and this is a side thing–find a good theme for your simblr, something that looks good for both text posts and pictures, probably something with either a sidebar or header (or both).

This is the meat of the section and it’s all really Kit/Pastille-specific.

I started up the Pastel Pastilles because I saw Berry’s challenge–I had already read Splash of Color a long time ago, and had a (now obviously abandoned) TS3 rainbowcy. But TS4 was fun and ran like a beast and I liked berry sims, so I dove in. If you were to go back in my archives, though, you’d see that I started posting a TS3 LEPacy, and that’s not even my first one.

I’m not going to even talk about the Grims in this post, since they’re really new. But they’re a prime example of using community involvement to stay interested haha. I’m very excited to play with Ruby and her future family because of all the nice sims people sent for her to eat alive become friends with.

Planning with the Pastilles

With the Pastilles, I honestly got a little tipsy one night and did my initial planning based around Halsey’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. Like… Not even gonna lie. That was honestly my starting point. You can almost see hints of this in some places. From there, I had certain scenes I wanted to hit.

Gen 1 - Luna - “Hopeless”; it’s about being in a shitty relationship and hoping that changes lmao (“I hope hopeless changes over time”). Luna and Dianthus were meant to have a much more obviously toxic relationship but Luna ended up having four kids by her second pregnancy and I just couldn’t play and write that fast. However, I always knew that Luna’s big moment would be telling Dianthus to get out.

Gen 2 - Verity Vine - “Now or Never”/“100 Letters” - There are a couple things that have stayed consistent in this gen: Veri and her dreams, the peach spouse’s dad was gonna be a dick and they would be separated for years, and they were gonna hook back up at a wedding.

My very first concept was that Riesling was going to be a bit more wishy-washy and bend to his father’s will (hence “Now or Never” being the song). By the middle of the generation, it was clear that Veri would become the distant one (“he said ‘please don’t go away,’ I said ‘it’s too late’”).

Part of writing a sims legacy sometimes is… letting the sims do the writing for you. Meri and Forest weren’t supposed to be the ones getting married (it was supposed to be Chai Tea and Black Cherry) and they definitely weren’t supposed to have the twins but honestly the story is better for it, you know? And obv most of Veriling’s story isn’t the way I initially planned.

All this said, once I knew where I wanted the story to go, I knew I wanted to plan around a few set-pieces: the fountain scene where Riesling trips onto Veri and she realizes “OH SHIT,” the scene where Eiswein walks in, Punk!Veri’s “I don’t dream at all anymore,” and Riesling’s “Hi, I’m Riesling Puck, you might recognize me from your dreams.” Those were all scenes I knew I HAD to get.

Gen 3 - ??? - “Angel on Fire” - it’s about anxiety lmao so I don’t mind linking it, it’s pretty obvious. Gen 3 has an anxious heir, a song about anxiety was on the nose.

I don’t really recommend the getting tipsy part, but definitely do recommend going in with a basic concept.

The cool thing about challenges is that you already have the guidelines as a starting point. One of my favorite parts about this challenge in particular is seeing how people re-interpret the rules–for instance compare the Gumdrops, Frosts, Amours, Pastilles, Fairyflosses, Prisms–we all started from the same basic rules and there’s still a lot of variation, especially once you get past the initial introductions.

Also, SERIOUSLY: don’t be afraid to take inspiration from crazy places–a song you heard on the radio, a movie, your own life, whatever. Like, I decided Veri’s generation would have it’s first Act at Oxtail University because of the “dream of ivy covered walls and smoky french cafes” line in “Beautiful” (from the Heathers musical). The song otherwise has VERY LITTLE to do with Gen 2. It’s just that line became a starting point for me.

Keeping Things Lookin’ Snazzy with the Pastilles

Looking back, you can kind of see Gen 1 was a bit brighter and lighter/different in editing style than Gen 2. I purposefully set out to get a “dreamy” feel for Gen 2′s pictures. It works for me and the Pastilles–it might not for your legacy! Play around with things to see what works.

I’ve also noticed a lot of banners nowadays (they weren’t as big my first go around here on simblr, but they’re everywhere now). I think that helps to keep things “on brand,” organized and consistent too. I personally don’t use a banner for the Pastilles–I didn’t start with one, and now it looks super wrong to me when I try to use one…. So instead, I’d recommend looking at @frost-rainbowcy–she is SUPER on-brand. I can only aspire to reach that level of #a e s t h e t i c.

HOWEVER, I do keep everything on my blog hyper-organized–there’s a main page where everything’s pretty much linked, and the character page.

TBH, you don’t need to go that in-depth. I just like leaving weird easter eggs in places. You might too.

Posting Consistently

So, I started posting the Pastilles officially almost a week after I made the first post with Luna. That’s because I played a BUNCH right at the beginning, so I’d have something consistent to post for a while. It wasn’t initially as story-heavy as it is now. That’s something you probably want to decide before you start posting.

Right now, I’m posting inconsistently because I’m trying to wait around for Cats and Dogs and not give into the temptation to give Veri and Ries the babies they keep wishing for, but….

I’m in game almost every day–I get off work most days between 2 and 4 now, so by 6 PM I’ve eaten/showered/started up TS4. Even if it’s just to make a sim for someone.

I tend to do all my picture editing on Sundays, as it’s my day off. Sometimes it bleeds over into Monday, my other day off. I don’t always write posts up those days, but I at least stick them in the queue so they’re THERE. For me, it helps giving myself that weird deadline lmao

As a result, I almost always have something queued up.

I utilize the queue like MAD. Right now it’s set at 6 posts a day between 3 PM and 12 AM EST, but I change it up depending on what I have going on and what I can crank out. Usually I leave it on 13 posts a day.

Basically, learn what works for you. It does take some trial and error, but you’ll get it eventually.

Now here’s the real truth: you won’t post consistently if you don’t love your game or your sims.

I love playing the Pastilles as much as I love writing them. To the point that I have them backed up in several places just in case. I’m genuinely attached to the family, and that makes it worth it to me. Sometimes that doesn’t happen immediately (I love Luna, and Vino, and even Dianthus that shitbag, but you can tell that I got invested with Veri and Ries–Gen 1 is 30 pages long on my blog. Gen 2 is 92 and counting).

Storywise, I stay interested because I love the fluffy romance bits and snappy dialogue as much as the Drama Bombs, and also (spoilers) I’m a sucker for supernatural stuff. So I tailored my legacy to fit that.

But when I don’t want to play sometimes I just go in game, grab a few pictures of them in CAS and redo the character page for the 25th time. And that’s okay too. I just always try to make sure I have something to post, even if it’s a small (even if it’s just Riesling’s face. Because I know that’s what y’all want. It’s cool. I get it).

I seriously rambled a lot, but I hope this helps!! Once you get started, please let me know too! I’m rooting for you, non, and any nons to come after you.

#ask #simblr tips #oh gosh i am genuinely so stoked to answer this haha #Anonymous #I️ need to edit this is the morning it’s 2:30 AM and I need to sleep haha

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