#the game that i beat and DID fucking do all the achievements for and epic didnt count one of them (fuck you)

[castielafflicted]

so when I started Chants of Sennaar at like 10:30pm I did not intend to beat the whole game but uh. turns out it is in fact 7am somehow. I took a break for a little bit but uh. I did get 100% achievements in 7 hours and 30 minutes because that's just how it goes I guess?

anyways I love you language games <3

#zeph posting #it was rly fun and i recommend it #i didnt like the end as much as the rest of the game but thats okay. i didnt dislike it which is what matters #better than fuckin. uhhh. filament. #the game that i beat and DID fucking do all the achievements for and epic didnt count one of them (fuck you) #and hated the ending so much that i regretted playing the game #it was so fucking disappointing #this game however. did not have a disappointing at all ending #it just wasnt where i thought it was going and i wished there was a little bit more

[reikarimaaa]

:: Harami’s personal Murdoc headcanons dump ::

Harami’s hitch-notes humaNiA :

hey, it’s Harami!1! maybe I could try a consistent schedule… on my dumps I think. i like different styles, and i haven’t got one that i’d consistently stick to atm, so enjoy these experimental ones for now. okey? okey (also I accept requests, please im bored af) also there will always be a tiny bit of russdoc in my Russel/ Murdoc posts (just a little I swear)

// uh, cussing, talks of past rape and substance/ alcohol/ child abuse, slight nsfw, tiny bit of russdoc, and tampering with someone’s CGM which Harami absolutely does not condone! Also! Phase 1 centric, unless specified. //

Murdoc was the one that cut Noodle’s hair for the 5/4 video

Noodle was bribed to do so, and when she didn’t exactly like the hair no more, Murdoc bought Noodle her iconic helmet

(and a Walkman as a bonus, this was in one of my previous headcanon dumps)

as in one of my previous hc dumps, I have stated that Russel and Murdoc first met during their school days

and they interacted during a school collaboration, with the two pitted against eachother in tug-of-war, guess who won

sometimes when he’s had a nightmare of his past rape, he’ll either ask Russel to come to him

or attempt to sneakily enter the drummer’s bedroom and sleep near him instead and attempt to big spoon the big man and epically fail

and if Murdoc’s nightmare was too much, he’ll start crying and asking out for Russel

and when the drummer arrives, he tries to comfort the bassist and tell him to let it all out

the two cuddle with each other for the rest of the night, Murdoc burying his face into Russel’s chest, feeling his warm heartbeat

when D-Day happened, he was dangerously high on alcohol and the crash severely impacted the two

if Murdoc did finish another sip of wine before it happened, it’d be game over for the bassist before he achieved stardom

his relationship with Russel is quite an intimate yet secret one iykyk russdoc shippers, I see you

so when it’s just the two of them, they’ll get all lovey-dovey, but when they’re in public, they tone down the PDA as much as possible with some exceptions.. . Murdoc horny lol

Murdoc has attempted to claw at Russel’s CGM once, (this is explained in my Russel headcanon dump. also don’t do this! It’s dangerous!)

and he still apologizes to Russel about that until this day, even if the band has mostly forgotten about it.

during interviews that little Noodle is also in, he’d constitute cussing like shit for kid-friendly terms like shoeshine or fuck to fickle yes this is creative

due to his quite abusive childhood, he’ll try to act all tough before eventually cowering when someone of higher strength outwits him or worse

and whenever he gets into fights, Russel is there to fix his ‘boo-boo’s’ as he says, russel really is the dad here

whenever Murdoc’s head is pounding bad, he’d take an unhealthy amount of aspirin and painkillers

and he keeps some crack and weed stashed under one of the drawers in his Winnebago in case pain killers ain’t doing their job well enough

he once let Noodle paint the outsides of his Winnebago, never again

lots of bites, hickeys, kisses and licking when in bed and you end up smelling like alcohol and drugs the next morning even if you hadn’t done any of them

sometimes when Murdoc wants to get away from it all, he’ll bring either Noodle or Russel out for a night stroll

just to have a little bit of bonding together, stargazing, talking, whatever

Murdoc’s envious that the fans seem to be liking 2-D more than himself, so he regularly beats him up just to make him seem more ugly even if the end result isn’t exactly what he envisioned, he also just does it for the thrill

whenever either Russel or Murdoc wants to engage in sex but the other is too tired to do so, they usually settle for cock warming or intimate fondling

— hearts , Harami

#gorillaz headcanons #gorillaz imagines #harami’s headcanon humania #russdoc #russel gorillaz #russel hobbs #russel x murdoc #murdoc gorillaz #murdoc niccals #2 d gorillaz #2d gorillaz #noodle #noodle gorillaz #gorillaz #Reika’s writing

[itsclydebitches]

God I'm so glad to talk about the game lmao. I also finished it! It was fine Ig I think the start of the game was so fantastic so my expectations were a bit much but it was fun! I loved playing as Ciri and just zapping all over the place, wish we could do that more.

But yeah I completely agree with you on basically everything that you said lmaooo, Yen is just unbareable the more I learn about her and the things shes done/the way she treats ppl, I just don't see what I'm meant to like, even if Geralt wasn't the Best person, he deserves so so much better, Idk how I'm gonna read the books if this romance is canon there too, hopefully it won't bother me too much. She so far doesn't really have any redeeming qualities, even her small moments of humour and wit are sort of "yeah okay but it's not fun when you do it cause you just spent the past few moments berating someone for daring to try and help you so like" I actually ended up sort of liking triss the more I talked with her and Yen, she at least apologises for her wrongs (which are still massive holy shit) and doesn't rly treat geralt like shit (same with Kiera, I think thats how her name is spelt, shes cool), they both kinda fuck over geralt but they own up to it which I can at least respect, still not a fan but they're okay, at times. God the women in this game are either really fucking cool or just a bitch, usually in a not fun way The game came with both dlcs! havent really touched them cause the ending was a bitttt of a let down, I thought I wasn't near finishing cause I put it off for so long lol so my bad, probably will get into them tho! And im on ps4 so no mods :( the exp shit would be so good, the last boss fights were really easy though? I think I was level 34 (I wanted to wear my good armour lol) and the quests are level 28 so maybe I was a bit over leveled but some random mobs in world beat my ass just before the main quests so idk lol. Do you get to hang with Ciri at all post game? They're so damn cute together

Out of curiosity which ending did you get? I was pretty satisfied overall (witcher!Ciri ending for me) but I remember thinking that the last couple of plot points were pretty rushed. Though tbh, looking back I’m not sure if that’s actually the case, or if things just felt fast to me because I missed so much buildup trying to keep track of the basics. Now that I know the characters, world, conflicts, etc. I keep coming across lines and details that make me go, “Oh, THAT’S what we were referring to!” for plot points that previously felt like they came out of nowhere.

Playing Ciri is so much fun though. I enjoy zapping around as well...even when I accidentally zap myself into some guy's sword XD

I’m constantly told Yen gets better in the books (something, something major character development) and I’d be lying if I said that “The Last Wish” didn’t turn me off, but I personally stopped reading due to more than just Yen. The epic just didn’t grab me. The short stories absolutely, but I didn’t like the writing as much in novel form, heard a lot about future plot points I had no interest in/made me very uncomfortable, didn’t want to read a bunch of Yen being Yen prior just to getting a development I may or may not like… there was a lot that made me drop the books, so I’m not exactly in the best position to be recommending them, or even warning against them from an unbiased perspective lol. I might give them another shot sometime, but for now I’m happy with the games and fandom content.

I’m liking Triss a lot more on my second playthrough too (especially how selfless she is regarding the other mages) and I always liked Keira. I think the game did a good job of making her kinda selfish and manipulative (as sorceresses are wont to be in this world), but not to such an extent that you’re utterly repulsed by her actions. Her conflict is “I want to not live in squalor the rest of my days and am willing to mislead a friend to achieve that. Also foolishly trust a mad king that, if I go through with it, ends in my horrific death.” With the resolution being like, “Oh, someone else will give me a place of safety with something as basic as clean bedding? Sweet! Yeah, now that I have some security, company, and comfort I’ll use this research to cure a plague, nbd.” Keira is a great example of TW3’s argument that if you choose to help and nurture people, good things will happen for everyone, and it doesn’t ask you to ignore anything really awful to get there. I can very much stomach “You kept some info from me and put me to sleep for the night” in a way that’s far harder to do with, “You actively misled me for months while I had amnesia, cultivating this fantasy relationship” or “You callously disregard another’s culture and torture our daughter’s friend through necromancy.”

Depending on the choices you’ve already made, you can hang out with Ciri for like, one cut scene in the DLCs lol. But it’s indeed a cute one! Basically, if you didn’t romance either Triss or Yen and Ciri is still alive, you should see her again. I’m absolutely that fan that if CDPR decided, after this many years, to randomly add more TW3 content, I would in no way be opposed. I want more time with Ciri, with Regis, there’s a character from the second game named Iorveth who was supposed to reappear in TW3 but had to be cut and that tragedy will forever haunt me. Forget the mess that is Cyberpunk, just keep making more Witcher content!

#witcher

[itsbenedict]

I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop 

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch. 

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over. 

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense. 

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime. 

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though) 

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

#game rec #also some game non recs #long post

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Senator Armstrong

(WARNING! This analysis contains MAJOR SPOILERS! Hell, just knowing Armstrong is the ultimate final boss is kind of a spoiler.)

The Metal Gear series is known for quite a few things: ridiculous over-the-top characters, complex and entertaining villains, awesome boss battles, and just generally being absolutely insane while also being very philosophical and deep. Now imagine, if you will, if all of those things congealed together into a single character. That, my friends, is Senator Armstrong, the final boss of Metal Gear Rising and easily one of the greatest characters in the entire franchise. He only has the cutscenes prior to his boss fight to establish himself, but I guarantee that you will never forget this man after you’ve beaten him.

Actor: Armstrong is portrayed by Alastair Duncan, who you may know as Alfred Pennyworth from The Batman, Mimir from the 2018 God of War, or Councilor Sparatus from Mass Effect. To say he does an incredible job is an understatement; his performance is easily the most hilariously quotable one in a franchise where nearly every single character is hilariously quotable.

Motivation/Goals: For a villain who comes almost entirely out of nowhere, he sure does deliver a very well thought out speech about his true motives:

"'I have a dream.' That one day every person in this nation will control their own destiny. A nation of the truly free, dammit. A nation of action, not words, ruled by strength, not committee! Where the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the people! Where every man is free to think — to act — for himself! Fuck all these limp-dick lawyers and chickenshit bureaucrats. Fuck this 24-hour Internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit! Fuck American pride! Fuck the media! FUCK ALL OF IT! America is diseased. Rotten to the core. There's no saving it — we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The weak will be purged and the strongest will thrive — free to live as they see fit, they'll make America great again! ... In my new America, people will die and kill for what they BELIEVE! Not for money. not for oil! Not for what they're told is right. Every man will be free to fight his own wars!"

Now, for those who don’t quite understand, let me explain: Armstrong wishes to end war as a business and create a Social Darwinist utopia, where all the citizens of America fight their own battles and the strong survive while the weak perish. From a certain point of view, his arguments actually do make sense, and considering America, and by extension the world, were until recently controlled by the whims of the Patriot AI, it’s not hard to see where he’s coming from. For what it’s worth, he very much despises the Patriots; in fact, Armstrong is ideologically quite similar to fellow Patriot-hating politician George Sears, AKA Solidus Snake, who coincidentally Raiden also fought. Hell, much like Solidus, Armstrong also has some connection to the creation of child soldiers.

Of course, it needs to be noted that while Armstrong definitely makes a good case, he is also a bonafide anti-villain. For those who need clarification, TVTropes describes an anti-villain as “a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately villainous. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there are evil. Alternatively, their desired ends are evil, but on a personal level they are far more ethical or moral than most villains and they thus use fairly benign means to achieve it, and can be heroic on occasion. They could also be someone or something whose desired ends or means are not necessarily ‘evil’ at all, but their actions simply conflict with that of whoever seems to be the protagonist.” While he does have good intentions and seems to genuinely want to better his country, the fact he resorts to terrorist actions, child soldiers, and ridiculous levels of violence makes him clearly the bad guy.

Personality: Armstrong’s personality is very, very intense. He is a man capable of delivering the most impassioned, honest speeches you will ever hear from a politician… and according to him, he doesn’t even write his own speeches! He is loud, he’s brash, he’s proud, he curses up a storm, but he also has lines he won’t cross and shows nothing but respect for those he fights, and when he beats Sam in the DLC storyline and when Raiden defeats him, he has nothing but respect for the men. It’s honestly impressive how they could cram so much nuanced personality into a man that is maybe onscreen for twenty minutes tops.

Final Fate: Of course, as is the fate of any politician who thinks he can beat Raiden, he is not only killed, but has his heart ripped out by Raiden and crushed in his hands.

Best Scene: The entirety of his speech to Raiden, where he explains his entire plan. Mostly for the fact that Raiden is likely as stunned by all of this as any first-time player.

Best Quote: Literally everything out of this man’s mouth is golden; there’s a reason he’s one of the most quoted, meme-worthy characters in one of the most quotable, meme-worthy games of all time. But credit where credit is due, his immortal words to Raiden as he kicks him like a football and apparently rips a hole in the fourth wall that lets in the cheering of a stadium crowd stand out:

“Don’t fuck with this senator!”

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: Armstrong is an easy 10/10. But why is that? Well, beyond his personality, which basically consumes your attention, there’s a lot of symbolism to his final match with Raiden.

Firstly, there is the fact his philosophy is very similar to Raiden’s mentor’s philosophy. Much like Solid Snake, Armstrong sees a world where soldiers fight and die for causes they don’t believe in, and citizens being suppressed by meaningless, trivial garbage. The philosophies fork from there: Snake wished for a world of peace, where there would be no need for fighting anymore, while Armstrong wishes for a world of freedom, where all people choose to fight the battles that they want, where they decide what is worth fighting for and what isn’t. Armstrong knows he could never end all war; he just wants those who put their lives at stake to be doing it for good reasons, and not to line the pockets of bureaucrats. As Raiden carries on Snake’s philosophy in his own way, this is sort of a test of Armstrong’s ideologies, to see whose vision is truly worth upholding in this world.

This brings us into the symbolism of the fight itself, which is set up like a political debate, though of course one tailored to Armstrong’s “Might Makes Right” philosophy. Armstrong is running for president in 2020, so is it not fitting that he defend his viewpoints the way he believes they ought to be defended as the final great debate on the way to the presidency? There’s also the inherent symbolism in the weak vs. the strong, with Raiden representing all the long-suffering American people and Armstrong representing the politicians who prey on the weak. He is still a politician, and his philosophy outright values the strong over the weak, so Raiden is something for a voice for the voiceless, a hero to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. Raiden in the battle represents what true strength should be: a tool of justice, used to protect those who cannot protect themselves, while Armstrong of course represents his own philosophies.

And of course, there is the fact that in the end, Armstrong s very much the shadow archetype to Raiden, a dark reflection of what he could be. As you may have noted, ultimately Raiden and Armstrong’s philosophies aren’t entirely different from each other. This is even pointed out in the song that plays over his battle, the epic “It Has To Be This Way.” The lyrics are as follows:

Standing here, I realize

You were just like me, trying to make history.

But who's to judge the right from wrong?

When our guard is down, I think we'll both agree

That violence breeds violence,

But in the end it has to be this way.

I've carved my own path, you've followed your wrath,

But maybe we're both the same.

The world has turned, and so many have burned,

But nobody is to blame.

Yet staring across this barren wasted land

I feel new life will be born beneath the bloodstained sand.

Beneath the bloodstained sand!

Armstrong isn’t just brilliant because he’s a hardcore badass whose every line is quotable and who is souped up on NANOMACHINES, SON! Armstrong is brilliant because of how he symbolically contrasts Raiden’s own philosophy and, even if he is ultimately defeated, has passed on some of his philosophy to Raiden in a way. Did Raiden not prove his philosophy was the correct one by killing Armstrong? Did Raiden not just fight for what he believed in, fought a war to prove the superiority of what he believed in?

Alongside Ocelot, the antagonizing forces of the Metal Gear series just didn’t get better than this.

#Psycho Analysis #Senator Armstrong #Metal Gear Rising #Revengeance #Spoilers #Speelers

[tfw-no-tennis]

huntoxhunto

we watched 2 whole more eps but we’re abt to vacay so i better recap this biz now before i forget

ok so we finished the zoldyck arc and uhhhh gotta say we werent expecting like any of that to happen lol 

ok ill back up so we start w/killuas mom (i dont think we ever heard her name) confronting gon & co....and canary (i lov her) is not dead which i assumed but thank goodness. 

zoldyck mom was totally using nen. also she is off her rocker gotta say. tho that visor is super cool, albeit confusing - is it connected to a bunch of security cameras or something? how does she see all that shit? 

granpa is wild. his tunic thing that says ‘one kill a day’ or w/e is kinda hilarious, it reminds me of the ‘apple a day keeps the dr away’ saying...a murder a day keeps the....idk away????

i love that killua makes it abundantly clear that he couldve like escaped at any time lol. also tho why didnt he just escape....baby boy just leave 

killua getting all serious and threatening milluki if he messes with gon....my boys got it BAD 

this family has so many communication issues hvbjadkfbjaskdfj nobody is on the same page at all 

the butler guy continued to remind me of kuro one piece this whole time...i was waiting for him to bust out the ridiculous cat claws

oh my GOD wait the flashbacks of EVEN BABIER KILLUA were so precious ;_; he was soooo tiny and cute oh my god. so precious. and canary was also so tiny and cute 

baby killua really just wanted a friend :(((( and canary wanted to be friends w/him but knew that mom zoldyck would kill her if she overstepped like that :( thats so tragic mannnn

also canary is so cool man. her beating up all those guys was epic

ok that whole scene with killua and his dad was like, such a rollercoaster lmao

like....it was all over the place for me...first of all the ambiance was wack, the room lighting was weird and im p sure killuas seat was an electric chair??? and the dad was in a coffin thing..???? like....interesting aesthetic choices all over the place here 

also i see now where killua got his hair and also his catboy tendencies. the zoldyck catboy genes seem to trace back to zoldyck dad, who has kinda scary cat eyes 

also im guessing that the dad is the blood zoldyck and the mom is the one who married in. they sure seem to put a lot of emphasis on like, family legacy or w/e, but the two parents certainty go abt it in different ways 

the whole convo b/w killua and his dad was wild, it totally didnt go where i was expecting it to. his dad was weirdly chill while also being super intense? 

killua happily telling stories abt gon was so sweet....baby boy baby 

and his dad telling him ‘never betray your friends’ was rlly interesting...i wonder what his reasons were for saying that 

cause then he tells killua he can leave, and killua does, but then dad zoldyck tells mom zoldyck (i rlly need to find out their names) that he thinks killua will come back on his own time....inch resting 

i wonder if dad zoldyck made killua promise that bc he was trying to set killua up for failure - as in, he tells killua to never betray his friends, thinking that killua inevitably will & be distraught abt it, and then turn back to the zoldyck family when this happens. idk

also its interesting to me that zoldyck dad wants killua to lead the family someday. like, illumi is right there, hes the oldest and clearly dedicated to being an evil assassin, and he seems p good at it...i wonder why killua is the favorite....the grandpa (i think) did say that killua is Special(tm) which...yes he is a special baby boy i love him. i wanna see more zoldyck family flashbacks/interactions so we can see what led them to this point 

oh lord that reminds me of illumi briefly appearing in the killua flashback and hes just like, suddenly there, wearing some gay ass sweater....like ok dude did you just come back from the Evil Assassin Library or st?????

that reminds me too, ruth tells me that apparently in the manga illumi and hisoka got married or something???? to which i say, thats fucking wild, but also it makes sense, those two are both horrible and disgusting and they absolutely deserve each other hbvajvhsdfjbak peak evil nasty gay rep, i love it. i cant wait to see whatever the fuck the context to that is bc, thats fucking wild

ok back to the plot so like its so wild to me how smoothly everything went hvubsjduhfbjsh like....killuas dad was rlly like ok u can leave and killua just went to the butler house and then canary woke up and was like ok gon & crew lets go to the butler house to see killua, fuck the rules, (and she didnt even get killed for ‘disobedience’ or w/e, or more likely - in most big shounen, she wouldve been attacked by the other evil butlers and gon wouldve had to fight them)

killua Rlly was like fuck this place im leaving my boyfriend and his parents are here to pick me up [puts on gayest outfit he owns and skateboards away] hvbhsjdfbjdkf

i love killuas weird gay preteen fashion so far and i cant wait to see more 

killua telling the butler guy to let him know as SOON as gon gets there cause he wants to see him AS SOON AS HE CAN ;_; bro they r....in love 

of course the butler is trickey tho lmao, any other shounen this wouldve turned into an 8 ep long fight scene sequence where gon has to fight the butlers in order to see killua 

and the of course gon is the same way, gon is like i need to see killua RIGHT NOW take me to him!!! ohhh my god babies

the whole coin game was wild, it was funny when the other butlers got involved too lmao 

when gon was like ‘hey leorio can i see your knife’ i was like OH NO I DONT LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING. and i was right bc OWWWWW baby boy oh my god!!!! but that seems to have solved it even tho thats NOT how swelling works at ALL- 

anyways gon is a cute smart good boy and i also find it funny how killua eventually gets impatient and just busts in on this whole dramatic situation (and the tension immediately deescalates as a result lmao) 

tangent but god its so funny seeing all these butler guys deferring to killua, an actual 12 yr old....i wanna see the hilarious and hijink-filled results of killua being raised as a rich spoiled assassin prince. thats a lethal combo thats gotta result in some wildly skewed perceptions on how things work, especially paired with gon ‘probably eats dirt for fun and sleeps in trees’ freecess 

godddd gon and killuas lil reunion is SOOO cute they were so happy to see each other ;_; bro they are SO cuteeeee augh. two tiny babies

killua being like oh hi also uh kurapika andddd [looks at smudged writing on hand] lorpo 

hvhhbajfbs dont do my man leorio like that killua hes a hardworking father 

the fact that they just like. LEAVE...thats so wild. i cant believe how little fighting this arc had. this all wrapped up SO much faster than i could have ever anticipated lmao 

where the heck was alluka!? i assumed she’d show up here but uhhhh guess not......in the silhouette shot of all the zoldycks she and killua were holding hands ;_; my fucking uwus bro 

we also didnt see the grandma or great grandpa so im guessing theyll appear later 

gon being like fuck it im not using my hunters license til i punch hisoka in the fucking face hvbhahsfbjsk thats hilarious 

also a convenient way to let him have his hunters license but not utilize it til later in the story...its so early for him to have achieved that big chunk of his goal, which just shows that hxh is Not your typical shounen and isnt gonna just be centered around gons quest to become a hunter 

so we finally found out what hisoka said to kurapika....just as i thought, it was st to do w/the phantom troupe. so theres a handy setup for the yorknew city arc later. bam 

hisoka just being like ‘hey meet me in this (presumably) very large city on this date. no i will not tell you where in the city to meet me. bye seeya there’ 

tbf hisoka is very hard to miss 

god when they arrive and kurapika is just like ok well we got killua so im out lol bye everyone....bro hvbjkhgbfjhdksfhjk that felt so abrupt 

and then leorio was like oh yeah same i gotta go study time to take the fantasy MCAT or w/e

AND THEY BOTH LEFT....now gon and killua r chilling but im like oh my god no leorio kurapika come back, we need some (questionable) adult supervision over here 

and like immediately killua is like ok gon do you have money. and of Course gon doesnt have money. so killua is like well you need money and you need to train so you can deck hisoka, so lets go to a fantasy version of an underground fighting ring! this is why kurapika and leorio needed to stay 

tho they probably wouldve just gone along with it 

they did all promise to meet in yorknew city, but thats apparently like 6 months away. are gon and killua rlly gonna spend 6 months at heavens arena

the part where killua draws the diagram demonstrating how much of a n00b gon is....hvbajdkhfbhajskf

AND THEN when he drew himself into the diagram and was like :3c wow im so modest HBJHSKHDFHBJS that was so funny

it was like that post thats like ‘you can tell when a cats pupils change and they just shift into Silly Mode’ thats what killua looked like...catboy

so thats basically it i think, gon and killua are heading to heavens arena to join fight club or whatever. tournament arc time! 

PREDICTION CORNER: 

i doubt this is the last weve seen of the zoldyck family. i mean we havent even met 3 of them, and we barely saw the ones we did meet...idk when theyll come back but i suspect theyll be making some big money moves later on and fucking shit up somehow 

i think maybe illumi or someone will like, spy on killua sometimes to keep track of him. or theyll track him by other means

ill use the prediction corner to reflect on incorrect predictions so heres a few. i rlly thot killua was gonna be more edgy than he is but hes rlly just a good boy huh. like hes a gay baby assassin catboy but hes so cute and good too. he just wants to live his life and hang out with his tiny bf like... omg :’) 

also i thot hisoka held a totally different narrative role lbvahkfjhjjaksfl i thot he was like main villain guy....hes more like an annoying creepy clown dude who (probably) shows up a lot to bother the main cast. we’ll see, but thats what i think of him now

like i thought hisoka would be like p1 dio, where hed be/quickly become a powerful antagonist who would amass a bunch of followers/minions (when actually the only person he seems to hang out w/is illumi, and theyre more like equals than an evil guy/minion dynamic)...or like i thought hisoka would be very well known as a scary evil guy but nope he was just another participant in the hunter exam, albeit a weird freaky one whose rancid vibes everyone seemed to pick up on 

anyways actual predictions, i think hisoka is gonna be at heavens arena, which would be super funny. gon is like im gonna train to beat hisoka and he shows up to do that and hisokas just there like >;) hey

i think if i had to guess, the zoldycks will show up again (in a plot important way) at the end of the yorknew arc/before the greed island arc. i know basically nothing abt any of the arcs but i do know the order they go in so theres that

i do think illumi will show up earlier than the other zoldycks tho, since he seems to be out doing his own thing more than the rest. also we still really havent resolved the whole mind control thing that im still convinced of 

i think nen will finally be introduced/alluded to heavily in this arc...or like, characters will use nen and gon will be like whoa whats that 

i think killua knows what nen is...maybe? it would make sense since im sure all the zoldycks can use it (at least, we saw mom zoldyck use it, probably)

can killua use nen already? that would be pretty funny. i dont think so tho. maybe u learn nen at a certain age. i have no idea what nen is 

also isnt gons nen power the power to like, turn into a really buff version of himself or something. how the fuck does that work 

ok enough nonsense its bedtime zzzzz

#the rambling continues.... #lj watches hxh #hxh

[emperor-uncarnate]

My Top 20 Favorite Video Games

(Listed in the order in which I played them)

Pokémon Red Version - Along with my matching red Game Boy Pocket, this was the first video game I owned that was purely mine and not handed down from an older kid. I still go back and replay this every couple of years on that very same Game Boy Pocket or on the 3DS Virtual Console. I know there’s FireRed and a whole series of more modern Pokémon games at my disposal but the original Red Version easily gets the most nostalgia points. Sometimes that’s what it’s all about, no? Banjo-Kazooie - Similarly, the N64 became my first home console that wasn’t a hand-me-down and it came equipped with both bear and bird (complete with “screaming about it on Christmas morning”). After going back and replaying this almost twenty years later I gained new appreciation for how goofy and colorful it is. Treasure Trove Cove is so fucking catchy. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - From its kickin’ soundtrack to its satisfying controls to its random-ass virtual pet simulator this game has it all. Multiplayer was always pretty exciting too, I remember many an afternoon trying to one-up a friend during a grind race. No 3D Sonic game compares to this if you ask me, although Sonic Heroes and Sonic Unleashed come sort of close in their own ways. What I wouldn’t give for a proper Sonic Adventure 3... Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes - I remember playing this at my local arcade in my youth before eventually getting a port of it for the Xbox 360. The look of its 2D sprites are phenomenal and - if it will help you understand why I love this game - I’m singing “I Wanna Take You For a Ride” to myself as I type this. Metroid: Zero Mission - This was the first Metroid game I ever actually beat, and it was the game that made me fall in love with the series. I love Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Samus Returns as well but I like Zero Mission’s visual style the most. I was so thrown for a loop when Samus lost her Power Suit towards the end of the game but it only made getting it back that much sweeter.  Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - I started playing this one in 2004 but didn’t officially beat it until way later in 2017. For a while I had a pattern I’d go through every few years of “start playing, enjoy it for a while, get lost, and start over for some reason.” Took me thirteen years to get serious about it but it earned its place as my favorite of the 3D Metroid games. I felt so fulfilled once it was complete, like I was achieving a childhood dream. Kingdom Hearts II - I don’t think I would’ve gotten into this game if not for my friend’s suggestion but I couldn’t thank him enough for it. This is another one of those games you only vaguely understand when you’re a kid only to realize how complex and intuitively designed it is in your adulthood. After the long wait, Kingdom Hearts III proved to be pretty satisfying but I just have too much history with its predecessor for it not to win a spot on this list. Jak 3 - Though my interest in this series burned fast and bright, this game still sticks out to me as one of the best I’ve ever experienced. I played the third installment before Jak and Daxter or Jak 2 but that’s fine because it’s the best goddamn one. Driving around in the desert, swapping out gun modules, and taking flight on some janky wings made of light were definitely the highlights for me. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - I got into this game during the latter period of Wrath of the Lich King but I didn’t feel like an official WoW player until this fiery, grim expansion. It was the first real online game I’d ever played (if you don’t count Neopets and Adventure Quest) that I started as a Night Elf Warrior in a PVP server and ended as a Worgen Hunter in a non-PVP server. Because fuck the Horde, that’s why. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - I got Skyrim on a whim because I literally couldn’t think of anything else I wanted for Christmas in 2011. There was no hype for me, I knew nothing ‘bout no Dragonborns, but I thought “heck it” and dove in anyway. After originally playing it on Xbox 360 and replaying it more recently on PS4 (with a slew of mods) I can say with confidence this game continues to blow me away. I always seem to find something new even though I feel like I know it like the back of my hand. I did get involved in The Elder Scrolls Online later on but Skyrim is still where it’s at. Soul Calibur V - I was first introduced to the tale of souls and swords (eternally retold, of course) through Soul Calibur II and only because you could play as Link on the Gamecube version. Fast-forward to 2012 and I was still on board with its story and cast of characters but its character creation was really what kept me hooked. Soul Calibur VI turned out to be a little disappointing but I definitely got the most out of its fifth installment and I’m guilty of having played for hours and hours on end. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward - What began as a free trial because I was bored turned into a years-long interest in yet another MMO. While the base game was okay it really picked up speed with Heavensward and I was hooked from that point onwards. After a certain point I caught myself not skipping cutscenes and discovered - oh hey - the story’s actually really good. Star Wars Battlefront - I loved this game when it came out on PS4 and used it often to get my insatiable Star Wars fix. Aerial combat was my downright favorite part of the game and I loved smoking some TIE Fighters in an X-Wing or in the Millennium Falcon. Its sequel Star Wars Battlefront II could’ve made this list but EA was being a real dirtbag about it and now I find it hard to look back on happy memories of it the same way. The 2015 game is thankfully unsullied by those sour elements, however, so I’d say its gotta be my favorite Star Wars game ever. Overwatch - This game came to me at a time when I only wanted to play games that had character creation. I was hesitant to get to know all the characters and lore but I’m overjoyed I did since they’re so rich in personality and fun details. Once I got the hang of characters like McCree, Soldier, Reinhardt, and Widowmaker I was absolutely sold and I still play it two years later. Sonic Mania - The delightful trailer for this game got me all riled up but I wouldn’t know just how great it was until I was playing it myself. I don’t think I could ever truly enjoy my previous favorite 2D Sonic games (Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD) ever again because this game just feels better than all of them combined.  The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - I didn’t really grow up with the Legend of Zelda, only ever playing A Link to the Past and Twilight Princess, but I immediately knew I was going to enjoy this open world take on the series. Just the sheer freedom of what you could do and where you could go was enough to reel me in and its aesthetic still amazes me with how great of a mood it generates. Final Fantasy VII - I still remember going into a GameStop when I was in high school and naively attempting to buy a used copy of this game for the PS1. It was an “epic fail,” as I would’ve said at the time. But over a decade later I downloaded it on the PS4 and went to town, getting my full FF7 experience at long last and loving every minute of it. Very stoked for the remake; it’s probably my most anticipated game right now. Marvel’s Spider-Man - What a surefire hit this was. From the moment the first gameplay footage was out I knew this was going to be the must-have web-swinging, wall-crawling good time. I love that there are so many ways to play the same character and everyone can really embody their own version of Peter Parker. I’m also from New York City so seeing a digital rendition of Manhattan was a real treat (even though they changed uptown a lot and my old apartment doesn’t exist in the game). Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Nine of the other nineteen entries in this list feature a character who’s playable in this latest Smash game. I get that people like Melee for reasons and whatever but how can you not like SSBU, the game that has it all? I’m still riding the high of Banjo and Kazooie entering the fray and I absolutely cannot wait to see where things go from here. Never had more fun playing local multiplayer in my life. Red Dead Redemption II - Never cared for Grand Theft Auto and the first Red Dead Redemption was fun but damn, there’s nothing quite like its sequel. I’m still working my way through the story just because I’ve spent so much time out in the wide open world, taking my time and seeing the sights. I might be a city boy but I have a deep appreciation for the American West and if this game ain’t just the prettiest damn thing I ever did see... hoo-WEE! Top shelf.

#video games #pokemon #banjo-kazooie #sonic #metroid #marvel #kingdom hearts #jak and daxter #star wars #soul calibur #final fantasy #skyrim #spider-man #super smash bros #red dead redemption 2 #breath of the wild

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey, I’ve had some trouble writing and I can’t focus and I have a deadline coming up soon. I have two write two stories and I have the layout for them but I just can’t find the will to write. Any suggestions?

Hey Nonny! *hugs*

Take breaks, and even if you only do a paragraph or two every hour, see those as achievements. Take ten minutes every hour to just play a mind-numbing game like Candy Crush or Solitaire, doodle on your paper… just something that’s NOT your writing.

First draft is not FINAL draft. Just write and write and write… the hardest part is done, all you have to do is get it out. Make mistakes, use “said” every sentence. Make grammatical errors. Just don’t think about it, or you won’t enjoy it. And don’t don’t FORCE yourself. Writing is supposed to be fun and creative, let it flow the way its meant to. And if you only have an idea for an ending, WRITE IT. Many of the best authors will start backwards. Just remember: it’s your FIRST DRAFT, so don’t fret if it doesn’t work with the rest of the story right away.

Don’t beat yourself up over not getting 1,000 words in one day done. Congratulate yourself for getting 500 words done. Positivity goes a long way to making your ideas flow easier.

Set small goals for yourself, like “500 words by Tuesday” or whatever, before the BIG deadline. Having these goals written down in front of you will help alleviate the stress of the looming deadline. Seriously, when stuff is broken down in smaller chunks, like “1000 words per day for 5 days, proofread on day 6 and rewrite on day 7 and 8″ rather than “TWO FULL STORIES IN 10 DAYS”, then it’s a LOT less overwhelming. It’s a funny thing that human brains do: we tend to stress more if we don’t have a smaller plan to reach that BIG goal, and breaking down the big goal into smaller ones makes the big goal look a LOT more attainable. Trust me on this one, Lovely. 

Allow yourself to cringe and laugh at your first draft; no author in the history of forever has ever written a great first draft. Reread, rewrite, revise, revamp, rejoice. It’s all part of the process.

A thesaurus is your friend, but use it sparingly. There’s nothing wrong with replacing words occasionally, but do it too much and your writing will seem forced.

And when you have done your second-third-fourth draft, don’t be afraid to ask your teacher if you’re allowed to get your work beta-read, and if they know anyone who will help. Most professors will have no problem with you getting someone else to grammatically-correct your work, so long as it’s ONLY for proofreading and they are aware of it, noted in your references, I believe.

Eat. Seriously, I know some authors get into “The Zone” and will forget to eat and drink. Sustenance is imperative for the creative arts. If you don’t eat, your brain is more focussed on wondering when you’re going to reward it for your hard work, rather than on the work itself. Have “brain” foods like nuts and fruits that will keep you feeling full and still are able to concentrate on your work. And make sure you stop for all your bigger meals, with snacks in between.

Put on background INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC (not anything with words that will distract you like movies and TV shows); I find video game and movie soundtracks help me a lot when I’m writing and replying to asks. Plus, that epic soundtrack makes you feel like a BOSS whenever you PUNCH in that period and SLASH that semicolon! Imagine this playing while you’re finishing up a paragraph… how fucking POWERFUL will you feel when you prevail that paragraph?? Seriously, just Google “epic music” and put on one of the 6 hour ones, and you’re set, my friend. Pandora Journey on YouTube makes GREAT soundtracks for writing, 100% would recommend. I listen to them when I reply to asks and write meta :)

HAVE FUN.

I don’t do much writing anymore, Lovely, but when I did, these tips always helped me. I also used to always do my first draft on paper… it was a weird quirk of mine, one that guaranteed I wouldn’t lose a copy of anything, but as I got older and lazier, I just started writing draft one on my computer, so either-or is fine, just make sure you have a couple copies of your first draft (like one on a USB stick as well), because ANYTHING can happen. Like your computer suddenly deciding to not turn on and losing 6 months’ worth of artwork or anything because your harddrive just decided to call it quits after 8 years and the techs couldn’t retrieve any of the files *glares at Mach 2.0*. Not that it’s ever happened to me or anything. :| And if your computer has a backup drive (like Time Machine on Macs) TURN IT ON FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS FLUFFY. 

*coughs*

ANYWAY, hope those tips help you out, Nonny, and I hope your muse finds you! If any of you lovely amazing OMG authors have some tips of your own, please feel free to share them!

Good luck!!

#steph replies #my advice #writing advice #i love to write #i just have a hard time putting my thoughts into coherent sentences #my meta are often drafted for months before i publish lol #Anonymous

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Pretty epic how I’m on the second last day of this little 5 day break from school and I already feel like I’ve accomplished nothing - having watched one new show, clearing my watch later playlist on YouTube at last, and playing some videogames. I mean that’s all well and good - I reviewed the anime I did watch, clearing my watch later playlist has been months in the working and with regards to videogames, I managed to play a good amount of a new one, grab some achievements and beat some Pantheons in Hollow Knight, and win 7 games in Tetris 99. So again I didn’t exactly accomplish nothing.

But at the same time, the plan I had for this whole thing was to like, watch Gakkougurashi on the Wednesday, then over the next 3 days watch the entirety of the Nanoha series and write a lengthy review of the whole thing, and then use the remaining days to catch up on seasonals and schoolwork. I’ve watched Gakkougurashi and caught up on seasonals. Of everything I wanted to do, that’s all I’ve done. Not that I didn’t enjoy what I ended up doing instead, and I’ve still got most of today and all of tomorrow left anyway, but I’m still annoyed with myself for making no progress on my plan to watch outside of Gakkougurashi. Also I don’t fucking want to do my schoolworkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

#gakkougurashi #hollow knight #nanoha #that's it that's my mahou shoujo lyrical nanoha tag #it'll have more content soon #24.2.19

[breadclubrising]

What is Kenny wins, and he chooses to fight Kota? Especially since if he then loses, it strengthens Kota’s position where right now he’s a bit adrift and seems to be thrown under the bus a lot. (I don’t want them to fight but it seems inevitable that they eventually be forced to, surely it could be a positive if they played it right?)

Yeah, I’m not excited about this. I think Kenny will win at Dominion, but I don’t see any universe in which Kota wins the belt from Kenny in the event of an Omega vs. Ibushi match at Wrestle Kingdom. I actually don’t think we’re getting that match anyway; it doesn’t seem like Kota’s important enough within NJPW to merit main-eventing Wrestle Kingdom.

But if it does happen, I don’t think Kenny will challenge Kota outright. In-storyline Kenny is not in any way looking to fight his Golden Lover. And I don’t think that Kota would challenge him, either, nor do I foresee a heel turn or betrayal. I mean… I know it’s wrestling but they’ve been building an epic love story for the past nine years, and we’d be meant to believe that it would all end over a championship belt? I hope they won’t go that route.

But it doesn’t fucking matter how they get there, because all roads involving Ibushi lead to Omega winning at Wrestle Kingdom. The most likely way to get Kota as the challenger is to have him win the G1, and the G1 winner has never won at WK, for one thing. For another, Kenny’s like… the biggest wrestling star in the world right now. And Kota probably hasn’t signed a full-time contract with NJPW. Plus, Kenny’s never beaten Kota (they’ve had two matches against each other), so it’s probably time for that to come full circle. I guess. 

BUUUUUT below the cut are TWO booking ideas for Omega to retain the IWGP Heavyweight belt against Ibushi at WK 13:

One that’s in the realm of possibility and is interesting-ish, and makes Ibushi look as good as possible (which is not very good).

One that is completely batshit but super fun, is technically possible, and most importantly wouldn’t bury Ibushi or the Golden Lovers.

Here’s my realistic-ish booking, if we really have to do this: 

Give Ibushi a monster G1 run, but have him still lose, either in the final or in the block finals, and make it very dicey whether he lost because he didn’t want to fight Kenny, or because he just plain lost. 

Have the G1 winner call out Ibushi as the challenger for the briefcase defense, because it wouldn’t be believable that he’d make the challenge himself. 

Cody would be the best story-wise, although chances are basically nonexistent that he’d win the G1 (Kenny was the first gaijin to do it ever, in 2016). But you can totally see Cody calling out Ibushi just to fuck with him some more, and twist the knife by making Ibushi choose between losing to Cody or fighting Kenny at Wrestle Kingdom.

Naito and Tanahashi both have reasons why they’d call out Ibushi, and so would ZSJ or even Okada (he wants someone who’s going to give him a real fight, maybe). Basically, give Ibushi a situation where he can’t really let himself lose so he doesn’t have to fight Kenny.

Anyway, no one has ever lost their briefcase defense. Make Ibushi the first person to beat the briefcase holder and steal the WK main event.

Then you have the Golden Lovers, who tried everything to avoid fighting each other, forced to fight at WK. You get an angsty buildup where instead of shit-talking and peacocking it’s like, ‘well this is how it has to be and I’m gonna do my best’. (V says there should be at least one pull-apart but this is my crack booking and I don’t want that.)

Optionally, make it extra awful by at some point having them win the heavyweight tag belts and later have to vacate them so they can fight at Wrestle Kingdom. Very symbolic, being forced to give up something they won as a team so they can be opponents.

Yawn. I’ve got something much stupider in mind:

Here’s an impossibly cracky ridiculous booking that would still let Omega win at WK, but not bury Ibushi or the Golden Lovers:

Kota challenges Naito for the IC belt, and wins. (LET MY MANS WIN A FUCKING TITLE FOR FUCK’S SAKE. He has never won a heavyweight title in NJPW, and has challenged for all the singles titles except the US belt.)

Or, have him challenge for the US belt, and win it at G1 USA so I can cry about it in person, while wearing Kota Ibushi themed clothing. (The US belt REALLY needs someone like Kota. Omega vs. Jericho semi-main eventing WK has fallen within a few months to Jay White vs. David Finlay at a road-to show. It needs some help. And to not be the fucking Gaijin Belt.)

The Golden Lovers win the heavyweight tag belts.

Put Ibushi and Omega in the same G1 block, and have Ibushi win their match. (I know no one wants to blow this load in the G1, but I think it could work, especially if Ibushi wins, since Omega has never beaten him.)

Have Omega win the G1 as champ, in which case he gets to choose his challenger. 

Omega says ‘hey babe, you wanna do Wrestle Kingdom? One more fight, for the fans?’ Kota having beaten him in the block matches means he has the right to challenge at some point.

Then these idiots together have the top two belts in the company (or the top belt and the US belt), the heavyweight tag belts, and in a sense they co-won the G1. TL;DR, book them as a monstrous unstoppable power couple fueled by the strength of their love and lulz.

Okada challenges for the briefcase, because he’s still salty over losing the belt to Omega. He loses, and it’s made even worse because Omega’s in Ibushi’s corner for the briefcase defense. We get an Okada vs. Ibushi match out of this deal, and Ibushi gets to win this time. (He’s had two matches with Okada, one in NJPW and one in DDT, and lost both. His friend Tiger Mask W also lost to Okada.) 

This would mean that Okada would be in the same G1 block as Omega, and would have to lose AGAINNNN to Omega. Extra salt. But it also means he’d have to beat Ibushi, for a third time, before Ibushi’s ultimately victorious when it matters most………… PARALLELS???!?! HARBINGERS OF WHAT’S TO COME!?!

Ibushi defends the IC/US belt successfully, so he has to vacate it, and NJPW has a fucking awesome ladder match for the IC/US title at Wrestle Kingdom. (PLEASE Gedo!)

Have the Golden Lovers lose the tag titles to the Young Bucks, basically as a subplot, have them keep trading the titles back and forth (this would elevate the tag titles because of the star power of the two teams, IMO).

Basically, they show up at WK ready to go nuts and have the time of their lives together. Their fight at WK is not angsty sad-we-have-to-fight, but a chance for them, at the top of their game, to put on the show they’ve always wanted to on the world’s second grandest stage. 

And book it like that, like they believe the outcome is almost secondary to them achieving their dream together. ‘Yeah I’m here to win, make no mistake, but I’m also so fucking pumped to main event Wrestle Kingdom with my bff like we used to talk about like 10 years ago when we were dumbasses in DDT.’ They’re opponents, and they’re playing to win, but they’re still, and always, the Golden Lovers.

And… make it A Thing that Kenny still hasn’t beaten Ibushi, and he’s the motherfucking IWGP heavyweight champion. Make that an important stake in this, because it would be to him/them.

This doesn’t bury Ibushi as much, even if (when) he loses, because he still looks like a fucking boss: he had a singles title that he did not lose (and could easily challenge for again), he beat Omega once in the process; part of Omega’s goal was just to beat him for once. And of course, the Golden Lovers remain as strong as ever.

Anyway that won’t happen and Ibushi is going to get buried and I’m already salty about it; having gotten a head start as soon as Okada called out Omega.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK AND FOR BELIEVING IN THE POWER OF LOVE.

#gedo call me #golden lovers #kenny omega #kota ibushi #completely stupid booking ideas #only about 1/2 of my golden lovers and kota ibushi posts are showing up in the tags #that's fucking bullshit fuck you tumblr #i can take a hint though :(

[happymetalgirl]

Gevurah - Sulphur Soul

Gevurah follows up 2016′s debut full-length with a four-track EP that compounds upon the band’s bold statement of epic black metal two years earlier. The 31-minute EP provides a quality overview of what made Hallelujah! so enthralling. As grand and accomplished as Hallelujah! was, Gevurah seem keen to improve upon it, and on Sulphur Soul they sure as fuck have. I was honestly not expecting much more than an addition to the band’s catalog consistent with what they came through with on their debut, something to maintain interest. I was not expecting to get my favorite black / blackened death metal release of the year. Gevurah put in the fucking work on this one.

The first song on the EP, the nearly seven-minute “The Putrid Stench of Rotting Flesh”, sounds as cinematic and fantastical as I have ever heard black metal sound, yet avoids stepping over that line into corniness. I think immediately of Watain’s earlier work and how they were able to capture this massive aura with death metal-influenced black metal and cultivate a seriously menacing presence. Gevurah achieve a similarly remarkable feat here while creating a slightly more ethereally spiritual (though no less dark) atmosphere, rather than one of pure occultism. It’s a tremendous start to the album and an epic addition to Gevurah’s catalog.

“Across the Primordial Sea” follows with more of the same, which is hardly anything to complain about. It’s another well-organized composition full of howling vocals, cavernous guitar dissonance that takes the atmospheric quality of the guitar work similar to that of Wolves in the Throne Room and blends it with the fire of something like that of Gorgoroth, and blast beats and tom-heavy fills that accent the empty spaces perfectly rather than distract. The dynamic the band works with near the track’s exit resembles the refined spiritual black metal Nergal has worked so hard to sculpt in his long artistic path, and Gevurah seem to have mastered it in their relative creative infancy.

Speaking of Nergal, the Behemoth influence seems to kick up a bit on the more more blackened death metal approach of the third track, “Mark of Lucifer”, especially in the vocal department, which finds the band utilizing more aggressive shouts rather than howls, as nergal often did on Behemoth's 2014 masterpiece. Here, Gevurah prove they aren’t content to simply pump out more of what’s comfortable or just what’s proven to work. Instead, the band up the metallic intensity and showcase the span of their expertise.

The album wraps up with the sprawling “Black Sun Thaumiel”, which shows the band making the most of the time they take on the song’s nearly 11-minute run time. Finishing with a climactic shower of blast beats and divinely blackened guitar riffage, even the long, drawn-out concluding section of the song does well to retain the dynamic and integration of new ideas to keep the atmosphere of the song and album interesting rather than stagnant, and it helps finish the album off on a note as grandiose as possible. Fuck, this is a good album!

Despite just breaking the half-hour mark, Sulphur Soul manages to pack a more moving black metal punch than most, if not all the black metal I’ve heard this year. They have kind of beaten Watain at their own game this year, an unusually mild year for Watain though in my opinion, and set the bar incredibly high for Behemoth to hurdle over when I Loved You at Your Darkest comes out this Friday. But Gevurah don’t simply ride their contemporaries’ coattails and I don’t want to write about this album as though that’s all it’s doing. With Sulphur Soul Gevurah are carving themselves a niche within one of black metal’s most elite ecosystems, and they are doing so not by way of gimmicks or imitation, but with hard-worked proficiency and a poignant display of a sharp composing prowess that most bands at their age are nowhere near. As much as this has excited me for what Gevurah have in store on their next LP, this album is much more than just a hold-over or a taster. Sulphur Soul is a powerful expansion upon the finest elements of Gevurah’s sound, and one that foreshadows a hopefully bright future with a showcase of purely immodest excellence. Goddamn, Gevurah! Well fucking done!

#gevurah #sulphur soul #the putrid stench of rotting flesh #across the primordial sea #mark of lucifer #black sun thaumiel #black metal #metal #heavy metal #new music #new album #new ep #album review #death metal #blackened death metal #great album

[mmoxie]

WoW Classic and The Wall

With Warcraft Classic on the horizon, I want to get some ideas I’ve had all in one place and produce a coherent vision for what to do when Warcraft Classic hits The Wall. I should probably start by defining The Wall.

The Wall is the end point of all content constructed for World of Warcraft up to the launch of The Burning Crusade. 

If you’ve done every single quest on Azeroth, run and looted every raid, constructed something Legendary for your class, gotten your most desired epic mount, and are wearing a complete tier set and enjoying its bonus, then all that is left for you is cyclical PvP content, and you have come up against The Wall.

Even if you haven’t done all that, if you’ve completed the final tier of content and don’t feel motivated to continue playing, that’s The Wall.

If you don’t want to log in because you’re lousy with epics and don’t want to hang out and fish in your Naxxramas gear, you’re sitting on The Wall.

Advancing into TBC has its own wall. Advancing into Wrath comes with a wall. Cata? Wall. MoP? Wall. WoD? Wall. Legion? Wall. Creating expansions is the tried-and-true method for advancing beyond the wall and having a stretch of gameplay that leads to the next one.

But for WoW Classic to have long-term success, we can’t move over the wall like that- otherwise we dilute the whole idea of Classic. We dilute its available gameplay, its available locales, the level of statistical power available to its players. 

We can’t move over the wall. But with WoW Classic, we have a complete and self-contained world. We have an opportunity to move the wall itself.

We don’t have to introduce new mechanics (necessarily) in order to move the wall. We don’t have to tweak balance, introduce a new tier of stats, add spells, anything like that.

We just have to increase the distance between ourselves and the wall by adding more content at level 60.

Not beyond level 60. Not to get past level 60. At level 60.

If you’re a purist, I get why you don’t want that. You’ve got the raids that are there now, and you like them, and that’s enough. You can run that forever. You still can, in fact, and what I’m about to suggest will make them more specifically desirable and relevant.

Let’s introduce a new raid. The stats on the gear that drop in it are on par with Naxxramas. The big difference is that the set bonuses are entirely different from the set bonuses available on Naxxramas gear. As an example, Tier 3 Shaman gear could be available from Naxxramas as the traditional Earthshatterer set which has an emphasis on healing and totems, but this new raid could provide a “Thunderhead” set which uses the same general level of coefficients to steer Shaman builds toward DPS.

You’d have to get all eight pieces over roughly the same amount of time, and you’d have no statistical advantage over a Shaman who geared in Naxxramas, but build diversity has been injected into WoW by way of these new “Side Tier” sets, so an ST Shaman can be relied on by their guild to do good DPS in the same way that a T3 Shaman can be relied on to do good healing.

This should not be done so aggressively that it homogenizes each class into a precise role like modern WoW- but it should allow each class to at least effectively perform in roles that its base talents would suggest it’s appropriate for.

It isn’t enough to just add a new raid, though. You don’t add new raids without the context around them. This leads us to at least two very exciting opportunities- Hyjal and Grim Batol.

We can start filling holes in the world map without altering it severely like Cataclysm did. We can tell stories that were always there that we just didn’t have the time or resources to tell, back in the day. On each continent specifically, due to Hyjal and Grim Batol, we can add a whole new zone with its own quest lines, zone-wide mechanics (a possibility introduced by silithus,) visual design, reputations, dungeons, and at least one raid each.

Because these aren’t leveling zones- they’re zones where XP is almost entirely irrelevant- you can change up how rewards are given. You can reduce gold rewards to avoid a hit to the economy, but add reputation tokens or trade-in tokens that can be used for longer-term rewards.

In this fashion, the map can be slowly and carefully filled to the corners. Side Tiers can be subtle and strange and bring differences in playstyle to the same role. They can bring visual diversity to the endgame where everyone is striving for the same armor, because you can get the same stats with a different look and different effects and procs.

The end result is a complete, border-to-border vision of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms with no mysterious holes or invisible walls reaching into the sky. A reason to explore everywhere, something to gain from adventuring even at max level.

This can be done for a really long time- much longer than the usual release schedule for expansions. You only have to move the wall when your population at-large starts to see it. You can take weird chances- maybe you take a departure for one patch and instead of adding to the continental world, you introduce a boat to Tel’Abim for a patch cycle where players are using bananas as currency and have to fight a boss that’s a big sendup to Donkey Kong or something. You can have fun with it. You can treat it like big “world event” patch releases like Shadow of the Necropolis, where a patch would drop and it would feel like time was advancing, but the whole world didn’t need to change to achieve that.

WoW Classic is self-contained, and there’s no upper limit on the size of the container. You can put anything in there, as long as you don’t fuck with the numbers. As long as you don’t introduce any new tiers of power, you can get more and more creative with the rewards and the locations. You don’t want someone sailing back home from Tel’Abim at level 61 in a totally alien set of gear that allows them to cruise through older raids with ease, that’s an easy mistake to make. Just keep it simple, keep it similar, and you can go buckwild with everything else and make the world (of warcraft) more robust and expansive than anyone ever dreamed it could be.

You could have the most complete Azeroth ever, all without ever abandoning the feeling of Classic gameplay. Since you know the numbers are more or less sacred, you no longer have to focus on them, and can turn those resources outward into this enormously extended post-60 experience.

And then the wall isn’t your problem anymore. You’ve beat it. You’ll have players for life who never finish everything because there’s just so much and it’s not a linear path to address it all. Endgame goes from roughly five branches of content to fifty, and the game is immortal because of it.

#long post // #moxie ruins warcraft

[fiendblooded]

rant about easy mode in soulsborne titles under the cut  (and as a disclaimer, i’m in favor of an easy mode)

hoooooo boy hooo boy i am so fucking sick of people saying that there shouldn’t be an easy mode in dark souls or bloodborne or sekiro. there’s no reason not to have an easy mode except to preserve the egos of gamer guys who NEED the achievement of having beaten a punishing video game to keep their self esteem afloat

for starters, it opens the game up to more people. that means a larger fanbase, more peopl to create content for the game, and arguably most importantly, MORE PEOPLE TO PAY FOR THE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE. larger audience means more income, period. so off the bat it’s already a good choice for those who like to make money, which is literally everyone who wants to survive under capitalism, which, surprise, includes FromSoftware.

secondly, it makes it so that people are less likely to drop the games after they experience difficulty. i know that the soulsborne games are about overcoming difficulty or whatever, but honestly the meaning of a game is pretty subjective, and i say fuck that. it CAN be about overcoming difficulty if you want it to be, but it could also be about being a cool knight in a fantasy setting with some cool bosses to fight! let the person who plays the game decide what their playthrough is about.

and also?? if anything i would think that an easy mode would be FAVORABLE to gamer guys who like showing off how epic of a gamer they are with their dark souls winner status. you get to say that, NOT ONLY did you beat the game, but you beat it on a HARD difficulty, opposed to an easier difficulty! like, that’s more gamer points to your ego, bud! 

i just... ugh i haven’t struggled with soulsborne games in a while, but in the beginning? oh my GOD. it was MISERABLE! i honestly would have dropped Dark Souls 3 and never came back if it weren’t for my friend encouraging me to keep trying. even after i beat the first boss i wasn’t all that satisfied. and you know what happened later? i dropped the game for months! it was difficult, and i was making no progress, and honestly i had better shit to do, so i stopped playing. the same thing is currently happening to me with Dark Souls Remastered. i haven’t touched that game since MARCH of LAST YEAR as of writing this. it’s difficult! and not fun! if i could tweak the difficulty a little bit i bet i would go back to it, but as it stands i’m just not having a good time, so i’m not going to play it.

ultimately i don’t think an easy mode will be added. the devs want a hard game, so they’re gonna give a hard game. whatever. i just wish people would shut the fuck up about it and stop being bullshit gatekeepers to like, preserve their egos or whatever.

#and before anyone gives me shit saying stuff like #oh obviously you havent even beaten any of the soulsborne games #lol mad cause bad lol #i'd like to make it known that i've beaten dark souls 3 at least 3 times #and i've beaten sekiro 4 times #i know at least a LITTLE bit of what i'm talking about

[hydratedlife]

Love Yourself: Her - BTS Album Review

Disclaimer: I’m not a music expert, I just write for fun. This is all opinion based. I would love to know your thoughts/opinions on this album! Did you love it, hate it and what songs specifically?

Intro: Serendipity: Nice to see them do something a little different than usual for the intro. It’s very smooth and romantic. The song sounds perfectly written for Jimin’s voice, so soft and pretty and I love that he’s able to portray his emotions so well through his vocal delivery. I’m generally not a fan of Jimin’s vocal technique, but in this song his strong points are highlighted so well that it’s just all around an enjoyable listen that makes me smile. The video also fits perfectly with the song. 

DNA: Not my favourite title track from BTS but I still enjoyed it especially on its own. The video had a lot going on which made it difficult for me to truly listen to the song to decide if I liked it. I loved V’s opening verse where they finally let him sing in his natural baritone voice. Praise the lord!! The song begins with a funky acoustic guitar rhythm and whistling over a beat and built up effortlessly into a dubstep drop. I usually don’t like dubstep but I don’t think they overdid it and the transitions set me up so it wasn’t a shock to my ears. Mixing the dubstep with Jungkook’s vocals also made it an easier listen rather than just straight up electronics. Into the bridge and again with V’s deep voice, which just melts in your ears. I’m always impressed with BTS’ harmonising and they did not fail with the final build up that is topped off with Jimin’s high pitched voice. I liked that the final chorus didn’t go on too long otherwise the dubstep would have been overdone, but like I said they didn’t do that and ended on a much more tasteful note. Overall, DNA is not very innovative but it still makes for a catchy, dance-inducing listen. Personally, I think this song will work best during their live performances.

Best of Me: Probably my least favourite track on the album. I really don’t like very radio-friendly EDM. But it was what I was expecting when I heard The Chainsmokers were producing it (and I really don’t like their music). Though I’m surprised I actually didn’t hate this. I really liked the slowed down pre-chorus with the “haru haru”. Then came the drop, which was surprisingly not annoying and if you enjoy EDM you’ll probably really like it. Although, I was not a big fan of the rapping in the second verse and the bridge simply because I don’t think it really fit well in the song. I thought it could have thrived alone with the vocal line but I wouldn’t expect that of BTS. One thing I hate about “radio EDM” is that it’s annoying and repetitive. But throughout Best of Me they add new elements with the vocals through each chorus so it doesn’t feel like your listening to the same thing for 4 minutes straight. So yeah, if you like this kind of music you’ll probably really like this song, but to me it wasn’t very interesting.

보조개(Dimples): One of my favourite tracks on this album. Also quite EDM and only featured the vocal line, which like I said earlier fits best with these kind of songs. The verses cruise nicely but it’s the chorus that truly makes this song great. Its just so catchy with the fluctuating “oOoOoO” thing they do with their voice (lmao I don’t know how to explain that). One thing I love about BTS’ vocal line is that their voices blend so well together and this song was no exception. Each line sung by a different member flawlessly transitioned into the next to where you almost don’t notice who’s singing. In contrast, the bridge showcased the beauty in each of their voices as individuals and Jin really impressed me the most. His lines were so smoothly delivered and it really makes me see what some BTS songs are missing out on with his lack of lines (but that’s a different conversation). Jungkook belts a high note which is the first I’ve heard him do to this extent and he executed it with ease (maybe with the help of some autotune). I liked the mix of adlibs and high notes in the last chorus which is also very rare in BTS songs.

Pied Piper: This song has a great continuous beat that I find myself snapping my neck to despite it overall not being very upbeat. Jin once again shows off his vocals in the first pre-chorus, and mixed with V it just sounds so pleasing. The chorus is sung in a higher register and it actually works quite well and is really catchy. There seems to be a bit of Daft Punk influence that I notice here and I love it! The rap sections were unexpected after the sultry singing in the beginning of the verses but were delivered seamlessly to no one’s surprise. When I first listened to this, I had not yet read the lyrics and was expecting it to be a sad love song but was surprised to find out it was about their fans. They’re saying that they know the effect they have on ARMY and just want their fans to let them in. It becomes quite funny and sweet when you discover the real meaning of the song.

Skit: Billboard Music Awards Speech: Not much to say here, but it’s nice to see them so proud of this huge achievement. They haven’t included a skit in one of their albums for a while so it was nice to include that little break in the middle. I feel this skit helps portray the emotions they have for this album and fits well with the theme of ‘Love Yourself’.

MIC Drop: Now this is the BTS we haven’t heard from in a while. Those saying they miss the old BTS, this one’s for you! The dirty, hard hitting beat was something I was not expecting but I was so happy when I heard it. J-hope opened the song with his quiet low rapping where Suga then took over with a similar style performed just the way you would suppose he would (which is dope). This transitioned into a very autotuned pre-chorus and chorus which fit well with the style and typical of their other rap-heavy songs in the past. The chorus is good but was pretty basic and didn’t stand out, which may have been their intention because it didn’t stray any attention from the rap verses which is easily BTS’ strongest area. I wish Rap Monster didn’t use so much autotune for his verse as his voice is so compelling on its own. The bridge slowed right down and had an epic sound to it which gave for a very cool ending. As for the lyrics, they’re bragging about their achievements and looking down on their haters in a less than humble way (and I would say rightfully so).

고민보다 Go: Easily my favourite track on this album and one of my favourites from them in a long time. It has a reggae style but fits in a grimy beat underneath. My favourite part is the flute mixed in that reminds me of a video game soundtrack (very similar to Saria’s Song from Zelda), although it wasn’t constant through the entire song which stopped it from becoming boring and repetitive, which can easily happen with samples. There’s a back and forth between the singing and rapping with both having quite a comical raspiness to the vocals. It provided a great juxtaposition with the catchy chorus that had low and lazy vocals with a cool but slow melody. The breakdown into straight up reggae gave us a raw instrumental to groove to and really pushed the song to its greatness. Then the mix with the fast beat built up hype that I could imagine being a lot of fun at their live concerts. They end things off with the lone flute which was really the cherry on top of a great song for me.

Outro: Her: This reminds me a lot of some of their older music too, slow but upbeat with a romantic feel. It showcased their rap skills in contrast to MIC Drop. The song is smooth with a chorus that cruises along. I could imagine listening to this in the car on a road trip. It’s a very simple song with not too much going on which is very reminiscent to a lot of their older romantic songs. It makes for a great outro and ends the album leaving you chill and satisfied.

Overall: I fucking love this album. Is it my favourite BTS album? No (HYYH pt. 2 still holds that position), but it’s pretty solid with a great mix of old and new sounds that show how they’re growing as artists. It’s just really fun and includes a bunch of cool and catchy songs that I will certainly bop to. It’s definitely very pop with a few added elements but I think it fits well into what kpop is today and what it’s becoming.

#i had fun writing this #if youre interested give it a quick read #music review #album review #bts #bangtan #bangtan boys #love yourself: her #DNA #jungkook #jimin #taehyung #j-hope #hoseok #hobi #suga #yoongi #rap monster #namjoon #rap mon #jin #seokjin #music #album #kpop #boy group #mine

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. This one is interesting! I had never heard of this but took it seriously in the shit selection they had a Book-off since it was published by Vintage (they do Proust, Nabokov, etc) and it was 900 pages. I mailed Dari who I consider to be an authority on Russian literature and she had never heard of him either. Turns out he was a war correspondent at Stalingrad and this was the only novel he ever wrote but never got to see published as it was "arrested "by the KGB. In doing some research foud only The Gulag Archipelago and Bulgakov's Heart of the Dog have ever been "arrested." It wasn't published till 1980 with an extra manuscript being found and smuggled to the west. Was still also hesitant about getting it because the novel came with the loaded label of being the Soviet, War and Peace. But like War and Peace it proved to be an epic, in a similar omnibus style weaving precisely 16 storylines together during the time of Stalingrad. Maybe I am used to Russian epics now but when I read War and Peace nearly a decade ago I struggled essentially until Napoleon crossed the Niemen to begin his attack which was around 600 pages in. This came off clearer and I had no problem following along as he painted each character vividly enough for me so I did't have to refer to the cast list at the back of the book. I found write away I did need context for the battle itself since only thing I recall about the battle was what I played in Call of Duty on Xbox 360 lol. So I took sometime and watched several youtube documentaries and finally delved into the novel only to listening to Shostakovich's 7th symphony written at the time of the Nazis' three pronged attack on Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad...became a sick game between Stalin and Hitler as Hitler even though it had little strategic importance wanted to take Stalingrad to give a fuck you to Stalin. And to the dismay of his generals wrecked his armies in the process as Stalingrad held out longer than whole European countries did, really turning the tide of the war. I am no military strategist but going to war with Russia is like going to war with China the land just eats up invaders stretching supply lines etc...but it is always winter that protected Russia as it beat both Napoleon and Hitler... Anyway, the whole time I was reading I wanted to attack it, as its philosophy wasn't touching Dostokvseky, the humanity of Chekhov, or shear epic-ness of Tolstoy. It felt much more constructed and if anything in the style of a Hemmingway: clean and straightforward mixing in a lot of humor to what was otherwise extremely dark. One of the stories follows a young Russian woman who is jewish and caught behind Nazi captured territory. This while in other chapters the author details captured soldiers who have to build and work at the camps etc...these particular characters only briefly intersect you realize as she has the door of the chamber closed behind her by a character you learn about 200 pages prior. I enjoyed the nuclear scientist's story who is on the verge of being denounced and chose to stick to what he knew was right and somehow due to his talent managed to not only not get purged but a receive a phone call from Stalin himself saving his life and reputation in the process...it also gives an inkling to Stalin possibly knowing ahead the value of nuclear physics. It is interesting that his character also is metaphoric of the war itself. As the war was at its ugliest period was just when he was being excommunicated and talked about by all his colleagues and neighbors only to beat odds and rise to the top of the scientific intellectual community with the Soviets not only pushing back the Germans but encircling them. In an earlier chapter while he was evacuated from Moscow he got in a political argument over tea, alluding to the Soviet manner of discussing politics in hushed tones after the 1937 purges. He mentions in American novels its always over alcohol but in the USSR I took it as how dangerous a loose tongue could be ( I wouldn't had of survived long). I also like a particularly interesting SS officer's storyline who had one of the first Bolsheviks from the revolution in his camp who refused to talk. The Nazi was more objectively interested in his philosophy than any sort of interrogation that the Bolshevik was distrustful of. The Nazi reasons Hitler and Stalin to be one and the same just the systems go about them differently and he mentions how the Nazis socialized the people while the Russians socialized institutions, ie banks, etc...The Nazi system valued the people more yet like Stalin the system was headed by to maniacs that made absurd justifications for socialization to happen. Hitler saw the Jewish as the obstacle and through collectivization Stalin first saw the peasant class as the ones who needed to die before later in 37' believing it to be the intelligentsia and military elite that had to go before his goal could be achieved. Ironically he nearly lost the war because he killed off his most capable military men. Lastly, and perhaps the most interesting was the motivation for the regular soldier and Soviet citizens. They fought even though was really no concern for their lives. There were literally military police behind the soldiers ready to shoot anyone who looked to be retreating and a lot of times there would be an obvious strategic hill to go back to win skirmish that they couldn't do because of the absurdity that no one could take one step back...So much more to this novel, but what a fun week it was reading it. I'd recommend Dostoevsky or Tolstoy any day over these if you haven't done them but this more for the historical perspective and its shear scope made for an amazing read.

#finishedbooks

[calibanfilesystem-blog]

CALIBAN Design Inspirations

Here’s a meaty post on my thoughts on some inspirational game design mechanics and how they will relate to Caliban.

What am I suppos- oh I died...

My definition of a survival game is as follows: A sudden-death system which pits the user against an increasing set of challenges while slowly doling out the tools needed to survive and push further against them.

In a way, despite the savage “sudden death” nature of such games, the feeling of slowly pushing into what was initially an impenetrable system is an amazing motivator and I’ve found survival games to be the most rewarding. Same as learning to code, or learning piano, or slowly realizing the person you fancy isn’t out of your league after all. Or that the life you’ve always wanted but seemed impossible maybe isn’t so far fetched...

Another aspect I like about them is the desire to *see content*. You WANT to know what lies in the fog because I feel like, deep down, once you understand the basic rule-set, you want to *see which rules the game will break*. Personally, this has always been a huge motivator for me in games, and my favorite items you find usually have the most poetic usage descriptions and allow you to break an established rule you took for granted. I.e. (”Allows the user to fly.” “Can mind-swap with enemies.” “Allows user to eat coins.”)

The following are some games which I feel exemplify these qualities.

Forbidden Desert - A dead simple survival board game with such a tight rule-set, it lays bare the minimum you could need for an engrossing survival/exploration experience. I have ported the game to the computer in the past and I was very interested in the percentages and probabilities involved. I.e. a game on “Standard Mode” usually gives you a base ~45% success rate on any given action whereas “Hard Mode” puts you at ~25%.

7th Continent - This system has re-written the rules for what is possible in a board game. This game exemplifies the idea of introducing methods of interacting with the system you never considered before. I.e. using a magnifying glass to inspect a card’s artwork, solving visual puzzles with nothing but your brain and receiving cryptic clues that reward you with no special game mechanics, only the knowledge that they exist. I will certainly be taking a page from this book while thinking about Caliban.

Subnautica - Proves the efficacy of the powerful motivator behind simply wanting to see content. The entire purpose for your explorations deeper and deeper into the depth of an alien ocean is the drive to simply *see*. It is an almost objective fact that the deep sea is l33t, and the game scratches that itch so well. I want Caliban to have a similar drive to see what kinds of exotic and interesting species of softwares you’ll find out in the desert...

Seafall - This game exemplifies the idea of adding and changing the rules of the game at run-time. Playing through this board game with a group of committed friends was an absolutely exhilarating and unique experience. The game got major flak in mainstream reviews for not having rules that cover the edge cases you’d find yourself in (IRL undefined exceptions LOL) but if you look past that, this game was constantly re-inventing itself as you played. It shifted from competitive resource trading game, to war game, to exploration/puzzle game and towards the end it was a co-op survival game. Not to mention the reward mechanic of physically adding rules to the rule-book by way of stickers... also LOL the box said “batteries included” but you didn’t know what they would be used for until 66% through the game. Genius motivational mechanic.

What the fuck is this?

In my opinion, true puzzle games of quality are very hard to find. My definition of a “true” puzzle game is as follows: A cryptic system in which the tools to untangle it reside within the system itself and can be solved with no outside intervention. In other words, it’s what we lowkey wish the real world was. I do not consider games which rely on randomness, cultural trivia, or overly complex game mechanics to be true puzzle games. Those are excuses for poor game design. True puzzle games can and do exist with *one* game mechanic. True puzzle games are among the hardest in the gaming world. I admire that about them and have actively been seeking them out for years. These are some notable examples that I know of. I will be taking a lot of guidance for how they pace and implement real-world puzzles and look to them for structural guidance on how to implement the ideas that I have for the puzzles in Caliban.

You’ll probably see that certain games are missing that are supposed to be “good”. That’s for a reason and if you want to know why, then message me or just fuck off.

The Talos Principle - Yea, probably my all-time favorite video game. I could gush for pages. However I want to keep this focused on how this relates to Caliban. Specifically, how the puzzles and story relate to the digital nature of the game deeply inspires me. The story *is* the story of a digital consciousness, told through a pseudo-biblical filter. I am going to be taking some pointers from this when I am shaping the myth and story of Caliban.

Obduction - The latest game out of Cyan Studios (creator of you-know-what) truly couldn’t give any less of a shit about you or if you come anywhere close to beating it. Yes, to a fault. Its not as confrontational as Hackmud (below) but it certainly dangles a story-carrot in front of your face (which is as obtuse and unsolvable without a walkthrough as the notorious maze puzzle). Most unforgivably, the game is plagued by a fucking stupid walk speed and straight up tedious animations. If it takes more than 5 seconds to input a “code” into your “number lock” to test it, then fuck that and fuck you.

Hackmud - This game makes me LOL. I haven’t settled on how I feel about it and it is the last game I have been seriously into before starting this project. The gameplay here IS building a codebase. The game is a puzzle box you throw your code against and try to make progress. I am thinking about how I would like to integrate coding into Caliban, whether I will detect and forbid automation, hacking, coding etc.. or if I will embrace it. The downside to embracing it is that you alienate your non-coder audience and you start designing challenges under the assumption that your player base is code-savvy. What do you think about this? Sound off in the GIVE FEEDBACK section!

Harry’s Puzzle - I love, love love this game. You can play it in its entirety right here. What I love about this game is how it is always there, always lurking. You can resume your progress just by going to the right URL. You can take your time, maybe years, chipping away at the puzzle, and communities have spring up around it. Maybe, maybe Caliban can aspire to such fame? Such renown? Such infamy? LOL, not my intention, but the ruthlessness and difficulty of Harry’s puzzle is something to keep in mind.

So what’s in it for me?

So, some people just don’t get games. They just don’t. I completely understand that. I mean, at the end of the day, what do you get out of them? What’s the point? “Seems like a waste of time if you ask me...” And beating a game almost always leaves you with a unique feeling of... loss. You shut the game down after the credits and... then what? Did you just waste 10 hours? 10 days? 10 months? I mean, I’m of the opinion that its *cool* to beat a game. Its *cool* to be good at video games, but I completely respect differing opinions.

For Caliban, I want your progress and eventual completion to be tangibly rewarded. I want you to leave the game with pieces of software you could not have gotten from anywhere else. Whether its a nice music box program that plays some chip-tune, or a unique little desktop physics widget, or a piece of interactive poetry, or a desktop sculpture or anything. I want this game to have tangible takeaways, and finally a piece of totally epic trophyware for those who reach the journey’s end.

Here are two games that I feel genuinely reward you in completely unique and satisfying ways and which I will be drawing heavy inspiration from.

Samorost 3 - The carrot on the stick in this game is music. As your progress through the game, you are simply rewarded with a new instrument track you can then trigger in the special music menu. That’s it. Those are your prizes. Each achievement you get adds new capabilities to your music-making arsenal and if that isn't the most beautiful and wholesome reward system, I really don’t know what is. Check out this link to see it in action. HIGHLY RECOMMEND

The Return of the Obra Dinn - This game is a utter masterpiece. The reason why I have it way down here in the “rewards” section is because i don’t know why, fuck off. But anyways, the eventual reward for completing this game is finding out what the fuck happened on the Obra Dinn. You are presented with disparate chapters of a story, told mostly in reverse, with a crucial chapter missing. If you don’t complete the game in its entirety, you never get to see this missing chapter and the story remains with a gaping plot hole. This is genius, I mean I’m kind of a nautica-phile so this was enough for me to keep progressing but I just love the idea of holding the story as the final reward. It may seem a given, like “yea you beat the game you get to see the end to the story”, but something about Obra Dinn was different. It wasn’t about seeing the ending, (the ending is actually where you begin) but seeing the exact pivotal moment the story rotates around was an amazing motivator. Thinking about this while I write Caliban.

What are you trying to tell me?

So, something I am not going to do is post my story. The story is something I will not be revealing until I am comfortable with the final release to keep it a surprise. But here are some influences I am taking into account:

Scheherazade

It’s Such a Beautiful Day

The Tempest (Caliban)  What, you thought the title was an accident? ;-)

Ok! So, here we are at the end. Woof. You still here? Wow. I love it. If you’re reading this, then welcome to The Inner Circle. Sound off in the GIVE FEEDBACK section and make yourself known. If you think I’m not going to reward “Day One fans” in-game then you’re CRAZY! You’ll be considered a VIP in the project and your constant feedback will help drive development forwards and who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself rewarded in more than one way :-)

Up next will be my roadmap on my first few steps on this journey and some milestones I will be trying to reach in the coming weeks.

Till next time  - M