#it took me a solid two months to realize that I typed season 2 instead of 4 paws what the hell | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thetravelerwrites · 3 years

Text

Henry (Part 2) Lemon

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Female Human/Male Naga Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Naga, Amphiptere, Friends to Lovers, Best Friends to Lovers, Demisexual, Graysexual, Content Warnings: Cam Worker, Cam Model, Sex Worker Words: 4467

The reader breaks a rule and meets Henry’s family, where awkward questions make for an awkward dinner. Please reblog and leave feedback!

The Traveler's Masterlist

After two and a half months, Henry finally had the money he needed to open up the second location even without renting out the opposite apartment, and the two of you were scouting for the new place. You’d decided that you would run one of them and he would run the other. You were sad that you wouldn’t be working together anymore, but the two of you lived together now, so at least you’d be able to spend time together at home. Henry was also talking about hiring on additional employees if the second location did well, so the two of you wouldn’t have to work so hard.

“What do you think of this place?” He asked. “It’s a little small for what I was thinking, but it’s right next door to a popular wedding venue. We could do special deals for the weddings.”

“That would generate a lot of business, even in the slow season,” You replied. “And it wouldn’t matter if it was small if we had two locations. We could just deliver what we didn’t have here from the main building. It’s only ten minutes away.”

“Right,” He agreed. “So? Is it a yes to this one?”

“Well, it’s your decision, babe,” You said. “It’s your money, your business.”

“And you’re my girlfriend,” He said, pulling you into his arms. “And my business partner. You input matters to me. We make all decisions together.”

You smiled at him fondly. “God, I love you.”

He grinned down at you. “I love you, too. So?”

You looked around one more time and said, “It’s a yes. I like this place. It’s got character.”

“Right? It’s charming. We can work with charming. I’ll pay the deposit on Monday.” He picked you up and swung you around, as well as he could with his long tail in the way. “I’m so excited! Owning my own shop was my dream, and I never expected to be able to expand!”

“I’m so happy for you, babe,” you said, kissing him. “For both of us.”

He kissed you back twice and set you back down on your feet. “So, you’re still up for this weekend? Meeting the parents and everything?”

“Of course, I’m dying to meet them,” You said. “Do… they know about your side job?”

“No, they don’t,” He said firmly. “And I’d like to keep it that way, please. I mean, you know I’m not ashamed of my job, but it’s still my parents. All parents know their kids jerk off and stuff, but they definitely don’t want to talk about it.”

“This is slightly different, don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “It’s still embarrassing to tell them that I take my clothes off for money, even if there’s no touching involved.”

“Well, they won’t hear it from me, then,” You said. “Your secret is safe.”

“Thank you,” He said, smiling. He took your hand and led you out of the vacant building and toward the bus stop. There was a bus for larger non-humans that came twice a day.

“Have you told them much about me?” You asked, sitting on the bench to wait.

“I never shut up about you,” Henry said ruefully. “I’ve been talking about you for years, even before we met. I think they knew I was in love with you before I did. My sister literally told me to shut up once, because I kept gushing about you.”

“That’s sweet,” You said.

“You don’t talk to your folks much, do you?” He asked.

“Not really,” You replied, sitting at the bus stop with him sidling up to coil next to you. “Lots of stuff went down when I left that my parents weren’t cool with, and they said a lot of things that I wasn’t cool with, so we’re just not cool with each other in general.”

“Hmm,” He said. “Well, my sister will like you.” His eyes narrowed. “That may not be a good thing. She keeps trying to steal my girlfriends.”

You laughed. “Well, she doesn’t have a chance. I’m over the moon for you.”

He grinned at you. “That’s good to hear.” He lay his head on your shoulder briefly. “I’m madly in love with you.”

“Yay,” You said softly, kissing the top of his head, careful not to stab yourself on his horns.

“Can we go home and have celebratory sex?” He asked.

“Absolutely. Then we’ll order dinner and play a round of Final Fantasy XIV.”

“It’s a date. I do have a cam session later tonight, though, so I have factor that in.”

“Oh, if that’s the case, we should wait on the sex,” You said, looking down the street and seeing the bus approach. You stood up. “You should be fresh for your clients. We can have all the boning we want afterward. Anything fancy planned?”

“Nope, just a show and share, standard stuff. But it’s a new client, so that’s typical. ”

“Have you dropped a client? You usually don’t take new ones unless one either stops buying slots or you ban someone.”

“One of my old patrons moved on, so I held an auction for his slots. The money from that auction was the final monetary push I needed for the new location,” He said, following you to the curb as the bus stopped in front of you.

“Well, thank you to that person,” You said with a laugh, getting up into the bus. Henry followed you.

After getting home, the two of you ordered some sushi and played video games. Around eight o’clock, he set the controller down.

“Time for the session?” You asked, powering down the game console.

“It will be soon. I need to get ready. Want to help out?”

“Always. That new purple bolero would look lovely, and we can put some spray glitter in your hair.”

“That shit takes forever to get out!” He whined.

“Yeah, but it looks so cute! And I’ll help you wash it out later.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise,” You said. “Come on, I’ll get you all dressed up and looking pretty for your new client.”

“You’re the best, babe.”

You had gotten pretty adept at getting him ready for his shows quickly, and honestly it was a great bonding moment between the two of you. He stayed still and obedient like a puppy while you were doing in and he always looked like a total snack when he was done. Not that he didn’t normally, but the costumes were a great garnish.

When you were finished, you kissed him, said, “Have fun,” And left him to his work.

He’d moved his camming desk and rig to the bedroom so that the two of you could set up his and hers gaming stations in his old office, where the two of you spent a lot of time.

You’d just sat down to play some Among Us with friends when you realized that you’d left your phone in the bedroom. You swore at yourself for being so thoughtless. The number one rule was never interrupt a camming session, it could cost him clients if they found out he had a girlfriend. Some might even want you to participate, and that was not something you were up for.

But you also didn’t want your phone to ring while he was in a video chat. You were usually so careful, so this made you really mad at yourself. Henry couldn’t afford to lose customers right now, with opening the new location. He’d need every penny he could earn.

You knew he kept his Discord up when he was working, in case any emergencies arose and you could notify him, so you pulled it up and typed, >I forgot my phone in the bedroom. Can I come get it?

He typed back, >Sure, just try to be quiet, please.

You tip-toed to the bedroom and pushed the door open gingerly. Henry was talking to his new client playfully. He flicked his eyes over to you and gave you a quick wink before returning his attention to the screen.

Henry’s desk was circular and facing inward toward the wall, so there was be a solid background rather than showing his clients your bedroom. Your phone was on the nightstand next to the bed-nest, out of frame.

“So, tell me a little about yourself, sweetheart,” He said sultrily. “What do you like? What do you like having done to you?” Henry was wearing an earpiece through which the client responded. This prevented you from having to listen and the client from hearing you rattling around in the apartment. “Mmm, that sounds fun. You want to show me, or would you like me to show you first?”

You stealthed across the room and picked up your phone, turning it to silent. When you turned back around, Henry had removed the bolero jacket and was touching his chest suggestively and biting his lip.

“You look so pretty when you do that,” He said with a low-pitched growl in his voice.

Watching him in his element was… kinda hot. Instead of leaving, you sat down quietly on the bed-nest and watched him. He flicked his eyes over to you again for a millisecond, and you heard him typing.

>What are you doing?

>Admiring you. You responded. >You look so sexy.

>You’re breaking the rule.

>Then tell me to leave.

You could tell he was suppressing a smirk, but he didn’t tell you to leave.

>Just be as quiet as possible and you can stay, just this once, He texted you.

>Promise.

He continued the session with you reclining in the nest, watching him work. Normally in the first session with a new client, he didn’t go all the way, so to speak. It was more of a peep show and less of a full service. Usually it was a strip tease and some light touching to entice them to continue their subscription.

The way he was putting on a show for the camera, the exaggerated movements, the low, husky voice, the touching, the sly smirk on his lips, did things to your body. You squeezed your legs together and squirmed slightly, but he didn’t notice.

How much would he let you get away with, you wondered? Slowly, you let your hand slip into the sleep shorts you were wearing, spreading your legs a little.

This time he noticed. A minuscule flick of his eyes made them widen slightly, and he turned back to the keyboard while still engaging with the client.

>Stay quiet, He said. >Don’t make a sound.

He lowered his lashes and took a covert look at you, and you nodded.

He continued with his flirty introduction and laid the flattery on thick to the client, while every once in a while stealing a glance at you. You rocked your pelvis against your hand, massaging your pearl and biting your wrist to keep silent, all while watching him. You saw him pull his tail around under the desk and began stroking his slit in circles, the heads of his dual cocks just starting to peek out.

Just as you were getting to your first orgasm, Henry said, “Well, darling, our time is up. I hope I’ll see you again. I had a wonderful time with you.” He dipped his head down and looked up through his eyelashes, pouting slightly. “Come back soon. Until then, you take care, okay darling? Good night and sweet dreams.”

You came hard, gripping the sheets in one hand as you struggled to stay quiet. Henry exited out of the video chat, tore his earpiece off and threw it onto the desk, and darted toward you, pulling your hand out of your shorts and over your head.

“You…” He said with a dark, gruff tone. “You have been very… very… bad.”

This was a new side to sweet, cuddly Henry. “And what will you do?” You taunted, feeling a little thrill up your spine.

Without warning, he flipped you onto your stomach and snatched your shorts and underwear off. He pushed himself into you, not in a way that hurt, but definitely hard and unceremonious. Since you had climaxed already and were a bit sensitive, it was almost sensory overload, but it was so good, and you gave yourself over to it.

He took both of your hands and held them behind your back with only one of his while he used the other to grip your hip to pull you harder against him.

“Don’t be quiet now,” He growled at you. “Make noise. Moan for me, scream for me, let me hear your voice.”

You were happy to obey, being a little louder than you normally were. You grunted and groaned as he pounded into you roughly, a way he’d never been with you before. He was always gentle and affectionate, and you loved it, but this was on another level. It was hot and passionate and wild, and you were enthralled. You loved Sweet Henry, but Feral Henry was incredible.

Henry came violently against you, growling, and withdrew, thrusting the second cock into you and going full-throttle again. You were used to Henry’s stamina by now, so you could hang with it. Another burst of pleasure crashed into your body, and you screamed his name.

“That’s a good girl,” He snarled into your ear.

A third orgasm, and then a fourth, and by the fifth, you were getting tired. He released one last shot inside you and let you go, collapsing next to you in the nest. You lay face down and gasped.

After a moment or two, he got up on his elbow and stroked your back.

“Are you okay? Do you need some water? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He asked softly.

Ah. Sweet Henry was back. You loved Sweet Henry. He was the best.

“No, I’m okay, babe,” You turned your head to look at him. “What was that? You’ve never been like that with me before.”

“I don’t know,” He said, looking a little shocked at himself. “I’ve never been like that with anyone before. Was it bad?”

“No, on the contrary, it was amazing,” You replied, turning on your side to face him. “I was just playing with you, I didn’t know I’d bring that out.”

“Me neither,” He said ruefully, laughing self-consciously and scratching the back of his head. “You’re sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’d have said so if you did, you know that,” You said, reaching up to stroke his face. “I won’t sit in on sessions again, I know it’s bad for business. But… maybe we could roleplay Feral Henry one night. That was fun.”

He grinned wickedly at you, kissing the inside of your hand. “I look forward to it.”

That Sunday, the two of you took a trip across town to see his family. Despite living in the same city, you hadn’t actually met them yet. They traveled often for work, as they owned an advertising company and worked with businesses across the country. Their daughter, Henry’s older sister, was their secretary and did most of their scheduling.

Henry didn’t want to be an executive with the company and preferred to stand on his own two feet… so to speak. Thankfully, his family was understanding and didn’t object when he decided to follow his dreams instead of staying with the family business. After all, the advertisement company had been his parents’ dream.

You and Henry took a large-race cab service out to the richer end of the city, where his parents lived. They’re house had been built with nagas specifically in mind, so it had been built all on the ground level, but it was huge. There were at least six bedrooms, as far as you could tell.

Henry’s parents, Ruth and Richard, met you at the door. Ruth’s scales were a solid bright blue from waist to tail. Her skin was a burnished bronze and her eyes were gold in color. She had a long, lovely set of wings in blues and gold. She wore a long halter top in a deep brown that matched her tumbling hair and complemented her skin tone.

Richard, on the other hand, did not have wings and as such, wore a simple button up shirt. He was grey in color, both scales and skin, with black rings along his tail and grey horns jutting up from the top of his head out of his pitch black hair.

Naga women didn’t have mammary glands, since their diet at birth was strictly meat, transitioning to other foods as they aged, so nagas often didn’t feel the need to wear clothing. Henry didn’t typically wear clothing unless he was camming or in the shop, in which he wore a basic white t-shirt specially made with a panel in the back to accommodate his wings. Sometimes an apron, if he was feeling fancy. Otherwise, he went without clothes. Today, he went super posh with a blue t-shirt, since this was a special occasion and everything.

“Henry!” Ruth said, rushing out to meet her son. “You look so handsome!” She hugged her son tightly, their wings touching lightly. “And is this your girlfriend? She’s so lovely! Come and give me a hug, sweetie!”

You walked into her muscular arms and she gave you a warm, motherly hug that felt really nice. Since you weren’t speaking to your own family, this was a type of touch you really missed.

“It’s so nice to meet you!” You said as you stepped away. “Henry has told me all about you.”

“Likewise!” She said, cupping your face. “Gosh, he’s talked about nothing else besides you for years!”

“Honey, don’t embarrass our son,” Richard said, coming out to shake your hand. “It is lovely to meet you at last.”

“You too, sir,” You replied.

“Oh, please, call me Richard. Come in, come in, dinner is almost ready,” He said, putting a hand behind your back, stopping just short of touching you, and ushered you inside.

You could smell a savory smell that made your mouth water as soon as you came inside. You followed Richard into the kitchen, where there was a large, high bar in place of a dinner table and a single barstool.

“We actually had to buy a chair!” Ruth said. “That was exciting. We did measurements and everything.”

Her excitement made you smile wide and feel a little shy. Henry grinned down at you and took your hand, leading you forward toward the barstool. You sat down and looked around the enormous, beautiful kitchen.

“Is she here yet?” A voice from the doorway said. Henry’s sister, Rea, entered unclothed, looking much like her brother but having her mother’s coloring.

“Rea, put on a shirt! We have company!” Ruth said.

“No, really, it’s okay, I’m used to Henry not wearing clothes, so it’s totally fine.” You hopped off the chair and went over to greet her and introduced yourself.

“I’m Rea, it’s great to meet you.” She looked you up and down. “You weren’t lying, Henry, she’s as hot as you described her.”

“Hey,” Henry said warningly, coming up behind you and hugging you close to his chest. “She’s taken.”

“For now,” Rea said to her brother, smiling slyly. He growled.

“Don’t fight,” Ruth said. “Come now, dinner is ready.”

Henry helped you pop back up on the stool and the naga family simply sat back on their tails. Dinner was rare steak and garden vegetables tossed in a homemade dressing and a dry white wine.

“Are you both amphiptere?” You asked Ruth and Richard.

“Yes,” Richard said. “But it’s less likely for the males to have wings than the females. Even among our own kind, Henry is rare.”

“Aww,” You said, patting his cheek. “That doesn’t surprise me one little bit. He’s special.”

“In the head, maybe,” Rea said, shoving a large piece of steak in her mouth. Henry shot her a dry look, but his mouth was too full to retort.

“Well, I’m glad he finally found someone who understands and appreciates his value,” Ruth said. “We were beginning to think he’d never get married.”

Henry choked on his wine, spitting it across the table. His parents and sister had to shield their plates.

“Mom, we’ve only been dating for a few months, it’s too early to be talking about marriage.”

“Oh, please, it’s inevitable, you’ve been in love with her for years!”

“Yes, but she wasn’t aware of that until recently!” He responded. “This is all new for her.”

“But you love her, right?”

“Mom, for the love of God,” Henry groaned, massaging his temples. “Yes, I love her, but it’s still basically the beginning of our relationship. You’re going to scare her off.”

“Well, what do you think?” Ruth asked, turning to you. “You’d marry him, wouldn’t you?”

You opened your mouth, taken aback.“I…”

“You don’t need to answer that,” Henry said. “Mom, really, don’t make her feel uncomfortable. Neither of us are thinking about marriage right now. Can we please talk about something else?”

“Mom, really, leave Henry alone,” Rea said.

“Alright, alright, I’m just saying--”

“Honey,” Richard said stiffly. “Please.”

Ruth sniffed and sighed, but fell silent. What followed was a rather awkward dinner.

As the two of you were leaving, Ruth apologized for being so pushy, having thought about her words over the strained silence. You told her it was okay, and that you were looking forward to seeing them again.

Back on the taxi heading toward town, you started thinking about it. Did he really not think about getting married one day? You were kind of hoping that eventually you would. Not soon, but eventually.

“Don’t worry about my mom,” Henry said, taking your hand. “She has that mom habit of not knowing when to stop.”

“No, it’s totally fine, she just caught me off guard, is all,” You replied.

“You sure you’re okay?” He asked, tilting his head down a bit to look at your face. “You seem bothered by something.”

“It’s just…” You tried to think of a way to phrase it that wouldn’t spook him but failed. “No, it’s nothing really.”

“No, no,” He said, bumping your shoulder with his lightly. “Come on, I know there’s something on your mind. I’m your best friend, right? You can tell me anything.”

You sighed. “Are you really not thinking about marriage at all? I don’t mean right now or anything, but like in the future? Maybe a few years from now?”

“Well…,” He began, his brow furrowing. “I mean, yeah, of course I am. I’ve been thinking about marrying you since before we ever met. But our relationship is new and I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on you. And we’re opening a new shop! Who knows how long it’ll be before the chaos of that subsides long enough for us to even begin to plan a wedding? It could genuinely be years.”

“So… it’s a possibility, then?”

“More than a possibility, I’d say,” He said with a gentle smile. “But we need time to feel this out. Just because we love each other is no reason to rush into something we aren’t necessarily prepared for, you know? Marriage is… a lot.”

You nodded. “Yeah. And I agree with you, but I was just worried that you weren’t even considering it.”

“Well, don’t worry. It’s definitely on my mind.”

“Good.” You laid your head on his shoulder, linking your arm with his. “Do we still have ice cream at home?”

“Nope, I ate it earlier.”

“Boo, you suck.”

He chuckled. “We’ll stop at the store on the way home. Mint chocolate chip and some cookies?”

“You know me so well.” You raise your head and puckered your lips, and he bent down to kiss you.

“I do think that before we start talking seriously about marriage or anything like that, I want to stop camming.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, when I got into it, I never intended to be a career, it was just a side job to help me pay bills. It’s fun and I like it, but I don’t want to do it forever. There is a risk to it, and I worry that you might be affected by it, and I don’t want that.”

“Risk?”

“Yeah. In fact, I think I’m going to end the camming early this year. I’m booked through the month, but I think I’ll make a post tonight saying that I’m going offline for the season. We’re going to be run ragged getting the new place set up. Some people will be upset about it, but they can deal with it.”

“People will be mad?” You asked. The taxi stopped and he took your hand, escorting you out and down the sidewalk toward the small store near your home.

“Yeah,” He said. “A lot of people get that I have a normal life outside of my side job, but some people can be obsessive. Usually, they just wait until next season opens up and book all of my openings they can afford, but some get personal. I block the ones that are too aggressive or start trying to get too close.”

“Too close?”

“Trying to find out who I am and where I live,” He replied.

“That happens?” You asked, alarmed.

“It’s only happened twice. One of them got the hint when I got angry and I didn’t hear from them again. The second one I had to call the police on. I still have a restraining order out against her.”

“Jesus,” You responded. “I didn’t realize it was so… dangerous.”

“It usually isn’t,” He said off-handedly. “That’s the beauty of anonymity and the internet. But I am a rare breed, so it’s easy for people to match my face in real life if they really dig. I mean, you did, right? I have a VPN and pretty hardcore protections on my computer that prevent hacking it remotely, but people can be persistent.”

“That’s… scary,” You said, frowning.

“Don’t worry,” He said, flexing his arms and stomach muscles. “I can handle just about anything.”

“Just about,” You echoed under your breath, and followed him into the store.

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

#Exophilia #Monster Boyfriend #Naga #Reader Insert

236 notes · View notes

thenakedgingerwrites · 4 years

Text

My Personal Trainer

I met Nick five months ago when he became my personal trainer. I joined the gym in the summer to finally work my body towards my personal goals. I had been skinny all my life and knew that if I wanted to change it I would have to get serious. Five months of 3-5 workouts a week and heavy carb/protein loading I was pushing towards my goal. I was up 20 pounds of muscle and my progress pics were really showing obvious changes. I of course had taken photos every step of the way, but hadn't really shared them with anyone until recently. Nick and I had our weekly Monday appointment scheduled. Today was chest day for me and he pushed me hard through it. I was actually pretty lucky getting Nick as my trainer. He was attractive but not instantly my type. It was easier to get a solid workout in if I wasn't drooling over my trainer the entire time. Nick was probably 5'11. He had a lot of muscle but was rounded since bulking season had set in. His arms were massive, chest was broad, and butt (from what I could tell) was quite a bubble. His legs were probably the most underdeveloped part of him but they weren't thin by any means. Definitely thicker than mine. Nick was pale but had clear, unblemished skin. His hair was dark and kept short. In fact sometimes his beard would get longer than his hair before he trimmed everything up. He was one of the few trainers that didn't seem to shave everything. His legs and arms had a nice layer of thick dark hair.

I tried not to fantasize about him but couldn't help the occasional naughty thought, especially when he would demonstrate squat formations or anything that popped his butt. However, I really tried to keep things professional. No harmless flirting or ogles were done by this guy. Nick figured out I was gay probably 2 months into our routine. It didn't phase him at all and things continued as normal. He would occasionally ask about my personal life, if I was seeing anyone, and I'd ask the same. We were both helplessly single but he was straight so there were no possibilities there. I didn't shower at the gym since I lived so close and Nick always did his workouts in the afternoon before I arrived. What this meant is that I'd never even seen the guy shirtless. The most skin I'd ever seen on the man was his calves, arms, and occasional upper thigh depending on the workout. His body was still a mystery, and that was probably a good thing for me. That all changed in the 4 month mark. We were talking after my workout and just shooting the shit. He asked if I had taken progress pictures and I explained I had, but wasn't quite ready to share. Maybe one day, I told him. He understood, but offered up his own. He flipped through his phone and then handed it to me. "Don't flip too much though," Nick said with a nervous laugh. He obviously had nudes on his phone. Of him or of someone else I wondered? The screen was zoomed in to a 3 picture side-by-side, each 6 months apart. I should probably mention that it was his neck down in nothing but some tight underwear. My eyes must have bulged. His body was amazing. I mean he definitely was a 'round' muscled guy but that was absolutely my type. His chest had a light dusting of dark hair which picked back up around his belly button and continued south, growing in intensity until it was hidden below his waistband. He kept his body hair trimmed but definitely all there. I couldn't help but focus on his package. Fuck keeping things personal, I thought. The pictures weren't amazingly lit, but I could easily see the large bulge in his briefs. Whether it was cock, balls, or both I couldn't tell. Whatever it was though, it was hefty. "... and if you blend that all together, it makes a wicked easy meal with tons of calories." Oh shit! I had completely zoned out while looking at his pictures. Quick, say something. "Well it's working out really well for you Nick. This is great progress. I'd be happy with any of them, honestly." Nick laughed. "Like, for your own body or as in your boyfriend?" It had seemed innocent enough but a million thoughts were running through my head. "Umm, well I meant for my own body, but if I was lucky enough to snatch someone up with a body like yours, I'd hold on tight." Nick just gave a cheesy grin and said thanks. We talked for a few more minutes about our weeks and what I would focus on while at the gym. Unfortunately, that night I jacked off thinking about those photos. The next night, I texted Nick telling him how raw I was from the workout yesterday and he responded with the picture he showed me. "Pain builds progress" he wrote with it. That week I did nothing but masturbate to that photo. The slippery slope had started and there was no turning back. Another month went by without much significance except how I looked at Nick. He was no longer just my personal trainer, he was now an object of my lust. Every workout he showed me I couldn't help but turn it dirty in my mind. I was losing it. We had hung out a few times outside of the gym. It had always been with a bunch of the gym staff for a game or just a night out in downtown. I got a text on Saturday morning asking if I wanted to hang out and drink some beers. His roommate was out of town and he wanted to enjoy the apartment to himself while watching the football game. I agreed, trying not to fantasize about unrealistic outcomes. When I got there he was basically in gym attire. I felt a bit dressed up in my nice jeans and button up shirt but oh well. We drank while watching the game, Nick drinking much faster than me. Near the end of the 3rd quarter, it was obvious our home team was going to win and interest in the game subsided. We talked about the gym, work, girls, guys, and continued to drink. I was getting tipsy at this point but Nick was sufficiently drunk. "When are you gonna show me your progress photos, man?" Nick asked me. He actually didn't need to beg much. The alcohol helped, but it only felt fair knowing how much I'd stared at his almost naked body. "Eh, I'll show you. Remember, I was SKINNY. Don't make fun." "I would never! Plus you've grown so much. I'm so proud!" He was smiling ear to ear. It made me swoon a little. I flipped through my phone to get the most recent. It was my 5 month comparison photo. Nothing too crazy. Just standing in front of the mirror flexing one arm in my underwear. I wore skimpy briefs but it was nothing x-rated. I had clearly changed. My ribs were no longer visible and every muscle and it's own definition. Where a flat chest had been there were now pecs. Where a stick arm was there was muscled girth. "Wow! I'm so impressed; you've changed more than I imagined." "Thanks Nick." I was genuinely appreciative of his compliments. "Although, you need to get better at posing." "What?" Nick continued, "You're not showing off the right muscles in these. Like, you've grown a lot in your back but you can't tell in these." "Oh, haha. I didn't realize there was an art to gym selfies." I chastised him a little sarcastically. "There is!!" Nick was drunkenly serious. This was clearly a subject he was passionate about. "Okay, how do you feel about practicing some?" "Sure, that's fine." I said. "You'd have to take off those clothes though to see what I mean." Nick was very direct. I played along, my mind secretly hoping for something like this or more. "That's fine. You would too, right? To show me?" "Yeah, yeah. Obviously." With that Nick stripped. There was no romantic tease to it. This was clearly just what Nick said it was and nothing more. In a few seconds he had peeled out to just his tight boxer briefs. I stood there for longer than I should have because he cleared his throat and said, "you're turn." I quickly snapped back to reality and disrobed as well. I wore my tight AussieBum red briefs tonight just in case something like this happened. What can I say, I'm a planner. "Nice briefs man." Nick offered. "Nice body." He laughed. "Okay, so the first pose is really to show off your Lats and all the work you've been doing on your back." He walked through a couple poses and I imitated him. He would correct me a few times and move my arms or body in the right way. I was really proud of myself for not popping an erection at all with the contact. Minutes passed and things started to get warm in the living room from all our flexing and holding poses. Nick offered to take some photos for me on my phone and I happily agreed. They would be much better than selfies. After taking some photos Nick asked if I would do the same. I obviously agreed. We got to a pose that Nick wanted to try to accentuate his butt. He stood sideways to the camera and twisted his torso towards the lens to accentuate the roundness of his bubble butt. I took a few photos, wishing they were on my phone instead. "Does it look good? Does my butt look good?" He asked me. "It looks incredible Nick. Easily one of the hottest asses I've ever seen." I didn't really think about what I was saying anymore. We were both getting drunk by this time. "Coming from you that means a lot, thanks!" Nick replied with a cheesy smile. "Hey, I kind of want to get some more but without my briefs. Is that okay?" "You want me to take your nudes for you?" I sarcastically asked. Probably should have played that differently. He laughed loudly, "No! I can take my own dick pics thank you. I'll still cover the goods up, I just want some sexier ones without underwear." "Sure, why would I mind?" Nick shrugged, "I dunno, just wanted to make sure, ya know?" He turned around to slip his briefs off. His butt, was amazing. Two large globes of muscle sat atop his legs. They were dusted in his dark fur but he kept his butt trimmed as well. He went through the same poses but was really good at covering up his cock with either his legs or his hands. As much as I wanted to, I never actually saw what he was packing other than some heavy pubes. When Nick felt he had enough shots, he plopped down onto the couch. He grabbed his briefs and placed them over this crotch but didn't actually put them on. He asked for his phone and flipped through the photos when I handed it to him. He was clearly pleased with the photos. "Is it bad that I find myself hot?" he asked. I laughed, still standing there in my underwear. "No. Is it bad if I do?" Oops. He looked up at me. "You think I'm hot?" I didn't know what to do. I scrambled to find words that would make this alright but the drunken haze was cast over my thoughts. "Well, never mind. That answers that question." Nick was looking down on me. I followed his eyes to see my obvious erection in my briefs. Shit!! I covered up quickly and turned from him. That's when he started laughing. "Don't worry about it dude. I'm flattered. Can't say I've given a guy a hard on before. Nice to know I can." "Ha, ha" I said sarcastically, still trying to will my cock to shrink. "Really, it's not a big deal. Come'on. Come here and help me figure out what shots are the best. You'll clearly have an eye for what looks good here." I looked over my shoulder and he was patting the seat of the couch beside him. I said Fuck it in my head and went to sit by him. My erection wasn't gone at all, but at this point in my life I wasn't really that shy about nudity anymore. A few minutes of flipping through shots and adding filters here and there, Nick asked me a question out of the blue. "So you really like cocks? Like, they look good to you?" "Yeah. Don't you like the look of your dick?" I replied. "Well yeah, but that's mine, ya know. I've never thought any other dick was nice." "I guess that's the difference in being gay," i laughed at that. Nick laughed too. "I guess you're right. But like, what exactly do you like about them?" I couldn't really explain it well after I thought for a moment. "I'm not really sure there's specific things or features I like about dicks and balls. It's just linked so closely with arousal that even seeing one triggers so much sexual endorphin release in me. And it's a muscle that can't hide sexual feelings, as we've clearly seen tonight. I like how honest cocks are." Nick lost it at that. "Hahaha, you like how 'honest' cocks are! That's a new one." "I'm a sucker for an honest dick, what can I say?" I laughed with him. Nick put his phone down. "Okay, then tell me. Do I have an honest dick?" He pulled his briefs off his cock. I stared without caring how obvious I was being, plus I assumed that's what he wanted. His cock was awesome. It was still pretty soft, cut, and pretty thick from what I could tell. However, it was his balls that was giving the bulging briefs in his photos. They were massive. He kept almost all his hair closely trimmed but Nick shaved his balls. "It's um... it's... honestly awesome. Nick, your balls are huge!" was all I could put together. "Haha, yeah. They've been big since I was a teenager." He handled them with palm and moved them around a bit. I swore I saw his cock twitch a bit too. "So, this is hot to you? Like, you actually think my cock and my balls are sexy?" "Do you need reassurance?" "No, no. It's just, I'm trying to figure it out. I'm.. I just can't believe someone would find someone else's dick hot." "Well, I could prove it to you." I offered. "Oh yeah? How?" Nick said. He's not a very good actor and it seemed obvious where this was going. I played it safe though and went with another slow tell. I moved my hand to his thigh. "I could show you how much I like your cock." Nick smiled. "You may have to. I still think you're fibbin'" "I would never lie," I joked. I moved my hand the extra few inches to his soft package. It felt even bigger in my hands. I had to skip to his balls first though since they were so incredibly. I moved them around and massaged them with my fingers. I would pull on them a little bit and stretch the skin which elicited light moans from Nick. I felt adventurous for a few reasons and leaned in. I kissed his balls, first lightly, and then heavier with some wet tongue. Nick moaned more. I continued to kiss and lick his balls while loosely gripping his cock. It was filling up quickly. A few seconds later, he was hard in my hand. I backed up from his balls to take a look at his meat. It was thicker than I thought. Probably 6 inches or so in length but probably the same around. It was the hottest cock I'd ever seen. I looked up to Nick just to reassure myself it was him and that this was honestly happening. He caught my eyes and just whispered, "Please don't stop." Oh that made me wet. I got down onto the floor and moved in between his legs. I took hold of his shaft and licked that cock from base to head like a popsicle. It was delicious. He had already started to precum a little for me. I wasn't in the mood to tease and went right into it. I took as much of Nick's cock into my mouth as I could. He wasn't super long but the girth prevented me from taking him all in on the first go. As I sucked with his member filling my mouth, Nick's light moans evolved to deep rumbling groans. He was loving this which made me even hornier. A couple of bobs was all it took for me to get most of him in my throat. After that I could try my different techniques (which were admittedly rusty). I swiveled my tongue around his head, used my hand to match pace with my mouth, and used a little teeth on the retract. Nick was loving each skill and would buck uncontrollably at some. I was surprised what a gentleman he was. He didn't try and grab my head to face fuck me (although I would have been fine with it) and made it very audible how much he appreciated what I was doing. "Fuck yes. That feels so good. You're amazing. You're incredible. Please don't stop." were the only things he could muster between groans. It only took a couple of minutes before Nick's balls began to tighten. I knew he was getting close. He finally did take hold of my head, but to remove it and saying, "I"m about to cum, man." What a fucking knight. "Good," I said and fought against his grip to latch back onto his cock. He tried to pull me off him again, "No, you really don't have to do that. I don't want you to feel like you do." I continued to stroke him with my hands as I popped off to say, "You don't know what it's like to be gay, but fact one, I WANT to do this." I batted his hands away and took his cock back into my wanting mouth. He just said, "oh god, oh god." over and over as he edged towards the finish line. Nick tried to hold back his orgasm as long as he could but finally he couldn't fight anymore. I took hold of his balls with a free hand as he erupted into me. His tank had definitely been full and I almost struggled to get it all down. Jet after jet of warm seed filled my mouth and was swallowed down. Nick tried to remain still but was bucking and shaking uncontrollably between his heavy breathing. When I was sure he was done, I milked him dry with a last squeeze and popped off his still hard cock. "So," I said, "believe me now that I actually like cock?" He tried to laugh but didn't have the energy. "That. Was. Amazing. I've never gotten head like that before. You're a master." I laughed. "Stand up," Nick said. I did as commanded and rose before him. I was still rock hard in my briefs, and had actually popped out a little on top. He put his hands on my ass and pulled me in closer. I had no words for what was happening, so I just went with it. He fondled me through my briefs for a bit, getting used to the feeling of a hard cock in close proximity to his body. He swallowed, and shucked my briefs to the floor. My cock sprang out and almost hit him in the face which he wasn't expecting and jumped back a bit. I couldn't help but laugh, "You're right to be scared. He bites." "You're huge, dude!" I was definitely longer than Nick. Around 8 inches, but not near as thick. And my balls were only average compared to his massive globes a few feet below. He hesitantly took hold of my cock with one hand and slowly stroked it. This was clearly more for him than it was for me. He was exploring what another man's cock was like and I didn't want to rush him through that. Plus it was incredibly hot to see him oaf around it like a foreign object. After giving me a slow, steady hand job for a few minutes he swallowed again and licked his lips. He inched closer and closed his eyes. I was now feeling bad about this. "Nick, stop. You don't have to do this. You don't owe me anything." He finally looked up at me. "No, I know. I just, I want to see what it's like." "Okay, but go slow. Don't do anything that makes you uncomfortable and you can stop anytime." He was looking at my dick again and nodded. He inched close again and closed his eyes to lick my cock head. Once he had a taste he moved his tongue around in his mouth to figure out if he liked it or not. "It just tastes like, skin?" I laughed, "yeah, they don't come in different flavors." "I guess I just, I thought it would taste different." I explained to him that it can if a guy precums a lot, but that I didn't. My cock was a great 'beginners' cock. We both laughed a bit. He then took hold with one hand and tried to wrap his lips around my cock. He could, but didn't take too much into his mouth. He bobbed on my cock like he thought he should but only took an inch or two in at a time and without any suction. What should I have expected from a straight guy. However poor the actual blow job was going, it was Nick who was giving it and that was incredibly hot. I was loving every second of it regardless. I must have began to leak a bit because Nick pulled away with a slight disgust taste on his mouth.

"That's what I expected they tasted like." Nick said with some nervous laughter.

"Yeah, if you don't like that you definitely won't like the ending."

He looked visibly nervous. I leaned down and pushed him away from my cock. "You're done. I'm not letting you go any further. Thanks for trying."

He sighed some relief, "Thanks for letting me try. And for that amazing blow job you gave me. I just wish I could return the favor."

"Trust me Nick, I loved every minute of that probably as much as you did." We both smiled.

"Well, do you wanna shoot on my chest?" Nick said.

I froze for a second and then began dying of laughter.

"What? People do that right?" Nick looked at my confused.

"Hahahaha, sure Nick, sure they do. But rarely does a straight guy just go, 'hey wanna cum on my chest?' It was just too funny."

He leaned back and rubbed his chest seductively, playing with himself a bit too. His cock had softened up almost entirely. "Do you wanna cum on this hot piece of man or not?"

I did.

I leaned into him and put one arm on his shoulder and the other on my cock. Nick just stared at the barrel of the gun in somewhat excited anticipation actually. Having this hunk below me, wanting my cum all over him, was enough to help me finish quickly. My balls tightened as the first blast shot forward onto his pecs. 8 steams of hot spunk fell onto Nick, coating his chest, abs, and cock in my cum. I sighed in relief.

"Hot." was all Nick had to say before we both started laughing.

We stayed there for a minute while I got my breath back and then he offered we take a shower. I rubbed his back, he rubbed mine. I probably washed his ass more than I had to but he didn't stop me or protest. By the end of the shower we both had erections again but heading into the living room he put on his briefs which signaled the nights fun was over.

We both fell asleep on the couch that night and I woke up spooning him in the morning. He was snoring. I got off of him and got the rest of my clothes on to leave. Before I left I looked back at this amazing, delicious man I had known for the past few months. He was sprawled out, chest up, almost naked in his tight white briefs. He had a serious case of morning wood going on that was clearly visible.

I felt naughty and probably was risking more than I should have, but I gave into the momentary idea. I got down on my knees and fished his cock and balls out of his briefs and gave them some light kisses. Nick continued to snore obliviously.

I took a step back to admire the view. I decided to take a picture of him like this for later use. I was going to put his junk back in but last minute decided instead to bob on it a couple times for one last taste and leave.

When I got home I felt guilty about the picture. I didn't want to delete it for obvious reasons but felt like I crossed a line. I decided to text him the photo with the caption "Had a great night. Took this souvenir. Hope you don't mind ;)"

That way if he wanted me to delete it he could tell me, but at least he would know that I had it.

I woke up from a nap to a response from Nick. "Likewise"

A few seconds later a video came through. I opened it and saw myself giving Nick head, his loud moans were close to the speaker. That little shit took a video of me blowing him without me knowing. The anger was only a reflex and I quickly found it hilarious that he captured that moment.

I texted him back, "That's blackmail!"

"Maybe it is. I need something to hold onto to remember last night."

"You could always just get the real thing again if you needed a reminder."

"Deal! Deleted."

"You don't really have to delete it, you can keep it for your own spank bank."

"haha good. I wasn't actually going to delete it anyway."

"lol, dick."

....

Bling. A picture of his hard cock and balls came through.

"This one?? ;P"

I was definitely jacking off today. "Tease!"

He replied, "I think we need to have a special work out session each week after our gym sessions. There are some special muscles we need to work out."

"Deal, see you Monday."

My training sessions had become something more, and I was absolutely, fucking floored about it.

#straight-to-gay #aware #vanilla

109 notes · View notes

incorrectmlpquotes · 5 years

Text

My Thoughts on Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks

Or: Are we sure this didn’t come out in 2004 rather than 2014? Because the “battle of the bands” story line feels super dated for some reason. I feel like almost every early 2000s cartoon had some sort of music contest episode, and I never liked them. I blame American Idol for making those popular.

Some History:

I’m under the impression that everything in this movie I dislike is a completely subjective thing that wouldn’t bother someone else. I know that, from a movie standpoint, this is much better than the first, but I just don’t like it as much. Everything that warrants complaint comes from a personal hangup that I have (such as: my lack of any musical ability causes me to not care at all whether their band is successful), so if you disagree, I completely understand. These are all my opinions, and I’m aware that this is probably the best of the four movies. (As stated on a previous post, I haven’t watched any of the shorts from 2017 or 2018 as of this entry)

There were a series of promotional shorts released before the movie debuted that explains how the members of the Main 5 came to play their instruments in Rainbow Dash’s band, and some other random stuff. Here’s the link to the playlist on youtube. Here’s a quick rundown of what I think:

Music to My Ears : meh

Guitar Centered : funny, but kind of mean spirited

Hamstocalypse Now : Hilarious.

Pinkie on the One : exactly what you’d expect it to be

Player Piano: a masterpiece

A Case for the Bass: Applejack is one word, why would she have AJ embroidered on the strap? I know people call her that but those aren’t her initials

Life is a Runway: There’s a reason they didn’t let Rarity write the songs

Shake Your Tale: Bad.

This was a pretty clever way to establish some musical background within the group without taking up time in the movie. It also is some sneaky foreshadowing with Trixie, which I appreciate.

In the actual movie: My nitpicks are going to be less Why is no one in class? Why is doesn’t anyone have homework? Because I realize this is a movie and depicting high school as it actually is would be boring to watch. Besides, there are plenty of other things to complain about.

We open on a scene of this film’s villains. And yes I am going to refer to them as villains instead of antagonists because 1) they are actually a threat and we see them doing bad things, and 2) other people will serve as antagonists. A villain is different from an antagonist, even though the terms are often used interchangeably.

The Dazzlings are so cool, they make a cameo four years later. Either this is some really deep foreshadowing, or by season seven the writers were so desperate for an ongoing arc, they looked to other properties. But we now know that the guardians banished them over 1,000 years ago. So they really are ancient magic. And now they have to go to high school. Talk about eternal torment…

Way to take all the credit, Starswirl

We are shown how they are a sort of siren, who feed off of people’s negativity and discord and use their beautiful enchanted voices to cause mayhem. Kind of like a mix between Ursula the sea witch and Spectra from Danny Phantom. Oh my gosh, this is the second one of these reviews that I’ve brought up Danny Phantom. Maybe this is why Butch thinks he’s so popular.

The Dazzlings, we can infer, have been exiled to the EQG-verse from Equestria. So apparently this universe is like the pony version of colonial Australia, where they send all their criminals and miscreants. A solid plan that couldn’t have any negative repercussions. The sirens see a beam of light that must be the one from the last movie. This is good news for them, but bad news for me because now I have no idea how much time has passed the two films. Has it been a couple days? Weeks? Moons? This will make a difference in regards to why people still don’t trust Sunset. But why waste time setting up the story when we can get right into the remix title card?

At this point, I can only assume that principal Celestia threatened to expel students if they told the news or the FBI about the magical winged demon that attacked the school, because no one seems too concerned about that incident.

But they have plenty of time to hurt my baby’s feelings

I’m going to be honest, when I first watched EQG I thought that Sunset was faking her remorseful act after being defeated. As cool as that would have been, she makes a much better reformed bad guy than an antagonist, because she really wasn’t in the last movie that much.

List of “evil” things Sunset Shimmer has done: send fraudulent text messages and emails that honestly could have been pretty easily disproved, made fun of Fluttershy, made fun of the steamers in the gym, somehow divided the school into cliques, ran a mostly unsuccessful smear campaign against Twilight’s bid for dance princess, threatened to destroy the portal to Equestria, transformed into a demon to hypnotize the students, and she dissed the Apple cider.

Ok, that last one is pretty evil. But what really makes this and all subsequent movies great is that we get to see her learn and grow and change from the experience into a real friend.

I am glad to see that the Main 5 have forgiven her, but no one is quite ready to absolve her of guilt. Like, I might not think she did all that much bad junk, but the students of Canterlot High seem to think she was one tier below Mussolini in terms of maniacal dictators, so I don’t blame them for being cautious. It takes a lot to earn back trust.

Back in Equestria proper, the Mane six plus Spike are sitting around waiting for the plot to affect them. They kindly provide some exposition and once again setup the fact that only Twilight can go through the portal, because the others can’t interact with themselves. So we think. I will be bringing this up when we get to The Friendship Games.

Back through the portal, Twilight gets looped into the fact that Sunset has changed her ways. It’s fair to be a little apprehensive to trust someone who, the last time you saw them, was an actual literal demon. (Don’t worry though, Twi, you’ve still got two more unicorns to reform. It’s kind of your thing.)

Don’t reject her love Twilight, it’s all I have to live for

And now it’s time to discuss the small blue elephant in the room. I feel like I really need to explain why I dislike the addition of Flash to any of the plots. He’s kind of a waste of a potential. You want to add a male character: fine. But make them an actual real fleshed-out character. The show has proven that they can do it and do it well. Sunburst and Thorax are great characters who feel like a good addition to the story. And we got a real sense of who they were in one or two twenty minute episodes. I have no clue what this guy’s purpose is except to be a love interest, and this is not the show to do that with. With very few exceptions, the main characters of MLP have not sought out romantic partners, Twilight included. Why would she choose to do so now? I mean, I get why he’s into Twilight: she’s taken the form of a cute teenage girl. But he’s a species that doesn’t even exist in Equestria. She just fell through a portal and instantly got the hots for some weird otherworldly creature…

Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Perhaps this isn’t compulsory heterosexuality. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle is just a Monster Lover™. I can respect that.

Moving on.

It was so very smart of the writers to have the Dazzlings brainwash the principals in order to get away with this scheme. That makes so much more sense and covers any plot holes that could arise (such as, someone claiming to be a new student despite having no transcript, no grades, and no knowledge of how to hold a pen).

Does time work differently between these two universes? Has it been months in Equestria but only a week in this world? (It really threw me off that the first four season of MLP took place over one year, and these movies don’t help that). And the sad thing is, this could be easily hand-waved away by a single throw away line, but it isn’t.

The Dazzlings are already better villains than Sunset, even from a character standpoint. We know their powers, we know their motivation, and we know they are capable of bringing about an actually believable rift between friends.

Then the best song, best montage, and possibly best scene in any of these films happen: the Dazzling come into the lunchroom and hypnotize everyone. This song is beautiful and eerie and exactly what you would expect a magic spell to sound like. I also enjoy the visual representation of the bands competing (and not just because I didn’t want to hear any of them perform) that we’ll see later. To give credit where credit is due, this movies has some great visual sequences.

Give ‘em the o’l razzle dazzle

At first I thought it was unrealistic that this many kids had bands, but I realized it was probably an effect of the spell. But I might not be the best judge: I think I know maybe three people, plus myself, who don’t play an instrument. I’ll just assume that the Disney channel exists in this universe, and all these children just really want to be famous.

It’s worth sitting through this movie just to see everyone’s pajamas. That’s not weird, right? No really, the scene of them all having a big slumber party is everything I ever wanted from this series. They managed to capture everyone’s personality from an article of clothing. Now THAT’s good character design.

I get the distinct impression that the writers of this don’t like Rainbow Dash.

Oh good, references to technology that couldn’t possibly date this movie in the slightest. Wait… this is Pinkie’s house. Aren’t the Pies supposed to be like Amish or resembling Amish-type folk? What is the human equivalent of rock farmers? Not actual farmers because those exist in the pony-verse. This really confuses me, but Maude’s cameo is fantastic.

The scene with Twilight and Sunset is one of those really well-done moments that reminds me why I love the show so much. It feels really genuine, and supports my argument that it was worth having Sunset as a crappy villain just to reform her.

Ah yes, the sweet, lingering glances that totally platonic female friends share with each other late at night. I know them well.

Our girl Twily seems to be having trouble writing a spell that can double as a catchy pop song (She’s no Lana Del Rey), so they go with an old set list. How long has this band been operational? Weren’t they in a huge feud for several years?

Mac is a close second for best cameo

So we get to watch the band audition, and it goes about as well an actual high school talent show. The CMC are in the outfits from Showstoppers (which is hilarious) and Snips and Snails rap (which is disturbing). In order to keep my goblin brain from exploding while trying to figure out the ages of everyone, I’m just going to assume that this is a combination Middle School and High School. So, if Sunset won fall dance princess four years in a row, she would be in the tenth grade now, so they would be about 15-16. The Equestria Girls Holiday Comic shows Rarity driving a car, so that could be a possibility.

A. Daft. Punk. Reference. Wow. Just wow. (Note: this was more shocking before season five, when there was a character that was basically Lady Gaga. And by basically, I mean very obviously Lady Gaga. Remember when the pop culture references in this show were subtle?)

Dash’s song is quite possibly the most cringeworthy thing I have ever heard. The only defense is it does sound like something a high schooler would write.

On that note, why is Rainbow Dash the lead singer of the group? I mean, I know why, but WHY? (and yes, I am aware that her voice actress is a singer. But Ashleigh Ball uses her normal voice when she performs. Think back to all the songs RD has sung in the previous four seasons before this aired. There are not a lot of solos or high notes. When she sings as Applejack, it is beautiful, but Dash’s voice is grating sometimes)

Really? A battle of the bands is the greatest thing you’ve done at the school? That whole “stopping an actual demon with magic” was just a regular Friday for you? I’ll chalk that up to the brainwashing, otherwise I might go full on rage and throw my laptop out a window.

I guess our merry band of protagonists weren’t paying attention to big cafeteria scene, because they just now figured something suspicious is going on.

Still haven’t fixed the lights in that dim corner of lockers. Fortunately, there are many dramatic confrontations to be had.

I think we’re supposed to see Rarity’s obsession with the outfits as a ridiculous thing, but I think it’s important to distinguish this universe from the one with the professional seamstress who has unicorn magic at her disposal. This is a teenager who has school, extracurriculars, and parents to contend with. If I went through the trouble to hand-make seven costumes for my friends, then found out no one would wear them, I’d be pretty ticked off as well.

Now this is how you montage. We get to play a fun game of “guess which characters are in which band,” and seeing their “humanized” designs. Lotta bootcut pants in this show.

I’m just going to leave this here...

This is some actually effective villainy. The whole school has turned against each other. Maybe they need to learn about the magic of friendship. Unfortunately, the gang is too busy squabbling over band stuff, and Twilight is too distracted to give an overly emotional speech.

No one in the rule book does it say magically turning into a pony is grounds for disqualification...I would assume.

If we’re being honest here, the Dazzlings are better performers than the Rainbooms.

And we’ve come to the crux of things. The scene where they’re locked under the stage is the perfect example of my biggest issue with this movie. I do not like to see Mane 6 fight. I don’t like Trade Ya, I don’t like Putting Your Hoof Down, and I despise Look Before You Sleep. Seeing this otherwise close group of friends constantly have petty arguments, even if it’s for completely valid plot reasons, make me want to turn the movie off. This isn’t a criticism of the screenwriting, it is just a reason why I personally dislike Rainbow Rocks more than the other films.

Of course, they make up because this is about the magic of friendship and what not, but notice how no one actually apologizes for their behavior. No, “I’m sorry that I minimized your contribution to the group or made fun of something you were passionate about.” I realize they were under the influence of magic, but they also knew that! They knew the Dazzlings had the power to turn people against each other! An apology is just a preamble to fundamental behavior change, and if they don’t realize why they were being bad friends, how can they learn from anything?

And the real kicker is, they knew what the Dazzlings were capable of. Twilight read a book about them immediately before going through the portal. It’s not they they just learned that they spread chaos. Why are we fighting? Gee, I don’t know.

DJ-ex-machina. I’m ok with this.

To the movie’s credit, the finale really has one of the best song of the movie. And by that, I of course mean Trixie’s song. Trixie is the most fun addition to the cast. She makes for a fun antagonist, on her own and as a Pawn to the Dazzlings.

Fight scene! Fight scene! We’re gonna have a fight scene!

Now that they’ve put their petty squabbles behind them, it’s time for a big music battle. The Dazzlings pony up harness the energy of the audience to project their Equestrian selves to...I don’t know. Take over the world or something.

This isn’t even their final form

Oh. This design looked better in book form

Sunset is Magic. That’s the show.

So the stones auto-tuned them, and that made everyone mindlessly antagonistic. I’m sure there’s some clever commentary there.

T’was the magic of friendship that killed the beast.

No, you don’t get to just rejoin the plot

Thank you, Trixie.

The real story here is how Principal Celestia will pay off the press.

Thus Twilight goes back to the land of horses, Starlight has been truly forgiven, and my Netflix suggestions will never been the same again.

I want to give a big shout out to the person who put all the captions on the image gallery for this movie’s wikia page. They are funnier than I could ever hope to be.

Some general thoughts:

The scene of Twilight awkwardly yelling “Friendship is magic!” to a room of confused teenagers is the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen, but it got a good laugh out of me. Look at the Dazzlings faces in this scene. “Ok, we legitimately didn’t see that coming.”

One of the reasons that I am so drawn to the show is that they are able to create conflict and drama without being mean-spirited. I have to deal with that kind of nonsense so much in my daily life, I just don’t want to subject myself to eighty minutes of it. But i get it: from a narrative standpoint, this is the most cohesive. There’s some good set up and pay off, and an actually intimidating villain who is actually present in the plot.

I love Trixie so much, I should be dead. She really is the star of the show. I forgot how little we saw of her before season six.

The stinger, oh the stinger. Forget what I said about the pajama party; it was worth sitting through this for the promise of an interesting sequel.

We’ll get to you soon, you marvelous lesbian disaster.

Starlight’s redemption is the best part of this franchise, and it’s worth all the nonsense to hear Rebecca Shoichet’s angelic voice.

From a purely film standpoint, this is probably the best one of the bunch. It has a clear structure, everyone’s motivations check out, there’s an actual climax that feels earned. I just don’t enjoy it. There are worse ways to spend eighty minutes 3.7/5

The worst thing to come from this, however, is the terrifying merchandise:

What Fresh Hell is This?

#MLP:FiM #MLP Equestria Girls #equestrian girls review #equestria girls #rainbow rocks #more of my opinions

39 notes · View notes

brokehorrorfan · 7 years

Text

Interview: Bruce Campbell (Hail to the Chin, Ash vs Evil Dead)

Bruce Campbell needs no introduction. The cult icon took some time out of his book tour to discuss his new memoir, Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor, as well as the game-changing third season of Ash vs. Evil Dead and a look back at Evil Dead 2. He also gives a peek at what it’s store for the future of his career, for which he’s noticeably excited.

In Hail to the Chin, you mention that you see your memoirs as a trilogy. What made this seem like the right time for the second installment?

A lot of weird shit's happened in the last 15 years! In 15 years, a lot can happen. The industry changed. The blue collar aspects, the middle class of the industry fell out. They don't make movies in the U.S. anymore. I also decided to get the hell out of LA, so there were a bunch of changes. Crazy new adventures: visiting the troops in Iraq in '09, making movies in Bulgaria. It seemed like there was enough for a book.

What was the writing process like this time around?

For this one, I hooked up with my buddy, [co-author] Craig Sanborn. We've worked together for 20 years. I went up to Portland, where he lives. I was busy. I was a working actor, and I was afraid that this thing was just going to keep getting pushed back. This book has been around long enough that Burn Notice was still going. I was going to end the book with Bruce Notice. You know, hit cable show! You always have to end it with something special. We kept working on it long enough that Ash vs. Evil Dead came around, so it seemed to go full circle. So we sat down and recorded for a week solid, anything that I could remember, and then he would kind of interview me, ask me questions. Then he transcribed it all, and we just started to figure out our outline.

You kicked off your book tour a few days ago. How has the response been so far?

It's good! We're about twice of what we were with the first Chins book. That's the direction you want to go in. It's been good so far.

You're hosting Last Fan Standing a few of the tour stops, including tonight. What can we look forward to from that?

A hell of a damn good time! We're speaking their lingo. We're asking, like, how much does Thor's hammer weigh? What is Harry Potter's wand made out of? Crap like that. And everybody gets a shot to win! We're not vetting anybody. So they're not coming in to watch people that have already qualified. Anybody who walks in there could win. You take a few early rounds, and then the best four are brought up, and then you whittle it down to one. And then they get a certificate of useless knowledge. You don't win a car or anything. [laughs] You don't get shit!

You mentioned coming full circle with Ash vs. Evil Dead. Do you have any insight as to when we'll see the third season?

You tell me when you hear something! Look, here's some realities: Starz was purchased by Lionsgate last year, so eventually the corporations crash into each other and they have to figure it out. "Our bosses have bosses now. Our bosses didn't used to have bosses." Everyone's singing for their supper right now, so we'll see. They might shift the date to the first quarter of 2018 to get out of the noise of the fall. Fall is an incredibly nightmarish time. It's great for horror, Halloween - but if it's too busy, it's too busy.

I know you can't give anything away, but what can fans expect from the new season?

Last season, we met Ash's father. We meet more of his family this year - perhaps a daughter. So Ash not only has to save the world, he has to raise an unruly daughter in a very shitty way. Everything she sees makes it seem like he's a serial killer, and everything he says makes it seem like he's insane, and yet he never lies to her. He has a line where he says, "I may be a crappy father, but I'm also a crappy liar." There's a little bit of that bond. It's all hands on deck in season three.

And we're doing a lot more of the mythology. Who is Ash? A drawing of him is in the ancient book, so he's not just some loser in a trailer park. Why him? There's a lot more of that. And, at the end, we crack it wide open. We take that egg and smash it on the sidewalk. Nothing will ever be the same by the end of episode 10. Nothing!

In the book, you write about your tenuous experience working on the two movies you directed. Do you think you'll get behind the camera again? Have you been tempted to do an episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead?

No, Ash vs. Evil Dead is too difficult just being an actor. I've got my hands full.

After Ash vs. Evil Dead, I'm engaging in what I call Act 3 mentality. Act 1, there are not bad jobs. Maniac Cop? Man, let me do that! No bad scripts, no bad contracts, no bad directors, no bad co-stars. It's all good. Act 2, which is sort of what I finished up - the book really represents the end of Act 2 - you start to be a little more discerning. You go, "Well, that didn't work out so well on that type of a movie," or if a movie is shot too quickly, or if a director is a first-timer. You start to know what a good script is. Who knows what a good story is when you first start in this business. You start to learn that. And then you start to go, "Oh, that guy's a hack!" and you realize that there's some people who are not qualified, and you know as much as anybody. You start to learn what a shitty deal is. You get better lawyers, and you get better deals. Everything improves, in theory. You don't say yes all the time. I used to just love working, and it makes sense to just do anything to get into it. But, after a while, you go, "I'm kind of tired of that shit."

So Act 3, I'm only doing stuff that means the full-on Act 3 self-developed mode. It's getting off the hamster wheel, including the TV hamster wheel. I'm dragging my ass to the southern hemisphere for five months every year for the last three years. It gets old. Auckland is a great place, the crews are great. I think the work we're doing is good, it's solid, but I live in Oregon. I want to make movies in Oregon. When I knew Burn Notice was going to be canceled - we had, like, a year warning - I just started to develop scripts. I have about a dozen projects that I own. My wife and I are looking at each other going, "Well, if not now, when?" I'm pushing 60, so I want to do stuff that's way more personal while I have the energy. I've got a western, I've got comedies, some horror.

And I'm going to get back into books, because you get a lot more respect as an author than you do as an actor. As an actor, people love capitalizing on, "Oh, he's a B-lister!" Instead of B-movie, it's B-lister. You can sort of stigmatize yourself in that same process, but with a book, it's a little more out of left field. They figure, "Oh, maybe you have a brain." And there's not as many chefs, so creatively, in my experience, almost nothing beats writing a book. I work with my editor, and when he's got opinion we'll talk it over, but it's not a committee. The difference is books don't cost that much. If you're spending $200 million on a movie, you bet your ass there's going to be strong opinions from a lot of people who are afraid of losing their jobs. It's a much more relaxed atmosphere.

Are you thinking more non-fiction or fiction?

More non-fiction and more fiction. More of both. It's interesting to think about, "What would you do next?" It's exciting. What I want to do is create a low budget closed loop. It's one thing to be in the Marvel movies and you're opening in 4,300 theaters, and you're shooting that thing for 9 months, you're promoting it for 3 months. Those actors don't know hit them.

I know a bunch of smaller theater chains. There's the Alamo [Drafthouse] guys, who are great, and I'm doing some work with them on this tour. They've been totally open to the whole thing. They get it. They get what fans are all about. They know what they want. "Give me my beer and pizza, and show me movies that I want!" The Landmark theater chain has also been very friendly. I've shown a couples through those guys. You start developing official relationships with them and really get to know these guys on a much more personal level.

Get to know who owns the VOD companies. Put a face and a name and a handshake. Go meet the Netflix guys. I don't know any of these people, because I've just been working with all the different entities, but they don't necessarily represent the future of what's happening now. Meet those guys, and then find some foreign sales guys. I've worked with various over the years here and there, but really sit down with them and go, "Who are you guys?" Find the best one that can sell that type of movie, a lower-budget indie type of deal.

And, even though I've never really played this game, you start getting to know the festivals. If you don't have a mass distribution plan, you still have to figure out a way to be seen, to be noticed, to get articles, reviews. I'm going to kind of relearn current Hollywood. Even go meet with the studios again; not about big projects, just, "What are you guys looking for? What budget range do you do these days?" That's exciting, because I'm reintroducing myself to everybody in a completely independent way. Instead of hooking up with a [creator] Matt Nix from Burn Notice, I am Matt Nix. Instead of everything that's involved in Ash vs. Evil Dead, it's my project.

My wife will basically be my partner. She's earned her keep, letting me drag her around the world. Now it's time to settle down. Here's the thing: a lot of times, because of random factors, you end up shooting in a part of the world at the wrong time. You're in Auckland, New Zealand in June, which sounds great - but not in the southern hemisphere. The rain is going sideways in June. It's getting to a high of a 55 and a low of 42. Or you find yourself shooting in the northern hemisphere is January, because of random decisions that people have made that are not me. I wouldn't be in Auckland, New Zealand if it wasn't for decisions made by other people. I'm kind of done with that now.

I know I can always do conventions until I die - and I probably will. You look at the [William] Shatners and the Stan Lees. They don't stop. Stan Lee is 92, Shatner's 86, Adam West was 88. Those guys are a great example. I know from my parents who aged and died, use it or lose it. Stan Lee gets up out of bed, keeps him physically moving, he has a Twitter feed and all his crazy merchandising empire - and he does it! It keeps him alive. I think Shatner too. He's doing one-man shows. It's impressive.

Retirement is actually not the issue; I'm retiring from certain things and certain types of acting. When you get in the horror world that has effects and stuff, you're acting with tennis balls on sticks. You're in stunt harnesses so they can hoist you up. They're hitting you with blood rigs and stuff like that. Your whole life consists of: "Three... two... one... Go! [explosion noises]" You set up to do one shot at a time. There's none of this sitting down having a long conversation, where you can get a sense of drama or to build up a scene. It's so far apart from theatrical. It's broken up into little, tiny pieces. Even when we do the fights, it's like, "Bing, bang, boom, duck, cut!" We just want to keep it short, sweet, safe, and move on to the next piece. That too gets old.

I was crabby talking to my wife on the phone one time, and she goes, "You just have poopy diaper syndrome." I'm like, "What does that mean?" She says, "You're sitting around in a poopy diaper all day! You've got blood on you, dirt on you. You're in these dirty caves all the time, darkly-lit basements. It's the wintertime in New Zealand. It's going to fuck with your head." I'm a generally cheery guy, but by the end of the season, I'm like, "Somebody kill me." So it's time for other stuff, mix it up. I'm excited for the future.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Evil Dead 2, which remains a classic of the genre. How do you feel reflecting back on that time in your life?

A lot of people like Evil Dead 2. Some of them like it as much as Army of Darkness. It's a personal taste. If you don't really like the gore and stuff, you're gonna like Army of Darkness. It's a little more of a Ray Harryhausen adventure story. But if you still want gore and maybe a little bit of humor, Evil Dead 2 is pretty good. There's a good 20 minutes of that movie where there's nobody else in the movie. I remember Dino De Laurentiis, who financed the movie, he was really worried. He's like, "You can't do that." In my opinion, it's the best part of the movie: Ash running around, being tormented and blowing holes in the wall. It's insane! I had a sense it was going to do pretty well. We had a screening of a rough version of it in Burbank, and when we tracked in and I said "Groovy," everyone just applauded it. I was like, "Okay, we got 'em. We're good."

Our previous movie was Crimewave, which went over budget, they took the movie away, they re-cut it, they renamed it, the thing didn't get released, it went from $2.5 million to $4 million. It was really a miserable fucking experience. So we went back to Evil Dead 2, even though Ash was dead. Lest we forget, Ash was dead [at the end of The Evil Dead], credits roll. We were like, "No. Maybe he's not dead." [laughs] It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction to a failed second movie. When your $4 million bombs, we were concerned that that was it for us. "Oh, these guys don't know what they're doing." Where do you go from there? It was $3.5 million, I think, for Evil Dead 2. We did not go over budget, we did not go over time, and we were actually in profit before the movie started shooting. [Producer] Rob Tapert walked onto the set while everyone was doing construction and tells us we're in profit, because of the pre-sales based on the strength of the first Evil Dead. It was a happy place to come back to. It was our comfort zone. We wanted to try some different stuff.

Scott Spiegel co-wrote it with Sam [Raimi, director], and Scott is a huge Three Stooges fan. We had an office in suburban Detroit at an old dentist's office, and these guys would fucking cackle - I mean cackle, not laugh! - at the end of the hallway when they would write. Rob and I, we'd look at each other and go, "What are the doing?! Are they writing a horror movie or a Mack Sennett comedy?" It's because they combined all that crazy stuff. Scott Spiegel just has a wicked imagination, and they fed off each other horribly! We'd have to pound on the door for them to give us the pages.

The overall experience for Evil Dead 2 was probably the most pleasant of the three. The first Evil Dead was a nightmare. It took four years to finish. Army of Darkness, same thing. It went over budget, the studio got pissed, took it away, re-cut it. Then we had to put our own money into it, and we only got a little of it back. It was a nightmare, the whole thing - so I'm glad people like it! [laughs] My wife and I both worked on it. She was the costume designer. Still to this day, we both shudder when we think of about Army of Darkness.

Evil Dead 2 is definitely one of my favorite experiences, and I think it plays well. It's a loopy movie. There's some crazy shit in there, but it's good. We were still young and supple. I was like 28, still made out of rubber.

To wrap up, why should someone pick up Hail to the Chin?

Buy a book if you want to see a little bit of how the sausage is made, if you want a bit of a reality check, if you want to go on some kooky adventures. It's the other side of the tracks. I'm not talking about the big movies, although I dip my feet into big movies. The last 15 years saw the rise of Sam Raimi from schmoe director to Mr. Hollywood. It's been really great to see all my friends blossom. Not everybody makes it. The third [memoir] will be 15 years from now. I figure the next 15 years should be pretty interesting too, to see what happens with the industry. It will be the final confessions, so then you've got your trilogy. Put that next to War and Peace.

#bruce campbell #ash vs evil dead #ash vs. evil dead #evil dead 2 #hail to the chin #interview #article

67 notes · View notes

daleisgreat · 4 years

Text

Dale’s Top 41 Gaming Experiences of 2019

Happy 2020 everyone and thank you for joining me yet again for my yearly exhaustive look back at my ranked experiences of videogames from the prior year! For newer readers, that is where anything gaming related I played, read, watched or interacted with in any other fashion in 2019 (regardless if the game released in 2019 or not) is dissected and broke down in a way unlike your average videogame website top 10 list. Somehow these keep growing in length each year, and if you survived until the end and desire more than take a look at my past top ranked experience lists for these years: 2018 - 2017 - 2016 Just a forewarning this will be a lengthy read so make sure to ‘Control + D’ to bookmark this page or for you mobile readers I would be obliged if you queued it up on a ‘read later’ type app such as Pocket. Click or press here for this year’s recommended background reading music courtesy of the soothing, ambient beats from the OST for NeoCab! Since I do not anticipate anyone reading this in one go, I googled up HTML code for page anchors to make it intuitive to read this in parts for us time conscience folks, so here are some in-page bookmarks… Part 1 - Rankings 41 through 34 Part 2 - Rankings 33 through 26 Part 3 - Rankings 25 through 20 Part 4 - Rankings 19 through 15 Part 5 - Rankings 14 through 10 Part 6 - Rankings 9 through 5 Part 7 - Rankings 4 through 1 Enough dilly-dallying, let us kickoff the 2019 list with a couple not-so-desirable gaming experiences of the year… PART 1 - RANKINGS 41 THROUGH 34 41) The Spoiled Fruit that is Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD I loved the original Super Monkey Ball games on GameCube and Xbox! I missed out on the last original iteration that hit on the Wii launch, Banana Blitz and was ecstatic to hear that Sega was giving it the HD remaster treatment in 2019 on current systems! All I recall from when Banana Blitz originally released was that it forced in a lot of waggle/motion controls for the Wii and that they made the HD release more traditional controller friendly and took out mini-games that were exclusively centered around motion controls so I thought this would be an ideal way to play the game! I could not have been more wrong!

My favorite memories of the GCN/Xbox versions was getting four people to play the main adventure mode where everyone would take their turn with their own monkey ball and navigate them on progressively tougher stages (think classic Marble Madness). Once a player passes/fails a stage, it would be the next player’s turn and it would serve as a nice preview of the stage ahead and what to glom off of one player’s attempt to strategize for your upcoming turn. With up to four players it was a riot cheering and gasping at successful attempts and ridiculous fails and was always a great time….that is until Sega decided for Banana Blitz HD to make the primary adventure mode only playable for one player!!! I have no idea why they did this and am going to chalk it up to a ridiculous oversight! At least the party games are still multiplayer and the excellent Pilotwings-homage, ‘Monkey Target’ returns….but with only one map!?!? Add on top of this some unexpected jittery visuals that did not sit well with my friends and I and it lead to me apologizing for busting out this sorry version of Monkey Ball for a multiplayer game night! If you still have your past consoles hooked up I recommend Super Monkey Ball Deluxe for PS2/Xbox instead since it has all the stages and party games from both GCN games, exclusive content, more maps for ‘Monkey Target’ and multiplayer support for the primary adventure mode.

youtube

The long awaited return of the TFL/DGR/StH Game Show at MGC did not disappoint! 40) Midwest Gaming Class Weather Fail 2018 saw my return to the Milwaukee retro videogame convention, Midwest Gaming Classic, after missing the previous four. I had so much fun reconnecting with everyone and taking in the show at the incredibly spacious Wisconsin Center that I soon enough made reservations to make it down for the 2019 show. With the con transpiring in early April though there is always the chance of a late-season snow storm/blizzard hitting in the Midwest and that is exactly what happened and closed my local highways for nearly two days and I wound up missing out on the show. I did at least get to check out SupertheHardest’s panel where they livestreamed their Jeopardy-style game show that was an absolute joy to follow along with as hosts John and Dave tossed out random games to the contestants and an eager crowd! I do have reservations for MGC later this year in a few months, and I am hoping mother nature does not intervene two years in a row. 39) Metal Gear Solid-Quest Fail

Regular readers of this list may recall me trying to march through all the core Metal Gear Solid games. 2019 marked an off year in my MGS-quest as I took some time off from that feat. I keep kicking myself too, because I only have MGS5 left, and I got a few hours into it and was already getting a good grasp for it, but got distracted too much by getting wrapped up into Breath of the Wild and made the error of trying to play both of those games simultaneously, but eventually succumbing to the power of the Tri-Force and having Breath of the Wild dominate my game time! I promise to fix that for 2020 and made finishing MGS5 one of my few gaming goals for 2020! If I succeed at that I may attempt to take a stab at Revengeance and the original MSX games too. For what it is worth I did pick up the new Solid Snake amiibo that released in 2019, and the OST vinyl of the PSone original so there was a modicum of Metal Gear fandom I participated in. 38) Konami Making it a Win Speaking of Konami, yes, you read that title right, I am ever so cautiously marking 2019 the year Konami started to right the ship! For the last few years since they released MGS5, Konami has been lauded by gaming fans and media that it has been the company that has abandoned gaming because of their lucrative gym business on the side and have remained complacent only releasing their annual Pro Evolution Soccer games since. Things quietly started to change in 2017 when Konami surprised us with a new Bomberman game in time for the Switch launch. 2018 saw Konami release a HD update for their Zone of the Enders titles on PS4 along with some exclusive VR content and also port the Switch Bomberman game for Xbox One and PS4. 2018 also saw the release of the polarizing Metal Gear Survive. 2019 saw them up their ante even more with the release of three acclaimed digital anniversary collections for their arcade space shooters, along with ensembles of hit early entries from their Contra and Castlevania brands. To top it off, Konami got on the mini-console bandwagon by announcing the TurboGrafX/PC Engine-mini that will have over 50 games pre-loaded on it! Minus the stinker that is Contra: Rogue Corps and 2019 wound up an excellent year for Konami and hopefully a taste of what is in store for the years to come! 37) Retro-bit Controllers

2019 saw me getting several controllers from the third party, Retro-bit. They have been growing in prominence in recent years with their growing supply of updated classic controllers and availability of HDMI cables for classic systems and have been dabbling with re-releasing classic NES games (more on that in a bit). Retro-bit answered my long pleading demands of having an N64 controller in with only dual grips instead of the standard three grips, and giving the button layout a tweak to make it more of a standard six-button layout like on the Genesis and Saturn controllers. I tried it with several games and far preferred it over Nintendo’s default controller. The other Retro-bit N64 controller modeled after the hard-to-find controller from Hori is a bit more of an acquired taste, but I found it to work great with certain titles. I also found myself going to Retro-bit to acquire a six-button controller for the Genesis-mini console that also came out in 2019. For whatever head-scratching reason, the Genesis-mini only shipped with the original three button controllers and Sega gave Retro-bit the license to make compatible controllers based on Sega’s updated six-button controllers for the Genesis that hit during the fighting game craze. Retro-bit has several other enticing controllers, adaptors and cables on their website, but I am for now biting my tongue and holding off before splurging too much on their retro-gaming goodness.

youtube

Playing through all of Sunset Riders half-out-of-it was my favorite moment of Extra Life 2019. 36) Extra Life 2019

After taking my first year off from the 24-hour videogame charity drive, Extra Life, in 2018 in nearly a decade I was stoked to get back into the 24-hour saddle again for 2019. I returned to join my friends Chris and Lyzz for another round of Extra Life. Props to them for being super accommodating to me as always and providing an excellent gaming and streaming setup for the 24 hours! Unfortunately, some last minute emergency issues beyond our control transpired and resulted in a late start, early finish, and a very on-and-off charity drive this year. For added self-imposed injury, I did not time my sleep/nap cycle ideally leading into the stream and quickly lost steam after several hours in and as you can see by the picture here, took what seemed like nearly double the naps than usual. After realizing we were all in pretty rough shape, we put the kibosh to the charity drive after a little over 12 hours invested through….. ….that does not mean it was all bad however! There was a solid four-to-five hour stretch where I got in a lot of random retro gaming and took requests from family members who donated to play any retro game of their choosing and it was gratifying knowing they got to watch along on the stream as I fulfilled their request! My sister requested the original Super Mario Bros. and my stepdad requested some Tetris and an obscure SNES soccer game I never heard of before. Chris also busted out the PSVR and I finally got a chance to tryout the VR version of Zen Pinball and the fully featured on-rails shooter, Blood & Stone. Probably the highlight of 2019’s Extra Life was finally playing through the arcade classic, Sunset Riders while donning a Sunset Riders shirt to boot in a sleep deprived state! Despite all the hiccups, we managed to make the most of it and got in a fair amount of donations from family and friends for our local children’s hospital! 35) VGmpire’s Last Hurrah! I have been a fan of videogame soundtracks ever since getting my first one for N64’s 1080 Snowboarding, and for nearly a decade VGmpire has been my go-to podcast celebrating all things about videogame soundtracks. Each episode would have a theme around a specific game franchise or genre and several music selections were carefully curated and inserted throughout each episode between host commentary for the music and game itself. For the last couple years VGmpire has been winding down, sparingly releasing episodes on a part-time basis until a few months ago when the host, Brett Relston stated VGmpire would be taking a permanent sabbatical due to new employment commitments. He did not leave his listeners on a low-note however, and after a few years of only a couple episodes here and there he left with five straight weeks of episodes highlighting the best soundtrack selections spanning nearly the entire Street Fighter universe! Those five episodes were an awesome farewell to his listeners and they covered such a wide-breadth of some of the best jams in fighting game history. 34) Annual Videogame Vinyl Love Speaking of videogame soundtracks, this ranking indicates how I faired with my videogame vinyl pickups throughout 2019. I added several new additions to my videogame vinyl library, and all have provided excellent background music to my yoga workouts! Standout highlights from this year include the original Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania ReBirth and complete set for Tetris Effect being my favorite pick-ups this year. However, there was one more OST that stood out among all others this year for me and that was for the legendary SNES beat-em-up, TMNT IV: Turtles in Time! I listened to that several times over, before mixing in something else in my rotation. Memories of beating that iconic brawler several times came flooding back as I jammed out to those shell shockin’ tunes! It even has an appreciated bonus track from the TMNT live concert tour smash hit, ‘Pizza Power.’ In case you are blanking on that sick track, I will permanently instill it in your mind with this clip below…

youtube

If you are a 90s kid then you can instantly relate to this chart-topping hit! PART 2 - RANKINGS 33 THROUGH 26 33) Now You’re Playing With Podcasting Power

Friends and family knew I use to run a videogame podcast called On Tap for several years from 2006-2013. Since then I have been scratching that podcasting itch by sporadically guest hosting with the sweet baby boys of Your Parents Basement podcast over the years. If you have read past editions of this best of list, you may recall me linking to my guest appearances on there. In 2019 I was on four episodes of the YPB show and touched on some of my all-time favorites and discovered all new gems I never played before that you will read about below. I also got to guest host with longtime friend Glenn on the PSnation Podcast for the first time in several years and had an epic time talking about all kinds of retro and current games along with the latest in TV and film. Throughout 2019 I uploaded several episodes from the On Tap archives onto my YouTube channel (you can find them by click or pressing right here). The archives have been offline since several months after the last episode released in late 2013. I tried to make them somewhat relative to current gaming events like re-posting our TurboGrafX retrospective in time for 30th anniversary, and our Mortal Kombat special to coincide with the release of Mortal Kombat 11. It felt good getting some of these favorite episodes back online and inspired me to pick up a long overdue new microphone for future guest hosting spots and possibly a return to regular podcasting. I have been giving a serious think to debuting a weekly/bi-weekly show hopefully later this year with the goal to stay in touch better with friends and peers. Hopefully all will go according to plan, stay tuned! 32) Getting my Morning Caffeine Fix…in 2D Pixel Brawler Form! I crave my 2D brawlers/beat-em-ups! I will touch on some others later in this list, and I always enjoy revisiting the classics, but I also am elated to see the indie game market pick up the torch with a decent smattering of modern takes on the retro-pixel brawler. There were a couple I recently picked up, and am beating myself up for not making time for the much anticipated follow-up to the NES classic, River City Ransom with the release of River City Girls. A 2D brawler I did make time for with a couple friends though was Coffee Crisis. It is where an alien invasion happens out of nowhere and two seemingly ordinary baristas take the initiative among themselves to fight back! As you can see in the video below, the gameplay looks and feels like a more fleshed out version of the brawling from the classic Simpsons arcade game! The action is appropriately over-the-top, and is jacked up with power-ups that make the characters feel they are going through a caffeine boost of sorts. I busted it out a couple times with friends Derek and Adam, and we progressed several levels through each time before running out of lives.

youtube

Coffee Crisis is a solid contemporary take on the classic arcade beat-em-up brawlers! 31) Ride or Die 2019 Here is my annual love for the quality of driving/racing games I played in 2019. I did not put as much time into driving games as I wanted to in 2019, and went through some serious droughts of getting my racing fix. I wanted to start either The Crew 2 and/or Forza Horizon 3 in hopes of having a big open-world racing game to pick away at throughout the year and failed in both endeavors. I did find time to continually pick away progress at the awesome OutRun/Top Gear tribute that is Horizon Chase Turbo however. Another similar take on Hang-On/OutRun I chanced on a random weekly Xbox sale was a motorcycle time-based driving title, Super Night Riders. It captured the spirit of Hang-On to a T with its evolving time of day, catchy tunes and last second emotions of barely hitting the next checkpoint! I wished it had more than just its several included courses though! I kept coming back to these new takes on the retro-time based driving games in short spurts, and were ideal ways to start off lengthier gaming sessions.

I got a chance to have a few sessions for the first time in a while with SNES-Super Mario Kart inspired Super Indie Kart which is STILL IN EARLY ACCESS after several years. The developer is shooting for a full release in 2020, and compared to what I played a couple years prior, a lot of tracks and characters were added with highlights being both ToeJam and Earl. I experienced many of positive vibes I had from SNES Mario Kart from what I tried out and hope to see it finally emerge out of Steam Early Access this year. I discovered Grip off Xbox Game Pass, and its initially intimidating spherical driving. Eventually, I was able to adapt and get into and make a fair amount of headway into this combat racer that fans are touting as the spiritual successor to the PSone gem, Rollcage. I had a couple short sessions online in OnRush thanks to it being a PlayStaion Plus game. I dug its take by capturing the magic of crashing rivals in BurnOut and putting a new twist on it and making it a team based points competition instead of a traditional position-based racing game and wished I was able to spend more time with it in 2019. The driving game I put the most time into in 2019 was demolition derby-racer WreckFest. I touched on it on my 2018 recap with it coming out of early access for PC, but 2019 saw the console release and my brother and I had several sessions of online WreckFest on Xbox One. The action got pretty whacked several times and we did not care that we usually finished in the middle of the pack with the fun we had surviving each race and the chaos that comes with demolition derby-based racing games. 30) Family Gaming 2019

I had my dad and brother over at my place for Father’s Day and Christmas this year and of course we wound up playing some old school games. On Father’s Day, similar to last year we powered on the N64 and experienced some of the same classics with my dad we did growing up like New Tetris and Mario Kart 64. My dad was starting to hone in his masterful Tetris skills again by the time we wrapped up, and if we would have done more sessions I am confident he would have been wiping the floor with us! On Christmas I had a fixing for my initial videogame memories with my dad on the Atari 2600 so I booted up Atari Flashbacks on the Xbox One. I remember the astutely titled Bowling being a big hit with the family and sure enough we had several close games. Despite how simple it is on the VCS, it remains one of my favorite videogame renditions of the sport. We then booted up the arcade versions of Centipede and Millipede and Joe wowed me with some impressive progress in those games I had no idea about until he said went through a recent period playing those arcade classics nonstop at a nearby locale. 29) Super the Up-Down I have fond memories of the 90s nostalgia arcade, Up Down in the Twin Cities that I wrote about here before and 2019 marked my third trek there! My brother and I met up with longtime friends Moe and John from the SupertheHardest podcast and we proceeded to drink and game the night away. Aside from some brief excursions to clash against John in Street Fighter II and teaming up with my brother in Smash TV the main highlight was Moe, Joe and I nearly beating the iconic X-Men arcade game all the way through before running out of quarters in the final Magneto fight. I am starting to get a little concerned though with the upkeep of the machines at Up Down however. Several machines had faulty buttons and/or would not support a second or third player. I did not recall having these issues the last two times I was there, but I imagine it is inevitable with big crowds getting their drinks sloshed all over that those machines would require constant maintenance. 28) You Do Know Jack!!

I have no idea how they do it, but Jellyvision/Jackbox games has been pumping out a nonstop collection of social party games under the Jackbox Party Pack branding and 2019 saw volume six hit current consoles. Even at six entries in I am continually impressed at how smooth most our sessions run using a web browser window on our phones as a controller with little-to-no lag throughout. I have reminisced before in these yearly breakdowns my recurring couch multiplayer sessions with friends Derek, Brooke and Ryan. Variations of Jackbox Party Pack dominated our sessions this year, with the sixth game taking the most time once it released. Trivia Murder Party 2 was the runaway hit game of the collection with its quirky deathmatch take on trivia and the one we came back to the most. Dictionarium would be a runner-up with us competing to see who can be the most creative with new words and definitions. 27) Flying Power Disc! Long forgotten Neo-Geo game, Windjammers gained notoriety over the last several years from it being regularly featured on Giant Bomb videos and features. I had no idea about it prior either and would be lying if I were to say otherwise. It gained so much newfound fame from GB’s videos that it started gaining traction in the eSports scene, got a remaster on PS4/Xbox One/Switch and recently got an upcoming sequel announced. I briefly tried the PS4 release of WindJammers in 2018 to mark my first hands-on time with it, but 2019 saw me won over by it! I vanquished the computer adversaries with each character to net that trophy and played a fair amount online with my go-to PS4 online adversary, Chris (different Chris from mentioned above)! The PS4 remaster could not handle this combative disc-based version of Pong any better! Highly recommended for quick, local and online multiplayer throwdown sessions!

youtube

GiantBomb’s many intense multiplayer sessions of Windjammers turned me (and countless others) on to this Neo-Geo hidden gem. 26) No Rest for the Wicked… I was a huge fan of the first two Borderlands games, but only played the first couple hours of the Pre-Sequel before deciding to take a break from the series. Derek and I played through the second game and was giving me some friendly nudging to get the much-hyped Borderlands 3 that released a few months ago. I finally picked it up several weeks ago, and we only got a couple sessions and several hours in as of this writing and thus this ranking, but from what we played so far I am started to get sucked back into the fun grind that is Borderlands. The first couple hours took a bit of re-familiarizing with the general gameplay and abilities and how to properly manage inventory and level-up because BL3 is a glut of menus. Combine that with the fact I have fallen out of favor with first person shooters in general for the last few years and I found myself extremely rusty initially. After a couple hours though I started to get back in the swing of gameplay and get my Borderlands-wheels rolling again. I recalled the BL-wisdom that Derek helped instill in me from our BL2 sessions of ‘Do not dwell on the countless stats on each gun, keep swapping out until you find something that is fun to shoot with!’ I am a fan of the quirky Borderlands lore and outrageous characters and while the jokes are hit and miss, the frantic gameplay and open-world exploring more than makes up for it. I have a newfound appreciation for Bio-fuel! I look forward to getting back into Borderlands 3 as 2020 progresses and hope to report back next year with how we steamrolled through it! PART 3 - RANKINGS 25 THROUGH 20 25) New Old NES Games and other Limited Run Releases

I eluded to earlier how Retro-bit started re-releasing older NES games. 2018 saw them release the formerly Japan exclusive, Holy Diver and 2019 saw them re-issue the increasingly rare Metal Storm. I acquired both of these in 2019. I opted for the deluxe edition of Holy Diver that saw it include a ton of extra goodies as seen in the pic below. The Metal Storm re-issue is the Japan version of the game that has narrative cutscenes included and more forgiving difficulty tweaks. I did not get a chance to play either of these yet, but Holy Diver looks to be a tough-as-nails platformer that rewards practice and I look forward to attempting Metal Storm’s consistently rotating platform-based stages. Mr. Jeremy Parish did commendable breakdowns of both games upon their reissues so for those that are interested in adding some new old NES games to their collection click or press here for his Holy Diver review or here for his take on Metal Storm. Retro-bit partnered with Limited Run to distribute Metal Storm. It would not be a yearly gaming dissection without highlighting some key Limited Run purchases. Limited Run somehow scored a goldmine of a deal by getting the rights from Disney to re-issue physical versions of several classic Star Wars games for the NES, GameBoy, N64 and PS2 remasters on PS4. I wound up getting one of my childhood N64 favorites in Shadows of the Empire and the remaster of the PS2 racing title, Racer Revenge for PS4. I was also thrilled to lock in orders for physical releases for Atari Flashbacks on Vita, acclaimed puzzler Lumines Remastered and much anticipated narrative exploration titles like Wandersong, Alone With You and Tacoma for PS4. Limited Run has been lately releasing more obscure titles that are off my radar the past few months so I will take that as a blessing in disguise on my wallet! 24) ZOMBICIDE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

These past few best of gaming installments I tend to breakdown some of my favorite board game moments of the year in an entry. Easily my favorite board game night of 2019 was where my brother and I met up with several other people for a six or seven player session of Zombicide. Imagine a meticulous, detailed board game portrayal of Left 4 Dead and you have Zombicide. I did four player runs of it before knowing that Zombicide usually requires a ton of intricate setup with its many tiles, pieces and tokens so I imagined with nearly eight of us we were in for a long night. Luckily, my buddy Mike hosted the game and has a boatload of experience with Zombicide, and even with his brisk pace of moderating and moving the game along we ended up playing for a solid five-ish hours before we wrapped up. It got to the point where we were playing so late and I knew a few of us were getting fairly tuckered out, but we roughed it out because we were passed that ‘point of no return’ in our quest to escape the board with our party alive! Regrettably, my brother and I were the only ones whose characters perished, two times over each as Mike gave us replacement characters, but both of us got a little too hasty with our strategies and we paid dearly for it. Regardless, it was an epic board game night I will never forget! Derek and Brooke were playing with us too and both got into the session as much as my brother and I did. They have since told me they have been doing mini-sessions of it and mastering the pacing and setup for the game, so I look forward for more frequent Zombicide sessions in 2020! 23) A Certain Super Power-ed Guide Book

A couple years back I recounted how Pat Contri’s Ultimate Guide to the NES Library book/tome was bedside reading for me nearly every night. While maintaining a reading schedule of a page or two a night it still took me a year and a half to finish since it reviewed every game that hit the NES in America. Contri soon after got to work on the sequel, Ultimate Guide to the SNES Library and it wound up being one of only three crowd-funded projects I ever contributed to. The book finally finished publishing a few months ago and I got my copy in the mail about a month back. It follows the same format as the last book by reviewing all the American and PAL SNES games, and contains roughly a dozen featured articles and essays to book-end this SNES bible. I immediately looked to see how the SNES games I own measured up, and then continued my same routine as I did with the NES book at reading a page or two of reviews a night before bed. Naturally, I am only a couple dozen pages in and have a long ways to go, but am ecstatic to see a long coming crowd-funded project come to fruition! 22) Top Gaming Videos of 2019' For whatever reason, gaming videos are perfect background noise for me and resulted in me watching way too many. Like last year, here is my notated favorites that hit in 2019…

youtube

The yearly ‘Winter Games’ competition video of the GiantBomb crew featuring random videogame challenges and traditional house party a holding your breath contest ….seriously is always one of my favorite GiantBomb videos of the year. Too bad for their Goldeneye challenge in this video they did not know about the one hit-kills from the ‘License to Kill’ mode or their ‘Slappers-only’ duel would not have lasted forever. GiantBomb - Dreamcast Anniversary Stream - Jeff Gerstmanns Pro Skater Series - Winter Games 2019 - GB Family Feud - GB Advance - VinnyVania Bloodstained Series - The Final Mario Party - Mass Alex 2 Series – Get on my Level Series - Resident Evil 4 Playdate Series - Dangerous Driving Quick Look - WWE 2K20 Quick Look - Madden 20 Quick Look (VINNY WINS!!) MetalJesus - Jaguar Love - PS2 Love – Reggie Pickups - WiiU Love - PAL PS2 Exclusives - PSP Racers Gaming Historian - Super Mario Land Series - Story of Links Awakening - Story of Super Mario Bros 3

youtube

Attending a couple E3s myself as part of the gaming press I can vouch for a lot featured in this splendid breakdown of what E3 is like for the gaming press. OntheStick/JoeDrilling - ECW Hardcore Revolution - Marvel Superheroes - Resident Evil 2 - Oxenfree No Clip - Gaming Media at E3 - History of Telltale Games LGR - Computer Warehouse Exploration - Doom II 25th Anniversary - Ion Fury - Windows 3 Point 1 Love - SimCity 30th Anniversary CGQ - Genesis in 1990 - Dreamcast Launch - Lets Read EGM issue 36 - Lets Read Nintendo Power issue 2 RetroPals - GameCom Love

youtube

Behold, according to the AVGN, a terrible flagship Zelda game by Nintendo. My Life in Gaming - History of M2 GameSack – Shenmue III Review - Worst Sounding Genesis Games - NES Special - Mega SG Review AVGN/Cinemassacre - Videogame Magazine Special - Pepsi Man - Chex Quest - The Immortal - Majoras Mask - Defending NES OG TMNT - Genesis Mini Review - Nightmare on Elm Street - Barts Nightmare - SNES Campus Challenge - Thunder in Paradise - Combat vs Contri

youtube

Jeremy Parish did comprehensive looks at all American and Japanese Virtual Boy games in 2019, and topped it off with this all-encompassing look on why this Nintendo system came and went in under a year. Jeremy Parish ‘Works’ - All of Virtual Boy Works - Links Awakening - Tengen NES Trio - Circle of the Moon - Pilotwings 64 - Turok 2 GBC Scott the Woz - Mario Kart for SNES - GCN - DS - and Wii - Club Nintendo - WiiWare Chronicles - Call of Duty DS - Bargain Bin Christmas

youtube

Scott the Woz states his case for Double Dash being the best Mario Kart, clearly he is mistaken and we all know the 64 version reigns supreme. 21) Out-drinking Satan I was pleasantly surprised to see the anticipated indie game, Afterparty as part of Xbox Game Pass upon its release day. It is from the developers at Night School Studios who brought us Oxenfree, yes that same game which took the #1 honors for my inaugural top gaming experience list from 2016. Needless to say, I was excited to see what Night School Studios had in store for the sequel. Afterparty is a narrative exploration game where two freshly graduated high-schoolers find themselves suddenly very much dead and in a twisted Tim Burton-esque party version of hell and set forth on a quest to out-drink Satan in order to get a second chance in life on Earth.

The hype going into this kind of rubbed me the wrong way a little bit about its promotion of getting wasted all the time, but it all kind of makes sense in the end with one of the endings available on how that lifestyle may not be all it is initially cracked up to be. I dug the aesthics in Oxenfree, and loved how they brought them over into Afterparty, but with some tweaks to represent a 24/7 party atmosphere in hell. Gamplay is similar to Oxenfree with by picking from a few dialogue choices available and some only available when your character is drunk which warrants multiple playthroughs for this 4-5ish hour game. By the end I liked the universe Night School established and what they were going for by the time I finished it, but I did not love it. Maybe my initial choices lead to a not-so-desirable playthrough as I thought they would. Afterparty has their in-hell version of Twitter with random tweets from background characters going on non-stop and it is more distracting the way it is implemented. I have been listening to the Afterparty OST while writing parts of this never-ending read, and I have been taking it in more this way than the way it came across more muted during gameplay. Oxenfree I loved so much that I played through it two more times within a few months to see other dialogue options and endings, but with Afterparty the last act felt kind of disjointed with my choices and it wrapped up with no real sense of closure. Again, maybe it was bad luck on my part with the options I picked. This however did not lead me to anxiously jumping right into starting another run, but I wanted to see if the other endings were worth playing for so I went and YouTube’d the other endings right away and yes, I think those would have been better ways to conclude Afterparty for me, but they still lacked the memorable high notes that comprised the final act of Oxenfree. Afterparty is on Game Pass though so that is a nice perk at the moment and so I imagine I will at least start a second playthrough sooner than later to see how the opening parts play out differently by picking polar opposite choices. I also wanted to mention I played this on an Xbox One S on an external hard drive install and I was stunned to see this is the first game I ran into with particularly noticeable slowdown and performance issues. I had little to no hiccups with other graphically extensive games like Gears 5 and Man of Medan recently so I found the performance hiccups here surprising with the not-so-overwhelming visuals from this 2D game. Lucky for Afterparty, it is a laid back narrative exploration game so it was not that much of an issue to deal with whenever slowdown and framerate stutters happened. Despite these performance and narrative qualms, I do not regret my time with Afterparty and would recommend to at least try it if you have Game Pass and see if it is up your alley.

youtube

EPN went above and beyond with their coverage of the Genesis Mini with several videos dedicated solely to the 16-bit ‘Blast Processing’ wonder. 20) Sega Finally Gets a Mini-Genesis Right After several versions of mini-Genesis ‘Flashback’ consoles of poor-to-mixed quality from the manufacturers, AtGames, Sega took it upon themselves to release and produce their very own Genesis-mini on the 30th anniversary of the North American launch. Sega got it right this time around with superior emulation compared to the efforts from AtGames and a lineup of 42 games mostly from Sega, but with also some notable third party hits too. They also include handy features as seen in Nintendo’s mini-systems like save states and the ability to rewind gameplay which I can attest is a lifesaver for some of these brutally tough games from the 90s. It is worth noting the recent Genesis Classics disc Sega released on current consoles offers up over 50 games, but they are all from Sega’s catalog and have a wide range of quality. The lineup here comparably hits more than misses, and features the expected Sega studs, but welcomed third party additions like Road Rash II, Castlevania: Bloodlines and Street Fighter II: Champion Edition.

I have only briefly played my own Genesis-mini, and am awaiting the close final tweaks to software that is about to release that will allow users to upload their own personal Genesis games to the mini much like I did for my NES & SNES-minis so I can curate my own ultimate Genesis library. I like the library offered up here, but would be lying if I said I was not bummed that Sega omitted some of its hit sports games that helped defined it during the 16-bit wars. I understand there are those pesky royalty fees to deal with for former players and teams, but a lot of the early 16-bit Sega Sports titles lacked those licenses or only had one player being the cover mascot for the title. EA was also a strong supporter of the Genesis (with sports AND non-sports titles) so it was eye-opening to see only one game from EA’s 16-bit library make the Genesis-mini cut. This is why I am awaiting for that library loading software to get perfected so I can have my own handpicked Genesis line ready to go! I also want to give props to EPN for their prolific and thorough videos breaking down the Genesis-mini at launch and give another shoutout Jeremy Parish’s in-depth review of it too where he goes far more into the weeds on the Genesis-mini than I will on my blurb about it here if you want to know more. PART 4 - RANKINGS 19 THROUGH 15 19) Punishing Arcade Action Starring Dolph & Hasselhoff Clones The Punisher is in all likelihood my favorite 90s arcade brawler. Granted, I am biased being an unapologetic fan of the comics and the arcade game makes great use of the license by featuring several of the Punisher’s top villains from that time and having Punisher team up with his on-and-off ally Nick Fury. The Genesis port is noticeably watered down visually in order to run on the system after looking at comparison videos online. When not playing the two side-by-side the differences are negligible to me while playing. It does not have the ability to set max lives in order to breeze through it, but you can set to adjust an option to add a few more which made it plausible to beat on normal difficulty with a non-wreckless strategy of picking your spots and timing attacks instead of rushing into encounters with mindless button mashing. I can vouch for this from experience!

The bad thing about beating Genesis Punisher on Normal difficulty is it gives a bullshit ending screen of ‘Now Play like the Punisher in Hard Mode to see the True Ending.’ I mean, it is not like the ending is likely all that it is cracked up to be to motivate me to going through it again on a tougher difficulty….oh wait…guys I looked it up and turns out that ending blows away all other endings from arcade brawlers at the time as you can see by that attached video below. With that in mind, I invited my brother over one day in 2019 and I was determined this was the day we could beat Genesis Punisher in hard mode. We did have some help though from game genie cheats we had loaded up on an SDcard into the Retron5 we used to play it on though. We did not turn on full health or infinite lives because we desperately wanted to say we ‘earned’ that awesome ending, but one of the things hard difficulty mode tweaks is not the challenge of the opponents, but merely the quantity of them. This would not be a deal-breaker since a lot of the common thugs are pushovers, but with this brawler having a timer, it would lead to us losing a couple lives after running out time while taking out the ump-teenth wave of goons sent our way. Not wanting to burn through more lives on a BS timer system, we disabled the timer on the cheats menu halfway through and we also disabled losing life from executing the leg sweep ‘super’ move. Not that the leg sweep was more powerful as ordinary attacks, but it helped free up some breathing room when the AI cluttered the screen with several enemies. With those two ‘assists’ activated we progressed up to the final stage before we finally ran out of lives in the midst of the ‘ol arcade brawler stereotype, the dreaded boss gauntlet! I am confident if we would have gained a couple lives and disabled the boss timer from the beginning we would have at least got up to the final boss and possibly defeated him! Earlier in 2019 Arcade 1up released a Capcom Marvel edition cabinet loaded up with the classic arcade versions of Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes. I have no idea why a brawler such as Punisher seemed like a fitting inclusion with the Marvel fighting games when Capcom had several other Marvel vs. fighting games to choose from, but that Arcade 1up release is so far the only reissue of either the Arcade or Genesis Punisher title to this day. The downside is that it will set one back $400!!! As awesome as it would be to have the actual official arcade release at home, I imagine if I would pick that up I would ignore my aforementioned advice and fall victim to maxing out the credits and mindlessly button mashing my way to the end. I think I will prefer sticking with a little bit of strategy in my brawler and one day hope of finishing hard mode, just like the Punisher…..for now.

youtube

This will be worth the extra hassle of beating in hard difficulty to witness! 18) Handheld Gaming 2019 I had a pretty solid year for traditional portable gaming (AKA non-phone games!!). With 2019 being the 30th anniversary of the GameBoy in North America, I went to our local retro game shop with the mindset of picking up the only GameBoy variant I did not own, the GameBoy Pocket. I noticed it there on a previous trip going for not that much and when I went to request it the clerk informed me of their modded GameBoy Advances they recently started selling that have new outer shells and a premium backlit screen on par with the latter GBA SPs. That went for three times as much as the Pocket, but after the clerk let me test it out for a few minutes I instantly had a change of heart and forked over the dough for the custom deluxe GBA. I love my backlit GBA SP, but I always preferred the form factor of the original GBA more, and having it with a top class backlit screen convinced me to upgrade. I wound up playing that modded GBA quite a lot in the back half of the year.

In the first half of the year though I wrapped up Dragon Quest VIII in January shortly after posting the previous year’s recap, and stuck with it for a few months consulting guides for recommended post-game quests to take a stab at. Loved my many hours with DQVIII, but that was a game I primarily endured throughout 2018. After that lengthy RPG I popped in the optimal palate cleanser, WarioWare Gold on the 3DS. Up until that point, the only WarioWare release I ever played prior was the GameCube version, which I am a fan of but I always heard excellent testimonials about the handheld versions. WWG has over 300 of the bite-sized ‘micro-games,’ most of which are collected from previous entries, but also consist of a fair amount of exclusive original micro-games for the 3DS. The frenetic gameplay kept me bug-eyed throughout, and the slightly lengthier ‘boss battles’ also cracked me up. There are a seeming infinite amount of Nintendo references and small sections of gameplay taken from countless other Nintendo games ranging from common top 8 and 16-bit hits to the obscure with nods to titles like Virtual Boy’s Mario Clash. It all added up as the perfect pick-up-and-play title coming off a mammoth RPG. Do not be like me and neglect this superb handheld version! I am a nut for picross games, and the 3DS has a ton of them but 2019 I finally started the My Nintendo exclusive game, Legend of Zelda Picross. Like other Picross games on the 3DS it has an intuitive control scheme and a multi-layered hint system which I took advantage of numerous times to nudge me in the right direction! I downloaded the GameBoy cult hit, Mole Mania off the 3DS eShop and consumed a few hours of that action/puzzler to discuss on a clayyyysic episode of YPB I guest hosted on. I imported a few fan translation GBA and DS games that have been on my want list forever because they never had official American releases, but thankfully the fanbase stepped up and changed that so I was thrilled to finally add Ace Attorney Investigations 2, Retro Game Challenge 2 and Mother 3 to my handheld library. I played through the first case of AAI2 and it brought back memories of why I enjoyed the first one so much and the fresh changes it brought to the Ace Attorney formula. Did not get a chance to play Retro Game Challenge 2 yet, but I did put a lot of time into Mother 3.

The fan translation originally released for Mother 3 about a decade or so ago and I started it up on a ROM and got a few hours in, but eventually got sidetracked and regrettably neglected it. Having a physical copy of the game and making 2019 a big year for the Mother/Earthbound franchise for me were the catalysts to have me stick through Lucas’s adventure this time around. Mother 3 has a similar look and feel as Earthbound on SNES, but with an entire new setting and cast of affable characters that similarly immersed me into their unique world all over again. Props to the fan translators who took on that mammoth undertaking with dialogue that does not skip a beat and brings back the vintage lighthearted and crude humor that was a trademark of Earthbound. The battles play out nearly identical too with each character having unique attacks, and retaining Earthbound’s rolling HP meter that allows additional precious seconds to escape death from a gutsy battle. I have been cherishing my dragged out sessions of this gem so I have not finished Mother 3 yet, but according to a guide I am halfway through chapter seven of eight, so almost! 17) Out Contra-ing Contra I have played a few Contra titles over the years, but usually fall victim to their hard-but-fair difficulty. I am starting to come around and appreciate them a little more recently and kind of like I described with Punisher above, play them a little more smartly and not rush in guns blazing in order to conserve lives and survive those grueling boss fights. I heard of a new Contra-inspired indie game gaining some buzz and launching day and date on Xbox Game Pass called Blazing Chrome. My buddy Adam was swinging over to hang out on the night of its release and I brought up about starting the night off with a quick session of Blazing Chrome expecting it to kick our ass and deplete our lives within ten minutes. We booted it up and……did not put it down until over two hours later!

Blazing Chrome plays like Contra III on steroids. The character and background sprites along with all the gunfire and explosions adds some extra ‘oomph’ and a little more dazzling special effects that would not seem possible on the SNES, but easily doable on the Xbox One. The boss battles also capture that ‘larger-than-life’ feeling from the bosses of Contra III. Eventually we fell victim to the fourth stage boss, which was something like going up against a Veloci-raptor that require pinpoint precision in order dodge its flurry of attacks. Thankfully, Blazing Chrome is not as merciless as Contra and allows the ability to restart at the beginning of the latest stage you progressed to after running out of lives. We must have restarted that dastardly fourth stage damn near ten times and played until our eyes felt like they were on the verge of falling out. Despite Blazing Chrome kicking our asses, like Contra it felt like it was not the game being cheap, but instead our own fault and needing to put forth the practice to learn patterns and master the timing and layouts of levels. It was a blissful moment whenever we got another stage or boss that we were previously hung up on and successfully coordinated our attacks to take down mid-bosses or other pesky foes. Adam and I keep thinking of revisiting Blazing Chrome ever since, but knowing what we are in for this time around we keep telling ourselves we got to be in the right mindset going into this five star indie game of 2019! 16) ”Go X-Men, Stop Magneto….err Apocalypse….no actually Magneto, Really!” I reached out to the fine folks at YPB Podcast who were looking for a classic X-Men game to cover to coincide with the release of the X-Men: Dark Phoenix film. The SNES title, Mutant Apocalypse has always been on my bucket list to beat. Despite the polarizing nature of the FOX films, I have enjoyed most of them and was anticipating Dark Phoenix and wanted to re-watch the previous film, Apocalypse for a refresher on the plot too. So for about a week I went all-in on X-Men and played through and finished Mutant Apocalypse, with literally mere minutes to spare before I met up with the YPB crew for our arranged recording time.

Mutant Apocalypse hit when Capcom was on top of their 16-bit game pumping out nonstop, top tier licensed and original games. MA is not an arcade brawler, but more of a methodical action platformer. I dug how each level focused on one of several different X-Men and how each character had their own specialized attacks I knew so well from the hit 90s cartoon from that era. There are still plenty of cannon fodder for to hack ‘n slash though, but also a fair amount of platforming to navigate through and multi-layered boss fights to survive. I hate to sacrifice my gaming cred, but some of these boss battles I had to resort to the save state and rewind features of the SNES-classic in order to proceed. It was worth it though, and resulted in one of the top X-Men games of that generation, barely nudging out Clone Wars on Genesis for my favorite 16-bit X game. I jest with the title of this entry because it eludes to Apocalypse being the big bad behind everything, but ultimately it is a red herring and low and behold it is none other Professor X’s good buddy, Magneto behind it all again! We poked fun at that logic while dissecting the game with the YPB boys, and I surprisingly found myself legit into Apocalypse on my re-watch of it. Playing through MA and enjoying Apocalypse more than I expected the second time around had me way more amped up for Dark Phoenix than I had any right to be because it was impossible to avoid the movie and comic press at the time anticipating a box office dud. While Dark Phoenix will not make my top 10 films of 2019 list and had its fair share of holes to dig through, I still had a good time throughout its retelling of the Phoenix saga and it provided a degree of satisfying closure to this four-movie arc of characters. 15) Sports-Ball Gaming 2019 It was a solid year of sports gaming for me in 2019. It did not dominate the year for me, but the chunks I did rock the old sports-ball were immensely gratifying! Picking up from 2018 and into the first couple months of 2019 was finishing off my season of Mutant League Football. I raved about this in last year’s recap about this being a worthy spiritual successor to EA’s Mutant Football League. It captures the over-the-top nature of the Genesis game and mixed in a dose of dialed up NFL Blitz-esque gameplay for what is likely my favorite football game this generation. I won the championship in season mode, and debated starting up the new Dynasty/Franchise multi-season mode that released as DLC towards the end of 2018, but decided to take a break from this whacked out turf frenzy in favor of….

youtube

I loved Madden’s take on Friday Night Lights, and Madden 19’s second attempt at a story mode ups the stakes for the returning NFL hopefuls as seen in this complete collection of all the cutscenes above. …a more realistic version of the sport in Madden NFL 19. I am a fan of EA’s take on a story-based single player mode it debuted in Madden NFL 18 with its ‘Longshot’ narrative. Madden 19 brought back Devin Wade and Colt Cruise in their quest for NFL stardom with part two of ‘Longshot.’ I noticed a polarizing reception to this story mode, but I thought it was a much-needed dose of fresh single player gameplay after so much emphasis on Ultimate Team in Madden this past decade. Wade unfortunately is still having trouble remembering plays, and Cruise bounces back and forth trying to ride the limited success from his song ‘Longshot.’ Cruise’s storyline is noticeably more of the focus this year with him making one last effort at making it into the NFL before being introduced to his long lost half-sister who drags him into help coaching the beloved local football team, the Bullfrogs! The narrative and football sequences are better paced out, and most football gameplay involved is never forcing a player to play through complete whole games, but instead a series of drives to accomplish a certain goal. The awesome high school flashback games return, complete with adorable local announcer commentary! It was interesting to see which active and retired NFL talent they brought into the story, and eventually ‘Longshot’ circles back to Colt coaching the Bullfrogs from escaping being foreclosed on from a real estate bigshot in a feel-good fundraising finale! Despite how much I was into the narrative, I got swamped with a bunch of menu prompts after finishing ‘Longshot’ pressuring me to check out the microtransaction-heavy Ultimate Team mode afterwards, and the menus throughout the rest of the game modes consistently attempt to poke and prod away to Ultimate Team instead. After doing a couple online games with a friend and failing miserably, I quickly traded in Madden 19. I felt like I sold it short and probably could have still got a solid season worth of games in the Franchise mode, but the big push in marketing and development resources in realistic sports games this past several years going into virtual currency-influenced modes like Ultimate Team rubs me the wrong way and I find myself playing more arcade sports games instead.

Speaking of arcade sports games, an interesting digital game on PS4 I tried out last year is Super Blood Hockey! It looks and plays similarly to the NES classic, Ice Hockey (complete with picking the size of your players), but with a bigger focus on fights and….well, blood. I only played a few games and need to come back to it, because I am awful against the AI, but I definitely am into the vibe it is going for. Another arcade sports game that had an awesome old-school NES vibe, but I was able to get a feel for was Basketball Classics on PC/Steam. It reminds me a lot of what Double Dribble would be like if it were on Intellivision. Gameplay is very simple with only three buttons involved for gameplay, but it also mixes in handy modern play mechanics like a 2K-esque shot meter. Basketball Classics has the 8-bit hoops charm factor oozing out of it with a catchy theme song, background chiptunes and interactive dunk cinematics that look like they were ripped right out of Double Dribble. I do not want to overlook the righteous story mode which follows a similar style to the NBA Street games by beating teams and recruiting their top player who have similar player portraits to 80s/90s NBA legends like Jordan, Barkley, Magic, Kareem and Bird. I was able to get to the ‘phantom five’ boss team, but despite several attempts failed repeatedly. There is still a lot I want to dive into and I have yet to try like a regular season mode with several dozen classic team rosters available. PART 5 - RANKINGS 14 THROUGH 10 14) An Offer I Could Not Refuse In last year’s list even though I did not subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, I gave it a pretty solid ranking due to it being the second coming of the Sega Channel, but now with proper resources and superior accessibility to its userbase. It also helped that Xbox Game Pass offers about triple the games at around 130-150 games a month compared to the 40 Sega Channel offered up at the time. Oh yeah, back in the mid-90s Sega charged about $15 a month, and Microsoft is currently charging $15 a month also for its ‘Ultimate Game Pass’ which combines Game Pass for Xbox One and PC as well as bundling in Xbox Live Gold. Since the last year’s recap Microsoft has went on to make all of its first party games available to Game Pass subscribers on their first day of release, and also went on to presumably offer nice payouts to highly anticipated indie games to become available on Game Pass upon their release date like Outer Worlds, Blair Witch Project, Demon’s Tilt, Afterparty, Blazing Chrome and Outer Wilds.

Despite all that temptation, I held off subscribing to it because I already have way too many games in my backlog and do not want to pay a monthly fee on top of it, but then around E3 2019 Microsoft made an offer too good to pass up where for only $1 they would convert the rest of your remaining Xbox Live Gold time to an Ultimate Game Pass membership and then add a bonus month on top of it. My Xbox Live Gold auto-renewed a month prior to that announcement, so it would be foolish to pass up converting my remaining 11 months into Ultimate Game Pass time for only $1. I am glad I did because I wound up trying out a decent amount of games from it. Not a boatload because as you can see from this list I had a lot of other games to play, but the convenience of the service caused me to try a lot more than I thought. There were challenging BMX-based games like Descenders and Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the bonkers semi-platforming game, ClusterTruck, the aforementioned spherical racer, Grip and The Blair Witch Project that I was totally consumed by for the first hour until I got lost in the woods and spent two hours circling around going nowhere before giving up. On top of all that I ended up finishing two games off of Game Pass by the end of the year. One of them was Afterparty that I already gave my rundown of, and another I will touch on shortly. So yeah, even though I may not stick with Game Pass when my $1 membership expires in half a year, it is safe to say I easily got my dollar’s worth out of it and then some! 13) Pinball Madness 2019

The weekly match-up scorechasing leaderboards in Pinball FX3 have been a constant for me for a couple years now. Every Saturday morning I have a routine of loading up the four predetermined scorechasing tables of the week and do a couple three minute runs on them each. The developers at Zen have also been capitalizing on acquiring the Williams/Bally license and have around a dozen-ish classic Williams/Bally pins in the Pinball FX3 library now including a couple personal favorites of mine like Medieval Madness, Champion Pub and No Good Gophers. I remain partial to the way the pinball physics handle to those authentic pinball games in Farsight’s take on the tables in Pinball Arcade, but having them available with the rest of the Zen lineup is convenient. I messed around with a few other pinball titles on Xbox One. Zaccaria Pinball hit Xbox One in 2019, and it is essentially the European version of Pinball Arcade. I toyed with it several times throughout the year and it had a ton of options to tinker around with and I have been meaning to revisit it a little more frequently. Every time I boot up Steam, I continue to do a run of Hyperspace Pinball as I continue to be dazzled by its neon-lightshow aesthetics. Even though Farsight has seemingly abandoned support after losing the rights to the Williams and Bally tables, I still throw in Pinball Arcade sporadically and bust out one of its many tables from its mammoth vault of legendary pins. Finally, in December Demon’s Tilt hit Xbox Game Pass on its first day of release and it became an instant classic. Demon’s Title design is based off the acclaimed Devil’s Crush/Dragon’s Fury pinball games on TG16/Genesis that are themed heavily on three screens of verticality, fills the tables with a potpourri of ghouls to lay waste to and intimidating boss-fight bonus stages. It keeps the TG16-era visuals, but pumps them up with contemporary special effects like Blazing Chrome also did, and throws in a banger of a synth-metal soundtrack to nod along with throughout!

youtube

Behold the screen-filling madness of Demon’s Tilt and its jamming synth-metal soundtrack! I dare you not to headbang along with it! In real-world pinball, I finally got around to joining a local pinball club about an hour’s drive away from me. I visited it several times already and am impressed with its lineup of nearly 25 tables available, most of which are from the 90s and up. I spent my first few trips there trying a game or two on each table, and now that I got that out of my system, I think I am going to try going forward just sticking to one or two tables a visit so I can get as much practice and get the most out of each table that way. 2019 wounding up being the biggest year for pinball for me since starting this list and thus its higher-than-usual ranking! 12) Feel the Need…for Jag

This is admittedly an odd tale of my how I crave my retro games. I already mentioned the Midwest Gaming Classic retro-con I like to attend above. In the first several MGCs I went to, they always had a small part of the floor called ‘JagFest’ where they had several Jaguars hooked up and the entire Jaguar library on hand to play at your own desire. Over my first four or five MGCs I would spend a couple hours there each year trying out a bunch of Jaguar games and would eventually settle on the five or six I preferred and would play those for an hour or two to get my yearly Jaguar fix and avoid having to dish out the money for the games and system. After returning to MGC in 2018 after a few years off I could not locate the JagFest corner and came to learn those folks stopped supporting MGC a year or two prior. All of a sudden I found myself missing out on getting that usual fix for Jaguar gaming so I started to keep my eye out online and finally found one for a fair price a few months ago. I started eyeballing places for the several games I liked and tracked all but a couple of them down for decent prices over this past year. Adam swung by again recently and we did a Jag-Night and broke out several multiplayer games. We did a few rounds of NBA Jam TE, and minus the awful background music, it is the best looking home console version of Jam TE for what it is worth. It was nice revisiting some classic rosters too like when the Timberwolves rocked Christian Laetner and the Spurs had the lethal combo of David Robinson, Dennis Rodman & Sean Elliot! We then busted out two player Raiden and got up to the third stage after our second attempt with the two credits setting. Brutal Sports Football is an awesome mess of an arcade sports game and I loved decapitating my friend's players instead of scoring goals more. There is so much chaos going on screen I am surprised the Jaguar was able to barely keep up with it all. Finally finished off the Jaguar marathon by score-chasing on Tempest 2000. My meager Tempest skills did not gain me much headway, but Adam fared better and got a few stages in. I never thought I would eventually cave and get this ’64-bit’ oddity, but here I am….and after that session I kind of do not regret it and am legit having fun with the games for it. Who woulda thunk it!? 11) Still in Pursuit of that Elusive Tri-Force

I know….I know….I am a terrible person for not beating Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild yet. I still semi-regularly throw in BotW every two to three months and get a memorable session out of it methodically exploring every nook and cranny of the map. I cannot help but activate ‘Hero’s Path’ mode to see where I have traversed across the map so I can explore everywhere out of paranoia of missing out on those oh-so-desirable secrets in unexplored areas. I have a majority of the map explored and am on the precipice of starting the last stretch of the core game that is Hyrule Castle. Of course I still want to unlock that rad Master Cycle Zero, complete the Master Sword DLC trials and pursue so many other secrets I likely missed. Despite not finishing it, I have gotten a lot out of my sessions with BotW this year which is why it still lands in the top half of the rankings. Breath of the Wild is right up there with MGS5 as one of my first games to finally knock out of the backlog and I plan on setting everything else aside in the coming weeks to finally grind out the last dozen or so hours I anticipate I have remaining in BotW. 10) Crafting Them Videogame Anniversary Specials For those unfamiliar with my past work, I use to be in the gaming press and penned countless reviews and specials from 1999 until around 2012. I took a break from it after suffering a series of setbacks in my pursuit of landing a major gaming press gig and after about stepping away from writing all together for a good year was when I returned at first with my limited series resolutions-themed blog, and then starting up this movie-themed blog in 2014 and have not looked back since. After a couple years I started to get that little inkling of a desire to get back to videogame writing again and aside from a handful of special circumstance reviews from the last few years the only major videogame-themed writing I have done was these gigantic end-of-the-year blowouts to get videogame writing out of my system for another year.

In 2019 however I started jonesin’ to do a little more. With several videogame platforms hitting milestone anniversaries in 2019, I took that opportunity as an outlet to write not a stereotypical historical retrospective, but instead more a journal of my lifelong memories for the console being commemorated. I went with the outline of how I first learned of these platforms, how I first discovered and played them and of course wrapped it up running through my all-time favorite games and moments for said platform. They were a pleasure to put together, and reflecting back on my early childhood mishaps for the GameBoy brought back memories I have long stashed away. The Genesis special got me nostalgic recounting the summer spent playing the Sega Channel nearly every day. The Dreamcast tribute was an emotional journey to relive the high highs of it being the first system to purchase with my own money and the many late night multiplayer sessions and the low lows of the sudden discontinuation announcement. The TurboGrafX and 32X flashback I felt I had a unique take on because I did not own them until well after their lifecycle. In 2020 there are four more systems celebrating milestone North American launch anniversaries I am shooting to write specials on throughout the year: NES turns 35, PSone and Virtual Boy both hit the quarter century mark and the PS2 will be 20. Keep your peepers peeled for them! PART 6 - RANKINGS 9 THROUGH 5 9) A Paperboy-rogue-like-lite…

I am a moron and forgot to include this Xbox One digital-only gem, The VideoKid in my 2018 list where it dominated a lot of my playtime. It is an 80s-nostalgia themed take on Paperboy, but instead of delivering newspapers on a bike, you are delivering videotapes on a skateboard. There are coins and other jewels to collect that carryover from each run that can be used to unlock 80s themed outfits ranging from AH-NULD to Teen Wolf and a few extra skateboarding tricks too. VideoKid is crammed with pop-culture references from that decade, and each run has…um I think this is the right way to phrase it….’procedurally generated 80s references’ to freshen up each run. The developers dig deep with the references and here are a teeny fraction of them off the top of my head in this game: the California Raisins, Care Bears, Smurfs, Night Rider, Transformers, Bill & Ted, TMNT, Nightmare on Elm Street, Masters of the Universe, Terminator, Batman, Ghostbusters and a plethora of others. It feels slightly more appropriate debuting VideoKid on my 2019 list because even though I played a lot of it in 2018, I never finished a run until 2019. I would always get goosebumps upon realizing I made it to a farther area in the run and I would succumb to my nerves getting the best of me. As you can see by the attached pic of my tweet, all that practice paid off and I finally finished a run after well over triple digit attempts. That was easily one of the single best gaming moments for me in 2019 and why it ranked so high. I would go on to beat it several more times in order to unlock all the outfits and acquire all the achievements. I never would have imagined enjoying this as much as I did upon downloading this $5 game that seemed like a neat little 80s throwback timewaster, but instead I would invest all those attempts in my conquest for ultimate 80s glory. Having Bill & Ted near the end of the run belt out to you in recognition “you rule, Video Dude!” was the icing on this delicious cake!

I had a feeling this game would be up my brother’s alley, and so I used the Xbox One’s ability to gift games and sent a copy his way and urged him to at least give it a shot. Soon enough, he got back to me on how he became addicted to this peculiar title too. He later returned the favor by gifting another low-budget digital-only title to me, Knight Squad. It is a simple 2D overhead visual game where a bunch of knights clutter the screen and players can assign teams or go in free-for-alls with a wealthy amount of options and maps to tinker with. It had easy to pick-up-slaughter gameplay, and I found it to be a fun little mindless deathmatch game I booted up in a few multiplayer sessions with friends. It will definitely remain in my multiplayer throwdown rotation! 8) HadokenFinish Him 2019 Normally this ranking would highlight my routine online fighting sessions with my longtime fighting game rival, Chris! While we did bust out a few of our usual favorites like versions of Tekken and Street Fighter throughout the year, the bulk of our fighting game time was dominated by Mortal Kombat. With the Mortal Kombat 11 release approaching, we had a few meet ups of its predecessor, Mortal Kombat X as a way of having a last hurrah with it before its sequel dominated our meetups.

In the midst of those sessions I realized I never got around to playing the much-touted story mode of MKX so I blitzed through that and finished it within a few days of MK11’s release. It was foolish to hold off so long on that story because I loved NeatherRealm’s past fighting game story modes, and MKX had a neat narrative by introducing the four new ‘Kombat Kids’ that are the new generation of fighters from the offspring of the mainstay regular roster members. A lot of the story involves some deep MK lore which I was somehow able to keep up with because I read a few too many MK comics over the years from Malibu and DC than I probably care to admit. I wasted no time diving into MK11’s story a few days later right at its release date. Other than removing and not even acknowledging two of the four new ‘Kombat Kids’ introduced in MKX, I absolutely ate up the MK11 narrative. The plot manages to achieve the impossible by successfully conveying one of my personal pet peeve storytelling devices, time travel! It then doubles down on that by throwing in an all-powerful-TIME TRAVELLING GOD as the main antagonist that wastes no time messing around with the timeline and mixing in past takes on MK characters from the original 90s trilogy and spewing them out into the current timelines along with their wiser elders a couple decades later. It was a hoot watching modern day Johnny Cage grab 90s potty-mouth Johnny Cage by his ear and give him a lesson on manners. The sexual tension between both retro and contemporary Kano was bizarre to say the least, but well worth watching how their alliance played out. Aside from the time travelling hijinks, there are a lot of serious moments I could not help but get emotionally wrapped up in with my near 30-years history invested into this franchise. Watching Jax initially succumb, and then overcome his PTSD got me good!

youtube

Here are some of the more lighthearted moments from MK11’s story mode courtesy of young, obnoxious Johnny Cage which were nice moments of levity from the nonstop time travelling war that is the primary arc. Only praising the story mode would be selling MK11 short, because a lot of the other modes have a ton to offer up too. The multi-layered towers return, and full of all types of consistently rotated gimmicks like past games. I wound up preferring a classic themed tower of several opponents as a perfect way to practice and get use to a new DLC character whenever one dropped. Chris and I would meet up and duke it out online whenever a new character released. Having an older Arnold Schwarzenegger as DLC to coincide with Terminator: Dark Fate has been my favorite DLC character. Having Arnold’s uppercut command be replaced with a crouching shotgun blast is THE BEST-EST! The creation options are a wee overwhelming with oodles of costume and move variants to deck out up to several save slots for each fighter. I stuck to only making a few for some of my go-to characters, and part of me would have preferred having a traditional few costumes to unlock for each character instead. The tutorials are insanely in-depth and reach new levels of pro-strategies detailed in fighting game tutorials. Seeing the Krypt return is always a delight, and having it be hosted by Shang Tsung who is graphically and aurally portrayed by the man who played him in the first movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is the quintessential fan service! Parts of the Krypt though went over my head as NeatherRealm went overboard with several types of currencies involved and hunting down objects to unlock various parts of the Krypt. Props to the developers in the end though for somehow doing the impossible and consistently managing to outdo themselves with each sequel. I plan on keeping MK11 in my online fighting rotation for the foreseeable future. 7) COG Attack

Having Gears 5 available day one on Xbox Game Pass was an appreciated way of saving $60. I bought into how Gears 4 advanced the narrative with the next-gen of COG a couple decades later and had the original characters serve as more of an elder advisor role. The unique twist at the end of Gears 4 dealing with Kate is a big component of the campaign for the fifth game. I did not anticipate for Coalition Studios to pay off that big cliffhanger by really diving deep into Kate’s past and seeing how the revelations that await her pan out. I imagine most have probably heard how they mixed in a couple mini-open world environments into the story kind of how Uncharted Lost Legacy did a couple years ago. I did not mind it and got into exploring the frozen tundra and desert wastes while the characters filled in the traversal time with dialogue opening up about themselves and poking fun at each other. It helped mixed things up a bit and could not help but get immersed in its (limited) open worlds. By spacing gunfights out with the open world traversal, I forgot how heated the action can get with Gears 5’s variety of mammoth villains, especially in the final act when shit appropriately ramps up. The final act felt worthy of a big budget blockbuster of larger-than-life set-pieces, action and a heavy duty final choice presented that I had to pause and give a serious think over. I played a ton of multiplayer in the original trilogy, and regret not getting a chance to play the multiplayer for the fourth game, but have already redeemed myself by dabbling with several round of multiplayer in Gears 5. I am godawful, but it the occasional kill I pulled off brought back kind memories of how into the multiplayer I was before. Also having Linda Hamilton and Dave Bautista as unlockable characters for multiplayer are both perfect fits for the franchise! I also need to try out Horde mode and see how far it has evolved since I last played it in the prior games. So much left to do multiplayer-wise that I can see Gears 5 being one of the few online multiplayer games I regularly come back to this console generation. 6) How About a Game of Lucky Hit? Last year I picked up Sega’s HD remasters of Shenmue I & II on Xbox One in hopes to finish them again for a refresher on its grand narrative before the long anticipated third installment. I finished the first Shenmue off that collection in 2018. I played through the second game over the course of the following summer. Ryo is now pursuing Lan Di in China in two sprawling cities, with a bonus third area in an extended epilogue and all together it is about double the length of Ryo’s first adventure. Even though there are appreciated quality of life improvements compared to the first game as far as save anywhere and quasi-fast travel features implemented I prefer the first game more. Main thing I chalk it up to is in the first game Ryo having more of a sense of familiarity with Dobuita where Ryo knows nearly all the locals, shopkeepers, etc. In the sequel he only gets to become acquainted with several people and all the minor cast and shopkeepers treat him as an unknown and there are only hints of the charming small banter in the sequel to be had that the first game is overflowing with. There are some killer supporting characters Ryo gets to know like Ren, Xiuying and Joy, but the all-encompassing cast Ryo has varying degrees of acquaintance-ship with is what help makes the first game so welcoming and makes me give the first game the nod. Also, the sequel does not have forklift races and replaces it with an awful cargo carrying QTE mini-game where your co-worker screams at you every time a QTE is missed. No thank you!

A couple things going for Shenmue II is addition of two more YS games: Outrun and Afterburner II (and ability to access the four games from the main menu once they are encountered). Both of the cities are huge with tons of mini-games and side activities to take in with a lot of new ones debuting. Not all of them are winners but there was a ton of diversity between them and at least a few I found myself revisiting frequently. The final several hours of Shenmue II are also truly special and even though it was my second time experiencing this game, it was the perfect way to get me ready for the third game when it hit a couple months later. --spoilers next paragraph-- The romp up the mammoth Yellowhead building complex in the final act of the second city was a twisting, grinding beast to get through, but lived up to the journey to get to the final boss, hot on Lan Di’s tail. The final three-to-four hour epilogue following that is something daringly unique for its time and still holds up. If you were like me and hold in high regard the first Red Dead Redemption's epilogue then you will probably dig Shenmue II's bold epilogue which I did not see anyone attempting in 2001 when it first released. It was special to relive all over again even if there is a total lack of combat. A bulk of the brazen epilogue is a walk and talk where Ryo meets pivotal Shenmue character, Shenhua and the duo mostly converses and gets to know each other on their way to Shenhua’s home which is where the pair discovers a new revelation in their journey that closes setting up Shenmue III. There is a complete lack of combat, and only a handful on QTEs sprinkled in the last few hours. I absolutely loved this gutsy final act, and I understand why it is not for everyone for the crowd that is demanding of more gameplay. ---end of spoilers— 5) Spooky Gaming 2019 I continued my tradition of playing Xbox 360 launch game, Condemned: Criminal Origins on Halloween for the third straight year. I made a couple more chapters of progress in this creepy, first person detective/combat game. I need to stop only playing it on Halloween and finally finish it sooner than later because it manages to pull off a suspenseful and thrilling ride all these years later. I hinted above at my frustrations at Blair Witch Project on Xbox One. I was hooked into its first hour setting up the background of the protagonist lagging behind a search party in the woods and looking for clues they could have missed while catching up to them. Its gloomy woods atmosphere was giving me chills and goosebumps like Condemned was, but then I could not figure out where to go in the woods and circled around and double checked my paths several times for about a solid two hours before giving up. Consulting a guide at that point would not have felt right because I was so immersed in into the world. A few weeks later I read up some other player’s logs on what happened after the fact and it turns out the designers intentionally crafted the game to give that spooky lost in the woods vibe, but I guess it worked a little too well for me. I did a little digging to see what else Blair Witch had in store, and it expectedly involves a lot of supernatural and stealth elements once the legend of the Blair Witch comes into play, so I would like to give it one more shot eventually.

A game I did not give up on however and saved spooky gaming season for me was Dark Pictures Presents: Man of Medan. I was big time into developer Supermassive Games hit teenage, slasher game Until Dawn a few years back. Their follow up hit last year in Man of Medan is the first installment of their ‘Dark Pictures’ anthology line of spooky/slasher games, complete with a Tales from the Crypt-like host. This installment has a similar style of gameplay where six college-age students in trouble at sea wind up in a cursed ship which leads to all kinds of tomfoolery! Like Until Dawn, gameplay rotates between the six kiddos, and they will be constantly barraged with QTE choices that may decide their life or death fate. New in Man of Medan is the ability to set up local or online co-op play, with the developers insisting on setting an evening aside to beat the game in one night within four to five hours. That is exactly what I did when I brought the game over to Derek & Brooke’s place and we went through all of Man of Medan in a single sitting. In an unexpected twist, a severe thunderstorm rocked our town that night which provided a supreme ambiance as we played. We assigned two characters to each of us, and we finished with half the cast surviving. I was so entranced by that crazy night thinking of how to do things differently in order to get all the dorm-rats out alive and I plowed through the game a second time within a week and…..finished with only one surviving the slaughter, and it yielded a despondently meek ending that I only was all too deserving of in my failing of QTEs and decision-making efforts. Nevertheless, those two epic playthroughs of Man of Medan, combined with my excursions into Condemned and Blair Witch Project culminate for the highest ranking yet for the yearly spooky gaming entry. PART 7 - RANKINGS 4 THROUGH 1 4) Dream-tember 20th Anniversary Celebration

As I mentioned earlier, the Dreamcast was the first system I bought with my own personal income and the hell of a ride I had with that system in its two and a half year lifespan is why I have extra affection for this console. Penning that huge anniversary special was not enough as I decided for the 20th anniversary I would take my Dreamcast out of the closet for the first time in over a year and regularly throw in a few old favorites a couple times a week for all of September. Some highlights was revisiting a bunch of driving games and doing a few races each in Hydro Thunder, 4 Wheel Thunder, TNN Hardcore Heat and playing several hours worth of my favorite Dreamcast racer, Demolition Racer: No Exit. I would dabble with some of my favorite fighting games on the system for a few rounds of Dead or Alive 2, Capcom vs. SNK and both versions of Marvel vs. Capcom.

youtube

I consumed quite a bit of Dreamcast-anniversary videos this year, and this stream from the GiantBomb crew was the cream that rose to the top as one Macho Man would say. The non-driving/fighting game I played the most that month was a complete run of Typing of the Dead. Yes, I still have my Dreamcast keyboard (and mouse too!), and it was a pleasure putting my home-row skills to good use slaying zombies to gloriously awful voice acting. The typing challenges/mini-games they mixed in on the boss fights tripped me up a bit too and were a hoot to figure out. Aside from playing all those games, I contributed to a crowd-funded indie Dreamcast game, Arcade Racing Legends, that looks promising and should be shipping within a few months. I also dug out my stack of complete run of Official Dreamcast Magazine out of the closet and re-read the first five issues throughout the year. A lot of memories came flooding back from their colorful feature and review spreads. Several YouTube channels I followed did Dreamcast anniversary streams, and I devoured them all! The guys at YPB Podcast were doing a month long Dreamcast special too focusing on a curated Dreamcast gem each week, and I volunteered to guest host on their episode dedicated to, you guessed it, Shenmue! I barely contained myself as I raved about all my favorite memories for it, and apologized to the hosts for some of my incoherent gushing about the game afterwards. Speaking of the original Shenmue, throughout the year I picked away and eventually finished watching GiantBomb’s endurance run/long play of it which was just as entertaining and riveting as their Metal Gear Solid ones! It all added up for a month where I surprised how far I went out of my way to commemorate the system’s lasting legacy 20 years later. 3) Finally Conquering Diamond Dog In late ’97 I played a ton of the cult hit SNES RPG, Earthbound. I was mesmerized by this new twist on the Japanese RPG by taking place in a contemporary setting with young elementary aged children instead of cliché fantasy worlds. Despite putting in a lot of time, I never was able to get past the dual combo boss of Diamond Dog and Carbon Dog before I lost my save data and went decades before coming back to it on the SNES-classic in 2019. I once again have YPB Podcast to thank when they reached out for guest hosting spots and asked for a few suggestions on recommended games to play. I threw out the option of Earthbound so I can finally knock that one off my bucket list, and luckily they obliged me and that was the impetus I needed to work through that game. I only got a third of the way through it by the time we recorded the episode, but I stuck with it afterwards and finally finished it within a few weeks. After doing some research I was surprised to discover where I left off before against the dueling dogs was at roughly the 80% mark through the game. So close!

I had an excellent companion/travel book with me in the form of FanGamer’s Earthbound Handbook which is part strategy/tips, part lore/narrative and entirely exquisite artwork. I read the corresponding chapters of the guide as they marched along with how Earthbound played out to make it the perfect supplementary piece! FanGamer also has a tome all about the localization of Earthbound called Legends of Localization. It was my nightly bedtime reading for a few months as it dove into the weeds on the translation of the original Super Famicom version, and what references were removed and what were added/altered to the American release. Incredibly thorough read that shed a lot of light on the Herculean-effort it took to translate and bring this over state-side! Finally, as I mentioned earlier, but to make it come full circle as the year of Mother/Earthbound, 2019 was the year I made record progress and nearly finished Mother 3 on GBA! Just to emphasize, I am very much into it like I was with the original and hope to finish it within several weeks and rave all about it on the next recap! 2) To the Sequel A constant theme throughout this list has been my passion for narrative exploration based games. One of my favorites of the genre is 2011’s To the Moon from Freebird Games. It is about two professional 'memory explorers' Neil and Eva who use a device to traverse through a dying person's lifetime of memories and implant their patient's final wish so they can die thinking they lived their most fulfilled life. It has a 16-bit RPG graphical style and the writing is lighthearted with the two main memory explorers having plenty of cheery banter as I plugged away through the memories. The sequel, Finding Paradise hit six years later in 2017, and I have no idea why I waited two years to start it up.

youtube

Do not let these simple graphics fool you, both To the Moon and its sequel here, Finding Paradise, has some of the best storytelling I have ever experienced in gaming. I was thrilled to command Neil and Eva again as they take on fulfilling a new patient, Colin’s dying last wish. Their new patient is a tricky case who left his dying wish ambiguous, and more-or-less requested our trusty doctors to figure out his dying wish for him. It is the same type of narrative-exploration gameplay with some light puzzle elements, but with a few new wrinkles mixed in due to an early twist, which builds up to an even bigger hook in the final act I did not anticipate and leads to a whole new dynamic of gameplay I could not help but embrace. Kan Gao is the primary creator and designer behind these games and kudos to him once again creating a funny-yet-powerful-and-saddening tale as they dove through Colin’s memories in what felt like a page-turner I could not put down. Luckily, Finding Paradise is only several hours long and I was able to breeze through it within a few days due to the ‘one-more-page’ sensation of the narrative. Combine that exposition with a beautiful 16-bit throwback visuals and another knockout score and it left me depleted and wiping dust from my eyes by the time it was all over.

In a bizarre, ironic City Slickers-sort of way, I felt like Billy Crystal when catching up with my friend Matt a few days later and telling him about this game and To the Moon. He asked if Freebird plans on releasing it on consoles, and I told him how the first game has been out for nearly a decade and since it is not on systems by now I doubt how either game will ever get a console release. A little later that day I looked up online just to be certain and I completely missed it was announced last September that To the Moon would be getting a Switch release within a few days of this writing on January 16, 2020. If you do not PC game and have a Switch, I highly recommend giving this a shot! You will not regret it! 1) ”Kept You Waiting, Huh?” Yes, Ryo……You Very Much Did Exactly That! Surprise….or not! Shenmue III was the sequel I waited 18 long years for, and in the week before it released once it seemed like the game was past the point of no last minute cancellations I had this overwhelming sensation that I cannot describe any better than ‘holy crap, this is actually happening!’ I mentioned earlier about writing those anniversary tributes that the only other videogame writing I did was for a handful of special exception reviews. Shenmue III would be one of those special exceptions! I reached out to my friends at PSnation to see if they had anyone slated to review it and if not I would throw my hat in the ring to cover it for them and to my luck the review opportunity was up for up for grabs. I did this for two reasons, one to once again ensure I did not lollygag and take many months with this dense, sandbox game and two, to get everything I need to say about my experience with Shenmue III out of my system.

Not only did I review the game for PSnation, but Glenn invited me onto their podcast to review it on there too.Click or press here to take in my text review of the game, and click or press here to go check out the podcast. For everyone else, please bear with me for some…abbreviated…thoughts on Shenmue III. With a self-imposed review deadline in mind, I put time into Shenmue III nearly every day (minus Thanksgiving) and finished it within 17 days. Yu Suzuki for all intents and purposes created another Shenmue game, quirks and all. Due to it being on a crowd-funded budget (with later assistance from publisher, Deep Silver) it does not graphically compare with the latest and greatest AAA games, but still looks superior to the old Dreamcast games and offers the same scale of dense sandbox exploring. Some quality-of-life improvements from the 18 years since the last game are appreciated like dual-stick movement and no more quasi-tank controls! The narrative picks up right where Shenmue II leaves off in Shenhua’s village and focuses on two key areas, Shenhua’s rural village and another being a dense urban area. It would not be a Shenmue game without a wealthy range of side activities and mini-games to keep busy and earn money to buy new moves and level up Ryo’s kung-fu. I like the core fighting engine as it is improved and more fleshed out and has a better feel to it than the loose Virtua Fighter-feeling in previous games. Newcomers to the series should probably start with the first two games, or the quirkiness of the intentionally stilted and stoic voice acting and some of the characters will likely throw you for a loop.

youtube

The fine folks at MinnMax had a fine installment here of their quest to discover the game of the year by giving Shenmue III an honest try…kind of. As much as I loved this game with it being the clear cut #1 rank, I would be lying if it was in need of a few gameplay tweaks to improve the overall experience with more than the few limited fast travel options available, and better emphasis on leveling up Ryo’s combat skills early on. QTEs could have been implemented better and even on Nnrmal difficulty I found myself missing a fair amount of them, luckily developers YS Net is forgiving with frequent QTE checkpoints, and the fail animations are laugh-inducing. The Shenmue nut in me appreciated the many fan service and narrative callbacks to earlier games (hint: absolutely inquire with the hotel clerk what you can purchase from her). Fans of original games will be bummed like me to discover there are no more classic Sega arcade games to play, but for what it is worth there are other minor Sega easter eggs in the form of posters and other smaller items tucked away in the world. Also, what gives with the lack of soda drinking animation!? I bought a shirt last year that was all about Ryo’s aplomb drinking of soda!

The last big stretch leading to the final showdown of Shenmue III had a few poignant moments that will stick with me in the grand Shenmue saga, but compared to final stretches of previous games it is the weakest of the three and was over a little too quick when I was gearing up for one last sprawling stronghold to take down. The ending left on a high note of how it concluded and what the future has in store for the brand. Now a couple months after the fact, I am relieved that through hell and high water, Shenmue III found a way to exist and despite some shortcomings it was well worth the 18-year wait. According to the trophies and Playstation Store listing, there appears to be some mini-game and fighting challenge DLCs in the pipeline, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Shenmue III performed well enough for a fourth entry. THANK YOU!!!!! AFTER NEARLY 18,000 WORDS I AM SPENT! If you somehow made it this far please give me a shout out on Twitter @Gruel and I will tweet you a fist bump for indulging me this long! This took me nearly a whole week to write and edit, so thank you once again to making it all the way through or even just jumping around and skimming to what stood out for you. I appreciate it more than you know! I will leave you all with this annual yearly recap book-end tradition. See you all next year!

youtube

Suuuuuuuuper-Slam!!! Previous Year’s Best of Recaps - 2018 - 2017 - 2016

0 notes

natsspammityspamspamham · 4 years

Text

Dino Watches Anime (Dec 31)

I haven’t done one of these in over a month, and I wanted to try to get this out before the year ends! It’s still 2019 here. Here are some anime I’ve been watching recently and what I thought of them.

Recently Completed

Dr Stone

This anime turned out so well!

I was hesitant at first. The character cast lacked a bit of diversity. I thought they were relying on the main character too much, but then I realized that that wasn’t necessarily a problem. Nobody will ever be as smart as this main character, and that’s okay. Everyone in this anime still plays a purpose, and even though that really showed more in the last episodes of the show, I think we’re in for a treat next season (that and I keep hearing that from my brother, thanks Kuya). The OPs and EDs were a lot of fun to listen to, the art was really good, the OST wasn’t the most memorable but I appreciated its service, and the casting was great! I don’t think I would stand for anyone else playing Senkuu at this point. Yuusuke Kobayashi has really proven how good of a seiyuu he is in recent years. He joined a little later in life and was more apparent in other types of work. Dr. Stone was a great anime, and even though it’s not even my favourite Shonen Jump series of this year (*cough* Kimetsu no Yaiba had a way stronger impact) it’s still worth the watch.

I rated this a 9/10 on MAL

Gamers!

You know how practically every romance anime has miscommunications which “add” to the plot? Now imagine that was an anime and that’s the only thing going on. That’s what “Gamers!” is, and it’s hilarious. I think I saw a YouTube comment that perfectly summed this up.

“This anime is great but it makes me want to bang my head against a wall”

It’s pretty much that! It’s hilarious in its writing, and even though it isn’t really about gaming, it showcases different types of gamers. We have a former gamer, a guy who’s terrible but plays to have fun, a hardcore gamer, an indie developer, and one person who doesn’t even like games! They make the cast really funny and inconvenient, and the seiyuu performances add to the hilarity. Seriously, this quickly became one of my favourite Toshiyuki Toyonaga roles. I think his best works come in the form of romances? Yuri on Ice, Zetsuen on Tempest, to a lesser extent Durarara, Gamers? It’s like he has experience with romance (he has a daughter and is married). Seriously, I almost want to make a post just dedicated to this anime. It has such a low rating on MAL because it is so cheesy, cliche, and it does sometimes drive you up the wall, but isn’t that all romance anime? I was okay watching socially inept people because I am socially inept.

Episode 2 came out of nowhere with it’s cliche yet fitting dialogue.

I rated this a 9/10 because I enjoyed it so much and it was the anime I needed at the time. I can definitely see why people wouldn’t watch it though.

Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara

I went to the other side of the romance spectrum and went with a rom-drama instead of a rom-com like Gamers! And... I feel like I enjoyed Gamers! far more. Irozuku was a bit mean to colour-blind people if I’m completely honest. The characters were flat and uninteresting, but they began to get personality in... episode 8 or something? Also, being colour-blind isn’t as big of a deal as this anime makes it seem. They were so fast to say a girl was from the future but wanted to keep it a secret that she’s colour-blind? She also has no personality because she’s colour-blind? In fact, her personality is that she’s colour-blind? Did I mention she’s colour-blind? Anyway, the ending was conclusive but still left some unfinished ends. P.A. Works made this anime beautiful, I really like the OP and ED, but I ironically didn’t like the casting for this. I give praise to almost every anime for casting, but this anime couldn’t sell me on Kaori Ishihara (who is actually part of Magi which I keep commending for having one of my favourite casts) and Shoya Chiba (who was good in Dororo). The chemistry between the characters and cast didn’t work for me on this one which was sad because the ending would’ve made more of an impact if they’d gotten me more attached. The OST was also amazing so I thought I would add that. Besides that, it was a good premise (with pretty good execution), great art, an amazing OST, beautiful OPs and EDs, but subpar characters.

Asobi Asobase

At the time, Konomi Kohara, Hina Kino, and Rika Nagae didn’t really have that many roles outside of a few (well, Kohara had Tsuki ga Kirei but this really cemented her talent). This anime’s art style threw me in for a loop, and even though the humour didn’t always hit, this anime made me laugh at some points. It was vulgar, full of humour, and I’m really surprised Kino is still alive after screeching a lot. Seriously, that’s a lot. The ED is just them screeching too! Random appearances from big seiyuu are also present, and the animation by Lerche is all over the place. It sheds every essence of the innocence you thought it was going to have in ep 1 and keeps the pace going throughout.

I rated this anime a 7/10 because when humour doesn’t hit for me, it bores me.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

I actually didn’t enjoy Dragon Maid as much as I thought I would. That’s partially because of Quetzalcoatl. I’m sorry, but everything else besides her and a few questionable things (especially the OVA) was alright. The animation was beautiful (KyoAni is soooo good, please do the second season!!!)

The OP and ED were really catchy. I don’t think those songs will be leaving my head anytime soon. At its core, this anime was still heartwarming. The romance between the main two is one-sided but sweet. Kanna is such a cute kid, and Fafnir and Takiya are also funny. I gave this anime a 7/10 because it was still solid, just overhyped.

Africa no Salaryman

This is mostly the same from the last time I reviewed Salaryman so if you read my past one, just skip this.

The story for this anime is mediocre, the animation is really bad, the music is poor, and it was still a fun anime. It’s one of those terrible anime that you end up kind of liking. Have you ever wanted to see a mix of bad CG and limited 2D animation by a studio that has no other notable anime (besides a flop from 2018)? Have you ever wanted to hear the villains of BNHA (All For One, Overhaul, and Dabi) voicing weird safari animals with quirky side characters? Seriously, they took the money that they should’ve put into animation and hired a bunch of famous seiyuu who seem to be having fun. We have Eri Kitamura, Yui Ogura, Akio Otsuka, Kenjiro Tsuda, Hiro Shimono, Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Kengo Kawanishi, Akira Ishida, Hiroshi Kamiya, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, etc. It’s a lot of fun guessing them. Overall, this anime was pretty average. I wouldn’t recommend it unless they intended to watch the seiyuu (which is the only thing really going here)

And the ending itself wasn’t eventful either so I gave this anime a 5/10.

Ani ni Tsukeru Kusuri wa Nai! 3

This is mostly the same from the last time I reviewed this so if you read my past one, just skip this.

Another (slightly better animated) bad anime. It’s a collab between Japanese and Chinese studios (but is originally Chinese), but since Japanese dubbing is far more accessible, I went with that dub. Sora Amamiya, Yuuichi Nakamura, Kensho Ono, and Natsuki Hanae are part of the main cast here. Nothing is really notable besides the story. The sibling thing is kind of relatable. This anime ended recently, and it ended on a good note. The quality didn’t go down, and it kept more of the sibling and stupid antics from the first season. I liked that. I rated this a 7/10 because the art isn’t as clean as most anime, and some of the humour missed.

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai!

This is mostly the same from the last time I reviewed this so if you read my past one, just skip this.

However, I added some stuff regarding the ending of this season.

I will eventually stop wasting my time with these bad romance series, but *cough* I need to fill my depressive void with something, and somehow other’s awkward situations distract me from my own. I mean, this feels like an anime that was supposed to fill the void that Nisekoi left after finishing in Shonen Jump. Hopefully, this time he’ll end up with the right girl. As usual in a lot of harems, the main character has several bad choices. But the overall message and whatever’s left of the plot is really nice and entertaining. The characters are actually intriguing when the fanservice isn’t glaring in your face. I hated how they ended this season. I get they didn’t want to make another season, but stretching an anime-only ending? That just sucks. They were going so well until the last few minutes too. The school festival arc was really nice and sweet. Overall, I still liked the second season. Minus the ending, it was just as strong, if not stronger, than the first. Together with the school festival and Furuhashi’s development, I really enjoyed this. I rated this an 8/10 (but it’s a higher 8 and was only hurt by the ending)

Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo

This is mostly the same from the last time I reviewed this so if you read my past one, just skip this.

However, I added some stuff regarding the ending of this season.

Everyone in this anime is a scumbag in one way or another. Everyone has their bad sides, and unlike a lot of series, this anime isn’t afraid to put them front in centre. This contrasts nicely with Bokuben which is mentioned above. Both are centred around harems, but this one is everything turned on its head with vengeance. Protag? May have a Deku voice, but he’s a pervert that’s described for being “Jekyll and Mr Hyde” which I find interesting because he’s truly nice to his best friend and doesn’t want to betray him, but he also really, really, really likes girls and would want nothing more than to have several of them all to himself. Best friend? Jealous as heck and would probably stab him if things truly went south, but he’s also his wingman. Class president? Talks like a samurai sometimes when nervous and uses MC. Childhood best friend? Terrible liar and uses MC. Then there’s a whole bunch of other people who use everyone. The score is not that great. It’s better than silence, but it hasn’t really been anything above that. The OP is catchy, but I’m not sure if I like it? The ED is nice. The voice acting for this anime is PERFECT for the MC anyway. Daiki Yamashita is really good at acting like this animal of an MC.

I didn’t really feel satisfied with the ending of this season. It wasn’t as funny, and they relied too much on the 4th wall to make the last episode funny. It lacked the hijinks and chaos of the first episodes, and even though it kept character development and stuff throughout, this is the one time I wanted them to end on a less obvious note. I rated it an 8/10

Enen no Shouboutai

Okay, so they began picking up their act within the last few episodes and it shows, but that doesn’t mean everything in-between was saved because it wasn’t. After episode 2, this show plummets and doesn’t pick up in quality until episode 19 or something. To me, that makes this show not worth it. I almost want to make a post about the rise, fall, and slight rise of this anime.

The animation production is amazing, the first OP and the EDs are awesome (couldn’t say that the second OP lived up but it wasn’t bad), the voice acting was alright at most points (can’t say I’m a fan of hearing Asta), but the story went off the rails and was executed poorly during the majority of the series.

I gave this a 6/10. Maaya Sakamoto’s character tried to save the day, but Maki also saved it the best she could.

Kono Oto Tomare! 2nd Season

This went so slow and the manga’s art is so beautiful that the anime looks like a sad outline, but I really liked this overall. Just for hearing their performance, it was all worth it. Trust me, the sound makes it worth it, but if you like visuals, read the manga. The voice acting is good for establishing what you can imagine the character voices add, but the art in the manga is too pretty to pass up.

Sankarea

I just finished this today! I originally dropped it because of its uncomfortable content but picked it back up because Maaya Uchida’s birthday just passed and I wanted a bit more horror before we roll on into 2020. Was this the way to do it? I mean, the horror is very light so that’s good. I can sleep at night. Quality-wise? Hmm... Along with the special episodes 13, 14, and 0! Honestly, these last two anime are ecchi. I don’t know how I got here.

The story is a pretty cool concept. Imagine the idea of a story surrounding a guy (zombie-obsessed or not) helping this girl fulfill her lifelong dreams of being normal even though she’s an undead zombie. Slowly as time passes, her flesh begins to rot so he realizes he has to work faster to complete her wishes to make her life seem “normal”. Taking her to the park, shopping, walking her to school, this seems like a good set-up! If only it went that way.

The story was okay, but I found this anime was going a bit on the ridiculous side. It got cartoony at times, and the characters were a bit cringy at times. Characters in this series ship this character with the MC who certainly isn’t keeping a zombie girl around for no reason. Well, anyway, this girl that the characters keep shipping him with... is his cousin. And Sanka Rea’s dad... is a very uncomfortable character as well. Overall, these two elements are actually what made this anime extremely uncomfortable at times.

I liked the art for this despite all the ecchi. I liked the quirky character designs of our main two characters. Some of the head tilts from Studio Deen almost felt Shaft-esque. It was not that bad!

Umm... I never actually paid attention to the OP, ED, or OST because I was too busy skipping the ecchi. Maaya Uchida was a really cute zombie that made me really like Rea more than I would towards regular zombies (except for maybe the ones from Zombieland Saga). Ryohei Kimura was a pretty good zombie otaku. That’s about it for this one. I gave it a 5/10.

Junketsu no Maria

Another ecchi anime! They didn’t even categorize it as such, but the site I watched it on did. Seriously, I don’t know how MAL didn’t process this as one. Anime that criticize wars and the Catholic church (even fictionally) make me feel a little uncomfortable, but I pushed through this one because... actually, I have no idea why. I was depressed that day and needed some picking up through cheesy predictable anime.

Umm... the art was alright, the music was alright, the story was a little cringy at times, and the characters were pretty flat. They gave too much time explaining how some of these characters were virgins to the point where it just got annoying. Kensho Ono and Hisako Kanemoto were good in this anime (despite playing flat characters), Sakurai plays another insane villain, Yoko Hikasa plays another seductive character, and Mikako Komatsu plays another “male” character. I gave this anime a 5/10.

Dropped/On-Hold

Aku no Hana

WHERE DO I START WITH THIS ONE?! THIS ANIME WAS SCARY. THERE WERE NO DEMONS, NO SUPERNATURAL, ONLY HUMAN BEINGS.

Fun fact: I did not read the synopsis before heading in. I saw the poster and thought, “wow cool! let’s try this! middle-schoolers! what’s the worst that can happen?”

Okay, so I had to remind myself every two minutes that these kids are MIDDLE-SCHOOLERS?! Middle-schoolers? Ugh, I don’t know why?! What’s going on here? I know this is supposed to be a psychological anime, and it does its job seriously well. I was scared. I was genuinely scared. Everything in this anime added to the scariness. Read the synopsis, come back, and realize that I’ve made a mistake. I watched 3 episodes. As a person on the asexual spectrum, I don’t know what this anime is trying to get at. The art adds to the psychological effect. The characters are really messed up. The OP and ED add to this insanity. Aku no Hana lives up to the name (Flowers of Evil). I felt so disgusted. This anime showed an ugly part of humanity that made me want to take a shower, and that’s very out of character.

Just watch a trailer, the OP, and the ED. It gives me the creeps.

Senjou no Valkyria

I didn’t find this interesting. Maybe I’ll pick it back up. The art seems pale and soulless. The voice acting wasn’t enough to draw me in, and the characters weren’t that great. Honestly, this is probably going to be better than Junketsu no Maria, but timing is important.

Seikai no Monshou

1999 art probably hurts this too, but the same reasoning as above. This anime seems genuinely interesting, but I think I started it at the wrong time.

Watching

Hanasaku Iroha

Hmm... this anime annoys me, but I really want to finish it!!!

This anime is about a girl who learned that she can rely on no one from a young age. She starts doing household chores and cooking at age 4. At her last year of middle school, her mom runs with her fiance and leaves her behind to go live with her grandma, and her grandma doesn’t like her. Keep in mind, this grandma is her maternal one. That woman who just dropped her daughter to run away... is her daughter. Ms. Grandma believes her daughter is a failure and projects these views on her daughter because “she raised you”. She forces her own granddaughter to work for her inn with no special treatment. At every single turn, you get introduced to characters you’d rather not. Every character is an absolute ass to the main character, and she keeps chasing, but I would rather see her refuse? Characters are straight-up telling her to die, telling her that she’s not doing everything she can, and kidnapping her. Seriously, someone in this series kidnaps her, ties her up, and sexualizes her and her coworkers. How does the grandma react? She says that they must respect the customer’s orders. ARE YOU F-- this anime has a really high review on MAL so I want to believe there’s good coming but it’s really rough so far.

Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha

This anime is looking up! It has an interesting concept, and the execution has been mediocre so far! The OST is cool, and the characters have interesting designs and powers. I don’t want to say too much on this because I want to wait till the end!

Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season

No words for this one. I’m just going to wait until the season is over. It’s been slow so far, but I have hope.

#dino watches anime

0 notes

db-best · 5 years

Text

45 Training, Fueling, and Mind Hacks to Get You Through Your First Marathon - runnersworld.com

Hero ImagesGetty Images Running your first marathon can be intimidating. Between learning how many miles to log, what to eat, and what training routine works for you, there’s a lot to get down. On top of all that preparation that goes into it, the uncertainty of race day itself can be nerve-wracking, too. Don’t worry: All marathoners have been there. And as they’ve continued crossing races off their lists, they’ve developed a solid arsenal of tips that get them through each one. To help all first-timers out this marathon season, we asked readers in a Facebook post to share what they learned after running their first marathon—and what they wish they would’ve known leading up to the race. Here are 45 things to help you feel better prepared to toe the line for the first time and to finish strong. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Focus on Fuel “That three egg McMuffins aren’t a good prerace meal.”—James Howe “Nutrition! I wish I had realized how important race nutrition is during the run. I bonked at mile 19 because I ran out of calories. Now I take a Hammer gel every 40 minutes.”—Ben Dilla “Refuse the chocolate candy along the way. BIG mistake eating it.”—Maiya Maiya I wish I had known to eat a light breakfast the morning of the marathon. I also wished I knew to began hydrating early during the marathon instead of waiting until I was thirsty at mile 19.”— Frankie Ybarbo “This is new territory (for most) and it’s going to hurt...like really bad. If the course you’re running offers pickle juice and your legs are cramping...DRINK THE PICKLE JUICE.”—Megan Shilling Cross-Train “I wish that I had prioritized weight resistance training a little higher as a cross-training activity.”—Patrick Williams “How much a difference cross-training can make !! Adding a swim and bike or two.”—Richard Adrian “Strength work is even more important than the runs. It’s going to be hard. Really hard. And you will want to quit. That is normal. Running 26.1 miles is not normal. It will be super hard on your body.” —Dee Swartz Put in the Distance “My race performance went up when I started focusing on the quality of the 16 and 18 mile runs.”—Stephanie Petersen “I wish I knew that I was supposed to run at least one 22-26 mile training run. The most I ever ran in my training was 13 miles. I still managed to finish my first and only marathon in 4:58. First half was 2:15, second half was nearly 2:43. What powered me through the last four miles were the sugar wafer cookies that the Marines handed out in the Pentagon parking lot. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2001 one month after 9/11.”—Barbara Henderson Parks “Training involves more than the runs—it’s stretching, icing, strength-training, yoga, fueling and rest!!”—Stephanie Zeka Mallory “Lay a foundation of miles, core and strength training down. Then begin training for the marathon. Hit the gels before you feel fatigued, everything after mile 20 is mind over matter. Be ready for the pain. Beer tastes even more amazing at the finish line.” Jay Mooney Know Your Gear “Footwear! Invest in a great shoe and replace at an appropriate time.”—Gina Bolanos Saunders LPC “Don’t try or wear ANYTHING new on race day—my biggest injury was a huge blister from a fancy new belt!”—Fiona Leigh “Never, ever, under no circumstances wear shoes that are not at least a half-size bigger than ‘snug fit.’”—Anders Thelemyr “The importance of the right socks. I might have not lost three toenails.” —Rebecca Bentley Poire Trust Yourself “I was so nervous about not finishing and hitting the dreaded wall. When it never came, I realized how much mental energy I wasted worrying about it throughout the race. I spent too much time not trusting the process and not truly believing in myself after training and preparing for the miles. Big mistake. Next time I am going all in mentally and physically and plan to enjoy the hell out of it! 2020 NYC!” —Anna Diolosa “I was well prepared for my first marathon. I knew what to expect pretty much at every point in the race. And despite all that, I was still surprised at every step right until the finish. A marathon is like parenting, no amount of preparation truly prepares you.” —Sam Reynolds “Focus more on your body and how your runs feel during training rather than sticking so strictly to a plan. I trained way harder for my first marathon than I did for my second and I PR’ed my second by almost 20 minutes. Listen to your body and ENJOY the race.”—Andy Decker Recovery Is Key “Take recovery after the marathon seriously. I struggled with postmarathon blues and probably started back up with training too soon. I ended up with IT band pain,”—Jennifer Stephens “Not to commit to my wife that I would help lay 10 pallets of sod when I got home.”—Jim Peterman “I should have eaten more in the few days after. I felt great muscle and joint health wise, but struggled with some major fatigue.”—Holly Bergum “I wish I hadn’t taken such a long recovery and maintained a type of ‘marathon maintenance’ running routine. I was in the best running shape of my life training for 26. After, I slipped back into half/10K level.” —Jennifer Spark You Might Feel Down After “I wish I would have known how depressed I would feel after an amazing marathon. It was weird, I was completely happy after my first marathon and then got depressed in the weeks after. Maybe because I wasn’t running as much as I recovered.” —Jabber Jawz “That postrace depression is real. Google ‘posthike depression’ for info.” —Mel Wittmaack “When I was preparing for my first marathon, I was pretty psyched/stressed out and thought I’d so happy once this whole thing was over. I remember reading in Higdon’s book about postmarathon blues. I thought NO WAY. After an awesome experience running the race I was surprised by how ‘blah’ I felt for weeks afterwards. It wasn’t exactly depression, but it was kind of an emptiness. It was like a void, or a blank place where there was once all this focus, energy, thought, etc. And now it’s done. It’s not devastating, but I was definitely surprised.” —Geoff Haas Run With Friends “Take advantage of running groups if they’re available near you! I’ve been running solo for years out of intimidation and finally joined one this year in time for my second marathon. It’s only been a month or less since I joined, and the motivation and support have given me huge boost in my training and overall attitude about it. There are a lot of different groups for what runners might be looking for, so you don’t always have to be a certain pace or experience level to join.” —Kayla Giacin “I wish I would have done it with a friend. Some of the marathon miles got pretty lonely that first race. Now I always race (not always train) with a buddy or join a pace group.”— Hollie Reina Find Your Pace “The importance of pacing, especially the first half, so you won’t spend the last three miles walking and asking yourself, ‘Why did I do this?’”—Craig Sheppert “Ditch the pace device on race day, go by feel, and trust it! I start with a pace that feels slower than I want to run.”—Kim Ehrlich Geisler “Be fast at the end, not the beginning.”—Per Hel “It’s okay to walk.”—Catherine Hiles “Good pacers are angels on earth.” —Jenny Schweinert “Pace, pace, pace...pay attention to your pace.”—Kelly Bloom Barbieri Give Yourself a Break “I wish I knew how to be easier on myself for a missed workout or a bad training run. It’s what I tell everyone training for their first that the schedule is simply a ‘guide.’ That guide doesn’t know what’s happening in your life or at work that particular day. It’s such a long commitment, there’s no reason to fight yourself along the way.”—Will Wilson “It’s okay to focus on YOU. It’s okay to be, dare I say, selfish. There are going to be many times where you have to put your training first, whether it be passing on a night out with your friends because you have an early morning long run or missing brunch because you’re out running. If your friends and family support you like I’m sure they do, it’s all going to be okay.”—Lisa Christine “I wish I had a coping strategy for when things got tough. I hit the wall big time at 35K in the Edinburgh marathon and just fell to pieces physically, but totally lost it mentally. Last 7K took an hour, and because I’d missed my target time, I forgot about what I’d actually achieved in getting to the starting line and then finishing a marathon.”—Paul Stewart Mind Over Matter “Bad runs are the best mental training. Remember how it feels and how you pushed through it. It will give you so much confidence when you hit mile 24 and you already have experienced gritting your teeth and getting the job done. I am always weirdly pleased when a run doesn’t go to plan, as I think it prepares me much better for races which will always throw a curveball at you.” —Debs Thorne “Marathons start at mile 20. And the mindset and mental toughness required to complete one is equally or more important than the physical preparation is.”—Nick Malfitano “Enjoy the whole distance. The starting line is exploding with excitement, anticipation, and nerves. The finish is thrilling and exhilarating. Unless you’re in it to win it, say ‘hi’ to people along the way. Cheer each other on. Say something nice to a volunteer. It’s an amazing experience; help make it one.”—Maranatha Poirier You’ll Love It “I wish I had known just how awesome it is, before I was 37.”—Dwayne Steele “I ran my first marathon 2.5 weeks ago and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I wish I had known how amazing the whole experience (training all the way to race day) would be. Also, how addicting it is! Already want to run another.”—Niki Neumann “I wish I’d have known how much joy comes with running with a bunch of strangers of all shapes and sizes who set their fears and doubts aside and who encourage one another like only family and close friends normally do. If I could have known that I’d be brought to tears seeing grandfathers running hand-in-hand with their grandchildren, runners fearlessly and selflessly pushing for 26.2 miles the wheelchairs of their mobility-challenged friends, and family and rows-deep bystanders cheering the field on to the final runner, I would have started running marathons way sooner in my life.” —Casey Jones “I wish that I would have known how amazing it was to cross the finish line. Life-changing feeling that can never be taken away.” —Debbie Armstrong “The finish line feels even more amazing than you imagined. Enjoy it, because every marathon finish is awesome, but the first 26.2 feels the best.”—Michael Mahan Lawlor Jordan Smith Digital Editor Her love of all things outdoors came from growing up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and her passion for running was sparked by local elementary school cross-country meets. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Read the full article

#advice #tips

0 notes

mrsbenedictbridgerton · 7 years

Text

This Unspoken Thing (3/4)

*now 4 parts...*

Emma and Killian were kinda enemies. Now they are kinda friends, but there is this unspoken thing between them. A pull and a want that they haven’t yet given a name to. And stubborn Emma Swan just wont admit it…

(Inspired by GoTG 2!

Also on AO3/FF.NET

It was Friday night drinks at The Rabbit Hole. She didn’t always make it - work - but tonight she was ready to knock back a few beers and let off some damn steam.

Emma stood at the bar, a bill in her hand as she tried to catch the bartender’s attention.

“You made it.”

The sound of her brother’s voice made Emma smile. He’d been working twilight shifts recently and they’d been pretty much ships passing in the night. She gave him a quick hug. “Hey pops,” she quipped, using the nickname she’d given him in childhood in deference to his elder status.

“Squirt,” he replied, pinching her side before ordering for both of them. “So, how’s work?”

“Great,” she smiled, thinking of the commission she had made that week. She had enough to cover her share of the rent for the next three months saved up and that was certainly cause for celebration.

“And Killian?”

Emma froze as their drinks were placed in front of them. “Why are you asking me about him?”

He paid and the two turned away from the bar.

“Well, you work with him-”

“He’s your friend too!”

“So you are friends,” he grinned, taking a pull from his bottle. “I thought something had happened.”

She gave him a puzzled look.

David rolled his eyes. “You’ve been weird around each other for weeks now. I’m not the only one to have noticed.”

“You guys have been talking about me behind my back? Great.”

Stalking over to the jukebox, she tugged off her jacket, tossing her hair in frustration.

“Hey, hey,” her brother called as he caught up to her, placing a cautionary hand on her arm. “What’s that all about?”

She turned to face him. “I don’t like being the subject of gossip, David.”

He frowned and let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry. I was just concerned. You’ve been so quiet around him recently. You’re usually always sniping at one another and making fun of each other.”

Emma sniffed. “I’m fine.”

Shrugging, he slowly nodded. “Okay. If you say so.” Emma looked at David, expressing as much sincerity in her eyes as she could muster.

Because in fact she was not okay. She was tormented. Killian was giving her a wide berth, as she was him. Since their little lunch date in the bug they hadn’t shared more than the briefest of conversations. That hadn’t stopped her from hearing him discuss his love life across the office when they both happened to be there at the same time. She’d had to stop herself from muttering under her breath on more than one occasion.

And she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking what he did was bothering her.

(Even if it was.)

“Well I do,” she insisted.

They tapped the necks of their beers together, then each took a drink.

Emma was about to turn to the jukebox when David smiled. “You know for a while, I thought you two had a thing.” Although she glared at him, he seemed oblivious. “Crazy, huh?”

As her brother walked off, Emma couldn’t help but mutter.

“Yeah, crazy.”

The ER was not her venue of choice for spending a Sunday evening. She’d have much rather been tucked up in bed with a hot cocoa and a season of her favorite show loaded up on Netflix.

Yet fate - and the weather - had another idea.

Chasing a skip through rain-sodden back alleys was not usually a problem. She could run in six inch heels if she needed to, she reminded herself with pride. But wet asphalt had today proved her nemesis. So as 1am approached she found herself sitting in a waiting room with an assortment of drunks and nervous mothers with small children. She’d texted Leroy as soon as she had realized she had done something bad to her ankle so he could get another agent on the case and now she had plenty of time to feel sorry for herself.

When the doctor had told her it was a sprain, she had almost cried in relief. The pain was intense and her ankle had ballooned to twice its size. She’d really feared a break. A sprain though, that was easy, a little ice, a day or two's rest-

“You need complete isolation of the joint for two weeks.”

Emma stared at the nurse who was discharging her.

“Huh?”

“Two weeks, Miss Swan. If not you risk permanent damage to the soft tissue. And that could result in surgery.”

“But it’s just a sprain?”

The nurse gave her a stern look. “A severe sprain. I mean it - no work, no anything. And if you absolutely must move around you will use crutches.”

Emma sat and waited as the feared crutches and a prescription for painkillers were procured for her. She was not looking forward to explaining this to Leroy. Or sitting around the apartment. Or getting up the two flights of stairs to said apartment.

Maybe she could call David, he was working but he could-

“Emma, there you are.”

She did a double take. Yes, that was Killian Jones standing in the doorway of the examination room. “What are you doing here?”

“Leroy called and told me to check up on you. So here I am.”

Emma straightened her leg and winced. “Well I’m fine, you can go.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“It’s just a sprain.”

Of course the nurse chose that moment to return with a bag full of drugs and a pair of crutches.

“A severe sprain,” the nurse repeated, frowning at Emma, before clocking Killian and giving him a bright smile.

(Of course she fancied him. Everyone did, Emma thought drolly.)

The necessary paperwork was signed and Emma winced more about what the deductible would do to her bank account than through the pain in her leg. Annoyingly, Killian insisted on hanging around, asking the nurse a million questions about her injury and what care she would need. The nurse of course answered each one perfect patience and flirtatious smiles.

“Shouldn’t you be going?” she suggested as she was finally given the discharge.

He walked silently to the exit as she shifted awkwardly on the crutches. Thankfully the effort to use them was wiping out any part of her mind that could have really thought about being in such close proximity to him.

“Go on, shoo,” she said as they reached the cool night air. “Go back to whatever woman you left in your bed.”

That thought made her frown.

“Jealous, Swan?” he teased.

“You wish,” she snapped in reply, very certainly not trying to think about him in bed with some gorgeous, leggy supermodel-type.

Killian shrugged. “Alas, I have no woman to warm my sheets tonight, so I will have to make do with taking you home.”

“I can get home just fine.”

“And the stairs?”

Damn him, he had a point. Silently, she pushed out her chin and let him take the paper bag of drugs from her hand. He then led her to his car that was parked outside the hospital, before taking the short drive back to hers and David’s place. By now, it was almost 3am and the streets were deserted. Just the way she liked it. Not that she could enjoy it, with the throbbing in her ankle and the hyper sensitivity to Killian’s closeness.

When they reached her building, the logistics of getting inside needed to be worked out. For a minute or two they squabbled.

“I can walk-”

“You’ll hurt your leg-”

“I’m not an invalid-”

“Actually Swan, that’s exactly what you are-”

“Killian-”

Before she could finish, she found herself hoisted over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

She let out a soft huff, the air squeezed out of her, her hair hanging over her face as Killian quickly took the stairs. With one arm he grasped her thighs, the other held her crutches. She was slightly terrified that he could drop her, but his grip was firm, the press of his fingers into her flesh so sure that before she could protest she was at her doorway.

“Thanks,” she sighed.

Fishing out her keys, she expected him to leave. But as she went inside, he followed her. She was hobbling, hopping slowly towards the couch. He closed the door behind them and propped up her crutches against the wall.

Whatever words of protest she had were lost in a wave of exhaustion. She yawned.

“You need to sleep.”

“Congratulations, Einstein.”

His face darkened and she felt just a little guilty.

“Sorry,” she winced, trying to get up again.

He didn’t reply. Instead he walked to her, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her to stand. “Come on, milady. Your chamber awaits.”

Emma laughed softly. She let him take her weight and after a few minutes of effort, she was in her room, sitting on her bed.

It was dark. He slipped back towards the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the living room. He looked so tall and solid. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Um,” she coughed, “I-” she gestured to her clothes. He nodded and closed the door.

With a deep breath, she began to work off her jeans. The last part where she had to tug them over her ankle was particularly tender. The joint ached as she pulled on a pair of plaid pajamas from under her pillow.

So preoccupied was she, that it was only when she was fastening the last buttons that she realized that Killian hadn’t flirted with her once that evening.

She was mulling over this uncharacteristic behavior when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” she sighed, trying to arrange herself on the comforter in a somewhat elegant arrangement.

(Why, she didn’t want to think further on-)

He entered, the crutches under his arm and a small tray carrying a glass of water and a small bottle of orange juice alongside a brown vial of pills.

“Comfortable?” he asked, setting down the items on her nightstand. He was suddenly very close and she scolded the part of her that noticed her racing heartbeat.

“Hmph,” she grumbled, wincing as she flexed her toes.

He smiled. At first she thought he was going to make some smart comment, but instead he reached down.

Her heart skipped a beat.

He was going to kiss her.

Killian Jones was going to place his lips on hers-

She held her breath-

And then he took hold of the pillow behind her and gently began to fluff it. His hands brushed her cheek, scalding them- hot, cold, she wasn’t sure.

Then he stood back.

Cold, unexpected disappointment rippled through her.

“Better?” he asked, his eyes wide and honest, so blue even in the dimness.

“Yeah,” she shrugged, seeking an easy out from the sudden intimacy of the moment. She reached out to her side, grasping the water and taking a drink. It dribbled down her cheek and she self-consciously wiped it away with the sleeve of her pajamas.

She wasn’t exactly sure what was happening. She wasn’t sure if she liked it. Or if she didn’t-

He fussed for a moment, setting out a couple of pills from the bottle, picking up her discarded clothes and putting them in the laundry hamper, turning on the little lamp on the bedside table.

Finally, he paused. His face now illuminated. He looked far too handsome for that in the morning, his ever present layer of scruff giving him a darkly attractive edge that was ever more evident in the twilight hours.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, placing the glass back where she got it from.

“It’s in my best interest that my co-worker is back to duty as soon as possible.”

Emma let out a soft huff.

“And maybe I’m just trying to be nice.”

His eyes said more than his words. But she couldn’t quite read his expression. Somewhere in the hazy, milky blue there was a message for her, but she was too tired and too jacked up on pain meds to understand. So she reverted to her usual attitude towards him.

“You, nice? Please. You’re only nice when you’re trying to get in someone’s pants.”

(She didn’t mean that. She didn’t know why she said it. She wanted to take it back; she didn’t know how.)

For a second, he looked hurt. A little part of her crumpled. But then that look of hurt was replaced by a confident smile.

“Maybe I am.” He folded his arms, his biceps straining nicely against his shirt, the large scale of his hands all the more evident from their position.

(She wiped away a memory of those hands holding her waist-)

This was fine. She could do this. The antagonistic back and forth. This was what they did.

She stiffened her back, picking at an imaginary piece of fluff on the comforter, as she bristled. “I’m not having sex with you because you gave me a ride home.”

He didn’t immediately reply. She watched with interest as his knuckles blanched as he briefly tightened his grip on his own arms. Then he straightened his shoulders a little.

“Maybe I don’t want to have sex with you,” he said.

Their eyes met. She wasn’t sure how to respond. Was this a test? Some kind of joke about how he didn’t find her attractive? Was he going to compare her to all these mysterious women he’s been on dates with-

“Maybe I want to make love to you.”

Silence.

She’d heard an absolute silence described as like the air being sucked out of a space. Absolute nothingness beyond the sounds on one’s own body. She presumed that is what this moment was. Perfect silence. Everything faded away - the city sounds, the creaks of the old building, even the ticking of the alarm clock.

He seemed to be waiting for her reaction.

Her mind raced as simultaneously her heart seemed to catch in her throat.

In some ways, it was the most romantic thing anyone had said to her in a while. Well, if the context was right and it was heartfelt.

But he didn’t mean it, did her? He was joking with her. Playing the silly, antagonistic game they seemed to so love.

(Or had loved.)

So she laughed. Softly, with no real menace or ire behind it. She needed to show him she saw through his game, that she wouldn’t rise to his machinations.

“Good one,” she nodded, tapping a pointed finger at him. “You had me there for a minute, Jones.”

His gaze dropped to the floor. “Did I?” he sighed.

Nervously, Emma fidgeted. She felt the situation was not in her control. He was not behaving the way she expected. She felt unsure and confused and she had a million questions but not the words to express them.

He beat her to the punch.

“Better be going, Swan. Early start, and all.”

He was making his way to the door before she was able to reply. “Thank you, Killian. It was- very kind of you. To help.”

Pausing, he simply nodded, before slipping away and closing the door to her bedroom behind him.

She dreamed of blue eyes and soft words and love making and strong hands-

(She blamed the painkillers.)

A/N: Feedback is always appreciated! Thank you.

#text post

39 notes · View notes

thisisevenharderthannamingablog · 7 years

Text

6.21/22 The Final Battle

Well, here we are. I can’t title this “the final write-up” because I still have to go back and finish six episodes in S2, but we’re certainly getting close.

My feelings about this show are large and complicated. My feelings about this finale are of overwhelming disappointment. Read on for large quantities of salt, like we’re talking “Visitors Guide to Hallstatt” here, maybe put on a helmet.

In the Enchanted Forest: Some but not all of the Storybrooke residents are returned to the Enchanted Forest castle, while others remain in the LWM. (???) They can watch events in Storybrooke through a mirror. Zelena arrives from Oz via magic hat (???) to let them know that there is another problem: the realms are disappearing. Additional refugees arrive, including Aladdin and Jasmine.

Regina is determined to find a magical solution, and poofs everyone to her own castle. Hook is just as determined not to wait on her efforts, and sneaks off on his own. Charming follows him to the beanstalk, which he plans to climb in order to look for a magic bean to get back to Emma. They essay the quest together, find a bean, and exit pursued by a random dragon (???).

Meanwhile, the other Regina shows up back at the castle, having abandoned the Wish World with Robin due to her being wanted for regicide there, and joins the effort.

In the other world, Emma burns the book. As the Enchanted Forest comes apart, the beanstalk sways. Hook falls off, and Charming rides the falling stalk down to the ground. Snow realizes that her husband is missing. She and Jasmine go to find him. They find Hook (unhurt somehow), and Snow stays to look for Charming while the other two take the bean back to the castle. She finds him, thinks he’s dead, and kisses him, which wakes him up somehow IDK.

The bean has already begun to wither, and Regina’s magic is insufficiently speedy to revive it in time to use it (??). Her evil half buys them time (??), sacrificing herself to hold back the oncoming destruction. Everyone else takes cover in the castle.

The erosion of the realms stops when there is only a small patch of Enchanted Forest remaining.

In the LWM:: Henry wakes up on the rooftop alone, and quickly finds that Storybrooke has been re-cursed. Fiona is his mother (???) , and Emma has been in an asylum for the past two years, ever since Henry ate that apple tart and poisoned himself in an effort to prove that magic was real. Neither the storybook nor the symbols that he wrote while in an Author trance are convincing. Fiona shows up to reinforce the fake reality in which they dwell and attempt to convince Emma to destroy the storybook as a final act of healing.

Fiona pays a visit to the pawnshop to visit Gold and Gideon and make sure their new story is in place -- that Belle ran off and abandoned them, and Fiona looks after them as best she can.

Meanwhile, Henry breaks Emma out, hoping to jog her memories with a trip to the site of her recent wedding. She does have flashes, but considers this part of her ongoing problem with reality. Henry determines to steal Emma’s car keys so they can leave town, but Fiona catches him and pushes down some stairs, breaking his arm. She uses this incident to convince Emma that the storybook needs to go, for Henry’s sake.

The worlds’ disintegration accelerates as the book burns.

Rumple asks Fiona to “reopen the investigation into Belle’s disappearance.” She offers him some hilariously bad Photoshops of Belle off seeing the world, blissfully alone.

Emma leaves for Boston (where, in the single least likely occurrence of the entire episode, her apartment is still there -- it’s not even dusty). She finds a version of the storybook that Henry made for her (when did he do that?).

Henry goes to Gold, who admits that he still has his memories because he did not entirely trust his mother, but also that he has no interest in being helpful; he just wants to find Belle. Henry borrows a mirror and a sword and goes down to the beach. He announces to anyone who might be watching via mirror that he’s going to fight the Black Fairy himself.

He’s all ready to do so when Emma shows up -- she came back! Even though she doesn’t remember anything, she read his story and she believes him.

Rumple concocts a potion and locates Belle, only to find that she’s agoraphobic in her new, cursed life. Fiona comes to the shop looking for her wand and reminds us that she has Gideon’s heart and can command him, because that will be important later. She uses the wand to translate the symbols Henry wrote in his trance, which are about the Final Battle. Rumple returns and confronts his mother, who promises to lift the curse from Belle and Gideon just a soon as she’s done with this fight.

Oh, and she’ll also have ultimate power by then, could even bring people back to life, if that was a thing he was interested in. He could have everything! But, no deal. He takes the wand. Fiona has one last trick, however; it’s still Gideon who’s going to kill Emma, carrying out Fiona’s final command to his heart, because “Darkness can’t snuff out the Light… only light can snuff out light.”

(What the everloving fuck? This plus that final line in the storybook is why it took my poor li’l English major ass a solid month to get around to rewatching this thematic dumpster fire.)

Anyway, Rumple goes ahead and kills her, with 20 minutes left to go in the episode.

(Wait, I thought killing people -- even bad people! -- was supposed to be BAD. Wasn’t that like half of S4.)

But this time it’s okay, I guess, because the curse breaks, and everyone gets their memories back. (So Snow and Charming could have just killed Regina’s no-magic ass in their flashback a few episodes ago and broken the curse themselves instead of letting Emma go through hell to save them. Good to know.) Everyone comes back from the Enchanted Forest as the sun sets. Gideon finds his sword, and Emma.

Belle finds Rumple, and on Henry’s direction, the two of them head to the mines in search of Gideon’s heart while Emma locks Gideon in the mayor’s office. Belle - and I can’t believe I am going to fucking type these words, give me a second - TWISTS HER ANKLE AND CAN’T GO ON because it’s not like her husband is the FUCKING DARK ONE AND COULD HEAL HER IN LESS TIME THAN IT TOOK TO TELL HIM TO GO ON WITHOUT HER.

But oh no, they had to give Rumple a tete a tete with his Enchanted Forest self telling him to just give it up, let the Final Battle go on, take all the power for himself teehee! This could have been a neat moment if it had been, oh, I dunno, built up in any way at all in the entire preceding season instead of just flung at us out of nowhere. Rumple decides to do the Right Thing, but his attempt to command Gideon to stop has no effect, because of… something the Black Fairy did, apparently.

Meanwhile up above, Gideon finds them again (natch). Regina gives a Hope Speech™. Emma fights Gideon but refuses to kill him, so he stabs her. There’s a lot of light. Emma appears to be dead until Henry kisses her.

For reasons I don’t understand at all, Gideon becomes an infant again. The storybook is finished. The Enchanted Forest is back where it was - Evil Queen included, and it looks like she and Robin are expecting. Snow and Charming get a farmhouse and a dog. Emma and Hook drive off in the bug to fight crime together. Regina gets to be queen of Storybrooke. Everyone gathers at Granny’s for a weird-ass homage to Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

(I have blocked every gifset that includes that scene that crosses my dash, because what the actual fuck.)

In sum, happy beginnings all around.

Also: In some wrapper scenes after an unspecified time jump, we meet a plucky young girl named Lucy and her fairy godmother, Tiger Lily. Lucy has a storybook and a sword and says she’s Henry’s daughter. Henry (now an adult and living in Seattle in our fade-out) has no memory of her. A grave new threat has overcome the Enchanted Forest and their family.

I didn’t pay much attention to these, as I am not planning to watch the season.

Parallels: This episode consisted of (depressingly) little else but direct callbacks to other episodes -- which is not nearly as effective as parallelism, unfortunately.

Fiona = Regina, obviously

The now-magicless Zelena travels by magic hat (1.17); apparently in his years off-screen, Jefferson made a new one

Emma’s pullup scene is a reference to Terminator 2 (another sequel, see earlier this season)

Operation Cuckoo’s Nest is a twofer, as the entire “operation” business is now several layers deep in self-reference. Unfortunately.

Killian and Charming climb the beanstalk from 2.06

Her Handsome Hero makes an appearance in 6.21 and then again in 6.22, when Rumple uses it to find Belle.

Fiona giving Belle an agoraphobic personality is reasonably close to Regina having locked her up

Snow kissing Charming awake was a callback to, well, rather a lot of their scenes since the S6 curse.

Fiona’s final plan as she explained it to Rumple - no more laws of magic, bringing people back to life, making them love - was lifted wholly from the OUaTiW spinoff, where it made a hell of a lot more sense.

We got one last reference to the price of magic, although it’s hard to see any rhyme or reason to how that’s applied these days.

Henry kissing Emma reverses the S1 finale.

Six seasons’ worth of material, magic items, and emotion to draw from, and this random grab-bag is what they came up with.

On a cheerier note, Lucy means “light” which I feel is appropriate for Snow White’s great-granddaughter and the granddaughter of a Savior.

Wardrobe Department:

There was nothing new or interesting here.

In Hindsight: The villains on this show have gone steadily downhill in capability for the past few years. Regina enjoyed most of a decade as the tyrant of the Enchanted Forest, and 28 more years with Storybrooke in her iron grip before Emma broke the curse for which Regina had murdered her own father.

Rumple was the Dark One, holder of unmatched power, for centuries, came thisclose to living forever in a world specially designed for his happiness (S4).

Pan had absolute power in Neverland for centuries. Cora held sway in Wonderland for years, and got the better of Rumplestiltskin once (very nearly twice). Zelena ruled Oz for something like forty years, if my timeline is anywhere near correct.

Fiona lost her wand ten seconds after turning evil, and was defeated by a fairy who regularly gets herself nearly-dead and doesn’t even show up in the town’s magical ranking these days. She was imprisoned for centuries, sulking and plotting in the Dark Realm, before she made it to Storybrooke, where she spent a week romping around, finally cast her curse, her great work of villainy -- and it got broken and she got killed THE NEXT DAY.

What a loser.

I did a rare thing for me and asked Adam on Twitter what was up with this episode, given that most of it was clearly written for Regina, not the Black Fairy. I did not get an answer, and I suppose we’ll never know what caused this change in direction -- maybe it was as simple as the fact that JMo was leaving and Lana was staying next season, and they didn’t want to end the show. It seems inarguable to me, however, that this change was made, because absolutely nothing about Fiona’s actions makes sense in light of her character.

Fiona’s Dark Curse was (retconned to have been) intended to protect her son (Rumple) by taking all of the Enchanted Forest children to the Land Without Magic. Her later actions were fixated on Gideon as substitute for Rumple. The Dark Curse as enacted in the finale didn’t appear to have anything in particular to do with Rumple or with Gideon. They were both supposed to be cursed and oblivious, so how would that have been a happy ending for Fiona? Was she going to spend eternity watching their family from outside? Storybrooke under her curse had plenty of magic, too, ignoring what was supposed to have been the entire original point.

The new Dark Curse did end up having a lot to do with Emma, with whom Fiona had no relationship at all beyond the inescapably lame “you’re a Savior so I have to kill you” thing. It separated her from her family and drove a new wedge between her and Henry. Fiona had no reason at all to be interested in Henry -- but in this new world she adopted him? -- or in any of Emma’s family for their own sake -- but she made sure to send specifically them away, and no one else? She has literally never interacted with any of these characters, and it makes no sense that she would care about their whereabouts.

(And why for the love of Pete was Henry immune to the curse? I don’t think they ever addressed that. He wasn’t under the first one because he was brought to town later on, but there’s no obvious reason why he should have kept his real memories this time around.)

(While I’m at it, how in hell did she still have Gideon’s heart? She and Rumple were supposed to have been allies as of a couple episodes ago; there’s no way he would have made any deal without securing that.)

None of what Fiona did makes sense for the Black Fairy, but it would have been very much in keeping with Regina’s past actions. (Yes, even down to harming Henry. This is a woman who killed the thing she loved the most.) Even Fiona’s costuming was identical to Regina’s look in S1.

I’m too irritated by it to even really discuss Regina and Rumple’s ending for this season. Suffice to say that they got everything they ever wanted -- twice over in Regina’s case -- and I will never stop being bitter about it. What was even going on with Rumple here? Is being the Dark One irrelevant now? Because if he’s been 100% able to make good decisions this entire time, curse or no curse, and just couldn’t be arsed until this very moment, that blows up another enormous piece of show mythology.

Moving on before my blood pressure kills me.

In my opinion, most of this finale’s mess comes from chickening out with Regina. The rest of it falls out as a consequence of that decision. Having slotted the Black Fairy in for her at the last moment, having decided to make this a metaphorical battle and not a literal one, they had the problem of what do with all of the other characters. I suspect the decision went like “leaving them in Storybrooke would mean re-establishing their cursed identities for viewers who haven’t seen them in five seasons, and it would mean creating all new curse identities for some of them, so let’s just send them off to the EF and, um, they can do absolutely nothing useful there.” The Captain Charming scene was cute as far as it went, but it was also useless, and that dialog was flat-out terrible.

That entire half of the finale was pointless. Literally nothing was accomplished there that had any effect. In order to make all that nothing look like a very urgent something, the writers came up with this “Emma’s lack of belief will destroy all the lands” hack at what was obviously the last possible moment, and I say that because it is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION of the ENTIRE PREMISE OF THE SHOW.

We literally spent all of S1 and onward having it explained that what we think of as stories have objective existence in other worlds, that these people and these realms are real, with their own long and complicated history independent of our own; we only know of them because of the storybooks. Now all of the sudden they only exist if one particular person believes in them? What about the first 28 years of Emma’s life, when she didn’t believe in anything? What about the worlds she’s never been to, never interacted with? Stuff that happened before she was born? The history of the Authors, Mr Disney included? All of those other storybooks from the last hack job of a season finale?

The idea that the final battle is an internal one is fine in itself, but then what makes it final? Why was the Black Fairy involved at all? Why has it been six years and we’re still talking about whether Emma Swan believes in magic? Shouldn’t the “final” battle revolve around everything that has happened to her SINCE that moment, not take us back to just before it happened? What narrative purpose does isolating her from everyone except Henry - again! - serve?

It wasn’t even really a battle; the curse didn’t capitalize on any weakness in Emma’s character. We just rewound the tape to the S1 finale so she could make the exact same decision she made then -- to leave -- and then convince herself to come back sans apple tart-induced trauma? Was that supposed to be the big pivotal thing, that she came back on her own? Because that was pretty fucking drastically underplayed, and also pretty far from definitive. Emma could get her memories wiped tomorrow (and given this show, probably will), and we’d do the same thing all over again. The fact that they didn’t even feel a need to show her moment of deciding to act on screen says everything, I think.

And then we have the concluding fight, which defies explanation. One thing this show has generally done a good job with is parallelism, but here of all places it fell flat. Everything about the “climax” felt perfunctory at best. They introduced the vision of the fight with Gideon in 6.01, therefore they had to revisit it in the finale, even if it made no particular sense to do so (nothing about Gideon has made sense). This fight happened because a dead character who had no established reason for doing anything she did gave a pointless character an order that didn’t make any sense in the first place; Emma had to “die” purely because the writers said she would six months ago. As an action and as a scene, it accomplished nothing.

Having previously established that the sword was a real sword that would cut people, they hand-waved that and gave it a magical effect instead, allowing Emma to be struck down and then wakened by TLK. The TLK with Henry at the end of S1 was one of the most hard-fought-for scenes I have personally ever seen in any medium, with an entire season of loving development leading up to it; this one felt like a distant echo through a mile of aluminum ducting. Henry has barely even been in this season, hasn’t had a good episode for his character since 6.08. His relationship with Emma in particular has been on the back burner since “The Other Shoe.” The two of them didn’t even get a good spotlight in this episode what with all of the side action in the Enchanted Forest and with Rumple and so on. That kiss didn’t bring anything new to the story.

And so here we are, if not at the end of the story, at least at the end of a significant chapter.

Adam and Eddy wrote some of my all-time favorite episodes of this show, back in the day. At this point, I have to say that while they might make solid staff writers, they have no business running a show. They don’t care about consistency from one season or sometimes even one episode to the next, their creative toolbox appears limited in scope, their writing is self-indulgent, and they’re apparently not willing to follow through -- of their own accord -- on events that should have significant in-character consequences. The result is a finale that very nearly systematically trashes every piece of moral and magical world-building that was still standing after six seasons -- and which I feel comfortably certain will be ignored when the show goes into S7.

All of that said, I do want to end this on a positive note. I have over the past few years very much enjoyed the story of Emma Swan, the ugly duckling who thought she would never have a family, the lost princess who gave up on love, the hardass with her box of sentimental treasures -- the mother, daughter, sheriff, swordswoman, sorceress, leader, lover, and all of the other jackets she’s worn across the years, leather and otherwise, in the end a fully realized woman with a whole heart and a happy future ahead of her. That’s a story I will never get tired of, and for that I offer my gratitude.

To all of you reading this, I would like to say thank you as well, for the many hours of diverting conversation, for the moving and hilarious commentary, and for the friendships that have grown up from this unexpected ground. May your supplies of fic never run dry.

#b thinks about once upon a time #ouat #ouat 6x21 #ouat 6x22

51 notes · View notes

adventuresaroundasia · 4 years

Text

Pin Me!

Most of you know that I love to travel, I lived in China for quite a while, and I’m location-independent right now. You may also know that I love cats and spicy food. But did you also know I’m a huge nerd?

Today I decided to hop off the travel/ expat life train and talk a little bit about the sides of me you don’t see: the super nerdy and slightly weird sides.

Here are 5 ways in which I am a giant nerd. Enjoy!

If this doesn’t scream confidence I don’t know what does…

1. I’m Obsessed with Survivor

One thing you need to understand about me is that I’m super obsessed with the tv show Survivor. Yes, that show is still on the air, and they just wrapped up their 40th season. FORTY.

You know how people talk about sports? That’s how I talk about Survivor. I’m super into the strategy, the social game, and the lengths people are willing to go to in order to win. If you haven’t watched Survivor in a long time, the game is a completely different animal now, and the level of strategy needed in order to win is super intense. I LOVE IT.

Not only do I watch Survivor religiously, but I also watch Australian Survivor and I listen to Survivor podcasts like RHAP’s (Rob has a Podcast)’s “Survivor Know It Alls” and “Why _____ Lost” (talking about why a player was voted out), and the Survivor Specialists. If you love Survivor and you don’t listen to Survivor podcasts, what are you even doing with your life?

Finally, I even applied to be on Survivor last fall. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it all the way to getting on the show, but I already have some new ideas for when I apply again this fall. Basically I’m going to be on Survivor, they just don’t know it yet.

youtube

A quick intro to D&D if you’re curious

2. I Play D&D (Dungeons and Dragons)

When I first started dating my husband Chris, he told me he was the Dungeon Master (DM) for a local D&D game. I had absolutely no idea what D&D was, but I knew it was nerdy and that I should probably make fun of him for it.

Fast forward a few months and I’m on a quick visit home to Seattle when I met up with my childhood best friend who informed me that she ALSO played D&D. What??

The way she described the game sounded so fun that when I arrived back in Beijing I asked to join. Unfortunately my first game was a bit intense. Not only did I have no idea what I was doing, but I was also the only girl surrounded by a bunch of aggressive super-nerds. That game eventually fell apart at the start of summer (one session after I joined), and so I started a new game online with a bunch of Chris’ childhood and college friends back in Australia.

via GIPHY

That was about three years ago and I’ve been playing online with that same group of people ever since! For the longest time I used to play every other Sunday for 4 hours, but during COVID isolation I needed more of a social life, so I picked up TWO MORE GAMES, one on Tuesday evening and another on Thursday.

Both my new characters are SUPER WEIRD as well. One is a necromantic spore druid who makes zombies with fungus (and can cover her skin in it to become more powerful). She also has a “husband” named Gerold who is literally just a skull she found in the woods. Then I have another character that is a kappa (from Japanese folklore) water shaman who heals people by pouring the water from inside her head onto them (I make it super weird). She also has a cat-sized pet crab too. You’re welcome.

I’ve always been weird

3. I Love Pokemon (and still play Pokemon GO)

Growing up I was always super into Pokemon. I watched the show, collected the cards, and bought all the Gameboy games. As a special treat, my mom would take my brother and I to the games shop to buy a pack of Pokemon cards to put in my GIANT Pokemon card book.

Now that I’m an adult, I’m still super into Pokemon. Unfortunately for me, Pokemon Go came out while I was living in China, and I was SO UPSET that it was blocked. I even tried to get on with my VPN but there were NO POKEMON TO CATCH. WHYYYY???

Fortunately for me, I eventually left China and was able to start playing with my husband Chris. I still play Pokemon GO when I’m out and about, and I’ve found it’s a great way to get exercise while exploring a place. When staying with my parents, Chris and I would try and get out of the house every day or two and walk for a solid 45 minutes just to hit up Pokestops, take over gyms, and catch Pokemon.

I also play the Pokemon games on my Switch too! I already finished Pokemon Let’s Go, and I’m playing Sword and Shield Now! (I only took a break because I got really into Animal Crossing).

youtube

A Quick Enneagram 101

4. I’m Super Into the Enneagram

If you’re into personality types like Myers Briggs (I’m an ENFP!), you may have heard of the Enneagram. While the Enneagram is a personality-typing system, it really goes much deeper than just describing your outward personality. While you can take a test (which is only as accurate as you know yourself), the best way to figure out your type is just to learn about the 9 types and do a lot of introspection.

Rather than categorizing yourself by how you act and what you do, the Enneagram is all about WHY you do what you do. What are your core motivations, desires, and deep dark fears, and how does that impact you and your life choices?

The purpose of the Enneagram is to learn about your type so that you can discover the things that you do that aren’t serving you. What are the elements of your personality that are actually HURTING you and making life harder, and how can we, over time, let those go?

This is me.

My Enneagram Type: Type 7

Personally, I’m a type 7 (7w6 sx/so in case you’re an Enneagram nerd like me), and this knowledge has helped me SO MUCH. Through learning about the Enneagram I’ve realized that I have a huge aversion to talking about/ feeling really shameful or traumatic memories, and instead I prefer to just shove them under the rug and pretend like they never happened because I “don’t have time to be sad”. I also feel like there’s not enough time in life to do everything I want to do, so I have constant anxiety and FOMO that I’m missing out on something.

Finally, 7’s have this idea that happiness is something outside of yourself that you have to go and get. But once you actually get that thing, you don’t even enjoy it because you’re already focused on the next thing you just “need” to be satisfied. This ‘more is more’ concept when it comes to happiness leaves 7’s constantly living in the future, and unable to appreciate what they already have.

Wow, how exhausting is that?

Learning about the Enneagram has honestly been so enlightening for me, and I LOVE forcing others to get into it too. (Any other Enneagram nerds? Let’s be friends!!).

How to Get Into the Enneagram

If you want to get into the Enneagram, I suggest watching a quick intro video like the one above and then reading about all of the 9 types on the Enneagram Institute. This should give you a pretty good idea of what your type is (or at least help you narrow it down).

If you really want to take a quiz, you CAN but take a few quizzes and just read about your top-scoring numbers. For me, it’s usually 7 (by a mile! lol), 3 and 2.

Next, I recommend reading a book. I really like the Honest Enneagram as a perfect intro book. It was actually written this year, so it’s very current and easy to read! Once you’re dying for more info, get a really in-depth hefty book like the Wisdom of the Enneagram, or Personality Types. You can also join a Facebook group for your type too! (The 7 Facebook group is awesome).

Baby Woody in Vietnam!

5. I’m Obsessed with Cats

Many of you probably already know that I fostered abandoned kittens in Vietnam, but I don’t think you know how far this obsession goes. I love animals, but I’m particularly fond of cats, and I have a hard time rationalizing my desire to travel and live abroad with my need to have a pet.

I Foster Abandoned and Injured Cats and Kittens

So, in Vietnam I worked with Vietnam Cat Welfare to foster abandoned kittens until they were old enough to get all their vaccines. Before I did this, I helped nurse a street kitten back to health after she’d been hit by a motorbike.

Now that I live in Tbilisi, I’ve been dying to find a cat to foster, but unfortunately, it’s been difficult since most of the stray cats here are actually pretty healthy, and the ones that do need help are pretty much immediately adopted! (Wow what a horrible problem to have, I know!).

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I saw a very unfortunate-looking cat in a diaper looking miserable that needed a foster family. Finally, my time to shine!! I immediately said I would foster her (and purposely didn’t show the picture of her to Chris because I knew he’d say no).

For the last three weeks, I’ve been giving her medicine, brushing out her tangles, and changing her litterbox constantly because she pees like a HORSE due to her kidney issues. Every day she’s getting happier and healthier which is super exciting!

Honestly, someday I’m going to open a cat cafe full of rescues and you’re all invited.

I Also Feed Stray Dogs

Now, it’s not just cats I love. I also feed stray dogs! Tbilisi has a huge stray dog population, and pretty much all of them have been tagged and vaccinated. The stray dogs are actually very nice, and most small shops have bags of dog food you can buy to give to the dogs.

So of course, I bought my own bag of dog food, and whenever I see a stray dog outside my apartment I go with a few handfuls of food to give them. Usually they’re not even hungry (seriously!) and they just want me to pet them. The other day I had a stray dog go on a walk with me, and he ended up following me for 20 minutes!

Hello stray puppy

I Used to do 4H for Cats

If this wasn’t all nerdy enough for you, let me tell you about my childhood hobby: 4H for cats. If you’re from the US you may have been to a county fair that had animal shows: horses, sheep, etc. This is actually through a program called 4H. Now, what most people don’t know is that 4H also has a CAT CATEGORY.

If you’re at the local fair and walk into a room full of decorated cat cages, you’ve found us. Now this is not a cat show with a bunch of purebreds. 4H is all about how well you take care of the animal and how much you know about them. They have you show off your cat in a specific order (teeth, nails, ears, fur, etc) and then you have to answer cat trivia questions. For example, did you know cats have three eyelids?

In addition, they also have trivia bowls, cage decorating competitions, audience choice and MORE. My childhood bedroom was decorated with giant show ribbons like I had a horse or something, but no… they were for my cat knowledge.

Pin Me!

Are You a Nerd Too?

Are you obsessed with any of the things above? Do you play D&D, watch Survivor, or read Enneagram books? Do you love to catch Pokemon or foster animals? Let me know in a comment below!

Fun Fact: I’m a Huge Nerd Most of you know that I love to travel, I lived in China for quite a while, and I'm location-independent right now.

#cats #D&D #Enneagram #personal #Survivor

0 notes

drink-n-watch · 4 years

Text

Genre : Action, comedy, supernatural, urban fantasy, science fiction.

Episodes: 13

Studio: Bones

You know what’s tricky? Navigating that confusing time between childhood and adulthood. Especially if you grew up as a bit of a loner. Feeling outcast and different all the time. And that type of isolation can cut deep. Loneliness can get to you and turn you into someone you don’t want to be. Luckily for Mob, he’s always had a loving family by his side. And master Reigen has always supported him best he can. And now, without even realizing it, Mob is surrounded by friends. But what would have happened if he wasn’t? What would a powerful psychic like that turn out to be without others to keep him grounded?

The first season of Mob Psycho came as a long-delayed delightful surprise to me. I had been putting off the series for reasons that are obscure even to me, and when I finally got around to watching the first season a month or so ago, I wanted to kick myself for waiting so long. Mob Psycho made me happy. Eager to learn from my mistakes I watched a few palette cleanser shows and dove right into the second season. Let’s see if I’m kicking myself again.

is the suspense killing you?

Production-wise, there isn’t much change between the two seasons. Mostly because it was a really solid production, to begin with. I was slightly more taken with Itou, Setsuo voice acting this season but only because a few scenes allowed him to tap into this calm and melancholy tone that he does very well. Mob Psycho has always been a visually distinctive show and the aesthetic is once again rigidly upheld. If you didn’t like the look of the show before, you still won’t. If like me you really liked it, well you can figure out the rest.

All of this said there were two notable improvements in my opinion. One is expanded colour palettes. There are dusk and early morning scenes that bathe everything onscreen in a wash of colours. Environments get plunged in sudden ominous darkness as superpowered character shine. It really gave a lot of dimension to the series and made Mob Psycho 100 II look lush compared to its predecessor.

The second visible improvement was the animation. Not that it was bad in season 1, to the contrary , but there is a whole lot more this time around and it’s awesome. The action is exaggerated and quick-paced with insane ragdoll physics and skewed perspectives that are frankly just plain fun to watch. I found myself completely engrossed in fight scenes no matter how obviously unrealistic they were, unable to turn away and biting at my thumbnail.

I’m telling you, it looks great!

Sadly I have a feeling that if you don’t like the art style, no matter how much praise I heap on the animation, it won’t sway you. So let’s talk story!

I recently wrote a post on 100 Word Anime discussing the pitfalls of comparing one anime to another so let me do it again right now… Mob Psycho season 2 reminded me of Natsume’s Book of Friends.

Some of you may know that I compared Mob Psycho 100 to Neon Genesis Evangelion. The first season did in fact bring that show to mind for me. This second season, however, has matured and tweaked its themes and no longer brought to mind the classic series for me. Now you may think I’m just using another excuse to mention Natsume yet again, I don’t blame you. I do that. But there is a reason. When I say Mob Psycho II reminds me of Natsume I mean specifically season 3.

The second season of Mob Psycho is a wild ride. The action is geared way up and the stakes have been raised considerably. Yet for all the heart-pounding adventures what I took away from the season was just how much Mob and the show itself had grown. I actually wrote it in my notes after the first episode and couldn’t help but grin like a Cheshire when the characters on screen started to echo that exact thought throughout the season. It’s great when you can feel like part of the team.

well…most of the time

The second thing I wrote is just how beautiful Mob’s personal evolution was. The young boy isolated and bound by anxiety and fear had come out of his shell. Without even realizing it, he suddenly finds himself surrounded by friends and for the first time even something akin to peers. And because he finally has that support system available to him, he can finally find the strength to confront his own power. He actually starts using it to help others in mundane situations instead of only having it as a last resort. His emotional gauge actually gets filled by positive feelings just as often as negative ones if not more so. He no longer sees himself merely as a burden to others and therefore he no longer is.

I wrote all these notes down happily then went over them. When that early feeling of deja vu hit me. As I leafed through my past notebooks I realized that I had written almost word for word the exact same thing for the third season of Natsume. Clearly, I need to get a bit more varied in my note-taking but it also shows that I know what I like. And make no mistake I loved this second season of Mob Psycho.

Reigen is my favourite character in the series. I generally love tricksters but beyond that, I think that one of the main reasons Mob didn’t fall apart in his younger years was because he always had Reigen by his side. I doubt I’m the only one with a soft spot for the 2-part midseason mini-arc that developed Reigen and Mob’s relationship specifically.

these are some great episodes

I always thought that Reigen genuinely cares about the boy beyond what use he could make of him. Fact is, Reigen is scripted to ooze shifty sleeve but when push comes to shove he’s actually an extremely capable guy. Ok, not as a psychic obviously but as a con artist, definitely. More often than not his advice is pretty good, he has impressive observations skills and is a wonderful huge of character and he is protective and caring of Mob. He trusts and believes in the boy even when the boy does not believe in himself.

But it’s the flashback that got to me. The fact that Reigen had grown bored with his psychic gig and was considering moving on. With his social skills, he could easily have found some other way to make a decent living. But a young boy clearly in need of someone walks into his office and he just couldn’t turn him away. Sure, if he could make a buck in the process, all the better, but that wasn’t the main motivation. And he’s still like that. When someone is truly in need of help, he doesn’t turn them away, ever.

Combine this with a Mob that has become self-assured enough to think for himself and even say no! A young man that has gained the maturity to accept his mentor’s limits and failings and still appreciate him. And you have a tremendous character arc in two short episodes. Not only did they develop both characters without resorting to exposition dumps but they also did so without sanitizing or retconing either. I said this a lot in the first season review, but Mob Psycho is a smart show. And it continues to be so.

Mob’s been through a lot this season

This season also brought some conflict that was way more nuanced. In the last episodes, we even see Mob gleefully revel in his powers and the destruction they wrought. He immediately stops himself and is filled with guilt but there’s something else going on. There’s a great attention given to Mob’s expressions. By default, he’s a bit of a blank canvass, largely expressionless. This season, as he’s opening up more his feelings are starting to show on his face. Small shy smiles, tiny barely there scowls… But when he goes to 100% then it’s the complete opposite. He is deliberately drawn to be terrifying, almost demonic. Dishevelled unnatural hair, impossibly intense eyes, an uncontrollable aura escaping from him. But in that one moment, that minute that he let himself enjoy his power, he looked….great. I mean he looked like a healthy happy young man. The spiked hair flowing lazily about him like a pretty anime boy, no visible aura at all, a relaxed smile reaching all the way to joyful eyes.

In another anime, I would have called this an odd design choice but not in Mob Psycho. For two seasons this show has been very precise with its imagery and particularly with Mob’ expressions. This was thought out and selected for a reason. The visual language of the anime is telling a completely different story from the script. It’s subtly showing us a boy that has been at war with his own nature for his whole life and the one moment of release came as a huge relief. A boy that could still go down a dark path. This is a moral ambiguity the first season stayed very far away from and a noted shift in narrative vision. One I am excited for.

I feel you Ritsu, it was quite a moment

I want to see more of Mob Psycho 100 and I hope I can do so soon!

Favourite character: still Reigen

What this anime taught me: Sequels are fantastic

Come, we’ll get drunk, quote movies and talk about how awesome we are

Suggested drink: Brown Sugar Manhattan

Every time Mob’s in street clothes – take a sip

Every time the show turns into a video game – take a sip

Every time we see a tomato – get a snack

Every time we see the super awesome Body Improvement club – Cheers!

Every time anyone is pantless – gasp

Every time Reigen seem kind of cool – put the drink down

Every time Mob gets a call – take a sip

Every time we see Mezato-san – take a sip

Every time other psychics are watching tv – take a sip

Every time Ritsu doesn’t get along with Reigen – take a sip

Every time you’re surprised by how touching this show is – check if season 3 has been announced

I love Bones’ visuals. They really speak to me. So once again I uploaded a whole bunch of screencaps to Pinterest and Imgur.

Mob Psycho 100 s2 – Growing Up Genre : Action, comedy, supernatural, urban fantasy, science fiction. Episodes: 13 Studio: Bones You know what's tricky?

#action #anime #blonde bishie #comedy #Mob Psycho #sci fi #shonen #super powers

0 notes

onehundredbetterdays · 7 years

Text

My Whole30: why I’m now a believer.

I am 12 days removed from my first completed Whole30 and I have to tell you… I have never been more thankful for a 30-day reset than right now. I feel energized. I feel happy. I feel strong. I’ve been excited to write this post for you all month long and it’s finally, finally here!

I hope these notes + comments encourage and empower you! Thanks for allowing me to be vulnerable and messy in this space!

xoxo,

hb.

A little backstory

I attempted my second Whole30 in January of this year. I made it two solid weeks before I was laid out flat by a sinus infection in the third week and was forced to throw in the towel. Antibiotics and lots of Greek yogurt is what the doctor prescribed.

Lane and I are the types to set goals. Really, I’m the goal-setter of our little family but he comes along for the ride. When we set our 2017 goals, I had this on the list: complete a Whole30.

I want to do it. Like, really do it. No cutting corners. No “cheats.” In the past, I was half-hearted about the process. I thought, “I will do everything except kick cream out of my coffee” or “I can totally have beans. I NEED BEANS.” I wanted to do the thing at 100% this time around.

Whole30 is talked about on nearly every food and health blog. Some would say it’s a massive trend, a franchise, that will eventually die out.

Last summer, I decided I wanted to shed some pounds for my wedding. Sweating for the wedding is what I called it. I feel no shame in that. We all want to look and feel our best on the day we wear white. But my results were pretty flimsy. I saw no change in my body. I adore my wedding dress and pictures but I remember being confused as to why I couldn’t lose any weight. My friends said it was likely because of the antidepressant I was taking. It’s common for antidepressants to keep you from losing weight.

In January of this year, I started again. I set the goals to lose some pounds and get that “summer body.” Again. No progress. The scale never budged. The extra pounds never came off.

I went to a doctor in May to have my blood drawn and to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with me. Thyroid issues are common in my family and I wondered, “Maybe this is why I can’t lose weight. Maybe this is why I get fatigued so easily.”

My bloodwork came back normal. My doctor shrugged and said, “maybe try a Whole30.”

I really hated her resolve. I huffed and puffed to myself leaving that doctor’s office. I didn’t believe that a diet like the Whole30 could actually change anything. I was working out 5 days a week for 45 minutes. I was eating fairly clean. Why was it that I couldn’t just get to the place where I felt happy and content?

I realize this place of contentment does rest in numbers on a scale. However, I told myself I would be honest with this post and dishonesty would like claiming I never feel insecure about my body, I am consistently happy with the skin I am in, and weight is a not an issue for me. You might look at me and think I shouldn’t struggle with these issues but I think we all do. Maybe we could talk about it with a little less shame? Maybe less shame, and more conversation would drive us all into healthier spaces.

The reasoning

Surprisingly, when I walked into my Whole30 this past September it wasn’t about losing weight. I’d be lying if I told you 2017 has been a cakewalk. There’s been cake but no cakewalk. I’ve been challenged physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It was just one of those long desert seasons where it feels like nothing is moving and you just don’t know who you are anymore. I call these times “cocooning” because it feels very quiet, very closed off, and very internal. Marriage has been this sliver of joy in the mess but I otherwise found myself feeling drained and looking at God like, “Really? Can’t I control at least one thing?”

So I remembered how two years ago, in the midst of heartbreak right before I met Lane, I did a Whole30 as an effort to take something into my own hands. God is gracious and he met me there. I remember that month being one of the complete. Something healing happened when I let go of the control food had on me through the 30-day challenge. Truth told I made it 26 days that time.

I decided to repeat my efforts this September. I walked in cautiously optimistic, knowing I have yet to prove myself by actually putting the Whole or the 30 in the Whole30. I think I believed what a lot of people might believe: it’s just 30 days. It cannot change that much. There’s nothing magical about this thing.

The 30 days

No cutting corners this time. I did the challenge by the book. I recommend the book because it’s a really good resource and it feels like a companion throughout the 30 days. It gave me some solid recipes, a strong timeline of how I should be feeling, and motivation to keep getting over the hurdles.

Admittedly, I bombed the challenge that first day. I didn’t fail or cheat but I definitely cooked WAY too much bacon & paid the price of a big stomachache and a long nap. But after that one hiccup, we did okay!

My cravings curbed after 10 days. I no longer wanted cheese or bread. I found the feelings of energy building up to be way more addicting than empty carbs. I would say the biggest victory of my Whole30 was realizing just how many emotions we tie to the consumption of food.

Lane and I took a trip to the Blue Ridge mountains during Weekend #2 of my Whole30. We enjoyed a nice dinner out with no wine, no bread (for me), no sugar and no dessert. It might sound like a nightmare to you but I was forced to be present and in the moment. I had to squash the desire to cheat. I realized throughout that time that on trips we take I am normally consumed by the idea of food and end up feeling sluggish the whole time. This time, I was awake, alert and really happy to just be with Lane. Major win.

Another huge win: realizing how much I am prone to eat or drink something because I feel like I “deserve” it. That’s a messed up idea that I didn’t fully process until I was in the middle of the challenge and post-challenge. I don’t want to consume things just because I “deserve” them. I want to feel freedom with my choices and I want those choices to not be so self-centered and self-gratifying.

Overall, the Whole30 wasn’t too hard for me this time. I think there are a few reasons for this:

I’ve begun meal-prepping in the last few years. This makes all the difference. Make several servings of a meal when you are cooking so you can easily grab something out of the fridge or freezer to fuel you.

I know how to measure things now. It seems silly but I used to hate measuring ingredients and I wondered why all my food tasted so crappy. This time around, I was up for the challenge of trying new recipes and going to the grocery store to invest in some new ingredients.

I realized not every meal had to be premium or deluxe. There was one morning where I sat and ate hardboiled eggs and pineapple with no remorse. You want food that is going to fool you but you don’t need to be Martha Stewart to complete this challenge.

Notes & tips

I did very little working out during my Whole30. This was actually really freeing and restful for me. It also showed me that as much as I love fitness, losing weight has everything to do with food. There is a reason so many gyms obnoxiously post fliers around that say, “Abs are made in the kitchen.” I had rewrites for my book the first half of the Whole30 so my mind was very much: Wake up. Eat what you have to eat. Write. Nap. Exist. I didn’t feel the pressure to fit much else in.

It helps to have buddies to push you along. I joined a support group on Facebook with a bunch of strangers! I posted my meals on social media as a form of accountability. I had a girlfriend join me 11 days in and another one started her challenge on my day 25. It was fun to have people to share recipes with. Things like this are so much easier when there’s someone beside you to say, “me too.”

It is truly amazing but never once did I get sick of eggs. I could legitimately eat eggs for every meal of the day and not grow tired. Eggs, ghee, fat balls, and kombucha were my saving graces. I didn’t even feel strange pouring some buch into a wine glass to clink with my friends. I felt happy and complete.

The Results

Guys… I am a believer now. Hardcore. No denying it. I can’t say the Whole30 works for every single person but it definitely changed me in so many ways.

I shelved the idea that Whole30 was going to change the number on the scale and actually had Lane hide the scale battery so I couldn’t focus on that.

In terms of non-scale victories, there were plenty:

Tons of new energy and no more “afternoon slump” after day 7.

Reduced amount of hair shedding.

Clearer skin and all issues with psoriasis gone by day 14.

Happier, more social, and feeling more comfortable in my own skin.

Easier time waking up in the morning.

Less anxiety.

Clearer thoughts- that “brain fog” they talk about from grain is real, guys.

More food-savoring instead of just eating whatever is available to me for no reason at all.

Improvement in overall body image.

This is just the start of a list of benefits from the Whole30. Lane didn’t do the complete challenge with me but he definitely cooked a bunch and kept me alive at certain points when I wanted to give up. I loved how it brought us closer together as we shared recipes, bought food together, and tried new dishes. Our “going out to eat” expenses plummeted in the month of September. I only went out to eat about 3 times in the whole 30 days.

Weight loss did happen. I went from being unable to lose a single pound for an entire year to dropping 8 pounds in 30 days. It’s a definite victory to have your clothes fit better and loser but I think I love being able to shelf the dumb lie that my antidepressant was standing in my way. There are some people who find it difficult to lose weight because of medication but it seems this is no longer an issue for me.

Favorite Recipes

As I made this list I realized I want to go back and make everything all over again. There is no lack of savory goodness on the Whole30 if you take your time and really challenge yourself to try newer, greener things.

BLT Chicken Bake = I could eat you for the rest of my life.

Fantastic soup recipe– especially if you have to share a meal with people.

These nuggs are life.

Made these twice and they are a great party appetizer.

This slow cooker applesauce got me through the 30 days.

Lane and I had a Big Brother Finale Party and made these poppers.

My favorite meal on the Whole30.

We honestly thought we were eating “grits.” That good.

I messed up the recipe a little but these were still yum.

My last Whole30 meal. And dang was it good.

No, wait… maybe this was my favorite meal.

Simple & classic.

I highly recommend these red potatoes as a side dish.

Favorite slow cooker recipe on the Whole30.

I wanted to tackle some Q&A in this post but it’s already getting long so I’ll save that for my next post! If you have any questions you want me to answer (I’ll try my best), then leave them in the comment section below. I would love to hear about your experiences with the Whole30 and how it changed things in your life! I’ll be reading!