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#its also why I like. literally cannot play video games
countess-of-edessa · 3 months
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#I only have two friends so i really cannot afford to be as annoyed at this one as i am#especially considering the weirdness with my (former) neighbor. like. things should be simple with my former roommate then#but man#GIRL I HATE YOUR HUSBAND#I HATE HIM#HE GOT A [REDACTED] ON THE [REDACTED ADMISSIONS TEST] BECAUSE HE#DID NOT STUDY EVEN THO YOU BEGGED HIM TO FOR THE WHOLE SUMMER AND NOW YOURE PLANNING ON TAKING OUT THREE YEARS OF#STUDENT LOANS FOR HIM TO GO TO SCHOOL FOR WHAT REASON WHEN HE HAS NEVER DEMONSTRATED#HE IS CAPABLE OF SUCCEEDING IN SCHOOL TO THE DEGREE THAT MAKES THAT WORTHWHILE#ITS LITERALLY DEFINITELY NO DOUBT ABOUT IT BECAUSE HE SAW YOU DOING THIS AND THOUGHT HE COULD DO IT TOO#BECAUSE HE THINKS HE IS SMARTER THAN YOU. HE THINKS IF SHE CAN DO IT IT MUST BE EASY. BECAUSE HE THINKS HE IS THE SMARTEST#PERSON IN THE WORLD EVEN THOUGH ALL HE DOES APPARENTLY IS PLAY VIDEO GAMES#AND SLEEP UNTIL ONE PM. HERES AN IDEA IF HIS JOB IS ONLY FOUR DAYS A WEEK AND YOU GUYS ARE SO SO POOR#HOW ABOUT HE GETS A WALMART JOB OR SOMETHING??? We'd Never See Each Other WELL HE SLEEPS UNTIL ONE PM SO WHEN DO YOU SEE HIM NOW#ALSO OF COURSE YOUR FAMILY HATES HIM. HE IS VERY BAD TO BE AROUND.#AND EVEN IF HE WASNT CHARMLESS THE FACT THAT HE GAVE YOU AN EXTENDED MONTHS LONG MENTAL BREAKDOWN AFTER BREAKING UP WITH YOU MEANS THAT#YOUR FAMILY WILL NEVER TRULY LIKE HIM. AND THATS FINE. THEYRE CIVIL AND GET ALONG. BUT STOP TRYING TO FORCE YOUR DAD TO HAVE A ONE ON ONE#RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM WHY ARE YOU SO INTERESTED IN GETTING THEM TO TALK WITHOUT BEING INVOLVED??? ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU TALKED TO YOUR OWN#FATHER WITHOUT HIM BEING INVOLVED ONCE AND HE SAID DONT EVER DO THAT AGAIN WHICH WHAT THE FUCK BY THE WAY#also you don't have to go to your in laws wedding and they weren't obligated to think of your exams when picking the date#also if you're so poor stop buying Starbucks every time i see you and especially stop buying food#there's stuff you complain about not being able to afford which would literally be like five Starbucks visits if that#you were annoying about money when we lived together and you are annoying about it now if your husband isn't hanging out with us I don't#want to fucking buy him dinner too#while you complain there isn't any organic garlic powder at the store and toss whole bottles of lotion because they have unclean ingredient#you seem not to grasp that you and he are in an insanely horrible financial situation like crazy awful bad and when your student loans kick#in next year it's going to become obvious.#and you want a baby in two years??? you need to start thinking about how not to let it end up in indentured servitude#because again you are about to take out big time student loans for your husband's latest in a long string of dreams and they're bigger#because he didn't do well in school or prove himself capable in any way so he is unlikely to receive a scholarship
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nyuuronfly · 6 months
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On Rain World lore and it's implementation within the game.
This is kindof a random ramble I went on in a Discord chat and just feel like sharing elsewhere. (also note this is all primarily in reference to the original game, Survivor's story.)
I honestly think too many miss the forest for the trees a bit with RW, in terms of how important the lore is, if that makes sense. I talked with somebody about first-time experiences with the game and they said they'd watched a number of lore explanation videos on YT before starting, because of some reason along the lines of "I didn't trust the game to deliver its own story properly." To me this is almost saddening to hear because I really feel that misses the point of why the game has it's lore to begin with.
To me, while playing, any tidbits i learned about history or other information contributed to a feeling like the world I was navigating had a very real history that saturated it, yet one that I would be unable to grasp fully. It is an illusory feeling of realness, given how it is experienced. The game is mechanically not designed to incentivize collecting many information pearls, especially when in the original game you can literally just drop them off a cliff and lose them forever. You get the feeling often like you are bound to never be able to get everything, nor would you even probably want to put in the effort, so the illusion actually stays stronger because of that. Your mind wanders speculating about every little detail, whether intention truly existed behind it or not, because it feels like it did. You learned that it might have. Maintaining that illusion while playing I think is the primary reason they were included, not actually the experience of "knowing" the history. Rain World in general seems to have a thematic fixation on the simple idea that individuals have limited perspectives. Joar Jakobsson has said that one of the core ideas behind Rain World was to recreate the life of a "rat in Manhattan." That is to say, a creature that understands how to find food, hide, and live in a complex man-made structure, that cannot understand it's structuring purpose or why it was built. The very core issue of the iterators, is that the solution to the "great problem" intrinsically has to lie with knowledge that could only be obtained from "the other side." They are corporeal beings trying to know something that pertains to something outside corporeal reality. Yet pursuit of knowledge is very important to creatures like ourselves. Collecting any individual pearl is mostly an exercise in doing a lot just for little bits of knowledge. There is a lot of understanding of just how significant wanting to know more is, even something unimportant, when you are left in the dark the way you are in the game. Most information pearls you deliver are literally completely useless to know about, but they feel personally important, especially in how finding them relates to your connection to the iterators. My primary motivation to find pearls in my first play was to spend more time with Moon. On a very real emotional level, Moon felt like my only friend in the world while I played. On a mechanical level, she does literally nothing. But Rain World manages to operate on a very emotional, even instinctual level with how it's designed. I wanted to be in her company and have something to give her. Because I am alone, and lost. So something along those lines is why I felt saddened to hear the sentiment like Rain World somehow "fails" to deliver it's "story." The purpose of the game is not to find pearls and hear about some grand narrative. At it's core, Rain World is a game that's design was inspired by nature, and it's use of history within the world relates to us as a player the way history relates to us as people. It is relayed through people reading from records created by parties with their own perspectives, and connects us abstractly to a sensation that there is more out there than our own lives. That is a feeling you have as a player, and ultimately the true story that Rain World tells is the memories you have playing it. What you did, saw, and felt. The same as how our story is that of our own lives. That is the purpose of the game.
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liquidstar · 1 month
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SEASON 3 TRAILER DROPPED HERES MY THOUGHTS (LN spoilers)
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BROTHER AND SISTER OF ALL TIME THEYRE SO CUTE <3 love seeing how their relationship has progressed from beako literally throwing him out a window for stuff like this to her happily playing along its so so so so so cute. genuinely just one of the cutest and sweetest dynamics in the series
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hi ram roswaal and fred :) this is probably all we're going to really see of you guys this arc lol
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JOSHUA REAL!!!!! but not for long (also otto in the bg foreshadowing all the drinking hes about to do this arc. hes so stressed. poor emilia is trying her best)
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julius looks so babyfaced here? they really emphasized his long eyelashes just like subaru has been on about every time he mentions him. they better include the scene where he checks him out, like, if they dont animate subaru looking dead at this mans ass im going to riot
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i LOVE this shot of ana. you can really tell shes up to some corrupt capitalist bullshit as we speak. love her for that. wish i had this pic when i made that one money game anastasia video
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the red dress actually does look really good on crusch like it compliments the green hair really well but also the crusch we know would not walk around in such a thing so its like. damn looks like the "memories are an important part of identity" story thinks memories are an important part of identity. who knew.
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ALSO LOVE FELTS NEW LOOK SO MUCH! the only complaint is i felt (felt lol) like the red brought out her eyes more but the blue also looks cool. three primary colors all being used looks nice too
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whatever who cares about all that THE CUNT!!!!!!! THE CUNT IS HERE!!! I CANNOT WAIT FOR ALL THE DRAMA SHE CAUSES TO BE ANIMATED FOR REAL
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no fucking way... did they actually...
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THEY DID! THEY CENSORED THAT HORRIBLE FUCKING DESIGN OH MY GOD. SHES WEARING SHORTS AND JUST A CROPPED SHIRT. AND CHAPS I GUESS? BUT ALSO A LITTLE SKIRT CAPE SO NO ASS SHOTS... THIS WILL MAKE WATCHING THE SEASON SO MUCH MORE TOLERABLE. i mean not perfect but STILL.
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photos taken seconds before disaster lmfao. i still love how chin thinks subaru is a freak and weirdo for being so buddy buddy with him after he and his buddies mugged him. twice. (even more times from subarus perspective. hell he stabbed subaru once) genuinely cant wait to see more of this dynamic its so stupid.
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THE FUCKING CUNT!!!!!! also the apples lol
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oh you poor thing. you have no idea what next level family drama bullshit awaits. good luck. get ready to kill grandma AGIAN lol
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:'( emilia still misses her terrible cat dad and its kinda sad when you know were not getting a resolution on that here either. they both look so sad :(
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i cannot wait for garf mommy issues round fucking 2.
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THIS CRAZY BITCH!!! I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THIS CRAZY BITCH ANIMATED. I CANT WAIT TO SEE HOW THEYRE PORTRAY HER MANNERISMS. ESP W HOW WILD PETELGEUSE WAS ANIMATED IN S1. REAL LOONY TOONS BULLSHIT. AND HER POWERS ARE ALSO SOOOOOO MUCH COOLER I CANT WAIT
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NO MORE DRESSES FOR CRUSCH YAY
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he fucking bit it. yeah i guess thats what dogs do tho.
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YOU. DIVORCE MAN. KILL YOURSELF. SLASH SERIOUS.
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the empathy powers will have a glowing eye effect. very cool but i hope they dont show it too much in the first scene bc like in the LN i think its cooler if you dont know why everything is so... Wrong.
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i dont rly have anything to say i just think ferris looks cool covered in blood. imagine being healed here like doctor catgirl will see you now
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emilia be nice. that crazy bitch might be your mom. just like how the previous crazy bitch was in fact your dad.
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THEY CHANGED UP CAPELLA'S DESIGN TOO honestly tho her being sexualized makes sense w a lot of the themes (the way its intentionally meant to be perverse and gross in a way explicitly stated) so i didnt mind as much and she still IS here but. this is still an improvement imo just a better outfit looks cooler. bug.
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NAUR I DONT WANNA WAIT... OCTOBER.... AUGH
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rc-writes · 11 months
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𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬
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𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 | 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢
pairings: benny weir x reader (could be seen as platonic or romantic)
warnings: two curse words??, if you’re reading this as platonic there’s one mention of wearing couples costumes but friends can totally do that to, uhh i think that’s it
a/n: alright i could have probably thought of a million more but it was literally 1am when i wrote this and i was tired lol. also i will admit that was me fulling self projecting on the info dumping about movies part and wanting to text someone at an ungodly hour, but in my defense i do genuinely think benny would do those things as well. also this was requested by an irl friend of mine who mentioned friends to lovers after i finished this so look out for that coming soon! also this is my first writing related thing i’ve posted on this blog in like 2 years!!
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will try to learn spells just to impress you
of course there was a few that went wrong
maybe more than a few, but it’s the thought that counts right?
will send every meme or funny video he finds
does not matter if its 3pm or 3am he will send it immediately after he found it
which speaking of 3am i can see him not being able to sleep so he tries texting you
if you answer i can see him texting “hey what’s wrong?? why are u up so late?? everything okay??” and completely ignoring that he too is also awake at this hour
“you are aware you texted me first, why are you up”
“i asked you first”
benny absolutely loves video games and will want to play a few with you even if you don’t like video games
which if you’re with him there a good chance you love them too
but if you don’t you will most likely start liking them even just a bit because he makes them fun
getting to spent time with him and watch him do something he loves makes it special
it also can be really funny
can guarantee at least once he’d say “watch this babe” or “this ones for you” and immediately fail/die
this is also something that definitely happens in the outside world with him trying to throw something away or something
pure of heart, dumb of ass
also i don’t know shit about video games so i cannot go into anymore detail then this lol
is 100% down with spontaneous movie nights whether that be binge watching movies at home or going to the theater
if it’s a movie he’s obsessed with but you’ve never seen he will be trying his hardest not to info dump and potentially spoil the whole thing
but if it’s a movie he knows you have seen he is more than willing to explain every single fact about it he knows
“did you know that while filming this bit they had film it completely in reverse to make it look like that?? insane right!?”
speaking of movies if it’s a horror/scary movie you can bet he will try to act all tough and not scared before it starts
even if you already know how much of a scaredy cat he is he will try to play it off
but the second the first jumpscare happens there will be popcorn flying everywhere
he is no longer allowed to hold the bowl
you’re still finding popcorn in the couch
he will still continue to pretend that he’s not scared despite shaking like a scared chihuahua
you will have to be the one to grab onto him
which then leads to him hiding his face into your neck or behind you
he still refuses to let you turn it off even if you insist it’s okay
there is a part of you that feels bad but also a part that thinks it’s so funny
your contact names in each others phones are han solo and princess leia
the only suggestions i will take on this is that yours is han and his is leia
will take you to every convention within driving distance
if the convention if for some game/show/movie you don’t know be prepared for a whole powerpoint presentation or a weekend of binge watching whatever media it is
“didn’t you just say you hated doing a powerpoint for history??”
“babe this is way more important and interesting than anything school can teach”
you both will be going all out costume wise every convention
i can totally see you guys going in couple costumes or like hero and villain
if the latter you two take turns on who gets to be the villain or hero
if you are with benny there is no way you can be a halloween hater
he can do freaking magic, of course it’s his favorite holiday!!
this also can follow what i said for conventions with the costumes
at some point there is a competition on who can get the most candy
if he loses, he will say that the candy was just too hard to resist, and he had to eat just one piece that turned into him eating many pieces
this is a true fact whether he loses or not
side note if you can go a whole night of trick or treating without eating a single piece of candy while doing so i don’t believe you
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dyke-pollinator · 10 months
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(this ask is a get-out-of-jail-free card to infodump about osrs)
OSRS is by far the best mmo as far as I'm concerned. You can do literally anything in it. It's so simple. Its just a little medieval fantasy point and click RNG simulator. But that simplicity is what makes it so addicting.
You can literally just do whatever the fuck you want on it. The game doesnt hold your hand at all, and while I can see how that would be overwhelming for new folks getting into the game, its an aspect that keeps me coming back.
It's kind of a single player mmo. Like sure there's content to do with other folks, and it can be social at times, but like your account is yours. Everything takes such a long fucking time in that game, especially if you're playing as any type of Ironman account, that the game feels more personal.
Like I don't play nearly as much as some folks that I know and I still have nearly 5000 hours of in game time on a single account and its not even in the late game yet.
Like sure these stats are pretty decent for an iron, but I haven't even started going most of the end game content like Raids, CG, Nightmare, ect.
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No only that but I legitimately that the osrs content creators are some of the absolute best gaming content on Youtube. By far. It is insane what some of these people do with the game, all because of how much of a sandbox it is.
Even if you know nothing about osrs or Runescape in general, I would HIGHLY recommend checking our SoupRS on Youtube and watch his Gielinor Games series. All of them. Start with the first season, and watch them all if you like it. Its like a survivor style game with challenges, voting, bannings, and testimonies, all through the lens of osrs.
Settled is one of the funniest motherfuckers on Youtube and has multiple videos about region locked accounts that are still easy to understand for folks who have never played the game.
Jeporite has a NorthernUIM series that leaves me in hysterics every video.
J1mmy is one of those content creators that turns everything he touches into something good. I cannot praise all of his videos enough, including the ones he makes that arent related to osrs. However, his osrs F2P series is one of my favorites.
Hannanie is a trans woman content creator that just makes some of the most off the wall insane videos I've ever seen. Seriously, she made a fucking 21 part series about cutting fucking trees in this game and managed to make every installment a banger. Hannanie is a treasure and everyone should know her content.
Imo the only gaming content on YT that comes even close to osrs is probably Minecraft, but that is mostly because you can do so much modding that the content stays fresh.
Also look at my silly little pets:
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I promise you I spooned the shit out of every single one of them.
Rock Golem at 89 mining, Groot at 86 farming, TWO fucking rex pets before 140kc, 42kc thermy.
Plus with the RuneLite client, you can make your in game interaction as customizable as you want. My whole client is fucking Miku themed lmao. The community has made so many amazing plug ins for this game including a full HD client with dynamic lighting effects, increased GPU distance rendering, ect.
OSRS is a great fucking game and you should definitely be playing it. I will take full responsibility for the thousands of hours that you lose to it. I could go on but this post is already a lot longer than I was expecting it to be.
As an aside: Ironman does something to you. Why do I have 117k Light Orbs in my bank? Idfk might need em. 20k gold tiaras? Just in case. 10k snake skin? You never know when something might pop up. Hoard Everything.
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coffinbrotherr · 5 months
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Istg I keep seeing videos in my recommend that have either Andrew or Ashley sprites in the thumbnail and it's always in the lines of "shock storytelling is BAD" or "this needs to STOP" (I'm not providing examples as to not install a witchhunt but if youve seen them, you know EXACTLY who im talking about.) and I dont...I don't get why? Like, ok genuinely I'm having an actual hard time understanding why because being disturbed and being made uncomfortable is quite literally the definition of horror, so why is it a problem now.
To I guess throw my hat into the ring, I'd like to explain why i personally think incest integral to Tcoaal not only because I'm just fucking tired of seeing people not like the game just because of that aspect and I'm not knocking those people because of it because people can not like things for specific reasons, for example I am not one for horror involving teeth or the mouth so I tend to ignore horror media that prominently use those as setpieces. I'm mainly talking about people that bash it without actually playing it and people that see it at surface level and just make a Baseless assumption because to me and obviously a lot of other people as it still has great reviews, Tcoaal is wonderfully written and that IS thanks to its incest themes.
We see that throughout the game, Ashley obviously loves her brother, not only in the romantic sense but also in the power dynamic. While some aspects have yet to be revealed about thier relationship as we still only have two chapters, Ashley obviously manipulates Andrew and has since they were little as evident by the hide and seek flashback. It's incredibly obvious that Ashley likes control over people and since she doesn't really have anyone else that's closer to her, she uses Andrew exclusively as he's always been there with her figuratively and literally. While this behavior definitely comes from a sense of loneliness and fear of losing the one person that tolerates her as not even thier own parents wanted to stay around them let alone her, I think it also comes down to enjoying the control. Genuinely think about the story of the game for a sec, could you imagine being in that exact situation we see the siblings in. The closest thing we can even relate it to is covid, and we could at least still leave the house to an extent and have things sent to us that we wanted. Imagine going through all that not being able to leave, literally having the bare minimum of food being dropped off to you and being FORCED to stay inside not with a slap on the wrist but with active threats of death even though you know other people get to freely live outside peacefully. Not only is that terrifying but it gives a lot more insight to Ashley's character as she's literally stuck in a place she cannot control in an unfounded situation that is positively awful, but she does have one thing she can control, she has one person she can make exclusively hers and make him do whatever she wants through manipulation and the connection with love. The same goes for Andrew as we know Andrew was at least a bit more popular with people to the point where he even had a girlfriend (Julia) and to have literally all that stripped away from him is tragic, however for him there's one more person he can interact with, one person that cares about him and truly does love him in a way only they can share. It's a beautifully horrific way of telling a story because on the outside, it just looks like "oh hah hah, that's the incest cannibalism game" but if you actually played it you would see not only is the writing genuinely funny but also incredibly smart with its subtle meaning and player interpretation. It's NOT glorifying incest, it is actively showing an incredibly toxic relationship that was made through the circumstances and actions taken with both characters and to say it's just "shock storytelling" or "it's just trying to glorify incest" is just wrong, it's using the incest to further the narrative and that's why I personally find this game to be my favorite work of horror.
But that was just my interpretation, I'd love to hear your guy's views on it because I'd love to further the discussion and potentially add to my analysis as this was just something I wrote at 12:30 AM in bed. I could go on and on about my personal analysis but a lot of it would just be me being genuinely pretty annoyed with the games detractors and overall just make for a poor reading experience.
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princeescaluswords · 5 months
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not sure if it was meant to be done elsewhere, but my favorite fic of yours is 'Ten Things That Scott McCall Can't Say'!
Thank you!
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I wanted to point out something. In Second Chance at First Line (1x02) Scott gets angry at Stiles while riding in the Jeep because he feels Stiles is treating Scott's transformation and the danger like a quest in a video game:
Scott: I can't find anything about wolfsbane being used for burial. Stiles: Just keep looking. Maybe it's like a ritual or something, like maybe they bury you as a wolf. Or maybe it's like a special skill, you know? Like something you have to learn. Scott: I'll put it on my to - do list, right underneath figuring out how the hell I'm playing this game tonight. Stiles: Maybe it's different for girl werewolves. Scott: Okay! Stop it! Stiles: Stop what? Scott: Stop saying "werewolves"! Stop enjoying this so much.
Now, we're supposed to believe that Scott's agitated mental state is due to the wolfsbane rope concealed in Stiles's backpack, but this scene also marks something else, just as important. This is the last time we see Scott get angry at Stiles because of how Stiles behaves toward Scott. Scott may become exasperated at Stiles's insistence on murder as a solution when it comes to Derek, Jackson, and Liam, but that is in defense of others, and Scott does judge Stiles in Lies of Omission (5x09) when he believes that Stiles kills Donovan to protect his father, but I cannot think of another time when Scott expresses anger or even frustration at Stiles at how Stiles treats him specifically. If you've read my blog know I believe that there were plenty of opportunities for this.
Now, moving forward to the other end of Scott's character development, compare this exchange to the scene in Pressure Test (6x15), where Scott is gathering his things to leave Beacon County after his father negotiates a deal.
Rafael: Look, I know this isn't what you wanted, but it's the right decision. When Stilinski called... Scott: Can you hand me that shirt right there? Rafael: Now, you can be mad at me, but I'd rather watch you leave the state than watch you die. Scott: (SIGHS) I'm not mad. I get why you did it. Rafael: Scott, you're not the only one who gets to protect his family. I'll be downstairs.
We've seen Scott lay into his father before in Insatiable (3x23), but he doesn't in this instance. While the circumstances are different, both scenes have a character making what's happening to Scott about them instead. But now, six seasons have passed, and Scott has learned that there are things he can't say -- or, more precisely, emotions he can't express during a crisis situation.
Teen Wolf made it a point to explore the burdens of leadership. Derek was an incompetent alpha because he made decisions based on his emotional reactions to events -- anger at what had been done to him and his family -- and Scott has managed to mature into someone who can put aside his own emotions in order to do what must be done. Scott has demonstrated this growth, and he will do it again in Season 6 when -- after a harrowing night of listening to his mother struggle to live on the operating table -- he goes to Peter -- Peter! -- and asks him to join the fight against Monroe.
Personally, I literally seethe in reaction to that scene in Eichen House in Werewolves of London (6x17), but the show was relentless in its conviction that a good leader has to put their own emotional responses to the side in order to be effective. I would have loved if Scott had unloaded, verbally or physically, on Peter after that villain enabled a fanatic to point an assault rifle at his own daughter and the man trying to protect his ungrateful ass, but that wouldn't have made stopping Monroe any easier. So Scott didn't.
Fanfiction gives us what canon didn't, and the lesson Scott learn about suppressing his own reasonable emotional responses is what I explored in this story. I suspect that the movie commented on that by having Scott move to Los Angeles -- somewhere he could be free to express himself -- but I wish it had been more explicit.
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reluctanttrabbit · 1 month
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hehe first mutual ask, a question to you and any other Vanny fan that comes across this..
Do you know what it is about Vanny that's so appealing to you?
I love the idea of her so much and I just cannot figure out why to put it into words. Something about the potential of her design and plot. bnuny.. i love seeing bunny but I don't fully understand what it is in my brain that makes me like her so much, I wasn't even really a rabbit person before getting back into sb lol
YAYAY FIRST MUTUAL ASK!
hmmm tbh i just woke up so my wording/reasoning here might not be the best just bear with me lmao
i feel like the thing thats so appealing to me about her is like. the lack of her? because you see her almost nowhere in security breach and she has at least 3 voicelines. back when SB first came out i watched markiplier play it and instantly got hooked. but i remember not drawing or liking vanny as much as the others??
i think my obsession with her really started when i watched those cut content videos by tetrabitgaming and watched all the pre-release trailers. bc then i was like "woah wait she was supposed to be important" and thinking about that potential she could've had. i totally understand that it wasn't on steel wool studios and they had a deadline that playstation gave them or whatever but ALL THE TIME i wonder what kind of game we could've gotten if that deadline wasn't there. everyday i wake up and hope for a security breach remaster 😭
also her backstory is an important factor because like. wtf do you mean this character was planned for 3 years just to be shafted. wdym shes "been" in 2 other games wdym she used to be a 20-year old who just wanted to do her job??? wdym she now has this rabbit virus guy in her head??? wdym shes basically the next killer of the franchise bringing in a new era??? like dudeee its just so interesting theres so much you can do with her!! and yet literally everything that they wanted to explore with her got cut or scrapped and it makes me so mad!!!!
actually i think that might be my reason why i like her so much LMAO because im mad she cant be the character she was supposed to be
idk i just really like stupid patchwork bunny girl :3
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vxiphoid · 1 year
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ꉂ LUNAR BREATHE ᝰ
❨ music for: the om!brothers, from: you ❩ i havent written for obey me yet so heres my take on “gifting” them with music you’d think they’d like :]] my GAWD i cannot write for lucifer to save my life😞﹫lucifer, mammon, & leviathan
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lucifer
playlist; workaholics
MARRY-GO-ROUND OF LIFE - JOE HISAISHI
now playing ෴
up next queue ↴
CHARLIE’S INFERNO - THAT HANDSOME DEVIL
NOEL’S LAMENT - KHOLBY WARDELL
MY TIME - BO EN
𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀
♫ MARRY-GO-ROUND OF LIFE - JOE HISAISHI
- self explanatory, you can’t tell me he doesn’t listen to this song. smooches the top of your head for putting it on even though its already on his playlist, you know him so well<33 lucifer defo dances with you to this song MWAH MWAH. also likes listening to this while doing paperwork? i dunno manne he just really likes this song
♫ CHARLIE’S INFERNO - THAT HANDSOME DEVIL
- believe it or not, lucifer has this song memorized WORD FOR WORD. you’re jamming to all the upbeat parts n he’s just “i don’t want to dieeeee please don’t let me diiiiiieeee” he enjoys the song i swear. he doesn’t listen to this one much, once every blue moon or so, but when he does he’s smiling just a little
♫ NOEL’S LAMENT - KHOLBY WARDELL
- OH MY GAWWWD WJHEWKDN‼️ he loves this song its so dramatic and (he’s a drama king)⁉️⁉️ the violence is sorta like therapeutic, bobbing his head to it and everything (this is a cry for help). lucifer loves classical music and the rhythm of the song gives off that vibe. literally unravels his whole big brother act to this song, such a stress reliever, cannot thank you enough.
♫ MY TIME - BO EN
- now THIS is a genre he doesn’t listen to. since its new to him you kinda just sit and watch him. the piano is well placed plus the song is a whole burst of energy, multiple shots of expresso livening moods. you said that its from a video game from the human world but the songs have way different meanings than they seem and lucifer stayed awake all night to decode it. it was on loop for like six hours straight…
mammon
playlist; music is cheaper than therapy
FUNEE HAT FREESTYLE, FUNEE HAT SONG - KEVINKEMPT
now playing ෴
up next queue ↴
DOGTOOTH - TYLER, THE CREATOR
HONEY - KEHLANI
MOONLIGHT - KALI UCHIS
𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀
♫ FUNEE HAT FREESTYLE, FUNEE HAT SONG - KEVINKEMPT
- this is the song he blasts at like 3 am to piss off levi and satan also because its a whole bop??? a song about hats has mammon hyped as soon as it shuffles on his playlist. his favorite hat you ask? funny ducky hat‼️‼️ has to barricade is door when he does play this, satan will break it down.
♫ DOGTOOTH - TYLER, THE CREATOR
- there is NO WAY mammon doesn’t listen to tyler omfg. this is a rather new song so when you were like “oh great mammon, please spend two minutes and fifty seven seconds of your life to listen to such a yummy song” (in his words, not yours) he had to try it out. lets just say those two minutes and fifty seven seconds was completely worth it.
♫ HONEY - KEHLANI
- you told him to listen to this PURELY because he’s a simp. this man lays awake in his bed, smiling like an idiot just thinking about you, why not give him a little background noise while he does? literal putty in his bed after that. he’s yours, he’s yours, he’s yours.
♫ MOONLIGHT - KALI UCHIS
- type of song you listen to when you’re on cloud nine thinking about your first kiss or something like that… something about the beat is so soul-gripping. THE SPANISH? LAWWD. AND HER VOICE IS HEAVENLY. kiss him to this song PLEASE. why is this song 10 hours long?
leviathan
playlist; airplane mode
NOVACANE - FRANK OCEAN
now playing ෴
up next queue ↴
LOVE TASTE - MOE SHOP
STRESS RELIEF - LATE NIGHT DRIVE HOME
FIGHTER - JACK STAUBER
𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀𓈀
♫ NOVACANE - FRANK OCEAN
- half of the time you have no idea what this dude is listening to, think of novacane as a blessing. this is a song where you have to leave levi alone with it because he’s to embarrassed to sing the curse words near you😭 but once he gets comfortable the only thing you’re really going to get is humming along with the song. he does like this one though :]
♫ LOVE TASTE - MOE SHOP
- CLASSIC BOP FOR GAMING. has this shit on full blast in his headphones + 1000 notifications from his phone telling him that his music is too loud. levi is the happiest when you show him this one because its right up his ally and you play games with him with this in the background😋.
♫ STRESS RELIEF - LATE NIGHT DRIVE HOME
- he has those times where he gets sad for literally no reason and he spins in his little chair and thinks about it, this song is perfect for that. lowkey helps him think everything over and even if he’s not sad it kinda just empties his brain. give him lots of kisses, basically shower him with love after listening to this <3
♫ FIGHTER - JACK STAUBER
- THIS IS ONE OF THOSE SONGS WHERE LEVI LITERALLY CANT STOP LISTENING TO… ABSOLUTELY FOLDS. yall are little nerds and finish the lyrics to the song one by one without having to communicate on who sings what, telekinesis type stuff.
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back to om! masterlist
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decamarks · 1 year
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i bought ultrakill forever ago but never got around to playing it. what is the deal why has it spawned such a dedicated fanbase. you seem like you'd know....
IT'S JUST REALLY GODDAMN FUN!!! that's the short answer and honestly the best answer. it's really ridiculously fun. like probably one of the most fun games to ever exist.
there is a ridiculous amount of care and skill and soul packed into every design choice; it culminates in some of the most immaculately ecstatic and visceral gameplay i've ever experienced. it cannot be understated how brilliant this game's design is. the only way to really understand why it excels is to just play it!
if you'd like an anecdote to represent the overall ultrakill experience, here's mine: when i played the demo for the first time, after maybe 5 minutes i became so physically nauseous that i had to stop. and in that time i immediately went to get the full game. it's DELIGHTFUL. (see also: jerma's playthrough where he starts screaming "humans aren't supposed to be doing this" during a boss fight.)
but even aside from pure gameplay, there really is a lot to love… there's a certain self-aware sincerity to everything. it's unabashed on purpose, and in the best ways possible. despite its obviously absurd violence, don't at all mistake ultrakill for something cynical or misanthropic—there's a lot of depth and heart dancing beneath the surface, a lot of it in places i didn't expect to see it, and so much that i didn't expect to appreciate nearly as much as i do.
[okay this got too long. the rest is going DOWN HERE ↓]
like okay, obviously the music is just. insane. the goddamn midi metal/breakcore genre fusion is THE most hilarious and unfathomably genius stylistic choice that could have been made. and it's not even just that!! there's ambient & drone & harsh noise influence all across the ost, which just enchants and delights me. i DEFINITELY didn't expect it, but i love it. (the fact that there's like, a level named after a sunn o))) song, and that the latest update contains a godawful joke about trout mask replica might tell you exactly what kind of game ultrakill is, or it might tell you literally nothing.)
the writing and worldbuilding can be rich and compassionate in ways i really didn't expect, too... it's so evident that it's a work of passion, with really sincere and often sweet philosophies sprinkled throughout all the bloodshed and grotesque silliness—and often within them. it makes me smile! also gabriel is a really good character. people go apeshit over that guy. for good reason. he's just REALLY good.
if you're just interested in understanding its amassed fanbase, yeah ultrakill's is pretty ridiculous and dedicated. and it's extremely deserved! the game is fun & the characters are fun. being in early access, it's kinda built on ongoing feedback, so it makes sense people are invested. the devs really seem to embrace the fanbase wholeheartedly, which helps a lot too. that is also why, kind of inexplicably, ultrakill is kind of a gay & horny game. please note that i do not say these things flippantly or lacking deliberation; there's an extremely good essay to be written about gayness across ultrakill & its communities. like aside from the general hilarity of a game having official buttplug support, the fact that the dev team hired an artist specifically because he drew a lot of incredibly beautiful/obscene depictions of gabriel DOES say a lot. this, of course, makes ultrakill 100x better.
anyway that's the basics. i could definitely write THOUSANDS of words about this game and that's honestly... not what i expected when i booted it up the first time LOL. it really just happened to appeal to a lot of things i sincerely adore, in an unexpectedly sincere way—all while being a STUPIDLY good game.
TL;DR: it's a fun robot video game where you shoot things. and there's blood and explosions. it's good you should play it
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bhaalble · 8 months
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In general the discussion around fantasy racism in rpgs remains the usual brand of disappointing largely because people cannot seem to stop arguing over whether or not it should've been included at all. Like the realism vs escapism argument has no winners because its a preference conversation. Some people like their fantasy to reflect on and dissect real world issues and power structures, some people don't want to think about bigotry when they go to read their dragon stories. There are good and bad arguments for both of these but ultimately its never going to make meaningful progress because you're telling someone to stop liking what they like and instead like something they don't.
The issue ultimately with the fantasy racism in BG3 isn't that it was included at all, that can easily be a YMMV thing. The issue is that its included thoughtlessly without reflection. Goblins are still universally evil, literal goblin children have hobbies that include beating up corpses and throwing rocks at caged animals. Pretty much every drow and orc we run into is on the evil side. Even if the player is allowed to play as one of the more "evil" races and still be good by and large the portrayal is going to lean very heavily into "some cultures just make a lot of evil people". They also return to that well trodden fantasy ground of "every race is racist to other races and really everyone should just learn to see past it" which is the sort of level one analysis of power structures I expect from stories MUCH older.
None of this is saying don't get the game or the game is ontologically evil, pretty fucking clearly I am enjoying the game. Ultimately its not trying to be ABOUT race relations or social justice. Its just the side effect of plucking up your world building lore from an IP that has historically not been great on this issue. But its why the argument is going to keep going in the frustrating circle of "why are there politics in my video game" from both the left and the right lmao
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danielt1985 · 1 month
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Learning To Love Minecraft Again (A Thread)
Written by Daniel T. Gaming
I've been recently falling in love with Minecraft again. After so long of not playing it. I decided to pick it back up & play it again, and It has been one of my favorite things to play in SO long. However, I did a few things to spruce up my newly found interest.
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1. A Fresh Client I had decided to switch over from the tradition Minecraft launcher to the ATLauncher, a mod-eccentric client. And while it may look a tad confusing, it's actually very handy. I am now able to save as many different versions of Minecraft I wanted without my save files or mods controlling one another, unlike the official Minecraft launcher. on top of that, the official launcher also installs a bunch of useless Xbox junk because, well, Microsoft.
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2. Bringing Back The Old With the ATLauncher's ability to save as many versions of Minecraft with their own dedicated files & saves, I am now safely able to play older versions of Minecraft as my heart desires.
Right now, I'm playing 2 different versions, Beta 1.7.3 (A version regarded by a LOT of people as one of the best versions of Minecraft to play today), and Release 1.5.2 (The first ever version of the game I EVER played back in 2012). I will still pick up & play Release 1.20 cuz I do like a lot of the new decor pieces & things, but if I ever just want to play a standard game of Minecraft, I have these 2 versions to keep me occupied.
There's also the old legacy versions from Consoles that people are coming back to, but I haven't gotten to those yet, but planned on them soon.
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3. Making My Own Goals
My mind has always saw that "Beating the Ender Dragon" was the ultimate goal of Minecraft, and that once it's done, it's done. And while a part of me still feels that way, I'm slowly moving away from that, because that mindset has literally KILLED so many of my past Minecraft maps, and I deeply regret it.
So I started to make my own goals & my own rules. My current survival map never had a bulk smelting machine, so I added one. I never got to refine my mine & make it more like an actual mineshaft, so I got to go & do that.
I don't just want to make Minecraft a point A -> B kinda game. I want to make it a game about creating as much stuff as you can. There are people in this world who have been able to build worlds that have taken them over a DECADE to finish... so why not give yourself that same level of encouragement?
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4. Playing With Friends I recently managed to get a personal Minecraft server going on an old PC. And playing with my friends has been an AMAZING experience. It's actually pretty cheap to run a server nowadays, and Bedrock editions now have general multiplayer support, so playing with friends is now becoming even EASIER than ever before.
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5. Modding Makes The Difference Although I haven't got to do this one yet, I *am* planning on it, as it's been talked about by a LOT of people. There are actually a handful of mods out there that are not just for entertainment, but for bringing fresh vanilla-eccentric changes to Minecraft to keep its charm that it had in its early stages. Two that I have heard of are ReIndev & Better Than Adventure. Both of which actually run off of Beta 1.7.3 too, so that's neat!
I think personally, what these two mods are doing are GREAT, and I cannot wait to play them.
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6. Making It Personal
Personally, I've been handling the game on a more personal level, and not too personal to where it's overbearing, but I mean as in I like to just do traditional fan things that I've done long ago. Watch Minecraft videos, pull out the old Minecraft merch I had from when I was young, listen to the soundtrack, etc.
I haven't felt this attached to Minecraft in SO long, but I am glad it's coming back. I might make this whole thing into a video, but until then, I wanted to make this thread to tell you all how I managed to finally get back in touch with Minecraft.
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dear-b0y · 7 months
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this is an mlm blog. not writing for fem
Welcome to my Blog.
Hi!!! My name is Solomon and I literally have nothing to do besides classes so I thought “Hm let’s post internet porn.”
Anyways, before I get called a misogynist, plenty of ladies have WLW blogs where men cannot interact. I’m not the only MLM blog where I would like women to not interact because it’s for men/non-females. Also to clarify, I will write for afab, g/n, enby, etc etc. Just not ppl who identify as women and heres why:
I see a lot of posts/blogs (whether its fluff or smut) where it’s supposed to be written for g/n or male. Either you get slapped in the face with she/her pronouns or it seems more aimed for f!readers. Sure, there’s blogs for male readers but over half of them are top/dom readers. Personally, I like to be on the bottom/sub side and I don’t see a lot of sub male reader inserts. So, I wanted to try and write my own stuff just for fun and for that purpose.
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I Will not Write for:
piss, scat, emeto shit
women
dsmp
minors obvi (age 17 i can age up)
doms, unless i want to. this is my blog i can do what i want ☠️
ageplay
inc3st
Fandoms I will write for:
Obey Me!
Genshin Impact
Honkai Star Rail
Twisted Wonderland
Maybe NIJISANJI (still deciding)
JJK
Zenless Zone Zero
VNC
Demon Slayer
Bungou Stray Dogs
Any fandom really, those are just what came to my mind. It depends.
I Will Write:
Degrading, my fav
Praise
Impact play (spanking, slapping)
Bondage or any kind of restraints
Org. Denial
Edging
Overstim
Pet play
Gags
Aphrodisiacs
I will write dubcon if asked
Voyuerism
Wild things like knife play
Rough shit like choking
Soft dom
Hard dom
Wont write for dom or fem reader
maybe DDLB, if asked
aftercare :3
headcanons
afab/trans reader
default is amab
others
OCs (new)!!
Thought of making a variety of OCs so I can cater to peoples tastes. You can submit asks about them so I can further deepen their personality/maybe lore. so—here’s 3 that I’ve conjured up so far.
Valak: authority figure, more of the rough mean type (my fav). vampire OC because who doesn’t like vampires?? 6’1, has shoulder length hair because its sexy and more into the ouji fashion
Sitri: soft dom, prefers submissives over brats. black w dreads which are usually tied up, human OC and 5’10 ^_^, he’d be the type to sit you on his lap while playing video games
Vaughn: switch (i’ll write reader domming him if asked ;). daddy dom, would so use a sweet voice while absolutely blowing your back out. 5’9, short lighter hair, rich af
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Reblogs are greatly appreciated!
—Also, if you’re here just to hate then I’m gonna gonna answer ur shit😭😭
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howhow326 · 8 months
Text
What if I reworked the Miraculous Powers Part 2: Zodiac Boogaloo
(Part one here)
Unlike the Yinyang/Wu Xing miraculous, the big problem woth the Zodiac miraculous is that some of them are waaay overtuned while the rest are situational. So my solution is to make all of them situational! The Pig miraculous has an amazing power, fight me. Because most of these miraculous fit the idea I have for them, Ill only focus on the ones that need a change.
Mouse miraculous of Multiplication
Multitude: Stays exactly the same, I love this superpower!
Ox miraculous of Determination
Resistance: I previously changed the Ladybug miraculous so it can counter every other miraculous, which makes this miraculous kind of redundant... but I can't think of a better power, so I guess it stays?
Tiger miraculous of Elation
Clout: The user roars with exhilarating energy, forcing the target(s) of their choosing to focus on them. (Who's bright idea was it to make this thing a Black Cat knock off? At least the Goat miraculous is used differently than the Ladybug, but the Tiger and Cat have the same job of destroying stuff!) (So Juleka's whole character arc is that she wants to come out of her shell and she wanst her dad to see her so, maybe invisibility isn't a good power for her miraculous fandom:/ Anyway, the new power is just a video game taunt, forcing enemies to hyperfocus on Juleka. You can even give her some rockstar style roars to tie that into her identity)
Rabbit miraculous of Evolution
Rabbit Hole: The user rewinds their pocket watch a set number of times to travel back in time for 5 minutes. During the 5 minutes, the user can change events in the past which is guaranteed to change events in the present. The user can also choose to go back to their time period during the 5 minutes, and if they don't they will become stuck in the past because this power cannot travel to the future outside of resetting itself during it's 5 minutes. (That paragraph up there is the only way I knew to nerf this dang thing because I couldn't think of a new rabbit based power that dosen't step on another miraculous toes. WTF. Where do I even begin. Why is the shows Rabbit miraculous so incredibly different from every other power??? Why does it get its own Doctor Who room? Why does it not have a time limit and NO I do not accept that nonsense, timey whimy answer! Just why time travel in general???? I just, oof. Anyway, the rabbit miraculous is now used the same way Marinette used it during the season 4 finale, we need to do one thing in the past to save the future and then we go back to our time. Doing anything else is going to cause a paradox)
Dragon miraculous of Perfection(the name needs to be changed but I can't think of one that relates to the weather powers)
Wind/Water/Lightning Dragon: Sigh, ok this miraculous is what I mean when I say overturned. You can change into an element, you can control an element, and you can do it 3 times in a row??? No, the Dragon miraculous power let's you control one of three elements and then it goes on cool down. No using 3 powers in a row unless you're mature.
Snake miraculous of Intuition
Future Vision: it's literally a rip off of Garnet's power from SU. The user winds up their snake bracelet to play out different future scenarios in their head. These scenarios are life like to the user, but are not actually happening. (I like the idea that this miraculous seems like it's a psychic power when it's actually time travel, but time travel is waaay overpowered for a zodiac miraculous. Clairvoyance it is then)
Horse miraculous of Transportation
Voyage: The power gets you to your destination because it's a horse, get it? It's super lame, but I'll take it (at least this miraculous requires intelligence to use effectively, which matches its holder's personality. More than I can say for some other miraculous) (wait a minute this is the Miraculous of Migration now, wtf)
Goat miraculous of Passion Imagination
Genesis: Miraculous of Passion, dafaq??? Anyway, the power is still a discount of the Ladybug miraculous but it gets to stay for having a different function than the Ladybug power (I win button vs imagination power)
Monkey miraculous of Derision
Uproar: The power is a little op, but because of the changes I made to the Ladybug and Cat it shouldn't be too bad. (I like how this miraculous title foreshadowed that Kim is like low key a jerk.)
Rooster miraculous of Pretension
Sublimation: The user makes an impossible claim about one of the abilities they already possess, and the power makes that claim true for 5 minutes. (it was so easy to not make this thing broken, but the writer just had to use it as a lazy reason for why Hawkmoth can turn invisible! My reworked power works the way we all thought it did before season 5, it only effects physical abilities you already had. Kicking a ball into a goal is something you can already do, but with the rooster you can never miss a goal. This rework is still pretty powerful as far as zodiac miraculous go, but its no where near as bad as before)
Dog miraculous of Adoration
Fetch: Stays the same, it's not overtuned and it makes thematic sense for a dog hero.
Pig miraculous of Jubilation
Gift: Stays the same. F everyone who says its a bad power, its one of the best!
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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 11 months
Text
tuesday again 6/13/2023
very games-centric week
listening
this opening bit samples bowie's life on mars and sounds like a piano cover of a half-remembered but still beloved childhood anime. like the kind you had a set of two VHS clamshells for but only episodes 4-6 and 10-12. it goes on the "lofi beats to data and entry to" playlist. spotify
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reading
fallow week
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watching
the folks at waypoint games, formerly vice's leftist games vertical, BOUGHT THE BRAND FROM VICE and are rebranding as remap. i wish them all the fuckin best and i hope they succeed but i feel like we have maybe six months of this before one of them goes literally bankrupt from a doctor's visit bc healthcare is such a fuckin nightmare in this country. im simply not excited for starfield. i am not interested in corporate nasa
youtube
anyway i enjoyed their commentary, excited for compulsion games' southern gothic action/adventure spellcaster South of Midnight
youtube
neutrally optimistic about obsidian's Avowed, bc i do love obsidian but i do not love sword and sorcery rpgs
youtube
there's airships in microsoft flight simulator so i may genuinely buy one month of gamepass to try that out
capcom's path of the goddess looks fucking gorgeous but i have never played more than half an hour of a capcom game and i expect i never will. is this topdown? is this isometric? what the fuck is the gameplay mode??? who could FUCKING say
youtube
also there's a new jersey fallout 76 expansion coming at some point. in real life i hate atlantic city and i don't really how know this will look or play differently from point lookout. i don't know if i want to play a much-reviled cash cow mmorpg just to get postapoc jersey lore. if this leads up to 5 being set in nyc im going to be real pissed off. go somewhere DIFFERENT. there are DIFFERENT PLACES on the east coast!!! blease
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playing
viddy game can consistently turn my brain off enough that i forget im moving cross country in two weeks and can forcibly relax my body for twenty mintues at a time between packing boxes. so there's been a lot of pomodoro-ing, or my version which is: pack until i get so anxious i physically cannot pack anymore, go have a snack, go play twenty minutes of a video game, and then go pack until i am on the verge of a panic attack again. this is not healthy but all my books are packed. all of these were free on epic at some point btw which is why i own them
the first time i played Airborne Kingdom, i lost track of time and beat it in one sitting in eight hours. the second time i played Airship Kingdom, i replicated that exact experience. i have allied with all the kingdoms and have like two hundred souls on board but am not QUITE selfsufficient enough to take on the northern/artic sea DLC. stay tuned. soundtrack in this thing is great.
youtube
bounced VERY hard off Close to the Sun, a bioshock-lite i put about four hours/three levels into. a huge gilded age cruise ship where the science has Gone Wrong would normally be catnip to me, but the game did brutally kill the player character's sister in front of me in an unskippable cutscene so we're done with that game now THANK YOU. it is very slow, which i do like in a game that gives you this much stuff to look at, but there is no gamma control. this game is so fucking dark. i played it in a dark room with no lights and it was still too dark.
youtube
pinged off the typing exploration game Epistory despite its charming art, bc fast and accurate typing is something covid has taken from me.
youtube
rediscovered Carcassone (online) which is great bc i love Carcassone and own a physical copy of the board game but no one else in my life loves it. tile-building countryside-building game, seconds to learn, etc. thank you board game review even though there are no meeple in their natural habitat (the board) in this picture
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making
it's gonna be putting things into boxes for the forseeable future (the next week) and then living out of them for a while (the next two weeks after that)
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About Me: Favorite Video Games
So you may not know this, but I’m a gamer. Shocking, right? Who’d ever have guessed it? But to be totally fair here, I rarely talk about video games on Tumblr. I talk about movies, and there have been a handful of times where I reviewed video games, but I focused more on the story, characters, and all that then I did on whether or not the gameplay was good. In my earliest days, before I found my niche, I talked about games a fair deal, but that fell by the wayside so I could focus on films (my true passion).
So hey, look at this! You’re all going to get to see what my favorite video games are now! Remember, everything here is just my personal opinions; I'm not trying to give actual reviews of each of these games in a couple of sentences or trying to sell you on them, I'm talking about the stuff in them that makes me love them. All of this is my subjective opinion, and I'm not asking you to agree with me here, I'm just trying to talk about stuff that I love.
Oh, and here are some honorable mentions: Super Mario Bros. 3, Banjo-Kazooie (I still haven’t finished it and I don’t want to include games I haven’t played through), Kid Icarus: Uprising, Bayonetta 2, Injustice 2, BioShock, Doom Eternal, Super Metroid, Dragon Age II, God of War II, Castlevania: Aria/Dawn of Sorrow, The Wolf Among Us, The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando/Up Your Arsenal, and Heritage for the Future. Also a shout out to Tell Me Why and Life is Strange, games I watched my wife play and loved the story of but that I didn’t actually play myself; the former in particular has all sorts of elements I love in my stories.
Now, without further ado, here’s my top 50! Oh, and only the top 30 have pictures because there's image limits on posts! What a load of BS!
50. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Ok, maybe this game is lacking in a few areas at the expense of its massive customization system… but boy howdy what a system it is! I cannot tell you how much time I’ve sunk into decorating my island, reorganizing my villagers, and just making all sorts of weird themed areas. It’s a lot of fun, and I get to do all this work while hanging with a bunch of weird, cute animals.
49. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R
The original game was a lot of fun, but even I’ll admit it felt like it was missing something. That something was probably Foo Fighter, but guess what? She’s in the updated rerelease, along with aslew of other new characters like my favorite minor antagonist Mariah and the bane of Heritage for the Future players, Pet Shop! Add onto that a much better campaign mode with some fun little AU shenanigan matches and you have the most loving fighting game tribute to JJBA imaginable! Now if only they’d give Part 8 a little more love...
48. Batman: Arkham Origins
This is the redheaded stepchild of the Arkham series, and on some level I get why. It is very much aping City, right down to the map despite their being some expansions here and there, and the combat is much more of the same with little in the way of evolution, and don’t get me started on the fucking Joker showing up again. But this game also features some of the best bosses in the series such as Firefly and especially Deathstroke, a Bane who isn’t just a mindless mass of muscles like in the other games, and some interesting sidequests that make this early look at Batman’s superheroics a worthwhile entry in my eyes.
47. Miitopia
This is one of the easiest games out there, what with the autopilot combat and minimal difficulty (though there is a big spike late in the game). But the sheer vastness of the facial customization means that literally anyone from all of art or history can take part in a wacky, cliché RPG adventure. Hank Hill can fight the evil overlord Seth MacFarlane with a crew consisting of Chowder, Thor, and Japanese comedian/director/actor Beat Takeshi. If that’s not worth the price of admission, I don’t know what is.
46. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
The DS is where Castlevania truly shined, and my favorite of all the handheld entries is this portrait-hopping journey to defeat a mad artist and his evil vampire children. The locations are pretty great, there’s tons of sidequests and alternate game modes (my favorite is the one where you play as the Old Axe Armor), and there’s an awesome brutal bonus dungeon where you get to fight the bosses from Dawn of Sorrow without the stupid drawing bullshit!
45. Maximo vs. Army of Zin
The original game was a fun, yet very flawed action platformer. This game veers more into the hack-and-slash genre to great effect; it’s not the deepest combat ever, but it’s a lot of fun, with much better platform, bosses, and story than the first game. There’s just something cool about a world that mixes Gothic horror, steampunk, and other fantasy elements together all in one place.
44. God Hand
This is one of the most deceptive games you’ll ever come across. On the surface, it might seem like an ugly beat-em-up, but it’s so much more than that. The bosses are brutal yet fantastic, the music is fucking incredible, and the humor is just the right level of absurd to be incredibly charming. It’s ball-bustingly difficult, but let me tell you, when you finally overcome a fight or a boss battle that’s been giving you trouble? It is literally the best feeling in the world.
43. South Park: The Stick of Truth
‘Member when South Park was funny? I ‘member. And The Stick of Truth really brings back all those memories because this is a hilarious and loving tribute to the series made with the help of Trey Parker and Matt Stone to deliver the playable South Park experience of your dreams. It’s gross, immature, raunchy, and funny, and best of all it doesn’t get too preachy or up its own ass with messages—no, it gets up Mr. Slave’s ass to defuse a bomb. Peak South Park right here, though the gameplay is kind of basic. It’s all carried by that stellar writing.
42. Crash Bandicoot: Twinsanity
This game mainly scores a spot on my list for being fucking hilarious. This is the funniest Crash Bandicoot ever got, with all sorts of wacky gags and clever dialogue. Cortex really is the MVP here, with the constant slapstick that befalls him combined with his snarky dialogue making him a standout. It’s a bummer so much was cut from the game, and it does feel a bit incomplete in some areas, but for what it is it’s a damn fun time.
41. Pokemon White/White 2
It was genuinely hard to pick a single game from the series to go on here considering how much I loved Gens III – V. Emerald perfected the generation I first got into the series, LeafGreen is the definitive Kanto experience to me, Platinum polished up Gen IV’s uneven debut and made it incredible, and SoulSilver is a fantastic remake of the first Pokemon game I ever played (Crystal). But I think I have to go with the Gen V games I played as my favorites. They’re fun and challenging, and while the first game has a ridiculously restrictive regional dex and the second has an overreliance on defunct wi-fi features, the fantastic story and fun new Pokemon make up for it. Can’t be too mad at the games that let me make trashy cult classic B-movies with my boy Garbodor, can I?
40. Batman: Arkham Knight
I put off playing this for years, because I wasn’t happy with some of the things I heard about it, such as a lack of traditional boss battles and an overreliance on the Batmobile. These are still problems, but not near as bad as I feared (obviously, since it’s on this list); everything about the gameplay is the series at its peak. The main story is a bit lacking and ends up being a tad too predictable for me to love it as much as the other entries in the series, but the fact it has Professor Pyg and Man-Bat really helps make up for its shortcomings.
39. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
This game is just as silly and clunky as I imagined an older Bethesda game would be, but to my surprise I think it holds up incredibly well even compared to Skyrim. It’s a bit more complex in a lot of areas, but it’s not too daunting. What really strikes me is how this game actually has a really good story; it’s nothing groundbreaking, but when you look at how bad the Civil War plot in Skyrim was it feels like Shakespeare in comparison. Throw in a ton of unique sidequests with interesting plotlines, a gruesome Dark Brotherhood plot, an interesting villain, and Patrick Stewart for all of about five minutes, and I’d almost say I like this more than Skyrim. Almost.
38. Wolfenstein: The New Order
Sure, it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to FPS games, but does it need to? All I want from a Wolfenstein game is a horde of Nazi motherfuckers to mow down, and guess what this game gives me? What really surprised me was how genuinely cool and likable BJ was. He might be one of my favorite heroes ever after this game. It’s a shame they couldn’t keep this level of polish up in the sequel.
37. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
In a lot of ways, this game is objectively worse than its predecessor. Like the story is ass for sure; I could not give less of a fuck about the Stormcloaks and the Imperials and their stupid civil war if I tried. But the vast world filled with things to do is so much fun to explore, and there’s all sorts of sidequests and shenanigans to get into. This game is pure, stupid fun, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve restarted it just to play as a different race or class. Maybe someday I’ll make it to the final boss. Maybe.
36. Psychonauts
The original Psychonauts is one of the last great platformers, and among them it’s a lot more unique than many of its peers as you’re platforming through the minds of all sorts of wacky characters to help them overcome their issues. Bouncing through the conspiracy theory-addled brain of a disturbed milkman or decimating a city kaiju style inside the mind of a hyper-intelligent mutant lungfish are the kind of off-the-wall ideas this game throws at you, and in my opinion the only thing that could hold it back is if it had a really janky final level that combines meat, circuses, escort missions, and an underwhelming final boss… Oops. Still a great game in my eyes, one that’s 95% perfect.
35. Final Fantasy VI
For a lot of people, this is the best Final Fantasy game, and I definitely see why. It has a truly massive playable roster of unique characters with their own special gimmicks (of which only a handful are actually useful, mind you) and one of the greatest video game villains ever conceived in the mad clown Kefka, plus it is so focused and tightly plotted for the first half of the game. I think that after Kefka takes over the story becomes a lot more aimless and unfocused, but that’s also where the game becomes a lot more fun and challenging too. It’s a bit uneven, but after how hard the opera house scene goes I think it’s allowed to trip a little bit.
34. Dragon Age: Origins
A lot more praise is thrown at this series’ sci-fi sibling Mass Effect, probably because that series is a lot more consistent with how good it is across the board (Andromeda notwithstanding), but I’m much more fond of fantasy settings myself and this game delivers a fantastic one in ways its sequels couldn’t quite manage. This is the only game in the series where I genuinely loved every single party member (especially Leliana) and actively tried to get them the happiest endings possible—yes, even the douchebag anti-villain who joins you if you play your cards right), and the plot is just the right level of epic fantasy cheese seasoned with some delicious side quests. If the dwarf plotline wasn’t such a slog and if Varric was in the game, this would be a lot higher on the list, but this game still holds a special place in my heart.
33. Batman: Arkham Asylum
Our first trip into the Asylum really did kill the notion that licensed games had to be the most obnoxious shovelware schlock imaginable by making a Batman game that actually makes you feel like Batman. Sure, the detective part is a bit minimal here compared to the sequels, but the combat is so fun and refreshing that I’m not too bothered by the lack of crime scene investigations. There’s a clear love for the entire mythos here, and best of all a clear love for the animated series—Hamill and Conroy reprise their roles as Joker and Batman respectively, and Arleen Sorkin gives Harley one last ride before her retirement. It’s a real love letter to the Dark Knight, and it spawned one of the most consistently good video game series around, so I’ll forgive it for having the lamest final boss I’ve ever fought just this once.
32. Kingdom Hearts
What I like about the original game is how it struck such a nice balance in its absurd premise, with it never feeling like the Final Fantasy or Disney elements are really overpowering each other. We have the grandiose, convoluted plots of the former and the magic, whimsy, and awesome villains of the latter combining together into one impressive package. Yeah, a lot of the level designs are dogshit (looking at you, Deep Jungle and Monstro), and some of the stunt casting is really bizarre (Lance Bass as Sephiroth?!) but overall this is a game way better than you’d think by hearing that it’s a game where Mickey Mouse and Cloud Strife exist side by side.
31. Super Mario 64
Mamma mia! It is genuinely impossible for me to not feel nostalgic for this game. So many 3D platformers that came out in its wake took what it did and polished it to absurd degrees, but there’s still something so special about diving back into one of the portraits in Peach’s castle and going through those levels again and again. The music and atmosphere of the game add onto it; every time I play it, I feel like a kid again. It’s just such a charming game.
30. MediEvil
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If Tim Burton made a Gothic horror fantasy movie, I imagine it would be something like this game. It really uses the limitations of the PS1’s graphics to the fullest extent, with the jagged polygonal looks of the characters enhancing the experience, and it has such a crazy variety of levels and enemies, from a phantom pirate ship to a crystal cave with a dragon to a village of posessed villagers to an ant hill. Sir Daniel Fortesque is one of my favorite video game protagonists around because of his posthumous journey to live up to the legend fabricated around him.
29. God of War III
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Every single one of these games just escalates from the previous one. Oh, you fight the hydra in the opening of the first game? How about you fight through Rhodes and then battle the animated colossus that once stood in its port in the second? And how do you top that for the third game? Beat the ever-loving shit out of Poseidon and gouge his eyes out from his POV. And this game only gets more brutal from there! Titans and gods all fall to Kratos in epic and gory boss battles, but honestly even without that I’d put the game on this list for the simple reason that you get to fucking murder Kevin Sorbo as Hercules.
28. EarthBound
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Nintendo’s quirkiest RPG makes the cut, mostly on the basis of how weird and charming it is. At this point I’ve essentially memorized everything you need to do in this game, which is good because if it’s your first time you desperately need a guide or you’ll be fucked. There are points where things get a little too grindy (mostly for Poo’s weapons) but it’s genuinely a game whose charms outweigh any negatives there are. Plus, that final boss battle is something else entirely.
27. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
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Rebirth and all of its DLC updates took everything great about the original game and polished it into absolute perfection, with so many different item combos you could potentially get and so many bosses and endgames you could encounter. No two runs ever really feel the same, and it’s so satisfying to become so overpowered you nuke the screen every time you attack. The fact there’s a thriving modding community to continually generate new and crazier content also adds to why I have a ridiculous number of hours dumped into this game.
26. Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
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This is the first Resident Evil game I ever played and, wow, I sure was missing out all those years! This is one of the most tense survival horror experiences I’ve played through, with a creepy family of hillbilly horrors to avoid as I creep through their ramshackle domicile. It’s fun, creepy, and even a little campy, and it has raised my interest in the rest of the series. Hopefully the game with the giant vampire mommy will live up to how good this one is when I finally get around to playing it.
25. Portal 2
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Yes, the puzzles are great, but this game really soars due to its writing. The first game was fun and all, but it was mostly just GLaDOS insulting you the whole time with Chell being an entirely silent protagonist. In this game, we get the lovable idiot Wheatley and the greatest mad scientist ever conceived Cave Johnson to listen to as well, and the way GLaDOS bounces off the former and reacts to the latter help make this game a fun and engaging puzzle-solving adventure.
24. Doom
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The legendary FPS series got revitalized after years on the edge of relevancy, and its return is one of the most metal games imaginable. Slaughtering your way through the forces of Hell while heavy metal blares in the background? It really doesn’t get much better than this. While I do think Eternal improved the formula and gameplay in a lot of ways (particularly with the addition of an awesome hub level), I find the original to be way more fun and balanced in terms of difficulty. The lack of Marauders is really what gives it the slightest of edges.
23. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
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Nobody got left behind for this one. Everyone across the series came back, and then they went and added even more to give us the most ambitious crossover of all time. Ridley, Simon Belmont, Sora, Sephiroth, Kazuya, and more all get to duke it out on the best stages of the series as well as some fresh new ones, and every character plays even better and more balanced than they ever have before. While the single player campaign isn’t quite as exciting as Subspace Emissary from Brawl, it still manages to be a pretty epic quest with fun boss battles. This is just the definitive Smash experience in my opinion.
22. Red Dead Redemption
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My daughter has affectionately labeled this game “Horse Movie,” and she’s not wrong. This is a true cowboy experience right here, with lots of gunfights and horse wrangling, and it’s all a blast. The story in particular is really well done, and there’s plenty of fun side quests too. Maybe the gunfights get a bit samey after a while, but it’s an enjoyable open world to explore and is filled with oddities and mysteries galore.
21. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
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The first Metal Gear game to make the list, and easily the most underrated of the bunch. It gets a lot of flak for the missing final episode that would have had Venom fight the young Liquid Snake, and while it does suck that that moment isn’t in the game, the story still feels plenty complete and well-done without it. Venom might be one of the most fascinating characters in the series, and the game has some of the most brutal gutpunches and tearjerking moments in the franchise. Maybe it’s just because I’m predisposed to love Metal Gear, but I loved this game even though I was well aware of what it didn’t have.
20. Final Fantasy VII
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Not to be a basic bitch, but this is my favorite Final Fantasy. I mean, the cast is all so cool and fun, the story is great, Sephiroth is an amazing villain, and there’s plenty of obscure and obtuse ways of finding secrets that make a strategy guide practically mandatory if you want the most out of the game. What’s not to love? I think I was mostly surprised by how good the game actually was; it’s always high on lists of the best games ever, and it definitely earns that. The fact that Aerith’s death still made me tear up despite being common knowledge is a testament to just how amazing this Fantasy is.
19. Mother 3
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EarthBound coasts by on its fun, lighthearted quirkiness… but what if you took that and applied heaping helpings of darkness and a more solid story? That’s Mother 3, a beautiful tale filled with the same out there humor as its predecessor as well as a lot of more mature and deeper themes than even the original tackled (mind you, Earthbound wasn’t devoid of deeper themes to begin with, so this is saying something). The ending is one of the few times I have openly sobbed while playing a video game. They need to officially release this in the West, because I will buy it day one. Fuck, I’ll pre-order it!
18. Yoshi’s Island
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If this game was only one of the most charmingly animated games ever made, that would be enough to earn it at least some respect. But it’s also one of the best platformers in a series that invented the genre, centered around a truly inspired baby-carrying gimmick and featuring all manner of creative boss battles and one of the most earwormy soundtracks ever made. That’s enough to get it a spot on this list, but the fact it solidified Shy Guys as a Mario mainstay and not just a one-shot enemy? That gets it into my top 20.
17. Spyro Reignited Trilogy
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It’s kind of cheating since it’s all three games in one package, but it’s my list, I make the rules. I view this as the definitive way to play Spyro; the redesigns are all fantastic (especially Elora) and the fact Tom Kenny is now the lovable purple scamp across all three games is wonderful. They even made the first game more enjoyable and even visually interesting, even though it’s still the weakest link in the series! And as much of a Crash Bandicoot stan as I am, the fact this game allows you to switch between the newly composed arrangements of the songs and the original Copeland tracks is a big W over the Bandicoot remakes only having the new versions of the songs.
16. Metal Gear Rising
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This is perhaps the most badass game ever made. The first level has Raiden battling through a war zone and then fighting a RAY singlehandedly, leaping across missiles and slicing it in half while the most fucking awesome metal music blares in the background. The game just decides to get even more insane from there. People have argued against it being canon for years, but these people are stupid. This game is just as insane and politically-charged as the rest of the series, so in my book, it’s fucking canon.
15. Undertale
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This game’s time in the spotlight has faded a bit, but that only makes it easier for me to look back on it and say, “Damn, that’s one of the finest games ever made.” It has all the quirkiness of the Mother series with unique combat and a stellar story, a cast of likable characters, and some of the best boss fights I’ve ever been through. Best of all, it’s a game that practically encourages and even rewards you for being nice! I still love it, even after all the discourse and skyrocketing popularity, and nothing will make me budge on that love.
14. Hades
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I’m a big fan of Greek mythology, so this is yet another game that would have had to try really hard to make me hate it. Thankfully, all its efforts were put into areas that made me love it instead. While the roguelike gameplay is well done, the writing and story are really the stars here, with fantastic character interactions between desperate god Zagreus, the gods of Olympus, and the various denizens of the underworld really making this game something truly special.
13. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
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Sometimes this game feels like the designers saw all those articles and reviews comparing the first game to Dark Souls and took it to heart, because some of the levels in this game are absolutely brutal—especially if you’re going for 100% completion. But that same difficulty makes playing through the levels a lot of fun as well; it’s probably the most challenging Crash outing to date. It really polishes and updates the Crash formula for the modern age, and hopefully they expand on this in a future game. If nothing else, it finally lets you play as Dingodile, which is a dream come true.
12. Grand Theft Auto V
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It’s wacky. It’s cartoonish. It has a surprisingly good story about three criminals from different walks of life becoming fire-forged friends as they violently work out their emotional issues. There’s just so much to do and so much to see, all sorts of collectibles and side missions, and more black comedy than you can shake a stick at, and all of it is made all the more enjoyable because the main villain protagonists are a likable bunch of nutjobs. Hell, sometimes I just like to hop into a car, put on some tunes, and cruise around until I can cause some mayhem, and the fact that’s just as valid as doing a bunch of story missions really makes me love the game.
11. Silent Hill 2
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While the first and third games are good in their own rights, I vastly prefer the psychological horror and the monsters manifesting as living allegories for trauma with heavy and dark symbolism as opposed to the evil cult narrative. Plus, you know, this one has Pyramid Head in it, and his presence makes sense instead of simply being there cuz he’s cool.
10. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials & Tribulations
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The Ace Attorney series is one of my favorites, and I love just about all the games in it and even the ones I don’t love always have one or two solid cases that keep me coming back. But pound for pound my favorite game in the series is the third one, the one that lets you play as Mia Fey, introduces the callous murderer Dahlia Hawthorne, and has you match wits with the coffee-guzzling prosecutor Godot. Even the filler cases are entertaining, with the one where Phoenix has to get to the bottom of a murder involving his evil doppleganger being wildly amusing (which is more than can be said for that circus case in the second game or cases two through three in the fourth).
9. Live A Live
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Few games can boast the sheer variety this game has on display, with levels changing up their style to give everything from standard RPG fair to a prolonged timed puzzle to a fighting game pastiche to an incredibly tense survival horror experience. We also have the precursor to Undertale here in a ninja-themed level where you can spare everyone you come across or otherwise brutally murder them. And while the stories remain relatively simple in every time period you visit, it doesn’t stop them from hitting hard when they need to, like with the fantasy RPG deconstruction that is Oersted’s chapter. This game would easily have switched places with the next game if the final level played a bit more to the game’s strengths, but hey, it’s still good enough to be in the top 10.
8. Chrono Trigger
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Square’s other time travel story is definitely the superior one even if it’s a traditional JRPG through and through. Of course, that is because it completely and fully takes advantage of its premise, with actions you take in one time period affecting others in turn, not to mention the vast amount of bonus bosses and sidequests there are to keep the multiple playthroughs to acquire all the endings fresh and fun. I’ve sunk so much time into getting all the endings on the DS version, and I’ve never once been bored even after visiting the Middle Ages or the ruined future world a dozen times.
7. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
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There are few games that I love revisiting more than this one. This is Metroidvania at its peak, a perfect blend of action, platforming, and RPG elements into one glorious Gothic horror monster mash package. What’s truly fun with this one is the myriad ways there are to bust the game right open. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve grinded for hours so that I could dual-wield Crissaegrims and trivialize the Dracula and Galamoth battles.
6. Psychonauts 2
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The original Psychonauts is fun and quirky, and is only really held back by a pretty sloppy final level. This game, though? This game is damn near perfect. Nearly every level here is fun and memorable, and the ways Raz has to help each person deal with their mental trauma is a lot more nuanced and tasteful than the original game’s fair-for-its-time takes on dealing with mental illness. The minds of Ford’s old crew as well as Ford himself provide some of the best Psychonauts content to date, and really, who can hate a level that ends with Jack Black as a gay psychic rock star viking performing a musical number to obliterate his own insecurities?
5. Kingdom Hearts II
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This is where the Kingdom Hearts franchise peaked, and it’s a high note they’ve yet to reach again. Sure, the tutorial prologue level drags on for quite a long while, but once you get to play as Sora again, ooh boy is this basically the perfect meeting of the worlds of Disney and Square. The Disney worlds are a lot more fleshed out and have twice the plot due to midgame return visits, the combat is more exciting with fun little reaction commands to let you pull off crazy maneuvers, and you get to hang out with Tron and the most based of all Disney heroes, Chicken Little. Best of all, the story manages to strike the perfect balance between being complex and silly without disappearing all the way up its own ass like later entries would.
4. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
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In my house, there was a legend that I had beaten this game to completion one hundred times. I’m not entirely sure how accurate that is, but considering how often I replayed this growing up it can’t be too far off. This is one of the most gorgeous platformers around, and Naughty Dog’s final shot at a genre they’d perfected with their Crash Bandicoot games. Even all these years later the visuals are breathtaking; I still am in awe at how you can see the entire world from atop Snowy Mountain. Every day I cry because they decided to turn the series into GTA clones instead of continuing to explore the gorgeous fantasy world they created in this game.
3. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
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The original Crash Bandicoot was the first game I ever played, and the rest of the series were cornerstones of my childhood. Imagine how elated I was when they not only remade the games, but they created the single definitive way to play them! Sure, the soundtrack being redone can be a little hit or miss, but they completely unfucked the brutal difficulty of the first game (and this is even with adding back the ball-bustingly hard “Stormy Ascent” level) and for the most part left the latter two games entirely untouched save a graphical boost and the ability to play as my girl Coco. Playable Coco alone makes this a dream come true.
2. Batman: Arkham City
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The Arkham series is one of the most consistently great series, and this is its greatest entry. The titular city is massive, with so many things to do, and the combat and puzzles are polished to perfection. Add in some actual detective work, some truly epic boss battles against iconic Batman villains like Clayface and Mr. Freeze (and also Solomon Grundy, because why the fuck not?), the ability to play as Catwoman, and one of the most shocking and tragic tales the Dark Knight has ever been in, and I’m more than happy to call it my second favorite game ever.
1. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
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Of course, there was no hope Arkham City had at overcoming this game. This is Kojima’s magnum opus, not least because the entire rest of the Metal Gear series revolves around the events that transpire in this story. After the mindfuck that was the second game, it’s nice to return to a more coherent story, one detailing how Big Boss came to be the man that Snake fought in Zanzibar Land. Everything in the series sprang forth because of the actions the characters take here, and each subsequent game just makes this one better and better. Every single boss battle is unique and engaging, and the final battle is one of the most heartbreaking moments in all of gaming. I still cry every single time I get to the ending. It's such an amazing game, with a relatively simple yet still strong and convoluted story populated with a Russian madman with inexplicable lightning powers, a spirit medium's ghost, and a man who controls bees. God bless Hideo Kojima, that absolute madman.
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