#i changed the last 5 clips four times
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Happy Out of Touch Thursday, Whovians
More here
[video description: a series of shots from various Sixth Doctor episodes compiled with the song “out of touch” playing over them. /end video description]
#doctor who#classic who#sixth doctor#6th doctor#out of touch#out of touch thursday#gosh this one drove me mad#i changed the last 5 clips four times#i wanted to keep the running gag of six holding something up to peri whilst being oblivious to her nerves/exasperation#but that made it not feel right#it doesn't help most of these clips are from season 22#none from season 23 felt right z
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Can Anybody See Me? Part 7
And here we get to my little headcanon about Gareth. I saw a gif of Nancy talking to a kid with a camera at the game in season 4 and thought it was Gareth. But Gareth is shorter with darker curls. So meet Gethin, Gareth’s taller fraternal twin.
On the tagging, I HAVE REACHED MY HARD AND FAST LIMIT OF 50. I love the response this story has gotten. I do. I love you all. I love every reply, like, and reblog. It brings me so much joy, you don’t even know. But tagging is hard for my ADHD brain. I have gone up from 20 to 30 and finally 50 as my system improved but I think if I do any more than that I’ll go insane. So any future tagging requests will be ignored. Sorry.
The best way to keep update on these stories is follow me and set me on notifications. I rarely do a lot of reblogging these days (too busy churning out stories like whoa), so more often then not a post will be a story. I try to post at least once a day (some times twice if I’m trying to rush through the posting a bit like I did to make sure the Valentine fic got out in time without making people wait on Vamp!Eddie), just never at set time.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
*
Steve was the last one to arrive.
Again.
But at least this time he wasn’t late. Just last. Fucking story of his life. Thankfully all four of them were waiting in the open garage. He could see Gareth’s drum kit in the corner, but none of the other guys brought their instruments.
“You found the place okay?” Jeff asked.
“Took a wrong turn somewhere, I guess,” Steve groused. “But I finally got back on track.”
“Come on in,” Gareth said. “My mom made homemade hot chocolate and sugar cookies.”
Steve lit up. “Sounds great.” He poured himself some hot chocolate and a couple of cookies, shoving one into his mouth immediately.
“So how we do this,” Jeff explained. “Everyone hands out their presents and then one person at a time opens all of theirs at once.”
“And since this is your first time,” Gareth said, “you’ll get to go first.”
Steve blushed. “Thanks guys.” He frowned suddenly realizing something. “Wait...how did you guys know what to get me?”
All four boys just grinned at him. “Well, that’s not creepy at all.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Eddie said, patting him on the shoulder.
Steve opened his gifts and since the point was to be outrageous, he laughed when he pulled out a pair of Speedo’s. “Do I even want to know which of you guys got this for me?”
Brian shook his head. “It’s better if you don’t know, man. Forbidden knowledge that.”
Steve nodded. The last thing was one of those auto-signature pictures of the 1984 Olympic gold medal swimming relay team. He looked up at Eddie, somehow knowing it was from him.
“Thanks, man. I love it.” At Gareth’s questioning look he explained. “I’m on the relay team at school. It was so fun watching this. They even had the Olympic trails right here in Indy.”
“Wow,” Jeff said. “That is cool.”
Eddie just cleared his throat and shove hair in front of his face to hide his embarrassment.
They went around the room, Gareth, Brian, Jeff and then finally Eddie.
Eddie got temporary tattoos.
“These ones are legal,” Brian teased.
A pack of guitar picks and a new DM screen. And then he got to Steve’s.
Steve squirmed in his seat, because he knew he had blown the limit. But when he saw it he knew he had to get it for the metalhead.
He opened it up to see a black leather wallet with a skull and a red lightning bolt behind it. It had a small metal ring for a chain to be clipped onto.
Eddie looked up at him with shiny eyes. “Steve...”
“I told you I was going to get you something nice for you and your uncle letting me come over and spend Christmas with you.”
“Steve wins,” Gareth said.
“Agreed,” Jeff and Brian said together.
Steve blushed. “I’m just glad everyone enjoyed their gifts.”
“You ready for some D&D?” Eddie asked trying to change the subject. Not just because he was uncomfortable, but because he had a feeling that Steve was too.
Steve nodded. “I got some pointers from Dustin and Lucas when I dropped them off. They also let me borrow some dice.”
“That’s some friends you got there, Steve-o,” Jeff said.
They led the way inside and Steve was sat between Eddie who was DMing and Gareth.
They had just gotten settled when another boy came out of the kitchen munching away on leftover ham. Steve had to blink. He looked over at Gareth and then back to the boy.
The Corroded Coffin boys grinned.
“Meet my fraternal twin, Gethin,” Gareth said, batting his eyelashes innocently.
Steve’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit, dude. I didn’t know you were a twin.”
Gethin rolled his eyes. “I’m the cooler old brother of the pair.”
“By two minutes,” Gareth said rolling his eyes.
Gethin’s eyes glittered with malice. “Still counts, nerd.”
“Go back to your camera, dweeb!”
Steve just shook his head.
“All right, let’s roll up these characters,” Eddie said rubbing his hands together and cackling gleefully.
It took a bit for Steve to get the hang of it, but he needed less and less help from Eddie or Gareth as the game went on.
They all died spectacularly.
“That was fun,” Steve said as they cleaned up.
“It’s not that bad with a campaign normally,” Brian said. “Unless specified to be a kill your darlings kind of game.”
“The point is to get your character to level twenty and beat the final boss, right?” Steve asked.
“That’s right,” Jeff said. “Sometimes we play with the club and sometimes it’s just us four having a blast. Our characters have been a party for about three years now.”
Steve let out a low whistle. “That is a long time.”
“We’ve got a paladin, that’s Jeff,” Eddie explained. “A wizard, that’s Gareth’s character. And Brian’s rogue.”
“And your druid, right?” Steve said snapping his fingers, remembering what Eddie said at the mall.
“That’s right, sweetheart.”
Steve grinned. “That’s so cool.”
“Hey, Steve,” Jeff asked. “Is okay if me and Brian get a ride home with you. Eddie lives on the other end of town and Gareth drove so...”
Steve shrugged. “Sure. Ready when you are.”
Jeff and Brian gave Eddie and Gareth hugs and then followed Steve out.
Once Steve had left Eddie turned to Gareth.
“So how did he do?”
Eddie wasn’t going to force his friends to like Steve. They didn’t have to. But he would like them to.
“He seems pretty chill,” Gareth said. “Gotta wonder if a couple of concussions changed his personality.”
Eddie nodded. This definitely wasn’t the Steve Harrington of last year. Or hell even of their experience with the guy as a whole.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think maybe there were flashes before this.” He threw his arms in the air. “Because yeah, head injuries can cause personality changes, but I think at the fundamentals he’s still the same person he’s always been. Just now he can be himself instead of whatever Tommy H and Carol wanted him to be.”
“A funky little dork who is just trying his best?”
“Exactly,” Eddie said. “I just wonder what made him decide to give up all the popularity.”
Gareth nodded.
*
They hung out a few times with Steve and sometimes it was just Steve and Eddie.
Eddie could tell that there was something that was bothering him. Something that went deeper than feral dogs and beat downs by California transfer students.
But every time Eddie would get close, Steve would shut down. Once he got so upset he got up and left. Eddie was on the phone every day for three days trying to apologize. It took actually going to his house and threatening to beat the door down before he got through to Steve.
“Hey, don’t do that,” Eddie growled. “What if you had another concussion and no one was around to help you, dude. You could have died.”
Steve sighed. “Sorry. I can’t talk about it. Like literally, legally on pain of incarceration can’t talk about it.”
Eddie blinked. How the hell did a seventeen year old boy get mixed up in something that could get him arrested for talking about it?
“So write me a story or paint me a picture,” Eddie said. “Something, because it’s eating you alive. Is there someone you could talk to? An adult or something because fucking hell, Harrington you look like someone walked over your grave.”
Steve dug the meat of his palms into his eyes. “I know. There are a couple people I could talk to but they have so much to worry about.”
Eddie thought for a minute. “This is about Will and El isn’t it?”
Steve’s head whirled to face him, fear etched into every line of his face. “I don’t know what you mean...”
Bingo.
“A girl turns up out of no where and boy that was dead, suddenly isn’t?” Eddie said cocking his head. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure out the two are connected.”
Steve looked down at the floor. “Whatever you can imagine, just know it’s much, much worse.”
Eddie nodded. “So I’m guessing the adults are Mrs Byers and Chief Hopper?”
Steve nodded. “And the other people that know about it are all younger than me. So...”
“So tell me a story...” Eddie said. “Change the names, the details, but tell me a story. Or paint me a series of pictures. I’ve seen drawing pads all over your place, man. Just something, anything. Okay?”
Steve sighed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try. Because you’re right. I need to release it somehow. Keeping it bottle up inside isn’t good.”
Eddie smiled. “There you go. Now go get dressed, we’re going to grab a bite to eat.”
Steve smiled softly. “Okay.”
*
After the first week of January Steve came up to him, eyes darting around him like he was nervous. So Eddie pulled him into the janitor’s closet.
“Hey, I need you take a deep breath for me,” Eddie said as Steve started to hyperventilate.
Steve struggled to obey.
“Hey, hey,” Eddie said, soothingly, rubbing his arms up and down. “Take a deep breath.” Steve managed that at least. “Good, now let it out slow.” The breath shuddered, but still it came out slow. “Now can you repeat that for me.”
“I’m in so much trouble, man,” Steve sobbed, sliding to the floor, his knees to his chest. “We have to do a comic in art class and so I thought I would do what you suggested. Make a comic out of the hell I went through. Only Miss Chen thinks that it’s too dark and wants to call my parents.”
Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Shit!” He began pacing back and forth. “Do you think your parents will come?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m terrified that if they see it...”
“They’ll lock you up and throw away the key?” Eddie suggested.
He nodded.
Eddie took a deep breath. “Okay. Do you still want it or do you want it destroyed?”
Steve opened his mouth to answer, but frowned. He closed his mouth and really thought about it. “I’d like you to see it,” he said quietly.
“All right,” Eddie said. “I won’t go into details, because you need plausible deniability. But the first page of your comic isn’t going to be there tomorrow. And hopefully with it gone, Miss Chen won’t call your parents. Okay?”
Steve nodded.
Eddie opened the door to leave when Steve called out.
“Hey, Eds?”
“Yeah, Stevie?” Eddie asked, turning back to him.
“Thanks.”
Eddie smiled softly and then made his way out of the closet, giving Steve time to collect himself before he faced the hell of high school once again.
*
Eddie couldn’t be involved in the art theft either. It would be expected. So he enlisted Gethin’s help.
“And you’ll give Janice my number?” Gethin asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
Eddie threw his arms in the air. “For the last time, yes! Besides, she probably already has it as you know, your TWIN is in the same club as she is?”
“What do you get out of this?” Gethin asked.
“I’m the one that suggested it in the first place,” Eddie admitted, putting his hands on his lower back. “So it’s my job to get him out of the trouble I put him in.”
Gethin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Steve’s going through some pretty heavy shit, huh?”
Eddie licked his lips. “Yeah, man. I thought he could get it out safely through his art, but even though Jeff and I have turned in far worse stuff...”
“Because it’s coming from Steve, obviously he’s acting out,” Gethin supplied.
“Pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell,” Eddie said.
Gethin nodded.
“So you’ll do it?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” he said.
Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21
Tag list: @shrimply-a-menace @strangersteddierthings @throwbackthrowaway @novelnovella @cursedfoxteeth @babyblender @lifeisnotsobadonceyoustopcaring @swimmingbirdrunningrock @steve-the-hairrington @winterbuckwild @spectrum-spectre @matchingbatbites @garden-of-gay @anaibis @thing-a-ling @fandemonium-takes-its-toll @artiststarme @sundead @nelotegreitic @gregre369 @butterflysandpeppermint @thedragonsaunt @kodaik97 @messrs-weasley @scarletzgo @deadlydodos @renaissan-vvitch @evix-syne666 @emly03 @justforthedead89 @ashwinmeird @huniibee @phantypurple @stevesbipanic @shucks-yuckyuck @awkwardgravity1 @bookbinderbitch @reportinglivefromsoda @chasinggeese @be-the-spark-bitch @jinxjinn @kohlraedirectioner @cr0w-culture @xjessicafaithx @whimsicalwitchm @jaywhohasthegay @dangdirtydemons @lovelyscot @howincrediblysapphicofyou @the-redthread
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Btw just so you know cellbits ex never said to not talk about him being an abuser she feels people are trying to silence her.Not surprised tho Quackity Stan’s love to deflect, that’s what y’all do, that what y’all stay forever doing. I’m glad I grew out of his content after he added that weirdo, maybe you should too. At least ya stopped supporting a pedophile shows you have some common sense.
i’m only gonna be replying to this ask of the three you sent. if you actually wanna talk instead of just sending anonymous hate, you can message me.
that being said, tw for abuse:
i’m going to assume you’re only from the english-speaking community when it comes to minecraft content, if i’m wrong, please do correct me.
the issue the spanish speaking community (and i’m guessing the portuguese speaking community as well, though i don’t really consume their content so i won’t be speaking for them) has had for a while with the english speaking community is that people tend to be a lot more toxic in the latter. you’re speaking of this whole issue AS IF this is brand new information that has just been uncovered.
cellbit HAS BEEN a streamer (one of the originals for the brazilian community) for a WHILE. the english speaking community didn’t just “find out he was an abuser before anyone else did”. this whole controversy you’re bringing up right now HAS BEEN RESOLVED by the portuguese-speaking community A WHILE BACK.
the video you’re talking about of sasa talking during an ig live (which i’m guessing that’s the one, because it’s the one floating around twitter— if it’s a different one, you can link me it) is taken completely out of context— and i know this sounds like a way to deflect the accusations, so i’ll explain why:
the ig live was SIX YEARS AGO
sasa afterwards said that she was overwhelmed and later explained so people would stop.
the clip floating around twitter of her live? yeah, it’s been mistranslated on some instances to intentionally mislead — (as far as i can tell; again, i’m not a fluent portuguese speaker, so i might make some mistakes. but i’ve seen a fair share of brazilians saying it’s mistranslated to english).
now, if you do care about cellbit’s ex-girlfriend sasa (who, by the way, in none of the asks you have mentioned by name) and not just about shitting on content creators, i think you would care to know she has stated multiple times that she wants to MOVE ON. so in the process of shitting on quackity and cellbit, you’re making sasa relive something she’s stated multiple times SHE’S TRYING TO LEAVE BEHIND. both cellbit and sasa have agreed (5-6 years ago, when this was happening) that they were both trying to move on and consider it a “finished matter”.
as i stated on my last post (and something you seem to either have skipped over/ignored) cellbit has also stated he has been going to therapy for the past four years to improve himself. he has a new girlfriend named lore (lor-eh, not lour) and people from both his life AND his community have stated that they have noticed the change in him during the past four years.
i would like to say this again: for someone trying to resurface pretty heavy accusations, you don’t seem to care for either cellbit’s ex-girlfriend sasa OR cellbit’s current girlfriend lorena (who i believe is a streamer?). here what lore posted RECENTLY on twitter:
and if you understood portuguese, you would see that the entire comment section of this same tweet is brazilians just being confused as to why this is even being brought up by “gringos” again when this whole situatuion was ‘resolved’ during 2013 (i put resolved between ‘’ because abuse is never something that is solved from one day to another— it’s a healing process that takes time).
(found this tweet that basically sums up what i mentioned before of being a member of the hispanic/brazilian community and watching english-speaking fans attempt to stir up old problems :/ )
(ps: you keep saying you outgrew dream/quackity’s content, but here you are making beef with a former dsmp/qsmp blog 🙂?)
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BEATING HEART EFFECT TUTORIAL:
I was asked by the amazing Samantha @shegos how I made the animated beating heart effect on my Witcher gifset so I thought I would make a tutorial about it! I’ve used this same effect before on this Merlin gifset. This tutorial assumes you have basic giffing skills and work on Photoshop with a timeline.
step 1:
To start off, I have made my gifs, colored them, blended them so this is where I’m at. You don’t need a blended gif for this, you can use it on any gif you want, this is just mine.
I had to find a heart shape to work with so I went over to google and typed various types of “heart png” “real heart transparent” till I found what I wanted. This is the heart I used, you can use anything that attracts your eye. I open it on Photoshop and use the Magic Eraser Tool (you can see my settings in the image below) and delete the background and tiny specs of the background seeping into the heart.
step 2:
You open up your gif (we need the frames here so you save your gif and open it again) and you drag your heart atop the layers while having chosen the first frame on your animation. This is what your timeline should look like now.
I didn’t like how straight the heart looked, so I tilted it a bit to the left by going over to Edit > Transform > Rotate. Lastly, I changed the heart’s opacity to 83, depends on what you prefer.
step 3:
Now we have to prepare the heart for the animation process. We make a group, add the heart inside, and make these adjustments layers set on normal:
Then you create a new layer and color it with this hex:
You set this layer to blending mode overlay. Then you duplicate it three times and set the new three layers to blending mode soft light. Lastly, you select all of the adjustment layers, right click and create clipping mask, so your other layers are safe and set the entire group mode to darken. So now, this is what your layers tab should look like.
The last last step before animating, is to duplicate your group, and change the new one to blending mode luminosity and opacity 30%, again here depends on your preference.
step 4:
Here comes the fun part! To time this as correctly as I could (I’m sure you folks are better at math than me) I went over to youtube and found a beating heart sound. Be careful, for this part, you only change the opacity of the first group you made, I’ll tell you later what you do with the second one. You choose your first frame in your timeline and go over to the first group and choose only the colored layers, not the gradient maps. So then you start with 100% opacity and then change it depending on how the sound feels frame by frame. I was basically starting the sound, stopping at points, changed the opacity, played it again, changed things e.t.c. These are my settings, with my gif speed being 0.07.
1 to 4: 100%
5: 25%
6: 50%
7. 60%
8: 75%
9: 100%
then 4 frames 100% again and then 5-9 then again 4 frames 100% you see how it goes. While doing this, I was saving my gif and opening it up on tumblr a lot, to test out different types of opacity settings and speeds. It took a while but worth it.
step 5:
Here are the last steps. You go over to the luminosity blending mode group, select the four colored layers, and set them all to 25%, while having chosen the first frame in your timeline so it works on all of them. It looked a bit too colored for my taste so I changed that little thing.
Then I added the text I wanted I wanted and voila!
I truly hope that was helpful, for many of these steps I was playing around on photoshop, so you do what works for you. Also, I used some different blending modes and settings for my Merlin set, so this effect depends a lot on how your og gif looks like. So try around things and any questions you have, my askbox is open ❤️
#tuserssam#usergif#userbecca#usersugar#ps help#tutorials*#userk8#photoshop tutorial#tuserdi#chaoticresources#completeresources#dailyresources#resources#tutorial#userrobin#usernik#userace#uservivaldi#allresources#**#i hope this makes sense i'm so chaotic on photoshop
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Stockholm Syndrome
In the Four Hangout Harry said the song was about developing feelings for a kidnapper and applying the idea to enjoying the feeling of being trapped by love. When Liam talked about being trapped in a hotel room Harry cut him off with "This is more like about a nympho."
youtube
After What makes you Beautiful, Stockholm Syndrome is the 1D song he still plays most. It was on the Live on Tour setlist 2017-2018, but then not played again for 5 years. It reappeared on 13 May 2023, (While Taylor's surprise song was This Love). Harry then played it 18 more times to the end of Love on Tour. He also changed the emphasis on "Now he's changed his mind!"
youtube
Production
Harry said "Stockholm was a lot of fun to write." He seems to enjoy playing it too. Harry wrote it with the 1D writers, Julian and John, as well as Johan Carlsson. At the same time Johan & Harry wrote:
"A Little Bit of Your Heart" for Ariana Grande. Ariana first mentioned it in July 2014, and
"I love you" for Alex and Sierra at the same time, which was May 2014 based on them sharing a photo of Taylors cat.
It was on Four, released 17 November 2014, 3 weeks after 1989:
9 February 2014 Taylor wrote Clean in London
11 February 2014 she cut her hair off backstage after Red at the O2, Harry was spotted watching.
14 February 2014 - Taylor posted "there's nothing like real love" quote for valentines day. She released the Style Music Video 12 months later, which may have inspired Two Ghosts.
19 February 2014 Taylor wrote Style
March - May 2014 Harry likely wrote Stockholm Syndrome. It was Recorded by May.
Live Performances
Stockholm replaced Happily as song 7 on the OTRA setlist on 25 February 2015, the day after Taylor was seen with Calvin at the Brits. It was on the setlist for the rest of the tour. (it was in the Encore for the first few shows)
It was on Harry's Live on Tour main setlist in 2017 and 2018. On May 13 2023 it was added to the last 18 Love on Tour shows with Grapejuice.
Lyrics
[Verse 1]
Who's that shadow holding me hostage? I've been here for days
Who's this whisper telling me that I'm never gonna get away?
I know they'll be coming to find me soon
But I fear I'm getting used to
Being held by you
The Shadow/Ghost/Phantom reference continued in Haylor songs, to me they are referencing this song/HYGTG:
How You Get The Girl “Stand there like a ghost shaking from the rain” (HYGTG was written January 2013)
Ready for it...? "Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted / But if he's a ghost, then I can be a phantom / Holdin' him for ransom"
So it goes "Gold cage, hostage to my feelings"
Two Ghosts
AntiHero "When my depression works the graveyard shift / All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room", the film clip has 2 with heart glasses from 22 and Music from a Sushi Restaurant.
[Chorus] x2
Oh, baby, look what you've done to me
Oh, baby, look what you've done now
Oh, baby, I'll never leave if you keep holding me this way (Oh-oh-oh)
The theme of being unable to escape this recurrent love, and it being a golden cage, is recurrent. In Ready for it..? Taylor sings she will "Keep him forever like a Vendetta"
[Verse 2]
Who's this man that's holding your hand and talking 'bout your eyes? (Oh-oh-oh)
Used to sing about being free but now he's changed his mind (Oh-oh-oh)
I know they'll be coming to find me soon
But my Stockholm syndrome is in your room
Yeah, I fell for you
When Harry first started singing the whole song, as in the top link he sang the line 'used to sing about being free' along the tune. In July 2018 and again when the song re-appeared in May 2023 he has emphasised "changed his mind" more and more.
[Bridge]
All my life, I've been on my own (Oh-oh-oh)
I used the light to guide me home (Oh-oh-oh)
But now together we're alone (Oh-oh-oh)
And there's no other place I'd ever wanna go
[Breakdown]
(Look what you've done to me)
Baby, look what you've done
The guiding light to home is also a theme in Harry and Taylors songs where they refer to each other as home:
Sweet Creature "When I run out of road, you bring me home"
The Lover Video included a home where every room was Haylor
Woman Exile has a list of Haylor Home lyrics
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The DMMd Stage Plays
No one asked, but I can’t shut up about them, so I thought I’d talk a bit about these.
There’s a tradition, it seems like, of making stage plays about just about every subject imaginable in Japan. Search any anime you’re into on youtube and add “stage play”, and you will find everything. There are stage plays for Haikyuu!, Demon Slayer, SK8 the Infinity, Sailor Moon, Persona 5, Sarazanmai, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Given, Ace Attorney... that’s just off the top of my head. The productions are always creative and interestingly staged. If you’re into theater at all, I do recommend investigating.
It was a bit of a surprise, no doubt, that a stage play for DMMd ran in 2019, given that the game came out seven years prior; still, it did well enough to warrant another run, so we can’t argue with that. The production ran over a two-week period (stage plays don’t seem to be long-running; following any of the actors on social media, you’ll see they do several plays a year), and what’s particularly fascinating is that they did all of the love interest routes in that time period on alternate days.
The cast:
Nagata Seiichiro as Aoba
Kohatsu Allen as Koujaku
Yamagata Yuki as Clear
Tomizono Rikiya as Noiz
Takanori Yamaki as Mink
Yamazaki Shogo as Ren/Sei
Iwaki Naoya as Mizuki
Tominaga Yuya as Virus
Yoshioka Yu as Trip
Hayato Moriya as Akushima
The cast is rounded out by four dancers who added to the background in a variety of ways; Hayato Moriya also played multiple roles as a member of Bug Bomb, the person welcoming Aoba to Platinum Jail, and so on.
This was apparently not the highest-budget production out there, but they got around that with a stage resembling a generic Rhyme field onto which could be projected a variety of images, using that and lighting to make its appearance change significantly to the plot.
Unfortunately, due to (I believe) contractual issues, DVDs were not released for this production. They were livestreamed, and the final route was pro-filmed and can be rented on JP Hulu and U-Next, but that’s all we got. Sadface. However, there was a special after-show “curtain call” segment where the audience was allowed to film on their phones, resulting in a wave of clips that can be viewed here. In a couple of cases, Goatbed also performed “AI Catch” for this segment.
There was a wave of merch released for the plays, including bromides (postcard-size, collectible pictures, many of which can be found on secondary markets), a pamphlet, can badges and such. One presumes we will have another round of these with the new production.
Now the new production is coming up at the end of April 2023, and in addition to being “evolved” from the last one, a Virus/Trip route has been added. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes down, since before, it was only hinted at during the final route.
Recently and devastatingly, it was announced that Seiichiro would not be able to perform as Aoba again. While he was part of the initial lineup for this new cast, the official twitter stated that due to illness, he was being forced to step down and the role was recast with understudy Tsuchiya Naotake. I sincerely hope that Seiichiro is getting better and wish him all the best. Hopefully this is something he’ll be able to bounce back from. What’s particularly shattering is that Seiichiro has been working with Shogo on the recent run of Touken Ranbu in whatever incarnation it’s on now, so to have them not be reunited again absolutely sucks.
In other casting news, both the roles of Trip and Akushima were recast. Trip is now being played by Isono Dai, and Akushima by Makita Tetsuya. Presumably the dancers are all new as well; at the very least, I don’t recognize any of their faces, though as all the cast photos have everyone masked for safety, that makes it more of a challenge. The play is being directed by the same person as before, however.
As to whether DVD/BRs will be released this time, we can only hope that the legal issues have been worked out and we’ll get actual releases. If not, I’m sure there will at least be livestreams, though I haven’t seen anything announced yet. We will no doubt need a VPN for them at minimum; beyond that, we’ll have to wait and see.
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pulling my Tumblr archive for backup/search purposes and damn, it's 65GB. Last time I pulled it (about four years ago) it was like 4.3GB. That doesn't sound right.
Quick survey reveals that 21.2GB is videos, the remainder being images. More interestingly, 11.4GB is just GIF's.
If you've ever wondered why companies are so anxious to switch to webm or embedded MP4's, this is why. The largest video here is a 5 minute long Call of Duty clip in 720p with someone singing Coldplay over it (106MB), the largest GIF is a 12-second long 600p video of a man skateboarding in a shopping center (15.2MB).
The video is 2 900kbps, the GIF is 10 000kbps. Less than ⅓ as efficient a store of video.
Huh, wow, Tumblr stored original quality images for a long time, really high end and clean art uploads, way better than anything that gets served online, they have full 16 megapixel jpegs from my DSLR in here, that's... wasteful. I'm not sure there's any other way to access these images than downloading your archive.
Looks like they stopped doing that around 2020-2021. I remember for a while if you uploaded a single image it would display camera metadata in an infobox, they don't do that anymore, I assumed it was a change in how images were stored so I think that lines up
Only 1GB of music, which makes sense, this is the GIFset site not the mp3 site.
I need to build a better search system for this than "grep over a huge pile of HTML" but honestly it works so well.
#Tumblr meta#i do always be on this site#i might use this to implement a full wipe of unoriginal posts from like pre-2016
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Get to know me
tagged by the wonderful and amazing @petrowriting!! thank you <3
Share your wallpaper:
This one’s my home screen, I took a photo of a cabbage when I was like 12 years old and did something to invert the colours and have had it ever since lmao. My lockscreen is this fanart of Will Graham because it’s amazing and gorgeous and I’m obsessed with it
The last song you listened to: Through Me (The Flood) also by Hozier alksdaslkdhf. i’ve been obsessing so much it’s such a good song. i have maybe described listening to this song as a religious experience too many times for someone who has never had an actual literal religious experience
Currently reading: 100 pages into the Red Dragon book and it is a trip lmfao. it’s so fun seeing the ways the dialogue was repurposed, and the prose is wow, but ohhh boy. thomas harris. babe. get help<3
Last movie: Jane Austen Book Club! i love grigg very much despite his stupid name. gonna start alternating between hugh dancy and mads’s movies bc I’ve been doing that accidentally I think lmao. Last three movies I did went like Confessions of a Shopaholic -> Charlie Countryman -> Jane Austen Book Club. but on the other hand I deeply need to watch like four hugh dancy movies as soon as possible for emotional reasons
Craving: For it to be like a week from now so I’m healed from my wisdom teeth surgery. also to have no work or responsibilities for a month and just be able to write and read hannigram fics aslkdf.
What are you wearing right now: this is my first time not being in pyjamas since getting the aforementioned wisdom teeth out lmfao. black pants and dark blue t-shirt
How tall are you: 5’3 </3
Piercings: love the aesthetic yet terrified of getting it done and also them catching on things. I got these clip-on gothic glow-in-the-dark dragon earrings a bit ago from a targeted instagram ad (my first and last time ever doing so) because I have zero impulse control, and they broke immediately.
Tattoos: none, but have been microwave-spinning the concept of getting a hannibal tattoo since I watched. the heart from primavera would be so cool
Glasses? Contacts?: Glasses, my eyesight is deeply blurry without them
Last drink: classic water, big big fan of the stuff. reminds me of nbc hannibal because because there was water in the show a lot
Last show: watched two episodes of The Last of Us at like 5am yesterday, it was great. also perpetually rewatching hannibal by getting everyone I know to watch, and then watching with them
Last thing you ate: soft tofu in broth. there are, not a lot of vegan post-wisdom-tooth food options (also I’m very picky lmao), so I’ve been rotating between that, vegan ice cream, mashed potatoes, and vegetable smoothie for like 3 days.
Favorite color: ohhh this is painful, is it a cop-out to say all of them? Big big fan of purple, orange with purple, green, and blue.
Current obsession: it’s been hannibal and nothing else for 9 months now, and im going strong
Unrelated obsession: not sure if this counts exactly but there’s a writing app where you set a timer and start typing, and if you stop typing for longer than 5 seconds it deletes everything, and it’s so cool. I’ve been calling it stream-of-consciousness writing in my head for like a year bc it’s like a personal stream-of-consciousness even though ik that is not how to use that term alksfhd. I do 3 or 5 minute sprints and store them in one document, then have a second document where I edit and refine, and for a few I’ve put them side to side and colour-coded all my changes and it’s so fun
Any pets: two cats! Miles, my grey one, is extremely sweet, and possibly too smart for his own good. My other one Chico has a very adorable snaggle-tooth, and is incredibly stupid <3. he’s very bad at knowing what direction he’s going or recognizing any parts of the world around him and I love him very much.
Do you have a crush on anyone?: only in that vague abstract way, almost without direction, catching little wisps of the concept of the feeling from scattered bits of interactions with the world around me
Favorite fictional character: im absolutely refusing to choose between hannibal and will so im listening them both and you can’t stop me
The last place you traveled: i’ve literally gone nowhere since the pandemic started </3. i’m in Canada and the furthest I’ve been is just one city to another in the same province like 1.5 hours away. Hopefully going to Italy in the summer though!!
Tagging: @stranded-labyrinth, @valentinsylve, @elvislefilm, @disaster-vampire, @sacha-da-1, @dreamed-itself-waking, @em0fagz, @cannibaltranssexual, @hisjimct, @im-urchin, @ghostforwhat, @f0undationsofd3cay, @det395, @a-pigeons-soliloquy, @mysterist, and anyone else who wants to!
zero pressure, also i’m always v forgetful with tagging so if i missed anyone sorry and ily!
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V9 Ep1
okay! Chores are one so its RWBY time lessgo
1) okay right off the bat the first person perspective, music and editing are top fucking notch for this opening. The rising panic is palpable and it gets across how it must have felt to be trapped in a situation that’s getting worse by the second without having time to process the last horrific life changing event before a new one happens. I haven't seen something that well made from this show in a WHILE full props to the creative team for this one.
However, I do really want to see a behind- the-scenes clip of how this was animated from a third person perspective. Hysterically, shots like this are either animated by having two disembodied arm models fixed just behind the camera, or by using the actual character model but either distorting the neck or removing the head entirely so you don’t get any clipping. Either way it’ll be fucking hilarious.
2) that water is fucking beautiful, we sure have come a ways from the flat blue plane of V1
3) two suns? Is that a metaphor?
4) I’m not gonna point out every well crafted shot because from what I’ve seen so far I might be here a while, this episode in particular seems to be going out of it’s way to have varied, intentional shot composition but this shot?
Rubes tiny and isolated in a strange world? Physically surrounded by a dark unknown forest? That some good shit right there.
5) oh god the plant models. They’re excellent and the set design for this forest is perfect but I really hope that the staff were given adequate time to design and model them all….
6) aye, rubes. I don’t think that “keep moving forward” is the best way to deal with this one.
7) I will withhold my judgement until they’ve had more screen-time but, yeah little is really annoying.
8) “what happened after we fell?” nothing good blake, nothing good.
9) again, top notch animation, and the gang is back together way sooner that I was expecting. I’m gonna say that’s a good thing. Following four different plot-lines probably wouldn’t have worked.
10) don’t dodge the question weiss. I know you’re trying to be kind but you’re not gonna be able to put this off forever, and the longer you wait the worse it’s gonna be.
11) is that the jabberwocky? It’s… fine. The muscle texture looks cool but beyond that I’m not getting the “nightmare fuel”. according to the op it looks like it’s going to be more of a consistent antagonist though so there's still time for it to grow on me.
12) “if you thought we wouldn’t come for you, you must have forgotten who raised me” my HEART
13) also shout out to barbra for the line delivery on that “damn it” that was excellent.
14) if it were 2015 and I were still a 14 year old bee shipper I would have lost my mind at that hug. So for now I’ll just be happy for the people who ARE losing their minds.
15) “it must have gone pretty bad, huh?” Oh they’re addressing this NOW? I was expecting at least another episode of weiss tiptoeing around the topic before we got the reveal
16) oh shit ruby just went out like a lightswitch. Yeah that’s a pretty realistic reaction to hearing something like that, on top of the fact that volume 8 took place over like, what, four hours? No one here has had a chance to stop since salem showed up, they're all exhausted.
Considering this place is mindfuck central and we’re got a murderous shapeshifter milling around down here as well it’s really not going to take much for people to start losing their minds. And I mean, If this is wonderland “everyone’s mad down here” might end up being relevant.
17) blake stepping up as leader while ruby is out of action? Love to see it
18) ruby passing out from stress and then instantly pretending that nothing happened and refusing to let herself feel a human emotion? that’s my girl.
19) oh good fucking god. Yeah I understand completely why this took an extra year to make. I though the new assets for the forest were going to be it, but no it looks like we have five or six completely unique zones to this place. again, i REALLY hope that this wasn’t as hard on the animators as we’re all assuming it was.
20) i’m not gonna analyze the op because as a rule, i’m not a fan of them. but yeah, it looks like this is the beginning of the “ruby has a nervous breakdown” arc
aye, consider my thoroughly impressed. the filmaking for this episode was above an beyond what i was expecting. i can’t say i’m completely sold on the talking mice but i’m also not sure how literally we’re supposed to be taking what we’re seeing. from a lore perspective wonderland is... interesting to day the least. is this a separate world or a lower layer of reminant? was this created by the brothers or does this world have a different set of creators? humans and grimm don’t seem to exist here but the emotions of the characters do seem to have a physical affect on the environment, on top of that, the relics were explicitly created by the brothers to help humanity and atlas is the one that created those portals that brought us here in the first place. and atlas at least seemed to have some knowledge that wonderland was here considering he mentioned that falling would be bad. so, does this place have a connection to the power of the relics or was taking a detour through an alternate dimension just the quickest way to connect two portals?
my current theory as of episode one is that wonderland is the brother’s “WIP folder” so to speak, weird ideas and not quite finished creations that the brothers are keeping stored for a rainy day. like, the jabberwocky looks a lot like a first draft of what the grimm ended up being.
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How was your experience getting into this series? Did you find Majima's transition from 0 to Kiwami jarring or did you start somewhere else? And which game did you like the most and why?
Funny story really. My cousin had been telling me about the series for like a half year after a video they watched and had jumped into the franchise through it. I, on the other hand, kept trying to process these hyper realistic character models doing such absurd things. And I ESPECIALLY could NOT comprehend Majima in his entire design. Like imagine throwing this guy at a non-fan who’s only laid eyes on the series through miscellaneous meme images and gifs. Alongside my vague memory. Just me going “Oh god what the fuck is that???” Kaoru was right to ask what is he
It wasn’t until I went over to their brother’s place for almost 2 weeks in the summer two years ago that I truly experienced Yakuza for the first time with my own four eyes. Saw so many ridiculous but amazing videos and pictures and posts of all sorts in a short amount of time. I also watched my cousin play three or so of the games, saw some of the clips on YouTube, and something just immediately pulled me in. Really, the two things I saw story of where the ending of 2 and the start of 3. Crazy for me to still be here considering the ending of the second game. I really wanted to stay longer and watch all of 3 even though we got spoiled on that ending in the most overly comedic way. (the magic number in this paragraph is two)
Later that year, I wound up getting a PS4 and 0,K1, and K2 on physical CDs. Even bought the remastered collection thanks to a Christmas sale on the PS store. Through this and that, I already knew the plots of like half the games so I ended up playing them out of order. I think I played Kiwami or 3 first. Either way, the last game I completed was 5, and I still actually have a bit of 7 left. I’m not the best at picking favorites of any sort though. I really enjoyed 0, aspects of K1, 3, and 5 a lot. LAD of course has also been extremely fun. Haven’t played a lot of RPGs before, or at least it’s been years since I have so there was a bit of a curve for me in the switch from brawler to that. The characters really manage to pull you in the most with this franchise tbh
Answering this out of order, but since I was introduced to the series the way that I was, I didn’t have the same problem a lot of other people had with going from 0 to K1 and seeing Majima’s behavior. I managed to learn a lot about how different things are when you look at things through the lens of game order and chronologically starting from 0. It made everything about my experience change. Information about this and that and how the writing advanced over the years. I do, however, wish that his character merged better between the games. It’s the original Majima vs the Majima they decided on later who isn’t really like that. It gives a strange jump from one to the other, and really made me confused on what they were trying to go for altogether. But I guess Zhao is that character they were going for, more refined and polished in that field of pretend crazy guy who’s secretly a marshmallow
#yakuza#ryu ga gotoku#like a dragon#anon#I didn’t want to go into too much detail with the games section#it would have made this too long and I’m answering through my phone and we all know the app has its problems#it’s lagging so bad right now 💀
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Well, I got here. Listened to the entire John Oliver-era run of The Bugle between late March and June 2022, had a small breakdown and decided that clearly the end of this means nothing gold can stay and there’s no future to look forward to (to be fair to me, the way John Oliver left the podcast was really drawn out to be as painful an ending as possible, also I had some difficult stuff going on in my actual life and being upset about a podcast was just a projection of that, but even considering those mitigating factors, I still got more upset than a podcast hiatus warranted). I then spent a few weeks unable to bring myself to listen to any other episodes because I thought I’d just spend the whole time refusing to like the new thing and being upset that it wasn’t the old thing, until the coup against Johnson occurred in early July and not enough topical comedy shows were running so I turned to The Bugle to get some takes on it, and I realized that I actually can get through a non-Oliver-based Bugle episode without it being the end of the world. So then I went back and started listening to the post-Oliver episodes from the beginning of them, with a bit of a rocky start as my brain does object to change, but as it went along I got used to them and began to accept that sometimes some things can be good even if they’re not exactly like the things I liked before. Maybe.
That was 177 episodes ago. Here I am at episode 177, the last episode of 2020, the famed reunion episode, featuring John Oliver back on the podcast for the first time since he unceremoniously (and seriously, very slowly and painfully) fucked off in 2016. And really in 2015, since he was gone for the last seven months of 2015 even though they kept putting out filler episodes saying he’d be back imminently, but he didn’t come back until one episode in March 2016 and then almost one more 2016 episode but that one didn’t really happen, and then they kept saying they’d get it going again until suddenly he showed up in June said actually he’s done, and seriously, John, you’re a wonderful person but that was not your best handled situation, professionalism-wise.
Anyway. That said, here we are in December 2020, and here they are, and I’m feeling a completely normal and healthy number of emotions about it. Like three or four emotions - five tops, I swear. They started putting out videos of some Bugle recordings earlier in 2020 and I have not watched those because this is meant to be an audio newspaper, but obviously I’m watching the video version of this one. This video has come up in my YouTube recommendations many times before, of course. I’ve seen clips of it shared and referenced on this site a couple of times. I have always resisted the temptation to watch any of it, thinking I’d appreciate it more if I save it for when I actually get there in my chronological Bugle listening. And here I am.
So far, I’ve just started watching it and I have one comment: at 5:17, John Oliver says the words “fucking disgrace”, but it gets bleeped out, as swear words almost always do on The Bugle. Just after that, you can see Producer Chris look down and clearly make a note. I’m pretty sure he’s marking the timestamp so it’ll be easier when he goes back later to censor the swearing. That is somewhat like something I do when I listen to The Bugle, or for that matter any other podcast or TV show episode, and I hear something of sufficient interest for me to think I should write about it on this blog. I mark the timestamp in the notes app on my phone, so I can easily go back there to cut out a video or audio clip and upload it here, and/or type out a transcript of what was said, and/or just re-watch/re-listen to it so I can remember what I wanted to write about it. To often since starting this blog, I have spent too much time searching through episodes of something to try to find the little snippet I wanted to write about, and I save myself a lot of time when I note timestamps as I go along. It makes me inordinately happy to see Producer Chris do something similar to that, except with swear words he has to bleep out.
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So I was scrolling through my Instagram and I came upon a very interesting concept for season 5 of Stranger Things. The trailer started with that scene of the fruity four inside Nancy's upside down bedroom where she looks at her diary and notes that her last entry was on November 6th 1983, even though it should be full of other entries, when they realize that they are in the past. Then it cuts to a scene of Will running in the upside down (I think it is a season 2 clip) followed by the fruity four running and stopping. And it's like a what if the fruity four found eleven year old Will who just arrived at the upside down and like..... That's a really good concept. I want to read a fic about that, actually. Like the fruity four helping Will to the HNL knowing the gate is there and coming out in their younger bodies from 83' with little Will and finding out they have time to change everything. Wouldn't that be amazing? Like there is a fuirty four fic about them traveling in time and start changing the course of the story. But the fruity four from 86' saving Will from 83' in the upside down and realizing that helping him made them travel in time and give them time to correct all the mistakes they made.... It's incredible
Someone please write that and send it to me
#stranger things#steve harrington#nancy wheeler#eddie munson#eddie stranger things#steve stranger things#robin buckley#will byers#time travel#fanfics
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Finally, this is my 2022 gaming wrap up! Usual ramblings under the cut.
Pokemon Throwback
With my 6-year old nephew living with us, it's my job to get him on and off the school bus. Last year, when he was in preschool, he had the afternoon class, so we had all morning to do whatever before we had to get ready. It ended up becoming a regular part of the routine to play Pokemon for an hour or so before get dressed time...and the game he chose specifically was LeafGreen. What we actually ended up playing was a FRLG romhack I found with a grab bag of pick-your-own QoL changes called Pokemon Throwback. In essence, we were playing LeafGreen, but things like cut trees staying cut, ability to obtain all pokemon in one cart, phys/special split, consecutive-use repels and other things just made life a bit easier, especially when coupled with the emulator's fast forward feature (GREAT for grinding).
Ultimately, over the course of the school year, we made it through the entire main game, Elite Four, and all of the Sevii Islands (I was pretty burned out by then, and he actually wanted to move on and play Gold, but he also didn't want to stop until we got his Dragonair to evolve...and it had about 5-6 more levels to go after we beat the Elite Four...). Then we went back, caught all the legendary birds, and Mewtwo. We didn't catch 'em all, but we DID catch every single Unown of the alphabet, which took about 3 weeks (again, we only played for about an hour every weekday) and probably made me go more insane than catching 'em all would have. In the end what matters is that he had fun and was excited to learn more pokemon than just the handful of popular ones on his pajamas and stuffed toys. And he really did learn them, and retain what he learned - kids are smart! Even if his sense of nicknaming was essentially 'the animal it's based on + y' (he had a real crisis when we caught Horsea).
We played the game on my phone, with my bluetooth controller. I really liked this controller and was pretty bummed when I upgraded to a slightly bigger phone and the mobile clip just simply did not fit anymore (we still use them as Switch controllers for multiplayer, but still). I ended up getting a different type of mobile controller that attaches horizontally for my new phone, which will hopefully accommodate at least one more phone in the future before they start making them TRULY gargantuan.
Minecraft: Arid Adventures
One night...at a time where I actually hadn't played Minecraft for several months...I had a weird dream. It started out with a friend gifting me some kind of VR survival horror game about exploring desert tombs and recovering artifacts while being pursued by the angry undead guardians. At some point, the dream called for sand physics, and my brain reached into the video game sand physics databanks and pulled 'minecraft sand blocks falling all at once'. The dream then shifted from a more realistic style to that familiar blocky aesthetic (though the non-aesthetic elements were still very survival horror and NOT minecraft). When I awoke and recounted the dream, the minecraft image ended up being what stuck with me, and I wanted to see if anyone had made any kind of desert-themed modpacks. I found...one, which I didn't really like, so I took it upon myself to spend a month and a half working on my own.
The result is a sort of desert-flavored kitchen sink pack, filled with tons of places to explore, loot to discover, challenging enemies, and some light survival with thirst/temperature mechanics (offset by lots of food items to hydrate and keep you cool because I didn't want hardcore survival to be the focus of the pack). I spent a lot of time creating a huge arid ecosystem of modded desert, badlands and savanna biomes filled with tons of desert ruins, bandit camps and other structures across the landscape. But despite how much time I spent fine-tuning and playtesting it, when we actually got it on our friend server we ran into more than a few problems...like the massive overspawning of deadly, deadly scorpions. Still, regardless of some oversights, I'd like to think the pack was a success, and we had some fun playing it together between April/May (I spent half of February and all of March putting it together).
Arid Adventures was ultimately my less-polished-than-I'd-hoped first foray into learning how to make Minecraft modpacks, and I've applied a lot of what I learned about things like NBT structures and datapacks to other packs I've made since. Still, I've got a soft spot for this one, and I'd like to recreate it on 1.18 or 1.19 if possible...and I think it should be, I'm just waiting on one mod in particular to update (Team Abnormals' Atmospheric, for its additional desert biomes as well as resources like aloe and yucca which my bespoke desert food mod incorporated as ingredients for lots of recipes). Maybe when the time comes that I'm able to remake and polish it up a bit I'll even post it publicly on CurseForge. I'm pretty shy and have a massive lack of confidence in my work, though, so I tend to just keep my packs private for our friend group server 😔
(we’re actually currently playing a winter-themed modpack called “Arctic Adventures” which is “Arid Adventures but Cold”. Except not really, because I just took a light vanilla+ modpack I’d made and threw a couple winter-themed mods on top of it. But I thought the name was funny, so maybe there will be more [x] Adventures packs in the future)
Vigil: The Longest Night
You can really tell that 2021-2022 was me trying to work up the nerve to play the actual Dark Souls by warming up with various Soulslikes first. I don't even remember how I discovered Vigil, but probably I figured that if I liked Hollow Knight and Salt and Sanctuary I'd have fun with Vigil too. And I did, actually. Unlike the aforementioned, I even finished Vigil with 100% completion, grabbing all achievements over the course of two playthroughs.
Combat and healing felt a lot more forgiving than the others Soulslikes I'd played, at least if you picked the right perks. I ended up running axes, focusing entirely on that tree and the general survival one, and generally it always felt like there were very few enemies and even bosses that gave me a truly difficult time by the latter half of the game (several of the early bosses did kill me many times). At least, as far as the 'main' content goes - once I hit the bonus bosses like Bluemagpie and Redsparrow I really felt like I had to memorize every possible move the boss could take and counter appropriately. Frankly, if not for the fact that I misunderstood one achievement as having to collect EVERY weapon/armor set in the game, I probably would have given up on fighting Redsparrow after my first 10+ deaths...but I persevered and killed every optional boss in the game too.
I think what I spent the most time on in Vigil was just my obsessive determination to discover every nook and cranny on the map, because games like this where your map is fogged until you traverse it always compel me to reveal it all (I'll never forget the hell Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey put me through because of this urge of mine). The game is absolutely chock full of little secret rooms that you can just barely see a hint of on the map...usually there will be a small passage you have to slide through or something, sometimes hidden behind breakable objects or just otherwise in places you wouldn't think to look. I'd call it the 2D equivalent of Dark Souls' love of invisible walls. Between hunting down places that I sensed held secret passages and trying to platform my way through the trees in the forest areas, I got really into unfogging the map. But hey, in doing so, I was also working my way through all the various loot required for achievements, so one gameplay loop always fed into another in a satisfying way.
I feel like Vigil is the kind of game that's easy to overlook in the sea of 2D soulslike metroidvanias out there, but I had a good time with it. By the end I even really wanted to know more about the story and the lore, unfortunately somewhat marred by a translation of questionable quality. And with the way some of the endings played out, I'm really hoping that there might someday be a sequel, because it definitely feels like the devs left an open door for there to be. I'd say if you're into this kind of game, though, Vigil's worth checking out.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
I was pretty torn between rating this "Pretty Good" vs. "Decent", because I feel like my expectations for this game were unfairly high, but I also feel like every time I play I find something that I feel like the game COULD have done better, but for some bizarre reason chose not to. Kakarot was a game I was looking forward to a lot when it first got announced, because conceptually it seemed like something pretty different that had a lot of potential to be interesting. And while I think Mistake #1 was choosing NOT to start the story off with kid Goku in the original Dragonball (which would have suited the survival and exploration mechanics so so SO much better if we started off with him before meeting Bulma) I understand that we must bow to the whims of the marketing gods at the end of the day, and 90% of the target audience doesn't care about the original DB at all. Still, despite the name being 'Kakarot', it was obvious that a lot of the game would be spent playing as characters who are NOT Goku...and in particular, Gohan, and the idea of playing through his training with Piccolo with these game mechanics sounded like a lot of fun.
That comes to my first issue with the game...speed/pacing. And I get it, because the game spans the entirety of DBZ from Raditz to Buu, but even so it always feels like we're skipping way too fast through the parts of the story that would service the gameplay the most. I thought what would make this DIFFERENT than the usual DBZ fighter is that we would NOT be skipping over the 'less interesting' parts quite as much, because the gameplay involves more than JUST fighting this time around, but more often than not I still found that it skips massively through major story beats when it should slow down and try to be more immersive. I've been playing intermittedly over the course of a few months so I don't have a lot of specifics off the top of my head, but the most recent part I finished was the whole entire Ginyu Force segment...in the space of about 45 minutes.
I remember being irritated that the game barely conveyed what an actual THREAT the Ginyus were to Gohan/Kuririn/Vegeta before Goku shows up, because of the way you still 'win' even the losing battles of this game. And while I know we're kind of in an era of de-bloodening the Dragonball franchise as a whole, the lack of violence also really lessened the impact of the absolute beat down Rikum gives everyone, and thus also diminishes just HOW powerful Goku - who shows up and stomps him in 10 seconds - has become. Then the whole Ginyu body change bit is just kind of raced through with little ceremony at all despite being one of the more iconic aspects of the whole Namek arc IMO...I don't know. I felt like Goku went from space ship to healing tank in even less time than usual, and in a game that's literally named after the guy it's EXTRA noticeable just how little time is spent focusing on him (admittedly if you go over all of Z in your head you'll realize Goku is actually out of the spotlight for a whole lot more than you'd think, but the game's fast pace doesn't help matters either).
Again, I'm sure a lot of this is just my own expectations being unreasonably high for a Dragonball game, but it bums me out when the general presentation - the extremely faithful cutscenes, the soundtrack, etc - is really immersive, but then they'll just go and race through a whole story segment to get to the next fight. Oh, I remember another one that annoyed me. Imagine if the game wasn't afraid to actually let you control BULMA for the brief interlude where Popo takes her to Kami's spaceship! Imagine actually having to explore around as Bulma (you could even give her Popo's magic carpet so she could still use the game's flight mechanics) and scavenge for mechanical parts (which is already a thing you CAN DO in the game mind you!!) to try and do some repairs to the ship. Or just having to search around the area, maybe in the middle of a blizzard (it was a snowy place iirc), to find the ship at all. Instead the game just kind of went from 'Vegeta got away' to 'but they found a spaceship to go to Namek' almost IMMEDIATELY. Being that I'm playing the game alongside my nephew, who started to get curious about Dragonball (I think he saw some kind of Goku vtuber playing Minecraft on youtube or something, and got excited when he found out that I knew all about Goku), there's lots of bits like this where I end up having to summarize some of the stuff the game glosses over, because watching the story unfold via this game IS his first exposure to Dragonball (which I guess in a way makes it a good thing that the violence is generally pretty toned down compared to the original).
Anyway, yeah, idk. I feel like even when the game does let you explore it's all very barebones and watered down. The fact that only the story cutscenes are voiced and all the original sidequests are just grunts and noises also irritates me because it feels so lazy (Xenoverse does the same thing but idk, it didn't bother me there, I guess because all the battle dialogue was still voiced and it was just overworld stuff that wasn't). I also don't feel like I ever really have to use mechanics like fishing or cooking or any of that stuff because the battles are pretty easy? At least on normal difficulty, because the combat system is so simplified compared to a proper DBZ fighter. It's more about like, Touhou-style attack dodging than anything, which is fine, but I find that it's rarely challenging enough that I feel like "damn I should have spent more time scavenging ingredients to cook food before the battle!". It just feels like they tried to make a game with these survival RPG mechanics but didn't know HOW to, so they're very tacked on...and they just made a bog standard 'let's rehash the same DBZ story once again' Dragonball game when it COULD have been something better. Especially if they dared to start with Kid Goku's life. Sadly I know that a AAA game focusing on OG DB is basically a pipe dream.
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights
After I finished Vigil I was feeling hungry for more 2D metroidvania soulslikes, and Ender Lilies just happened to go on sale like, a few days later. It had really good reviews so I picked it up and spent the next few days playing it obsessively. In fact, based on the dates of my achievements from start to end, I finished the game in less than a week (31 hours total), 100% completion with all achievements. And after I did I just kept feeling like...it wasn't enough and I wanted more. I really got sucked into the world and its atmosphere, particularly through the amazing soundtrack. And once you start digging and trying to understand the lore, it's extremely compelling as well.
While I'd really like to see the devs make another game like this, maybe even set in the same overall world, I'm not really sure if I want a sequel per se. In a way, Lily's story has just begun, but I also don't feel like I want to PLAY whatever lies in her future. Probably because if I did it would mean what awaits her is more monsters and more sadness. But I really would like to explore more of the Ender Lilies world, perhaps beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, or maybe even delving into the past of the Ancients before the events that lead to the game's story.
I can't really talk about the game too much without spoiling too many things that I think are just better discovered for yourself. The game is tough, but not unforgivingly so (especially if you're not going for all the achievements), and it's pretty short if you can hit 100% in just 31 hours. I'd absolutely recommend checking this one out, especially if other similar 2D soulslike metroidvanias seem too challenging. Or at least watch someone else play it (ideally without commentary). Ender Lilies is a whole experience, between the art and the music and the story and the lore and the way the gameplay itself just clicks, and it's one of those things that I'm sad I'll never be able to play for the first time again.
PS - I want more games to take a hint from its map system, particularly in highlighting a room when I've collected everything in it to let me know I really didn't miss anything, because that shit is SO fucking clutch when you're achievement hunting, or just if you're the kind of person who hates the idea of overlooking anything.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
As I mentioned in the addendum of my 2021 post about Three Houses, it took me so long to finish that game that I actually saw the release date of Three Hopes (mid to end of June iirc) as my deadline. And that wasn't because I had any intention of GETTING Three Hopes (especially on release day, because I just don't buy games like that), but because I knew my Three Houses-loving friends WOULD, and I'd be right back in No Spoiler territory with them after just finally breaking into the inner circle of 3H spoilers. Thankfully I did manage to finish my final route (Crimson Flower) just a week or so before Three Hopes came out, and I even played the Three Hopes demo afterwards to see what it'd even be like (I've never played a Warriors game before). When I saw that the story was actually pretty engaging I was like, oh, this is less brainless than I thought, maybe I'll buy it (eventually)...and ended up getting a gift copy from a friend instead. Nice!
Except...while my Three Houses friends all expected to get obsessively sucked into it (after also enjoying the demo), and I was excited to actually be there with them this time, they unexpectedly became engulfed by a DIFFERENT fandom...progress sort of halted on the Three Hopes front...and then I became the one who was afraid to spoil THEM by pulling too far ahead, so I slowed down...and eventually that just sort of killed my momentum entirely and...yeah. I've stopped playing for now.
Being that I had done the two Eagles routes back to back as my last two routes in Three Houses, AND that being the favorite house of said friends (and the one they were also gonna pick first), that's where I'm at. I have no idea how far into it I am because the game seems surprisingly on par with a normal FE game in terms of story pacing...maybe halfway, or not quite halfway through? I wanna say I got to chapter 8 or 9 before I burned out. I do want to go back to it at some point, ideally when (if?) my friends become re-interested, but either way after how long it took me to push through Three Houses I suppose it was a good time for a Fire Emblem break regardless. I've still got a bunch of other Switch games (notably Shin Megami Tensei V) waiting on my shelf, and I had intended to jump on that when I finally finished Three Houses before Three Hopes came along and threw me that curveball. I've just kind of had the cartridge in my Switch ever since, deluding myself into thinking I'm 'still playing it' because I know the minute I take it out that won't be true anymore.
I suppose I should actually give a review, huh? Well, despite how not far at all I actually am in the game (considering the other routes), I feel like I've played enough that I've seen pretty much every type of gameplay mechanic. I gotta say, despite it not being a turn-based strategy, it feels a lot more Fire Emblem than I thought it would. Just about every downtime activity from Three Houses reappears here in some form, and there's a lot more to do at your base and on side missions than I expected. Trying to get all S ranks can also be really addictive and I spent a lot of my playtime retrying the same missions over and over because I felt like just one small change could improve my time and get me that S (and so far, with maybe one or two exceptions, I've managed to S rank every mission by retrying it a few times). The missions are also still very much what I would call strategic, just in a different way, and the main missions especially give you lots of options for how to tackle your objectives so long as you've been thorough about clearing the map and picking up resources and intel along the way.
I find the gameplay pretty overwhelming with the realtime combat when so much is going on, so the way I adapted to that personally is that I spend a loooot of time pausing and opening the map screen to issue orders to the other characters. Then I usually pick one and try to carry out my own goal while they autonomously work through theirs, periodically swapping to someone else to see how they're doing and just for the variety of playing as someone else here and there. But I'm basically ALWAYS checking my map every 30 seconds to get a feel for where my units are and what they're doing, and what needs to be done...which I found helped me keep track of things a bit better amid the stream of endless enemies, special attacks flying around, and being constantly bombarded with dialogue while I'm trying to fight. It took a bit of getting used to but I think it's pretty fun once you get the hang of it.
What surprised me the most when I played the demo (and made me consider getting the full game at all) was that the story does play a big part in the game. I guess I just sort of expected an excuse plot that sent a bunch of familiar faces out to use anime moves against an army of bad guys. I have no idea how the plot kicks off for the other houses, but what really drew me in with the Eagles was how the decision to reveal and act on one thing at a much earlier point in the plot lead to a completely different outcome, spinning the usual Three Houses story off into an AU that still felt internally consistent with the original characters and events. When it came up, I was like, "no way, that's going to basically change EVERYTHING!" and got really sucked into the plot even before the demo wrapped up - so kudos also to the demo for providing enough content to actually suck the player in. That said, this game is very much only for people who finished Three Houses...at least, I sure can't imagine being able to keep track of the story, or even being interested in it, if not for knowing what ORIGINALLY happened and how differently a few factors of Three Hopes influenced them to change course. So while I'm sure there ARE Warriors fans out there whose interest in the game is mostly that aspect, I think for most people you're not gonna want to just pick this up without having played the original first...IMO, anyway, this game is NOT Standalone, despite being an alternate universe version of Three Houses' plot.
But yeah, I do wanna go back to this someday, because I was enjoying myself. I think just the combination of my friends falling off (not having anyone to talk about it with anymore after liveblogging ALL of Three Houses to them felt weird) and just generally needing a break from these characters after 8 straight months of them warranted a break. It's time for me to accept that, pop out that cartridge, and move on...I'll come back eventually. Probably...
DARK SOULS: Prepare to Die Edition
So, after all those soulslikes paving the way, we finally arrive at this point. All of it, training me for the mindset to go into a game known for its frustrating level of difficulty. I'd actually had Dark Souls in my Steam library for YEARS (that's why it's the old Prepare to Die Edition and not the Remaster), but only now did I finally feel like I was ready to take it on. And so, after applying the DSFix patch/mod (and one other mod that makes crates/barrels occasionally drop things like arrows and throwing knives because I was gonna smash them all anyway (currently really missing this in DS3)), I began my journey in June 2022...and only just wrapped it up in November.
I talked about this a bit in my Undertale review back in 2020, but what you know/expect/feel about a game before going into it can very much affect the experience you have when you finally play it. In the case of Dark Souls, I was strongly influenced by fear of how difficult it would be, due to its reputation. That fear lead me to watch lots of videos before playing, as a way to kind of prepare myself for what was to come (because going in blind was too scary). Most of these were challenge runs, so the focus was on the boss fights, but it all gave me enough of a taste of the general progression and various hurdles I'd be facing along the way. As such, I often knew exactly how to prepare, and how cautious to be making my way through areas, which trivialized a LOT of that expected difficulty.
To give perhaps the best example, I was very aware of Blighttown's reputation because it's practically a meme. People hate this Blighttown place. It's full of aggressive enemies and a deadly poison swamp that's become a staple of all future FromSoft games. It's the worst area of the game. Etc. Granted I later found out a good deal of the hate was due to the terrible framerate the game had on consoles (wasn't an issue for me on PC, at least with DSFix), but I imagine a lot of the hate also comes from people recklessly rushing their way through the upper level and getting caught by the constant ambushes, especially from the toxic dart guys. But because I KNEW ABOUT THIS REPUTATION, I went through Blighttown very slowly and cautiously. I had my bow ready at all times and a solid supply of arrows, which I used to tag enemies from a distance so they'd come attack me one at a time instead of ambushing me in large groups. I came prepared with blooming purple moss from Darkroot Garden to counteract the toxic from the blowdart guys, and since I knew they wouldn't respawn when killed I wasn't really afraid of them in the first place - after all, once they shot me, I'd pretty much know their position and be able to kill them, heal the toxic, and be on my way.
Aside from one or two deaths by fall damage (one particularly funny one was when I saw an item on a ledge that I could practically sense was schmuck bait...but I jumped down to get it anyway, and sure enough the floor collapsed under me and I fell to my death) I didn't have any trouble from Blighttown AT ALL, and definitely not one bit of frustration. It was TENSE, because of how dark the place is and because I was in constant fear of being ambushed, but it just didn't really happen because I could always spot the ambush from afar and tag the enemies individually with my bow. In a few areas with particularly dangerous drops of walkways I just decided that I didn't need the items that badly and ignored them. I got to the middle level bonfire without issue, and then made my way to the bottom of the swamp from there rather easily. And despite the poison swamp at the bottom itself being an obstacle, I had already gone back to the asylum to pick up the Rusted Iron Ring (though originally that was so I could get through the pool in Darkroot Garden), and the enemies at the bottom are much weaker than the ones in the top half of Blighttown so you're really only using your estus to heal off the poison anyway. I spent a lot of time farming the slugs down there for titanite shards and it felt like the poison, while it lasts for a million years, REALLY doesn't even do all that much damage, so as long as you don't panic and keep an eye on your health bar it was really easy to just periodically heal through.
The point is...one of the most hated areas of the game was a piece of cake to me because of the way I approached it. And I approached it that way to begin with because I went into the game knowing about its difficulty, preparing myself accordingly, and taking it slow and steady instead of rushing through and getting caught in a dozen ambushes. Of course this experience is built on the back of the millions of players who played this game when it WASN'T a decade old, and I'm not trying to trivialize the experiences of people who DID struggle with Blighttown by saying 'just like go slower lol'. But I do think it's fascinating how much easier this game is when you approach it the right way. I think, if I didn't know about all this stuff in advance, I too might end up trying to play it like Skyrim or something, just recklessly running into ambushes and traps and swinging my weapon wildly with no regard for enemy attack patterns. But by 2022 I think almost everyone knows that you can't play Dark Souls that way, and they probably wouldn't even try. And if you're not trying to play it that way...it's really NOT that hard of a game at all. It's a challenging game, and it will punish you for playing carelessly, but it's a far cry from the reputation the game has for being hard for the sake of hard. In fact, having recently played Megaman 1-3 with a friend via Switch Online, I feel like THAT is much more of a hard-just-for-the-sake-of-laughing-at-your-failure kind of game, where it just feels insurmountably difficult for no reason half the time, in a very un-fun kind of way. And the whole time we were playing it (and making heavy use of Switch Online save states along the way) I kept thinking about Dark Souls, and how much more forgiving it is than fucking NES Megaman (or NES Mario, or lots of NES games tbh).
Anyway. While this preparedness probably is the entire reason I was able to push through the game and finish it with 100% completion (even if it took me 6 months of playing cautiously), I did also end up feeling like it trivialized my experience in a sad way too, because I didn't really get to learn what the game wanted to teach me by punishing me, since I always knew what was around each corner. That's why I'm currently playing Dark Souls 3 blind (though I'll go back over a walkthrough once I finish an area to pick up items I missed, I'm NOT looking into things ahead of time). I think I probably would have been too scared to play Dark Souls blind, which is why I used those videos as a crutch in the first place, but I'm stronger now and I want to have that experience.
So, would I recommend Dark Souls? Yes, unless you absolutely hate third-person action RPGs in general. I think even if you're afraid of Dark Souls for its difficulty, you should give it a chance. Don't feel ashamed for looking up a walkthrough to prepare you ahead of time - you're still the one who has to beat the area by yourself, after all. While it did make me a little sad after the fact that I didn't get to experience the game blind, honestly, if I hadn't played like this I might never have had the courage to experience it AT ALL, so I'm glad that I did. I still felt pride when I conquered a tough area or boss on my own, even if I knew what to expect before going in. I guess it's like, if you were going to climb a mountain or explore the woods, wouldn't you feel a bit more peace of mind if you had a map of the area? But the map isn't going to climb the mountain for you...at the end of the day that's still something you've gotta do with your own power, and you can still be as proud of that as the guy who didn't buy a map. Or something like that, anyway. And also, don't believe everything you hear about on the internet, because I feel like the game's difficulty has been memed and exaggerated far beyond the actual truth anyway. Just take it slow and steady, prepare as much as you feel comfortable beforehand, and whatever you do, don't you dare go hollow.
Skyrim Together
Oh boy. So as we know, every year I find some way to play Skyrim again (except last year where I played Oblivion instead), and this year that took the form of trying to get Skyrim Together Reborn - the multiplayer Skyrim mod - set up and working with some friends. Except the idea of playing vanilla Skyrim (even with friends) sounded too boring to me. No, instead, I waited until someone else released a stable Skyrim Together modlist and then tried THAT out...and then proceeded to cannibalize it, removing mods I didn't like and adding new ones in that we wanted instead. You know. Just normal Skyrim PC player behavior.
Anyway, after about two weeks of working basically nonstop on my list, patching it and everything, making it as stable as absolutely possible on singleplayer...we took it online. And I learned that just because I've got Intermediate+ Skyrim modding knowledge, I don't know SHIT about what's going on under the hood in Skyrim Together's arcane black magic system. Long story short, we had uh. Problems. Lots of them. Most of them actually very funny, like, being attacked by a wolf (on my screen) and being told I'm actually crazy because it's a fucking skeever (on their screens).
Or looting the dead wolf/skeever and finding 148 bones, 296 dog meat, 539 skeever tails and 148 wolf pelts on it.
Or having...whatever this is, happen whenever your friends move around, except on THEIR screen YOU’RE the one doing it
Or getting launched into the sky for having the audacity to shield bash...
OR the respawn system sending you to the back half of a dungeon you just started, potentially behind locked doors that only open from the front side, leaving you essentially trapped.
Or
You know. Normal Skyrim behavior.
Suffice to say, after many days of saying "okay let's try it again but do [x] this time", we just couldn't get past a lot of these issues. And funny as they were, they were kind of impeding our ability to play Skyrim...together. Eventually we all just kind of got so tired of trying that we quietly abandoned the project. Even me, with the fierce determination I had to make the modlist work for that two week period, just couldn't understand why things were so hilariously broken once we got online, and lost all my zeal for trying (the only thing I could possibly think to do was to ask for help on a support Discord, and given the choice between troubleshooting with a stranger and just giving up, I chose giving up).
Honestly, even if things WERE working as intended, the whole process quickly became tiring. Every time I made changes to the list I'd have to reupload it for my friends to then redownload and overwrite their files with. And we had to get VPNs to connect to a private server session with (the need for extra tools like this is why I listed this as "PC" and not just "Steam"), and depending on which one of us was hosting we'd often experience slightly different flavors of bugs. And it didn't even matter how hot we made our orcs, because certain RaceMenu features just don't sync properly to the server, so all the time we spent perfecting our Himbo body morphs was for naught. It just kind of kept chipping away at our patience a little at a time until the cons started outweighing the pros of playing Skyrim together, and we all just lost the desire to keep trying.
But hey, this was all happening in September, just a month or so after Skyrim Together Reborn's official launch. And it was only DAYS after I saw someone else post a modlist that I then used as the basis for mine. It was probably too early to be as ambitious as we were. My hope is that development on Skyrim Together, and its Nemesis fork, make enough progress that by the time ky desire to play Skyrim again rolls around I might be willing to take another crack at it, and maybe things will work better by then. The day may yet come that our hot orcs will finally be unleashed on Skyrim...together.
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2
I've mentioned a few times how me and a friend of mine like to co-op play ostensibly singplayer games with Switch Online, but they do have some multiplayer-friendly games on there too, and sometimes we do also play those. One time we got very into playing Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on Genesis. And then shortly after that my friend discovered an alarmingly similar game on the SNES called Kirby's Avalanche. We started to suspect this might be a case of some Japan-only game that they didn't expect to take off in the west without more familiar marketing, so we looked into it and it turned out to be the case - for a series of puzzle games called Puyo Puyo. After finding out there was a modern Puyo Puyo x Tetris crossover for Switch (that might be easier to play together than doing it via Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine) we both grabbed a copy...and I even grabbed a second copy on Steam when there happened to be a Sega sale about a week later and I spotted it there too.
Anyway, I may have briefly fallen into a week-long period of Puyo Puyo Fever where I couldn't stop playing, and all my dreams were haunted by falling puyos and tetris blocks. I got over it, but I still think it's a really fun and addictive game, and the multiplayer aspect of dumping garbage on your opponent's field to screw them over is a really fun way of turning what I tend to think of as a singleplayer genre into something competitive. And there's tons of different modes and ways to play, too, whether you wanna play Just Tetris or Just Puyo Puyo or a combination of both, time attack, all kinds of weird variations...and there's a weird over-the-top anime singleplayer story mode as well, where you can launch special attacks at your opponent as well. I actually got stuck on one of the bosses in this mode because I suck at utilizing the special attacks and you REALLY have to in order to beat her, but I'll get her...one day...
My nephew also got addicted to it and even got his own copy of the game for his birthday, so we can play together too (or by himself instead of him borrowing my switch all the time). He particularly likes that you can reskin your puyos to look like Sonic characters. But yeah, honestly it's a pretty fun game, especially if you just want something to pick up and play on the bus, or while you're in a hospital waiting room because you've had an ear infection for 3 weeks, or something. It's pretty pricey on Switch at least, though, so I'd either grab it on Steam (where it's $10 cheaper even when it's not on sale) or wait for some kind of Sega sale to get it cheaper. I think it's a lot of fun, just like, not $40 fun. There's also a Puyo Puyo Tetris 1 that's cheaper, which I imagine can't be all THAT different unless you care about the online scene or something.
Super Mario 3D World
My Switch co-op friend got me this because he thought we would have a fun and friendly time doing co-op together. Oh how wrong he was.
First of all. It’s a fun enough little game, though I prefer the gameplay style of Mario Odyssey myself. I feel like this game’s levels are definitely designed more for quick play sessions, with the star and stamp hunts kind of working like bite-sized versions of tracking down moons in Odyssey. I played through the first world or two by myself before we headed online together for jolly cooperation. Or more like (I’m Mario)...
You see, the game feels nice and friendly and colorful and there’s even a lot of cases where co-op is encouraged. But you can’t show me a results screen at the end of the level where one player can do better than the other, even to the point of being awarded a crown to wear into the next level, without awakening the blood fury inside me. Every time he performed better than me (due to my overwhelming tendency to hurl myself off cliffs) it would ever so slightly raise the rage meter inside my heart. I would become obsessed with doing better in the next level. And at first this was sensible...get more coins than him. Collect the stars before he can. Get the checkpoint and exit flags to show my M instead of his dumb L. All things that would give ME more points. But sometimes you’re just not as good at Mario games as the other person and it’s easier said than done to just BE better than the competition.
But what if there was no competition in the first place? The solution was in front of me all along. Eliminate him. Pick him up and throw him off a cliff, or into an enemy, then use the resulting precious seconds to race ahead and get all the goodies before he can catch up. Of course, this became less and less successful as time went by and he caught onto the fact that I’d try to throw him at virtually any opportunity. Sometimes he’d flip the script and throw ME off before I could get a chance, resulting in a lot of back-and-forth warfare. But more often than not it goes like this
Turns out I’m REALLY good at playing myself. In fact, while looking for a video clip for that first gif of me throwing him off the cliff, I found about 6 like this where I try to pick him up but end up being the one who dies instead.
Honestly though, my favorite was this time, where I spent a while playing nice and not doing anything overtly evil, until we got to a toad house...
The toad house gets marked as cleared as soon as you exit, and he didn’t have any powerups on hand while I was running around with my raccoon suit, so he was pretty pissed about this one. Perhaps my finest moment of video game dickery of all time, and it’s not like it was premeditated (I’m not that smart). I just thought it up on the spot and thought it would be funny. And it was (to me). And that’s what it’s like playing Super Mario 3D World with me.
#sg2 plays video games#sg2's game reviews#this post was already long enough but I also had a little writeup about my experience with the bosses of dark souls#since I've already got it typed up in a txt somewhere I'll probably throw it into a second post and just link back to it here
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LIST 5 SONGS THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE
1. Who am I? Who am I? I’m awake when you sleep at night. Who am I? I’m the dark underneath the light. Who am I? I’m the space living in between. Who am I? I’m the one thing in everything. I, who am I? I’m a saint, I’m a sinner. I’m a God, I’m a killer, I’m the end and the beginner. Who am I? ( Who am I? ) Watch and learn, then you live and die. ( Who am I? ) I’m what’s waiting on the other side. ― Tony22, Who Am I?
2. Shall we look at the moon, my little loon? Why do you cry? Make the most of your life, while it is rife, while it is light. Well, you do enough talk, my little hawk. Why do you cry? Tell me, what did you learn from the Tillamook burn? Or the Fourth of July? We're all gonna die. ( We're all gonna die. We're all gonna die. ) ― Sufjan Stevens, Fourth of July
3. I am alive, I am awake. I am aware of what light tastes like. The curtains drawn, the table's set; I wanna be, I wanna be, at my best. It's bittersweet, it's poetry. Careful pruning of my dead leaves. It's holy ground, a treasure chest; I'm on my knees and only scratch the surface. Like fists unraveling, like glass unshattering. Breaking all the rules, breaking bread again. Swallowing light, 'til we're fixed from the inside. ― Sleeping At Last, Taste
4. So it begins ( so it begins ), the hollow ( the hollow ). Breathe in my lips ( breathe in my lips, breathe in my lips ), legato ( legato ). Clip no more wings ( clip no more wings ), kill the sparrow ( sparrow, sparrow ). Call it the straight ( call it the straight, call it the straight ), and narrow ( and narrow ). In sight of land, convinced the stars were falling down, I saw you. Silent, releasing the rope from your hand, you're falling again, you're falling again, you fall. [ . . . ] Underneath, I’m sleeping. Underneath, I’m sleeping. Underneath, I’m sleeping. Underneath, I’m not sleeping anymore. ― Crywolf, MEPHISTOPHELES
5. Fell out of the air and you broke your wings. Like you're doing every other time. Made a new pair out of broken things, to give it all another try. And you climb right up to the highest peaks, and reach out to the edge of the world you seek. Afraid of heights, so you don't believe you could ever be good enough. [ . . . ] Go on then, Icarus, take your turn. You always fly right up until it burns. Your wings, you never could change. Always the victim, into the flames again. Go on then, Icarus, take your turn. You'll never go through them. ― STARSET, ICARUS
LIST 5 QUOTES THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE
1. When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I've learned to survive through everything. I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight. ― Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time, there’ll be so much love, you won’t be able to see beyond it. ― Warsan Shire, Backwards
3. Part of heroism is being able to see the future and still remain standing. If you don’t believe in God or Fate, you still must believe in narrative. ― Richard Siken, Four Proofs
4. My God, my God, whose performance am I watching? How many people am I? Who am I? What is this space between myself and myself? ― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
5. God said: GOD MADE YOU. GOD DOES NOT CARE IF YOU ARE "GUILTY" OR NOT. I said: I CARE IF I AM GUILTY! I CARE IF I AM GUILTY!... God was silent. Everything was SILENT. ― Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems
#𓁹 ༑ ࿐ྂ ⩇⩇ : ⩇⩇ ⚠︎ [ 𝙴𝚇𝙸(𝚂)𝚃 : 𝙶𝙾𝙳 ] * ‹ GAMES . ›#𓁹 ༑ ࿐ྂ ⩇⩇ : ⩇⩇ ⚠︎ [ 𝙴𝚇𝙸(𝚂)𝚃 : 𝙶𝙾𝙳 ] * ‹ STUDY . ›#𓁹 ༑ ࿐ྂ ⩇⩇ : ⩇⩇ ⚠︎ [ 𝙴𝚇𝙸(𝚂)𝚃 : 𝙶𝙾𝙳 ] * ‹ MICAH . ›#𓁹 ༑ ࿐ྂ ⩇⩇ : ⩇⩇ ⚠︎ [ 𝙴𝚇𝙸(𝚂)𝚃 : 𝙶𝙾𝙳 ] * ‹ INSPIRATION . ›#[ it's the whole list 5 muse inspirational quotes + lyrics thing ; this post is just lengthy so it's under read lmfao ]#[ will reformat all of this Eventually I'm so exhausted but I really wanted to do this so sdhgjsbkjnglsbk ]#[ I will definitely do the other main Starwake alters eventually as well though ; I Must ]
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Interview: Sophisticated Dingo, "I Don't Mind"
Sophisticated Dingo, shot by Richard John Clifford.
Sophisticated Dingo are a two-piece band from Melbourne (Naarm), Australia. I discovered them online back in 2021, and have been hooked on their catchy songs and riffs ever since. Last month, I met with Lewis, the band’s singer and guitarist, for a Zoom interview – it was 7:30 A.M. for me in Switzerland, and 5:30 P.M. for Lewis in Australia. Join us as we talk about their new single I Don’t Mind, being a band in Melbourne and their influences like DZ Deathrays. Many thanks to Lewis and Caitlyn for their time and making this possible!
A little screenshot of our Zoom interview.
You and Jimmy have been playing together for a while, right?
Lewis: Me and Jimmy know each other from school. He was 11 and I was 12. We finished school in 2013 and when we first got the idea to do Dingo, it was 2014. We were obsessed with the I OH YOU record label and bands like DZ Deathrays, Bleeding Knees Club and Dune Rats. Dune Rats weren’t on I OH YOU, but they were a two-piece to start with. So Jimmy and I thought ‘let’s try that, it will be fun.’ And we did it.
Two-pieces were all the rage at the time. Bass Drum of Death was also getting pretty popular.
You know, in 2015 I saw probably the coolest show. It was the tour that DZ Deathrays did with Bass Drum of Death and Hockey Dad opening. They were playing in Melbourne, in Newtown Social Club. That’s a 300-capacity room, really intimate. Bass Drum of Death was seriously cool, way heavier than I thought it would be. It was so good.
What is Melbourne like for Sophisticated Dingo?
Melbourne is cool. It’s all that I’ve ever really known and I love it. Because it’s a big city in Australia, I’ve never really had the urge to seek something bigger. I mean, I guess I could have thought ‘maybe I should go overseas’ or something, but everything I have ever wanted is in Melbourne. For Dingo, it’s awesome. When we started the band, all we ever wanted to do was play live, and Melbourne is a great city to do that. There are shows every night. You can go and play wherever on a Tuesday night and cut your teeth, become part of the community. There’s so many pockets in it, you can make your own scene. You meet many bands who end up becoming your friends.
The community radios PBS and Triple R are also a very big thing in Melbourne. The bands they back, the venues that surround that – places like The Toad, The Old Bar… There’s a garage and lo-fi scene that’s very cool, but I don’t think Sophisticated Dingo is that. We go for it and try to make a lot of noise and whatnot, but I don’t think we fit exacly in what’s cool in Melbourne. I think we’re a bit poppier and hookier. I really like it though, because we’re part of Melbourne and the city allowed us to play so many shows over so many years.
I also wanted to talk about your new single, I Don’t Mind. I found it a bit different from your previous singles, and I wanted to know if it meant a new direction for the band.
I Don’t Mind is not a signal in a change of direction or anything. When I started writing it, it just sounded like it would be a great acoustic song. I kept playing with it and eventually sent it to our management with a bunch of other songs. They were like, ‘this is really good!’ and it ended up being released – last year, we released four songs, and I Don’t Mind was just another one that was part of that batch. It ended up coming out at the start of this year.
On the other hand, the next songs that are coming out have been written on a different type of energy and recorded through a different process. I’m really excited about them.
youtube
What about the polaroid on the cover?
We did photos for two different shoots. We have been using photos for With You, Radio On, VCR, Been Thinking and I don’t Mind. They were all taken by a good mate of us called Rick, who also goes on Instagram as rcstills. He takes amazing photos and he did our Morning View video clip. From those shoots, we ended up using a different polaroid for each song.
The polaroid for the cover of I Don't Mind, shot by Richard John Clifford.
My last question is about DZ Deathrays. How did you meet them?
I could talk about DZ for hours! Jimmy and I were big fans from probably when we were about 17. We got introduced to their music by another friend at school and our minds just exploded. It was like we found the band that we’d always wanted to hear when they released their first album Bloodstreams, back in 2012. When we started playing in 2016, we thought it would be great to play with DZ. I first got in touch with them when I sent them Morning View, saying ‘I think this song has a bit of you in it.’ They said ‘yes, this is a sick song’. And then, Simon came and saw our show in Brisbane, so we met in there. He came to another show last year and we hung out!
https://www.sophisticateddingo.com/
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Day 209 of 365
Last night, I was given the chance to be left alone at the laboratory. My other colleague went to work, while the other went to see his girlfriend. The former will come by after his office hours. So I was browsing some clips on YouTube. I started watching some interviews with Seth Macfarlane, then Tom Cruise, Jackie Chan, and then I was hooked with the interview and video clips of Conan O'Brien.
Conan O'Brien's interviews and his out-of-country visit were hilarious. It made me not notice the time. I continuously browsed clips of one of the famous talk show hosts until I reached his commencement speech to the Darmouth College class of 2011. There were notable quotes that I badly needed to hear, and they surprised me.
"It is okay if what you perceived four years ago might not be what it is to become."
Which gave me the perfect opportunity to look back at one of my greatest decisions back in 2015. Entering graduate school immediately after graduation. It is one of my biggest and most remarkable decisions that, at some point in my life, I keep regretting. Fortunately, it gave my heart to physics. I was wholeheartedly engaged in the field. It made me wiser, for better or for worse. At first, I imagined that I would be able to finish my program (optimistically) in two years. However, that changed entirely along the way. Looking at where I am right now, It is, in fact, approaching my 8th year. It is not what I perceived; it is not what I became.
"In 2000, I told graduates not to be afraid to fail, and I still tell them not to be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today, I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality."
Which is true; along the journey of my graduate school, a lot of disappointment came. I have failed so much. I fell multiple times. It seems that disappointment and rejection have become part of my everyday life. I feared it most. But eventually, it came. It parted on my system.
"It is our failure to become our perceived idea that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It is not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can be a catalyst for profound re-invention."
I have become lost lately and have lost my motivation from time to time. I can't accept the fact that I am still in graduate school and still getting the degree that I was supposed to get 3-5 years ago. I look at different circumstances in my life where I became disadvantaged, unlike my financially stable peers. There have been relatively tragic events in my past years. However, I have to admit that it is part of life. What I can do right now is re-draw my goals, get this goddamn degree, and move forward. And build myself up to become the best version.
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