Jonny yet again not knowing any names (now we have two Alices)

1rst question: Is there a word limit for this event. I thought there was one and now I can’t find it.

2nd question: Where would clone wars main or background charcters come in. For example, one of my pitches is Ton Phannan MD, and having him treat various pacients in the rebelion, between Hoth and his injury during the battle of Endor. If I decided to have one of his pacients be Clone Trooper Boil, whose wookiepedia history is split down the middle between canon and non - canon. (I’d like to know before I post it to the Waxer Boil discord group.)

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Boil/Legends

I was also going to have him be accompanied by Numa, both obviously older.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Numa/Legends

3rd question: I’m assuming you’re not going for fixits for this event, but legends canon compliant stories. So as an example, Biggs Darklighter surviving the Death Star run would be to much of a legends canon divergence. So the charcter Waxer who died in the legends part of Clone Wars would be to much of a fixit.

First — thank you for the ask! We’re excited that folks are interested in this event and want to know more details.

First question: Yes, as mentioned toward the beginning of the Overview post, the target length for fics is between 5,000 - 10,000 words.

Second question: Clone Wars is, as you mention, a bit murky given that it sort of straddles Legends and new canon. In general, it’s fine to use Clone Wars characters from Legends in your fic as long as they were conceivably still alive during the timeframe for this event (six months prior to the Battle of Yavin through six months after the Battle of Endor). For our purposes, “Legends-era Clone Wars” would be anything from Clone Wars that was released prior to the establishment of the old EU as Star Wars Legends; if the character has a “Legends” Wookieepedia tab and was alive during the 6 months BBY - 5 ABY timeframe, they’re eligible.

In terms of character details, if you want to add flavor by using details we learned about them in new canon, that’s okay as long as it doesn’t contradict anything from their Legends characterization or backstory. So for instance, Wedge Antilles appears in both Legends and in new canon, but for this event you’d want to use the version of his backstory that we hear in Legends, not the version we see in Star Wars Rebels.

Third question: This really comes down to what is in the spirit of the event: to tell stories of the OT time period “from a Legends point of view,” that is, from the perspectives of Legends characters and events. In general, we’d advise being very careful with anything you’d think of as a “fix-it,” as the purpose isn’t so much to fix or change the story as it is to tell stories of the OT era from different perspectives (or to tell new stories about characters who only get a passing mention or moment in the OT, or who show up in later Legends materials but were alive and active during the OT).

As we mention in the FAQ for the event, some canon divergence for this event is okay, and we’re not going to be super strict about adherence to Legends canon in many cases, especially for those moments that happen in the books or comics that often contradicted one another. However, a fix-it where someone who clearly died before the OT in Legends is now back from the dead would not be in the spirit of the event. And we’re definitely stricter about events that we see onscreen in the movies; stories in which Biggs or Porkins survives the Death Star run, where Dak survives Hoth, where the Rebels don’t get caught in a trap on Endor the first time they try to take down the shield generator, would be outside the guidelines. There are ways to incorporate your faves that could still fit, however — If you want a surviving clone to remember their squadmate Waxer, or Luke and Wedge to swap Biggs Darklighter stories that happened before the OT, for instance.

If you have more questions, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Grunts, gasps and moans of Final Fantasy 7 Remake review

My absolutely spoiler free review / thoughts about the game followed with under the cut spoiler “review” where I give my thoughts on the story which I absolutely forbid you from reading before you are done with the game.

Do realize that the under the cut spoiler section will have full spoilers not just for the remake but for the original Final Fantasy 7.

However the initial spoiler free review will go in depth to the game systems, so if you want to learn those on your own you would better skip the whole post.

Meat of the game (Combat system)

The game has an active battle system similar to Final Fantasy XV or Kingdom Hearts games but feels much more refined. You can play the game as hack and slash on easier difficulties, but the normal difficulty (with hard being unlocked ones you finish the game) tests your knowledge of the system at times.

By landing hits on enemies or just by waiting you fill your ATB (Active time battle) gauge and once you have enough of it you can do special attacks and use spells or items. This makes some moments quite tense when you are on low health and need to fill ATB by rushing in and lands bunch of hits in quick succession to be able to heal your character before they get killed.

You can also skip the active time battle by setting the difficulty to “classic” when the AI takes over your characters who automatically attack, dodge and guard against attacks while you can focus on just giving commands on what abilities, spells or items they should use when ATB meter is up. If you think your the AI isn’t doing good enough job you can take control at anytime and the overall difficulty of “classic” mode is same as easy.

You can equip skills, spells and active buffs by equipping materia, which are items that grant these skills. The characters aren’t able to use those skills if materia is unequipped, so you have to choose what works best for you.

On top of the materia system you have different weapons that give your characters different abilities. Using the said abilities they can learn them and can then use them even when the weapon is changed.

You take control of multiple characters and you are able to switch between them on the fly whenever you wish in combat. Each character feels different to play and have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Only negative I would have is that targeting system can be at times a bit fickle and camera occasionally can be fighting against you when trying to hit enemies who are above ground level. This is more of a nitpick than a real problem.

The combat system is great and has enough depth to carry a full game.

Grunts, gasps and moans (Audio)

This game suffers the same problem as most of the console games. There isn’t really a sweet spot for audio to be perfect. Music can swallow the dialogue or the other way around, the side dialogue can swallow the main dialogue etc.

If you haven’t guessed the title of my review comes from the audio problems the game has. The grunts, gasps and moans can at times be way too loud and just distracting. For example when character is clearly far in the background you can hear them grunt as if they were doing it right agaisnt your ear.

From let’s plays (and my own experience) the side dialogue heard by random characters on the streets are a bit too loud and distracting. None of these things isn’t anything that ruins the experience but it is a bit annoying.

What did you expect (Music)

Music is done by Nobuo Uematsu, along with Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki. It is amazing and among one of my favorite video game soundtracks.

Everyone is so pretty and hot (Graphics / visuals)

Graphics of this game are unreal, every character is so pretty, lighting is on point and the art direction is great. They made trash look interesting in HD and that is saying much.. Though there are few times when you see low textures or even the infamous doors that are impossible to miss and look like they didn’t load correctly or just miss proper textures. This again is more of a nitpick and not a real problem.

Everyone is so nice and wholesome (Characters)

All the characters are likable and charming on their own way. The banter between the cast members is done really well and no one feels under utilized. Some side characters may be way over the top and anime if you don’t like that kind of thing but that again is down to your own taste. At first I had a bit of a trouble accepting some but I grew to like all them in the end.

Good guys are good and villains are villains. I like them all.

Final thoughts

The game is quite amazing on all fronts but at times it can feel a bit bloated and drag on during some sections though this is mostly down to your own opinion. Personally I didn’t feel the sections drag on in more than two points of the game when I felt the pacing was a bit too slow for what was going on (The other case being just feeling that area was stretched out and other a pacing issue for what was going on with the story).

I overall recommend the game if you are s fan of JRPGs, but as a remake of FF7 it is quite different and can be good or bad depending on how you like it. Though I will say that if you expected the marketed remake of the original story with expanded bits.. It simply isn’t it.

With that out of the way under the cut is the spoiler review and my thoughts on the story of the game. Do not read it unless you have played the game or just don’t give a f*** about full spoilers.

Here I will put up my thoughts on the full story and go deeper into certain scenes that has been added or altered from the original. Please know that these are my personal opinions and if you disliked something that I liked or that I disliked something you liked is fine, no hate coming from me so don’t toss it my way! Feel free to hit me up in instant messages if you want to discuss stuff.

The Avalanche gang

The side characters from the Avalanche have been greatly expanded upon and all of it is good, while Jessie got the most of it and I honestly don’t mind that.

We get a whole new side adventure with the gang which makes sense as part of the bigger plot and gives the characters time to shine. This also makes the emotional punch later on feel much more effective.

Train graveyard and spooky ghosts

This part that is added with Aerith’s backstory being expanded by just a small glimpse and having the characters run around with spooky ghosts is good.. But it is placed in the worst place when considering the full narrative.

At this time the characters are running towards Sector 7 to prevent the plate from falling on +50 000 people and to have a prolonged part with ghosts makes takes away from the build up and the agency of the moment. If this spooky ghost part would have been done in any other point of the story it would have been fine but now it drags on the part of the game that should feel intense.

Use of Sephiroth

PTSD / ghost appearances

I was all aboard for Sephiroth being a haunting ghost for Cloud with the worst case of PTSD. The only scene I would have cut from him would have been the first meeting with Aerith where he feels really out of place for me and the “you can’t save anyone” taunt talk would have been better used right before the plate fall instead of being used as a “hey, you remember Aerith is gonna die” moment that is just eh.

I especially loved the moment right after the plate fall when Cloud freaks out as Sephiroth taunts how he just let all those people die and all the others see is him freaking out because of nothing.

Final moments

To have him as a final boss of the game is just... Please, can’t you save anything at all for the end of the story? We already had our final boss of the whole remake story I guess. Overall in the end when they stopped using Sephiroth as a haunting ghost and turned him into a random big bad of the story, where he literally has no place in even with the changed narrative, is just quite lame for me personally and it felt like he was overused.

Shinra board of directors

All the villains are great. None of them is toned down and they clearly love what they do just as they did in the original game. Scarlett was a bit over the top but to be fair I always got the insane dominatrix vibes from her so it works. Hojo is absolutely delight on how creepy and off putting he is.

The changed story with them using the reactor bombings and the plate fall not to just turn the people against Avalanche but to sell a war to their civilians against Wutai is really well done and I’m excited to see where it goes.

The TURKS

The TURKS are all portrayed as they have always been. Great stuff.

Roche

Roche is a bit too over the top but he is way too fabulous not to like as a frenemy. It took a bit for me to warm up to him but I think he is a great addition. Though I think it is a missed opportunity not to have him have a second appearance at the very end during the motorcycle escape.

The Honey Bee inn

The Honey Bee inn might very well be one of my favorite gaming moments of my life. It is whimsical, way over the top and fabulous not to like. What I like the most of it is the fact they didn’t turn it into a harmful scene or a joke that might hurt the people who crossdress or fight with their gender identity.

I love the fact that they go as far as have the character in game state that one should always be who they are without fear and the beauty is something that the gender does not apply to.

However the cat calling on the streets for Aerith and Cloud was a bit too much and uncomfortable and the follow up sleeping gass scene, that was added instead of having the charcters just lead to the basement, was too real.

The plate fall and the aftermath

The plate fall event was quite spectacular and great overall. However I do think that Square has lost their touch on what the tone of certain scenes should be with the random appearance of Cait Sith (that will be just wtf moment for new comers who have no context for a cat with a crown) when everything goes down. It is really short glimpse but it was more than enough to take me out of the emotional impact and just make me groan.

It also took me a great attempt on suspension of disbelief to have Wedge survive the ordeal, but I managed it and accepted it. However as much as I wished for Biggs to survive I can’t suspend my disbelief so much. They had him die in front of the gang and if he somehow just passed out and they were silly enough to leave him behind (which I doubt they would have done) they had him be on the pillar that was destroyed beyond any recognition.. So yeah.. It truly does a disservice for the whole emotional impact of the plate fall and overall experience when the plot armor is so damn thick.

I mean right now I’m at the point of thinking that Jessie is alive because she “died” just like Biggs and if he survived so should she, right?

I really wish they would have had the guts to pull the trigger on the characters like they did in the original or at least write sensible ways to have some of the characters survive.

Jenova

I think they downplayed the horror aspect of Jenova and revealed too much too soon. There is no more a nightmare fuel scene in the game where you get to go through the eerie quiet Shinra building with bodies here and there with a blood trail and claw marks on the walls. Now it is simply reduced to following a spooky juice that might be purple glowing blood.

As fun as the boss battle against the Jenova was it felt out of place and confusing. I generally feel that the creators thought that they just had to cram Jenova fight in there and couldn’t wait for it to happen later or have Jenova get their proper introduction later on.

Rufus

Rufus, while he looks absolutely stunning, is downplayed. Now he is simply reduced to a random boss battle that is sudden and he has no real character introduction like he did in the original. Even his lines were given to Heidegger who had at this point been well established so this choice just feels bizarre. I realize he wouldn’t have much of a role here anyway but now Rufus didn’t even get a proper introduction for going forward.

Last bosses and Zack

The whole section that starts from the moment the gang stops on the highway and have Aerith give random speech how Sephiroth is bad and they should stop him and all, even without establishing why he is bad or who he is in the remake or how Aerith knows about him at all. Going forward it becomes a confused mess and the boss feels so out of place by being something that should have been in Kingdom Hearts instead of FF7 which is (or was) grounded on reality rather well up until the ending parts of the game.

They also give rather confusing scenes of Zack at the end with no context to anything that is happening until the very last scene of the whole game which I don’t mind.. But have Zack appear out of nowhere and not explaining it at all feels like a chep try for nostalgia and not much else.

However have him appear and walk past Cloud and Aerith as they head out of Midgar was great and could have worked if there wasn’t any additional scenes of him. To have this mystery character with Cloud to head towards Midgar at the end of the game would have been a great hook for the new comers but now it is just... It is what it is, I guess.

Constant spoilers

The game is littered with scenes of Cloud seeing to the “future” (who know how that will go now). Some of these are more subtle than others but some scenes are flat out spoilers that aren’t difficult to figure out by new comers.

I just don’t agree with this spoiler culture and it took me out of the experience at times, though I think that new comers have less of a problem with that if they won’t figure out what certain things mean..?

What absolutely felt too much was flat out showing Aerith dead in a flash forward, the meteor and destruction of Midgar of all things. Just stop.

The whispers

I absolutely hate this addition and before anyone loses their mind let me explain. The floating cloak people make some scenes cringe worthy (like them kidnapping Cloud and Aerith to have them fly away from Reno in comical manner) and they add absolutely nothing to the flow of the story.

For example the whispers prevent the characters from stopping Rude and Reno from making the plate fall... There was no need for them. They could have just had them fail without some “propfetic ghosts who make sure people die because that is how the story must go”. All the moments they “forced the story” to go certain way could have literally happened without them and without them it would have flowed much better.

They have Barret die for a moment just to bring him back by the whispers because his part in the story isn’t done yet. This is a cheap attempt for a tear jerker and takes away all the worry if he will be okay or not going forward for the new comers to FF7 since they wouldn’t raise him from the dead just to kill him off later.

They save the gang during the motorcycle scene multiple times just to make sure to dissolve whatever tension there is left by reassuring us that “hey our gang is safe because that is how the story goes”. They could have had them survive on their own.

Overall every time the whispers were on the screen they took me out of the experience first by just having me react by going “wtf are you doing here” and just made intense moments feel less so.. And now that I know what they were supposed to do I just think “all that would have gone down anyway” and “You literally gave plot armor a living form”? Not to mention that how they were included, would I agree or not (which I don’t) on their inclusion, they are written in the most cringy and poor fanfiction-y kind of way.

They apparently are the arbiters of fate which protect the original story of FF7 and by defeating them we can propably now have Aerith live and change everything. They are just used to give Square a permission to not just remake the game with modern gameplay, graphics and expand the original story but to flat out remake the whole story to something else. I can’t get over the fact they added time travel of all things to FF7.

I can't stand the fact that the whispers don't add anything to the narrative since without their involment everything would have happened naturally anyway. On top of that because of their "involment" to the story the narrative of FF7 Remake doesn't stand on its own by for example showing Zack with absolutely no context to anything, that even ruins his most iconic scenes that are used in the remake and Sephiroth ends up being "this bad guy who killed Cloud's mom and wants to destroy the planet for reasons that aren't explained at all and he apparently knows everything about the timeline" so even him being the big bad of the remake is just nonsensical when he isn't given proper context for anything that is going on. We simply have Aerith go "Sephiroth is bad and should be stopped" and we don't even get reasons why Aerith knows about him at all. The newcomers to the series have a remake of a game that doesn't stand as its own story without them knowing everything about the original game. They are just an excuse to have a justification for Square Enix to change the story going forward to whatever they want and after seeing how cringe worthy the whispers were I'm legit afraid the follow ups will be bad case of fanfiction.

I really, really hate that after playing through a long and arguably an amazing remake I’m left with bad taste in my mouth which stains all the great moments I had with it as all I will remember is how bad the ending turned out to be.

...I really hate to say this but the whispers act like a marketing scam. The game that was sold to us was a remake of a classic with expanded story but now what we have is retcon / reboot to turn it to who knows what going forward. Maybe what we will have in the future is amazing but I’m a bit sore after this.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a game that I loved 90% through but unfortunately I loathe the last 10% which is enough to take me out of the experience. Not to mention that 10% is more imporant to the mess of a story we now have than what happened in the rest of the game and it has such great implications on what will happen to the future parts of the remake.. So yeah.

...I just don’t agree and I legit have a fear this will turn into bad fanfiction going forward. I hope this will turn out not to be that way but the fear of it is real.

Seekers - Monday 25th November 2019

Today we began a new brief called ‘Seekers’ which is a combination of our previous breifs. The aims of this brief is to analyse research and evaluate 2D problems and solutions, in this case being having to work out and create things on our own with having as little help as possible to prove our own  independence and problem solving skills. Another aim would be to be able to intergrate and attempt different approches during this task to widen our understanding and skills during this new brief. 

The topic of this brief is ‘Fantasy’ I'm extremely excited to start working on this as i have many ideas already running through my head and i can't wait to get the out on paper and start to bring them to life. Once i was told about this brief i was extremely excited as its something in interested in very much since a majority of my inspirations and shows i find fun and interesting, are all under the umbrella/ category of fantasy 

some key words that could help me understand this brief more could be:

- protagonist: the leading/ main character in a story, normally a happy spirit who only sees the best in people or are too nice for there own good. they make all the key calls and decisions thus leading to all the relevant story plots to help them get better leading to situations and consequences (both good and bad) to benefit the character. an example of this type of character could be, izuku midoryira from my hero academia or atsuko kagari from little with academia.

- antagonist: a character that actively opposes or is hostile to the protagonist or  toward something that generally positive. they are normally the character that opposes or defies the protagonist in every/ most situations. an example of this type of character could be akutagawa ryunosuke from bungos stray dogs or isabelle and sister krone from the promised neverland

- archetype: any story/ character element that appears over and over in similar stories and plots, that ultimately revolve around the protagonist in some way. an amazing exapmle of many charcter archetypes could be shown in the anime ‘The Disasterous Life of Saiki K’ where you as the audience is constantly being greeted by many different types of charcters such as Terushima Kokomi who is portrayed as a the perfect girl in the school who just so happens to fall for the most average guy in the school (Kusuo Saiki) the main chararacter/ protagonist, who doesn’t return his felling for her.

- quest: (kwest) coming from the latin word ‘questa’ meaning to search/ go on a journey to achieve a goal of some sort that benefits the main character/ protagonist. an example of this could be in the promised neverland which shows us, the audience, emma, ray and norman (the main protagonists) go on a quest to change a promise made thousands of years before their birth between demons and humans.

- fantasy: an implied and acted on imaginary world/ living and unliving being created from tales, rumours and family legends, normally created and told to invoke certain feelings like fear, joy and excitment that are not real. some examples of this could be the movie ‘Ponyo’ and ‘Spririted Away’ both created by Studio Ghibli which showcase charcaters who transfrom from humans to animals or vice versa aswell as supernatural beings.

As I mentioned earlier, this breif is a combination of our preivious briefs:

- Pick + Mix (brief one)

This is linked to our new and current brief as were tasked to create a character to fit the brief nicely as we are technically challenged to channel the unconscious mind again by creating characters that aren't real (eg; ores, witches, demons and familiars) just like how we had to channel our unconscious mind and create some anthropomorphic characters in our first brief. We’re also told to create model sheets and turnarounds for our new character(s) once again linking with our pick and mix brief where we created turnarounds of our finished character and looked at model sheets and how they're used in the animation industry.

- Movers + Shakers (brief two) 

By trying to achieve fluid animations of our created characters at the end this ties back to our most recent brief where we we challenged to create some rotoscoped animations (for more information about rotoscoping in animation, see previous posts) from live videos as well as old footage dating back to the early 1890s with the works of Eadward Muybride like the famous ‘Horse in Motion’ and other works featuring other animals such as cats, dogs and monkeys. This like to our current work as we’re expected to create animations of our characters and create the illusion of movement with them in many scenarios and in their own world and such. This also links as during this brief (movers and shakers) we were also tasked to research on other people who interest us and have something to do with our brief. For this current brief (seekers) we have been told that again but we’re to rely more heavily on it since we all have different types of quests and goals were tying to achieve. 

if you want: slice-of-life / some really sweet romance without much drama / insight into manga creation and getting serialised / mostly realistic characters

Bakuman came out in 2011, around the time I actually started watching some anime on the internet and created my MAL. The premise itself was interesting to me even back then but the main reason I remember being excited about this is because it was created by the duo behind Death Note. Well, I sure am glad I only just watched this now.

Why? Because I’m almost completely sure that I would’ve expected something vaguely similiar to Death Note. Not the same, obviously, the premise was just too different but Bakuman has basically 0 similiarities to their first work besides the artstyle but even that is a bit different. 

Bakuman follows 2 high school boys, Takagi and Mashiro, as they try to make their dream of being mangakas a reality. They’re unique as they work as a duo, much like the creators themselves. This also creates an interesting situation where the viewer might wonder what is complete fiction and what is something that actually happened to the mangakas themselves.

The anime dives heavily into the subject, manga creation. Almost the entirety of the anime is taking up by the boys coming up with stories, drawing, submitting their work for critisism and then waiting on the result by the editing department. This is tricky, and even I worried that the anime was going to lose steam after the first 2 mangas were finished but it didn’t. The pair starts out almost completely from the bottom and we see them improve and achieve victories step by step, making every new creation feel somewhat fresh and unique. 

The first half of Bakuman mostly just has our main duo and their love interests. It’s very...shoujo-ey which I really wasn’t expecting. The romance is a bit cliché and overtly dramatic for my tastes but most slice-of-life fans enjoy that kinda stuff so I won’t say much more. To me, it was the latter half of the anime where it really picked up as we’re introduced to multiple rival mangakas who have the same dream as our main characters. All of the characters feel unique and their interactions and dynamics are refreshing to watch.

Bakuman does have some drawbacks. After their first manga, we don’t get much insight into the works Takagi and Mashiro make later on which I thought was a missed opportunity. The female characters all feel a bit weak compared to the male ones and could’ve been expanded upon much more. There’re many time jumps but we don’t really know about it just when the charcters drop info about how much time has passed in conversations which was a bit confusing. Later on they do start showing the dates on the screen but I wished they started doing that earlier. The music if fine but felt a bit too energetic and wild for the things we were seeing on screen.

Bakuman is a fine anime for slice-of-life lovers who’re interested in the world of mangakas. Don’t get discouraged by my score. As much as I had good time with Bakuman, SOL just really isn’t my genre so this is the best I can give. [7/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things) / Slice-of-Life / raging lesbians (but they’re babies so it’s cute) / human obsessed with vampire dynamic 

"Ms. vampire who lives in my neighborhood.” is a very cute CGDCT SOL with a shitton of yuri “subtext”. 

Our set-up is that Akari wonders into a forest at night, in search of a haunted “dollhouse” her classmate told her about. There, she meets Sophie out on her daily stroll and she introduces herself as a vampire. Akari is fucking HYPED and immediately attaches herself to Sophie and then moves in with her. From then on we see the cast going about their mundane daily lives with the vampire aspect mixed in to make something interesting.

So, why did I put the subtext in quotiation marks? Well, our main cast consists of 2 vampires, Ellie and Sophie, and 2 humans, Akari and Hinata. Yuu and Sakuya, the 2 humans classmates and friends show up at times as well. And they’re all. lesbians. Harold!

Akari is completely smitten by Sophie and her doll-like complexion and is just absolutely in love with her. Hinata, Akari’s childhood friend, is in soft baby lesbian love with her best friend, constantly fantasizing about Akari’s attention towards her. Ellie, Sophie’s long time vampire friend, cannot stop talking about “young healthy looking maidens” and how much she wants to suck their blood. And when it comes to our 2 background characters, Sakuya is really in love with Yuu and keeps blushing around her when she says SoFt things. The only person who seemingly doesn’t care about all the lesbian nonesense going on is Sophie as she is just trying to be a Big Weeb in peace but even her has some soft moments.

So usually we’d be smacking a huge Shoujo Ai tag on this but alas it remains subtext as the recipients of the affection are oblivious to it and so there’s nothing to bring this from “girls love as fanservice” to “actual girls love”. Which is a shame imo but if you don’t go in expecting anything serious in that department you’ll be fine.

The art isn’t anything incredible but remains consistent and well-drawn throughout the whole thing. The music didn’t leave any lasting impression but it’s typical for this genre. If you like CGDCT and SOL and don’t mind some girls being smitten by other girls, you’ll enjoy this a lot! While I found the characters charming and loveable, again, SOL isn’t my genre so I had some trouble not falling asleep during episodes. But if you like this kind of stuff, I 100% recommend! [6/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

Nuvali Review

Last October 23, me and my family decided to go to Nuvali as a post birthday celebration of our Thatha’s 8th Birthday. We live somewhere in Batangas and Nuvali is in Sta. Rosa Laguna. We want our celebrant to have new experience and as he wanted to ride a boat, Nuvali came to my mind immediately. It’s all our first time visiting except for my mom who went with her friends before. 

From where we live it’s a few hours away from Tanauan, Batangas. We rode the Balibago bound jeep beside Greenwich Tanauan. The fare was less than P50 per person. From Balibago Complex, we rode a jeepney again bound to Tagaytay. Fare was less than P30 per person. It’s quite a ride too from the Balibago Complex (akala ko malapit na from there!)

A bit of info about Nuvali.

NUVALI is the country’s first and largest eco-city development, built on the principles of sustainable design. A project of Ayala Land, NUVALI is a 2,290-hectare mixed-use development that straddles the cities of Sta. Rosa, Cabuyao and Calamba in Laguna. This integrated self-supporting eco-city is home to a vast gathering of residential communities, business spaces including the LEED silver certified NUVALI One Evotech, prestigious schools, shopping centers, and the 150-room Seda Hotel. As a veritable stomping ground for outdoor adventure enthusiasts, NUVALI offers nature amenities such as its 35-kilometer mountain bike trail, a multi-functional lake, hiking paths, a wildlife and bird sanctuary, and Camp N teambuilding and camping grounds.

COPIED FROM THE WEBSITE. 

http://nuvali.ph

We arrived in Nuvali by 12:30pm. We crossed the road coz Nuvali is on the other side of the road. We walked a bit and there we can see the rails by the lake.

Our Thatha was so excited he wanted to feed the fishes immediately. 

That is our Thatha buying fish feeds. Above him are the prices of the feeds and the boat ride.

Rails where you can feed the fishes.

He was jumping up and down with happiness  while feeding the fishes. 

these are the fishes. Consists of Kois, Tilapias and Bangus? Haha not sure. But I thinks they are so crowded especially when there are people feeding them. I encouraged Thatha to throw the feeds far from the rails so they don’t crowd below the dock. You can literally hear their smackings and flapping of fins and tails haha.

After feeding the fishes (we saved the other feed for later feeding before we went home), we rode the boat. It’s P40/person and we are only 5. My mom was in a hurry coz she’s hungry so we paid for 6 persons which is their minimum passenger in the boat. 

The employees are polite. They helped us get on the boat. There are no lines yet but they seemed to be in a hurry coz we are not properly seated yet and some of us are not done putting our life vest but they sped on hahaha.

The ride was amazing, it’s only a 10 minute ride but I’m happy as our Thatha enjoyed it.

And then we are so hungry we decided to eat at Crisostomo’s which is only in a few steps from the boat and lake. 

Their desserts are superb and the names of the food in their menu are unique. Derived from old names and some of them are mentioned in Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. NO wonder since this Restaurant is called Crisostomo’s. The main Charcter in Rizal’s novels. 

Cool huh?

We went to Kidzoona next as I found out the night before they have it in Nuvali, A bit like Kidzania but much smaller and cheaper also. Kidzoona is a bit far from the lake and we got lost as we are directed by the staff of a restaurant in the other side of Nuvali. Guards in Solenade are helpful. Especially the guard of BDO. Mind if I mention he look good too. Hihi. ^_^

Kidzoona is located in Solenade 3. A pain to find if it’s your first time in Nuvali like us hahaha.

After spending almost 2 hours in Kidzoona (will post another review on that soon) we went in the lake side to have our picnic. My mom and others went to Robinsons Supermarket to buy snacks. 

It would be perfect if not for the drizzling rain. And the ‘Hantik/s’ haha. We lay out our mat under a tree coz it’s drizzling already. We are eating our snacks when we are attacked by Red Big Ants. Haha. So we changed location. We moved near the bank of the lake. There are bikers and other people having picnics despite the rain.

A couple under the tree. They are laughing so hard later on.

We went back to the lake to feed the fishes again and to ride the boat (again) but it’s late already so after feeding the Kois we decided to go home.

We had a great time in Nuvali. It’s far from our place yes, but the place is very relaxing and amazing it’s worth it. I wish there is a place like Nuvali near us so we don’t have to travel all the way to Santa Rosa (nakakaubos ng Chakra ang biyahe haha)

Thank you for reading my Review of Nuvali, Til next time. Annyeong!

Of Decisions and Dungeons...

Our characters reached level 5! Exciting times for my wizard character with a reputation for burning everything in sight... It feels like we’ve levelled up really quickly recently, compared to at the start. Not that I’m going to complain, because things are getting even more interesting. I’m looking forward to experiencing more of the world that the DM has created. It’s clear that they really enjoy coming up with interesting characters and new ideas, down to tiny (sometimes really bizarre) details about the furnishings or the food and drink, and that helps with our immersion in the story. Being a very visual person, I appreciate that effort. They also enjoy putting on funny voices and mannerisms, which gets everyone playing along. Being a newbie, I have little prior experience, and I stay out of the monster manual, because I’d like to enjoy surprises without spoiling myself.  I do sometimes read people’s blogs about DMing, mainly because they make you realise how much effort and passion people put into crafting an intricate story for their friends. And in turn that helps me appreciate our game more. The sheer amount of effort people put in, every session, is humbling. The main thing I struggle with is simply time; when it’s been a few weeks since our last game, and I’ve forgotten basics that my character would clearly remember (because they happened an hour ago, or are hugely important to them), and I’m devising fast ways of taking notes that remind me of the most salient details. That even includes things like my character’s motivations; recently I’ve changed my journal to not only include her thoughts about her party mates, but also what her aims and thoughts are, in the short term and longterm. Because every session I’ll think of something that she would want to ask, or is thinking about. In some ways this is even more important tha remembering the names of the villages we’ve been to, or the names of our antagonists, because it helps me develop the charcter from one session to the next. I’ve also realised that our characters have yet to share a lot about themselves with each other. And we operate a reasonably conservative policy about each other’s character sheets, so I don’t know much about some of the characters at all. I don’t even know what class our newest party members is! I look forward to a little more roleplay and finding out about the characters now that they’ve established some bonds. Although I thought my character was pretty well fleshed out when I started (as well as you can be at first level), I’m realising new things about how they see and respond to the world, and it’s interesting how much you develop them as they go along. I’m happy for my character to do things that I wouldn’t do in real life (or wouldn’t approve of; there are some pretty questionable decisions... she’s a lot less mature than she thinks she is), as long as it makes sense with her own internal logic.  I hope these are actions that her party can accept, though we love some drama, and we usually play well of each other’s actions. At the very least, I think all of us as players should make sure the other players are OK with the direction of things. I don’t believe in being that one player who is always doing the opposite of what veryone else wants, and I’m a little afraid of accidentally being that person. Because I want everyone to have fun. We’ve gained a new party member, and his character seems interesting, I really like  the dynamic starting to develop, and I think their player is having fun playing them. However, they aren’t yet trusted by the rest of the party.  We’ve just experienced the violent death of one of their friends at the hands of random strangers, and the party get set upon every so often by sinister enemy forces. As you’d expect. It’s absolutely reasonable that the flirty new party member who happens to say “oh, I happen to be heading in the same direction, can I come along?” is a little suspicious. Nobody  wants the group dynamic of ‘don’t trust that one party member’ (the player even jokingly commented “Oh great, I’m the Ted Bundy of the group!” because we didn’t trust his character to stand watch alone), and my PC is particularly un-trusting. Obviously, on my part,I don’t want one of us to feel like they aren’t really in the party, because team hijinks are more fun when everybody is included.  And yet, it would make no sense for a bunch of people who frequently get attacked by shady forces to instantly trust someone they’ve literally just met, who has so far done nothing much for them. Once we see them in action, if they fight on our side, I’m sure they’ll earn some trust... I think it’d make sense for our chatacters to let up a little after that. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward keeping making bad (but plausible) decisions...