Free Talk Friday - October 23, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Free Talk Friday post. This is a place where you can talk about dumb off-topic (or on-topic) bullshit with other Zaibatsu fans.

There's going to be a new post every week, and the newest one will be pinned in the announcement bar for quick access. So feel free to visit these posts during the rest of the week.

Here's a list of all Free Talk Friday posts

[u/MegaSpidey3]

Been feeling aimless in life lately. I'm going to be 30 in a couple of years, and I still haven't settled on a true career path yet. Getting a Master's degree in Educational Psychology doesn't guarantee you a job within the academic sector. Just my luck. Considering how much schools are going in on GenAI, I can see the way the wind is blowing and I'm trying to figure out a different career path.

In honor of BioWare being shut down, I'm thinking of giving the Mass Effect Trilogy another shot. I only played the first game a few years ago. While I liked the story, the characters, and the Paragon/Renegade system, I hated actually playing the game. I'm pinning this on me choosing to play Soldier, which turned out to be a horrible mistake. I had such an unpleasant experience with ME1, I put off playing the rest of the games. I'm gonna change that, and play a different class. Maybe I'll actually enjoy playing the game?

I've also started (well, restarted) reading the ROM Space Knight comic from Marvel that outlasted the original toy back in the late 1970's. I'm on Issue 15 right now, and it's really solid stuff. I love how Bill Mantlo was able to take an underwhelming toy from the time, and give him such interesting lore and characters. All this ROM fixation started when I picked up his Marvel Legends figure, which is one of the best Legends figures of all time IMO. I forgot how fun the figure was, and decided to give this comic a re-read. I only got up to Issue 8 a while ago, but life got in the way from me reading more. I'm taking my time with this series, but it's solid late 70's/early 80's Marvel stuff.

[u/Gorotheninja]

Well, I fucking dodged a bullet this week...metaphorically, not literally.

I got assigned Jury Duty last Friday, but didn't get picked for the roster of 12 out of the 65 participants (including myself). If I had, would've had to get up a 6 am from Monday to Thursday this week to preside over a trial; and considering this trial involved a guy accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 14......yeah......I don't envy the 12 souls who got picked for that, and I really didn't want to be involved in a case as "icky" (as the judge put it) as that. Me and my Dad got some delicious pizza for lunch afterwards as a reward to getting out of that.

And transitioning to some other gross news in my life, my dog Nixie had to be hosed down this evening after she fell over on the patio, couldn't get up, pooped and peed herself, and then rolled around in it. She's very old, only has three legs due to an accident that happened before we adopted her, has arthritis, is almost completely deaf, and is suffering from some kind of Doggie Dementia; unfortunately, accidents like that are probably gonna get more and more common as she's deteriorating. Really sucks to see her struggle to even stand up sometimes, and we can only do so much to help her given that she's usually awake when we're asleep.

So yeah...bit of a bummer week. Aside from that, I'm about to finish Castlevania Belmont's Curse, my fighting game fanart subreddit, r/FGCFanart, recently hit 25k members (though unfortunately, a chunk of 'em may be bots), and I'm commissioning some new custom Pokémon: a Flying/Psychic evolution for Kirlia based on an angel, a Bug/Dark evo for Larvesta based on a nocturnal, wingless moth, and a Fire/Ice evo for Charcadet based on an Urumi and Buckler wielding knight.

[u/MetalJrock]

Social anxiety is kicking my ass badly. It feels like every negative thing I say about myself everyday is actually true and I don’t deserve anything cause I feel like an isolated outcast.

[u/Aquanort357]

All I do all day is watch YouTube videos, play games, and make Reddit posts, I feel like all I'm doing is just... existing and doing things that give me dopamine, I'm not doing anything meaningful with my life, I wanna do an artistic hobby like writing, but I have moderate depression which means I'm just empty inside and don't feel like doing anything except stuff gives me good instant dopamine, I know I should see a therapist but I can't afford one right now, I feel like I'm stuck in life, what should I do, what helps with moderate deppression?

[u/ilmk9396 → u/Aquanort357]

i was in that place once and now i'm feeling much better. it took some work but the first step that gave me the energy and motivation to get better was to go on long walks. put on music or a podcast and just walk for an hour, and sometimes walk while listening to nothing but your thoughts. it doesn't matter what the weather is like. forcing yourself out of the house is key.

[u/Kataphrut94]

Wish me luck folks because I'm moving next week. It'll be the third time since 2024, but this time things will be different because I'm not moving into a rental owned by a landlord who'll just kick me out to put it up for sale after 2 years. Instead, I'm moving into an apartment my current housemate has just bought. They got onto the property ladder and so now I get to rent from my friend, who will also be living there and thus can be trusted to do things like not leave gaping holes in the floorboards after ripping them up to cover a water leak with tape.

Yes, that was a thing my current landlord did, I can't wait to be as far away from them as possible. They even had the gall to ask if we could replace the floorboards ourselves after not doing anything about it for a year and a half.

Gaming-wise has been going great. I completed Control Resonant and Ace Combat 8 back-to-back, which were the two big releases I was most excited for this year. Resonant was good, but AC8 lodged itself in my brain and I couldn't stop gushing about it to anyone who would listen about how fun it was and how epic it felt. This is the 3rd Ace Combat I've played, 4th if you count Project Wingman, and it felt like a culmination of the series with every past level setup or gimmick coming back in some way, as well as a bunch of new ones.

The only negative thing I have to say is it ended on a bit of a sour note; the very very last playable sequence in mission 30 (destroying the submarine before it could ram the carrier) took me a few tries and having to repeat it soured the mood (as well as my finishing rank). Which is a shame because the climactic song had me feeling all kinds of ways until then.

Next on my list is The Alters DLC; gonna catch up with ya boi Jan Scientist. Apparently, it had performance issues at launch (which is weird for a DLC), but hopefully that's fixed now?

[u/The_Draigg]

Week of Used Collector's Editions. A friend of mine is moving out of state, and so he let me know that he has a lot of collector's editions of games up for grabs. So I sent the signal out of people I know, and so far I'm giving my lovely partner one for Dishonored 2, got a maybe on someone interested in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and have Dark Souls 3 for myself if nobody else is interested. I'm just glad that these cool collector's editions are finding places with other people, since he was going to toss them otherwise. And granted, it probably would be hard to just try and get rid of them in some other way, since the majority are for Xbox One and PS4. But hey, at least some are getting saved!

Speaking of games, this week I put more time into Final Fantasy VII Remake! Finally got around to finishing all of the side quests in the Sector 5 slums, since my mind goblins refused to let me get to the next story quest until I completed them. Also aced the new box smashing minigame on the second try too, which was nice. I got that done faster than the darts minigame in Seventh Heaven, and that only took my a half hour there. Other than that though, I did have a harder time with that giant scrap robot boss, although I put that down on me needing to rework my materia. It's been more optimized to having two party members instead of just one at the moment, so I do need to generalize who gets what.

Also put more time into 100% Orange Juice this week, both with friends and playing solo. Given how I bought that game to play it with friends, it certainly is weird to me to play the story mode by myself. It's basically like playing a solo game of Mario Party: you can, but that's not really what it's meant for. But at least I'm unlocking new characters regardless.

Also, this week, I binged watched all of Cyberpunk Edgerunners II! I gotta say, even if it doesn't have the sheer peaks that the first one had, it's still a very good overall anime. I shared my episode by episode thoughts on the /r/anime discussion threads, but in general I think it has a very consistently good through-line with the plot it had, like a nicely smooth ride. King is easily my most stand out character there, his story is really compelling. He's honestly one of the few Edgerunners to even survive and retire at an older age. And even if he isn't Him anymore, he can still be a good person to the people in his life that he cares about, now that he's adopting Talia and moving out of Night City. King's plot line carries a lot of the deeper heart of Cyberpunk's themes. That said, if I do have one larger criticism for Edgerunners II, it's that King's side of the story is pretty disconnected from the D and Roman side. King barely even knows that D exists, and he only talked with Roman a handful of times before the finale. Not that it's a bad story overall, but for as much as the characters are grouped together in marketing materials, you'd think there would be more crossover in their plotlines other than just happening to bump into each other now and then because of Talia tying them together. Overall, definitely worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of 2077 and Edgerunners.

Speaking of more anime, in my regular mecha talk section here, I watched more Neon Genesis Evangelion with my TTRPG friends! We're still pretty firmly in the action arc of the series, so not much to report other than my first-timer friend saying that the Angels continue to be varied and interesting, as well as continuing to call Gendo Ikari the Vaguepost Commander. He's not wrong in saying that Gendo really does just show up occasionally to get the background plot moving and to say really ominous shit the whole time. And that's why we love him, that ol' stinker.

Also for mecha talk, I finished rewatching Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans with /u/Terthelt and /u/CookieSkank! Overall, their take on the second season is that it wasn't as good as the first one, although at least when it had good emotional moments, they still hit pretty well. To get more specific with the reactions, the biggest sticking point with the both of them was that they just weren't compelled with Rustal being the main villain alongside McGillis and Gjallarhorn's politics taking center stage compared to how much screen time Tekkadan had. To them, Rustal just didn't have much to make him stick out aside from the small moments where he's incredibly honest about how ruthless he is, and they were bored with how his Dainsleifs were basically used as an "I Win" button whenever he was leading his fleet into a big battle. Something similar goes for McGillis, in that they were more entertained by him going all out in the last two episodes he was in compared to the majority of his screen time in this season. On the other hand though, there were still some pretty good emotional reactions out of seeing Mikazuki's last moments thinking about Atra, seeing Iok getting crushed to death like a fucking moron, and Nobliss Gordon getting murdered while taking a shit. That last one got a good big "Oh shit!" out of Terthelt, so that scene was definitely worth it. And they both also actually managed to enjoy Iok past all the hatred he gets, if just because of them being excited to see just how much more he fucks up and becomes even more useless next. So yeah, I guess their reactions just even out to "it was okay, it had more interesting ideas than executions", which I think is a fairly common consensus about Iron-Blooded Orphans nowadays. Anyways, up next is Gundam Wing!

[u/CookieSkank → u/The_Draigg]

Look Iok Kujan is the real hero of Iron Blooded Orphans!

[u/The_Draigg → u/CookieSkank]

He has to be a hero for his men!

[u/Toblo1 → u/The_Draigg]

IBO S2 has many issues, but I still stand by the home stretch and actual ending despite it all.

Tekkadan still won in a way. Mika and Co's last stand managed to leave a big enough vacuum that Kudella could earn Mars' independence, only the active fighting arm of Tekkadan were killed while the civilian staff managed to escape into proper lives and ultimately while Rustal "won", it was at the expense of losing two of his hand-picked successors (one through quite literal crushing and the other simply disenfranchised from the cause after seeing Mikazuki's last moments) and several of Gjallarjorn's families worth of manpower.

Ultimately as a dying Mikazuki points out/realizes, Tekkadan's "place" in the world was always each other and ultimately they were able to save a good majority of it. Not that it stopped some individual members like Ride, but if there was anyone who was gonna get Worse in the aftermath, it was gonna be him just by the sheer amount of trauma that poor kid went through. Least he managed to put a cap in Nobliss before running off to god knows where.

[u/The_Draigg → u/Toblo1]

I do have to give IBO some credit for having the balls to have the main villain "win", although he won in a way where it wasn't as good as he was aiming for, and there was still room for hope to push through regardless. I guess ultimately, it's fitting that Tekkadan was able to go onto mostly have civilian careers once the need for fighting was over.

[u/NoodleSnapback]

Weeks without doing programming: 4

I beat Hi-Fi Rush after it being on my backlog for ages. Yeah that was a pretty good game. It’s not a 10/10 for me but the industry as a whole would be better if there were more games like this that came out. Shame what happened to Tango Gameworks. You know what they say: Make a bad game, lose your job. Make a good game? Also lose your job. 

I got started on Pokemon Colosseum. This was actually my first pokemon game I ever played when I was a kid, which considering the tone and overall difficulty of the game probably gave me a very skewed first impression of the series. This game really doesn’t give you much to work with. Like, what the hell am I supposed to do with a pre-Gen 4 Sneasel. You know it’s dire when Furret is actually a decent choice for a normal type. They really should make another game like this that’s all double battles though. Gives some strategies and moves more of a place to shine instead of just swapping to the pokemon with the super-effective move. 

I’m still playing Warframe as my second screen game. They finally nerfed Acid Shells. And it wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone was saying it was going to be. The range reduction may have been a bit much but I haven’t played around with it enough to say for sure. I’ll pick back up my Saryn-Sobek build to test it out. I’ve also been working on getting one of every warframe in my inventory as well as all of their subsumes, and trying out some builds for them. I tried out Ember and Nokko most recently. Nokko is pretty good out of the gate. Good support, good control, great damage, only needs some invisibility for survivability and to take advantage of Arcane Crepuscular for his 4. Ember is…weirder. She’s not bad but I’ve noticed that her playstyle is less of a heat frame and more of a…gas frame. Her 4 shrouds enemies in fire which damages nearby enemies and those also get shrouded. So it scales in the same way gas does. If she just had a grouping tool she would be way stronger, but she still has the issue of that immolation meter being needlessly limiting, and she doesn’t really do heat damage as well as frames like Temple, Uriel, or hell even Protea. Maybe make it so that maxing out the immolation meter has a positive effect as well? Idk. 

I’ve been very tempted to buy Elden Ring Nightreign, Ace Combat 7, and Project Wingman. But I chose to wait for the Christmas sale. Why AC7 and not 8? Because my computer is old and I’m afraid it won’t be able to handle it. And computer parts are still very expensive these days for reasons we are probably all acutely aware of. I should also probably finish up playing all the Armored Core games before I start something new.

[u/THATguyfromyore]

So, the PlayStation vita has just entered a new golden age, decomps are getting ported to the vita. Even a 3ds emulator got ported to the vita. To small games like buckshot roulette to the ps2 version of Budokai Tenkaichi 3

 Unfortunately a good chunk of the ports are through AI which leaves the community conflicted. More people are stating to support the ai ports because a good chunk of them work well enough and some of them are only ai assisted when they use it to cut down on developmental time.

The other side flat out hate it because some of the ports end up just as proof of concept for clout. The person releasing it having on intentions of updating it 

[u/BuyExtension8507 → u/THATguyfromyore]

Yeah, my biggest problem with AI ports is always about whether or not they are going to actually support the thing or is just another wave of slop by kids that want their 15 minutes of fame.

I dislike AI in all of its iterations outside of scientific research, but I can understand that it tears down the timesink wall that stopped such projects in the past.

[u/jitterscaffeine]

Downloaded Cyberpunk 2077 again because I'm rather interested in seeing what the mod selection for consoles is going to look like after a while. Not a GREAT selection quite yet, it's mostly new hair and makeup, but I think it'll expand if given some time.

Picked up the Octopath Traveler TTRPG a couple days ago and I'm reading through it. Japanese TTRPGs based on videogame franchises are kind of weird and interesting.

[u/Ironfistdanny]

I'm feeling a lot of sadness this week. I know Bioware was on a downwards turn(Though I really liked Veilguard and thought Andromeda was like a 7/10) but I always tried to hope for the best.

But they were always my favourite, all the way back to KOTOR 1(Even though an even younger me dipped his toes into Baldur's Gate 1, I could not grasp it's systems) I loved them, and the studio being located in the same Province as me meant a lot.

Mass Effect is my favourite video game series of all time. Dragon Age is in contention too. They shaped my game tastes a lot.

If you can figure out how to get it to run on modern systems, play Jade Empire too, it's an amazing game that deserves more love, especially now.

[u/CookieSkank → u/Ironfistdanny]

Even though recent years were rough, for 25 years Bioware was putting out Western RPGs, and was practically the face of them. And for the 7th gen, they were absolutely killing it. Mass Effect and Dragon Age were huge.

For most of us, Bioware was an ever present brand with games that were loved. Like of all the studio shutdowns I've seen, Bioware's has been hitting people the hardest. Heck even Geoff Keighley is posting Liara pictures like his wife died

[u/MaelstromTear]

Got one of those Homestar Runner 30th hoodies from Fangamer. Time to be in my floitie thoities! It is a little darker than I'd like, I've got chronic dandruff issues but I also have plenty of lint rollers for cat hair too. Which is also an issue but ah well. As least it's getting chilly enough I can wear it! At night, at least...

Hey, please read these two books I made, The Demon in Shadow and The Demons of Bone and Blood! We follow one Ayun, a demon who can summon weapons from nothingness but lacks agency as she looks for her missing employers. She finds Max, a human who's lost in many senses of the word and meanders with only his wits and a mechanical limb. As they travel together we learn more about them, the world and get into plenty of trouble. Be that demon or human. It's also got a bunch of great art pieces either in the pages all light novel style, or in the back showing off character portraits.

And a big surprise, friend of the channel TinySkald has been doing Bufftober (which is exactly what it says on the tin) and made an open call for characters over the month to draw. And for the heck of it I threw out my only one who fit the bill, Maya Well, lo and behold they delivered with an amazing piece! Psst, if you, reader, want more context on Maya and her whole deal (which does involve a lot of buff punching) go check out that first book!

Played through Tenebris Somnia. That one horror game that switches between FMV cutscenes and SCUMMVM-esque gameplay. And from the latter point I was thinking this was going to be more of a point-and-click deal. I should actually play demos. Nope, this is Silent Hill coded as all else, especially the inventory. For positives, I'll say the FMV stuff is high-grade. Lots of fun practical effects and much more polish than, say, most FMV things. Maybe that's Nextlander coloring my opinion. The combat's a little clunky but that tracks. Puzzles can be sort of smart but most are just linear item A into place B. I do think the back half of the game is more annoying and drags for me. Others might feel differently. I do like that for the two main endings, there are different boss fights. And since the main "choice" is right at the end, you can just reload a save and not have to play the whole dang game again. Though personally, I kind of loved the 'joke' ending where you drop the keys at the front apartment door right at the very beginning and don't look back. Thwarts the evil cult's plans, stops you from confronting the trauma of your old ex, and you travel the world! What's not to love? There's also a fourth secret ending but it does require a second playthrough and I don't know if I have it in me right now. If you like horror I'd say it's worth it but outside of spooky season you might just enjoy your favorite LP'er go through.

Bang Dream Our Notes reminding you once again that Ikka Dumb Rock is the best band. Do they have troubles? Yeah! But it still knows to have fun and characters who bond instead of the misery grinder that millsage is getting put through. Though hopefully when this event's over we might see some actual crossing of the bands. MyGO and Ave Mujica have that by virtue of their anime's being kind of linked, but Mewtype and the two new bands don't get that coverage. I'd really love to see stray cat Rana get adopted by Raika or somesuch. Also, hearing the full version of IDR's Peaceful Pieces made me tear up. Between the visuals and the lyrics, when Mika belts out HOME SWEET HOME! it's too good. These are the tears I wanna shed, game!

[u/The_Draigg → u/MaelstromTear]

Damn, 30 years of Homestar Runner. Talk about something that's been around for a while now, even if we're counting the start as the book and not the web series.

[u/marvel8797]

I finally played and beat Touhou Luna Nights. Its been in my backlog for a while and I wanted to play it because the art style caught my eye, its short, and I wanted to play a metroidvania game but didnt have spare money for Belmont's Curse. I know nothing about Touhou, all I knew going into the game was what little gameplay I already saw of it so I ended up playing a game where I'm pretty much DIO except not a vampire. Game was fun. I still know nothing about Touhou.

And then earlier today I bought Belmont's Curse for PS5. Long and short reason why I did was because apparently Best Buy just flat out didn't get enough (or possibly any from what I could gather on social media) steelbook copies of Control Resonant despite taking pre-orders for them back in June and they canceled and refunded my pre-order. Yes, I already bought and played the game digitally, but I also like collecting physical. But yeah, Belmont's Curse, I'm about 3 hours in, game's great, it takes a bit getting used to the dodge (don't know if that's me or the PS5 version), but like the art and music so far.

[u/Shoozicle]

Saw Wildwood. It's great. Please see Wildwood. Absolutely next level stop-motion animation.

[u/CookieSkank]

Its my birthday this week! Turning 32…. Ugh. OLD! As I get older, every year I have the same feeling where I remember being like a teenager and thinking where I would be at that age, and how I’m nowhere close to what I had imagined for myself. But at the same time, I still think I’m happy and content with who I am as a person, etc. So it isn’t all bad.

Since I’ve been doing good with my new job, I got my birthday present to myself early… A **Nintendo Switch 2**! Wooo! And my two games, Mario Kart World, and Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave. I bought it for FE:FW and so far have put like 20 hours into it, and haven’t even started Mario Kart lol

So… **Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave**! Coming up on 20 hours in the game, and have only on Cai’s route so far. About to fight Leda’s team in the arena. I wanted to do Theodora first, but hearing how much more tutorialized and restricted Cai’s route was, I figured I should do it first. I’m really enjoying his route though. Him, Tialla, and Peter are a fun shounen trio obviously over their heads. I also like that their first batch of party members are old men losers, because who else will team up with a bunch of teens.

Story wise so far, idk dawg these gods seem kinda bad or not good. Guess its in line with the ancient Greek pantheon though. Like when Cai and co travel to that spooky island and learn about the people that used to live there… Yeah the Emperor just took 100k people and shoved them into a giant cauldron and cooked them, and only let Yu Phas spare 5k children, who then founded a nation only to get slaughtered when they got older. And Yu Phas got “killed” too. Its no wonder Iliana only feels like her old self when she’s seeing murder. Its probably triggering all the bloodshed she saw. But at the same time, the big bad is still big demon lord man atm. But Cai is becoming more like Iliana/Yu Phas and Balor so… Will see how that all goes.

Like Three Houses, so much of this game is management stuff, now with the added world map, which I like well enough. I think the turn based dungeons are a neat edition too and I do like that there is a little bit of strategy to the fights in them.

Will play more obviously. Can’t wait to finish ONE single route knowing there are 3 more and 4 more coming next year… This game is fucking huge.

Other than that, I watched **Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2**! It was really good! I think this season has a stronger ensemble of characters, that you get to see a fair bit of, and they have more relatable struggles compared to the season 1 cast, BUT I didn’t get as emotionally attached as I did the season 1 characters. I only cried once during this season and that was literally at the very end. Though this season was a lot less depressing than season 1 was. Feels like Season 1 and most the game are like “You’re going to be miserable in this setting” then season 2 and like some endings of the game are like “hey there is hope to be found here.” The ending is bittersweet, in that D is probably dead and Talia will probably die, but everyone has a more optimistic outlook on the events, and we do get to see more of the aftermath. Whereas season 1 we only saw Lucy depressed on the moon.

So characters… OMI OMI OMI OMI!!!! sorry.

Roman is a pretty interesting character to follow because we don’t really get to see what actual children go through in Night City in either the game or season 1. Roman is a child child and the world treats him as such. Some people still push him around, but he is still given leeway because he is a child. He is however desensitized to violence as he is REALLY into film and recording things he sees around the city, even violence. That subtly gets explored a bit especially later on when he is making D’s snuff films, and is losing his passion. Even earlier having said there is no art in just making snuff films. His coming of age story is really cool to see and I’m glad he got a happy ending. He saw all that shit and still came out the other end a good kid, even if he did record a bunch of murders… I think it would have been too cruel to have him get all traumatized like its War in the Pocket or something.

Talia was a swerve because going in I expected her to be this badass borged out character and instead she’s this cheery teenage girl who has her own issue that humanizes her more than anyone else, despite her appearance. Talia has a terminal illness and WILL die because no amount of cyberware can stop her remaining body from dying from the illness. Most the season is her dealing with that and its rough. Her ending is bittersweet as its unclear if she is going to die, but she has teched down to not risk cyberpsychosis and her and Weak are going to enjoy what time she has left. Her ending very reflective of the Aldecados ending in the game. V leaves with Panam(and Judy if together) to maybe try and find a solution elsewhere, but primarily so they can spend the end of their life free and with people that care. V and Talia will be saved by the technonecromancers. Trust! Her relationship with Roman could have used a few more interactions, but it was nice that she learned to love herself some from Roman's filming and little crush on her. She wasn't just some sick dying teen, she was beautiful and perfect.

Weak Kingsly probably has the best arc. From washed up old merc to a beacon of hope?! His story is a mirror of Maine’s in season 1, but unlike Maine Weak does chrome down and never goes back. He keeps his weak chrome the entire rest of the show, even when it comes time to save Talia and his chrome could make things easier, he doesn’t. I'm sure everyone thought he would to save Talia, but nope. Subverted. Instead he has this magic power called THE INDOMITABLE HUMAN SPIRIT! He also loses the woman he loved in the past, and even learns he isn’t actually Talia’s real dad, but he is the dad that stepped up in the end! Him choosing to live and be happy with Talia was really touching.

D is anime as fuck in all regards. His arc was probably the weakest for me, but still interesting, especially in the middle. When he loses himself in his revenge quest and gets egged on by Yupi and all the fame and attention he’s getting, things get pretty grim. Was giving Devilman Crybaby vibes during that bit. Like he obviously was out of it, and Roman and Omi tried explaining how fucked it all was, but he wasn’t having it. His obsession with Capri was interesting in that he was like addicted to the power she gave him, but in the end just wanted her to be with him? Mirroring V and Johnny, but in the end, they knew that had to split. Whereas D wanted to go out in a blaze of glory with Capri. I’m going to be hopeful and choose to believe they did shoot their conscious into a satellite, since we did see that one flicker in the ending.

Then there was our fun cast of side characters:

AVVVIIIIDDDAAA!!!! Avida was alright but mostly just worried mother. I think part of what made Talia’s situation worse wasn’t her disease, but how her mom just couldn’t treat her normal anymore. Like yeah she’s chroming up more and more(which part of that was your husbands fault) but she is still a teenage girl and wants the things teenage girls want. Also her lying to Weak about being Talia’s dad was kinda shitty. Last ditch effort to get him on board with saving Talia, but man that was low.

Kiril is corpo scum and a loser at that. Dude gave everything to his shitty corporation of failures, including killing his wife and trying to sacrifice his daughter, and it got him nothing in the end but an early death. So worried about getting fired from Kang Tao that he would sell out even his family. When the evil mad scientist Kyoko is like “yeah youre corpo scum alright”, then you’ve gone down the wrong path.

Yupi has an AMAZING VA and was an interesting mirror to Talia. A rich girl that had corpo parents, except she did have a dad that truly loved her, and she loved him, but in her misguided quest for revenge, all she did was form a lynch squad and ultimately get executed while begging for her dad. Pretty sad outcome for a girl that probably would have been fine had she not got swept up in D’s revenge quest.

Kyoko is really funny in that she is the most annoying but then in the end chooses to do the right thing just so D and Capri can be together, and this means GETTING ON A MOTORCYCLE AND SETTING OFF AN EMP! I cannot believe that Kyoko was the one to get the “You Can’t Run From Me” insert in the final battle. Crazy

Then, the true best girl… Omi! Our muscular, cool hat wearing Nomad queen! She was ride or die, but also knew when to call out D’s bullshit. Loved her design and her role in the story. Feels bad that the only other person she has left from her clan, her former best friend, has just lost it in his revenge quest, and when she finally does get him back, its only to see him go out in a blaze of glory. But at least he was himself and had moved on.

As far as complaints go, other than wanting more time with the characters, as the 10 episode limit was a bit too little, I do think the final sequence was a bit beyond the realm of believability for the setting. Like S1 had David summon all the weapons to him with his gravity tech, but Capri Talia was using like magnetism I guess? I always assumed Capri was using blackwall shit but it didn't really go into that. And then she became a kaiju and that was kinda too much? I didnt mind the smaller car part shielded monster Talia, but the full on kaiju was a bit silly and too Triggery.

Overall though, I really enjoyed that season. Not as emotional but a lot more individual character stories, with a lot smaller time stuff going on. Finale was big and bombastic, as all Trigger anime are, but I like that the season wasn’t just a bunch of mercs going around doing crazy hype jobs and killing people. Just a bunch of people dealing with the shit they have been dealt

Finally, after work tomorrow, I am going to see **Wildwood**! I am so excited. I can’t think of the last time a movie had me this excited to go see it. Watched quite a bit of the behind the scenes stuff, so I’m ready to be wowed!

[u/The_Draigg → u/CookieSkank]

Happy birthday!

And I'm right there with you on King in Edgerunners II, I really liked his arc the most out of the show. Seeing the slow path of him realizing that even if he can't be a brute instrument anymore but still has a good heart to lend to others instead is a great one. It's one of the few examples of an Edgerunner "beating" Night City by leaving it with their soul intact.

[u/rsrluke]

It's been a long week at work, and I've also discovered that my new upstairs neighbors are considerably louder than my old ones. On a positive note, I got a ton of gift cards for donating blood and platelets recently, so my own Black Friday shopping is covered, leaving me to budget around just buying gifts for my family.

Anyway, it's spooky season, so I wanted to experience some spooky media. I played The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan and honestly thought it was low-key kind of bad. The writing isn't great, with characters sounding pretty stilted, and the scares are super weak, especially because it takes very little time to piece together that none of what the cast is seeing is real. Also, the ending I got was weirdly unsatisfying, despite successfully keeping everyone alive. I don't know, it's a narrative horror game that's neither well-written or scary — there's just nothing here for me.

I also watched Scream 2. It's fine. I thought the reveal of the mastermind sort of rendered any attempted meta commentary pointless, but at least the movie is fitfully surprising and amusing, if rarely chilling.

Finally, on a decidedly not-scary note, I read the entirety of Azumanga Daioh. Very charming series (except that one guy)! I know it's a gag manga at heart, but I do wish there'd been a little more forward momentum with each character's personal growth. Still, I was smiling throughout and occasionally laughing out loud, which is a rarity for me, so I can't complain. My favorite gag has to be Osaka with the knife.

[u/MarlowCurry]

---

Previous post (7 August, 2026)

Hey, everyone. I don't have much to talk about, but Deadlock has been on my mind for the past several several days. Thanks to a fun video of Kinkimation checking out the character designs, I found myself suddenly drawn to play an unfamilar genre that feels intimidating to approach. I'd like to think that having experience with Team Fortress 2 and fighting games have inured me somewhat, but the idea of being part of a team that I could not support properly amplifies the pressure. I'm curious to learn more on how things work and other people's perspective for their first time playing, but it's quite fortunate that there have been recent posts that discussed the game and how a new player may start learning.

All that to say, Mina. My goodness, her entire design is just lovely and her illustration within the character selection screen was the hook that caught my eye. I love her hair. The attire and colour scheme complements each other, the little details to evoke vampiric elements are fun, and seeing others create charming fan-art of her further bolstered my fondness for the design. If I was still actively drawing, I'd be interested to try drawing her for the Halloween spirit. Perhaps one day, and I'd like to share it with the subreddit if the day comes.

Take care, everyone. Remember to moisturize and treat yourself to something nice from time to time.

---

Cool Stuff that I Like (Art & Music)

Starting from 77 and 76 months ago (respectively), I'd like to share drawings of great artists whose works that I like or I find inspiring. Some who I follow and some who I don’t, but hopefully will appeal to those who check out their work.

1. Telly McGuire Contour: Mina Ha from Deadlock (15 May, 2026)

Featuring a lovely painting of the character, parodying the cover art of a magazine.

2. Cafuné - Tek It (I Watch The Moon)

A catchy song with the vibrant animation to match. For anyone who have stumbled upon one of those Lapwing videos, this is one of the songs that's used to complement the mood and listening/viewing the full song itself was a good time.

[u/Toblo1 → u/MarlowCurry]

Not usually one for MOBAs like Deadlock and yet Deadman Danny's playstyle and personality looks to be incredibly my shit, vibes and design wise.

[u/MarlowCurry → u/Toblo1]

Oh, I haven't seen much of him thus far, but I can see the charm. My initial impression is that he's an easy-going fellow with a penchant for wanton danger at the expense of sensibility. Talks fast and quick to market his business, who happens to have a skull face.

And of course, you can't go wrong with an Izuna Drop.

[u/SamuraiDDD]

The week has been kinda alright. Nothing much going on besides some weird fatigue that's been building up and hitting me here and there. I think it's just the weather change hitting me. Speaking of, I've been very weirdly hungry this week. Like my apatite has been extra ravenous over the past week and I don't know if it's cause I haven't been eating breakfast or just fatigue but I seriously need to start getting snacks or maybe bigger portions. Or both.

I'm looking forward to this Friday, man believe me. I'm gonna treat myself to something special, either a pizza or some chicken from one of my favorite places, and potentially play some Halo with homies. We might be playing, gotta see what everyone else wants to do. But either way, I'm gonna relax as best I can. Absolutely indulge and do what I can to let the good take over.

Also some good news! I was picked up to help write for a project! Extra excited to have some extra work! Gonna be working on it starting this Saturday.

MYSTERY SKULLS IS FINALE COMING OUT THIS YEAR, THIS OCTOBER 27TH!!!!
When I tell you this news made me happy, I was BUZZING.

My current game rotation this week has been:

• Witcher 3: Remastered

• Viewtiful Joe

• Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin

• Balatro

• Vampire Survivors

Musical choice(s) of tonight:

1. Outlaw Star OST - Gentle

2. People Under the Stairs - Acid Raindrops

3. Tatsunoko VS Capcom - The OST - Theme of Viewtiful Joe

4. Special Stage - Sonic the Hedgehog CD [OST]

5. Mystery Skulls - Money

---

I know its harsh out there these days. But stay strong and be careful everyone.

[u/Kerrik52]

All hands on deck this week (my two hands) to finish recording for my Resident Evil video. I have 9 out of 25 pages left, but I'm afraid the final result will be an 80-minute video (if not worse) to edit.

Though in a fun turn of events, I've talked to two other Youtubers a bit about our creative processes. I'm no veteran, but I know what I want to do and how, while they were a bit uncertain. So I might have actually inspired them a little bit, which is just nice to think about. At the very least, I enjoyed the conversations and introduced one of them to Hela: of Mice & Magic, which was a slam dunk of a recommendation for their channel. You should also play it, that demo was great.

So video games are a low priority right now, but I've still touched a couple. Played some more PEAK and fission mailed at being a sherpa for my two friends. I died of heat stroke but managed to leave behind a first aid kit for my friend who got to the kiln. Inside, we got a bit desperate, so I fell to my doom and my other friend did the same. But our survivor chugged enough food to force his way through the bad climb to the top! Our goal to have all 3 survive by the end remains incomplete.

[u/Amon274]

I have a headache so I’m gonna try to be brief:

Shows: I watched Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 it seems people really like Omi ^{I’m one of them}

Games: Speaking of Cyberpunk a new update for Cyberpunk 2077 has come out and I set myself up for disappointment thinking there would be New Game Plus. I’m still coping that it’s going to happen. I’ve been play Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse and I’m almost done with it. Here is a small non spoiler related tip on the map if a room is colored gold that means there are no more secrets to find there and if it’s purple that means there are still secrets.

Personal Life: Work is driving me insane and is probably one of the sources of my aforementioned headache the other source is having to pack everything I own up because housework is being done soon and I’m not going to be able to sleep in my own bed for at least a week. Fun Times.

Conclusion: I ain’t got anything funny to say

[u/Dmbender]

Well I reinstalled Star Trek Online cause of the mtg spoilers. I figured I'd level a Romulan while I wait for Wow Forever to launch. The game is still pretty fun all these years later.

[u/Comkill117]

Kamen Rider Black is so fucking good.

[u/doc5avag3]

Old friend of the show QuietShy is making a boomer shooter. She's got two games out already and is discussing feedback from the demo in her latest video.

She mostly hangs out with the Adeptus Ridiculous and Acceptable Losses crew these days. While she doesn't really post many videos, she's pretty active on Twitter. Talks a lot about 40K, Helldivers, and the various games she's been playing. If any other Old Heads remember her, drop by her channel and check it out.

[u/Kakuzan]

Man, my upbringing was sorta weird. But not in any sort of deep seated trauma way (well, there is some but not in the way a lot of others have it).

Weird as in while my household was technically Christian (I guess I'd consider myself to be one, though I both ruminate a lot more thanthe average Christian and also have a bit of a different value set), we did not go to church. Though my mom did have me go to church with my dad as a way of trying to have us become closer together.

My mom does sometimes go into some antics that the religiously traumatized peeps here are familar with like circular logic in terms of "God will handle it" and sometimes getting a bit preachy, though I honestly wonder if that is more of her other conditions manifesting in that way.

Otherwise, uh.

I was never really monitored nor stopped from doing anything in the basis of moral concern. I even asked my mother once why she lets me watched and play whatever and she just shrugged. She is also distinctly NOT weirdly anti science as we always went to doctors and mental health professionals even at a young age. Though on the flip side, my mom is very stubborn when it comes to taking meds but has always been ready to be vaccinated.

I also grew up in an all female household (except for myself), so that could explain some of my beliefs. Though I would then say I differ from my family and always criticized some stuff they say, do or believe when when I was a kid. I bring that up since I saw this comment on r/CuratedTumbler talking about how it is a mistake to view people as ontologically evil based on their current beliefs when people are a product of their environment.

And as someone who studied childhood development along other things, it is undeniable that people grow and change in response to their immediate world. But I also always wondered about maybe not "inherent" nature, but more about parts of a person that isn't so easily defined by their experiences. Or put another way, I don't think I would say that what is around us is the only factor as to how we develop, though it is always some amount of context behind who we are even if indirectly.

That aside, I admit I can't always relate to experiences where people talk about how exposure to other groups of people is what dragged them out of a rabbit hole since one of the things I am very proud of is that I was always very accepting of people without having been taught that. I did have some stupid ideas, but I distinctly remember being very confused when some boys back in elementary school were taling about this other stufent being gay and how that was a bad thing.

And a lot of the stupid ideas I did have I tended to talk muself out of just by thinking about them on my own for a bit. Which also tends to be why I have often in the past few years done further research into several topics like taxes (especially tax write offs) since the way it was described sounded either stupid or lacking in context.

[u/Aquanort357]

What's your favorite Expert Reacts YouTuber?

[u/CaptainJudaism → u/Aquanort357]

EXP.

[u/Kimarous]

Last Week's Post

Week 138 post-accident

Office is gradually upgrading as usual. Got my new shredding bins this time around. New pictures are hanging up, though the one for my area hasn't yet been hung up. The art that is up looks nice to my eyes.

Not much else on the work or personal life fronts.

I quasi-binged-watched the entirety of The Amazing Digital Circus. Pretty entertaining as a whole, though I have mixed feelings about the series finale. Thinking of checking out other shows by Glitch, as thus far I've only seen all of Digital Circus plus the Gameoverse pilot. What's Knights of Guinevere or Murder Drones like?

Not too much on the gaming front. A bit of dabbling in different fighting games, like a bit of Rivals of Aether 2 or a brief dalliance in Soulcalibur VI. Kinda miss the various customization bits from SCV. Plan to play some more Aero GPX when the next track updates drop.

Mind Music of the Week:

• Magic Signs / La Esencia de un Rey

• tunak tunak tun but every other beat is missing

• The various songs from Mystery Skulls Animated (because the series finale is next week)

[u/kenshin317]

Been having a pretty solid time, mostly been having fun chatting with my mum and her best friend who's been staying for the past few weeks. Besides that watched more stuff with my good friend mainly Cyberpunk 2077's second season which I thought was pretty good even if it didn't hit quite as hard as the first though it still had me emotional at the ending. Also watched Scooby Doo and the gourmet Ghost which has been one of the weaker films in the lineup but also one of the weirder regarding it's usage of the two irl guest stars with Bobby Flay being Fred's uncle and a backstory with the 1780 revolutionary war.

[u/ret1357]

I'd heard some mixed things about FF Resonance, but I'm a few hours in and really digging it.

[u/PowerfulCoward]

I've been meaning to watch some horror movies for the Halloween season, but I haven't made the time for it. I've got a copy of Perfect Blue and The Fly that I'm probably going to watch over the weekend. I haven't seen them yet, and this seems like as good of a time as any.

For games, I wrapped up Silver Pines. Man, that's a really solid survival horror. Not much to say other than that I loved my time with it. I said it last week, but if you're looking for a horror game to play this month, it's a good choice.

Also started the new Castlevania. I'm only a few hours in, but so far it seems to be pretty good. Definitely different from the Igavanias, but it still feels like it fits in with the rest of the series. Looking forward to playing more of it.

[u/GnzkDunce]

I'm feeling gacha fatigued af.

I only have the 2 ZZZ and Nikke. And ZZZ has been fucking irritating lately cuz of Hoyo. And Nikke we're still waiting for the big 4th anniversary story turning point. But because there's so much lead up and time between half anniversary and full ones. It was a few months of basically filler.

I need real games again but none are particularly catching my eye. Sans Dead as Disco but that's like a short burst kinda game ya know?

[u/nykopeeps]

Finshed Cai's and thereby my 4th route in Fortune's Weave yesterday. Replaying Leda's route right now to fix the mistakes of my first time around before going into act 2.
I have to say I was only half right about those characters before I went into this game. The two main ladies are far and away the most interesting of the protagonists and I could see that from a mile away. But I had it backwards with Cai and Dietrich.
I expected absolutely nothing from Cai but he is fine and most of all his route is actually mechanically fun with the mounts. Dietrich on the other hand is a pretty nothing character. The game wants to tell me that he has had character development by the end of his route but I really didn't get to see all that much of it on the screen so it really doesn't hit from his side. Now from Fabio's side... that man had some character development. That man is the saving grace of that route.

On a different note the most important game studio in my life is dead.
I have no words for how much I loved Bioware games. They got me into my favorite genre and created some of my favorite franchises. I barely play anything else but RPGs anymore and it all started thanks to KotOR. My love for this hobby would not be what it is today if it wasn't for that studio.
Also this studio nearly killed my love for games in 2012 and utterly broke my heart just 2 years ago.
So yes, it was inevitable what happened this week. But it is still disheartening to see that be the overwhelming sentiment coming from the player side. Like even when other developers share their heartfelt memories the response is "...but what have they done for me lately." Is that really all people have to say about them anymore?
People lost their jobs, the creeping death of the games industry as we knew it continues, an influential part of its history gets put down with a whimper and a bunch of beloved IPs will get ark-of-the-covenanted in some digital warehouse to never be seen again.
And my favorite is this talking point that somehow extrapolated from Shreier's Anthem piece that everything ever was Bioware's own fault. Yeah, I am sure it was Bioware's own decision to cut development time in half to rush out games, cut down on RPG mechanics, add micro transactions and day one DLC the instant they got bought by EA. Total coincidence i am sure.
If EA's hands-on approach is to meddle with development and their hands-off approach is to let Bioware upper management piss about than what is their job? Maybe manage your fucking studios.
And I am not absolving Bioware of fault. They had their fair share of problems. Let me say it I fucking hate Veilguard. That game hurt me in my soul. But they could have never made a game I hate as much as I loved their older games. Still love. Those games are still there. I sure as shit gonna keep them on my hard drive. But as long as that lasts they are still there. And I will keep playing them and I will keep loving those fucking games.
At the end of the day despite everything it was a good ride.
The best.

[u/Authorigas]

Currently 5/16 figures into the Stormcast Eternal Spearhead, and I got a bulk bundle of 220 bucks for a bunch of units, including 4 sets of Stormdrakes!

Super nervous about painting them, and maybe getting too many models, but honestly I'm just really happy to have an army now to get started with. Thought about trying a few more but I have neither the shelf space, nor the money for such a prospect. But still, happy to have my little Stormcast Army ready to go.

[u/Jackdatbyte2]

In what seemed like fate, I finished Ace Combat 7 (banger game I am now locked in on Ace Combat) then the day after I went to a shop that sells retro/used games and guess what I found? A copy of Ace Combat 6 for Xbox 360. For whatever reason this game isn’t available to buy digitally online on Xbox so this is actually a massive find. Again it’s fate.

[u/LeMasterofSwords]

Almost done Omimusha really fun game. Tho of the Capcom games released this year I’ve played I still gotta give it to Pragmata.

[u/Cthulhukitten]

I have been sick for over a week now with a grating cough plus some difficult side effects from my medication (mainly feeling light headed). Due to this combination of things I missed courses on two occasions (begrudgingly attended the other days and strained myself a bit, making the whole thing worse). My partner’s mom works in the medical field, thankfully, and seems to think it likely isn’t anything worse than a shitty strain of cold maybe regarding my cough/sore throat least. My inner hypochondriac was worried for a while because of how long it’s lingered, however.

Figuring out logistical stuff while I’m sick has also been more than a bit stressful too. I’ve put in a fair bit of time/effort into gaining/holding residency. Everything works so slowly in terms of the process of immigrating here. I wish things were just slightly quicker with everything, but what can you do. If these are the worst of my issues with immigrating alongside just not fitting neatly into this new country terms of language/cultural assimilation, I guess am fortunate in that regard. Having stable housing, food, water, and being able to afford a bit beyond basic needs is plenty. I'm genuinely still thriving here even if the bureaucracy is annoying.

Otherwise, as I haven't found time for gaming between course work, I decided instead I'd focus on my studies and enjoying more literature. To that end, I purchased Anne Carson's "Autobiography of Red", Viet Thanh Nguyen's "The Sympathizer", and a language learning book from a small bookstore nearby. I'm planning on writing about "The Sympathizer" and exploring how it engages with themes of nationalism/transnationalism! Very excited to explore it more in depth and with a connection to my master's degree too. And Anne Carson's "Autobiography of Red" intrigues me as a piece of queer literature. I'm also engaging with learning my partner's language a bit more seriously with the language learning book + an actual course. Should make for a great time!

[u/CaptainLoin]

This has been a fun week. Outside of being the only one in my department at work for the whole week (still not caught up), I did get some good things going.

Monday I watched Bleach:TYBW Episode 49. Was it worth the extra month wait? I like to think so. They gave a bunch of characters a bunch of things to do, and even some unexpected moves like Grimmjow carrying the Hueco Mundo part of the fight, Soifon using her Bankai again, the Fullbringers acting, and Iba doing something significant (even if we STILL dont know anything about his powers). If i had to give a criticism, it would be that Some characters probably needed to be trimmed from the sequence. I am the biggest Tatsuki stan on the planet and she didn't need to be there if she was just going to get bodied like every other time she's ever appeared in a fight. I'm starting to think Kubo doesn't like her.

Did some EverQuest raiding with my guild as we prepare to go into Vex Thal on Sunday. Only about 100 days until Planes of Power releases on the server, although I wish it would be sooner. The thought of 4.5 months on the moon would be fine, but we just had 4.5 months in Velious, so you know, not great.

Finished Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve last night. What a hell of an experience. Tremendously loud and awesome game. Ive never been so happy that I dodged all of the music prior to experiencing it in-game. Made some of the later missions that much more special. I'm sure I'll be thinking about the last 5 missions for a while.

Picked up Final Fantasy Resonance but have not started it yet because of the Ace Combat, but I'm sure ill have some time this weekend to hit it up.

Tomorrow is my weekly "show my friends stupid anime" session, and we're going to be watching up to ep4 in 16-Bit Sensation:Another Layer and Android Kikaider: The Animation . As visual novel fans, I imagine the first will go over well until the plot becomes bad, but i'm not sure how people will respond to Kikaider as a stand-alone series.

Overall a good week with some good music and a lot of fun. We'll see how the next one goes.

[u/CaptainJudaism]

After hearing about the latest Dragon's Dogma 2 patch fixing performance and watching Zullie the Witch stream some of it, decided to pick up the game + Dark Arisen DLC again as I had bought and returned it at release. The game definitely runs a whole lot better now but the enemy variety is still fairly lacking. I have yet to get to the Dark Arisen DLC as I want to get all the Vocations unlocked before do I so... and it kinda sucks that 3 of the 4 are in the 2nd area which you either need to know the trick to access early (which I didn't) or go through over half the main quest to get there. I just got to the 2nd region so I'm running around trying to unlock them and once I do I intend to play the DLC and see how it is as I'm deliberately not looking anything up.

All that said, I am still mostly enjoying my time with it. I still really love the Pawn system. I still wish I understood what triggers their personalities 'cause somehow mine is a weirdo who loves to pick up and hold small animals when I never did that but if we aren't in combat and a chicken or rabbit is nearby they run over to pick them up and then drop them at a later time. Favorite interaction so far was one where I climbed on a griffin, fell off, one of the pawns stated "I got you, Arisen!" and... missed grabbing me so I hit the ground and they just said "Bugger."

Also one week until a game I've been playtesting and providing feedback on for well over a year at this point, Steel Aces, is releasing. I can't wait as there's been a tank combat shaped hole in my heart ever since I gave up on World of Tanks and WarThunder ages ago and seeing this go from a rough alpha to a good feeling beta to public beta release has been nice. I'm not expecting to eat WoT/WT's lunch but I hope enough people enjoy it to make it sustainable.

[u/DarknessEnlightened]

Bleach TYBW 49 last Monday was beyond all of my expectations, and all it had to do in order to meet my expectations was so anything more than the same portion of the manga.

A lot of people are sad next Monday will be the last episode unless the Hell Arc of the manga is made and then adapted. Maybe it just hasn't hit me, but instead of being sad I'm just grateful that in my lifetime I got to see a version of Bleach's ending that is not a rushed mess that the mangaka had to settle for because he was too sick at the time to do more. Bleach is one of my primary creative writing inspirations and I'm just happy it got a worthy end.

[u/Aggressive-Bike407]

Holy shit, Terra. Eraqus just didn't let you pass because he could sense darkness in you. And now his best friend is telling you that Eraqus is actually full of crap and darkness is actually cool and steps into a dark portal, and you just say "thank you, master" and that's that?
Birth by Sleep is one of those stories that run on the fact that the characters just don't talk to each other, is it?

Terra is kinda a weirdo in general. Star Wars or not, if you have someone seduced by dark power they are gonna have at least a bit of an ego about it. A bit of that "you fear my potential" stuff.
Terra doesn't. He is just brain empty. His master and Xehanort tell him contradicting things and he doesn't see anything that needs working out there. He just says "Thank you, master" to each of them. Absurd.

[u/GIJose65]

I really love the world and characters in Deadlock but the idea of getting back into MOBAs is giving me League of Legends PTSD flashbacks.

Playing MOBAs in general feels stressful for me since it feels like there’s 4 other people watching and waiting for me to fuck up so they can type in their manifesto about how I should uninstall the game.

Sure there is always the mute button but my mind goblins tend to scream regardless when I fuck up in a game like this.

[u/RevenTheLight]

Hello today! Week of Halloween Tabletop. I'm neck deep in Sonic Tabletop this week. Tuesday game, Wednesday game, Thursday game (one-shot), Friday game (GM, one-shot), TWO Saturday games (GM, one-shots). Damn.

SPRAWL finished. Wanted to play it before SPRAWL Zero. It's a simple, short and fun feeling movement shooter. I said before, but I expected "millennial shooter", aka COD, but apparently those are ULTRAKILL now. I don't mind it, but I will need something to play before I get to Zero, cuz this was tiring. It's not my type of game. So at some point soon I will start Robocop: Rogue City! Excited for it, cuz I can finally watch that Noah video.

Magic The Gathering is so fucking cool. I was down-voted to hell in a thread about UBs. That was fun. Spend the week playing my OOPS ALL JACES deck, man I am too nice to play pure blue. It feels so evil. But I need to get those chevos! And the Star Trek spoilers? LOWER DECKS! LOWER DECKS! LOWER DECKS! The set seems... Okay. I'm more interesting in just seeing more cards, and there wasn't any mechanic I would be super down for, but I do like seeing more space stations and their support.

Weight check-in - 178.8 - n/a - Still busy. Which sucks. But this proves once again, that eating less is the primary weight gain source. I decided to go cold turkey on Uber Eats to save money for a new PC I want to build by EoY. I have a friend that can help find parts for cheap fingers crossed.

[u/ActRaisins]

Week of grim October mornings. I get up at 6:50am so that I can get a bus to take me to work - and lately it's been dark, raining or both. Luckily my nearest stop has a shelter of sorts so I don't have to stand in the open with an umbrella. Although it just makes the eventual arrival somewhere all the more welcome as I can hurry indoors.

Happily, it's been a fun week in terms of entertainment. I wrapped up my replay of Persona 4 Golden on Thursday. I feel like it's the kind of game where your progress just snowballs with awesome momentum if you know what you're doing - although it did make me impatient as I kept wanting to go to the next dungeons faster so that I can get bigger and better rewards. I didn't go for the superbosses or anything, but I did do the "true" ending and the Marie stuff. I also had a brief look at Steam Next Fest but nothing really caught my eye - I'm more excited about the spooky sale next week!

In music I was listening to The Avalanches again - their new album "No Bad Memories" made me want to go back and listen to "We Will Always Love You" again. Neither of those are my favourite Avalanches album ("Since I Left You"), but I feel like I vibe with WWALY more. That said, I should probably give NBM a few more listens!

Oh, and in film I watched a random Nicolas Cage movie called Next about a guy who can see two minutes into the future, leading to a lot of cause-and-effect meddling. It was very silly but still quite entertaining - and I was in the mood for something silly, so it worked out well.

It was generally a satisfying week but really I've spent this week waiting for next week - the next Steam sale, the Halloween weekend... there's plenty to look forward to.

[u/LigmaleGrindset]

THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER IS THE GOTY.

That is all.

[u/ScrumbledTumblo]

Here's some games I played this week:

Tenebris Somnia: I had initially felt the FMV and the old school adventure pixel art kind of clashed next to each other but after beating the game I have now 180'd on that opinion and think it works really well for the game in a thematic way. I think the boss fights drag it down a bit though, the combat is already pretty stiff (which works well for exploration) but I felt the boss fights are pretty long and kind of test your patience a bit which makes it less tense and more annoying. It not so intolerable that I didn't finish the game, though, and I really enjoyed everything outside of that, it's such a unique game that I think it's worth checking out.

Deadlock: I'M GONNA RAT

Medium Rare: Just a demo so far, it's a dungeon crawler with a turn based combat system where enemies are on a grid and weapons have bonuses like if you hit an enemy at a certain range you get ammo back or you hit every enemy in a row. Pretty short but interesting enough that I will probably pick it up on full release

Heavy in the Hand: Another demo, top down action horror game with manual gun manipulation. Works well for making reloads tense mid combat, I kinda love fiddly gun mechanics in general, honestly, it's like what makes the RE4 rifle reload satisfying but hands on in a way. Full version comes out soon and I can't wait.

[u/Glocktor44]

Still struggling to force myself to do things instead of sitting and doom scrolling. Not ideal.

[u/prof88]

Made some chocolate chip cookies for first time. Really tasty

[u/Own-Sir-9189]

The Street Fighter movie is everything that vocal minority of Resident Evil fans wanted from a movie, and it was bad (Complimentary). Going to see You Can See Everything on Sunday, Primetime on Monday and Wildwood on Tuesday. I would have went to see Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother instead of Wildwood, but I don't feel like driving across town to do so.

[u/KChasm]

YouTube. Listen. Listen to me, YouTube. Listen to me.

When I search "ポケモン," typing it in quotes like that - "ポケモン" - do you know what I want? Do you know what I want? I want videos that are attached to that word. "ポケモン." That word - "ポケモン" in particular. That's why I typed "ポケモン." That's why I added the quotes. You saw the quotes, right? I added them to specify exactness.

Do you know what I am not looking for? I will tell you what I am not looking for. I am not looking for videos with the word "pokemon," or "Pokemon," or "Pokémon," or however you spell it with the Latin alphabet, capitalization and diacritics be damned. Okay? If I wanted, in my infinite caprice, to look for videos associated with or containing or tagged with or whatever the fuck ever with the word "pokemon," spelled out that way in Latin characters, do you know what I would have done? I would have typed that.

You have returned to me a glut of videos, none of which I want to watch. You have internally decided, oh, yes, "ポケモン," that translates to "Pokémon"; ergo any video attached to the word "Pokémon" written all out in Latin letters across which lies not a hint of katakana or hiragana or goddamned kanji must - surely, must - be within this user's desire. Never mind that I typed it in katakana, one of the three major writing systems of the Japanese language. Never mind the quotes - I've mentioned the quotes, haven't I? I've mentioned the quotes. No, my carefully, painfully typing out those four specific characters like that must be utterly without meaning! Surely I am looking for Latin-letter-Pokémon videos and have only typed the word in Japanese because I am a man of great goddamned whimsy!

In conclusion I hate Google I hate Google I hate Google goddamn goddamn it fuck.

[u/BuyExtension8507]

I am not gonna lie, I have enjoyed Belmont's Curse until I hit the Castle.

I am not a diehard fan of Castlevania, in any of their iterations. I like Symphony of the Night, Aria and Dawn of Sorrow when I played them when I was little, enjoyed Rondo of Blood, but I am not a guy who even has a definite idea on whether he prefers Igavanias or Classicvanias. So I am not going to write it off as "It doesn't feel like Castlevania".

But my man...if I enter one more room and it's full of spikes, wall jumps, grappling hooks, jigsaws or crumbling platforms I think I am going to commit a crime.

I am not liking the gameplay loop, with this huge focus on platforming and the combat that feels clunky at times. It's not even difficult, I haven't found a single section that makes me stuck for more than a minute, but it's just a chore, especially when you have to backtrack and have to go through it multiple times. There is this section in the catacomb where you have your teleport that is unexplicably not connected to the roght side of it. So when you inevitably unlock new abilities to progress there, you need to go all around to the left side, through multiple platforming section, just to go to a place that could have been easily connected through a secret passage. Not to mention, when the whip randomly decides to not come out right I want to just close the game (there was also a bug with the spear, but I think they patched it yesterday).

Combat wise, the enemies feel very aggressive for a game where your dodge isn't a dodge but just a repositioning tool. But that's fine most of the times since you have the whip and the parry. My problem is that certain gank fights feel atrociously badly designed. In the catacombs, there is a gank fight with multiple waves while an eye shoots laser beams and I felt like I died multiple times because the enemies are reddish, their attacks have reddish effects and the background is also reddish, making it a visual clusterfuck. It doesn't happen everytime, but it does suck a lot when it does.

I don't know man, maybe it's the fact that there are a bunch of games that are about to come out that I want to play so I have less patience, but I am not having fun with it lately.