Filly Vanilli

  • 1 year ago
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    @the writers of "Wilson's Heart" and "Simple Explanation" - thanks, I hate it.
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    • Klemoib
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      Klemoib
      Editing … Were those in the later seasons? All those seasons were "thanks I hate it" :-P
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    • Filly Vanilli
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      Filly Vanilli
      Editing … "Wilson's Heart" is the S4 finale (so the half way mark of the series) where SpoilerHouse struggles to remember the events leading up to, and the details surrounding, a public bus crash, and eventually ends with Wilson's gf, and former "contestant" on House's reality-TV-elimination-style contest to work for him, Amber, dying as a result of the crash. The doctors conclude there is no way to save her because the trauma of the crash destroyed her kidneys and she just happened to have taken flu meds immediately before the crash, and bc the meds apparently bond with proteins or something, there was no way to flush the drugs out of her system and without functioning kidneys, the drugs were poisoning her (is my understanding). Wilson climbs into her hospital bed with her and they snuggle and talk for her final, few hours and eventually she asks him to "pull the plug" on the machinery keeping her kidneys functioning. "Simple Explanation" is one of the last episodes of S5 where SpoilerKutner's actor, Kal Penn, accepted a job offer working for the Obama Administration and the show writers therefore abruptly killed off his character in an unceremonious, off-screen suicide by gunshot to the head. Apart from the obvious sadness of it, the show used it as a ~sometimes not even a suicidal person's closest loved ones can see their suicide coming~ message because Kutner always came across as happy-go-lucky and well adjusted in spite of his traumatic childhood and as if his job brought him a great deal of personal fulfillment. But the episode was so poorly and unsatisfyingly executed that it left viewers wishing we'd had better closure.
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    • Klemoib
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      Klemoib
      Editing … Why do I remember these episodes? You'd think I'd have erased them from my mind.
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  • 1 year ago
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    Pros of this season: MBB as El will always hold a special place in my heart, and she maintains her record of pitch-perfect performances as ST's continued leading lady, but it was high time that some other actors got the chance to step up to the metaphorical plate this season and knock it the fuck out of the park--think Joseph Quinn as new fandom favorite (to massively understate it) Eddie, as well as Jamie Campbell Bower, Sadie Sink, and Caleb McLaughlin. It was also high time that we got some back story regarding Hawkins Lab to really grasp onto, and to better understand how we got to where we are in the "present" of 1983-1986, where the majority of the series takes place. Also *love* what the Duffer Brothers did for Kate Bush (who must be cloud nine rn, seeing a song of hers be jettisoned to a popularity never seen when it was first released over 30 years ago) and Metallica this season. And right on schedule (given the kids' ages at this point), the season is beginning to confront the issue of what closeted, gay teens in the 80s were going through. They've spent the past three seasons hinting at Will absolutely being some brand of not-hetero (I personally went for "asexual"/"aromantic" initially whereas now I think he's both demisexual/demiromantic and gay--anyone else peep the subject of his school project in California? Alan Turing?), and while I think Will deserves to realize he can do a lot fucking better than Mike, it's nice to see that all of that a-hint-a, a-hint-a-ing they've been doing for the past seasons is actually having some payoff.

    Cons of this season: While El's journey is moving and so many are able to relate to her in spite of her supernatural back story and abilities, for GOD'S SAKE, DUFFER BROTHERS, LET THIS CHILD'S HEART REST. The brand of bullying we see her deal with this season hits way too fucking close to home. More serious criticisms: - I can't stand Mike. I can't FUCKING stand him. I could write an (at least) five paragraph essay about why he sucks. - Please, just stop with dragging out the Jonathan/Nancy thing. It's dumb and tropey and I hate it. - Unless they have an explanation hiding in their back pocket for S5, they created a whole plot hole with Spoilerthe Upside Down being "frozen" in 1983 on the day Will went missing. How does that work, when Will was able to interact with Joyce's Xmas-lights-alphabet-wall? The painted letters should not have been visible to him. Also in S1, when Joyce and Hop go in to find Will, there is a blood stain on the floor in the hallway where Nancy and Jonathan caught the Demogorgon in a bear trap. But the happenings in Rightside-Up Hawkins should not leave physical evidence in the UD based on this new info given this season about the UD being "frozen" on the day of Will's disappearance.
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  • 1 year ago
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    I stumbled upon The Enigma of Amigara Fault late one night/early one morning while doomscrolling on my phone, and was so thoroughly disturbed that I was like, "I *need* to read more of this guy's stuff." So a couple of days later, I read Uzumaki in one sitting. It had been a few years since I'd read manga--sadly, I think it's an art form that is seemingly overlooked even among the "anime fan" crowd because there's maybe this assumption that waiting for the inevitable anime adaptation is always better, and/or people just don't like reading. Which, don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge anyone who feels that way since I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with reading, but I think the comic/graphic novel format makes it more accessible and certainly more immersive. Anyway, now I'm pretty sure a hard copy of Uzumaki is going to be one of the things at the top of my wish list for Xmas, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the anime adaptation that has been teased--which, from the footage shown so far, appears to literally depict Ito's black-and-white art style from the manga, in animated form. <3 His art is crucial to a great deal of his works' "creep factor" so that seems like a great stylistic choice for the adaptation.
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    • rockshard PhD
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      rockshard PhD
      Editing … The last time I tried to get into manga I noticed that I find it overstimulating in a way videogames are not, and makes it harder to do for extended sessions. I was probably looking at the wrong genres though. Or maybe I'm the problem, bc I tend to gush over the art on almost every page. This guy's work looks quite good though. Damn spooky.
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    • Klemoib
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      Klemoib
      Editing … Oh yeah. I was wondering about that adaptation. I forgot about it. His art looks cool but I have no patience to read/look for pages and pages on end. I hope that the animation lives up to the art.
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    • Filly Vanilli
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      Filly Vanilli
      Editing … The good thing about his stuff compared to some other mangaka is that a lot of his works are short, standalone stories so one can read in short sittings, fwiw. Even his best known "long" work, Uzumaki, is really a collection of sequential, connected short stories that come together to build a larger narrative because new chapters would debut in a magazine. You can read the entirety of The Enigma of Amigara Fault here if either of you are curious--it's 32 pages, which isn't too bad since a lot of that is taken up by pictures, obviously: https://imgur.com/gallery/nzTCS (it varies with manga translations, but FYI this is a "read right-to-left" translation) Or just wait for the anime adaptation of Uzumaki like Klem said :P
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    • MasterCrash
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      MasterCrash
      Editing … Junji Ito is definitely one better served in manga form. I'm curious to check out Uzumaki's adaptation tho, the style is different and the man responsible for the OST is AMAZING, I love him a lot.
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    • MasterCrash
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      MasterCrash
      Editing … That said, while I do appreciate his style and have a couple of his manga, I do think he sadly eclipses other horror mangaka. Kazuo Umezz, for example, definitely should not be as unknown outside of Japan as he is, specially since he is Ito's main influence.
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    • Filly Vanilli
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      Filly Vanilli
      Editing … Sounds like someone whose work I should look into!
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    • Klemoib
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      Klemoib
      Editing … Japanese horor is almost always great. It makes me question why they are so good with the genre....
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  • 1 year ago
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    Episode VII was my absolute fucking favorite, but this shit was so disappointing. I think I heard on a podcast that they apparently cobbled together the plot by making a checklist of everything they wanted to see in the finale to the nine-episode suite, and then wrote a narrative (if it can be called that) that would serve as a vehicle for all of those things to happen, which... makes *so* much sense as to why it turned out to be the utter mess that it is.
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  • 1 year ago
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    Other things... I broke my two-year streak of not going to the movie theater (thanks to COVID) by seeing NOPE on the big screen during opening week and it was AMAZING! And then I came back and saw it again a week later, in IMAX. Been a long time since I've seen a flick in a theater twice, and longer since I've seen something in IMAX, surely. It gave me a renewed appreciation for the movie theater experience and a renewed concern for the way the industry is reportedly languishing. And I've gotten into fine tuning my iTunes library again (I refuse to "get with the times" and do the music streaming thing) and specifically have been listening to a lot of Coheed and Cambria lately.
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  • 1 year ago
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    Played through Boyfriend Dungeon! This is the first new game I've started, *and* subsequently finished, in... I can't remember how long. Haven't been playing video games in general at all much lately so... beware. I gots a lot to say (spoiler tags are mostly due to length):

    SpoilerScore out of ten... I'll go with a 7.5, I think? Very enjoyable little game with a premise ("your weapons are actually people who can *transform* into various weapons--a dagger, a glaive, an axe, etc.--with various abilities and strengths/weaknesses, and the goal is to cultivate friendships with and date them") that was able to entice me out of my reluctance to try the "roguelike" genre, which iirc is usually defined in part by its tendency toward high learning curves (aka, "they're balls hard"). This is my first foray into the genre that I can think of, and while both times I started the game (different platforms) it was slightly punishing--it wasn't punishing enough to be demoralizing or discouraging. After you level up a bit--both yourself, thereby gaining more HP, and your weapons' "Love Rank", thereby granting you stronger abilities--the difficulty curve becomes very well paced and reasonable, I find. It's not hard to level up at all, given that when you get KO'd in a dungeon, you gain XP commensurate with everything you've done on that run, *and* get to keep all of the loot you've earned during the run, too. And if you still find it too difficult, there is an option in the main menu to play with a 50% damage reduction from the moment you start the game, which I didn't need, but again, I applaud them for not shying away from accessibility in that regard. Certainly veterans of, and perhaps some intermediate players/beginners, of the genre will want to play on a higher difficulty setting.

    The game overall is very easy on the eyes, just like the various babes you'll come across throughout the story (four guys, two gals, and two non-binary pals--err, and there is a weapon-cat you get to befriend, too). I admire the ambition of the animated scenes that are sprinkled throughout, given that Kitfox Games is just a small indie studio, but they're the sole weak point of the game's visual design. They're like... maybe a couple of steps above the animation quality seen in, say, the Zelda CDI games? Yeah, yikes. And I enjoyed the soundtrack enough that I will probably buy it. As far as the story, it has a positive message about the merits of opening up to people, trying new things, and forming new relationships without blaming others for your insecurities and (real or perceived) inadequacies. Still, the story and the characterization of the antagonist (spoiler alert: he's dead ass a stereotypical "Nice GuyTM"/"M'Lady"/incel type) were a bit on-the-nose and hamfisted. At least it all ends with him apologizing honestly, and he actually shows *follow through* on that apology by committing to going to therapy, so yay?

    I wish the game had more replay value, because with around 20 hours on the game, I seem to have seen almost all there is to see of the game. I have two characters I didn't max out my "Love Rank" with, but that alone isn't enough to warrant me playing the game again. This is because there is seemingly no consequence for hitting max Love Rank with multiple, or even all, of the (human) romance options in a single playthrough. None of the NPCs ever explicitly say they're monogamous, so I guess that's fine if the game doesn't want to exclude polyamorous players, but it does kind of take away a potential aspect of there being stakes to your decisions and a potential motive for replays. There are stakes in the sense that you can say the "wrong" thing and gain less Love Rank during a conversation, or accidentally give them a gift they're not into that they'll awkwardly decline (which feels... surprisingly humiliating, lmao), but at no point do you have to commit to a particular romance option. I ultimately decided on Valeria as my "the one" if it came to that, but it never did, and imo Seven is the "better weapon" for boss battles, so I actually used him for bosses instead of Valeria. Oh, and you seemingly do have the option to keep things platonic with anyone you aren't attracted to or don't care for stylistically as a weapon, but I was too much of a coward for that because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. :(
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  • 1 year ago
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    Been a minute since I've logged in here, admittedly. Guess it can't hurt to update my pfp for the first time in almost 3 years~

    Also, got some new reviews/opinions to drop. Sad to see we still can't add pages to the database yet.
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    • Klemoib
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      Klemoib
      Editing … It's Filly! I have not seen you in maybe 10 years? How have you been?
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    • rockshard PhD
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      rockshard PhD
      Editing … Filly do you use spelltable? You mentioned something like that once. Lately I was thinking about trying it, but it's just so insane. I would need to buy a webcam just for that and would probably use it to play 2-3 games before letting it collect dust.
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    • Explojin
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      Explojin
      Editing … Welcome back again
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    • Filly Vanilli
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      Filly Vanilli
      Editing … Hey Klem! Yikes, well, a lot has happened in 10 years, naturally. I graduated, relocated about 1100 miles from my hometown to be with my then-boyfriend, went through a varied rotation of different jobs til I settled into the one where I've been for the past four years, got married, and now just trying my best to take life one day at a time in spite of... *gestures vaguely* you know, the general state of the world. Not all great, not all bad, so the usual. What about you? I've been known to show my face around here occasionally (like once a year or so lol), so I'm wondering why we haven't crossed paths in so long??
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    • Filly Vanilli
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      Filly Vanilli
      Editing … Rockshard - in reality, I've used spelltable literally once lol. Pandemic really did a number on what little social skills, and social battery, I had pre-pandemic. So tbh the idea of "appearing" on camera (even if it's just my voice) to strangers causes me a fair amount of anxiety. My friends wouldn't have a reason to use it much so it would mostly be with strangers. I keep coming back to the idea of it because I can't get as many EDH games as I'd like to in order to actually properly playtest my decks just from our weekly hangouts, but realistically, it feels like too many "steps" to get it all set up, for my AuDHD ass. However! In fairness, I feel like a decent webcam isn't that expensive these days, so if that's your only reservation with the idea of it ultimately "collecting dust", then maybe it's worth trying out?
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    • Klemoib
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      Klemoib
      Editing … We’ve never crossed paths here because I’ve never really been on here. I came here half a year ago maybe? People will have to excuse me if I post too much. Sorry if I do :-P I try not to but this is the only place I post at all. I might quit the internet altogether again one day (save for the bare necessities) but I like this secluded spot on the interwebs so I made an exception for favslist for now. No one irl will argue about games with me anyway. I’m still doing art stuff. I’m doing a masters right now for art and technology….. They don’t really teach you the technology bit…. You’re expected to figure it out yourself lol. But I like the direction my work is going. It’s getting in a weird territory but surprisingly people seem to like it aswell. It’s been hard though to make the shift from painting to making weird animated visual machines and it still is hard. I have no references to look to for the things I plan on making. I have to make it all up myself but it’s fun too. I like a challenge. I should start working again soon. Holiday is almost over. Maybe I can squeeze in a mini game marathon before it ends. :-)
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  • 2 years ago
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    Oh damn, we really don't even have a page for The Haunting of Hill House? This "new page creation lockout" goes back further than I thought. Incredible show, btw, as is The Haunting of Bly Manor.

    Just recently binge watched Midnight Mass and while not on the same level as the two Haunting series, absolutely recommend all three. Think I'm quickly becoming a fangirl of Flanagan's. Hush was okay too
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  • 2 years ago
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    I've been screaming/crying internally basically since Tuesday night when the credits rolled on this for me and hubby. This was soooooooo good QQ 3.33 kind of ruined my opinion of the Rebuild series when it came out, but nonetheless, I marathon rewatched all of the movies anyway in prep for this, and my god. Talk about blowing every expectation out of the water and writing a magnificently perfect ending that Eva fans have been waiting for for *twenty-five fucking years*. And a whopping fourteen of those years were spent just between the first and fourth movie. Glorious payoff. SpoilerSeriously, a good, HAPPY ending?? For NGE??? At long last??? And it's not only happy but unexpected in its precise execution but yet exactly what fans have been longing for all along???
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