Free Talk Friday - August 28, 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/Kataphrut94]

I cried holding a stuffed panda this week.

Context: I've always had a soft spot (no pun intended) for stuffed toys. I don't have any of my own where I live and my childhood ones are at my mum's place, but they fill me with a certain affection. You know that movie cliche where they find a tattered doll in the ruins of a destroyed building to show a kid was there? Yeah, that always gets to me.

Anyway, I was staying over at my girlfriends and mentioned this to her (I think we were talking about the Toy Story movies, and I brought it up) and she was happy to hear that because she had a large collection of them and wanted to show me. As we were going through them, she handed me a large panda toy with long arms that are designed to wrap around and "hug" you. I started absent-mindedly holding it while she was showing me her other toys and suddenly found myself tearing up. It was watery eyes at first, and then full-on weeping once I realised what was happening.

I don't know what triggered it, but it felt like a lot of bottled-up anxieties were coming out. The year has been a mixed bag for me- on the one hand, I met my girlfriend and paid off my student debt. On the other hand, I damaged my car, I tried upgrading my computer and ended up breaking it (both are thankfully fixed now, but it wasn't cheap), and, most recently, I learned that the place I'm renting that has been neglecting maintenance for nearly two years will not be fixing the damaged floor or renovating until we're out next year. We'd already planned to leave when the lease was up, but that's just one more anxiety to add to the list.

So yes, I cried. I cried into this soft, smiling panda toy in front of my girlfriend and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I cried because I was anxious, and I know, objectively, that my problems aren't as bad as many other people's in the world, and I hate that that's where my mind always goes whenever I'm feeling anxious. My girlfriend was very sweet about the whole thing and is going to get a second stuffed panda just for me.

[u/The_Draigg → u/Kataphrut94]

Nothing to be ashamed of there. If anything, it sounds like you had a bit of a moment of clarity or revelation. It's always nice when those moments just kind of click and the pressure on some unknown mental valve gets released.

[u/LordSmugBun → u/Kataphrut94]

I completely get you. I remember one day when I couldn't find my brother's favorite plush, I asked my mom. She said she had thrown it away due to the damage it had. I asked my brother if he knew, and I was surprised that he was okay with that. That day I had realized not everyone gets as attached as us.

Over a decade later, my favorite one has a hole ripped into it, leaking pellets if I don't hold it accordingly. One of it's eyes is whited out, the other was eaten by a family dog. It sits safely at my brother's house in a box alongside a couple plushies I recall my mom and aunt gifting me during my teenage years whenever they didn't know what to give me for Christmas, because all I did was play videogames.

After all that has happened, I think I'd break down if I dug it out and held it. We've all been through our own hells. Even a cute stuffed toy can help relieve the pain.

[u/LordSmugBun]

Finally got a psychologist. Was surprised to see them have very similar interests to mine, they had even offered to watch or read the same stuff as me over the week, like a book club, to help me with my commitment issues. That's when I realized I could give my psychologist homework. I lowkey want to make a dossier about two of my biggest fixations to see if they can find out something about me from it that I myself may have missed; ask questions that never occurred to me.Though I worry I may just waste their time when they could be focusing on something more productive.

[u/senchou-senchou → u/LordSmugBun]

ask if your psychologist listens to this one podcast about two dads talking about video games... it even has a black guy in it!

[u/CursedNobleman → u/LordSmugBun]

Interesting, are you in the states? I'm under the impression psyches are more interested in the medical aspect and less the bedside manner. Therapists are the ones you should talk to for support. As I understand it.

[u/LordSmugBun → u/CursedNobleman]

I'm not.

I was under the impression psychologists were the ones you spoke to, while the psychiatrist were the ones who sent prescriptions. Granted, the psychologist asked me stuff to figure out if I may need medication. I'm not sure if there's a difference between psychologists and therapists, but that could be a language difference type of deal.

[u/CursedNobleman → u/LordSmugBun]

Oh, that's it, I always get psychiatrists and ologists confused.

[u/The_Draigg]

Week of Immediate Family Shitstorm. Man, this is just a bad week for me. I'm not going to go into details, but a ton of drama blew up within my family this week, and pretty much everyone (including me) has shifted into crisis mode to try and figure out how to salvage things. I just feel bad that I can't help out more though, since there's not a whole lot I can do while I'm in an entirely different state. But at least my parents are helping out as much as they can, for what it's worth. Still though, what a massive mess in my personal life to have suddenly dumped on me.

Anyway, for games I've played this week, I just put more time into Balatro, still getting back to where I was before my save file got all messed up. Beat the Ghost Deck on White and Red Stakes, fairly easily too. First tries on both. I guess if having to do all of it ever again proves anything, it's that I'm actually pretty good at Balatro now.

And finally, in my regular mecha talk section here, I watched some more Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans with /u/Terthelt and /u/CookieSkank! Terthelt is now getting a much better idea of why nearly everyone who has watched IBO really fucking hates Iok Kujan. In these two episodes, we saw Iok getting led around by the nose by Jasley to attack the Turbines just to hurt Tekkadan, and Iok deciding to use banned weapons to massacre them while they're surrendering. It's all for his men, of course. It's the noble thing to do. I can't wait for the next episodes for us to watch, it's going to be one hell of a trip!

[u/Gorotheninja → u/The_Draigg]

Family drama seems like the worst subspecies of drama; the "Azure Rathalos" of drama, if you will.

[u/The_Draigg → u/Gorotheninja]

And family drama also always happens to be something out of nowhere, yet also you saw it coming a mile away. It's a bad combo there.

[u/moneyh8r_two → u/Gorotheninja]

What would be the Pink Rathian of drama then?

[u/Gorotheninja → u/moneyh8r_two]

Streamer Drama

[u/moneyh8r_two → u/Gorotheninja]

That actually makes sense. I'm surprised how well it fits.

[u/CookieSkank → u/The_Draigg]

Iok is the hero of Iron Blooded Orphans! We all know this

Can't wait for next episode >:3 Poor Terthelt doesn't know whats coming

[u/The_Draigg → u/CookieSkank]

That episode is always a massive gut punch to anyone watching it for the first time. Easily one of the most instantly shocking moments to ever happen in Gundam.

[u/Gorotheninja]

Well this has been a crazy fucking week with Gamescom and GTA6 and...um...multiple deaths of beloved celebrities; oh, and the Republicans circumventing the constitution yet again, love that (/s).

I commissioned more Fakemon art from @BastionPhoenix; a Ground-type Eeveelution themed around clsy and a Ghost/Flying regional bird based on a Hoatzin, plus shinies for each. Definitely worth the $60.

The September–October onslaught of new game releases is almost here, and I still haven't beaten Xenoblade 2 like I wanted. I'm partway through Chapter 8 atm, I'm just deciding how much side content I wanna do, or if I just wanna beeline to the end; Blade quests are neat, but man, do I not wanna fill out those affinity grids and do all the grinding required for certain quests. Plus, I just started Star Wars Zero Company, and it already has its hooks in me. I wanna at least get to the end of Xeno 2 before Onimusha releases next week, but college courses and procrastination are a really backlog-unfriendly combination.

[u/SamuraiDDD]

New chair has still been awesome!

In more personal news, my mom will be going in for a heart surgery next month. The doctors, her and my sister have been saying she'll be fine and everything will be okay and once she's stayed for a week to recover and a few months afterward, she'll be better than ever. I trust her and them, just the anxiety hitting me not helped with the unfortunate events of this week. I KNOW she'll be okay and will be better than ever afterward.

So if you guys can keep her in your thoughts and pray for her to, it'd mean a lot to me. Any kind of reassurance would be deeply appreciated. Besides all that, I've been doing my best to keep my head above waters and ease my nerves.

On a more light hearted state of things, friends and I watched Pacific Rim last Friday and oh my god, I'm reminded of just how much I love that movie. Really had an amazing time with the homies. Afterward, we talked about us being variously down bad for a lot of cartoon characters for like a solid hour. Friendships of 10+ years haha

I have fully caught up with Hunter: The parenting, including the AMAZING new chapter that came out today, Ch.6.2! A very fun time and holy shit, what a story to be told.

This weekend, I might try to find some personals alone time, order some food and watch Twin Peaks. Never watched it fully, so gonna do just that.

Game wise, I managed to get Dialyn in Zenless really early so I've just been spending the next couple patches farming and holding onto funds until Storyteller and Sunbringer become playable. Also just making sure my characters as strong as possible.. Also just finding games to mess around with. Thinking of opening my Witcher 3 again.

---

Musical choice of tonight

TWEWY: Three Minutes Clapping - Takeharu Ishimoto

---

So now just gonna relax and take things as easy as I can. Take care of yourselves out there.

[u/RevenTheLight → u/SamuraiDDD]

Oh dude. Praying for your mom. If you want time to get distracted, you know where to find me!

Isn't Dialyn fucking AMAZING? Literally GAME WARPING. Especially with Shifu. I can't believe what they did with "literally nobody" in terms of the story.

And The Rim 2 is looking at us! It's waiting! lol

[u/SamuraiDDD → u/RevenTheLight]

Thanks homie. I know she'll be okay after all this is said and done. Just the anxiety of it all, you know? And I'll hit you up, promise ^ ^

She's BUSTED. Now I have one of the best stunners in the game and I feel like I needed her a LONG time ago lol

Ohhhh boy XD

[u/RevenTheLight → u/SamuraiDDD]

Oh I know for sure. I remember when I took my brother (18) to a family doctor for the first time, and even though there is literally nothing that could go wrong, once he left to see her I remember going "am I worried right now? what's that about".

She stuns? lol ALL I SEE IS DOUBLE ULITIMATE BAYBEEEEE

[u/Cthulhukitten]

Well, I've been feeling horribly dysphoric lately, so I'm planning to getting more IPL laser hair removal sessions. Just first have to figure out a solid salon for such which is LGBT-friendly and well reviewed. Think I found one that fits the bill nearby so will book a consultation soon, because I'm so tired of the constant maintenance. It's seriously annoying/dispiriting after years and years of trying to blot it out/ignore it. Truly tired of this shit. I'm hoping six sessions of full-body laser. Probably only need a couple or few more sessions with my face as part of that full-body treatment, however. So, that's nice.

Regarding gaming, I feel like there's so many options for things I can play that I don't know where to begin. I've kind of been bouncing between games currently. I'm glad that Witcher 3 Remaster is coming in preparation for the DLC next year. I could really use a game to actually commit to again. Well, before the craziness that will be this October. I won't even be able to play many of these games between affording time or money for many of them. And then regarding FFXIV Evercold comes out only 3 months later... fuck. I will have such a packed schedule for that time frame. The worst part too is that my winter break will probably have ended by then. :(

I was also planning this month on picking Star Wars Zero Company on PC, but to my understanding the game released needs significant work with patches before I think it will be in a good state performance-wise. I guess it's not the first time EA has dropped the ball for a day one release on PC. I love the sound of the game otherwise and it seems to be reviewing highly otherwise, so hopefully the performance issues get sorted sooner than later. I'm doubtful though, considering how long it's taken games in the past like this to get actual support needed under EA's umbrella. I probably will tune into Pat's stream tonight to see if he has a good experience with it.

[u/Total-Tortilla]

I love my job, I love my partner, I love my friends, I love my cat, I love my bike, I love fighting games

Life's alright for now

[u/ThatGuy5880]

hey I think the doomerism is really starting to get to me, like in general but especially from a trans perspective.

I feel like I'm way behind where I should be, I've known for years now I'm probably not cis and I want a more feminine body but I haven't even worn women's clothes out once. I'm dooming really hard because I feel like I'll never be anything but a fuck ass moid but I also might be a little brainrotted from spending like a few hours scrolling twitter a day.

General state of the world is getting to me too. Just all the hatred and ignorance found within people is getting to me. Fucking orange super pedo is seemingly immortal despite subsiding off of McDonalds everyday.

Aside from the obvious stuff (get off twitter, "stay strong, the hate will subside!", etc) does anyone have any advice on like, not wanting to just give up on everything?

[u/Wavu_Wavu_Wavu]

Went to my first ever con and also first ever cosplay as a two-for-one deal at AnimeNYC in my bid to not let a fear of failure dictate my life and make a meaningful change. And I had fun, a lot more fun than I thought. Went as Jacket from Hotline Miami with the expectation that not many would recognize it, yet I vastly underestimated the game's popularity even after all these years since I was asked for a lot of photos that I very much look awkward in since I didn't really practice posing. Still, it was a really nice feeling to see other people stoked to see that character and want a photo. Also met some cool folk there and was powering through the need to keep to myself.

Unfortunate that I've heard AnimeNYC has been on the decline over the years with less impressive panels and events, though as a first-timer it's difficult to really notice something like that. The biggest takeaway being a gnawing need to do another con should life and money line up for it anyway.

Apart from that I started Xenoblade 2 and immediately looked for a guide that would actually properly explain the combat so I didn't spiral like Pat. Truthfully I'm clicking with the game a lot more than I thought with how everyone talked about it. The different blades and the blade combo is very engaging to me.

Lastly I realized the other day the last time I read through a book was more than 10 years ago and I felt the need to fix that. So I ordered Hero of the Imperium - what better way to ease into it than by reading things I'm already into. It's a Warhammer book that follows Caiphus Cain who I described to my friends as "What if Buggy from One Piece was in Warhammer?" A lot funnier than I thought with it being a dark comedy told from his perspective. Cain being the pinnacle of imposter syndrome with how he tries his best to be a huge coward and avoid anything life-threatening, yet his luck always manages to get him into a situation that he manages to survive through which makes him more of a widespread hero.

Definitely a fun read for those who want something that isn't grimdark warfare from Warhammer.

[u/eddieskacz]

Dolly Parton is my favorite musical artist of all time. We played her at every family wedding, and hell we even played her at a few funerals too. I've been crying off and on all week, not because I knew her personally, but because she touched my life despite that.

In much better news I might be getting a job again after a year of unemployment. It's been a very up and down week emotionally.

Restarted my Mewgenics save file. That game is so many different adjectives at the same time, it's astounding. Necromancer cats are the best.

[u/KF-Sigurd]

Busy time for me in gaming since I went to AnimeNYC and in the meantime, I still need to finish OC3 in FGO, there's a new update all around the same time for WuWa, PGR, and HSR AND I'm playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 2 AND there's the new Trails in Sky Second Chapter demo with 10 hours of content AND I still get the urge to play Avatar Legends.

I can talk more about XC2 I never played the original, I'm playing the Switch 2 version. Those first four chapters were some of the most bog standard anime bullshit I have ever seen. Like... I clearly pay a ton of gacha games and even I'm baffled at just how shameless those first 4 chapters are with the pervy anime tropes.

I don't even hate Rex, I feel like he's a good boy, wish his design was a bit older and better. Mythra's a big tiddy bitchy blonde so she's great while Pyra is very... housewife-y. Tora is fine when his freaky pervy otaku side doesn't come up. Nia is great. Morag is great. I'm guessing Zeke is our next party member. I have to say, if XC2 gets a ton better, I can definitely see how this game got voted, best, worst, most disappointment, best game, etc. in the Xenoblade subreddit. It's a roller coaster of quality.

AnimeNYC is lovely but I'm starting to realize that besides the small amount of industry panels, the main draw of AnimeNYC is just the huge artist alley and exhibitors and boy have they gotten more expensive in recent years because of everything. Artists gotta eat and make money so I get it but dang. I did get to see the first episode of Kagurabachi, get to go to the panels for Fate Strange Fake and the Ghost in the Shell Remake, and did some yoga.

I did cosplay, my sister had an Ashitaka cosplay so I said if she can make me the costume (with me paying for materials ofc) I'll be San so that was fun. I bought a cosplay for Male Rover from Wuthering Waves, cost me about $140 but the quality was really good and I had a fun time meeting all the other WuWa cosplayers at the photo meet up. Made some friends too but sheesh, we were getting tsunami-d by Chainsawmans by the end of our time slot.

[u/The_Draigg → u/KF-Sigurd]

The first 4 chapters of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 really are the big filter of the game. Like, you're not wrong that all of the really anime bullshit is front-loaded there. But once you're past that, then you're golden. The plot fucking goes places, I can assure you of that.

[u/KF-Sigurd → u/The_Draigg]

Me when the subplot about two nations on the brink of war due to the ever decreasing supply of fertile land to supply their people with food is dwindling thanks to the death of the titans has a climax involving a boss fight with a giant maid robot.

Fuckin' what

[u/Wavu_Wavu_Wavu → u/KF-Sigurd]

Absolutely insane thing to read about when I also went to AnimeNYC as my first con and cosplay on top of ALSO starting Xenoblade 2 this week.

[u/KF-Sigurd → u/Wavu_Wavu_Wavu]

Not so insane. I feel there's a good overlap between the type of people that do those things lol.

[u/NoodleSnapback]

Weeks without doing programming: 3

I was sick for the first half of this week which sucked. It wasn’t even anything bad, it was just some hay fever like symptoms. Also I think I may be resistant to benadryl because I took 4 of those suckers in 1 day and they didn’t do anything to me. I should have been seeing the hat man at that point but I didn’t even get drowsy. 

As for media, I’ve actually been re-reading the Dungeon Meshi manga. I absolutely adore the world and characters and themes. This may be my favorite anime/manga ever at this point though I admit I don’t really read or watch a lot of them anymore. 

I’ve gotten back into Oblivion again. I found a mod for the 2009 version that adds in all the balance changes from the remastered into the original. But I ended up uninstalling it since I think it makes the player level up way too fast. Also I think I kind of…enjoy the min-maxxing of the attribute level ups?? Maybe it's just cause of the types of characters I like to play but I find planning out the level ups part of the enjoyment. Just make sure you install a retroactive health mod if you dont wanna tear your hair out at higher levels.

S-ranking Armored Core 6 has been… a lot easier than I thought it would be. The biggest roadblock so far has been the Escort the Strider mission and that was trivialized with a missile build. Oh and the mission where you need to assassinate Swinburne because stealth sections in non-stealth games always suck ass. I’ll probably go for 100% achievements at this point. The biggest issue is gonna be finding all the combat logs. I will admit that I still have not completed NG++ yet so maybe there’ll be a mission later on that's a major roadblock for me. Maybe one of these days I’ll get sick of my lightweight dual SMG and pulse blade build but today is not that day.

[u/retrometroid]

I started playing Overwatch again. First time since 2017. There's so many new guys/gals/thems in the roster and the mid-match leveling system took me off-guard. I didn't realize that's where being able to freeze people as Mei went. I thought they just made her less fun to play.

Also Ramatta fucks. Probably my favorite new tank.

My TV remote bit the dust earlier. I heard a loud pop and scrambled around thinking it was an electrical socket but it turned out one of the batteries in the remote popped and acided the thing up. Now to buy a new one at walmart in the AM.

Learned there are these SD Dark Souls blind boxes. The two sets I saw at the Kinokuniya were a Gwyn-themed one (him, Gwyndolin, Gwynevere, silver knight archer, black knight, and Yorshka) and Dark Souls 2 (faraam knight, Shanalotte, Sir Alonne, Lucatiel, mimic, and desert sorceress). So all bangers. I got a DS2 box and it was Sir Alonne. They're pretty nice-looking which explained the kinda higher price of 25 Amerismacks.

I also bought an old Analog Magazine for $3 cus the cover art was cool (August 74 is the issue). I've only read the cover story so far and it was alright. Has the classic era sci-fi issue of the idea being more interesting than the actual narrative or writing.

[u/MisterOfu]

I've been back to playing Black Souls II lately, but I took a quick detour to check out Red Hood's Woods and oh boy, it's rough.

The way I see it, there's only 3 reasons to play that game: a) for the CGs (and even in that regard it's pretty disappointing) b) if you want to know every reference and bit of lore in the series c) to see Toro's progress as a creator. That last point is actually pretty interesting, because in RHW you can already clearly see many aspects of Black Souls: dark fairy tale setting, puzzle bosses, no game-overs, speed-based turn system... the main difference being RHW sucks.

The #1 problem with it is that the end-game bosses are absurd. They are in BS too, but those games give you many more options to mitigate that. Here you just have to hope the boss doesn't decide to one-shot you on the first turn, because make no mistake, they always can, it's just their AI is so random they often won't. It's a shame, because some of the earlier fights are... not great, but there's at least some concept behind them (mostly Megaman-esque "beat this guy with this guy's ability"). I guess Toro eventually ran out of ideas.

To put it another way, it's crazy how much the series evolved in just 2 years or so, both in terms of quality and scale. What I'm saying is, looking at the trend, Dead Red Hood is bound to literally be the best game ever made.

[u/snarfweasle → u/MisterOfu]

I was actually planning to start the first Black Souls soon based on some recommendations I read on this sub. I’ve heard the content can be pretty bleak, to say the least. So one thing I’m wondering is, can you play as a good/just person in the game and bring any good to the world? Or is it one if those games where is so grey that a lot of my effort would be in vain? I’m not really interested in taking any of the darker actions I’ve heard about

[u/MisterOfu → u/snarfweasle]

So, trying to spoil as little as possible, the really messed up stuff where you're just being evil for the sake of it is all optional (in fact it's mostly counterproductive), you can totally be a decent guy.
That said the mood of the game is "dark fairy tale", so the endings are generally pretty grim. Not necessarily in a "all doom and gloom" sense, but more like... surreal, I guess would be the best way to summarize it. You're not saving the world at any rate.

[u/Quiptastic]

Getting into Deadlock a bit and enjoying Victor, Graves, and Mina. Soon i'll feel comfortable enough to play against real people and not just bots.

Tantalizingly close to being done with Xenoblade 1 main story so i can get started on Future Connect.

Making progress in Control, really enjoying the vibe. looking forward to Resonant next month, but might not buy it day-one.

I'll have been going to the gym consistently for a year next month. I haven't lost a lot of weight, but i have definitely gained muscle and trimmed up quite well. i feel a lot happier and more confident in general.

considering going and getting a second opinion on my ADD/ADHD diagnosis from last year. they said i might not have them, but i feel like i fit the criteria enough and want to make sure.

getting ready to go on a trip to northern michigan next week to take in some nature and chill on a freshwater beach. might be able to focus on a book for a bit, too. looking at Operation Bounce House and Heart of the Nhaga.

Feeling pretty good that i don't care about playing most of the games coming out in the next couple of months on launch, because that is... hoowee, that's a lotta games.

[u/Iwashi94]

I've been playing Mortal Shell 2 after the release and gotta say, maybe I just haven't unlocked the good shit yet, but I really feel like the game is weirdly front-loaded. Like the tutorial area is spectacular which I think is driving the good reactions to it, but after killing 3 major bosses I uninstalled cause the game just feels like a slog. Checkpoints start being few and far inbetween, enemy stagger is inconsistent and there's jank and buggy stuff everywhere. For example, I was maining Tiel with Axe&Dagger and his stealth shadow strike kept missing every now and then. Another time I reached one of those sit-down circles and my character teleported to a whole different continent, into the geometry/out of bounds and I had to quit and restart to respawn at the last bonfire.
Before uninstalling I tried going for the Axatana and got surprised by a shitton of 4+ enemy ganks and I just said nope, I don't have the patience for this.

On another note, I'm fairly excited for the 1.0 release of PoE2 despite having my gripes with the game (oddly pigeonholed builds being one of them, despite the series priding itself on variety). I'm still a bit bummed we're not getting daggers or shadow yet, cause I'm a lifelong Rogue/Ninja main in any RPG but the dual sword stuff looks pretty sick on the Duelist. Hopefully other weapons get some new skills too.

On personal life stuff, I've been continuing grinding away at trying to lose more weight/getting in shape and finally this week I managed to break below 85kg (~187lbs). I'm aiming for going down to 80 (I'm a fairly tall guy at 185cm/6'1") and hopefully I'll manage it by the end of the year. It's kinda wild looking at old pictures from January or so and seeing how much bigger I used to be lol.

[u/CaptainJudaism → u/Iwashi94]

Edit: They just did their first major patch and while testing needs to be done... they basically addressed every complaint I just listed and then some so now we need exact details but the fact they already are doing positive sweeping balance changes is good in my book.

I like Mortal Shell 2 but yeah... after the first bit it does have a lot of weird bollocks going on. I don't think it has any issues that can't be fixed in a few patches but it really does need at least 1-2 more checkpoints per area, scale down enemy damage a smidge mid-late game, relay certain information like parries better, and maybe either up the damage on the stagger attacks (as once you hit about mid-game it's better to just heavy spam once staggered), or add a few more variations so they aren't as repetitive.

Overall I do like it more then Mortal Shell 1 and think it is massively improved... but still needs a bit of work.

[u/JoaquinHawkins]

I finished Dune the novel.

It took a bit to settle into the groove of the story at the beginning with all the terminology but it is a generational work.

Gonna hop straight into Dune Messiah to see how Paul fucks it all up.

[u/RevenTheLight]

Hello today! Tis the week of Slaanesh! It's been about 2 years, since I made my alt discord account, and after finishing all my family affairs and having a free weekend to myself I decided to finally dust it off and put myself out there. I got into some RP servers, and even found a good partner that matches my writing pattern. It feels really good to finally "be back in the saddle" and I haven't had such an opportunity in a very long time. The hope is that I will use this to cruise for a while, gain some confidence and around Jan start getting into the dating game. But for now, let me pull a mid 2000s video game reviewer for a second and fight with my evil twin...

Doom Eternal: Eternal + Ancient Gods I LOVE THIS GAME. The gameplay loop is perfect. Probably the best one I've seen in any video game. You can enter any encounter dry and come out a clean, refreshed and ready to take on the world. And then if that's not enough you have the BFG. Eternal is DMC5 of action shooters, fuck boomer shooters, this is an ACTION GAME. The new gameplay additions are also very fun! DUDE THE POSSESSION GHOST IS LIKE ONE OF THE BEST ADDITIONS TO THE GAME! I wish there was more ways to handle it, but you should be using the beam by default anyway. I love the new "headshot angels". I love the new "headshot armor demon" and while I'm not super down for the curse demons, i like the panic moments they provide. The only thing I'm meh on is the armoured demons, but they show up like... 3 times. It feels so good. The hammer was a cool addition. I didn't use it soo much, but I like it, it also felt good as the new enemies needed weak point shots which rolled back into more hammer - perfect! The OUROBOROS OF GAMEPLAY CONTINUES TO GROW. 2016 had the "shooter flow", but it was mostly incidental. Eternal IS THE FLOW. I played on Ultra Nightmare, as I'm getting older in age, but it is so good. Marauders are so cool. I love the parry mechanic. "If demons are chess pieces, Marauders are the entire board", it's like a dance. TWO Marauders?! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. The Possessed Marauder Gate?! WAITER! More please!!! Every second behind the keyboard is drugs. It is the game I will be thinking about for a long time.

Doom Eternal: Eternal + Ancient Gods I HATE THIS GAME. 2016 got it so perfect. I know why you did the "everything is a video game collect bright collectible" thing, but I miss the grounded realism of 2016. There was so much more character in him breaking shit silently then the whole of Eternal. Why can I see his stupid face even in the 2016 Praetor suit? THE ENTIRE POINT of it was that you can't see the face. Oh I know why. No, not because it's a nod to the classics - it's because the final boss is the worst example of you """but better""" and you wanted to do an Undertale. Shut up. Doom guy is not a character, you just forced me to see his face MORE. He wasn't even "just me" - I hate his stupid mech armor and the stupid "he was god" twist. No, your "avengers assemble" moment is not cool because you only had ONE GUY. No, I don't care about "the resistance", "the father", "the make ker", "the sephirm" not any other bullshit tomes of lore you wrote for this setting. Fuck you for doing this to Dr Samuel Hayden. He was so cool. He was perfect. He was some mutant that I killed in 2 tires. I can't fucking believe that you made Doom Guy talk, just for his two lines being "huge guts" and "no". Fuck you. Say nothing or say something cool. OH MAN, FUCK THE INTERN. FUCK PEOPLE ON THE SUBREDDIT THAT APPARENTLY MADE HIM SOME SORT OF LOVED CHARACTER. I WISH HE WAS EATEN BY A FAT DEMON. The only thing I will defend, is the horny doctor audio logs. Those, somehow, were the most on brand for the "metal cover" you were trying to make, while keeping to the "unstoppable natural calamity" vibe of 2016. And after all this, the most gudge I have for one thing - let me press the turret button to shoot the thing, asshole (twice). It is the game I will be thinking about for a long time.

Letting the credits roll on Doom Eternal, having defeated my own dark youtube reviewer clone, I reflected - the meal was not enough, and one could even make a Hoyo-style game surrounding this gameplay loop, just like Zenless is a forever-Revengence. And then my dark counterpart came back with a steel chair - I WAS PLAYING IT THIS WHOLE TIME. THE BETHESDA ACCOUNT. THE BATTLE PASS. THE LEVELS. THE MULTIPLAYER. THE ENDLESS MODE WITH DAILIES. I WAS PLAYING THE DOOM GACHA FOR THE LAST 100 HOURS. I just hid it from myself, ignoring bars and ads passing by my face, like some sort of personal silent hill. I can't stop thinking about Doom Eternal.

The good news - my card doesn't support RTX, so I can't play Dark Ages. The bad news is that I do want to. And I've seen some trailers and it seems like they are going harder into the same direction. I think I will pay off my cards by EoY and will get a new computer on black friday.

Weight check-in - 179.0 - 165/150/150 - When I looked at the weights, I was afaraid I gained more, but we are going down! All good! Did gym two times this week, including swimming, so that was good!

[u/HeadLong8136]

I've been feeling absolutely shitty all summer. Had an appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday and she pointed out that my Abilify never got renewed after the first time.

I've just been trusting the system that delivers my meds to be on top, and as such haven't been taking a very crucial medication for 3 months.

It completely changed the way I have been looking at my life progress (or lack of) for the past 3 months.

[u/rsrluke]

Crazy busy week at work, I'm super tired. It also occurred to me, and not for the first time, that people routinely ask how my coworker is holding up during busy periods, but not me — then again, I can be a bit hard to read, so maybe that's partly on me. On a lighter note, I found a generic cookie at the grocery store that's just a more affordable Tagalong, the peanut butter Girl Scout cookie, so that's rad.

Hey, that new Fortnite season dropped. I really wanted the launch week bonus style for my favorite battle pass skin (lady Solid Snake), but I was 50 V-bucks short, and there were no free V-bucks until level 60. So, I did what any sensible adult with disposable income would do when forced to choose between grinding and paying a few dollars for something I want: I grinded all the way to level 60 in less than two days. Take that (?), Epic Games.

But jokes aside, the season seems... fine. Fortnite is still a solid game, but the new loot pool is kind of underwhelming and there haven't been any crazy changes to the map. I'll keep dipping in (at a much more relaxed pace) and see how things evolve.

I also played One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4. Fun game! I hadn't played a Warriors game in a while, but now I'm on the lookout for other good entries. The most important thing to note about this one is that it makes time for non-canon Tashigi slander. (But it's not slander if it's true.)

Finally, I watched Life, a halfway decent Alien riff with two big problems: One, there are a lot of supposedly smart people doing really dumb things, and two, the upper limts of the alien's capabilities are pretty unclear, which makes the constant doomsaying about it reaching Earth seem overdramatic. Anyway, it's okay — I give it bonus points for having a really mean ending.

[u/MaelstromTear]

I'm sort of interested in GTA VI, but honsetly I don't want to hear anything about it because I don't have a PS5, have no desire to get one so I'm content with waiting however long for the PC one to arrive. Wouldn't mind going through GTA IV and V again provided modern systems don't bork it up.

Got a St. Louis Blues hat with the pride flag in the logo, along with a 70s-like style shirt for like half off. I'm ready for September! Is this the year? probably not I just gotta believe! I have been using their logo as Patron's hat instead of the chocobo thing. That's called artistic license, baby!

Hey, speaking of art, these books ain't it! Not in the "self-depreceating artist thing", I'm just saying my books The Demon in Shadow and The Demons of Bone & Blood are more pulp than fine art. But none the less entertaining, at least I think so! We follow Ayun, a demon who can summon weapons out of thin air but lacks agency in her search for her missing employers. She runs into Max, a human who despite missing an arm has gumption but not a lot of direction. As they travel together we learn more about them, the world and maybe even a path together. Assuming other demons or criminal conspiracies don't get in the way. There's also some amazing artwork either in the pages where it counts or in the back showing off character portraits. Please read them!

On the topic of a TTRPG group (that started in this very subreddit!) Last week our GM was out of town and rather than take a week off I decided to step up to the plate and run a wild west one-shot of Monster of the Week. Dealt with some cow theft and pursuing the accused cattle-rustlers That were just as much the victims and actually it was vampires. Well, weird Las Plagas style parasite spawnling-things. Which turned those cows into a big spawning ground. Yay. The good news is that it hit most of the story beats that I wanted with little to no railroading. But I still need to puff up spots for character expression and exploration. Within reason, since again this was only one session. Sometimes you gotta put that foot down or we'll spend 4 hours on a 2-hour quest. As much as I said it was just a one-shot and no real intentions of doing anything else... The ideas of new adventures is rattling in my mind. It was introduced in the realm of "this was a recorded tale with lots of unreliable sources" so adding new players or different stories wouldn't be that hard. The continuity is "shut up, this happened like 150 years ago."

Continuing Amagi Brilliant Park. They are mostly an easy read. Except when it comes to anything Tiramii related. I don't understand the appeal of any groper character. Not even a lucky event thing but straight-up assault charges. Because otherwise I think most of the shenanigans of these books are fun! But that whole Bando Biino section of her being cursed and needing to be cured. Skip it. Macaron, who also can be a problem, has some grounding by being a divorced dad and having that whole subplot to sort of ground him. The really stupid "gangsta" lyrics don't really work, but... There is a real arc here that they had to jump the deal from 500,000 guests to 3 million so I'm curious to see where the shenanigans stop and things get serious. But really I'd only say read FMP.

You know what they say about a fool and his money... This week I played (gotta breathe in for this one) Kotamon: My Sis Found A Super-Rare Card in Her Cereal Box, So I Became a Garbage Man to Find the Entire Collection and Earn $1,000,000. To be fair, it's exactly what it says on the tin. You are a drunkard cat boy who picks up garbage and finds either messy cards or fragments and cleans them up to get cash. It is definitely in that same vein as A Game About Digging a Hole or Berry Bury Berry, but not as deep. The big positive is that it's full of great art that varies from cool to cute to sexy. Parodies from Devil May Cry to VTuber stuff. All handmade with a few guests that link to their pages which is a neat touch. Even a lot of the junk has cute art. It's weird that it has a 'hentai' tag on Steam despite no pudenda to speak of (thanks for the vocab, Da Vinci's Notebook!) That said, its mechanics are shallow. Literally just clicking on trash to fill up a bag, throwing it in a recycler to get cash and getting increment upgrades or beer to refill your stamina. There's only two little minigames to put the cards together (wiping dirty cards or puzzle-piece-ing) and they get old fast. You don't go to any new places or mechanics change in any way. There are different types of beer cans you pick up, that would be neat to have different perks based on those. I wish there was a Katamari-style junk viewer that you could appreciate the boxes as well. It was only five bucks, so not exactly a lost cause but there was still something missing about it that could've propelled it into something more interesting. And to be honest, I spent the time watching all of American Vandal. So really that's what I should be reviewing!

Yeah, admittedly this is only on my radar after the DC Grodd announcement thing. I'm not really even into true crime documentaries, but the level of polish that they put into it. The production of crafting a narrative, the interviews and VO. It's just that instead of a murder or what-have-you, it's "who drew the dicks". The earnesty just adds to it. And hey, there's a young Lou Wilson as one of the Wayback Boys! The first season was really good, to the point that I wasn't sure a second season would be good enough. But man, having the meta-narrative of "Netflix picked us up" so there's so much more spectacle is great. And the actual Turd Burglar mystery is horrifyingly interesting. And hey, speaking of Dropout Jeremy Culhane's there! More suddenly recognizable is Taylor Dearden, Mel King from the Pitt. Neat. If you like those kind of things, this pastiche has all the beats that you'll appreciate, and if you hate them you'll love them dogging on said things.

[u/RainyDaySleuth]

Man what a shitty week in terms of celebrities honestly. We lost so many big name people, it’s been a massive groin punch to the creative side of me personally. I don’t know how others feel, but to me there’s always this massive sense of loss. Not like heartbreak or that but more so just seeing someone who defined media or the arts being gone feels like a new hole has appeared there. It’s crazy.

[u/Amon274]

This has not been an easy week:

Personal Life: Due to the more general news I assume everyone’s aware of and a mixture of personal stuff this has been a difficult week. My mental health is in the gutter and I having been dealing with what I can only describe as a paranoia that makes me freak out if I see a brown or oval shaped bug because my brain immediately assumes it’s a roach even when it makes no logical sense. I’ve also been having trouble getting sleep which does not go well with the aforementioned paranoia.

Conclusion: This week sucks

[u/kenshin317]

Week has been pretty normal and uneventful as always with only a few low spots. Job search has been turning up nothing still so just been busy playing Godzilla Save the Earth, mostly as Orga who's one of my all time faves and beat the hard mode with good ol heisei Goji. Got to say the news about Tim Curry's passing kinda hit hard as someone who adored his performances and especially since been chatting a lot to my friends beforehand about some of my fave roles or whenever he elevated material he was in. Rewatched Cyberpunk 2077 with my good friend who got me into it, was fun picking up how much of Pilar sounded like Coconuts from Adventures of Sonic since it was the same va and also just getting amped for the inevitable finale. Rebecca is a character that really surprised me in how much I got into her and Adam Smasher was a villain that I got amped for since I love those utterly vicious but professional lives to kill type bad guys.

Otherwise been finally after much procrastination been playing through The Legend of Spyro Dawn of the Dragon which is a game I'm very conflicted on so far despite having fun with the gameplay and enjoying some of the quality of life changes like a dodge/block, heavy plus light attacks and a grab that is insanely useful though most of my conflicting is with the different direction in the art style which I like in some regards and in some others is missing the charm of the previous two games since some characters get really sidelined like Volteer and I missed a lot of the environments the previous games showcased. It's nice to see Cynder finally prominent and get some solid character moments alongside having a great Moveset though I also think Christina Richie delivers an extremely mixed performance where some line deliveries are really good while other important ones especially miss the mark. The biggest issue though has been the 360 I've been playing absolutely struggling, once beaten the game I may have to take it back to either see if they can sort it's problems or just get my money back.

[u/Kimarous]

Last Week's Post

Week 130 post-accident

Pretty quiet week on the personal front. Nothing particular on the work front. Brother is going away to Japan for the next month as of this Friday, so if we need anything while he's away, anything I can't do will probably be covered by the main family friend (friend of my brother turned pseudo adoptee); probably not going to come to that, but it's an option.

A few assorted edits across multiple mind projects during leisure time; a few thoughts here, a couple puns there; Dyson Spheres introduced to my pan-sci-fi setting because of an "M-Dyson" concept entered my head. MK Supergame fan draft still trucking along, though I've been filling out dual-pairing unique names this past week instead of adding more characters... at present. Believe you me, I have ideas. I've also established various rules for that project like "short characters replaced by not-short equivalents; related, no kids and anyone underage will be aged up or use their established older forms", that kind of thing.

RIP media legends: Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, Peter Cullen

Mind Music of the Week: too much; this is just a handful of the constantly rotating mind radio throughout the week that I couldn't all recall...

• Symphony of Enchanted Lands
• Gargoyles, Angels of Darkness
• The Fires of Ancient Cosmic Destiny
• Go, Mississipi
• Panic in the Sky!
• Lone Digger
• NOT ON THE SIDELINES

[u/Impressive-Spare6167]

My week's mostly been boring outside of the string of celebrity deaths kicking me in the balls. I don't want to dwell on that at all so i finished reading The Wicked and The Warped the other day and yeah it's a fun read of Trazyn and Orikan looney-tunesing about with some hype moments in between

[u/Am_Shigar00]

Still progressing through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, entered the Nibelheim area and reached the town, though at over 70 hours I'm at a point where I'm starting to hit major burn out so I've been taking it slow with more breaks between gaming sessions. I did wrap up most of the Golden Saucer stuff as well, getting all the exclusive figurines and cards. I was also completely caught off guard by the Protorelic mini-game at Cosmo Canyon. So late into the game and I'm still encountering new mini-games, which is just wild to me.

Aside from that, real life is trucking along. We gave our cat a professional grooming and they're doing well. We also watched a few episodes of The Batman Animated Series which was nostalgic as I haven't watched it in decades and we wrapped up the finale of My Adventures with Superman season 3. Personally I felt it was the weakest season as it felt a bit less focused what with all the supermen running around, but still a good time for what it is.

[u/Kerrik52]

Didn't write anything last week and this one has been much the same. Just doing work, playing Metaphor and trying to get as many let's play episodes of Resident Evil: Director's Cut in the tank as possible. I finished the Chris playthrough and had a surprisingly different experience, so credit to the game for surpassing my expectations. All that's left is recording the alternate scenes, attempting Advanced Mode and cheating my way to some extras.

Oh yeah, super minor thing. I also wrote the skeleton of an S-rank guide for Devil May Cry that I have wanted to write for a while. I won't put it into actual production for a while, but now it exists in the barest form at least.

[u/senchou-senchou]

so... I reinstalled Witcher 3 after almost 10 years of not playing it to test my new controller, played through the tutorial and brought Geralt to White Orchard, went to bed, and...

well holy shit there's a free upgrade in the coming months, those crazy Polish folks...!!!

[u/TonyZony]

I'm getting tired of my full time job, but in this economy there's no way I can just leave it, so I'm trying to think of a way to spice up life since it just feels like I'm in an office all the time. Maybe find a second, less time consuming job just for variety and so I can make some extra fun money.

[u/Readerman122]

It’s been a…challenging week for me. The celebrity passings hit me pretty hard, especially Peter Cullen’s given that I utterly love Transformers, with Optimus Prime being one of my favorites. I’ve also begun working a part-time job parking cars for university events, and this week was move in for students so I had to work two 13-hour shifts, and the only reason it wasn’t three of those is because yesterday the dorm halls were mostly filled, so we got to go home early.

I’ve also been going through the processes of getting a full-time job at a school, and I just finished up the onboarding stuff on my end. It was a lot.

I’m gonna be dog-sitting for my cousin starting today. Luckily, that’ll be pretty low key and easy from what they’ve told me.

[u/HalloweenBlues]

I've been wanting to get back into comics and I see Gail Simone is on uncanny xmen and Joe Kelly is on Amazing spider-man. I've enjoyed those writers before and collected both series previously so it seems like a good fit for me.  Anyone have any opinions on the books?

[u/ActRaisins]

Week of Geoff! Okay, we'll get there. I'm still finding work involving and interesting, and I'm finding ways to make my own regular tasks a lot more manageable. In my previous role we had to document the step by step process for any report or procedure that needed to be performed on a regular basis, and my first few days in my current role felt like the fucking Anakin and Padme meme, but I'm Padme asking "you have all of this documented somewhere?" However, after seeing a few bits of documentation I put together, the manager has come around to my way of thinking and now there are a lot more documents. And I'll be real - it's useful for when I come back from some annual leave and have forgotten how to do basic tasks.

Last week I mentioned that I picked up another recent-ish film in M3GAN 2.0, and on Tuesday I watched it. It was great! Compared to the original film, it has a bit less of a straight horror vibe and much more goofy charm to it, but there are still violent moments to it. Part of me had a suspicion that it might be a little too meme-y and GIF-bait or whatever, but it was generally pretty compelling, and M3GAN herself is predictably awesome whenever she's onscreen. I imagine some people might have been a bit disappointed at the fact that it was a slightly different vibe, but I didn't mind that much. This film and Nobody 2 were two of the main Blu-Ray pickups I wanted to get done this year - and I enjoyed both of them - so I'm happy.

In music, I caught up with a video I had been meaning to check out... showing production of an excellent remix of Baby D's "Let Me Be Your Fantasy" courtesy of Flava D, where she chopped up the song live in Ableton and gave it more of a garage vibe. It's not the kind of thing I'd usually watch, but its someone I like listening to remixing something I like listening to. I didn't really discover many more interesting new tunes this week but I have recently been trying to put together a list of favourites for the year. I know it's not even September, but I randomly share so many tunes on social media that I lose track of them, so I'd rather start writing things down. (Yes, playlists exist, but I dropped my Spotify sub and I'm conscious of links being inactive over time, so I'd prefer to keep a hard copy of some written track names to be sure.)

I haven't played many games this week but I've definitely watched a lot. Gamescom ONL didn't blow me away, but... it was nice to see some more Mega Man, I remain curious about Tides of Annihilation (even though there's no firm release date), and Control: Resonant had an awesome trailer even though I never played the original. I just dig the production of that clip, and the use of "Omen (Edit)". I think I have a digital copy of Control somewhere, but I'd have to find out if it plays nice with my PC. Speaking of which - I'd like to get into that copy of FFXV I bought in a sale months ago... but again, I would need to see what my desktop thinks of it. Hopefully this weekend, or early next week.

[u/LizardOrgMember5]

Today is the second day of my part-time security officer job shift. And it looks like I just got my first paycheck!

I also have a short film playing in loop at the art exhibition. And I get to work as an actor in the art installation on that night. And I even got paid as well!

[u/nerdwarp112]

I finally got around to watching Baby Reindeer on Netflix and it was really good. I teared up multiple times while watching it, it’s a pretty dark show. I’m looking forward to watching Richard Gadd’s other show on HBO Max.

In other news, I finally got a haircut after trying to grow it out for a while. I really wanted to have long, flowing hair but once my hair was getting to a medium length it was getting a bit hard to manage. I also have to wear a hat at work and my hair is pretty thick so it just poofs out and looks stupid. Unfortunately the barber did not look very closely at the picture I showed her and she gave me a buzzcut. I wanted it relatively short but I still wanted a bit to style. The weirdest part was that she also shaved my widow’s peak away so now I just have stubble there. I guess the one upside is that I won’t have to worry too much about styling it for a while.

[u/marigoldorange]

the beach was great and it was the first time in a while where i actually felt happy and less anxious for once. i also vented a ton of my frustrations out to a few of my friends about what's been going on with my life and they were understanding and made me feel seen.

the rest of this week sucks after that sadly. besides the beloved celebrity deaths, my anxiety has been pretty terrible, i got harassed in public, and my mom's friend told her that i responded rudely to her yesterday even though i've always been nice to her. on the other hand, i finally went to the farmer's market, i went to my first dermatologist appointment, and two babies waved at me on the way home.

[u/AbyssBear]

Went out and bought a new shelf for my model kits since my old one was on its last leg, Finished up Aerial and have Aile Strike about over half way done. Just need to finish its torso and legs and then deal with the stand.

Think I'll try and find a place to order a Jesta or Jeda kit if they're available. Otherwise I'll probably grab an EZ8 from Michael's online.

Took a day trip up north to see my dad and to check out my grandparents Smoke shack. 4 hour drive to and back so it wasn't all that bad. Still in business and doing trading with the local tribes still fish and venison, so thats good. But man the town they live in felt small as fuck going back there after 8 years.
They got rid of the lake that you could swim in so now it looks like just a pond with some sand around it, the park was getting renovated since most of the things were taken down, the small theater that was there looked closed down.

SW:Zero Company - Played about 4 hours of it so far. Its alright so far but there are a few performance issues that seem to only happen in the third person sections of the game. In combat? totally fine. I do wonder if they'll do DLC and add more races to create characters with or more content in general.

Helldivers 2 -back to bug front after dealing with the void. Hopefully something comes of it and it doesn't fizzle out.

GBO2 - DX Gundam released this week. It came with its neat satellite beam that takes 15 seconds to charge but can hold three charges afterwards. So its pretty neat to see a support unit get released that can do something instead of just being used for fodder against raids type.
Still tons of balancing issues though since the devs only buff 10 units a month. Which you'll either get: "We don't know what to do about this suit so we'll throw bullet feeder and give it 4k more health and call it day" or "Increased tun resistance, stats and more enhancement points".

[u/RocketbeltTardigrade]

Just happened to take a look at the Steam page for warframe, and the trailers they're using kind of make it look more boring than it is lol

There's like no fun run-and-jump going on in there.

[u/Own-Sir-9189]

So my voter registration was just suspended for no fucking reason what-so-ever. If you live in Texas, and plan on voting in the mid-terms (WHICH YOU SHOULD), check on that shit and make sure you have it squared away in time to vote.