#15.6.19

[madridistaforever]

Sergio Ramos and Pilar Rubio's wedding in Seville | June 15, 2019

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I was watching GDQ runs of Gunvolt because that sounded fun (and it was) and it turns out the game has a secret final boss and good end and stuff that I probably should have done so that the second game's story made more sense so, I'mma go, do that, after I eat

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

So it seems Nanoha's getting her own box starting from the 17th, while Fate's box will start on the 24th. Meanwhile, poor old Hayate who's not going to be a 5 star, I think she's gonna be in both boxes as what might be called a "welfare girl"? Which if I'm correct is like a case of, 4 stars are rare but people still want Nanoha cards so Hayate is easier to get, I think. I'm not really sure what a welfare girl is I just saw someone on the MagiReco sub bring them up, not even talking about Hayate specifically.

Anyway if Nanoha's box ends when Fate's starts then I guess I'm not pulling Nanoha whatsoever. Even a single attempt at Nanoha is one attempt lost at Fate and that's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Which is a shame because my Tsuruno's only a 2 star so I've not really got any solid fire units, meanwhile between Iroha and Madoka I'm doing pretty well on light types. Whatever, Fate's too important to pass up on. Literally no complaints if I get Hayate, as well.

I'll probably have at least 1000 Magia Stones by Fate's box, and that's on top of my like 20 scouting tickets and a scout 10 ticket. Let's fucking pray for me fam.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Well, Mother’s Basement’s Alicization video is finally here. Glad he gave it more of a serious critical look than Digibro attempted. It’s probably his best SAO video yet in so far as it does go pretty in depth with the entire series and he never resorts to attacking its fans or Kawahara, in fact the video opens on a cold apology for that sort of behaviour in his earlier SAO videos, which is nice. Even if I do largely agree with the opinions about the SAO products he expresses in those videos (off the top of my head anyway) I still think the attacks on Kawahara and the show’s fans kinda bog down the rest of those videos and are generally unwarranted anyway.

With regards to the actual criticisms he levies towards Alicization this time around, I can’t even pretend to disagree with most of them. He brings up a lot of problems I did notice and judges them exactly as I would, and he also brought up a great deal of problems that I never noticed on my first time around. Like for example, some of the plotholes. Plotholes don’t inherently break a work but Geoff manages to be clear about the ways in which plotholes do and don’t affect this work and its characters significantly. For example he brings up the plothole that Rath’s entire motives for creating bottom-down AI don’t make any sense and stuff and while I can’t argue against that, he does acknowledge that that’s mostly just an excuse to have the setting be Underworld, and so he moves on with little else said. And like yeah I’m okay with that. Meanwhile the plothole that Fanatio fights for feminism in a world with literally no gender discrimination is something that breaks her entire character so he rightfully makes a big deal out of it and I can agree with that.

There were random criticisms throughout the video that I didn’t fully agree with or didn’t feel like he was too fair in how he treated some problems, but to be honest my main issue with this review is what he didn’t talk about. He barely covers Eugeo, for example. He states that he makes Kirito look good in so far as Kirito gets to have fresh interactions with someone, and I agree with that, and he states that Eugeo has the most personality of and is the most developed SAO character, which I can kinda agree with (still not sure how I’d compare him to Yuuki tbh) but then he says Eugeo’s still only about as good as a supporting character in another work and then, never elaborates on that. He barely goes in on Eugeo’s character in any meaningful way outside of that, and the last few episodes of the show including the in my opinion very important Admin-rapes-Eugeo scene are just entirely glossed over as he rushes through a synopsis to take his usual (though admittedly often agreeable) potshots at certain elements of said finale. And I don’t know, that bothers me. Like if the video has to be another half hour long like I wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer that if it meant he explored some elements in greater depth. 

The single biggest takeaway I got from this video though (other than that there are some plotholes I didn’t notice) was his like, final criticism, and that’s that Eugeo dies without ever getting to interact with Integrity Knight Alice, and fuck that’s a really good point. Maybe that’s why I felt so positively that he’d be revived, because his character arc isn’t complete whatsoever. Eugeo’s driving force is to rescue Alice and yet he never even gets to talk to the new Alice, and since the show doesn’t draw attention to this fact something I never noticed oops Eugeo’s death just brings an abrupt end to a character arc in such a way that it doesn’t even feel real. And now I really want Eugeo to come back to life in any way because his character arc really does just end. I’m not cynical enough to think this was done so Kirito can add Alice to his harem but yeah the fact that the narrative’s most important relationship doesn’t go anywhere whatsoever because a lead character died is pretty worrying. 

So after this video brought attention to some elements I didn’t notice and made me think a little bit more about Alicization on my own (I really wanna make it clear that I’m not treating Mother’s Basement’s opinions as gospel) I think I’m ready to score Alicization, and I’d probably give it a 5. For context I gave SAO a 4, SAO II a 5, Ordinal Scale a 5 and now this, a 5. I’d say this is the best single season of SAO, or rather SAO entry on MAL that’s not SAOAGGO, but when it comes to individual arcs, I don’t quite know if it beats out Mother’s Rosario for me. Mother’s Rosario is something I’d probably give like, a 6 by the way, it’s just that SAO II also has the Phantom Bullet Arc which I’d probably give a 5 and the Caliber Arc which I’d give like, a 2, and obviously the 5 I’ve given to SAO II is actually higher than the average of those three scores but hey. Alicization the anime is as of now unfinished of course, and we’ve got to wait until Fall of this year to even see the start of this continuation, and that’s something I’m still unquestionably excited for. I just wanna clarify by the way that like, everyone’s entitled to their own opinions and scores and stuff. I know my friend @leafbladie who is hopefully reading this and hopefully checked out the video because I’d love to hear his thoughts on it gave Alicization an 8, which is way higher than I’d give it but like I don’t care, he’s entitled to that opinion. I’m not gonna tell him he’s wrong for seeing more merit in a work than I did. I also know he’s super tired of the very negative public perception of SAO so hopefully the fact that I’ve already said that Geoff literally apologises to Reki Kawahara and SAO fans should let him know that I’m talking about this with him from the same perspective, not just as someone who thinks “hur-dur SAO bad”.

Anyway I’ve gone on long enough about scores and my friend and other stuff. Geoff says he’s gonna read Progressive and make a video about it next month, which is good incentive for me to also finally read Progressive. Or fuck even just any of the light novels. But, uh, I’m not going to, because frankly I’m too lazy to read a book and would rather just watch anime. Maybe I’ll still watch the video...? I don’t know how much it would count as spoilers if it’s still ultimately a retelling of the Aincrad arc and stuff... I don’t know, we’ll find out.

[godsnameisjoy]

Will power versus subconscious power

Date : 15 June 2019

Duration : 41 minutes at bedtime

Depth :

Where there is a will, there is strength to carve the way out. That’s my learning from last night’s meditation session. All I had to do was tell myself a few things before I sat to meditate. While I cleared the dishes, I had a passing thought. ‘May be I could skip meditation tonight’. That’s a lazy mind’s self generated talk. There is work in meditation. And the lazy part of our selves doesn’t want us to do that work.

This is when my will power had a say. ‘.....but I am committed to 41 minutes of meditation for tonight. Am not touching this commitment with doubts about it.’ That’s it. I didn’t have to tell myself anything more to meditate for 41 minutes last night. The deep subconscious didn’t allow me to grow. Those super refreshing, extra long suspended breaths didn’t happen for me last night. However, the deep subconscious allowed me to stick to my commitment. Cool.

Despite arriving at the deep subconscious at my usual pace, I managed to stay with it for an extra minute. That’s a blessing. That’s my will powered by my better self. The subconscious was willing to take the backseat. That’s all I want right now. Gently and patiently to work with my deep subconscious, that’s all I want happening. The super conscious can wait. No hurry.

A steady increase in meditation duration, I believe, is better than wanting a new meditation milestone every night. The milestones come as blessings and they got to be received with a good spirit.

[devonjwerkheiser]

devonwerkharder “when your sweet sweet friends randomly Venmo you for coffee on them. This was such a sweet little surprise. And a reminder that you can give to people on random days, in random moments, not just birthdays and holidays, but because you love them and want to remind them. Thanks sweetie nuggets. You know who you are. ••• random acts of love are cool.

#love #give #saturday“

[yrwinh]

Μπορεί να μη το λέμε, αλλά δε μπορούμε ο ένας μακριά από τον άλλον

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

See I already knew Asimov was the final boss from watching the GDQ run, and while looking up just how exactly to trigger the fight with him once you’ve found the 7 jewels, I saw a lot of people asking for help in the fight and noting how insanely hard it was. Anyway, I beat it on my second try. I fucked up on the first try in the first phase because once you get hit by his purple energy bullet things your EP is reduced to 0 and takes forever to recharge, and that happened to me a lot so he could easily use his Flashshield Dash attack to fuck me over (side note is that even possible to dodge when you’ve not got multiple jumps?) but on attempt 2, I managed pretty much no problem. Near enough every move he has is pretty hecking easy to dodge when you’ve got infinite jumps and air dashes (thanks butterfly waifu) and past that, damaging him is a cakewalk. Glad I did this because now suddenly the events of Gunvolt 2, why Lumen is Joule and doesn’t really exist exactly and why the rest of GV’s comrades are gone makes way more sense. And I get that with the benefit of claiming I did it rather than just looking at the cutscenes online. I feel kinda bad that I looked up how to trigger the fight, and I also had to look up where to get the jewel in Biochem Lab, but in my defence when I played through the game blind for the first time and got 2 jewels casually, I had no reason to believe I needed to collect them all for a good ending or anything. Like usually I’m a completionist but some of this game’s challenges are pretty crazy and the synthing of weapons seemed hella grindy so because I wasn’t completing those I felt I could just skip jewels too but apparently nah I needed to collect them for the good end.

Fun game.