Lurker > Thorn

It was a funny play but unless "in a while" means "since that titans/cardinals play" i'm afraid i can't quite agree

how did the chiefs drop that int lol

oh hey it's a ranking topic i can nominate tian tian and-

-oh i missed noms this is the actual ranking i can't read-

rwlh posted...

Limbus Company - Canto VIII Boss 2 Battle Theme (Lei Heng)

good night

Panthera posted...

Azoth ended up being wrong in the end since it called the radiant wings failing and darkness reigning forever. I don't think that quite played out, unless you think Rean's harem remaining in a state of perpetual uncertainty for everyone involved is "darkness reigning forever" which to be fair I could see the argument for.

I could have sworn there was a bonus chapter in either CS4 or Reverie that was like "oh maybe shining steel will succeed in the end idk"

Could definitely be wrong and that they defied it there. Though depending on how canon the Normal Ending is, we have an implied rewind or some shit by the Grandmaster to fix it. At least it's her voice that talks for that bit. Though I *also* guess even the Normal End would count as a technical success for Operation Shining Steel.

Edit: Looked up the final chapter of the Black Records. Okay, yeah, you're right - it predicted Olivier's 3rd Faction failing. I must have confused the addendum it leaves where it notes there is a possibility causality shifts to open up a good ending and basically wishes humanity good luck as it calling the ending.

_stingers_ posted...

The first Emperor of Erebonia. I don't think that's actually true,

nah he isn't lol. He became Emperor because of succession crisis in the first place lol.

Pretty sure the first Emperor was the guy that the Black Records calls "Adjudicator Arnor" who basically brought the Hexen Clan and Gnomes together after they dun fucked up by creating the Great One with all their fighting and helped orchestrate splitting it up into the Divine Knights.

_stingers_ posted...

I think it's something like Ishmelga influenced the births of Erebonian citizens to take on Dreichels form so that they would rise to power the same way he did and he could use that for his own ends? If I got the gist of that right or wrong then let me know.

I don't think Ishmelga really had that direct a hand in it. I think Ishmelga watched the War of the Lions from the sidelines and saw Dreichels win it with Valimar and was like "that's my pilot. bro come let me possess you and let us plunge the continent into war because war causes civilizations to advance" and Driechels was like "no fuck you" which apparently was kind of an act of singular willpower because everyone else Ishmelga haunted would crack and become his slave like Black Alberich did.

IDK about the reincarnation mechanics so much but I think Ishmelga had nothing to do with it and both he and Lianne were just waiting to see when/if it would happen. They both saw Osborne was the guy - Lianne saw he had a family and figured he was home free from the Ishmelga haunting that Dreichels had so she considered it case closed and took the Grandmaster up on her offer to join the newly formed Ouroboros while Ishmelga noticed and manipulated events now that Lianne wasn't watching him like a hawk to cause Osborne to become desperate enough to give in to temptation by offering to give him the power to save Rean's life. And the rest was history.

_stingers_ posted...

I don't care for all the Ishmelga stuff. Is that a common opinion?

Think so, yeah. It's pretty garbage IMO. The very big picture of "This Sept-Terrion has gone off the rails by way of deciding that to fast track humanity's progress just keep them in eternal conflict because war drives technology drives progress = #winning" is fine as a contrast to how the Aureole and Demiourgos ended up. But implementing that as "actually everyone in Erebonia is just susceptible to getting mind controlled into doing war crimes every now and then to keep the fighting going" is just shitty and robs characters and events of their weight.

_stingers_ posted...

The Black Records really just served to lore dump Dreichels history, which makes you wonder why this is some big secret that must be hidden from the public at all costs.

Aside from the Curse stuff, it might be questionable to announce to the public, "Actually a super-advanced pre-Collapse AI calculated the future of the Empire and has been perfect for over 1200 years so I guess that settles the free will debate pretty decisively against us lol." I don't even think AZOTH gets any of it wrong because it just kept turning out that there were secret chapters that called the CS4 endgame too.

I'm not sure it was that direct but he was definitely being groomed for leadership post-Pelosi for a few years before it happened.

He entered leadership back in 2018 as the 5th ranking Democrat (after a few years in the House) and was made an impeachment manager for Trump's first impeachment and when Pelosi stepped down she endorsed him and so he ended up becoming Minority Leader unopposed.

As infuriating as Schumer can be at... honestly, most times... he does occasionally find the right moment.

Now Jeffries... that's the NY Dem leading a caucus in Congress that I simply can't find anything positive to say about.

Yeah, I got the impression Kargo was just a neighborhood kid that Patiry recruited/press-ganged into her "street gang" in Heimdallr. Forget if that was explicitly stated or I just assumed it because they don't look too alike (but anime so idk).

I always found Patiry hilarious though. She always came off as a try-hard wannabe delinquent who was actually deep down a pretty decent person and her going hyper aggro on Machias was just incredible content.

Leonhart4 posted...

I didn't get to watch the end of the Titans game in real time so I had to watch the highlights afterward

It's weird to have my team actually be the beneficiary of the impossible win because I've been on the other end of it several times

I didn't see that Titans play until catching the highlights either and loooooooooool.

Leonhart4 posted...

The Jets will still draft Arch

110%

Since Project Rainfall came up I'm trying to remember if the Pandora's Tower protag had a whip. Feel like he might have for traversal but it's been a really long time.

that was quite a final minute of the half in chargers/commanders

commanders forced to punt out of the endzone on 4th&15 and give up a punt return TD to go down 17-7... only for it to be called back for roughing the punter (right call, saw it happen and knew the return was coming back)

commanders immediately throw like a 50 yard pass to get in fg range followed by another chunk play to get closer and tie it 10-10 as time expires

haha the announcers trying to find a silver lining for the jets "i know the cowboys are [playing garbage time prevent defense] but maybe the jets can take some of this [garbage time] second half offense into next week to build on"

o ya jets making nfl history. first 0-5 team with 0 takeaways

announcers trying to comprehend the jets long-term awfulness without just saying "the entire organization is rotten and/or 'woody johnson'"

Trump has talked more about his mortality recently, yeah - you guys covered most of the examples already - but idk, I just assume this will be another Kissinger thing where like despite everything he lives to 100 (IIRC his mother lived to like 99, so there's some family history here? Edit: His father was mid 90s, his mother late 80s)

I can definitely believe aging is taking its toll on him (and his allegedly very serious case of COVID years back probably not helping), and perhaps in a way that's entirely new to him and causing this kind of talk from him, but he's got the benefit of having the best health care in the world available to him as POTUS.

Leonhart4 posted...

That loss to Tampa clearly broke the Jets

Ehh... this still reads as "Same Old Jets" to me. If anything, it just makes Week 1 stranger with the offense seemingly having a pulse then but you can easily chalk that up to Week 1 oddities what with how the preseason is handled these days.

Yeah, he occasionally refers to hypothetical situations where he is not in power - generally to say how "doomed" Republicans/America will be in such a case.

If you mean to say if that should be read into as him not seeking to stay in power forever... I think that's giving more thought to it than he did. It's just a variant of "only I can save you" type populist speech in the form of "and it will suck for you if/when I'm not." I may be semi-alone here in thinking there's still decent-ish odds he doesn't actually go for a third term but there's still very much a decent chance he will and he's increasingly leaned into third term/"Trump 2028" talk - he tried to give Trump 2028 hats to Schumer and Jeffries recently before the shutdown.... with Vance in the room! (Schumer and Jeffries actually responded in the moment by asking Vance what he thought about that to no response.)

oh my god i turned away for a few minutes after dallas went up 17-3 thinking that would be the halftime score barring some dumb pick 6 or something jfc

aubrey is mortal though

I suppose the Cowboys could blow this but I think they're likely to cruise to a blowout. jets so bad.

It's been a while since I watched Season 1 but I definitely remember thinking during the movies, "Wait, I remember liking this a lot more than I am right now. Was S1 really that far ahead of this or am I looking back with rose-tinted glasses?" S2 was closer though. I'd probably say something like...

S1 > S2 > Movie 1 >> Movie 2 >= Movie 3

Kaede carrying Movie 2 pretty much, yeah. I think Movie 3 probably had the better overarching plot but Kaede might carry it past Movie 3, but it's close.

That's a good theory on Touko, yeah. And thanks for the heads-up on the trailer. Dunno if I'll watch it or not. Usually I don't watch trailers but it's the kind of thing where if I'm listening to VGM/Anime OSTs on Youtube and it showed up on the recommended tab I might go "sure why not" if I saw it.

Oh yeah, strongest part of Re:Zero S3 was the beginning when Subaru was looping because of all the deaths caused by Wrath. Some of those early ones were some of the more chilling ones in a while. For sure keep Return by Death, just give it to Al! >_>

As for Zukki, I think I just kinda resonated with her (and to a lesser extent Himeji) more than the others. i can't read the room either.

Anime: Been watching more stuff.

Re:Zero S3 - This continues to be a show/setting that I think would be a lot more interesting if Subaru just didn't exist. Should make Al the main character, he was perhaps the most interesting character this season between telling Subaru it was fine not to take on the burden of the entire city as well as the implication by Capella that Al was the one responsible for a lot of the dirty work in protecting the city like temporarily causing the flood as well as killing the Council members to ensure the witch's remains could not be found. Speaking of, I guess the season ends with them all still in the city but are we really forgetting/dropping that plot point? Felt like a big deal when introduced!

Then I hopped over to Rascal Does Not Dream... and watched the 3 Movies and S2. I actually wasn't feeling the movies as much (Movie 1 was good though) but S2 was closer to a return to form. Although that may have been helped by opening strong with Zukki immediately becoming best girl and having Mito who was also good. For the mini-arcs in the season: Zukki > Himeji > Nene > Akagi,

As for Touko Kirishima at first my theory was it was some butterfly effect related to whoever was the new heart donor for Shoko in this timeline and I guess that's still live but now if I had to guess I'd say it's Mito simply by process of elimination as the only semi-important named character left. Though the way the Fake Touko/Santas basically became a Stand Alone Complex Laughing Man situation I guess it's possible she's somehow a collective group hallucination who got willed (or is in the process of given how mysterious/little evidence of her existence there is) into reality? I guess we're getting a movie next so maybe answered there?

Then started SAO: GGOA S2 last night. I've read the LNs through what I expect to be this season (I'm expecting SJ3 and the Summer Test thing) so I know what should happen but it's fun to see it animated and especially voiced lol.

jets very nearly bailed out the cowboys defense

*thumbs up* maomao da best

yikes

I saw that he got stabbed on the bottom ticker on ESPN when I was hopping between CFB games earlier this afternoon but those details were... not at all what I was expecting.

_stingers_ posted...

I do think they kind of implied Patrick was starting to make a move on her in CS4, so let us pray that works out and she can leave Rean behind.

Fun fact, I think that's only true if you don't choose Elise for the final CS4 Bonding Event where Rean is like, "sure let's go for it." But yeah, Rean actually relents at the tail end of CS4 and decides he'll let Patrick shoot his shot. Probably.

At least, when I did brief save/loads on my 1st playthrough to see any NPC reactions in the immediate aftermath of the final bonding event pretty sure Patrick's stuff changes in that particular case.

darn i spent too long in my own head trying to remember if my hunch that someone starting apothecary diaries in the anime topic was you or someone else and i missed noms

Speaker Johnson stated that even should the Senate come to some bipartisan deal on the shutdown, he will deny it a vote in the House and will only allow the House bill to go through. Then he sent the House on vacation through at least October 14th.

Aside from just further blowing up their attempts to stick the shutdown on the Dems by just taking ownership like that it also means that the House is still refusing to swear in the newly-elected Dem who happens to represent the decisive 218th vote on releasing the Epstein Files and it seems, at least for now, the Democrats have managed to grab hold of that message across the spectrum. AOC to Schumer, and even the official Dem Twitter account all hammering on it.

https://bsky.app/profile/aoc.bsky.social/post/3m2ctric3pk2l
https://bsky.app/profile/schumer.senate.gov/post/3m2cvkq4hsc2d

colliding posted...

I think Ennea was a victim of the D therefore G so I would probably rank her a smidgen higher for having some backstory

IIRC, her parents were members so she grew up in the cult. Not sure if we was ever part of the experiments though. For some reason I want to say she was being raised as an assassin or something until she got got by Arianrhod or Duvalie and they took her in but I may have made that part up. I think it's almost all in a CS3 scene where the Stahlritter are talking to each other while running. Maybe after the Arianrhod fight at the Naval Fortress? Might come up a bit again in CS4 tho, particularly when you fight her on the way to Arianrhod.

I also just mentally say "DG Cult" (and the characters do too!) but yeah pretty sure it's explicitly stated all the way back in like Azure that technically it's "D therefore G"

Romances for Rean: Alfin (narratively it's the most interesting/consequential dammit!) > Fie > Alisa
Romances for Lloyd: Noel > Rixia > no thanks

colliding posted...

You like Fie, but you realize very quickly this feels weird.

I
colliding posted...

You're a Delita / Jowy type who believe in marrying into royalty to change the system

am feeling
colliding posted...

You care too much about canonicity. You always look up the "real names" of Persona protags.

personally attacked

Leonhart4 posted...

If only we had gotten Joshua/Kloe

you mean josette. girl needs a w somewhere

Towa too low IMO, Like she wouldn't be in the top tier or anything but seeing Ilya and Eugent a few spots ahead of her is kinda insulting lol. She lowkey has some of the best chemistry with Rean IMO.

As for Eugent, I think the reason he basically cedes power to Osborne is because he knows/believes that there's a literal book that tells the future and it's mostly "this empire is fucked, yo" so he just lets Osborne handle it because he's competent evil. Don't know if he knows Osborne's backstory as the incarnated Dreichels - if he does that might be another part of it. But yeah he's basically a whatever character.

JonThePenguin posted...

Supreme Court says Lisa Cook can stay on the Reserve board until they actually rule on the case, breaking with their usual pattern of letting the President do whatever he wants

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/01/nx-s1-5556920/trump-fed-governor-fire-lisa-cook

It's pretty transparently because Trump fucking with the Federal Reserve might affect their (and their benefactors') money so it's magically the one place they break from their "actually it would cause more damage to allow the person to stay in their position until we rule on the case so they stay fired" line they've used in all the other similar cases of a person suing they were illegally fired by Trump.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

then i suppose there will be some finger pointing to determine who exactly violated the hatch act, but someone or several someones certainly did.

oh for sure

it is 110% a hatch act violation. (but i expect the supreme court to go "oh that doesn't apply to republicans either")

FFDragon posted...

This is word for word the same email FDA got as well

IIRC, reporting determined that OMB mandated that all agencies send out the exact same letter and forbade any alterations.

Papa Nier and also Rider in Fate/Zero might be the other biggest ones?

For me personally, it's always Ovan from .hack//G.U.

jets finally where they belong

50-50 the jets run the clock to 0 and don't even get a fg attempt

Meow1000 posted...

barring a massacre here.

oh ye of little faith. never doubt the jets ability to jets

so glad a national audience can see jets football in all its glory

I was really struggling to stay awake during the OT (medicine kicking in) and I swear I blinked and it went from 40-37 Cowboys with the Packers getting the ball at the 20 thanks to Aubrey's great kickoff to the postgame interview 40-40 and some of my last thoughts before falling asleep were "...the hell did i just miss lol?"

Leonhart4 posted...

Correct, ties should only be reserved for really bad football

not true

that week 17 SNF (18? think it was before the expansion though) game between... i want to say raiders/chargers where a tie would have gotten them both in the playoffs that, against all odds, was looking like it was gonna happen before one team (chargers?) pissed off the other by calling timeouts or something resulting in them just scoring a TD instead

that was the moment ties were invented for

and a nation was denied

this is such a bad drive

edit: lol even if they caught that 4th down pass time would have expired

LOL Steelers.

but good effort on that tackle

edit: great defensive stand. that tackle turned out to be super significant even if the vikings did eventually score

To be clear, it is almost certain that the Comey case is thrown out of court by a judge either because it's the most obvious case of malicious, selective prosecution or because the indictment returned by the grand jury alleges that the false statement given by Comey is a quote he literally did not say. Or that if it somehow makes it to trial he is acquitted for the very same reasons but as mentioned before, the administration does not have to be successful in this attempt to jail Comey for it to represent a new step in the Trump administrations copying of the Orban/Putin model/playbook of autocracy.

In some ways, Comey is a sneaky good first target for Trump in his political prosecution of perceived foes because both sides hate him - Dems for what he did, GOP for what Trump tells them he did. Like, I get that this is peak irony and all but this still is yet another new step in the dismantling of democracy and the rule of law in the US as it lurches towards autocracy/fascism/dictatorship.

Especially when the false statement made to Congress he was indicted for... is something he never said.

https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3lzqm5fqx2s23

took me a second to realize what i was looking at

nice qol addition

Kevin actually did overtake Estelle as my favorite character from Trails towards the end of 3rd, but then the very end happened and Estelle's speech to Renne in the ending was just perfect. Definitely my #2 pick from the Sky trilogy and honestly maybe even the whole series (think most of the competition would be in Crossbell with Randy and Tio alongside Renne herself)

Kevin's Stigma S-Craft reveal in... Chapter 4, I think... of 3rd is an all-timer though. The music and then the still-reigning champion of S-Craft incantations.

Poor Kevin literally forgotten by Falcom though when in the initial release of Daybreak they forgot to include him in a CG of the Dominions and had to patch it to put him in lmao. At least he finally, finally, returns in Horizon. now remember anelace you cowards.

sure glad i won the kafka and evernight 50/50s so i don't have to sweat needing a cyrene 50/50 win.

pink exodia here i come

hyacine legit the most valuable pull i ever made lol