Board 8 > Tompic 9: Trails in the Mist

(+) Yeah! (+)

BoM: all done but the epilogue! WEDDING IS HAPPEN

FE: Battle of Lion and Owl or whatever is IN THE BOOKS. Got everybody but Kaspar. Got Dorothea! She may not be the easy slamdunk waifu choice I expected her to be, and I may need magic users like a hole in the head, but I'm still happy to have her. Had to use Divine Pulse for the first time on Ingrid+Dorothea paralogue- once because I was being dumb, once because I didn't know how to use the thing, once because "Ingrid will be fine as long as that 50% hit chance misses or there are no secret ambushes at the end."

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I haven't commented in over 12 days! Wow, has it really been that long?
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it has been slow

Disgaea: Subpoena run and a bit of chapter 5. Goin' ok.

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Yay for Steris surviving and the relationship becoming real

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MLP 9-13- Between Dark and Dawn: MIDLIFE CRISIS LUNA. (and also Celestia I guess) She is a whole mood here. Also why did Twilight not look harder at the list, c'mon. Fun ep.

Higurashi: Oh dang, Rika's all in, and Keiichi's on a dang roll! I wanna see his dad get a sprite. More cool music coming, too. Let's see what we've got!

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That Celestia and Luna episode was a hilarious one! The show should of had more wacky Celestia and Luna moments, but I'll take what we got.
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BoM: BEATED. A good time! Looks like we're escalating, which might be fun. I'm waiting for all this vaguely-in-the-same-universe stuff to culminate in some sorta giant crossover finale or something. Wonder if that's an eventual plan?

Ciconia: What the going south lacks in quickness, it makes up for in degree. And we're not particularly close to done yet even I bet!

Trails: Gave up and used a guide- I was essentially right, but I needed one more hole poked in the alibi. That was quite silly but now I guess we're going to Zeiss or something.

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There is going to be a giant crossover thing at some point. Pretty sure it even has a name but we are a ways out from it.

Next Mistborn is going to be after another giant timeskip I believe.

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next mistborn is modern age I believe, and the last one they'll be properly spacefaring

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Girl Genius: Man, that was quite a battle royal!

FE: I get the distinct sense that we are going to some darker places than usual for this series. Also who wants to bet that Flame Emperor is a good guy? It looks like I'll be able to make Dorothea a Dancer, which is cool. And I can recruit all the faculty now, so a buncha students are gonna never see daylight again lol. I was asked who I wanna do romantic things with, and on the spur of the moment I went with Ashe over my previous plan of Dmitri. He's a good kid and Dmitri has been going edgy on me. Currently having issues with the paralogue where Manuela is bumrushed by flyers and that's my fault somehow.

time to get nfun to chill

Three-Body Problem: If you liked Tom butchering fantasy names, you'll love Tom attempting Chinese names! I'm also not up at all on my Chinese history outside a smattering of Warring States, so this could get dicey. "Reactionary" already doesn't even sound like a word.

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yee

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Tom Bombadil posted...

Currently having issues with the paralogue where Manuela is bumrushed by flyers and that's my fault somehow.

That one I had Ashe as a Sniper and Petra as a flight unit to defend her. But you should be able to save her with your own flight units.

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I've started to play Bayonetta and Atelier Shallie for PS3, and I'm switching between the two.

I really haven't gotten that far yet in Bayonetta, but I have completed part way through Atelier Shallie.

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I'm addicted to My time in Portia

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Bayonetta seems kinda fun and Atelier is one of those series I will get around to playing eventually and then the next thing you know I'll be ten games deep. Dunno much about Portia- looks like another Harvest Moon-like?

FE: The three things I needed to figure out were: 1) No you can't just speedrun the boss and skip the rescue, 2) hey Manuela is not a guest character you can slap a shield on her and then she can survive combat, and 3) My team is currently not cool enough to try anything fancy with flyers taking shortcuts. I think part of my issue is that I have a lot of folks in weird classes right now- a lot of them are mastering their intermediate classes, but not quite qualified on levels or skills for advanced classes. Those folks I've put in other intermediate classes so they could still pick up some new stuff. As a result, Ingrid is now a Brigand instead of the Peg Knight that could've rushed in and helped Manuela stall, and Flayn is a crappy Peg Knight instead of a Priestess with Rescue. Also we got to the ball and I went up the tower with Ashe in a last-minute decision. Dmitri has more secret hidden edge than I wanna deal with in a romantic partner, Ashe appeals a bit more than Dedue, and nobody else was presented as an option. Still kinda mad at some of the choices for who I can or can't same-sex romance.

Three-Body: I feel like we keep having timeskips right when I finally start becoming interested in the characters and scenarios. Hopefully we stick with the haunted camera for a bit! My working theory is a higher intelligence trying to communicate. And/or it's counting down to his death. Somebody get Dalinar on the case.

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Yeah Portia is an indy harvest moon style game. You run a workshop tasked with building things for the town.

Collect materials in various ways. Combine them using different machines (which takes time) to make parts to build things. Also do tasks, give gifts, talk with people to build relationships. Also fishing and some other little minigames. All set in a post apocalyptic world where old tech is scattered around but there are only vague stories of what happened.

It's a lot of time and resource management. Wife and I are really enjoying it and the inventory management is A+. You access all chests at once and just flip between them. Hit a button to auto sort everything in your personal inventory into all the boxes.

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With Atelier Shallie, if you like games where messing around with alchemy/item synthesis system is your thing, it's got a pretty good system. On top of what items you select for a creation, most items have modifier type slots that can be used for increasing certain quality or stat attributes on an item. Also, it's important to make more stuff over time, because the character's alchemy level dictates what you are allowed make, since items/equipment and the like have level minimums to create, and making creations of higher levels yields higher amounts of experience points towards the alchemy level.

Bayonetta has fluid combat, but the one thing that sticks out, is the loading times between areas seems like it runs a bit longer than I would like. It's not terrible, but at least the game lets you try out combos and stuff like that during the loading time, where your character is in an open space with no enemies, with the attack command list to the right side of the screen.

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Maniac64 posted...

It's a lot of time and resource management. Wife and I are really enjoying it and the inventory management is A+.

:D

Dark Silvergun posted...

if you like games where messing around with alchemy/item synthesis system is your thing

:D

Bayonetta I think my main thing is it's just a bit too sexy and brutal for my taste.

CHIKARA Don't Eat the Black One: ....ogod is that UMB on commentary. Sabian/Jigsaw for the Cup! Kingston points out that Sabian is heel in CZW and face here. I've always been kinda curious how that kinda thing worked on the indy circuit. I haven't much enjoyed UMB's screeching at ringside but his awkward commentary is winning me over, if that is indeed he. Solid wrestling. Random and inconsequential runins from Ravage and Rorshach, then Jigsaw wins off a reversed rollup. (***) Seems kinda anti-climactic! Here comes Sabian heel turn? No?

CHIKARA War Grapes: Crabtree and Hallowicked opening against Satochi and Danger! Kingston and Sweeney dream team back in action but THE ABS~ are not. Oh no it is intergender wrestling how ever will any of us survive this debauchery. Heels keep trying to do the Doomsday Device lol. Faces over. Good but could've done more imo. (**1/2)

Three-Body: I kinda want this whole countdown thing to just be in his head, but I doubt that's the direction we're going. Do the URLs work? Probably not since this is (IIRC) a translation? Big Shu has big Ooishi energy and there is allegedly an analogue of Ciconia's World Reset Cult. I love when there are little commonalities like that among my things. One of the (few) advantages of juggling projects like I do!

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UMB is great on commentary. Better than in the ring for sure.

So there are a couple good matches on War Grapes but you wont miss anything really important if you want to skip to Speaking In Tounges. Which has some plot stuff in it.

Though you wont get any of those super long storylines you are waiting for until another season. Even Kings of Wreslting is more standard wrestling storytelling.

Also I'd skip the RoH trainee matches but that's just me.

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Trial by foam looks skippable as well. Grape American Bash should be watched. And of course anniversario

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Awesome!

The holiday is approaching so quickly now, and the end of the 201X decade is upon us!

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Three-Body: Alrighty took me a bit but after the VR segment I'm invested. Kinda gives me a VN vibe.

BTE 64-65: some good installments of the running gags today! IT'S THE CODY LISTENING GIF! And Flip Gordon is getting a push! And a buncha cameos! But we got a C&D on FTR D:

Higurashi: Immediately suspicious of Mom Sonozaki getting a sprite immediately when Oryou and the Maebara parents still haven't appeared. She cute tho. Touch the untouchable. I kinda thought for a sec we were gonna hear somebody say that maybe it would be nice if Teppei had an accident, but instead we went all ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER. Works for me! Things are going north suspiciously quickly, man. This ain't no episode 8 to be wrapping everything up nicely! I missed the last box of Rika's monologue by mistake and the Log doesn't cover it because it's not a text box T_T

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FE: the weird girl who showed up outta nowhere and started getting chummy with folks turned heel, whoda thunk. Shoulda seen the Sezeth/Flayn thing coming, but didn't.

Three-Body: Tri-solar day, neat. I am getting Godel Escher Bach vibes from the human computer setup, which is fun. Not gonna lie, I'm more interested in Threebody than the outside world at this point.

Fate/Grand Order: I rolled for Eresh
https://youtu.be/AZEA_vJcsPE

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Jumping around from game to game, so I decided to continue an extremely long delayed run of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness for PS2. My save sat unchanged for probably 5+ years, and now I decided to continue it. It was so long, I had to figure out what I was actually doing last story wise in my save. Completion percentage is around 46% through the game.

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LP MGS4 12-2: now it's film noir or something

Three-Body: I was a bit concerned with how much I sympathized with the ETO, and then we got the husband murder backstory and I sympathized less. This Mike Evans guy sounds interesting though.

Aria 2-15- The Center of that Large Circle...: Flashback episode covering Alicia, Akira, and the Token Boys as kids. It's pretty fantastic. We end with rapid-fire cameos from a bunch of other secondary and minor characters because I guess this episode is about connections. Kinda cool. Kinda a last-episode vibe but we've got a season and a half to go still.

Les Mis: Digging the Valjean/Cosette relationship.

Disgaea: heck yea gonna save Taro

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Ciconia: and here....we.....go.

Threebody: Folks losing their trust in the very concept of science? Now that's just crazy talk.

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The last week was a busy time with the holiday and all.

Hopefully your holiday went well Tom!

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idk I read about supersolids yesterday and I'm half-convinced that physics is fake

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BTE 66-67: Oh no Masa ;_;

FE: Hi Kronya bye Kronya. Still getting very mixed messages as to whether Rhea's gonna turn heel on me. Don't much care for my new hair but I do like the new outfit and class.

Higurashi: "Frederica Bernkastel" sighted. I should remember whether that's the first time that name has shown up, but I don't. This Rika/Satoko parallel construction with the asking for help, though! Goooooood stuff, finished the whole ep. Lots of Christianity references coming out of nowhere, which I found interesting. And....there are all the answers! Some of it I got spoiled by Umineko, some of it I figured out, some of it I didn't. Am hyped up for Ep8. Tried several times to go back and get a bad end by ditching Satoko. Nothing will be coming in for this one since it and Ciconia both jumped the queue.

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Threebody: Beated! I kinda liked the proton unfolding bits and assume they will have relevance later, but for now it kinda feels like three chapters of "a space wizard did it." Curious to see where it goes from here, but I put in my next hold before realizing this was a series lol. Also I'll need to finally figure out how to do it on my phone because not even the other libraries have the rest in CD form! Or I could wait until I finish Les Mis in like 2021. Anyway this was good! Not my usual faire but I'm in to see how it shakes out.

Les Mis: This is the longest chase scene I have ever read, and I kinda like it actually.

FE: I figured we were due for some major plot beats, but the Tomb fight left me with more questions than answers. I'm certain there's more to the Edelgard turn than it seems, but there are a few things that could be going on, and all of them are very Fire Emblem-y. Also quite curious how this goes down on the other two routes. Also quite glad I decided to change courses from Mr. Anger Management to Ashe.

MLP 9-14- The Last Laugh: CHEESE SANDWICH EPISODE?!? CHEESE SANDWICH....depression? CHEESE SANDWICH SONG! A good dang time all around, especially since I had zero expectation of ever seeing Cheese again.

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I love Jordan and Sanderson's concrete, consistent rule systems, but half of why I love Three Body so much is how unapologetically it relies on that magic space wizard trope. "Soft" series like Star Trek tend to use science in their setting as plot devices of convenience, generally fundamentally incidental to the story and present in the form of meaningless technobabble. The Three Body Series acknowledges this trend and rather than apologetically mumble when it makes shit up or confidentally lampshade and handwave away its bullshit, it instead just goes balls to the fucking wall with cool science fiction. I guess I equate it tosequences of Jedi or wizard duels, but with technology instead of action. Like, unfolding a proton to turn it into a computer? That makes no sense at all but it's fucking awesome. I'd much rather have that than mealymouthed nonsense about reversing the polarity of the reflector shields to magically solve whatever issue the heroes face after they resolve the diplomatic part of the plot.

Plus the sophons (unfolded proton) did play a role in the story, mostly in fucking with scientists, spying, and preventing particle research from being conducted.

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Yup, Cheese Sandwich snuck in for the final season of the show!

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The first post of the new year in this topic, kind of missed the new year mark there, with a post on January 2!

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Ciconia: ....oh, that's it! Was hoping it would go farther and assuming there would be loops like the other ones. Most shocking thing was the potential of an Okonogi face turn. ....Did they really manage to fit in a Cookie Clicker reference? Post-game is a good time as usual, but I didn't finish it before NYE company got here.

FE: Timeskip get! Really glad I didn't go the Dmitri route because boy am I sick of him already. Both the big climactic battle and the big heroic battle were really touch and go. Kinda spoiled the moment of reuniting with everybody when half the kids who showed up were a few levels behind and/or weirdly classed, and then went splat. At least the girls got prettier. Still kinda need a break for a sec though after struggling against jobber bandits with edgelord mconeeye.

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FE: Oh cool, I can train with my "students" now. And....the monastery is kinda not very different otherwise, lol. Interesting that I don't have control over Dmitri's Goals now.

Trails: Cleared up the last couple quests before I ship out to Zeiss- exterminated a couple monsters, and stopped a bit short of 100% on the ingredient hunt. Wasn't gonna be a 100% file anyway since I've already screwed up one quest somehow.

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Ciconia: Shooting from the hip: there are multiple Gunhilds, possibly beyond the level of the whole parallel personality thing. And/or she faked her death. Anyway BEATED. Let's get phase 2 goin' imo imo. *googles a bit* ....wait a second, we're straight up taking on the book of Revelation? Very interesting. And man I have said it before but it really feels like he's speaking straight to the modern US. This gon' be gud.

CHIKARA Speaking in Tongues: Knight Eye is joined by Allison Danger to take on S&S (Sweeney, Rorshach, Sharecropper) after some quick promos from both sides. The rudos have been doing hindu squats to prepare. Neat spot with Roger catching Rorshach off the top and countering with a slam. Took a bit to get going but then was pretty cool towards the end. Faces over after a failed attempt at cheating. Sweeney wants a rematch! Diapers vs. Danger as a slave!

Arcanum Unbounded: Here it goes again. I don't know that I really need to re-hear the parts I already did, but I liked them and haven't done my homework yet so we're at least re-hitting Emperor's Soul.

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secret history so good

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Oh yeah Hindus! Sweeney's anti Boston crab training

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BTE 68-69: The "toxicology report" on Masa got me for some reason.

Emperor's Soul: As fun as I remembered. Still one of my favorite magic systems even competing with all the other nifty Sanderson magic systems.

11th Metal: my main takeaway here was THERE'S A MISTBORN RPG

Allomancer Jack: yesssssss

LP MGS4 12-3: As with most things MGS, I like the atmosphere but this looks like a pain to actually play. I like the mysterious little hat guy.

Smash: Hey cool I finally got an SD card so I can reinstall this guy. Opened up some new areas in Adventure, and got Samus and Kat+Ana.

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Tom Bombadil posted...

FE: Oh cool, I can train with my "students" now. And....the monastery is kinda not very different otherwise, lol. Interesting that I don't have control over Dmitri's Goals now.

One thing, make sure their skill is higher than yours in what you want to train with them in. Otherwise nothing will happen. Also make sure to keep leveling the statues in the church. The passives are worth it.

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I have been checking the statues every time I Explore but my progress is slowing :\

11th Metal: Man I didn't realize I missed Kelsier this much. Bossing "Fuzz" around is pretty great. Kinda curious where this is going though! My instinct is that Kel is gonna turn out to have accomplished one last small but important thing from the afterlife, but I can't think of any room for him to have done that. (other than the whole "appearing to people" thing but that was already a plan in motion) Also we switched which metal was which number and introduced so many in weird orders that I don't actually remember what "the eleventh metal" wound up being >_> Gold? ....More importantly did we just freakin' punch Hoid in the face

Aria 2-16- Parting with that Gondola...: Akari's gondola is getting worn out, so we're going to decommission it and give it to a cargo person. This being a Japanese show, we're going to take it for one last spin to say goodbye first. We even pick up Akatsuki to recreate our first fare! I don't subscribe to the whole kami thing but I still get irrationally sentimental about inanimate objects like this sometimes, so this is nice. We get a nice little trip down memory lane (actually I don't recall offhand some of these flashbacks having been shown previously) and then a mysterious old man appears in the boat. He's probably the spirit of the gondola but it was all just a dream...or was it?!?!? Man even I got a bit melancholy at the end there. New ED, too, unless I'm just losin' it.

Disgaea 2: Chapter 5 beated. Good for Taro! I know I got to the arena part before, but am not sure I got to the end of it because IIRC it went a few chapters.


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that's Secret History not 11th metal

the 11th metal ended up being Malatium
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And yes, Kel punched Hoid in the face.

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FE: My battery died right as I was asked to pick what capital to go for. I'm kinda inclined to get the Kingdom back, but I might as well solicit opinions now that I'm stopped!

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I was away for a while, oops! I'll try to be more consistent with commenting!

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Secret History: Was kinda losing me for a bit in the middle but now that Kel is doing more stuff with more characters we know it's cool again. Wonder what woulda happened if Vin had talked to Hoid?

FE: I'm still grooving on the gameplay but the story is starting to irritate me. "Should we go for the Empire or the Kingdom?" "every character around weighs in" >okay let's do the Kingdom "yeah that's gonna be a tough decision" "so yeah we're going to the Empire" and then "should we go East or West with no further info?" >West "no that's dumb we're going east" That and I'm pretty sick of Dmitri.

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MLP 9-15- 2, 4, 6, Great: I feel like this whole issue could've been avoided by, like, just letting Dash coach the athletes and Pinkie coach the cheer squad. Ya gotta match your people to your needs better than that, Twilight. I don't really "get" cheerleading either, but I'm here for Yona and Smolder and the idol-lookin' randos. Doesn't hurt me to hear the moral of this one once in a while, either.

Aria 2-17- something about a starry night?: Part 2 of saying goodbye to the gondola- is this the first two-parter we've seen? More flashbacks, as this was actually Alicia's first gondola as well.

FE: Gilbert is another dude who strikes me as suspicious- he keeps insisting that talking is pointless and we just have to fight, and we keep listening to him. Y'know who's REALLY suspicious though is Rodrigue, with his no supports or customization. I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing some mid-battle recruitment opportunities with all these people, but I don't think I've seen a Talk prompt since the tutorial. My team seems to be falling behind a bit somehow- I fought some swordmasters that could one shot most of my team. Part of it is that I'm having trouble accessing classes as more of my guys hit 30. I want everybody to keep advancing so I have some people in worse classes than the ones they've mastered- I un-Dancered Dorothea, and my MC herself switched to Assassin and is missing her magic badly. But Dedue is back!

CHIKARA Speaking in Tongues: Chandler McClure has a very loud whistle and he will face Niles Young. Decent little crowdwarmer. (**1/2) Men at Work/FIST runback with a longer time limit. Oddly serious and slow burning match that actually goes outside and to the back and stuff! Even with the extra, uh, seven minutes, it still goes to time limit. Good time though. FIST showing some edge. (**1/2) There's an RoH trainee roundrobin for a spot in YLC but I have been told to skip these strange black-clothed people. Last minute looked pretty solid but instead let's have a Sabian promo. He's putting up the CZW Jr. Heavyweight title against Ravage. Good match, Sabian over. (***)

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I mean you can watch the RoH rookies we just never cared about them.

And Punks rule that they have to dress in just black and have no gimmicks doesntt help.

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MLP9.15 was a fun one, but yeah, Twi forcing a odd job to Rainbow Dash seemed kinda out of left field for her!

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Paranatural: Sphinx of Truth is pwetty cool. ....And that's about all the progress this one has made. I almost prefer the fast-with-gigapauses pace of homestuck to checking in with things every few months to find like five new strips.

OotS: back on track to do, uh, whatever we were doing before!

Cut Time: one comic and some cute filler

Secret History: Beated. Good times! So I'm guessing Kelsier was also the Lord Sovereign or whatever the name was. And now we're on to some thing with Sand Masters, which sounds cool.

Alrighty, time for a new one! If you recall, I gave Chrono Trigger the poll "win" over Gunnerkrigg for then-unexplained reasons. And that reason....is a return....

Homestuck Epilogues: hello darkness my old friend. I read some epilogue-y stuff but I guess that was different! And now we're....retconning the retcons? Geeeze. I miss the visuals but this works fine. Managed to sneak some political jabs in there too, it seems. And not everybody is getting along. :(

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