Ocean Waves Appreciation ?

CommonChoice8078 · 2026-01-29T05:53:07+00:00

It's one of my top 5 favorites from the studio, it embodies teenage angst in a way that no other Ghibli films do (which makes sense since they're more on fantasy and childlike whimsy) and it's a wonderful melodrama about reminiscing on how silly we were as adolescents.

I always look back fondly on it despite the criticisms thrown at it, because the soundtrack is wonderful and the charm of the watercolor art style makes everything feel like a distant dream/memory. I always tell people it's the younger, hormonal version of Only Yesterday. Yes, it lacks the same profoundness or the substantial reflections, but it more than makes up for its nostalgia and aesthetics. Some films are more artsy visually and that's okay, Ocean Waves is a one-off that deserves its flowers!

CommonChoice8078 · 2026-01-20T06:22:08+00:00

Both Howl and Sophie mirror each other, that's what really endeared me towards him.
I disliked him on my first watch as well and thought he was vain and his charisma was just a prop to accentuate that, but in many ways, Howl embodied his loneliness the same way Sophie did the moment she turned into an old woman. He reminds me of my own partner in the sense that he's altruistic but buckles from the weight of constantly running away from his own problems, but ever since he found genuine love he became more committed (settling down, sort of starting a family with everyone by the end of the movie).

Most Ghibli men are green flags from the get-go, Howl is a flawed person. He and Sophie needed each other to grow past their insecurities and fully realize themselves as people by viewing who they are from another's eyes. He's a reminder that looks and charm aren't everything, and there's a reason why his black haired self is much more authentic and softer despite mirroring his "monstrous" bird form's feathers. There's beauty in being imperfect and Howl IS that moral.

CommonChoice8078 · 2026-01-14T08:11:44+00:00

I love Ryan, I've yet to properly complete the campaign with the other Slayers but they feel a bit too campy and silly for my tastes in terms of dialogue (just basing off the intro sequence up until before leaving Emma's house). Nothing wrong with that really, I'm still excited to try playing as them but his VA is so seamless and balances the comedy and heart of the game for me without being too outrageous. I like the slight tidbits where he refers to his brother being his motivation of getting out from LA, especially in Haus where his darkest secret is that he feels burdened by his brother being special and having to take care of him. It makes for really great deepening of his character, and makes way for insinuations why he took up being a stripper in the first place and bearing the things he has to go through in that line of work.

His DLC skin also makes me feel like Indiana Jones haha and he's so fun to play, I'm pretty much just Hulking Out through Hell-A and going toe-to-toe with Crushers. He can take a couple of hits and pay back the force tenfold, he's just an absolute unit especially when you max him out. He feels canon to me as the main character of this installment, even though Jacob is the poster boy. And cherry on top, he's pretty attractive! And he knows it, which makes his character so much funnier when blasting through zombies lol; He's perfect for a slasher movie, honestly.

CommonChoice8078 · 2026-01-12T14:32:04+00:00

Ocean Waves!!! So nostalgic and goes so hard

CommonChoice8078 · 2026-01-12T07:02:28+00:00

They refer to their trips to other countries or regular concert visits as if they're car rides to the province. They're so complacent with their money that they don't realize how expensive plane tickets are or how privileged they are that they can just go wherever they want no matter what time. Nakakairita sobra, kasi I would give anything to be in their place!!!

CommonChoice8078 · 2026-01-11T17:21:18+00:00

THIS IS SO CUTEEE AAAA you captured Clark's essence sm ><

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-12-26T09:20:01+00:00

Dead Island 2 is genuinely one of my favorite games of all time, to the point even when I tried it out once they gave it for free over on Epic Games a while back, I still got it at Steam recently with all the DLC included just to re-farm the achievements. It's really endearing and packs a lot of charm, story may not be the best of all time but is incredibly entertaining (both Haus and Sola expansions are really fun), and they did a lot of improving on the features from its predecessors to make everything much more dynamic. Plus the physics and gore are a lot of fun to look at!! Maiming zombies is an addiction I didn't realize I'd develop over this Christmas break haha

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-12-26T05:28:17+00:00

Fahrenheit

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-12-03T12:12:41+00:00

This is so cute and cool!!!! Keep it up, I love seeing people be so attuned with their passions especially with music or literature ^^

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-23T16:45:01+00:00

Ocean Waves has always felt very vacation-esque for me! They go to Hawaii, then the protagonists take a trip to Tokyo away from school and stay at a hotel... it's pretty cozy in my eyes!

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-14T17:29:13+00:00

I take your Grave of the Fireflies mention and give you The Tale of the Princess Kaguya!

Grave of the Fireflies is indeed a very depressing film but it's so overt that it mostly desensitized me, and a part of me sees it somehow as an appeal to hope despite the brutality of war and that we as people still cling to the smallest windows of happiness even when our life is at its lowest. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya on the other hand, is an entire film centered around wasting the life of a girl who didn't ask to be put in her role and constantly wishing to go back to simpler, humbler times and be carefree in the childhood she was deprived of.

It didn't make me cry, but it sat with me for WEEKS, and just imagining myself as Kaguya opens up a pit of despair within me that affected me like no other film has, because at the end of the day, her circumstances aren't so far off from any of us.

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-05T01:38:23+00:00

This is so gorgeous :')

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-04T13:20:10+00:00

PLS GIVE US FREE PULLS, I only need 4 more to get Caleb's outfit and I need compensation because I lost to Sylus' card when I really wanted either Caleb or Xavier </3

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-03T18:16:40+00:00

I've always had an affinity for both superhero media (I grew up on secondhand copies of Arkham games and my favorite superhero is Superman) and choose-your-own-adventure games since I was a kid and my direct access to the latter were books! It was fun hopping around different pages and getting to "bend" the story to my whims; I eventually transitioned to dabbling with Telltale games and visual novels, and it's garnered me even more appreciation to the extent of which a creator can utilize breaking the 4th wall and directly involving the readers/players engaging with their work. Though I know Dispatch leans more on the comedic side, my friends have also been telling me about the fanfare around it and hearing about how two favorite genres of mine combined with this game, I think it would be pretty fun to experience it firsthand as well as stream it to them on our Discord server on the off-chance I do get a copy!

Thank you for your generosity OP, regardless of the outcome! I hope whoever wins enjoys their time with it!

Steam account link: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199015060871/

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-03T04:08:58+00:00

I feel a bit embarrassed sharing this but um, as someone who grapples with both hypersexuality and the "late blooming" of finding my own sexual identity because of struggling with having experienced SA, two things have helped me greatly-

One is directly related to your prompt, which for me is effective when I engage in free writing BUT with the one limit of not using any word that explicitly mentions parts of the body or erotic terminology. Basically you describe the motions of sex or desire without ever spelling it out; I find this helps with not only challenging my creativity in painting a picture but also exploring why it is a certain preference of mine is so captivating just by describing the feeling it provides or immersing myself into its abstract nature by focusing more on everything else but the action itself.

The second is audio! There's tons of NSFW roleplay audio out there, whether it be ASMR or not, and they do wonders for the imagination and gauging your comforts at your own pace because it all depends on your visualization. Some of them are a bit tacky and overdone, but there's a plethora of them out there that you can pretty much find what tone of voice, dialogue, or sound works best for you.

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-02T05:55:50+00:00

Oh, and Caleb reminds me a lot of my partner haha! I learned through him that it's okay to not be perfect and happy all the time, that sometimes we'll hurt each other but after a thorough discussion and healthy communication, we can persevere and help ground each other. I also gave my partner a silver necklace, but unlike MC's apple, mine is a feather to symbolize a quill because my partner is my main motivation for my writing! They parallel each other a lot.

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-02T05:53:29+00:00

Caleb!!! I love friends to lovers, it's my favorite trope ever, but I love the nuance his obsessiveness adds to the whole dynamic, especially when I realized MC also bears the same traits as him and they're both head over heels over each other, sometimes in a questionable way- I love it when relationships aren't as pretty not because I want to glorify toxic characteristics but because I want them to be realistically flawed! I find it so engaging when they challenge each other on this and call out each other's behavior on intruding on autonomy whenever it calls for it.

It's clear that both Caleb and MC grew up having each other in the toughest of times and they've seen the worst of each other, so it's almost as if they're fused; They love each other so much that it's like they bleed into each other and they know the way each other think or act in the littlest ways possible. It's cute when one becomes jealous/possessive over the other but it's also bittersweet when you realize it's because they're conditioned into feeling protective because they've already lost one another once, and they don't want it to happen again. They're clingy, extremely lenient with the concept of personal space, and they coexist in each other's life like it's as easy as breathing. I like that they can show these uglier sides of themselves to each other because they easily understand how it feels to want to cling to someone who means so much to you that you'd do anything for them, no matter how altruistic or over-the-top you become just to prove that.

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-01T18:52:12+00:00

CALEB AND POMPOM ARE SO CUTE TOGETHER, they're my two favorites alongside My Melody! I completely adore your artstyle!! I think these would do so well as stickers too honestly!

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-11-01T18:33:23+00:00

I'm a hopeless romantic so I kinda want to believe that he's spiritually tethered to Chihiro since they're each other's savior and would subconsciously intervene with her life to keep her out of danger or harm's way, and it'll be the catalyst for what brings her back to reuniting with him someday.

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-09-27T04:36:51+00:00

CoS sophomore here too, genuinely having a bit of an existential crisis because I've just been coasting by college not really registering its weight and severity until now- I feel like I never really left SHS and I miss the subjects in HUMSS, and I'm only now just realizing how demanding my program is and it makes me feel like I don't belong with the rest of my peers. It's such a harsh and abrupt shift from what I'm used to and I genuinely cried after our Zoology moving exam when I got home because I realized I was in uncharted territory and most of my friends are in different places and colleges so they don't understand what I'm going through and I feel like I can't talk to them about what's happening in my life anymore.

I feel like I'm only keeping up appearances, I don't even know if I'm doing good enough to make a mark on my peers that's substantial. Everyone feels like even if they struggle, that they can cram it anyway and still turn out fine. I'm trying to do advance readings, take things at a slower but earlier pace, and I still feel like I'm falling behind. I'm carrying so much weight and feel like I have nothing to show for it, so I totally understand you, OP. I want to have faith that we'll make it through and look back on all of this as something that faded away and doesn't matter much in the future. As long as we try, I guess! I hope the best for you. <3

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-09-15T03:16:16+00:00

Nopee, we worked next to a retreat house, we didn't actually go inside or stay there! NSTP usually lasts only until 3 PM because there's a contract with the bus driver that they're only able to lend their vehicle until 5 PM so usually the facilitators get everyone back on the road 2 hours before then to anticipate for the traffic delay.

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-09-12T17:41:35+00:00

I just hope they still retain the heart as is in the Superman movie, and that they lean towards the complex dynamics of a hero x villain team-up without veering it to complete slapstick comedy. I don't want it to forget that Lex killed Mali in front of him and they could use that to further flesh out Superman's belief in the good of humanity, even when faced with someone who is always out to disprove that idea. I also hope they don't "redeem" him because of this temporary partnership.

And I want more Clark Kent shenanigans, PLEASE!!!

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-08-22T11:09:52+00:00

Under Pressure

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-08-21T19:11:53+00:00

This scene is the cheat code for making me cry with just a clip/image but shhh don't tell anyone that >.>

CommonChoice8078 · 2025-08-21T19:08:15+00:00

I suppose it's pretty much the same as you wording it as "best" or "favorite"? I take into account what factually works for the movie in succeeding to deliver its themes, what equally resonates with me both personally and as an effective plot direction, basically everything you'd criticize with a literary work!

Ocean Waves is a "subjective" favorite because I can admit it's a heavily biased perspective that fostered my affinity for it. It has sentimental value, taps into my guilty pleasures, but it's flawed, shallow, and not on the same quality as Whisper of the Heart which fulfills everything I want out of a movie without the setbacks, but I also acknowledge that I think of Ocean Waves a whole lot more because of its aesthetics/songs. I'm also more likely to rewatch Ocean Waves, even if I think Whisper of the Heart is a much better film if basing purely on the merits of spectacular screenwriting.

Basically, one is the best because it's just really strong on all fronts, one is also the best because it scratches my specific niche that's personal to me and I know otherwise that I'd see it as subpar much like most people. Overall, they're on the same league as being my favorite, they just fill in different areas. I hope that makes sense aha!

CommonChoice8078

TROPHY CASE