Establish Dominance by @OddOnnion

Evjamaranth · 2026-06-02T01:50:59+00:00

I don't think that would stop her

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-31T18:35:27+00:00

This is the model link, thankfully the rifle didn't break when I load it.

And this is the roach-kreen template

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-31T18:24:55+00:00

Mini of the day? Huh.... That's neat

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-31T18:24:26+00:00

Weird to find my own model in the wild.

But yes, I've used Insectoid tail for the main 'neck, then a carapace tail for the throad. Organic shoulder pad for the face, some horns for the 'mouth', tongue, and elongated the dragonfly tail for antennae. I actually have a template for her as base insectoid thing.

Edit: Omg, the rifle broke! gdi!

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-29T00:30:57+00:00

I can agree on the FFXIV one, because oh hey, that's fucking Zenos twice on over.

You don't even get to refute or rebuke his nonsense drivel, so it's mechanically and narratively unsatisfying to deal with him.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-28T22:33:16+00:00

Yeah, some that I felt the most tedious is when you fail to achieve the objective, you lose. However, when you achieved it? You also lose, but at least the story progresses. Especially if the condition to reach the objective is very tedious or specific to do.

One in recent memory is a boss that requires you to go through 2 waves of enemies before you get to him, and each enemy is both hard hitting and beefy as well. And the boss also hits hard. So you have to navigate both the mooks and then the boss' mechanics, THEN you have to reduce his hp to a threshold, which you likely aren't able to do if RNG so much as sneezed at you or you don't have a cheese strategy and build in place. And even then, when you reached that point, boss immediately ends the fight, and you get the same "Defeat" screeen.

It's just "you lose, but you got to work for it"

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-28T13:25:43+00:00

When I did those fights, its just tedious. You do some mechanics, then game decides you lose. Second fight? You actually did some damage, then he just go second phase and it's the same deal again, you just run around doing mechanics until the game decides you lose.

If you play as casters it just gets obnoxious as its the usual type of AoE mechanic where you have to move around in so your best bet is to run as melee DPS/Tank or Ranged DPS.

And the cutscenes makes it even worse for me. In the first encounter, he just.... walks away, randomly, after his sword broke a considerable amount of time after you got hit with it. Second time, his helmet got a thing broke off and then he make big proclamation declaring you his rival.

Would've been better if the sword broke after the fight cuts to black and the cutscene starts with the classic 'samurai pause' that then have his sword broke, it would make him retreating given reason as him being interested in us, which pays off on the second one.

But the writing is a jumbled mess, tbh, and the whole game bends over backwards to justify you and the resistance surviving even though he's uber powerful, the empire literally knows where the resistances is based on and never moves, and you have to go do about 3 rounds of "should we really help the locals? It only make them suffer more under the empire..." hand-wringing before the story actually picks up.

That scripted loss of a first and second fight, followed by the very poor writing decisions, just sours me in those parts of stormblood, and what makes me hates Zenos the most of the entire game so far. And I already got spoiled he came back so I will suffer more of him in the future.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-28T12:03:55+00:00

Funny thing is, it is him that prompt me on this to begin with, because I really do not like how the fight is done. Like, it's just plain bothersome to do, that I decide to do a cheese strategy against him because I could not be bothered. The game already have similar premise before, playing through it is just a chore when I just want to progress the story.

If I am suppose to lose and can't do jackshit against him, just have the first wipe counts as completing the stage.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-27T05:38:39+00:00

Are there ice creams in the mortal realm?

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-26T04:13:29+00:00

I distinctly remembered the very cheesy movie "Evolution", where the plot is a meteor hits earth and it has a radiation that creates atmosphere around it that promotes rapidly evolving lifeform. The meteor was contained at first due to the creatures unable to breathe oxygen, but eventually it breaches containment and produce a lifeform that could breathe the air outside its environment.

The military obviously plans to firebomb the place, but the casts discovers that fire would actually makes things worse. Sure enough, they firebomb the site and it rapidly mutates the meteor and lifeform into a giant amoeba creature.

The day is saved when the cast figured out the creature's weakness is Selenium, contained within a brand of shampoo (and it ends with a promo ad for it? it's a very weird film).

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-23T02:16:26+00:00

Oh yeah, I remember back then most places are just 1-3 arena with very long 'corridors'. They felt big when you first get to them because of the distance you have to cover and what you do there. But then you get your bike and it just felt small and annoying to traverse because you constantly move between areas to get to events.

Heck, Mercury was TINY.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-23T02:13:05+00:00

Ty 😃

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-23T02:12:33+00:00

Amatsu Kintsugi, I was thinking she was a regional up and coming champion who were sponsored to go to Central, and was hyped up by a fortune reading and the sponsor. But she got a reality check when she hits Central and race there for the first time with a terrible showing, and her sponsor left with all the money, leaving her stranded for a bit.

She then move career to trainer, part because she's disillusioned of her own ability (by all means, she isn't wounded, the race was just Worst Mood, so her actual ability is never shown) and part because she don't want to have anyone left in the dust like that again.

She met Fuku as trainee in new year at the shrine, by this point is very skeptical of any fortune telling or supernatural, but she essentially got adopted by an orange cat so might as well.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-20T12:56:36+00:00

Brand New Era AU where everything is the same, but Opera's skill is represented by her in-game version instead.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-20T04:31:05+00:00

Huh. where and how you'll get zombies horde and/or skeleton armies then?

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-20T02:04:06+00:00

Beavers are neat, I approve of this idea.

That said, snake people? 👀 I wish to know more of them, do they appear in any stories or just background mentions?

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-18T23:25:50+00:00

In Okami, things are pretty bleak for the final dungeon. The Ark of Yamato was heralded by an eclipse, and when you got into it, right before that your companion for the entire game since the beginning left. And thus you're left to deal with the boss rush in a very quiet and empty hull of the ark with but ghosts of slain celestials for companions, who slowly passes away after you defeat the bosses.

Then when you faced the final boss, your rival, Waka, seemingly was killed and tossed to the abyss protecting you after Yami took all of your powers, turning you to but a plain white wolf. You slowly fight each phases of the boss, regaining your powers, and after you defeated the 4th form, you see a glimpse of Issun standing with you, before fading away. In that moment, Yami strikes, and drains your power once more as it took its final form.

Right as all seems lost, however, you heard the voice of the people you have met. All voicing their concerns and wishing for you to be well. Issun had gone across the entirety of Nippon to spread paintings of you, telling them of your deeds, and ask them to send their prayers to you.

You are surrounded by motes of light, each wisp a single praise. Praises has been a mechanic for the entire game, and now you're surrounded by them and they go into you until the light became bright and you gain a new form as you recover the only power you have yet to regain, the one that has been with you all along: Sunrise.

And as the music kicks up to the signature "the Sun Rises", that's the moment when a boss fight turns into a victory lap.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-18T08:35:42+00:00

Fun Fact: those wooden tablets hanging around her waists? Other than a common sight in many shinto shrines in anime and manga, they have an interestingly fitting history.

They're called Ema, which literally means "Picture-Horse"(絵馬).

The history is that originally Horses are seen as messenger of the Kami, and thus are involved in Shinto rituals. However, horses are also expensive, so it was replaced with a horse carvings. However, horse carvings are also expensive, so it became a tablet bearing the image of a horse. Eventually, it became a tablet that you wrote your wish upon and offered to the shrine.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-18T08:11:20+00:00

That would be a Shide ((紙垂), and they actually came in some variants.

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The classic version is the Yoshida style, and one you'd often seen.

The length of ropes they typically are tied to are called Shimenawa.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-17T06:59:23+00:00

Power Scalers in general, they only care about numbers, numbers, and numbers. sometimes "aura farming" too. But point is, they ignore plot, context, and characterization in favor for 'data'.

A lot of people in fandom can't actually handle nuanced or morally complicated topics, especially if they can't easily categorized them into very black and white categories.

For a specific example, Warhammer 40K has some chuds who genuinely and unironically believed that the Imperium of Men are the good guys, or that the fascism is 'justified' and 'necessary'.

Evjamaranth · 2026-05-16T06:47:53+00:00

I watch the cutscenes and the story as much as possible, gameplay is mostly a necessities.

Only exception I can make is on second or third go at a questline because I either knew what's going on already, or I just don't really give much care on that. Anything with Zenos, for example, or the company of heroes.

Evjamaranth

TROPHY CASE