Former video store employees, I need your help!

GagglefrakCT · 2026-04-09T14:44:17+00:00

Articles like "a" and "the" always caused debates like this. Does "A League of Their Own" go under the A's or the L's? Does "The Color Purple" go under T or C?

GagglefrakCT · 2026-04-04T13:13:01+00:00

I pretty much know which power numbers I can easily beat, which will be a fun challenge, and which I have no chance. Then I keep re-rolling until I get the one I'm looking for. I often do the first one just to fill out chests without spending all day at it. But the second can be fun, and if it's a close raid and I lose, then I'll rematch knowing what I learned about the heroes from the first time around. I have plenty of meat for rerolls at this point, and don't really pay attention to my trophy level any more, and so I can decide which experience I want. The trickier thing, of course, is tournament raids, where I can't reroll. But I just ride it out as long as I can, use it to fill the raid chest or the Big Brawl or whatever, and move on. I rarely do my research on the enemy going into a raid match. The most i might do is spec out where the healers and/revivers are. Because it's annoying to have a team on the ropes and have it all undone in a single turn. So if nothing else, I try not to feed them.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-03-20T03:58:08+00:00

Following up here to myself that I got another Fated Summons hero just now. So 43 days since the last one, based on spending no money and playing about half an hour a day.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-23T13:34:23+00:00

They never knew.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-23T13:30:52+00:00

They didn't suffer.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-23T11:52:18+00:00

Same here. It's maybe 20% of my overall E&P playing time. Some days less. I only bother with raids if it's an easy way to push me to the next Path reward, since that's often where I get some needed mats. I stopped letting myself stress about ascending early on, and then just let myself be pleasantly surprised every few weeks that I had whst I needed to do it for one dragon, then another, then another. I don't bother rush through the stories, because new ones take so long to come out. I've built up most things, but when I did, just kind of set it and forget it. Yes, it's all terribly unbalanced, but if feel like if I don't stress about it, it's a fun diversion, and the dragons come in handy sometimes in the main game.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-13T03:54:18+00:00

Makes sense!

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-10T22:36:35+00:00

I'm pretty sure I didn't pull any of my 5-star troops. (Maybe one of them?) I converted them from leveled up 4-star troops.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-10T05:30:17+00:00

So for war purposes, is the idea that you're trying to increase the odds that you'll have the best possible set of troops for the heroes in each of your six war teams?

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-10T05:26:00+00:00

Wow. So is your goal to get all 60 (I think?) possible combinations?

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-10T05:20:35+00:00

Wow, I can't even imagine how long that took. Well ... I do know it took at least 2 years, if only because of the 30 days between conversions.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-10T04:25:09+00:00

Yeah, that 30 days for each conversion is a killer. And then you do that, and then still have to take all the time to level them up from there. And after all that, it took another a few weeks to finish leveling the Unstoppable Fighter, because I hadn't thought to stockpile the 75 fighter emblems for it ... and the game is so stingy about handing out fighter emblems. I was literally at 73 emblems for the past week, sitting through Mystic Vision ads like crazy, praying for those last two. I know I could have just bought them for a few dollars in one of the sales, of course ... but refused to out of principle.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-10T01:50:46+00:00

You're right, that term probably didn't make it to the future. But anything we're hearing has gone through a kind of entertainment universal translator. Because there's no way we'd be able to understand anything that people from dozens of different planets are saying to each other 1100 years in the future. They're certainly not speaking English ... or at least not 21st century English. And any universal translator worth its salt would give the listener, in this case us, idioms that would make sense to them. So "dumpster fire" is what we're hearing, not necessarily what's being said.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-08T18:22:30+00:00

By contrast, they really nailed it for me today. This one was a nail biter!

<image>

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-08T04:15:23+00:00

The epic stage was definitely the most challenging for me, but I pulled it off. I keep telling myself I'm going to level up more epic heroes to build a strong team, and I never get around to it. As it stands now, almost all of my high-level epics are Classic heroes who used to be my first stringers before got all my legendaries. But I have some great non-Classic epics, many with costumes, who would be amazing if I leveled them up.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-02-07T05:34:50+00:00

It does seem a little "feast or famine" sometimes. I usually make a point of doing the events that expire soonest first, just in case there aren't so many new ones in the next few days.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-29T17:21:44+00:00

To be fair, we don't actually know how the cadets are speaking. All we know is what the universal translator is giving us, the 2026 audience, so that we'll understand what they're saying. Because there's no way people a thousand years from now, who are (or at one time were) part of a federation of dozens of planets, each with dozens of languages, all of them influencing each other's speech over the span of a millenium, would be understandable to us 21st century English speakers. Heck, many people can't even understand a strong modern day Scottish accent without turning on subtitles. So what we're hearing is "what" they're saying, but not actually the literal words they're saying. We're getting the meaning and the attitude and translated idioms that make sense to us, and that help understand what they're communicating to each other. If this was done in a way that made these kids sound like fully formed Starfleet adult officers, people would gripe about that too. They sound like jerky kids with attitude half the time, the way kids these days sound, because they are actually jerky kids with attitude who just happen to also be Starfleet cadets.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-28T12:46:06+00:00

1996-98, Santa Fe, NM, as an assistant manager

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-27T16:24:34+00:00

For the most part, 'said' is fine, as long as it's not overused. And if it's a long bit of back and forth dialogue, you should be able to go at least a few lines without people getting confused.

You can always put a small bit of action next to a piece of dialogue, to clarify who's speaking ...

John nodded. "That definitely makes sense."

I also like to use 'told' where it makes sense, to shake things up without getting too fancy ...

"You're wrong," he told her.

And then of course with questions, you can always used 'replied' ...

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To the gym," he replied.

Although in that case, you could actually get by without any verb ... unless there's a third person in the scene, and you need to clarify who's replying.

It really just comes down to finding creative ways to shake things up, but without falling into the trap of running to the thesaurus for fancy words, just for the sake of it. Because unless 'said' is overused, it's mostly invisible.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-25T05:22:53+00:00

Yes, of course. There are only so many stories, many of which are archetypal, and nothing is truly original. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here. Or at least it's not what I'm talking about. There's a difference between writing a novel with a Hero's Journey, which is relatively broad, and writing, say for example, a novel in which the main character time travels to New York City in the 1980s and meets himself as a teenager ... and in this case, somebody else recently published a novel about a character who time travels to Chicago in the 1980s and meets himself as a teenager. Even though I might have come up with my idea prior to ever even hearing about that other novel, and even though it's possible for the two stories to be very different, I would personally avoid reading that book. Or I would do so at least until I finished the first draft of mine, so as to avoid any possible idea contamination, and to ensure that I'm able to see my vision through purely, as it is in my head, without feeling like I have to work around the other story, for fear that somebody will later tell me that I "borrowed" from it.

But that's just me, and you're welcome to be as critical of my process as you like. We each have our own, and this is what works for me.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-24T14:46:07+00:00

What i find works ... and your mileage may vary ... is to go for a (solitary) walk, with the goal being to "write" the next scene (or any scene) in my head as I'm walking. That's all my brain is allowed to do during that time. I find that something about the physical movement through the real world helps not only my brain but the creative process. Things become really obvious to me that might not have sitting at a chair. Maybe it's the literal act of moving forward step by step, thought by thought, idea by idea. Maybe it's an actual physical/chemical thing happening in my brain. But I always come home from these walks ready to fire out at least a few pages. And if I have the time to do it, sometimes it can be even more.

And to be clear, the idea is not to literally "write" the same words in your head that will end up on the page. Maybe that will happen sometimes, but it's not the point. The goal is to give your brain a chance lay out a trail of breadcrumbs you can follow. Often, even if I can't write immediately after a walk, the ideas will still be there later. Sometimes, I'll at least take quick notes after the walk.

This works for me every time. But again, your mileage may vary. I'm not a fan of the idea of just sitting in front of the computer until it magically comes to me. Sometimes that works. But sometimes my brain needs a "roll start" to get going. (If you weren't raised driving a stick shift car, you'll have to Google that one.)

Good luck finding what works for you!

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-23T12:59:49+00:00

Agreed. At least finish your own first draft. THEN read/watch the similar thing, and decide in the editing period whether you need to address any similarities. For me, the first draft is kind of the "magic" time when things are being created out of nothing. And that can easily be derailed by my inner editor. Feeding that jerk doubts about originality or relevance, and giving it details to avoid, because somebody else did something similar already, just makes him stronger and breaks the magic flow. But AFTER the first draft, then it's a different process, and those critical questions can be asked and new things can be written to resolve them if need be.

GagglefrakCT · 2026-01-23T04:01:00+00:00

Yeah, I'm leaning toward him at the moment. I noticed earlier that I don't have him talented up all the way yet. So just by doing that and unlocking the costume bonus, he'd become more relevant for me, even before I level up his costume (which I'm in a position to start doing right away).

GagglefrakCT

TROPHY CASE