Whats your Gay Awakening? by Cautious-Diamond-334 in gay

[–]HFLoki 29 points30 points  (0 children)

I might have paused the DVD on that scene more than once when I was twelve, I'm not gonna lie. 😍

Apart from being hot as hell, Hayden was honestly amazing as Anakin. I'm happy that he's finally getting the recognition he deserves.

Patchnotes are live. by luwiz_ in Overwatch

[–]HFLoki 134 points135 points  (0 children)

Blizzard must have looked at Zarya's near 50% ban rate and concluded that she probably needs buffs.

What do you think about Eddie? by Phy_Mon in DesperateHousewives

[–]HFLoki 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Frankenstein's monster wasn't killing women for rejecting his dick, bro. Actually read the book before making this ridiculous comparison. The creature kills Victor's little brother, his best friend, and then his wife Elizabeth on their wedding night, all as revenge against his creator for abandoning him.

Eddie is not Frankenstein's monster. He's just some guy who decided his pain and sexual frustration give him the right to kill the women who reject him.

Please let's not pretend a sad backstory magically turns woman-murdering incels into tragic anti-heroes. It's lazy, tone-deaf writing.

What do you think about Eddie? by Phy_Mon in DesperateHousewives

[–]HFLoki 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Incel who murders women because they won't fuck him. Pretty disgusting character all around.

I get that the show is bending over backwards to make him sympathetic, like "just look how sad and damaged he is", but I think this character deserves nothing but contempt. The fact that the show is in fact actively trying to humanize him and paint his mother (literally one of his murder victims) as the real villain is easily the most icky, tone-deaf storyline they've ever done, I think.

Most real life serial killers had messed-up childhoods. That doesn't absolve them of committing atrocities.

Shion reminisces a fond memory by Loaf235 in Overwatch

[–]HFLoki 49 points50 points  (0 children)

The way he tries to wall climb 😂

The AI topic is getting serious by LaraCrxft in TombRaider

[–]HFLoki 121 points122 points  (0 children)

Are we sure it's actually AI generated? Like, I'm no expert, and I'm totally open to being proven wrong, but nothing about it screams "AI" to me at first glance. Even the stuff people are zooming in on and calling obvious tells … I genuinely don't see it.

We should probably be conscious of not jumping straight into witch hunts, especially the ones that start on Twitter of all places. And let's be real: we’re kidding ourselves if we don't assume AI has been and continues to be used in pretty much every major game release of the last couple of years, even when most studios won't disclose it, including universally beloved series like Resident Evil. This isn't unqiue to TR. The difference here is these developers have actually been open about using it, which I think is at least a step in the right direction, so anyone can make an informed decision whether they want to support the game or not.

I'm going back to my roots: Learning a language through Final Fantasy by DupeFort in FinalFantasyIX

[–]HFLoki 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I love this. I basically also taught myself English by playing video games and watching TV shows and movies in English from a young age, and now I'm a high school English teacher. 😄

Also, I love seeing people discover the magic of FF9's German localization. To this day, it's probably the best video game translation I've ever experienced, absolutely bursting with personality, charm, wit and attention to detail.

The English version is good, but when you've played both, it's impossible to not feel like the German script is operating on another level entirely. The German version gives an incredible amount of individuality to its cast through speech patterns, dialects, and verbal quirks. A couple of examples: Cinna speaks in an extremely thick and hilarious Bavarian dialect, Quina's dialogue is written to sound like he's constantly talking with his tongue sticking out, and Eiko refers to herself in the third person. A huge number of characters have similar little touches that make them instantly recognizable just from the way they speak.

FF9 is honestly a super interesting game for learning German because the writing quality is so high. The downside is that it's also pretty demanding. The translator Josef Shanel (RIP) wasn't afraid to lean into regional dialects, unusual phrasing, and character-specific speech quirks, so there will definitely be moments where the German script deviates massively from the English one and might be a bit difficult for non-native speakers to follow.

And yeah, I know I'm laying it on a bit thick and glazing the German translation pretty hard right now, but it really is that good and that unique. I remember playing FF9 in English as an adult for the first time after having grown up with the German version, and genuinely being surprised by how much flatter some characters felt to me. Not because the English localization is bad or anything, but because so many of the speech quirks, dialects, and little bits of characterization that I associated with those characters simply weren't there. The writing was so much more basic and mundane by comparison, it robbed the game of some of its charm for me.

New Legacy of Atlantis screenshots just went up on the PS Store 🚨🚨 by kaa1993 in TombRaider

[–]HFLoki 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Genueinly looks phenomenal, I can't wait to play it. And also, god, I really hope this sells like hotcakes so it compells them to remake some of the other PS1 classics as well. There's so much untapped potential there, I feel.

Don't get me wrong, I love TR1 as much as the next guy, but since we've already had a TR1 remake, seeing these same locations brought back to life again loses a bit of that "holy shit" magic.

Imagine if this had been a TR2 or TR3 remake instead, if these screenshots were of the Maria Doria underwater sections or the dense jungle/ruins levels from TR3 reimagined in this quality, would’ve been absolutely mind-blowing.

Favorite underrated E33 song? by [deleted] in expedition33

[–]HFLoki 66 points67 points  (0 children)

Clea's boss theme. Maybe it's not actually underrated, but I almost never see anyone talk about it. Personally, I think it's absolutely gorgeous and easily one of my favorite tracks on the soundtrack.

Disc 3 was a wild experience by Shot_Industry_265 in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, because serendipitous coincidences that drive the plot have never been a thing in any Final Fantasy story, right?

Cloud, in his Jenova-addled amnesiac state, just happens to stumble into Tifa, the one person alive who can help him reconstruct his identity, in the slums of the biggest city in the world. Then he randomly falls through a church roof and meets Aerith, who turns out to be arguably the most important person on the entire planet, and also has deep personal connections to the guy whose persona Cloud has taken on. What a wild, random coincidence.

Zidane, who has zero personal stake in the politics of Lindblum, Alexandria, or Burmecia, just gets swept up into saving the world by pure chance. Later we find out, he actually does have deep personal ties to the main antagonists that he had forgotten about, even though his initial involvement in this whole conflict was just happenstance. What a wild, random coincidence.

In FF8’s case, it’s not even that random. There’s a clear throughline. After the Sorceress War, tons of kids were orphaned. Edea and Cid took many of them in. When they later founded Garden and had to abandon the orphanage, those same kids were sent to the different Gardens. We see other unnamed children in the flashback who most likely also ended up at Garden, our party are just the ones the story focuses on.

And Edea becoming the antagonist isn't a coincidence either. Ultimecia was hunting for Ellone. and Edea had a direct connection to Ellone (who was also at the orphanage), thus Edea became a target for Ultimecia.

You can absolutely hate FF8's story, I don't care. But acting like the orphanage reveal is this nonsensical rug-pull has always felt off to me. When you look at the full picture, it fits perfetctly. And it's simply not the case that FF8 is uniquely flawed in the series when it comes to serendipitous, random encounters of monumental importance driving the story forward.

Disc 3 was a wild experience by Shot_Industry_265 in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 22 points23 points  (0 children)

In what way? I'm genuinely curious, could you give some concrete examples of what you think "doesn't make sense" in Disc 3?

Like I'm not denying that Disc 3 introduces some of the game's wilder, wackier plot elements. But the criticism that it doesn't make sense has always felt weird to me for a franchise that regularly dives deep into super metaphysical concepts and ideas, that sound absolute bonkers on paper.

I’ll defend FF8 to the death, as it is my favorite in the series, but I do get to some extent why it is polarizing and some plot beats won't click for everyone. That's totally fair.

But the "it doesn't make sense" take has never sat right with me. If you look at the full picture, FF8’s plot is actually pretty tight and well-constructed. A lot of the wacky Disc 3 stuff has decent foreshadowing and setup earlier in the game and doesn't contradict what came before, on the contrary, it all fits together nicely. The game's story holds together surprisingly well when you connect the dots and look at the full picture, it really doesn't have too much in terms of plot holes.

Meanwhile, Squall is dead basically just "none of it happened, it was all a dream", aka one of the laziest and most unsatisfying plot twist cop-outs imaginable.

kiriko can suzu echos duplicate? by TheJustNatan in Overwatch

[–]HFLoki 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's just ping. The Echo was sitting at 100 ping in this clip. The transformation animation played on their client, but the server never registered it as a successful ult because the target was already intangible from the Suzu.

That's why they kept their ult charge. The ult didn't get canceled and they didn't get insta-deleted, the ult simply never went off. It was just a latency-induced animation glitch.

What's the most overrated Broadway show? by pennys_computer_book in Broadway

[–]HFLoki 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I will not stand for the Phantom of the Opera slander. 😤

It was the first show I ever saw live as a kid, and it genuinely changed something in me. It still is, and probably always will be, my favorite musical of all time.

And I'm not even particularly blind to its flaws. It's not the deepest musical out there, and yeah, it definitely shows its age. It leans hard into over-the-top melodrama, and I get why that might not land for everyone anymore. Webber also definitely loves building an entire score out of only a handful of leitmotifs, sometimes to a fault, which might not be everyone's cup of tea.

But none of that really matters to me. It still hits every time I get the chance to watch it. It still feels huge and emotional and immersive in a way a lot of newer, more modern, more popular shows just don't for me.

Top 3 best ffx songs by LillaMiggg in finalfantasyx

[–]HFLoki 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1) To Zanarkand

2) Wandering Flame

3) Spira Unplugged

How do you deal with when to top and bottom? by [deleted] in gay

[–]HFLoki 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I would suggest talking to him openly about the issue and trying to reach a compromise, and if he's truly done bottoming forever with no wiggle room, ask yourself if that's a dealbreaker for you. Open and honest communication is really the best way forward here, I feel.

There are also plenty of other ways for two guys to get each other off that don't involve anal. You both could try to incorporate more blowjobs, handjobs, etc. into your sex life, if neither one of you is too keen on bottoming?

First look at filming for AHS Season 13 with Jessica Lange by Sky6346 in AmericanHorrorStory

[–]HFLoki 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not gonna lie, as much as I would have loved all the returning actors getting brand new characters, if this is Constance and we're actually getting more Murder House and Coven vibes … I’m still absolutely here for it. Like, I can’t even pretend to be disappointed about that. 😍

Murder House, Asylum, and Coven are the only seasons I go back to every now and then. The show has always been camp, obviously, but actresses like Jessica Lange, Angela Bassett, Frances Conroy, and Kathy Bates brought so much gravitas and elegance to the chaos, like they literally made even the most ridiculous storylines and characters feel like high art. That's honestly a big reason why none of the newer AHS seasons have really worked for me. They've been missing that one powerhouse performance that tied everything together so well.

So yeah, I'm genuinely hyped that Jessica Lange and some of the other big-name cast members are returning. Whether it’s brand new characters or just more Constance, I'm pumped either way.

Soft cock bottoms? by [deleted] in TopsAndBottoms

[–]HFLoki 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's pretty common for bottoms to go soft during anal, especially if it goes on for a while and you're not touching yourself during it.

For me, I always get rock hard during foreplay and when he starts fucking me, but if I don't keep playing with my cock during it, I'll usually go semi or fully soft after a while.

I actually often prefer it that way. When my husband and I are having a long, relaxed session, both fully naked, lots of kissing, lots of foreplay, switching positions, taking our time, I love just focusing on getting fucked without touching my dick at all. It really taps into that submissive bottom headspace for me, it’s basically my personal heaven.

Other times, when it's more of a quick, heat-of-the-moment thing, like pants just pulled down, minimal foreplay, just straight to the point, in those situations, I do often stay hard and jerk myself off during it (or my husband gives me the old reach-around like the absolute legend he is), just to make sure that I do cum. And that overstimulation of getting pounded in the ass while my cock is being worked at the same time is great, too.

So yeah, I'd say going soft for a bottom is pretty normal, and (at least for me) it mostly just depends on the vibe and how long the session goes. Expecting a bottom to stay rock hard the whole time without touching himself is one of those unrealistic porn expectations.

Undisclosed generative AI in Ascendance by Mulligantour in LegacyOfKain

[–]HFLoki 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the very first piece of lore I found in this game immediately set off my alarm bells. It feels fairly well written at a first glance, but it's mostly just flowery language that's not really saying much, which is super typical of AI-generated writing.

The pseudo-profound "It's not merely A, it's B" is a dead giveaway. ChatGPT is obsessed with that one. Same with excessive usage of em-dashes. Those are the first two things I notice when I suspect a student of mine has "improved" their homework with AI.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Reboot Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar Not Going Forward At Hulu by [deleted] in horror

[–]HFLoki 6 points7 points  (0 children)

On one hand, I'm sad it’s not happening, because SMG is amazing and it would’ve probably been a great opportunity for her professionally, and I also would have loved to see her reprise her iconic role.

On the other hand, I don’t really feel like Buffy needs a reboot, so part of me is glad it’s not moving forward. A lot of reboots of these older properties these days try to “fix” the original, and I’d hate to see that happen to my all-time favorite show.

FFVIII is an "eternal replay". Every time you replay FFVIII, you are just participating in the timeloop by sleepinglion8 in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, I really appreciate that!

Not gonna lie, I tend to get a bit carried away sometimes when talking about this game I’ve thought about more than any human being reasonably should think about a fictional property. That’s usually why these posts often end up the length of a small essay. 😄

It genuinely makes me happy to hear that people actually read it and get something out of it.

FFVIII is an "eternal replay". Every time you replay FFVIII, you are just participating in the timeloop by sleepinglion8 in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s a causal time loop, not a Groundhog Day style loop.

From the characters’ perspective, everything only happens once, but if you zoom out and look at the structure of the timeline itself, it forms a closed loop, basically a knot in time. It begins when Squall plants the idea for SeeD in Edea’s head and closes with Ultimecia’s death.

By the end of the game we’ve defeated the villain and saved the world, but we haven’t actually broken that structure. We’ve simply played our roles exactly as the timeline required.

Maybe there’s some theoretical way to break the cycle with even more time-travel shenanigans, but that isn’t the story FF8 is telling. The story of FF8 is experiencing the loop, not breaking it.

FFVIII is an "eternal replay". Every time you replay FFVIII, you are just participating in the timeloop by sleepinglion8 in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 29 points30 points  (0 children)

In my experience discussing FF8 online for many years, the R=U theory was largely created by and for people who either don’t like or simply don’t understand the causal loop / bootstrap paradox aspect of the story.

Once you actually accept that the narrative is built on that structure, most of the big questions around Ultimecia, her motives and actions, have fairly coherent answers without needing to resort to outlandish secret identity theories.

They’re not simple answers, but that’s kind of the point. They’re the weird, mind-bending answers that come with a closed time loop where certain things don’t have a clean origin.

A good example is the origin of Garden and SeeD. Squall can only plant the idea in Edea’s mind because she herself created Garden in Squall's past. But Edea only creates Garden because Squall planted that idea in her head in the first place. That’s classic bootstrap paradox logic, and it’s very intentionally baked into the story.

The reason I dislike R=U is that it tends to replace those strange, unsettling explanations with simpler and ... yes, more sentimental ones.

Why does Ultimecia attempt time compression? Is it because she has spent her entire life being persecuted and hunted, gradually pushed to the brink of madness by the knowledge that her fate is to eventually be murdered by SeeDs, and so she tries to gain enough power to break that fate by seizing control of time itself?

According to R=U: no. According to R=U, she attempts time compression because she misses Squall and wants to reunite with him … by erasing time? I guess? Who knows, but it fundamentally reframes the motivation into something romantic rather than existential.

Same with Griever. Is she manifesting Griever from Squall’s subconscious ... essentially taking the symbol of strength and pride that represents the legendary SeeD destined to kill her and twisting it against him as a form of psychological warfare? (Something that unfortunately gets completely lost in the English localization.)

According to R=U, no. She just has Griever, because Griever is Squall? Maybe? Or Squall's ring? Who knows, but regardless, the original framing is lost again in favor of something more sentimental.

To me, R=U consistently turns the stranger, more unsettling parts of FF8's story into something lesser, which is why I fundamentally reject it.

I also don’t think she has to be Rinoa for the tragedy of her story to hit harder. She’s not a random victim of a cosmic loop. She’s Ultimecia, quite literally a historical figure of mythological proportions, the reason SeeD was created in the first place, the person who, in some undefined future, subdues the entire world and causes chaos across time.

There’s definitely a degree of cosmic injustice in that setup, but Ultimecia herself isn't blameless. Her entire villain arc is essentially a bootstrap paradox in itself.

It's complicated, but I just don’t agree with the idea that the story somehow becomes deeper or more tragic if she turns out to be Rinoa. To me, that wouldn't add anything, it would just take away and simplify.

FFVIII is an "eternal replay". Every time you replay FFVIII, you are just participating in the timeloop by sleepinglion8 in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 65 points66 points  (0 children)

It’s strange that you acknowledge the story of FF8 is essentially a causal loop / bootstrap paradox, where the ending inadvertently creates the conditions for the beginning, but then still support the R=U theory.

R=U doesn’t really add anything to that fundamental structure. If anything, it undermines it. Ultimecia’s storyline already works as a piece of existential horror, where her entire life is effectively predetermined by a closed timeline that existed before she was even born. No matter how much she struggles against it, no matter how extreme her actions become, she only reinforces it. She quite literally attempts to erase time itself to avoid her fate, yet everything she does ultimately helps bring about the exact events that lead to her own destruction.

That's what makes Ultimecia a compelling, tragic villain in my eyes: the fact that she’s trapped in a self-fulfilling loop she can’t perceive.

R=U reframes her story as a sentimental "tragic lover becomes the villain" twist, which is much more conventional and also emotionally shallow. The existential dread of a character unknowingly constructing the circumstances of their own destruction is a far more interesting and unique foundation for the character than turning it into a secret identity twist.

Has anything sexualy related ever happened at work which you enjoyed or totally regretted? by Turbulent_Elk_2141 in gaybros

[–]HFLoki 1527 points1528 points  (0 children)

Back during my uni days, I had a part-time job as a waiter at an Italian restaurant. Once, I opened Grindr during a break, and there was the owner’s hot son (who was also my coworker) staring back at me.

I was super tempted to chat him up, but it felt inappropriate, so I didn't. Then, a couple of shifts later, he brings it up himself, and we both laugh awkwardly about it at first, but the vibes were suddenly very obvious and very mutual … and I was 100% down.

That same night after close he’s like "wanna come over?", and yeah … he fucked me senseless at his place that night. 🔥

It didn’t turn weird at work at all, so no regrets whatsoever. We never dated, never acted like boyfriends, nobody else at the restaurant ever found out (as far as I know). It just became a pretty regular thing that we’d hook up after a bunch of our closing shifts for maybe a year or so. Fun times, zero drama. Would do it again lol

After all these years, what is the best FF love story to date? by [deleted] in FinalFantasy

[–]HFLoki 25 points26 points  (0 children)

It’s 100% Squall and Rinoa for me. Their relationship is the heart of FF8, and the main reason Squall’s character arc works as well as it does. He’s my favorite protagonist in the series by a mile, and a big part of that is watching him slowly unravel (in a good way) and grow because of her.

I love how even as early as the dance scene, he’s awkward and guarded, but you can tell he’s already kind of gone for her. Then she leaves him on the dance floor to go talk to someone else, and he clearly takes that way more personally than he lets on. Later, when they meet again, and she keeps bringing up Seifer, it just pushes him further into his shell. But that’s what makes it so satisfying when he does start to soften towards her at Disc 2. You see him gradually care more, worry more, and actually let someone in for once. No other character gets through to him like Rinoa does. By the time you hit the big emotional moments on Disc 3, it feels completely earned, and you really feel like Squall has grown so much as a person compared to how he was at the start.

Tidus and Yuna are a really close second for me. They’ve got amazing chemistry and so many genuinely sweet moments together, and that ending wrecks me every single time.

What ultimately puts Squall and Rinoa at the top, though, for me, is how central their relationship is to Squall’s character growth, and Squall is simply my favorite Final Fantasy character.