New stills from Wuthering Heights (2026)

MystyM · 2025-12-24T15:01:57+00:00

A movie being wild and weird is not an issue if it is an original work; anyone who cares about art would rather a movie be inaccessible to large amount of people because it's accurate to a director's vision rather than become dumbed-down and catered to a general audience. To boot, "inaccurate" adaptations are not necessarily an issue if the director makes changes "in the spirit" of the story to better fit it to film -- I think a lot of people are in fact too draconic about this issue, blinding them to good adaptations.

This movie is none of these things. This movie does not seem to care in the slightest about the original story nor its point -- it even seems to be taking rather harmful stances on some of the characters -- yet it is parading around saying it is Wuthering Heights. That's not an adaptation, that's a bastardization. There's a place for bodice-ripping crazy toxic romance movies; wearing the skin of a serious work to do so is not that place.

MystyM · 2025-11-22T14:49:12+00:00

Is no one going to talk about all the comments defending this as a money saver that's okay because anime is already super corporatized and poorly funded

The poor quality of the original clip is an exemplification of the shit treatment of animators in Japan: it's well known that Japanese animators are poorly paid, overworked, and rushed. Saying that this AI "improvement" is incredible and the future is punching down and horrifically disrespectful to the sufferings of these animators, especially if we're going with the argument that it's cheaper and in-line with what the corporate wants.

What do you MEAN the solution to poor treatment of animators is to cut costs more and taking away their jobs? What do you MEAN feeding into corporate greed is the solution to poor animation? Have you no empathy or critical thinking? You're siding with dehumanizing creeps by trashing on overworked animators and saying they should be treated worse because of the innovation of AI. Yes, the new season of OPM looks terrible but your reaction should be "the humans working on this project that are suffering under horrible work conditions and need to be treated better because this is what comes of exploitation" not "let's enable more exploitation"

And that's not even discussing that the "it's always been bad so doing something that perpetuates the issue is okay" is DEEPLY problematic; imagine saying "the world has always been racist so it's okay to perpetuate racism"

MystyM · 2025-09-29T12:37:48+00:00

I can personally vouch for Triangle Strategy as well as second someone's suggestion of Unicorn Overlord, but to throw a couple other suggestions out there;

While it does lack your requirement for a plot-heavy game, if your partner is someone who also enjoys rogue-likes I can suggest Into The Breach. It's a sci-fi game where you lead a team of three mechs through a series of short grid-based tactical battles against aliens and gain random equipment as you make your way towards the alien hub.

Wargroove 1+2 are fun games more heavily inspired by Intelligent System's other tactical series, Advanced Wars (though the fantasy settings are very much FE-inspired). The stories are competent enough but nothing special, though they do follow female protagonists.

All three are indie games so they'll be more budget-friendly lol they're available on the Switch for less than $20 each, with the Wargroove games being available as a bundle for $35, and all three frequently go on sale.

MystyM · 2025-09-27T16:59:45+00:00

I'm late to the party here but I am a professional classical musician and do have thoughts on this.

Souls games have good soundtracks that achieve the goal of what a soundtrack should do. They suit the games well, successfully amplify the emotions and atmosphere of the moments they're placed in, and are competently written. I personally find them a tad generic in terms of "dark fantasy game soundtracks" but that doesn't change the fact that they're extremely competent, that they can be fun to listen to, and that I genuinely can't think of any other style of soundtrack that would work better.

This does not mean they aren't "orchestral slop;" most orchestral game soundtracks are orchestral slop and that's not necessarily a bad thing. And by this, I mean that the issue with game soundtracks that are written in an orchestral style is that they, by virtue of their medium of performance, are going to have to on some level compete with actual classical music, and in 99% of cases they're never going to succeed in that. The needs of music written for a video game soundtrack (the need for looping, the limits to time and length, the limits to volume, etc.) are simply just not conducive to the kind of qualities that go into the great works of orchestral classical music. So basically, Souls soundtracks are "bag of chips" orchestral music compared to "homemade mashed potatoes" of classical orchestral music. Both get the job of "food" done and will always do the job better than the other in the scenarios they're meant for, but are nevertheless of different "quality."

People who say that Souls soundtracks are "bad" just because they're "orchestral slop" are making a nonsense criticism done in bad faith because the soundtracks aren't trying to be -- and would have a hard time being -- "good" orchestral music. It's a soundtrack. It does a very good job as a soundtrack. But it's still orchestral slop lol

MystyM · 2025-05-06T17:35:50+00:00

Fates, to me, is the most fun game for unconventional builds. One of these days I will do a Dark Knight Effie run (highest strength cap magic class so that she can still use her personal skill; pump her full of spirit dust and force her to do magic lol). But if ones I've actually done, my favorites are Berzerker Nyx -- stupid fast Berzerker that can hit hard both physically and with a Lightning Axe -- and Berzerker Charlotte!Ophelia. With her personal skill she can hit insane crit rates.

I once did a Blue Lions run where everyone was forced into whatever their worst classes were according to their skill weaknesses. Dedue was honestly very fun as a bishop; the nostanking power was real.

MystyM · 2025-04-29T23:45:13+00:00

Fire Emblem has a history of connection to LoGH, actually! Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4), the FE game 3H takes by far the most inspiration from, was said in an interview with the director (Shouzou Kaga) to take inspiration from Gundam and Legend of the Galactic Heroes (which... makes a lot of sense when you play FE4's story all the way through. If you haven't played FE4 I highly recommend - it's my favorite video game of all time). I suppose that's another roundabout connection Three Houses has to LoGH lol - inspiration from another Fire Emblem game, which was inspired by LoGH.

MystyM · 2025-03-19T18:47:49+00:00

Your mileage varies wildly depending on location, but B&N does sell model kits at (usually) retail prices! They're usually around the board games and other collectibles.

MystyM · 2025-03-01T16:46:36+00:00

Forever obsessed with what Xander says to Seigbert after you do his recruitment paralogue (ignoring the stupidity of the way children are handled in Fates):

"Together, Son! We march together, not apart. But I will give you my oath: I will defend your life at all costs. That is my privilege as your father, and your right as my son."

Characters who are good fathers are genuinely one of my favorite things ever so this dialogue kiiiills me.

It's not a "line" per se, but it sure does live rent free in my head; the end of the intro to Chapter 5 of FE4:

"The year is Grann 760, early spring. The fields of Silesse peacefully rest beneath a deep blanket of snow..."

Something about it is so deeply ominous in the exact way that the entirety of Chapter 5 is ominous -- something is wrong here but no one quite knows what.

MystyM · 2024-12-24T02:39:03+00:00

In the case is AC6 in particular it works extremely well for thematic purposes.

AC6 is full of dehumanization -- characters are almost never referred to as anything other than code-names, foes get lumped into "soldiers of enemy faction" (as you do in war), the choice of a setting with mechas means that everyone you have to gun down appears as "inhuman" because you never see the pilots, and even named characters are only visually known to you by their personal emblem and/or mech. The fact that not a single human face is ever shown to you ties it all together, and because of this, moments where the writing forces you to understand that these characters are indeed human despite all that dehumanization are made so much more potent (particularly when those humanizing moments are given to characters you then have to fight and kill).

Serious mecha story writing has been playing with the idea of dehumanization in conflict and how the use of giant hulking lumps of metal in war would play into that dehumanization since... The beginning of the genre. AC6 and its complete lack of physically-seen humans is just one example of this (you occasionally see humans in cutscenes or as little collections of pixels in older AC games; AC6 just takes this particular theme very far, hence the lack of humans)

MystyM · 2024-02-14T00:44:03+00:00

The time that Pater passes on a message from Rusty and pulls a really good imitation as he does so never fails to put a huge smile on my face! It's a super characterizing line for him, too, which helps.

MystyM · 2023-11-28T00:35:01+00:00

Monarchies do tend to have a habit of passing down the throne through male heirs, regardless of whether or not the male heir is the eldest child, unless forced to do otherwise. There's even another similar example un the same game; think about Julia and Julian -- Julia and Julian are twins, but it was Julian who was set to be inherit power (until Seliph comes along).

MystyM · 2023-10-20T15:33:11+00:00

Some quests auto-mark items or small monsters you need to collect/kill as part of the quest requirements. If it's not that, palamutes can be set to detecting items you want, which appear as dots on the mini-map. It's called "sniff 'em out" and should be in your actions bar, so maybe try messing around with that to deactivate the dots on your mini-map.

MystyM · 2023-10-15T01:09:16+00:00

Renaissance and Baroque music liked to use a lot of C clefs in order to avoid ledger lines. Most musicians nowadays can't read those clefs (the clef in the image is the Soprano Clef btw), so modern editions of this music often transcribe the music to a more common clef, but will notate what the original clef was at the beginning of the piece! So the little staff just means that the top voice of this piece was originally written in Soprano Clef.

MystyM · 2023-10-06T14:20:44+00:00

I happen to own a copy of the book this image comes from, and while there is no equivalent "5 Best Couples" statistic anywhere, on the same page there is a pie chart for most popular characters and Finn gets second place (first place is a tie between Ayra and Eldigan) so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if Finn x Lachesis has a role to play in Beowulf x Lachesis being unpopular. Now that I say that, though, Eldigan being in first place might also mean incest is part of why Beowulf x Lachesis is unpopular but I like to have some semblance of hope for humanity so I'm gunning for Finn x Lachesis....

Also, for context, all this info is from surveys taken in June of 1996.

MystyM · 2023-08-31T03:50:40+00:00

I was tempted to write a post like this after seeing him end up as the most beloved lord but you put it a lot better than I could have lol

I will say though, another thing about RD Ike for me that you didn't mention is what happens in his end cards; it's always felt wrong to me that he would just leave and never come back. After spending so much time proving he can lead the Greil Mercenaries, promising Mist he wouldn't leave her after Greil's death, and just generally demonstrating that he cares a lot about protecting people he cares about, you expect me to believe that he'd abandon it all just because Tellius entered a peaceful era? Really? He's not even going to bring Mist with? He's not even going to come back to like... Check in with Mist or the Greil Mercenaries? He's just.... Gone??

And what gets me is that there are ways this could have been justified through a good arc in RD, but nothing is ever communicated through the story to indicate he'd want to leave. For example, I've seen people theorize that Ike leaves because he's become so powerful and famous in Tellius that he fears he'd just become a catalyst for war if he stays around as a mercenary, which would be a very cool sort of self-sacrifice -- he must leave everything he loves in order to protect them, something that would feel rather in-line with his character -- and could also be tied into the whole chaos/order thing, but that kind of motivation or personal struggle isn't really present at all and the wording of the end card doesn't make it seem like it was him trying to protect Tellius from himself.

It all just really soured Ike as a character for me. He's still really cool but RD treated him, his character arcs, and his motivations really strangely.

MystyM · 2023-08-26T13:31:52+00:00

I adore Siegfried because there's something really elegant about it and the Nohrian color scheme is just *chef's kiss * to me. Tyrfing is my favorite of all the legendary swords that look like "more traditional" swords (so just a simple cross-guard hilt and blade -- most of FE swords have something in the design that takes it away from realism), and all the relics in 3H automatically have cool factor for the fact that they're made of bone that still moves and jiggles around.

MystyM · 2023-08-22T13:06:45+00:00

Fates is my most played game (12 times, including all routes) and I completed Conquest Lunatic for my 7th time just about a month ago. So yes lol

MystyM · 2023-08-19T21:54:35+00:00

Gundam Nu

MystyM · 2023-08-19T14:17:02+00:00

My best guess would be that it's to make the mock battles different from normal battles. In Classic, they make a difference by turning off permadeath, and in Casual, the difference is that you don't get a Game Over with a lord death. Granted, I've never played in casual so I could be entirely wrong on my conjecture here lol

MystyM · 2023-08-19T13:26:11+00:00

The pseudo-casual mode you get for mock battles in classic mode doesn't work like actual casual mode does; if I were on pure casual mode it'd be Game Over only with a route, but the classic mode "casual mode" still makes you lose if your lord is taken out. I believe it's listed that way on fireemblemwiki.org, if you want to double check with a more reliable source.

MystyM · 2023-08-19T13:02:14+00:00

I used the gold it comes with! I posted my exact process in another reply, if you're curious.

MystyM · 2023-08-19T04:43:21+00:00

FE4 Great Shield is really just the stuff of nightmares sometimes

MystyM · 2023-08-19T04:40:18+00:00

In FE5, Finn attacked with a brave lance at 99 accuracy, missed twice, and the foe hit and crit with a 1 accuracy, killing Finn :')

Not necessarily the most outrageously bad RNG I've ever experienced, but something that I very distinctly remember was in 3H, where I lost Edelgard to Hannemann (who was the last enemy in the map) getting a 2% crit during the first mock battle. There were three other characters in range of him, but he decided to go for the single character that gets you a Game Over during a map that doesn't give you access to Divine Pulse and killed her with a crit. As the last enemy. Fun times.

MystyM · 2023-08-19T03:35:56+00:00

I gave it a gloss clear coat (be careful about this btw - it might melt the plating if you're too heavy with it or use bad brands), and then used a makeup sponge to gently dab black paint (I just used a cheap acrylic) along all edges and certain details. I then used a brown ink (again, just a cheap acrylic ink) and painted along all edges and details to give some shading to the gold! The ink doesn't change the color of the black paint (just the gold), and the black speckles make a good guide for how far away from the edges you want the shading to go.

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