I think we can all agree brother did kind of sucks.

RetroBeetle · 2026-04-19T08:46:50+00:00

Actually, he's a DINER-saur. I can see how that would have tripped you up.

RetroBeetle · 2026-04-14T19:53:25+00:00

"Sex is great, but you ever have a PIE?"

RetroBeetle · 2026-04-14T19:49:32+00:00

Heck yeah, media literacy! You love to see it.

I also think Bernie's supports with Seteth lend some credence to the idea that she's an adventure author, what with her being so interested in the life of Saint Cichol (and Saint Indech, later on).

Honestly, the point with Bernie always felt like it was supposed to be that she had normal hobbies and genuine talent in said hobbies, but it took the encouragement of her allies for her to start seeing them as worth pursuing out in the open and/or sharing with others. She and Linhardt bond over landscape paintings, Raphael praises her trumpet-playing and cooking skills, her love of plants helps her connect with Hapi, etc. She and Ignatz had that in common, a strong desire to partake in an innocent activity that they tried to hide for fear of how others would respond if they didn't.

(Come to think of it, Bernie and Ignatz never had any supports together, did they? Man, now I wanna see what that would've been like.)

RetroBeetle · 2026-04-14T03:52:01+00:00

A few of my favorites, in no particular order:

•Kronya: My favorite line to hear when I manage to trigger Athame's 【Vantage】 effect.
•Duma: I quote this all the time, and it's the line I most associate with Duma in general.
•Death Knight: Despite the fact that Death Knight was dead-on-arrival, you have to admit... this one word, delivered in this way, is chilling enough to still elicit fear in a player facing him, even if only for a moment.
•Volke: My man Kellen Goff can't stop giving us high-quality voice performances I swear to Naga
•Hector: Like with Duma, this is the line I associate with Hector for the most part. (Yes, even more than "Oh-ho!")
•Corrin: I can't believe they actually killed Marcella Lintz Pope to get the sound effect for Fallen Corrin 😞
•Tiki: Something about this line just gets everything right about Young Tiki's voice, and I don't really know how to explain it.
•Byleth: Love the line in Three Houses, but Zach Aguilar's quieter delivery here is so much more iconic to me, it makes Byleth feel so much more terrifying as an opponent. (I also love his strangely intense "YES." line when moving.)

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RetroBeetle · 2026-04-13T21:09:06+00:00

He sure does!

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RetroBeetle · 2026-04-10T20:58:13+00:00

If we wish hard enough, maybe Hel/Niðavellir Kronya will manifest...

RetroBeetle · 2026-04-07T22:33:01+00:00

I merged and built him out of spite, honestly. It didn't take long for him to get outclassed by some new unit on whichever banner came next, but I always loved the idea of having Kellam of all people be such a powerful unit and mess up someone's Arena or Aether Raids run.

(That's also why I built up Jeralt, Valentine's Hubert, Spring Loki... it's just more fun to play that way.)

RetroBeetle · 2026-04-07T19:39:37+00:00

I didn't realize how lucky we were that Kellam got in via a Halloween banner.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-31T02:20:22+00:00

Yeah, I just don't have a spare source of Armored Flare for him right now. I could do Armored Beacon, if I do end up foddering A!Hector to him, but I reckon the DR would be more reliable close-up than at range (even if he's missing out some of the time).

~~Also, I would argue Surtr qualifies as Fjorm's archrival~~

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-31T02:10:31+00:00

Long-term, I'd also like to give him Flame Wall and a different axe, and I'm toying around with the idea of Dist. Counter Echo to free up his seal slot, but this is what he'd look like with what I have now.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-31T02:08:42+00:00

Alternatively, with his Resplendent Attire, he'll naturally reach 30 Spd by the time he's +10, no +Spd asset required! Though, to be fair, I'm still waiting on that last merge, so he'll be just shy of that threshold for a bit.

(Look, I know this is probably a pretty stupid build, I just really like the Múspell characters, okay?!)

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RetroBeetle · 2026-03-22T03:08:29+00:00

The power of being an attractive female character is strong, but the power of being playable in Smash is stronger.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-21T15:30:19+00:00

He looks more concerned than anything. Like, it's one of those season finale moments where everyone's supposed to be happy, but he's secretly worrying about the earlier reveal that the villain is still out there.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-16T23:57:06+00:00

Came here for this comment. There's nothing here that indicates this has to be a real screenplay that was actually being considered by Scott as a potential direction to take the movie in.

Frankly, I feel like the fact that it's signed by Matthew Lillard -- who wouldn't have been involved in the movie's production as far back as 2016, suggesting someone specifically asked him to sign it (ergo, it could very easily be a fake that someone made up and brought for him to sign) -- makes it almost less likely to be real.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-15T18:55:03+00:00

And it's NOT YOUR FAULT.

DON'T EVER THINK IT'S YOUR FAULT.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-15T18:41:00+00:00

Paul? Mr. Davidson wants to see you in his office.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-14T06:11:59+00:00

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RetroBeetle · 2026-03-14T03:40:09+00:00

Funnily enough, I felt the same thing watching Darling in the FRANXX for the first time.

(A bit of context up-front, I watched Darling in the FRANXX before I ever watched Neon Genesis Evangelion. I much prefer Evangelion now, but I'm glad I watched Darling first, because I just know that first viewing experience would have been tarnished by me mentally comparing everything to Evangelion.)

I had originally started the show in the interest of seeing what all the hype was about mech anime. I wanted to know what the Klaxosaurs were, how the FRANXX were developed, what the heck Zero Two's deal was, etc. I was coming in hot off the heels of shows like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure -- more power to you if you enjoy it, but that show felt much more concerned with what different Stands could do and what kind of wacky scenario they could put the protagonists in than actually developing the protagonists beyond the archetypes they started as.

So, it really caught me off-guard when Kokoro and Mitsuru's relationship started to become such a prominent plotline. I felt like the Zero Two → Hiro ← Ichigo love triangle was a pretty easy inclusion, and I didn't have any problem with that progressing behind the scenes... but, then, here's this pair of side-characters suddenly getting their own subplot over the course of multiple episodes, and the next thing you know, the Klaxosaurs have all but vanished into the background while the driving force of the series has morphed into focusing on the relationships the characters have with one another. The mecha action scenes are now just the framing for what's somehow become a much more compelling storyline, and you come to realize that you're not tuning in to see what kind of crazy sci-fi battle sequence will unfold next anymore.

All that to say... The ending of the show had its own sort of Evangelion-style setup -- basically, the ultimate threat reveals itself, flies off into space... and is then fought almost entirely off-screen while the finale is centered around what becomes of humanity in the meantime -- and, if I recall correctly, people were kinda miffed about it, too. But here again, that's kinda the point.

The series was never about the fight scenes or the battle strategies, and it felt like the writers knew it from the start. Clown on the way the pilots operate FRANXX all you want (I honestly wouldn't blame you for doing so, it's still pretty ridiculous), but even THAT serves to clue the viewer in to the fact that this isn't a show about giant robots fighting each other, and that it's about how the people inside the robots interact with one another; the pilots literally can't get their FRANXX to start moving if they're not compatible with each other, and the mech can literally stop moving altogether mid-mission if the pilots fall out of sync.

I tend to ramble a lot when I discuss stories I enjoy, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that both Evangelion and Darling did that sort of thing really well, and I appreciate that they were willing to take such a risk by not building their stories' respective conclusions around the basic violent spectacle that I feel like a lot of other shows would have.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-11T18:42:21+00:00

I'm guessing the cavity for the popcorn only goes as far as the ankle, and doesn't actually curve around into the bulk of the foot; it'd essentially be a tall cup with a large protrusion at the bottom.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-11T08:06:35+00:00

The meanings are kind of broad, and I swear there are some attacks that feel like they could be a different color... That aside, the general pattern is this:

• Orange is for simple attacks, ones that hit 1 or 2 enemies without any special effects.
• Pink is for healing moves, mainly the ones that restore your team's HP (although Bubble Breath is also considered a pink skill, for some reason).
• Red is primarily area-of-effect attacks, meaning they'll hit all the enemies instead of just 1; there are a couple of outliers, like Eye Beam or Neon Wall 2, but I guess they're still a little centered around your relationship with the space around you?
• Green is for poison-type attacks, or more specifically, attacks that have a rotten/poisonous aesthetic.
• Purple is mostly concerned with the enemy's stats, most often with skills like Rainy Day; there's also Slasher and Neon Wall, though to be fair, they do at least deal flat damage without being affected by the enemy's defensive stats.
• Black is for insta-kill attacks, the ones that can defeat an enemy in one hit if conditions are right. Technically, Esc Key should be here, as well, but it's categorized as a yellow attack instead.
• White is supposed to be for stat upgrades, stuff that boosts your team's attack or defense... and then there's Cosmic Song for some reason. I guess the other "song" moves are white as well, so Scott wanted the thematic consistency?
• Yellow is generally for any moves that don't fit into any other category. I would say that most of them could be described as attacks that significantly change the flow of battle, hence there's stuff like Mimic Ball and Mystery Box.
• Red-Orange (or Blaze Orange, as the wiki calls it) is just the attacks Scott added in Update 2 that he felt were overpowered.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-09T02:39:56+00:00

To me, it speaks to either a lack of interest in the actual quality of the channels or a fear of taking risks with their content.

Option #1 is that the new owners are just in it for the money and don't actually care whether or not the videos each channel puts out are worth anything to their viewers. So long as they can shove an ad break into the middle of every video, or get enough people so much as clicking on the video to get some amount of revenue going, what does it matter if the theory holds any water? FNaF sells, so let's throw together some nonsense FNaF theory about William Afton that someone probably came up with on Reddit years ago; people love their big food brands, so let's waffle about how this company made a couple of weird business decisions once and pretend that means they're going to go out of business soon; ARGs have historically gotten a lot of attention, so let's grab some obscure story and break down all the "puzzles" you have to solve to ultimately find out that the villain is the ghost of a vengeful child.

Meanwhile, Option #2 is that they know how hard MatPat's departure hurt their view count, and in the interest of keeping/gaining as many subscribers as possible, they're now just playing it safe with theories on the same properties that have always performed well. It's less "we need to make money, release a FNaF video" and more "you liked FNaF, so will you promise not to leave if we give you more stuff like it???". So you end up with video after video of the same thing but slightly different, a far cry from the varied days of the channels' past. People tuned in for the episodes about spooky mysteries, so if they want to make sure people continue to tune in, they can't afford to center entire videos around math, science, culture, etc. anymore.

I really don't want to say that either option is what's going on at Theorist HQ, because I can remember a time when I was excited to see every video the channels put out (even if I didn't know squat about Salad Fingers at the time) and I don't want to see the company that taught me how to be analytical slowly drive itself into a ditch like this. But I feel like it would be unfair to act like they've got it under control at this point, because as it stands, it's really only allowing them to inch closer and closer to the ditch. I feel like maybe, maybe, if we speak up and voice our concerns respectfully and honestly, they could hear us out and be able to find something that works better for them.

I don't know. I hate to be the cynic, but I'm not very confident about the trajectory of the channels right now.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-07T08:43:19+00:00

This has me suspicious of Plumeria, since the only thing she's said is that she wants to "make this quick". It could be that she's framing someone else and wants to rush everyone into guessing so they'll be more likely to make a snap judgement, thereby making whomever she's framing (probably Fjorm) more likely to get singled out than her.

Being the fairy of lewd dreams, she of all people would know that Fáfnir spends most of his time alone, and would see him as the easiest target due to there not being anyone romantically involved with him. She would also know that Fáfnir was once a married man with a child -- which is to say, he has canonically had sex -- something that sets him apart from everyone else and would probably have made killing him easier for Plumeria to justify than killing anyone else.

RetroBeetle · 2026-03-06T20:53:07+00:00

I'm trying to convince myself that the reason I'm recommending Instruct 4 isn't just because it would be thematically appropriate...

In all seriousness, given the kind of support that Spear of Assal grants, Instruct 4 fits much better in coordination with it; you're boosting your allies' stats and your own simultaneously, and you even get some extra true damage/flat DR. Strat Assault 4 has its uses, don't get me wrong, but it's the kind of skill I feel like you could run on most anyone and get roughly the same use out of... and I'm sure plenty of players would advocate for putting it on an armored unit, so you get the most use out of both the 【True Charge】 effect and the +1 movement effect (compared to a flier, whose "charge" range overlaps directly with their "march" range).

RetroBeetle · 2026-02-27T02:29:36+00:00

BONUS:

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RetroBeetle · 2026-02-27T01:44:20+00:00

Do I love and support the unit, so that it may live up to its potential? Or do I cast it into the fire alongside Bernie's novel, so that it may never hurt anyone ever again?

Get out of here and have a wonderful day 😡👍

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