Small update

WHAT YEAR IS IT?!

I spent the last week glued to my PS3, having played 50 hours of Tales of Xillia in five days. That's including breaks, though. Still enough for one complete playthrough and the start of my second. The game is absolutely glorious! It looks good, it sounds good, and the writing is pretty phenomenal. The first half is a bit of a slog at times, but once the obligatory (but admittedly unexpected) plot twist hits, the game goes into overdrive and becomes incredibly cool. Plus, the villain (term used loosely) is incredibly well-written. Probably one of the best villains, if you could even call them that, in recent memory. I definitely recommend the game to both JRPG veterans and newbies alike. And what's even cooler, the sequel is being released next year, which supposedly fixes and improves a whole boatload of things, and adds new stuff to the mix as well. The soundtrack is especially great.

Anyway, enough gushing about video games. You're here to read what I'm up to! Well, I'm writing that new Suncloak story. In fact, the first chapter is as good as done! When the cover art is done, I'll upload the thing. I've seen some sketches already, and the art is going to look pretty dang cool! I'm sure you guys are going to enjoy this. At least, that's what experience tells me. When I'm actually editing it, the story looks like a load of crumbled snickerdoodles.

Oh, I also took the time this week to watch Button's Adventures and Equestria Girls. Can't say much about Button's Adventures except that the first few seconds of voice acting really get on my nerves, but the rest of it is very good. Very funny, too! There's not much to do wrong writing-wise when you just take some common five-twenty second jokes and put everything in a skit-like animation. You don't get much depth, but that's not what it needs anyway.

As for Equestria Girls... Well, with a movie of just over one hour, of which the first few minutes are spent setting up the pony world, and after that about fifteen or twenty minutes for the human world, there's not really much room to tell a good story. Plus, this is again more of an introductory thing for the older girls demographic, so there's a lot of stuff in there that's obvious for us series veterans (Bear with me here, I'm trying to sound professional). It's still an enjoyable movie, with the characters up to their usual antics. I especially enjoyed Pinkie and Spike. The story's formula is pretty generic, but effective, so it's not anything original, but still fun. A nice story about fitting in and friendship. Though it's not like I have any experience regarding those subjects AMIRITE?

Oh, and as for why I hadn't seen it before yet? I'm a professional European. Might sound silly, but that excuse actually works a lot. "What's your favourite form of locomotion?" "Bicycle." "Huh, why?" "I'm European." "Oh okay."

So yeah. Animations, fun. Story, soon. Me, spending the next week kittensitting my uncle's four month old cats. They're ridiculously cute.

Comments

[Demose]

"Plus, the villain (term used loosely) is incredibly well-written"

The word you are looking for is antagonist.

An antagonist (from Greek ἀνταγωνιστής - antagonistēs , "opponent, competitor, enemy, rival", from anti- "against" + agonizesthai "to contend for a prize,")[1] is a character, group of characters, or institution that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend. In other words, an antagonist is a person or a group of people who oppose the main character(s).[2] In the classic style of stories wherein the action consists of a hero fighting a villain/enemy, the two can be regarded as protagonist and antagonist, respectively.[3]

The antagonist may also represent a major threat or obstacle to the main character by their very existence, without necessarily deliberately targeting him or her.

Examples in both film and theatre include Sauron, the main antagonist in The Lord of the Rings, who constantly battles the series' protagonists, and Tybalt, an antagonist in Romeo and Juliet, who slays Mercutio and whose later death results in the exiling of the play's protagonist, Romeo. A convention of the antagonist in a story is that their moral choices are less savoury than those of the protagonist. This is often used by an author to create conflict within a story. However, this is merely a convention and the reversal of this can be seen in the character Macduff from Macbeth, who is arguably morally correct in his desire to fight the tyrant Macbeth.

[Lucky424]

WOOHOO, US EUROPEANS GOT TO STICK TOGETHER!!!

Which part?

Also, is that a PS3 exclusive?

Also also, I actually thought Equestria Girls was pretty good, and wasn't the whole 'end of fandom' thing it was made out to be. Pinkie had to be my favourite character in it.

[Raptor]

WHAT YEAR IS IT?!

Hah, that reminds me of a prank my friend and I thought up in school. I'd run up to a random classroom and shout, "QUICK, WHAT YEAR IS IT?!" Then if they answered "2013," I'd say "IT WORKED!!" and run off.

[Niaeruzu]

1290910
I'm well aware of the term, but I could've been a bit more precise here in mentioning that the antagonist of Xillia isn't evil at all and could very well be considered a shining example of a hero. Even (main) antagonist would be a loosely-used term, since said character doesn't take that position until very late into the story. The Tales series gets very, very nebulous with its antagonists most of the time, placing them smack-dab in the middle of the moral grey area. Which is why I love the series so much.

1290912
I live in the west, in the Netherlands. And yes, the game is PS3-exclusive. Also yes, Equestria Girls was very over-hyped in being the end of the fandom. In the end, it's just a movie, and an enjoyable one at that.

[Someguy987]

Me, spending the next week kittensitting my uncle's four month old cats. They're ridiculously cute.

At least you'll be up to your ankles in pussy.

[Lucky424]

1290918 Only been there once, was a stop over in Amsterdam for a refuel on my flight around Europe. Got to love the Royal Air Force, getting paid to fly round Europe and get drunk for a weekend!!

Damn... it looked pretty good. And, it's funny, all the over-hype was against the film, from what I saw... just like this 'Down With Molestia' thing that's cropped up, all because it apparently 'encourages rape'.
dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw4910-3641847_d7b9517a976c0b3482f55162d24a9dcc.gif
Does that mean they're going to try and get grimdark removed, becsaue some promote self harming?

Sometimes... the ponies of this fandom are idiots.

[Raptor]

1290912>>1290918 Honestly, I was neutral about EQG. It's still an enjoyable movie, but I heard that it is actually an alternate tangent in the MLPverse. Apparently there's going to be no reference in the show to the movie whatsoever.

[Lucky424]

1290925 That was confirmed by Meghan Mccarthy on her twitter page awhile ago.

I would post the link, but it take a while to find it as I'm not on there.

[Niaeruzu]

1290925
Yes, I believe Meghan McCarthy said on Twitter that S4 will not reference EQG in any way. The only thing that could possibly cross over is that crush, and she said it's not going to.

1290924
Some people kinda have trouble heeding warnings and not looking at stuff. Like the mother of our friend said while we were in the US, "America isn't the land of freedom and opportunity, it's the land of bitching and moaning."

1290921
God dammit I laughed way too hard at that.

[Gordon_Freemane]

Not just European, Dutch! We bicycle all over the fucking place.

[Streamline]

I live in Northernish Canada, so 8 months of the year, it's too cold to bike anywhere, and the other 4, I am too far away from anything to be able to bike.

[Scyphi]

1290914
Oh man, I might have to try that now.

[Scyphi]

"What's your favourite form of locomotion?" "Bicycle." "Huh, why?" "I'm European." "Oh okay."

Darn it, I'm American, that won't work for me.

[Rokas]

Sadly, the Professional European market has dropped out thanks to outsourcing to India. Indian Professional Europeans work for only 125 Rupees per week and only sleep on alternate weekends, thus depressing the mainland Europe market and causing a drop in the Euro. The Professional Pundits and Talking Heads Association has reported that native Professional Europeans have experienced as high as 57% attrition thanks to the outsourcing phenomenon.

Meanwhile, Cyprus.