Fred the Barber

The new Star Wars is coming out of Disney. In case you're either biased or unaware, let me offer a reality check: when they try, Disney consistently puts out good movies; George Lucas doesn't. Big-name Disney films won't be edgy, or tread particularly new ground, but they will be great entertainment. I was playing SW:TOR (judge me later, let me finish my story) the day it went public that Disney had acquired the rights to the Star Wars franchise, and I, alone in a crowd of misguided Star Wars fans, was excited as shit. Finally this rich, nostalgic universe was in the hands of somebody who knew how to tell a story, rather than being mangled by George Lucas's incompetent attempts at writing a movie script. Consensus is clear: Star Wars movie quality is inversely proportional to quantity of George Lucas writing (Empire Strikes Back > Return of the Jedi > the rest). I have high hopes for a very entertaining story. I welcome Avengers: Tattooine Edition. I'm not rushing out to see it right now because I have no desire to wade through a crowded movie theater line, but I'm seriously looking forward to this. I'm not a mod on any reddit sub, and I've only seen Star Wars spoilers on reddit. Good citizenship indeed : P What a good citizen you are. On the other hand, I'm way too tired to even read posts, but seemingly not tired enough to stop embarrassing myself. So, pretty much par for the course, then?

Will do, though I've been pretty slow reading the past few days, hopefully I can pick up the pace soon Btw, would you also vouche to Clannad-virgins like myself to just watch the anime instead of reading the VN ? That seems to be the general consensus of many people outside of diehard source > adaptation peeps. I can't give a fair answer to that until I finish the whole thing. The Clannad anime is very good, but Clannad After Story is world-wrecking amazing. I expect the VN follows the same pattern, which means I haven't gotten near the best parts yet (haven't even done Nagisa's route, let alone After Story). But you should definitely take my opinions with a grain of salt too. I think I'm in a minority of Clannad fans, given that my favorite character in the anime is Akio, in no small part thanks to his English dub actor

Confession: How I know I'm a weeb: In a dream, I thought "ojamashimasu" when I wandered into somebody's house.

True, though I haven't seen it. I never figured you for the Drama Club type, Kosaki - did you get pulled into it by a cute airhead girl who is repeating her last year due to illness, but who you helped out in spite of your delinquent nature? Next person knows how to play baccarat.

As with Rooke, I'm more interested to see Square Enix do something new rather than see them trotting out the same old story and characters (as much as I love them, I've seen that story already). While the Final Fantasy series has been more miss than hit lately, the combat system in Lightning Returns remains probably the most entertaining RPG combat system I've ever played. Final Fantasy VII's combat system, judged today, is honestly rather repetitive and boring. At the time, it was usually great (though I certainly took no pleasure in grinding my Knights of the Round materia to Master just to go fight Emerald Weapon), but that was a long time ago, and it turns out not all changes are bad. I'm with Decay, that it's obviously not out of laziness that they're rewriting the combat; it just remains to see whether they're successful in producing something better. Not all change is good, either. I'm still salty about the Lufia 2 reboot, for example, which for me completely failed to recapture the magic of the original. So, I remain cautiously pessimistic about the FFVII remake, and cautiously optimistic about FFXV.

The new Mistborn novel, Shadows of Self, is pretty damn good so far. I'm very, very close to being done. As usual, with a Brandon Sanderson novel, it's a fun and exciting read. I really don't understand how he produces work of such high quality at such a prodigious rate.

True - I'm like the wind. Next person has a favorite Shakespeare play.

I thoroughly enjoyed Magi as well, when I watched it; solid story, characters, pacing, art - it nails the essentials. Although for some reason I, also, have not made time to watch season 2 of it... but someday, I certainly will. I finally finished Accel World over the weekend. I mostly feel relieved to be done with it; it wasn't bad per se, but it wasn't especially good either. I watched it just because a close friend (actually the only fellow otaku I regularly talk to in real life) recommended it to me; I won't do the same to you. Accel World is a solid Don't Watch. It's got a mess of a plot, very few likeable characters (and mostly simply not believable ones, which if you're familiar with my [low] standards means that they are really not at all believable), and a really arbitrary motivating backstory. While the "accelerated world" is kind of interesting at times, the rules always feel way too arbitrary; the writer just invents whatever is convenient at the time and then explains it away. Lazy. If you're going to invent some big magic-like system, it's way more interesting to impose more constraints up-front, and then make those constraints work for you; Accel World mostly uses the acceleration powers and burst link powers as a massively boring deus ex machina. But really, the worst is the characters. The second season villain is the worst cackling crazy inexplicably evil villain I've seen in a long, long time. Once again: lazy. After wrapping that up, I needed something good, so I picked up Bunny Drop. Holy shit is it good so far. It completely hooked me in one episode (one episode to first tears shed; new record), and I had to really restrain myself to stop after two episodes (I'm trying to savor it).

It... it's not like I want to be in this or anything.

Haha, that's what I thought when I was in high-school/first years of college =p I don't think you can really decide that kind of things before you set your feet in a lab for the first time, or before you've had an idea of what a theorist's activity implies. Yeah... I have a feeling this is true of all professions, but physics is certainly one of those things where you have no idea what it involves until you do it professionally. My old roommate is a theorist (I guess you'd categorize his field as condensed matter? I think he spends most of his time doing stuff related to crystal scectroscopy or something...); meanwhile, I'm a software developer. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure he spends a lot more time writing code than I do. And he certainly writes more Fortran than I do (which is to say a lot vs. none). From what I heard from the people doing astrophysics in college, probably the easiest way now to be doing useful work in that field especially is to become a good software developer - astrophysicists have big data problems like you wouldn't believe. And physicists in general seem to have this weird belief that they know how to write software, so if, unlike most physicists, you actually do know how to write software, it's a good choice. But naturally, all of that will get you nowhere unless you also know all the... you know... physics. Which will take you all of 4 years in university and then 5 years in grad school and then a post-doc for a year or two and... So, good luck there, Down! I'll just be over here making money. Confession: Every day I say "I'll take care of that" at least 10 times, and then I completely forget at least 1 of them. It makes me feel like crap; responsibility is probably the trait I value most in people, and lately I feel like I'm not making the grade on my own standards. I'm sure this probably sounds like a simple problem, but I'm used to relying on my (excellent) memory, and I think I've just got too much on my plate these days for my brain to handle. I need to rework my habits, probably in some small way, but changing habits is hard.

Let's see, importing 18+ eroge... from a quick glance at my shelf, I've imported G-Senjou, Fate/Stay Night, Swan Song, HoshiMemo, KoiChoco, the Steampunk Trilogy, and Cross Channel. So far, no trouble at all. I use Tenso to reship stuff, if I'm buying it from someone who doesn't ship out of the country like amazon.co.jp.

Do not worry your pretty little head over it. I wanted to follow Maths and loved Maths, but that didn't stop me from being fairly bad at it. Truthfully, so long as you enjoy what you're doing then its easy to study and consequently easy to become good at it... so long as you keep studying. It was fairly amusing to keep switching between being the best in class at maths to being below average. The future had other plans for me at the time but you're right in the middle of your present, so work now or else you're at destiny's mercy. <-- My adult good deed of the day thingie? This is what I'm supposed to say, right? Or something? As someone who also wanted to study math in college (by the way, Tiag, it's math, not maths; get it right), I can confirm that the people who do well at it are those who work hard at it. I didn't do any physics, but I'm certain the same is true there. It really didn't matter how smart you were, or even how good you were at the subject coming into the class. I was in classes with people who can be fairly described as geniuses. There were also many people who didn't have any relevant background, and weren't geniuses. None of that mattered; the people who graduated with math degrees were all and only the ones dedicated enough to stick with it and work hard. Somewhat regrettably, that didn't include me; I eventually copped out and changed to the much easier major of Computer Science. But I did take the lesson to heart and apply it in other aspects of life, so the result is good enough. At any rate, for those subjects and many other things in life, doing well is entirely about putting in the time and effort, as well as getting good instruction and working with your peers when you get stuck so you can get different points of view. On a different note, confession: seeing Kosaki post makes me happy

Tales of the Abyss never grabbed me, so I only played it for a few hours, but from what I've seen of the cast, I can totally see where you're coming from. Still enjoying Disgaea 5. Given Jun's comments, I feel like I need to go back and give Disgaea 4 another chance - I never got more than a couple chapters into it, so I really didn't give the characters a fair shot. I do remember some of the mechanics in that one making it hard for me to stick with it, but I shall persevere. As far as Disgaea 5 being cliché... it's undeniable that the game is filled with clichés (all Disgaea games are), but at least for me the overall experience was still a good one. I didn't really internalize it until this iteration in the series, but I feel like the goal of most aspects of any given Disgaea game is to take something that's been done before, and then push it to a logical extreme, until it breaks in a funny and interesting way. The gameplay, with its ridiculous leveling, best exemplifies this, but it's also true of the stories and characters. Characters always start as larger-than-life caricatures, and the plot usually starts off as a hackneyed cliché (though in a bizarre setting). Then they look for ways to stand these things on their head, or to push them over the edge, thereby turning the caricatures into relatable people, or changing the clichéd story into a completely different (but probably still cliché) story, where usually everybody learns a valuable lesson about life, love, and the magic of friendship. Maybe it was a little more obvious this time than usual, but the formula worked ok for me this time too, and I grew quite attached to more of the cast than I usually do. All that said, apparently I've been playing too much Disgaea 5 and I fried my PS4 - it won't run for more than about a minute now. Tomorrow I need to try to upload my saved game to the cloud, get the game out of the console, and call Sony support... ugh. I just hope I don't lose my ~70 hours of progress on this game.

Eclipsed, keep us posted on how Sharnoth proceeds. I've only read Inganock, for the VN club a few months ago, and I loved it, so I definitely am going to pick up Sharnoth before too long. There's just too much on my schedule before that, still, starting with: Clannad continues, slowly. I've finished 3/5 main heroine routes (Kyou, Fuko, and Tomoyo), several of the side routes, and am nearly done with Kotomi's route... but I have a feeling I'm only about halfway through. So far, at least, I'm feeling like I haven't really gained all that much by experiencing Clannad as a VN, versus the anime experience. Kotomi's route is definitely hitting a bit harder in the VN than it did in the anime, but for both Kotomi and Fuko's arc, the anime and VN are very nearly identical. For Tomoyo's route, I will say that it made a lot more sense in the VN presentation (vs. seeing some of it in the normal storyline and the rest in the "another world: Tomoyo arc" episode). But on the flip side, I actually think Kyou's route was done better in the single "another world: Kyou arc" anime episode than it was in the VN, where the whole saga feels really dragged out. All things considered, I didn't hype myself up too much so it's fine, but I am feeling ready to get a new story. I may have to stall out Clannad and play KoiChoco for a while, just for a change of pace.

False. I could take or leave them, I guess. Next person is reading KoiChoco.

Just finished the main storyline of Disgaea 5. I am pleased to say that I found it to be the best yet in the series. The characters are deeper and better-developed (and generally both more fun and interesting) than ever, the overarching plot themes are better-executed, and the gameplay absolutely shines this time around. After the slow slide from greatness after the first Disgaea game (2 was a little worse, then 3 was a little more worse, and then 4 was just not great at all), they really turned things around with Disgaea D2, and then got it pretty much perfect with Disgaea 5. With regards to gameplay especially: - They added a lot of new mechanics, but the new mechanics don't feel bloated (c.f., Disgaea 4, with the weird board game of character placement) or frustratingly time-consuming (c.f. Disgaea 3, with the frustrating ability purchasing system that required you to get lots of kills with your healer for them to be able to learn new healing magic) - The existing mechanics are around and are still solid - Classes and weapons are better balanced than I have ever seen in a Disgaea game. This, IMO, has been a major weakness of the series since the beginning - usually, some classes or weapons are just vastly better than others. This time around, whatever class you want to play around with, it's totally viable, while still not being overpowered enough to make you not want to try other things. I'm just starting the postgame now, so time will tell if I stick with that or move on to some other game for the time being (Tales of Zestiria is still waiting), but regardless, at some point a few months after I've put the game down, I know I'll get the itch to play another Disgaea game again. When that happens, Disgaea 5, not any previous iteration in the series, will definitely be the game I come back to.

I watched all of I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying over the last week. It was a lot of fun, and pleasantly different both in tone and characters from what I'm used to watching. I think I only understood maybe 10% of the otaku references, but they were neither especially important nor annoying to miss, just meriting a little extra chuckle when I got them. I didn't realize before I started that, though there are two seasons of 13 episodes each, the episodes are very short (maybe 4 or 5 minutes?), so it was a very quick watch. Definitely recommended if you're looking for some pleasant comedy to fill the time, especially if you're looking for something with adult characters. After that was done, I picked up Yona of the Dawn, which so far is great. I'm maybe 7 episodes in, and really enjoying the setting, visuals, plot, characters, and voice acting (Yona's seiyuu, especially, is fantastic; and to be clear, I'm watching the sub). It made me realize that I don't see all that many anime in a fantasy setting these days, which I miss. Most of what I watch ends up being roughly in the present, or maybe the near future, which is a little less interesting to me. The setting actually has a very similar vibe to Rurouni Kenshin (which, sure, is actually a pseudo-historical setting, but it ends up playing out more like a fantasy setting than anything else, IMO), although everything else is quite different, so don't read too much into that comparison... at any rate, really enjoying it so far, looking forward to more.

After a little while, I actually got used to and even liked Komari's voice. Aroe's, on the other hand, just made me want to smash my tablet until the sounds stopped. It sounds like you're around the same place I was in the novel when I started to feel attached to the cast, realized I really didn't want to see terrible things happen to them, and dropped it.

LSD, Undertale, or what? also lol "umbilical chord" Bloodborne Oh OK then Confession: It sucks that most tracks I used to love just a month ago now do nothing for me. Been trying to listen to Stairway to Heaven and I just can't into it even though I normally love it. Maybe you're just dead inside try this: Wow, that's a deep pull there. I haven't listened to it in years, but it's a great album, and much more listenable than The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Confession: I got Fuwa withdrawal after not reading this thread for three whole days.

That is horrifying. I don't understand how anybody could be willing to spend so much time making their art look passable (it's not special, but it's passable) and yet apparently unwilling to spend any time on basic editing. The emphasis needs to be on the "novel" part, not the "visual" part... Confession: I have exactly one eyebrow hair with a vastly higher spring constant than all its fellows. I pluck it every time I notice it (say, when you're running your hand over your eyebrows in frustration because you just saw the worst published abuse of the English language in recent memory), but it inevitably grows back and begins asserting itself after a couple of months. And the cycle continues.

Remember, every vote counts. Unless you voted for something that lost, in which case your vote obviously didn't count.

False. It's blue, no yel-- Auggggh! Next person likes the smell of freshly-baked bread.

Kyou's route was actually pretty long, as I recall, it's just that you see a lot of Ryou in it, for obvious reasons; maybe you're just viewing a bunch of the stuff that's part of the route as "common route" or something? At any rate, once the big romance conflict is resolved, telling other stories about the clean-up explanation afterwards would just drag out the ending and make it even less interesting. Kyou's is certainly the weakest of the full-length routes in Clannad, from what I can tell, but I at least don't think it's bad, per se. Calling it "garbage tier", asserting the writing is worse than some random nukige, and using some other hyperbole when calling out the route length, makes it seem like first you over-hyped for it, and now you're just dead set against enjoying it. You'll probably be happier if you just go read something else. Regarding Yukine's ending: I actually really enjoyed it. Certainly it was extremely short, and it was light on drama and CGs, but I was genuinely moved by the big monologue scene; that was enough for me. Currently reading Tomoyo's route... man it's long. I'm kind of hoping to get through this quickly and get to After Story, but I still have so much left to go of the first set of routes.

I can empathize; I bought a condo years back. Closing was not a pleasant experience, although honestly I found the looking around more stressful than the actual closing. It's also expensive as hell here in Seattle... The best news is, selling your new home will be even more stressful than buying it was! After 4.5 years in my condo, suffering through a mostly clueless HOA that refused to hire a management company, and stressing out personally over the state of my unit and the building itself, I was done with home ownership. I've been happily renting a very nice apartment in a downtown high-rise ever since. Not sure what move I'll make if/when marriage and kids come around, but for the time being, this is the right call for my sanity.

Wow, that sounds great! But not really. Yeah, I'm rarely one for turning up the difficulty on a game... I have to both be good at and be really invested in a game before I even consider doing that, and there has to be some sort of visible reward for it (an in-game trophy or something). I think the last time I actually had fun playing a game with high difficulty settings was picking up Flawless Cowboy medals while playing Halo: Reach solo. Usually I was just trying to finish one of the weekly challenges, and didn't have a lot of faith in my co-op buddies, so I'd just solo the mission. It was always pretty satisfying to pull that off without dying.