Spoiler Island

Final thoughts on MGSV- Quiet breaking her silence to save Venom Snake from a bullshit snakebite was a tense moment that would have gotten me right in the feels if it didn't seem so cheap. But what the pilot says to her was kind of cute: "I didn't know you were so talkative, Quiet!" She wasn't as endearing after you find out that she was the one who tried to kill you in the very beginning, though. Also, since this takes place in the middle of the 1980s, wouldn't it be funny if someone made a joke video with tapes from the FNAF phone guy? On a related note, Kingdom Hearts 2.9 is no longer a thing (so why did they release information about it in the first place?), dispelling the notion that the prologue/demo for KHIII would be a separate release like Ground Zeroes (since Kojima and Nomura are friends and possibly in cahoots). Instead, Aqua's story Zero Point Two is the prologue/tech demo, which is why it's for the PS4 (though no Xbox One port like the actual KHIII). Speaking of milking it, with everything that was cut from MGSV, there is sure to be DLC to fill in the blanks (particularly with Liquid's story).

Before, I had spoken of Nomura's low opinion of Vexen and the number four being unlucky in Japan. By contrast, his favorite, Luxord, is number 10, or X, or chi. At first I thought the X sigil that was added to all of the Organization XIII members' names had something to do with Xehanort's name beginning with X. However, it may just be Nomura's own preference for that number/letter and its importance(?) to the story. He also has an obsession with zippers, but that's beside the point.

Broken

So I accidentally added Troy Baker to my previous [non-story] post even though he wasn't in Arkham Knight. He was in one of them before Mark Hamill came back to finish the trilogy. For someone who was supposed to have taken over the role, Troy hasn't played him much.

It's one thing for the brony community to have pony waifus, but recently I discovered that there are pony MILFs as well. That really broke my brain. Nothing wrong with it, I suppose, but...why? Never in a million years would any sane person think that "My Little Pony" and "MILF" would be used together in the same sentence. Still, MLP is one of the few things on TV I will actually be watching this season (albeit online). I've decided to drop Castle, NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, and possibly NCIS: New Orleans as well. I'll watch the CSI finale movie but not CSI Cyber. The web shows on my to-do list are vastly more important to me at this point, and I don't have a whole lot of time, even though I was recently shamed out of watching a couple of them.

I've come to find that I don't like trail mix as much as I did when I was a kid, and I like tomatoes a lot more. I still can't handle very spicy things, but medium salsa is fine for a little bit. I get the mild salsa so I can eat as much of it as I want without setting my mouth on fire.

An Impossible Romance part 3

Ienzo returned home after spending the afternoon with Raven at the Jump City Public Library. While he'd enjoyed being with her as friends, he still felt like a fool. "And just where have you been?" Even asked him when he entered the hall.
"Nowhere," Ienzo muttered dejectedly. "I'm going to my room."
Hearing the tone of his voice, Even didn't criticize him further but shared a concerned yet confused look with Aeleus. Dilan, on the other hand, recognized the "I've-just-been-dumped" look on Ienzo's face and followed him. "Wait. Tell me what happened," he said, stopping him. He hadn't learned of what had been going on when they were Nobodies.
Ienzo explained, "I met a girl, but we live on different worlds, and our work is too important to leave them behind. I agreed with that, and she agreed to be friends, but..." He found it was getting more difficult to talk. "...Why does it hurt so much?"
Dilan patted him on the back as his side of the conversation devolved into choked sobs. "There, there. This too shall pass." After a moment, Ienzo calmed back down. "Would you like to continue this discussion over some herbal tea?"
"Raven likes herbal tea..."
"Her name's Raven, hm?" Dilan was a bit curious, but this wasn't the time. He used his thumb to wipe the tears from beneath Ienzo's left eye. "But you like herbal tea. Is this going to be like when you stopped eating sea salt ice cream because Master Ansem was banished?"
"For now, I'll just drink juice or something."
Braig, eavesdropping as usual, broke into the conversation. "You'll need to replace all the fluid you're losing."
"Braig..." Dilan warned touching the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
"Hey, I'm sincerely concerned," Braig emphasized, insulted. "I mean, I'm also sorry I didn't get the chance to tease him about it first, but-"
"Forget it," Ienzo conceded. "I'm going to go scream into my pillow until I pass out."
***
Raven decided to surprise Ienzo with a visit some months later. She had kept the flowers he'd given her preserved and used them to find his location. "That's a lot of stairs," she said, looking up toward the castle. She levitated herself over them and walked the rest of the way from the gate. At the front door, she was met with Dilan and Aeleus. "Um, hi. Is Ienzo at home?"
They both looked at her warily. "Yes, he's here," Dilan replied. "You must be Raven."
"He's told you about me?"
"Of course. You're the first person he's ever had romantic feelings for," Aeleus added.
"Thank you for letting him down easy, by the way," Dilan added.
"Oh..." Raven gasped, not having realized. "He wasn't my first, but he is the first that I'm still friends with. I didn't mean to hurt him. Is he all right?"
"He's taken it on the chin. He is probably in the middle of work at the moment, but if you'd like to see him, I could announce you," Dilan offered. Raven agreed, and he led her inside.
When Ienzo saw her, he could feel his heart jump into his throat. Still, he tried to address the situation with cool detachment. "Wh-what are you doing here?" he stammered.
"I actively searched for you and wanted to see where you live," she replied as nonchalantly as possible. "No surprise it's a castle."
"Well you're a girl in a tower," Ienzo shot back.
"All right, all right. Take this conversation someplace else," Even cut in, though he was also somewhat amused. "Some of us have work to do."
"Ienzo, why don't you show her to the library?" Ansem suggested. "First floor only, please."
"So...was one of those guys your dad?" Raven asked when they arrived.
"No. My parents died when I was little," Ienzo replied.
"I'm sorry. Mine are dead too," Raven left it at that, not wanting to admit she was a half-demon. "I was raised by monks."
"Master Ansem adopted me. I was raised by him and the other apprentices. You've met him and Even, and Dilan and Aeleus, probably not Braig, though you may be better off for it..."
"What are you working on? Does it have anything to do with what you were looking for in that other place?"
"No, no. This is something different. We're working toward a new beginning. I can't show you. That's why we were told to stay here."
"I understand." She was quiet for a moment. "Listen, I'm not the best with feelings. I tend to keep mine suppressed most of the time..."
"Me too!" Ienzo had to check his enthusiasm, clearing his throat afterward.
"Anyway, I had no idea what to make of you when we first met, but there's no denying that we're similar. I've dated people who I thought were just like me, but they turned out to be boring or deceitful. You're neither of those things. If it weren't for the long distance between us, then who knows? But..."
"You don't have to worry about it. I understand," Ienzo assured her. "I hope Dilan and Aeleus didn't give you a hard time about it."
"No, they were very polite. They obviously care about you a great deal." She was startled by her brooch suddenly flashing. "I'm sorry. I have to go now."
Ienzo nodded. "Take care of yourself."

(If anyone's wondering, this part takes place right after season 5, during which Beast Boy is still hung up on Tara. Not saying he doesn't get together with Raven, but it hasn't happened yet. Also hammers home the point that both Raven and Ienzo are needed on their respective worlds in light of recent accomplishments.)

Vindictive

The last few days have been cloudless, so I got sunburned at work. I had sunscreen but I totally neglected my neck because I usually don't need to put it there. It's mostly my arms and face that get burned. But due to a scheduling error (or someone reading it wrong), I was put out three times yesterday, the last time being at the last minute without my knowledge. It's days like these that make me really hate my job and certain co-workers. I can't even tell if they're evil or just incompetent. Now I understand why Tress MacNeill and Tara Strong like voicing characters like Mom from Futurama and Toot from Drawn Together. They got to yell at people in ways that they can't do in real life. Speaking of Tara Strong, she's in both Arkham Knight and MGSV and both her characters are pretty bonkers in some way or another (Matt Mercer is in both too btw, as well as Troy Baker). Big Boss's gadgets are like Batman's also. Quiet may not be Chico, though, at least not for the reasons people had theorized.

Jeff Dunham seems to have replaced Guitar Guy with Brad Paisley for some reason, at least for this one show. I liked the addition of physical comedy with Little Jeff, but I felt that the subplot with Achmed being left out of the show by the pinhead executive was in poor taste.

The pumpkin oatmeal was good, but I prefer maple and brown sugar.

Gratifying

Not sure if 2.9 is still going to be a thing, as it was just announced that 2.8 is not only the HD remix of Dream Drop Distance but also BBS Volume 2 (or 0.2) and the cinematic version of Chi called Back Cover. I suppose that if they split off the opening of KHIII like MGSV did with Ground Zeroes they could still do both, but 2.8 was also labelled as the Final Chapter Prologue; maybe new cutscenes? Actually, KH2 would have been better to do that with since Roxas' part of the game is separate. Maybe the prologue is Sora earning his Mark of Mastery and then the rest of the game will follow after that since he goes through another wardrobe change and whatnot.

The past week's episode of Critical Role involved catching Sam up since he'd been gone for several sessions. They had just finished up another part of Keyleth's side story, and coming up is Percy's side story. I am totally on board with killing some Briarwoods, and the part with Percy shopping for gunpowder and iron ore beforehand was hilarious. Otherwise, I'm not sure how Scanlan's bard abilities were not considered cheating (unless it falls under bardic immunity or something) whilst blatantly trying to use healing spells and trying to lie about it clearly was (landing Keyleth and Tiberius in jail yet again). Also, Grog clearly won through cheating by a combination of Stone Giant strength potion and Scanlan's inspiration die. I'm happy for Travis that the Cowboys won though, even if it was at the expense of the Giants.

Divergence

Sir Ivan isn't the Red Ranger's dad, and Prince Phillip isn't the Green Ranger's brother. Even if those two aren't going to be the Gold and Graphite Rangers, I hope they show up later in the series as other colors...or at all. Why show us Matt if he wasn't going to be important again? I hope Tyler's dad is alive too. There are up to four other designations they could be, if even temporarily.

Xehanort as one of the foretellers is a theory, another being that he didn't really go back in history but merely invaded a record of them in the tome of prophecy that people keep talking about. Otherwise, he would've had to have been there, as he can only time travel through wormholes he'd set up previously, as explained in part 2 of the Time Lord Film Theory trilogy. I don't know how I feel about 2.9 being released similar to how Ground Zeroes was released as a separate prologue to the main game. I guess if it's going to take longer to make the main game and they want to give us a little something while we wait that's also a tutorial, it'll be okay. On its own, though, it won't be as much of a game as previous installments between major titles.

I have mixed feelings about the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. I'm not a gamer, but even if I was I don't think I'd play it. However, I am fascinated by the lore and how "complicated" it's gotten, so if the movie puts all of it into perspective, I'd be willing to see it. Chica is my favorite, at least based on the musical. I want to spell it Chika since that's a name in Japanese whereas "chica" is Spanish for "girl," which leads me to believe she was named using the Smurfette Principle. I know she's a chicken and not a duck.

I'll probably wait for reviews of the Goosebumps movie, but the trailer did get me excited.

It's A Beautiful Day

I had a dream the other night that Myde, Rould, Lumaria, and Relena still had their powers and weapons and were attacking some sort of stronghold. I can't remember much about it, so I don't know whose side they were on other than their own. Ansem's apprentices were there too, but I couldn't tell if they were helping out or were the ones being attacked.

Random Encounters made a really catchy song and adorable music video called Muffins the Musical starring Derpy Hooves. It once again put me in the mood for muffins (damn you, muffin horse!). My favorite part was when she tries filling the empty muffin box back up with rocks. Another series of videos they've done is Five Nights at Freddy's the Musical, in which the animatronics are reduced to harmless and well-meaning children's show-esque hand puppets and Markiplier is the crazy security guard. It's really cute. There have been three parts so far (part 2 is on Markiplier's channel, in which he gets arrested halfway through the song). Then Nate takes over for part 3, in which Springtrap looks like the product of a relationship between the Grinch and Oscar the Grouch. Hopefully this means there will be more parts later.

The pumpkin Frosted Mini Wheats were good, but I liked the strawberry ones better.

This Isn't September

It's been hot and humid so far this month, and it's going to continue to be so. There was even heat lightning when I got out of work today. This is less like Indian summer and more like July in September, which is not fun. Pushing carts around is thirsty work; I must have refilled my water bottle three times. Yesterday I got a Manzanita Sol at Taco Bell to get some relief, and today I got an iced coffee from Burger King. Those really hit the spot. Also bought more pumpkin flavored stuff at the store - Mini Wheats and Quaker oatmeal. Haven't tried them yet, but they were new so I decided I should do it.

MGSV reminds me a lot of Arkham Knight. Batman can call for the Batmobile; Snake can call for his horse. Batman beats up thugs for information on Riddler tasks that get placed on the map; Snake interrogates soldiers for information that gets placed on the map. Batman has hallucinations thanks to Joker Toxin; Snake has hallucinations thanks to PTSD and brain damage. The Arkham Knight turned out to be Jason Todd; fans speculate that Quiet is Chico.