Mera'din

I'm so worried about our Ren Fest. The wife and I go every year and even got married there, and this being our 5th anniversary, we really don't want to miss it, but I can only imagine how bad it will be with it not happening last year. X_x We're going to miss opening weekend (which is usually the busiest other than labor day weekend) since we'll be on vacation away when it happens so probably gonna see how things went for that and go from there I guess.

Yeah, I kind of wonder if that wasn't filmed really last minute or something or he had some other obligation so they had to just kind of slap something on him. XD

The problem is, the explanation was stupid though. It felt like there was no pay off. The whole movie just felt like Nolan trying to one up Inception, and being extra pretentious while doing it. There was some really interesting cinematography and some fun action bits, but mostly I spent the whole movie being annoyed.

On the plus side too, in a recent interview, Hiddleston said he would absolutely keep playing Loki as long as they need him for it, so they can go as long as they want with him I guess. XD

Best comment I saw when someone asked how they would even check was "The check is if you're willing to even enter the restaurant at this point."

I saw an article about that restaurant. Saw the location and immediately thought of you. I thought the area I live in was bad. X_x

Think you're still missing the mark there. At the latest, boomers were born in the early 60s and were well into their 20s when this stuff started releasing (once again, on the absolute youngest end of the spectrum). It's our end of the Millennial generation, and the Gen Xers that would have watched the show originally. Most of the bitching probably coming from those two demographics as well despite it being made by one of the people that basically DEFINED Gen X. All generations have their own brand of garbage people, and this is where ours shows through usually. XD Also, not sure how I feel about a complete break from the original, but She-Ra sounds pretty decent. Will have to give it a watch at some point. They're supposed to be doing that with He-Man too (more kid/family friendly aimed version) after this show I believe.

I never actually got around to watching the new She-ra (don't really remember much about the original and the animation style put me off too much). What were people mad about with that one? We hopefully won't have to wait too long for Part 2. When they split a season in 2 like that, there's usually only 2-3 months between.

Yeah. People bitching about this are basically just giant man-babies who think their favorite saturday morning toy commercial from the 80s should never change. The twist took me off guard, especially considering the trailers for it, but I really liked it. It feels like it should have been the last episode of the series when it ended. I'm guessing the main reason most people are mad is (episode 2 spoiler sort of) My only complaint is the way the episode 2 picks up, it almost feels less impactful because you don't get a proper sense of time passage. I just finished all of it. I know there's a Part 2 on the way, but that was an ABOSOLUTE dick way to end it. (spoiler for last episode) I love the animation quality in this too. Also great voice cast. Those classic corny jokes. It was all around an interesting watch. People that are seriously mad at this need to take the stick out of their ass.

Few songs I've been listening to almost non stop the past few weeks: Also pretty much everything else I come across by Maneskin. Don't think I've heard a song I don't like yet. Thank you, Eurovision.

11.) Her Story Interesting little FMV style game where you're watching clips from the interrogation of a woman about her husband's murder. The one was less "game" than others I've played outside of having to pick up keywords from what you watch to be able to find more clips but there's no real "win condition" and it just kind of ends. Some interesting twists in the story though that kept me interested/intrigued the whole time. Have had the game sitting around for a while and finally decided to play it since this dev has another game coming out soon that looked interesting.

I think I might actually want one of these. I have a bunch of indie games and some VN's that I find difficult to get into at my computer but would be absolutely perfect for something like this. The thing sounds like you can do basically whatever the hell you want with it too based on the interview I watched. Including but not limited to loading it up with Windows so you can use it for Gamepass too if you really want.

Yeah, What If...? Is coming next month, which seems pretty apt considering how this ended. Everything is branching out into alt. timeliness so let's see some of the crazier ones before settling back in to the main stuff. I'm assuming the next Spider-Man (maybe, based on some of the rumors surrounding it), Dr. Strange and Ant-man will all at least touch on the fallout from this as well in some way or another. Presumably, Hawkeye will at least partly spinoff from the Black Widow after credit scene. Interested to see where some of this heading.

Not spoilering since it's been over a day now... Anyway, I was so worried it wasn't going to be him so I'm glad it was. I love how Majors played it too. Unexpected, but it felt right. Really interested in seeing how he does other versions of the character. I think the first "real" appearance of Kang is supposed to be in the next Ant-man movie I believe? Looking forward to it. With Renslayer taking off with a bunch of stuff, I kind of wonder if she isn't going to take on her more traditional role from the comics and be in a constant love/hate relationship with Kang and try to overthrow him an rule time in his place. Really don't care for how the episode ended so abrubtly like it did, but at least we know it's confirmed for a season 2, so that relieved the annoyance slightly. Was a nice set up for the next show releasing too I guess. XD

10.) Call of the Sea Fun little puzzle/adventure game with a Lovecraftian themed story. Even if you've read even just a little Lovecraft, you can see where the story is going pretty much 5 minutes in (and probably had a decent idea to begin with just from the trailer and name of the game XD ), but it still had its moments. Some decent Lovecraft themed easter eggs too. Puzzles were solid without being punishingly hard. Had to actually stop and think about them, but never felt like I was going to be forced to consult a guide. Enjoyed it.

I also loved the Throg cameo. Had to rewind to make sure I saw it right because it went by so fast. Also, with Alioth showing up, I'm even more convinced Kang is behind the TVA. That's two characters with HEAVY connections to him now that have shown up (not to mention the whole time travel thing in general). If they're trolling on this one, I might actually be a little mad. XD

Got my second shot last week. Hit me HARD early Friday morning. Felt like the worst case of the flu I've ever had in my life. Woke myself up shivering violently about every 30 minutes or so over the course of like 10 hours of attempting to sleep. X_x That part stopped before I had to go to work, but I basically did nothing that entire night. Was mostly better by Saturday and 100% by Sunday so doing much better now. XD

Not gonna lie, I had some doubts about this show after the first couple episodes even though I was enjoying it, because the time-stuff just REALLY feels like it doesn't track with some of the other MCU stuff, and after the opening scene of what happened in Sylvie's past, I was starting to get annoyed (so they let alternate timelines exist just because until they decide they've gone too far? Was she always female? Or did Loki just casually gender-swap as a kid? And if so, what was the divergence here? So many questions from such a brief scene), but now I'm even more intrigued by what is happening after finishing. That mid credit scene was especially interesting. They better explain this shit properly by the end. XD

That is DEFINITELY what that looked like. I was interested in this already, but this trailer has me even more excited now.

I'm kind of curious what they're doing here for a couple reasons. For one, they've used Enchantress already (in Agents of SHIELD, unless they really are throwing it out the window). However, there is a comic character named Sylvie that is actually tied to Loki in the comics. She was given powers (and possibly existence) by Loki and ended up adopting the appearance and name of the Enchantress for a time so this idea still tracks despite Agents of SHIELD (whether it still counts or not). Will be interesting to see if they are playing with the comic story and adapting her to be a time-variant Loki to simplify things, or if there's something deeper happening (such as she's not the real Variant and they're yet to be revealed). With so little left to this however, (2 episodes? really? why is it so short?? 😧 ) the latter seems unlikely.

Finally got to watch it. Is getting pretty interesting. Mobius' boss/supervisor/whatever you want to call her is an established comic character. Ravonna Renslayer is most notable as having heavy ties to Kang the Conqueror. Interested to see if there's anything else that could tie to him with all the time travel shit being thrown around. Fun side note: In the comics, Ravonna is typically portrayed as a red head, and went for period of time disguised as Nebula. Would have been hilarious if they had got Karen Gillian to play the role imo.

There are a handful of benefits of having an XBox even if you have a PC. Mainly via Game Pass as they put a fair number of things onto the Xbox Game Pass that aren't on the PC side of it (including some "Day 1" titles). So if you are going in for the Game Pass, there are some benefits to having an XBox still. Just as an example, there are currently 381 things on Game Pass for the XBox, and only 270 for the PC version. Also if your computer is actually a potato. Though that is slowly becoming less important as well with game streaming as it becomes more viable. They're running beta on their cloud gaming portion of Game Pass so as long as you have decent connection speed, hardware is going to be less of a concern.

8.) Control: Ultimate Edition God I love this game. Easily in my top 5 of all time. One of the few games I've wanted to replay in recent years, and this was a good opportunity since it was free. The PS5 version was a world of different from the PS4 one. Near non-existent load times, and finally got to see a really good example of ray tracing at work. Control is free on the Epic game store right now so I'm considering grabbing that and playing it again on PC. XD 9.) (Mobile) Kingdom Hearts: Union X They finally finished the story in the f2p mobile KH game that's been going for a few years. Will be shutting down at the end of the month and they wrapped up the story for it. As per usual KH fashion, it answered a few questions, and left like 8 more in its place. X_x They're not completely getting rid of the game. They're just disabling the "game" part of it but are leaving the theater mode in tact and functional so you can still watch all the story stuff which is kind of cool. Will need to go back through it at some point and see the story all together instead of drip feed once a week to once a month over the course of years. Maybe it'll make slightly more sense that way. XD

A teaser for that leaked a few months ago, was waiting for them to say more about it. Don't much care for battle royale games but I'll probably give it a look when it comes out since the setting is interesting. Looking forward more to VTM: Swansong at this point. Should get more info on that one before the end of the weekend too. Side note since I forgot to update this with the last actual Bloodlines 2 news: Hardsuit Labs has been completely removed from the project and Paradox has passed it over to another (as of yet unnamed) developer. With the turn the development of the game appeared to have been taking, it's probably for the best honestly. They're apparently going to announce who's taking over once all the legal shit is settled and everything signed and squared away, but they're getting full access to all the work that HSL had done so hopefully it'll just be a matter of cleaning it up and fine tuning everything and they're not going to take an axe to the story (which had been completed already).

Burned through Shadow and Bone, Invincible and Season 2 of Love, Death & Robots recently. Shadow and Bone was kind of interesting. Definitely a super strong young adult vibe to that one but it wasn't bad. Not sure where some of the storylines are really going but at least it got greenlit for a 2nd season so maybe it'll end up making sense. Invincible was fantastic. Kind of could tell where the story was going after the first ep, but it was a hell of a ride none the less and got pretty intense at the end. Kept having to look up voice actors since over half the characters sounded familiar. XD Was looking forward to another season of Love, Death & Robots after the original. It's a fun little anthology series of animated shorts basically. Varying animation styles and tones. A couple of them this time around were super intense. Really hope they keep doing these because they're always interesting.