Interdimensional Observer

Odd, my gut instinct would be that tomato sauce is too overpowering for the more delicate flavor of citrus, unless it was really zesty. Although on a white pizza or one with only a little sauce, I think it could be okay. 🤝 Admittedly, it's only be in the last decade that I actually got into the Italian-American sausage with a delightful hint of red pepper heat.😅 I was otherwise a cheese purist, but now that's kinda boring. The earliest mention of the word "pizza" goes back to 997AD in Gaeta, Italy. A contract between a duke's son and a bishop, in which the duke's son was allowed to use the bishop's flour mill in exchange for twelve pizzas on Christmas Day and Easter each year (+ a few chickens so BBQ chicken pizza is the original). The first recipe for something called "pizza" doesn't arrive until 1524, and then five more pizza recipes show up in 1570. One of these recipes (written by a famed chef who served the papal court) calls for sugar, rosewater, and an entire pound of butter, ending up as what we'd recognize as a sweet bread and totally not pizza. (Central Italy seems still to keep this non-Neapolitan style of "pizza" alive though.) Said chef also mentions pizza being made in Naples with pine nuts, dates, figs, raisins and cinnamon as toppings, which aren't exactly popular now. In other words, pizza has always been anarchic.😛

Or, ventriloquism with a life-sized puppet manipulated via few almost-invisible strings. That's seriously darker than I had intended to be.😐 I had this image in mind actually: Just a insectoid bioweapon with an insatiable appetite grabbing lunch from the fridge (perhaps after marinating in a vat that dissolves them into more digestible and less combative nutrients).

Tomorrow is the solar eclipse.☀️🌑 I can't decide if I should skip it, or find somewhere nearby with free eclipse glasses and go see it (I'm not in the path of totality, but I should still have most of the Sun blocked out). Glorious natural phenomenon yes, but it is very brief, is it worth the time of transportation?🤔 ...Am I being a total homebody thinking this?😅 I did experience that random minor earthquake two days ago, maybe that's enough awe-inducing natural occurrences for the month?

-And yet, feudal Japan's political elite still considered marital ties to be important. As Samurai Warriors has told me, Nobunaga gave his sister to the Azai samurai clan in order to make it into an ally. ...Only for Nagamasa to choose poorly and side with his clan's traditional ally the Asakura clan instead of his brother-in-law, leading to the death of him and his son with Oichi. Going back even further, during the Heian period, the Fujiwara noble clan dominated the imperial court (this is pre-rise of the bushi/samurai), a position of power derived from continually wedding their daughters to Emperors, resulting in a strong familial tie between imperial family and the Fujiwara clan. Should've gone with "Quan the Brown Prince". Or some other adjective instead of brown. We've no idea how he got the name, but "Edward the Black Prince" was a real person's posthumous epithet, and it sounds cool let's ignore Camus the Sable. Is it Soylent Green if it's wyverns eating humans though? Isn't the whole shock that it's cannibalism? Soylent Green for Wyverns then would be wyverns eating wyverns. Don't worry, Manster District's famed fertility applies to the farmers too. A few border raids each year won't dent the North's population. As much as I'm liking the idea of tossing dozens of human captives in a big pit in the ground, six meters deep, no ladders, everyone helplessly awaiting the moment a wyvern swoops in and crunches into their rib cage... I don't think Jugdral -or any other currently extant place in FE, is suited for it.😛

I've spent the entire day operating on only ~1 1/2 hours of sleep (for silly reasons).🥱 It wasn't all that difficult. -Entirely because I've been playing Endless Legend for so much of that time (that's 4/8 of the base game factions I've tried, Necrophages or Ardent Mages next?). Blue light paired to subtly-addicting gameplay is powerful.😅 I don't believe Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is out just yet (the 23rd of this month). They did release Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising, but that's just a little teaser game in the same world that doesn't actually play like Hundred Heroes will. Eiyuden Chronicles is a spiritual successor to Suikoden, which was a series of PS1&2 turn-based JRPGs by Konami. Suikoden is notable for having 108 Stars of Destiny to recruit- the many heroes (not all playable, some do things like run shops in the heroes' home base). Suikoden usually was down-to-earth by fantasy JRPG standards, focused not saving the entire world, just one country/region usually, with neighboring countries maybe doing a little intervention, but not being visited or anything. Gameplay-wise, they tended to be on the easy side of JRPGs. I've played some of them and watched others. Suikoden does have its fans, with the general favorite of the franchise being Suikoden 2, hence what interest Eiyuden Chronicle has been attracting.

Why only mobile though?🤔 -I really don't want to have to get through VI using touch controls. SMT1 and FFV were enough. Hopefully the situation improves when that strangely-vaporware DQIII 2DHD remake gets released. I'd be okay if they had to skip over VII, but VIII (3DS version) is a solid game although Yangus could use a buff with how strong Red and Morrie are. No wonder its DQXI altar was called "The Altar of the Undeciphered"!😀 Complete lack of faith that the West will be able to pay for its servers' upkeep? I don't play MMOs (especially nothing needing a subscription), but I certainly would give DQX a try. The DQ identity ought to at least give it a distinct visual flair in the landscape of the genre.

Having played Endless Space 2 so much lately, I picked up the franchise predecessor Endless Legend. A fantasy (despite being in a sci-fi world) 4X, which has been devouring my time for the past few days.😅 ES2 is definitely the better game but I do appreciate seeing how ideas in EL were altered/improved on in ES2. Might try doing one more match (did only three to completion- the one-city Cultists, the diplomatic Drakken, the Dust-focused Broken Lords) before moving on to something else. Yeah, the preservation of Tales is quite awful. Modern consoles and the preservation gold standard of Steam until corpos tank it 15 years from now, then we'll have an extraordinary crisis at hand have only the following.: Symphonia + Dawn of the New World Vesperia Zestiria Berseria Arise ...There are serious problems with this, one of the longest-running and prolific JRPG franchises. For one, where is Abyss?🤨 It was pretty significant at least to the Western gaming world with regards to Tales, forming something of a "breakout trifecta" with Symph and Vesp. Graces and Xillia 1&2 should both be here as well. There is no reason we shouldn't have all the major 3D home console games available. And then there's the "lesser" titles as far as the West is concerned. We've got the pre-Symphonia quartet of Phantasia, Destiny, Eternia, Destiny 2, and the post-Symphonia 2D and portable entries- Rebirth, Legendia, Tempest, Innocence, Hearts. Plus a few spinoffs. We're missing 13 entries Namco, why? 🤔 For comparison, Square is somehow making most of the SaGa games available nowadays and those are mega-niche JRPGs. And Final Fantasy is very available. -Although, Square Enix leaves me confused on Dragon Quest (I want to play VI!).😑 We have DQXI on Steam, and the Switch gets the Erdrick Trilogy (1-3) ...but Erdrick isn't available on Steam? Nor is the Zenithia Trilogy (4-6) available anywhere (maybe iOS?), nor are 7 or 8. 9 was a bit dependent on DS WiFi, so I think I get why it would be ignored, and 10 is a Japan-only MMO. As for Atlus, I do think they should consider porting IV & IV Apocalypse, Strange Journey, and Devil Survivors 1&2 and Digital Devil Saga 1&2, I think could make a quick buck doing those (also Radiant Historia). -But I get why they would never want to touch anything pre-Nocturne on SMT, having played both SMT1 and Soul Hackers 1, they feel rather ancient, more of a slog than DQ actually and without the charm.

L is the last incarnation, who totally forgot his inherent evilness, of Demise/Ganon? -And literally everyone else on the planet forever died off. After a meteor strike followed by a dust-cloud winter that snowballed into millions of years of total planetary ice coverage before the internal heat of Mira eventually began to melt it and life began anew? Thanks.😀 On grafting, there is also the case of pecans. These "nuts"-not-botanically-nuts have inconsistency issues. The pecans growing on different branches of the same tree can taste very different, very good or very bad, which isn't great if you're trying to sell them. In 1846, an enslaved gardener named Antoine living on Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana successfully (there had been failures before him) began grafting delicious, easy-to-eat pecan branches on what ended up being 116 trees. And it's the success of this African-African man denied his humanity, that began the commercial production of the earthly, nutty drupe.

...I see my guess was correct.🤣 And you haven't noticed I've told myself many things that I don't end up doing?🙂 "You preach, yet you don't practice" is an error that sometimes is only human and entirely acceptable to make. What you feel, what I feel, these are acceptable instances. Other times... go to jail you creepy hypocritical rich powerful bastards. Hey! I'm glad you can freely enjoy them.😃 I'm more critical of myself for having such a limited palette.😆 If only I had been vaxxed with VNs when I was younger.💉 And took up a lasting interest (very-young me saw a few episodes of various things) in anime/manga and not merely video games of the same feather. I don't drink, but I like viticulture even so. Thanks for sharing!😁 I kinda forgot from the book I read how the south-of-the-USA American wine industry panned out. But Catholicism demands eucharistic blood, so the vine of wine had to take root. ...The Baja having the oldest continuously operating commercial winery in the Americas? Neato!😄

"The false body was made of swords."? ...And seeing what you posted later, I take it this is related to that "bone of my sword" Fate thing I remember you and Draggy used to laughingly share in? Immediately after writing what I just wrote- some people go to the doctor's when they have a cold or a sore throat, things not majorly serious at all. Why not the same with afflictions of the mind?😅 (Even if what I feel is possibly more serious than that.) ...Filling out a lengthy Internet form before I can make an appointment does feel imposingly serious though.😅 I get that it's totally impersonal, generalized paperwork asking for basic information that everyone has to fill out, but it does contribute I think to the sense of "why should I seek help, when I really don't have it that bad"? Even were PG to be a 7/10 video game, I'm just happy it even exists.😄 A Metroidvania with male-male fanservice, who'da think of that?😛 I'm well aware BL is invariably confined to VNs, a genre that's pretty foreign for me (I've nothing against VNs ofc I'm actually eagerly awaiting one). Metroidvanias are something I'm very familiar with, it's far less of a reach for me. And why should wholeheartedly-queer gaming be limited to visual novels (and avatarsexual farming sims)?😀 *Clicks the Wikipedia* A European-American hybrid. No surprise there. I did read a general history of wine.🤓 When Europeans began settling the Americas, they "tried" making viticulture work. North America had its own native grape varieties -but Europeans discovered they tasted terrible as wine. Vitis vinifera, the Old World grape, was attempted as well of course -but they had no resistance to North American grape diseases and grape-eating insects, so they too failed. Eventually, after enough failures (there were many, a few sponsored by the early USA government), the US did succeed in making good wine from North American grapes. ...Although they weren't 100% genetically native I believe. The failed attempts to grow European grape vines did result in some pollen getting carried by the winds and fertilizing nearby American vines, creating unintended hybrids. These later became the basis of a USA wine industry using "American" grapes. -Although this would eventually die out with only modest modern revival efforts. Prohibition was one thing, but it was mostly that wine-wanting Americans sought to grow the European classic varieties in the Western Hemisphere (which they managed to do in South America, Chile I think), which eventually came to fruition. However! Starting in the late 1850s, something nightmarish-yet-fascinating-in-retrospect happened in Europe. A species of aphid called "phylloxera" crossed from North America to Europe, and began devouring the roots of Old World grape vines. In about a decade-and-a-half (into the early 1870s), French vineyards began suffering grapevine casualties upwards of 50%. Since these vile bugs were native to the Americas, European vines had no resistance. It was a crisis threatening the existence of the entire wine industry. While some employed harsh chemicals to stave off the devouring swarms, what proved most successful was something very different. They would graft American grape roots to European grapes. North American grapes had evolved resistance to phylloxera, and phylloxera only attacked the roots. Grafting roots did nothing to affect the flavor of the traditional European wine grapes, so it was a win-win. Though some opposed grafting, it is indisputable that American bottoms + European tops is what saved the global wine industry from extinction.🍷 Yes- one of you my dear friends could gift me it!🎁 🤗-But then how would I return the favor?🤔 -I can't, so don't bother.😛 A little late for this, given how long ago it feels like you finished it. And, no surprise on the loving praise (most of which I skimmed past so I can form my own opinion with less impression from you).🍦 I'll get to it... ...I have no excuse for not doing so despite vowing I would.😅 But I've got a few days coming up where I can plunge into a nice big Switch game.

There are still some that take Medicare (the Internet exists, finding such people won't take too long if you prioritize it), private insurance is just better. All I need is one decent option anyway. And it's not like I'm that mentally-ailed; I'm intelligent, supremely introspective/self-reflective. It's not that I need to find out an underlying cause of my *sigh*, more I just want somebody professionally trained to talk about it with and discuss the possibility of solutions. I'd be a fairly easy patient I'd think, makes it kinda feel like I'm too healthy and shouldn't bother with this, I should be able to get over it on my own. -But I haven't. And I'm possibly belittling myself downplaying my situation like this.😅 Lacking an independent income b/c no job, it's somebody else's 'card that'd end up buying it. And they're responsible with their finances and get updates on every purchase made, that's what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about the name for that reason (though yeah I'd probably hide it on DL'ed too). It's why I have (almost) no qualms thinking about buying Paradiso Guardian whenever it goes on sale (reviews say too short to me for the full price), the name sounds like ordinary video game nonsense, nothing to arouse suspicions. ...Despite the fact Paradiso Guardian is a Metroidvania with a few 🍆🍆 h-scene CGs tossed in.😝

My sympathies.🙂 I'm not exactly in the highest of spirits myself (small rant).: I'm managing though. I sorta get what ya mean.🎙️ I've been checking for reviews for this game for the past few days. -Not my usual thing at all, but I'm feeling a teensy bit adventurous. The disclaimer is surprising and 😐 to me, and I don't care much for the game's subject. But... I'm picky, I'm limited, and visually this looks up to the polished standard that I crave. I read it's going to be ported also to Switch, and considering the game's name and knowing buying it on Steam (but not Switch) might result in somebody else IRL seeing that title, I'll wait for the Switch version.😆

A good mood, eh?😀 -And another avi change (I see the sig too). I was considering one myself ...but I don't think I really feel like it. --- @Acacia Sgt https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/04/japans-life-sized-gundam-powers-down-for-the-final-time

Heuga: I liked Eldigan too. He scores really high on looks (laughs). Kaga’s comment: The position he’s in resembles Camus’s from the previous games. Each person has flaws of their own, and while Eldigan is great as a person, his over-conscientiousness was his flaw. Basically, he’s just too straight-laced. Seeing this, I thought the players might go, “Why don’t we get to recruit him?”, and that’s exactly why Ares was created, especially since Sigurd’s chapter is just foreshadowing for Seliph’s chapter. This might also be the reason behind Ares’s popularity. There are a lot of fixed events in the first generation that players don’t get a say in, so Seliph’s chapter was also made to dispel those dissatisfactions from the first generation. Not beating around the bushes.

@Acacia Sgt 10/10 April Fools' parody.😄 The actual game releases internationally on the 25th of this month BTW. And... Counting the Inti thing as a joke (even if it's real), that's three mecha-related ones in a single year.

Seliph does later refer to Shannan as being like a big brother. Presumably it's mutual- Shannan is just amused seeing his baby bro having grown up and now becoming a man (although Seliph is probably the least traditionally masculine of male lords visually and to think people mocked Brawl!Marth). And I'm sure that in their rearing of the six kids, that Shannan played up his big brotherliness when Dad Oifey couldn't convince the children to do something, a perfectly legitimate parenting tactic. I think I had Seliph go alone into Ishtore's Bolting range, with the Wind Sword and other stuff. I recall getting stuck on an Adept RN for a few reloads.

Did the rest of the Lu Bu storyline today. I surprisingly liked it by the end.😄 They actually kept it in line with history (though a hypothetical split does exist), which means it ended at Xiapi with Lu Bu's execution, delivered by Cao Cao himself (with help from Xu Zhu). There was way less Diaochan than expected, she just ups and disappears after Dong Zhuo is slain. And Lu Lingqi -maybe having his daughter around is why Lu Bu wasn't allowed to have his lover- was just there for another playable (only five playable characters total in this story) and a female. She barely had any characterization and didn't do much to humanize Lu Bu, a tall order in itself. Rather pitiful, given what little of this fictitious fighting female's characterization exists seems to be "became a warrior to be useful to my father". This said, the Lu Bu storyline didn't exactly heroize its titular main character. Though it did try to put some positive spin on him in the unvoiced text given over the map of Han China, it was never denied that, while powerful, Lu Bu wasn't exactly a good guy. A man who begins his journey of less than ten years murdering two adoptive fathers, and the narrative calls him an outright tyrant by the start of his last stand at Xiapi. Any losses he suffers aren't exactly portrayed as poignant tragedies the way they are with the Three Kingdoms + Jin. Add to this Chen Gong, a very interesting portrayal for Koei of a strategist in sharp contrast to all the other ones in Dynasty and Samurai Warriors. You can feel the oiliness of his words, a charlatan who betrayed Wei who is clearly in it for glorious self-gain that he's only barely hiding. Lu Bu only barely listens to Chen Gong when he joins, and by the end he has basically stopped talking to him at all. The most brawny brutish barbaric of warlords with the sketchiest of tacticians and they've no sincere appreciation of each other, it's beautifully dysfunctional.* Truly, it came to feel like I was playing as villains. Loser villains, since it's a historical fact that Lu Bu was consigned to the Mass Grave of Failed Three Kingdoms Warlords.** Cao Cao, Liu Bei, the Sun and Sima families, they represent those who "won" what began as chaos where nobody could possibly have known in advance who would come out on top. Lu Bu and his story is the embodiment of the chaff, the vermin that failed to attain the heights of power, he is a textbook example of "How Not to Warlord", and oh how that brainless berserker of Dynasty Warriors would be foaming at the mouth hearing me call him what he is.😝 Again, for a few hours of mindless action and cheesy story that I wasn't expecting to get much out of, not half-bad.😃 *On Zhang Liao, the fifth playable of this route, he was very quiet and submissive. And yet, being the one with morals even if he speaks of them not, he would end up being the one to survive and find new glory under a truly-worthy master. -Speaking of the manly Zhang Liao as the pure-hearted one in the trio of him, Lu Bu, and Chen Gong, sounds bizarre when I think of how he would almost single-handedly later scare the s*** out of Sun Quan and every man, woman, and child in Wu. **Technically, all warlords are villains, probably? Also, luck/circumstances certainly played a major role in determining how things worked out in the I Wanna Rule China competition, as luck/circumstances does in all competitions in life. -But I'm simplifying things and running with the established narrative of Wei-Wu-Shu-Jin being filled with righteous genius and stuff. Massive lategame superweapons? Endless Space 2 looked in a thesaurus and went with "Behemoths" for their special big ships, the "Juggernaut" specialization being the one with the fleet-destroying... Ion Cannon.😆 Alternatively, you can make a Behemoth into an Obliterator and blow up systems of planets if you prefer scorched earth. (Although, a Behemoth specialized as a Citadel can provide some anti-Obliterator protection on your most vital star systems.)

Seems like there's always somebody in Japan who does the "what if otome spinoff?" schtick every year. Which is a little funny I admit, yet also perhaps slightly demeaning the female-catering VN subgenre by treating it as a joke and not a legitimate genre of game/VN. -Not to be a killjoy, as I don't intend to be by saying this. As for Koei's funny this year- I know they haven't forgotten ManaK exists.😛 Which makes it feel a little odd they're chose this jest at all, since it really isn't all that out-there. MK2 even had playable Punis.

I know WayForward made a real April Fool's game (Cat Girl Without Salad), and Platinum Games did (Sol Cresta), there was a (free it seems, so lower quality) Nekopara catboys game, and Sega put out The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog last year. So April Fools' games that actually exist have been surprisingly existent of late.

"...homage to 90s fantasy and robot anime." I've see it's questionable if this is real or not of course not, it's magical robot, complete with isekai'ed protagonist. April Fool's Day announcement, the visuals not being up to their standards (and near-total lack of UI elements), and this "game" being one of the fake games in the Not-Battle Network they recently announced leaves it debatable. But those same comments say Inti did file a trademark actually, so maybe this is an actual game, perhaps a lesser, sillier project, and these would be early-development stage images shown for the sake of making it look like a joke.

April Fool's is already starting in Japan... Inti Creates looks serious with this though? Visually looks kinda cheap by their standards. Not their best pixel art. 'ello Impact battles! -I guess I'll consider this from them.😛

Tell Alicia she's gonna choke eating a baguette that fast. So you went for it? Enjoy?

I only just remembered I had this image.: Leif's actual army, don't believe this Genealogy nonsense.😝

But Luxaar already croaked. Cryptic cutting-off for a joke.😛 Reminds me of the factually-untrue story that Peter the Great, laying on his deathbed, wrote "I leave it all to..." and never named his successor. -Peter had changed Russian succession law to whomever the prior tsar had willed it to be; not sure if he did that before or only after torturing his son Alexei to death.

The decisions one can make with a sci-fi setting. Sounds cool/fun however you interpret the unintended conjunction.😀