Michelaar

These things are rigged beyond belief and I would be surprised if the highest bidder wouldn't win most everything. Also, I just think the concept of these awards is kind of a sham, like the Academy Awards. Why are we giving an objective thing such as a 'game of the year award' to something so subjective as how much you enjoyed a video game? For someone, the best game of the year will be Elden Ring. For the person next door, their best game of the year might be AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative. Trying to objectively rank games in this awards ceremony takes away from what video games are supposed to be, in my opinion. I've only played 1 of the 6 nominees for GOTY this year, but I honestly couldn't care less which game wins. As for announcements, I can't imagine anything major showing up that I would be interested in, especially after being disappointed the last few years. Certainly not something i'm staying up for. But i'll be pleasantly surprised if something Mario-related shows up. I've been dying for something new.

I'll just throw some out! 1. Persona 4 was honestly my least favorite Persona game due to a ton of reasons, such as the boring repetitive gameplay, the bad character writing (Looking at Chie & Teddy in particular) and... the queerbaiting which I won't elaborate on further because even mentioning that is liable to get Persona 4 fans very, very upset. 2. The original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is in my opinion the weakest game of the entire Ace Attorney franchise. Still great though! I feel like the writers were still not sure how they wanted to write an Ace Attorney game, and luckily they figured it out. 3. I'll join the bandwagon and say that Soulsborne games just aren't for me. 4. Disney's Epic Mickey is still and will probably always be my favorite video game containing something Disney. Also, it's always just so refreshingly odd to me how people in these 'unpopular opinions' thread always seem to use the word 'objectively' in their posts about their unpopular opinions. That's not how the word 'objective' is used.

After asking about the tome, and Asami agreeing that Gabriela would be the best fit for it, Bladen tossed it to Gabriela. She only nearly stopped it from leaving an imprint on her baby-doll face. After that, he ran off to talk to the general who seemed to be talking to some others Gabriela didn't really recognize. Well, it was a little bit rude that he just left like that. He couldn't even properly hand the tome to her! ''Oh well.'' the siren digressed. ''A gift is a gift. I have never held magic that hit quite the same level as this!'' Only after the words had left her mouth had she realized she was speaking a bit... loudly. Well, enthusiasm is never a negative trait, or at least Gabby holds that opinion. It was around then that Gabriela noticed something in her head.. a pounding headache. Adrenaline can really go a long way into obscuring everyday things like headaches. It had been a long day. A VERY long day in fact. And she hadn't been able to spend time with the people she wanted to spend time with, like Ren. It was all because of these ruins. But that is kind of what she signed up for when volunteering to keep going. And now that they had left Vaia, there was little going back. Honestly, having someone around right now to talk to was probably a good thing, but she had no energy to talk at all. Instead, she was just going to wait until the others were ready to leave. Perhaps she could introduce herself to some of the newcomers later, at camp or something.

Before Three houses especially, the LGBTQ+ representation in this series was not good. A lot of representation was very campy at best, and insulting at worst. I don't think I need to mention the Soleil thing that even treehouse had to change in the localization. But honestly, the gay options themselves are also just.. bad. Why are they path-exclusive? Why did they make the two options clearly more campy, made Rhajat an obsessive stalker and made Niles a criminal who loves inflicting pain, and is just 'broken' inside? Not saying I don't like those characters, but when you look at the game and those two are the *only* options, that doesn't look good. Silas and Soleil should have been options, clearly (Though Soleil is also not good representation, i'd argue.) Three Houses, while better, still has a lot of problems. For the male side, similar issues from Fates arise. In the base game, we had a grand total of 1 gay option, and while I adore Linhardt, he is clearly the most feminine guy in the entire cast. It kind of feels that to not make their straight male audience feel uncomfortable, the only guy they could make a gay romance option was the one who looked the most feminine. Yuri shared a similar issue, where many felt he was very feminine. He does have this to a lesser extent, as he definitely feels more masculine than Linhardt, but it still applies. And then we have Jeritza, who looks like a fine option, but then once again making the serial killer who has a lot of mental issues to work through the gay option, while the neurotypical people who are conventionally attractive are straight. It's like they're feeding us breadcrumbs while keeping the delicious-looking bread for themselves, as i they're saying the bread they gave to us isn't valued as much. Whether that was their intention or not I don't know. but it's hard to see it any other way. I can't really talk much about the female options as I haven't really looked much at them, but at a first glance they seem... fine? Which makes it all the more annoying they dropped the ball on the male gay options. Actually, I have been calling it gay options this whole time... but those actually don't exist. All the options are bisexual. And this to me is the prime way of saying ''I don't want to put the effort in.'' There isn't really much 'gay' representation in Fire Emblem. The only ones we really have outright are pretty campy and generally bad stereotypes (E.g Leon & Heather.) Why wouldn't they make certain options only gay? They make a whole lot of options only straight, so why are they making no gay-only options? Because they don't want to take away the choice for their straight audience, naturally. And the s-support conversations are barely any different between genders, which would make me question why they even bothered to begin with limiting the options. They might as well just make everyone bisexual if all that happens in the writing is perhaps changing a few pronouns. So yeah, it's getting better, but they can and should do a LOT better. /rant over.

Unfortunately i'm in Europe so I have to wait an extra 2 weeks..

Thank you so much! I'm flattered! PS: I see you're hyped too about the new AI: The Somnium Files game 😉

Marina soon joined them to calm Lucille down. The poor girl didn't seem to be very well. Bladen seemed to be doing well enough. Was he really alone the whole time? He must really not be bad at fighting if he fought off those weird constructs all on his own. Lucille seemed to have calmed down a bit.. though by how much remains a question. Suddenly, Marina spoke up, and said that she saw the general, as well as Jade. Finally, they had found the others! ''Well, let's go then! I can't wait to get out of this creepy place!'' She followed the others to where the others were. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The sight Gabriela saw as she entered was an odd one. A lot of people were there, including quite a bit of people she had never laid eyes on before. Ren nodded his eyes towards Gabriela. She felt some relief that he was alright, but he must not have been very happy about her rash decision to chase after Bladen when he fell... that would be a conversation for later though. Among the new people was... a construct?! Gabriela felt her blood pressure rise up, but the others seemed to have it handled. It didn't seem to be hostile, but having one of those around didn't seem like the best idea to the siren, so it was just waiting and seeing what the construct was planning to do... or rather, what the king was planning to do with it. Bladen immediately joined Asami, and Gabriela followed. She was pretty curious what he was up to. It seemed that he collected several... attachments? On closer inspection, they seemed more like limbs, and Bladen identified them as such too. But there was another interesting thing there. A tome? A light tome at that! He also had another book. Gabriela didn't recognize it as any magic she could use. Perhaps Asami knew more about it? ''Wow, Bladen! You found those spellbooks down here in these... crypts? That light tome is rather interesting, I wonder which tome it is?''

Gabby runs to 25, 42. As Gabriela was moving, she suddenly saw a familiar sight, which made her heart skip a beat. It was her black-winged friend himself, Bladen! ''Bladen! Y-you're okay! I w-was so worried when I came too and you were.. nowhere to be seen! Are you okay?'' As she said that, it didn't take her long to notice that a certain someone wasn't doing very well. Lucille seemed quite panicky after their encounter with the constructs, and it was quite a worrying sight. Gabriela's head told her to leave the pegasus knight be, but was that really okay? After a bit, Gabriela spoke up anyway. ''Lucille... I realize this situation is.. tough, and with the whole sapping thing too... don't worry about it, okay? We are a team now, and we'll protect you, just like we protect all the others. I realize that may not mean much to you, coming from me... but please, try to calm yourself. We'll get through this and out of here, okay?'' Here's hoping that wasn't too much.. and that Bladen's speech was enough to cover up Gabriela's potentially awful one.

The siren was very much through with these monsters, and Gabriela could tell the others felt the same. Lucille specifically seemed like she wasn't doing very well... but she appeared to go on and follow Marina anyway.. maybe they would finally be able to find Bladen? He shouldn't have fallen far.. but with these dolls around and about.. who knows what could have happened to him... Gabriela moves to 33, 40, but only by walking. Her wings were still pretty sore, and she would prefer not to overtax them.

Hecate? What was the construct about to say? The death... if you could call it that of the thing left Gabriela with more questions than answers, but there was simply no time to think, as there were many more constructs approaching then just the one she just defeated. ''H-hey, we aren't here to rob the place, just show us the exit or something!'' Gabriela didn't really have any faith they would be interested in listening though, looking at them. So I guess more fighting would be necessary. Gabriela moves to 40,43 and casts magic on construct 2.

Gabriela was shocked when the mysterious entity talked and even more so when it transformed it's arm into a bow, shooting at Lavinia. ''A-archers?!'' Gabby moves to 44-39 and blasts the construct with Aquinas. ''It's time to put a stop to your hijinks!''

Ill vote for Nyna.

Marina sure was brave, taking the lead like that. Of course, as a non magic-wielder, she wouldn't be as affected by the magic sapping, so her taking the lead was probably the smart move for everyone. ''I'm right behind you.'' Gabriela walks to 43, 47.

Not gonna lie this has been stuck in my head all day.

I love Lachesis, so I like that she got a resplendent. But honestly, it feels very disingenuous to give her one while she might as well not exist since her stats suck and she doesn't even have a weapon refine that gives her some nice support effect or something, and I feel the same about Serra. If they're handing these out to 3/4* Healers, they might as well give them refines too.

From the corner of her eye, Gabriela noticed... something lurking. With her strength being sapped from her body, and all of them falling down into an abyss, paying attention to her surroundings was already difficult enough. But now there were enemies out for their blood? She supposed Lucille felt much the same as her, using magic herself. Poor Vilkiss too, it must be in a state over the fall, not to mention the aforementioned sapping. She couldn't tell how dangerous the new foe was, but the siren felt intimidated enough to not fight it head-on. ''So.. about that.. thing.'' Gabriela pointed at the enemy lurking in the distance. ''Perhaps we ought.. not engage? I don't feel all that great still, but I suppose that can't be helped...'' Gabriela moves back to 45, 42.

"Rina, let's stay close here. It seems..dangerous, not to mention dark." Gabriela moves to 44,41

Felix is sufficiently popular that he's pretty much a shoe-in, I would think. Easy 9/10.

''Hi Marina! I'm glad to see you're alright. Let's stick together down here... it's dangerous. By the way, is.. Lucille alright?'' Vilkiss must have been scared to death falling down here in these strange ruins. Here's hoping the poor animal's legs or wings weren't injured.

To Gabriela's surprise, Bladen was nowhere to be found. Where could he have gone off to? More importantly.. where were they in the first place? While she was pondering about that very query, she noticed someone else next to her but Lavinia. ''General Lavinia! Are you hurt?'' but after that question, she noticed two others there, Marina and Lucille. She tried waving to the both of them. Unfortunately, she was still weak from the fall and the general mana sapping business, but she did her best. Gabriela moved to 43, 40.

No matter how tight she held onto Bladen's shirt, it wasn't of any use. Whatever forces were at play here weren't thinking of letting them leave quietly. Gabriela put up a futile resistance to pull up herself and Bladen, but her wings weren't cooperating, clearly. They descended into the void that lay below.. ''Hrghnnh..... don't..... fall..!'' When the siren woke up, she appeared to be in some.. ruins. ''Hgnh..'' Gabriela held her head, which hurted quite a bit. Combined with the sapping of her mana, this fall certainly didn't do anything to make her feel much better. She looked around her surroundings to find some of the others who had fallen, in addition to her passenger. Gabriela lands on 43,36.

It all happened so fast. The tired feeling Gabriela had was quickly silenced by the screams around her. What was happening? An earthquake?! ''W-wha?! But what about Bladen.. Ayane, and Lucille?!'' She looked and a worst case scenario was occurring in front of the siren's eyes. The timing was suspicious to say the least. Just as people leave their seats, the earth starts to quake? As if that was a coincidence. But those thoughts too were quickly drown out by the scene happening in front of Gabriela's eyes. Bladen's wings didn't seem to be working, and he was falling into the opening that appeared on the surface. The siren must have gotten delirious from the atmosphere, but without thinking, she got up from her seat and took wing. Her magic may not work, but her wings could hopefully still carry her far enough to save Bladen. As fast as she can, she zoomed to where Bladen was and tried to grab him.. anywhere! If there was even the smallest chance to save him, she would take it..

The trip hadn't been the easiest on Gabriela. Sitting with Ren was certainly nice, as she often felt the need to cuddle into him when she was too weak to really do anything else. Draining the mana.. so this kind of stuff can just.. happen in the outside world? It was scary to think that this condition wasn't even thinkable in the places the siren had visited in the past. The others in her wagon were a nice distraction though, and she wondered how the rest of them were faring. As she was about to ask, a loud ''Hey! Body!'' could be heard. It came from another wagon, and ahead, a body could indeed be seen. Was this the body of someone who had all of their mana sapped? It was a scary thought.. this could have easily happened to several of them in the group, if they had come unprepared. In any event, Gabriela surely wasn't going near the body. And with Ayane volunteering, the problem seemed to have been resolved anyway.

Gave a vote to Bramimond, I like them but they still haven't shown up yet in my barracks... so a vote to the missing Bramimond.

After a little bit of searching, Gabriela spotted Ren with her little eye. ''I suspect Ren will want to sit with his cousin as well. I can't, nor would I want to tear him away from her but I would also like to sit with him. I'm not entirely sure if we can sit together, since I assume you would also like to sit with Asami, but find me later if you change your mind, okay? And if not now, we can definitely hang out a bit later!'' She waved and then ran to Ren. ''Hi Ren, I was just looking for you! Can I sit with you guys?''