(no subject)

 on track to get a crown / achieve Tier 21 (highest tier)  in FEH's Arena next week. : o  got very very lucky getting Pent as the bonus unit the last two weeks (Pent can sure nuke the shit out of Seiros, i love this game) and then Ashnard being a +10 i've recently built suddenly getting the bonus for the next week ... hehehe.

does it mean much in the long term? lol of course not

does it give me a metaphorical boner to spank the shit out of FE's best players with my spoiled Zihark as a near F2P player? :'D yeeee

* building the arena core feels weirdly less gacha-y predatory than AR where you you gotta have high merge characters you don't enjoy ... wheras for arena cores it's more just strategically having the dedication to build any 4 +10's for very specific purposes. for me:

zihark -> the lead, Edelgard & axe nuker, the hit + run being able to go in and dip out of enemy range quickly. shockingly good magic tank if for some reason ashnard + lyon are low health.
f!Lyon -> the "delete button" for any blue/colorless/greens, and ranged tank. specific dimitri nuke. probably the best unintentional investment.
valter -> the duelist: plop him in front of *any* sword unit and he'll start up like a chainsaw, including enemy Ashnards. can 1v1 a +10 Hector at +8. (I'll have him at +10 by the time of hitting T21).
ashnard -> pretty great omnitank and bait with Aether. he likes getting hit. i keep seeing terrifying versions of him in Arena. :o

dream worlds

I tend to dream in video-game worlds, when my dreams are the most vivid.

Definitely remember one or two pre-release FE10 ones, one that was the funnest combination of Spyro, Mario Sunshine, and Toy Story 2 ....
but Majora's Mask is the one I dream "in" most often.

it's some of the most surreal, haunting dreams that I remember literally decades later. No plot, really, but the visuals are distinctly stone-tower inspired, with the very exacting sort of creeping dread of the falling moon and armegeddon mixed with the ruination of an old kingdom. (I've even drawn two very brief scenes from one that came more recently around 2020... 




... and there's still a bunch more i want to get down from earlier before time starts erasing that exquisite sense of encroaching dread (and the dead).) 

The thing that got me to write this post was that out of any kind of medium or story .... FF7 has come the closest to capturing that weird sort of timeless, unforgettable visceral sense of tainted setting, and mood out the wazoo. Almost *smelling* the tainted blood spilt along Hojo's labs.  The stink of survival-fear as everyone ran from the Sector collapse and crashed.  The absolute unrelenting surreal horror of Nibelium... i'm still not over that one. 

I think if I had played FF7 earlier (instead of like, a year or so ago), it'd feature just as often as MM does, if not moreso.  As beloved as the characters are (and I was an OG Sephiroth fangirl),  it's the setting that's going to get me to play the game soon again.