![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halfcactus1.
Some manhwa I read at the end of August:
All on Manta:
Shall We Bathe, Your Grace? (m/f, complete): Short, cracky, fairly standard romance, tropey villains. Plot gets progressively mediocre, the bigger it becomes, but it's short. The FL gets transmigrated to a pseudo-European fantasy world and struggles with the lack of hygiene and sanitation standards. Although her new family is very loving, they have also forbidden her to bathe, citing bathing as the cause of her illness. She finds a kindred spirit in the duke who is notorious in high society for being scrupulously clean and obsessed with bathing. The obvious solution is to marry him and get unlimited access to baths. Eventually they become a power couple that changes the world, one hygiene practice at a time, fighting scientific misinformation by... equating water and bathing with divinity.
Savor the Taste (m/f complete): As always, the initial cooking plot is pretty fun, and the transition to romance and Big Plot is meh, but it's also fairly short. Plot: the ML is cursed so all food tastes bad to him (...which reminds me of Covid) so he avoids eating. The FL, a transmigrator from the modern world, is about to executed as the princess of a subjugated nation, but because she's Quirky, she brought a snack as her last meal, which she offers to the ML. Unexpectedly the ML finds it delicious and this gives her a path to survival: he delays her execution, brings her back to his estate to cook for him, and falls in love.
The storyline with the FL's half sister is actually pretty good! Her sister is a beautiful and honorable princess, and the reason where their nation is conquered in the first place. The emperor courted her, was rejected, and decided the best recourse was to take her nation, kill her family, and keep her as a caged bird. This puts the FL at odds with her: her sister wants to avenge her family and take the FL with her to protect her, not knowing that the FL has fallen in love with the duke. It's resolved in a bittersweet way that I really like, even though I find the plot unimpressive (they add it some stuff about witches too which I don't think blends well) and the romance too bland to warrant the drama.
Live Happily Ever After With My Ex's Uncle (DNF): Misleading teaser which makes it seem like the ML is happy to be used by the FL. Atrocious translation (I think this might be Kuaikan's own translation, and Manta is only distributing it). Dogsblood. You're better off reading Marry My Husband.
I also finished Semantic Error, which I loved all the way to the end, even though I needed a few more chapters for closure. It's the first time I've been disappointed in a manhwa for not having extras. I wanted to know more about Sangwoo (MC)'s family relationships and previous romantic relationship. All you get from the manhwa is that he does have a family, and he did used to date, but none of these are ever shown or treated as relevant information Still, it was a lot of fun, and all those scenes where Jaeyoung (ML) calls Sangwoo and prompts him to tell him all about his day felt like food for my heart.
2.
Into the Woods
Saw a local staging for Into the Woods. It was my first time experiencing the musical in any form, and I enjoyed every moment. It's still very meme-able in this day and age—"Agonyyyy!", "I wish to go to the festival!" have entered my everyday vernacular. XD The intermission announcement surprised/bewildered me because it seemed like they had already wrapped everything up, so it was fun wondering what else could happen (apparently a lot).
It's shaping up to be one of my favorite musicals now. The storytelling and character work are so intricate, and the stories—so meta, so alive. Plus it has all the tropes I like! Found family, prices, and earned endings. Cinderella rejecting any real agency with her relationship and leaving it up to fate; the butcher wishing for a child but not wanting to actually take care of their child; the moments of real joy that break through when the characters are no longer just following the paths that the narrator has set out for them... when they make choices that turn into human moments.
(It also helped that the characters are based on fairy tales so it wasn't overwhelming to see them all at once—and as a bonus, some of them were even color-coded!)
I Am Setsuna
A year ago, I started this song purely because the Spotify algorithm played me this song:
I've been playing it on and off ever since, and when I finally heard the song in the game, at the very end of the story, you bet I teared up. I'm glad I finished it and got my catharsis! I was pretty ready to DNF it because I found it to be kind of a slog—the characters felt deliberately familiar as the entire game is modeled on classic JRPGs, but nothing about them was individually compelling. Gameplay-wise, I don't think I really enjoyed it until almost the end when I got access to the MP-recovering Spritnite (Gagnrath) and settled on a rotation of characters (Endir, Setsuna, and Nidr/Aeterna). On the plus side: it is so short and linear and totally finishable! And yeah, pretty nostalgic! I was worried about getting lost in dungeons because there were no maps, but non-random encounters made it easy to tell if I've been through an area or not. ^^;
My final party was Endir (lv 60), Setsuna (lv 56), and Aeterna (lv 53)—I spent an hour repeatedly challenging the Stoniel trio in the Last Lands and losing before realizing that the answer to all my problems was simply the Grand Cross triple combo. With Aeterna's crit rate boosted by her weapon and combo damage boosted by one of the Spritnites, none of the regular bosses in the final dungeon stood a chance. I was probably also over-levelled by the end of the game, which helped?
ASSORTED NOTES/RAMBLING:
The synopsis made me think that I'd be playing the girl (Setsuna), but the PoV character is in fact the masked mercenary, which... makes sense, since Setsuna is going off to die in ritual sacrifice.
The ending got me tearing up in the moment, but now that I've slept on it and am no longer influenced by the music and the cinematic moments... Setsuna's sacrifice feels lacking. Unlike Yuna, who had throughout her journey led us through her sadness and her desire to live, Setsuna at the end of all her new experiences merely embraces a death she doesn't even have to face. I'd have loved to have had her PoV! Did she see herself in the monster boy and the Dark Samsara? Did she spend her life preparing for death and couldn't imagine living differently? Maybe it's something they touch on in the sidequests but I honestly couldn't be bothered.
It has the K-Pop Demon Hunters problem of “not all monsters—j/k. actually all monsters”
Whatever happened to the monster child in the cave arc, I wonder? What was his deal, actually? He seemed to be able to hypnotize humans so he was no ordinary monster. I guess they closed his arc early on, but I wanted more closure about the world.
I low-key wish the reaper’s ending scene had been him farming but I suppose it’s too much to ask in a game that's set in winter lol
I was baited by the pretty piano music but I wasn't expecting the WHOLE OST to be piano music. After a while it got a bit same-y (and too reminiscent to some Final Fantasy tunes in ways that drove me crazy) but around halfway through everything clicked again.
Info design is not great + viscomm is wholly lacking... Wdym I have to learn new game mechanics purely by READING? And I can't access the tutorial again? (I had to Google how to trigger Momentum, I was so dumb lol)
Where is the warm sunlight coming from
when outside everything is cold and gray:
The Developer’s Village is so precious 😭 “Thanks for playing Setsuna! My daughter was born during Setsuna’s development…. Both her and Setsuna were difficult births ;)”
Didn't really see the save points being a major plot point coming. After defeating Dark Samsara, I kept trying to run into the green light to save 😂
Last Lands boss fight routine:
1) Start battle with Phase Shift (Endir/Aeterna combo) to build Momentum (+1 SP).
2) Cast Setsuna’s Luminaire in Momentum mode, which adds an Auto-Revive status to all party members.
3) When all 3 members’ ATB gauges align: cast Grand Cross (Endir/Aeterna/Setsuna combo). Boom, boss is dead. Grand Cross in Momentum mode has a Guaranteed Critical bonus, but Aeterna’s crit rate stat + DMG boost are fine w/o it.
Builds:
1) Endir and/or Aeterna: the spritnite that boosts combo damage.
2) Aeterna equipped with the weapon w/ a critical hit rate attribute (Radiant Dagger, IIRC!), and a Spritnite that boosts crit damage.
3) Setsuna equipped with the weapon that boosts ATB speed (old weapon, maxed out w/ orichalcum)
Extras:
Food: the one that increases HP (bc I couldn't decide what stat to boost XD)
Setsuna equipped with something that increases MP
Endir with a Spritnite that absorbs MP when attacking; Aeterna with the one that absorbs HP when attacking.
Some manhwa I read at the end of August:
Shall We Bathe, Your Grace?; Savor the Taste; Live Happily Ever After With My Ex's Uncle (DNF)
All on Manta:
Shall We Bathe, Your Grace? (m/f, complete): Short, cracky, fairly standard romance, tropey villains. Plot gets progressively mediocre, the bigger it becomes, but it's short. The FL gets transmigrated to a pseudo-European fantasy world and struggles with the lack of hygiene and sanitation standards. Although her new family is very loving, they have also forbidden her to bathe, citing bathing as the cause of her illness. She finds a kindred spirit in the duke who is notorious in high society for being scrupulously clean and obsessed with bathing. The obvious solution is to marry him and get unlimited access to baths. Eventually they become a power couple that changes the world, one hygiene practice at a time, fighting scientific misinformation by... equating water and bathing with divinity.
Savor the Taste (m/f complete): As always, the initial cooking plot is pretty fun, and the transition to romance and Big Plot is meh, but it's also fairly short. Plot: the ML is cursed so all food tastes bad to him (...which reminds me of Covid) so he avoids eating. The FL, a transmigrator from the modern world, is about to executed as the princess of a subjugated nation, but because she's Quirky, she brought a snack as her last meal, which she offers to the ML. Unexpectedly the ML finds it delicious and this gives her a path to survival: he delays her execution, brings her back to his estate to cook for him, and falls in love.
The storyline with the FL's half sister is actually pretty good! Her sister is a beautiful and honorable princess, and the reason where their nation is conquered in the first place. The emperor courted her, was rejected, and decided the best recourse was to take her nation, kill her family, and keep her as a caged bird. This puts the FL at odds with her: her sister wants to avenge her family and take the FL with her to protect her, not knowing that the FL has fallen in love with the duke. It's resolved in a bittersweet way that I really like, even though I find the plot unimpressive (they add it some stuff about witches too which I don't think blends well) and the romance too bland to warrant the drama.
Live Happily Ever After With My Ex's Uncle (DNF): Misleading teaser which makes it seem like the ML is happy to be used by the FL. Atrocious translation (I think this might be Kuaikan's own translation, and Manta is only distributing it). Dogsblood. You're better off reading Marry My Husband.
I also finished Semantic Error, which I loved all the way to the end, even though I needed a few more chapters for closure. It's the first time I've been disappointed in a manhwa for not having extras. I wanted to know more about Sangwoo (MC)'s family relationships and previous romantic relationship. All you get from the manhwa is that he does have a family, and he did used to date, but none of these are ever shown or treated as relevant information Still, it was a lot of fun, and all those scenes where Jaeyoung (ML) calls Sangwoo and prompts him to tell him all about his day felt like food for my heart.
2.
Into the Woods
Oh, if life were made of moments / even now and then a bad one—! / But if life were only moments / then you'd never know you had one
Saw a local staging for Into the Woods. It was my first time experiencing the musical in any form, and I enjoyed every moment. It's still very meme-able in this day and age—"Agonyyyy!", "I wish to go to the festival!" have entered my everyday vernacular. XD The intermission announcement surprised/bewildered me because it seemed like they had already wrapped everything up, so it was fun wondering what else could happen (apparently a lot).
It's shaping up to be one of my favorite musicals now. The storytelling and character work are so intricate, and the stories—so meta, so alive. Plus it has all the tropes I like! Found family, prices, and earned endings. Cinderella rejecting any real agency with her relationship and leaving it up to fate; the butcher wishing for a child but not wanting to actually take care of their child; the moments of real joy that break through when the characters are no longer just following the paths that the narrator has set out for them... when they make choices that turn into human moments.
(It also helped that the characters are based on fairy tales so it wasn't overwhelming to see them all at once—and as a bonus, some of them were even color-coded!)
I Am Setsuna
A year ago, I started this song purely because the Spotify algorithm played me this song:
I've been playing it on and off ever since, and when I finally heard the song in the game, at the very end of the story, you bet I teared up. I'm glad I finished it and got my catharsis! I was pretty ready to DNF it because I found it to be kind of a slog—the characters felt deliberately familiar as the entire game is modeled on classic JRPGs, but nothing about them was individually compelling. Gameplay-wise, I don't think I really enjoyed it until almost the end when I got access to the MP-recovering Spritnite (Gagnrath) and settled on a rotation of characters (Endir, Setsuna, and Nidr/Aeterna). On the plus side: it is so short and linear and totally finishable! And yeah, pretty nostalgic! I was worried about getting lost in dungeons because there were no maps, but non-random encounters made it easy to tell if I've been through an area or not. ^^;
My final party was Endir (lv 60), Setsuna (lv 56), and Aeterna (lv 53)—I spent an hour repeatedly challenging the Stoniel trio in the Last Lands and losing before realizing that the answer to all my problems was simply the Grand Cross triple combo. With Aeterna's crit rate boosted by her weapon and combo damage boosted by one of the Spritnites, none of the regular bosses in the final dungeon stood a chance. I was probably also over-levelled by the end of the game, which helped?
ASSORTED NOTES/RAMBLING:
Whatever happened to the monster child in the cave arc, I wonder? What was his deal, actually? He seemed to be able to hypnotize humans so he was no ordinary monster. I guess they closed his arc early on, but I wanted more closure about the world.
when outside everything is cold and gray:
1) Start battle with Phase Shift (Endir/Aeterna combo) to build Momentum (+1 SP).
2) Cast Setsuna’s Luminaire in Momentum mode, which adds an Auto-Revive status to all party members.
3) When all 3 members’ ATB gauges align: cast Grand Cross (Endir/Aeterna/Setsuna combo). Boom, boss is dead. Grand Cross in Momentum mode has a Guaranteed Critical bonus, but Aeterna’s crit rate stat + DMG boost are fine w/o it.
Builds:
1) Endir and/or Aeterna: the spritnite that boosts combo damage.
2) Aeterna equipped with the weapon w/ a critical hit rate attribute (Radiant Dagger, IIRC!), and a Spritnite that boosts crit damage.
3) Setsuna equipped with the weapon that boosts ATB speed (old weapon, maxed out w/ orichalcum)
Extras:
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2025-09-13 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-14 03:15 pm (UTC)