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      "author": "steemitboard",
      "body": "Congratulations @omegarunner! You received a personal award!\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@omegarunner/birthday2.png</td><td>Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 2 years!</td></tr></table>\n\n<sub>_You can view [your badges on your Steem Board](https://steemitboard.com/@omegarunner) and compare to others on the [Steem Ranking](https://steemitboard.com/ranking/index.php?name=omegarunner)_</sub>\n\n\n###### [Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1) to get one more award and increased upvotes!",
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      "author": "omegarunner",
      "body": "Erased: The Town Without Me is a 2016 anime by A-1 Pictures about a 29 year old aspiring manga artist who has a special gift, the ability to rewind time by a small amount, usually a few seconds to five minutes to prevent an accident from happening that usually results in someone's death. Though he's usually successful, it comes at the cost of harming him instead of anyone else. However, his mother is killed by the man responsible for 3 deaths that occurred when he was in 5th grade and, upon her death, he's sent back in time to prevent those deaths to save his mother.\n\nOr at least, that's the theory that's given to us within the first episode. However, for the majority of the series, we're not really given a whole lot of information to go off of. We know that he doesn't go back to the present until all 3 of the original victims died, at which point he saw that he failed but still had an impact, he delayed the death of one of the victims and, though he goes back to the present when he fails, the changes he caused back then still ripple through to the time he resides in.\n\nSo, the majority of this theory is going to center on one overarching question: what is his power? Or, to be more accurate, what do we know about this occurrence? Well, we know a few things about it.\n\nFirstly, we know that the power works sort of like a video game section where the game doesn't care whether you win or lose. If you win, the game goes forward with that assumption, if you fail, however, you get a different cutscene indicating the different outcome. If you look at the game Soul Nomad & The World Eaters, you can see this trope in action.\n\nWe also know that this power has fail-states. Though Satoru notes that the revivals we see, oh by the way revival is what he calls the occurrence, are not the first ones he's ever experienced, he never directly says that he's forced to repeat the section until he gets it right. Although we do kind of get that, we see that his second attempt was a bit forced, he was only able to do it because he demanded that he get one more try. So, it's safe to say that this power does have fail states and, even though Satoru is usually successful, he can fail and his failure will be shown through his ability to continue from where he left off.\n\nThirdly, we know this ability is not actually his. While he does call it his, there are several indicators within the show that tell us that this ability belongs to an outside source. Firstly, revival only occurs when a small, glowing butterfly flies by. Prior to the last episode of the anime, I would've thought that that was just a stylistic choice, however, at the very end of the show, this same butterfly flies past his vision and he follows it, he even has a surprised reaction, suggesting that that butterfly actually exists within the world of the show. We also know that it's from an outside source because Satoru himself does not actually decide when or how far to go back. Usually, the revival occurs right as an accident is occurring that he knows nothing about and it takes him back just far enough to realize what is happening and prevent it.\n\nWe also know that Satoru isn't given much of an indication of whether he succeeded or failed. We see this as early as episode 1, where a kid was about to be kidnapped by the villain and he goes back by about a minute. He tells his mom to start looking around for an accident or crime and, we know it was successful because the kidnapping didn't occur, however, from the way Satoru was reacting, he doesn't really know what was going on or what he had to prevent. He knew there was something he had to prevent and he did it without knowing what he prevented or what he caused.\n\nThis leads me into my next point: if this power were Satoru's and he realized or were given an indication that preventing that kidnapping resulted in his mother's death, which it did, he wouldn't have gone back as far as 1988 to prevent 3 other deaths, he would've just let the initial kid get kidnapped. While it would kill him inside knowing a kid had to die in order to keep his mother alive, considering the revival only had a maximum of 5 minutes on it before, he probably didn't realize that it had the ability to go so far back and thus it wouldn't have occurred to him that he could or should anyway. Or, going in line with this, he would've gone as far back as he could, the initial five minutes, and would've tried to brute force his way to keeping her alive.\n\nEither way, Satoru had no reason to believe that preventing the deaths of Kayo Hinazuki, Aya Nakanishi, and Hiromi Sugita would save his mother because, prior to the revival, he didn't know they had a connection. He realized it when he went back a month before Kayo's death and made the connection on his own that way but, if it weren't forced on him, he would not have any sensible reason to go back to that specific date.\n\nNow, of course, a counter argument could be that of course it's his power because, if it wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to force his final revival and, to be honest, I'm not convinced that's the case. While he did force that one, since all the evidence we have for it is that he screamed really loud, it could either be that it was his doing or the doing of whatever possessed that power initially. We also know that the revival didn't take him to the same starting point: it took him to last possible moment where he had the ability to do something about it. Namely, his date with Kayo at the Science Center.\n\nEven if he knew at that point that that was the last possible checkpoint, the fact that every other revival occurred without his knowledge or consent, suggests that it was because of an outside source.\n\nWith this in mind, let's take a look at what we know:\n\nWe know that Revival has a sort of checkpoint system, where he goes back in time to prevent something he failed to prevent.\nWe know that he is allowed to fail.\nWe know that his actions throughout time ripple into the future regardless of success or failure\nWe know the power is from an outside source\nAnd we know that Satoru himself is given his mission without clarity\nAnd that's it, really. Nothing beyond that. Or is there? Well, I did some digging, I searched far and wide within the bing search engine and I found the mythos of butterflies within Japan. Butterflies, in Japan, represent a spirit. While it can differ from person to person, generally speaking, butterflies are the spirits of the deceased.\n\nSo what's happening? Well, revival only occurs when those butterflies appear onscreen. However, you'll notice that the first two times they happened, there was no death to speak of. While the first one, you could argue was the spirit of the kid who just got hit by the car, the second event had no death and therefore no spirit.\n\nAs far as the third revival, the one that takes him back to 1988, it's worth noting that this jump was much further back than Satoru had ever expected it to go, a full 18 years. So, is it the spirit of Kayo? I doubt it.\n\nFor one, if it was Kayo's spirit, she would've given him the ability to prevent her death just a little while before it happened so he could do something about it while it's still relevant. There's also the fact that spirits represented by butterflies have some form of emotion attached to them. Though the emotions can be positive or negative, the only way for a spirit butterfly to manifest is if it's connected to who it appears to, and Satoru didn't have a connection to Kayo prior to the beginning of the series. In fact, as Kenya describes, Satoru never really had any connections with anyone prior to the beginning of the series, so the deaths of anyone would be a stretch to say the least.\n\nHowever, the one revival that the series gets the most focus on takes place right after and to prevent the death of Satoru's mother, Sachiko Fujinuma. So, am I saying that that butterfly is Satoru's mother? Well, yes, let's look at the evidence.\n\nFirstly, revival always takes place after the appearance of a supernatural butterfly and, given how good the direction and symbolism are in this series in general, I don't think it's a coincidence that a show revolving around death and it's prevention would use a symbol that represents spirits.\n\nAlso worth considering is that Satoru's biggest revival takes place after his mother's death. Now, normally, I would think that this would just be a coincidence but, the thing is that Sachiko was gathering evidence on the killer who she seemed to know the identity of. If her goal as a spirit was not to have Satoru prevent her death but to fulfill her final mission, the huge jump back to 1988 starts to make a lot more sense.\n\nAlso worth considering is the events that happen after the first big revival. Satoru is brought back to the present and is allowed to gather some information and evidence on the crime from Sachiko and her old reporter partner. She may have done this intentionally to prepare Satoru to get it right on a second attempt but there's another tier to this theory that we're not considering: Kayo Hinazuki.\n\nNow, Kayo doesn't have a connection to Satoru prior to the beginning of the series, however, after his first big revival by who I suspect was his mother, he developed a connection with her. Now, Satoru's ability to affect the timeline mean that it's a closed loop and not working on multiverse theory, which means any changes he makes earlier in the chain will affect the chain later down without a problem.\n\nThis means that Satoru does not actually have a strong enough connection to Kayo for her to want to prevent her own death until Satoru fails the first time. So, what this could mean is that Sachiko takes Satoru back to attempt to save Kayo, Aya, and Hiromi, and then Kayo is the one who sends him back the second time with a newly renewed lease on people.\n\nNow, what about the final butterfly? The one at the very end of the series? If this theory is to hold true, and butterflies of this type are, in fact, spirits, then whose spirit is that? It may sound irrelevant but, if this theory is to be consistent, we have to account for the final one after his revivals are all used up. And, I didn't want to do this but, this is where it kind of gets dark.\n\nPrior to the 16 minute mark on Episode 12, Satoru completes his mission and gets the killer captured. The killer by the name of Gaku Yashiro. After the 16 minute mark, however, we have a 3 year time skip.\n\nNow, I'm not going to say I know a lot about Japanese law and prison sentences but, what I do know is that, when you're arrested in Japan, you become a criminal and, if you're a criminal, you are treated incredibly poorly, even by prison standards. While I don't necessarily believe that he was executed, the possibility is there that, for the attempted murder, he likely died prior to that 3 year time-skip at the end of the episode.\n\nThis butterfly, unlike the others though, doesn't activate a revival for Satoru, instead it directs his attention over to the new arrival, Airi.\n\nFor those who haven't seen the series, first, why are you reading a theory that probably has spoilers everywhere? Go watch the series first, dumbass! Secondly, Airi is a character who is working at the same pizza place that Satoru is at the beginning of the series during his time in 2006. She helps him a little bit but, what's worth noting is that, Satoru is not the only one who has a connection with her: Gaku Yashiro, the main antagonist, was a city councilman who had meetings with her boss quite frequently and, though he wouldn't know it in the final timeline prior to his death, he knew in the original run that Satoru and Airi were connected and positive with each other.\n\nThe final butterfly, is clearly a spirit but it's not trying to erase a prior death, it's just directing him to Airi, someone Satoru lost the connection with in the timeline reset and Yashiro was trying to give it back to him.\n\nOf course, him knowing about Satoru and Airi is pretty tenuous but what helps is that this butterfly doesn't want to rewind time or anything, it's just trying to get Satoru's attention. And, prior to his death, Yashiro states that he can't live without Satoru because Satoru filled the void in his life. I think Yashiro was paying Satoru back for giving him a death that he is content with.\n\nBut, why Satoru? We can argue his mother, Kayo, and Yashiro all day long but Satoru is not the only character who could've filled the role, Kenya, Kazu, Yuki, even Osamu and Hiromi would've made decent replacements as main characters, as stupid as that sounds.\n\nWell, you notice how there's a lot of talk about superheroes in the show? It doesn't start showing up verbally until Satoru gets arrested in 2006 but, even earlier we can see imagery of a sentai hero in the form of a toy mask in Satoru's room. Kenya frequently calls him a superhero, at least in the latter half, and Satoru seems to be very fond of the idea of being a hero.\n\nWell, I noticed throughout the series that characters need a hero but frequently are without one. Kayo needed a hero to save her from her mom, Jun Shiratori needed someone to protect him as well, his mom, who is fucking awesome by the way, wants Satoru to be what he aspires to be and may be giving him a chance to, and there are characters like Kenya who want to save the day but can't.\n\nSatoru, on the other hand, can. However, it's not because he's particularly special or gifted. It's because he's an action taker. Remember Kenya? Well, Kenya said that he wanted to be a hero just as much as Satoru and, unlike Satoru, Kenya noticed the bad things happening and was unable to do anything about it because he couldn't bring himself to speak. \n\nKenya is an intelligent kid, which means he probably didn't speak out of fear of making things worse, which makes him less suitable to be a hero by his own rights but it does make him perfect as a sidekick who serves as a voice of reason. We even see this during Satoru's second big revival, where Satoru is planning on injuring Kayo's mother and Kenya stops him because it's going too far and not the right solution.\n\nSatoru acts, for better or for worse, he makes a decision and then he takes steps toward making that decision a reality. Satoru was chosen because he's the only one who would do anything to save them if he could. Kenya does act, eventually but he needs Satoru to inspire him first.\n\nThis is why Satoru was chosen: he was the hero everybody needed, not the one they deserved. We even see that Satoru's actions inspire Kenya to become a lawyer to help solve crimes related to murder and child kidnapping. And, in return, Satoru himself was saved.\n\nSo, it is my belief that Satoru was chosen to be the one to save everybody from their respective demons because he's the only one who would if given a choice. Satoru is a hero and he eventually saved the princess.\n\nBut, hey, that's just a theory, an After-Thoughts Theory! We'll see if I end up doing more of these.",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>I myself was always one who preferred invulnerable weapons, weapons that won't break no matter how much you use them because sometimes there's a weapon I really like and I want to keep it. That said, invulnerable weapons aren't a real thing and it would stand to reason that some games would have weapon durability for the sake of immersion and realism.</p>\n<p>Before I get into this I want to stress that while I will bring it up quite a bit, I do not want The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to be the main focus of this post. Naturally, it brought weapon durability to the forefront of people's thinking because of how critically and commercially successful it has become but this is far from the first game ever to feature it. Games like Dark Souls, Dark Cloud, and many others that came before Breath of the Wild have featured weapon durability so I do not want to place the sole responsibility for its existence and discussion on it.</p>\n<p>Now, I'm of two minds on this particular topic: on the one hand, I see the point of view of the supporters of this design philosophy. Breakable weapons does have some advantages in terms of some combat systems. However, I also see the other side of the argument, that weapon durability is not all that worth while of a mechanic so I want to go into detail about the ins and outs of this kind of mechanic in relation to gear based combat systems.</p>\n<p>For those who don't know, a gear based combat system is a combat system that relies heavily on the gear you have currently equipped. Unlike skill based combat systems, which reward proficiency and dexterity and punish laziness and bitching out on easy modes, gear based combat systems have a much greater reliance on the gear you currently have and how effective it will be against your next big set of opponents.</p>\n<p>Now, let's try to look at the positives of this kind of system. First of all, this kind of combat system rewards pre-planning and preparation. If the game is well built around this, the events leading up to your next big encounter will give you an idea of what gear will be best suited to the fight so that you can properly find that gear and use it. For example, in the first area of Demon's Souls the boss Phalanx is vulnerable to fire and subtly tells you throughout your journey to find it that the fire bombs are a good piece of equipment to have for the area. In this way, you can either fight Phalanx normally with a basic sword and shield or you can use the fire bombs and lighten up your load.</p>\n<p>Of course, Phalanx is the first boss of the game anyway and is arguably not really a difficult one. So instead let's take a look at Dark Cloud. Dark Cloud has a crafting system to go along with its weapon sets and you consistently have to repair your weapons using repair powder. In a particular fight in the second area of the game, you have to get a particular sword in order to progress because the serpent that's blocking your path is invulnerable toward everything else except that sword. Once you get the sword, you can progress and you realize the game gave you a fairly powerful weapon to deal with enemies with. It made sure that you were ready for what was to come in the rest of the area and also made sure that you know how to craft weapons, something that some players may not have gotten even if most had.</p>\n<p>This kind of combat system also rewards exploration by making it necessary to find certain items you need for a given fight so that you can be equipped to deal with it. Naturally, in a gear based combat system, it stands to reason that most of your gear is going to fall out of use eventually, either because later gear is stronger or because of weapon durability. In The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, if you go to the South at the beginning of the game you will find a really powerful centaur enemy. This one, unlike other enemies in the game, does not carry around its neck the weapon you need to defeat it. It also has a lot of hearts and high durability. Meaning that, if you go straight away, even if you fill every weapon slot with some weapon you found in the beginning stage, it is likely that all your weapons will break before it dies, assuming you don't get killed first.</p>\n<p>In this way, the game is punishing you because you came unprepared. If you went to a different area and gathered some stronger weapons you might've been able to kill it. This incentivizes you to go look for stronger weapons so you don't run into that situation again.</p>\n<p>And thirdly, it makes balancing less of a chore. In a game with permanent weapons that you can hold forever, all of the weapons you use have to be fairly balanced against each other. They may have their strengths and weaknesses that make them useful in some situations over other weapons, for example in DMC3 Agni &amp; Rudra is best suited toward crowd control whereas Beowulf is best suited to one on one engagements, in general every weapon should be suitable for any given fight in the entire game.</p>\n<p>If a game has breakable weapons though, this is not much of an incentive since the weapon's probably going to break before the end of your second or third fight with it so even if it's the worst weapon in the game, that's okay because you'll find better stuff. This also more or less balances out your power as well, since even if you have the best weapons in the game, they'll break as well so you're not too overpowered for too long.</p>\n<p>Now that we've looked at the upsides to this, what are the downsides? Well, there are quite a few. The first and most obvious to someone like me is that having a breakable weapon means that you're not as likely to have a weapon you want when you need it. In a game like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, or Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, having your favorite weapon is a fairly big chunk of the gameplay time since you're likely to continue playing with whatever of weapons you're best with or what you find most enjoyable.</p>\n<p>This reliance on gathering new gear to replace the old ones means that you can't really build depth into the combat system. In most high tier action games, the depth comes from what actions you can perform and how useful those actions are. In a game that is much more gear based, you can't really have any number of differing attacks because the weapons are going to break long before you have the chance to master any of the movesets. Instead, numbers are far more important since, if it's going to break, you may as well equip whatever's strongest and kill the toughest enemies with it.</p>\n<p>On the developer's side, this lack of implementing differing moves may also be somewhat related to having to create all different kinds of weapon models that can be used to replace broken weapons, since it takes some time and money away from the animators who would be animating the diverse movesets.</p>\n<p>Rather than adding depth, the weapon durability actually subtracts depth by removing options and forcing you to find new ones. Since depth comes from the meaningful decisions you can make during a fight, the gear as the focus of the combat system makes the choice simply of what to equip and how long to use it.</p>\n<p>In a game like Dark Souls, this is less of an issue. While weapon durability is a mechanic in that game, the only things that chip away at it significantly are the toxin status and certain collision glitches so, for the most part, finding a weapon you need is not as much of an issue. Dark Cloud does this less well but the Broken Dagger Glitch makes it so that you can save money on upgrades and instead buy repair powder to keep your current weapon from breaking. It's not much but it is something.</p>\n<p>In Breath of Wild, however, the breakable weapons break easily enough that constant replacements are needed, which in turn disincentivizes you from growing attached to any given weapon. That said, while Breath of the Wild is bad in this regard, Way of the Samurai may actually be worse. Way of the Samurai also has breakable weapons but also implements different and complex movesets for the weapons you can equip. While this does add an air of wonder to the weapons you can gather from defeated opponents, since powerful opponents tend to have really cool swords, the weapon durability takes something away from it, since it could break a weapon you were just starting to get attached to.</p>\n<p>In this situation, two mechanics are at odds with each other: the weapon durability, which promotes finding replacements for broken weapons, and the complex movelists, which incentivize you to master a weapon to get really good at using it.</p>\n<p>Needless to say these mechanics don't really mesh well which is why it's important to think about how your mechanics work with each other. By adding weapon durability, it lessens the need for skillful play by making it about how strong your equipment is and how well it helps you. Without weapon durability, the weapons you want to use are dependent on how well they accommodate your current skill level. There are merits to both and while I do prefer the latter myself, I will say that it's possible to like both, neither, one or the other.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>*The following is a repost from my original blog. If you want to go see the original text, I will link it right below but the text is basically unchanged between the two so be aware of that.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://afterthoughtreviews.blogspot.com/2017/07/after-thoughts-what-if-final-fantasy.html\">https://afterthoughtreviews.blogspot.com/2017/07/after-thoughts-what-if-final-fantasy.html</a></p>\n<p>&nbsp;<strong>Another blatant ripoff you can probably guess the inspirations of. Yay!<br>\n</strong><br>\nWhat if Advent Children was good? Really good? What if I was an executive at Square Enix back when the script was written for this movie and I just made some changes to the script that made it a bit more solid as a movie? How would it have gone down? The following is a hypothetical of what that script would look like.<br>\n<br>\nSo before we get into this, it's worth noting that this movie is a sequel to a video game that came out a few years before and was a cultural phenomenon. So it's important to remember that Advent Children's current state is not one of a product that can stand on its own but rather is one that is more of fanservice and fighting. I think keeping the fighting is fine, as long as there's a good reason for it. But we want to make sure this movie can stand on its own.<br>\n<br>\nSo first, we need to address the big issue: Cloud and the events following Meteor. Cloud, thanks to this movie, is thought of as an emo with no real depth. In the game he was not necessarily upbeat but he was a bit more extroverted and sassy than the Cloud in Advent Children. However, it's worth noting that this is because of the influence Zack had on Cloud.<br>\n<br>\nRemember for most of the game, Cloud remembered his name but his backstory and personality were mostly a copy of Zack due to the events following the Nibelheim reactor event that is later expanded in Crisis Core. Because of that, Cloud himself was a bit of a blank slate and because of that, by the end of the game, we didn't really have a clear idea of how much of the personality we had seen up to that point was truly his and how much of it was lifted from Zack due to the trauma.<br>\n<br>\nWith this in mind, we want this movie to be less plot driven and more character driven, we want it to be an exploration of Cloud's character and his relationships with the others much more than we do about any actual events that take place in the movie. For this reason, the fights, while arguably unnecessary, don't automatically have to be removed.<br>\nWe also want to keep in mind that a big part of this movie is about the effects of Geostigma which, in the movie is described as Sephiroth's will, which did actually affect Cloud in the initial game.<br>\n<br>\nBecause of that, I think it's best if this movie follows Cloud's struggle to move on from his relationships with Zack and Sephiroth while also his difficulty with not knowing himself anymore.<br>\n<br>\nSo the first thing we want to do is find a list of characters that are prominent in the movie and I'm going to put a strikethrough on the ones that could be removed with little to no consequence, I will bold the ones that should have more screen time, I will wrap in hyphens the characters that need less screen time, and I will put an asterisk next to characters that are not in the movie but may benefit it to some extent. Characters whose name has no modifications are perfectly fine in terms of screen-time even if what they do changes in the actual script. Also, if I don't put down every surname, I apologize, as I don't know every character by heart.</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Cloud Strife</li>\n  <li><strong>Tifa Lockhart</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Zack Fair</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Aerith Gainsborough</strong></li>\n  <li>Marlene Wallace</li>\n  <li>Denzel&nbsp;</li>\n  <li><strong>Barret Wallace</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Cid Highwind</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Vincent Valentine</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Yuffie Kisaragi</strong></li>\n  <li>-Cait Sith-</li>\n  <li><strong>Red XIII/Nanaki</strong></li>\n  <li><del>Rufus Shinra</del></li>\n  <li><del>Rude</del></li>\n  <li><del>Reno</del></li>\n  <li><del>Elena</del></li>\n  <li><del>Tseng</del></li>\n  <li><del>Loz</del></li>\n  <li><del>Yazoo</del></li>\n  <li><del>Kadaj</del></li>\n  <li>Sephiroth</li>\n  <li>Reeve Tuesti*</li>\n</ul>\n<p>As you can see, Tifa, Zack, and Aerith need more time than they got, which I will get into in a little bit and, granted this was somewhat addressed in the complete version in the case of Zack and to a lesser extent Tifa. However, the way these characters interact with Cloud and each other should be addressed. Pretty much the entirety of Avalanche that isn't Cloud needs more screen-time since they're the ones that are closest to Cloud and would probably be present for his self-discovery.<br>\n<br>\nCait Sith has been reduced as there would be no purpose for the doll in this script modification and Reeve the man controlling the dolls has been added to replace them, since he would probably serve Cloud's character far more in his personal appearance than with a medium like a robot.<br>\n<br>\nRufus and the Turks have been removed because they serve no actual purpose. Even if you want to go into detail about what happened to Rufus after the Shinra building was blown up, there's nothing stopping the script from having it be narrated and really, it's not important to this plot anyway.<br>\n<br>\nLoz, Yazoo, and Kadaj have been removed because, while the concept of Sephiroth dividing himself into three so he can revive himself from within the life stream is interesting at the very least, instead, I want Sephiroth to try to revive himself using the last person who's left that he has influence over, Cloud.<br>\n<br>\nIn this version of the script, Sephiroth will not be an actual antagonist that Cloud fights as much as an obstacle he needs to overcome in order to recover and become himself again. Because of that, all of the battling will be inside his head rather than in the real world.<br>\n<br>\nAs for Geostigma, well, having it be an infection of Sephiroth's will and kill people is an interesting concept but I want to revise it slightly. Instead of it being a disease that infects and kills you, it should actually be a disease that rots away the mind through extreme bouts of pain and psychological hallucination. These hallucinations can be Sephiroth's method of influencing the world in the state he's in: by using the infected as a sort of puppet that he can use to inflict damage onto others: the more people he infects, the greater his will, using Cloud as a sort of Network Tower to exert his influence. In other words, Cloud is the source of the damage and it will not stop until Sephiroth is removed from his soul. And, if you want to go that far, you can even make that the reason Cloud no longer interacts with anybody during the movie if you want, since he would have no idea how people get infected with Geostigma and, knowing he's the source, he would want to get as far away from everybody as possible so Sephiroth can deal less damage and so he can fight by himself, something that Tifa would obviously object to.<br>\n<br>\nOkay, so now we have the groundwork set up, what about the actual plot events? Well, Marlene's introductory narration about the Life Stream and the battle with Sephiroth is fine, especially for anyone coming into the movie having never played the game. After Marlene's narration ends, we cut to Cloud resting in Aerith's church, where he's having an internal battle that involves Cloud trying not to submit to Sephiroth and Zack and Aerith helping, Zack by fighting off Sephiroth's will, and Aerith by protecting Cloud himself. This doesn't have to be particularly flashy, just a small skirmish between Sephiroth and Zack while Cloud watches and Aerith tells him it's not his fault. And, if you want a bit of fanservice here, you can insert fire to the landscape as a reference to the Nibelheim event, showing Cloud's memory with the whole thing and the way his mind is interpreting the battle with Sephiroth's influence.<br>\n<br>\nAfter that, Cloud wakes up to his phone ringing. Here, Cloud's phone will be where most of his interactions with other living characters will take place, since he's too afraid of harming them to go to them in person. He picks up the phone and it's Tifa calling to make sure he's okay. She asks him if everything's alright and Cloud responds that everything's fine and that he just needs more time. Tifa, unconvinced, goads him a little bit by telling him that Marlene and Denzel miss him and that if he doesn't do something about it soon she won't be able to stop them from doing something drastic.<br>\n<br>\nCloud relents a little bit and tells her to get in contact with Reeve since he himself is currently unable to get to him. She asks what he plans to do and he tells her that while he can't see them yet he does have a compromise in mind that has something to do with Reeve. She's curious but ultimately drops the issue since she wants to trust him and not drive him off by putting him under too much pressure.<br>\n<br>\nNext we cut to the 7th Heaven Bar where Tifa hangs up the phone and her eyes linger on it for a while as she's ruminating on what he could possibly be doing. She then starts to reminisce about her time in Cloud's mind during the original game and contemplating the state he may be in before Marlene interrupts and asks how Cloud's doing. Tifa, not wanting to scare the kid, reassures her that everything will be fine. She lets Marlene know that, even if she doesn't know what Cloud's up to, they have to be strong and allow him the time to get past whatever is blocking him.<br>\n<br>\nFollowing this, the phone rings, Tifa picks it up and finds out it's Reeve contacting her to let her know that the ShinRa Corporation is going through some changes and, while it's still very early, some positive things are happening. However, before he can get to that, she cuts him off, telling him that Cloud wanted to get in contact with him for some reason and Reeve, being the helpful type, decides to hear her out.<br>\n<br>\nNow we cut to a few days later where the entirety of Avalanche sans Cloud and Reeve, are at the 7th Heaven speculating on what Cloud's solution is. Yuffie gets excited, wanting to see the bastard again, Cid and Barrett try to calm her down in the event she's disappointed, and Vincent is being his quiet self. Red XIII speculates that, since this compromise involves Reeve, who is very heavily into robotics that his solution may be something akin to the Cait dolls. Yuffie then responds by complaining about Cloud not just coming to see them himself and asks what the point is. Vincent then chimes in by pointing out that Cloud has some very real demons he has to overcome.<br>\n<br>\nNoticing that Vincent seems to know something, Cid asks him to go into more detail, and Vincent explains that though Sephiroth is dead, his influence over Cloud and ability to influence those around Cloud is very real and though Cloud has always been physically strong, he doesn't have enough mental fortitude at the moment to overcome an entity that is messing with his mind. Not only that but his choice to place himself into solitude is reducing his mental constitution even more and that, one way or another, Cloud needs someone who can bear the weight of who he is while stimulating growth in him.<br>\n<br>\nAfter Vincent is finished, Reeve walks in with a comically proportioned Cloud robot that speaks with his voice, confirming what Red speculated earlier. The robot starts talking and makes note that it's good to see everyone again. He notes that he's never had to work with a remote controlled toy before and though Reeve rolls his eyes at the toy sentiment, Cloud tells them that it's good to see all of them again, even if he has to do so from behind a screen and a robot.<br>\n<br>\nTifa, excited that Cloud came up with something this good, calls Denzel and Marlene down to greet Cloud's avatar. When they come down, they have understandably opposite reactions. Denzel is happy to be able to hear Cloud's voice again but Marlene is understandably concerned. Having not heard the conversation the adults had earlier, she doesn't know what the adults do and because of that she asks him why he couldn't just come see them himself.<br>\n<br>\nHe tells her that he has stuff to work through at the moment but that once he's done he'll come straight to them. The robot isn't a replacement and isn't supposed to be the only thing they get forever, it's just supposed to tide them over until he can come see them for real. Marlene isn't satisfied but drops the issue because she doesn't want to complicate the situation further.<br>\n<br>\nCloud then tells them that the toy is going to be interacting with them from now on until he's able to overcome his battle. However, since it's late at night, he tells the two kids to go to bed and he'll greet them in the morning.<br>\nNow we cut to a landscape filled with water, this time Sephiroth is exerting his influence again but, instead of the damage to Zack and Cloud's former impersonation of him that was previously shown, this time Sephiroth's hitting a little closer to home by showing him a memory of an event that he wasn't able to stop but that he feels much more guilty about due to it being more recent and surrounding someone he knew much more personally.<br>\n<br>\nHowever, this time, instead of Sephiroth being the one to kill Aerith, the memory shows Cloud killing her instead. Cloud, now with bloodied hands, is starting to break and collapse with guilt. Zack intervenes, telling Sephiroth that that's a cheap move, and tries to let Cloud know that he isn't responsible for what happened to her. Cloud argues initially by telling him that if he had just kept Aerith away from the Turks or at least Jenova, she would still be alive.<br>\nZack then punches Cloud in the face, knocking him backward a bit. Zack, now visibly irritated, tells him that despite what he could've done to prevent it, the fact is that he's not the one who put the sword in her back. Aerith then chimes in and tells him that she has already moved past it and feels no ill will toward him, following that with reassurance that it's okay to forgive himself and that he shouldn't blame himself for what is already over and done with. Zack then says that he has more important things to worry about right now, such as the state the kids are in.<br>\n<br>\nCloud then wakes up, at the remote controller and the screen where he sees through the robot's eyes and he's shocked to see that Denzel has a wound in his head.<br>\n<br>\nNow we cut to later at the bar, where Tifa tells Cloud through the doll that thankfully Denzel's injury is mostly just blood. However, understandably Marlene and Denzel both are having trouble trusting him anymore and Tifa, now really concerned and frustrated, demands an answer for why he's spending so much time away so that she has something she can relay to the children.<br>\n<br>\nCloud then goes into detail about some of the dreams he's been having and how those dreams are all memories of the events caused by his and Sephiroth's influence. He also notes that sometimes he's not where he should be, waking up in places that he doesn't remember going to and doing things he has no recollection of.<br>\n<br>\nTifa then quickly recalls what Vincent told them about Sephiroth influencing him and she tells him that she's not going to put too much blame on him but, as it stands, his compromise failed and the doll needs to remain inactive and away from the children, saying that their safety is far more important than their ability to interact with him. Cloud understands and accepts the terms, noting that all he can do now is seclude himself even more.<br>\n<br>\nNow we cut to Tifa on Cid's ship talking to Vincent, telling him that Cloud confirmed what Vincent had initially told them. Knowing that Vincent understands the problem better than she does, she asks for advice on how to proceed. Vincent, unsure of how to respond, notes that the situation is complicated: on the one hand, any method of physically interacting with anyone has the risk that Cloud may lash out without realizing it, putting more people in harm's way and giving Cloud more reason to blame himself, reducing his ability to resist even further. On the other hand, Cloud's defenses are eroding rapidly and he'll soon become a complete copy of Sephiroth if nothing is done, and once that happens, Sephiroth's will will start to spread to whoever Cloud comes into contact with.<br>\n<br>\nTifa recalls the White Materia and the spell Holy and asks if it has any properties that can protect from mental attacks as well as physical power. Vincent, although intrigued by the idea, tells her that Holy was made specifically to counter Meteor, nothing more nothing less. However, he does note that while Holy may be ineffective, there may be some other method of purifying Cloud of Sephiroth's influence, noting that Sephiroth is already in Cloud's mind and therefore purging him may be more effective and permanent than simply trying to block him, especially since just blocking him would only be temporary and may not even work at this stage at all.<br>\n<br>\nTifa then remembers Aerith and her final limit break, noting that it had the ability to heal any injury and cure any impurity. She asks if there's any way they could replicate its effects and Vincent, still unsure, replies that it may be their best bet and that if that doesn't work probably nothing will.<br>\n<br>\nFrom here, Tifa contacts Reeve and asks him if there's some way, within ShinRa's technology to be able to use Aerith's purifying powers on Cloud, noting that she was a Cetra and that that may be the root of why she could do that in the first place. Reeve agrees and tells her he'll look through the documents they have on Aerith and start working on a cure.<br>\n<br>\nNow we cut to Cloud sitting in Midgar and wondering why he's there. He then looks up and sees that Meteor is approaching. In this scene, Meteor isn't just a memory of what Sephiroth did at the end of the previous game, it's also symbolic of Sephiroth's complete penetration and dominance of Cloud's mind. The closer Meteor gets, the less Cloud is able to resist.<br>\n<br>\nCloud, wanting to protect what he has left, fires a full power Blade Beam at the giant piece of rock. It doesn't make a dent in Sephiroth's will but, on the way to Meteor, the Blade Beam cuts a nearby building which, in turn, allows Cloud to see through his right eye the real world.<br>\n<br>\nHere we can have a really cool double-vision effect like a split-screen mode, where on the left we see what Cloud is experiencing inside his mind, and on the right he's experiencing what his body's doing against his will from his perspective.<br>\n<br>\nOut of his right eye he sees that his body is walking, walking toward Midgar, specifically the destination where Cloud is standing right now in his psyche. He looks around to see out of his left eye where that is and it's none other than the 7th Heaven bar where Tifa, Barrett, Denzel, and Marlene are living.<br>\n<br>\nCloud, terrified of what Sephiroth is going to do now that he has almost complete control over his body, leaves the Midgar inside his mind in the hopes that his body will follow suit and follow the destination he's going instead. Cloud runs in the direction his body currently is so that he can hopefully meet it halfway and then, redirect it once they're in roughly the same location.<br>\n<br>\nHowever, before he can exit the city, Zack blocks him off. Cloud, panicked and flustered, demands to know why Zack is stopping him, and Zack tells him that Sephiroth now has full control over his body. Even if he leaves the Midgar inside his mind, the body will behave independently of that fact. Cloud, now unable to keep himself together, tells Zack that he has to do something, that everyone he cares about will be hurt if he doesn't do something now, and that he doesn't want to lose anyone again, all of this said in a frantic yell as he's pleading for some amount of help or guidance since he obviously has no idea what to do anymore.<br>\n<br>\nZack, defeated, tells him that Sephiroth's already too deep and that it's outside of his control now. Cloud laments this, stating that if he had just been stronger before there might've been something he could've done about it. Zack, not ready to give up completely, tells him that it's not over yet. Even if Sephiroth has gotten into his mind, as long as Cloud can still think for himself, he still has the ability to fight.<br>\n<br>\nCloud, initially confused, remembers that he's in Midgar and that Midgar has weapons and tools he can use, some of which may be able to reduce the size of the meteor. Cloud then guesses that if he can reduce the size of the meteor, he can reduce Sephiroth's influence and possibly even fight him on equal footing. Zack, though skeptical of this idea, tells Cloud to go for it since it may be his last shot.<br>\n<br>\nAs Cloud goes to the ship that was intended to be fired at Meteor with the Giant Materia in the original game, Cloud sees out of his right eye that Tifa and Avalanche have arrived. Cloud, starting to panic, steels himself and gets back to what he's working on since this news just means he has to work faster.<br>\n<br>\nCloud jumps into the rocket and gets ready to go fight Sephiroth at the center. Meanwhile, as Cloud is sitting in the rocket waiting for it to reach Sephiroth completely, he closes his eyes to watch what his body is doing and sees it battling against Avalanche.<br>\n<br>\nCloudiroth clearly has the advantage since Avalanche are trying to contain Cloud without hurting him but Sephiroth has no problem with harming them, in fact he delights in it, since their deaths will be his gateway into Cloud's mind permanently.<br>\n<br>\nHere, we can see a nifty first person battle where Cloud is fighting against the Avalanche members who are all strong enough to deal damage but who are more focused on keeping Cloud's body occupied until Reeve gets to them with the cure. Tifa even tells him that Reeve and the remainder of the ShinRa scientists are close to finding a way to get Sephiroth out of Cloud permanently and that he just needs to stay strong and keep fighting until it gets there.<br>\n<br>\nUpon hearing this news, Cloud toughens up a bit. Now he's not just solid, he's determined as well. The rocket makes it to Meteor and though it doesn't deal much damage to it, Cloud makes it to the surface of the Meteor and makes it to his final memory of his battle with Sephiroth from the game, the scripted one right after the final boss Sephiroth.<br>\n<br>\nSephiroth, confident that the cure won't make it in time, is glad that Cloud chose to fight him directly because now it means he can shut Cloud down directly and can subdue him while making him watch his friends suffer at his hands.<br>\nHowever, doing this proves to be difficult as Cloud puts up a bit of a fight and Sephiroth finds it difficult to fight a mental and physical battle at the same time. Because of this, Sephiroth takes a slightly different approach.<br>\n<br>\nNow we cut to the real world where Cloud is restricted but has stopped moving entirely. Vincent is the first to take notice and though he does figure out what's going on, he realizes too late as Sephiroth infects Tifa and begins using her to fight against the other Avalanche members. Though this does weaken his proficiency against Cloud a bit, Sephiroth ultimately finds this to be a much more suitable goal as, once he's possessed every member of Avalanche, he can cause them to commit a group suicide, and Cloud, in the state he's in, would be unable to stop his own defeat or his friends' collective demise.<br>\n<br>\nVincent calls attention to Tifa's infection and Tifa strikes at Barrett first. Barrett blocks the attack with his metal wrist, with the idea that its soulless nature would prevent the infection from spreading to his body. This does mean, however, that Cloud is free again and now this battle has gone from 6 on 1 to 5 on 2, reducing their odds of victory by a significant margin.<br>\n<br>\nYuffie suggests that they run because if they get infected Sephiroth will kill them and nothing will stop him. However, Vincent rejects the idea, noting that even if they escape now, Tifa is more important to Cloud than anyone else and her death at Sephiroth's hands may be enough to break him completely. Cid agrees and suggests that they keep fighting, since it's the only thing they can do to stall until Reeve arrives.<br>\n<br>\nThen we get the split screen in Cloud's mind again. Now we see Cloud fighting Sephiroth in his mind in a sword battle on one side and Avalanche fighting to buy time on the other. Think of the scene where Snake fights Gekko walkers while Raiden battles Vamp in Metal Gear Solid 4 if you want an idea of how this would look.<br>\n<br>\nFinally, as every member of Avalanche is infected with Sephiroth's will, Cloud continues to fight even harder, now knowing that the moment he gives Sephiroth an inch, he'll take a million miles and kill his friends right there.<br>\n<br>\nFinally, as Cloud is putting up his last remaining vestiges of will into this battle, a Cait doll arrives with a water balloon. Reeve sent it knowing that if he got close to Cloud Sephiroth would infect him, rendering the entire pursuit pointless.<br>\nCait makes a mad dash for Cloud as the different Avalanche members try to destroy it, only for Cait to put all of his strength into a throw for the water balloon. It lands on Cloud and a small amount of it also lands on Tifa, reducing Sephiroth's control on all of them considerably and completely freeing her.<br>\n<br>\nCloud, seeing Tifa out of his right eye, hears her tell him to finish this. Sephiroth, damaged but not out yet, tells Cloud that that water was their last shot and it ultimately failed. Aerith shows up in front of Cloud and notes that Sephiroth has lost as, now that some water from her final limit break has landed on him, she can exorcise Sephiroth from him completely, both inside and out.<br>\n<br>\nWith a final push from Aerith's power, Sephiroth quietly accepts defeat, not wanting to give his opponents the satisfaction of hearing screams of defeat or anything like that, and he quickly fades as does the scene from that moment.<br>\n<br>\nCloud then wakes up, now in a bed in the 7th Heaven. He sits up and sees where he is. He exits the room and goes down to the bar where Tifa and the rest of Avalanche are waiting. Tifa greets him with a hug and a single tear of joy as Vincent notes, with that final battle, Sephiroth is gone for good.<br>\n<br>\nAs everybody is celebrating, Marlene and Denzel enter through the front door and are surprised to see Cloud. Marlene is initially hesitant but is spurred on when Denzel goes up to him and welcomes him back. Marlene then walks up to him and welcomes him back as well.<br>\n<br>\nThen with a final panning shot of the bar, Cloud says it's good to be home.<br>\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>\nAnd that was my altered script for Advent Children. Although I think the version of the script that I ended up with is probably better titled Advent Cloud, I'm confident that this would've made a much more significant movie.<br>\n<br>\nOf course, I'm open to criticism and, if you think I made any mistakes, or you think you could improve on this script in any way, feel free to do so in a comment and I'll make sure to read it. Any comments that I think would make good edit suggestions will be added as an addendum.<br>\n<br>\nThat's all for now and I hope to see you next time.&nbsp;</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>So before we begin, I want to preface this by stating that even though I don't have the ability or know how to use accents on a keyboard, I will be referencing two words used frequently in the manga and anime series Marchen Awakens Romance. MAR (Pronounced mare) and ARM (pronounced Air-m.). Since I don't have accents on my words, I'll be making the distinction between these words and similar unrelated words by putting these two in all caps so there's less confusion.</p>\n<p>Marchent Awakens Romance is a relatively old anime series that I enjoyed when I was younger. It was a series that was created in the early 2000's back when there wasn't a clear way to integrate 2D and 3D animation properly, swapping the Japanese OP and ED for custom English ones was a lot more commonplace, and English Actors who are relatively obscure and seemingly out of work now were still getting relatively frequent jobs.</p>\n<p>This particular anime was dubbed and aired on Cartoon Network for the Toonami block, back when anime streaming services were so rare that Toonami had its own online streaming service as one of the only ways to get dubbed or even subbed anime online without just buying DVD's or pirating them.</p>\n<p>That said, for as much as all this sounds like criticism, I actually really enjoyed this anime and got back to it recently so I can actually finish the damn thing. Currently, I'm on episode 13, out of 52 in the English dub and 50 or so more than that in Japanese. This anime was also around at a time when it was a lot more acceptable to not finish a dub in the event the TV airings weren't good enough.</p>\n<p>To give you a brief rundown, Marchen Awakens Romance is about a young boy named Ginta who frequently dreams of a fairy tale land that he wishes to go to. Though what little we see of his dreams don't seem to have anything to do with the setting, it expects us to believe that he is dreaming about a place called MAR, or MAR Heaven in the Japanese version. He was summoned by Alviss to help defeat the returning Chess Pieces and specifically their Leader, the Phantom, who is so powerful that someone from Earth is required to beat him since people of Earth are generally stronger than the people of MAR, physically anyway. And this is the topic of this blog post.</p>\n<p>Specifically, the question I want to answer is \"Why are the people of Earth so much stronger than the people of MAR in terms of physicality?\" Normally, this would be a relatively easy question to answer due to something Alviss says early on: namely that MAR Heaven has lighter gravity than Earth and the strength of humans on Earth rises when they come to MAR.</p>\n<p>On the surface, this sounds like an open and shut case. However, if you really dig into it, there are a number of questions this raises that it doesn't properly answer. First, I want to tackle the issue of gravity because that seems to be where some confusion arises.</p>\n<p>Many of us who grew up on Dragon Ball Z or who understand physics knows that humans and other living creatures adapt to harsh circumstances the longer they're exposed to them and that it stands to reason that if you live on a planet with higher gravity than Earth, you'll naturally be stronger than a regular person on this planet because you've been subjected to greater forces your entire life.</p>\n<p>However, there's a bit of a problem with this line of thinking. The reason training under high gravity in DBZ works as a training mechanism is because of how much higher the gravity is than Earth. King Kai's planet and Planet Vegeta both have gravitational forces that are 10 times greater than Earth. This means that a human who weighs 200 pounds on Earth would weigh exactly 1 ton on either of those planets. And if you were subjected to this your entire life, it's safe to say you'd be a lot stronger than a regular human. Even factoring out Ki, which is the basis of all the feats of power and destruction in DBZ, if Vegeta, Raditz, and Nappa spent their entire lives on Planet Vegeta, this means they would be 10 times stronger than the humans who live on Earth. A human that could bench press their own weight would likely be crushed under the weight of one punch from one of those three and a car going 30 mph would only be somewhat greater force than what they're subjected to constantly by the planet.</p>\n<p>However, MAR Heaven, doesn't have that factor. While Alviss states that MAR has lighter gravity than Earth, Ginta still seems to have the same problem with surface tension that he would on Earth, meaning that the difference in gravity likely isn't all that huge, which may increase his strength somewhat due to lightening the load on his muscles but it certainly wouldn't be enough to allow him to break stone or metal like he's shown he has the ability to do.</p>\n<p>That said, everything I've said so far could just be artistic license, since you don't want your protagonist dying if they fall from a great height and you don't want too much blood since this is, by all accounts, a kid's show. My next piece of evidence, though, is a bit less debatable, specifically Ginta's growth rate in terms of physicality and, more importantly, magical power.</p>\n<p>After coming into contact with Allan, Ginta and Princess Snow are sent into a different dimension to train to get stronger. Dorothy and Jack are sent to a different though similar dimension as well. While Jack and Dorothy are not really the same characters as Ginta and Snow respectively, Jack's experience with the training and Ginta's can be compared relatively thoroughly since they start at the same place in terms of magic power.</p>\n<p>Inside the training gate, they train in accelerated time for 180 days, or about 3 real world days. And, in that time, we get a few clues on where these characters have come to: firstly, when Ginta gets out of the training gate and fights against Ian, Ian comments on the fact that Ginta is likely at the level of a Bishop, while he himself was a Rook at the time. Bearing in mind, prior to the training, Ginta only broke Ian's arm based on sheer reckless abandon, and Ian was also using an inferior ARM at the time.</p>\n<p>We also know that Ginta eclipsed Snow in terms of power, which likely means that she herself is probably comparable to a Rook. While that doesn't mean much on its own, we also learn from Gido at around the same time that Jack has the smallest amount of magical power of anyone they were fighting, suggesting that he was probably at the level of a Rook as well, considering how easily he beat Gido, who was a Pawn.</p>\n<p>A counter argument may be the ARM each respective boy was using. Ginta was using Babbo, an ARM that's so much more powerful than everything else that it could have any ability Ginta wanted, even a form toward the end of the series that's the reverse of the Gatekeeper Clown, which was by far the most powerful Dimension ARM in the series. Meanwhile, Jack was using just a regular shovel, a shovel that was customized for magic stones prior to the series but a shovel nonetheless. Not only that but Babbo, as an ARM, has the mind and soul of a human, making him autonomous and likely improving Ginta's growth.</p>\n<p>However, my counter argument to that is Babbo Version 3: Gargoyle. Gargoyle is the strongest form Babbo has for a good majority of both the anime and manga but is also quite taxing on Ginta. It is so taxing, in fact, that Snow warned him not to use Gargoyle unless absolutely necessary and, even then, not for more than about a few minutes. This suggests that the magic power used by Babbo's forms are, in fact Ginta's. Babbo may have sped it up slightly but, since no one comments on it, it's likely just Ginta's raw ability to develop quickly.</p>\n<p>Since Ginta is physically and mentally impaired compared to other humans from Earth, I find it unlikely that his strength and growth rate are properties unique to him. So, what's the deal?</p>\n<p>Well, in MAR Heaven, the world seems to serve as a modifier for base abilities rather than a flat upgrade. And what I mean by that is that a flat upgrade would increase his power by a set amount and then have training add to that amount, whereas the modifier amplifies all of his traits. Let me represent it with an equation.</p>\n<p>Flat Increase:&nbsp;</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Power = Base * Increase + Training</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Modifier:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Power = (Base + Training) * Increase</li>\n</ul>\n<p>In the first example, the base power would be increased but the training added to it would only add to the final number, adding at the rate of regular physical conditioning. With the modifier, however, any increase to power Ginta gains through training is added to what it would be on Earth and then is amplified after that, increasing his growth rate and his overall power output by the same amount.</p>\n<p>But why is this? Earth humans and MAR humans don't seem to be different physiologically, Earth humans just gain a power boost on MAR. Gravity also likely isn't the problem since it is possible for someone like Alviss to be physically stronger than Ginta even with the power boost.</p>\n<p>My theory is the existence of magic. MAR Heaven has magic in the form of ARM but Ginta's world doesn't have that. Many who are able to use magic like Allan and Alviss are stronger with Magic than Ginta and his father are without magic but the presence of magic lightens the load of what their world presents, making someone artificially resistant to the pressures the world offers.</p>\n<p>And when I say artificially resistant, I mean resistant in the same way a biological enhancement works in a lot of games and science fiction. Yes, it makes you resistant to outside forces on a surface level but, since the upgrade is entirely separate from yourself, your physiology will grow weaker over time due to less pressure from the world.</p>\n<p>Ginta and his father grew up in a world that didn't have magic to lighten the load so they were naturally able to deal with the world itself, so when they were presented with a world that provided them with magic, they grew faster due to inherent evolutionary capability that people of Earth would have.</p>\n<p>That's all for now. Tell me in the comments if I'm completely off base or if you liked my post. And, as always, have a wonderful day.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>So any of you reading this subscribed to Hollow of Dawn on Youtube may already know a lot of what I'm going to say so this post may be a lot of ground retreading. For everyone else, this is an exercise in accessibility from a story perspective.</p>\n<p>The reason the Fate series and specifically Fate/Stay Night are so easy to talk about in terms of making a series more accessible is because they have a fairly good potential starting point for newcomers that doesn't exist at the moment. For those not in the know, Fate/Stay Night is a relatively old and now relatively popular visual novel that features 3 total storylines: Fate, which is a story detailing Shirou's quest to become a hero, Unlimited Blade Works, which is a story that delves into the psychology of Shirou Emiya as a character, and Heaven's Feel, which is a story all about answering questions about the previously established routes.</p>\n<p>For most people who want to get into the Fate series the ideal starting storyline is Fate. The reason for this is because of the way the premise works and how the original 3 storylines were designed. Fate/Stay Night, at a basic level, is a story about Shirou Emiya and his goal of becoming a hero, using the Holy Grail War to achieve that goal by obtaining the holy grail and getting a wish granted.</p>\n<p>Now, anyone who's read the visual novel will tell you that Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel are better written stories and while that is true for the most part, there's a caveat to that: Unlimited Blade Works requires you to already be acquainted with all the characters from Fate before you start and Heaven's Feel requires context from Fate and Unlimited Blade Works to function. Because of that, while Fate is widely considered the weakest of the 3 storylines, it is also simultaneously the most standalone of the three.</p>\n<p>One might consider that, if you want to get into the Fate series, you just start with the Fate/Stay Night visual novel and go through it organically. A sound plan in theory but the problem is that the visual novel is quite heavy on text. Just for perspective, Fate/Stay Night has been stated to contain more text than all 3 Lord of the Rings books combined, quite fitting if you think about it.</p>\n<p>That said, the amount of reading anyone would have to do especially toward the beginning just to start Fate is overwhelming for many. A better solution would be to have an anime to start with instead, since anime are easy to process and get through than a visual novel would be. The issue is that, of the Fate anime currently in existence, none of them adequately cover the Fate route. Fate/Stay Night (2006), also called Dean/Stay Night after the animation studio, is mostly Fate but mixes in elements of Unlimited Blade Works and concepts found in Heaven's Feel, not really anything in Heaven's Feel specifically.</p>\n<p>Fate as a storyline is also the shortest of the three and considering Unlimited Blade Works barely works as a 25 episode series, Fate may have been lacking in that regard so filler was added. Then there's the Unlimited Blade Works movie by Studio Dean as well, which has a lot of the problems of Dean/Stay Night but also has the opposite problem of having too much content to fit into its runtime.</p>\n<p>The next two options are also somewhat related to each other: Fate/Zero, the prequel to Fate/Stay Night, and Ufotable's Unlimited Blade Works series. Now, me personally, I got into the series proper because of Fate/Zero so I can't really say I should deter anyone who wants to use it as their starting point but one thing to note about Fate/Zero is that the story casually reveals things to you that were minor plot twists in certain stories of Fate/Stay Night. And, because I'm a \"short for Richard\" I'm going to reveal some of that stuff to you. For example:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Within the first episode of Fate/Zero we learn that Sakura Matou and Rin Tohsaka are blood siblings, which was a plot twist in Heaven's Feel.</li>\n  <li>Kiritsugu's gray morality as a chaotic neutral character was a plot twist in Fate. Prior to that, it was assumed that he was a purely heroic character.</li>\n  <li>Also early in the series we find out that the Saber class servant used both by Kiritsugu and Shirou in their respective installments is a gender-bent King Arthur, which is two spoilers for the price of one.</li>\n  <li>The nature of the Holy Grail is revealed at the end of Fate/Zero, which was a plot twist for Unlimited Blade Works.</li>\n  <li>Fate/Zero also reveals to us that Gilgamesh, the Archer class servant for the series, never actually leaves the world, which implies his presence in all three storylines in Fate/Stay Night.</li>\n  <li>Kirei Kotomine is revealed to be a sadistic psychopath, which was the final plot twist of Heaven's Feel.</li>\n  <li>And though never explicitly shown, Fate/Zero shows Avalon's healing properties with Irisviel which ties into Shirou's healing ability in Fate and UBW.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Since many of these twists are just casually revealed during Fate/Zero's runtime, it gives the distinct impression that Fate/Zero was designed with the assumption that you've already read through the entire visual novel. Thankfully, Fate/Zero is high quality in spite of this but it does show how that can be an issue.</p>\n<p>Finally, the Unlimited Blade Works TV series and the Heaven's Feel movie series both by Ufotable are not good starting points for largely the same reason: they both require context from Fate.</p>\n<p>For any other series, this wouldn't be all that much of an issue. Most games or visual novels with multiple stories tend to have one canon way that they turn out and every other ending is simply non-canon, like with Higurashi: When they Cry and most regular games. The problem with finding the canon story of Fate/Stay Night isn't just that two of the three stories require context, it's also the fact that later stories go forward without invalidating any of the existing stories. In particular, the sequel to Fate/Stay Night was a visual novel called Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and while I have been told it's canon, the issue is that that visual novel is an attempted recreation of events from Fate/Stay Night using the limited knowledge of Angra Mainyu, which means it gives a sequel and follow-up to the events of the prior stories without confirming which one actually happened.</p>\n<p>This is the Silent Hill 2 problem: none of the endings or storylines are any more valid than the others so any of them are equally likely to be canon. This means that for a full understanding of the Fate series you have to have some baseline knowledge of all three stories before moving forward.</p>\n<p>Other stories, like Fate/Extra, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/Strange Fake, and Fate/Apocrypha also have nothing to do with Fate/Stay Night apart from character appearances, so they don't confirm what's canon either.</p>\n<p>This is an issue that's unique to Fate. While plenty of games have multiple endings, generally, the branching paths are restricted to those endings and don't have too much branching outside the main story. Some games also have multiple story paths and even storylines, like The Witcher, Drakengard, NieR, pretty much any Yoko Taro game, either those stories have nothing to do with later games, like some of Drakengard's story paths, or the multiple stories are all the same story from different perspectives or with new information, like NieR and NieR: Automata. However, it's tough to say any story from Fate/Stay Night is any more valid than the others.</p>\n<p>This means that all of them are required reading for anyone getting into the Fate series, not just the primary canon one. So this means that Fate is probably the best entry point ideally but, since that's not feasible for anime-only audiences, the best choice is probably Fate/Zero. Sure, it spoils stuff but it's also got the strongest hook of any of the series standalone.</p>\n<p>That's all for now. Have a wonderful day.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "Congratulations @omegarunner! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :\n\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstpost.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@omegarunner) You published your First Post\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstvoted.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@omegarunner) You got a First Vote\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstvote.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@omegarunner) You made your First Vote\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstcomment.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@omegarunner) You made your First Comment\n\nClick on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.\nFor more information about SteemitBoard, click [here](https://steemit.com/@steemitboard)\n\nIf you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word `STOP`\n\n> By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how [here](https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/http-i-cubeupload-com-7ciqeo-png)!",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>So any of you reading this subscribed to Hollow of Dawn on Youtube may already know a lot of what I'm going to say so this post may be a lot of ground retreading. For everyone else, this is an exercise in accessibility from a story perspective.</p>\n<p>The reason the Fate series and specifically Fate/Stay Night are so easy to talk about in terms of making a series more accessible is because they have a fairly good potential starting point for newcomers that doesn't exist at the moment. For those not in the know, Fate/Stay Night is a relatively old and now relatively popular visual novel that features 3 total storylines: Fate, which is a story detailing Shirou's quest to become a hero, Unlimited Blade Works, which is a story that delves into the psychology of Shirou Emiya as a character, and Heaven's Feel, which is a story all about answering questions about the previously established routes.</p>\n<p>For most people who want to get into the Fate series the ideal starting storyline is Fate. The reason for this is because of the way the premise works and how the original 3 storylines were designed. Fate/Stay Night, at a basic level, is a story about Shirou Emiya and his goal of becoming a hero, using the Holy Grail War to achieve that goal by obtaining the holy grail and getting a wish granted.</p>\n<p>Now, anyone who's read the visual novel will tell you that Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel are better written stories and while that is true for the most part, there's a caveat to that: Unlimited Blade Works requires you to already be acquainted with all the characters from Fate before you start and Heaven's Feel requires context from Fate and Unlimited Blade Works to function. Because of that, while Fate is widely considered the weakest of the 3 storylines, it is also simultaneously the most standalone of the three.</p>\n<p>One might consider that, if you want to get into the Fate series, you just start with the Fate/Stay Night visual novel and go through it organically. A sound plan in theory but the problem is that the visual novel is quite heavy on text. Just for perspective, Fate/Stay Night has been stated to contain more text than all 3 Lord of the Rings books combined, quite fitting if you think about it.</p>\n<p>That said, the amount of reading anyone would have to do especially toward the beginning just to start Fate is overwhelming for many. A better solution would be to have an anime to start with instead, since anime are easy to process and get through than a visual novel would be. The issue is that, of the Fate anime currently in existence, none of them adequately cover the Fate route. Fate/Stay Night (2006), also called Dean/Stay Night after the animation studio, is mostly Fate but mixes in elements of Unlimited Blade Works and concepts found in Heaven's Feel, not really anything in Heaven's Feel specifically.</p>\n<p>Fate as a storyline is also the shortest of the three and considering Unlimited Blade Works barely works as a 25 episode series, Fate may have been lacking in that regard so filler was added. Then there's the Unlimited Blade Works movie by Studio Dean as well, which has a lot of the problems of Dean/Stay Night but also has the opposite problem of having too much content to fit into its runtime.</p>\n<p>The next two options are also somewhat related to each other: Fate/Zero, the prequel to Fate/Stay Night, and Ufotable's Unlimited Blade Works series. Now, me personally, I got into the series proper because of Fate/Zero so I can't really say I should deter anyone who wants to use it as their starting point but one thing to note about Fate/Zero is that the story casually reveals things to you that were minor plot twists in certain stories of Fate/Stay Night. And, because I'm a \"short for Richard\" I'm going to reveal some of that stuff to you. For example:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Within the first episode of Fate/Zero we learn that Sakura Matou and Rin Tohsaka are blood siblings, which was a plot twist in Heaven's Feel.</li>\n  <li>Kiritsugu's gray morality as a chaotic neutral character was a plot twist in Fate. Prior to that, it was assumed that he was a purely heroic character.</li>\n  <li>Also early in the series we find out that the Saber class servant used both by Kiritsugu and Shirou in their respective installments is a gender-bent King Arthur, which is two spoilers for the price of one.</li>\n  <li>The nature of the Holy Grail is revealed at the end of Fate/Zero, which was a plot twist for Unlimited Blade Works.</li>\n  <li>Fate/Zero also reveals to us that Gilgamesh, the Archer class servant for the series, never actually leaves the world, which implies his presence in all three storylines in Fate/Stay Night.</li>\n  <li>Kirei Kotomine is revealed to be a sadistic psychopath, which was the final plot twist of Heaven's Feel.</li>\n  <li>And though never explicitly shown, Fate/Zero shows Avalon's healing properties with Irisviel which ties into Shirou's healing ability in Fate and UBW.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Since many of these twists are just casually revealed during Fate/Zero's runtime, it gives the distinct impression that Fate/Zero was designed with the assumption that you've already read through the entire visual novel. Thankfully, Fate/Zero is high quality in spite of this but it does show how that can be an issue.</p>\n<p>Finally, the Unlimited Blade Works TV series and the Heaven's Feel movie series both by Ufotable are not good starting points for largely the same reason: they both require context from Fate.</p>\n<p>For any other series, this wouldn't be all that much of an issue. Most games or visual novels with multiple stories tend to have one canon way that they turn out and every other ending is simply non-canon, like with Higurashi: When they Cry and most regular games. The problem with finding the canon story of Fate/Stay Night isn't just that two of the three stories require context, it's also the fact that later stories go forward without invalidating any of the existing stories. In particular, the sequel to Fate/Stay Night was a visual novel called Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and while I have been told it's canon, the issue is that that visual novel is an attempted recreation of events from Fate/Stay Night using the limited knowledge of Angra Mainyu, which means it gives a sequel and follow-up to the events of the prior stories without confirming which one actually happened.</p>\n<p>This is the Silent Hill 2 problem: none of the endings or storylines are any more valid than the others so any of them are equally likely to be canon. This means that for a full understanding of the Fate series you have to have some baseline knowledge of all three stories before moving forward.</p>\n<p>Other stories, like Fate/Extra, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/Strange Fake, and Fate/Apocrypha also have nothing to do with Fate/Stay Night apart from character appearances, so they don't confirm what's canon either.</p>\n<p>This is an issue that's unique to Fate. While plenty of games have multiple endings, generally, the branching paths are restricted to those endings and don't have too much branching outside the main story. Some games also have multiple story paths and even storylines, like The Witcher, Drakengard, NieR, pretty much any Yoko Taro game, either those stories have nothing to do with later games, like some of Drakengard's story paths, or the multiple stories are all the same story from different perspectives or with new information, like NieR and NieR: Automata. However, it's tough to say any story from Fate/Stay Night is any more valid than the others.</p>\n<p>This means that all of them are required reading for anyone getting into the Fate series, not just the primary canon one. So this means that Fate is probably the best entry point ideally but, since that's not feasible for anime-only audiences, the best choice is probably Fate/Zero. Sure, it spoils stuff but it's also got the strongest hook of any of the series standalone.</p>\n<p>That's all for now. Have a wonderful day.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p>So any of you reading this subscribed to Hollow of Dawn on Youtube may already know a lot of what I'm going to say so this post may be a lot of ground retreading. For everyone else, this is an exercise in accessibility from a story perspective.</p>\n<p>The reason the Fate series and specifically Fate/Stay Night are so easy to talk about in terms of making a series more accessible is because they have a fairly good potential starting point for newcomers that doesn't exist at the moment. For those not in the know, Fate/Stay Night is a relatively old and now relatively popular visual novel that features 3 total storylines: Fate, which is a story detailing Shirou's quest to become a hero, Unlimited Blade Works, which is a story that delves into the psychology of Shirou Emiya as a character, and Heaven's Feel, which is a story all about answering questions about the previously established routes.</p>\n<p>For most people who want to get into the Fate series the ideal starting storyline is Fate. The reason for this is because of the way the premise works and how the original 3 storylines were designed. Fate/Stay Night, at a basic level, is a story about Shirou Emiya and his goal of becoming a hero, using the Holy Grail War to achieve that goal by obtaining the holy grail and getting a wish granted.</p>\n<p>Now, anyone who's read the visual novel will tell you that Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel are better written stories and while that is true for the most part, there's a caveat to that: Unlimited Blade Works requires you to already be acquainted with all the characters from Fate before you start and Heaven's Feel requires context from Fate and Unlimited Blade Works to function. Because of that, while Fate is widely considered the weakest of the 3 storylines, it is also simultaneously the most standalone of the three.</p>\n<p>One might consider that, if you want to get into the Fate series, you just start with the Fate/Stay Night visual novel and go through it organically. A sound plan in theory but the problem is that the visual novel is quite heavy on text. Just for perspective, Fate/Stay Night has been stated to contain more text than all 3 Lord of the Rings books combined, quite fitting if you think about it.</p>\n<p>That said, the amount of reading anyone would have to do especially toward the beginning just to start Fate is overwhelming for many. A better solution would be to have an anime to start with instead, since anime are easy to process and get through than a visual novel would be. The issue is that, of the Fate anime currently in existence, none of them adequately cover the Fate route. Fate/Stay Night (2006), also called Dean/Stay Night after the animation studio, is mostly Fate but mixes in elements of Unlimited Blade Works and concepts found in Heaven's Feel, not really anything in Heaven's Feel specifically.</p>\n<p>Fate as a storyline is also the shortest of the three and considering Unlimited Blade Works barely works as a 25 episode series, Fate may have been lacking in that regard so filler was added. Then there's the Unlimited Blade Works movie by Studio Dean as well, which has a lot of the problems of Dean/Stay Night but also has the opposite problem of having too much content to fit into its runtime.</p>\n<p>The next two options are also somewhat related to each other: Fate/Zero, the prequel to Fate/Stay Night, and Ufotable's Unlimited Blade Works series. Now, me personally, I got into the series proper because of Fate/Zero so I can't really say I should deter anyone who wants to use it as their starting point but one thing to note about Fate/Zero is that the story casually reveals things to you that were minor plot twists in certain stories of Fate/Stay Night. And, because I'm a \"short for Richard\" I'm going to reveal some of that stuff to you. For example:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Within the first episode of Fate/Zero we learn that Sakura Matou and Rin Tohsaka are blood siblings, which was a plot twist in Heaven's Feel.</li>\n  <li>Kiritsugu's gray morality as a chaotic neutral character was a plot twist in Fate. Prior to that, it was assumed that he was a purely heroic character.</li>\n  <li>Also early in the series we find out that the Saber class servant used both by Kiritsugu and Shirou in their respective installments is a gender-bent King Arthur, which is two spoilers for the price of one.</li>\n  <li>The nature of the Holy Grail is revealed at the end of Fate/Zero, which was a plot twist for Unlimited Blade Works.</li>\n  <li>Fate/Zero also reveals to us that Gilgamesh, the Archer class servant for the series, never actually leaves the world, which implies his presence in all three storylines in Fate/Stay Night.</li>\n  <li>Kirei Kotomine is revealed to be a sadistic psychopath, which was the final plot twist of Heaven's Feel.</li>\n  <li>And though never explicitly shown, Fate/Zero shows Avalon's healing properties with Irisviel which ties into Shirou's healing ability in Fate and UBW.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Since many of these twists are just casually revealed during Fate/Zero's runtime, it gives the distinct impression that Fate/Zero was designed with the assumption that you've already read through the entire visual novel. Thankfully, Fate/Zero is high quality in spite of this but it does show how that can be an issue.</p>\n<p>Finally, the Unlimited Blade Works TV series and the Heaven's Feel movie series both by Ufotable are not good starting points for largely the same reason: they both require context from Fate.</p>\n<p>For any other series, this wouldn't be all that much of an issue. Most games or visual novels with multiple stories tend to have one canon way that they turn out and every other ending is simply non-canon, like with Higurashi: When they Cry and most regular games. The problem with finding the canon story of Fate/Stay Night isn't just that two of the three stories require context, it's also the fact that later stories go forward without invalidating any of the existing stories. In particular, the sequel to Fate/Stay Night was a visual novel called Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and while I have been told it's canon, the issue is that that visual novel is an attempted recreation of events from Fate/Stay Night using the limited knowledge of Angra Mainyu, which means it gives a sequel and follow-up to the events of the prior stories without confirming which one actually happened.</p>\n<p>This is the Silent Hill 2 problem: none of the endings or storylines are any more valid than the others so any of them are equally likely to be canon. This means that for a full understanding of the Fate series you have to have some baseline knowledge of all three stories before moving forward.</p>\n<p>Other stories, like Fate/Extra, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/Strange Fake, and Fate/Apocrypha also have nothing to do with Fate/Stay Night apart from character appearances, so they don't confirm what's canon either.</p>\n<p>This is an issue that's unique to Fate. While plenty of games have multiple endings, generally, the branching paths are restricted to those endings and don't have too much branching outside the main story. Some games also have multiple story paths and even storylines, like The Witcher, Drakengard, NieR, pretty much any Yoko Taro game, either those stories have nothing to do with later games, like some of Drakengard's story paths, or the multiple stories are all the same story from different perspectives or with new information, like NieR and NieR: Automata. However, it's tough to say any story from Fate/Stay Night is any more valid than the others.</p>\n<p>This means that all of them are required reading for anyone getting into the Fate series, not just the primary canon one. So this means that Fate is probably the best entry point ideally but, since that's not feasible for anime-only audiences, the best choice is probably Fate/Zero. Sure, it spoils stuff but it's also got the strongest hook of any of the series standalone.</p>\n<p>That's all for now. Have a wonderful day.</p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "Thank you for the comment. I hope that's true because after some issues with comments on other sites I've been on, helpful people certainly sounds really nice.",
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      "body": "Welcome to the community!!  Everyone here is very helpful, so don't hesitate to ask :)",
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      "body": "@@ -6446,12 +6446,119 @@\n w that goes.\n+ For a link to my current blog if you're interested, here it is:%0A%0Ahttps://afterthoughtreviews.blogspot.com/\n",
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      "body": "Hello, I'm a brand new user and this is my introduction. So, I don't really do online introductions all that often, not even on my main blog which I'll get to in a bit so I'm not entirely certain how to introduce myself, especially since I want to maintain some level of privacy.\n\nCurrently, I'm a young college student who's working on becoming a video game designer. I actually have a game in the works that I'm working on right now but I want to keep that a bit of a secret until I'm ready for the project to be revealed but, just for some clarifications, it's going to be an indie game, a character action game, and one that I'm expecting to fund on Kickstarter.\n\nI'm pretty young at just under 23 years old but I'm intent on growing fast, at least on a personal level. Currently, I have a blog called After-Thought Reviews, which I initially created as a sort of blog for reviewing video games and anime but, over time, it became just a blog where I post my opinions on subjects related to video games and anime.\n\nSo, let's take a look at it.\n\n![Verification.PNG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQpBAr2GZwynhNQzpJVW6UhKPKD5xmwBasQH6hBMeRKyy/Verification.PNG)\n\nSo there are a few different post series in here, I'll just list them briefly and talk about what they are and why they exist. These individual series are Best Fighter, Which Hatsu Type, After-Thoughts Rant, After-Thoughts Short, and at the very bottom After-Thoughts Impression. These are in order of how recently they were posted and I went pretty far back to show these in particular so I'm going to start from the bottom since those came first technically.\n\nAfter-Thoughts Impression is a series where I give my thoughts on a game after playing it for around 1-3 hours. This seems like a reasonable time span for a first impression and the reason I do that is because playing a game 1-3 hours for a first impression is a lot less taxing than playing a game to completion in order to do a full blown review. To this day, the only game review I've ever done was my first blog post and was on the PS2 video game Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3. This particular impression on I-Ninja was prompted when my currently ex-girlfriend recommended this game for me when I told her I wanted to go back and play some PS2 games, since modern day console and PC games just aren't interesting for me anymore.\n\nAfter-Thoughts Short isn't as much a series as it is just a title for an After-Thoughts post where I want to talk about something but don't have a lot to say on the matter. Pretty self-explanatory. After-Thoughts Rant was my most common post type for a while, as it's generally easier for me to be passionate about a topic rather than try to be dignified. That said, I've since switched over to a series called After-Thoughts where I talk about a topic after everyone is finished talking about it to give my thoughts on the matter in a retrospective and more professional way.\n\nThe remaining two are the most recent series and also my two smallest series. Best Fighter is a hypothetical series where I compare two fictional characters in terms of battle capacity, inspired somewhat by Screw Attack's Death Battle but the structure is much more similar to the Versus Series by Antoine Bandelle on Youtube, which is where I got the most inspiration. Currently, I only have three best fighter posts, Cloud vs. Ryu from Final Fantasy VII and Ninja Gaiden respectively, Tifa vs. Ayane from Final Fantasy VII again and Dead or Alive respectively, and Gon Freecss vs. Izuku Midoriya from Hunter X Hunter and My Hero Academia respectively.\n\nAnd lastly is Which Hatsu Type, which is a series where I try to determine how any given fictional character's abilities would fit within the confines of Hunter X Hunter's power system known as Nen. The one currently on display is for Team RWBY, which is the entire team within the RWBY series by Rooster Teeth but I also have some on Hiei from YuYu Hakusho, Rob Lucci from One Piece, Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto, and Shoto Todoroki from My Hero Academia. The one on Hiei was the first one because, YuYu Hakusho and Hunter X Hunter were both created by Yoshihiro Togashi so I thought it would make sense to make the first one from one of his series.\n\nI'm sure many of you can guess what kind of stuff I like based on this blog and based on the series listed here so far.\n\nSo I guess one of the questions I have to answer is, why am I here? Well, to be honest, this is just an experiment to try some things. First, I want to start moving some of my blog posts from the one on Blogger and Blogspot.com over to here to see if I can get some more viewers and more comments to see where it goes. As you can tell by the screenshot I've gotten no comments so far and my average viewership per post is usually within the single digits to low double digits. The only exception is my post on NieR: Automata, which currently has 43 views.\n\nI also want to see where the cryptocurrency thing goes and see if I have any potential to earn anything with my current setup. I tried getting my blog monetized through google's adsense but it never got approved. If there isn't any revenue in it here, that's fine, but increased viewership and revenue are a pretty nice reason to move over here from blogger completely.\n\nThe next question is, what do I plan on posting here? Well, firstly, I want to repost some of my old blog posts here so that some of my older but still currently held thoughts can have proper discussions and be subject to critique but I also plan on posting new stuff as it's written. Currently, I'm averaging about 1 post per week but that's not intentional, I really only ever post when I have something I want to talk about and it just so happens that I average about 4-5 days apart for each one.\n\nAnd finally, I want to see if I can build an audience that's interested in video games that might be willing to play any game I eventually make and release.\n\nOne more question to answer is, how long will I be sticking around? Well, that depends on the next month or so. I don't think I'll ever delete the account but, if things go well in terms of viewership and earnings, I'll probably be fairly active for a while. If things don't change much or I have a high negative backlash, I may not see much of a reason to stick around.\n\nSo I think I'll start tomorrow. I'll start writing a post that's brand new and that's not even on the blogger post yet and see how that goes.",
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