Tetris:

I got a free subscription to Amazon Prime when I bought the new Xenoblade X game, so I went ahead and tried out a lot of movies and tv shows.  There were many decent movies -- Shadow, Gladiator II, My Way, The Battle at Lake Chanjian, (Napoleon was positively bad).  Masters of the Air was a decent tv series.  I'm glad to hear Americans were trying to hit military targets with their bomber raids, unlike the Brits.  But only one work of art was a masterpiece -- Tetris.

Tetris is the true story of how various companies vied for the licensing rights of a crazily addictive and simple game a programmer came up with in his spare time in the Soviet Union.  The underdog company, Bulletproof Software, is the only honest person in the bunch, which makes for a very relatable hero.  This random fellow goes to the USSR to conduct business and ends up in a somewhat James Bond like scenario of action and intrigue, all the while living in Japan and married to a Japanese wife with Japanese kids who speak Japanese and wear kimonos during the movie.  I can't imagine a movie more made for me -- Pro-Russian, Pro-Japanese, Pro-Gaming, Pro-Honesty.  It has it all.  It's one of the funniest movies I've seen, and it's all the more humorous because it's a true story.  This all really happened, or close enough.  To think such insane things were happening over a game about falling blocks, it boggles the mind.

At this point I feel like this Tetris movie is going to end up being the better part of the purchase and Xenoblade X is going to be the bonus material.  Tetris enters my movie hall of fame, unlike all the other, much higher budget films.

I have so many games to play they're falling out of my ears, but I also still have a long life ahead so I'll get to them all eventually.  Someday Xenoblade X will come in handy.

The wonders never cease:

I had forgotten to give Coco and Nuts a song despite already being in my wonderful characters hall of fame.  That was corrected by giving Coco Theme 10 and Nuts Title Theme from Warlords 3, both suitably regal songs.

While I was at it I added three more Octopath characters:  the two merchants, Tressa and Partitio, as well as the priest Ophilia.  Tressa and Partitio are both lively and good-hearted folks who understand honor and business go hand in hand.  Ophilia is a beautiful girl who takes her faith seriously and is constantly inspired by it to help others.  Usually she not only solves the matter at hand, but also teaches people how to solve future similar issues themselves.  She's a true priest who even sermonizes well.

Tressa got Grandport, City of Commerce (obviously.)  And Partitio got home of business (for obvious reasons.)  Since these songs were previously owned by Matrim and Siegfried, I gave Matrim 'Wanderer's Path' because he's quite the wanderer, and Siegfried 'Hometown Domina' because Siegfried conversely is very fixated on the welfare of his home town, the lowest level district in Aiyoku no Eustia.

Ophilia got her home town's theme, 'Town Veiled in White.'

This gets me down to 111 unused songs.  There aren't 111 great characters conveniently still laying about though, so I'll have to consume new great art to make any more progress.

I finished Kurumi's route and am completely satisfied with it.  She comes across as a great girl who lives to have fun, but not at the expense of others.  She actually enriches the people around her by making their lives fun too.  Out of a sense of duty I'll play the rest of Tenshi Souzou Reboot, but sadly I do think all the worthwhile content is already behind me.  It's already a great visual novel with the stuff I've read, so no mistakes there.

I added two songs to my music hall of fame, kicking out Valkyrie Profile songs to make room -- the opening and ending theme to Kimi to Idol Precure.  They can sit at 1-star for now, so that I can preserve symmetry in the tiers.

I also finished reading Index GT volume 12.  It was a fun book, especially the first half, but I do feel like there are too many fights in this series and they occur way too randomly.  Basically the book was better when it was focusing on Mikoto and Misaki, like always.

Fate and Gloria:

Fate is a rather badass villain, Negi's rival from the beginning of the series, and the only powerful Earth elementalist in fiction.  He also goes by Tertium, but it seems like Fate is what he self-identifies as.  Fate receives Sentou Scene 1 from FF1 as his song, because he's certainly involved in many fights.

Gloria is a princess who's willing to sacrifice her life in a ritual to save the world, but luckily doesn't have to as we end up being such a strong fighting force we just handle all problems with our fists.  She's very much a second Yuna.  The only problem is she's featured in Bravely Default II, which has awful graphics, but her actual personality is top class.  Gloria receives Silence of the Forest because that's the best song from Bravely Default.

While we're on the topic of unclear genders and Earth elementalists, I may as well add Crocodile to the wonderful fictional characters list.  And if I'm willing to add an ugly mean-spirited villain from One Piece, a cute and high-spirited villain like Ulti also deserves mention.  Crocodile gets Adel Desert for obvious reasons.  Ulti can have Plosive Attack because she's scary when angered.

Now that I've finished Amane's route and gotten to know Kurumi better, I think it's safe to add her to the wonderful list too.  Kurumi is very pretty with her highlighted hair, and the smartest girl in Japan, or close enough.  She's also extremely kind and affectionate to everyone around her.  I don't mind that she's got a gutter-mind, for a boy that's a bonus, and she's remained chaste until meeting Riku anyway.  She's adventurous and likes to try new things, whether social/outdoor activities or indoor games.  That fun-loving spirit is infectious to all around her, getting them to have a good time too.  Honestly the only fault I can find with her is how tall and buxom she is, the opposite of Noa's loli beauty.  Kurumi can have main theme (FF tactics advanced).  The song is made for her, cheerful, bright, but determined.

Popcorn N' Roses:

The newest event in Heaven Burns Red featured a new Jun Maeda composition, 'Popcorn N' Roses.'  I wasn't sure what to do with it, but it's slowly won me over.  More importantly, I discovered 'Troops March On' from FF6 was a remix of 'The Empire Gestahl', so I suddenly had an opening in my music hall of fame (which doesn't allow any remixes).

To stay at 5,500 I needed Popcorn.  And to keep my tiers symmetrical I needed to fill the sudden gap in my 5-star tier.  So I promoted Popcorn to 3-star and took the recently demoted from 5-star to 3-star song Unused Shop (from FF Tactics) and promoted it back to 5-star.  Then I gave Benno back Unused Shop as his personal theme song (now that it was 5-star again).  I moved The Trial over to Revya, who is a being balanced between light and dark, in Soul Nomad, so Chrono Trigger is still fully covered.

Revya has been in my fictional character hall of fame before, but was removed due to his/her uncertain gender.  But that same issue exists for many great characters, like Byleth from Fire Emblem, so it shouldn't disqualify Revya either.

While I was at it I added three more Piers Anthony characters to my hall of fame -- Nada Naga from Xanth, Stile from Apprentice Adept, and Hope from Bio of a Space Tyrant.  Nada is one of the most attractive and longest-featured heroines in the long-running Xanth series.  When a series has so many heroines, it's hard for any of them to be memorable, but Nada Naga is unforgettable.

Stile and Hope are cool men who start as nobodies and move up to kings through their own merit and grit, and have fun with girls as a result.  I like carnivore men like that.

Nada got Ami from FF8, because she was always a good friend.  Hope got Battle 2 from FF9, because his life was certainly a boss battle just to survive.  Stile got The Fierce Battle from FF6, because likewise.  This gets my unused song count down to 120.  Still a long ways to go, but a lot better than when I started.

I'm most of the way through the Amane route in Tenshi Souzou Reboot, and my initial intuition of her as a 'wonderful' character was dead-on.  She's been wonderful this entire route.  The more I know her the more I like her.  It'll be sad when I'm done, because nobody else in the cast compares to Noa and Amane.  Well, maybe I'll end up liking Kurumi too, but the others are hopeless. . .

The fake Pope of the fake religion dies:

The Bible clearly states that sodomy is a sin, and it's been Catholic doctrine since forever that abortion is a sin.  The Pope claimed he was Catholic, but encouraged people to be LGBTQ+ and didn't punish pro-abortion Catholics with excommunication.  Meanwhile, most Catholic practitioners are also pro-gay and pro-abortion.  The whole religion is fake.  No Catholic actually follows the teachings of the Bible.  They follow the teachings of liberalism.

The Pope was more concerned with global warming and open borders migration than anything taught in the Bible.  Christianity has nothing to say on those two topics, but plenty to say about women obeying their men and staying silent.  So why wasn't the Pope telling women to shut up and sit down, as opposed to petitioning governments to fight global warming?

Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi prance around as Catholics while voting to make abortion more available to all and give gays and trans everything they ask for.  It's so pathetic.  If this is Catholicism then Catholicism is nothing but liberalism.  If you believe in a religion, but it doesn't change a single other belief or behavior in your life, is your belief authentic?  Or is it a complete facade?  Is it really the religion you believe in, or is it like a pin the tail on the donkey game, where your religion is just pinned to your actual beliefs, which are your politics, after the fact?

One way of stating this is 99% of Catholics and the Pope aren't Catholic.  But another way of saying it is Catholicism ceased to exist long ago and there's no such thing as Catholics.  Just liberals everywhere you look.  I'd say the same of other Christian denominations.  Most Protestants don't believe or follow the Bible either.  Maybe some Orthodox believers actually believe in Christianity, but that's it.  The rest have abandoned their faith long ago and just play-act as being religious for God knows what reason.

Is there really a point to appointing a head of the Catholic Church, when there are no Catholics to begin with?  No one is going to change their beliefs or behavior no matter what the Pope says.  The Pope has no moral authority and no physical authority.  He just sucks up donation dollars pointlessly and wears a big white hat.  He's like another fake institution, the British monarchy.  No one can explain why the monarchy exists anymore or why they bothered to elevate Charles to Kingship.  It just keeps rattling on like a zombie.

I wish everything weren't so fake and gay.  I would celebrate the death of this anti-pope who is so violently at cross purposes with everything Christianity stands for, but we all know the next pope will be just as bad.  The real problem wasn't this particular pope, it's that there's a pope at all.

Meanwhile, I purchased the Lunar Remastered collection.  The gameplay is okay, the characters are lovable, and the animated cut scenes are great -- but what I remember and love most about Lunar is the music, and most of that music is missing from the actual game.  I do recall this being talked about in the past, that the two soundtrack cd's that came with the Silver Stary Story and Eternal Blue games didn't actually have the same music as the original soundtrack of the game.  I honestly have no idea where these bonus cd gifts came from that were included with the game, because those two cd's have some of the best music ever made by mankind.  But the game's music is awful.  Totally blah.  When I think of Lunar I think of my beloved music, that I've listened to nonstop for decades.  I just can't accept the awful music I'm listening to while playing the actual game.

If they were going to remaster the game, why not give an option where the game's music comes from those bonus purchase cd's, instead of the original game's music?  The game would be infinitely better, and the music has already been made.  It wouldn't take any extra effort to include them.

Maebashi Witches Dropped:

Maebashi Witches turned to the dark side with an episode about fat positivity and how awful people are for not complimenting fat people and letting fat people be happy with their bodies.

Fat people are disgusting monsters that should be shot on sight.  They shouldn't be tolerated and they shouldn't be praised.  So Maebashi Witches is dropped.  It may as well have been an episode about rape positivity, that's the level of evil being propagandized here.

And to make it all the more offensive, the series knows full well that thin girls are better looking, which is why all its protagonists are beautiful thin girls.  So it's hypocritical to boot.  Pretending to be fat positive while actually avoiding it for themselves.

Meanwhile I added a new girl to my wonderful fictional characters, Ayame from Power Stone 2.  She's the main I played with for many an hour, so she deserves at least as much recognition as Seung Mina.  I gave her a suitably Japanese ninja tune of Forge Your Way! (Amatsu Maps Battle).

Power Stone 2 is the best fighter ever made.  With four playable characters on the battlefield at once, a dynamic environment full of weapons and items and powerup gems that's constantly changing as the battle goes on, and a suite of hard-to-learn skills like box throwing and catching and wall slides, nothing provides as much satisfaction as doing well in Power Stone 2 and no other competitive game gives so many people a chance to win.  It isn't like Street Fighter where the more skilled player can just curb stomp their opponent, in Power Stone 2 there's so much going on that anything could happen at any time.  Ayame is the poster girl for this game, the only character capable of double-jumping, and thus flies around the battlefield avoiding enemies and collecting gems (Power Stones) like crazy.  She embodies the core of the game so perfectly and so cutely.

Noa route cleared:

I almost feel like there's no point doing any of the other routes, Noa was so central to the story.  The game is titled 'Angelic Chaos Reboot,' after all.  It centers completely on Noa.  Yuzusoft basically told us to buy this game so that you can romance an angel, and they delivered on that promise in spades.  They even gave Noa a dark angel makeover just so we could experience every possible joy that was angel-related.  Datenshi Noa is beautiful, but I prefer her pure white winged angelic aura.  It was great of them to give me both sights, though.

I come away from the game completely convinced I was right to edit '100 Waifus' to include Noa.  When a work of fiction provides a bona fide angel and draws her that well and characterizes her that much, it would be a sin not to include her as a proper fit for Cute's daughter.  Cute herself insisted she was the image of God and would only have children in her likeness, so Noa was basically a required include.

Angelic Chaos Reboot isn't that complicated or sophisticated a story.  It relies mainly on jokes and beautiful visuals.  The romance is sappy and straightforward.  I don't remember how many times the dialogue was just "I love you.  I love you too."  Over and over and over.  But Noa did show some strength of character in her willingness to fight against an enemy more powerful than her, in her willingness to spare those weaker than her, and in her willingness to abandon her duty and status quo for a new life dedicated to love, even though she didn't know what the consequences of that decision would be.  For a while she thought the price of her decision was death, but she still never thought about going back on it.

Noa was also kind enough to not complain when the girls dragged her around to too many clothes shops or fed her too many sweets.  She understood they meant well and so responded charitably in kind.  So she has two traits I very much esteem -- considerate and discerning.  Basically, I don't think Christopher and Cute would be disappointed in a demigod named after Noa.

Speaking of names, I added Billy and Butz to my wonderful list.  They were in '100 Waifus' originally, but were kicked out due to their unfortunate names.  Still, in terms of 'moving and memorable,' nothing can beat Renmazio emerging out of a transforming children's playground to save the day.  Or El-Renmazio's fighting power in the fighting minigame.  I have so many fond memories of Billy.  (And yes, I count Billy's omnigear as part of Billy.)  And Butz is the protagonist of FF5, one of the best Final Fantasy games.  It doesn't get much more memorable than that.  A ninja who left his village, traveling with his trusty steed and friend Boco the Chocobo, he wanders the world helping those in need.  Eventually rescuing not one, but two princesses.  How cool is that?

Billy received Stage of Death, a natural fit for him as it's from Xenogears.  So Aoi, who previously had Stage of Death, was given Devil's Lab instead.  Since she has a techno transformation battle suit, the techno vibe fits her.  Butz received The Fierce Battle from FF5, since he's at the heart of every battle in FF5.