Tuxedo Tama:

Heaven Burns Red released another tearjerking short story, Main Interlude II, which focuses on the most lovable girl in the game, and perhaps in all fiction -- Tama Kunimi.  I own all of Tama's Memorias and they released a new one, so I wasn't about to stop here -- I paid the $70 necessary to get 'tuxedo Tama' and four other SS Memoria/limit breaks, and consider it a fair deal.

Tama has the most Memorias in the game, 8, and is the strongest character in the game, with all the best heals.  She's one of the only characters I've gotten to level 4 limit break, max level.  She's essential to virtually every squad I build, whether it's fire, light, or thunder Tama is at the forefront.  The latest score challenge boss had a thunder vulnerability so my thunder squad, featuring Tama, Sumomo and Hisame admirably put it down with an over 400k high score.  400k isn't the maximum high score you can get, but it's enough to get all the valuable rewards from the score challenge, so mission accomplished.  The best reward from the score challenge was the nordstrom crystal that let me introject Erika's angelic wings from her base form to her waitress form, thus giving Erika the ability to defend and attack with exclusive abilities from here on.  Now if I just give waitress Erika some limit breaks I can drop base Erika entirely. . .

In Main Interlude II, Tama gets to meet the Main Computer of Kotetsu Maru one more time before it dies, thank it for all it taught her, and reassure it that she's going to live strong from here on.  It was a beautiful moment, yet again strengthened by Tama's incredible voice actor, Aoi Koga.  Tama has all the best lines in the game and the best delivery in the game.

As for the other SS Memorias I got/strengthened, they were also pretty nice.  I got Mion to limit break level 1 (a healer so genuinely might be useful in a real fight), Chie to limit break level 3 (also a healer so definitely useful), Yotsuha to limit break level 1 (the game community says she's really strong so in the long term this will also pay off), and samurai Inori, the SS Memoria I most regretted not having until now, due to her critical pierce exclusive skill.  If I gave samurai Inori some limit breaks, she could be as useful as Hisame, which would be crazy strong.  Imagine if I could use both of them together. . .  However, Inori isn't really a priority for my limit breaks so it's a dream of the far future.  But at least it's now a possibility.

It also helps that samurai Inori is beautiful.  I'd like to play her just so I can look at her.  In addition, I received ninja Mari's level 2 limit break via rolling with the free quartz I got from defeating the Astrarium event at max difficulty.  I was trying to get tuxedo Megumi but actually ninja Mari is awesome so this works too.

The interlude also came with a new song, shiniyuku kisetsu de boku wa, which I instantly added to my hall of fame, kicking out a valkyrie profile song to make room, then promoted to 4-star, demoting 'dreadnaught leviathan bridge' to 1-star to keep the tiers level.  I also made it Megumi's theme song, replacing Zetaku na Kanjou.  Jun Maeda as a writer and a composer isn't slowing down.

So long as Heaven remains this good a game, I'm happy to keep shoveling cash into its open maw.  No other game remotely approaches the quality of Heaven.

Meanwhile, Major seasons 1-6 came out in bluray, which is a nice upgrade from the previous dvd versions I had in my archive.

Magneto, Zack and Kelly:

I decided a little more western influence was laudable for my wonderful characters list, so I took out Marcellus from Illyria (my own work and thus first on the cutting block), Celia from Rave Master (a minor side character mermaid from a weak work overall), and Mizuki from Guyver (a heroine who never really had a natural role in the events of the story).

To stay at 60 honored 'silver' franchises I introduced a new franchise to replace Illyria, Saved by the Bell.  I actually had Zack from Saved by the Bell in '100 Waifus,' during one draft, but his name overlapped with Zack from FF7 so he was axed through no fault of his own.  The wonderful list doesn't have to worry about name overlaps so now is Zack's chance to get back in.  There can't be Zack without Kelly so I added in Kelly as well.  I think we can all agree that Zack and Kelly are the two best looking school kids in America.  They also have a sweet story of overall nice, fun-loving, good kids falling in love and eventually marrying, which I can support from beginning to end.

As for Magneto I think he's right that mutants are too oppressed and they should fight back against the world, plus I admire his fashion sense and awesome powers.  As we can see, Xavier is a pussy and stands for losers like Putin and Iran who don't fight back with all their strength, while real men are like Magneto.  They do whatever it takes for a righteous cause and don't care how many people die as a result, because all those deaths are the fault of the aggressors.  Magneto has an actual moral compass and isn't a coward so follows where it points.  I would call Magneto Erik but apparently his real name is Max, but nobody on Earth has heard of "Max" so Magneto it is.  Sometimes comics can become too convoluted for their own good.

With this I think I finally have a durable, tested list of wonderful characters.  Zack, Kelly and Magneto are world famous popular figures from extremely renowned, enduring works.  I don't have to worry about quality control with them.

Overall my fictional character hall of fame features 1400 entrants, and now I can make a strong case for all of them being there.  Until some new work of art blows me off my feet, I'm fine with all 1400 staying there for as long as they want.

Trump's 5d Chess:

Well that threw me for a loop.  Trump was actually Iran's ally all along.  After an ineffectual bombing that destroyed nothing and killed no one, Trump unilaterally declared that now Iran was no longer a nuclear threat, which removed Israel's justification for war.  Then he demanded Israel go along with a ceasefire, shutting the war down, preserving Iran's leadership, its nuclear enrichment program, everything.

Meanwhile Iran did a fake, ineffectual attack on America's air bases which also killed nobody, technically fulfilling their promise while not actually fulfilling it, then accepted the ceasefire.  So in the end Trump's intervention was solely to bring peace to a spiraling conflict that neither Israel nor Iran wanted anymore.

It was all theater.  I certainly didn't predict that all three countries were lying about their wish to kill each other, and all three were looking for an exit ramp while preserving 'face.'  That's a new one.

I would say this was a master class in Trump diplomacy, ending what could have been a terribly destructive war to the whole world, or the first nuclear war since WWII.  My only fear is that eventually people will wake up and realize Iran is still enriching uranium, just in a different bunker than before, and the Israelis will use that as an excuse to resume bombing Iran again.  But perhaps behind closed doors Trump has made it clear to Israel that this is not acceptable and that henceforth Israel will leave Iran alone, or else.  If so Trump is one of the greatest presidents to ever live.  In the space of a month he prevented two nuclear wars -- Israel-Iran and India-Pakistan.  Wow.

Now all he has to do is stop supporting Ukraine and he could be the first president to end more wars than he started.  Blessed are the peacemakers.

Meanwhile, I promoted Pudding from One Piece to my wonderful characters list, kicking out Himari to make room.  Himari was only there for her looks, but when it comes to looks Pudding is just as qualified.  Meanwhile Pudding is also loving, self-sacrificing and intrepid -- willing to take on bold risky plans and execute them flawlessly.  It's true that she had a horrible attitude to begin with, but that's understandable since she'd been bullied all her life, it was an emotional self-defense mechanism to 'get them before they get you.'  The moment someone was nice to her her true personality revealed itself, which was pure gold.

My predictions came true:

When I declared Iran a pussy, I predicted that America would soon be bombing Iran without any reprisal, because Iran had shown itself to be toothless and all its threats were bluffs.  So here we are today, America has bombed Iran, and Iran hasn't done any reprisal at all.  Pussy, pussy, pussy.

It's impossible to cheer for Iran when they're such cowardly liars.  They said they would attack the US military bases ringing Iran if America attacked Iran, and instead they've done nothing.  So it's now officially okay for anyone on Earth to come bomb Iran like they're on a safari or hunting lions from helicopters.  Iran is as helpless and weak as large game animals in Africa.

Iran's military isn't weak.  They have the means to fight back.  But their will is weak.  They refuse to do what it takes to fight back.  It's their weak souls that aggravate me most.  Iran could have stood up for the 3rd world and made it clear that there are consequences to aggression, but instead it folded like a pussy and taught the exact wrong lesson to America and their ilk -- that aggression works and comes with great rewards and no drawbacks.  This lesson will bedevil the world for the next 100 years.

Whenever a voice of caution in the future counsels against war, the example of Iran will be thrown in their faces -- "You said attacking Iran would be dangerous too, and look what happened there."  Due to Iran all voices for peace will be silenced for the next century.  Iran has let down the entire world and the entire future of humanity.  Now there will be ten times as many wars than there needed to be, because history will teach the West all their enemies are paper tigers just trying to bluff their way through, so you may as well bomb whoever, whenever, wherever for whatever benefit imaginable.

Meanwhile, I elevated Miya from Heaven Burns Red to my wonderful fictional characters list, taking out Vistan to make room.  I did this for multiple reasons -- Miya from Heaven Burns Red can inherit the suitable Long Long Spell song from Heaven Burns Red, which means all my Heaven songs are attached to Heaven characters again, where Heaven songs belong.  Vistan is from Wind, my own work, and self-promotion is somewhat self-defeating if I want people to take my list seriously.  So whenever possible I should eliminate characters from my own works and put other franchises in the limelight.  By eliminating the Wind franchise wholesale, I reduced the number of franchises represented in the 'wonderful' list but not '100 Waifus' back down to 60, which is a nice round number.  The 'silver 60' has a nice ring to it, unlike the 'silver 61.'

Also, Miya is one of the most popular girls in Heaven Burns Red according to Japanese popularity polls, so I'm sure there's some reason for that.  She hasn't gotten much characterization yet but I bet in Japan her short story has already been released and it clearly impressed them.  From what I know of Miya she's pretty, fashionable and strong.  She also has a crush on Yuina, which shows she has good taste.  I suppose that's already sufficient.

Speaking of Heaven Burns Red, I received my promised free SS Memoria today.  It was Carole, which is nice, because it was a new character getting an SS for the first time.  She's a thunder attacker, which is pretty much useless gameplay wise, because I already have bathing-suit Sumomo fulfilling that role, and if I wanted I could also use tuxedo Ruka for the exact same purpose.  But plot-wise I like Carole so it's fun to add her to my collection.  Not exactly what I was aiming for, but it will do.

I finished my rewatch of Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest, which means I've rewatched all great anime that isn't currently airing.  I even rewatched the first two eps of Fate/Strange Fake, which are all that are currently out, and all of Cinderella Gray that's available.  My great anime rewatch project is as close to done as humanly possible.  Unlike Iran, when I say I'll do something, I actually do it.

Since its founding, America has attacked around 2/3 of the entire world's nations:

There has rarely, if ever, been a single year America was not officially at war with someone.  Whenever we stop fighting in one place, we just start fighting somewhere else -- Biden pulls out of Afghanistan and immediately attacks Russia -- Trump pulls out of Yemen and goes after Iran instead.  There's no love of peace in America, only a cynical desire to sequence wars so we're always at the advantage against our lonely and isolated opponents.

The history of other nations proves this is not a necessity.  Most of the world has a war once a century or so.  Some countries around the world have proven their ability to avoid wars for five hundred years running.  It's amazing how those who have a peaceful foreign policy and a benevolent domestic policy that doesn't try to oppress or murder its own people can be left alone entirely.  Self-defense is always invoked to justify all these wars, but all these other countries haven't been attacked and they aren't at war, so clearly self-defense is not the actual reason.

The actual reason is America has never faced the consequences of losing a war.  Like entitled, spoiled brats, they keep acting out because they can get away with it.  Who doesn't like to mercilessly slaughter their enemies or make illogical demands that everything go their way?  If one could get away with it, of course they'd do it.  It's the same way female virtue has plummeted to zero in modern history.  Now that they can get away with infidelity, serial monogamy, illegitimate children, abortion, divorce, a child-free life, etc., it turns out they're more than happy to do so.  They never had any innate desire to be virtuous, just as no nation has an innate impulse to be peaceful.  The only reason anyone ever behaves is the negative consequences that others impose on them when they misbehave.

America is too big and powerful for its own good.  By becoming this massive economic force with this giant population and one of the two largest nuclear arsenals on Earth, we feel entitled to wander the Earth and kill and destroy and pillage whatever we please, whenever we please, for any reason we please.  The only way this stops is if the whole world, every little country, becomes a nuclear power which can deter America, or the other nuclear powers agree to use their nuclear weapons to defend small countries from American aggression.  One or the other must occur for the world to know peace.  Without this America will keep attacking random people forever.  It's all game theory.

It was extremely stupid of Iran to antagonize America by enriching uranium while simultaneously not building a nuclear bomb with said uranium.  That's the worst of all worlds.  They could have not enriched uranium and thus not provided a justification for being attacked, or they could have made bombs and deterred attack, but instead they chose to be buffoons.  It's hard to feel any pity for such stupid people.  Moving forward, using Iran as an example, I hope every little country on Earth realizes it's time to race for actual nuclear weapons, not piddle around with 'civilian nuclear power.'  Once the whole world has nukes then, and only then, the mad dog will be put back on its leash.

I would go so far as to say that every nation on Earth that doesn't have a defense pact with a nuclear nation, or have nukes of its own, should simply be erased from the world map and annexed by someone who does have one of these two things.  There should be nobody left on Earth vulnerable to aggression again.  That is the recipe for world peace.  Until this new policy is enacted there will never be peace.  And I'm thoroughly sick of America's warmongering, so I encourage people to enact this plan forthwith.

Meanwhile, I finished Shizuru's route in Noble Works and moved on to Sena's, the cute live-in maid.  Sena is nice and pretty, but she doesn't have the strength of character I want in a person.  Whether male or female, a dithering, weak heart that doesn't show fortitude is a massive turn-off.  As a result my progress in the game has been rather slow.  Sadly I doubt the two girls after Sena will be any better, so Noble Works is bordering on the category of 'chore' these days.

As for my music hall of fame, I've promoted 'flowers' from Fate/Grand Order and 'Clear Weather After the Rain' from Little Busters! to 5-star, demoting 'buried in the snow' from FF7 and 'singing mountain' from Chrono Trigger to make room.  As usual it's vocals replacing instrumentals.  Despite all my efforts instrumentals are still the slight majority of songs in my 5-star list, just showing I still have a ways to go.  Ami's personal song was redistributed to 'Vanilla Salt,' a Toradora theme for a Toradora character, which makes a lot more sense.  Io's personal theme (the girl from Dal Segno) was redistributed to 'Long Long Spell,' an amazing song by Jun Maeda and Heaven Burns Red if you ignore its weak spots.

I plopped down $400+ on the new Final Fantasy magic the gathering cards:

There could be no better match in heaven than Final Fantasy and Magic the Gathering, two hobbies I've zealously pursued for my entire life.  Seriously, I played Magic when all that was out was Alpha, and I played the first Final Fantasy on the NES, as well as every single FF after that, beating all of them, 1-16.

Getting to play Final Fantasy and Magic simultaneously is a dream come true.  But to make the experience especially dreamy, I felt obligated to at least buy the anime-style-portrait cards of my Final Fantasy waifus -- Rosa, Rydia, Tifa, Aerith, Rinoa and Yuna.  Some of these cards don't have anime-style and are much cheaper, which is nice in its own way, but I wanted to show my love for these six was unbounded, which is why all six appear as waifus in '100 Waifus.'  Cost was no object, and boy did I prove that.

To make matters worse I also bought Terra's anime-style card, even though she isn't a waifu, because she was too beautiful to ignore.

I've already played the new Final Fantasy magic set with 7 new decks created from a pile of new cards for days on end.  I expect to get months of entertainment out of these cards in the long run.  Magic never really gets old because each time you shuffle the game plays out in a novel manner.  One thing I've noticed is virtually every card in the FF set is well above average strength compared to older Magic sets.  Not just the mythic rares, the commons and uncommons are really strong.  The new town type special lands are extremely effective compared to their rarity.  Magic really pulled out all the stops to make playing Final Fantasy fun.

Don't believe Israeli propaganda -- Iran targeted a military base that was using a hospital as a human shield, not the hospital itself.  It's Israel's fault if there's civilian collateral damage as a result, and in the end all civilian Israeli casualties are Israel's fault because they started the war.  Israel explained for the last two years that it's okay that they bombed every single hospital in Gaza to oblivion because they were all 'Hamas bases,' so what's good for the goose is good for the gander.  They can't go whining to the press now that the shoe is on the other foot.

80% of Israelis are firmly in support of the genocide in Gaza and the completely unjustified war of aggression against Iran.  There are no innocent civilians in Israel, in their hearts, in their souls, they are just as complicit and guilty as the snipers headshotting Gazan toddlers for fun.  They approve of it, they vote for it, they vocally support it, they fund it, they cheer it on.  They're all demons, the whole damn country.  I wouldn't mind if every last Israeli were bombed to smithereens in this war.  When you violate the human rights of others, you forfeit your own.  That's just karma.  That's justice.

Zooming out, America is responsible for over 12 million deaths in its wars of choice since World War II.  (Actually we started World War II as well by needlessly provoking Japan with sanctions and material support to China, and pushing for maximum aggressive diplomatic pressure against Nazi Germany which led to Poland foolishly and intransigently not ceding the town of Danzig to Germany, a city that 99% was German and wished to be part of Germany.  But let's just pretend we aren't responsible for WWII and look at the wars after WWII.)

The first war was the Korean war.  There never was, historically, a divide between 'North' Korea and 'South' Korea.  It had always just been 'Korea.'  Artificially dividing Korea into two parts, one belonging to the Communist sphere and the other the Capitalist sphere, was a recipe for war that would inevitably follow.  We basically started the war the moment we took Korea from Japan and cut it in two for completely artificial reasons.  Honestly, we should have left Korea under Japanese control, and going further back, we should have never went to war with Japan in World War II at all, and left China in Japanese control as well.  But our intervention created the cascade of events that eventually led to the Korean war.  Then we cruelly carpet bombed North Korea during the war, destroying every last city and leaving no building standing, as well as taking out their dams that led to millions of civilian deaths from flooding/starvation/disease.  It was dubious that we came to the aid of the artificial South Korean dictatorship to begin with, but the way we waged the war was far more horrendous.  It was the same 'kill everything that moves' plan that firebombed Dresden and nuked Hiroshima.  It was completely over the top.

Next came the Vietnam war -- again a country that historically had never been divided, randomly divided in two into 'North' Vietnam and 'South' Vietnam.  Again a corrupt puppet dictator was installed into the fake nation of 'South' Vietnam.  And again, when the inevitable war broke out to try to reunite the country into its natural form, we intervened by carpet bombing 'North' Vietnam, killing, again, millions of civilians.  The only difference is in the Vietnam war we managed to also lose, so all those deaths were for nothing.

Next came the Iraq-Iran war.  We encouraged Saddam to invade Iran and provided them with the chemical weapons they used against Iranian civilians in that war, we also gave them intelligence support so that they could more effectively kill Iranians.  Around 500,000 died in that war.

After that we randomly switched sides and invaded Iraq.  Iraq's re-annexation of Kuwait (which had previously been part of Iraq before the British Empire randomly separated it) makes as much sense as their invasion of Iran, which we supported, but this time we decided he was an evil Hitler clone and intervened.  Following the Gulf War we put in incomprehensibly crippling sanctions which led to the deaths of millions of innocent civilians, and then we invaded Iraq again in 2003 based on lies about WMD (sound familiar?).  The resulting chaos led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more Iraqis.

We armed and funded the radical Islamic terrorists that caused the Syrian Civil War.  Ever since 2011, the instability we instigated has resulted in over 500,000 deaths, and of course still climbing.

We have been directly bombing Yemen for years, or helping Saudi Arabia bomb them, or helping insurgents fight a civil war in Yemen, etc., for decades.  The result is at least 400,000 dead and still climbing.

We armed and funded the Neo-Nazi takeover of Ukraine, which then decided to genocide its own pro-Russian population (which had been the majority in 2010 when it won a free and fair election), and then decided to defeat Russia too when Russia obviously intervened to save its kinfolk.  At least a million people have died from this completely unnecessary war, all started by murky US intelligence agencies.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip, using bombs we generously gave Israel for free, is at least 60,000.

We randomly decided to decapitate the government of Libya, leading to unending chaos from then on, and the deaths of 30,000 more people.

Around 2 million Afghans have died since we intentionally provoked the Soviet Union into going to war with it, and then armed the Taliban and Al Qaeda to fight the Soviets for us.  The inevitable blowback was the same radical Islamic terrorists attacking us on 9/11, after which we invaded Afghanistan and killed more and more people for the next 20 years.

There are untold numbers of additional deaths due to our interventions in South America, the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, Yugoslavia, etc.  You can say that other countries were responsible for these deaths, but it's unquestionable that none of it would have happened without America's involvement.  We are the spider at the center of every web, manipulating every conflict on Earth from the shadows.

It's easy to say 'this isn't my fault, that was other people killing each other all on their own.'  All you have to do is be like Switzerland, with a neutral foreign policy.  You have to not arm or fund or intervene on one side or another.  America intervenes, arms and funds every conflict on Earth.  We never stand aside.  So we are responsible for all deaths everywhere.

12 millions deaths is two Holocausts.  I'm tired of hearing about the Holocaust when the actual mass murderers are motivated by 'liberal capitalist secular globalism,' not racism, imperialism, antisemitism or whatever bogeyman they trot out to demonize their political opposition.  The current ideology of the west, continuous ever since the end of World War II, is far more deadly and evil than Nazi Germany.  And to make matters worse, we're just getting started.  In a week or so we'll start a new war with Iran, and from there who knows what we'll do next.  The wars are unending, the slaughter ever-rising.  The Nazi death toll stopped a long time ago with the end of Nazi Germany, but our death toll just keeps going up and up forever.  Because no one has stopped us.

Somebody needs to stop the USA and its demonic little brother, Israel.  If that means killing 12 million Israelis and/or Americans, then please be my guest.  It would only be fair.  I don't care if they're in a hospital or a barracks, the people we killed were mostly civilians too.  And civilians ultimately are responsible for the decisions of their governments.  If you don't want to die then don't go around butchering half the people on Earth.  Is there any nation America hasn't attacked for some bullshit reason or other or have we by now done a full clean sweep?  What goes around comes around.  Suck it.

The Ur-Quan Kor-Ah have a right to defend themselves:

The black octopus space alien explained while ominous music played in the background:  "The Ur-Quan Kor-Ah have a right to defend themselves.  Potentially, all other life in the universe poses a threat to the Ur-Quan Kor-Ah, therefore we are engaging in a preemptive attack of self-defense."  As the Kor-Ah unleashed rings of fire, incinerating endless screaming civilians of all the galaxy's different races, it explained patiently:  "These sentient beings could one day surpass our technology, even though our buzzsaws do tremendous damage and have infinite range and have a homing function for anything that approaches too near them.  And what if those selfsame sentient beings then one day also spontaneously become hostile to us, despite the fact that we've done nothing at all to offend them?  It could happen.  The only way to be sure is to wipe them all out now."

A pox on both their houses:

Iran is an Islamic theocracy, a hardline enforcer of Islam, which is the worst belief system in the world.  (Worst because it's dangerously effective and now has 2 billion proponents, while still being ultimately the extinction of human ingenuity, progress, creativity and happiness.)  If the Iranian government were toppled and replaced with a secular government everyone would benefit -- Iranians and the world at large.  I don't care if it becomes a monarchy like Jordan or a democracy, so long as it's secular.  I want the girls of Iran to be able to expose their hair.

Iran's theocracy which began 50 years ago has done a lot to antagonize the USA and Israel.  Iran took our embassy hostage for a year.  Iran has armed and financed Hezbollah, Ansar Allah and Hamas who then went and attacked Israel.  Iran armed and funded an insurgency in Iraq that cost us hundreds(?), thousands(?) of soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars.  They've also said very mean things about us in speeches across many decades.  To be fair, we've also said very mean things about them in speeches so whatever.

Personally I don't think any of these actions rises to the level of an 'act of war,' but certainly it would be worthwhile to regime change Iran if it were cheap and easy, given how annoying they've been.  So using this as a 'casus belli' would work from a utilitarian point of view.

The problem is Israel and the USA have decided to seize upon the one thing that does not legitimize attacking Iran as the reason we're attacking Iran -- a conspiracy theory that Iran has been trying to secretly build nuclear bombs and then use them against Israel the moment they succeed for the last 30 years, except they're so incredibly incompetent that all 30 years weren't sufficient to finish building a bomb, but now they're just weeks away from finally succeeding so we had to surprise attack them.

First off, there's no way in hell any country can 'attempt' to build a bomb for 30 years and still not have one.  Second off, there's no way in hell we could precisely know they're 'weeks away' from finishing a project that's already been ongoing for 30 years.  The argument defeats itself without any need for a counterargument.  It's also obvious nonsense that Iran would actually use a nuke even if it got one, due to the deterrence of mutually assured destruction.  Iranians don't want to die like everybody else, so even if they got a bomb it would obviously be used only in self-defense, not to randomly slaughter Jews.  Pakistan has the bomb and they haven't nuked Israel, so why would Iran be any different?  Why is Pakistan having a bomb acceptable but not Iran?  The narrative makes no sense.

Getting into a war on false pretexts based around false WMD claims is something I can't condone, seeing how it went last time.

Another thing that really boils my blood about this stupid justification for attacking Iran is that Ukraine openly bragged, before the Special Military Operation, that it was going to build nuclear bombs and use them as a threat against Russia to get back Crimea and the Donbass.  When Russia responded by invading Ukraine, saying 'Ukraine must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,' we described that as a 'brutal and unprovoked invasion by the new Hitler.'  So why is it Israel is noble and just for stopping Iran from building a bomb, when it isn't even trying to build a bomb, but Russia is attacking Ukraine for no reason when it tried to stop Ukraine from building a bomb, when Zelensky openly proclaimed he was going to build one?

There is no universal principle at work here, no philosophical basis for action.  Sometimes it's acceptable to openly become a nuclear power for the express purpose of conquering Russian territory, and other times it's unacceptable to enrich uranium to any level.  It's based on the complete whimsy of the USA, who apparently gets to determine the nuclear status of every country on Earth, because apparently none of them are sovereign but are all actually provinces of the American Empire.

But I'm also angry at Iran.  They could have easily avoided this war by not enriching uranium, which they did not to build nuclear weapons (if they were building weapons they would have them by now, but they obviously don't have them.), but just to spite Israel and the USA and say 'nyaa nyaa you can't stop me.'  Why would you imperil your nation with an unnecessary war for children's theater?  It didn't help Iran at all to have all this enriched uranium laying around doing nothing.  All it did is alienate them from the world at large and get themselves killed.  Why did the Iranian people have to endure all those sanctions for all those decades when they could have simply abandoned their nuclear program and rejoined the league of civilized nations at any time?

Childish pride/spite is the reasoning behind the Iranian regime, not the welfare of their people.  An even more Machiavellian motive could go something like this -- Iran's government is not popular domestically and the Iranian state is artificial, full of many non-Persian ethnicities.  The only way to keep the government in power is to create a siege mentality where the people of Iran are constantly under attack from abroad, thus feel the need to huddle together and support their government in solidarity and self-defense.  So Iran's government deliberately went out and made enemies so that they could shore up domestic support.  They did something, uranium enrichment, for the express purpose of pissing off the world and with no other goal in mind.  In order to prop up their ultimately illegitimate rule that the people of Iran wouldn't abide otherwise.

Iran wanted to thread the needle where they would do just enough to make the Iranian public feel under siege without actually getting bombed, that was the perfect equilibrium to keep them in power, but they miscalculated and now find themselves in a war they didn't expect or intend.  This would explain their weak-ass response to Israel and their continued begging for a mutual ceasefire even though the war has already begun.

Whatever reason there was for Iran to enrich uranium, it was stupid.  They were ludicrously stupid if they did it for 30 years while earnestly trying to build a bomb but just couldn't get it to work.  They were childishly stupid if they did it just to prove that they could and no one would bully them about matters of domestic sovereignty.  They were sinisterly stupid if they underestimated the warmongering natures of Trump and Netanyahu.  Down any scenario they're stupid.

I don't think Iran's governmental overthrow will be cheap and easy.  Nor am I certain that the theocracy's replacement would be an improvement.  What happened to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya is not encouraging.  Which makes Israel starting this war even on a genuine pretext, instead of the insane one they decided upon, still a bad idea, and American joining in also a bad idea.  But who knows, maybe I'm wrong, maybe Iran really is that weak.  In that case, if Israel simply hadn't said nonsense about nonexistent wmd this war could have been a great success.  But no war based on a lie is acceptable.

What I hope is that this war blows up in Israel's face, and the USA's face if we choose to join the war.  This is because Israel is way over the top, acting with complete impunity, and the USA by assisting them is complicit.  The way Israel has treated the Gaza Strip is unconscionable.  In addition, Israel has been bombing, with complete impunity, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, for decades.  They've invaded and conquered a portion of Syria that everyone agrees is part of Syria with complete impunity.  Look at how everyone howls when Russia invades and conquers a part of Ukraine, how it's so unacceptable, how we'll do anything to stop them.  And when Israel does the exact same thing -- crickets.

I want Iran's government to fall, but I also want Israel's government to fall.  So I want Iran to destroy Israel, make them pay for the decades of sins they've accumulated without ever getting punished for any of them.  Heck, I want revenge for what Israel did to the USS Liberty, another thing they never paid for.  Ideally they'll take each other out.  With enough missiles maybe both countries will fall into ruin and disrepair.

Israel has been the cause of so much needless chaos and suffering for so long and they've never paid any price for it.  Since their founding, they've done nothing but genocide, terrorism, war crimes, you name it.  They're a sore upon the Earth.  If Iran happens to be the Earth's avenging angel, then more power to them.

Just like I hate how Bill and Hillary have done so many crimes and gotten away with them all unpunished, even their reputations left intact, I hate how long Israel has been doing bad things and getting away with it, still popular in the public mindset.  All I want is justice.  Iran destroyed itself for no reason with this war, but maybe it can have a sort of cosmic reason, as the avatars of justice in the world, for antagonizing Israel, so that they could destroy it.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

As an American, I would like for America to not be supporting a genocidal warmongering insane nation like Israel, but I won't play favorites -- so long as we are supporting evil entities like Ukraine and Israel, I equally wish divine justice to rain down upon the USA.  We are the Satanic States of America and we deserve to die by the millions, just like how we've killed millions abroad.  If Iran can visit horrendous punishment upon the USA for our evil support of other evildoers, that too would be a plus.  I want Hillary, Bill, Israel and the USA to face justice.  It sucks that I actually live here and might get caught up in the mayhem, but justice is bigger than my own comfort so oh well.

The point is I hope Iran wins this war not because I support anything about Iran, but because it's a convenient tool to strike down my enemies with.  The Jews and their neocon supporters need some long awaited karma and apparently no one else is willing to deliver it to them.

Hopes and expectations aren't the same.  I expect Israel will win, like they always do, and the Muslims will lose, like they always do.  And maybe some good will come of that outcome, too, though not the good I consider paramount.  But I hope Iran will pull a rabbit out of their hats and teach the whole world a lesson about Jewish aggression.  There's still a chance this could all go horribly wrong for the Zionist entity.

Long Long Spell:

The latest Heaven Burns Red event was another tearjerker, as expected of something written by Jun Maeda.  This time we got the long-awaited backstory of Akari and her tennis team senpai.  It made me like Akari and Mikoto more than before, but still not enough to consider them wonderful characters.

The plot content was of course the highlight of the new material, but there were some other important additions.  First off, a new song was released for this event, 'Long Long Spell.'  It's very good.  I immediately downloaded it, listened to it 100 times, added it to my Music Hall of Fame, and promoted it to 3-star.  I made room by kicking out a Valkyrie Profile song and demoting Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies to 1-star.  Who needs Tchaikovsky when you have Jun Maeda?

Next off, the new score challenge offered the nordstrom crystal I needed to introject Vivifying Light.  Now I can repair shields in intense fights, increasing my durability dramatically.  I also got dungeon passes which let me improve my ice ring collection to on par with my other rings.  The flashback passes allowed me to level Hisame to max.  It also netted me 3 protean shards which will help out towards a level 3 limit break for Isuzu or Ichiko someday in the future.

I got a satisfying high score of 423,000+ this time around, 100k better than last time.

The most exciting aspect though were the new memorias on offer.  Misato in a Santa suit and Mari and Ichiko in wedding dresses.  I spent $70 dollars on their new paid quartz offering and got 7 SS Memorias, but sadly not the pretty new ones I wanted.  The SS Memorias I got do have some limited value, though.  There was base Yuina, getting her to limit break 1.  If base Yuina is fully upgraded to level 4, it improves the stats of her other memorias by 10%, so in the long term base Yuina SS Memorias really pay off.  There was base Miya, which is a new light-element SS Memoria for me, an element I'm generally short in.  There was fox Miya, which got her fox form to limit break level 1.  There was base Karen, Tenne and Sumomo which were essentially worthless.  Best of all, I got maid Hisame, which gets her to limit break level 1.

The max level of a character remains consistent across all Memoria, so maid Hisame is as high-level as pajamas Hisame.  Now that maid Hisame has a limit break, she also gets the inspiring spark ability, which regenerates 3sp per turn instead of the regular 2sp.  This makes maid Hisame a seriously viable fighter in high-end content, so long as she's facing off against a dark-vulnerable opponent.  There are times I'd prefer her over pajamas Hisame.  Plus maid Hisame is beautiful so it's great that I can actually use her now.

Probably all together not worth $70 but oh well, sometimes I'm lucky and sometimes I'm not.  As a consolation prize, Heaven is gifting everyone who logs in for the next 10 days a free SS Memoria, so maybe I can get Santa or Wedding Dress then.  That will be my last chance.

Meanwhile, the next heroine I courted in Noble Works was Shizuru.  She's a twintailed loli with black hair and red eyes, a rare combination I only remember in Nico outside of here.  She's a perfect oujo-sama, well trained and behaved, but she actually aspires to live more normally and enjoy simple things like fast food.  She also decides to date a commoner (the pauper doppelganger), preferring him over the prince.  I like how direct and sincere she is, as well as hardworking and responsible.  Plus twintailed lolis are beautiful.  Anyway, she was good enough to qualify for my wonderful hall of fame, so I kicked Mei from Dal Segno out to make room.  Mei doesn't even have a route, she's a minor side character, so she never really belonged.  (Of course, maybe she did have a route in the Dal Segno fandisk, but I'll never know because it was never translated.  *sigh*.)

Iran is also a pussy:

When India bombed Pakistan, Pakistan fired back immediately, shooting down multiple Indian fighters.  India quickly learned Pakistan wasn't to be trifled with and backed down.  Pakistan is not a pussy.

When Israel bombs Iran, Iran makes lots of speeches about how Israel will pay for this some day down the road, maybe 100 years from now.  And does nothing.  Iran is a pussy.

The only proper response from Iran would have been the launching of all their drones and missiles all at once against Israel immediately, destroying as much of the aggressor as they could.  Instead they whined and barked.  Iran is a pussy.

I predict Iran will ultimately do essentially nothing and it will become clear that Israel, the USA, or anybody who wants to can regularly bomb Iran without reprisal, like how Syria lived for the past 10 years.  Eventually the Iranian government will collapse and be replaced by some regional collaborator of Israel's, like what happened to Syria.  Middle Eastern Muslims are a bunch of worthless cowards who never fight back and are always infighting, it's so pathetic to watch.  The Azeris, Kurds, etc. in Iran are all licking their chops right now and planning to secede.  It's hard to even get angry against Israel when their opponents are so pathetic and supine.  Weak people deserve to die simply because they're too weak to live.  This is just evolution in action.

I don't even like Iran.  They mistreat their women and adhere to an evil religion.  The Koran demands of its faithful: 'kill the infidel wherever you find him.'  So Islam is permanently at war with all non-Muslims on Earth at all times.  Anyone who belongs to that religion is a combatant and deserves whatever is coming.  But there's something particularly offensive about Muslims like Iran, who were constantly shouting 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel,' backing down and doing nothing in response to an act of war.  They haven't even declared war.  There's nothing more despicable than a man who keeps acting tough and then when called on it whimpers and runs away like a cur.

Pakistan fought -- they fought to protect terrorists who were attacking tourists in Kashmir, so it's not like they're admirable people -- but at least they fought.  They stood up for themselves.  You can't say that of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or seemingly the entire rest of the Muslim world.  This is a world of tooth and claw, if you won't fight -- if you won't shoot your weapons at the enemy when they've already started shooting at you -- then you don't deserve to survive into the future.  Humanity doesn't need the genes of cowards moving forward.

Noble Works is Decent:

Noble Works is an older work, so it's done in lower definition and with less artistic detail.  The girls are still attractive but not as attractive as the more recent crop.  The plot is also okay but not ideal.  The premise of the story is that a pauper meets a prince (son of a rich CEO) who look exactly alike, and they decide to trade places as a security measure since kidnappers are after the prince.

With this the pauper enters a glitzy school and meets various high class people and does high class activities like attend a ball with them.  Eventually he falls in love and lives happily ever after, the kidnappers are defeated, and the pauper trades his place back to the prince.

The problem is the main character isn't all that great, he resorts to lies and violence when it isn't necessary, and at least the first route I've finished, Hinata's, the girl isn't that great either.  She's rather dumb and talking with her gets repetitive fast.  There are four other girls left to romance so maybe they'll be better, but I chose Hinata because she seemed the most promising.  If that's the most promising. . .

There's still some great jokes and I like how realistically the romances occur, like a boy could actually score a high-class lady in this manner, but it's a step down from what I expect of Yuzusoft.  This makes it all the more bizarre that Noble Works got a translation but Tenshin Ranman didn't.  

I feel like the best part of playing all these visual novels is that I get to turn off the background music of the game and listen to my own wonderful playlist instead.  Every song is so amazing and there are 1423 of them.  With that many songs on shuffle it never gets old.  In a sense the visual novel is just bonus.  It's the same for when I reread '100 Waifus,' one of the best perks is I can listen to music while I'm doing so.  It's the same for Heaven Burns Red, I can turn off the music and listen to my own playlist instead -- though of course I turn the music back on when new content arrives.  The benefits of cultivating such a fantastic music collection are continuous and eternal.

Tomorrow a new event should debut in Heaven Burns Red, but sadly today it looks like I'll have to romance a new heroine in Noble Works instead.  If only tomorrow could come a little faster. . .

Riddle Joker Read:

I finished Mayu's route and with it all of Riddle Joker.  This on the same day I immortalized Riddle Joker by including it in my golden 300 franchises honored in '100 Waifus,' and the poster girl of Riddle Joker, Nanami, as one of Christopher's daughters.  Riddle Joker is worth the praise, but only because of Nanami.  Nanami was the best girl in Mayu's route.

In Mayu's route Satoru is caught spying on Mayu, but it turns out the two organizations they represent are on the same side, so they decide to cooperate to complete some scientific research.  Eventually they succeed and heal a bunch of injured espers, including Mayu's best friend.  Somewhere in there they start dating and having sex as well.  But Mayu is an annoying girl who is constantly denigrating herself (fishing for compliments?) and lying to hide her embarrassment.  She's sexy, like all the other girls in the game, but terrible wife material.  So high maintenance.  Being around Mayu is exhausting, while being around Nanami is invigorating.  It's all the difference.

I prefer working at a cafe over working as a secret agent, but I admit the 'spying with Nanami as my partner in stealth' was a more powerful feeling of closeness than coworkers at a cafe could ever produce.  Nanami saved Satoru's life and risked her own life.  That's something only Riddle Joker could do.

As I fell in love with Riddle Joker/Nanami, I fell out of love with Phantom Brave/Marona, to the point that I had to edit '100 Waifus' yet again despite the book being 'finished' last December.  That's just how great Nanami is and how bad Phantom Brave Lost Hero is.  But I'm convinced this is the final edit to the book, from here on it should be smooth sailing.  I already ordered a new paperback with all the new changes -- the name changes and the new Honoka date.  The name gallery is as good as it can get, given all the parameters it has to fulfill, and every plot hole due to not interacting enough with various waifus has been filled.  There shouldn't be anything left to correct.  The 50th edition really will be the charm.

I moved Albion (Day) up to 5-star, demoting Ultema - The Perfect Body to 4-star to make room.  Then I transferred Andy's theme song from Ultema to the much better After the Soldiers' Dreams, a heroic martial theme as opposed to a villainous one.  Now that Ultema wasn't 5-star I no longer had an obligation to attach a character to it.  My wonderful playlist consists of 1100 5-star songs, 194 4-star songs and 128 3-star songs.  But a large percentage of those 3 and 4 star songs, if they were rated 5-star, none would be surprised.  There's really a razor thin margin between the tiers.  That's why getting all the songs rated correctly has been so hard.  Recently I moved an Angel Beats song all the way from 1-star to 4-star -- Ichiban no Takaramono.  Rating 5,500 songs relative to each other correctly is harder than scoring a goal in the World Cup!

Now that I've finished Riddle Joker I can start Noble Works, the final English-translated Yuzusoft visual novel.  There's also the remaining 1/3 of Phantom Brave I still have to beat.  I feel like I've had more competing projects to work on this year than at any other time in my life.  For instance, in Heaven Burns Red I just beat the anachrony flat hand from chapter 4 part 1.  This rewarded me with an eternal daphne which I promptly granted to Hisame.  I now have 6 characters with eternal daphnes, but they don't actually make an ideal squad together, so I still need more daphnes before I get everything to work.  There are two anachronies left to best, and one of them has a daphne reward, the strongest one, so. . .

I hope Trump cracks down on the rioters hard this time.  The Democrats can't complain since they went so buck crazy about the January 6 protests.  If that's the new standard, any protest is an 'insurrection' and the worst event since 'the Civil War,' then we get to apply that standard too and arrest every last rioter in Los Angeles and keep them in jail without bail for the next 4 years.  That's how important quashing an insurrection is, right Democrats?  Sometimes rioters have legitimate grievances so it's hard to shoot them all, but this time they're rioting over the right to attack ICE so that illegal alien criminal gangsters can continue to victimize normal Americans for the rest of their lives.  This is such a beyond the pale 'grievance' that no one should tolerate it.  Something like 90% of Americans want criminal illegal aliens deported, and these riots are attacking ICE for doing the job the American people voted for them to do.  This is why Trump was elected.  There could me no more illegitimate a political protest than this -- basically these people are saying that democracy doesn't matter and if they lose the vote they'll just turn to violence and get their way anyway.  That's totally unacceptable.  And there's no reason to put up with it.

Preferably the National Guard would just mow these rioters down with machine guns, but like Putin Trump is a pussy, so some milkwater crackdown will be done instead.  But the riots must stop, one way or another.  Use kids' gloves, give out candy, whatever, but the riots must stop.  There can be no question in anyone's mind, anywhere in America, whether the federal government has the right to enact federal law as mandated by a nationwide election just a few months ago.  This needs to be made clear to the left half of the country, they're no longer in power.  Period.

Summer Anime Preview:

The summer season is as desolate as the spring season, or more, depending on whether Summer Pockets continues into summer or not.  There's only a few series even worth checking out --

City, Tate no Yuusha S4, A Couple of Cuckoos S2, Jidou Hanbaiki S2 and 9-Nine.

This fall is almost as desolate.  There's only Spy x Family S3 and Hero Academy Final to look forward to.  Basically anime went on vacation this year.  But that's okay, I have so many visual novels and video games to play that it doesn't matter.  It's also given me the chance to rewatch all the old great anime that I hadn't rewatched yet.

I beat Chapter 10 of Phantom Brave Lost Hero, putting me officially 2/3 of the way through the endless game.  I have a lot of complaints with the gameplay.  The way to power up is this extremely boring 'title' and 'fusion' process that ain't nobody got time for.  Each fight is actually a puzzle, not a fight, because the goal is to match your confinements and movements to where the pretty rainbow lines go, instead of taking out the enemy.  The pretty rainbow lines give wild enhancements to yourself or the enemy, making them more important than everything you've done to build up your own strength.  And these stupid rainbows cover the whole screen, making the whole world look ridiculous.  It's the exact opposite of FF Tactics' gritty atmosphere.

The plot is also bad.  I have zero empathy for the troubles of phantoms, because I'm not a phantom.  The whole story is about the travails of various phantoms and all the problems they face after death -- but I'm a human and I haven't died yet.  I feel nothing for any of them or any of their concerns.  They're all outlandish and silly since I don't even believe in ghosts, so none of these situations could ever actually emerge.  I get that a story titled Phantom Brave is about phantoms, but it turns out that's just a dumb idea to base a plot around.

I just want the game to end so I can move on to another game, but the game is endless.  It's so freaking long.  For good games that's a feature, but for bad games it's a curse.  I guess it isn't surprising to be cursed by a ghost. . .

Given how frustrating Phantom Brave Lost Hero is, I can no longer endorse it as one of the premier 300 works of art in history within '100 Waifus.'  I'm demoting Phantom Brave and Marona down to the 'silver 60,' and replacing her in '100 Waifus' with Riddle Joker and Nanami.  Nanami is one of the most fantastic fictional heroines ever and eminently deserves the spot.  I also took the opportunity to replace Cana, the drunkard in Fairy Tail, with Frey, the brave warrior in Dead Rock.  I had long ago realized Cana wasn't really deserving of praise, but I kept her in '100 Waifus' because of her relationship with Lucy.  But Frey also has a relationship with Lucy -- they're both the love interests of the male lead of their respective Hiro Mashima manga.  Also Lucy already gave birth to Yakuto so it makes sense that she would have Frey too.  That's an important sibling-sibling bond.

'100 Waifus' is much improved by having great girls like Nanami and Frey in it and by not having bad franchises or characters like Phantom Brave and Cana weighing it down.  Since I already had a new Honoka section edited in, this edit doesn't change anything, it still occurred before my 50th reading session so I'm still safe.

Now that Hisame has reached limit break level 3 I was able to up my score challenge boss high score to 317,000+, which bagged me a new skill guide bonus item.  It's still a far cry from the maximum score of 500k though.  I wonder when I'll ever get that strong.

All in on Hisame:

As an apology for how glitchy Heaven Burns Red has been, the game makers gave everyone 3,000 free quartz.  They also patched the problem where the game crashed every time you tried to close it -- though now it has a new problem where it can randomly be stuck at the 'now loading' screen in the middle of whatever you're doing.  But the 'now loading' glitch occurs less frequently than the 'always crashes when you try to close the game' glitch so it's still welcome progress.

The new quartz got me to 105 exchange points towards pajamas Hisame's free recruitment, out of the 150 required.  Since I already have pajamas Hisame, it would instead give me 10 shards that I can use to produce limit breaks.  If I didn't reach 150 those exchange points would become essentially worthless, turning into GGP with a few consolation uses.  So I decided it was actually more thrifty to buy more quartz now, so I could get the free shards with just a few more rolls, than to let all the prior exchange points go to waste and start over again on some new recruitment project from 0.

$90 later, I got pajamas Hisame to limit break level 3, swimsuit Tsukasa to limit break level 3, and shrine maiden Megumi to limit break level 3.  (Well, technically, Hisame and Megumi aren't level 3 yet, but they will be in three days so same difference.)

Why did I end up spending so much on Hisame?  It all comes down to her Munechika ability with its critical pierce function.  Hisame's Munechika is the strongest attack in the game.  It only costs 8 sp, cheaper than any other finishing move, but hits harder than any other finishing move.  This is because it automatically crits, which lowers the enemy's defense by 50 and does 50% extra damage.  The ability also enhances the skill's damage by 90% before striking, and counts as hitting the enemy's vulnerability, giving it another 300% damage boost.  It also does another 30% extra damage if it's hitting their shields, which is generally the case.  For 8 sp.  ::shakes head::

The ability is so strong I relied on it to beat the latest score challenge boss instead of Karen who was supposedly much stronger.  So I realized moving forward I would be better off with Hisame than Karen permanently, so I would have to start cultivating Hisame's limit breaks so she could be part of my power squad from here on.

Munechika is an introjectable ability, on top of all its other advantages, so I could use it on top of pajamas Hisame's special move, if I dedicated my limit breaks to pajamas form instead of her base form.  Her pajamas special move is also great -- it's a thunder attack that grants the whole party +8sp if it happens to break an enemy's shield.  Max strength bosses have 3 shields, so if you time it right and always break their shield with Hisame, that could give all 6 of your characters +24 sp, in other words it could generate 144 sp for your party if wielded correctly.  A typical special move costs around 13 sp, so that's 11 additional special moves for the cost of 3 well-timed Hisame specials.  It's almost as broken as Munechika.

Between these two specials I imagine I'll stick with pajamas Hisame for the rest of the game.  Also, Hisame is cute, so it's fun playing her.

Once my characters reach their full level potential that their limit breaks have unlocked, I'll take another crack at those orb bosses, anachronies, and score challenges that have all recently defied me.  Hopefully the result will be different next time.

Meanwhile, Final Fantasy Tactics is getting a new remastered version.  It will include the classic version of the game and a new and improved/expanded version, with new scenes and voice acting.  I've played FFT so many times, but I feel like it would be worth it to play again for the new content.  It's one of the only games worth playing over and over.

FFT wasn't really the game that needed an HD remaster, though.  That was supposed to be Chrono Trigger.  Or at least Xenogears.  Get it together, Squaresoft.  I also wish I could at least beat Phantom Brave Lost Hero and Lunar Remastered before any more games come out.  I have so many games sitting on my shelf unplayed as is.

I finished Hazuki's route in Riddle Joker, getting me to the last and surely worst route, Mayu's.  The bad news is I have to play Mayu's route, but the good news is once I finish this I can move on to Noble Works and play the best route from that Yuzusoft visual novel next.  So it's like how it's always darkest before the dawn.

Limelight Lemonade Jam:

I'm still in the middle of Hazuki's route in Riddle Joker, but Yuzusoft isn't waiting and has announced its next visual novel -- Limelight Lemonade Jam.  It comes out in September in Japan and who knows when if ever in America.  But I have high hopes for it -- every other recent Yuzusoft visual novel has received a translation, so why not this one?  And every Yuzusoft VN has been great so far, so I expect it'll be great when it is translated too.  2025 has become the year of Yuzusoft.

I spent most of the day trying and failing to beat the level 2 fire Orb Boss III.  It feels like if the game didn't cheat I would win slowly but surely via packing my squad with defenders and healers, but randomly the boss does so much damage that I get a character's shield broken even at max health.  Until I introject Tama with vivifying light that's a death sentence and I lose shortly thereafter.  If only I could hurry up and get my nordstrom crystals this boss would be nothing.

Hazuki has been more fun than I expected from her, but still isn't good enough to enter my hall of fame.  More room for the girls from Limelight.  :).

I did finish my rewatch of Bleach, DanMachi and Monogatari.  All that's left is my rewatch of Fairy Tail 100 Year Quest and I'll be all caught up on my rewatch of all anime in my top 200 rankings, proving all 200 franchises really are that great.

Elon Musk is having a hissy fit over stuff he apparently can't comprehend.  Reconciliation bills are possible to pass without being filibustered because they stick to narrow tax and spending categories, according to Senate rules.  The cuts Elon wants aren't possible to be done in reconciliation bills.  Meanwhile, if the tax cuts aren't renewed in this bill, America will suddenly get a 68% tax increase because the previous Trump tax cuts will sunset.  Why were the previous tax cuts written with a sunset clause in the first place?  Because reconciliation bills are required to be budget neutral, again according to the Senate rules.  So the tax cuts would have been unaffordable if they had been made permanent, which would have turned it into a normal budget bill, which could have been filibustered.

All the problems Republicans are having with getting a good bill passed have to do with the Senate filibuster.  The real solution isn't to keep changing the bill this way or that way -- it's to abolish the Senate filibuster, which exists nowhere in the constitution and was never meant to exist.  The filibuster has completely paralyzed the legislative branch of the government and banned the USA from passing any serious law for decades.  Congress has become basically defunct as a governing body because of the omnipresent use of the filibuster.  Americans want congress to pass various good bills -- like a permanent tax cut with no sunsets, or a ban on men playing in women's sports, or voter ID laws -- but the filibuster prevents everything.

Republicans need to show their voters that voting for them is useful, so they need to pass this bill.  It may not be perfect but it's better than a 68% tax increase.  I'm pretty sure no Republican voters voted for that.  Elon Musk is sabotaging an important bill for no reason.  How do Republicans benefit by becoming turbo-leftist Democrats and doubling tax rates?  Does that make any sense?  How does Elon benefit from this?

To make matters worse Elon is acting like a child and making wild accusations of Trump being a child rapist with no evidence, as well as threatening to strand astronauts in space and leave them to die.  Someone with such an unreliable character should not be the head of major companies or have hundreds of billions of dollars.  He's like a mad elephant just rampaging through town.  All for the 'sin' of wanting to prevent a 68% tax increase on everyday Americans.  That's why Elon is so mad and saying all these wild things.  It's totally bonkers.

I think Trump should sue Elon for defamation and make the fee be 500 billion.  That would shut him up pretty quickly.

P.S.:  Okay, I beat the fire Orb Boss III level 2, using the same healer oversaturate strategy.  The difference this time is I made sure to get to overdrive 3 before unloading all my buffs, debuffs, and hailstorms which the boss is vulnerable to.  This way all my hailstorms hit the boss at max power and while the boss was at min power, which made all the difference.  I didn't actually need more strength, just more strategy.

I moved Oh Unhappy Day, the end theme of SAOAGGO S2, up to 4-star, demoting some classical music to make room.  This made it eligible to be a theme song for a character, so I gave it to Lisbeth.  I also made Clear Weather After the Rain, Fight! and Managarmer Sequestration Primal character theme songs, as they were more suitable than their predecessors.  The main point being now my wonderful playlist is better than ever.

A Heavenly Investment:

The popularity poll winners recruitment period is winding down.  With no major source of free quartz incoming, if I wanted to recruit the best memorias of the best characters, as agreed upon by the whole community, I would have to fork over some cash.  On top of the paid quartz I bought earlier to get pajamas Hisame, I slapped down $75 more dollars to get what I wanted -- and I got everything I wanted.

I got tuxedo Tsukasa, waitress Erika and tuxedo Ruka, all brand new SS Memorias.  I also got pajamas Hisame a limit break, swimsuit Yuina a limit break, shrine maiden Megumi a limit break, and some SS shards which get me halfway to a level 3 limit break for shrine maiden Megumi.  Now my collection stands at 61 SS Memoria in all.

Earlier I had managed to accrue enough protean shards to get swimsuit Sumomo her level 4 limit break, so my next target is swimsuit Tsukasa's level 3 limit break.  I'll have enough protean shards for her in a few days.  My swimsuit-exclusive squad is getting pretty darn impressive.

I really wanted waitress Erika because her base SS Memoria is non-elemental, which basically means she does no damage to serious bosses, who all have a -80% to non-elemental damage modifier.  As a defender you could argue she doesn't need to do damage, but unfortunately I need everyone to do as much damage as possible to beat the next anachrony -- which kills you instantly on turn 41 if you don't kill it first.  Also score challenges and the clock tower take into account how quickly you defeat opponents, so basically there's no situation where I don't need my defenders to do damage.

Erika's incredible original ability, angel wings, which completely nullify enemy attacks, is probably the best ability in the game.  But thankfully it can be introjected, which means any Erika memoria can inherit this ability, on top of whatever exclusive abilities the new memoria has.  This means graduating from base Erika to waitress Erika basically doubles' Erika's strength.  The only problem is base Erika is at limit break 2 and waitress Erika is at level 0, so right now base Erika is much stronger.  But the latent potential. . .  Someday waitress Erika will be great.

Tuxedo Tsukasa is vital because she's only my 6th light-element SS Memoria.  That means I can field a full light squad for the first time.  Eventually I'll need my light squad to beat some dark opponent, and I can't do that shorthanded.  (Also I just like Tsukasa).

Tuxedo Ruka is necessary because I plan on playing as my plot party once the plot resumes in Chapter 5, and base Ruka is too weak to handle Chapter 5.  Base Ruka doesn't even have the inspiring spark ability, which gives you +3sp per turn instead of the normal +2.  That extra sp per turn is essential to all combat strategies once you get to high level play.  Base Ruka didn't even have any AoE or elemental attacks.  She was totally useless.  Tuxedo Ruka fixes all that.  It's actually astonishing how long into the game, over 200 days of playtime, it took for me to graduate from base Ruka.  I got base Ruka for free as part of advancing the plot of the game -- so in other words in all this time I never got a Ruka SS Memoria via recruitment.  Do you know how many recruitment rolls I've done?  It was getting pretty bizarre, like maybe my account was just banned from getting Ruka or something.  But thankfully the issue is finally solved.  Ruka is the main character of the game.  I should at least be able to play with a decent version of her.

I have so many long-term plans for my squads based around giving these new recruits the limit breaks they need to shine.  If you just recruit an SS Memoria, you can eventually make it strong -- but if you miss the recruitment window and fail to recruit a girl entirely, it doesn't matter how many nordstrom crystals or protean shards you accumulate, because you won't have that girl to enhance.  So first above all you have to at least recruit the girl, then shuffle her away into a corner of your mind until you can get around to her.  But at least have her ready on the shelf.  Someday you'll definitely need her, and the day you need her you'd better have her because the game doesn't let you go back and try to recruit them again -- this popularity poll was precisely this 'last chance' fallback recruitment for people who failed to recruit these people at the appropriate time.  If I had missed this 'last chance' retry as well it would have been grim.

By missing the base Tama SS Memoria, I went through a lot of grief -- a long period of the game where I had no healer who could fix broken shields.  By blind luck I got base Tama recently, but I still haven't actually unlocked her vivifying light ability for lack of nordstrom crystals.  I can't imagine how much easier the game would have been if I'd just recruited base Tama early like I was supposed to have.  Maybe in a month I'll have the ability that the game expected I would have a year ago.  >.<.  

I already regret not recruiting samurai Inori because I failed to realize how powerful her critical pierce ability was.  I could have had another ability as strong as Hisame's Munechika if I'd only realized.  I don't want to fall into that pit again.

It's measurable that I'm not keeping up with the game's expected strength level.  I can't even beat the flat hand anachrony of Chapter 4 part 1.  There are two anachronies after that, that are even stronger.  I'm supposed to be able to beat those guys.  They're bosses from chapters I've already beaten, after all.  I'm three bosses behind.  It's the same with Orb Bosses.  I haven't even cleared the fire Orb Boss III level 2, and there's a whole nother level of Orb Boss III's after that.  I'm not paying money for trophy warriors, just to look at because they're cute.  I'm actually trying to catch up to the power they want me to be at so I can genuinely complete the game's full content.

Meanwhile, I finished Ayase's route in Riddle Joker and started Hazuki's.  I do like the onion-like levels of intrigue in Ayase's story, it really leaned into its spy thriller theme.  The only problem is I don't like Ayase herself.

I also finished my rewatch of SAOAGGO S2, part of my goal to rewatch all great anime.  Soon enough I'll finish my rewatch of Bleach TYBW S3, Off & Monster Monogatari and DanMachi S5 too.  All very good series so it's been fun.

Happiness 2 available:

I downloaded the newly translated visual novel Happiness 2 (Sakura Celebration).  I'm a big fan of the original Happiness, and it's by the same company Windmill Oasis, so there's at least reason to hope it will be good.  Of course I have no reason to play it until I'm done with Riddle Joker and Noble Works, but it's always good to be prepared.

As for Riddle Joker I'm most of the way through Ayase's route.  She's very pretty but I can't say much for her personality.  The problem is I doubt the next two girls will be any better.  The game is nearly a chore now that Nanami is out of the limelight, which is one of the weaknesses of visual novels in general.  There's always a 'best girl' and then 'the rest.'  The longer you play the same visual novel the less rewarding it becomes.  But oh well, I already said Riddle Joker is a great game so I have to play it to the end.

Ukraine is trying to get itself nuked by deliberately violating Russia's nuclear doctrine.  Russia, like America, has a set of circumstances wherein it's allowed to use nukes -- both countries have the same rule -- if someone is attempting to disable their nuclear capabilities, then they'll launch all their nukes preemptively while they still can.  They won't wait until the enemy has succeeded, after which they'll be defenseless and incapable of retaliating against what would then be the follow-up nuclear attack.  There is a definitive logic to this rule that can't be gotten around -- the only reason anyone would be attacking your nuclear launch facilities is if they want to disable your nuclear retaliatory ability so that they can nuke you.  This is why all nations carefully avoid each other's nuclear launch capabilities, to make it clear that no nuclear first strike is in the offing, so there's no need to preemptively counterattack.

Until today.  Ukraine decided to attack Russia's nuclear bomber fleet, which is deployed far from the line of contact and hasn't engaged in the Ukraine war at all.  In freaking Siberia.  It's there to deter American nuclear attacks, but Ukraine sought it out and attacked it anyway, disabling at least some of Russia's nuclear strike force.  This should have led instantly to World War III, but Putin yet again wussed out and let it slide, as he wants to preserve the future of the world, unlike Ukraine.

It's good that we're all still alive today, but it's bad for Russia's future that now you can officially cross their nuclear red line and not get nuked.  What's next?  Will 'Ukraine' (really NATO) sink Russia's nuclear armed submarines and Putin will back down again?  Will NATO start to believe they can do a nuclear first strike and Putin will blink and not retaliate?  That must now be creeping in the back of their minds, since Putin has already flinched once.

On the other hand, you can argue that the nuclear bombers are an unimportant part of Russia's delivery vehicles, and only a few were damaged anyway, so it's okay to blow this attack off.  Obviously if Russia's nuclear delivery capability was really impaired then they'd really respond.  But is that so obvious?  That's the problem.  Is NATO absolutely confident Russia will use nukes if it has to?  Because if it isn't absolutely certain, Putin just signed Russia's death warrant.  This is the problem with making promises and then not keeping them.  Suddenly everything is fair game.

I've been complaining about Putin's behavior from the very beginning.  Because he didn't take this war seriously NATO has been escalating continuously and getting away with it.  If Putin had responded with full mobilization and completely trounced Ukraine in the first year NATO wouldn't have dared to attack Russia with conventional long range missiles or let 'Ukraine' sabotage Russia's nuclear arsenal.  But because Putin didn't take the war seriously, NATO learned that Putin wouldn't take their actions seriously, and while the cat's away the mice will play.  The end result of this deontological process is NATO nuking Russia and thinking they can get away with it.  This is the inevitable endgame of a leader who always flinches and never does what it takes to win.

If Putin wishes to restore his credibility in the west, if he wants his nuclear doctrine to be meaningful and feared, he should nuke Ukraine today.  But obviously he's chosen not to do that, so I guess instead Putin won't ever have credibility again.  That's this world's timeline, I'm just riding along on it.

Ukraine is gambling that by getting itself nuked, it will bring USA into the war.  I think the exact opposite would happen.  If Russia nuked Ukraine with the clear and obvious explanation that they're simply fulfilling their long standing nuclear doctrine, that anyone who attempts to sabotage their nuclear capability will be nuked before the sabotage succeeds, the whole world would suddenly start respecting Russia again and the war would end tomorrow.  People would say "Holy shit, Russia isn't playing around.  It's definitely time to cut Ukraine loose and save our own hides.  What was Ukraine doing, violating Russia's red lines, of course this is the result."

But Putin is a pussy so he won't do it so he won't deter anyone and the war will drag on and on.

Meanwhile, in Heaven Burns Red, I purchased enough rolls to get cat-pajama-Hisame.  She's beautiful and strong, but obviously without limit breaks I can't unlock her true potential.  As a fortunate side effect, I also got Tama's base SS Memoria, which has two vital abilities -- an AoE attack and a heal that restores people's broken shields.  Once I get enough Nordstrom crystals to introject Vivifying Light, I can deploy it as a skill wielded by max limit break, level 4 Magical Girl Tama.  Then Tama will truly be the absolute strongest in the game, and I'll be able to defeat anything the game throws at me.  So I unintentionally got a much more important SS Memoria than Hisame by pursuing Hisame.  I also got the new light-element Monaka SS Memoria, which is always nice, especially since it's the first SS Memoria of Monaka I've gotten.

I beat the level 2 versions of all the Orb Boss III's, except the one that's resistant to fire damage, because my fire users make up most of my power party.  I tried to scrabble together a decent group of girls who aren't fire-based, but they're a little bit too weak for the job.  A few more limit breaks and I feel like I could do it, but for now it's fruitless.  Orb Boss III's also have a level 3 version that's even stronger.  According to 'the recommended rating' I should be able to beat them, but in the real world they one-shot my strongest characters so that 'recommended rating' isn't remotely true.

What you're actually supposed to do is farm elemental-damage resistance bracelets, which would make their attacks more manageable, but that would require way too many life points that could go towards more beneficial projects.  So instead I'll just ignore the level 3 Orb III's until my rating is so much higher than the enemy that I don't have to follow the rules.

I used my power party to defeat all the Orb Boss III's, ignoring their elemental vulnerabilities.  This is because the ability to survive the enemy's attack is the only thing that matters.  If I can survive I'll win eventually, no matter how low my damage output is.  But if I can't survive the boss' attacks it hardly matters if my attacks do extra damage against them or not.  It's a shame because I'd much prefer to play with a diverse army of elemental squadrons all handling their own problems.  It would feel like my 58 SS Memoria collection was worthwhile that way.  I do in fact have full squads of every element type (except light, where I have 5 users).  But the reality is without limit breaks SS Memorias aren't playable, even against enemies who are weak to their element.

Limit breaks are the most precious resource in the game.  Collecting the beautiful new SS Memorias is the intoxicating part, but farming resources that can eventually be finagled into limit breaks for a chosen few is how you actually win the game.