Lost Whyspers

Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped...in a never-ending spiral of life and death. — 2B in “NieR: Automata”

SPOILER ALERT! This contains major spoilers for  NieR: Automata . So I just finished watching route A for NieR: Automata . It's just over halfway through the 6-hour video. Wow! What an experience... The game states that you should continue onto route B for the full experience. Interesting how games do that nowadays with the multiple endings. I wonder if the rest of the video will contain much of the same gameplay. I hope not. The storyline of NieR is just amazing. All the experiences of the machines... The experiences of 2B and 9S... so touching... and then the whole backstory of how the humans were extinct before the aliens even arrived... I want to find out more about this story. I will finish watching route B and then continue to seek out more. I think I've heard there are actually other routes, though they may be bad endings. I really like 2B and 9S. They are amazing characters. Haha, I'm not sure what else to say at the moment. I have a lot of thoughts swirling in my m...

SPOILER ALERT! This contains minor spoilers for NieR: Automata . So I've been watching the NieR: Automata movie. Okay, so not actually a movie, but it does feel like one. It's a long 6-hour playthrough of the main game with cutscenes. I'm about 2 hours into it. I've always been interested in the storyline for NieR . Since there's a collab for it in SINoALICE , I've been hearing more and more about it recently. So I thought I'd finally find out more. I'm enjoying the playthrough movie. I can definitely feel how it would have been a fascinating game to play. I really like the personality of the main character 2B. Her strength and determination remind me a bit of Saber from Fate . I like how they show flashbacks of what happened previously in history. There are heart-wrenching stories behind the enemies 2B and 9S fight that they don't even know about.

My friend Scruffy recommended that I listen to other styles of music. I did try the Dies Irae group he mentioned and definitely didn't like it. Haha. 😀 But then I went back to some other music I already had. I listened to Tina Guo for awhile. She plays instrumental covers for a variety of songs, usually ones from movies, anime, or games. I did find the music relaxing. I also searched for music from NieR: Automata , the game SINoALICE currently has a collaboration with it. I've also heard of NieR many times in the past and have been tempted to play it. I found that I already have the soundtrack and started listening to it. I really like the music and think I will use it during times I need to relax. Recently I also searched YouTube for videos that feature the storyline for NieR . I found a video that is supposedly a playthrough of the whole game. I am very tempted to actually watch it so that I can vicariously feel the thrill of playing it. The storyline sounds so fascinati...

Oh, this is too much input for my fragile self! Haha! All I can do is try to laugh it off and push forward. 😀 I've been going back to tried and true techniques, like watching inspirational music videos. Bring me out Come and find me in the dark now Everyday by myself I'm breaking down I don't wanna fight alone anymore Bring me out From the prison of my own pride My God I need a hope I can't deny In the end I'm realizing I was never meant to fight on my own ― verse from On My Own by Ashes Remain

One of my friends from the SINdicates  Discord server I originally joined is trying desperately to recruit me into his guild. Haha. 😀 That Discord server was suppose to be a group of SINoALICE guilds sharing the same server, but it broke down after some internal politics. A pity. So the guilds that survived went their own ways and started separate servers. This friend named Mister  (AKA Ghost ) was someone knowledgeable about the game. He played the Japanese version and was giving me advice before the global release. He's nice and fine to chat with, but I don't consider him a close enough friend to abandon my current guild. I would feel very bad about leaving this SINcere guild. They've been a mostly good group to chat with and work together with. Mister even said he'd move their Colosseum time slot for me. Haha. 😀 He insists that everyone would be fine with it because it was one of the two time slots they were considering. It's just one hour later than their cu...

While driving my nieces to their schools this morning, I saw a black puppy wandering in the middle of the road. He looked somewhat like the one in the picture above. He looked so lost and confused. He had a bit of a limp. My heart just went out to him right away. This was in a busy area around lots of shops, so at least the cars and scooters are paying extra attention for the unexpected. That's actually one of the advantages to the bad driving in Taiwan. People know that there are crazy drivers and that people often go through red lights and such, so drivers know they have to be careful and pay attention a bit more. With the mostly good driving in the US, I think some drivers get complacent and aren't ready for the unexpected. Haha, strange how that works out. 😀 Anyway, I later saw another black dog while driving, which made me think of that black puppy. Finally, after I had dropped off both nieces and was heading back, I stopped by somewhere to take care of an errand. And lo ...

Well, we faced a couple losses in SINoALICE Colosseum. For our first loss, the opponents were quite overwhelming. We kind of knew from looking at their roster that they would beat us. We did almost manage to tie them, though. They killed us first and attacked our ship, but we managed to kill them the second round and attack their ship. However, they then got the upper hand again and came out ahead. Our second loss was today. We were fairly evenly matched. Neither side managed to kill off everyone and get to the ships. The score was pretty much tied throughout the battle. They managed to eek out ahead of us. The main problem seemed to be that they somehow managed to really buff up their vanguards and debuff ours. Some of our members attributed this to the nightmares they used, which I can agree accounted for some of it. But still seems strange that they managed to get so far ahead of us in 3 areas of the buff/debuff battle. We do have a problem with a couple DPS members holding out on ...

Well, this will likely be an extra busy week. Lots of activities to help with. Some changes in routines. So I need to be prepared to handle the stress. Haha. 😀 I've been trying to come up with better ways to handle my tasks based on experience with what actually helps me. I've tried to get myself to focus more on the practical than theory. Sometimes things just seem to work better in practice even though it seems like something else should be better in theory. Experiments are good. 🙂 I'm still wondering if Habitica is worth keeping up with. I have found it helps with some dailies. But that's about it. The social aspect seems lacking. Our anime group doesn't really talk much, even about anime. I've noticed that Archer has pretty much given up on using it. He hasn't checked in for over two weeks. I'm going to try the idea of focusing on ONE Thing  in each of the 4 life areas I've identified: Self, Home, Other, Work (SHOW). I reorganized a spreadshee...

We had our first actual challenge for the SINoALICE Colosseum today. We had 7 easy wins previously. For this Colosseum, the first clash actually lasted quite awhile. We couldn't even damage their top player. Eventually we started taking down some of their other vanguard, and then we finally got to their ship. And everything picked up from there and led to our victory. Yay! 😀 But wow, was that a challenge! So exciting! Afterwards on Discord, I was a bit disappointed by the attitudes of a few members, including our guild leader. Someone mentioned that our opponents had a Discord server but that he wished there was a way to send "gg" to them in the game. Some people replied with something like "who cares" and "f*** them". Then I replied that I had already sent a couple private messages in the game to their guild leader and the top player. Our guild leader then asked me "why?" like it was somehow bad or strange to do. Hmm, what about standard s...

Ahhh, my friend Sassy from Mobile Legends found the blog. I guess I had given up thinking anyone else from the Mistborn Clan would ever find it. What a surprise! 😀 I'm curious how she found it. As more and more of my friends find the blog, I suppose it might get more difficult to just write freely. But I'll still try my best. I want to keep my writing as authentic as I can. If what I express here somehow compromises a friendship, then I suppose that's just how it will be.

So the global version of SINoALICE was released last week on July 1st. I've been playing fervently since then. I'll admit it is rather grindy, but it still keeps me fascinated enough to want to keep playing. The storyline is acceptable, mostly because of the interesting dark twist to classic fairy tales. That seems to be a common idea used in lots of shows and movies and other media in recent years. I was also busy last week with family and work stuff. This week has somewhat eased up, which is why I can finally sit down and write. I really, really need to get back into this. I can feel how I slowly lose myself more and more when I don't get a chance to process things here. I crave writing on this blog. But I also feel hesitant to start posts sometimes because I'm uncertain what I'll write and not sure I want to start something I can't finish. But I think I need to push myself and overcome that hesitation. I feel the words start to flow more easily as I just typ...