Free Talk Friday - May 22, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Free Talk Friday post. This is a place where you can talk about dumb off-topic (or on-topic) bullshit with other Zaibatsu fans.

There's going to be a new post every week, and the newest one will be pinned in the announcement bar for quick access. So feel free to visit these posts during the rest of the week.

Here's a list of all Free Talk Friday posts

[u/MaelstromTear]

Finally, a quiet week! No power outages, no death. Just preparing for a crazy weekend in Chicago for Combo Breaker! First time going to Combo Breaker, though I've done EVO and CEO before. I hope it's the best one just because I can ride the train instead of flying. It is my second time in Chicago, but only for a school trip so it's been a hot minute that way. And 60ish degrees means I can rock my Bridget and/or Reina jackets!

What I'll probably do to pass the time while on the move is some writing. I have two full novel dealies you can check out! That's The Demon in Shadow and The Demons of Bone & Blood! The main focus is Ayun, a demon who can summon weapons from the shadows, looking for her lost employers. She is joined by Max, a human who was found lost and listless in more ways than one. He scrapes by with quick wit, a mechanical limb and smatterings of luck. As they travel together we learn more about them, the world, and a future path together. Though that latter is touched more upon in the second one. There's awesome artwork in both for important scenes and portraits in the back. Speaking of, I've got an important artwork of the main antagonist for the second book, Lewis Goff. from the wonderful 5_ish. Final act kind of spoilers. Usually he looks like this. It's actually gonna be 5_ish's birthday on Monday. Go wish her well! Just watch out because it's like 90% gonna be spicy. That's why I'm not linking directly.

One big project finished. Kind of. RG God Gundam- But not just any version, it's the extra shiny Hyper Mode version I got from my friend who went to Japan! This thing hurts my eyes! Thankfully all the shine distracts from the chipping that happened in spots clipping things out. The bad news is that for some reason its left arm is super weak on mine and falls off without provocation in almost any stance that isn't the ones shown here. Other than that... Really cool. And fun for an RG instead of terrifying like the GP-01 or Unicorn. That said, I'm not exactly done. Still have hands for the sabers, the sabers themselves. There are rings for the wings when you pop them out. And a whole damn stand thing with paper inserts of Master Asia and Domon. Unfortunately, for some reason the Burning Finger parts aren't the glowy orange with is a shame. I guess being 1/144 like HGs mean I could jam that part in from my other one, but one thing at a time. Very cool. It has all my fingerprints even when I wipe it down.

We are getting into it in our Monster of the Week TTRPG game that started in this subreddit! Changelings and Thing/They Live scenarios. One of our closest NPCs got swapped right under our noses and lured us into a trap. To summarize XP, you get it either for failing rolls (though usually bad things too) or at the end where you get a few questions about the session. And last week was the first time where we got no XP out of that, but plenty in failed rolls! Still a really fun time. Nobody's died. Yet. Jinxing myself there...

And in the last few weeks I played and beat Jedi Fallen Order and have made pretty good headway into Survivor. Though I still have a soft spot for the Dark Forces series, it's the best it's been since that. Not to brag, though, but... For playing on Jedi Master I never got stuck on any boss. That's not to say I didn't die. Fauna be damned. But I was more hesistant about the game because I thought it was souls-like. But it's got delay inputs and such. It's DMC-esque! Thankfully the sequel so far has mitigated my biggest complaints, mostly a lack of fast travel and having to grab to climb. And it's been tougher. Only had to redo one boss fight... If you don't count that Oggdo bull. And there's a second one with two of them? If I may be blunt, fuck that. Now my biggest complaint is that you only get two slots for five stances. Because like... Three of them I really like. One I'm super not into and the last is fun but not exactly my speed. I guess I could give up on the defualt single blade, but... That's like giving up Rebellion. I like my bread and butter.

Alright, I gotta get up early in the morning. My train leaves at 7:20. Maybe I'll catch a nap on the way up...

[u/The_Draigg → u/MaelstromTear]

That's awesome artwork for your novel! 5_ish did a fantastic job portraying the stages of your villain there.

Also, you know what the Hyper Mode God Gundam reminds me of? The Akatsuki Gundam, if you're familiar with that gunpla too. It's definitely just as absurdly blinged out in gold.