One Piece (S1) and Fate: The Winx Saga

Live action shows from cartoons I never watched!

One Piece (Netflix live action - Season 1)

Dreaming to be the one to find the "One Piece" and become the pirate king, Luffy sets sail to form a crew, find a ship, and make the world better with his abundant optimism!? Yeah, he doesn't want to be the "normal" type of pirate and it helps that he ate a magical fruit that makes him like rubber which is both cool and ridiculous. This show has very good production values, decent acting and fight choreography and a pretty amazing story so far. Also amazing is the music which features themes for all the main characters, and versions that blend said themes together! Highly recommended and hoping season 2 continues this trend.

Fate: The Winx Saga (2 Seasons)

Faries are real, look like regular people and apparently also have to go to school. Some of them even have to fight evil forces in their spare time! If that sounds a bit Harry Potterish well, it kind of is, but the protagonists here are all female and with each being a different "elemental" fairy. One can use fire, another plants, and so on and somehow can just pull powers out of their fairy asses when the plot needs them to. Apart from that the characters were entertaining enough, so if you like teen drama with a dash of magic and the occasional decent combat sequence then you might enjoy this two season show. Be advised it was cancelled though which means it doesn't tie up very nicely, and doesn't have the budget or polish of One Piece.

Decluttering Day 7: Two Roof Rolls? I think they were meant to be sun or rain shades or something that we haven't ever used.

Warframe: Oberon and Nekros

The paladin and the necromancer.

Before we get into the frames there's currently a code for two free weapons (and weapon slots) you can redeem on the warframe website on in-game market (use the button on the bottom right): WF-DEATH-BATTLE

Not sure if that's due to the upcoming Tennocon or thanks to the recent Death Battle involving an Excalibur, but either way its a win for us - use it quick before it expires! On to the frames...

Oberon

Not sure how I got my hands on this paladin class warframe as it was waiting for me upon my return, and I found it to be just ok. No super strong offensive abilities but it can buff and heal allies while being pretty sturdy itself. After completing mastery on it I let it go because I'm usually a lone wolf type player anyway.

Then Wrothak shows up in a prime version to help me on a few missions (those freaking Orb Mother Heists on Venus) which just proved I was using it completely wrong (guaranteed I'm using 90% of all warframes wrong anyway since they have to "shine" for me before they get forma or potatoed/reactor) and while I was hiding from the Corpus army doing my sneaky Loki thing he was just tanking them AND the Orb Mother for a time. Definitely a frame I underestimated, just still not one for my playstyle.

Nekros

Easily farmable from Lephantis on Deimos (who is basically a pinata when fighting fairy Titania) the Nekros' main draw is his ability to make corpses cough up more loot. Oh, he can also punch enemy souls from out of them, summon ghosts of killed enemies as allies and scare badddies into running away which doesn't go well with any of his other abilities.

If I needed a word to describe him it would be: boring. For the most part Nekros is a warframe without powers. His punch is weak, the summoned dead expire, and what you will be doing most of the time is double looting corpses. Bleh, not a frame for me. Luckily he's an easy one to reclaim if I ever want to.

Return to War(frame)

Morphius convinced us to get back into Warframe which I'd stopped playing in 2014 and boy, has it had a ton of updates since I last played. Better UI, nice quests and excellent songs are all part of the reason it has basically booted out Neverwinter Online as my daily MMO and GTFO from our Friday night rotation. We've just been Warframing the whole time. :P

Since I'll likely be posting more about this in the future I thought I'd start off with my two current favorite frames sitting in my "stable":

Loki - my starter frame who excels at being invisible (which does bonus melee damage if things can't see you). I've also geared him to be pretty much permanently invisible, wherein the energy he spends to "cast" invisibility naturally regenerates before the invisibility wears out. This makes any mission where you can take your time killing things (or specifically killing one non-boss thing) super easy, and any mission where you don't have to kill anything a walk in the park. There's actually a surprising number of those in this game!

He doesn't kill things as fast as other frames can though, and isn't very tough if things can actually spot you which means I take cover a lot if I have no energy while every one else just sprints headlong into battle.

Titania - a fairy themed warframe earned from the Silver Grove quest who has abilities to cleanse harmful conditions, do minor heals and hold an enemy in stasis but my favorite is shrinking to fairy mode, which uses a different set of (stronger) weapons, makes her very hard to hit, and best of all puts her in archwing flying mode even in areas you aren't meant to have archwings! This makes a good number of agility challenges moot, and nullifies the danger of many enemies, including bosses, who don't think to look up.

Again I've tried gear her to be as energy efficient as possible to stay in fairy mode because at regular size she's about as vulnerable as the Loki but that's ok. Seems I prefer function over DPS at the moment.

Anywho - if you haven't played Warframe for awhile you might enjoy "We all Lift Together", the intro song and cinematic when you first get to Fortuna on Venus.

Strange Magic

George Lucas is off with the fairies.

The opening where a fairy sings an Elvis song is a good indication of what you are in for in this animated flick, as it is strongly in the "musical" bucket with at least 50% of it being sung.

If you can get past that, then you are treated to a very well animated story of love, hate and everything in between packaged for a young teen audience. The humor in it is alright too, though don't expect many surprises plot wise.

Definitely needed more of this fella.

All up I found it a decent and suitable for kids movie, but not a great one. It gets 2.5 primrose petals out of 5. I'd probably watch it again, but that's just me.

Eador: Fairy Dust

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

In space, two new masters appear - the Elf King Dariol who clearly has a thing for Vianta, and an "ancient" one (green skinned elf?) named Ul-Dagan "the engineer". Ul-Dagan in particular is quite abrasive so Nesturs tries attack him immediately, only to find his world is protected by some form of force shield.

Due to this, Nesturs sends Olchyr to attack Vianta instead since she now hates him for what happened to Oinor. The sadist mage Eleran is also hired to assist. It is tough to progress on the Fairy Queen's shard due to the low mining (low gold) and the high number of powerful treants milling about. Indeed it's easier to go through the small pockets of demon territories here.

Eleran is feeling ballsy.

Fortunately Nesturs tech level has been going through the roof thanks to all the huge shards (of other masters) he's been collecting, and his proxies bypass a lot of fighting simply by constructing a shipyard to sail them beside Vianta's castle, which ironically is guarded only by simple militia. Eleran easily defeats them, captures Vianta, and uses her in his experiments until she expires.

Eador: Pendrainne and the Lich

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

The mage Pendrainne and scout Farcol are sent to the next unclaimed land, a large desert one that also interests Oinor, Vianta, and Stenriya due to some mystic gear being present there. Pendrainne finds it in dwarven lands near Nesturs citadel, so he takes it by force before evicting the other masters off the shard.

At this point Lan'sharr the lich, another master, appears and openly declares his goal of exterminating all life while looking for allies. In his view masters don't count as "life", just their subjects. In response, Nesturs immediately send Pendrainne and the scout Slitt to kill the lich on his own shard and is surprisingly supported by Vianta who sends aid in the form of resources and troops: dryads and fairies.

Lich logic is awesome.

Lan'sharr has great defenses though. Driven by madness, the wizard Orongull now served the lich along with six powerful minotaurs at his castle. It was a bloody battle, with Slitt assassinating Orongull before being dismembered by the bull men. Pendrainne's forces met a similar fate, but the wizard still claimed victory with 1 HP remaining. That was all he needed to destroy Lan'sharr once and for all.

Eador: In Space, Size Matters

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

On the next shard Faeris meets the forces of a new master, the fairy Queen Vianta, who preaches all about love and joy - freely giving resources to Nesturs representatives. The good will is broken when she suddenly demands tribute in return, but at that point Faeris had developed the lands enough to accumulate lots of magic crystals (which power spells).

Getting crowded out here.

The wizard Pendrainne is recruited to use said crystals to flatten Vianta's citadel, followed by defeating Oinor's weak forces once more - the swamps he put his citadel in didn't leave him much gold for defenses.

Beleth, seeing that this victory let Nesturs mainland surpass that of the necromancers own suddenly becomes a sniveling coward, offering some form of "alliance" against the other lords. This is because Nesturs can now assault other master's mainlands directly. More land = more power. Nesturs is tempted to silence Beleth for good but first decides to return the favor to his first invader: Doh-Gor.

Eador: Exploding Units are the Worst

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

The scout, Dynrigg is sent to the next shard against Beleth's forces where he enlists the aid of dryads, fairies and finding that most of this land is faithful almost to the point of zealotry to "the Lord of Light". Since they still view Nesturs as "good" they do let Dynrigg pass through, but aren't as friendly to Beleth's evil champion.

Poison damages all opponents!

Dynrigg eventually lays siege to Beleth's stronghold there, and despite catastrophic losses to centaurs allied to the necromancer, the scout is successful, partially thanks to his success in poisoning their water supply before the battle but mostly thanks to the exploding gargoyles he learned to summon during his time with Archmage Kelaide.

Meanwhile in the void, another master appears - the barbarian Doh-Gor who wields a powerful magic amulet. He openly states his intent on destroying Nesturs. Soon.

Thea: The Eclipse

[Part of the Darklands of Arkania Story.]

After a long journey, Wolfy had led Darth, Cooper, Braxwolf, Talarian and Mama Cori to a place where she figured the soldiers of Riva would not find them: Hermit's lake, where the role of hermit had now passed on to Curian - who was still hoping to find his unicorn. He didn't live alone though. In the little hamlet he now housed child orphans from the various wars, a retired soldier named Heather Bee as well as two sisters Wolfy recognized: Korima the warrior and Harika the one eyed thief, who was also on the run after managing to lose her sizable amount of loot at gambling.

They had only been there a few days passed when suddenly the sun darkened through means of an unnatural eclipse, and during that time the world around them changed for the worse. Mama Cori was unsure for how long the sun remained dark, but when the first greyish rays of light began to filter through, it was decided an expedition be sent out to discover the mystery of the darkness.

Those houses are tiny compared to the people! :P

This party, composed of Braxwolf, Mama Cori, Curian, Heather Bee, Darth and led by Wolfy decided to first make their way to a nearby ruined tower where they encountered a bearded demon named Theodore. The little bastard tasks the team with menial duties such as boar hunting, vegetable growing, structure building, and retrieving gold from a demon buddy of his, who is of the cuter Hohlick variety.

Rat-poodle Fairy?

Sojourn at Entropia: The Locals

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

Eventually I get shipped off to Camp Icarus (aka newbie landing) and meet a few of the locals.

Apparently there are fairies here.

and ... lower gravity...

And um... those type of ladies.

And dinosaurs.

And dinosaurs!

and dinosaurs!!!

I also find it pretty cool that unlike most MMOs I've played, all your "hot" keys aren't special moves, they are all social functions such add friend, whisper, follow, trade, view friend list, etc!

Maleficent

This is to Sleeping Beauty as Wicked is to the Wizard of Oz.

A re imagining of the Sleeping Beauty story, this film follows a fairy named Maleficent - from when she is a young girl to when she grows up to be an ultra powerful and hot woman in the form of Angelina Jolie. She forgets she has magic often though and likes taking a more physical approach to violence.

Despite that, the plot is not bad and the special FX are fantastic (it is Disney), though you do get that feeling of wire work every now and then, and for some reason some flight scenes reminded me of How to Train your Dragon. Jolie is great to watch which is good since she's on screen for most of the time. When she isn't though things seem to turn down a notch.

One horny fairy. Erm... I mean, horned fairy. Horned.

I was also being thrown by the accents a bit. Funny that the folk of the "magical land" speak with the English accent and the inhabitants of the "human land" speak with a Scottish or Irish accent. Still, it's a very entertaining film and the lack of any musical numbers might be a plus for some people. Not sure if it is still as age friendly for the little ones as the original but I recommend it, giving it four out of five black wings and wouldn't mind seeing it again.