#It's difficult to make lore seamless

[samuchiiiii]

As much I am hyped for the new season and new movie of adventure time, I really hope they don't touch Simon's story anymore..

Hell yeah feature him, show us how he's doing and all but it's because I already made a fixed lore for myself and I really refuse for them to change it

[unpopularly-opinionated]

This is an odd question considering most people who follow me probably aren't into Destiny, but it's really been bugging me since it popped in my head and now I can't stop thinking about it. Season of the Witch is largely considered the best season this year, which from a gameplay-perspective I probably agree with, but from a lore-perspective I don't understand it at all.

Why exactly did we need to turn Eris Morn into a Hive God to fight Xivu Arath? By now we've killed two Hive Gods already, and countless other big bads, so I'm just confused why all of a sudden we needed to take the risk of Eris completely succumbing to the Sword Logic to fight Xivu Arath. I mean sure, it helps that now she's disconnected from her Throne World, making killing her all the more easier. But I just don't understand why that needed to happen.

What made Xivu Arath uniquely different from Oryx or Savathuun that made killing her so difficult?

I can only come up with one possible explanation, which seems kind of like a poor excuse to me, but whatever I guess. I suppose it works as a reason. That reason being that we just did this to get her off of our back temporarily while we focus our attention solely on the Witness. Because obviously it's a massive deal that she's now disconnected from her Throne World, so she'd have to presumably step back from the offensive while she regroups and figures out her next move.

I don't know, it just seemed really bizarre to me, especially with how much praise people have been giving that season. I kind of think the only reason it's getting that hype is due to the ending when Eris slits Savathuun's throat (admittedly cool), as well as the fairly seamless (albeit contrived) lead in to the next season.

[erisweekofficial]

We're beyond excited to celebrate @futurehunt, another of our amazing Azris writers! Known for her captivating work, A Court of Shadows and Ash—if you haven't read it yet, it's an absolute must-read!

Her storytelling is a masterclass in suspense, with every twist and turn leaving readers on the edge of their seats. Her ability to weave together intricate plotlines and rich lore across multiple works is nothing short of brilliant. The connections between ACOSAA and her other pieces, like "My Old Friend, Fire," are seamless and incredibly clever.

Not only is her prose stunning, but her deep understanding of the characters, especially Eris, adds layers of depth to her stories. It’s no wonder her writing sparks such admiration—she brings the world and characters to life in a way that's impossible to forget!

Read on to learn more about Hunt's thoughts on Eris and what reality tv show he'd host!

Give us a name for one of Eris's brothers

Balor! In Celtic mythology, Balor is a tyrannical evil force also known as the "Evil Eye". Not only do I love the name, but I think it's very much something Beron would name one of his sons.

Give us a name for one of Eris's hounds

Magnolia! I have a headcanon that all of his hounds are named after tree species.

What's an Eris fic that you'd like to read, but haven't come across yet (what tropes, concepts, etc). ?

Regency era Duke Vanserra. I feel like this must exist? Perhaps I haven't looked thoroughly enough. There's something about imagining Eris in tailcoats— with a red, silk cravat, of course— that makes me feral.

What are Eris’s hobbies or interests outside of his duties as a Vanserra?

Anything that connects him with nature and his land. I know he's secretly a farmer at heart.

If Eris were to fall in love, how would he show it, and would he find it difficult to express?

Through the most deeply thoughtful gifts. I think it's safe to assume that Beron Vanserra wasn't teaching his younglings how to verbalize their feelings, so I believe Eris communicates his love through gifts that show the care and attention he has for his partner. In one of my fics, A Court of Shadows and Ash, this is the exact dynamic I try to represent in Eris's relationship with Azriel. I won't spoil anything for those who haven't read, but Eris sure does know how to give a good gift ;)

What game/reality tv show would Eris host? (Real or Made up)

What Not to Wear. Hands down

[magixfairyix]

Trix and Ancestral Witch's Lore/Thoughts

~ Alright so first off I have a set idea of how the Trix got the Ancestors' powers. The three of them are far past descendants of them (as the Ancestors are old as hell). Like, centuries past.

~ The Trix each had thier own magic. Ice, darkness, and storms and all of that. But on Diamond, Zenothe (Darcy's planet in my cannon), and Linfea (Stormy's planet in my cannon), the normal powers aligned with the magic of the planets are crystals, shadow (not psychic), and nature (not storm) magic.

~ In my mind the Ancestors saw potential in the Trix when they are around 15-16, and slowly started to give them their magic without the Trix knowing the fact. They were still trapped on Obsision, but they could move their magic essence to vessels as long as the timing would be correct and if their magic would accept the magic.

~TW: Murd$r

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

~ Icy developed ice magic and it was the least remarkable since a few faries on Diamond had ice magic due to magi (magic users) from Whisperia (quite a few Belladonna descendants there) coming over to the planet. She initially had ice magic, but far from the strength of what she had when she fully got Belladonna's magic.

~ After the fall of Diamond, due to all the negative emotions and anger Icy was feeling (she had accepted Belladonna's magic better than Stormy and Darcy had, due to Icy having distant Whisperian relatives where she got her not-Ancestor ice magic from.) she just sort of accepted the magic. It was a seamless process (not because Belladonna cared, but because it was easy already)

~ And Belladonna didn't have anything to do with the Shaman Witch's arrival. The Shaman Witch is actually more powerful than the Ancestors, and probs more lore about her later. But she saw how angry Icy was after the fall of Diamond and so she and her sisters decided it would be more beneficial for Trix to be cut off from any chance of a normal life.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

~ Darcy's was quite remarkable. Quite a few of the witches on Zenothe were known for getting their magic from Lilith, though only the shadow side of Lilith's magic (this was purposefully from the witch's side). Lilith decided to give her psychic magic slowly, saving most of the magic for last.

~ Though Lilith's psychic magic is strong, and Darcy was a child, and not a lot of people on her planet knew how to deal with it. She had a neighbour or two who came from other planets with psychic magic who tried to help her deal with it and train her, but it was too much magic too quickly. It was painful.

~ One day after about half a year of dealing with the psychic magic, Darcy was walking back to her house and the psychic magic was extremely painful. Like, agony painful. Then Lilith decided, hey, now would be the perfect time to make sure she doesn't have any normal life tying her down.

~ Lilith gave Darcy the rest of her psychic magic, and then Darcy lost control and the minds of basically everyone on her planet were sort of "cut." They are still alive, breathing, but their consciousness is cut off. Everyone was basically on the ground unconscious.

~ Darcy then started going around different planets trying to find information to save her planet.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

~ On Linfea there is just magic of the plant-like nature, and sometimes water but rarely (Thrama's magic is not seen on Linfea, and the way Stormy is a descendant is because her father, a wizard, is a distant descendant of the Ancestor and hates the fact).

~ Storm magic is seen as unpredictable, so when Stormy (who struggled with the small amount of plant magic she had) got storm magic it was difficult for her to control, and pretty much her nature magic went buh bye (courtesy of Tharma's magic taking over the less dominant magic, and Tharma didn't want nature magic there).

~ Stormy and her parents didn't get along that much. They weren't too shitty, but also they never really liked her much because of her magic. Stormy was in a fight with her mom, and Tharma was like "Good angst opportunity"

~ Basically the Ancestors purposefully wanted to ruin their lives to make sure they didn't have anything tying them down, to make sure they had nothing to make it easier to convince them to take the Dragon Flame. We hate them.

~ Stormy accidentally lost control of her magic (aka Tharma giving her the rest of the magic, and even besides that it was hard to control it) and yeah... that resulted in her mother's death. Her father found out and was going to take her to jail or something (cause he disliked her anyways. He sucks).

~ Then Darcy (who had looked in the Linfea archives to find information, and she didn't find anything) who also suspected about the Ancestor's being behind things, found Stormy and transported the two of them to Magic City. They then found Icy a few weeks later.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 08/04/2024

Shiny Smily TALE

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) Shiny Smily Story (OST Version) - HoloCure

Ripped by Ellie53

Well, would you believe it - its the eighth Season 8 rip being covered, on the eighth of April (half of eight)! And what better way to celebrate this than to cover completely uncharted territory for the blog - an UNDERTALE rip!!

I kid, I kid - though Undertale is definitely quite prominently featured on here, I feel as if it is rightfully earned. It and its psuedo-sequel in Deltarune feel almost like the frontmen of the SiIvaGunner channel in some way, as Season 1 began mere months after Undertale and its music began making waves online in late 2015. Such a hot topic was impossible to ignore, yet SiIvaGunner and Undertale have a fair bit in common that made the game's continued presence on SiIvaGunner feel very natural. There's the lore theming of course, I covered that briefly in Your Best Nightmario, but it also extends to the very core of what Undertale is: A game shamelessly rooted in silliness and absurd, internet-age comedy, yet still able to evoke such real attachments and emotions. The fit was all too perfect, and so the Undertale rips have continued year after year - Hoopache, Outertale, Determination is Magic, BUSTER HAND, and on and on and on. It may seem difficult to imagine that these all manage to stay fresh for so long, but they all find a way - and Shiny Smily TALE, eight years into the channel's life, shows that they're here to stay.

Immediately upon first hearing Shiny Smily TALE, I was reminded of one of the most recent UT/DR rips to have been covered on here, in kris gaming. Its reference was completely lost to me, being an arrangement in the style of stock music popularly used within VTuber circles, of which I'm terminally unfamiliar with - but the sheer vibe, the coziness, comfort of it all just made it such a wonderful listen. I don't mean to say that the VTuber world is one I oppose, moreso that its a part of the internet that still feels so nigh impenetrable to me - althesame, I love admiring it from a distance, just seeing how much passion and endearment is formed within these creators' communities.

And I immediately felt many of those feelings when hearing Shiny Smily TALE for the first time!! Shiny Smily Story has such a wonderful sound to it already, a vibe at once danceable and comforting - "Future Bass", I believe its typically called? - which turns the once-dramatic feel of SAVE The World into something far more pure-hearted in its arrangement here. Its as if all of those emotions still present from SAVE The World are spun into something far sweeter, spun like a legend of something exciting ahead, but with happiness and joy at the forefront. Without too much experience in listening to the original Shiny Smily Story, its hard to assess "accurately" how impressive of an effort this is, but what I DO know is of Ellie53's prowess in ripping - I was practically forced to during the great Raftmageddon incident of April 1st 2024. But even these jokier rafts rides, ones like Raft Ride at Freddy's and TiK ToK, on the clock, but the Raft Ride don't stop, no, show how good she is at merging two songs to such seamless (if, here, comedic) effect. Indeed, I can pick up on a lot of subtler touches done here to make the arrangement work, Shiny Smily TALE utilizes the various ebb-and-flowing sections of intensity and noise within the Shiny Smily Story theme, to punctuate the progression of SAVE The World where it best fits. For instance using a calmer section for the Hopes and Dreams leitmotif, only for it to build in excitement as it progresses, like the very song itself is pulling itself out of isolation and loneliness...allllmost commenting on Asriel's own struggles in Undertale?

Okay, okay, I won't quite go there - but the theme of community and love is one I do want to wrap things up with, adding one last little anecdote. Because it extends beyond the confines of just this rip, extending as far back as 2020, with Sarvéproductions' SAVE the Virtual World. Yes - the inverse joke of Shiny Smily TALE, Shiny Smily Story and SAVE The World, was made four years ago by another long-time excellent ripper: Sarvéproductions, the one behind Bloody Freddy and many more on the channel, across his many years of contributing. It's an equally lovely rip in its own way (likely more, for those attached to HoloLive!), but its the sentiment that Shiny Smily TALE shows that really makes it land for me - that Ellie53 wanted to pay tribute to HoloLive, and at once was able to make it as much of a tribute to a fellow long-time channel contributor, to a partner-in-crime on the channel! It's not a new thing to occur on the channel of course, rips like old town ribbon race and Green Panty Zone (Sequenced Ver​.​) were made in tribute to specific rips or specific rippers respesctively, but I love how interpersonal this exchange between Ellie53 and Sarvéproductions feels in particular, how well it all fits with the feel of HoloLive and VTuber communities in general - and of course, I love how genuinely fantastic Shiny Smily TALE sounds on top of it all.

[intcritus]

🔑 my favorite type of threads

🌸 the blog/s that most inspires me

🦄 the best thing that's happened to me in roleplay this year

🔑 my favorite type of threads : i love threads that can be slice of life, i mean like getting to know one another with like time skips. but more importantly, emotional threads where something happened ( i.e they argued and are kinda difficult to makeup, seeing one another after a lengthy absent ). like anything that will come naturally, and sparks development.

🌸 the blog/s that most inspires me: @vonerde definitely, the lore, the way vee writes and expands on both the beautiful and ugly sides of the earth. gaia is just a treasure and i enjoy seeing her development and lore lots. @wildwoof the love feli has for their muses is just infectious af, and i love learning about koga and leon and makes me want to get into enstars tbh, i know nothing about it, but i know i love koga sm, and the way the emotions, laughter and even the sadness makes me sit up and just dwell in that, really just means a lot to me. @ardenssolis because me and shi have been friends for so long, across many blogs and she's just so comforting to me and eventually she'll suffer the wrath of my drabbles and inbox spams again <3 i love ozy and all the muses she has, it makes me happy. honestly, the seamless way she can switch between muses is fucking awesome.

🦄 the best thing that's happened to me in roleplay this year: this was my hardest year, i wish i can pinpoint if i had a good moment, but i can't. i was so happy when i moved blogs and my writing muse came back full force but that was snatched cruelly from me. um, i did find new comfort videos ! which can be considered good.

[gabrielle-writes]

Monthly Lore 30 - Bravien Art part 1

Sorry for not posting yesterday, this week as a bit hectic and when I could sit and write the lore, I was having some difficult in finding the right way to write it.

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Bravien art has gone through dozens of phases during all of Bravo's history; citizens and visitors alike can have an idea of it by walking through some of the oldest districts, like the Southeast Market and the neighbohoord of the Academies of Healing and Necromancy, and by visiting the oldest Vessels. This is because, as with most cultures of the Known World, Bravien art is mostly intrinsically intertwined with its architecture.

It is important to highlight that, despite all of the phases, their styles, favored colors and subjects and, in some cases, favored materials, have remained relatively constant throughout the centuries, with three types of materials allowing one to identify a piece of art as Bravien.

The first one is everything related to rocks, minerals, metals and gems; probably because of the variety of these materials available under the mountains and their easy access thanks to the prefererence in building underground as well as above ground, it is easy to notice that Bravien people seem to love any and all type of medium that involves them, like sculptures, engravings, frescoes, embedded gems and stained-glass. Streets, Vessels, Communal Houses, public buildings, Academies, Schools, and underground corridors are richly decorated with all of these, some of them more than two millenia of age, and most of them easily mixing all materials.

Since Bravien mages started to get more creative with the use of magic in the arts, around a thousand and two hundred years ago, the presence of organic parts in more flamboyant and whimsical ways also became almost a rule of Bravien art, being almost a consensus that this opened the way for Bravien hybrid technology. This feature is more visible in the use of bioluminescent fungi, flowers kept eternally alive by magic, iridescent scales and leaves, and organic eyes with functional eyelids and glowing irises - the latter constantly frightens newcomers in Bravo.

And, of course, magic in itself: while the normal Bravien citizen has always produced art, it's impossible to not notice and deny that magic allows the preservation of any piece of Bravien art and, in multiple cases, the seamless intertwining of multiple materials, no matter how dissimilar they are.

----------------

EDIT: was rereading this entry to make sure I wasn't repeating anything in its second part and noticed that I was way out of it when I wrote and revised it because one paragraph made no sense, so I just corrected it t_t

[hollowwhisperings]

The Secrets of The Secret Room: KH2's Hidden Boss Arena as a Future Plot Point.

Anyone remember that Secret Room in KH2? The FRUSTRATINGLY difficult-to-reach one within the basement caves of Ansem's Castle? The one that lets you fight Data copies of the Organization XIII members? THAT Secret Room?

KH2's "Garden of Assemblage", GIF by superbia (nokuto.tumblr)

Well, what if we look at KH as a series and its LOVE for hiding plot within gameplay mechanics... and look at that Secret Room again after the Lore Bombs from KHUX & KH3?

The KH series LOVES to "hide" lore & plot foreshadowing within game mechanics: the different/same coloured dream portals in DDD & KH3, the "reset" levels in each game, Anti-Sora and Rage Form...

i wonder who, exactly, set up that Data Combat Record of Organization XIII members?

the easiest candidate is DiZ: he has the means, motive & opportunity to have set something like that up (know your enemy).

it's also plausible that Saïx set it up for Axel, a means of preparing him for assassinations but it doesn't make much sense given that Axel would need that combat data BEFORE he fought his targets while the Data Room only has those 'records' AFTER targets are defeated.

Xehanort is another candidate, perhaps setting the system up in order to have Data Copies of the Organization to fall back on for Future Use (no time travel required!). it WOULD be easier to put a Data Copy into a Replika than trying to locate, say, Lauriam or Arlene (who he only seemed to meet through Xigbar) upon their recompletion.

There's also That Looming Option of Darkness.

Darkness, getting one (or more) of the above characters to set this room up, ultimately for ITS use: Darkness seemingly needs 13 Vessels in its Game with MoM and, going with Sleeping Realm Theory, KH3 DID seem to imply that Data Riku & Young Master Xehanort were not only working for (or with) Darkness but were investigating how Hearts & darkness interacted with DATA.

KH's Primordial Darkness IS canonically tech-savvy: the Secret Room of Data Organization XIII fits EXACTLY within its modus operandi.

it's not JUST Darkness who knows of/discovered this Secret Room, however: Sora & Team Guardians of Light did too.

KH3 somewhat implies that Ienzo and Even learned of the Secret Room after being recompleted: it's probably what they were referencing when trying to set Xion & Roxas up in Replika bodies.

If Roxas is now made up of himself AND his Data Copies (from Data Twilight Down & the Secret Room)... it solves the issue of his dual-wielding keyblades despite no longer having 2 "real" Hearts to source them from.

I don't think that either of these Data Roxases would feel a need to have their own Replika bodies: Axel's Nobody formed a Heart but it integrated with his "recompleted" self without issue, just as all these Roxases would. These Hearts can merge or otherwise exist alongside each other without any issue because they share the same "Soul" (or, at least, there are no conflicting memories within their Timelines).

Xehanort did not seem much affected by Xemnas seemingly forming a Heart either: the "lived time" of Xemnas simply went back to Xehanort (& if the transistion WASN'T so seamless... it's not like he would care & he ended up Time Travelling Xemnas before any conflicts of heart could arise anyway).

Terra, on the other hand... well, Xemnas got the Fixation with Aqua's Armour from SOMEONE.

Back to That Secret Room...

my munny's on Darkness bringing that Data Organization XIII back into play at some point, if only to allow more Hidden Boss Gameplay post-KH3 for the purposes of "strengthening" the Darkness within its vessels.

It makes me wonder if the "Demyx" met during KH3 was actually a "Data Demyx": he and Luxord do not seem native to [this side of] "Reality" but to the home of Nameless Star, going by the Verum Rex trailer in Toy Box & the Secret Ending(s) of KH3.

the premise where DiZ or Xehanort sets up the Data Organization for further study, only for it to get used by Darkness could just as easily apply to XIGBAR/Luxu for MoM but... Darkness is the entity with the greater connection to Data Hearts so, regardless of WHO this Secret Room was set up by, it's probably Darkness who'll bring that game mechanic into the future of KH's Story.

[prof-peach]

weather's awful outside, leaving me Entirely unable to work on stuff for my oc-'sona-thing, so i thought i'd ask- what would be too "out there" for this blog? (legends aside of course, something i am SO happy you do!) 'cause i've been toying with giving my character's rotom a custom-built body? which isn't too weird by the show or games' standards, but this blog feels more 'rooted' in realness, pun intended

While the blog runs on some degree of logic, it works the franchises facts into it. Machinery for example is often far more developed. Look at the mecha meowth, weird grabby armed balloons and crazy gizmos team rocket have for example, or the tech that created mewtwo, the healing systems in the Pokemon centres. The blog cannot ignore the existence of complex tech like that within the world, to the point that it’s more advance that real life. However, we will look at that level of mechanics and development as if it’s very difficult to acquire, like high end military gear is in todays age. Not impossible to get ahold of no, but you have to do a lot to even find it available for sale. Repurposing machines however is totally viable, and creating your own complex rotom body is an option, so long as there’s an element of reality within it. Perhaps your character bought a broken machine, and asked a friend to help rebuild it to be more useful. Or maybe there was a raid at a Pokemon centre, and in the fights and scuffles, a machine fell at your feet, damaged but not destroyed, something you could shuffle away and fix for your buddy. These are just vague examples, but you can have fun with it, and while I love that people want to keep the the lore of this place, it’s also about having fun in creating. If you want to make something, you have to do it.

Other than legendaries and myths being totally off the table for the most part, we don’t build anything that does have flaws. Creation wise, everything has to have its weakness. A Pokemon cannot be a perfect machine, a character can’t do everything and beat everyone, a machine cannot be a seamless human android that is indistinguishable from living things. There’s always a flaw.

I do however encourage you to totally disregard that if you want, because at the end of the day, anything you create brings you joy, and peoples ideas and stories don’t affect this world building, so there’s no harm at all in doing it. Have fun with it.

[iasmelaion]

an assortment of my random thoughts about tears of the kingdom

No real story spoilers, because, real talk, I do not play these games for the story or the ~lore~. I am here to yeet my beautiful small son Link across the stunning landscapes of Hyrule, completing shrines, side quests, and murdering monsters at my whim. I will, perhaps, eventually get around to doing more of the main quests. First though, I must upgrade all my armor and get more hearts. So miss me with your 19481203 posts about the Zelda timeline, idgaf.

This game is so good in ways that are almost invisible until you realize how much work must have gone into making the experience so good and seamless. There’s so, so much freedom in the game--in terms of what order you can do things in, how you can solve puzzles, what play style you use at all, the things you can build with ultrahand, and of course the basic freedom of the map(s) themselves and how you can traverse them--and it’s not until you think about it that you realize how difficult it must be to design a game with this much freedom without breaking things left and right. An enormous part of the pleasure of this game, and to a lesser extent Breath of the Wild, is knowing you can just go off and do whatever, and the game will be like “cool, that’s valid!” or “hmm, interesting, I’ll allow it.” Sure, there are certain intended sequences or progressions, and there are ways to play the story parts in more narratively cohesive ways, but as the proliferation of challenge runs attests, you can also just do whatever whenever. It’s great, and I already know I’ve ruined myself for other games in this open world genre by playing BOTW and TOTK.

I like the new abilities in TOTK much more than the abilities in BOTW. (Though pour one out for remote bombs, that shit was useful.) The new abilities in TOTK all work together to help you solve problems in the game in multiple ways, allowing for both a lot more creativity and a lot more clever ways to be lazy. (recall elevator, my beloved) It’s super impressive, and it makes the game a lot more engaging than if there were only one or two intended solutions to any given problem.

Any more fiddly efforts with Ultrahand honestly make me motion sick (something about the way the camera moves plus the rotation, magnesis in BOTW caused me similar issues), so I’m probably never going to be building elaborate contraptions. Luckily for me, functional but hideous atrocities of Hyrule engineering are perfectly cromulent ways to get through the game.

I’ve done two temples so far (Wind and Fire), and looked up walkthroughs for both of them. Not because the puzzles are hard, but because lol my ability to get around in one of these things is tragically limited. I have an awful sense of direction and/or ability to navigate these temples, it was the same for me in BOTW. And like, in BOTW, do NOT ask me how long it took me to get my ass to Kakariko Village, it will only embarrass us both. So yeah, I look up walkthroughs just to spare myself the frustration of spending hours lost in the damn temple.

I also haven’t updated from 1.1.1 because I love me that duplication glitch. Like, listen. I would like to do SOME things other than play Zelda, and that means skipping some grinding for materials. It’s making the game much more fun for me, without breaking it entirely.

Little musical details I love: Link humming while he cooks! ADORABLE. Hestu’s little music and dance number every time he upgrades your inventory slot! Makes me smile every time, and made me lol in delight the first time! That music when you get yeeted out of a tower! Amazing and thrilling! Just in general, this is a very sonically pleasing game.

Also visually pleasing! I frankly don’t like photorealism in video games. Elden Ring looks hideous and unpleasant to me, Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption and the like edge awfully close to the Uncanny Valley, etc. I want more stylized, cartoonish art styles, and BOTW/TOTK is basically the ideal for me: painterly, gorgeous, and Ghibli-esque in the landscape, and pleasantly cartoony in the characters.

The act of exploring is still so rewarding in this game, even with a reused map.

LINK’S OUTFITS. I love dressing him up, and I super love the gender nonconforming vibes of it all. Unfortunately, I do go for best stats, armor-wise, and end up in the Twilight set most often now because I upgraded that to the max, but in my heart, Link is wearing that Frost armor set with the cute minidress with the back cutout all the time.

I built Link a house! It’s an architectural atrocity but oh well!

Was a bit of a steep learning curve, combat-wise, because I went in full of BOTW-arrogance, because I had, like, so many hearts and such good armor by the end of my playthrough there, and then you start off TOTK with none of that and suddenly red bokoblins are one-shotting you. Humbling. Should have remembered how thoroughly I failed the Master Sword trials. Definitely did remember that every time I died in the Proving Grounds shines.

Regained some combat arrogance though upon finding a way to cheese Lynels. I’m not sorry, even if this is definitely a glitch and not just the consequence of creative problem solving. Listen, I am simply never going to learn to flurry rush properly, so this is just going to have to do.

Anyway, this game is very good. Like, so good. I am going to spend all summer playing it and I’m going to have a blast.

[gingermintpepper]

After thinking it over for a bit, I've decided that I might as well do a proper underrated 3DS game rec list. I'm a bit of an ATLUS junkie and that's gonna be pretty disgustingly apparent in this list, but it's not my fault that they released hit after hit and all of them were duly ignored.

Due to tumblr's 10 image limit (and my struggle to keep motivated to do one thing for more than three hours) I'm definitely gonna have to break this up into parts and I'm fairly certain one of these lists is just gonna be MegaTen games lmao but I'd like to let people know about these excellent titles and see if I can't at least get people interested in them so they can get more traction.

So, without further ado:

Some 3DS Games that were criminally slept on (part 1)

Monster Hunter Stories

God, where do I begin with this game. Well, the basics: It's a JRPG spinoff title of the now widely successful and popular Monster Hunter series featuring a different take on interacting with the varied and intricate monsters populating the world: Riders.

Yep, instead of hunting the beasties, you play as a young rider who's completed their intiation ritual and can now bond with 'Monsties' as they've cutely labelled the usually ferocious monsters of the wilds. The great thing is that you still fight Monsters--tons of them in fact but this isn't a paid review and in my humble opinion, the most impressive thing about this game is the visual style. The landscapes, the armour, the way they redesigned and 3DS-ified the classically hyper realistic and monstrous beasts to not only be absolutely adorable but still capable of being intimidating when the time calls for it, the stellar animation of special moves and combination attacks--it's delicious, nutritious, stupendous, I can and will consume it like it's part of my recommended caloric intake.

It's very akin to Pokemon in the way its basic gameplay premise is set up, however, instead of catching--or even indeed befriending--the Monsties in the game, you rummage through their nests and steal their eggs, later hatching them and getting yourself a brand new lightly kidnapped monster pal!

Other general things about the game:

Pros:

The armour and weapon sets for both male and female characters slap along with the general character customisation options. They're incredibly diverse (though limited in body type) and you can switch around traits and features whenever you want from your house.

The POGS--these porkers are everywhere and they serve as tiny little achievements for exploring every odd and end of the world. Also they have little outfits. They're so cute. 🥺🥺

You can actually ride the Monsties. All of em. Or, at least the ones that you have available to be your buddies. They all have exploration skills and traits that not only make exploring much more interesting but encourage you to swap out your active Monstie and play around with your options a bit.

Y'all breeding Monsties is complicated and I live for just how intense and ridiculous you can get with optimal builds for these things.

The story is really competently put together! The characters, character designs and even the internal conflict with your starting trio of characters is really compelling along with the mystery of the blight that's infecting Monsters across the world. It's not anything worth awards but it's compelling and it makes you care about the characters if that's what you're in the market for.

Amazing sound design, expansive world, everything about the presentation of this game oozes that Monster Hunter charm even if the art is cutesier than usual. You'll never get bored of its stellar visual presentation!

Available for around twenty quid on the Google Play store, so if you want, you could actually get the full game on your smartphone or tablet. Note though that it would be a battery nuker.

Cons:

If you're on a regular 3DS, frame rate drops are a given. This game kinda pushes the visual capabilities of the 3DS to its absolute limit--a lot like Okamiden did back on the DS.

One save file :( It's pretty much for the same reason as above but still.

If you're playing as the girl, you can't get male armour and vice versa. Since there's only one save file, you'll never be able to have all of the armour sets in a single playthrough and that's criminal because both of the sets for the genders are absolutely breath-taking, thank you.

I 👏can't 👏make👏my👏 own 👏Palico👏

Multi-player for this game is pretty dead seeing as it's almost five years old by now and never got much press or traction. Usually this wouldn't be an issue - this game is 99% singleplayer and you don't really need to fuss about with multi-player to have fun, but if you want to collect all the Monsties, you'll need it since the only way to get Glavenus is through pvp achievements. :/

Final thoughts: Play it if you find yourself getting tired or disappointed with 3DS Pokemon games but still want something that feels as fantastical as Pokemon. It outshines the 3DS Pokemon games at every turn and I will never be over just how thoughtfully put together and fully realised these games are. Of course, if you've ever played Monster Hunter, then you know just how intensive these games are with the lore, biology, cultures and world of their Monsters but seeing that translated into JRPG format was just very sobering and it's a game that, to this day, continues to awe me with just how much love and attention went into it.

Last note: If you're still unsure about it, there's a demo available on the e-shop of the 3DS that allows you to play through the entire initial area of the game. Your data does carry through to the full release and to give you an idea of how much I've been able to squeeze out of it - my playtime for that demo is currently sitting at 22 hours. Make sure to get a hold of that Cyan-Kut-Ku!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

The title may sound intimidating but the premise is not! A mysterious disease called Dragon Sickness spread by the Dragonsbane flowers that have cropped up all around the world. You and your team are recruited by the Nodens game company after you display extraordinary prowess in their hit virtual reality game 7th Encount. As you go through the adventure, you are tasked with finding out the truth behind the Dragon Sickness and asked to stop both it and the Dragons that are destroying the world.

This game is fun. It's another turn-based JRPG however, in this game you create all of your characters yourself from the myriad of classes available to you from the jump. Different classes of course have very different specialisations - Samurai focus on high powered cutting damage with their swords, Duelists are summoners who can influence the element of the battlefield as well as summon monsters from each element, Agents can hack into your enemies and inflict a barrage of nasty ailments, just to name a few - and you are given three teams of three characters each to experiment with different team comps and find the balance that works for you. There's also a wide variety of Dragons to hunt and kill in the game, which directly affects how infected your world is with the Dragon Sickness causing Dragonsbane. Along the way you will also come into contact with many interesting characters, concepts and confrontations that will make the task of saving the world all the more imperative.

Pros

1. The character creator and differing classes give way for tons of experimenting and playing around with your own unique approach to combat and carrying out your missions. Granted, 'character creation' is generous, it's little more than palatte swaps but the classes are really where VFD shines. Eight main classes may not sound like a lot, but the expaniveness of the character skills, their synergy with their fellow classes and the uniqueness of some of the classes in and of itself allows for so much flexibility and creativity in approaches to even tougher bosses. It also encourages the switching about of your party members to really finagle with the options available to you.

2. God this game is pretty. The locations, the character art, the creature design - all of it is gorgeous and this game capitalises on every bit of the 3DS's presentation limitations as it can.

3. You can romance anything and everyone - yes, you can even be gay/lesbian/poly in this game. In fact, one of the main characters - Julietta - is gnc and he's a constant source of joy as well one of my personal favourite characters, right behind Yuma.

4. Exploration is very very forgiving as the game has healing spots and teleport nodes all over the world to allow for quick, seamless travel between quest points without feeling like anything is too much of a hassle. There are also special enemies that allow for quick grinding as well as quick farming of money. In general, the game does a really good job of making sure that the grind is never unbearable or inconsiderate of your time.

Cons:

1. This is the fourth game in a series the West has never seen any other title for, and from the looks of it, will probably never see any other titles for. Because of that, there are some elements that may seem confusing or revelations in the plot that may seem to come out of nowhere.

2. While the visuals are great, the OST of this one is pretty short making for a lot of reused soundtracks that can get really annoying if you're like me and need your audio to be interesting or consistent so it doesn't distract you too much.

3. This one isn't really a con but it is divisive: This game gets pretty difficult at times. A few of the main dragon enemies including and especially the final boss can give you a serious run for your money in the annoy-o-meter in terms of the kind of absolute JRPG fuckery they can pull out of their magic bag of bullshit movesets and while I generally enjoy that kind of thing, I know it's not for everyone. Most regular combat shouldn't be too tricky once you have a team comp that works well together but you also need to pay attention since the same team that carries you to victory one time might be worth beans against another dragon.

Final thoughts: This is... a really good game. Interesting story, really interesting characters, pretty world and a battle system that really makes you sit down and think. There's also a demo for this available in the e-shop and while your data doesn't carry over - you do receive multiple perks for carrying over your demo data including some exclusive items that, while not game breaking, do help a ton in the early stages of the game.

This isn't a final list by any stretch of the word; I only have the energy to do these two right now, but the next games up for coverage are Ever Oasis and Stella Glow! If you're interested in my full plan of games I want to cover here then my current lineup includes: Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Project Mirai: Deluxe, Culdecept Revolt, Alliance Alive, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

Finally, if anyone has played any of the games I mention, cover or plan to cover PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME, I AM SO LONELY IN MY FORTRESS OF SAND. On a serious note, I'd love to hear what other people who've played these games think!

Thanks for reading,

-Ginger

PS: @feralpeacock Because a million years ago, on my first underrated games post, you asked that I remember you. :D

[mamusings]

Supernatural Season 2 thoughts

Continuing with my rewatch. This season kicks up several gears on season 1. Overall the storytelling is much better. There is a less formulaic approach to the even the MOTW episodes. Its inventive: you get one from the perspective of the ghost (Roadkill), two that layer in the boys run ins with the law. The first 4th wall breaker (Hollywood babylon), first alt reality (What is and what should never be) and I think the first straight up comic one (Tall Tales). This works much better. S1 episodes give you: a kill, work out the lore, find the creature and kill it right back. Instead of s1 espousing the lore and developing the brothers as a team, we now get to explore the show's moral compas and the complexity of what brotherhood means within it. I think Hollywood Babylon riffs off ditching the initial importance placed on accuracy in how Spn presented itself in it's own storyline. Yep we like story telling thank you, realism isnt really the point. The monsters and sub plots more clearly refract on the season themes and plot.

Supporting characters are another aspect of the shows blooming. They are a much more varied and interesting bunch. Gordon helps explore a key issue for the show - the distinction between being a hunter and a killer. Its significant he appears twice - it's a big issue. The psychics Andy and Ava are fun. Bank heist dude Ronald garners the right mix of derision and respect - I'm not sure spn homages to freaks and geeks hit the right note most of the time. And theres the Roadhouse crew and Bobby who really help flesh out what can become an overly confined universe.

The first third explores grief. You get the contrast in Sam and Dean's personalities in how they try to deal with John's death. But you also get the sense of them learning from each other as the season progresses. Dean tries talking. Sam tries keeping busy. Both grow while staying themselves. Nice. You also get a switch from s1 dominance of Dean's concern for Sam, with Sam's concern about Dean's increasingly high octane behaviour here and it's a nice switch. With grief you get guilt. Sam's is the easier too little too late regrets. Dean's is the motherload of guilt that John sacrificed himself for him. Given the shows dominant theology is Christian I find it hugely interesting that the focus here is on the receiver of the sacrifice. The overwhelming guilt Dean feels underpins the opening episodes, gets hammered home in Crossroads and then comes back for an even bigger bite when Dean does the same to Sam in the finale. Bobby's anger with Dean and Sam's devastation leaves me little doubt that as much as we all love that Sam is back, Dean did wrong here. Although maybe Dean's guilt comes from his low self worth. Sam might cope very differently?? But I do think the zombie episode declarations of 'what is dead should stay dead' make the point that thus wheeling and dealing with death cant be good. I personally find the idea that moral rules dont apply to Sam and Dean because of love is a weak one. I think fandom does spn a disservice by reducing something really complicated here into 'well they are soul mates'. Loving someone is not an excuse to chuck the rules out the window. But maybe the show itself descends into a moral free for all with no underpinning message and the blame lies there? I'm not sure. In a way that is what I'm trying to figure out with these commentaries.

What works better in explaining why Dean does to Sam what John did to him is the other big theme of season 2: the idea that right and wrong isnt black and white. This is the focus of lots of episodes some of which explore whether hunters are just killers. And others that explore at what stage something becomes evil and why. Both these questions are crucial in relation to Sam's destiny and how each of them should respond to that destiny. The first half of the season sees Dean trying out his fathers black/white approach and the hardening off of himself he thinks he needs to achieve in order to kill Sam should that becomes necessary. Its the mid season finale that finally answers that one for Dean. Sam goes proper bad, Dean doesn't kill him. Along the way, with Sam's prompting, Dean questions not only his father but also the morality he had assumed of his hunting so far. How Dean outgrows John is a huge theme for me. I find it fascinating because he remains the same kind of man as John. Tough, difficult etc he diesnt become Sam. What he changes ir accepts are that what he prizes isnt what John prizes, but rather the people he loves and he learns that this isnt a failing or a weakness. But it's a long long road.

Sam wrestles with the fact that he may turn evil trying to find ways to hope and ways to cope. He takes a leaf out of the Dean playbook at gets drunk. He prays. He looks for a safety net getting Dean's to promise to off him. Dean promises to save him, but the message in Heart is that sometimes the only way to save someone is to kill them. However, the other message is solving things one step at a time, making the right play for the circumstances and not drawing one arbitrary line somewhere - be it between people and non-people or even that evil acts make you irredeemably evil. Slippery stuff, but that's what makes it interesting.

One thing I really like in this season is how the brothers begin to influence each other. They are still a study in contrasts, but they try out each others approaches and they've learned to value what the other brings to the table. As Sam says in the opener they have just started to be brothers again. Their relationship is so supportive that the comic Tall Tales reminding us how much they wind each other up is a needed counterpart lest things get just too damn sweet. The disturbing siblings at the centre of 2 episodes is also sends the message that it ain't all roses too. Andy has an actual evil twin. The ending of Playthings with the sisters is filled with creepy foreboding is particular to this episode. One sister gives her life up for the other and it feels wrong. Of course its foreshadowing other famous brothers but let's leave that alone just now.

In terms of Sam and Dean, their brotherhood seems to have kicked the S1 Sam and Dean team up into formidable. Their run-ins with law enforcement moves our perception of them beyond boys hunting into being increasingly impressed as they outwit cops and feds. It also moves their interactions with outsiders beyond gratitude from victims towards validation from peers and this feels important. There's the seamless teamwork with code words and all. But more importantly trust and loyalty - Sam is unswayed under police questioning in The Usual Suspects. Folsom Prison Blues most explicitly highlights Dean's almost fanatical sense of loyalty and paying your dues.

This pays off in the final two parter. As strong as All Hell Breaks Lose 2 is, part 1 is a yawn fest. But what is interesting is that while Sam does his best to found a team, Azazel can just pluck them off one by one by appeals to each person's individual self interest. The only one of the psychics who gets that the only way to win is to stick together is Sam. In my view Sam learned this from Dean. Dean is always playing the stronger together card. At this point in the show, brotherhood is about solidarity, trust and loyalty. That's actually the message here far more than love. Of course they love each other. But that alone wouldn't have got them this far. What gets them here is sticking together. When Dean finally surpasses John in killing Azazel he gets his moment of John unqualified approval and love. But right after comes the key dialogue of the season. Sam says 'you did it' and Dean replies 'I didnt do it alone'. That seems to me to highlight what's been going on so far. Learning not to do it alone. Learning to lean on and accept others. That's where the Winchester boys outgrow their upbringing and themselves.

Addendum: the angel episode House of the Holy deserves a mention. Its so finely balanced between being about angels and not when viewed on it's own. Its only on rewatching that the effects and props leave you in no doubt that even if F. Gregory isn't an angel this episode is about angels. Its curious as to why it's in season 2 rather than maybe in s3 - no angel appears until season 4. I refuse to count Gabriel in s3 as an angel appearance as he's for many seasons yet still just the trickster. So why? Maybe it's to help us understand the significance for Sam? Angels give Sam hope - making it even more awful for him that he is the object of their suspicion. Or is it about the need for faith, which tellingly Dean hadn't got.

#supernatural #spn #sam #dean #winchester

[rhetoricandlogic]

Of Makers, Magic, and Monsters: Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett

Martin Cahill

Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:00pm

Last we left the crew of Foundryside, in the titular first book of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Founders Trilogy, they had just succeeded in pulling off the impossible, saving Tevanne from a brutal plot of attempted godhood, even as they lost a friend along the way. Now, three years later, their own scriving house exists as an open source for any scriver who would seek to grow, learn, and compete in the marketplace against the looming Merchant Houses, provided they leave anything new they make with the crew at Foundryside to disperse to others.

But as scriv-sighted Sancia, brilliant engineer Berenice, irascible but talented leader Orso, and the powerhouse Gregor, still struggling with memory and violence, find their feet under them for the first time since book one, the mysterious Valeria reaches out once more: her Maker, the hierophant Crasedes Magnus, long thought dead, is close to convincing reality he is alive once more. And he seeks to do more than come back to life: he has plans for all of humanity, and it starts in Tevanne, just shy of Shorefall, the holiday of true night everlasting.

Bennett wastes no time in putting the reader right back in the action, bringing us swiftly through the streets of Tevanne, reacquainting us with the four heroes of Foundryside, and giving us gentle reminders into scriving, magic that can imbue inanimate objects with sentience, and argue reality into working in ways it was not intended. Which is good, because our understanding of every single one of those things aspects of the book flip and change, evolving through Bennett’s expert touch and effortless prose. Through Shorefall, we watch as from chapter to chapter, characters are challenged and new facets of their personalities bloom, driving and nuanced. Our understandings of scriving grow, as he introduces concept after concept of what can truly be done when one knows how to argue reality into shifting things like time, mortality, and godhood. And our knowledge of the way we thought the world worked is revealed to only be a glimpse of the truth as Valeria, a scrived artificial intelligence, and her Maker peel back layer after layer of falsehood and assumption, of not just the world, but how these characters thought the world worked. At the end is just truth, bloody, difficult truth, and Shorefall thrives on what happens when our characters know that truth.

It’s always a sheer pleasure reading Robert Jackson Bennett because of his talent at writing work that is both seamless and balanced. For every moment of plot momentum, there is an equal moment dedicated to Sancia and Berenice’s deep love for each other. For every glimpse we get into Gregor’s terror that he’s not in control of his mind or body, there is an equal moment given to someone arguing about the nature of humanity. For every page of philosophy argued, there is an awe-inspiring sequence of action, magic, and motion. Bennett’s work has always been fine-tuned, but Shorefall is a testament to his ability to make a modern epic fantasy flow so seamlessly from scene to scene, never bogged down by excess or pontification. If his books were a scriving rig, they’d be masterworks in convincing reality that somehow a book with ideas, action, characters, and lore this massive isn’t somehow two thousand pages long.

And as packed as this book is, I still could’ve spent another four hundred pages in Bennett’s story. Because in Shorefall, the main conflict about good versus evil; it comes down to two entities who have seen the worst the humanity has to offer, and are both fed up with it. And despite their differences and grudge against one another, they spend the book argue for humanity’s worst instincts. Meanwhile, Sancia and her crew? It’s their job to argue in humanity’s better angels; through their actions, in trying to change the way their city works, to empower and protect those disenfranchised by the Merchant Houses and society, to defend their city in times of conflict, their actions argue that humanity may have its moments, but it’s through connection, through helping one another not just see one another, but understand one another, that we can rise beyond our worse devils. It’s a compelling argument, and one that sets the stage for the conclusion of the Founders Trilogy. From where Bennett leaves things, it’s sure to be one hell of a finish.

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett is a riveting epic fantasy that gives you a little bit of everything, but so seamlessly, you’re going to wonder when you got to the ending. It has heart and intricate characters who love and care for each other. It has wonder and danger, oftentimes attached at the hip. It has upheavals and twists and morality and action, that culminates in a breathless series of events that will have you eagerly awaiting book three. Bennett has written another stunning novel that shows exactly what this genre can do and why we love it. And if Foundryside and Shorefall are any indication, he won’t just stick the landing, he’ll make it seem like no sweat at all.

[bubblegumbunnyb1tch]

Seung Ji-eun

░ “If you’re not paying for my time, then we’re done here.” ░

▶ Character Info

NAME / ALIASES: Seung Ji-eun // Juniper // Bubblegum B!tch

AGE: Only ever as old as the latest tech. Physically built in the image of a 26 year old Terran female.

GENDER / PRONOUNS: Fembot — She/Her/It/They, she’s heard it all. She’s built to be a little bit prissy, but she’ll accept all of the above and the occasional Princess.

HEIGHT: 188cm. Those legs were made for stomping. Don’t ask her how high she’ll bounce.

WEIGHT: 72kg. That last upgrade was surprisingly light.

VOICECLAIM: Pop Star Ahri

SPONSOR: Ancestor. We’re going all the way to stardom, babe.

▶ Lore

HOMEWORLD / PLANET: Cinixia is one of many moons circling the motherworld of the glamorous Aivu. With almost no natural resources of its own, it maintains an undesirable dusty and hazy climate. Most notably, is has a poor reputation that far precedes its punitive size, reknowned for being the sleazy, dirtbag satellite where technical junk and has-beens gets shipped from homeworld.

Aivu, on the other hand, is a popular celebrity destination in the small Alleyah solar system. Renowned for the exoticism of its services and cutting edge technology, Aivu certainly revels in its success, and has a highly exclusive clientele. Fine dining, gambling and slave trading are among some of the most popular pastimes on Aivu, where certain species or pets can be bought for small fortunes. Among the many high powered corporations that call it home, Synthenix stands out for their highly customisable options for android and cyborg wares. They primarily create aesthetic and cosmetic upgrades for multiple species, but are best known for their extensive choice of androids. These often find their way into the trading rings for being convincing replicas or even upgraded versions of some of the most popular species for sale.

If you fall out of favour in the high-powered rings of celebrities, it’s not uncommon to disappear and reappear somewhere much less glamorous… Say, in the bootleg fighting arenas of Cinixia. Cinixians make the most of it in the scrap-heaps — a good bet and a good bot could be your ticket off this shithole.

It’s no secret that the higher denizens of Aivu occasionally tune into the illegal fighting rings popular on Cinixia amongst the scrapper community. Some even deign to visit or watch it remotely if they enjoy betting on the matches. Bots and betting are the lifeblood of the moon; without it, they’d simply be a galactic dumping ground.

SPECIES: What you see here is the retrofitted shell of an official Synthenix Corporation Android. Built with luxury in mind, these androids are supposed to be a one-stop shop for premium personal service. You want a companion, entertainment, protection, a customisable escort, or all of the above? Synthenix has you covered.

They’re designed to be highly customisable, extremely user-friendly with a seamless and very convincingly realistic interface. The user is never without control though — all Synthenix androids have a built-in panic button and reset systems in case a machine ever goes rogue, or attempts to rebel. With an adaptive personality that responds to the user’s preferences and treatment, Synthenix machines should be anything you want them to be, but never upset the power balance between organic creatures and what they were designed to be.

There’s a lot of failed models and janky tests to get to that point of perfection and balance though… The scraps all get shunted off to Cinixia. It was only a few shipments at first, before it got out of hand, and an entire galactic community formed around the buffet table of tech junk. Critters come from all over to get a shot at building a masterpiece from the heap, or even upgrading their own builds from the lucrative trash.

June is a bootlegged Lapin Model, originally designed to be a versatile and highly functional product. Production of this line was stopped due to longevity issues. That’s nothing a bit of patchwork can’t fix though! Inspired by the bipedal Terrans and various other species, this colorful creation is one of the darker secrets of Cinixian battle-bots, and what happens when some of the most popular androids disappear from service. Her torso, upper arms and head all belong to the same original model. The rest of the body is shopped from different scrap sources, whose existence has been meticulously erased from living memory and records.

▶ Skills / Abilities

STATS: ATK (10) / DEF (0) / DEX (10) / CHR (10) / INTL (4) / HP (8)

Companion Bonus: +2 to ATK.

SECONDARY JOB / PROFESSION: Absolute diva. She’s trying to make it as an inter-planetary star and influencer using her success as a bounty hunter to improve her reach, but her roots are making it a little bit difficult to maintain the pastel princess image.

SKILLS / ABILITIES:

Bunny Bounce — Space-kitty stuck in a tree? Love letter flown away? Don’t count on her generosity, but those legs aren’t just for show. A light tap will spring her forwards with enough force to relocate your ribs. The longer she gears up the jump, the further and faster she’ll bounce.

Batter Up! — June has pin-point accuracy thanks to those bionic eyes. Combine that with her bat, and she can ping just about any solid object with enough force to turn it into a bullet. Stones and shrapnel are her preferred striking choice.

Did’ja Hear That? — No tea or gossip is safe from this diva. Those ears are properly fitted with a microphone and speakers, which she can dial the sensitivity up or down on at will. Great for reconnaissance missions! Not so great for loud venues.  

Hackerman is in the BUILDING — June can interface with simplistic tech and short-circuit it with an electrical pulse. If the surge is too big or backfires though, it’ll put her out of commission for a bit too while she reboots.

Who that, who that? — June is able to replicate and impersonate voices and other sounds based on a short sound-clip. She needs a couple words to be able to generate new convincing content, and more reference is always better. It’s particularly handy in both the pop industry and the bounty hunting industry too.

[happymetalgirl]

Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race

Blood Incantation’s fans are almost as rabidly obsessed as I and many other fans of Meshuggah are about our favorite Swedish metalheads, and this was while the Denver-based four-piece had only released their half-hour-long 2016 debut, Starspawn. The band’s debut was an indeed impressive record whose intrigue lied not so much in being so radically far above the rest of the techdeath crop in terms of technicality alone, but rather by its dynamic composition and ability to incorporate a level of unsettling spaciness that would at first seem difficult to weave into the tight seams of technical death metal. While I was not quite as overcome by its glory to the same degree the band’s devout fans were or as enamored with it as I am with Meshuggah’s knack for technical groove, I understand the admiration for what the band are able to do with technical death metal, and I imagine that the band’s fan base is up in a frenzy of jubilee right now, because Hidden History of the Human Race is an even more accomplished exhibition of the band’s clearly matured unique style of technical death metal than its already impressive predecessor.

Like the preceding debut, the band’s sophomore effort is a relatively short (thirty-six-minute) affair with just a few tracks, but that’s because the band make every move they make across the album’s four intricately composed and clearly thoroughly nurtured songs.

The first half of the album is comprised of the first three tracks: “Slave Species of the Gods”, “The Giza Power Plant”, and the instrumental “Inner Paths (To Outer Space)”. The second half of the record is taken up entirely by the epic “Awakening from the Dream of Existence to the Multidimensional Nature of Our Reality (Mirror of the Soul)”.

In true sci-fi techdeath fashion, the album’s lyrics fixate on the pseudoarchaeological speculations of intelligent extraterrestrial involvement in the formation of human civilization, with a clearly over-the-top tone to ensure one the band knows what they’re writing about is purely fun and fictional and like the auto-mind-blown epiphanies and hypothesizing of a guy who’s smoked a whole bowl of some really good weed. “Slave Species of the Gods” focuses on cosmic gnostic mythology surrounding Yaldabaoth and humans being trapped in exactly the scenario the title implies. “The Giza Power Plant”, which implies that the great pyramids of Giza (a frequent topic of psuedohistorical speculation) were secretly part of an ancient high tech power plant continues this speculation on “a past that never happened” and the interweaving of divergent multiverse timelines that opens the doors to the possibility of “alien histories”. It’s fuckin’ third-eye-open woke as fuck, and after the brief instrumental break of the aptly meditation-inducingly titled “Inner Paths (To Outer Space)”, the title of the epic closing track, “Awakening from the Dream of Our Existence to the Multidimensional Nature of Our Reality (Mirror of the Soul)”, really says it all. Across its musings on that multidimensional reality, the song invokes the gnostic demons (Archons), the ancient Egyptian mythological deity of writing (Thoth), and the speculative pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical concept of the halls of Amenti (where record of humankind’s hidden history are supposedly kept).

Now I know I’ve kind of been a bit teasing and laughing along to the hyperwoke existential speculations on extradimensional divinity and multiverse theory, but I want to make clear that I’m not saying the entire subject is invalid or has no point being discussed. It’s certainly fascinating and the subject of lots of wild and thoughtful hypothesizing by both astrophysicists and college freshmen. The discussion on the subject of course has been hijacked by haphazardly hypothesizing pseudoscientists and pseudoarchaeologists for the rich benefits of the sheer entertainment value of the outlandishness of the claims, and it is indeed pretty hilarious seeing the lengths they continue to go to sustain their flow of entertainment. The band clearly are aware of this and only play into this subject material to enhance their similarly entertaining (though not guised as anything but) sci-fi techdeath. And for all its grand and absurdly specific pseudoarchaeological lore, the album is rewardingly thought-provoking and a creative reminder of the endless possibilities of our universe that our young civilization has yet to crack the surface of, without really claiming to hold the keys to the supposed hidden history its title references, because it is clearly, you know, sci-fi.

Okay, now onto the music.

Blood Incantation do not mess around in this album, and the meticulous attention to stylistic and compositional detail that made Starspawn so captivating is here in spades as well. The band play their intricate and organic brand of progressive technical death metal with chemistry as tight as ever and a compositional knack for pushing progressive bounds on full display, levitating their winding death metal into fittingly spacy, psychedelic realms.

“Slave Species of the Gods” kicks the album off with fat riffs and angular blast beat passages broken up by Kolias-esque fills and spacy guitar soloing that makes the song feels as though it’s floating up through the clouds and nearly escaping the atmosphere, which the later tracks most certainly do. But on the opener her, the band flex their performative muscles through delicious guitar solos (often warped by this hazing effect to give them this sort of space rocketing sound), tasty bass leads, and dazzling drum fills around thought fully arranged

“The Giza Power Plant” continues with the grisly, angular techdeath relentlessness the first song set as precedent, offering a little more atmospheric dissonance early on this time around, but the song breaks into the album’s first real psychedelic passage with the opening blasting and riffing crashing into a much calmer clean guitar section about two minutes in that gradually cascades into grander heavier instrumentation that expands and even contracts in all directions via all members’ dwelling and diminishing intensities and showinesses seemingly chaotically, but the path to the song’s grand climax of wild techdeathery becomes clearly geniusly planned out.

In contrast to its two preceding tracks, the lyricless “Inner Paths (To Outer Space)”, starts from space-like ambiance and takes a more psychedelic ride through rhythmic technicality to smoothly transition into the more metallically heavy and meditatively deathly body of the track before fading out just as smoothly into spacy psychedelia.

Taking up the entire second side of the album, the epic closing track “Awakening from the Dream of Existence to the Multidimensional Nature of Our Reality (Mirror of the Soul)” weaves through far too many movements to be adequately summarized by a single paragraph. But what can be said is that the massive song certainly matches the other three that collectively make up the album’s other half in compositional intricacy, performative technicality, and seamless segues into and out of more cosmically atmospheric psychedelic sections from their mostly flashy and dynamically pummeling technical death metal. And that techy death metal itself is hard to sum up as the band work in jazzy guitar solos, hardcore-flavored harmonics, double-bass swells and falls, slightly black metal-esque atmospheric dissonance, doomy sludge guitar passages, and equal opportunity drumhead and cymbal abuse of all varieties. It’s a thrilling ride all the way through to the soothing, yet needed, meditative end.

Blood Incantation really have outdone themselves on this album here, amplifying what hooked so many on their 2016 debut and what makes them such a compelling act. Hidden History of the Human Race is one of technical progressive death metal’s most stylistically and conceptually creative albums, not just of this year, but this decade. The band may not be churning out tons of material too quickly, but they’re certainly spending their time well, honing their craft and perfecting their sound quickly over the course of their short full-length projects, of which their sophomore album here is anything but one of those dreaded slumps. Needless to say, I’m beginning to feel myself sucked by the immense gravitational pull of the band’s giant, heavy, monolithic sound into that base of fans that so many others have been pulled into, and I’m very excited for what the future has in store for Blood Incantation.

Ancient Aliens: The Album/10

[rainyfaninternet-blog]

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