kyndaris

[kyndaris]

Sliding Door

It is a rare occurrence for me to not complain about the degree I settled for during time at university. I mean, let’s be honest, what good could have come from a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice rather than, oh I don’t know, a Bachelor of Law? Or maybe Commerce? Business Studies? Anything else but a social science degree that now sits pretty on my desk, and which was not able to help secure the job I wanted.

Some might say the world was my oyster and I squandered it all.

But what would I have studied in its stead?

There are days when I wonder if it would be worthwhile to be a mature student and head back to the hallowed halls of university to study something new. Maybe a juris doctor? Or perhaps I’d reskill into teaching (although the topic I’d teach still remains a mystery. Maybe a humanities subject? English? Although the thought of breaking down the tropes and cinematography techniques of a film makes me queasy).

The other alternative I can see myself taking on is that of a librarian. One filled with snark but with a heart of gold. And a desire to see people learn. I’ve often said that the children of today don’t read enough. Even with the advent of Booktok (though I do find the recommendations more miss than hit).

Yet, as with many things, the long term career progressions with such a position are few and far between. Most days may just end up being the same as I chat with what few regulars that might show up. Or worse, I’d have to talk to people about romantasy or the latest Colleen Hoover.

While these thoughts have sat in the back of mind, it was not until I caught up with a friend from university that I felt fit to discuss it on my blog. Mostly because, over the course of dinner, I was not shy to divulge the stress I was under from being a carer for my aging grandmother (as well as the accompanying mental load) along with my grumblings regarding work, and she had seen fit to ask me what I actually wanted out of life.

Of course, I’ve made it abundantly clear online that one of my lifelong dreams is to become a published author. Or, of course, to win the lotto and retire on my winnings.

My friend rubbished my two choices entirely.

After all, winning the lotto, while a vague possibility, was highly improbable.

And as for becoming a published author? Well, we were all just corporate drones. It wasn’t our lot in life to become successful writers. To do so would be a feat in and of itself.

That said, she isn’t someone who has read my blogs or the stories I’ve posted online on Fictionpress and Wattpad. So, it’s hard to put weight on her opinion that such a dream is an impossibility. I mean, if I put myself out there and send through my manuscripts to agents or publishing houses, there might be a chance what I’ve written could get picked up.

Still, it made me wonder what she thinks/ expects I do on the regular.

I know that she knows I play video games, reads books and watches whatever is popular on the streaming services. But writing? Now that’s a whole different concept. And it’s not like I advertise it freely.

Certainly, I don’t discuss plot ideas with any of my friends. At least, not frequently.

Writing has almost always been a personal and unique hobby of mine. One I don’t freely share with others. Especially if they aren’t as creatively inclined.

While I think some of it goes back to how I hide facets of myself to live up to their expectations or be a more palatable human being without the grimy gremlin tendencies I do have hidden deep down, I also feel like writing is something that is mine.

They are my ideas. My characters. My world.

And I don’t think writing would ever not be part of who I am.

Every reader eventually tries their hand at writing up an idea they have. If I hadn’t started back up again at the end of university, I would have still stumbled down this path later. Something would have pushed me towards it.

Admittedly, I might have bounced off it again but the idea of putting one’s idea out to the world would have eventually reeled me back in.

Although, I do like to think having a blog where I can occasionally post my thoughts and ideas on has also helped.

It’s certainly put a lot of my thoughts and feelings into perspective. Without the art of writing, I might be more a bundle of stress, ready to explode at the slightest provocation instead of who I am now (which is still a bundle of stress but maybe less?).

More than that, dear reader, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy the stories I can share of my adventures overseas. Or my dating mishaps!

So, maybe, then, I should have done a degree in creative writing?

I mean, if I want to become an author, surely such a degree would be far more useful.

Though, of course, that is predicated on my writing actually being successful. Which, in this day and age, you would think it simplicity itself. What with the quality of some of the books being churned out for the masses to read.

But if not creative writing, what else?

As is often the case, I found myself at a loss of words to say what I would have liked to pursue to alleviate the misery that has been compounding in my home life and at work. Maybe a hobby, suggested the friend. Or perhaps you could learn a language.

Yet when asked about my thoughts, I simply said I wasn’t opposed to the idea. A sure sign I wasn’t all that keen because I wasn’t jumping at the opportunity or very enthusiastic about the choices of languages I could choose: French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and gosh knows how many others that would be at my fingertips with a simple download of Duolingo (not that I’m enthusiastic about a lot of things except maybe my story ideas).  

Still, while I may bemoan my choice of undertaking a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the one good thing it brought me were the friends I made along the way to graduation. And they are priceless (though you wouldn’t know from the sunk cost fallacy of the years spent on the degree and the HECs debt accrued. Yet without our shared experiences, would we have become friends in the first place? No. So, it was totally worth it in the end. Or so I like to tell myself).

Even if they don’t want to meet any of my other friends.

Or come to my birthday parties…

[kyndaris]

To Be The Very Best

Anyone who has played the Yakuza/ Like a Dragon series knows there are plenty of minigames. From karaoke to little known Sega titles from the old arcade days. You name it, there's something to keep you entertained. but what always catches my eye are the minigames that could be full-fledged games of their own. Like managing a host club or becoming a property mogul. And who can forget becoming the CEO of a confectionary company? I certainly didn't.

So, though I would love to say I have finished Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the sad truth is that I have not. Despite sinking far too much t much time in it already.

That said, this post is all about my thoughts on the Sujimon League and Dondoko Island minigames, which have consumed a lot of my attention as I strive to see every aspect of the game before the credits roll. Shout out to Sicko Snap and Crazy Eats Delivery for providing some laughs (especially when Andy Farrant from Outside Xbox showed off that part of the game with little to no context during 2024's Tournament of Champions).

So. Sujimon League.

If the name wasn't already obvious, it's essentially a parody of Pokemon. While Yakuza: Like a Dragon merely had protagonist Ichiban Kasuga register them in the Sujipedia, Infinite Wealth has the player recruiting new Sujimon and having them battle out in battles of 3 v 3 (with a max total of 6 in your party). Like Pokemon, Sujimon - which are essentially just the everyday thugs Ichiban fights on the daily - also come in specific types with specific strengths and weaknesses. But unlike Pokemon, there are only 5 elements: nature, fire, frost, darkness and light.

Then, of course, there's the references to PokeStops, the battling with gym leaders, the handing out of badges and Sujimon evolution!

And it was during my journey to become the Sujimon League champion that I was able to appreciate just how much thought and effort was put into this minor part of the game.

After all, did Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio really have to pull out all the stops just for this parody? No. Did they do it anyway? Yes!

Of course, if they hadn't bothered, the Sujimon League would not have been as fun as it was. Nor would the substories related to it have been as compelling.

Could they have also done more? Sure. But why complicate something that was meant to just be a distraction from the main plot and give players a good chortle as they made their way through the game? While also bringing back a few familiar faces in the form of Sodachi and his students?

That said, the Sujimon League was not the only Pokemon parody. Sicko Snap, with Ichiban taking photos of all the masked perverts around Hawaii, was also clearly inspired by Pokemon Snap. Especially with its timed poses for the gold sicko and the extra points allotted for zoomed in close-ups (that said, it's not nearly as pedantic about the 'best looking' photos of the sickos).

While the Sujimon League was full of its ups and downs, especially with my desperate attempts to evolve my paltry party into an unstoppable force, I was also quickly sucked into Dondoko Island - Infinite's Wealth answer to Animal Crossing. And let's just say, I was quickly suckered in with cleaning up the island I was building up into a five-star resort.

After all, there's just so much you can do! From crafting ACTUAL buildings to inviting guests to the island, and even dealing with pesky pirates: the Washbucklers.

Thankfully, unlike Animal Crossing, my adventures on Dondoko Island weren't limited to actual real-life days. Each 'day' on Dondoko island equated to about 15-20 minutes in the real world. While this DID limit exploration at night, it meant I was able to quickly speedrun through the resort building by designating the lodgings for my guests and setting up amenities they could use around the island. These ranged, of course, from actual buildings that exist in the normal game like restaurants to more decorative furnishings like a fountain or a huge cutout of a cow.

And while I do believe Ryu Ga Gotoku was able to cut corners by simply reusing assets they already had on hand, I certainly enjoyed setting up gacha and vending machines around every corner to encourage their use by the guests that flocked to my island.

Setting up ramen stands and coffee shops in strategic places, ensuring I'd managed to meet the requirements of all the guests: by setting up Sleezy, Pop, Elegant and Rustic zones on my island, and even just farming materials for my crafting was all in good fun.

Better than that, I didn't have to worry about the turnip market to build up my fortune (especially with how generous the game was with Dondoko Bucks).

Admittedly, it was odd for me to get so invested in this small part of Infinite Wealth considering how Animal Crossing failed to hold my interest past K.K. Slider's appearance to mark the end of the 'story' portion of Animal Crossing New Horizon.

Of course, while I'm no stranger to such games, I have yet to find the time to actually buckle down and enjoy a simple farming simulator since my high school days. Stardew Valley sits in my Steam library simply to mock me. As does other sim management games like Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus (Two Point Museum has yet to be purchased but I shall wait its inevitable sale).

Perhaps one of these days I'll get to it.

I mean, I did play Cult of the Lamb not too long ago (but that game did have an eventual endpoint I could reach in quite a short timeframe).

As it is, I shall continue to chip away at Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and bring this weighty role-playing game to its inevitable finale. I'll just be overlevelled and ensure Ichiban and crew are all decked out to deal with all the story bosses with just a single lovetap. But fear not, dear reader, I should be able to report in within another few weeks.

Keep your eyes peeled!

Or not.

I don't control you.

[kyndaris]

Heaven On Their Minds

Religion is something never far from my mind. While I do not believe in an almighty God (like the Abrahamic faiths), I have always had a fascination with myths and legends humans have told to make sense of the complex world they live in. Whether it be the Big Three: Greek, Norse and Egyptian, to the lesser known pantheons such as those in China (although given all the recent movies, I might be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't know the mischievous demonchild with firewheels at their feet: Ne Zha. Or Sun Wukong - the good ol' Monkey King), Ireland, Mesoamerican or those from ancient Mesopotamia. There's always something to their stories that speaks to the shaping of human society and our beliefs. But, more importantly, it shows how far we've come to understanding the natural world around us.

One of the major things they've provided, though, has been a set of moral guidelines. A determination, if you will, of what is right and wrong. And as someone who graduated with what they considered a fairly useless criminology degree, I can say with almost absolute certainty that most of what we decry as bad can be broken down into the harm imposed on society and individuals.

The social contract, as it so often the case, is an agreement to give up certain rights and freedoms in exchange for protection and order. Or, as one layman described it: one's right to casually swing their fist around in the air stops when it comes in contact with another's nose.

I like to think I'm a good person (and let's be honest, don't we all?). While I don't believe I could ever be the epitome of the perfect Good Samaritan, I do what I can to live by the tenets that have shaped my world view.

Let's list them, shall we?

I look after my elderly grandmother while my mum is gallivanting around overseas

Occasionally, I donate funds to the homeless or the Red Cross

I don't go out of my way to antagonise people on social media, or in public

I do my best to empathise, listen and understand where people are coming from rather than immediately imparting judgement

I'm not out committing crimes on the daily or even the weekly (except maybe when I play video games like Grand Theft Auto. But is a crime against pre-programmed digital pixels really a crime?)

I'm willing to sacrifice my time to help support others should the need arise. Need a lift? I can help you with that

When people stop to ask for directions, I give as good as I can get. Even if I'm in a different country

I love my friends and family even though there are moments they piss me off to no end

Could I do more? Yes.

But so can many others. Including those who supposedly preach the good word and espouse religious doctrine in lieu of doing actual good deeds. This has become especially prevalent following the 2024 US election where Episcopal bishop, Mariann Budde was roasted online for pleading the president for grace and mercy on migrants, those in the LGBTQIA+ community, and other ostracised groups. In the attacks on her, we saw Christians decry empathy as a sin.

Now, I'm no theologian, but having people view being empathic to the plights of others as wrong made no sense to me. After all, was it not Jesus, himself, who tried to uplift the downtrodden and preach to his followers to show love to thy neighbour?

Yet, in the here and now, those words have been twisted and reinterpreted to fit the narrative of those on the far-right. And for many who want to do right by their community, they tend to simply ape the actions of those around them.

Is it any wonder that such extremist thoughts permeate the current social climate?

After reading through Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson, learning more of Szeth's backstory, and seeing his desire to simply be told what is right, I see many of the lost and confused. Instead of blindly following what we're told, it's often necessary to take time to critically reflect and see if it's something that actually hold true to one's belief.

Often, I feel in this day and age, many people wishing to harken back to the simplicity of childhood where things are either black or white. Unfortunately, the world we live in is filled with grey. There is nuance to every choice and decision.

And while it may be easier to have the major decisions of one's life be made by another (I know I have certainly thought it would make things easier), that's simply not the case.

We are our own agents and we make our own choices.

You can't simply throw the blame on someone or something else. Yes, it can help rationalise a decision, but it doesn't excuse it.

I suppose one of the issues I've been constantly facing in recent times has been when people try to make religion their sole defining trait. Even when I know they are more than the Christianity they espouse. In this sense, I often feel like they're channeling their own Szeth (without meaning to because they haven't read the books) and trying to impose how they view Christianity onto others (namely me, the non-believer).

Of course, I made the error of trying to logic their arguments. But in these instances, logic does not work.

It can't stop them from feeling persecuted (even though I'm not carrying a pitchfork and demanding they be burned at the stake for being a Christian). Nor can it stop them from wanting the major decisions be made by another (because they've wrongly presumed if they had burned that relationship bridge, it would have negatively impacted the other person's view on Christianity. Spoiler alert: it wouldn't).

Being a good person doesn't just mean following the law or even following certain religious doctrine. For, as Wind and Truth accurately put it, these things are created by people.

And people are flawed. Heck, even the gods sitting on pantheons of old are flawed. And, this may be controversial, but I think so many Christian teachings are also flawed at their core. Like, there are so many inconsistencies in how God is represented. Not to mention the requirements of going to Heaven (that said, I'd take the Elysian Fields over Heaven any day. Why? Because they weren't limited by belief but determined by the deeds one does in life).

No-one has all the answers. No matter what they might tell you. The things they write might be true for their time but may no longer hold the same meaning as they do as time changes and society evolves.

There is a need to adapt and re-assess the teachings of the past with how they might change to reflect the needs of the present.

That said, as a teenager, left with my own thoughts on the walk back home, I'd often pondered the weight of morals and ethics. After all, while cannibalism is very much frowned upon in many countries across the world, there are a few societies in untouched regions of the world that practice it. Presumably based on belief (which may have come from scarcity of other means of food). And in the animal kingdom, it is simply a means of survival. Snakes eat snakes and whatnot.

Of course, the one thing, dear reader, you should take from all this is that kindness costs nothing. More importantly, kindness does not equate to being nice.

But that's a debate I might have to get to in another blog post.

[kyndaris]

and a mind to its undoing

This is a short story I've been working on during the weekends even as I write out my new Snow White-inspired fantasy novel (aimed to be a duology that might get published. I don't know. There are days where I fear nothing I write is actually any good and I really should just put a stop to the delusion of becoming a bestselling author). In any case, it has traces of occult and cosmic horror because something about those genres fascinates me to no end. I mean, I don't want to go mad in some New England town and start worshipping a fish monster but there's something about the aesthetic and vibes that I really really like.

So sue me.

Then, of course, there's the title of this piece, which is derived from a lyric from the reprise of Wait for Me in Hadestown (which, in and of itself, is a great musical and one I got to watch when it was in Sydney! Now, if only Beetlejuice would come visit instead of being a Melbourne only exclusive).

I would also like to say that there are two other quotes that fit nicely into the story though they didn't directly inspire it:

"Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? For love." - Singed, Arcane

"There is no genius without a touch of madness." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

And with that, I hope you enjoy this wonderful mad romp! As always, this can also be found on my FictionPress and Wattpad!

Towering above the ruins, the tattered fragments of a flag fluttered weakly in the wind. Strains of a classic piano arrangement floated on the breeze, played from a rusted old speaker. Where once it had been a magnificent to the past, the home of the elusive alchemist Trevisan was now naught but a shell.

His works lost to the sands of time. With even his name hotly contested as to its veracity.

It mattered not.

I had not come here to pay homage to a quack. Rather, my search had indicated Trevisan had something I greatly needed. A tome of rituals and spells. One that had been passed down over the aeons from the ancient Sumerians to the present-day. Within its pages, one could do the impossible.

Turn lead into gold. Transform beast into man. Bring the dead back to life.

Once, I would have thought such a thing preposterous. It was my belief that the greatest scientific minds of the past were but little children playing at pretend. They understood so little of the universe when compared to the modern day, attributing much of the natural phenomena around them to fictitious gods. Ones who were capricious and vain. And all too human.

Even with the advent of monotheist religions, humans were desperate to hold onto a greater power in order to make sense of their purpose and place.

Complete and utter hogwash!

Or so I thought until that pivotal day when Nicholas and I had chosen to travel to Peru on our honeymoon. On the fifth day, we had chosen to camp out near the Nazca Lines, among the desert sands and with the stars above us, a veritable treasure trove of other worlds and a reminder of the vast expanse of space.

The Nazca Lines had always been fascinating to Nicholas.

A series of geoglyphs etched into the desert sands, their purpose and origin remained a mystery. But what Nicholas loved about them were the designs and the shapes and how they were only truly visible from the sky.

Who were they for? What did they mean?

All these and more, Nicholas had hoped to uncover.

Until, of course, he couldn’t.

That night underneath the stars was the last we would share with each other ever again.

I remember it still. How the two of us lay in each other’s arms, staring up at the heavens. The night sky awash with stars. Each one glittering with their own inner light. How many countless other worlds were there? Did sentient life exist out there? If so, what would they make of humans?

And then Nicholas raised a finger and pointed at something just to the left.

It had looked like a beacon. Possibly a plane or passing satellite.

But it grew ever larger; coming closer and closer. Enveloping both Nicholas and I in its strange off-green light.

Knowledge, beyond anything I could ever imagine, rushed through my mind. The secrets of the universe laid bare before me. Every wall humanity had struggled to solve suddenly seemed immensely trivial. How had we not known one plus one equalled two? 

In that moment, I was both mortal and God.

There was nothing I could not do.

We would finally be able to achieve the impossible!

As abruptly as I had been bequeathed the knowledge humanity could have yearned for, it was stripped away. The glow faded and with it the epiphanies I had been granted. They vanished from my mind like sand through my fingers.

The more I tried to reach for them, the further they seemed.

I could not let this happen!

I would not let this happen.

“Agnes. Agnes, stop.” Nicholas’ voice was meant to be soothing; his hand on my shoulder a comfort.

But in my desperation, it felt like a shackle holding me back. I whirled on him, vision red.

I don’t know what happened next. But when daylight broke over us, Nicholas was dead. His body torn and ravaged as if a savage animal had ripped him to shreds.

That was when I realised what I had done.

And it broke me.

For the first time, I prayed to a higher power. Wishing to reverse time. Wishing Nicholas and I hadn’t chosen to come to Peru. Or to visit the Nazca Lines.

I knew in my head it wouldn’t work. After all, I was a scientist. Why would anyone listen to the wishes of a mote of dust? Or take pity on one?

Bad things happened to good people all the time and the Gods cared not a whit.

Yet, to my surprise, a voice answered.

No.

To say it was a voice isn’t quite right. It was more of a feeling. Or like a passing intrusive thought that was different from my own internal monologue. Like when I had glimpsed the mysteries of the universe for one short fleeting moment.

It told me I had all I needed to bring back Nicholas. As long as I was willing to do what was necessary.

Fast forward to the present day and me trawling through the refuse of the past in a bid to uncover the secrets of the past. I had realised only after many years of fruitless searching I’d been too dismissive of the ancients. There was a truth in what people believed. From the Ancient Greeks to the Chinese alchemists.

Trevisan’s library was naught but a shell, replaced by prop tomes meant to convey a sense of what his workshop might truly have been like before being sold to the masses. When that venture too, had fallen to the wayside, the castle had remained. Albeit, in a crumbling dilapidated sort of way.

If only people had known of its true history.

But occultism had slowly fallen to the wayside as humanity stepped into the 20th century.  Understandable, in all honesty, with the advent of hard-hitting science in the form of atomic weaponry and the ability to fly up among the very stars of the wider cosmos itself.

I pushed the thought aside as I made my way precariously across the ruins to a small cellar door on the far side of the replica library. It was fairly nondescript except for the rusted cellar door latch and handle. Plastered to the front was a sign stating the entrance was for ‘Staff Only.’

Though it took some time, I managed to pry the doors open with a crowbar I’d brought with him. Darkness yawned before me. Taking out my phone, I turned on the flashlight and descended down the stone steps.

It was slow going. The steps were slippery and the walls were covered in a green sludge-like substance. One I didn’t care to inspect closer.

Down, down, down I went until I reached a short passageway at the bottom.

Finding a switch, I turned it on, hoping it would light up the area.

Nothing happened.

I wasn’t sure if it was because nobody had paid the electricity bill for the abandoned theme park or if there was a fault somewhere in the wiring. Pointing my phone up at the ceiling revealed nothing of note. Thick pipes wended their way down the passageway with intermittent industrial-sized lights to mark the way.

It was easy enough to follow.

Up ahead, a narrow room emerged. Old crates were stacked against each other and there were a set of lockers stashed to at the far end. Behind them sat a door. Heavy and thick and solid.

There would be no breaking it open if it was locked.

Something that became crystal clear to me when I inspected it, after moving aside the hefty set of lockers, and found the door would not give even an inch, no matter if I pushed or pulled. Worse, there was no keyhole or handle.

I swore under my breath.

Had everything I’d done come to this? The years of meticulous research, the money I’d poured into expedition after expedition, the nights I’d spent poring over ancient texts and scribbling out archaic equations, and the blood I’d spilled…

No.

No, no, no, no!

This could not be the end. I wouldn’t allow it.

Slamming my fist futilely against the door, I cursed again. Why did it seem that as soon as I was within reach of what I wanted, it was always snatched away from me? It wasn’t fair. Be it the knowledge I’d briefly known or the love Nicholas had showered me.

Everything I touched turned to shit.

Lost in my morose thoughts, I did not notice the gentle glow of the runes until they began to pulsate.

The runes were not a language that existed still in the modern world. Rather, they were a mix of Sanskrit and Chinese logograms. It was a struggle to decipher them engraved as they were around the doorway. What little I could make out sounded like a riddle. A magic password, if you will, to enter and seek the knowledge locked beyond.

Of course, there is no such thing as magic.

Was it not Arthur C. Clarke who said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?’

In our modern age, with mini computers fitted snugly into our pockets, we consider ourselves the pinnacle of human civilisation. Every year we iterate, simplifying the contraptions we use.

No longer do we have to be experts in our field. We are fed our opinions by complex algorithms. Never questioning the need to fuel the constant consumption engine.

Is it any wonder we’re currently seated on a precarious ledge, blinded by our own hubris?

And by that same token, we look upon ages past and think of the people as simpletons. They were not ‘enlightened’ minds. After all, they were tilling the field, working based on seasonal changes and believing nonsense…

How utterly boorish.

The people of the past knew more than we would ever know.

Pulling out a compact notebook from my pocket, I scribbled down the runes. It was easier to make sense of them by putting everything into two neat little lines. To see everything ordered.

Wait a moment…

Tracing the first character and the last, the answer came to me with a jolt.

Of course! How could I have been so stupid?

There is much one can learn from philosophy. One principle that often comes to mind, as a student of the universe and its mysteries, is the one of parsimony. Or, in layman’s terms: Occam’s razor.  

And it held true. For the most part.

Like many before me, I had overcomplicated the solution. Convinced Trevisan would try to keep curious minds out instead of warmly inviting them in.

It was what I would have done.

But Trevisan was not one to hoard knowledge. Not for those who were willing to pay the price.

Thankfully, I had brought just the thing. Swinging my backpack around, I retried a small knife from the side pocket and nicked the edge of my left index finger. A trickle of blood oozed from the wound and I pressed it onto the door. In five quick strokes, I recreated the first character from the runes.

Leaning back, I admired my work for but the briefest moment before the entire room shook. There was a grinding noise in the distance. Loud and overbearing.

Within seconds, the door pushed open revealing another long corridor. I brought my phone’s flashlight to bear and then watched in amazement as sconces set at regular intervals burst into life. The flames danced, luring me on.

Switching off my phone flashlight, I pocketed it and ventured further inside. I was, most likely, to have braved the narrow passageway in centuries. There was a musty smell inside.

Wiping my uninjured hand along the way, I was rewarded with layers upon layers of dust.

Excitement bubbled inside of me. This was it!

I would no longer be haunted by old mistakes. That which I sought would finally be within reach.

The passageway was long and winding. Beneath the Earth, I lost any and all sense of direction as I traversed the labyrinth. For all I knew, I could have walked all the way across Europe and not know. The digital glow on my watch informed me only an hour had passed.

It felt like aeons.

Still the passageway continued. Trailing down into the bowels of the Earth.

After what felt far too long, I reached its end. The room was small. Compact. A furnace sat the far end, a pot or cauldron seated over the remains of a fire.

Shoved beside a mountain of books was an old writing desk. Papers lay strewn across its surface. The writing on them minute and nigh indecipherable.

On the floor next to the desk was an old alchemical filtration system. A flask sat atop a stack of books, a glass tube leading downwards a smaller beaker. Inside sat an unknown sluggish brown liquid. Curiosity drew my interest but I dared not test it. For all I knew, it was poison. Even if it wasn’t, it had sat in the laboratory for God knew how long. Centuries?

Whatever the case, it was clearly unfit for human consumption.

Above the desk was a map of Europe. It was marked in notes and calculations. All of it seemed to triangulate somewhere off the coast of Scotland.

It mattered not.

I was here for something else.

On the many shelves around the room sat a gilded box. Running my fingers over it, I could find no obvious seams or hidden hinges. There wasn’t even a trace of dust on the surface.

I grabbed hold of it and pulled it towards me. A barely visible inscription had been lightly carved across it. One word stood out from the rest: Trevisan.

This was it. Trevisan’s treasure.

I had read about it in the few surviving journals the mad alchemist had left behind. Although it was unfortunate most of his writings had been consigned to fire.

The unenlightened had been afraid. As they always were. What they did not understand, they condemned. Even when it was for their own betterment.

Time had not changed humanity’s failings. Only further exacerbated it.

Pushing those thoughts away, I brought Trevisan’s gilded box to the desk, moving aside the papers on the desk with a sweep of my arm, and set it down. There was no visible lock or lid to it. And yet, deep inside it sat the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe.

With it in hand, I could commune with the entity that had brushed my consciousness all those years ago and bring back Nicholas.

Pulling out my phone, I snapped two shots of the box before pocketing it away again. While I would have liked to remain, to puzzle out how it might be opened, daylight was fast fading up on the surface. I needed to leave. The sooner, the better.  

Opening Trevisan’s treasure could wait.

~

“You were gone a long time, Agnes. I—you should have sent me a message.”

I looked up as I stepped through the door of the AirBnB. Standing by the kitchen, arms crossed, was a wiry bespectacled man. William was no Nicholas. In fact, he was the complete opposite. He had no appetite for adventure, preferring to spend his time buried in theoretical physics, surrounded by books. Though he was curious about the wider world, he was often too frightened to make it out of the door even to pick up the groceries from the local Tesco.

In a twisted way, it made sense.

Like me, William had lost someone dear. And it had scarred him deeply.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, pulling off my thick heavy boots. “There wasn’t much reception in the area.” A half-truth.

“Agnes, you know I—”

“Stop,” I said, interrupting him. “Let me be frank, William. I am not Sarah. And before you protest again, let me remind you that I know my limits. But this is more important than the both of us. So what if there’s a little risk? We can’t all live life cosseted.”

A muscle ticked in William’s jaw. I could see the retort dancing on the tip of his tongue.

He turned back towards the centre island in the middle of a kitchen to fuss with something on the counter and let out a huff. “Fine. But I’d still like it if you could give me some warning in advance.”

“You know I cannot—”

“Where possible,” he added, cutting me off. “At the very least, it’ll give me some peace of mind.”

I toyed with the idea of refusing his request. The very nature of our research meant travel to many a remote or inhospitable location. Then, of course, there was how caveman-like William’s demands were. His need for control would become a problem in the future if it was not nipped in the bud.

Yet, I could not simply dismiss his concerns. Especially considering how useful William still was to my plans.

A concession then. To ease his fears. But without the necessary commitment I could not provide. It was the best I could provide. “I’ll try,” I said, after a pause.

“Thank you, Agnes. For understanding.” A pause. “If you haven’t eaten yet, I made some dinner earlier. I was just putting it in the fridge.”

I resisted the urge to let out a snort as I made my way down the corridor to the left, ignoring William’s olive branch, as I dragged my hefty bag behind me. Dinner could wait. I had more important things to get to.

White cream walls denoted much of the short stay rental house. Along the corridor, the owners had hung several paintings of the European countryside. One was of the Mediterranean coastline. Another was of a grand tulip field, a pretty cottage perfectly placed in the background.

It was nauseatingly pedestrian.

A vision of a ‘normal’ life though my own had been anything but.

Even before Nicholas and the love we shared, I had always been different from my peers. I saw things others didn’t. Grasped concepts that eluded others.

My childhood memories primarily involved staying in the library or a classroom, discussing theoretical physics with my elementary school teacher. Unfortunately, despite my talents, my education was not accelerated. Much of it came down to my family’s lack of wealth, as well as my parents’ desire to see me build strong social connections with people my own age.

And while I was able to make some friends, none stayed for long. The whys eluded me until my first year at university when a tutor pulled me aside one day. He asked if I was doing all right and seemed unconvinced when I responded in the affirmative.

After a moment’s hesitation, he asked me something I would never forget. “Why do you let them treat you so poorly?”

The question had taken me aback. I remembered heat rising to my cheeks. “I don’t understand.”

“Your friends. They see you only as a means to an end.”

“Is that not what friendship is? An exchange of services?” I was barely able to keep myself civil. “I assure you, sir, Eleanor and Stephan are quite accommodating of my various quirks. They take me out and show me what life is like in spite of my differences. In return, I assist with any enquiry they have to their studies.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“We’ve known each other since high school.”

The tutor, realising perhaps he had overstepped, did not push the matter further. But it did leave me wondering. Though I never told him, I took his words to heart.

Shaking my head, I turned my thoughts back to Trevisan’s box. This was not the time to be reminiscing of times long past. I had a mission to complete.

There were secrets here just waiting for me to uncover.

And when I did, I would be one step closer to bringing Nicholas back.

In the wee hours of the morning, Trevisan’s gilded box opened with a soft click. With trembling hands, I lifted the lid, marvelling at how smooth the action was despite the years it had sat untouched. Trevisan, like many, was before his time. And though many had dismissed his research, he had succeeded in the end.

Yet what I pulled from the box was not the Philosopher’s stone.

Instead, I found a thick sheet of vellum. Words in English had been scrawled on it in a spidery hand.

Persist not in your endeavours. Only destruction await you at journey’s end, Agnes. Do not feed the Beast.

It was a warning. Addressed, inexplicably, to me. The last word had been underscored several times. But what did they mean by it? What ‘Beast’ would I feed?

The devil was not real. Lucifer did not fall from the heavens. Nor did God sit up there on his lofty throne looking down at all creation.

Perhaps, then, it was metaphorical?

Setting aside the piece of vellum, I felt around further in the box until I caught the underside of a false bottom. Lifting it up, I felt a spark of electricity spark up and down my arm. There, in a hidden compartment, was a thick heavy leatherbound tome.

Despite the centuries, it looked pristine. Perfect in its design.

There was no title though a glyph had been embossed into the centre with gold inlay. The alchemical symbols of lead and gold were etched around it.

I stared at it. Reverently.

Power lay within those pages. Whole secrets, waiting to be uncovered.

The only thing I needed to do was—

“Agnes?”

William greeted me with a sleepy smile when I turned to look over my shoulder. He was wearing a tattered old shirt and a pair of boxers. His hair was mussed though he had the foresight to grab his glasses.

“A few more minutes. I’m on the cusp of a great discovery—”

“Can’t it wait? Please, Agnes, it’s almost four in the morning. You need to rest.”

I scoffed. “And fall behind when I’m so close? No, William. Now is the time to seize—”

“Do you even hear yourself?” he cut in, pulling me short. “Come to bed, Agnes. I’m sure neither Nicholas nor Sarah will begrudge us a few hours of sleep. Besides, you’ve been up for nigh on two days. Your body won’t be able to keep up. Nor your mind.”

Though I was loathe to admit it, I knew William was right.

Reluctantly, I peeled myself away from the tome, setting the false bottom back over it and shut the lid of the box. William summoned up a conciliatory smile as he laid his arm over my shoulders.

I suppose he thought it would comfort me. A silent apology when it wasn’t needed.

But it only drew my attention to the fact William was no replacement to my sweet handsome Nicholas. His touch, rather than serving as a balm, only agitated me further. Goosebumps raced down my arm and I instinctively pulled away.

He did not notice.

Finally, he led me to our shared bedroom. He kissed me gently on the forehead. “If you need any help with washing up or getting changed, Agnes, let me know.”

“Of course. Thank you, William.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “We’re in this together, Agnes. You and me.”

“I know,” I answered.

William leaned down, perhaps to kiss me on the cheek, but I moved away. Once the door of the ensuite bathroom was shut behind me, I shed the dusty clothes I’d been wearing for the entirety of the day and stepped into the shower.

~

The Book of the Dead went by many different names. In Ancient Egypt, it was a set of mortuary texts filled with spells and magic formulas believed to aid the deceased in the afterlife. In another life, it was known as the Necronomicon and was filled with various secrets that would drive anyone who read it to madness.

As with most objects of such importance, its very existence was lost to the annals of time. Passing quickly into legend with only the odd rumour whispered about.

To think it had been tucked away in a ruined castle, hidden inside a gilded box set amongst Trevisan’s many treasures.

And it was all mine.

I ran a hand over the leatherbound cover and opened the tome to the first page. An inscription in Olde English lay within. Translated, it read: That which is dead may never die.

Hope flared within me. While I had intended to find and secure the Philosopher’s Stone in Trevisan’s collection, the Book of the Dead was a far superior find. Within its pages, I was sure I would be able to find something to bring Nicholas back. After all, I already had a rudimentary understanding of what needed to be done.

It was simply a question of execution.

Or so I had been promised by the voice inside my head. The one that had been with me ever since the night out under the stars in Peru. And which sounded just like my Nicholas…

Turning the page, I began to read.

~

With the wind howling like a banshee, I pressed myself against the seaside cliff, afraid to be blown off the narrow ridge.  Sea spray and rain soaked through my waterproof parka, chilling my very bones as I finally slipped into the narrow opening that served as the entrance to a cave.

William, Travis and Doreen followed afterwards. All three looked bedraggled and exhausted, and none too happy for coming with me. They had only agreed after I’d told them what I had found in The Book of the Dead.

Travis and Doreen, Nicholas’s parents, had been sceptical at first. The loss of their son had been hard on them but they had never once blamed me.

Sometimes I wished they had. I did not deserve the kindness they showered me with. It would have been easier to deal with the recriminations than the understanding and love they extended me.

When I had first told them of what I had planned, they had pulled me down onto the couch and enveloped me in a warm hug. As they pulled back, concern was reflected in their eyes.

“Agnes, dear, we know you and Nicholas were nigh inseparable. Yet though Travis and I wish nothing more to have our son back with us, what you seek is an impossibility. The Lord—”

“What Doreen means to say, Agnes, is that we’re here for you. After all, we’re family.”

“Loss and grief can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do. Believe in things we wouldn’t normally believe. It takes time to move beyond but we’ll be there to support you every step of the way.”

Convincing them I had not lost my mind had been a difficult endeavour. Even then, it still felt like the two of them were humouring me.

No matter.

Once I brought Nicholas back, they would see.

Deeper into the cave we went, guided by the candles I’d lit earlier in the day. They were of a special make. Able to last for hours with a clean burn. But more importantly, they were important for the upcoming ritual I would be performing. I’d already gone over it a thousand times, memorising every single step until I could do it in my sleep.

The flames flickered in the darkness; filled with promise.

Finally, we stepped out into a wide cavern.

A shocked gasp came from behind me followed by a quick curse. There was no need to turn around to know what had happened. Doreen always had a soft heart. She would not have been able to stomach the sight of a man and woman trussed up on a sacrificial altar. Around it was a ritual circle. One that had taken hours to complete as I’d painstakingly ensured the runes were correct, painted with the blood of lamb I’d had to carefully drain during the new moon.

The instructions had been exact.

I could not afford any mistakes. Even a simple grammatical error could lead to failure. And that was not something I could risk. Not when the stakes were so high.

“Agnes. What is this?”

I turned to Travis, a beatific smile on my face. “This is how we bring back Nicholas.”

My father-in-law stared at me then at the altar, and then back to me. He opened his mouth looking like he wanted to protest. But then he glanced to the unconscious woman in his arms. He closed his mouth, his lips a thin life.

I knew from his rigid movements that he did not approve.

It mattered not.

They had come, as required.

Their voluntary participation for the rest of the ritual was unnecessary.

I nodded to William, signalling for him to do what we had discussed earlier in the week. He looked green around the gills but he acknowledged my unspoken order. In quick succession, he pulled out a cloth and a bottle of chloroform. Without warning, he clamped his hand over Travis’s nose and mouth.

The man struggled but William was surprisingly strong. After several minutes, Travis’s body slumped forwards. William managed to catch him before he hit the ground.

Together, we moved Travis into the ritual circle. Then Doreen.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, William looked at me. An unreadable expression on his face. “Sarah first. Then Nicholas.”

“Of course,” I said. “You would doubt me still?”

William looked askance. And in his non-response, I had my answer.

“Did you bring what I asked?”

He seemed to break free from his reverie and nodded. From his pocket, he pulled out a blue velvet box. “Where—”

“Up on the ritual altar.”

Carefully stepping over the lines I’d painstakingly painted on the ground, William reverently the box on the altar between the sacrifices we had rounded up the day before.

The woman was young. She had short blonde hair that rested just above her shoulders and was dressed in a summery floral dress. There were cuts and scrapes on her hands and knees from being dragged along the stone.

Unlike his companion, the man was older. He had a scruffy beard threaded with silver and wore a patchwork coat over a tattered shirt. His denim jeans were scuffed at the knees and the hem. Dirt caked his nails.

Both of them had been alone when William and I had picked them up from the road. The woman had been drunk. Tottering on unsteady feet, her heels clutched in her left hand, down a side alley behind the local pub. She had flagged down our car, thinking we were her Uber.

We did not dissuade her.

William had been uneasy all throughout the deception. He had glanced over at me at the passenger seat. Though he said not a word, I knew what he was thinking.

But we were so close. And I could not allow him to get cold feet.

“For Sarah,” I told him in no uncertain terms.

He had looked back to the road. “For Sarah,” he had repeated, knuckles gripping the steering wheel so tight they had gone white.

It was a good thing Wiliam could be so easily manipulated. His love for Sarah was both his strength and his greatest weakness. One I knew how to exploit.

“What next?” he asked, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans.

“Over in the centre. You will need to lead.”

William nodded. Carefully, he made his way across the inscribed lines. There was a nervous energy in his movements. I couldn’t tell if he was having doubts or if he was simply excited to see his precious Sarah again.

The stories he had told of his wife-to-be like the warmth of her smile made me more inclined to believe the latter. There was an earnestness to them. And the way his eyes glinted…

Once William made his way back to the unconscious bodies of Travis and Doreen, the ritual began.

Together, we chanted the lines as they had been laid out in the Book of the Dead. To my surprise, William stumbled only once. His tongue tripping itself over the pronunciation.

Then, raising the obsidian dagger we had managed to procure, he drew a line across the palm of his hand before marking the ground around him with the runes I’d shown him earlier.

As he did so, a low rumbling energy seemed to thrum through the cavern. As if in answer to his plea.

The candles flared. The blood runes glowed with an inner power.

Perhaps invigorated by it, William continued to work with a fervour in his eyes. The thing he had wanted for nigh on a decade was finally within his grasp.

On the periphery, I continued with my own preparations. The Book of the Dead had said that in order to bring back what was once lost, sacrifices needed to be made. A balancing of the scales, so to speak, as well as the provision of a symbolic token.

Mine was already sitting up on the altar, nestled in among the ritualistic trappings required.

It may not have had the sentimentality of William’s ring, but it was something both Nicholas and I had shared.

As the ritual reached its climax, time slowed.

I looked up and saw William caught up in a frenzy of wild chaotic magic, somehow lifting up into the air. He was accompanied by Travis, Doreen and the two others we had brought along as sacrifices.

Then, suddenly, they froze in mid-air.

This was not how the ritual was supposed to go. William forced open his eyes. In alarm or shock, I could not tell, his gaze darting towards me. In them, I read the question he could not give voice to.

In turn, I merely smiled.

Betrayal, shock and fear reflected in the steely grey, hidden behind glass, as realisation dawned. It was gone within seconds as I brought my own dagger, inscribed with the correct runes and made of pure iron, to plunge into his chest.

William’s eyes widened as the magical energy he had conjured rushed into his body before exploding outwards towards the altar and into the small homunculus I had placed there. Glowing with a green light, it shot beams out toward Doreen and Travis.

And then, as quick as the eye can blink, the candles in the cavern went out and I was plunged into darkness. Three thuds sounded in quick succession as William, Travis and Doreen landed on the rocky ground.

An aeon seemed to pass afterwards…but then something in the darkness began to pulse.

It was faint at first. And for a moment, I feared the ritual had failed. Perhaps Nicholas had passed over and embarked on the next great adventure without me.

But then, in the gloom, I saw it. The outline of the homunculus.

With each new pulse, it began to grow. Another beam of light burst from it, smashing into the blonde woman’s chest. She let out a pained gasp, eyes wide with fear. Her lips moved to a soundless prayer as she begged for a salvation that would not come.

I watched with morbid fascination as her youth and vitality seemed to drain from her body. Within seconds, a desiccated husk dropped to the altar.

The beggar was next.

As the beam hit his chest, he let out a groan. Yet, unlike the woman, he seemed to have accepted his fate. As his energy was absorbed into the homunculus, he fell back onto the altar in a heap.

For several moments, the room hummed and I waited with bated breath.

Then, before I could even react, a beam of light struck me too.

~

When I awoke on the cold slimy floor of the cavern, my cheek pressing into the stone, the candles were burning low in their holders. Though passingly strange, I was more concerned to see if everything I had done in obeisance to the instructions laid out in The Book of the Dead had brought me my heart’s desire.

I knew there was still a heavy price I would need to pay.

But I knew it would be worth it.

After all, what value did a world without my dear Nicholas have if he was no longer in it?

As I rose unsteadily to my feet, something lying on the ground just outside the ritual circle, close to the altar, caught my eye. It looked almost human with its flesh-like colour. I stumbled forward, squinting to make out what it was, even as my head was threatening to split open.

Drawing close, I thought I could make out small independent appendages attached to the object. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it had an elongated section that vanished around the corner.

It took me several moments of staring to realise what exactly I was looking at.

Heart pounding in my ears, I ran over to cradle the head of my beloved Nicholas in my lap. With his eyes closed just so, he looked asleep though his chest did not seem to rise or fall.

Fuck. Had the ritual not worked?

Desperate, I pressed my fingers against his pulse point. Yet, despite my efforts, I could not detect anything.

Even placing my fingers against his nose, I could not feel any semblance of breath.

Had I truly done all I had for nothing?

Tears I had long forced back sprang to my eyes as I cupped the face of my dead husband and pushed back a lock of his hair. Though the ritual had not worked, I was once more with my precious Nicholas.

Perfect and whole. Just as he had been all those years ago.

The sob that burst through my lips caught me by surprise.

Overwhelmed by everything, I pulled Nicholas close in a crushing embrace.

He had been my love; my heart. To have come so close and fail at such a critical juncture…it was not fair.

Tears dripped on his pale cheek. As I moved to wipe them away, a warmth suffused the body in my arms. And then, before I knew it, Nicholas took a deep shuddering gasp and his eyes opened. I could make out the startling blue of his irises as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

They crinkled in mirth as he spotted me, one hand lifting up to cup my face. “Agnes.” My name was like a prayer on his lips.

Yet before he made contact, he flinched back and scrambled out of my hold. I was left bereft and cold.

“Nicholas?”

“Get away from me!”

“It’s me!” I kept my hands at my sides, palms facing towards my love made flesh. To let him know I would not hurt him. That I was safe. “Nicholas, please, let me—”

He seemed to recoil as I drew closer. “You’re not her. My Agnes would never do something so terrible.”

Hearing his words and seeing his reaction, my heart could not help but studder. They struck right at the core of who I was and what I had gone through just to reach this point.

The sleepless nights where guilt had eaten me up on the inside. Of the years spent searching for any and all solutions. The struggle of knowing what I had to sacrifice to bring back the one good thing in my life.

Had everything I’d done be for naught?

Was this what all the tears and pain had brought me?

My Nicholas.

Brought back whole and perfect. Unblemished. Just as he had been on that night in Peru.

But even though he had been brought back right, I had changed.

The Agnes he knew, as he had rightly implied, was gone. Teared apart by all the things she convinced herself she had to do in order to bring him back.

The concept was so novel to me, I started to giggle.  A little break here and then but ultimately containable. Because the more I thought about all I had done, the funnier it seemed to me.

Before I could stop myself, I was clutching my stomach as laughter fell from my lips and tears from my eyes.

Nicholas looked on. Scared and petrified of the woman before him. And he had every right to be.

What I had done was arguably morally reprehensible from the layman’s perspective. It could be argued I’d killed both of Nicholas’ parents just to bring their son back. Then there were the two strangers I had also brought in as part of the ritual. Innocents who had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. And, of course, William. Betrayed at the last moment.

Yet they were not the only people I’d hurt.

To obtain the secrets of the universe and unlock what Trevisan had left behind, I’d committed countless atrocities. The years of obsession had twisted me into someone Nicholas could no longer recognise. Even without bat wings or a forked tongue, I was a monster.

With these thoughts in my head, and still laughing, I staggered back towards the ritual circle.

So much death. Only to be spurned by the very man I had done all this for.

The weight of the blade sat heavy in my hands as I picked it up from the ground. It was a tool like any other. To be used for good or ill depending on the intent of the one who wielded it.

Of course, while obsidian had its uses, they were not commonly employed. Course and brittle, it had been a miracle it hadn’t shattered when William had dropped it earlier.

Still, it would suffice for what I had in mind.

I would make this right.

~

In the end, the choice was no choice at all.

Staring out over the cliffs and the crashing waves below, I wondered where it had all gone wrong. But try as I might, my thoughts circled back to that night underneath the stars.

Back then, everything had seemed possible. With Nicholas at my side, I knew there was nothing we couldn’t do. Pardon the cliché, but we had always brought out the best in each other. He, brilliant in his little way, and me, in mine.

The future seemed unlimited.

Until it had all come falling down around me.

I had seen the impossible. Comprehending what was forever out of reach.

And then I’d lost it.

Madness had taken me then. As it did now, though I had been blind to see it.

There was something all too cunning in how it manipulated me. Consuming my every thought. Dictating my desires. And even influencing the decisions I made.

So, I had done the only thing I could.

After all, there was no cleaning the blood staining my hands. Not now. Not ever.

I took another step towards the ledge and took a deep breath to settle my nerves. How much better would it be to finally stop thinking? To let it all go?

Such a thing didn’t seem all that possible…and yet, I couldn’t shake how it called to me.

Off in the distance, there was a blood curdling roar before something appeared in the skies above me. Despite the storm, I could make out some sort of light, eerie in the off-green colouring.

It drew me in.

Before I could stop myself, I had taken a step forward.

Into the air.

[kyndaris]

Helmet Clinkers

I can't quite pinpoint the exact year I started reading the Expanse books written by James S. A. Corey (a pen name for two authors: Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), but I know it was before it became a popular Syfy television series before transitioning to Amazon Prime (and if we're being honest, I still haven't even begun to watch the show). All I know was that the very first book had been picked for the Sword and Laser online bookclub and I'd made a note of it. The rest, as one might say, was history.

And though it was not the first science fiction series I'd read, it certainly did impress upon me how well stories set in space could be. With its heavy focus on the characters and the realities of the future of mankind, all wrapped up in a mystery, I was all aboard for where the narrative might go.

It was even the reason why I bought Don Quixote (which is, even now, sitting on my bookshelf, mocking me). One of these days, it will be read. For now, I'll continue tilting at windmills.

By 2025, I'd already gotten through the first six though my reading has slowed down in recent years as new titles have caught my eye, begging to be read. That and I also joined my work bookclub.

Imagine my surprise, then, to learn there was a video game for the popular series in the form of The Expanse: A Telltale Series. Co-developed by a reconstituted Telltale Games and Deck Nine, The Expanse: A Telltale Series is a prequel story for a minor character that features in both the books and the shows. One Camina Drummer.

And I'll be honest, when I first started the game, I was scratching my head, wondering who she was. This was no James Holden or Naomi Nagata (series main staples), after all. But it was quick and easy to get a feel for who the character was, despite my lack of familiarity with the character (in my defence, it's been about three to four years since I last read Babylon's Ashes. Give a woman a break. Please). After all, I knew about the OPA (Outer Planets Alliance) and the conflict between those who lived in the Belt and the Inner Planets.

The mentioning, too, of the Butcher of Anderson Station had me perking my ears up.

But for the crew on the Artemis? I knew them not.

Did it matter?

Not really.

For, Camina, perhaps to make it easy for new players, was also new to the role of Executive Officer on a scavenger ship. From the start, you could sense her trying her best to win over Cox, Khan Tran, Virgil, as well as twin brothers Arlen and Rayen. Then, of course, there was Maya Castillo, engineer and only Martian. One who, it seemed, had already built up a significant rapport with Camina if their scoreboard was anything to go by. I, certainly, was shipping them early because I liked their chemistry and easy banter.

As with most episodic games from Telltale, The Expanse soon had Drummer successfully pulling off a mutiny after nearly being killed by her Captain following the discovery of the coordinates to something known only as the MK Core. From the initial description of the biological weapon, a part of me wondered if it had any connection to the protomolecule (which featured heavily in the first few books). Online discourse, unfortunately, could not arrive at a general consensus to confirm my suspicions.

But what it was able to give me was a fiery albeit brief romance between Camina and Maya. Unfortunately, being a good commanding officer, I had chosen the many over the few and poor Rayen did not like me enough to save Maya from being spaced.

The subsequent chapter where Camina had to find her way to send a distress signal was tense, and it allowed the writers to further flesh out her backstory. And even though a part of me was tempted to go back and somehow save Maya, the tribute to the character I'd only gotten to know only a few hours was well-written.

Chapter 5 culminated in a quick confrontation of the pirates that had been chasing the crew, as well as some well-deserved justice against Aylen. The fights with Tor, Aylen and Touissant at the end was fraught, but never had me fearing too much for the end.

That said, I did feel like the story went by fairly quickly and would have preferred if there was a bit more breathing space to get to sit down and learn more about the other characters in the crew. I would have also liked it if there were more opportunities to gain the trust of the members of the crew without having to jump through multiple hurdles to have them on your side.

Yes. I am talking about Rayen. And I'm talking about how unfair it was that Maya getting spaced was solely based on one decision.

Gameplay, from a Telltale Games and Deck Nine video game remained fairly simple in its execution. Most of it involved inspecting or interacting with specific objects in the environment. Combat was handled through quick-time events that were fairly predictable and gave a wide window of opportunity to react. To fail one felt like a significant ask given how forgiving they could be (after all, even if you pressed the wrong button, you could quickly correct).

What I enjoyed most during my playthrough of The Expanse: A Telltale Series were the callouts to several major players in the Expanse universe. Those being, of course, Anderson Dawes, Julie Mao and Fred Johnson.

Still, it hurt to not see cameos of James Holden or Miller - presumably, of course, that it would not have made sense from a narrative standpoint.

That said, my version of the game did include the Archangel bonus episode, which had me play as Chrisjen Avasarala - the badass Secretary-General of the United Nations. She was, after all, a woman who gave no fucks and was always utterly savage to both enemies and allies. So, getting being able to play as her in the game? You bet I was going to pick most of the sassy options to stay as true to character as possible.

While the Archangel bonus episode did not have much in terms of action, it certainly made up for it with all the political manoeuvring someone of Avasarala's talents would expect on a Tuesday.

Was it dumbed down when it came to policies? Yes.

But gosh dang it, I was Chrisjen 'Motherfucking' Avasarala and I would not let a man try to usurp my position.

Overall, I feel like my love for the Expanse series helped pull me through most of the game. If I had entered into The Expanse: A Telltale Series blind, I don't think I would have liked it as much even though I wouldn't have minded the characters. But the allusions to the lore and the extensive world building from the James S. A. Corey novels heightened what joy I did find.

Now if only I can get The Wolf Among Us 2. Preferably with episodes several hours long and a compelling plot, with plenty of sizzling tension between Snow and Bigby (and as someone who has read all the Fables comics, I am eager to see what cameos they might introduce further).

Or, I don't know, if there is ever an adaption of Monstress or The Wicked + The Divine, count me in.

True, I've read more manga than graphic novel, but there are a few sitting high on my list of favourites.

[kyndaris]

Contrails in the Sky: It’s Not Incest If My Brother is Adopted. Right?

Back during the PlayStation Vita heyday, I picked up two anime-themed games that looked to have an interesting premise. Set in a school, the main storyline included going through the day-to-day duties of a student while also fighting monsters and helping out the people of Erebonia during specific school excursions. It had all the hallmarks of being a Persona-lite title. Little did know I had stepped into vast and wondrous world of The Legend of Heroes series. Nor, at the time, did I know there were multiple games I had yet to uncover, and which would provide additional backstory to the plight in Zemuria.

The title of those games? The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.

Since then and now, new games have released, including remasters of the Crossbell Arc. Heck, there’s even been an announcement for a Trails in the Sky FC remake! Featuring most of the original cast!

Of course, despite all the good news for The Legend of Heroes series, the real reason why I delved back in (to be fair, I’d already bought the games during sales and was steadily growing my collection for when I found the time in my busy schedule to get through it) was because bleachpanda had started on the games. And, in quick succession, had raced through the Trails in the Sky trilogy, Trails from Zero, trails to Azure and was now ploughing roughshod over Trails of Cold Steel. Given I was one of the two people who had encouraged her to pick the games up, it did not sit right for me to fall behind.

So, in spite of all the other games still waiting in my backlog, I plunged into Trails in the Sky SC with gusto.

The second game in the Trails in the Sky trilogy begins immediately after the first. Reeling still from the battle with Colonel Richard and rocked by Joshua leaving her behind after attaining his lost memories, Estelle does whatever a desperate dame does. She deludes herself into thinking Joshua had gone back home.

Of course, her brother-but-not-actually-her-brother-because-they-love-each-other-romantically isn’t there. He’s gone. Vanished into the four winds to put a stop to the plans of Ouroboros, a criminal organisation doing dastardly deeds across the globe for mysterious reasons.

Estelle is found by her friends and is later convinced to continue her bracer training (a mercenary-esque force that helps deal with odd jobs from the local populace like finding lost cats to taking out dangerous monsters). Off she trots to the Le Locle region of Leman state to undergo further bracer training for about two months. After finishing her training, she returns to Liberl, keen to start looking for Joshua but also cognisant of her duties as a bracer.

And so the five initial chapters are devoted entirely to Estelle traversing the various regions of Liberl and helping out the mysterious phenomena that have cropped up. Ouroboros being anything but subtle, all the cases Estelle ends up investigating are all related to their secret plans.

In quick succession, she is introduced to multiple enforcers: Bleaublanc, Walter, Luciola and Renne. All of whom she fights against to bring a stop to their experiments. Pulling the strings of Ouroboros grand plan in Liberl, however, is one Georg Weissmann.

The investigations into Ouroboros’ activities culminate in the sixth chapter where Estelle and friends decide to infiltrate one of their laboratories and put a stop to their schemes. Unfortunately, Ouroboros being as canny as they are, set a trap. Before Estelle even has a chance to put two and two together, she is kidnapped and taken aboard the Crimson Ark: Glorious – an airship employed by the dastardly villains – and used as bait. Joshua eventually rescues her.

The two of them, along with their friends, then set about putting a stop to Weissmann’s final experiment – the breaking down of the second barrier preventing the return of the Aureole. Flinting from tower to tower, they duke it out with the enforcers.

But as with almost everything when it comes to Ouroboros, Estelle and friends are too late.

Once the final barrier at the last tower falls, an entire city appears in the sky floating above Valleria Lake. Immediately, all the orbal technology used in Liberl cuts out, their energy stolen.

Trails in the Sky SC then sees Estelle and friends making their way to the floating city. After several difficult battles atop the Axis Pillar – and even down in the Core – she, and friends, emerge victorious after taking down a horribly mutated version of Georg Weissman when he merged with the Aureole.

As with most things role-playing games, the main conflict boils down to the nature of humanity. While many of the members in Ouroboros cannot see beyond the darkness lurking in the hearts of men, Estelle and the gang rise above it to see the best in mankind.

Like many recent narratives, it becomes a battle of strict emotionless order versus the nature of free will. After all, without being able to elevate humanity beyond its petty squabbles, history cannot help but repeat. War is inevitable as the cycle of hatred continues. Or, we will be so blinded by our hedonistic pleasures, we become powerless to the conveniences wrought by technology.

That said, I will have to admit I was taken in a little by Weissmann’s arguments. Seeing the world as it is today has tarnished my view of humanity.

But Estelle said it best.

When we work together, there is no stopping what we can achieve. Sure, there will be some rough edges but that’s simply how life is. It’s messy and unfair and imperfect. But we push through it all.

And maybe along the way, we fall in love with our adopted brother.

Okay. That last bit is just an Estelle-ism.

Please, under no circumstances, fall in love with your brother. Adopted or otherwise.

From a narrative standpoint, Trails in the Sky SC falls into several familiar story beats that are part and parcel of the role-playing experience. While Estelle doesn’t quite fight God by the end (there are a lot of layers and hidden lore when it comes to The Legend of Heroes games. What I like most is how it’s all interconnected with smatterings of plot ideas that won’t come to fruition until the later games), she does get to tangle with a dragon and a mutated last boss with multiple phases.

Yet while they do manage to put an end to Weissmann, Ouroboros remains a threat.

But what Trails in the Sky SC did well was tie up many of the character arcs for the protagonists. From the will-they-won’t-they nature of Estelle and Joshua’s relationship to Klaudia ascension as Crown Princess. We even received additional backstory for Olivier, Scherazard, Tita, Agate and Zin.

Like bleachpanda, the characters proved to be the selling point for my enjoyment of Trails in the Sky SC. Were they a bit cliched and tropey? Yes. But in the long run, it didn’t matter. I mean, why should it matter with Olivier batting his eyelashes at me while flirting with anything that breathes?

That said, I did have a few gripes with the storytelling. Especially near the end.

It made little sense to me why Estelle only ever ventured into the Liber Ark, and by extension, the Axis Pillar, with only a party of four. After all, when you did reach the last dungeon and reported back to the crew in the Arseille, they’d already made it quite clear repairs to the airship had been completed.

So, why go in with only four party members?

Plus, why only have Mueller and Julia join at such a late point in the game where my favourite characters were already laying waste to everything in my path?

Though I know, in the end, it was a gameplay limitation, it still rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when all your allies appeared after the battle with Loewe as additional reinforcements to help.

From a combat perspective, Trails in the Sky SC retains the crafts, quartz and orbal arts from the last game. Like many role-playing games from the early 2000s, it’s turn-based. But what made it start out, of course, was how important positioning is in combat. Unlike the Final Fantasy franchise where characters stood all in a row on the right side of the screen, Estelle and friends can move around the field of battle. This allows them to move out of charged attacks (if needed) or attack multiple enemies all bunched up together.

The added tactical strategy required always made The Legend of Heroes games stand out in my mind while also providing new challenges when the normal tactics against the mindless mobs didn’t work out (that said, Death Scream should almost always be used if there are 4 or more mobs you need to get rid of quickly).

That said, the only downside to playing the Trails in the Sky trilogy instead of waiting for the remake is probably the art style. Over the years, character portraits and designs have become a whole lot sleeker than they did in the past. While bleachpanda might have preferred the pudgier models, I much preferred the leaner 3D ones that came with the likes of Cold Steel.

And while I’m eagerly looking forward to the day I’ll finally catch up to all the latest entry, such as the recently announced Trails to the Horizon, time will tell when I’ll get round to it. As I told bleachpanda right after finishing off Trails in the Sky SC, I have many a lengthy open-world role-playing game that were released month after month in 2024.

So, yes, maybe I won’t be picking up a Switch 2 anytime soon.

With so little time and the intense backlog I have, it only seems right.

That and all the Caitlyn x Vi fanfiction I can’t help but return to (it’s the reason why my GOG galaxy play time for Trails in the Sky SC says I played for 80+ hours while my in-game timer is only 76 hours).

[kyndaris]

Pieces Of Me

It may come as a surprise, dear reader, but I never read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath while in school. The curriculum for when I was in Years 7 to 12 focused on other hard hitting novels - like Frankenstein - and the various works of one William Shakespeare. Despite this terrifying lack of literary education, I always knew The Bell Jar was one of those books that was highly regarded for its wider impact on society in general. When I did get to finally reading it a couple months ago (at time of posting), the themes explored in such a small novel hit hard.

In Esther Greenwood, and by extension Sylvia Plath herself, I saw elements of me. After all, I, too, am a woman struggling to find my way through life. Though there is a nearly sixty year difference in the times we've lived, many of the societal expectations that coloured Ms Plath's life have continued to impact me. From the pressures of finding a good job to settling down with a man and raising a family. Especially back during my twenties.

The glass jar, it must be said, is certainly an apt metaphor for the suffocation I often feel in my directionless life. Even now, I often struggle with how I see my future unfolding: stuck in a dead-end unfulfilling job, retiring when I hit my 70s and then eking out a means of survival before my inevitable death. That is, of course, if there aren't any nasty surprises which may crop up. Like another pandemic, changes wrought by global warming, or the rise of a new despot on the world stage.

No matter how I slice it, it all looks bleak.

My only solace against the utter despair I feel are the small moments when I get to do things I enjoy. Like reading, writing, playing video games, and socialising with those nearest and dearest to my heart.

And while they aren't perfect, they do bring me a mix of joy, melancholy and everything in-between. It is in these small moments when I actually get to live. Without them, the responsibilities thrust upon me grind against my self-worth, dragging me down into a pit of repressed and impotent anger, apathy and ennui.

The short stories I write, in particular, are often a release valve. They take the disgusting and bad feelings consuming my thoughts and lay it out as words on a page. So when Sorrengail briskly devoured my entire back catalogue of of short stories after we reconnected last year and told me she saw the narratives in them as fairly niche with limited appeal to a wider audience, I can say with confidence that some offence was taken.

As a student of the human condition for goodness-knows-how-many years, I like to think I understand the base emotions most of us go through. After all, I'm no stranger to them. It's all part and parcel of being a living and breathing meatbag. And each of the short stories I've posted online has been an exploration of our darkest moments. Mixed in with the occasional eldritch being or urge to commit homicide.

Gears In The Walls owes much of its inspiration to the rat race we find ourselves in and when our lives become exceedingly routine. Though I had originally planned for it to a poem, it soon spiralled. What was meant to be a few short concise sentences turned into the life and times of a humble bookseller slowly going mad.

Unseen encapsulated my feelings of being ignored. Of being shunted to the side, unable to be seen or heard despite my attempts to draw their attention. People often talk about how being invisible is a great superpower. And, as an introvert, there are moments when I don't mind disappearing from a social event to go read or play video games, but in the long term, being invisible sucks. Having people overlook your achievements to promote someone else? Being the last one to be picked for a team? Feeling like you're on the outside looking in? Or not knowing if anyone would care if you died? These and more are what Unseen is about.

Living the Lie? Suddenly Thirteen? The power of nostalgia and the stories we tell ourselves when we compare the curated images shown on social media to what we believe our own life is like. With Splintered and Whole Again serving as dialogues for what it means to change between the masks one has to wear to appease the people around us.

Then there's Treading Water where I explore my fears of being a micromanager should I ever be a team leader at my place of work. Or The Shadow of Broken Dreams wherein I lay out the loneliness gnawing at me mixed in with all the targeted microaggressions I felt - real or perceived.

Heck, even my novel length stories contain pieces of me. How could they not? The vast majority might be fantasy stories set in a world wholly different from the modern reality we currently inhabit, but the societal commentary are reflections of 21st century Earth. Whether or not I consciously chose to include them or not.

More than that, the characters themselves are either aspects of me or of people I know.

Of course, the one character who was probably the biggest self-insert was Malinda Zhao - the protagonist of Control State. When I was writing, I often had to remind myself I was writing from the third-person perspective rather than first-person. It was so easy to slip into her headspace given how many things we had in common.

That said, Malinda Zhao isn't quite the perfect copy of me. She likes Korean dramas for one, and isn't even a gamer. Plus, I don't feel like she has my street smarts. It takes her longer to clue in on what should be obvious (although, as the author, knowing where the plot might go does help in that regard). Plus, she's the type who likes sappy romance books instead of sprawling fantasy epics!

But as with all things, there are pieces of me scattered in every thing I create. Sometimes it's just a light touch but in others, there's a whole spectrum of my individuality inserted into a piece of work. It is what, I believe, that makes the things I do art. Or, at least I hope it's art in some way.

Given I deal with words, and original works, it can often be hard to gauge the extent of my reach.

It's so much easier to use a visual medium and call it art. After all, you can see the strokes of the digital paintbrush. As well as the end vision.

With creative works like stories? You, dear reader, don't see the sentences or complete passages scratched/ edited out. Nor do you see the process where one might sit in front of a blank page and think of what they want to put down.

The sheer effort being into all of it...and then seeing not one iota of likes or comment? It can be crushing.

In those moments, I often have remind myself to whom I am writing these stories for.

And though it might not suit the tastes of everyone who stumbles across my FictionPress or Wattpad, I write these stories primarily for myself.

For the woman in her early thirties who's trying her best to make her way through the confusing journey called life and leave behind a little of who she is for others to find.

On a side note, I do apologise for the lack of travel posts. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of my control, I haven't been able to go on globe-trotting adventures like I would have hoped during the month of March.

Here's hoping 2026 will see more adventures to the various exciting places around the world! Like, I don't know, post-apocalyptic America? Time will tell!

[kyndaris]

Memento Mori

Despite the fact I keep a fairly personal blog where I divulge many of my inner secrets, I still often find myself struggling to move beyond the loneliness that permeates my life. There's an underlying sense that I'm simply not seen by those I would consider closest to me.

(And if I had a therapist, they'd probably find reading through many of my blog entries a veritable land mine of information!

To my future therapist, if I ever reach out, please know that I'm quite self aware of all my foibles. The problem I find is determining what actions I can take. And yes, I know all about meditation and positive self-talk, but the fact remains I often feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water in a shallow puddle. )

Which is why I laid it all out in poem!

Admittedly, dear reader, I'm not much of a poet. The usual rules are utterly confounding and I simply don't have the time to try to fit everything I want to say into a precise meter or have it match a specific rhyming pattern.

Since prose is my forte (or so I like to think), what poems I've attempted in the past have usually just been free verse.

Even then, people find ways to format free verse poems to look artistic in some shape or form. No so with the one I've transcribed below.

Poetry is an art I've barely scratched the surface, let alone mastered. But I did find it an important medium to transpose my rather morose thoughts. Ones I've struggled with for a long while, and which were brought forth as I played through Life is Strange: Double Exposure (yes, this is the poem I alluded to in that blog entry).

For context, my life is a fairly boring one. My greatest desire? To have someone I can talk to. Really talk to. Instead of just the empty void in which I pour most of who I am into.

And yes, I do have friends. But throughout the last half of 2024 and even into 2025, I've found a certain disconnect. Especially among my usual friendship circle of people I've known since high school.

Perhaps it's because the relationships between every single one of us has already been long established. Maybe it's because every time we do catch up, I feel like my contributions are rather bland. Or that every single conversation I have centres solely on the other person and I'm barely able to get a word in edgewise.

The crux, of course, is the unshakeable belief (even though I know it's probably not true) that nobody really cares about little ol' me.

I can't help feeling that if I were to delete all my social media and vanish, nobody would feel my absence. When my thoughts are at their darkest, I often wonder who might attend my funeral if I were to die. Would they even know I was dead?

In the past, I was able to count on the ex-friend to, at least, mourn my death. If only a little. After all, they did often say I was one of the most important people in their life. Yet, when I made the very difficult decision to take a step back, their casual dismissal of everything I poured into that friendship was what hurt me the most.

Maybe if they had fought for our friendship, I might have stuck around. As it was, without the acknowledgement I needed, or proper closure, I often found myself wondering how they were doing - whether or not the other mutual friends we shared had been able to step up and help them in ways I might have been able to do.

Now? I'm a little unsure of the lives I've touched and if my presence ever made it better. It doesn't help when it feels like everyone else is holding themselves at arms length away. When they all have their own separate chat groups. Or when I'm always the last to know about a piece of gossip.

For years, I've longed for a best friend. Someone I could confide in and who, in turn, would confide in me. Someone who could provide comfort when I was feeling down and be there for me when times were hard.

Yet I find I'm often finding solace in the worlds of make-believe. Whether it be video games, film or novel.

I suppose it helps when you can live inside the heads of the characters and get to know them beyond the facade most put on.

But what kind of life am I living if all I'm doing most days is escaping into fantasy because I don't have anyone else to turn to?

And like most people, I fear that when the end does come, will I even leave a mark in the annals of history? Though I do see myself as a good person, I know I'm as fallible as the next stranger I bump into on the street. I mean, at time of writing, I'm still brainrotting over CaitVi/ Violyn. Sue me. I'm probably definitely maybe gay.

Yet, I also know I'm not anyone special. I haven't created charities or movements for the benefits of others. Nor have I donated much to a good cause.

At the end of the day, this humble blogger is but a nobody and no one.

ENJOY THE POEM!

Legacy springs life eternal

Or so the poets say.

I live between the lines

Pondering time unspent of just one more imaginary summer day.

Between two worlds I oscillate

Never fully in each

Dreaming of what could be

Where swords and magic and powers of flight were just within my reach

~

For years I've explored

A myriad of lives

Experiences both foreign and familiar,

Where I step into the shoes of others and thrive

Or weep at the pain and sorrows.

Seeing mistakes repeated in an endless cycle;

Devastation wreaking havoc, hollowing out my core.

And when I step out, all I seek are crinkled corners and low belly chuckles.

~

In stories, I am the hero.

Reality is a harsher mistress.

Hour upon hour I sit,

Drowning in the mundane distress.

Where I could venture forth on a grand adventure in one,

Knowing failure was naught but a lesson,

Sheer panic and anxiety keep a steady hand

On my shoulders they rest in the other, leading me further down the path of obsession.

~

At journey's end, what remains?

In the eyes of the world, my half-life is naught but a blink

Gone, never to be seen.

Who have I touched? What impact have I made? Bombarded by questions as I stop to think.

Words were meant to be my legacy.

From them I sprang forth, taking joy in their providence.

But I am one of a million

Hopeful of success from simple happenstance.

~

Yet, for now, the path leads ever onward;

It is the road less travelled.

For eternity, what price is too much

For my name to be remembered?

[kyndaris]

A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far Far Away

The year was 1999. I was naught but an impressionable seven-year-old. And my mother was taking me to the local cinema to watch the beginnings of a new trilogy set among the stars where a slew of space wizards would be duelling it out to a grand orchestral piece by one John Williams. Sure, there were a few slow scenes with talks about blockades and a Trade Federation, but these were interspersed between riveting action pieces and a grand race on a desert planet. If you haven't caught on by now, dear reader, the film was Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.

Over the years, I'd watch the rest: Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, though not necessarily in that exact order.

And besides attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I also wanted to train to be a master of the Force and wield my own lightsaber into battle. Heck, I even trained privately at home using a long metal pole scavenged from Gods know where and striking it against the bedframe of the bunkbed at home.

Unfortunately, adulthood came chasing after me.

Before I knew it, I had largely outgrown the fantasies of my youth and was on the path of becoming a gainfully employed member of society. With a penchant, still, for the galaxy George Lucas created all those years ago.

Cue the sequel trilogy that first brought a grin to my face before it dampened my hopes with a lacklustre finale.

Despite my immeasurable disappointment with Rise of Skywalker, the Star Wars franchise has still sat quite highly in my personal regard. There has always been something inspiring about the Jedi and their teachings with the Force. Then, of course, there were the countless stories that could be told in the rich history of the Republic with its range of colourful alien races and the people who live in it. Look no further to Knights of the Old Republic for the grand tale of Darth Revan. Then there's the collection of video games centred around the aftermath of the Empire's fall: Star Wars: Dark Forces and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Modern stories such as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor have also been a delight.

Games aside, I've also enjoyed many of the LEGO set pieces that are constantly released. From the rare collector's editions to the iconic spaceships. In my childhood, I had a LEGO replica of Jango Fett's Slave 1. After being freed from the restrictions placed upon me by childhood, and the fact I did not have my own money, I bought other LEGO Star Wars sets, the most recent being the Dark Falcon.

So, in my hubris, and my desire to combine two of my favourite things together, I went and purchased LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. It did, after all, receive many a glowing review upon its release back in 2022. Was it any wonder I wanted to see what had so hooked so many to their tried and true formula by dipping my toes into what many would describe as a kid's game? I mean, I'd just come off from Astro Bot, also ostensibly a video game aimed at children (and one my 4-year-old nephew adores), so there had to be something bigger than nostalgia gripping its fans. Right?

Unfortunately, The Skywalker Saga felt like a top ten hits recap of the 9 mainline Star Wars films with a copious amount of collectibles thrown in to maintain interest for the game.

And let's just say the collectibles are extensive.

While I don't mind having a copious amount of collectibles on each level for me to pick-up during a playthrough, where I often draw the line is when it takes multiple playthroughs just to make sure everything has been picked up. In The Skywalker Saga, the initial playthrough of each story mission (of which there are five in each episode) limits the characters you can use. Unfortunately, many of the minikits and even some of the level challenges are gated behind using certain abilities to obtain.

Coupled with extensive recreations of the various worlds, filled with their own side quests and other puzzles, the amount of collectibles available becomes an onerous burden. One I was loathe to partake in even as many others might find the challenges a great addition when it comes to replayability.

Admittedly, there have been other games I've played that have gated the completion of side quests or collectibles behind certain upgrades in other games, these were primarily set in open worlds. There was no gated off level that needed to be replayed for the other items on the checklist to be ticked off. Nor did these games limit what abilities you were able to use for future levels.

Gameplay features aside, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga story faithfully follows the plot of the movies they are derived from. Each trilogy is set apart at the start, with players being able to pick from A New Hope, The Force Awakens or The Phantom Menace. After completing each initial episode, further episodes open up - continuing the story of the Skywalkers and their impact on the wider galaxy.

Of course, since this is a LEGO game, The Skywalker Saga is sprinkled with some of its trademark humour and charm. It was almost like playing through a parody of the films as characters break the fourth wall or comment on the baffling decisions when it came to the story beats *cough Rise of Skywalker cough*. Then there were the nods to various memes.

And while my life would have been enriched by not playing through the cringe-worthy battle between Rey and Darth Sidious, I did enjoy the fact Rey and Kylo did NOT kiss in the LEGO rendition. Something which made a lot more sense since the film never built up much of their romantic tension (at least in my humble opinion. Come at me Reylo fans! I'm willing to fight you all on this!)

With all that said, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is my least favourite Star Wars game. I think the main reason behind it is that it's a simple retread of the films. For many, this would not be an issue. But for me, knowing how the stories eventuate and seeing the grand scenes recreated in LEGO, albeit with many a change to keep it child-friendly and unserious, left me wanting.

Then there were the simplified controls which mostly felt janky to me.

Coupled with the collectibles stuffed into the title, I felt overwhelmed by all the things I would need to do if I wanted to satisfy the completionist in my soul. Given the limitations on my time and the fact I was still very behind on the video games that came out in 2024, the prospect of spending hours simply clearing out each objective was far too tedious for my very adult brain. Heck, it wouldn't have been very fun for young Kyndaris (who spent an entire IRL day sailing around Skellige to all the ? marks on the map and diving down to find the treasure chests hidden below).

But if you like your games simple with a lot of replayability? Go for it. Especially if you have young children that you want to introduce Star Wars to.

Now if only I could convince my big responsible adult brain to fork out the money to fly me to Galaxy's Edge and build my very own lightsaber...

[kyndaris]

The Art of Survival

When I first started reading the Three-Body Problem, I had high expectations. The science fiction trilogy, known formerly as Remembrance of Earth's Past, had been described as a seminal and poignant piece on the human condition. One that was being adapted to Netflix, no less (though by the time I eventually got to it, the Netflix series was already out). And, on paper, it ticked many of my boxes when it came to something I would want to read. More importantly, I wanted to see how the many disparate threads planted in the blurb would all come together. What with the video game element, the existence of extraterrestrial life hidden among the stars, and the Cultural Revolution.

Though it took me a little by surprise at how abrupt it was, I enjoyed reading about Ye Wenjie's past as she grew up during a difficult period in China's history. As someone born to Chinese immigrants, I had heard stories about how my family navigated those times. From the limited food rations, the biting cold of northwest China...

But I'd never quite understood, on an intellectual level, the utter devastation of those years. It wasn't until I picked up Frank Dikotter's The Tragedy of Liberation and Mao's Great Famine that I was able to actually gain a proper appreciation of the China my parents lived through. After all, it all seemed so far away when my own life was filled with plenty. Sure, there were still concerns about kidnappings and racist attacks but I'd never had to worry about stripping the bark off trees just to feed my belly.

Poverty, on such a national scale, is still a far cry worse from the current cost-of-living crisis we face now. That said, the struggles many face now cannot be so easily dismissed. Wage stagnation and the inflation of the prices for common everyday items means many families have had to go without.

Armed with this foreknowledge of what people had to go through during Ye Wenjie's childhood, I was quite sympathetic to the character. Especially when her father was killed before her and the family was torn apart by the need to comply with the dictates of an authoritarian leader.

Was it any wonder she lost faith in humanity and sold us out to the Trisolarians? And as a student of history, and a self-described misanthrope, I will readily admit humans are the biggest obstacle to solving many of the world's problems. If we ever want the world to be a better place, it, honestly, might just be better to eradicate us all.

Humans suck. What more is there to say?

Just look at the current state of the world if you think I'm talking out of my arse.

The only times humans ever band together over a common cause is when disaster strikes. See 9/11 or the Los Angeles Fires.

Of course, there will still be those out for themselves. It's human nature, after all, to covet what others have and take it for ourselves.

And so it was with the Three-Body Problem.

While most of the first book saw humanity try to uncover the plot behind the Earth-Trisolaris Organisation (ETO), which was dedicated to helping Trisolarians invade Earth and destroy human civilisation, the next two books of the trilogy were an examination of how humanity might deal with the threat of its very destruction at the hands of aliens. Strong premises which should have been interesting to explore...and yet I was let down by much of the plot and the characters.

It should be noted the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy was originally written in Chinese. As such, the books I read were actually the English translations. But for all the novel concepts being explored, I couldn't help but feel like some of the work could have been edited down. Of note were the second and last book.

While I understand Liu Cixin wanted to paint the bleak nature of what humanity faced, there were many moments that could have been described in a sentence or two - or wholly cut out entirely. For example, almost all of Luo Ji's interaction with his imaginary 'perfect' woman. Or even Wang Miao's exploration of the Three Body video game. Did we really need to see him witness all the cycles of Trisolaris society being consumed before finally coming to the conclusion the world was tangling with three celestial bodies? I mean, the title of the book is The Three-Body Problem.

Then, of course, there's my entire issue with the third book as a passive bystander. Was there truly a need to see humanity descend into barbarism when the Trisolarians decided to herd them all to Australia? I goddamn live in Australia. And having Cheng Xin's entire perception of the country I live in be boiled down to Baz Luhrman's Australia film felt...well, the less said, the better.

Or spend so long on the evolution of society that it was acceptable for men to adopt incredibly feminine appearances during times of peace? Before changing once more to their militaristic 'masculine' counterparts following the possibility of a Dark Forest strike?

One of my current sticking points when it comes to identity politics is the concept that good times breed 'weak' men and how hard times create 'strong' men. With the idea of 'weak' men being long-haired fem-boys and 'strong' men being roided out dude bros all clamouring to be the alpha. When, in all actuality, a demonstration of strength means rising above traditional ideologies of what constitutes masculinity and learning to be empathetic.

Not to mention the chapters dedicated to Yun Tianming's fairytales, the adventures with 4D space...

The list goes on.

Plot aside, my other main issue were the characters. Both Wang Miao and Luo Ji had an obsession with the women in their lives bordering on unhealthy. Their entire character arcs and motivations were centred on the women they liked. Luo Ji, especially, came off as a patronising socially inept incel.

Of course, some of that could be attributed to Chinese culture or the imperfections of the translations but even when it came to Cheng Xin (the only female protagonist), her entire role was boiled down to what Yun Tianming (a man) bequeathed her with, using the money he had obtained. And she, smitten by the fact he had bought her the rights to a distant star, carried a torch for him until the very end of the book.

In my opinion, it would have been better if Cheng Xin was never gender-swapped to be a woman. In fact, I would have preferred a torrid gay love affair between a male Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming. And, instead, they should have gender swapped Thomas Wade (the psychopathic anti-hero who actually helped save humanity because they could make the hard decisions Cheng Xin could not).

If I'm being truly honest, the only character I liked in Death's End was 艾AA. Now, she was a woman who would have served as a better protagonist to hapless and indecisive Cheng Xin (who basically slept through most of the book, woke up, made a terrible decision that essentially doomed the human race before someone else came to fix her problem before repeating the cycle all over again). Much like Thomas Wade, 艾AA, was able to make hard decisions. Yet she was also affable and friendly, helping Cheng Xin along before the entire solar system was sucked into the second dimension.

I suppose my main issue is how the characters never felt like characters but simply vessels to drive the story forward. There is no real autonomy afforded to them. They are simply there to fill a hole as required by the plot Liu Cixin wished to write. Or perhaps to explore a concept he wanted to drive home.

Overall, Remembrance of Earth's Past provides an intriguing take of what it means to reach out across the universe and make contact with another intelligent civilisation even when it falters to the overarching plot and the characters. It is certainly something worth pondering over and if we, as humans, face a Dark Forest of our very own.

Of course, other films of first contact have pointed to possible positive relations to extraterrestrials.

I, for one, believe curiosity may stay the hand of any who may pay us a visit. But I also understand the underlying fear of what it might mean to stumble upon an aggressor in the dark depths of space. After all, why take the risk of being conquered and having one's home taken? It's not like that's happened in the history of humanity...right? *cough colonialisation cough*

So, perhaps it is easier to eliminate all possible threats to the continuation of our race than face extinction.

Food for thought, dear reader. Food for thought.

[kyndaris]

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

After finishing a game from publisher Square Enix that involved multiple timelines, I thought the next game I ought to play should be more the same. Cue Life is Strange: Double Exposure, the latest title wherein seemingly normal people in smalltown America discover they secretly have super powers. Yet instead of featuring a new protagonist with an original story, Double Exposure sees the return of one Maxine Caulfield following the events in Arcadia Bay. Except, instead of being able to rewound time, her powers have since changed to dimensional hopping a la Sliding Doors (not that I know much of it since I never did watch the film and am basing this comparison on a rudimentary understanding from reading the plot on Wikipedia).

The Life is Strange games hold a special place in my heart. While many fans adored best friend deuteragonist Chloe Price, I never quite took a shine to her. To me, she was rude and belittling. Blaming every bad decision she made on someone else.

Yes, she was troubled. Yes, she was still dealing with the trauma of losing her father.

But these are not excuses.

During my playthrough of Life is Strange, my sympathies was always with the other residents of Arcadia Bay. Be it Joyce Price, the Chloe from the past (or from when you time travelled and managed to change the present - albeit with Chloe the car crash victim) or Kate Marsh (honestly, that scene up on the roof was the most terrifying I've ever experienced. Thankfully, I managed to save Kate. A fact I can proudly pat myself on the back for).

In the end, the choice was no choice at all. Bay over bae. Every single time.

As I played Life is Strange 2 and Life is Strange: True Colours, bay over bae was my consistent choice. And in Double Exposure, I told Safi in confidence about losing my good friend Chloe while we ate at the Snapping Turtle after our excursion to an abandoned bowling alley. This choice flavoured Max's journal entries, how she viewed the world, and the decisions she would choose to make throughout the rest of the game.

While I can't say what the writers intended, Chloe's death felt very real in its consequences as to why Max never again used her powers and why she moved from town to town, never settling down to put down roots. The death of her childhood friend, one she got to learn more about before having to undo everything to save Arcadia Bay, was a poignant moment. As was the trauma Max endured at the hands of Mr Jefferson when the two partners-in-crime were trying to uncover the truth behind Rachel Amber's disappearance.

This and more were handled quite tactfully during a sequence in the last chapter of Double Exposure. It helped provide some insight into Max's thoughts, and helped solidify the decisions I made at the end (even though I feel like the consequences were minimal).

Unfortunately, there were many elements of Double Exposure that fell short. Especially in terms of the characterisation for Yasmin and new best friend: Safiya Llewellyn-Fayyad. In fact, one of my biggest gripes was how Double Exposure ended with little to no resolution. Safiya's big 180 degree turn to becoming the the Big Bad Evil Gal did not feel properly earned. Especially when the chapter beforehand saw her and Max publicly tear down Lucas Colmenero for stealing the works of one Maya Okuda and causing her subsequent suicide.

Yes, I know she was feeling betrayed by learning of her mother's complicity in the death of her friend but she had also sought the revenge she wanted. And, in my playthrough, used her own voice to hit the final nail in Lucas Colmenero's literary career coffin.

Then, of course, there's the big question looming over the end of the story. What happened to the Safiya from the Dead World timeline? If the ending to Double Exposure made anything clear, it was that in a desperate bid to save her friend, Max travelled back in time with Safiya after her mental breakdown following the latter shooting her mother. Wanting to rid herself of her pain, Safiya asked her friend to kill her.

In the timeline of the Dead World, alternate Max goes through with it. Setting in motion the events of the game. Our Max, however, does not.

So, it begs the question. When Max travelled back in time with Safiya in tow, did the old Safiya from Dead World go somewhere else? Or, did the Living World Safiya take over the body of her Dead World counterpart? None of this was properly explained and it left me scratching my head.

Not to mention, of course, the time aberrations at the overlook with Detective Alderman and Reggie's past ghost.

Then there's the fact the whole doppelganger plot beat was only ever in the Living World timeline. And while, yes, it is implied Safiya from the Dead World timeline was also a shapeshifter, the motivation to kill the dean's daughter was never quite as evident.

You can't tell me, Deck Nine, that Safiya only decided to pose as Gwen or Lucas in the two days after her supposed death following the Geminid meteor shower. Like, we know Safiya is a spiteful person. She would have been laying those crumbs a lot earlier. So, even in Dead World, Gwen should have had a hearing for selling drugs to students and Lucas ought to still have a fraught relationship with his son.

These elements and more would have made Safiya's characterisation feel more consistent across the timelines. As it was, all the relevations Max had, related only to Living World Safi.

And what a character she was.

In many ways, she reminded me of the Rachel Amber we got in Before the Storm. Just like Rachel, Safi is enraged when she finds out their parent is keeping a secret from them. Both are rebellious and sarcastic. But whereas Rachel did not have powers, Safi's allow her to become anyone she wants by manipulating the perceptions of those around her.

In the end, I feel like Double Exposure would have benefitted from having a little extra time when it came to its development. A little more care in characterisation, letting certain moments breathe, and addressing some of the dangling story threads would have let Max's latest adventure shine. Instead, the ending felt like a muddled mess, leaving a sour taste in many a player's mouth as it teased a sequel that would go in a direction many feel would detract from the franchise.

That's not to say Double Exposure doesn't have good moments. Because it does! I very much liked how colour and tone shaped the two timelines. Even if it was a little on the nose. Especially with the pirate mural at the Snapping Turtle changing from a happy to sad expression.

Then, of course, there was the opening to Chapter 4 where Max and Safi interrogated each other about the powers they wielded, as well as their intentions. It was tense and showed where each character stood. I was on the edge of my seat wondering where the story would lead.

It was during this fraught conversation that I felt somewhat sympathetic to Safi. Who hasn't wanted to be someone else when real life and the expectations placed on us becomes too overwhelming? Growing up in an ethnic household, there were moments I wished I had a white family.

Even now, I often feel more connected to the video game characters or the heroes from my fantasy novels, wishing I could take on their life instead of my own. And when Log Horizon came out, I did wonder which MMORPG I would have liked being trapped in for all time. The first answer which came to mind? Final Fantasy XIV.

From a character standpoint, I very much liked Moses, Gwen and Amanda. Moses for being a stalwart ally, and the first person Max was able to talk to about her powers. Gwen for being a headstrong woman who didn't take shit from anyone. And Amanda, for being a real friend (and possible love interest).

Was it bad I continued to pursue the romance in an alternate timeline? Maybe. But in Max's defence, I don't think she ever thought the timelines would ever merge. Is it really manipulation when it's technically two different people though they share the same memories up to a certain point?

Amanda certainly felt like a better option than Vinh. Who, while he did exude a certainly sexy bad boy appeal, never really felt like a romantic option because of his possible ties the overall mystery (whereas Ryan in True Colours, though he also had an overall connection to Haven Springs, was also a friend who was involved in dumb silly shenanigans to find out the truth behind Gabe's death) with most of his and Max's scenes involving her trying to get more information out from him and him being a terrible flirt.

From a gameplay point of view, Double Exposure keeps it simple. There's not much in terms of puzzles - with many solutions being quite obvious after a thorough examination of one's environment. Although, I have to admit, the key to Colmenero's secret safe was a bit of a challenge to find. Had I not looked something up on a walkthrough, I would probably still be scratching my head on how to resolve that chapter.

Overall, I felt like Double Exposure had a decent set-up for what could have been an excellent story. Yet, the ending - especially when it came to Safi's villain monologue - was badly fumbled. Perhaps if the game was longer and we saw more of how Safi saw those without powers, it would have made more sense.

While I know Deck Nine was strapped for cash during Double Exposure's development cycle, I would have also liked a few more locations around Caledon campus to help build out the world. Instead, it felt cramped and almost claustrophobic with the limitations of the game world.

But also, maybe, I don't know, it might have been better if the stakes in Double Exposure were higher. As it is, I never felt like Max was ever in danger. Nor any of the other characters. At least, in any proper capacity.

So, here's hoping that if Deck Nine do end up making another sequel starring Max, we can see a proper resolution to this controversial entry that seems to have pushed away many a Life is Strange fan.

Meanwhile, I'll be here enjoying Lost Records: Bloom & Rage from Don't Nod.

On a completely unrelated note, Life is Strange: Double Exposure did inspire me to write a poem. And I'm not usually a poet. So, um, maybe one of these days I'll share it. For now, it remains between me and the Notes app on my phone.

[kyndaris]

Divorce At First Sight

I am no stranger to attending awkward lunch dates. It's been a staple of my life ever since I tried my hand at finding a worthy enough partner on Hinge. But in a bid to keep pushing myself outside my comfort zone, I agreed to a combined Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day event at a suburban RSL where its main clientele seemed to be the old grannies from the local retirement village or families with nothing better to do.

In fact, if I'm being brutally honest, the RSL looked quite abysmally rundown. There was no glitz and glamour like the ones in my usual area. And it certainly wasn't one I'd wish to attend on a regular basis unless I was on my death bed.

For non-Australians reading this post, RSL stands for the Returned and Services League of Australia. It is an independent support organisation for people who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force. More importantly, they have many clubs around the country to provide a venue for current and ex-serve personnel to enjoy a safe and comfortable place to share a meal or drink.

Depending on which suburb you go to they can be well-polished, filled with all manner of entertainment - mostly poker machines - while others look like they'll be swallowed up the tides of time. The one I attended? Very much in the latter.

Despite my initial reservations, I pushed forward.

After all, I'd already paid $20 to reserve a spot. I couldn't let it go to waste.

So, after meeting a key selection of other young hopefuls also looking to make connections and possibly match with them, I tried my best to converse with the others. Of course, being more taciturn, it became far more natural for me to sit and observe the proceedings between those who had arrived earlier.

I learned a few interesting facts from each: one of the men had migrated to Australia from Singapore, the woman sitting to his right (my left) was a country girl who had been to numerous cities before settling in Sydney with her family, and the woman sitting to his left (my right) had attended the event with her mother. Seated to my right was a man working in HR for a not-for-profit. On his other side was a woman who was currently at NSW Health.

All of them had vaguely interesting stories to tell. Yet instead of sharing them with the group, they had broken up into smaller pairings to converse.

Overall, it meant it was harder to find a point to jump in. All of them were sequestered in their own silos and I was outsider peering in through the window.

Worse, the man on my left always seemed to have his attention further down the table towards the older guests. While I did try to draw him out for a conversation, it would always end up falling a little flat.

The forced style of the event meant much of the conversations were stilted, relying primarily on small talk to get to know each other. To say it was a bore is putting it mildly. And I remember glancing at my watch wondering when it would be polite to abscond from the event and head home.

I suppose it didn't help that sitting at the far end, away from the other attendees, it felt like our small group were treated as the 'kids.' Or, at the very least, the 'young ones.' Just because I'm in my 30s doesn't mean I always have something to discuss with my fellow contemporaries. As my dating history has shown, not many people my own age, or younger, are equally mature or have an intellectual bent to draw out my curiosity.

Conversation flowed easier after lunch, which we were all required to order separately at the RSL bistro. My order was grilled barramundi with seasonal vegetables and mashed potatoes. A fairly decent and substantial meal given the other options on the menu, and one I dug into with gusto when it was finally ready.

While I could try to add some additional details to the rather lacklustre event, I don't think I could summon the words. After finishing my lunch, I kept one eye constantly on the time. Once it passed 1:30, I was out of my seat (mostly because I needed to pee after downing my orange juice furiously before ordering lunch because while I was sure no-one would roofie me at an event in broad daylight, I didn't want to risk the possibility). The others did ask if I was leaving and I told them a half-truth (though I'm sure most would interpret it as a lie).

Suffice it to say, I did not return to my seat afterwards. Instead, after paying a visit to the toilet, I bade goodbye to the host and slipped away.

And so I brought an end to the sham once and for all to seek the comfort of my video games and the sanctity of my home. I mean, if we're being completely and absolutely honest here, even though I think Cloud Strife is a bit of a limp noodle with absolutely no real charisma to speak of (besides how adorkable he can be sometimes), he's still a leg up from those at the lunch. Besides, he's ex-SOLDIER and could probably cleave me in two with one swipe of the Buster Sword.

Now, dear reader, I can almost hear you ask if I'll attend any further of these events. And while I cannot completely rule them out, it's doubtful I'll put my hand up in the near future.

Falling in love with complete strangers is not really in my wheelhouse. Sure, I do get the occasional squish but it's rare and few between.

The way I see it, there's no point in wasting more of what precious time I have on rather fruitless events. Especially when fanfiction can get me hot and bothered when I do fall for a fictional character from a book, TV show, movie or video game.

I mean, if all else fails, there's always AI! Or I can get a pet!

As an aside, getting a dog looks better and better with each passing year.

[kyndaris]

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss

I never owned an original PlayStation. While I had a family friend who did, the games they had for the console did not include the likes of the Final Fantasy franchise. Indeed, my first encounter with the series was Final Fantasy X on the PlayStation 2. Given the fact my model was not backwards compatible, my lack of funds due to being only in secondary school, I never did get to enjoy the wonders of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy IX.

That, of course, didn’t stop me from pouring over online wikis to understand the plot of the various games. Nor did it stop me from reading over the character summaries and histories. Especially as many of them made cameos in Kingdom Hearts (my first real video game love).

When YouTube entered my periphery in Year 8, I was soon able to watch playthrough after playthrough of the games. But the only one that truly caught my imagination like no other was Final Fantasy VII.

Thinking back on it and how my obsession began, I like to think Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children played a very significant role. It certainly had everything little Kyndaris would have wanted in a film. The fact it was all CGI only made it all the more fascinating because of how realistic the models looked. Coupled with beloved characters and a story filled with multitudes, I was instantly hooked.

The relationship with the original game only further deepened with the release of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core on the PlayStation Portable, as well as Dirge of Cerberus on PlayStation 2 (although, I must admit, I did not actually play through DoC but merely watched all the gameplay and cutscenes pertaining to the overarching plot). Heck, I even read fanfiction for the game!

As I got older, however, time would prove to be my biggest barrier to grabbing a copy of Final Fantasy VII when it released on PlayStation 3. There were so many new titles releasing! Saddled first with study and then with a full-time job, it was difficult to find the time, or justify its use, to play through a hefty video game that released in the late 90s.

Enter Final Fantasy VII: Remake.

While the first game of the Remake trilogy was focused solely on the Midgar portion of the original, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth sees Cloud and the gang navigate poignant story beats afterwards: from Kalm to Junon to Corel and then Gongaga and Nibelheim. Everything culminates to the ending of the very first disc: the death of Aerith in the Forgotten Capital.

With Final Fantasy VII: Remake shocked with its plot of breaking free from the shackles of fate, many wondered if Aerith’s ultimate fate could be prevented. After all, rumours had abounded during the late 90s to early 00s that it was possible to revive the last Cetra before confronting Sephiroth at the Northern Crater.

Rebirth, it must be said, does flirt with the idea Cloud (and, by extension, the player) is able to save Aerith from being skewered by Sephiroth. However, the ending of the game does see Cloud fail to properly parry the blow and the flower girl meets her demise after praying to the planet to summon forth Holy.

Yet this is not quite the end.

For, as established in the ending of Remake, there are multiple worlds. Though Aerith does perish on her journey with Cloud and friends, she is still alive in an alternate world. More than that, being part of the Lifestream, she is able to interact with the timelines and make changes as needed in her bid to counteract Sephiroth’s nefarious plans to reunite all the disparate worlds together and rule over it all as its god.

Time will tell what further changes will be made.

But I have to say, seeing Cloud acting as Sephiroth’s puppet and being unable to resist his pull was quite frightening to see in Chapter 13: Where Angels Fear to Tread. The little giggle he did as he reached for the Black Materia, how he stalked after Aerith, pleading with her to just give him the Black Materia, and then how he seemed to defer to his lord and master when presenting the precious Black Materia to Sephiroth.

It certainly made for some chilling imagery when I played through it late at night, work waiting for me on the other side.

More than that, it showed how terrifying strong Sephiroth’s hold on poor Cloud was. Resisting still saw Cloud stumble reluctantly forward.

All of which just points to how good Sephiroth is able to gaslight, gatekeep and girlboss his way through the world of Gaia with nary a trouble. In fact, his entire modus operandi for most of the game is manipulation. Be it Rufus Shinra to the ongoing conflict between Shinra and Wutai. Not to mention, of course, the many black robe pawns he has at his disposal.

What’s worse is how Sephiroth is always there, dancing at the edges of Cloud’s mind.

Even during his happiest moments, the shadow of the man who destroyed his village remains. There is no time for grief or sorrow. Only anger and hate.

In fact, it reminded me a lot of the book I read for my work bookclub: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. For years, the Bird remained with Louis Zamperini. Though the war had ended and they were separated by the Pacific Ocean, the Bird remained a constant in Zamperini’s mind, haunting his dreams. It was only by letting go and forgiving the man that Zamperini was able to move on with his life.

This is a theme that is further compounded in Aerith’s message at the end of everyone’s trials during the sequence in the Temple of the Ancients. While anger, pain and loss can lend people strength, true strength relies in the power of forgiveness. Of being able to look past what has happened to reach for a better future.

Despite her entreaties, it falls on deaf ears. At least in the case of one Cloud Strife.

My only gripe with the story remains how abrupt it ends. There is no proper resolution to Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and I feel like this is because it is sandwiched between Part 1 and Part 3. The threat of Sephiroth remains though they manage to fight him off. Then, too, there are the further mysteries introduced right at the end as to Aerith’s ultimate fate. Mixed in with the various timeline strands, I felt Rebirth’s story left much to be desired.

On the bright side, I very much liked how goofy the rest of the game was when it wasn’t focused on the conflict between Cloud, Sephiroth and the fate of the planet. The sidequests were a delight as were many of the minigames (although 3D Brawler and Fort Condor can vanish from Part 3 and I wouldn’t shed a tear. Oh, and the crunches/ pull ups. I pray Jules does not make a reappearance. I don’t think I can take the pressure of trying to beat him. Again). But it was the moments of levity that I adored the most.

In no particular, they are as below:

Nanaki’s voice and personality change

Nanaki pretending to be a human in order to play Queen’s Blood on Shinra-8

Cloud Jr.

Cloud and Tifa turning into frogs

Any time Stamp’s theme played. Bow wow wow, indeed!

The ending to the Moogle quest line (even though the Moogles themselves look like eldritch horrors to me), kupo!

Runner-ups?

The ending to the chicken sidequest in Gongaga.

Nanaki riding a chocobo

The fake tonberry adjusting humidity levels

The bald bar

I’m sure there are plenty of other moments I’m forgetting but these were the ones that stood out the most to me during my time playing through Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, and which helped elevate it beyond the stereotypical open world role-playing game.

Then, of course, there’s the pivotal question one must ask.

Who did I go on a Gold Saucer date with?

Well, dear reader, if you’ve followed me for quite a while, you know the answer would be obvious.

I even had to sabotage some of my answers with the other team members just to ensure it was Tifa Lockhart I ascended the Skywheel gondola with.

Was it strange to have Tifa go on a date with Cloud after he nearly murdered her at the Gongaga reactor? Perhaps. But Tifa is a better woman than I in how she managed to forgive him for his actions.

True, Cloud wasn’t in his right mind and was being controlled – a fact Tifa notices from the very beginning (and which she makes note of several times in the games but never truly confronts Cloud over. Honestly, if there was a psychiatrist in the game, perhaps Sephiroth’s manipulations would be less effective. Then again, Sephiroth would probably BE the psychiatrist. He would be masquerading to help out a pal Cloud but he’d really be subjecting the poor country boy to some more effective brainwashing), but I couldn’t help feel she ought to make Cloud take ownership for his unhinged behaviour. Especially in the latter chapters of the game. Still, I suppose when you’re faced with someone who is quite strong but mentally unstable, you wouldn’t want them fighting against you.

The other aspect of Rebirth I liked very much was how close the rest of the team were. Seeing Tifa and Aerith confide and support each other, the occasions where they had to share a room…

In all honesty, I ship Tifa x Aerith more than either one of them with Cloud.

Yes, country boy can be well-meaning at times but he’s so aloof and stoic most of the time. Would it kill him to smile? And not the deranged one he sent Aerith’s way when she was talking about her Ancient heritage at Cosmo Canyon? That was such a ‘yikes’ moment for me.

From a gameplay perspective, Rebirth adds additional flourishes to what was a solid combat system. What I love the most was how different each character felt (although Aerith and Cait Sith were the ones I struggled with the most). I also liked how the game encouraged me to switch more between the three-party members during battle, whether it was a boss fight or even just normal enemies in the overworld.

As an open-world game, I liked how each region had its own unique biome and was never too big. While interruptions from Chadley and MAI could have been dialled down a little, they did little to tarnish my desire to see all that the worlds had to offer. Especially with the different ways each region could be traversed by their very own Chocobo.

Then, of course, there are the countless minigames scattered throughout. While I know bleachpanda tired of them, I never felt they were too intrusive. After all, I’ve played the Like a Dragon series. And if there is one game series where there are minigames galore, it would have to be Like a Dragon (and while I’m not entirely sure when I’ll find the time to get through Infinite Wealth, I know I’ll spend an inordinately long time going through Dondoko Island and Sicko Snap).

Although, to be fair, maybe my experience with playing games of multiple genres meant I was well-versed for such diversions. Like the Piano Association side activity (something which bleachpanda struggled with because skill issue, and which I mostly breezed through. That said, the fact the final one is locked behind a sidequest for Tifa and has her playing Aerith’s theme at her rebuilt home made absolutely no sense to me. I still killed it, by the way. A rank, first try.). 

Suffice it to say, I very much enjoyed Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Like Astro Bot before it, the game was an absolute blast. More importantly, it was fun (when I wasn’t struggling with 3D Brawler). It’s a testament to the writing that the game was able to balance the goofier silly moments with the serious. And while it didn’t quite stick the landing, I know I’ll be looking forward to seeing how Part 3 brings the Remake trilogy to the end.

Now, if only Sephiroth can stop acting like a jilted ex.

I mean, the power balance between him and Cloud is completely off! He’s a hero, for crying out loud, and Cloud is…well…just a country boy Shinra grunt. The fact Seephiroth sees Cloud as the only puppet he is willing to keep around says a lot and none of it good.

MOVE ON, SEPHIROTH! JENOVA most definitely doesn’t need to see her babe-licious son bring home a spiky-haired blond to dinner.

Sometimes, it’s hard to say if you’re gaslighting Cloud or if you’re gaslighting yourself to think you need Cloud to keep you relevant. In any case, it’s not a good look. And YOU, my dear Sephiroth, have a reputation to maintain.

[kyndaris]

Fake It Til You Make It

It's with a heavy heart that I admit, once again, I have yet to finish off Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth at time of writing up this post. While I'm certain the ending is not far off, there's a plethora of side activities demanding my attention including the likes of Queen's Blood and secondary quests. Oh, and competing in the Musclehead Coliseum at the Gold Saucer. But I'm certain my next post will most assuredly be all about our Gaslight, Gatekeep and Girlboss queen: Sephiroth!

Honestly, if the world of Gaia actually had an Employee Assistance Program and a slew of therapists at their beck and call, I'm a hundred percent certain Sephiroth would not be able to so easily manipulate main protagonist Cloud Strife into doing his bidding.

Of course, that's a blog for another day!

Speaking of therapy, though, I'm certain I'd be perfect picture of a client who is intellectualises many of my problems and is quite self-aware of the glaring issues I need to address. Unfortunately, knowing what I need to do is a lot easier than actually putting in the effort. Take, for example, the very real impostor syndrome I felt when I'd been offered a chance to act up at my work place.

The anxiety bubbling in my stomach, the spiralling thoughts...

This was, despite the fact, I'd grown bored with my role and was actively looking for something a little bit more challenging. I think a part of it was because the supervisor for the new team, when he called me, had glanced through my resume and had pinpointed several aspects he thought beneficial to the role I'd be taking up. Namely, Microsoft Excel.

Of course, I'd tried to dissuade him of his assumptions. After all, for most of my working life, Excel has simply been a means of inputting data. There is no sorting, no freeze rowing or actually pivot tabling of the information at hand. That is reserved for another member of our team. One who eat, sleeps and breathes spreadsheets.

I just know how to do basic functions. Like filtering or creating new columns.

Using something like vlookup, though? No. No way. Not in my wheelhouse. Heck, any formula besides sum and a few other simple functions are way out of my scope. I wouldn't know the first thing about them. At all.

And yet, here I was, being trusted to assist with an important report and finally use my brain to critically analyse the information that would go in it, noting any important trends that may have cropped up. Wasn't this something I'd wanted to do since I'd got my degree in Social Science? Yes, the quantitative data before me wasn't entirely related to criminology, but it was a start.

I think part of it comes from being a gifted child when I was younger. One who attended school with other gifted children. Growing up was not easy when everyone else was just as intelligent, if not more so, than you. Coupled with my mother's expectations to be more perfect, is it any wonder I came away from it saddled with crippling self-doubt and low self-esteem?

While failure is a great fear I've harboured for many a long while, it seems passingly strange that it doesn't always carry over into everything I do. Take video games, for example. In many a game, especially platformers, I've often had to retry levels multiple times to get past it. Each time, of course, learning what I did wrong and how I might improve. Yes, sometimes I'd be convinced it was the game's fault and not mine, but I'd persist.

And if persistence didn't pay off after a significant period, I knew I could always lower the difficulty.

Failing in real life, however, is a different ordeal. Or so it feels.

While I know each failure I commit won't lead to the heat-death of the universe, and that it's a learning experience, I find it hard to accept I may not always be good at something from the onset. After all, theoretical principles, once explained, are understandable to an extent. And if I'm following an instructor, doing as he does during special targeted training with minimal requests for help, it must mean I innately know the content. Right?

Well, no. Because training in a closed and guided environment doesn't always translate to the exterior world. Take for example, driving a car. Let it be known, dear reader, I failed my driving test twice before finally passing my third go.

It was this very reason that I found problematic when it came to my degree at university. Sure, we used the programs available for the students, but there was a distinct lack of focus for the wider applications for the knowledge I was attaining. There was no course for extrapolating information from an Excel database. Qualitative data was nigh impossible to assess for the end-of-term project unless the responses were individually sifted through. And none of what I was doing seemed to reflect the kind of work I'd face in a professional setting.

Quite frankly, it was a bit of a mess.

Fast forward to the current day and I'm all but drowning my fear that I'll mess up and make a fool of myself. Even as I know I'm a quick learner and could pick up the skills after a few tries.

But in the back of my mind, the doubt remains. The harsh inner critic telling me I'll never be enough. That the people around me will judge me for not immediately knowing what needs to be done and how. Even though I know they'd only have picked me out of the gods-know-how-many other candidates who had also thrown their hat into the ring (maybe it was one. Maybe it was two. Or perhaps it was a neat hundred. One can only dream, right? Like winning the lotto?)

And maybe it's also the reason why I struggle with finding love. Sometimes I wonder if part of the reason why I can't seem to connect with anyone is actually a form of self-sabotage. My own self-hatred getting in the way of me creating a lasting connection with the strangers I meet. Then again...it could be just that many of the people I've met haven't really wowed me or met my stringent standards.

What I do know is that the person I have a crush on?

I'm scared they might reject me if I were to find a quiet time to tell them of my feelings. Yes, my friend (who is their cousin) has told me that there might be a sort of reciprocity (or, at least, they seem to attend events if they know I might be there), it's still a little hard for me to know with absolute certainty it'll end merrily.

Still, I suppose that's the risk of life.

There is no certainty. No control over the will of others.

The act of being vulnerable sets one up to being hurt.

To failing.

To being unmasked as the impostor one is.

But it's only by embracing that very thing, and putting oneself out of their comfort zone, that we can grow. I don't know what the future will bring but I have told myself that after my mother comes back from overseas and I'm no longer stressed about caring for my elderly grandmother, I should, at least, try for the possibility of happiness. Whether that be a new career path or even finding myself a possible life partner.

For now, I'll have to settle for proving to myself how much of an asset I can be to my new team. And if I struggle a little bit, that's good. Because it means I've finally come up against a challenge. Something I've been looking for since my previous role has led to a lot of stagnation in what I actually want to achieve (not that I have a lot of ambitions when it came to the work place - please, can a publisher just reach out and offer me a contract to write books? I swear I can write something people of all ages would enjoy!).

So here's to pretending I know exactly how Microsoft Excel works and looking at endless spreadsheets for the next six months! Huzzah!

[kyndaris]

The Rise of the Anti-Woke

As someone who plays video games, it should come as no surprise I would have an ear to the ground when it comes to new game announcements. After all, I'm chest-deep in a backlog of games bought on various platforms and only adding more to it with every release. In fact, when this post goes up, it'll be March and I can confirm in advance that I'll still be playing all the games I bought back in early 2024 (why were there so many role-playing and extensive open-world games? Why?! Couldn't there have been shorter games in 2024?) because that's how far behind I am.

While all of them are single-player (because why would ANYONE ever touch multiplayer), I don't think it disqualifies me from speaking out about video games in general. Nor do I think it precludes me from discussing my sentiments on a very vocal minority that has seemingly taken over the internet. Yes. You all know where this is going.

It's time to talk about the 'woke' elephant in the room.

In an earlier post about Astro Bot, I made a sarcastic reference to how 'woke' the game was. Look deep enough and you can find it: from the community-focused collectivism of how the bots live their lives to the very fact Astro transforms into various iconic PlayStation icons. Heck, there's even a stage where Astro cleans up pollution on a beach!

All of this and more could be considered 'woke.'

Especially as many grifters have made it clear it's a blanket term where anything with even a whiff of inclusivity or 'liberal' politics falls underneath it. So, by that very definition, almost all games and mass media could be considered 'woke' in some form or fashion.

Of course, what makes a game, film or television series 'woke trash' is whether or not it's 'pushing an agenda.' But what does that even mean?

Is it based on the narrative? What about the characters, main or side? A flag, perhaps, in the background in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene? Or is it simply the choice at the start of a game to choose your pronouns?

To many on the internet, simply being given a choice at the start of the game to create your own character is a minefield of 'liberal' politics being shoved down their throats. How dare a game ask if I'm a boy or a girl? And force me to input a Proper Noun to be addressed by! This is DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) nonsense being put into my video game and I don't like it! Why can't I just be an able-bodied cisgendered heterosexual white man?

Seeing all the bad faith comments on social media pages and YouTube videos have been frustrating to the extreme. It's the same old tired argument trotted out over and over again.

As soon I saw the trailers for Ghost of Yotei , Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Witcher 4 (both games which I'm sure to buy as soon as they release), I knew without a doubt there would be a flood of negativity from capital G 'Gamers' saying they would flop. My dudes, the game isn't even out. All you have is a teaser trailer with nary an idea of what components making up the game.

For all you know, even if the story doesn't quite land, you might still be enamoured by the combat system. Or there could be a gameplay mechanic that scratches an itch you never knew you had.

But even if a game included more inclusive characters beyond the default white man (and it is a default as one study has shown), what harm does it do you? Why is it so hard for people to step into the shoes of someone with a different perspective than they do? Or try to understand someone with different lived experiences?

After all, the world is filled with a variety of people from ALL walks of life. Being a Caucasian man is simply NOT the default when compared to the vast array of lived experiences.

With that said, why is it only ever 'not woke' (in instances where a white man isn't the lead) when the main female protagonist is hot and sexy? Why can't women be goofy? Or be a little pear-shaped with peach fuzz on their face?

People come in all shapes and sizes. Some might be more dainty and innocent, while others are hardened by what life has thrown their way. And, in real life, there is no such thing as a 'woke nose' or 'woke chin.' It's simply genetics.

More than that, the defined jawline on a muscle mummy can still be, and in most circumstances is, hot and sexy.

My only answer here is that empathy is a skill not many have.

People like what they like and are content to forever live in their echo chambers, trapped in an us versus them mentality.

It's exhausting.

No longer do I dare to watch videos essays on YouTube for fear it'll be another anti-woke chud trying to shove their agenda down my throat about why a game will fail. Especially when there are a myriad of factors for why a game does not live up to expectations. For example, if it's live service. Then there's the fact many might be suffering from video game fatigue as they burn out on ever increasing worlds.

There is much to be said about the state of gaming in our current times. Innovation is few and far between, with a lot of the most interesting ideas coming from indie developers. Look no further to our big three publishers: EA, Ubisoft and Activision-Blizzard. So many of their games, along with their sequels, are carbon-copies of each other.

I'd like to think the main issue facing most gamers today is the stagnation of novel ideas. That, and the fact the video game market is completely and utterly saturated.

While newcomers to video games might enjoy the diverse options on the market, those of us who have been playing video games for a very long time have already seen many of the tropes and mechanics on display. To some, playing through something familiar is welcome. To others, it's lazy design or trend-chasing.

There is no right answer when it comes to video game development.

In my case, if a game is solely fighting, sports or multiplayer focused, I'm entirely uninterested. The games I enjoy are narrative-focused single-player affairs. This means there are a slew of video games out in the world I'm missing out on. With many a game company not earning a single dollar from me.

But I don't blame the games that don't catch my eye on whatever 'politics' they might be pushing. They're simply not for me and that's fine. I don't have to play it. Someone else will.

The problem that I've often seen in cases with Assassin's Creed: Shadows and Dragon Age: Veilguard is when people who never even intended to play the game try to convince others it's not worth their time based on a trailer or whatever anti-woke news article the social media algorithm pushes their way. Even within my own friendship circle, I saw the same old strawman arguments about how Assassin's Creed: Shadows was trying to push the woke DEI angle by having Yasuke as the main character (as if they had completely forgotten about Naoe). Or, that it was historically inaccurate and it would be better if the game focused on William Adams, an actual foreign-born samurai.

True, when the game does release in March, the story it tells might be pushing an agenda (and in the Assassin's Creed franchise it's usually the debate about freedom versus order, sticking up for the poor and disenfranchised, and stabbing a lot of people in the upper echelons of society because they've abused their power), but is it fair to say the game will fail because of it?

Everything we consume has some form of politics in it. Books, films, shows and games are created by people. And what we, as humans, believe, or think, might be a good story or game mechanic comes from our beliefs and lived experiences. Some of it might be political but it is also important to understand what we, as players, bring to the game and our interpretation of its events.

Take Final Fantasy XVI for example. In the plight faced by Valisthea, I saw the effects of climate change wrecking havoc upon the world. Beyond the story of slavery and the abuse of magic-users, I viewed Ultima as the oligarchs in our modern society taking what they want without thought for the common man because they thought themselves better. Yet a friend of mine who also played the game simply accepted the story as told without thought upon the deeper meanings behind it all.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if a game is 'woke' or 'anti-woke.' What matters to most Gamers is whether it's fun.

In this day and age, I felt Astro Bot gave me the most joy out of any game in recent history because it was unabashed in its game design. There was a levity to it that has been absent for many triple-A titles. And I think I'm beginning to understand what makes or breaks a game - at least when it comes to my tastes.

Sure, Final Fantasy XVI was all very 'realistic' and 'grim' in the story it was telling, and some would say it pushed certain boundaries, but I found myself enjoying Final Fantasy VII Rebirth more. Why? Because despite the threat to the Planet they live on, the game isn't afraid to be just a little goofy. I also think it's why the Like a Dragon series had become so beloved.

Of course, if too many games start following the trend, it may lose some of its lustre. There is still something to be said of serious games with a strong focus on being cinematic blockbusters.

And yes, all of these games, past, present and future, are all 'woke' in some flavour or another. If you push hard enough.

[kyndaris]

Peruvian Delights

Back in primary school, some of the books I'd read cover to cover were the Horrible Histories series by Terry Deary. Learning new facts about human history had always been fascinating to me (although, admittedly, most of them were fixated on British and European history). I'd pour over them, committing what I read to memory as best I could (alas, I don't have, and never will have, an eidetic memory). My desire to learn also extended to Horrible Science and Horrible Geography, which proved helpful in Year 7 where I was able to win a point of trivia because I was the only one in my class who knew about the San Andreas Fault.

One of the Horrible Histories books I remember enjoying very much was the one about Incans. And with the film: Emperor's New Groove releasing in cinemas during the early 2000s, I wanted to learn more about his seemingly ancient civilisation that only seemed to be rarely touched.

Admittedly, growing up, I did turn my attention to Aztec and Mayan societies because of the whole blood sacrifices and the removal of hearts, but if there was one place I wanted to visit (besides Egypt and the city of Petra in Jordan), it was Machu Picchu. That and the Nazca Lines, which have featured in many forms of media like Yu-Gi-Oh 5D, as well as in books like Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five series.

Unfortunately, I've not had the opportunity to travel to Peru. So, when the Australian Museum announced an upcoming exhibit of Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru, I was eager to attend. After all, there was so much I wanted to see and understand about ancient Andean societies. Especially when it came to how the people lived and their belief systems.

The only problem? Finding someone who would be amenable to attend with me.

While I'd initially planned to go on a weekend, Dikottir and I ended up attending on a Wednesday night. He'd, of course, looked up a few events adjacent to the exhibit and discovered Peruvian Nights wherein the Australian Museum would remain open until late with live music, free film screenings and have a smorgasbord of Peruvian-inspired snacks. Or so he had been led to believe.

Spoiler alert: most of his choices were taken from him and we both ended up with Pork sausages with tomato chutney. No beef pies or empanadas. Or even the Peruvian bowl. I mean, there was a salad. But what hot-blooded man, or woman, would choose a healthy salad for dinner?

With our stomachs not quite as full as we had hoped, Dikottir and I made our way into the actual Machu Picchu exhibit. Though we were a tad bit early for our appointed session, the staff were still able to scan our tickets. In, we went, settling down first for an informational video about the various Andean societies and their close ties to nature, before we shuffled off the first hall. Here, it was revealed that the cosmology of the Andean world had three worlds: the Upper World where birds soared and was inhabited by the Sun and the celestial gods, the Here and Now occupied by humans and non-human creatures, and the Inner World which was associated with the night and was where the ancestors lived.

The separation of the worlds was represented by steps. Considering the mountainous region many of them lived in, it was understandable why step designs were found everywhere. This also impacted how they grew crops, utilising constructed agricultural terraces to increase the amount of arable land. Of course, the Incans were not the only ones to use terrace farming. As an aside to Dikottir, I pondered aloud if the rumoured Hanging Gardens of the Babylon had not used similar technology. After all, it would make sense for a 'hanging' garden to, well, hang over the side.

From there, we looked around at the other artefacts on display. Most of it was pottery shaped into specific animals: snake, jaguar, owl and hummingbird. However, there were also ones showcasing hybrid chimaeras.

Given their close connection to nature, many Andean societies had shamans. These were individuals that were able to communicate between the Here and Now and the other worlds. More importantly, they were also bequeathed with the power of animals. This, they were able to channel with psychotropic drugs and/ or fancy headwear.

Of course, when it came to depicting shamans, most of the artefacts Dikottir and I saw showed them as half-man and half-beast.

Oh, to be a were-jaguar or were-owl.

Before we descended down into the Inner World, however, we did get to see several other statues. One, in particular, drew my eye. Like many a civilisation before, and after them, Andean societies put a lot of emphasis on fertility and male virility. A skull-like entity, next to a woman with a gaping hole right below her pelvis, had a huge erect phallus. One he was eagerly holding in his hands.

Next to it were two statues of the ancestors. Apparently, in the Andean afterlife, the ancestors continue to copulate. Their deaths not an end but a new beginning, bringing forth new life. But seeing an artefact titled 'Ancestors masturbating' certainly had the ten-year-old in me giggling. Especially when the woman was clearly doing most of the work as she worked her hand on her partner's appendage.

The Inner World brought us face to face with a shape-shifting hero of mythical proportions: Ai Apaec. A figure of Moche culture, he was a hero known for travelling to different worlds to ensure the continuation of nature's cycles. Along the way, he is gifted with the ability to transform into various creatures including a crab and pufferfish. Along the way, he had a loyal buzzard and a dog to keep him company on his travels.

On his quest to return the sun to the world, and to ensure crops rainfall for crops, he would also be decapitated, his head transforming into a veritable skull. Of course, he is later saved and brought back to life through the power of...um...well...sex. Sex brings him back to life. And it also brings back his ability to propagate.

Honestly, there needs to be a video game about this guy. The lore, his powers and the story itself just lends itself perfectly to the media. Sorrengail, if you're reading this blog post, THIS was the video game idea I was proposing to you. And you can even insert the 'MASSIVE DAMAGE' meme into it if you so chose.

And, best of all, he appears in pop culture! As a villain in the grander Marvel universe! Something almost akin to Ezekiel Sim, the villain of the less than stellar Madame Web film that came out in 2024.

From the Inner World we moved to a different section of the exhibit. This one was focused on the attire of the nobility and how the splendour of their outfits reflected their role and status in society. Even warriors wore impressive regalia made of gold and silver, especially those of high status and close connection to the gods. Of particular note were the nose ornaments and the coccyx protector as can be seen in the picture below.

It wasn't long before Dikottir and I reached the end of the exhibit, which highlighted Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, the information there was a little scarce on details. Though the fortress was not discovered by the Spanish conquistadors, it did fade into obscurity and was retaken by the surrounding jungle. Over the years, locals still retained knowledge of its location but it was brough to the attention of the wider world by a Yale professor, Hiram Bingham.

After we had seen our fill of the exhibit, we stopped by the gift shop. Both of us bought llama rubber ducks for friends we weren't sure we would catch-up with anytime soon. I also purchased a woven bookmark and an 'erotic humorous magnet.' Or so my receipt tells me. Dikottir, too, also bought a magnet. Supposedly as a gift for his mum who seems to share my sense of humour.

With that, our expedition to Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru came to a close. While we did enjoy some additional music, and dance, in the Australian Museum proper, we later headed towards Town Hall for some light dessert.

And so my date with Dikottir came to its inexorable end.

While I don't mind his company (we do share quite similar views in terms of politics), I'm not sure either of us are romantically keen on the other. We certainly haven't jumped on adding personal phone numbers or officially 'friending' each other on Facebook. Nor do we text on a daily or regular basis.

In fact, during our 'date', I'd find my attention wandering to the others also exploring the exhibit or who were simply at the Australian Museum and indulging in the Peruvian vibe. What surprised me the most whilst there were the number of sapphic couples I saw.

Maybe I'm more sensitive since the CaitVi brainrot, but I couldn't help but somewhat wish I had a woman keeping me company.

Alas, Hinge is now gone. And while I do still seem to have a squish/ crush on someone in my friendship circle, nothing has actually eventuated. Despite the advice I've given to friends, I, too, am a filthy coward.

Time will tell if I'll ever end up with someone.

There's still a Valentine's Day/ Lunar New Year celebration I'm attending soon (which will actually be a couple of weeks prior to when this blog post goes up) where I might meet someone (although it does seem to cater for heterosexual couples more). Until then, dear reader, I bid you adieu.

[kyndaris]

The Burden of Care

It is a truth universally accepted that a person in their mid-to-late twenties, in possession of a good fortune, must have moved out from home and be living on their own. Be it their own property or in a rental (and in this economy, it's most likely a rental). But I must confess, dear reader, that I, a woman in her early thirties with a decent savings account, still remain at home. Of course, this was not all by choice. I did try to leave home multiple times. First when I was younger and had fights with my parents (though I'd only disappear for an hour or two - something which led a friend at work to break out in peals of laughter). Then an attempt only a couple years ago after I'd had enough of the ongoing battles with personal space, independence and the thousandth speech of how me, a woman barely 155 centimetres in height, was tearing the family apart.

Unfortunately, the rising cost of living, indicated by the interest rates, meant I could not afford to move out. Not to mention the falling out I had with my possible flatmate at the time.

Thankfully though, my relationship with certain family members thawed somewhat afterwards. But it was still a fraught living arrangement. Until, my mother, in her infinite wisdom, stepped away from work at the tender age of 61.

Initially, she claimed this was to look after my grandmother (her mother). However, freed from the expectations of her high demand job, she decided it was the perfect time to live the life she had wanted since her marriage to my stepfather back when I was still a teenager.

With my, somewhat reluctant, blessing, as well as my grandmother's, she headed to China. And I was left to saddle the work of caring for an octogenarian.

Now, don't get me wrong. My relationship with my grandmother has always been fairly positive. While we may have quite different ways in how we perceive the world, there is still a strong bond between us. No doubt strengthened by the time we spent together when I was still a ankle-biting menace, and watered by the unconditional affection she has constantly showered me with. But there have been moments in the last year and bit where I've felt my patience fray. Or have felt far too overwhelmed with the responsibilities I did not ask for.

Unfortunately, familial duty and the expectations of those around me have meant I've continued to shoulder most of the burden alone. That and the fact my grandmother's stubbornness means she won't ask anyone for help (unless it's me. Or my mother).

It's a lot. Especially when I feel like I didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

But there have also been certain incidences that have made the experience worse. When I've felt all but powerless to provide her the support she so desperately needs.

My grandmother had endured several chronic illnesses. When she was young, she broke her leg. For more than half a century, she has lived with the reality of having one leg shorter than the other because her leg never healed quite right. While it never impacted her too significantly, she was never as mobile as other able-bodied people. What would take me, or my mother, ten minutes to traverse, she would need upwards of twenty to twenty-five.

All of that changed when she caught COVID at the tail end of 2022. For the first time, she would actively complain of the pain in her thighs and find it difficult to stand for long periods of time without taking some sort of painkiller. While it was gradual at first, it was exacerbated during our trip to Egypt and Turkiye. And, upon our return, she seemed less and less capable of standing on her own two feet.

Cue my mother's exit.

Every day for nigh on a fortnight, my grandmother would grouse to me about the pain. How the medication she took, mostly paracetamol but sometimes ibuprofen, wasn't really alleviating any of the pain she was experiencing. Or, if it was effective, there were side effects she didn't like.

I was at a loss on what to do. She had already visited her general practitioner multiple times. Heck, she even had the poor lady on speed dial. But when bedrest did not solve her problem, we'd encouraged her to stay active to prevent muscle atrophy. I'd also suggested distractions to keep her mind off what she could not control by encouraging her to partake in mahjong clubs or practicing her singing.

None of it seemed to work. She was solely focused on curing her legs.

Except the solutions presented by the doctors were not steps she wanted to take. After all, why commit to surgery now when she had already gone through life without it?

Then, in November 2023, she told me she had lost vision in her left eye.

At the time, she had phrased it in a way that hadn't sounded too serious. Just months before, her ophthalmologist had conducted cataract surgery on the eye and it was possible she was simply experiencing some discomfort or irritation. At her direction, I sent him an email.

And that was when she began to panic, stating her vision had gone dark.

I called his office then and we arranged an appointment as soon as we could. Once we arrived at his office, we waited nigh on two hours for a diagnosis before we were informed we needed to head to the emergency department of the Sydney Eye Hospital.

What should have been a routine check to ease her fears turned into an hours' long nightmare. I didn't get home until after midnight whereas my grandmother had been hospitalised so they could conduct further tests.

For an entire week, I waited on tenterhooks to see if she would be discharged. Colleagues and friends checked in, of course. But they always asked how my grandmother was doing. If she was holding up all right.

They never asked how I was doing.

Until one colleague at work did. And I felt myself unravelling.

Though I told him I was hanging on, the pressures of not knowing if my grandmother was going to be fine, had slowly built up over the days. My mother was still overseas and while, true, my cousin was in Australia and also had the means of checking in on our octogenarian relative, I felt myself adrift.

It probably didn't help that I'd already suffered the loss of a close family relation when I was child. But I do know that I wasn't ready to lose my grandmother. Not then.

Perhaps not ever.

In that moment of vulnerability, I stepped away from the computer, sat down on the ground, and cried.

I cried again late 2024 when I had to deal with both my dissatisfaction in the work place and the pressures of home, including my grandmother's unwillingness to listen to either me or my mother on what was best for her (instead, she was allowing herself to be swayed by her greedy Aged Healthcare support workers), and I just snapped. Not at her, of course, though there was a lot of heat in my words. But I felt like a tiny speck of sand against the waves of the ocean. Once again, overwhelmed. With little to no support for what felt like an impossible task.

Heck, I even let out a primal scream in the car as I drove to catch-up with my friends for a spot of badminton. But it didn't alleviate any of the pressure. I was just left empty. Despondent.

There was no longer anything left in me to continue pretending everything was fine.

Taking care of people is hard.

While I do want to be there for my grandmother, there are times when I just want to step away and have someone else take the responsibility from me. And though I don't want her to think she's burden on me, the truth is, if I was living alone, there would be a weight taken off my shoulders.

I wouldn't have to hurry back home after a night out with my friends. I wouldn't turn down an invitation for an impromptu road trip up the coast because I'm worried what might happen if she were to take a nasty fall at home. And I wouldn't be so taxed with making decisions on what to buy and cook for lunch and dinner, calculating whether or not she had enough nutrients from my homecooked meals.

Still, I suppose I ought to count my blessings.

Most of her chronic conditions aren't so bad. And when she came back from her brief trip to China last year, there seemed to be some improvement in her energy levels. While she does gripe still on her chronic pain, it's not everyday. Probably because she has made peace there's no easy solution to it and it can't miraculously go away if she just takes the right medication. She's also adjusted well to the loss of vision in her left eye. And, at the very least, there's no significant sign of mental deterioration in the form of dementia.

True, her memory isn't quite the best but when you're home most of the time, and you don't have a 9-5 job to go to, I doubt even I would remember the days of the week or the actual date. Heck, even after transitioning to 2025, muscle memory still had me typing out 2024 instead.

But it's also not easy being her calendar, her cook, her chauffeur and whatever else my grandmother needs from me. There have been moments when I feel like I unfairly take out my frustrations on her when it's not really her fault. And it scares me that I might be turning into a version of my mother with all her negative traits.

And yet, I cannot wait for the day she returns and finally takes up the responsibility she unceremoniously thrust upon me...