#but now frank has a recipe called blue in the cook book

[sunscall]

Mac and Charlie + their relationship with colours

[wavesmp3]

i’m so terrible at remembering to do tag games so here i am compiling all the ones i can remember into one post jsbgkakn

i was taggged to do these by @secndlife​ @queenoats​ (tecnically on my main but shh) @chocosvt​ @tidalstorm​ @oh-my-vocal-unit​

and if anyone wants to do any of these you can just say i tagged you 

this one i was tagged by karol and choco i think

rules: bold all statements that apply to you

[Appearance]: I’m over 5′5”. I wear glasses/contacts. I have blonde hair. I prefer loose clothing to tight clothing. I have one or more piercings. I have at least one tattoo. I have blue/green eyes. I have dyed or highlighted my hair. I have gotten plastic surgery. I have or had braces. I sunburn easily. I have freckles. I paint my nails. I typically wear makeup. I don’t often smile (well maybe i do actually idk). I am pleased with how I look. I prefer Nike to Adidas. I wear baseball hats backwards.

[Relationship]: I am in a relationship. I have been single for over a year. I may have a crush. I have a best friend I have known for ten years. My parents are together. I have dated my best friend. I am adopted. My crush has confessed to me. I have a long distance relationship. I am an only child. I give advice to my friends. I have made an online friend. I met up with someone I have met online.

[Hobbies/talents]: I play a sport. I can play an instrument. I am artistic. I know more than one language. I have won a trophy in some sort of competition. I can cook or bake without a recipe. I know how to swim. I enjoy writing. I can do origami. I prefer movies to tv shows. I can execute a perfect somersault. I enjoy singing. I could survive in the wild on my own. I have read a new book series this year. I enjoy spending time with friends. I travel during school or work breaks. I can do a handstand.

[Aesthetics]: I have heard the ocean in a conch shell. I have watched the sunrise. I enjoy rainy days. I have slept under the stars. I meditate outside. The sound of chirping calms me. I enjoy the smell of the beach. I know what snow tastes like. I listen to music to fall asleep. I enjoy thunderstorms. I enjoy cloud watching. I have attended a bonfire. I pay close attention to colours. I find mystery in the ocean. I enjoy hiking on nature paths. Autumn is my favourite season. I enjoy gazing into the forest canopy.

[Miscellaneous]: I can fall asleep in a moving vehicle. I am the mom friend. I live by a certain quote. I like the smell of sharpies. I am involved in extracurricular activities. I enjoy Mexican food. I can drive a stick-shift. I believe in true love. I make up scenarios to fall asleep. I sing in the shower. I wish I lived in a video game. I have a canopy above my bed. I am multiracial. I am a redhead. I own at least three dogs. I am most calm in nature.

this one i was taggged by eros

real me vs fantasy me (i had to use a diff template for real me cause i couldn’t figure out how to make that one look like me so yeah also lets ignore the fact that ‘fantasy me’ is just a whole other person,, also i added the mask because i’m so bad at making things look like me, but i feel like the ‘real’ me is relatively accurate)

i was tagged by liz 

to list ten songs i really like all by different artists 

1. smiling at phone // tobi lou 2. sleeping lessons // the shins 3. can i call you tonight // dayglow 4. affection // between friends 5. violet // peach tree rascals 6. summer // brockhampton 7. dominic’s interlude // dominic fike  8. godspeed // frank ocean  9. maar dala // from the movie Devdas 10. 3005 // childish gambino

i was tagged by eros to do this one 

Rules: bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, then tag nine people

Air

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch small animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

Fire

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favourite season / my radio is always playing.

Water

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep *til* midday most days / i love dimly lit diners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids’ shows out of nostalgia/ i see emotions in colors not words .

Earth

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love the chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life.

Aether

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / I always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally.

also tagged by eros for this one, i feel like i might’ve done but i can’t remember so i’ll just do it again 

name: shawna height: like really short either 5 ft or a little under, i think that’s like 150ish cm  languages: english, malayalam (ish), and spanish (ish) nationality: american favorite season: fall favorite flower: peonies favorite scent: jasmine favorite color: i guess a good purple, either a light lavender or a dark royal purple favorite animal: sloths! favorite fictional character: april ludgate and  coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: don’t make me choose dogs or cats: can i say neither :/ average hours of sleep: anywhere between 7-10 hrs no. of blankets i sleep with: just one dream trip: italy! (mainly for the food but shh) blog established: i think a little over two years now  followers: one, it’s me  random fact: idk i suck at getting to tag games lol

and this one i was tagged by choco probably back in like april or march its been literal months 

i think thats all hopefully but i probably missed some cause my notifs stopped letting me scroll down so yeah XD okay i apologize that i’m so crap at remembering to do tag games

[nicostolemybones]

Hufflepuff House Sunshine

To say Will Solace was having a terrible day was an understatement. He’d had a sleepless night, thanks to a suspected case of the plague- and by suspected case of the plague, Will means a common cold from his sister Kayla. Except he was completely convinced that he absolutely did not have a cold, he most certainly had man flu. He couldn’t breathe through his nose at all, his sinuses heavy and his head sore. Madam Pomfrey had told him, with no room for arguments, that he was not allowed to help out in the infirmary whilst he was sick. Will was halfway through a boring transfigurations class when his transfigurations partner, Nico di Angelo, started giggling uncontrollably. McGonagall raised her eyebrow, but Nico only started to laugh more.”What now,” Will asked quietly, and Nico pointed at his project.

Said project was supposed to be a tortoise being transfigured into a top hat. However, Nico had created “Voldetort!” Nico was hysterically laughing by now at Voldetort, and Will couldn’t help but join in- the giggles were infectious.

“Nico! That’s not funny,” Will protested, but one more look at Voldetort had him moved to tears of hysterical laughter.

“Voldetort,” Nico wheezed breathlessly, which seemed to be the final straw for McGonagall, who strode over to the desk, looking over there shoulders.

“Care to share the joke with the class, di Angelo, Solace?”

“Voldetort,” Nico repeated, pointing at the creation.

McGonagall gave an amused hum, and Will lost the ability to control his giggles. “Five points from Slytherin and Hufflepuff,” she declared, returning to the front desk, “oh, and please attempt to control your giggles, boys, and focus on the project you’ve been given, or I shall have to send you out of the class.”

“Cool, see you later,” Nico shrugged, walking straight out of class.

“I uh- he has a doctor’s note, so do I,” Will said quickly, jogging after Nico. “You can’t just- walk out of class,” Will gasped, and Nico gave him a pointed look.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Uh… well you need somebody to make sure you stay out of trouble! Plus in the aftermath of Voldemort-”

“Voldetort!”

“Very mature(!) Anyway, even with voldemort gone we aren’t necessarily safe, so,, we should walk around in pairs, you know, use the buddy system?”

“You’re such a dork,” Nico snorted.

“Says the boy who made a card game out of the chocolate frog cards,” Will protested.

“Yeah, so? I sell the cards in packs to people at tuck, and I make one hundred galleons a day!”

“That’s against the rules, Nico!”

“Technically, the rule is you can’t sell sweets or chocolate on school premises, it says nothing about selling playing cards. Check and mate!”

“That’s… actually genius,” Will smiled, “so, where are we going?”

“That...is a really good question,” Nico replied, “Slytherin common room?”

“No thanks,” Will replied, “the Giant Squid freaks me out every time he swims past…”

“Oh, you mean Steve?”

“Who the fuck named him Steve?”

“Percy did,” Nico replied, and Will shrugged- that was just regular weirdness at Hogwarts.

“We could go sneak into the kitchens?” Will suggested, “there’s a secret passage by the Hufflepuff common room that somebody dug so we could stress eat during exam season and obsessively bake cookies.”

“Oh my gods it’s like a care bear possessed your entire house,” Nico laughed, “how about we break into the Ravenclaw common room?”

“Only Ravenclaws can get in there.”

“You, my friend, need more Slytherin in you! Where’s your ambition? I bet you ten chocolate frogs-”

“Deal!”

“You didn’t even hear my-”

“I said deal, di Angelo, I don’t fuck around with cholocate.”

“You just sold your soul to me, Solace,” Nico joked, and Will shrugged.

“You already stole my heart, you can take my soul any day.”

“Shut up, sap,” Nico blushed, trying to hide his face behind his hair as they reached the Ravenclaw common room door. Nico knocked, waiting for a riddle.

“What has two eyes but cannot see, what appears red in one light and blue in another-”

“A blind police dog next to a cop car with the flashing lights on, now let us in.”

“The answer’s-” Will gasped when the door opened anyway, and Nico smirked triumphantly. “The answer was Iridescent, Nico,” Will protested.

“Are you sure you’re not a secret Ravenclaw, Solace?”

“Are you sure you aren’t a Hufflepuff, di Angelo?” Nico gasped dramatically, clutching his chest.

Will reached out, softly pressing his finger to the tip of Nico’s nose, making him go cross-eyed. “Boop!”

“Fuck off,” Nico scowled, although Will merely laughed musically- there was no malice in his tone. “That was a sneaky move, you snake, are you sure you weren’t supposed to be a slytherin?”

“Well, the hat did try to put me in Slytherin,” Will mused, “because I’m ambitious and all, but I value loyalty and friendship and kindness and helpfulness far more than anything else, and I offered the sorting hat my mom’s cookies if it put me in Hufflepuff.”

“Bribery, huh...that… that is simultaneously the most Slytherin and the most Hufflepuff thing I have ever heard. You never cease to surprise me,” Nico huffed.

“Why did we break in here anyway?”

“Because I’m chaotic evil and I’m going to draw a weiner in all the books.”

“Nico,” Will gasped, “you can’t just-”

“There’s nothing in the rules about writing in books or drawing anatomical drawings, therefore, I’m not breaking the rules.”

“Good gods you’re lawful evil,” Will gasped.

“You take that back,” Nico gasped in mock offence (or at least, what Will hoped was mock offence). “Actually,” Will grinned, tilting his head to the side, “you’re a whole-ass lawful good!”

“No!” Nico gasped.

“Yes you are!” Will grinned, “I saw you give your homework to Lou-Ellen in Potions!”

“I did no such thing,” Nico gasped, and Will laughed.

“You’re basically a human corn snake, you eat, get warm, and go to sleep.”

“You just described a cat.”

“Danger noodles are forbidden kitties!” Will reasoned, and Nico shook his head in disbelief.

“Yeah well- you’re a forbidden kitty!” Nico retorted.

“Did you just call me a furry?”

“You know what- yes. Yes I did.”

“I should buy a fursuit.”

“Will no,” Nico protested.

“Will yes!” Will grinned, “You know who else is a furry?”

“Frank, Grover, and Alex?”

“Well- yes, but I was gonna say the house mascots! School sanctioned fursonas.”

“That mental image is cursed. Thank you for giving me inspiration for the howler I’m going to send to Jason today,” Nico smiled.

“You’re very welcome,” Will grinned, “you should get him to dress as the Gryffindor lion before you send the howler.”

“Superb, you funky little badger,” Nico grinned, and Will giggled.

“Anyway,” Nico mused, “I thought you said you had the plague.”

“This may sound like I was being a dramatic dumbass, but I accidentally ate a sweet from the Stolls and it may have been responsible for my sneezing fit.”

“You ate something the Stolls gave you? You know they probably got it from the Weasley’s shop?”

“Nico, you don’t understand. It was food shaped. I ate an eraser once because it looked like sushi.”

“Oh my gods you’re a walking hazard, Solace,” Nico sighed in exasperation, “the black and yellow house colours are secretly hazard tape.”

“Warning, may bake you cookies and give you hugs.”

“Please tell me you haven’t.”

“Maybe,” Will beamed, holding a paper bag to his chest before holding them out to Nico, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Holy shit, you’re a literal ray of fucking sunshine,” Nico grinned, taking the bag and peering inside.

“They’re cantuccini almond and honey biscotti,” Will announced, “I asked your dad who gave me your mother’s recipe! You mentioned how she used to bake you cookies when you had a nightmare, and how you’d never had any since your mom died because your dad can’t cook anything other than burned ready meals and your step mom puts pomegranate in everything and your step gran just feeds you cereal, so I thought you’d appreciate… are you crying?”

“I’m not crying,” Nico protested, “I’m having an allergic reaction, too much human emotions.”

“Aww, that’s adorable!” Will grinned, squeezing Nico in a strong hug.

“I can’t breathe, Will,” Nico protested, and Will laughed gently.

“I’ll let go when you smile,” Will replied stubbornly.

“I’m never going to smile,” Nico grumbled.

“Then you’re eternally trapped in a bear hug!”

“That’s my plan,” Nico replied, hugging back, “my evil, cunning Slytherin plan to get you to cuddle me.”

“I think my Hufflepuff side is rubbing off on you,” Will laughed.

“I was gonna be sorted into Hufflepuff but I blackmailed the sorting hat and I was put in Slytherin.”

“You dramatic gay.”

“You’re gay,” Nico retorted, and Will hummed happily.

“It’s your fault,” Will stated matter of factly.

“Oh sure, blame your rainbow on me, you big homo,” Nico laughed.

“You’re a big homo,” Will replied.

“It’s your fault! You’re freaking adorable, you’re like- the Hufflepuff House Sunshine or something,” Nico huffed.

“Hufflepuff House Sunshine. Huh… that’s my title now,” Will replied with a grin. Perhaps today wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.

@solangeloweek day 4- AU

[beefybuffybucky]

✨masterlist✨

(** = NSFW)

BUCKY BARNES

Imagines

The Chain - Summary: Based off of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain, the reader relives painful memories of the last night they saw Bucky. But can he fix what has been done, or will they separate forever? (Warnings: Angst, Language) // PART ONE // PART TWO // COMPLETED

The Light Behind Your Eyes - Summary: It’s your first mission with Bucky, and things take an unexpected twist. When your life is changed forever, will the rest of the Avengers be able to accept you for who you now are? (Warnings: Angst, Violence, Language) // PART ONE // PART TWO // PART THREE // PART FOUR// PART FIVE // PART SIX // COMPLETED

On, Wisconsin! - Summary: It’s been a few months since you’ve joined the Avengers. After a successful mission in Wisconsin, you plan a short trip to the northern part of the state and bring Bucky and Steve with you. Ever since you’ve joined the team, you and Bucky had gradually become friends, but something in you aches to be more. He doesn’t know anything about your past, and you’d rather keep it that way. But how long can you actually keep your secrets from him? (Warnings: Some Angst, Language, Fluffy) Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five // COMPLETED

Book Store Findings - Summary: You run a small bookstore you inherited from your grandparents in Bucharest and one day before you’re about to close, a new customer comes in, but little did you know that he’ll change your life forever. (Warnings: None!!) Part One // ONGOING

Ghosts of Winters Passed - Summary: Y/N is a member of the Avengers, and is a well-known assassin who has unique tactical and combat abilities, as well as the ability to read minds. But when Y/N and Bucky are assigned to go on a mission to extract some files, painful ghosts of the past resurface in ways Y/N never thought they would again. (Warnings: Mention of Parental Death, Some Sexual Reference, Language) Part One // Part Two // ONGOING

One Shots

Apples at the Market - Request: Bucky comes back and realizes he will never be able to see you again since he married you in the 40s. He tries to make a recipe he remembers you cooking him, but can’t make it like you did. In the end, the two of you meet again, since you went through a similar process as he did in preserving his youth. (Warnings: Angst, Language, Fluff)

The Lone Wolf - Request: Bucky is dating a really shy girl who has a hard time talking to people she doesn’t know very well, and the Avengers tease her for it without thinking about how much it would upset her, and Bucky tries to comfort her. (Warnings: Language, Angst, Fluff)

The Recital - Request: It’s the night of your big recital as a classical musician, and it’s Bucky’s job to make sure the rest of the Avengers behave themselves. (Warnings: Language)

Bathroom Mishaps - Prompts: “This isn’t what it looks like” & “I really wish you’d told me your mother was in town”. (Warning: Language)

Rosemary and Headaches - Request: You wake up from a nightmare with a pounding migraine, only to be comforted by Bucky.

**A Tease and a Movie - Request: Reader has invisible powers, and uses them during a movie to mess with Bucky, which ends in smut. (Warnings: NSFW, Fingering, Unprotected Sex, Language)**

**Sinful Tickles - Request: You’re Bucky’s shy girlfriend, and one day, he takes you to the compound to meet the team. Later on, you two end up cuddling, and Bucky begins to tickle you. Soon after, things get heated. (Warnings: NSFW, Virgin Reader, Unprotected Sex, Language, Fluff)**

**The Bedroom Mentor - Request: You’re a S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit and have Bucky assigned as a mentor. As training goes by, you two become closer, and you fear getting in trouble over your feelings for him. But, Bucky has other ideas, instead. (Warnings: NSFW. Unprotected Sex, Language, Fluff, Some Oral (Male Receiving))**

The Surprise Visit - Request: You’re engaged to Bucky Barnes, and one day, he stops by to pay you a surprise visit at your office. He gains a lot of attention from your co-workers, and you prove to them that he’s yours. (Warnings: Some Sexual References, Some Language)

**The Reunion - Request: You were married to Bucky in the 40′s and suffer the same fate as he does through HYDRA. Now, 70 years later, he worries about you not feeling the same way you did about him back in the 40′s. (Warnings:Fingering and Oral (Female Receiving), Some Language, A Wee Bit o’ Angst)**

Baby Drama - Prompt: “I’m gonna show you who’s your real daddy.” (Warnings: Use of “Daddy” in an Innocent Way - Some Sexual Reference - Jealous Dad!Bucky)

**Blue Bucharest - Request: You’re Bucky’s girlfriend who lives with him in Bucharest, and one day when he feels down, you remind each other of just how strong your love is. (Warnings: Smut/NSFW, Unprotected Sex, Angst, Fluff)**

**40s Bad Boy - Request: Reader always teases Bucky by calling him a ‘40s Bad Boy’, and eventually, it gets her in a situation she never thought she’d be in. (Warnings: Smut/NSFW, Unprotected Sex, Language, dom!Bucky)

Daisy, Daisy - Request: A fic based on the song Daisy by Zedd. (Warnings: Angst, Fluff)

Being Human - Request: Reader shows Bucky she truly loves him, even when he thinks he’s a monster. (Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Language)

**Bathroom Adventures - Summary: Going clubbing with Bucky ends in just the way you want it to. (Warnings: Smut/NSFW, Language, dom!Bucky, Breath Play, Spanking) 

Metallic Scars - Request: Reader joins the Avengers, and has more in common with Bucky than she could’ve ever imagined. (Warnings: Angst, Fluff)

I Miss You. - Summary: Three little words have always held so much importance for you and Bucky, and in the end, you’ll miss him more than you could’ve ever imagined. (Warnings: Angst, Character Death, Mention of Blood, Language)

**It’s in the Cards - Request: When the Avengers decide to play strip poker, Bucky takes it upon himself to get to undress Reader. (Warnings: Smut/NSFW, Daddy Kink, Metal Arm Kink, Choking, Edging, Unprotected Sex, Language, Oral (Female Receiving), dom!Bucky, Kinda Public Sex)

Missing the World - Request: Reader has always felt like she can never be good enough, and Bucky tries to tell her differently. (Warnings: Angst, Body Image Issues, Mention of Self-Harm Scars, Fluff)

BUCKY BARNES & STEVE ROGERS

Imagines

The Fallen and the Guardian - Summary: Your life has been pretty normal up until a mysterious, unfamiliar face comes into your life. From that point on, everything tumbles into a downward spiral of love, heartbreak, and destruction. (Warnings: Language, Angst) Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four ONGOING

DAYTON WHITE

One Shots

A Day at the Races - Summary: You’re dating Dayton White, one of the best up-and-coming NASCAR drivers in the business, and all it takes is one race to put everything on the line. (Warnings: Angst)

SEBASTIAN STAN

One Shots

Laps and Naps - Request: You’re one of Sebastian’s co-workers on the Infinity War set, and he has a secret crush on you. You tend to take naps, using other peoples’ laps as pillows, but Sebastian notices that you’ve never used his. (Warnings: Fluff)

Star Struck - Request: Reader runs into Sebastian Stan at a red carpet event, and playful flirting ensues. (Warnings: None)

**What Happens Under the Desk... - Request: While Sebastian is on an important phone call, you decide to have a little bit of fun. (Warnings: Smut/NSFW, Oral (Male Receiving), Language, dom!Bucky)

Snow Days - Request: Cuddly, snowy morning with Sebastian and a dog. (Warnings: Fluff)

Brooklyn and the Benevolent - Request: You’re a photographer living in Brooklyn, and one day, you bump into a handsome man on the street. (Warnings: Fluff)

FRANK CASTLE

One Shots

Shadow Sinner - Summary: When Frank Castle returns from a mission, his emotions get the better of him. (Warnings: Angst, Mention of Blood/Injury, Language)

TONY STARK

One Shots

Ladybug - Request: Reader is Tony Stark’s young daughter during the Avengers era, and her curiosity on the aircraft gets the better of her. (Warnings: Angst, Language, Mention of Death)

STEVE ROGERS

One Shots

Cruel Intentions - Request: Steve takes Reader to meet the team for the first time but it’s nothing like she could’ve ever expected. (Warnings: Angst, Language)

[perfectirishgifts]

Once A Fine Dining Experience, Then A Bad Joke, Could Airline Food Be Primed For A Comeback?

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/once-a-fine-dining-experience-then-a-bad-joke-could-airline-food-be-primed-for-a-comeback/

Once A Fine Dining Experience, Then A Bad Joke, Could Airline Food Be Primed For A Comeback?

Industrial scale meal preparation like this at an airline catering facility at Charles de Gaulle … [] International Airport outside Paris may be efficient but it creates big challenges to delivering great tasting meals that travelers will love in the low pressure/low humidity environment aboard a plane at 35,000 feet. (LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images)

Go figure: At a time when air travel demand is down globally by about 70%, Singaporeans are booking reservations weeks in advance for the chance to pay $40 to $525 to dine inside a parked Singapore Airlines Airbus 380 super widebody.

In Pattaya, Thailand, business at Thai Airways headquarters’ café has exploded in the months since the company chopped up one of its narrow body planes and rebuilt it, with some slight modifications, inside the company’s former commissary.

And people have been flocking since 2013 to the world’s largest “aviation movie set” inside a warehouse in the blue-collar Los Angeles suburb of Pacoima. Once there, they pay $475 to $875 a person to enjoy everything from a conventional 1970s economy class inflight meal served on plastic trays to a lavish first class feast served on fine airline china and crystal. And what makes the meal, and an accompanying movie, so special is that it is served inside a giant Boeing 747 “set” by beautiful actors dressed in 1970s airline uniforms. The dinner theatre-style production is called the Pan Am Experience because it seeks to replicate what it was like to fly – and eat while doing so – in the 1970s.

In the real, Covid-19-infested world today, few airlines are serving their few passengers any food or drinks at all. And when they eventually begin doing so again, you can bet that travelers will complain loudly about the quality of the food.

Yet, to some airline and travel aficionados, the opportunity not only to eat airline food but to do it aboard a real or replica airliner has become almost a bucket list item, or else decadent pleasure they allow themselves every now and again.

Over the last 80 years airline food has evolved from a novel idea and technology to:

A high-status experience about which people bragged

The brunt of endless jokes and complaints

Almost non-existent.

But, if a Irish-British historian whose intriguing new book on the history of airline food hits the shelves today is right, airline food is likely to make a limited comeback over the next few years as passenger demand and the industry slowly recovers from near-collapse due to the pandemic.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get back to the point of there being cocktail lounges on 747s; to the Frank Sinatra Come Fly With Me marketing approach, to experiencing what it’s like to have white-gloved stewards working from silver service trolleys carving chateaubriand right at your seat and serving you fine wines,” says Bryce Evans, an associate professor of history at Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom.

“However, I can see – and I really think more international airlines are doing this already – carriers once again are concentrating on food service as a critical piece of their marketing, of their brand and service experience,” says Evans, author of Food and Aviation in the 20th Century. Published by Bloomsbury, it goes on the shelves in North America and the U.K. today.

“Even now, with the pandemic still going on, several top international airlines like Emirates, Thai, Singapore and Turkish really take pride in their food. That’s something that U.S. carriers used to take great pride in, too. I wish I could say that British Airways, which always used to be quite good with their food service, was still good. It has fallen off some in recent years, but it’s still pretty good and I believe that as part of such airlines’ efforts to attract travelers, especially premium class travelers back to their planes they will once again begin trying to distinguish themselves by their food service in the premium classes.”

Alas, Evans says he does not expect airlines to focus a lot of attention and effort on improving what food they will be serving again to their economy class passengers. Such travelers’ overwhelming preference for low fares will preclude airlines from spending much more on coach class food than they were spending prior to the pandemic’s arrival.

Higher-quality airline food, he says, “is always something you’re going to have to pay more” to receive, whether that cost is embedded in a higher, premium class fare, charged as an extra fee, or presented as an a la carte/buy-on board offering.

Evans, an Irishman teaching at a British university, got interested in the subject of airline food via his research as a historian into how leading historical political leaders used food and sources of food to manipulate key political or historical developments. In particular, he studied how British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill tried to pressure an independent and neutral Ireland into supporting Britain’s World War II efforts through the constriction of the smaller island’s access to food supplies. And it was during that research that he happened upon the character William Maxson, a Minnesota engineer and inventor who at the end of the war essentially invented the process still used today for preparing airline meals many hours in advance and then heating them up in flight right before serving them.

“In 1946 Pan Am signed a contract with Maxson to introduce hot airline food,” Evans explained. “He had created a multi-compartment convection oven that could reheat meals made and frozen well in advance.

You read that right. Singapore Airlines has turned one of its Airbus A380s into a static restaurant … [] during the pandemic at Changi International Airport there. Customers willing pay up to $900 are flocking to experience what it’s like to eat a gourmet meal in the premium sections of the world’s largest passenger plane. (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Maxson had teamed with Birds Eye, the American company that perfected the process for freezing vegetables for sale via modern grocery stores, to develop a way of thawing those vegetables, preparing  inflight meals using them, and then freezing those meals for service hours later on planes.

The only problem, Evans, noted, was the “Pan Am’s people realized very quickly that Maxson’s meals were quite bad tasting. Others did, too. The New Yorker wrote that they were ‘meals prepared for doomsday.’”

Pan Am, though adjusted quickly by breaking its contract with Maxson and began working with famous chefs, a practice that airlines still engage in today, to come up with more appealing recipes. That, however, is easier said than done.

Noise and motion actually have a negative impact on a person’s ability to taste and enjoy food. So in the piston-engine era airline food departments and their big-name chef advisors had to find ways to overcome those taste challenges. Salt – lots of it – helped. Then the problem got worse with the coming of jets. High altitude, low humidity, and reduced air pressure all have a deleterious effect on the sense of taste. The answer? More salt. And sauces. Lots of them. The thicker the better.

Whether it was intentional or happenstance, carriers in the ‘50s and ‘60s worked with lots of famous French chefs, or others like the American Julia Child who were expert in the French style of cooking. The emphasis on sauces and ingredients with strong flavors, such as curry, helped overcome the degraded sense of taste issue related to eating at altitude. Carriers also switched away from “finer” wines to more full-bodied, fruity – and, lucky for them – usually less expensive wines. Their stronger taste could be more readily sensed by passengers, many of whom actually had been complaining that the very fine wines previously served by airlines didn’t seem to have much taste to them at all.

“Airline food in the ‘50s and ‘60s was actually quite good,” Evans says. “They actually changed Americans’ palettes in those days by popularizing French style cooking before the era of chefs having their own cooking shows on TV.”

The industry gets credit for actually inventing a what is – or at least used to be – a popular lunch menu item at upscale restaurants; the open-face steak sandwich. Airlines regularly engaged in “top this” competitions with their in-flight menus. At one point arguments about over-the-top offerings focused on several carriers that had begun serving steak for lunch on its planes. To calm things down, the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s global lobby organization, established a rule that airlines could not serve steak at lunch. But to get around the rule someone came up with the idea of placing a small steak on piece of toasted bread, with another piece of toast laying next to it. Walla; the open face steak sandwich.

 It wasn’t until the early ‘70s, as the widebodies like the 747 had begun entering service and airline costs began rising very high that airline food began to get a reputation for not being very good.”

The famous story of American Airlines President Robert Crandall in the late ‘1970s ordering the removal of the single olive in the carrier’s in-flight dinner salads is the perfect example of why airline food service began to fall in quality. Crandall’s seemingly nit-picky olive order saved his airline an amazing $40,000 annually on the purchase of food at a time when it was in deep financial trouble and looking under the coach cushion for change to stay in business.

Evans said Crandall was right in that consumers didn’t notice or complain about the lack of an olive in their salads. But the lesson learned by the industry was that carriers could save lots of money by cutting back on lots of small items, including various aspects of food delivery and preparation. So, gradually, the quality of food – like the quality of other service features – declined as carriers cut further and further at a time when deregulation was forcing formerly regulated carriers to dramatically cut costs so they could, for the first time ever, compete for the first time on the basis of low fares and low costs.

Now, though, Evans expects at least some carriers, especially those heavily dependent on long-haul international flying, to make the quality of their food a more prominent aspect of their brand identities and they try to coax business travelers and the wealthy to buy more premium class fares.

“With Pan Am back in the day it was about the quality of the food, but also about making a statement about the entire cultural experience of the carrier and its home country, with food being the feature attraction,” Evans said. “Of course, back in those days food became a distraction from the fact that there wasn’t much to do but sit in a seat and read or sleep. There weren’t any movies to watch, at least not early on. The dining experience actually served as a form of entertainment and distraction. Now travelers have seat back videos, their phones and other devices and so much else to occupy their time in flight that maybe food isn’t quite as important.”

Additionally, after adjusting in the ‘90s, ‘00s and ‘10s to meet new market trends related to eating healthier – which included more emphasis on cold pastas, salads and generally less tasty (and cheaper) foods – Evans says that even before the pandemic began, a new trend was emerging to include some more flavorful menu items.

“I don’t think we’ll be going back to lots of heavily salted and sauced foods,” he added. “But I think we’ll be seeing more strongly flavored meats like beef and exotic poultry rather than rather blander meats like chicken being featured in airline meals. People’s tastes and attitudes change over time and that seems to be happening now, at least in the international [air travel] market.

“But in domestic markets, especially very large domestic markets like America’s, there may be a small comeback and improvement in airline meals,” Evans said. “But with the continued emphasis on low fares I’m afraid we won’t be seeing a lot change or improvement in airline food there.”

From Aerospace & Defense in Perfectirishgifts

[artofpeacelove]

When the outside is off limits, you run out of of fun and fresh things to do inside. Like once you’re down readjusting your schedule in between fits of power sobbing, you just get bored by the monotony of your scenery. I remember when I first realized this would be a problem, when my roommate told me, “I feel like we need to download TikTok.” “No, we’re 29, Amber,” I said. “Not even in an apocalypse.”

This was three weeks ago; you’ll understand that it was a different world back then.

1. Tie-dye your old T-shirts

Getting in touch with tie-dye will (literally) add some color to your drab existence.

2. Make friendship bracelets

Keeping on that summer camp train, friendship bracelets can ease you in a state of flow (and make for celebratory “We made it!” gives for when you reunite with your buds).

3. Learn a new card game

Blackjack? Poker? Go Fish?

4. Play a new virtual game with friends online

America is under Animal Crossing’s soothing lure right now, but we’re also very partial to these games you can play remotely with the whole damn gang.

5. Host a cocktail making competition

It could be virtual or it could be in your own home, but let’s see who gets the most creative with the ingredients left on their bar cart!

6. Put together outfits with the clothes you never wear

If there comes a day when you’ve exhausted black sweatpants—and I respect that some of you live there now—test out some of the lesser-used garments from your closet. You might find some hidden gems!

7. Learn how to French braid

Fishtail is fine, too, but this slumber party hairstyle is great for when you need to remember a simpler time.

8. Remove your split ends

Don’t cut your own bangs, we’re not that deep into quarantine for that kind of judgement call, but you can fix split ends safely without going hack-happy.

9. Become a ballerina

Has it always been your secret dream? Break the tights and tutu out, because there are about a gazillion online ballet classes that can make you feel like a regular Swan Queen.

10. Sew face masks

Even if homemade faces masks won’t directly protect from the coronavirus, they’re a kindness with a practical, ultimately prosocial use: they can stop you from touching your face.

11. Take a crash course in positivity

Hell, get an Ivy League joy degree with Yale University or University of Pennsylvania.

12. Get in touch with your birth chart

Learn how to read your natal chart and decrypt the nitty gritty of your star-sanctioned personality.

13. Do some purge-writing about something that’s frustrating you

Chances are you have some grievances right now. Get out a piece of paper and some wacky colored pens and blergh out all of your negative emotions. Look at a few days later and then put it through the shredder!

14. Take a virtual tour of a museum

Even if you’re not going to Paris in the spring like you planned (le sigh) you can still take a stroll through the Louvre or any number of venues to get a culture fix.

15. Redecorate your house with witchcraft

I actually gave my apartment home makeover with witchcraft last year and would highly recommend! I mean, there’s bad juju all around us and you might as well make your space a sanctuary while you’re stuck there.

16. Have a romantic solo date

I was pioneering enjoying being alone way way before it was…mandated by the government, so here’s my night-in take on my solo date idea: pour some wine, make your favorite (cauliflower) pasta, light some candles, and crank up the Frank Sinatra. You can decide if you want to take yourself home (lol) later.

17. Have a kitchen dance party

Do dance parties as much as possible! Do it with your partner! Do it with your long distance friends! Do it with yourself if you need to! Just do it!

18. Upgrade your daily stretch with laughter yoga

Head to YouTube to give yourself some lols, no downward dog required.

19. Watch the adorable penguins at the Bronx Zoo grow up

Wildly specific but there are two baby blue penguin chicks at the Bronx Zoo right now and your girl is following their every MOVE. Incidentally you can also take a virtual tour of the zoo, and heads up, there’s snow leopards!

20. Hula hoop for exercise

As the office’s resident Mrs. Maisel, hula hooping is the best form of exercise in the world, and we all should be doing it.

21. Make a gratitude jar

Write three things you’re grateful for every day and put it in the jar—highly beneficial if you’re quarantining with family and trying to not be at each other’s throats.

22. Interview yourself

Just sent my roommate a bunch of soul-searching questions, really get to know who you are and what you love about yourself.

23. Take your self-pleasure to the next level

We know times are tight, so we have some affordable sex toys, and household items you can use in a pinch.

24. Dye your hair a cotton candy color

If you’ve ever felt self-conscious or like you couldn’t pull it off, you know… f–k it. I’m rocking Manic Panic hot pink as part of my go-to isolation aesthetic.

25. Write letters to pen pals

Make a new senior friend in a nursing home or pen love letters to your long distance (read: housebound a few miles away) sweetie. Just because we can access everyone through technology doesn’t mean people don’t want written words to hold onto (don’t worry, mail is most likely safe).

26. Upcycle your old clothes

If you’re not really into a modern day hippie aesthetic, there are other ways to reinvent and repair your old threads.

27. Make some whipped coffee

I can’t lie, it looks delicious and worthy of all the Instagram love.

28. Declutter your entire home

You’re already disinfecting like crazy, go full Marie Kondo while you’re at it.

29. Dust off your grandparents’ old recipes and give them a whirl

Pull out the index cards and even Zoom them in while you’re cooking them (unless they’re like, gone, which is still a good reason to recreate YiaYia’s avgolemono soup.

30. Ask your parents to tell you a story about their childhood

I don’t know, even after a full year of “Ok Boomer,” we do feel very protective and loving towards our parents during this crisis.

31. Explore some of the most beautiful National Parks in America

Until you can explore them in person, this go for a virtual nature walk.

32. Fill every inch of your house with daffodils

Or whatever flower you find fitting, bring the outdoors indoors!

33. Read the entire Baby-Sitters Club series

During Zoom happy hour we played a trivia game, and you know who crushed the Baby-Sitters Club series? Your girl. There are 131 books total, so either check back in with Kristy and the gang for the nostalgia factor, or literally read this ridiculous YA series as a bizarro adult project.

34. Do absolutely nothing

Lol, I mean, that’s going to be a first for some of you! Enjoy the moment of sitting there and being idle!

35. Do an online workout with pop icon Cher

I mean, you can definitely do a more dignified online workout, but I’m going to start my morning with Cher’s 1980s hot dance.

36. Try out a new kind of meditation

Maybe a grounding root chakra meditation or a compassion meditation.

37. Take a bath with all the trimmings

Bath bombs, bubbles, salts, if you’ve upgraded from your garbage apartment to somewhere nice, indulge yourself.

38. Watch a movie remotely with your crush

The Netflix Party extension can help you there!

39. Redecorate your desk space

I mean, you might as well jazz up your home office while living that WFH life.

40. If you’re partnered, have an hour long make-out sesh

I’m sure your boinking like crazy, but why not kick it old school and simply enjoy kissing?

41. Spend about a trillion hours on Pinterest

Fill your feed with literally everything you love!

42. Practice a new language

There are plenty of language apps available to train you for when we can travel again.

43. Start teletherapy

It might feel weird at first, but transitioning to virtual therapy could be really worth it in this high stress time.

44. Make a playlist of absolutely flawless jams

Or check out this masterpiece editor Jessie Van Amburg blessed us with.

45. Bake banana bread

Sure, why not, everyone else is doing it.

46. Give tarot card readings, regardless of whether you know how to read tarot

I find it’s kind of funner to wing it, but here’s some simple tarot tips if you really want to learn.

47. Finally get into Podcasts

Hell, even make one if you want to, it’s the end of the world, babe.

48. Do some living room miles

Get your steps in with meditative walking.

49. Make a “Me Altar”

This is basically just a collection of items that worships the awesomeness of you, whether that’s a polaroid from a day you looked amaze to some rose quartz crystals

50. Have a Zoom brunch date with your best friend and be extra petty

Just like back in the good old days when you were overpaying for avo toast.

51. And a coffee date with all your work wives

Because the Zoom Happy Hours don’t really give you quality catch up time.

52. Get yourself a new toy

This $20 vibrator will serve you well in isolation.

53. DIY your usual manicure

If you were a former salon queen, we have some tips on how to do it the right way.

54. Organize your old photos in a photo album

To remember the good old days.

55. Watch all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It’s a show that features nothing but how to survive apocalypses, so now is the time to start if you haven’t already.

56. Order and install a bidet seat

Toilet paper is over.

57. Download TikTok

Ew. I mean, if you want.

This all being said, it’s okay if you’re not feeling your most productive right now. And if you’re social distancing alone, this is how to recreate human touch. 

from Good Advice – Well+Good https://ift.tt/2UGV4Uw via IFTTT

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

[thomasroach]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review, we’ll take an in-depth look at the latest kickstarted game by Castlevania’s lead creator. “I know they are wrong!”  Proudly proclaims Koji Igarashi in a video four years ago, speaking in his Kickstarter video for his new project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Defiantly, he assured that he would create another Castlevania-style game worthy of his legacy.  More enemies, more items, more bosses!  Did he succeed?  Is this one of the few true Kickstarter success stories?  Or have we been left crying like vampires on sabbath night?

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review

Genre: Metroidvania Developed by: ArtPlay Published by: 505 Games Release date: June 18th, 2019 Platforms: PC (Reviewed), XBox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch Website: https://505games.com/games/bloodstained/

Game Features

Spiritual successor to Castlevania made by Koji Igarashi

Revival of 2D Igavania RPG in a dark gothic fantasy setting

Deep, rich single player narrative adventure

13 FREE DLCS! Some available at launch, others as post-launch updates.

Tons of enemies, bosses and secrets to conquer

Multiple playable characters

Bloodstained Review: Story and Setting

As the Industrial Revolution proceeds, people begin to move away from spirituality and towards science.  This is not good for the Alchemist’s Guild, who see their patronage shrink.  Panicking over the loss of so much power and desperate to survive, they summon a demon filled castle to ‘prove’ that people need them.  The people of the world have a few issues with this, and after the Exorcists drive back the demons at horrible cost the Alchemist’s Guild is disbanded.  10 years later, the castle has returned with the demons.  This lovely and cheerful tale serves as the backdrop for the adventure of Miriam as she tries to keep her promise to her childhood friend Gebel and figure out the secrets of the castle.

This is a Castlevania game through and through, in mechanics and in story.  The only way this game could be more Castlevania is if Konami allowed ArtPlay to call the game Castlevania.  This means that the setting is, frankly, nuts.  Most of the castle doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, with things getting crazy and more video-gamey as things progress.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Castlevania games have never been what you would call grounded and it would have been very strange if Bloodstained suddenly decided to follow logic.  You have waterways, desert caves full of sand, lava caves and oriental gardens all in the basement of this castle.  The castle parts themselves aren’t boring either with a wide range of backgrounds and styles clearly marking which section of the castle you are in.

Monsters follow a similar pattern.  There are of course some monsters that seem right at home in a haunted demon-infested castle such as bats, ghosts, and skeletons.  Then you have the giant puppy head on a chain that tries to eat you.  Or the heavy-metal guitarist that spews purple flames at you if you get to close.  They have a decent rift going too as they try to melt your face.  Logical?  Consistent?  Not even slightly.  But then again, that’s not what a Castlevania game is about and as I said earlier, Bloodstained is Castlevania in all but name.

Which, unfortunately, leads us to the first weak point of the game. The story itself is nothing to fawn over.  So many times during this game I was able to say “Yep, saw that coming a mile away” with the occasional “Of course this character is misunderstood”.  Only at one point did the story actually rise above mediocre, where the story beat and the mechanics of the game perfectly meshed together in a way that made me say “Wow, that is really neat!”.  It’s not a bad story by any measure and it certainly didn’t subtract from the game, but the story didn’t really add anything to it either.  If you buy this game for the story though, chances are you’ll be disappointed.

  Bloodstained Review: Gameplay

Gameplay is the core of any Metroidvania game, as story has never been a strong point for the genre. I’d go so far as to say the story and dialog in Symphony of the Night is laughably bad, though in a good campy way.  The gameplay though, the gameplay is what keeps us fans of this genre coming back time and time again. Bloodstained fully delivers on that gameplay, including parts that I really wish it hadn’t delivered on. Before we get into details, let’s talk some technical stuff first. On PC, this game has minor problems that, while not huge, are there and need patching.  Now I didn’t keep an official tally, but I suffered around 5 crashes/freezes during my play through. It got to the point where I would travel a couple rooms out of my to hit a save point just in case.  Most of my crashes happened on room transitions which is a fairly critical issue as I’ll discuss in a moment, but one time I froze just looking at the warp map!  Not cool Iggy, not cool at all.  There are also the occasional missing words in dialog, and the infrequent VO/dialog mismatch as well. Nothing major and nothing that ever interfered with the game, but it is there.

Combat & Weapon Variety

Combat in Bloodstained is ye-old standard affair: press a button, and swing in front of you. That’s it. No attacking up or at a diagonal unless you use magic. You can crouch and attack at a downward diagonal, but with few exceptions you never need to do this. Oh, and you can attack while you’re in the air.  Now at first glance this doesn’t seem like a great system, but there’s a beauty to the simplicity of the design. Choosing a direction to attack and then attacking is only a very small part of the equation. Every weapon class has a different attack animation. Great swords have an overhead arc and are slow while katanas swing straight out and are faster. Further complicating things are enemy movement speeds and patterns. Great swords are good for hitting things at range or slightly overhead, but your timing has to be perfect to hit bats and other fast-flying monsters. Stomping attacks with boots are great for rapidly and safely crushing large slow enemies, but only if they don’t have an overhead attack.  For the most part i never wished that I could attack up or at angles, with one exception: The guns.

I will be frank.  I feel the guns are a pointless and useless addition to the game.  They shoot slow and don’t do a lot of damage unless you have ammo.  You can only carry so much ammo and it can be a real drain on your resources. Even with the ammo damage boost though they always felt really weak to me. Perhaps I’m just not using them correct, but I probably used guns for a total of 30 minutes out of the 18 hours I’ve put in so far. I might have been more inclined to use the guns if I could aim them, but just like every other weapon they can only shoot straight. Only certain spells can be aimed.

Magic & Grinding

Speaking of spells, we come to one of the major weak points this game inherited from its pedigree – grinding.  Almost every enemy can drop a shard when killed.  These shards give you a variety of abilities, from passive buffs to rays of doom to summoning a chair to sit in.  No, I’m not joking.  You can get a shard that allows you to summon a chair to sit in.  Now while you have some of questionable usefulness like the chair summon (that seems to recover MP at higher levels), they’re all fun to use.  Now here’s the rub – the more shards you have, the more powerful the effect gets up to 9 shards held.  The only way to get shards is to kill monsters.  Over.  And Over.  And OVER. Traditionally the best way to do this is to find a room that has a decent concentration of the monster you’re farming, kill them, and then leave and instantly return to the room.  Again and again and again and you get the idea. Oh and remember earlier when I was talking about how I was getting infrequent crashes on room transitions? Ya, that doesn’t help the process. Now you don’t have to do this. There is another upgrade path for the shards, and I beat the game only having 1-2 copies of the shards I had equipped. But if you want to max out your power, or get every shard in the game, brace yourself. That way lies grind.

Crafting

There is also a crafting system in the game.  As you kill monsters and collect treasure chests, you will get materials.  Chests always have the same materials and the blue ones restock when you return to base which always gives you a source of materials.  Might even be worth it to mark on the minimap (yes you can do that and yes it is awesome) the location of all blue treasure chests you find.  Some crafting resources can only found on monsters though, which means yet more grinding.  This is especially true if you want to try and cook and eat all the foods for the permabuffs they provide.  While it can be a bit of a pain at times, you definitely want to check in to see what new recipes have unlocked when you get a new book.  Crafting new weapons and armor can be a valuable upgrade source for your character.

Secrets and Exploration

Exploration is of course another major component of Metroidvanias, and this is one of the few areas where I feel Bloodstained has added to the genre.  First of all, the map is freaking huge and filled with secrets.  100% this game is going to take some serious dedication with regards to exploring this place. Thankfully there are some good quality of life improvements here, otherwise the size of the castle would work against the game. First is the ease of movement. Right from the start you get access to waystones, a cheap instant recall consumable.  As far as I can tell, the only time you can’t use these things is in a boss fight. I probably went through 20 of these things. There’s also a decent network of warp points throughout the map and it swiftly became a priority of mine to find the warp point whenever I entered a new area.

Some other features that prevent exploration from becoming tedious are personal map markers, quest markers, and chest markers.  At any time you can press a button  (the red B on my Logitech) with the minimap open to place a marker, and press the button again to remove it.  This allows you to mark anything you wish, though it doesn’t allow you to enter in notes.  One of your quest giving NPCs will ask you to kill X of Y.  Once you accept the quest, you’ll get a little green scroll icon on your map to show which rooms contains monsters you need.  Finally when you encounter a chest for the first time, a marker will be placed on the map until you open it.  I cannot begin to express how much suffering this feature saved me, as early on in the game you’ll walk past many chests you can’t reach and have to come back to.

Boss Fights

Of course we can’t talk about gameplay and mechanics without talking about bosses.  They are all well designed and with one exception, they all play out very differently.  Some of them even have a cool little movement gimmick to them, which I won’t spoil here. Even the exception are understandable, since it’s literally the same boss each time, just upgraded on the second round. Most bosses I was able to beat on the first try, with none of them taking more than 5 tries. The exception to this are two of the optional bosses I found. Let’s just say it didn’t end well for me and I decided to beat the game, write this review, then come back to them. Oh and buy 99 pizzas and cheese the heck out of the fights.

Multiple Endings

Sadly my closeout on the mechanics is not going to be a good one.  Many of Igarashi’s games suffer from the same problem: Stupidly concealed requirements for endings.  I’m not talking about secret endings here, I’m talking about having the basic, satisfying ending hidden behind poorly or not at all explained requirements.  For example in Symphony of the Night you had to have a specific familiar equipped when you entered a room, or you couldn’t get the item you needed to reach half the game.  In Harmony of Dissonance if you didn’t have two specific rings that don’t give you good combat stats equipped for a boss fight, you don’t get the good ending.  So on, so forth, this is a pattern that is repeated across many of his games including Bloodstained.  Have no fear, there’s no spoilers here, but I had to hit the internet three times to get unstuck towards the end of the game.  One of those times I would have solved on my own, one I might have solved on my own, but the third?  Nope.  Very unlikely that I would have solved that one. There’s having trust in your player’s intelligence, then there’s assuming they think exactly like you do. I am in fact sufficiently steamed over one of these items I plan on writing a separate article about it, but there is nothing more I can say here without spoiling things.

Bloodstained Review: Audio and Visual

It is very rare that I will put my foot down and say something is objectively beautiful, but gosh darn it this game is objectively beautiful. Within the style of a 2D game, I legitimately don’t have anything negative to say here unless I dig deep in the barrel of nit-picks. For example: If you choose a long-hair style for Meriam, her hair acts more like a spazzy scarf that it does hair.  Or, hmm, let’s see, oh I got it!  It’s a bit confusing at first what all the green scroll icons are for on the mini-map. That took me a bit to figure out they were showing me the rooms where my quest targets were.  Nit-picks aside, the visuals are just about perfect here.  The background and foreground are both beautiful and distinct, the monsters are fun to see, and the bosses are epic.

Sound also is incredible. In fact I’m listening to the OST as I write this review.  Every castle section has it’s own distinct theme in addition to having a distinct look.  Give me a little more time with the game, and I’d be able to tell you what general area of the castle I’m in without looking at the screen.  Even the SFX is awesome.  Weapon swings, hitting the enemies, enemy death cries, it’s all good.  There are some silly sounds, like the death “Oooooh!” from some of the large humanoid enemies.  Nearly giggle inducing at times.  Also the Toy Shoe SFX is a bit much.  It was a good weapon when I got it but oh, that sound effect.

Bloodstained Review: Replayability

With all of the additional game modes Bloodstained has, I have to say this game has a lot of potential for replay.  First up we have New Game+.  Now I’ve only had time to poke at this mode, but it does seem to alter enemy placement.  I can’t tell if it changed the enemy stats or not.  If it did I’m still so overpowered for the first area that everything is dying in one hit.  Given the scaling in the original game I probably wouldn’t be able to tell until several areas in.  Still it’s nice to have, and it even shows you in the minimap where you went in the previous game which I thought was a nice touch.  Completing the game on Normal also unlocks Hard and Nightmare difficulty settings, as well as speedrun mode which has built in per-room saves.  Boss Rush is another mode you can enjoy, and it has rewards for your normal game as well making it worth while to at least check it out.  All in all I don’t foresee that I’ll stop playing this game anytime soon.

Bloodstained Review: Pricepoint

Depending on how skilled you are, a basic run-through of this game is going to take you about 15 hours. Really depends on how hard you get stuck/get lost in the latter portion of the game. If that is all that I was going to do, if I was going to put the game down right now because I beat it, I would still consider this a good buy. Currently on sale for $36 with a regular price tag of $40 on the PC, I consider this to be reasonable. While I’ve gotten more hours out of less money, I had a very enjoyable 15 hours with this game. Factor in the New Game +, Boss Rush, and Speed Run modes that are the game right now and you’ve got one heck of a good purchase here. Further factor in that if they deliver on just half of the promised post-launch features I wouldn’t have any problems recommending this game at $60.  There is some serious content for your dollar here.  If you have even a slight interest in this style of game it is well worth your money.

Bloodstained Review: Final Thoughts

Bloodstained is Castlevania, with all of its beauty and all of its flaws. While some of the flaws do run deep in my opinion, I still greatly enjoyed the game. Flawless execution on aesthetic, incredible sound, levels that are fun to navigate and monsters that are more fun to kill, this game is a love letter to Koji Igarashi’s previous works. However, that is all that it is, though fortunately all that it needed to be. Bloodstained has done nothing to push the genre of Metroidvanias down new paths, but it is a shinning example of what they can be. And with that, I suppose I should end this review with a paraphrase of a very common quote:  “What is a review?  A miserable pile of numbers!  Have at you!”

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night appeared first on Fextralife.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

[josephkitchen0]

Patriotic Chicken Breeds, DIY Coop Watering, and Much More

Our June/July 2018 issue is NOW AVAILABLE! Learn all patriotic poultry breeds. Plus, Help your chickens maintain a healthy digestive system; DIY Coop watering; Keep your chickens happy while you’re on vacation; and much more! Subscribe today!

Just in time for Fourth of July, it’s fun to consider adding some truly American chicken breeds to your flock. These breeds are the backbone of a hardy, productive flock. They are good egg layers with high levels of production. They can endure the tough weather we often get in this country. And many have unique features, such as hawk-coloring to avoid predator detection. Nothing fancy, only purpose, for these breeds whose history, in many cases, goes back to our founding fathers and helped to bring about a growing nation.

Also, how can we get rid of mice naturally, without using dangerous rodenticides? It’s a challenge keeping our chickens healthy already, and we really could do without the complication of disease-carrying pests like mice, rats, and pest insects. There are some valid and legitimate reasons why we as backyard chicken keepers would prefer to shy away from rodent bait, so let’s look at some natural ways to get rid of mice and rats without the use of chemicals.

Ready to Start Your Own Backyard Flock?

Get tips and tricks for starting your new flock from our chicken experts. Download your FREE guide today! YES! I want this Free Guide »

Find all this and more in your June/July 2018 issue of Backyard Poultry magazine! Also, with this issue, you can view it as a new flip book style!

In this Issue:

+ Chicken Caesar Salad — The first time I saw my husband making his signature Caesar salad at a restaurant where we both worked, I was pretty impressed. Why? He wasn’t known to embrace cooking, yet here he was making this delicious salad right in front of the customers. Frank’s Caesar salad became one of the most requested salads at the restaurant. It morphed into many variations, including an easy chicken Caesar salad recipe, which I’m sharing today. What’s not to love about a piece of juicy grilled chicken atop a crunchy salad of Romaine lettuce, Parmigiano Reggiano, and homemade croutons? A meal in a bowl! By Rita Heikenfeld

+ Classic American Chicken Breeds — Just in time for Fourth of July, it’s fun to consider adding some truly American chicken breeds to your flock. These breeds are the backbone of a hardy, productive flock. They are good egg layers with high levels of production. They can endure the tough weather we often get in this country. And many have unique features, such as hawk-coloring to avoid predator detection. Nothing fancy, only purpose, for these breeds whose history, in many cases, goes back to our founding fathers and helped to bring about a growing nation. By Pam Freeman

+ A Broody Hen and Her DucklingsProvide Inspiration — When Helen Redfern moved from the city to the countryside, she started keeping ducks, then chickens. The ducks insisted on sleeping outdoors rather than in a coop and were taken by foxes at night. This left Helen with her chickens and a lingering question: Will a broody hen adopt ducklings? By Susie Kearley

+ DIY Rainwater Chicken Watering System — There are many options for building a chicken watering system. A search on DIY or homemade chicken waterers turns up loads of pictures and plans. While there is no absolute best waterer for chickens; you’ll need to decide which aspects of a chicken watering system are important to you. On our farm, this was two-fold. By Erin Phillips

Never miss another great issue like this one! Get a wealth of homesteading knowledge delivered to your doorstep, desktop, and even tablet! Subscribe today to Backyard Poultry, Countryside, Dairy Goat Journal or sheep!

____________________________________________________________________________

+ How to Get Rid of Mice and Rats in the Coop Naturally — How can we get rid of mice naturally, without using dangerous rodenticides? It’s a challenge keeping our chickens healthy already, and we really could do without the complication of disease-carrying pests like mice, rats, and pest insects. There are some valid and legitimate reasons why we as backyard chicken keepers would prefer to shy away from rodent bait, so let’s look at some natural ways to get rid of mice and rats without the use of chemicals. By Jeremy Chartier

+ How to Help Your Chickens Maintain a Healthy Digestive System — Knowing some basic chicken digestive system facts can make us better stewards of our feathered friends. Chickens don’t eat or digest in the same way we do, and they require some different things to maintain a healthy digestive system. Let’s look at some common issues found in a chicken’s digestive system, and I’ll give you a few facts you can apply to your flock’s feeding plan. By Jeremy Chartier

+ Poultry Blips from American History — The history of chickens and other domestic species of poultry has long been an integral part of our American history. From the earliest colonists arriving on sailing ships, frontier settlers, and pet chickens at the White House, we as Americans have always loved poultry. By Doug Ottinger

+ From Backyards to Factory Farms  — It all started in the backyard … and in the basements of apartments and anywhere else you could keep a flock. Chicken keeping was tremendously popular in the 1800s as there were no such things as specialized chicken farms. Rude says that most people raised their own birds wherever they lived, in both the country and in the city. Having access to fresh eggs and meat was crucial because of the lack of refrigeration which wasn’t invented until the early 20th century. Productive hens were considered those that lay between 80 to 150 eggs a year. By Kenny Coogan

+ 10 Ways to Keep Your Chickens Happy When You’re on Vacation — Owning chickens brings many rewards: the satisfaction of caring for animals, the bonding it creates among our families, and of course, the eggs and meat that provide us with a natural food source. Along with it also comes challenges, such as how to go about caring for, watering, and feeding chickens while away on vacation or business. By Cherie Dawn Haas

+ Mobile Chicken Coop Benefits — Our chickens provide us with entertainment, they educate our city-dwelling friends and their children, and they provide us with healthy eggs that make up a big part of our diet. Because we’re responsible for them and they do so much for us, we’re motivated to take excellent care of them, and that includes keeping them happy. So as their treasured grass turned to a bare spot of earth, we began researching mobile chicken coops. By Cherie Dawn Haas

+ Dutch Hookbill and Aylesbury Ducks — Just like wildlife, domestic livestock can become endangered and extinct. The Dutch Hookbill and Aylesbury ducks are both currently listed as critical by The Livestock Conservancy. Consider adding these unique birds to your homestead to help save a heritage breed. Both breeds are docile and offer unique white or blue-green eggs. By Kenny Coogan

+ Chicken Treats: How to Raise Mealworms and Superworms — Learning how to raise mealworms and other insects for your chickens is cost-effective and ensures their treats are high quality. Mealworms and superworms, compared to raising crickets for chickens, will not smell. Crickets have this horrible habit of going to the bathroom all the time. Mealworms and superworms don’t chirp or jump. By Kenny Coogan

+ Chickens in a Minute — How to Keep Your Chickens Cool in Summer — With summer heat upon us, it’s important to remember that high temperatures can be harder on a flock than the cold temperatures of winter. The effects of heat are cumulative and can be enhanced by high humidity so be sure to keep vigilant during heat spells. A temperature of 80 degrees with high humidity can bring on heat-related problems. Keeping your chickens cool in summer is a must do. There’s nothing we can do to stop the heat, but we can help our chickens beat the heat. By Pam Freeman

More Great Resources, Stories, and Tips in Each Issue:

Growing Up With Chickens: Photo Essay From The Editor 13/3: Exploring a Poultry Heritage Coming Events 13/3 Reader Submitted Letters: Something To Crow About 13/3 Backyard Poultry Bookstore Poultry Talk 13/3 Flock Photos 13/3 Just for Fun Coloring Page And much more!

Backyard Poultry magazine is your best source for information on how to raise healthier, more productive backyard chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese and even keeping guinea fowl. Whether you live on a farm, call a suburban neighborhood home, or are mastering poultry farming in an urban environment, we have the how-to guides and tips.

Never miss another great issue! Subscribe to Backyard Poultry today and get the June/July 2018 issue and many more to come.

Do you have a favorite chicken breed? Tell us which one and why below!

Patriotic Chicken Breeds, DIY Coop Watering, and Much More was originally posted by All About Chickens

[foursprouthealth-blog]

Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Salad (from Inspiralized and Beyond)

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/health/vegan-buffalo-cauliflower-salad-from-inspiralized-and-beyond/

Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Salad (from Inspiralized and Beyond)

Are you ready for the most legit Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Salad on the planet? This delicious, plant-based recipe is straight out of the Inspiralized and Beyond Cookbook. It’s made with roasted buffalo cauliflower bites and a homemade vegan ranch dressing. Yes, please.

This salad though. I can’t even it’s so perfect in every way…packed with plants, healthy fats, and GREENS. Did I mention the homemade vegan ranch dressing? It’s really the cherry on top to thisepicallyy flavorful buffalo cauliflower salad.

Happy cookbook launch day to my dear friend Ali from Inspiralized. Many of you already know who Ali is, but if you don’t, let me give you a quick rundown.

  MY OTHER VIDEOS

  Inspiralized

Ali is the founder of the famous food blog and brand, Inspiralized. Think all things healthy and all things spiralized. She runs a second lifestyle website called Allisandra B., where she goes more in-depth on her own wellness journey, talks business, and family. She has authored 3 amazing cookbooks (Inspiralized, Inspiralize Everything, and Inspiralized and Beyond) and is also the founder of the popular kitchen gadget, the Inspiralizer. Did I mention she has impeccable style, her hair is adorable, and she’s major mom/entrepreneur goals?

Today her third cookbook, Inspiralized and Beyond release to the public and I’m in love. It’s been so cool to see Ali’s creativity shine through her Inspiralize-only cookbooks, but she really got creative (beyond inspiralizing) in this new book. She really does flavor combinations well and makes healthy cooking approachable and delicious. I got to choose one recipe to share from inside of the book and obviously, I gravitated immediately towards the Buffalo Cauliflower Salad.

You guys know how I feel about Buffalo. I LOVE IT. Our Buffalo Cauliflower Wings are one of our most popular appetizer recipes AND Linley is the buffalo chicken wing kween. When in doubt order the wings (cauli or chicken). This salad did not disappoint. It’s 100% plant-based and vegan, which I loved. It even came with a homemade vegan ranch dressing recipe, which is NOT to be skipped.

Buffalo Cauliflower

Ali’s buffalo cauliflower is pretty simple to make. Instead of frying these little babes, you actually roast them. And, there are no eggs involved in the wet wash for those that can’t do eggs or are vegan! Once you’ve got the cauliflower florets nice and crispy, it’s time to toss them in a delicious buffalo sauce made with 2 simple ingredients – Franks + coconut oil. My classic buffalo sauce recipe includes a little bit of maple, but you can totes go sans maple just like the recipe.

Before you jump into the recipe, I just want to say that this vegan ranch dressing is a MUST. Do not skip this part! It takes a little bit of work with soaking your cashews, but you will not be disappointed. Here’s what you need…

Vegan Ranch Dressing

Raw cashews

Unsweetened almond milk

Garlic cloves

Lemon juice

White wine vinegar

Dijon mustard

Sea salt and pepper

Buffalo Cauliflower Salad (from Inspiralized and Beyond)

Are you ready for the most legit Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Salad on the planet? This delicious, plant-based recipe is straight out of the Inspiralized and Beyond Cookbook. It’s made with roasted buffalo cauliflower bites and a homemade vegan ranch dressing. Yes, please.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Author: Lee Hersh

Yield: 6

Ingredients

For the cauliflower

½ cup unsweetened almond milk

¾ cup almond flour

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons onion powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

8 cups cauliflower florets (from 2 medium heads)

1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted

½ cup hot sauce (I like Frank’s RedHot)

For the ranch dressing

1 cup raw cashews, soaked for at least 3 hours, drained, and rinsed

¾ cup unsweetened almond milk

2 large garlic cloves

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Fine sea salt and pepper

For the salad

12 cups spinach, coarsely chopped

2 carrots, shaved into strips with a vegetable peeler

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 ripe avocados, pitted, peeled, and cubed

¼ cup roasted salted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

Instructions

Make the cauliflower. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the almond milk, almond flour, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, and ½ cup water. Add the cauliflower and toss to coat, making sure to get the batter into all the crevices. Place the cauliflower florets on the prepared baking sheet and roast until browned in spots, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, but keep the oven on.

In a separate large bowl, whisk the coconut oil with the hot sauce. Add the hot cauliflower and toss to coat. Replace the parchment paper with a clean sheet. Return the cauliflower to the baking sheet and roast for about 20 minutes, until the sauce is browned.

Meanwhile, make the ranch dressing. In a high-speed blender, combine the cashews, almond milk, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard and blend until creamy. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the salad. Pour ½ cup of the dressing into a clean large bowl. Add the spinach, carrots, celery, and avocado and toss well. Divide the salad among four plates and top with the Buffalo cauliflower and the pepitas. Drizzle with more of the dressing and serve, passing any remaining dressing at the table.

Notes

TIP: If you’re not strictly dairy-free, add crumbled blue cheese to this salad for a more authentic Buffalo chicken experience.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1/6

Calories: 373

Sugar: 10

Sodium: 452

Fat: 22

Carbohydrates: 30

Fiber: 13

Protein: 15

Don’t forget to follow Inspiralized on Facebook and Instagram. And…BUY HER NEW BOOK, Inspiralized and Beyond (now on sale on Amazon!).

[3one3]

The Sequel - 880

Roadhouse

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Hiiii. You look so hot. What the fuck?”

“Thank you? I think?”

“Get back in the car! We’re gonna be late.”

Christina wanted to give herself plenty of time to get from the airport to Natasha’s birthday party in Soho, but she wanted to see André after training more. It was his first day back with the full squad, and she had to see for herself, on his face and in his energy, if it went well and encouraged him or if it was really rough on him and got him down. So she ended up on a flight that got her to London just 20 minutes before the party. Juan picked her up, and the sight of him waiting outside his Mercedes SUV sparked a lot of feelings. The first was just sheer happiness, because she missed him, and, regrettably, Juan in greater London was still home to her, and the feeling of being home is always a happy one. Then she felt slightly surprised and a bit excited, because he looked really, really good in a dark turtleneck, small blazer, fitted jeans, and his favorite brown suede boots. The look really worked for him. The rider and part-time model thought the footballer and part-time model looked very much a real model. And then there was panic, because the clock was ticking. She hopped in the car and decided they could waste one more second though.

“Kiss! Kiss first,” she demanded as he shifted the big red vehicle into reverse to make room to get out of the line of waiting cars. Juan leaned over the console to give her a hello smooch, or perhaps a welcome home one. “Thanks for not making me take a taxi.”

“Thanks for being so happy to see me.”

“Thanks for being so happy to see me. I got you a present! Want me to describe it to you since you’re driving?”

“I hope you remembered to get a present for Natasha.”

“Duh. Yours is better though.”

“Qué es eso?

“A book! That’s my Roger Bennett “what are you putting in the emporium, Rog?” voice, from the Men in Blazers.”

“Okay.”

“It’s poetry.”

“Aww...”

“That’s how much I love you. I bought you poetry. I even got it in a store, in front of people, and the cashier and everything. Très embarrassing.”

“Dr. Seuss?”

“No.” Christina rolled her eyes and fished around in her pretty well stuffed “L’Aveugle Par Amour” Gucci backpack, which was black canvas with some embroidered flower patches, the titular French phrase across the top flap and the bottom of the front, and comfy padded straps in the classic signature green and red stripe. The buckles at the front had the stripes too. The bag was her favorite item of the moment. Juan’s book was in there because she originally planned to save it for later. Natasha’s gift, by contrast, was in her purse. But the Spaniard seemed so happy to have her back when she gave him a drive-by hug and ordered him behind the wheel, and she just wanted to prolong his delight and the feeling it made within her. Also, she’d been anxious and eager to see how he’d like her book selection. “It’s Frank Bidart. Have you heard of him? It’s his highlights from 1965 to 2016.”

“No, I don’t think I know him. What sort of poetry?” the Gucci-scented driver asked. He stole some glances as the paperback in her lap when traffic allowed.

“Well apparently he’s sort of known for...embodying others? I don’t know,” Christina chuckled. “I read some hoity toity poetry critic stuff in the New York Times Book Review, and- Okay well this is a random aside, but earlier the day I found it I was watching a clip of my favorite cable news show host from the night before and he quoted St. Augustine of Hippo and I wasn’t familiar with the quote and it intrigued me so I Googled, naturally. Then hours later I’m in the bookstore and looking at the Times review of this collection of poems and it says the poet “interpolates his life with those of such figures as St. Augustine of Hippo, Maria Callas, Benvenuto Cellini, and Walt Whitman”. Isn’t that bizarre? I’d never even heard a single thing about St. Augustine of Hippo and then bam, twice in one day. I love/hate when that happens. Anyway, I don’t even really know what the critic was trying to say, but what I took from it is that he does a kind of vocalization, and interrogation. I didn’t really care about the explanation, to be fair,” she digressed, anxious still to get to the good part- the part that did matter to her. “I just liked the poems. Just a few lines of some of them, even. I tagged a couple for you that I’ll let you read on your own. Can I read the thing that grabbed me? I think you’ll like it. It’s only three lines.”

“Yes, please do.” Juan was smiling at the road and Christina missed the fond, amused expression because she was a touch shy about the gift. Poetry wasn’t her thing, though she wrote what her teachers and several literary contest judges deemed very good poetry as a high schooler. She seldom took it seriously, though she actually owned a whole moving box of poetry books.

“This is from one called “Guilty of Dust”. “Love is the distance/Between you and what you love/What you love is your fate.” And then there’s another stanza that I don’t like as much, and then, “Then the voice in my head said/Whether you love what you love/Or live in divided ceaseless/Revolt against it/What you love is your fate.” I couldn’t think of, let alone write, a better verse about you and me- about how you love me, and how you know we’ll be together, and how I never know anything, and both things are our fate. It’s so true. It’s the same thing. I couldn’t believe I found something so...relevant, in a book I picked up off the table just because the cover has a statue of a guy with a huge knife, holding up a severed head. It made me think of Thrones,” the rider admitted, blushing for a multitude of reasons that had little to do with her ridiculous Game of Thrones obsession. “I just flipped through a little. One of the ones I bookmarked for you is almost even more relevant. You’ll see.”

“Stop rush-talking.”

“What?”

“You’re doing the thing with the talking so much, and so fast, because you’re nervous about what I would say if I could get anything in.” Her friend looked over as he slowed the car to a stop, and that happy smile persisted. He held his hand out for the book. In the momentary pause while Christina tried to load up a comeback or dismissal for his accusation, he showed her that she didn’t need one. “I can’t wait to read. Those are beautiful thoughts, you just read. The best things are the accidental finds like this, I think. Especially for you. Things find you, cariña. Something finds you and then you go learn everything about it, and then it’s part of you, or shows you something about you, and you have it with you from then on.”

“Okay now you’re sounding like a cheesy poet,” she quickly shot back. But oooooo damn it I love when he says stuff like that, she was thinking inside. He’s so right. Things do find me this way. It happens all the time. This is how I know so many random things. I have accidental knowledge. That’s what I was thinking about when the St. Augustine thing happened. It happens to me all...the...time. The player handed the book back after thumbing through it at the traffic light. Christina was careful about slotting it back into its spot in her bag, where it could be flat against the back part.

“What did you get for your girlfriend?”

“Nat got “Eat What You Watch” which is a cookbook with recipes from classic and cult movies, because she’s always texting me for cooking help and I think Eden likes movies and I know he likes food. And I got the new DeMille, because I loooove DeMille and it’s set in Key West and Cuba this time and as you know, I’m having Havana feels lately.” Both of the hardcover books were produced from her handbag for illustrative purposes. One was wrapped in pineapple-print paper and had a big green bow. The other had Juan’s 2012 London Olympics hotel card key sticking out of it. She never returned the good luck talisman to him after the games, and had no intention of ever doing so. He used her Nations Cup medal as a bookmark, and she was using his card key.

“Nice. Are you wearing a new perfume?”

“Sort of. Schü got me this new Burberry scent last Christmas. He thought it was one I already use, but it had literally just come out so I dunno where he came up with that. I don’t wear it much,” Christina shrugged, pulling on her leather jacket sleeve and the cream-colored one underneath that to sniff her wrist. “I’m out of my Chanel at the moment. I like this one though.”

“I got you a present too. It’s in the bag in the back.” Juan nodded over his shoulder and she reached behind his seat into a plastic bag. There was a small rectangular box in it, among other things, and he said to grab it. What is...

“Summer’s Eve...Douche? Juan! You bought me a douche kit?” she complained loudly and incredulously, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, jaw gaping open. The footballer was laughing hysterically. She figured he meant for her to use the cleansing product for a different part of her body than that for which it was intended.

“Open it!”

“No.”

“Just open it! For me, please, cariña?” He tried to subdue his laughter enough to make a pouting face at her but it didn’t really work. What did compel the rider to open the light blue and white box was its weight. I’ve never bought one of these things before but I find it hard to believe it’s supposed to be this heavy, she reasoned before sticking her finger between the top flap and the box to open it up- tentatively, almost as if she was afraid of what might be inside. It was roasted peanuts.

“Nuts?” she questioned skeptically.

“I went to the cinema with my sister the other day when she was here. We wanted to take the peanuts with us to eat, and she thought no one would check the douche box.”

“You snuck outside peanuts into a movie theatre in a douche box? What the fuck, man. You two are weird.” Christina shook her head and sniffed the contents of the box. The sugar was kind of tempting. “What was she even doing with a douche kit? Who goes to visit their brother for two nights and thinks, “I better bring a douche”? I wouldn’t even want my brother to know I’d ever been in possession of one.”

“Why? You’re acting like it’s some shameful thing,” Juan chuckled. “She uses after her period.”

“Why do you know that?” His friend’s incredulity was ceaseless.

“I grew up in a house with her. I shared a bathroom with her. I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s not weird to me. You prudish, embarrassed American girls are weird.”

“We’re products of our environment.”

“Speaking of American girls, do you still talk to Samantha?”

“Occasionally. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“How does Paula like Iceland?”

“She loves it.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m happy you’re here.” The Spaniard’s tone was finally serious and sincere, and somewhat quieter. He reached over to grasp her right hand, and fit his fingers between hers. Their hands sat together on her black velvet pants.

“Me too,” she smiled back at his profile. “I’ve missed you extra since Sid’s interview came out.”

Sid Lowe published his story in The Guardian two Mondays after the interview with the subjects. It ended up being mostly about Juan, and his Common Goal project, but a big chunk really examined his symbiotic relationship with the American-turned-German girl parachuted into his life when she started dating his Chelsea teammate. He explored the theme that she presented and talked about most in that interview. He focused on their mutual quest for clarity and freedom of mind so that they could use their natural feel and instincts to do their best on the pitch and in the saddle. To Christina, that was the most important aspect of their friendship, and in some ways, the most important thing in her life. She was sort of proud that someone like Sid, whose writing she adored for its intelligence and interesting point of view, far from the usual sports journalist’s work, latched onto something she put forth as key in their interview.

He also wrote about midfielder’s admiration for rider, and the unusual nature of it. He wrote that it’s normal and customary for footballers to be big fans of other major stars, like tennis and NBA icons. He called Juan’s appreciation for show jumping something unique, and special, and telling, and based those characterizations on the whole thing Christina brought up about skills not being so important, and work ethic maybe not even being that important compared to being open and receptive and acting on feel. He wrote about his experience watching her, and how he had to look her up on YouTube to get the full sense of what she did on horseback, and that when he watched her compete with Dirk it was like a different manifestation of watching a magical, gifted, intelligent player do magic on the pitch. And he did say it was like watching Messi. He described it as Messi doing a solo performance for performance’s sake, separate from the ends he did his magic for, separate from goals and points and cups. Juan told him that watching Christina and Dirk at their best left him hungry- wanting more- wanting the show to go on for longer, just the way he felt watching some of the game’s best players, and by best he meant Messi, sure, but more than that, Xavi and Iniesta.

Sid traversed from there into the Chelsea man’s affinity for Iniesta, and his insistence that Iniesta makes everyone else on the pitch better, and always makes the right decision, and always sets up the next three players with his one pass. Juan thought Christina did that. She always made the right decision on course, and what she did three strides before any obstacle was intended to help her horse clear the next four jumps. Scoring a goal was the best feeling for him, but he reveled in any successful manipulation of his teammates like that when he managed to do it- when his vision played out. From there, Sid got into Juan’s vision for the entirety of the football industry automatically giving 1% of its earnings and profits to his Common Goal charities, and emphasized just how long term that vision was, and how ardent and unflappable his faith in reaching the goal was.

Christina was always obsessed with that faith, and belief. She couldn’t empathize with it. It was foreign to her. The closest she could come to that kind of commitment to a future reality was her belief in Dirk, but she was much too cynical and pessimistic to ever aim as high as her friend did, be it in his ability to affect change and help hundreds of millions of people around the world, or his assured insistence that he’d live out his days in happiness at her side. Sid brought her to sedate tears with that stuff, even without knowing the parts about Juan believing he’d end up with her, because she recognized how beautiful the faith in being able to corral the football community that way for such a wholly good and important purpose was, and how he saved his extraordinary faith for only the most tremendous things in his life like that goal, his own ability to perform, and in their future together. To be up there on the podium with those things felt so immense to her, and swelled her heart. She told him so, in a quietly tearful phone conversation.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place? We’re so...wrongly dressed. Who are all these people?” Christina questioned when she and her party escort arrived at the American roadhouse-themed restaurant. Natasha described it as a classic American diner to her, so she wasn’t expecting women in denim hotpants and ripped fishnets, blaring hard rock music, and a general ambiance of Harleys, cowboy boots, and tequila. The birthday partying was happening in a segregated area, and it was full of people the rider didn’t recognize.

“The girls are the partners of the new players. That one is Zappa’s girlfriend, I think, the one next to Natasha is Marcos’ partner-“

“He has a girlfriend? You didn’t tell me this.”

“Does it matter?” Juan chuckled.

“Yes. I mean no. Well...yes.” She furrowed her brows and almost stomped her foot. There’s like a whole new group, she realized, sad. Thorgan’s wife and lots of other Chelsea girls and old friends of Natasha’s were around, so it wasn’t like she didn’t know anybody. There was plenty of Chelsea players present that she knew too.

“Let’s go say hi to Natasha,” her favorite Chelsea player suggested, a hand on her lower back to urge her up the two low stairs to the party area. There was one long table with old school metal napkin holders and empty beer bottles acting as anchors for lots of birthday balloons. The walls were covered in highway signs and foam fingers. A separate table was set up with plastic cups for beer pong. Christina wondered if at any point during the party a waitress would pull a chair out to dance on and pour a pitcher of Bud Light over herself to “Pour Some Sugar On Me”.

“Chris! Hey!” the woman of the hour exclaimed happily when she spotted her best friend from out of town. She had a plastic crown on, and was visibly drunk. “I miiiiiissed you!” The two girls hugged, and the Belgian complimented the German’s subtle peplum sweater and her incredibly thin-heeled stiletto booties. The German complimented the Belgian on her drunkenness. Juan told her she looked like a teenager, and then departed to talk to his friends. “What do you want to drink? We have like a punch bowl over there full of vodka, elderflower, cranberry juice, and prosecco, or you can order a cocktail, or a beer. Whatever you want!”

“What have you been drinking?” the rider questioned knowingly.

“Something called a Caipiruski. Or roska? Something Russian. It’s like a caipirinha but with vodka. Russians do vodka in everything. Take your jacket off!”

Christina and Juan were the last guests to arrive, so just a few minutes after they began mingling with their friends, everyone sat down to look at the menu and order food, though their team of Coyota Ugly-ish waitresses assured them they could get up to socialize again or play games after. Natasha reserved a seat next to her at the head of the table for Christina, which made Christina very happy. Her first reaction to seeing her friend laughing and having a good time with a bunch of new people was jealously, or whatever one feels when it seems like they’ve been replaced. She was introduced to the new faces while she perused the menu. Everyone seemed nice enough. Everyone was a model or lifestyle blogger. Everyone was somewhat flummoxed by the menu. It was full of things like nachos smothered in cheese sauce and sour cream, chili cheese dogs, hamburgers, and bbq chicken, and everything came with fries. It wasn’t very model friendly, and Christina was sure lifestyle bloggers only got food like that to take pictures of it, not eat it. The birthday girl, of course, was not either of those things.

“I think we should order all of the sharing boards to start with, don’t you think?” Natasha asked, consulting her former partner in crime. The two non-models and non-lifestyle-bloggers were delighted by the food offerings.

“I’m not eating any crispy cod but chicken wings and nachos and sticky ribs I am down for,” the equestrian star nodded, eyeing the guys at the other end of the table to gauge their reaction to the exclusively unhealthy menu. It took a good week to reacquaint her stomach with solid food after she got over the flu, and the birthday party was the first opportunity to really try anything heavy. Christina hoped her digestive system was up to the task. Her hunger certainly was. I’ll try a little of everything, but I’ll order the steak because that can’t be too greasy, salty, sticky, or spicy, right? Also... Her appraising glance arrived on Juan, who was sitting amongst the other Spaniards. I don’t want to be sick or in a food coma later.

“Will you get a little drunk and be really American with me?” Natasha implored beside her, recalling her attention. “You’re never offensively American but I know you can fake it! I think you should have beer. We’re going to do karaoke with the rock band later.”

“I’m afraid to get drunk because I’m still taking antibiotics,” Christina explained sympathetically. “I’ll have a beer though, for you, because it’s your birthday. And I’ll definitely do karaoke if you do it with me. Or Eden. I didn’t even get to talk to him yet. I still need to congratulate him on that performance at Atleti.

“Everyone wants to do it. I bet you know some good 80’s rock songs to do.”

“I can think of a few. I should make Juan play guitar with me...”

“He’s so happy lately,” Natasha whispered. “Eden says so, and I see it when we do things with this crew. We think he has a secret girlfriend. I’m afraid he’s screwing Lex again or something. Would you know if he did?”

“No secret girlfriend. No Lex. He’s just happy that his charity thing is going so well.” The girl with the long and sleek ponytail inadvertently hit Marie in the head with it when she snapped her head around to smile reassuringly with her answer. I wish I could tell her I’m the secret girlfriend, she was thinking inside. So many people already know. It seems ridiculous that my best girlfriend doesn’t know the truth.

“It figures Juan Mata would try to save the world,” that friend snorted.

“Am I still giving the boys a lesson tomorrow?”

“Yeah! Do you need me to come collect you or are you borrowing a car from Juan?”

“I’m definitely commandeering the DB9.”

“Oh! Tell me about the Ferrari! Is it amazing? Do you love it? Is it a dream come true?”

The girls caught up with each other after settling the food questions with the whole table, and even while other people got up to chat and play beer pong. They talked and texted a lot, but sitting next to each other with a couple of drinks, fun music, and enough going on in the background that no one paid any attention to them was just better, and more satisfying. They could make dramatic faces at each other to react to news, or gossip. Watching other people around them reminded them of things they wanted to talk about that just didn’t come up normally, like Christina’s wanting to get the dirt on all the new Chelsea girls. Some of them ended up joining the conversation at different times, so she got to know them directly a little bit too, and they got to know her. A couple of old timers brought up the charity WAG tournament and lamented that there was no one left to organize it, and no natural athletes left to play in it. Discussing that event, and the people involved in it, made Christina feel a long way away from that past. Dortmund and BVB and Olympic medals felt like a decade from the good old Chelsea days.

The population at the table fluctuated when the appetizers arrived, but a lot of people just picked up a chicken wing or tortilla chip and went back to what they were doing. It took a really long time to get the main course, which was fine with the partygoers, and maybe even planned that way on purpose. The food was okay. It was certainly better than diner food, though Christina loved authentic diner food anyway. She stopped eating before she felt really full, just in case. She braved a second Corona after dinner too, just to get in the mood for singing and making a fool of herself. Juan gave her her space for most of the night. They weren’t there “together”. He just happened to pick her up from the airport, and she just happened to be going home with him after. It was a lot of fun to hang out with Natasha again, and the others were fun to laugh and joke around with as well, but by the time she was done trying to sing “Night Moves”, and her bottle was empty but for the lime rind, she wished the Spaniard were around more. He could be really fun too. All the party was missing was a boy to flirt with.

“How are you, cariña?” he asked after taking a seat next to her near the beer pong table. He’d been summoned there by text. “Tired yet?” He definitely thought she was going to say she was close to ready to leave.

“Yeah, but I’m okay,” she shrugged. The place really was like a roadhouse. Some ladies were dancing on the bar, and the people drinking at it were shouting and throwing cash at them. Others got really into the rock band karaoke. It was all a little fake, however, like a Las Vegas attraction. The scene was kind of overwhelming. Christina had to lean in close to be heard. “I think you should do a song.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Oh come on! I did a song!”

“You and 5 other girls who fought over the mic so much we didn’t have to actually hear any of you.”

“Pfft.”

“You should go on the bar and shake your ass around. It’s better than theirs.” The player nodded toward the center of all the commotion.

“I’m wearing velvet pants. I’d die if someone got beer on them.”

“Do for me later then, without the pants.”

“Deal.” I want to kiiiiiss him, Christina groaned to herself. Grr. “Let’s go find Eddie, speaking of asses. Also, you should tell Alvi and Marcos how awesome I am so that they want to be my friends.”

“Can I tell them you want to have-“

“No.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

“You know, all this party needs is a Juan and Chris duet.”

“No.”

“You’re more handsome when you’re laughing.”

“You’re beautiful all night.”

“Awww.”

“That’s the truth. I watch. When was the last time you had fun with friends?”

“Tokyo. I don’t have friends to have fun with at home.”

“That’s why London should still be your home.”

“Oh,” Christina smirked. “Is that the reason?”

“Just one of them.”

[thomasroach]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review, we’ll take an in-depth look at the latest kickstarted game by Castlevania’s lead creator. “I know they are wrong!”  Proudly proclaims Koji Igarashi in a video four years ago, speaking in his Kickstarter video for his new project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Defiantly, he assured that he would create another Castlevania-style game worthy of his legacy.  More enemies, more items, more bosses!  Did he succeed?  Is this one of the few true Kickstarter success stories?  Or have we been left crying like vampires on sabbath night?

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review

Genre: Metroidvania Developed by: ArtPlay Published by: 505 Games Release date: June 18th, 2019 Platforms: PC (Reviewed), XBox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch Website: https://505games.com/games/bloodstained/

Game Features

Spiritual successor to Castlevania made by Koji Igarashi

Revival of 2D Igavania RPG in a dark gothic fantasy setting

Deep, rich single player narrative adventure

13 FREE DLCS! Some available at launch, others as post-launch updates.

Tons of enemies, bosses and secrets to conquer

Multiple playable characters

Bloodstained Review: Story and Setting

As the Industrial Revolution proceeds, people begin to move away from spirituality and towards science.  This is not good for the Alchemist’s Guild, who see their patronage shrink.  Panicking over the loss of so much power and desperate to survive, they summon a demon filled castle to ‘prove’ that people need them.  The people of the world have a few issues with this, and after the Exorcists drive back the demons at horrible cost the Alchemist’s Guild is disbanded.  10 years later, the castle has returned with the demons.  This lovely and cheerful tale serves as the backdrop for the adventure of Miriam as she tries to keep her promise to her childhood friend Gebel and figure out the secrets of the castle.

This is a Castlevania game through and through, in mechanics and in story.  The only way this game could be more Castlevania is if Konami allowed ArtPlay to call the game Castlevania.  This means that the setting is, frankly, nuts.  Most of the castle doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, with things getting crazy and more video-gamey as things progress.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Castlevania games have never been what you would call grounded and it would have been very strange if Bloodstained suddenly decided to follow logic.  You have waterways, desert caves full of sand, lava caves and oriental gardens all in the basement of this castle.  The castle parts themselves aren’t boring either with a wide range of backgrounds and styles clearly marking which section of the castle you are in.

Monsters follow a similar pattern.  There are of course some monsters that seem right at home in a haunted demon-infested castle such as bats, ghosts, and skeletons.  Then you have the giant puppy head on a chain that tries to eat you.  Or the heavy-metal guitarist that spews purple flames at you if you get to close.  They have a decent rift going too as they try to melt your face.  Logical?  Consistent?  Not even slightly.  But then again, that’s not what a Castlevania game is about and as I said earlier, Bloodstained is Castlevania in all but name.

Which, unfortunately, leads us to the first weak point of the game. The story itself is nothing to fawn over.  So many times during this game I was able to say “Yep, saw that coming a mile away” with the occasional “Of course this character is misunderstood”.  Only at one point did the story actually rise above mediocre, where the story beat and the mechanics of the game perfectly meshed together in a way that made me say “Wow, that is really neat!”.  It’s not a bad story by any measure and it certainly didn’t subtract from the game, but the story didn’t really add anything to it either.  If you buy this game for the story though, chances are you’ll be disappointed.

  Bloodstained Review: Gameplay

Gameplay is the core of any Metroidvania game, as story has never been a strong point for the genre. I’d go so far as to say the story and dialog in Symphony of the Night is laughably bad, though in a good campy way.  The gameplay though, the gameplay is what keeps us fans of this genre coming back time and time again. Bloodstained fully delivers on that gameplay, including parts that I really wish it hadn’t delivered on. Before we get into details, let’s talk some technical stuff first. On PC, this game has minor problems that, while not huge, are there and need patching.  Now I didn’t keep an official tally, but I suffered around 5 crashes/freezes during my play through. It got to the point where I would travel a couple rooms out of my to hit a save point just in case.  Most of my crashes happened on room transitions which is a fairly critical issue as I’ll discuss in a moment, but one time I froze just looking at the warp map!  Not cool Iggy, not cool at all.  There are also the occasional missing words in dialog, and the infrequent VO/dialog mismatch as well. Nothing major and nothing that ever interfered with the game, but it is there.

Combat & Weapon Variety

Combat in Bloodstained is ye-old standard affair: press a button, and swing in front of you. That’s it. No attacking up or at a diagonal unless you use magic. You can crouch and attack at a downward diagonal, but with few exceptions you never need to do this. Oh, and you can attack while you’re in the air.  Now at first glance this doesn’t seem like a great system, but there’s a beauty to the simplicity of the design. Choosing a direction to attack and then attacking is only a very small part of the equation. Every weapon class has a different attack animation. Great swords have an overhead arc and are slow while katanas swing straight out and are faster. Further complicating things are enemy movement speeds and patterns. Great swords are good for hitting things at range or slightly overhead, but your timing has to be perfect to hit bats and other fast-flying monsters. Stomping attacks with boots are great for rapidly and safely crushing large slow enemies, but only if they don’t have an overhead attack.  For the most part i never wished that I could attack up or at angles, with one exception: The guns.

I will be frank.  I feel the guns are a pointless and useless addition to the game.  They shoot slow and don’t do a lot of damage unless you have ammo.  You can only carry so much ammo and it can be a real drain on your resources. Even with the ammo damage boost though they always felt really weak to me. Perhaps I’m just not using them correct, but I probably used guns for a total of 30 minutes out of the 18 hours I’ve put in so far. I might have been more inclined to use the guns if I could aim them, but just like every other weapon they can only shoot straight. Only certain spells can be aimed.

Magic & Grinding

Speaking of spells, we come to one of the major weak points this game inherited from its pedigree – grinding.  Almost every enemy can drop a shard when killed.  These shards give you a variety of abilities, from passive buffs to rays of doom to summoning a chair to sit in.  No, I’m not joking.  You can get a shard that allows you to summon a chair to sit in.  Now while you have some of questionable usefulness like the chair summon (that seems to recover MP at higher levels), they’re all fun to use.  Now here’s the rub – the more shards you have, the more powerful the effect gets up to 9 shards held.  The only way to get shards is to kill monsters.  Over.  And Over.  And OVER. Traditionally the best way to do this is to find a room that has a decent concentration of the monster you’re farming, kill them, and then leave and instantly return to the room.  Again and again and again and you get the idea. Oh and remember earlier when I was talking about how I was getting infrequent crashes on room transitions? Ya, that doesn’t help the process. Now you don’t have to do this. There is another upgrade path for the shards, and I beat the game only having 1-2 copies of the shards I had equipped. But if you want to max out your power, or get every shard in the game, brace yourself. That way lies grind.

Crafting

There is also a crafting system in the game.  As you kill monsters and collect treasure chests, you will get materials.  Chests always have the same materials and the blue ones restock when you return to base which always gives you a source of materials.  Might even be worth it to mark on the minimap (yes you can do that and yes it is awesome) the location of all blue treasure chests you find.  Some crafting resources can only found on monsters though, which means yet more grinding.  This is especially true if you want to try and cook and eat all the foods for the permabuffs they provide.  While it can be a bit of a pain at times, you definitely want to check in to see what new recipes have unlocked when you get a new book.  Crafting new weapons and armor can be a valuable upgrade source for your character.

Secrets and Exploration

Exploration is of course another major component of Metroidvanias, and this is one of the few areas where I feel Bloodstained has added to the genre.  First of all, the map is freaking huge and filled with secrets.  100% this game is going to take some serious dedication with regards to exploring this place. Thankfully there are some good quality of life improvements here, otherwise the size of the castle would work against the game. First is the ease of movement. Right from the start you get access to waystones, a cheap instant recall consumable.  As far as I can tell, the only time you can’t use these things is in a boss fight. I probably went through 20 of these things. There’s also a decent network of warp points throughout the map and it swiftly became a priority of mine to find the warp point whenever I entered a new area.

Some other features that prevent exploration from becoming tedious are personal map markers, quest markers, and chest markers.  At any time you can press a button  (the red B on my Logitech) with the minimap open to place a marker, and press the button again to remove it.  This allows you to mark anything you wish, though it doesn’t allow you to enter in notes.  One of your quest giving NPCs will ask you to kill X of Y.  Once you accept the quest, you’ll get a little green scroll icon on your map to show which rooms contains monsters you need.  Finally when you encounter a chest for the first time, a marker will be placed on the map until you open it.  I cannot begin to express how much suffering this feature saved me, as early on in the game you’ll walk past many chests you can’t reach and have to come back to.

Boss Fights

Of course we can’t talk about gameplay and mechanics without talking about bosses.  They are all well designed and with one exception, they all play out very differently.  Some of them even have a cool little movement gimmick to them, which I won’t spoil here. Even the exception are understandable, since it’s literally the same boss each time, just upgraded on the second round. Most bosses I was able to beat on the first try, with none of them taking more than 5 tries. The exception to this are two of the optional bosses I found. Let’s just say it didn’t end well for me and I decided to beat the game, write this review, then come back to them. Oh and buy 99 pizzas and cheese the heck out of the fights.

Multiple Endings

Sadly my closeout on the mechanics is not going to be a good one.  Many of Igarashi’s games suffer from the same problem: Stupidly concealed requirements for endings.  I’m not talking about secret endings here, I’m talking about having the basic, satisfying ending hidden behind poorly or not at all explained requirements.  For example in Symphony of the Night you had to have a specific familiar equipped when you entered a room, or you couldn’t get the item you needed to reach half the game.  In Harmony of Dissonance if you didn’t have two specific rings that don’t give you good combat stats equipped for a boss fight, you don’t get the good ending.  So on, so forth, this is a pattern that is repeated across many of his games including Bloodstained.  Have no fear, there’s no spoilers here, but I had to hit the internet three times to get unstuck towards the end of the game.  One of those times I would have solved on my own, one I might have solved on my own, but the third?  Nope.  Very unlikely that I would have solved that one. There’s having trust in your player’s intelligence, then there’s assuming they think exactly like you do. I am in fact sufficiently steamed over one of these items I plan on writing a separate article about it, but there is nothing more I can say here without spoiling things.

Bloodstained Review: Audio and Visual

It is very rare that I will put my foot down and say something is objectively beautiful, but gosh darn it this game is objectively beautiful. Within the style of a 2D game, I legitimately don’t have anything negative to say here unless I dig deep in the barrel of nit-picks. For example: If you choose a long-hair style for Meriam, her hair acts more like a spazzy scarf that it does hair.  Or, hmm, let’s see, oh I got it!  It’s a bit confusing at first what all the green scroll icons are for on the mini-map. That took me a bit to figure out they were showing me the rooms where my quest targets were.  Nit-picks aside, the visuals are just about perfect here.  The background and foreground are both beautiful and distinct, the monsters are fun to see, and the bosses are epic.

Sound also is incredible. In fact I’m listening to the OST as I write this review.  Every castle section has it’s own distinct theme in addition to having a distinct look.  Give me a little more time with the game, and I’d be able to tell you what general area of the castle I’m in without looking at the screen.  Even the SFX is awesome.  Weapon swings, hitting the enemies, enemy death cries, it’s all good.  There are some silly sounds, like the death “Oooooh!” from some of the large humanoid enemies.  Nearly giggle inducing at times.  Also the Toy Shoe SFX is a bit much.  It was a good weapon when I got it but oh, that sound effect.

Bloodstained Review: Replayability

With all of the additional game modes Bloodstained has, I have to say this game has a lot of potential for replay.  First up we have New Game+.  Now I’ve only had time to poke at this mode, but it does seem to alter enemy placement.  I can’t tell if it changed the enemy stats or not.  If it did I’m still so overpowered for the first area that everything is dying in one hit.  Given the scaling in the original game I probably wouldn’t be able to tell until several areas in.  Still it’s nice to have, and it even shows you in the minimap where you went in the previous game which I thought was a nice touch.  Completing the game on Normal also unlocks Hard and Nightmare difficulty settings, as well as speedrun mode which has built in per-room saves.  Boss Rush is another mode you can enjoy, and it has rewards for your normal game as well making it worth while to at least check it out.  All in all I don’t foresee that I’ll stop playing this game anytime soon.

Bloodstained Review: Pricepoint

Depending on how skilled you are, a basic run-through of this game is going to take you about 15 hours. Really depends on how hard you get stuck/get lost in the latter portion of the game. If that is all that I was going to do, if I was going to put the game down right now because I beat it, I would still consider this a good buy. Currently on sale for $36 with a regular price tag of $40 on the PC, I consider this to be reasonable. While I’ve gotten more hours out of less money, I had a very enjoyable 15 hours with this game. Factor in the New Game +, Boss Rush, and Speed Run modes that are the game right now and you’ve got one heck of a good purchase here. Further factor in that if they deliver on just half of the promised post-launch features I wouldn’t have any problems recommending this game at $60.  There is some serious content for your dollar here.  If you have even a slight interest in this style of game it is well worth your money.

Bloodstained Review: Final Thoughts

Bloodstained is Castlevania, with all of its beauty and all of its flaws. While some of the flaws do run deep in my opinion, I still greatly enjoyed the game. Flawless execution on aesthetic, incredible sound, levels that are fun to navigate and monsters that are more fun to kill, this game is a love letter to Koji Igarashi’s previous works. However, that is all that it is, though fortunately all that it needed to be. Bloodstained has done nothing to push the genre of Metroidvanias down new paths, but it is a shinning example of what they can be. And with that, I suppose I should end this review with a paraphrase of a very common quote:  “What is a review?  A miserable pile of numbers!  Have at you!”

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night appeared first on Fextralife.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

[thomasroach]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review, we’ll take an in-depth look at the latest kickstarted game by Castlevania’s lead creator. “I know they are wrong!”  Proudly proclaims Koji Igarashi in a video four years ago, speaking in his Kickstarter video for his new project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Defiantly, he assured that he would create another Castlevania-style game worthy of his legacy.  More enemies, more items, more bosses!  Did he succeed?  Is this one of the few true Kickstarter success stories?  Or have we been left crying like vampires on sabbath night?

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review

Genre: Metroidvania Developed by: ArtPlay Published by: 505 Games Release date: June 18th, 2019 Platforms: PC (Reviewed), XBox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch Website: https://505games.com/games/bloodstained/

Game Features

Spiritual successor to Castlevania made by Koji Igarashi

Revival of 2D Igavania RPG in a dark gothic fantasy setting

Deep, rich single player narrative adventure

13 FREE DLCS! Some available at launch, others as post-launch updates.

Tons of enemies, bosses and secrets to conquer

Multiple playable characters

Bloodstained Review: Story and Setting

As the Industrial Revolution proceeds, people begin to move away from spirituality and towards science.  This is not good for the Alchemist’s Guild, who see their patronage shrink.  Panicking over the loss of so much power and desperate to survive, they summon a demon filled castle to ‘prove’ that people need them.  The people of the world have a few issues with this, and after the Exorcists drive back the demons at horrible cost the Alchemist’s Guild is disbanded.  10 years later, the castle has returned with the demons.  This lovely and cheerful tale serves as the backdrop for the adventure of Miriam as she tries to keep her promise to her childhood friend Gebel and figure out the secrets of the castle.

This is a Castlevania game through and through, in mechanics and in story.  The only way this game could be more Castlevania is if Konami allowed ArtPlay to call the game Castlevania.  This means that the setting is, frankly, nuts.  Most of the castle doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, with things getting crazy and more video-gamey as things progress.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Castlevania games have never been what you would call grounded and it would have been very strange if Bloodstained suddenly decided to follow logic.  You have waterways, desert caves full of sand, lava caves and oriental gardens all in the basement of this castle.  The castle parts themselves aren’t boring either with a wide range of backgrounds and styles clearly marking which section of the castle you are in.

Monsters follow a similar pattern.  There are of course some monsters that seem right at home in a haunted demon-infested castle such as bats, ghosts, and skeletons.  Then you have the giant puppy head on a chain that tries to eat you.  Or the heavy-metal guitarist that spews purple flames at you if you get to close.  They have a decent rift going too as they try to melt your face.  Logical?  Consistent?  Not even slightly.  But then again, that’s not what a Castlevania game is about and as I said earlier, Bloodstained is Castlevania in all but name.

Which, unfortunately, leads us to the first weak point of the game. The story itself is nothing to fawn over.  So many times during this game I was able to say “Yep, saw that coming a mile away” with the occasional “Of course this character is misunderstood”.  Only at one point did the story actually rise above mediocre, where the story beat and the mechanics of the game perfectly meshed together in a way that made me say “Wow, that is really neat!”.  It’s not a bad story by any measure and it certainly didn’t subtract from the game, but the story didn’t really add anything to it either.  If you buy this game for the story though, chances are you’ll be disappointed.

  Bloodstained Review: Gameplay

Gameplay is the core of any Metroidvania game, as story has never been a strong point for the genre. I’d go so far as to say the story and dialog in Symphony of the Night is laughably bad, though in a good campy way.  The gameplay though, the gameplay is what keeps us fans of this genre coming back time and time again. Bloodstained fully delivers on that gameplay, including parts that I really wish it hadn’t delivered on. Before we get into details, let’s talk some technical stuff first. On PC, this game has minor problems that, while not huge, are there and need patching.  Now I didn’t keep an official tally, but I suffered around 5 crashes/freezes during my play through. It got to the point where I would travel a couple rooms out of my to hit a save point just in case.  Most of my crashes happened on room transitions which is a fairly critical issue as I’ll discuss in a moment, but one time I froze just looking at the warp map!  Not cool Iggy, not cool at all.  There are also the occasional missing words in dialog, and the infrequent VO/dialog mismatch as well. Nothing major and nothing that ever interfered with the game, but it is there.

Combat & Weapon Variety

Combat in Bloodstained is ye-old standard affair: press a button, and swing in front of you. That’s it. No attacking up or at a diagonal unless you use magic. You can crouch and attack at a downward diagonal, but with few exceptions you never need to do this. Oh, and you can attack while you’re in the air.  Now at first glance this doesn’t seem like a great system, but there’s a beauty to the simplicity of the design. Choosing a direction to attack and then attacking is only a very small part of the equation. Every weapon class has a different attack animation. Great swords have an overhead arc and are slow while katanas swing straight out and are faster. Further complicating things are enemy movement speeds and patterns. Great swords are good for hitting things at range or slightly overhead, but your timing has to be perfect to hit bats and other fast-flying monsters. Stomping attacks with boots are great for rapidly and safely crushing large slow enemies, but only if they don’t have an overhead attack.  For the most part i never wished that I could attack up or at angles, with one exception: The guns.

I will be frank.  I feel the guns are a pointless and useless addition to the game.  They shoot slow and don’t do a lot of damage unless you have ammo.  You can only carry so much ammo and it can be a real drain on your resources. Even with the ammo damage boost though they always felt really weak to me. Perhaps I’m just not using them correct, but I probably used guns for a total of 30 minutes out of the 18 hours I’ve put in so far. I might have been more inclined to use the guns if I could aim them, but just like every other weapon they can only shoot straight. Only certain spells can be aimed.

Magic & Grinding

Speaking of spells, we come to one of the major weak points this game inherited from its pedigree – grinding.  Almost every enemy can drop a shard when killed.  These shards give you a variety of abilities, from passive buffs to rays of doom to summoning a chair to sit in.  No, I’m not joking.  You can get a shard that allows you to summon a chair to sit in.  Now while you have some of questionable usefulness like the chair summon (that seems to recover MP at higher levels), they’re all fun to use.  Now here’s the rub – the more shards you have, the more powerful the effect gets up to 9 shards held.  The only way to get shards is to kill monsters.  Over.  And Over.  And OVER. Traditionally the best way to do this is to find a room that has a decent concentration of the monster you’re farming, kill them, and then leave and instantly return to the room.  Again and again and again and you get the idea. Oh and remember earlier when I was talking about how I was getting infrequent crashes on room transitions? Ya, that doesn’t help the process. Now you don’t have to do this. There is another upgrade path for the shards, and I beat the game only having 1-2 copies of the shards I had equipped. But if you want to max out your power, or get every shard in the game, brace yourself. That way lies grind.

Crafting

There is also a crafting system in the game.  As you kill monsters and collect treasure chests, you will get materials.  Chests always have the same materials and the blue ones restock when you return to base which always gives you a source of materials.  Might even be worth it to mark on the minimap (yes you can do that and yes it is awesome) the location of all blue treasure chests you find.  Some crafting resources can only found on monsters though, which means yet more grinding.  This is especially true if you want to try and cook and eat all the foods for the permabuffs they provide.  While it can be a bit of a pain at times, you definitely want to check in to see what new recipes have unlocked when you get a new book.  Crafting new weapons and armor can be a valuable upgrade source for your character.

Secrets and Exploration

Exploration is of course another major component of Metroidvanias, and this is one of the few areas where I feel Bloodstained has added to the genre.  First of all, the map is freaking huge and filled with secrets.  100% this game is going to take some serious dedication with regards to exploring this place. Thankfully there are some good quality of life improvements here, otherwise the size of the castle would work against the game. First is the ease of movement. Right from the start you get access to waystones, a cheap instant recall consumable.  As far as I can tell, the only time you can’t use these things is in a boss fight. I probably went through 20 of these things. There’s also a decent network of warp points throughout the map and it swiftly became a priority of mine to find the warp point whenever I entered a new area.

Some other features that prevent exploration from becoming tedious are personal map markers, quest markers, and chest markers.  At any time you can press a button  (the red B on my Logitech) with the minimap open to place a marker, and press the button again to remove it.  This allows you to mark anything you wish, though it doesn’t allow you to enter in notes.  One of your quest giving NPCs will ask you to kill X of Y.  Once you accept the quest, you’ll get a little green scroll icon on your map to show which rooms contains monsters you need.  Finally when you encounter a chest for the first time, a marker will be placed on the map until you open it.  I cannot begin to express how much suffering this feature saved me, as early on in the game you’ll walk past many chests you can’t reach and have to come back to.

Boss Fights

Of course we can’t talk about gameplay and mechanics without talking about bosses.  They are all well designed and with one exception, they all play out very differently.  Some of them even have a cool little movement gimmick to them, which I won’t spoil here. Even the exception are understandable, since it’s literally the same boss each time, just upgraded on the second round. Most bosses I was able to beat on the first try, with none of them taking more than 5 tries. The exception to this are two of the optional bosses I found. Let’s just say it didn’t end well for me and I decided to beat the game, write this review, then come back to them. Oh and buy 99 pizzas and cheese the heck out of the fights.

Multiple Endings

Sadly my closeout on the mechanics is not going to be a good one.  Many of Igarashi’s games suffer from the same problem: Stupidly concealed requirements for endings.  I’m not talking about secret endings here, I’m talking about having the basic, satisfying ending hidden behind poorly or not at all explained requirements.  For example in Symphony of the Night you had to have a specific familiar equipped when you entered a room, or you couldn’t get the item you needed to reach half the game.  In Harmony of Dissonance if you didn’t have two specific rings that don’t give you good combat stats equipped for a boss fight, you don’t get the good ending.  So on, so forth, this is a pattern that is repeated across many of his games including Bloodstained.  Have no fear, there’s no spoilers here, but I had to hit the internet three times to get unstuck towards the end of the game.  One of those times I would have solved on my own, one I might have solved on my own, but the third?  Nope.  Very unlikely that I would have solved that one. There’s having trust in your player’s intelligence, then there’s assuming they think exactly like you do. I am in fact sufficiently steamed over one of these items I plan on writing a separate article about it, but there is nothing more I can say here without spoiling things.

Bloodstained Review: Audio and Visual

It is very rare that I will put my foot down and say something is objectively beautiful, but gosh darn it this game is objectively beautiful. Within the style of a 2D game, I legitimately don’t have anything negative to say here unless I dig deep in the barrel of nit-picks. For example: If you choose a long-hair style for Meriam, her hair acts more like a spazzy scarf that it does hair.  Or, hmm, let’s see, oh I got it!  It’s a bit confusing at first what all the green scroll icons are for on the mini-map. That took me a bit to figure out they were showing me the rooms where my quest targets were.  Nit-picks aside, the visuals are just about perfect here.  The background and foreground are both beautiful and distinct, the monsters are fun to see, and the bosses are epic.

Sound also is incredible. In fact I’m listening to the OST as I write this review.  Every castle section has it’s own distinct theme in addition to having a distinct look.  Give me a little more time with the game, and I’d be able to tell you what general area of the castle I’m in without looking at the screen.  Even the SFX is awesome.  Weapon swings, hitting the enemies, enemy death cries, it’s all good.  There are some silly sounds, like the death “Oooooh!” from some of the large humanoid enemies.  Nearly giggle inducing at times.  Also the Toy Shoe SFX is a bit much.  It was a good weapon when I got it but oh, that sound effect.

Bloodstained Review: Replayability

With all of the additional game modes Bloodstained has, I have to say this game has a lot of potential for replay.  First up we have New Game+.  Now I’ve only had time to poke at this mode, but it does seem to alter enemy placement.  I can’t tell if it changed the enemy stats or not.  If it did I’m still so overpowered for the first area that everything is dying in one hit.  Given the scaling in the original game I probably wouldn’t be able to tell until several areas in.  Still it’s nice to have, and it even shows you in the minimap where you went in the previous game which I thought was a nice touch.  Completing the game on Normal also unlocks Hard and Nightmare difficulty settings, as well as speedrun mode which has built in per-room saves.  Boss Rush is another mode you can enjoy, and it has rewards for your normal game as well making it worth while to at least check it out.  All in all I don’t foresee that I’ll stop playing this game anytime soon.

Bloodstained Review: Pricepoint

Depending on how skilled you are, a basic run-through of this game is going to take you about 15 hours. Really depends on how hard you get stuck/get lost in the latter portion of the game. If that is all that I was going to do, if I was going to put the game down right now because I beat it, I would still consider this a good buy. Currently on sale for $36 with a regular price tag of $40 on the PC, I consider this to be reasonable. While I’ve gotten more hours out of less money, I had a very enjoyable 15 hours with this game. Factor in the New Game +, Boss Rush, and Speed Run modes that are the game right now and you’ve got one heck of a good purchase here. Further factor in that if they deliver on just half of the promised post-launch features I wouldn’t have any problems recommending this game at $60.  There is some serious content for your dollar here.  If you have even a slight interest in this style of game it is well worth your money.

Bloodstained Review: Final Thoughts

Bloodstained is Castlevania, with all of its beauty and all of its flaws. While some of the flaws do run deep in my opinion, I still greatly enjoyed the game. Flawless execution on aesthetic, incredible sound, levels that are fun to navigate and monsters that are more fun to kill, this game is a love letter to Koji Igarashi’s previous works. However, that is all that it is, though fortunately all that it needed to be. Bloodstained has done nothing to push the genre of Metroidvanias down new paths, but it is a shinning example of what they can be. And with that, I suppose I should end this review with a paraphrase of a very common quote:  “What is a review?  A miserable pile of numbers!  Have at you!”

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night appeared first on Fextralife.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/