#having more expansive and in depth knowledge of how to use magic in general than literally anyone else

[musclesandhammering]

A Concept: Loki gets in a situation where his magic is bound or he’s facing someone with stronger magic than him or something and everyone expects him to just be screwed, but instead he simply starts drawing runes and reciting spells and proceeds to wreck their shit.

“I’m not the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard because my magic is the strongest, I’m the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard because I know how to use magic the best.”

[lady-dionysus-the-shitfaced]

So, I am still struggling with the next chapter of the forest guides you. So remember that Freaky Friday fic I wanted to write a while back, well I guess this is how it starts.

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It was thought provoking, how different the Hyrules could be from each other. From the vast watery expanse of Wind’s Hyrule that needed a boat to navigate, to the floating islands of Sky Loft set high among the clouds. They where all similar and yet all so different distinct and foreign. However, nothing really left them with a sense of foreign quite like the vast roaming expanse of quite and empty wilderness that was Wild’s Hyrule. Coincidentally, that was where they had ended up, yet again. The portal had beckoned them form the quiet peaceful Faron region of Twilight’s world, and spat them straight into the instantly recognisable continent of Wild’s kingdom.

There had been much grunting when the chain had exited the portal, none of them even bothering to ask the usual questions of weather or not some one recognised this Hyrule.

Hyrule had been the first to inject some enthusiasm in to the situation,

“Well this time it isn’t raining at least.” He had turned to the others with a grin that could split him from ear to ear, he had always been the most amicable towards the largest of their kingdoms.

“Well yea, there is always that. So Wild do you know where exactly we are in your Hyrule, and how much danger are we in?”

Everyone in the huddled group looked over at Wild, their expressions ranged from apprehensive worry to barely concealed exhaustion.

“Well actually, we have been let out on the great plateau. It’s one of the safest areas in the kingdom.”

At this Wild held up his hand to shade his eyes from the harsh sun and pointed to the north.

“The whole place is surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs. So its hard for anything to get up hear. Aside from a few small bokoblin camps and a talus there is nothing up here. We should be safe enough.”

He finished his little informative speech on the area with a shrug, but as he looked around he saw the question forming in both Twilight and Wars’ mind just as fast as they where being formed on Legend’s lips. Wild’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the three of them standing together in the pack.

“And before you bother to ask, the weather here is consistently mild day and night you don’t have to worry about rain or thunder storms.”

The three of them looked significantly cowed at the comment directed solely at them, but relief none the less swept over the pack. Memories of dangerous thunder storms and near constant rain fall was the prevailing impression of Wild’s Hyrule.

“All promising information, however, if the plateau is covered on all sides by cliffs how do we get off of it?” Asked Time.

Sighing wild pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Unfortunately, the only practical way for all of us to get off is for us to teleport.” More collective grumbling from the chain. As a general notion most of the others where weary of the

Sheikah tech that Wild carried around with him. The idea of surpassing even death sat unsettling in most of their heads, but the very real and present threat of its stomach twisting, vomit inducing form of fast travel was enough to cause them to sigh in unison.

“Up top of the processional way, past the Temple of Time is the entrance to the Shrine of Resurrection, that is probably the best point to co-ordinate teleportation out. We can walk up there and I can do trips three at a time to Hateno village. If there has been any suspicious activity regarding the monsters in the land, Zelda and Purah will have detailed information on it.”

Wild, for all the sigma he held of being more than a little mental, could always surprise them with how pragmatic he could be in times of duress. So it was with only mild grumbling that they conceded to his plan and knowledge of the landscape, and started their walk along the plateau’s decayed processional fare.

“What was this place?” Wind was always the first to ask questions in areas unfamiliar, most of them enjoyed his avid curiosity.

“I’m not sure, the king once told me that this was the cradle from which the whole kingdom of Hyrule was born.”

Although it had been Wind who asked, everyone was paying inconspicuous attention to Wild’s explanation, it was, after all, so rare that he talked about his own adventure or kingdom.

“Ok, but what does it do?”

“Nothing much of anything anymore. But at one point I think it was the religious and cultural capital of the kingdom. Though I can’t remember much more than that.”

The pack had started a slow walk through the mild morning sun and where coming up towards the entrance way of the template of time.

“But you seem to know so much about this place?” Wind’s incessant questions continued as they walked.

“I spent a lot of time here, it was a long time before I figured out how to get off of the plateau.”

Wild had moved to the front of the pack leading them along the path, in the distance the faint sound of bokoblin snorts could be heard, softened almost into melody by the distance. Wind had made his way beside Wild. Wild’s last comment giving him cause to raise his eyebrow. Though the conversation was between only the two of them, the others kept close all listening to the new depth Wild was giving of himself.

“Get off, but it’s so rounded on all sides by cliffs.”

“Yea, that’s why it took me such a long time to figure it out!” There was an undertone of humour in Wilds voice as he said it.

“But, then how did you get up here?” Ah that was the question. And it surprised Wild how quickly he was able to answer.

“Well I woke up up here.” It was with this comment that the others struggled with keeping silent.

“You woke up here? Like after 100 years?” Hyrule was the first to break the spell, he quickened his pace to fall instep beside Wind.

“Yea,”

Finally looking at the others around him it was almost like the magic of the moment had passed. Wild’s answer trailed off after only the confirmation, and his stare remained dead ahead. When it was just Wind’s youthful curiosity the words flowed from Wild like he had no care in the world, but now that the others had made their interest in the conversation clear, Wild’s lips fell quiet.

A self conscious silence falling over him. Hyrule turned his eyes down when what he had done became apparent to him. His interruption had ruined the moment. Hyrule bit his lip as he started to let his footfalls slow content to fall back in line with the others behind them and let Wild and Wind continue with their discussion. Though it was obvious to everyone that no more information about this kingdom or his adventure would be forthcoming.

[night-glider]

The History of My Little Pony: A Headcanon Post

I’ll have separate more in-depth posts throughout the blog in time but for now, I wanted to make a big post over viewing how I personally combine all the generations of MLP and their story, using a mix of official knowledge and headcanons. G1, the start of the pony race: The first generation of ponies lived in a wild, untamed world. They were not the dominant species, and co-existed with many sentient species across a vast land. There existed earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns among them. Majesty ruled over pony kind, while the flutterponies had their own monarchy. Majesty was, relatively, a good and respected Queen. Her strong magic enabled her to live longer than most of her peers. When Majesty passed, Spike entered an eternal slumber. At this time, not much magic existed in the world naturally, this is why unicorns had such limited abilities, with a few exceptions. During this generation, ponies focused on farming, caring for the land, and co-habiting with the other species. The male ponies in the society were tasked with expansion and guard duties, and were rarely around. There was a link to the human world established at this time, allowing Humans like Megan to be brought to Ponyland, but when Megan and her siblings got older, they didn’t need to visit anymore, and by the time of Majesty’s passing, the human link was lost/forgotten. G2 & the Tales era, the continuation: It’s hard to say much about G2 due to it’s lack of non-toy media, but we do have G1 tales to fill in a gap. At this point in pony society, quite a few hundred years have passed. Ponies now cover more of the world, and have built societies. Monarchies continue to be the primary form of rule, but ponies are a peaceful species, so it’s not particularly troublesome. The link with the flutterponies has been lost. Spike has not awoken, and the rest of the dragons have moved on. The pony types also begin to split for the very first time, finding it easier to focus on their own unique needs. Natural magic has still not developed, and if anything, has weakened further since ponykind separated. What is interesting though, is this is one of the most peaceful era’s for the ponies. As the other existing species moved further and further away from ponykind, less conflict occurred, and fewer villains emerged. Focus was turned to building unique settlements. G3 & G3.5 era, a return to the roots: We reach Ponyville, or, the first Ponyville. The original. We are still at peace, and the societies are split, but one of these things will soon change. Ponyville is where ponykind begins anew. The first links are re-established with the other species. Skywishes re-ignites the link with the pegasi, specifically those of Butterfly Island. Unicornia becomes a trade partner to Ponyville thanks to Rainbow Dash, a pony of unique background and magic. These links will reunite ponykind from this point forward. Even better, Spike finally awakens from his thousand year slumber. He becomes a permanent ally to ponykind, and lives and grows with them again instead of returning to sleep. There sure is a lot to catch up on after all. The average Unicorns at this time are able to harness a lot more magic than past generations. In fact, they are able to harness to worlds natural magic too. This is mainly seen in the form of control of Rainbows and color in the world. While an amazing advancement, it is something that will lead to great changes in time. G4, advancements in magic and an end of peace: Well, unicorn control... changed things. A lot of the worlds natural magic was sapped away. It was now up to the unicorns to control natural patterns, such as the raising of the sun and moon, and the pegasi to control the weather. Earth ponies had to rely on themselves and what little magic was left in nature to help the land flourish, but not everything could be saved. The sapping of the worlds magic allowed Unicorns to reach the highest level of wizardry ponykind has ever seen, and even beyond that, at times. I choose to ignore the likely retconned events of the founding of Equestria out of cultural respect, and instead recognize that the six ponies simply bring a full reuinoin to the three pony species and agree to dub the world they live in as “Equestria”. This is where the monarchy aspect became difficult, as the ponies have expanded so much in the past 2,000 odd years, they knew they needed leaders. But who? Unicorns were known for being the primary rulers, but arguments arose, after all, it was the unicorns that stole the world’s magic. So, a spell was devised by Starswirl and his unicorn council. A way to represent all the pony species in a way never seen before: Alicorns. Two exceptionally powerful orphaned sisters were chosen to lead, and trained by Starswirl to take on a very heavy burden, but in the end, it was a success. Luna and Celestia now had the weight of the world on their shoulders, and, unbeknownst to them, a very long legacy to uphold. They were left an egg by Spike, before he passed, and he promised that when the time was ready, it would hatch (cue the events of FIM). G5, the modern era: What happened here? Well, I can’t share it all to avoid movie spoilers, but I have my own ideas. Celestia and Luna, with immortality forced upon them, decided long ago to give magic back to the world. They created a new spell, allowing themselves to give up their physical forms and release their souls and magic into Equestria. Twilight no longer needed to raise the sun and moon, and weather patterns started to revert to how they were long ago. The sisters left the spell with Twilight, so that she, Cadance, and Flurry Heart could do the same when they were ready. Cadance left the world first, then Flurry gave herself up to free the Crystal Empire of it’s frozen bonds, and finally, Twilight left her mark. But that’s another story for after the movie is out <3 Technology grew substantially, but it began to tear ponykind apart too. The other non-pony species left ponykind again, as peace changed to paranoia, they no longer felt safe. The legacy of Twilight and her friends became lost to time, their journals fading into obscurity with each generation. Then one day, the ponies lost their magic, for good.

[mywildattic]

𝕬𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖞: 𝖕𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖘

Astrology is a practice or belief that dates back hundreds of years that regards human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements of celestial objects.

For a lot of people, when they hear the word "astrology" they think of their sun sign, being the one determined by the month you were born. For example, my sun sign is Pisces because I was born on March the 3rd. Many people aren't aware what a sun sign is, and just see it as their one "horoscope". With that in mind it's perfectly normal to be skeptical, because with that little information it's easy to believe that it's just a bit of hocus pocus designed to place people in boxes. But that isn't the case, when I found out my birth chart and began reading astrology more in depth, I realized how much I identified with my chart taking into account all of my placements and what they mean, and I now find I'm more self aware or at least compassionate about my general self.

Astrology can be a beautiful thing, and just because you have a sun sign that matches millions of other people doesn't mean you are all the same or it's just a load of rubbish. No one is just a Virgo or just a Gemini, we have a little of many different zodiac signs in our chart, and therefore astrology is more complicated than seen perhaps at first glance.

Here are a couple of links you can use to figure out your birth chart: this one is good and then this one is also good.

𝐒𝐔𝐍 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ☉

The Sun represents energy, individuality, and outward-shining creativity. It symbolizes our fundamental essence, our overall self and who we grow to be. It’s vibrancy speaks for our psyche and our prevailing preferences.

𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ☽

The moon's gravitational pull governs the climate and the ocean tides. Within astrology, the moon represents our emotions; our emotional responses and self-image. While the sun exposes our outer experience, the moon symbolizes everything beneath the surface.

𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ☿

Within astrology, Mercury symbolizes communication, logic and rationality. Its the governor behind the reins of our curiosity to analyze, sort, and classify. It drives our need to find truth and debate our points across intelligently.

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ♀

Venus is the vibrant planet that represents beauty, love, money and pleasure. It sways how we see and love within our relationships to others, whether romantic or platonic. It exudes tenderness and sensuality, and craves luxury and culture.

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ♂

Mars symbolizes passion, aggression and determination. A battle cry is known for being the song to this fiery planet, and it plays the role of how we take iniciative and express our motivation. It also represents sexuality and sexual energy.

𝐉𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ♃

Jupiter rules over philosophy and religion, and therefore our longing to explore both intellectually and spiritually is greatly attributed to it. It governs expansion, encouraging us to widen our outlook and broaden our horizons. Luck and fortune are also associated with Jupiter.

𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ♄

Saturn symbolizes hard work, professional achievements, and steadfast resilience. It doesn’t make things easy, in its role as a tutor, Saturn aids us with discipline and concerns itself with karma and the lessons which past experiences might bring.

𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ⛢

Uranus symbolizes individuality, rebellion, and innovation. It rules spiraling thoughts and promotes erratic behavior, but it also encourages our creativity to reach new horizons and seek ways to break free from freedom binding chains.

𝐍𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 ♆

Neptune governs spirituality, dreams, escapism and illusion. Like the oceans it rules, our most inner connections to mysteries and magic are all encouraged by this most enchanting planet. However, on its darker days, its energy can reek of delusion.

•

𝐏𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐎

Many people don’t count Pluto as a planet of much significance, being the furthest from the sun and the smallest within our solar system, which is why I’ve seperated its segment from the main nine. However that isn’t entirely true, for Pluto represents transformation, destruction, rebirth and death. It encourages us rather harshly to become stronger by ridding us of our weak spots which are treated as waste. It has a very problematic role on our well-being, but that isn’t to say its all negative, because it also promotes change and renewal, both not always bad; change is not something we should be afraid of, but something we should embrace (with a certain amount of caution).

•

𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍

Our rising sign is determined by the time we were born and represents how we present ourselves to the world and how we appear at first glance; essentially, our mask. It is often described as our door, as it is the first look people see of us before they enter our more personal territories.

•

With the knowledge of what the celestial beings represent and how they influence our lives; emotions, beliefs, motives, passions, imagination... The next chapter to understanding ourselves is by joining both what we know about the zodiac signs and planets once we have our birth chart. For instance you know what your Mercury sign is but, what does that mean? It means the representations of Mercury works with the mind of your Mercury sign.

{all information I have gathered has been from multiple different sources which I've compiled into one post. I am not an expert by any means, I am just trying to learn}

[longassr1de]

Sweetness

Pairing: Jeno × fem!reader

Genre: smut!!, established relationship, domestic??

Word count: ~2k

Summary: What better way to beat the summer heat than with a sweet treat?

⚠️ Warnings: pretty much another pwp, 00 liner smut, food play, ice play(?), fingering, rough and unprotected sex, oral (both male and female receiving), pet names (moreso relationship-wise though), look..very curious things happen with popsicles okay?, not yet proofread.

A/N: lmk if I missed any warnings or any typos and such! I haven't written in so long or thought up anything this filthy to the point that I even surprised myself with this one.. so much for easier the 00 line content onto this blog. Whoops! Anyway I hope you guys enjoy! xoxo (oh also im currently on mobile so i'll add the read later in a bit, i apologize in advance!!)

It all started out with Jeno being a tease on a hot, hot summer evening. Sure, it was terribly humid out, but the way he kept sucking at the colorful popsicle even when it began to melt down to his slender fingers had you feeling wet heat in a much more personal sense. He held eye contact with you as his lips pulled away from the frozen treat, sinful eyes making it a point to devour the way you intook just a little extra air when he licked at the sticky mess upon his palm.

"Care for a taste?" Jeno offered, his deep voice filled with mirth. That's all it really took for you quickly stride across the room to join him where he'd been sat at the sofa. He tossed the remainder of the popsicle atop its wrapper on the coffee table, instead pulling you into his lap as he pushed his tongue past your lips. You could still taste the cold sweetness on his tongue even as he sucked at yours, biting your bottom lip as his strong embrace loosens in favor of grabbing at your ass.

He thanks the heavens for your wardrobe selection today, your skirt making it so much easier to grind against your pretty little panties. If the wet spot forming on his pants was anything to go by, he'd guess you were just as needy as him if not moreso.

"On your back princess, I wanna try something." Jeno helps you take off your shirt as he lays you onto the leather, straddling over your hips before slowly making his way down to your breasts. He mumbles out praises for your body as his slowly warming mouth licks and sucks at your nipples. He separates from your body, drawing out a whine from your lips, when suddenly his now cold again mouth quickly works them to stiff peaks.

"You like that, baby?" You can only nod at his question, carelessly reaching for his hair, needing something to grab onto as he presses cold kisses across the expanse of your neck down your torso. "You're so sensitive for me, does a little cold make you this wet, hmm?" You blink up at your usually sweet boyfriend, only to find his gaze to be more hungry than playful.

"Answer me, baby? Or have I already fucked you stupid without even touching you?" The loud whine your body automatically let out as a response to his filthy words has you blushing frantically, only serving to further spur Jeno's near-sadistic behavior. "Aww, it's ok princess, there's no need to be embarrassed. You're gonna sound so pretty when you're cumming for me later, I just know it."

Before you know it, your skirt's flipped up to cover your abdomen, and it's near impossible to tear your gaze away from Jeno's fingers and how they seemingly glide across your wet lips. His tongue peeks out to lick at your clit before giving it a harsh suck, pulling back to bite at your thigh with a groan, and you just know he's left you with another blossoming mark. You always make it a point to complain about Jeno's marking habits, but he knew better; after all, he's caught you staring at them in the mirror before when you thought he wasn't home.

Frustrated that you had yet to be properly touched despite all your boyfriend's teasing, crinkling sound catches your attention, only to be met with the sight of Jeno sucking at that damned popsicle again. So much for hoping it was a condom so you'd finally be getting some. "Babe, pleeaaseee," you keen, wiggling your hips before biting at your swollen lower lip, trying to entice your boyfriend, "do something, anything."

"Anything?" But it's more of a statement than a question, as you soon find out. The remainder of your clothing is dragged off your body before the cool touch surprises you, but you're even more surprised to find Jeno fucking a brand new popsicle into your wetness. "Your pussy's gonna be so sticky and sweet for me, can't wait to watch you suck it off me," he all but groans at the mere thought of your heavenly lips sucking him off. The image of Jeno's colorful cum spilling out of you doesn't last long, as the freezing treat demands its presence be known, his tongue simultaneously going back to working at your clit.

Letting out a loud moan of his name, he looks up at you, squeezing you thigh with his free hand to draw your attention back to his face, intense eyes settling upon your teary ones. "Does it feel good, baby? Is it too cold?" You're touched that he's checking up on you, but it's really difficult to form words when his cold digits take over and fuck up into you with fervor.

"Don't stop, don't stop fuck Jeno please don't stop!" Just as you cry out for more, the man in question pulls away from you completely, leaving you high and dry just when it your orgasm was building up around his skilled fingers. Your eyes open to the sight of a shirtless Jeno with his pants and briefs pushed down just enough so that he can fuck up into his hand, giving himself just a hint of relief before moving on to the main event. Complaints die in your throat as you watch Jeno grasp both his leaking cock and the popsicle between his palms, rocking against the length of the sticky mess before once again pushing it into you a handful of times, ultimately discarding it off-handedly in the general direction of the coffee table it had been melting atop. "Think you're ready to take my cock now, princess? Wanna feel how well you take me," mumbling the latter against your lips, already having his tongue nearly down your throat as he aligns his tip, drawing out beautiful, desperate moans when he finally pushes in and sheathes himself inside your wetness to the hilt. You'd never even noticed when the rest of his clothes had gone missing, but you weren't complaining either.

"Fuck Jeno, how do you feel so hot yet so cold at the same time?" you shiver, simultaneously pulling closer and farther from his body, seeking the warmth from his chest while avoiding his freezing hands. He only chuckles at this, kissing further down your jaw before pausing to suck another mark, this time into your sensitive breast. Jeno's cold hands find purchase on your hips despite all your wriggling, bodies quickly warming up as the heat in the room rises on this passionate summer night. His hips work a strong rhythm into your own, pulling lewd melodies from the depths of your chest, raking your nails down his broad back in retaliation for making your things quake.

"Please tell me you're close, because I'm so turned on I can't guarantee I'll outlast you at this rate." The sheepish confession coming from a face that's anything but has you nearly combusting on the spot. His furrowed brows, parted, kiss-swollen lips and strangled groans all adding to your current heightened state of pleasure.

"Just a little more, Jeno I'm so so close. Feels so fucking good, just like tha-at," your eyes roll back as you're speaking and the cockiness that his features don immediately spell trouble. He's found your spot and he is whole heartedly planning to abuse this newfound knowledge. Both of your thighs are pushed up and pinned in place by your chest, his knees digging deeper into the leather; the glint in your boyfriend's dark eyes shining twice as bright in the now-evening glow, vision quickly blurring as his pace picks up considerably. His filthy praises besides your ear only helping your decent further into madness, bucking your hips into his as your nails dig into his shoulders for dear life.

"That's it, good girl, let go for me, come all over my dick, you can do it." As if by magic spell, your release floods your senses, a strangled cry of Jeno's name escaping your weak lips, babbling as he continues to fuck you through your orgasm. The colorful popsicle residue mixed with your own cum leaks out of you as Jeno pulls out of your warmth, and he stops for a moment to admire the art that would soon be once again ruined by raging hormones.

True to his filthy word, once you've recovered your still-horny lover is quick to lead your head between his legs, making sure you wouldn't forget the real sticky treat he'd made sure to save you a taste of. "Your mouth feels so good, so good, all for me, yeah?" he coos down at your form, blissed out as he enjoys the view.

It's his turn to be surprised however, when you pull off his cock to wink up at him, seductively murmuring for him to use you for his own release and fuck your throat. Not one that needs to be told twice, Jeno cups your cheeks as he holds you in place, slowly slipping into your mouth once again. He stops to make sure you're sure, asking if you're okay every time you whine or gag around him, not wanting to hurt you either.

Once you reassure him you're fine and start moving of your own accord, the loudest moan you've ever heard from Jeno to date spilling out, his head thrown back in sheer pleasure from the delicious sensation. You have all but a minute's worth of the upper hand before feline eyes are back on your own, silently asking for permission to begin moving his hips. Your silent response comes in the way your hands come up to his hips, ready to stop him if you needed to come up for air. A mere three thrusts in and Jeno is doubling over, sweet and filthy words coming out slurred as he's drunk off the feeling of your thigh throat around his length. "I'm so fucking close, oh my god," Jeno's ragged voice manages to rasp out, bucking wildly as you gag around his thick dick. "Gonna cum down your throat princess, yes or no?" He tugs at your hair to get your attention, briefly stilling his fidgeting hips. Your moan of an answer and the way you claw at his thighs to brace yourself being all the nonverbal cues he needs before he pulls out, sensitive tip all the way at your lips again, and you take in a deep breath just before he pushes back in so deep you feared you wouldn't be able to take it, the evidence of white, hot pleasure coating your throat in stripes.

Rather than the usual salty tang of Jeno's cum, the sweetness of the popsicle and taste of your own essence remaining the dominant taste on your tongue. You lick at your sticky lips as Jeno slowly pulls away from your mouth, hissing at how sensitive he is after such a powerful orgasm. He lays back before pulling you with him to lie over his chest, uncaring for the sweaty sheen adorning your bodies in favor of the peaceful embrace of your love. Many peppered kisses and high praises later, Jeno gently turns to press a lingering kiss atop your head, softly calling your name to beckon your gaze.

He breaks the silence by asking, "What do you say about trying whipped cream next time?"

"Sounds... sweet," you retort, much to Jeno's chagrin. At times like this he could easily see why his friends made fun of you two for your sense of humor. But for as much as he teased, he knew he would always be twice as in love with you as he ever claimed to be. And that.. was pretty sweet indeed.

[radramblog]

Innistrad 3 (Part 1) Previews

I’m nearly a month late to this party in particular, but spoiler season never ends. I mean, I guess we’ve had like three weeks off, but you know.

I have some general thoughts about Magic’s inevitable return to return to Innistrad before I get too into it. I’m a little concerned, basically. First of all, while both previous Innistrad blocks were multi-set endeavors, the game hasn’t done something like this- a twin pair of standard sets for the same quarter- ever, to my knowledge. It means that we’re on 5 entire standard booster sets this year, on top of all the other stuff.

Second, I’m worried about what postmodern Magic design is going to do to the plane. Take transform, one of the marquee mechanics of both Innistrad and Shadows blocks- Those cards could tell a story on such a small piece of cardboard, and were extremely fun despite their somewhat unwieldy modes of play. Werewolves are one of my favourite creature types in the game, not because I’m a furry (Pokemon profile picture notwithstanding) but because I fucking love how they play. And I’m worried they’re going to make those beautiful designs into much less interesting modal DFCs.

But none of that is relevant to the handful of cards we’re going to talk about today, so don’t worry about it! All we have is 7 new cards to evaluate, how nice.

I’m going to go in WUBRG order here. There aren’t any white cards around, though, so uh…Blue!

So this is just Opt but better. Not strictly better, because sometimes bottom of deck or the action of scry matters, but 9 times out of 10 this beats Opt. More importantly, it’s another one mana cantrip at instant speed, which further allows for the division of cantrips in other formats- do you want the speed of Opt and Consider, or the depth of Serum Visions or Preordain? Or a mix of both?

Obviously the card isn’t exciting. Cantrips don’t excite me basically at all, but by and large they aren’t really meant to be. Consider is just a role-player, and a good one, and one that we’ll probably see for a long time. I’m just happy it’s a Common, because it’d end up like a dollar if it was Uncommon.

Triskaidekaphobia was one of the more interesting cards out of Shadows over Innistrad, and this one continues the plane’s unlucky 13 theme by having someone who’s apparently really into that number. As an alternate wincon, this card is actually quite spicy- it’s hard to protect, being a small creature, and as such trying to save it is going to require burning through the cards in hand it wants you to have. At the same time, with the amount of draw you can get up to in Blue at Instant speed, actually reaching 13 in formats like Commander or really, really slow control decks in Standard isn’t out of the question.

The other application I’d like to point out is for cube, funnily enough, because I know some people are still going to be playing Azure Mage. And unless you don’t allow rares in the cube, this card thoroughly trounces that one outside of niche aggro where the two power matters. It’s a better statline in the kinds of decks that want this effect, and it has two limited but occasionally relevant upsides. You’re probably not ending up with a third of your deck in your hand, but at the very least this lets you FoF or Pull from Tomorrow with impunity.

Oh ha ha, very funny. This Innis-dad joke of a card might be the one-drop Zombies needs to get a foothold in multiple formats, though the options are much more expansive than they used to be. This isn’t just fighting Diregraf Ghoul anymore, we’ve got Stitcher’s Supplier, Dread Wanderer, Cryptbreaker and Carrion Feeder now.

Despite the name, I don’t think the Zombies deck this would go in looks all that similar to the Humans deck of its namesake. Part of why Modern Humans is so good is because so many random very good and disruptive cards- Meddling Mage, Kitesail Freebooter, Mantis Rider, Noble Heirarch- happen to randomly be Humans and thus benefit from the support. What Zombies would lose in disruption (though you could run Thoughtseizes) it likely gains in recursion, through things like Gravecrawler and Relentless Dead, and Champion of the Perished sure does support casting the same zombo over and over again. We will see, I guess.

Oh. Yknow. Fuck Power Word Kill and Heartless Act, I guess. There’s a new 2-mana removal spell in town, and it hits anything. Except these days, the “or planeswalker” line on cards like Eliminate make them so extra valuable that this ends up being more of a sidegrade than a straight upgrade.

Part of the issue with targeted removal like this is the limited utility it has against midrange and control, since midrange decks are built around 2-for-1s that targeted 1-for-1s aren’t good against and control isn’t going to have an awful lot of targets for it. Infernal Grasp has an added downside against Aggro, where that 2 life is super relevant. I’m not saying the card is unplayable, far from it- I think it’s going to be an EDH/Cube staple- but it’s not as nuts as it first appears. Magic has changed a lot since Doom Blade.

Speaking of upgrades. Apparently they asked “what interesting cool cards should we put in our initial set preview?” and somebody was like “what about 3 slightly extra role-players? That sounds good.”.

There isn’t really a better Shock in Standard right now than this for aggro/burn, but control decks won’t care about this and Frost Bite is still in the format. In more eternal formats, Burn’s not playing this over any of the Bolts, and red control definitely isn’t touching it (Unholy Heat still exists!). I think this card will have somewhat of a place in Standard and other Arena formats, and might shift some numbers around in Cubes and things like Canadian Highlander, but beyond that? Meh.

If Wrenn and Six is so good, why isn’t there a Wrenn and Seven? Well, uh, here it is. Trading a colour and insane playability in multiple formats for a 3 mana bump and an extra ability doesn’t sound incredible, but planeswalkers are typically very difficult to evaluate.

Wrenn7 is kind of an interesting walker, seeing as most of the Lands ones we’ve seen have been Nissa, who interacts with them on a different angle than this. Their -3 protects themselves well enough by making a beefy dude (that unlike Nissa doesn’t put you down if it gets killed), and their +1 and 0 have synergy that can ramp real hard, if slowly. The ultimate takes a while (4 turns assuming you don’t minus) and while it’s a lot of value it’s also extremely slow value. Slow is not something you really want on a planeswalker, considering how vulnerable they often are.

I’m not sure if I’m trying W7 out in my UG Superfriends list, seeing as they don’t really do a lot for it. Honestly the card strikes me as pretty specific as to what type of deck wants it. But like I said, walkers are hard, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if this ends up being pretty solid. It’s never going to be Wrenn and Six, though that card was kind of a mistake.

Okay so aside from people making references to a movie I haven’t seen, Join the Dance compares pretty obviously to one card- Lingering Souls. At the same time, this card is very much not Lingering Souls. It is much, much worse. Part of what made Lingering Souls good is it getting cheaper when you discard it, making doing so an actual upside, whereas this gets much more expensive. Also, the tokens don’t get flying!

Look, this card is fine. It’s okay. Human decks might like to try it out, and if a generic go-wide Standard deck happens it might feature a few of these. But it’s far from a staple. I think the flavour text on this card is much more interesting than the actual play object.

And that’s the lot of them. I was going to discuss the full-art lands but like

I don’t have much to say about them other than that they’re gorgeous. And I kinda feel like doing a deeper dive on those later because it’s an interesting topic.

Part of the reason I’m hesitant for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is ultimately these spoilers. A few of them are cool and interesting, and the other ones are boring and powerful- two of my least favourite things in Magic. Triskaidekaphile is probably the one I’m most into at the moment, but we haven’t seen any Werewolves yet, so who knows.

They really didn’t put any Werewolves in their Werewolf Set Preview, huh?

[cowtale-utau]

Sans/Ace INTJ vs ENTP

Welp this is not the full breakdown I’m working on but. This is contributing to that? I was asked about my type choice (which I super don’t mind! I love a good debate) and this will help in breaking down that part of the full work up. It’s super friggin long. I’d apologize, but I wouldn’t really mean it. Anyway, here we go.

First lets look at the functional stacks

INTJ / NiFeTiSe (NiTe) vs ENTP / NeTiFeSi (NeTi)

Ni – Internal intuition vs Ne – Extroverted intuition

Sans is suspiciously intuitive. There was no argument that Intuitive was going to be part of his typing. How the intuition functions and is used is where we have some point of potential debate. This comes down in many ways to how Jung viewed extroversion vs introversion. Extroverts are characterized as expansive and expressive, with short attention spans and rapidly shifting focus. They also tend to have relationships characterized by breath as opposed to depth. That is, many, more “shallow” relationships, rather than fewer, “deeper” connections. Conversely introverts are more focused and narrow, spending more time and energy on fewer things they give more value. Ne tends to have a wider range of hobbies and skills, while never focusing enough to master any, while Ni tends to develop mastery in fewer, selected areas. Ne also tends to want to bounce topics and visit many areas of conversation, while Ni wants to focus in on a singular topic to explore as deeply as possible. Ne wants to have many options while Ni wants to zero in on one singular answer.

Honestly, you can see traces of both Ne and Ni in Sans personality. He has a broad range of skills, and a pretty large number of arguably shallow “friendships”. He also keeps a very small number of deeper, more developed relationships, and there is evidence of him having a few areas he has a much deeper knowledge of.

Getting into the real differences is easier when you pair Ni/Ne with their respective sidekicks. Thus we have NiSe and NeSi. If we go by type theory Ni uses information Se has subconsciously gathered to find patterns and themes in their environment. They cast a wide sensory net to take clues from all possible inputs, visual, auditory, etc. They then use this data to compile a narrow underlying pattern. Conversely NeSi, draws on repeated snapshots of experiences to compile an established pattern to put forth a range of possible “what ifs”.

A simplification of what separates Ni from Ne can be put as such; Ni  is insight, Ne is ingenuity. Both E and I express intuition in their focus on the metaphysical and theoretical. NJ's can be seen as less creative while NP's are less able to come up with convergent ideas. ENPs see several potentials in everything, they struggle to trace back to a single causality. ENPs often take a “spray and pray” method, and are surprised should they hit upon the correct answer. They won't likely trust this as the true answer until they've tested and exhausted all possibilities.

INTJ and ENTP functions are perfect flips of one another and are often mis-typed. 

INTJ: Dominant: Introverted Intuition Auxilliary: Extraverted Thinking Tertiary: Introverted Feeling Inferior: Extraverted Sensing ENTP: Dominant: Extraverted Intuition Auxiliary: Introverted Thinking Tertiary: Extraverted Feeling Inferior: Introverted Sensing

Personally I'm inclined to lean towards Ni for Sans, but both are viable options. In fact both are so viable, that this breakdown wasn't particularly helpful. But it was interesting, and fun so I'm not mad I did it. So lets try this from a different angle. This time I'm going to ignore “stacks” and look at the purely E vs I, T vs P, etc break downs, and include my personal opinions on them, and how I got to the choice I did for Sans.

Introversion vs Extroversion

E – Energy is outward, towards people and things. Gains energy by being with people, batteries drain when alone. Need stimulation and are expressive. Like variety, action, and achievement. Communicate openly without censure. Allow conversation without conclusion. Take words at face value.

I – Energy focused inwards, towards ideas and concepts. Recharge with “me time”, drained by crowds and company. Tend to be reserved, and can seem subtle or “impenetrable”. Think before they act, often taking time to make a decision.

When I first typed Sans I had to ask, is he an introvert, or just depressed. I think it cannot be argued whether or not Sans suffers from depression. The indicators are there. It is a widely accepted view. However, I do not believe this excludes him from being an introvert. I see Sans as a social introvert. He likes people in general, enjoys crowds, from a comfortable distance. He keeps most relationships at arms length, and needs time alone to recoup. Sans is a very guarded and reserved individual, who can play at being an open book. He deflects with jokes and entertainment, but how many can say they are genuinely close to Sans. Even Papyrus is kept at a certain distance despite Sans clear love for his brother. I think Sans is kinda the poster child for the misconception that introverts are isolationists that hate people. They (cough we cough) aren't. They just need time to themselves to reorient, and re-energize. And that doesn't necessarily mean complete isolation either. This can often be achieved in the company of those held especially dear, or by simply withdrawing, even around company. This can be seen in Sans choosing to be at Grillby's but choosing a somewhat “closed” location. Yes he's towards the center of the room, but he's at the corner of the bar. He directly faces only Grillby. Or a common fanon example, Sans shutting down and allowing himself to be lugged around by Papyrus. He stays physically present, and is likely taking in the going ons, but has disengaged on a personal/social level.

Intuiting vs Sensing

S – Focus on immediate thought and sensory input. Trust conscious, limiting to facts and solid data. Pay attention to immediate, material, practical and “real”.  Work on a clear schedule and use logic to work in a direct sequence. Practical, realistic, grounded, direct.

N – Process data on a deep, subconscious level, trusting “gut feelings”. Spot patterns and take broad high level “big picture” views. Enjoy ideas and theories, are willing to work with factual evidence on a “instinct”. Change and adapt plans as information changes.

While I suppose an argument could be made for either I'm inclined to pin Sans as an N. Especially if one dismisses the “Sans remembers resets” theory. One cannot deny he uses facial cues and behaviors to make “gut” predictions about the player character/Frisk. Sans does not strike me as one to stick to any schedule not externally enforced by others (Papyrus). He doesn't need solid proof to make an accurate assessment, and trusts his own instincts. Somewhat unrelated to current discussion but one could argue a case for Sans having some almost... Arrogance in this regard. He is so confident in his assessment that he calls you on it, despite having no solid, in hand, proof of any of his accusations. This is a man who trusts his own mind.

Thinking vs Feeling

T – Thing logically and with reason. Desire fairness and objectivity. Black/White mentality. Seek truth and clear use of the rules. Sometimes forget or dismiss the “person” variable. Prefer truth over tact. Analyze pros and cons, and when a decision is made, consider it done.

F – Make decisions based on the feelings and considerations of others. The 'person' element is the first and primary considered. Value harmony, and try to be tactful even at the cost of some truth. Some times overlook the “hard” facts and can come off idealistic.

Here's another area where both typings agree. Sans is very much to me a T. Despite his apparent “easy to get along with” nature he can clearly lack tact (as seen in his 'you'd be dead where you stand' line). It's clear he is capable of dismissing the “people” component as seen in a neutral run. Even if you are to kill his brother there is little reaction beyond a few (or single, I'm slightly tipsy and my memory sucks) lines about his upset. This could theoretically be blamed on the nihilism/depression we see present, but could also be tied into his objective way of thinking (and if one considers that he's at least distantly aware that the outcome isn't permanent than this way further leans into T type. He knows it isn't the end, and so can accept that even if his brother is dead now, he won't be later, allowing him to remove emotion from the equation). If his magic coloring is tied into the presented soul traits the desire for fairness and objectivity is clearly seen in his secondary (?) Justice trait. I also believe Sans very much has a Black/White view of morality/the world. You can see this in the neutral run. While he may not attack you in anything less than No Mercy/Genocide, he definitely calls you out. Even just reaching LV of 2 is enough for Sans to express disgust in both you and your actions. This suggests he has absolutely no leniency in his views.

Judging vs Perceiving

J – Decisive and controlled. Are rigid and take charge of their environments, making choices early. Specific in what they ask, and expect others to do as told. Seek order and closure. Like to have time for preparation. Enjoy being experts.

P – Feel limited by structure. Feel more in control when options are left open. Thrive with the unexpected and are open to change. Tend to be loose and casual. Work in bursts. Are tolerant of people differences and will adapt to fit a situation.

And here's the other where the two potential types vary. And I can see a case for either. Its when all the parts are taken in together that I lean towards J over P. (although if we went with the percentages system I could see him as being fairly close, and sometimes slipping one way or the other over the line. I've know a couple of people personally who do so every now and then. A close friend of mine regularly tests at 51/49 in their J/P alternating between INFJ and INFP) I think when balancing Sans' N and T it comes together more comfortably in J. His rigid morality suggests a lack of tolerance and adaptability. Once he starts something, he sees it through to completion. His desire for the cycle of resets to be stopped can be seen as a need for closure, but I think we can dismiss it as extenuating circumstances. Anyone would want it to stop after a fashion, even if they are only distantly aware of the occurrence.  I think Sans straddles the J/P line leaning slightly more into J. He needs order and routine, but is stiffed by too rigid of a structure. I think for me this ultimately came down to me viewing Sans (or perhaps Ace in this case) as an ultimately science leaning mind. He needs answers. He needs clear, clean answers, and not getting them is distressing. While he may like to keep his options open in some areas of his life, overall he prefers to know what he's getting into, and how he's going to handle it. He's a free personality, that dislikes an unpredictable world. He wants to know where the end is, and have several methods of getting there. Not knowing the answers is scary, and Sans/Ace hates being scared.

So there's that. I don't know if any of it made any sense, but there you have it. How I typed Sans and why. Bare in mind, that this is also a half fanon typing. This is at least in part, based on occurrences after the events of canon Undertale, and how Sans/Ace behaved then. (you’ll see more of that in his full workup) As well as being based on some headcanons, though I tried to be fairly sparing with them. I also find myself frustrated as to the lack of information on Sans behavior/personality prior to the events of the game. What was Sans like, before the resets, before the depression. I would love to see what Sans had been like when he was younger. Alas, this is unlikely to ever happen. But anywho, this got way long, and if you manage to actually get through the whole thing I would love to hear your opinions. How do you type Sans, and why? Is there some glaring in game clue I missed? I'm totally open to friendly discussion on the topic, if you want. I included a couple links that give a pretty good rundown of the different functions and how they come together.

https://www.typeinmind.com/nite

https://www.typeinmind.com/neti

[veliseraptor]

This may be a weird ask but have you read Marvel comics? I haven't, my only knowledge comes from MCU and Marvel's wiki and I wonder - the way you write Loki he's wonderfully powerful and uses his magic so much (I love it), which is nothing like in the movies. Do you base Loki's magic abilities on how they're in the comics or is this wishful thinking made into fic? I know it's mine, I want him powerful and wrecking havoc with magic.

I sure have! I’ve read a fair amount of comics over the years and fairly extensively particularly in Loki comics land. 

My Loki magic headcanons for the MCU come from a combination of extrapolation of what we see in the movies (used to a greater extent than they do) and some of the aspects from comics. I think that my extrapolation is reasonable based on what we see in the movies, though of course an expansion, and I include things that are from the comics but not in the movies.

I think magic in general in the MCU, but especially with Loki, is chronically underused and seldom used with much creativity, with the exception of Doctor Strange. I would love to see Wanda’s reality warping powers, for instance. I think Loki specifically, though, often gets nerfed in really frustrating ways - this happens with Thor too, but with Loki I think it’s a combination of often plot convenience and, again, the inability of most visual media to do interesting things with magic.

You can see a more in-depth explanation of Loki’s magic and my read on it (and to some extent how I write it) here and here.

[damienthepious]

it’s still tuesday here for THREE MORE HOURS i didn’t heckin miss it i made it

Like Whispering

[ao3]

[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien

Additional Tags:  Fluff without Plot, Literal Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles,  (basically just a deep dive into monster anatomy), (and Rilla's incessant hunger to understand things), (i'll be real with you this one is weird), (but i like the ending and i need something to post for the IMPORTANT DAY), Lizard Kissin' Tuesday, (i hope y'all care to hang with me while i unpack a buncha headcanons about Arum's body!!!!)

Summary:  Rilla examines the fascinating landscape of her monstrous lover while he sleeps.

Notes: I don't even know anymore fam I hope SOMEONE besides me enjoys this at least. There is at least one Lizard Kiss this time, thank the Saints. Rated T for implications of sex in the past. Title take from the song 3 Rounds and a Sound by Blind Pilot. ]

Rilla will never stop being fascinated by Arum.

He sleeps beside her, between she and Damien, and even that is a thousand page treatise on the concept of trust that she wants to memorize front to back. When he sleeps alone he curls into a ball, tail wrapped around himself like a cat, but in the bed they share he is more apt to sprawl, hand and hand and hand and hand reaching out until they can find a soft source of warmth, until he can pull his lovers close against him and curl around them instead.

It’s easier to really learn him, in sleep. He tends to get irritable with her if she stares at him too long in the daylight. Which is fair, Rilla reasons. Analyzing the bone structure of your monster is a process that requires more direct observation than anyone would reasonably call polite… but Rilla can’t help herself.

Arum’s body is like a puzzle in some ways. Like four or five puzzles piled up together, actually. She’s been taking notes about the subject in longhand, in code, because she doesn’t think he’d appreciate her trying to categorize him so thoroughly- but it isn’t even about the science, anymore. The inhumanity of him, the irrationality; it draws her in. Curiosity has always been Rilla’s weakness, and Lord Arum is a curious creature indeed.

She wants to know him. Every part of him.

She can’t decide, yet, how to organize her observations; mostly she tries to take him part by part, layer by riveting layer.

She has pages dedicated to his eyes. The first thing she learned about him, really, was that he could see better in the dark than a human, and his eyes only got more interesting from there. Diamond-shaped pupils blow out wide in the dark or with arousal, or narrow into thin, dangerous slits when he’s focused. Irises, bright violet. Bright like actual violets, saturated and bold with narrow flecks of a darker shade arranged around the pupil in a subtle starburst. She and Damien must be the only creatures alive who have gotten close enough to see those flecks of plum among the violet, the only people he would trust enough to let that close. He lets them close enough to see, and then he allows his eyes to close regardless, a set of nictitating membranes sliding horizontally over the purple before his proper eyelids close as well.

Another fascinating layer, those membranes. They’re translucent but fogged gray, waterproof, protective; she’s noticed them slipping closed without the outer lids when he’s startled, or when he happens to go out in the rain [a note on his clothing in the rain: it is waterproof as well, though whether that is through magic or the skill of monsters’ weave is impossible to determine, and when she asks for clarification Arum dismisses the question in so particular a way that she is unsure which possibility is more likely]. It’s a useful trait, one that Rilla appreciates because it’s another layer of protection for those unique, beautiful eyes.

She can’t take more notes on his eyes in sleep, though. Instead, she ghosts her hands over his scales, over the subtle patterned expanse of his back as he snores gently into Damien’s hair.

The long, elegant curve of his spine is crested with a subtle ridge of raised scales, like spines or horns, nearly an inch long at the base of his skull and down between his shoulders, and barely higher than the bumps of the rest of his scales lower down [the first time Rilla runs her fingertips along the ridge Arum snaps his teeth in the air, hissing through them in surprise and delight, and Rilla smiles, then repeats the gesture]. Aside from some mild sensitivity, they seem primarily cosmetic, and Rilla can’t place what specific creature the trait is stolen from.

The entire expanse of his scales gleams magnificently, even in the low light of the nighttime Keep. He’s mottled in vibrant dark green and in black, with speckles of gold dotting down his front. The scales themselves are small and near as thick as light armor on his back, on the outsides of his arms, along the top of his tail, and in bigger, softer, smoother plates down his neck, his stomach, underneath his arms, between his legs. He is textured, cool, everywhere she can lay her hands [she has made a point to lay her hands nearly everywhere, by now].

The second pair of arms is completely unnatural relative to any nonmagical reptilian, and they should be completely incongruous with the rest of his frame, but his body fits together with infuriating ease. Arum’s torso is slightly longer than it would otherwise be to make room for the second set of pectorals that the extra arms necessitate [when he stretches in the morning his musculature ripples beneath his scales like the billow of steam, and Rilla could easily spend the rest of her life cataloging every configuration of angles at which his arms could be arranged atop the pillows of their shared bed], and his musculature there is lean but shockingly strong.

The pads of his fingers are textured with hair-thin ridges that help him stick to walls and ceilings when he scurries along at his shocking speed, similar to those of a gecko [Her list of creatures that Arum has traits in common with is absurdly long, and longer when she includes her speculations on his internal anatomy], and the same is true of his toes. His claws on all four limbs are dangerously sharp [more recently, he files down the claws on his lower pair of hands enough to dull them, complaining bitterly about the fragility of humans in general, but the first time he can reach out for the two of them, touch them without fear of causing harm, his expression falls to something raw and earnest and tender] [the claws on his upper hands remain sharp, and there is a certain thrill that comes with their careful touch as well].

His legs are powerful, long, a zig-zag of artful curves. He walks on his toes when he’s upright, his heels in the air and adding to his already impressive height, but he can turn his ankles oddly when he drops to all six limbs, slithering viper-quick whether he is crossing the floor or climbing a tree or wall or ceiling.

Arum’s tail is primarily meant for balance, and it’s not quite so deft as to be entirely prehensile, but he has enough control that he can grip a small object with it or curl it around something solid to stabilize himself [he is equally likely to curl it around either of his humans to pull them closer unexpectedly, to add an extra layer to an embrace].

[Rilla has an entirely separate mental space for notes on Arum’s sexual anatomy; that research is currently ongoing]

Arum’s teeth are [she mentally places a line between her more clinical observations and those that belong in the previous category] gorgeous, knife-sharp, terrifying, with long vicious incisors and jagged molars. Insectivore teeth, meant for piercing and crushing exoskeletons, and they flash bright behind his thin lips when when he snarls or speaks or laughs.

There is a crescent of little divots above those lips, the labial pits he uses to sense heat; a snake trait among the more dominant lizard features. In the scatter of her notes she has them sorted into the category of particularly anomalous with his extra arms and his frill.

His frill: infuriatingly out of place [speaking only for the purposes of classification: in the social sense, Rilla is only ever grateful for the fragile, expressive webbing that flares around Arum’s head in surprise and embarrassment and indignation, because it’s one of the easiest ways to tell what he’s feeling, besides his tone of voice]. It bears only passing similarity to the same feature on nonmagical frilled lizards; it drapes along the sides of his head when at rest instead of folding at his neck, it’s smaller relative to the size of his head, and the folds revealed when it flares are colored in bright patches of bluish-green and gold-

“Amaryllis.”

For half a moment she thinks that he’s murmuring in his sleep, which would be an interesting first, but then one of his eyes slits open and fixes her with a violet glare.

“I could feel you staring even in the depths of sleep, Amaryllis,” he mutters, voice thick and growling. “What, precisely, is causing you to think so furiously at this time of night?”

His irises are wide black diamonds in the mellow dark, his long tongue flicks absently to scent the air, his chest rumbles with each breath he takes, and every piecemeal part of him fits together in an impossible harmony, every edge that by rights should be jagged instead slides smooth. Rilla knows she’ll never unravel the entire tapestry of Arum, and that knowledge fills her with the thrill of challenge, with breathless awe, with overflowing love.

“You,” she says after a pause, hoping the enormity of her feelings doesn’t bleed too much into her voice. When he goes startle-still, she leans down to press a kiss to his cheek, where she knows he can feel the tickle of her warm-blooded heat. She doesn’t pull away then, sighing against the texture of his scales and pressing her hand to feel the slow drum of his heart in his chest. “Just thinking how damn stunning you looked all wrapped up with Damien.”

Rilla isn’t Damien, and she can’t make the tangle of science and wonder and connection in her mind sing as prose, or verse. Her coded pages read exactly like her field notes: pointed, unadorned, though admittedly a bit more biased. Arum knows her, though. He knows the deeper context around her flippancy, the way she uses informality as a source of comfort.

He breathes a laugh and it tickles Rilla’s ear, and he nuzzles his face against her own. “I would love to pay your flattery back in kind, Amaryllis, but if we wake the little knight now he’ll be utterly useless in the morning,” he grumbles, letting his eyes slip closed again as he pulls her closer.

“Sweet of you to worry about tiring him out,” she replies in a teasing whisper. He growls at the implication that his worry is unselfish, and Rilla’s mind flies off again. The entirety of Arum’s vocal system is a wild mystery, how he can duplicate human language with such an incompatible tongue and lips, and that isn’t even getting into the mystery of how he makes those rattling noises, those growls, those purrs. As far as Rilla is aware, purring is not a typical trait in a lizard, so she can’t even begin to speculate what animal instrument is hiding in the hollow of his throat.

“You are thinking again,” he hisses through a sigh, smiling with his eyes closed and letting his claws drift gently up and down her bicep. “I can hear your mind churning when you go still like that.”

“Sorry,” she says wryly, pressing another kiss to his neck.

“No apologies, my Amaryllis, but you need your rest as well as he does.”

Arum tends to save his pet names for Damien (Rilla suspects this is because they have a much more profound effect on the knight than they would on herself), but it does send a giddy little thrill through her when he slips enough to call her his. “I know, I know,” she says. “I’ll get to hibernating or whatever.”

He chuckles low again, his fingers tracing soft soothing circles on her arm, on her back, his breath lifting his chest beneath her palm, and the combined rhythms are nearly hypnotic. “Would it-” he pauses, and she can feel the hesitation drift through him and then dissolve like parchment in water. It’s easier for him to let himself be soft like this, in warmth, tangled up together in the dark. He hums above her and asks, “Would it help if I sang for you?”

Rilla will never stop being fascinated by Arum, and she’ll never stop being surprised by him either.

She nods against his shoulder, because she thinks her voice will either crack with laughter or too much feeling if she tries to talk, and Arum presses his mouth in an almost-kiss against her hair before he starts to sing. He sings close and quiet against her skin, his voice rough and low and inhuman, and Rilla smiles against his scales as it works in concert with the movement of his hands. It's soothing, stable, perfect.

There is comfort in a curiosity that cannot be answered, Rilla thinks as she drifts. Stability in a mystery that can unfold and unfold and never reveal a conclusion. Rilla has always preferred answers to questions, but Arum-

Arum is a question she intends to ponder for the rest of her life.

[antiques-for-geeks]

Game Review : Space Raiders

Sinclair ZX81 / Sinclair Research/Psion/Mikro-Gen / 1982 / Originally £3.95

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the golden age of cover art.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal. A comment that is often associated with the late Steve Jobs about his appropriating the GUI concept from Xerox PARC in the 1980s. It’s not an unromantic ideal - the young upstart company taking a technology from another, bigger organisation that had gold on its hands but didn’t know it.

Except Steve Jobs didn’t come up with the quote. He said as much in Triumph of the Nerds when interviewed. He didn’t claim to be the father of the modern GUI either; he just happened to see the potential of putting a low(er)-cost computer in the hands of the public that had a GUI.

The early days of the computing revolution were a kleptomaniac’s dream; intellectual property was respected, however it was done very much in a homage sense, rather than a paying-a-licencing-fee-and-doing-an-official-conversion sense.

Bedroom coders everywhere were getting in on the action, developing home versions of popular arcade titles, safe in the knowledge that Atari, Taito or Namco would not send the lawyers after them. After all, this was the early 1980s. Most of the time these companies didn’t know the kids were making these clones in the first place.

So, enter Space Raiders published by Sinclair Research. No prizes for guessing which arcade machine is being ripped-off here. It seems rather pointless to go through the gameplay; it’s so famous after 40 years of public consciousness that going through the mechanics of the game would seem a waste of time.

Let battle commence!

This version does not deviate too far from the golden formula. Some features are missing, like the bonus saucer craft that you can shoot. That said, alien ships come down the screen, and you with your moving gun must defend. Clear the screen and it continues. Over and over and over until they finally manage to land or you lose all of your lives.

Or get bored and unplug the computer.

Or stand up, knock the desk causing the memory expansion on your ZX81 to wiggle and the machine to promptly crash.

So, with the game being so ubiquitous, it’s difficult to stand out without ‘ruining’ the pure Space Invaders experience. Also, at the time there was little need to; this game would come at a time when recreating the arcade was impossible on home machinery - the Atari 2600 might have been the reference hardware for the home in the US, but even that could not hope to live up to the experience you’d get shoving small change into arcade machines. Though you could get some distance to replicating the feel by turning the lights off, have your younger brother spit out his half-eaten sweets on the floor near the machine to make the carpet nice and sticky and get your Mum to shout at you “This is a cafe, not a change machine. If you want change for those bloody machines you’ll have to buy something you little prick. They should bring back conscription. You’d learn some proper respect!” each time you ventured from the gloom into the kitchen.

Your shot is the upper case I, the alien bomb is the *. Interestingly neither you nor your foe can fire again until the projectiles hit their mark or whizz off the screen.

While released by Sinclair in 1982, the game is actually the older Space Invaders coded by Mikro-Gen in 1981. That release had the usual (for the time) monochrome packaging and was not available on shop shelves as games would come to be. The Sinclair release sees the title packaged with another, Bomber, a Blitz variant on the B-side of the cassette. Sinclair seemed to have worked with Psion (later of Organiser fame), who developed the ZX Spectrum version of Space Raiders to bring a similar game to the ZX81 at the same time. Shame that Psion did little more than just recycle an old title.

Buying it today

There are two versions - the ZX81 and Spectrum. The covers are more or less identical, so it’d be easy to get the two mixed up if you were not too careful.

The Spectrum version seems to be the more prevalent on auction sites. The ZX81 version reviewed here was not produced in as great numbers and so commands a higher price. Prices do vary from £10 to £50 depending on condition and how gullible the seller thinks people are. Expect to be able to get it for the lower end of these two figures at the present time.

Note that there is a cartridge version for the Spectrum. These are quite rare and can cost around the £60 mark. If you end up with that, well done. Now you just need to find a ZX Interface 2 so you can play it.

Commentariat

Tim : I’m going to be straight with you. This was the first game that I ever played, so my opinion of the game is really tinted. Back when I first got my ZX81, I absolutely loved it and played it for hours and hours. One particularly epic game was played at the end of the day with the prospect of bed-time looming. I made it count, going further than ever before; my parents, failing to understand the seismic nature of what they had just seen, sent me to bed instead of cracking open the champagne.

Playing it again, I can’t pretend it’s not a disappointment; it certainly isn’t how I remember it, but in these situations, it never is...

Graphically it’s not impressive, even for the ZX81; the coders could really have got more out of the hardware especially as game requires a 16k expansion in order to play the game. That said, it certainly plays well enough. It is harder than other Space Invaders clones out there, but it kind of has to be to ensure you get your money’s worth, which probably says more about the higher quality of the opposition than anything else.

The hardness kept me coming back for more when I first had it, but given that it was this, Bomber or the ICL “Fun to Learn” educational series tape that my folks had bought me in the vain hope I’d learn geography from the computer, it was an easy market to please. Now, it can grip me enough to play it, but the longevity isn’t there.

So is there much to recommend it today? Sadly no. A trip down memory lane, but not a particularly good one.

Pop : Ah, gaming on the ZX81… a tricky proposition on the painful and unresponsive keyboard. If you’ve never experienced it, try to imagine using the buttons on your microwave to play your PS4. Luckily this game of space invaders can be enjoyed at a slow pace! I can’t honestly remember if it was this or another invaders clone I played back in the day, but it’s barely passable fodder for the ‘81. Space Invaders is already a simple game, so leaving out stuff like the saucer is and the invaders speeding up as they get fewer is criminal. At least the bunkers are all present and correct. Still, I’d have happily played this back in may games-starved youth. If you’re going to (re)visit the machine today, check out something like 3D Defender or even better 3D Monster Maze...

Meat : Really, have we reached the bottom of the barrel this quickly? In some ways I jest, but really you’d only want to play this for nostalgia’s sake. Given that it needs a 16k expansion to run, I’d want to have something far better than this. Even for the time. It’s not that the aliens don’t traverse the screen properly sometimes. It’s not the missing saucer bonus alien. It’s not the absence of sound (which I can forgive - you can’t magic up sound from a machine with no ability to generate it). It’s not the lack of bitmap graphics. It’s just that in 16k you’d expect them to do something half decent. Like redefine a character set. For heaven’s sake, they could squeeze a game of chess into 1k at the same time, so I expect better here.

There is so little recommend this today. A couple of goes and the fun is exhausted. Unless you are a collector, save your money and head for better titles on the machine. If you really must have a Space Invaders clone from the era, try Avenger for the Vic 20. Hell, even the dull Atari 2600 Space Invaders cart is better than this.

Score card

Presentation 6/10

At a time when a photocopied inlay with a dour pencil drawing was the norm, the cover was incredibly stylish and smart. Seriously, look at it!

Originality 2/10

Sadly it can’t score highly here. Even in 1982 Space Invaders clones were ‘me too’ products.

Graphics 2/10

Uses the inbuilt graphics character set - plenty of scope (and memory) to do something else, even without a bitmap display.

Hookability 7/10

Plays well and draws you in quickly and effectively.

Sound N/A

The ZX81 has no sound output so unsurprisingly, neither does the game.

Lastability 3/10

While it hooks you in, at the end of the day it’s still ‘just’ Space Invaders. While tough, the missing features means there isn’t the depth to bring you back too often.

Value for Money 5/10

Will give you a fair amount of fun, even with its’ drawbacks. Plus there is a second game - Bomber - on side B.

Overall 4/10

You will get some fun out of it on your ZX81 but if you’re emulating, it’s not really worth the effort, sadly. Nostalgia will only get you so far. If you must play Space Invaders on a ZX81, try QS Invaders.

[myfriendpokey]

clearance sale

clearing out some of my backlog of opinions before the new year so i can start anew. in this post I have accumulated some writing scraps on the only three topics: 1. finance 2. mystery 3. location

FINANCE

i enjoyed these recent-ish posts against the idea of indie sustainability, although as someone who already works a day job i always feel a bit ambivalent about the advice to just work a day job to pay for this stuff - - like yes, absolutely, do it, BUT sell your shit too in the knowledge that the type of precarity we associate w/ creative work is already in the process of being implemented everywhere else as well (or has already been - zero hour contracts, sub-living wages etc). like i am fortunate to still have a day job which pays a living wage and leaves me time to work on my own things on the side - but this feels like an anachronism rather than an inevitability right now.. maybe my unsustainable games will help keep me afloat when my job gets automated and i have to go work in an amazon warehouse, unsustainable games for an unsustainable job, ha ha ha. video games are an exploitative bubble but so is the rest of "the market".

it is true that this is a political problem rather than one in the narrow remit of things that can be fixed with the right 10-point sales plan- -  nevertheless i think the issue of trying to make even small money off these things will remain kind of pressing as, in turn, regular employment comes more and more to resemble irregularly compensated hobbyist labour.

anyway one point i found really interesting, which i think all the above posts kind of grapple with - - the idea that it's not necessarily more "realistic" to aim at selling 1000 copies rather than 100,000. i think while we make fun of the aspiring millionaires a lot of people have just been banking on the idea of a fertile middle ground between the two extremes of tiny and ludicrous amounts of sales, between boom and bust. i'm sure there are still people working in that space but it seems like it's shrinking.

one question brendan keogh asks in his piece is "why should game makers be any different  [from the norm of artists, musicians etc not really making any money]?" i think this can actually be answered a little - because hobbyist game development sort of exploded in tandem with the internet itself becoming more naturalized within everyday life, because the economic basis for indie games was always centered around the internet, which means people working in indie games were always in the vicinity of the massive, startling movements of capital that the internet rendered more visible and immediate. no more were the weird vicissitudes of the market hidden behind closed doors, in boardrooms or stock quotations - now you could log onto any site and see just bewildering amounts of money suddenly funnel into the pockets of this or that individual in real time, frequently to their own surprise as well. and i think this connected to something more general - a sort of ambient awareness of financialization, the way "the financial sector" cannibalized things like industry, the greater visibility of capital not as something embedded in some specific product or set of individual practices but as a kind of weird free-floating aura arbitrarily descending or departing. enormous reservesof "general" wealth became more visible just as the benefits and stability of waged employment became yet more desolate and i think you need to see the draw of one in part as a consequence of the other. 

gacha-capitalism, permanent artificial scarcity coupled with the vague, insistent prospect of fantastic gains, as long as you keep playing. which is a rhythm already enshrined in many areas of working life - broke college students and unpaid graduates hustling for eventual employment, waged workers grinding through until  retirement. but it's one the enhanced immediacy and swiftness of capital on the internet intensified and extended. fabulous payouts can strike anyone at any time, in exchange for slowly bleeding out the prospect of any other kind of livelihood. much like the austerity following the financial crash which levelled so many basic social services for no particular purpose other than the hope that doing so for long enough would please the gods of prosperity to start tossing money around again. all dues, no pay.

i do think it's worth being cynical about the efforts to domesticate this process, building a fair and sustainable biome within capitalism, by using the tools of that same capitalism etc.  but if the format can't be seperated from the wider world then that's something which swings both ways. for me the most interesting critical work around vgames right now is in the effort to move outside of the constant, numbing boom-and-bust cycles of capital, the idiot repetition of exhilaration and depression and exhilaration and it'll all be okay as long as we can hold out one more cycle, particularly when that's a rhythm which has been central to the development of the format from the beginning. i think anyone involved with developing videogames has probably seen multiple generations of cool shit emerge, get abruptly killed off and written out of history in accordance with market diktats, and then replaced with a new wave of cool shit whenever the investors shift gears into "expansion" mode again. a mode of thinking about and preserving what people do that stands in opposition to this is something i can easily imagine being more generally useful in the culture, as ever more areas of life and culture start becoming subject to the same questions.

MYSTERY

there's a mystery in depth and a mystery in shallowness. with depth the habitual glance of recognition goes out and falls through - you can place roughly where something is in relation to the world, but not what it's doing, not where it goes. as a presence it seems to require a new mode of attention to be recognized, which i guess is why it sometimes makes me uneasy - that challenge, the way that challenge can be moralized. are you a bad enough dude to engage with art?? if there are 100 black obelisks in a field which one do you decide to look at? and will it really turn out to be deep, or just dense?

videogames can feel like depth-worship, like the embodiment of an essentially cthonic system of values. how deep did you go and what did you see there? did  you find the gold bars in pac-man? (www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=info&page=pmgoldbar.info.txt) did you see the secret ending? how far did you get into the game mechanics, into the lore? this marks the top 10 deepest players on this game. surpass  them... if you dare. an ethos of diligent attention, hierarchial levels of  understanding and initiate-dom, a sub-culture. and at best a maguslike  dedication to altered states of consciousness that i can respect, an interest in shifting through mangled pieces of debris in search of secret mysteries. at worst the authority cults and tests of true belonging that spring up around those mysteries, whose value is in being hidden and whose guarantee is in the strenuous effort with which they must be located. paranoia about true spiritual meanings being plundered by opportunistic interlopers. stay out. get good.

the videogame has the basic opacity of the computer system and the act of engaging with this curious abyss is allegorized into dungeons, castles, mazes. trapdoors and secret corridors. one pleasure in looking up older games for me is in seeing them recognize and learn how to thematize this basic sense of mystery. in bubble bobble the obscure scoring mechanics and secret endings are cheekily perverse, arcade challenge by another means - another system to game. in king's quest there's something like a crossfertilization between the strange causal voids of the fairy tale and the adventure game: "Exit the gingerbread house and go east and east. There is a large walnut tree here. Take walnut and then open walnut to discover a gold nut. Head east and take bowl . Look bowl  to see the words “fill” at the bottom. Fill and the bowl will fill up with a delicious stew." the wizardry games took the connection between mysterious game systems and occult knowledge much further - the "true" ending of wizardry iv means finding a secret chamber and answering a series of riddles based on your knowledge of the kaballah (or at least, kaballah-derived tarot interpretations).

it's easy to moralize depth - lotus eaters, magic islands. you wander through a strange land and then return to find it's 5 hours later and you forgot to eat. there's something creepy to me about depth on an industrial scale, about building huge tunnels with massive teams on forced overtime, and then a team of professional tunnel reviewers cautiously start descending on ropes and come back every so often and say, well, 20 hours in and it all looks ok, and meanwhile everybody else is jumping en masse. maybe that's more of an issue with consumer culture in general. but sometimes it feels like a way to avoid dealing with certain inherent limitations of that culture, or even limitations of art in general, by projecting those limits out to the end of ever-deeper tunnels that fewer and fewer people will ever see, the rest of them straggling back, exhausted, getting jobs. well, i can't tell you if red dead 2 is good or not. i only got 60 hours in, and i never even found all the falcons.

if the mystery of depth is having too much space for speculation to operate coherently within, the mystery of shallowness is having not enough space for speculation to operate at all: something is too manifestly there, limited, closed-off, it's hard to push it away to get some metaphorical breathing room. 

i feel this way sometimes reading writers like tove jansson, flannery o'connor - SOMETHING happened, the stories are short and clear and describe some definite event without too much uncertainty, they even have "broader themes" raised - but somehow the themes feel embarrassingly outsize for the stories, and the stories remain too clearly defined to sink back into the murk of a generalized moral or experience. they feel like moral stories when you can't work out what the moral might be.

robbe-grillet on raymond roussel: "Now these chains of elucidations,  extraordinarily precise, ingenious, and farfetched, appear so derisory, so disappointing, that it is as if the mystery remained intact. But it  is henceforth a mystery that has been washed, emptied out, that has become  unnameable. The opacity no longer hides anything. One has the impression of  having found a locked drawer, then a key; and this key opens the drawer impeccably... and the drawer is empty."

there's a famous shallowness to videogames as well that's most often caught by people outside the culture - when you see the fake videogames in a comicbook, or on tv, and they're named something like "washing machine simulator 3000" or "municipal tax assailants". and part of this also stems from the computer, the history of the computer as it insinuated its way into everyday life, as a mysteriously elaborate and convoluted way of doing just impossibly banal things, like balancing chequebooks or printing text. the stubborn thingliness of not-quite-functional machines, the way the thingliness glosses and corrodes their own internal fantasies, mirrors of the basic weirdness that is human consciousness as a material fact within the world. 

with my friend i used to joke  about "e3" just being the dumpster behind an abandoned gamestop - all those needy longform experiences frozen into evocative trinkets. find a nonfunctional disk copy of mario odyssey and it gives you all the same delight as playing mario odyssey, only without having to. i think there's something beautiful about that flatness, that directionless object-hostility, the rejection of the grandoise hero's journey fantasies that it implies – as well as something baleful, a rejection of consciousess in general, the idea that it could take you anywhere not inside your own head.

LOCATION

why are there so many videogames about going outside? every time i've played a videogame it's been inside a room, usually a dark one, mostly while still wearing my pajamas. for me it is an internal activity. but not only do all these games take place in fields and plains, they always talk about the wonders of going on a voyage, the beauty of the great outdoors, the superiority of the wandering main characters to the slugs and layabouts who sit at home all day.... it's weird to me, i demand we move past these cloying pseudo-critiques. raymond williams once pointed out that the first pastoral was written from the perspective of a rentier daydreaming of cashing out and moving to a country home. i demand more games with the courage of their implict convictions and that if they require you to sit motionless indoors  for hours they should explicitly establish and argue for a value system in which this is the best possible thing that you can do. imagine if movies were all set in dark chambers full of people sitting down - i think i can say they would be much less insipid as an artform. "all of man's problems stem from an inability to stay in his room".

(images: Gakken No O Benkyou Soft Kazu Suuji, Legend of Legaia, a Chinese bootleg cart, and ...Iru!)

[sweetautumnwine]

Music Prompt: "A Little Wicked" -Valerie Broussard

A Little Wicked

Killua trailed his fingers along the craggy wall of his cave, collecting droplets in the grooves of his hand. Storms soaked the soil above, and he found the taste of earth-traveled water more refreshing than that which was dredged up from wells and rivers. Even when served in bejeweled chalices, it could not compare. He would plunge his hands into wooden buckets scavenged from carriage wrecks and drink deeply, spilling some down his chest. The cold would seep through his tunic, but the fire he nursed dried it faster than towels ever could.

He was a long way from the palace. In some ways, Killua had come to appreciate the rustic life, how he’d developed useful skills and learned to survive without tutors and manservants, but the stones he assembled near the mouth of his cave could never compare to the throne he’d lost.

Temptation had ruined him.

Settling onto his malformed chair, he gazed out into the rain, at the flashes of light as they shattered the sky. Absently, he conjured tendrils of dark blue from his fingers, made them dance above his palm, before closing his fist and dispelling them into motes. He’d been so close to receiving the title of heir to the throne, had polished the crown himself and heard his father’s blessing through the cracks in the walls. At night, he practiced his speech to recite at the feast which would follow the announcement, thanking his family, his advisors, and his nation.

But with promise comes fear. His older brother, Prince Illumi, had not been considered for the throne since Killua’s birth. There were rumors of illegitimacy that could not be properly dismissed, and the king determined it would be best to pass on the title to one whose birthright was clear. As much as Illumi feigned acceptance, his neutrality carried with it a bitter edge.

He came to Killua in the evenings, after training sessions, and weave doubts. You’re too weak to lead a nation, he’d say. Father will never trust his council to you. He’ll make you king in name only. You have to prove yourself worthy if you want to rule like him.

Killua scheduled more meetings with retired generals, sparring with soldiers each day until he broke bones and was resigned to bedrest. Not once did the king visit. It was as Illumi said; weakness would never be tolerated on the throne.

Days into his confinement, Killua awoke with a stack of tomes beside his bed and a note from his brother. If you can’t train your body, the note read, train your mind instead.

Magic was forbidden. The people saw it as a defiance of the natural order, and those who pursued its study were often imprisoned, banished, or executed, depending on the extent of their abilities and the severity of their crimes. But Killua, plagued by fear, unlatched the lock on the first book and read under the light of the moon anyway, poring over pages and committing knowledge to memory. As much as he paled in comparison to his older, more experienced brothers, Killua possessed an intellect that rivaled court physicians and scholars alike; unfortunately, it was not simple intelligence alone that made a great leader, and Killua was never recognized for his abilities.

The more he studied, the more powerful he grew. Soon, he was able to conjure a familiar, a spectral shapeless thing dubbed Alluka who demonstrated first the ability to heal wounds. When he emerged from his bedroom weeks sooner than what had been deemed necessary, suspicion arose, and though Killua sensed he was being watched, he assumed more guards had been posted in anticipation of his coronation announcement rather than to investigate him.

He grit his teeth and curled his fingers around a rock by his thigh, expelling dark sparks from his fingertips into the cracks until the stone crumbled under his palm. Three years had passed since he’d been betrayed and discovered, and though the king had been merciful enough to banish him rather than condemn him to death by stoning, Killua couldn’t help but cling to his rage. He’d honed his skills further while in isolation, had strengthened his relationship with Alluka and helped her grow stronger, too, and someday, he would storm the castle and seize the throne for himself, the rightful heir.

For now, he fostered patience, watched the rain just beyond his reach and felt the thunder in his soles. Storms would pass, and night would fall. And soon enough, his time to strike would come.

War was a waiting game, above all else.

At the base of the mountain, Gon planted both hands firmly on either hip and craned his neck back, squinting at the peak. Turning to his trembling guide, he smiled. “And the cave’s near the top?”

“Y-yes, but… You really shouldn’t go up there,” the young man said, fidgeting. “It’s dangerous. No one ever comes back the same as they were when they went up — if they come back at all.”

“Well it is a long trip,” Gon said, shrugging. “They’re bound to be a bit dirty.”

The guide shook his head. “You don’t understand. They come back different, changed. The prince…” He gulped, lowering his voice. “He knows magic, better than anyone in the history of this land.”

Gon’s eyes glittered with excitement. “Really? I really want to meet him then!”

Mouth agape in disbelief, the guide cast his eyes heavenward. “If you’re so keen to die young, go ahead. But if you manage to return and you aren’t exactly right, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I would never lie about something like that,” Gon said. “You’ve been very helpful. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me? It’s gonna be a great adventure, I can tell.”

With a feeble, dismissive wave of his hand, the guide turned back toward the distant town. “You couldn’t pay me enough to join you, kid,” he said, sounding weary. “Best I can do is wish you good luck and say a prayer in our chapel.”

Even though the man had already begun his journey home, Gon bowed his head in appreciation. “Thanks, mister! I’m sure I’ll see you again soon!”

Interlocking his fingers, Gon stretched his arms out in front of himself before bending forward to touch his toes. He loosened up his knees and elbows, and leaned back as far as his spine would allow. The sky above was clear, baring only a few sparse clouds in sight, but Gon’s nose caught wind of a storm in the distance, blowing in from the east; it wouldn’t hit for several hours, and Gon was confident enough in his climbing ability that he was sure the weather wouldn’t affect his goal. With a final, filling breath, he approached the mountainside and reached for a handhold.

For years, Gon had traveled alone, perpetually seeking his next adventure. He’d learned to forage and scavenge, and he was often more comfortable in the forest than in the city; there, among the trees and wildlife, he felt he could truly breathe. Though he lived for the excitement that came with treasure hunts and cryptid chases, he longed to one day locate his father, who followed a similar path long before Gon could even read the wanted posters in the tavern. Still, Gon was determined to strengthen his own skills in strength, stamina, and survival before officially pursuing his goal, and the more dangerous the mission, the better.

His calloused hands easily scoured the wall for ledges, and even the steepest slopes did not deter him. He never feared the height nor even the fall. It was the sight of clouds drawing closer, the sensation of air thinning as he ascended, that drove him higher, as if reaching the peak would grant him something spectacular.

Not halfway to his goal, Gon paused and sniffed at the air, furrowing his brow. The winds had brought the storm much sooner than expected, and if he wanted to beat the rain, he would have to move faster and risk injury or descend and try another day. Admitting defeat was hardly an option, however, so he rolled back his shoulders and hoisted himself higher, scraping his knees against the rough stone and ignoring the path of blood he left behind.

By the time he spotted the lip of the cave, the tingle of electricity in the air raised the hairs at the back of his neck, and he shivered at the sudden drop in air pressure. This storm would be a bad one. Before Gon could even begin to regret his decision, he sucked in a fresh breath and clambered up the rest of the way, tearing open his palms and launching himself over the ledge, rolling into shelter.

Chest heaving, Gon lay by the curved wall, eyes watched the dark expanse of sky now visible. From his angle, he could see nothing by the storm clouds — no trees, no distant mountains, nothing at all. He drew his knees closer to his chest, and with a sigh of relief, let himself shudder into slumber, if only to rest his aching limbs.

From the depths of his cavernous home, Killua sensed the approaching rain. Storms occurred so frequently, it was a wonder how the surrounding valleys had yet to be washed away entirely. Still they stood, resilient as ever. On optimistic days, Killua reasoned he could stand to learn something from them.

It was not an optimistic day.

He’d awoken near noon from a haunting nightmare, one that left him soaked in sweat and with a headache severe enough to rival war injuries. Alluka roused herself from slumber at the first sign of consciousness and brushed his temples to ease the pain, but the effects would linger throughout the day. Even as he studied, practiced conjuring spectral soldiers and communing with disparaged heroes of the past, he couldn’t shake the hollow halls he’d wandered in, how the torchlight painted everything gray, even the familiar tapestries. He’d committed the palace to memory, and such princely measures did nothing but cause him agony in his exile.

When the storm grew closer, Killua wiped his brow with cool water and draped a cloak around his shoulders for warmth. “We’ll watch the storm again today,” he said, motioning for Alluka to join him. “I want to study lightning more, learn to harness it. Imagine my father’s face when I come to the castle gates wielding bolts like a god. He’ll have no choice but to surrender.”

Though Alluka did not respond with words, she brushed against his shoulder as he walked, spreading warmth through the fabric to greet his skin.

As they neared the entrance, Killua slowed, detecting a disturbance. He held out a hand to encourage Alluka to halt. “Someone’s here,” he said, and before she could grow fretful, he bolted forward, summoning a web of magic between his hands to capture and subdue the intruder, while also concealing the sound of his footsteps with a shadowed shroud. Beyond simple strength and wit, Killua had trained extensively in stealth, and magic only enhanced his abilities.

He rounded a corner and emerged, full speed, into the largest hall of the cave, and at the sight of the boy slumped against the wall, he froze.

It was not like Killua to hesitate. But the boy’s eyes had flashed open upon Killua’s entrance, as though he’d sensed his presence in spite of the magical interference.

The boy sat up straighter, eyes wide and mouth hanging open to bear teeth and tongue. “It’s you; it’s really you,” he gushed, leaning forward. He placed both hands on the cave floor for support, wincing when the gravel dug into his wounds. He grinned anyway. “You’re amazing, Prince Killua, you know that?”

Killua dropped the web of magic, let it fade into the floor by his feet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to another person who hadn’t immediately demanded a fight, or who hadn’t declared the existence of a bounty in return for his head. Though Killua easily dispatched those who trespassed, this boy was different. He spoke kindly, with something close to reverence in his voice, and showed no inclination of waging battle.

“Who are you?” Killua asked.

The boy chuckled. “Just a traveler,” he said, and Killua recognized this as a severe understatement. “You can call me Gon.”

“Leave,” Killua said. He didn’t like how his senses had grown heightened, how his heartbeat felt thick. “Get out of here and never come back.”

Gon weakly looked out to the rain, at the spears of lightning, and his shoulders shook. “I’ll die if I go out now.”

“So?”

“So,” Gon said, with a surprising amount of vehemence, “I don’t want to die right now. I’ve got stuff I want to do. Can’t I stay until the storm passes?”

Blinking, Killua took a single step back. The boy’s charming adamance and foolish rebellion disarmed him. He swallowed, then turned sharply away. “Fine. Just until it passes. Then leave and never come back. I’ve got my own destiny.”

Relieved, Gon sprawled out on the damp cave floor, stretching his back and groaning one as he extended his legs. “Thanks,” he said, closing his eyes. “You’re a lot nicer than people say. I thought for sure you were gonna turn me into a toad or something.”

“I still could,” Killua said, eying the boy. “Don’t tempt me.”

Gon laughed, folded his arms so that his hands cushioned his head. “Fair enough. I won’t bother you anymore after this. Promise.”

As the boy’s breathing grew steady, Killua faced him fully, noting the dirty clothes, adventurer’s gear, and the raw wounds marring his skin. Drawing closer, Killua raised a hand to summon Alluka to his side. “Heal him,” he said, surprising himself. At her hesitation, he gave her a stern look. “If he dies in this cave, I’ll have to deal with a dead body, and I’m not in the mood to dig another grave. Just do it. Please.”

Alluka obeyed as Killua watched her work, saw the skin expel dirty and stone and replenish flesh as though no injury had ever been there. Her work was always impeccable, supernaturally perfect, and with a start Killua realized that this was the first time he’d extended her power to someone outside himself.

His lips twitched, a sharp breath huffing past his teeth. “Congratulations, Gon,” he said, sweeping his cloak over the boy’s body. “You might be special, or you might just be lucky. Rest well.”

Without sparing another glance back at the boy, Killua ventured deep into the caves, following a path known only to himself, and found himself wishing, if only faintly, for Gon to be still be there in the morning.

[cosmiciaria]

Dragon Age Inquisition Review (Spoiler Free!)

I know, I KNOW, DOES ANYBODY STILL TALK ABOUT THIS GAME? *just you* I DON'T CARE!

Maybe now that it was (almost) confirmed that Dragon Age 4 is a thing, people will come back to the older games. I must admit, I jumped completely BLIND into this game: haven't played Origins or II, never knew anything about the story – just so you know, the only thing I knew prior to playing this game was Alistair and the infatuation everyone (men and women) feel for this man. I knew it was an rpg, that you create your own avatar and that you could romance some characters, but that was all. IN FACT my knowledge of this game was so little that I thought Alistair was a main character in this one! Just imagine!

Fortunately, Dragon Age Inquisition is pretty friendly to newcomers: it doesn't overwhelm you with information, it tells a self-contained story and it's conclusive (or… not so much. I'm looking at you, dlc expansions). Of course, that doesn't mean that I haven't scouted throughout the whole internet for all the deets, but that's on me.

So you play as the Inquisitor: a character you create. Male or female, they can be Human, Elf, Dwarf or Qunari. It's worth noting that, whereas it's good to have variety, Bioware failed to deliver good animations for each of the races, due to the fact that dwarves and the Qunari (too short or too tall respectively) are sometimes cropped out of the scenes or their animations just don't match their arms or legs. It's a bit sad, for it could've been a great opportunity, but in the end, it seems the game was created for you to play as a human.

I chose to be what later I realized was the worst thing in all Thedas: a female elven mage. It wasn't until a few hours later that I noticed how much hate mages received! And my elf, being a dalish, a tribe of elves that abandoned those who lived in cities and strived for reviving the old ways, living in forests and such, were despised even by the other elves as well. So I was Inquisitor Lavellan, the worst scum on Earth. Great! Personally I adore mages and they are always my first choice when it comes to character creation. You might guess some of my later decisions in the game based on this.

You're thrown into the game with a weird mark on your left hand. First thing you know, you're a prisoner, and Cassandra and Leliana (two returning characters) are interrogating you in the dungeons, demanding answers. Of course you don't understand a thing they're talking about, until they show what YOU, YOU ABHORRENT CREATURE have created: a huge green breach pierces the sky, opening the way to the Fade, the land of spirits and demons. And you, you ABHORRENT CREATURE must close it, because it was you the one who opened it! You and your mark! You're led by Cassandra, a female warrior and Seeker of Truth, to the heart of the breach. In your way you'll meet two future companions, Varric (from DAII) and Solas, another elven mage. Now the squad is formed, you venture into this veil, only to find a vision of the past: Divine Justinia, the woman Cassandra served and the leader of the Chantry, asking you to run away before something explodes. The suspicion on you just grows stronger, but also the respect and the mystery around the mark of your hand. You fail to close the breach, and you're left unconscious for a couple of days.

You wake up in a cozy and warm place: Haven. This will be your hub-world for at least twenty hours. I MUST tell you this, for I felt the game only started when these first twenty hours finished: you're given quests and the story progresses fast enough to make you feel safe and secure in your way. The Inquisition es formed to fight this breach in the sky, and you must recruit as many companions as you can. Only after completing the initial quests and reuniting all the playable characters can I safely say the game starts.

Haven is attacked by Coripheus, a bad bad bad guy (you can notice he's evil because of his appearance, so evil and cruel, evil, evil man) and his archdemon, a huge black dragon. They tore down the whole place. You, as the main hero/heroine, must save everyone from total doom. You of course succeed in this (after a really annoying battle with fiends spawning every two seconds without allowing you to fricking spin a wheel), but Haven is forever destroyed in the process.

Thanks to Solas, the squad finds a new headquarters to live in: Skyhold, which is SO BEAUTIFUL AND REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF HOGWARTS- pretty useful for the Inquisition's purposes. You're officially named the Inquisitor, which for my character was a big deal, because she was not only a fricking hated mage, but also a fricking hated dalish elf. I made her always stood up for her race and her abilities, which served a greater purpose I believe the game hid very well: to break with prejudices. This is easy to miss if you play as a rogue human or warrior human, but when you play with other races, especially elves or Qunari, you can see how things change.

It's just a detail, but this hate for elves is such that when you do the Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts main quest and you need to gain points from the Orlaisian court, an elf starts off with ten less points of approval than a human. It's stupid, it's tiny, but it goes to show that prejudices are a huge thing in this game. Don't even get me started with mages, goddammit!

I know this all goes back to the previous games, and that's why I've read/watched what happens in those. Still, it's good that Bioware lets you redeem past characters with yours in Inquisition.

So now that you're at Skyhold, many new main quests unlock, many new main areas unlock as well and the game actually starts! I won't say the first part was just a prologue, for it's not, but it feels like the action picked up the pace once you get to your new home. As I said, being in Haven makes you feel comfortable and warm. The game creates a false feeling of safety before dealing a devastating blow, and that hit me hard.

From now on, you can do side quests, explore areas, close some rifts, talk to your companions and follow the main storyline as you please. It's all up to you! I won't spoil what happens, but I will talk about other stuff, like its characters.

Let's start off with your main Inquisitor. Their personality can vary between three main reactions to everything: either you're generous and solomonic, sarcastic and ironic, or direct and blunt, mostly unfriendly. I always went for the first option, but sometimes I needed to be a fricking bitch to get things done. One of the most important instances in which you can see right through your main character is the Sit in Judgment quests: after some main quests, you're given the option to judge certain characters that took part in it. The choices aren't the same for each case and mostly depends on your decisions or actions throughout the game, but again there are three main options: to give them a fair punishment (like community work), lock them up in the dungeons or execution. It kind of reminded me of Game of Thrones, when Ned tells Bran that the man dictating the punishment should wield the sword, well, it goes along those lines.

You can also begin a romantic relationship with the romanceable characters available to your race and gender. Specifically, a female elven Inquisitor can romance Cullen, Solas, Josephine, Iron Bull, Sera and Blackwall. A female human Inquisitor can romance all of the above, except for Solas. A female Inquisitor of the other races can romance Josephine, Iron Bull, Sera and Blackwall. And a male Inquisitor, doesn't matter the race, can romance Cassandra, Dorian, Iron Bull and Josephine again. So, once again, without even knowing it, I chose to be the most desirable Inquisitor in all Thedas! I believe the romantic relationship adds too much depth to both the romanceable character and your Inquisitor: you'll see them interacting in ways that are not available in other instances, and also develops their characters well beyond what the game wants to show you at first glance. Personally, I chose Cullen (I swear I didn't know ANYTHING about him from past games – I later investigated, and it fits so well that he falls in love with a mage!), but I'd advise you to try the other relationships as well. Cof, especially, cof, cof, Solas, cof, cof, damn you dlc expansions.

Let's talk for a bit about your companions. These will be your playable characters for the rest of the game. Prior to the attack to Haven, you can recruit Blackwall, a grey warden, with a past that hides more than meets the eye; Vivienne, an enchantress so beautiful that it made me question my sexuality a few times; Dorian, the most handsome mage in all Thedas that unfortunately only has eyes for men and not for this poor female Inquisitor who's been friendzoned by him; Sera, a rogue elf who doesn't like much magic or the elves or anything related to the Fade, but has the most interesting and funniest personality out of the team; Iron Bull, a mercenary Qunari who works with his team of rogues and is perfectly open to whatever sexual practice you're willing to try; and Cole, a spirit of a boy taken straight out of an anime and that sometimes made me want to cry myself to sleep with his storyline. These guys, alongside Varric, Solas and Cassandra, will accompany you to your missions. For each place you go, you have to choose three of them to form your team, but at each camp you can swap your characters just like that. Three warriors, three mages and three rogues, each of them specializing in one of the branches available for the class the Inquisitor belongs to. I recommend you to bring them all to your missions, maybe just walking around with them, for they interact with each other and their reactions are so natural and casual that makes me wonder how many lines were recorded for this game! And it adds so much to them and to their personalities!

At Skyhold, you'll have your counselors waiting for you at the war table: Cullen, your hot-as-hell-and-I-want-you-to-marry-me-you-sexy-pixel commander; Leliana, the master of spies and mother of all secrets and crows; and Josephine, your well educated ambassador, whose accent made me rethink in how many ways can the letter R be pronounced and that I've been saying it wrong my whole life.

All of these characters are unique and memorable. Companions and counselors will give you quests related to their backstories, in which you can learn from them and, if you're romancing them, advance further in your relationship. I strongly recommend you play all of their quests, for it develops the main story, and it makes you understand them. These are all morally grey characters, none of them are black or white, and sometimes some of your decisions in their quests can alter the ending of the game. So backle up, because there are these Social Links to complete and- sorry, wrong game.

For the most part, Dragon Age Inquisition remains with a serious and ominous tone. That's why there are certain scenes that melted my heart and robbed me of a few laughs and giggles, like the night they all play cards and Cullen ends up naked because he lost, or the man you have to judge that's angry at you and throws goats at Skyhold's walls – Maker's Breath, that one was a gem! And let us not forget about Cass and her filfthy readings! For these moments, I'm terribly grateful, for they remind me that sometimes it's good to relax and give these poor, tortured characters a break.

The voice acting in this game is just flawless. I can only speak for Cullen's romance, but his voice actor nailed it perfectly. There were scenes with him that destroyed my heart, and only because of how he spoke, so soft and sweet. AND LET ME JUST TELL YOU, THIS CUTSCENE:

IF YOU LISTEN CAREFULLY YOU CAN HEAR MY HEART BREAKING IN THE DISTANCE

The music score in this game was better than I expected. The main theme fits so well the tone of the story, and I was left impressed by the songs you can hear in the taverns! They're there, in the background, but if you stop to listen, you find magic and charm in their lyrics. Unexpected to say the least!

Visuals are also a delight. Except for character models, sceneries are colorful and vivid. A pity some animations are rigid and repetitive. 

However much I loved this game (and Cullen Wullen Cully Wully), I must say it's far from perfect. Most of my issues stem from technical problems and bugs: more than once my character was trapped in the falling animation without being able to make her walk, sometimes a character would disappear from a cutscene and suddenly the other characters would speak INTO THE VOID, some trophies are bugged and wouldn't pop up, etcetera, etcetera. There’s little room for appearance customization, with only short hairs for both male and female (Gods how I wish mods were a thing in consoles). I'm also quite angry that the actual ending that most probably will lead to Dragon Age 4 is in the expansion pack Trespasser, which is only 5 hours long and it currently costs (in Argentina PSN) over 17 dollars. If you've been following our poor and sad history with exchange rates, you'll know that's a lot of money for just a few hours of story I can easily find in YouTube (although I want to play it so bad!). I've bought complete games cheaper than that. Hell, this whole game costed me only 6 dollars!

That aside, and if you're able to oversee the bugs, I assure you, this is a great game. Gameplay is fast paced, the specialization for each character is deep and it marks a difference with the others, and the way you develop a friendship with each of your companions melted my heart. During the epilogue, you get to speak to each of them and the things they say to you can be synthetized in "dhajkdjakldjakldklas!!!".

I entered this world without a single piece of knowledge of it, and now, Dragon Age has gained a new follower. I'm thinking about playing the first two (of course, a fricking female mage again, because GO MAGES, GO!), only to cry in a corner waiting for the fourth installment to ever see the light of day.

If you liked The Witcher, or World of Warcraft, or are a fan of the past games, you can’t miss this one. Go, become the Inquisitor, kill some dragons, save the world, have some fun with your partner, love and care for Cullen Wullen Cully Wully, thank you.

[genocidershodan]

The Kobolds

“No story in all of Halidore is sadder than the story of the kobolds.” -Elzor

As humans evolved from early primates along with monkeys and apes, so to do the kobolds have a common ancestor with goblins. It’s also strongly believed that they have an avian influence in their heredity due to their prominent head plumage and parrot like beaks.

The foot of the expansive series of mountain ranges that divided the continent in two were littered with numerous cave entrances that lead into an unimaginably immense network of tunnels, so complex and deep that they delve far into the the Earth’s crust. These tunnels are so enormous it’s believed that they span wider than the continent of Halidore itself. Commonly referred to in it’s entirety as the dark side, or the underworld.

It’s not known how these tunnel and cave networks were formed. But life can be found anywhere and in these depths evolved two forms of life with higher intelligence. The kobolds lived mostly solitary lives to avoid competing for resources, meeting to mate perhaps only once or twice in their lives and would lay up to twenty eggs in a single meeting. Both parents would nurture the children together, once the children had matured, all members of the family would part.

With a herbivorous diet that constituted of fungus, moss, and other cave creatures. The variety of nutrients allowed them to develop higher level brain power and stronger muscles. Setting them apart from the smaller carnivorous goblins. Until human intervention, kobolds had not yet mastered the use of fire or tools more advanced than a rock. They had developed a kind of proto-language of grunts, squawks, and clicks unique to each particular family unit.

Over time kobolds spread closer and closer to the surface, trying to steer far clear of the malconids who resided further down. Though they shied away from venturing outdoors if it was avoidable. The harsh sunlight was far too strong for their eyes that were adept at seeing in the darkness. It wasn’t too long that they discovered that humans who ventured into their tunnels, mostly miners and explorers, made for big tasty meals that could keep a whole litter fed for a few days.

This is how kobolds made themselves known to the surface world. Beginning as wild tales and rumours of vicious beasts that lurked in the caves waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting person unfortunate enough to venture alone into the blackness. Eventually, live specimens were caught and tested. In the year 1743 A.C, they were registered as a primitive life form of low intelligence. However, it wasn’t long before it was realised that kobolds could learn to mimic human language and follow taught instructions. The empire of Rytsia-Altaire began sending expeditions into the caverns to capture kobolds alive, and from this sprung a roaring slave trade that lasted just over a century and a half. As it was widely believed that kobolds were comparable to dogs in terms of intelligence, and thus weren’t considered slaves. More like working livestock.

In the year 1907, the Aphidian Lyceum had released a conclusive study that kobolds were comparable to humans regarding intelligence and emotional expression. Slavery had been universally outlawed since the fall of the Wikkerana. And after the burning of the Seven Saints, that cemented the idea of personal freedom in the public consciousness, a huge uproar rippled across the continent. Almost overnight the kobold slave trade collapsed. And several key figures were prosecuted and many even executed once it came out that this information was being actively suppressed.

In an unprecedented move of international cooperation, the resolution of the kobold situation was swift and decisive. Although in later years, what would be known as the Kobold Exodus, would be seen as poorly handled. Large swathes of land were given, in shared borders where possible, and the freed slaves were dumped en masse in these reserves and left to fend for themselves.

Most of what happened in the kobold lands since then has been a mystery. Around the late 1900s or early 2000s The Knife In The Dark, one of the Ancient Gods, chose a kobold as Their Messiah, who spread a unified language and alphabet to the seven different reservations, among other knowledge. At some point, Dracaenas, who to this day remains a mysterious figure, somehow infiltrated their society. Setting himself up as their supreme ruler. Building a society that was completely centred around him, possibly even worshipping him as some kind of deity. Dracaenas planned the coming war well. It wasn’t until far after the trap had been sprung that any other nation knew exactly how effectively.

Dracaenas’ origins, or even his motivations are completely unknown. He does not seem to be of any of the known species and may possibly have arrived to Halidore through the Voidal Conductor. He also had his own powerful magic, the full extent of which are not known, but his mastery over souls was incredible and he performed feats that even the eldar might not have been able to accomplish. He could infuse his own power into another beings soul, a power only matched by the Ancient Gods and Their Messiahs. He also was known to absorb another soul into himself. What this actually accomplished is still a mystery, as is much of the science regarding souls. But this earned him among humans the name of the vampire dragon. Also due to his draconic appearance, but upright, human like stature.

Despite his unknown motivations. It was clear that he was wielding the kobolds as a weapon of genocide across the continent of Halidore. Destroying almost all of human civilisation. In the darkest hour, a final plan was elected for a diversionary attack while a smaller force assaulted the flying fortress directly. Dracaenas was defeated by Temjin. With his three generals, the only three who could possibly have taken over his role, also been killed during the war, the rigid command structure he had setup failed and collapsed. With no one issuing orders, the fighting ceased and the kobolds retreated north.

There has been not a single word from them since, and no attempt has been made to send any kind of delegate from fear of waking a sleeping enemy. Though theories are abound as almost two hundred years have passed since the war ended. Maybe the kobolds were being influenced by Dracaenas through some kind of mind control, or hypnotic suggestion, or maybe they had suffered heavy casualties, possibly their society is open to negotiations but are afraid of reprisal, or maybe they have been biding their time and waiting to strike again.

Back to species

Back to Black Horizon

[queernuck]

Misdiagnosing Anti-Psychiatry

The misunderstanding and misinterpretation of anti-psychiatry as a movement involves a fundamental act of reclamation by neoliberal opposition: the opposition of psychiatric acts as realized in one fashion or another by neoliberal structures of reckoning is part of a larger apparatus of control, is the dissolution of the Asylum in a kind of Reaganite echo, the insistence upon a concept of the body and the mind as reduced to Cartesian objects of commodification, and itself prone to evoking a response that is not in any way meaningfully in favor of critique of psychiatric violence, hierarchy, the restructuring of the asylum in the school, the prison, the police as armed healthcare providers, but merely an act of creating difference in the exact character of justification, of an individualizing account of “neurodivergence” far more for parents and police than for patients.

The opposition that is contained within “anti” as a kind of signifier of mere opposition, rather than the fuller act of engagement implied by its use in a title like Anti-Oedipus is part of the vital semiotic act of describing anti-psychiatry as populated by the same sorts of ideologues who reject vaccines out of a belief that they cause autism, which itself relies on not rejecting structures of medical establishment, but in fact copying them, renaming and resignifying them, acting out of the same epistemic framework. Frequently, an “autism epidemic” is used to discuss the way in which autism is seeing an increase in diagnosis, and this same structure is often gendered, with the understanding that there is a task to “bring back” boys from a shell of autistic unreality and birth them into a new life as a post-autistic individual, one able to think and moreover display those thoughts in an acceptable fashion, with acceptable opinions not only on their neurotype but a continual display of that neurotype, a performative gendering of their body as one that can continue to act as a machine of Oedipal filiation, the reflection of Oedipus in one’s children creating the nexus of filial affinity. These processes neglect to mention that it is in aesthetic, rather than epistemic, mimicry that this approach originates, and that a more meaningful analysis (even a psychoanalytic one) sees the notion of having an autistic child as itself a traumatic experience for a parent, a trauma that fundamentally changes how a parent views themselves and their child, an Oedipal trauma of the highest order induced by capitalist structures of performativity and producing-production implied in the role of parentage. The “loss” of boys to Autism is in fact not any such occurrence, but a result of coercive acts of sexing and gendering the body: the body is first sexed, and then given certain possibilities of embodiment as a result, cultivated and nurtured in certain fashions, expected to respond in kind, and the structures of response at hand lead much more readily to the diagnosis of autism in boys than in girls. There is not a problem of increased prevalence of autism in boys, but its lack of abundance for girls. The means by which psychiatric study so often concentrates on expanding and creating new potentiality for boys while neglecting the same for girls is a foundational aspect of the kind of violence it creates, the sort of violence that psychiatry relies on. Being anti-psychiatry is thus not being against attempts to care for or mitigate harmful symptoms, but rather critiquing the ways in which diagnoses are used to striate and collapse the body into sexed and gendered and racialized and class-based subjectivities. 

The restructuring of schizophrenia and schizophrenic experience is akin to deconstruction in that schizoanalysis represents a process of fleeing, of upturning, of radiance and restructuring, deterritorializing, new signifiers of meaning and difference along with new lines-of-flight becoming more apparent specifically due to the opposition between previous modalities of relating and the ones proposed by schizophrenic potential. The hallucinatory, the psychotic, the immaterial is signified within schizophrenic experience specifically because these structures of dismissal form fundamental aspects of phenomenal experience, the phantasmic differentiation of the material, experiences of ecstasy and psychedelic glee that cannot be ignored, are not ignored by Deleuze and Guattari. Inducing these experiences through drug use is a common means of expanding thought processes, is taken as a kind of naughty breaking of taboo in the same way that college-aged lesbianism is, fetishized but ultimately expected to sublimate into its reflection in heteronormative structures of desire, normative ideation of the body and the brain as well as the subjectivity embodied within. The body does not produce these experiences, cannot understand phantasmic structures of difference; instead, they are ascribed to external delusions as a means of experiencing the world. Delusion is a strictly negative term, one that can be ironically reversed but only with the retention of its semiotic load, positing unrealness as lacking any genuine quality, as a false and unreliable sort of experience. One must, then, be “sane” enough to recognize the hallucinatory, and can only then relay the expansion of the body at hand. Schizoanalysis as deconstruction, deterritorialization, lies specifically in the rejection of these codifying norms and instead a kind of acceptance of sign, signifier, signified, simulation and simulacra as equal in their semiotic content, in the free association of semiotically similar expressions, the process of moving from one to another as not toward any end, but itself a producing-production in need of exploration. Anti-psychiatry can certainly mean helping schizophrenic people live lives where they can willingly differentiate between certain orders of signification that are meaningful to them, but it is in providing an epistemic framework for these orders of signification that psychiatry begins to impose structures of violence. These structures are dedicated to the producing of a productive worker or a sufficiently innocuous subject, rather than allowing for schizophrenic understandings of experience to inform those around them. The potential for an expansion and development of signifying structures to the phantasmic is a vital part of schizoanalysis and the structure of schizophrenia.

Comparisons between surveys of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, or with autism, that compare cultural concepts are important specifically because they provide a sort of insight into the violent codification of selfhood and experience that psychiatry provides, seeks to provide. The experience of “hearing voices” is highly contingent upon the ways in which these experiences are expected to manifest: an understanding that such hallucinations must be violent, must be urging an unspoken and moreover unspeakable desire leads to just that, the experience of such voices. However, conceptualization of them as spirits, as ancestors or as of the body, of the world leads to a far more positive relationship, the creation of a structure of experience in which voices are neutral, if not helpful. Spirituality, as a structure, can describe not only belief but an understanding of metaphysical structure and the ontologies it implies, such that one can belong to a spiritual tradition without believing in the particular metaphysical, historical, or ontological claims made within this tradition while still engaging in it. Frequently, traditions such as Christianity create an overarching necessity of belief and moreover dualist belief in body and spirit as necessary to approaching the theological as a certain field of knowledge. Of course, the prevalence of atheism among former Catholics with a deep love for the Church’s history, metaphysics, ethics, saints and angels (and many likely schizophrenics) is due to the way in which critique of the Church so often comes from within, as part of a refinement and questioning of the reasoning behind tradition that amounts to discourse of signification and signifier, the bridge from Augustine to Derrida. And this, in turn, is to say nothing of the depth with which Judaism as a culture invites and repeats numerous means of engaging with Jewish identity, Jewish culture, Jewish theology and metaphysics and spirituality without a belief that goes beyond the material, a belief that is transcendent all the same. The notion of rejecting dualist thought as precluding all attempts at describing the phantasmic, the metaphysical, of “spiritual” experience and religious understanding as reducible to the material requires either an extravagantly wide definition of the material (a potentially worthwhile course of action) or an incredibly reductive metaphysics of difference, a reduction of notions of sympathetic magic as a kind of meaning-making within relativist paradigms to repetition and ritual that does not generate the same sort of engagement as earnest partaking (even without belief) does. From here, one can begin to give structures such as schizophrenia meaning beyond their collapsing act as a diagnosis, can affirm the rituals and experiences of autistic individuals as comprising meaningful systems rather than mere representations of an overarching condition. 

Psychiatry is specifically part of the asylum as a kind of metacultural phenomena, a structure twinned to the school, the hospital, the prison by its history, its influence, its creation and dissolution, the fear with which schizophrenia or psychosis are regarded and the intentional conflation of capitalist processes described as such with those who have been named by these diagnostic structures. When capitalism is described as schizophrenic, it is not saying that capitalism is dangerous and that schizophrenics are dangerous as a result, nor is it reducing capitalism to a mere “condition” to be medicated. Rather, it is likening capitalist development to a structure of experience, using that experience to explain the larger structural cultivation of experience within capitalist subjectivity, to describe the ways in which capitalist development attempts to name and reflect subjectivity outside of hierarchical development. Psychiatric structures of control study and cultivate these experiences specifically to then capture, control, sedate them, to subject such experiences to limiting and ontologically bound structures of gender, homophobic violence, to ensure that racialized structures of relating are acted out in any given interaction, the ideological replication of these structures in and on the body. The traumatic acceptance and embodiment of these structures is why anti-psychiatry is so important when looking at trans subjectivities, gay and lesbian and bisexual understandings of love and friendship and filiation outside of heterosexual preclusions of identity as meaningful or worth understanding, the acceptance of trauma and paranoia as experiences induced by racial violence rather than delusion and moreover the experience of delusion along lines that mirror racial violence not as mere delusion but as understanding of a structure far deeper than the psychiatric account of such experience is able to account for.

Anti-psychiatry can be reassuringly noted as not being anti-treatment, but even in this scenario “treatment” is a paradigm rooted in psychiatric understandings of what “recovery” must mean. The description of relationships to medication as part of psychiatric violence become a point of contention, and a fundamental question must be asked about the material purpose of drugs and their usage. MDMA is useful for talk therapy as experimentation has proved, but has largely been made available again for such uses by its popularity as a club drug. Stimulants are often used to treat ADD/ADHD, but their usage as such can approach coercive in even the best cases, and most frequently amounts to forcing a potential-worker to become a possible “someone” through the use of amphetamines. If a person wishes to use stimulants to take a specific sort of joy from labor, to enhance their experience or to direct their phenomenological focus onto a certain task, that is absolutely understandable and to be encouraged. But all the same, this should be realized as a potential reproduction of capitalist pressure to produce for profitability within socialist flows of labor, must be measured alongside a producing-production that sees work not as for the betterment of another and one’s own betterment as a result, but for one’s own betterment as part of a larger and more meaningful process of development. Overwhelmingly, the negative effects of using psychoactive drugs from psychiatric practice recreationally come from how habituation is punished by capitalist restrictions on the body, and in turn the ways in which capitalist structures are navigated in order to avoid these experiences. Treatment, as a whole, must be shifted from simply making the body of a worker to the bettering of the body, to schizophrenic structures of developing the body as that which is most intimately one’s own, not one’s property but rather the very constitution of experience, interaction, community, a community in one and the basic unit of communal (and communist) experience. Treatment is to be a process of acceptance and betterment, not reduction.

Anti-psychiatry requires burning the asylum, but requires the same of prisons, schools, even hospitals as they reflect structures of maintenance of the body that require capitalist producing-production to be intelligible. It is only toward these ends that psychiatric structures are directed, and anti-psychiatry opposes this specifically because it opposes the greater structure within which psychiatry is based. It is not merely a capitalist resignification, it is not a denial of experience but rather a push to resignify and reclaim the most basic kinds of experience possible, to resignify the empirical element of transcendent empiricism.

[thedatasciencehyderabad]

Why We Need Data Science

Without prior data of Statistics and Computer Science, a person with important experience in these fields will discover it difficult to resolve Data Science issues. A Data Scientist investigates completely different knowledge developments to evaluate the impact on an enterprise. A Data Scientist’s ability to make clear the importance of knowledge so that everybody will understand is crucial. Data science which means in-depth analysis of huge volumes of information contained in a company’s or organization’s archive. This analysis entails figuring out the place the info comes from, evaluating its quality, and figuring out if this knowledge will be utilized to help enterprise expansion sooner or later. Apart from technical abilities, Data Science additionally requires wonderful communication skills.

While it's true that the sphere of Data Science is immense, its rewards, nevertheless, are even larger. As technologies are rapidly evolving and changing, new applied sciences are changing the older ones. Therefore, Data Science is playing an essential function in helping governments and policymakers to make higher selections. Still, the pay scale of Data Scientist is a method above different IT and administration sectors. However, the salary observed by Data Scientists is proportional to the amount of work that they want to put in. Data Science wants exhausting work and requires an individual to be thorough with his/her abilities.

This step also involves an Exploratory Data Analysis to supply a more in-depth evaluation of the data and understand the connection between the variables. Some methods used for EDA are histograms, field plots, pattern evaluation, and so forth. To give additional readability on what Data Science is, here is a detailed description of the phases involved within the lifecycle of a Data Science project. Let us perceive what a Data Scientist does in the subsequent part of the What is Data Science article. A sturdy deal with statistics may help you extract extra intelligence and obtain extra meaningful outcomes. Here we conclude that studying Data Science is the hour of need and we should be data-literate to take up jobs of the future.

According to a report by LinkedIn, Data Science dominates its emerging job rating with a whopping 37% hiring growth over the past three years. Data Science is revolutionizing almost every trade and gaining reputation daily. When researching bootcamps, it is important to contemplate your career targets and what you’d wish to get out of this system. Some bootcamps are geared towards newbies, whereas others are higher fitted to those with some programming or pc science expertise.

This requires the Data Scientist to have area information of that particular trade. A Data Scientist is a wizard who knows tips on how to create magic utilizing data. Having good gentle expertise is considered one of the important abilities required to make a career in Data Science. Statistics is probably certainly one of the important expertise required for Data Scientist jobs.

Big Data & Data Science is beyond being a tool of Business Intelligence. Various philanthropic and social organizations are using information to create merchandise for social good. Also, numerous health-care organizations are using information for helping medical doctors to have higher insights about their patient’s well being. A health-care company will require Data Scientists to help them analyze genomic sequences. The wage of a Data Scientist depends on his function and type of labor he has to carry out. It additionally is dependent upon the dimensions of the corporation which is predicated on the amount of data they make the most of.

Data science is gaining momentum in all markets, and it now plays a vital position within the activity and development of every product. As a result, the need for Data Scientists has risen since they are answerable for managing information and providing answers to complicated points. A market intelligence marketing consultant assists in learning gathered data to enhance the company’s productivity and revenue. Their job is extra scientific than theoretical, and it necessitates a larger understanding of frequent machines.

Awareness of analytical tools – SAS, Hadoop, Spark, and R are some of the most typical Data Scientists’ analytical tools. Natural Language Processing goals to supply computers the flexibility to interpret pure human languages. NLP scientists are in control of designing and engineering computer systems and software programs that can learn human language speech habits and convert spoken phrases into other languages. The purpose is to allow computers to understand human languages in the same means that people do. NLP apps similar to Grammarly and Duolingo are two outstanding examples. Data Science also has the downside of being reliant on area knowledge.

Data is being generated because of the daybreak of human civilization. However, only lately we've been in a position to faucet its true potential and draw insights from it. Only prior to now, we have started to depict information as a gasoline for industries. The major contributor to this latest revolution is the rise in computational power. In the 21st century, the brand new driving force behind industries is Data.

However, there aren’t sufficient sources to transform this information into helpful merchandise. However, despite all these advancements, information stays in a vast ocean that's rising every second. While the huge abundance of knowledge can be helpful for the industries, the issue lies within the ability to make use of this data.

You can use Hadoop to rapidly convey data to numerous factors on a system. You can use Hadoop for knowledge exploration, information filtration, knowledge sampling and summarization. We totally respect if you want to refuse cookies but to keep away from asking you again and again kindly permit us to store a cookie for that. You are free to choose out any time or decide in for other cookies to get a greater experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our area. In this case, we need to predict the value of a 1.35-carat diamond.

Data science uses advanced machine studying algorithms to build predictive fashions. Due to the rising importance of knowledge, the demand for a Data scientist can be rising. They at the moment are turning into essential components of products, trades, public companies, and non-profit organizations. A Data Scientist could be defined as the data and pc scientist, database and software programmers, curators and skilled annotator. All of them are very necessary for the profitable management of digital information collection.

He makes use of various statistical tools to research and draw conclusions from the data. In the top, he obtains outcomes that he must share with the corporate. They want it for his or her data-driven decision fashions and creating better buyer experiences. In this section, we are going to explore the particular areas that these companies focus on to find a way to make smarter data-driven choices. Its importance is mirrored in the many merchandise designed to spice up customer experiences.

Data Science involves mining massive datasets containing structured and unstructured knowledge and identifying hidden patterns to extract actionable insights. A data scientist’s salary depends on years of expertise, skillset, schooling, and placement. According to The Burtchworks Study, employers place higher value on Data Scientists with specialized skills, corresponding to Natural Language Processing or Artificial Intelligence. The BLS claims skilled pc analysis and data scientists, which embrace Data Scientists, get pleasure from wonderful job prospects due to high demand. Salary information beneath comes from 2019 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

These systems have an extensive range of uses, but they don't seem to be limitless. While Data Science is strong, it might possibly solely be used successfully if you have highly trained employees and high-quality knowledge. Workability of Unstructured Data – The capacity to deal with unstructured knowledge obtained throughout numerous networks. To be a good Data Scientist, you have to concentrate on Algebra, Computer Engineering, and Statistics. Machine studying automates actions that might usually entail a resident agent’s assistance, such as updating a password or verifying an account balance, by Virtual Assistant solutions.

In this article, we are going to undergo the role that a Data Scientist performs. While the data science course in hyderabad has been circulating for a while, only a few folks find out about the real purpose of being a Data Scientist. Nowadays, every group is deploying Deep Learning fashions as it possesses the power to solve limitations of conventional Machine Learning approaches.

With the assistance of Data Science, organizations and their products will have the flexibility to create a better and deep understanding of how prospects can utilize their merchandise. You need to often replace your knowledge by studying contents online and reading relevant books on tendencies in data science training in hyderabad . Don't be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that is flying across the web, you have to find a way to know tips on how to make sense of it all.

Similarly, a health-care firm specializing in building conversational platforms for sufferers of mental well being will need information to research the trends and patterns. Automobile industries want information to develop self-driving automobiles. In order to take action, it requires an intensive evaluation of data behind gross sales, understanding of the buying patterns of the purchasers and utilizing their recommendations to improve the product. Big Data has revolutionized firms and has given them an edge in competitors. These companies need specialised people who discover themselves proficient at handling, managing, analyzing and understanding developments in data.

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